Title: Glitters of Ashes Tonight
Pairing: Marble Pie/Prince Blueblood
“Come on Marble! You can’t just stay here by the drinks table all night.”
Marble did her best to hide her whole body in its whole frilly dress behind her mane. Needless to say, this didn’t work.
Pinkie Pie regarded her with the closest thing she could get to sadness. “Aren’t you enjoying the Gala at all?”
“Mmhmm.” She nodded emphatically. The colours and bright lights and beautiful ponies were thrilling. She just wished she was watching everything from behind tinted glass so nopony else could see her and recognise how much she didn’t belong among them.
“Pinkie Pie!” The gigantic twisting snake-goat creature curled into existence beside them from literally nothing. One second she was staring into her sister’s eyes, the next the monster in a top hat and tails was between them. Marble squeaked and only just resisted diving under the table. “It’s your turn, my dear. Fluttershy sent me to fetch you.”
“My turn?” Pinkie seemed nonplussed.
“To sing. Don’t tell me you forgot?” The snake thing’s lower lip quivered. “Your duet with Fluttershy. She won’t go on without you.”
“OhmygoshItotallyspacedonthatohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!” Pinkie vibrated in place like a bottle of soda full of mints. “Marble, please try to dance with somepony at least once while we’re here? For me?”
Marble shrank back so much, hut butt hit the table.
“Or if not for me, then for poor Maudie?”
She froze, the vision of Maud, sick in bed and unable to use her ticket, firmly planting itself in her mind’s eye. Marble may have been timid and folded under pressure more than a cheap tin can, but she loved her sisters more than anything. “M-mmhmm,” she said, trying to sound convincing.
“Pinkie Piiiiie!” whined the snake monster.
“Okay, okay, okay, Discoooooord,” Pinkie replied, bouncing away.
Marble remained where she was, only slightly bruised that Pinkie had assumed she would not follow to watch the performance. She toed the expensive tiled flooring for a while, eyed the punch, discarded the idea of drinking any and spent five minutes concentrating furiously on picking all the tiny pieces of shredded spinach off a cold boiled potato plucked from the salad tray. When it was bald of greenery she studied it. It looked like one of Maud’s beloved rocks. Instantly, she thought of her elder sister and was unable to squash the pang of guilt that came with it.
Maudie would enjoy this party so much more than me. She deserves to be here, not me. I’m so useless. So many ponies would give their left hind leg to attend the Grand Galloping Gala and I can’t even do this right. I’m so – oh!
Squeezed involuntarily tight in her hoof, the greasy potato popped free. It sailed in a wide arc through the air. Marble realised its destination seconds before it landed. She tried to summon a shout, but all that came out was a useless squeak.
“Oh!” cried the stallion, brushing at his mane. “I say! What the blue blazes was that?”
Marble blushed crimson as his eyes fixed on her.
“Did you … did you just throw something at me?” he asked, apparently dumbstruck at the very notion.
She shook her head, simultaneously trying to draw it into her body, tortoise-style. She covered her face with one whole foreleg, sinking to the floor in such abject misery that her legs refused to hold her up anymore. This was a mistake. This whole party was a mistake. She wasn’t bubbly Pinkie Pie who understood parties and ponies and how to deal with both at the same time. She wasn’t Limestone, who would have challenged anypony to make fun of her with just one vicious glare. She wasn’t even stoic Maud, whom nothing seemed to bother, much less fluster. She was just stupid, useless, pathetic Marble.
“Oh my.” Footsteps hastily trotted up to her. “Are you ill?”
She continued to barely hold in her sobs.
“Do you need some fresh air? Come, come now, you’re making a scene.”
Startlingly, a pair of strong forelegs heaved her upright and manoeuvred her away from the refreshment table, towards the door to outside.
“She’s with me. Just getting some air, doncha know,” the stallion said to the guard as they passed.
Once outdoors she expected him to let go, but he keeps pushing her until they reached a tiny stone patio with a granite bench onto which he unceremoniously plopped her down.
“There now. If you’re going to vomit, you’re safely out of sight.”
“Mmm … hmm …” she said, trying to form ‘thank you’ and failing miserably.
“I guess Goldenmane spiked the punch after all. Funny; he never usually gets away with it. The staff are always watching like hawks. It does make it dashedly difficult to pull off even the simplest of jests at events like these. Quite impressive that he managed it this time. How much did you drink?”
Marble shook her head.
“You didn’t drink? Well then, why are you acting like some common louche drunk?”
Her shoulders hunched. She bent further over and finally let her tears flow.
“Oh sweet Celestia, now you’re crying. I never know how to deal with crying mares. Um … um … oh yes. Right. Here.”
She looked up to see a handkerchief thrust under her nose.
“Well?” he said impatiently. “You’re supposed to accept it. I read up on etiquette after the last disastrous time I came to this bloody event and I know for a fact that if a gentlecolt offers a mare his hankie, she is obliged to take it as a favour.”
Marble sniffed, choking on her words. She shook her head and made a circling gesture between them with her hooftip.
“What?” He scowled at her. “It’s the other way around? Argh!” He practically flung the piece of monogrammed fabric at her and clasped his face with both hooves. “I was born into high society and I still can’t remember all these petty, putrid, pustulous rules of etiquette. Life was so much simpler when I just didn’t bother with them at all!”
Marble caught the fluttering hankie before it hit the ground. She looked at it, then at him. Sniffing, she dabbed delicately at her eyes. He saw her and gave her truculent nod, but it was clear he wanted to be someplace else. Marble could understand that. It was the way all ponies except her sisters got around her. Even her parents ran out of patience with her eventually.
The stallion sat down on the stone bench. “Ugh, if it weren’t for social obligation, I wouldn’t bother with this blasted event at all.”
Marble must have looked surprised, because he rolled his eyes.
“Yes, yes, I know: it’s the talk of the town, the thing on everypony’s lips, the places where everypony whom everypony should know goes to see and be seen. But I’ve been attending since I was a colt and quite frankly I’ve found it increasingly irksome every year. I skipped it altogether last year. Faked an illness. It was marvellous. I gave the staff the night off and kept the whole wing of the castle to myself.” He seemed to realise what he was saying and sat a little straighter. “Uh, I mean … it’s just such a shoddy production since Auntie Celestia started letting the riffraff in.”
Auntie Celestia? Marble’s eyes widened. Then that mean … if she recalled Pinkie’s stories correctly … this had to be …
He looked up at her squeak. “What the blue blazes is wrong with you?”
She shook her head frantically.
He raised his eyes to the heavens. “Mares. I shan’t ever understand them. If it’s not wanting to be treated like royalty, it’s acting like we threw dog dirt in your face when we do pay you compliments. Make up your blasted minds, will you?”
Marble just stared at him.
Prince Blueblood leaned back. “You’re rather easy to talk to.”
“Mmhmm?”
“Yes. And you provide a nice distraction to get me out of that party for a while.”
She coughed daintily into her hoof as a ‘you’re welcome’.
Two voices rose above all the others inside. Marble recognised Pinkie’s, but the other breathy one wasn’t one she could immediately place. Prince Blueblood wrinkled his nose.
“Karaoke. I ask you. This event is going to the dogs.”
Marble liked dogs. Father had never let her have one though. He said they had no place on a rock farm and Mother had complained about the potential for hairs on the furniture. Why couldn’t she just have a pet rock, like her sisters?
She flattened the hankie against her skirt, studiously not looking at Blueblood.
“Oh, don’t bother. I won’t want that back.”
She paused to almost raise her gaze at him, but settled for looking at his hooves. “Mmhmm?”
“I’ll just get new ones. You keep that rotten old thing.”
She allowed her eyebrows to tick ever so slightly downward.
He sighed aggressively. “No, not because you’re riffraff. I just prefer … fresher items of clothing and suchlike.” His gaze lingered half a second too long on her bodice before shifting away.
Marble looked down at her gown. It had been her mother’s. It was a little old fashioned but she thought it was pretty. She sighed. He was the second pony to comment on it. He hadn’t fainted like Pinkie’s friend, but still. Marble sagged a little.
“What? What?” Blueblood snorted. “Don’t cry again.” He paused, as if thinking hard, then added sullenly, “Please.”
She frowned at his hooves. It was possibly the most aggressive thing she had ever done. It had the effect of a sparrow pecking a dragon.
“Is there something on my hooves?” he cried in disgust, raising each one to inspect. “I just had a hooficure!”
Marble’s mouth fell open. A stallion having a hooficure? Her father would have conniptions at the very idea. She thought of Applejack’s brother and his big, soup-plate hooves. All the stallions she had ever met used their hooves for working and would never even think about taking care of them with primping and polishing. Strangely, she found the idea … intriguing.
She cleared her throat.
Blueblood put his hooves down with a relieved sigh. “Still perfect.” He tipped his head back. “It’s rather nice out here. The last time I went for a walk outside during the Gala, I was expected to keep complimenting the mare I was with. Ugh, it was ghastly. She thought that just because I’d shown her a modicum of interest, we were automatically an item, and tried to monopolise my whole evening.” He frowned. “Though … I did let her get covered in cake for me. So … I think that made us even. I think. Fancy Pants informed me that I was a dreadful boor all evening, so maybe not.” He scowled at the moon. “It’s all very confusing and aggravating. He made me read all these books on manners and refused to let me attend any of his social events until I could prove I’d read them. I mean, it’s not like it was his wife I insulted! Though … I don’t think that makes it any better.”
Marble was at a loss for what to say, so she opted for an eloquent, “Mmhmm.”
“Ugh. You’re possibly right. That’s very annoying.” Blueblood transferred his gaze back to the doors into the Gala. “All the same, I don’t think I wish to go back inside just yet.”
“Mmhmm,” she agreed. Strange as he was, she felt much more comfortable out here talking to him than in there trying not to be a wallflower amongst so many glittering ponies.
They sat in silence for a long while. It wasn’t nearly as strained as Marble would have expected. Crickets chirped. Somewhere, an owl hooted and ducks quacked on a midnight swim across the royal pond. The karaoke inside thrummed a steady rhythm as a male voice joined Pinkie and her friend. It sounded a lot like the snake monster.
“Dash it all!” Blueblood cursed suddenly, making Marble jump. “I didn’t ask your name. I’m fairly certain that was in one of those blasted books. So, what’s your … wait. No.” He took a beleaguered breath. “May I enquire as to your name, my … dear?” He seemed to struggle with the last word.
Marble stared at him. “Mmm…” She paused. “Mmmmmmarble,” she squeezed out. “I’mmmm Mmmmmarble. It’s … mmmmost pleasant t-to … mmmmmeet you.”
He looked at her strangely, as if her speech impediment was something he had never before come across in his life. She wondered if he was going to insult her now. On instinct, she ducked her head to hide her face behind her mane.
Instead, he took her hoof and kissed it, producing a blush so intense she was surprised her whole head didn’t melt. “Lovely to meet you, Miss Marble. I’m Prince Blueblood.”