“So, this is the place, huh?”

Sunset got a definite Beverly Hillbillies vibe as she watched the family of ponies plus pink princess friend walk into the opulent mansion and look around in wonder. Although the family wasn’t from the sticks, Cadance was, so the metaphor was an apt one since she was with them.

But while Cadance managed to keep from looking around with an open mouth, she did go along with them.

The entry room was exactly what Sunset would expect from a family of ponies that wanted to make a statement right when any guests came into the house. About as big as three normal Canterlot-sized living rooms, a pair of columns flanked the main doors, while a pair of red carpeted staircases that started at opposite ends of the room curved around to meet at the second floor. A floor of stone helped to create quite the echo as hooves used to carpet or wood in earnest.

Kibitz trotted in behind her a moment later to address the family, despite the whole lot of them still looking around the glorified entryway in wonder. “As requested, I had any of the decor dealing with the history of the former owners removed, so there will be splotches of off color here and there as well as indentation on the rugs, but those can be replaced as well. I brought along a book of paint samples-”

“Give them a minute to look around,” Sunset told him before she focused on the white pony halfway up the flight of stairs on the right as opposed to the one on the left.

Velvet looked back towards the two of them. “Where’s the kitchen?”

“That would be back towards the rear of the house, Ma’am,” Kibitz told her. He took a step forward, then reached into the saddlebags hanging his back and handed Sunset a folder. “Please remind Princess Cadance about her meeting later today. This young mare comes highly recommended.”

Once Sunset took the folder, she opened it to glance at the pony’s information before moving onto the letters of recommendation bearing the seals of several out of town nobles, dukes and minor lords who still ruled their territories directory. Simply amazing...harsh but effective...It’s like there’s three of her.

“If you would allow me to escort you? I will have decided on a kitchen staff by the end of the week, so there’s no need for you to get your hooves dirty.”

Sunset looked up in time to watch Twilight Velvet follow Kibitz until they were out of sight before turning her attention back to the tasty stallion in the room as he trotted up the right staircase. “Why are there two of these?” he asked while turning to face Sunset.

“Shiny!” Twily said in an exasperated tone. “It’s obvious that one is for going up, and the other is for going down.”

The colt let out a laugh. “Twilight, I don’t think that’s how it works,” he said before taking a step down.

“USE THE OTHER STAIRS FOR GOING DOWN!”

Shining Armor froze, then quickly went back up before coming down the correct flight of stairs.

Not knowing whether to laugh or groan, Sunset quickly moved to picked Twilight up into her forelegs. “Come on you little bundle of OCD. Let’s go and find the room you want.” It would still be a week and change before they could move it, but claims of ownership needed to be done right away.

“It needs a bookshelf, and a reading desk, and a comfy chair, oh! And a study chair, and the study chair needs to go next to the reading desk because it’ll help me study.”

Cadance smiled as the pony with the small saddlebag on her hip she was waiting for came into the cafe and looked around a moment before noticing her. If the mare was impressed by the fact she was meeting a princess, she didn’t show it. Of course, Princess Celestia had advised meeting her in the palace, but...that just wasn’t Cadance’s style. If she was going to be working with this pony for the next several years, then she wanted to be able to sit in an informal setting with her.

She didn’t just want to be her boss, she wanted to be her friend too.

As for the pony herself, Hidden Figures was was a tall, lean unicorn with a body that spoke of alchemical beauty enhancements in more than just stature. Her shiny, jet black coat was exquisitely well groomed and a teal braid hung down to her body, although Cadance calculated that it would nearly reach the floor if undone. A pair of frameless reading glasses sat on her muzzle, which was probably a good indication of just how much work she did if her eyesight required them.

Cadance held out a hoof and scooted the chair back. “Hello, Ms Figures. I thought this would be a better place for us to meet than the castle,” she said before pouring a cup of tea from the pot and setting it aside with her magic. It was nice not to see neither the cup nor pot shake. “I’d also like to buy you lunch, if you don’t mind.”

“You’re the Princess,” she replied evenly before sitting down, a neutral expression on her face. She looked down at the tea, then up to a large clock hanging on the wall. “One moment.” The black pony opened her pack with a glow of green magic that matched her eyes to withdraw a small red vial, which she uncorked and quickly downed. “It was time for my medication.”

The information made Cadance blink. “Oh my, nothing serious I hope.”

Hidden Figures looked back at the princess. “Blood pressure,” she said. “Having to untangle the messes many of the little country lords get themselves into with the timetable they give me can be...stressful.”

Cadance hoofed over cup. “Well, I hope this helps with the taste,” she said, barely managing to keep a straight face.

“Thank you,” Hidden Figures said before the cup lifted in her magic to her lips. She took a sip and…

Despite the fact that the pony in front of per promptly spit the drink that had been mixed with Celestia’s changeling revealing potion out onto the floor, Cadance felt nothing but relief that the pony in front of her was in fact a pony. “Oh my!” she exclaimed. “Did the tea go bad? It wasn’t out for that long,” she said before stroking her hooves together twice to get the server’s attention. “Waiter, we need a new pot of tea. I think this one had bad leaves, or something.”

The earth pony stallion eyes widened. “R-Right away, Princess!”

Cadance felt bad about making the poor pony think his place of business was to blame for such an error and made a note to give them several times the written bill as her waiter galloped off to get a mop. Once he had gone over the area, she looked back to the prospective hire. “Now, let’s get down to business, shall we?” she asked before bringing over the folder Sunset had given her earlier in her magic and opening it. “It says here that you’ve worked for a number of different nobles, businesses as a consultant on a number of issues, ranging from sorting out paperwork problems, accounting, personnel, contract negotiation and tax preparation.” She looked back up at Hidden Figures. “Did you really get the crown to pay Baron Cob not to grow corn last year?”

“It was a perfectly valid legal loophole,” Hidden Figures told her in the same dry tone she had been using since the interview began. “I’d also like to point out that it has since been closed and if I knew how to let my employers get away with such things, then I will know how to catch them if you hire me to keep track of your holdings, Majesty.”

Since she had already gone over the paperwork a dozen times, Cadance closed the folder and looked at the pony sitting across from her. “I hope you understand, this isn’t some temp job where you need to come in and untangle a mess before you go,” she explained. “I am looking for a permanent personal assistant, not just to help oversee my private holdings, but to also help me in the palace as well,” she explained. “While I won’t be taking on all my princess duties due to my current age, I can assure you that will change once I graduate.”

Hidden Figures cracked a little smile. “That, Your Majesty, is exactly why I am here.”

Standing outside the door to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, Sunset felt more than a little nostalgic. While the place had turned rather sour as the years went on, her first year there had been enjoyable. She could remember learning how to cast spells in classes before showing them to Celestia back at the castle, when her mother wasn’t appearing at the school to give a lesson herself. It had been a much happier time for her.

Even after the death of her parents, the school had been where she felt that she always belonged, until…

Sunset frowned at the ground.

Something…

There was something that had happened back then…

Something...

“Your Majesty! Your Majesty! Please wait, I have something I need to speak to you about!”

The familiar voice made her gasp in remembrance.

Sunset trotted down the path towards the big doors. School hadn’t started yet, but she knew the doors were unlocked. Today was the day, the day she would ask Princess Celestia something about a thought she had. A thought she had been thinking about all week.

It had been a month since her parents had died. She didn’t have any other close relatives that she knew of. After some reading, most of which she didn’t fully understand, Sunset gathered that the crown should have assigned a pony to look after her by now. Not an adoptive parent, but a pony that was old enough to look after Sunset until she found somepony that wanted her.

But, nopony had come.

On top of which, Sunset lived at the castle. All the other students lived at the school dorms. Even some of the ponies who had parents in Canterlot lived in the dorms.

Princess Celestia had other ponies take care of her when she needed to, like Kibitz and Raven, but there were many times when she did it herself. She held Sunset when she cried about her mommy and daddy, read her bedtime stories, even gave her baths and slept with her during that awful week after Mommy and Daddy died, when she could barely bring herself to move or eat.

So today was the day that she would ask, “Princess Celestia, are you my new Mommy?”

Past the gates and halfway down the path, the door to Celestia’s school opened up and a stallion stepped out. He was a pretty stallion, with a white coat and blonde mane that Sunset had seen dozens of times before, talking to her not-yet-Mommy at the castle.

“Hello Lord Blueblood,” Sunset said happily as she approached her cousin-to-be, halfway to the building. Or would he be her nephew? Being Celestia’s daughter would make her great-several-times-nephew Sunset’s...what, exactly?

The big stallion looked down at her with a sneer. “That’s Prince Blueblood, urchin. What do you want?”

“I’m on my way to ask Princess Celestia if she’s my new Mommy!” Sunset declared happily.

Blueblood frowned down at her with a look that Sunset had only seen ponies use when they saw something really icky. “My aunt is nothing of the sort. What in that empty little head of yours could make you even imagine something as stupid as that?”

The hope that Sunset had been holding in her heart all week trembled. “Be-Because she...loves me.”

“She doesn’t love you,” Blueblood told her as he stepped forward to loom over her and leaned down to get right in her face. “You’re nothing more than her pet, a toy she found to play with. She’s had dozens and dozens of students. Just. Like. You. And just like all of them, if you overstep your bounds. If ask her something like that, well...she’ll throw you right back in the gutter where you belong. I’m her real family, not you. And that’s the way it will always be.”

Sunset starred up, horrified at the stallion’s words, even after he got up to trot away. The world got all blurry and she felt the dampness on her face. She took a step towards the door where her Mommy was-no!

Not her mommy, never her mommy. If she ever called Princess Celestia Mommy, then Princess Celestia would have to get rid of her! She couldn’t cry in front of the Princess, she couldn’t fail her classes, she couldn’t show weakness, if she did…

Sunset turned and galloped towards the exit as fast as she could. She needed time to get herself under control. She could fake being sick for a day or two, get herself under control, she was smart enough not to get kicked out if she only missed a day or two.

“Princess! One moment!”

The sound of Blueblood’s voice drew Sunset out of the memory long buried away. She took in a breath through her nose to help steel her emotions before turning to face the big stallion. Much like mares, stallions in Canterlot had their own options for alchemical enhancement. Although, instead of going a route that made them look more like Celestia, they just put on a bit of height and kept in good shape without an ounce of work.

It was something that made Sunset appreciate Shiny all the more, since he had asked if they were going to be continuing their workout routine come tonight. Like her, he wanted to work for what would be his.

“What is it, Blueblood?”

“Ah, yes! Princess Sunset, glad I caught you, there’s a matter of some urgency that I must speak to you about,” he told her before pausing to take in a deep breath.

If Sunset had still been the old her, the presence of the pony who had shattered a little filly’s dream and laughed about it all those years ago would have been burnt to ash on the spot. As it was, just just felt a mild wave of anger and slight disgust at how alike they used to be when she got older. “We are not in front of a dozen camera’s right now, Blueblood. So I would suggest you tell me what you’re doing here before I lose my temper and do something that you won’t be able to regret until you regain consciousness.”

Blueblood gulped. “Y-Yes. I tried to catch you at the palace, but...ah, here. It’s just something I need for you to sign. No need to read it. Legal jargon and all that. Wait! I said you don’t need to-”

A spell sewed his mouth shut, giving Sunset the quiet she needed skim over the document in just a few seconds. What she read put her into so much shock that she felt her hind legs give out. While the contract didn’t outright state what Sunset realized by the time she was done with it, only an idiot wouldn’t be able to read what an acceptance to disavow any relation to Princess Platinum meant.

Princess Platinum was Princess Celestia’s adoptive mother. She had adopted a pony barely younger than her when Equestria had just been founded to show the nobility her support for a unified Equestria. Since they went to war not two years later with all of the unicorn houses, pegasi legions and earth pony militias that disagreed, it didn’t really work out that well. Especially for the remains of three divided tribes that faced a nation tired of ice and snow. But it did legally make Princess Celestia, Princess Platinum’s daughter. And she did run the house that the former Queen of Unicornia became leader of for a good twenty years before old age failed to set in and she passed things off to her little sister...whose name Sunset couldn’t remember.

Sunset blinked at the odd gap in her knowledge. She wasn’t a history, buff, but for some reason, that bothered her.

Even after retiring to give rule of the house over to Platinum’s biological daughter, House Platinum continued to include Celestia in the family registry for obvious reasons. Making her the eldest member of House Platinum...who for all intent and purposes, just had a kid. A kid that was much, much higher up in the line of succession than either Blueblood around today.

Making Sunset Shimmer the legal holder of House Platinum’s matriarch title.

Sunset couldn’t help it, she threw her head back and laughed. “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” the princess got out before she had to take a breath. That calmed her down enough that when she looked back at the trembling stallion, she could actually speak. “Do you remember about oh, ten years ago, that meeting you and I had. It was about a month after my birth parents died. Blueblood?” Sunset asked. “Do you remember what you said to me, back then when we stood on the steps of this school?”

The thread holding Blueblood’s mouth closed vanished. He worked his jaw, then gulped. “Princess, I don’t see what-”

Sunset grit her teeth. “The title that family members call the supreme mare of the house is Matriarch,” she insisted, freezing the stallion in place without a bit of magic. “I’ll help you remember. It was here, at the school. I was on my way to ask Celestia if she was my new mommy. But I met you at the entrance and decided to ask you first. Now tell me what you said that left me in a pool of my own tears.”

“I...I said.” He gulped. “T-That you were...b-being stupid. That A-Auntie Celestia d-didn’t love you. That you were just a pet, a toy she found to play with. That she had dozens and dozens of students in the past, but she eventually got tired of them, j-just like she would you. And i-if you asked her...y-you’d go right back to the gutter...w-where you belong. B-Because I was her r-real family.”

Seeing the sniveling pony cower before Sunset brought her no joy.

But she didn’t much dislike it, either.

Sunset sucked in some air through her nostrils, then let out a long, cleansing breath. “You know, I actually forgot about that over the years? Oh, I went back and cried in my room for two days afterwards until Mom came to check up on me. And even then, I didn’t tell her because I was afraid of being kicked out, but as time when on, I put that into the back of my mind and focused on my work until I didn’t think about it anymore. Then, as I started wanting more and more power, I plotted ways to get hitched with your son and become Celestia’s niece by marriage. I even thought about using magic for a bit, if you can believe that hypocrisy,” she said before smiling at him. “But now, I’ve got your house and I can marry whomever I bucking please, isn’t that great?”

The threat made Blueblood shake. “I can go to the courts-”

“That I can overrule with my superior authority,” Sunset pointed out.

“Princess Celestia-”

Sunset couldn’t stop herself from laughing. “Pffftbwahahahahaha! Okay-okay,” she said. “Even if my mother doesn’t banish you from Equestria for that little moment in time, which might have actually changed my life by the way, I would like to remind you that Princess Cadance, the mare I’m sleeping with, the mare that shouted down Celestia because she didn’t act like a full blown parent much earlier in my life, she’s the real High-Princess of Equestria! Let’s go tell her the reason Mommy never got to hear me asking if she was my replacement mother is because of you. Because I would just love to take that point of contention between the two of them away.”

After a few seconds, Blueblood lowered his head in defeat. “I...you...win...Matriarch.”

“Well, not really. Not with this, anyway. You see, you’re actually very lucky. Because, I’ve learned a very important lesson since going through a trial and gaining my wings, Blueblood,” Sunset told him. “It’s a lesson that I think all alicorns learn, eventually. It’s why they start new minor noble houses instead of setting up a place for their descendants in the top ten.

“And lesson is, power is the antithesis of happiness,” Sunset told him in a serious tone. “And there is nothing I want more in this world than my friends and family to be happy.

“Unfortunately, it’s a little too late to stop that from happening with Shiny thanks to all that money and status Mom gave him. So, I’m going to make you a little deal. I won’t swoop in and take everything you have if you keep Shining Armor and the rest of his family out of the political madhouse that is Canterlot. In fact, you’re going to go out of your way to make sure he and his family are very, very happy. Because if they’re happy, I’m happy. And if I’m happy, I don’t want to ruin that by grabbing at a lot more money and power, understand?”

Blueblood nodded slowly. “Yes...uh…”

“We’ll stick with Princess,” Sunset told him before frowning. “Unless you decide to make me unhappy.”

Once their little meeting was concluded, Sunset about-faced and headed inside of Celestia’s school. Even if it was Sunday, the ponies who worked records would still be in. As would the dorm mothers. She had promised to check up on Starlight, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t going in without some foreknowledge about the foal.

The streets of Canterlot outside her carriage were teeming with activity as ponies took in the last day of the Princess Fair before it was time to pack everything up and go back to school, work, or...whatever it was that her defacto fiancee did. Fleur made a mental note to ask about that at some point, it might actually help her care when it came to the young stallion.

“I say, such an amusing sight, seeing all these little ponies, crowding lines for their rides and confectioneries,” Fancy Pants commented as their little moving room took them past an earth pony on a unicycle, that was keeping half a dozen objects up in the air as well as any unicorn could.

Fleur looked back to him with a with a little smile. “Would you like to join them?” she asked. Missing the ounting with the princesses had been a huge disappointment, but there was something to be said for time spent alone with...the pony you were supposed to marry.

A sour look appeared on Fancy Pant’s face for a moment before he laughed it off. “Oh-hoho, my dear. That wit of yours, I actually believed you were serious for a moment. You know that we are above such things. At least, you are now,” he said with a smile. “The thought of actually doing something so common is…” The smile on his face turned to a grimace. “...horrendous.”

Yet you didn’t have a problem with a ride as common as me, she thought to herself while keeping a frown from forming on her face. The colt wasn’t as snooty about it as some of the wealthier ponies she had met, but he still looked down on other ponies all the same.

For several seconds, Fleur wrestled with the idea of telling him that Sunset, Cadance, and Princess feathering Celestia had gone to the fair, with the most refined of the three being the one that went on all the rides with that group of fillies Fleur she had met. Sometimes, it was a bucking pain being as close to royalty as she was. She settled for looking back out her window.

“By the way, that Shining Armor chap I met during your school’s little...dance,” he said. “I don’t suppose you could manage to get an invite for us and my parents to his housewarming celebration, could you? They would be very grateful.”

Fleur looked back to her...Fancy Pants. “Shiny? Wait, why would your mom and dad care about a party he’s throwing?”

“Oh, yes...you weren’t at the palace yesterday,” he mumbled. “Honestly Fleur, you must get in the habit of reading the news every morning if you’re going to be joining my family.” Fancy paused for a moment before taking in a short breath. “Yesterday, Princess Celestia gave Shining Armor land and title, as well as the entirety of the holdings of House Guard. On paper, that makes his family the seventh most powerful in the realm. In reality, because of his relationship with the younger princesses, that number is closer to four or three. Even House Platinum, who counts Princess Celestia among their number, will be paying his family tribute. It isn’t a stretch to think that within ten years, he could very easily supplant even Prince Blueblood as the most influential stallion in all of Equestria.”

The news had Fleur sitting back in her seat as a slight melancholy began to set in. Being a senior, she knew life was going to be changing for her at a rather rapid pace, but…

Sassy’s success in the fashion industry was almost assured. She would be taking off like a rocket right out of school and start a whole brand of her own, putting clothes in stores all across Equestria. There was no need for a pony like Upper Crust, now. She would be her own pony within a year of being out on the fashion scene and able to do whatever she wanted.

Shining Armor may have gotten his start based on a lucky encounter with Princess Sunset. But he had gone from there to entice Princess Cadance, then earned a place in Canterlot’s highest levels by saving Celestia’s daughter during her coronation. Instead of becoming a pony that would be mostly irrelevant in a few years, he would be able to stand horn to horn with a Blueblood.

Meanwhile, Fleur was...a rich pony’s broodmare. Oh, she would be given her chance to model and look pretty, appear in a few magazines that could go up on the wall, but the truth of things was that she was in her relationship to have beautiful little foals that would one day grow up and hopefully attract the attention of more powerful nobles. While it would have been enough for her a year ago when Upper Crust was around, these days…

“My dear, the tickets?” Fancy asked.

Fleur looked back to the stallion. “Hm? Oh! Yes, I’ll ask.”

“That’s a good girl,” the noble told her.

Princess Celestia watched the mare across from her begin to glisten with nervousness as she looked down at the plate of salad in front of her. When she had invited Twilight Velvet to lunch, it had been to talk about important matters. However, it seemed that wasn’t going to be the first topic of discussion. “Is something wrong, Twilight? The meal not to your liking?”

“What?” she asked quickly. “No! No, it’s fine, Princess Celestia.” She even took a few bites to prove it. “Mmmmm!”

What is it about me that makes everypony act the foal in my presence half the time? Celestia asked herself before dismissing the question. At least Twilight wasn’t the squabbling kind of foal like the rest of them, when they weren’t jumping up and down for mommy’s attention at any rate. “Twilight? I did have an ulterior motive for having my guards fetch you for lunch today.”

The mare quickly wiped some of the dressing off of her face with a napkin. “Oh, yes Princes. My husband and I discussed it, and if it’s alright with you, I’ll be the one attending you at court, starting Monday.”

Just like whenever the start of the weeks was mentioned, Celestia had to wonder what her sister would have thought of it. Probably a bad joke. Before the modern Equestria, back when the two sisters still ruled together, everypony was given the beginning of the week off. Sun Day was the first, Moon Day was the second. Now, ponies carried mugs of coffee proclaiming their hatred of Monday, the bastardized version of what had been Luna’s day.

Luna wouldn’t have been happy with it at all.

“Princess Celestia?”

“Hmm? Oh! I’m sorry, Twilight, my mind has a tendency to wander when I’m reminded of things from my distant past,” she apologized. “It doesn’t happen much, but when it does… Now, what were you saying.”

The mare gulped. “Princess Sunset told me that you would be expecting myself or my husband for court, Highness. After talking about it, we thought that it should be me.”

It took a moment for Celestia to reason just what was going on, but she didn’t let it show. For a rather embarrassing moment, she feared that Sunset had somehow guessed her reasoning. But that was so impossible, such a fear was short-lived. “I see. Well, I will warn you that things can get quite boring from time to time and quite heated every now and then. But, it will give us an excuse to talk and for me to see you at lunch. There is something I must ask your expert opinion on.”

Twilight’s expression told Celestia that she had just completely derailed the poor mare’s. “My expert opinion, Princess? I-I don’t know what I could tell you,” she replied. “T-There were many more ponies much more skilled than I was at reading the stars-”

“I’m not talking about that, Twilight,” Celestia assured her as she raised a hoof before taking in a deep breath. The next part would be hard for her to say. Despite how much she tried to teach others modesty, Celestia had been learning that she was an extremely proud pony in all the worst ways. “Two days ago, you helped Sunset better than I ever could. So, would you teach me how to be a better mother to my daughter?”

Sassy walked into her parents’ apartment and after taking a moment to make sure she wasn’t going to be tracking any dirt onto the carpet. “Mother, Daddy, I’m home!” she called out happily before walking looking into the little dining area her family had and spotting her parents sitting around the table with a dark brown earth pony stallion she didn’t know in a business suit.

The thing that really caught her eyes was the fact that the patterns for one of the dresses Sassy had designed were splayed out on the table, along with photographs of Princess Cadance and Princess Sunset in their Fall Formal attire.

“Mother?” Sassy asked carefully as she slowly approached the table. “What’s going on?”

The shorter blue mare looked over to her daughter in excitement. “Oh, Sassy, dear! Mr Bucks here said that he was interested in purchasing the designs of the dresses you made for the Princesses in order to sell them to ponies in Manehattan! Isn’t that wonderful?” she asked excitedly.

“Mega Bucks!” the big stallion said with the sound of Manehattan heavy on his tongue before moving to take Sassy’s hoof and shake it. “I’m a member of a little clothing conglomerate up in Manehattan, and we all love, love your work, Ms Saddles.”

Much to Sassy’s embarrassment, her father spoke using that out of town ‘drawl’ he still carried from before he met Mother. “MmmHmm, always knew my Sassy would hit it big one day. Didn’t think it’d be this soon though. Still, mighty proud of my little missie,” the dark horse said. All he needed was a spittoon to drive Sassy under her bed in embarrassment.

“Blazing, please. You know how Sassy gets when you talk like that in front of guests,” Mother told him.

What is it with so many stallions using the name Buck? Sassy asked herself in a moment of cognitive disconnect. It was the goto stand-in word for sex and usable as a curse for pony’s sake!

“Ms Saddles?” the stallion said to Sassy.

The question drew the tall unicorn out of her private thoughts and back into reality. “Oh! Pardon me, my mind was elsewhere. Ah,” Sassy told him before something else occurred to her. “I have a question I must ask, why am I being given these offer now? The Fall Formal was three weeks ago.” The papers had already made the rounds all across Equestria and back again.

“My dear, you know how it takes time for fashion demands to properly propagate,” Mr Bucks told her. “Yes, the drab and boring newspapers get their colorless little photos printed off as fast as possible, but the fashion magazines have to develop the color pictures, remove lens flares, design the perfect display from the photographs available...something Princess Sunset does not make easy, let me tell you. Then the pictures have to go around, get commented on, articles written and printed. By the time everything is done, I’m surprised what they’re saying is hot is already not and we’re already making the new line. Especially with Canterlot’s...ahem...shall we say, couples week. Then the princess fair comes along and everypony who’s anypony knows anything knows that you’re not supposed to conduct any business in Canterlot on during a princess fair. So, of course you get all these knockoffs and imitations being put on the shelves, but no originals. And we all know that true fashion forward ponies won’t buy those things. Blech!

“Now, of course since today is the last day of the Princess Fair, I do not have any contracts with me. We are not talking business, this is just a purely introductions meeting that according to our legal experts, you will need both your parents hoofprints and signatures accompanying yours if you want to go with our offer tomorrow. Which will be somewhere in the neighborhood of...one moment,” the stallion said before he reached into his suit to withdraw a notepad and a pencil that he put in his mouth. He then proceeded to look down and looped his head around five times after touching led to paper, before spitting out the pencil and tearing off the bit of paper for Sassy to take. “Here.”

Sassy took one long look at the number written out for her. She felt her brain nearly shut down as she blinked in surprise, struggling to find the right words to say. “This...this is...for my two dress designs?” With that much money, they could buy a house in Canterlot twice as big as their apartment with money left over for furniture and decor. Tasteful decor.

“What?” Mega Bucks asked before giving her a little laugh and waving off the question. “Oh, no. No, Ms Sassy. That’s just a little preliminary offer for each of the designs.”

Twice…

They were offering twice what she was looking at.

Twice...or more.

After her eyes rolled up into her head, Sassy promptly fainted.

The tinted windows in addition to he shades of the carriage kept Blue Line and his son in the same darkness they had been in since fleeing Canterlot. Even though they were unicorns, the iron rings that had been hammered onto their horns made it far too painful for magic. So that mean they couldn’t even get a mote of light to illuminate their dark transportation.

Not that he understood the point of it all. They were no longer in Canterlot, they weren’t even in sight of the mountain upon which it was perched. The darkness did nothing to conceal the identity of carriage’s other passenger either.

Strong Withers had been a member of the commoner government before trying to foolishly rally support against Princess Sunset and falsely accusing her of being a changeling. There wasn’t a bit of proof of course, aside from how her ascension had made the big filly a bit more bearable to be around. But more than one pony’s political career had been ruined by such accusations before they were forced into self imposed exile by the mob.

But that was where the commoner had erred. He had attempted to treat her like an equal, like some rabble that had been pushed up from the other commoners beneath her. As nobles were immune to such things, so too was a member of the royalty. While Hard Line had taken any excuse to take his foalish frustrations out on, only a few minor lords had backed the politician’s attempt to out oust Celestia’s little brat.

Then came that report he heard whispers about, with the stallion’s son attacking that woodland princess, Cadance. But Celestia, in her unending mercy towards the lowborn, allowed Buck Withers to slink back home into that villa they had left the other unicorn that had escaped with them.

Now, they were headed somewhere else. Where, he had no idea. But it was better to remain silent than ask obvious questions whose answers should have already been volunteered.

“Why aren’t we allowed to see the outside?” Hard Line asked.

Strong Withers snorted. “Don’t they teach you high-born anything? I’d let you do it too, seeing you burned alive the second you were touched by direct sunlight would be quite the sight, if it didn’t also alert Celestia to our position.”

The sheer idiocy of the statement made Blue Line’s son laugh. “You think we’re vamponies or something? Vamponies are a myth you idio-” was as far as he got before the much stronger hoof of the earth pony struck his jaw.

“I will not be insulted by some stupid twit who tried to strike down a princess with an enchanted toothpick,” Strong Withers told him. “Do so again and I will break your legs and drag you out before dawn, then tie you to a tree close enough to a cave that I can hear your screams echo through the hills so that you can know how monumentally stupid you truly are to anger the being that controls the sun.”

Despite the threat, Hard Line reached up and attempted to take the ring off of his horn. It was a futile effort. They had been hammered in place by earth pony guards. Even if they could be removed by bare tools, the cold iron had dug into their horns. It would take months to recover their magic.

Blue Line looked over to the stallion, or at least, in his direction. “What you say has me curious. Will we burst into flames if we go in direct sunlight?”

“I was warned by the Sleeper not to let it touch you or you would be burned alive,” Strong Withers explained plainly. “Whether this means that sunlight will actually kill you, or if it will alert Celestia to your presence so she could do it herself, I don’t know. But the legends about vamponies had to come from somewhere, and I have seen with my own eyes what an alicorn can do if properly motivated.”

The Sleeper, Blue Line focused on the title as soon as he heard it. Back when he had been just a colt, the old pony had told him stories of the older days, stories that had been passed down the line of House Guard for years. In some of them, it told of a monster that could take control of you when you went to bed. Sometimes the addition of ‘if you were naughty’ was placed on the end by his grandmother, but most tellings had the monster getting you no matter the strength of a pony’s moral character. Ponies that fell to the monster became the Sleeper, a puppet of a monster that could never really be killed, because it would only attack with its puppet.

“This...Sleeper,” Blue Line asked. “Is that some sort of title, or something more?”

If this really was some ancient monster, if Princess Celestia really would become aware of him when his coat was touched by the sun, then there was still hope. For Blue Line, at least. His son was dead, but there was still some hope for his house. Blue Line hadn’t raised a sword against Princess Sunset, hadn’t encouraged it like his wife. If he could find a way to give Celestia one of her ancient enemies on a silver platter…

Strong Withers snorted. “Thanking about how to sell us out?” he asked, making Blue Line hold in his reaction. “She said you would. But I can see you’re a sensible stallion. Think on it for a moment, even in the impossible world where Celestia will welcome you back, what type of future will you have? You’ve seen the papers, she’s already given everything that was yours away, aside from those hidden accounts your wife agreed to give us in return for her release. You were right next to your son, with military training and everything else you needed to jump in, but you did nothing.

“Even if she allows you back into Canterlot, even if Sunset Shimmer doesn’t deal with you herself, you’ll have nothing. You will wander the streets, a beggar. And no matter where you go, ponies will point a hoof and go ‘there is Blue Line, the fool who let his house crumble while he stood around and did nothing’ before laughing at you,” the commoner told him with a smile he could practically see despite the lack of illumination. “Or, you can join with us and remake Equestria in Her image.”

Blue Line raised an eyebrow. For a commoner, the fool had a point. “Her who, exactly?”

“Why, Princess Nightmare Moon, of course.”