The Fabulosity, as a ship true to her mistress' nature, was opulently appointed. She had quite a number of luxury appointments and rooms, filled with sumptuous features arguably more fit for a millionaire's luxury yacht rather than a diplomatic passenger zeppelin. A full gymnasium with tennis courts and jazzercise ("one must sweat to keep what they get, darling,") , extra large quarters with all the plush accoutrements ("And the staff stay in these tiny things? How horrid, I won't hear of it- fetch me a unicorn who knows an interior enlargement spell"), fine dining for everyone down to the bellhops ("Mister Wolfgang Buck, I presume? Do you have enough staff to handle the workload? How are the facilities, is there any- oh never mind, just write down a wish list, there's a dear, we'll order it up") and a fully equipped salon ("Do you think I wake up looking like this, darling?") were just the start of it. Most of the crew and staff had spent the first two or three nights lying stiffly atop fine linen sheets, terrified to move lest they scuff something.

None of this, from the decadent dining down to the plush carpeting, had come cheap. The Mane Six's royally assigned financier, Bean Counter, had nearly had a chain of heart attacks when he saw the bills. Then he had seen how the Alicorn of Generosity had defrayed most of the expense and had barely been able to restrain himself from begging for her hoof in marriage.

Once their 'World Tour' had been announced, she had gone out and sold tickets. The wealthiest, most powerful and most influential beings in Equestria- diplomats, celebrities, nobility, corporate tycoons- had been offered passage. If you had to ask how much it cost, you couldn't afford it. The prestige of such a booking was too good to resist; ponies dripping with diamonds and bits eagerly paid for berthing aboard the luxurious royal ship for its projected round-the-world voyage. 75% of the gross had gone to miscellaneous charities; the remaining 25% had gone into expenses of the voyage such as crew salaries and ship supplies.

Rarity was also cunning enough to offer berthing to a small mob of reporters, gossip columnists, glam magazines- she gave the writers and photographers free passage but secured deals with their publishers and editors for celebrity access, raking in fees for interviews and exclusives... not only with herself, but acting as middle-mare with her guests and passengers, many of whom it so happened she knew personally. Vetting such deals was lucrative; she halved the expense of the ship's refitting with the deal she brokered for an interview with Countess Coloratura alone.

Best of all, among her coterie was the newest fashion designer on the Canterlot scene, the mysterious and elusive Lady Midnight Mystique, whose designs were worn by all of the Princesses and whose work was more sought after and coveted than the crown jewels. She had sprung from nowhere onto the fashion scene with the coronation of the Mane Six, and was now an agent under Princess Rarity. She even had her own boutique on board the ship; Princess Rarity wore her gowns exclusively and gifted her highest ranking members of her staff with outfits from the mysterious mare's hoof ("it would do no good to have my entourage around me not looking their very best, after all.") With a captive audience of the wealthiest clothes horses in Equestria on board, Mystique's Boutique was doing a galloping business. No price could seem to be high enough, as enough money to float a small kingdom flowed into the flying palace's coffers. The paparazzi were going mad trying to catch a glimpse, much less a photo of the elusive fashionista, to no success. She was a ghost on board the ship, and the staff were fanatically protective of her privacy.

The fact that her "little boutique" was directly below Princess Rarity's own quarters, and directly accessible to them by a single spiral staircase, didn't even arouse any suspicion. Much to the amusement of Princess Rarity's Radiant Guard.

There were more unusual corners aboard the ship than a mere traveling boutique. Rarity, like the other newly made alicorn princesses, had a precocious gift for gathering those of unique and even exotic talents around her... in a kingdom inhabited by a race of natural savants, that was saying something. But she was smart enough to know it behooved her to provide adequate facilities for those she employed to exercise whatever gifts they possessed. ("One does not hire a performing dolphin, put them in a fish bowl, and then complain when their performance becomes sub-par, my dear.") In addition to the boutique, tucked here and there about the ship were, among other things, a small metalworking toolshop, an apothecary, a costuming and makeup room, several walk-in closets that doubled as miniature armories with enough stabby, pointy, and shooty things to keep a dojo full of action-movie ninjas happy, a magic artifacts laboratory, a chamber with encryption and decryption tools, a complete supply antitoxins and antivenoms (alongside bottled doses of very good reasons to have them) and a number of other odd little private workspaces along with secret entrances and passageways to access them.

There were more benign workrooms and such as well- an apiary, an aquarium, a small glassworking studio- but the majority of them typified the sort of guardponies assigned to the Radiant Guard. As Dapper Blue had told Sweetiebelle, the Guards of day and night battered their attackers into submission but The Radiant Guard were almost all Black Flag specialists. They took out their targets quickly, ruthlessly, and permanently, and their various 'hobbies' and skills reflected this.

Concerning Dapper Blue, among the more deceptively mundane of these siderooms was his own; a greenhouse. It was a fifty foot long glass and aluminum frame chamber on the top of the zeppelin's envelope where it could gain the best sunlight, that ran down the steel spine of the balloon. It was there that Dapper spent his idle hours on his hobby; growing exotic magical hybrids.

Ponies were often surprised to learn that Dapper Blue was actually a gifted gardener. He supposed there was a certain genetic predisposition for benign deception in his family; mares giving birth often experienced a burst of magical precognition, which influenced the name they chose for their foal. For whatever reason his own mother had chosen to give him a deliberately ambiguous name that at first blush had nothing whatsoever to do with his talent- though as for that, he had recently come to reflect, his talent and cutie mark (a blue flower) certainly had never given a hint of his future working as a stylishly dressed undercover agent for the Crown. Before the Radiant Guard, he could have counted the number of times he'd worn a tuxedo in the line of duty on the fingers of one hoof. Perhaps dear Mother had peeked a bit further into the future than it seemed at first blush?

And the blue flower in his cutie mark looked rather innocuous itself, save to those who had run afoul of its magically induced sense of humor...

Mind, he hadn't been dishonest when he told Sweetiebelle that the Royal gardeners had produced the exploding chili pepper. He just hadn't disclosed that he was one of them. Or that it had been almost exclusively his own work and discovery. Not that it was a secret; he just didn't like to make a fuss about it. That was life in his line of work, he supposed; one little vague misdirection piled atop another. He wondered sometimes if that made him an enigma to other ponies, or just an annoyance.

He suspected he was an enigma to his current guests, at least. It had to be hard for the two fillies to reconcile their memory of a nattily dressed stallion who'd slogged through the bayou in a three piece suit with the figure before them now in dirt-stained coveralls and straw hat.

The fact that he was covered in rotten squash wasn't helping either. His own fault really. He'd been removing a rotted gourd from the planter box and had forgotten to disarm it before doing so. The moment he'd tried to heft it up with the shovel it had triggered, leaping into the air and flinging itself down upon his head with all due force. It was fortunate indeed that the thing had been rotted soft or he'd have been sporting a concussion or worse. As it was he was sporting a ruined hat and was splattered with squash guts.

At least the foals got some amusement out of it; they were giggling fit to bust. Dapper kept a straight face. "And that, as I was saying, is why you shouldn't touch any of the plants in here without my supervision," he said calmly. He took off the straw hat and threw it in a waste bin, and began brushing pulp off the rest of himself. Magic stainproofing, worth every bit. "As useful as they can be, the plants I grow here can be temperamental, if not outright dangerous. I wouldn't want any of you to get hurt, now. So keep your hooves off everything, promise?"

"We promise," Sweetiebelle, Mud Puppy and Twig recited in harmony. The newt in Mudpuppy's mane made a squeaky-balloon noise of agreement.

Dapper Blue gave them a half smile. "All right then. I think we can go ahead with the little tour..." he looked at Mudpuppy. "Just so you know, I've set up your little friends' terrariums in a nice, warm shady spot at the end of the greenhouse, well away from anything harmful. So you can come up to visit them any time you want. I'll give you a key so you can get in..." She looked relieved at that. Princess Rarity had absolutely put her foot down about 'Princess Nectura' filling the royal quarters with her menagerie of reptiles, amphibians and other miscellaneous 'slimy swamp things.' To the point that the royal fashionista had nearly had a full-blown hissy-fit.

Everypony then learned that the little swamp princess could be as obstinate as a minotaur when the mood took her. She made it clear that if her pets were not welcome, then neither was she.

It was only the exile of Mudpuppy's swampy friends to the greenhouse, and promises that Mudpuppy and her pets would be given their own cabin once it was refitted and redecorated to be more environmentally appropriate for her muddy, slithery, somewhat squishy friends, that kept the peace.

They'd basically given up on getting her to quit carrying her pet newt in her mane. One front page photo of Princess Pinkamena at a party with Gummy in her bouffant...

"Very well then. Let's start that little tour... We'll start with the more, ah, benign plants here in the first quarter." The greenhouse was laid out by the square foot, with walkways between the carefully arrayed rectangles of tables, racks, floor pots and hanging baskets. The first such mini-plot was a square of about a dozen clay pots with large, cheerful looking orange and yellow flowers. It was hard to tell what was odder about them; the fact that they had broad smiling faces, or that they were all humming a cheerful, wordless tune to which they all silently swayed.

"They look like Miss Cheerilee's cutie mark," Sweetiebelle said, blinking in surprise.

"They do? Hm. Well, these are Sunflowers," Dapper Blue said.

"I woulda called them 'Songflowers," Sweetiebelle said, bobbing her head along with the humming. "La la laaa..." she sang.

The flowers all turned their attention to her. "La la laaa..." they sang back.

Sweetiebelle squeaked in delight and clapped her hooves. "Doe, a deer, a fe-male deer..."

"Doe, a deer, a fe-male deer..." the flowers replied. The others laughed and applauded.

"I wonder if I could teach them to harmonize," Sweetiebelle mused.

As she spoke, one of the flowers in the front row puffed up its cheeks and spat something at the ceiling. A glowing ball of light slowly floated down. The foals "oohed" and "aahed." Dapper Blue deftly caught it in his hoof and held it out for them to see; it was a tiny seed. "The light only lasts about an hour or so," he said. "Nifty though. I'm hoping to breed them so the light lasts longer."

He stepped to the side. "And over here we have some trollmatoes," he said. "Terrible name, I know, but I had to call them something." There were dozens of wire racks covered in tomato vines and ripe red fruit. The tomatoes looked perfectly normal, except for the wrinkles that made them look like they had sour, scrunched-up faces. He looked at the foals. "Know any good jokes?" he said suddenly.

Sweetiebelle suddenly got suspicious. That was out of the blue. And Dapper was keeping his face straight; too straight. "Uh, not off hand," she said carefully. She gave Mudpuppy a nudge; the other filly caught on, and quickly shook her head. Twig, being a boy, wasn't so quick.

"Sure." he said. "I knowed a pony who was so poor..." he paused.

Dapper Blue started to grin. "How poor was he?" he said.

"He was so poor, the poor depouille couldn' even pay attention!" the batpony colt cackled at his own joke- just as he caught a tomato in the teeth. Mudpuppy and Sweetiebelle squealed with laughter as he spluttered and tried to wipe the mushy red gunk off his face. Dapper Blue chuckled and gave him a kerchief to wipe his face.

"Sorry," he apologized, though he didn't quite sound it. "In case you didn't guess they don't like jokes. The worse the joke is, the more tomatoes they fling. And they're pretty harsh critics; had a shiphand who used to come up here and crack puns for hours on end. Then the tomatoes ripened and let's just say he's probably still picking salsa out of his ears."

There was a hydroponic section with a few water plants such as surprisingly large lily pads and tangled wads of kelp that wriggled their tendrils and glared ominously at everything with deep-set, glowing red eyes... and cattails that actually looked like cats. "Disturbing," was Sweetiebelle's verdict on those.

They peeked into the darkened quarter of the greenhouse to take a quick glimpse of the night plants. "they're usually asleep at this hour," Dapper said. "So don't expect much..." Oh how wrong he was. The planterns and sun-shrooms were apparently restless, and four ponies clip-clopping into their darkened hothouse was enough to wake them. The planterns lit aglow and the sun shrooms began spitting their glowing spores everywhere, which was enough to wake the others. Mushrooms began spitting clouds of noxious dust and pebble-hard spores in every direction in irritation at being awoken. "Awgh! Cain't ye do owt, Mudpuppy?" Twig said, coughing and dodging spitting plants. "Yew be the one w' plant magic!"

"I grows 'em, I cain't tell 'em what to do!"

"Why din't y' learn that first?"

"Well dog-gone," Mudpuppy snapped back in anger, "Mebbe it escaped your know-all, but most plants don't have ears!"

Sweetiebelle suddenly remembered how the sunflowers had responded to her voice. Some time ago she'd learned a "microphone" spell that amplified the voice and gave it the resonance one would hear in a amphitheatre or stadium. Personally she thought it made her sound like she was singing in the shower. Anyway, I'm gonna need it if they're gonna hear me over all the noise, she thought as the pearl-sized globe of light left the tip of her horn and settled on her throat.

"Sleep, darling sleep,

Thy father tends the sheep,

Thy mother shakes the dreamland tree

To bring down sweet dreams just for thee

Sleep, darling sleep..."

Lo and behold, it worked. The toadstools and sprouts stopped spitting and puffing at one another and listened to her, rapt. They began to yawn and droop and, one by one, they drifted back off to sleep.

"Ga lee, ain't dad sumfin!" Twig exclaimed- and got a frantic round of "shush!" from the others. They hastily tip-hoofed out and closed the door behind them. "I heard of plants likin' music, but ah sho nuf never heard DAT," Twig chortled.

"Fascinating," Dapper said. "I've never seen them react like that before. Not even when I play music in the greenhouse. They must like your voice, Duchess." Sweetiebelle scrunched up her nose and flushed with pleasure at the compliment.

"That song always works on the Cake twins," she said, trying to sound dismissive. "They love the way that spell makes my voice sound."

"I tink mebbe it a wee bit more den dat spell," Mudpuppy said, giving her a hip-bump. "You a right pretty warbler when you get the urge." Sweetiebelle blushed redder and ducked her head.

They went by one section of plants that was cordoned off by the rest by a wall of sandbags, and had an extra-wide aisle around them. "This is where I keep the fire-based hybrids and similar," Dapper said. Sweetiebelle immediately recognized the pepper plant; it was a low green bush covered with angry-looking chiles. There was also a pair of dwarf cherry trees, several potato mounds, a star-shaped fruit that crackled with electric sparks... he showed them a neat trick with the peppers; he picked one, stomped on it so the juice squirted out in a stream, then hastily stepped back. A line of flame shot up the trail of pepper juice and the whole thing went up with a bang. "And don't step too near the potato mounds," he said, tossing a loose pebble. It landed, and the ground underneath fountained upward in a roar.

"I wondered why the floor were steel plate," Twig said in alarm, shaking his head to stop the ringing in his ears.

The next point of the tour was a patch of pea plants, or at least Dapper Blue said so. The plants in question had plenty of pods, but also sported strange green heads with mouths shaped like cannon barrels. They whipped their heads in every direction, glaring angrily... whether at the other plants or at the magic shield blocking them off, Sweetiebelle wasn't sure. "The shield is kind of a necessity," Dapper said before anypony could ask. "All the pea plant varieties tend to have a bit of a hair-trigger. That and they seem to have a grudge against the gator plums." He pointed to the next planter over, which was full of enormous purple pods.

A buzzing insect flew in low over the pods. There was a snap, and the bug was gone. one of the pods had split open into an enormous toothy maw that had lunged up on its thick stem, snapped the insect out of the air, and now squatted in its pot, chewing its meal with obvious savor. All three foals skittered several steps back and stood well behind the resident gardener.

In response to this sudden movement there was a volley of pops from the pea plants. They spat peas at the ruminating gator plum, only to have their fire rattle off the shield between them. It pointedly ignored them as they reloaded, shucking pods off their own vines, filling their mouths and spitting them out with enough force to surely cause serious injury. The gator plums responded by blowing raspberries and making several rude gestures with their fronds.

"And there's the problem," Dapper Blue sighed. "These plants would be so useful for things like security and home defense... But for a few rare exceptions like the pepper plants, it's deuced difficult to get any use out of them. They're not inclined to be very obedient anyway, and they're too busy quibbling with one another! The gator plums agitate the pea plants, the pea plants are so hair-trigger they shoot at anything that moves, even the other plants... the sunflowers and sun-shrooms throw a fit because the other plants eat their sun-seeds... the cold-natured varieties-" he pointed to a row of 'hot'boxes with a miscellany of pale blue, ice crystal covered plants- "get cantankerous and sulky around the fire plants and vice versa... the melons are fairly mellow, but when THEY get in on the ruckus, ugh-"

"It took me months to figure out a layout for the greenhouse that didn't have mortal enemies bordering each other. You should have seen my first garden; half the time it looked like a food fight in the middle of a firework factory explosion." The foals giggled. He looked at Mudpuppy. "I'm sorry, Princess Necturus, " he said. "I must confess I was a little surprised that your talent for communing with with swamp animals and making plants grow... didn't extend to controlling plants as well."

Mudpuppy shrugged. She was obviously a little put out but was trying not to show. "Tain't like I had a chance t' learn such like, yet," she said. "Like I say, not many plants got ears..."

"Umm, that's another reason we came up here," Sweetiebelle said. "Our tutor says that 'Princess Nectura' needs more practice with her plant magic." She flushed. "And so do I. With everything else, too, apparently," she muttered in an aside. "We were hoping you had some seeds we could practice on...?"

"M'ole the non es'plodey kind, silvous plait," Mudpuppy added quickly.

"I think I can manage that," Dapper Blue said, amused.

He led them past another sealed hothouse filled with all-too-familiar pale blue flowers that glowed under their moonlamps, and through a plastic curtain into the final quarter of the greenhouse. This last portion of the greenhouse was filled with racks of refreshingly mundane and ordinary flowers, fruits and vegetables; plants busy doing nothing more exciting than absorbing water and sunlight.

Dapper Blue dug around under one of the tables of seedlings for a moment, then came out with a tray of paper bags. "Here you go," he said as Mudpuppy and Sweetiebelle took the bags. "A few odds and ends from the seed bags. This should suit you."

"That was quick," Sweetiebelle said doubtfully.

"I have a lot of ponies asking me for samples or seedlings to try," Dapper Blue explained. "Especially among the nobility who fancy themselves amateur horticulturalists." He meaningfully did not roll his eyes. "I keep some bags of seeds sorted out in advance- I try to persuade them to try their hoof at the NON magical varieties first." He shook a bag meaningfully. "OF course there's always the occasional upper crust elitist who is more insistent-" he cocked an eyebrow as he put the rest of the bagged seeds away. "I do believe Prince Blueblood's flower gardening hobby is going to be, how shall we say, a full contact sport next spring..."

They snickered, thanked him and tucked the paper bags in their panniers.

Dapper watched as Mudpuppy carefully tucked the paper bag away in her saddlebag. "So. Nervous about the parade tonight, your Highness?" he asked.

Mudpuppy gulped, blushed and nodded speechlessly. Sweetiebelle on the other hand got giddy at the mention of the upcoming festivities. She pronked in place gleefully. "Oh, it's so exciting! Neigh Orleans is making you the Princess of the Parade! You're going to ride on the biggest float with the King of Carnival, and Rarity is making you an absolutely BEAUTIFUL gown, and..." she suddenly stopped and giggled. "And they're making Rarity, Pinkie, and Princess Luna your ladies-in-waiting, which is SO funny-"

Mudpuppy nodded again and gulped. That was half of what was making her nervous. The ponies of Neigh Orleans were so carried away with Mudpuppy becoming a princess, they were making three real princesses dress up like her servants for the parade! Oh, that couldn't be going over well... Mudpuppy had met Princess Pinkamena and (gulp) Princess Luna shortly after their ship had arrived. They hadn't looked mad... at least, Princess Pinkamena hadn't, of course she seemed to be happy and cheery all the time, and besides she was too busy snarfing her way through a King Cake singlehoofed... but the mysterious Princess of the Moon, it was hard to tell. If Mudpuppy was being honest, she seemed more puzzled by the Mardi Gras goings-on. Particularly on why ponies had showered them with shiny bead necklaces, and other odd things. She was particularly confused by the coconut...

"You have nothing to worry about, your Highness," Dapper Blue reassured her, his voice calm and confident. "You just sit on the float in your gown, wave to all the crowds, look pretty and smile. That's all anypony wants a brand new Princess to do." She looked up and smiled weakly. "See? You've got the last two down pat already." That got a much warmer smile from the gangly filly.

The speakers overhead suddenly crackled. "Hello? Hellooo? Is this the greenhouse? Is this thing working?" There was a sound of clicking, as if somepony was rapidly pushing several buttons over and over. "Confound it- is-(pop crackle) even on?-(click click click) the little light is on (tap tap) is it supposed to be blinking?(fweeee) I didn't WANT general quarters, I was trying to reach... (clack) will somepony put some damned LABELS on all these buttons and switches? Modern convenience my diamond-dappled- oh BLAST it. Listen, whomever is listening, please tell Princess Nectura and Duchess Sweetiebelle they need to go straight to Mystique's Boutique for their final fittings..."

Dapper slapped a hoof on the 'reply' button. "They're on their way, your Highness," he said smoothly. He carefully ignored the three foals cracking up behind him.

"Dapper Blue? Is that you? Oh good then. Hurry up darlings, times a-wasting. You too, Twig dear- your costume needs a few stitches here and there too. T.T.F.N.!" There was a moment or two of silence. "Ooo, better finish off this croissant and coffee and get on the go..." followed by loud chewing and slurping noises, followed by a sonorous burp. "Urp. Ugh, cream cheese a bit rich- please pretend you didn't hear that, Jasmine. What? What are you pointing at? Is- of course I switched it off, look it... OH BUCK IT ALL!" And a loud squawk-clack as the intercom disconnected.

"You'd best be on your way, children," Dapper Blue managed to say, as the children collapsed in a howling heap, tears streaking their faces. "Her Highness is waiting... Go on, shoo now." The three staggered to their feet and, leaning on each other, made their way to the exit.

Dapper Blue, of course, did not laugh. He was an impeccable professional; he did not, would not and could not laugh. The strain of holding it back, though, would make his joints clack for days.

He could be forgiven in all the distraction for not noticing that he had misread the labels on the seed bags.

---

Mudpuppy's dress- no, Sweetiebelle corrected herself, Princess Necturus' dress- was as pretty as any she had ever seen; a dream of emerald green silk and tiny pin-sized emerald chips; the tiara a perfect set of cut emeralds in gold. Her hair was once again done up in a tumbling waterfall of green locks. She was a vision, as Rarity would say.

Oh, the other Princesses were just as pretty, of course. Though it was funny seeing Princess Luna dressed in a costume that, for all the purple ruffles and glitter, was clearly made for a Lady-in-Waiting. Sweetiebelle had caught the moon princess frowning and had been worried... but it turned out that Luna had been staring in puzzlement at a coconut for some reason. Didn't they have coconuts back a thousand years ago, or something?

They were all Ladies-in-Waiting, actually, even Rarity. Well not Twig, obviously; he was dressed as a pagecolt. But the rest of them, Sweetiebelle included, were all in flower-like dresses in purple, green and gold. Rarity kept complaining that Pinkie Pie and Luna were ruining the lines of their dress with all the chains of beads they were wearing, but nothing she could do could get the two to part with them. Neither of them would say where they got them all.

Sweetie liked her own dress- pale purple with a floaty flower-petal skirt. It was fun to dress up pretty once in a while.

Mudpuppy didn't seem too happy though. No, that wasn't it- it was more like she'd seem happy and excited for a while, and then she'd start looking all worried and, Sweetiebelle didn't know, guilty? It wasn't until they had climbed up on the float (a great big huge thing that looked like a wedding cake crossed with a bayou flower garden) and were waiting to start, that Mudpuppy finally let out what was bothering her. She took her throne next to the King of Carnival (a nice old stallion in royal robes with a handsome mustache and goatee), looked over to Sweetiebelle, and asked, "Aren't you jealous?"

Sweetiebelle blinked. "About what?"

Mudpuppy shuffled her slippered hooves. "Me bein' up here, an' you down there," she said. It was true, Sweetiebelle was sitting at the foot of the throne, rather than next to it. The Princesses/ 'Ladies-in-Waiting' were scattered up and down the sides of the float, ready to wave and toss something called "throws..."

It took Sweetiebelle a moment. "Of course not," she said. "I wouldn't be jealous."

"Why not?" Mudpuppy frowned.

"Because jealousy is when you're afraid somepony's going to take away what you have," Sweetiebelle explained confidently. "ENVY is when you wish you could have what somepony else does . I wouldn't be JEALOUS of you, I'd be ENVIOUS." The King of Carnival snorted and muffled it behind his hoof for some reason.

Mudpuppy's ears lowered and she frowned. "Ah think ah get why y' friend Scootaloo called you 'Dictionary," she grumbled.

"-And I'm not ENVIOUS either," Sweetiebelle went on. "Why would I be?"

Mudpuppy rolled her shoulder and looked away, uncomfortable. "Ah doan' know much bout royalty and such what," she said. "But I'd think a Duchess is s'posed to become a Princess, long afore a swamp girl ever was."

Sweetiebelle rested her chin on her hoof. "Yeah, Equestrian royalty is funny like that," she said. "You'd think Celestia would be a Queen by now. Or Princess Luna. And there's another Princess who's now an Empress in the Crystal Empire, kind of... I think... and nopony knows WHY Prince Blueblood is a Prince. I think he should actually be a Duke or something... though I heard Rarity saying that 'Duke' was a misspelling in his case, whatever that means." The King of Carnival began coughing and choking violently into his ermine robe. "I'm sorry your Majesty, would you like a cough drop?" Sweetie pulled a lozenge out of her purse and held it out; the red-faced king kept on coughing but waved it off.

"And then there's the my sister and her friends. They sort of earned it, but at the same time it was sort of an accident... it's kind of confusing at least. I guess..." Sweetiebelle shook her head. "I guess what I mean is, in Equestria being a Princess can be something you earn, or something that's given to you, or something that just happens. It can mean anything, and maybe someday it won't mean anything at all. I guess getting it isn't anywhere near as important as what you do with it when you get it? Anyways, there's no reason in Equestria why I should become a Princess, any more or less than you. So why be envious?"

"You ain't? Not even a little?" Mudpuppy pressed. "Don't you dislike playin' second fiddle?"

Sweetiebelle chewed her lip. "Maybe just a little," she admitted. "I mean, I'd like to be a princess I suppose. But what good would envy do me?

"Besides I'm kind of used to it. I'm not the brave cutie mark crusader, or the tough one, or the handy one. I'm just, you know, the one who's there. Generally trying to talk Scootaloo out of whatever we're gonna try next." She rumpled her nose while Mudpuppy giggled. "And... well you've seen Rarity. You can imagine what it's like growing up with THAT as your big sister. Sometimes I got so envious of her... and jealous too, yeah. Sometimes it seemed like all she had to do was walk in the room and I would just disappear..." she looked down and stubbed her hoof against a corner of the float.

"But... Princess Luna helped me learn... It wasn't worth it. Being full of envy and jealousy all the time didn't get you anything you wanted... And sooner or later it took the things you did have away. Like the ponies you cared about. And nothing's worth being that jealous over." Sweetiebelle looked up and smiled, remembering what else Princess Luna told her. "If I'm not in the spotlight yet, it just means I'm waiting in the wings for the right time. Till then it's almost as much fun helping other ponies stand there."

Her smile was sincere and artless as a newborn foals'. It was then that Mudpuppy knew that whatever else might be, Sweetiebelle was a true and genuinely good friend. "You are one of a kind, Sweetiebelle," she said.

"Phsa, wat de hold up, up dare," Twig griped. "We goin' or not?" Of everyone on the float, Twig was probably the least pleased; he had ended up dressed in a pagecolt outfit that made him look, in his opinion, "a right Coo-yon."

"Don' get the cabris, Twig," Mudpuppy said. Up ahead a whistle blew; the band struck up and the float began to roll forward. "Up, ere we go! Laissez les bon temps rouler!" she shouted, and ponies up and down the line cheered their approval.

The parade was wild; the wildest thing Sweetiebelle had ever experienced. The band, the music, the costumes, the dancers, the floats- it was a whirl of colors before and aft. Everything glowed with fairy lights, and the night sky overhead was filled with an unending volley of fireworks. The ponies lining the streets were as colorful as anything in the parade, dressed in costumes and masks like nothing she could have even dreamed. Even the buildings were decorated with strings of lights and paper lanterns... everywhere she looked it was a kaleidoscope of light and color and merrymaking.

"De throws, Sweetiebelle, de throws!" Mudpuppy said. She threw a hooffull of bits over Sweetie's head, out to the crowd. Her memory jarred, Sweetiebelle jumped and looked at the plastic buckets of "throws" around her; candies, beads, even bit pieces. She scooped a hoofload of things to toss and hefted them.

"Go light on them at first, Duchess," the King of Carnival told her in his deep, basso voice. He smiled at her. "They got to last the whole parade." Sweetiebelle nodded skeptically. She had trouble thinking they were in any danger of running out early; the bucket next to her could better be termed a barrel. But she obeyed and pared it back... a little. She flung the beads and candies out over the crowd; cheers went up and a mad scramble took place. Sweetie looked around; the others on the float were in on the act too. Rarity was flinging bit pieces with grandiose flair; Luna was alternating tossing armloads of little wrapped cakes- and staring at them oddly. While Sweetiebelle watched the lunar princess broke down and sneaked one or two for herself. Sweetiebelle looked in her own tub for the silver wrapping. She pulled it out and read the label:

MOON PIE.

Sweetiebelle giggled and tossed it out into the crowd.

Pinkie Pie was throwing shiny bead necklaces in every direction... several of them though seemed to be flying back. It took Sweetiebelle a second to see why. There was a shriek of outrage from Rarity.

"PINKIE! Stop waving your derriere at the hoi polloi!"

Pinkie was apparently in a mischievous mood, though. She stuck out her tongue at Rarity and deliberately waggled her rump all the more. "Sunshine sunshine ladybugs awake-" she sang. Stallions in the crowd hooted and whistled and sent necklaces arcing through the air. Pinkie Pie spun around and deftly caught them on her horn, letting them swing down around her neck to join the growing stack.

"Luna, do something!" Rarity pleaded. No flashbulbs had gone off yet but it was a matter of time...

Luna looked affronted. "This shall not stand!" she said.

"Thank heaven-"

Luna stroked her own few beads. "I am NOT about to be outdone by my own apprentice!" She promptly hopped up and, to Rarity's thunderstruck horror, began shaking her money maker. The hoots and whistles turned to a roar, and beads began flying.

"This is a NIGHTMARE!" Rarity wailed, covering her eyes with her hooves and flopping to the floor of the float in a mock faint.

"Well she is the Princess of the MOON," Sweetiebelle shouted to her sister, busting a gut laughing.

Fortunately for Rarity's sanity, Luna and Pinkie settled down after a couple of blocks... probably because they were so draped with necklaces they could barely move. They shed most of their, ahem, booty and returned to tossing treats and coins with the others.

The parade wound on, passing back and forth through the streets of Neigh Orleans. It was near the halfway point, two hours on. Maybe it was Sweetiebelle's imagination, but it seemed like their float got the most cheers... and they all seemed to be directed at Mudpuppy. The cries of "Bon Vive, Mon Princessa Necturus" went up over and over. Sweetiebelle was beginning to wonder if the cajun ponies were ever going to stop celebrating "their" Princess.

Considering ponies still celebrate Celestia and Luna, probably not. The thought pleased her.

It was then that she noticed that the cheers up ahead had turned into screams.

The parade halted. Alarmed, Sweetiebelle jumped up and tried to see what was going on. Two blocks ahead, dozens of ponies dressed in zombie costumes had surrounded a float of a giant laughing court jester. They were climbing up the sides, attacking the ponies riding it and rocking the whole float back and forth. Ponies were screaming and running away; why were they running away? Why wasn't anypony stopping the vandals?

It was only when one of the zombie ponies staggered forth and his front leg fell off that Sweetiebelle realized heart-freezing horror that they weren't wearing costumes.

More and more zomponies appeared, seeming to come out of nowhere; it took Sweetiebelle a second to realize they were coming out from under the jester float. "They're comin' up through the sewers!" somepony screamed. They were right. Up and down the street she could see sewer lids being shoved up and aside by gray-green, rotting hooves, and more zomponies clumsily climbing out. The crowds surged in panic.

Luna vanished in a cloud of indigo smoke, her costume and beads falling into a pile on the float. She reappeared in midair, horn blazing. "To arms, my ponies, to arms!" Guardponies appeared as if from nowhere, leaping from their places hidden among the crowd. The unicorns and earth ponies were pinned by the mob, but the pegasi formed on Luna as she led the attack, swooping down on the Jester float and its shambling horrors.

Pinkie Pie and Rarity were airborne next, joining the fight. Rarity had few tricks in her magical repertoire, Pinkie even less, but Rarity telekinetically sent volleys of "throws" from the cart at the monsters at cannonball velocity, and while Pinkie only managed a few pops and sparkles, they were pops and sparkles on alicorn scale- more than enough to send zombie mares and stallions flipping through the air like tiddlywinks.

Then the Carnival King's float shook, and there was a loud grating sound from below, and Sweetiebelle realized they must have stopped right on top of one of the sewer lids. "Everypony get off the float!" she screamed- but it was too late. Creatures crawled from under the toppling float and surged up the sides.

But these weren't zombies. It took Sweetie's fear-scattered brain a second to piece together the webbed hands and feet, the enormous tortoise shell, the limp, mosslike hair, the inverted bowl tied down to the top of the head, the sneering, reptile face- "KAPPAS!" she shrieked, her voice piercing through even the din around her.

The members of the Radiant Guard, riding in concealment on the float, gave their best. Blades, hooves, and spells flew, and more than one kappa was put down fast and hard. But there were over a dozen of the monstrously strong swamp monsters, and between them and the zombies right on their webbed heels, the pony protectors were overwhelmed.

Mudpuppy and Sweetiebelle clutched each other in terror. Twig launched himself at the first kappa up the side of the float, biting and kicking; the King of Carnival bravely stood between the fillies and the monsters and clouted about him with his scepter, but the kappa merely swatted them aside like flies.

The last thing Sweetiebelle saw was a burlap sack descending down over them.

---

Princess Luna raged as she circled over the sight of the assault, searching for a new target to blast or trample. "Cowards! Vermin! Brigands!" she shouted till the windows on Bourbon Street rattled. "They attack, and flee? I shall run the dark wizards who did this through with mine own horn!"

Mere minutes into the battle, the attacking zombies and kappa had turned and fled, diving back down into the sewers from whence they came. Pursuit had been brief and futile; the centuries-old sewer system under Neigh Orleans was a branched and tangled maze of tunnels old and new. They turned back after a few hundred yards; there was damaged to clean up and injured ponies to tend.

Cleanup of the zombies was mercifully tidy; once the things were sufficiently damaged- meaning, generally, decapitated- they crumbled to bits. Even the bones were reduced to brittle crumbling ruin, leaving nothing but mundane soil... every fume of the foul energies that motivated them exhausted with their demise. The workers assigned to the grisly task of cleanup simple swept the remains back down into the sewers from whence they arose.

Injuries were numerous, but few severe. Some ponies had been bitten, and had to be reassured that no, they were not going to "turn"- drat that sensationalist RoMareo for muddling the folklore with his schlock movies- though they would have to endure a long course of antibiotics; Zombie mouths and teeth were predictably foul. Most of the injuries, in fact, had been ponies being trampled by the panicking crowd.

Luna let herself fume a bit more, then circled down to land next to the battered remains of the royal float. The Radiant Guard and the Bouncer Brigade were both there, looking shamefaced and distraught. "Ve are ashamed, Princess-" Hans said.

"So ashamed," Frans picked up. "Ve tried to reach ze float, but ze crowds-"

A battered Dapper Blue and Jade Blossom stepped forward to take the blame as well. "The fault lies with us, Highness," Dapper Blue said unhappily. "We were grievously unprepared-"

"Be at ease, my little ponies," Luna said. "This attack was utterly unprecedented. One cannot predict the unpredictable, by definition. You did everything by the book."

"Rest assured, Highness," Dapper Blue said, his voice tight, "That there will be quite a number of new pages added to that book when this is through." Terse nods of agreement came from all around; Hans and Frans settled for smacking one hoof into another for emphasis.

An emergency medical pony was tending to several of the guard; at the moment he was looking after young Twig and the King of Carnival. Twig was suffering a sprained front leg, and the King of Carnival had taken a nasty blow to the head. The king tried to sit up. "Your Highness, I'm sorry, I tried-"

Luna gently pressed him down with her magic. "You have done well, King Carnival," she said with a surprisingly gentle smile. "I saw, you struck about you most doughtily. Had you been better armed, you would have given more than one of the foe a true reckoning."

The Mardi Gras grandmaster of events blushed at the praise, but his expression did not grow less grim. "I thank you for the kind words, your Highness," he said. "But the consequences are grim. The brutes- the brutes foalnapped Princess Necturus and Duchess Sweetiebelle!"

"I know," Luna said grimly.

If the King of Carnival was distraught, Rarity was beyond devastation. "Who did this?" she cried. "Why would they do this?"

When Luna spoke she wasn't speaking to any of them in particular. "First hinkypunks, then kappa, and now zombies," Luna said darkly. "I was a fool not to realize the first two might be connected. But with the third? It now becomes clear that somepony has been dabbling, and more than dabbling, with powers dark and foul- and for a very long time.

"The question, fair Rarity, may no longer be whom- but what."

---

The ride in the burlap sack was horrible in the extreme. The two fillies were tumbled together like wash in a laundry bag, and carried draped over a hard, shell-covered shoulder. Noxious stinks seeped through the bag, making them gag and retch; all around them they could hear the slap of webbed feet in water and the horrible moaning of the zomponies.

The first leg had been the roughest; they had been abruptly plunged underwater and, for an unspeakable fifty seconds of drowning terror, they had felt themselves and their captor being rushed along by a roaring torrent of vile-tasting water. Just as Sweetiebelle had been about to black out, they had been dragged up into the air and slapped roughly through the bag till they coughed and breathed again.

Then had begun the long trek through what had to be the swamp, if the sounds and smells Sweetiebelle could make out could be guessed. It had gone on forever; Sweetiebelle was bruised and battered and exhausted, and she was certain Mudpuppy was the same way too.

Finally, though, they arrived. They were dumped roughly out of the sack onto the soggy ground. Webbed, clawed hands tied them up in lengths of rotten rope, and forced rings- repressor rings- down over their horns. They struggled, but they might as well have been newborn kittens for all the good it did.

Sweetiebelle sat up and took stock of their surroundings. It was the swamp, all right; they were sitting on a low hillock, surrounded in every direction by dank waters, tall drooping trees and what looked like the crumbling ruins of buildings scattered here and there. She could see faint lights- hinkypunks?- flitting through the ruins and the trees, and the silhouettes of countless lurching zombies wading listlessly through the bog.

Right in front of them was an enormous manor, an old plantation house that was sagging into rot and ruin. One end of it dipped lower than the other, as if it were a schooner slowly sinking to its doom beneath the waves. Despite its decrepitude several lights could be seen glimmering fitfully in the windows, and fitful streamers of smoke drifted from the one un-crumbled chimney. The front lawn, such as it was, was illuminated by lanterns, almost hypocritically cheerful in their warm glow.

The biggest of the kappas sidled up to the front door and rapped on it with its gnarled knuckles. There was a commotion inside, the sound of a voice, and the door opened. Sweetiebelle couldn't see past the glare of the porch light. "You are back. Did you succeed?" the voice said. it sounded soft and impatient, stressed and urgent.

The kappa gargled and hissed.

'

"Problem? What problem?" More gargling. The voice rose in fury. "Two? TWO of-" Almost as instantly the voice dropped in defeat. "It... it doesn't matter now, I suppose. Bring them in."

The boss kappa returned to the two fillies and picked them up. He loped into the ruined manor and, almost disdainfully, dumped them on the floor. "Now leave us," the voice said. The kappa snarled, but left. the door crashed shut behind him.

The two fillies sat up and looked about. Sweetiebelle swallowed in fear. They were in a large, mildewed room, lit with oily yellow lamplight. Beakers and tubes and bubbling flasks lined every shelf and table. Stacks of ragged books and scrolls were stuffed in cubbyholes. There were dozens of shelves covered with enormous jars- bigger than the pickled egg jar in Daddy's favorite restaurant, and that was almost big enough to hold her- with horrible looking dead things, at least she hoped and prayed they were dead, floating inside. It was a mad scientist's lab, straight out of the movies and about ten billion times more horrible in real life.

There was a pony at the end of the room, tinkering with something one one of the racks of beakers and burners. His back was turned to them. He wore a ratty old longcoat draped over his shoulders, and a battered top hat that had probably seen better days before either Sweetiebelle or Mudpuppy had ever been born.

The figure finished what he'd been doing, grunted and turned around. He was a yellow green pony with a greenish black mane and a mustache and goatee that drooped like boiled swampweed. There were bags under his eyes so old and dark they looked like blackened bruises in the lamplight. His right cheek was covered by a large, grubby bandage.

As he turned, Sweetiebelle caught a glimpse of his cutie mark through the tears in his coat: a square medicine bottle with a tiny green snake coiled up inside. He limped heavily toward them, walking so badly it seemed almost like he had only three legs under his baggy coat. Sweetiebelle felt her throat close off in terror. She heard Necturus gasp and stiffen beside her as he drew closer. He loomed over them.

"Welcome, Princess Necturus... and friend." He said, giving them a yellow-toothed and utterly unfriendly smile.

"My name is Cotton Mouth."