The thing he lacked

by WiseFireCracker

The pony that ought to keep his mouth shut (or not)

“Captain, I have received alarming news!” A young pegasus ran up to Cloudy Sky.

“Yes?” The captain frowned, prepared to the worst.

“Nopony has the slightest idea where the prince is. He hasn’t been sighted this morning. The mayor said he left the town hall late in the night yesterday after gracing the welcoming committee with his presence.”

Captain Cloudy Sky barely suppressed a groan of annoyance, with the help of his years of service under some ponies that really did not know their jobs.

It was a shame that it was royalty that provoked this kind of sentiment more often than not these days.

“Send three of your best ponies on the case. With any luck, this is just a case of miscommunication.” Brought by the noble drinking himself stupid and forgetting he was not in Canterlot. Most likely, he would be discovered nursing a hangover in some bushes near the town.

Just as he contemplated the thought, the pegasus felt a shiver go down his spine.

If he was wrong… he would have to announce to Celestia that her favorite nephew had gone missing under his watch.

Blueblood had fallen into an odd silence the moment his eyes had been covered by the piece of fabric. The complete darkness, already strong in the poorly lit tunnels, had considerably dimmed his fighting spirit. Shameful as it was to admit it, for all his talents, he truly could not practice magic blinded. There was nowhere for him to focus his magic if he tried and, well, that tended to result in magical bursts. Those were usually exactly as dangerous as their name implied.

No, the only thing he could do was keep his mouth shut, which was easy considering his new and improved gag, and find any hint that could help him out of this situation.

Or he could always wait for the rescue team that was sure to come looking for him as soon as his disappearance was noticed.

“I thought you had targeted a mare…” A new voice, most likely that of ‘the partner’, rang to Blueblood’s ears.

“Yes,” the griffon agreed, with a tone that made Blueblood wonder if he was not laughing internally. “This one almost literally stumbled into our paws and, frankly, I believe he would earn you more money than any small town’s mare.”

Rightfully so, he mentally huffed… before remembering exactly what was being discussed here. The unicorn even surprised himself wishing that he wasn’t so perfect for once.

Oh woe is him.

The other slave trader hummed thoughtfully, the crescendo of which told Blueblood that he was moving closer, presumably to examine him.
Seconds later, a hoof was pressed against his side. On reflex, he jolted away from the contact, muffling through the gag.

The grunt’s hold simply tightened to the point he could not move at all.

Blueblood stiffened as the hoof touched his side again and seethed internally. How dare that criminal presume the right to touch his coat?!

…WAS HE LAUGHING?!

Indeed, a quiet chuckle could be heard in the otherwise silent tunnel.

“Would you look at that? You guys kidnapped Prince Blueblood!”

His heart jumped in his chest. He had been recognized! If they had half the sense of a normal pony, then they’d keep him locked away, to be freed against a ransom. If they had the sense of a normal pony, he’d be kept in a cell befitting a noble of his standing. It would be dreadful, but at least he would not be sold into SLAVERY!

…It then dawned upon him, to his ever growing despair, that he had been kidnapped by some diamond dogs and a griffon.

To his greater shock, that savage’s reaction was less than barbaric. “T-the prince of the unicorns?” He asked with a hint of fear.

“Oh? Anything wrong, Grayden?”

Silence followed and, for a few agonizing seconds, Blueblood was completely lost, unable to see anything and stuck in a monster’s grip.

“Nothing!” The griffon replied irritably, with a tone that he recognized as hiding a wounded pride.

He knew all about that tone…

“Good.” The mysterious partner chuckled again. “I know it’s stupid, but, for a second, I imagined you were scared of Celestia’s retaliation.”

Gone was the suave voice from before. The griffon spoke with hissed words laced with pure venom. “Yes. It was indeed very stupid.”

The bound stallion presumed the surrounding shuffling noises around him were the diamond gods shifting nervously on their feet. Surely, they hadn’t expected their prisoner to be that important, nor that their boss would butt head so strongly with his business partner.

“Great. If we let him go, he’d snitch on our little arrangement and Celestia would crush us all like bugs.” He pressed his hoof down on Blueblood’s face, with enough force to make it painful. “I know his type. He’d beg for mercy, promise on the name of his parents, his love for Equestria and his honor, but as soon as you’d turn your back… he will make you pay everything he went through, to the slightest of offense against his so precious person.”

…Blueblood had nothing to say to that. He would have. Without hesitation. They deserved it.

“Besides,” the pony – it had to be one! – continued on a lighter tone, “I doubt a single one of our clients would recognize him or care about his previous identity. No, they will only see the muscles, the stature and the magic.”

Even here, the prince could not help that small bubble of satisfaction growing in his chest with every praise.

His kidnapper apparently noticed, by the change in his body language. It made him snicker, creating the most grating sound Blueblood had heard up to this day and he had heard many mares start wailing uncontrollably when he fired them for their incompetence.

“Are you for real, my prince? Do you really have that big of an ego?” Then the voice lost all appearances of friendliness, growing harsh and cold. “Of course you do! You’re royalty!”

The following hit had Blueblood’s head spinning, completely disorientated.

“Don’t let your bad habit get to you, Rock Carrier,” the griffon – Grayden apparently – hissed. “We got a good pony to sell, but he’ll lose value if you let lose like the last time we got our claws on nobleponies.”

The white stallion really wished he could see what was going on, because he was getting scared out of his mind. That Rock Carrier seemed even worse than the savages and knowing he was at his mercy had him shivering in fear.

“Oh, what’s wrong, my prince? You seem to be shaking,” Rock Carrier chuckled.

There was a ruffle of feathers and some suddenly worried mumbling by the diamond dogs.

“Enough of this,” Grayden ordered. By the sound of his voice, Blueblood did not doubt that he was pissed off. “You have deemed him good enough; now let’s get to the auction before it ends. We have been delayed too much already.”

Rock Carrier did not protest.

With a military efficiency, the group of slavers started moving again – with much more harmony than what Blueblood would have ever expected of those savages –, deeper into the tunnels that hid them from the watchful eyes of Celestia and Luna.

Numb to the cold that was creeping to his bones, the captured prisoner could only wonder what would become of him, alone with brutes that made Lady… Rarity positively charming.

If he ever got out of this mess, he would send her a cake to apologize…

Why did he not think of ‘when’ he was going to get out of this mess?

Oh Celestia…

“He’s… he’s nowhere to be found, Captain.”

That was it, he was doomed. He would never need to ask Princess Luna how lovely the weather on the moon was. He’d experience it firsthoof.

“I… see…” Captain Cloudy Sky made good effort not to let his inner turmoil filter through his poker face. He was captain and it would be a shame for a stallion such as him to show worry. “Keep searching, put another two ponies on that team. Let Lieutenant Grey Bark know that he is in charge of the operation until my return.”

“Where are you going, sir?” The pegasus asked.

Cloudy Sky grimaced before answering.

“Explain my failure to the Princesses.”

He could hear voices, none of them similar to those of his kidnappers.

For a moment, he briefly wondered if he had gone mad, but his pride refused to accept such weakness on his part. It had to be something else.

At this distance (how long had they been walking so far?), it was nothing more than indistinct rumble. This alone reminded Blueblood of the countless sportive events he had attended, as a spectator, of course. The sheer excitement in the voices had him shivering even worse than his Aunt Luna on a bad night.

To make matters worse, Rock Carrier started to whistle nonchalantly.

The combination of the two noises created a disturbingly eerie atmosphere that had the prince wishing for this to just be a bad dream and wake up in his comfortable bed in Canterlot.

What was his aunt thinking, sending him out there?! He had had a perfect life before this all started going downhill in that ‘charmingly rustic’ Tartarus on Equestria that was Hoofywoods! Oh, he had gone through terrible events, such as the last Grand Galloping Gala and that visit at the Rainbow Factory in Cloudsdale, but there was a fine matter of scale at play here!

The voices were becoming more distinct now, enough that he could pick up some words. They gave him the chills.

Nothing like “I hope they brought better stock than that stupid family from the last auction” to make your blood turn to ice in horror and give you a good whiplash of adrenaline.

His survival instincts were going into overloard already, but Blueblood just happened to catch this little gem: “Indeed, I need a new slave for my mine. That last one died of asphyxiation”.

His heart leaped in his throat at that. A growing nausea was threatening to overwhelm him.

It might just save him too. If they thought he was a sick stallion, he might not be bought.

But what would Rock Carrier do if he could not get a profit out of him? The images that came to mind were rather off-putting and, frankly, flat out terrifying.

“What do you think, my prince?” Said stallion asked, his breath brushing against the prince’s neck. “Refined, are they not?”

‘BARBARIC BASTARDS! That’s what they are, every single one of them!’

And again came that hateful sound Rock Carrier produced that was supposed to be a laugh. “Reminds me of you, my prince.”
‘How dare he?! How dare he compare me to those… those…?!’

His train of thought was cut off though, by a powerful hit to the chest from the grunt that was carrying him.

“Good boy,” his captor said. “We better make sure the prince is presentable for our clients, right? It won’t do if he tries to fight back too much while he is being groomed.”

…Why did he have the feeling Rock Carrier had meant that as a callback to… something?

Against all odds, it seemed that the grooming really did not involve anything other than that. Oh, it was rightfully awful, obviously done by complete amateurs, not an ounce of finesse, but when his expectations had at least involved a solid underserved hit, it was a nice reprieve.

It was also too suspicious. Those ruffians could not simply have suddenly gained some decency and learnt to show him the respect he was due; they were too brutish to ever understand that. No, he suspected that it simply meant something horrible that he could not see right then.

Blueblood was still blindfolded; he could not see a thing. Yet his other senses could tell him that they never left him with no less than three ‘bodyguards’ at all times. At no point in time did Grayden or Rock Carrier return after leading him to this damp place. They were most likely appealing to whoever was the auction’s owner.

This place… The second he got free, this place would burn for the atrocities it helped perpetrate. No amount of begging would let them get away after incurring his auntie’s wrath. It. Would. Burn.

Thinking of his aunt had lifted his heart. It reminded him that everything would be fine. It couldn’t have been more than a day since his kidnapping. With the fastest courier, it still would take another day for a letter to reach Princess Celestia, but once it would…

Eh, he would be free in no time.

Of course, this also meant that he would need to suffer another day at the hands of those brutes. That perspective was simply awful, but there truly was nothing a gentlecolt like him could do about it.

‘Patience’, the prince repeated in his head. ‘All will be fine in due time. Think of it like that time you got lost in the grand maze in the gardens…’

…Now that he thought about it, Blueblood could not remember what had happened in that maze. He remembered getting lost and earning his cutie mark, but the rest was too hazy…

Movements alerted him. He tensed his legs, fighting the reflex to run. It was the smarter move. He had no idea where he was or even where the exit was.

It took all his regal patience not to yell at the ruffian that dared slap his flank.

“Move along, little pony, it’ll be your turn soon.”

Already?! Wasn’t that… premature? He was royalty after all; shouldn’t they keep him for last? If he had to participate in this shameful display, it should at least be in a manner that would leave no doubt about his true place in this world, barbarians be damned.

From afar, he could tell that he was not the only one unpleased by the arrangement… for completely different reasons.

“I’m telling you, Carrier. We should have bargained for a better ranking. Three of my compatriots have already left after they made their purchases.” Grayden’s voice was harsher than ever, though it hid a hint of worry.

“Well, if they had so little money to spend, then it was not worth showing them in the first place,” his conspirator smoothly replied.

“And those already spent some of that money we could have gotten!”

Blueblood heard a snort, whom, no doubt, had been from Rock Carrier. This behavior was getting worrying. Either that pony was suicidal or he was perfectly able to deal with a griffon and, maybe, half a dozen diamond dogs and their grunts.

By himself.

The prince fought the urge to show his nervousness by loudly swallowing what little saliva he had left. If they knew he was afraid… well, he did not know what they would do, but being barbarians, it would be something bad.

Someone yanked on his chains, pulling him forward. It was so sudden that Blueblood nearly tripped over his own hooves and the noble swore he would get a stiff neck after that (those monsters!).

“WE SAID ‘MOVE’!” Oh, the temper of those dogs was not getting better anytime soon.

Deprived of his sight, he dared not fight back more than with a sneer, through his gag anyway. Nopony noticed. Probably.

He let himself be lead on, repeating a mantra of sweet vengeance enacted by his aunts. Just a little more and he’d be saved.

After a few minutes of walking blind, the white stallion could start hearing the voices from before, those of Carrier’s clients. They became more and more distinct, until it was a rumbling noise, surrounding him from all sides.

However, what truly surrounded him was a mockingly enthusiastic voice that seemed to reverberate in the auction room. He winced when it boomed so close to his ears. “AND NOW, LADIES AND GENTLEMALES, OUR NEXT ITEM!”

‘ITEM?!’ He seethed at the insult. He was royalty! ROYALTY!

Sensing his fury, somepony – a griffon from the shape of its paws – had preemptively pushed him onto his knees. That, and the quiet laugher that followed, made his heart burn.

“STRAIGTH FROM OUR RELIABLE ROCK CARRIER AND HIS ASSOCIATE GRAYEN STRONGWINGS, ITEM NUMBER 27!”

…‘Item number 27’?

They… hadn’t mentioned his name or his identity. This was bad.

His face was half covered with fabric, he had been roughly groomed to something much below his standards, his necks and his legs were restrained with steel chains biting into his flesh and he was being forced to kneel in front of them all.

N-nopony would recognize him! How could they when he was such a magnificent stallion all the time? He probably would have screamed in horror if, just a few days ago, he had been shown exactly how low he had fallen!

It was then, amongst the slavers and the bidders, that the prince really started to sweat. What if somepony bought him for manual labor? O-or that horrible pony from before mentioning mines?! His royal status could not protect if nopony knew about it!

For the shortest of seconds, Blueblood wondered if his title was not just words… but he immediately chased that insolent thought away.

No, he had to make them recognize him. He had to teach all those lower-class peasants just who they were trying to put on sale!

“BIDDING WILL START AT FIVE THOUSAND BITS. DO WE HAVE AN OFFER?”

His heart jumped in his chest. That was too fast! Surely there would be a deluge of offers before he could reveal his identity!

…The room stayed shockingly silent.

It made Blueblood forget the mad hammering of his pulse against his temples and the growing pressure of the claw against his back and the tension of his abused ankles. The prince forgot it all in favor of his indignation.

He had never felt so insulted before in his entire life, Grand Galloping Gala included!

He was not good enough?! HIM?!

The unicorn needed not his eyes to see the careful, reserved disdain in the spectators’ gazes. His whole body seemed stuck under their scrutiny and he could easily imagine the look on their faces. Consideration, maybe, not a lot of interest, something akin to boredom for the rest. He had seen that too many times in Canterlot, but thankfully never directed at him.

It hurt his pride all that much more.

Without thinking, Blueblood buckled the griffon holding him, snarling in anger through his gag.

His teeth bit with rarely seen strength directly into the fabric and he shook his head like a mad beast. It was torn to shred within seconds. He spat it out during the next one.

“HOW DARE YOU?!” Blueblood screamed, the Royal Canterlot Voice booming louder than the announcer could cover it up. “YOU BELIEVE YOURSELVES ABOVE ME?! I AM A PRINCE, YOU FILTHY RUFFIANS! I AM MORE THAN YOU COULD EVER HOPE TO BE! YOU WI-”

His rant was cut short by the frighteningly powerful impact of the griffon tackling him to the ground, soon joined by another guard. They wasted no time covering his mouth and stopping him from delivering another outburst. No matter how much he thrashed and roared, Blueblood could not shake them off.

A few meters away, in front of the stage, the audience, whom Blueblood had accurately imagined, now bore much more interest in the seemingly pathetic stallion. Why, while the lone group of diamond dogs had fled in horrified agony at the unbearable yelling, quite a few mercenaries had started discussing among themselves.

“ERR… A-AS I WAS SAYING, BIDDING STARTS AT FIVE THOUSAND BITS, IS THERE ANY TAKER ON THAT OFFER?” The announcer repeated.

A couple of claws were raised in response and Rock Carrier, waiting in the background, had the faintest of smiles.

The bidding started truly when the Windmill Mercenaries started clashing with the Third Wing of the Griffon Revolutionaries’ Organization. Neither seemed willing to back down, if anything, the stallion could make a very good ransom and no one hated profit.

However, the winner of the auction won with her first bid, four times as much as the second highest bid.

“ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND BITS!”

The announcer declared that the bidding was over right then.

Through it, Blueblood had not stopped struggling, coming to hits with the griffin, who seemed ready to forget their contract and finish him off already. However, the next announcement stunned him enough to stop.

“NOW, IF MISS MARE INCOGNITO WOULD COME TO THE BACK TO CLAIM HER SLAVE…”

‘A mare?’ Blueblood blinked.

Comments

[L4]

This is amazing :D

[WiseFireCracker]

1789016 Of course it is, Blueblood is going to go through so much ordeals, you can't even imagine.

[The Great Derpsby]

Possible ways for Captain Cloudy Sky to broach this delicate subject:

"Highness, I'm sorry to report that we... sort of lost your nephew. No wait, not lost, more like, misplaced him. Y'know, like most tools? Lil' 'military versus civil authority' humor? Eh? Eh? Oh dear..."

"Hello princess! Say, do you remember how you sent us to that town where all those ponies kept going missing, and told your nephew to go along with us? Yeah, funny story actually..."

"Isn't it annoying how you have to get some present for your nephew's birthday every year? Well, I've got great news for you..!"

"Viva la revolución!" /starts firing

And, of course:
"He's gone. Deal with it!" /sunglasses

[WiseFireCracker]

1801081

How Celestia would answer:

"Hilarious, Captain. Now, where was that assignment to the Everfree Forest I let lying around?"

"No, I do not remember that, Captain, and neither do you." *Memory Erasing Flash* "It was Luna's idea."

"Isn't it annoying how you have to breath all the time? Well, I have some great news for you..."

"Real cute. Go revolutionize the dungeons."

"Oh, sunglasses. Perfect, you came prepared for your fate." *cue 'TO THE SUUUUUUUUUUN!' joke*

[FashionablyHospitable]

Oh boy.