Ms. Glimmer and the Do-Nothing Prince

by scifipony

26 — Royal Duties III: Three Filly Friends

"Do you like cinnamon?" I asked.

I stood beside Blue-eyed, looking over his muscular shoulder as he sat at the long table in his living room. He studied my hoof-written Teleport spell directly from my notebook. Proper Step had drilled me in horn-writing. As a foal. An earl did not scrawl, so my letters looked like a cursive font. My margin notes looked more casual only because I'd rendered them in all the colors of the rainbow. Sometimes I indulged in girl-culture. Annotated at all angles, the more recent stuff was in shorthoof, which I had taught myself to keep up with my side jobs tracking and training Carne Asada's lieutenants.

When I breathed in his ear, he startled, flicking them. I could tell he concentrated. Irritation flit across his features, but relaxed to neutrality. Those first times I'd met him (okay, stalked him) I'd interpreted his expression as him being stuck up. Was I wrong?

He said, "The infinities in these spell equations make my horn ache."

"What part of 'difficult spell' didn't you understand?"

"Still."

I pointed at a set of integrals. "Not infinities. That is a singularity."

"There's a difference?"

I sighed. "Are you forgetting the virtual mass on the imaginary axis? When I factor in Barthemule's time calculus, it proves the original author understood she warped both space and time. Time slows as the singularity collapses and then you find yourself in vacuum for a time period proportional to the distance."

"You figured how to cast this by yourself?"

"Mostly." Having witnessed Celestia's spell simplification that time had revised everything about how I cast. "Prepping it makes you feel like you are going to die, like you are contemplating suicide. When I got myself caught in a pickle that felt like life or death, I tried it for real."

"Adds immediacy."

"Ya think? But I needed to cast twice. I passed out and got captured." I shut the daisy embroidered notebook with a thump. "Cinnamon. I asked about cinnamon."

"Yeah. I like it."

"I do, too. A lot."

"I'm glad."

"Enough said," I finished with a grin, hoping he would take the hint. I slid the notebook away. "I don't want to break your brain. Guess there's reasons why few unicorns in any generation learn the spell. Makes sense why ponies embed Gateway into amulets not teleport. It might not be as easily targetable, but neither is it as scary to cast."

"Gateway?"

"You didn't hear about when rebel dragons tried to steal magic to invade Canterlot?"

"No..."

"I hope that isn't a state secret. If you repeat that..." I waggled a hoof.

"You realize that when you make threats, you are scary."

"Thank you. I practiced. A lot. I did cast Gateway, twice."

"Which is?"

I raised both forelegs. "I am not going to talk about it."

"Can you teach me?"

"Celestia captured my stolen copy. It's a read-and-cast spell in any case, so, sorry, no. That's why it's embedded, but I didn't understand that at the time. They had a knife to Citron's throat. I made it work."

"I am beginning to sense there are reasons why Celestia made you her heir."

"Her tool. Don't make a mistake there." I looked away. "I'm cursed."

He rubbed my shoulder. "Cursed in a good way."

"Ha." I caught his blue magic on my notebook and spirited it away in mine before he could reopen it. "I don't want to break you. I'm staying over tonight, by the way."

"Wait. What?"

"It's not like there isn't rumors. You even treated me to a candlelight dinner in the palace."

"Candelabras don't exactly qualify."

"Despite the candles? A distinction without a difference. Burning wick and paraffin isn't everyday magic. Some ponies might call it romantic."

"Well... okay. Candles remind me of the simpler times when I was a foal, so the staff always uses them for me. It's about me; sorry to burst your bubble."

"You didn't grow up in Canterlot, did you?"

Despite the fancy stylish couture he wore, always with a blue bow tie, his manners, and his noble elocution, dinner had been telling. Almost a regular pony, talking about the inanity of running the leaves in a city and officiating at the same time. Rustic came close to describing the meal, but in no lower class sense. Almost like what one might expect at a county estate. Proper Step had worked to refine my palette, and we had a chef besides the baker on staff who cooked almost every style, like including tonight's. Food could be less refined, more forest to plate, with the bread being more of an unleavened cracker than fluffy, with carrots and broccoli being crunchy not pureed or sautéed, with far more weedy field greens than lettuce, or with mushrooms that might be flute-like or red polka-dotted. Wild grasses and millet instead of hay. Cut fruit rather than pudding.

All that and more described our dinner, tonight. Fun. De-stressing.

Delicious, by the way.

"Yes," he answered, "I grew up a league south of the mountain."

In the Everfree? Riiight. I'd visited. Dangerous. So far as I knew, the only being close to a pony that lived there was a zebra. Zecora claimed the spirits of the forest hated ponies. That was a good enough reason for why nopony lived there, but there was also an ancient castle blasted to ruins, not to mention a curse I'd only partially broken. Oh, and the Golden Stag—they lived a few leagues further south!

My expression must've been obvious, because he added, "Times were different. In any case, I didn't grow up in Canterlot or anything like a modern city. And, no, Starlight Glimmer, I am not inviting you to a sleep over."

"Changing the subject?"

"I'm just explaining it—"

I waved a hoof. "Not negotiable."

"As if."

"Sunset and Citron—" I cut myself off. Not sharing that nugget of information, especially since I was pretty sure Blueblood was an information broker. "I don't want to stay at Sunset's. Today was weird, and I think you know more than the gist of it."

"I'll get you the guest suite—"

"No. I am sleeping here." I felt my face warm.

His eyes narrowed. In a lower tone, he asked, "In my—?"

I wasn't going to push for a ride, but since he was going there— "Yes."

"Don't misconstrue our relationship—"

"Ha! Misconstrue!? Ha!"

"You are not my filly-friend."

My mouth opened. After a few seconds, I said, "But we are friends." A statement. A hopeful one, because I really didn't understand the concept fully. Not a question.

He inhaled deeply, looked away. He nodded. Emotions flit across his features as muscles ticked and shifted. He had a decade on me. It felt like he ought to have a handle on his feelings, or a hauteur that he could snap over himself as a façade.

He blinked and sighed. He did not look at me. He said, "I had a filly-friend."

Oh, horse apples.

Dread, programmed into me by romance novels I'd traded for with the servants (not all of them mares) when I'd been little, settled in my stomach as fluttering butterflies. I'd become attracted to Mr. Ancient History. What was I expecting!

I did catch the past tense, though. What was the term? Old Saddlebags?

"Sharp Tongue was remarkably like you, which works to your advantage. Acidic. Proficient in magic, especially battle magic, which in retrospect was a bad thing. She could throw more than sharp words."

"Sharp... objects? And be dangerous? Was she a unicorn?"

Unicorn magic, I often sourly theorized, was made of giggles and rainbows, evolved to grant wishes. I could hurt ponies directly only when my life was threatened. I'd set a pony's tail on fire, and hopefully his stallion parts, after I'd been—

In practice, it worked better to use Force to burn combustibles surrounding your target in a way that the magic didn't notice. That took concentration and discipline in situations when I typically could count on neither.

"Yes, of course. I said magic."

"All the tribes have magic—"

"She was older than me."

I said in a whisper, "Your first, um, filly-friend."

"First everything. A warrior in her heart, despite her heart being kind, too. When I heard my aunt had gone to save the armistice with the Golden Stag, my stomach sank. Times were chaotic when I grew up. Sharp Tongue trained with me, with my father. I wanted to make her a princess and my father approved. He was stoic at the best of times, and as cold as ice except around Celestia. That he approved meant only that she was a good student with good genes. I cared only that we were friends. Chaos. Ha! An armistice holding with that monster depended upon whether a fickle falling leaf might somehow be more amusing."

Dread. I felt that. I didn't blurt out where I knew he led.

"The armistice broke. She volunteered. She didn't come back... What returned wasn't her—after being captured five months, toyed with, which is why it got so bad."

"Couldn't heal her? She loose a hoof? Limbs!?"

"Something more important." He tapped his skull hard enough I could hear it. "Some things you can't fix, though I tried. When she could remember who I was, seeing me scared her. The experience turned her inside-out and backwards, making her see good as bad and pretty as ugly. Father claimed she'd shattered. He sent her to be cared for. Not that he cared, but because Sharp Tongue's condition distracted me, that I trained hard only when she wasn't around. I was the next arrow in his quiver."

"Your life was like living in Tartarus."

"Like living in Tartarus," he agreed.

I asked delicately, "Is she alive?"

"All ponies are mortal, unlike my aunt. Sharp Tongue, Mother, Father—" He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "That was before."

He was like me, and I felt very sorry about the horse apples I'd thought to the contrary. I didn't wish losing your entire family, or your first love, on anypony. Tears pooled and I blinked a lot, very very glad he didn't look at me. I pulled out a chair and sat next to him.

As he sat silently, I scooted over. Our fur touched; he didn't flinch. Leaning into another pony for support was a natural equine thing. Innate.

I prompted, "Before?"

"That was before. After: There shouldn't have been an after, and I fully blame Celestia for that. First my father, then my aunts. My aunts: Each uniquely ruined my life. I blame them, but can't fault them. I'm just a pony. What's one pony's life compared to an entire nation?"

"Which is how Celestia excused her meddling in my life and in my parent's."

A sharp nod. "Her mode of thinking. Royals aren't normal ponies. Those times were chaotic times. I should have died, but survived anyway. My aunt did her best to make it up to me. Everypony thought she spoiled me, and that reputation haunts me to this day. I won't deny I exploit my reputation, but mental traumas rarely show—"

"Until somepony scratches you. Like me with Fair Trade this afternoon."

He chuckled. "Pointy sticks? How droll!" He glanced briefly at me, his blue eyes taking in my closeness. He looked away, but didn't push away. "I miss Sharp Tongue, especially her sharp tongue, even after all these years."

"Uh-huh."

"I credit Celestia for trying to raise me, despite her responsibilities, trying to shape a broken soldier into a civilian after returning from war. I kept training, though she banned the guard from associating with me. I built my secret gym because I could not live without occasionally being able to beat on something. She saw me becoming apathetic, despondent, and an airhead. I cultivated that impression later, my being a 'do-nothing,' but it explains what she did next."

"What did she do?"

"I got a second filly-friend."

"Um." I scooted the chair away enough to look at him, gauging the non sequitur. "Um."

He snorted. "I've thought, what, eighteen years, about how I would relate this story were I to get the chance. Good start?"

"Yeah. Great, actually."

"The peerage send their spoiled bad-attitude foals to guard school to straighten them out; counterproductive for me. Instead, she sent me to Horseshoe Bay to apprentice under Duke Vigilant."

That had to be the story Proper Step related yesterday, before we'd found the prince had disappeared into town.

"I hadn't been elevated to a prince, yet. I was simply Celestia's nephew, with a now-meaningless pre-war title and no domain. Learning to administer a duchy under a stallion who actually commanded a small navy against pirates must have seemed like a good idea."

"It wasn't?" He didn't look at me. I scooted closer until we touched.

"Oh, it was wonderful in a way nowhere close to what Auntie intended."

"Your filly-friend?"

"Dancing Water. Not like Sharp Tongue in the least. Sometimes shy, often coquettish, but nevertheless able to draw out anypony into conversation. True to her name, she loved to dance, to prance, to be physical with energy that often defied gravity. Touchy-feely. Everypony wanted to help her. She ran the duchy's charities, often working with foals, orphans, and grade-schoolers, with a demeanor perfect for the job."

"Older than you?"

"Like you, again, mature beyond her years, when you got glimpses beyond her ebullience. Talented. She had a smile for a cutie mark. We were the same age. She liked the way I looked."

"Most mares would."

"Not you?" he asked, his mood lifted. He smiled at me.

"I didn't say that!"

"Ha ha! Dancing Water put my strength and magic to work moving boxes, building things, hustling deliveries and messages around."

"I can't see you doing menial labor."

"You said, and I quote, 'Underestimate me at your peril.' We are both good actors."

"This may be true." I nodded, grinning.

"It's absolutely true. You know why I wear my masks?"

"Princess Mi Amoré Cadenza?"

He nodded, but looked away. "After Sharp Tongue, my life became shades of grey. My heart remained stone despite surviving what came next. Regardless, Dancing Water cultivated me as a friend. I had thought I had loved Sharp Tongue. But, she was dusky grey shadows verses bright autumn leaves. Maybe it was that this is a much happier world than the one I grew up in. Dancing Water enchanted me."

I remembered the single frosty word Moon Dancer had used at lunch today; dread settled down around me. She had said, Windigoes.

Instead, I stated, "You fell in love."

"She had a fiancé, for a marriage arranged when she was 5 years old, to somepony in Trottingham she had met twice. A marriage of families, an alliance between naval powers. That Celestia had been integral to helping make the match happen only made it worse. I learned quickly what everypony in Horseshoe Bay knew, and worked hard to remain just friends, not to become overly affectionate, complementary, or doting. I was perfectly all right with stepping back, despite my feelings. A warrior understands sacrifice. She was a spring rose always in bloom. We had become friends and almost always together; I didn't suffer much.

"Dancing Water hated the stepping back part. For a week, she wouldn't see me. She'd rush out of work when I'd arrive. She'd slam doors in my face. It took that long, I found out, for her to build her courage. You, Starlight Glimmer, were not the first mare to perfect that swoop into a kiss ambush maneuver, but she certainly did not stop after the kiss until she got everything she wanted, neither would she let me go afterwards.

"Duchess Calms Seas figured out why we started acting so strangely a week after that, before her husband did. Dancing Water and I ran away together, with the help of the duchess. Between my resemblance to the princess and her rather unique mane color, we were bound to be noticed even in a small town in middle Equestria. We got six months to live together. We made friends, even set a date for our wedding, but it wasn't meant to be. Duke Vigilant proved an unrelenting unforgiving stallion. He returned me to my aunt with broken bones and a warning to keep me away from the duchy or I'd merit much worse."

Proper Step had related the Prince had broken something or somepony.

Blueblood blew air through his nostrils in a deprecating snort. "I was the no-good nephew of Princess Celestia, not even a modern prince. She might be an absolute ruler, but she still has to deal with politics. Everything got hushed up."

"A lot happens we don't know about."

He huffed. "You stood up in Day Court and blurted out where Celestia went and why—!" His breath caught. I didn't miss him blinking back incipient tears. "You are not my foal, and barely my student, but, by Celestia's grace, you made me proud. If I spoke publicly about half what I learned, she'd make me a warden in Tartarus!"

"You are a professional information broker."

"It's a hobby, and I require information in exchange because I don't need to earn a living. I do it because somepony has to get the truth out, to keep Celestia in check. She often acts strangely—"

I nodded, but the why was a state secret: Curses.

"—and I've experienced the fallout from her bad decisions."

He laid his head on the table with a thunk.

I said, "As have I."

His muzzle pointed toward the silver orange juice tray from this morning. I saw a bottle of port and a square crystal decanter of something brown. He looked too wrung out to move. When I pointed, he nodded. I poured a small glass of whisky. Because it seemed unfriendly not to share when somepony commiserated, I poured myself a thimble of the port.

I thought about his words, about his hobby. Of course, the princess knew what he did. I'd wager he got fed propaganda and didn't know it. I said, "We are more alike than I thought." We're both her sharp tools.

He clinked his glass against mine. "How so?"

"We both ran away."

"We did, didn't we? And got caught."

"And got beat up for our troubles."

"Did you have to remind me?"

He sipped the drink. I tasted mine. Black currants? I smiled.

He smiled at me, sitting back up.

I thought about what Sunset had said earlier. When your stallion always has some other mare on his tongue, you realize he's probably not fully into you. Besides the very unfortunate but perfect double entendres, it reminded me that yesterday evening I had already dragged the prince from Sapphire's and maybe he had poured me a drink at his townhouse. Remembering what followed made me smile. I downed the dram of port unthinkingly. I coughed, which got him to look at me.

The prince had loved and lost.

Twice.

In comparison, I was... What was I?

It wasn't the port that warmed my throat that made me do it. I can't blame that small amount for me saying, "It's not like I'm planning on marrying you."

He set his glass down, causing the liquor to swirl. He blinked a few times, then picked it up and downed the contents, which gave him a reason to look distressed, which was probably why he did it. I laughed into a hoof.

I reiterated, "I'm sleeping over. You deserve to have a third filly-friend. It's not like a lot of ponies in Canterlot don't think I'm riding you already."

"After this afternoon?" He snorted. "You exaggerate."

Did he forget the kiss that made my tail lift, or that it led to a meal by candelabra-light? We hadn't been alone on that street. Gossip traveled fast in Canterlot. I bet the kitchen staff discussed our companionable meal even now. Or, what about his hooves all over me as he helped me stretch? Had I been a stallion, no problem. No escaping I was a mare; being collegiate is easy to misconstrue as strategically friendly. I laughed and shook my head.

He could not have forgotten last night.

"Okay," he admitted, "I can see that a juicy rumor could spread. I think we are old enough to weather it."

"Speak for yourself, Your Royal Ancient History-ness."

"Really!" He stood. "No way I look old!"

I reared on my chair so I could quickly match his height, aiming my lips for his.

He caught me in his magic. "Nah, uh, uh. You don't get to get away with that twice," he taunted.

He magicked us together. Whisky and pony is an unexpectedly delightful taste.

Regardless, when he gave me a moment to breathe, I asked, "Does this mean I can sleep over?"

He kissed me again, snorting with laughter.

Author's Note:

If you noticed discrepancies, you may be right. Please comment under a spoiler tag to let the non-cognoscenti the chance to figure it out.

Comments

[Danger Noodle]

All kinds of discrepancies. Discrepancies everywhere! And I'm not talking about the obvious changelings. Blueblood here mentions living in place that would be in the Everfree Forest, during a time of chaos. The chaos would the "Discordian Era," or whatever you decide to call it for your story. He's either really old, or full of horse piss. Possibly both.

[scifipony]

11818984
I will neither confirm nor deny what mysteries you have either deciphered or detected. Remember that the story takes place 600 days prior to the first episode of the series and you know things from the series nopony could know at this time, including Starlight.. Thanks for commenting, I find it insightful.