Chapter 37
The mirror was Gosling’s friend once more. His wings? Ginormous. So much so that the tips now covered his cutie marks when they were folded against his sides. They were tender—flight was impossible at the moment—but they were wings. And oh boy, what wings they were. Turning about, he looked at himself from another angle and he liked what he saw. These wings were distinctly different than the wings he had grown up with, the wings he was familiar with. Cadance had changed him—again—but these changes were not unwelcome.
Hearing the door open, he expected Celestia, or perhaps even Luna, but was quite surprised by the voice he heard addressing him, and his ears perked at the subdued, mellow baritone.
“Greetings, Gosling… I thought that I would drop in and check up on you. Big night tonight… the school gala. Might just be one of the most important nights of your life, Gosling.”
“Seems like an exaggeration,” Gosling replied as Blueblood drew nearer.
“And this is why I came… to educate and elucidate.” Blueblood chuckled and his reflection joined Gosling’s in the floor to ceiling mirror. Seeing himself, he began touching up his mane while his eyes narrowed in concentration. “You are being groomed to be a beloved public figure, Gosling. A lot of work is being done behind the scenes to craft the image that you project. The Sisters want you to remain approachable… you are the wise-cracking colt from the inner-city that sometimes talks like a cheap hoodlum, and you have an overbearing First Tribes mother that frets over every single thing that you do… this image is being ruthlessly exploited for the gain of us all.”
Now, Blueblood also began to work on Gosling’s mane, pulling back the unruly mess that hadn’t been brushed yet while making a disgusted moue.
“We must endear you in the hearts of our subjects,” Blueblood continued in a near deadpan that seemed somewhat bored. “Tonight, you will be the beautiful distraction put out on display that holds everypony’s attention… meanwhile, Luna and her Wardens will attend the gala incognito… as foals. I expect some arrests to be made—after the gala is over, of course.”
“Is something going on?” Gosling asked and the first prickle of fear began to manifest along his spine. “Is there something I haven’t been told about?”
Sighing, Blueblood flicked his tail, drew himself up to his full height, and conjured up a brush so that Gosling’s mane could be properly subdued. Perhaps realising the brush would not be enough, he conjured up a container of grooming oil for good measure. With flared nostrils and a sneer, he went to work, applying his expert touch to bring Gosling’s mane back under control.
“Nothing outside of the ordinary.” Blueblood’s voice was now softer, warmer, and filled with emotion. He made a few strategic squirts with the grooming oil and then conjured up a comb for good measure. “There has already been attempts on your life… this is the risk of placing you out in the open for the adoration of the public. Seville took a blade for you, Gosling… he did it because he understands. He and I had a long talk during his recovery.”
Pained, though not in his wings, Gosling’s thoughts traveled back in time to that awful occurrence. His would be assassin, she was skilled, deadly, and had very nearly been successful. She would have been successful too, had it not been for Hush, who had stopped her with his methodical approach of breaking most of the bones in her body, leaving her in such a state of pain and shock that she could not function well enough to use magic.
“Do you think somepony might try something tonight?” Gosling felt a hard tug on his mane as Blueblood worked on a tangle.
“Any time you are out on display, there is a chance, but in regards to tonight, we’ve intercepted some chatter. Don’t be nervous, everything is as under control as we can get it.”
“Bait,” Gosling said, almost spitting out the word. “Eh, this is what I signed up for, I suppose. Great. So with each little tyke I meet tonight, I’m gonna be wondering which one is gonna try to shank me.”
“There you go with that hoodlum talk,” Blueblood remarked, his deadpan both snide and practiced. “I’ve grown rather fond of you, Gosling… Celestia might have claimed you as her student, but I also see you as my protégé. I have poured a lot of myself into you and you have become more capable than I had imagined. You have exceeded my expectations and even Raven thinks highly of you. You have cleaned up well and have become a crown jewel.”
“Thanks, Blueblood.” This was awkward, getting praise from Blueblood at this particular moment, with the stallion in such close proximity, and Gosling did his best to bear it. Why was this a problem? What made this so uncomfortable? Only one reason broke the surface in Gosling’s mind, and with it came a leviathan of sentiment that he wasn’t prepared to face.
There were dreadful monsters that lurked in the deep and these behemoths were best left undisturbed. Now, Gosling found that he was a bit nervous, a little sweaty, and he was forced to control his breathing lest he give away that something was wrong. This was, for all intents and purposes, probably the closest thing that he had ever experienced as a father and son moment—with Blueblood taking on a paternal role, which was super weird—and reaching this conclusion was almost his undoing.
“Is something wrong?” Blueblood asked while his reflection’s eyebrow raised in the mirror .
“Just a little jittery about tonight,” Gosling replied as he tried to shut his brain up and send the leviathan back into the deep where it belonged. “Big gala, I might be getting assassinated, and I have all those one minute dances I have to do.”
“You’re still terrible at lying.” Blueblood gave a hard yank on a tangle and Gosling yelped. “What is it that was put in the bathwater to make your mane so clingy?” He snorted, pulled, tugged, and squirted a bit of grooming oil into the knotty clump of mane. Using the comb as a pick, he began to loosen the mess strand by strand.
“You know, Blueblood, there are times when ‘Equestrian Prince’ feels more like a job title than a privileged position.” Gosling took a deep breath and tried to calm himself while focusing on the reflections in the mirror. Blueblood had a wry smile now, he was almost laughing it seemed, and this made Gosling feel a little better. “It puts a different perspective on courting Celestia… looking back, it feels more like a job interview, but I could never tell her that.”
“You should tell her that.” Blueblood’s aristocratic smile revealed perfect teeth and his ears angled forwards. “She would laugh and find it funny. Auntie has a peculiar sense of humour, as I know you’ve discovered. It’s tragic, really… she longs to be playful and silly, but all too often the situation demands that she be serious. I know from experience that it gnaws at her mental state and weighs heavily upon her mind.”
“I bet you know many secrets,” Gosling quipped.
“Oh, I do,” Blueblood replied in a voice that hinted of rebellious laughter that sought escape.
Gosling was tempted to ask about Luna, but thought better of it, because he didn’t wish to reveal that he was digging. No sense causing a panic just yet, when he, Beans, and Toast still might be able to find something that might give answers. Disappointed, he sought distraction. “Okay, Blueblood, tell me, what is expected of me tonight?”
This was not the ballroom that many parents would be expecting, but Celestia thought it was perfect. There was no wealth here, no opulence, there was no finery on display other than the ballroom itself. It was decorated in much the same way a common school might be decorated, perhaps like the sort of school that Gosling had attended in Manehattan. Everything was made by students—everything—from the painted backdrops to the flowers made with crinkled crêpe paper.
In one corner was the greatest treasure of all, the Elements of Harmony, each of which was made with papier-mâché, with manes and tails made of yarn. The bodies and heads had been formed with balloons, giving them a strange, distorted look, but Celestia found it endearing. Twilight was a hero—a well deserved title—and sometimes heroes had the most peculiar idols made of them. For Celestia, the end result meant very little, and how it looked had hardly any bearings on her feelings. The students had laboured on these sculptures, they had sweated and fretted, a great many hours of intense effort had gone into their construction.
Hours no doubt spent talking about heroes, she hoped.
“It’s better this way.” The sound of Sleet’s voice made Celestia tense, as she was not expecting company. “Little ones… they get stressed out from fancy stuff. When things are too nice, they get so worried about spills, or breaking it, or being clumsy, and all that anxiety leads to accidents and upset tummies. They have enough to worry about with a school dance without having to worry about all of the fancy stuff.”
This gave Celestia pause—it seemed obvious enough, but it was something she hadn’t given much consideration before. Now that Sleet had pointed it out, it seemed rather sensible and Celestia felt a bit sheepish for not having thought of it on her own. Sometimes, common ponies had a surplus of common sense—sometimes, not so much.
“All of this”—Sleet made an all-encompassing gesture with her wing—“if something happens to this, nopony will care. Nopony will be angry. That’s a lot of worry off of a foal’s mind. But I suppose the super wealthy foals of Canterlot grow up in houses that are more like museums, so eh… what do I know?”
“I am still surprised that Gosling pulled all of this off,” Celestia confessed, hoping to strike up a bit of small-talk with Sleet by giving her a chance to boast about her son.
“I’m not.” The stark white pegasus puffed up with pride. “Gosling was in Drama Club when he was in school. He constructed entire sets for plays and musicals using nothing but scrap and a non-existent budget. Wasn’t one for bragging about it though, he wasn’t. When everything was said and done, he always seemed just as surprised as everypony else that everything had somehow been pulled off.”
At the moment, all Celestia could think about was Gosling’s love of showtunes.
“When Gosling ran off and joined the guard, it crushed me,” Sleet whispered in a voice that sounded frail and vulnerable to Celestia’s ears. “So dangerous. So, so dangerous. I didn’t know what he would do with his life, but I had hopes and dreams. I mean, he might have been an actor, or a famous playwright, a thespian, a singer, but maybe these were more my dreams than his dreams… but I wanted these doors open to him. When I found out he had ran away from home and had joined the guard, I got myself fershnickered and I cried my eyes out.”
Celestia had no idea what this meant, and she didn’t bother asking.
The two mares stood together, bonded by a shared love. The little stark white pegasus was a little weepy eyed, and Celestia was doing her best not to notice, because by the looks of it, Sleet didn’t want to be noticed. Even though they were both white, they could not be more different; Sleet had a hint of blue to her when the light hit her just right, while Celestia had a vague suggestion of pink about her.
“I still haven’t forgiven you, you know,” Sleet murmured.
“What?” Startled, Celestia blurted out this word and every feather on her wings fluffed out in response.
“You gave my son intimate knowledge of mares… you altered his mind, his thinking.” Sleet’s eyes narrowed into ice blue slits and she looked up with a fierce expression. “When he hugs me now, it’s different. He holds back… I’m not crazy, I can sense it. A mother knows her son. Now, there is something that exists between he and I… a barrier of sorts, and things can never go back to how they were.”
Every word spoken was like a slap in the face, and Celestia recoiled. How did one respond to this? What words could one say to this? Looking down, she could see the hurt in Sleets face, a profound pain that demanded it be acknowledged. Gosling had grown up and Sleet was left to suffer with an empty nest. No more unabashed enthusiastic hugs—at least not from Gosling. Filled with regret, Celestia drew in a deep breath, but had nothing to say.
“You took something precious from me.” Sleet’s words were as cold as her namesake and her expression hardened for a moment, it became so frigid, so fierce that Celestia almost couldn’t bear to keep looking. But then, little by little, it melted and Sleet’s hardened countenance softened, it thawed and a hint of warmth could be seen. “For about a week or so, I dared to hate you. Cadance noticed that something was off and we talked a little.”
With her wings fidgeting at her sides, Celestia stood there, squirming, trying to think of some way to make this right. In the back of her mind, it occurred to her that this resentment was the source of much ire between wives and mothers-in-law. At least Sleet was expressing her feelings, rather than being truculent and spiteful. In the most terrible realisation of them all, Celestia found that she cared about what Sleet thought of her, her opinion mattered, and she wanted her mother-in-law to think well of her.
“I love him so much,” Sleet said, her voice cracking, “and things keep happening that lead him further and further away from me. First he left home and joined the guard. That was pretty bad, but he was still my son in that way that mattered to me. Then you happened… you happened and everything changed. Gossy… Gosling… he can be kind of stupid sometimes, he’s so eager to please and do right and he’ll blunder right into a bad situation if he thinks it will get him a little bit of praise and a pat on the head. There was all of that bad business with the train and everything that happened… and bad things keep happening and I can’t bear to think about it, so I stay up in the Crystal Empire, fretting, terrified, trying to distract myself with my new job. In all of my life I’ve never felt so weak and powerless as I do right now. Gosling left the nest and flew right into a hurricane.”
“It was Gosling’s choice.”
“I know!” Sleet snapped and the little pegasus appeared to almost double in size as she puffed out with anger. “I’m so proud of him for what he is doing and I hate myself for being so petty and nothing feels right and I can’t even hug my son the way I used to!”
“I’m sorry.” The sincerity in Celestia’s voice caused Sleet to go still and Celestia reached out one wing to touch the frazzled mare. With slow caution, Celestia began stroking her mother-in-law along her back as she listened to the little pegasus’ laboured breathing. “Cadance knew I was alone here and she sent you to talk, didn’t she?”
To this, Sleet nodded.
“I wish we had talked sooner,” Celestia said to Sleet. “I can’t fix what was broken, and for that, I am sorry. The best that I can do is offer to share three precious little treasures of mine. They’ll no doubt give you the sort of hugs that you crave, and kisses, and all of the affection without reservation. One of them is bound to be a colt and at some point, he is going to break my heart just as your heart is broken… and when that day comes… you and I should have a few drinks together.”
“We’ll get fershnickered?”
Without knowing what that meant exactly, Celestia nodded. “Yes, we’ll have a few drinks and we’ll do that.”
“But I don’t want your heart broken.” Sleet’s ears went limp and fell down. “I mean, I can’t quite forgive you, but I wouldn’t wish that on anypony.” Shrugging, the little mare sighed. “Oy vey… life sometimes. I should be going. When all of this is over, we’ll talk more.”
“Sleet… before you go…”
“Yes?” The misty-eyed pegasus’ head tilted off to one side while she made her reply.
“I love you. Keep that in mind.”
There was a flurry of wings, of feathers, and the next thing Celestia knew, there was a pegasus hanging off of her neck, squeezing her. After taking a moment to reclaim her senses, Celestia closed her eyes and returned the embrace, hoping that she could give Sleet some of the affection that Gosling found too awkward to give.
Stats
Page generated in 0.024 seconds
Total duration
999 users online
1,891,825 hits today, 2,280,440 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Poor Sleet, Poor Celestia
OTOH, yay fillies & colts for making the decorations!
Do feathers have fingers?
Getting ferschnickered?
8578635
Is there a typo I missed?
8578697
Not that I know of! I was just reacting to "I can't quite put my finger on what it is though."
AND THEN THEY HUGGED!
Kudzu, you made me tear up.
If I had to pick out what the theme was, I would say 'expectations'. There seem to be many of them in this chapter, whether met, exceeded, or failed.
*have
Serious bonding for a swell shindig.
Having married into a Jewish family, I ask when did the author spy on some of the first convos with *my* mother in law? Because dear lord, I'm having flashbacks with Sleet here. <3
8578635
They apparently have bones...
derpicdn.net/img/view/2016/5/7/1148565__safe_screencap_rainbow+dash_newbie+dash_animated_cloud_discovery+family+logo_electrocution_lightning_ouch_singed_skeleton_smoke_solo_wonderbol.gif
Oi gevalt! Every time I read a chapter with Sleet in it I just feel so verklempt!
Damnit. Caught up again. Well done! It’s almost silly how much these fictional charachters effect me.
Rereading this, I realized I’m having similar feelings to Sleet, but about my best friend getting engaged. I just don’t really have anyone to talk with about it.