This story is a fan-fiction of MLP:FiM. I don't own any of it. It belongs to Hasbro, etc, etc.
Don't sue. Seriously. That would be so uncouth.
Part Six: The 30-30 Rule
The letter that Celestia sent to Twilight had a very strict set of things for everypony to do. First off, Twilight would have to give a speech to the town with Mayor Mare outlining the danger the town was under. Surprisingly, the citizens took it quite well, having been the epicenter of such things as Nightmare Moon’s arrival and Discord’s “chaos center of the world”. However, many ponies decided that it would be better if they evacuated now instead of staying around like they had with the other events. After the speech, a few ponies said they would stay and help.
The letter next outlined that these ponies would go off with Pinkie Pie who “already knew what needed to be done” according to the letter. The letter also said that Applejack, Fluttershy, and the rest of the Apple family would be in charge of helping the ponies evacuate to Canterlot. In the meantime, Twilight, Rarity, Spike, and Rainbow Dash would be the research team. Their job was to try to anything that could help in the fight against the serpents.
But the letter added one more thing. When all ponies that were not helping were evacuated, ready the town. This meant that everypony left, plus some engineers from Canterlot, would help in the mass construction of barricades, obstacles, and traps. This was possibly the worst part. Not because of the amount of labor required to build everything, but because of the time constraints. Nopony knew when the horned serpents would come. Princess Celestia hoped that they would come at the end of the month, when everything was set, but life rarely lets a pony prepare for such things.
Applejack wondered how they were going to even get started on the defenses while she and her extended family helped move furniture and other goods of the evacuating ponies. She mentally pictured the town and everywhere that they had decided would be the best places for barricades, for traps, for obstacles. It would be hard, but more importantly, where would all the materials come from?
She sighed and re-focused on her task at hoof. She and her cousin, Golden Apple, hefted a wardrobe between themselves on their backs.
“Where’s cousin Macintosh? We could use his help fer stuff like this.” asked Golden.
“Eeyup.” Applejack said warily, eliciting a strained chuckle from Golden Apple. Earlier, Pinkie had insisted on taking him, along with Granny Smith, into the barn and she supposedly had a “conference” with them, and now the two had to work on a “project” in the barn, not to be disturbed by anypony. Applejack snorted, but Pinkie had acted much different today than before. She had frosting on her face like camouflage war paint, and was leading a group of fifteen ponies, the volunteers, who were painted in similar fashion, to Froggy bottom bog. She said it was all part of the “plan” but wouldn’t elaborate any further.
As Applejack hefted the wardrobe into the family’s cart she wondered what was going on with Little Wing up in Canterlot. Celestia and Luna both knew that the town needed him.
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“Once more, only a little harder.” Celestia said, her a borrowed set of headphones from Luna hanging around her neck.
I panted and stretched my sore wings. “I’ve been doing this for two hours straight. Isn’t it high time for a break?”
“One more time and then you can have one.” Celestia said as she put the headphones on her ears and nodded. I sighed, but flew up into the air again. I stayed up there, a small storm forming near Celestia, and then I started flapping my wings as hard as I could, extending them as far as I could at the same time. When they pushed the air beneath me, they created claps of thunder. I flapped harder like I had been doing all morning, creating louder and stronger thunderclaps. They made the ground Celestia was sitting on shake and had broken a few windows of the castle. After a few too many, I fell to the ground panting.
I summoned a tiny thunderhead above me and relaxed. It poured a gentle stream of warm water onto my sore wings while tiny blasts of electricity massaged them.
“That last one was better, but I could still use work.” said Celestia as she trotted over to me and took off her headphones. She eyed my small storm cloud. “You’re getting better at summoning these. As well as your healing magic. Very good.” she said as she went into the castle.
After I learned to fly, Celestia had me train with a really cool Earth pony named Crimson who was the captain of the Lunar Battalion, Luna’s special guard. He was the best fighter in all of the combined forces, so Celestia had me take fighting lessons from him. He was really fast and strong, and I ended up with quite a few bruises and sore muscles from his attacks.
After that, Celestia had personally taught me about summoning my own little storm clouds, a trick she used to see Storm do whenever he was tired, to heal myself. It was very strange because I had to think that the place that needed the storm the most was actually me. At first, the storms were normal sized, but they became smaller and smaller as I thought about where exactly they needed to affect.
Finally, Celestia wanted to see how strong my thunderclaps were. She went and borrowed a pair of headphones from Luna (I don’t know how, because Luna is still asleep) and she had me try to produce my best thunderclaps for two hours. She gave me tips like to spread my wings to their fullest and to try to get as much air as I could, but it was hard to do. So eventually, I became very tired and fell to the grounds in front of the castle.
I laid there with my eye closed, focusing on relieving the soreness and the pain in my aching wings. Luckily, the lighting was doing wonders, loosening my muscles and spreading a lovely feeling across my hurting wings. The rain was also comforting, like a nice warm bath. After laying there for at least twenty minutes I stood up and checked out my wings with my own eyes. They looked as pretty as ever, except for a few loose feathers that I preened out of them. The action took me by surprise, even though I had seen so many pegasi do it before. It was just that I had never truly done it myself.
“Hey! Is that you Little Wing?” shouted a voice from high above me. I looked up and shielded my eyes from the afternoon sun with my tiny thunderhead and saw a waving figure pretty high up the castle. I squinted and then almost fell back because my vision zoomed in for me. ‘Another thunderbird thing?’ I asked myself as I looked back up and saw that it was Blueblood waving at me. I smiled and summoned a small wind to push me all the way up to the balcony he was standing on, not really wanting to use my wings.
“So that’s what you look like when you’re not in pony form?” he said. “Impressive, Lil’ Shocky.” he mused with a smile.
I rolled my eyes. The sisters just had to tell everypony about that. “You know I could electrocute you right now.” I said, summoning some bigger clouds around my head.
Blueblood laughed. “I was only kidding. Come on, let’s go do something. I’m bored.” He said walking back into the castle. I jumped onto the balcony and let myself turn back into Earth pony form. Annoyingly, the muscles on my back hurt now instead of my wings.
“So what exactly do you want to do?” I asked Blueblood.
“I don’t know. How much of the castle have you seen?” He asked me.
“My room, some corridors, Celestia’s room, the dining room, and Luna’s room when I woke her up accidentally.”I answered him.
Blueblood cringed when I mentioned waking up Luna and he was quiet for a second, maybe the past memory of him doing the same thing haunting him.
“Well you haven’t seen anything yet.” He said eventually. “I’ll give you the grand tour. Let’s start with the place you’ll probably visit the most.”
He led me down some corridors until he stopped near a large portrait of some unicorn. He knocked gently on the wall underneath it and then pulled something out of the wall near the carpet on the floor. Suddenly, the wall swung open revealing a long staircase down. He gestured with his head to follow him down it, so I did. He closed the door behind me with magic and we went all the way down until we hit a dead end made of wood. He silenced me with a hoof and then his horn lit up and the wooden thing moved out of the way. We went into a new room that was a little cold and I instantly knew Blueblood was probably one of my favorite ponies ever.
The large kitchen was stocked with refrigerators which opened with just a touch of the hoof. Inside was amazing delicacies of the pony world, from delicious apple pies to Romane tiramisu. I almost fainted when I saw all the desserts that I could only dream of owning.
“You’re free to have anything you want,” he said as he pulled out two bowls and two spoons from a cupboard with magic. “I’m just going to have some ice cream.” I looked through the refrigerators, and when I opened the biggest one I immediately knew that this was the one. Golden rays poured out of the refrigerator and I could hear the music of angles.
“This…I like this…” I said.
Blueblood trotted over and started to laugh. “Of course. Only you.” He said shaking his head. As a team, we carefully removed the god-like dessert from the refrigerator and put it on the large counter in the center of the room. Blueblood started to talk as I dug into the whole thing, spoon flying with such speed I was afraid it might fly away.
“You know that cake is a few months old right? It has been here since Cousin Cadence’s wedding.” He said amused as he pushed around his single scoop of vanilla ice cream.
“Like I give a buck!” I said between mouthfuls of cake. “Thish ish delishioush!”
“I’ll take your word for it. So were you born a thunderbird? Because I’ve never seen you around the other times Lord Storm visited.” He asked.
“Actually I just became one.” I told him before taking a break from the cake and telling him my whole story.
“I’m really sorry about Lord Storm.” He said looking sadly at his now melted dessert. “He was always fun when he came to stay at the castle. He told the best dirty jokes and always made it rain here. But he also taught me how to enjoy the storms and rain. It was fun.”
“If it’s any consolation, he’s not really gone. Now he’s inside me. Sometimes he even talks, but that’s only when he wants to.” I said making Blueblood smile.
“That seems just like him.” He mused.
“So how did you come to Canterlot Castle?” I asked him before attacking the cake again.
“My parents didn’t want me.” He said nonchalantly while I chocked on some cake.
“Excuse me?”
“Nah, it’s ok. Don’t worry about it. They sucked and they didn’t want me, so I came to live with Auntie Celestia, and eventually, Auntie Luna.” He said simply.
“But how? And Why?” I asked dumbfounded.
“Not all parents were as good as yours Wing. Mine definitely weren’t. It’s just a simple fact of life.” he said, jabbing the last chunk of non melted ice cream in his bowl with his spoon.
“Well, I’m sorry.” I said awkwardly.
“Don’t be. Instead, you could help me with something.”
“Like what?”
“You know that one mare I talked about, the one from the Grand Galloping Gala?”
“Yeah…”
“Well I know her name is Rarity, and you just mentioned her. She lives in Ponyville right?”
“Yeah…”
“Will you help me apologize to her?” he pleaded with me.
I looked at him and saw a sad, but determined stallion. “I’m not the best with the mares, but I can try.” I told him.
He smiled widely and it looked like he was glowing. “Ok! You get your stuff ready for tonight and I’ll meet you out at the front of the gardens at 10:00!” he said energetically.
“Um…I…wait, tonight?” I stuttered.
One of Blueblood’s ears perked up. “Uh oh, somepony’s coming. See you later!” he said as he teleported away.
Just then, Celestia entered the dessert kitchen. “You know that cake is a few months old?” she said.
I leaned in towards the cake and took a large bite out of it. “It’sh delichoush.”
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I rubbed my tired eyes and yawned as I walked out of the castle around 10:00 that night and towards the gardens. It had been a long day and I just wanted to go to sleep, so I wanted to get this over with as soon as possible. I stretched and looked up at the night sky, amazed that the Luna I knew could makes such beautiful constellations. I looked for the one that said “GOODNIGHT LIL’ SHOCKY” but found it to be replaced with “GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR MARE-FRIEND BLUESY.” I face hoofed.
“Pssst!” whispered a bush near the stairs of the castle.
“Dude, everypony already knows. You don’t need to hide.” I said.
Blueblood completely ignored me and asked “Did you make sure you weren’t followed?”
I face hoofed again. “UUGH. Sure! Nopony followed me! Let’s go, I’m gonna fall asleep soon.”
Blueblood flipped out of the bush wearing a sleek black ninja suit and he quickly looked around to make sure nopony else was there.
“You’re going to freak her out if you meet her dressed up like that. She’ll think you’re a pedo.” I said.
“Come here!” he said in a loud whisper, ignoring me again while his horn lit up, telling me that we were ready to go. I sighed and walked over to him as some spotlights blazed onto the both of us, blinding me.
“Bluesy?” asked Princess Luna.
“Yes auntie?” Blueblood replied, forgetting he was trying to be covert.
“Be back before midnight and no hickeys! That goes for both of you!”
“Ok auntie!” Blueblood replied energetically.
“Now be a good little foal and good luck with Rarity.”
“Thanks auntie!” he said as he teleported away.
If I wasn’t magical particles, I would have face hoofed until I had a nice gaping hole in my head.
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“Dude, I don’t think this is a good idea. The lights are off, so she’s probably asleep already.” I said, my vice strained from letting Blueblood stand on my back to look into a window of Rarity’s famous Carousel Boutique.
“I’m coming for you my love!” he said, ignoring me once again. Blueblood’s teleportation had deposited us in the middle of Whitetail Woods in a patch of brambles, and apparently since I ‘live here and this whole thing was my idea’ it was my job to find our way into Ponyville from the middle of the woods. Let’s just say four bramble patches, a sinkhole, and various falls over roots and stones do not make for a happy Little Wing. What annoyed me even more was that Blueblood had managed to stay completely fine.
When we did finally get into town it was well past midnight and everypony was in bed. All the lights of the town were out, except for the occasional night owl, but for the most part everypony was in bed. That included Rarity.
Carousel Boutique’s doors said “Sorry we’re closed” and all the lights of the building were extinguished, telling me that coming here was a waste of my sleeping time. But Blueblood thought otherwise. He wasted to see for himself, so he decided to climb onto my back to conveniently look through the only semi-lit window in the place. It was around back, and from what I saw when I flew up to look through it was that there was a little filly that had fallen asleep at her kitchen table after getting a midnight snack. The light came from the open refrigerator door.
Blueblood had to get a closer look, so he climbed up onto my back and pressed his face against the window. And then, right when I thought I could finally go home and go to sleep, the window creaked open. Blueblood looked down at me, pumping a hoof and mouth ‘yes’ to me. Then he climbed into the Boutique.
Even though all my instincts were saying “this is a REALLY dumb idea” I followed the love struck fool inside. I found him crawling on the floor to avoid detection by the sleeping filly. My eye twitched and I face hoofed again, knowing I would probably get a scar just from this night. I gently walked over to the refrigerator, closed the door, and pulled Blueblood off the ground.
“Would you cut it out!” I hissed at him, holding him by the neck of his ninja outfit. “First of, this is breaking and entering, which is ILLEGAL. Second off, Rarity will just think you’re creepy, breaking into her house at night. And third off..” I whispered loudly, being cut off by the filly moving in her sleep. Both Blueblood and I started at her, holding our breaths as she stretched, sighed, and went back to sleep. I let my baited breath out and Blueblood broke out of my grip.
“True love is stronger that things like ‘laws’!” he said as he snuck off towards the stairs.
“Blueblood! Get your flank back here!” I hissed, about to chase after him, when the little filly woke up. I froze as she lifted her head off of the table and rubbed her eyes, smacking her lips. She shook her head and I told myself to calm down, knowing she couldn’t see me. But then she noticed the bowl of cereal next to her and her horn lit up. The refrigerator door opened up, casting its light all over the kitchen. For a second, she didn’t notice me, standing in front of the door. But then I heard her gasp.
“Oh buck.” I said aloud.
“RRRRAAARRRRIIIIIITTTTYYYYYYY! ROBBERS! ROBBERS! ROBBERS!” she screamed, flinging the bowl at me. I got a faceful of milk and happy hay (it’s grrrreat!) as she sprinted up the stairs screaming. I pulled the bowl off of my face and started to freak out. I ran out of the kitchen and tried to find the front door. Blueblood or not, I wasn’t going to wait around for the idiot. I really didn’t feel like getting arrested tonight.
When I got out of the kitchen I managed to make even more noise by running into a rack of dresses, falling over it and getting caught among all the clothes. I swore noisily and tried to get the damned rack off of me. But then somepony dragged me out of the mess.
“She stirs, Wing! But she doesn’t seem too happy…” said Blueblood in my ear as he gasped loudly. “Here she comes!” he squealed.
“Is anypony there?” asked a quiet, nervous voice.
“Rarity, listen it’s…” I tried to say as something sharp flew by my face, cutting my cheek.
“HAHA! YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD STEAL FROM ME?!?” Rarity screamed. “EAT THIS!”
That was when I noticed the many scissors held aloft by her magic. I almost started to cry. They came fast and deadly and I managed to dodge quite a few, but some got me. One got me deeply on my front hoof and I swore and quickly and shoved the hoof into my mouth,sucking on the fresh cut.
“SO THAT’S WHERE YOU ARE, YOU VAGRANT!” she screamed as a heavy cast-iron pan came flying out of the kitchen. I felt my legs go weak as it flew towards me.
“Buck! Ow! Buck it all! What the buck Rarity!” I yelled as the pan hit me repeatedly. I was prepared to say the last swear of my life as the pan rose into the air, but then the lights in the whole Boutique went on.
I saw the surprised Rarity, in a robe with curlers in her hair and that nasty green stuff on her face, blink at the sudden appearance of light. But then she saw me, in the sorry state that I was in, on the floor.
“Little Wing?” she asked confused.
“Ah hum.” said a deep masculine voice from near the light switch. I looked and saw Blueblood leaning on the wall in a tux, a rose in his hoof, and a charming smile plastered on his face. “It’s been too long Rarity.”
“YOU!” she yelled as she hurtled the pan at Blueblood.
From my perspective on the ground, time slowed down. I saw as the pan made a slow line towards Blueblood and I thought about my options.
Option 1: Stay on the ground, let Blueblood get hit as revenge for this whole Storm-forsaken night, and go home and sleep.
OR
Option 2: Do some stupid-assed stunts which put me in front of the pan, taking the hit for Blueblood so he could apologize to Rarity and we could go home and I could sleep.
I weighed the pros and cons of both options. If I laid on the ground, I wouldn’t get hit, Blueblood would receive some divine justice, and I could go home knowing he’d never get the mare. If I jumped up to intercept the pan, I would look cool, make Blueblood owe me, and I would go home happy, knowing that Blueblood at least did what he set out to do.
Bah! Might as well help out a mother-bucker while I can.
I sprung off the ground, doing back flip after back flip (that I had no idea I could actually do) and I jumped up, catching the pan in my stomach while Blueblood yelled “NOOOOOO!” in slow motion. Rarity put both hooves to her mouth and as I fell both of them raced to my side.
I rolled on the ground, pushing the pan off of me.
“Ow! Buck Rarity! How hard did you throw that? I think it might have actually broke one o’ me buckin’ ribs!” I shouted as both Rarity and Blueblood kneeled beside me.
Here’s a tip filly’s and foals: OPTION 2 SUCKS!
Rarity looked aghast. “I’m so sorry Little Wing, I thought you…” she became silent as Blueblood gave me a resounding smack.
“One does not talk in front of ladies in such a way!” he yelled at me.
“Are you kiddin’ me!” I screamed at him. “I just took a pan for you! A PAN!”
“Please, Prince Blueblood it is alright.” Rarity said, blushing a little from the complement. Blueblood quickly went silent.
“Now Little Wing, why are you in my house at such a time?” Rarity asked.
“ROBBER!” the little filly screamed as she charged down the stairs in full hoof-ball armor, waving a flyball bat around.
“It’s alright Sweetie Belle. It’s just Little Wing.” Rarity explained calmly.
“Who?” she asked.
“The stallion that saved me yesterday.” she said seriously.
“But why did he break into our house?”
“Yes Little Wing, Why?” Rarity asked.
I sighed deeply. “Ask Blueblood.”
Rarity looked at the prince with hard eyes. “This was all your plan?” she asked, her eyes hardening.
“I know what it seems like, but Little Wing told me his story today, and I could wait no longer.” He said theatrically. “My soul yearned to see your beauty once again and to apologize.”
Rarity looked at him in shock, obviously silenced by his words.
“Please Lady Rarity,” he said in desperation, “please accept my apology. At the Grand Galloping Gala, I saw your beautiful face, and I knew you were the one. But alas, I have a woeful discourse with crowds of ponies. Like the moon is to the werepony, crowds are to me. I become a monster around them, one that I hope you will never have to see again. From that night on, I promised I would apologize to you, but I could not find you, until Little Wing here told me that you were in Ponyville. I saw my chance, and I took it my love.”
Rarity got up, confused and surprised, but Blueblood continued.
“But now I see my blunder. Even though I wanted to do what Barnabas of Hayberry…”
“…Place did? Professing his love to Angelina after he had snuck into her bedroom on the night of the full moon?” Rarity picked up, her eyes growing wide, tears springing to the corners of her eyes.
“Yes!” Blueblood said, gripping Rarity’s hooves with his own. “I did not know that such a beautiful mare as yourself watched Hayberry Place.”
Rarity turned away from Blueblood’s gaze, blushing. “I can’t help it, it has such a good story…”
“And fantastic acting!”
“Especially the acting!” Rarity shouted, looking deeply into Blueblood’s eyes before blushing again. “I…I’m sorry I never even tried to talk to you again. I should have given you another chance…”
“Rarity,” Blueblood said, lifting her chin with a hoof. “Your gentle gaze is all the chance I need.” Rarity threw a hoof around Blueblood and locked him in a heavy kiss. Sweetie Belle squealed happily, but I started coughing, since they were leaning on what I knew was a broken rib.
“GET THE BUCK OFF OF ME YOU TWO!” I shouted as they leaned onto me harder.
They broke away, both blushing, Rarity looking away coyly, Blueblood looking at her intently.
“Using lines from season 3, you beast.” Rarity giggled as she swiped at Blueblood’s chest with a hoof.
“What can I say?” Blueblood said as he playfully went to bite, but missed Rarity’s hoof. She giggled and he gave a goofy grin. I almost threw up on the spot.
“Hey Blueblood?” I asked in a cutesy voice.
“Yes Little Wing?”
“When are you going to be done making out with Rarity, because I’M FARILY BUCKING SURE THAT I HAVE A MOTHER-BUCKING BROKEN RIB!”
Blueblood frowned a little. “My love,” he said to Rarity. “It appears I must leave you now. When can I see you again?”
“Tomorrow,” Rarity mumbled. “Come to the Library. I’ll be there around noon.”
“I will be there.” He said, kissing her hoof, before picking me up to my hooves. “Until tomorrow!” he said as I dragged him out the door.
“Until tomorrow!” Rarity called back, putting a hoof out towards the door.
We walked in silence for a few moments until we were close to Ponyville Square.
“Did you see how her eyes sparkled in the light?” he asked me, on cloud 9.
“You have that green stuff on her face from when you kissed her.” I deadpanned.
He absentmindedly smeared it further into the fur on his face. “Oh yeah.” He said lost in the memory.
“Let’s go home.” I told him as we reached the square. I found a bench and sat down. “That BROKEN RIB is making it really hard to walk.” I said as he charged up his horn.
“It is an injury of love!” he said in defense.
“Fine. Forget the broken rib.” I said testily. “But remember this, I now know you watch soap operas.”
“I’m in a castle all day!” he yelled at me. “What else am I supposed to do? Plus, I think you’d like some of them.”
“Ewww. No dude.”
“I’ll have you watch one someday and you’ll get hooked.” He said as his horn fully lit up. “Let’s go home.”
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I could barely make it up the stairs into the castle when we got back, so I let myself change into thunderbird form and I flew up to my room. I found the latch to the glass ceiling, so I let myself plop down upon my bed, feeling overly beat up. As I let myself go back into pony form, I summoned a small thunder head above my midsection so that my broken rib heal. It had been a long day and an even longer night.
But, it was worth it. I laughed at the memory of Blueblood’s muck-covered face as Luna fired up her spotlights when we arrived late. She took one look at Blueblood’s face and then smiled. Then she cleared her voice and followed Blueblood through the castle singing “What is love” in the Royal Canterlot voice behind him. How she made the synthesizer noises, I’ll never know.
But Blueblood was right. Love is always worth whatever pain happens to you. And while I laid there on my bed, being healed by my own lighting, I started to hum the song too.
‘What is love? Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more…’ Storm chimed in, allowing me to go to sleep laughing, with an extremely content feeling.