“Blueblood, no!”
A little white, blond baby unicorn dropped the crayon he was holding in his mouth and smiled. The ruler of Equestria stormed over and lifted him with her magic. “I’ve told you before that we do not draw on the floors, so now you go into time out.”
Princess Celestia set him at the base of a column, where he immediately started happily cooing as he looked around the large white chamber. The princess barely suppressed a scream. “When your soft-hearted parents get home,” she muttered to herself, “I am going to-”
“Your highness?”
She took a deep breath before she turned to the guard. “What is it?”
The violet unicorn swallowed. “It’s Lord and Lady Cambreeching, your highness,” he said. “Their train derailed on the mountain pass, at the hairpin. Both are dead.”
Celestia’s frown vanished. “Ah," she said, looking back at Blueblood. "Were there any survivors?”
The guard nodded. “A few, but most of the casualties are either dead or dying. My squad was on a packless run when we found them. The medics are on site now.”
Celestia nodded. “Good.” She paused for a few moments. “I liked them, Officer Candidate...”
“Bear Claws.” Celestia thought she could hear a sniffle. “So did I, y-” He was interrupted by a definite sniffle, and the guard quickly wiped at his eyes. “I’m sorry your hi- I-I mean, I…”
“It’s alright,” Celestia said. “The first time is always the hardest.”
Bear Claws nodded, but slowly fell to the floor as he started to weep. As he did, Celestia stood over him. She conjured up a handkerchief and offered it to the guard, who ignored it. “It reeked,” he choked out. “I couldn’t even breathe! A lot of the ponies in the wreckage were moaning and screaming. One of them actually grabbed me and begged me to-”
He stopped and looked down. Blueblood was hugging him and staring up into his eyes. The guard reached down and embraced him. “I‘m sorry, your…” Sniffle. “...I shouldn’t be saying things like that in front of you. I’m sorry.”
Celestia looked at Bear Claws’ flank, then sighed. “You weren’t meant to be a guard, were you?” she asked. “It’s alright, you’re not the first recruit signing up for extra money. What did you want it for?”
Bear Claws sniffled, released Blueblood, then wiped his eyes again. “Bakery, ma’am. I want to...” He sniffled again then stood. “Apologies, your highness. I should-”
“No.” Celestia put a hoof on his shoulder. “Stay. I want to talk to you about other ways you can earn money, since I imagine you don’t really want to complete your training now.”
Bear Claws’ jaw set, but eventually he bowed his head. “Thank you, your highness. I would like that.” He looked down to see that Blueblood was hugging his leg again. “Actually, I should probably let you find his closest living relatives.”
“I already have.” Blueblood looked up at Celestia, who had managed a small smile and scooped Blueblood into a hug. “It’ll be alright, Blueblood, I promise.”
<*>
“Aunt Celestia, shouldn’t we use a recipe?”
Celestia stood over a table with ingredients and cookware scattered all over it. Her six year old nephew was on the other side, staring timidly at his aunt. “Nonsense,” Celestia said. “I’m telling you, Blueberry, I was a renowned chef two-hundred years ago. Just forget the souffle ever happened.”
Blueblood shuddered. “We could ask Bear Claws to come over,” he offered.
“No, we couldn’t, because I’m supposed to be doing this, not him.” Celestia levitated an egg but put it back down. “Now, the sooner you stop bothering me, the sooner I can get started, and the sooner this cake can get finished.”
“Uh, but…”
“So, are you making any new friends like I asked you to?” Celestia asked him.
That silenced him for a moment, and Celestia poured a measure of flour into the bowl. Then the silence continued. Celestia put the measuring cup down and looked up at her nephew. “Blueblood, how was school today?”
“I told you, it was fine,” he said. “Reading was nothing new, but-”
“You said that earlier,” she told him. “I also noticed that you didn’t mention the other children at all. Why not?”
Blueblood rubbed at his neck. “Well, I didn’t think they-”
Celestia stopped him. “Blueblood, ever since my brother, I’ve noticed that all of the young stallions in your family start itching when they’re about to lie. I won’t force you to tell me what happened, I think I know what’s happening, but if you don’t want me to pry, just tell me and I’ll leave it alone. Just please don’t lie to me.”
Blueblood pursed his lips together and stared silently at Celestia for several seconds. Celestia looked back at him. Finally, Blueblood opened his mouth. “Everyone hates me.”
Celestia’s eyebrow rose. “What happened?”
“It wasn’t anything I did,” Blueblood assured her. “Well, sort of. Just… I told them you were my aunt.”
“Ah,” Celestia said. “How did you tell them?”
“Well, Mahogany was telling Morning Glory about how cool her mom was-”
Celestia’s lips pinched together. “I think I see where this is going.”
Blueblood nodded. “Yeah.”
Celestia noticed Blueblood rubbing at his hoof. “Well, what did you say?”
Blueblood shut his eyes. “Well, the way I said it, I just…” Blueblood took a deep breath. “I told Morning Glory you were better than her mom, and I told Mahogany… well... I told him that he’d never do half the things with his mom that we could.”
Celestia put her face in her hoof. “Blueblood…”
“I didn’t know his mom had just died!” Blueblood protested. “Yes, I should have, but I didn’t then! When he started crying, I tried to say I was sorry, but he ran off. Then Glory called me a snot and ran after him.”
Celestia put her hoof back down. “I take it word got out.”
Blueblood nodded. “At lunch, Pearl started hitting me with dirt clods. She kept telling me that you hated me now, ‘cause if you didn’t, you’d stop her.” Tears started to well up in Blueblood’s eyes. “A whole bunch of kids were watching. I asked one of them to help me, but they didn’t do anything. A bunch of them started laughing at me. Then I started crying, and Pearl started teasing me about that and…”
Blueblood stopped talking and started rubbing at his eyes. Celestia laid a hoof on his shoulder. “But someone stopped her, didn’t they?”
Blueblood nodded. “Yeah. The teacher made her sit in the corner. Then everyone glared at me for the rest of the day. Hors D'oeuvre kept kicking the back of my seat.” Blueblood started sniffling. “After school, I found Mahogany and tried to apologize to him again, but Glory told me to get lost. She said I only got off so lightly because I was related to you, and that Pearl should’ve pounded my face in.”
Blueblood opened his mouth again, but the only thing that came out was a sob. Blueblood quickly curled up on himself and started bawling. Celestia walked around the table and pulled him to her barrel with her wing. “Shh,” she said. “It’s alright. It’s over now. Tomorrow, you’re going to go back-”
“I don’t want to go back!” he sobbed. “Everypony’s just gonna’ do something worse to me tomorrow! I want to stay home!”
“Sorry,” she said, “but you have to go back. Yes, what you said was stupid, and yes, given you’ve been around these children since you were born, you should’ve known better. However, what Pearl did was still wrong. She was a bully looking for an easy target and she deserved what she got. I know it’s going to be hard going back, but you can’t shut yourself away for the rest of your life. You’ll eventually have to face them again, and when everypony calms down, you can try and make friends again.”
The two sat there in the kitchen and eventually Blueblood stopped crying. “It’ll be alright,” Celestia said. “Here, you take this,” she poured a glass of milk and gave it to Blueblood, “go sit in the dining room, and read one of your books. I’ll call you when this is done.” She pulled back and walked back to her original spot at the table. “Go on, there isn’t a single problem that can’t be solved by liberal quantities of my famous Celestial Twelve-Layer Cake. You just wait and see.”
<*>
“OK, it wasn’t that funny.”
A few minutes after Celestia had sent Blueblood out of the kitchen, the smoke alarm cantrip went off and Celestia emerged from the kitchen coated in rainbow-colored cake batter. Celestia had managed to put the fire out, but Blueblood had fallen out of his chair laughing as soon as his aunt had exited the smoking kitchen. Happy to see Blueblood feeling better, Celestia sent for Bear Claws in exchange for Blueblood’s silence. He still let out the odd chuckle, though, which, after an hour and a half and a good shower, was getting on Celestia’s nerves.
“Well, I don’t know what happened in there,” Bear Claws said as he carried the rainbow-colored, ice-cream covered cake out on his back, “but I managed to make this from the wreckage.”
Bear Claws laid the cake at one end of the table, as well as three plates and forks (Celestia generously donated a portion of the cake and a bonus in exchange for his silence). “One Celestial Twelve-Layer Cake. Bon appetit.”
Celestia immediately dug in, levitating the fork and stabbing it into her piece of cake. Blueblood picked up a fork with his hoof and dug it into edge of the cake, shoveled out a small morcel, and slowly, slowly placed it in his mouth, where he began deliberately working it all over his tongue.
“So, d’ya like it?”
Blueblood blushed as he realized he was making faces again, then quickly nodded to Bear Claws, who smiled at him. “D’ya want some more?”
Blueblood held up a hoof and kept chewing. However, as he turned back to his plate, a thought occurred to him. He swallowed, then turned back to Bear Claws, who was scooping up cake with the fork in his hoof. A moment later, Bear Claws noticed him staring. “What’s up?
Blueblood’s mouth opened before his brain caught up with him, but quickly shut it as his brain overrode him. “N-nothing,” he said as he forced his hoof not to rise to his neck.
Bear Claws’ smile faded. “You’re wondering why I’m not using magic, aren’t you?”
Blueblood’s eyes widened. “No! Uh-I-I…”
Bear Claws waved him down. “It’s alright; I get a lot of ponies wondering that.” He settled into his chair. “I have something called Conversion Disorder. Basically, I have magic, but I’m just not able to consciously use it. It’s not contagious; it’s just something I developed, and please don’t ask me how.”
“Why no-” Blueblood started before he stopped himself. “Uh, never mind.” Blueblood turned back to his plate and started eating again, although everypony noticed that he moved a little too deliberately.
Bear Claws laid a hoof on Blueblood’s shoulder. “I don’t want to scare you, Blueblood. What happened to me is rare. Heck, in most cases it doesn’t even last this long. It’s just that the way I was born. Even then, it took a traumatic event to cause my condition to develop. You’ll probably never get it.”
Blueblood stopped eating, and turned back to Bear Claws. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Eventually, Blueblood nodded and started eating again. He didn’t notice Celestia’s sad frown, or how she ate the rest of her cake with the fork in her hoof.