Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, things went truly batshit insane. After an alien from a different dimension accidentally freed the God of Chaos and walked the land as a parody of a pony whose mother had had a bad relationship with a chimera, things were dire. So very dire. Anvils jumped, pussies rampaged, apples visited bloody vengeances on the birds that ate their unborn children and chocolate continued to fall upon the lands without a single dollop of ice cream in sight. Many thought all was lost, while everyone else had lost the ability to think beyond fridge and seventy. Until six mares of great virtue united and overcame every trial to unlock the ultimate power of the ultimate magical artifacts and ultimately save the day.

Super Harmony was restored when the six colored rainbow blasted the bastard back into a statue and he was shipped off to a secret location, many of whom believe it to be hell. As a side note, I truly wish it was. Hell. For Discord. Seriously, screw that guy, and not in the same way you screw a bottle cap.

But anyway, where was I, paper? Oooooooooooh, yeah, yeah, I remember.

The one crazy bunker guy got a trial, where everypony and their mother – no, ESPECIALLY their mother – unloaded their grief with the moron that had allowed the draconequus to escape.

Thus, the totally-not-as-cool-as-I-imagined princess of the night decided that the only fitting punishment was for this immensely sympathetic idiot to be shackled to a much less sympathetic idiot: Prince Blueblood.

Now, prepare, colts and fillies and everything in-between, for the tale of an unlikely duo becoming the best thing since sliced ham.

Ahem…

It all started where all good stories start: in a prison cell.

“What an oddly decorated prison cell,” said ten voices in unison.

Ten voices that, oddly, belonged to the one and only me. ‘Me’ being defined as the sin against ponykind known as Honest Havoc. No idea what other name I had before. Could be Jonesy Mc Elegantbird for all I knew.

Though that one sounded surprisingly plausible… Huh, maybe thinking to myself would do me good.

Not like I had much to do when there were shadows stretched over my body and pillars of undefined material standing between me and the light.

“This isn’t a prison cell; this is the antechamber of the throne room,” a delectably detestable diarch-lite sighed, sounding oddly defeated.

Interesting that he thought it wasn’t a prison, but all the signs were there. He wouldn’t trick me with a clever ruse. The day he tried to trick me by acting normal, however, was the day I would buy that bridge to Terabithia. With my sheer charisma. Because I had no money, and was prisoner of the Crown.

Suddenly melancholic at the dark reality that I was in Equestria yet unable to do what I want, I ran my claws along the bars of my cell. “If only those restraints did not exist.”

However, Prince 475nmSanguine was determined not to let me accept my tragic destiny.

“Those are not restraints either,” he said with something close to exasperation. “You’ve simply elected to hide under the chairs and pretend that they are the bars to a cell.”

I blinked. Had I really done that?

…NAAAAAH!

“Perhaps that in another reality, you would be right,” I explained in triumph as I slide between the legs of the chair and stood. “But I am pretty sure that this place is a prison. If it weren’t, wouldn’t I be able to leave and go on my own?”

Stunned by my great logic, Blueblood’s eyes focused completely on me, without blinking, his eyebrows so high that they disappeared under his mane.

Huh, maybe he was cool after all. Who knew Blueblood had ninja eyebrows?

Now, see, I was torn, right there. Ninja eyebrows were inherently very cool. Blueblood, on the other hand-slash-hoof, was the very definition of uncool. The dictionary I had bought years ago read:

Uncool: adj. A white unicorn prince that snobs others and acts disdainful toward national heroes.

So, really, he was just asking for it.

"How?" I cried out and let my body fall to the ground like gelatin. "What have I possibly done to deserve this?"

“Do you want me to read over the list of charges? Because I am certain that the answer lies somewhere in here,” Prince Blueblood replied, levitating a large scroll within a shiny blue aura.

My lips pursed together into the definition of a large smile. Key word being ‘definition’. I just showed my teeth. "But I thought Equestria had signed a Geneva Convention on the ethical treatment of criminals?"

For whatever reason, he smirked. “Whatever treaty they did sign neglected to include anything against the unethical treatment of princes.”

I rolled my eyes at that, hit by a staggering amount of sanity. "I'm sure the life of a prince is a terrible one."

“Oh, fear not!” He took on a cheerful tone not unlike my own. “It was wonderful, but now I have to be tied to an insane stallion for the rest of my days. And be legally responsible for you. That is certainly something I did not sign up for!”

And throughout all this, he’d just look tired. Real tired. Big bags under his eyes. Not happy like me, just… dead on his hooves. Gone-through-the-ringer dead. Huh.

Somewhere in my brain, the image of a large Celestia making ponies sign contracts with their blood and guts appeared, and I barely held in a loud guffaw. "What did you sign up for? Cakes every day?"

A loud snort came from his general direction.

“Backstabbing politicians, underage teenage mares – and stallions for that matter – trying to get my flanks for themselves, and the disdain of the goddess of the night, apparently,” he listed off with a deeply disdainful tone.

"HOLD IT!" I pointed an accusatory hoof, making a large speech bubble appear beside me. "You had no way of knowing that Luna would return until not too long ago. And I'm sure you were already a prince before the Longest Night."

My superior deductive skills barely fazed him. For a split second, he frowned, but that was lost on the spot in favor of looking even more like a donkey – no, wait, ass.

“Oh please,” he spoke with a tone reserved for a young child. “The Princess has been preparing for Luna’s return since she was banished”

Huuuuuuuuuh? "You knew? Like, how could you?” I reached for his chest with my claws to verify he was real. But the test was inconclusive. “Aren't you supposed to be dim?"

“I wasn't aware that the tabloids were allowed in prison…” he muttered, glancing toward the door and possibly through it with X-Rays to see the guards outside. He did not say either way, but he looked at me with a severe tone. “I am not dim. I wouldn't be in the public eye if I was.”

I tilted my head to the side. "You're not? Are you sure? What if you think you're intelligent, but you're actually really dumb?"

His face scrunched up, wrinkled a bit on the edge of his muzzle, and he swallowed an imaginary lemon. That was not my friend, I have to say.

You cannot trust lemons. They are sour and slutty. And since Blueblood had put one in his mouth, it was proof he was both.

“If I were dumb, I would be tucked away in an estate far out in the country side where no one would know of my existence. I am quite sure of my intelligence, thank you very much.” Shaking his head, he leveled a glare at me. “Where did you hear that anyway? I would take a few guesses, but there was a catastrophe a few days ago.”

I shrugged nonchalantly, expertly hiding my distrust of a lemon-eater. "Beats me. I'm sure I knew it before I exploded out of Discord's statue."

“You…” he said, suddenly losing strength and letting his voice trail off.

To kill the time, I attempted to use my snake tongue. Its long shape should intimidate time into leaving me alone. Thus, an epic battle began.
I did not know if I managed to actually lick time, but whatever it was tasted like my forehead. So I would now have to contend with a possibly time-slaying tongue.

And during all this dead-time, Blueblood had only been staring at me intently, tapping his hooves against the floor. Shame I had forgotten Morse code.

"Are we waiting for something?" I asked innocently.

“For you to stand,” he deadpanned. “Then, we'll need to get you settled into my adjoining room....”

My heartbeat accelerated. "Huh? I get my own room? I was so sure I would get a chain on the wall somewhere in a damp dungeon."

He snorted derisively at that. “If you did, I would have to stay there too. No, you'll be in my section of the palace.”

That sounded pretty interesting. Oh the possibilities!

"But what if I suddenly decide to sneak out at night to watch the stars?" I grabbed his collar and looked at him in despair. "Or if I invite my own guards to a game of luscious strip poker? What then?!"

“Most ponies walk around in nothing but fur anyway, it'll hardly be interesting. And you don't have guards, you have me…” And, as his ears heard what his mouth had said, he grimaced again. “Unfortunately.”

"Huh." I blinked, momentarily stopped by this obstacle. Momentarily. "So... wanna play strip poker?"

For the first time since I had seen him, his face turned slightly pink. “You're… not wearing anything, it'd hardly be a fair game. Though, judging by this conversation, I doubt any game with you would be fair even if you were to own a clothing store.”

Every single part of my brain focused on the single most important thing he had said. When the words finally registered, big, bright and red in my mind, I gasped in utter shock. "I'm naked?!"

“…Yes, you are.”

But I did not hear his minor comment. I had much bigger chicken to on my mind. Or worries.

How could I have let that happen?! My tail slipped between my legs, as I suddenly decided to pace from one end of the room to another. Ants were running up my limbs otherwise.

Yet that beating pulse of stress still pulled my throat into a big knot. My fangs started to clatter. Something, something, I had to do something before I would implode!

So I grabbed the nearest chair and used its delicate gold imbedded wood as a bone to gnaw. "Fsn’Naked, fsn’naked, I’ssfsn’naked..."

Oh the humanity! So many strangers had seen my naked bottom. And possibly my naked wings too! What would Mom say to that?

‘Remember who you are…’

A cry of despair rose from my throat. I did NOT actually remember who I was! Mom would cry tears of shame at the thought that her son had become a hideously deformed horse nudist!

Another voice, that was definite not feminine enough to be Mom’s, pierced through my veil of wangst. “Most of the population of Equestria walks around naked, Havoc.”

"But I'm not most of the population!” I shouted back, gripping my chair so hard it started to crack. How could he say such absurdities?! “I must be at most a fraction of a percent of the population. I know I saw more than a hundred ponies around."

Three hundred and forty-two, actually, my good friend, said the broken handle of a broom. The dancing crowd and the paparazzi not included.

Wait, so that meant there was pollution in the databank! Erronous conclusions had been drawn!

“For the sake of Science,” I told Blueblood, tapping on the ground repeatedly, “I will entertain the idea. So, if I divide myself by a few thousands, what do I get?”

“Death,” he said, rolling his eyes. “And a mess.”

I looked at him quizzically. “How do you know?”

Out of nowhere, the prince of the unicorn, who was also the latest champion of a crocket tournament, ripped the long scroll he had been holding into tiny pieces.

“I was supposed to be telling you things right now…” He whispered with a long-suffering tone, holding his forehead with one hoof. “But I suspect they will only prolong this insufferable meeting. Just let go of that chair and come.”

I showed him my puppy-eyes. “Can I keep it? I promise I’ll feed it and take it outside.”

“…No. It is a chair.”

“Okay then, this is the start of a beautiful mutually disdainful relationship that will end with many deaths. Hopefully, no innocents will get caught in the crossfire. Now show me the way to our bedchambers, partner!”

After that, He-Who-Is-Blue-And-Bloody sighed and told me to just follow him back to his suite. I went after him eagerly. It wasn’t like I had anything better to do, except everything.

His place was okay. Just… cool, and maybe fun, with lots and lots of toys lying around and other fun things like antiques and priceless artifacts. The architect had clearly chosen pompous over functional, however, as no matter how hard I looked, I could not find a warp panel, only wooden drawers, shiny silk, flower pots, highly detailed portraits of ponies long dead, a bathroom and a secret passage.

Needless to say, I was bored.

“Day number cheese of captivity: I have made an important discovery…” I announced loud and clear over his feeble cries of ‘It’s only been five minutes...’ “Silks sheets are a delicacy to be enjoyed.”

With a gulp of satisfaction, I swallowed my sixth piece of silk, shivering at the taste of the soap used to wash it.

Blueblood, whose attention had previously been on a bottle of whiskey, stopped mid-motion. His eyes almost budged out of his skull, focused as they were on the sumptuous red sheets lying in my grip.

“Stop this at once!” He commanded, his voice thundering. “Those sheets were a present to my great-grandfather and are a family inheritance! They’re worth a fortune!”

Flinching, I felt my ears flatten against my skull. A puff of warmth exploded in my chest, of the unpleasant, shameful variety. Family stuff, eh?

“Huh…” I looked down at the shiny shiny red silk on the bed. Then, struck by an idea, I sheepishly looked back up. “Well, since I have already bitten into them five times, you can say they’re now worthless. And being worthless, they are now a hindrance, so I’m really doing you a favor by eating them.”

“I heard you were insane…” he said slowly, narrowing his eyes at me. “But that was almost logical.”

Looking up, I mused it over. “Yeah, I think I’m in one of my good moods.”

And because I was proud of it, I grinned widely at Blueblood. Though, quite honestly, I hadn’t expected him to react like he did.

All of a sudden, he pulled the bottle of heavy liquor closer to his chest, almost possessively. He cradled it onto his barrel, like it was his sole heir, and whispered it things on the tone of pure love. Gentle, his magic tilted it away, and its clear orange liquid filled his cup.

In one great swing, he downed it, and the next one just as swiftly. A sigh of content left his lips, as well as the smell of alcohol. “If I knew being photographed in that bar would have this kind of consequences, I would have just drunk myself in a stupor with my private wine cabinet…”

Frowning, I stayed silent, letting him act as he wanted. For now. I was comfortable enough on this bed… and the temptation of this sumptuous silk was still calling.

With what had to be movements designed to be boringly perfect, the prince put his royal rump on a red cushion. From one drawer flew an inkpot and a quill, and from another, a small notebook. Seemingly unconcerned by the munching I was doing in my corner, he started writing.

For a minute or two, the only sound was that of scritches and scratches on paper, and that of pouring liquor.

“What are you writing?” I asked, picking at a piece of tissue stuck between my fangs.

“A journal. It helps keep my thoughts in order,” he replied with an easy smile.

It took three seconds for the words to register, seven more to unfreeze my legs.

I leapt at the desk, grasping its edges with all my strengths, and asked in a shout, “It does?!”

And while I stared at the notebook that could apparently make ponies sane, Blueblood slowly leaned back. “I doubt any force on this world could make your thoughts logical.”

It was like a kick in the nuts.

Unable to fight the impulse, I ran toward the balcony, stopping short of leaving the inside of the castle. Something I caught in the corner of my eyes, maybe a guard or something. But it was enough to just stand here, because the wind entered at great speed and brushed harshly against my fur.

It was cold, a bit, which was a good way to calm down the burning in my throat, to kill the taste of bile and of ashes, the voices of red and crazy. They were buried under the sound of the wind and I could think.

“It’s lucky for you,” I said with a sing song tone, looking at view of Canterlot.

The light of the sun was shining on every roof, every building, reflected by the pure white marble that made up so much of the city. All of it seemed aimed at me, from this spot here, it really seemed to be.

Flinching, I turned my head away, lifting one leg in front of my eyes.

It shielded me from the light, though not from the sight of a curious prince. “Why is it lucky for me that you’re so… you?” he asked in a subdued tone.

A growl rising out of my throat, I twisted away fast enough to get whiplash. And fell on my sides as a result.

“W-well, you knoooooow,” I said with a high pitch version of all my voices. “In Ponyville, I was almost killed at some point, but Rarity instead sacrificed herself by jumping in a pit of lava that was luckily an illusion, unless the Element on her neck turned the real into a fake, and anyway, she jumped to save my life. Because I didn’t want to die. It’s scary.”

The red kept flowing between my claws, eluding me, falling in-between like liquid. And my guts suddenly twisted with a want, a burning, churning hot desire for BLOOD.

I staggered, fighting not to lose my balance while sitting, one of my wings suddenly flaring to life to stabilize me. It worked. On the physical level.

My jaws were clenched so tightly they hurt.

“Well, you treated Rarity like crap at the Grand Galloping Gala, so the moment I get logical, I’ll punch your face. And kick you in a painful place.”

His eyes flashed in anger, as his brows furrowed and his nostrils exhaled hot air. He took one step over me, almost looming with the difference in our heights, emboldened by liquid fire he probably still tasted on his prissy superfluous tongue.

The corners of my mouth twitched, spread wider in erratic spasms. In the back of my head, a certain someone whispered a few things, reminded me that blood tasted rather sweet and that organs made a filling meal.

However, luck had other plans. When my claws gripped at the stony floor, it created a nerve racking sound that made us both flinch.

As if brought back from a dream, Blueblood’s expression softened, his eyes closing while he took a deeper breath.

“Forget it. It is time for my meeting with Lady Silk Trade and I am now obliged by law to make you follow me.”

I blinked, and forgot the red monster inside. Silk Trade…?

Oh, a bubble burst in my brain, exposing a glorious idea in the form of a question. All too quickly, I followed after Blueblood, trotting like a good obedient colt. Hopefully, he would not suspect a thing.

Unfortunately, he was somehow struck by brilliance.

Eyes wide, he turned to me with a deep disdain. “…You are not allowed to test if she tastes like silk.”

--

Observatory Journal, by Prince Leon Polaris Blueblood.

Entry # 1

The one called Honest Havoc has so far proven to be as puzzling as the reports of the experts had led me to believe. While he spouts nonsense faster than would half the elected officials on the National Council with more sincerity than they have in their plot, he also hazards himself into making statements that seem to border on self-loathing and philosophy. His claims of being from another world and corrupted by Discord seem to be plausible so far, especially with the randomized knowledge he seems to have of Equestria. However, I will reserve judgment for now.

This afternoon, I will have a meeting with Lady Silk Trade, my first official function since accepting the charge of Honest Havoc. It will be a good occasion to judge exactly how much his presence will hinder me.

Though, if Luck smiles upon me, perhaps he shall be of some help.

Addemdum.

I still don’t know how to describe what he actually did.

…Aunt Celestia, please wake up soon.