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?