There are certain traits which you associate with a royal title, which creates expectations in a person that holds said title.
Expectations in their ability, character and influence.
“Neighyork Times? Curse those ponies and their puns!”
Expectations can also easily be shattered.
Frank was standing in the equestrian version of a gas station with a pile of dirty magazines in his basket. The large building on the outskirts of Ponyville stood out like a sore thumb and Frank had been instantly fascinated by its purpose. They sold everything you would expect from a gas station on earth in ponified form, minus the obvious things that didn’t exist in Equestria. They even had gasoline pumps, but the things only ran water for thirsty ponies and cleaning purposes.
He kept snooping around the premise and stared at the magazine rack, making it really awkward for all the stallions and adolescent colts in the store. One can only imagine the amount of courage it would take for a young male to grab the recent issue of “Playcolt” while the ruler of your nation was intensely scowling at the pinup mares on the glossy magazine covers.
“Centerfolds don’t really work for quadrupeds.”
None of them would ever know how unnecessary their hesitation was.
Frank’s intense look didn’t come from anger or disgust, just from mere frustration at his task at hand. He considered himself a healthy and sexually interested male, so finding something suitable in that massive assortment of smut shouldn’t have been as difficult as it turned out to be. It took only a couple of magazines for him to realize how much he was over his head.
What kind of beauty standard does a culture have where over ninety percent ran around with the same body type?
Mane style? Wingspan? Horn length?
Only Luna had made Frank feel the more carnal sides of affection. The erotic material about the show on earth followed usually the trend of changing the cartoony art style to make it sexier. The mares lolling lasciviously on the covers still looked like they would in the children’s cartoon for girls and were more cute than arousing. Soon he felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices.
Lucky for him, Frank had found a second opinion to fall back on. “Stop putting that magazine on the pile, Pinkie. The mare on the cover looks nothing like Rarity!”
“Are you kidding me, princess? Look at the shape of those cheek bones and knee curves! They’re almost twins!”
A very loud and vocal opinion.
Frank didn’t question why Pinkie Pie had suddenly appeared in the store and helped him. She’s Pinkie, so why wouldn’t she materialize out of thin air? The pink menace had a lot of free time since her forced vacation and things at the festival still went smoothly without her constant supervision due to planning in a magnitude that would make Twilight look careless.
His muzzle vanished behind another magazine as he droned on. “The mare on the cover is a green earth pony. Rarity is a white unicorn.” He squinted his eyes and turned the cover sideways. “Maybe it could work if you cut off her horn and throw them in the a bucket of white paint. With the same color and accessories, you all look the identical to me.”
Pinkie kept staring at Frank expectantly until he glanced at her over the top of his magazine.
“What?”
“I’m waiting for the punchline of your joke, princess.”
“Did I say something funny?”
Pinke laughed nervously and backed away. She vanished behind the shelf and Frank shrugged when the pink pony didn’t reappear.
“She can be quite a hoofful, can’t she?” A voice said in his hoof.
Frank glanced down to the magazine he was holding and caught movement on the cover. It featured a picture of a pompously decorated room in classy lighting. Center of attention was the large bed with rosebuds sprinkled on it. Several mares on the purple satin sheets came to life and did various poses in their lacy undergarments and ornate saddles, giving Frank bedroom eyes and blowing kisses at him. Those eyes suddenly focused on the large bulge under the sheets in their midsts.
Frank's nose was almost pressed against the paper as something sprang out from under it.
Or better a chaotic someone.
“Suprise!” Discord threw his arms up and pushed two mares rudely off the bed in the process.
Frank licked his hoof out of habit to flip the page. “Hello, Discord. Nice to see you again.”
Discord’s grin faltered after the lackluster reaction. “You could a least pretend to be shocked by my antics. You know, for old time’s sake.”
“You should get out of there quickly,” Frank said dryly, realizing the uselessness of his wet hoof and pointed it at the title of the magazine instead. “Unless you’re into that kind of stuff.”
Discord looked at the magazine title and froze.
“A stallion’s wet dream: Playcolt Special Herd Issue.”
The mares started crawling towards the draconequus on the bed while licking their lips, joined by the two that Discord had thrown off.
“You had no idea where you would appear, don't you?” Frank asked smugly. One of the unicorns had already wrapped Discord’s tail around herself and played with its end like a kitten.
“I didn’t expect that you surround yourself with such stimulating literature,” Discord muttered, keeping another lusty mare and their kisses at bay with a pillow.
“I’m not feeling like myself lately,” Frank said, turning the page.“I’m sorry if this inconveniences you.”
“Don’t be! It’s amazing!” Discord said full of vigor as he jumped from the cover into a hottub on the next page with a loud splash. He surfaced with a glass of champagne and a black thong on his antler. “You’re wonderful company as of late. Nothing like the boring wet blanket you’re used to be!”
Frank smiled. “Nice to have your approval for my descent into abnormality.” He turned the page again to the roleplay section. “It’s hard to please everybody.”
“Right...” Discord said sympathetically from a hospital bed on the next page with several nurses in saucy stockings. He leaned back on the pillow, having been given some more food for thought while the equipment came to life with a snap of his claws and fought off the lecherous medical staff.
“I’m sorry for yesterday by the way.”
The sincerity in Frank’s voice surprised Discord and weakened his guard. One nurse managed to cut through his heart monitor linebacker and jumped onto his face to attached herself like a plunger. A ripped electrical cord from the machine took care of that problem quite nicely and very loud.
Frank raised his voice to speak over the screams of agony. “I made an error by using the alicorn amulet to my advantage and you were the main victim of my rage. You have every right to be angry with me.”
“Angry?” Discord waited for the banging noise from the bedpan to fade. “Oh dear friend, whatever gave you that idea?” Discord’s expression darkened as his head came flying out of the magazine pressed itself against Frank’s forehead. “You’ve never seen me angry.”
Discord wasn’t boasting or bluffing. Frank could tell the truthfulness of his words. This was not a threat but simple fact. The history of the show supported that claim and Frank realized for the first time how narrowly they had avoided a catastrophe.
So he was all the gladder when Discord returned to his usual and chipper self. “I was a bit miffed, but not because of you. If anything, I should thank you. You managed to genuinely surprise me and I treasure such a gift above everything else.”
The heart monitor unleashed his last charge of electroshocks before the brave little machine flatlined and Discord saluted to his sacrifice. “Is this a pegasus issue? They seem more than resistant to shocks than usual.”
Frank pointed at the header again. “S&M section.”
The door to the hospital burst open to reveal two dozen heart monitors and defibrillators pulling a charge to avenge their brother in arms. “Ah, makes sense. I’m running out of juice here. Do you mind changing the page?”
“I think I’ve seen enough.” Frank shielded his eyes from the fierce flickering and third-degree burns of imaginary ponies. “The next pages have all the fetishes and I really don’t want to see you in skintight black leather.”
He still wasn’t feeling all that well from his magic exhaustion and Luna would have his head for this, but Frank valued the safety of his mental health more than any ailments from a slight headache. Discord got sucked out of the magazine with a flare of Frank’s horn and landed roughly on his behind, in tow a huge suitcase with stickers from every place and horse pun imaginable
Frank winced through the building pain behind his eyes and mustered the large piece of luggage with interest. “What’s with the suitcase? Did Fluttershy kick you out?”
Discord didn’t answer. His paw had reached for the piece of black lingerie on his antler and inspected it with a mixture of worry and fascination. Frank stretched his neck to get a better look and saw three pink butterflies stitched on the meager piece of fabric.
“Let me gift you some of my literature. A good read usually helped me to get over a bad breakup in the past.”
Frank went to his basket with slight sway and rummaged through the pile of smut. Without warning, a pink hoof poked out between the magazines and startled the hell out of him. The wobbly limb waved happily and handed him a copy with a very bubbly looking earth pony on the front. A second hoof joined the other with a drawn on face and a speech bubble.
“Pretty Please?” It read in big pink letters.
“How about this spunky dame,” Frank patted the hoof like a pet and showed Discord the cover with a grin, before putting it aside for another magazine from the pile, “or would you prefer something more timid and delicate? A pegasus, maybe?”
The pink hoof vanished in the pile and reappeared with added angry eyebrows to its face, punching Frank painfully in the butt.
Discord stared a moment at both covers and shook his head. “I appreciate the gesture, but nothing is wrong with me and dear Fluttershy. I’m merely going on a little trip.”
“Where to?” Frank asked.
“I don’t know.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“I don’t know that either. Isn't’ it great?” he brimmed with excitement and Frank gave up on his line of questioning with an eye roll, lacking interest due to his worsening migraine and discounting the whole shtick as a Discord thing. “However, I can’t go before saying farewell to my favorite princess.”
The large white pony pointed at himself with a questioning look and Discord nodded, making Frank smile weakly before he spoke. “Now that there are five of us, I really feel flattered by your choice.”
“Yes, you see… Wait, five?” Discord put a claw up to his face and started counting. He stopped several times at four digits with a frown. Then he pulled the fifth unused talon from his claw and changed his expression to a grin. “Don’t tell me who it is. I like to be surprised.”
The missing thumb reattached itself and he reached out to him with his complete claw. Frank looked at it questioningly, until he realized that Discord offered a handshake that he gladly took as a gesture of burying the hatchet for good.
“This was definitely the right choice!” Discord said ominously and tightened his grip around Frank’s hoof with a massive jolt of energy pulsating through the surprised alicorn. The other customers sought shelter behind shelves and counters as objects started to explode at random into confetti under Discord's roar.
"THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!!!"
Frank stumbled groggily backward. He opened his mouth and released a single cotton candy cloud into the air like a puff of smoke. Every single strand of hair on his body stood on end, turning his hairdo into a prismatic afro.
“A hand buzzer? Really? I would’ve thought that mundane practical jokes were beneath the almighty spirit of chaos.” He shook his aching hoof to get the numbness out, eyeing Discord warily and noticing the drastic change of his appearance. The misshapen draconequus had transformed himself into a brown unicorn stallion of middle age and dark gray hair with a matching goatee.
Discord didn’t look the least bit worried about the new body, already lifting the large suitcase on his back with a grunt. “It’s a classic and sometimes it’s good to start back from scratch. A return to the basics, so to speak,” He said while visibly struggling to keep balance because of the additional weight on his back. “Although, it seems that this will need some time for me to get used to. Would you be so kind and spare an outfit for this poor traveler?”
The refusal to strain his weakened magical power was already on his tongue and halfway out his mouth when Frank noticed something.
The headaches were gone.
He was feeling great!
Frank shrugged and ignited his horn. Currently, the earlier Discord was out of his sight the better. The result of his magic wasn’t quite what Frank had imagined. He had wanted to give Discord a simple jacket but summoned a red Hawaiian shirt instead. The star-shaped sunglasses and flower garland were just the confusing cherry on top.
Discord gave himself a once-over with a big smile, which got even wider when Frank did some cautious taps against his horn. “This will do nicely. Well, I’m off then. Good luck!” He waved and froze, mustering Frank with a dangerous glint in his new pony eyes “Oh wait, there’s something I need to know...”
“What would that… hnnggg!!!” Frank felt two hooves grab his face and pull it down before Discord gave him a big kiss straight on the lips.
The few customers that hadn’t fled by now got the sight of their lives as their princess and a strange stallion smooched it out in the debris of the magazine isle.
“Not much different as a pony.” Discord said with a smirk and released the dumbfounded alicorn from his hooves.
Instantly, an aftertaste of caramel and chocolate assaulted Frank’s taste buds. He had done it again! Discord had kissed him! Part of Frank got furious like the last time he tasted draconequs tongue, already searching the store for a sufficiently large piece of equipment to bash him to paste.
But then, another and surprisingly loud part of his mind took over. “You call that a kiss?” Frank’s strong legs grabbed the much smaller pony and flipped him backward into a tango pose. “Let me show you how it is done!”
The still petrified onlookers witnessed in bafflement as the horse-sized princess stared the much smaller stallion down, before shoving her tongue down his throat under muffled protests and squeals. The unicorn melted under the mass of warm flesh and soft fur whose owner seemingly tried to eat his face now. Their lips noisily parted with a wet sound as both gazed at each other.
“The exit is there. Have a nice trip!” Frank said and dropped him to wipe his lips with a foreleg.
“I will…”
Frank watched with grim satisfaction as Discord tumbled out of the building with his luggage.
And the two magazines from earlier on top.
“What a sly dog... Looks like there’s still hope, Pinkie,” Frank whispered to the pile of magazines, noticing after poking it that he was only talking to himself. Pinkie had vanished without a trace, but not before leaving him a little present on his butt.
“Very cute...” Frank inspected the piece of art with mirth. The sun on his flank had two crosses as eyes and a puking mouth, appropriate to the surrounding stink lines and flies. He sniffed his butt and smelled the familiar scent of fresh wall paint.
Unknown to Pinkie, she had managed to capture his current feelings about Discord’s advances very well. A very small part of him had enjoyed the interaction and that thought was all kinds of disturbing. He was still him and he only loved Luna, but the increasing amount of spontaneous mood swings put him seriously out of whack on a mental and emotional level.
And somehow it was getting worse.
Frank shuddered and went to browse the magazine rack. Getting back to his earlier task of finding suitable smut for a pubescent dragon would hopefully help to calm his mind. Deep in thoughts, he levitated one of the juice cans lying around and took a sip to wash the taste of guy out. He didn’t notice the small flicker of green in his magic before the liquid touched his tongue and got spit out immediately in surprise.
A small trickle ran down Frank’s chin and stained his coat brown.
“Chocolate milk?”
Sweet Apple Acres
“Did you see that flash?”
Applejack looked out of the window from her living room, but couldn’t see anything through the treeline surrounding their house. From her perspective, you could think that nothing was wrong on their sweet little home.
Granny Smith smashed that illusion to pieces pretty quickly.
“Don’t change the subject, missy!” the old mare yelled. “Get those good for nothing hoodlums off my property!”
The ghost of a smile appeared on Applejack’s face. On more than one occasion she’d admired the vigor of her granny and hoped sincerely, that she would be half as vital as a mare at that age. Sure, that energy was currently directed at the twins on their couch, but it was awe-inspiring to hear such a booming voice out of such a brittle frame. Only personal experience stopped her from defending the Flim-Flam brothers. Both had a glass of apple juice in their hooves while Granny was laying in on them. Juice, Granny had made herself and kept in storage for guests.
“The fence is still all crooked from the time you two no-gooders bumped into it with your doohickey!”
Applejack barely stifled a snort. After the damage that the fire had done yesterday, a bump in the fence was the least of their problems. The flames had been put out quickly and had thankfully started at the outskirts of Sweet Apple Acres, but the damage was huge nonetheless. Large parts of their orchard were now unusable until the charred trees were removed and replaced with new saplings.
Sweetie Belle had volunteered immediately to help. Applejack didn’t think the filly would be of much help until she had remembered her magic duel in the stadium and left the little powerhouse to her own devices.
That kid had gotten really weird lately.
Flam took a sip from his cold beverage under Granny Smith’s piercing glare, leaving Flim to respond in a placating manner. “We are most sorry for any inconveniences, that my brother and I may have brought on your farm in the past. I sincerely hope that you can consider our humble apologies.”
Flim found out quickly, how far sweet talk would bring him with Granny Smith. “Son, did you fall on your head as a little colt? You’re not a pineapple, so stop babbling so fruity with me.”
Applejack couldn’t resist cringing at the poor choice of words from her grandmother. The talk about Flim’s more feminine interests and source of ridicule was still fresh in her mind, making her hope that the two brothers wouldn’t take it the wrong way.
To her great relief, Flim gave Granny a sly smile. “Delicate like a rock to the face. You are definitely the grandmother of Miss Apple.”
Applejack relaxed and actually giggled at his quip while Granny Smith lost her train of thought from shock. Her granddaughter wasn’t the type of pony that giggled like a little schoolfilly. Applejack usually hollered and howled how a tough apple family dame was supposed to do. The fact that she laughed at a joke that was directed at her own grandmother was just the cherry on top.
“And you!” Applejack covered her mouth and sank deeper into her seat, trying to make herself as small a target as possible for the pointing green hoof. “How could you just leave the farm like that?”
In the meantime, Crusher was standing offside the whole commotion with common sense to stay away from the squabbles of his new boss and her family. He has been hired him for shallow reasons, more a trophy to ogle at than an actual employee. The job was simple and he didn’t feel compelled to stress those boundaries.
However, some aspects of his employment started to creep him out a bit. Most of all, his silent earthpony version standing next to him. Crusher was still wearing the hat that Applejack had bought, matching with a wheat she put in his mouth on the farm earlier. The same kind of wheat, his lookalike was currently nibbling on with a neutral expression.
“Are you also employed here?”
“Nope.”
“Friend of the family?”
Big Mac shook his head.
Crusher gulped. “Distant cousin?”
He watched in horror as the big guy beside him bit the inside of his cheek with the same empty look.
“You're her damn brother, aren’t you?”
“Eyup,” Big Mac said with a deep sigh.
Both stallions turned their attention to a suddenly yelling Applejack.“Don’t you dare question my dedication to our family! We’ve lost a lot out there and I mourn every single one of them! Sapplington, the Leafy Twins, Branchinov the Third, and the whole Bark Dynasty to mention a just few!”
Crusher leaned towards Big Mac. “She’s still talking about apple trees, right?”
His whispering was a bit too loud to go unnoticed by Granny Smith. The old mare turned to him and Big Macintosh with a frown. After blinking and rubbing her eyes a few times, she walked closer to Crusher and stared him down. “Holy cow! I thought the whole time my old eyes make me see double! Who are you?”
“My name is Crusher, mam. Newest employee of Miss Apple.”
“Miss Apple, huh?” Granny Smith said, throwing a glance back to her nervous grandchild, “Didn’t your mother teach you to take off your hat indoors?”
The large stallion stood straighter under Granny’s authoritative tone. “Miss Apple has set a strict set of rules as part of my employment. One of them is to wear this hat all times to cover my horn. This is the only rule related to clothes and appearance. The rest is how to behave and talk to her.”
Granny raised an eyebrow. “My granddaughter tells you how to talk?”
Crusher glanced at Applejack and cleared his throat.
“Eyup.”
His imitation was spot on. So much so, that Applejack couldn’t help herself and let out an excited and very high pitched squeal while Big Mac’s coat turned a few shades lighter from paling.
Granny became as deadpan as a mask. “Applejack? What exactly is Mr. Crusher employed for?”
Applejack managed to avert her sparkling eyes from Crusher for a few moments. “What ever do you mean Granny?”
“You know exactly what I mean, young lady. I was young once too.”
Big Mac turned almost white.
“What would your…” Granny’s eyes flashed towards the nearby window from a movement outside and she paused. Her head turned along the wall and stayed on the door as the knob turned. The others in the room joined her as the door opened and revealed the outside and their guests.
“By all that is holy…”
Earlier at the outskirts of Sweet Apple Acres
Blueblood loved to play dress up.
He always had, since he was a little colt. Through a small amount of imagination and a costume, there was literally nothing he couldn’t be: A shining knight saving the princess, a brave firepony putting out fires, or an explorer through ancient ruins.
However, despite having worn so many costumes, Blueblood couldn’t make sense out of the costume he had taken from his aunt this morning. It didn’t look like anything he has seen before, with the handlebar mustache, black sunglasses, and neon-red “Tiamania” bandana around his head. He would have asked for the tights and shirt as well, but he knew that those wouldn’t fit. His aunt was way too tall and had a butt that was much larger than his.
As a colt playing hide and seek, he often had asked her to get up from the throne to see if someone was hiding under there.
She hadn’t eaten cake for a whole month after he’d told her why for the first time.
Besides sparing his aunt’s feelings, what he did wear, was already enough for him to be happy. Usually, he only played around in the safe confines of the castle and wouldn’t have the heart to put on a mask other than “Prince Blueblood” in public. All the more, he was stunned how easy it was to move around town with this getup.
The familiar feeling of anxiety was missing and as far as he could tell, the mares reacted the same as always. It unnerved Blueblood when they made those high-pitched sighing noises at him and kept blinking very fast. The guards in the castle called it “hitting on him”, but why they would try to hurt him with their eyes was a mystery to the clueless stallion.
He figured that he was maybe immune to their “eye-hurt” powers and generally ignored them when possible. Only one mare had ever done something afterward, and that only included some yelling while she sprayed him with cake.
Quite funny in hindsight.
The behavior of the remaining non-female crowd really confused him though. Dozens of ponies and other species approached him for autographs, and the stallholders all around town gave him free stuff at every opportunity. New to this mask, Blueblood didn’t know how to act and decided to just accept their praise and do some of his aunts poses when asked.
After what felt like hundreds of free food samples and badly scribbled signatures as the “Princess Saver”, Blueblood wandered off the town to get away from all the hustle and bustle. His childlike curiosity took hold of him once he saw Sweet Apple Acres from afar. Especially, when he entered the eerie part with the scorched trees and ashy ground. Pictures of fire-breathing dragons filled his mind as he picked up a thick branch and swung it around like a sword.
He poked the nearest tree with gusto. “Take that foul beast! Go back to whence thou camest! Forward stallions, a glorious feast awaits for the victor!”
Blueblood loved how funny his aunt Luna talked sometimes.
The stick struck his wooden foe rapidly under heated battle cries until someone stepped loudly on something behind him and the make believe sword dropped from his magic grip. He flipped around, staring at the nearest tree husk and waited with bated breath for the vivid fantasies of monsters and dragons to become reality.
A little white filly with bubble gum mane came out sheepishly behind the tree and gave him a strained smile. “Uh… hi, I’m Sweetie Belle. What are you doing here?”
Blueblood relaxed and picked the stick back up to swing it around some more. “Playing knight.”
Sweetie Belle frowned at the weird answer. Adults didn’t play pretend. Besides Pinkie, she couldn’t think of another pony of such advanced age that would wear a costume in public so far away from Nightmare Night.
“I really like your bandana,” she said earnestly, recognizing the piece of clothing from her match with Princess Celestia and grinning at the handlebar mustache that looked even bigger on his face.
Blueblood smiled back. “Auntie gave it to me.”
At this point, Sweetie Belle connected the dots and figured out the identity of the stallion in front of her. Rarity had talked endlessly about the handsome nephew of Princess Celestia in the past. The tone had changed drastically after her visit to the Grand Galopping Gala, but she still mentioned him from time to time.
Mostly as a comparison to something very unflattering.
“Are you Prince Blueblood?” Sweetie Belle asked shakily, trying to find out for certain if she was in the presence of royalty.
“Not currently,” he answered happily. “Right now I’m something else. I haven’t found a name for it yet.”
That answer confused Sweetie Belle once again, but she credited it to the usual weirdness of nobility. Twilight and the other princesses were much more approachable than regular high society ponies. In her experience, nobles and celebrities were much more full of themselves and didn’t mingle with common folk like her.
Blueblood went back to hit the tree with his stick and she tilted her head. “What are you doing exactly here, Sir knight?”
“Fighting dragons fair maiden.” Blueblood gave his enemy another vicious poke without looking back to her while talking. “What are you doing here?”
“Actually doing something useful by removing dead trees for training. My friends rather waste their time playing detective,” “Apple Bloom is dead set to find the culprit of this fire, but I don’t want cipher through all that ash and soot.”
The second she used her magic, Blueblood recognized the gentle glow and her as the filly who fought his aunt. He stopped playing around and watched how she skillfully remove branches from other trees. Three of the branchless trunks got enveloped in a white aura. Sweetie Belle focused while biting her upper lip and ripped the trees among their roots out of the ground with a forceful pull. The heavy trunks levitated to the side, where she stacked them neatly on top of each other.
“So not a maiden, but a wizard?”
Sweetie Belle noticed smugly how impressed he was with her demonstration. “Do you want to help me?”
“Can I? Could you show me again?”
She nodded and turned to a row of five trees. In a single motion, she stripped them of their branches and ripped them all out of the ground simultaneously with an upwards jerk of her head.
“Try to top that!”Sweetie Belle was exhausted but happy. Endless pride filled the little filly from the accomplishments in such short time. Most adult unicorns she knew couldn’t do that with their magic and it made her feel special.
Blueblood observed her neatly stack of tree trunks. “By how much should I top it?”
That answer irked her. “What do you mean by how much? This is a competition! Do your best to get rid of these trees!”
For a while, nothing happened as he blankly stared at the orchard. Blueblood fixated the trees in front of him and breathed slowly. A tree started to glow to his left, then two to his right, then four behind him, then eight, then a hundred all around, until every single tree in sight was enveloped by a golden aura.
“What a showoff!” Sweetie Belle thought and shielded her eyes from the blinding light, “No way he can…”
The trees exploded like giant sticks of dynamite.
All at once.
Nothing had remained left standing. Only hundreds of neatly arranged holes and raining splinters of wood were testimonies for their existence in the past. Both of them stood now in a giant empty clearance.
“How did you… this many… what?!”
“I guess you win. I can’t stack them.”
Before she could answer to that, Blueblood could hear screams from a filly. On the edge of the new clearing, he saw two small ponies stumble around in confusion. Even from this distance, he could distinguish that the yellow one with the red mane and bow was very angry, evident by the hectic head movement and loud swears.
Blueblood grimaced and rubbed his head. Lately, he hasn’t had any episodes besides the small one with Trusty in Canterlot, but he could tell already that this one would be particularly bad and entirely created by his own doing. Excessive use of his magic made them more frequent and he knew that very well. Auntie had told him constantly to be careful and sparing with his magic.
Sweetie Belle came to his aid as he stumbled to the ground. “What’s wrong!? Are you okay? ” she said in a panic, fearing Blueblood might have hurt himself through magical strain. She had learned first-hoof during her training in Rarity’s basement how much pain it can cause.
She gulped as her mind upscaled the magnitude of possible pain in relation to his feat.
Her head would explode if she tried something similar.
“Sometimes words go away,” Blueblood whispered, wanting to call Sweetie Belle by name but was unable to recall it. “Makes the thinking heavy.”
“Your cutie mark!”
Both of them stared at his flank, one in shock and the other in simple acknowledgment.
“No worry. Happens many...”
The words didn’t come back good enough and panic took hold of him. He focused everything on pulling the “Prince Blueblood” mask from deep inside and over his face. Sweetie Belle took her wide eyes away from his new cutie mark and saw him take deep breaths.
The whole way he carried himself drastically changed soon after. “Pardon me. I misspoke. It happens often is what I meant, of course. Sometimes when I get too excited or invested in something, my cutie mark changes.”
Cutie Marks could change? Sweetie Belle had never heard of something like that and wouldn’t believe if she hadn’t seen it happen with her own eyes.
If she was completely honest with herself, Sweetie Belle hasn’t been completely on board with the new direction the Crusaders were going. Part of her still believed that Princess Celestia had been joking about the unimportance of cutie marks for your destiny.
Yet here she was, witnessing a stallion that could change it on demand, making them completely meaningless. “But… a cutie mark is supposed to represent what you’re good at.”
Blueblood’s laugh was condescending and cold. “Figures, a commoner wouldn’t understand. I’m gifted with an illustrious assortment of skills. So much so, that my cutie mark won’t be limited to a single appearance. Aunty Tia locked herself up in the royal library for three weeks to find a way to restore my cutie mark to its former glory.”
He removed the red bandana from his head and used the cloth to wipe off a grass stain on his white coat. The sunglasses followed next, giving way to his now cold and expressionless eyes.
This new behavior and explosion in vocabulary was disturbing to behold. She had thought that Prince Blueblood could be a really nice pony; A cool and a bit childish adult to have fun with. Now she felt incredibly small and insignificant in his presence, like when one of Rarity’s more high-class clients came over.
“It is a pretty cutie mark. A golden sunrise.” Sweetie said meekly in the presence of the serious adult.
A serious expression that crumbled from his face like sandstone. “It is cool, isn’t it? Do you think auntie will let me keep it?” The haughty expression came back on. “I mean, not that your opinion holds any value to me.”
The filly began to tremble. “Why are you doing this?”
His face twitched but remained stoic otherwise. “What are you talking about, peasant?”
“This!” Sweetie Belle pointed at his face in outrage. “One second you’re nice and friendly, and the next you’re one of those snobs my sister has to hang around!”
Blueblood was taken aback. “Nice and friendly? You like me better without my mask?”
“Yes!” Sweetie Belle said, before raising an eyebrow. “What mask?”
Blueblood contemplated if he should tell Sweetie Belle his secret. Trusty knew about it and hadn’t been mean to him so far. Aunt Luna had turned to be nice because she found out. Maybe, this kid might be friendly too and would want to be his friend.
His first friend since...
“Nephew, Cadence won’t be coming to play anymore.”
“Why aunty? Did I do something wrong? Does Cady not like me anymore?”
… a long time ago.
Trusty and Luna have been told by his auntie though, and his auntie was too nice to put it as bluntly as Blueblood would now.
“I’m very stupid and my head doesn’t work right, Sweetie.” He said and smiled at his ability to remember her name. “I’ll try to explain. The words won’t be good anymore without my mask.”
He made weird movements with his jaw in hope to loosen the words inside. “Don’t tattle on me to auntie. She always scolds me when I say how stupid I am. I don't know why. It’s true. I’m not as smart as other ponies. I try to be, but sometimes everything in my head gets fuzzy and slows down.”
Sweetie Belle tried to comprehend his explanation. “Like an ice cream headache?”
“More like a sleeping hoof, but with my head,” Blueblood replied after thinking about the sensation. “I’m not good at putting new stuff in there, and many I can’t recall old stuff goodly.”
He frowned from his sentence and licked his lips like they had a bad taste on them. Something wasn’t right and his head wouldn’t tell him what.
“Aunty says you don’t need to be smart to be happy. I still wish I were. One day I got an idea which was pretty good for a dumb pony like me. I figured that if can’t be smart, I could at least pretend so I don’t embarrass my aunty.”
“I called you a peasant and commoner. I don’t know what that really means. The ponies in the fancy clothing said those words to other ponies, so I went into one of aunty’s meetings and repeated what I’ve heard.”
Blueblood smiled and then frowned as his head gave him a memory. “The fancy ponies liked me and applauded, but aunty was very angry. She dragged me away by the ears and into my room to scold me.”
Lost in the memories of that day, he started to rub his left ear with a blank expression.
“She wanted to know why I did it. I told her how happy I was that they didn’t laugh at me and praised my words. I told her how much I liked that my words didn’t sound stupid and asked her if she could be proud of me now.”
Sweetie Belle didn’t know what to say. What could she say?
“Aunty hugged me and cried. I hate seeing aunty cry.”
Princess Celestia crying? Tears formed in the filly’s eyes from only about how that would look like.
“She helped me practice smart words. Every evening we rehearsed until I didn’t have to think about what to say and do anymore. Some things I said were mean, but that was all part of the mask. Aunty told me explicitly what words were too mean to say.”
Sweetie Belle was curious what those words were, but she didn’t ask out courtesy.
“That's how Prince Blueblood was made. Sometimes it’s hard wearing the mask. I’m too scared to put it away though. The mask protects me. I don’t have to think, I just react and talk more good… better… and don’t feel so stupid.”
A long breath escaped his lungs from exhaustion. He had laid his soul bare to another pony. Pride of his bravery filled him, combined with a fear of the possible things to come.
“How about another mask then? A more friendly one?”
Blueblood startled when the red cloth floated back on his head and knot back into a bandana. The sunglasses came next, gently put on his muzzle and tinting the world a few shades darker. Sweetie put back the blond moustache last, making him giggle from the slight brush against his upper lip.
“WHAT THE HAY HAPPENED HERE!? WHERE’S THE ORCHARD? WHERE ARE OUR TREES?”
Apple Bloom decided to arrive exactly at this time to ruin the sweet moment between them. Panting heavily from the short sprint and loud yelling, she gave the cowed stallion a fierce stink eye. Scootaloo merely looked curious and still fresh as a daisy from the small sprint.
"What do you have to say for yourself, mister?" said the small filly with the red mane in a fierceness that made the stallion thrice her size honestly afraid.
Blueblood shakingly pointed at Sweetie Belle. “She... She said they should go....”
“NOT ALL OF THEM!”
Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo rolled their eyes, unimpressed and unsurprised by the theatrics of their friend.
Blueblood on the other hoof seemed heartbroken about his mistake. “Please, don’t be angry… I didn't know... Do you want them back?”
“These trees were like family!” The smallest glint of tears shone in Apple Bloom’s eyes. “Of course, I want them back!”
This made sense to Blueblood. If trees are family, the family should be happy and not hurt.
He could make her stop screaming by fixing the hurt. “Don’t tell auntie. She doesn’t like it when I do this.”
Even an untalented unicorn can tell the magnitude of a casted spell in its presence. They were the most sensitive of the three tribes to the fluctuation of mana around them and reacted accordingly. The super powered sun princess with the alicorn amulet stood as a recent example.
What Sweetie felt right when horn of Blueblood started to glow made that incident pale in comparison. Every hair on her coat stood on end as the filly was drowned in a mass of energy that was as thick as glue. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t talk or move, just watch in awe as the magic of Blueblood flooded the orchard like the first rays of the morning sun.
"Wow..."
The four of them stood in the thick green and red of apple trees. Birds were tweeting in their nests and squirrels poked their head out of healthy knotholes in search for nuts. The Crusaders watched the bustling wildlife in the returned orchard with a sense of pure wonder.
“This is amazing!” Applebloom said tearfully, rubbing the bark of a nearby tree in disbelief. “It’s exactly like before, down to the last branch and leaf!” She made a big jump and glomped the startled stallion with all her might. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. You are my hero!”
Blueblood looked away from the bawling filly and glanced shyly at Sweetie Belle. “H… Hero?”
She came out of her shock and smiled back at him. “Sounds good for a mask, doesn’t it?”
A ghost of a smile came over his face too, but it morphed into shock as he threw his head towards the line of trees to their left. His horn glowed once and his eyes went even wider.
"Oh, no..." He threw Apple Bloom off like a horseshoe from his hoof and trotted towards it with eyes turning to slits. Then Blueblood started running into the thicket, leaving the baffled fillies behind to ponder his sudden behavior.
“After him!” Sweetie Belle was the first to react. “Scootaloo you are the fastest. Try to catch him! Apple Bloom and I will follow!”
The pegasus did a small salute and vanished behind the trees. Given the usual speed of their friend, Scootaloo was soon out of sight too, regardless how much Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom pushed themselves to catch up.
The only clue they had for the right direction came in the form of a faraway explosion and yells that got louder with lessening distance.
“...Stop it!...”
“What... What are you doing!?”
“...Put them down!...”
They broke through the tree line and stared upwards toward a small hill with a massive oak tree at its peak. The only oak tree in the whole orchard.
A landmark.
“Oh Celestia…” said Sweetie Belle breathless and sick to her stomach, her face frozen in a mask of pure horror from the unfolding scene.
Two giant open holes in the ground and two molded caskets floating out of them vertically to stand with their lids as doors.
Apple Bloom said nothing, simply trotting towards the stallion floating the woodden boxes with a feeling in her chest that had turned from worry to icy hate. On the way, she looked around for a stone or a big stick, something big enough to hurt this monster as much as he had hurt her with a single act.
Scootaloo stopped pulling on Blueblood’s hindleg and backed away from him, leaving a straight line for Apple Bloom to pounce on him as everyone held their breaths in silent anticipation of things to come.
Until the sound of knocking pierced the silent orchard.
The three fillies stared upwards and past Blueblood. The floating caskets were rumbling, shaking in place and only didn’t tip over because of Blueblood’s firm magic grip. In slow motion, the lids of the standing caskets fell down like a drawbridge and two masses fell with them out of the pitch-black inside to hit the soft grass to his hooves with a heavy thud.
Not the rattling sounds of bones.
“I only wanted to bring the trees back. These two came back by accident. Do you want them too?”
The two bodies slowly stirred awake. The massive body with fire red hair and tail groaned in a bassy voice that sounded every bit as masculine as her brother, while the smaller female with curly orange mane moaned in a calm and melodic fashion that made Apple Bloom’s heart melt in recognition.
“Yes, I did want them…”
The two ponies from the caskets raised their heads groggily and blinked from the warm rays that shone through the branches and leaves above them before the eyes of the mare and stallion turned towards the group of ponies before them.
And to a little earthpony with red hair and a red bow.
“Every day of my life…”