The best-laid plans of ponies and pangolins, as the saying goes—

Or is it "ponies and penguins"?

Either way, all the strategies I'd so carefully designed, all my schemes to unite the unsuspecting Princess Luna and the equally unsuspecting Sergeant Greaves in solidarity against my stupidity, all the arrangements I'd been prepared to make in my mission to draw the two ever closer and so bring some romance into the life of my beloved princess's younger sister, all that went tumbling down the hot-fudge-covered slopes and into the mustard-scented cesspool of events beyond my control.

Beyond anypony's control, for that matter, and I mean that quite literally: some ancient spirit of chaos came bursting forth from a statue in the palace gardens and swept the entirety of Equestria into his sticky, sloppy embrace.

Unfortunately, by the time that Princess Celestia's delightful student and her rustic friends had resolidified the beast, the Canterlot Music Center's carpeting had become nothing but lemon rind from one end of the building to the other, and all the wood in the seats had been replaced with papier-mâché. Which meant the entire complex became "closed for repairs until further notice." Which meant no opera. Which meant no opportunity for Princess Luna and Greaves to bond in opposition to me.

Fortunately, however, Princess Luna had leaped directly into the fray when Discord's chaotic shenanigans had threatened to engulf the city even while the creature himself tangled with Twilight Sparkle's forces in distant Ponyville. And Greaves, it turned out, had leaped into said fray right alongside her.

I'm told it was quite the stirring sight. I myself, like many in the Canterlot Tower district, awoke that morning beneath bedsheets and blankets turned to the gooiest possible caramel. So quite a number of us lay largely immobile for the duration of the adventure.

Greaves, on the other hoof, distinguished himself with flying colors as it were, rescuing foals and old mares, carrying out Princess Luna's orders with élan and alacrity, even taking command of a squadron or a battalion or something along those lines when the princess felt it necessary to divide her forces to better serve the needs of Canterlot's citizenry. And at the end of the medal ceremony after Discord's defeat, Princess Luna made her first public proclamation since her return by awarding Greaves the Equestria Star, a decoration that apparently hadn't been given out in more than a thousand years. She also promoted him to Captain of her Night Guard—much to the relief of Silver Dagger, the mare who'd originally been assigned that position by Captain Armor—and in general praised him at the top of her prodigious lungs as the very model of military propriety, honor, and dutifulness.

In short, she noticed him.

My job then became both simpler and more complex. I would need to turn that first notice into a long-term sort of interest, and then turn that interest into romantic fascination. I'd rather need Greaves's assistance for that, I supposed, but, well, the best way to procure his assistance would be to encourage him in a direction opposite my true goal.

It took me several days to come up with an appropriate scheme, but when I did, I sent to Greaves by unicorn magic a missive detailing my desire to meet with him to discuss what I referred to as "our joint project."

His answer, delivered to my rooms via military attaché under triple seal and stamp, was absolutely the politest invitation to hurl myself off the nearest cliff that I'd ever received.

Not that he stated his desire in so many words, of course. In fact, if I'd been as solidly dense as I pretended to be, I would've seen nothing in his message but a statement of regret that his new duties disallowed him from giving his full attention to the matter in question at the present time.

Since I wasn't dense, however, I couldn't help but notice how he made no offer to reschedule, and his reply, conveyed in so public a fashion after the private and personal message I'd sent him, told me that he had no interest in keeping our relationship clandestine. And since my ostensible goal was to undermine the princess he now served as Captain, by keeping our correspondence limited to open channels, he was all but inviting me to broadcast my treasonous thoughts throughout the entirety of Canterlot Tower.

That the steed disliked me so strongly even after so short an acquaintance, I felt, spoke volumes about his good character.

So I altered my plans a bit, decked myself out in my regimental baubles, bangles, and beads, and jingle-jangle-jingled my way across to the night side of the castle just shy of sundown a few evenings later.

The guards stationed throughout the hallways all looked appropriately unimpressed as I stopped to inspect each one, and I had to make up flaws in their uniforms or their deportment since they largely lacked any. I was guessing that by now, Captain Greaves had transferred those who wished to return to the day shift and had taken into his ranks those who felt themselves drawn to our mysterious Night Princess. The air of the whole wing seemed more than a little prideful, at any rate, as if the ponies here knew they had something to prove and were devotedly determined that they would indeed prove it.

I made my way slowly toward the Night Guard headquarters in the hope that word of my approach would arrive before I did, and I wasn't disappointed. "Your Highness," the adjutant said the instant I stepped into the office. Before I could even speak, he had risen from his desk, saluted, and gestured to the doorway behind him. "Captain Greaves is expecting you."

And as quickly as that, I found myself ushered down a hall and into a small conference room, the new captain waiting at the table within and wearing the sort of blank expression I'd come to expect from him. He rose at exactly the correct speed to make me unsure if he was conveying some minor insult—though I knew he was, of course—and I nodded with the pleasure I genuinely felt to see him again. "Well, well, well!" I said, stepping in and looking around. "If efficiency were a disease, Captain, I'd say that you were highly contagious!"

The adjutant behind me gave the tiniest snort, but Greaves remained as stony as ever. "Thank you, Your Highness. Would you care for a tour of the facility?"

"No, no." I held up a hoof. "Since you couldn't get away to come visit me, I thought I'd come visit you." I glanced in as blatant a fashion as I could at the adjutant still in the doorway. "If we could perhaps speak privately?"

"Of course." He nodded. "That'll be all, Polaris."

My mane wanted to frizz very, very badly, but by sheer force of will, I kept it contained. Had Greaves just called me by my real name? Or—?

"Yes, sir," came a voice from over my shoulder, and a smile nearly burst over my snout. Greaves was pretending that the adjutant was named Polaris to see if he could get a rise out of me! That could only mean that he'd investigated my background, and if he was being subtle about his findings this way, he must no longer subscribe to the dimwitted portrait I'd painted of myself!

The door clicked shut, but I didn't look back. Greaves's left ear gave the slightest flicker, and I thought perhaps he was annoyed that I hadn't reacted to his little ploy. "Won't you sit down, Prince Blueblood?" he asked, gesturing to a spot across the table from him.

"I will," I said. And since I wanted to show him I wasn't the enemy here— "That was very good, too, learning my pre-adoption name and all." I sat and unveiled the most 'hale-and-hearty-fellow-well-met' grin I had at my disposal. "I trust you also learned something of my life and pastimes before I joined House Blueblood?"

Greaves remained standing for a few seconds, then slowly took his place at the table. "I did indeed, sir," he said quietly. "And I must say that I don't understand you in the slightest."

"Excellent!" I slapped the table. "Shows you're a pony of proper moral character, and shows me that I was right to bring this along." Activating my horn, I used my magic to pull a slim volume from the coat of my phony uniform and send it sliding across the polished wood toward him.

He slapped a hoof over the book, bent his troubled gaze down toward it, and let that troubled gaze pop right back up again. "I already have a copy of Pentameter's Sonnets, sir."

I'd more than suspected as much. Still, I beamed at him: this was going to be a delicate row to hoe, as out rural cousins put it. "Yes, but this'll be the copy you'll share with her." I almost waggled my eyebrows, but that would've been entirely too much for the situation as it was unfolding.

The slight salty tinge that came into his scent told me that he knew who I meant. But he still asked, "Could you be more specific, Your Highness?"

Lowering my voice and glancing around, I said, "My recently arrived aunt."

Whether his wings wanted to foomph outward or pull tighter to his sides, I couldn't quite tell. He was straining to hold them still, at any rate. "You want me to share Iambic Pentameter's book of sonnets with Princess Luna?"

"Now, now, Greaves." I tapped the side of my muzzle. "We're both stallions of the world. We both know a damsel in distress when we see one, and we both know it's our duty to help said damsel become undistressed."

Distress was a very good word for what I was seeing creep across Greaves's face at that moment, as a matter of fact, but I pressed on, certain that I had the situation well under control. "What my aunt Luna needs is a good romantic fling, something that'll get the blood pumping in her veins again after so long lounging about on the moon." I cringed internally at the words, but while I didn't want Greaves to see me as an utter ignoramus, I also didn't want him to consider me to be too many steps above a twit, either. "In short, Greaves, she needs you. Well, you and Pentameter: she prob'bly knew him, way back when." I gave a fatuous little laugh. "So what do you say, Captain? Once more into the breach and all that?"

Slightly misquoting Pentameter himself there at the end, I felt, could only help my cause, and I sprang to my hooves before Greaves could do more than blink. "You've the tools, and you've the talents, so there's a good fellow! Show her a lovely time!" Pushing the door open with my magic, I clattered and squished out into the hall—

Only to see Princess Luna herself sweeping toward me from the direction of the outer office rather like a cold front. She stopped, her eyes widened, and the atmospheric pressure began to drop even more precipitously.

Without a second thought, I let a smile be my umbrella. "Your Highness!" I didn't charge forward, but neither did I arrest my motion: I set myself adrift, one might say, a bit of dandelion fluff floating before her glowering storminess. "I don't believe I've yet had the opportunity of welcoming you back to the warm embracing bosom of Equestria!" Arriving before her—she and I were nearly the same height, but the way she glared down her snout made me feel a good deal smaller—I bowed jangling to the floor. "I'm sure Aunt Celestia's told you all about your nephew Blueblood, and I'm both pleased and proud to announce that I am that very nephew!"

"Indeed?" Her pinched contralto went quite well with her pinched expression. "Truly, sirrah, we rejoice in thy declaration, for our first impression upon beholding the farcicality of thy dress held thee to be a clown wandered away from the circus. Great and grievous would have been our annoyance to have inadvertantly maligned that noble profession by lumping the likes of thee amongst their number!"

Accustomed to insults as I was, it still took me several eye blinks to unravel this one, and by then Her Highness had sailed past me, head and dudgeon both held high.

The smile I'd forced into place became genuine: oh, this was definitely my beloved's sister, all right. Turning to wave cheerily at her, I put the most brainless inflection into my voice to convey my most sincere sentiment: "Well, I hope we can talk more in the future, Your Highness, when neither of us has such pressing duties to attend to."

I took myself away then as quickly as I could, feeling lucky to have escaped with nothing more than the slightest of tongue lashings and leaving the ball in Greaves's court.

Some thirty-six hours later, however, I was back, creeping on little cat feet, as they say, through the pre-dawn corridors of the palace's night side in a desperate attempt to keep my plans from coming entirely unglued.

He sent the book back to me was the thing: the book of Pentameter's sonnets that I'd left with him. Greaves had wrapped it up in a diplomatic pouch and dispatched it to my office the day after I'd given it to him with a little note inside: The loan is appreciated, Your Highness, but not needed.

My cutie mark twinged at the thought, and I slipped from one shadowy pillar to the next, my ears pricked for the slightest clatter of armor. Knowing what mares wanted from a romance, after all, was intrinsic to my very being, and I would stake my life that Princess Luna wanted poetry recited to her in the slightly husky voice of a stallion who'd fought alongside her and whom she'd so come to trust that she'd named him the captain of her guard.

And in fact, I was rather staking my life on it. I couldn't imagine that Greaves fumbling his approach to Princess Luna would cause Princess Celestia to become gentler in her attentions to me...

I'd studied the plans for the suites occupied by the Night Guard before outfitting myself in a black skintight outfit I'd originally procured for more boudoir-related activities, and I stole my way along the hallways that led to Greaves's quarters, the book of sonnets tucked into a pack strapped to my side. The duty roster had told me that he'd not be in his room at this hour of the morning, so my plan was to leave the book in plain sight with a note of my own that said, "Kindly reconsider."

Grinning at the thought of spinning the tale of Polaris Blueblood, Love Ninja, for my princess, I rounded the corner of the corridor at the end of which lay Greaves's apartment. Since my teen years had found me once too often in a situation where a magically sealed window had stood between me and escaping the wrath of an outraged parent, I'd long ago become proficient in the art of lock picking. A few quick but precise spells nudged and tickled the tumblers aside—perhaps I needn't mention that such manipulation spells have several more delicately delicious applications as well—and I stepped as silently as a bug's blink into Greaves's apartment.

As expected, its furnishings held all the joie de vivre of a barrack house, everything plain and hard-edged and functional though the bookshelves in his bedroom bore the aroma of loving attention. I was just depositing the collection of sonnets on the severely utilitarian table beside the double doors that led onto the smallest balcony I'd ever seen when a rough but pleasant bit of hummed music began tickling my ears.

I froze, but the melody—almost recognizable even in my panic—appeared to be drifting in through the balcony doors. The balcony itself, I could see, stood empty, but recalling the layout of the palace grounds told me that a side garden lay below the windows of this wing. I briefly allowed myself to wonder who in the wide, wide world of Equestria would be out in a garden humming an hour before the sun had even begun hinting at the horizon, but as this seemed to be none of my concern, I turned to go, my mission accomplished.

At which point, a voice from outside froze me again: low and female and ever so slightly breathtaking. "A good final watch to thee, Captain."

Princess Luna. Unmistakably. And when the humming stopped, I heard Greaves say, "To you as well, Your Highness."

At which point, I couldn't've left the room if I'd wanted to.

The princess's chuckle made me think of a campfire, all warm and smoky and surrounded by tender darkness. "Ah, yes. 'To you.' We must train ourselves to speak thusly, I suppose, although in truth, such was the habit of speech amongst the general populace even when last I trod Equestria's soil. That a princess might've dared to essay the vernacular, however?" What followed then was a sound that I would've called a snort had it come from any pony other than a member of our ruling diarchy. I decided to call it an emphatic sigh instead. "The scandal, Captain, we fear, would have mounted beyond the top of the Canterhorn itself."

Greaves's answering snort I could safely call a snort. "'The past is a foreign country,'" he said, and I knew he was quoting something even though I couldn't recall what. "'They do things differently there.'"

Whatever the source, it was most definitely not romantic in any way, shape, or form, and I couldn't help wincing at the silence that followed. But then, "Thou knowest Helps Heartily's work?" the princess asked, a waver in her voice.

"Just that one novel." I couldn't see the two of them from where I stood, but Greaves's shrug was very nearly audible. "It was all I was ever able to find of his in print."

"Truly a gentle soul," she more murmured than said. "For all that we were forced to read his work in the hidden rooms behind the walls of our former palace due to it being written in the common tongue, his short fiction shone like the most exquisite of gems." And this time, not even the mask of propriety could've called her snort anything but a snort. "Heartily's work is all but unknown whilst I've seen shelf after shelf in library, bookstore, and corner apothecary throughout this, my sister's modern city, filled with the overblown drudgery penned by that fool Iambic Pentameter!"

I almost leaped through the balcony doors to fall upon them, a defense of Pentameter welling up from my soul, but then Her Highness puffed a sigh. "Nay, we oughtn't to say such things. Pentameter deserves his reputation, for he was a fine poet and a fine friend. Yet so many exemplary artists have fallen through the millennium-wide crack between our memories and the memories of our little ponies." Her always-formal tone became even more formal suddenly, and I was once again certain I was hearing a quotation. "'Time is a cruel thief to rob us of our former selves.'"

"Ah," Greaves replied, and even though I had no idea what he was going to say, I knew he would be completing the line she'd begun. "'We lose as much to life as we do to death.'"

Silence again expanded through the doorway, and I could only stand there grinding my teeth. The connection between them all but glowed in the words they spoke, but how could I push them together? As melancholy as the conversation had become, I feared I was going to see their glow fade and die before anything could spark!

And at that very moment, my cutie mark went off like an explosive device, shooting an idea straight up my spine with such voltage and velocity, I nearly yelped there in the quiet darkness of Greaves's room. The tune he'd been humming when I'd first come stealing into his room! I remembered where I'd heard it before! And it was absolutely perfect!

Scrambling for his bookshelves, I thanked Princess Luna for the moon settling toward the horizon and casting its pearly light across the carefully sorted spines. For I was easily able to find the book I'd known would be there as surely as I knew the contours of Princess Celestia's inner thighs.

Grabbing it with my hornglow, I wafted it across the room, out the balcony doors, and let it drop while at the same time crashing myself into the bookcase in such a way that I managed to strew half its contents across the room.

Of course, with Equestria's newest warrior princess and the captain of her guard in the garden below, I was instantly engulfed in a straightjacket of silver light, a blast of sound enveloping me with the words, "Hold, varlet!"

"No!" I shouted, easily finding enough fear to flood my voice. "I surrender! I surrender!"

"Prince Blueblood?" someone more mortal asked. "You Highness, it's just Prince Blueblood."

Several minutes seemed to go by before the blinding radiance whisked from my eyes, but then I was able to see Princess Luna and Captain Greaves just inside the balcony door and glaring down at me, encased in magic upon Greaves's carpet. "Is it indeed?" Princess Luna growled. "And what would said varlet be doing, we cannot help but wonder, lurking about your quarters, Captain?"

"Your book, Greaves!" I squeaked. "Well, not your book since it's technically mine, but—"

"This book?" The princess very nearly smacked me in the face with a book she had floating in the glow of her horn. "The weapon with which thou didst attempt to strike us from above? A poor instrument of assassination, sirrah, unless it be some weighty tome such as—" Her eyes widened, fixing upon the book's cover, and I hoped once again that my cutie mark had even the slightest idea what it was doing.

"No!" I cried again to fill the silence with a sound she would instinctively ignore so as not to pull her attention away from the book. "I left my book on the table there by the window! But as I was attempting to leave, I tripped over the—"

"This is the libretto to Ruddygore." Princess Luna looked from the book to Greaves. "Captain? Thou art familiar with the works of Filbert and Puddle Jump?"

Greaves was glancing rapidly back and forth between a variety of objects—my trussed-up self, the books, the bookcase—but he quickly focused on the princess. "Of course, Your Highness." A smile played across his snout. "In fact, I forced my entire class at the academy during our senior year to organize a production of Ruddygore so I would have the opportunity to play the part of Mad Marshgrass."

And the brightness that spread across the princess's face made me think of the moon coming out from behind a bank of clouds.

I'd seen the comic operetta in question during my time working as an usher at the Music Center, so I'd recognized—eventually—the tune Greaves had been humming as the catchy but horrendously tricky Patter Trio from act two. And considering the storyline of Ruddygore—

It hinges upon a pair of sisters, y'see: Despera, the younger, is left to become Baroness of Ruddygore and inherit the family curse when her elder sister Riven vanishes at sea. The curse requires the Baroness to perform one evil act per day lest the ghosts of her ancestors leap from the paintings in the castle library and torment her mercilessly. As one of her evil deeds, Despera woos and then jilts a young stallion named Marshgrass from the village below the castle; the poor fellow goes mad as a result and takes up residence in a nearby swamp.

But the action really begins when it turns out that Riven faked her death to escape the curse and has been living quietly in the village under the name Robin Oakapple. Once the deception is uncovered, Riven must assume the wicked Baroness's duties, and Despera hurries off to make good her promises to Marshgrass.

Since it's Filbert and Puddle Jump, further complications ensue, of course, but everything nonetheless ends happily for all involved. Still, the parallels between the two main characters and our two princesses had leaped out at me during my epiphany of a few moments ago and had lead directly to my kicking bookcases and whimpering and lying sprawled in magical bindings upon Captain Greaves's carpet.

The princess's rapturous expression, however, made all my discomfort worthwhile. "And so it shall be!" she announced, her mane flaring despite the lack of anything resembling a breeze. "We spent many a joyous hour ensconsed within the hidden chambers of our castle, clutching copies of Filbert and Puddle Jump scores to our breast, the ink often still wet and smudged with the hoofprints of those dear servants who smuggled the parchment sheets in to us from the composer's very studio! We committed to memory every part Filbert and Puddle Jump wrote for our vocal range, and Despera was...is...she has always been..." Her eyes shimmered, her booming voice dropped to a whisper, and the look she turned upon young Captain Greaves would've melted the sternest of hearts. "Wouldst thou consider, Captain, being our Marshgrass?"

Which is how, some weeks later, I came to be sitting beside Princess Celestia with the widest possible grin upon my face in one of the more mid-sized of the many auditoria scattered throughout Canterlot Tower. The Music Center orchestra, glad for the gig, I would imagine, after so many idle nights waiting for the building's repairs to be completed, had performed admirably under the baton of Doily Cart, the foremost modern conductor of Filbert and Puddle Jump. And Princess Luna?

I'll admit that I'd held a few reservations before entering the theater that afternoon—it was a matinee performance, of course, so as to interfere the least with either princess's duties. But the sweet, dusky contralto that issued forth from Princess Luna's throat captivated instantly and effortlessly, and her scene with Greaves after Despera has tracked Marshgrass down and finally married him as she'd promised—including the straight-faced humor of the "Blameless Dances" duet they sing—was a model of comic timing and romantic restraint. Greaves's rough baritone was perfect for the part, and more importantly, their two voices complemented and complimented each other so exquisitely, I know I wasn't the only one in the audience to suspect they'd been doing more during reheasal than warm-up exercises....

The finale, with all the principles, the chorus, and the entire orchestra pouring their hearts out—one wag once described the conclusions of every Filbert and Puddle Jump operetta as being full of words and music and signifying nothing—brought everypony to their hooves with cries of "Encore! Encore!"

After the cast and orchestra took their well-deserved bows, Princess Luna, flush and grinning, stepped to the front of the stage and thanked the audience. "It strikes us somewhat fitting our character," she said, her words filling the hall without benefit of amplification, "that we should make our stage debut a thousand years after learning the part."

Holding up her hooves after allowing a spate of applause and laughter, she somehow widened her grin. "However," she said, "we should be sadly remiss should we hog the hooflights on our own. So we shall ask all those here present to encourage our own personal Riven to join us upon the boards for the encore you all so pleasantly requested." She held out her hoof to Princess Celestia, and while it isn't often that a crowd of Canterlot nobility goes wild, I will without hesitation confirm that the crowd in this case went absolutely bonkers.

Princess Celestia hemmed and hawed in as false a manner as I'd certainly ever seen, but as the shouts and whistles from the audience and the mocking gestures from her sister continued, my beloved arose like a rose unfurling before the dawn and delicately took the steps up to Princess Luna's side. And when Greaves moved forward to join them and Maestro Cart launched into the introduction to the act two Patter Trio, well, after having already used the words 'wild' and 'bonkers' to describe the audience's reaction, I find that I haven't another word sufficiently explosive to employ at this junction.

All I can say is that I saw three ponies faint dead away, and that the maestro had to run through the introduction six times before the bedlam had settled. Every eye still conscious throughout the entire hall fixed with rapt and unbridled concentration upon the two alicorn mares and the pegasus stallion standing between them, and Princess Celestia, since it's Riven whose section starts the piece, raised her head, shot a dirty look at her smirking sister, opened her mouth, and began.

Golden, pure, and bright as sunlight, her soprano flowed forth, every word of the intricate rhythm and rhyme emerging exactly on the beat and in tempo. The other two added their harmonies in perfect synchronization for the quadruple "And it really doesn't matter" chorus, then Greaves moved forward to take the second verse while the princesses behind him performed a little knee-dipping sort of dance in such unison that I would've sworn they'd rehearsed it. They all joined in once more for the chorus, Princess Luna took her stance for the third verse—

And the orchestra suddenly sped up to a pace I can only call breakneck. She'd been grinning this entire time, but now a glint of sheer madness shone from her, and she launched into the tongue-twisting verse as easily as if she were providing her listeners with directions to the local bakery. Greaves's expression looked decidedly less sanguine, but Princess Celestia threw back her head and laughed with a delight I'd never before seen from her.

They both stepped up for the final chorus, though, and for perhaps the first time in Equestrian history, we in the audience were able to actually make out the words to that final chorus as they flew by: "This particularly rapid, unintelligible patter isn't generally heard, and if it is, it doesn't matter!"

How long the ovation at the end lasted, I'm unable to say. The princesses were hugging, we in the audience were hugging, the actors and the musicians were hugging, the entire auditorium stomping and embracing, laughing, whooping, and hollering. But I did notice Princess Luna spinning away from her sister to where Greaves was standing, and after the briefest hesitation, sweeping him up into a hug as well.

I'll present two more scenes, if I might, before finally drawing this overextended section of our narrative to a close.

During the post-performance reception that evening, after the princesses had performed their respective crepuscular duties but before I'd had a chance to execute my plan to sprawl into a table and upset as many teacups as I could manage, something tapped the tip of my horn. I was alone at the punchbowl along the side of the room at the time, and glancing up, I beheld a small bubble floating before me. The instant my gaze touched it, however, it popped, and my beloved's voice whispered forth: "My room. Fifteen minutes."

I briefly considered crashing into the table on my way out just so Princess Celestia could add another item to the list of complaints she no doubt had prepared in anticipation of our forthcoming activities, but I decided against making a scene. The warmth and camaraderie in the room, Princess Luna mingling among the guests with Greaves always at her side, it simply didn't deserve to be shattered by Prince Blueblood's buffoonery.

Perhaps I could needlessly berate a guard or two tomorrow to make up for it...

Arriving at the princess's boudoir, I took a breath and a swig from the flask in my pocket so my breath would reek appropriately, then pushed my way in with a slurred, "You wished to see me, Auntie?"

Princess Celestia stood halfway along the darkened room, her eyes closed and her head bowed. Her mane flowed more brilliantly and beautifully than I'd ever seen it, the walls of the room and the very air around her shimmering with pastel rainbow light. "Come in," she murmured, "and close the door."

If I'd been even the least bit drunk, the sight of her would've simultaneously struck me sober and plunged me even further into the depths of joyful inebriation. As it was, though, I just stood there with my mouth hanging open for a moment before I somehow lurched forward, a flailing strand of my magic catching the door and slamming it shut behind me.

"Tonight," the princess said, the quiet throatiness of her voice making me both shiver and steam, "was perfect, and I...I..." She raised her head, and the tears streaming down her face shattered the heart within me. "I can't punish you, can't punish myself—don't want to, I mean, and that...that's a sensation I've not felt in...in centuries." Her neck drooped again, her face downcast like a lily too long denied water. "So go back to the party, nephew. I'll not be inflicting my usual horrors upon you tonight."

The hair stood up along my hide the way it did before a thunderstorm, and it took a great deal of effort not to shout, "Are you kidding me??" at the top of my lungs.

Instead, I reached for all the wryness I could muster and said, "If you think you can get rid of me that easily, then you've obviously not been paying attention these past several years."

That snapped her head back up, her wide, wet eyes still wanting to induce weeping throughout the entirety of my fine ivory frame. But I resisted, knowing that mutual waterworks was the very last thing she needed. Plopping myself down on the carpet, I gave what I thought to be a rather dignified pout. "I hereby solemnly declare to you, Princess Celestia, who are the unending splendor of Equestria's skies, lands, and seas, that I'll not budge from this spot till you've told me a story."

The several blinks she aimed at me served admirably to stem the tearful tide, but she still sounded a good deal more tentative than I liked when she repeated, "A story?"

"I should say so!" I waved a hoof at her. "If, as you've said, I've been a good little pony for once in my sordid life, then I would argue, Your Honor, that I deserve a story."

"I see." When those until-recently limpid eyes narrowed, the whole 'dying flower' aspect of her decreased by about half, and her voice slid into something that was at least within a stone's throw of her usual tone. "And what sort of story did you have in mind, if I might be so bold as to ask?"

I didn't want to completely destroy the delicate spell this afternoon had apparently cast upon her, so I said, "Tell me about Filbert and Puddle Jump."

A certain amount of the dreaminess returned to her smile. "Separately, they were the most charming stallions: witty, erudite, sparkling raconteurs. But put them in a room together, and they'd begin sniping at one another as viciously as a pair of street gossips."

Since I've already stuffed this chapter nigh to bursting, I'll forbear to detail the several hours of fascinating social history I heard that evening. I will, however, declare with the utmost sincerity that I drew closer to my princess during those fleeting hours than ever I had during all the time I'd spent squeezed between her legs. Her prickly little idiosyncrasies seemingly forgotten, we became two ponies simply sitting on a floor and enjoying one another's company. And even though I left with all my clothing intact—something else that had never happened before—I wouldn't trade a moment of that night for anything under my princess's sun. To conjure up the memory of the smile that spread across her face as I tucked her in, turned, and closed the door behind me settles my mind whenever I feel troubled...

Our final scene, though, came three days later. Returning to the palace late after my regular Thursday rounds visiting certain spots that owed their disreputability largely to my patronizing them, I lurched around a corner to find Princess Luna glaring silently at me.

Fortunately, I never imbibe quite as much as I appear to during these outings, but I still felt it incumbent upon me to act the part I'd been assigned when I took the Blueblood name. "Merciful heavens!" I exclaimed, staggering sideways with a shuffling of hooves carefully calibrated not to pitch me over onto my flank. "Princess Luna! The very tippedy-top of the evening to you! How delightful to come across you here in—"

"Cease," she more hissed than said.

Unsure how to react to that, I chose a blank-eyed, smiling stare and a guileless, "Of course, Auntie! Delighted to!"

This response only seemed to deepen her scowl, but then she took a breath, shook her head, and smoothed a less unhappy expression over her countenance. "We have it on very good authority that for the most part, thou but weareth the appearance of a feckless fool. So we would have thee abandon this mask for the next few moments and speak to us with thy true self displayed."

"Ah." I made a show of looking slowly about to see if anypony were near at hoof, a debate springing up below my ears like a sudden nest of hornets. With Princess Luna having been away for some time, after all, I had no idea how much she might know about her sister's unusual proclivities and the part I played in assuaging them. Add to that the several dark and pointed comments Princess Celestia had dropped here and there concerning the original Blueblood, the one Luna had known, the one who'd apparently conspired to depose the sisters, and I found myself once again relying upon my cutie mark for guidance through unknown waters.

Not that it was giving me so much as a tingle at the moment, of course. So I set in to hemming and hawing. "The problem as I see it, Your Highness, would be that the truth's a dashed difficult bit of business to pin down. I'm certainly all for it in principle, but, well, I've always found it rather rough to wrestle with when push comes to shove as it were."

Princess Luna's face had begun clouding up, but I pushed on regardless. "And as glad as I am to know I'm not considered a—what was the term you used? A feckless fool?—I'm not entirely sure what 'feck' is. But if fools have less of it, then I must certainly have more. 'Feckful,' one might even go so far as to—"

"Cease thy prattling!" she shouted, though the word 'shout' completely fails to convey the sheer mass of the sound she blasted over me: it quite literally shoved me back into the wall and held me immobile there. She recovered herself quickly, however, put a hoof to her forehead, closed her eyes, and took another breath. "That thou art not cut from the same cunning and treacherous cloth as thy worm of a forefather seems evident enough, and we hesitate to begin any serious contemplation of what utility Celestia might find in thee. Still—" And here she opened her eyes, the moon's own soft silver in them. "We thank thee. That is all. We thank thee." And turning with a flare of horn and wings, she was gone.

I bowed there, alone in the darkness. "You're welcome, Princess," I whispered. Then I went off to find a bed to collapse into.

Author's Note

So many references in this chapter!

The line about the past being a foreign country comes from the beginning of the novel The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley, ponified here to Helps Heartily. The quote that Blueblood doesn't recognize about time being a cruel thief is from the novel A Woman of Independent Means by Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey—whom I could've ponified as Forthright or something, I suppose, but, well, I didn't.

Filbert and Puddle Jump are, of course, Gilbert and Sullivan, and their operetta Ruddigore, here rendered as Ruddygore, has pretty much the storyline as I assigned it here—though in the original, it's a pair of brothers trading places as the Bad Baronet. If folks want to go looking for the Patter Trio from act two, various actual versions exist on YouTube, but my favorite is the one Joseph Papp and his collaborators decided to rewrite slightly and insert into their production of The Pirates of Penzance. So I'll link to that below.

Mike