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Like Mending Glass

by Eyeswirl the Weirded

Chapter 9: Chapter 8: Landing

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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.

Next Chapter: Chapter 9: Going For A Walk Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 21 Minutes
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