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The Blueblood Papers: Royal Blood

by Raleigh

Chapter 5

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The hall was smothered in a dense layer of pipe smoke, like the fog in Trottingham; over by the piano a group of drunk lesser nobles and landed gentry sang a bawdy song about Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and the various things they each wanted to do with my cousin; in a dimly-lit corner, a small group of mares and stallions writhed, moaned, and giggled; and at the bar older gentlecolts nursed glasses of wine and complained about the non-pony races moving in and ruining Equestria. I rested on a soft, plush sofa in a quiet corner of the room, with a bottle of the Dom Ponygnon '07 and two glasses on the coffee table within easy reach. A pretty mare rested her head on my lap, and she traced her silk stocking-clad hoof along a scar on my chest. This was the Tartarus Club.

"How about this one?" said the filly, tapping the thin line of raised scar tissue with the tip of her hoof. "What's the story behind this one?"

I took a sip of champagne and a puff of my cigar, affecting myself to look as though I was in deep, contemplative thought as I stared off into the middle distance. "A duel," I said, expelling a cloud of smoke that wafted away in the stagnant air to add to the choking smog. "Some blackguard thought he could insult the honour of the Night Guards, so we fought a duel over it."

Her eyes widened and she smiled. "Did you kill him?"

"No, but he learned his lesson." I left out the part where Captain Blitzkrieg had allowed himself to be goaded by an impertinent Solar Guard officer, resulting in said duel in the first place.

In truth, I had grown rather tired of telling heavily-sanitised stories about the war; it was all anypony wanted to hear when I returned to Canterlot, for every high society event that I had attended had been populated by nobles who demanded that I regale them with tales from the front. They tended to be the ones left behind where others took up their expected military posts and marched off to war, being either too old or too infirm to fight, or even having summoned up a socially acceptable excuse to remain behind where I could not, and were thus living out this war vicariously through me. I performed my duty well, at first, but each time I waxed lyrical about the supposed glory of war over canapés and Beaujolais, my words felt as though they were rotting before they even left my mouth. Had I the courage to do so, I would have told them in their opulent palaces the true horror of what I had witnessed; a stallion's face ripped to shreds by canister shot and left to die choking on his own blood, or the countless Changelings consumed in the flames of an angered goddess, or Captain Red Coat sobbing like a foal when he saw what had happened to him. But I am a coward in more ways than one, so I suppressed that urge and buried it deep down so that the images I am forced to see when I close my eyes and sleep remain with me alone.

This time, however, was different. It was pure drama; part of the game a stallion and mare play together to subtly tease out one another's suitability for more involved activities later. Mares liking scars is a cliché that is at least partially true, provided that they are not too disfiguring and that one has an interesting story to tell about it. About half of the ones I had told to this mare were made up on the spot, and she knew it; truth was not what mattered here in this place of sybaritic pleasure, but merely a bit of play-acting to ease our passage into a night of playful and indulgent sin. Scars never lie, the old mare's saying goes, but I sure as Tartarus can.

The mare hummed appreciatively, and squirmed on my lap as her hungry eyes scanned over my upper body for more interesting scars to ask about. I don't recall her name, only that she was a pegasus, small and slim, with a dusky pink coat and a cutie mark depicting a pair of dice displaying ones. We had met at the bar, where she recognised me instantly, and after a few drinks and some idle chit-chat where I learned that she was some down-on-her-luck noblemare who had blown her inheritance on some unwise bets, we migrated over to one of the many sofas in the club's hall.

"What about this one?" she said, stroking the thin line over my left shoulder where a piece of shrapnel had ripped a small but painful chunk out of me.

"Oh, that one?" I peered over at the scar that marred my otherwise pristine white coat; it was not the biggest or most dramatic I had at the time, and the story that came with it was hardly entertaining anyway. Affecting a far-away look, I said, at length, "I can't talk about that one, my dear, not yet."

The mare giggled and swatted her hoof playfully at my chest. "A few hours and I'll make you tell me everything."

I chuckled, sliding my hoof over the gentle curve of her back. "I look forward to it."

Although the Tartarus Club had pretensions of at least having the appearance of a traditional Canterlot gentlecolts' club, its exclusivity had in fact very little to do with its formal entry requirements. That is to say, there were none officially. One had to find it in the first place, its location being something of a secret passed by word-of-mouth amongst like-minded 'ponies of quality', amidst the maze-like alleyways and dead-ends of Canterlot's Old City district, and once stumbled upon, neophytes who lacked the stomach for the sort of debauched entertainment on offer there rarely felt the desire to remain for much longer. You see, dear reader, for the desperately short time that Earl Sand Wedge had run the club, it dying with him after he had tragically drowned in a swimming pool of whipped cream, this had been the place for the decadent sort of gentlecolt and lady to meet and take part in fun activities that society perceives to be immoral but are in fact harmless to all except its participants.

Granted, much of it was merely foalish attempts to shock the prudish with casual blasphemy (even I thought the statue of Nightmare Moon that constantly lactated a stream of perfectly chilled champagne was in bad taste), but anywhere I can drink, gamble, and whore away my worries without having to stray into areas of our fair realm occupied by the working pony is all but guaranteed to become my home-away-from-home. There was none of that ridiculous, juvenile rebellion against social norms or exposure of aristocratic hypocrisy in what I did there, merely what I thought to be fun, and it just so happened our tastes aligned. That said, the play-acting with the robes and nonsense-Old Ponish chanting in the shadow of that statue of Nightmare Moon did provide a frisson of naughtiness that enhanced the experience, at least until a few started taking it rather too seriously. Unlike my fellow libertines and hedonists of the upper class here, I saw no worth in dressing up my selfish pursuit of pleasure in the transparent robes of faux-intellectualism.

All-in-all, it was shaping up to be a rather pleasant evening. A night of drunken debauchery, though somewhat restrained by the standards set by the more philosophically-minded members and their obscene, mock-Pagan rituals, was precisely what I needed after all that I had been through those past few days, and the perfect fortifier with which to prepare myself for the horror to come.

I held the mare's smaller frame to my chest, stroking over her soft, silky mane while I alternated between sipping a fine vintage that probably cost more than what most ponies earned in a week and puffing away on what was ultimately an expensive and very inefficient form of suicide. By now, the mare had either tired of her little game or had simply run out of scars to ask about, and she settled against my chest, watching the licentiousness on display around us and knocking back her drink with the sort of aloofness that comes from being an experienced disciple of decadence. The griffons have a saying, 'the chase is better than the catch'; for the only moment that was better than the deed itself was the anticipation of it, and I was revelling in it. For a brief moment, all was right with my world.

Then this perfect moment had to be spoilt, because nothing nice could ever happen to me without an unpleasant reminder that all happiness and joy in my life must be transitory. Though my gaze was focused on the mare on my lap, on the way the dim light of the candles in the ornate chandeliers above was reflected in her smouldering dark eyes, like the stars in the cloudless night sky, I became aware of another pony standing over me. Probably another one of the club members, thought I, who most likely wanted to try and join in on our sinful little game here. As much of an unrepentant sybarite as I was back then, and still am if age wasn't so much of a barrier, I remained the rather selfish sort who was not all too keen on sharing either myself or my conquests with another.

"Blueblood!" The newcomer exclaimed, and my good mood was shattered like a fine crystal champagne flute dropped from a great height. There are only two kinds of ponies I can tolerate addressing me by name only, and they are family and close friends; I had no close friends, and I can't stand the company of most of my family for a variety of other, more valid reasons.

I looked up, and saw a unicorn stallion who I had not seen in years. He was rather short, and thin to the point of appearing to be just on the cusp of being undernourished. His charcoal grey fur almost blended into the murky surroundings of the club's hall, but the shock of stark white mane and his piercing sky-blue eyes stood out even in this oppressive gloom. It took me a while to recognise him in this darkness and with my mind already clouded by drink, but after I mentally added great red and yellow smears of pubescent acne to what little of his face I could make out, his name and a veritable flood of shared memories came rushing forth.

"Second Fiddle?" I blurted out. In hindsight, I should have recognised his distinctive cutie mark instantly, being two violins crossed like swords.

"Fancy running into you here!" He grinned broadly, and his white teeth stood out both against his dark coat and the deepening shadows cast by meagre candlelight, which, when combined with his eyes likewise contrasting so much, created the disturbing effect of a disembodied smile floating in mid-air.

Second Fiddle then held out a hoof for me to shake, apparently unaware of the fact that my own hooves were rather pre-occupied at the moment, being in the process of making their gradual journey from toying with the mare's mane to her toned flanks that I had been longing to squeeze all evening. Speaking of my new friend, she snorted in annoyance at this newcomer taking away attention that should have been spent on her, and squirmed a little in my embrace, forcing me to loosen my grip on her as she reached on over to refill her glass from the bottle.

I shook his hoof, somewhat reluctantly. Of all the times I had to run into an old friend, it had be now. "How in blazes have you been?" I asked. "I haven't seen you since... you know, at Celestia's School."

His right eye twitched, and whatever muscle did that also pulled a little on the right corner of his grin. It was over in less than half a second, but I still noticed it, and a twinge of guilt wrapped its bony claws around my heart and squeezed. The two of us had been in school together, and I expect that our teachers might have thought us to be close friends given the amount of time we spent together; the truth is that he was merely a hanger-on, a toady, and a hoof-licking crony who stuck by my side and supported my little reign of terror in the playground. It was a shame, really, as he was a good student with the potential to do well in further education and research in the magical arts. Not a great one, mind you, in the manner of Twilight Sparkle, but at least a profitable but unremarkable career. That is, until he fell in with the wrong crowd, which was me, and he was caught up in that whirlwind of angry adolescent delinquency that resulted in my expulsion from the school, and in turn led to him failing his final exams. Essentially, I ruined his life, and I had scarcely paid that notion much thought at all until he unexpectedly turned up in the Tartarus Club of all places.

"Wonderful!" he said, though his tone of voice hinted that the direction his life had taken since I last saw him was far less than 'wonderful'. "Magic school didn't work out for me in the end, so I ended up in the Royal Guard, back when it was still just the Royal Guard, of course. Anyway, after being stationed on the Foalkland Islands for three years guarding the penguins, an exciting new opportunity came up and I just had to take it."

[The Foalklands are a small collection of islands off the coast of the Griffon Empire, and are entirely unremarkable except for a small, hardy population of penguins who outnumber the pony settlers there. The meagre Royal Guard garrison protecting the islands was considered to be the most tedious and un-adventurous posting available, and was often used as a form of punishment for officers who had offended their superiors in some way.]

"Sounds very exciting," I said, doing my damnedest to suppress that rising urge to yawn. My companion, however, felt no such compunction against such ill-manners and did so in an exaggerated manner that just had to be deliberate, given the noise she made and the accompanied stretching of all four of her limbs. Her annoyance and disdain for having her fun interrupted was obvious to all, being the sort of spoilt mare whose parents, nannies, governesses, and so on never told her 'no'.

Second Fiddle carried on regardless; in fact, he barely acknowledged the mare resting her head on my lap with her rump wagging provocatively up in the air. "It is! When something like this comes around you've got to take it with both hooves!"

He was clearly drunk. Not excessively so by my own standards, mind you, though he was a little unsteady on his hooves, but just enough so as to be on the irritating side of talkative. Without asking for permission, he sat himself down on the armchair next to the sofa my new best friend and I occupied, and continued with his excitable rambling. I watched him in amazement; Second Fiddle was always a little socially inept when I knew him at school, even by the standards of a teenager too, with his peculiar and, looking back now, frankly creepy preoccupation with me, but now that I saw him again I hoped that he would have grown out of that behaviour. Even Cannon Fodder, lacking in social skills as he did, would have at least noticed that I had neither the time nor inclination to drop what I was doing with this very pretty mare and listen to him.

"But enough about me, how about you? Then again, I know all about what you've been up to, Blueblood. All of Canterlot can't stop talking about your adventures down in the Badlands, and then you follow it up by busting that Changeling spy-ring in the government. I hope you've left enough glory for the rest of us, because soon I'll be..."

The mare tugged on my arm insistently, and my attention was drawn away from my old school chum's tipsy rambling. She had lifted herself off my lap and sat on the sofa next to me, though she still clung to my body as though she was drowning and my barrel was an unusually buoyant door. I felt her heat radiate from within, like a fire lit inside her slim frame that threatened to ignite that same passion in me, that would throw aside all social propriety and ravish her right there on this centuries-old antique furniture. It was difficult, but I suppressed that urge, but it was not helped when she raised her head and kissed my cheek. The fur there tingled pleasantly, and it lingered for quite a while.

"If you don't get rid of this idiot soon," she whispered into my ear as Second Fiddle droned on, "I shall find another stallion to play with."

I returned the kiss and gave her shoulder a squeeze. "Soon," I whispered back, Second Fiddle being too engrossed in telling his life story to notice. "We'll get him drunk, then go back to my palace and leave him here."

I waved down one of the club's staff. In contrast to the refined formalwear of the attendants in the Imperial Club, the ponies who worked here all wore black robes emblazoned with the symbol of the mare-in-the-moon and with hoods pulled down low so as to obscure their eyes. One could always spot the recently-inducted by the way they kept bumping into things. I expect all of this nonsense was part of the image of the Tartarus Club, presenting itself as some sort of ancient, pagan, Nightmare cult, but really, their resemblance to the clerks of the EEA had spoilt it somewhat.

"A bottle of absinthe to celebrate my friend's promotion!" I bellowed to the closest be-robed waiter, who dutifully disappeared behind the bar and re-appeared bearing said libation and the assorted paraphernalia required. Now, while the effects of this particular drink have been greatly exaggerated thanks to those same decadent Prench poets I am so fond of, it remains a very potent drink that will ensnare those unused to its strength. In short, I planned to get him drunk to the point of imbecility, and then leave him in the care of the club while I took this mare back to my home to continue our sordid little affair in peace.

Now, you may think me callous for putting my own selfish pleasure above the joy of seeing an old friend again after so many years, and you'd be damned right. By way of justification, however, I would say that I was unlikely to see this mare again after this night, so I had merely one shot at glory, as it were, besides giving up and going to the nearest bordello. But I could always find Second Fiddle again at a later date, and in an environment far more conducive to two old friends catching up than this. Besides, I thought it was rather rude of him to assume I'd just shove the mare off my lap and pay attention to him instead, so, as his good friend, it was best that I correct this behaviour and teach him an etiquette lesson; I'm sure the Princess of Friendship would have approved.

I'll give him credit for matching me drink for drink, and there's not many ponies who can. Thus far, only Aunties 'Tia and Luna have been able to out-drink me, but I scarcely think alicorns should count in that running. Nevertheless, it appeared to do its work, and once both the absinthe and the champagne were finished he was, for lack of a better term, completely hammered. Soon, even his excited rambling died down, and he became rather maudlin and quiet. Not that I was left completely unscathed, of course, being quite well on my way into the depths of inebriation myself, such that I was haunted by the notion that when it came for the time for me to 'perform', I might just curl up and fall asleep instead. I decided we should get a move on. However, when the mare and I tried to make our discreet exit from this chamber of carnal delights and into the streets of Canterlot, he took it upon himself to follow, which irritated my companion to no end.

It was a chilly night, as Canterlot is in early Spring, as I led my mare through the streets in the direction of the Sanguine Palace. Despite his obvious inebriation, Second Fiddle insisted on following us, bouncing between walls, lampposts, fences, parked carriages, and the occasional other nocturnal perambulator. After a few more blocks of this, we stopped off at some hostelry for a round of fortifying brandy to see us through the cold, but he became so insensible that he couldn't even walk and ended up face-first in the pavement as we left, trying and failing to stand up again like a newborn.

Now, a good pony would have helped him along, maybe taken him home where he could sleep it off or even to a hospital to make sure he made it through the night. I am not a good pony by any stretch of the imagination, and neither was the mare I was hoping to bed either, who now thought this was all excellent sport. So, we dragged him to an alleyway just off Princess Street, painted over his cutie marks with some pitch the workponies had left out when they were mending the road, and then hurled a few stones at two patrolling guardsponies passing by. When they shouted and galloped on over to arrest whoever dared to attack Their Highnesses' Finest, the mare and I ran, giggling like idiots, and leaving them to deal with my old school chum with his nose to the ground and pitch-covered flanks in the air. They should take good care of him.

I'm sure whosoever reads this needs no description of what I got up to for the rest of the night, but, apparently by way of the universe getting back at me for being an utter bastard to Second Fiddle, I woke up the next morning with the mare, my coin purse of two hundred-odd bits, and a bottle of very rare sherry gone. All part of the game, thought I, and I wasn't going to dwell on it considering what a wonderful time I had rutting her. But the universe was not finished punishing me yet, as that morning's micturition was a vivid rainbow of all colours and burning agony, necessitating that I follow the family tradition and adjourned to a doctor to undo the results of that liaison.

Though I did not know it, that night set me on a destructive course that would have dire consequences for the upcoming offensive into the Changeling heartlands. Or perhaps it didn't. Who knows? Maybe if I had been nicer to my friend that night things might have worked out differently, and the horror that was to follow could have been avoided. Or the problems I would face had far deeper roots than a moment's rudeness from Yours Truly, and I am not so arrogant to think that great events revolve around little old me. It's not my place to speculate here, but to deliver the facts as I saw them, though it is with some amusement that I note that scholars, historians, pundits, and the like tend not to bring up the events of that night for reasons that should be fairly obvious; nopony wants me being a randy blackguard dragging down the tone of their debates any further than they already have been.

At any rate, I wouldn't have written about this if I didn't think it would have some bearing on future events, but at the time I paid it very little heed and soon forgot about Second Fiddle again. I had Twilight's party to think about, and to tell the truth I had been rather dreading it; not only was Luna going to be there, but it meant venturing out of Canterlot and into that bleak, run-down, peasant village called Ponyville. It was, apparently, still part of the Duchy of Canterlot at the time and therefore 'mine' (my idea that Twilight, having her palace and main residence on my land, should in fact be my vassal was politely and decisively shot down by Celestia), but I had yet to grace it with my regal presence.

[Ponyville was historically part of the Duchy of Canterlot and remained so for two years after Princess Twilight Sparkle's coronation. Prince Blueblood would later release the County of Ponyville from his demesne, granting Twilight the title of Countess of Ponyville.]

That said, seeing Twilight Sparkle again was very much something to look forward to, and Drape Cut had even taken the liberty to arrange for me to spend the night at her castle following the party. In a series of letters, he argued that as we were expected to finish quite late into the night, either returning home or finding lodgings in the village would prove difficult, and given the large numbers of guests who would descend upon there, surely a pony of my royal lineage should also be afforded royal accommodation. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Twilight agreed, and granted me and a number of officers of the Night Guard the use of her many guest bedrooms, but then again, after what I had done for her in the House of Lords I'd say she owed me.

As he packed my suitcase, Drape Cut and I argued about whether Ponyville counted as Country or Town for the purposes of dress code, with Yours Truly wanting to wear a rustic tweed sport coat there and my valet arguing that a navy blazer was more in keeping with its growing urbanisation. ‘No brown in town’ and all that. He won, of course, he always did on these sorts of matters, and I found myself wearing said navy blazer, with a patch of the Night Guard's silver crescent moon stitched onto the chest pocket, paired with the appropriate regimental striped tie as I rode the train there with Cannon Fodder and Colonel Sunshine Smiles. While I was in mufti [military slang for civilian clothing], my fellow travellers were already in dress uniforms, as they either lacked or refused the services of servants to pack extra clothing.

In keeping with the government's wartime austerity measures, both private carriages and first class had been temporarily abolished, forcing me to sit in third class with the rest of the great unwashed. Those same measures, however, restricted travel somewhat, so at the very least the carriage was sparsely populated. Besides, Cannon Fodder's distinct aroma did much to deter the more determined autograph hunters.

[These austerity measures were introduced under the Defence of Equestria Act (the DOE Act), passed shortly after the attempt on Blueblood's life. This controversial act gave the government wide-ranging powers during the war, including restricting the movement of ponies, requisitioning property for the war effort, rationing of fuel, food, and clothing, and censorship.]

The journey took a few hours, and the well of idle chit-chat to while away that time had long since run dry. Cannon Fodder was never much for speaking beyond what was truly necessary, and Sunshine Smiles was engrossed in the heavily-abridged version of Twilight's lengthy and tediously-written report, which, despite having most of the illustrative examples and minutiae eliminated, still looked large and heavy enough to club a dragon to death with. I myself had the latest Daring Do novel to keep me occupied, but try as I might, I couldn't bring myself to focus on it; instead, the words on the pages seemed to evaporate from my mind mere moments after I had read them, such that I could scarcely follow the plot. Perhaps it was because the subject matter, the titular heroine competing with Changeling infiltrators to grab yet another artefact of doom, cut a little too close to the bone for me, or that I was far too distracted with my own thoughts to tackle the populist literature before me.

Eventually, I gave up the pretext of trying to read even this light and unchallenging story, and just stared out of the window at the scenery rushing past us. My thoughts had strayed into that dark, murky realm of existentialism that I tried to keep quiet with drink and mares, but here, with no other stimuli to keep myself from descending to such depths, I had no choice but to tackle it head-on. The war had laid bare the vacuity of my life, freed as it were from the daily struggles of the common pony, but now brought down to their level by that shared horror. As they say, there is no going back, but now that those idle luxuries that had once given my life such meaning were exposed for the empty follies that they truly were, what was there to occupy the space they once filled?

The sight of the thatched roofs of Ponyville coming into view interrupted such thoughts. Peering out of the window, I could see where the railway line curved around at a respectable distance from the Everfree Forest, and nestled between there and the lumpen hills where those famous apple orchards sprawled, was the tiny collection of those quaint little cottages. While it looked lovely, its proximity to both the Everfree Forest, that last blighted spot of untamed nature infested with monsters, and the Gates of Tartarus had rather put me off visiting far more than the fact it was merely a tiny, rustic village with little to appeal to the urban aristocrat. Furthermore, ponies who would willingly live in such close proximity to those two aforementioned tourist attractions were clearly insane and I wanted nothing to do with them.

Though I had never visited Ponyville before, I had seen it through the window of a train carriage on my way to much more interesting places, so the rows upon rows of cottages and endless fields of apple trees were all familiar to me. What was new, however, was the castle towering over the entire village; a gaudy tree-like structure apparently in imitation of some ancient Crystal Empire designs, topped with a tower shaped like the star symbol of Twilight's cutie mark, which I found to be a tad gauche. Clearly, the Tree of Harmony hadn't heard of the concept of subtlety when it gifted Twilight with an entire castle after defeating Tirek.

By the way, if you, dear reader, are at all curious about what I got up to during that particular crisis, the answer is 'not very much'. Those expecting personal heroics on my part will be disappointed, and clearly haven't paid much attention either. I was in my palace minding my own business when Tirek and his lackey Discord burst in, whereupon I was drained of all magic. It was a rather unpleasant experience, having all of my magic sucked out of me like milkshake through a straw, and made all the more humiliating when the megalomaniacal centaur bellowed 'is that it?' at me immediately after. Apparently, he too believed in that ridiculous conspiracy theory about my family having access to forbidden blood magic, and was quite upset when he found such a thing doesn't actually exist.

The train came to a juddering halt at the station, and I was instantly on my hooves to stretch my tired, numb limbs. I longed for fresh air and space too, finding the confines of third class travel to be rather too claustrophobic after hours stuck inside that cramped, filthy carriage. I left Cannon Fodder to deal with my luggage, though Sunshine Smiles insisted on carrying his own for some peculiar reason, and I trotted out onto the station platform ahead of everypony else. It was a rather dismal affair, to be honest, that consisted of a stretch of wooden planks positioned at precisely the right height to make egress from carriage a little bit awkward, being rather lower than what one expected. As for the station building, the roof and even its canopy were thatched to keep with the rustic milieu of the village, and the fact that the sign was a primitive drawing of a train seemed to imply a certain level of illiteracy here.

I had expected Twilight Sparkle to greet us personally at the station, or at least one or more of the other Bearers of the Elements of Harmony, and escort us to the castle where we would be staying. Even Spike the Dragon would have been an acceptable choice of chaperone, if an unbearably annoying and insulting one. Instead, there were three blank-flanked fillies, a unicorn, an earth pony, and a pegasus, sitting around near the door and peering at the train with a sudden and keen interest. When I stepped onto the platform, the three sprang to their hooves and trotted on over as fast as their little legs would carry them.

I don't like foals; they are loud, volatile, obnoxious, and quite often I can't understand a word they say, so I might as well try talking to dogs instead. Standing there, I looked to the carriage behind me, hoping that Cannon Fodder might emerge from the door to drive them away with his charming bouquet of body odour. Alas, from what I could tell from peering through the windows, it appeared they were arguing with another group of passengers about a mix-up with the luggage. I would have to deal with these fillies myself.

As the three approached, I saw that they each wore costumes resembling military dress uniforms complete with little peaked caps, though their insignia was clearly just whatever they thought looked 'cool' or simply made-up. The pegasus filly in particular had an improbable array of medals on her chest, and appeared to have served in the Wonderbolts, the Solar Guard, and the Night Guard all at the same time. It would have been a remarkable career at the tender age of ten, but made all the more impressive and humbling by the fact she had apparently accomplished all of that despite her stunted wings, which were little more than feathery stubs protruding from her back. I expect that this all sounds rather adorable, or even cute, but I found it to be rather depressing, really; as much as I dislike foals, that this infernal conflict has seeped into the realm of the schoolyard could only be seen as a triumph of our baser instincts over the supposed innocence of foalhood. They should be playing anything else other than soldiers.

"Papers, please!" said the earth pony. The rustic twang in her voice marked her out instantly as one from Equestria's rural and backwards south.

"I beg your pardon?" I said, looking down at the three as they stood side by side before me.

"Papers!" repeated the pegasus. Her tiny wing-stubs buzzed angrily, lifting her about half an inch off the ground for a second or two. "You have to show us your papers!"

"What papers?" I blurted out. "And why do I have to show them to you?"

"Your identification papers, sir," said the unicorn. Her accent was a little more refined than those of the other two, and felt very familiar, though I could not place my hoof on it. "We're on the lookout for Changeling spies."

"And trying to get our cutie marks at the same time!" The pegasus pointed to her blank flank.

"Who are you all?" I looked around the empty station platform. "And where are your parents?"

"We're the C.M.C.P.P.M.M.C.C.F.!" they shouted together. Fortunately, having been exposed to Princess Luna's Royal Canterlot Voice at short range meant that I was quite used to sudden and very loud noises, but the shrillness of their pitch still felt like icicles shoved right inside my brain.

I rubbed a hoof over my abused ears, wondering at what point I'll just go completely and irreversibly deaf from Luna's shouting, the roar of cannon fire, and these three fillies' incessant screaming. "The what?"

"The Cutie Mark Crusaders Ponyville Militia Para-Military Combined Cadet Force!" The three fillies then introduced themselves in turn: the unicorn was named Sweetie Belle, the earth pony Apple Bloom, and the crippled pegasus was Scootaloo.

I blinked vacantly at them, trying to formulate an adequate response to that particular outpouring of insanity. Was I supposed to play along with them? That sounded like something Celestia would do with foals and their absurd imaginary games, but I felt that sort of thing was beneath me. This was hardly the sort of thing that I wanted to encourage, either.

"I see," I said, at length. I didn't, really, but I assumed that any explanation they could give was not going to clarify very much for me, and I had rather more important things to be getting on with. Trying to recover my regal composure by standing straight and tall like my father taught me by beating me with a stick until I got it right, I said in as clear and authoritative voice as I could manage given the circumstances, "I am Prince Blueblood."

The three looked up at me in puzzlement, then exchanged a few furtive glances with one another. I suppose it might have been possible that they might not know who I was, but given their apparent interest in the ongoing war and the fact that my handsome face was plastered all over recruitment posters without my prior approval, it was very unlikely. Still, for a few seconds at least I was allowed to indulge in the novel experience of being anonymous, until Scootaloo ruined it for me.

"No you're not!" she exclaimed, wing-stubs buzzing again in a vain effort to bring her airborne.

"Yeah, you're not tall enough to be Commissar Blueblood!" said Apple Bloom.

Sweetie Belle tapped her chin, her wide green eyes scanning over my frame appreciatively. "He kind of looks like the photos in my sister's shrine, before she threw it out and set it on fire, that is."

"But where's his hat?" Scootaloo waved her peaked cap about, which appeared to have once been a part of a chauffeur's uniform that she had selectively painted red and glued on a paper cut-out of a skull.

A deep, warm, friendly chuckle from behind informed me that Colonel Sunshine Smiles had finally sorted out whatever problems involved the luggage and disembarked. Unless Cannon Fodder had a sudden desire to see Appleloosa (and why on earth would anypony actually want to go and settle in that miserable little frontier town with its backward buffalos I'll never know, nopony can like apples that much), I assumed that he too had emerged onto the platform.

I looked over my shoulder to see my two travelling companions standing behind me, as the train itself slowly drifted away from the station and on to the less fashionable parts of our fair realm. Sunshine Smiles grinned so that the right side of his mouth matched his scarred left, while Cannon Fodder stood there holding my suitcase by its handle in his mouth. I made a mental note to have it disinfected before unpacking, if and when I arrived at Twilight's castle.

"I see you've made some friends," said Sunshine, moving to my side. The three fillies stared up at him, towering over them and looking very imposing and authoritative in his midnight-blue dress uniform and gold lace.

"They didn't give me much of a choice," I muttered, mostly to myself though. "What took you so long?"

"Nothing," he said, his voice taking on a mock-innocent tone that I found to be just the right amount of insulting. "I was just watching you."

"Oh, thank you."

He pretended not to hear and turned to the foals, then, to my surprise and their obvious delight, snapped to attention and saluted briskly. "Colonel Sunshine Smiles of Her Royal Highness' Night Guard. I have orders to present myself, Prince Blueblood, and Private Cannon Fodder to officers of the Ponyville Militia Guard, to be escorted to Princess Twilight Sparkle's castle."

The 'Ponyville Militia Guard' exchanged a few confused looks between one another, while I tapped my hoof in increasing frustration at having to indulge in this foalish game. Still, the Colonel seemed to be enjoying himself, at least.

"What officers of the Ponyville Militia Guard?" asked Sweetie Belle.

"Well, my Granny's in charge of the militia," said Apple Bloom, "maybe we should go get her."

[Granny Smith held the rank of colonel and commanded the Ponyville Militia Guard, albeit in a ceremonial role. Her father, Pokey Oaks, founded the militia to defend the fledgling village from the encroaching monsters of the Everfree Forest. Because of their role in keeping the Everfree at bay, the Ponyville Militia was one of the few militia regiments not raised to full Line Regiments of Hoof under the Twilight Sparkle Reforms.]

"There's no time!" exclaimed Scootaloo. "They've got to get to Princess Twilight urgently, probably to discuss some top secret plan to win the war. We'll take them to the castle, and then we'll get our cutie marks for sure!"

"I dunno," said Sweetie Belle. "I thought they were just here for some fancy party at the castle. It's all my sister has talked about for like a week. It's the Grand Galloping Gala all over again."

Scootaloo, however, cleared her throat dramatically, puffed her tiny chest out, and marched forwards in a manner she probably thought portrayed the utmost military authority, but merely resembled a cockerel strutting about the farmyard. "At ease, stallions, and follow me! Quick march!"

She carried on towards the village, to where the Castle of Friendship loomed over the peasant hovels and even the town hall. That they would all get tired of this absurd mockery of the militarism that had strangled our fair nation when it would yield no cutie mark did offer me some minor comfort, but did not save me from the flush of embarrassment that crept up my neck and made my shirt collar feel suddenly very, very tight. Feeling almost the same amount of unease as I did before facing battle or a disapproving aunt, I followed on with my companions in tow into what was, for me, a place as dark, mysterious, and unknown as the endless jungles of Zebrica where my father had disappeared into - a common, rural, earth pony village, populated by ordinary ponies with whom I had next to nothing in common aside from the same number of limbs.

It was some relief, however, that we attracted less attention along the way than I had anticipated; a village occupied by the likes of Twilight Sparkle and her friends is likely used to such strange sights as a group of foals in home-made military uniforms leading a prince and three soldiers straight into their village market. Anywhere else I might have been mobbed or at least stared at, as I hardly blended in with these naked lower-class types, but here I was more or less ignored except for a few ponies not engrossed in their shopping or conversations watching me and then turning away quickly when I made eye-contact. I expect that being in civilian clothing, which I prefer to refer to as merely 'clothing', had made me less noticeable, which meant that I could merely pass off as just a stallion too well-dressed for this bleak little village. Then again, if what the three fillies had said earlier was any real indication of how the general public viewed me, I was completely unrecognisable without that stupid hat, and thank Faust for that.

Fortunately, the three fillies had left me in peace for much of the journey, aside from the occasional asinine question about tedious details of my life. Once they had accepted the fact that, height aside, I really am Prince Blueblood, they were quite eager to learn that, yes, princes still do a variety of things that most ordinary ponies had to do like eat breakfast, bathe, and sleep. Sunshine Smiles, however, being rather more eager to interact with them on their level, occupied most of their attention, answering their questions about life in the military and telling very heavily sanitised stories about the war. They gave Cannon Fodder a wide berth at first, likely on the strength of his unique aroma, which the warmth of spring was allowing to flourish, but eventually curiosity got the better of them and he too was subjected to a battery of questions from the irritatingly curious foals.

The Castle of Friendship drew closer, casting its long shadow over us. The bright light of the midday sun in high spring scintillated off the crystalline bows of the 'tree', tinting the surrounding grassy fields in reflected purple light. Great banners depicting Twilight's cutie mark wafted in the gentle breeze. A balcony overlooked the main entrance, and as we approached, I looked up to see the Princess of Friendship herself standing there, her forelegs perched over the balustrade, watching us intently. Whatever reluctance I felt about coming to Ponyville seemed to wash away at the sight of her, and were it not beneath my princely dignity I might have picked up the pace and trotted on over faster.

Perhaps, I thought, this party might not be so bad after all.

Next Chapter: Chapter 6 Estimated time remaining: 11 Hours, 47 Minutes
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