Noblesse Oblige

"Inexcusable!" Princess Celestia shouted, slamming a front hoof into the marble floor of her shadowy bedchamber with a thunderous retort.

This, of course, was something I'd heard before.

"A heroine of the realm," Her Highness continued, lightning crackling at the corners of her eyes, "and you treat her like soiled linen! One of the six ponies who fought the very forces of destiny itself to return my sister whole and reformed after a thousand indescribably horrible years of exile, and you expose poor Rarity to nothing but ridicule and scorn!"

"I exposed her?" Touching a hoof to my chest, I put on an aggrieved expression, something I'd gotten quite good at over the past two years if I did say so myself. "I was left lying on my back in the palace ballroom, covered in cake and flooded with frosting!" I pointed to an orange smear I'd specifically left behind my ear from the incident earlier this evening. "I'm the injured party here!"

"Injured?" Her magic snatched me about the middle and hoisted me into the air with an unusual roughness. "My sister spent a millennium suffering for my stupidity, and you claim that you were injured?" The room spun, my legs flailing like a rag doll's. "Perhaps you'd like to experience some real injuries, sirrah!"

This, unfortunately, wasn't something I'd heard before. I didn't have time even to blink, however, before an invisible bludgeon struck my right side from shoulder to flank with the force of a cart hurtling down a mountain road, and I went tumbling mane over fetlocks through the empty air.

Ice stabbed my stomach, and my jangled brain popped up with the geography of her room to tell me that I was not hurtling toward her bed as had happened on every other occasion when she'd tossed me about like this. Rather, I was hurtling toward the room's far wall at a fairly high rate of speed.

More information went popping like bubbles through my brain: how Princess Celestia's ever-growing public joy at Princess Luna's return last summer and her slow reintegration into life at Canterlot Tower had been mirrored by an ever-deepening discontent during our private sessions; how every adjustment I'd tried to make to our bedroom games in response to her increasing snappishness had proven to be a good deal less than successful; how I trusted my beloved princess with my very life; but how I was nonetheless mere seconds away from what would undoubtedly prove to be a very painful collision.

That last one, I felt certain, should be my priority at the moment, so I fired up my horn and pushed back against the onrushing wall with all the force I could muster. I still struck the lovely, eggshell-colored enamel surface more heavily than I would've liked, but the crash, while it rattled my teeth and sent pain crackling through me, was not the most jarring part of the whole experience. Sliding to the floor, I couldn't help focusing on the idea that Princess Celestia, whom I'd had the great pleasure of serving as secret consort these past two years, had just hurled me into a wall.

And yes, she'd done so many times as part of our routine, but this was the first time she'd failed to catch me. She hadn't even tried, as a matter of fact, and pushing myself to my hooves from the crumpled heap into which I'd collapsed, I raised my head to behold a sight I'd never before so much as imagined.

The fury of a forest fire roaring along a hillside of dry trees would've been, I was sure, more akin to a candle sputtering when compared to the monstrous visage glaring down upon me. For all the acrimony, the shouting, the rage, and the outrage I'd seen portrayed in this room, she'd never been anything but exquisitely in control of herself, of me, and of the situation for every second of our time together.

Until right now. Her mane literally boiled around her head, the usual pastel colors tinted with red and the flowing lines more like cracks in a looking glass, her teeth clenched so tightly, tendons stood out like steel cables along the sides of her neck. Every panting breath I took singed my nostrils and sent twinges through the ribs along my right side, the air stinking of sweat and electricity.

She took a step toward me, and I realized that I had no other option but to aim straight for her heart. "You threaten me with injuries, madam?" I screamed. "Being forced to endure your loathsome presence is more than should be expected of any mortal body! Kill me, therefore, and release me from this unending cycle of misery and degradation!"

The most beautiful being in the entire history of creation winced back, the rampaging inferno that had surrounded her an instant before puffing away like mist on a breeze. My chest twisted at the thought of playing upon her deep-seated insecurities in this way, but how else was I to shock her thought processes back into action?

It seemed to have the proper effect: at least her face hardened almost as quickly as it had fallen, her horn flaring and wrapping its glow around me once more. "Kill you? You'll not be so lucky, worm!" Flinging me across the room again, her magic this time deposited me the way it was supposed to in the middle of her bed.

Immediately, she slammed herself down upon me, though the way her hooves hit the coverlet to dissipate the impact before her chest so much as touched mine told me she was back to herself, back in control, back to whatever passed for normal between us. Even the familiar hissing disdain had returned to her voice: "You treacherous, lecherous, vile piece of filth! There's only one punishment fit for something as foul as you!"

Her hips had begun their incredibly coaxing motion against my own, and despite the ache that simmered up and down me, certain parts of my body responded to her as they always did. She was physical perfection, after all, and knowing intimately the jagged shards of her psyche as I did endeared her to me all the more. With a stretch of my neck, I pressed my lips to hers, willing the contact to convey the message of my love for her in ways I was unable to express in words.

Because I still had my role to play, didn't I? Still had to force myself away from the peach-sweet pressure of her mouth and spit poison back at her. "You harridan!" I knew all her favorite terms by now. "You hoyden!" And the one that never failed to send her into a frenzy. "You jade!"

She shuddered, and her body seized mine, enveloped me in every possible way, and all but swallowed me up entirely. Since I cannot describe the sensation, I shan't attempt to, but the ecstatic flood of warmth and joy swept all pain from my memory, every last fiber of my being alive and singing with the pleasure of her touch. And this embrace was so much more than a mere touch, it took every ounce of the control I'd learned since puberty not to abandon myself to the glory of her, not to fling myself mindlessly into her liquid depths with no desire but to be lost within her forever.

Shoving my mind away from that incandescent abyss, I forced it to remember who and where I was. "Oh, Auntie! Auntie!" I shrieked, knowing it would arch her back in orgasm, and I shrieked again, wordlessly this time, when she pulled me even closer and redoubled her pounding, driving efforts. And while I know that I in fact did not instantaneously evaporate at that moment in reaction to her ministrations, that's nonetheless what it felt like. I ceased to exist as a solid and sublimed into some higher state, a geyser of pure, superheated wonder and elation, and clinging to her, I knew she'd done the same.

The intensity of the experience was orders of magnitude greater than even the euphoria of our regular sex, and I have absolutely no idea how much time elapsed before I began to realize that the gentle rumbling in my ears was the sound of her breathing, that the flicker and swirl of colors before my eyes was the lazy wavering of her mane coiling and uncoiling across my face. My bones practically creaked like rusted hinges, but I managed to bend my neck, pulling my face away from the damp magnolia scent of her chest to see her stretched out among the scattered mounds of bedclothes beside me.

Peace smoothed her countenance, but as I watched, one closed eye twitched. Her head moved, both eyes opening, and when she met my gaze, I could see the first dark tremors of fear and doubt just starting to shimmer there.

Which could not be allowed to happen. After all the work I'd done to nudge her away from the idea around which her whole consciousness seemed to whirl—sex with her, she was convinced, was the most horrible penalty she could ever mete out—I was not about to lie there and allow her to voice the apology I could smell welling up from her throat.

So I leaped. Figuratively speaking, of course: I'd never had the strength to leave her embrace in the aftermath of a session. No, I let my cutie mark guide me, let the compass rose on my flank pop a thought onto my tongue and trusted that it would lead us all in the correct direction. "So," I said, not at all sure what words were going to come out of me, "about your sister..."

Princess Celestia's eyes widened, then became cold slabs of amethyst. "She's not for you," she more growled than said.

"Me?" I gave a well-practiced laugh and stroked a hoof along her side. "You know I prefer my mares large, bleached, and neurotic."

The tiniest hint of a smile flickered around her lips, and when she asked, "You're just bringing her up to make chit-chat, then, I suppose?" I knew we'd taken at least a step away from the danger zone.

Still, this situation called for a bit more honesty than I usually liked to deal with, and I couldn't help aiming a few inner curses at my cutie mark for throwing me under the cartwheels like this. "I bring her up," I said, "because she's incredibly important to you—and to all of Equestria, for that matter—and yet she wasn't at the Gala tonight."

"Last night." The princess nodded in the vague direction of her balcony. "It's already two thirty-nine in the morning."

I pursed my lips. "I shall synchronize my pocket watch once I discover what's become of my waistcoat." Refusing to be sidetracked, however, I pressed on. "That your sister needs help re-entering modern society should surprise nopony, and I feel—"

"No." The tightness of that one little syllable told me that we were moving toward the danger zone again. "Not you. You'll only make things worse."

"Well, of course not me!" I touched my own chest. "A sodden train wreck like myself is hardly a fit role-model for a sweet, innocent filly like Princess Luna."

Her eyes narrowed. "Not the adjectives I would have chosen for her, but putting that aside, who do you have in mind as a role-model, then?"

"That's just it." My brain had finally caught up with my cutie mark, and I was fairly certain I'd figured out what it was up to. "I don't know what sort of pony would best tickle the fancy of our recently returned princess. Mare? Stallion? Bold warrior? Clever courtier? Who?"

"A poet," Princess Celestia said so quietly, I wasn't sure at first that she'd even spoken. Her gaze had come all unfocused as well, and I could barely restrain a shiver at the thought of how many centuries back into her memories she was venturing. "Luna was always a secret romantic, always the iron shoe around the tender hoof. She wants the world to see her as hard and dark, aloof and brooding and mysterious. But inside, she yearns for a soul-mate, a stallion who will patiently and quietly overcome all the loud and boisterous obstacles she throws into his path, who will woo her with gentle but tireless words and will prove by his chaste devotion that he is worthy of admittance to her own poetic heart. And she was hurt so badly the last time..."

Holding my breath, I watched her eyes clench, tears trickling from the corners. "Blueblood and Sombra, they...they conspired to poison us against each other and against Equestria, wormed their ways into our hearts and beds and would've led us to—" Her eyes burst open again, and she grabbed my shoulders, her nostrils flaring. "It's why you mustn't talk to Luna! You mustn't even allow yourself to be in the same room as her if you can help it! Sombra was so dangerous, we had to destroy him, but when I let Blueblood live, that...that was when it all started to go wrong..."

This outburst took me completely by surprise, and I couldn't keep my own control from slipping. "Sombra?" I asked, certain I'd never heard the name before.

The openness in her face slammed shut with the suddenness of a door caught in a wind storm. "Never mind," she said, something brittle in her voice. "Just another of my hens that'll soon be coming home to roost." She took a breath and blew it out. "Still, that's a very good idea, trying to get Luna a rutting partner." Sliding away from me, she rose in all her grace and majesty to stand beside the bed. "You can't allow her to see even a hint that any meeting you put together has been arranged, or she'll reject your candidate without another thought. Relationships have to evolve naturally and organically for her." That ghost of a smile touched her lips again. "I can hardly even remember what that's like..."

I wasn't quite ready to try that much moving yet, but I somehow maneuvered one foreleg around so I could push myself up a bit. "I shall leave less of a trace than the breeze among the pussy willows," I informed her. "All will be hearts and flowers, soulful glances and chirping birds." I waved a hoof. "You know, that sort of nonsense."

Her smile broadened, and she leaned forward to brush a kiss between my ears—or rather, I quickly realized from the damp sliding of her tongue through my hair, to vacuum up the remains of the cake that had somehow remained tucked there this whole time. "Thank you," she said.

My heart pounded, but I gave a snort. "I could say that I'm Your Highness's devoted servant in all things and that I live only to ease Your Highness's burdens in whatever poor way I can, but, well, we both know your opinions on such statements."

Straightening, she laughed, and the glower she turned upon me was patently and entirely false. "Don't make me come back in there, mister."

My ears perked at the thought. "Is that an option?"

"It isn't." Her horn lit, and most of the tangled blankets whisked away from beneath and around me. "On your hooves, nephew." The slight emphasis she put on that last word told me unequivocally that the curtain of falsehood had descended fully upon us once more. "Some of us have to be up at dawn, after all."

I sighed, and rolling for the edge of the bed, I just barely got my hooves under me rather than tumbling to the floor. "Ah, the sun's a harsh mistress."

She'd been heading across the room for the laundry chute, the bedclothes in a bundle floating along behind her. She stumbled slightly, however, before continuing on. "She doesn't mean to be," came an almost inaudible whisper from her direction. "But all the sun knows how to do is burn."

It made me shiver, but instead of running to her with words of love spouting from my every orifice, I kept my voice just as quiet. "Untrue," I said, knowing she would hear. "For the sun also shines, does she not?"

No reply drifted back to me, Her Highness seemingly too involved in shoving our soiled linens through the chute and gathering clean bed things from the nearby closet to have paid the slightest bit of attention to whatever it was I might've said.

Forcing my head not to shake, I bowed, turned away, and got the dry tree limbs of my legs to shuffle me toward the door. Princess Luna's return to Equestria had changed my relationship with Princess Celestia in ways I was only now beginning to understand, but I knew one thing for absolute certain: I couldn't survive many more sessions like this one.

So time for me to change a few things. Seeing her sister settling more fully into the world would help relieve a great deal of the guilt Princess Celestia felt about matters that, again, I was only beginning to understand, and relieving that guilt was a vital step in keeping my beloved from sinking deeper into the morass of her own mind.

Which meant I needed to find a stallion, and I needed to find him quickly. Without ever bringing myself to Princess Luna's attention, of course, and without ever letting anypony realize that Prince Blueblood was anything other than the empty headed and boorish buffoon that most of Equestria saw when the latest scandal I'd manufactured for Princess Celestia's benefit forced their attention toward me.

Simplicity itself, in other words...