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// 29 - Social Challenge Convention 
// Story: Prince of Errors 
// by David Silver 
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Maud walked placidly alongside her +1.

"Why do they call it--"

She pointed and he went silent without any vocal prompting.

Across the street, ponies filtering past, was a dull grey pony apparently watching ponies on a bench.

"That's him," she confirmed out loud.

"He doesn't look special." Mud Briar raised a hoof to his chin, not tapping, just holding his chin with his hoof. "What's the plan?"

"We say hi." She strolled towards him. Much like the prince, she did not weave through the traffic, instead others weaving around her as if she wasn't there. Mud Briar had to bob a bit more than she had, working to keep up with her.

The prince's attention snapped to them at about the halfway point across the street, noticing two ponies that noticed him, watching him, and approaching. His ears went up as he pushed up to an upright position. "Hello..."

"You know who I am," calmly stated Maud as she stepped up beside him and sat.

Mud Briar did much the same on his other side, sandwiching the prince between them.

It wasn't as if he didn't know who Maud was, but... "What I assume I know isn't what I actually know, I've found. It's nice to really meet you, Maud. Who is this?" He hadn't seen the episode with Mud Briar in it. The other pony seemed to be following Maud, and was listening to their conversation.

"That's my boyfriend. Say hello, Mud Briar." She leaned just enough to catch his eye across the prince.

"Hello," helpfully responded Mud, nodding his head. "Technically what you assume you know, you do, it's just wrong." He offered a hoof. "What's your name?"

Even his dull sense of propriety beeped softly in his furry ears. Mud Briar was someone not following the book. Maud was also someone not following the book. He smiled a little, puzzling through it. "Pinkie calls me the Prince of Errors... And we--" He gestured at both of them. "--are the socially inept of Ponyville I think."

Maud hiked a brow. "While it may be true that ponies often confuse me, I don't like being called 'inept'." Her voice didn't really raise or lower, a flat statement of fact. "I'm not good at expressing myself sometimes... Compared to my sister, I feel like a stone sometimes."

Mud Briar shrugged softly. "The people who matter understand me, and the ones that don't, don't matter." It sounded more like a mantra he told himself rather than any wise words he was just thinking up. "Maud gets me."

Maud reached across and they touched hooves briefly, the two apparently in agreement on that matter.

The prince watched the point of physical contact and felt a smile creep onto his snout. "You two really do get each other..."

"I'd like to get you."

"Technically, you could get him right now." Mud Briar made a lifting motion with his hooves.

Maud's eyes were set on the prince. "What is your name?"

"I thought I said? Uh, hey, how do you two see me anyway? I mean, now I'm talking, so that's alright, but you saw me before that." He tensed a little, a sensation of being trapped between the two rising uncomfortably. He suddenly wanted to be alone, but neither of the ponies seemed to care.

"You gave me your title."

"Technically, that isn't your name," finished Mud Briar, and they both nodded in agreement.

He could feel his heart hastening in his chest. They were... aggressive. Maybe if he went quiet.

...

They were still staring at him, waiting for a response. His defense had failed him.

Maud stood up on the bench in a slow motion. "I understand. We're being too fast."

"Technically, we haven't moved." He inclined his head at the prince. "Why are you scared to tell us your name?"

"Because it's--" His words dried up in his mouth, along with his tongue. Why was he holding onto that? "I mean... Can... we talk about something else?" He wobbled a hoof between the two. "How did you two meet?"

Maud smiled. Sure, it was a faint smile, but it was a smile. "We found each other by the intersection of our passions."

Mud Briar echoed the expression with a soft nod. "A fossilized stick. Stick--"

"--and stone." Both sighed with fond remembrance of the time. Maud suddenly raised a hoof and put it on his chest with a low thump. "It's alright. You don't owe me anything."

"Technically true." Mud Briar shrugged softly. "It would be nice to have a name though."

The pressure was easing a little and the prince allowed himself his own smile. "So... you like sticks?"

Mud Briar's ears went up. "Love them. There are so many out there, and I haven't seen even half of them. I spotted a perfectly curved spruce branch on the way here, but we were already walking so I left it behind."

Maud inclined her head. "You should have said something. We could have paused long enough to pick it up."

"You seemed to be..."

Maud reached across the prince and set a hoof on Mud Briar's shoulder. "I have time for you."

The prince felt his smile deepening a little. They were not perfectly in tune, they still tripped, but they also worked past the troubles.

"Technically, you can't own time... but you can own my heart." They were looking at one another with love-stricken eyes, the prince caught in the middle.

He softly coughed into a hoof. "Well, um... Nice meeting you both. Maud... Mud Briar was it?"

"It still is." He nodded in placid agreement.

Maud stepped down calmly from the bench. "I have some gems to polish. Want to come with me?"

Mud Briar pointed back down the street. "I'm going to get that stick." He hopped down and trotted away after his prize that was hopefully still where he had last seen it.

Maud's eyes had never been on Mud Briar during that though, resting on the prince.

One of them was less scary than both... "Um, sure?" He stepped down next to her. "I don't know how to polish a gem though."

"I can handle it." She turned away and began walking sedately, in no particular hurry. "A little company is nice sometimes."

"Yeah, but it's hard." He hurried to get up to her side. "You said that."

"I did... And it is. It's still nice, sometimes." She glanced aside at the prince. "I don't understand how ponies do it, and you don't either. How about we be ourselves?"

"No rules?"

"No rules." Maud smiled faintly. "Just two ponies being themselves."

The prince felt his steps becoming lighter. That sounded... nice. "Sure." He followed her to her cave. After grey tunnels and rocky crevices, they emerged into a large cavern with water flowing freely and lush green plants that didn't seem to mind being underground.

The prince smiled as he looked around, sniffing at the curious air. It was clean and floral, but the hints were all different, exotic. "This is really nice..." The show had not done it justice, and he found himself wandering, taking in the sights, and there seemed to be so many.

Some time later he realized he had just walked into somepony's house and casually got to exploring, ignoring them entirely. With darkened cheeks he hurried back over to Maud.

She had a big magnifying lens over an eye and was carefully chipping at a gem, with only the faint noises of the pick and hammer working away imperfections in the gem.

"Sorry for leaving you like that."

"It's alright." She continued chipping softly. "Like it?"

"Your home is amazing," he easily confessed. "It's pretty in every way. It looks nice, smells nice... Sounds nice even!"

"I like it," she calmly agreed, chipping away with a tink-tink-tink. "And it's close to my sister."

"Pinkie's... special, in a good way."

"In a good way," softly agreed Maud. She released the hammer from her mouth and blew across the gem before reaching for a rag. "Do you understand her?"

"No." The prince tilted his head. "Do you understand her?"

"No." Maud began rubbing the gem softly. "But I love her."

"That has to be hard, to love something you don't understand..." He watched her work and listened to her soft tones. Yes, it was much less stressful with just one person.

"Do you understand how this cave formed?"

"No?"

She held up the gem at the end of a hoof, turning it this way and that. "Do you understand how this cave stands?"

"No?"

"But you love it."

The prince blinked softly, looking around. "I... guess you're right there. Ponies are more complicated than caves though."

"They can feel that way." She set down the gem. "Caves are very complicated. A different complicated." She stood up, facing him with her piercing, yet calm, eyes. "I know rocks. What do you know?"

The prince blinked. What did he know? "I've gotten good at filling in for ponies that need help."

"Before that."

Well crud... "I wasn't that good..."

"You did bad things?"

"No! I mean, no, sheesh, no, uh..." He sat on his haunches and began fussing his forehooves together nervously. "I did my job. I did what they told me to."

"You still do that." Maud tilted her head faintly. "You're good at it."

The prince felt heat rushing into his face. Even in ponyland, he was doing what was asked of him. He was still a wage slave, though one with a twitchy tail and cute ears. "Oh god..."

"It's nice to be good at something." She reached for another gem. "What do you want to do?"

"I'm not a wage slave!" he suddenly blurted out.

"I never said you were." Maud didn't seem shocked by his cry, starting to examine the next gem carefully. "What do you want to do?"

"I found it," came the proud call of Mud Briar with a strange clack-clack-clack noise. He came into view, holding a stick in his mouth. The stick was bouncing off the floor as if hopping with the force of his forward steps and its own elasticity. "It's lovely!"

"Good find," agreed Maud as she reached her mouth for the hammer and took up the chisel in a hoof, starting her work on the next gem. "I was just asking the prince what he likes to do."

The prince looked between Maud and her boyfriend, rubbing behind his head nervously. "I should... let you two be together."

"We are together," argued Mud Briar. "What do you like to do?"

Maud directed her hammer at Mud Briar. "He doesn't get the rules either. Let him be himself."

"Right..." Just three incredibly socially challenged ponies in a cave. That was normal, right? He quirked a faint smile. "I... actually like helping ponies, and animals... It feels nice when I make a day better than if I hadn't shown up."

Maud nodded softly. "That's a good thing to like. So why aren't you happy?"

Mud Briar shook his head. "You're too giving. You have a precise number of days, you should enjoy them." He sat down next to Maud.

The prince blinked at Mud, considering his words. "I do... enjoy those, but being forgotten all the time... I don't like that."

"We haven't forgotten you." Maud began changing the angle of her hammer strikes, working on the gem diligently. "You could live here. You don't seem too loud."

Living with a mare that had a boyfriend sounded awkward even to the prince's awkward ears. "Thanks. You're nice, like your sister."

Maud stopped her work a moment. She was still and silent.

Mud Briar pointed at the gem. "It's not finished."

Maud suddenly smiled, that coy little expression. "Thank you. I doubt I could ever be as nice as Pinkie." She started to work again, gently easing away imperfections in the gem.

"You didn't answer the question." Mud Briar was looking at the prince expectantly. "Technically it wasn't a question, but do you want to live here?"