Author's Note
The footnotes are optional, but I recommend opening the footnotes chapter in a new browser tab so you can jump back and forth as you read.
The Rutting Revolution
The shot that sparked the revolution was fired in a rank little tavern in a remote Canterlot alleyway:
"No, thank you," she said.[1]
Blueblood stared at the barmaid, for the first time lifting his eyes to her face. She didn't return the gaze; she was busily collecting mugs from a nearby table and sweeping peanut shells to the floor with a damp washcloth that managed to smell worse than the beer.
"Ex-cuse me?" he said.[3]
She hoisted two trays of glassware and wheeled toward the bar, frowning at him mid-pivot. "Have the drinks gotten to your ears? I said no."
Poncemercy let out a clipped snort of laughter and took another long draught of the bathwater that The Sergeant At Trotaloo sold as beer. "Hard cheese, old chap."
Blueblood set his half-full mug down and drew himself up to his full height. "Now see here, you … you smirksome little trollop. I'll make some allowances for your clearly inferior brain —"
"You do know 'smirksome' isn't a word, right?" she interrupted.
Blueblood narrowed his eyes. "Says who?"
The barmaid got briefly smirksome at that, and pointed at the dictionary on her shapely, toned flanks.[4]
Blueblood huffed. "Irregardless, you're letting your wilfullness override your common sense. The only logical response would have been to fall all over me in gratitude for deigning to find you attractive, seeing as how this is the closest to greatness your dirt-smeared hindquarters will ever get."
She stared across the bar at him as she stacked glasses in the sink, her frown returning. "Listen, prince. I did my best to show you the respect of your station, but logically, I should have thrown you out long before you started insulting me."
"Well! I never." Blueblood looked over to Poncemercy for support, and when the baron gave a properly disdainful glance at the sadly deluded commoner, Blueblood stood, bracing himself on the crooked wooden table. "If you're so eager to wallow in your misery, very well." He smirked self-assuredly. "I'll leave if you can give me one logical reason why I'm not the best stallion to ever walk into your life."
"Because you can't take no for an answer," she said immediately. "Also, you're unattractively drunk, apparently racist, clearly full of yourself, and you mangle Celestia's Equuish in a cringe-inducing manner only achievable by Academy dropouts with pretensions."
"I resemble that indignation, madam —"
"I'm not finished. You seem incapable of looking at me without staring at my hips — maybe that's why you completely ignored my marriage-band. You smell like you urinated on your leg before walking in here.[5] 'Hey, filly, let me give you a personal introduction to my little prince' is the single worst pickup line I've ever heard. And my first impression of you was when you sat down and asked for a mug of, I quote, 'your cheapest, vilest swill.'"
"Well, how else were we to get the proper earth pony experience?" Poncemercy muttered, with Blueblood nodding in support.
The barmaid's frown flattened out and tightened, and she straightened a hoof toward the door. "Let's upgrade that to definitely racist. You have 30 seconds before I call the Guard."
"Hang on!" Blueblood said, spreading his hooves in a placating gesture. It was far better than this insolent peasant deserved, but he was a generous stallion — he knew he was, and sometimes he had to act extra generous because Auntie inevitably misinterpreted his actions in the worst way possible whenever the rabble told jealous lies about him. "I see … clearly we've gotten off on the wrong hoof here." He turned on the old familial charm and smiled, the gleam of his teeth outshining the old and dirty magelights hanging on the walls. "My apologies, my dear, if there have been any … awkward misunderstandings."
She narrowed her eyes, her hoof still pointed at the door.
Blueblood swaggered up to the bar with lit horn, his drink floating behind. He took a large swig — had to project confidence, after all — and leaned in, deigning to rest his elbows on the bar and trying not to think too hard about what sort of messes the typical clientele had left. "I don't think my offer came across quite in the spirit it was intended," he said suavely. "I'm quite a generous pony, you see, but some ponies just don't understand subtlety. So how about this?" He tossed a few coins onto the bar. "There's our tab for the drinks, and —" he loudly clicked another bit down, and scraped it across the polished wood with his hoof — "I'll even double your gratuity if you accept my offer and I'm satisfied with, shall we say, services rendered."
The barmaid blinked several times. She stared down at the coin, opening and closing her mouth.
Blueblood smirked. He had her now. That was the thing about the lower classes; they only understood one language. It was round and shiny, and it was a language he spoke well.
"Well, then," he said, waggling his eyebrows seductively.[6] He glanced back to give a triumphant smile to Poncemercy, then reached for his new conquest —
*WHAM*
The doors burst open and slammed into the walls with such force that curios fell over on their bookshelves. A white unicorn stomped through with the bearing of a warrior, hooves splayed aggressively, back ramrod-straight, fire in his eyes and splinters lodged in the grooves at the tip of his horn. His mane was stained and dripping wet, hastily pulled back from his face to reveal several bruises, including a prominent ring-shaped one around his hornbase. "Auntie!" he thundered, his voice causing the guards to flinch back out of some deep, primal fear.
"No," she said, not even looking up from her paperwork.
"But —"
Slowly, deliberately, her head not moving in the slightest, Celestia set down her quill.
"Right, then," Blueblood mumbled, feeling sweat trickle down his brow. He took one step back, then another. "Bad time."
"For once," she said, still staring pointedly at the desk as she closed her book with agonizing slowness, "you've managed to reach me before news of whatever it was you did to prompt this outburst. So I don't have anything to discuss with you right now, nephew, but I can promise you that we will have words once I've learned the whole story."
"I'll, ah, just be going then."
Celestia's head finally swiveled upward, and her eyes bored straight into his soul.
"… Sorry?" he ventured.
She took in the sight of his bruises and sighed deeply, shaking her head. "Blueblood Napoléon Do," she said, enunciating each word as if she were swinging a linguistic warhammer.[8] "You are supposed to be a prince. For once in your life, act like one."
"— And then Auntie said, 'Oh, my darling Blueblood! I sympathize with your predicate to the utmost degree, but Equestria is so wretched and impure, it would simply burn to the ground if we applied the righteous fire of true justice!'"
Poncemercy shook his head. "Tough beans, old cheese. See, I've been saying that for years, myself."
"And I told her, 'But this, this! It cannot stand! It was assault, Auntie, pure and simple!' And she said, 'But if I tried to arrest her, we'd have an uprising in a minute!'"
"Too true! Filthy rabble, always looking for an excuse to revolt!"
Blueblood stopped and stretched out a kink in his neck underneath the statue of Great-Grandfather Napoléon II.[9] For some reason, when wandering through the Canterlot Statue Gardens, he tended to end up here. He wasn't certain why; he hated that smug son-of-a-timberwolf, hoisting a battle standard and staring implacably out to the horizon, a symbol of the impossible caliber of gallantry Blueblood was supposed to display despite his generation not having a proper war to act heroic in.
"And then she told me to act like a prince! Can you believe the nerve?" Blueblood blurted out, quite before realizing his slip.
Poncemercy blinked. "Dear me. She did?"
"Uhhh … yes! Said she couldn't help, so I'd have to be the one to put the old fear of the royals into the peasantry." Blueblood chuckled uneasily and clopped a hoof against the leg of the statue, wincing as his leg thudded into the solid stone.
"Well," Poncemercy said dubiously, "there's not much of that these days, is there? I mean, I'm a baron myself — long ago that would have meant I was lord and master of the ponies on my land, but today it's just a word to impress the lasses at dinner parties."
"See, there's the problem! Time was, everypony would respect droit du seigneur. Now they claim there's a law against perfectly respectable advances, and smash a mug into your skull the instant you touch them, and then the Guard shrugs and says she was, quote-emquote, 'defending herself'."
"Right! It's an atrocious state, ponies obeying laws instead of lieges."
"Mm-hmm."
"Mm-hmm."
They stared at the statue thoughtfully.
"So what if the law told her I had the right?" Blueblood said.
"I dare say," Poncemercy dared say, "you're on to something."
"I dare say I am."
"Plum pudding, old bean! You suppose that's what Celestia was trying to tell you? You should get a law passed?"
"Not ruddy likely, over her veto," Blueblood muttered darkly. "She's got her precious public image to maintain. Has to side with the riff-raff at every turn."
"Well, with a three-quarters vote in the House of Lords —"
"Hah! Full of quislings. If Auntie said 'jump off a cliff,' we'd find almost half of them at the bottom."
"Hum," Poncemercy said, then, "Hum. Well, there is another way around that veto. A simple majority in the House of Lords could send it to a public vote, and with two-thirds approval —"
"Hah, again! Putting it in the hooves of the rabble themselves? We'd sooner convince Auntie."
"Au contraire." Poncemercy grinned slyly. "Make them think a law benefits them personally, and the commoners will pass any old thing. Do you recall last year's tax reforms? For the price of five bits in every saddlebag, we took that bothersome estate levy off the books entirely."
"True, true. But how could the commoners be convinced that droit du seigneur is to their own benefit?"
Poncemercy thought. "… We could pay the mares for the right?"
Blueblood gasped. "Brilliant, Ponce! Brilliant!"
He smiled modestly. "I try."
Blueblood reared up, resting one hoof against the statue and raising the other in an imitation of his ancestor's heroic pose. For once, he felt that old family greatness stirring deep within him. "I shall introduce the law at once!"
"Marvelous!" Poncemercy said, stamping in approval. "Stars know I'd vote for it if I could!"
Blueblood paused.
"What was that, Ponce?" he asked. "I don't think I quite heard you right."
Poncemercy shrugged. "I said I'd vote for it if I could."
"You sit next to me in the House of Lords."
"I'm a proxy vote for the Baroness, old pudding. Now, I'll pour on the charm, and I'm pretty certain I can talk her into it — but as for the public ballot, all I can do is cheer."
"Ponce, stop not making sense. What's this about not voting?"
"You didn't know?" Poncemercy tilted his head. "No stallion can. Not since old Nappy's day." He patted the statue's hoof.
Blueblood blinked. "I can. Can't I? I vote in the House."
"'Fraid not, old sausage. Technically, you're a proxy for your older sister, only nopony ever mentions her, on account of her …" He cleared his throat uncomfortably and hoofed a vague gesture at his eyes.
"Being relocated to the Ponyville estate because her temperament was too delicate for society life?"
"Yes, that," Poncemercy said with obvious relief. "Normally, it would fall to your younger sister from there, but I imagine her wild adventures must leave her no time for civic duty."
"Actually, she …" Blueblood glanced away uncomfortably. "She abdicationed after a falling-out with mummy. But enough of that. Do you mean to tell me every stallion in Parliament is a proxy?"
"Aside from the occasional foal-less widower."
"What about the public vote?"
"Mares only. No two ways about it."
"No wonder the laws are in such a state!"
"Yes, it's a truly deplorable affair."
Blueblood stood straight, a spark gleaming in his eye, and the revolution ignited.[10]
"Ponce, my lad, we've got to do something about that."
Poncemercy thought. "Pass a law?"
*WHAM*
"Auntie!"
"Still no," she said, scratching out some sums.[11]
He shuffled forward and advanced a trembling hoof. "I — but —"
"Blueblood," she said with what, for Celestia, resembled impatience, "I'm busy."
"Right," he squeaked, backpedaling, closing the doors behind him with a quiet click.
"Auntie won't help," Blueblood said once he had returned to the gardens — where Poncemercy was ambling aimlessly under Napoléon's statue. "Now what?"
"Well, then, we'll have to put a suffrage law to a public vote," Poncemercy declared.
"Where only the mares will vote on it."
"Right."
"That won't work," Blueblood said. "Will it?"
Poncemercy looked around the gardens, then pointed toward an ugly statue of a dragon-thing. "We can find out."
Blueblood glanced over. Some frumpy rural schoolmarm was leading her colts and fillies on a tour, blathering on about Equestrian history.
"Brilliant, Ponce, brilliant." They cantered through the gardens toward the tour group.
"This creature is called a draconequus," the schoolmarm said, pointing toward the ugly statue. "He has the head of a pony and a body made up of all sorts of things. What do you suppose that represents?"
Blueblood strode in front of the class. "The horrifying reality of civic inequalitude!"[12]
"Ineq—" the teacher started as she turned. She blinked, stopped abruptly, and bowed as her face lit up. "Oh my stars! Class, it's Prince Blueblood, one of the four monarchs of Equestria. Everypony say hello to His Highness!"
"Hello, Prince Blueblood," they bowed and chorused.
He waved them back to their hooves, and the teacher gushed, "Thank you for the honor of your presence, Your Highness! My name is Cheerilee, and these children and I are visiting the capital from Ponyville. Would you care to say a few words to them?"
Blueblood smirked. Not only was this commoner being properly deferential, but here was a chance to win the hearts and minds of the next generation.
"You," he pronounced, summoning up his vast rhetoratorical powers and pointing at a fat little colt standing near the back with a vapid expression on his face. "And you." He pointed to the tall, skinny colt next to him. "Were you aware," Blueblood said solemnly, "that when you grow up, you won't be able to vote?"
Scissors-Mark and Snail-Mark looked at each other in unison, then back at him, and nodded. "Uh, yeah," they chorused.
"And what do you think of that?"
They looked at each other again, their movements effortlessly in synch, then back to Blueblood. A smile broke out across their faces. "It's awesome!" the little fat one crowed.
"Er," Blueblood said, "what?"
"We won't ever have to study the ballot measures or listen to the candidate debates, like every mare has to do!" the skinny one said.[13]
"It also means we can't fail civics," the fat one added.
"Miss Cheerilee puts us in Study Hall instead, and we're supposed to read, but mostly we play Game Joy games instead," the skinny one said, oblivious to the tightening of Cheerilee's smile.
Blueblood glanced back at Poncemercy for support, then gave the colts a wide, desperate grin and tried again. "But doesn't it bother you that you're second-class citizens in your own country?"
"Oh, no, we're not second class any more, sir," the fat one said earnestly.
"We graduated to third class last year."
"It only took us three tries plus extra summer tutoring."
Blueblood opened and closed his mouth. Then he did the unthinkable: he looked over at the commoner with a pleading grin.[14]
Cheerilee smiled, nodded and stepped forward. "What he's talking about, class, is an issue of fundamental fairness," she said brightly. "Sometimes, Equestria's laws mean that you can't get what you want. For example, what would happen if you, Scootaloo, got bored with the mayoral elections and wanted to play video games instead? You couldn't. And what if you, Featherweight, wanted to vote? You couldn't. Some ponies think it should work in a different way."
"Well, what if we did want it to be different?" a dwarfish colt lisped in an adorable Bittish accent.
"Then you can work to change the laws!" Cheerilee said. "That's the wonderful thing about our constitution; it's a living document, designed to keep meeting ponies' needs as Equestria learns and grows."
"And we're going to change those laws," Blueblood said, tossing his head back to catch a stray breeze. As his mane billowed out impressively behind him, he could almost feel himself becoming more heroic.
Cheerilee turned to Blueblood and beamed. "It looks like we're seeing civics in action, children! Your Highness, would you tell us more about that process?"
"Why, certainly! You see, it would be of great assistance to have the male vote, as stallions are smart enough to understand the need for a law requiring mares to —"
*WHAM*
A pair of long, toothy jaws crashed through the panel of the basement door, snapping wildly at empty air.
Blueblood screamed like a little filly, in chorus with Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, and Twist. Cheerilee grabbed a nearby cricket bat and slugged the mutant jackalope in the nose. It yelped, and the muzzle retracted, but several more thumps rattled the door in its frame. Cheerilee threw herself against the door, digging her hooves in to brace the flimsy barricade as she scrambled for lumber and nails.
"I blame you for everything!" Cheerilee shouted, as chocolate-coated thunder rolled outside.[15]
"Preposterous! How was I supposed to know the statue would come to life?!" Blueblood shouted back over the wails of the half-dozen children.[16]
"My class would have been scarred for life even without Discord breaking free —" she shouted, but her accusation was interrupted as a hand with bright candy-corn claws thrust in through the gap in the door and grabbed her leg.
That time, everypony screamed.
When the claw was severed from its gooey body in a hail of gumdrops, and Cheerilee had managed to re-seal the basement door, she sagged down against the wall to gasp for breath, glaring rhetorical daggers at him.[17]
"If … we get … out of this … alive, you are in … so much trouble, mister," she said.
"Auntie will never believe you," he sneered.
She clambered painfully to her hooves, looming over him. "Try me, you pompous waste of breath. Try me. Two of the Elements of Harmony graduated from my school, including Honesty, and I'm in a weekly book club with Twilight Sparkle. I think they — and Princess Celestia, with whom they have a personal relationship — will all be interested to know whose frankly sickening ideas awoke an immortal spirit of chaos."
Blueblood was silent for a moment, all color draining from his cheeks, as colts and fillies wailed around him.
"Very well," he said, lowering his voice and standing up to stare eye-to-eye with her. "You leave me no choice, madam. As it so happens, I own the land upon which your schoolhouse is located —"
Cheerilee reached for the cricket bat.
"— And I will donate it to the Ponyville School Board, no strings attached, all taxes paid, in perpetuity," he said, voice rising by half an octave. "Along with a quite generous grant for building repairs and equipment."
Cheerilee rolled the bat in her forehooves thoughtfully. "And a new basement and a printing press. Several of the fillies have been clamoring to start a newspaper."
"Done."
"Also, the grant covers travel and appearance fees for educational guest speakers. At least three per year."
"Appearance fees!?" Blueblood protested, then eyed the bat. He swallowed. "Only if you and your students take responsibility for releasing that … thing."
Her grim expression didn't waver. "Only if your gift's anonymous, so you can't squeeze this for good publicity."
Blueblood gritted his teeth and stuck his foreleg out. Cheerilee, her stare never leaving his eyes, spat on her hooftip and mashed the disgusting mass of saliva between their hooves.
There was silence for a moment, punctuated by what sounded like popcorn artillery firing in the distance.
Diamond Tiara sniffled, then sat up, eyes wide and quivering, smile full of feigned innocence. "What'll you give me not to tell?"[18]
"264 to 1!" Blueblood groused, striking his hoof on the base of Napoléon's statue. "It's simply not fair!"
"I must admit," Poncemercy said, pacing up and down alongside the barricade tape cautioning ponies to stay at least 50 cubits away from the newly re-stoned Discord, "I hadn't expected the bill to die in the House of Lords."
"It's all Auntie's fault," Blueblood muttered. "That Filthy Rich. She must have put him up to it."
"Yes, his speech was rather … unexpectedly fiery, wasn't it?"
"He'd have gotten the right to vote out of the deal. I truly don't understand his umbrage."
"And the right to pay any common mare 30 bits for a rutting, with it legally declared not to be marital unfaithfulness. Really, there was no downside for him."
Blueblood frowned. "Why did he have to take his poor choices out on me? I mean, simply because he had the gall to marry an unlanded wife, there was no call for him to accuse me of turning her into a sell-tail."
Poncemercy tapped his chin. "Do you suppose we should have added an exclusion for married mares?"
"Oh, stars, no. That would have let that barmaid off scot-free."
"Too true, old bagpipe."
They sat in contemplative silence for a moment.
"So how come you didn't vote for it, Ponce?"
Poncemercy shrugged. "I did my best, but you know the missus. Sometimes she just gives you that stare, the one that tells you, 'Every single word you say, starting now, means a week of sleeping out in the yard.' Then she said I was voting no, and that was that."
Blueblood sighed dramatically. "And again it comes down to oppressication! Both you and Lord Rich under a mare's iron hoof … Ah! That's the real problem here, Ponce! We could set everything to rights if it weren't for that silly voting law!"
"Too true!"
"But the House of Lords voted my suffrage bill down."
"264 to 1."
Blueblood turned, walking over to the statue, and put his hooves up on its base. "Well," he said, staring up at Napoléon, "if I can't get a law passed, there's only one thing for it."
"What's that, old chap?"[20]
Blueblood held up a hoof for a moment, then trotted off to his saddlebags, fastening a Guard cloak around his neck as he returned. He waved to a pegasus up above, who sighed and moved a cloud into position, dramatically darkening the garden and stirring up a wind. With cloak and mane blowing behind him, Blueblood signaled for the pegasus to buck a loud roll of thunder out of the cloud, reared back, and pronounced dramatically:
"Revolution."
The echoes of the thunder boomed and settled, casting the garden into ominous silence.
A window slammed open in the distance. "Nephew!" a voice shouted. "We are attempting to sleep! Cease thy harassment of the weather pegasi!"
Blueblood cringed. "Sorry, Aunt Luna!" he shouted.
The window slammed shut.
A surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that were pony only in name, for to the eye and ear they seemed naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate.
But they were his rabble, Blueblood thought proudly. All nine of them, plus Poncemercy.
"Gentlecolt! And non-landed stallions! And … others!" Blueblood shouted, stepping up onto one of the overturned crates that their revolution had liberated from the adjacent farmers' market. "I hereby call to order our First Annual Insurrection And General Upswelling Against The Mareiarchy!"
Poncemercy stomped his hooves enthusiastically. The most attentive of the rabble, an earnest young Guard stallion in full regalia, nodded and scribbled down notes. The others — who had responded to Blueblood's advertisement in the Equestria Daily classifieds — glanced around sleepily, huddling together for warmth in the first chilly light of pre-dawn, their breath steaming in the mountain air. One of the two homeless stallions — who had wandered by and joined in as the revolutionaries were setting up — cleared his throat loudly and picked his nose.[21]
"With this intrepidatious and galleous action," Blueblood continued, "we shall strike a fatal blow against the interstructure of the machinery of the state! And as society crumbles, we stallions — true stallions, manly stallions — will be there to pick up the pieces and guide Equestria into the glorious dawning of a new age!"
The sun gloriously dawned.
Blueblood's rabble cheered and stomped. Even some of the bystanders on the far side of the makeshift wall of boxes applauded.
Blueblood grinned, the warmth of pride filling his heart and surging through his veins. He clambered up onto the barricade. "Now, onward!" he shouted. "To revolution!"
"What do y' mean, onward?" a voice called from behind him.
Blueblood stopped and glanced back, furrowing his brow. "Well, this is where the revolution starts."
"But we already moved all th' boxes, and th' sun rose."
"I thought we were finished, what with the glorious dawning, et cetera," another added.
"Yeah," a bystander called. "This has been kind of cool and all, I mean, I dig the performance art, but can we get through and get our coffee now?"
"No," Blueblood said petulantly. "That's the point."
A collective groan came up from the crowd. The door of the business behind the barricade swung open, with an altogether-too-cheery tinkling of the bell mounted on its frame. "With all due respect, your highness," Pony Joe said, "I'd appreciate it if you could move the boxes before it starts costing me customers."
"No," Blueblood repeated. "That's the point."
Pony Joe's mouth opened and closed. "Your highness … there are two other pastry shops down the block. The only thing your … ah … 'revolution' will accomplish is making my customers walk a few extra steps to them."
"Upon such wheels do the gears of power spin blindly downhill!" Blueblood pronounced to the crowd.
"… It wouldn't help if I asked you to stop not making sense, would it?"
"Spoken like the true machinery of the state," Poncemercy spat.
Blueblood turned around, nearly slipping as the wobbling stack of boxes shifted underhoof. "Look, it's very simple. You serve Shining Armor's favorite coffee. If he can't get it, the Guard falls into chaos, and Auntie's strenuous grip upon the levers of power is revealed for the sham it is."
Pony Joe sighed loudly. "Just so it's clear," he yelled past the barricade, "I am open."
"The revolution does not recognize your business hours!" Blueblood shouted. "Not while Shining Armor is searching for coffee!"
Poncemercy glanced over the boxes. "Speak of the devil," he said, pointing. "There's Old Cap himself."
Shining Armor, eyes squinted closed against the sun, mumbling something unintelligible to himself, tromped heavily down the street toward Pony Joe's, his mane a matted mess and every muscle in his body sagging. He stumbled up to the wall of fruit crates. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed at them with a pastern. Then he regarded the barricade for a moment before lighting his horn with a few quiet invectives. With a flash of light and a soft pew, he disappeared, the accompanying bang of rematerialization coming from within the donut shop.
"I say," Poncemercy said, "that's dirty cricket."
"Hey," Blueblood said, then shouted: "Hey!" Shining Armor ignored him, though several of the pegasi from the surrounding crowd who had flown over the barricade did glance back.
A minute or two later, Shining Armor walked back outside with a spring in his step. His mane had been hastily hoof-smoothed down, he was humming a familiar little ditty, and a cup of steaming coffee floated behind him in his horngrip.
"Morning, Inside Job," Shining Armor said, and the guard who had been taking notes saluted before returning to his feverish scribbling. The captain stopped at the barricade, seeming to notice it for the first time, and then glanced up at Blueblood, his tune faltering, the smile falling away from his muzzle. "Prince. Dare I ask what all this is about?"
"It's our First Annual Revolution Against Auntie, et cetera, et cetera," Blueblood said. "You're not allowed on this side of the barricade."
Shining Armor sighed. Pew-bang. "What's it about this time?" he asked from the street side, in the morose tone of one not being paid nearly enough to do their job.
"Giving stallions the right to vote."
Shining Armor blinked.
"Really?" he asked, some energy returning into his voice.
"Really," Blueblood said, thrusting his chest out. "Do you hear the stallions sing, Captain?" He gestured behind him to where several of the revolutionaries had picked up Shining Armor's earlier ditty, and were humming it while they worked. "It is the song of angry men."
"That's … huh." Shining Armor opened and closed his mouth and tried again. "That's … wow. Really?"
"Really!" Blueblood said, the fires of his righteous cause snuffing out into the familiar, smoldering coals of irritation. Why didn't anypony in the corridors of power take him seriously? "We couldn't get our bill passed in the House of Lords, so we're here to gum up the mastication of state …"
Blueblood trailed off as he glanced behind him. His revolutionaries had disassembled one side of the barricade and were wandering off into the morning.
"Wow," Shining Armor repeated. "That's … I mean, I'm actually …"
Blueblood hopped down from his perch atop the barricade. "Oh, forget it," he snarled. He bucked at the center of the flimsy structure, which collapsed instantly, and galloped off into the city.
Blueblood was lying alone in the moonlight, head resting on the base of Napoléon's statue, staring at the frustratingly perfect hooves of his great-grandfather, when he felt a shadow fall across his back.
"Go 'way," he said morosely.
There was silence for a moment, then he heard the soft fall of hooves approaching him across the grass of the gardens. He pushed himself up to a crouch and snapped his head around, feeling the chill of the evening kiss his tearstained cheeks. "Go away," he snarled, before recognizing the glimmering mane of Aunt Luna atop the visitor's silhouette.
"We came to offer Our sympathy," she murmured. "We, too, have felt the sting of rejection for Our failures." She walked up alongside him, sat down, and spread a wing across his back.
Blueblood sniffled and choked back his misery. "'M fine," he said, wiping his traitorous nose with a pastern.
Luna said nothing, then — merely tightened her wing against his side.
Blueblood drew in a shaky breath and sat up alongside her, shoving his mane out of his face with an awkward hoof. "Dare had the right idea," he said. "Our mark is useless here. I should leave, like she did."
"Perhaps," Luna said. "Wouldst thou be happier?"
"Yes," he said immediately.
"Truly?"
Blueblood was silent.
At length, she refolded her wing and craned her neck upward, staring at the statue looming over them. "Blueblood," she said, "dost thou know why thy great-grandsire's statue stands here in the garden?"
"He was a magnificent general," Blueblood said bitterly. "He was smarter than me, and braver than me, and everything I can never be."
"Thy answer is wrong in its entirety."
Curiosity tugged Blueblood loose from the quicksand of self-loathing. "Oh?" he said cautiously.
"What dost thou know of Napoléon II's military career?"
"He, ah … he led a suicide charge at the Battle of Trotaloo which killed the leaders of the Griffonian assault and saved Equestria?"
"True enough," Luna said, "but his sacrifice would not have been necessary had he not launched a massive invasion of the Griffonian capital the previous autumn. The griffons destroyed their aeries rather than allow them to fall into Equestrian hooves — leaving our soldiers no shelter in which to overwinter, and pegasi unable to control the bitter northern weather. Stallions by the tens of thousands perished to ice or starvation. Emboldened by our staggering losses, the griffons counterattacked that spring, which led to Napoléon's later pyrrhic victory."
Blueblood swallowed. "I … never heard of this."
"Most ponies have not; it is a tragedy best left buried. I myself only learned of it from my sister. Art thou aware of why he led such an ill-fated endeavor?"
"No."
Luna shifted, bringing a hoof to Blueblood's and laying it across his pastern. "There was a groundswell of anger at Griffonia's increasingly daring incursions into our borders, but my sister's government was opposed to any official action. Napoléon led a coup d'etat. He marched armed Royal Guards into the House of Lords to demand the matter be put to a then-unheard-of popular vote, and the monarchy bound by the results."
Blueblood's jaw dropped. "Are you serious?"
"Indeed so. Popular anger carried his motion — spurred overwhelmingly by the passion of our stallions — and within a month the cream of Equestria had volunteered for Napoléon's armed forces and marched north to their doom."
Blueblood stared at his aunt in shock.
"Know this, nephew," Luna said firmly. "My sister had the right of it; a full generation of stallions died needlessly that winter. And yet … when Napoléon took the wrong action, for the wrong reasons, at the wrong time, with the most terrible of outcomes … the losses inflicted by his martyrdom, combined with the destruction of their capital, compelled the gryphons to sue for peace for the first time ever. That peace has lasted to this day, under terms far more favorable than mere diplomacy could have wrought. His posthumous crowning was no salve for a nation's guilty conscience. He acted with righteousness in his heart, and from that seed sprang forth a bounty even Celestia could not have imagined."
"I … never knew," Blueblood said, feeling very small.
Luna smiled and stood up. "I do not believe Auntie Celestia would speak to thee of this directly; she dislikes being so unsubtle. But, nephew … if thou art, as Shining Armor attests, willing to stand up for thy beliefs, even at the greatest personal cost … there is great power to that, and from that seed, a hero may yet grow."
Blueblood stared up into Napoléon's face, which was locked in a blank gaze out to the darkened lands beyond. "… Aunt Luna? Thank you," Blueblood said, and turned back to her, but she was already gone.
When Shining Armor stepped out of Pony Joe's the next morning, there was a single overturned crate set down at a respectable distance in front of the door. Prince Blueblood was reared up atop it, with one hindleg on the crate, his fores clenched around a large metal pole that he was using for balance. Tied around the top of the pole was a small Canterlot Aces pennant, which lay flaccidly, awaiting a breeze.
Shining Armor smiled and bowed. "Your Highness. You took off yesterday before we could really talk. I was afraid you wouldn't come back."
"The fires of righteousness never rest in their emblazonment," Blueblood intoned, eyes out to the distant horizon.
Shining Armor sipped his coffee, then rubbed his hoof hesitantly against the sidewalk. "You … are serious about this, right? I … well, I thought, yesterday … and then you …"
Blueblood hesitated for a moment, then looked Shining Armor calmly in the eye, and nodded. "Mock me all you like," he said. "Think what you wish. But great-grandfather was a hero, Captain, and sometimes one must stand upon principle."
Shining Armor let out a relieved breath. "Oh, thank goodness."
He turned his head and let out a sharp whistle. A score of Guard pegasi fluttered down from the nearby rooftops, landing in formation on the street behind him.
"Men," Shining Armor said, emphasizing the word, "how long have you devoted yourselves to Equestria?"
"All our lives, sir!" they chorused.
"Can you vote for your elected representatives?"
"No, sir!"
Shining Armor trotted stiffly up to Blueblood and whirled to face his soldiers, clicking his hooves together into rigid attention. "And if a duly recognized Prince of Equestria thought that was unfair," he shouted, "and something stood in the way of him fixing that, would you do your sacred duty as Royal Guards and defend the honor of the crown?"
"Yes, sir!" they roared, and saluted as one.
Blueblood's heart leapt and fluttered.
"Captain Armor," he said, his second thank-you in as many days forcing its unfamiliar way to his lips.
But Shining Armor cut him off, shouting at the top of his lungs: "Squadrons 2 through 28, assemble!"
The whispers rippled through the crowd the instant that Blueblood and Shining Armor marched into Parliament.
Blueblood glanced around the building. There were several hundred Royal Guards crowded into the hall, occupying nearly every square cubit of floor space and much of the air above.[22] Oddly, it looked like most of the 265 lords were in attendance — the actual ones, the baronesses and duchesses and marquises, alongside the husbands that Blueblood joked and chatted and made deals with during a typical day. Adding to the strangeness, Auntie Celestia and Aunt Luna were sitting upon the dais at the front of the room. The revolution must have interrupted a really important session.
The room was stuffed to triple capacity. It was altogether too hot.
Blueblood walked calmly up to the front of the hall, guards parting in front of him like the tide. "Auntie," he said.
Celestia inclined her head at him. "Nephew."
He couldn't quite resist the jab. "Not too busy for me now, I hope?"
Her mouth remained level, but her eyes sparkled. "Not when you've gone to such extremes to make your point."
He stared at her suspiciously for a moment, then adjusted his bowtie and harrumphed. "I hope," he said loudly, "it is clear now that justice requires my bill be decided by the will of the masses."
Celestia pointedly looked around the room at the Royal Guards. "I believe that's all too clear," she said.
The room erupted in groans and catcalls. "Oh, great," one of the lords stage-whispered. "It's the Rutting Revolution, come home to roost."[23]
Celestia held up a hoof for silence. "As a lawfully elected member of this House — and as a mare —" she said, injecting a bit of emphasis — "I must register my personal objection to its … more lewd provisions. However, clearly there is something in it which has set afire the public consciousness, and sometimes the highest duty of a good ruler is to listen."
Blueblood nodded, suppressing a smirk, as a fresh round of grumbling swept the room. "Thank you. I'm glad somepony is seeing reason on this." He gave Auntie a clipped little bow and then turned to leave.
Celestia cleared her throat. "Er, nephew," she called after him, "is that all?"
Blueblood turned back and raised an eyebrow. "The revolution will get its vote," he said. "I suppose it is."
She cleared her throat again, seeming for the first time concerned. "Are you certain?"
Blueblood gave her a suspicious look. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I believe I am."
Shining Armor nudged Blueblood in the side. "Prince," he hissed.
"Ah, one moment." Blueblood leaned in to the guard captain. "What is it?" he whispered crossly.
"Did you catch that part," Shining Armor whispered back, "about Princess Celestia objecting as a mare?"
"Of course. I'm not stupid, Captain; she was implying to me that the bill cannot count upon the female vote. But I've already accounted for that."
"You have?"
"Yes. The stallions will vote for it."
"But … but stallions can't …"
"Well, not now they can't," Blueblood explained slowly, as if to a five-year-old. "That's why I put their voting rights in the bill."
Shining Armor stared at him, mouth open.
"… Oh. Yes, I see." Blueblood coughed and turned around. "Auntie? One minor addition. We need to vote on my bill twice in a row, so that the second time, stallions can pass it."
Behind him, he heard the smack of Shining Armor facehoofing.
"No?" Blueblood said, then scrunched up his muzzle in thought. "What if we had the voters time-travel?"
"How about this?" Celestia interrupted. "If you feel your bill needs male support to pass, I think it would be somewhat simpler to split the suffrage provision into a measure of its own, and vote on that before your bill's referendum." She stopped and gave Blueblood a significant look. "That … would be an acceptable solution, yes?"
Blueblood suddenly felt the weight of every eye in the room on him.
"… Yes?"
The shot that ended the revolution was the sigh of relief heard 'round the world.
