Misery. As the coach swayed and jolted, I lay still and sweaty on a lounge chair. Each rattle quickened the beating of my heart. Every shake caused a tremulous rumbling in the hellish pits of my upset stomach. At times it was all I could do to keep the bile at bay.
And there she was, sitting scant hooffalls away, gazing out the window at the rapidly passing scenery. Unshaken. Unconcerned. Sickeningly at ease with the situation. As if she could feel my eye upon her, she turned to me to smile.
"I suppose I should work on my motion sickness spell. Starswirl would be greatly unimpressed by our results." Her humor did nothing to ease my mood. Leaning over, she adjusted the cold compress on my forehead.
I winced. "Don't touch me...your hoof polish..."
She snorted. "Honestly? That's the best you can do? You're the one who insisted I wear the hoofguards in spite of my objections and now you're concerned with my hoof polish?"
I will admit, the motion sickness overpowered my better judgement momentarily. "It is because you insist on not wearing your hoofguards in private settings that we even made the compromise on hoof polish at all! So if you must wear it instead of proper attire, you would do well to keep it looking presentable. Proper presence is key to maintaining the awe and reverence of your faithful subjects," I said, my tone perhaps more sharp than was appropriate given my station.
Celestia sighed, her ever-present smile never failing to astound me. It made working with her a challenge; one never knew exactly what Her Royal Highness was thinking. That opaqueness had its benefits and its drawbacks. Adjusting the compress with her magic, I had to close my eyes against the glow of her aura. "Well, since you insisted on attending this review of the Equestrian Foalcare System, I suppose you could say this situation is all of your own making. Perhaps this is all your plot to get me to wear my hoofguards at all times?" She arched a brow in good humor.
I snorted, resisting the urge to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of the faux-accusation. "Alas, my scheme has been uncovered."
To my dry humor, Celestia responded with a ready and open laugh. She didn't even bother to cover her mouth politely. I rolled my eyes as she patted my shoulder.
"And they say you don't have a sense of humor." Celestia waved a hoof at her eyes to dry the tears of mirth.
"'They' would be correct," I remarked, although my words were cut off by the train whistle.
"Looks like we're here. The last stop before home, Civvie." The princess insisted on using that silly nickname. I'd hated it ever since my husband first used it. I stomached the indignity, as well as my motion sickness, and gathered a few items.
All told, this looked as if it would be a standard visit to a local orphanage. A few of the foals there had parents who died in a fairly recent epidemic. It was an easy positive public relations move. Almost a cliche, really. Princess Celestia had insisted on it after hearing the names of the two doctors who solved the epidemic. Their son was now in the care of Her Royal Highness' EFS system, put in place under her direction to centralize and formalize the many disparate and even a few destitute orphanages.
By all accounts, the reputation of this orphanage was uncommonly good. Mrs. Tender Care met us at the door, her charges and her assistant arrayed in the cafeteria inside. Right away I knew that this place was over hyped. The number of charges was startling, easily double if not triple the capacity of any other facility. And the staffing was dismal: only Mrs. Care, her husband, and her assistant. It was clear the community had done little to preserve the weakest among them in the ensuing chaos and subsequent relief of the epidemic crisis.
In all my years, I'd built up an ability to sense when Princess Celestia was about to go off script. This time, it was the way her eyes stuck to a foal. A dirty little blond-maned, white-coated, blue-eyed colt stood away from his peers. A churlish look disgraced his otherwise pleasant features, helped not in the least by the bruising...
My thoughts snapped to the situation immediately in front of me. Celestia was offering to heal the colt personally. "Highness, it is quite inappropriate..." Her eyes turned to me with a look quite unlike any I'd ever before witnessed. Pain, anger, and a possessive maternal instinct. I frankly would never have expected her to possess such a strong immediate connection.
With a poise and civility of a pony much older and of higher station, the colt piped up. “If it pleases Your Highness, permission granted.” Her horn glowed, casting an aura of healing magic over the colt's black eye.
She leaned in to whisper something I couldn't quite catch. When she stood, she returned to me and pulled me into a side room. The guards and representative ponies accompanying us were left outside.
I bowed. "Highness, I apologise..."
"What would you have me do, Lady List? Stand idly by and not ensure the well being of a foal?" Her words were spoken with an almost eerie calm. Given her use of my title instead of her usual nicknames, I knew I was in trouble.
I shook my head. "No, Your Royal Highness, I only meant that it would be more proper to let one of the doctors accompanying us do the healing, as they would have more experience."
She sighed. "I likely would have, if this foal wasn't family."
My ear flicked forwards and my head shot up. "What?"
"Ever since news came to me of the sickness in this town, I've watched it carefully. When I heard the names of the doctors who ended the crisis, I wondered. When I heard they died, I was wistful. When I heard they had a son, I worried." She seemed at a loss due to warring emotions. Turning, she pointed back at the door. "I believe that foal is a distant relative of mine. From a branch I thought extinct."
The sentence couldn't even process through my head without raising red flags. "What branch? How distant? Noble bloodlines haven't gone extinct in ages. The last was the..." Before I could continue, she cut me off.
Her presence was suddenly almost overbearing. She'd ceased to be just her normal self and was now Her Royal Self. I'd forgotten that She could be intimidating when She so chose. Her height only helped sustain that feeling. "A bloodline that wasn't in any of your teacher's books. The literal Blood line. The House of Royal Blood. Princess Platinum's youngest son. They left Canterlot during one of the earliest noble house debates. I've not been in contact with any of that line in centuries."
Had it been any other pony, I would have called such a pronouncement the most wild of nonsense. "Are you sure? The Royal Genealogy records would confirm this only to the point they left Canterlot. Just having the Blood in their name could be a coincidence. It beggars belief that..."
That look returned to Her face. Once more I cut off my sentence. ,"All I am suggesting is that we look at the colt's family tree. The Vital Records office should have them. I'll send a message ahead of us. By your leave, of course."
The princess looked as if she wanted to debate the necessity, but ultimately she acquiesced. "Do it quickly."
After explaining everything to the princess's Royal Guard captain, we made the necessary arrangements to get Her Royal Highness to the Vital Records office. We took the bare minimum in terms of personnel. Luncheon with the EFS representatives was right off the schedule. That meant a stack of apologies for me to send and egos to soothe. After that, it was a simple matter of getting her chariot off the ground. Through clenched eyes and gritted teeth, I sat beside her and tried to formulate a strategy for consoling her when it turned out to be untrue.
The dumpy teal mare at the first window of the records office nearly fell out of her chair at the sight of us. "P-Princess Celestia! What can we do for you, ma'am." My eyebrow twitched at the lack of decorum, but Celestia had a mission.
She nodded gracefully. "I need to pull a family tree record. By the account in the paper, this family has lived here for several generations."
The mare continued her lack of proper etiquette. "Yes, I believe we can help you. Unfortunately, Your Royal Highness' laws prevent anyone but the family or the princess from accessing those logs." She turned to me with an apologetic look. "Your servants will have to wait."
Before I could object, Celestia spoke up. "That's fine. I will need to bring my guard captain, I'm afraid he will insist. His clearance gives him access to these records. Civil, I will be back in a moment."
I nodded weakly. "Yes, Your..." But she and her captain were gone down the hall. It occurred to me at that moment that as an advisor, I did have clearance to view the Royal Records. Holding the bridge of my nose with one hoof, I crossed to the waiting room and sat on a chair. My pose was dignified, in spite of my irritation. Another more irritating thought followed: genealogy records were relatively new for common-born ponies. If this office hadn't begun the work of putting together family trees, it could well be impossible to prove conclusively.
It took a solid hour before they returned. Celestia had quite a long scroll in her magic. By its smell, I could tell the ink was just barely dry enough to carry. "It is as I thought, Civil." She turned to the records worker and nodded. "I trust you will be discreet and not reveal this before I do. We will submit this record with the EFS and I will take guardianship of Blueblood."
The Vital Records pony agreed readily and curtsied. "Yes, ma'am." I could have laughed at the worker's sudden show of propriety, had it not been such a serious situation.
I drew a deep breath through my nostrils. Looking my sovereign straight in the eye, I put on my most guarded tone. "Your Royal Highness, this is highly unusual for a multitude of reasons. Do you intend to raise this foal? With what time? Would it not be better to foster him out to a lesser noble house? The House of the Heart has a filly about his age."
She shook her head. "That is not how the House of the Day handles its familial duties. We will make time for a foal. Besides, you heard how polite he was. He practically parroted back the most etiquette-minded responses I've heard. Aside from you." The last bit she added with a meaningful look in her eye. "And I'll have you. You raised foals."
I opened my mouth to correct her, but before I could bring up my husband's care routines, my brain stalled. "Me? But I'm your advisor. I'm not a nanny."
"If he is to become my heir, Civil, I will need him to have my best advisor as his tutor. And it will finally get Lord Fields off my back about arranging a marriage. I swear, he's more determined than any other Lord I've ever known to get me married off." Celestia turned to the door.
"Celestia, you can't..." I began, before realizing my mistake.
She turned back to face me. Any sensible pony would shrink. I didn't. "Your advice is duly noted and heartily disregarded," she said.
I stood firm. "There will be consequences for this that you may not realize until it is too late."
She turned away. Igniting her horn, she cast her magic around the door knob. Before stepping through, she spoke quietly. "It will be worth it."
Author's Note
Because I apparently had to go back to go forward, here's a prequel. The writing muse has a sense of humor.
As we looked at the damage to Her Royal Highness' chariot, I took a deep breath. We'd been flying back in great haste and thus inadvertently struck a rather large goose. Miraculously, the goose was alive, but the chariot dropped one of its wheels in the collision. Celestia's magic helped us land on an empty street and her guard captain went immediately to secure the wheel while the royal guard medic handled the goose. This entire misadventure had me thoroughly rattled, a fact likely not lost on Celestia. She announced to the medic that we'd continue on hoof, being a few blocks away from the orphanage.
When we drew near, Celestia stopped short. As we were in view of the play yard, I looked over to see the young colt Celestia had claimed as her own. He stood facing away from us, with the large colt I took to be the bully standing between Celestia's colt and the orphanage. "Celestia, you have to do something before he gets hurt!" I urged the princess, but she seemed to be waiting.
"Shh," she hissed at me, "I want to see how he handles this."
I lowered my voice, not that it mattered much being across the street. We just barely were able to see the beginning of this latest bullying episode. It turned my stomach to think that, if this foal really was nobility, I'd be sitting here watching noble blood be shed. "We know what will happen. Whether or not the foal fights back is immaterial. He won't win."
Celestia shook her head. "I'm not looking for him to win."
With how upset she seemed at his earlier state, my mind scrambled to find a reason she'd be so slow to act now. "What are you looking for? Blood?" A familiar tingle caught my muzzle and I was unable to open my mouth again.
Unable to give Celestia the kind of verbal haranguing that I otherwise would have been obliged to do, I stomped a hoof in indignation. As the bully sent the white colt sprawling with a single blow, I lit my horn and sprang forward. But my momentum was suddenly stopped. I felt a familiar magical force holding me at bay.
I caught sight of the foal flipping around to get his hooves underneath himself and stand. I expected him to run, or at the least to curse and spit at his attacker. Instead, he held his head up defiantly and stared the bully down. In a flash, both colts were tussling on the ground.
With her magic now concentrated on stopping me from moving, I managed to hiss through gritted teeth. "Satisfied now?"
She shook her head. "He settles his problems personally. There's something admirable about the way he doesn't run."
In spite of knowing the limits of my own magical abilities, I couldn't idly sit by. My horn sparked a few times until Celestia turned to me. "A colt is getting hurt. Stop it."
"He seems to be getting as good as he's giving. I'd like him to have some closure on this issue before he leaves." Celestia replied, turning back to watch the show. How nopony else noticed this for so long only served to anger me more. She seemed to have the right of it, both colts looked fairly even. Something had changed in the polite young foal we'd seen this morning. He fought like a manticore. Unfortunately, he wasn't used to fighting and wound up underneath the bigger colt once again. I flinched as my hooves hit the ground.
In a blink of an eye, Celestia was there splitting the pair up and staring down the bully. Blueblood was definitely worse off of the two now, the size and strength of the bully playing a huge factor. Scrambling across the street I managed to round up Mrs. Care and her husband, who turned out to be adept enough at healing minor wounds. We got to the pair as Celestia dismissed the bully, who ran straight to Mrs. Care and hid behind her.
"Celestia, please let somepony with more training handle this..." I cut myself off as her horn erupted into a golden glow. Dirt fell back onto the ground and cuts and bruises evaporated. For a moment, he looked at her gratefully. Then, he collapsed.
I sighed, recognizing the signs of a minor healing coma. At least he hadn't gone into shock and stopped breathing. "You know better than to heal everything at once, don't you?" I whispered at her side.
She turned to me and shrugged. "That only applies if you aren't looking to incapacitate your patient. This way it'll be easier for him to travel. And he won't have to be sore doing it."
I stamped my hoof. "He wouldn't have been sore at all if somepony hadn't allowed the fight to continue. What are you testing him for? Isn't he family?"
She had the grace to look ashamed. "You're right, Civil. I will be more careful of the situations I allow him to be in."
Shaking my head, I once again took a step forward to handle the fallout of another of Celestia's eccentric episodes. Then a thought occurred. Turning to face her, I spoke. "Forgive me ma'am, but I feel you're not telling me something."
Celestia lifted an eyebrow, but then shook her head. "Not now, Civil. Let's get back to the train."
Less than satisfied with that response, I curtly handled the matters at hoof and got everypony sorted onto the royal train.
"It is important that I-uh, that Celestia be notified as soon as he is awake. She's rather keen on keeping tabs on him." The guard on duty over Blueblood's suite on the train nodded. As Celestia insisted on Blueblood having a female guard with foal experience, I'd personally chosen Macha Method, a mare with a foal about Blueblood's age.
"I'll take care of him like he was my own." Macha replied, saluting properly.
"See that you do." I said, nodding at her as I made my way back to Celestia's car.
Even though her car and Blueblood's suite we're practically next door to each other, Celestia couldn't help but worry. "Are you sure that I couldn't just have him here in my car?"
Considering how I'd had to inconvenience the Royal Guard captain just to get the closest suite to Celestia's car, I answered quickly. "Your Royal Highness still has matters of state to attend to. The foal would be underhoof."
At her sour look, I sighed. "Blueblood's more likely to sleep through this trip, given the healing he needs to sleep off. We would be disturbing him to keep him here. Macha is more than capable of keeping him calm should he awake with a fright. And I did instruct her to let us know when he awoke."
Celestia nodded. "I insist that he be brought to me as soon as he either awakes or we arrive. I don't care what I'm doing, you will see to it that whatever it is stops so I can devote my full attention to him." She paced the floor a bit, wings ruffling now and then. Finally, she turned back to me. "How much of this do you think has gotten out to the public?"
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. "Well, your guards are known to gossip. And that mare at the Vital Records office didn't strike me as all that able to keep her mouth shut. So, assuming it isn't on the front page when we arrive, then you might have a day or two to prepare him for the Royal Presentation."
She heaved a heavy sigh. "Do we have to have a full Presentation?" The weight with which she gave the last word let me know that she knew the answer, but had to have an out.
I was fine being her bad guy. Call it experience. "Well, Griffon King Gilleasbuig I of Griffonstone and his queen once declined to do a Royal Presentation for their younger son for a year. There were so many rumors of their child being malformed that they finally gave in and introduced little Gerhard. The whole debacle quite upset the queen."
Shrugging, Celestia sat on her favorite chair and sighed.
"Now that you've run out of ways to avoid it, we need to talk," I said firmly. "What is this all about?"
Celestia's eyes looked tired. It took her longer than appropriate to respond. "The mare in the moon will be coming home soon."
I blinked. "What?" I asked, eloquently.
"I must swear you to secrecy on this. Tell nopony, discuss it not even on your death bed. Is that understood?" The gravity in her voice grounded me. Then her eyes captivated me. They looked hollow with a bitter sadness I couldn't place.
I responded as a confidante should. "I swear it. By your sun and all I hold dear."
She nodded. The look in her eyes intensified. "An evil force is returning to Equestria in a few years. I banished it almost a millennia ago, but that was not enough. The stars will aid in her escape from the moon. Nightmare Moon will return."
I spared a glance back towards the foal we'd practically stolen. "And this colt can stop her?"
For a being as old as she, a shrug was uncommonly common. "Perhaps. But not alone. I have many candidates. Many students. In the end, it will likely take as many as six to do what must be done. One for each Element of Harmony."
The phrase was antiquated, but somewhat familiar. My teacher, the etiquette master DeBray spoke of an ancient set of attributes once associated with the crown. "Laughter, kindness, loyalty, truth and generosity. I thought those were just ideals that you wished to uphold a long time ago. But what is this sixth?"
She shook her head and cast an illusory charm to illustrate her points. Different colored gems appeared, the sixth differing greatly from the others in shape. "These six elements are not just ideals, but powerful emblems with enough potential to perform great feats."
I cocked my head."How do you know they're real?"
The odd gem and two others drew closer to her."I once wielded them. Well, I wielded them alongside another. And I want to return that partner to my side. But I can no longer wield the elements. When I used them to banish Nightmare Moon, I fell out of harmony."
I felt the panic in my chest rise as I thought of what this meant. "You would place a great weight on some unknown unicorn."
"I have no other choice," she stated simply.
I took a deep breath in and released it through my nose. "You are right not to place all your eggs in one basket. Your protege, Sunset, she is another candidate?"
Celestia nodded as she stood. "Naturally. Although I fear she may be too ambitious. We must keep her away from Blue until I'm more certain that she is ready."
"Would one pony wield them all? Or six?" I couldn't quite decide which was more terrifying.
She set the Imaginary gems around her in orbit. "I doubt one pony could. I barely could. I'm certain it will likely take six, but it will require something else. A spark of some magic I have yet to fully understand." The odd star-shaped gem stopped orbiting her and she took it in her hoof.
The Royal Guard Captain knocked, then poked his head in. "Your Royal Highness, the council from the EFS is here to speak to you about your plans on publicizing your recent... adoption? Also, I scheduled some time with you afterwards to remind you about the rules concerning leaving your security escort."
Celestia quickly banished the illusion. "I'm sure both conversations will be greatly productive."
The captain's look turned deadpan. "I'd certainly hope so."
"Civil." She said my name like the command it was and I turned to make sure things were set correctly for entertaining the EFS council. Celestia went to her private corner of the car and closed the door. She'd emerge looking fresh and ready to personally apologize for this and smooth over that.
"Please show them in, captain." I said, forcing a smile. Let the world burn around me, I knew what my job was and how to do it well.
Author's Note
I don't even want to think about how long ago I'd finished this chapter. I don't know how I forgot about it. Let's just chalk it up to working on too many things at once.
