Love, And Other Felonies

by PatchworkPoltergeist

Nightcall

Prince Blueblood VIII yawned in his doorway. Tailored silk and velvet swung at his sides, buttoned in one spot and in the wrong hole. “Suppose it was inevitable. So much for good faith.” Bowing his head, he swept the way inside. “Welcome to my not-so-humble abode, dearest future-wife. It’s my utmost pleasure to make your acquaintance at last and I’m certain we’ll spend many years together in prosperity and…” He yawned again. “…and such.” A bouquet of spiderwort and meadow saffron levitated up from a nearby table.

Admittedly, it was a more… modest welcome than Rarity anticipated. She spared a glance for the expressionless Night Guard hovering beside her. Not that Rarity couldn’t understand a lack of enthusiasm. At least he’d brought flowers.

“Good evening, Your Grace. Praise Our Lady that I may have the honor to—”

The bouquet passed Rarity’s waiting hooves to hover under Dash’s nose. “Um.”

“I’d offer a tour, but you’ll see the rest of the manor in due time anyhow, or we’ll both live in Castle Midnight. There’s no point either way.” Blueblood’s hoofsteps echoed as he crossed the foyer. “Unless I’m under investigation, in which case, knock yourself out.”

Lieutenant Dash stared after him, holding the flowers the way one holds a smelly baby.

Trotting up to close the gap, Rarity cleared her throat. “Prince Blueblood, I believe you might be a bit—”

“Sauced?” Dash mumbled.

“—confused. The good Second Lieutenant Moonbow Dash is here as my bodyguard.” When the prince turned and stared at the both of them as if they’d sprouted sunflowers from their ears, Rarity took the bouquet. “I am your fiancée.”

The prince’s eyes opened in full. “You? The chamberlain? Hm, that’s interesting.” He led the way to a minimalist parlor, all whites and golds and rich chestnut browns. The liquor cabinet had already been opened. “What are you in for?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Dearest wife, we have the rest of our marriage for mind games and duplicity; we may as well be honest now. I’m either your life sentence or your prize. I’d like to know which one.”

Rarity sniffed the spiderwort. They must have come from a capable hothouse; the blossoms were barely wilted. “I helped intercept a stolen correspondence to King Sombra of the Crystal Empire.”

“And she jumped out of a window to do it.” The lieutenant perched at the top of an armchair. Wings spread and scowling, she loomed over the parlor like a blue and purple gargoyle. “The chamberlain could’ve died.”

“Prize, then.” Blueblood knocked back a shot of vodka and flopped on the couch. His head lolled over the throw pillow, blond mane dangling over his eyes.

Seconds passed.

Minutes.

Dash folded her wings, squinting. “…Did he just fall asleep?”

“I don’t know.” If Rarity’s tail weren’t in a bun, she might have snapped it in his face. She sneered at the half-bottle of vodka that he hadn’t even offered to share. “Either way, this boorish behavior is unbecoming of a prince.”

“It’s unbecoming for a prince to marry below his station, and yet…” Blueblood’s glass gestured vaguely into the air. “Before I forget: how many foals d’you want? Our quota’s one, but you’re the one having them, so…”

Rarity’s ears snapped back. “It’s somewhat early for that sort of talk, don’t you think?”

“Why not? That’s the point of this whole affair. Between the nanny and The Academy, we’ll only see them a few times a year, anyway. The number’s up to you—you’re the one bearing them, and the extra stipends might be nice—but personally, I’d prefer just one.” The prince sank deeper into the couch. “I hope it doesn’t take too many tries.”

“What, you don’t like mares?” Lieutenant Dash ignored the chamberlain’s pointed stare.

“I like them fine, but I prefer sex as… let’s call it a spectator sport. With towels.” Blueblood’s handsome nose wrinkled. “I never understood why the process needs to be so messy.”

Flipping his mane out of his eyes, the prince rolled onto his stomach and stretched like a tomcat. He squinted at his company in a weak attempt to read the room. “Mm. I’ve been rude, haven’t I? Thank you for the armoire, Night Chamberlain… Clarity?”

“Rarity,” the lieutenant and the chamberlain both said.

“Then thank you, Chamberlain Rarity. Care for a drink?” He rattled his glass of ice at the liquor cabinet. “If you’re not the vodka type, I think there’s still some vintage brandy back there.”

“I gave you a chiffarobe, and no thank you.”

Stars above, he’d had better manners at the Gala—better composure, at the very least. Rarity’s frown deepened. Memories of a (probably) sober and tidier Prince Blueblood providing himself a corsage and snubbing apple fritters drifted in the back of her mind. But she couldn’t have met him at the Gala. Liberation Night? Yes, it must have been then.

Since nopony had even invited her to sit, Rarity saw fit to circle the couch so as to glare at him properly. “If you don’t mind my saying so, Your Grace, you certainly know how to suck the romance out of an engagement.”

“Romance!” Something between a laugh and a cough bubbled from Blueblood like a cracked oil barrel. “Ah, you’re my funny wife. I think I like you.”

“I did not intend that as a joke, Prince Blueblood.” Rarity’s voice rose above respectable octaves. Not that anypony besides her would even care. “There’s still a place in Equestria for romance and love.”

“And that place is in our Nightmare’s lap. Ah, praise and glory to our best beloved Matron of the Night, everlasting and ever-loving.” In all her life, Rarity had never seen somepony clasp their hooves in such contempt. Blueblood’s little smile bordered on blasphemy, and when he noticed Rarity’s shock, he only laughed. “Does that count for a daily devotional? I don’t think it does; I didn’t write it down.”

Lieutenant Dash fidgeted in her spot atop the armchair, frowning at the foyer behind them, then at the bits and pieces of decoration upon the mantle and shelves. Exchanging a glance with the chamberlain, she gestured to the walls around them: carved ivy, compass roses, masterpieces of dead painters, photographs and portraits of several ponies… all but one.

The eighty by sixty portrait of Nightmare Moon that hung in every official’s office and every titled pony’s bedroom was not there. No moon sigils. No visual tributes to the Night to be seen. Had there at least been the proper banners in the foyer? Rarity couldn’t remember any.

“Did you know,” continued Blueblood, “that the merchant and farmer ponies only need to write yearly devotionals? A travesty. She taxes the peasants a little less for their love.” He cast his fiancée an appraising glance. “Suppose that explains why you buy that fluff and nonsense about romance.”

“It’s only fair for ponies closer to Her Majesty to devote more of their love because they have more to be grateful for and—” Rarity snapped around. “What do you mean, ‘that explains why I believe it’? Are you implying I’m a peasant?”

“No, I’m implying you were a peasant, and I don’t know why you’ve got your tail in a twist. It’s the truth, isn’t it? You must have been a commoner before; I know I’ve never heard of you, and I know everypony worth knowing. Or I did.”

Prince Blueblood pulled himself up to lean over the back of the couch. Behind him sat a bookcase brimming with photographs of himself shaking hooves and claws with deposed yak princes, missing griffon diplomats, and countless ponies in lovely suits and gowns. Many of whom no longer existed, or else had been assigned new spouses and families years ago.

“If I hadn’t known you, one of them would.” Blueblood frowned at his last swallow of vodka and rested his chin on the cushion. “Did you know that Fancy Pants mixed the best vesper martinis in Canterlot? Always so kind, even when you weren’t kind to him.”

Rarity’s reflection skimmed over the laughing faces of Fancy Pants and his entourage. Of the four of them, only Lady Silver Frames remained. “Your Grace, I’m sure you must be mistaken. There’s never been such a pony.” Grazing the rest of the photographs, Rarity felt hair prickle at the base of her neck. “Perhaps you’re thinking of Minister Neighsay?”

He smiled at that. “I can see why you’re chamberlain. I wonder what that will make us. Duke and duchess? Viscount and viscountess? They didn’t tell you, did they?”

Rarity shook her head.

“Didn’t think so. My guess is viscount, but honestly who the hay knows. The titles mean whatever Nightmare Moon says they mean.” Smelling sweetly of cologne and alcohol, he leaned down to fake-whisper, “Between you and me and the Night Guard, I think she’s making it up as she goes.”

Lieutenant Dash flapped from the armchair to the couch. She sneered at the prince, rolled her wings, and shifted into the air again. For good measure, her tail “accidentally” knocked an antique compass off the mantle.

He blinked slowly at the compass on the marble tile. “Rude.” Turning back to the chamberlain, he raised an eyebrow. “I still don’t know why you’re in such a mood, dear wife; I’m the one lowering a rank. You’ll ascend no matter what. It’s sort of her thing.”

“Her thing?” Rarity’s magic caught Dash’s tail before she flew another circuit around the room and “accidentally” broke something. Poor circumstances were no excuse to go about abusing other ponies’ property.

Blueblood poured another glass and nodded. “Her Majesty, I think, has a soft spot for ponies who feel ignored or forgotten or left behind. That and it’s easier to breed a new court from scratch with ponies who have a reason to like her. The rest of us…” He toasted—to himself, to the dead, to Moon, to his colleagues, to being sauced off his rump, who knew for sure? “We behave. The commissaries—we’re on what, our third?”

“Fifth, I think.”

“The commissaries didn’t match the elite with Night Guards by accident.” He gave a curious tilt of the head. “You almost seem surprised, chamberlain. You’re right in the thick of it; don’t tell me you never noticed?”

“I know how to mind my own work; my job is to deliver the Viceroy’s documents, not read them. The process of political intrigue isn’t my business. I am a professional, Prince Blueblood. Wandering ears help nopony, and I’ve no interest in politics.”

The prince grinned. “A mare after my own heart: keep your head down and it can’t get chopped off. Maybe we’re a match after all. I respect professionalism, but as for the other part, I’ve got bad news for you, viscountess.”

Blueblood’s empty glass levitated across the couch, and it clinked the Moon sigil on Rarity’s uniform. “You are politics.”

Perhaps she’d take that drink after all. Rarity poured herself a modest glass and sank into the couch, four cushions away from her future husband. A swift movement behind her indicated that the lieutenant had landed on the armrest. Rarity looked at neither pony, but studied rows of the grinning dead elite in their bookshelf memorial. “And what about you?” She spoke low, and her voice felt as if it belonged to somepony else. “What’s your place in all of this?”

“Me? Why, I live here as a prime example of Her Royal Majesty’s sweet mercy—provided I don’t stray more than two miles from the estate.” He chuckled to himself with a smile so sad that Rarity found herself sorry for him. “As if I had anywhere to go. Besides that, I’m the only family she’s got left. I’m her nephew too, you know.”

Lieutenant Dash leaned over the back of the couch so that her wing just so happened to rest on Rarity’s shoulder. “Yeah, I’ve been wondering: how’s that work, anyway? If you’re the nephew of both Nightmare Moon and Daybreaker—”

His ruddy eyes met them directly for the first time that night. “Don’t call her that.”

A terrible clarity fell over him, and he must have realized he’d all but admitted Heartcrime to a Night Guard Officer. Though he blanched, Blueblood didn’t recant. “You don’t need to use the other word. Just don’t… don’t call her that. Please.”

Rarity set the vodka aside and ran her hoof down the side of her face. What had she stepped into?

“As for your question, Lieutenant, it happened through some arrangement with the Platinum bloodline a millennium and a half ago. I don’t know, check the studbooks if you haven’t burned them yet.” Blueblood swung back another shot. Grinning with the ugly sort of liquid courage, he added, “I hope it wasn’t in the old library.”

Chamberlain Rarity jolted up. “I’m sorry, Your Grace, but I need a moment of air. If you’ll excuse me.” Without waiting for an answer, she opened the door and moved out onto the balcony.

Outside, the gentle breeze had shifted into warm swift gusts—thermals to push a legion of guards through the sky. A war wind. Since the wind wasn’t strong enough to knock her off her hooves, Rarity guessed that it centered farther out in New Canterlot. Perhaps even Ponyville.

The door opened behind her. “You know,” said Dash, “if I broke his legs right now, I’d get away with it. This place has like, twelve violations and three felonies, and that was before he opened his mouth. The photos alone are five years in the dungeon, minimum.”

Rarity blinked at her slowly, but didn’t answer.

Water crashed below the balcony, spitting white froth through cracks in the wooden floor. Rarity leaned over the side to watch the waterfall vanish off the side of the Canterhorn. One of the last vestiges of Canterlot Castle—indeed, of Old Canterlot herself—the falls remained unchanged. Too useful of a resource, Rarity supposed. Nightmare Moon kept nothing in her kingdom that was not useful.

Behind her, Blueblood's manor glowed upon the mountaintop, a white crumb of the demolished castle it once was.

“She must already know,” Rarity said to the banister. “He’s not what I’d call subtle.” The Second Lieutenant of Her Royal Majesty’s Night Guard had stood within two feet of cracking Blueblood’s skull, yet he’d led them into the heart of his parlor and waxed nostalgic for the Unenlightened Age. “I wonder why.”

“Why hide what Moon already knows? You can get away with a lot if you preen the right feathers, but ponies who do that still get scared about it.” Dash’s wings clapped against her armor as she glanced back at the stallion half-fallen off his couch. He waved at them through the window. “If he was flaunting it, that’d be one thing, but… I don’t think this guy even cares.” She stamped. “It’s weird. He’s weird. I don’t like it. I don’t like him. I don’t like any of this!”

“Nopony’s asking you to like it.”

“Okay. You hang tight, I’m gonna go break his legs.”

Rarity caught Rainbow’s tail as the pegasus turned around. “Do not break my fiancé’s legs. Besides, he’s not so bad.”

“But Rarity, why him? Blueblood’s a buckface but he’s right—these things don’t happen by accident.”

“Of course not. You heard it yourself: She picked him out for me personally. And why not? He’s all I ever wanted.”

A dream come true.

Literally. Once, Rarity dreamed of nothing more than marrying a prince and being whisked away to a castle. She already had the castle. Now for the other half.

Nightmare Moon, gracious in action and generous in all ways, despite Rarity’s transgressions, had bestowed a remarkable gift. A legacy in the making. All she’d need do was continue as she had done: praise, obey, repeat ad nauseam.

“Am I your prize or your life sentence?”

A sliver of a dream served up in a crumb of a castle.

Rarity peered at the shimmer of silver stretching across the mist of the waterfalls. A permanent moonbow. Not a rainbow, but in a world with nothing but moonlight, it would do. It could suffice. It could.

A strand of red poked out from under Rainbow’s helmet.

...It couldn’t.

“I don’t think I can do this,” Rarity whispered. She turned and said it again, louder this time.

“That’s Heartcrime talk, Chamberlain.” Dash’s eyes glinted, expression hidden under the helmet. “You know what She does to ponies like us, right? Liberation Night’s for civilians—the higher-ups don’t go that fast. I saw what happened to the last commissary.”

“Us,” she’d said. Ponies like us. “Is that an admission of guilt, Lieutenant?”

“Like I said, three felonies.” Dash pointed her wing at the prince in the window. “One.” At Rarity. “Two.” At herself. “Three Heartcrimes. Didn’t know for sure about the second one until tonight, though.”

Rarity clicked her tongue. “Tonight? I would have thought you’d figured it out when you revealed that fabulous mane of yours.”

“Hey, I said I didn’t know for sure. I still had a good feeling about it when you tried to eat my face.” Her wing smoothed along Rarity’s cheek as she leaned in close. “Gotta say, you’re pretty cute for a felon.”

A new voice spoke from the roof. “She’s not wrong.”

They looked up. Rarity gasped. Rainbow Dash slouched into a battle stance in front of her. “You.” Her wings flared wide, braced to block the path and leave the chamberlain room to flee inside.

Rarity stayed put and stared. Rude, she knew, but she couldn’t help it.

The pony on the roof stared back. The black flag of her trench coat snapped and swirled in the gale of a war breeze and beneath it, dawn-pink wings stretched for the new moon. Hardship of the chase had turned what had probably been a lovely manestyle into a riot of pink and purple and shocks of gold. A tapered horn faintly glowed beneath an absolutely stunning wide-brim hat. A sigil of the sun gleamed gold, bronze, and amber.

Equestria’s most wanted, the infamous terrorist and spearhead of Sunwise, wearing the best outfit Rarity had seen in ages: Mi Amore Cadenza. Cadance, the captured unicorn had called her. “I felt you from three blocks away. You’re a cute couple.” She tossed a dry glance toward the Night Guard pawing at the tile. “Even if one of you broke my husband’s femur.”

Dash snorted. “I can give you a matching his-and-hers set if you want.”

“No thanks, but I’ll tell him you said hi when I get home. He should be there soon.” Cadenza skittered along the roof tile, ears rotating while her attention fought between the balcony and the city. “This is a bad time for lovers, but I think you know that. You could come along if you want.”

“Right, like we’re gonna fall for that.” Dash scowled her most imposing Guard scowl. “You’re lucky I don’t fly up and wring your neck right now.”

“Hm. I tried.” She turned to Rarity. “How about you?”

For a moment, Rarity almost considered it. They couldn’t remain as they’d been. But this had all come so fast, and for all they knew, Cadenza needed a couple of dupes to slow down the Guard. Heartcrime was one thing, but defecting to the other side…

“No thank you, but I love your hat. It’s positively sublime.” She blinked at Rainbow Dash’s incredulous stare. “Well, it is. I’ve got—” Wait, did she? “Er, I’d love to have one just like it in burgundy.”

Prince Blueblood peered out of the door. Bleary-eyed, he squinted at his fiancée, at the Night Guard, and then slowly twisted his neck to see the terrorist on the roof. One could almost call his smirk handsome. “Oh. Hey, cuz. What’re you up to?”

Cadance’s feathers ruffled as the war breeze kicked into a full gale. The Guard came hot on her trail. “Making a distraction.” In the distance, a building erupted in a fireball. “You?”

“I’m meeting my new wife! 'S that one.” He pointed to both mares. When he looked up again, the alicorn in the trench coat had vanished. Blueblood rattled the ice cubes in his glass. “Huh, must’ve had too much to drink,” he said to himself. “I’m seeing strange ponies on the roof again.”

---

Night Chamberlain Rarity considered herself an optimist.

While some might have quailed at a castle lockdown and a city-wide curfew, she took it as a key opportunity for personal reflection. No castle tours meant she could freely lodge all the issues to be rectified before the Solstice Nuptial. With a little over a month to go, nothing could afford to be overlooked.

“Dash, we can’t stay here.”

“I know, but we can’t leave now, either. Looks bad.”

“It looks bad no matter when we do it.”

“We disappear now, and ponies are sure to know what’s up. We need a head start, and that means waiting until the heat’s off. I reported Cadenza’s appearance in Canterlot, but that’s not enough. Nopony’s said anything, but Fly and Dust have been watching me. Blueblood’s the first place they’ll go, and I trust that guy with a secret like a changeling on Hearts and Hooves.”

Two nights ago, Rarity had dreamed of changelings: wretched creatures she’d only seen in ink reliefs, all teeth and chitin and swarming Canterlot in a black mass. Rarity—composed, benign Rarity—had fought them with Rainbow at her side, and they hadn’t been alone.

A pink madmare armed with a cannon full of confetti. A yellow pegasus with a kind face and a long pink ribbon of a tail. A purple unicorn’s horn steamed from shooting rapid-fire magic. Applejack had been there, too—back in her Ponyville ponytails, not a pressed suit in sight.

Since the rainbow stripe of Dash’s mane, all of Rarity’s dreams had been this way: lectures from the unicorn; fighting Applejack for Lord Trenderhoof’s attention; the pink madmare leaping off a moving wagon and into her hooves; scaling mountains with Dash to face some horrid dragon; spa days with the ribbon-tailed pegasus; sewing fine gala dresses for all five of them. Absurd, impossible things that came to her without the fuzziness or nonsense of dreams, clearer than memories of tonight’s breakfast. Clear and real as the moon itself.

The stress must have finally gotten her. At first, she’d wondered if perhaps Her Majesty deigned to tease her in the Dream Realm. Rarity doubted it; Nightmare Moon had bigger felons to fry, and she’d never allow gentle sunshine, even in dreams.

“I know a mare—candy maker in the Ponyville outskirts having an affair with Magistrate Heartstrings. She owes me, and I think she’s got solid passage out of the Kingdom. Fly thinks she used to do recon for the old regime, but I dunno about that. Also, we can get candy.”

“…Are you implying that a known Heartcriminal bribed you with candy?”

“No, I’m implying that I’m too lazy to do Heartcrime paperwork and if ponies want to give me candy I’m not arguing.”

“You say you ‘think’ she has safe passage. You don’t know for sure?”

“Rares, these nights I don’t know anything for sure. It’s gotta be good enough.”

In the entry hall, a skylight full of stars sparkled over Rarity’s shoulders. Her magic took a tapestry off its hook and down to eye level. She donned her silver work glasses, frowning. Hideous reddish-brown stained the indigo dye from where Sky Stinger—may he rest in peace—had been smashed against it. The bottom fringe frayed and tangled where the young guard had grasped at it in feeble desperation.

Her Majesty hadn’t taken the Sunwise unicorn’s escape well.

“Give it a week. Two at most. She ought to chill by then, and everypony will be busy smoking out Cadenza or prepping for Solstice. It’s not much of a window—”

“But it’s the best we can do.”

Rarity cast the tapestry aside. No, this wouldn’t do at all.

In fact, the approach of the new year called for a total makeover. The simple black and indigo needed flair—a silver border, perhaps, or blue fringe instead of black. Both? Yes, both would do nicely. A final offering to the Kingdom of Night before she absconded forever.

“I’m sure she’ll catch some poor Sunwise sap between now and then.”

“Yes, and interrogations always put her in a favorable mood. She’ll joke with Moondancer and me when we come to attend her.”

“Heh, now if any extra alicorns don’t pop back in to visit, we should be clear.”

Deep in the forest, the timberwolves raised their voices to the air. It must have been zap-apple season—or rather, it would have been. Rarity did so miss zap apple jam. Made from rainbow-striped apples with a nip of lightning, crisp, smoky, biting at her tongue…

How long until Rainbow is off-duty, I wonder? With terrorists and vagabonds prowling the night, requesting a guard for her bedchamber wouldn’t be out of the question.

Behind her, a fresh autumn breeze rolled through the open door. Hoofsteps echoed through the hall. Slow. Tentative. Curious.

“Rarity?”

When she turned, a unicorn stood there.

The purple unicorn with pink streaks in her mane and stars blazed upon her flank. The one she’d stood with at a gala she’d never attended. The mare who visited Rainbow Dash with her at a hospital that had been rebuilt years ago. Who’d stood withers to withers beside Rarity in the gnash of changeling teeth. Who’d given her butterfly wings in dreams of rainbows and sunshine and skies the color of Dash’s coat.

A librarian crossed from the records after a mysterious fire burned down a library harboring forbidden texts. The dead sister of the unicorn from Sunwise. Dead for four years.

She had wings this time.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

“Heh, now if any extra alicorns don’t pop back in to visit, we should be clear.”

Heh. About that...

I actually quite like this Blueblood. Amidst the gilded-cage dissipation, he may be the most compassionate pony left in the upper echelons. And kudos to Cadence for making the rebellion look good.

In any case, Twilight's here and gone again could provide the opening the couple needs to escape... or prompt the Nightmare to keep a very close eye on her subjects. Or rewrite the timestream and send everypony into a changeling-infested hellscape of a much less subtle nature, depending on how that works. We'll find out in time.

[Ice Star]

Another awesome installment!

[Lurks-no-More]

Poor, poor Blueblood.

9509357
Cadence would definitely make the Mysterious Mare-Do-Well outfit look good.

[RoyalBardofCanterlot]

I feel bad for Blueblood. This chapter was exciting.

[TheJediMasterEd]

Volunteers are soon forgotten and many more of us shall die
The sick still feed the hungry and the last battle song has cried
But if there's a reason
I don't need to know right now

And the light of a fading star
Is what you were, is what you are...

[Sypher]

I like how you managed to keep Blueblood's boorish personality yet made him so likeable. That stiff reaction to "Daybreaker"... That really hurts.

The black flag of her trench coat snapped and swirled in the gale of a war breeze and beneath it, dawn-pink wings stretched for the new moon.

Who’d given her butterfly wings in dreams of rainbows and sunshine and skies the color of Dash’s coat.

More beautiful sentences.

And now Twilight's emergence! I'm getting more and more sad that this story is "only" 27 thousand words.