Two Hearts to Mend; Talk About a Brain Bend.... Okay, that was lame. I’m the Princess of Chaos; you’d think I could come up with something better than that!
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I giggle as I float through the halls in the direction of where Princess Luna said to meet her. On my way here I had a nice bit of a fun with some of the other so-called nobles. Plus, hoping into that alternate universe to help Twi and Fluttershy with the memory problem was nice. Twi is even cuter as a foal than I’d thought she’d be!
Anyway, with all that out of the way, I don’t really have much else to stall me til I find Luna. Strange. I feel like there’s a pony here I’ve wanted to get even with for a while, but I can’t remember who—?
“Is there anything else you require, Your Highness,” a mare’s voice pulls me from my thoughts.
“No. I’ll... that’ll all. Be on your way and... have a nice day.”
My eyes widen as I recognize the voice. He only ever spoke in the season one finale, but I cannot forget that voice.
A smirk forms on my lips and I make myself invisible as a yellow Earth Pony mare with a blue mane, wearing a maids outfit, steps out from a nearby door and moves of down the hall, a disheartened expression on her face.
Scowling at the idea he did something to upset this mare who was just doing her job, I phase through the closed door, ready to pull the nastiest prank I can think of on Prince Blueballs. Maybe I’ll turn him into a mare and make it so she has to go around the palace presenting herself like it’s heat season.
Or maybe I’ll make him think he looks like a mare and just watch the hilarity unfold as he tries to make his way to Celestia to try and get her to fix it, leaving everypony that sees him to wonder why he’s acting so weird.
But, those plans are halted the moment I lay eyes on the jerk and my brain struggles to understand what I’m seeing.
The white coat, blond mane and compass Cutie Mark confirm the lout laying on the bed is Blueblood, but that’s where the similarities abruptly end.
He has a forlorn expression on his muzzle, as if the world itself is too horrible for him to bear. And as for the condition of himself and his room? I’d say complete pigsty, but I’ve been to Sweet Apples Acres, and their pigsty is pristine compared to what I’m seeing.
Clothing is cast about all over the floor, boxes of fancy chocolates and, I have to rub my eyes several times to make sure I’m not imagining it, fast food takeout boxes and wrappers all over the place.
The bed is unkempt and its occupant is no better. Whereas his hair and coat were trimmed to perfection in Best Night Ever, the Blueblood I’m looking at’s mane and tail look more like an old broom than that of a prince and his fur is mated and covered in stains.
He honestly looks like a stereotypical girl who was dumped by their jerk of a boyfriend. And yeah, the irony of that, considering who we’re talking about here, is not lost on me.
“I’m such a stupid fool!” Blueblood wails in a way that reminds me a lot of Rarity, now that I think about it, as he rolls over onto his back, before tumbling off the bed.
I watch him wade through the debris over to a vanity with a mirror. He plops himself down in front of it, laying his head on the tabletop, looking depressingly at himself.
“Why?” he asks, sounding, to be honest, pitiful. “That time. The one time a mare is interested in you for something that isn’t strictly to do with your money and you treat her like you do all the others.” He puts his hooves over his face. “Lady Rarity, how did I not realize it? You were the one mare who...” he sighs, before his body just seems to deflate. “And now she thinks of me like many do the rest of the elite. How fitting.”
I just float there, watching with wide eyes. This isn’t the Blueblood from season one. Far from it. The guy actually seems to be upset that he’s made Rarity hate him.
After several moments, I manage to shake it off and fold my forehooves, frowning. I can’t just leave this alone, not now I’ve seen him in this state. That’d be heartless.
But the timeline! my brain shouts at me. If you somehow find a way to make RarBlood a thing, won’t that mess with the timeline? You could doom Equestria!
What, and leave Blueblood to fall into an even worse depression, maybe even suicidal? Not a chance.
Though, the question is, how to go about this? I could just use my Chaos Magic and make them a thing now, but they would be too close to what Discord did with changing the Mane 6 to their opposites at the beginning of season two.
No, I’d need to get the two of them together in a room, or somewhere private, where they could work things out. But how to do that? Rarity hates Bluey’s guts right now and bringing him to Ponyville to meet her is more likely to have any mares in Ponyville trying to woo him for the reasons his just made clear were what he thought Rarity was doing and thus make everything pointless.
I inwardly shudder, realizing Spoiled might try something like that or, even worse, try getting Diamond or I betrothed to him for when we come of age. I wouldn’t put such a thing past her. It’d be me most likely, so she could get me out of her hair... though that would no doubt backfire with the political power I’d gain over her.
I shake the thoughts from my mind, before glancing down at a watch I make appear on my right foreleg and see my lunch with the Princess and Twilight will be any minute, before a light bulb goes off above my head.
The sudden illumination causes Blueblood to glance up in confusion, but I’ve thankfully eaten the light bulb after turning it into a chocolate egg, so he doesn’t see it and suspect something’s up.
Grinning to myself, I phase back out the door and hurry off to find Luna and Twilight. Whatever important thing they have to talk to me about, I’ve something too.
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“I hope Screwball’s willing to listen,” Twilight mutters, fiddling with her hooves anxiously. “This... I never thought of it before, but...”
Luna nodded, looking just as uncertain. “Indeed. After reading in as far as I have... I am quite anxious to hear her opinion.”
Suddenly, loud trumpets blared out of nowhere and a guard who looked oddly familiar just appeared in the middle of the room.
“Announcing her Royal Highness, Screwball, Princess of Chaos,” he called out, before turning into smoke and fading away.
The moment the smoke was gone, the double doors to the room burst open and a long red carpet barrelled in, before setting on the ground.
Finally, a pink filly wearing a propeller beanie floated in as cheers rang out from nowhere and she blew kissing, calling out, “Thank you, thank you. Oh, you’re too kind. Too kind.”
Whilst Twilight stared with a perplexed expression, Princess Luna deadpanned. “I see you enjoy theatrics as much as Discord.”
All the cheering suddenly stopped and the carpet vanished with a pop. Screwball shrugged. “What can I say? When you can make a big entrance, why not do it?”
Luna closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, before looking to the pink filly. “Very well. Now that you’ve gotten that out of your system, can we talk?”
“Sure,” the filly grinned, leaping into the air and swam-diving through her chair, before reappearing on it. “So, what’s the word, Lulu?”
Luna’s eyes widened and her cheeked flushed at the mention of her sister’s nickname for her, whilst Twilight cocked an eyebrow. “Lulu?”
Screwball giggled, despite the glare the Night Princess sent the filly’s way.
Luna coughed, trying to regain her posture. “Yes, well, in answer to your question: Twilight and I have been meaning to ask you about this,” she lit her horn and levitated a book up for Screwball to see. A book with a black mare with a starry mane on the front cover.
Any mirth the filly was expressing suddenly stopped, her expression becoming serious, causing the two mares to flinch. “What about it? You’ve read it, right?”
They both nodded, Luna glancing at the book with a sad expression. “Whomever this Penstroke is, I wish I could meet him. True, some details are clearly false and do not match with our world, but, others...”
Screwball looked to Twilight. “I’m assuming you’re here because you were telling Luna about how you never realize your relationship with Spike?”
Twilight looked down, her ears splayed back. “I... I never even considered it, really. I mean, I’ve always cared so much for Spike, Celestia, I raised him from a hatchling, but... reading those words in this story, about my being like his mom? It... Screwball, I never would’ve considered it, but... but...”
The filly nodded. “Now that the idea has been presented, you can’t ignore it.”
The purple mare nodded meekly.
Screwball sighed, looking to the Lunar Princess. “And I have a good idea what you’re gonna ask me, right, Luna?”
The Alicorn looked down, a wistful air in her eyes. “In that story... Twilight Sparkle becomes the mother of the filly created from my darker self. But, I... I was wondering if, if it’s at all possible...”
The filly sighed, before giving the princess a very firm look. “I will think about it, Luna. And only to give you more time to consider what you’d be getting yourself into as well. You can’t do what the Twilight in that book does,” she indicated to said book. “You can’t hide the filly’s origins of what spurred her creation.
“On top of that, you will need to be careful. There are ponies out there who I know will be more than happy to accept her as your daughter, but there are others who will not, especially among the nobles.”
A steely expression came over the Moon Princess. “If they want to harm her in anyway, they will have to go through me,” she snarled.
Screwball smirked. “Glad to hear that. And Twilight?” the purple mare looked to her. “I look forward to seeing how you handle being a mom now that you know you are one.”
Twilight pouted and puffed out her cheeks, causing the other two to giggle.
Once their giggles had settled, Luna looked to Screwball with a thankful expression. “Thank you, Screwball. That is one of many weights off my mind.”
The filly nodded, though Luna could’ve sworn she saw pity glitter in the Earth Pony’s swirling eyes for a second. But Screwball just grinned and put her hooves on the table.
“Okay. If that’s all, I have something I wanna talk to you about to, Luna.”
The Alicorn blinked, a bit taken aback. Before she could speak however, Twilight's eyes widened and she turned to Screwball with a worried look. “Screwball, please tell me you didn't bring Nyx into the real world?”
The filly looked to the unicorn, confused. “Huh?”
“I just remembered that, a while before you came out of the hospital, a filly matching the filly in that book, ” she indicated to the book in front of the Moon Princess, “who went by the name Nyx was in Ponyville. Please, tell me you didn't just yank her from that book somehow and leave her here without warning.”
Screwball blinked, looked annoyed for a second, then smirked. “Oh, you mean this filly?” There was a flash of light and suddenly, where Screwball had been sitting there now was the filly whom called the FlimFlam brothers out sitting in her place. "Yeah, that was me."
Luna's eyes were slightly wider, whilst Twilight's right eye twitched. “But... B-but how? That was before Discord unintentionally cured you. How could you...? And why would you...?” Her eyes narrowed. "Wait. You knew that was going to happen. How?"
“Um... we are lost. What are you two speaking of again?” Luna asked, looking very puzzled.
The filly just grinned at the unicorn as she changed back to her normal appearance and leaned back in her chair, her forelegs behind her head. “Yeah. Like I said back then, I did that cos o’ part of that event that always bugged me. And no, Twilight, that wasn’t the me who was still in hospital. That was me during this winter.”
Twilight opened her mouth to argue, when she paused, looking confused. “Wait. How...? Wait, you mean...? Screwball, that’s not possible. You’d have needed to go back in time to do that.”
The filly just gave a wry smile.
Twilight’s eyes widened in both shock and horror. “You can Time Travel?”
Screwball rolled her eyes. “Um, duh, Twilight. Thought that would be pretty obvious. I’ve Chaos Magic, remember? Discord took you back in time, so it isn’t that big a stretch that I can do similar things.”
Twilight opened her mouth, a glare in her expression, before it faded to confusion. “Wait. Discord took me back in time? When?”
The filly rolled her eyes. “When he took you back to when he gave you and the others the clue as to where he’d hidden the Elements? He just made it so neither of you could interfere with the past whilst you were there. In fact, a bet the past him sensed his future self when he did that, hence why he was so cocky throughout it all.”
Twilight blinked a few times, before a worried look entered her eyes. “B-but, if Discord can travel in time, why didn’t he just spot Princess Celestia and Princess Luna from defeating him a thousand years ago?”
“Please, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna said, sounding a little disappointed, causing the mare to look to her. “Discord cannot change the past. Even he knew he could not do so.”
“There’s the kind of chaos he and I can do with our magic,” Screwball continued on for the princess, “and there’s the chaos of a Time Paradox. Even he can’t handle that.”
Twilight looked uncertainly between the two. “So, let me just get this clear; if Discord somehow managed to escape his stone prison again, he wouldn’t go back in time to stop us from defeating him or, say, make it so we were never born?”
The filly gave Twilight an odd look. “Jeez, Twilight. Never took you for the grim-thinking type.” Then she smiled. “And, nah. Don’t worry. Next time Discord’s out, he won’t go back in time.”
Twilight sighed with relief, before her eyes widened in horror. “Wait. You mean he will get out someday?!”
“Yeah, but that’s not important. Princess,” the filly grinned, turning to the Alicorn and ignoring Celestia’s student. “About what I was gonna say before the topic turned to my skipping through time?”
Luna blinked, before shaking her head and nodding. “Oh, um, yes. Very well. What does thou wish to speakest to us about?” she asked, slipping into her old way of talking for a moment due to the suddenness.
A twinkle flickered in the filly’s eyes as a smirk formed on her lips. “I was wondering if you’d be willing to invite Rarity to dinner or lunch sometime? Plus one other.”
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Celestia sighed as she walked into her bedroom, ready for a good night’s rest.
The day had been... unusual, to say the least. Not bad, quite amusing, really, but unusual, none the less.
The first oddity was when she’d gotten that day’s newspaper. Instead of any news stories, it had been filled with the foal pictures of two nobles named Jet Set and Upper Crust.
She did not understand the reasoning for it, but she’d just shrugged it off and tried to move on with her day.
However, the paper wasn’t the only oddity she’d encountered that day. For some reason, several nobles found that stank of something horrid, yet, no matter what they did or spells were used on them, the stench on them remained. She herself had managed to dispel whatever was the matter, but it was still a puzzler.
One noble whom Celestia new took great care in his appearance came in incredibly fat.
A rather interesting one was when several nobles’ mares with very over the top manestyles came in, Celestia was treated to something she had not encountered for over five hundred years, as the mares’ mane starting shouting things as if they were town criers. And what that were shouting were none too flattering, making it very hard for her to keep her expression neutral whilst sorting the matter out.
And finally, she had been told very odd stories by at least twelve nobles (though the impact of them was the tiniest bit lessened by the Mane Criers). Their clothes had been talking about them with each other, as in the clothes talked amongst themselves about the ponies wearing them and, like with the manes, their words were not very polite.
“Fun day?”
Celestia paused, before glancing over her shoulder, a wry smile forming on her lips. “I should’ve figured you were behind all that.”
The floating pink filly with spiral eyes just chuckled. “It was funny though, right?”
Celestia gave a light chuckle. “Yes. It was quite amusing indeed, even if it held things up today.”
“Just trying to give the pony that looked after this land all on her own for a thousand years a little bit of fun,” Screwball merely shrugged as she floated over the bed, then rested her chin on her hooves. “And I know you’ll be making your own fun in time, Celly.”
The princess gave a wry frown. “Just don’t make a habit of this, Screwball. I don’t want to have to deal with the nobility demanding action against you.”
The filly snorted. “Like they could do anything even if they tried.” A frown formed on the Alicorn’s face and the pink pony rolled her eyes. “Fine.” Then she smiled. “G’night, Celly.”
There was a pop and Screwball was gone.
Celestia gave a small chuckle, before removing her vestments. Settled into her bed and went to sleep.