Blueblood flew merrily into town, flanked by a series of royal guards and oblivious to the fate that the author had planned for him. Many ponies stopped to gawk, as was becoming the norm, at the full wing of flying pomp and circumstance. The prince touched down, glancing about for the fashion center of the Podunk little town.
One orange mare, running an apple stand, lowered her hat in greeting. “Well, howdy there, Princess. What can ah do you for?”
Blueblood whipped his head around to glare at the offending remark. “I beg your pardon, ma’am. I think it is quite obvious that I am a prince!”
The mare’s eyes bugged out as though she had seen the inconceivable. She dropped her hat into a bucket of apples as her hoof went limp. “Y’ don’t say.”
“I do say,” Blueblood replied. “And I would be very much appeased if you would apologize to me.”
“Sorry ‘bout that.” She retrieved her Stetson and placed it back on her blonde head. “Ah wasn’t aware that Equestria had, uh, alicorn princes.”
A haughty smirk replaced Blueblood’s peeved expression. “Well, we certainly do now. I am Blueblood, Twice-Crowned Prince of Equestria.”
A series of thoughts unsuitable for print flashed through the orange mare’s mind. She plastered a patent-pending retail smile on her freckled face as she answered the royal. “Ah’m Applejack Apple of Sweet Apple Acres. We’ve met before.”
Blueblood frowned slightly. “I’m afraid I don’t recall…”
“At last year’s Grand Gallopin’ Gala.” Applejack’s voice was as flat as a spent whoopee cushion. “You ate at my apple stand.”
The prince tapped a hoof against his chin, contemplating the information. “Last year’s gala, you say?”
“Yeah,” Applejack intoned. “As ah recollect, you said my fritters were ‘common carnival food,’ an’ spat ’em back out.”
Blueblood didn’t seem to be affected by the memory. “Hmm, it was fried fritters, wasn’t it?” He nodded. “Yes, it was fried. I can’t abide fried food, it ruins the figure.”
Applejack glanced back at her flanks self-consciously before spinning back on the prince. “Ah’ll have you know my fritters are perfectly fine for pony consumption!”
Blueblood shrugged and trotted down the street. “Perfectly fine for normal ponies, I suppose. I require a higher caliber of baked goods.”
Applejack’s normally-orange face glowed beet red. “Big Macintosh! You’re runnin’ the stand today!”
Her brother, an enormously large red stallion, nodded in her direction. “Eeyup.”
Applejack galloped off towards the family farm to earn a little catharsis. She received a small measure of peace by imagining a certain alicorn prince’s face on each apple tree that she bucked.
The apples fell like rain that day.
Blueblood continued to search the marketplace for any sign of Carousel Boutique, the fabulous fashion shop that Fancy Pants had recommended to him. The smell of succulent sugary treats filled his nose, with not a whiff of deep-fry at that, and he raised his head to catch sight of the sellers. He saw a bakery, but it was too far off for the smell to have drifted to him. He was about to ask a soldier if they too smelt it, and whom had dealt it, when a pink mane filled his vision.
“Hi! My name’s Pinkie Pie, what’s yours?”
The mare before him was pink-on-pink-on-pink; pink mane, pink coat, pink disposition. She bounced on her hooves, coming up to his eye-level with each apex. Her grin split her face from ear-to-ear, and her eyes seemed to shine like the stars.
In short, Blueblood was scared to death of her.
Pinkie stopped bouncing, but her smile was never-ending. “Well, anyway, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness! It’s always fun to meet new ponies, and it’s even funnerer to meet new princesses!”
The smell of baked goods grew stronger as the pink mare produced a platter of cupcakes that were, for all intents and purposes, fresh out of the oven. “How about a cupcake to welcome you to Ponyville, ma’am?”
“I am a PRINCE!” Blueblood’s voice became just short of a shrill soprano as he uttered a defense of his stallionhood. “I am utterly and astoundingly, totally and completely, irrevocably and irreplaceable, MALE.”
A guard covered up a spout of giggles with a cough, but Blueblood chose to ignore it.
Pinkie, for her part, took the information in stride. “OooOOAAaaooh! I know you! You’re Prince Blueblood!”
He smiled uneasily, polishing a hoof on his tuxedo. “Aheh. Yes, I see my reputation precedes me.”
Another giggle from a guard, but this one was slightly less repressed.
“Could you point me in the direction of Carousel Boutique?” Blueblood asked the hyper pony. He flinched when she made a sudden movement, but it turned out that she was merely scratching her mane.
“Well, sure I could, but it would be much more helpful if I showed you the way!” Pinkie pronked down the road, motioning for Blueblood to follow her. The prince hesitated, torn between finding his destination and spending more time in close proximity to the physical manifestation of Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs.
He took a deep breath through the nose, letting all of his trepidation collect in his lungs. He held that for a moment, mentally sorting his woes and triumphs, and then let all the stress flow out through his mouth.
A wandering parasprite got caught in his exhale and promptly keeled over dead.
It was a short walk (or hop, skip, and jump, in Pinkie Pie’s case) to the boutique. The midsized shop sat near the middle of the town, just down the road from Sofas and Quills. It was a grand affair, in Blueblood’s mind; the gorgeous purple, the sweeping arches, a most radiant flag cresting the top…
Something seemed familiar about the place, but Blueblood couldn’t quite recall what.
He stepped up to the door, which was already receiving a thorough knocking courtesy of Pinkie. A voice rang out from inside, “Come in, we’re open!”
He obliged, stepping into the foyer with his most charming, dashing, and roguish smile yet. The proprietor of the business was a pretty, young unicorn mare with a curly purple mane and a pristine white coat. She turned to view her latest customer with glee in her demeanor. “Hello, and welcome to Carousel Boutique, where all the garments are chic, unique, and magni… magnifff— Wa ha ha!”
Her laughter sparked a memory in his mind, but he was far too preoccupied to dwell in the past.
Her mouth opened in a startled, yet delighted smile. Her eyes shone with wonder and amazement, and she began to hyperventilate rapidly. “My, oh my stars! I am so sorry, it’s just that we don’t get many princesses coming in for a dress!”
Blueblood’s grin vanished into thin air, replaced with a tight, strained grimace. One of his guards once again dissolved into giggles, this time accompanied by Pinkie Pie. He ground his teeth together, emitting a harsh whisper of an answer. “For the last time… I. Am. A. Prince!”
Rarity, for that was the name of shop owner, gasped. Her eyes grew wide as her mind found the connection between the blond hair, the strong shoulders, the shorn fetlocks, and that night so long ago. “Prince Blueblood!?”
“The one and only,” he said, flashing his signature smile once more. The mares loved that smile.
This mare didn’t seem to be affected. Well, she was affected well enough, she just wasn’t affected in the right way. Her lipsticked frown deepened, her plucked eyebrows curled downwards, and her polished hoof ground into the floor. “How may I help you, Prince Blueblood?”
Deciding that it was best not to irritate the mare further, he got right down to business. “I need a new formal suit, one fit for a coronation. It must be the finest garment ever seen in Canterlot, and it should speak, neigh, shout of my glory and honor.” He attempted his grin once more, hoping to see a positive improvement.
He didn’t get it. “And just when do you need this… complex and important garment finished?”
He thought for a moment. “The coronation is tonight. Can it be done by this afternoon?”
Rarity blanched, a startling feat for a marshmallow-white unicorn. “A completely new coronation-worthy outfit in six hours, you say?”
“Why that sound perfect!” Blueblood exclaimed. “I shall return then to pick it up!”
The mare ground her teeth together. “I don’t suppose an extension is possible?”
He shook his head, flicking his wavy locks to-and-fro. “No, I don’t think I’ll be needing mane extensions.”
He turned, fully prepared to leave the establishment with his dignity intact. “Well, it was a pleasure meeting you. I’ll be on my way.”
A small gasp escaped Rarity’s mouth. “You… You don’t even remember me?”
Blueblood turned back, a bemused smile on his face. “Why? Have we met?”
Rarity was about to remind him of their disastrous date when she was stopped.
She got an idea.
An awful idea.
Lady Rarity got a wonderful, awful idea.
“No, of course not. If we had, it would have been unforgettable.”
Blueblood’s eyebrows danced. Rarity’s stomach lurched.
“Why, I don’t believe forgettable is even in your vocabulary,” she continued. “If you would please step this way so I can take some measurements…”
Time Turner polished a small pocket watch carefully. He had just opened up shop and was expecting customers to begin flowing in soon. The clockmaker had been astonishingly busy the past few weeks; daylight-savings time had begun, and earth ponies were having trouble adjusting their clocks with only hooves to turn the crank.
Yes, Time Turner was also an earth pony, but he was quite good when it came to clocks.
The doorbell jingled to announce a visitor, a potential patron looking for either his clock repairing service, or a timepiece of their own. He smiled as he looked up to greet them, and was perplexed by what he saw.
Two wooden and metal ponies, with green gems for eyes and rubies for hearts, stepped into his shop. The closer of the two flashed a light from its eyes and addressed the clocksmith with a buzzing voice. “We require a pocket watch for the coronation of Prince Blueblood.”
“Oh, you are beautiful! Just beautiful!” Time tilted his head to the side. “A coronation? Isn’t he already the Crowned Prince of Equestria?”
“A second coronation is desired,” came the response. “A second coronation is required.”
“Well then,” Time Turner smiled. “I believe I have just the thing.”
He held up the polished pocket watch, made of intricately-carved silver. “This piece here is a nearly-priceless heirloom, recently dropped into my possession by happenstance and circumstance. I could give it up for, say, three hundred bits.”
A ticking sound proceeded from the magical golem’s head. “The cost is prohibitive, lower your price.”
Time Turner tilted his head to the opposite side. “I could lower it to two-seventy-five, but that’s my final offer.”
The ticking returned for a moment as the calculations ran through the mechanical pony’s head. “The cost is prohibitive, lower your price.”
The clockmaker moved as if to hide the trinket away. “I’m sorry, perhaps you would like-”
The clicking stopped with a ding. The pony grew quiet, staring at Time Turner with glowing emerald eyes. A full half-minute and ten seconds passed before it spoke again. “The cost is prohibitive, lower your price.”
Time jerked back as the robot made a grab for his pocket watch. “No! It’s my pocket watch! It’s a nice pocket watch! If you want it, you pay for it!”
“You will be an obstacle to success!?” the golem shouted, sending shivers down Turner’s spine.
“All you need to do is find a pocket watch, correct?”
“That is correct!”
“And you want this pocket watch?”
“That is correct!”
“And you cannot afford this one?”
“That is correct!”
“Wouldn’t you rather find another watch that you can afford?”
“That is incorrect!”
Time Turner felt great drops of sweat rolling down his face. He dug through his cabinets to find a similar, yet cheaper, watch to give the mechaniods. “Perhaps this one? It’s only a hundred bits.”
“We require the o-ther po-cket watch!”
“Why?” the stallion asked. “Why do you need it so badly?”
“We en-joy the aes-the-tics! Blueblood will en-joy the aes-the-tics!”
Time squinted at that last remark. “Robots have a sense of aesthetics?”
“It was the first thing we were pro-grammed with!”
“Fantastic.”
Turner began to feel that the conversation was going nowhere, and decided to try to appease the customer once more. “Are you sure I cannot interest you in another watch?”
“That is corr-ect!”
“Then I’m afraid that our business is concluded.” He walked to the back of his shop, leaving the two golems standing in the showroom.
“You will be an ob-sta-cle to suc-cess!?”
He gave a shrug from his work bench. “That’s business, friends. Everypony gets the same chance, everypony has to pay a price.”
“THEN PAY THE PRICE FOR YOUR IN-TER-FER-ENCE! ANN-I-HIL-ATE! ANN-I-HIL-ATE!”
With no more warning than that, green lasers erupted out of the golem’s eyes and blasted a grandfather clock to pieces. Time Turner’s scream of surprise and fright could be heard clean across the Ponyville proper. He raced towards the rear exit of his business, taking nothing but the heirloom pocket watch with him.
“ANN-I-HIL-ATE! ANN-I-HIL-ATE!”
More green lasers pursued him along the street as he shouted a warning to everypony in earshot. “Run, everypony! The robots are attacking! The robots are attacking!”
He ducked as a laser vaporized a nearby mailbox. “This is why I left Cardiff! I hate robots!”