I find the others talking amicably in one of the reception rooms. At least they get on with him. I have yet to make up my mind if I can bear staying within earshot of him. He freezes and stops talking as soon as he sees me enter the room. I would much rather keep wearing my helmet to disguise my emotions, but remove it and place it on a coat hanger in the corner of the room. He relaxes.

"So, what have I missed?" I ask, settling onto the end of a sofa next to Sombra. I try not to look at Blueblood.

"Lots, beautiful," Sombra tells me, gently running a hoof through my mane. It feels comforting. "We've been talking about our friendship with Princess Luna."

"Oh, right. Yes." Of course somepony has to bring that up.

Is there something wrong? he questions me.

I spoke to Luna the night before we heard Blueblood would be visiting. We had an interesting discussion. Long story short, she's my biological mother. Not important at the present, but it explains why Sunbutt hates me.

Not important?! Sort out your priorities, Moonlight.

I'm trying to concentrate on what's going on at the moment.

"So you get on fine with Luna, but not Celestia?" inquires Blueblood.

"Celestia and I have been at odds with each other for more than a thousand years. Being sent to the moon didn't help. Anypony on her side either doesn't know about her nasty temper, or believes every word that comes out of her mouth."

"Oh, I know about her nasty temper. I've been on the receiving end of that myself more than once. And is it true that you're Luna's daughter?"

Don'twanttotellhimwhatdoIdowhatdoIdowhatdoI-

Tell the truth, my love. It will be better in the long run.

"Yes. I grew up away from her because she wanted to keep me safe from Celestia. Still, about a thousand years later, I'm fighting a war against her."

"And what is Princess Luna's take on this?"

"Do you really think she wants a war against her own daughter?" The comment sounds rude, even though I didn't mean it to. Still, this is Blueblood, so I don't mind upsetting him a little.

"No, and I don't want a war against Rutherford. So Aunt Celestia doesn't realise that she is the problem."

"You just hit the nail on the head, Blueblood," Sombra replies. "Is there anything you can say to convince her to stop annoying us?"

"Don't look at me. I might have a fancy title for services to Equestria, but really, I am not anything more than a diplomat sent to solve problems in other countries that Aunt Celestia can't be bothered to deal with. Earning the name Prince Blueblood hasn't given me any more power than the average pony, and Celestia is determined to get the Crystal Empire under her control. Direct all enquiries about convincing her otherwise to Twilight Sparkle."

I groan, "Twilight Sparkle is never going to do that. She'd lick a toilet if Celestia told her to. She's never going to take anypony's advice more seriously than Celestia's."

"You don't know that. King Sombra showed me that you three didn't mean any harm, and that was after you gave quite the threatening speech earlier, Moonlight."

I glare at him.

"All is forgiven, though, Moonlight," he says, holding up a hoof. "That was supposed to be a compliment. I'm glad to see a mare sticking up for herself and not pretending to be a damsel in distress for once. I am sorry for offending you."

"You're forgiven," I mutter. I don't know what it is, but there's something about him that really makes me want to hit him. Really hard. Perhaps it's the half-smirk that's constantly plastered to his not-exactly-handsome-more-like-ugly face. Maybe it's his slight resemblance to Shining Armour; in fact, I initially thought it was Shining before I approached him and saw he had a blond mane, not blue. It might be his accent too. I can tell that he's spent a lot of his life in Canterlot.

"Well, are you willing to help us?" inquires Chrysalis.

"Of course. Any friend of Prince Rutherford is a friend of mine."

Rutherford smiles. "Thank you Blue Friend."

I would relax, but I can't. I excuse myself from the room and go to check on those pesky Solar Guards. As you might expect, they didn't do as they were told. 'Stay in the restaurant,' they were told. Not 'fight the Crystal Guards.' Honestly, they don't use their heads at all. Probably not the best decision I've ever made, but I'd prefer to tackle them in an open space than in the lounge back at the castle.

"Ahem. Solar Guards? What is this? You're in the Crystal Empire, not Canterlot. You can't just beat up anypony you want."

About half of them begin to charge at me. I stand there, smiling beneath the helmet. What a wonderful mask it is. Nopony other than Sombra has any idea what I am thinking as long as I wear it. I teleport away at the last second and they crash into one another. I round up the rest of them quickly and the Crystal Guards form a ring around them.

"Now, you lot. Am I to put you in the dungeon for some thinking time, or am I to send you back to Canterlot?" I say sweetly. "Do any of you have any information I would like to hear, that might let you off the hook?"

"I do!" one exclaims, earning a round of angry whispers and glares.

"Tell me."

He grins. "Trust is a good quality, but if you give it too easily ponies let you down."

"Elaborate, dear soldier."

"I was told that you're a smart mare. Work it out. We cause a big scene here and you're told to deal with it, or you come to check up on us and find us causing a ruckus."

"But you lot are just a distraction," I realise. "Does Blueblood really care for Prince Rutherford?"

"A gentlecolt like Blueblood caring about an ill-tempered oaf with no magical abilities whatsoever?! Really?!"

"Guards, escort all of them to the dungeon below the Crystal Castle, second entrance. I have some unfinished business to deal with."

I teleport right behind Blueblood and say, "I've just been told there's a traitor in our midst."

"Blue Friend not traitor!" Rutherford objects.

"Moonlight, relax," Sombra sighs, "Do you really think-"

"Yes I do. The Solar Guards set up a distraction, and when I rounded them all up they spilled the beans. Now, for somepony who set up such an elaborate little trick, Blueblood, care to say what other tricks you have?" I walk around his armchair to face him.

"I have no idea what you are talking about."

"The Solar Guard who spoke to me said that you didn't like Rutherford, that it was all a little act. Well Blueblood, my friend," I drop the tone and volume of my voice, "you're not the only one who's good at acting."

"I didn't mean any harm. Those guards-"

"That's the problem with stallions like you. You never mean any harm, but oh, you cause so much heartache. Thank goodness I was immune to your sickly sweet charm. I'm surprised Chrysalis didn't pick up on anything." I look at her for barely a moment, raising an eyebrow.

"I did not sense anything," she confirms. "Are you sure he is lying? You must have keen senses to notice."

"Partly that, and partly the Solar Guards are so keen to sell each other out in the vain hope of earning freedom. Pity, Blueblood."

He starts to say something in his defence, but I get annoyed and use the mind control spell. Unlike when I used it on Wishbone, I get a glimpse of his memories. He is not a leader: his worst memories are of feelings of insecurity: being mocked as a colt, struggling to find a place in the world, uncertainty over what to do with his life after earning his title. However, none of the memories are recent. I ask him, "Blueblood, whose side are you really on? Celestia's or Luna's?"

"Princess Luna's."

I gasp, and stop using the spell. "You want to... help us?"

He seems to shake off the effects of the mind control spell quickly, and offers an explanation. "I have been living outside of Equestria for quite a while, and the Solar Guards do not know a thing about me, Moonlight. It seems that you do not trust easily. Whilst that is a good thing, it's best not to cut your muzzle off to spite your face. I am not as bitter as you have been led to believe. Princess Luna has always been kinder to me than Celestia. In fact, I only call her Aunt Celestia because she's like a wicked stepmother from a fairy tale."

"Moonlight," chuckles Sombra, "you are making snap decisions again. Apologise to Blueblood."

I facehoof. "My mistake, Blueblood. I shouldn't have listened to those guards. It's just, there's a guard in our custody at the moment, and he's the one who told me that there was some truth behind the rumours about Luna being my mother. He was the one who convinced me to ask her about it. I often struggle to work out who to give my trust to, and since he told me the truth, I figured those other guards would too."

"Easy mistake to make, Moonlight," Blueblood says."Very easy. I can forgive you. Just try not to walk around me in circles and intimidate me. I get enough of that from Celestia."

"Oh really? Then I have no choice but to save that exclusively for when I feel like mocking her. Which is, admittedly, a lot of the time."

He laughs. "You know, you're not a bad friend to have, Moonlight." He looks up at the other three creatures in the room. "I'll be willing to help you four and Luna. I can probably wheedle a bit of information out of her, since she probably doesn't expect me to be on your side. I tend to agree with her a lot and every so often when she's been talking about you, Moonlight, I have used the term - mind my language - vampire, to avoid suspicion. Of course, I don't mean it. I would never say a thing against such a beautiful and brave pony like yourself."

"Don't push it," Sombra warns him.

"Tsk tsk, it seems Celestia has given all of you trust issues. I was not trying to suggest anything like what you think I was saying. Don't fret, you can rely on me. The friend, the diplomat, the one who most others seem to get along with. I might be of use convincing a few other creatures to join the cause and then, I'm not sure, maybe you can storm Canterlot and show Celestia who's in charge?"

"That's the plan, providing she doesn't come after us first," I tell him.

"I will be delighted to delay that as much as possible. Oh, and keep the Solar Guards, pesky little things. I am quite sure I don't want them."

Author's Note

Bonus: The Writing of Bitter Blue Blood - Parts 1 and 2

I might as well say it now: I don't like Prince Blueblood at all. Not only is it because he treated Rarity terribly, but it's also because we never got an explanation as to why. Yes, he got a little bit of character development in the comics, but I don't have the comics at home, which means spending hours scrolling through the MLP FiM Wiki Fandom pages looking for more information about him. I had to go with what little I was given for these two chapters.

As you can expect, I was at first stuck as to how to write about him. In fact, I had entirely forgotten about him, and when I remembered how much I disliked him, I had to try and make a decision as to whether or not he would appear. Over at The Writer's Group, I made this little thread asking what to do about Blueblood AKA The Plot Headache. That was a lot of fun, and it yielded some hilarious results. In the end I combined a few of them. He hadn't been present up until now because he had been abroad, since Sunbutt is usually too busy dealing with issues at home, and then she decided that he might be able to help, unaware of Blueblood's true opinions.

Since I don't like him, I always knew that I would try and take the mickey out of him as much as possible. I thoroughly enjoyed writing the scene where Moonlight tries to intimidate him, similar to how she and Sombra acted when they had only just taken over the Crystal Empire. They were keen to show everypony who was in charge, then reined in their emotions over time. Doing this over the course of only two chapters was a bit harder because I knew the chapters needed to flow, but I made it work.

Even though I wanted to be horrible to Blueblood, the thread I gave a link to had some good suggestions on how he could have a more positive role too. Blueblood and Rutherford are good friends in the comics, and I wanted to make sure that that was incorporated into the story. I thought that the role of double agent would be fitting for him, since he is the last pony I would expect to choose helping King Sombra over Princess Celestia. When Moonlight says that she's "not a Canterlot mare," I liked the idea of him not really being a Canterlot stallion either. He's not really got a place in society, and that's something I hope to expand on in later chapters.

The Solar Guards... I'm not sure what I think of them. It probably would have made more logical sense if they had gone back to the castle, but then again, Moonlight often has moments where she doesn't think logically, and this was one of those. She gave them a chance to prove themselves, and they took advantage of that to cause some chaos. Talking of chaos...

I wanted to include a lesson in here too. There's a couple really. One of them is not to judge a book by its cover, since Moonlight judged Blueblood based on his first appearance in the story, as did I back when I first watched The Best Night Ever. The second is to be careful who to trust. Moonlight is still trying to work out who in this world is reliable and who isn't. All of us are learning. Sometimes, it's not easy to work out who is who, and our experiences in life change that, but just because something worked last time it doesn't mean it will this time.

The last lesson is one that I'm sure we've all heard: Don't cut your nose (or, in this case, muzzle, since we're talking about ponies) off to spite your face. What this means is that you shouldn't react to problems in a way that's self-destructive and is only going to cause more problems in the future. Moonlight could have angered Blueblood and made him decide to work for Celestia instead, but Blueblood stayed calm due to hi experience as a diplomat. Still, things could have gone a lot worse.

Overall, these chapters were full of interesting moments, some better than others. I managed to make the best of a bad situation (ie Blueblood being canon) and I don't think it turned out too bad. I hope you all enjoyed reading this.
~ Angel Midnight.