Prologue

Standing out on her balcony in the cool night air, Princess Luna was conflicted. She had done much since her return to help ponies in need, primarily by way of her Nightmare Patrols, something she wished she could remember Celestia’s less intimidating name for at that moment, but still it didn't feel like enough. Her sister had raised two new princesses, one having accomplished many heroic deeds sure to color the history books, the other now a co-ruler of a legendary kingdom, but what, apart from providing much nicer night skies than Celestia could manage, if she could say so herself, had Luna done?

She'd proven she wasn't a monster anymore, nopony she could see or hear, save for the confines of their darkest dreams, thought of her that way anymore. At least, not alou-She clamped down on the thought.

She didn't feel important as she once had, back when she and her sister vanquished mighty foes together, performed great feats of awe and wonder. She wanted to accomplish something, take part in an action that would reshape, or at least improve, Equestria as a whole.

About ten minutes later, she was stumped.

Now how do I do that?

She knew Celestia hadn’t truly done much at all, directly, but primarily depended on others to achieve her goals, as with Twilight Sparkle. Perhaps Luna could find somepony to act as an extension of her own reach?

She looked to the royal gardens below, in which she observed two mares, one with a long blue gown and ruby-addled headdress, the other in a short, green dress with many gold bands weaved through her mane. Luna faintly wondered if her regalia could use a modern touching-up before enhancing her hearing with a faint glow in her horn, so as to hear the two below.

“Ugh, I simply can’t believe I wasted an entire week on that insensitive lout!”

Green-dress laughed quietly. “I did tell you he was untouchable, better than both of us have tried and failed to get the young prince’s attention for more than a few minutes. Although,” smirking, she placed a hoof to her chin, “I’m not sure how many of them have tried… getting his attention.” She said with a suggestive waggling of eyebrows.

Blue-gown immediately reddened brighter than the dozen rubies in her hair, eyes darting about the garden nervously, as though afraid anypony might have heard as she stammered out a reply. “S-s-such scandalous, I don’t even, t-there’s no way I could-“ she was interrupted by her friend laughing uproariously, cluing her in that the suggestion was not a serious one. She sighed. “Whatever am I to do with you?”

As Green-dress giggled, Luna got to thinking. Young prince? Do they refer to Shining Armor, who rules alongside Cadenza in the Crystal Empire? I very much hope so, as the only alternative is the one Sister refers to as Blueblood, hardly qualified to be called ‘Prince.’ I can’t for the life of me recall a time he had done something useful, something worthy of a royal title! The closest thing he has to daring feats are the miscellaneous errands Sister sends him on. The rumors that reach my ears are simply dreadful; shouting at ponies who've done little to deserve it, parading about as though superior to all under Sister’s sun, insulting nearly everypony that he speaks with, and… Ugh! One would think he could take inspiration from the Element Bearers, I don’t think he even knows all of their names! So much of his time is spent mulling about, neither saying nor doing anything of great relevance, no drive in his daily life, no-

“My, my,” came a familiar voice from behind Luna, many times louder than intended due to her hearing-enhancing spell, which caused Luna to jump high enough to support the notion that wings were not needed for flight after all. “Don’t suppose we’re projecting a little?” When she landed and got to her hooves again, her hearing spell cancelled, she looked up to see Discord, snickering, but otherwise posing no threat.

She pointed a hoof at him accusingly. “Spirit! By what right do you intrude on my thoughts?”

He laughed for a moment. “Intrude?” Springing from his claw-tips as he spoke were a lockpick, crowbar, suction cup, and an object she didn't recognize. “Well, I do have a knack for getting locks open, prying things apart, scaling buildings, and, well… Other things,” Smirking, he withdrew all the objects once more into nothingness. At least, to the best of Luna’s guesses as to where things he conjured went. “I did not,” Discord draped a paw over his face dramatically, “as you would so stain my good character by stating, intrude. That would be rude, as I would conclude, but-“

“Discord!!”

He grinned, shrugging at the blatant lack of appreciation for spontaneous rhyme, but still smiling widely, eyes half-lidded. “Whatever, dude.” His upper limbs stretched and wavered like rubber, curling around themselves as a finger of each hand -claw?- pointed at her, “Youuuuu were talking out loud.”

Luna couldn't help turning nearly shade of red in the spirit’s eyes, Celestia had told her about the problems speaking to oneself could cause, even in private.

“Anyway,” Discord continued, bringing forth a small, chocolate alligator from under, or perhaps within, his armpit, “I couldn't help but over hear, a problem I’m sure you can identify with, that you were thinking Bluebrat here in the castle doesn't really measure up to the elegant, noble,” His head began to resemble Celestia’s, “image of Canterlot royals?” He sloppily took a bite of the chocolate gator, which seemed to be filled with bubblegum, chewing with his mouth wide open.

Luna only stared, equal parts disgusted and curious as to where he was going with this.

“Sh’o,” He said with his mouth full of chocolate and gum, “Why don’sha jush send ‘im onna quesht, like ol’ sunny-butt did wif Twiwight?” Thankfully, he swallowed, though Luna was quite sure you weren't supposed to swallow gum. “Get him doing something heroic, he’ll become a model prince, and you can soak up the praise for sitting on your flank all day, juuuust like-“

The rapidly increasing glow in Luna’s eyes told Discord she was still too forgiving of her sister to appreciate a bit of perceived laziness commentary. Sheesh, some ponies, noooooo sense of humor. His face reverted to his own as he tugged on the chocolate gator, which then took off into the sky and exploded like a firecracker. “The point I’m trying to make here is that if you want to do something heroic, why not mess with some heads? ‘Bettering’, as Celestia calls it?”

Luna pondered this, a hoof to her chin. I have heard it said that to change Blueblood’s ways would take nothing short of a miracle, being that he seems to make a game of insulting and driving away most everypony that approaches him, especially mares… Perhaps this is where I could start?

“As soon as you stop talking to yourself, Princess.”

Luna scowled, Discord laughed, but she didn’t care, she had a plan; She would make Prince Blueblood a nicer stallion, first making sure he could behave himself. And then, ohh, yes, there will be glory, THERE WILL BE-

She paused, looking back at Discord inquisitively to check whether or not she’d just been broadcasting her thoughts again. By the look of his smile and a gesture that involved holding up a thumb on one of his claws, whatever that meant, she believed she got it right this time.

Chapter 1: A Dozy Morning

Sunrise.

Prince Vladimir Blueblood the 52nd, Master of Navigation, Most Eligible Bachelor in Equestria, Winner of the Stallion of the Year Award -not that there were a particular lot of nominees, he admitted- several times in a row, and Fairly Talented Dancer, if he could say so himself, stood in his bedroom at dawn. Staring out the chamber window, he found it eerily amazing how one could take delight in watching the golden light roll over the horizon even having seen it countless times before…

Right before looking away because his eyes were starting to burn.

Rubbing his eyes with a forehoof, he pondered the merits of just getting more sleep and waiting for the brightness of dawn to wake him ordinarily as opposed to this morning’s plan of action; staring out at the sky for a few hours in the dead of night. Neither helped him think, as he had hoped.

Yawning, he looked to the message one of Luna’s bat-pony guards had flown by and dropped on him the night before. Their fangs are frightening, the wings are disturbing, but stars help me, those eyes… He had, many times, weighed the pros and cons of swallowing his long-held fear and getting one of the bat-ponies’ attention and engaging them in conversation, if only to stare into their eyes the entire night. He'd even, briefly, entertained fantasies of attempting to court one, but there was an issue of them never approaching him as quite a few noblemares did.

Not that I've ever taken one of them up on their various... Offers, of course. Some might have called him a romantic, others an old-fashioned fool, but to Blueblood, it really seemed the sort of thing one should do only after marriage… Or, least until the couple were certain they loved one another deeply enough for the act to hold meaning. After all, his sister had surely waited until her wedding night to engage in such acts with her groom, no? If the Princess of Love can wait, why can’t everypony else?

Besides, the possibility of waking up drained of most of his blood always appeared toward the top of his ‘cons’ lists. One never can be too careful, no? Reading over the note again, he chuckled humorlessly at the irony of his thoughts in relation to the latest complication to his life.

Esteemed Nephew,

We have heard many a tale of your social ineptitude and, rather than sentence you to residence in a local town of eccentric, amusingly idiosyncratic ponies, decided we wish to see improvement in your behavior beginning with what we are told was the most plague-addled field; dealings with the opposite sex.

The Royal ‘We’ usually seemed to mean trouble when it came to his nocturnal aunt, Blueblood noted.

Sister has told us your past transgressions have caused minimal harm in the long run. Regardless, we task you with showing you can treat a mare, any mare, as though she were a princess.

Alternatively, we are told there is room for workers in the Earth Pony settlement of Appaloosa, should you decide to take these instructions lightly.

We have already chosen the first target lady you shall be charming and friendly toward, if only for a short while…

Blueblood couldn't help rolling his tired eyes, surely he wasn't that unpleasant, barring the occasions he may have gone just the tiniest bit overboard in driving crown-chasers away? Regardless, it was apparently either this or planting dirty trees with dirty peasants in dirt, presumably catching some local infection and being eaten by the buffalo when the others left him for dead in the desert.

Admittably a little more pessimistic than my usual predictions, he thought, but one never can be too careful…

The sleep-deprived prince would have thought about loudly objecting to such a letter some years ago, but with some of the things Celestia had sent him to do since then, there was no doubt in his mind Luna could, and would, have him far from home and wearing a filthy Stetson if he disobeyed this admittedly simple order. He read the rest of the note.

We understand there is a nice musician due to play in the palace later tomorrow evening, known to play the cello. Meet her, speak with her for a while, be friendly and polite, and report to us the interaction. We trust you would not lie to your dear aunt?

Also one of your aunts, it seems,

H. R. H. Prin

Princess Lun

Luna

Aunt Luny

Luna

Post-Script: While we much appreciate your admiration of our night, Sister says you really should sleep a little longer.

Blueblood blinked. How did she know I had been…? His eyes darted to the window, in the glimmering rays of early morning, he swore he saw the black, nightmarish blur of large bat wings disappearing from his sight. This wasn't the first time he had sat up in the early hours of the morning to stare numbly at the stars, but suspected it might be his last. Ignoring the drop of temperature in his veins at the thought of being watched by the things attached to those beautiful eyes, Blueblood drew the curtains shut, donned a simple, but elegant tailcoat, and set off in search of Octavia Philharmonica. She had played at the palace before, after all, so he shouldn't have much trouble recognizing her.

With the help of a guard, apparently fatigued with standing about doing little to nothing all night, Blueblood learned Octavia was in the performance halls, practicing her piece several hours before she was due to play for those attending. Making his way to the large, nearly empty room the classical musician occupied, he overheard something about it being part of a lullaby Octavia was practicing from a few of the other musicians setting up for their performance later.

Such a strange occupation, he thought, just sitting about making art that nopony will ever be able to enjoy once they've stopped playing, unless it was captured in one of those recorder things. As the prince, Blueblood’s own ‘profession’ largely consisted of being somepony Celestia sent to give speeches, visit foreign locales, oversee certain important events, and all that friendly noise that kept things peaceful in Equestria whenever she couldn't be there herself. In practice, he was the Whatever-Auntie-Feels-Like-Sending-Me-To-Do Pony, getting all sorts of tasks on one end of the continent or another. Maybe he’d deliver some ‘important’ relic to the griffons, maybe he’d extend an olive branch to the changelings, maybe he’d attend some crazy mask-based ceremony with the zebras, and all while never getting lost. He’d been through mountain ranges, rocky deserts, thick jungles, even the bottom of the sea on one nightmarish occasion in search of that trip’s objective. His special talent being a profound ability to find whatever he was looking for, it was sometimes a pleasant experience, walking the world like it was his alone to travel, nowhere he couldn't go.

He and his band of guards, obviously.

There were plenty of things Blueblood couldn't do, like fight off the countless monsters outside Canterlot’s reasonably safe walls, but nowhere he couldn't go. Provided Princess Celestia, or Princess Luna in this case, wasn't sending him on some errand they either couldn't or didn't want to do themselves. He remembered the cold dread that gripped him the day he overheard his taller aunt saying something about sending somepony to deal with a dragon breathing clouds of acrid smoke over the landmass, but apparently somepony else took care of that one.

Approaching the dark-haired mare, her eyes closed as she slowly drew the bow across the strings of her cello, he opened his mouth to give a short greeting before tripping over his own tired hooves and faceplanting with a resounding thud, his head inches away from the base of the instrument supported on the floor. Quickly rising to an upright position, wide awake now, he noticed Octavia hadn't even slowed her song, one eye opened quizzically as if to say ‘what are you doing?’

Shaking his head, glorious golden locks falling into place, he payed no mind to the musicians and the two guards near the door snickering at his landing and spoke. Remember, he thought, polite and… Somethingorother, it’ll come to me.

“Good morning, Miss Octavia, I understand you’re fine-tuning your work for later tonight?”

She nodded, looking at him with dull disinterest.

“The princesses have tasked me with hearing your performance prior to playing for the event, so I’ll be here to observe for a while.”

He smiled a bit, most entertainers, mares especially, rather enthusiastic about having his attention most of the time. Celestia had always smiled and thanked those that played in her court, sometimes with the odd compliment here and there, regardless of the performance itself, so Blueblood supposed that, having been more vocal about things he didn't care for in the past, his approval might have carried a bit more weight.

His brief moment of pride was thrown by the wayside, however, when Octavia’s face showed not gratitude or awe, but fear. She had apparently stopped playing as he was speaking, her eyes begging a question he couldn't put his hoof on.

“Uhm,” the prince probed, “Is there something the matter?”

The cellist’s eyes flickered to a statue of Celestia at the far end of the room, her jaw clenched with worry.

Blueblood couldn't help chuckling a little. “Oh, no need to be alarmed, just carry on for a spell and I’ll be on my way.” My way back to bed, I hope. Sitting on his haunches, he stifled a yawn as the bow was drawn across the strings again.

It was now that he actually beginning to hear the music, deep, but soft, it’s slow, elegant hum reminding him of one of many quiet walks he’d taken on early mornings while charting a region, the sun not yet risen and a permeating feeling of tranquility in his heart that spread like a gentle, flowing wave through his veins to-

Whap!

Blueblood blinked rapidly, shaking his head as he connected the dots of a slight pain by the base of his horn and Octavia holding her bow out towards him, looking rather annoyed. Had he drifted off? Not entirely sure, he reddened ever so slightly, urging her to go on with a hoof. She did, still eyeing him warily as she picked up from where she had left off.

Hearing the tune anew, he was reasonably certain he understood what made it a lullaby now, it was just so damned relaxing. Obvious, really, but he was perhaps too sleep-deprived to care right now. He could practically feel a soft blanket on his coat, it’s warmth slowly banishing the clinging cold of nig-

Whap!

“Ow!” Again, Blueblood snapped to attention to see Octavia glaring at him. Again, he heard faint laughter from the others in the room, but was too tired for snide, biting remarks. He quietly mumbled an apology and urged her to continue, which she did.

It was only minutes before he drifted out of consciousness again, which Octavia had had quite enough of. Is he taking this seriously at all? The princesses don’t just send a fellow royal to casually see their performers early! They must be expecting something special tonight, and he’s SLEEPING through the whole thing, the stupid, spoiled, self-centered…! She drew back the bow to hit him again, wondering just how much force the hard wood could withstand compared with the sleeping noble’s thick skull when she realized something.

Lullabies are meant to put ponies to sleep. She smiled, starting to giggle silently as the situation caught up with her. Hearing the princesses had sent Blueblood, not known to applaud for just anything, to hear her had been a considerable source of stress since he arrived, so she had forgotten that a relaxed, dozing listener wasn't exactly a bad thing at this moment, and he was out in minutes! Setting the cello aside for a moment, she trotted to the recently-set-up refreshments table for a drink, feeling a lot more confident about playing for the court tonight.

---

Blueblood awoke on a bench in the hallway hours later, sitting up to see a simple sign on a piece of parchment taped to the wall near him.

Royal nap in progress, do not disturb!
~H.R.H. Princess Celestia

He rubbed his eyes with his forehooves, not sure how long he had been on display like that for any traversing the halls to see. “Very funny, Auntie.”

“What do you mean?”

Blueblood jumped, his head whipping to the side to see Luna sitting on the bench beside him. He opened his mouth to speak, but Luna was a little less patient.

“You have failed in your task, young prince!”

He shrunk back a little. “T-task?”

“To hold pleasant conversation and friendly relation with the musician, do you not recall?”

He did, that he had been found sleeping on a bench and nowhere near Octavia at the moment made mentioning what little time he had spent with her seem moot. It was difficult to tell if his nocturnal aunt was angry, annoyed, or if that slight scowl was just her default expression. “I-I, it was-“

“SILENCE!” As ever, the Royal Canterlot Voice did no favors for the his mane. Luna smiled, raising a hoof triumphantly. “We have a new task with which you may prove yourself!”

“Wh-what? I-“

“On our way to collect your report in dealing with the cellist, we were informed a pony in need of company in the city.” She pointed at him with a hoof. “You will alleviate this mare’s stress and make her feel loved, respected, and not fat!”

Blueblood could only tilt his head quizzically.

Luna looked uncertain how to phrase her next thoughts. “She is practically skin and bone, we are told, reminiscent of those… Models? And their eating disorders. We believe her name was… Fleur de Lis?”

Fleur? Fancy Pants’s hanger-on? Fancy Pants was one of few ponies Blueblood actually kindof admired, if only for his perpetual enthusiasm. He couldn't remember the last time he saw one of them without the other nearby, but had his doubts about being the one for her to cling to if the older stallion wasn't around. He briefly tried to explain that perhaps his dealing with Fleur wasn't the best idea, but Luna wouldn't hear of it, insisting that, in addition to the quest she’d set him on, he owed her for the time she spent waiting for him to wake up on the bench they currently occupied.

“Why didn't you just wake me?”

Luna indicated the sign her sister had left. “Can you not read?”

Blueblood facehoofed.

Author's Notes:

I know nothing about cellos, pianos, or the layout of Canterlot Castle.

Chapter 2: Not Quite A Sugar Rush

Blueblood stood outside The Gilded Gourmet, the café not too far from the castle where he’d been instructed to meet the tall, lanky, probably brainless beauty just waiting for Fancy Pants to drop his guard long enough for her to slip away with as much of his wealth as she could carry. Ordinarily, he’d assume she stayed close mustachioed philanthropist to gain access to his bank account by way of his bed, but he wasn’t sure Fancy Pants, no matter how infectiously chipper the stallion could be, was still… of age for that sort of thing to work in her favor. It was like a really invasive version of somepony that liked to attach themselves to ponies of a higher status in the hopes it would somehow bleed into them, like that yellow and grey unicorn couple whose names he could never remember. Perhaps false friends such as they were an inevitable part of Canterlot's social structure?

Despite having enjoyed a hearty meal just moments ago, he sighed, dealing with somepony he already despised was certain to be unpleasant. Luna had told him she was known to visit this café almost daily, so it only seemed like a matter of time before he could proceed with his ridiculous mission. He wondered whether it would be better to see if he could fulfill Luna’s orders by not saying a word when Fleur was around or just running off and claiming he never saw her, go to another café and pretend he honestly got the wrong address? It would never work, you fool, he thought to himself, special talent is finding your way? Or if it did, you’d surely be a laughing stock. I can just picture it, ‘Royal Idiot needs a map to find his-‘

“Monsieur Blueblood?”

Not for the first time that day, the prince jumped, whipping his head in the direction of a familiar voice. She gave a faintly apologetic look. “I-if I’ve come at a bad time…?” She glanced about, as if hoping her usual target would materialize for her to harass some more.

Regrettably, Blueblood had a job to do. He shook his head lightly, as if that had been what he meant to do a moment ago. “No, no, I’m actually here specifically to see you.”

The Prench mare’s already pristine coat seemed to get paler. Somehow. “Sacre bleu!” She visibly panicked. “Is s-something the matter? I-I swear, I didn’t know the chocolate was for the princess, the box wasn’t marked, it was half-opened next to the rest of the confections, I-“

A little confused, Blueblood held up a hoof. “Whatever you’re on about, no.” That seemed to calm her a little bit. Off to a good start! He puffed out his chest a bit and put on a winning smile, just the sort of thing he figured she would want to see from a wealthy noblepony. “I was informed you were under a bit of stress and was dispatched to see to the problem, our kind and caring rulers just can’t stand to see one of their little ponies unwell, you know?”

Fleur went from scared contrition to cautious optimism. Blueblood had to admit, there was probably a reason her smile fooled Fancy Pants so well. “Y-you can help me…?”

He blinked. Damn. I’m immune to the big-sad-eyes thing, I know I am, but having been almost specifically ordered to surrender to it…? The prince just prayed to nopony in particular that no bloodhounds in gold and glittering dresses were around to catch the scent of a rich stallion giving in to a pitiful-looking mare as he nodded slowly.

Fleur practically hugged him, forelegs thrown jubilantly upwards for a split second before she skipped in place for a moment, looking not unlike an overjoyed filly in desperate need of a restroom. “Thank you, thank you, Monsieur Blueblood! You may be just the pony to know what I must do!”

“…Do?” She does things?

She nodded enthusiastically. “To keep Mon Cheri’s attention, would pearls help? Perhaps a hat?” She scowled to the floor for a moment. “That other mare he seemed so fixated on for a time had so many outrageous, though tasteful, hats, perhaps if I-“ Her eyes widened, the smile returning. “Frosting!”

Blueblood was becoming less and less sure Fleur was a gold digger and more and more suspicious she was just batty. “Frosting?”

She nodded quickly, pumping a forehoof enthusiastically. “Cake frosting, I had heard from Mademoiselle Upper Crust that Fancy enjoys the scent of cake frosting on a mare, if I could smell that way at all times…” Her gaze drifted off into that familiar look he saw on a mare fantasizing about a perfect little fairytale life with the object of their obsession, but there was something off about it he couldn’t put his hoof on. While he pondered this, Fleur reconnected with reality. Sortof. “It’s settled, we break into the local cake factory!”

For once, the prince wished he had been paying attention to something Fleur said. “Hm? Oh, yes, we break into-WHA-?!“

The shock on the young royal’s face not registering, her eyes twinkled with a newfound vigor and a hint of mischief. “We’ll meet around the back about ten before midnight, I’ll bring the grappling hook!” Before he could object to helping her with a criminal act, she darted off, disappearing into the crowds.

Well, he thought after a long pause, today is turning out to be interesting. First I am lightly assaulted by a musician, then I learn Fleur de Lis is utterly insane, and tonight I’m breaking into a cake factory. It was either go along with Fleur’s twisted scheme or Appaloosa, he figured. Blueblood headed back to the castle for now, trying to decide which of his suits would look best in a police lineup.

---

As the prince stood in the night air of Canterlot’s industrial district, dressed in a darker long-sleeved tailcoat than the one he had been wearing in the hopes that he’d at least be somewhat harder to see in the dark, even with his magnificent white coat and brilliant blonde hair, he wondered if the bat ponies were watching him now, as well. One may be posted outside my room, or that may have been a chance thing, one of the alluring-eyed monsters just deciding to rest near that particular window on a night I was staring, quite literally, into space. Luna’s demonic guards watching him sleep each night or not, he was reasonably certain that now of all times was when he’d be watched. He had walked out of the castle in the dead of night, not talking to anypony at all on the way, made his way through the very empty streets, and stood by the back entrance of a building that had clearly shut down for the night, Copious Cakes of Canterlot. He briefly pondered the merits of an entire factory devoted to cake, but after a certain article about Celestia in a nearby farm village’s newspaper, it practically sprung up overnight, and actually got surprising amounts of business, even if nopony ever saw the solar princess near the place. Regardless, he was sure he looked insanely suspicious at the moment, nevermind that he was a rich, famous stallion out late at night to convene with a mare of some reknown herself.

As he pictured just how he would explain himself to the press, he saw Fleur trotting merrily towards him from down the street, dressed in a thin black sweater and a furled-up ski-mask on her head.

She smiled to him. “Bonsoir, Monsieur Blueblood,” she said quietly, reaching for the grappling hook she mentioned hours ago from beneath the ski-mask. How it fit in there, or why she seemed to be using her mouth despite being a unicorn, he didn’t care to guess. “I have it all planned out, I’ll get to the window with this,” she began to swing the hook in a circle, gripping the rope in her mouth, “geh ih ohen, slih up hoo he hoor, umlohk ih, an’ we’ll-“

Her plan was interrupted by the sound of the back door’s tumblers shifting and the click of a turning knob. Dropping the hook, she looked to see Blueblood standing idly by the door, his expression all but saying ‘That’s nice, can we get on with this?’ Fleur smiled, nodded quickly, and shot in. Looking out at the nearby rooftops before following her, Blueblood swore he saw shifting bat wings in the darkness…

---

As they quickly and quietly moved through the facility, Fleur whispered back as the regal accessory to her breaking and entering followed her lead. “That was rather impressive for a stallion like yourself, Monsieur Blueblood, wherever did you learn to pick a lock?”

He smiled a little. “I am a Prince of Equestria, there is nowhere I cannot go.” While this seemed to satisfy the strangest criminal he had ever met as she returned to looking left and right for something as they passed door after door, he felt it best he not mention the Skeleton Key, capable of opening most any door, Celestia had given him the birthday after he’d gotten his cutie mark. He could remember it like it was-

“AHA!” His concentration was broken when Fleur shot through a door marked ‘Icing Room; no snow, winter, or frost puns beyond this point. This means you, Dennis.’ Not wanting to dwell on the inane factory policies, Blueblood followed the mare he could swear he was supposed to be making feel “respected, loved, and not fat” into the room of concentrated sugar.

She stood in the center of the room on her hind hooves, forehooves outstretched as though hoping to catch something as she spun about. “Magnifique! This is just what I had hoped to find!” She shot over to a large vat of bright blue frosting, something about her proximity to the substance making Blueblood terribly uncomfortable. He took a few steps away from her and the pool of soft, sweet tooth-rot.

“Alright, there’s enough there to make you sick for life. What’s the plan from here?”

Her head spun quickly toward him, a wide, manic grin on her face, making him shrink back a little. “I must take in the frosting, let it’s essence into mine, that I may smell of cake frosting forever!”

This was followed by Blueblood quickly seeking refuge behind a large machine.

Still grinning ear-to-ear, paying no mind to the terrified royal a good distance behind her, Fleur looked back to the vat. “Can’t keep coming back here every night, no?” She stuck her face straight into the frosting for a few seconds, her head and mane popping up coated with the stuff. “Wait for me, Mon Cheri,” she whispered before diving into the vat and rolling about, as if trying to actually swim, occasionally stopping to take a bite or two of the sugary substance, laughing giddily at the thought of Fancy Pants holding her close and never letting go after tonight.

Blueblood, meanwhile, cowered out of her sight, both at the prospect of being caught in an illegal act and of getting frosting on his nice, clean coat… Something about the thought seemed painfully familiar… Regardless, he had to stop this madness. Staying behind the machine he had fled to, he called out to Fleur. “Do you really think this is necessary? That smelling like cake frosting all the time is the only way Fancy Pants would look in your direction?”

The sloshing about in the vat stopped. Hoping she had stopped to hear him better, as opposed to having drowned herself in the sticky material, he went on. “You and he seem nearly inseparable, did you smell at all like cake when the two of you first met, or at any time between then and now?”

He heard her whimper. “B-but… He doesn’t look at me like he used to, doesn’t seem to care as much when I flex and pose beside him…”

“Ah.” Finally happened, did it? “Who has his eye now?”

She sounded a tad indignant. “W-what?”

“The other mare, the one he’s looking at instead of you?”

There was a long silence before Blueblood continued. “You know, the reason you think he isn’t concerned with you anymore? If he can honestly ignore a mare like you,” his inflection was neither one of praise nor insult, just emphasized, and though he didn’t mean it as a compliment, Fleur smiled a little, “fawning over him, I’d think there was another much closer to the forefront of his attention, wouldn’t you?”

Fleur murmured something.

“…I-isn’t one…”

Blueblood dared to inch toward the side of the machine facing the candy-coated prench model. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

“There… Isn’t one.” Her tone brightened immeasurably. “There isn’t another mare! Mon Cheri isn’t tired with me, he is used to me! He doesn’t mind my presence, no matter what I smell like because he, I-“ Her sentence was finished with a squeal of delight instead of words as she jumped out of the vat, approaching Blueblood’s hiding place. “You said what I most needed to hear to help me realize the truth of things, Monsieur Blueblood, thank you, oh thank yo-“

She spread her frosting-covered forelegs out to hug him when she got close enough, prompting Blueblood to fall backward, scream, hop to his hooves, run away, and trip several alarms as he shot clumsily through the factory, slamming into walls and knocking things over, back the way he and Fleur had come.
---
Bursting through the back door, he saw none other than the Princess of the Night, flanked by two of her horrific sentinels, both female. One of them, crimson-eyed with a dark green, messy mane held a hoof to her mouth, giggling at the sight of the panicked prince, his eyes darting about, breathing heavily. The other, of the golden-iris variety and a long, black mane, just rolled her beautiful eyes. Blueblood barely managed not to stare at either of the pairs of deep, gorgeous, eyes that seemed to radiate-he stopped. Barely indeed.

Luna spoke before he could explain himself, her expression dull, voice completely deadpan. “Nephew. We had not suspected you to have gained sister’s fondness for pastry to the point you would infiltrate such a place like a common criminal, doubly so given the stock at the castle.”

Blueblood gesticulated wildly with his forehooves. “I, cake, place, prench words, grappling hook, alar-“

His mastery of defusing bad situations held little interest to Luna. “That is all well and good, Nephew,” she waved a hoof in a follow-me gesture as she turned to walk away, the things of nightmare at her sides giving a look that said it was not a suggestion, “you may clarify the reason our faithful guard alerted us to your activities in this section of the city at this hour on the way back to the castle, perhaps let us know what transpired with Fleur de Lis in the process?”

Blueblood collected himself with a sigh. Being watched. He broke into a cold sweat as he moved to follow his scarier aunt, his head down, trying to keep near her, but as far from her bat-pony guards as possible. Definitely being watched. All the time. Well, all the night time, at least. Still…

“Oh,” Luna cheerfully said over her shoulder as they walked, “We are pleased to still find you so enjoying our night, nephew!”

Author's Notes:

Three guesses as to which royal has an irrational fear of bat ponies. Hint: It isn’t Sapphire Shores. I don’t know much about Canterlot’s layout, either.

Also, I’m feeling iffy about the short Fancy-Pants-isn’t-just-sick-of-you chat, thoughts?

Chapter 3: Another Bird In Another Hoof

Perhaps it was the activity of the night draining his energy, perhaps it was the more-than-recommended dose of tranquilizers he took to ensure he wouldn’t have to think about being watched as he slept by the haunting night guards, but Blueblood rested well that night, making a point of not getting out from under the covers of his lofty bed until the sun had been up for about half an hour.

He headed down to breakfast, thankfully free of flapping nightmares, no pun intended, and leafed through the morning paper as he bit into a croissant gripped in his magic, nodding thanks to the servant that had left the plate there. It was an interesting headline this morning, some factory workers reported some kind of monster must have been born of their newest batch of frosting, evidently mixed with a jar of Zap Apple Jam. Their account told of how mixing magical applesauce with common confectionary ingredients must have offended nature or something, giving birth to an abomination of frosting and anquish that marched through the factory, setting off alarms and leaving a trail of fresh frosting in clumps along the floor, leading outside. The creature, they told reporters, must have known it wasn’t supposed to exist, because the sugary trail ended by a water hose on the exterior of a nearby building, where the creature must have washed itself away, ending its own life before the reign of terror and heaven’s reckoning could truly begin.

Blueblood set the paper down, face expressionless, and stared into space for several long moments.

Well, he eventually managed to form a sentence, if only in his head, at least Fleur got out of that mess without jail time, I’d have probably had to pay her bail. On that note, I was caught, wonder what sort of ‘penance’ I’ll be saddled wi-

As had been happening a lot lately, his thoughts were interrupted by a noise from a nearby door flinging open, Luna and a comparatively small, yellow pegasus looking directly at him. “Nephew!” Luna smiled triumphantly, a hoof in the air to accompany her impending declarations. “We have settled on a new opportunity with which you may make up for the previous one!” She indicated the light-pink-maned pegasus, who squeaked when she did so, shrinking behind her abnormally long mane as if to take cover in it.

Blueblood blinked, raising an eyebrow. Haven’t I seen this one somewhere? A noblemare I offended in the past, perhaps? Suppose that would be in line with the little “project” Auntie Luna’s wrangled me into, play nice with a shallow, mindless, gold digging-

“You will help this one walk with the animals,” Luna continued, “talk with the animals, grunt and squeak and squawk with the animals!”

Even the delicate-looking mare seemed a little confused, her objection, that word being used very loosely, almost a whisper. “Uhm, th-that’s not quite what I, I mean, sometimes it helps if you make similar sounds, familiarity helping the little critters to learn you don’t mean them harm and possibly convincing them you’re one of their kind, but, um…”

As she went on, Luna regarding her with an inquisitive eyebrow raised, it dawned on Blueblood, his breath slowing in indirect proportion to his terrified heartbeat, exactly where he had seen the yellow pony. The Gala, not just a gala, any of the events held annually, The Gala, the one where, in seconds, a calm evening was reduced to tumult potent enough that Discord himself was freed from confinement not long after, he recalled. He could hardly remember anything specific about the evening, walking about with a starry-eyed mare he couldn’t recall, sitting out in the garden with no fear of bat-winged horrors hanging about at the time, insulting some country bumpkin that apparently slipped past security, and the soul-freezing cry of the timid-looking mare before him. The prince hardly recognized her without the green, tattered dress, this was Fluttershy, supposed bearer of the Element of Kindness and the Shrieking Demon of The Gala, whose death-wail echoed in his nightmares for weeks afterward, and now she was looking at him.

Right.

At.

Him.

Noticing the servant from moments ago had vanished and royal blood rapidly chilling in his veins, he looked pleadingly to his younger aunt, somewhere between begging and praying she realize the horror worse than any of her bat guards standing next to her. She spoke, grinning widely and without a care in the world. “So it is settled, you will assist dear and gentle Fluttershy in communing with the fauna of the Royal Garden.”

He stared at the both of them.

“…”

They stared back.

“…?”

Blueblood sat perfectly still, not even blinking for a moment before he shot up in his seat. “GREATMEETYOUTHERE,BYE!” and fled the room at speeds even faster than in the cake factory the night before.

The two of them alone, Fluttershy looked to the princess with a hint of uncertainty. “He seemed… Nice?”

Luna nodded sternly. “He had most certainly better be, dear Fluttershy.”

---

The panicked prince took a few moments to run back to his room, throw on a fine, though aged, dark green coat, knowing he would soon be among animals that bathed with their tongues, set his mane in it’s usual perfect style with a quick spell, took a shot of the liquor hidden behind a painting, a hearty drink he kept telling himself he would identify someday, rather than just swiping a new bottle from the hors d'oeuvre table at various social gatherings every now and then, slapped himself in the face, and sped off towards the royal gardens, nerves as steeled as they’d ever be against the monster and it’s quest to…

Wait a minute.

He slowed to a brisk trot. Why would a screeching devil want to be among animals, even the finest in the land? And why was she so… collected? He thought back to a few moments before, the feathered horror standing calmly beside his dark aunt. Of course. He chuckled at himself as the royal gardens came into view, early morning’s light bathing the lush, green foliage and flowers, morning dew still gleaming off the petals adorning the archways, cool, serene air helping to match the newfound tranquility of his thoughts. She can’t be a monster all the time, she’d have never gotten into Canterlot were that the case, something must have pushed her the night of The Gala…

Blueblood remembered overhearing Twilight Sparkle talking about her friends in the times she stayed at the castle since her ascension to the rank of Princess, her Ali-coronation, as the guards had been calling it. One of the things that she talked about with a smile depicting fond memories with those she held dear and a girlish giggle was how fearsome some of her friends, the other Element Bearers, could be. He grinned, as though having learned the weakness of a great and terrible beast to be slain. All he had to do, he was fairly certain, was keep Fluttershy calm and happy, the safety of Canterlot, perhaps Equestria as a whole, depended on it.

He stood on the soft grass, alone, small creatures nearby not really minding him too much. Now, how does one do that with animals…? I used to play in the gardens as a colt, but surely she wouldn’t come all the way from that peasant hovel the Element Bearers apparently choose to inhabit just to-

“E-excuse me?”

Blueblood jumped, which also startled a few nearby birds into taking off for more peaceful parts of the garden. He whipped his head to look at the source of the soft voice, wide-eyed, full-well knowing the absurdity of the thought that she could read his mind doing nothing to dissuade it.

She shrunk back a little, breaking eye contact almost the second it was established. “Oh! I-I’m sorry, was that too loud? I was j-just trying to get your attention and, um, ohh, I’m such a loudmouth!” Looking squarely at the ground, she muttered something more he didn’t catch.

The prince’s eyes darted back and forth instinctively, not even sure what he might have been on lookout for as he spoke, filling his voice with as much of that patented regal charm as he could manage. “That’s quite alright, Miss Fluttershy, I was actually looking for you.”

She blushed, facing him for a split second. “R-really? Because I was standing here for a full minute trying to get your attention,” she glanced at him again, eyes widening in alarm, “I MEAN, n-n-not to say you’re inattentive or anything,” her voice was getting softer and squeakier with every word, “I’m sure you’re very, very busy with, um, whatever it is princes do, it’s just that, I was right here wavingmyhoofinfrontofyourfaceand-“ A moment later, the unintelligible remainder of her spoken thoughts ceased.

Blueblood guessed by her lowered head and apparent attempts to hide in her own mane that she was not having a great time, which meant he’d be in trouble soon if that didn’t change. He flashed a winning smile, giving one of his practiced ‘don’t-worry-about-it’ chuckles for use on intimidated subjects in the hopes it would defuse the situation a little. “Please, don’t worry about it, as Princess Luna said, I am here to help you with the garden animals however I am able.”

Adding the actual words with the laugh didn’t seem to do much for the trembling pegasus, but she was at least at ease enough to look directly at him, deep, light-green eyes touching the edges of his soul. “Really…?”

He suppressed a flinch at her surprisingly intense gaze. It’s almost like a bat pony’s… “O-of course, whatever makes you think otherwise?”

She raised an eyebrow cautiously. “You kindof walked right past me a minute or two ago…”

Red flags in his head. WARNING, WARNING, she’s getting mad, do something NOW!! His eyes once again surveyed the area as quickly as possible, not finding any living things besides plants. He needed to find something with fur or feathers or something, fast. “Y-yes, well,” he stammered out, now about as nervous as the shy mare had been at the start of their conversation, “Let’s get onto those animals, shall we?!”

He didn’t notice her frightened, rapidly reddening face as he hefted her onto his back, nor the squeak of alarm she gave when he did, and darted towards the nearest sound of living things. This, of course, scared away the spider monkeys, walaroos, squirrels, a vulture, and more as he and his butter-yellow burden rushed towards them at least four times before Fluttershy finally managed to hop off the prince’s back when he stopped for breath.

“D-don-huff-don’t worry, I’ll, -pantpant- I’ll, animals, find, f-for-huff- the, t-the, uh…” He looked directly at Fluttershy, and the sight was like cold knife twisting through his insides.

She wasn’t angry, wasn’t scared, she was crying silently, muttering something that sounded like ‘just like last time.’ He slowly held out a hoof, speaking very softly. “Are… Are you alright?”

She shook her head, streaming eyes pointed squarely at the grass once again. “No! It’s j-just like last time, I-sniff-I just wanted to m-meet a few-sniff- little critters, a-and, and-!” In the next seconds, she stopped trying to speak, collapsed with her face in her forehooves and sobbed like a small filly.

Blueblood looked at her with lowered ears. I am a monster. Prince Vladimir Blueblood, he thought to himself, reknowned destroyer of mare’s dreams, immune to big, sad eyes? Thought you didn’t care when they started crying, did you? WRONG, YOU WERE WRONG, WRONG, A THOUSAND MOON-BANISHED TIMES WROOONG!!

The sight of the crying pony too painful to gaze on a second longer, he looked around, desperate, If I could just nab one of the little beasts in my magic, she’d-no! It would still be scared, she’d still be distressed, havetodosomethinghaveto-

Inspiration. Memory. A plan!

He remembered how he’d play in the gardens as a colt, one bird in particular seemed to like him more than any of the rest, maybe if…? Blueblood raised his muzzle and let out a sound.

His call was horribly rusty, it had been years since he had last used it, but right now it was his best hope. He held out a hoof, waiting.

Fluttershy’s sobbing died down just a little, raising her head at the sound “W-what was…?” At that moment, a fairy large, black avian with a colorful beak, getting on in years, but clearly still full of life, perched on the prince’s outstretched foreleg, tilting it’s head at him as if to say ‘oh, haven’t seen you in a while, hello!’ The prince grinned a little at the sight of his old, feathered friend, inclining his head toward Fluttershy, which the toucan followed, looking quizzically at the mare who had, much to Blueblood’s relief, stopped crying.

She rose to her hooves slowly, carefully, certain any wrong move on her part would send the pretty bird seeking refuge from the horrible yellow monster she was sure they saw her as. Fluttershy had seen and held toucans before, but this one had such thick, black feathers shiny enough to give it a beautiful luster in contrast to the vibrant, colorful rings on it’s beak! She couldn’t help a cautiously optimistic smile, eyes widening with wonder as she reached out to touch the long-beaked avian with a hoof. It fluttered it’s wings a little at this, turning it’s head to the prince. Fluttershy could practically hear the understood silence between them.

‘Is this one ok?’

‘She’s fine.’

‘Well, ok then… By the way, what’s got you so busy these days?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘Fair enough.’

Her heart sank for a split second when it flapped it’s wings to take off, immediately rising again when it landed on her head, nestling a little in her soft, pink mane. She was afraid her smile would split her face, or make Pinkie Pie jealous. Ohh, I’d hate to have her upset I was smiling wider than her, she’d forgive me, right…? Well, now’s not the time for that… She knew it was impossible to look at something while it was directly atop your head, but her eyes drifted upwards anyway as she quietly addressed the toucan nesting in her mane. “Hello, little one, my name is Fluttershy…”

As the bird and bird-pony communicated, Blueblood smiled at the two of them, grateful. Grateful the little friend he’d not visited in a long time remembered him, grateful it was enough to dry the apparent animal-lover’s tears, and, oddly… Grateful to have witnessed this sight. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a pony so calm, so at peace, and so serenely cheerful, about the exotic fauna of the royal gardens, or much of anything else.

Author's Notes:

Why would a simple bird remember somepony that hadn’t so much as visited in years, you ask? I would refer you to the show’s title.

Chapter 4: Picture Perfect Panic

They stayed in the gardens for a few hours after Fluttershy and the toucan, whose name Blueblood was quite certain had been Douglas, had been introduced. He stood by as she gently coaxed any of the fauna that didn’t seem to remember the Shrieking Demon of The Gala and enjoyed the sights, sounds, and scents of the flower gardens quietly until more little animals approached to investigate. It wasn’t the swarm of cute critters she had initially dreamed of, but Fluttershy welcomed each and every creature that approached her with a warm smile, Blueblood standing almost perfectly still behind her, calm, but wary of anything that might dampen the fragile flyer’s mood in the slightest.

As Fluttershy held and cooed over the animals, she and the prince had gotten to talking about why she, native to Ponyville, he had thought, was in Canterlot. She explained that Twilight Sparkle, a close friend of hers, was preparing for the upcoming Summer Sun Celebration and that, while she and the other Element Bearers were there to support Twilight however they could, Princess Luna had approached her with an offer regarding the chance to live a dream she’d thought she’d completely given up on. After that, most of the talking was on the prince’s part, Fluttershy listening quietly, just watching him with a faintly curious look in those big, soft eyes.

Blueblood managed not to say anything to indicate that he couldn’t name all of the ponies wielding an Element of Harmony off the top of his head. It’s not my fault Auntie sends me all over Equestria when important, world-endangering events are taking place, how is one to keep up with the news when so regularly tossed about the country like a royal boomerang?

He noted that not really trying very hard to find out the identities of the six national heroes might have been a failing on his part, but mostly he blamed the adventures he was sent on here and there. That delivery to the Griffon outpost may have been the worst, he thought, Terrible weather, crude architecture, lousy food, and that insufferable she-griffon they’d hired to escort me! While the prince tried to account the sheer number of ways she’d put him off, he noticed Fluttershy trotting off after a squirrel that seemed to be fleeing.

“Ohh, please,” She pleaded after it, taking flight to keep up with the little nut-hoarding furball, “You don’t have to be afraid! I promise not to touch your tail again if you’d rather I…”

The rest of her statement was lost to another noise, something coming, and coming fast. Looking around, Blueblood made a mental note of which way Fluttershy went so as to go after her as soon as he’d dealt with whatever was here to make trouble. Nothing could be worse than seeing her cry again. A quick spell or two should be all it takes to… He paused, ears perked, is that a pony’s voice? Somepony else in the Royal Gardens? How did they get past secur-

“Flootershy?,” a Germane-accented mare called, “Floooootershy?!”

As she drew closer, Blueblood recognized the intruder, blue coat, dull grey mane, largely monochrome dress, and spectacles she never seemed to remove, the famous fashion photographer, Photo Finish. She stopped in front of him, jabbing a hoof in his direction. “You! Haff you seen a yellow pegasus come through here? I vas told she vould be in de gahden, de perrrrfect place for her natural beauty to-“ She raised the forehoof she was standing on to do a slow, sweeping motion in the air, the first hoof still pointed at the increasingly confused noblepony, “Shiiiiine!”

There were several long seconds of silence as Blueblood wondered how she wasn’t falling over, both forehooves in the air, but she spoke again before he could ask.

“Now! Zere iz no time to delay, I must find zat model pony POST! HASTE! To continue to make… De magics!”

At some point, she had moved uncomfortably close to Blueblood, her pink lenses nary an inch from his own eyeballs. Her heavy breathing did not help matters. He blinked, quickly taking a step back. “Ehmm, I don’t know who you’re talking about?” leading this pony to Fluttershy, while it would probably make the mare happy, at least until her apparent psychosis led her to want something else, would almost certainly make the quiet Pegasus very un-happy, which would make him unhappy, guilt-ridden, and possibly in Appaloosa. “Might I inquire as to how you gained access to the Roya-“

She stepped forward very quickly, once again violating his personal space. “Vere. Is. Flootershy?” Despite her ridiculous accent, her voice could actually be quite intimidating when released in a low hiss.

Blueblood, ears back and irises shrinking, found himself slightly less articulate in response. “Sh-she’s, uh, not here, she ju-just,” he stepped back, stumbling and almost tripping over a rake that had apparently been abandoned on the ground, not noticing Photo Finish’s slowly spreading grin, “I, c-could you not approach my royal person so-“

The fanatical photographer pointed a hoof at him very quickly, beaming. “YOU!”

The sudden movement from somepony already standing too close caused Blueblood to fall back in panic, his regal rear landing on the unfortunately-placed pointed ends of the rake.

Leaping into the air screaming in agony, if only for a few seconds, forehooves on one’s backside, was not a dignified, princely thing to do. It is for this reason that Prince Blueblood would assure any who would ever ask that he did no such thing.

When he landed, gently massaging the pained area with a hoof, he looked up to see Photo Finish beaming down at him. “Yoouuuuuu…”

‘What? Me?’ Is what he had meant to ask, but given that he was only just recovering from the embarrassing incident of a few seconds ago and her increasingly frightening gaze, it came out more to the tune of a quiet, squeaky “Whameep?!”

“YOU, are de perrrrfect replacement!” Her every sentence was punctuated with extravagant hoof gestures. “I haff been lookingk for Flootershy for far too longk! Never haff I seen such grace, such elekance in a pony, be it stallion or mare!” Once again, Blueblood had pink glasses uncomfortably close to his face. “But you! You! Have…!” The last words were a near-silent breath that made the already trembling royal faintly wonder if it was at all possible the guards were on holiday or something, that they’d be explaining to Celestia just how their prince had come to be killed and eaten by a madmare this time tomorrow. “De Magics!”

There was a short silence in which the frightened noblepony desperately fumbled for words, but Photo hooked a foreleg around one of his. “Ve go!”

He was picked up and sailed through the air as she ran along, grinning victoriously. Words came at last, though distorted by the undulation. “Wha-at, are, you-ou, do-o-oing?! I, a-am, a, pri-ince, of, Equestri-aa-a-a, PUT, ME, DO-OWN!!”

The blue earth pony, which is where Blueblood guessed the monstrous strength came from, only giggled merrily. “You vill be great model, don’t be shy!” She stopped dead a moment, the royal she had flying like a flag impacting the ground fairly hard beside her for a second before she lifted his hoof enough that their faces were touching. “Actually, yes,” she said with a grin, “beeee shyyyy!”

In involuntary accordance with her wish, Blueblood whimpered.

---

Not long after, the prince found himself alone in a dressing room somewhere in Downtown Canterlot, his old coat only slightly worse for wear from being dragged and flown through the streets like a kite with no string by the lunatic photographer. That alone struck him as less than dignified, he could only imagine what the street-going elites that must have seen him would be saying, what manner of headline there’d be for ever-composed Prince Blueblood being haplessly paraded through the city like a ragdoll in the hooves of an excitable foal, but now he was to make poses at a camera like some common performer?

It was too much, and he intended to tell Photo Finish just that. He briefly considered implying that kidnapping royalty could be punished with banishment, but recalled this was not the first time he had been held captive, even if his celestial aunt, laughing the whole time, insisted those fillies were just trying to get their cutie marks in ‘Canterlot Fanciness’, whatever that meant. I never did find out how the three of them got into the palace, let alone my personal chambers. Come to think of it, I don’t know if any guards even tried to apprehend them, or the madmare that brought me here, or why they’re paid if-

Blueblood jumped as the door slammed open, Photo Finish having returned from... Whatever crazy ponies do right after they kidnap somepony. “I,” she declared, whipping her tail aside once or twice, “Photo Finish, haff arrived!”

As she trotted towards him and set up a camera tripod, Blueblood cleared his throat to speak. “Now, see here yo-“

“No.” Photo’s head shot up from the camera as she fired the word at him.

The prince blinked, he was sure it hadn’t been that long since somepony dared interrupt him speaking, but he didn’t dislike it any less. “I will tell you here and now that-“

“No!”

“I have had just about enou-“

“No!”

Blueblood’s resolve was starting to waver at the sheer forcefulness with which she spoke. Is that really necessary to get models to do what she wants? I’d think they’d all jump at the chance to sit, stay, and roll over for bits. His uncertainty showed in his face, lacking that royal air of confidence he’d held and intended to beat Photo over the head with mere seconds ago.

Metaphorically speaking, of course.

This seemed to please the photographer somehow, as she gave a small grin before taking a picture. “Yeeees!”

The prince, blinded for a second by the flash, shook his head, outrage once again welling up in his being. “Listen to me you lowl-“

“No!”

It was as if she was slapping him across the face with the utterance.

“I-“

“No!”

His ears started to fold back, head lowering as fear started to retake the place righteous indignation had wrested from it. “Y-you can’t treat a Prince of Equestria this w-“

“Yes…” She didn’t look or sound entirely certain now. Another flash.

He staggered, blinking rapidly, weighing the pros and cons of using a few well-rehearsed spells to escape. I haven’t mastered teleportation yet, the smokescreen spell can be a bad idea in an enclosed area, if bumbling through the royal library in a fog taught me anything, the fireball spell is mostly just heat if applied correctly, but I was detained for a while after last time, maybe if-

“ACH!”

Photo looked alarmed, as though realizing something she’d previously overlooked. “Zis was not de magics! Vhat I seek comes more of de natural vorld!” Without warning, she pounced, tearing the old, dark green coat off Blueblood’s back with one movement of her muzzle.

He had worn it fully expecting ruin and stains from dealing with Fluttershy and the animals, but he couldn’t help but blush for a second or two at being naked, both for it being an unfamiliar feeling of exposure and the knowledge that hardly any self-respecting noblepony would be seen in such a state.

Blueblood gathered his thoughts for a moment as Photo returned to the camera saying something about natural looks. Anger. He focused on anger now, this had gone far enough! “I don’t care if you’re popular with starry-eyed fools with dreams of fame,” he seethed, “I will not be made an animal to dance for your-“

CRACK!!

A small explosion. Noise reverberating off the walls for a few seconds after it had sounded. Dazed by the cacophony, he looked around, only to find nothing smouldering, shattered, or even damaged.

What he did notice, however, was the madmare who’d abducted him holding a whip, grinning ear to ear. “Aaaanimaaaaal,” She breathed, speaking remarkably well with the tool in her mouth, “Yessss, zat iz de nature, zat iz… de magics!” She cracked the whip in the air not far from Blueblood’s rear hooves, making him jump again. “Scratch your ears wiff a hoof! Roll on de floor! No, wait, bark! BARK LIKE A DOG!!”

The sight of her raising the whip again, though he hadn’t been directly acquainted with it yet, was all Blueblood needed to engage one of his favorite fallback plans.

Blind. Panic.

Charging up his horn, he fired a bright, glowing orb of harmless light at the camera, using the instant of distraction to gallop toward the window, cast a very short-lived intangibility spell to slip through the thin panes, and a spell that slowed his falling just in case he was, as he had suspected, not on ground level. He hadn’t been, and drifted gently to the safe streets of Canterlot.

He smirked, the running start paired with the intangibility spell had allowed him a few times in the past to gain entry to places that not even his Skeleton Key could open the way to, for lack of a lock to consort with. Nowhere I can’t go, he thought proudly, just before looking around to see the steadily increasing numbers of high-society ponies staring at his state of very public undress.

The prince opened his mouth to deliver a hastily-thought-up lie about it being a long-forgotten clothing-free holiday in honor of Celestia’s usual choice to only wear her regalia, but was cut off by another crack of a whip, very close behind him. He quickly turned his head to see Photo Finish, a wide, twisted grin holding onto the noisy instrument of torture.

They stared eachother down for perhaps a minute before Blueblood fired another bright, harmless sphere into her face and shot off, galloping down the street as if his life depended on it.

Little did he know Photo Finish’s glasses were not for show. Well, they were in the sense that the many fashion shows she attended involved a lot of bright, flashing lights and she had long ago prepared accordingly. Not fazed by the retreating royal’s magic, she gave chase, cracking the whip dangerously close to his flanks as she ran after him, half of Canterlot watching the spectacle in awe.

Author's Notes:

Photo Finish never could find another model quite like Fluttershy…

Chapter 5: Just Taking Care of Business

Very late that day, the prince slowly trod through the halls of Canterlot Castle, his mane a mess and plastered to his head with sweat, formerly pristine white coat covered in dirty little patches and ruffled fur, and dignity badly bruised. And I thought there’d be humiliating consequences for being carried through the streets! I can only imagine the rumors that will be spreading, the prince emerging from the window of the home of a mare of some reknown, not a stitch on him, and her immediately giving chase with a whip?!

As the orange light of the fading sun streamed in through the grand windows of the palace, he wondered how much he’d have to bribe the local papers not to run that story for the next week, if at all, Blueblood didn’t notice Princess Celestia standing still in the halls, a look of slack-jawed shock on her face as she took in the sight of the perpetually well-groomed Prince Blueblood of all ponies apparently in more than casual celebration of that nudity-based, ‘natural beauty’ holiday most of Equestria didn’t bother with these last few centuries.

He remembered, She thought, an almost tearful smile slowly spreading across her face, what was it called again…? Hardly anypony in Canterlot seems fond of discarding their coverings, if only for a short while. The holiday had started about a week after Celestia off-hoofedly complained to a visitor asking about her regalia that she didn’t even like wearing it. She had been thrilled to be allowed the brief freedom each year, but as the decades wore on, fewer and fewer joined her in the celebration of disdain for bodily decoration, until one year she had caused a bit of a scandal by showing up to a public event sky-clad. Those in attendance had understood her explanation, but it had still been terribly embarrassing. As the disheveled noblepony walked by, she regarded him warmly. “I love you too, nephew.”

He didn’t seem to hear her, but the princess was far too elated to notice. She trotted, a bit of a spring in her step for a while before slowing to a stop, scanning the halls for anypony else, and, finding none there but herself, grinned mischeviously. Time for a trip back through history!

She flung her golden trappings to the floor right there in the hallway, teleported them back to her room, opened a nearby window, and took off, the cool night air smoothly gliding along her entire body as her horn lit up to fully lower the sun for the day, spending the rest of that evening bare as a newborn foal.

Meanwhile, Blueblood made his way to his room to tidy up. He often used simple spells to maintain his perfect appearance, but really felt the need to scrub himself after today. After a quick shower, he dried his mane, donned a masterfully-made black tailcoat, it’s simple elegance just what he needed to wash off the indignity of the day, and headed to the dining hall, wondering if anything to eat had been prepared yet.

---

Dinner had been good, even with Celestia’s strange lack of attire of any sort, moreso than she’d usually been guilty of. The look on Princess Twilight’s face was priceless. Nopony dared ask about it, however, perhaps because she’d kept conversation going with such infectious enthusiasm that he didn’t so much as groan when she asked him to serve as an emissary to the Changelings to invite them to join in the upcoming Summer Sun Celebration. They ransack Canterlot after impersonating her niece, abducting her prized student, and, the way I heard it, beating her to a pulp, and still she wants to be friendly to those screeching monsters? He felt that last word was a little harsh, but couldn’t think of one more suiting to creatures that fed on others like Luna did chocolate, when nopony was looking. Still, he’d agreed without complaint, to his own surprise and perhaps that of a few others present. Where had the Night Princess been, he pondered, was her sleep schedule out of sorts from being awake during the day time recently? I could swear Discord had said alicorns don’t even need sleep, but taking his word for it seems-

Moving through the palace, he was snapped out of his thoughts by… Somepony singing? He knew the voice, inclining an ear to the door, already cracked, from which he heard it. Princess Twilight? He gently nudged the door open telekinetically to find the pony in question, whom he wondered about as still qualifying as the most powerful unicorn in Equestria if she had wings now. She was fully dressed in royal garb, a stark contrast of Celestia’s fashion statement that night, dancing in front of a mirror with a ridiculous smile on her face. It almost looks like she’s have a well-controlled seizure, he thought.

Giggling, she sang again, the Element of Magic/Big Crown Thingy bobbing on her head. “I’m the T, to the W-I, L-I-G-H-T, and ain’t no other princess got it down like-“ She turned her head at juuuust the right angle to catch sight of the silent, expressionless prince in the doorway. “me-EEEEEP!!” Whether she stumbled over her own rear hooves or the dress caught on something, he couldn’t tell as Twilight went red in the face, flailed her front hooves, and fell on her back, a wing sticking out from under her twitching in protest.

“Erm,” Blueblood ventured, “Are you… Quite alright?”

She leapt to her hooves rather quickly, for a mare in a full dress, stammering out an affirmative as her eyes darted around the room, looking at anything but him. “Y-yes, I’m flying! F-fine, I meant fine! I-I was just, th-that was, uh…” She finally let her eyes rest on the pony she was speaking to. “P-practice?”

He saw her endearingly forced grin and raised her an eyebrow. “Practice?”

“Yes, I-“ She seemed to panic slightly, “NO! I-I mean, that wasn’t something I was practicing, I was just doing it to, um, Rainbow said, for c-confidence, like, uh…”

Seeing the increased glow of her cheeks and beads of sweat on what he could see of her brow, Blueblood didn’t let it show on his face that he suspected she was at the start of one of her famous breakdowns, and made it his first priority to get out of the blast radius while he still could. He gave what he had hoped would be a sufficiently relaxed grin, snout held upwards. “Well, that’s certainly important for one of royal standing, just be sure not to hurt yourself, would you?” Finishing the statement with a don’t-worry-about-it chuckle, he about-faced, paying no mind to Twilight’s reaction, closed the door behind him, and quickly made his way back to his chambers. He would rest for tonight, gather whichever of his usual guards he could early in the morning, bat ponies watching him or not, and be off. She may have just been mortified at the moment, he thought, quickly packing a travel bag with his magic, but if it’s changelings or being witness to the first Royal Psychotic Episode, Badlands, here I come!

---

Lost.

It made no sense, he, Prince Vladimir Blueblood the 52nd, Master of Navigation, was lost.

He stumbled blindly through the jungle, his guards long since having given up on his failure to lead them anywhere but a slow death of wasting away. Probably sitting cozy in a warm barracks right now, the useless, backstabbing-

The rest of his disdain was cut off by the familiar rustling of jungle foliage, the ache in his many claw wounds told him it was those damn jungle cats again. He could have sworn he’d finished them last time with that thundercloud electrifying the shallow pool that built up from the melted snowballs he’d been pelting them with at first, but it seemed cats had nine lives after all. Even the tiny white one, I suppose… Snorting once, he charged up his horn in the direction of the noise, ready to unleash what he knew could be a devastating fire if any of the nearby plants caught, at this point he was past caring if he razed a few acres of savage wasteland, when out of the bush emerged… a mare?

A pegasus, beige coat, nearly black mane, maroon eyes, olive drab shirt, and a pith helmet. She looked familiar.

“There you are,” she said, sounding relieved, “I’ve been looking all over Equestria for you!”

The misplaced prince regarded her cautiously, suspicious eyebrow raised. “Is that a fact? It’s not often one thinks to find royalty in the untamed wilderness.”

The mare smiled. “Not looking for royalty, looking for you. I knew you’d find your way out here sooner or later, you couldn’t stay away forever!”

“What ar-“

Her wings fluttered excitedly. “Adventure, Blueblood, adventure! I’ve been scouring every dangerous landscape, braving every trap-addled temple, swimming every shark-infested sea, spelunking every deep, dark cave,” she giggled for a moment, mouthing the word ‘spelunking’ before continuing, “and even bucking down the door of Tartarus itself to find you, because I knew you’d be doing the same sooner or later!”

Blueblood was fairly certain he knew this mare’s name now, the hero of those amusing, slightly silly adventure stories, Daring Do.

“After all,” she said with a warm smile, “what would you expect of any child of mine?”

He froze. “…C-come again?”

Daring Do nodded, laughing quietly. “You heard me, you, Prince Blueblood, are my son!” She took his wide-eyed shock as reason enough to continue. “I left you at the palace after asking Princess Celestia to look after you until you were old enough to join me.” She scratched her chin with a hoof. “I was sure you’d have been at it sooner, but-“

“Liar!”

The adventure pony he had been sure was fictional, and not that much older than him, blinked. “Huh?”

“You’re lying, my parents were-“

“Never around? Always busy? Like they didn’t care for you at all? Just up and left you to the princess one day?”

The prince sputtered. “H-how, dare you assert such-“

Daring Do maintained a calm, patient mask. “What were their names?”

Blueblood held out a hoof accusingly, mouth agape when he realized he had no idea.

“Did they know yours, either?”

She’s right, he thought, horrified, I have no recollection of my parents at all, no memories together, no faces, not even portraits on a wall somewhere, nothing!

As the tears gathered in his eyes, indignant pose still held and lacking any menace, Daring Do smiled sadly, stretching out her wings to wrap him in a hug. “It’s because you’re mine, Blueblood,” as their necks and her wings pressed together, not a full foreleg hug, he caught sight of her cutie mark, “you were meant for a life of excitement and adventure.” It was a compass rose, much like his own. She took a step back, smiled at him, and said

“We should probably be going, your highness, the Changeling hive awaits!”

Blueblood blinked. “…What?”

Her voice sounded like a gruff stallion’s now. “You’re going to extend Her Highness’s warm regards to those… Bugs, right?”

The prince opened his eyes, shaking off the haze of sleep to see his usual three bodyguards of unremarkable physical description, Wind Chill, Coin Toss, and Bolt Breaker, a pegasus, earth pony, and unicorn respectively. He remembered now, they’d stopped to rest about mid-day on the way to the Badlands after the desperately forced march they’d had fleeing Twilight Sparkle’s imminent-I mean-not wanting to keep the Changeling Queen waiting, if she knew they were coming. His guards needed no convincing when he’d hinted that the newest princess seemed a little ‘off’ that not being around for the possible follow-up was a fine plan of action, all of them having an idea of what an abnormally powerful unicorn could do when unhinged, made worse by her being an alicorn princess now, and joined him in making their way to the insectoid home with gusto… Before all four of them nearly collapsed a few hours later, Blueblood himself running on sheer terror to keep up with the trained soldiers.

It was time to get back to work!

---

The next day or so passed without much incident, the changelings had let them into the hive, -an underground structure with solidified green bile everywhere and disturbing membrane windows that he couldn’t see through here and there- so long as they minded themselves. When they got to what Blueblood guessed was supposed to be a throne room, Queen Chrysalis was nowhere to be found. One of the changelings, from whom Blueblood quickly learned that at least some of the creatures could speak, informed him and his guards that the queen was out at the moment and that trying to find her when she was up to something had almost always proven futile for them, and suggested waiting around until she returned home.

Just faintly worried about the not-so-subtle hint that an old enemy of Equestria might have been plotting something again, the prince complied with the given suggestion. After all, it had been… What, several months, since his sister’s wedding had been thrown off? He wasn’t even in Canterlot at the time, out making nice with the minotaurs in Celestia’s place for their annual head-bashing get-together… My one, pointed horn actually held up rather well against their comparatively soft foreheads, I think. I didn’t win first prize, per se, but making it to semifinals is still pretty impressive for a Prince of Equestria against barbaric brutes, I’m sure.

Brushing the thought aside, he wasn’t afraid of the changelings as a whole, though this would be the first time he’d met Chrysalis. Rumor was she’d actually been quite well behaved recently, in that there was no strong evidence that she or her minions had committed any heinous acts of late. For about a day and a half, Blueblood and his guards remained in the hive, passing the time communicating with the changelings as best they could, even the ones that would only make screeching noises, some of whom just loved charades, he noted, and playing card games.

In this time, the prince’s thoughts drifted to family, specifically what the mare in his dream had said. While the notion that I am the spawn of a fictional character is absurd at best… It’s true that I never knew my parents. Auntie said they died just days after I was born. He remembered the look of sorrow in Celestia’s eyes the day she told him, but to her surprise, he really hadn’t felt too bothered. He’d been raised by a kind, caring aunt when she had time, a selection of nannies when she didn’t, groomed to be a proper prince, who could be more fortunate than he? It wasn’t as if he had been aching for a chance to meet his parents even a little bit, embrace them in some tearful-

“SCREEEE!”

He blinked. “Hm? What?”

The changeling across the table from him waved a hoof of cards excitedly. “Scree!”

Remembering that Go Fish was a surprisingly fun way to pass the time, Blueblood looked to the cards he had been levitating. “Oh, uh, got any threes?”

“Screeeeee!”

They never saw the Changeling Queen, the Summer Sun Celebration most likely being over by the time they’d decided to head back to Canterlot.

Apparently a lot had happened in their absence… Again!

Chapter 6: Balancing Act

The well-rested royal stood in his chambers, lit only with a candlestick. He had woken perhaps an hour earlier than normal, the sun would be up in just a little while. Blueblood wasn’t exactly a crack-of-dawn kind of pony some years ago, but he had been forced to admit, if only privately, that he had changed over the last… How long was it since he’d started to truly fear bat ponies for everything but those wondrous eyes of theirs? Since then, he was sure, he had changed. This wasn’t the first time he’d tried to wake up at an hour Luna’s faithful servants wouldn’t be out and about to get as much time free of them-the phantoms of them I alone conjure, at least, he thought, a bat pony has NEVER confronted me in the night-as he could manage, not even for a tangible reason, he admitted to himself, just sheer terror. He dared glance at his window, curtains drawn shut before he went to sleep the night before, and pictured a dozen of the horrors floating just outside, waiting for the moment to-

He slapped himself with a hoof. A small pain replaced what had been growing panic. They weren’t really monsters and he knew it, if he could will himself to not think about them at all for a few days, he could almost look at them as normal ponies, free to gaze at the night sky with nary a thought as to it’s leathery-winged guardians. Sadly, this had not been the case in the changeling caverns, very much reminding him of some of his darker thoughts about where bat ponies might reside… He smiled a little, it was nice to be so lucid, if only in the privacy of his own quarters where he could think without thinking of his Royal Image, speak without having to dress up the sentiments, even if he was the only one hearing them. Pacing the room slowly, aware of the inanity of refusing to leave his safe little chamber until the sun’s light peeked through the velvet violet curtains but no more able to will himself to do it anyway at this moment, he reflected on just how… Safe it really felt.

There really wasn’t much reason for him to think a bat po-ANY possible threat, couldn’t get him here. The door was heavy and boasted a sturdy lock, but still just a door, the windows were masterfully crafted, but still just glass panes and wood, there weren’t any decent hiding places, and as far as he knew there were no secret switches he could throw to reveal a hidden passage way or survival bunker should he truly feel threatened. Regardless, he didn’t feel as watched here as he did anywhere else. It was irrational and he knew it, like the fear of what might well have been perfectly ordinary ponies in all ways besides appearance evidently starting to change his life, but he just didn’t feel the sense of intangible threat, that faint little lingering thought that he had to be careful at all times. When he was in his chambers, he felt fine.

He laughed quietly, it made no logical sense, but the prince was glad to have it. It was roughly at that moment he caught sight of something else he would describe with exactly those words, an ornate little box made of blue-painted metal with gold rims. Stepping a little closer to it, he lifted the lid with a light of his horn, it not being the box specifically he was keeping, but the broken glass inside it. Looking at the shattered shards, he smiled. Some were tiny and jagged on most sides, some were larger and had long, smooth, gently curved parts, one fragment even had a strange little stump sticking out, which he guessed had been intentional in the original design, because the end of the stump was smooth, not visibly damaged like the rest of it. Staring at the little box of broken glass, he smiled wider and wider until he started to laugh.

I have absolutely no idea what that thing used to be, or why I ever cared! He had tried fixing it a few times before, the closest he could get to a conceivable piece of glasswork was some kind of little bowl not much smaller than his hoof, the piece with the stump hanging weirdly off to the side, but it didn’t make any sense! He knew a simple repair spell, but it required some idea of what the object had been before, and he didn’t want to risk fusing it together the wrong way. Not comprehending his own apparent sentimentality, he hadn’t stopped giggling quietly. Who would make such a thing? Why? And why did I ever care about it enough to hold onto it’s worthless remains? I’m sure I could have some kind of professional tell me what it is and have a new… Whatever it may be made for pocket change, but I won’t. Composing himself a little, he smiled down at the shards in the box. “Because you’re mine, little glass puzzle, mine and mine alone to solve, if only to kill a bit of time.”

As he pondered just how long ago he’d acquired the box’s broken contents, there was a knock at the door. Replacing the lid and moving towards the early visitor, he noticed that the sun had been raised enough to make the edges of his curtains glow vibrant blue-ish color, almost making them look as though they’d caught with magical fire. He answered the door to see a tired-looking Luna… With a possum on her head. He dared not ask.

“Mmmorn’n, nephew.” Blueblood had heard she and Celestia had some kind of mishap with another evil entity attacking the landmass, apparently. It looked as though Luna had been more effected by… What had it been? Some kind of rosebush from tartarus or something? Whatever it was, it seemed to have hit Luna harder than Celestia, though it might have just been fatigue from the end of her respective shift. “Have ‘nother task, showmare in the castle, go be nice, help with things. Or Apples.”

They stood in a long silence, the prince just quietly staring at his hazy-looking aunt, resisting the urge to offer his own bed for her to flop down on if she’d been that tired, if not for the… implications of such a suggestion. Eventually, she nodded to him once, the possum holding onto her horn, evidently assuming he’d understood her perfectly and retreating to bed for the morning. It was clear enough, he felt, the recent calamity that’d apparently sprung up in his absence hadn’t absolved him of Luna’s task, he was still expected to-what was it? Be nice to mares? Rolling his eyes as he started through the castle halls, he went over the plan in his head. ‘Showmare in the castle’, he only needed to find out who would be performing for the court, locate her, then not fall asleep, ditch her, make her cry, or any combination of the three, and he’d be well on his way to finishing this ridiculous little quest.

---

Casually strolling the castle halls, Blueblood pondered whether or not his efforts with Fluttershy had been a complete waste. She looked to be enjoying herself after meeting Douglas, but I’m not sure why that encounter wasn’t up to snuff for Luna’s demands. Was it that I had to leave her alone in the garden or making her cry that wasn’t well received? He shuddered slightly at the memory of the latter, understanding why such an act might warrant the sort of contempt some directed at ponies like himself, but no less annoyed with this whole charade. It had been nearly a week since he had fallen asleep listening to Octavia and he had been involved in one case of absurd antics after another since then, not counting the visit to the Badlands. The little band of changelings that had a room full of Sapphire Shores posters and paraphernalia was odd, but not a bother, at least. A bother, though, he was certain this assignment would continue to be until it could be resolved, or Luna simply grew bored with it.

Yes. A bother, and nothing more.

He arrived in a large room almost all the way across the palace from his chambers, the area designated for tonight’s performance, not long after leaving the sanctity of his questionably safe room. Briefly pondering the merits of holding entertainment in different rooms of the castle all the time, Blueblood supposed this one in particular had some kind of relation between tonight’s performance and it’s large windows reaching up to the arched ceiling about 30 meters over his head, held up by six marble pillars, but could only guess what all that extra empty space was going to be used for, if anything at all.

It seemed equally likely that Celestia was just trying to make the most of all this regal architecture. No sense in having a whole castle if half the rooms are never used and it’d probably be embarrassing to admit so much was constructed for no reason at all. On that note, the prince directed his eyes to the floor at the far end of the room to see a silver-maned, light-blue mare in a pointy purple hat and cape adorned with stars sorting out boxes of various shape and size. ‘Showmare’, he thought, That looks like a pony one might see on stage, I suppose. He approached her at a relaxed pace while trying to discern just what she was doing with the boxes.

The Great and Powerful Tri-No!, the illusionist corrected herself with a light shake of her head, Just Trixie! You absolutely cannot afford another slip-up if you want to convince anypony you’re not still a fraud, a monster, or both! Just. Trixie… Or, maybe just ‘I’? I need to find the right tools for tonight... Trixie stood among the boxes of props she’d been offered for use in tonight’s performance, trying to decide which of the many, many objects she could use in her show. ‘Great and Powerful’ had been a fantastic stage name up to this point, but to continue addressing herself in that way would make whether or not she had learned anything from her encounters with Twilight Sparkle that much more dubious to those that hadn’t forgiven her for all that had happened when she’d had the Alicorn Amulet.

Ohh, ponies would smile and say it was all in the past, but she saw the odd looks, the suspicious glances, and the outright glares some gave her, and that was fine. Trixie knew there was more to it than saying sorry, even calling herself ‘The Great and Apologetic Trixie’ raised more eyebrows than she was comfortable with. She’d been doing her best to be nice, to avoid gratuitous boasting ever since not being thrown in a dungeon forever after the Amulet had been removed, and so far, it seemed to be paying off. She’d nearly had a heart attack when she’d received royal summons, but to her reinforced shock, she not only didn’t need to flee Equestria, she had been asked to do a show at the bucking palace!!

This was a big chance, for both her reputation and her career, she was certain, so Trixie woke up early this morning to set up the best damn show she’d ever done! …When a royal servant offered her the full range of props used in castle performances, though, she’d been flummoxed by the sheer range of things. Nearly invisible wires, thick curtains, sharpened swords, a variety of costumes, all kinds of dishes, every kind of ball you could think of, is that a plunger-

Trixie’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a stallion clearing his throat. Her head whipped up to see a particularly handsome white unicorn in a fine black coat... With an exceptionally long horn. He looks a bit like a guard without armor, apart from his face… Did they send me a helper? As he started talking, it occurred to Trixie that she’d heard of attractive ponies helping performers in places like Las Pegasus, but had never had a beautiful assistant herself.

She looked at him curiously, the question escaping her lips before she realized she was interrupting whatever he’d said in the last few seconds. “Are you here to assist me?” Trixie spoke in the first person without thinking about it. She felt proud, but kept a lid on it while awaiting his answer.

Blueblood blinked, more concerned with clarifying the reason for his presence than being cut off mid-sentence. That does sum up what I’ll be doing here... “Yes,” he said, nodding his head, “I’ve been directed to help you along with, err…” Glancing around the room, it appeared he was confused. “What exactly are you doing, Miss…?”

“Trixie,” she said, looking a little perplexed herself, “they sent you to help without a clue what to do?” That sounded a little…biting. She quickly forced a smile. “I-I mean, that’s okay, actually, I’m not quite sure exactly what I’ll be doing just yet!”

The two of them stood in silence a moment, the awkwardness growing in direct proportion to how much Trixie was forcing her grin to look friendly. She’d only been exploring her options with which to wow the princesses, she’d assumed at least two of the four would be in attendance, for about an hour before her new helper showed up.

She was just about to ask his name when he spoke up. “Right then,” he said in a relaxed tone with a small, affable smile, “I assume we should start by picking a plan of action then finding how best to go about it without much incident?”

Trixie nodded. “I have a vague idea for these.” She indicated the nearly-invisible wires with a hoof, being much easier to see when neatly bundled up than when stretched out somewhere. There was a hint of a smirk accompanying her next words. “Is levitation without magic common in Canterlot?”

Blueblood, though the showmare had no idea that was his name, shook his head. He’d hardly even seen pegasi that weren’t wonderbolts fly in Canterlot, let alone unicorns or earth ponies. Not that there were rules against it, per se, it was just something of a faux pas, he supposed, like pulling weeds at a garden party. The prince still wasn’t sure he’d believed Fancy Pants when the older stallion told him about that one…”It isn’t, which should make it all the more impressive, I suppose?”

Trixie smiled. “Alright, so we’ll set up the wires and think of something impressive to do, then wow the crowds in mid-air!” She rubbed her chin with a hoof, looking to the boxes of props. “Now what to put on a show with…?”

Trixie’s new assistant was perplexed. “In… Mid-air?”

She nodded, rifling through the nearest crate of props’ contents, lifting the entire box in her magic. “Mhm, string the wires to the pillars in here, then do the show while standing on them. At least partway through, I mean, it won’t have as much impact if we just start walking on air from the get-go. We’ll have to tie the wires very tightly to make sure they don’t wobble at all, or it’ll be obvious how we’re doing it.” She spoke quietly as she examined a slightly oversized top hat. “Going to have to make sure it isn’t too bright in here, either, shadows can give things away the audience might not have noticed.”

She certainly seems to know what she’s talking about, Blueblood thought, much more coherent than Photo Finish was with her work, too. “So,” he said, starting to look through the boxes himself in search of anything awe-inspiring, “what is it you normally do in these shows? It’d best to play to your strengths, I imagine?”

Trixie, in the middle of jabbing what appeared to be a beach ball made of tiny mirrors with a hoof trying to discern what it could be used for, guessed he had never seen one of her shows. “Stage magic, use of unicorn power to dazzle an adoring crowd.” She smiled a little, more ego than she was aware dripping into her voice. “Trixie’s illusions are second to none!”

“Illusions?” Trixie noted that while his tone was fairly neutral, he did not sound the least bit impressed. “You mean, making it look like things happen, not actually performing wondrous feats of-“

He was cut off by the showmare he had briefly forgotten he was supposed to be helping looking straight at him with what wasn’t quite a glare, but wasn’t far off the mark. “Are you saying there’s something wrong with illusions?”

Blueblood, feeling analytical, did not take the subtle hint. “Oh, not wrong,” he said, waving a hoof dismissively, “just, perhaps, sub-par?”

A twitch of Trixie’s eye also went unnoticed as he examined what appeared to be a chalice adorned with what might well have been real jewels.

“I mean, ponies see amazing magic already, from the sun being raised by one powerful being, to things like the Crystal Heart or Discord’s dealings. Compared to that, a flashy lightshow just doesn’t sound all that impressive. Even pegasi manipulating the weather has a certain majesty to it, wouldn’t you say Miss Tri-“

It was at this point he caught sight of the seething mare, a psychotic little smirk on her face as she lifted one of the smaller boxes with her magic about half a meter over his horn.

Her voice was a harsh whisper spoken through gritted teeth. “I’ll show you a lightshow!” She slammed the box on his head, the cardboard rupturing just enough that it stuck, giving the appearance that he had a cardboard box for a head, his horn protruding from the top.

Blueblood stood still, the impact hadn’t hurt, but it was dark now. What did she just do? “Uhm,” voice came muffled by the cardboard and props he was speaking through, “Alright, I’m not sure what’s happened, but if this is one of your illusions, well-played.”

Trixie, with the awareness somewhere in the back of her head that assaulting somepony sent to help her with a box of props might get her in serious trouble, was too busy containing her laughter at the silly sight of the box-headed stallion, struggling to speak, but unable to do so without giggles. She put a hoof over her mouth, but it was no good as she broke into unrestrained guffaws worthy of any pink party planner. After a few moments of her assistant stumbling around trying to figure out what was wrong, Trixie managed to pull herself together enough to help him, hoping her outburst wouldn’t come back to bite her.

“H-hold still,” she said through residual giggles, “there’s a box on your head.”

“Oh. Why is there a box on my head?”

“Uhmm,” She was faintly thankful he couldn’t see her face at that moment, her coat didn’t hide blushing well, “I maaaaay have overdone it with that, uh, trick.” Tugging at the box with her magic, she found it to be stuck on pretty good.

Feeling the cardboard pressing harder against his fur now, it was no longer a mystery to Blueblood what that sensation along his neck had been. “…You threw a box at me?”

Trixie lowered her head a little as she pulled harder to remove the cardboard one. “Sorry, sorry, I might have been a litt-“

Blueblood joined his magic to Trixie’s efforts to pop the box from his head. “That’s not a trick at all!”

She stared at him for a moment, perplexed at his statement… And why he now seemed to be wearing a thin black mask that only served to cover the fur around his eyes. Must have been one of the costume boxes.

Either not bothered or not aware of the things stuck to his head again, Trixie’s assistant continued, his facial expression neutral, as though explaining something to a slow-witted foal. “Anypony can throw something, bored colts do it all the time, particularly around windows for some reason, that’s even less impressive than illusionary magic.”

Calm, Trixie, she thought, stay calm, he’s probably just messing with you, wants to see if you’ve really changed. She laughed quietly, forcing a fairly convincing smile and suppressing the urge to throw something heavier at him. “I guess you’ve heard of Trixie before?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Hm? Whom are you referring to…?”

For some reason, that irked her terribly.

His eyes widened a moment. “Oh, right, that’s your name!”

Anger.

He brushed his chin with a hoof in recollection. “You know, I have heard of another Trixie, but from what I hear, she was kindof, what’s the word…?”

Rising.

“Fake!” He grinned, pleased to have found the syllable he sought, not noticing his companion’s change in demeanor. “She was said to have claimed to be able to best anypony at anything, but never actually made an attempt, just made her competition look foolish or something, and was bested by Princess Twilight with real magic!”

Trixie’s teeth ground together, the smile long-gone. It was roughly now that the most obnoxious, insufferable pony she’d ever had to work with seemed to take note of her facial expression.

“Uhm…” He smiled sheepishly. “You wouldn’t happen to be… that… Trixie?”

The showmare had little semblance of coherent thought at that moment, only fury.

Nostrils flaring, she lunged at him with her bare hooves, but he’d instinctively ducked the moment she’d moved, sending her over him and into another box that had been opposite her position. She quickly rose from it, now wearing a black, ragged cape, pirate captain’s hat, and eyepatch. Her unconcealed eye shot about the room for a second before landing on the sword props. Not caring to check if they were real or not, she seized a long cutlass in her magic and started furiously swinging it at the irritating stallion whose name she would just have to guess when it came time to leave something on his tombstone.

Blueblood, considerably frightened, but having remembered he was supposed to be helping this mare put on a show, needed a way to calm her down, quickly. He ducked and dodged her sword, desperately stammering out pleas that she put the weapon down, whether it was really dangerous or not.

This seemed to do nothing but amuse Trixie, as she’d started giggling madly. I’m screwed now, I know I am, she thought, the hopelessness of her situation sinking in as she dug herself deeper, but at least before my temper gets me sent to the moon, turned to stone, or whatever else they can dream up, I’ll have this moment to remember! She continued to swing and swipe at the pony that had, whether he’d meant to or not, gotten on nearly all of her nerves at once.

The prince in the dark mask, missing only a rose in his teeth to look like the hero of some romantic adventure novel, ran behind one of the pillars to escape his pirate-garbed adversary, if only for a few seconds. He glanced to the large, heavy chamber doors, which he’d closed behind him when he entered the room. No time, even if I made it to the doors, I’d need a few seconds to get them open and slip out. He couldn’t think of a spell at this moment that could deflect a physical blade, he looked around, spying a box near his hooves, one of the nearby props would surely serve as adequate protection!

Trixie leapt around to his side of the pillar, Blueblood seized the nearest object in his magic and deflected the blow from Trixie’s cutlass with a large candy cane, which immediately shattered. He hastily stepped to the side to dodge an overhead slash, grabbing another item and swinging it at Trixie’s sword, he found that it was indeed a real, sharpened blade as a rubber chicken was cut neatly in two.

Trixie’s deranged grin seemed to tremble for a second, but Blueblood was too focused on finding something sturdier to defend himself with to notice, caught sight of a sword of his own in another box, and brandished it in his magic, a rapier!

The two stood in silence for a moment, as the prince pointed his weapon at her, Trixie spoke in a challenging growl.

“En Garde!”

Neither of them were at all trained in the use of swords, as the necessity for ponies to wield weapons outside The Guard had been slim to none in most parts of Equestria, and even guards seemed to do it more as a formality than anything. That said, both unicorns held their own rather well, all things considered, blades swinging and tinging off one another in a flurry of metallic motion and sound, even if they were mostly just frantic flails to deflect other frantic flails.

This continued for a while, and the strangest thing about the two, one dressed as a dashing fairytale prince with a stylish black suit and roguish mask, the other a dread pirate in a tattered cape, dark eyepatch, and hat emblazoned with a skull and crossbones, was not, to the surprise of both, their wardrobe or the circumstances that had led each to where they were at this moment…

Trixie spoke louder than usual. “Ho! HaHa! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!”

“Trixie?” Blueblood said, raising his voice to be heard over the cacophony of their battle.

Her flurry of sword movements didn't stop. “Yes, Assistant?”

“We could easily be killed if one of us slips up, don’t you think?” He’d really wanted to flee, but with his magic focused on fending off Trixie’s cutlass and her not letting up on the assault for even a moment, none of his usual escape spells seemed viable.

“It seems likely, yes!”

“Then why are you smiling?”

She was grinning ear to ear. Blades not slowing down, Trixie giggled. “Because even though Trixie will most likely be banished, executed or both after this, this is actually pretty fun! Don’t you think so?”

The prince’s grin wasn’t as enthusiastic, but he did seem to be enjoying the spectacle this morning had become, it was certainly exciting! “Well, perhaps, but perhaps we could just slow down and talk a minute? What makes you think you’d be banished, executed, or-“ he leapt backward to get some distance, Trixie not following him. She wouldn’t need to in order to float her sword close enough to swing at him, but it was the principle of the thing. “-anything of the sort?”

Trixie kept her smile, but her light-violet eyes misted slightly. Dammit, Blueblood thought, not again!

She managed to keep her voice contained. “Trixie has done horrible things…” Her sword lowered slightly, but she still very clearly had a grip on it. “Trix-I, have been trying, really hard, to be good, since I got another chance, but, this?” She gestured to herself and Blueblood with the cutlass. “This is the last straw, I’m done-for now.” She lowered her head, her pirate hat and ragged cape beginning to glow with magical light for a moment as they shifted to look like her purple pointy hat and cape again, though the eyepatch remained as it was.

Blueblood, lowering his own weapon, spoke softly. “For what, having a bad day?”

Trixie raised her eye a little, just enough to catch sight of him.

“Probably a few more preceding this one, I would venture a guess,” he continued, “but surely you did nothing so damning as to really earn Auntie’s contempt?”

Trixie didn’t know whom he’d meant by ‘Auntie’, but she had an increasingly cold feeling in her stomach. “I-I attacked you, with a cutlass!” She hadn’t forgotten why, but no amount of thoughtless comments warranted having a sword stuck between your eyes.

The pony in the thin, black mask only chuckled, a wry smile on his face. “You’d be surprised what one can get away with in terms of assaulting royalty," it honestly seemed more likely that Luna would hold him accountable for the sword fight, "I don’t think the guards so much as lifted a hoof when I was being chased through the streets by a lunatic the other day. Their collective day off, I suppose.”

Trixie blinked, her insides feeling a little colder. Did he just say-

“But really,” he went on, dropping the rapier entirely, “these things only tend to be as much as one makes them to be, and since it’s generally less trouble to just let it go once transgressions are over and done with, I usually don’t hold a grudge.” He grinned almost mischievously. “In fact, you might say it’s wisest to let the problem disappear!”

There was a long silence, luckily it seemed none of the boxes contained live crickets.

Trixie spoke first, face expressionless. “…What?”

The prince smiled sheepishly. “Y-you know, ‘disappear’? Isn’t that a popular illusionist trick?”

It was about two minutes into an awkward silence that Trixie started to smile, giggle quietly, and laugh even harder than she had a little while ago, Blueblood joining in more due to how contagious it proved to be than finding his own lack of knowledge of stage magician tricks to be amusing.

Their mutual laughter was interrupted by a knock at the door, quickly followed by the colorful, flowing mane of Princess Celestia peeking into the room, her head joining it. She looked to the pair of unicorns and smiled, paying no mind to Trixie’s hasty bow. “Hello Nephew, Trixie, how are things coming along with the magic show for tonight?”

Trixie, her horn nearly touching the floor and not able to look directly at the sovereign, Or is it co-sovereign? Does that make it not technically a sovereign anymore…? of Equestria at that moment, froze entirely. She’d heard of Celestia’s nephew, faintly wondering if that made the Night Princess his aunt as well, along with Mi Amore Cadenza … And more recently, Twilight Sparkle? Regardless, she had never actually gotten a look at one of the magazines passed around by giggling fillies about the Most Eligible Bachelor in Equestria™ to know what he might look like, but heard some rumors since arriving in Canterlot… Rumors she was already questioning, given how little he seemed to be shouting at her, having her seized by the guards, taken away, and possibly being banished -not literally, but made very much not welcome by the nobility- from the city. She dared to glance at the prince, who was confidently telling his aunt that the show would be something to see indeed. This is Prince Blueblood?

With a smile and a nod, the princess’s head retreated from the doorway before immediately reappearing. “Oh, and be sure to get something to eat, I didn’t see you at breakfast, Nephew!” And with that, she departed, tons of important princess things to do, no doubt.

It was roughly at this point both unicorns realized they hadn’t eaten anything all morning. Blueblood turned to Trixie, who, not having actually seen Celestia’s departure, was still bowing. He cleared his throat to get her attention, she glanced at him, then the door, and regained a normal stance. They stared at one another a moment, particularly at their respective eyewear, before noncommittally pointing a hoof at the other, speaking in unison.

“You’ve got something on your-Oh? Right, thanks.” They removed the eyepatch and thin mask at the same time before another awkward silence ensued, but didn’t last quite as long as the others, with Trixie’s help.

“So…”

“Lunchtime starts in another hour or so, perhaps we could do a bit more here before setting off for the dining hall?”

Trixie had hoped to sample food worthy of the princesses during her stay at the castle… Having apparently incurred no horrible consequences for attacking Celestia's surprisingly forgiving family, she beamed. “Let’s set up a show, then!”

They returned to rummaging through props as they had been pre-sword fight for a while before Trixie was struck with inspiration involving a treasure chest, a hidden trampoline, a bowling ball she would enchant to look like a giant pearl, and one of the trees around the back of the castle. Oh, yes, she thought as she relayed the plan to Blueblood, this may just be Trixie’s finest performance yet!

They spent a while tying the nearly-invisible wires to the pillars at various lengths and angles for the airborne swordfight, came up with a few sets of flashy motions with the cutlass and the rapier, and set the stage for the big show before locking the chamber door -Trixie had been given a key for the day- and setting off in search of something to eat.

Making their way to the dining hall, they were only about 10 minutes early for lunch. Waiting, the two got to talking, quietly, so as not to spoil the surprises for anypony that happened to be within earshot, about plans for the show. The discussion continued well into the meal, where they sat nearly isolated on the far end of the long table. Blueblood was far too accustomed to the fine works of the palace chefs to really take note of meal quality, but Trixie made a variety of pleased sounds throughout the meal whenever her mouth wasn’t in motion regarding the show. Both agreed that getting the sword movements down should probably be the first thing they do, Trixie made it clear that she was not willing to sacrifice blood, or worse, to put on a performance. She mumbled something about it not being that kind of act as they finished eating and headed back to the large room with the pillars and boxes of props.

Once they’d gotten some suitably showy moves choreographed, the two of them set up the stage and moved all the boxes of things they weren’t using off to the side of the room. The trickiest part of their preparations was practicing the sword routines while staying balanced on the wires and remembering where each of the walkable lines began and ended without stopping to carefully look for them. Luckily, Trixie seemed to know the slow-falling spell too. After a few hours, they were all ready for the big show.

---

“So tell us old chap, how did it go?”

Fancy Pants took a bite of his croissant as he awaited an answer, Fleur De Lis leaning happily against his shoulder.

On the other side of the little table in The Gilded Gourmet, Blueblood shrugged. “Honestly? It’s a touch difficult to discern. The crowd cheered even when I leapt to the wrong wire and we had to improvise a little until Trixie found an adjacent one in just such a position that we could perform the rest of the movements without worry of cutting one another’s wires by mistake. Or eachother.” Shuddering slightly, he levitated another small bundle of hayfries to his mouth.

It had been a few days since he had been Trixie’s assistant and was having lunch with one of the few ponies he could tolerate in Canterlot, plus a few hanger-ons, sharing the abridged version of the story. Luckily, one of those hanger-ons wasn’t covered in frosting this time. Unluckily, the other one had attached herself to him as they’d been seated.

Despite the noblemare at his side, makeup so thick he couldn’t tell if her very pale green coat just had no color in the fur around her face, bright blonde mane done up in a bun, and a dress that said ‘Somepony probably died to pay for this thing’, the prince smiled. “Though they positively roared when the bowling ball-pearl appeared from under the ‘pirate’s’ cape.”

Things had gone well with Trixie’s magic show. After raising the moon, Luna had likely attended to make sure he hadn’t skimped out on the task she’d set him to that morning, but there were a few times he’d caught sight of her cheering and clapping her hooves like a filly as the show went on. The sight might have been strangely adorable if not for the fact that he’d needed to stay focused for his part in the performance.

“Handsome and talented,” the mare clinging to Blueblood’s side cooed, “you’re truly amazing, my prince…”

He knew this wasn’t the first time this particular crown-chaser had latched onto his royal person, but he could not for the life of him remember her name whenever it might have come up. This, he believed, while a minor faux pas, was a silver lining, as not remembering somepony’s name usually seemed to agitate them… Or make them think he was playing hard-to-get. Very silver lining, he thought.

He'd long ago learned that most of those that approached him did so for one of three reasons:

They wanted money, be it in the form of patronage or favors for a "friend".

They wanted status, hoping to gain prestige and popularity through proximity to "important" ponies. It was a problem Fancy Pants seemed to have even worse than Blueblood himself, yet infuriatingly never seemed bothered by, always guiding his followers like a maestro does an orchestra.

And finally, they wanted a ring, everything affiliated with the title of Mrs. Blueblood, be it real or not. The one attached to him right now was almost certainly one of this last category.

Before he could think up a way to indirectly insult her, Fancy Pants spoke up, his oddly infectious cheer as vibrant as ever. “Sounds like it was a smashing performance, Blueblood my boy, and very kind of you to give that lone showmare a helping hoof.” Fleur nodded gently in agreement, but for a moment, he appeared to be slightly puzzled. “I must ask, though, whatever so inclined you to partake in such a thing? I’ve not known you to be so, shall we say, adventurous?”

Blueblood didn’t need to look at Whatever Her Name Was to know she was looking at him with a twinkle in her eye now.

“Real sharpened swords at a height great enough for the fall to surely be at least quite painful,” Fancy continued, Glittery Dress deflating as the conversation took a turn away from where her mind had taken it, “I dare say, it sounds like something straight out of the works of A. K. Yearling, good show!”

A. K. Yearling, the prince pondered, I forget which series she was involved with… The Cthuclop Mythos? Harry Trotter? Bridle and Prejudice? I think it had something to do with-oh! Adventurous, he said, that was almost definitely Daring Do.

“Mm, yes,” he uttered, “I suppose.”

Truth be told, the climactic clashing of blades in the shadows above the audience, Trixie in her pirate garb and him looking the part of the heroic royal trying to retake what she had stolen, had made him feel more alive, if only for a little while. He remembered the dream he’d had featuring the poster-pony of adventure herself purporting to be his mother, calling him to a life of danger and excitement, and truth be told… He wasn’t sure he was completely against the idea.

It had been fun, really, not terribly safe, but fun! Part of him wanted to do something crazy like that again, another part of him knew he had duties to attend to, social functions to appear at-nothing’s coming up for a while-tasks to complete whenever his aunts should come up with them-Luna congratulated me for a job well done and they can contact me rather quickly any time-an assortment of rich, but apparently not rich enough mares and yes-ponies to contend wi-oh bother this nonsense, I’m going in search of adventure! He’d traveled the world, certainly, but things almost always went rather uneventfully, with the help of his usual three security ponies. I’ll, I don’t know, pack a bag of tools and the like, maybe go explore a region nopony’s ever been to, should I bring my guards, or go it alone and-

It was at this point he noticed the greenish-white hoof waving in front of his face. “Yoo-hoo? Prince Blueblood?” Nameless Noblemare #74 was smiling at him with eyes half-lidded. “Does that mean you accept?”

He blinked, looking at Fancy and Fleur as if hoping the unheard proposal would be made clear in their eyes. All he could tell was that they both seemed uncomfortable. “Err,” he began, answering the question as eloquently as he could in these situations. “No thank you, I could probably buy one myself.”

The other three at the table went wide-eyed with shock. This was all he needed to know his answer had been one of many wrong ones.

“B-buy one?!” Sputtered Fleur.

“I say, dear prince,” Fancy Pants added hesitantly, “that seems… distinctly off, doesn’t it?”

Better to come clean now, probably. “Sorry,” Blueblood muttered, “was lost in thought.”

“T-that’s alright,” Makeup Blondie said, looking considerably uncomfortable with her eyes resting anywhere but on him, “I’ve actually got to be going now, fare thee well, Prince, Mr. Pants, Whateveryournameis, bye!”

Never had the three of them seen somepony move that fast in clothes that expensive. Fleur might ordinarily have made a sour face at being identified as just an accessory, but it didn’t matter right now, she was with her Cheri, whom, given a heart-felt discussion they'd had a few days back she held no doubt at this point still cared about her.

It was also the first, perhaps the second time the prince had driven a pony of her sort away while fully meaning to, and with no idea how he did it. He was weighing the pros and cons of asking what her request had been when he’d noticed the awkward silence had become crushingly heavy.

“Ssssoo,” he prodded, “What have you been up to, Fancy Pants?”

The mustachioed gentlecolt regained his usual calm grin. “Oh, I had a most fascinating day earlier this week, a game of chess with the Princess of the Night! Using actual ponies as the pieces!”

Blueblood would form plans for his next adventure later, but this sounded interesting…

Author's Notes:

Celestia really did just want to make the most of the architecture. You ask ponies to build you a castle just big enough for your needs as their ruler and they make, well, a PALACE. It seemed like such an indulgent waste at the time…
If you’re wondering what Fancy was talking about at the end there, I’d refer you to the comics, micro-series #10. :3

Chapter 7: Operation H.T.T.G.F.B.

8:00p.m. Club Canterlot.

Never, he suspected, had such a simple, unassuming name been used to identify the sort of scandalously wild parties held within it’s walls. Loud music, colorful lights, some of them in the form of little sticks of no apparent purpose. Similarly, never had he suspected that he’d venture into such a place of his own free will in search of Canterlot’s most notorious punk pony, DJ PON-3, for anything other than to arrest her in Celestia’s name.

Not that that was probably a long list, he supposed, trying to work out the exact pronunciation of the mare’s name. DeeJay Pohn-three? Pon-EEE? Whatever, I understand that’s just a stage name anyway. Now if I could only remember her actual name… Searching his memory in vain, he approached the entrance and was stopped by a burly hoof to his chest, attached to a much burlier dark orange, purple-maned earth pony in a black shirt and sunglasses, despite the sun having been lowered for the night.

“You got I.D.?” He asked in a voice that sounded masculine, but a tad nasally, not so much as looking at Blueblood, just staring straight ahead.

Got a few guesses as to how this might play out, the out-of-place noblepony thought, perfectly styled mane and especially elegant black tailcoat with golden trim and a dark blue cravat looking pristine and presentable. One had to make a good first impression on one they’d hope would help them do something reckless and exciting, after all.

He gave a winning smile and spoke as he did any time he’d needed to impress a commoner; refined, but fairly forceful in tone. “I am Prince Blueblood, if you’d kindly step aside and allow me into your establishment-“

The bouncer, that was what Blueblood was pretty sure ponies who stood outside places not letting others in either were called when they didn’t bear armor of the royal guard, snorted loudly. “Yea, an’ I’m the Element’a Laughter, Ha, Ha, Ha.”

Smile replaced with a look of regal indignation, he raised an eyebrow. “You don’t believe me?”

“Oh no,” the bulky stallion who likely ate entire cartons of eggs each morning said with not a hint of sincerity, “we gets princes and princesses down ‘ere all th’a time, think I threw a ‘Prince Blueblood’ all th'a way across th’a street just a couple nights ago.” He reached up with a hoof to lower his shades just enough to show his eyes. “You wouldn’t happen ta’ be that Blueblood, would ya?”

The actual Prince Blueblood supposed white-coated unicorn colts weren’t terribly uncommon in this city and that some were bound to be the sort to try to gain entry to a night club using his name. Still, he didn’t back down.

“No,” he replied evenly, “I’m the Blueblood that Princess Celestia herself sends when she needs a problem solved here in the city,” Anywhere, actually, whenever she doesn’t want to send Princess Twilight and the rest, but he need not know that. Levitating Celestia’s royal seal from his coat pocket and floating it where he was sure it could be seen, sunglasses or no, he made sure his voice sounded cold. “You don’t want to be a problem… Do you?”

The bouncer’s dark orange coat grew a little paler as his eyes widened, his speech short of breath. “Y-you, you here about them reports? I swears there ain’t nothin’ in th'a basement, we ain’t even GOT a basement, really ‘s more like a closet down some steps, I-“

Not losing any of his cold stare, the prince smiled just a little. “If you’d kindly step aside and allow me into your establishment…?”

After a hastily stammered affirmative and apology, Blueblood was casually trotting into Club Canterlot. Lying about having royal duties to attend to as a means of gaining entrance to a such a place was hardly something one of his position should be doing, he noted, but it seemed like he was on the right track for kicking off an adventure, even if a stern talking-to from either or both of his aunts awaited him at the end of it.

Looking around, he quickly decided against regular visits to this place. The loud, erratic noise that apparently passed for music was almost deafening, ponies staggered about while others danced in a manner not befitting of anypony attending a civilized event, those little glowing sticks were being waved about by some, and the overall lighting was just dim enough to give what would undoubtedly be an eerie feeling if not for everything else. The low light didn’t make finding the DJ much easier, either, but by the description he’d been given, she should stand out a little even here.

White unicorn mare, two-toned blue mane, and glasses with violet lenses, cutie mark’s a bridged eighth note… Now where are you? He moved slowly through the club, dodging what were most likely drunken ponies and horribly uncoordinated dancers as he searched for the pony whom he might have been in for an awkward situation with if he couldn’t pronounce her name right. As he did, he noticed more and more gazes following him, some full of fear, some full of contempt, confusion, excitement, and a few that were probably just full of cheap liquor. The prince was thankful when the loud music stopped, but everypony in the room seemed to be looking straight at him at that moment.

Suppose I do make something of an impression dressed this way in a place with no dress code. The room was nearly silent, only murmurs between club-goers and clinking of glasses to be heard, but he still raised his voice to be audible to everypony present. “I understand this facility is frequented by one DeeJay Pon-Three,“-pleasebetherightwaytosayit-“could anypony be so kind as to point me in her direction?”

Long silence, apart from slightly louder murmurs and worried looks. It probably didn’t help that Blueblood gained entry through vague intimidation.

Just as he opened his mouth to say something reassuring, though truth be told ‘there’s nothing to worry about’ was rarely a calming phrase, a new song started up, it’s volume amplified by the preceding silence. He looked around to see everypony returning to what they’d been doing, as if he’d simply ceased to exist. Before he had time to be offended by this possible rudeness, a loud thud sounded from directly in front of him. Eyes immediately drawn forward, he was face to face with a pony of exactly the description he’d heard of the infamous punk pony.

Her face, though difficult to read through her spectacles, showed a toothy little grin, head gently bobbing to the beat of the noise assaulting the room. Had she been on the ceiling…? The moment he began to look upward to see what she might have been hanging from, she spoke.

“Yo, ’sup?”

He cleared his throat. “DJ PON-3?”

She chuckled. Blueblood couldn’t discern whether that meant he was pronouncing it wrong or not. “Name’s Vinyl Scratch, most just call me Vinyl. So what’s this about?”

Her head didn’t stop bobbing the entire time she spoke, her voice slightly coltish, but laid-back. It was odd, but told him he had the right pony. Just when he opened his mouth to speak, she held up a hoof.

“Wait! Noisy out here, back room, follow me!”

With that, she wrapped a forehoof around one of his and almost literally dragged him across a busy dance floor and through a door to a smaller area, thankfully quieter and better-lit. Turning to face him, her smile had disappeared, replaced with an almost angry look, and her head wasn’t bobbing anymore. “Alright, what’s goin’ on? One of your noble friends ask you to shut this place down? Get rid of the ‘blight on their perfect city’? We got every right to do whatever in here so-“

He held up a hoof. “Please, calm down.”

Vinyl’s shoulders seemed to lose some tension, but her face was still somewhere between defensive and enraged. Paperwork, she thought, I bet this is about paperwork, some form I forgot to fill out right, something that didn’t get signed enough times, and they sent the snootiest stallion in the city to go all rules-are-rules on us! Think, Vinyl, think! She figured she had kept her cool well enough to stop anypony watching from freaking out as much as she was inside. The prince, they sent the bucking PRINCE!! Somepony seriously wants this place closed for good... She wondered if it had been some noble she or one of the other regulars had offended, if the building was just in the way of somepony’s pet project in city renovation, or if Club Canterlot was ‘an affront to Her Highness’ again. Celestia herself had visited once, and even if she didn’t stay long, she was totally having fun! It didn’t matter, she’d dealt with stuff like this before, always kept the music playing, and she’d deal with it now, it was just a matter of finding out exactly why he’d showed up and-

Blueblood was smiling. “I understand you’re the sort of pony that gets involved in all manner of inane, possibly dangerous antics every now and then?”

Vinyl could only tilt her head quizzically.

“Rumors of a surprisingly large band of foals in windigo suits being led through the streets on Nightmare Night to ‘pillage for candy’, as they were apparently instructed to shout and howl to every residence they stopped at, a much bigger ‘windigo’ playing eerie music nearby as they went?”

It was just a little fun for Nightmare Night, she thought, not like anypony got hurt.

“Tales of a certain unicorn mare sliding down the steepest street in the city in a ‘borrowed’ large serving tray that went missing from a royal banquet?

Oh, come on, those things look like they’re made for riding on!

“And I heard something about a fully-functioning noise cannon?”

Vinyl grinned, worries about impending bureaucratic doom momentarily forgotten. “Bass cannon!” Got the idea from Pinkie Pie during that Changeling attack… Good times!

The prince smiled amicably. “Then you’d know how to help somepony in search of excitement?”

After holding perfectly still for a moment, Vinyl blushed. “W-woah, hey, I know you might’a heard some rumors, but I’m NOT that kinda mare-"

Blueblood, also turning faintly red, shook his head. “No, no, not like that, adventure! Something senseless that might even get me seriously injured!”

The DJ was speechless.

“You know, like, uh…” He looked around, spying a slightly faded poster on a nearby wall sporting a white unicorn stallion with a wild red mane, one hoof on a microphone, the other extended to the sky, adorned with a spiked hoofband as his face depicted equal parts rage and exhilaration. Perhaps just madness. “Something this fellow might do?”

Vinyl regarded the figure with quiet awe before looking at Blueblood. “…F-Pain?”

“Pardon?”

She nodded toward the poster, her voice surprisingly quiet, almost reverent. “F-Pain, guy’s a rock legend, probably the one who founded this place back in the day… And…” That toothy little grin of hers returned. “You wanna do something like what he usually did?”

He nodded cautiously.

Her grin widened considerably before she whispered. “Awesome!”

---

Standing by the castle gate the next morning, Blueblood thought back to just what the hay had happened with Vinyl. All the barely-contained aggression she’d held towards him seemed to vanish under her excitement at whatever scheme she’d cooked up moments after looking at that poster. She was barely coherent as she and her range of excited hoof gestures told him she’d not only help him, but ‘make a callback to the golden age, Canterlot-style!’ She’d told him to meet her here around 10:00 A.M. for phase one of Operation Hit The Town, Going Full-Blast.

While he pondered the necessity of such a long title, he noticed the guard nearby was watching him suspiciously. Making eye contact, the well-armored pegasus spoke, face expressionless and voice deadpan. “Going out for cake again, Your Highness? Nice of you to try when they’re open.”

Blueblood, knowing full-well what he was referring to, rolled his eyes, tone slightly mocking. “Yes, I thought I’d try again while The Guard isn’t collectively out to lunch this time.”

The guard sighed. “I told you, we were patrolling the city as normal, your little chase scene went in between our routes at the perfect timing that nopony on duty saw anything but the confused ponies that saw you and that photographer.”

The prince was feeling too indignant to ask whether or not they’d actually done anything about the mare that chased him through town with a whip, but it soon didn’t matter, as he saw Vinyl Scratch trotting casually toward the castle gate.

When only about a meter away, she waved a hoof, grinning as he guessed she did any time she wasn’t getting angry at nobleponies. “Yo Princey, wuddup?”

Not paying any mind to the overly casual greeting, he gave small nod. “Good morning. You said there was a plan of some sort?”

She beamed. “Operation Hit The Town, Going Ful-“

“Yes, yes,” he interrupted, “I’m afraid I’ll need some details.” He knew it wasn’t polite to interrupt somepony else speaking, no matter how often it was happening to him as of late, but if last night was any indication, it might have been in his best interests to keep her speaking only when necessary. Luckily, Vinyl didn’t seem to mind.

She laughed, taking a step closer and wrapping a foreleg around his neck. “Awright, see, we’re gonna need a suit,” She began leading him through the castle gate, paying no mind to the fact that he was in fact, already wearing a suit, and eyeing her somewhat warily, “where do you keep your really spiffy stuff…?”

As the fairly reknowned punk pony and notoriously stuck-up prince made their way into the royal palace, close as old friends with no visible objection from either, the guard Blueblood had been talking to watched in silence, mouth agape at what he had just seen. Certain the gate could take care of itself for a minute, he shot off, somepony had to warn the Princesses…

---

“Here we are,” the Prince said proudly with a flourish, “the best-tailored suits in all of Equestria!”

Vinyl, looking over the variety of insanely expensive outfits in the prince’s closet, only shook her head a little. “Nah.”

Blueblood was speechless.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” She said apologetically, “They’re nice an’ all, it’s just…” She held out her forehooves in a vague, wavy kind of way for a moment before looking at him with a little frown. “Not it, y’know?”

Blueblood was a little irked, for a short list of reasons. “I very much don’t,” he said, fighting to keep from gritting his teeth at the mare who would dismiss the highest degree of clothing available, “perhaps you could clarify?”

Vinyl nodded a little. “Well, the look F-Pain was rockin’ was like, frillier, with ruffly things, even the cravat. You got anything, like…” She made little wavy gestures with a forehoof, “Ruffly?”

Blueblood, while faintly surprised she knew what a cravat was, was fairly certain he knew what she was talking about now, but it seemed… Off, somehow. He gave her a nod and a ‘follow me’ gesture before leading her to one of the old storage rooms.

---

“Alright,” he said a little exasperatedly, “here we are!” He pointed to a large trunk in the dark, dusty room of embroidered, though long-untouched boxes. Vinyl approached, rubbing a hoof on the surface to brush off the layers of dust.

“’Prince Blueblood the 50th’…” She gave him a confused sideways glance. “They number you guys? Are you like, cloned every generation to keep a unicorn with the royal blood around, just in case’a some ancient mojo that needs it for a world-saving super spell or something?”

Prince Blueblood the 52nd could only sputter for a moment. “I, wha, c-clone, what, I don’t even, no! What in the world gave you such an idea?!”

She shrugged, completely at ease. “I’unno, just seemed likely. What’s the number for then?”

Composing himself a bit, the prince cleared his throat to invoke a more dignified tone to answer this time. “The Royal Line of Blue stretches back almost a thousand years to Blueblood the 1st, we have been in the service of Her Royal Highness since before the Princess lived in Canterlot. I am Blueblood the 52nd, we are about to abscond with a possession of my deceased grandfather, Blueblood the 50th.” He gave her a quick, searching look, realizing he had to lower his muzzle again to see her barely containing laughter. “…Does that clear things up at all?”

She smirked. “You work hard to memorize that, Number Fifty-Two?”

It proved contagious. “All but the last part, that was sortof made up on the spot.”

Things were silent for a few seconds before they both started laughing uproariously. Opening the trunk when both caught their breath, the pair of unicorns saw several old, intricate, and well-preserved coats. All of them were the sort of old-fashioned that today, and likely even back then, one would wear if they simply wished to ooze a sense of superiority, to not so much as give anypony less than the princess herself, as there was only one back then, the time of day, each and every one no doubt worth a fortune.

Ruffly, too.

One such coat stood above the rest in terms of being the most overdone, outrageous, and honestly somewhat silly-looking suit either of them had ever seen. Being Canterlot ponies, this was indeed saying something. It had everything one could feasibly sew onto a suit and more, ribbons, tassels, buttons, and of course, ruffles where there absolutely didn’t need to be any, with needlessly intricate patterns woven into every square inch. On the back was a strange mass of curved wires resembling a model of the solar system complete with large gems cut into perfect spheres to serve as the planets, somehow set in such a way that the wearer’s movement wouldn’t be hampered in the slightest. No one part of the outfit was less garish and indulgent than any other, the thing positively sang ‘Look at me, I make Celestia look like a pauper!’

Vinyl nodded her head looking at their choice, the prince faintly ashamed of himself for letting the thought that she was planning to steal these suits for a quick bit enter his head. “Righteous… How’d you know there’d be a get-up like this in that box, though? It was the first one we checked!”

Blueblood chuckled. “Auntie used to tell me stories of my grandfather, how he was the ‘stuffiest, snobbiest, most pretentious pony’ she’d ever known.” Celestia being a Canterlot pony for a good many centuries, this too was indeed saying something. “I figured if anypony would have the sort of attire you were looking for, it would be him...” He tilted his head a little, looking at Vinyl. “Now what are we doing with it?”

Vinyl beamed again.

---

Standing atop a large parade float that looked like a dragon, the head and wings stretching out as though it were swooping through the skies, adorned with heavy speakers and a microphone, Blueblood was a little unsure of how he’d gotten into this situation. He was wearing a suit it had taken the two of them over 45 minutes to figure out how to put on properly, and Blueblood had worn some perplexingly complicated suits before!

The float itself stood waiting at the top of a long, gently inclined road around the back of the city, hardly anypony to be seen as the… Whatever they were doing was prepared. He called out to Vinyl, who was apparently rigging up wires to something on the back of the float.

“Where exactly did you acquire this thing...?”

She called back over her shoulder. “I know a guy!”

“Fair enough… So what are we doing again?”

Apparently finishing up whatever she had been doing -or maybe not, but oh well- Vinyl leapt towards the prince, landing just next to him on the top of the Float-Dragon’s large, synthetic head. Grinning, she put a hoof around his neck. “Awww yea, here we go! Ok, when I was a little filly, my mom brought me to this hoofball game-“

“That’s a sport?”

She shrugged. “I’unno, they use hammers and stuff. Anyway, for the halftime show there was this colt, dressed in a ruffly old coat on a wicked lookin’ float singing his heart out about…” She scratched her head with a hoof, jostling her glasses slightly, “Something, that’s not important, the important thing is it. Was. Awesome!” She let go of him, using her hooves for emphatic gestures. “The music, the noise, the spirit! It was so intense, I got my cutie mark just watching it!”

Blueblood raised an eyebrow at this, but she went on.

“Then, mom told me after the game that if I liked it so much, there was a stallion who made heavy, rockin’ music like that and that what we saw at the game was probably a homage to him; F-Pain!” Her smile, he was certain, couldn’t get much wider. The best word he could find for her demeanor at the moment was ‘fangirlish’. It was a good word when describing some who came to see Celestia in person for the first time. “I listened to all his stuff, and been livin’ the dream every day since then! I don’t usually play F-Pain’s work at the club,” she added with a slight frown, “times change an’ all, but still, the spirit lives on! Today!” She pointed a hoof directly at the slightly confused noblepony. “Through you!”

“…Come again?”

She nodded, shifting into the consistent head-bob-and-grin combo he’d first seen her with. “I’ll supply the tunes, you sing something from the heart, we’ll Hit The Town, Full! Blast!”

Blueblood was pretty sure he understood now, F-Pain had done something like this decades ago, they were going to replicate the deed by riding a float with a fierce-looking dragon on it, blaring aggressive music, down the street as he sang in place of the legendary musician. So that’s why she wanted to dye my mane orange! Blueblood had, of course, vehemently rejected the idea, no matter how many times F-Pain supposedly dyed his from concert to concert. Luckily, Vinyl remembered F-Pain had gone blonde a few times, so she let it slide.

So there he stood, dressed in the most unbelievably, indescribably elaborate, showy suit he’d ever worn, borrowed without asking from a royal storage room, next to a crazy pony whose heart and soul was apparently noise, on a possibly stolen parade float equipped with speakers so as to broadcast their madness for several blocks, and they’d be riding it straight through the middle of the city, the suit obscuring his cutie mark and easily-washed warrior-pattern facepaint he’d been coerced into wearing the only things that might keep his own identity secret in all this. It was a slim chance that he wouldn’t be at all recognized, but after the Photo Finish incident, he wasn’t sure what kind of a reputation he had at this point. Vinyl, apparently long past caring what anypony might have had to say about her, was naked apart from her violet shades.

I think that sums up the situation…Vinyl hopped to the top of the float, where he guessed she was somehow controlling it from. The music started and the float began to move, Blueblood grinned.

Bring it on!

As the music picked up and ponies started poking their heads out of windows, the float approached more populated streets, which the prince, taking hold of the microphone telekinetically, took as his cue. Blueblood didn’t normally get involved when ponies burst into spontaneous musical numbers, but at that moment, there was a rush as more and more eyes rested on him in his grand, but impractical attire atop the synthetic monster, the music flowing into his senses like an adrenaline rush entering through his ears. From the heart, she said…

He could feel it, knew just the thing that’d been bouncing around in the walls of his mind, aching for release at just this moment, and started to sing, his voice just as aggressive as the music itself.

You will never escape their sight,
Watching you in the dead of night,
They rest in the shadows, maybe trees,
But they’re always watching you and ev-er-y pony!
They’ll follow you forever, silent, and unseen,
And when they pounce you’ll not have the time to scream!

Vinyl sat grinning ear to ear atop the float, feeling the same flow as Blueblood and much more familiar with it. She had no trouble joining in, even if she had no idea what he was singing about. She kept her voice eerie, but loud enough to be heard. This wasn’t her usual style, but she’d sung along to enough ‘creepy-vibes’ songs to get a feel for them.

You wait just a minute, when you’re all alone past dark,
And if you are not so careful, your neck will be their mark!
These creatures are always hungry too,
And they need to EAT just like you ponies do…

Oh, run for your life, but don’t hope to hide,
These creatures have a one-track mind!
Of all the beings that they could haunt,
It always seems to be ponies that they want!
Ev-ry night! They follow you and wait,
And one wrong move may be what seals your fate!

It was roughly at this point that the prince really started to get into the swing of things, starting with his head, mane following the motion. Vinyl, riding the float like she were on top of the world, moved her head and forelegs with the rhythm.

They’re stalking shadows in the night, tracking you by the smell of fright,
They won’t lose you, far or wide,

You see one coming, you’d better run inside!
They look, like ponies, they’re almost kin,
But getting too close, may just DO YOU IN!

If you can fly, they will fly much faster…
To turn your back, would be a disaster!

Among the crowds of confused/terrified nobleponies, not sure which part of the whole spectacle to be the most alarmed at, gathering in the streets were two that hadn’t made much progress in their quest of climbing the social ladder, but managed to hold onto their lot in life here in the city. Right now, however, the pair were having second thoughts about remaining in Canterlot. The two unicorns, a light-yellow mare with a faintly violet and white-streaked mane and a ruffly-maned grey stallion, stared in shock at the passing spectacle before the mare, Upper Crust, spoke.

I don’t know what this is about,
But it seems something dreadful’s out!

Jet Set followed his wife, as always.

I second that, we must take care,
These monsters could be anywhere!

It comes down, to just one simple thing,
When they pounce you won’t have time to scream!

Blueblood, Vinyl, and a dozen or so ponies now marching near the float as it moved through the middle of Canterlot’s most populated areas all sang in unison for a time.

In the night, in the night,
You cannot escape their sight!
In the night, in the night,
You cannot escape their sight!
In the night, in the night,
You cannot escape their sight!

Vinyl waved her forelegs in a grand, sweeping motion over the crowd, which immediately fell silent, leaving Blueblood to finish the song. He would never know how she did this.

It comes down, to just one simple thing,
When they pounce you won’t have time to scream!

The float continued its journey, everypony on the streets, even those that sang along, now standing silent as the music faded out, as if trying to decide whether or not that had just happened. Blueblood turned around to look at Vinyl, who sat on her haunches atop the float, gaze directed at the sky with an ear-to-ear grin plastered on what he could see of her face. “What do we do now?”

She didn’t seem to hear him. Shifting his gaze to the streets for a moment, he caught sight of a pair of golden-armored pegasai flapping toward them. Oh, he thought, I see how it is! Crazy ponies can run rampant and do what they like with the royal family, but when they’re conscripted to help us, it’s a crime! He figured what he was doing had to be illegal on some level, but there was no sense in coming this far just to call it quits when the authorities arrived. Besides, he was still just a little sore about nopony coming to his aid when he was being chased the other day and wanted to stick it to The Guard in a way other than some bureaucratic string-pulling. “Vinyl,” he practically barked, “how do we make this thing go faster?”

That seemed to get her attention. “Huh?” Her gaze returned to earth and the pony on the fake dragon’s head. “Faster…?”

With that, the float seemed to pick up speed, the guards flying closer having to hasten their pursuit to keep up. Blueblood grinned, impressed. “That’s it? You just say ‘faster’? That’s quite the application of magi-“

Vinyl shook her head, whatever high she’d attained from the musical number just moments ago wearing off. “Nah, man, I got no control of this thing.” She glanced to the sides of the float from where she was. “Wonder why it’s startin’ to move… so…”

She faced forward, looking right behind the prince as her sentence trailed off and he could tell even through her glasses that her eyes were wide with surprise. Turning around to see the source of her concern, the float rapidly accelerating, he noticed that the float was now headed down what was likely the steepest road in the city, avoided by carriage drivers at all costs. This would be the second time Vinyl had ridden down this particular slope at break-neck speeds.

The two of them could see the road seemed to end at a construction site, metal and stone strewn about in a manner not at all welcoming of high-velocity ponies or their dragon float. The part that most made Blueblood feel something akin to the rush he’d had when sword-fighting with Trixie the first time, however, was the long, wooden slab inclined in just such a way as to form a ramp that would lead them straight off a cliff. A very, very, very, high cliff. Why the capital of Equestria had been placed in such a precarious position to begin with, he would later have to ask Celestia.

“Hey, Princey?” Vinyl’s face showed a wide, though nervous grin, more fear in her voice than she might have liked to admit. “I know this seems like a pretty cool way to die, but we’re a both a little young!”

He looked back, trying his hardest to smirk. “I concur, it’s far too early to give up, don’t you think?”

She returned his not-quite confident grin as best she could with the wind rushing into her face. “Right!” Glancing ahead, she got a good look at the construction site they were hurdling towards, the guards nowhere near fast enough to catch up with them now. “Up ahead, see those two stacks of bricks?”

Blueblood glanced where Vinyl pointed a hoof, seeing a few tons of brick set in two piles spaced several meters apart. He nodded an affirmative to Vinyl.

“If we can steer this thing just right, the wings on the float should hit the bricks and stop the float. We’ll probably get thrown off, but the dirt’s gotta be softer than the dirt about a mile down, right?”

He winced, not fond of getting filth on his pristine coat for any reason, but it certainly sounded more appealing than being scraped off the ground with a spatula. Perhaps most of it will stick to this ludicrous suit instead? “Alright,” he said, “how do we steer?”

Vinyl grinned, actual confidence in her voice this time as her horn lit up. “Easy! We magic the wings to bend right and shift the direction, just like real ones!”

Together, they each gripped a wing telekinetically and pulled or pushed the protruding false limbs, slowly arcing the direction of the float. Unfortunately for Vinyl, having chosen to sit on the highest point on the float left her roughly at the altitude above the street clotheslines are often hung, and she was far too preoccupied with the wing she was moving to take notice of the one rapidly getting closer. With a startled cry, she hit it, the momentum spinning her several times and sending various articles of damp clothing to the ground below as she was quickly tangled in the line, eyes spinning in their sockets.

Unfortunately for Blueblood, he was still on a speeding float about to crash into a construction site if he didn’t correct its course quickly. Mustering all the power he could in his horn, he pulled on the wing he’d been gripping before to finish angling it as Vinyl had suggested. The float arched, slooooowly turning as it very rapidly closed in on the bricks. Blueblood’s eyes were wide, adrenaline coursing through him as he waited to be flung from the float and bounced off the ground like a ball.

He heard a tearing sound. The float didn’t even slow down. Whipping his head backward, he saw the wings lying on the ground, having been torn clean off from the impact with the stacks of bricks.

Oh. He thought.

The front of the float sped on for a second or two before colliding with some large, metal tubes that had been placed at the edge of the cliff past the brick stacks, crushing the dragon’s synthetic head and sending Blueblood, who hadn’t so much as been holding onto anything, careening over the edge. Looking down, he had only one thought as he gazed to the ground very, very far below, sailing further from the safety of Canterlot with each passing instant.

“I’m pretty high up right now…”

He fainted in mid-air.

Author's Notes:

This is probably my favorite chapter of the story, so I'm hoping the niggling voice in the back of my head that says 'the lyrics weren't altered enough to be acceptable' is just suspicion. I know what to replace the song with if it's not allowed, but it's so much less fun that way. I actually headbanged along when the writing was done. :D

A cravat is a fancy neck ruffle thing worn in a man’s coat. From what I understand, people don’t really wear them at all these days. Old-timey fanciness, I think.

I picture Vinyl as having the Nowacking voice. I know it’s annoying at first, but so’s Pinkie Pie, and I find both can grow on you. ^^

Chapter 8: Landing

Darkness.

“…-eep telling you, Darling, nopony in their right mind will want a party in the hospital.”

Voices.

A loud, bubbly one. “Maybe he hit his head? Then he’d be happy with a party, right?”

A quiet, familiar one. “Uhm, th-that doesn’t really seem like a good idea, I think, what if-“

The chipper voice sounded off with a gasp. “You’re right! If we wait until he wakes up, the cake might get all moldy!”

“Y-yes, that’s, uh… What-“

“There’s only one thing to do, go into his dreams and throw the party there! I’ll go see if Princess Luna’s still around!”

A more refined voice spoke this time, losing volume by the second with the sound of rapid hoofsteps. “Into his-?! Pinkie Pie, wait! Waking ponies is rude enough, this is just crossing a line!”

Blueblood tried to open his eyes, but was met with the awareness that he was numb all over. Have I died? Where am I? What was I doing? What was-

His rapidly growing torrent of questions was broken by a soft exclamation. “H-he’s waking up! Girls, girls!”

More quickly quieting hoofsteps, then silence.

He suspected wherever he was now, he was alone. Struggling in vain to move for a few moments, the sounds of a pair of ponies quickly approaching caused him to hold still, if only to hear what was going on better.

His silence was rewarded with the voice of Princess Twilight Sparkle. “Ok, the spell should be keeping him from feeling anything, but I don’t think he can move, either. Let me just…”

A spell was being cast. He felt warm, then tingly, then jabbed with several sharp lances of pain throughout his body. Letting out a pained grunt, he finally opened his eyes. The prince found himself in a hospital, Princess Twilight and Fluttershy standing at the foot of the bed he laid on, all of what he could see of himself in bandages. Memories came back now, the float, the bricks, the not slowing down at all, and the flying over the side of the cliff looking directly down to the countryside he would soon be splattered on. Is that what happened? Would explain the bandages, I suppose, but… He tried to speak, emitting only a strained groan as he was still getting his bearings.

Twilight was the first to respond, smiling somewhat nervously as she did. “Hello, Prince Blueblood… Um…” Her eyes shifted about for a moment. “How have you been?”

His eyes moved to his apparently broken body for a moment before returning to her, not sure if a raised eyebrow would be visible under the medical wrappings.

Twilight’s face colored faintly. “Rrrright, probably not great. Do you, uh, remember how you got here?”

He tried speaking again and was met with moderate success. “Parade… Float…?”

The two winged ponies looked a little confused for a moment before Fluttershy spoke up, a look of recognition flashing across her features. “Oh! That must be what Princess Luna was talking about, how he rode an old parade float off a cliff in Canterlot?” Her eyes flickered with fear for a moment as she glanced at Blueblood. “Oh, um, s-sorry to put it so, I mean you k-kindof did, um-“

“I know.” His voice was a little hoarse, but it seemed best to get that out before she started crying again. The rest came slower, it felt as though he hadn’t so much as moved his mouth in weeks. “Since then, fell down, still alive..?”

Twilight nodded. “You were found about a day ago on the outskirts of town.” She smiled a little, rolling her eyes. “Apparently Pinkie’s tail was twitching and she ran out to where you landed just in time.”

“I’m still not sure where she got the trampoline.” Fluttershy added quietly.

Pinkie Pie… That was the element of Loyalty, I think? It didn’t seem to matter at the moment, he was more concerned with the context of some of their statements, was he no longer in Canterlot? Could he honestly have gotten enough distance to land near another town?

“Where…?”

Twilight blinked. “Where? I-Oh! You’re in Ponyville Hospital. The trampoline didn’t stop you, but it sure slowed you down enough to lessen your injuries, the uh, bouncing, at least lessening your momentum before you sprung up again and hit the ground.” She smiled somewhat cautiously. “It’s, uh, really not as bad as it might look, believe it or not. I think the medical staff just wanted to make sure a member of the royal family got the best care possible, and…” She rolled her eyes, giggling a little. “Well, you know how it goes, huh?”

Indeed he did, ponies treating him as nicely as possible, doubly so when he was out on Celestia’s errands among more common folk, had always been one of the perks of his position, he thought. This time, however, being almost fully mummified seemed a little much. It was probably Princess Twilight’s spell that did more for me than the doctors’ efforts, but I can hardly ask them to keep up with an alicorn princess.

“Still,” Twilight continued, rubbing a hoof to her chin in thought, “It’s… Odd. The sheer height of the fall should have liquefied you, I looked at the trampoline and didn’t find anything unusual about it.” She looked at him, smiling with a hint of apology, probably about the ‘liquefied’ part. “I really don’t know how you survived, Blueblood, but we’re all glad you’re not hurt.” She blinked, looking at the royal in bandages from head to hoof. “Err, not badly hurt, I mean. You should be ok to walk by tomorrow, I think.”

There was an awkward silence as the three ponies present looked at one another.

“Oh,” Fluttershy said, eyes lighting up, “I was caught when I fell from Cloudsdale the day we got our cutie marks by a flight of butterflies, maybe they caught him too?” Some of the wonder left her eyes as they returned to the clear contradiction of her statement still present on the hospital bed. “Or, uhm, a-at least slowed him down…?” She seemed to blush slightly, though it was hard to tell when her face retreated behind her mane.

Butterflies, Blueblood thought, catching a falling pony? The very notion is absur-DID SHE SAY THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED?!

Twilight looked thoughtful. “It might have worked on a pegasus filly, but I think a grown stallion would be a lot heavier…” Suddenly, she beamed. “I think I know what I’m going to research this week!” She turned to her butter-yellow friend. “Fluttershy, do you think you could call some butterflies in the grove near your house?”

Fluttershy, ever eager to bring pony and animal, or insect, together, nodded happily. “Sure!” She started her way out of the room, glancing over her shoulder to call back to the injured noblepony. “Goodbye, Prince Blueblood, get well soon!”

Twilight following her, he was alone with his thoughts.

…Butterflies?

---

About half an hour later, according to the clock he’d been staring at on the adjacent wall, he heard approaching hoofsteps again for a moment before Princess Luna entered the room, her facial expression betraying nothing as she cantered in, eyes fixed on him.

Well, he thought, I suppose this will be the stern talking-to, perhaps worse. Hopefully she’ll at least remember we’re in a hospital before using that voice.

But Luna wasn’t here to shout. “Are you alright, Nephew?” Her tone was surprisingly gentle.

“Well,” he managed, “I hear… It’s not… So bad.” Luna’s horn lit up for a moment and Blueblood’s throat felt a little clearer, speaking less difficult. “Ah, thank you.”

She nodded. “We feel apologies are due, Nephew.”

“Yes,” the bed-ridden prince said quietly, “I had thought as much. Should I begin in order of the most damaging offenses first or just go chronologically?”

She shook her head, frowning. “We did not mean you.”

He really wished he could tell the extent to which his head was bandaged, if only to know whether or not his facial expressions were visible. On showcase at that moment was confusion.

“We fear it is by our own hoof that you lie broken in a medical ward, of a different settlement, no less, and wish to make it clear that this was never what we wanted.”

“And how,” he ventured cautiously, “might this be your fault? It was my choice to enter an establishment I had no real business in, by abusing the leverage of my rank, mind you, and coerced an otherwise fairly harmless pony to help me make off with what was no doubt a priceless-“

“Nay,” Luna said much louder, “It was us that drove you to such!” She regained her quiet tone. It was nice to see she could reign in her noisiness, given how many windows he’d seen shattered in the past with shouts alone. “You began to grow tired with your life, sought excitement through daring exploits?”

Blueblood was relieved to find he could still nod as a sense of anxiety built up in him.

“The thought may never have occurred to you had it not been for that dream of yours, the one we forced upon you. Daring Do as your mother?”

His eyes widened as feelings ranging from confusion, to hurt, to burning rage rolled around in his head. Would the Night Princess really use her power over dreams to deceive him? Had he been manipulated into doing something insane? Was it completely wrong to want to do something with his life? Did his aunt only see him as a piece to be pushed across a board for her own ends? Did both of them? What was the scheme he hadn’t been privy to or had the slightest say in this time? What was-

“We had heard,” she continued softly, “that you were a good-for-nothing, one who spends frivolously and lives for little more than to maintain an image, pushing other ponies away from the earliest opportunity.” Her eyes lowered to the floor, ethereal, starry mane partially concealing her face. “It wasn’t true. Even with moments in which you seemed to lack social grace, we… I, saw a pony that seemed to care for others, if only a little.”

He didn’t quite know what to make of her not using the royal ‘we’ at the moment.

She looked back at him, slightly perplexed. “I had been certain you would explode with rage in at least one of the assignments you had been forced into, shouting with all of your lungs and reducing somepony to tears, whereupon I would likely have sent you to work with the apple farmers, the rumors I’d heard of you so strongly suggested it!” Her face grew apologetic again. “It was… Wrong of me, to assume so much, especially given my own experiences.”

Whatever had remained of his outrage fell away at her last statement, he’d remembered how ponies around the castle first reacted to ‘Nightmare Moon’ in the castle, how some of even the strongest and bravest of the guards trembled when she came around, Blueblood himself always making sure to stay well out of her sight for… How long had it taken for him to stop being quite so afraid of her? She was still imposing, to be sure, but not nearly as much as before. He could only imagine how being avoided by nearly everypony for reasons that were no longer a factor must have felt.

Luna went on. “I had been feeling of lesser worth, of late, than one of my status should be, so I sought to do something. I wished to do as Sister had with Twilight Sparkle using you, to stake claim to the honor of raising an unsociable, selfish pony to become a figure to which all ponykind could aspire to.”

The prince, if just slightly insulted, couldn’t remember Twilight as having been particularly ‘selfish’ in her pre-Element of Magic years. Not that he ever really got to know her, but he figured he knew what she meant.

“It began with simply making you into the sort of pony that could be of use to others without shouting at them, but when I saw that that had already been achieved, with dear Fluttershy’s test, I-“

“What?!” He shouted.

Luna winced. “I was… Not entirely truthful with you that day. While that most friendly of pegasai did indeed wish to meet with the wildlife that roams the Royal Garden, I wished you to be the one to assist her to find out once and for all whether you could maintain the company of another pony without upsetting them, her being a most timid and sensitive filly.”

“…You were watching the whole time…?”

She smiled somewhat sheepishly. “While I was on the verge of raining lightning bolts down upon you when she began to weep…” The grin became a little warmer. “Your response to the situation was not unnoticed, Nephew.”

Ignoring the statement, he glared at her for just a moment, teeth gritted. “Photo Finish?”

She took a defensive step backward. “I do not know how she came to be in the garden, nor how her pursuit of you went unseen all the way to the palace, truly!”

If only because it did no good to dwell on the matter, he decided he really needed to let that incident go. Was it not an act of spite that landed him here, after all? He sighed. “I see. If I had ‘passed’, why did you have me assist Trixie?”

“After implanting that dream in your mind,” she added, looking contrite, “I wished to see you go about and perform heroic acts as Twilight Sparkle had,” her voice started to break as her eyes moved towards the floor, “bring together a band of companions and perform great feats, to copy Sister’s success," what little he could see of her eyes clenched shut, "and prove once and for all that I’m no longer a Night-a N-nightma-“ Falling to the floor with her head in her forehooves, she sobbed quietly.

It was at this point that being unable to move, unable to so much as reach out and put a vaguely comforting hoof on her shoulder, was more painful than the many tingling aches of the prince’s wounds. He could only stare sadly at the sight, no words coming to him that might make her feel even a little better about how she had been treated prior to the Nightmare Night she returned, ecstatic, to the castle.

It did give him a bit of time to think, however. When was the last time I behaved as she’d thought I would? I can’t remember how long ago it was that I shouted at a servant, had somepony thrown out of somewhere, or even did something particularly cruel to some crown-chasing floozy… When did that stop? Not that he felt a return to form was in order, but it was odd, to think he had apparently shifted his personality at some point and no so much as noticed… Maybe it was the bat ponies? A fear that sometimes bordered on all-consuming didn’t seem a terribly likely cause, but at the moment it was all he could think of as Luna stood again, wiping away the last of her tears with a hoof.

She took a moment to compose herself, taking a deep breath and clearing her feelings from her voice before returning her gaze to the injured noblepony. “Trixie, I had heard, had also undergone significant change. I held a faint hope that you might be enthralled with her mastery of magic and wish to join her, roaming Equestria as a small band of magicians, solving problems of the serfs and-“

She was cut off by a laugh from Blueblood. Her archaic word choice added to the notion that he’d start a storybook adventure after helping with a magic act, while not much sillier than the circumstances that brought him to Ponyville Hospital, still quite silly... Even if it might have worked, he reflected.

His laughter proved contagious. “I will admit,” she said, giggling lightly, “it was a foolhardy plan by itself, but my hope was that it would at least intrigue you as far as a more eventful existence is concerned while I came up with further opportunities...” Her apologetic frown returned. “And then, it appears, you found something on your own.”

They stared at one another for a moment before, to the best of his current ability, Blueblood shrugged. “Truth be told, Auntie,” Luna couldn’t remember if he’d ever called her that before, “I’m not certain I mind what’s transpired all that much.”

The lunar alicorn was somewhere between shocked and confused.

He went on. “I don’t know if you meant me to, but I actually rather enjoyed some parts of those assignments, if only for what they taught me. I’ve learned it’s a lot less of a bother being around other ponies when one doesn’t assume the worst of them from the start, that doing something nice for somepony can be the best part of one’s day, that…” He quickly looked around the room as though hoping a third lesson would be made evident on the walls somewhere. Apparently having thought of something, he beamed. “That, starting a song and dance routine in the middle of town might not be as complicated as it sounds!”

Luna was pretty sure he was just trying to make her laugh now. Smiling, she shook her head. “In that case, there is something I would like you to do.”

Blueblood inclined his head, or tried to, silent.

“I know now that I was wrong in believing I understood you based only on past accounts, but as it was the talk around the castle that first led me to think such things, I suspect there is a problem.” Her face was serious, but not admonishing. “Many seem to think you a braggart, Nephew, that you are the kind of cold, selfish pony who epitomizes all that may be wrong with Canterlot noblility, the kind of pony you, uhm…” She glanced away awkwardly. “Apparently were at some point?”

He joined her in looking away, somewhat abashed at his old, atrocious habits.

“Regardless,” she continued, her voice quiet, “Once ponies have formed a judgment about you, gotten an idea of you in their heads, Nephew… That image, good or ill, can stick far longer than it reasonably should, well after the deeds committed to earn such a reputation have ceased or been mended… Believe me… I, too, am guilty of this. I once assumed to know you based on little more than what I had heard, much as the ponies of this age had done in regards to ‘Nightmare Moon’ when I returned.” There was a hopeful little smile as she looked him in the eye. “I know you are not the self-absorbed royal brat I once thought you to be, but the peasantry-err, common ponies, do not. As such, I wish to see you overcome this burden of poor reputation as I did, to alleviate this misplaced idea, and be the prince Sister has always seen you to be!”

The last part utterly confused him. “…What?”

Luna nodded. “She has spoken highly of you on admittedly rare occasion, as when I inquired as to why you would be her regular choice for miscellaneous missions she could have sent most any of the palace staff to represent her for.”

Somewhere in the back of the prince’s mind was a quiet gratitude for the faith placed in him for all those ‘bothersome tasks’ he’d been sent on in the past, but now didn’t seem like the time.

“I would like you to remain here in Ponyville for a time,” she quickly responded to the shrinking of Blueblood’s pupils at the notion of staying in what was perhaps the most notoriously troubled town in Equestria by raising her hoof, “it isn’t a punishment akin to what I had in mind for Appaloosa, but a suggestion!” That seemed to calm him a little as he waited for the rest. “Remain for a time among ordinary ponies, help them with whatever you are able, and let it be known that the pony you once were is no more.”

Realization dawned on the regal mummy. “That Nightmare Night, this was the town you visited, wasn’t it?”

Luna nodded, smiling. “It was, Nephew, allow these ponies to show you their kindness, that you may show them yours.”

He smiled a little himself. “Very well, I can probably find a hotel or something once I’m released and, uhm,” he wriggled his limbs a bit, “unwrapped. From there, I’ll see what can be done.”

For the next hour or so, Luna stuck around to tell Blueblood what had happened since the conclusion of his ‘rampage’ through Canterlot, the citizens in a panic about some kind of night-dwelling terrors, the ghost of Blueblood the 50th coming to haunt them with metal music, and some in the press asking about a comeback of ‘F-Pain’.

Apparently, the guards that he saw coming after him and Vinyl were trying to stop the float from crashing into the construction site before it began picking up speed, knowing it had been moving towards the path deemed unsafe for anything on wheels. He felt a little bad about thinking they were just going to arrest him now, even if they probably should have.

“Oh,” he uttered, “whatever happened to Miss Scratch?”

Luna smiled, moving towards the door. “She is fine, I will leave you two to catch up.”

Catch up?

No sooner than Luna’s starry tail fully vanished through the doorway had Vinyl appeared, literally rolling into the room before stopping in front of his bed, standing on her hind legs, forehooves in the air, grinning victoriously. “Ta-daaaa! Canterlot’s #1 DJ in the sick-house!” Switching to three hooves, one lowered her shades enough to show her magenta eyes as she looked down her muzzle at him. “Miss me?”

He chuckled. “I missed the reason you weren’t locked in a cell. How did you get to Ponyville?”

Giving her head a quick flip, Vinyl’s violet glasses settled into place, continuing in her usual grinning-nodding motion. “The guards picked me up after I was hung out to dry and wanted to know what the hay just happened. I kept my cool, told ‘em what was goin’ down, and that you’d probably be lying in the dirt by some bricks just down the road.” Her smile faded slightly. “When we got over there and you were like, gone…” She shook her head, the wild blue blur that was her mane no worse for it. “Don’t do that, man!” For only a fleeting moment, she had actually sounded angry. “I dunno how you got a trampoline all the way out here without even leaving the city,” her voice held equal parts envy and awe, “but that’s gotta be the craziest jump I’ve ever seen!”

“I didn’t ‘jump’, per se, I was thrown off by the force of impact. That I am not currently red paste is apparently an act of dumb luck. Or butterflies.” Vinyl giggled, about to open her mouth to seek clarification. “Please, don’t ask.”

“Aaaanyway,” the punk pony picked up, “They brought me to the princesses, I calmly explained the situation and hitched a ride on Luna’s carriage to get down here. They were already wrapping you in toilet paper when we showed up.”

The well-bandaged royal deadpanned. “Funny.”

She smirked. “Thanks.”

They stared at eachother in silence for a while, Vinyl’s smile slowly fading as the nodding stopped. “Soo, are you like, crippled now, or…?”

He gave a don’t-worry-about-it chuckle and was relieved to see it actually seem to work for once. “Oh, I’ll be fine, just letting the worst of it heal and they’ll be letting me go tomorrow.” He frowned a little, faintly concerned. “Don’t suppose you got in any legal trouble for that little stunt?”

She shook her head again before returning to the grinning nod. “Nah, Moonbutt said I did the right thing helpin’ the search parties until word came around you landed in Ponyville. Apart from not being allowed to borrow parade floats anymore, ever, I’m golden!”

He would store his lunar aunt’s impromptu nickname for later use. “I can pay for the one that was destroyed, if it helps,” The rather wealthy pony offered, “I can’t imagine they’ll let you off completely in that regard.”

Vinyl froze. He was pretty sure he saw her sweating just a little. “That, eh… That would be great, thanks.”

The two laughed, Vinyl made mention that she had to get back to Canterlot for her job at the club and the prince probably needed his rest. As she moved toward the door, Blueblood called out, having remembered something he’d not wanted to jeopardize his adventure by asking sooner. For good or ill.

“Why did you agree to help me?”

She stopped, turning to look at him with her head tilted and a small frown on what he could see of her face.

He felt he should apologize, but wasn’t sure why. Instead, he clarified. “When I first arrived, you -well, after bringing me to that other room- you seemed rather… Hostile?”

Her mouth formed a little ‘o’ for a moment and her ears folded back a little. She reached up with a hoof to rub the back of her head guiltily. “Yyyyeeea, I kinda might’ve thought you were there for somethin’ else at first. I know I should’ve just asked, not jumped to conclusions and risked starting a hoof-fight with a noble. Or anypony else.” She winced a little, the hoof not quite making her messy mane any worse turned to address her chin. “Especially other unicorns…”

Blueblood was now thankful the bandages were probably hampering his ability to convey feelings through his face, as he wanted to look perfectly neutral right now. “What were you expecting, exactly?”

The uncomfortable-looking DJ seemed to consider her words for a moment. “Well… I mean, it’s like…” he was pretty sure she broke eye-contact, but it was rather hard to tell. Perhaps there’s some genius to wearing obscuring spectacles at all times, he thought. Vinyl went on. “You know, something ‘princey’? Like,” She stood on her hind legs, forehooves making regal gestures as she did her best impression of a pony giving royal declarations. “By order of Her Royal Highness and 3rd paragraph, subsection B-46 of the Equestrian Dishwashers’ association, I declare this establishment hereby closed, on the grounds that it is an affront to Her Majesty, our society, foals learning to read, and all that is decent in the land! Now bring me a poor pony’s family so I can eat caviar and bang noblemares in front of them!”

The subject of this moment of unofficial theater lay still, wide-eyed at the description. THAT'S the sort of impression I give?! He couldn’t even articulate just how he felt, annoyed at how far off it seemed from his actual life, ashamed at how, thinking back, he could understand why it might sound valid to other ponies, a little embarrassed to be thought of as a filly philanderer, confused at why he would be in the employ of a Dishwashers’ association? So perfectly still he remained, mouth occasionally twitching in desperate attempts to form a response to the performance as a whole.

This did nothing whatsoever to put the punk pony technically responsible for his situation, on multiple levels, at ease. She slooooowly settled on all four hooves, forcing a grin despite the heat in her face growing with each passing moment. “Ssssoooooo, yea. That’s kinda what I expected. Haha?”

“Haha,” Blueblood uttered breathlessly, “Haha indeed.” Her performance stirred something in him. “I must ask,” he said, sounding as though he were in shock, “Is this what the common pony thinks of Canterlot nobility? Of me?”

Vinyl, and he was starting to hate that he was doing this to her, looked even more uncomfortable. “W-well, yea-I mean no! I mean, uh…” Her head swung back and forth for a moment, as though looking for an escape from whatever wrath she apparently thought he might direct her way. Then, she stopped, took a deep breath, and looked him dead in the eyes. Maybe.

She spoke calmly. “Ok, to be honest, a lotta ponies don’t like how some of the rich go about things, all getting offended and ordering things shut down, ponies fired, acting like they’re better than everypony for all the dumbest reasons, that kinda thing. Now Fancy Pants, he’s a class act, and I’ll bet there are others like him, so I’m not gonna pretend we need to go burning down the city and ‘throwing off the shackles’,” she failed to suppress a grin, “as much fun as that would be. Things aren’t that bad, but it sucks, y’know? And you, Princey?” She shook her head a little, her little frown telling him she was less than thrilled to be saying what she was. “You’ve got the worst rap sheet of anypony I’ve heard about. I know most of it’s gotta be rumors, but when you walked into the club that night, looking for me? I didn’t know that, so I kinda assumed the worst. Sorry about that.”

He actually smiled at her -at least he was pretty sure he did, he didn’t feel any bandages on his mouth- hopeful warmth welling up in his chest. “But you know now I’m not one to…” He tried to make a vague hoof-waving gesture before remembering his binds. “H-how did you put-“

She smirked. It was small, but noticeable. “Eat caviar, bang rich fillies?”

Eyerolling was visible, at least. “Yes, that, thank you.”

She chuckled. “I know it, now, but to most ponies? You’re pretty much the head honcho of rich stiffs.” She winced, wishing she could take back the last part, what she could see of the prince’s face falling not making her feel much better.

“I see…” His eyes tinted with hope. “However, you agreed to assist me regardless?”

As if just realizing it herself, Vinyl’s eyebrows rose, she nodded. “Well, yea, once I got that you weren’t there to slap down proclamations and all, I figured something was up.” She tilted her head a little. “You didn’t even get all snooty with me,” the second rendition of her Pompous Pony imitation wasn’t quite as emphatic, “no ‘eugh, must you be so dirty? Ick, you smell like poor ponies, didn’t anypony ever teach you to behave, meh, meh, meh…’ Or anything like that.”

Blueblood would have chuckled had he not a few memories of saying each of those things almost verbatim at some point in the past. “T-to be honest, such thoughts occurred to me, but I was trying to get and stay on your good side, especially after what I pulled with your doorman.”

“So that’s why he was so shook up! Not cool, Princey.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s cool.”

Talking with Vinyl was sometimes confusing.

“Anyway.” She grinned. “At the time, I was like, ‘I’m prob’ly gonna end up in the slammer, but when will I get another chance to do something like this using real, ruffly royal duds?’ Felt like a once-in-a-lifetime chance.”

“Then,” he tried to sum up, “despite what you were expecting of me, your opinion altered? Just like that?”

She shrugged. “Well, yea. Rumors can make you think all kindsa things, but when you actually meet the pony they’re about? You figure ‘em out for yourself. What’d you think I’d be like?”

He blinked. “Erm… What I’ve heard of you was only a little off, I heard you were a crazy pony with a taste for noise.”

That toothy little grin returned. “Aaaaaaand?”

He smiled a little. “I met a crazy pony with a taste for noise and pretty good head on her shoulders.”

Vinyl beamed, rubbing a forehoof on her chest as nonchalantly as possible. “What can I say? Some rumors are pretty dead-on. Well, mostly. There’s always gonna be grey area, but if you just do stuff, ponies’ll remember you for it, right?” She regarded him with a completely neutral expression for a moment. “So, uh… We cool?”

Still smiling, he nodded. “We’re cool.”

She settled back into the grinning/nodding thing that was starting to grow on him. “Awesome! I gotta go now, friend’s waitin’ on me, but feel free to stop by the Club sometime, ‘kay?”

As she departed, Luna’s suggestion seemed all the wiser. He didn’t want to be known as an utterly self-absorbed bastard, something about the way some of Club Canterlot’s inhabitants had been looking at him actually hurt. I earned those glares, he thought, knowing he couldn’t very well ask everypony to just forget his previous behavior, but starting tomorrow, I’ll earn their respect!

About ten minutes later, he was stumped.

Now how do I do that?

---

Octavia Philharmonica sat in the hallway of Ponyville Hospital, waiting on her reckless DJ friend to finish clearing her conscience about the condition of their reckless royal acquaintance. She remembered very clearly just how distraught Vinyl had been, barely able to form sentences and tears streaming down her face when she thought she’d been directly involved in getting a pony killed. After Octavia saw her at the palace, she’d heard the whole story on the chariot ride. She held Vinyl as she sobbed and muttered nearly the entire time, Princess Luna not so much as looking at her and the distressed disk jockey. Not that she blamed either of them, it was quite the frightening situation, a pony falling from the outer edge of Canterlot, all the way down? She shuddered.

It was lucky that she had been due to perform that night and unlucky that she had to miss that performance, but there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that being there for her deeply troubled friend was the right choice. She just wished she didn’t have to spend hours in a hospital while Vinyl waited for the chance to talk to the pony that might have been killed, if only to make sure he was alright thanks to… What had it been? A trampoline somepony just felt like bringing to a particular spot, where he happened to land? Madness.

At least the town welcoming party they’d been thrown yesterday evening had been nice, if a little noisy.

Eventually, Vinyl appeared through the doorway to the room Blueblood occupied, the confident grin Octavia had been growing to miss proudly adorning her face once more. She inclined her head curiously.

Vinyl nodded. “Yup! Everything’s cool. We can get back home now, Princey even offered to pay off what we owed for the float!”

The cellist breathed a sigh of relief, she really didn’t know if they could pay for a ruined parade float, and didn’t want to know where it came from. As the two cantered through the otherwise empty hallway, Vinyl leaned on her a little, her voice down to a very rare whisper.

“Thanks, Octy.”

For Octavia, smiling warmly at her friend, the two simple words needed no explanation.

Author's Notes:

Reputation might be a problem for ponies like Luna and Blueblood sometimes, but Vinyl would like to keep her image.

Chapter 9: Going For A Walk

Removing the last of his bandages, Blueblood turned his attention to the bed next to the one he’d been occupying, empty apart from one of his simpler black tailcoats. Not that he particularly wanted to wear the thing again, but he faintly wondered what became of the most indulgent piece of tailoring he’d ever seen.

“Suit?” The nurse he’d asked, white-furred earth pony mare, light pink mane, and red cross with hearts in the corners for a cutie mark, seemed confused. “When you were brought to the hospital, there wasn’t a stitch on you.”

He reddened a little at this, but the medical pony seemed unfazed, wearing nothing but a little nurse’s cap herself. “I see,” he said, quickly donning the clothes that had been brought for him, presumeably by Luna, before looking at the nurse. “I wish to extend thanks for the care I’ve received in this establishment, is there any way I might be able to assist you?”

Staring at him for a moment, she blushed, trying her hardest to remain professional while stammering out her reply. “Th-there’s really no, I-I mean, we don’t-“

She was almost saved by a brown stallion with a short, grey-mane charging around the corner, black tie pinned against his white shirt, The silver badge cutie mark clued the prince in that this was probably security. “Redheart,” he barked, “Are you alright?” Not waiting for a response, he moved his head to very closely examine her flanks, deepening her embarrassment in that moment.

Luckily, she found it easier to compose herself while annoyed. “And what,” she demanded, stepping away from him, “do you think you’re doing?”

Looking her in the eye now, the guard’s face held only the utmost seriousness. “She’s out.”

After a moment’s contemplation as to what that may mean, Redheart’s eyes widened slightly in horror, as she backed herself against the nearest wall. “W-when, how long?!” Her eyes shot about, as though expecting some horrible beast to descend on her at any moment.

“We’re not sure,” the hospital security pony replied, “The door was just hanging open, cell empty, but the corner she usually sleeps in was still warm.” He scanned the room quickly, voice quiet. “She couldn’t have gotten far…”

Blueblood, seeing an opportunity to make himself useful, took it. “Perhaps I could assist in tracking down this…” He blinked, realizing he wasn’t yet sure what they had been talking about. “What are we looking for, exactly?”

“A mental patient,” the guard answered “Earth pony, light blue, grey mane, got a screw for a cutie mark, responds to Screw Loose.”

“Fitting.”

He nodded, smiling a little. “It’s the only thing she responds to, even when she isn’t barking like a dog, believe it or not. I’ll check all her usual hiding spots around the hospital, you start looking around town, ask if anypony’s seen Screw Loose and they should know who you mean.”

As the two set off to begin the search, Redheart sheepishly got back to her duties, wary of the madmare pouncing on her at any moment…

It proved to be a long, stressful day for the nurse.

---

Blueblood stepped through the hospital doors and into town with renewed vigor, the afternoon sun shining bright, he was about to do something heroic! Or, at least, helpful. Still, it felt like a big moment, like what he felt when he ventured into Club Canterlot, only under more respectable terms this time. Peering about as he walked, he looked for any signs of something amiss in town, though knowing he was in Ponyville, apparently Chaos Capital of the World long before Discord’s second coming, the suspicion that it would just be Wednesday weighed heavily on his thoughts. Must be because it’s so close to that accursed forest, Everfree…

Regardless, he smiled. He was Prince Vladimir Blueblood the 52nd, Master of Navigation, if there was somewhere he wanted to go, he’d find his way there, if there was something he was looking for, he’d have it in his hooves sooner or later, which is probably why Celestia always had him be the one to track down missing objects around the castle. Scouring the hedge maze to find one of her golden shoes, accidentally kicked off and sent through a window when she was startled by a spider, was not a demeaning task nor wasteful of his abilities. Not at all.

His cutie mark had always guided him before, but as he stood near the center of town, an uncomfortable thought struck. I’m looking for a crazy pony in the town thought to have the highest density of crazy ponies in Equestria. And with that, he decided to take the guard in the white shirt’s advice.

“Pardon me,” he said to a random passerby, a particularly bulky red stallion hauling a cart of boxes, “I don’t suppose you’ve seen anypony by the name of Screw Loose of late, have you?”

“Nnnnope.”

“Do you know whom I’m referring to?”

Big Mac chuckled. “Eeyup.”

The prince smiled a little. “Might you know where she would be likely to go, having escaped the hospital?”

“Eeyup.” He pointed a hoof toward some distant trees.

“She’s probably in the woods, then?”

“Eeyup.”

Blueblood nodded. “I see, thank you for your assistance.”

That he was dressed as he was to go looking for somepony seemed maybe a little bit odd to Big Macintosh, but he reckoned a fancy city pony -that looked like the kind of coat Miss Rarity might’ve sold at her shop- coming all the way out here to Ponyville probably had important things to do. Why those things would involve that silly mare that goes around barking like Winoa when she’s feeling playful, he could only guess.

He felt bad laughing about Miss Screw Loose, other ponies said it was a serious problem that she ‘relapsed’ every so often, whatever that meant, but it was just so darned funny he couldn’t help himself. A grown pony running around yipping and hollering, chasing sticks when thrown and rolling around on the floor? He couldn’t even think why, but it never failed to bring a smile to his face. Regardless, he shrugged and returned to carting supplies back to Sweet Apple Acres. His sister’s plan for a growing a blue-ribbon apple needed a lot of T.L.C., afterall.

---

While Blueblood did see a blue-coated mare, her wings, colorful mane, cutie mark, and… sports cap thing? The rest of the details told him this was the wrong pony, crazy or not. Being that she was standing in the middle of a field of foals, shouting apparently random instructions and words of encouragement as the younger ponies went about… whatever they were doing, he guessed that something crazy was indeed what was going on here. Still, it all looked harmless enough, the stage with three fillies doing some kind of show with ribbons didn’t seem to be collapsing on anypony, so he returned to searching for Screw Loose.

Venturing into the wooded area further, he came across an even burlier-looking stallion than the last one, a white pegasus with tiny wings and the most bizarre facial expression. I’ve only seen two like this now, but what do they eat out here?! Blueblood was well-built himself, of course, but the sheer bulging muscle on this one was absurd. He had a feeling he was on the right trail.

“Pardon me, sir,” he said, waving a hoof in front of the brute’s face to get his attention, “have you seen one called Screw Loose of late?”

The likely crossbreed of a pegasus and a very large earth pony only shook his head.

“I see.” They stood still for a moment before curiousity as to why one would stand alone in the forest seemed as good a reason as any to clear the awkward silence. “So, what brings you to, er…” Blueblood glanced around somewhat uncertainly. “This place?”

The hulking pony smiled, his thick eyebrows making it look oddly menacing. “Tug of war.” Blueblood only blinked, so he went on. “Some nice fillies asked me to play with them, they’re getting the rope now.”

The prince barely managed to cover the laughter bubbling in his throat as a cough. Fillies? In a contest of strength against this beast of a pony? Insane, this town really is insane. Probably related to that display in the field I saw a little while ago.

Bulk Biceps, thinking the cough had been entirely real, looked concerned. “Are you ok?”

Blueblood had a pretty good poker face, but he was straining not to smile and possibly set his newest acquaintance off. He couldn’t be sure his status would protect him from angry, impulsive sorts as well out here as it did in Canterlot. “Yes, yes,” he uttered, his next sentence out before he could think about possible repercussions, “I suppose next you’ll be playing against butterflies.”

The pegasus who probably struggled to so much as get off the ground raised an eyebrow, not smiling at all.

Blueblood gulped, smiling sheepishly. “Y-you know, they can be surprisingly strong, I’ve heard about a flight of them catching a falling pony once.”

The bigger stallion’s eyes narrowed for a minute, the prince starting to sweat. He was just starting to charge up a blinding light spell when the walking chunk of muscle looked utterly bewildered. “Really?”

Seeing a chance, Blueblood seized it. “Y-yes, it’s fascinating what even insects can do if you give them a chance, isn’t it? Well, I really must be going now, but do enjoy your game of rope-pulling, cheery-bye!”

And then he sped off into the woods, not so much as looking back. It wasn’t lying, really, he’d heard it from Fluttershy. Wwwait, wasn’t she Kindness? Oh, well, same difference. If it keeps me from getting mauled, I don’t much care.

Running through the woods, he spotted something odd up ahead, a little hole in the dirt -this is where the prince first realized he was, in fact, running about in a dirty forest- with a fresh mound of the stuff immediately next to it, hoofprints leading away. Turning to follow the trail, he caught sight of blue hooves almost instantly. Raising his muzzle, he was face to face with somepony meeting exactly the description of Screw Loose, panting and holding a bone in her mouth.

There had been no mention of the twisted, utterly insane look on her face, but he supposed it went without saying.

“Um,” he began, “Hello, might yo-“

“BARK.”

He staggered back, forehooves flailing as he fell to the sheer percussive force of her enunciation. That her face had been mere inches from his own hadn’t helped. Ears ringing, he leapt to his hooves to see her apparently in the process of burying the bone she’d held, not unlike a dog. He approached casually, placing a hoof on her shoulder.

When her head whipped towards him, apparently startled, he smiled. The sort of smile he dreamed he’d one day give a mare he didn’t just want to cooperate with him for the moment, but only ever seemed to use for just that purpose, eyes half-lidded. “Perhaps you’d like to come with me? I think I know a better place to store one’s valuables than a mound of dirt in the forest.”

She held his eye contact for an entire minute. He was sure the unthinking madness in her eyes faded a little, like fog lifting for some kind of cognition to shine through. Her mouth opened, hanging ajar for just long enough that he could practically hear her enthusiastic acceptance, happy to accompany the Handsome Prince anywhere in Equestria.

And then she licked his face.

“Eugh!” Sputtering and disgusted, he furiously rubbed a forehoof across his muzzle to get the spit off. The Prince Charming routine failed, he thought, incredulous, the Prince Charming routine never fails! Once he recovered, he saw Screw Loose trotting merrily away, tail wagging as her head swiveled about, as though exploring these woods for the first time. Gritting his teeth, Blueblood marched after her, a new strategy in his mind as he charged up his horn…

It was a nice day, she was having a nice day, things were nice and it was day, so she was having a nice day. First she got food from the nice mare with the little white heart on her rump, and when she was done, she noticed the door was cracked open! It must have been a play day! So play she did, running through the woods, checking on all the things she’d buried on other play days, running some more, and burying a new thing in the hole she’d just dug! Then she met a new friend! He tasted like peppermint! She could hardly wait to show him the other things she’d buried and-

Wait.

Something wrong.

Not touching the floor. NOTTOUCHINGTHEFLOOR! She couldn’t reach, she flailed her paws with all her might, stretching them out, trying to reach past the shiny, blue glow that was all over her body for some reason. Panic, it was time to panic, she didn’t know what else to do, so it seemed like it was time to panic! She shook, she barked, she whimpered, nothing bringing her any closer to the ground where she loved to romp and run and roll. Peppermint Friend was saying something from behind her, but she couldn’t hear him, too busy doing panic. She tried swinging her back legs, using both at once in the hopes she’d kick free of whatever was holding her. She felt a hoof connect with something and dropped to the ground. It worked! Panic worked! Thanks, panic!

She sprinted off into the woods, hoping Peppermint Friend would follow her to get away from whatever didn’t want her on the ground.

Blueblood lay in an agonized heap by a tree, using his fading consciousness to make the mental note that suspending a pony in the air telekinetically and not casting any sort of paralysis spell does not immobilize them. Also? Earth ponies hit hard, even if they think they’re dogs.

About a minute later, Bulk Biceps approached, looking around for the source of the noises he was hearing from over here. “Uhh, is everypony ok? I heard something and-“

He saw the unicorn he’d talked to a little bit ago, lying by a tree, apparently hurt, a single butterfly hovering over him. Confused, he looked at it, pink wings, little white spots, what was-

The guy in the fancy coat’s words resounded in his memory.

“…it’s fascinating what even insects can do if you give them a chance, isn’t it?”

He looked at the lone, fluttering figure above the bruised pony for a moment, pupils shrunk to pinpricks.

It flapped towards him.

He ran.

---

The prince awoke in the dark, moonlight just barely enough to see by. Vision still blurry, he struggled to his hooves and watched as something, a dark, vaguely pony-shaped thing took off into the sky. It had been only a meter or so away…

Shaking his head a bit, which his newfound splitting headache told him was a mistake, he tried to gather his thoughts. Grass, trees, dark. What was I doing? Who was that that just shot into the sky without a word? The past several hours, barring his time spent lying in the woods, came back to him, as did something he’d somehow spent his entire stay in Ponyville up to this point not thinking about. Looked like a pony, it was out at night, approaching an unconscious pony, and fled when it was spotted?

Bat ponies. Every fear and suspicion he’d ever had about the species raced through his mind at once, primarily that they probably didn’t all work for Luna, he didn’t know whether or not they bit ponies and drained them of blood, or-

He leapt from where he’d been standing, ignoring the pain in his right foreleg as he landed where the figure had been, and charged up his brightest light spell, keeping the illumination in his horn as he looked about for any sign that it hadn’t given up so easily. Didn’t leave, didn’t run, just wanted to take me by surprise! He stood almost perfectly still, eyes slowly scanning the darkness and taking deep, slow breaths while waiting for a face with fangs and normally beautiful eyes full of malice to spring towards him from anywhere…

And then they didn’t. Not for the entire ten minutes he stood there as he was. Relaxing his shoulders a bit, he slowly dropped his impromptu battle stance, willing his racing heart to do the same. He wanted to call it quits there, check back at the hospital to see if Screw Loose had already been caught, at least take refuge from the creatures of night until dawn, whether they were actually after him or not. Sadly, it was primarily those two thoughts that kept him from speeding back to town, whichever way that was now, admitting he’d failed this time, and finding a less dangerous way to endear himself to the populace. She might still be out here, I’ve heard all about the monsters near this village, walking about at night might well be a death sentence! I can find her, maybe if I do something that-what attracts dogs again? Glancing up at his horn, he wasn’t sure if bright lights would be of any consequence to the madmare or just make him a target for any wandering hunters in the dark.

That was when he heard it.

“OOOOOOOOOOUUUUUuuuooooooooo!”

It sounded like howling, but… Off. He ran, for about two steps, in the direction of the noise, then limped the rest of the way towards what he sorely hoped was the mare who had apparently injured him with one quick kick. He'd worry about that line of thought later.

---

He saw her, digging with her hooves at the base of a thin tree on a little hill, no pony-eating horrors to be seen. Good, good, now I just have to catch her, bring her back to the hospital, no idea which way it is, by myself, in the dark, with a chance of that bat I’m not sure wasn’t just a hallucination coming back with friends to inflict great bodily harm on us both, then collapse in the very same bed I was in this morning.

Blueblood steeled himself as much as he could. Ready? Go! Hobbling up to the crazy pony tearing at the dirt around the slender tree’s now exposed roots, he cleared his throat a bit and puffed out his chest, trying to think of how he’d speak to a disobedient animal, not a pony.

“Now see here, peasant!”

It came a little too easily.

“I command you to cease whatever nonsense you’re engaged with post-haste and return to the dingy kennel they lock you in where you belong, understand?!”

Screw Loose didn’t even seem to hear him, going right on with her digging under the tree, which caused the prince to deflate a bit. No time to dwell, next idea. He shuffled a bit closer, his tone considerably gentler as he placed a hoof on her shoulder, which at least got her attention. “Pardon me,” he said as amicably as possible with a fairly convincing smile, “what I mean to say is that you really shouldn’t be all alone at night, moreso in untamed wilderness. Quite dangerous, don’t you think?”

He took a step back, well out of tongue range, when her mouth so much as twitched. She looked him in the eyes, no hint of the awareness he thought he saw earlier, gave a short, quiet ‘woof’, and went back to digging.

His headache not having gotten any better, from his current circumstances or the light spell he was maintaining, he decided against trying to just lift her with magic again, no matter how careful he could be in terms of keeping her out of sucker-punching distance. He sighed. “I don’t suppose if I just wait until you’ve dug up whatever you’re trying to uncover, you’ll follow me back to the hospital?”

She stopped, looked at him, and gave a short, happy bark before carrying on with her task.

Blueblood, hopeful and not knowing what else to do, sat by the tree and waited. He wasn’t sure how much time passed, ten minutes, maybe twenty, but eventually the sounds of forced soil and wood movement stopped, replaced by a few rapid hoofsteps in his direction and panting. He turned his head to see Screw Loose, tail an excited flurry of movement and big, silly grin on her face.

Something was in her mouth.

“Ehm,” he ventured, “found what you were looking for, I hope?”

“Woof!” She dropped the object at his hooves, a rose, looking as though it had been just freshly picked. That was underneath a tree? That makes no sense, she must have gotten that from somewhere when I wasn’t looking. But then, why did she dig up the roots of-

The slow, resounding creak of wood shifting through soil pierced his thoughts like a javelin. He shot his gaze to the tree Screw Loose had been digging under to see it slowly falling, on a course to land directly on top of her. It wasn’t a massive tree, but it looked more than large enough to damage bones and crush organs. He acted without thinking, charging straight into the mare in an effort to clear her and himself from the tree’s likely arc.

He was not fast enough, and as his illumination spell gave out with his waking thoughts, the world returned to blackness.

Author's Notes:

I like to think the guard’s name is Vigilance, on account of a fun little story I read about him and Screw Loose. :3
Don’t worry, I promise this isn’t getting as dark as you might be thinking. Still, need a bit of dark to make the lights shine brighter, right? I honestly couldn’t think of any other way to keep the story going, it was either go through a tunnel for a bit or leap aboard the Nonsense Balloon and soar into the silly skies, Discord showing up to wrangle Blueblood and Friends into being sky pirates armed with plastic flamingoes, Scootaloo being the first mate, Vinyl operating the Bass Cannons, and this isn’t that kind of story.
Sorry. T_T

Chapter 10: Changing One’s Stripes

Pinkie Pie was positively bursting with excitement, a party for a real live prince! She'd pulled out all the stops she was allowed to pull without those nice ponies with shiny, metal suits showing up. Not that she had a problem with them or their shiny, metal suits, she actually wondered about having a whole party based on shiny things, but Twilight kept saying 'Pinkie, royal guards showing up is a bad thing!' which was weird, because she was a princess now and you'd think she'd like those guys more, but she apparently doesn't! Maybe that shiny object party was a good idea after all, but for now she had one to throw for the pony she'd first seen dropping from the sky like a piano!

The balloons were arranged in simple, but recongizeable patterns, the cake was fit for a prince, or a king if she ever saw one of those! Besides that Sombra guy, but he didn't seem to like cakes very much, all 'rrrrgh, crystalllllsssss!' all the time! The snack table was an h'ourdourve table and the streamers were the shiniest she could find, which might go great for that shiny things party! OOH! Maybe she could have crystals at the shiny things party, then Sombra might stop being such a grump too!

But, for now, where was Prince Blueblood...?

She, some ponies from town, and Zecora were all gathered in the latter's hut, decorations set up for a surprise party sure to knock his royal socks off! Barring the question of whether or not he had royal socks, or any socks at all, there was no sign of the guest of honor! She was sure this was the right place, Big Macintosh even said Blueblood was going to the forest. She couldn't think of much that a suuuuper important pony like him would want to do out in the woods, so maybe he thought all of the forest around Ponyville was part of Everfree Forest, and he was in town to see Zecora! Maybe she was secretly a Zebrican princess and he was here to sweep her off her hooves to become a pony princess too! So he was going to Everfree to find Zecora! Only, he didn't seem to be showing up, and they'd been here for hours...

Well, at least Zecora seemed to be having fun with the guests, though she didn't seem sure about having a party in her hut at first. Pinkie'd Pinkie Promised they wouldn't touch anything she uses for potions and she'd clean the whole thing up afterward, so Zecora'd agreed, but it this was supposed to be a party to welcome the prince after he'd gotten all banged up falling from the sky, which seemed like a really weird way to travel! Where was he?

---

Darkness. Familiar, but not in the way an old friend or a favorite dish is familiar, this was more neighbors-making-too-much-noise-again familiar, the sort he wished he could sever ties with and forget about.

Again, Blueblood’s ears hadn’t left him -good thing, as even the most handsome stallion in Equestria would look very odd with no ears- and he heard noises. Hoofsteps, rapid and panicked, scraping, scuffling, panting. It didn’t sound so much like dog panting this time, more that of a tired pony. He opened his eyes, no spell from Princess Twilight to keep him still. Or block out the massive waves of pain rolling through his body. His face was pressed against the cold dirt, as was the rest of him that wasn’t also crushed tightly under a tree. He could still feel all of his limbs, but he was almost sure there were broken bones.

He wanted to feel smug about having ‘called it’, as it were, but he was in a rather troubling situation at the moment. Besides, the only one around to boast to would have been Screw Loose. What’s she doing, anyway? He peered around as best he could, trying to catch sight of her. When it occurred to him to look in the direction of the noises she was making, he saw her frantically digging. Why am I not surprised?

“H-hey,” he tried to call out to her, voice hoarse, straining to speak, “Hope you got,” he coughed loudly, tasting royal blood, “g-got what you were looking for out here.” She stopped digging and looked at him, and for the second time, he could swear she was ‘aware’ again. He wasn’t even sure how to describe it, just a deep-seated hunch, a gut feeling that she wasn’t completely in dog-mode at that moment, her eyes wide and worried.

That she still whimpered like a scared pup didn’t make things any clearer for him, however. “F-found what you were looking for,” he repeated, “I think I might have, at least,” he added, defeated.

He had gotten what he initially set out to get, right? Yes, he would have used magic had he not had difficulties with the pain in his head when the tree started falling, but he still saved somepony’s life, he was fairly sure. They wouldn’t call him a self-absorbed fop now, that was certain! Ohh, yes, he’d be the Heroic Prince that gave his life to protect some country mare, and a poor mental patient at that, why he’d be…

Wait.

Nopony was around to see the act besides Screw Loose herself, who communicates mainly in BARK.

“…”

DAMMIT!!

He wished he could have shouted that, but it hurt more and more to use his throat as time passed. Luckily, thinking cost him nothing. Maybe I deserve this? I wasn’t the nicest pony before, though I’m not sure this quite balances the books. Perhaps it was that I started this for entirely selfish reasons? Sure, now that I can actually see her, I don’t anything unpleasant happening to this pony, but when I was back in the hospital? Glory-seeking, all glory-seeking. I wanted to elevate myself by playing hero, be nice just to improve my reputation. Auntie told me a long time ago that good things should be done out of empathy and compassion, not just to be recognized for them, despicable, just-

As he was depressingly used to by now, his thoughts were interrupted. This time it was the mare who’d gotten him into this mess, if only by accident, dropping the rose, the healthy-looking, inexplicable, fresh-as-the-day-it-blossomed rose, near his face, looking down at him and panting. Her psychotic grin looked almost forced, her eyes all but pleading in silence.

‘Please don’t die.’

He tried to smile at her, and was pretty sure he succeeded, because her expression brightened ever so slightly. Look at you, he thought almost enviously, more the hero than I’ve ever been and you probably won’t even remember this the next time you’re burying things among the trees. Are you really trying to save me at this point? Not willing to leave somepony out here alone? Nothing you want to dig up or bury right now, if only to dig up again later? There’s no reason for you to stick by me, I’m not going to say ‘just kidding’ and slip out of here, no one will find me in the woods just outside a backwater town in the middle of the night, the best I can hope for is to bleed out or something before that bat pony finds me trapped here. The most brutally honest thoughts were often the crushingly depressing ones, he found. Puns intended.

Blueblood closed his eyes, hearing Screw Loose shuffle her hooves quickly, stamping about as if trying to keep him awake with the noise, paired with desperate whimpers. He was still conscious, of course, he just couldn’t look her in the eyes anymore, it was the exact opposite of watching a pet’s last moments and just as painful.

Bad night. She was having a bad night, things were bad and it was night, so she was having a bad night. Things were nice just a little bit ago, she’d been rolling around on the ground like she loved to do when she smelled Peppermint Friend again, but it smelled like he was under a tree! That was silly of him, friends don’t go under trees, so she tried to dig him up, and that had been nice! He even came by to say ‘hi’ while she was digging him up, and that was nice too, but when she dug him up it wasn’t Peppermint Friend at all, it was a flower! She guessed it must have been a piece of Peppermint Friend, so she tried to give it back to him, but he just looked at himself. Then things got bad, and it was a bad night. Peppermint Friend was under the tree again, but even more of him this time, and he was going all quiet, she didn’t like Peppermint Friend being quiet, it felt like he was gonna be quiet forever soon and that was really bad, so she was having a really bad night!

Help!

Help!

She needed help, someone to come help Peppermint Friend, now, he was going to die!

She set all four hooves firmly on the ground, gathered her voice in her chest, raised her muzzle high, and howled, as long and as loud as she could.

Blueblood’s eyes shot open. Was that… Her? He was pretty sure even timber-wolves didn’t howl like that, he half-expected to see an actual canine of some sort standing over him with it’s teeth bared. What he saw instead, somewhere in the distance past the madmare’s hooves, was a white blur, followed by other blurs. They were getting closer as he heard a familiar voice, that muscle-bound pegasus he’d run into earlier in the day.

“It came from over here, I think I see ‘em!”

Screw Loose called for help, and it seemed to work. It was a pity the prince felt himself fading now, of all times. He wanted to smirk and ask, as nonchalantly as possible, if any of the newcomers wanted an insanely resilient rose. Probably would have sounded too much like a come-on anyway.

---

Darkn-Oh, for goodness sake!

Blueblood willed himself to very quickly sit up, open his eyes, and take a good look around, he’d had quite enough of this drifting in and out of unconsciousness business.

The first thing he noticed were the sights and sounds of startled ponies in the hospital, but that he was at least not wrapped in bandages this time.

His suit was even clean!

Still, of those present, Nurse Redheart, Screw Loose, the guard stallion in the white shirt, and the absurdly-muscled pegasus, only Screw Loose, who was sitting like a normal pony, tail not so much as wagging, didn’t look as though she’d seen a windigo. The insane look he had been getting used to was replaced with a warm smile.

The prince hopped off the bed, brushing imaginary dust off his shoulder with a hoof. “I may require some filling-in, what exactly transpired in the last… However long it’s been since I was last here, I suppose?”

The hospital security pony was the first to respond. “Yesterday, you and I went looking for her,” he nodded to Screw Loose, who nodded back at him, “you apparently found her first. Bulk Biceps here,” he indicated the brawniest pony Blueblood had ever seen, who smiled proudly, “found you incapacitated in the forest. Twice.”

Bulk didn’t look as proud now, contrition clear in his bulging face. “I-I saw you by a tree just after we talked, but that,” he averted his eyes fearfully, voice dropping to an extremely masculine whisper, “thing came after me.”

The bat pony? Scaring off this lumbering brute? They might actually be as dangerous as I’ve sometimes thought…

Bulk went on, sounding more enthused now. “But later, I saw these two” he pointed at Redheart and I-still-haven’t-asked-his-name-have-I? with a hoof, “out in the woods, looking for you! We looked for hours, but when we heard the howling, we found you under a tree.” His ears drooped. “Hurt bad.”

The prince made a point of looking at his own uninjured form, not a hair out of place, before returning his gaze to the rest with an inquisitive head tilt, eyebrow raised.

Redheart chuckled. “Do you know Miss Zecora? She came by this morning, while we were trying to stop Pinkie Pie from throwing one of her parties in the injury ward again, and saw you lying on one of the beds.” She looked away. “It was, I mean, y-you were…” Shaking one’s head was a logically dubious way to clear one’s thoughts, but it seldom seemed to fail. “Well, she gave us a potion and insisted you drink it right away. After some inventive use of a funnel and crazy straws by the very pony we’d been trying to throw out for an hour, and you were good as new!” Redheart giggled, looking faintly envious. “I don’t know what grows out where she lives, but the plants must be brimming with magic for her herbal remedies to work like they do.” Her expression soured. “Not that I’d want to go running through Everfree to get them, of course, I don’t know how she does it!”

Everfree, he thought, of course I’d wind up there sooner or later. “Is that where this herbalist lives, the forest full of ravenous beasts and assorted mockeries of reason?”

“Uhm… Yes?”

Whether those present understood that should strike them as odd or not didn’t seem important right now, so he gave a curt nod. “Thank you for the care, but I must be going.” The others nodded, he headed out the door, and about halfway down the hall, he heard Redheart’s voice.

“Yeeee-OUCH!!”

He spun on his hind hooves toward the room, only to see Screw Loose, a big, silly smile on her face, sprinting towards, then past him, the security stallion and Bulk Biceps in hot pursuit. Trotting back to the doorway to make sure somepony wasn’t just murdered and Screw Loose was even more insane than she appeared, he cautiously popped his head in to see the nurse addressing a large, red bite mark on her flank with a hoof, repeatedly mouthing ‘ow’ while wincing. Her face matched the bite mark in hue, eyes widening when he cleared his throat, looking slightly abashed himself. Hoping Redheart hadn’t just contracted rabies from a mental patient, a question he probably should have asked a little sooner sprung to mind.

“Excuse me, but might you know how exactly one might go about finding Miss Zecora?”

---

Having a special talent to always find what one is looking for is nice, Blueblood thought as he reviewed the instructions to reach the trail to Zecora’s tree-hut, but in a place like this, a little direction is welcome, to say the least. He had decided on grabbing a bite to eat at some local diner and found the hayfries here were delightful! It seemed as good a time as any to stop and rest, gather his courage as best he reasonably could for what he was about to do.

His first plan to that end was distraction.

I can’t just go about doing things in the hopes I’ll be recognized for them, if only because any good will gained will likely be tarnished should anypony discover that’s my only real goal. He wasn’t exactly pleased with himself, about it, either. Princess Twilight, and presumably the other Element Bearers as well, all earned their places in the memory of the populace by doing something, didn’t they? Twilight’s aims were almost always noble, or at least understandable. Going temporarily insane over wanting to turn in a project on the given deadline that may only have existed in her own head, at least if that project was for Princess Celestia herself, made some degree of sense, he thought. One didn’t just leave one of the two most important beings in the world, she who raises the sun, waiting, afterall.

…When’s the last time she sent me to do something, again? Perhaps I should return home, see if she needs me for any-

No. He would not back out of this.

It’s not backing out, it’s just making sure I’m not doing anything to irritate the most powerful pony in-

If she wanted his attention, she probably had at least a dozen ways to get it, she was no doubt informed of what happened the day he soared over the edge of the city and Luna probably told her about their talk in the hospital. Even if she wanted him for something right now, she didn’t seem to be using any of that ‘all-powerful’ alicorn magic to snap him to her in a blink, so he wouldn’t worry. Not that I’m sure she can do that, but still. He wanted to thank the one who saved his life, that would be his goal right now, whether anypony credited him for it or not!

After finishing his meal, he’d walked through town, paying no mind the variety of odd looks he was getting or the increasingly loud whispers as he approached Everfree, something in the back of his head agreeing with whatever they were probably saying about him never being seen again after today. He marched straight into the forest, not letting himself hesitate for a single step, knowing he’d likely slow down, stop, turn around, and flee if he did.

But then, contrary to even his most optimistic expectations, he encountered nothing at all on the way to the zebra’s home, not even distant noises or rustling of bushes, it was almost as if this wasn’t one of the most dangerous places in Equestria. Still, not one to question such good fortune, he picked up the pace until a tree with colorful bottles and masks on the exterior came into view. Trotting up to the door, he gave his mane a flip, cleared his throat, raised a hoof to knock, and was startled by the door swinging open, a zebra adorned with a saddle bag and gold rings on her neck, an ear, and a foreleg looking just as surprised to see him.

Both scrambled back a few steps before trying to compose themselves for introductions.
“Pardon me-“ “I-it seems I see-“ “I came here to-“ “Can I help you?”

Both remained silent, awkwardly staring at one another, Zecora looking like she was working out a riddle in her head. Blueblood cleared his throat again, speaking in the sort of voice he’d use when asked to speak at the most important of Canterlot events; a bit louder than his usual speaking voice, but gentle of tone and brimming with that ‘I’m royalty’ feeling he got when listening to Celestia speak in the day court. “Good day, Miss Zecora, I understand you recently happened through town at a time in which I was in need of medical help and offered an elixir of some sort to mend my wounds, and I wish to extend my sincerest gratitude.” In a rare sight for anypony aside from one of the princesses, the prince bowed, horn low enough that it pointed well at the floor.

Zecora, her face a faint indication of what may be black and white and red all over, opened her mouth and closed it a few times. She found words again and her blush luckily died away when the unicorn’s head was raised enough that she could look him in the eye.

“That you are well, I’m pleased to see,” she said with a smile, “but you need not come to Everfree.” She was truly loathe to turn away company, even after Pinkie Pie's gathering just yesterday, -which she thought he was supposed to attend as the guest of honor?- but she didn’t want to risk a trend of having to save ponies’ lives to have them visit her.

The pony prince shook his head at this. “I must insist, the potion you gave, apparently at no charge, must have been difficult to produce at the least, no?” He was guessing, but it sounded right, powerful things don’t often come easily. “Let me repay you, I-“ he fumbled for whatever money had been brought along in the coat he was wearing, but Zecora held up a hoof, smiling.

“I need no payment, Majesty, well-being is my charity! Ill ponies visit now and then, and each of them I call a friend.”

For a moment, he was at a loss for words. She knows I’m the prince, probably heard it from those that brought me in after the tree fell, and doesn’t even suggest she’d like some kind of compensation? Come to think of it, if she’d wanted boatloads of grateful bits, and I might well have provided them, all she’d have had to do was remain at the hospital until I awoke, but this! This is…

His concentration, or lack thereof, must have shown on his face, because the most generous miracle worker he’d ever seen was waving a hoof in front of it, sounds of a rhyme not fully heard -this was the point at which he noticed she had been speaking in rhyme- reverberating in his ears before he blinked rapidly, snapping to attention. “P-Perhaps I could help you somehow,” I can’t just depart without having at least tried to repay somepony that saves my life out of genuine compassion alone, “pay for the ingredients used, or” he slapped a hoof to his face, talking quickly, “of course, the nurse said you find them out here, I could help you find more, I’m rather good at finding things!”

Paying no mind to the hint of desperation in his voice, Zecora looked away, eyes focused on nothing in particular as she raised a hoof to her chin in contemplation. The thick-shelled nuts that made up the bulk of that healing potion wouldn’t be growing anywhere within safe walking distance for weeks, but she had an adequate store of them that wouldn’t be going bad for several months. Still, if he was offering to help her, some companionship might be pleasant while gathering components for other things, she could use more of the Mentha Peppers that mixed well with milk to make a cool, spicy, strangely delightful-tasting beverage. The path they normally grew on should be clear around this week, the beasts that normally stalk the area most likely still not returned from… Wherever it is they go when that region is quiet every so many weeks.

Looking Blueblood in the eye, she smiled. “If in repaying a favor you wish to persist, there is a way you can assist.”

His face lit up without help from his horn.

---

Repaying the kind alchemist that had saved his life by walking through Everfree moon-banished Forest to pick up white-and-red-striped peppers was proving astoundingly easy. Thusfar, there had been no monsters, no murderous plants, no magical anomalies, no rifts in time and space, no trapdoors to Tartarus, no nothing. Not even pesky insects to buzz about where they walked! They even had time to make pleasant conversation, though their voices were low so as not to tempt fate.

“So,” Blueblood pondered aloud, “not that I mean to complain, but why is it we’ve not run into any manner of snarling, voracious monstrosities as of yet?”

Zecora chuckled. “Not everywhere in Everfree, wait beasts that long to taste po-ny.”

Such a distinctive way of speaking, he thought. “Well, I suppose not every inch can be brimming with claw and fang, they’d likely devour each other were that the case.” He stepped over a pale root that looked suspiciously like it might have been part of a ribcage at some point. “Or, is that what happened…?”

She shrugged a little, paying no mind to what may have been a dead… Something as they walked. “To tell the truth, I do not know. It may have been, some years ago, that with beasts this place did overflow, but today…” She looked around slowly as her sentence trailed off for a few seconds. “In peace we go.”

She does it so naturally, and always quite quickly, little or no time to compose her rhymes. I wonder… “Then as we’re walking here, there is nothing we should fear?”

She nodded, smiling for a moment before blinking a few times, glancing at him as though she wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. Quietly fearful something had indeed found them, he only returned her inquisitive look, which she quickly put away and returned to the path. “The things that stalk this neck of wood, for now haunt other neighborhoods. I know not where it is they go,” she nodded toward the next batch of the peppers, “but it’s a chance to reap what nature sows.”

She notices rhyme, he pondered, moving toward the plants they’d been gathering, the striped vegetation growing in a row along the path, but not her own, perhaps? Once more. “Then as long as we walk this path, we need not fear those creatures’ wrath?”

She blinked at him again as he picked several of the peppers at once telekinetically, tucking a few into each of their saddle bags. He’d insisted that he do the gathering, both for fear of something lurking in the grass just barely out of sight, waiting to sink poisonous fangs into unwary veins, and because it seemed the least he could do was ensure neither of them had to exert much effort when they might need the energy to run for their lives should something come after them after all.

Her apparent confusion became a hesitant grin. “I won’t say there is not a doubt, but for now, they should be out.”

He returned her smile, and her rhymes. “Then what are all these tales about? Of horrid beasts and brutish louts?”

She smiled wider, a faint shine in her eyes that telling him she didn’t speak with others who rhymed very often, and rather enjoyed it. “That may sometimes be the case, but not constantly will you be chased. There are many dangers in this place, but not always are we face to face.”

Gathering more of the oddly-colored plant, he chuckled, stringing together the words proving a challenge, but easier than he’d have guessed. “How exactly does that go? Is there a certain spell you know?”

She giggled. “I have been here for a while, I know the schedule for miles!”

“Schedules, of monstrous things?” He raised an eyebrow a little, grinning. “From things that crawl to things with wings?” I’m faintly proud of that one.

Zecora’s hooves just barely avoided tripping over anything as they went as she mostly focused her mirthful eyes on him. “I stay quiet and keep low, and their patterns get to know. When my presence doesn’t show, anywhere I’m free to go.”

“Anywhere at any time, roaming like the world’s all mine?”

“It’s really quite a life to live, if these creatures you’d forgive!”

He probably couldn’t have resisted beaming at this point if he’d wanted to, rhyming was surprisingly good, slightly silly fun! “I do salute your dominance, of all these silly beasts and plants, even if it’s mostly guile, that’s kept you unharmed all the while, for I too would prefer to flee, should those things come after me!”

The prince couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen somepony smile like Zecora was now, apart from maybe Vinyl Scratch right after their song had ended. “If one knows just how to act, not one horror they’ll attract, that is why they call it Ever-free, and that is why it’s home to me!”

Both sets of hooves stopping in their tracks as the last of the peppers were picked and packed, they looked one another in the eyes for a moment, grinning ear to ear, and laughed.

Thump.

Perhaps too loudly. They quickly turned their heads to see distant foliage shaking and falling to something large, and headed straight for them. Eyes not yet averted from whatever was coming for them, Zecora reached over to tap Blueblood’s chest with a hoof to get his attention, motioning the direction she intended to run and taking off, him swiftly following.

The two of them sped through Everfree, dodging low branches, jumping over ditches, and fortunately not earning the attention of anything else that might have come after them, if only because any such creature was likely fleeing the sound as quickly as they were. Not quickly enough, because the thundering steps and low screeches were getting closer, the shapes of the silhouette they were seeing suggested several long, serpentine heads. Most likely a hydra, Blueblood thought, heart hammering in his chest as he looped around a large tree trunk Zecora fled around, Great! Swell! Fantastic! I come out here to do the right thing and get chased by monster that can eat me about six times at once! Where’s the karma?! Aren’t I supposed to get some kind of break for being nicer?!

It was irrational and he knew it, but the things we think in desperate moments are rarely under our control. He would have used a spell or something as he zigged, zagged, and looped through the trees in an effort to throw the damn thing off his trail, but he couldn’t think of anything that would likely work on such a beast. Intangibility would just sink me through the floor if I’m not careful, teleportation could land me in a worse spot than I am now, I can’t possibly hit all of the hydra’s eyes with light orbs at the same time, thinkthinkthinkthinkthinkthinkthinkthinkthink!

He slid to a stop in relatively dark thicket when he noticed the cacophony of massive feet and crushed underbrush was eerily gone. Royal blue eyes slowly scanning the area, he realized he had just gotten himself into something arguably worse than being eaten by a hydra; he was lost in Everfree Forest.

Shouting would be easy, but would Zecora arrive to lead him back to the apparent safety of her hut, him able to get back to town from there, or would it just be a wake-up call for every hungry mouth within earshot? Standing still, shivering, he couldn’t even panic, there was nothing to point him away from likely threats, nothing to-Wait.

Slowly, Blueblood forced a grin. I am Prince Vladimir Blueblood. Glancing back at his now-sweaty and foliage-rustled white coat, he could still see the compass rose cutie mark. There is nowhere I cannot go, nothing I cannot find. I will get out of here alive, kick down the door of the nearest donut shop, stand on the centermost table, and boast of my triumph over these forsaken woods for all to hear and envy.

It almost sounded pretty convincing, really, so he set off in no particular direction, but it felt South-ish to him. He marched, not a sound to be heard but the grass beneath his hooves…

Until he heard music.

It sounds like, he thought, slowly trotting closer to the sound, carnival music, almost? Did monsters that used pony bones as toothpicks have carnivals? For the sake of his sanity, he severely hoped not as he drew closer and closer, breaking into a full gallop toward what he hoped were just horribly out-of-place circus-ponies that would, upon seeing his regal, only slightly disheveled grace, straighten up their idea of a tour, and immediately lead him out of Everfree, back to Ponyville where they’d have their… Whatever Carnivals are for. Then, he’d loop back to Zecora’s hut and, hoping she had an easier time escaping the hydra than he did, once more extend his thanks, go to the train station, leave town forever, and stick to the nice, cozy, if dull life he’d been content with up to a few days ago.

Perfect plan, he thought desperately as the trees blocked out more and more of the sun the closer he got to the source of the music, perfect plan!

Soon, it was dark as night. Night in Everfree Forest. He stopped dead, head whipping every which way in search of that far-from-cozy, but much more appealing area of an at least better-lit Everfree he had thoughtlessly disregarded in favor of clown music moments ago, but found only darkness any further than a few meters away. No, wait… He did see something else, a… A dull yellow thing. White. Yellow and white, and… Red, too? It looked a bit like a pony’s face, actually, the longer he stared, the clearer it got. It was a mare, the dull yellow her coat, the white her mane, the red her… Eyes? No, it was one eye, the other was, wait…

He shut his eyes for a moment in the hopes it would make it easier to focus when he opened them. It did, he could see her clearly now. She was actually quite pretty, her white mane was long, and fairly straight, looking a bit like Princess Twilight’s, only a little unkempt, right down to the streak if it were black and jagged. Her eyes were heterochromic, the right sclera was blood-red with a bright yellow iris, her left just the opposite. They’re a tad creepy, but absolutely beautiful… Purple eyelids, makeup? She had something red and yellow sticking out from behind her ears, too, but he couldn’t quite see-she was smiling. Yellow teeth. Wide. Grinning…

It was only now that he really noticed her facial expression, or that this sight had gotten much closer than the speck he’d been struggling to identify a moment ago. She was staring straight at him, those mismatched eyes gleaming with something like what he’d seen in every noblemare that ever tried to woo him, but a thousand times worse, her smile absolutely predatory. This wasn’t a mare, mares weren’t floating moon-banished heads drifting closer from the darkness, but he didn’t see a body anywh-she was close, too close, too close! Her muzzle was only inches away from his own -When did she get so close?!- he couldn’t move, couldn’t scream, she just smiled at him like he imagined the hydra had b-No! Hydras don’t smile like this, nothing in Tartarus smiles like this! A dozen terrified thoughts between willing himself to run like his hooves caught fire to desperate, silent pleas that she leave him alone raced through his head as her lips drew closer and closer to his, red-and-yellow eyes half-lidded, heart motionless in his chest, breathing stopped, and every vein in his body full of icewater, he shut his eyes…

A sound. He couldn’t make it out, but he dared glimpse his surroundings, finding them to be the better-lit area he’d previously found himself in, no sign of the dull-yellow mare to be found. His breath finally came back in ragged gasps, head swimming with equal parts relief and lingering horror, he dropped to the grass and cried.

Time passed ambiguously, whether it be to the way minutes fly when one is preoccupied, or some chronological anomaly related to this accursed forest itself. Eventually, Blueblood pulled himself together enough to remember he hadn’t actually died just a little while ago, if he even ran into that thing with the mismatched eyes at all. The noise he had heard and been drowning out with his own sobs was a little louder now, Zecora, apparently not afraid to call out to him at the risk of being devoured by something else finding her first. Shaking his head and smearing dirt across his face with a filthy hoof where there had been lingering tears, he decided against letting that happen, charging with not a hint of caution towards her voice.

Something must have been truly wrong with Everfree, because the source of the sound swung and swayed in direction even when he galloped in a straight line, but eventually he was rewarded with the sight of gold rings on a grey, striped body. Zecora smiled a little when she caught sight of him. “I think our task is at an end, let us return home, my friend.”

Smiling a bit himself, he let her lead the way back to her hut.

---

Well, the prince thought as he and Zecora trudged back to her tree, Today has certainly been productive, but it leaves me wondering… They took some slightly arbitrary routes, but just today had reinforced his ideas of this forest being some kind of death trap, so he didn’t argue when they walked around a fallen tree four times before proceeding through a path under some arced trees that hadn’t been there before, grateful they at least didn’t have to run from anything. The walk was mostly silent, his friendly zebra guide focused on where they were going apart from muttering the occasional rhyming warning about the immediate area, so he had some time to think.

What do I do after this? Luna suggested I stay in town for a while, but for what? I can’t just loiter about hoping for an opportunity to do something outstanding -mad as Ponyville may be in that regard- I need an objective. ‘Hello everypony, I’ll be sticking around for a while, does anyone have an odd job I can help with so you won’t think I’m a royal ponce?’ No.

When they arrived at the hut, the saddle-bags full of Mentha Peppers were casually slung by the cauldron in the center of the room and the two politely bid one another good night before Blueblood started back toward town for the night, Zecora’s hut only having one bed and neither of them wanting to make awkward suggestions. It was about ten minutes after he’d left that Zecora remembered she had intended to offer him a drink of the brew she was going to use the peppers for, maybe let him keep a bag for himself if he liked, but charging out her front door and peering around as the sun began to set, he was already long gone.

She facehoofed. “This day took such a toll on me, I forgot my hospitality.” Chuckling a bit, she stared down the path back to Ponyville. “When next I see him now, I think, I’ll offer that pony a drink.”

---

Trotting at a brisk pace, Blueblood smiled, he was at last forming a plan. I could try playing the honest ‘hero’, everypony suspicious of my real motivations, or… He couldn’t help grinning as he remembered what Vinyl had said in the hospital, I could have some fun with this. It’s expected that I’ll act ‘snooty’, is it? I can use that, I think… He would indeed be ‘snooty’, within reason, he’d play the part of the bored royal just out to entertain himself by getting out of the castle for a while, asking, with a hint of regal disdain, if the local peasants had anything he could do to keep busy, maybe even make their meager little lives easier?

…Alright, that was a little too much, but I'll work on it. His ultimate goal of not being known as the world’s most conceited pony felt shallow, but was it wrong? Luna had broken down in tears remembering the way she’d been treated for things so far in the past the only one who could claim to really remember them had long forgiven her. He thought of Octavia, Fleur, Vinyl, all of them very cautious at first, maybe even Fluttershy had been expecting him to snap at her? He hadn’t forgotten her peaceful bliss that day in the garden, and still believed eliciting such a reaction from others was perhaps the most fulfilling thing he could aspire to do, even if everypony believed he was mostly just screwing with them for his own amusement.

It hurt, a little, though he wasn’t sure why. Trixie didn’t seem to know who he was right away, Zecora didn’t seem to care, Photo Finish and Screw Loose were both insane, so he trusted all of their reactions were at least honest and natural, unpainted by either his title or what they may have heard about him. He wanted more natural reactions, to be regarded as a pony, not a thing to be feared and dreaded like he were the spawn of Sombra here to make as many ponies miserable as possible.

On that note, Blueblood realized he probably had some apologizing to do to quite a few servants and lesser nobility when he returned to Canterlot, but for now, he had something important to do! Ponyville in his sights again at last, he clopped his tired hooves in the direction of the ridiculous building with the frosting and cupcake decorations, bucked open the door that hadn’t been locked, grinned triumphantly as he strode past the startled patrons, climbed up onto the countertop to the shocked confusion of the blue, swirly, pink-haired mare behind it, raised one hoof in the air with all the regal majesty he could conjure, opened his mouth to speak, and collapsed, having spent more energy than he usually did in a week in the last few hours alone. As exhaustion ate away at his consciousness, the world was sideways, his head most likely pressed against the floor at this point as white hooves approached him.

A fairly refined voice sighed, sounding faintly amused. “Oh, my. Whatever are we going to do with you…?”

Author's Notes:

I hope you like rhymes, reader, because if not, I bet the talk while gathering pepper-mints was painful. >.<;
The sclera is the white part of an ordinary eye, the iris is the colored ring around your pupil, which is the black dot in the middle. Hope that clears up any confusion on that! For those of you who worked out the name of the face in Everfree, don’t worry, I asked and received permission to use that character! :3

Chapter 11: A New Day

…At least it’s not darkness this time.

Blueblood was chained by his hooves to a wall, but he could very clearly see abundant moonlight streaming through a hole in the ceiling of the dungeon cell he’d apparently been confined in. Before he could so much as voice his confusion, somepony else’s voice shook the area.

“YOU HAVE FAILED IN YOUR TASK, YOUNG PRINCE!!”

About a second after the ringing in his ears stopped, a large, black form stomped it’s way into his vision. Seeing the blue helmet and cat-like eyes attached to the towering, pitch-black alicorn he’d heard quite a bit about after last year’s Summer Sun Celebration, he refused to believe it was what it appeared to be.

She gritted sharp teeth, looking at him with disgust. “Are you going to say nothing? No excuses for your inability to perform such a simple task, no shifting of blame to other parties in the hope that I may spare you?”

The trembling noblepony could only blink in confusion.

Nightmare Moon snarled at him. “Playing the fool as ever, are you? So be it, I will recount your objectives before you are condemned to suffer.” She floated a little clipboard and reading glasses from within her wings, apparently, somehow donning the latter despite wearing a helmet to read from the former as a bored factory worker might when taking inventory of boxes stacked in a dusty back room. “Sow fear and loathing of unknown nocturnal forces in the populace, Check. Perturb the workings of the cake industry so as to throw off Celestia, Check. Meet my agent in Everfree for further instructions…” She stared at him, lowering the glasses along her snout. “Failed.”

Doing his best to disregard whatever the hay she was talking about, Blueblood forced what he hoped would be a charming smile. “T-two out of three isn’t bad, don’t you thi-“

“SILENCE!!”

Does it count as silence if all I can hear is ringing noises…?

“The last step was the most important, you MUST return to Everfree and convene with the mare of gold and crimson eyes!”

He started to sweat. “There’s n-no way I could, I didn’t even, NONE of those things were done on purpose, I-“

“Of course not, you are a sleeper agent in MY employ, making your failure all the more baffling!”

“S-SLEEPER AGENT?!”

Nightmare nodded, grinning a little. “Taken from birth to be my tool, you were programmed from the day you first formed cognition to further MY designs.” The smile was replaced by a sneer. “That you somehow deviated from your given routes is truly a monument to your incompetence, AND FOR THAT,” Her wings flared out as she reared up on her hind legs, “YOU MUST BE PUNISHED!”

Her eyes glowed pure white as the rest of her blackened, seeming to melt into an amorphous mass of dark, alicorn-shaped muck, throwing itself on him. The sludge quickly clogged his mouth and nostrils as he struggled in vain against the metal binds that held him…

And then he woke up, screaming, in a fairly cozy bed, a hotel room, by the looks of things. He sat for several moments, thinking of what just happened and contemplating likely causes. Nightmares. Well, I did just return from the most horrific experience of my life in Everfree Forest, so I suppose it’s to be expected. Getting to his hooves, he shrugged, he had things to do, even if he didn’t know what they were yet.

After cleaning himself up a bit with a quick shower and his usual morning spells, he did what he could to repair the tattered parts of his coat, which held up surprisingly well for a trip through Everfree. It was while straightening it out that he noticed something in one of the pockets, a rose. Fresh, too...

Could this be the same rose as the one Screw Loose dug up?

It might have been taken with him to the hospital after he was presumeably pulled out from under the fallen tree, but the notion was preposterous, how long ago had that been? Not terribly long, he knew, but how long did it take for a flower to start wilting? Still, the only alternative was that someone stuffed a rose in his pocket while he was out. Not able to discern which was the more absurd scenario, he pocketed the rose again, not wanting to worry about it for now.

He strolled out to the foyer to see what looked like the aftermath of a foal's birthday, perhaps a cuteceanera, streamers and partially deflated balloons all over the place, snacks and punch on a table, a pile of confetti being swept up by a custodian. Not wanting to think about the implications of waking up with no memory of how he got here to find what may have been a party for those considerably younger than him, he trotted quickly to the counter, tended by a dull-brown earth pony with a fluffy moustache, looking up from a newspaper he'd been reading while casually reclined in his seat, who nodded in acknowledgement before he could speak.

"Mornin', Mr. Blueblood, you sleep ok? Was worried the party last night might'a woke ya up after that nice seamstress brought'cha in."

Alright, he thought with some relief, that at least clearifies that I did not attend, and get black-out drunk at, a party for colts and fillies. This seemed like a bad time to start on his Pompous Prince idea, having apparently just recieved undue kindness. He nodded to the clerk. "I am well-rested, thank you. You said somepony brought me here...?"

---

Walking through town, he reflected on just why Luna must have liked it here; kind, caring ponies always seemed to show up to help him while he was unconcious.

Alright, maybe not in those words, but twice now he'd been incapacitated and somepony had looked after him, the one who brought him to the hotel, -a rather nice one, at that- paying for everything herself and not so much as leaving a note of any kind, and Zecora. The clerk said she'd almost definitely turn down any offer in terms of being repaid for such generousity, but as with Zecora, he wanted to at least try. And then maybe he'd say/do something 'snooty'.

Carousel Boutique, he said, tall, elegant building, can't miss it. His pride as a Master of Navigation would be on the line if he did. Luckily, it wasn't hard at all to spot. Approaching the door, he heard muffled shouting from inside, leaping back in a fright when that door swung open, inches away from hitting him, as something shot past in a heap, the door slamming shut in almost the same instant.

"Sheesh," a voice sounded from the direction the blur had gone, "some ponies, noooooo sense of humor."

Looking to the source, Blueblood saw none other than Discord himself, sprawled upside down on the ground. Getting to his hooves, claw, hoof and claw, Discord smiled down at him. "Wellll, if it isn't Mr. Fancy Pants!"

"Fancy Pants is the one with the blue moustache," the prince deadpanned, "usually has a monocle as well?" They'd been through this many times, but it was usually easier to just go with it.

Discord snapped his fingers, a monocle and stylish top hat appearing on his person. "Quite right, old bean, quite right."

Blueblood was sorely tempted to ask why he was in Ponyville too, but didn't want to have to explain why he was there himself, or worse, hear the spirit's answer. He turned to the Boutique. "If you'll excuse me, I have some business with the owner of this-"

He was pulled back by his tail. "Ohhhh, nononono, my fine chap," Discord had adapted a faint Canterlot accent, sounding not unlike the average noblepony, "you'll be most inclined to refrain from that course of action, as I do believe the Lady of the House of Mannequins is rather miffed."

"Miffed?"

A sagely nod as Discord drank from an upside-down wineglass full of bees. "I say, miffed."

"Is there any particular reason she might be miffed?"

"If so, I supposed it was missed."

"You missed the reason she was miffed?"

"Missed it in a mist, old boy, missed it in a mist."

This was silly, but, like rhyming, oddly fun. "I missed the meaning of this mist."

Discord was now playing a violin with a saw. "'Tis a sad song, dear chum, that mist that was hissed by the mistress so miffed, so I missed why she was miffed in that mist oh so-"

The door to the Boutique slammed open, startling Blueblood into leaping instinctively to the side of where he'd been, away from the door as a loud, furious mare's voice boomed from behind him. "AND TAKE THIS FILTH WITH YOU!!"

In an instant, a massive pile of what appeared to be charcoal was levitated through the door in light blue magic, landing squarely on the best-dressed draconequus he'd ever seen, the door slamming shut again immediately after.

Discord popped out of the pile wearing a yellow hardhat with a light on it, covered in black splotches. "Like I said, she's pissed."

Blueblood only stared at him.

"What?" He shrugged innocently, clearing the dark substance away with a snap of his fingers. "I only offered to help her make a diamond even bigger than the last one I tempted her wi-" There was sudden, unconvincing coughing fit. "Offered, with use of large piles of coal, but apparently the crucible I had in mind for this was already occupied by a long stick." He threw up his arms, exasperated. "How was I supposed to know she's like that all the time?!"

The prince looked for words, but they didn't come right away. Luckily, he was able to fill the awkward silence. "Right. Soo, suppose I'll be wanting to wait a while before meeting Miss..." Oh, horseapples, I forgot to ask her name!!

Discord didn't seem to pick up on his quiet distress. "Yup." He picked Blueblood up, tucking him under and arm like a foal with a plushie. "So, what's say in the meantime we have a picnic? The roof of Sugarcube Corner is just dandy today..."

---

Pinkie was sprawled out on her bed, mane lacking some of it's usual poofiness as she pondered what kept going wrong. She tried waiting for the prince at Zecora's place, but he never showed up! Apparently he got hurt on the way again, so she tried throwing a party in the hospital, but everypony said no. She really meant to keep it a quiet ok-for-hospitals party, but they still eventually threw her out! Feeding him the potion had been kinda fun, but he wasn't awake, so it didn't count as a welcome. Next, she figured that if Blueblood was hanging around town for a while, that he'd want to stay at the fanciest hotel in Ponyville, so she set up a party there, and again he didn't show up! Everypony that did seemed to have fun, but for the guest of honor to miss his own party twice in a row was unbelieveable!

Well, that it happened twice made it kinda believeable, so it was believe-ish, but she still didn't like it! She let out a tired sigh. Where could he be?

---

Just a few meters above Pinkie Pie, her target and some-draconequus else she'd meant to throw a party for at some point were hidden by the wood, insulation, and confectionary decorations that made up the roof of the highest room in Sugarcube Corner.

Prince Blueblood had an odd relationship with the Spirit of Chaos, they didn't have anything against one another besides the obvious, one being related to Celestia and the other a maniac that had terrorized Equestria, but they weren't quite friends, either. He supposed this was due in part to Discord always preferring to irritate his aunts whenever possible, ponies like himself being small potatoes in comparison, rarely subject to a direct prank of any kind at all, which suited him fine.

He had time to reflect on this as they ate green waffles on the roof of the place Blueblood had collapsed from exhaustion in just last night, a pitcher that constantly changed the beverage it would pour sitting between them.

Discord rested with his back against one of the giant candles on the synthetic confection they were occupying, arms folded behind his head. "So, I hear you've been busy actually doing things of late, a welcomed change of pace!"

Taking a sip of what had been poured in his glass when the pitcher was apparently set to watermelon juice, Blueblood ignored the barb at his until-recently uninvolved lifestyle before answering. "You're referring to the parade, I'm guessing?"

A pair of white gloves, strange-looking things that they were, appeared and began clapping as Discord grinned. "Fine show, if I may say so, the noise, the tunes, the utter disregard for Canterlot's stuffy status quo? The ensuing panic of monsters preying on unwary ponies after dark, the richer the better," he grinned, mouth suddenly full of long, golden fangs, "was an absolute joy to behold!"

Blueblood blinked. "The richer the...? I don't recall anything about that in the song."

Snickering, Discord looked away innocently. "Ohh, you know how ponies get when they're afraid, they'll believe anything they hear. Can't imagine what kind of rapscallion would go spreading such rumors, though, much less adding onto them."

The appearance of a glowing halo might have been almost expected, if hadn't been over Blueblood's own head. The implication took a minute to sink in, he spoke with equal parts confusion and indignation. "A-are you accusing me of something?"

The sinister grin he hadn't seen on the spirit as often showed as Discord chuckled. "Who was it that sang about horrible monsters in the dead of night, akin to ponies?"

"I never said anything about them eating the wealthy, specifical-"

Sitting up, Discord waved a talon dismissively. "Ohh, I may have colored it a little here and there, just for a spot of harmless fun, but it's because of you that quite a bit of sleep was lost, by terrified nobles and overclocked guards alike. I'll bet you've made an enemy of the bat pony community, too." He laughed for moment as the prince shivered at the thought. "Really, I'm quite impressed! All that with a song? Not bad, Little Boy Blue, not bad at all."

Something sunk in his stomach as he tried to defend himself. "B-but I, it was just-"

"A spot of harmless fun...?" The spirit smirked, though not as maliciously as he could have. "Not all fun is harmless, eh? Terrible business, but not all harm is funless, too, so there's a silver lining!"

Blueblood blinked.

He laughed, taking to the air despite his wings not moving. "I'll tell you about it when you're older. Well, it's been fun, Your Whoness, but I've got a few more errands in town, ta-ta!" He snapped his fingers, disappearing in a flash, leaving the prince alone with his thoughts. On a rooftop. He'd mind that part later.

This came up in that nightmare as well, sowing fear and, as often follows, loathing? He hadn't meant any harm that day, just sang the first thing that came to him, which happened to be his long-held phobia. In reflection, he could see how it might have been misconstrewn as a direct warning, perhaps even a call to arms against what he hadn't even identified. He'd have pondered how Discord knew exactly what he meant, but it didn't seem too hard to riddle out, even if the citizens of Canterlot still hadn't gotten it. Luna's guards probably heard about it by now, I'll have to do something to make it clear I never held any ill will towards them, nightmarish anatomy or no.

Sitting on the cupcake-colored roof, he puzzled on how best to do this. Looking around from the vantage point he'd been conveniently left on, he sought... What? What's going to pop out at me as a way to say "I'm sorry I might have just made fitting in a bit more difficult for your species, not even for a good reason, please don't hang me upside down and tear my legs off"?

Clamping down on thoughts like those, he decided, would be a good place to start.

I see... Carousel Boutique, houses, what looks like a barn, -go figure- more houses... He dared look in the direction of Everfree Forest, half-expecting something to catch him looking, grab him all the way from however far this was, and drag him screaming into the darkest re-he slapped himself.

He had to stop letting thoughts like these go unchecked. Caution was healthy, paranoia was often reasonable to a degree, this was letting fear and pessimism run wild, exactly the sort of thing that had been effectively running his life for as long as he could remember. "Has to stop," he muttered to himself, "it has to stop..."

"What does?"

Blueblood jumped, wondering for only a fraction of a second if the moment, the one moment in which he decided not to be wary of the world just waiting for him to drop his guard, it would swallow him, had finally come. It hadn't. He whipped his head in the direction of the voice to see a grey, wall-eyed pegasus, a cheerful little grin on her face as she floated nearby, head tilted inquisitively.

He reddened faintly. "I-it, I was, uh..." Clearing his throat, he took a stance as regal as one reasonably could atop a giant, synthetic confection. "Just something beneath my position I've been doing lately."

"Hmm..." Her eyes seemed to swirl about in her head, but so subtley he wasn't sure they were moving, or if it was her head. They proved so mesmerizing, he missed whatever question she'd just asked.

He shook his head rapidly. "I'm sorry, what was that?"

She smiled. "Mr. Rich! I bet he could help you."

"...Pardon?"

"You said something about position, that's rich-pony talk, right? I hear Rarity talk about stuff being 'uncouth' and 'un-other-things'" she stretched out her forehooves emphatically, somehow not losing her balance too much as her body leaned back in mid-air during a long declaration, "aaaaaaaall the time!" She fluttered a bit, but regained equilibrium in just a few seconds. "So I figured you're a rich pony. Are you?"

He nodded slowly, which earned a silly little grin from the golden-eyed wonder. "I guessed it, woohoo!" She flew in a circle a few times quickly, slamming into one of the giant, fake candles almost comically, getting back into the air before Blueblood could even move.

Maybe this explains the eyes, he thought.

She pointed a hoof over to what appeared to be a distant mansion the prince hadn't noticed before. "Mr. Rich's place is that-a-way!"

He nodded. "Thank you for the tip, Miss...?"

Her head tilted, wings stuttering for a few beats. "Miss? What were you aiming for?"

"What?"

"Miss. That's like, not-hit?"

He blinked very slowly. "Right. I was actually asking your name."

"Oh!" She giggled. "Most ponies call me Derpy!"

He nodded. "Thank you for the tip, Miss Derpy."

She grinned. "Miss Doo."

"Derpy Doo?"

The smile widened, she loved this game. "Ditzy Doo."

Blueblood was getting confused. "Is Derpy a middle name, then?"

"No, my middle name's Esmeralda."

He appeared increasingly bewildered. "D... Ditzy Doo Esmer-no, Derpy-Ditzy Esmeralda Doo? Or, Miss Doo, Ditzy Esmeralda Der-"

The pegusus burst into gigglefits before responding. "I gotta go now, but it was fun talking to you. Seeya later, Prince Blueblood!"

And with that she flew off, in an incredibly erratic flight pattern full of unecessary turns and arcs, nearly crashing into the local architechture at least twice before flying out of sight. It was right about then that a chill creeped along his spine, quiet fear again worming it's way into his thoughts. I never told her my name.

He heard voices from below. Looking down to the streets, he saw several ponies gathering around the building on which he stood staring up at him, speaking to one another just loudly enough that he could hear the dull murmur of conversation. Reddening faintly, a number of dots connected at once in his head.

I, an outsider, and a well-reknowned noblepony at that, have been in this town for a few days, doing some slightly odd things. At this point, he was probably the talk of the town. Irony involving his initial quest for an improved reputation ignored, he cast a slow-fall spell and leapt off the roof, drawing some gasps from the ponies below, followed by sighs of relief when he landed safely. He began a brisk trot in the direction Derpy, or Esmeralda, or whatever, had pointed him, not sure what he'd do, but not wanting to draw a crowd at the moment.

---

While Blueblood knew not every wealthy pony lived in Canterlot, he hadn't thought any would be located in a place such as Ponyville. He'd heard about the Rich family, though, making their living vending apples from the local farm far and wide, particularly some kind of special jelly. Why the apples weren't the ones living in the mansion in that case was anypony's guess. Approaching the door, he rang the doorbell once and waited. A moment later, the door was answered by an elderly, purple stallion, probably a butler.

Blueblood cleared his throat. "Good Morning. I am here to pay a visit to the master of the house." I have no idea what for, but there's bound to be something. Maybe talk about that famous jelly? "Might Mr. Rich be available?"

He could practically hear the butler's joints creaking as he turned his head to look back into the house for a moment, his voice slow, showing the strain of age. "Mr Rich is out right now... Foals, though, need somepony'ta watch 'em... I ain't so much for the youngin's, could you, maybe...?"

Foals? The prince wasn't exactly good with children, in his experience. "I'm sorry, I don't quite-" Looking into the old one's eyes, they practically sang of wear, of many long years of working, possibly under conditions not unlike those he'd often subjected those back at the palace to; highly demanding and lacking in immediately apparent gratitude. "I-I mean, I'm not sure it's entirely appropriate to-" Decades. Decades of tiresome tasks, day, after day, after day.

He gave in. "It... I mean, p-perhaps I could try...?"

The butler's mouth moved just a little, almost a smile as he nodded in affirmation, opening the door and motioning, somewhat tiredly, for Blueblood to follow.

Foalsitting was by no means a new concept, perhaps it would be fine?

Author's Notes:

'When will he finally run into Rarity,' you ask? Some day, Pinkie Promise.

Does anyone else have a REALLY hard time remembering how to spell draconequus? I always have to look it up...

Chapter 12: Trapped

Silver Spoon followed her oldest and closest friend -not that that was really saying much, in either category- back into the house, both having gotten bored with the pool.

"Can you be-lieve the looks those blank flanks were giving us the other day, Silver?"

She nodded a bit. "I don't know what they were so mad about, they won the stupid flag competition."

"Dumb judges," Diamond grumbled, "must have been blind."

"Totally."

That whole thing had been weird, Silver thought, both that those crazy Cutie Mark Crusaders actually put together a decent act, and them getting so bent out of shape about what she and Diamond had said about Scootaloo not being able to fly. What was the big deal? They were telling the truth, weren't they?

...Ok, she could kinda see how it might have been a little mean, especially since they were just doing it to throw the other three off their game. She didn't quite understand why Diamond got like that sometimes, but it was almost always when the CMC were involved. She'd really wanted to ask Diamond why that was, Silver having more or less forgotten why she'd ever cared herself, but she always sorta... Glared, when Silver brought it up. Regardless, if Diamond didn't like somepony, neither did she. It might not always make sense, but friends stick by eachother, no matter what. Right?

Besides, Diamond was actually a pretty nice filly when you got to know her! She always kept her cool pretty well in public, but who didn't? Besides Pinkie Pie. When it was just the two of them, she'd make Silver laugh all the time! Even in public, she was pretty sure Diamond just wanted others to laugh, even if it was laughing at somepony. Usually the CMC... It didn't usually take much to accomplish that, the way those three carried on...

As they walked through the house, Diamond stopped in her tracks, ears perking up. She glanced back at Silver. "Do you hear that?"

Stopping to listen herself, she heard what sounded like an unfamiliar voice. Guests? It sounded like a stallion, one of Mr. Rich's business parters? It was getting closer. Diamond nodded to her, they'd been through this like, a hundred times already. They'd smile, look cute, and compliment something about Whoever and they wouldn't have to hear about 'disrespectful fillies not knowing their place' or any of that other grown-up speak for 'I don't like you' that Diamond and Silver's parents always seemed to think was their fault somehow.

As they rounded the corner, they could see him talking to Diamond's butler, both peering closely before recognition hit them like a sack of bricks. The two immediately shot back around the corner, stammering so badly neither could articulate a single syllable clearly before both needed to pause for breath. They spoke in a shouted whisper together.

"PRINCE BLUEBLOOD!!"

It was several seconds before they could compose themselves through their mutual excitement and panic at having actual royalty visit them. They quickly looked eachother, themselves, and eachother over again to see if they were presentable for meeting the Most Eligible Bachelor in Equestria™, determined that of course they both looked perfect as always, but couldn't contain their butterflies as they did their best to saunter around the corner again, channeling Sweetie Belle's sister with all their little beings.

"Good afternoon, sirs," Diamond began, snout held high, which Silver mimicked, "a fine day to you both." She glanced as non-chalantly as possible at Blueblood, her eyes lingering a few seconds longer than she'd intended them to. "I wish to welcome you to Rich Manor." She motioned to the butler. "Randolph, would you be so kind as to introduce us to our vistor?"

Randolph opened his mouth over the span of five seconds, just starting to verbalize when Diamond cheerfully spoke up again. "I'm Diamond Dazzle Tiara," she gestured to Silver with a hoof, "This is Silver Spoon." The grey filly bowed a little, a nervous, ear-to-ear grin the only hole in her performance.

A rather formal greeting for foals their age, Blueblood thought, they remind me of the high-born mares back home. He unintentionally went into Canterlot Party Auto-pilot and ignored the pink one as she went on as a thought occured to him, not a hint of it showing through the practiced, stoic expression he wore. Look at them. So young and yet taught to behave like 'model ponies,' likely not so much as asked their own opinions on the matter. Wasn't I raised the same way? Wasn't I instructed through most of my youth to act in perfect accordance with what would be expected of a Prince of Canterlot? And what did I become? Or my peers, barring a few? What did the noblemares who, for bits and some hollow, senseless pretense of prestige, chase me become, the very sort these girls may grow into? Good ponies?Admirable ponies? Happy ponies? No.

In those two fillies, Prince Blueblood saw everything that had ever been wrong with the Canterlot Elite, especially himself. At that moment, he felt something in him die. He also felt something snap.

He heard the pink one -Diamond Tiara, was it?- project a tone that suggested she was asking a question. Noticing Randolph had apparently hobbled away, he hoped it had been asking his name, as was only polite. He grinned. There would be no Pompous Prince today, only... What had Vinyl called Fancy Pants? A Class Act...

"Call me Vladimir!"

The tiny pair blinked, not sure they heard him correctly.

He chuckled. "Maybe just 'Blueblood', then?" Smiling wider, he looked around a bit. "Well, let's not just stand here all day, what's there to do for fine young fillies like yourselves?"

Silver felt a blush that went up to her ears. His face, his voice, his everything, it was too much! Bursting with excitement, she let out a long, high-pitched scream as she began hopping up and down in place, if only to expel some of the energy in her legs, somewhat relieved to see Diamond doing roughly the same thing.

They're screaming, Blueblood thought, eyebrow raised in mild caution, so they're not completely trained yet. He could remember his nanny's stern words.

"Nobleponies don't scream, don't shout, don't exclaim louder than is warranted by the situation, and royalty must adhere to a higher standard than-"

He shook his head. No time for that now, think! What would Vinyl Scratch do...?

Clearing his throat, he nabbed the excitable foals in his magic, gently setting them down as they adapted to the calmer state of just beaming at him, eyes shining with wonder. "Now, now," he said with a friendly grin, "we won't accomplish much standing here." He let them go, the two shaking with excitement for a moment before they look at eachother, looked back at Blueblood, and the jumping and screaming started again.

While the biggest celebrity to visit their home stood flummoxed, Diamond and Silver traded glances, reading eachother as close friends sometimes do.

'He's just going to think we're crazy, Di!'

'I can see that, Sil!'

'So shouldn't we stop?'

'So stop.'

'I can't!'

'Ugh. I have a plan, follow my lead!'

Diamond mustered the self-control to stop bouncing, holding Silver down with a hoof until she quit jittering as well, face still split in a painfully wide grin. She bowed politely to their visitor. "If you'll excuse us for just a moment, sir, my friend and I may need a moment or two alone." She started walking away, dragging Silver along with her. She looked over her shoulder and winked. "We won't be too long~"

A moment later, they were out of sight, leaving Blueblood to contemplate his next move.

Around the corner, Silver whispered to her friend, finally having retrieved her ability to speak. "Whatareyoudoing?!"

Diamond blinked, whispering back. "What?"

She reddened slightly, forehooves flailing inarticulately for a moment. "Th-th-the... Winking! What was that about?"

Diamond chuckled. "What," she said with a brief toss of her mane, "isn't it obvious? It's only natural a beautiful lady like me should act like that around the stallion who's clearly come to ask my hoof in marriage."

Silver's brain stopped working. "...Duh?"

The apparently engaged filly nodded with a grin, straightening her namesake tiara with a hoof. "Duh. He came to my house, and Randolph led him straight to me, what else could it mean?"

Well, Silver thought, It kindof makes sense... I think? Every filly dreams of a dashing price to sweep them off their hooves someday, but to see it actually happen was something else. She was a little disappointed it wasn't her he had come for, but she'd be happy for her friend anyway!

She smiled. "O-okay, what's the plan?"

"Easy," Diamond replied with her usual confidence, "we hang around until he gives me a ring, then comes wedding plans!" She glanced around the corner to find the prince still waiting, a thoughtful look on his perfectly-sculpted face. "Let's head back, before he gets bored or something."

Silver nodded assent as the two trotted back, much more in control of themselves this time. Not that I'm heartbroken, of course... She'd never tell anypony, but there may or may not have been a colt that Silver'd already had her eye on for a while.

Oh good, Blueblood thought, they're coming back! I may not be able to match Operation H.T.T.G.F.B. in scale, somepony will probably get hurt if I do, but I may yet pull these poor fillies from the empty, senseless lives they're en route for! He knew just what to do!

"Hello again. I have an idea that requires something old and likely not touched in a long time. Might you two be able to tell me where your storage rooms are...?"

---

"Shoot, it's locked!"

The three stood outside a fairly heavy door, Diamond Tiara having just tested the handle to find it firmly sealed.

Silver Spoon drew a hoof to her chin in contemplation as Blueblood realized he no longer had his Skeleton Key with him. That's right, he thought, I didn't bring anything with me in Grandfather's suit, I couldn't find anything I'm sure was a pocket, so I left the key and everything else I usually carry in another coat. Probably still hanging on a rack in my chambers... It didn't matter, he specifically recalled that there had been no breaking and entering in his and Vinyl's caper. The means by which he entered Club Canterlot didn't count.

He looked to the fillies. "Have either of you an idea where we might get the key?"

Diamond nodded a bit, glaring at the door. "Yea, daddy probably has it, and he's out of town right now."

Silver spoke, face lighting up a little. "The basement at my place is never locked, maybe there's something down there?"

---

Silver and Diamond led the way through town, Blueblood behind them as some ponies stared, though he wasn't certain why.

The two in front whispered out of the corners of their mouth to eachother.

"Why would he want something old and dusty, Di?"

"I'unno, maybe he's looking for an antique ring to propose to me with?"

Silver deadpanned just slightly. "An antique ring from a different family, when he could probably afford ten newer, even nicer rings?"

Diamond smirked. "I love a colt that can keep me guessing~"

Silver gave the quietest groan she could manage without the prince hearing them, smiling a little.

Diamond giggled in reply. "So what's the deal with your basement? If there's a lot of valuable stuff down there, why isn't the door locked?"

The grey filly tinted a shade paler. "Uhm..."

There was a slight edge to her closest friend's voice. "Silverrrrr?"

"W-well, uh, nana says it doesn't need a lock because it's sorta..." She gulped. "Spooky?"

Now Diamond deadpanned. "Spooky."

Silver nodded a bit. "I went down there alone one time... We'll just grab something and head out, right?"

"Riiiiiight..."

Unheard by the three of them, the freshest product of any small town circulated: Gossip.

"A grown stallion with little fillies...?"

"Wealthy pony playdate? That's adorable!"

"They're all rich, right? Maybe they're family?"

"That is sooo not how family works."

"Maybe they're getting deported to Canterlot?"

"That's ridiculous!"

"How long have you lived here?"

"Point taken."

"Those two must have done really done something if the prince himself is coming for them."

"Wasn't Pinkie Pie looking for him?"

"Last I saw her, she was going the exact opposite direction of where they're going now..."

---

This time!

This time, Pinkie was sure she would set up the welcome party in the right place, THIS TIME, she'd bring out the welcome wagon, sing a song, and the Prince would make lots of friends! Then he and Rarity could forget about all the bad stuff between them and be fancy buddies! Kinda like that other fancy pony that doesn't wear pants, what was his name again? I think it started with an "R" because he has a moustache and-she slapped herself with a hoof, now was no time to get distracted!

She stood at the door of Rich Manor, Filthy's place. Don't think about the name. Don't think about the name. Don't think abou-well don't just stand here thinking about what you're not thinking about, either!

She rapped the door repeatedly with a hoof. A few moments later, it was answered by Randolph, who, if he had any reaction to the wide-eyed pony with the slightly deflated mane at the door, didn't show it. "Hrrmmmyyyes?"

Pinkie grinned wider than usual. "HI! I'm here to help set up the party Prince Blueblood is having at the biggest, swankiest house in Ponyville!" Of course he'd come here, I should have known it! And I did, it just took a while! Now I just have to-

Randolph slowly inclined his elderly head inquisitively. "P...Party?"

Pinkie nodded like a woodpecker without a beak. "YES! Don't worry about the invitations, I'm sure he can use the Royal Shouty Thing to call everypony that wants to come once we're all set up," she inched toward the entrance, "now if I could just-"

Randolph didn't move, instead channeling whatever energy he had at that moment into speech. "Master Blueblood... Has already departed."

Pinkie paid no attention to the feeling of something soft completely flattening against her head, which felt just slightly heavier now for some reason. "What."

The old butler took a deep breath, but it proved to be for nothing.

"WHAT?!"

Once more. "He... Has left for... The Spoon residence..." Randolph quietly observed that no, he wasn't the only pony who had problems with his head twitching uncontrollably every now and again. That was comforting, in a way.

Pinkie beamed, but the sizes gained by her grin were lost by her pupils, shrunk to pinpricks. Of course! OF COURSE! Wrong rich-pony place, silly me! I'll just... Head over there, yea! This party will go GREAT!!

---

As foretold, there was no lock on the door. Silver instinctively shuffled behind Diamond when the door creeeeeaaaked open, smiling nervously at Blueblood. "Y-you first, your majesty!"

He chuckled. "Just Blueblood, if you'd please." He started down the stone stairs, too preoccupied with thoughts of harmless -to ponies- adventure to notice the cobwebs, cracked walls, or generally dusty, dark atmosphere of the Silver family's basement.

At least that's what the fillies watching him go guessed, nodding to eachother that they should probably follow.

They made their way past several boxes, cabinets, drawers, and closets that looked like they'd not been accessed in a while, but Blueblood pressed forward, trusting his special talent would steer them in the direction of that which he sought; something really old that nopony would really miss, but had qualities they could entertain themselves with for a bit. That was how Vinyl did it, right?

It wasn't long before a light spell was needed to see where they were going, but that so much space was dedicated to keeping things was, for the three ponies of privelidge, no surprise at all.

"Are you sure you know where you're going, Prince Blueblood?" Silver's eyes indicated as much uncertainty as her voice as Blueblood glanced back at her. "I don't think anypony in my family has been down here in... Like, decades, at least." It's not even that scary. Dark, sure, but not too scary, down here with an adult with magic.

He smiled. "All the more likely we'll find something long-forgotten then, is it not? Perhaps even a glimpse into history."

"History?!" Diamond's un-scholarly side showed itself against her will. "I-I mean, why would we want to find... Stuff like that?" She glanced around at the dusty containers, not wanting to sound like the dunce Cheerilee probably thought she was.

Blueblood didn't seem to notice. "One can learn a great deal from those who came before." I learned Grandfather spent more time, and bits, on things that apparently didn't make him happy than anypony who ever lived, according to Auntie. I will not make the same mistake. "I would ask that you bear with me for a time, we'll head back soon if nothing intriguing can be found." He grinned back at them. "Then we can get ice cream, deal?"

Both fillies beamed in response, answering in unison. "Deal!"

He chuckled, returning his eyes forward to find he was just about to bump into a the dead end of the long basement. A Wall. A Door? He backed up a bit, taking in the details of the surface in front of him.

It was a tall, black, wooden slab, covered with faint, red markings of no apparent rhyme or reason. That, he had learned from a Daring Do book or two, was generally a bad sign, dark occult weavings likely not far behind, but he could feel in his gut that behind this... Thing, was what he was looking for, the means by which he'd find these fillies something more to live for than the hollow posturing and conceit that comes with the Canterlot lifestyle.

He looked back at the foals, who stared at the black surface curiously. "Might either of you know what this is?"

Silver tilted her head as she examined the thing. "It looks like... Some kindof puzzle? Or, a map? It's so worn, I can't even..."

Diamond rolled her eyes. "It's too dusty!" She stepped forward, drew in a breath, and blew on the black wall as hard as she could, sending grey clouds everywhere.

Three coughing fits and three uses of a cleansing spell to remove the dust from three ponies later, they looked upon the unknown slab again, this time finding more red marks.

"Hmm," Blueblood hmm'd, "perhaps we need only a little more...?" He used the cleansing spell on the wall, the red image much clearer now. It was appeared to be a massive... Spoon? He glanced back at Silver, the one on the door looked a lot like her cutie mark, only with a skull and cross-bones where she had a heart in the handle. It was roughly at that point he noticed both fillies were starting wide-eyed at the upper part of the wall. Looking for himself, he saw the letters.

Beware Ye Who Enter!

He looked back at Diamond and Silver, not noticing the eyes in the skull in the spoon in the wall start to light up. "Well, this might not be quite what I had in mind, what say we try-"

He was interrupted by the wall behind him emitting a loud noise akin to a spell being cast, rumbling, and the floor the three of them stood on rapidly moving, it, them, and the wall now spinning as all three let out a cry of alarm. When it stopped, they found themselves in another location, and more than a little disoriented. With help of a light spell, they could see the area was comprised primarily of dark, flat stones, give or take the occasional patch of moss growing on the walls and ceiling. The chamber had only two exits, the one that just deposited them where they were, and a long, lightless corridor that breathed cool air into the room.

Ok, Silver thought, Now it's spooky. "Uhm, P-Prince Blueblood...?" She glanced at him before giving Diamond a worried look. "Maybe we should head back?"

Examining the immediate surroundings, he couldn't help agreeing, this was looking to be a little more than he'd hoped for. He turned his attention to the... Wall? Oh, dear. Well, my spatial awareness tells me this is the same wall that had the red markings, maybe if I just... He tried the cleansing spell on the wall again. And again. Once more. Whatever triggered the wall the first time didn't seem to be working twice... He gave Diamond and Silver, huddling close to eachother as the situation started to sink in, the most confident grin he could manage.

"J-just a moment, girls, I'm sure I'll have us on the other side of this thing soon..."

---

Something was wrong.

Is it me?

No.

Are you sure?

No.

That's ok, neither am I!

It wasn't ok.

But it will be, right?

Maybe. The prince was supposed to be here, Discord was nice enough to lend a maid outfit to make getting into the Spoon place easier.

There weren't that many spoons.

You know what else we didn't really find there?

Soup!

Yes, and?

The prince! Blueblood isn't there, no matter where I look, no matter WHERE I go, he's always not at that place! I thought he was supposed to be good at finding stuff, why can't he even find HIS OWN PARTY?!

You know why.

No I don't!

Do too.

Do not!

Do too.

Do not!

Do too.

Do not!

Do too.

Do not!

Do too.

Do not!

Do too.

DO NOT!!

---

"Ok, Di, your turn!"

"Does it have precious stones?"

"No."

A flash of light.

"Does it come from Prance?"

"No."

Crackling noises.

"Does it taste good?"

Silver giggled. "Probably not!"

The roar of flames rising and dying out again.

"Hm... Do you keep it in the house somewhere?"

"Not really, no."

Several flashes in rapid succession.

Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon sat in the cleanest area they could find near Blueblood and the door, not wanting to venture too far into this place, but keeping out of range of the spells he had resorted to using over the last half-hour.

Diamond's brow ruffled in frustration. "Is it the word 'no'?"

Silver burst out laughing, Diamond smiling a little herself. "N-no!"

"I give up, what is it?"

The sounds and lights just out of their peripheral vision suggested a truly elaborate fireworks display.

Silver smiled with just a hint of sadness. "The sun. Starting to worry when we'll see it again, y'know?"

Diamond deadpanned. "You're kinda dark sometimes."

"Of course I am," she retorted with mock indignance, "that's what happens when you can't see the sun!"

After a brief silence, the two giggled like fillies that weren't trapped in a dark tunnel. Blueblood trudged over to them, the tip of his horn smoking and face somewhat downcast. "It seems I must apologize, there's not a single spell of mine that seemed to yeild any helpful results."

Standing up at this, Diamond smiled. "Great, so can we go exploring?"

The other two looked at her more than a little incredulously, awaiting elaboration.

She adjusted her namesake tiara a bit with a hoof, rather non-chalant. "If we can't head back, might as well take a look around, huh?"

Blueblood and Silver glanced at one another before the former spoke, grinning a bit as he regained some of that head-strong confidence he'd been trying to channel since they found themselves trapped. Vinyl wouldn't panic. "She does have a point, this chamber wouldn't exist if that corridor led nowhere, no?" He projected as much of that regal, hopefully-heroic tone into his voice as possible as he took point down the dark tunnel, rekindling the light spell he'd been using earlier. "There must be another way out, we need only seek it!" Vinyl wouldn't panic. Vinyl wouldn't panic. Vinyl wouldn't panic...

The two fillies, one looking considerably less sure about these proceedings than the other, followed him, for lack of better ideas. Walking behind, they once again whispered to eachother.

"What the hay are you thinking, Di?!"

She gave Silver a confused, slightly annoyed look. "What? I've gotta do something to impress my handsome prince, and not freaking out's all that really came up."

Pale braids shook with an incredulous little head, even if that head bore a little smile. "You're crazy, you know that?"

Diamond quickly reached up with a forehoof to haughtily brush a few locks of her mane aside, a tricky task while walking, grinning proudly. "It's ok to be jealous, I know how amazing I can be. Besides, you don't wanna just sit around in the dark all day, do you?"

She very much didn't, and lacking any better ideas, stuck with the plan: Follow Prince Blueblood and hope for the best.

This was quickly tested.

SSSHINHCHK!!

The three ponies in the tunnel jumped in fright as a massive, rusty blade imbedded itself in the masonry to their left after having swung through a deep slit in the opposite wall with a shower of sparks, missing the prince by scant centimeters.

Free of gaping, fatal wounds, for now, Blueblood sloooowly turned to face the girls. He spoke quietly when they made eye contact, his face betraying only wide-eyed alertness. "Alright. Coming this way was quite possibly a grave mistake, but with it being no less true now than a few minutes ago that the entrance is sealed, we must proceed very, very carefully. Do you understand?"

The two nodded, despite a frightened tremble working it's way into their movements. Silver hoped her glasses would hide the tears that began to form at the thought that they may die down here in the dark before Diamond spoke up.

"Pfft, p-please!" She shook her head, smiling confidently. "Anything this place throws at us, the prince can handle," she looked directly at him, "right?"

Both he and Silver looked into her eyes, seeing not a trace of fear or uncertainty. Diamond looking more like a filly coming along on a class fieldtrip, her cheerful little grin bringing to mind thoughts of a pleasant day out of school and perhaps a stop at a souvenir stand. Silver couldn't help smiling a little, her fears somewhat loosened at the thought as Blueblood grinned himself.

"Right, let us be off!" As he continued his earlier stride, head up and light spell active in his horn, he spoke loudly enough that the two following behind could hear him, not wanting to break watch to talk over his shoulder. "I would imagine we triggered a trap there a minute ago, so we need only exercise caution to avoid others."

He kept his eyes forward, particularly looking to the floor for pressure plates or tripwires or something. But how do I know there aren't magical triggers as well? The door, wall, thing was most likely enchanted or something, if it only opened in response to a spell, but then, why wouldn't it open when I used almost every spell I knew on the other side? Regardless, I must stay vigilant, must stay-

He stopped as the next floor tile he stepped on descended a few centimeters, immediately followed by a lound rumbling sound behind them. He whipped his head toward the foals, who had jumped at the sudden noise. "RUN!!"

Though he was still inexplicably handsome while panicked, Prince Blueblood's facial expression completely erased whatever composure Silver had by this point. She and Diamond sprinted after him, traps apparently being triggered all over the place as things flew through the air around the three fleeing, screaming ponies to the sounds of clicking and shifting stone. They ran aimlessly, but kept together, more and more old machinery activated by their terrified charge through the tunnels until they hit what they'd collectively feared most at that moment; a dead end.

They skidded to a stop, turning on their hind hooves to spin in the direction they'd come, Blueblood wishing he'd taken his brother-in-law's offer to learn shield spells from the best in the Royal Guard, if only in that field, as they waited for the destructive cacophony to catch up to them. 'No need for a shield,' I said, 'The best defense is a good offense,' I said! Only billowing dustclouds were visible in the clattering chaos that seemed to draw closer by the second, the noise almost deafening when it closed in on them, Blueblood stepping forward to protect the fillies as best he could, if only as a meat-sheild. As it neared, however, it rapidly lost volume, speed, and intensity as a single wooden bowl rolled on it's side towards them, stopping at one of the prince's forehooves.

He looked down at it. "Huh."

"Huh?" Diamond and Silver asked in unison, "'Huh' what?"

The three looked down the hallway they'd just run through to find a mess of miscellaneous things, some broken, and all fairly old. From how calm and quiet it all was now, one might not have even guessed what had just happened, if not for the disarrary of objects all over the place.

Still, Blueblood didn't dare look away from the scene, still half-expecting some final trap to come along and be the one to finish them off... Or at least leave bruises. "Is everypony alright?"

The foals looked themselves over for a moment, finding nothing amiss. Diamond shrugged a bit. "Told'ja we'd be fine, Sil."

While Silver gave her a disbelieving stare, the eldest pony of the bunch took a few slow, cautious steps forward, stopping the other two with a hoof when they moved to follow. "Please, wait here," he uttered, voice as calm and even as he could project it to be, "I'll make certain there are no more traps waiting to be triggered."

They watched with worried eyes as he cantered back into the last room they'd sprinted through, each step taken as though he'd expected a new avalance of projectiles to be unleached with the hoof-fall. When he reached the middle of the room, he stopped, looked around, and moved back towards the doorway close to Diamond and Silver. They saw his horn light up and a cluster of objects start flying about the room, loudly slamming into things at random.

The fillies waited until the cacophony died down before asking the first thing that came to their minds. "Uhm, P-Prince Blueblood," Silver started, "why were you-"

Diamond interrupted, possibly more bothered about having had to wait for an answer to her confusion than the confusion itself. "What in Equestria was that about?! Why were you banging pots and pans all over the place?"

He turned his head enough that they could see him beaming, a mischevious glint in his eyes. "Ohh, we'll get to that! First, however, what does it tell you that I was using pots and pans to make a lot of noise?"

Though she scowled slightly, Diamond resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She hated pop-quizzes! "Uhh... That you probably have professional music ponies come to the castle for a reason?"

Ignoring the possible jab at his prospects as a bard, he kept smiling. "And?"

She raised an eyebrow as Silver tried to come up with a reason herself, in case he asked. "Thaaaat you have cooks for the same reason?"

He chuckled. "Well, yes, but that's not quite what I'm getting at."

Silver blurted out her answer the moment he glanced in her direction. "Therearepotsandpansdownhere!"

Blueblood and Diamond blinked, replying in unison. "What?"

Grey fur turned a shade red as she spoke slower, smiling somewhat sheepishly. "This place has pots and pans, and those wouldn't be down here if it was just a trap, right?"

The prince nodded approvingly. "Right! While it's not strictly impossible that such things would be brought along otherwise, it, and the presence of some of the other things lying around down here, implies that somepony lived here at some point." He levitated nearby pillow where Diamond and Silver could see it. "Would there be much reason to have cushions in a deathtrap? Or a dungeon? It could have been part of the storage facility, but then, why all these traps?" He didn't want to kill any more time with question games at this point, having much better ideas about how to help these fillies do something fun and senseless with a side of destruction. "Traps are made to inflict harm, when they're abandoned, they're security that may outlive any sentry, and this place, it seems, is long abandoned. Somepony lived here, doesn't anymore, but still set traps, so I imagine there's something interesting to be found, don't you?"

The tiny pair, mostly Silver, looked uncertain. "But," she muttered, "S-shouldn't we focus on getting out of here, because there are probably more traps?"

They couldn't help staring a bit at his charming grin. "And that brings us to the noise. I was banging pots and pans all over the place to trigger any traps we hadn't yet. While there were none in this room, it was still pretty cathartic. Have the two of you never wanted to lash out, just throw grace and civility to the wind for a moment and fly off the handle, as it were?"

Diamond was involuntarily beaming her most viscious smile about halfway through the last sentence before Silver responded to the question. "But, we can't do that, not like you, at least! Earth ponies?"

He nodded, picking up a dented kettle with his mouth, speaking around it. "Lahk t'is!" With a flick of his head, the threw the kettle, which smacked into a torch sconce on the other side of the room. "We can use the miscellaneous rubbish lying about here as ammunition against possible traps, just throw things all over the place in each room we venture into from a safe distance and we should be in tip-top shape to uncover the secret all these traps conceal."

He gave another princely smile, the shining DING of his teeth enough to scatter Silver's attention as Diamond moved to pick up a wooden plate and hurl it like a frisbee in no particular direction, grinning as it impacted a vase that hadn't been destroyed earlier. "No traps there," she said with a pleased grin, "lemme go check that cabinet..."

Over the sounds of more destruction, Silver looked uncertain, regarding Blueblood with a pleading gaze. "But... My mom would flip if she'd heard I'd been breaking stuff!" She could already hear the 'filly of your position's and 'raised you better than that's she'd be force-fed if her parents suspected she was doing... Well, what Diamond was busily doing right now.

CRASH!! "Oooh, look! Now there's even more stuff to throw!" CRACK!!

What Silver didn't know was that Blueblood could hear her mother's yet-unspoken scoldings too, as he did so many times before from anypony but Celestia that'd helped raise him. Luckily, he'd heard more than she likely ever would on the matter, and, grinning, knew just what to say in response. "Oh, I couldn't agree more, ponies of wealth and influence such as ourselves shouldn't partake of such barbarism if it can be helped." He dialed up the perfectly-practiced regality in his voice, making the occasional emphatic gesture with a forehoof. "Ponies such as ourselves are smart, sensible beings, we analyze our surroundings, determine where we wish to go, make use of the resources at hoof, and make our way, setting an example for all of Equestria to follow."

Silver nodded, glancing at Diamond as she tossed the fractured remains of a wooden table at the walls of a conjoining hallway. "Then, why are we-"

His grin hadn't faltered. "Analyze your surroundings."

She blinked, stammering for a few seconds as she got her thoughts together. "Uhm, w-we, uh... We're in a tunnel, or something?"

The prince nodded, urging her to go on.

"Aaaand... There's a bunch of... Stuff, all over the place... And traps!"

Still grinning. "Where do you wish to go?"

"I, uh, I don't... Out of here?"

"The resources at hoof?"

Starting to get what Diamond had apparently just mastered with a broken dresser drawer, Silver hesitantly grinned. "The old stuff in the rooms?"

The lesson nearly complete, he winked, Silver inadvertendly looking away with a furious blush. "Then we make our way, like proper ponies of our position. No mother would fault that, would they?"

Still flushed, she smiled a bit wider. "I-I guess not!"

He chuckled. "Right, off we-"CRUNCH!!

They both turned to look at Diamond, casually trotting towards them. "No traps in here or the hallway we came through, but we ran past a few doors between here and the entrance." She beamed. "Wanna go check for more traps, Sil?"

---

Do too.

Do not!

Do too.

Do not!

Do too.

Do not!

Do to-

ENOUGH!!

Do too.

Fine, I get it, alright?! He's avoiding me, he doesn't want to be friends with me or even let me sing the welcome song. This isn't new, is it? It's like the time with Cranky Doodle, ponies don't HAVE to like my parties, I'm just trying to-

You're giving up too easily.

...What?

Find him. MAKE him attend the party. Then you can all finally be friends.

But... I can't just-

Remember how Rarity used to talk about him?

I like the story where he gives her a ring. The diamond in it is always GINORMOUS!

Do you not want to help them be friends anymore?

Of course not, but-

No buts.

What would our legs be attached to?!

Go find him. He'll have a great time. Everypony loves your parties...

I'll find him. We'll have a great time. Everypony loves a party...

---

The three of them were, of course, careful, only throwing things from a good distance, as some of their projectiles did indeed trigger hazards as they slowly demolished almost everything. None of it seemed remotely valuable anyway, all gnarled wood and rusted metal, but eventually something caught the prince's eye. Levitating the object, a ratty-looking tome from a dusty table, he examined the contents while the fillies pulverized a chair by bucking it at the same time. The cover was unreadable, but the first legible writing caught his eye...

Entry 1: Lost me old log again. Happens every damn time I use that fire spell to get away! Don't matter, startin' new in more ways than one. I been couped up in this hole fer days now, but the loot's all still here. Runnin' low on food an' more importantly, rum! Gonna hafta peek out me hidey hole fer some grub.

Least this writin' spell works in the dark, I'll be needin' some lamp fixtures in here, too...

-LSS

Loot? Rum? Lamp fixtures? He kept reading.

Entry 2: Plenty of food 'round here, iffin' ya like apples. Ain't the same as Horseshoe Bay pineapples, even the hardest cider they got's... Lackin', some'ow. Nopony 'round here seems to recognize me, which makes hidin' out all the easier. Iffin' I'm to stay here, I can't be livin' in a cave, ponies get a might weirded out by that kinda thing...

Well, what good's loot iffin' ya never spend any'a the money? Figure I can get a 'ouse built up top, on the other side'a this tunnel.

-LSS

Entry 3: I'll be a mermare's tailfin. Knew I was good, knew the stuff I nabbed was worth a bundle, but it's lookin' like I'll be able to afford more 'n just a 'ouse. They're buildin' the foundations an' all right now, I can 'ear 'em hammerin' away at what'll soon be me own mansion.

Still, it's a might close to me hideout cave. While that was kinda the point, means I need to be careful, need to keep the loot safe. Can't have wanderin' ponies come take what I took, now can I...?

-LSS

Further entries seemed to indicate a number of modifications to the cave over the years, all apparently applied by the author herself, in addition to a spell of some sort thrown in without context. He learned it was a 'she' when the writing depicted a one-sided argument over whether or not emphasizing rump movement when walking was too much like the behavior of a Manehattan strumpet for a respectable mare like herself. Albeit a secret-pirate mare. Apparently this began when a colt in town caught her eye, referred to only as "Burner", the next several entries about trying to get his attention when not setting up traps in the cave, which she remodeled into the paved chambers they now found themselves in.

Looking around at the destruction wrought by him and the fillies he had guided, Blueblood couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt. Sure, they might have been seriously injured or even perished otherwise, but still... The three of them had only been strong enough to make a mess of wooden additions, such as chairs and tables, but it still meant they'd ruined what was apparently quite a lot of work. It was also at this point that he noticed the tumult of smashing furniture had ceased, and found Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, the former looking a touch out of breath, looking up at him curiously as the book levitated near his head.

"A journal," he explained, showing them the pages, "apparently the owner, or former owner, of this, eh," He gave their surroundings a cursory glance, not sure about his word choice for even before they'd started making things worse, "residence. It doesn't say specifically where the traps were placed, but I'm hoping to find mention of an escape route or something."

"Whose journal is it," Silver asked, "does it say who lived down here?"

Diamond sat on her haunches as she followed the conversation, having exerted herself with much greater exuberance than her friend in letting off steam. And there's always more steam to let off, she thought with a grin.

The prince shook his head a little. "The only identification so far is LSS." He grinned. "Here's that glimpse into history I was talking about, I think."

Diamond groaned quietly, but Silver joined her in taking a seat, -so to speak, every chair was now shattered debris- beside her as Blueblood brought them up to speed. He paraphrased what he had learned so far doing much the same for the final entries, set a few years after the first.

Entry 42: I... I've done it. Secured a fortune, slipped away, built a new house, built a new identity... Built a new life. This, THIS is the dream, isn't it? Get rich, live rich, sit back and be happy? I can do that now... What was once a colt I couldn't stop looking at, is my lawfully wedded, tomorrow. Nopony ever came looking for me, nopony ever found the pirate that snuck off with the whole hoard of the backstabbingest son of a diamond dog in all the sea... Haha, it's been some time since I've let the old sailor talk slip! Anyway, if they came now? They still wouldn't find her. Just "A pretty unicorn filly from far away come to live in quieter parts of Equestria; Silver Spoon."

Both fillies let out a gasp when the name was spoken aloud, Diamond pointing an accustatory hoof at the grey filly beside her. "Y-You're an old pirate?!"

"NO!!" Silver started sputtering. "I-I, it's, I d-don't even-"

Blueblood, connecting a few dots, cleared his throat. "I suspect... I may know what's going on here."

The tiny pair turned to look at him, one with growing confusion, the other with hope.

He smiled a little. "Let us read on, shall we?"

I almost feel silly setting all this up now. All these traps I've been tip-hoofing over the last few years, waiting for the day somepony sneaks down here to make off with what remains of what I initially stole? Even installing that magical door backwards! It seems to foolish, looking back. There isn't near as much of the 'loot' I used to have, though still a good pile of gold...

There's no sense in coming down here anymore, but, I think... I think I wanted to be caught. That isn't too strange, is it? I spend all this time and effort to protect my hard-stolen treasure, keep a big secret from everypony... And it works! Mother used to tell me that they who do bad things get it themselves, sooner or later. Worst 'commuppance' I've had to endure was the day I wore a dress with flowers, REAL flowers, on the flanks the same day the beekeeper was in town... Even then, that was the day Burner finally noticed me... Running, screaming, and my rump covered in stinging insects...

Still, it's not what I thought I'd recieve the night I rowed the little boat I'd crammed all the bags into up to a little grotto, tied it to a stalagtite, and huddled up with a ratty old blanket my first night here. It's like... I really have started over, been given all I could really want, here in Ponyville, a relatively new town itself.

I've been mulling it over for a long time now, and there's no more doubt in my mind. I'm sinking the boat that's been sitting docked since I arrived, walling off that part of the cave... I think I'll just leave the traps, who's to say any of them even work, after all? If I couldn't install a magical pass-spell door, who knows what else I mucked up?

...I remember the first time I came in here after I put that damned door up, how I forgot it takes a particular spell as it's 'open' signal from one side, any at all from the other. This was to avoid trapping anypony on one side... and I installed it facing the wrong way.

"Finally," Diamond all but shouted, "can we get out of here?"

Silver nervously glanced between her impatient friend and the most prestigous pony they'd ever been in contact with, but Blueblood was indifferent to any percieved rudeness, very much wanting out of the tunnel himself. I've kept these fillies away from their normal lives all day without so much as telling anypony, I need to return them to the surface. Besides, it was likely well-past lunch, perhaps even dinner time, and he worried about being held responsible, even rightfully so, for the malnourishment of growing foals.

"I'm looking indications of the right spell," he said, "must be in here somewhere..."

Luckily, it returned to me eventually, I even wrote it down that day if I ever forgot it again...

He skimmed, looking for any sign of-oh, wait! Flipping back to the first few pages, Blueblood found the spell he'd seen earlier. Grinning, he motioned for Diamond and Silver to follow him as he started towards the way they'd come in.

---

It took a few tries, but he managed to perform the spell well enough that the three once again were forcibly spun about the door with the red markings, finding themselves once again in the basement of the Spoon household. Two simultanous steps were taken towards the exit by Blueblood and Silver, Diamond practically sprinting, before all stopped, plagued by the same thought as they looked to eachother, then the journal Blueblood was still levitating.

'What happened to LSS...?'

Returning to the page he'd left off with, Blueblood read on.

...Would it make sense to set the door right? I mean, now that I know I'll never get locked in again, is there really much sense in going to the trouble of...

Oh, goodness, look at me, talking about anything and everything but what I came down here for. One last time. For so long, I've been wrapped up in this private fantasy of having to fight off somepony coming for me, having to defend what remains of my 'loot pile' with a cutlass, that it's honestly difficult letting it go. I don't need the money anymore, Burner and I are... Well, suffice to say we're well-set for the future. I want a foal, a family, ponies to share happy memories with, not to sit on a treasure hoard like a dragon through my golden years. No pun intended. I think I'll just leave it here, it's been hard enough pretending family from the other side of Equestria has been sending me the money all this time, and what better way to be done with all this than to well and truly let go of that which started things?

I'm done now, leaving, shutting this journal and never coming back down here, I'll live my life in peace. Goodbye.

-Long-Spoon Silver

Use of the most exceedingly elegant lettering told Blueblood that the writer took their time in writing it out, but the guilt from earlier thankfully died away when it was clear the owner never intended to return. Mostly. It more or less confirmed his earlier suspicion, that Long-Spoon gave up piracy and, along with Burner, lived as the first of the Spoon family, the filly he'd met today being her descendant. On that note, he was pretty sure that made the treasure her inheritance, and told the fillies as much.

Hesitant about returning to the tunnel, but unable to ignore the call of long-forgotten pirate treasure, the three re-entered through the enchanted door, looked into the rooms they hadn't been in yet and, after a quick projectile-based scan for more traps, found a small mound of riches in a closet. Judging by how the lock was already opened, they guessed Long-Spoon had well and truly stopped caring after all following her final withdrawal from the long-hidden hoard.

Silver pronked a few times in place. "We're rich!"

"We're already rich," Diamond deadpanned, "everypony here probably spends more than this in a month."

The grey filly deflated slightly before shrugging. "Yea, I guess so." She scratched her head with a hoof. "Does that mean we should, like, leave it here? We'd have to tell my folks where we got it, and they'd freak if they saw any of this..."

Diamond and Silver turned to look at Blueblood, eyes silently pleading the question of whether or not they'd be in trouble soon. He smiled, making a zipping motion over his mouth with a hoof before making a motion to head back to the door. This was in no small part because he'd determined that his initial instinct when he met the butler at Rich manor had been correct; he should not be left alone with foals. We might have died down here...

---

Out in the sunlight again, abeit setting, Blueblood looked to the fillies, grinning in what he hoped was the same way Auntie Celestia did when instructing Princess Twilight. "So, did you two learn anything from all this?"

Diamond wanted to say something to the lines of smart ponies being able to get away with anything, but the part about the bees made her less sure. She shivered at the thought.

Silver, on the other hand, was pretty sure she had learned something. "Uhm..." She just wasn't sure what it was. "That, that uh... The way we live our-no, we should always, uh, no, wait, um..."

He couldn't help grinning wider at the flummoxed filly, part of him wondering if Auntie ever gave Twilight the same sort of answer he was about to. "Give it time, I'm sure it'll come to you. In the mean time, it's gotten rather late, and you two should be heading home."

As Silver glanced over her shoulder at her place of residence two meters away, Diamond spoke up. "Sure, but any chance we can get that ice cream first?"

---

As Diamond and Silver, frosty treats in hoof, watched the prince trot away into the night after leaving the two of them at the latter's residence, Silver had some time to think. I'm related to a pirate. Should I do something about this? Like, I guess it's decades too late to report a crook, but... A thought occured to her. Didn't the journal say Long-Spoon Silver kindof wanted to be caught? Who made a life as 'Silver Spoon'? ..Who was it that told her the basement was 'spooky'? It was now that she realized she'd only ever referred to her grandmother as 'Nana Spoon'. She smiled a little, part of her eager to hear about pirate stories some day. But until then, something else was bugging her.

She turned to Diamond, having remembered something. "Wasn't he supposed to propose to you?"

The pink filly, mid-icecream-cone-lick, snorted, laughing. "You're still on that?"

Silver could only incline her head curiously.

Diamond smirked. "I was kidding. Duh?"

"He WASN'T here to marry you?!"

She deadpanned. "Of course not, ya dummy, I'm like, not even half his age."

"Then why-"

She grinned mischeviously. "I just didn't want you to get any ideas about cheating on Pip~" As Silver flushed brighter than she had all day, Diamond's grin widened. "You knooooooow, I bet being a pirate-filly would score you some points with him, do you think you'll wear an eyepatch and peg leg to school tomorrow?"

"F-f-f-for the l-last time," Silver sputtered, knowing full-well it wouldn't be the last time at all, "I do NOT have a thing for P-Pip!!"

Still smiling smugly, Diamond rolled her eyes a bit. "Suuure you don't~"

Silver groaned, storming inside in a huff, making better friends with her ice cream at that moment. Giggling for a few seconds, Diamond stared after her for a short while before following her friend inside.

Author's Notes:

This chapter alone took me weeks to write, if only for how often I hit a wall in regards to how to get a grown stallion and two foals to navigate an underground pirate lair full of traps without injury/reckless child endangerment by Blueblood/creepy subtexts/Diamond coming off as funnier or more likeable than she should be. Mileage may vary on that last one, but I'd like to think she'd behave a little better around royalty than what may be expected from Diamond I-don't-care-about-feelings Tiara.

Chapter 13: Fashionably Late

Today had been interesting, Blueblood decided. Not only due to finding a long-hidden pirate's hideaway, but a realization he'd been mulling over since the moment it occurred to him to start deliberately setting off traps. I actually knew what to do there. It was still a dangerous enough situation, but with an aim of some sort, a goal besides not getting killed in a few seconds. Triggering traps on purpose with projectiles from a safe distance, though he was still a little worried for himself and the two foals at risk, gave him a little bit of the feeling he'd had when speeding down the street towards the construction site, or sword-fighting Trixie before that. Now, walking through Ponyville at night, nary a thought to spare for winged horrors, he felt he understood why.

In all of those events, I stood a chance! I held my own well enough against Trixie's cutlass to not feel cornered, Vinyl's plan to survive the impact sounded solid enough, -it wasn't, but at the time it made sense- and if anything disarming the remaining traps after that frantic dash had been too easy. Maybe it's just a matter of picking battles I might actually win, not just fleeing for dear life?

He chuckled to himself as he thought about Long-Spoon's difficulty in setting up a magical door probably translating to her trap-setting skills in some way, if a grown stallion and two fillies could charge through unscathed. It was the exact opposite thing one should reasonably try to do in that situation, though maybe that was why it worked? Panic-fueled luck or not, it was getting late. He'd head back to the hotel, rest for the night, and try Carousel Boutique again in the morning.

Such were his thoughts when the feeling of burlap enveloped his entire body and the world went dark. He felt an impact, slamming onto his side, it felt like he was being dragged... Am I... Am I being abducted? Is this a kidnapping attempt? He tried calling out to the one apparently meaning to take him somewhere in a sack.

"Uhm, pardon me?"

No response.

"I, uh... I have to ask, what the hay do you think you're doing?"

Still nothing but the sounds of soil being disturbed by his weight.

"Because if this is what I think it is, you'll soon be sorely disappointed."

With that, he charged up the fire spell in his horn, no inhibitor, the accessory of choice for any that hoped to capture a unicorn, adorning it. He kept it small, so as not to have the flames blaze out of control and cook him, just the part of the sack against his horn, which quickly burned away, enabling him to pop his head through the hole and into the night air. He turned to the direction he felt he was being dragged only to have something forced down his throat with the help of a funnel, followed once more by darkness...

---

Bright lights. A pleasant change of pace, though perhaps not when shining directly into my eyes.

Blueblood sensed he was on his back, clenching his eyelids at the uncovered lightbulbs above. He tried to sit up only to find he'd been tied to the surface on which he lay, a very dull ache on his stomach. Ok, he thought with more than a hint of anxiety, don't panic, you have a spell for this... Which one was it? Intangibility would work for the binds, but I'd likely sink into the table and be much worse off, I'm not sure I can aim the fire spell well enough to burn only the ropes, I STILL haven't gotten around to practicing teleport like I keep meaning to, maybe there's something around here I can use to cut-

SLAM!!

He jumped, so to speak, at the noise of door abuse, seeing his captor for the first time. He was nearly certain he'd heard of a mare of this description, even heard her voice once or twice, but she looked... Off. Pink fur, pinker mane hanging limply from her head, bright blue eyes, and a wide smile that reminded him a little of the mare he saw in Everfree. Cringing at the memory, he shifted gears while desperately trying to remember a spell useful for his predicament.

"H-hello there Miss Pie," He forced a grin, "wonderful timing, if you could just untie me, we can vacate the area at once!" Slow-fall? No. Repair? No. One of the grooming spells? No. With the cleansing spell, he could probably make the ropes on each limb the cleanest ever tied to a captive, but doubted it would do much good, long-term.

Pinkie Pie took a few steps closer, closing the door much more softly than the way it was opened. "Hiiiiiiiiiiii, Prince Blueblood!" There was a short-lived twitch in her face as anger briefly entered her inflection. "You're late, ya know! Not just for the party I had waiting at Zecora's place, but the one in the hotel, the one in Twilight's place, the one in Sugarcube Corner, You missed them all." She giggled girlishly, stepping closer.

Uhmmm, smokescreen spell? No. Light orbs? No. There's that spell I picked up just a little while ago, but I have no idea what it does! Save for opening large, eerie doors, that is. Have I tried telekinesis? He looked for around quickly for anything he could use to free himself as Pinkie approached, her grin growing wider.

"I'm almost glad I didn't set up any parties in the other places I looked for you," she said with something like a laugh, "You'd have probably missed those too!"

It was too dark everywhere outside the circle of light projected by the one directly above him to be sure, but from what he could tell, there was nothing in the apparently blank room. Nothing, nothing at all, don't I know any other spells?!

Pinkie climbed onto the table, her eyes locked onto his, drawing closer...

He struggled in vain against the restraints, desperately trying to pull off the sort of look he'd given Screw Loose the other day. "P-perhaps there's been some sort of misunderstanding, I was never given any sort of indication as to-"

"It was a surprise party." She drew closer, standing over him, not blinking.

Blueblood sputtered, rapidly running out of ideas, even panic wouldn't do much good here. "W-what, I, h-how could I have known if it-"

She was nose-to-nose with him now, he could smell cake frosting on her breath. "Don't worry," her eyes narrowed, "I have everything figured out..."

As he started to whimper, trembling, something changed in her expression. The smile didn't seem so forced, her eyes, blinking again, looked somehow friendly, and her mane POOFED to fluffy proportions! Standing on the table, forehooves extended upwards, she shouted. "SURPRISE!!"

The blinding lights he'd first been treated to dimmed, replaced by less luminous ones around the room, revealing what appeared to be the set up of a foal's birthday party, akin to what he'd woken to in the hotel.

Pinkie looked back to him, giving what would be an adorable smile if he weren't nearly certain that it was her who strapped him to a table after abducting him in a sack. "Welcome to Ponyville, Prince Blueblood! Now we can finally have that party!"

He blinked, feeling a lessened, but not entirely absent, sense of threat now. "Party?"

She giggled, snorting once or twice. "Duh, I've been trying to set up your welcome party for days now!"

He kept his voice calm, feeling that keeping as diplomatic as possible was important at the moment. "...If you know I've been in town for a few days, is a welcome party really still neccesary?"

She didn't seem to hear him. "Of course, nopony else could make it, something about 'too many other parties this week,' and, 'I don't think he'll attend this one either,' and, 'if I eat any more cake, I'm gonna be sick!' Well, that's just fine, it's still a party with only two ponies, right?!"

He looked around for anything he could undo the binds with. Streamers, some torn and ripped, balloons, a few clearly popped, a snack table full of things he wasn't sure were safe to eat, though thoughts of poison were perhaps an unrealistic pessimism, no knives or anything, he thought. Why did I never learn how to undo knots?! ...Because I'm a unicorn? Hoo-rah for we weilders of magic. Stalling for time it is. "Err, y-yes, still a... Party." He cleared his throat, forcing a grin somewhat easier. "So, what shall we be doing, then?"

Pinkie beamed, drawing a clipboard from within her mane. "Hide-and-seek, check! Next up is tag!" She touched him with a hoof. "Tag, you're it!"

Blueblood could only hope his silent stare was question enough as to why she'd run behind the snack table, him being in no condition to chase her. Wait, this is perfect! He gave the most charming grin he could muster. "You know, it's awfully difficult for me to play like this, perhaps if I were out of-"

Pinkie zipped to the table, pressing a hoof to his mouth. "No can-Tag.-do, Blue!" She winked conspiratorially, "I know you're the best there is at hide and seek, but I gotcha once, and it's too soon to play again!" She stepped back, allowing him to speak. "How about a board game?"

I'll think of something. He smiled a bit. "Such as?"

---

A game of Parasprite Trap, Guess Hoof, Two games of Checkers, and a strange game involving two bent boards, a variety of aerial objects, such as clouds and birds, and guessing spaces at random hoping to hit something the mirrored space on the other player's board. Seemed like a pegasus war-game. All of this passed and Blueblood was no closer to escape than he was sleep, having gotten little rest in his time spent unconcscious. Telekinesis was, at least, a suitably lazy way to move his pieces, when needed. They were currently playing Chineighse Checkers, and judging by the way Pinkie was also moving her pieces around apparently at random, he wasn't the only one wearing down.

They'd gotten to talking over however long they'd been here, with no shortage of interesting stories from Pinkie Pie. She lazily waved the forehoof she wasn't using to move a piece on the board, giggling. "And then we had to start the WHOLE investigation over, with Twilight wearing the detective hat!"

Blueblood had long ago given up on strategy in this game, instead settling on moving one of his pieces to every corner of the board. He grinned. "Your deductions were certainly theatrical, at least."

She giggled again, resting her head on the table not occupied by cardboard, plastic, or trapped royalty. "Yea, but they were still all wrong." Her smile held strong, but her eyes flickered with regret. "I'm kindof a dummy-mummy sometimes."

"Dummy-mummy?"

She grinned, momentarily jubilant as she sat up and waved her forehooves emphatically. "A mummy acting dummy, 'cuz their head's wrapped in funny, like the dummy mummy has rummy in their tummy, but the rummy-tummy mummy isn't funny, so we call them dummy-mummies!" And then her head hit the table again, frowning.

Not even trying to process that, he moved a piece to break the following awkward silence, a small part of him gleeful for another corner conquered in the name of Blueblood The Explorer. "We all do silly things now and again, you recall my excursion to the cake factory?" She had laughed harder than what seemed warranted when he'd told that tale, suggesting he should have made a cake of pure frosting and left it on somepony's desk as a prank.

Pinkie sighed a bit. "Silly like kidnapping somepony so they can make friends, when you're the only one in the room?"

He raised a brow. "What?"

She rubbed her head against the table in a nod. "That's the whole point of these things, I throw parties for new ponies in town, invite everypony to come join in, and they make friends." She waved a hoof around the room, vacant of life apart from the two of them. "I don't want anypony to be lonely, y'know? Kinda like this, if there were one less of us."

"Ah. Sorry about that." Blueblood had only the faintest understanding of why he, the one still strapped to a table was the one apologizing first, but if Pinkie was anything like Fluttershy, he didn't care. "I really didn't intend to cause you so much trouble, my activities visiting your town thusfar have been largely made up as I went. The most far-reaching, most concrete plan I've had was probably to go to sleep, wake up, and try to meet somepony I owe a debt to around here."

Pinkie was perfectly still as she stared at him for a few seconds, but it passed, as did the smile that flickered across her face. "Sorry I put you in a bag, hit you with a rolling pin, and tied you to a table in the basement."

He blinked. "You hit me with a rolling pin...?" Is that why my stomach hurt a while ago...?

Her eyes widened in realization for a second. "Err, well, I-uh, it's, um..." She gave the widest abashed smile he'd ever seen. "Sorry?"

There was a short-lived awkward silence following the statement.

"I'd call it even if you untied me, you know."

It was fascinating to Blueblood how calmly he'd said that. He was sure he would once have shouted and threatened in this situation, but felt more relief than indignation when it was clear, mostly, that he wasn't going to be brutalized. Or made to behave like an animal for somepony's twisted idea of natural beauty. Shouting didn't seem to work on Photo Finish, either...

Pinkie nodded and undid the knots of rope, either not worried he would flee and fetch the nearest authorities he could call for, or not caring if he did.

Getting his hooves on the ground and stretching a bit, Blueblood smiled, Pinkie wearily returning it. Oh, come to think of it! "When I first arrived in town," he ventured, "I'm told I was caught in a well-placed, well-timed trampoline. How did-"

"Twitchy-tail, itchy-hoof, switchy-tongue," she stated, grinning, "Something falling, incoming fancy pony, and it's time to move the trampoline again!"

Her cheerful expression didn't fade in the entire four minutes the nearest fancy pony struggled to interpret what he'd just heard. He gave up. "R-right, well nonetheless, thank you for saving my life that da-AY?!" He was suddenly gripped in a pink vice. Working out that this was a full forehooves hug was much easier than the trampoline thing.

"Doooon't mention it, Blue! I fall out of my candy-copter sometimes too, I guess that's why they leave flying to the pegasus ponies!" The intensity of her embrace somehow didn't lessen as she counted off imaginary digits on her hooves. "And bat ponies. And alicorns. And griffons. And Rarity that one time. And birds. And bees. Ooh, but not birds and bees, that should be kept on the ground, probably indoors, too!"

Blueblood acknowledged he was following along perfectly by turning blue and letting out a pained wheeze.

"Oh!" Pinkie released her captive for the second time in under ten minutes, stepping back and smiling apologetically. "Sorry, I kinda forget what I'm doing while doing other stuff sometimes." Thinking the following statement somehow positive, she beamed. "That's usually how I fall out of the candy-copter, too!"

Breathing normally again, the prince determined that not intently listening to every word this pony said may be in his best interests. "You know, all things considered, this went a lot better than the last time I was abducted."

Wide-eyed shock was not quite the desired effect of that statement.

"D-does, uh..." Pinkie glanced toward the door. "Does that happen a lot...?"

He looked to see what she was apparently checking for, but saw nothing of note. "Nnnnoooo...?"

He was milliseconds from asking why, apart from the implication that he'd been kidnapped at least twice in his life, she wondered that, -he hadn't told her about the Photo Finish incident or the time with the three foals- but Pinkie spoke first, grinning ear to ear. "Wannatrysomecupcakes?! They're SUUUPER-duper tasty!"

Taking a second to work out what was said, he looked to the snack table. Cupcakes, cookies, candycanes, and a pie? In what's most likely the early hours of the morning? He was about to, politely, in case she still had that rolling pin and wasn't as stable as she appeared now, decline the offer of sugary sweets in place of a meal at such a time, but a thought from earlier in the day rang in his head. 'What would Vinyl Scratch do?' He grinned. This wouldn't be a perfect imitation, as he couldn't conjure something to make offensive amounts of noise or bob his head the whole time for the complete experience.

Trotting to the table, the prince lifted a slice of pie in his magic, took a quick look around, and took a bite straight out of it, disregarding years of instruction in use of silverwear. Grape! Pinkie joined his lack of etiquette with gusto, smashing her face onto the table where a cupcake had been with worrying force, licking her lips when she got up again. She beamed, her now perfectly-flat face popping outwards to it's normal proportions in an instant. Having not eaten since the picnic with Discord, this did nothing to diminish his appetite, frightening a thought as that was. He ate like he'd sometimes wanted to as a colt.

---

"So, I'll seeya in a few weeks?"

"Cross my heart and hope to die, unless I should sprout wings and fly."

Pinkie gave him a lopsided look. "That's not how it goes at all!"

Blueblood had been coerced to attend a proper welcome party, if only because of all the effort she'd gone to and the fact that he still hardly knew anypony in town. What better way to improve one's reputation, afterall, than getting to know ponies a bit? It still came second to his goal of repaying the owner of Carousel Boutique, but Pinkie was apparently burned out for parties for a little while anyway, and would need to regroup after so many supplies were wasted in the first half-dozen attempts.

Standing outside building he'd been dragged into, which might have been the same one he was eating green waffles on the roof of what was now yesterday, the prince chuckled. "How did it go again?"

"Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!"

He nodded, repeating the words and hoof-motions while faintly thinking of Zecora. "Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye, while for now I say goodbye, I'll be back again, Miss Pie."

Eyes widening in surprise for a second, Pinkie drew both forehooves to her mouth to keep from laughing, and failed. She still tried to keep the noise down, ponies were trying to sleep.

Blueblood only grinned, distantly abashed at the silliness. Rhyming was still plenty of fun. "Goodnight, Miss Pie."

She might have returned the sentiment, but it was hard to tell through her gigglefits, eyes tearing up as she fought to keep from waking the neighborhood.

He returned to the hotel he'd been in the night before, paying for himself this time while making the note that he was running low on bits. Come to think of it, I should probably head home soon, I've been away for, what, four days now? Wouldn't mind having my Skeleton Key either, maybe see if Auntie needs anything, if anything's happening back in Canterlot. But first, sleep, followed by a visit to the pony he hadn't repaid yet.

Author's Notes:

Hope this wasn't too forced or too dull, but at least Pinkie's party-planning headaches are over. For now...

Chapter 14: Repairs

Dawn.

About 3 hours after I went to sleep, actually.

Around noon.

Much better!

The prince was fully rested and ready to take on the day, hopeful that an entire day was enough for the shop owner to cool off from whatever Discord had done to annoy her. He headed off in much the same way as before.

---

He approached the door, carefully, hesitating for several seconds before knocking. He heard a melodious voice from the other side.

"Cooomiiing~"

It was just then that, with a tinge of regretful dread, Blueblood remembered he still hadn't asked the shopkeeper's name.

The door opened, revealing a white unicorn with an especially curly purple mane, eyes closed and mouth set in a little smile. "You know, you don't have to knock, there's a bell over the-" Looking her visitor over, she appeared faintly surprised. "Ah, hello. You're looking well. Coat's a little battered, what have you been up to?"

"Well, I-" he started, before the most refined-looking pony he'd met in this town interrupted him with a hoof motion.

"On second thought, would you like to come in? I've just prepared tea."

Giving a slightly awkward nod, he followed her inside. They were seated on cushioned stools beside a small, circular stage, an embroidered kettle and tea cups waiting and equally decorated plate resting on the edge. He couldn't quite identify the aroma it was giving off as he examined the various mannequins and sewing materials.

"So," Kindly Tailor started, a relaxed smile on her features as she levitated a teacup to her lips, "what brings you to my abode, Prince Blueblood?"

"Well," he managed, "I understand you were the one to ensure I was left in good care the other night, and I wished to thank you." He took a sip from the cup he'd been offered, not recognizing the strange, minty-tasting white tea.

She chuckled. "Ohh, think nothing of it, Darling, it's hardly acceptable to just leave a pony collapsed in a heap, let alone in an eating establishment, no?" She frowned a bit, hiding her face a little behind the cup she was now grasping in both hooves and averting eye contact. "Though it was just a little embarrassing walking into a room full of ponies with an unconcious stallion on my back, looking for a bed, no less."

He unintentionally stopped listening for a few seconds at the word 'darling', but shook it off. He would not make a mess of this.

She giggled, rolling her eyes a little. "Poor Pinkie Pie was so disappointed, she thought I'd brought you to attend the party she'd set up!"

So that's why there were decorations and such that morning, Pinkie had indeed gone around setting up parties...

He grinned a bit as Find-Out-Her-Name-You-Royal-Ponce took another sip of the unfamiliar tea. "As it happens, I met with Miss Pie just last night. She apparently considers welcome parties a matter of 'when', not 'if'."

She nodded. "Indeed, she's known to get a little..." She glanced toward the ceiling while looking for the right word. "Extreme, when it comes to celebrations."

Blueblood winced. "I gathered..."

Her eyes widened slightly with comprehension. "Oh, dear, what did she do?"

He shrugged a bit, smiling. "Nothing too distressing, all things considered."

She looked relieved at this, taking a calming sip of minty tea before replying. "Couldn't have been much worse than the Gala, no?"

"Oh, absolutely, the animals alone were-" Wait. He eyed the tailor curiously. "Were you at the Gala, last year?"

She blinked twice, as though he'd just told an off-color joke. "I... I was with you, the whole night."

Now he blinked. "What?"

She set down her teacup very slowly, very calmly, looking at him with a completely neutral expression. "You don't recall?"

He shook his head slowly.

"Then," she stood up taking a step closer, "You don't remember your last visit to Ponyville, either?"

The prince started to sweat, instinct telling him to run like the wind. "V-visit...?"

"I see." The mare whose name he still hadn't found the right moment to ask closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. When they opened, her face contorted with burning rage.

"I'll Destroy you!!"

He was galloping down the street before he knew it, badly slurring 'thank you for the tea' over his shoulder. It was while looking back to yell that that he noticed the pony who had generously paid for a hotel room she wasn't going to use that night chasing after him, and gaining.

Blueblood, once again unable to think of a spell that would help in this situation, galloped for all he was worth. Being a prince, that was saying quite a lot. He tried losing her by running around corners, through alleys, circling around buildings, but she only seemed to inch closer. Almost ramming into one of the ponies that hadn't leapt to get out of range of the two-pony marathon, he spotted a train station. If this is the best I could do for saying 'thank you', perhaps it's time to head home! Dodging a few more ponies and leaping over a short fence, then onto the back-most car of the train itself, which had started moving, he heard a noise akin to a few different ponies crying out in pain. Not daring to glance backward yet, he scrambled into the car, slamming the door before looking through the window.

It seemed the mare he had irritated somehow hadn't been quite as lucky as he had in terms of avoiding obstacles. Possibly because he'd had plenty of fresh experience in running for his life by now? Regardless, he saw her getting up from a small pile of ponies, an orange mare in a stetson helping her up.

Barely having caught his breath, he jumped as a hoof touched his shoulder, whirling around to see a pony in a conductor uniform, looking slightly annoyed and clearing his throat. Smiling sheepishly, Blueblood levitated a generous sum of bits in exchange for a ticket. I meant to buy one first, really, but circumstances weren't ideal for slowing down... Taking a seat in the train, he slumped against the table as a thought struck.

Where is this train going...?

---

Two days he rode that train, seeing parts of Equestria he'd not been sent to in years. A new one on his metaphorical guidebook? Appaloosa. The irony was not lost on him, but he didn't stick around any longer than the train did. He faintly wished it would make a stop in the Crystal Empire, if only because it would mean he could see his sister and Brother-In-Law-Best-Friend, or whatever that title was now, for the first time in months. However, it was with more relief than disappointment that it finally stopped in Canterlot. It was time to head back to the castle.

A few ponies had seemed surprised to see him again, walking through the streets of Canterlot, but he hadn't much cared to investigate. Instead, he politely smiled to the guard he'd talked to the day of the parade as he strode into the royal halls, stood indecisively in the foyer for a moment before deciding on checking if Auntie Celestia needed him to do anything.

---

He wasn't sure he'd ever seen his solar aunt shake her head so fast.

"No, not a thing, I have all the help I need at this moment, thank you!"

That the throne room was empty apart from her, himself, and the usual guards supported the notion, he supposed. Still... "Are you certain? I've been away for nearly a week, and-"

"Precisely," she declared with a hoof extended regally, as though giving a royal proclamation, "I'm sure you've been through quite a bit, Nephew, why not take it easy for a little while? I'll let you know if there's something I'd like you to attend to."

He nodded, heading to his chambers, not noticing how Celestia's calm grin was just a little wider than usual.

---

Closing the door behind him, Blueblood let out a breath. Home, sweet home. The place I've not been since Vinyl asked me where I keep my more outstanding attire. It felt good to be in his sanctuary again, the one he knew full-well wouldn't actually keep out monsters all that well, but felt safe in regardless. Moving toward his study, he pondered whether or not getting some fortifications in place would be a waste of bits. I know I picked up a So You Want To Build A Fortress manual some years back, but never quite felt the motivation to do it. Maybe that could be a project before I try to make amends with... That, normally-nice filly who I'm going to learn the name of before I go back to that town. Somehow.

Looking through his bookshelf for the manual, he noticed a gap where one of the thicker books had been. "Hm," he pondered to himself, "Did I start something before I left...?" Glancing at his desk, he saw no book opened to whichever page he'd have left off on before hearing a loud click, the locking of his chamber door, behind him.

Slowly turning to look, he saw the very pony he'd fled Ponyville to escape standing between him and the locked exit, his eyes widening in shock as every drop of his royal blood momentarily turned to ice.

"Y-y-you!!"

She sighed a bit, a thoroughly unamused expression on her face. "My name is Rarity."

He noticed her horn was glowing as a fairly thick book enveloped in a light blue aura floated from the table he'd been keeping the box of broken glass on. It opened to reveal spell instructions marred slightly by outside notes and markings as Rarity spoke again.

"Perhaps you can recall now?"

He struggled to form words, he certainly recalled that she was this calm just before announcing his destruction the other day.

She seemed to sense this, possibly by the way he was shaking and stammering, and rolled her eyes, looking slightly hurt. "Look, I do apologize for my initial reaction, but once you know what you've lost, I think you'll understand my indignance at failure to appreciate the significance of such an event."

Somewhat less alarmed now, but still contemplating a window escape, he tried to ask how she got here before she took a step forward, thrusting the book into his face. "Look," she demanded, "do you see this? It's a memory spell, one you apparently worked out how to cast in reverse."

Stepping back so he could actually see the writing, it was clear the notes were his own penmanship. "B-but, I don't-"

"Don't remember?" Rarity deadpanned.

The implications sunk in. It was just as he was about to ask why he'd do such a thing that Blueblood realized the futility of the question. The book floated over to the table again, but Rarity's horn glowed brighter as she moved towards him.

"Luckily, the original spell was still understandable, so I think I can manage. Hold still, Darling."

He quickly backpedaled, his hindhooves meeting a wall alarmingly soon. "N-now wait just a moment, I-"

Her horn touched his, and a flood of thoughts and visions ensared his mind.

---

The Gala, in the Royal Garden, Rarity standing by a bush. She points out a rose, I take it for myself...

We come to a door, I insist on her opening it for me. "It's only to be expected," I think to myself, "does Auntie have to open her own doors, fetch her own things? Suppose she'll insist I buy her something next."

I had spent that night acting every bit the selfish fop Luna had assumed me to be before Rarity, covered in cake after being used as a sheild, snapped.

After, I had planned revenge on the pony that would dare splatter pastry on Prince Blueblood, but I needed to know more about her. I gathered the broken fragments of her glass slipper, thinking to use it as evidence later, and kept it in an ornate little box made of blue-painted metal with gold rims.

I investigated for a few weeks, when I had time, learning she lived in Ponyville, that she ran her own business, that she had a little sister...

That she was an Element Bearer...

That hers was Generosity, charities in all parts of Equestria vouching for her...

That she was a heroine, having helped save us all, alongside Twlight Sparkle.

That while I wasn't there when Discord broke free, the time Auntie Luna was recovered had been no fluke...

That she was one of the most kind-hearted ponies I had ever met, up close...

That she now thought me to be nothing but a Royal Pain...

I became fascinated with her, following her exploits as best I could without doing something creepy and possibly illegal, like hiring somepony to follow her around.

Keeping my focus upon her makes forgetting the Shrieking Demon of The Gala much easier.

One day, she came back to Canterlot...

---

The prince's vision swam, fading back to his chambers in a surreal haze, Rarity's voice the clearest thing in his perceptions.

"When we met again some time later," she said calmly, with a hint or reminisince, "I could tell something had changed."

She cast the spell again.

---

I see her walking beside two mares under the employ of Fancy Pants, whom I know to have taken an interest in her, my head buzzing with the apologies and proposals I thought I'd say if I ever saw her again.

We talk at last. She seems uncomfortable, but proves yet again to be more akin to the ideal noble than I had ever been by laughing off past indignities, once she worked out that I was trying to apologize.

I remember at least one of my plans to speak to her alone, inviting her to cristen an airship I'd funded and ride above the city in it, but lost my nerve seconds after the bottle broke, fleeing the scene as she admires the falling, shimmering confetti.

I don't see her again for the rest of her time in Canterlot, but receive word that she shines yet again as admirable pony, publicly declaring her Ponyville friends, most of them hicks, by my standards at the time, to be far more important to her than being a Pony Everypony, Everypony Should Know.

I reassess my ideas of what makes a pony important.

Her song stuck in my head for a week, I eventually can't take being apart anymore, the desire to hold her in my forelegs and tell her I love her almost maddening as the noblemares I once considered courting looked like shoddily-made dolls in comparison.

I decide to do something desperate...

---

Rarity gave him a moment to collect himself this time. He put up no struggle when she approached again. "And then came the important part..."

---

It takes me a day or so of looking for charities to donate to, forcing a smile for those I see in the streets, and generally trying to emulate Rarity to the best of my ability before I feel confident enough to enact my plan.

First, I have a rose enchanted. Plucking the nicest, reddest, lushest rose in the Royal Garden, -though they kindof all look that way- I take it and a large sack of bits into town. With several hours of the efforts of the finest magicians in Canterlot, it is made to be indestructible, never aging, never degrading, as everlasting as I was sure my love for Rarity would be.

I approach Auntie Luna, and ask her to lend me one of her bat ponies for a clandestine task. Barely paying me any mind, she agrees, pointing me to their barracks.

I enter, fighting down horror, revulsion, and the urge to stare into the eyes of the ones that look at me with my resolve to woo Rarity. I tell the ones that approach me I require aid in keeping myself hidden for an excursion to Ponyville. I want moment to be just between us two, akin to something the fairy tale prince I learned she thought I would be might do, and cannot do that if the news that I've come to town is spread.

One, after decieving me several times in half as many minutes as to her location with taps on the shoulder or calls of 'over here', proves her ability to evade being spotted. I pay no mind to the others snickering at her game as she agrees to help me.

That night, I'm allowed to catch sight of her, dark-grey fur, like most bat ponies I've seen, messy mane of dark green, bright red eyes that stare into my soul.

She guides me around the back of the castle, saying we can't take a train and walking would take too long, so she and a friend will take me to Ponyville by chariot. The other bat pony has the same color of fur, but a long, straight, black mane and golden eyes.

It never occurs to me to so much as ask their names.

Under cover of dark, we arrive in a wooded area in the outskirts of town, I wait by a tree on a small hill as one of my escorts guards the chariot, the one boasting stealth as her special talent sneaking into town to bring Rarity to me.

It never occurs to me that being lured out into the woods after dark might have other connotations than a romantic meeting.

Rarity arrives, trotting towards the light spell I was told to have waiting as a beacon and looking somewhat dishevelled.

It never occurs to me that a lady might not be at her best at this hour.

Neither bat pony is anywhere to be seen as I greet her. She seems perplexed as she asks if I am the intended 'Destined Lover' the strange voice in her dreams urged her to awaken and find.

It never occurs to me that I might have had the bat pony agent illegally enter a pony's house that night, let alone to whisper to her as she slept.

I profess my love, recounting every amazing thing I've heard about her, every tale of heroism, every act of kindness, and what a remarkable mare I see her to be.

It never occurs to me that she might react the way she does.

She takes a step back at first, confused, then flushed with modesty, then alert to something I don't see. She smiles at me warily, as though she's figured out the punchline of a joke before it's told, asking what I really mean in all this.

I tell her again that I love her, and offer the indestructible rose as a symbol of it.

She shakes her head, her smile forced. She tells me she understands my purpose now, that I don't have to do this.

I exclaim that of course I must, what better way to-

She cuts me off, shaking her head. Rarity again says that she knows why I'm doing this, that I'm pretending to do to her what she did to me the night of the Gala; pretending to be so enamored by what I've heard of her, without knowing the real her.

She says it was wrong of her to assume so much of another pony, to expect me to be the perfect fairy tale prince for her based on hearsay, and that she is sorry.

Silent for several long moments, I make it clear that no part of this is an act.

Her eyes well up with tears, pain in her voice as she says I'm caught under the same spell she was that night, chasing a fantasy that doesn't exist.

She approaches me as I stand in a daze, locking our necks in a light hug as she tells me of several faults and failures of her life, and that she has no intention to return my interest, that she has moved on, and I should as well.

I can only stare at the base of the tree nearby, my tongue caught in my throat as she bids me a silent, and, most likely, eternal farewell, walking away into the night.

What feels like hours later, I look to the rose I tried to give her, dropping it to the floor and crushing it under a hoof. When I lift that hoof, it springs up again, good as new, as if to mock me.

I spend several minutes trying to destroy it, doing considerable damage to the grass and stone on which it lies, but doing more to bloody my hooves.

While I stomp against the rose fruitlessly, the bat pony I sent to bring Rarity to me puts a hoof on my shoulder, sadness in her red, beautiful eyes, begging a question she didn't speak.

Wiping tears from my face, I tell her between gritted teeth to bring me a spell book, any at all, from Twilight's library, that I may disenchant and destroy the rose myself.

She appears uncertain, but returns with a thick tome not long after.

Flipping through the pages in an impatient rage, I find nothing that would help me remove the rose forever, but I do find one that may be of use. Remembering the page number, I tuck the book under a foreleg, instead using a long, chipped stone from my earlier outburst to dig a small hole at the base of the tree.

"If I cannot destroy this memory," I tell my accomplice, "I'll bury it forever!"

I leave the rose under the roots of that tree, and return to Canterlot the same way I came. Once we return, I quietly thank the pony with the messy green mane and bright red eyes, and tell her I never wish to see her again.

I remain awake late into the night, opening the book I unintentionally stole from Twilight to the page I found the memory spell on. In a few hours, I master the spell well enough to use it in reverse, burying my memory of Rarity as sure as I buried the rose.

---

Blueblood collapsed, everything he'd felt that night rushing back in an instant. Struggling to his hooves, he amazed himself by maintaining sufficient composure to only let a few, fleeting tears escape, Rarity's own eyes glistening as she smiled.

And then she slapped him with a hoof.

"Ow!! What was-"

She fixed him with a stern glare. "How dare you deliberately forget such a monumentally significant thing as the last parting of a potential lover?! I'll have you know that night alone took a whole five pages, front and back, in my diary to adequately convey my thoughts and feelings, and I still reflect on it every once and again!"

He tried to defend himself, but Rarity was giving Luna a run for her bits in the shouting department.

"I mean honestly, you experience weeks of longing after your potential prized princess, have a chance meeting with her practically delivered to you-" she started making dramatic hoof gestures, "-BUT YOU FREEZE! You know anything you say, anything you do, anything at all may be the one thing your love remembers most, may be the thing that breaks any hope you had of a dreamy marriage!" She seemed to lose focus on the target of her tangent, wandering around the room somewhat between vague, but emphatic pantomimes. "So you run, realizing too late that you musn't ever back down! It's too late by the time you regain your courage, but a lover's heart will not be dissuaded!"

The prince sat quietly on his haunches now, just watching as his intruder went starry-eyed in her speech.

"So you form a plan, a moon-lit meeting in the forest, where you show her once and for all your true feelings!" He'd wondered if she'd drape a forehoof over her head eventually, and she didn't disappoint. "But lo! Your princess denies your affections! That alone is pain enough, but with it comes the wonder, the suspicion, the drr-read!" She dragged out the word for reasons he could only guess. "Does she not approve of your methods?! Was it any one, particular thing?! What-ever could you have done differently to change her mind, though you know it to be forever made up?! Worse yet, does she simply not care for you at all?! Did she ever care?! Does she simply long for another?! But it matters not, for you know her heart will never be yours!" She seemed to remember Blueblood was the one she had been speaking to in the room of just the two of them, pointing a hoof at him. "SO! In the throes of heartbreak, you lash out at the very symbol of your affection for this lost love, all of your being committed to it's ab-sol-ute destruction!!"

Rarity finally stopped for a breath. And another. Her regal listener tried to seize this opportunity to speak, but hadn't been fast enough. She stopped speaking as though narrating a play that ended in tragedy and looked at him with an eyebrow raised. "And then you just cover up the whole thing? Come on!!"

Blueblood rolled his eyes a bit, feeling surprisingly calm. "Well pardon me if I don't prefer to make a stage production of my personal tragedies, but it seemed better to just-"

"Just make it go away," she interrupted, "just take every unpleasant moment in our lives and wash them from reality?" She shook her head sadly, her voice gentle as they locked eyes. "It may seem easier to run away, but even pain holds it's value. Even if it doesn't always strengthen us, doesn't always make us more ready to face the next obstacle, it at least provides context."

The prince only tilted his head, confused.

Rarity went on. "The more something hurts, the the darker the tunnel you find yourself in, it just means there's something equally intense that would make you happy, no?" She smiled a little. "Twilight will take any opportunity to share her knowledge, and one thing that stuck with me was the concept of equal and opposite reactions."

Blueblood nodded. While no scholar, he was at least familiar with this idea.

"Pressing your hoof against something," she chose the floor for this demonstration, "you'll feel that same amount of force on your hoof."

Blueblood nodded again.

"Well, if you can feel pain, feel sadness to a certain degree, you must be able to feel levity and joy to an equal point, don't you think?"

He thought back to the gut-wrenching feeling he'd gotten watching Fluttershy break down in tears, compared to the warm tranquility that came when she held Douglas the Toucan. It made some kind of sense.

Rarity lit up her horn again, smiling. "So," she said, levitating the spellbook he'd taken and never returned, learning most of the spells he knew now from it after assuming he must have bought it on the night he'd wiped his memories, "I think that's all I wished to discuss, you won't mind if I return this to Twilight, I hope?"

He smiled a bit himself. "I won't mind if she doesn't turn me into an orange for stealing from her library, even if only by accident." Erasing the memory of where one got something they'd meant to borrow made it extremely difficult to return, he now knew.

"Oh!" He trotted over to the table with the blue, gold-rimmed box, opening it up. He knew exactly what his long-held 'puzzle' was now, and that there was no reason to keep it any longer. "There's actually something else I should return." With a quick spell, he mended the contents of the box. To think, I actually got it right a few times... He turned to Rarity, presenting the glass slipper she smashed on the stairs the night of the Gala.

Her mouth made a little "o" shape before recognition came. She chuckled. "Yes, I suppose it's best I hold onto that, can't tell you how odd it feels to walk around with only one of the pair. Not that I make a habit of trying, I mean."

She added the slipper to the book in her telekinetic grasp, turning to leave as a question sprung to Blueblood's mind. "Wait, what brought you to Canterlot anyway? And what were you doing in here?"

Rarity stopped at the door, turning back towards him. "I was in town to pick up a few supplies for a fairly important event in Manehattan. I came here hoping to, ehm..." Tinting faintly red, she averted her eyes, waving a forehoof vaguely in the air. "Revise my last statement, from just before you fled to the train station?"

"'I'll destroy you,'" he deadpanned, face expressionless.

"Yyyyes, I may have overreacted a little. Princess Celestia pointed me to this room when I asked if I could talk to you for a bit, you were out, I looked around, saw the book on your shelf, thought it looked familiar, and found the memory spell page," she met his eyes again, an adorably sheepish smile on her face, "but all is mended now, yes?"

He nodded, floating the rose he got from Screw Loose, who got it from apparently the very tree he buried it under, the same damn tree that later fell on him, out from his coat pocket, still perfectly preserved in layers of enchantment. He levitated it towards Rarity as a sign of peace, but she shook her head, smiling widely.

"Keep it, give it to somepony important to you some day." She uttered something under her breath. "It might make for a decent novel..."

"What was that?"

She giggled. "Nothing, nothing. Au revoir, Prince Blueblood, do take care."

He returned the sentiment, she unlocked the door, and left, theoretically leaving him alone in his chambers again.

...I am definitely building fortifications in here, he thought.

Author's Notes:

To be clear, Rarity doesn't know exactly what was going through Blueblood's head at those times, just shaking loose the memories of times she was near him, the rest coming back to him as a kind of chain reaction.
At least, I'm guessing that's how memory spells work.
She was, however, able to piece together the parts she wasn't there for.
Also: Sorry to pull the insanely cliched Laser Guided Amnesia schitck, but you should have seen the ideas I trashed before deciding on that one. @_@

Not-Quite Epilogue

The next day, order forms for everything he'd need to turn his chambers into a bunker filled out and waiting to be mailed, Prince Blueblood wrote himself a to-do list. There were some things he wanted to accomplish, for once in his life, that he felt he could actually pull off, albeit in uncertain order.

#1. Do something nice for the bat pony community to make up for that thoughtless, possibly offensive song.

#2. Apologize to everypony I can find that I've ever mistreated, especially castle staff.

#3. Fortify my chambers at leisure. (Moreso in case the first two do not go over well)

#4. Talk to Auntie Luna about that nightmare I had back in Ponyville.

While he doubted she would try such a thing twice, with the likeness of her greatest shame, at that, he still wondered...

#5. Return to Ponyville to attend that welcome party. I Pinkie-Promised, afterall.

#6. Meet with Vinyl Scratch at some point to discuss her particular brand of insanity. I don't feel I demonstrated it as well for those two fillies as she did for me.

#7. Return to Everf

He couldn't...

...Could he?

He knew the moment he saw it that the face of the dull-yellow mare with heterochromic eyes would haunt him forever... So why did he want to see it again? That was the instruction from "Nightmare Moon", return to "her agent", but it made no sense. That thing's approach was the single most horrifying thing he'd ever experienced, but he wasn't sure he could just put it out of his-wait...

Blueblood glanced to his book shelf, remembering that Rarity had brought the tome with the altered memory spell back to Ponyville. Just as well, he supposed, what had they talked about, afterall? Facing problems, not running from them?

He would, some day, have to go back.

#7. Return to Everfree Forest to confront the most frightening 'pony' I've ever seen again.

What he would do if he actually did find her, not just get eaten by a monster or wander the woods forever? He had no idea. It would remain the last thing on his list, he decided. Was there anything else?

"..."

"......"

"........."

"......"

"...?"

He shrugged, if anything else came to him, he'd add it later. For now, the third item on his list seemed most within his reach. He got a start on the second for most of the day, setting off for the throne room when night fell.

---

As ever, the Night Court was less than busy, Luna waving a hoof and smiling when the prince came in, her first visitor of the night, most likely.

"Hail, Nephew! We-err, I, was just about to begin my Nightmare Patrols if there were no audiences. To what do I owe your entry?"

He winced a bit, approaching the throne. "It's funny you should mention nightmares..."

Luna's grin vanished, eyes wide. "...What?"

He nodded, suspecting she'd deduced his line of thinking. "I sincerely doubt you of all ponies would try a thing like this," a second time, is the part he left out, "but not too long ago I experienced a rather unpleasant dream..."

He'd seen her angry before, but this was the first time she'd ever looked... Afraid? Hurt? She shook. "I, I-I would never, n-not after-"

He held up a hoof, already getting Fluttershy flashbacks. "I don't mean to accuse you! It's just, who better to ask, no?"

Luna seemed to calm down a little, speaking quietly. "I see... Tell me of this dream."

Blueblood explained the details to the best of his recollection, Luna's face unreadable throughout.

"That," she eventually said after he'd finished, "is very strange..." She drew a hoof to her chin in thought. "Not only for the implimentation of such an accursed figure, but because I have been watching you, Nephew."

He tilted his head quizzically.

"Your dreams," she clarified, "each night since you left the city, I made it a priority to at least check on you, and have consistantly found that you have not dreampt at all."

He blinked. "W-what?" While it was true he couldn't clearly remember any of his dreams over the last week apart from the scary one, he was pretty sure there were dreams, at least.

Luna shrugged. "Not every night carries a fantasy, some nights one lays down to rest, opens their eyes, and finds it to be morning with nothing taking place in between. That you have had such rests so consistantly is... Strange. Almost troubling." She frowned slightly. "I am sorry, I do not know what this means..." A slow-spreading smirk found it's way onto her muzzle. Blueblood couldn't decide if that was better or worse than the frown as she projected a regal shout. "But fear not, Nephew, as the night is my domain, I shall uncover the root of these strange happenings!"

As he striaghtened his mane, she gave a little smile. "Is there anything else I may help with, Nephew?"

He grinned in kind. "Not at the moment, Auntie, thank you."

The Night Princess beamed, extending her wings. "Very well! Then I shall seek night terrors elsewhere, fare thee well!" And she shot out a window, which was actually opened this time.

He had taken two steps out of the throne room when Luna's voice sounded from directly behind him.

"By the way!" While waiting for her nephew to compose himself agian, the Night Princess faintly wondered if he jumped higher just now than she had when Discord snuck up on her around two weeks ago. "I wished to pass on a message: Sister says thank you!"

Blueblood, still trying to steady his heartbeat, managed to keep an even tone, despite having Luna scare the daylights out of him for the first time in quite a while. "Thank me for what, pray tell?"

Luna, entirely too jubilant, smiled widely. "I do not fully know, but something about having destroyed a needlessly stuffy and pompous piece of attire, and that she hopes you may one day join us in disregarding modern coverings!"

There was a short moment that felt like an hour as he tried to make sense of that.

"And now," Luna announced, "I must be off! Again!" She flew through a different window this time.

...Destroying a...? Oh! It hadn't even crossed his mind to apologize for getting the most decorated suit ever conceived apparently lost or utterly pulverized, even if it hadn't seen the light of day since Blueblood the 50th. From the sound of things, I won't need to. First that showing-up-naked-to-dinner thing and now this, does Auntie Celestia hate clothing in general...? No matter.

#4. Talk to Auntie Luna about that nightmare I had back in Ponyville.

---

That finished, he was about halfway back to his chambers when he heard a quiet voice that tickled his memory.

"Over here!"

He looked in the direction of the voice, feeling a hoof on his shoulder from the opposite direction the moment he turned. Whipping his head around as it swam with deja vu, the voice was heard again.

"No, over here!"

He stopped, emitting the brightest, most blinding light spell he could conjure from his horn.

"Aaagh!" The voice apparently didn't whisper all of the time.

He looked to the sound of the outcry, a shadowy corner of the ceiling, but couldn't quite make out the shape of the thing before it seemed to slip from his perceptions.

"Identify yourself," he said in as authoritive a tone as he could manage. "trespassing in the Royal Palace is a crime punishable by-"

The penalty was far from serious, all things considered, but he was interrupted before it could be spoken, the voice giggling lightly. "You play dirty, Boss. Still, takes more than a cheap-shot to catch me!"

He raised an eyebrow, speaking to the spot on the ceiling he'd last heard the voice. It sounded like a mare. "'Boss'? Are you under my employ, then?" He couldn't remember hiring anypony recently. Was this somepony he had mistreated once, come for their own apology if it was known he was giving them now? He'd certainly offer it, but why was she hiding?

"Mmmm... Kinda?"

He deadpanned. "Would you care to explain?"

"Not here," she replied from somewhere slightly further away, "this way!"

Ignoring the voice in his head that would normally be telling him this was a trap right about now, he set off in pursuit of the sound.

---

The prince found himself trotting around the back of the castle, the same route he'd been led the night he tried to propose to Rarity. He pushed away the thoughts that this might be a long-awaited retribution, either for something he'd said to the bat ponies that had helped him that night, or for the song the day of the parade as he kept up the pace, coming to a stop near the spot the chariot had been.

It was a pleasant little rest area, some stone benches settled around a fountain, water sparkling in the moonlight, but that wasn't what he'd come for.

"Alright, would you kindly reveal yourself?" Now seemed as good a time as any to determine whether or not he could keep his composure while looking directly at those dark, leathery wings.

"...Don't wanna."

He tried a nicer tone. "Please?"

"I just... I'll explain, but I don't want to be seen right now."

He tried a hunch he'd formed on the way here. "Haven't I seen you once already, the pony with the dark green mane, bright red eyes?" He left out the 'bat' pony and 'messy' green mane parts for diplomatic reasons.

"Yea, but, um..."

Blueblood waited, taking a seat on one of the benches.

The bat pony sighed. "Ok, here goes... My name is Blood Rose, and I have a report for you, Boss..."

Author's Notes:

Hi, reader! Welcome to the end of the tale, for now. Yes, cliffhanger, sorry about that, but if I didn't do it this way, it'd be years before the darn thing was posted, been working on it since November as is. This isn't as annoying as not updating for months at a time, I hope, as it at least leaves off on what I feel is a decent stopping point. The talks with Luna and Vinyl in the hospital might have worked too, but I'd already had the next chapter done by the time I'd determined taking a break might be a good idea.

I learned a thing or two writing this story, one of which was that just stringing funny-at-the-time ideas together into a full-length story isn't always quite as fun as it sounds. I hit quite a few walls, some made of bricks, some made of taffy, some illusory, in the process of keeping as many of the fun ideas as possible in the story and still having a central narrative of some sort.

Blueblood was chosen as the catalyst for helping Fluer break into a cake factory, the high-speed, one-float parade with Vinyl, taking Diamond and Silver through a trap-filled pirate cove, and quite a few things I've had to, for now, cut out of the story because I joined a group called "Give Blueblood Some Character", as he seems to have very little. I get that he was meant to be a one-shot, never-see-him-again sort appearing in the show only to teach one of the Element-Bearers a lesson, as was the case with quite a few other characters, but that leaves him all the more open to interpretation. Not entirely a blank slate, but too interesting a character concept to just leave as a cameo in a song from Season 2.

(DON'T THINK IT, IT'LL GET STUCK IN YOUR HEAD!! ...Unless you're ok with that, of course.)

Anyway, we have an apparently mortal pony related to Celestia, living in the castle under the title of "Prince". What does he do? Why is he there? Why does he hold a title on par with "Princess" if he's apparently not that important? Fan fiction more or less exists to answer these kinds of questions, and more, as was (Sortof, barring Castlevania refferences) the case in my very first story, unrelated to this one. I have more stories in line for Blueblood, as too many fun, but more easily-contained ideas have been brought up to ignore. So much so that these other, unrelated story ideas are kindof smothering the space in my head that used to just be about the tale you've probably finished if you're reading this, the tale I feel less and less like writing as the months carry on. It took me right about a month to write the Trapped chapter.

There's more to all this, too many plot threads to wrap up not to be, but for now, I think I'd like to leave this thing as "Acts One and Two or so" and work on other stuff for a while. The thing with the bat ponies, Pinkie's official welcome party, Blood Rose's report, that weirdness with his nightmares, the mare he met in Everfree, all of this calls for proper resolution, and I'll get around to it some day... Even a spin-off or two about something else that'll probably call for explaining. But until then, I'd like to do some shorter, simpler tales.

See you then! ^^