Mark sat patiently in front of the train station, where he was supposed to wait for some special ponies. At first, it seemed like he was going to expect at least a couple of ponies. However, the letters that were sent to Celestia stated that not all of them would be able to do it in at least a couple days. However, the confirmation from some “Princess Cadence” and some “Prince Shining Armor” stated that they’d arrive some time two days later.

That was the main reason as to why Mark sat in a bench, waiting patiently for the couple of rulers from the crystal empire (whatever that was) to show up. According to the schedule in the station, the train was appointed to arrive at that moment. However, due to weather stuff or some other intervention, the train hadn’t arrived yet.

New body, old self. As goes the saying: “old habits die hard”.

Mark merely looked at the cup of tea on his hand, as he sat down on a bench, waiting for someone to arrive. A mix of emotions erupted inside of him, not really knowing what to feel. It almost seemed unreal. He still waited for that moment when he would wake up, look at his human hands and realize that all of that had been just a really crazy dream (book material, he thought), and then bump his head on the shelf right above his bed.

Yet, every time he opened his eyes, he found himself stuck on this new body, in a new world, with a new life. It definitely seemed so unreal. Before, he had been a regular person, educated by a loving family, which taught him to appreciate life and the value of abnegation. Then, he decided to join the army, where they taught him to follow orders blindly, not bothering what these were. And then, that day at the desert happened, which taught him to not let anger dominate you, and most of all; remain as a human being instead of being a monster.

Upon reflecting that, he remembered what Discord said to him. It definitely seemed like he wasn’t fit to be a prince at all. And worse, Death hadn’t told him what his purpose was, and it had been already a couple days since the last time he had seen him.

His thoughts were interrupted as he made a move on the bench, trying to get more comfortable, which caused a wince to escape from his mouth when a certain part of his body touched the bench. Mark sighed loudly as he remembered the blue mare that had caused that.

After the whole Nightmare stuff, Luna decided to start training him more seriously, and by seriously, she actually meant SERIOUSLY.

At the distance, the whistle of the train was heard, shaking him out of his thoughts. Still with a slight wince, he got up from the bench, trying to remember Celestia’s exact description of the couple.

A pink alicorn and a white unicorn with blue mane.

Of course, they weren’t exactly the best of descriptions. However, the alicorn part was enough. For what he knew, there weren’t exactly a whole bunch of alicorns running around out there. If anything, he already knew about four… Well, three. He was going to meet the fourth in a couple minutes, after all.

The whistle sounded again, this time with the train finally showing up from behind the mountain, being followed by a thick wall of steam. Almost instantly, the metallic screech of the brakes sounded as the train neared the station. Upon seeing this, Mark got up from his seat.

“Attention!” He shouted with a firm voice, causing the guards around him to suddenly snap out of their slacking and go back to work. At least, Mark was glad that they could have some enjoyment on their work. It’s not every day you get to slack off in duty while your boss is watching you. Better yet, it’d be almost impossible for said boss to tell you to do anything you’d like while waiting for something.

Minutes later, all the guards had already assembled on a perfect formation, holding closely their spears. Mark stared at them with a small smile, remembering the time when he was like them. But alas, those times were gone now. Unless there was a war, of course. His prince duties stated that he should be an example for the ponies and if that meant being an example in defending the lands, then so be it. Once again, there hadn’t been a war in Equestria in a couple of hundreds of years. At least, that’s what the history books said.

His thoughts were interrupted as the train finally stopped in the station. As the door opened, Mark was already expecting to see this alicorn princess, along with her husband, carrying their majestic pose with them.

“BWWAAAAHHHH!!!”

Mark winced as the characteristic cry of a foal reached his ears. Some guards winced slightly, too.

“Oh, great. The brakes woke up little Flurry.” Mark heard a male voice say from the door. As the steam finally cleared up, the ponies inside of it were finally revealed, and Mark’s mind suddenly stopped working.

He considered Celestia and Luna some of the most attractive (if not hottest) mares of all he had seen of Equestria. But now, they seemed to have a very strong competence with this mare. She was nowhere as “developed” as the other two, but she was on pair, if not slightly advanced on the field of beauty. Her face had written on it beautiful everywhere, while her body screamed “sexy” at everyone around there.

Fortunately, his eyes focused on something else, distracting him from the angelic vision of what he assumed was princess Cadence. At her side, and giving him a glare, was a white stallion with blue mane.

Upon noticing the harsh glare, Mark literally shook himself aware. With a clearer mind, he cleared his throat properly as he walked towards the couple. Yet another cry sounded as he noticed that the blue stallion had strapped to him a small bundle. From two holes at the bottom of the bundle, two small hoofs could be seen. From the hole at the top, the upper part of a filly was shown.

His eyes were immediately drawn towards the huge pair of eyes of the filly, looking at him. At that moment, he almost felt as if he would get a diabetic coma in that very instant.

“Ahem.” Mark turned his head once again to the white stallion, whose glare seemed to morph into something resembling a grin. Shaking his head once more, Mark recovered his posture.

“Soldiers, salute!” Mark ordered, causing all the guards to lead their right hands to their foreheads. By force of habit, Mark did that, too.

The white stallion looked at him for a few moments, almost with a judgmental look on it. After a few moments, the stallion returned the gesture.

“At ease.” He ordered with a serious tone, giving off a powerful sensation of commanding, which was interrupted as the small filly on the bag started to giggle. That caused the pink mare to giggle, too, noticing also the fact that her husband wanted to give the same attitude than before their marriage, which failed miserably with the small foal on that pink bag.

“I’ll take care of that, dear.” The princess said as she took the little filly in her arms, which started to giggle happily. It was at that moment when Mark noticed something strange. He had already noticed the small horn coming out of her head. The next thing to actually catch his attention was the pair of wings sprouting from her back.

After a few blinks, he shook his surprise as he finally composed himself. Clearing his throat once again, he caught the couple’s attention.

“I assume you are princess Cadence and Prince Shining Armor, right?” Mark said as he walked towards them.

“Your assumption is correct, Prince Blueblood.” Shining said, though it sounded like he didn’t like Mark in the slightest. Noticing this, Mark groaned loudly as he snapped a hand on his forehead.

“What did I do to you?” As he opened his eyes, Mark noticed the couple giving him an odd look plastered on their faces. Cadence’s was showing confusion, while Shining’s held an insulted expression.

“What do you mean with that, Blueblood?”

“What you heard.” Mark said as he raised his hand to move aside a small portion of his mane, showing them his scar. “Believe me when I tell you that I can’t remember anything before a month ago.” Cadence’s eyes widened as a certain memory returned to her head.

“So it was you the one who suffered an accident near of Ponyville, right? The one with the carriage?”

“Yeah, that was me. My carriage plummeted to the ground. I don’t really remember what happened, but… I don’t recommend it.”

Shining merely raised a brow at this, while Cadence giggled softly. Mark turned around and pointed towards a carriage.

“If you’d like, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are waiting for you.”

“Only the royal sisters? The letter said that even Twily and her friends would be here.” Shining said with a curious tone on his voice as he started to walk in the same direction.

… Twily?

“They all have other things to attend to. But they will be arriving in the next couple days.” Mark said as he opened a door. He then turned towards the princess. “Princess?”

Cadence took his hand and climbed onto the carriage.

“Thanks.” Even when it was subtle, Mark was able to hear a certain strained tone on her voice, more when he took her hand. That caused him to groan silently as he figured that his former self must have done something very bad to them.

Next to enter the carriage was Shining Armor. Mark simply stepped aside and bowed, allowing the stallion to go into the carriage. Once they were fully seated, they turned to him, however, he simply closed the door.

As Mark turned his head up, he saw Shining giving him an uncertain look.

“I thought you’d like to have some privacy. I mean, after such a long journey, I’d be tired, too.” Mark said as he stepped away from the carriage. “And don’t worry; they’ll take you directly towards the royal castle. Your luggage will be delivered to your room safe and sound.”

The carriage was immediately put in movement as the couple merely looked through the window. Not only had Blueblood actually greeted them nicely, but he had been willing to let them go first.

Meanwhile, Mark sighed loudly. What had his former self do to get those two’s anger, he didn’t know, and he certainly didn’t want to know. The least he could do was to try and get them on his side. Not for advantage, but it would be great to at least avoid getting more enemies.

Suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted as he heard a heavy object falling. Turning around, he saw some maids carrying the couple’s luggage, if the pink color didn’t give it away. However, one of them was giving a very frustrated groan as she bent down to get up a heavy suitcase.

“Why, you little piece of-”

“Miss?” The maid turned to him, still with a frown on her face. “Allow me, please.” Mark said as he bent down, taking the suitcase the maid had dropped. As he got up, he took another one of the cases from the maid.

The maid turned her head away, seemingly too proud to say thanks. Mark huffed lowly as he went forward, right to the carriage where the maids were putting the other cases.

“There you go.” Mark said as he put the suitcases on the carriage. The mare simply turned to him, still with a frown on her face. Trying to give a better appearance, he gave her a small smile.

“Do not even think I’ll thank you.” The mare snapped back as she turned around and walked away. Mark stood there, wide eyed as he watched the mare turn around and walk away. As his eyes turned to the carriage with the suitcases, he was at least relieved that he had done something good.

“Can’t win them all.” He said with a shrug as he turned towards his own carriage. Yet, he couldn’t stop thinking about the mare’s eyes. In his time on that place, he had seen eyes of all colors: pink, blue, yellow, even red. But he had never seen eyes that could swap colors.

A while later, the couple found themselves at the entrance of the castle, filling them with many memories of their times in the castle; many of them happy, many of them loving… and many of them sad and filled with anger, mostly focused on one single character. The very same one who met them at the train station.

They still couldn’t comprehend exactly what was happening. In first place, he would have never agreed to meet them personally, not to mention in such a nice way.

Finally, they arrived at the dining room, where the guard had led them. Opening it, the couple instantly saw the two princesses in there. Celestia smiled warmly at the couple.

“Cadence, it’s such a pleasure to see you again.” She said as both princesses embraced.

“Oh, ‘tis a glorious day!” The two princesses turned their heads at the shout of the lunar princess, who was flying quickly towards Shining Armor and a giggling Flurry Heart.

Shining yelped as he covered himself, ready for the strike. Luna was known to be rather harsh with her loving expressions. However, the strike never came, but instead, a giggling sound was heard. Shining turned his head to the giggling, seeing that Luna was already tickling Flurry.

Just to confirm, Shining turned his head to the bag on his belly, seeing that it was empty.

“Oh, dearest Flurry Heart! ‘Tis a pleasure to see you again.” Luna said, nuzzling the little foal.

Celestia smiled at the loving display, while Cadence did the same. Shining couldn’t help but smile, too. Stallion in the outside, but he still had a soft heart for his family. Buck stallionhood when you see something as cute as that!

Meanwhile, Cadence turned towards Celestia, who was still smiling. As she turned, Celestia could see Cadence was looking around with a raised brow..

“What is it, Cadence?”

“Auntie… What is going on? I thought something was wrong. Your letter said that it was important that we should come as fast as we could.”

“It is important, Cadence.” Celestia said as calmly as she could. However, Shining heard.

“What is it, Princess? Something wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong, Shining Armor. But it is of importance the matter we have to talk about.” Celestia said as she sat down, causing the couple to take a seat, too. “However, you should take some rest. After all, we still need Twilight and her friends to come, too.”

“That serious is?” Shining asked with concern on his tone.

“Of course it is serious.” The couple turned around as a sixth voice joined the conversation, revealing it to be the prince. “You luggage’s on your bedroom, safe and sound, as promised by the way.” He said as he entered the room.

Mark’s eyes suddenly widened as he saw Luna making weird faces, which in turn made little Flurry to giggle while trying to make the same faces. When she was at the middle of making another face, her eyes widened as she saw her nephew staring at her. Turning her head slowly, she tried to look composed.

Yet, as composed as she looked, the image of the princess of the night sticking her tongue out while her hand widened her right eye would be stuck forever into Mark’s mind. It required a huge amount of strength by Mark’s part just to keep a very bad poker face.

“If you excuse me.” Mark said as he turned around and almost ran towards the door. In the instant the door closed, even when it was muffled, Luna frowned in annoyance as a very loud laugh was heard. Worse yet, it took several minutes for the laugh to end.

Meanwhile, Cadence and Shining merely looked at the door with a concerned face. In all their time with Luna, they all knew not to anger the princess of the night. However, now that they saw him, a single question arose in their mind.

“Auntie, is Blueblood alright?” Cadence asked. Despite her past thoughts about him, she couldn’t help but feel concerned for him. As far as she knew, that accident might have caused something to his brain.

Celestia looked at her niece with a raised brow. However, that vanished as she looked at the door. She just smiled as she turned once again towards Cadence.

“He’s doing alright, dear niece. In fact, I’d dare to say that he’s doing better than he’s been in a very long time.”

Cadence and Shining simply looked at her with a shocked and confused face. Celestia smiled as she found the opportunity to give a good word of her nephew. Before she could say a word, the door opened, and walking inside was a still quietly laughing prince. He smiled as he turned to her, but that smile turned into a goofy grin as he turned once again towards, Luna.

Almost immediately, he turned around again and almost ran outside.

Celestia sighed with a small smile as she saw her sister’s cheeks flushing with embarrassment and annoyance.

“As I was saying, Caeruleo has changed. I really don’t know what happened, but… it’s almost as if he were a different pony. He’s exactly the exact opposite of what he used to.”

While they knew Celestia never had any motives to lie to them, Shining still found it hard to believe. Yes, he had seen the proofs, but it was just so difficult to believe it.

He decided that he might have a certain speech with the prince later on.

Later that day, Celestia was leading the couple through the castle, where they would be taking residence for the next couple of days. Behind them were other ponies: Luna, still playing with Flurry Heart, and the prince, who had a red handprint on his cheek.

All his response after that was that he deserved it (but it was SO worth it).

After a few minutes, Celestia stopped at a door which had two guards posted on it.

“You will be staying here. It’s our best room.”

“Oh, Auntie! You don’t have to do this!”

“She’s right, Princess. We can take a simple guest room.” Shining said with concern on his voice.

“Nonsense! Little Flurry needs a room with plenty of space.” Said Luna as she levitated Flurry towards her mother.

“She has a point, Cadie.” Shining said as he took some cases on both, his arms and magic.

Before Cadence could pick one, another one rushed to her side.

“Allow me, please. You already have a foal on your hands, and I’m pretty sure that’s enough.” Blueblood said as he took some cases on his hands, carrying them for the princess. Cadence turned to look at her husband, who merely shrugged.

“Where do you want me to put these?” Blueblood asked from inside the room.

“If you could put them next to the bed, please.” Cadence said, being genuinely surprised at her cousin’s action.

After Mark put the cases down where Cadence had asked him to, he turned around, seeing what else he could do.

“Anything else you need help with?”

“No, that will be all. Thanks, cousin.” Cadence said as she used her magic to open her case.

“Just Blue is fine, Princess.” Mark said as he turned around and started to leave.

“Hey, Blueblood?” Mark stopped as he turned around once more, this time focusing on Shining armor. “What are you up to?” Shining asked bluntly.

While Cadence gasped loudly, Mark’s serene expression turned to an annoyed one.

“Shining Armor.” Mark said as calmly as possible. “I can’t really remember what happened between you and me. I actually can’t remember what happened between me and a lots of other ponies, but that’s not the point. The point is that I don’t remember that, and I really don’t want to know. But you must know this, Shining. The Blueblood you knew died on that accident.” Mark said as he walked slowly towards him, soon standing right in front of him. “The Blueblood who’s standing right in front of you is one who only wants to do things right.”

Mark then turned around to leave. However, as he was about to go out, he stopped. As he took a deep breath, he turned his head once more, this time with a more serene expression.

“I hope you enjoy your stay in here. Twilight Sparks and her friends should arrive sometime tomorrow.” Mark said as he closed the door behind him, unaware of his mistake on the purple one’s name.

Shining Armor and Cadence stood in there, taking the information he had given to them. And it actually seemed true. Almost instantly, grief weighed down on their hearts.

Author's Note

Hope you have enjoyed this. I know I enjoyed writing this.