Machines roared with magical power as they shuffled chunks of green wood and gray metal down the assembly line. Excess energy was blasted out of exhaust ports located near the top of the rattling contraptions, creating a corona of rainbow colors that hung around the ceiling. Ponies in heavy, magic-resistant overcoats observed the ebb and flow of magic, and kept the bits and pieces of product running smoothly.
One press, powered by a hefty dose of hydraulic magic, lowered rubies down to waiting wooden breastplates. A hiss, a pop, and the rubies were fully embedded. Near the end of the line, worksponies lifted emeralds to unfinished heads and tapped them into place, sending just enough earth pony magic into the still-living wood to make it grow around the gems.
One pony snorted and tossed a head, which had faded fully to brown, onto a separate belt. “Dead head!” The head rolled into a furnace, where it was to be heated and compressed into a lump of charcoal.
Wooden planks, carved to the shape of pony limbs, were brought up to the breast plates and connected with bits and pieces of metal. Lightning arched through the air and fused the metal together. Heads were carefully lowered onto the frames by a pegasus worker.
Finally, the whole thing was brought before unicorn artificers. The forepony gave the nod, and one orange-colored stallion tipped his horn to the ruby heart sitting in the mechanical pony’s chest. Both the horn and the gem glowed, and the construct began to rattle in its harness.
The next instant saw the mechanical horse-golem explode in a flash of red and green. The orange pony drew back in surprise as sparks bounced off of his overcoat. He shook his head at the forepony standing on a nearby walkway.
Twilight Sparkle tapped a hoof as she stood beside the forepony, awaiting his response. Said forepony, incidentally named Forepony, rolled the pencil in his mouth from one side to the other. He also nudged his hardhat further up his brow, twitched his brown tail once or twice, and might have even scratched his gray posteriority.
Twilight ignored that last one. She ignored it with vehemence. She gestured to the blueprint the forepony held as subtly as she could. “Sooo…”
“Lemme get dis straight,” the forepony said. “Dese here robits is gonna be put together in dis here factory. Den a pony’s gonna cast dis here spell on ’em tah make ’em falla orders?”
“I think you’ve got the gist of it.” Twilight exhaled loudly through her nose. “So what’s the problem here?”
“Sherbet can’t cast da spell,” Forepony said. “He said he’s tired of it blowin’ up in ’is face alla time.”
“I don’t get it!” Twilight groaned. “The spell is logical enough. He should have no trouble following the steps after it was laid out for him!”
“Dat spell? Whoa, whoa, whoa, sistah.” The forepony waved his hooves. “Da spell is crazy powahful. Crazy intra-kit, too. Alicorn level.”
“Oh, for the love—” Twilight snatched the sheet of paper away from the forepony. “Blueblood cast this spell when he was still a unicorn! He invented it when he was still a unicorn!”
“Do I look like Prince Blueblood tah you?” He shrugged and walked over to the railing surrounding the walkway. “Take it up wit corporate. Dey’s dah ones wit da money tah burn.”
“I’ll burn something, alright,” Twilight seethed quietly.
Spike stood a few feet away, reading a letter that still had a light curtain of smoke hanging around it. He quickly scribbled a reply on the back and blasted it with dragonfire a moment before Twilight caught up with him. “What was that, Spike?”
“A surprise,” he said with a smirk.
Twilight pouted. “It’d better be a good surprise, ’cuz I’m getting a deficiency.”
“It is,” he chuckled. “Trust me.”
Twilight turned back to the forepony, whose attention was on the various magical machines pouring out parts. “Maybe your little surprise’ll be worth all this hassle convincing the forepony I’m not gonna wreck his budge—”
A truly epic shriek blatted out of her as Discord and company suddenly appeared out of thin air. Discord dropped Blueblood and Fancy Pants to the walkway. “Hellooo, Twilight Sparkle! It’s like a friendship reunion!”
Twilight pulled a sour face and looked at Spike. “Was this the surprise?”
Spike shook his head, eyes wide and the tip of his tail occupying his mouth as he made sucking noises.
She circled around as the sound of hooves clacking on the floor got her attention. “Blueblood?”
He nodded and smiled. “I thought it prudent to at least be here to inaugurate our first collaboration.” He raised an eyebrow at a certain draconequus. “Discord’s mostly to thank.”
“I totally am,” Discord preened.
Twilight gave a brief snicker. “Well, I am thankful for the moral support, at least. Thanks for coming.”
“Moral support?” Blueblood asked.
“Yeah,” Twilight said. “Maybe you can talk some sense into these guys. They’re holding up the whole operation because they can’t cast the spell you invented.”
Blueblood noted the ruined pony-golem being carted away covered in soot and pixie dust. “Fair enough. May I get a peek at what they’re up to?”
The forepony nodded. “Yeah, sure. Tinseltoe! Get dis guy an ova-coat an’ some safety glasses!”
Blueblood suited up and climbed down to the workshop, while the others remained on the walkway. Blueblood likened his safety glasses more to a mad scientist’s goggles, the way their rounded lenses were outlined by hefty metallic rims.
“May I see a completed frame?” he asked Sherbet.
The orange pony nodded and waved to the pegasus overhead. “Bring in the next one, Lazilee!”
The construct was brought forward. Blueblood orbited it, touching the legs, tail, and head. “Does anypony have some sort of magnifying glass?”
The instrument produced, the prince looked carefully at the gemstones and the metallic connectors adorning the golem. A flash of magic detached the ruby heart. “I believe I found the problem.”
He handed the gem to Sherbet, who raised a dubious eyebrow. “This gem is too small,” Blueblood explained. “At the rate you’re feeding power into the ruby, it’s getting overloaded before it can transfer the spell to the rest of the robot. Either get bigger gemstones or cast the spell slower.”
Sherbet lowered his horn to the robot and tried again, this time with much more positive results. It rattled to life, its emerald eyes glowing green.
“Top hole, old boy!” Fancy Pants yelped. “That’s the ticket!”
Blueblood flashed a winning grin at the walkway. Twilight leaned on the railing with a deflating sigh and returned the smile.
“Hardhats are really marvelous things!” Discord said. He adjusted a yellow cap on his head so that it tilted at just the right jaunty angle. “I think every pony should wear them!”
“Your grasp of fashion is startlingly nil,” Fancy Pants mumbled. He put Discord out of sight and out of mind and brought Blueblood, Twilight, and Spike to the fore. “Would you care to accompany me to dinner? I feel as though it would be a wonderful finisher for the day.”
Discord floated down to rest on Fancy Pant’s back. “Oh, I could never say no to you, Trippy.”
Fancy’s monocle dropped from his eye. “Yes. And Discord. Lovely.”
“That sounds nice.” Twilight closed her eyes and nodded. “Where did you have in mind?”
Spike tugged on Fancy Pant’s shirt sleeve, prompting the unicorn to duck down. The dragon whispered in his ear, to which he nodded in agreement. Spike leaped onto Twilight’s back with a grin.
“Perhaps a trip to the Canterlot branch of the Silver Spoon restaurant?” Fancy asked. “I hear their soup is delightful.”
Blueblood and Twilight shrugged. She turned to her draconic companion. “Is this part of the surprise?”
“Maaaybe…” Spike chuckled.
“Alrighty then.” Discord lifted his talon. “We’ll be there in a sna—”
“I would prefer to walk, if you don’t mind,” Fancy interrupted as he set forth. “All this teleporting can’t be good for the digestion.”
Discord blinked each eye individually. “You’re a funkiller. A living, breathing funkiller.”
Twilight drew alongside Blueblood as they walked. “So what made you want to come to the… ‘inauguration,’ you called it? I thought you had something to do.”
“If you call, ‘mope around the castle’ something to do.” Blueblood exhaled through his nose. “To be perfectly honest, Twilight, I was planning on avoiding everypony until the party.”
Twilight’s eyebrows peaked, accompanying her small frown.
“I know, I know,” he said. “That’s not the friendly thing to do.” He craned his neck and rolled his shoulders. “I was fearful, or prideful, or any one of my number of personal faults. I wanted to be left alone.”
“You’re not going to get out of depression that way,” Twilight whispered gently. Spike reclined on her back and gave an enthusiastic series of nods. “You’re a social pony, Blueblood.”
“Indeed,” he replied. “I guess you could say that Discord and Fancy Pants tried made me realize that time is precious, and it worked to a degree. I want to spend the last few days with…” A half-smile formed. “With the ponies I care abou—”
Spike suddenly sat up. “Hey, Twilight! There’s somepony here who wants to see you!”
Blueblood bit his lower lip morosely. “Today seems to be the day for interruptions.”
“You’re telling me?” Twilight turned to Spike with a roll of her eyes. “Who is it?”
Spike pointed with a tight, cheeky smirk. Twilight looked down his line of sight and gasped out, “Flash Sentry! You’re here!”
Spike bailed out just in time to avoid being flung to the ground. Flash laughed as Twilight leaped at him. The orange-and-blue pegasus guard returned her embrace with a grin. “Hi, Twilight. Long time no see!”
Blueblood felt his heart get stuck in his throat.
“You’re awfully sneaky, you know that?” Twilight giggled. “Clandestine messages with my number one assistant?”
“Just a little note passing,” Flash said. “Spike told me you were having a bit of a rough day, so I decided to fly all the way over from the Crystal Empire to see you.”
“Liar!” Twilight batted his shoulder with her wing. “You came into town for Blueblood’s party a few days early, didn’t you?”
“Maybe…” He looked over her shoulder at the paper she held in her wing. “So, what’s all the trouble about?”
Blueblood sidled up to them and attempted to smile helpfully. “The chaps down at the factory thought the spell was too complex for their artificers to learn. Turned out to be a hardware problem.”
“How bogus is that!?” Twilight hovered the sheet before Flash’s eyes. “Does that look too complex to you!?”
Flash’s eyes crossed at the assembled facts and figures. “Uhh… No?”
Twilight huffed steam through her nostrils. “Exactly!”
Discord slipped up to the door and held it open. “Just a little thing to show that Chivalry isn’t dead.”
As Fancy Pants passed by, the courteous draconequus whispered in his ear. “Ladies first.” Fancy was only able to respond with intense blathering.
After they sat at the table, small talk ensued. The type that friends engage in when there is a lack of current events that have either not been covered thoroughly, or have been labeled as unsuitable for comment. The type that would undoubtedly become a thousand words of filler in any story it appeared in.
Suffice it to say that the subject of Blueblood’s oath didn’t come up and, yes, Flash Sentry is still in Princess Cadence’s personal guard. Fancy Pants pointedly ignored everything that came out of Discord’s mouth, including the splattered food. Spike sat between Twilight and Blueblood, quietly eating his sapphire salad and giggling occasionally at Discord’s antics.
It was a much later time that found everypony sated and ready to head home after a long day. Blueblood looked up as Luna raised the moon to the chorus of a million stars shining forth. He gestured to Spike. “Hope on, I’ll walk you to the castle.”
He saw Twilight kissing Flash Sentry out of the corner of his eye, and decided it best to begin his walk in the immediate.
Twilight’s ears perked up at the sound of his hooves on cobblestone. She took a step back from Flash and gave him a blushing smile. “Sorry, I’ll be right back.”
She came up beside Blueblood, matching his pace. “So, I just recalled that you wanted to talk to me about something.”
Blueblood slowed with a purse of his lips. “I just wanted to be there. To help if I could.”
“Really?” Twilight asked, her smile brightening the dim outdoors.
Blueblood nodded, his smile lopsided yet sincere.
“Thank you.” Twilight hugged him; a quick, warm hug. “You guys have a good night.”
She trotted back to Flash, though her smile didn’t follow. The pegasus stallion’s eyebrows knitted together. “What’s wrong, Twilight?”
“This whole situation with Blueblood,” Twilight said. “It’s irking me like you wouldn’t believe. Oaths just don’t work that way. They’ve never worked that way. There is something seriously wrong, and I wanna get to the bottom of it.”
Flash sighed and wrapped his forelegs around her. “Have you thought that maybe it has to be this way? I mean, somepony has to be in charge of Tartarus.”
“Blueblood doesn’t want to be the warden.” Twilight’s wings opened to punctuate every sentence. “He doesn’t have the skills or the desire. He’s completely wrong for the job! None of it makes a lick of sense. There’s something I missed, and by golly I’m gonna get it.”
“I think,” Flash interrupted, “you need to relax a bit. Sort of like, shall we say, a walk around the royal garden?”
She pouted, but Flash coaxed her on with an extended wing. “It’ll be fine, Twilight. It’s a duty that needs to be done, and he’ll grow into it.” He walked forwards, a still-reluctant Twilight moving slowly beside him. “Duty comes first, after all.”
Twilight didn’t kiss him much after that.
The moon shone through the crack in the curtains of Twilight Sparkle’s Canterlot suite, casting a faint silvery glow upon everything within. While quite pretty, it wasn’t lending itself to any real amount of rest. Especially with everything that was on her mind. She rustled around in her bed, still unable to find a comfortable position.
With a huff, she sat up and adjusted her covers for the twentieth time that night. Satisfied that each corner was at a right angle, she let herself fall back into her pillow.
Floating above her bed was Discord in all of his mismatched glory.
With a screech of alarm, she encased him in a bubble of purpleish magic and flung him across the room. He landed against the wall and slumped to the floor. He shook his head with an audible “yaggidy-yaggidy-yaggidy” and tipped his head politely. “Good evening to you, too.”
With her eyebrows level, she parted her lips in an inaccurate parody of a smile. “Will there be any more artificial stress-raisers today, or have you fulfilled your quota?”
“Twilight Snarkle, have we had an opportunity to talk recently?” Discord asked, leaping across the room with startling speed. He sat cross-legged upon the foot of the bed. “I didn’t exactly want to interrupt your romantic rendezvous in the garden with Sir Orange. Notice how very tactful I’m being these days?”
“Ah hah. Can it wait, Discord?” she asked. “I’m currently in the middle of plotting your imminent demise.”
“Such a strange friendship we have,” he chuckled. “Built around mutual respect and animosity.”
Twilight crossed her forelegs. “Is there a point to this intrusion? On my privacy!?”
Discord held his talon in the moonlight, where the nails glinted brightly. “Everything I do has a point, little friend of friends. It’s just that the point is, more often than not, chaos. But today is a special day.” He bared his teeth in an utterly terrifying predator’s grin. “I wanna help Blueblood.”
“You and me both, brother.” Twilight bunched the blanket up under her front hooves. “But I’m not too sure you’re the pony for the job.”
“Well of course not,” he scoffed. “I’m not a pony.”
He swirled around and scooted himself beside her. Wrapping one arm around her, he held the other palm-out. “Take yourself back with me to the days of old, when I first released myself from that awful stone prison the princesses insisted on! Remember that morning?”
Twilight sighed. “The fields and fields of popcorn were kinda hard to forget.”
“Good times.” Discord placed his talon and paw on her shoulders. “I personally recall that astonishing spell you used that morning. Do you remember?”
“The…” Twilight’s face scrunched up. “The failsafe spell? But it didn’t work against your magic.”
“Well, of course not!” Discord placed his paw on his chest. “My power is both phenomenal and cosmic!” He brought out a sheet of paper with Twilight’s cutie mark sitting on it. “But imagine, just imagine for a moment, your power”—Discord’s head suddenly ripped through the page—“coupled with mine!”
“But… but if failsafe spells shut down magic activity…” She shook her head. “That’s far too powerful a spell. If amplified, we have no idea the range or effect such a… such a bomb of a spell could have on the environment or the ponies therein.”
“But a spell that powerful…” Discord slithered back to the end of the bed. “Well, perhaps it could undo any sort of magically-binding oath Blueblood is under. Meaning we could find a pony suitable for the job, and give our favorite prince a little taste of freedom.”
Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “You’re awfully slimy for a reformed draconequus.”
“Flatterer,” Discord said. “It’s only an option that maybe, maybe, maybe could help our mutual friend. Go ahead. Consider it. The choice is yours.”
He rolled backwards off of the bed and bounced into the air. He shot her a final smirk. “I notice that you haven’t exactly said ‘no’ yet.”
Twilight allowed herself a sneer. “Maybe it’s too stupid an idea to give an answer to.”
His smirk remained. “Maybe it’s just stupid enough an idea to work.”