//------------------------------//
// ...Of Nothing in Particular 
// Story: How Soon is Now? 
// by LightningBass94 
//------------------------------//

    "Who am I now?"

Prince Blueblood walked down the long corridor, his mane a dissheveled mess. He held a perfect red rose by the stem in his maw.

"What am I now?"

His bowtie had yet to be tied for the day. As he passed into the castle courtyard, several nobles scoffed at his apparent distress, displayed outwardly by his appearance. He paid them no mind.

"Nothing in particular, I suppose..."

Making his way to the edge of the castle grounds, Blueblood took a right down a cobblestone path. He knew where his legs were taking him, and he had no intention to go, but he saw no reason to turn back now. What good would either decision do? The end result would inevitably be the same.

The path led to a stately cemetary where the nobility and royalty were buried. This was the burial site of his father, and more recently, his mother.

Princess Celestia, diarch of Equestria, passed peacefully in her sleep not but two nights previous. The day and night courts were in a frenzy. Despite having thousands of years to prepare for the inevitable death of the princess of the sun, no one actually had.

There were myriad political issues which kept all Celestia's loved ones busy; too busy to mourn. Not that this concerned any of the nobility. Hay, half of them sat in court with righteous indignation, demanding the throne for themselves.

Blueblood may have been alongside them if it were not for the last words his mother spoke to him ringing in his ears.





"...You are so very wrong, Blueblood; you are not fit to rule." Celestia pouted as she stared up at her son from the cushion she rested on. This was not the first time they'd had this argument.

"I'm never wrong!" Blueblood insisted with a stomp of his hoof. "I would be a perfect king! Give me a castle, and I'll prove it!"

"I can't give you a castle, Blueblood, nor shall I." Celestia gave the prince a deadpan expression.

"What do you mean, you can't?!" Blueblood whined. "Have one of the peasants build one. They're good at that sort of thing."

Celestia glared at her son, already annoyed by his persistance on the matter. "In modern day Equestria, there are no peasants, Blueblood," she spat.

The unicorn dismissed his mother's comment easily with a wave of his hoof. "Peasants, commoners, riff-raff, worms... It matters not what you call them. They're all the same," he told her. "We are their betters, and their entire existences are to make our lives easier."

"They are not worms, and they are not the same, Blueblood!" Celestia argued. "They are as different as the night is from the day, and most of them would be more fit to rule than you! Everything you say is wrong!"

"You shut your mouth! How dare you say that!? I am a prince!" Blueblood puffed out his chest with pride and placed a hoof there for good measure. "You gave the right to rule to a nerdy little bookworm and an orphaned pegasus, but not to your own son?"

"You are a fool!" Celestia stood up to yell at her son, looming over him. Even in her condition, she radiated power in her anger. Years of rule gave her the knowledge to be intimidating when need be. Blueblood needed to know his place. "To rule is to serve, and until you learn that to be true, you will always be a disappointment to me!"

"Serve?! That's what servants are for!"

"How can you lead ponies whom you do not even understand!"

"I understand that you let them get away with murder!" Blueblood spat. "I'd bet taxes are at an all-time low this year!"

"Why you little-!" Celestia began to cough violently, covering her muzzle with a hoof. She was forced to sit by the episode. She'd already been too worked up. It seemed her heart condition was worsening.

"I hope you choke!" Blueblood spat as he stormed from his mother's quarters.

"Wait...dont...!" Celestia tried to call after her son, gasping for air, but he was gone. As she reached a hoof out for him, she saw the fresh bloodstain upon her pearl fur...





"I was a fool," Blueblood muttered. As he traversed the lush grass of the cemetary, he'd made his way to the far end. There stood the largest headstone in the field to date. It was shaped like a large sun, identical to his mother's cutie mark. It was here that he collapsed. His red, puffy eyes that he thought could not possibly construct any more tears began to flow once more like twin waterfalls.

The rose he carried in his teeth was set neatly at the head of the fresh grave he laid upon. The dirt was mucking up his white fur, but he was much too preoccupied to move. In a desperate attempt to be closer to his mother, Blueblood lit his horn and touched it to her headstone. The grooves carved into the stone came to life with his golden aura before puttering out as he slammed his face down in the dirt. "How could I say those awful things to you!?" he wailed. "How could I be so blind as to not see you were sick?"

His breath shook with silent sobs between his very audible ones. "Those...those were my last words to you," he whimpered. "I told you to choke." He shut his eyes tight and took several deep breaths to calm himself, but to no avail. "I don't remember the last time I told you I loved you..."

"She knew, boy." A gentle hoof patted Blueblood's shoulder. He spun around to see Fancy Pants smiling kindly down at him. A simple daisy floated by his head. "Mothers always know."

Fancy Pants set the daisy down upon Celestia's grave gently and sat down upon his flanks next to Blueblood. He stared at the headstone a long time before speaking once more to the white stallion, whom had since straightened up to a sitting position. "They were her favorite, you know: daisies."

Blueblood looked toward Fancy Pants curiously. "How well did you know my mother, sir?"

"Oh, we were fast friends, m'boy. Fast friends. We met nearly twenty years ago at a cheese convention. We both found it absolutely abysmal..." Whatever memory Fancy Pants dug up made him chuckle a bit, but he then looked toward Blueblood for the first time since arriving, absolutely serious. "She called upon me the day of her death, you know."

This got Blueblood's attention, though he didn't look away from the gravestone. "Oh?" he asked, signalling the older stallion to go on. Like most of the higher echelon citizens of Ponyville, Blueblood highly revered Fancy Pants, despite his unorthodox and "down to earth" views on most matters.

"I know what you said to her," Fancy Pants told him.

"Oh..."

"She would have wanted you to know she didn't hold it against you."

Blueblood glanced at the stallion beside him, surprised, then back away. "Really?" He attempted to sound nonchalant.

"Indeed," Fancy Pants answered. "In fact, she was upset about what she said to you as well,"

Blueblood hung his head. "She was right, though," he admitted. "I'm not fit to rule anypony."

Fancy Pants nodded his head sagely, staring ahead at the gravestone. "No," he agreed.

The younger stallion looked to him with pleading eyes. "Who am I? I don't even know anymore! I am royalty that is not fit to rule! What does that make me?!" Blueblood could feel the tears coming again.

Fancy Pants turned to face him. Placing a hoof on his shoulder, he smiled warmly. "Son, that makes you anything you want to be. That's all Celestia wanted for you in the first place."

Blueblood cocked his head to the side. "What do you mean, sir?" he asked.

"Be happy, son. Go out and be a stallion you can be proud of. Be a stallion she could be proud of." Fancy Pants pointed to Celestia's gravestone. "That's all any mother can ask for, m'boy." The older stallion got up and brushed himself off before departing, leaving a conflicted Blueblood in his wake. Alone with his thoughts, Blueblood fell to sleep upon his mother's grave.

Several other ponies came by, but they let the sleeping prince be.