//------------------------------// // Chapter 30 // Story: The Monster of Canterlot // by drnkntst //------------------------------// Chapter 30 When I woke up, I started to think that maybe Luna had been telling the truth about Celestia making the sun shine through her windows more than anywhere else on Equus. I always thought she was making that up before today. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Bunny was slamming things. “Unngh… wha… why!” I screamed as I held my head tightly. “I’m sorry, Chris. I really wasn’t trying to wake you. I’m just so… I’m sorry.” I wasn’t certain if I should press it further. Even in my stupor, I could tell it was a sensitive subject, whatever it was. “Alright,” I crawled out of my bed and crawled to the water closet, “you’re, uh, forgiven. Also, is walking like this as uncomfortable for you as it is for me?” Hearing her laugh while still being fuming mad is just plain hilarious. “You get used to it. Now get dressed.” “Okay, fine. Just stop yelling.” The walk down the hall to the dining room was interesting. Luckily for me, there were plenty of guards to make sure I didn’t wander down the wrong hallway and Bunny kept me from walking into any of the décor. Sadly, when the palace was built, Celestia had gone nuts for windows. I mean, they were everywhere and they all hated me. By the time I got inside the dining room, I was wishing I had just stayed in bed. Nopony was being loud, not even Blueblood, but there was a definite sense of anger, rage and homicidal desires in the air. I could only stand there and look from one face to the next. “Uhh… what’s goin’ on? Did I do something wrong?” “No, Honey, no. Now come sit down.” She sounded like Celestia, she looked like Celestia, but Celestia doesn’t normally having glowing eyes and flaming mane. For that matter, neither does Luna. There also isn’t normally five piles of ash on the table. “Alright.” I took my seat, propped my head in my hands, and started to rub my temples. “Oh no, Sweetie, do you have a headache?” “Yeah, Mom, a big one.” “Well here.” She leaned forward and her horn flared. My head felt instantly better. Also, my hair was standing straight up. “Oh, I’m sorry about that.” Celestia started to comb my hair back down, but it wasn’t working. “Mom,” I grabbed her hoof and held it in my hand, “what’s wrong?” “*Sigh* Show him.” The glow in her eyes started to dim. A singed Canterlot Press was placed in front of me. I picked it up and began to read it. THE MONSTER OF CANTERLOT REVEALS HIS TRUE COLORS We here at the Canterlot Press have been recently informed that there is a new royal heir to be born. We were ecstatic. It has been far too long since we were able to print a story that brought so much joy. The problem is, the new prince had other plans. On the very night of his birthday, Prince Christopher was informed by his girlfriend that they were expecting a new bundle of joy in the near future. To most, this would be great news, but to the prince, it was too much. He broke up with her on the spot and threw her out of the palace. Now, we here at the Canterlot Press have always believed that Princess Celestia is and has always been a straight forward and responsible pony. We had hoped that her son would have taken on… I stopped reading after that point. I got up from my seat and started to walk out. “Honey?” I heard Celestia’s voice reach out to me. “Honey, where are you going?” I could only look back at her over my shoulder before I left the room. “Ponyville. That lying sack of manure has gone too far.” “Eep!” A squeak came from near my feet as I almost tripped over Fluttershy. “Oh, I’m sorry, Fluttershy.” I was about to storm off again, but stopped. “Guard! Have them prepare the chariot. Fluttershy, if you like, I can give you a ride home.” She nodded. “Bunny, please have a porter assist Fluttershy in packing her things and load them onto the chariot.” Both darted off to fulfil their orders. “Shy, you might as well get something to eat before we go.” “A-alright, but what about you?” She asked. “I’m suddenly not hungry.” ***** Shortly after we touched down an hour later, having already dropped off Fluttershy and her cargo, I was storming through the marketplace on my own. I was hearing whispers, but I could understand none of it. My senses were impaired and I was blinded by my rage. “Look here! It’s two bits an apple, or nuthin’ at all! Now, wuts it gonna be?” “I’m sorry. Here, take the bits.” I turned in time to see a frightened tan stallion with a brown mane galloping away from a raging Applejack with an apple jammed in his mouth. From the looks of things, if Big Mac wasn’t there, she probably would have been galloping after him. “You know, Applejack, it’s not wise to assault your customers,” I joked, but nopony was laughing. “Chris!” Applejack trotted up to me and hugged me around the waist. “Are ya alright? I saw tha paper ‘n’ whut they said ‘bout you. Ah know it ain’t true ‘n’ it got meh just so angry.” “Honestly? No, I’m not. I’ve never been so mad in my life. No, wait, there was one other time, but that was family business.” “Well, Ah can’t say as Ah blame ya. What brought ya to Ponyville though? Ah woulda thought you’d be knockin’ down tha doors of tha Press ta get them to print uh retraction.” Just then, there was a thunderous roar coming from the direction of Canterlot. While I couldn’t distinguish words, I could recognize the voice. “Seems to me that Mom’s already on top of that. I came here in my rage and, thanks to you, I’ve calmed down quite a bit. I don’t really know why I came here. I mean, it’s not like I’m going to hurt her or anything. I just… I don’t know.” “Where is she!” We both looked to the library where Twilight’s voice was coming from. “Uh-oh,” we chorused and took off toward the hollow tree. We got there just in time to see Spike failing miserably to hold Twilight back as she dragged him out into the street. “Twilight, you have to calm down!” he begged as twin grooves were dug into the dirt behind him. Twilight was talking to herself and not listening at all. “…then I’ll tie her to a post deep in the Everfree and…” She was making good time toward Rose’s shop. If I weren’t largely immune to magic, I would’ve been worried about the sparks coming off her horn. Applejack had grabbed Twilight’s tail in her mouth and I got in front of her and started to push on her shoulders. “Twilight, you have to stop. I know you’re mad, but you’re a princess and you have to act like it.” She still wasn’t hearing me and was mumbling as she dragged us along. “And as Celestia’s student, you represent her.” That did it. Twilight froze mere meters from Rose’s door. She looked up into my eyes and I could see the desperation in them. “…Chris…” “I love you, Twi, but I’m a big colt now and you don’t have to fight all my battles for me anymore.” I knelt down in front of her and hugged her and she nuzzled into my shoulder. “Now please, let me handle this.” I felt her nod and released her. “Good.” I stood up to finish the trip to the flower shop and was surprised to see my ex standing in the doorway. “Chris?” She seemed excited at first, then remembered she was supposed to hate me and scowled. “What are you doing here?” “Oh please, as if ya’ll didn’t know,” Applejack accused. “But, I don’t.” I picked her newspaper up from the path outside the store, opened it to the offending article and thrust it in her face. “You expect us to believe you don’t know anything about this?” Rose took it from me and began to read. The further she went, the wider her eyes got. “Bu-… I… I didn’t say anyth-.” She stopped midsentence and turned back to the shop’s interior. “Lily! Daisy! What did you do?!” The four of us outside looked from one to the other as she stormed off inside the store. Without any other option making itself immediately obvious, we followed her in. “…you thinking?! Don’t you think I feel low enough as it is?” “What’s going on here?” Twilight asked. “These two,” Rose pointed to her friends, “are the ‘source’ mentioned in the article.” “But, why are you mad at us?” Daisy asked. “Yeah,” Lily continued, “he’s the one who abandoned you and your foal.” “That’s ‘cause it ain’t his foal to care for!” Applejack scolded them. “Wha… I don’t… oh, Rose. You didn’t.” Lily looked at her friend in shame. “Well, we were having trouble and I could tell he was going to leave. I didn’t want to lose him. So… I got desperate.” “Didn’t want to lose him, or the life that came with him?” Twilight accused. “No, I… I cared about him, I still do… but…” Rose was starting to get frantic. “Look, you don’t know what it’s like, okay. I’ve had to struggle to make a life for myself, you got to spend your foalhood at the hooves of the princess. You never wanted for anything. So what if I wanted some for myself. I deserved it.” “Chis didn’t.” Those two words uttered by Applejack brought the conversation to a screeching halt. “No, he didn’t, and I’m sorry. I’ll contact the Press myself and make the corrections. I only hope you can forgive me someday.” “I… I don’t know,” I told her, “maybe, someday. Until then, goodbye, Rose. I wish you and the foal luck and good health.” And with that, I stepped out the door, and never looked back. (I’ve heard that Rose and the sire of her foal, a young pegasi named Star Hunter got married that fall and have been living in good health ever since. Though Star Hunter has done everything in his power to never bump into Rainbow Dash) Soon after, Twilight, our friends and I were sitting in a corner booth of Sugarcube Corner and I was doing my best to pick up my mother’s bad eating habits. Cupcake after cookie after doughnut disappeared down my gullet while Pumpkin and Pound Cake were sitting in my lap. The sugar was helping, but I still felt pretty lousy. Why? “That’s him, the Deadbeat Prince.” That’s why. “You’re right. That is him.” I clung tighter to the Cake twins, hoping to drown out the world. Luckily, I still had friends. “Ahem. If you want to eat in my bakery, you will respect our prince,” Cup Cake politely warned. “Now, what would you like?” “Are you alright, Chris?” Fluttershy asked. “I think I liked it better when they were calling me a monster.” The two foals in my lap snuggled against my chest and made me smile again. “It’ll be okay, Chrissy,” Pinkie told me. “Rose said she’d tell the papers the truth, they’ll print a retraction, and everypony will know the truth by tomorrow!” “Thanks, Pinkie. I hope you’re right.” But she wasn’t. All day long, I had to hear ponies whispering about me. I could hear them saying horrible things about my character, which hurt and made me sad obviously, but what made me angry, was the stuff they said about Celestia. They were saying she didn’t raise me right, that she had unleashed a selfish, spoiled, rat of a prince onto the land of Equestria. I started to hate them for it. That night, I stayed in the library with Twilight, as had all our friends, I wanted to be around as many friendly faces as I could. Thanks to Pinkie, we had plenty of games, music and snacks for the night. We told stories and had a pillow fight and, thanks to Luna, had the sweetest dreams. Sadly, the night had to come to an end. When we woke up, we actually managed to get ourselves stuck in the doorway trying to get to the paper. Twilight, being the brains of the group, had waited for us to do it and then teleported past us. She read it quickly and let out a sigh of relief. The Press had indeed printed a retraction, front page too, but it had been too little, too late. On our way to the café, I could still hear them all talking. Even though, the paper had corrected the error and even though it was just the next day, it seemed like I had already gained a reputation. The six mares had formed a protective barrier around me and offered death glares at anypony that dared to even whisper the wrong syllable. It wasn’t making it any easier on me. “Ah can’t believe these ponies. Jest ‘cause it says somethin’ in the paper, they all go ‘n’ take is as absolute fact.” “I know, AJ, but once a pony believes something, it becomes very difficult to make them stop,” Twilight pointed out. “Twi, you got some hairs sticking out right… well, everywhere,” Rainbow Dash pointed out while stifling a giggle. “She’s right though. Once a mind is made up, that could be it for… do you hear that?” I said. The whole group pricked up their ears to hear it better. It was the sound of fillies having one heck of an argument, and it was coming from the schoolyard. We made our way over to it at a decent trot and found that it was the Cutie Mark Crusaders and those two fillies that had caused a ruckus in the classroom when I was there. “And Ah’m tellin’ ya, he ain’t!” Apple Bloom shouted. “Well my daddy says he is a deadbeat, so there,” the pink one objected. “Yeah. It even said so in the paper,” the grey one added. “But it said that was wrong in this morning’s paper,” Scootaloo pointed out. “Besides, he’s our friend and we know he’d never do anything like what the paper said,” Sweetie Belle told her. “Well I don’t care. My daddy say he’s a disgrace to the crown, so that’s that,” the pink one stuck her tongue out to emphasize her point. “Oh that’s it!” Apple Bloom charged at the two other fillies only to be scooped up in my arms before she could make contact, much to the relief of her targets. The other two Crusaders where picked up by their own sisters. “Apple Bloom! Ya’ll know better than ta go pickin’ a fight. What’s gotten inta you?” Applejack scolded as I set her sister down in front of her. “But, they were sayin’ horrible things about Chris ‘n’ callin’ him a deadbeat ‘n’ that he didn’t deserve his crown, ‘n’-‘n’… I jest couldn’t take it no more.” “Listen girls,” three sets of eyes were on me, “I really do appreciate you standing up for me, but if you get into fights over words that somepony is saying to hurt you, you may never stop fighting. Do you understand?” “I guess so,” all three said together. “Good. Now, get to class, and no more fighting.” They all started heading inside, all the while the other two were nagging them. “And you two,” they turned to look at me, “those are my friends you’re teasing and I don’t appreciate it!” With their eyes wide, the two galloped inside. “I must say, Darling, that is a very mature attitude you have about all of this.” “Thanks, Rarity, but to be honest, I’m only just holding it together.” I sighed deeply. “I think I need a vacation. Somewhere far away from all this mess. Any suggestions?” After a couple minutes of no offerings, Applejack spoke up. “Ah think Ah may know of just the place.” And with that, I started my vacation.