Blueish Blood
Chapter 1: Over Donuts
There’s an interesting phenomenon regarding how we view our world. In several instances there are things that appear blue, but are not blue in the traditional sense. That is to say, usually you see blue because every color wavelength hits the object, but only the blue wavelength is what is reflected back. However in some instances this perceived blue is due to a common quirk with color wavelengths and, more specifically, the fact that blue is the shortest of said wavelengths. Some things appear blue simply because blue is the only wavelength they have to work with. For example, the sky isn’t blue, air molecules simply work best with shorter wavelengths. When viewing objects in space that are moving towards us, they may have a blue effect known as blue shift, this is because as they approach the wavelengths they give off 'crunch' into shorter wavelengths, resulting in a bluer color. Your blood isn’t blue under your skin, blue light is simply the only wavelength that reaches the veins in your skin and completes the trip back to your eyes.
All this to say, things may appear blue because of the environment they exist in, or because of the way we perceive them, when in actuality they’ve only ever been themselves. Blood that seems blue at a glance might simply be blood. This was a lesson that Flash Sentry had been learning the slow way for the past couple months.
“Got another private contract for ya Flash,” said a stallion with a very bushy mustache as he dolled out the assigned patrol routes to the other guards around the barracks. “Same as last time.”
Flash Sentry nodded and approached, the other guards sparing him a questioning glance before continuing about preparing for their routes. It was not unusual for a guard to receive a private contract in place of a normal patrol. When one of the various noble houses needed security for one of their parties and wanted to ensure quality they would hire out the guards. Such a deal was usually markedly above market price for normal security rates, but it also lent an air of officialism to whatever event they would be hired for. For their part, the guard captains were grateful for the slush fund it added to their rather strict budget.
No, it was not uncommon for a guard to receive a private contract. It was, however, extremely uncommon for a guard to have a repeat customer. Especially as this particular contract had been renewed several times over the past couple months. Usually rumors would start to spread about what, exactly, was going on. Usually these rumors involved the… fidelity of the involved parties. This, however, was not a concern for the contracts Flash had been receiving, given that neither Flash nor the client of said contracts were married.
Flash took the paper in a wing and held it in front of himself to look, double checking the name at the top just to make sure. Sure enough, Prince Blueblood. The name was in a beautiful cursive, wrapping elegantly into itself with the tucks and folds of the lettering swimming like a ribbon. “You know,” said the bushy mustachioed stallion as he lowered his voice and spoke out of the side of his mouth. “I’ve heard rumors about this Blueblood guy.” Flash made to say something but the stallion continued without waiting for a response. “Oh yeah, my sister-in-law, real piece of work, makes a great potato salad though, she tried to date him once.” The stallion nodded, as if Flash had spoken. “She said that he said that her cooking was terrible! Well she wasn’t gonna take that lying down, so she only kept dating him for another week before calling it off.”
Flash waited to see if there was a moment to cut in. Silence for a couple seconds, Flash took his opening. “Well-”
“Anyways, all I’m saying is, if this Blueblood guy is giving you trouble you just say the word, alright? Then I’ll say the word, and then my boss’ll say the word and then you won’t be getting these contracts from him anymore, catch my drift?”
Flash narrowed his eyes, wondering if he might be allowed a word in edgewise since he’d been asked a question. “Thanks, but it’s fine.”
The stallion shrugged off the only sentence Flash had spoken in the conversation. “Whatever you say Mr. Sentry. Just trying to help ya out is all.”
Flash rolled his eyes as he turned away, moving to the chest that held his armor to get a start to his work. It was easy to find since the top of the chest had his cutie mark burned into the wood, also the fact that, like most chests, his armor chest was not known for its mobility and tended to remain where it was last seen. Setting about his work, Flash’s body began the laborious task of trying to fit a pegasus body into a set of metal armor. Once it was on, the subtle magic would make it rather comfortable, meaning the actual donning of it was always the hard part. His mind was rather unengaged by the work, most of the task being led by muscle memory, and began the similarly laborious task of trying to understand what his emotions were and what they meant. He accomplished the first task with the efficiency of a lifetime of practice, the second was still lodged in his brain as he went to make sure none of the other guards needed assistance. Once everypony was suited up, they left the barracks together.
The pillar of guards marched down the main roadway of Canterlot for their night patrols at the exact same moment that the sun started to set and the moon started to rise. It was all very mechanical, very punctual, you could set your clocks by the rolling thunder of clattering guard armor marching out onto the streets. It wasn't too long into the march before sets of guards would peel off into the adjacent roadways to start their smaller patrol routes. The company of guards walked in the loudest silence Flash had ever known. For while there were no words spoken by any guard, the clanking metal echoing off the buildings around them more than made up for it. Eventually, it was Flash’s turn to peel away, alone, and set out into the structured maze of Canterlot.
His side street led towards the more stuffy part of Canterlot. The air was clear as always of course, living on the side of a mountain tended to have that effect, but the ponies who lived up this way felt stifling to work with. Smothering almost. Flash had always hated dealing with the nobles, and still did even if he had found an exception to the rule, the fact that said exception felt the exact same way about his peers was all the Flash felt he needed to know.
Flash shook his head to try and clear it, rattling around whatever remained after walking in step with the Canterlot Guard in full armor. He had almost forgotten that he wasn’t heading for his destination quite yet, and moved down a small detour so he could attend to a small task on his way. As the wider body of guards detached themselves and branched out into various patrol details throughout Canterlot, Flash Sentry closed in on Pony Joe’s.
It wasn't too long before Flash arrived at his destination, Pony Joe himself being present at the counter as Flash Sentry pushed open the door. The cheery proprietor offered a tip of his waxy disposable hat and smiled. “Same as usual?”
“That’d be great Joe, thanks.” Flash sentry gave a grateful smile as he slid his way onto one of the bar stools while Pony Joe turned away and began to box a dozen donuts behind the bar.
“Got another date tonight?”
Flash blushed slightly at what almost felt like an accusation, hoping that his guard helmet would block most of his face from sight. “I wouldn’t call it a date.”
“But you want it to be a date, yeah?” Joe said off-hoofedly as he nestled a couple chocolate donuts into the box next to a pair of cinnamon churro donuts.
“I mean…” Flash Sentry hesitated, it would be very easy to lie, but Pony Joe was the kind of straight forward hard working individual that it felt like a moral failing to lie to. Maybe not in the same chapter as, say, murder, but you would probably be able to find it in one of the appendices if you looked for it. “I don’t know, it’d be nice, I guess.”
“You guess? You’ve been dating this mare, or stallion, or changeling, or whoever's got your heart in a vice for about two months. Well I say you’ve been dating them,” Pony Joe finished packing the box, closed it, sealed it with a sticker that bore the image of his cutie mark, then opened a second box and began to fill that one as well. “Really you’ve just been buying donuts for them and staying at their home until very late into the morning and blushing when I bring it up.” Pony Joe glanced over the counter to see if he was correct, Flash Sentry shifted to better hide his face. “Seems to me you’ve gotta be dating at this point, if only on a technicality.”
“It’s.. complicated.” Flash Sentry said, it was so complicated in fact that he wasn't even sure that complicated was the right word for it. “Mostly we just… vent to each other. That’s not really much of a date.”
“Better relationships have been built on worse things,” Pony Joe said with a shrug, but with authority of personal experience. With one last glance to double check his work, he stood up and handed off both boxes of donuts to Flash Sentry, who took them carefully. “I ain’t trying to stick my nose into your business Flash, last thing I need is to chase away a regular like you. But we’ve known each other close to a year now and I just want you to know I’m looking out for you, but if you’re happy with whatever you’ve got, I’m happy for you too.”
Flash fished out a collection of bits from one of the pockets of his armor and placed them on the bar top. “Thanks Joe.” He said with a smile. “Keep the change.”
Joe gave a slight nod and Flash exited Pony Joe’s and out into the chill night air of Canterlot once again. He still had to actually get to his destination, after all. Had to get to his… date. Flash Sentry tried the word out in his head as he walked, he was going to his… date. With Prince Blueblood. Just a date. With the most eligible bachelor in Canterlot. A date… Flash Sentry shook his head to derail that particular train of thought. In concept it was fine to call it a date, it just sounded weird to Flash when he started to fill in all the details. Details like ‘I’ and ‘am dating’ and ‘Prince Blueblood’.
Prince Blueblood waited idly in his home, shifting the table layout once again. It was the smallest table he owned, which meant that if you made really good use of the space you could make it work for two ponies without TOO much empty space. He shifted the plates again, making it look better in the moment, even if it would look just as bad after a couple more minutes of staring at it. He wasn’t sure what he was doing with himself these days. He had his parents breathing down his neck about an heir, an heir he did not think was going to be coming if he had anything to say about it. His life felt like it was spiraling, his universe was circling the drain, and he should be working on getting a plug to stop the flow, but the only thing he had any motivation for was setting up these nights with Flash Sentry.
Absentmindedly, Prince Blueblood nudged the candle in the middle of the table with an idle hoof, his mind swimming in thoughts as he hemmed and hawed about the placement of plates and chairs. He was startled from his absent minded shuffling as the door to the room clicked open suddenly, setting Blueblood recoiling from the table setting as if reeling from a blow and looked to the sudden intruder with a half-disguised panic. His muscles relaxed as he recognized Mrs. Sheets, his maid. His mind, however, continued to fret.
“I thought you were off for the night, Mrs. Sheets.” Said Blueblood, the familiar tone of self important detachment filling the words with hardly an effort on the prince’s part.
“Hmm? Oh yes.” Mrs. Sheets nodded and smiled, unperturbed by the tone; she'd had many long years to get used to it after all, even before Blueblood had ever been her employer. “I just left my jacket on my way out and with how cold it’s getting these days I didn’t much like the idea of going all the way home without it.”
She turned to eye the Prince and her eyes widened slightly in surprise. “Oh my, are you hosting a dinner party tonight, my Prince?” She began to start shrugging off the jacket she had only just put on as she moved to assist with the table. “Why if I’d have known I would-“
“No!” Prince Blueblood blurted out in panic, his face already settling into a frown like water settles into a moat. The air felt heavy in the silence of the shout, Blueblood’s thoughts racing as he tried to figure out how to get Mrs. Sheets to take her leave while maintaining the image of a terrible thoughtless noble that he had put so much work into, while also not being too mean to a pony who was only trying to help.
Mrs. Sheets, who had bailed him out of many tricky situations in his life, did so again. “Ah, it’s a personal dinner.” She said with a reserved smile, “I should’ve noticed the candles, apologies, my Prince.”
The rains of relief poured over the sandy plain of Blueblood’s mind as he mentally added more bits to Mrs. Sheets Hearth's Warming bonus. He gave a curt nod, which was returned in kind. “Have a good night Mrs. Sheets. Thank you for your understanding.”
“It was my pleasure, Prince Blueblood. I hope your dinner goes well.” She smiled in farewell and retreated back out the door as Blueblood stood silently by the table. After an eternity, the door clicked close. On queue, Blueblood all but collapsed into a chair, holding his head in a hoof as his hastily erected persona crumbled like so much wet sand.
He hated this game, the rules were cruel and twisted, digging into him like barbed wire whenever he struggled against it. It was not ‘proper’ to be nice to Mrs. Sheets. It was not ‘proper’ to show any level of excitement above passing amusement. And now it had its hooks in him, its claws coiled around his heart. He didn’t have a life outside this game anymore, nor did he think he ever could have one. How could he? It was all he’d known for so long, he’d been born into it and his parents played it every moment of their lives.
A knock came at the door, stirring Blueblood from his spiral. His gaze fixed itself on the door, as if worried it might explode. He stayed silent for a moment, waiting to see if it was once again Mrs. Sheets, back to pick up another forgotten item. When the door declined to open, however, Blueblood pulled himself carefully up from his seat, running a hoof over his accoutrement to make sure it was all perfect and pristine. Confirming that it was all in order, he approached the door. A couple pony lengths away from the threshold, he shuffled slightly, making sure he was the correct distance away. Not too far as to seem distant with the guest, not too close as to be overbearing. Just as he’d learned.
Grasping the doorknob in his magic, Blueblood opened the door with a practiced smile. “Oh! Mr. Sentry. It is a pleasure to see that you have accepted my contract, it does my heart good to see you well.” The internal part of his brain that was in charge of being as unfriendly as possible screeched in retaliation at the pleasantries, just as it did whenever Blueblood so much as gave another pony the time of day.
Flash Sentry gave a nod of greeting and a smile of his own. He discarded all the easily removed parts of his armor by the door, then set out for the table so as to deposit his two dozen donuts onto the tabletop. Before he could complete the trek, however, Blueblood’s magic wrapped around the boxes and lifted them the rest of the way. “Allow me to aid you with that burden, and thank you once again for bringing them by! I always appreciate the gesture.” Flash’s eyebrow raised slightly in an attempt to fully discern what was going on. You didn’t have to be a royal guard to pick up on how practiced the words felt. Rehearsed. Blueblood’s smile twinged slightly.
“You can cut the high society act Blues, nopony else is here.” Flash said, discerning something from the minuscule facial flinch that only he could parse. He gave a glance to Blueblood as he walked to the farthest side of the table and took a seat. Blueblood paused, a hitch in his actions as an ingrained part of him waited for the seat to be pulled out for him. Instead, Flash watched from the other side of the table until the casual nature of the meeting managed to wear down Blueblood’s sense of propriety. Blueblood sighed as his professional mannerisms were disarmed and he seated himself at the table.
“Hate that nickname,” Blueblood said as he deftly levitated one of the boxes, slicing the Pony Joe’s sticker cleanly with a nearby letter opener, and taking two donuts from the box.
“I’ll cut back on it,” Flash smiled thinly as he examined Blueblood, barely paying attention as one of the donuts was levitated to his side of the table. “Bad week?”
“Terrible,” Blueblood confirmed. “Had another date with Diamond Lease or whatever her name is. Heartless little real estate princess, coasting on her father’s cut throat apathetic coat tails while trying to woo me so she won’t have to worry her pretty little head about money for the rest of her life.” Blueblood restrained himself from throwing the letter opener into a wall and opted instead to return it to a distant desk.
“You could always, I dunno, tell her to fuck off.” Flash said with a smug smile.
“Oh that would be incredible,” Blueblood paused for a moment to blissfully imagine the world where he told a high society mare to go ‘fuck off’, as Flash had so elegantly put it. “But no, if I started getting uppity with the mares trying to secure my funds and or horn in marriage my parents would make sure I would never hear the end of it. They’re already pretty upset that I haven’t just settled for somepony yet.”
Flash pondered this for a moment, he’d actually thought about this problem of Blueblood’s a lot in his off work hours. It seemed to be a rather recurring problem for the prince. In fact, if you tallied up the most recurring problems that any individual pony had, this one would likely secure a nice spot on the leaderboard. Flash had a couple ideas for things that might be done but Blueblood always shot them down, usually out of resignation to the things in his life that he viewed as constants. Still, Flash liked to present at least one new option each time they met, so he tried the most recent one he’d thought of.
“You could always announce that you’re gay.” Said Flash. “That might get the mares off your tail.”
“Announce?” Blueblood scoffed.
“Oh whatever, start rumors, talk to ponies, announce, whatever you nobles do to get word around.”
“Well as nice as it would be to at least be honest with the world about what I’m looking for in a partner I feel like it’d be more trouble than it’s worth.” Blueblood finished his donut, grabbed a new one, took a hefty bite out of it, then continued to speak once he was at least half way done chewing. It was terrible manners, but Flash seemed fine with cursing at the drop of a bit so it felt like manners weren’t really applicable right now anyway. “I fear that the mares would continue to try and court me, though it would be nice to be able to point to something that would immediately show them I’m not interested. Rather, the larger issue is that I would have to deal with stallions doing the exact same thing I’m complaining about mares doing now.” Flash seemed about to cut in with some input, but Blueblood was already ahead of him. “And the stallions wouldn’t necessarily also be gay, the only reason any pony has ever needed to date me is social status. So no, to answer the question you didn’t ask, there would not be much chance for actual love.”
Silence took the room a moment as Blueblood finished his current donut, stood from the table, went to the fridge, retrieved a carton of spiked eggnog, and brought it to the table with a pair of glass tumblers. Sitting once again and pouring eggnog into the glasses, Blueblood seemed to refocus the conversation. “Did I ever tell you about the time I- well I guess dated is the wrong word.” Blueblood searched his mind for a word that fit better. “The time I was partner to Miss Rarity Belle at the Grand Galloping Gala?”
“Rarity? As in the Element of Generosity?”
“Yes.”
“The one who heads a fashion empire covering almost every corner of Equestria?”
“Well, she didn’t at the time.”
Flash balked for a moment and watched as Blueblood began to sip at his drink to help wash down the new donut selection he had pulled from the box. Blueblood looked back, face unreadable as he chewed. Pulling himself together, Flash decided to actually answer the question. “No. I don’t think you did.”
“Well, to make a long story short. I made her rue the day she ever so much as dreamed about meeting me, but she was very stubborn about rueing in any capacity.”
Flash waited for Blueblood to continue, but when he didn’t, decided to nudge the conversation a little. It wasn’t good to keep this kind of thing bottled up and this sort of thing is mostly what their conversations devolved into anyway. “I’d be alright with you making the short story a little longer for some extra context.” Flash said idly, sipping at his own drink.
Blueblood settled into his seat a little more, muscles relaxing as he figured out how to phrase the story. “To start, she shows up to the gala with her own ticket, fully on her own. She’s not my plus one, we’ve never so much as seen each other before. Then she tracks me down and attaches herself to me the whole night.” Blueblood looked to Flash, who nodded in polite understanding, before turning his gaze to the glass of eggnog and continuing. “At the time I thought she was trying to use my societal standing to boost her own, though now I think she was just being overly romantic. Regardless, I absolutely ruined her night. I was just getting into my new strategy of making a bad name for myself so I may have overdone it a bit but the amount she put up with before leaving was absolutely ludicrous.”
Blueblood took a bite of donut and almost swallowed it whole before continuing. “I had her put her shawl into a puddle so I could walk over it without getting dirty. And I mean, HER shawl, not a shawl she bought, or got as a gift, but one that she MADE, and after that, if you can believe it, she STILL followed me around. In order to get her to give up on me I had to use her as a shield against an eight-story-apple-cake-turned-projectile and even then there was this moment where I think she almost excused that too!” Blueblood finished, exasperated.
Blueblood took a little more than a sip from his glass and filled it up again, topping off Flash’s drink while he was at it. There was silence for a moment as both ponies stewed in what had just been said. Blueblood in the wretched memory of it and Flash in actually processing what had been said, he wondered how much of the story was true but when he saw the look on Blueblood’s face he knew the answer was ‘all of it’.
“But we always talk about my fraught romantic situations, what about you?” Blueblood asked at last, ending the contemplative silence that had taken the table. Flash looked back in confusion, not fully understanding the question, or at least not understanding how it related to the story Blueblood had just told. “Well,” Blueblood said, the edge of high society on his voice fully worn away by the combination of alcohol and good company at this point. “The gossip circles say that one Princess Twilight has got her eye on you. Half glances shared over busy tables, blushes shared when eyes meet. The old mares circle has really got a good story going on about you two.”
Flash rolled his eyes. “Speaking of long stories…” He was ready to drop it at that when he saw Blueblood giving him a look that begged to hear said long story, and Flash supposed it was in his right to beg for that, Blueblood had already given a long story of his own already, after all. “Well okay.” Now it was Flash’s turn to settle in as he began to arrange the words in his head. “First time I met her, yeah, of course I’m attracted to her. She’s a princess. Looking beautiful is kind of their thing you know?” He said, looking to Blueblood for confirmation on this point.
Blueblood looked back with eyes that said ‘I’m gay and related to two to three of them depending on how you count Cadence. You have chosen the exact wrong stallion for solidarity.’ Blueblood was very talented at saying complex things with his eyes.
“Well anyway,” Flash paused for a cough that was trying to eject embarrassment from his body before picking the story back up. “I was still new to the whole guard thing and she was a living legend so yeah, I was a little caught up in the moment, but then later on after she does some weird adventure stuff in a magic mirror I catch her being weird and blushing at me. As if she were thinking similar things about me.” Flash scoffed, as if the idea of somepony being attracted to him was inherently impossible. Blueblood managed to restrain himself from saying something that would embarrass both of them. Flash continued, unaware of the loaded silence from the prince. “So I started doing a little digging, found out that if you want info on Twilight you bribe Spike, spent half a paycheck on emeralds, and got the truth and you know what I found out?”
Flash paused, as if there were any world where Blueblood would be able to actually guess the next words that would come out of his mouth. “It turns out she got hit on by a version of me in an alternate universe and that she had not entirely dissimilar feelings about him.” Blueblood’s jaw fell open as Flash continued, “So I ended that situation as quickly as I could because I’m not dealing with being silently judged against some alternate universe version of myself. The pressure would be insane!” Flash paused, seeming to realize something only now that he was sharing the story. “Actually, It wouldn’t even be that either, it would be what she imagines the alternate universe version of me is like, so it’d be even more impossible to meet expectations.”
Silence held for a second as Blueblood remembered how to use his jaw. “More eggnog?” He offered eventually, seeing Flash’s glass almost empty. Flash nodded and let Blueblood take the glass in his magic to fill it up again. More tense silence. The room felt like all the dirty laundry they’d been airing had been packed with gunpowder and if either of them said a single wrong word the whole place would go up. The donut boxes were empty quicker than usual, due to a combination of the eggnog, the alcohol in the eggnog, and the stress eating as they both tried to figure out what to say.
Eventually, Flash stood from the table. “Same time next week, and I’ll just take the day off to save you some pocket money.” Flash said as he moved for the door and began to don the armor he had discarded there on entry. As he suited himself back into his guard armor, Blueblood marinated silently in his own emotions.
It was only when Flash reached for the doorknob, however, that Blueblood came to a decision. “You should stay the night. You’re in no state to be walking out there, you’re technically on a contract with me anyway, and it’s probably cold as Tartarus this late.” These three excuses that Blueblood tacked on to the end of the sentence did a wonderful job hiding the simple fact that he really just wasn’t ready for Flash to leave yet.
Flash, who had been silently hoping that he might be stopped in his attempt to depart, happily pulled his hoof away from the door, even as he began to make excuses. “Well I’d hate to be a bother.”
“Don’t even worry about it, nopony uses the guest bedroom these days anyway.” Blueblood said, waving his hoof dismissively. He picked up the empty donut boxes in his magical grasp and haphazardly jammed them into a distant trash can. Then he stood and led Flash back away from the door and down a hallway. “And you’ll be right across the hall from my bedroom if you need anything.” He added, trying to make it sound like something he'd just thought of off the top of his head instead of something he’d been thinking about in depth since Flash had stood up from the table.
Flash Sentry gave a curt nod. “Sounds good.” He had intended the words to come out as a soldier’s reply. Like a ‘yes, sir.’ but instead they were all soft around the edges. So he repeated himself, but willingly let the softness fill the whole of them. “Sounds good.”