Blood Ties That Bind - Loyalty
Blood Ties That Bind
Loyalty
Excerpt, A Brief History of Equestria, Vol. 2, Princess Twilight Sparkle
With the terror of Nightmare Moon resolved, Celestia found herself ruling all of Equestria alone. After centuries striving to be an upright and moral exemplar to all the Princes beneath her and Luna, the Princess of the Sun found herself as one of them – having cast aside Love and Harmony in the name of battling her beloved sister over the Throne of Equestria.
“I know it’s silly,” the Princess said in a private interview, “after all, the Balance and Harmony of the world was at stake. However, the fact alone that, in fighting with and banishing Luna as I did, the Elements of Harmony severed their connection with the both of us, is proof enough that I was no longer worthy to wield their power. And they went dormant once the business was done.”
In her grief, Celestia could not focus on ruling in sound judgement, and so retreated into seclusion, cloistering herself from the outside world, leaving the daily governing to stewards and the sisters’ closest friends and allies. This beginning a period called by the more histrionic among historians “The Anarchy,” even though it was nothing of the sort. Twelve years later, Celestia was finally ready to face the outside world and once again sit in her, now solitary, throne. Unfortunately, her so-called friends ruling Equestria in her stead, were all implicit in the isolation of Luna from the ponies of Equestria – either deliberately by orchestrating events to sabotage her efforts to connect with Equestria, or vicariously out of apathy to the situation.
Luna, in the final days of her time before succumbing to her darker nature, was anything but popular among Equestrians, despite her nightly duties Dreamwalking. If anything, her falling to Nightmare Moon was met with more relief than horror among the common folk, as it was seen as a confirmation of what they already ‘knew,’ as her affiliation with The Night and all things Dark and Terrifying to ordinary ponies did her no favors in winning her much in the way of affection or acceptance. Thus, with Luna no longer among them and Celestia in mourning, the animosity that was under the sheen of civility bubbled up and took hold in Equestrian culture. The Autumn Feast, Luna’s personal favorite holiday in the later months of the year, associated with the end of the harvest season and the beginning of preparations for winter, soon became known as what we now celebrate as Nightmare Night, a night where everypony celebrated the defeat of Nightmare Moon, and the triumph of The Sun. The Trick or Treating and costumes being rituals created in the past hundred-fifty years. And much to Celestia’s horror, it was this perversion of her sister Luna’s favorite holiday, twelve years and four months after having to banish her to the moon, that she stepped out of her apartments and looked upon her subjects.
There were celebrations for her return to government of course. However, intermingled with the expected decorations for both the Autumn Feast and Celestia’s return, there were effigies of Nightmare Moon – of Luna – being crucified, burned, drawn and quartered. The cries of “Hail the Solar Princess” were almost drowned out by cries of “Glory to The Moon Killer,” and all manner of similarly mean-spirited cries.
“What happened next, I have always been ashamed of. Even more so than what had happened to Luna. That had been a matter of duty. This was personal. To call what I felt in that moment anger would be to belittle it. I was furious, beyond any measure. And… I decided in that moment that these… Ponies, did not deserve anything resembling happiness. And like Luna had in her loneliness, I became something… Unbecoming of myself. And the only good thing that came out of that was that I was able to regain my faculties before the tragedy turned into an atrocity Equestria couldn’t recover from. Though it would be many long decades before I even considered the notion of forgiving the ones parading their hate for Luna like that. And by then, they and their children and grandchildren, and Great-Grandchildren were all dead and buried, and Luna had been effectively erased from history. In a misguided attempt to… Expunge, I suppose, her connection to the Nightmare.”
In her anger, Celestia’s form had changed, and according to survivor testimony, she began to – with sadistic glee – conjure up stormclouds. Clouds that rained down not water, but fire on castle, home, business, and pony alike. For three hours, Canterlot burned, and by the time Celestia calmed down, only the gutted stonework of the city walls and castle remained. And in the weeks and months that followed, Celestia consolidated power over Equestria, rendering all civil liberties, checks, and balances null and void, save by the Throne’s pleasure alone. Thus beginning the period now known as The Bicentennial Tyranny.
This time period of two-hundred fifty-three years was characterized by harsh enforcement of the Law, executions and banishments were a yearly occurrence when before and after they were more of a once-in-a-generation event. One result was that, after Celestia finally relaxed her iron grip on government and introduced the Advisory Duma Assembly system, the last vestiges of the disregard for Alicorn Authority over Ponydom, a disregard that lead to such death and warfare during the 15 Years War over a millennium and a half before Luna’s fall, was ground to dust.
Another effect on society was the Culture of Punishment – a sentiment where sensational stories of criminals and their exploits were gossiped about and glamorized. Among the upper class and Nobility, honor duels saw a resurgence, and among the poor, conditions deteriorated as the social welfare institutions Celestia and Luna established atrophied on the vine.
Among the multitude of stories that spread like wildfire in the press and by word of mouth, are stories that live on in popular culture in one form or another even today. Such as the strange case of Doctor Pines, whose self-experimentation with alchemy and the mind lead to a split personality named Mister Hide, a sociopathic monster of a pony that was only resolved with the doctor's suicide. And then there is the affair of the disgraced medical student Victorious Hippostein and his obsessive experiments with Immortality leading to his Creature rampaging across Equestria. Or Captain of the Royal Guard Absentia Clemency’s obsession over a singular escaped convict Joy Fallen-Joy, and his mismanagement that resulted in the Summer Sun Riot, and thus leading Celestia to begin to turn away from her tyrannical ways. And most influentially – especially among the Nobility – there was the affair of The Count of Monet Dumas.
Twenty-three years after Luna’s banishment, Nightmare Moon put forth all of her effort to break her seal. This led to three-hours of total darkness, the sun blocked by an unplanned solar eclipse as the madmare fought the energies of the Elements of Harmony and Celestia’s own magic. Eventually Nightmare Moon used up the last of her reserves and went dormant until the seal finally failed in 2600, the 1000th Summer Sun Celebration. The aftermath was as predictable as it was tragic: Everypony assumed that Nightmare Moon had some sort of outside help, when in reality it was a last desperate gasp at freedom. But it still led to a witch hunt. Lives were destroyed when neighbor turned on neighbor, and innocent ponies were tossed into Kangaroo Courts for show trials and dealt with just as apathetically. Celestia, steeped in her anger, sat back, uncaring, letting the ponies eat each other alive until the turmoil had run its course.
One of the innocent victims was a young sailor named Prismés Prosperous, of Baltimare. Like dozens of ponies, he had been accused of being a Luna Collaborator, with letters of correspondence found in his home showing him to be exactly that. This was all fabricated of course. Unfortunately for the newly minted captain, he ran afoul of a conspiracy by ponies he thought were friends: Lord Avarice Monsparkle, a long friend of the Pegasus, Coinage Jangles, and the local magistrate Fair Sanction. The noble wanted Prismés’ marefriend Piety as his wife but had been rejected. Coinage Jangles had been overlooked for promotion to Captain of their ship, and Fair Sanction had familial ties to the few ponies of Society that actually liked Luna, and was looking to undermine any potential attention that might come his way because of it.
With so much ‘damning’ evidence against him, the pegasus was thrown into The Castle Rock, Equestria’s most brutal, most infamous prison, where he was soon forgotten.
Nineteen years later, in 1642, Princess Celestia received word of an escape at The Castle Rock, a prisoner had swapped out the body of a recently dead inmate with himself in the body bag before it was tossed into the sea. A small search was carried out, but when nopony matching the prisoner’s two decades out of date description was ever seen, he was presumed dead and the matter closed.
Two years after that, a middle-aged stallion in fine clothes presented himself to court in Canterlot, wishing to purchase the title of The Count of Monet Dumas.
Monet Dumas, then and now, is little more than a glorified rock out to sea between Trottingham and the mainland. However, it was a notoriously hazardous stretch of sea, and many treasure ships had sunk in those waters. Add in how it had been a den for pirates for centuries after the Defeat of Discord, and a desperate refuge for nobles from one of the Equestrian Republic’s multitude of successor states during the Wars that followed after that, and the result was that it had been suspected to be home to untold riches - provided one was willing to hunt. But the island had never been a part of any noble title, and between Discord’s merry havoc with space-time during his rule, and everypony having other things to focus on after Celestia and Luna’s ascension to the thrones, there were no surviving records connecting ownership of the place to any territory from the time of the Equestrian Republic, not even to the Crown Territories Celestia and Luna took ownership of. Therefore, anypony willing to claim the island for his own was welcome to it, and was given only mild scrutiny, until he proved his worth via displays of wealth and noble baring.
“Had I been in a better mindspace at the time,” Celestia says, “I would have looked further into it, and likely prevented what was to come. But I was so full of malice and anger, I couldn’t bring myself to care. It disgusts me now, looking back, but I think I reveled in the prospect of what this mysterious stallion was going to do, and how it might be an entertainment.”
The count made waves in court. He was clearly wealthy, and well-mannered, and soon had mares lining up to be the lady at his side at every function. He even caused more sentimental ladies to swoon at his charitable nature when he took in a teenage earth pony filly named Haydi as his ward, straight off the streets. He cleaned her up, dressed her in fine clothes, and gave her the best education - but not by hiring tutors, he taught her himself, showing that the mysterious Count was as cultured as he was wealthy. And the drama intensified later that winter when he and Lord Adler Monsparkle – the son of Lord Avarice Monsparkle and Lady Piety – were caught up by a gang of thugs, and the Count was instrumental in saving them both, for which the colt – having recently turned 17 and was thus of age – introduced him to his family and their circle of friends; Including Lord Avarice Monsparkle’s business associate Coinage Jangles, and Lord Prosecutor Fair Sanction. The Count ingratiated himself with the stallions and their families, soon becoming a common visitor to their dinner tables.
Then the gossip turned from the interesting to the dramatic. Because within months, things started to happen.
As an act of friendship, the Count opened up an investment account at Coinage’s bank, and proceeded to make outrageous investments in highly risky ventures, leaving Coinage Jangles to bare the risk. This proceeded for months, with the Count investing seemingly endless amounts of bits into investments that were certain to fail. Finally, one did, and it collapsed Coinage Jangles’ bank within a weak, leaving him with nothing. Penniless. In order to spare his wife and daughter the indignity of the poorhouse, Coinage Jangles sold himself into a life of indentured servitude and sold much of the lavish things he had collected so that his wife could live in modest comfort, and his daughter could still have a dowry.
The Lord Prosecutor Fair Sanction’s wife, who had long had issues with his family, somehow got it into her head to dabble in poison after a series of conversations with the Count about Pre-Hearths Warming Unicorn society. Within a year, over a dozen of Fair Sanction’s extended family were dead in suspicious circumstances, and then his wife and their youngest daughter were dead due to an accidental poisoning. Fair Sanction, seeing the family he discarded his morals decades before to save be culled brought up repressed guilt over his dirty dealings, driving him insane. He would spend the rest of his days an invalid in a mental asylum. He had spent his whole life obsessed with his image and the standing of his family. He would end his life unable to use the water closet without the aid of an adult diaper, nor chew his own food.
And finally, Lord Avarice Monsparkle. To the surprise of nopony, the sort of stallion that would frame a friend in order to get a chance with said friend’s marefriend was not the sort to avoid shady business dealings. Using his ‘friendship’ with Lord Prosecutor Fair Sanction – and his role in framing Prismés Prosperous as insurance – in order to avoid scrutiny from the authorities, and Coinage Jangles’ business as a money launder, the Lord invested in all sorts of Black Market activities, ranging from drug smuggling to underground brothels to enterprises too depraved to publish here. With the loss of Coinage Jangles’ bank, he had no way to ‘legitimize’ his alternative income. With Fair Sanction committed, he had no one to manufacture fig leaves to hide his dealings. And then – one by one – his businesses were exposed. Never with a strong enough connection to convict him however, but with just enough circumstantial evidence that only the most idealistic individuals would refuse to realize what he had been doing.
Suddenly finding himself isolated from Polite Society, and seeing the effect this was taking on the public standing of his family, Lord Avarice Monsparkle seemed to have a crisis of conscience, as he was found in his office one morning with self-inflicted slits to his throat. On the table was a note with only a single sentence on it. This note is preserved in the Royal Archives: It is normal lattice linen paper, written with expensive ink. There are dark brown blotches where the Lord’s blood splattered on it. There is no seal on it, the sender choosing to instead tuck in the paper into itself, nor did they provide a signature to the note. And when one unfolds the letter, there is only a singular phrase:
What of Prismés Prosperous, your Lordship?
His son Adler Monsparkle was the one to find both his father and the note. And he would swear to his dying day that the note came from the Count of Monet Dumas. And indeed, throughout the centuries, professional analysis of the hoofwriting of the note compared to the writings of the Count throughout his life all came back in agreement that the author was indeed the Count. In fact, the Count was similarly associated with the downfalls of all three conspirators. Close enough to catch the attention of spectators, but was never connected in a way that would be construed as deliberately sabotaging the three stallions. Or if he was, it was never anything that any court could prove as criminal.
In fact, all of his associations looked innocent, or even decorous: The tragedy of Fair Sanction’s family was instigated by the Count, but not by anything criminal, and Fair Sanction’s wife was by no means coerced into murder other than by having burdensome in-laws. And even today, no court would be able to see the Count’s dealings with Coinage Jangles as anything but a stroke of back luck while investing irresponsibly, and it was Jangles’ own greed that did him in, as he could have cut off the count at any time. And with Lord Avarice, the Count just happened to hear rumors of foul play in Canterlot, same as anypony else. But while the rest of the upper crust were content to let the rumors stay just that, he used his influence and resources to actually investigate those rumors and bring them to light, and Avarice just happened to be caught in the crossfire. If anything, the Count was a hero, a bringer of Law and Order to Canterlot’s seedy underbelly.
However, for young Lord Adler, it was all a conspiracy to destroy the lives of his family and the families of his friends. With something approaching solid proof of the Count’s dealings, he challenged the Count to a duel for the honor of his late Father, and to avenge the misfortune that he placed fully at the hooves of the Count. Which the Count accepted…
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Mimic Path Place, town home of The Count of Monet Dumas, Year 1647 of Royal Rule
“Please, you have to stop this!”
“Truthfully madam, I have to do no such thing.”
Bardigiano, thanks to his years as a smuggler, kept a straight expression in the face of The Count’s apathetic delivery. In his mind, he wagered with himself how this encounter would go. On the one hoof, he had long suspected that the Lady Piety was the chink in the Count’s armor. Between the subtle softness that came to his eyes when she entered a room, and how he deliberately ensured to never be alone with her, and that their conversations were as short as politeness made possible, were all signs that there was a great deal of past intimacy there. Intimacy that ended poorly.
“’No such-?’ ‘No such thing?!’ Adler has no business demanding or fighting duels, he’s just a colt! A baby!”
The Count turned away from the distraught mare, choosing to instead occupy his attention with the painting that filled the wall behind his desk. The one with a ship, tossed by an angry sea, and a lone captain struggling to man the helm even as the waves swamp his ship. Bardigiano had been there when the Count had commissioned the artist, a relative unknown that was apparently being taken advantage of by his jealous master, who downplayed his work, when he wasn’t taking the credit for the pieces in question. That artist was now quite wealthy and flooded with commission requests, after the mysterious Count of Monet Dumas ‘discovered’ him.
“Young Lord Monsparkle turned seventeen earlier this year madam. Regardless of your sentimentality, he is nevertheless a full stallion in the eyes of the Law and his Peers. If he feels that I have wronged him, and that the normal avenues of justice cannot serve him to his satisfaction, then he is well and truly within his rights to demand retribution on the Field of Honor.
“The Young Lord has impressed me with his character and baring. I would not insult him in denying him.”
From where he stood at the side of the little drama, Bardigiano wasn’t sure what he expected from the mare. But as her face grew dark with desperation, he felt a pit in his stomach.
“Liar. You just want to use him to get to me. Avarice, Coinage Jangles, Fair Sanction. You ruined them all Count. And now you are taking away my last thing of joy in my world?”
That gave the Count visible pause, resulting in the pale pegasus to turn his head just enough to look the Lady from the corner of his eye. And like that the moment had passed, and the Count pulled a ledger from the shelf under the painting, and began to leaf through its pages.
“My Lady, these have been trying times, and have no doubt left you tired and emotional. You are seeing things that cannot be. Why could I possibly see to end such honored worthies?”
A tear trailed down the mare’s nose, and dripped to the floor.
“Because they took everything from you first, Prismés Prosperous.”
In the study, there was only the tick of the clock for, as far as Bardigiano was concerned, hours.
“Madam, you are confused.”
“Then why is that ship in the painting the Merry Balance?”
The Count grew still, a sure sign to Bardigiano that the stallion was floored.
“Madam, it is just a ship.”
“A ship that you and I both loved as a friend!” the Lady pressed, “I would recognize that happy ship anywhere!”
“Perhaps I merely saw her in the harbor on my travels.”
“Coinage paid her off and sold her timbers for firewood years ago. And yet that painting – which you commissioned – has every detail correct, down to our love promise, carved into the sternpost. Do you remember? ’Whatever sea may rise…?’”
“’I will be there.’”
A second after the words left his lips, like a sigh more than anything else, the Count’s eyes blinked rapidly, the only outward sign of his shock at his laps of control. Meanwhile, the Lady’s eyes dripped tears at the confirmation of what she had long suspected.
“Please Prismés, end this. In the name of our Love, do not do this!”
“’In the name of our Love...’” the count repeated, his voice turning horse, bitter, “Funny, that our Love should be sufficient now, when it would be convenient to you after all these years. But it was not enough for you to wait for me.”
The Lady Piety would have looked less wounded had the Count stabbed her, but a hardness Bardigiano was surprised to see from the aristocrat pegasus came to her eyes almost as quickly.
“I thought you dead!” she exclaimed with firm finality, “Lost at sea! You were – are – my whole world, and losing you broke my heart! But what was I supposed to do, die in spirit, until I died an old maid, alone and with no joy in my life? IS that what you would have wanted for me Prismés?”
The Count moved his mouth, looking as if to exclaim that, yes, that is exactly what she should have done. But he held his tongue at the last second, grit his teeth, and turned back to her ledger. This seemed to please – or at least mollify – the Lady, going by how her face softened.
“At dawn tomorrow, I will be meeting with the young Lord Monsparkle, our duel will be carried out with the Prince as our witness.”
Despite himself, Bardigiano smirked. Prince Blueblood was quite adamant that this duel not go on… Until the Count sent him with copies of the Late Monsparkle’s ledgers showing that his highness had been a frequent customer for the establishments that catered to those with a taste for young colts. Suddenly the Prince was more than happy to not only permit this duel, but to personally oversee it
Lady Piety however, looked all the more heartbroken at the Count’s declaration. To the ex-smuggler’s experienced eye, the Lady’s spirit was utterly smashed. It was a look he had seen more than once or twice, when his old Boss had driven an otherwise noble soul to do his bidding. So it was with no surprise when he saw the Lady finally go to the most lowly measures in her desperation to save her son.
“Then… I suppose… I suppose my body will suffice?”
The Count’s quill froze at the words, and he looked up from his books, watching with shock and even a little heartbroken horror as the lady began to undo the fasteners that held her fine dress to her body. Bardigiano would have been amused at seeing the Count getting a wing-boner as the silk pooled around the aristocrat’s hooves, had he not himself admired the form laid bare before him. Certainly, she was past her prime, but her station had spared her from the work and environment that artificially aged so many mares her age, and indeed motherhood had been kind to her form, and Bardigiano was reminded of an old shipmate’s preference for older mares. What was it he called the type? ‘Mother I’d Like to F-?’
“It… It would be all right. I am a widow you see. No scandal would be seen in me… Seeking out the comfort of another stallion. Especially one of your means…”
And at seeing the bashful, humiliated, and broken soul before him, Bardigiano suddenly felt an uncharacteristic guilt at what he was thinking. It was strange, for years he wouldn’t have cared about the pony that was the mare he was interested in. No doubt a result of his service to The Count.
“Yes…” Piety whispered, her voice turning slightly to mania, and Bardigiano’s guilty intensified to shame and pity in equal measure, “yes! There’s nothing to stand between us now! I am a widow, and you are unmarried! Adler would need time to adjust, but with you as his legal step-father-!”
“GET OUT!”
Bardigiano and the Lady were both absolutely shocked at the raw emotion in the Count’s voice, and neither pony was at all expecting to ever see the Count’s intense expression of pain and torment, tears running like rivers in flood stage from his eyes, having seen what he had reduced the mare he had loved for his whole life to.
“BARDIGIANO!”
At the almost animalistic cry of his name, the stallion jolted like a bolt of lightning, dragging the mare and her discarded dress out of the Count’s office, slamming the door behind them with a bang, leaving the Count alone in the pain he had brought on himself. The stallion breathed heavily for but a moment before being overcome, slamming everything on his desk to the floor in a desperate attempt at getting some satisfaction at destroying something. And when that did not work he broke down in sobs, and with the muffled calls from Piety on the other side of the door, and the pounding of her hooves on the door echoing in the chamber, the Count of Monet Dumas, Prismés Prosperous, sank to his haunches, leaning against his desk, shoving his hooves to his ears in a vain attempt to silence the sound.
Meanwhile, Bardigiano watched the Lady Piety, naked and bereft of all dignity of her station, pounding her hooves on the door, tears running down her cheeks, screaming plea after barely articulate plea for the Count to call off the duel and spare her baby.
Feeling very much out of his element, Bardigiano was more than happy to see the filly, Haydi, appear at the foot of the stairs. Taking the out that had presented itself – a skill absolutely vital in the Criminal Underworld – the stallion trotted up to the grey-coated and dark-maned pony.
“Haydi,” he said, being sure to keep his voice down so as to avoid gaining anypony else’s attention, “be a dear and help Lady Piety regain her dignity, and then assist her in being presentable before seeing her out? I have… Ah… Screw it – I want none of this drama.”
And with the Discretion that is the better part of Valor – that is to say, with a coward’s haste – the stallion bolted for the back door, leaving to the poor sixteen-year old with the task of helping the mare, now a disgusting puddle of inarticulate sobbing, pull herself together enough to not make a scene when she left the building.
The rest of the night was quiet, the Count having never left the sanctuary of his office, not even to touch the dinner the staff left at his door. But just as he intended, the Count exited in the pre-dawn hours, fully dressed in his traveling clothes and over-sized great coat, and ready for the encounter before Bardigiano even had time to knock on the door. Without a word, the two stallions finished the preparations, and just as the dark of night began to fade into the False Dawn of early morning, the Count entered his carriage and Bardigiano began to pull it into the rolling fog.
The Count watched the faint outlines of the newly rebuilt streets of Canterlot pass by, his mind focusing on everything and nothing. With Monsparkle’s suicide, that should have been it, his vengeance complete with the demise of the stallions that destroyed his life. Even though he didn’t have a goal in his life now, he would never regret his actions these past few years…
But Adler… And his friends, the children of those same stallions… He never intended for innocents to get caught up in this. And yet they had…
Further contemplation was interrupted by the sound of the carriage door opening and shutting, the ride not being disrupted even a moment as the seat bounced at a new weight beside him.
The Count turned with a jerk, somewhat surprised to see Haydi there, glaring at him.
“…Good morning?”
“Are you really going to do it?”
The Count didn’t bother asking what she meant, anypony could fathom her meaning.
“What will happen, will happen. Regardless, you have no need to worry. I have already finalized my affairs. You will inherit my wealth. You will be free to pursue whatever life you wish, no matter what you will never know the cold of the street again.”
Haydi looked at her guardian in confusion, which turned to horror, then anger, the Count’s meaning making itself fully plain.
“You mean you intend to die?”
The Count considered her, his usual neutral expression on his face.
“My work is finished. With you I have ensured that something positive is left behind. I see no reason why I sh-“
The Count was once again shocked by the actions of a mare. Haydi, her earth pony features hardened with determination, leaped at the Count, throwing her forelimbs around his neck and locking their lips in a hungry kiss. The Count was all but slammed against the walls of the carriage, eyes wide. As the mare that was little more than a filly herself continued the kiss, pressing a knee into his groin in a way she had seen dozens of Ladies of The Night do with their customers on the street, the Count slowly found himself returning the kiss and embrace, first with forelimb, then with wing. For the first time in years, the Count felt a warmth in his breast untainted by treachery and bitterness, as if once again he was in those halcyon days of his youth.
And then it was over, Haydi pulling away, tucking her head under the Count’s chin, her body racked by contained sobs.
“Don’t say that.” Haydi whispered, “Never say that. Not when I am here Monet. You are the first stallion, the first pony, who saw me as having anything of worth. Not a burden, not a tool, but as another pony. You saved me, in every possible way somepony can be saved. Without you, I’d have grown up to be a whore at best, and you gave me everything I ever needed. A home, food, you opened my eyes and mind to the world beyond the streets, you deserve so much Monet! Please… Don’t take away the only thing in this world I need.”
The Count held his tongue, his only comfort offered was in rubbing the filly… Young mare’s back…
Outside the gate of Canterlot’s defensive walls, the woodlands surrounding the rolling country of the Canterhorn made for an ideal killing ground. The trees were close enough to provide more than enough privacy for these matters between gentlestallions, but were not so dense as to make the all-important form of the ritual of blood cumbersome. In the pre-dawn light, the fog slithered through the trees like a mass of phantasmic snakes, everything fading in and out of shadow. In time, the carriage came at last to a stop, and the Count exited. Just as he predicted, word of the coming duel gathered more than a few spectators, fellow nobility and the upper classes, eager to see the outcome of this little drama.
Like Vultures to fresh carrion.
On the far side of the chosen clearing, young Adler, with coat of orange and mane of maroon, stood among his peers, but looked as isolated as the Castle Rock itself, focusing on nothing more than inspecting the dueling pistol in his possession, cleaning it, ensuring the mechanism was smooth, and the powder and ball untampered with, an action the Count performed in turn when one of the Prince’s servants came with that pistol’s twin. Without a word, Bardigiano continued onward, where he met in the middle with one of the young noble’s friends, his appointed second. They would take the opportunity to try and negotiate some sort of peace. Most duels ended here, if they made it even this far. But the Count was well-versed in the sort of Revenge Adler was after. This was nothing more than a formality.
And to the side was Piety, looking like she had not slept in months, like a walking husk that had only hours to go before it crumbled away, watching events unfold, like the final scenes of a Tragedy on a stage – the end was fully in sight, and despite not wanting it to come, that downfall was coming all the same…
“I trust all is in order?” Prince Blueblood inquired, toying with one of his finely waxed mustachios. A nervous tic the Count had long committed to memory.
“This is a fine pistol your Highness,” the Count replied, eyes never leaving the weapon in his hooves.
“Ah. Yes… The pistol…”
The Count restrained a smirk at the royal’s anxiousness. A social high-flyer Blueblood may have been… But a politician he was not.
“Once this business is completed Your Highness, I would like to invite you to my townhouse. You and I have business to discuss.”
“Y-yes! Of course! I am at your service your grace!” Blueblood replied with far too much enthusiasm to be anything other than genuine.
The Count nodded in acknowledgment, and after that paid Blueblood no mind, letting the royal go about his duties as the official witness. As the Prince went about, recording the faces and names of the spectators for the official record, Bardigiano walked up to his master.
“No luck in talking the young stallion out of this I take it,” asked The Count.
“No. So, I take it you’ll go ahead and do him in? He might come after you if you let him live. He does have your example to look up to.”
The count did not answer right away, taking the time to polish the pistol barrel as a distraction.
“I have not decided, truthfully,” The Count replied at last, softly so that only his servant and confidant could hear him, “But in the moment, I think I will have that answer. Just be certain that-“
”ADLER!”
Further discussion was interrupted by the cry of a mare. All eyes turned to see a young Unicorn mare barreling toward the young Lord. Her hair was a mess and her face was a mess from tears, and she was still in her night clothes and had clearly run all the way from home in Canterlot, but all there could recognize her, by her alabaster coat and two-toned rose and violet mane. After all, her own family had suffered greatly from a similar tragedy to Lord Adler’s, as the older daughter of Fair Sanction.
“Velvatine?!”
Adler barely had time to register the sight of his fiancé before he was enveloped in a tackle of a hug, and the lady finally collapsed and half-dragged him down in her exhaustion.
“Adler, please! I beg you, stop this madness! I have lost everything! Everypony I have loved, I cannot bare to have you taken from me as well! I love you! Do not leave me, please!”
Lord Adler – unlike most stallions in his position – was not enraged at the young mare attempting to interfere with his business… But neither was he willing to simply do as she asked just because she was asking, no matter how much she grieved. The rest of the ponies watched the drama unfold… But The Count found he could not bare to watch. Instead he elected to look away, dark memories clouding his mind with heart ache. While the crowd looked on, The Count was content to allow the young lovers something resembling privacy.
In time, Adler’s friends were able to gather up the unicorn and guide her a distance away. There she was taken to Piety’s side, and two mares embraced, taking comfort in each other’s presence as the horror began. Adler’s glare and nod at Prince Blueblood was enough to get the stallion to understand the younger lad was ready, and asked aloud if The Count was ready in turn.
“Make certain that Haydi is kept out of the line of fire.”
Bardigiano nodded his assent, then voiced that The Count was ready.
“Then will the stallions with grievances please approach the middle of the feeling.”
The short trot to the appointed spot was both excruciatingly long and brutally short to The Count. But all the same he was met with Adler, snout to snout, the shorter stallion – little more than a colt, only just going into his final growth spurt – glaring at The Count with visceral Hate in his eyes. And yet despite his hoof holding a loaded gun, the young lord did not take advantage of the close proximity to just kill the stallion that had wronged him and his family. Such self-control in somepony so young.
“There is still time to avert this young Lord Monsparkle,” The Count said, privately shocked at how his mouth said those words. “Despite what you know, your father is not worth you throwing away your life like this.”
The young aristocrat worked tight lips around clenched jaws, clearly wanting to say something, but sternly controlling himself. And once again The Count marveled at how this stallion was so mature, for one so very young.
“You. Know nothing. Of my father.”
It was obvious that the young Lord had a great deal more to say, but was to polite to say it. Despite himself, the count gave a slight nod at that.
“If he had any role at all in raising a young stallion with the moral character of one such as yourself… You may very well be right.”
The young Lord’s eye twitched at the complement. This was not how this was supposed to go damn it!
“Lords,” Prince Blueblood called out, “about face. Now, ten paces on my mark.”
The Count and Adler made their long, even strides, each one made with each count of the Prince’s voice, ensuring both stallions were covering an equal distance. When the Prince made it to seven, Velvatine started sobbing again, on eight, Piety broke down once again. At nine, Haydi got in on the action, begging the two stallions to stop. And at Ten, the poor lady Velvatine’s sobs turned to screams of despair, that turned to denials and pleas as the stallions turned…
And Adler fired.
And The Count had not.
To be sure he was wounded. His great coat had obscured his form, and it’s thick material had softened the impact of the sphere from the smooth bore pistol some, but The Count was still struck in the shoulder, and his grunt and flinch was proof enough that Adler’s aim was not wasted…
But The Count had deliberately withheld his fire. And now that Adler had spent his only shot, he was completely at The Count’s mercy until he had unloaded as well.
With gritted teeth, The Count gathered his faculties. When the initial pain of the gunshot dulled enough, he raised his hoof holding the gun. His grip was shacky, but it was true. And with deliberate motion, The Count aimed solidly at Adler, square at the center of mass, so that no matter in what direction the ball arced in its random spin, it was strike somewhere fatal.
Adler’s ears were flattened against his skull, his eyes wide and pupils pinpricks at seeing the inside of the pistol. He could even see – faintly – the outline of the ball of lead deep within the pistol, waiting for the powder to ignite and fling it at him. It was clear that the stallion, the colt, was horrified, and panicked, at the realization that, yes, this was indeed where he was going to die. With his wise, loving mother, and beautiful foalhood friend and fiancé, watching, helpless to save him.
In the brief ticks of the clock that felt like years, the two stallions stood there. The Count as inscrutable as always, baring the clear pain of the gunshot, and Adler in dread over facing his mortality. But, the young Lord took a breath. He stood up straight, and looked not at the gun, but The Count, meeting his eyes, facing his executioner without any sign of cowering before the weapon.
The Count noted that. His expression… softened somewhat, and gave a small nod, as if he had found some sign of something he was looking for. Then he fired.
Into the air, directly above.
The Duel was finished. And nopony died.
Piety and Velvatine sobbed and cried in relief, rather than grief, and both ran up to the young lord, to stunned at The Count’s action to noticed, not until first his mother slapped him for his foolishness, then his fiancé did the same, and then both embraced him, joyful that he was alive.
As the spectators applauded and gave the sorts of cheers befitting a long, boring speech, Bardigiano and The Prince’s physician trotted up to The Count, helping him ease out of his great coat in order to treat the gunshot wound to his shoulder. The powder charge for dueling pistols was strong enough to kill a pony, but not so much that a series of sufficiently thick cloth layers could not do anything to affect it.
Still painful though, and if the blood was not stalled, or infection set in, he was a dead stallion anyway.
“Y-your highness,” The Count uttered around the broomhandle shoved in his mouth while the doctor worked, “Did not young Lord Adler Monsparkle carry himself with nobility? Did you not see how he stared death in the eye and not flinch? Such an honorable look on his face.”
The Prince looked to the young aristocrat and his party, who had all heard everything.
“Yes your grace, I would say that is an accurate assessment.”
“Truly, even if the impossible were true and his father was a scoundrel,” he groaned as the doctor removed the bullet from his shoulder, “it would be malicious slander to let that ruin standing of him and his House, would it not?”
Blueblood looked at The Count with confusion, but at seeing the intensifying of the pegasus’ glare – and the vague threat it implied – the Prince was quick to agree.
“Please, your highness, could you make sure that all in high society know? I would be… Most grieved… If his nobility was drowned by the scandal surrounding his late father.”
“I promise Count, I shall make every effort to ensure the whole of Canterlot knows.”
The Count groaned in pain as the doctor cauterized his wound with a white hot firepoker.
“I… I thank you, Prince.”
With that, the show was over, and the crowd began to disperse. Adler and his party cheered and congratulated him for his daring deed, event as Velvatine sobbed into his shoulder begging him never to do such a thing again. Piety was the last to walk away, but not before – for the very last time in their lives – Piety and Prismés Prosperous locked eyes. It was only for a moment or two, but Piety smiled faintly and nodded, and all she could have hoped to say was shared. The Count returned, and watched as his old flame walked away, content that the nightmare, after over twenty years of pain, loss, regret, and hate, was at long last over.
The Count – maybe from bloodloss, likely from seeing what he had dedicated over half of his life to completed to his satesfaction – was unsure how he had come to the carriage, with Haydi sleeping across his lap from emotional exhaustion, and Bardigiano pulling the carriage, but… In the brightening of the sky, the first rays of sunlight pierced his window, a spear of Celestia’s own light framing the young mare’s soft features.
His Revenge was complete. His destroyed life paid for. And now… And now what?
And then the words of Abbe from the Castle Rock dungeons came back to him.
’Justice and Revenge are sometimes one and the same my boy. But remember this if nothing else – Revenge is a fire that cares little for its master. If you intend to go down that route Prismés – and I fervently wish you do not – you must remember that you will be alive once those that wronged you have faced your justice. You must find something worth living for when you are done. For the best Revenge, my boy, is to live well and live happy, despite all that your enemy has done to you…’
The Count’s lips tingled, and the taste of a kiss what felt like days ago, from a young diamond in the rough street pony, came back to him…
------
After these events, the Count of Monet Dumas and his ward left Canterlot, never to return all his days, settling down in the Baltimare area, where they became benevolent benefactors to the lower classes by sponsoring orphanages, hospitals, business investments, The Arts, and education programs. Before the year of his duel with Lord Adler was out, the Count’s ward became of age, and the two were wed on Hearth's Warming Eve, the date chosen, according to the Count, both for its themes of Love and Fellowship, and of Rebirth. This provided just enough of a scandal to get ponies to talk, but not nearly as much as what had happened with Lord Avarice and his co-conspirators. The pair lived long and happy lives together, raising seven children. The Count would die with nopony ever learning his origins – or if they did, they took that knowledge to the grave. It wouldn’t be until 1705, when one of his grandsons was looking through the Count’s affects that he discovered the Count’s private journals – written in a code. It would be another thirty years before the cipher was found and the contents translated, and made public. The tale of Prismés Prosperous’ betrayal and decades long quest for revenge would spread through Equestria like wildfire – long after the descendants of the Count’s heirs died out.
In the modern day, the descendants of The Count’s fourth son, Cumulus, have regained some notoriety. The colt had inherited the wanderlust his father had in his youth. So much so that he willingly foreswore his right to a title and inheritance and joined the Royal Geological Survey, where he spent decades on expeditions into the great deserts left by Talonhoof’s salting of Equestria, and surveying the territory for settlement and recovery efforts. Thirty years later, he retired and settled down in Cloudsdale with a wife and children of his own.
It is through this lineage that, eventually, came the Element Barer of Loyalty – Rainbow Dash.
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Welcome back. Extremely well-written. And yes, you should've declared it an AU a while ago. :p I noticed two typos:
Should be 'week'.
Should be 'compliment'.
Also, much as I'm gonna take heat for this... I never did have all that much sympathy/pity for Luna concerning Nightmare Moon. The way it was presented in the show she was very petty and became Nightmare Moon of her own free will.
Did you take "inspiration" from this animatic series? Or was it the actual Count of Monte Cristo?
That is an interesting connection Rainbow has. With Fluttershy’s as well being known I wonder how the other Bearer’s families have crossed with history? And no Granny Smith doesn’t count.
10561276
Pretty much. Granted, I already had an idea for Dash for a different time period, but when Inkpotts finished their Count of Monte Christo series, I was inspired. I still want to do the other tale though.
10561347
But there's a lot to consider, and a wealth of stories to tell.
To be fair, Granny Smith has seen some shit I am certain.
For example, there's Cadence and how her family came to be heirs to the Chrystal Empire. And while I hesitate to point it out, it was not by accident that I went with the name I did for the Mondego-analogue. Then there's the smaller roles ponies play, the everyday pony going about their lives as History takes place in far off places.
OMG
I've reread this and A Brief History of Equestria several times as they are my favorite historical Equestria fics.
Thanks for the update!
An update after all this time? And a good one to!
10561105
That's great. But do you have anything to say about the chapter itself, and not your own opinion on the show's creative choices?
10561775
Well, I did say it was a good chapter and well-written... and my comments about Luna was kinda reflecting what seemed to be you demonizing the Equestrian population and making her pretty damned woobie.
EDIT: I also pointed out two typos and commented that yes, going AU earlier would've been better.
Looks like copy and replace did one oops- it's changing "bear" to "bare".
Baring should be "bearing", for example. And Barer should be "Bearer".
This one is extremely well written, but seems a bit out of place given the matriarchal societal leanings of the established story setting; I enjoyed the read, but felt that the genders displayed should've been reversed.
Okay, that was pretty awesome!
This chapter seemed different than the others, or were you going for a story within a story?
Either way this was excellent and having read part of Alexandre Dumas original story, and being something of an armchair history enthusiast I'd love to see more of these things.