• Published 24th Aug 2020
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The Blue Knight - The_Darker_Fonts



In a world of peaceful ponies who can't even conceive the thought of violence, one stands to protect them against those who can.

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Chapter 10: You're (in) Danger

Blueblood felt incredible. He didn’t know why precisely, but because of the events of the night, he felt spectacular. He had saved ponies before, gotten into physical fights before, and had even suffered a bruise here and there, but the thrill of fighting somepony like him made his heart practically vibrate. The feeling of accomplishment, of satisfactory victory filled his bosom, and he couldn’t help but feel proud that this somepony had witnessed his full potential. Even if he had told that pony to never see him again, he couldn’t help but like he now had credit to the prowess he boasted to the city non-verbally.

Still, his face hurt a bit, and he needed to do something to get the bloodstains out, along with ridding his mouth of the bitter, disgusting taste of blood and healer’s mark. He landed on his balcony, feeling some satisfaction knowing that tonight he wouldn’t be needed any further in the case of these two criminals. He had left the constables with plenty to find and little to work out, which meant an easier night for the two of them. Pulling his mask off, he shook his damp mane out, throwing the window-doors open and allowing himself entry into his room.

Stepping inside, he tossed his mask towards the bathroom, landing it in the entrance. Slumping down onto his bed, he let out an exasperated breath, before taking another one in and slowly letting it out. He needed to relax himself from the after effects of the fight and let his muscles loosen up. He began to stretch his hooves out on his bed, using his magic to start the water in the tub, activating the valve without looking at it. He’d only just learned the useful, but difficult, practice, and used it as much as possible to build up his magical strength. Physically, he was much better equipped for skin to skin engagements, but in the arcanic spectrum, he was far weaker than a vast majority of the palace’s guards, who he secretly watched practicing and compared his own strength to.

They were some of the best sorcerers in Equestria, and half the time they spent as palace guards, the other half as scholars. That was what it was like with most of the guards, having their life be partly as a guard, the part as whatever other profession or hobby they preferred. He knew some that were sports players and others that were artists, but mostly they spent their time as fathers and husbands. None of them really took their job seriously, or at least suspected that they would ever have to truly defend the Princesses from other ponies. They were mostly around to prevent ponies from going where they weren’t supposed to or showing off for foreign delegates. In fact, he suspected that for the past millennia, none of their weapons had ever been built to be lethal. That was modern Equestria, a land where the only real soldiers wielded sharp-looking sticks and wore fancy clothing that looked like armor.

Things were changing though, Blueblood knew that. Whether it was because of those two stallions, or the fact that Luna was back, he felt everything in Equestria beginning to shift unevenly. But he was only worried about Canterlot for now; the newly named Elements were strong enough to deal with the blunter, national threats than the intricate ones in the city that required knowledge of such a place. He knew that he would one day have to be more than Canterlot’s defender, seeing as how ever since his debut as the Blue Knight, crime rates had dramatically increased in other cities.

While some were just foolish or idiotic attempts to catch the Blue Knight’s attention, there was one particular string of incidents that had proven to be intentionally aligned. The crimes so far had only taken place in Baltimare and Manehattan, but the group that caused them were obviously primed to spread. Once again, the identities of the two stallions he had fought came to his mind, and he frustratedly sighed, knowing that there was no accurate way of knowing who they were or who they were working for without somepony else identifying them. And quite frankly, they did have pretty forgettable features, which didn’t help at all.

He had put his two cents into the case for the sheriffs of both cities, and had reviewed the case files with excruciating detail, and in the end came up with the same conclusion as them. The vagrants were a tightly-bound group of ponies who knew what they were doing and had been planning for these robberies and break-ins. However, the nature of their actions was only truly recognized by himself, seeing the true danger these ponies posed. They were violent variants, just like him, but they hid it well in their actions, playing off any injury as an accident, maybe even having a few authentic accidents as well. They knew their strength and weren’t afraid to use it, but also knew that they needed to conceal it. Shaking his head, he reminded himself that he was supposed to be bathing, not brooding, and stood from his bed, walking over to the bathroom.

Right after he had stripped the rest of the suit off and placed it in its hidden cubby, he heard the sound of the balcony windows clattering open. Raising his eyebrows, he called out, “I’m in the bath! Don’t come over here!”

“Oh, don’t be such a baby, nephew,” an exquisite feminine voice returned. Luna rounded the corner as he finished sinking into the slightly steaming water. Thinking quickly, he ducked his head underneath the water, soaking his mane and allowing it to fall in front of most of his face, obscuring the slight swell of where he’d been struck in the face. There wasn’t anything Blueblood could do to hide his bruised side but slide a little to the right, making it harder for her to be able to detect the wound.

“Come now, Blueblood, no need for such theatrics,” Luna chided teasingly. “It’s not like we walk around without such stylish outfits anyways. Besides, there’s so many bubbles in that bath that you might as well be halfway in a cloud.”

“Yes, but I do remember that Celestia taught me that every part of my body needs cleaned when I’m in the bath, and I’d rather not like to wash the less foal-appropriate parts in front of my aunt,” he returned jokingly, raising a leg slightly out of the bubbles to get his point across. Luna’s eyes widened slightly as she looked away sharply, making Blueblood laugh. “Not that I don’t want to be in your company,” Blueblood politely added. “I would just like to do it in a less… private environment.”

“Well, I would leave you be, but I haven’t been able to catch a single word with you since the night of the Gala,” Luna explained, her voice becoming more worried. She looked down at the ground and began levitating something from off the floor, adding as she displayed his bloodstained mask, “And then, as if to make me worry more, I find this.”

Blueblood realized far too late that he’d left that vital garment out of the pile he’d haplessly shoved in the compartment, barely preventing himself from smacking himself in the head for his stupidity. He simply looked away, snatching the article from her grasp with his own magical one, tossing it aside as he gruffly mumbled, “That’s nothing, Luna. Just some remnants from a fight a few… days ago.”

The lie didn’t even last a second as she lifted his damp mane where it covered half of his face, revealing the swell and cut on his head. “And when was that,” she sharply questioned, a small fury growing in her eyes. “A few days ago as well.”

“No, that was tonight,” he angrily confessed, looking Luna in the eyes. “But it’s no big deal. This happens all the time, Luna, so don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t lie to me,” she commanded suddenly, using her Equestrian voice on him. He shrunk back slightly as his aunt attempted to regain her composure, her angry eyes slowly widening as she realized what she'd just done. She shamefully turned her head aside, muttering, “I apologize, that was too much. I’m just… I’m worried about you.”

“It’s fine,” he muttered stiffly, still looking away from his aunt. Taking a deep breath, he began to explain, “Luna, I do this every night, and while most of the time I don’t run into any real threats, there are those rare cases where I do have to fight for my life. Tonight just happened to be one of those nights, and I came out mostly fine because I’m prepared for these situations and the dangers they pose to me and my surroundings. I know you’re trying your best to remember, but I need to do this because I’m not normal, and by being the Blue Knight, I don’t become one of those goons out there.”

“I know, I know,” Luna slowly replied, stepping closer to the tub of water, stirring it with one of her front hooves. “I just… you’re my first friend since I returned from the moon, and you have to know that I love you like a brother for that. I’ve seen too much from my time before I was banished, and being stuck with only those memories up there, it makes me hate anything to do with violence on a personal level. I hate seeing your forehead bloodied, your mask bloodstained, and your body bruise. Each one hurts me inside, because I’ve seen ponies without their skull, or have their muzzle removed, or have any number of weapons stabbed into them. I can’t bear seeing that happen to you either.”

“It hasn’t, and I can promise you, Luna, that it won’t,” Blueblood swore. He looked up at his aunt and gave her a small smile of encouragement. “You know yourself the dangers that were from your age aren’t as many or as extreme as they are now. Just let me handle my job here, and if you feel the need, try to dissuade me from doing anything that you truly think I shouldn’t.”

Luna smirked in response, questioningly citing, “‘From your age’? Is that supposed to be an insult?”

“Well it’s a pitiful one if it is,” Blueblood stated. “Celestia literally knows how many stallions have attempted to make advances on you since your return. The word of the common ponies is that you look too young to be Celestia’s sister, and a good deal of them suspect that you may simply be a long lost daughter of some sort.”

The two of them laughed at the ridiculous precept, but the disbelief in the return of Celestia’s sister was far and wide throughout the kingdom. It had taken many different accounts to bring the vast majority of the population to the belief of the almost mythical truth. It was harder to convince ponies to see the unbelievable truth than it was to lie to them about who Blueblood was.

“You know, I may have to use ‘Prince Blueblood’ to scare away any wannabe suitors,” Luna suggested smartly. Blueblood smiled at her use of the more modern word, intentionally noting her development in transitioning from older tongue to modern language. Suddenly, Luna gave a resigned sigh, levitating her crown off her head and placing it on one of the multiple shelves. Slowly, she dipped herself into the warm water, which had ceased steaming by now, sharply exhaling from the sudden heat. Her eyes were pinned closed as she had to adjust herself to the warmth, and she seemed to be forcing herself to stay in the water.

Blueblood chuckled, stating, “You’re lucky this isn’t my ice water bath. I only take those when I feel like I need them, and while I probably need one after the scuffle I had with those goons, I needed warmth.”

“And you’re telling me this because…” Luna asked, opening a single eye as she began to relax in the water.

“Oh, just reminding you to count your blessings,” he snarkily replied, settling comfortably into the water as well.

Suddenly he was grasped around his head by Luna’s magic, getting his face dunked under the water by her. He came back out of the water calmly, breathing in silently as he resurfaced, shaking his mane out. “Really,” he asked simply, quirking his eyebrow at Luna. she giggled childishly, answering, “Well, after the fright you’ve given me tonight, you des-”

A soft, rumbling boom interrupted her. The grumble suddenly increased in volume, eclipsing every sound Blueblood had ever heard before by its sheer, thunderous roaring. A surge of energy pulsed through him, sending every single hair on his body straight, his horn glowing dimly as the magical energy produced by the wave overwhelmed the palace.

He looked over at Luna with wide eyes as another feeling overtook him, no a physical feeling, but a feeling from the heart: hate. He felt it pulse through his blood as his heart beat, felt the pull of it on his mind, the want to fight, the want to destroy overcoming him. It was unnatural for so many, but to him, the feeling was supernatural, a culmination of the worst and most repressed emotion he had that others didn’t. It didn’t comprehend immediately what happened, but a sudden flash of light from outside revealed what possibly could have happened.

As soon as the overwhelming hate ebbed enough for him to think, he stood up and stepped out of the bath. He forced himself dry so quickly that the steam burnt the undersides of his flanks and neck, where it was caught. He levitated the mask to him and pulled it on with his hooves, retrieving the rest of the outfit from the compartment telekinetically. He put those on to within a matter of seconds, not caring if it currently fit too tightly. There was a danger out there far more powerful than anypony could imagine, and if it meant sacrificing his identity to understand, it would be well worth it.

‘Blueblood, where are you going,” Luna suddenly called, standing up in the water as well.

He didn’t even turn around as he pulled his fedora on, replying coldly, “You felt how powerful that was, right?”

“Yes, but-”

“And you felt the hate behind it,” he asked, spitting the word hate out venomously. The fedora was on. Time to go.

“I did, and that’s why…”

“That’s why you can’t stop me from going,” he concluded for her, softening his voice. He turned back to her for a brief second, then instructed, “If Celestia is somehow still asleep through that, get her up and tell what just happened.” Concentrating for a second, he attempted to pinpoint the exact casting location, but the residue from the magical strike was so thick and spread that he was only able to guess that it was outside of the castle, but not in town square. Maybe a little towards the…

The gates to the Stairs. Horsefeathers.

“Whatever happened happened at the gates to the Stairs,” he hastily told Luna, rushing from the room and towards the balcony. If Luna responded, he didn’t hear it as he once again opened his balcony windows and dove towards the ground far below.

Author's Note:

Second of three.