Restart

by Alden MacManx

Chapter 11- Let's go to the party!

After dinner, we trooped back upstairs to our suites, to dress for the reception, and in my case, take another shower. I needed it to clear my head after all the recent events, and, I’m not afraid to admit, to stand in front of a mirror for a few minutes, just admiring my brand-new cutie mark. Jack of all trades, eh? I admit to versatility, but all trades? Not now, but eventually, I’m sure.

When I came out to the living room area, all the ladies were there, waiting for me. They all admired the silver outfit I was wearing, and more importantly, HOW I wore it. “Tristan, to enter the party, you should escort one of us inside the ballroom. Who would you prefer?” Twilight asked.

“Honestly, I would pick all of you to do so. Seeing as it can only be one, and this is a noble’s party, it should be Princess Twilight, if only to impress the nobles. I just want it said that I favor you all equally, and I refuse to pick one over another,” I said with dignity. “That is something you ladies should fight over. I’ll abide by your decision.”

Truly, all the ladies looked spectacular, wearing gowns I am positive Rarity had designed and made. I could say something nice about each of them, but they all shone in their own inner and outer beauty. Makes me glad I’m wearing dark glasses!

Applejack was the first to speak. “Tristan, you sure do speak honestly. Ah can feel it. You’re finding something to lahk in all of us, an’ you don’t want to hurt our feelins.”

All the ladies relaxed at Applejack’s words. After all, if you can’t trust the words of the Element of Honesty, who CAN you trust? I’d pick Applejack over Prestone any day of the week.

Twilight clopped her hooves together. “Now that THAT is settled, let’s be on our way. Sooner there, sooner done, and we can go back to being ourselves,” she said before taking a deep breath, then letting it out with a sigh. “Let’s do this.”

Together, we left the suite and made our way to the ballroom where the party is taking place, Twilight leading the way. I took great pains to tread carefully on the slick marble, not wanting to slip a third time and crack my noggin. One more good knock and there would be scrambled brains all over the place. Definitely something to avoid.

At the doors to the ballroom, Twilight spoke to the door pony, a pegasus whom I took to be of advanced years. She opened the doors and announced our arrival in a startlingly penetrating, yet not overly loud voice, “Princess Twilight Sparkle and her entourage!”

Every noble’s head turned at the announcement, looking our way. The variety of haute couture staring at me was intimidating- for about ten milliseconds. I looked back at them coolly, putting myself at least one stratum above the highest in the room. Hey, I was escorting a princess, right?

Several nobles broke themselves away from whatever conversation knots they were in and made their way to us, while we headed to a serving table and were served drinks or nibbles. One white-furred dandyish unicorn was the first to arrive. Placing himself in front of me, the overdressed dandy announced, “I am Prince Blueblood, direct descendant of Princess Platinum and nephew to Princess Celestia. Why should we even allow a blank flank outsider such as you into our august presence?” he half-asked, half-demanded.

I caught Rarity rolling her eyes in disgust. I looked right at this Blueblood. “First of all, my name is Tristan. Second, I am not a blank flank, I achieved my cutie mark not more than an hour ago in the presence of Princess Celestia herself. Third, while I may be an outsider, having only arrived in Equestria not two weeks ago, I am positive I can have more of a beneficial impact on Equestria than you could ever hope to attain,” I said in my most composed tones of voice, focusing hard on having no accent at all. “I may not be of such distinguished ancestry as you may be, but I know I can achieve honors honestly, on my own efforts, not on the coattails of my ancestors, and I intend on proving those words with actions, Prince Blueblood. Can you do the same?”

Blueblood met my stare for a moment before muttering a reply. “Jumped-up commoner…”

“Commoner I may be, in your eyes, but common I am most definitely not, Prince Blueblood. Would you like to get aboard on the ground floor of my attempts to make Equestria a better place, or do you declare yourself in opposition?” I challenged, keeping myself calm and unruffled. Had I been a pegasus, I’m sure my wings would be outstretched stiffly in frustration. Good thing I’m a unicorn. I kept my horn from lighting up in annoyance.

“I hardly think one such as you could have anything to offer Equestria,” Blueblood snorted.

“Would you care to wager on that? Say fifty thousand bits?” I countered.

That made Blueblood blink in surprise. “Fifty thousand bits? Where could you possibly come up with fifty thousand bits?”

“Never you mind that, Prince Blueblood. I will wager with you, that within one year of this date, I will have made a positive effect on Equestria in a noticeable way that cannot be denied by you or anypony else. Do you accept or decline the wager?”

By this time, I had attracted the attention of everypony in the ballroom, attendee and servitor alike. It was so quiet, I could hear my heartbeat in the background as Blueblood looked a bit apprehensive under the combined stares of the nobility present. Gathering himself, he looked at me. “I accept your wager, Mister Tristan. You have one year from this date to have a positive effect on Equestrian society. Fifty thousand bits to the winner.”

I then glanced at Princess Twilight, who had moved closer to me during the verbal exchange. “Princess Twilight, do you bear witness to this wager?” I asked formally.

“I do so bear witness, as do the Elements of Harmony. One year, fifty thousand bits,” she said as the rest of the Elements nodded in agreement, even Pinkie Pie. I must admit to a little surprise that she was handling this formal affair without disruption. I had thought her incapable of doing so.

“The wager is on, Prince Blueblood. Do not stand in my way, or else you will be trampled, and it would be unseeming for a noble to be trampled. I won’t stand still for that,” I declared, getting approving looks from many of the nobles. I then turned away from Blueblood, paying attention to the drinks arrayed on the serving table. “Just what do you recommend, Princess?”

Twilight’s horn lit up as she lifted two glasses. “I’m quite partial to this wine, Tristan. I hope you like it.”

I took the wineglass in my glow and sipped. I knew it was wine, and it was quite tasty, but, being practically a teetotaler for the past twenty-plus years, I could not make heads nor tails of it. I gave up drinking after one night of liberty where I had to be brought back to the ship in a blind drunk and waking up on the floor of the library with a hangover that I still do not want to remember over two and a half decades later. I could hear Blueblood sputter some before stomping off.

For about the next hour, I schmoozed with curious nobles, many of whom at least tried to be polite with me. I met politeness with politeness, snobbery with snobbery. Any pony who tried to intimidate me, I countered in my own way, with my own confidence. At least one of the Elements stayed by my side, rotating in and out.

Rarity then brought an earth pony up to meet me, an older black and tan stallion dressed neatly, but not flamboyantly, as many of the nobles were. “Tristan, darling, I would like you to meet Lord Topspin, owner of Topspin Productions, the leading record maker in Canterlot. I’m sure the two of you will have much to discuss.”

“From what Miss Rarity has told me, indeed we do, Mister Tristan,” the earth pony said in a marvelous deep voice which reminded me of James Earl Jones doing Darth Vader. We then launched into a discussion of how records were made and managed to get an invitation to his production facility the next afternoon, Rarity agreeing to be my guide to finding the place. Topspin was keenly interested in my music files, but I did not bring my phone to the party, it being secure up in my room. He did ask for a sample performance of a song, and I asked Pinkie Pie if she wanted to help me do the song I had played for her.

“Sure, Tristan! It was fun! Let’s do it!” she agreed, and together, we did ‘She’s a Must to Avoid’. Where she got the musicians to accompany us, I can’t say. It was just Pinkie being Pinkie. We did attract a lot of attention, most favorable, with Blueblood and a small clique of his giving us disapproving looks.

Topspin and many of the other nobles gave us polite applause when we were done. “If that’s a sample, Mister Tristan, I cannot wait to hear the rest!”

“Clear a lot of time, Lord Topspin, because I have quite a bit to listen to!”

Fortunately, the rest of the evening at the party went rather smoothly, with only a couple of small bumps happening when some of Blueblood’s clique tried to get under my fur. I kept up my normal behavior, meaning I gave what I got, whether they liked it or not. Also, Pinkie Pie somehow got her party cannon into the ballroom, set it off, then called for a pie fight, the winner being the one with the least splatters on their clothes. Rarity and I took the opportunity to duck out before the artillery barrage started. From what I heard the next morning at breakfast, that was my best move of the evening. I had the feeling that Pinkie would not be able to restrain herself all night long…

After breakfast, Twilight decided to take me on a tour of the castle, saying that I would enjoy it. When I pointed out my track record with the marble floors, Twilight said she had something for that, giving me shoes for my hooves that were shod in a rubberlike substance, stopping any sliding problem. Once I got them on my hooves, out we went. Rarity said she will meet me at the castle front gates at one, because now she was going to check her boutique here in Canterlot while she had the chance. The only other one to go with us was Applejack, everypony else finding something else to occupy their time while here in Canterlot.

The tour was as spectacular as Twilight promised, the castle living up to its grandeur. I met some of the more important ponies in Her Highness’ government, ones who were not at the party the night before. They were good folk, with only a little stuffiness in their shirts, especially the Prime Minister, a smaller gray unicorn whose mane looked like every brush that approached it had run away in terror before doing its job. A good fellow, he is.

The only flaw in the tour happened when we were up in a turret, enjoying the view. A throw rug at the door to the parapet was not secured in place, and guess who went for a slide? You guessed it, me. I was glad for my sleep the night before, which had allowed me to recover from yesterday’s knocks.

“Tristan, will you please watch your step!” Twilight scolded when I returned to consciousness.

“Don’t blame me, Twilight, I didn’t put the rug there!” I protested.

“I’m going to have to teach you some healing spells, so you can take care of yourself!” Twilight huffed, leading us not to the steps down, but an elevator platform in that tower. “I don’t want you to trip on the way down, Tristan,” she snorted, Applejack holding back a smile.

Lunch, fortunately, gave me time to recover from my knock, and promptly at one, I was outside waiting for Rarity. As we walked to Topspin Productions, she told me about how well her boutique was doing here in Canterlot, and did I happen to see today’s copy of Equestria Today? When I admitted I had not, she promptly steered me to a newsstand.

There, on page one, above the fold, was a photograph of me, in my silver getup, at the party, followed by an article about my presence there. I never noticed the reporters nor the photographers. The article was surprisingly detailed, saying accurately that I was not from Equestria, but from someplace else, and detailing my wager with Blueblood, whom I gathered was not in good standing with the author of the article.

“There’s a lot of speculation on what your benefit to Equestria will be, Tristan,” Rarity told me

“They can speculate, it’s up to me to make my words real. May Lord Topspin agree with me.”

The studio and factory surprised me for being higher tech than I expected, but it would work. I pulled out the phone and held it up to a microphone in the studio while a master record was cut from it. We then took that master and ran it through a copy-making machine before playing the record. We both agreed that the fidelity was more than adequate for the job. I agreed to write down a list of songs and a description of the lyrics (if any) to submit to him. He will have a contract drawn up that will split the gross proceedings of sales of the records sixty-forty, sixty for Topspin, forty for me. I insisted on that because I knew Topspin is taking the initial costs onto his company. With Rarity overseeing the negotiations, I had no doubt that it would be to our mutual benefit. We then spent the rest of the afternoon listening to some selections, debating if we would make copies or not. About half of my music I rejected for copying, because the references were all human world related, and had no suitable base reference here.

Lord Topspin was kind enough to give me two hundred bits in advance, out of his own purse. “So you can entertain your friend properly,” he told me when I protested. I shrugged and accepted the gift in the spirit intended. As we left the building, I asked Rarity if she knew a good restaurant. She did and took me about ten blocks away to a place that reminded me of Arabia or Turkey, of all things.

Service was prompt, the food excellent, the prices reasonable, and the hostess friendly. We had a most excellent dinner and made our way back to the castle after dark. “Thank you for a wonderful dinner, Tristan,” Rarity told me as we walked up to the castle gates.

“Rarity, it was indeed my pleasure. I know we will be here at least one more night, and I’m glad I had the chance. I like being with you, and I want to be able to do so with the rest of the ladies. Fair is fair, after all. Once I get the income, I will be able to do so,” I told her in reply.

“Your generosity in taking me to dinner shows you do have sparkling qualities. I, for one, am glad to see such. I’m just not used to it coming TO me, instead of from me,” she said gently as we passed the gates.

“I suggest you be ready for it, because I’m going to show such generosity to you and the others.”

Author's Note:

The title of this chapter is a line from what popular 1960's variety show? Do you know?

This chapter is the start of conflict that will start showing up. Hey, in order to have conflict, opposition has to know you are there, right?

Comments

[Emtu]

a place that reminded me of Arabia or Turkey, of all things.

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