Tumbling down, tumbling down, tumbling down
The shards of broken glass floated in the air beside him, looking almost as if they were suspended in mid air to his altered and slowed down perception of time.
It had been a series of choices that had led him there, to his last moments, plummeting towards the ground. Not all of them he now considered to have been the best course of action, but he still believed that with the information available to him at the time he'd always made the logically right thing. Even when it came to having jumped out of that window.
How had he been supposed to know? If he'd believed there to be even the smallest chance that Luna hadn't been dead he would have never said what he'd said. It wasn't his fault if she'd decided to get back up after they'd already put her in her coffin.
Jumping out of the window had definitely been the right choice. Nothing could be worse than the punishment for having spoken ill of a princess while she was still in power. Not even the impact that was waiting for him when he would reach the ground.
Blueblood looked down at the ground below him, very slowly approaching from his point of view. He still felt like the window had been the right choice. As he slowly fell towards his impending fate he took the time to think about his life and the things he'd done, and how those had led him there.
He'd been born a prince, the only one in Equestria at the time, and all his life he'd been rightfully served, as befitting of a pony of his title. Sure, some ponies had occasionally not shown towards him the proper respect, like that purple-maned unicorn at the Grand Galloping Gala some years before, but for the most part things had gone rather well for him. He had his private quarters in the castle and a number of mansions in all the major cities. He had a large staff of ponies at his orders, from chefs to guards to gardeners, and he had contacts with the country's most prestigious stylists to have his clothes personally designed for him. They would probably miss him. He would probably miss them.
It wasn't like he'd never worked in his life though. He had been an excellent diplomat, securing trade deals with all the neighbour countries and making a series of political allies for himself so that they could defend him if he'd ever been in danger, and welcome him if he ever found himself in need of a place to hide. Maybe the window had not been the best option.
But still, what else had he been supposed to do? Princess Luna had turned out not to be dead, and he'd said he didn't like her. While in another room, where she couldn't have heard him. But they would have told her! What could he have done? Pay those who had heard him to keep their mouths shut? Pass it off as a joke done in terrible taste? Say he was just trying to distract the presents from their grief by making them angry at him instead? And if that hadn't worked, how could he have dealt with a pony who had been on the Moon for a thousand years after turning evil because ponies didn't like her and who had then gone through being disliked for a long time after her return, and who still now was disliked by some, now knowing that he didn't really liked her? How could he, who most ponies considered to be the single most annoying stallion in Equestria, possibly face the consequences of-Yeah, the window had been a stupid choice on his part.
He stared at the green carpet of grass coming towards him, and thought back to everything he could have done differently. Like running away to hide in another country instead of doing what he was doing now, or teleporting away instead of jumping, or keeping his mouth shut for once, or asking the pony who'd been forgiven for being Nightmare Moon to forgive him for a comment he'd made.
It didn't matter now. He closed his eyes, and braced himself for the moment he would hit the ground at the end of his fall.
Which wasn't really much of a fall. The room he'd jumped out of was on the ground floor, so it was actually more like a small and harmless jump.
After several seconds of keeping his eyes closed, Blueblood finally realized that he wasn't falling any more, and that he was still alive. He stared back into the room, where he saw Celestia teleport everypony else away with a flash of her horn and then talk to Luna. After a brief conversation, the most important part of which was how his statement hadn't been mentioned, the white alicorn walked away and closed the coffin's cover over her sister's head, leaving her there, then walked out while she called her, asking to be taken out.
Blueblood saw his chance. In the brief interval of time between the moment Celestia walked out of the room and the one when Luna would have remembered one of the twelve to thirty ways she could have gotten out of there on her own he jumped back in the room, experienced another period of self-reflection over his life and choices while waiting to land back inside, then ran up to the coffin and opened it.
Luna looked at him, surprised. "Vladímir, dear, what are you doing here? I thought I saw you jump out of a window just a minute ago."
"I did," Blueblood replied, "but when I heard your screams I came back inside to save you."
Luna's expression brightened. "You climbed all the way back in here to save me? You deserve a reward! I will make you a prince!"
"Well, actually I'm already a prince."
"Duke?"
"I think that would be a downgrade."
Luna put a hoof under her chin, concentrating. "I got it!" she exclaimed after a moment, startling Blueblood. "I will make you my personal student! If Celestia has one then I will too. You will learn all sort of things! Like how to deal with the monsters that come out at night, or how to do the opposite of what your biological clock tells you in terms of sleep, or how to spend hours fixing the dreams of other ponies, or how to properly fly with your new wings, or how to memorize the entire history of Equestria to recite it at important events, or how-"
"Well, actually I would be more interested in-Wait, what did you say?"
"'How to properly feed your bats'?"
"No, before that."
"'I thought I saw you jump out of a window just a minute ago'?"
"No, after that. Did you say something about wings?"
"Well, Celestia's student became an alicorn, I don't see why you shouldn't do the same."
Blueblood stared at her for a couple of seconds. "So when do we start?"
"Immediately!" Luna beamed. "To the dungeons," she said, grabbing Blueblood with a hoof and pulling him close to her chest.
"Wait, what?"
The two disappeared in a flash of magic.
