When Dim entered the room, time seemed to stand still for Blackbird, who could not take her eyes off of him. He was showered and had been groomed—his pelt was sleek, shiny, and perfect—but most of all, there was something about his commanding gaze that made the muscles along the insides of her thighs quiver. A bottle of wine floated just beside him, along with a platter of cheese. Flexing her talons, she almost couldn’t stand just how appealing Dim was at this moment.

“Dim would make for a stunning mare,” the Bard remarked with dry, refined wit.

“He’s certainly in that weird in-between place, just like Eerie.” Bombay nudged her companion in the ribs and nodded her head. “It makes you wonder just how many creatures had to go and have a good think about their sexuality after looking at him.”

Before any further distractions could take place, Blackbird remembered her duties and shot Munro a sidelong glance out of the corner of her eye. The calf looked nervous and was trying to hide it, but doing a lousy job. Dim could be every bit as intimidating as he was attractive and Blackbird began to wonder if poor Munro was attracted to Dim or just afraid of him.

“Dim, this is your valet. His name is Munro. Also, earlier today, I was sworn in as your royal guard.” This seemed to get Dim’s attention, and Blackbird felt her heart skip a beat when he turned to look right at her, even though she couldn’t see his eyes. When his lip curled back from his teeth in a sneer, she felt her wings twitch against her sides.

“He’s a calf,” Dim deadpanned in a reedy, nasal drone.

“Yeah, well, he’s learning how to be a valet, sort of like how you’re learning how to be a prince.” The new expression on Dim’s face gave Blackbird pause, because if looks could kill, she knew that she’d be dead right now. His fury was exciting and she felt a moist heat growing deep within the cleft of her nethers. Knowing that he was all bluster, she continued, “You know Dim, maybe you could ask Munro for pointers, he has fantastic manners.”

The cheese on Dim’s platter seemed to soften.

While Dim seated himself on a silk brocade chaise lounge, Blackbird felt her insides twist into knots. Everything about his everything caught her eye. The way he moved, the way he sat down, the way he drank wine from the bottle—it left her hot and bothered. When she thought about running her talon-fingers through his mane, she had to fight back her girlish giggles.

“I’ve never had a valet before and I’m not sure that it is necessary.”

“But… but I need hands-on experience!”

“Are you a valet or a masseuse?” Dim asked and then popped a bite of softened cheese into his mouth while the platter hovered near his head.

“Uh, do you need your back rubbed?”

When Blackbird turned to look at Munro, she saw him staring at her, pleading with her with his big bovine eyes, and panic was edged deep into his face. Dim was being Dim, which was expected, but Blackbird wished that he would be a little nicer sometimes. Lounging, Dim chewed his chewy cheese while his nostrils flared in some fabulous, imperious way that Blackbird found enthralling.

“You know, out of all of the answers that you could have possibly given—”

Blackbird held her breath, waiting for Dim to unload, and she feared that this would be unpleasant.

“—you somehow chose just the right answer for a subservient underling. Consider yourself in my employ, whatever your name is. A good toady is so hard to come by.”

With a huff, the breath that Blackbird was holding escaped and it felt as though she was deflating. This was the one thing she hadn’t expected from Dim at all, and off to her right, where Bombay and the Bard were sitting together, she heard snickering from the both of them. Dim seemed almost… cordial? At least, for the moment.

Fickle. Dim was fickle. Taking a deep breath, Blackbird took a moment to remind herself of that while Dim noshed on cheese and wine. Munro would at least be looked after, because Dim saw him as valuable. At least, this is what Blackbird hoped. It was hard to say what might come next between Munro and Dim, just because Dim was so damn fickle. Yuny had said that behind every good creature, there was a great valet, which meant that these two needed to work together. Dim was a difficult pony to get along with and at any given moment his whims could change.

“You will call me Dim. Nothing more. Although, if you are feeling a need to ingratiate yourself to me, you may call me ‘Your Vizardness’ or something to that effect.”

“Yes… of course.”

Munro’s voice sounded frightened to Blackbird’s ears, and she wanted to comfort him, but doing so right now would probably embarrass him to no end, and might even trigger Dim’s ridicule. Princes—royalty in general—seemed to be fickle or eccentric, at least in Blackbird’s limited understanding, and it was probably for the best that Munro learn how to deal with extreme personality quirks. Life with Dim was interesting, to say the very least.

Reaching out, Blackbird snatched up a startled bushwoolie and began stroking it. After a moment, it quieted and went still, content to be petted. Somehow, Dim made eating cheese interesting, doing things with his lips and his tongue that she found oh-so-very-distracting, and the back of her head felt sweaty. She could feel her ears jerking to and fro while the sweat trickled down the back of her neck, tickling her, and when Dim wrapped his lips around the top of the bottle, her guts began doing somersaults, flopping up against her navel from the inside. No doubt, her uterus was conspiring against her, and she would have to be on constant watch for betrayal.

When the cheese was gone, Dim conjured a fat joint, which he then stuck into his mouth. Blackbird, holding her breath again without realising it, watched as he pulled the joint out, slowly, and with great care, leaving the yellowish paper moistened with his saliva. Then, he popped it into the end of his long silver holder, placed that between his lips, and lit his nail on fire. When he took his first puff, Blackbird almost succumbed to lightheadedness, and she sucked in a ragged, wheezing inhale when she remembered that breathing was vital to life and living.

“You know,” Dim began, speaking between puffs, “I don’t know what I’m doing. I woke up a while ago and I realised, I am going off to Fancy to potentially take part in a covert operation that I have no clue about, for reasons I cannot comprehend, for a cause I don’t even understand. I only ended up here because I wanted to help Blackbird find her mother. I am mystified by all of this.”

In deadpan, the Bard responded, “There is wine and cheese aplenty.”

Inhaling great lungfuls of smoke, Dim nodded and exhaled these hazy words: “That’s reason enough.”

“Bombay, I like this pony.” When Bombay began to titter, the Bard leaned forwards in his seat and made a gesture at Dim. “Dim, Fancy is a fantastically dangerous place. Inside the cities, you will find thoroughly modern civilisation. Some of the most advanced, most modern cities in the world can be found in Fancy. But… you step outside the walls of the city—”

“And you travel back in time?”

The Bard nodded, a lazy gesture done without much effort. “City dwellers seldom leave the safety of the city walls. Criminals, the undesirables, the poor, the peasants, they all live outside of the walls, and are forced to fend for themselves. There are terrors that stalk the night and brigands operate in the open during the day. The more important farms have a garrison of guards, but those less well-to-do must pay the brigands for protection.”

Blackbird watched with intense interest as Dim puffed away.

“Eerie was the one that kept us safe from the worst of threats, but she’s going to be here, planning for whatever comes next with the Black Hand. She’s an illusionist, Eerie is, and her powerful protections allowed us to maintain a low profile.” The Bard lifted his own wine bottle, took a swig, and then let out a thunderous belch. When he recovered, he continued, “It will be important to maintain a low profile. Killing a few brigands here and there, that’s not so terrible, but starting an all-out war would be detrimental to our cause.”

Shaking her head, Blackbird knew that the Bard was destined for disappointment. Her father, Stinkberry, had an expression for situations just like this one, and thinking of it caused a terrific flood of memories to go rushing through her mind. Might as well tell a fart not to stink, her father would say, usually a response to somepony telling him to do something to control his wife or daughter.

“And this, I am guessing, is why you left home?” Dim pulled out his cigarette holder, but only to chug some wine. The sight of the lump within his throat moving up and down with each swallow made Blackbird’s mouth go dry even as her nethers moistened.

“That was such a painful decision. Stay at home and be a peasant. Leaving home meant taking my own life into my hooves, because worse fates awaited. I knew what happened to earth ponies and slavery did not appeal to me.” The Bard lifted his bottle, waved it around a bit, and then with a weak sigh, his raised foreleg fell as his strength failed him. “But leave home I did. One thing lead to another, and I ended up in a Bard’s College. My natural raw talent was somehow enough to get me in. An earth pony in a company of adventurers has better odds, some might say.”

“I would suppose so,” Dim remarked.

“In time, I would meet Eerie and the others. She wasn’t always the pony that she is now. When I first met her, she was far more broken. The wounds were still fresh, I reckon. With Eerie, I accomplished amazing things. I have stood on the soil of another world and looked up into an alien sky to see strange constellations that I did not know. I have met humans, and in an even more fantastic turn of events, I have been human. I have walked along a span of stars, a bridge that connected this universe, this realm, to a tangent universe that sadly, no longer exists.”

“A tangent universe?” Dim’s eyebrow raised and this caused his goggles to sit crooked upon his face.

“A special place that no doubt broke off from some other reality, perhaps even this one. Their world was flat… a disc. I would not have believed such a thing was possible, but having seen it with my own eyes… it was a profound experience. Eerie saved who she could, the very last of what remained of a resistance. We fled with them across the span of stars… Eerie called it the Galaxy Bridge, but naming such a thing, it just feels trite.”

Blackbird was too entranced with Dim to catch even half of what the Bard was saying.

“Going home will be hard for me.” Leaning over onto Bombay, the Bard allowed himself to be held by his companion and he closed his eyes. “Even the earth ponies that are allowed to live within the walls aren’t well off. Some are soldiers, but most serve as labour. Pulling a cab within the city walls is still a pretty sweet life compared to life outside the walls. Hauling, pulling, delivering, doing the jobs that nopony else wants to do. Carting around nightsoil. Ugh.”

After a deep inhale, Dim blew out an airship made of smoke. It sailed through the air, propelled by his breath, and its existence was short-lived. Blackbird watched with near-breathless anticipation, wondering what he might do next. Was he in a playful mood? A good mood? Was he happy? She wanted him to be happy, because most the time, Dim was miserable.

“It is a problem with no easy answers, no quick, fast solutions,” the Bard continued, crestfallen. “We breed faster than the other tribes, and there are only so many jobs within the city walls. Sure, an earth pony could be an accountant, but the issue here is, a unicorn has a much harder time pulling a wagon. There are too few unicorns in Fancy… the ones that have any sort of magical ability at all go elsewhere to seek their fortunes, and the ones with spot on the wall talents just try to exist. There is this precarious balance that has to be held, so most earth ponies are made to live outside of the protection of the city walls. Jobs are preserved for those best suited for them. The system works, it has allowed Fancy to survive as a nation for a very long time, but it is gross, it is unjust, and us earth ponies get the worst of it.”

“So, shake things up,” Dim suggested with a ne’er-do-well’s grin that left Blackbird flustered beyond description.

When Blackbird turned to see the expression upon Pâté au Poulet’s face, she saw fear and doubt while he shook his head from side to side. “Fancy is already in a precarious position. We ceased to be a united country a long time ago. We are little more than a confederation of city-states that barely tolerate one another so that the old treaties with Equestria might be exploited. See, that’s the rub… the treaties are with Fancy, not with individual city-states. Shaking things up would be the end of us.”

“You know,” Bombay interjected, “rather than being all mopey, we should get out and do something.”

Author's Notes:

I almost feel bad for torturing Blackbird. I don't know if she deserves this.