Pri(n)celess

by Ice Star

Chapter 1: Platinum, Age 5

Princess Platinum was five winters old when the last of the traitors had been put to death. There were those in the Unicorn Court who had said that King Tantalum had let his wife die during the attack of Lord Tirek, a monster from beyond the Known Valley. They lingered about, hiding and whispering among themselves like rats until her wonderful father dragged them all into the light — and to their deaths. Every pony tribe had some concept of a court and each did it differently, but King Tantalum was always there for his little daughter to croon about how the unicorns did it right, and how that was what mattered. She knew it was a very big lesson to absorb, but Princess Platinum adored her father, and knew all of his lessons to her were important and must be obeyed.

He was one of the few ponies she knew who could read, which made him doubly important to her. Her tribe was the most literate of the three, and most of the Unicorn Court could read too. Of course, you had some among the gentry who had entered left-hooved marriages and the like, so their spouses could not read, and many in the lower classes could only read minimally. They might know their family tree or the reading for running a shop, but they couldn't do anything beyond that. Princess Platinum knew that as a noble, she would be taught to read eventually. However, at five winters old, something like reading was secondary to the bulk of her education — properly developing her magic, sewing, doctoring, politicking, rhetoric, and more. Nopony needed to know how to read for those things, not at first. King Tantalum told her how even colts learn this way — that obedience makes up the first units of education, and that reading comes afterward.

"My precious Platinum," he'd always say. "Do you know what we must never displace in a healthy society?"

"What, Father?" she'd always reply back. It was exactly as she had been taught to — questions could be dangerous if asked wrongly.

"Tradition, my dear. To rule over this tribe, you must always uphold traditions if you want the unicorn race to live as it should. What I do now, my forefathers in the mountain tombs have done. Any society that displaces its tradition is playing with evils that must be avoided at all cost. You do not need anything but the persistence of how things have always been and the ways of your ancestors to live. There is no beauty outside of it. Those who talk about reason, virtue, newness, or anything of the sort are those who wish to upend tradition — and our traditions must be defended with blood."

Princess Platinum always listened and nodded. Most importantly, she obeyed. She knew that the other two tribes had traditions — though they were the wrong traditions — but there was something so appealing about knowing that they were all defended the same way. Tradition was watered and defended with the blood of those who opposed them. Without that beautiful sentiment, there could be no safety, no order, and no survival. Sometimes, wars were fought because it was traditional to do so rather than over any specific thing — that was one lesson Princess Platinum learned when hearing her father talk about all of the active wars. Some of them began as raids and assaults simply because it was the unicorn way.

Unlike the other two tribes, it was the unicorn way to love your family. The earth ponies had no love for their leaders and decided them through a corrupt process known as elections, which were a huge part of why they were always starving. Earth ponies didn't care about providing for their families and their mares and stallions paired based on fancies, so they all had big, starving families with little to call their own. Pegasi were wicked and didn't have families. They had something called eugenics which meant that their foals never saw their parents and the ponies they didn't like were thrown off of the clouds with their wings removed, if necessary. (This was also how the earth ponies got so much fertilizer.) They also didn't have anything to call their own — everypony was a soldier, or they were dead. Unicorns were different. They could have homes and families and they didn't need to have forever-foals as labor or because they died too often like earth ponies. Unicorns could even make brews that stopped foals from starting, but that didn't mean unicorns were short on foals.

Even though she loved her father, Princess Platinum knew that they weren't quite a family. Princes are supposed to be kings when they grow up to rule and princesses are supposed to make the family stronger through skills or marriages. Queens are supposed to help their kings and have as many foals as possible for servants to raise. Yet, her father had no queen. He was supposed to have had one after her mother died. Everypony does, and then they keep having foals. When a spouse died, that was the end, it was the duty to move on to another pony and keep having foals. There weren't supposed to be any complications in the matter. But King Tantalum didn't, even when everypony said these things to him, which little Platinum was often present for.

He only had her. When her father said that she was his whole world, nothing less could capture the gravity and unusualness of that. If she died, two things could happen: either her father would have to remarry or be declared insane and unfit to rule. If her father was already dead by then, the Unicorn Tribe would fall into war over who would become the new Royal Family, which would make them vulnerable to pegasus and earth pony attacks. Platinum's whole race depended upon the fact that her father had to raise her like a prince while knowing that she would also have to produce a prince so that a royal unicorn male could continue the legacy of the tribe. She was instrumental in one day conquering the earth ponies and pegasi. Her father wasn't the only one who told Platinum this nearly every day.

It was a vision dear to her race, one that countless ancestors before her had dreamed about. And now her father was telling her one version of that hope. Little Platinum sat in her bed, her layered floor-length nightgown ready to combat the cold. Countless sheets were pulled over her. The trundles on either side of her enormous bed were pushed in — the chambermaids assigned to sleep with her would enter her room when storytime was over. The curtains on her bed's canopy were pulled aside so that the little filly propped against so many pillows and atop her multiple mattresses could see the stool her father sat on more clearly. His kingly robe swept to the floor and his crown was placed on her nightstand — this was the only time that she got to see her father without his crown. King Tantalum's white forehooves gripped a large storybook for little unicorns, and she watched excitedly as his white-mustached muzzle spoke each word:

"...and with the Pegasus Tribe finally conquered, King Mighty Horn rallied his troops and charged into the cloud ruins of the perverse city they had pulled from the sky. All survivors met the might of unicorn spears and other bravely made weapons, and the earth was nourished knowing that the blood spilled upon it was no longer unicorn blood. Those who still managed to survive were captured as slaves. From them, King Mighty Horn knew that their secrets would not last forever. It was unicorns whose grave lottery decided the sun and moon would rise and set each day. Yet, that was not our only boast of superiority. Our race was clever, and King Mighty Horn knew we could learn the magic behind pegasus abilities, and then the weather and skies would be ours. The last of their kind would be rotting away in our dungeons when this happened, but the path ahead was clear: pegasus extinction was possible."

Princess Platinum let loose a dreamy sigh. "Is that where the story ends? Oh, Father, please tell me that it does not end so! I want to see the pegasi go extinct! Please, please, let me hear more of the glory our race could have!"

King Tantalum chuckled, magic smoothing his large mustache and a long beard. "My precious Platinum, your excitement warms my heart. That only ends that chapter of King Mighty Horn's adventures, and I planned to save the next chapter for tomorrow night—"

"Tomorrow night?!" Platinum squeaked, her expression contorting to one of disgusted offense. She drummed her little forehooves savagely upon her sheets — which would have knocked off her little crown had it not been on her nightstand. This was the only time her father saw her without her crown too. "I want it now! Now! Now! Now!"

King Tantalum's expression slipped into something unreadable beyond slight annoyance. "Then you shall have it, but only if you remember next time — a mare makes her demands differently than a stallion does."

Two green little ears perked up. "Of course, Father."

"Very good," the old stallion replied as his daughter ducked her head modestly. "Now, as promised. The seventh chapter of the saga of King Mighty Horn is 'The Search for a Queen'..."

Princess Platinum held her forehooves to her mouth to daintily stifle the squee of joy that followed.

...

"...and it was here that King Mighty Horn believed that he had found the perfect bride," read King Tantalum, his narrating voice a carefully enunciated, deep-barrel tone. "The Lady Mountain Stream was everything that a unicorn bride should be and more. Her family was alive and healthy. Not a single crime could be found in her family tree no matter how far back one looked — King Mighty Horn had not even found a single candy thief! The wealth of her family would ensure a properly enriched castle for generations. Her good breeding showed that her family did not succumb to the pegasus folly and crime of inbreeding. She had all her teeth, had survived every pox she had without a mark, and her magic was not stunted. Its power was proportional to her education, immediately dismissing the possibility of witchcraft along with her lack of peculiarities and good social skills. Her mane, tail, and coat were always washed and she had learned the art of makeup from her mother. Not only did she know how to purify water better than any other unicorn in the city, she grew the best herbs for remedies. A town physician promised King Mighty Horn that she was both virginal and likely to survive a birth. That was the part that sealed the deal for King Mighty Horn, who could already see this mare in the castle and ready to foal."

Platinum scrambled up her muzzle. This book was slightly above the level she had been read to so far, but not dramatically so. She simply didn't recognize all the words. There was never any doubt in her mind during previous portions of the story why certain characters were warriors or wizards, or who was brave and who was a traitor. However, the more this 'marriage' came up and was actually talked about, the less she understood it. She had known all her life that it was something ponies do, and a unicorn invention — and she knew that one day her father would 'marry her off' since she was even younger than she was now. Yet, the layout and the content of it didn't make any sense to her — why did these things make a marriage? Why did they matter? How did having all of her teeth or lots of money make King Mighty Horn want Lady Mountain Stream?

"Is something the matter, my daughter?" said King Tantalum softly as he looked up from the book, marked his spot, and then shut it. "You have been making that face for some time."

"I..." Princess Platinum wrung her forehooves and looked at them carefully. She didn't want to sound curious, since she knew that was something that only infected bad ponies. She also knew from years of blanket training with the servants to keep her hooves to herself. "I am confused, Father. The story is... getting hard to make sense of."

"In what way is that?" King Tantalum asked, his blue eyes carefully watching his daughter.

"I... I do not think I could say..." Platinum winced, "...without asking a question."

Slowly nodding, King Tantalum set the book aside with a flick of his magic. "You have learned so well to shun curiosity that is a curse upon the worst and most unruly foals. There are times when questions help us do what is normal, daughter. That is when they are especially valuable. You are not some wizard who trots on the edge of magic and potentially falls into the follies that inquisitiveness brings. I permit you to ask a question."

"In... in all the 'happily ever after' stories, unicorns get married. B-But I do not understand this marriage deal, Father," Platinum stammered, carefully avoiding looking into the corner of her room. As she always tried to. "What makes unicorns get married?"

"Ah, my dear, a very mature sentiment for a question," muttered King Tantalum as his magic combed through his beard in thought. "Think back to the story. Marriage is what happens when you meet somepony of the right health, political connections, and breeding with whom you can have a foal. Mares and stallions get married so they can form a more perfect estate that will enrich the family for generations to ensure their young ones are provided for. Replacing a dead spouse, cultivating better magic, respecting an old political deal — all of these are reasons mares and stallions get married other than the necessary reproductive element. There is nothing more to it than the will of the two families involved — and anything less is not a marriage. Anything 'different' does not exist."

"And you just... like the unicorn your family picks?"

"Sometimes," said King Tantalum sagely, nodding slowly. "The families' assent is all that is needed. It is up to the unicorn mare and stallion to get along well enough to have foals. Marriages rarely turn into romance."

"Father," Princess Platinum said weakly, "I do not know what that last word means."

There was a long, weary sigh from the elder stallion. He hummed deeply in thought before he spoke. "Romance is... quite like an illness. Some creatures describe the feeling as a form of goodness, but alas, it is no such thing. Romance is a persistent wanting to cultivate love unlike any shared by a family between a mare and a stallion. Unicorns in love are incapable of any reasoning whatsoever. Their magic is not to be trusted. Love corrupts tradition, love must be overcome, and love is a delusion that seeps into the deepest part of a unicorn and robs them of their manner and sensibilities. Spouses who end up falling in love are insufferable, stubborn, superstitious, unhealthy, and overly emotional creatures. Ahem. I am certainly lucky — I have never been in love in my life. Wizards and physicians are more prone to encountering anything dealing with love than most, who are sensible enough to not travel far. To better ward yourself against it, you might find that they have wisdom to spare."

Platinum nodded because it was expected of her rather than out of understanding. Some of what her father said made sense to her, but there was much that she could compare to nothing. She had never known such a feeling — either at all or just based on how he described it. She really wasn't certain. In fact, she could think of little that was supposed to be more dangerous — she knew strangers were, witches were, and race-mixing was talked about with similar severity. "Yes, Father. Thank you."

"Now, my precious Platinum," her father said, his voice grave and his eyes fixed seriously upon her. "There is something that I must ask of you."

"Of course, Father. Anything."

"My dear, I need you to promise me that you will never fall in love." The way that he was looking at her now — equal measures of calm and seriousness — made the room feel strangely colder despite all her pillows, blankets, and dresses. Even without the dramatic light of all the candles in her room, Princess Platinum could not recall many times when her father had been so honest and serious about something. The honesty alone scared her, as she was sure it always had. "I also would encourage you to avoid asking questions in the future, especially if you are fretting that it conflicts with a tradition of our race. The best way to experience a tradition is to participate in it without disturbance and simply let it happen."

"Of course," Platinum said immediately. She saw no reason why she needed to hesitate. "I promise you all of both, Father."

As she spoke, it was by mistake that she finally caught sight of the corner of her room. When she did, she did her best to show nothing, as she always had when she struggled with the sight of her. There, in the corner, where no shadow could hide her was the familiar coat of light green on the whole opaque shape of Queen Vitalis, who had been sitting there silently the whole time. As she always did. The dead mare in her jewels was noticed only by Platinum, always. Why was it that she was so focused on the filly that never knew her, but was invisible to the stallion that had married her?

And now, Princess Platinum watched as her mother offered an eerie clap of her hooves as soon as Platinum spoke her promise.

Comments

[Mystic Sunrise]

Long wait for ch. 1 don't ya think?

[Ice Star]

11695270
This was canceled for a long period of time, but I decided to bring it back.

[Mystic Sunrise]

11695274
Ah. Never mind then .

[NaiadSagaIotaOar]

This is an intriguing start. Hoping for more!

[Ice Star]

11696080
I have the first half of this story written, and the extra uptick in attention that this story got meant it was worth dropping the second chapter a little bit early.