The Mixed-Up Life of Brad
by D. G. D. Davidson
XI. Getting Down with His Brad Self
Sometimes, after school, Brad and Roxy liked to unwind with a game of one-on-one. Brad parked his custom Camaro on the street, and then they could use the whole driveway to shoot hoops with the beat-up old basket hanging over the garage.
Roxy was tough, agile, and fast, but she had the same problem with basketball she had with everything else: she could never quite understand that it wasn’t a full-contact sport. Brad could give her a run for her money, but he lost as often as he won, and he typically came away from these games with scrapes and bruises. At least Roxy didn’t try to mash his face into the cement the way she mashed kids’ faces into the field when she played soccer.
It was a sunny afternoon, though the air was cool. Birds twittered, and tufts of white blew lazily from the cottonwood trees. Brad and Roxy were both drenched in sweat. In the narrow space between the house and the neighbors’ garage, the ball made a loud, hollow sound when it hit the pavement, a sound that somehow simultaneously evoked both the cozy feel of suburbia and the spanning desolation of a deep canyon. Occasionally, some of the neighborhood kids rode by on their bikes and shouted taunts at each other as they went.
Roxy was winning by two points. Brad had the ball, but she clung close to him, as she always did. He tried to fake her out by moving the ball behind his back, but as he had no one to pass to, she wasn’t buying it. He moved in for a layup, but she jumped at him; with a hard thump, they collided in midair, and his shoulder blades and the back of his head slammed hard into the garage door. Lights flashed in his eyes. He landed on his feet, and he staggered, but he stayed upright because he was wedged between the garage and Roxy, who ended up with her face rammed into his chest and her fists clenched against his shoulders.
They stayed that way for a moment. The ball bounced and then rolled away. Brad could hear Roxy breathing hard, so he looked down at her unkempt mop of multicolored hair. She trembled faintly.
“Hey, you’re not hurt, are you?” He put his hands on her shoulders and was surprised by how thin they were. He could feel the points of her shoulder bones, tiny and sharp, sticking out just behind the muscles. She was tough, wiry, and quick, so it was sometimes easy to forget just how small and slender she was.
After almost a minute, she pulled away from him. She bit her lip, and she kept her hands balled up just below her face. She wouldn’t meet his eyes.
He gave her a light, playful punch in the arm. “I think you won. I gotta go get cleaned up: I’m meeting Twilight at the Sweet Shoppe.”
He walked past her to get the ball, but, struck by an idea, stopped and turned. “Hey, you wanna come with?”
She still wasn’t looking at him. “What? Oh. Nah. I don’t wanna be in your way.”
“My way? We’re just hanging out. Hey, you and Twilight didn’t have a fight or—?”
“Nah. We’re cool.”
Brad stooped and picked up the basketball, which had rolled into the strip of grass beside the house. “Well, that’s good. I like to think my two favorite girls are getting along.”
Tucking the ball under one arm, he paused a moment and stared at Roxy’s hunched back.
Finally, he walked to her and tousled her hair before he headed for the porch.
Even though he’d spent most of the day listening to boring speeches and dozing against a pony’s warm flank, Brad was tired. The Cosmic Council had given him a lot to take in, and he wanted to go somewhere quiet where he could process it, so it was with reluctance that he followed Stainless Steel into the banquet hall.
Once there, however, he was glad he came. King Leo and the mermares of Aquastria certainly knew how to have a good time.
Inside the cavernous hall, ponies and other fantastic beings of every size and shape made a ruckus. Long tables lining two walls were so loaded with food that their legs bent and groaned under the weight. Everywhere, creatures stuffed their faces with bowls of seaweed and with delicate pastries and cakes, or else they drank from pint-sized tankards of cider or punch. Many of the upper-class ponies huddled in a knot and looked on with disapproving glares, and a few even marched toward the door in a huff, but others had their ties loose or their fine hats askew, and they mixed freely with the unwashed rabble who had filled the Council Chamber’s upper gallery. Ponies talked loudly and laughed still more loudly, and over the thick odors of horse and perfume hung the intermingled scents of baked sweetmeats, fried vegetables, and the briny, salty smell of the sea.
All around the hall, high, arched windows let in the pale light of the full, rising moon. That light attempted to cast a pallor across the proceedings inside, but it could do nothing to dampen the hall’s warm glow, for the ceiling overhead hung with sparkling chandeliers, and recessed lighting bathed the walls in red and gold like that of a smoldering fire. What’s more, in the middle of the room, a great, many-tiered fountain stood, and it shone with the green light of lanterns hidden in its depths. The fountain consisted of an enormous bath of greening copper, shaped somewhat like an upturned cake mold, jutting from the sides of which were the shapes of giant seahorses made of beaten gold.
Jets spurted from the seahorses’ mouths, and those jets fell across King Leo himself, who perched in a curtain of sparkling water on a high throne. The throne sat on a great base of black, glossy basalt carved in high relief with the images of breaching dolphins, and the throne itself was of gold encrusted with pearls and diamonds; it was sculpted all about with the shapes of clams, starfish, swordfish, and other creatures of the sea.
Around the king, in the bowl of the fountain, the mermares cavorted. With delicate lashes overhanging bright, limpid eyes, and with slender snouts set in permanent pouts, they giggled and cast sultry glances upon any stallions who drew near.
Beside the fountain stood a large display of artificial boulders. One of the mermares, her cerulean dorsal fin glimmering crimson at its tips, lounged on those stones under a sunlamp. With a seashell comb wrapped in one pectoral fin, and without any apparent interest in the revelries, she combed out her thick, disheveled mane and ignored the stallions who gawped at her.
As soon as Brad, with Stainless Steel by his side, stepped through the high, double doors and into this brightly lit chamber, he saw Princess Celestia, her white coat dappled by the colored lights, drop to her knees and hocks before Leo, who released a booming guffaw that echoed even over the many chattering voices. A mermare knocked the jewel-laden tiara from Celestia’s head. It fell into the water with a splash, and everyone in the room released a raucous cheer. The same mermare heaved herself halfway out of the water and placed on the princess’s head a high, conical hat printed with letters that even from a distance Brad could see spelled “Dunce.” Then all the ponies standing close enough to do so took pieces of cake in their pasterns and threw them at the princess while she tipped her head back and laughed.
“What is this?” Brad cried.
“Ah,” said Stainless Steel, who reared and rubbed his front hooves together, “it’s an Aquastrian thing! Sea ponies are backwards to us land folk, so, at their big parties, they upend the natural order. Soon, no doubt, King Leo will appoint some lowly serving filly to be princess of the feast, and then everypony, Celestia included, will have to obey that girl’s whims for the rest of the night.”
“I’m surprised Celestia agrees to play along.”
Stainless started, and he cocked an eyebrow. “Eh? You don’t know Princess High and Mighty too well, do you, boy?”
Brad chewed his lip for a moment. “I guess not.”
“Aye. Every day, she has to put up with the bowin’ and hoof-kissin’ and an’-it-please-yous, but she’s always lookin’ for an excuse to let her hair down—figuratively speakin’, o’ course.” Stainless shook his head. “Right headache for the guard, her always sneakin’ outta the palace. Message comes down, ‘Princess is missin’,’ an’ then we’re frantic for the next few hours.”
He gave Brad a crooked grin. “Eventually we find ’er—usually in a beauty salon or a cake shop.”
With that, he reared again and clapped a hoof to Brad’s shoulder, nearly bowling him over in the process. “Now, me boy, you’re on your own for a while! I’ve had enough of your sorry mug. I intend to get me some o’ that kelp cake, an’ then I intend to have a cozy little talky-talk with one o’ them mermares. The blue one with the crimson tint in ’er hair has struck my fancy—see ’er lyin’ there, lookin’ all sassy?”
“Good luck,” Brad replied.
His dented armor clanking, Stainless cut a line straight for a buffet table, shoving ponies aside as he went.
Brad’s stomach rumbled, so he did his best to make his way to the other table against the opposite wall. But a pink pony, the one who looked like Paulina Pettifer, leapt up in front of him with a tray of curious hors d’oeuvres, each like a butter tart in appearance but wrapped in green seaweed and topped with some kind of red jelly.
“Isn’t this the greatest party ever?” the pony cried, and she scooped up three of the tarts and popped them in her mouth. Around the food, she said, “Want some?”
Brad took one, bit into it, and immediately regretted it. It was like biting into a gummy chunk of salt. With some difficulty, he chewed, swallowed, and immediately felt sick.
The pony stuck out her free hoof and said, “I’m Pinkie Pie!”
“Hi. I’m—”
“You’re Twilight’s very special somepony, except you’re not a pony, but she wasn’t a pony either, and when you met you liked each other a whole, whole lot, and she spilled coffee all over your shirt, but you didn’t get mad, and you thought she was crazy because she said she was a pony, but she wasn’t crazy, and when you found out she wasn’t crazy, you followed her home because you just liked her so, soooo much!”
Pinkie reared, leaned on his shoulder, and hissed into his ear so loudly that he winced, “And you kissed!” Then she dropped back to the floor and fluttered her eyelashes.
“Uh . . . yes. That’s right. I suppose Twilight told you all that?”
She shook her head. “Mm, nope. Just a hunch.”
“Do you know someone named Paulina, by any chance?”
Pinkie cocked her head. “Is she somepony you knew back home, who walks on her hind legs, but she’s pink like me instead of orange like you, and she has a mane just like mine, and she loves to throw parties just like I do?”
“Yes! You do know her?”
“Never heard of her!” Pinkie spun around and, humming to herself and with her tray of snacks still balanced precariously on her foot, pranced back into the midst of the crowd. Brad lifted his top hat and scratched his head.
He finally made it to the table and loaded a plate with all the foods he could find that looked unlikely to be overloaded with sea salt. He found a dish of stewed, garlic-flecked seaweed that looked promising, and he picked up a few cakes, but to his disappointment, when he began eating, he discovered that these dishes were almost as bad as Pinkie’s hors d’oeuvres. He supposed it was nothing strange that ponies liked their salt.
After he’d taken a few bites out of everything and eaten half the seaweed, which was the most palatable of the over-salted dishes, he found a wastebasket and dumped the rest of the plate’s contents inside. Then he made his way to a far corner, where he spied what looked like a bar.
He planted himself on a barstool. To his surprise, he saw behind the bar the pony who looked like Amelia Jems, the one Celestia had called Applejack. She had an apron tied around her barrel and was wiping out pint-sized tankards with a washcloth. Brad could smell the sweet, rich scent of apples, which he decided must be her perfume.
She cocked her battered Stetson, gave him a grin, and said, “Howdy, pardner. Brad, ain’t it?”
“That’s right. And you were, uh, Applejack.”
“Shore am. I hope nopony’s been too hard on ya. Any friend o’ Twilight’s a friend o’ mine, so put ’er there.” She grasped Brad’s right hand between her front hooves and practically dragged him over the bar as she shook until his teeth rattled. When she released him, he fell heavily back onto his stool.
With front hooves resting on the bar, Applejack asked, “Now, what can I do ya for?”
Biting his lip, he shoved his throbbing right hand between his knees. “What have you got? Give me something stiff.”
“Stiff? Like, expensive? Bar’s free, courtesy o’ King Leo, just like the rest.”
“Huh. Well, I’m underage anyway.” The pain in his hand ebbed a little, so he tried to shake it out. “What are my options?”
Applejack tipped her Stetson back. “Welp, we got the best cider in Equestria from Sweet Apple Acres, the finest sarsaparilla from Hoofington, the sweetest pineapple juice from Horseshoe Bay, and the best milk around from Byre Pierre.”
“I’ll try the cider.”
“Comin’ right up.” She tapped a barrel and soon thereafter thumped a full tankard onto the bar in front of him. He discovered he was quite thirsty after all the salty food, so he drank deeply. It was very sweet with a good deal of sediment and a mild hint of alcohol.
“Whaddaya think?” Applejack asked. “My family makes it. When it’s fresh, ponies line up for miles.”
“It’s good. I’ll take another.”
“You got it.” She filled his tankard again.
“So, that pony who came in with the buffalo, he’s your cousin?”
Applejack wiped down the bar and sighed. “Yep. Cousin Braeburn. I was hopin’ he an’ the buffalo’d come to the party, but I’m thinkin’ they won’t. We were in Appleloosa a few years back, and I thought everything was all squared away when we left. Guess I was wrong.”
“Did I hear right that he married a buffalo?”
“Little Strongheart. They took a shine to each other soon as they met.”
Brad tapped his fingers on the bar. “Any chance Twilight—?”
“Sorry, sugar cube.” Applejack patted his hand with a hoof. “I don’t think she’ll be here tonight either.”
Brad heard a loud whump to his left as a pony landed in the stool beside him, and then Rainbow Dash’s raspy voice cried, “Applejack! Cider! Stat! I’m dyin’ o’ thirst over here.”
“One cider comin’ up,” Applejack replied. “Doin’ pretty good business here, what with all the Sparklin’ Sea salt snacks gettin’ everypony parched. At this rate, I’m gonna run out.”
Brad turned sideways to see Rainbow balancing her haunches on a stool and leaning on the bar. “Well, if it isn’t my old pal,” he said. “The Light Refraction of Satisfaction herself.”
She glanced at him. “Oh, it’s you. Aren’t you supposed to have a guard?”
“My handler decided he had more pressing business . . . Roxy.”
“Stop calling me that!”
“Look, I just saw Paulina, and she pretty much blew her cover. You can stop pretending.”
Applejack sidled back over with a new tankard, which she passed to Rainbow.
Brad looked back and forth between them. “I know who you guys are. How did you get here? Why are you ponies? Why does everyone act like you live here all the time? Have you been coming back and forth for years? Are you leading double lives?”
Applejack furrowed her brow and looked to Rainbow, who shook her head and circled a hoof around one ear.
“Uh, sorry, pardner,” said Applejack, “I think you lost us.”
Rainbow guzzled her cider, slammed her empty tankard on the bar, leapt into the air, and said, “Thanks for the cider, Applejack. I’m gonna go hang with Electra.” After a sharp glance at Brad, she turned and flew toward the big fountain where the mermares played.
Brad leaned against the bar and watched as Rainbow landed on the rocks beside the lounging mermare, at which point the mermare finally showed some signs of interest. She sat up, and she and Rainbow began talking animatedly.
Back home, Roxy was a close friend whom Brad could tease, and who would tease him right back. Rainbow Dash’s grumpy attitude was getting under his skin, so he thanked Applejack, and then he jumped from his seat and did his best to push his way through the press.
By the time Brad arrived at the rock display, Stainless Steel, apparently having satisfied his appetite for kelp cake, was looking to satisfy a different appetite. He stood beneath the rocks and tried repeatedly to get the mermare’s attention while the mermare studiously ignored him and continued talking to Rainbow Dash.
Up close, Brad was shocked by how big the mermare was: her fish-like body was at least three times the length of a pony’s. Standing beneath her boulder and calling up to her in affected tones of tenderness, Stainless Steel looked utterly ridiculous.
“There’s just something about you,” Stainless crooned. “I can’t quite say what it is—”
The mermare’s eyes narrowed. She finally paused in her conversation, looked down at him, and replied, “Get lost. Land and sea don’t mix. That’s mermare law.”
“Then what do you say you and me find a quiet corner and break a few laws, sweetheart?”
“Are you for real?”
“Entirely.”
The mermare crawled over the boulder on her pectoral fins until her face hovered just an inch above the stallion’s. “And do you know why that’s the law, little pony? If this were the old days, I’d sing you down into my lair, and then I’d do to you whatever I liked, and when I finished”—she put the tip of a fin under his throatlatch and lifted his chin—“I’d cut you open and scoop out your insides, just as if you were a clam.”
For emphasis, she flicked out a long, sharp, wickedly barbed blue tongue.
Stainless gazed into her green eyes and licked his lips. “Could be worth it—”
With a grunt, the mermare shoved him away and, with her dorsal fin bristling, crawled backwards up the rock.
Brad walked up behind Stainless Steel and clapped a hand onto his armored withers. “You, my friend, are smooth with the ladies.”
“Bah!” Stainless cried. “What would you know about it?”
“Not much. I’m just the boyfriend of a princess, is all.”
Stainless snorted.
“Treat her like a princess. That’s the ticket. So says one of the books Cadance pushed on me.”
“I need some sarsaparilla,” Stainless grumbled, and he turned around and swayed toward the bar.
“Honestly,” said the mermare as she took up her comb and began to play with her hair again, “I should have just told him I’m married.”
Rainbow started. “Wait, you’re married?”
A faint pink showed in the mermare’s cheeks. “Engaged, actually, but telling him that might not have gotten rid of him.”
“Engaged to who?”
The pink in the mermare’s cheeks grew a little brighter, and her dorsal fin flexed and rippled. She combed more vigorously. “Wally—”
“The narwhal?”
“I’m drying out,” the mermare said. She hurled herself backwards off the rock and landed in the fountain with a reverberating splash.
Brad examined the boulder and decided he could climb it. He wedged his fingers into a crack and pulled himself up until, huffing, he landed in the vacant spot beside Rainbow Dash.
She jumped to her feet and glared at him. “Are you following me around?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I admire your work. Stunt pony, right? I hear you’re one of the best.”
She continued glaring for a minute, but her face finally relaxed, and she sat back down. “I am the best.”
“I know you are. You’re just like her.”
“Her who?”
“Roxy.”
“I’m not—”
“Let’s say I believe you. I don’t understand what’s going on here, but you are exactly like someone I know back home—well, except for the pony thing. But I think you must not be her. You’re like her, but you’re not her.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she’s my best friend, and she tells me everything. If you were her, you’d tell me about this.”
Rainbow clicked her front hooves together and glanced sidelong at him. “Friend, huh?”
“Yeah. What say we call a truce? I’ve made big trouble for a friend of yours. I didn’t mean to, but that’s what I did, so you’re mad at me. I understand that. Well, I’m sorry.”
After another minute, she stood and faced him squarely. “Some ponies say you only followed Twilight here because you wanted to be a prince.”
“I don’t know anything about titles, Rainbow Dash. I followed Twilight because I love her.”
“Would you hoofie-swear on that?”
“Whatever it is, I’ll do it.”
“You hold your hoof out . . . oh. Well, I’ll take your word for it. For now.” She caught him by surprise when she rammed her muzzle up against his nose and added, “But I’m watching you, bub. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Good.” Rainbow sat down again and reached a foreleg over the lip of the boulder to a small ledge below. When she pulled her leg back up, she had the neck of an electric guitar wrapped in her pastern.
Staring at it, Brad started to salivate.
Rainbow rested the guitar on her right stifle and strummed. It must have been a magical guitar, as it apparently didn’t need an amp. The chord Rainbow played sent a small needle of pain into Brad’s forehead.
He rubbed the space between his eyebrows. “You play?”
“Eh, only a little—”
“Can I see it?”
She scowled again, but, after a moment, gingerly passed him the guitar. “Careful with it.”
“I’ll treat it with love.” He looked the guitar up and down. It looked exactly like one from his world. He put the strap over his shoulder, plucked a few notes, and adjusted the tuning pegs. The magically enhanced sound pierced his brain, but he decided to grit his teeth and ignore it: this wouldn’t be the first time playing guitar had given him a splitting headache.
The volume control and tone controls were in the usual locations, but the guitar had only a three-way pickup selector, unlike the five-way selector on his Fender Stratocaster. However, when he pulled the selector to a space between the neck and middle positions and played a few chords, he was pleased to find that both pickups worked. The guitar snarled just the way he liked it.
He tweaked the tone knobs a little, leapt to his feet, cranked the volume all the way, and jumped straight into a fast-paced rendition of one of his favorite heavy metal numbers, “It’s Hard to Slash My Wrists with a Safety Razor,” by Scimitary.
The guitar was loud. He had assumed that, without an amp, it couldn’t possibly have a very high volume, but it almost blew him off the top of the rock. His head pounded as if about to split open, and tears ran from his eyes, but he fought through the pain: he had played this hundreds of times, and he could do it no matter how he was feeling.
The chatter throughout the hall ceased. Everyone stared. Some of the upper-class ponies turned up their muzzles in distaste, and a few mares even put their hooves to their foreheads and pretended to faint. Others, however, especially those who had been in the upper gallery, cheered and hooted. After a few moments of initial confusion, they fell into a steady pounding of their hooves on the floor, and Brad responded by playing with even greater gusto.
Beside him, Rainbow Dash, with eyes bulging and jaw slack, rose slowly into air.
Brad paused for a moment, tweaked the tone for a brighter sound, and made the guitar squeal, eliciting a new round of cheers. At last, when he thought his head couldn’t possibly take any more, he ended with a grand crescendo and dropped to his knees.
Over the whoops and stomping applause, he cried, “Thank you! Thank you! I’m Brad, lead guitarist of Flash Drive, and I’m here all night!” He bent at the waist, but the pain in his head made him go limp, and he nearly pitched forward to the floor, except Rainbow Dash caught him by the shoulders and held him back.
After Brad slumped onto his back, Rainbow flew up into the air and shouted, “That was awesome!” Then, looking around, she lowered herself to his side, tossed her mane, and said, “I mean, you know, it was okay.”
“Thanks. Here’s your guitar.” Sitting up, and almost unable to see through the tears pouring from his eyes, he pulled the guitar from his shoulder and handed it over.
“Can you teach me to do that?” Rainbow asked.
“Sure. You just put your fingers . . . oh. Well, maybe I can. But definitely not right now.” He tucked his head between his knees and felt sick.
On his watery throne, King Leo raised a golden scepter and shouted, “We have found the one! We have found the one who must reign over our feast! We have found the one to be crowned Princess of Fools! Let him stand forth!”
Six pegasus ponies immediately leapt to the top of the boulder, seized Brad, and, in spite of his protests, dropped him at the edge of the fountain before Leo’s throne.
A mermare swam up to him with Celestia’s three-tiered crown, which she set upon his brow. It was heavy, and his knees buckled. The mermare whispered in his ear, “You are sovereign over this feast, and whatever you decree shall be, but remember—your proclamations may have consequences beyond the term of your rule.”
“Where is the court jester?” Leo yelled. “Let her stand forth and salute her new ruler!”
Princess Celestia, still covered in chunks of cake, and with her misty mane now clotted with frosting and hanging limp, stepped out of the crowd, stood before Brad, bent her knees, and cried, “Hail Princess Brad!”
“Hail Princess Brad!” the ponies echoed. All dipped their faces to the ground.
Brad leaned back against the edge of the fountain. “As my first act as princess,” he shouted, “I declare that Rainbow Dash is to be my serving girl for the rest of the night, and that she shall go get me another mug of cider! I’m dry!”
“Not for long, you’re not!” thundered Leo. He laid his scepter on the finrest of his throne and leapt into the bowl of the fountain, producing an enormous splash. Then the pegasus ponies picked Brad up under his arms and threw him roughly onto the vacant throne, right at the intersection of the fountain’s waterspouts. He was immediately drenched.
He merely sat there stunned for a half a minute, after which Rainbow Dash, her brow furrowed in annoyance but a gleeful smile nonetheless covering her muzzle, reached through the curtain of water with a tankard in her hoof. “Your cider, Your Highness,” she said. Brad took the tankard, but the saltwater from the fountain immediately filled and overflowed it.
“One more thing, Rainbow,” he said quietly. “Could you, um, get me a towel?”
She flew away laughing.
The throne stood almost two stories high. Figuring he could use the sculptures of clams and starfish as handholds, he tried to climb over the edge, but everything was wet and slippery, so he tumbled. For one terrifying moment, he thought for sure he would break his neck when he plunged through the shallow water, but two mermares breached, caught him gently in their fins, and swiftly conveyed him back to the fountain’s lip, where they set him down. One of them, apparently in compensation for the embarrassments and abuse, kissed him swiftly on the cheek. The kiss filled him with warmth and immediately eliminated his headache.
Rainbow landed beside him and held out the towel he’d requested. He did his best to pat himself off while ponies around him laughed.
Rainbow Dash watched him with a broad smile.
He looked down at the fine suit Rarity had made him, which was now soaked through and was already beginning to show crisscrossing patches of white from the salt. “Ah, man,” he said. “Rowellina, er, I mean Rarity, is gonna kill me for this. She should kill me for this.”
After that, Stainless Steel, shaking his head, walked up. “Can’t I leave you alone for five minutes, boy?” Shoving his muzzle against the small of Brad’s back, he pushed him toward the double doors at the end of the hall.
“Ah, c’mon, Stainless,” Brad replied as he stumbled along and continued to work futilely with the towel. “I didn’t cause any trouble Leo and his mermares weren’t causing already. And Celestia apparently doesn’t mind.”
As he moved through the crowd, several ponies gave him hearty claps on the shoulders with their hooves. He winced.
“Of course she doesn’t mind,” said Stainless as he gave another hard shove. “She loves this sort of nonsense, but what she thinks isn’t what matters. The ruler is the least free pony in the kingdom. Don’t you know that? They teach that in kindergarten. We need you to look like a candidate for princehood, not like an apish buffoon.”
“Says who?”
“Says Cadance, who’s more savvy than Celestia about some things, and so says my mistress, or she would if she weren’t so wet behind the ears. Fortunately, it’s time to get you outta here and off to a place where you can’t do no more harm.”
Stainless stopped pushing as soon as they reached the door, and Brad spun around.
“What? The party’s just getting started. Why—?”
Stainless grunted. “Luna has called you, remember? It’s time to go.” He opened one of the doors.
“I’m supreme ruler of the feast. Tell her our meeting is canceled.”
“Your dominion ends at the walls of the banquet hall. Luna is outside. Move it, boy.”
He snatched the huge crown from Brad’s head and passed it to a guard standing by the door. Then he gave Brad a hard shove in the chest, sending him over the threshold.
“There,” said Stainless. “You stand where you have no jurisdiction, which means you’re my charge again. Now get along.”
Brad clenched his fists. “I’m sick of being handled.”
“You wanna get cozy with a princess, you better learn to like it. The princesses spend their lives being handled. Now move.” Stainless stepped out, closed the door, and trotted away up the empty, moonlit hallway.
“C’mon, boy,” he called over his shoulder.
Brad stood still for a moment and fumed. But then, at last, with his wet shoes sloshing and squeaking on the marble floor, he followed.