Chapter 14: Repairs
Dawn.
About 3 hours after I went to sleep, actually.
Around noon.
Much better!
The prince was fully rested and ready to take on the day, hopeful that an entire day was enough for the shop owner to cool off from whatever Discord had done to annoy her. He headed off in much the same way as before.
---
He approached the door, carefully, hesitating for several seconds before knocking. He heard a melodious voice from the other side.
"Cooomiiing~"
It was just then that, with a tinge of regretful dread, Blueblood remembered he still hadn't asked the shopkeeper's name.
The door opened, revealing a white unicorn with an especially curly purple mane, eyes closed and mouth set in a little smile. "You know, you don't have to knock, there's a bell over the-" Looking her visitor over, she appeared faintly surprised. "Ah, hello. You're looking well. Coat's a little battered, what have you been up to?"
"Well, I-" he started, before the most refined-looking pony he'd met in this town interrupted him with a hoof motion.
"On second thought, would you like to come in? I've just prepared tea."
Giving a slightly awkward nod, he followed her inside. They were seated on cushioned stools beside a small, circular stage, an embroidered kettle and tea cups waiting and equally decorated plate resting on the edge. He couldn't quite identify the aroma it was giving off as he examined the various mannequins and sewing materials.
"So," Kindly Tailor started, a relaxed smile on her features as she levitated a teacup to her lips, "what brings you to my abode, Prince Blueblood?"
"Well," he managed, "I understand you were the one to ensure I was left in good care the other night, and I wished to thank you." He took a sip from the cup he'd been offered, not recognizing the strange, minty-tasting white tea.
She chuckled. "Ohh, think nothing of it, Darling, it's hardly acceptable to just leave a pony collapsed in a heap, let alone in an eating establishment, no?" She frowned a bit, hiding her face a little behind the cup she was now grasping in both hooves and averting eye contact. "Though it was just a little embarrassing walking into a room full of ponies with an unconcious stallion on my back, looking for a bed, no less."
He unintentionally stopped listening for a few seconds at the word 'darling', but shook it off. He would not make a mess of this.
She giggled, rolling her eyes a little. "Poor Pinkie Pie was so disappointed, she thought I'd brought you to attend the party she'd set up!"
So that's why there were decorations and such that morning, Pinkie had indeed gone around setting up parties...
He grinned a bit as Find-Out-Her-Name-You-Royal-Ponce took another sip of the unfamiliar tea. "As it happens, I met with Miss Pie just last night. She apparently considers welcome parties a matter of 'when', not 'if'."
She nodded. "Indeed, she's known to get a little..." She glanced toward the ceiling while looking for the right word. "Extreme, when it comes to celebrations."
Blueblood winced. "I gathered..."
Her eyes widened slightly with comprehension. "Oh, dear, what did she do?"
He shrugged a bit, smiling. "Nothing too distressing, all things considered."
She looked relieved at this, taking a calming sip of minty tea before replying. "Couldn't have been much worse than the Gala, no?"
"Oh, absolutely, the animals alone were-" Wait. He eyed the tailor curiously. "Were you at the Gala, last year?"
She blinked twice, as though he'd just told an off-color joke. "I... I was with you, the whole night."
Now he blinked. "What?"
She set down her teacup very slowly, very calmly, looking at him with a completely neutral expression. "You don't recall?"
He shook his head slowly.
"Then," she stood up taking a step closer, "You don't remember your last visit to Ponyville, either?"
The prince started to sweat, instinct telling him to run like the wind. "V-visit...?"
"I see." The mare whose name he still hadn't found the right moment to ask closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. When they opened, her face contorted with burning rage.
"I'll Destroy you!!"
He was galloping down the street before he knew it, badly slurring 'thank you for the tea' over his shoulder. It was while looking back to yell that that he noticed the pony who had generously paid for a hotel room she wasn't going to use that night chasing after him, and gaining.
Blueblood, once again unable to think of a spell that would help in this situation, galloped for all he was worth. Being a prince, that was saying quite a lot. He tried losing her by running around corners, through alleys, circling around buildings, but she only seemed to inch closer. Almost ramming into one of the ponies that hadn't leapt to get out of range of the two-pony marathon, he spotted a train station. If this is the best I could do for saying 'thank you', perhaps it's time to head home! Dodging a few more ponies and leaping over a short fence, then onto the back-most car of the train itself, which had started moving, he heard a noise akin to a few different ponies crying out in pain. Not daring to glance backward yet, he scrambled into the car, slamming the door before looking through the window.
It seemed the mare he had irritated somehow hadn't been quite as lucky as he had in terms of avoiding obstacles. Possibly because he'd had plenty of fresh experience in running for his life by now? Regardless, he saw her getting up from a small pile of ponies, an orange mare in a stetson helping her up.
Barely having caught his breath, he jumped as a hoof touched his shoulder, whirling around to see a pony in a conductor uniform, looking slightly annoyed and clearing his throat. Smiling sheepishly, Blueblood levitated a generous sum of bits in exchange for a ticket. I meant to buy one first, really, but circumstances weren't ideal for slowing down... Taking a seat in the train, he slumped against the table as a thought struck.
Where is this train going...?
---
Two days he rode that train, seeing parts of Equestria he'd not been sent to in years. A new one on his metaphorical guidebook? Appaloosa. The irony was not lost on him, but he didn't stick around any longer than the train did. He faintly wished it would make a stop in the Crystal Empire, if only because it would mean he could see his sister and Brother-In-Law-Best-Friend, or whatever that title was now, for the first time in months. However, it was with more relief than disappointment that it finally stopped in Canterlot. It was time to head back to the castle.
A few ponies had seemed surprised to see him again, walking through the streets of Canterlot, but he hadn't much cared to investigate. Instead, he politely smiled to the guard he'd talked to the day of the parade as he strode into the royal halls, stood indecisively in the foyer for a moment before deciding on checking if Auntie Celestia needed him to do anything.
---
He wasn't sure he'd ever seen his solar aunt shake her head so fast.
"No, not a thing, I have all the help I need at this moment, thank you!"
That the throne room was empty apart from her, himself, and the usual guards supported the notion, he supposed. Still... "Are you certain? I've been away for nearly a week, and-"
"Precisely," she declared with a hoof extended regally, as though giving a royal proclamation, "I'm sure you've been through quite a bit, Nephew, why not take it easy for a little while? I'll let you know if there's something I'd like you to attend to."
He nodded, heading to his chambers, not noticing how Celestia's calm grin was just a little wider than usual.
---
Closing the door behind him, Blueblood let out a breath. Home, sweet home. The place I've not been since Vinyl asked me where I keep my more outstanding attire. It felt good to be in his sanctuary again, the one he knew full-well wouldn't actually keep out monsters all that well, but felt safe in regardless. Moving toward his study, he pondered whether or not getting some fortifications in place would be a waste of bits. I know I picked up a So You Want To Build A Fortress manual some years back, but never quite felt the motivation to do it. Maybe that could be a project before I try to make amends with... That, normally-nice filly who I'm going to learn the name of before I go back to that town. Somehow.
Looking through his bookshelf for the manual, he noticed a gap where one of the thicker books had been. "Hm," he pondered to himself, "Did I start something before I left...?" Glancing at his desk, he saw no book opened to whichever page he'd have left off on before hearing a loud click, the locking of his chamber door, behind him.
Slowly turning to look, he saw the very pony he'd fled Ponyville to escape standing between him and the locked exit, his eyes widening in shock as every drop of his royal blood momentarily turned to ice.
"Y-y-you!!"
She sighed a bit, a thoroughly unamused expression on her face. "My name is Rarity."
He noticed her horn was glowing as a fairly thick book enveloped in a light blue aura floated from the table he'd been keeping the box of broken glass on. It opened to reveal spell instructions marred slightly by outside notes and markings as Rarity spoke again.
"Perhaps you can recall now?"
He struggled to form words, he certainly recalled that she was this calm just before announcing his destruction the other day.
She seemed to sense this, possibly by the way he was shaking and stammering, and rolled her eyes, looking slightly hurt. "Look, I do apologize for my initial reaction, but once you know what you've lost, I think you'll understand my indignance at failure to appreciate the significance of such an event."
Somewhat less alarmed now, but still contemplating a window escape, he tried to ask how she got here before she took a step forward, thrusting the book into his face. "Look," she demanded, "do you see this? It's a memory spell, one you apparently worked out how to cast in reverse."
Stepping back so he could actually see the writing, it was clear the notes were his own penmanship. "B-but, I don't-"
"Don't remember?" Rarity deadpanned.
The implications sunk in. It was just as he was about to ask why he'd do such a thing that Blueblood realized the futility of the question. The book floated over to the table again, but Rarity's horn glowed brighter as she moved towards him.
"Luckily, the original spell was still understandable, so I think I can manage. Hold still, Darling."
He quickly backpedaled, his hindhooves meeting a wall alarmingly soon. "N-now wait just a moment, I-"
Her horn touched his, and a flood of thoughts and visions ensared his mind.
---
The Gala, in the Royal Garden, Rarity standing by a bush. She points out a rose, I take it for myself...
We come to a door, I insist on her opening it for me. "It's only to be expected," I think to myself, "does Auntie have to open her own doors, fetch her own things? Suppose she'll insist I buy her something next."
I had spent that night acting every bit the selfish fop Luna had assumed me to be before Rarity, covered in cake after being used as a sheild, snapped.
After, I had planned revenge on the pony that would dare splatter pastry on Prince Blueblood, but I needed to know more about her. I gathered the broken fragments of her glass slipper, thinking to use it as evidence later, and kept it in an ornate little box made of blue-painted metal with gold rims.
I investigated for a few weeks, when I had time, learning she lived in Ponyville, that she ran her own business, that she had a little sister...
That she was an Element Bearer...
That hers was Generosity, charities in all parts of Equestria vouching for her...
That she was a heroine, having helped save us all, alongside Twlight Sparkle.
That while I wasn't there when Discord broke free, the time Auntie Luna was recovered had been no fluke...
That she was one of the most kind-hearted ponies I had ever met, up close...
That she now thought me to be nothing but a Royal Pain...
I became fascinated with her, following her exploits as best I could without doing something creepy and possibly illegal, like hiring somepony to follow her around.
Keeping my focus upon her makes forgetting the Shrieking Demon of The Gala much easier.
One day, she came back to Canterlot...
---
The prince's vision swam, fading back to his chambers in a surreal haze, Rarity's voice the clearest thing in his perceptions.
"When we met again some time later," she said calmly, with a hint or reminisince, "I could tell something had changed."
She cast the spell again.
---
I see her walking beside two mares under the employ of Fancy Pants, whom I know to have taken an interest in her, my head buzzing with the apologies and proposals I thought I'd say if I ever saw her again.
We talk at last. She seems uncomfortable, but proves yet again to be more akin to the ideal noble than I had ever been by laughing off past indignities, once she worked out that I was trying to apologize.
I remember at least one of my plans to speak to her alone, inviting her to cristen an airship I'd funded and ride above the city in it, but lost my nerve seconds after the bottle broke, fleeing the scene as she admires the falling, shimmering confetti.
I don't see her again for the rest of her time in Canterlot, but receive word that she shines yet again as admirable pony, publicly declaring her Ponyville friends, most of them hicks, by my standards at the time, to be far more important to her than being a Pony Everypony, Everypony Should Know.
I reassess my ideas of what makes a pony important.
Her song stuck in my head for a week, I eventually can't take being apart anymore, the desire to hold her in my forelegs and tell her I love her almost maddening as the noblemares I once considered courting looked like shoddily-made dolls in comparison.
I decide to do something desperate...
---
Rarity gave him a moment to collect himself this time. He put up no struggle when she approached again. "And then came the important part..."
---
It takes me a day or so of looking for charities to donate to, forcing a smile for those I see in the streets, and generally trying to emulate Rarity to the best of my ability before I feel confident enough to enact my plan.
First, I have a rose enchanted. Plucking the nicest, reddest, lushest rose in the Royal Garden, -though they kindof all look that way- I take it and a large sack of bits into town. With several hours of the efforts of the finest magicians in Canterlot, it is made to be indestructible, never aging, never degrading, as everlasting as I was sure my love for Rarity would be.
I approach Auntie Luna, and ask her to lend me one of her bat ponies for a clandestine task. Barely paying me any mind, she agrees, pointing me to their barracks.
I enter, fighting down horror, revulsion, and the urge to stare into the eyes of the ones that look at me with my resolve to woo Rarity. I tell the ones that approach me I require aid in keeping myself hidden for an excursion to Ponyville. I want moment to be just between us two, akin to something the fairy tale prince I learned she thought I would be might do, and cannot do that if the news that I've come to town is spread.
One, after decieving me several times in half as many minutes as to her location with taps on the shoulder or calls of 'over here', proves her ability to evade being spotted. I pay no mind to the others snickering at her game as she agrees to help me.
That night, I'm allowed to catch sight of her, dark-grey fur, like most bat ponies I've seen, messy mane of dark green, bright red eyes that stare into my soul.
She guides me around the back of the castle, saying we can't take a train and walking would take too long, so she and a friend will take me to Ponyville by chariot. The other bat pony has the same color of fur, but a long, straight, black mane and golden eyes.
It never occurs to me to so much as ask their names.
Under cover of dark, we arrive in a wooded area in the outskirts of town, I wait by a tree on a small hill as one of my escorts guards the chariot, the one boasting stealth as her special talent sneaking into town to bring Rarity to me.
It never occurs to me that being lured out into the woods after dark might have other connotations than a romantic meeting.
Rarity arrives, trotting towards the light spell I was told to have waiting as a beacon and looking somewhat dishevelled.
It never occurs to me that a lady might not be at her best at this hour.
Neither bat pony is anywhere to be seen as I greet her. She seems perplexed as she asks if I am the intended 'Destined Lover' the strange voice in her dreams urged her to awaken and find.
It never occurs to me that I might have had the bat pony agent illegally enter a pony's house that night, let alone to whisper to her as she slept.
I profess my love, recounting every amazing thing I've heard about her, every tale of heroism, every act of kindness, and what a remarkable mare I see her to be.
It never occurs to me that she might react the way she does.
She takes a step back at first, confused, then flushed with modesty, then alert to something I don't see. She smiles at me warily, as though she's figured out the punchline of a joke before it's told, asking what I really mean in all this.
I tell her again that I love her, and offer the indestructible rose as a symbol of it.
She shakes her head, her smile forced. She tells me she understands my purpose now, that I don't have to do this.
I exclaim that of course I must, what better way to-
She cuts me off, shaking her head. Rarity again says that she knows why I'm doing this, that I'm pretending to do to her what she did to me the night of the Gala; pretending to be so enamored by what I've heard of her, without knowing the real her.
She says it was wrong of her to assume so much of another pony, to expect me to be the perfect fairy tale prince for her based on hearsay, and that she is sorry.
Silent for several long moments, I make it clear that no part of this is an act.
Her eyes well up with tears, pain in her voice as she says I'm caught under the same spell she was that night, chasing a fantasy that doesn't exist.
She approaches me as I stand in a daze, locking our necks in a light hug as she tells me of several faults and failures of her life, and that she has no intention to return my interest, that she has moved on, and I should as well.
I can only stare at the base of the tree nearby, my tongue caught in my throat as she bids me a silent, and, most likely, eternal farewell, walking away into the night.
What feels like hours later, I look to the rose I tried to give her, dropping it to the floor and crushing it under a hoof. When I lift that hoof, it springs up again, good as new, as if to mock me.
I spend several minutes trying to destroy it, doing considerable damage to the grass and stone on which it lies, but doing more to bloody my hooves.
While I stomp against the rose fruitlessly, the bat pony I sent to bring Rarity to me puts a hoof on my shoulder, sadness in her red, beautiful eyes, begging a question she didn't speak.
Wiping tears from my face, I tell her between gritted teeth to bring me a spell book, any at all, from Twilight's library, that I may disenchant and destroy the rose myself.
She appears uncertain, but returns with a thick tome not long after.
Flipping through the pages in an impatient rage, I find nothing that would help me remove the rose forever, but I do find one that may be of use. Remembering the page number, I tuck the book under a foreleg, instead using a long, chipped stone from my earlier outburst to dig a small hole at the base of the tree.
"If I cannot destroy this memory," I tell my accomplice, "I'll bury it forever!"
I leave the rose under the roots of that tree, and return to Canterlot the same way I came. Once we return, I quietly thank the pony with the messy green mane and bright red eyes, and tell her I never wish to see her again.
I remain awake late into the night, opening the book I unintentionally stole from Twilight to the page I found the memory spell on. In a few hours, I master the spell well enough to use it in reverse, burying my memory of Rarity as sure as I buried the rose.
---
Blueblood collapsed, everything he'd felt that night rushing back in an instant. Struggling to his hooves, he amazed himself by maintaining sufficient composure to only let a few, fleeting tears escape, Rarity's own eyes glistening as she smiled.
And then she slapped him with a hoof.
"Ow!! What was-"
She fixed him with a stern glare. "How dare you deliberately forget such a monumentally significant thing as the last parting of a potential lover?! I'll have you know that night alone took a whole five pages, front and back, in my diary to adequately convey my thoughts and feelings, and I still reflect on it every once and again!"
He tried to defend himself, but Rarity was giving Luna a run for her bits in the shouting department.
"I mean honestly, you experience weeks of longing after your potential prized princess, have a chance meeting with her practically delivered to you-" she started making dramatic hoof gestures, "-BUT YOU FREEZE! You know anything you say, anything you do, anything at all may be the one thing your love remembers most, may be the thing that breaks any hope you had of a dreamy marriage!" She seemed to lose focus on the target of her tangent, wandering around the room somewhat between vague, but emphatic pantomimes. "So you run, realizing too late that you musn't ever back down! It's too late by the time you regain your courage, but a lover's heart will not be dissuaded!"
The prince sat quietly on his haunches now, just watching as his intruder went starry-eyed in her speech.
"So you form a plan, a moon-lit meeting in the forest, where you show her once and for all your true feelings!" He'd wondered if she'd drape a forehoof over her head eventually, and she didn't disappoint. "But lo! Your princess denies your affections! That alone is pain enough, but with it comes the wonder, the suspicion, the drr-read!" She dragged out the word for reasons he could only guess. "Does she not approve of your methods?! Was it any one, particular thing?! What-ever could you have done differently to change her mind, though you know it to be forever made up?! Worse yet, does she simply not care for you at all?! Did she ever care?! Does she simply long for another?! But it matters not, for you know her heart will never be yours!" She seemed to remember Blueblood was the one she had been speaking to in the room of just the two of them, pointing a hoof at him. "SO! In the throes of heartbreak, you lash out at the very symbol of your affection for this lost love, all of your being committed to it's ab-sol-ute destruction!!"
Rarity finally stopped for a breath. And another. Her regal listener tried to seize this opportunity to speak, but hadn't been fast enough. She stopped speaking as though narrating a play that ended in tragedy and looked at him with an eyebrow raised. "And then you just cover up the whole thing? Come on!!"
Blueblood rolled his eyes a bit, feeling surprisingly calm. "Well pardon me if I don't prefer to make a stage production of my personal tragedies, but it seemed better to just-"
"Just make it go away," she interrupted, "just take every unpleasant moment in our lives and wash them from reality?" She shook her head sadly, her voice gentle as they locked eyes. "It may seem easier to run away, but even pain holds it's value. Even if it doesn't always strengthen us, doesn't always make us more ready to face the next obstacle, it at least provides context."
The prince only tilted his head, confused.
Rarity went on. "The more something hurts, the the darker the tunnel you find yourself in, it just means there's something equally intense that would make you happy, no?" She smiled a little. "Twilight will take any opportunity to share her knowledge, and one thing that stuck with me was the concept of equal and opposite reactions."
Blueblood nodded. While no scholar, he was at least familiar with this idea.
"Pressing your hoof against something," she chose the floor for this demonstration, "you'll feel that same amount of force on your hoof."
Blueblood nodded again.
"Well, if you can feel pain, feel sadness to a certain degree, you must be able to feel levity and joy to an equal point, don't you think?"
He thought back to the gut-wrenching feeling he'd gotten watching Fluttershy break down in tears, compared to the warm tranquility that came when she held Douglas the Toucan. It made some kind of sense.
Rarity lit up her horn again, smiling. "So," she said, levitating the spellbook he'd taken and never returned, learning most of the spells he knew now from it after assuming he must have bought it on the night he'd wiped his memories, "I think that's all I wished to discuss, you won't mind if I return this to Twilight, I hope?"
He smiled a bit himself. "I won't mind if she doesn't turn me into an orange for stealing from her library, even if only by accident." Erasing the memory of where one got something they'd meant to borrow made it extremely difficult to return, he now knew.
"Oh!" He trotted over to the table with the blue, gold-rimmed box, opening it up. He knew exactly what his long-held 'puzzle' was now, and that there was no reason to keep it any longer. "There's actually something else I should return." With a quick spell, he mended the contents of the box. To think, I actually got it right a few times... He turned to Rarity, presenting the glass slipper she smashed on the stairs the night of the Gala.
Her mouth made a little "o" shape before recognition came. She chuckled. "Yes, I suppose it's best I hold onto that, can't tell you how odd it feels to walk around with only one of the pair. Not that I make a habit of trying, I mean."
She added the slipper to the book in her telekinetic grasp, turning to leave as a question sprung to Blueblood's mind. "Wait, what brought you to Canterlot anyway? And what were you doing in here?"
Rarity stopped at the door, turning back towards him. "I was in town to pick up a few supplies for a fairly important event in Manehattan. I came here hoping to, ehm..." Tinting faintly red, she averted her eyes, waving a forehoof vaguely in the air. "Revise my last statement, from just before you fled to the train station?"
"'I'll destroy you,'" he deadpanned, face expressionless.
"Yyyyes, I may have overreacted a little. Princess Celestia pointed me to this room when I asked if I could talk to you for a bit, you were out, I looked around, saw the book on your shelf, thought it looked familiar, and found the memory spell page," she met his eyes again, an adorably sheepish smile on her face, "but all is mended now, yes?"
He nodded, floating the rose he got from Screw Loose, who got it from apparently the very tree he buried it under, the same damn tree that later fell on him, out from his coat pocket, still perfectly preserved in layers of enchantment. He levitated it towards Rarity as a sign of peace, but she shook her head, smiling widely.
"Keep it, give it to somepony important to you some day." She uttered something under her breath. "It might make for a decent novel..."
"What was that?"
She giggled. "Nothing, nothing. Au revoir, Prince Blueblood, do take care."
He returned the sentiment, she unlocked the door, and left, theoretically leaving him alone in his chambers again.
...I am definitely building fortifications in here, he thought.
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...wow. That was actually a decent twist that brought together all the unexplained past stuff. Very nicely done.
Hahahhahaha!
Figures that the train would go through Appaloosa.
Oh my, so that's what Blueblood got up to after the gala! And the reason for his bat pony issues! And the rose, and the tree! Talk about an excellent job of pulling the various separate bits of the story together for the ending.
Dude, RUN!
What? But, how? She was, but she, and he, but the, I give up!
Also, the twist confused me.
Except for the one just below my comment I agree with all
5677129
this is like, super necro but
the train went through several other cities/towns
so she had plenty of time
the lining up of moments is a bit of a stretch of chance, but its a common story element soooo