//------------------------------//
// In Which The Princessbury Rules Are Found Lacking 
// Story: The Prince, the Mockingbird, and the Dreadful Twilight Sparkle 
// by Carabas 
//------------------------------//

I’m reliably informed that some would be thrilled to find themselves tied up and at the mercy of a creatively wicked mare, for whatever reason. I don’t much see the appeal myself. Current events were doing less than nothing to convince me of the situation’s merits.

“...the deuce is this?” I spluttered eventually, wrenching at the restraints tethering one forehoof tight to historical artwork. They held fast, the blasted things. So did the statues; the artists of yore had this equally-blasted habit of not working with any material that couldn’t induce a hernia.

“Looks to me like you’re tied up,” the Mockingbird herself replied breezily. “Take my word for it; it’s entirely my fault.”

Past my headache and a lingering grogginess of vision, I stared up at her. I found her whole manner decidedly odious; there was an aura of at-ease command about her one doesn’t like to see possessed by ponies who aren’t Auntie. She was an almost entirely different mare than the one who’d deceived me back in Canterlot. Almost. 

There were no wings to be seen, her coat was now robin’s-egg blue, her mane a tousled teal, her eyes golden, and her whole posture seemed looser and lower and more casual. Her accent had shifted also, to something with a faint rurality to it I couldn’t have placed had my life depended on it.

One had to really pay attention to her cheekbones and muzzle to realise it was the same pony. There were some things makeup and dyes and prosthetics and stagecraft could only do so much about.

“Take a picture,” she remarked. “It’ll last longer, and another false face in circulation’s no great problem.”

She sported a voluminous dark dress, spacious enough for hidden wings, if she even had them, and possibly all manner of pockets with all manner of nasty little contrivances within. A side table at her back sported a bottle of something civilised, a wine glass, a thick book, and a half-finished cheeseboard.

“Don’t mistake this for my usual standard of decadent living,” she continued, observing the direction of my gaze. “I just like to treat myself whenever a big score’s secured. Mind you, two days in a row. You’ll get me used to this.”

Beyond her, the room we were in ran on, pockmarked with the odd door, studded with air-fresheners, and brightly lit by multi-hued alchemical lights set into the stone walls. Lining these walls, incidentally, was all of Equestria’s cultural heritage, or near enough to all of it to make no difference. 

My awestruck gaze roamed over the Mockingbird’s assembled hoard, enough to make a dragon sit up respectfully. Age-old paintings crowded out the wall space, priceless statues scraped against the low ceiling, various renowned jewels and blades and barding sets occupied their own little makeshift plinths.

And at pride of place, at the centre of the back wall, I saw it. The Harmony.

My eyes widened, and I subjected my restraints to a damned good straining. There it was, Auntie’s favourite painting, in my sight at last after all my travails. 

“Speaking of big scores, say hello to all my previous,” the Mockingbird said cheerfully. “You’re my latest, in case it wasn’t clear.”

The nature of this ghastly utterance passed me by. Initially, at least. The sight of both the Harmony and the rogue who’d upset Auntie and taken a cosh to my ear was enough to rouse me to a fighting spirit, and I deigned to address the scoundrel at last. “Free me at once, you villain!” I demanded.

“I didn’t hear either the magic word or a reason why I should do that.”

I considered my position, and then graced her with a haughty sneer. “Insufficient bottle to take me on fairly hoof-to-hoof, is that the way of it? Come on! Release me and put your forehooves up. You can learn a thing or two about sporting conduct for the first time in your life.”

“Hmm.” The Mockingbird appeared to consider this, and my hopes rose. “You know what? If I get bored enough and I suffer some traumatic head injury, I might just take you up on that.”

I stiffened my sinews and took a deep breath, and wrenched anew at my restraints, my thews rippling. The Mockingbird watched indulgently, and almost seemed like she’d pat me on the head once I started panting like a set of bellows. Then she returned to her dinner.

“I think I saw one move a millimetre,” she said kindly, after I collapsed wheezing and briefly insensible and aching all over. “Maybe if you try again?”

I tried to call her something unpleasant, though I suspect it came out as a meaningless string of consonants from the rear end of the alphabet. As I recovered my breath, I considered my position yet again.

I gathered myself and hoof-crafted my words. Pride demanded I give this rotter nothing but defiance, and by gum, defiance she would get.

“Listen, you blister, and listen well,” I said slowly, coldly, with all appropriate menace and dread authority. “I’ve no idea how you came upon me or what sort of —”

“The trail of bilgewater helped,” she interjected.

I thought dark thoughts and bit back uncouth verbiage. “Regardless—” I pressed.

“That, an initial stroke of luck, and the most trivial of investigation,” she continued, deaf to my pressing. “Some ponies fresh off the train wandered into my favourite bistro, and their chatter was worth eavesdropping on. Who had they seen trying to commandeer a train in Canterlot? And he was headed where? My stars. Put one of my charming faces on and made enquiries. And when I got to the station, Decibelle had some news I didn’t begrudge paying a bit for in the slightest.”

“Decibelle?” I didn’t immediately apprehend. Then, alas, I did. “Do you mean that little blackguard of a newsfilly?” When the Mockingbird nodded, I uttered a strangled groan. “I wouldn’t have thought she had a name. More a series of unearthly shrieks.”

“There’s a filly with a sparkling career and/or a lengthy jail sentence in her future. One to keep an eye on.” The Mockingbird looked approving. “Chased more chatter down to the waterfront, where I gathered you’d menaced the most odiously wholesome bar in the city and accused everypony inside of every sin under the sun. They let you know what they thought about that, and then you trailed off, leaving a trail as it were.” She spread one foreleg wide. “And now here you are. Just to clear up that first bit of confusion. What was your other question?”

I took a moment to reflect upon the whole blasted day, having it laid out like that. ‘Blasted’ seemed to just about encapsulate it.

“I do appreciate an easy day every now and then,” the Mockingbird said, as if she’d felt the silence needed filling, “and I don’t want to sound ungrateful ... but could you refrain from making all my scores so simple? Overcoming a challenge is part of the fun, you see.”

“To reiterate,” I said curtly, as if she hadn’t spoken. I’d crafted this monologue, dash it, and I intended to logue it all good and hard. “Listen, you blister, and listen well. I’ve no idea how you came upon me or what sor —”

“But I just told you.”

“— or what sort of foul intentions you have,” I pressed. “But I’ll make this plain to you, Mockingbird. Whatever torments or cruelties you’ve got planned for the near future, don’t expect so much as a whiff of satisfaction from me. You don’t merit much save scorn and defiance and unkind remarks by the wagon-load, and that’s precisely what you’re going to get. Do your worst. You bounder,” I added. And I meant it to sting.

Ideally, she’d have been cowed by my heroic resolve and hurt by my incisive assessment of her character, in equal and abundant measure.

Instead, she looked thoughtfully at something in the middle-distance and sipped from her glass. “Darn,” she said, in a sort of philosophical way. “I was hoping to get your input for the ransom letter I’m going to write—”

“Excuse you, what? Ransom letter? What?”

“—But I suppose I’ll have to take my own best shot at it. Ah, well.”

“Trot that backwards a step or two, would you kindly,” I said stiffly. “What bally ransom letter?”

She gave me a patient look. “Think hard, Prince. I’ve outright called you my latest score at least once by now, and I’m sure I’ve intimated it here and there. Of course, I can’t exactly stick you on a plinth and bask in you like I do with the others. Ergo, I’m going to write to the palace and ask them what they consider a fair going price for you would be.”

The sheer and utter infamy of the notion took a while to percolate in. My mouth opened and shut several times. The world seemed to reel a tad. Eventually I spluttered, “You … you can’t do that!”

“Why not?” said the Mockingbird. “I have expenses, you know. Tools of my trade, raw materials for my workshop, basic necessities, all the little luxuries that help keep body and soul apart… I shan’t give you a budgeted list, but you get the idea. A prince’s ransom should do very nicely.”

Conceive an image, if you would. I certainly did. 

Auntie on her throne the next day, some staff member delivering her a letter on a platter alongside her mid-morning tea and scone. 

Auntie reading that letter. 

Her expression.

Words didn’t seem quite sufficient. I loosed a throat-rasping snarl and had another go at testing my restraints to destruction. “You fathomless cad! Let me go, I say! Undo these blasted shackles!”

“One day, he’ll learn the magic words,” she said to herself wistfully. “Not that it’ll do him a lick of good, but wouldn’t it be nice.”

“YOUR PRINCE CALLS FOR AID!” I called at the top of my lungs, for any friendly pony who might be in earshot. In that moment, hang dignity; I couldn’t let Auntie down again. “WHOEVER’S LISTENING, DELIVER ME FROM VILLAINY! What the dickens is the lower-class equivalent of noblesse oblige? Plebius oblige? PLEBIUS OBLIGE, DASH IT!”

“I can overlook the nasty names, but I’ll admit I’m insulted by this lack of credit. This den’s safely far below any prying eyes and ears. You’re at no risk of being heard, Prince Blueblood.” The Mockingbird turned back to her table. “Here’s how things’ll go. I’ll finish my dinner. I’ll share some with you, since I’m not a cruel captor. Then I’ll write up a first draft of that ransom letter, and if you change your mind, I’d welcome your editorial insights. How does that sound?”

I’d gathered breath for another round of bellowing. I opened my mouth.

“For the second time, though I’m not optimistic about it being the last,” she said, “there’s no need to serenade me. There’s nopony else around to hear you.”

There was a sudden rattling to my left. 

The Mockingbird and I looked its way.

It came from one of the solid-looking doors set into the stone wall. Somepony’s magic was at play; a raspberry-coloured aura had enveloped the handle and rattled away at it, and the same colour glowed in the keyhole. There came little clicks, as if the same magic was fooling around with the lock. Then there came a decisive-sounding click.

The door swung open. And through it stepped Sparkle. 

Her dragon was perched on her withers. Both of them had spectral clothes-pegs about their noses, and triumphant expressions past said pegs.

The Mockingbird boggled, as if somepony had taken a size nine cosh to her scalp. I did something roughly similar.

In that moment, no matter her catalogue of sins and character failings, I could have forgiven Sparkle anything. Had she checked her tracking spell, even as she’d slunked homewards, and perceived that it was time for all good ponies to rally to the aid of their prince? Whatever her methods, I endorsed them. Indeed, had she entered brandishing a freshly-made body, I could have been induced to help her hide it.

“Told you we’d find her lair in the sewers,” Sparkle’s dragon said, his tone smug if somewhat nasal. You’ll understand the state of my emotions if I say that in that moment, had I not been shackled, I would have embraced him as a brother and given him the key to my cigar humidor.

“I shouldn’t have doubted you for a moment, Spike.” Sparkle kicked the door shut behind her, dispelled the clothes-pegs, and took a moment to savour the air. She took the room in with a glance and turned to me with a perfunctory nod. “Your Highness.” 

“Sparkle! Good show!” I said, as merry and high-spirited a Blueblood as was ever shackled. “All’s forgiven, old sprout, and let us say no more about our last exchange and the events prior. Free me and I’ll deal with this bandit.”

Sparkle didn’t immediately free me, or answer me, or much of anything regarding me. Instead she turned to the Mockingbird. “Hello there.”

“Sparkle?” I prompted her. This new streak of usefulness in her had to be encouraged and coaxed along gently. “Eyes on the prize. No getting distracted. Free your prince, come on.”

The Mockingbird, for her part in all this, seemed utterly nonplussed, which I much preferred to her prior demeanour of assured command. She goggled wide-eyed at Sparkle and her dragon, glanced briefly ceiling-wards, her mouth opening and shutting, and at several points seemed on the cusp of gargling heated queries.

But when Sparkle addressed her, she cleared her throat and gathered herself. The unflappable noxiousness came over her manner again.

“Well,” said the Mockingbird, at long last, “that’ll teach me to make statements that all but invite the universe to kick them up the rear. I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure…?” 

“Twilight Sparkle. And you are?”

“The Mockingbird, if you don’t mind remaining on pseudonym terms.” The Mockingbird’s jaw worked for a moment. “Am I to take it you’re an associate of the prince?”

“Let’s put it in those terms, yes.”

“I’d heard that he’d been seen in the company of a young mare and a dragon, but witnesses told me he’d apparently sent you packing after the bar...” The Mockingbird broke off, studied a wall, and then turned back on Sparkle with a frown. “Forgive my continued nosiness, and also my Fancé, but how the peeve did you find me? We’re right in the middle of the Manehattan sewers.”

“That we are!” said Sparkle’s dragon in his eminently kickable way. “I like that you’re here, though. It’s classical, you know?”

“Thank you,” said the Mockingbird distractedly. “But I repeat, the Manehattan sewers. I have it on good authority that a series of tragic and improbable miscommunications led to the original architect reading ‘sewage system’ as ‘labyrinth’. The city authorities have only the vaguest notions of the layout, and even my knowledge gets a bit fuzzy around the edges. Heck, this is a barracks they built specially when they were trying to curb the alligator problem decades back, and I only found it by happy accident. How on earth did you—”

Sparkle was trying to conceal her pride and failing abysmally. “Just a tracking spell.”

“A tracking …? Ah. Ahh.” The Mockingbird looked my way and breathed deeply. And then she turned back to Sparkle with an appreciative smile. “Well. Nice and straight-forward and thoroughly underhoofed. You’re a mare I could probably have a conversation with.”

“Thank you! I think.”

“Excuse me,” I said, a smidge tersely, quite perplexed as to what was going unspoken here, “I’m sure this is fascinating in every particular, whatever it is. But Sparkle, may I prevail upon you to bally well get on with freeing m—”

“Not now,” Sparkle replied, distractedly, out the corner of her mouth. “Having a conversation first.”

I reeled. Stars spun. Sparkle’s stock, which had enjoyed its high ebb all-too briefly, was now burrowing down at a clip that’d embarrass Diamond Dogs.“‘Not now’? What the dickens do you mean, ‘Not now’? Sparkle, I order you to—”

“You must be from royal intelligence, then,” said the Mockingbird, as I wasn’t there, and she kept talking even as I wound the spluttering up to a high pitch. “This one of their plans? Whoever runs the show there has been trying to draw a snare around me for a while now. They’re cunning enough to have had a few good goes at it, though not enough to ever succeed. Using the prince as bait is a step up for them; I approve.”

“I’m not one of theirs. I’m just one of mine. And it wasn’t much of a plan either, to be honest. Pretty simple, and I improvised most of it as I went. I didn’t even expect I’d be trying to track you down till this morning.”

“Oh, I’ve got to hear this.”

“No, you bally well don’t! Sparkle, cork the pleasantries and free me at once!”

This last interjection of mine went unappreciated in its time, as all great things must be, and the gruesome twosome maintained their dialogue.

“You see, when your break-in at the palace was discovered, the prince drafted me to help find you and the Harmony. He said he’d been assigned the task.” So far, so fair a summary. “I was a little skeptical. So I checked with Princess Celestia, and she said he hadn’t been assigned that task at all. But since I was already on the train to Manehattan by then, I thought I may as well see how I could help the princess with what I knew and what I had.”

In between my indignation at Sparkle’s blithe revelations and my chagrin that my plan had been revealed to Auntie before I’d had the chance to return crowned in glory, I found the space to briefly wonder where she’d found the time and means to communicate with Auntie. 

I was distracted from that thought when her dragon hiccuped a little puff of green. I gave him a look of disdain. You couldn’t take the little savage anywhere.

“So I thought, how were we ever to find you? And after thinking it over and a quick chat with Spike, I realised that was the wrong tack. We just didn’t have enough information for that. What we could try and do, though, was lure you out.”

The dragon seemed to take this as his cue. He pointed at me. “And we had Prince Chump to help with that!” he said. I told him all about himself in return, but he wasn’t listening, the little wart.

“See,” Sparkle continued, “you target high-profile treasures and works of art, stuff that’ll get you in the papers and single you out for attention. That doesn’t sound like the sort of thing a pony would do if she was especially cautious, or if she didn’t relish the uproar afterwards.”

The Mockingbird clicked her tongue. “You reckoned that I just couldn’t resist rubbernecking a train wreck of my own making. And that I couldn’t resist taking advantage of an easy, high-profile mark. And a combination of the two would have seemed like an early Hearthswarming.”

Sparkle looked odiously triumphant. “And I was right! You didn’t.”

“Hah. Guilty.” The Mockingbird gave Sparkle a rueful look even as she chuckled. “Should have known better, but sometimes the bait can seem too obvious to be bait, you know?”

“I wondered whether we were coming on too obvious,” Sparkle admitted. “I wanted to be sure you’d hear about him. So I might have nudged him towards ponies and places where he’d be sure to excite comment and get your attention. And when the chance came, I excused myself so you’d be likelier to swoop in.”

I produced little but incoherent indignation. Every pony I’d had the displeasure to run into throughout this whole escapade had this sheer nerve. 

And the intimation that I’d amounted to a blundering distraction with Sparkle’s cheerful puppeteering was … well, it didn’t even merit consideration.

“You ever considered a career in crime, Twilight Sparkle?” the Mockingbird said.

“Not at much length, no.”

“Well, do so. That sort of evil brain would make you a credit to the profession.”

“Thank you!”

A moment of silence, blessedly. “So, ah,” the Mockingbird started, “here you are, and here I am, and the Harmony’s over there. What now?” She gestured towards the exit to the sewers. “You got a posse there ready to wrestle me into custody?”

“Not exactly,” Sparkle said. “I’ve got another surprise for you, though.” Her dragon preened.

“Care to spoil it?”

“I’d rather not.”

“Alright.” The Mockingbird nodded. One of her forehooves slipped up towards her dress, as if to tug and straighten it.

Her forehoof descended, and I caught the briefest glimpse of something shining. She’d slipped on some strange shoe. Her other hoof snaked up, and the trick repeated.

And then the Mockingbird’s eyes glinted maliciously and she stepped towards Sparkle. Her new shoes clinked on the stone in a somewhat muffled way. “Then tell you what. We’ll make a sporting contest of it. You try and spring your surprise, and I’ll try to subdue you and truss you up and ransom you alongside the prince there. And we’ll see who finishes first.”

“Er.” Now it was Sparkle’s turn to be momentarily nonplussed, and she took a hesitant step backwards and glanced briefly behind her, as if expecting somepony. ”Conversation’s done, then? You don’t want to keep it going a little longer?”

“Not at the moment, no.” The Mockingbird continued to prowl on Sparkle, her stance lowering in a manner that intimated imminent and entirely professional violence.

“I could tell you more about, um, how exactly things went in the Seahorse?” Sparkle ventured. Poor move, thought I. Why would that be a topic bound to fixate and entertain?

“Tell you what, I’ll ask you when you’re trussed up. For now, though, I think I’ve disadvantaged myself enough already.”

With that, the Mockingbird sprung forwards at Sparkle with apparent intent to dent her features, and Sparkle scurried back in turn, her eyes wide and her dragon lurching athwart her withers. Her horn lit up, and she aimed over the Mockingbird’s own withers, straight at me, and let fly with a beam of raspberry light which connected with the shackles about my person.

Locks clicked, and cuffs slithered open, and metal chains fell down around my hooves like so many sleepy serpents. It had taken her bally well long enough, and it had involved appalling amounts of insolence along the way, but she’d done it at last. She’d liberated her prince.

The Mockingbird galloped off in hot pursuit of Sparkle, and flashes of magic and the general clamour of a merry skirmish marked their trail. For my part, I rose, rubbed my fetlocks where the cuffs had chafed them, and gathered myself as I shot a look of deadly resolve in the direction of the Mockingbird.

She harried Sparkle down the room’s length. Sparkle would teleport and reappear and volley off stunning spells at the Mockingbird with every flash. The Mockingbird sidestepped them as they came, or would slap them out of the air and blast them to the floor, those dashed shoes of hers seeming to turn the magic when she caught it. 

Sparkle’s dragon yelped advice, Sparkle yelped back, the Mockingbird advanced in grim silence, and spellfire crackled and whistled. A jolly symphony all round, I say.

In I came, contributing my own warcry to the noise, and my headlong gallop quickly outpaced the Mockingbird’s steady onslaught. As I plunged within spitting distance of her, I rose precariously up onto my rearhooves and reminded myself of the Princessbury Rules.

Strike with the forehooves firmly and straightly. Strike not towards one’s opponent’s back or rearmost. Do not grip or strike with one’s magic. When one has downed one’s opponent, step back and heed what the referee has to drivel on the matter. Other rules, possibly. Really, when in doubt, apply common sense across the board. Thus reminded, I issued my challenge to the back of the Mockingbird’s head.

“Hold there, I say! Turn and fight like a proper Eque—”

Like lubricated lightning, she spun and slammed a forehoof into my trunk. I barked like a tuba and collapsed breathless to the floor.

Underhoofed and deplorable, I call that blow. How, I’m as yet unsure, but it undoubtedly was.

I rolled about and wheezed, and I willed my midriff’s nerves to stop reporting in, the pain had been noted and taken into consideration, thank you. Resuming verticality seemed a long way off, but I endeavoured to make progress.

In the background, events seemed to have escalated. Sparkle had gotten a sight more aggressive and creative with her magic; upon my momentarily distracting the Mockingbird, she’d summoned a spectral cage about the crook, glowing bars swooping down in an instant. 

The Mockingbird scrambled out of the way of the oncoming bars, stepping right onto a section of floor that glowed raspberry and tried to suck her in like a friendly puddle. She stamped down with one of her odd shoes, discombobulating the puddle, and sprung forward at Sparkle. There came the whistle-crack of teleportation, and the Mockingbird took off in pursuit even as more raspberry magic blazed across the air.

Sparkle was certainly giving it billy-o, as best she could, and I daresay some of her academic malarkey was coming in useful at long last. But the Mockingbird, under her dress, seemed to be built along the same lines as a steel spring, and had mastered the art of not being where Sparkle’s spells were landing. There seemed a rather pronounced risk that she’d wear Sparkle down if I didn’t resume my leading role in this scuffle.

Flash and thunder asserted itself seemingly everywhere in the vicinity. A lesser pony would have hesitated to rise up into it.

I rose up into it, only faintly wheezing for air. I resumed my look of deadly resolve and fixed the back of the Mockingbird’s head with it.

You know, the unbelievable thing was how she wasn’t even paying attention to myself. Here Bluebood stood, as formidable an opponent as ever warranted unconditional surrender to, and the Mockingbird was letting herself get distracted by my poxy sidekick.

Perhaps she’d had the notion that I was something to be easily dismissed, that some time in captivity would have dampened my spirits and rendered my good self some mewling damsel to be saved by Sparkle of all ponies. Perhaps she thought one good kick had proven her clear advantage over I, for all that she’d only landed that kick by subtle yet inarguable cheating.

She was monstrously mistaken.

For the line of Platinum yields to nothing. Not to dreadful odds, to base fear, to the path of least resistance, to base self-preservation, to common sense, not to anything in all the world. We don’t know when we’re beaten; we don’t know when we’re at risk; we don’t recognise the possibility of defeat; by gum, we’ve no sensory apparatus recognisable to wider ponykind, and it’s gotten us where we are, atop the whole bally pile.

I trumpeted my most terrible battle-cry and hurled myself after the Mockingbird again. “En-garde, you rotter!”

She spun to me, and then back round to Sparkle, who was gathering another spell’s energies about her horn — rather a lot of energy, it seemed. The Mockingbird found herself rather pinned between us, between my charge and Sparkle’s growing maelstrom of magic. As I rocketed at her, it seemed to me that there was something like apprehension in her eyes.

On reflection, it was probably calculation.

The Mockingbird held her ground as Sparkle let fly with her spell — a rather basic stunning blast, albeit one sloshing over with sheer power — and I stepped smartly in to dispense a preliminary jab.

That was my plan, at any rate. I kicked and suddenly found there was no Mockingbird to connect with. She’d swept to the ground, and I glanced down just as her legs came walloping round to sweep me right off my hooves. 

I tumbled wildly, uttering startled exclamations. I barely had time to reflect on what a rank bad show that had been, her striking below the sporting area — before, aided by a little extra shove from the Mockingbird, I found myself flailing right into the path of Sparkle’s spell.

Have you ever had occasion to be struck by a stunning spell? The sensation is rather like being slung into a tumble-drier alongside a couple of untethered bricks for ten minutes, compressed into a single instant. One can’t help but come out the other side of the instant feeling as if a stiff brandy and a lie-down are just about what the doctor ordered.

In the case of this one, coming from Sparkle, it was rather closer to a whole hod’s worth for ten years. Everything went very starry, and I was dimly aware of my limbs going everywhere and every nerve straining itself to register both ghastly numbness and a great deal of ache. Some statue loomed over me where I’d come to rest, some bronze chappy resting his chin on his hoof and having a good ponder.

“Aagh, shoot!” came Sparkle’s yell, from a star-studded remove. “Sorry!”

I tried to give her the response she deserved. Unfortunately, my vocal apparatus in that moment wasn’t up for expressing any sentiments more developed than “Thththhpptllplrk,” which didn’t have the wounding quality one might hope for. 

Hooves shuffled round about me. I blearily attempted to take stock of what was happening up above. The Mockingbird seemed to be zig-zagging at Sparkle, dodging or batting aside the rapid-fire stunners Sparkle desperately volleyed her way.

Consider events. Not only had I been struck well below the sporting area to strike at, but the Mockingbird had also taken an unscrupulous advantage of spellwork to render me incapable. One could come away with the impression that she’d never even heard of the Princessbury Rules if she wasn’t disregarding them altogether, which struck me as just the sort of infamy she’d go in for.

It’s jolly tricky to know what to do with an opponent like that. Honour prohibits one from sinking to their level. Observe the form-book and play the game, and all that.

But other motives also compel one to subdue said opponent, no matter what, in order to get Auntie her painting back. 

These are the sorts of ethical dilemmas that drive philosophers to drink. 

With an almighty groan, I stiffened every sinew, flexed every thew, and poured every spare ounce of my not-inconsiderable will into rising once again. The approximate eighth of an inch I managed wasn’t a terribly auspicious start.

As I imitated a beached fish, the Mockingbird neared Sparkle, who let fly with one last stunner and then seemed to hastily prepare the magic for teleportation once again. But Sparkle was flagging, and the Mockingbird put that little bit of pep into her performance, and she rolled right under Sparkle’s spell to come leaping right up at Sparkle’s features. The little dragon shouted a warning too late, as something black glistened in the Mockingbird’s hoof. That hoof descended, Sparkle was lost from view with a muffled yelp, and I poured my all into another attempt to rise.

A quarter of an inch represented jolly good progress, if not quite so much as I might have wished for.

Sparkle stumbled back from the Mockingbird, affording a view of her current state of dismay. I saw what the Mockingbird had done. Sparkle’s horn no longer thrummed with the glow of her magic, as it had been doing continuously for the last however-long. A squat black magical inhibitor had been jammed down on it, like a block of coal worn as a horn-ring. At a momentary loss, Sparkle pawed at it with her forehooves.

“I’ll help!” her little brute squawked, much dismayed, and leaned past her withers to try and yank off the inhibitor.

“Ow!”

“Does it unscrew?”

“Ow! No!”

The Mockingbird, who stood in easy distance of reaching out and concussing the pair of them, took a moment to breathe heavily and revel in her apparent victory. The air of an assassin departed her, and in came that assured command I knew and loathed so well. She trotted forwards, as if intending Sparkle and her dragon further mischief.

A stallion learns things about himself in times like these. He looks into the fire stirring at the core of his soul and in its shape he divines profound truths. 

Does one abide by the honour of the line of Platinum and play fair amidst an unfair world? Or does one do whatever it might take to not let Auntie down?

And you’ll agree that put that way, it’s barely a question at all.

Against all rules of conduct set out by the form-book, I stirred my horn to life. 

I reached out with my magic. 

And I set the Mockingbird’s dress on fire.

Well, one corner of it at least; I’ve never practised the trick past what’s needed to ignite tobacco and miscellany. She stopped and blinked round at myself when she noticed my horn glowing, sniffed when the smell of smouldering wafted up, and then frowned down at the tongue of flame fooling around the hem.

With a frustrated harrumph, she yanked the dress off and slipped free of it in one motion, revealing the unadorned frame of an earth pony, and kicked her smouldering apparel to one side. The look she directed at me was on the un- side of friendly. She began to advance my way.

I desperately reviewed all those hazy hours I’d spent making my magic tutors bite through their pencils with frustration, searching for anything I might have learned with more of an ordnance quality to it, and came up short. I tried to rise again and managed an exceedingly respectable half-inch before the Mockingbird came to loom over me. Irritated golden eyes gave me a good once-over.

“Ththgllk!” I said defiantly. What else was there to say?

She leaned down, hooked me about the throat with her foreleg, and hauled me up — along with what seemed like an entirely gratuitous dunt of my head against the bronze stallion pondering where he’d left his keys. She tightened the crook of her leg about my throat, and I gurgled stertorously. 

I looked to Sparkle for aid, so desperate was I. But none was forthcoming. She and her dragon had assumed a sort of posture where he, down off her withers and on the ground before her, gripped the inhibitor about her horn and pulled back with all his might. She in turn pulled back also and with no little desperation. The vast difference in mass and strength between them meant that this accomplished little more than waggling her dragon around a bit.

“Is it getting looser?”

“No! Ow! Brace on the ground!”

“I’m trying — aagh!”

“I’ll knock you out first,” said the Mockingbird conversationally. She tightened her grip about my throat and the blackness came inveigling in. “Then them. And I’ll throw in the cost of that dress to the ransom bill, I might add.”

The world gradually dimmed, all its contents blurring into much of a muchness — all the art pieces, sections of wall, the distant door to the sewers from which Sparkle had entered, Sparkle and her dragon themselves — and as unconsciousness threatened at the last, I could think only defiant thoughts and wheeze defiant wheezes.

The door creaked open, and a light flamed within. I muzzily regarded it as the darkness consuming my vision threatened to consume it last.

The light took the shape of Auntie.

She emerged from a flickering gold-framed portal, padding quite casually onwards and stooping to get through the doorway. She rose and straightened and spread her wings. A sunny ambience seemed to engulf proceedings.

I boggled once again. The vice about my throat relaxed, the Mockingbird boggling in her own right, and I took the chance to suck in the vital oh-two. The darkness diminished a tad.

Auntie quietly took in the entire room with a single sweep of her gaze, her fathomless magenta taking in myself and the Mockingbird and the assembled art of Equestria and Sparkle and her dragon. From far away, I heard Sparkle exclaim, “Princess Celestia!”

“Ththk!” I halooed, not to be outdone.

When Auntie’s gaze finally settled, it was on the Mockingbird, who seemed to have frozen in place where she held me.

Auntie spoke at last, and her tone was like an eclipse. “Blueblood.”

The Mockingbird immediately shed her grip about my trachea and I collapsed to the ground, and though the noise of my frantic inhalation at that moment had something of a rubber-duck quality to it, that seemed only a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things.

Auntie said, in a manner less reminiscent of the End-Times, “The Harmony.”

Overhead, I was dimly aware of the Mockingbird pointing with her forehoof. Something came drifting over in Auntie’s magic, and the eponymous brute itself came floating over to her in its frame. She studied it for a moment and then sighed with relief, as if a decent-sized mountain range had been lifted off her withers.

I felt something of the same. The expression on Auntie’s face was something I could have undergone a thousand rotten days in Manehattan to see realised.

Then Auntie said, “Fleur.”

A moment’s pause, and then the Mockingbird said with a faintly plaintive edge, “I, um … Your Majesty, I don’t have a Fleur—”

At which point, Fleur stepped out from the portal behind Auntie, smiling the same way wolves don’t. A couple of her more solidly-built detectives lurked behind her, hovering by the portal’s other side.

From the sigh the Mockingbird heaved, one could gather that this was not the way she wished the day had gone. “I wasn’t expecting to host this many visitors all of a sudden.”

“Good day, Mockingbird, I presume,” purred Fleur, advancing. Her gaze roamed over the artistry crowding out the walls, and she nodded as if consulting some internal list. “Forgive my forwardness. I am something of a keen follower of your work and have long desired an interview on the matter.” She stopped before the Mockingbird and leaned in close. “In particular, I’d like to talk about alternate career paths you may wish to consider. Trot this way with me, if you please.”

There seemed to be a momentary hesitation about the Mockingbird’s manner, as if she was contemplating some last bold escape even when in the metaphorical jaws of Auntie and Fleur themselves. I swear she thought hard for an instant and eyed various exits.

But that instant passed, and as co-operative a pony as I’ve ever seen meekly fell into step with Fleur as she was led towards the portal.

Off she went, and I might add that there are few ponies I’ve been gladder to see the back of.

But before I could dwell on her too much, I felt a warm aura of magic engulf me, and I became aware that Auntie had gently lifted myself right up off the floor. My legs flopped towards the ground, tottered somewhat as the effects of Sparkle’s stunning spell refused to disperse, and after a near-miss, Auntie seemed to decide it was for the best to keep me in her grasp. I might have uttered thanks; it might have come out incoherent.

No matter. She seemed quietly pleased as punch, and she had the Harmony in her possession, and all was right with the world again.

Auntie had turned on Sparkle, and there was a faint susurration of her magic that popped the inhibitor right off of Sparkle’s horn. Sparkle heaved her own heavy sigh of relief. “Thank you, Princess Celestia,” she babbled. “Thank you. I tried to keep her talking as long as I could, just after I’d sent the letter and came in here, but she cottoned on, and things, er ...”

“I beg your pardons for the delay, Twilight and Spike,” Auntie gently replied. “My paperwork was more onerous than usual this evening; I assumed your letter could keep for a minute. You’re both unhurt?”

“Yep … I mean, yes, Princess. We’re both okay, though I think Blueblood got a knock or two.” An honest streak which I wouldn’t have thought Sparkle possessed asserted itself, and she abashedly muttered, “He was knocked into the path of one of my spells. Though even when he was downed, he was still trying to distract the Mockingbird and keep her off Spike and I.”

‘Distract’ nothing, I was bally well trying to thrash her soundly. “Ggtht,” I said, clarifying.

“I’ll take him back to the palace,” Auntie said, and was a sweeter sentence ever uttered? “He’ll recover there in short order, I believe. And I will say now that I am deeply grateful to all of you for your efforts, whatever they may precisely have been, in retrieving the Harmony. There are few objects with a greater sentimental value to me in all Equestria.”

In my head, a thousand ancestors cheered my name. Had I briefly been forced to not live up to the exacting honour of the line of Platinum? Perhaps, but many of them knew Auntie too. I didn’t doubt they’d approve of any deed done to assist her. 

Well, except possibly for Iridium, but we don’t hang that blot on the escutcheon’s image up for a good reason.

Sparkle seemed to glow, as did her dragon — and dash it, despite their combined and brimming ledgerbook of sins against my person and gravitas, I supposed they’d both been of some minor assistance in a couple of capacities. Let them enjoy whatever laurels were doled out to them. I’d simply be sure to not invite them along on future adventures. I daresay they’d had their fill.

“Though I do feel I should remind you, Twilight,” Auntie said, still softly but with a certain educational firmness, “that in the reply I sent your letter when you were aboard the train, I did ask that you do your best to keep Bluebood out of too much trouble, to the best of your ability.”

Sparkle froze, opened and shut her mouth a few times, and otherwise dithered. For my part, still slung in the air athwart Auntie, I couldn’t quite grasp why such an instruction had been issued. Dash it, you’d think Auntie would know her own student’s limitations.

“I can’t help but feel that request was subject to some creative interpretation,” Auntie pressed.

“Yes, Princess,” Sparkle admitted at last, and hung her head. “I’m sorry. I just had the idea for the plan to catch her, and I didn’t think he’d get into actual danger, and … I ... ”

She trailed off, apparently lost in the weeds of pure mortification, and Auntie didn’t harry her with more critique in that vein. She just leaned forward and gently raised Sparkle’s chin with her forehoof. “Perhaps there are lessons to be learned,” she said conversationally. “On how to engage with and properly treat one’s fellow pony and similar avenues of interest. I’m sure an opportunity will present itself, perhaps some time this summer.”

Past the rapt attention Sparkle was giving Auntie, her expression became somewhat dubious. She still nodded, though in a somewhat bemused manner. “I was … well, before Prince Bluebood recruited me for all this, I was planning on asking you what you thought my summer project ought to be.”

Auntie didn’t immediately answer. She just smiled one of her enigmatic smiles, looked briefly towards the floating Harmony, and then turned to the portal. “I’ll consider the matter, my faithful student.” And then she said, in a voice so low only I could hear, “I may have something of a notion already.”





And on the whole rummy matter, there is not much more to be said. I was abstracted back to the haven of Canterlot Palace, and true to Auntie’s word, my recovery there was swift. Indeed, a long bath and a slap-up supper and two full goblets of brandy and a casual game of poker and, at last, a full night’s rest were enough to render one as fit and cheerful as a fiddle and thoroughly ready to re-join polite society

In the next couple of days, I had the chance to lay the facts of the case before Auntie, much as I have related them just now, and she made for an excellent and properly attentive audience. 

I saw mercifully little of Sparkle and her pet boil, and generally wished them a long and productive life very far from myself, and far from all innocent bystanders for that matter.

Of the Mockingbird, I heard nothing, not at first. I hoped Fleur and she were getting their fill of each other and that neither was relishing the experience. Her hoard, as I understand, was parcelled off to whoever had looked up one day and found a frame or plinth unaccountably empty. Possibly the newspapers had a field day with it. Possibly Decibelle broke her diaphragm alerting Manehattan to it all. A stallion can but hope.

And amidst it all, I found the time to smoke a cigarillo or two and get some heavy self-reflection done. What had I learned? What refined metal had sloshed out when good old Blueblood met his crucible?

Well, as a start, I discerned that good old Blueblood ought to be jolly wary of any courteous stranger marauding up to him in the palace and trying to get into his good graces. They too would probably be intent on theft or assassination or jay-walking or what-have-you, and I’d be too wise for them. They’d have to have their dedication tested beyond all hope of preserving a pretence before I’d suffer their company, and I swore I’d stick to that.

Furthermore, the Princessbury rules might need to have some sensible exceptions edited in, to allow for the possibility that one might need to set one’s opponent on fire in the sporting ring. If I ever found out who managed that sort of thing, I’d write to them and let them know. No reason others shouldn’t benefit from my hard-learned wisdom.

Lastly, Twilight Sparkle and her associate were a hazard to all known life, and ought not to be allowed to cast spellwork or conceive of plans or otherwise interact with anything or anypony important. This lesson seemed especially important, and I underlined it thrice in my notebook.

Next time, I’d find a rather better sidekick, that was a certainty.

And that just about wrapped up the introspection and all the lessons I felt had required learning. A wiser stallion had been made of me, and it was now a dead cert that the line of Platinum was going from strength to strength.

There was one last incident, though, a few days after all events had wound down. 

I bring it up only because we’re such good pals.

It was a clear and starlit evening, and I was blundering back to my quarters, a half-bot sloshing about in me and my purse nicely lightened after a jolly evening’s baccarat with the cronies. The lock to my room took some fumbling before it begrudgingly allowed me entry, and I stumbled in with a hornful of light.

Something seemed amiss. I frowned round at the various images of the dynasty, at my own drinks cabinet and wardrobe and nightstand, as if any of it had any clue to offer. My night-light brightened a touch as I tried to make out what had me on edge.

Eventually, I put my hoof on it, and when I did, I let loose an involuntary squawk.

The ancient tapestry of Platinum herself that hung in my quarters had hung. In its place, there now rose an expanse of bare wall, upon which was affixed a hoof-written note.

I groped forward to read it. 

And at this point, old bean, I’m sure you can imagine how I reacted upon completion.

To my ex-mark, Prince Blueblood of Unicornkind,

Fleur was civil enough to offer me semi-honest work in government, by way of redeeming myself for my crimes. Upon giving the matter solemn thought over the last few days, however, I have concluded that semi-honesty and redemption just aren’t my aesthetic. Please make Fleur aware of this upon receipt of this letter, and invite her to contemplate the flaws in her holding cells.

In light of the recent seizure of my hoard (for which I hold no grudge against you for your unwitting part) I have elected to start work on a new one. The contents of your bedroom made an excellent starting point. As a sportsmare, I limited myself to one item only.

I wish you the very best of luck in our next meeting. Keep your hooves up! But aim below the belt.

Your acquaintance,

The Mockingbird