Noblesse Oblige

Slouching over a cream-colored velvet divan in the reception parlor of Prince Blueblood's office, I did my best to appear unconcerned. After all, why should I care about the five other sturdy white unicorn stallions with blonde manes and tails who were lounging indolently across the rest of the room's furniture? They meant nothing to me, and as near as I could tell, they were each trying just as hard as I was to remain outwardly oblivious to their environs.

Still, the pungency of our collective nervousness tickled my nostrils like the aroma of fresh paint. And I do mean fresh: my careful non-looking was quickly leading me to believe that I was the oldest member of our little convocation, and I'd only just passed my twentieth birthday.

Now, a more discerning pony might've begun wondering what a well-known degenerate like Prince Blueblood had in mind for six stallions who looked like he himself must've looked half a century ago. But then if I'd been a more discerning pony, I probably wouldn't've wise-cracked my way out of every home into which the Canterlot foster family system had placed me until I became a legal adult, whereupon my pert and pearly haunches had been punted from the orphan asylum to sprawl bereft upon the street.

All right, that's a bit melodramatic. In truth, the orphanage had arranged for my job as an usher at the Music Center downtown, and my salary there paid for the one room, fifth-floor, walk-up apartment I'd called home for more than two years. Add to that the way many a panting mare had declared her appreciation for certain of the skills other than wise-cracking that I'd honed since puberty, and all in all I couldn't say it was a bad life.

Much like I myself, I suppose: not bad, but not much of anything else, either. More and more of late, I'd taken to glaring at my compass rose cutie mark in the bathroom mirror while I engaged in my deportment exercises after dragging my flanks out of bed at the crack of noon. Yes, I'd studied every book the matrons at the orphanage could procure concerning proper diction, demeanor, and discernment. Yes, I knew which fork to use when. Yes, I'd yet to find a situation I couldn't wriggle, talk, or insult my way out of as the occasion might demand.

But I hadn't clue one as to destiny's design for me: my mark had simply appeared the morning after I'd begun speaking with a false upper-class accent. I'd had paramours inquire about the mark, of course, and had developed quite an effective but alarming piece of fictitious history to describe how, as a callow youth, I'd guided my family's airship safely to dock during a summer squall. But as for any sort of direction that foul compass might've implied for my life, well, I'd yet to stumble across one...

Then two days ago the engraved invitation had arrived. Eleven AM, it had said with this day and this address. It had also enclosed a bank draft for a thousand bits and a promise of another similar bank draft should I show up at the aforementioned time and place bearing the small included card with the number four printed on it. In my non-looking, I'd noticed my associates glancing at their own small cards tucked into shirts, vests, or jackets, and I could only assume that they held the numbers one, two, three, five, and six.

We all continued pretending that we weren't paying close and exacting attention to the studied burps and yawns and stretches of our surrounding doppelgangers until the timepiece over the mantel of the unlit fireplace began chiming. As soon as the eleventh bell had sounded, a door opened among the bookshelves at the far end of the room, and a fully armored member of the Royal Guard stepped out with Prince Blueblood himself close behind.

That the old reprobate's coat was still white, his mane still blonde, and the single gold leaf of his cutie mark still shiny was likely more due to chemistry than anything else. Though I supposed one couldn't rule out magic for the one and only Prince of Equestria, our dear immortal princess's single living relative. Not that anypony had ever quite uncovered when or how the Blueblood family had branched off from Princess Celestia's tree, but if only half the stories I'd heard about his wild and profligate ways were true, then his lack of any jail time alone proved that he had some strong connection to the crown.

Leaving his guard beside the door, His Highness glided forward, everything about him as clean and pressed as a freshly laundered linen napkin. His understated elegance showed clearly that a life of crime paid handsomely if one had enough money, and I found myself thinking that whatever sordid thing he might have in mind for the bunch of us might just be worth it if I could more closely examine his smooth way of moving. Something to do with the coordination between knees and fetlocks, I thought, or—

"Good morning," he said then in the rich baritone I'd heard rolling across the Music Center lobby on multiple occasions—though here and now he didn't appear for once to be drunk. "I'm sure the money's the reason you're all here, so I shan't insult you by thanking you for coming. I shall instead congratulate you on making a wise business decision and shall ask number one to join me in my inner sanctum."

His voice deepened on those last words, and with a waggling of eyebrows, he marched back into the room from which he'd just emerged, his guard following.

One of my stalwart companions gave a shrug that I believe was supposed to look careless but which instead made me think of somepony who'd gotten a bee caught in his jacket. He toddled over, passed through the doorway, and golden armor flashed as the door closed behind him.

No scream rang out as I'd half expected, and in fact, the silence that settled over the remaining five of us I would've judged to be quieter than the silence of the previous few minutes. Not that it was actually silent, of course, with the tick-tick-tick of the clock above the mantelpiece seeming to rattle the whole room. Trying not to let my imagination swoop off into mad conjectures of what might be happening behind that door, I began counting the ticks in my head. Two of my twins started fidgeting, one of them openly sweating, and before I'd reached thirty in my tick tracking, the door opened again.

Mine weren't the only ears that perked, nor were they the only ones that fell when nopony but the guard emerged. "Number two!" he called in a voice that was more a bark than anything else.

The sweating fidgeter leaped to his hooves, wheeled toward the door we'd all entered by, and ran as if every hound of Tartarus was on his tail.

The guard just blinked. "Number three!" he called.

Another of my fellows lurched upward and swaggered through the office door, and I went back to my counting.

A mere twenty seconds elapsed this time, the guard reappearing with a call of "Number four!"

For an instant, I'll admit, I considered following number two's example. But while a part of my brain registered that I'd just been summoned to enter a room into which two ponies of similar size, build, and age had stepped mere instants ago and possibly vanished, well, I'd long ago stopped paying a great deal of attention to that part of my brain. Through this same door, after all, lay the promise of another thousand bits, the first thousand of which I'd already spent on the blue and white silk blazer I was wearing and on a variety of the bejeweled accessories that looked so very pretty when adorning the mares who consented to join me for a delicious bit of a tryst in the lounge I'd set up in a disused janitor's closet down one of the Music Center's back hallways.

Which is to say that I stood, brushed the stray strand of mane from my eyes, flashed the guard my best and most engaging smile, and slipped past him into the room.

A second gleam of armor showed me another guard beside another door in the wall to my left. The first door behind me closed with a barely audible click, and I turned my attention to the prince, reclining at his desk against the back wall a few paces away. Animated by the glow of his horn, a quill pen staggered across an unrolled scroll in front of him, his gaze focused on whatever he was writing. "Straight to it," he said, not looking up from his work. "Morning Star there has your second bank draft for a thousand bits." He waved a hoof vaguely at the second guard. "But there's a third thousand bit draft in it for you if you'll sashay on over here, drop to your knees, and give me a blowjob. Yes or no?"

Several more parts of my brain became very active all at once. The correct answer obviously wasn't "yes," or my predecessors along this route would still be at work down under the desk, and I couldn't believe they'd both said, "no," not with a third thousand bits at stake.

So instead of taking the proffered options, I gave a snort. "Make it ten thousand," I said, "and we might have a basis upon which to begin negotiations."

His quill pen scratched messily to a halt along the parchment, and he looked up with the expression of a stallion who'd heard the sweet call of a meadowlark when he'd been expecting the bray of a donkey. Which is to say he blinked three times and then smiled, but putting it that way lacks a certain panache.

I remained standing with head held high, with eyes partially lidded, and with absolutely no idea what I was going to do if he called my bluff. The best course, I decided, would be to keep raising the bid until, growing either wise or tired, he dismissed me.

Instead of speaking, though, His Highness stepped out from behind his desk and began to circumnavigate me, his gaze so sharp and focused, I swear I could feel it comb across my hide. When he vanished around my south pole, I half expected to hear him command that my tail be switched aside so he could "view the goods" or some equally grotesque sort of cliché. But he completed his circuit in silence, not even the ticking of a clock here to keep me company.

Still, I'd already lasted longer than the others who'd taken this journey so far this morning. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, however, I had no idea.

Standing almost nose-to-nose with me now, Prince Blueblood showed his age. Not that I had any idea what that age was, but he'd been the prince for my entire lifetime, and this close to him, I could plainly see the gray roots at the base of his blonde mane as well as the powder vainly attempting to fill the wrinkles that lined his cheeks and forehead.

The continued sharpness of his gaze, though, made me think of nothing but daggers. "You're the usher from the Music Center," he said after what seemed to me like half-an-hour of him looking at me and me trying not to shiver.

That he knew who I was forced the shiver out onto the surface, but I managed to turn it into a tossing of my mane. "I prefer to think of myself as a willing servant of the arts," I replied, somehow keeping my voice from shivering as well.

His smile broadened, and again, I had no idea what that might portend. "I thought you showed promise," he said, "the way you're so often escorting mares both young and not-so-young back to that little love nest of yours."

That he knew about my mission to make a visit to the Music Center even more pleasant for a select group of our patrons made all sorts of reactions want to break out over, under, around, and through me. But since he seemingly approved—or at least hadn't ratted me out to management—I found it a bit easier to dredge up a smile of my own to show him. "Love," I said with a theatrical sigh. "It makes the world go 'round, I'm led to understand."

One of his eyebrows arched. "If by that you mean round and firm and fully-packed, then I'd say we're in agreement." His horn sprang to life, and I couldn't help tensing.

Nothing alarming happened, however: a drawer sprang open on the other side of his desk and a small piece of paper drifted upward from it. "As I said," he went on, "Morning Star there has the thousand bits you were promised in the letter, but there'll be a draft for five thousand here tomorrow morning at eleven if you'll show up bearing this upon your large and lovely person." The paper wafted toward me, and when I caught it in my magic, I saw that it bore a single golden star. "And don't worry," he was saying. "There'll be a great deal more money awaiting you even if you fail tomorrow's tests. And if you pass?"

This time, his smile not only widened but deepened as well. The perverse leer I'd seen so often while guiding the prince and his various companions to his private box at the Music Center vanished completely, and I could only stare at the expression of actual happiness that appeared on his face.

But then he shook himself, and the leer was back. "Just be here," he said, his words suddenly rough. "But for now, take your thousand and get out of my sight."

I didn't need to be told twice. Scooting past the guard, I snatched the bank draft from the feathers of his wing and trotted along the corridor beyond till I reached the street.

That thousand went quickly toward a large lunch for myself and the other lucky patrons who happened to be dining at Semolina's Bistro downtown, and the remainder bought some lovely trinkets for a few of my favorite companions each of whom squealed in appreciation in their assorted boudoirs during the rest of that long and luscious afternoon. I stopped by my dingy flat long enough to change into my usher's uniform and grab a few brooches, and I managed to make two new friends that evening, one a maiden attending her very first opera and the other a matron whom I'd noticed noticing me all season long.

It was rather a personal best for me, the sheer volume of mutual pleasure I'd been party to that day, and as I clomped, tired but oh so satisfied, up the stairs to the only bed I'd ever used simply for sleeping, I experienced a sensation I couldn't remember ever experiencing before.

For the first time in my life, I knew what my future held.

Rising early the next morning, I washed, combed, and spritzed myself with just the proper amount of the gardenia scent an admirer had gifted to me a few months before. The blazer was still eminently presentable, and with my gold star tucked safely within, I made my way in a leisurely fashion to the west end of the Canterlot Tower district where Prince Blueblood kept his offices. With careful steps, I followed the same path I'd taken the day before, but this time I made sure I was applying my magic to the doorknob just as the clock within was striking eleven.

One mustn't appear too eager, after all. Especially when one had no idea how many bits more than the promised five thousand might be forthcoming.

With a slightly come-hither smile, I stepped into the reception parlor—

And very nearly stumbled over my own hooves to see another of my doubles settled there as if he owned the place.

It took a great deal of effort not to glare—and even more effort to look as if I wasn't making any sort of effort. I stepped in, nodded to the fellow, and draped myself over a sofa as if I hadn't a care in the world. The initial shock was fading quickly, and I could see that the interloper was either number five or number six from yesterday, one of the two I'd left behind when I'd entered His Highness's office.

His jacket was different from the one I'd seen him in then, and while stylish enough, it was nowhere near as au courant as my blazer. He was a bit larger around the barrel than I, I had to admit, but shorter, too, stockier, not as streamlined. I wouldn't've called him handsome, but then I was already taking a dislike to him, and his snow globe cutie mark was so common among ponies with white coats, it was nearly a stereotype. I could only guess that he'd answered the prince's question correctly too and been called back for a second round the same way I had.

A second round of what, exactly, it occurred to me only then to wonder. Tests, the prince had mentioned in passing yesterday, tests that a pony could pass or fail. His Highness was evidently looking for something quite particular, a pony who resembled himself not just physically but also in attitude. So was he looking for an heir? He'd certainly never married, and none of the numerous sex scandals I could recall over the years had mentioned a resulting foal. Perhaps he'd felt the sudden need for some likely youngster to debauch before he died, somepony to keep the name of Blueblood burning like a dumpster fire into the next generation.

I had to stifle a few more shivers. It made as much sense as anything else, and while sixty of the clock's ticks became a minute and another sixty became the minute after that, I entertained myself with fantasies of how I would spend my time were I to become the next Prince Blueblood.

They were surprisingly tame fantasies, I have to admit, especially when I found myself recalling some of the Blueblood-related gossip I'd heard the matrons at the orphanage muttering to each other over the years.

Which led me to wonder what these tests might consist of. Would I be given a whip and told to apply it to the flank of some dew-eyed young mare? Would I have to burn my initials into the side of some priceless piece of Equestrian antiquity?

With the sudden sensation of ants scurrying across my hide, I almost leaped to my hooves. But I forced myself to remain relaxed and lolling in the face of my not-quite-mirror-image's continued impassivity.

It was a near thing, though. For the entirety of my life, Prince Blueblood had been held up as an example of how not to live. If this whole process in which I'd become enmeshed was truly designed to find the pony he wanted as his heir—

Was that something I wanted?

My musings were cut short by the office door opening, the guard tromping out with Prince Blueblood close behind. "Excellent!" he more purred than said, his horn crackling with light. The flap of the guard's saddlebag rose as did two slips of paper. "Five thousands bits, gentlecolts, as you were told." An oily grin oozed over his face. "There are further riches yet to come, of course, but you may take your draft and go right now if you'd like, no questions asked." The pale yellow waver of his magic rustled the slips toward us.

I intercepted mine and tucked it into my inner pocket, and my rival did the same. But other than that, neither of us moved.

After all, His Highness had already paid me seven thousand bits just to stroll into two rooms. Perhaps I could squeeze a few more from the situation before the horror show started and I had to apply my skills at verbal skating to extract myself.

Prince Blueblood's smile flickered the way it had yesterday: for the briefest of instants, it became an actual smile before squirming back into something much more serpentine. "Excellent," he said again, and he turned with a flip of his tail. "Come in, then, the both of you, and we'll get started on today's little exercise."