Author's Note
A story about horses featuring no horses. How experimental.
Know your audience. And then drive them away.
To no-one's advantage
The Duke heard the very distinctive ringing of a very specific bell and he sighed, resting his face in one hand.
That bell meant Prince DeSoutter was coming back. The Duke did not like Prince DeSoutter.
Him not liking Prince DeSoutter was the reason why the Duke had made him the envoy to Equestria - that heathen, baffling, horse-infested land that was technically but not literally just next to the Duke’s lands. It did a pretty good job of keeping him both out of sight and out of mind, but he did have to return occasionally to report his findings and observations so it wasn’t a perfect solution, sadly.
A perfect solution might have involved a shallow grave somewhere discrete, but then people might have started asking questions, questions like ‘Where did the prince go?’ and ‘Did you have the prince murdered, Duke?’ and ‘Is that a shallow grave I saw in the gardens? Is the prince in there?’, and the Duke really didn’t have the energy for that.
Sure enough and soon enough Prince DeSoutter appeared, pedalling furiously around a hedge and up the path through the field in which the Duke was sitting, his throne comfortably situated in the shade of a Ducal Bandstand of sorts.
(He had a proper palace, he just preferred to sit in the field. It got him away from everyone.)
“I’ve returned, my lord! I’ve returned from Equestria!” DeSoutter cried, having come to a screeching halt and now fighting to control his bucking and rearing bicycle, a bicycle that was bucking and rearing exclusively because he was making it buck and rear. The Duke, watching, knew this and so was watching with an air of despairing detachment.
The Prince did this every time he came back. It was exactly this sort of behaviour that had made the Duke send him away in the first place.
“So I see,” the Duke said. His head was still resting on his hand, the other lying idle on the arm of the throne. It was put into action a moment later when DeSoutter, having dismounted and cast his bicycle aside, approached to hand over a roll of parchment, which the Duke took and tucked into a bag hanging from the side of the throne. The important parchment bag.
“I have compiled my usual report containing your usual requested details, but I have further information that I was unable to include owing to both a lack of time and the unlikely nature of the events in question!” DeSoutter said, stepping away from the bandstand, his voice eager and his eyes wild. The Duke took a deep and steadying breath.
“What events would those be?” He asked. He had a feeling he’d find out one way or another, so best to just let things take their course with the minimum of expended effort. No sense struggling against it. Just float like a leaf on a river.
“As you may or may not be aware, my lord, the land of Equestria has a great many princesses, all in positions of appropriate prominence. There is Princess Luna, for one, whose purview covers the night and the dreams of her subjects and such. Then you have Princess Celestia, Princess of-”
The Duke did feel the need to cut in here, as if he knew if he didn’t the prince really would just list off all of them. He’d done it before.
“Yes yes we’ve all read your reports, princesses in abundance, princesses everywhere,” the Duke said, waving his non-head supporting hand.
DeSoutter beamed.
“Quite so! Well, this notable event concerns the princesses, you see.”
“Are they declaring war on us?” The Duke asked, the question so out of the blue it actually managed to catch Prince DeSoutter off-guard, leaving him blinking and deflating his beam.
“Um, no, my lord. Should they?”
It might have broken the monotony, the Duke thought, but he didn’t say it.
“No, probably not. What about this episode makes it noteworthy, exactly?”
DeSoutter’s enthusiasm reignited.
“Ah, I shall convey the particulars to you and allow you to decide yourself!”
“Wonderful…” The Duke said, rubbing his face.
Prince DeSoutter limbered up, clearing his throat and having a quick sip of water from his handy travelling flask. He had to get properly prepared and ready to convey what it was he was about to convey, to give it the proper weight and gravity. Once satisfied he was in the correct frame of mind and properly situated, he began:
“It was a day much like any other, and Princess Celestia was holding court, as she does. The common citizenry was coming before her with-”
“I am aware of what holding court involves, if you would care to hurry this along and get to the point,” the Duke said, finger circle to demonstrate that the prince should get to the point.
“Of course my lord. Well, she was holding court as I say and all was proceeding as might be expected on any other day when the princess, from somewhere about her person, produced a carrot.”
DeSoutter waggled his eyebrows at this, as though expecting the Duke to be surprised or intrigued but the Duke’s face hadn’t so much as budged an inch. DeSoutter, only slightly ruffled, cleared his throat again and continued:
“Now, as you might well imagine, these ponies are all very fond of a carrot, so her having one is not and was not in itself unusual. A suitable snack for a pony, I am sure we can all agree. No, it was not the carrot itself that was unusual, rather it was what the princess proceeded to do with it. How would you eat a carrot, lord?”
The Duke, chin resting on one hand, flapped the other.
“With my mouth?” He ventured, lazily, bored, idly contemplating what to have for dinner.
“Quite so! And her mouth indeed was involved. But not in the way one might expect! Not in the orthodox fashion, no! No chewing, no! Only sucking.”
The Duke blinked and stared into space for a second.
“...sucking?” He asked. DeSoutter nodded with unseemly enthusiasm.
“Indeed! The most suggestive, lewd sucking as can be imagined, my lord! Oh! You should have heard the noises! I could attempt to recreate them, if that would help you grasp the scene?”
“I would really prefer you not do that,” The Duke said, quickly. The prince almost looked disappointed.
“As you say, my lord. Anyway, as you can imagine this did not go unnoticed! Indeed she had quite plainly gone out of her way to ensure that it could not be unnoticed! She was making a grand show of it, a grand show none of us had the faintest idea what to make of We hadn’t even the faintest idea where we should look!” He said.
“Lovely…” said the Duke, pinching the bridge of his nose and thinking about how, later, he’d be in bed and asleep. The thought sustained him.
“Later that very evening - mere hours later! - when it was Luna’s turn to hold court, well, would you believe it that a similar event occurred!” The prince said.
“Did it now?” The Duke asked. He tried to use the question to mask the sound of him sighing.
“Indeed! No sooner had the doors opened to admit petitioners and such then she had produced from about her person a radish of prodigious girth. A radish which she then proceeded to tongue in a manner most degenerate and lascivious, most unbecoming a woman of her lofty station!”
The Duke was momentarily - and quite unintentionally - distracted by trying to put together in his head what lascivious tonguing involving a radish might look like in practise. He didn’t want to imagine this, but having had the words laid out in front of him his brain was operating on its own initiative however much he might wish it wasn’t.
“I - how am I meant to - what?” The Duke said, wincing. For some reason Prince DeSoutter seemed to take his pained reaction as some sort of agreement and nodded some more.
“That was much the reaction at the time, my lord! Confusion! And not a little discomfort. As expert as her tonguework no-doubt was it was most unexpected. Who has the wherewithal to know what to do with such an unusual event?” He asked, spreading his arms to indicate the world in a broader sense, as if daring anyone who’d know what to do in such an unusual event to step forward and present themselves.
None did, obviously, though a bird did pass overhead and shit on the prince’s bicycle, something which only the Duke saw and which buoyed his spirits a little. He shifted into a more comfortable position on his throne.
“Someone, probably, but not me. Is this really the sort of thing they spend their time doing?” He asked. He hadn’t had a very high opinion of Equestria in the first place and all of this was doing very little to improve it. This time Prince DeSoutter shook his head, for a change of pace.
“Oh, not all their time my lord, no, just some of their time. They have something of a friendly, sisterly rivalry, you see my lord, Celestia and Luna - one can’t be seen to be outdone by the other! - and this extends even to lewd interactions with produce, so it would seem.”
“So it would seem.”
“Do you have any other questions about the radish, my lord? I could attempt a passable recreation of her technique but I feel it would be woefully inadequate compared to the real thing,” DeSoutter said, hand moving to a suspiciously radish-shaped bulge in one of his pockets.
Prince DeSoutter’s desire to recreate what had happened was starting to be a point of mild concern for the Duke, but only a mild one. He held up a hand.
“I am entirely okay with that not happening and the fewer questions I ask the faster this can be over. Was that the conclusion of this series of events?”
“It was not, my lord.”
The Duke actually sighed this time, not that it mattered.
“Of course it wasn’t. Alright, what happened next?”
“Well, as you can imagine, news of this spread quickly! It was on the lips of every pony the length and breadth of the land! Princess Twilight, a student of Celestia’s and therefore perhaps desirous of emulating her and unfortunately perhaps not fully grasping the mechanics involved, was some days later observed to attempt to swallow a cucumber whole.”
Prince DeSoutter left a space here for the Duke to ask questions, but the Duke was by now beyond questions, and far, far beyond caring. Prince DeSoutter continued:
“This rather naturally resulted in a mild choking fit, and it was jolly lucky that Spike had been on hand to dislodge the offending vegetable otherwise things could have got very dire very quickly indeed. I did not witness this first-hand my lord, I should stress, but heard about it later from one of my sources.”
Another gap for questions. Perhaps the Duke might like to enquire as to his sources, to see the extent to which Prince DeSoutter had been able to acquire a network of contacts across Equestria, the better to fulfil his duties as ambassador and liaison?
No, no questions. The Duke’s flat, lidded stare was starting to be a bit unsettling now. DeSoutter shuffled his feet and had another quick sip of water, mostly for something to do with his hand and for an excuse to look away, however briefly.
“Ah, yes. Regardless, as it stood the worst of the event was embarrassment. Not mild embarrassment but severe, lasting embarrassment. The sort that dwells in the memory for years. And a sore throat, one would imagine, though that should pass soon enough. And that is the end of it.”
The Duke waited a few seconds in case there was anything else, but the prince, slightly breathless, appeared to have genuinely wrapped up.
“That’s it?” The Duke asked, just in case.
“That is, as they say my lord, it,” DeSoutter said, giving a tiny half-bow.
The Duke scratched his ribs and blew a raspberry, hoping to jostle loose some pertinent thoughts on what he’d just heard. There was nothing though. He had nothing.
“...I’m really not sure what to make of any of that,” he said.
“Remarkable, wouldn’t you say?”
“What’s remarkable is that you thought it was worth my time. What’s a Spike?” The Duke asked.
“Spike is Princess Twilight’s batman, my lord. Or her valet. Or her gopher. Or something to that effect.”
“I see. That explains more than I expected your answer would, actually, while leaving enough ambiguity for me to still not really know what a Spike is. And I would like to maintain this ambiguity,” the Duke said, the last delivered firmly and fastly in response to seeing Prince DeSoutter take a breath to explain some more. Prince DeSoutter let out his breath, literally deflating.
“As you say, my lord,” he said.
The Duke reached into the important parchment bag and fished out the latest report.
“I shall read this, as I read all of your reports. When you return please give my fondest wishes to our equine neigh- heh, never noticed that before - equine neighbours and should you see this Princess Twilight do relay my sincerest wishes that her throat isn’t too sore,” he said, waving it around.
“I shall, my lord!” Prince DeSoutter said, giving a slightly fuller bow and scampering back to his bicycle, righting it, and pedalling off at speed. Once he out of sight around the hedge at the edge of the field the Duke tossed the report over his shoulder. He didn’t care where it landed.
“Is it bedtime yet…” he muttered to himself.
