Luna rushed back in at the sound of her student's voice, the white stallion claiming he had found the creature they'd been searching for. She entered the tent, and there in his hooves she saw it. "Oh. Marvellous news!" she exclaimed.
Blueblood gave a deep sigh of relief. "How much for the falip?" he asked, turning to Flim.
"Well actually that's a-"
There was no demonstrated evidence of a stare's ability to pierce through a pony's flesh and skin, but the look Blueblood gave to the other unicorn made him decide that it was better to not find out. And if not the eyes, the horn above them would have certainly seen that those were the consequences.
"-a falip, yes. I'll get the paperwork." He walked out of the storage room.
Luna followed him, smiling, and so did Blueblood, the small anteater grabbing the back of his fur coat and comfortably laying there.
"Here we go!" Flam passed them a sheet of paper, every mention of the word 'anteater' scratched away and replaced with 'falip', and after signing it Luna paid with money she'd taken out of... somewhere, probably her fur coat, but Blueblood hadn't had a chance to see exactly from where it had come.
Flam waved them goodbye as they neared the exit. "Everything you need to know about it is written in that paper," he said.
Luna was about to exit when she heard a sound coming from outside. She stopped Blueblood and dragged him behind the curtain, into the storage room, while simultaneously casting a spell towards Flim and Flam. "Celestia's spies," she said under her breath, hiding behind a disproportionately large stuffed toy in the shape of a cute caricature of Queen Chrysalis with a large heart-shaped pillow-necklace that read 'hug me' in bright pink letters, "I don't know how but they found us."
Blueblood sincerely wanted to run away from there, but Luna's magic held him in place and he could only listen to what the ponies on the other side were saying.
"We've been sent here by Celestia," he heard a male voice say, "her sister disappeared recently and a cook has informed us that she was in a mountainous area with another pony. We traced the magic used on him to an abandoned outpost nearby, just recently destroyed, and then followed the trail of hoofsteps and destruction until here. Have you seen anyone suspicious? We fear for the Princess' safety, she's been acting weird recently."
"No one has been here," Flim and Flam replied.
Luna growled. "I knew I should have put a temporary seal on that cook's memory. Oh well, I did it with those two, it should be good enough to allow us to escape." As she said that, she moved away, only to accidentally push on the stuffed Chrysalis toy.
"I love you!" the toy exclaimed, and the ponies in the other room stopped talking and began to walk towards them.
"Who even buys these things!" Luna let out in a whispered scream.
The steps from the room came closer and closer.
Luna began to turn and look for a way out, then tried to walk away but realised her student wasn't following her. She turned towards him. "What are you doing?" she asked.
Blueblood hesitated, looking between her and the shadows of the ponies on the other side. This was his chance. He could finally get away from her. But, that also meant never becoming an alicorn, and it would also probably mean Luna would never forgive him. He stared into her eyes.
Luna looked in her student's eyes. Was he planning to betray her? Did he not consider her a good teacher? Would he rather have Celestia find out about what they were doing? Her own eyes began to moisten as her doubts crept up on her.
Blueblood saw his own reflection in Luna's eyes, and realised something. More precisely, he didn't see his reflection in her eyes, but rather that of a unicorn mare, as the camouflage spell Luna had utilized was still in effect. To his credit, he also realised Luna was about to cry, which was the reason that pushed him towards his decision. "Don't let them see you," he mouthed to her, then dashed towards the nearest shelf and picked up a book, purposefully knocking down everything else to make as much noise as he could.
The ponies on the other side rushed forward and entered through the curtain, their eyes setting on Blueblood.
"A thief!" Flim shouted.
"She's trying to steal that book we-well that's actually a copy and not the original, a perfectly legal copy we made with Celestia's approval, as I could prove to you with those absolutely legitimate documents we keep in the other room, so really it's not like there's anything wrong with that book or with us and-well, she's trying to steal it!" Flam yelled.
Blueblood dropped the book and teleported behind them, then began to run away, the guards and the brothers chasing after him.
Luna, who had ducked behind the large Chrysalis, peeked out and then walked out once she was sure she was alone. She looked at the way the items that had been on the shelf had fallen on the ground. She then calmly made her way to the tent's exit, and after making sure none of the guards had stayed behind she studied their tracks in the snow and chose her path.
Blueblood kept running, occasionally teleporting forward. The brothers were far behind him, but the guards were moving closer and closer. But he could make it, he was sure of it, just a little more.
The guards suddenly teleported in front of him, blocking him off and standing right in front of a large path between the trees. "It's over!" one of them shouted, "You're under arrest!"
Blueblood slowly backed away, until he felt a wall of rock behind himself. He smiled. "Come get me!" he taunted.
The guards began to walk towards him, slightly spreading out to make sure he had no way to escape.
They were suddenly hit by a rather large snowball, at least trice the size of an alicorn in diameter, which had come rolling down the mountain at a remarkably high speed. The snowball kept rolling into the forest, carrying the guards along, following the path of knocked down trees, and where the guards had stood was now Princess Luna.
Blueblood walked up to the alicorn. "Thank you," he said.
"Don't worry about it," Luna replied as she got up. "Good idea, using the items on the shelf to spell out a message. I think I'll have to award you a few extra points for that."
Blueblood tilted his head to a side. "There's a point system?" he asked.
Luna looked up in though, rubbing her chin with a hoof. "No, now that I think about it."
Blueblood blinked once.
Luna got closer to him. "How's Akran doing?" she asked, circling him to get a better look at the animal on his back.
Blueblood looked over his shoulder at the little anteater. "He seems fine," he said, "I think he's sleeping right now."
"Great!" Luna smiled. "Now we just need to figure out what powers your connection grants you!" She pranced up to Blueblood's front side. "I can't wait to see what such an exotic creature might allow you to do."
Blueblood snapped back at attention. "Oh, yeah, right, that."
"You haven't forgotten about the special powers a spirit animal grants to their owner, right?" She looked at him with a frown. "I don’t need to remind you what Tiberius allows me to do, now, do I?"
Blueblood looked up. "Oh no no I reme-"
Luna was already limp on the ground, her breathing stopped and her pulse absent.
Blueblood sighed and walked up to the alicorn, kicking some snow in her face. "Princess? wake up please."
Luna blinked a couple of times, and slowly rose back to stand on her hooves and legs. "See? Incredible, isn't it?"
Blueblood gave a long and low sigh. "Yes, Princess. Incredible."
Luna smiled.
"So where do we go now?"
"Back to Canterlot!" Luna declared, beginning to march away, "You've found your spirit animal, now it's time to continue your studies."
Blueblood dashed after her. "We're going there on hoof?" he asked.
"Well, yes," Luna explained without turning back, "we still can't afford to be tracked by Celestia or her guards. This also means we'll have to keep our contacts with society at minimum, as to not leave traces of our path behind."
"But won't your sister know you're back in Canterlot once we reach the city? What's the point of taking longer to get there?" The unicorn had to almost run to keep up with the alicorn, the combination of her pace and the length of her legs causing her to move much faster than him.
"She will," Luna replied, "and that's why you must be ready once we get there. Your studies will continue while we travel as well."
"Oh." Blueblood kept moving at her side. "Did you bring any books?"
"No," Luna replied. "Oh," she added after a moment. She cleared her throat.
Blueblood looked at her, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, our first lesson will be, uh..." She looked at her own mane. "Tibbles, do you have any suggestions?" she whispered.
The opossum popped out of her mane and tilted its head, looking at her. He then jumped out of her and ran to some nearby trees, picked up something from in between them, ate it and then returned to the alicorn.
"Ah...Yes!" Luna turned back to the unicorn. "Your first lesson shall be foraging our food."
"Do alicorns need to eat?" he asked.
Luna chewed her bottom lip for a moment. "No, I think we don't."
"Well then we don't really need to do that now. I ate not long ago, you don't need to, Tiberius just did and Akran is sleeping."
"What does he eat, anyway?" Luna asked, looking at the animal on Blueblood's back.
Blueblood took out the paper he'd received when buying the pet. "Here it says he eats ants. And also milk, for a while still at least, before he grows a little more."
"Then we shall hunt for milk! And by we I mean you, of course." Luna declared.
Blueblood stared at her. "Princess... I am not entirely sure milk is something one hunts for."
"It is, my student. And we shall hunt for it in its natural habitat!" She pointed a hoof forward.
The two had been walking for a while, and only now the unicorn realised they'd reached the edge of a small village. He followed the direction of Luna's hoof, and saw she was pointing towards what looked like a grocery store.
"Come on, go and get it," she incited.
"Princess. Do you mean stealing?"
Luna looked at him. "Oh, of course not! Here," she passed him some bits, and again Blueblood failed to identify where they'd come from.
The unicorn grabbed the money.
"Hunt well, my student, milk is an insidious prey. You will be able to grab it if you take it by surprise, but be aware that it might run away if you aren't careful."
Blueblood turned around to look at his teacher. "Princess Luna, you know what a grocery store is, right?"
"Of course!" the alicorn replied, "Though I've always found that to be a rather unnecessarily fancy name. Back in my days we just called them hunting reserves. But I was always intrigued by the new fauna, like those weird parallelepiped-shaped creatures you're going to hunt. Milk used to be a more cylinder-like species in my time, it's weird how it evolved to be so different."
Blueblood stared for a couple of seconds, then simply nodded. He walked to the store, still disguised by Luna's magic, and bought a cartoon of milk, then returned to Luna. He'd decided she needed someone to keep watching over her.
The two were about to walk away when, turning around, they found a wagon in front of them, just at the side of the path they'd followed to get there.
"Were you two planning to get away?" a female voice asked from behind them, "Did you think I hadn't noticed your presence?"
Blueblood stopped and turned around, looking at the figure of a pony leaning against a tree, her face covered by her hat. He was about to ask her who she was, but he was suddenly distracted by a number of weird things. Like the weird coloured symbols that seemed to float in the air above and around the mare, or the sudden sepia filter that seemed to have covered everything. Or the intro of a progressive rock song suddenly playing in the background. Or what looked like a cardboard cut-out in the stylised shape of a large arrow floating in mid-air.