Interlude: The Wheels of Government.

***

Somewhere in Scotland. February 2nd, 2030.

Sat in his office, pondering some paperwork, Prince Blueblood decided that he hated working on the council.

He liked General Anderson well enough. The man was blunt, honest and hardworking, all traits Blueblood had never encountered in high ranking government before and was grateful to encounter now. Mr Sato was also an intelligent enough man, good to work with and filled with an honest passion for representing the cause of the people who lived on this island, as well as a humbleness that Blueblood had seldom encountered - or truth be told, had much of himself before coming here. Blueblood didn't hate either of them: if he had to have anyone, pony or human on the high council, he would still pick them to be the other two members over any other candidates he knew of.

Nor did he hate Cheerilee, the civilian representative, or King William of Britain, the nominal head of the British state given the total destruction of most other forms of government on the isle. They were reasonable: Cheerilee was always doing the best she could for the ponies under her care, arranging several integration programs so that the ponies of the Resistance Exodus and subsequent escapees were well taken care of. King William, meanwhile, was knowledgeable enough to leave decision making to the high council and not try to use his status to 'big himself up': if anything, he was something of an Everyman, often getting close enough to the little folk to know their problems. This was a valuable viewpoint, and any advice he gave - and the human members of the council often asked his advice, Blueblood noticed - was wiser than his scant forty eight or so years suggested.

No, Blueblood didn't hate those he worked with. He just hated the work.

Tens of thousands of ponies and millions of humans, all riding on the decisions they made, and nothing he did ever felt like it was good enough. So many things could go wrong, and at the stage of the game very few things could go right. Sometimes it felt like he had come here to join in a mass suicide, given how desperate the situation was... but then he remembered with a frown that even a mass suicide defence like this was better than doing nothing against the atrocities he had seen.

He sighed, realising that his paperwork wouldn't get done all by itself.

"Dinky!" he called out. "Take a memo!"

A young unicorn with a quill set inside a heart for a cutie mark stood near him, taking a quill and paper out and beginning a record. Most of their records were paper now, mainly because e-records (as the humans called them) tended not to survive as easily as paper.

"Ok, ready," she said tiredly.

"Must double check that all ponies are being sent out with at least the barest minimum of protection," Blueblood said tiredly. "If the casualty reports at London are true, a lot of ponies died for want of basic armours."

"Got it," Dinky said. "Where do you want it?"

"Send it to requisition office," Blueblood said tiredly. "It might get read in the next year if we're lucky."

"Got it, sir," Dinky said. She turned away for a moment, then back to him. "Sir, did you happen to get my last letter..."

"Yes," Blueblood said, scowling slightly. He had hoped she wouldn't bring this up. "Request denied."

"But sir, I..." Dinky began protesting.

"But nothing, Dinky Doo," Blueblood cut her off, waving a hoof. "Your mother was very insistent: you were never to serve in the armed forces under any circumstances. It has been impressed upon me how seriously everypony and every human in this council takes her request, and I'm not about to go against the general consensus here."

"All due respect, sir," Dinky said, her eyes narrowing slightly, "but she's dead."

Blueblood sighed and facehoofed.

"Yes," he said softly. "And I'd like to think that she died happily, knowing that you would never join her."

"Sir," Dinky said pleadingly, "you've read my letter. You know how much this means to me."

Yes, he had. An impassioned plea from a young unicorn who seemed to want nothing more desperately than to stand with her pony brothers and sisters. If he hadn't known better he would have detected a slightly self destructive streak behind it, too: Hundreds of ponies just like me are fighting and dying every day to try and stop the Tyrant's armies. What kind of pony would I be if I wasn't willing - no, eager - to go out there and join them? No, Blueblood was not intent on letting somepony with a clear self destructive tendency go onto a battlefield.

"I'm sorry, Dinky," he said with finality. "You will not be going out there."

Dinky swore under her breath.

"Damn her," she said quietly a moment later. "Damn her to Tartarus for what she's done to me."

"I beg your pardon, Miss Doo?" Blueblood asked with narrowed eyes. For a pony, damning somepony to Tartarus was a pretty strong thing.

"Damn my mother to Tartarus for this!" Dinky repeated angrily, raising her voice. "She lays down some damn edict that I should never have to fight, and then what? Goes and gets herself blown up so that I never get the chance to..." Her breath hitched. "She went out there and died for what she believed in, and that's some big heroic thing, but I believe. I believe as strongly as she ever did! And I have to sit here and..."

"And fulfil a duty that helps keep our defences running," Blueblood cut in softly, understanding her position. "D'you think the ponies out there would be nearly as well prepared if there were not ponies like you and me here, ponies who want to fight for something but can't because we are needed here?"

The look in his eyes silenced Dinky: it hadn't occurred to her that Blueblood, too, wanted to fight.

"I promise you," Blueblood said softly. "There may come a time when all other lines of defence have fallen, when nothing stands between her armies and final victory but the last handful. When we shall all be needed at the front. When that time comes, then you and I shall go out there together."

"I..." Dinky began, swallowing slightly. "Thank you sir."

"Good," Blueblood said. "Now in the meantime, there's paperwork to be done. Get on it."

"Yessir," Dinky said with an awkward salute, before running off with the memo, the door slamming shut behind her. Blueblood sighed.

"Well," he said softly to himself. "This is fun."

The door knocked again and Blueblood cursed slightly.

"Who is it?" he called out.

"Me," the voice of Cheerilee came back softly. Blueblood sighed.

"Come in," he called.

The former teacher entered, a soft smile on her face. "Hello, Blueblood. How are you?"

Blueblood smirked good-naturedly at her genial attitude and friendly voice: she always sounded ever so slightly sarcastic to him, but he was used to dealing with an entirely more unpleasant bunch of ponies.

"Busy as usual," he said. "Had a conversation with Dinky. About her letter."

"Ah," Cheerilee said, smile dropping from her face. Dinky had approached almost every lower and upper council member with the same letter: a request to be allowed to fight. Every one of them had written back saying 'no': Blueblood hadn't bothered, knowing she would most likely bring it up to him. "I thought I heard her dulcet tones."

"Yes," Blueblood said with a sigh. "Makes one wish Ditzy Doo hadn't been so strict with her last will and testament."

"It was for the best," Cheerilee said sagely. "We've sent so many ponies to die horrid deaths these last few years: maybe letting one survive is a blessing."

"We've sent ponies who offered," Blueblood retorted. "But Dinky's not just offering: she's begging to go. I've not seen someone so enthusiastic for a long time." He paused. "You know she resents her mother."

"Not really," Cheerilee replied sadly. "She resents her mother's wishes. She misses her mother: I think her desire to fight wouldn't be nearly as strong without the death of her mother hanging over her. She feels strongly that her mother died for a cause - maybe she feels fighting in that same cause will bring her closer to her."

"Maybe," Blueblood said, trying not to sound dismissive. "It's a little above my head if I'm honest."

"You don't feel the need to fight for a cause?" Cheerilee asked.

"I feel the need to fight for different reasons," Blueblood retorted. "I was part of Empress Solamina's council. I might have seen the first few true atrocities she committed."

"The last stand of the Night Guard," Cheerilee said sagely.

Blueblood nodded, but didn't say anything. The 'Last Stand of the Night Guard', as he told it to most people, was a heroic battle, the brave rebel Night Guard refusing to now before the Tyrant. The picture Blueblood had painted of the Night Guard's destruction was a heroic struggle, valiant and brave.

The truth was rather different. Celestia - this being before she declared herself Solamina, of course - had claimed that Luna, contrary to the official story, had tried once more to rebel. She demanded that the Night Guard swear fealty to her. The Night Guard, none of them buying her lie for a second, told her in no uncertain terms to buck off. Blueblood - who, along with several prominent members of the council at the time, had been there - had been surprised at their audacity.

A moment later, they were all incinerated, Celestia using her magic to vaporise them before they could so much as blink.

It had been the first sign - at least to Blueblood - that she was starting to go insane. It was around that time that the barrier had begun it's expansion across the Earth.

It would be another two years before the barrier would be stopped at the British isles, and shortly after that Celestia declared herself as Empress Solamina - claiming it to be the will of her people, and to be fair, the majority of converted had long ago subscribed to the idea that she was a kind of God, spurred on by fanatics and flagellants led by a pony who had been a priest, now calling himself Sol Invictus: "Victory of the Sun". Blueblood had been increasingly uneasy, but only after the council was dissolved and he saw the ruin of Equestria that he realised he had to flee.

He shook his head, bringing himself back to the present. Cheerilee - like everypony else, even the scant dozen or so original Night Guard who still survived, mostly Luna's special Bat-Pegasi ponies who had acted as remote guards - still believed the romanticised version of the story he told. He considered it a small repayment of a debt he owed them: giving the history of the Night Guard, and their end, a more heroic edge. That, and making the heraldry and name of the Night Guard his personal bodyguard and a unit he had reinstated as part of the Resistance, had ensured the name "Night Guard" would never be forgotten.

"That was the start," he agreed. "Maybe if I'd have realised it there, I could have left earlier. But I didn't."

"No, you left a year ago," Cheerilee said. "With your name as a council member to aid the propaganda machine by creating the Government-In-Exile, and intelligence that saved many lives and led to the death of Applejack, Rainbow Dash and eventually Pinkie Pie." She smiled kindly at him. "I don't think you've that much debt left to repay."

Blueblood smiled at her assessment: she was too kind to him, he thought to himself. She knew, as he did, that he was indirectly responsible for many atrocities. No: he would have a long list of things to make up for should he ever become ruler of Equestria.

"Just one debt left," he said tiredly to her. "I'm going to see Solamina toppled if it's the last thing I do."

She nodded slowly. "I hope to see that day too, Blueblood."

Blueblood smiled, then looked down at his mound of paperwork, before looking back up at Cheerilee.

"Anyway," he said. "How can I help you?"

"Ah, yes," Cheerilee said. "We've rumours flying all over the place that some of the Elements have been seen fighting alongside us, despite most of them being dead." She frowned. "You know anything about this?"

Blueblood laughed at that, a low and barely amused sound.

"It's a long story," he said after he calmed down, "and I'm still not sure I believe half of it myself..."

Author's Notes:

A big thank you to the favouriters and commenters on the last chapter. And an especial big thank you to whoever added my story to the "Alternative Conversion Bureau" group. I'm really proud of this work, and I hope you all continue to enjoy reading it, as much as I enjoy writing it.