Ms. Glimmer and the Do-Nothing Prince

by scifipony

29 — Public Nightmares Part III: Love not War

I dropped the orange juice glass. It shattered at my hooves.

My stomach clenched.

The acidic drink surged up my throat.

The chair spun away as I dove off, galloping across the great room toward the bathroom. Mudflats and Singe flung themselves out of my path. I bounced off the metal credenza, the one that had the mirror above it that hid the secret entrance to the prince's gym, bounded off the opposite wall, then slid, brass horseshoes skidding to a stop before the travertine tiled bathroom. My galloping hooves didn't find traction. My legs pumped uselessly for a moment, finding purchase that let me leap forward toward the commode.

I crashed into the side wall, but righted myself with a new set of bruises on my shoulder to add to my impressive collection.

The orange juice, what was left of last night's meal, and what felt like part of my liver, thumped against the porcelain with a splash. My convulsions at least masked the sound of my dead clambering for my attention.

Obliterated rang in my head. That I might again be responsible and powerless triggered the episode because I understood that Celestia had known I'd taken refuge in Baltimare. She had known that the earl she'd manufactured—that the filly who'd run away—had been receiving unconventional training. She could have intervened, which meant she'd approved.

Ponies, dear readers, never trust an absolute ruler. Not even me, now that I'm tainted. Royalty is a bad idea. Assumed royalty—like Carne Asada's, bestowed by force and greedy followers—is just as bad. For all the same reasons.

I was a princess twice, now. Doña Glimmer and the Princess of Marks.

Don't let my irrationality deter you, or maybe it's a good reason to understand. Royalty and cutie marks are a plague on ponydom, which was ultimately why I sat there, hugging cold porcelain and feeling about to die, with my past battering me, on a level wishing I would, could, simply disappear forever.

There came a faint shish and the padded clup-clup of hooves in slippers. A pony breathed. My ears flicked and rotated, ranging, as I stared at the floating polychromic mess. I could have been a bat echolocating. It seemed like the space out of the range of my forward facing eyes turned into a pencil sketch. In grey graphite lines, I saw the tub, the sink, the stacked towels, the hanging sconces, and in it, animated like one of those flip books of index cards I'd once played with before Sunburst got his cutie mark, a stallion approached. I saw a hoof lift and push back limp locks of hair from his face.

Closer.

Closer still...

"Don't touch me," I warned, then convulsed. Bile tastes really bad.

A heavy mass hunkered down. Air circulation changed and I felt warmth.

"I don't deserve to be comforted—"

He huffed. It had to be the prince. Breath ruffled the hair near my ears.

I said,"I'm evil."

A steel grey fluffy-white slipper-encased hoof reached past me and pressed a lever. The sick swirled away. Amidst the liquid rumble, he said, "That was evil. You trying to make everypony nauseous?"

"You arrogant son of a dragon—" My stomach spasmed, and I gulped, swallowing. No way was I going the throw up with him behind me!

A hoof towel, moistened, levitated in blue magic. I'd missed the tap open and close, but I heard it in my memory. The fabric dabbed and wiped my lips, softly. Folded. Dabbed some more.

"Silly filly," he said.

I shook my head. The ringing continued. A recollection replayed of Carne Asada pulling a pine cone out with the claw of her bat wing, followed by a flash and a pop sounding like a piece of green wood in a fireplace, but magnitudes louder. The blue unicorn who had shot at the mob boss—

He whispered, "You are no more evil than Celestia is."

Ghostly memory dissolved in the dissonance. My lip twitched. The fog receded. I reached mentally for the rope dropped to me, looping my fetlock around it. "Th-th-that's a bad choice of simile, Brawler."

"Okay. No more evil than me? Better?"

I started to shiver. His forelegs wrapped around my chest and neck. His body wrapped around me. He hugged me silently, even as I squirmed and pushed away with my legs. He had a mass advantage. Definitely. He had the advantage that I'd wrung myself out, too. He pinned me, and I couldn't find it in myself to struggle.

I let his presence seep in, warming the fog in my mind like morning mist lingering in the trees, evaporating in tendrils and wisps in the newly risen sun. The pressure calmed my heart. The squealing in my ears faded in the distance.

I realized this: I was no longer alone.

My heart expanded. I snapped back to myself. Not alone.

I had friends.

I had somepony who had experienced what I had, who thought unyielding contact radiated that fuzzy nonsense feeling of being protected. He'd saved me

I asked, "Do you have ghosts, too?"

"Of course I do, silly filly. Some nights I see Sharp Tongue at the end of the hall. Her eyes widen seeing me. She shrieks in my head, the way she shrieked that last time I saw her, and runs from me, panicked. She wouldn't let me hold her."

"Are you holding her now?"

"Of course. The both of you, but you figured that out."

I asked, "What did Celestia do to you?"

"My aunt has priorities," he whispered into my ear, before rubbing the side of his head against my cheek. "That's Equestria first. That's Equestria first, last, and always. Individual ponies? Not so much." He took a deep breath. "I'm a pony. My father trained me to deal with crazy, to process irreality with magic, to survive insanity. He made me a weapon to fight the chaos by befriending it. When the dark, pony-twisting humor attacked yet another settlement without warning, Celestia and my father sent me in.

"I wasn't the only arrow in her quiver. My aunts discovered another. Perseverance got them the shot, but I was also in their sights."

"You served to set up the shot. And she took it?"

"They did. I would have, too."

"She saved ponies, but not you?"

"She saved everypony, except me. She saved the entire world from chaos."

"I would have taken the shot."

He hugged me tighter and moisture wet my cheek. I let him, for a long while, but my strength had returned. I gently pushed up.

He yielded, backpedalling because the room, while palatially appointed was nonetheless not that big. Eventually, I stood beside him. When I leaned into him, he reciprocated.

As my heart expanded and my PTSD episode completely evaporated in my growing heat, I said, "I don't mind having been somepony's sharp tool if I wasn't the only one."

He chuckled. "It's what our cutie marks are telling us."

I sensed sarcasm, but said, "Liar," nonetheless.

My ears rotated to our flank. I caught a hoof slide and shot my head around. Pony eyes watched us from the hall. Their owners blinked and scattered instantly. At least one vase of flowers went flying as somepony struck a table.

Brawler's foreleg covered his eyes and he sighed. As we bumped each other turning around, and I worked successfully not to tumble into the tub, he asked, "What triggered your episode?"

"The Golden Stag 'obliterated' a village."

Oh, that was an interesting string of invective! None of the suggested actions particularly refined nor easy for Celestia to accomplish. My snorting laughter, and the sensation of his fur rubbing against mine, caused the sound of ghostly hoof-falls still in my mind to fade away once and for all.

He led down the hall, so it was natural that he saw the anomaly that floated beyond Sunset's ivory tower like the moon on the horizon, but was manifestly not.

"What's a navy frigate doing out there?".