Also, there was this whole geas thing. That pretty much meant he had to go searching for the Mistress and her minions in order to actually free himself and be rid of Chrysalis' influence, however indirect. So it was not without a lot of chagrin that he found himself conflicted. He had heard about the militarization in Firthengart, and Joachim for some damned reason was doing likewise in Gethrenia, and it was getting the Equestrians mighty spooked. Briefly, he wondered what was going through the bird's mind since his 'death', and his thoughts wandered over the time he had chewed out the young king for the lack of readiness in his soldiers. He shook those doubts from his mind. No, that couldn't have had anything to do with it; there had to be something he was not seeing. He learned from eavesdropping on a merchant caravan about the troubles going on back in Griffonia, with Thorax and Jacques interacting with the merchants for supplies while Handy made himself inconspicuous. It was all because of that bastard Thunder mucking up the tournament. He had no idea of the specifics, but if it meant that people as incompetent as the bloody ponies were taking precautions and had their hooves on their spears in readiness over instability in Griffonia, it had to be pretty serious.