Chapter 21: Castle-Insania
Returning to the castle so soon wasn’t exactly in my plans, but after Luna had filled me in on the details, I felt more than obliged to attend to my duties. Apparently Blueblood had taken advantage of my absence to return to all of his old bad habits, verbally abusing the staff, making ridiculous demands of the city council, and generally making a righteous pain in the flank out of himself.
Luna and I arrive on the roof of the building, where she and I go our separate ways. Her, returning to her duties as Princess of the Night, and me, to track down a certain self-righteous bunghole and make his night miserable. Of course, according to my normal decrees, I couldn’t exactly go near him until morning, so I went about the rest of his usual stomping grounds in the castle, righting some wrongs and returning my own personal sense of order to his pompous chaos.
I work through the night, making some necessary changes, and talking to a few certain members of the night shift who weren’t totally put-off by my presence. They were more than happy to help me out if it meant dealing with my particular brand of assholishness as opposed to Bluey’s, so we got quite a lot done.
I also wrote a few letters to some night-owl members of the council, not expecting much, and being pleasantly surprised when they, too, had grown weary of Blue’s latest outburst of… himself over the last week, eager to get things back to normal. With the added bonus of sticking their ‘Prince’ where it hurt.
The next morning arrives rather quickly, and I find myself a little tired. Although it’s hardly the first workday I’ve done on little sleep, and I seem to be running both on vindication, and the slight buzz from my rather successful encounter with a certain adorable mailmare. Soon enough, of course, it’s six o’clock in the morning, and time for my boss to get up.
The butler who had been taking over my responsibilities, bless his heart, made a valiant attempt to get Blueblood out of bed the normal way, only to be yelled at and threatened with quite a few legal actions I happen to know for a fact Blueblood didn’t have the power or influence to carry out. I patted the dejected butler on the back as he walked out of the room, more than happy to leave things to me, as I let the door softly click shut.
Only to burst it open again with as many party whistles a I could fit into my mouth.
*FWWWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE*
Our ‘beloved’ prince fell out of bed with such enthusiasm I thought that maybe it had tried to bite him. “WHAT THE TARTARUS-Oh god it’s you,” he groaned, his rage subsided with a wave of disappointment as I marched into the room. “What the Tirek are you doing here? I thought you’d be gone for weeks!”
“You did!” I answered gleefully, throwing open his armoire carelessly, picking out the most obnoxious suit I could find. “Get dressed, you have a very busy day ahead of you!”
He pulled the clothes off his face with a stern look. “I know for a fact that I have no plans for today-” he started to argue, before I pulled out a really big list.
“On the contrary, you have a six-thirty meeting with the city planning board about your request to zone and build a new hotel in downtown Canterlot, then an eight o’clock breakfast with Aunt Luna and Celestia, OH! And Cadence will be there! Then there’s your ten o’clock with the disciplinary board about your community service, then lunch with the delegates from the Changeling Nation. At one o’clock you have a rather important meeting with the Royal Canterlot Orchestra, then the Canterlot Safety and Security Board has requested a two o’clock with you. Also there’s tea with Celestia and Discord at three-thirty, then your meeting with the Equestrian National Unicorn Society, which should actually take a while, those guys love to run their mouths. Then dinner with Luna, and finally you and I need to do our performance review before I clock off for the night!”
Each word out of my mouth seemed to slightly adjust some kind of palette dial in Blueblood’s face, as he grew more and more red as I spoke. “You did this, didn’t you?”
I gave him my most genuine, happy, dangerous smile. “No, Prince. YOU did.”
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“REJECTED?!” Blueblood shouts to the rooftops, as he bust out of the meeting hall in indignant rage. “How dare they reject my hotel! Who’s the brilliant moron who pointed out that that block was a historical site anyways?!”
“Gee, I wonder,” I muse to myself, trotting loyally alongside.
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Blueblood and I walk slowly out of the dining hall, his head hung low while I beamed with pride. His Aunts and Cousin had wasted no time in serving him every backhanded comment, every disapproving glance, and every “tut-tut” in their arsenal. Between their combined experience as Royal Sovereigns, babysitters, aunts, and in Cadence’s case, parenthood, they had lobbed every guilty trick in the book at him over the last half hour that they were capable of.
“So what’s next?” I ask cheerfully, pulling out the list.
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“DOUBLE!” he shouts, again bursting out of the meeting hall in a royal huff. “They served me DOUBLE my sentence, simply for missing a few days!”
“Yes, it’s almost as if somepony had pointed out all of the compoundable offenses you’d committed to them in some rather detailed overnight letter,” I thought aloud.
He glared at me horribly. I beamed.
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Once again, Blueblood walked slowly and shamefully out of the room. This time, covered in green changeling goo. “Not a word.”
“You called them cheeselegs.”
“NOT. A WORD.”
“That’s like, a massive racial slur in Changeling vernacular.”
“SCHADEN.”
“Just saying.”
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“A RESTRAINING ORDER?! HOW?!” Blueblood yelled, waving the piece of paper in front of him vigorously.
“Maybe somepony pointed out to their conductor that sending notice to civilian mares informing them of your intent to start a harem, and requesting their presence, was made a sexual harrasment charge over a hundred years ago? Just a guess.”
“SHUT UP, SCHADEN.”
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“THEY. TOOK DOWN. MY STATUE.” He yelled, storming out of the meeting room again.
“Yes. Who knew that it was positioned in such a place as to block a certain traffic light from view at a specific angle as to render the entire statue a major traffic violation. Did you know that? They sure did. Somehow.”
He just growled incomprehensibly as we made our way to the tea room.
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I wasn’t even talking as we walked. I was just laughing. Hard, and loud. I almost couldn’t keep up.
Where Prince Blueblood’s Cutie Mark had been, and, in fact, along the rest of his side, were printed the words “Kick me, I’m a Stoopy Poopy Scare-a-dy Pony” in bright red letters.
He walked along with a slight limp, as a large red hoofmark shone on his flank. He said nothing.
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“They kicked me out,” he said hollowly. All the air had left him, it seems.
“Who knew they could fill an entire two hours with every violation you’d ever committed against the Equestrian National Unicorn Society? That was a very well-organized list, too.”
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The doors to the dining room burst open, as Blueblood ran screaming. I simply trotted along, confident that I’d catch up with him. Luna simply chuckled behind me.
I was starting to like her.
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Blueblood slammed his head against the desk, making the rather large stack of papers next to him bounce with each impact.
I continued to read off the list. “Reason two hundred seventy-five I’m legally entitled to a raise...”