The note was simple. Printed on plain cardstock, it bore an address and a time, along with her initials and a stamp of her cutie mark.
What was particularly intriguing was the hour of the invitation, which Blueblood allowed himself to call as such because there was really no other way to describe it. It was an invitation, and it was scheduled for Wednesday at three.
In isolation, this fact certainly didn’t mean much, but everypony who was anypony in Canterlot knew that Fleur Dis Lee kept a absolutely private and seldom-missed personal appointment on Wednesday afternoons.
Those in the social circles that were disposed to gossip often offered tantalizing explanations for why one of Canterlot’s biggest names would insist on completely disappearing from the public spotlight for several hours each week. Of course, the most popular one was the most scandalous: a weekly rendezvous with a secret lover, hidden from Fancy Pants’ eye.
Blueblood admitted to himself that the thought did put a bit of an excited flutter in his chest. Fleur had never stopped being a lovely mare, and if she wanted a break from that charlatan, Fancy, then Blueblood could surely find it in himself to generously comply. It would be just like old times.
But when his carriage driver dropped him off in front of small and rather dingy-looking bookstore in western Lower Canterlot, he found himself more than slightly confused. Blueblood checked the address on the card again, before he reluctantly stepped out of the carriage.
A gaudy little bell dinged merrily as Blueblood opened the door to the shop and stepped in.
For three or four heartbeats, he patiently waited to be properly greeted by whoever ran the tacky little establishment, but all was silent, save for the occasional whisper of a page being turned. Surely somepony should have noticed him by now.
Confusion quickly soured into irritation, so Blueblood relented and looked around the room in earnest.
Bright lights meant to facilitate reading highlighted a couple of year-old stains in the thick maroon carpeting. Bookshelves were deliberately arranged to create cozy little corners furnished with chairs and sofas.
An older earth pony stallion with a forest-green coat and a gray-speckled beard sat behind a cash register, lazily flipping through a paperback novel. All the while, an old black tomcat with shaggy fur growled at Blueblood from his perch on a shelf between two encyclopedias.Cat hair thickly coated most nearby surfaces.
The prince frowned and approached the stallion.
“I,” said Blueblood, “am Prince Blueblood.”
The pony who Blueblood assumed was the storekeeper looked up from his book.
“Welcome to Buy the Book.” he said through a Prench accent, as Blueblood cringed at the store’s name. “Let me know should you have trouble finding what you need—my name is Encré Vert.” His eyes dropped back to his book.
“There are ponies,” said Blueblood, “who are reading your books.”
The storeowner regarded the prince with a befuddled expression. Slowly, he looked around the stop at the handful of customers who were cozied up with novels and tomes.
“Yes,” he finally said. He gave Blueblood a confused smile.
“You’re allowing them?” Blueblood blinked in confusion. “How do you expect to run your business if everypony in Lower Canterlot reads your books free of charge?”
“They will pay if they finish the book.” Encré smiled again. “It’s store policy.”
For a moment or two, Blueblood wondered how he could best explain why absolutely nothing about those sentences was sound business practice. But instead, he closed his mouth and came to the sad realization that nothing he could say would do any good to somepony so far gone. Instead, he forced a polite smile.
“Right,” said Blueblood, nodding in false agreement. “Store policy.”
Blueblood sauntered up to where Encré was seated. Evidently, the old tomcat found this offensive, because it reared up and hissed, tail bushy and darting back and forth, dangerously.
“Stop it, Gigi!” Encré scolded. He shot Blueblood an apologetic look. “He often does not like new ponies.”
The feeling is mutual, thought Blueblood as he eyed the ugly old animal.
“Noted,” said the Prince with a princely turn of the nose. “I am here to meet a mare. Her name is Fleur Dis Lee.”
Encré Vert’s eyes narrowed just a little. “Are you?”
“Yes,” said Blueblood. With an impatient flicker of his horn, he retrieved the card from Fleur. “This is the correct location and time, is it not?”
Encré studied the card, and nodded. “Yes, this is the correct place. And this is her hornwriting.” Seemingly satisfied, he gestured towards the back of the store. “She is usually at the table, in the back. Next to the Classics section.”
“Much appreciated,” said Blueblood. With a curt turn, he strode into the maze of shelves before him.
It did not take long to find the table Encré described, but Blueblood almost did not recognize the pony sitting there. Her mane was done in a little bun to keep it out of her eyes—a far cry how it usually elegantly draped the edge of her face. And perched on Fleur’s nose was a little set of reading glasses, with thin lenses and a gold wire frame.
Fleur was muzzle-deep in one book, and another thick volume sat on the table next to her with several bookmarks in it. They both raptly held her attention, even as Blueblood approached her table.
Blueblood was beginning to feel entirely sick of being unnoticed, so he subtly coughed into his hoof.
Fleur Dis Lee blinked, and when she opened her soft violet eyes again they, made their way to him.
“Oh, Blueblood. How do you do?” she said, getting up from her seat.
“Much better now, in fact, ” he said, wearing his most practiced, most suave smile.
Fleur touched hooves with him and quickly placed a chaste kiss on each of his cheeks. It was an innocent and common way to greet friends in a big, multicultural city like Canterlot, but Blueblood still savored the brief moment of contact.
“Come,” she said, walking back to her seat. “Find a book, and sit next to me.”
What he would need a book for, Blueblood had no conceivable idea. But whatever Fleur was planning couldn’t be so terrible, could it? Still wearing his smile, he turned towards the nearest shelf and began to—what was the word?—browse it.
A series of titles and authors flashed by his scanning eyes. Several names held some familiarity with him, from his days as a colt studying under private tutors. Distantly, he recalled that Encré said that this was the Classics section.
A thick book caught his eye; it was an anthology of short works, credited to Heart Wisp.
Ah, what’s this, auntie?
Princess Celestia had written under many, many pseudonyms over the years of her reign, and if she is to be believed, most of them are still undiscovered. Heart Wisp was a very prolific writer of fiction and poetry in the late eighth century, and although scholars had long speculated it, the Princess only recently admitted that this author was one of her own aliases. Which meant, of course, that Heart Wisp’s bibliography all the rage at the moment.
A sputtering hiss jolted Blueblood out of his thoughts.
The old black cat from before crept up from a dark corner. Blueblood flinched away as it climbed the shelves with a practiced arrogance and the start of a growl in its throat the whole time. It settled awfully near the Heart Wisp book, stretching its claws in an almost protective fashion.
Blueblood did not have time to waste negotiating with a scraggly furball over a silly old book.
“Shoo,” muttered Blueblood under his breath as he lit his horn.
The cat hissed and clawed at empty air as it was picked up in a nebula of magic and pushed unceremoniously to the side, allowing Blueblood to fetch the book. Blueblood continued to hold the feral feline in place for a moment longer as he made some distance between them before he released the cat with a shove.
The cat, clearly spooked, tumbled off the shelf and dashed away.
“That was not very kind of you,” said Fleur. She was frowning and looking at Blueblood from over the top of her little spectacles.
Blueblood’s heart flipped for a moment, but he regained his composure before its next beat.
“Forgive me,” he said, putting on an apologetic look. It wasn’t as well-practiced as his other expressions, but he knew it would still do the trick. “I’m afraid I’ve never quite had a way with creatures.”
“Gigi can be difficult at first. But once you get to know him, he shows his pleasantness,” said Fleur. For a moment, there was something wistful about the way she spoke. “Much like many ponies, I suppose.”
“I’ll take you at your word.” Blueblood said, as he took the seat next to her.
Expectantly, he waited as Fleur settled back down and found her place in her book again. Mirroring her, Blueblood flipped open the Heart Wisp anthology to a random entry. He glanced up for just long enough to see that Fleur was once again engrossed in whatever it was she was reading.
Trying to distract himself, he turned back to his own book and dragged his eyes across several lines of text.
It was a poem—and as far as Blueblood could tell, it was about a phoenix. A phoenix’s ashes, kept sealed in a jar of water, so that they could never reignite.
It was all incredibly silly and more than a little over dramatic. Even pretending to read it took all of his concentration.
What didn’t help was that damnable cat, which was apparently still offended by Blueblood’s presence. Every once in a while, he heard it hissing from a different corner of the room or jumping to a new vantage point from which to watch him. It took a great deal of effort not to break composure and turn to face the devil whenever it screeched at him.
Finally, huffing in frustration, he gave up. He closed the book and gauged its thickness. The anthology was big enough to contain hundreds—if not a thousand or more!—entries in it, and all were likely just as vapid as the one he just read.
How in heaven’s name did Auntie find the time to write all of this nonsense?
The Princess should have had better things to spend her time with than a writing a big book of balderdash, and to be perfectly frank, Blueblood had better things to do than reading one.
“Pardon me,” he said, breaking the silence of almost half an hour. He turned to Fleur. “It’s not that your lovely company is not enough, but I do find myself wondering why exactly you’ve called us here.”
He capped off that sentence with a winning, roguish smile.
Fleur blinked once, then twice.
“I thought it obvious. We are reading, are we not?” She smiled too, but tentatively.
“I’m afraid I don’t quite follow,” he admitted.
Something similar to disappointment briefly washed over Fleur’s features, but it was gone in a moment.
“Well,” she said, “you’ve been asking me what I do with my Wednesday afternoons. I take the time to spend them here, with a book. And I thought you could join me, this week.”
“Every week?” Blueblood found himself asking, almost before he realized his lips were moving.
“Yes,” said Fleur, with a touch of embarrassment. “Every week, in this very seat, in fact.”
And just like that, one of the juiciest mysteries of Canterlot’s most affluent social circles fell to pieces before Blueblood. The experience as a whole was equally novel and disconcerting. Blueblood felt his mouth open, he closed it, and then finally he opened it again.
“Well, anything done with you—even reading—is a pleasure,” he said. It was more difficult to fake a smile this time, and he had an inkling that Fleur noticed. so he decided to distract her. “I was only thinking that the editor of the Equine Enquirer might go mad if she learned about this.”
Immediately, Fleur’s expression soured.
“Please don’t tell me you read that worthless rag,” she said.
“No,” said Blueblood, “but you know how it is. Everything the Enquirer writes tends to percolate down through the upper society.”
“I recently have had an epiphany regarding the upper society and how much I ought to care about its rumors.” Fleur pointedly turned her attention back to her book and turned a page. “I’ve concluded that the exact right amount, is not at all.”
“Well, what about me?” said Blueblood, injectly a little playfulness into his voice. “Surely my opinion matters to you, despite the fact that I, by the nature of my position, am in the thick of all things upper-class.”
“Don’t worry, Blueblood.” Fleur smiled idly. “I still remember that you have your moments of insight.”
Blueblood couldn’t help but grin, and this time it was genuine. The victory he won was a small one, and it was silly of him to feel this way, but his heart still flipped excitedly in his chest as he flipped through the pages of his book without looking at them.
He was in such a thrill that he barely noticed that the windows had grown dark and that the old shopkeeper was beginning to shoo customers out the door.
“Will you be here next week?” he said, finally breaking the silence.
Fleur paused for a moment, as if in contemplation.
“Yes,” she said, getting up and lighting her horn to put away her own books. “It was pleasant to talk to you again. If you can, perhaps you’d like to come again soon.”
“I’d love to,” said Blueblood.
Well, perhaps there was a little bit of hope after all.
By his third or fourth visit, Blueblood had the brilliant idea of bringing along something to placate the flea-bitten devil that haunted his every trip to Buy the Book. His plan’s only flaw, he discovered, was that he could barely stand the smell of the little paper bag of smoked salmon he carried in his hornglow. Not to mention that the trip to the griffon butchershop from which he purchased the fragrant little package had been its own spectacle of horrors.
“Hello,” he said, sending a perfunctory greeting to the pony behind the register.
“Bonjour, Prince Blueblood.” Encré Vert gestured to a book on the countertop. “The Heart Wisp collection again this week? I’ve saved it for you.”
“How thoughtful,” said Blueblood, absentmindedly. It was taking nearly all of his concentration to keep the bag of stinking fish as far away from his nose as his horn allowed.
Just as expected, when he made any movement to take the book, the damned tomcat, hissing and spitting, arose from behind the counter.
“Gigi!” Encré fruitlessly scolded the cat once more.
Blueblood simply peeled away the oil-stained brown paper from the salmon and pulled off a chunk of the stringy pink flesh with his magic. The stench tripled in strength.
“Here,” said Blueblood, shoving the piece at Gigi as he breathed exclusively through his mouth. “Take it and begone.”
The cat eyed the offered treat for several seconds, frozen as still as a statue. When Blueblood was about to give up and throw the whole stinking mess out the window, the cat snatched the piece of salmon, lightning-fast, from Blueblood’s cloud of magic and scampered off to some dark corner.
“Very kind of you!” Encré smiled. “He loves salmon.”
“Good,” said Blueblood, sighing. “Perhaps I’ve earned myself a little peace today.”
Blueblood re-wrapped what was left of the fish and tucked it into a compartment in his saddlebags that he had lined with wax paper. Finally unmolested by any foul-tempered felines, he took the Heart Wisp book and began walking to Fleur’s spot.
“Don’t worry,” he said calling over his shoulder and rolling his eyes to himself. He waved the book in the air a couple of times. “I don’t believe I’ll be finishing it today, either.”
When he arrived at the table, Fleur was, as always, lost to the world. A ratty novel with a curled spine floated in a cloud of pink magic in front of her. Taking his seat next to her, Blueblood opened his book to one of the entries he hadn't read yet.
“And what would you be reading today?” he asked the mare at his side.
“Oh, just something from the penny shelf.” Fleur shot Blueblood a moment of eye contact and nodded to greet him. “Whatever will help me forget that I am dreadfully unprepared for the weekend’s show at Baltimare.”
“You should not worry,” said Blueblood. “I doubt the Baltimare scene would amount to anything much more than foal’s play.”
Fleur cocked an eyebrow at this.
“What do you know about modeling?” she asked.
“Absolutely nothing,” Blueblood admitted. “But I’d like to think that I know quite a bit about you and what you’re capable of.”
Flattery rarely failed, especially when it had some honesty in it.
Fleur smiled a big, genuine smile and said “Thank you. That’s a very nice thing of you to say.”
Blueblood mimed a little bow and turned to his book. Fleur did come here to read, so Blueblood would happily oblige her, at least for a little while.
This week’s entry was about a pony who found that whatever falsehood she told would actually come to be true. It was a rather hefty entry—two or three dozens of pages long—and by the end of it, Blueblood was struck by the oddest sense of déjà vu. A ghost of familiarity.
I wonder why Auntie Celestia would write this, Blueblood thought to himself.
Then he realized how much time had passed while he was reading, and he put the book away and turned to address Fleur. He wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to say but he was confident that he could silver-tongue his way through a conversation.
“Fleur,” he said, and then he waited for her attention.
After a moment, the mare looked up from the penny novel.
“Yes?” she said.
“How… how are you doing?” Blueblood internally berated himself both for fumbling his words and for choosing such an unoriginal opening line.
As expected, a little bit of confusion settled over Fleur’s features, before she responded.
“Well, I’m frazzled over the upcoming event,” she said. “I’m anxious that my girls—the models—might have trouble with three full days of back to back shows. And truthfully, though I imagine that what I'm feeling is just my own nerves, I'm dreadfully afraid that something can—and will!—go terribly wrong on Friday, or on Saturday, or on Sunday.”
Fleur leaned back on her seat, sighing. A stray lock of pink hair fell over one of her eyes; she lit her horn and tucked it back into its place in her bun. Regarding Blueblood with something like a smile, she spoke again.
“Well,” she said suddenly, “what of you? How are you doing?”
Caught off-guard, Blueblood felt his mouth moving before thoughts formed in his head.
“Ah—My… if...” Horrified, Blueblood shut his mouth before it could make a bigger fool out of him. A flush of embarrassment welled up in his cheeks, and it reminded him just how long it had been since he last felt so vulnerable.
Fleur giggled at his obvious distress, and somehow it made everything seem both terribly worse and relievingly better at the same time.
“I am well,” said Blueblood. Oddly, it felt like he was telling a lie. But he was very good at lying, he knew. “I am doing well enough, I suppose.”
“Hm…” Fleur rubbed her chin, in thought. “What was it that you used to say? ‘Doing well is not the same as being well.’”
Another wave of embarrassment.
“Well I… I was hardly more than a colt when I said silly things like that.”
“No! It was never silly!” A big grin etched itself on Fleur’s face, from one side to the other. “Remember, you used to say it to me when I came home from those long nights on the runway. When all I wanted to do was fall and die atop the bed, you’d bring me ice for my swollen hooves and ask me if I was being well. You were so thoughtful!”
“I was naïve, and you know it.”
He said it bluntly, barely realizing that he was speaking out loud in the first place. The words were neither shouted nor whispered, but it pierced the space between them like a needle through flesh.
Instantly, Fleur’s smile crumpled. She tried to hide it, of course, as any mare with her social experience might. But she didn’t do a good job. Her lips were held too neutrally, and her eyes were pinched at the edges.
Blueblood vividly imagined the act of punching himself. He was making so many thoughtless mistakes—he was slipping, really—and he had no idea why.
That’s a lie. He knew why he was slipping, and to be honest, it frightened—
No, it doesn’t!
Blueblood gritted his teeth at himself and willed himself to be more relaxed. It was difficult (and paradoxical) but he made it work.
Surely enough, his emotions fell into recognizable order, and the world with them.
“I’m sorry,” he finally said. It broke a silence that lasted for far too long. “That was uncalled for.” He put on an apologetic smile. “I.. tend to say things I don’t mean. I suppose that makes me a horrible friend.”
Blueblood gave Fleur an out, and right on cue she took it.
“No,” she said waving her hoof in an exaggeratedly dismissive way. Her own little smile was much less-practiced that Blueblood’s. “You’re much to difficult on yourself. You are a wonderful companion.”
It was an ugly little dance the two of them did to sweep what had just happened under the rug, but surely this was better than the alternative. Even still, the rest of tonight’s conversation was likely ruined.
An irritated meow screeched out from somewhere beneath the table, and it took Blueblood a moment to remember that there was still a big chunk of that damned salmon in his bags. Mechanically, he took it out, tore off the waxpaper, and threw it in the vague direction of the growling.
There was the sound of scrambling paws for a few moments, before Gigi emerged from under the opposite end of the table, fish in his maw. The cat shot Blueblood the briefest of looks before hurrying away.
It was only when he heard her magic ring out that Blueblood realized that Fleur had gotten out of her seat. Swiveling his ears and eyes, he saw her slot her penny novel back into a bookshelf. It was still a couple of hours before the store closed.
“Are you leaving already?” he said.
“I’m afraid so,” she replied. “I'll have to be on the early-bird train to Baltimare tomorrow morning, and I still haven't finished packing my things.”
By Auntie’s big floating tail, nothing was going right today.
“Will you be here next week?” He asked the question that he asked every week, trying to impart a little bit of normality into what remained of the evening.
Fleur paused and blinked, confused.
“I’ll still be gone, Blueblood,” she said.
It was Blueblood’s turn to blink in confusion.
“I thought the Baltimare show was for the weekend? Will it last until Wednesday?” he asked.
Comprehension dawned on Fleur, and then genuine regret touched her face for the second time that day.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you didn’t know,” she said. “After Baltimare, I’ve got a weekend show at the Empire, and then Neigh Orleans and Manehattan. It’s the Fashion Month tour for the year.”
“Oh,” said the Prince. A thought occurred to him, and he began to put it into words: “Well, if you might need company for a leg or two of the trip, I’d—”
“No, Bluey.”
The words stopped Blueblood dead in his tracks.
“I’m always frightfully busy on these trips,” said Fleur, “and I don't believe I'll have a moment to tear myself from my work. You’ll grow terribly bored.”
It was as mundane an excuse as they came. The message couldn’t have been clearer.
“Of course then,” said Blueblood, automatically.
Fleur’s hoof fidgeted. Only for a moment, but enough to betray her anxiety.
“And I think…” she said, swallowing in the middle of her sentence, “I think I could use a little bit of time to… clear my head. I’m afraid I’m always… well you know how it is when you are obligated to deal with high society on a daily basis.”
“Yes, I suppose I do,” said Blueblood.
Fleur leaned close and quickly kissed both his cheeks in farewell.
“These four weeks will pass quickly, I’m sure of it!” she said.
“Nevertheless, I look forward to the end of them. Best of luck to you on your trip!”
Blueblood shot her a smile of her own as she stepped away and out of sight. At the edge of his hearing, Fleur exchanged a few words with Encré in Prench before the doorbell signaled her departure.
When she was gone, Blueblood sat down again and was still for several minutes. Finally, he picked up the Heart Wisp book (which had been laying still-open on the table), and brought it back into its place on the Classics shelf.
For some reason, it took quite a bit of effort to squeeze the book back into its usual spot, as if it didn’t fit there anymore.
