A single, low pitched beep. Every second, on the second. A stable, predictable line of noise, continuing without pause into the past and future.
For an eternity, that was the only thing he knew. The only constant in the world.
Sometimes he could feel the pain in his side. Sometimes he couldn’t. Sometimes there was darkness all around. Sometimes there were fevered dreams of bright colors and cooing mares. He felt enough to remember he was a pony. But then he would feel and remember nothing.
Sometimes there were voices. Sometimes the whole world was silent.
Except for the beeping. Even when there was nothing, there was the beeping. It always had been, and always will be.
One day, the eternity came to an end. He began to hear and feel again. Not dreams, but truths. His limbs ached. He was on a bed. The air was dry, and voices could be heard in the hallway.
A realization struck him, his first conscious thought in weeks.
If that beeping doesn’t stop *now* I am going to go insane.
His eyes opened, and he squinted them immediately. Too bright. It reminded him of somepony.
Right, Celestia. He had…forgotten. And his name was Blueblood.
His still-muddled mind thought to grope for a snooze button. Anything to turn the beeping off. He lifted a leg, but it felt like it was made of lead. He stubbornly forced it upwards, higher above him.
No good. It fell down hard across his side, slapping the dressing on his chest. Blueblood gave a parched groan. It hurt, but not as much as the damn beeping did.
The noise got the attention of the ponies in the hallway. A mare leaned into his view: a very young, very pretty unicorn in nursing scrubs. Her green face was split in a wide grin.
Her voice was loud, and far and away too perky. “Well, look who’s finally up!”
Blueblood groaned again and closed his eyes.
----------
They turned off the beeping, and Blueblood’s world grew very quiet. He couldn’t have visitors yet. Something about germs. That was fine. He didn’t feel like talking.
Instead, he listened. To hear the doctors tell it, Celestia had raced him to the hospital. Things were touch and go, but he had pulled through.
That got a smile from him, his first since waking up. Celestia saved him. She saved them all.
The world still made sense.
He’d be laid up for another month or two. Blueblood’s lung had been pierced, but they were able to drain the blood and seal the wound. The sword had reached his heart, too. Luck alone made it hit the muscle, and not the crucial blood vessels.
He’d be weak for the rest of his life. When they told him, Blueblood just shrugged. Being a noble didn’t take much strength.
It was pretty easy, actually.
----------
A package came one day. He opened it with listless curiosity, not knowing or much caring what lay inside.
A plate of cookies. Yay. He immediately passed them off to the too-perky nurse. It bought him a little more time alone.
Beneath the plate was a small pile of colored papers.
No…cards.
Six of them, to be precise. Along with a photograph of six smiling mares, holding up a sign that read “Get Well Soon!”
The Elements of Harmony. A smile sneaked its way onto his face, but he quickly suppressed it. They were strangers. Princess Celestia probably asked them to do this.
He began pulling out the cards, but didn’t open any. Their token sympathy meant nothing.
But it was a little interesting how each card was different. His bored mind tried to connect them to the right author based on what little he knew of them.
One was obvious: a letter with a waxen seal, bearing the mark of the Element of Magic.
There was a bright pink get-well card, decorated with a picture of three balloons. Glitter had been applied liberally to the cover, and leaking from inside the fold was…fudge?
Laughter. Another easy one. Probably that pink pony doing a hoofstand in the photo.
Beneath it, two stock cards. Inside would lay some printed message for the sender to sign their name to. One had kittens and puppies cuddling on the front. The other had “You’re Awesome!” emblazoned like some eight year-old’s birthday card. No real clue.
Close to the bottom wasn’t a ‘card’ per se, but a folded sheet of paper. “Blueblood” was crudely written on the front, along with an awkward dirt smear running down the side.
He didn’t know which, but he did know one of the Elements was a farmer. The dirt, the pen-in-mouth writing, and the lack of his title all pointed to that one.
Farmer means earth pony, which means probably the orange one. Standing in the picture solid and practical, a stark contrast to the pink mare.
Farmers are smart. They know what they are.
The old notion passed through his mind, and he gave a blink of a smile before setting the letter to the side. Not even his magic touched the dirt. Couldn’t stand the stuff.
The last one…Rarity. And now that he saw her image, he remembered. She tried to make him her road to nobility, he shut her down with guilty, gleeful pleasure.
It seemed kind of silly now, with all that lay behind them. Maybe she agreed. She had sent a sealed letter clearly stamped “From the Desk of Rarity Belle.” The envelope bulged with what had to have been over a dozen pages within. Rather than a card, Rarity appeared to have sent a novella.
He tossed it onto the night stand with the rest.
The girls wrote them either because Celestia asked them, or to make themselves feel better. Either way, the purpose was done.
The clock said 4 P.M. Good a time as any to go to sleep.
----------
The door opening woke him up. Blueblood had always been a light sleeper.
8 P.M. Not a bad pre-sleep nap. He sat up, fumbling for the lamp.
“Allow me,” a motherly voice spoke. Celestia flicked the switch at the doorway, bathing the room in light.
It wasn’t a big surprise. Celestia cared. Blueblood smiled and bowed his head.
“I came as soon as I could.” Celestia strode into the room, smiling gently. “Today they said you could start getting visitors and packages. I see you’ve already gotten…”
Her magic picked up Twilight’s letter. The smile turned to a soft frown as she turned it over, noting the intact seal.
“You’re not going to read these?”
“Not really, no.” Blueblood shook his head. “I can if you want me to.”
Celestia gave a quick laugh, like she could scarcely believe it. “Blueblood, these are ‘get well soon’ and ‘thank you’ cards! Why don’t you want to read them?”
“Your Highness, we’re strangers.” Blueblood shrugged. “I don’t need a stranger’s fake gratitude.”
She tilted her head, looking to him with confusion. “’Fake’ gratitude?”
Blueblood frowned at the disapproval in her voice. Celestia went on, smiling like it was a joke with a tired punchline. “Blueblood, stranger or no, is it ‘fake’ to be grateful to the one who saved their lives?”
Blueblood smiled blankly. “That was you, Princess.”
She reared her head back a little bit, looking at him with surprise. Then the shock faded to a quiet, resigned frown. Celestia closed her eyes and shook her head slowly.
“Oh, Blueblood. Have you really learned nothing?”
She opened them again and looked right at him. “Can you not even acknowledge your own triumph?”
They weren’t seeing eye to eye at all. “That was your triumph, Princess. You do me too much credit, I-“
A gold-shod hoof slammed to the ground, bringing a noise like a powder bomb. The bed leapt and rattled, along with its startled occupant.
In the space of a second, Celestia crossed the room and leaned down over him. Blueblood tried to shirk into the bed, but she just leaned down closer. Her pink eyes held his gaze fast, angry and sad and stern.
“I don’t know why ponies do this.” Her words were fast, and laden with contained frustration. “To yourselves and to me. To waste yourself in blind faith. To embrace insignificance. I don’t want that. I lay in defeat, saved only by your own hooves. And still you cling to this, to this…”
She breathed a sharp sigh and looked away, drawing back from him. “Idiocy.”
Her gaze returned to him, softer and sadder, and Blueblood’s darted away.
“’Princess’ this, and ‘highness’ that. What happened to ‘Aunt Celly?’ What’s wrong with that?”
“Because, because…”
Blueblood’s eyes remained on the wall. “Because it’s not right. Compared to you, the rest of us are…well, dead. Not this time, but soon enough. Whatever I did, you would have eventually triumphed anyway. Another pony would have helped, or you would have broken out with your own power. Because you’re Princess Celestia. You’re not a pony, you’re forever. You’ll always be, and the rest of us won’t. Blink, and I’m gone. And that’s okay, because ponies die. But not you. You’ll still be here. You're the important one.”
Celestia looked at him carefully for a moment. Slowly, a fragile, tender smile came to her face.
“Forever.”
She said the word, and settled a forehoof very softly on his own.
“I don’t want a religion, Blueblood. It would be misplaced. I don’t live in forever.”
Her own death was not a subject she discussed often. Celestia took a steadying breath and went on. “I can die, you know. By magic or force. Each time disaster loomed, it was not some divine will or great destiny that saved me. It was my subjects. It was you.”
“I draw power from the Sun, nephew. All power runs out eventually. All suns fade away. Even if no violence claims me, a billion years will pass…and I’ll be dust.”
“That’s still a long time,” Blueblood noted.
“To you, yes.” Celestia’s soft smile went on. “To the universe? Not even the time it takes to draw a breath. One day, someone will blink. And I’ll be dead when their eyes open.”
Blueblood tried to form a response, but she went on before he could. Celestia touched his chin, tilting his head to look at her. “But I’m not dead now. No more than you are, and you are not. We are alive. One day we won’t be, and that’s okay. But today we are. Today we have potential – to grow, to change, to wonder, to love. And that’s why I…”
She tapped her chest, then passed a hoof gently over his bandaged side. “And you…”
The hoof returned to its place on the ground. “And all the rest of us are special. Are ‘worth it.’ Are all going our own way, doing the best we know how.”
“So do the best you know how. Enjoy life. Seek happiness. If that means changing nothing, that’s fine. If it means changing everything, that’s fine too.”
She took a step back, away from the bedside. The last words came in a whisper. “Whatever you choose to do, I want you to value your life as much as I do.”
----------
That was it. Celestia waited a few minutes for a response, but none came. She sighed, patted his hoof a last time, and made her exit.
Blueblood did exchange a last, tiny smile with her before she left. He sighed and settled back as the door closed, eyes on the ceiling.
The world didn’t make sense, after all.
Celestia will die.
A deep breath in. A long breath out.
She was lying. She wanted to make me feel special, so she made up that story about the sun going out. She’s forever.
The words passed through his mind, utterly without conviction. Nothing but a fantasy asking to be duct-taped over reality.
No, the belief was gone. The world was complicated. He hated ‘complicated.’
”Seek happiness.” That’s what she said.
I’ve been content. Is that enough?
It wasn’t. He frowned. Contentment came from knowing his place. From knowing he might as well be content with what he has.
Like a farmer. A farmer’s content to be a farmer. No need to be anything else.
Except an Element of Harmony.
Another sigh. He really didn’t like this.
Happiness. Enjoyment. Would it come from a life of idle nobility?
Probably not. He’d always… just sort of gone with the flow. It wasn’t painful, but it wasn’t enjoyable. To go to those boring garden parties and spend his life tutting along with the others about fashion and lineage… no. He could be content with that. He couldn’t be happy.
And he sort of wanted to be… useful. The thought sat well with him. Useful like Celestia. Using her… limited.…
Yes, ‘limited.’ Using her limited time to help others.
What, though?
Pursue science? Spellcasting? No, neither interested him.
Become a bureaucrat? Feh. Spending his life writing unread reports didn’t seem like a road to happiness.
Travel? No, he never liked to travel. He liked things predictable. He liked to be settled.
His eyes drifted to the side, where the unread cards lay.
There was Rarity’s overfilled envelope. A strand of purple hair had been caught in the seal when she closed it.
Look for love? He actually snorted at that one. No, love isn’t something you go looking for. I think. Never really learned about it.
The pink card lay next to it. A few crumbs of fudge had fallen out onto the nightstand. Blueblood lit his horn and hastily brushed the mess into the garbage.
Cook? Nothing really wrong with it, except for a lack of interest.
To the side of that one, the folded, dirt-stained letter.
Farm?
“Pfft.”
It was funny even thinking about it.
Settled. Useful.
Blueblood forced the smile from his face. It was stupid. A fop urban noble who was scared of dirt. And crippled to boot. What a stupid idea.
Stupid.
The smile returned. He forced it down again, but it came right back.
Just ‘Blueblood’ written on the front. No ‘Prince.’ And that smear on the side. Probably from her hoof, when she folded it.
He reached over and – very gingerly – tapped the smudge. It wasn’t so bad. Though he did wipe his hoof off on the bedsheet.
Settled. Useful. Don’t have to talk a lot. Don’t have to pretend to enjoy champagne or fashion shows.
The smile grew. He tapped the smear again, actually letting out a giggle.
Stupid. What a stupid idea.
He tried to force the smile down again, but this time couldn’t even finish.
A third tap on the dirt smear. This time he pressed his hoof down a little bit. Not so bad. He could get used to it.
Blueblood glanced to the clock and groaned. 10 o’clock and he wasn’t even tired.
At least he could pass the time. With a soft glow of his horn, Blueblood levitated Twilight’s letter over to his side. He slit the seal neatly with his magic, removed the paper, and began to read.