20 paces
Grand Duke, Pathfinder Bullion Lancer Oakheart Blueblood XXII or as he is commonly called, Prince Blueblood stood in the field holding a pistol in his magical grip. He knew it would be starting soon, only twenty paces before he had to turn around and shoot and one of them would die. He began to wonder why, why would he do this, and more importantly how did he get himself into this. He stared at the grass ahead of him, seeing the green and verdant fields that stretched out for miles around him, and as he listened to the sound of the river next to him racing as the water tumbled downstream. It was so loud it was almost deafening and yet all it seemed to do was provide Blueblood with white noise over which to think, something his father, in Tartarus may he rest, had told him to never do.
"If you are ever to duel boy I expect you to at least die with honor" where his father's last words to him before he died in a duel naught but a week later. Blueblood had always found that to be such a tragic irony, and yet here he was repeating his father's mistakes. He remembered his father very well, just as he remembered the beatings he would get every time he disobeyed him even slightly. His father had been from a minor noble house before marrying his mother, Princess Platinum Blueblood XXXI, and he thinks he had always resented that fact. When his mother died he had been the oldest at nine years old, and he remembered that first year and how he would not see his father for weeks at a time leaving him to care for his baby sisters whenever Auntie Tia couldn't be around. He also remembered when his father came back.
His father had always been a cold man, but he had always had a soft spot for his mother because they married for love unlike many nobles in Equestria. However, when he finally returned home, to manage the Blueblood estate that his wife had left for him, the man had changed. At that point, Blueblood stopped referring to him as his father and instead by his family title Lord Oakheart. Lord Oakheart was a changed man and needlessly cruel. For the next six years, he strived to make Blueblood's life a living Tartarus. Blueblood took the brunt of Lord Oakheart's abuse, as whenever Oakheart would try to harm his sisters Blueblood would always find a way to make him madder at him than he was at them. Oakheart would, in those instances normally beat Blueblood with his walking stick until he either got too tired to care about Blueblood's sisters or he had forgotten what he was mad at them for.
This was his life until sixteen when he overheard Lord Oakheart talking with another noble in his study. He talked about Blueblood's oldest sister, still a filly at only twelve, and they discussed prices for her. Blueblood stood and listened by the door as they talked about selling his sister like a griffon would a piece of meat. That analogy was perfect because that was exactly what Lord Oakheart was doing he was going to toss Blueblood's sister to this other noble family who would tear her apart limb from limb like ravenous Griffons. It was then that Blueblood knew what he had to do, and it would be that two nights later, the night before Lord Oakheart was to duel the Lord Sunswirl, Blueblood would put a spell on Lord Oakheart's pistol. He knew Lord Oakheart was a notorious duelist who was said to be unbeatable, so Blueblood weaved a spell to send any bullet fired from that pistol back at the user. It was then, later on, the next evening that his Auntie Tia came to his door and told him that Lord Oakheart had died.
From that moment on Blueblood had vowed to protect his family no matter the cost, and adopted his famed persona, Prince Blueblood, the cruel prince. It was necessary and the only way to keep his family safe, for the more unapproachable he made himself the more his sisters would be protected from the machinations of the other noble houses of Equestria.
As that final thought left Blueblood's head he took his first pace.
Shining Armour remembered how this had all started, at first it was simply that his sister Twilight, on one of her rare visits back home, had asked Blueblood to apologize to Rarity for the way he treated her at the Grand Galloping Gala. That would have been all Shining would have heard had he not found his sister crying in a curled-up ball on the couch. He had known of Blueblood's ways and immediately knew that this was his work, and he had become so furiously angry that he immediately stormed out the door. A dumb decision certainly but one he deemed righteous.
He Raced from their modest home and to Blueblood's Canterlot manor and barged through the great oak doors to find Blueblood in his sitting room with his youngest sister Amethyst. Immediately Amethyst had run out of the room and Blueblood had turned on Shining in a fury. The look in the stallion's eyes had almost made Shining stop, oh Celestia he wished it had, but instead he kept walking until he was face to face with Blueblood. "What in bloody Tartarus are you doing in my home" Blueblood screamed right in Shining's face with the strength of his old drill sergeant.
Shining had screamed back "tell me why the hell my sister just came running home crying you bloody bastard" as he had taken another step toward the prince and put a hoof on his chest accusatorily. For a second they had held each other's gaze and felt a pure rage emanating off each other and for those tense few seconds neither stallion backed down.
Blueblood then knocked Shinings hoof away and said in a dismissive voice "Oh that well the annoying little twit had come asking for an apology" and he scoffed at the word. "So naturally I told the simple little filly that she can take all of her talk about friendship and love and ship it off to a Griffonian slave market and see how long it lasts" on saying this Blueblood's smile, which had been on his face since he pushed off shinings hoof, grew neigh Cheshire as he looked at shining. "Though I'm sure you two know all about that with that whore of a father you have," Blueblood said in a mocking voice dripping with venom as Shining froze "didn't your mother have to save him from the slave markets himself though from what I hear he misses the Griffonian slave pens but I guess that is no surprise once a whore always a whore".
In an instant Shining had done something his mother had told him, warned him, never to do, and pulled out a metal hoof guard from his saddlebag. With it he struck Blueblood across the face "you... you'll take that back you bloody inbred bastard" and with that, the duel had been set.
The time and place were later decided by their respective seconds, Lord Fancy Pants and Lieutenant Dusk, who decided on a large open field at the base of Canterlot mountain. It was a beautiful spring day with Celestia's sun high in the sky as they stood and faced each other. Though Blueblood, in a moment of clarity, had tried to negotiate an end to this duel Shining refused to accept calling Blueblood "a self-righteous and sanctimonious prick" who he expected to, at the very least, "not be a jelly spined coward".
Yet now standing with a pistol in his magical grip and only five more paces to go Shining thought better of the whole situation. His pride and his anger had not let him see reason and now here he was only 5 paces from either killing another pony or dying himself. He had promised himself after the revolt of 994 that he would never kill another pony as long as he lived and yet here he stood.
He still remembered the screams of those ponies, who had rebelled against the crown after years of mismanagement and famine had caused the starvation and poverty of many of them, as he and his fellow solar guard's ponies cut them down. He remembered the feeling of their blood, for it flowed like a river that day, as he broke down in the middle of that battle and simply sat there waiting for death. Yet death never came that day and when he came home he was hailed as the hero who stopped a dangerous group of ponies who had "threatened Equestrian harmony".
Now he stood once again with a pistol in his magical grip as he prayed to every god above and to every spirit he could conjure that they would both miss. He offered a prayer to Celestia for mercy should he somehow kill her favorite nephew and survive. He offered a prayer to Luna to shepherd his soul to the heavens should he die. He even offered a prayer to discord that, by some freak chance of chaotic nature, they both survive this. Yet none of the gods could here and at this moment none of them could interfere for a duel was something so ancient and binding that not even a god could intervene. It was up to the great weavers of destiny, the three gods of fate, who would live to see tomorrow and who would die before saying their last goodbyes.
And so shining walked his next pace.
4
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1
Bang
And the shots were heard across the world as both pistols fired and both seconds watched with bated breath as the bullets traveled through the air as if in slow motion. Yet in reality, it is a mere instant between the bullets being fired and their impacts. In a single second Fancy Pants and Dusk, both knew what had happened as they saw both duelists drop to the ground with heavy thuds.
Dusk was the first to rush into action, a trained combat medic, and rushed over to Shining Armor and knelt beside the Stallion. The instant he saw the wound however he knew that there would be no recovering from this, the bullet had lodged itself right into his chest. Blood was gushing out of the wound and had stained the front of Shining's pure white coat red. The bullet, Dusk could tell instinctively, had hit his heart, and was in that instant he knew that not even the greatest healer could fix his captain, there was only so much magic could do.
As Shining laid there dying he uttered what he was almost sure would be his last words "tell Cadence she wins" with a slight chuckle as he coughed up blood. Dusk almost wanted to hit Shining for that comment at a time like this, this god's damned idiot wouldn't even live to see his wedding day.
Cadence had seen it coming a mile away, though she had been joking at the time, "keep that up and I bet you'll get yourself killed before our wedding, you big dolt". Tears started to dot Shinings coat as Dusk held him, sobbing and cursing to high heaven against whatever cruel gods would wish this fate on such a good pony. Shining Armor would die that bright spring day in the hooves of his best friend on the most beautiful field in all of Equestria.
Yet on the other side of the field Fancy had rushed to Blueblood's side and saw where the bullet had struck the poor stallion. Right under his horn the bullet had struck and dug right into the brain so that, by the time Fancy had reached him, Blueblood was already dead. Fancy held the Prince in his hooves as his own fountain of tears began to flow "No Bluey you were never supposed to die like this".
Fancy took Blueblood's head and pressed it to his chest as he cried a river "Path we were supposed to get married, buy that quaint little cottage you always wanted, this isn't how it was supposed to end"! Fancy's screams of anguish could be heard for smiled as he cried and screamed for the death of his lover. No one would ever know Pathfinder like Fancy had, not even his sisters. They had been each other's rocks, when Fancy had lost his parents at 17 it was Path who consoled him.
The great tragedy of it all was that no one would know Pathfinder for who he really was, only for what he pretended to be. They would remember the cruel womanizing stallion who flaunted his title as a sign that he was better than everyone else, they would remember Prince Blueblood. They would never know of the quiet and sensitive stallion who had constantly worked to protect his sisters while keeping his true self hidden under a great mask of uncaring, the damaged stallion who had never recovered from years of silent abuse, they would never know Pathfinder.
As the two stallions held their now deceased companions and cursed to the heavens with tears flowing down their faces they saw two Alicorns, both looking dire and distressed, as they flew down to the scene of horror. As they saw the scene Celestia's heart almost stopped as she simply fell from the sky. When Luna reached her now disheveled form Celestia only muttered one word "why".