Twilight didn’t bother to knock before entering. She’d left a message at the reception of the Grand Brassica Hotel to tell the prince that she’d be there at seven on the dot, and if she knocked now he’d likely make her wait ten minutes at the door while he made himself ‘presentable.’ Instead, she leeched the safety charm out of the door, deposited it in a small lump of activated axinite, and teleported directly inside the room.
Prince Blueblood started when the alicorn appeared behind him, but quickly composed himself. He turned his head a quarter-inch, and looked at her from the side of his eye, keeping his attention on the mirror and the comb.
His voice came low and short. “You brought the package?”
Twilight held aloft a paper bag the size of a picnic hamper in her telekinesis. “Of course.”
Prince Blueblood stood up and shook water from his mane. “Outstanding. Allow me to put things in order, and then we can proceed.”
He walked across the spacious hotel room and past his spacious bed until he reached the desk at the edge of the room. He lifted the granite-and-steel desk and pushed it into the center of the room, thews and sinews rippling as he did so. His gym-sculpted figure was not purely for vanity, only mostly.
His horn lit in a pale-yellow nimbus and two chairs drifted out of the closet, folded in on themselves in a way that was dizzying to look at. He blinked and grunted as his magic worked, and the two chairs unfolded. Each one was placed at opposite ends of the desk, and one was held out for Twilight to sit on. She giggled.
“You really went out and got a pair of seats from Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns cafeteria?” she asked.
He leaned back on his seat and flashed an easy smile. “I was feeling a touch of nostalgia, old chum.”
“You strolled on down to the school, reeking of alcohol, and borrowed a pair of chairs?”
“Borrowed?” His brow furrowed. “Heavens no, I just strolled in and took them. It’s never too early for a stallion of my standing to develop a reputation for eccentricity, after all.”
Twilight raised a brow. Blueblood relented. “Oh fine, I sent a pony to fetch them for me. You arranged this whole thing at quite short notice, and I was busy.”
“I can see,” said Twilight, looking over the room. It obviously hadn’t been cleaned for more than a day. The bed was unmade and tangled, The floor was littered with discarded clothes, books and magazines. The prince’s grooming kit was scattered around the mirror, and there seemed to be damp towels hanging from every conceivable surface. Plates, espresso mugs, and drinking glasses dotted the room.
Prince Blueblood was not his usual pinnacle of perfection tonight. His eyes were glassy and bloodshot and even though he had showered minutes ago he still stank of strong alcohol. Under his eyes were deep bags that spoke of many Neighples coffees and little beauty sleep. He hadn’t shaved for at least a week, and a patchy, woolly, golden beard had sprouted over his cheeks and jawline. Traces of whatever he’d been drinking had crusted at the edges of his lips.
“So, my Princess,” said Blueblood, leaning forward to peek into the hamper-sized bag. “What do you have for us tonight?”
Twilight smirked and shifted the bag just out of reach. “You’re not going to offer your guest a glass of that wine you’ve been quaffing since ten in the morning?”
Blueblood looked aghast. “Wine? Wine? Princess, this is no time for wine! Wine is the drink for quiet celebrations, for sipping at the sight of a delightful sunset, for relaxing with a good book. It is a drink of calm melancholy and quiet love, a drink for sweeter times, the drink that makes the present perfect. No, not a damned drop of wine has touched my lips since my blasted aunt started this blasted business with these blasted demesnes. I require a stronger drink to cut through my troubles.”
“Let me guess, you’re drinking the finest, smokiest, peatiest, most masculine Shetland whisky from the depths of the royal cellars?”
He grunted dismissively. “Whisky? Twilight, my dear, I’m the Crown Prince of Equestria, not some well-to-do accountant having a mid-life crisis.” He lifted a bottle of champagne, a fifth of vodka, and a gallon of freshly-squeezed orange juice onto the table, along with a pair of flute glasses. “I’m necking champagne screws by the dozen. Care to try one?”
Twilight nodded, and so the prince took the glasses and poured in a measure of vodka, a measure of orange juice on top, and a measure of champagne to follow. He sunk a tendril of his magic into each glass and stirred gently. As the tendrils withdrew, a stillness fell over the ripples in the glass, and he slid one across the table.
Twilight took the glass and lifted it, pausing an inch before her lips. Smirking, she said, “Hey, isn’t there some rich-pony rule against stirring cocktails with magic?”
Blueblood snorted. “Pah, a rule made by pretentious gusset-snufflers who couldn’t tell pinot noir from peanut brittle. Princes can stir their cocktails however they damn well please.”
Twilight let the glass touch her lips, and took a long, slow sip. She smacked her lips, and nodded. “I’ve got no complaints.”
“Only the best,” he said, before drinking half his glass in a single pull. “Now stop being coy and take out the takeout. If I don’t fortify myself good and quick, all this tipple will go to my head.”
A series of white card boxes floated out of the bag and settled to the table, doodled stasis-runes glowing faintly on their sides. “I asked the maitre ‘d at le Persil Or what you normally get, and she tells me you already sent your order in via the hotel telegramophone. I don’t know why you made me go pick it up instead of, y’know, just having it delivered.”
“Well, if I’d had it delivered it would have either arrived before you did and I’d be sitting alone in my room and willing myself not to start without you, or it would have arrived after you and we’d be sitting here getting steadily more blotto until we both forgot whatever business we had in the first place.”
Twilight rolled her eyes, and opened the box labelled ‘1’. The lid contained a pair of unfolding paper plates which she laid out, and then divided up the six bite-sized appetizers inside the box between them.
“Potato skins stuffed with caviar,” said Blueblood. “I thought you might like to try some classical pegasus food, now that, uh...” He made a hoof gesture towards the wings on her back.
She lifted one to her mouth and took a bite. The briny, salty pearly popped gently in her mouth, surrounded by the rough, hearty crunch of the baked potato skins. A clean taste, like a swim in the summer ocean. She took a second bite, and then a third, and then moved on to the next skin.
Between bites, she said, “They’re growing on me.”
“So,” began Blueblood, after eating the first skin, “I know that this is vitally important business and whatnot, but I’d feel a tad embarrassed just jumping straight in. Declasse, almost. I thought we should have small-talk first, and get to the point just as we start the main course. How’s your brother?”
“He still hates you.”
“Ah. He’s consistent, I’ll give him that. Hmm. You still have those friends of yours, I take it?”
Twilight looked at him flatly. “Yes, Polaris, I have friends.”
He lifted his hooves in mock surrender. “All right, all right! I simply remember a purple, pint-sized magic tutor of mine from some years back that never had time for such things.”
She smiled and rolled her eyes. “Oh, shut up. I had my study group. And I had you I guess.”
Blueblood dabbed at his lips and scruffy beard with a napkin, and topped up both drinks. “For what that’s worth, yes. I must say, though, I don’t think I’d have survived my last three years of Celestia’s School if you hadn’t turned up.”
Twilight blushed. “Come on, I helped you pass a few mathematics and magic exams. You’d have graduated without me.”
“Not so much the help, though I’d never have earned that merit in applied thaumaturgy without your all-nighters. No, for the first few years of school all I heard was ‘work harder than the prince!’ and ‘Blueblood what did you get on that test,’ and ‘prove you’re smarter than the Crown Prince of Equestria,’ and it drove me quite mad. By the time I started my fourth year, they’d already cleared a space on the common room corkboard to pin my results for everypony to see and compare.
Prince Blueblood took a swig of his cocktail, and lifted the glass excitedly. “And then you arrived, my tiny savior! A twelve-year old prodigy who had already passed the third-year magic tests with a distinction. Celestia’s personal protege no less! Suddenly nopony cared about beating some prince, it was all about keeping up with the school’s resident genius. Then the only subjects anypony cared to measure themselves against me were jousting scores and bedroom notches, and I thoroughly trounced everypony at both. Your tutoring was simply icing on the cake.”
Twilight sipped her drink and giggled. “It’s nice to be appreciated.”
“Quite. Anyway, I take it your friendship-friendship-magic-friends are all well?” he asked, finishing his last bite of potato skin.
“They’re good. Most of them have even forgotten you.”
“Oh yes, I met a few, didn’t I?” The hint of a smile crossed his lips as he took the next dish from the takeout bag. He popped the rune-crossed cardboard tray open to reveal scrambled eggs on toast, next to sauteed on-the-vine cherry tomatoes and black-eyed beans with cumin and coriander. He dished them out onto more paper plates, and summoned a set of silver cutlery. He took another pull of his champagne screw, and began to eat. “Well, asides from Pinkie Pie, everypony knows Pinkie Pie. But I do recall meeting two others, Purity and Apple Tart was it?”
Twilight gave an irritated snort. “Rarity and Applejack. You were rude to both of them, even by your frankly unimpressive standards. I was half-surprised that Rarity didn’t demand satisfaction.”
“Mmm. Shame, that. It was quite a fun evening, otherwise.”
Twilight simply rolled her eyes and took a bite of food. The toasted rye was thick with a satisfying crunch behind it, and the scrambled eggs were smooth and velvety, almost an immensely-thick sauce rather than an actual portion of food. The taste of truffle shavings lingered on her tongue well after each bite. Even the sip of bubbly, citrusy cocktail she took afterwards did not wash it away entirely.
“You know, I like you more when you’re not being an insufferable, snobbish bastard to everypony you meet. I mean, Hay, if you were that bored you could at least have come and hung out with me while I had to greet every single noble in Canterlot for two hours.”
“I was having a little me time, excuse me for not being perfectly composed every minute of the day,” whined Blueblood. “Hardly my fault that your friend made me her date by fiat, or that your other friend sold commoner’s nosh at the Grand Galloping Gala.”
“The Apple Clan make some of the best food in Equestria. Those are your aunts’ words, by the way.”
Blueblood paused to pop a cherry tomato into his mouth and said, “I’m not saying there’s anything wrong as such with commoner food or the way commoners eat. I’ll still sit down and eat with you after all, even though you persist in holding a knife and fork like you’re dual-wielding a pair of cartridge pens.”
“I don’t care what your etiquette manual says! It’s the most efficient way to apply force to my food!”
“It clinks against the plate and it’s quite uncouth. My point is, while Miss Applejack’s deep-fried grease-soaked apple-flavored cholesterol injections might indeed be delicious, they were not suited to the Gala. It’s like bringing jello shots to a wine tasting.”
Twilight shook her head and tried a cherry tomato, the flesh giving the lightest bit of resistance before flooding her mouth with hot, zesty tomato juice. “Fine, then. Let’s talk about your friends instead.”
Blueblood froze for a moment, looking straight at her and chewing his mouthful of food slowly. After swallowing, he said, “What of my ‘friends?’”
“Well,” said Twilight, “I’d imagine they’re all pretty busy with this demesne business. Hundreds of nobles and families, all finding out they have new rights and new powers, and that they can earn further fortune and fame for their families if they act quickly, or lose everything if they don’t. So exciting...”
“Yes. Quite.” Blueblood set his half-eaten slice of toast down gently on the plate.
“I mean, I heard—I only heard this mind you—that the Canterlot Joust is off this year because so many competitors and owners have pulled out to deal with their new gifts. I don’t remember the Joust being cancelled since, I dunno. Not in my lifetime.”
“No. Not in thirty years.”
“It’s very surprising. I’d imagine you’re disappointed too. You weren’t competing this year, but this was your first time coaching a team, right?”
“It was.” Blueblood’s knife-and-fork clinked down onto the plate next to the half-eaten toast.
“So, Blueblood, who are you with?”
“Excuse me?”
“Come on, you know every noble in Canterlot who owns a demesne, and know the families of everypony who owns a demesne in all of Equestria. I know you got passed over for your own demesne, what with Canterlot exclusively belonging to Princess Celestia, but any lord with their head screwed on straight would want you in their team for your connections alone. I’m sure a few would even offer to split their domain, so you could really get in on that sweet, empire-building action. I’d be shocked if you hadn’t got a half-dozen offers this morning alone! So, Polaris Blueblood, who’s your new best friend? Who are you going to stand with?”
Blueblood stood up, red in the face and ears splayed back, and shouted, “You know damn well where I stand!” He sat back down and snorted, forehooves on the table. A few flecks of spittle clung to his patchy beard, which he quickly wiped away with a napkin. “I may not be the true ruler of Canterlot, but this city is everything I was raised to believe in. I stand with Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and the Greater Demesne of Canterlot. Do you think for a second that I would join this new rabble that my ‘peers’ have formed out of petty pique?”
Twilight leaned back in her chair and simply shrugged, saying nothing.
“Don’t shrug at me, godling,” he spat. He sighed heavily, shifting in his seat. “I... I suppose I’ve always known that I’d be little more than a paragraph in the history books. I accept this. They say ‘a mare’s grasp should not exceed her reach’ and I agree. When ponies make mad gambles for power and glory it rarely ends well for the gambler, and rarer still for the ponies around him.” He paused to drain his drink once more, and this time let Twilight refill it for him. “I did not expect this. It will be, at best, the death knell of the Equestrian aristocracy. When my aunts win and bring their errant foals to heel, they will make sure nothing like this happens again. They will strip away the very framework that allowed this to happen. Even if I am allowed to keep my titles, they will end with me. I will be last of the Bluebloods.
“My goals as prince and peer were modest. Pass any needed reforms. Find funding for good causes. Listen to my aunt and heed her advice well. But now... I am beyond irrelevance. After my peers are through with their collective insanity, I’ll be lucky to be remembered as Equestria’s most beautiful jousting champion.
He gave a long sigh and swirled his champagne flute, contemplating the cocktail as it twisted around the glass. “I admit, I did not expect to find myself so quickly and surely forgotten. The realisation hurt more than I had expected.” He propped his chin up with a hoof, and glanced downwards. Twilight had finished her dish. Half of Blueblood’s still remained, now quite cold.
“You know,” he said, straightening up, “I’ve entirely lost my appetite for eggs. What’s next?”
“Whole artichoke with aioli,” said Twilight, opening up the third box to reveal the spiky vegetable and dipping sauce inside. She snapped off a thick, green leaf, dipped it in the sauce, and crunched it between her teeth. Blueblood did the same.
“For what it’s worth, I don’t envy you,” said Twilight.
“Hah, I was about to say the same,” he replied. “At least I didn’t inadvertently start this whole affair?”
“I didn’t start it, that was Princess Luna,” huffed Twilight.
“Yes, and who freed her from the moon? Joking, old bean, joking!” he said, throwing his hooves up once more at Twilight’s glare.
“That’s not even fair...”
“No, it’s not. Still, I genuinely don’t envy you. You’ve been given quite the burden to bear. If I could be any use to you, I’d help you in an instant.”
“Thank you, Polaris,” said Twilight, smiling warmly. “Anyway, enough maudlin stuff. What’s your plan?”
“Pardon?”
“You know, your plan to solve this demesne business, kick a ton of rump, and earn three paragraphs in the history books.”
Blueblood barked out a harsh laugh. “My dear, you are quite mistaken. I am finished. I have no such plans, or anything even like such a plan. I have withdrawn from all usual social affairs until my so-called ‘friends’ bring themselves to talk about anything but demesnes and alliances and ‘honorable rules of combat.’ I start drinking before noon every single day. It’s Thursday night. Do you know what I do on a Thursday night? I go to a restaurant with a peer or some noveau riche businesspony or a few models and have a high time while I secretly write the restaurant review column for the Canterlot Times. No longer, now I stew in a hotel room, get drunk, and eat takeout. Look at me, for Heaven’s sake!” he cried, pointing at his scraggly blond beard. “I look like a surf bum!”
“I see where you’re coming from,” said Twilight. “Except that’s the biggest pack of lies I’ve heard all week. And yesterday, I spoke to an investment banker.”
“I’m not lying. You want to know what my plans are? First, hide in my hotel room until I can tolerate being in public again. Second, write a memoir that paints me as an ineffectual and harmless critic of these crazed times, so that whoever wins, I don’t get made into a wonderful scapegoat. Third, drink until I forget what a demesne is. There. Those are my plans.”
Twilight laughed and shook her head. There was the slightest tinge of red to her cheeks, the alcohol finally affecting her. “Polaris, it’s good to know you can still lie with a straight face. Do you really think I’ve completely forgotten what it’s like being around you? Do you want to know how I know that you’re preparing for something?”
Blueblood crossed his fores, and wouldn’t meet her eyes. “No I don’t.”
“Go on. Humor me.”
“Fine. Tell me.”
Twilight grinned smugly, polished off the rest of her cocktail, and stood up. “I remember—I know—what your moods are, and how you react to them. If you were elated, you’d be going to parties and holding charity balls and ignoring anyone who didn’t help puff your ego. If you were bored, you’d be out rutting, and my sources tell me you have not been out rutting. If you were feeling melancholy, you’d be playing the piano and reading poetry. Oh, and writing deliberately bad poetry, too.
“You’re not feeling elated, or bored, or melancholy. You’re feeling bitter and overlooked and wanderlusty. When you get those feelings, you practice card tricks and read pulp adventure novels. I can see a pile of books on the floor next to your bed and one of the spines looks an awful lot like ‘Amazing Tales from the Far East,’ so check, and there’s an open pack of cards on your bedside table, so another check. Still, there’s a tea saucer balanced on top of the cards and you don’t have an open book on your pillow, which means you haven’t been doing either since at least this morning, which means you’ve moved on from idle fantasizing to something more.
“You haven’t been hidden in your room all the time, you’ve been going to the gym every single morning. There are enough sweaty gym towels on the floor to prove it, and that one there is both fresh and kinda gross. You got back from the gym just before you showered and let me in.”
“I didn’t let you in, you teleported in.”
“Semantics. Lazy beard or not, you’re pushing yourself hard. Over there on your writing table. Several well-used notepads, and a pile of books next to them. Could be poetry, but I don’t think so. That thick burgundy hardback looks suspiciously like that copy of Clover the Clever’s The Science of War that you borrowed from the school library one year and never returned. In fact—and honestly, I’m just guessing at this point—I’d say that somewhere in this room is also your fencing gear, your little black book of blackmail secrets, and that forgery kit we made for your seventh-year science project. Also, at some point in the last forty-eight hours, you have mentally thought out a list of peers whose wives or husbands you will sleep with as a ruse for ‘intelligence gathering.’”
Prince Blueblood threw his hooves in the air. “Fine! Yes, okay! I admit it, I’ve been... preparing. For something. But I don’t have a plan! I have two notebooks of terrible, crossed-out not-plans, and a third note book of hypothetical map sketches. They’re relaxing.”
Twilight crossed her fores on the table, leaned forward, and looked directly into his eyes. “Maybe the reason you haven’t come up with a workable plan is that you need the right perspective.”
“Oh?” asked Blueblood. His eyes widened. “You have a plan.”
“Maybe.” She glanced at the take-out bag. “What’s next on the menu?”
“Dessert, but never mind that. You have a plan. Not a panic-plan either, you’re perfectly calm, so it’s a good plan.”
“What’s for dessert?”
“Damn dessert straight to Tartarus and seal the gates behind it, what’s the plan?”
“Get the dessert out and I’ll tell you.”
“Fine,” said Blueblood, and so he unboxed the final course from the takeout bag, and Twilight told him her plan, and as she spoke he dished out the desserts, and as she spoke his eyes grew wider at points and his grin grew wider at others, and as he ladled out the sauce and set the knives and forks down at their proper positions Twilight finished telling him her plan and gave him a moment to soak it all in.
Twilight stuck a fork into the desert and pulled a portion loose. She dipped it in the custard, blew on it, and began to eat. “Mmmm. This is good. I missed this.”
Blueblood just threw his head back and laughed. “Heavens above, Twilight, I didn’t think you had it in you!”
“Mmhm?”
“Well, it’s just... dark. It’s the sort of thing I’d expect from Auntie Luna. When she’s in a bad mood.”
“There’s no killing,” said Twilight, reproachfully. “Not even petrification.”
“Yes, and there could well be a plethora of those two things if this demesne business carries on much longer. By Sol, your plan doesn’t half look fun.”
“I thought you’d say that,” said Twilight, a wry smile on her lips. “I still need a team, though.”
“Why? You’ve got me, you’ve got your magical friendship division—oh.” Blueblood smirked. “You’re not getting them involved. You haven’t even told them, have you? No doubt you either think they lack the fortitude for such dark work, or you think they do have the fortitude and don’t want to leave them with this on their conscience.”
Instead of snapping back, Twilight looked down, guilt written over her expression. “Little of A, little of B...” she mumbled. Looking up, she said, “Blueblood, I didn’t come to you just—”
Blueblood walked around and slapped her on the back. “Twilight, honestly, I know. You have good friends, you probably feel guilty for exposing your friends to such a mess in the first place—that noblesse oblige lark is a real stinker, I should know—and you don’t want to drop them further in the midden-hole. I scrapped half-a-dozen plans that involved using my jousting team as a crack suicide squad for that exact reason. So, you need ponies who either have the strength of will for such deeds, or ones whom you simply don’t care if they get a little morally tarnished. I’d hope, given our long friendship, that I’m in the former category—”
“Little of A, little of B,” interrupted Twilight, smirking.
“—but really, it hardly matters. I think it’s a fine plan.”
“That’s what I’m worried about. You didn't even flinch when I mentioned the kidnappings. I don’t know if I should be grateful or kinda terrified.”
Blueblood sat back down and waved her off. “Please, I put up with worse as a fagging colt. Either way, I’m with you.” He took a sniff of the steam coming off his dessert. “Mmmm, and my appetite is back, too. I do love spotted dick and custard.”
Twilight nodded, finishing another mouthful of the pudding. “I didn't realise you were so—mmhm—nostalgic for Celestia’s School.”
“The feeling strikes me every once in a while. I miss a few things. Playing pranks. Fighting in empty classrooms. Stealing out of one pony’s bag and hiding it in another pony’s. Sneaking about the grounds after curfew. Endless plotting against rivals. That sort of lark.”
“And there I was, actually studying...” said Twilight, rolling her eyes.
“Good thing too, or we wouldn’t have a plan. Do you have any thoughts on who you’re recruiting next?”
“A few names, but I haven’t really decided yet. Why, got any ideas?”
“Well,” said Blueblood, leaning back in his chair, “if you’re going to do this much trickery, I’d advise finding a pony who can pull off a damned good trick.”