The sun was shining in the middle of the sky as Blueblood and his guardian, Princess Celestia, entered the country town of Fillydelphia. The young colt enjoyed the crunch of grass under his hooves as he stared at everything he could. It was all so new to the foal, who had spent most of his life in the palace he had been born in, where everypony knew him and he knew everywhere.
He knew where to go to hide his precious things, or to find the Guards who would give in to his pleading. He didn't know altogether much about magic compared to his aunt, but his unicorn heritage had been at least a little helpful in his playtime. This town was new, and his eyes boggled at it. There, walking down the street, were more ponies than he had ever seen before. Celestia nodded to some, and waved to others, while they bowed down before her. It was all so different from anything he had seen before. Especially the feeling of the cobbled path under his hooves. That didn't feel as good as the grass, so he would play a game of seeing how he could go the furthest on the grass before he had to step on the cobbles.
It was the first time he had been outside of his home, and he was determined not to waste it. His guardian was a princess, and she was travelling to visit the towns that had just finished the Running of the Leaves. She had brought Blueblood along to give him a bit of experience in how to deal with ponies, and Blueblood was happy to go. Although the town was loud and crowded, he was enjoying it. There were so many smells that he was unused to - scents on other ponies, food being sold, and others - and he wanted to experience it all.
His guardian stopped at a tall, wooden building. It was painted in a multitude of colours; orange, red, blue, white, purple, green, yellow, all of them in a set of stripes like a rainbow. It had a big sign over the door that read 'Hospitality Hotel'. She pushed open the door, and beckoned Blueblood to go in. Happily, the colt jumped in, wanting to see what a 'hotel' was. Inside, the building was teeming with ponies, of various kinds and ages, but nopony seemed to be his age. A bell had rung when the door had opened, and a big earth pony with a jolly-looking smile had come up. Noticing the princess, he bowed low, and said, "Your majesty, we have prepared a small feast for you and your visit. Please, come with me - you must be seated as the guest of honour."
Princess Celestia smiled, nodding. "Thank you, Mister Hospitality. It has been too long since last I visited your hotel. This is my nephew, Prince Blueblood, who I have brought with me to see the land." The earth pony looked over the Prince with a curious eye, and nodding with approval, he smiled again.
"He looks like a well-mannered young colt. If you do not mind, Your Highness, there are some young foals out on the street whom he might be friends with. My daughter, Octavia, has just gone out to play, and I'm sure she'd welcome a new playmate," he suggested, knowing well how bored the foals were when business was being talked. Princess Celestia nodded.
"That sounds fine. He does not like dirtiness, so a filly might make a good playmate," she said. "Feel free to run along now, my little prince. I will find you when it is time for bed." With a nod, the young colt turned back towards the door, and left the hotel.
As it closed behind him, he could notice the difference in volume between the hotel and outside. On the streets, the quiet rhythm of hooves on the cobbles seemed to be the only sound, and as he walked along, the Prince tried to make up the words to a song to the rhythm. He had almost made it a full verse when he heard another voice on the wind, from somepony sounding about as young as he was. Although he was not used to the town, he tried to find his way towards it.
It took some doing, but he eventually came close enough that he could hear three separate voices. One was a filly, and the other two sounded like colts. Three foals were more than he thought he had ever seen before in his life, and he wondered what to say. 'Hello, I am Prince Blueblood'? That sounded too arrogant. Maybe if he approached the filly first? 'Hello, Octavia, your father said I should come and play with you'? No, that sounded silly. He was still busy thinking about what he should say when he heard what sounded like a scream. His eyes opened wide, and he started running. Maybe one of them was hurt? He had to try and help, right?
When he spotted them, the two colts (he had guessed right!) were standing over the filly, who had fallen over and was crying. Instead of what he had expected - them helping her up, they just... laughed? And one of them, the bigger one, pushed her over again. That wasn't what was supposed to happen. He was going to say hello, and then they would all be friends. This wasn't supposed to happen.
Something inside him prodded him to speak up. "Hey! Why are you doing that? Stop it!" At his voice, the three foals turned towards him. The filly (Octavia, he guessed) was an earth pony, and the two colts were unicorns. They came over and circled him, and while the Prince was not scared yet, he did notice that he was shorter than them.
"Who are you?" asked one of them, sneering at him.
"And what do you care about mud pony over there?" asked the other.
"We can do what we like. She doesn't have a horn like us," said the first.
"She doesn't matter," finished the second.
"My name is," started Blueblood, before feeling a sudden pain in his side. It took him a second to realise that one of them had actually hit him.
"Nopony cares what your name is, mud-lover," said the first one, who was now staring the Prince down. "You stay quiet unless spoken to. Do you understand?"
Blueblood was feeling something deep down that he had never felt before. He did not have the words to express it, but something was burning down within him. One of them hit him again, and knocked him over. He flinched as he felt the touch of the mud. "I said, do you understand me, mud-lover?" asked the bully, and Blueblood stayed silent. He could not quite think straight enough to answer the bully. All he could think of hurting them, and yet he knew he could not do it.
"Ah, you're no fun," said the second, and he gave the Prince another kick before heading back over to the filly. "Better bring your pocket money tomorrow, mud pony, or you'll really get it. And daddy won't be round to protect you." Blueblood could see them push the filly back into the mud, and he felt the heat within him rise again, almost to boiling point. This was not right.
As the two colts left, laughing, Blueblood pulled himself up. He hared the touch of the mud against him, but he would suffer it for now. He walked over to the filly, who was still crying. "Hello. Are you Octavia?" he asked, trying to ignore the memory of the bullies for the moment.
She nodded, and he spoke again. "Why do they bully you? Why doesn't somepony stop them?" he asked, unable to believe anypony could get away with it. If somepony had hurt him like that back home, they would be found out in a day.
"His dad is the local Guardmaster. None of us can do anything to them or we'll get in huge trouble," she said, sniffling a little. Gingerly, he raised his cleanest hoof, and wiped away her tears.
"This ends, today," he said. "Nopony should do that." As he spoke the words, he knew that he did not know how he was going to stop it, until an idea came to him.
"What can you do?" she asked, her crying finally stopped. "They won't believe us if we tell them, and if we fight back, we'll be punished!" He shook his head, wincing as some of the dried mud tugged on his coat.
"Don't worry. This is the last time it will happen," he promised.
Princess Celestia had gone to sleep uneasily, and only the knowledge that her guards were searching for the missing Prince allowed her to do it at all. That Octavia had said she had seen him, and played with him, did not calm her. She did not know where he had gone.
When she had awoken, she had been even more worried. She was due to go to the next town in less than two hours, but she was quite prepared to delay that if she did not find him. Half of her was calling her to join the search as well, but what if he came back, or if somepony found him?
She was still worried sick over the choice when the door to the hotel opened, and in came Blueblood, but unlike she had ever seen him before. The usually pristine Prince was almost covered in mud, and had small cuts over him. His coat was matted, and he looked like he had not slept. She was about to come over to him and fuss over him when he looked at her, and his eyes were alive.
He came before her, and bowed. He had never done that before; in fact, she had told him not to do so. "What is it, my little nephew? What's wrong?" she asked, worried over the change that seemed to have come over him.
"Please, Your Highness," he said, his voice cracking a little in what seemed like tiredness. "Could you delay our leaving for one hour?" The Princess looked at him, and saw something in his eyes that she had never seen before quite the same way - purpose, purpose burning within him.
Slowly, she nodded. "You have one hour extra. Then we will be leaving," she said, and after bowing lower, he turned, and left the building.
Princess Celestia took a sip from her cup of tea, and pondered what had happened. She turned her gaze around the restaurant, and saw young Octavia looking through the window, something like gratefulness in her gaze. Celestia made her way over to her, and bending down, she spoke to her. "What is he doing?" she asked.
"He's saving me," she said, an unexpected tone of devotion in her voice. Celestia wondered what that could mean.
Blueblood was tired, but that only focused his attention. He walked through the streets, looking for the bullies. All this effort would have been for nothing if they were hiding. That seemed appropriate for them. They would not know what he had done, but surely they would be scared of him.
However, luckily for the mission, they were still out on the streets. There they were, ahead of him in a back-alley, bullying another foal. Their last target, he thought. He took a deep breath, and called out to them. As they turned, he started shouting all the words that the guards only used when they thought he wasn't listening, all the ones his aunt had forbidden him from ever using. The two bullies stopped laughing, and their brows frowned.
"Get him!" shouted the first one, and as they started chasing him, the Prince turned and fled. He stayed only a quick stride ahead of them, leading them through the route he had planned. They knew this area better than him, but anger had made them stupid, as he had planned. They did not even pick up his plan after they left the town walls, and turned into the forest that surrounded it. He counted his steps after he entered the island of trees. A single misstep was all it would take.
When he counted eighty-one, he rolled to the left. His two pursuers did not follow him in that, and their yells of anger turned into shouts of surprise, and screams of pain. He turned back to the pitfall he had dug through the night. The two colts had fallen through the cover of branches and leaves, and now lay at the bottom of the pit. From the angle of their legs and screaming, he guessed they were in some pain.
He looked down, slightly sad that it had come to this. Octavia had been right, though, and these two were acting less like ponies and more like animals. "I am sorry," he said, an apologetic tone in his voice. "But you should have used your physical strength for good, rather than for evil. You should not have bullied anypony. When I am an adult, together with my aunt, I will stop bullying from afflicting my subjects. Even if I wasn't a Prince, you should not have bullied me. Goodbye."
He did not know how much they had been listening, as he turned to leave them. They had not seemed to be the listening type of pony. Well, now they would not be bullying anypony again. And they wouldn't be blaming the foals they bullied for that lesson, either.
As he hurried back through town towards the hotel, he saw Octavia and Princess Celestia waiting for him outside. He smiled at them both. "Don't worry, Octavia," he said as he came up to meet them. "I've taken care of those two bullies. They won't be hurting anypony any more!" Celestia looked down at him curiously, and he smiled up at her. "What is it, aunty?" he asked.
"You might notice it more after you have cleaned yourself up," she said. "You have received your cutie mark." His jaw dropped, and he turned to look at his flank. There was a hint of blue and gold, but what it was he could not see. "I'll be interested to hear your story about you getting it," she said, in a tone that she used when she wanted to talk more later, before she turned away to leave the two foals to say goodbye.
"I think I'm more the mudpony that they said you were," said the Prince, not knowing what else to say yet. He gestured to the dried mud all over his coat, and laughed a little, quietly.
She leaned over to him, and hugged him. "Thank you," she said, and she impetuously kissed him on his less-muddy cheek, before blushing. "They've been doing that since forever. You've really stopped them?"
"Yes," he nodded. "They won't do it again. And if they do, you just send me a letter, and I'll sort them out again."
She smiled, and nodded. "Thank you, I will."
He returned her hug, and after holding her for a second, he left her to rejoin his aunt. He would come back here again, but when that would be, he did not know. Until then, he would remember the lesson he had learned today. Pride and arrogance would lead to anypony's downfall. Never again would he let himself be comfortable. He would better himself each day.
“So, my young princeling,” said Celestia, as the chariot carrying them both took off into the sky, “Are you going to tell me how you got it?” Blueblood turned aside, not really wanting to explain it, and she leaned closer in. “What did you do, my little pony?” He had done something beyond any of her experience already. Why did he not want to tell her?
He turned to the forest surrounding the town where they had just been. “Look there!” he said, excited. A violet light had shot out from the middle of the forest, lancing up to the skies. As she looked, something about his actions clicked to her.
“We shouldn’t be going to investigate that, should we?” she asked him, trying to read him. He was a strange colt already, and the cutie mark had only made it more so. He turned to her, and shook his head solemnly. “Very well, my little nephew. I will see the reports, though, as you know.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I don’t think there will be any to worry about you seeing. Can we go back there? Octavia was really nice.” As she let the conversation be steered away from the topic, Princess Celestia almost feared the colt – feared for him, more so. She had never raised a pony before. Would he turn out to be the good young stallion he could be?