//------------------------------//
// Chapter XVII 
// Story: The Prince and the Workhorse 
// by fellstorm 
//------------------------------//


The Prince and the Workhorse


Part XVII


Listen. 
It’s fifteen years ago. Right now, Twilight Sparkle is studying for her second year midterm exams at Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. The midterms won’t be for another month and a half. Rainbow Dash got her first funny feeling yesterday while looking at a department store mannequin and she’s having another one as she play wrestles with her babysitter. Fluttershy is crying. She can’t visit the surface for six weeks because she’s grounded in her room. Her parents just saw her report card bearing a “D” in “Galloping Hard” and an “F” in “Flying Fast.” Prince Blueblood is twenty seconds from losing his virginity to his Brazilian Au Pair. Meanwhile, Princess Celestia is busy transferring ninety generations worth of bloodline records and scientific notes to a vault in the Canterlot Archive, including a fourteen hundred-page thesis paper titled On the Kefitzat Haderech, the Implications and Potential for the Future Evolution of Equus Sapiens Houyhnhm by Neightchze. The vault is to be sealed in concrete. Now that the Kefitzat Haderech walks the earth, nopony but Celestia must know her identity.
And in the Congo?
It’s dark.
Nightmare Moon’s terrible silhouette looms low over the jungle canopy. Hundreds of Zebras stand huddled together, their nervous hooves grinding the soil beneath them to mud. In the dim light of the full moon, they look like one zebra. An indistinguishable mass of black and white with two thousand legs and five hundred anxious, frightened heads. A warm wind blows in from the jungle, bearing the smell of gunpowder smoke. Gunpowder smoke and the sickly sweet stench of Ananse’s hulking corpse. A great, black mountain in a forest of spindly legs.
Beyond the zebra pens, the medical tents are a chaos of shouting and moaning. Medics gallop to and fro, overwhelmed by the massive casualties of that morning’s battle. The tents are illuminated by broad banks of Princess Cadence’s latest invention: the incandescent light bulb. A team of unicorns work in shifts to power the generator to keep the lights burning all through the night.
“We’ve got more comin’ through!” barks a medic.
Another grim procession of the dead and dying. Some ponies can limp by under their own power, but many more ride on stretchers. The medics aren’t prepared to handle such a rapid influx of the wounded. The triage is brutal, emotionless. Tombs is riding on a stretcher, bobbing by the zebra pens. His bleeding belly has turned septic and the medics mark him for death. They can’t waste resources treating him when there are ponies that can still be saved. Princess Cadence personally overrides their decision.
“Do everything you can to save this stallion’s life, or you’ll go to your grave reciting The Rhyme of the Ancient Seapony ad infenitum, understand?” she commands. They obey. Though barely more than a child, the pink unicorn terrifies them.
One zebra sees Tombs’s body bobbing past and it proves to be the last straw. She can’t stand by and watch this suffering any more.
“Hey!” she yells “Hey hey hey! Bosspony, hey!”
Her outburst startles the other zebras. They shuffle anxiously. Some of the medics look over, irritated.
“Hey!” she calls again “Bosspony come here!”
The other zebras are perturbed now. Stop calling their attention! They move to block her from view, but she pushes to the front, calling out again.
A pair of guards in jungle fatigues approach.
“Quiet, you!” they bark.
“They are going to die!” she shouts at them.
“That’s enough of that, now!”
“I know how to save them. Let me help. I know how to save them.”
The other zebras grow more agitated. Stop it! Stop it!
“Somepony shut her up!” growls one of the guards.
“You need all the help you can get. I am a doctor! I can work a medicine that will save all your friends’ lives.”
One of the medics walks over, drawn by the commotion.
“What’s all this then? Can’t you shut that zebra up?”
She rears up at the fence.
“Hey! Doctor bosspony! Let us out of here, I can save your friends, yeah?”
“Who are you?”
“I am the witch doctor for my tribe.”
The Witch Doctor can save the lives of all the wounded. In return, she asks that the captured zebras be granted their freedom. Cadence laughs at the idea.
“Explain to me why you shouldn’t spend the rest of your life thinking and speaking in iambic pentameter for your insolence,” her eyes are cold. They pierce The Witch Doctor like daggers of ice.
“I can make it worth your while,” The Witch Doctor promises. She hangs her head in the shame of what she is about to reveal.
Listen.
Gather up anypony you can spare. Follow these instructions exactly.
The Witch Doctor teaches them how to gather Ananse’s silk. How to boil it in his ichors to make thread. The spiny hairs on his legs become needles. His venom becomes antiseptic. His body is dead but his medicine is still strong. The mantle of immortality is not easily shaken.
A black altar is raised. The symbols are drawn. Cadence’s body is a mass of painted sigils. They squirm on her body like worms. Each letter takes on a life of its own and changes places when you’re not looking.
Incense. Drums. Chanting.
The zebras won’t help. The Witch Doctor teaches the rhymes to the soldiers. They feel ridiculous dressed up in feathers and body paint, but when the burning herbs get in their nostrils and the thunder of the drums begins, they find they can’t stop. The music has taken on a life of its own.
The chants erupt from the soldiers’ throats unbidden, forcing their way up the ponies’ esophagi and tearing free into the air. The dancers dance. Their bodies contort like demons as the music moves within them.
Cadence stands on the edge of the altar. In the center, surrounded by a ring of blue fire, is Ananse’s still beating heart. Bigger than a sleeping bag and roughly the shape of a massive slug.
Cadence walks through the flame. The symbols on her body burn instead of her.
The chanting intensifies. The drumming so loud it seems like it will shake the earth to pieces.
It reaches its crescendo and Cadence plunges her face into Ananse’s heart. She feels his power rush into her. Every gulp brings new strength. Every swallow opens a new door within her. She drinks her fill until her stomach can take no more, but she keeps her muzzle pressed to the warm flesh and forces the ichor down her throat.
Her body is racked with spasms. The zebra has poisoned her! Tricked her!
Cadence screams and blasts The Witch Doctor with a bolt of magic from her horn. The zebra feels the magic burn through her mind, feels the neurons polarize like iron filings beneath a magnet.
A fitting reward for an act so profane
I only pray I didn’t act in vain.
Cadence isn’t poisoned. Her sides itch as the tiny nubs of wings sprout like ferns. Her horn stretches and thickens. She feels her magic growing, feels her mortality fading. At last, she could look her aunt in the eye…
Cadence is an alicorn of her word. The zebras get their freedom. The Witch Doctor and the medics work through the night. Ananse’s body is stripped to nothingness. Every part of him goes to help the wounded.
Tombs is stitched up. The magic thread does its work and he returns to his chums.
The Witch Doctor is not so lucky. No zebra will speak to her now. She returns to her herd, but they turn their backs. Every one. The cost of their freedom was too high. They would have rather died than seen Ananse defiled that way. She is dead to them.


***

It was the present again.
“That was Ananse’s silk,” said Twilight Sparkle, awed. She looked at the magical thread in Tombs’s stomach. Magically, it appeared as a red-hot wire woven into his life force.
She looked at Zecora.
“That means you were the witch doctor!”
“I think everypony already figured that out,” said Pinkie Pie.
“The who?” asked Prince Blueblood.
“After the battle, a brave witch doctor from one of the four zebra tribes was the first to step forward to offer her hoof in friendship… Zecora, you saved hundreds of lives!” exclaimed Twilight.
Zecora nodded, humble in the face of praise, but grateful for recognition.
“And now you’ve saved Tombs again! Zecora thank you thank you!” squealed Pinkie Pie. She leaped on Zecora, throwing her hooves around the hapless zebra and squeezing her in a tearful hug.
Applejack watched Tombs sleeping peacefully.
“What I wanna know,” she said, looking  over at Rainbow Dash “was why the two of ya were fightin’ in the first place. What’d he do to get you so riled up?”
Rainbow Dash sighed.
“Because he called me gay,” she hung her head.
Her friends gasped. Pinkie fumbled for words.
“Rainbow, you half killed somepony just because he called you gay?” asked Twilight in disbelief.
“Not only! It’s like he knew I really was gay!” said Rainbow “I was afraid that if he kept saying it, it would be real and I couldn’t take it back and you guys wouldn’t like me anymore.”
Applejack tutted.
“Why in the world would you think we wouldn’t like you anymore, Sugarcube?” she asked.
“Why?” said Rainbow Dash, fluttering up into the air “Why? Because I’ve been lying to you guys and avoiding the truth all my life! That’s why!”
Everypony chuckled a little.
“Oh Rainbow Dash, we don’t care if you’re gay or straight or whatever!” smiled Twilight.
Rainbow looked around at all her friends.
Twilight, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity… gulp… Fluttershy. They all looked up at her like they always did: with admiration, respect and genuine warmth.
“Really?”
“Really!” they said together.
“Rainbow Dash, I haven’t experienced anything that I can compare to the struggle you’ve endured. I would never stop liking you just because of your sexual preferences. Real friends don’t care about that, and while you’re under no obligation to tell anypony which way you lean, you should never feel ashamed.”
“Yeah!” said Pinkie Pie, jumping up “There are a lot more emberassing things than being gay! I have trouble with impulse control!”
“I got an ‘A’ minus on my final Conjuring exam,” Twilight blushed.
“Sometimes, I get just plum fed up with apples,” said Applejack.
“I have a favorite pair of white slippers that I wear around the house whenever it gets chilly,” said Rarity.
The other ponies just stared.
Rarity’s glance shifted from side to side, then down to the floor.
“Even after Labor Day…” she choked.
“I forgot to feed my animals their dinner yesterday because I was reading a dirty magazine I found on my doorstep and abusing my no-no place…” Fluttershy whispered.
Everypony had to clear their throats at the same time and became very distracted by the hospital walls.
“Too much?” asked Fluttershy.
Applejack looked up at Rainbow Dash.
“The point is, Sugarcube, we love you no matter what. You’re really special to us and yer always welcome down on our farm.”
“Yeah!” squealed Pinkie Pie.
“Aw, you guys!” Rainbow touched down and they all gathered around for a group hug.
Blueblood whispered to Big Macintosh.
“Do you think she’s full gay or just bisexual?” he asked. Big Mac jabbed him in the ribs with his elbow.
“Ow! I only ask because if she’s bisexual…. Ow!”
Big Mac elbowed him again.
“… she might be open to a threesome- OW!”
Everypony turned to stare at them. The pair put on broad, innocent grins.
Rainbow Dash broke away from the group.
“Blueblood, I owe you an apology, too,” she told Big Mac “I’m sorry I forced myself on you. You were only trying to help and you behaved like a perfect gentlecolt. It was wrong of me to call you a colt cuddler. Not that there’s anything wrong with that if you are.”
Big Mac nodded. Twilight trotted up to him. Big Mac’s nostrils flared and he took a deep breath to steady himself.
“Prince Blueblood, I owe you an apology as well. When I saw you tangled up with Rainbow Dash, I assumed the worst. In the past, you may have been a womanizing, drunken playboy idiot-”
Blueblood harrumphed at this. Twilight continued.
“But you’ve changed since coming down here to Ponyville. There’s something about you… I…” she groped for words “I think you know enough about friendship that you don’t need lessons from me.”
Twilight smiled and turned back to her friends. Big Mac smiled back but his heart sank. Now it was Blueblood’s turn to throw him the elbow.
“Uh… Twilight…” said Big Mac.
“Yes?” she looked back over her shoulder, ears at attention.
“D’you think… That is… Would m’lady do me the honor of having dinner with me tonight?”
Twilight blushed and gave him a coy smile.
“Eight o’clock?” she asked.
“Eeyup.”


***

It was nearly dusk when Celestia and Luna sat down to dinner.
“I had the chefs prepare mozzarella and tomatoes tonight. It’s one of your favorites, Luna,” Celestia smiled.
“I don’t know if I’ll have time to savor it, sister,” Luna replied “It’s already getting late and I have to start unspooling the Diaphanous Gown of Dusk if I’m going to have it up before you begin setting the sun for the evening.
“Nonsense!” said Celestia “Take all the time you want. Nopony will mind a few extra minutes of daylight.”
“I’m sure they wouldn’t…”
Celestia sighed. This was how their conversations started in the decade leading up to the Nightmare Moon debacle. She wished they didn’t fall into the old groove so quickly. 
Luna had always been much more of an artist than Celestia, her brilliant night was a testament to that. But, like most genius artists she was… temperamental about her work and sensitive when it came to the technical aspects. Everything had to be just so. Raising the night was as much art as science and Celestia, in her thousand years of doing the job, had never elevated it beyond making things dark and keeping everything in the firmament looking shiny. Since Luna returned, the nights had taken on a much more raw and passionate flavor. They were sketchy at first, like the work of a painter picking up a brush for the first time after a long hiatus, but they quickly regained an energy and vibrance not seen in a thousand years.
Celestia just wished there were something that could dispel the awkward tension that had sprung up between them since she’d punished Blueblood.
A cloud of smoke popped into existence over the tureen in the center of the table. It condensed into a scroll, its edges unburning like a film strip run in reverse. Celestia caught it before it fell into the French onion soup.
“A letter from Twilight?” asked Luna.
Celestia read it, her eyes widening with each sentence.
“Er… no… it seems Rainbow Dash learned a valuable lesson today…” she levitated the letter over to Luna. Luna scanned the page.
“Called it…” she said.
They both laughed.


***

Dinner with Twilight was magical. Applejack and Blueblood helped Big Mac to find something to wear from Blueblood’s extensive wardrobe and he showed up at the door of the library looking every bit a prince in his high silk hat and tails.
Twilight answered the door and gasped at the size of his immense bouquet. He levitated it to her and their magic overlapped again, sending tingles up both of their spines. She put the bouquet in a vase of water and they set out on their date.
They drove to dinner in a handsome cab. Big Mac pulled, Twilight rode in the carriage. Big Mac was generous with his money and, surprisingly, his conversation. He obviously couldn’t converse on the subject of Canterlot or life at the palace, but he could listen and offer his opinions. They mostly talked about life in Ponyville and the events of the last three days.
After dinner, they caught the late showing of the new Humphrey Camel/Katharine Hoofburn picture, The Zebrican Queen and laughed at the ponies painted up to look like zebras.
Big Mac walked Twilight to her doorstep.
“Goodnight…” Twilight said, bashfully.
“Will I see you tomorrow?” asked Big Mac.
“I think so… unless this invisibility spell I’m working on backfires for some reason, but if that happens I’ll make sure you hear from me.”
Big Mac laughed.
“So…” he said.
“So…”
They stood across from each other. Big Mac wanted to kiss her, but her lips seemed suddenly miles away.
“So…” he said again.
Twilight put her hoof on his shoulder and giggled. She stretched her muzzle up to his and gave him a quick nose rub. Maybe not a kiss, but enough to set his heart pounding.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she smiled, magicking open her door and disappearing inside.
Big Macintosh waved goodnight and sat down heavily on the porch, taking deep breaths.


***

        Pinkie Pie and Blueblood stayed with Tombs after everypony else left for the evening. He hadn’t awoken yet, but he was looking better all the time. Every so often, Dr. Stable or some other Doctor would come in and review his chart with growing amazement. A gaggle of medical students ogled him for nearly an hour.
At last, the lights dimmed and visiting hours ended. Pinkie was the last to leave. She gave Tombs a kiss on the cheek and turned to leave. His eyes flickered open.
“Pinkie?”
She darted back to him.
“Tombs, you’re awake!”
He smiled at her. She frowned back and he worried that she was upset with him for provoking Rainbow Dash.
“Pinkie, I…”
She shushed him.
“Don’t you ever,” she growled “Ever do something that stupid again! I thought I’d lost you!”
 Tombs smiled.
“Pinkie Promise,” he said.
Pinkie burst into tears and pushed her nose into his chest. He hugged her with shaking arms and she assaulted him with kisses. Patapatapatapata like raindrops all over his face and neck. She finally pulled herself away.
“I’ll be back tomorrow with some board games!” she grinned.
“Please, let me recover first…” he pleaded.
Pinkie just smiled roguishly over her shoulder and disappeared into the hall.


***

Rainbow Dash curled up in her cloud bed. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so comfortable, as if an enormous weight that had been suffocating her for years was finally off her chest. Her insides unknotted. She knew tomorrow she would fly faster, charge harder and soar higher than she’d ever done before. She hugged her Daring Do plush doll close. Tomorrow was going to be a very good day.


The End of Part 17


To Be Continued…


In the meantime, if you want to have your mind blown a little,


 look up Kefitzat Haderech on Wikipedia.