Shadows of Canterlot

Chapter 7

The sounds of arguing, hysterical laughter, and the occasional loud thump in the room next door did nothing to concern the nine ponies gathered in the atrium of Fancy’s house; they were used to this sort of thing by now, after all. It came with the territory of being in the same house as ponies who kept their political frustrations balled up until they got behind closed doors. All of them were gathered together for their monthly meet-up, idly passing the time while Fancy, Fleur, Atia and others talked shop nearby.

The nine of them had very little in common when they first met, except for one thing: they all had connections in the same circle. Not surprisingly, as Canterlot had a very odd way of managing social mobility; a Patronage system. Anypony who wanted to be anypony in the city had to find themselves a patron from the nobility who would support them as they rose into the ranks of ‘polite society.’ Fancy Pants, Fleur de Lis, Purple Stripe and even Blueblood were frequent patrons of some aspiring, talented newcomer to the city that they took a liking to, or who presented themselves to ask for their sponsorship.

Speaking of which, there was one pony who was conspicuously absent from the usual gathering, but that was to be expected; Prince Blueblood was out hosting an orgy tonight, so nopony expected to see Petunia here. In fact, they would be vastly surprised if she did show up- the horticulturist mare was a devoted Bacchant, after all.

The sound of a glass breaking caused a few of them to turn their heads, but nothing else that implied any particular trouble could be heard through the door. “I’ll bet you fifteen bits they’re fighting about treasury bonds again,” muttered North Star, looking up from her sketch for a second before quickly covering it with her hooves possessively, glaring at a brown unicorn across the table. “Back off, Inky, this is my work!”

Poppy Fields rolled her eyes, the priestess trying her best to peruse her issue of ‘Sacerdotal Monthly’ in peace. “North, play nice. We don’t need a repeat of the last time you dragged me to the last OMA meeting.”

“Yeah, she did embarrass herself juuuust a little bit.” The brown unicorn snickered, looking back at his own half-finished design. “Besides, you’re working on a villa, I’m working on a block of flats. No need to be so jealous abou-”

“I am not jealous, Dreamy J. Ink, so don’t give me that!” North snorted, crossing her forelegs with narrowed eyes. She then glanced over at Poppy with a little gleam in her eye. “Besides, you’re one to talk about embarrassment. I distinctly remember a certain somepony doing their best to play tonsil hockey with that dancer at Purple Stripe’s party- and the filly was Bitalian, too!”

The priestess blushed furiously, stammering on her words as she looked back and forth between an amused North Star and a blue unicorn who looked like he was torn between chiding her and laughing. “Really, Poppy? And here I thought Equestrian clergy weren’t trying to corrupt us poor foreigners to their wicked, heathen ways?” he said with a ghost of a smile.

Poppy rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “I wasn’t trying to corrupt her, and even if I was she certainly wasn’t complaining. Besides, you’d know all about being corrupted by exotic foreigners, Father ‘I swear I don’t like stallions, except for that one time’. “

The other priest tensed, closing his eyes for a moment. The other ponies in the room stopped their conversations, looking over at the two priests, polytheist and monotheist, with no small amount of wariness. This line of conversation didn’t usually go well. “I told you I don’t like to talk about my tenure in Chicagoat, Poppy. You know-”

“Yes, yes, I know. You didn’t ‘convert’after that, you ‘switched Bishops,’ though speaking as somepony not raised in the Chiesa, I can’t tell the difference, other than being able to rationalise being a non-celibate priest without a guilty conscience, which shouldn’t reasonably have been a problem in the firs-”

“Poppy, we are not arguing about this again. Just because you never felt guilty about, er, those kinds of things doesn’t mean I wasn’t allowed to at one point.”

The priestess leaned forward across the table with a fierce expression. “Dammit Padre, you know how unhealthy that was! You were an emotional wreck when you moved here. I’m not saying you didn’t have a right to feel guilty, and I’m not trying to put down your feelings or say they were stupid. But you and I both know it was better for you in the long run to ‘switch Bishops’ or whatever to a less restrictive group that wasn’t forcing you to keep up the facade of being committed to that stupid rule. Do you disagree?”

“I...” He sighed and shook his head. “No, I don’t. I just... I wonder sometimes what would’ve happened if I’d stayed with the traditionalists, you know? Whether or not I did the right thing, for the right reasons, and not just because I...”

“Padre, look at me. Trust me when I say you are so much better off emotionally without having that weight on your back.” She extended a hoof out towards him. “Now come on, there are far better things to do tonight than think about what ifs, okay?”

The blue stallion nodded and bumped his hoof against hers, a smile returning to his muzzle. “Fair enough.”

The solemn moment was broken by a delicate cough, reminding the two of them that there were, in fact, other ponies in the room. “So. Now that you two have made up, again,” muttered a zebra on the couch across from them. “Let’s talk about something else, okay? Poppy, you go.”

The room was filled with awkward silence for a moment, nopony moving or even seeming to blink. This was mercifully ended shortly by a stammered response, “Well, umm... aren’t the... tulips blooming nicely this time of year? One of my friends from the Temple of Gaia was just-”

“Yes, they are!” interrupted the zebra with no small amount of enthusiasm, leaning forward across the table, positively beaming. “Come to think of it, one of my idol’s best poems was about tulips. I can recite it from memory if you l-”

“Tulips? We’re seriously talking about tulips now, Tayriyis?” sighed a dark purple unicorn laying back on his couch, ignoring the zebra’s pout of disappointment as he sifted through sheets of paper filled from top to bottom with bold, messy hoofwriting. “I’m not drunk enough for this kind of small talk...”

“You’ve had two shots of liquor, Marsh. But I know that’s like a whole bottle for you.” snarked ‘Padre’, adjusting the too-loose spectacles sliding down the end of his muzzle as his mood shifted back to jovial. “You should be reeling like a drunken Shirishcolt by now.”

Marsh grumbled, swatting a particularly annoying fly off the table in front of him. “Thanks for reminding me, Padre. I swear, you get plastered once on your birthday, and you never live it down.”

The other unicorn grinned like a cat that had caught the canary. “Of course not. Where’s the fun in that, Conehead?” This was kind of a running joke with them, ever since they’d taken Cypress Marsh out for his twentieth birthday. Despite having drank before then, he’d still ended up being discovered at the end of the night by a passing janitor, lying out cold on the floor of the bathroom with a lampshade stuck on his muzzle like a dog’s ‘cone of shame.’ To this day, they would never, ever let him live that one down, and brought it up every time he drank, to his constant consternation.

The purple unicorn looked at his bottle of maple whiskey in hoof, setting it off to the side with great reluctance. “Bah, I’m not giving you the satisfaction this time.”

“What a shame,” a green pegasus with a cutie mark of a flashing camera piped up, batting his eyelashes at Marsh. “And here I was hoping you’d grace us with your acapella rendition of ‘The Drunken Trotscolt’ again, complete with dancing!”

“Screw you, Prime Scoop,” Marsh huffed, poking the pegasus in the nose with a hoof. “You know I only do that at Hearth’s Warming Eve parties.”

“Not counting the time you did it at the Summer Sun celebration party-”

“Or when you did it at the New Year’s party-”

“Or on Nightmare Night when you were dressed as a highland Trotscolt, kilt and all-”

Marsh clapped his hooves over his ears. “Alright, alright, I get the point, geez. I sing terribly when I’m drunk.”

‘Padre’ laughed, setting a hoof on the other unicorn’s shoulder. “Don’t worry Marshy, we love you anyway. Even if you do cheat at ‘Rise of Empires’ every time I bring the board.”

“Thank you- hey! You’re just sore because you nearly got your ass kicked by the Ruskyans in Murakoz until the glorious Scandineighvian Empire could come to your defence!”

“Oh please, like you didn’t need my help when they were overrunning Lithuaneigha! You lost three armies before it was my turn, and I had enough gold to build arms factories for you.”

“Hey, they were technically overrunning your coast, too, since you had that little bitty province, what was it, Manemel, tacked onto the end of East Prussia!”

“Only because most of my armies were tied up in the Griffish Isles thanks to your infamy causing a containment war with literally half of the civilised world, in case you didn’t remember?”

North Star shook her head at the proceedings, not following a word of what was being said. The two stallions might as well be speaking a different language once they got into their strategy games talk. Actual politics she could understand, to some degree. “Boys, boys, please. There’s plenty of time for-”

Before she could finish, she was interrupted by the sound of frantic knocking on the door. “Damn it to Tartarus, somepony let me in!” A familiar voice shrieked, continuing to pound on the door as if expecting it to give way. The lot of them looked around in confusion; they weren’t expecting anypony else tonight. But whatever was the matter, it sounded important.

As the other eight rose from their seats, North Star went to open the door, revealing a terrified-looking, very damp earth pony. “Petunia, what-”

“No time,” the mare shouted, her slightly glazed-over eyes fixed straight ahead as she stumbled inside, deliberately avoiding the impluvium in the atrium. “Have to talk to Fancy and Fleur. Trouble at the orgy.”

“Wait one second! What’s going on-”

She spun around, wobbling slightly as she pointed a hoof towards the other mare, her vision swirling around dizzyingly. “North, I told you, there’s no fucking time! I just ran all the way here from Blueblood’s villa, so if you would please get me to Fleur and Blueblood and whoever else is here, I’d greatly appreciate it.”

“Ran all the way from... Wait! You can’t go in without-”

“Watch me!” Petunia galloped past the stunned group of ponies before any of them could stop her, bursting into the adjacent room unceremoniously.

“For the last time, we have to vote to raise the interest rate a little higher if we expect anypony to-”

The sound of the door being flung open caused everypony in the dining room to turn their heads toward the source; a panting, bedraggled-looking mare who looked like she’d had one too many pulls from a hash pipe before falling into a swimming pool. She took deep breaths, just barely keeping herself from sinking to the floor. “Lady Fleur, Prince Blueblood’s been taken!”

“Oh please,” Fleur huffed. “I don’t want to know what position he experimented with.”

Petunia blinked for a second, then promptly facehoofed. “No, I mean he’s been abducted!”

There was a moment of silence in the room, the ponies gathered sharing looks of utter confusion, before what she’d said sunk in. And then the room exploded into chaos.

“Abducted?! What in Tartarus happened?”

“Are you sure you didn’t just see things?”

“How in Equestria did the abductors get past the guards? Those were Celestia’s own guarding his house!”

“Is my little filly okay? Please tell me Octavia got out okay? I swear, if those filthy brutes touched a hair on her head, I’ll have the lot of them exiled to-”

“Everypony, quiet!” Fancy and Fleur commanded right after each other, the two exchanging a look of dismay. Once the shouting had gone down to quiet murmurs, Fleur stepped forward, looking down at Petunia with a penetrating gaze. “Start from the beginning, Petunia. What happened? What did you see? When did it happen?”

Petunia hiccoughed slightly, and backed up against a wall to keep from falling over. She was trembling slightly, taking a few more deep breaths to clear her head before she started. “I was at the Bacchanalia, as you expected, right? Things went normally- er, well, for an orgy, anyways- for maybe... two, three hours? Wasn’t exactly keeping track of time, you know.”

“Petunia...”

“Right, sorry! Anyways, after that, I’d decided to take a break and went over to get some water and clear my head a little. While I was getting some refreshments, I heard the sound of something hitting the floor behind me, and something breaking, so I turned around to look. What do I see but a white stallion getting carried- well, more like dragged- out of the house through the atrium by a couple of other stallions.”

She gave a couple ponies who had raised their hooves questioningly a sharp look. “And yes, before you ask, I can tell the difference between a hallucination and reality; I was smoking hash, not eating cactus.” The two put their hooves down with a sheepish grin. “Now, this isn’t something you normally see at an orgy, so I went over to investigate. There was blood on the floor in the atrium, and a spilt cup of wine that I know belongs to Blueblood. I think he might’ve been drugged, and not of his own volition. After that, I pulled Lady Octavia aside and told her what happened- don’t worry ma’am, she was fine last I checked.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Atia breathed, shaking her head. “At least Octavian knows not to be there. The idea of my poor colt, in such scandalous places!”

Petunia coughed, rubbing her neck awkwardly. “Right... glad for that.”

Atia narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Petunia, he wasn’t there, was-”

“No, not that I know of! Anyways, er, then we left the house. She went back home, and I headed over here to warn you and Chancellor Fancy, my lady.”

Fleur had a very grim expression on her face, turning around to face the other ponies assembled in the dining room. “I think it’s time the rest of you went home, if you don’t mind. Atia, I’d suggest you go check on your daughter- make sure she’s home safe.” The mare nodded, rushing out of the room as fast as her hooves could carry her.

“Don’t worry, my little Octavia! Mummy’s on her way!”

Rolling her eyes slightly, Fleur looked towards the rest of the room. “Night Light, Twilight, tell your son, and any other members of the guard, that there’s been a kidnapping with possible casualties.” The both of them snapped off a mock-salute, before exiting with all possible haste. “Purple Stripe, if you would, please gather up what house guards you can and send them to Blueblood’s villa.”

“As soon as I can, Lady Fleur,” he said with a genial nod of the head, turning to leave as well. “Do you need me there in person, or will one of my retainers be fine?”

“One of your retainers will do, thank you!” She called after him, before turning to Petunia, who was currently slumped against the wall. The poor mare was still trembling, looking up at Fleur with a mournful expression.

“I’m so sorry, my Lady... if I’d just reacted faster and wasn’t so absorbed in the orgy, I might’ve been able to stop-”

“Shh. You did fine, Petunia. Most wouldn’t have noticed at all, much less ran all the way over here to warn me.” Fleur placed a hoof on the mare’s cheek. “Go into the guest room and rest for now. You’ve earned it.”

Petunia nodded gratefully, rising shakily to her hooves. “T-thank you, Domina.” With that, she carefully made her way out of the room.

All that left was Fancy Pants, who was currently frozen on his couch, his face a mask of calmness as he stared at the patterns on the tablecloth. Fleur slowly approached him, placing a hoof on his shoulder. “Fancy?” she muttered, noting his tense posture.

Fancy started, looking around wildly before realising nopony else was there. Determining they were alone, he closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath. He reached automatically for the decanter of wine nearby, pouring himself a unusually liberal amount before downing it in a couple gulps, The cup was shaking in his aura as he put it back down with slightly more force than necessary, little cracks appearing along the rim. “I’m okay,” he said a moment later, raising his hooves in a slightly defensive gesture. “I’m okay. Don’t worry about me until later. Let’s... let’s just go find Blue right now, okay?”

“Fancy...”

Fancy rose from the couch, a quick succession of emotions flickering across his face. “Fleur, we do not have time to talk about this and you know that. Blue’s been kidnapped, and it’s up to me to find him, and soon.”

She sighed, leaning a little closer. “Not just you, you know. Us.”

Fancy gave her a slightly confused look, as if he couldn’t quite understand what she was saying. “Fleur, just last night you admitted to me you don’t like him because he makes you jealous, and that you think he’s an unstable ally. Why would you want to help me find him?”

Fleur barely stopped herself from uttering a string of very unlady-like words. Honestly, how insufferably dense could her coltfriend be sometimes? She didn’t like Blueblood, but that didn’t mean she wanted him kidnapped or even killed, either. Besides, she’d seen how Fancy had reacted- as much as she might hate the theoretical possibility of Fancy getting hurt by Blueblood, her own inaction would surely hurt him much worse, and far more immediately. “Because, Fancy, whether I like him or not has nothing to do with it. Honestly, did that glass of wine go to your head? He’s a bloody Prince of Equestria; abducting him is an act of domestic terrorism, if not outright treason. And I’m still sworn to protect my country from threats, internal and otherwise.”

She gave him a look that could wither trees. “ And finally, I am not some petty, spoilt noblemare who will let a little jealousy get in the way of doing what’s right, and frankly, I am insulted you’d even-”

She was cut off by Fancy’s forehooves wrapping around her, warm and comforting with just a hint of vulnerability. She half-heartedly tried to continue, but found it difficult to speak into Fancy’s chest. So she just stayed there for a few minutes, nuzzling against him before finally pulling away.

She looked up and saw his eyes were locked on hers, prickling slightly with tears. He was smiling, though, if only slightly. “I know, my lily, and I’m sorry for ever doubting you. Right now, let’s just get down to business, together. Alright?”

“Alright,” she nodded, opening the door to the atrium with Fancy in tow. “All of you, listen up!”

The ponies there automatically turned towards the doorway, their eyes fixed on the two of them with varying degrees of alertness. Fleur headed straight for Cypress Marsh, hating to have to be the bearer of bad news. “First thing’s first, I suppose. I regret to inform you that your patron, Prince Blueblood, has been abducted.”

As the others let out of shocked gasps and whispers around him, Marsh remained silent, his face that of a pony who has been told a truth he previously thought impossible. Finally, he opened his mouth. “That... that can’t be right. Prince Blueblood, abducted?” He chuckled nervously, looking over at Fancy with a hint of desperation, “Come on, she’s joking, right? Lord Fancy?”

Fancy just shook his head. “I’m afraid she’s not joking, Cypress.” As Marsh did his best to process this information, he heard a sharp intake of breath from the pony beside him, followed by an almost inaudible mutter of, “Deus, in adjutorium nostrum intende...”

Marsh’s face fell, his ears drooping. “How... how in Tartarus did he get abducted?”

“We’re not quite sure,” Fleur said, sharing a look with Fancy before continuing, “But I suspect that a small number of Bacchants, or ponies who took the place of them, took advantage of the distraction at the orgy. According to what Petunia told us, they may have slipped some kind of drug into Blueblood’s drink to incapacitate him, took out the guards before they could intervene, and dragged him out while he was unconscious.”

“But that means he could be anywhere!” Marsh blurted out, looking more than a little dismayed. “He could be here in Canterlot, outside the city in a cave, left in a ditch somewhere, already buried-”

“Let’s not jump to worst-case scenarios,” Fancy Pants said brusquely, quite aware of all the gruesome possibilities. He was not particularly in a mood to dwell on them at the moment. “He... he’s most likely still in the city. The gates to the inner city are shut this late, and under watch by the Urban Guard. So they have to be somewhere in or around the Old Quarter, Royal Palace, or Concordia Square-”

“But that’s nearly twenty square miles to comb over! How can you expect-”

A sudden flash of irritation went through Fancy, though he did his best to keep it in check. He knew as well as anypony what their chances of finding Blueblood were, and he frankly didn’t like them. Regardless, he took a breath, forcing the urge to raise his voice down. “Do you think I don’t already know that?” Fancy asked with a sigh of resignation. “I know it doesn’t look pretty. But we are going to find him, if I have to hunt through every inch of this city myself.”

“Fancy...” Fleur said with a hint of warning.

“Fleur, if it comes to that, I will do it. I am not going to let my best friend be taken away by a bunch of criminals and sit here doing nothing.” He said in as level a tone as he could muster.

The urgency in his voice must have been obvious, though, as Fleur instinctively stepped back a pace as if bracing for something. “Fancy, I wasn’t going to suggest you sit here and do nothing. I was just going to say that if you’re going out there, I’m going with you. We talked about this before- no buts. I can handle myself as well as you in sticky situations, and you know that.”

“She’s not wrong,” Tayriyis piped up with a bit of a smirk. “You should’ve seen her in Mareocco- the mare has a mean left hook, at the very least.”

Fleur smiled faintly at the praise, before suddenly realising who had spoken. “Tayriyis? Oh, right, you’re here... “ She automatically moved forward, seating herself on the couch beside the lithe zebra. “Speaking of which, I think I have an idea how to deal with this. Are you up for doing a little digging tonight, or are you out of practise by now?”

Tayriyis scoffed, his grin turning downright cocky. “Me, out of practise? Please, Fleur, you wound me. My love of digging is akin to a dog with a bone.” The zebra snickered to himself, not noticing the way Fleur raised her eyebrow at the statement. “Anyways, what did you have in mind?”

Fleur leaned towards him, lowering her voice to an undertone. “Head out into the streets tonight. Find all the shady, or non-shady, characters you can around the inner city, and tell them you’re looking for a group of stallions who were seen carrying another pony away, or a large bundle, wagon or sack of some kind, between midnight and now. Don’t tell them who’s asking; just tell them they would have been leaving the villas in the Old Quarter, in any direction.”

“And if they don’t want to tell me?” Tayriyis asked, knowing the answer.

Fleur rolled her eyes, glancing towards Fancy. “Fancy, could you be a dear and open my safe? I need the smallest bag.”

“Right away.” Soon enough, a small sack was levitated towards Fleur, landing on the seat next to her with a loud, heavy thunk. She searched through the sack, pulling out a small stack of solid gold and silver coins the size of a foal’s horseshoe. “The gold ones are twenty bits, the silver are ten. I’ll send you with about...” She neatly arranged the coins in a small pile on the couch, before pulling the drawstring of the sack shut. “Four-hundred bits, in case they need any persuasion. There’s two hundred in gold, two hundred in silver, and make sure to show them the silver first.”

“Got it, Fleur,” he said with an exaggerated bow of the head, stowing away the coins in his saddlebags. “I’ll hunt down Blueblood’s captors like a hound on the scent.”

Padre, who had heretofore been silent, couldn’t help but crack a smile. “If you’re a hound on the scent, try not to choke on any bones along the way, won’t you, Tayriyis?”

The zebra was already halfway to the door, but stopped in place before slowing turning around, the same grin plastered on his muzzle. “Padre, I never choke.” With that, he was out the door like a disappearing spirit, a heavy cloak slung over his back as he stepped into the rainy night.