Epilogue: Prince Blueblood’s Happy Little Life
I wake with the slow agony that tells me I’m not dead, though how I wish I were. There is not one part of me that isn’t in pain. Not just the physical. There is the overwhelming weight on my heart, as I wonder what has happened. What did I do? Where is Aunt Tia?
I’m in a hospital, I can tell that much after a quick glance at the dreadful décor and the uncomfortable mattress under my rump. Aunt Luna’s upper half is stretched on the lower part of my bed, snoring loudly. I don’t want to wake her, but I shift as I regain consciousness, and I accidentally kick her in the horn.
“Aunt Tia?” I ask, despite the agony that surges through my throat.
“She’s alright, prince,” Luna says in her soft, sweet voice. That doesn’t last. “BUT WHAT THE BUCK WHERE YOU THINKING?!”
For the next three hours, I get to listen to the Princess of the Night screaming and snarling at me. She makes liberal use of the Royal Canterlot Voice no less! After three straight hours of hearing how stupid I am, how I could have gotten killed, how sick with worry I made her, she finally trots off to set the moon, though assures me she will be back. My ribs and chest are in excruciating pain, and now my ears are bleeding, but I settle down and hope I might be able to sleep.
Captain Armor must have sensed I was starting to relax, because he comes trotting in.
“Prince,” he says, nodding his head.
“Captain,” I say. I hope tilting my head down is a sufficient form of respect. Something occurs to me. “You are a prince as well, are you not? Due to your union with Cadance.”
He shifts from hoof to hoof. Clearly he does not want to be in the room, and I do not want him, so why won’t he leave? “I prefer my ranking of captain. It is a title that I earned, instead of marrying in to.” He pauses, to gather his thought. “For many years, I viewed the rank of prince as something hollow, but I feel now, my judgment may have been tainted.”
“No, you were correct the first time,” I mutter. “It’s a hollow rank given to worthless children to keep them appeased. That reminds me, would you please tell your sister I would like to speak to her about time travel spells? There is a flaw in my past I would like to remedy.”
Captain Armor sighs again. It’s an annoying sound that I dislike. I wish he would leave. It seems, before he will give me peace, he lifts his hoof over his eye in a salute that… that must be meant to mock me. Finally he leaves, and I set my head back, hoping to sleep. Worried about the door, I manage to summon just enough magic to close it, and lock it. That should keep the peasants out.
Unfortunately, I fail to consider the determination of a certain purple mare.
The door explodes with a rain of splinters and wood. With tears in her eyes, Princess Sparkle leaps into the room. Vision blurry, she somehow devises where I am, and abruptly speeds towards me as fast as her wings will take her. She crashes into me, hard, wrapping her arms around my chest and squeezing tight, despite the obvious bandages that cover my ribs. The pain is so extreme, I cannot vocalize it, and all that emerges is a choked gasp. She buries her face into my chest and sobs, babbling something incoherent.
Never in my life have I been so happy to see Cadance, who comes in behind Princess Sparkle. She embraces the purple mare with her magic and carefully lifts her off me. Princess Sparkle is placed on the bed, at my hooves, and seems to regain enough composure to speak. Yet she only utters two words, choked on tears: “Thank you.”
It’s been years since Cadance smiled at me. Cadance smiles so often, but rarely at me. Now she smiles in the sweet, loving way only she can. The sun shines through my open window and touches my fur, and somehow the excruciating pain in my chest is eased.
My last visitor of the day is Aunt Tia herself. I am angry that when she finally arrives, fatigue has taken firm hold of my consciousness. On the other hand, it is with Aunt Tia that I feel the safest. She who will protect me, she who will keep me warm. I smile at her, and she dips her head and softly kisses my cheek, like she did when I was still just a colt. With her warm saliva drying on my fur, I drift into a pleasant, deep sleep, where the pain cannot affect me.
Since none of the royal nurses have ever had to deal with somepony injured to the extent I am, they call a specialist from Ponyville, an elderly white mare with a red cross of sorts on her flank. She rattles off a long list of injuries. It seems I am covered in three different degrees of burns. I also suffer from severe dehydration. Muscles have ripped off bones, and bones have snapped in two. More blood has escaped me than I have kept inside.
It’s decided a cover story is needed. Apparently, the peasants cannot handle the truth. The official story for Aunt Tia will be that she was out scouting areas of the Everfree Forest that would be suitable for a new earth pony settlement. It’s not actually that far from the truth, not that any of the peasants actually care. Their fickle hearts melt the moment Aunt Tia appears on the royal balcony, the sun at her back. She proceeds to scold the collective masses for how they treated Aunt Luna and Princess Sparkle. I manage to get out of bed and sit before the window, and watch as Aunt Tia reprimands a thousand ponies all at once… seeing that is worth the scolding I receive from my personal nurse.
The cover story for me? To explain my injuries? After a night of drunken debauchery, I was found in a gutter, wounded as I am.
It is three weeks before I have even rudimentary mobility back. Magic and alchemy can only do so much. Sometimes, it is a matter of time. My days are far from unpleasant, however. Luna visits me every morning and every evening. The first few days are spent scolding me for my stupidity, or sobbing because she thought she had lost me. Odd that I’m the one half dead, yet I have to comfort her, but truthfully, I don’t mind. When those emotional days pass, she just spends time with me, talking to me, telling me about her adventures of old, talking about politics and the present state of the peasants. She reads the paper to me, and the newest essay from Clopski, and we have great fun mocking him. Princess Sparkle comes by every few days and we read maps and atlases and how the maps have changed over the years.
After close to six weeks spent in bed, I’d rather risk permanent damage to my legs than spend another day on my back in bed. I have no delusions about my well being. Even Aunt Tia is not sure of the magic she used on me. I imagine at any moment, I could suddenly burst into flames, and no water or magic could save me. I want to feel the cool air and warm sun on my skin one more time before that. Princess Celestia insists I travel with two mares as company, which I can’t say is that bad, all things considered. I assume she will send me out with a few mare royal guards or a pair of Wonderbolts. Instead, it is Cadance and Princess Sparkle. Despite Aunt Tia’s return, the Discordians rioters remain an infestation. Aunt Tia is worried about me, and requests that I take my vacation in Ponyville instead. Princess Sparkle casts a spell, and after the purple magic fades, we are suddenly in that quaint village.
Princess Sparkle takes the lead. There are still a dozen parts of me that hurt, but I manage to keep my head up as I trot along, and eventually I am inside the warm spa.
A rather attractive earth mare says she will tend to me personally. She is smaller than me, but well built, as earth mares tend to be. Her fur is the cyan of my eyes, or at least close to it, while pretty pink hair that reminds me of Dream Aunt Tia stretches down her back. She turns around, batting my face gently with her tail (which smells faintly of flowers), and tells me to come with her into the back room.
She rubs salves into my burns and scars, things she promises will get my fur growing. I try not to whimper when her hooves touch against the raw flesh of my chest and arms and flanks. The salve is both cool and tingling, making me shiver and groan.
“By the sun, I look awful,” I mutter, without really thinking. Scars and burns, sickly skin is more common than my beautiful white fur. My mane and tail are barely stubble and… there are the scars on my flanks. I may not have a special talent, but to lose my cutie mark… The magic flame my aunt used to burn me, none of the princesses are sure what will happen to these wounds. I am not pleased that I am so badly scared, but I could deal with all that with time. But to lose my cutie mark, to lose perhaps the only constant in my life…
“Yes, you do,” the spa pony says, and snaps me from my dream. “I would expect better of the great Prince Blueballs.”
I sigh. “Have the Discordians come all the way down here? I was hoping your quaint, rural settlement might be beneath their gaze.”
The spa pony giggles. “Actually, details about you have been shared by Miss Rarity. She is our best customer, and frequently tells of her adventures in Canterlot. After the Gala a few years back, she had oodles to say about you.”
“Yes, I remember the gold digging marshmallow. Some time after the Gala, she returned to Canterlot as a guest of Fancy Pants. I was under the impression that we had settled our differences. How strange that ponies are so eager to discuss one’s faults and follies, but remain silent about one’s triumphs and good deeds.”
My back arches as the spa pony applies something to my skin. The subtle, constant heat of my burns suddenly turns to ice. I am not sure which is worse.
“A year or two ago, Miss Applejack came in with burns similar to these. It seemed Miss Sparkle had botched a spell, and accidentally burned her friend. These salves were used on that day. They should work well to heal your wounds. I wonder how you could have gotten burns of a magical nature, though. Certainly not the common result of a ‘night of drunken debauchery.’ ”
“Have you any clue about my cutie mark?” I ask.
“I am afraid not, though Miss Applejack suffered a ghastly wound across her chest, and now I would dare you to find it, even in close inspection. Your body will heal, of that I am sure. Your fur will grow, and the mark shall take form.”
“Thank you,” I say softly.
“It is interesting, is it not? Our princess disappears without a trace. Some days ago, you are spotted passing through Ponyville, looking so comically inconspicuous it is as if you want to be seen. Our princess soon returns, and you are revealed to be covered in wounds of a magical nature.”
The faint smell of flowers grows stronger. When I turn my head, I realize the mare is standing quite close to me, with her face a few inches from my snout. “I will not attempt to learn what happened. If Princess Celestia wanted us to know, she would have shared the story. Perhaps you rescued her from dragons or plucked her from a nightmare world. Perhaps the visage of drunken playcolt is just that, a visage, and beneath it you are a noble stallion who watches over all of us. I feel I must thank you, though.” She leans forward, and plants a delicate kiss upon my snout. “Thank you, Prince Blueblood.”
I feel a slight weight behind my eyes as my mouth falls agape. I turn my head the other way so the spa pony won’t see the tears that are forming in my eyes.
After the spa, Princess Sparkle asks to take me to a place called “Sweet Apple Acres” for a dinner prepared special for me. She says her closet friends will be there. My mouth is drooling at the thought of something other than hospital food, even if it is the food of carnival folk, but the mention of her friends gives me pause. The scarlet workhorse who had punched me is the brother of one of her friends. In my present state, I have no doubt he will kill me. If he does not, surely Miss Rarity will, as our reconciling in Canterlot did not seem to stick with her. I insulted Miss Applejack’s fare last time we met, and though I am not sure if I have ever met Miss Rainbow Dash, I have no doubt she will find something about my personality unsavory, and hurt me in the grotesque, brutish manner that pegasi are so fond of.
I’m slightly ashamed to say, but I scoot just a little closer to little Princess Sparkle. She will protect me, I hope.
“In all of the locations, in all the empire, why have you selected the residence of a workhorse family?” I ask. “This may very well be my last night before Aunt Tia’s spells take full effect. Why not take me someplace proper?”
Cadance jabs my ribs, sending a wave of pain through me. I glare at her, and she does bow her head, offering a silent apology.
Princess Sparkle sighs. “You did something great, prince, but politics shall erase your achievement from history. It’s supposed to be a surprise, but my brother, and your aunts will be there too. I understand that you would prefer the finest cuisine in Canterlot, but we this little get together cannot be made public, so I hope sharing the table with friends will compensate.”
I hear her words, and yet I replay them again and again in my mind, unsure if I heard correct.
“By the sun,” Cadance says, pausing at each word to add emphasis. “Blue… are you crying?”
“You jabbed me in the ribs,” I snap. My stomach rumbles. The exertion of trotting even this short way has already taxed my exhausted body. “Is it much further?”
“The Acres is on the edge of Ponyville,” the purple mare continues. “It isn’t much farther, though we would get their faster if Cadance could keep her focus.”
I look behind me. It seems Cadance has been distracted by a poster on the wall. Her face contorts into a look of anger, and her horn sparks once or twice in magical rage. Princess Sparkle sees the poster, and lifts her hoof to muffle a giggle. I finally take a good look at it, and can’t help but let a smile cross my lips.
“It’s disgusting,” Cadance says.
“It’s… kind of funny,” Princess Sparkle giggles.
“It’s art,” I say, quite proud.
It seems, not only have the Discordians spread to this quaint rural village, but they have added a new poster to their repertoire. The poster that I stare at is a rather handsome portrait of my royal visage, smiling gorgeously, as always. Scrawled across the top of the portrait is the word, “Obey.” I haven’t the slightest clue what it is referring to, but I look quite spiffy. For some strange reason, I’m touched that the Discordians… consider me part of royalty.
Cadance’s horn glows. She wants to decimate the poster and the entire wall, but I run my hoof down her back to calm her. I don’t see what she is huffy about. My entire colthood was filled with her playing pranks on me. Perhaps she is simply jealous she didn’t think of this latest one. Using my magic, I carefully take the poster off the wall and wrap it tightly, before slipping it into my saddle bag where it’ll be safe.
“You love anything with your face on it, don’t you?” Cadance asks.
I feel the start of a blush on my muzzle. “I think it should go in the royal throne room. I’m sure it’ll have a great life in there. Now Twilight, would you please lead the way? I am absolute famished.”
Happily, I trot off, a pair of beautiful mares at my side.