All good things must come to an end, and this was a night that could not last forever, no matter how much Gosling desired for it to happen. The liquor that Luna had given him was strange, laced with lavender and anise, and several glasses had completely floored him. Now, he was stumbling along beside Luna, as she led him back to bed.
There was a lot that Gosling wanted to tell her, perhaps because of his current inebriated state, and even more important, there were a lot of things he wanted to hear from her. However, talking was a bit difficult at the moment, just because there was so much he wanted to say. He feared that, if he tried to say anything, it would all come spilling out in a jumble.
“We besties,” Gosling said, and there was a heavy slur in his voice. A lot more threatened to spill out, more than just words, the contents of his stomach were currently petitioning for parole and early release. Feeling brave, and too far gone to feel stupid, Gosling gulped and then continued, “I just… just wanna really be your friend… Luna.”
Stumbling, Gosling couldn’t feel his legs, any of them, and he wondered if he had frozen again. He didn’t take a tumble though, because his bestie caught and held him up with magic. Warm, tickly magic spread around his body and mingled with the pleasurable feelings of his drunkenness.
Drunkenness? No. After a moment of internal debate, Gosling confessed to only being somewhat lit. He wasn’t drunk. Nope. A drunk Gosling might try to make a move on his bestie, a drunken, stupid move that might ruin everything, all of his hard work, and he would never allow that to happen. No, he was lit Gosling, or perhaps sloshed Gosling. Could rubber duckies float in a bathtub full of booze?
There was so much to say, just so much to say, the words were pressing into one another inside of his head and forming mush. For a second, Gosling saw a mental image of a long, slender letter poking in and out of a round letter, and he was shocked by the sudden alphabetical obscenity. He blinked it away and knew it was better to pretend that it hadn’t happened.
Held aloft, Gosling was flying, and he was pretty happy about this. Yes, this made him happy, he was flying beside Luna, hovering in the air, close to his bestie. So happy was he, so delighted, that he began to sing, yes, he began to serenade his bestie, just because she was bestie.
“You are my Moonshine… my only Moonshine… you make me haaaaaaaaappy… when skies are… dark?” He blinked, confused, as the song had gone to a strange, unknown place. “You’ll never know, Blue, how much I love you… please don’t take my Moonshine away.”
And then, as if to punctuate his magnum opus, his Spoony-Goosy-Swanny Song, Gosling spewed all over the floor.
Mouth dry, Gosling fumbled around in his empty bed. Nearby was a glass of water and a few aspirin. The heavy drapes were closed, keeping the sunshine out, and somepony had been quite thoughtful of his needs. Oh goodness, did he have needs. He needed to be asleep again, and needed to reclaim his memory of going to bed last night.
Rising from the bed, Gosling felt naked. He took a moment to consider the current state of his wings, feeling repulsed by what he saw. It ached, it was a pain that he could not reconcile with, and it left him unhappy. Turning his head away from his own body, Gosling focused upon taking his aspirin and getting a drink.
Without his magical pegasus feathers, he didn’t know how to take care of himself, how to be himself. He had never been in this position before. Sticking out his tongue, he licked the aspirin from the bedside table, picked up the glass with his fetlock, and then he drank down his pills. Flicking his tail, he let out a whinny and got his mind straight to face the day.
There was work to do. This was a terrible job, but it was his job. His interview had been disguised as romance, and his marriage was little more than a fancy job contract. As Prince Gosling, he held one of the worst jobs in Equestria, a thankless job, but like any other job, it had to be done. Putting down the glass, he turned to head for the shower, and in his head he wondered how he would turn his beloved country away from anarchy today.
Breakfast was… a bran muffin and some coffee. This wasn’t breakfast, but he couldn’t complain. He wanted something hot, salty, and greasy, like scrambled eggs with shredded coconut, ginger, and pineapple. Oh, and cheese, lots of cheese, but what he wanted and what he got happened to be two very different things.
Celestia was at her school, looking after the needs of her students. He suspected that Luna was sleeping, but he didn’t know for sure. Of Cadance and Shining Armor, he had no idea what they were up to, but they were around. His head ached a bit, but not too bad, not so bad that he couldn’t deal with it.
“Sir, Prince Blueblood is waiting for you, Sir,” Kibitz said to Gosling in a subdued, hangover friendly voice. “A word of warning, Sir, the prince seems out of sorts this morning.”
“Well, that’s two of us,” Gosling replied. “Make sure I’m supplied with coffee, Kibitz.”
“Right, Sir.” The older stallion offered a distinguished nod.
“Thanks, Kibitz, I couldn’t do this job without you.”
“Oh, I am aware of that, Sir, but I am amused to hear you say it.”
Blueblood’s study was almost claustrophobic. Oh, it was a large room, or had been at some point, but now it was so full of books, boxes, and other bric-a-brac that it was almost impossible to move through. The Brat Prince, as he was known, had his own filing system, his own means of chaotic organisation that Gosling couldn’t make any sense of.
In the middle of the room, there was a large table that had all of Equestria etched upon it, burned into the massive oaken beams of its surface. Beside the table, Blueblood stood, frowning, a deep, deep scowl causing his face to wrinkle. Beside him was Shining Armor, also scowling. The two princes looked worried, and Gosling could tell that this was going to be a rough day at work.
“What’s going on?” Gosling asked as he drew nearer the table.
“This,” Blueblood sighed in reply, gesturing at the things laying atop the table.
Stepping around various obstacles, Gosling joined his fellow princes at the table, and Shining Armor held up a photograph for Gosling to look at. Pulling his cloak tighter around himself, Gosling squinted and tried to make sense of what he was seeing in the bright over-saturated colours of the photograph that Shining Armor held in his magic.
A girl, a human girl, Gosling knew her through his intelligence briefings; Sunset Shimmer. She was pointing with her finger at something near her feet, at a cluster of bright blue flowers that was nearby. Try as he might, Gosling had some trouble figuring out what he was supposed to see, and he felt the first pangs of frustration.
“What am I looking at?” Gosling asked.
“This,” Shining Armor said in a flat, controlled voice, “is Sunset Shimmer. This photo was taken by one Pinkie Pie, the one beyond the mirror. The blue flowers near Sunset’s feet are poison joke.”
“Say again?” Gosling’s groin clenched with so much force that his words came out as a squeak. Right away, his well informed mind began putting together everything he knew, which was extensive, considerable. Poison joke acted as a filter for raw magic, bad magic, or corrupted magic. It worked especially well to counter Grogar’s corruptive influences on the thaumasphere.
“Poison joke is growing in the world beyond the mirror.” Shining Armor licked his lips and both ears trembled. “Sunset Shimmer brought magic to that world, or woke the magic that was dormant in that world, we can’t tell for certain. That’s beside the point, though. Now that there is active, living magic, the corruption has spread from this world to the next. Twilight received this last night, Sunset sent it to her, and she passed on copies of it to us.”
“This can’t be…” Feeling lightheaded, Gosling eased his backside to the floor and sat down. “No, this can’t be.”
Saying nothing, Blueblood let out a stifled groan and one hoof clopped against the floor.
“The poison joke was encountered at a place called Camp Everfree. A rather disturbing series of magical events took place there.” Shining Armor lowered the photograph down to the table, and placed it atop a pile of others. “Some of the campers have become sick with curious, debilitating ailments, and Sunset Shimmer gave a very thorough report of everything to my sister, Twilight.”
All of a sudden, Gosling felt sick to his stomach.
“Grogar can spread to anywhere that magic goes,” Blueblood said while he tapped one perfect hoof against the stone tile floor.
“We don’t know that for certain.” Shining Armor’s words lacked firm conviction and he made no effort to look Blueblood in the eye. “There is so much we don’t know about the world beyond the mirror, other than it is a very peculiar place.”
Sitting on the floor, Gosling could feel his muscles quivering, and his stomach was doing some impossible gymnastics. His eyes fell upon the stack of photographs and he wondered about what he might see if he looked at them. On the mantle, a water clock dripped, it was an annoyance, but Blueblood insisted on being annoyed, because it kept him from lapsing into complacency.
“What of the Tarnished Teapot beyond the mirror?” Gosling asked, and he saw that his words left both Shining Armor and Prince Blueblood looking quite troubled. After speaking, he wondered why he had never heard anything about that world’s Tarnished Teapot in any of his briefings.
“Events beyond the mirror reflect those in our world, but there are variations.” Blueblood, scowling, turned away, and he stared into the crackling, spitting flames in the fireplace. “In that world, Trixie Lulamoon is a girl in what they call high school. Just recently, she stole a car, a sort of autonomous wagon that exists beyond the mirror, and she foalnapped… kidnapped a young boy named Sumac Apple. She is now a wanted criminal. In her own words, she said she wanted to rescue Sumac from a cruel and unjust system of foster care.”
Gosling felt his throat tighten.
“She is now part of a criminal gang,” Blueblood continued. “She was joined by a nice girl named Lemon Hearts, and a girl from a wealthy family that goes by the name Twinkleshine that Trixie rescued from a place that promises to cure homosexuality, as if such a thing were possible—”
“What does this have to do with Mister Teapot?” Gosling demanded, his frustration becoming unbearable.
“Mister Teapot was a young man who dropped out of school. He was quite unlikeable in school, he was bullied, he was ridiculed, he was hated, and he was the town’s pariah.” Blueblood, still staring in the flames, cleared his throat, but couldn’t seem to continue, he just stood there, shaking his head, and after several failed attempts to speak, he gave up.
“You spoke in the past tense.” Gosling felt an unwelcome prickle travel up his spine, and he focused an intense stare upon Blueblood.
“Yes, I was, in fact, speaking in the past tense.” Blinking, Blueblood turned away from the flames, his pupils were tiny, and he gave Gosling a sad, worn down stare. “Feeling that there was no hope to be had, that there would be no place where he would be welcomed, Tarnished Teapot hung himself from a tree on the edge of town. He was found by a student named Maud Pie.”
“She… she…” Gosling knew this story, at least from this world. “She didn’t come in time to save him, did she?”
Both Shining Armor and Blueblood shook their heads.
Ears drooping, Gosling rested his head down upon the edge of the table and let out a sigh. Mister Teapot was Equestria’s greatest weapon against Grogar’s corruptive influence, he was the destroyer of dark artifacts, and in Gosling’s eyes, he held a fanatical, dangerous loyalty to Princess Celestia.
“So, are we to assume that Grogar creeps into a world where he will find no resistance?” Gosling asked, trying not to think of everything that had just been said, hoping to focus on something other than the dark words and the pall they brought with them.
“Oh, I am positive that Sunset and the others will find a way to resist him, if this is truly the case,” Shining Armor replied. Perhaps trying to cast away the chill that had settled into the room, Shining smiled, a weary, sad smile, but a smile nonetheless, and he drew in a deep breath. “Sunset Shimmer is an alicorn beyond the mirror. She has ascended. Where there are alicorns, there is hope, even if they exist in human form.”
“Yes.” Blueblood’s agreement sounded dry. “Indeed. Alicorns were engineered to save worlds, so there is hope.”
“What about me?” Gosling asked, realising that he had heard nothing about himself beyond the mirror.
Shining Armor and Blueblood glanced at one another, and then each of them focused upon Gosling. Feeling a little uncomfortable, Gosling thought about the feel of the wood against his fuzzy chin, and he wondered what his mirror counterpart might have done to make both Shining and Blueblood stare at him so.
“What’d I do?” Gosling, eager for relief from the painful words spoken earlier was eager to know what had happened.
Shining Armor’s ears fidgeted, he blinked a few times, then he cleared his throat and said, “Vice Principal Luna was discovered to be having a relationship with an underaged police cadet. It’s caused quite an uproar, and Luna insists that she has done nothing wrong.”
Blueblood, turning to look into the fire once more, he muttered the words, “The newspapers call you Officer Handsome and you’ve been offered a number of prominent modeling contracts.”
“Oh, really?” Gosling lifted his head.
“Damnit, Blueblood, there’ll be no living with him after this.”
“I know, Shining, I know.”