Blueblood lit his horn, levitating himself in the air. To an outside viewer, he would look as if he were falling on a straight line, the glow of his magic hidden by the clothing that he wore. Using that same magic, he spread certain portions of the cloak to resemble winds, well practiced memory allowing him to flap those “wings” in pattern to his flight. He made himself waver in rhythm to his flight, authenticating his ploy as a pegasus. Of course, he didn’t technically even need all of this fakery; nopony would ever suspect the ignoble, bastardly Blueblood to actually be the Blue Knight, but it was nice to have precautions.
A few flaps later, he was at the roof of a smaller tower of the castle. It, like his own room, faced out over the plains, away from the city and any watching ponies. He landed briefly, resting his already tired body on the smooth and clean shingles. His footing was held with practiced balance. When one had no time to make friends or keep jobs, they had several hours to spend on their hobbies. Luckily enough for him, the hobby in question was more than satisfactory for him and the ponies of Canterlot.
However, despite his best efforts, crime did live on, so he had to keep it away from the living. Some ponies, if not most, took sight of him, and feared him, losing any interest in becoming a robber, thief, or fraudist. There was a small minority though, that looked at him in the news and dreamed of besting the legendary Hero in the streets. Those were the ones he had to worry about, mainly due to their bullheadedness. Sure, the mental block kept most ponies from harm, but there was more than one way to die in Equestria.
His biggest failing still haunted him and the populace of Equestria. A false banker had been able to fraud even a few of the noble class out of their houses and into the streets. Those that didn’t move from their house were found starved to death. The worst case had been revealed after one family had turned to something unheard of: cannibalism. Shuddering at the memory of the stripped clean bodies, he tried to force the gruesome line of thoughts out of his head, but the unnaturally violent and morbid piece of him pursued it.
It was one of those moments, he decided, glaring at the shingles. Slowly, he released his magic on himself. Breathing out, he reached into his own mind with his magic. Pulling carefully on the strained thoughts of bloody images and grotesque displays of pony anatomy, he focused it. Making the visions and thoughts into a more materialized matter, he began pulling it away to his horn. Even without being able to look at it, he could feel the vibrating of its black energy. Slowly releasing it as to not burn a hole through his fedora, the sickly red and yellow magic cloud floated out of his horn.
He watched the essence float away for several seconds before it faded away. He really didn’t even know what it was, other than that at one point, it had been powerful enough to level several hundred trees on release. Luckily the deep confines of the Padderhoof Forest had little life beside the thin trees and thick moss, but it was still frightening to see that he could do something so destructive with his magic and not even feel the slightest bit exerted. Celestia had told him that his birthright was one of death and destruction if he didn’t learn to control, and he hadn’t been fearful of himself until that moment.
Huffing out a frustrated breath, he took off once again from the rooftop, falling out towards the plain over twelve hundred spans below. He sped up as he fell, enjoying the feeling of the wind flapping through his cloaks and the coat. It was always enjoyable, though Luna had once boasted that wings were much better than “simple magic tricks”. While he didn’t doubt the integrity of his aunt’s words, he did doubt how dangerous it felt to a pegasus.
The pegasi and alicorns had wings to rely on, wings that could unfold and catch them easily. They had wings to guide them, instincts to rely on with those wings, even a direct connection to the air through which they travelled. They lived in the sky, learned to fly in its clouds like a unicorn or earth pony would learn to walk. However, unicorns had no such connection. They had magic, which by all accounts was superior, but unreliable. There was a theorem to the way it worked, occasionally failing on the first or second try, even with the most skilled mage. Even then, it wasn’t instinctual, and often had to be taught for both use and control. In order for them to fly among the clouds as a pegasus would, they needed not only skill, but precise concision.
Especially when the earth was speeding to meet them. He smiled, edging on cocky as the green of the ground overtook the entirety of his vision. Time slowed, challenging him. The ground still moved closer and closer to his muzzle, almost like a green blanket coming to smother him. Every blade of grass became discernable, a million small threads in a single strand of the world. The moon lit his oncoming escapade, as if the night’s eye were itself interested in his challenge.
At the last moment, he unleashed his magic, catching himself in the hold of his own magic. His practiced maneuver allowed him a soft landing, without even the common jerk of whiplash to catch him. It seemed as if the entire world was his for a moment, that his skilled prowess was unbeatable by any feat Starswirl could condone, or Celestia create. He laughed airily, cheerfully as the adrenaline rushed through his bodice, leaving him warm. He felt energized, exuberant, and irrational. Just what he needed for his workday. Just what the Blue Knight needed to be for Canterlot.
That was, until he heard a mare screaming.
His head whipped around to where the sound had just ceased from coming. The mare stood near the riverside, the waterfall and sheer cliff wall looming behind her. The poor mare’s face was blanched even in the relative darkness, her eyes wide with fear for him and what she had just witnessed. For a minute, he thought he recognised her, but it wasn’t until she’d stumbled onto her rump that he did.
This was the very same mare he had rescued from those goons only hours earlier. Well, it appeared that his estimation of how long it would be until he saw her again was a bit off. Her jaw had dropped some time ago, and it didn’t seem like it would close anytime soon, thanks to his exhilarating stunt. Smiling cheerfully, he stepped up to her, putting his hoof under her jaw and closing her jaw gently, saying teasingly, “Now now, dear, it’d be a terrible thing to have a bug fly in there.”
Luckily her mouth stayed closed as he backed away some, but it was shaking slightly. He felt a little sorry for terrifying her so, but, admittedly, it was hilarious to watch the reaction of somepony else at his escapade. Luna was the only other pony to have watched his stunt before, but she had actually encouraged it, quotably “unimpressed”. Apparently, she had done things “about thirty percent more dangerous” than anything he’d done to this day. Though he doubted she had ever terrified somepony, even as Nightmare Moon, as he had done with this poor mare. Oh well, still something to cross off of his bucket list.
“Sorry for frightening you so much, Ms. River,” he apologized amicably, holding out a hoof for a shake. She took it unsteadily, her eyes scanning his mask with the sort of wide-eyed wonder he might expect from a colt meeting his favorite Power Pony, but not at all from a full-grown mare. Or, well, she seemed almost there. Maybe late teens, early twenties? Oh, what did it matter to him? She had told him, but he didn’t really remember well. There were thousands of ponies like her in Canterlot; getting to know each of them personally would be like trying to count all of the fish in the sea. Nigh on impossible.
“Uh -no no, it’s a… fine…” The poor mare seemed so unsure and nervous, as if he was some great beast waiting for the opportunity to eat her up. Just like earlier, he noticed. “I-I-I-I was j-just a, you know, just a-a bit w-worried about you, cuz, y-you know. Falling. R-right?”
“Yes, yes I understand,” he spoke cheerfully. “There really isn’t any worry to be afraid about it.” Well, actually there was, but what help would that do with the poor mare? “I’ve done this dozens of times already, and yet here I am after every time! Not pancaked on the ground, but still the Blue Knight! So no need to worry at all!”
“Y-yeah,” she muttered, sitting back a little. Almost relaxed. But then she shot up excitedly, asking quickly, “How did you do that? It was amazing! Scary, but amazing!”
“I’d reckon that scary and amazing can be the same thing, right,” he answered, trying to subtly change the question.
Ms. River quirked her head in confusion, raising an unsure eyebrow at his response. “I mean, sure, I guess, but how does that answer my question?”
Dang it. She was smarter than what he’d hoped for. Then again, most ponies were. Thus the disguise and secrecy.
“No, no I guess it doesn’t,” he admitted guiltlessly. Or at least, he hoped it sounded so. “But I do hope you realize that there’s an entire race of flying ponies, right? I mean, you seem smart enough to have passed kindergarten, but-”
“Hey!” the mare shouted, interrupting him, looking quite flustered. He realized for a moment that his teasing had overstepped the bounds, and was about to apologize when the mare began giggling. She looked up at him, shaking her head slightly. “You’re a bit ridiculous, you know? I mean, of course I know what a pegasus is! My sister’s one, after all! I asked how because nothing about that little stunt of yours was pegasus movement. You just sorta jerked to a halt, but softly, not like without draft or parachuting. Unnatural movement, without magic at least…”
Her unsaid question put Blueblood a little on edge, but he resumed his cheery attitude as he asked, “Well, can’t a stallion such as myself keep his secrets?
“I guess,” she responded, looking behind her to the waterfall then up the sheer cliff face. “Just kinda, fishy, almost. I don’t know. You’re the Blue Knight! It could be anything!”
Blueblood chuckled at the mare, smiling through his mask at her. It’d been a while since he’d had just a normal conversation with somepony. It was nice, sure, but it was also dangerous. Even in the few moments he’d actually been talking with her, Blueblood could feel a slight urge in the back of his head to just… speak. But to do so would be compromising not only him, but potentially the Princesses. And with Luna’s barely formed security in the new world, a civil attack on her and Celestia’s images, especially false ones, would shatter her.
So, even as the social piece of him wanted to continue to converse and tell, he turned back to the cliff face. Stepping forward to it and spreading his “wings”, he felt something soft on his hoof. Looking down, he saw a small, lavender-purple flower, its stem crushed by his forehoof. The way the flower rested on his hoof. Much like it was weak and needed support, caught his attention. Slowly he bent down and picked it, observing it carefully.
“It’s a healer’s mark,” remarked Ms. River.
“What was that, Ms. River,” he asked, turning over to her. She blushed at the sudden attention before flashing him her cutie mark; a blossoming whitelock. “It’s a healer’s mark. It doesn’t have any healing properties, as far as we know, but it was the Pillar Meadowbrook’s flower. The one she “blessed”, many ponies say. Only blooms at night though, and requires a large quantity of water, which is why they grow so well here. And just Lily is fine. S-Sorry, I’m… kinda a gardener.”
“Only kinda,” he asked quirkily, causing the mare to blush deeper.
“Well, it is my passion,” she muttered daintily. Shaking her head slightly, almost as if she was shaking away how flustered she was, she spoke up. “It’s why I’m down here, actually. I don’t really know if you overheard this in the alleyway, but it’s my sister’s birthday, so I’m giving her a lilac gem and a bouquet of these flowers. They’re our favorite type.”
She giggled a little at the end of the statement, causing him to raise his eyebrows behind his mask. She stopped after a few seconds, looking away quickly and bending over to a basket he had been too distracted to see. Picking up a few flowers in her muzzle, she silently, but eagerly offered them to him. He gave her a pointed look through the mask, though he doubted she could actually see it, but the silence was enough.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, dropping the petals to the sodden ground in sheepish realization. “Right, can't really take off your mask to, well um… pick up the flowers, huh?”
“Exactly,” he affirmed cheerfully. The mare looked a little displeased that she couldn’t quite give him the flowers, but to make amends, he spoke, “How about you finish picking the flowers, and once you’re gone, I’ll grab some for myself.”
Lily instantly brightened up, nodding in agreement as she once again bent down to her overflowing basket. “I already have enough flowers, so I think it’ll be fine if I leave now. Um, thank you again, mister. For the chatter, I mean. It’s been a while since I’ve had one so, um, amicable with a stranger.”
“Oh, the pleasure is all mine, to be sure,” Blueblood responded cheerfully. He watched as Lily bowed nervously and practically sprinted off. She may have attested to being called a filly just hours ago, but she sure held the lithe energy of one. He chuckled dryly, wishing he were still just an innocent foal, but alas, Celestia’s divine blessing hadn’t fallen on him, leaving him designed at birth for this fate. May as well get the night over with though, to get the least miserable part of his life: sleeping. Aunt Luna had helped him have some rather pleasant ones as of late, and he hoped that tonight would be the same.
He pulled the mask back over his muzzle, leaving the eye coverings on. Bending down to pick a bunch of the flowers, his thoughts drifted to the mare. Lily. he wondered exactly who her family and friends were. If he’d had the pleasure of meeting them yet in person too. He doubted -Canterlot was an enormous city, and he was just one pony- that he had, but who knew? Perhaps? No matter. If he had met them, they too might believe how their daughter or sister had met the Blue Knight twice in one night. Almost unbelievable to him, and he was the Blue Knight.
He suddenly found the flowers had been picked, nearly a dozen of them. Smiling to himself, he took off into the air once again, flying up the cliff face, eyeing the Golden Staircase. The steps leading up to Canterlot were inhabited by only one being, who waved a teal hoof at him as he flew toward the clouds.