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// Civil Dissent 
// Story: The Importance of Being Civil 
// by TheAmazingMe 
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Misery. As the coach swayed and jolted, I lay still and sweaty on a lounge chair. Each rattle quickened the beating of my heart. Every shake caused a tremulous rumbling in the hellish pits of my upset stomach. At times it was all I could do to keep the bile at bay.

And there she was, sitting scant hooffalls away, gazing out the window at the rapidly passing scenery. Unshaken. Unconcerned. Sickeningly at ease with the situation. As if she could feel my eye upon her, she turned to me to smile.

"I suppose I should work on my motion sickness spell. Starswirl would be greatly unimpressed by our results." Her humor did nothing to ease my mood. Leaning over, she adjusted the cold compress on my forehead.

I winced. "Don't touch me...your hoof polish..."

She snorted. "Honestly? That's the best you can do? You're the one who insisted I wear the hoofguards in spite of my objections and now you're concerned with my hoof polish?"

I will admit, the motion sickness overpowered my better judgement momentarily. "It is because you insist on not wearing your hoofguards in private settings that we even made the compromise on hoof polish at all! So if you must wear it instead of proper attire, you would do well to keep it looking presentable. Proper presence is key to maintaining the awe and reverence of your faithful subjects," I said, my tone perhaps more sharp than was appropriate given my station.

Celestia sighed, her ever-present smile never failing to astound me. It made working with her a challenge; one never knew exactly what Her Royal Highness was thinking. That opaqueness had its benefits and its drawbacks. Adjusting the compress with her magic, I had to close my eyes against the glow of her aura. "Well, since you insisted on attending this review of the Equestrian Foalcare System, I suppose you could say this situation is all of your own making. Perhaps this is all your plot to get me to wear my hoofguards at all times?" She arched a brow in good humor.

I snorted, resisting the urge to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of the faux-accusation. "Alas, my scheme has been uncovered."

To my dry humor, Celestia responded with a ready and open laugh. She didn't even bother to cover her mouth politely. I rolled my eyes as she patted my shoulder.

"And they say you don't have a sense of humor." Celestia waved a hoof at her eyes to dry the tears of mirth.

"'They' would be correct," I remarked, although my words were cut off by the train whistle.

"Looks like we're here. The last stop before home, Civvie." The princess insisted on using that silly nickname. I'd hated it ever since my husband first used it. I stomached the indignity, as well as my motion sickness, and gathered a few items.

All told, this looked as if it would be a standard visit to a local orphanage. A few of the foals there had parents who died in a fairly recent epidemic. It was an easy positive public relations move. Almost a cliche, really. Princess Celestia had insisted on it after hearing the names of the two doctors who solved the epidemic. Their son was now in the care of Her Royal Highness' EFS system, put in place under her direction to centralize and formalize the many disparate and even a few destitute orphanages.

By all accounts, the reputation of this orphanage was uncommonly good. Mrs. Tender Care met us at the door, her charges and her assistant arrayed in the cafeteria inside. Right away I knew that this place was over hyped. The number of charges was startling, easily double if not triple the capacity of any other facility. And the staffing was dismal: only Mrs. Care, her husband, and her assistant. It was clear the community had done little to preserve the weakest among them in the ensuing chaos and subsequent relief of the epidemic crisis.

In all my years, I'd built up an ability to sense when Princess Celestia was about to go off script. This time, it was the way her eyes stuck to a foal. A dirty little blond-maned, white-coated, blue-eyed colt stood away from his peers. A churlish look disgraced his otherwise pleasant features, helped not in the least by the bruising...

My thoughts snapped to the situation immediately in front of me. Celestia was offering to heal the colt personally. "Highness, it is quite inappropriate..." Her eyes turned to me with a look quite unlike any I'd ever before witnessed. Pain, anger, and a possessive maternal instinct. I frankly would never have expected her to possess such a strong immediate connection.

With a poise and civility of a pony much older and of higher station, the colt piped up. “If it pleases Your Highness, permission granted.” Her horn glowed, casting an aura of healing magic over the colt's black eye.

She leaned in to whisper something I couldn't quite catch. When she stood, she returned to me and pulled me into a side room. The guards and representative ponies accompanying us were left outside.

I bowed. "Highness, I apologise..."

"What would you have me do, Lady List? Stand idly by and not ensure the well being of a foal?" Her words were spoken with an almost eerie calm. Given her use of my title instead of her usual nicknames, I knew I was in trouble.

I shook my head. "No, Your Royal Highness, I only meant that it would be more proper to let one of the doctors accompanying us do the healing, as they would have more experience."

She sighed. "I likely would have, if this foal wasn't family."

My ear flicked forwards and my head shot up. "What?"

"Ever since news came to me of the  sickness in this town, I've watched it carefully. When I heard the names of the doctors who ended the crisis, I wondered. When I heard they died, I was wistful. When I heard they had a son, I worried." She seemed at a loss due to warring emotions. Turning, she pointed back at the door. "I believe that foal is a distant relative of mine. From a branch I thought extinct."

The sentence couldn't even process through my head without raising red flags. "What branch? How distant? Noble bloodlines haven't gone extinct in ages. The last was the..." Before I could continue, she cut me off.

Her presence was suddenly almost overbearing. She'd ceased to be just her normal self and was now Her Royal Self. I'd forgotten that She could be intimidating when She so chose. Her height only helped sustain that feeling. "A bloodline that wasn't in any of your teacher's books. The literal Blood line. The House of Royal Blood. Princess Platinum's youngest son. They left Canterlot during one of the earliest noble house debates. I've not been in contact with any of that line in centuries."

Had it been any other pony, I would have called such a pronouncement the most wild of nonsense. "Are you sure? The Royal Genealogy records would confirm this only to the point they left Canterlot. Just having the Blood in their name could be a coincidence. It beggars belief that..."

That look returned to Her face. Once more I cut off my sentence. ,"All I am suggesting is that we look at the colt's family tree. The Vital Records office should have them. I'll send a message ahead of us. By your leave, of course."

The princess looked as if she wanted to debate the necessity, but ultimately she acquiesced. "Do it quickly."

After explaining everything to the princess's Royal Guard captain, we made the necessary arrangements to get Her Royal Highness to the Vital Records office. We took the bare minimum in terms of personnel. Luncheon with the EFS representatives was right off the schedule. That meant a stack of apologies for me to send and egos to soothe. After that, it was a simple matter of getting her chariot off the ground. Through clenched eyes and gritted teeth, I sat beside her and tried to formulate a strategy for consoling her when it turned out to be untrue.

The dumpy teal mare at the first window of the records office nearly fell out of her chair at the sight of us. "P-Princess Celestia! What can we do for you, ma'am." My eyebrow twitched at the lack of decorum, but Celestia had a mission.

She nodded gracefully. "I need to pull a family tree record. By the account in the paper, this family has lived here for several generations."

The mare continued her lack of proper etiquette. "Yes, I believe we can help you. Unfortunately, Your Royal Highness' laws prevent anyone but the family or the princess from accessing those logs." She turned to me with an apologetic look. "Your servants will have to wait."

Before I could object, Celestia spoke up. "That's fine. I will need to bring my guard captain, I'm afraid he will insist. His clearance gives him access to these records. Civil, I will be back in a moment."

I nodded weakly. "Yes, Your..." But she and her captain were gone down the hall. It occurred to me at that moment that as an advisor, I did have clearance to view the Royal Records. Holding the bridge of my nose with one hoof, I crossed to the waiting room and sat on a chair. My pose was dignified, in spite of my irritation. Another more irritating thought followed: genealogy records were relatively new for common-born ponies. If this office hadn't begun the work of putting together family trees, it could well be impossible to prove conclusively.

It took a solid hour before they returned. Celestia had quite a long scroll in her magic. By its smell, I could tell the ink was just barely dry enough to carry. "It is as I thought, Civil." She turned to the records worker and nodded. "I trust you will be discreet and not reveal this before I do. We will submit this record with the EFS and I will take guardianship of Blueblood."

The Vital Records pony agreed readily and curtsied. "Yes, ma'am." I could have laughed at the worker's sudden show of propriety, had it not been such a serious situation.

I drew a deep breath through my nostrils. Looking my sovereign straight in the eye, I put on my most guarded tone. "Your Royal Highness, this is highly unusual for a multitude of reasons. Do you intend to raise this foal? With what time? Would it not be better to foster him out to a lesser noble house? The House of the Heart has a filly about his age."

She shook her head. "That is not how the House of the Day handles its familial duties. We will make time for a foal. Besides, you heard how polite he was. He practically parroted back the most etiquette-minded responses I've heard. Aside from you." The last bit she added with a meaningful look in her eye. "And I'll have you. You raised foals."

I opened my mouth to correct her, but before I could bring up my husband's care routines, my brain stalled. "Me? But I'm your advisor. I'm not a nanny."

"If he is to become my heir, Civil, I will need him to have my best advisor as his tutor. And it will finally get Lord Fields off my back about arranging a marriage. I swear, he's more determined than any other Lord I've ever known to get me married off." Celestia turned to the door.

"Celestia, you can't..." I began, before realizing my mistake.

She turned back to face me. Any sensible pony would shrink. I didn't. "Your advice is duly noted and heartily disregarded," she said.

I stood firm. "There will be consequences for this that you may not realize until it is too late."

She turned away. Igniting her horn, she cast her magic around the door knob. Before stepping through, she spoke quietly. "It will be worth it."