Noblesse Oblige

"Ah, Captain Armor!" I'd bedecked myself this morning, two days after the Gala, in an outfit I'd had specially tailored for those times when I needed to stir outrage among Canterlot's military class: a hat, large and bicorned with my cutie mark emblazoned upon the front; a jacket, blue and white and dripping with gold fringe from epaulets to buttonholes; canvas trousers, form fitting and bleached blindingly enough to cause traffic accidents; and two pairs of shiny black rubber boots that made my frogs sweat so profusely, I often squished when I walked.

It made for an impressive overall effect, if I do say so myself.

Shouldering my way into Shining Armor's office with that whole rig jingling and dangling from me, however, I'm fairly certain that 'impressive' was not the word that went running through the captain's mind. "I'm kind of in the middle of something right now, Your Highness," he said, the glow of his horn separating the large stack of papers in the middle of his desk into four smaller stacks. "If you can come back in an hour, I'll be happy to—"

"One brief moment, Captain, is all I require." I honestly liked Shining Armor, him and his sister both, and did my best to spare them from direct contact with the sort of trouble I was duty bound to create in my role as Prince Blueblood. In this case, however, I hadn't much of a choice. "I simply need to borrow the personnel files of the soldiers you've assigned to Princess Luna's guard, and I'll be on my way."

The flow of papers across his desk froze, and his head tipped back slowly to bring his laconic gaze up to meet my not-so-laconic one. "Excuse me?" he asked, adding a "Sir?" at the end of it because that's just how polite a fellow he was.

I leaned across his desk while making sure some of my fringe brushed menacingly against his paper stacks. "All very hush-hush, you know," I said in as loud a whisper as I could manage. "Can't be too careful, you know, with this new princess." I tapped a hoof to the side of my snout and gave poor old Armor a twitchy sort of a wink. "Best to keep a close watch on her and those around her till we know whose side she's really on, don't you think?"

To his absolute credit, Shining Armor neither punched me in the face nor demanded that I remove myself at once from his presence. The tightness that came across his eyes, though, and the clench of his jaw made me think that he was likely considering one or both of those options. "Excuse me, sir," he said again, a phrase he used rather often when speaking to me, "but Princess Luna has declared her loyalty to Equestria multiple times since her return. If you have any credible reason to think she's lying—"

"Oh, come now, Captain!" I waved in a way that again threatened to scatter his organizational schemata to the proverbial four winds. "When have you ever known me to be anything other than incredible?"

Had I been in his position, I'm fairly certain that I would've become slightly gruff at that point. But Captain Armor? He always held his temper in a most exemplary fashion. He did raise his voice, certainly, but only to call, "Sergeant?" over his shoulder in the general direction of the doorway behind him before returning his gaze to me. "I'm sure you understand, sir, that personnel files are much too sensitive to leave this office. But Sgt. Greaves here—" And with timing worthy of the opera stage, a dark silver pegasus in spotless armor stepped through the doorway. "—will be happy to assist you in any way that you need assisting. Now, if you'll excuse me, sir?" His horn lit up once more, and he went back to his sorting.

Choosing not to make a complete ass of myself, I instead nodded, gave a travesty of a salute—all flailing pasterns and overextended knees—and marched toward the unfortunate sergeant. "The personnel files, my good fellow, and be quick about it!"

And he was quick about it, too, leading me into an empty conference room, adjusting the curtains before I could begin complaining about the light, bringing me a stack of file folders, and checking whether I might like a cup of tea and a plate of cookies while I worked. Even playing the part of the persnickety Blueblood, I was hard-pressed to find fault with him. I did turn up my nose at the profferred cookies with the declaration that they were no doubt pasty and plebian, but with so much work before me, I kept it to that.

In a rumbly but gentle baritone, the sergeant informed me that he was situated right across the hall should I require anything further and that he would bring me the next batch of files as soon as I called for them. I nodded absently, waved him away, and set in to reading.

It quickly became apparent that the squadron of guards assigned to Princess Luna were an excellent group of soldiers, each and every one of them a credit to the force and an ornament with which Canterlot could be proud to adorn herself. They were also, however, nearly as uninteresting as the tea Sgt. Greaves kept pouring for me while I wasn't looking: I mean, I would empty my cup, dive into a folder, come back up for air after an unknown stretch of time, and discover that at some point during my submersion, the sergeant had apparently glided into the room without a single rattle or clank of armor and refilled my cup. It was positively uncanny.

It also, I realized with a start, was positively interesting. "Oh, Sergeant," I called, my cutie mark giving me the little shiver that I'd come to recognize as it telling me I was headed in the right direction. "Might I have the next bundle of files, please?"

He appeared soundlessly in the doorway a heartbeat or two later, more files held in his teeth. I rose and made a show of bending the kinks from my legs and neck. "Dry and dusty work it is, Greaves," I told him, "but essential to the safety of Equestria."

"Of course, Your Highness," he said, and his intonation was so perfectly balanced that even a pony as steeped in snark as I was couldn't tell if he was being serious or ironic.

Which meant I had to find out. "You know, Greaves, I'd appreciate your opinion on this matter, if you've a moment."

His eyelids didn't flick, his lips didn't purse, his ears didn't waver. "If you feel that I'm trustworthy enough, sir."

As dry and cool as a breeze on a muggy afternoon, his words washed over me, and I knew I'd found my first candidate. Swallowing any semblance of joy, I screwed an annoyed look over my snout. "These guards who've gone over to the dark side, as it were." I waved at the two stacks of files. "What d'you suppose might be going on in their heads?"

This time I caught the barest bit of a twitch at the corner of his mouth: stopping a laugh and a smile, I thought, rather than a growl and a frown. "Perhaps they think they're doing their duty, sir. We all swore to protect the princess, after all, and now that there's three of them, we get assigned to wherever we're most needed." Something else tugged at the edges of his face, something I couldn't identify. "Very few in the squadrons now carrying out night duty volunteered, though: I can tell you that."

And why, I most pointedly didn't ask aloud, can you tell me that? Yes, he was apparently some sort of personnel clerk around headquarters, but surely he didn't memorize the details of each soldier's deployment. So could it be that—?

"Oh, well, yes," I said, trying to find a way to ask the question I wanted to ask without actually asking it. "I mean, who would ever volunteer to serve this alleged aunt of mine when my actual aunt is available?"

Sgt. Greaves's eyes darted to the stack of files, and I had my answer. He had volunteered to join Princess Luna's guard. And he'd been turned down because, well, I suppose because Captain Armor needed him at HQ to shuffle paper.

But as much as I hated to inconvenience the captain, I was on a much larger mission here than the mere safety and security of Equestria. I had to select and groom a romantic partner for the newly rethroned Night Princess without said princess ever knowing the process was going on.

"Still," I said briskly, and the sergeant's expression smoothed like quicksilver. "It might very well take a volunteer to accomplish this mission, some stalwart pony willing to risk fraternizing with the, well, not the enemy, of course. As Captain Armor pointed out, I've yet to find any actual proof that Princess Luna's anything other than my genuinely long-lost aunt." Rubbing my chin, I narrowed my eyes as if trying to follow my own train of thought. "But if I could find a volunteer willing to go undercover amongst those in the night squadron and report secretly back to me all that's happening over there..."

"Sir?" Greaves's voice had roughened a bit more. "I'd be honored to."

"You?" I gave him several rapid blinks in the fashion of one who's only just noticed there's another pony in the room. "A file clerk?"

Fire flashed briefly in his eyes—another promising sign—and he whooshed out of the room and back so quickly, only the wind stirring my mane and the new file folder he had clenched in his teeth indicated that he'd actually moved. "I think you'll find, sir," he said after setting the folder down on the table, "that I possess exactly the qualities Princess Luna will find most useful in those surrounding her as she re-acclimates to life among ponies."

I was feeling better and better about him with each passing second, but for the sake of the role, I did some more blinking, took his folder in my magic, brought it near, and flipped it open. To keep him talking, I asked, "And what qualities are those exactly?"

"Forgive me, sir, but I prefer to let my record speak for itself."

My cutie mark gave another positive tingle, and I scanned the paperwork carefully while doing my best to appear as if I was giving it a mere cursory glance. The word "orphanage" leaped out at me with such force, however, I could barely restrain myself from leaping into the air. Not the Hooves of Mercy Orphan Asylum I'd grown up in, I quickly reassured myself, but Haven Space, the other large orphanage in town. I paged through nothing but glowing reports from the matrons there about how he went out of his way to help those of the other foals who were having difficulties, from the drill instructors at the Royal Guard Training Center about his even temperment and fierce determination, and from all his superiors up to and including Captain Armor about his general character: quiet, knowledgeable, quick on the uptake, and willing to take whatever initiative he was given.

Now if only he knew something of poetry...

Touching a hoof to my chest, I let fly with a quotation that I as the loutish Prince Blueblood would no doubt consider apt under the circumstances: "'Declare the truth, or let the record speak. For one belies the other, claw to beak.'"

Greaves's ears flicked, and he came right back with the next line from Pentameter's farce Bells Before Breakfast, the line Dodger uses when the jealous griffon Gorgonio accuses the lovable rogue of lying about where he'd spent the previous night: "'It's yours the beak, and doubly yours the claw. So rend my words; you shan't reveal a flaw.'"

Which meant he knew something of what we in modern Equestria would call the classics and what Princess Luna would call the contemporary theater. I smiled, let the folder drift back onto the table, and stuck out a hoof. "Welcome to the conspiracy, Sgt. Greaves."

His jaw tightened, and his hoof failed to rise from the floor. "Permission to speak freely, Your Highness?"

The tiniest sort of icicle jabbed into the back of my neck, but I kept my smile broad and waved my unbumped hoof in an expansive manner. "By all means, Sergeant! If we're to be partners in this, then—"

"We're not to be partners in this, sir, if by 'this,' you mean some plot to trump up false accusations against Princess Luna." Even though his voice didn't became appreciably louder, his words bit a good deal harder into my ears. "I've observed Her Highness at the few state functions she's attended since her return, and I will state my unequivocal opinion that she has reformed her life and is once again working in union with Princess Celestia and Princess Cadance to advance Equestrian civilization and ideals into the future and into the wider world."

The hair at the base of my mane stood up and shivered at the utter convinction in his tone. More than conviction, too: this fellow was half in love with our Dark Princess, or my cutie mark was nothing but a few daubs of paint spattered across my hindquarters. And if he was going to be honest with me and jeopardize what might be his only chance to join her retinue, well, I could be honest with him.

Not completely honest, of course. That sort of thing was reserved for Princess Celestia. But partially honest, at least.

I put a good deal more steel into my expression than I usually allowed to leak over it, leaned forward, and held out my hoof again. "Then prove me wrong, Sergeant. Bring me the paperwork necessary for you to join Princess Luna's staff, and then find a way for the rest of Equestria to see her the way you do."

It was the first time I'd seen Sgt. Greaves at a loss, his eyes widening and his lower lip quivering. His hoof came up slowly, though, almost as if it were acting on its own, but it clacked against mine with what I could only characterize as firm resolve. "Captain Armor won't like this, sir."

Puffing a snort through my nostrils, I tossed my head with enough force to spin my bicorne hat a quarter turn. "Leave him to me."

Alas, I must admit that things got a bit uglier than I would've liked between Shining Armor and myself that day. Greaves had set the transfer up as a simple staff exchange—he would be trading places with another sergeant whom he said was having more than a little difficulty adjusting to her assignment in the Night Guard. But Armor reacted as if I were taking half his staff, all their desks, and a fair percentage of the building's roof with me. "I'm the captain of the guard, sir!" he exclaimed more than once during our exchange.

So I finally had to shut him down. "Captain of the guard, yes!" I stomped my squishy boots. "But until you muster up your courage and marry that princess you think you've been inconspicuously wooing for so many years, only one of us in this conversation will bear the title of prince!" Fluctuating my magic, I waved the paperwork at him. "I am informing you of this situation merely as a courtesy, but I believe you'll find that my signature upon these forms is even more valid than yours! Complain if you must to my aunt, but since I've already sent a copy of these orders to Princess Luna's staff, I suggest you prepare for Sgt. Brandish's arrival while Sgt. Greaves gets on his way!"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Greaves give a salute, his face as devoid of expression as a crystal ball, before he turned and marched from the office. "And," I went on quickly and loudly enough to stop Armor from calling after the sergeant, "I suggest you count yourself lucky that I don't take a greater interest in whatever skullduggery might be going on in these corridors!" I considered knocking over one of his carefully arranged stacks of paper, but I knew that the fallout from this little escapade would already prove sufficient to get me called into Princess Celestia's chamber. And considering how out-of-sorts she'd been during our last session, I couldn't stifle a shiver.

Shaking my head, I settled for merely pointing in an accusatory fashion at the good captain, then spinning and storming out. "No pony is above suspicion, and my eyes are everywhere!"

Much later, of course, I had reason to wonder whether transferring Greaves and his eye for detail out of the main office at headquarters might not have been one reason why so many clues went unheeded before and during Queen Chrysalis's infiltration of Canterlot and her near-marriage to Captain Armor. Such speculation, however, can only serve as a parlor game. The past is the past and all that, and our story moves on.

Fortunately for my ribs, my meeting with Princess Celestia that evening proved to be more usual than unusual, and her embrace as we lay tangled together afterwards seemed properly relaxed. She even spoke first once I'd recovered my senses: "Sergeant Greaves, is it?"

I nodded against her chest. "As a first attempt, I think he should prove admirable."

"First attempt?" From the tone of her voice, I could tell she was arching an eyebrow at me. "How many attempts have you in mind?"

"As many as it takes." I'd regained enough muscle control by then to tilt my head back and meet her gaze. "Though I may need to invite your sister to the opera."

Every bit of warmth vanished from that gaze. "I told you you're to interact with Luna as little as possible."

Fortunately, I'd rehearsed my arguments ahead of time since her obvious displeasure nearly froze every fiber of my nervous system. "I'm not him," I said, knowing that I was trotting into uncertain ground: I'd found almost no information about the original Prince Blueblood in the course of my two years wearing his name, but from Princess Celestia's occasional hints, I'd pieced together a picture of the pony who'd conspired with a second unicorn named Sombra to overthrow the Diarchy back in its earliest days. Even in its failure, however, the mistrust implanted by the conspiracy had led directly to Princess Luna's rebellion and thousand years of exile.

Not a pleasant sort, my adopted ancestor. So I repeated my assertion before going on: "I'm not him, and Princess Luna needs to see that I'm not him. I can't be forever scampering about in the shadows, afraid that I might encounter her around the next corner. And this will be the quickest way to make sure she notices Greaves."

Princess Celestia's frown always made me think of a crack in an exquisite porcelain vase. I hurried on with my plan. "Next week, the Music Center is staging a revival of Verismo's opera The Baker of Wickerham. Princess Luna will be familiar with Iambic Pentameter's original tragedy, but since the opera was written five hundred years later, it will be a combination of the old and the new. Greaves is likewise conversant in Pentameter's plays, so when I let him know that he needs to be part of the princess's honor guard that night, we'll all be together in the Blueblood box during the performance. I'll proceed to make a series of outlandishly stupid remarks about the low quality of the material, and the two of them will be able to unite in opposition to my idiocy."

Her frown began softening. "Make sure Greaves conveys a subtle contempt for you. That will definitely attract Luna to him."

I snorted a laugh. "I only met Greaves today, but I can assure you that he already thinks of me as unworthy of my office."

"Good, good." And for all that it's a dreadful cliché, I'll still say it: Princess Celestia's smile was like the sun coming up. When she bent down and touched a kiss to my lips, however, well, I haven't the words to adequately describe the sensation. "I'll leave it all in your capable hooves."

Her own hooves began doing wonderful things along my neck and shoulders, and my last coherent thought for quite some time afterwards was: what could possibly go wrong?