//------------------------------//
// Day Fourteen: Wanted 
// Story: Paper Prince 
// by JLB 
//------------------------------//

Blueblood inhaled deeply, concentrated on keeping firm hold of the object floating by his side. With trembling forehooves, he grabbed one of his gold locks. The stallion shook in place, threatening to tumble off the pillow mound located on the couch in their cabin, and breathed heavily all throughout.

Eventually, he said:

“Do it.”

He then yelped mightily as a sharp pen stabbed him right in the back, causing the stallion to lose hold of his magic, and sending the object he had been holding into motion. A quiet “chirk” and a devouring emptiness inside his stomach said that the deed was done.

“There, there. It’s alright,” Raven patted him on the back, shaking her head. She picked up the scissors and the now detached lock, and placed them in their respective places - a tightly secured locker by her shelf on the bunk, and the window, respectively. 

Prince Blueblood had been having his mane made for the past week, and they were already seven locks through. In truth, the secretary was starting to suspect that something may have moved much more within the royal unicorn than it seemed at first. And at first, it seemed that his entire psyche, sanity included, move to a rather faraway land. Ever since the encounter on the seventh day of their unfortunate journey, the encounter nobody liked to bring up much, Blueblood had developed a line of new eccentricities. He ordered that he no longer be groomed, fed anything special, located in the VIP cabin, or listened to as a superior.

The first to go was the latter statement, as it was pointed out to him that he has no way of ordering them to do those things should he no longer count as their superior. Thereafter, it turned out that the Prince’s allergy to common pony food had intensified greatly, causing him to spend three days sick, and be forced to eat from his own reserves. Not much longer after that, his skin had begun to cover itself in ghastly pimples, and nasal evacuations were abound whenever he passed by any of the engineers. By the seventh day since his decree, Blueblood was forcefully put back into his original place of residence, violently groomed and taken care of, and addressed as Prince regardless of his desires. He still somehow managed to keep his snout unshaved, though, no matter how hard he would be coerced.

Moreover, the stallion’s addled mind had grown a stronger will than prior, at least as far as Raven was concerned. Blueblood would continue to ask that, despite all the failures, he undergo his intended transformation. Lacking the heart to upset the stallion any further, Raven agreed. 

As such, she now lived with a significantly scruffier Blueblood, whose mane she cut shorter one lock per day. He originally insisted that it all go at once, but the texture of the scissors and the sheer viciousness of the procedure caused him to convulse in pain when she barely approached him. Still, they had made some progress over the week. The Prince now looked like he was balding slightly quicker than normal.

“No, no, this pace won’t do…” Blueblood complained to himself, holding a tender hoof to his head. “This isn’t enough. This has to go.” He knocked himself on the chest, staring at Raven somewhat frighteningly. “This has to go. Raven, I don’t want to look like this any longer. And I…”

“Sir?..” she urged him to continue, watching how the stallion fumbled, his eyes darting.

“I do not know how. I have tried all I could think of, but you have forced me out of it. My wits are at an end, Raven,” he waved his hooves in the air, continuing to stare right into the mare. “I need help.”

“You do,” she nodded, rolling her eyes for a scant moment. “Well… If you would want my help—”

“I would.” Blueblood nodded shakily.

They stared at each other while Raven thought rapidly. In truth, she asked merely because the logical thing to assume would be that her offer would be dismissed. Now, she had to form a reasonable thing to say. 

The first thing to suffice was:

“Um… You could start by wearing something different!” 

They both looked at Blueblood’s suit, Blueblood himself inquisitive and Raven wondering if what she said did, in fact, make sense. Thankfully, it appeared that in all of his delirium, the Prince had not swapped clothes in a very long while. The secretary sighed in relief as the stallion prodded the tainted suit.

Over the four hours that were spent with her trying to pitch the Prince various new designs. Fortunately, it was typical of royalty the likes of him to travel with what felt like entire coffers full of fashions, and be completely unaware of their contents. It seemed an easy task, at first, but soon enough it turned out that Blueblood wanted little to do with his old sterling self. That having caused such a time sink, by when they were done, it was already rather dark outside, and the engines had been suspiciously quiet for the past quarter hour.

Raven wiped sweat off her forehead and went to bang on the new, much thinner door into the main compartment. She had already noticed their halt, but the Prince needed additional calming for her not to return to find the clothes on fire, or worse.

“Hello?” she called out, banging on the door again. “What’s our problem, why have we stopped?”

There was, once again, no reply, and she banged once more - harder, this time. As her hoof struck the metal with more force, it creaked open slightly, having been unlocked the whole time.

The engine compartment/staff section was empty, much colder, and still showing signs of the recent mauling. Only a weak lamp illuminated it, standing atop a pile of crates, barely shedding light on the plain beds and tables in the humble area their technicians occupied. Eerie clinking, slurping noises came in from the outside, perverted even further by the soundproof hull and the echo. The empty beds almost caused Raven some fright, until she had noticed that one of the doors to the outer hull was open, letting in the cold air.

Casting a glance at the Prince, who was, fortunately, busy digging in a briefcase full of clothing never worn before, the secretary took the lamp off the crates, and headed for the door. Steps away from leaving, she backtracked and put on a spare coat - some final inspection even unveiled a sharp screwdriver in the front pocket. She levitated it in front of her, walking slowly, in fencing formation. The mare opened the door out of the empty engine compartment, and entered the cold, dark unknown.

Immediately, she was surrounded by equine figures. Before she could jab the screwdriver into at least one of their throats, however, her glasses were hit by a particularly large snowflake, and knocked her off course, allowing one of the figures to catch her.

“Ms. Raven? What are you doing outside?” asked a familiar gruff voice. “We were just about done examining the chock-up, and then you…”

“I thought something happened,” she stated plainly, having realized, with her eyes adjusting to the dark, that the entire engine crew was standing right outside the door, quietly working around the fuel gauge. “And isn’t it dangerous outside?” the mare frowned in suspicion while the screwdriver was taken away from her.

“Well, that’s exactly why you should have stayed inside! The temperature may be inhabitable out here, but we can’t just allow you to get into any more trouble.” 

“Last I checked, I was in charge of not letting us get into any more trouble, thank you very much.” Raven scowled, fixing up the collar of her coat, finally let go by the stallion that caught her.

“We’d figured you had your fill of duties looking after Prince Blueblood, ma’am. Didn’t want to bother you any more than you needed to be…” the chief engineer mumbled, looking guilty. “Although, since you’re here… We were going to come ask something of you, as a matter of fact.”

The mare shivered a little, getting adjusted to the bitter winter outside. They were on a level patch of land, probably an actual road, for once. The snow only reached her fetlock area, too - this place was, indeed, inhabitable enough. While the pitch blackness of eight in the evening obscured any other details, this at least felt better than the toothy gorge or the ruin-filled field. They had made extra effort to stray to the side of that patch of the Frozen North, even if that was to slow them down just a little. Perhaps, if it was brighter outside, the forest they intended to head for would have been visible…

“What would you need?” Raven asked, watching the other technicians clumped near the fuel gauge dissipate. 

“Well, if what we’re thinking is happening is happening — and it is...” He nodded to a pony that came up to him and said something the mare could not quite make out. “We’re going to seek out locals for some help. We’ve ran out of physical fuel, it seems. And the—” He looked at Raven briefly, blinking a few times, eyes shifting. “Well, in simple terms, the magical charge won’t move us ahead by itself, so we need to find something to refuel. Anything flammable does.”

“I see. Did we run out already?”

“Yeah, we did.”

They exchanged understanding looks and headshakes, and Raven sighed deeply, rubbing one foreleg against the other.

“And where are we meant to find those locals? They could be miles away, and in this darkness, we wouldn’t have any lights powerful enough, and I don’t think that using magic outright is a good idea in this place, and then we have to convince them, and then…” she listed off all the issues that came to her mind.

“Well, for one, we need you for that last part, since you’re in charge of diplomacy. As for the rest… well…” The pony meekly gestured Raven to come with him, and they came to the other side of their vehicle. “That part’s already covered, I guess.”

Less than fifty meters away from where they stood, there were torches and window lights of what must have been a small village. The mare rubbed a cold, snowy hoof against her face and sighed at that cognitive failure of hers.

Her breath halted when she remembered something.

“There… is a problem. I think we’ve forgotten something,” she said, looking at the chief engineer, both of them grimacing in nearly physical pain as they both realized. “I’m not in charge of diplomacy here. Prince Blueblood is.”

Another hour and a half later, they had managed to drag the royal stallion outside the vehicle and explain the situation to him. The latter part was somewhat simple, surprisingly enough. He nodded and sighed to all that he was told to do, which was - stand still, look appropriate, and nod when it felt fitting. The stallion’s mark may have been an crystalline compass of some description, but he definitely had a talent in recognizing important parts of conversations he was not partaking in.

“It will all be fine. No ponies, no matter how estranged, would refuse to help if they can afford to. With you by our side, it will all go as smoothly as possible. Do you understand?” Raven spoke to Blueblood in as caring a manner as possible. “Gather yourself, it will be alright. You’re an Equestrian Prince, even if shaken up. You’ll see, they will look at you, lend us their aid, and it’ll be right as rain again. Just say you’re an Equestrian Prince, okay? They may not recognize you very well.”

“Yeah, you don’t need to worry, sir. You… are dressed a little light, though. Do you want a coat?” the chief engineer asked him as they headed towards the burning lights, which now clearly illuminated a large wooden gate and wall. “It’s all too warm out here, but still, you don’t want to catch a cold.”

“I don’t honestly know,” Blueblood muttered, dragging his legs toward the Northern village. It was never in his plan to leave the carrier again, let alone while he was desperately scrambling for a fitting disguise. The time spent rearranging his wardrobe filled him with abnormal hatred for all that connected him to… what he supposed was only fitting to call his “old life”. It was an undescribed, obscure feeling that he felt as he looked at himself in the mirror, desperately attempting to not be what he saw in there. 

When they came for his admittedly laughable aid, he had fastened his mane into a long ponytail, and put on a pair of lightly tinted glasses to cover his eyes, if only from himself. He dealt away with the sweat, blood, and alcohol-covered shirt underneath the suit, as well as the suit itself. Instead, he saw that a thick, black, vest-like tuxedo looked the least like what he used to, and never found a fitting item to wear underneath. It hung on him, too big for even his large frame. A neck tie was wrapped around his neck, so as to cover the remaining burns from over a week ago. Blueblood, for himself, was nearly satisfied. 

He looked strange now. Different. Still pampered, but the cuts and burns remained, and with the glasses on, he saw that a pair of bags had formed under his eyes. One eye even twitched. If not for how cold it felt outside with all that on… He could have gotten used to it. No longer paper. Something more… solid. 

“Now, please, just do what you always do best,” he heard Raven order him gently, and nodded in response. They stood in front of massive gates, torches at the tops of two towers by its sides, and the Prince could already feel a hint of acne creeping onto his snout, for he smelled smoke, wood, drink, and sweat. Effectively all of his allergies were contained behind those gates. 

And yet, the idea of turning back and refusing to leave the cabin ever again was left discarded. He raised his head as Raven called out for the village ponies in their native language.

“I’m going to do something. Something important,” he murmured to himself as a commotion rose behind the gates, setting the technicians behind him on edge. “I’ll simply up and do it. Out with the old, in with the new. I’m all different now. All different, all different… not going to ruin this.” Blueblood breathed into his forehooves, having grown a little woozy. “Nowhere to go from here but up and ahead.”

He shivered a little as a bright orange light from a peculiar-looking torch mechanism shone down on them, first the engineering team, then Raven, and then himself. The sensation on his skin caught him as odd - that sort of irritation he only felt from light derived from fire. Definitely a peculiarity when it came to lighting mechanisms. As far as he was aware, anyway. In any case, it was rather unpleasant how the spotlight lingered on him for that long… However, he decided not to complain, for once.

“...and we would like your help, if you could lend us any!” Raven was in the middle of her exchange with the ponies behind the gate, waving a hoof so they could be seen below. 

“You have to wait!” a thickly accented, deep, male voice from the top of the gates shouted down at them. “Precautions.”

“What is happening?” Blueblood asked nervously, having noticed that the spotlight has been down on him for over a minute by then. 

“They’re a bit suspicious, I guess. We’re not the most probable story. Don’t worry, they probably just want to identify who you are,” Raven calmed him down, and pointed at a group of fiery lights that hopped from one of the towers and to a nearby snowy hill, getting close to them.

Blueblood could not see too well with the light and snow affecting his new glasses, but something caught him as odd about those lights. For one, they cast themselves on ponies incrementally larger than the ones with him, as the smallest one had to be greater in bulk than even their chief engineer. And for another, the sources of the lights, the torches… Or, rather, torch-like apparatuses that hung by their sides, kept on by neck straps. Down-wind from them, he could smell terrible odors, curling his stomach up quite efficiently if not for the pre-existing knots from the cold. Initially, he thought that this was simply the trait of a non-elite pony, but then remembered that this was much more alike to the smell that his fireplace once emitted when he disposed of barbarous animal oil presented to him by a deer delegacy via its flames. It was common sense versus logic, and the Prince could but shrug.

Raven waved towards the Northerners, but Blueblood could not help but feel worry. Common folk were extremely unpredictable, not only in causing him sickness at that. These were definitely common.

“Raven… What do they need all the fire for?” he asked the secretary.

“Well… I guess… I guess they might think you’re a changeling. That’s reasonable enough. Look, one of them even has a paper with him. Most likely a picture of yours. They’ll see that it’s you and nothing is going to be wrong. If the worst comes to the worst—”

Before she could finish, a roaring burst of flame shot in their faces, stopping less than a meter before engulfing half the Equestrian delegacy. Each of them, not only Blueblood - although he outdid them - screeched and screamed out in surprise. The initial burst was followed by more, from all sides, before they were surrounded by an entire ring of flame, melting the snow around them slowly and unveiling pale, brown soil. 

“STAND IN PLACE!” the pony in the lead of the firestarters screamed at them from beneath a layer of cloth and goggles that obscured his face. “THIS ONE TO THE FRONT!” He pointed the torch-like object in Blueblood’s direction, causing the unicorn’s heart to stop temporarily. Nobody would push him forward, however, so another threatening burst of flame was in order. He then weakly stepped ahead, legs shaking with each step. Everyone was quiet.

“Gentlec—” Raven tried to speak out, but instead received another hurl of flame launched in her direction from another one of the Northern ponies. “What is going on?! We’re an Equestrian delegacy, I told you! We even have Prince Blueblood! It was in your newspapers!”

“Yes, it was,” the stallion pointing the burning appliance in Blueblood’s direction answered, albeit with difficulty in pronouncing the sound “s”. “Only we aren’t idiots, and you are.”

“What do you mean?!” Raven shouted in response, while Blueblood just stood rooted in place and staring at the piece of paper clipped to the Northern stallion’s chest. His eye twitched a little as he watched that pony detach the paper and raise it up in the air, for Raven and the rest to see.

“Also in the newspapers is this,” he answered grimly, as Raven and the rest read the newspaper clipping.

It was a wanted sign - something unique to the fringe territories, the mare would know - and on it was a picture that made her jaw drop temporarily. Depicted there was an artist’s rendition of a tall, white, blonde unicorn stallion who wore tinted glasses and whose mane was tied in a ponytail - just below the neck line started a thick, oversized black vest and a lazily thrown on black neck tie. He scowled from the page, and, on top of it all, had a significant stubble.

Blueblood was still staring into that stallion’s eyes, but Raven quickly saw a few details that pulled her out of the stupor. That pony’s snout was much longer, his horn was thinner and with a different spiral, the eyes behind the glasses were a dim purple color as opposed to Blueblood’s gentle teal, there were multiple cuts on his snout in places Blueblood never had any, and, finally, she could tell that that pony was much thinner than the Prince. 

Of course, of much relief was the caption that read:




WANTED ALIVE/DEAD



“GOLDLOCK”



FOR CAPITAL TREASON (EQUESTRIAN KINGDOM, GRIFFON EMPIRE), MURDER, KIDNAPPING, LARCENY, VANDALISM, ACTS OF TERROR, IDENTITY THEFT.



EXTREMELY DANGEROUS, VIOLENT, CAPABLE ACTOR, ACTS WITH ANTI-POLITICAL ANARCHISTIC AGENDA.



IF BROUGHT ALIVE: 250.000 EB/40.000 GF



IF BROUGHT DEAD: 100.000 EB/500.000 GF




That meant that this definitely was not Blueblood, not by any freak coincidence. Merely… a freak coincidence.

“This is just a coincidence!” Blueblood nodded rapidly to his own thoughts, attempting to defend himself.

“You’re not being asked!” the Northerner in the lead barked at him, “And stop playing dumb if you want us to turn you to the Equestrians! Or we’ll mind the currency exchange, maybe!”

“This is all wrong!” the Prince screamed at the top of his lungs, “We just want your help! We aren’t your enemies! What has come to happen to you that you won’t aid your own brethren?!”

Raven gulped and backed into the technicians, looking back at them, and then at the growing ring of flame. 

“I am not giving a history lecture! You would know why if you were Blueblood,” the other stallion shot back. “Two weeks ago, he was in our capital, discussing this exact thing! Don’t think we will let you go just because we’ll think you’re too dumb to be that criminal!”

Prince Blueblood stood in place, huffing and puffing. His face turned red, only in part due to the cold. As the rest of his ponies - his ponies, he realized, whether they agreed on that or not - clumped into a tight crowd behind him, he threw off his glasses and stepped vehemently toward the fire. Some of them murmured and shuffled, he even saw a shadow of a hoof motioning something among the crowd, but he would put that in control later. This was his time, Blueblood realized. Do or die, and he was meant to do something. Last he checked, he registered as an Equestrian Prince, and he intended to live up to it.

At least, that was how the personally named idiocy center of his brain justified his actions from then on.

“If you want me that much, then come get me! I am coming! Do you hear me? I surrender!” the unicorn’s voice nearly sounded like a low-toned rooster’s screech, so rabid he was. “I am coming with you, and you send me back to Equestria! They will see who I really am, throw me in the gutter, and you’ll get your reward!”

Blueblood stared at the clothed-up Northerner while his snout nearly burned, so close to the ring of fire he was.

“Huh.”

“What are you waiting for?! Only now realized that you can't turn in a charred corpse and expect them to believe you?!” Blueblood yelled angrily, bits of spittle landing into the foul-smelling flames and turning into steam.

“Well, if that’s how you want it…” the large pony shrugged and shouted back in his language. For a second, the Prince squinted, anticipating a painful death, since on the Northerner’s order, every torch was pointed at their huddle. The lead flamer said something else, and he could clearly hear the word “Griffon” in his speech multiple times. The next moment, however, an unpleasant, rapid, cold gust of wind blew them apart, as air was sucked into the apparatuses, removing the flames, as well as pulling a few of the ponies onto the ground. 

Blueblood was among them, having fallen flat on his face, right there where the ring of fire previously was. He was livid, angry, perturbed. In bits over how he had nothing to prove his genuinuity as a Prince - whom, indeed, he never truly was. Steaming over how these fringe rebels - as he had now remembered at least a fragment of the exact deal with the Northerners that caused the entire meeting to adjourn - would treat his suite in such a manner simply for such mercenary goals. Foaming over how he, Prince Blueblood - or was he? - had turned himself into a laughable mess that looked like a deranged criminal, yelled at some commoner whose smell alone gave him sniffles and pimples, and acted like a mindless ape so that other commoners be spared violence directed at him. 

It was nothing he ever thought of, let alone prepared for, or was taught to do. None of it, none at all. It felt like a distant dream, or a bleak fantasy that would graze the edge of his mind and leave when nothing tingled at its presence. He was not meant for it. His compass was never pointed there - his compass, indeed, barely had an arrow, and most ponies thought it was just a peculiar-looking gem embedded in his flank. And yet, there he was, laying on cold now, listening to screams, mostly in Equestrian, and looking at a large body wrapped in brown cloth laying next to him, a screwdriver sticking out of its glassy winter goggles. Dark red liquid poured out of a crack in it, and the body would not move - not until it was shoved aside by a smaller equine that pulled off the large metal contraption laying on its side, and was quickly helped to aim it up by another one of the small figures. Blueblood could just about draw a connection or two, but, in frankness, his mind had decided that it had worked more than enough, and was only conscious enough to scold itself for its behavior. The Prince barely knew what he was feeling, aside from cold. 

Confusion was the easiest thing to go with, and his addled mind kept to it. He heard shouting, cracking, and roaring around him. Loud objects hit the ground near where he lay, and racuous blasts laid way for ugly, oily smells and heat. He stared at the cracked glassy mask and the screwdriver in it for a few seconds more, until that screwdriver was rapidly pulled out by a shaky magical aura. A feminine whimper and a loud male scream came onto his ears, and he had to cover them with his hooves. Moments later, a large, rusty metal bolt cracked the ground where his left hoof used to be, sending a crack of frozen soil right into the stallion's face. Before that fact could compute itself, he felt his body be lifted atop an equine frame, which then galloped off - away from the noises and smells. The Prince's messy muzzle got shifted backwards in the hurry, his carrier's backside serving him as a chin stand. 

Now, Blueblood could clearly see how the patch of land where they stood, significant by how it still radiated in the darkness, and was devoid of snow, became littered with debris. Chunks of earth were missing, large bolts were imbedded in the ground, and, more than that, he clearly saw at least two massive bodies lay without motion. A massive amount of smaller bolts peppered the area where he would have been had he never been picked up. He even noticed the one that came in first. 

The stallion saw little else as the road was shaky for his carrier. Soon enough, however, he spotted flaming torches in the dark, and more enraged screaming in a language he did not understand. At that point, he decided that was definitely more than enough, and his mind shut itself down for his own benefit.

“I just want to be something different,” he thought his parting thought, hearing faint cheers and loud bangs, as well as a female voice and hoof try to slap him back into reality. “Not Blueblood.”

The cold darkness became darkness regular, and the entire ruckus went away. Blueblood was calm, hurting, confused, scared, hungry, and on severe alcoholic withdrawal. Definite, at the very least.

“But I don’t want to pretend, no. I’ll show them. I’ll show them all. They’ll take me for something better than this,” his tumbling consciousness decided before shutting off entirely. “I’ve had it with this nonsense. I didn’t not die for nothing.”

A red line crossed his vision, and he trailed off entirely, only a faint glow of that sensation still haunting him into nothingness.

Prince Blueblood would not have good sleep for at least another three weeks, although that was in good part due to the flamethrowers that had to be installed to the sides of their vehicle for acceleration, and in good part due to the many other issues their delegacy had encountered on its way.