Redeeming Blueblood
"...plus a six-pony crew to cart in the plaster and marble for the repairs. Moving onto the damages to the terrace gardens caused by the animal stampede..."
Princess Celestia stifled a yawn and shifted into a better position on her throne as she listened to her major-domo drone on about the costs of fixing the damages of the last night's Grand Galloping Gala. Most of the time, she appreciated Rose Quartz's exhaustive attention to detail - it was why she had picked the pink unicorn mare among dozens of applicants, after all - but right now it was merely... well, exhausting.
Celestia's gambit in inviting her protégé Twilight Sparkle, and Twilight's circle of friends, to the Gala had worked perfectly. She had hoped they would enliven what had long ago turned into what was quite likely the most boring party in Equestria, and the young ponies had not just risen to her expectations, but exceeded them. It had definitely been the most eventful Gala in history!
After the shocking and unexpected early end of the Gala, Celestia had spent the rest of the night with Twilight and her friends. With Spike giving the girls from Ponyville an insider's tour of some of the most interesting parts of Canterlot, she had finally had the time to simply talk with her student... Or, more precisely, listen as Twilight talked about her studies, her life in Ponyville, her friends and the adventures they'd had together. It was remarkable how much the young unicorn had matured. She was still bookish, introverted and no-nonsense pony, but her budding arrogance had been toned down, her social skills were flourishing, and she now understood and appreciated the importance of friends.
All in all, it had been a good night for Celestia, and the Princess had ended up pulling her first all-nighter in ages. In fact, she'd been so distracted that she had been eighteen minutes late with the sunrise! Luna had covered her up by throwing a reversed sunset onto the eastern sky until she had brought the sun up properly, but knowing her sister Celestia expected to be periodically reminded of this irresponsibility for the next couple of centuries. The only comfort was that Twilight had been too sleepy by the time to notice the astronomical irregularity.
The white alicorn blinked; had Rose asked her something? She'd finished her litany of repairs and renovations the last night had incurred on the palace, and was now looking at Celestia with an expectant look on her face, a quill pen hovering over her day planner.
"Thank you, Rose. That sounds good to me; you may proceed as you see fit," Celestia said.
Rose sighed. "Your Highness, have you been listening to anything I've been saying for the last five minutes? Because if you have, I am very surprised that you would authorize me to use fifty million bits to have my likeness carved into the side of Mount Destrier."
Celestia blinked again. Then she burst out laughing. "Actually, I haven't, Rose. I'm sorry, my thoughts were elsewhere. Could you give me an executive summary of the pertinent matters? I trust you to handle the details, as always."
The major-domo nodded and launched into a condensed recap of her report. This time, Celestia listened attentively, asking for elaboration in a few places but overall agreeing with her. The only thing she added was a bonus for the orchestra in the Western Ballroom. They'd definitely deserved it, if only for playing along with Pinkie Pie's idea for a party!
Her business finished, Rose Quartz bowed to the Princess and walked briskly away, her quill flying over her planner. Somewhat to her surprise, Celestia heard the approaching hoofsteps of another pony. It was her chamberlain, Red Tape, looking somewhat awkward.
"Good morning, Tape. Is there something wrong?" she asked the stallion, curious and a little alarmed. On a normal morning, he would be bringing in the list of ponies requesting audience with her, but it was a long-standing tradition in Canterlot that there were no audiences on the day after the Gala. It couldn't be any of the normal kinds of emergencies, either, as those would have taken precedence over the major-domo's report.
"Ah, not exactly, Your Highness," he said, his red face turning a deeper shade of crimson from embarrassment. "It's just that there are, ah, six requests for audience with you. First is Lady Silverhoof, who wishes to..."
"She does not receive an audience," Celestia said and yawned, openly this time. "She wishes to complain about me inviting 'rabble' to the Gala, and about the chaos they caused. I expect the other requests are the same?" Red Tape nodded. "None of them receive an audience with me. They can request one tomorrow, but you may inform them, unofficially of course, that I will not look favorably on any cosseted thoroughbred who has the temerity to complain about my choice of guests at the Gala."
"Yes, Your Highness," Red Tape said, a brief expression of satisfaction flickering across his face. Like so many other ponies in the upper class of Canterlot, the chamberlain was a stickler for propriety and tradition, but he extended it to cover his own class. Bucking centuries of tradition because of a ruined gala dress or something as frivolous was not something he would countenance! "However, your nephew Prince Blueblood also requests an audience," he continued carefully.
"Ah. I... see," Celestia said. There was a pregnant pause. Then she closed her eyes and sighed. "I will receive him in the small audience chamber in the Tower of Dawn at half past ten, and eat a brunch with him on the balcony."
- - -
The Tower of Dawn was one of the numerous spires of the palace, a tall, slim column of white marble delicately veined with pale pink. Situated in the northeastern corner of the castle grounds, overhanging the sheer drop down to the valley floor three thousand feet below, it gave a wonderful view of the morning sky and of the central Equestria spreading to the east of the mountains.
It was one of Celestia's favorite places, especially on such fine days of early summer as this, but today the grand view gave her no joy or comfort. The princess lay on the sky-blue divan in the audience room, a pensive expression on her face as she listened to the faint clinks of china and crystal from the balcony, where the castle maidservants were setting the table for her and Blueblood.
In her heart of hearts, Celestia knew that this had been coming for a long time now. She had been hearing complaints and grumbling about the young unicorn stallion's behavior from a variety of ponies over the years, but she had put them out of her mind. Between her governmental duties, her mentoring of Twilight Sparkle, and her secret preparations for the return of the Nightmare Moon, the Princess had had her hooves more than full.
Even after the Nightmare Moon crisis had passed, with Luna returned to sanity and Twilight moving away from Canterlot to continue her studies independently in Ponyville, Celestia had ignored the issue of her nephew. Only after hearing Rarity's account of her time with him last night, backed up by two other friends of Twilight, Pinkie Pie and Applejack, had the Princess admitted it to herself that she couldn't put things off any more.
Celestia sighed. Blueblood had been such a promising colt: gallant, cheerful and interested in the ponies around him! She recalled the first time they had met, the little white unicorn foal approaching his towering "aunt" on shaky legs but without fear, while his parents watched with pride. Somewhere between that day and the Gala, everything had gone wrong, leading to the Blueblood of today: a vain, selfish and pompous fop.
The Princess had to admit that part of the blame lied squarely at her hooves. She should have paid more attention to Blueblood as he was growing up, but she had trusted Blueblood's parents, Prince Astron and his wife Noblesse, to raise their son properly.
The two of them were some of the finest, most honorable and dutiful members of Equestria's thoroughbred nobility, both having held important positions in the Cabinet and Parliament. Ironically, it was this very sense of duty that had made them take on more and more work as Celestia's attention was distracted by her student Twilight and her plans for saving Luna from the Nightmare, and caused them to neglect their son.
Celestia drew a deep breath. What had happened, had happened. In the course of her long, long life, the white alicorn had learned that there was no point in dwelling upon past mistakes. You admitted them, made restitutions as best as you could, tried to learn what there was to be learned from them and moved on. She would have to do what she could for Blueblood now.
Hearing hoofsteps from the anteroom, she sat up straighter, letting her mane fly in the solar wind. One of her charcoal-colored unicorn bodyguards stepped into sight and bowed briskly at her. "His Grace Prince Blueblood is here to see Your Highness."
"Let him in," Celestia ordered. The guard bowed again and backed away, ushering Blueblood into the chamber. At the first glance, he looked the same as ever: a tall, strongly built young unicorn stallion with finely groomed alabaster-white coat, carefully styled amber mane and cyan blue eyes. Somewhat unusually for him, he was wearing neither dress collar nor the elaborate cuffs currently in fashion among the stallions of the court, with only a simple golden torc around his neck.
"Good morning, Auntie Celestia," he said with a deferential bow.
"Good morning, my dear nephew," Celestia replied. Of course he wasn't literally her nephew; it was just a traditional form of address, based on the ancient polite fiction that had counted Celestia's foals from her occasional affairs as her "nephews" and "nieces". She had given up such dalliances centuries ago, but the tradition remained, as did the courtesy title of Prince or Princess for the members of certain noble families that could claim direct descent from her. "Please, join me for a brunch on the balcony. We can discuss your business with me while we eat."
Celestia noticed Blueblood's momentary hesitation when he saw the food spread out on the table. She had made a special request for simple, "rustic" courses: clover and crass sandwiches on rye bread, oatmeal, toast with honey and wild strawberry jam, and so on. The centerpiece was a big silver bowl full of fruit - plums, pears, cherries... and apples.
"So, Blueblood my dear, how was the Gala for you this year?" the Princess asked as she levitated the teapot over and began to pour herself a cup.
The stallion twitched, almost dropping the honeyed toast onto the tablecloth. In the bright morning light, Celestia could see that his eyes were red-rimmed, with a hint of puffiness in the lids. Either he, too, had skipped sleeping, or...?
"It was awful, Auntie," he said in a plaintive voice. "I've never been so humiliated in my life!"
Celestia took a sip of tea before speaking. "Oh dear. Will you tell me about it?" she asked, her voice so full of compassion and gentle curiosity that it would have melted the heart of a gorgon. A more observant, or less self-centered, pony would have noticed the discrepancy between the honeyed voice and the sharp scrutiny in Celestia's eyes, but Blueblood was too focused on the memory of his humiliation.
"It all started very promising, as I met this beautiful white unicorn mare in the garden; I think she was called Curiosity-"
"Rarity, my dear," Celestia said mildly.
"As you wish, Auntie. Now, she was quite fetching, but obviously not from Canterlot; I think she was some kind of a businesspony who'd wrangled an invitation from one of your secretaries. Definitely not a noble, I could tell! In any case, I allowed her to accompany me, thinking that she'd be overjoyed by being seen in my company."
Blueblood paused for a moment to eat his toast. Finishing it, he picked up one of the sandwiches and continued, between bites, with his take of what had happened at the Gala.
"Unfortunately, this Rarity turned out to be a rather clingy and self-centered mare. She kept turning the discussion back onto herself all the time, and I soon realized that she had designs for me! Now, it's natural that the poor mare would be smitten with me, but she obviously had no idea of propriety. As if I would court a commoner, even a beautiful one, particularly at your Gala, Auntie Celestia!"
Celestia hid the disbelieving twitch of her ears by picking up an apple - one of the rare survivors from Applejack's stand, in fact - and beginning to slice it up in mid-air with invisible planes of magical force. Was Blueblood truly so self-deluded that he thought she would approve of his snobbish treatment of any pony, let alone a close friend of her student and the bearer of Element of Generosity?
The unicorn's eyes widened a little as he noticed the apple. "Oh, that reminds me... She then corralled me onto one of the side terraces and tried to make me buy her an apple treat from some bumpkin who had set up a stand there. As if a noblepony such as myself would carry cash, or eat such common fare! Not that there's anything wrong with eating apples, of course," he continued with a hasty and apologetic look at Celestia who was daintily eating pieces of the apple she'd carved up. "But it's a different thing in public, when one's supposed to show example for the less refined ponies, as I'm sure you understand, Auntie."
"Yes, I understand you perfectly, my dear Blueblood," Celestia said, her voice as warm as the summer sun. "Please continue. I'm truly interested in hearing the rest of your account!" It was clear to her by now that Blueblood's atrocious behavior had not stemmed from malice, as she had privately feared, but quite simply from overweening vanity and a misunderstanding of the meaning of nobility.
"As I tried to shake her off, without success I'm sorry to say, we found ourselves in the Western Ballroom - the one with those columns and the wonderful statue of you, Auntie - and that's when it happened! Somepony flung a cake right at me! Only my quick reflexes saved me, but that clingy mare was not so lucky. And then, then..."
Amazed, Celestia watched as Blueblood's lower lip quavered and a few tears appeared in his eyes. That explained his puffy eyelids, then.
"She... she insulted me, saying that I was uncharming and not worth to be a royal, and called me a royal pain! And she knocked me down and splattered cake all over me! It completely ruined my best evening jacket!" Blueblood swallowed hard. "And, and then the columns fell over and this rainbow-maned pegasus broke that statue of you, Auntie. It was awful!"
Celestia nodded. She had been entertaining the idea of giving Rainbow Dash some kind of an award for her part in destroying that particular pompous eyesore, and Blueblood's account just made her more determined to do it. "I... see. It does sound that you had a distressing night, nephew. But tell me, Blueblood... What did you wish to discuss with me? Were you hoping that I would punish the ponies who so impudently ruined your great night?" Her voice was still silky soft, but there was now steel in her gaze as she awaited his reply.
"Oh, no, Auntie!" Blueblood said, looking and sounding genuinely shocked. "That would be beneath me! As a thoroughbred and a member of the Royal family, I have to rise above this kind of a thing!"
"I'm glad to hear that," Celestia said. Her relief was genuine: Blueblood, as much as he was a pompous, snobbish fool, was clearly not yet a lost cause. That old core of gallantry was still there in him, like embers smoldering in ashes. She could work with that. "What is it then, my dear nephew?" she asked, picking another apple and levitating it towards her muzzle.
"I... Uh... I was hoping that you would...," Blueblood said, sounding suddenly rather uncertain of himself. He busied himself for a moment with spreading jam over another piece of toast and taking a tiny nibble from one corner. "That is, Mother and Father... They have not said anything, but..." He looked suddenly up at Celestia, a pleading look in his cyan eyes. "I mean, it's preposterous! I'm not like that, am I, Aunt Celestia?"
Only the thousands of years of practice in self-control kept the grin from Celestia's face. Rarity must have been the first pony in ages to challenge Blueblood's noble self-image, and oh, how it had stung him, sending him back to his "auntie" for validation.
"I can see how somepony could come to such a conclusion, Blueblood," she said calmly and took a bite out of the hovering fruit. The shock in the unicorn's eyes told that her words had stung, too. Good.
"Auntie Celestia! You can't mean that," he protested. "Everypony I know agrees that I'm the very model of a noblepony, unmatched by any other stallion in style, grace and nobility!"
"I have no doubt of that," Celestia said, suppressing a shudder as she thought of the herd of spoiled young nobles, rakes and sycophants that Blueblood tended to associate with. Getting him away from them would be the first step in reclaiming him. "But what about the ponies who do not know you? You cannot merely tell them of your good qualities and expect them to believe you, dear nephew. No, you have to demonstrate your nobility by deeds, like the unicorn knights of old, so that everypony can see it. Perhaps you could take up your father's seat on the Royal Commission for Charity," she suggested smoothly. "Poor Astron is up to his withers in work, you know."
Blueblood's eyes had lit up at the word "knight", but now his expression turned uncomfortable. "Ah... I will consider that," he said. "But I was thinking more of something..." He hesitated, trying to come up with a way of saying 'more adventurous and glamorous and fun' without actually using those words. "Something to take me out of Canterlot," he finished lamely.
Celestia smiled at him. "I'm sure something like that can be arranged," she said sweetly, her mind racing ahead as she thought of all the dozens of ways she could shake him up a little. She'd ask Luna to drop a meteorite somewhere into the Northshires, and send Blueblood find it: a relatively simple but fun task, with nothing really important at stake, but which would let him meet ordinary, hard-working ponies and get his hooves dirty for a while. She poured herself another cup of tea.
"Tell me, Blueblood... have you ever seen a fallen star?"