Shine was sneaking through Canterlot, stealthily making his way into the post office. Fortunately, Canterlot was quiet this sunny afternoon, making it easier for 'Celestia's coltfriend', as they called him, to make it to the post office without much trouble.

"Hello, I'm here to pick up a 'package'." He told a teller, ever so vigilant. "Is it here?"

"Of course, sir." The teller nodded. "It came in last night."

The teller handed Shine a small box.

"Great." He smiled. "Just perfect."

As Shine left the post office, smiling broadly, he bumped into somepony.

"Watch where you're going, you- Oh, it's you." It was Blueblood.

"Oh." Shine groaned. "Hi, Blueblood."

"What are you doing out here?" Blueblood snorted. "And what's in that box?"

"None of your business." Shine said defensively.

"Whatever's in there, it must be important for you to tear yourself away from my Aunt." Blueblood noted. "A sickeningly saccharine token of love, perhaps? Or is it something from that hick home town of yours?"

Shine set down the package.

"I already told you, it's none of your business." Shine repeated. "So why don't you go back to the castle and get your precious mane done? That's all you seem to be good at."

"How dare you, you loathsome commoner." Blueblood sneered. "Just because you're dating Celestia, doesn't mean you can say what you want to me."

"You know, Blueblood, I had it up to here with your high and mighty attitude!" Shine seethed. "Why you're still a prince is beyond me!"

"The better question is how you could find Celestia so attractive when she is old enough to be your grandmother… a hundred times over!" Blueblood snapped.

"How can you say that about her?!" Shine roared.

"Simple, she has no respect whatsoever for traditions and the royal hierarchy!" Blueblood shot back. "Instead of courting a pony of noble birth, she goes and falls for you, a dirt-wallowing chicken! What's next, she's going to go cuckoo and take up mud-wrestling and speaking illiterate words like a hill-billy?!"

"Watch it, pal…" Shine threatened. "Don't you dare think that because you're 'royalty' I won't buck your stupid flank to next Tuesday!"

"I will not be spoken to that way!" Blueblood snarled, getting in Shine's face.

"Then stay out of my business!" Shine seethed.

"Make me!" Blueblood chided.

While they argued, the ground by Shine's hooves gave way, and a Diamond Dog popped out of the ground and snatched the box.

"For me?" The Diamond Dog smirked. "You shouldn't have!"

The Diamond Dog dived back underground with it's prize.

"No!" Shine yelled as he dived for the hole, only for the dog to cover up the hole. "Come back!"

"Well, that's the last we'll see of that package." Blueblood shrugged. "Too bad."

"You don't understand! That package was for Celestia!" Shine declared.

"…So?" Blueblood asked.

"It is an important package, you dingus! I was supposed to give it to her tonight!" Shine snapped.

"Come on, surely you can get her a new one." Blueblood insisted.

"No. It's a very special gift for Celestia!" Shine insisted. "I'll be darned if I let some filthy diamond hoarders take something from her!"

"Diamond?" Blueblood repeated, as a surge of dread ran through him. 'Not a diamond engagement ring, I hope!' He thought, before speaking again. "Why not just send the guards after it?"

"It'd take too long, Shine declared. "I'm going after it myself - And you're coming with me."

"Me?!" Blueblood yelped. "Why me?"

"Because it's your fault it was nabbed in the first place!" Shine retorted. "Unless you want Celestia to hear of it, you'll come back me up."

"Fiiiiine." Blueblood groaned.

"Come on." Shine instructed. "There's a cave just outside Canterlot. Diamond Dogs are rumored to be hiding there. That's our best shot of nabbing that thief and getting the package back!"

Deep in the underground caverns beneath Canterlot, a group of Diamond Dogs had made a small encampment. In the middle lay a pile of assorted jewels and trinkets. Approaching the pile were Rover, Spot, and Fido. They had grown old and out of shape over the last twenty years, but evidently, their hunger for gems had not faded... in fact, one could argue that it had grown.

"Ah, those ponies were such suckers." Fido chortled.

"Yeah. Big suckers." Spot agreed.

"Agreed, my dear brothers. Who would leave such a precious package on the ground like that?" Rover sneered, as he sniffed the said package. "Hmm, I can smell the preciousness wafting off of it."

"Uh, do we even know what it is?" Fido asked.

"Who cares? All I know that it is now ours and not theirs!" Rover snapped.

"Correction, it's Celestia's!"

The three dogs about-face to find Shine hovering before them.

"Who are you?!" Spot demanded.

"Ponies call me Shine... but you mutts can call me 'Shine Paladin'." Shine growled.

"Paladin? I think I heard about you. You're the princess's pretty boy, aren't you?" Rover grumbled.

"The term is coltfriend." Shine snapped, "And if you don't hand over that package, you are going to make him very mad."

"Really now? All by your lonesome self?" Rover sneered.

"Not by myself. I brought back-up." Shine rebutted.

"Back-up?" The dogs gulped in unison, fearing that he might had brought the entire Royal Guard here.

"Yeah, right there!" Shine pointed to a nearby rock. Blueblood inched himself from behind the rock.

"Don't mind me, gentle... er... dogs." Blueblood stammered. "I am not with this pony."

"That's your back-up? A wimpy Unicorn prince?" Rover asked in disbelief, as the three soon burst into laughter. "Oh boy, you had us there for a moment. You honestly didn't bring any Royal Guards?"

"Well...not exactly." Shine admitted. "But I believe they don't need to be troubled in dealing with a couple of bad dogs."

"Bold words for such a puny Pegasi." Spot grumbled.

"You think you scare me? The only things that make you different from Timberwolves is being able to talk... and even then, Timberwolves are still scarier than your ugly mugs." Shine taunted.

"Oh, them fighting words!" Fido roared.

"Now I am going to give you three two options: A, give us the package in your paws and we can forget this whole incident... or B, get the biggest hind-kicking of the lifetime by yours truly." Shine threatened.

"Are you crazy, Shine?!" Blueblood snapped. "These are not the kind of... beings that can be negotiated with! No package is worth getting ourselves killed, or worse!"

"Relax, Blueboy. I got this." Shine shrugged off Blueblood's words, not bothering to face him. "I am not leaving without the package. Besides, I read a bit about these brutes. They're always all bark but no bite."

"How about C, none of the above?!" Rover growled. "Dogs, round up!"

Almost immediately, the two ponies found themselves surrounded by a bunch of armor-clad dogs, baring teeth and claws at them.

Blueblood glared at Shine, whose brave exterior had faltered...

"Well...almost always." Shine corrected.

"Attack!" Rover barked.

The Diamond Dogs charged. Shine found himself having to deal with most of them, using his powerful cherry-bucking legs to down them left from right.

Meanwhile, Blueblood came face to face with Spot.

"You're going down, pretty boy!" Spot roared.

"You want to bet, you foul mutt?!" Blueblood taunted, "En garde!"

The Diamond Dog and Blueblood charged at each other…only to begin swatting at each others with their hooves and paws in a rather wimpy slapping fight.

"Take this!" Shine snapped as he uppercutted one dog. "And that!" He back kicks another dog behind him, "And some of these!" He sucker punches one right in the eye. Soon, he found all the dogs were out of commission, "Come on! Is that the best you got?!"

"Not the least! Spot, Fido!" Rover called.

Spot, hearing his name, merely punched Blueblood with a single blow, knocking the unicorn against a wall. Shaking off the daze, Blueblood realized something…

"AH! I CHIPPED A HOOF!" Blueblood cried in agony.

Rover, Spot, and Fido soon surrounded Shine.

"DOGPILE!" The three roared at once, dogpiling upon the pegasi.

"GAH! Get. Off. Me!" Shine cried.

Blueblood looked up from his tarnished hoof and saw that Shine was in trouble. Lighting up his horn, he sent the rock he had been hiding behind right at them, knocking the Diamond Dog trio away from Shine and into a wall. Unfortunately, the impact caused the wall to crack, with an ensuing rumbling noise indicating that the whole tunnel was about to collapse.

"Time to go!" Blueblood shrieked. He made a beeline for the exit, followed closely by Shine.

The two stallions got out just in time, a shower of rubble following them outside.

"Oh, no!" Shine gasped. "I forgot about the package!"

"Did you, now?" Blueblood smirked nonchalantly. "Well, it's a good thing I didn't."

Blueblood took the package out from inside his jacket.

"You saved it?!" Shine gasped. "I don't understand… why did you…"

Blueblood sighed heavily.

"As much as it pains me to admit it, you deserve aunt Celestia." Blueblood confessed. "You're her perfect stallion. And as old as she may be, she seems really happy with you. And I suppose if she is happy, I can be happy too."

"Wow… thanks, Blueblood." Shine said, astounded.

"It was the least I could do… especially after all that I had said and done." Blueblood admits, "Which I only ask this…could you forgive this foolish prince for his… un-royal like behavior?"

"Ah, water offa duck's back." Shine waved his hooves. "I'm not the type to hold a grudge, anyway."

At that moment, Celestia and Luna, along with the whole Royal Guard, arrived, no doubt coming to investigate the small tremor that occurred when the cave came in.

"Shine!" Celestia gasped. "Were you in there? You weren't hurt, were you?"

Celestia hugged Shine tightly.

"I'm fine, cherryblossom." Shine smiled, using his pet name for her. "But if Blueblood weren't there, I'd've really be in trouble."

"Really?" Celestia, Luna and the guards chorused.

"You don't have to sound that surprised." Blueblood pouted.

"What exactly were you doing in there, anyway?" Celestia asked.

"Long story short, we were retrieving a little something I got for you." Shine declared.

Shine opened the package, revealing... a large slice of Marzipan Mascarpone Meringue Madness.

"Your favorite." Shine smiled. "Fresh from Sugarcube Corner. Took a lot of favors to get it."

"A cake?" Blueblood goggled. "We risked our necks for a measly slice of cake?!"

"What, Celestia told me how much she loved the 'MMMM' before." Shine explained. "And given how rare it was, you must understand how important it was for me to get it back."

Blueblood's eye twitched.

"Uh, Blueblood? Are you alright?" Luna asked.

The Unicorn only let out a groan as he fainted on the spot, prompting everypony to laugh.

Later that night, before Shine retired to bed, he held up a smaller package, which had been hidden within the larger one, extracted right before he showed the cake to everyone, opening it up to reveal a blue-feathered ring.

"Sorry for the ruse, Blueboy." Shine smirked. "But I'm saving this for the right moment."

Shine smiled as he pulled open a drawer, which held a ticket to none other than the Grand Galloping Gala.

"It won't be long now…" Shine whispered as he gently placed it inside and shut it.