The Myth of Blueblood

The tightly packed dark green leaves formed hedges. Blueblood pressed his hoof to them to no effect. He gritted his teeth. He had walked hours and hours, surely, yet he had not arrived anywhere, nor remet his path preserved in the gravel.

He punched the hedge to no effect. That wretch had not lied. There would be no cheating this maze. He even entertained for a moment her suggestion of the presence of the Discord in these obstacles. No! He must banish such thoughts from his mind. Superstitions are for the common crowd who need an excuse for their inabilities. He, if no one else, could make sense of this maze.

Besides, he would never willingly admit, he probably could not retrace his steps.

He looked skyward. The sun had barely moved since he started. Had it no concept of time? He had been in this maze for what seemed hours. He moved his view back in front of him. He wiped his brow with his hoof (even the greatest of us sweat). He considered a most alarming possibility. Oh, but such a thing would be impossible. He was fool for even contemplating such an absurd notion. So you see, the reason he looked behind himself was out of no lingering belief. No, no, of course not. It was just to confirm how stu- momentarily mistaken he had been.

His jaw fell down, pulling his eyes wide. No! No! No! That was not possible. He had walked for hours (or half an hour at least). He had taken twists and turns in countless numbers. It was impossible that the entrance was right there only a few metres behind.

He ran. His hooves beat against the gravel, creating clouds at each impact. He kept running with closed eyes. He would get somewhere. He would not stop.

His head hit a concrete hardness. Shockwaves pierced him from the base of his horn to the soles of his hooves. He opened his eyes and looked back. No! That was impossible. He beat at the hedge with his fore hooves. He would not allow flora to beat him.

Give! Give, you impudent leaves!

His horn lit up and no sooner had its light enwrapped a leaf than it was plucked. He plucked and plucked until there was a small pile of green at his hooves. No effect. No indent. He pushed himself. His horn’s shine doubled in intensity. Sweat dripped from his brow. The light grabbed dozens of leaves at once and tore them off. More and more leaves fell from the hedge. He only stopped when the pile hit his chin.

The hedge was the same, no indent, no sign of any action at all. The pile in front of him was evidence of nothing. It sat there and mocked him. He lifted his hoof above his head, about to bring it down and scatter the mound. But his exertion caught up with him.

The leaves broke his fall.

It was getting dark. She should probably have thought this through better. Oh yes, she was glad of her freedom. But now she was alone in a foreign city with only a map that still said the street she was in was a colosseum.

If she had remained with Blueblood she may have been allowed admittance to the Palace. She contented herself by knowing that it would have been unlikely. She should have asked that charming stranger some more questions. Questions like: Is there an inn? Is there work? Do I have to pay gold or beans? Yes, hindsight is twenty-twenty.

She arrived at the shopping district (shopkeepers would have to speak to her). All the way to the horizon she could see glitzy, expensive shops who each in an attempt to standout contributed to a garish mishmash of aesthetic themes and styles. They seemed to sell everything from books to antique xylophones. Through the store windows she could make out a definite philosophy of decadence over practicality. Even the day old bread was gilded.

It was just her luck that she arrived when they were all closed. Correction: It was just her luck that she arrived when they were all closing. She had not missed this chance to gather information by hours, nor even by one hour. That would have been far less frustrating and she probably could have blamed it on Blueblood. No, if she had just walked a tiny bit faster she would have arrived in time.

She groaned.

The sun had set but the street lamps lit her path with orange light. Her shadow shifted and twisted beneath her; the dancing flames never letting it keep the same shape. The cold feel of smooth, unevenly set stone bricks on her hooves brought a small smile to her face. She had long since tired of dirt and dust.

She traversed an upward slope, ignoring the stores on either side. Their extravagant window displays would only mock her poverty. She kept her eyes on the ground, focusing on the sound of her hooves hitting stone. The constant beat was strangely soothing.

She could wait until morning. In the worst case the inns (if she was lucky enough to find any) would be locked for night. But that did not matter for she had no money anyway. She had slept on the ground before. She could only sleep on the ground before. Should she truly need sleep the almost clean stones were a relative step up from her usual conditions.  And besides, what would she have slept on if she had remained with him?

Yes, her situation was not that bad all things considered.

Her horn hit a concrete hardness. Her nerves buzzed. She should have kept her eyes forward. She turned left, with her eyes up, and put one hoof forward. It tripped on something. Her chin banged on the ground, leaving her with a dull throb. She hastened herself to her hooves, quite glad that no one would have seen that. She looked to the object of her annoyance. Her eyes widened and their brows rose. There was a giant pink candle on the ground.

She looked up. The building was half complete. The walls were all solid as well as the roof but the decorations were, at this moment, hollow wooden frames. It was all lumps and loops that for the life of her she could not figure out. At the top she saw the outline of what looked like a very squat mushroom.

She noticed there was something hanging directly above her, over the door. The shape would symbolise a wide bottle’s silhouette if not for the colourful illustration of a cupcake with spotty pink icing. Below it, printed in black ink and swirling script, was:

Sugarcube

Corner

Open All Night All Year

A bare faced lie, Rarity thought, it’s not a corner: it’s between two buildings twice its size.

…

Wait, what!

Open All Night All Year

Yes! Yes! Yes! Finally, yes! For once her luck prevailed. Behind that door was someone to speak to, someone with information.

Bells jangled as the door opened. Inside it was dark, more so than outside. The curtains were drawn. The lamp light did not get past the welcome mat. She stepped inside.

“Hello?” She trotted forward. Her eyes were adjusting. She could make out a counter a metre or two in front. “Hello?” Perhaps the sign was premature. The place was half-made, after all. The lights were off. Maybe the owners thought ponies could infer. Well, one last time. “Hello-o?”

Nothing. Of course. Why would a pitch dark store be open? She would just leave and maybe come back in the morning.

The door slammed. Her coat spiked.

“Hello?” She edged forward, each step took minutes. “Hello?” There was a crash at her foot. She gasped before realising she had pushed over some poorly placed tins. This was foolish, she thought, the door probably closed because of the wind and even if it was somepony it would be the owner, sneaking so as to corner this thief. In either case she need not be so skittish. In the latter it would only serve to add suspicion. “Hello? If there is someone there, know that I am not a burglar.” Which, upon hearing, was not all that reassuring. “I will leave.”

She turned to the door and trotted. Her posture was straight. Her pace was slow. She was halfway. She felt a tug on her tail. She nearly choked on air.

Oh,no. Oh, no. Oh,no. Her neck rotated back. Her mane style obstructed her view until her neck could turn no more.

Glowing. The teeth were glowing. A green glowing grin stared at her. She heard her heart beat like running hooves. It felt like a hot day. Her coat was damp with sweat.

The teeth separated. “Hi!”

The ground broke her fall.

His vision was blurry. He seemed to be lying down on his back. His coat was suffused with dried sweat. He tried to speak. The inside of his mouth was cold and parched. He grunted. It felt like knives had been dragged on his oesophagus. He coughed.

Napalm in his throat! That woke him up.

He attempted to roll onto his hooves only to fall off the bench that he was apparently lying on. His weight landed on his ribs. He groaned while steadily attempting to get to his hooves; an effort more demanding than expected. His knees gave out the first two tries.

He stood as tall as he could, his legs failing not to wobble. He put one lead-weight of a hoof forward. His body fell likewise.

“Buck!” Under the circumstances the profanities of commoners were acceptable.

The events that led him to this awkward and painful position returned to him. He scanned the area. He was still in the maze but no longer on a path. He was in a three by three metre square court. Hedges bordered the area, broken up by a single opening to a path on each side. He could see the Palace looming outside of the maze; fifteen stories judging by the number of balconies.

In the centre of the court there was a fountain whose upward pointing jet was enwrapped by a stone statue. Even with his primarily Zebrican-based mythological education he could tell from its mismatched limbs, horns and its fur-coated snake-like torso that it was the Discord. The jet used the deity's seemingly singing mouth as an opening. It spurted water to no rhythm, stopping and starting constantly.

Buck, his limbs hurt! Artistic appreciation could distract him no longer. He had to admit to himself (and to himself alone) that he exerted himself a bit too much. “Although, of course, it is perfectly understandable,” his ego explained. “I am royalty. Physical work is for the peasants,” it would continue. “If I wasted time training those skills I would not be able to do… whatever ever royals do- Ah! Lead, that’s it.” And he could not very well lead with his face in the dirt. So he would raise himself… when he felt like it.

And he would have done it, you know; had a purple glow not done it for him.

To his left, seemingly from nowhere, emerged a unicorn mare, slightly smiling with wide eyes. She had a purple coat and a blackish-blue mane and tail with single pink and indigo streaks running through them. Around her, suspended by the same glow as him, were: an open notebook; a black quill, slightly whitened at the feather tip; a rolled up scroll; a pair of pruning shears; and a basket covered by a white blanket.

She trotted to the fountain, opened her scroll, examined it, closed it again and continued to the other side of the court. As she did so he took a good look at her cutie mark: one star overlapping another while being surrounded five smaller ones. She stopped a few steps from the hedge.

He spoke up, “My dear mare.” The objects around her shuffled until all were pushed back spare the shears. “My. Dear. Mare.” Within the hedge emanated a slight glow. “My! Dear! Mare!” The glow grew clearer as it pulled out, and continued to pull out, a segment of a vine. He tried and failed to muster up the magic to throw some gravel at her. “What the dark stripes are you doing?!”

“Picking flowers,” she said, not looking at him.

He looked around before settling back on her. “What flowers?”

A vine pile, equating a length of fifteen feet, amassed at her hooves before she stopped. The vine’s purple glow contracted and centred on a growth.

“These flowers.” She moved it to his line of site. It was bright yellow and looked like a combination of a torch and a smashed hourglass. “They only grow inside the hedges; the ones near the centre of the maze.” She pulled it back in front of her, readying her shears. They severed it and placed it in the basket. She brought her scroll and quill forward, opening the former and making a tick with the latter. With an up-beat “hm” she spun towards the scowling stallion. “You know, you shouldn’t be running in the maze. It won’t get you anywhere.”

“Then would you be willing to tell how, by chance, I and you ended up here… my dear mare?”

“I teleported. It’s the only way to get to the centre.”  She pointed behind her at the Palace. “I was on my balcony when I saw you passed out.” Lowering her hoof she continued, “I already scheduled a visit to the maze to collect some samples.” The basket floated forward. Its blanket moved back to reveal an assortment of abominations. “I figured I may as well help you as well. I brought you here to keep an eye on you. You wouldn’t have needed a doctor but I gave you some minor medical magic.”

There was something wrong with that explanation. He replayed it in his head, re-examining each syllable. The effort was becoming too much for him so- Ah! “‘Your balcony’?”

It took her a few moments to understand his non sequitur. “Oh, that,” she laughed. “I live in the Palace.”

Lived in the Palace? He wracked his brain considering why such a common looking pony would live in the castle. “Ah, you must be one of the help.” She meant to say the servants’ quarters’ balcony. Yes, yes, that was it.

“Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m Princess Celestia’s apprentice.”

“Appre… Wha-” Her cutie mark did not suggest anything about royalty… which meant a lowly commoner was the Princess’s apprentice. A peasant was on speaking terms with the Princess. Such a suggestion should be inconceivable. “I- I think, my dear mare, you may be slightly conf-”

Alarm bells shattered his sentence. The basket was shaking furiously before a clock was yanked out of it, scattering some ‘flowers’ on the ground. “Oh, no, no, no!” she was nearly hyperventilating as she looked at the time. The unfurling scroll shot to the front. Her wide, panicked eyes darted up and down the sheet before settling. “I’m late!” Light burst from her, covering the entire court instantaneously. He was almost blinded. But the time was past to shut his eyes. He was somewhere else.

He was on a balcony, looking down at a maze. He looked further and before him was the city he had, the last day, been walking.

Items thumped to the floor as a door slammed behind him. The purple glow around him vanished. His legs gave out.

She was on a bed. She was covered to her neck. She opened her eyes to a blurry world. Colour began to return. She could see white walls, a brown floor and for some reason a pink-

“Hi! I’m Pinkie we met last night I said ’hi!’ then too I was smiling I like smiling but you probably don’t because you were lik-“

The words went in and out of Rarity’s mind as soon as they were spoken. From the pink mare’s rapid series of facial expressions Rarity assumed it was some horrid illness. Despite her politest and then bluntest attempts she was unable to drive a wedge into that wall of sound.

There was a stuffed alligator on the floor by the bed. Her blue magic grabbed it and proceeded to shove it in the pink pony’s rapidly moving mouth…  That shut her up, even if it did cause the stuffed alligator to scream. Wait, what?

“Gummie!” The pony tore the alligator from her mouth and hugged it to her chest. She seemed to be suffocating it. “Gummie are you alright?” she squeezed it twice, each time forcing more and more air out of it. “Gummie! Don’t worry I won’t let you go until you’re better.”

Rarity had joked about it before but she had known zebras who sampled a bit too much of the shaman’s mix. Most of the time they just became emotional or punchy… or emotional and then punchy. She was dispirited to realise the windows were closed and the door was on the other side of the room. She edged back as far she could on the bed, pressing her back against the bed frame. She would have remained perpetually silent but the sight of the poor alligator… “I think you are hurting it.”

In a snap the pink pony’s eyes locked on Rarity. They were wide open like the alligator’s but they never blinked. Her entire body seemed frozen.

It spoke, “You’re not a morning pony.”

“E-excuse me?”

“I mean no pony ever made me bite Gummie in the morning.” She released ‘Gummie’ who gasped for air before falling off the bed. “But then no pony makes me eat Gummie in the day either-” she resumed blinking “-which means you’re not just not a morning pony you’re not a day pony either which means you’re a night pony like Nasfoalatu and Dracolta except you’re a filly and that would be silly-” She stopped. A second passed. Rarity considered speaking but- “I’m sorry I don’t normally talk this much I mean a lot of ponies tell me I talk a lot but I don’t talk this much it’s because when I get really excited I get really, really, really super-uppity-can-do but Mr and Mrs Cake say I’m not allowed to jump around inside the new store but being inside the new store makes me really, really excited so I thought about what I could do instead of jumping so I decided to make cupcakes with glow in the dark icing but then I found you and I got even more excited because I hadn’t met you before so excited that I couldn't make cupcakes anymore so talking was what was le-”

“Shut up!” Rarity almost regretted saying it but she could not stand that barrage of inanity. She waited to see if the pony would attack. She continued, “Wh-who would you be?”

The pink pony’s smile widened. “I’m Pinkie Pie, I’m th-”

“Where am I?”

“You’re in Sugarcube Corner where I-”

“Why am I here?”

Pinkie was beginning to realise that her old enemy, conciseness, was best here. “Fainted.”

Rarity took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She dredged up last night’s events and was struck by the image of- “Green teeth,” she said

Pinkie tilted her head. “What? Oh! The glow in the dark icing always stains my teeth.”

Rarity exhaled and looked at the ceiling. Ok, it was a misunderstanding. This ‘Pinkie’ probably was not a serial killer. She was just… eccentric. She had been kind enough not to push Rarity’s fainted form onto the streets. She had even given up her bed. “Oh, I am so sorry!” Rarity fumbled with the sheets, trying to get off the bed. “I must have been a terrible inconvenience to you.”

“Don’t worry,” Pinkie said, pushing Rarity down. Her smile seemed warmer somehow. “I don’t sleep much anyway.”

Rarity could only stare at that smile. It was not a smile of victory, contempt or satisfaction. It was a smile directed at her. She felt invaded. “Uh… Well, I believe I should be leaving.”

“Where’re you going?” What an odd tone. She had been asked that question before but it was always an accusation.

“Um…” Finding a place for the night was now second priority. “I will be looking for work.”

“What kind of work?”

Rarity considered her skill set. “I am not sure- but I am certain I will find something.”

“Where will you sleep?”

“A-an inn, of course.” She felt slightly violated.

“Do you have any money?”

“N-no, not exactly.”

“What if you don’t find work?” Dark stripes! She asks a lot of questions.

She tensed. It felt like the pony was touching her. “I… don’t know.”

Pinkie looked like she would shoot through the ceiling. Her smile widened even more. “You can work here!”

No, no she could not; she would not. It was a kind offer but she knew nothing of baking. And this pony was making her feel really uncomfortable. She resolved to her answer, which was: No, I am afraid that is not an option for me.

“Yes, I would like that.”