Twilight Sparkle sat surrounded by books. Such a state was not unusual for her, but she was still surrounded by genealogy references, and scrolls with entire family trees sketched out on them. Sighing with satisfaction as she made another small annotation on the most recent scroll she had been working on, Twilight levitated the book over to a stack nearly twice her own height of books that she had read in the course of her research.
“Hi, Twilight!” cried Pinkie Pie, emerging out of an impossible space on a book shelf as Twilight Passed by.
“Waah!” cried Twilight, as she stumbled backwards, her back hoof tripping over the beginning of another stack of books, sending the alicorn rolling end over end into another and already unstable stack of books, causing them to fall on her.
“Pinkie? I thought that you were out with Applejack, discovering all about your relationship with the Apples?”
“Oh, I was, but then I thought that if I had so much fun finding out my possibly maybe family that I never knew I had, then maybe there’s all sorts of other fun things in these scrolls, and maybe I can help some other pony find some family they never knew they had!” Twilight blinked for a few seconds as she processed the flood of sugar and information that was Pinkie Pie’s sentence.
“So, you want to help me with my research, then?”
“Sure!” chirped Pinkie Pie, “just nothing too boring!” Twilight resisted the urge to slap a hoof against her forehead, but then she had an idea.
“Pinkie, if you promise to be very careful, I think I may have just the thing for you,” Twilight’s horn lit up, pulling a glass case containing six stacked scrolls out from where it had been resting behind several stacks of books and scrolls on her desk, “This is from the Canterlot Archives. Pri-Celestia managed to get me permission to have it for a week, so you have to pinkie promise that you won’t damage it at all, okay?”
“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” said Pinkie, going through the motions of the promise. Satisfied, Twilight deposited the case in front of Pinkie.
“This is the best guess that Canterlot genealogists have as to the blood lines and descendants of the Founders of Equestria. Why don’t you take a look through it and see what you can find, Pinkie? You might be interested in Chancellor Puddinghead’s line-I know you always enjoy playing that part in the Hearth’s Warming play. Who knows what you might find?”
“Okie dokie lokie, Twilight!” said Pinkie Pie, bouncing off to a corner of the library floor that wasn’t covered in books, and settling down with the preserved scrolls. Pinkie opened the case with almost agonising slowness, but Twilight had made her promise to be careful with this. Once the cover was off, with equal care, pinkie began to unroll the first scroll that she touched, revealing the title at the top to be ‘The Lineage of Smart Cookie’. Being slightly curious, Pinkie Pie opened the scroll, and began to read.
Two minutes later, she found out that Smart Cookie had no siblings, and had died without even having a special somepony, and thus, there was no continuation to her line. Bored, Pinkie Pie moved onto the second scroll, which turned out to be, of all things, Clover the Clever’s family tree. Pinkie warred with herself for a minute. Clover the Clever was a unicorn, and while Pinkie held no personal bias against unicorns or their families, she was more interested in what Chancellor Puddinghead’s family tree was like. But Twilight’s third most favourite pony ever, aside from Princess Celestia and Starswirl the Beardy was Clover the clever. Probably because both Twilight and Clover were both smartypants unicorns. Not that Pinkie disliked them, no.
Still, her eventual curiosity into one of Twilight’s favourite ponies ever won out, and she unrolled the scroll gingerly, and was greeted with the header ‘The Lineage of Clover Belle, The Clever’, and pinkie tapped her hoof against her chin, wondering why the name sounded so familiar. Eventually, Pinkie gave up wondering; the answer would come sooner or later. They always did to her. Still, her right front knee was wobbling, and that always meant that something interesting was going to happen, and so Pinkie Pie read on through the line of Clover the Clever.
Twilight looked over at Pinkie Pie, her face twisting into a mask of confusion. It wasn’t like Pinkie to be as absorbed in anything that was a pure mental exercise. It was not that Twilight considered Pinkie stupid, just far too energetic to spend any serious length of time studying an ancient scroll preserved for over a thousand years. As such, Twilight was doubly confused when a smile began to creep its way across Pinkie’s face, spreading wider and wider. Surely, Pinkie could not be so enjoyed about what she was reading. Even twilight found genealogy texts rather dry and uninteresting, so for Pinkie to be smiling like she had just been given a new pony to throw parties for was disturbing Twilight somewhat.
Abruptly, Pinkie jumped up from her prone position, carefully restacked the genealogy scrolls for the Founders, covered it over again, and made for the door of the library before Twilight could question what her friend was doing.
“Hey, Twilight, was Pinkie Pie here?”
“Yes, Spike, she was. She just left. Probably remembered a party she had to plan or it’s just Pinkie being Pinkie again. Now, can you fetch me the books on the Founding of Ponyville? There’s a few facts that I need to cross-reference in there.”
“Sure, Twilight,” said Spike, walking off to find the books that Twilight had asked him to.
*****
Pinkie Pie rushed down the street faster than she ever had before. This was big! No, it was extra-super-special big! She needed a party for this, it was so big! Pinkie Pie couldn’t keep the news in, but she knew that she had to. At least until she reached Carousel Boutique, at least. Then she could tell Rarity, and then they’d both be happy, and then Pinkie could throw her a giant party! However, in her increasingly chaotic thoughts, Pinkie had forgotten to watch where she was going, and slammed right into Rarity’s front door, causing a loud thud to echo through the house, and Pinkie’s head.
After peeling herself off the door, Pinkie immediately began knocking as fast as she could.
“Rarity, Rarity, come quick! I’ve got something really really reeeally important to tell you!” Eventually, Rarity opened the door, the handle encased in a soft blue glow of magic.
“Pinkie, whatever this is had best be important. I was in the middle of lunch with my parents, you know,” declared Rarity, before leaning in quickly and whispering “Thank you, you may have saved me from a terribly awkward lunch, Pinkie.”
“Ooh, It’s really important. Like, really, really important! Equestria-shatteringly important!”
“Really, now?” said Rarity, raising one eyebrow, knowing full well that Pinkie Pie had a different scale of ‘importance’ than literally everypony else alive, “Then do tell me this terribly important thing.”
“Okay, so I was at the library, and Twilight was all like ‘do you want to help me with my genealogy research?’ and I was like ‘okay, but nothing boring’, and then twilight was all ‘these scrolls are all about the founders’, and I was reading the one about Clover the Clever, because Twilight talks about her a lot, and I wanted to know if there were any great great great times a million grandkids that I could introduce to Twilight, but then I saw that Clover the Clever’s last name was Belle, and that her family tree leads directly to your grandparents, and THEN I saw that Clover the Clever was the sister of Princess Platinum, and so I realised that I’ve never given you a ‘Hey, you’re actually a Royal Pony!’ party, and so I came over here to tell you about it!”
Rarity stared at Pinkie Pie, slack jawed as her brain attempted to process the sheer stream of words that Pinkie had thrown at her. Finally, the crux of what her friend had said sunk in.
“I’m ROYALTY!?”
“Yepperooni!” said Pinkie Pie, “See, because Clover the Clever and Princess Platinum were sisters, they were both royal, but Princess Platinum’s line died out four hundred years later, and so the only ponies left with any royal blood from that age are the Belle family, which stretches as a single unbroken line of unicorns all the way from you and Sweetie Belle back to Clover the Clever! Neat, isn’t it? Now, when do you want that ‘I’m Royalty’ party?”
Rarity, by this point, had simply given up, and had collapsed backwards with a giant grin frozen on her face, and Rarity’s parents came to investigate. Upon seeing their eldest daughter lying prone on the ground, face frozen in a smile, Rarity’s father immediately asked the obvious and important question.
“What on earth happened here?”
Pinkie Pie, though, was in no mood for exposition: her mind was now fully in Party Mode, and she was planning what would be the most extravagant, royalistic party that had ever been thrown! Pinkie Pie gasped.
“I’ve never thrown a party for royalty before! Well, I guess I have, but I didn’t know back then, or I’d have made everything different! What I need is somepony who would know how royalty would act, like a prince or princess...I’ve got it! Prince Blueblood!” and with that declaration, Pinkie dashed off, heading for the train station, leaving a very confused family in her wake.
*****
Prince Blueblood was sitting down to a pleasant luncheon when his butler strode into the room.
“Sir, there is a rather excitable earth pony here to see you. Should I escort her in?”
Blueblood considered the matter for all of two seconds before giving his reply.
“Nay. Please tell her that if she wants to see me, she simply must make an appointment. I do not have so much free time as to waste it all on the commoners, Sea Crest,” said Blueblood, turning back to his meal.
“As you wish, sir,” stated Sea Crest the butler, trotting out of the room to inform the hopeful visitor. He was back not less than a minute later.
“Sir, about that earth pony mare...”
“Has she still not gone away, Crest? Tell her that I am currently occupied with important affairs of state, and that if she needs to see me, to make an appointment no less than two weeks in advance,” said Blueblood, not deigning to even glance at the butler this time. The butler simply sighed, and moved back out to the entrance hall.
“Sir? That Earth mare?”
“Has she left? I do not have time for any petty requests of commoners today!”
“Sir, she’s sitting next to you,” explained Sea Crest, rubbing the bridge of his muzzle, “And for the life of me, sir, I do not know how she got in.” Blueblood turned, and suddenly there was pink filling his vision.
“Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie! I’ve just got a couple of tiny teeny questions for you.”
“Do something about her, Sea Crest! She’s too close!”
Sea Crest began attempting to pull Pinkie away from his employer, but quickly found out that if Pinkie Pie didn’t want anything to happen to her, it wasn’t going to happen. While Sea Crest grabbed and fumbled in Pinkie Pie’s wake, Pinkie managed to get her first question out.
“What kind of party would you guys throw for pony royalty?” Blueblood blinked. As far as he was aware, there had been no knew ponies born into any of the known royal lines, so why this absurd pony would be asking was beyond him.
“Sea Crest, let the mare be,” said Blueblood, and the butler let out a gasp of exhaustion. Blueblood turned to face Pinkie Pie, who was still awaiting his answer.
“And why do you want to know?”
“Oh, I have this friend, who’s totally obsessed with royalty, and she wants to be a princess, and...” Blueblood managed to interject at this point.
“I believe that I know the rest. Now, what you should do, is this: you need to instil the proper atmosphere in the event...” as Blueblood explained the full proper protocol for a party suitable for royalty, Pinkie nodded, and generally made noises of assent, even as the smile began to fall from her face as she began to realise what, exactly was involved with such an event, all the while, Blueblood was putting together his own plans. This would show the ponies of Canterlot who refused to listen to him.
*****
Rarity stood among the crowds at the event. After a long, arduous talk with Twilight, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna and her parents, Rarity, Sweetie Belle and Pinkie Pie had eventually agreed that this relation needed to be kept secret. Still, it didn’t mean that she couldn’t have some fun with it now and again, remembered Rarity, with a giggle to herself, as Blueblood took to the stage that had been set up.
“My fellow ponies,” he began, in his most regal tone of voice, “it has come to my attention that there is another potential royal in our midst. I would invite him or her to come and join me on this stage, such that we might all recognise them and give them the respect that they deserve.” There was a sense of anticipation in the air, as the room buzzed with small talk, and Rarity slipped through the crowd to stand next to Fancy Pants and his wife, Fleur de Lis.
“Well,” began Rarity, “If this isn’t a cry out for attention, I don’t know what is.”
“Indeed. I have never seen Prince Blueblood do anything like this before. I do believe that he is desperate.” As always, Rarity’s and Fancy Pants’ words were at just the right volume to be casually overheard by the ponies near them, and from there, the gossip flowed through the crowd. With a few more carefully worded comments, Ponies began to leave, until there was only Blueblood left alone, on the stage.
“I do almost feel sorry for that,” muttered Rarity, “almost. Would you two like to join me for dinner? My treat.”
“A thought had just occurred to me, Miss Rarity,” said Fancy Pants, “that if this supposed royal did not want to be discovered, he or she would disrupt any event announcing them.”
“Are you implying what I think you are, Fancy?” for a reply, the unicorn simply nodded, and rarity laughed.
“Me, royalty? Fancy Pants, you flatter me! I am just a dressmaker from Ponyville with dreams bigger than my shop. Nothing more.”
Author's Note
Written for the EqD writing prompt for Episode 9:
The prompt: While helping Twilight Sparkle with her genealogical research, Pinkie discovers another surprising familial connection. Pinkie heads out to investigate.
