“Oh, good, you came,” Princess Celestia, having made her entrance after Luna had taken to the throne and started her address, was freed from her initial entanglement with ponies trying to make sure they got noticed and found her Head Instructor hiding away in his little corner. The tiredness Celestia had felt upon first setting off for the Ball had all but left her as through pleasant conversation and pride in seeing her sister’s work pay off had done much to re-energize the previously sleepy and overworked mare. She hadn’t had a chance to congratulate Luna quite yet but she’d catch up with her soon enough so long as the crowd didn’t keep them from each other too long. They did have all night, after all.

“I was worried your ‘harumph’ had meant you’d just stick to your books and bobbles and miss out on all the fun.”

“They are guests, Gleam,” Celestia calmly allowed the stallions attitude to roll right off of her as this was far from the worst she’d seen when it came to grumps and party poopers doing there best to ruin their own time, “Not intruders. They know where they can go and are free to go there. You should consider doing the same. Take a walk, relax, have a sandwich, meet somepony new, maybe appreciate the magic cast on the ceiling and try to figure out how Luna did it. That’s a project for you right there, right?

“Tell you what, if we do catch anyone trying to make trouble, I’ll let you be the first to yell at them, but only after you’ve made a real effort to get involved and talk to some ponies, deal?” That should do it. Celestia wore a knowing smile as she knew the people that worked for her well. She had a feeling Gleam wouldn’t be able to resist an opportunity to earn the chance to freely tear into anyone that might try and cause a ruckus.

“Conversation often does,” Celestia reminded, “but I’m sure you’ll survive. Hopefully they will to.” She gave him a teasing wink and looked back up at the room, scanning it and watching the various guests talk, leave and enter. A rolling boil of social engagement that was rather fun to watch beneath the night sky looking down on them through the transparent ceiling. She allowed herself a few moments to enjoy before speaking up.

“I need to catch up with a few ponies,” she said, “there’s a maintenance closet just down the hall. If you start to make friends, you can ride out the panic in there.” With a small chuckle, Celestia returned to the festivities, leaving Gleam in his corner with a hope that he might actually have some fun.

Maybe he could use that closet to break something once he got tired of these people. Gleam sighed once the Princess left him be, wondering if he could just teleport away and teleport back later then claim he’d stayed the entire time. No, that wouldn’t work. She’d be able to tell…

Gleam was instantly bored with the event and found minor solace with the magic in play above them. He entertained himself by trying to piece together the steps that would go into casting such a spell, taking mental notes and deciding to later write them down for his own experimentation. He doubted he’d actually ever get around to doing anything with them but he it was killing time at least.

Eventually his attention is pulled away by an approaching mare in a wheelchair, her focus evidently on him as she neared and spoke up.

“That depends,” Gleam replies, mildly surprised by the mention of his first name considering few knew of it outside of those he dealt with on a daily basis, “if you’re trying to get me to sign some kind of petition you’ll find I have a very strange way of spelling my name. I don’t do donations and I have no interest in buying anything tonight. Bother a- Hey! Who said you could walk!” That same guard flirting with that mare from before had taken a few too many steps away from his post and Gleam wasn’t pleased.

“Get back to where you belong or I’ll meld your hooves to the ground and make you a permanent addition to the castle decor!” Gleam wasn’t part of the guard nor the military, never officially, but his former positions within the castle commanded a level of respect that he used quite often to straighten up whatever happened to be screwing up at the time. The guard seemed to recognize this and hurried back in place, though he didn’t take the hint to give up on the mare and continued to talk with her whenever he thought Gleam wasn’t looking. Ponies today! Slacking off every chance they got! Gleam grumbled something under his breath and wondered if that particular guard would be missed.

Someone had done their homework. Gleam had dealt with people claiming to be relatives of his before, prior to his semi-retirement into a more mundane life of educational administration at least, so he'd heard angles on this approach in the past. To hear names being used was a little more rare though. The Cortoza wasn't incredibly difficult to learn about. Tricky maybe, but not impossible. They'd just faded away from relevancy and most didn't take an interest in obscure conflicts and independent outfits meddling in such things, but names of the individual members was far more difficult to dig up. Even more so, Sage hadn't been an official member, instead only a mare they'd worked with for a time and therefore wouldn't have been recorded by any of their members in anything but off hand mentions to grant credit where it was due. Anyone studying their history would have little chance to come across her at all.

Certainly a clever take on the con, Gleam admitted, respecting the effort and thought that had gone into this particular ploy. He listened to the mare's words and thought about them for a few seconds further. A journal had been mentioned, one Gleam wouldn't have known existed if it turned out to be true, but the claim that it detailed, to some degree, a relationship between the two left him feeling a little... unsettled. Few knew about that as it had been kept as a little secret of sorts due to circumstances revolving around the situation they'd been in at the time. Only Sage, Gleam himself and... Oh.

"You tell him," Gleam began with a small rolling of his eyes that soon turned to a darting about as if expecting a response from the nearby plants used to decorate the hall, "That he needs to crush anise into a stone bowl. Mix in lavender extracts. Let it settle for three days - performing the half circles I showed him one per day - and apply. Do not wash for two and REPEA- It's the same as last time I spelled it out for you, Qual!" Gleam was now speaking to someone unseen, ignoring the confused glances he was gaining from a nearby couple.

"Decades in the making with this one, huh? I figured you'd have managed it by now. Can't even decipher a prank, but watch out everyone! It's our leading guy coming up with new pop rocks!

"Making up some journal..." Gleam said, quieter now and mostly to himself but still pretty audible as he'd been kind of loud just before, "She never kept any journal... I think I would of noticed if she'd been recording things like that..."

Gleam squints in what is borderline a glare when he sees that Thyme was not leaving. When she jabbed the journal towards him he snatched it up in his magic just as forcefully as he felt was necessary when dealing with someone he was suspecting as a liar. He looked over the cover and side glanced back at the mare before flipping open the pages and skimming its contents. He immediately guessed the age of the journal as being close to accurate for what she’d been claiming but chalked it up to intentional fabrication and skipped over the notes and such with little care, instead focusing on the more personal entries to get a feel for who had written it. It didn’t take long for him to reach the page with the ribbon, it acting as one of the journal’s few bookmarks along with some other pages of apparent interest to its current owner. Scanning those pages, he’d raise an eyebrow. What was chronicled was, to put it simply, impossible for most to know. Either it was written by someone Gleam used to have a strong relationship with and also was present for an otherwise routine and unremarkable time for his former outfit - one of the few before they ended, sure, but still business as usual and not particularly noteworthy considering the headaches that soon followed it – or it was legit. Either way it would explain how she’d known his first name.

As he read there was almost the beginnings of a smile tugging at the edges of his lips.

Almost.

“Let’s entertain for a moment the possibility that you are telling the truth,” he spoke, closing the journal with a sharp clap but not yet handing it back over, “or at least what you believe to be the truth. What exactly is it that you would want to gain from bringing this to my attention? I haven’t seen Sage in decades, so unless you just now happened to trip over this in an attic somewhere I’m wondering why you’d wait to say anything.”