In the Shadow of the Sun

by Shaslan

Rating: everyone
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Sad, Romance, Trenderhoof, Prince Blueblood, Princess Celestia
Length: 7532

 Truth can be hard to find, and courage can be harder. Both are beautiful dreams, but Blueblood has a duty, and he will not forsake it.

Truth can be hard to find, and courage can be harder. Both are beautiful dreams, but Blueblood has a duty, and he will not forsake it.

An entry for the M/M contest (Blueblood x Trenderhoof) and the Imposing Sovereigns contest (Blueblood / Loyalty). As so many of my stories do, this takes place within the universe of Auntie Tia's Matchmaking Service.

Second place winner in the Imposing Sovereigns contest 2023, and second place winner in the M/M shipping contest 2023!

Published 2023-11-25 17:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2023-11-25 17:50:01 UTC

What I can do

“That…” Blueblood breathed out, pushing his ruffled mane back from his forehead, “Was splendid.”

Trendie laughed and leaned back against the pillow. “You’re not wrong, Bluey.”

Blueblood crawled up the bed to curl against Trendie’s neck, listening to the reassuring ba-bump of his heartbeat. “We should do this more often.”

Trendie turned his head to press the warm velvet of his muzzle to Blueblood’s forehead. “Anytime.”

Slowly, Blueblood exhaled. These were his favourite moments. After the passion and the urgency were over, when there was just him and Trendie, close and loving. No eyes on them, no society ponies, no paparazzi. Just the two of them, locked safely in a poky little dorm that was really far too small for somepony of Blueblood’s status. All the doors and windows barred, with no room for anyone but Blueblood and Trendie, the most essential versions of themselves.

“I’ve been thinking,” Trendie said, very slowly, and Blueblood smiled as he tipped his head back to nibble gently at Trendie’s ear.

“Always a dangerous thing to do.”

Trendie chuckled, but it sounded a little hollow.

Suddenly alert, Blueblood raised himself onto an elbow. “What’s wrong?”

Trendie sighed heavily. Steeling himself. “I’ve been thinking…maybe this…maybe it doesn’t need to stay secret anymore.”

Instantly, the peace of the moment was shattered. The shining golden snapshot he would savour until the next rare afternoon schedules aligned and suspicions would not be raised — gone in an instant. Blueblood had been looking forward to this moment for an entire fortnight, relying on it through every single snide comment from a classmate, every flare of a flashbulb, every probing question from the reporters that waited for him at the gates — Prince Blueblood! You’re about to graduate — any thoughts on romance? Any word on who the next princess of Equestria might be? Prince Blueblood! — every smug letter from Aunt Cellie about her precious little pet Twilight Sparkle’s latest achievements. Through it all he had dug deep, found a smile to paste onto his face, and held his breath. Knowing that soon he’d have Trendie back. And with him, peace.

And now it was all ruined.

Sensing the change, Trendie reached for him, widening those soft lilac eyes. “Bluey, don’t…”

But Blueblood held up a hoof. “You want to go public?”

Trendie sighed. “Don’t you? Someday, at least?”

Disentangling himself from the other stallion, blue blood twisted away to the edge of the twin bed. Facing the wood paneling on the far wall. Trendie had no idea of the pressures he was under. “We’d be expelled,” he said flatly, focusing on the objection that was easiest to explain.

“We’re about to graduate,” Trendie countered, recapturing his good humour.

“I can’t just announce I flouted the rules,” Blueblood snapped, hating how prissy he sounded.

“If anypony asks, we can say we started dating after graduation. But nopony will ask.” Trendie’s voice was tight.

“You have no idea what sort of world I live in. Everypony will ask. And who would believe us? Neighsay’s Finishing School for Young Gentlecolts doesn’t allow fraternisation between students. Ego, this doesn’t exist. Itnever happened.”

Trendie flinched, and as he felt the movement Blueblood winced inwardly. He hated this part. It was the third time Trendie had raised announcing their relationship, each time more cautiously than the last. And each time crushing it hurt Blueblood more. Each time, he had to be harsher.

“I don’t exist?” Trendie asked, hurt and anger lacing his tone in equal measure.

Blueblood pulled in a breath. Kept his gaze on the oak panels, tracing the grain with his eyes. “In terms of me and you, no. You don’t.”

“Right.” His voice turning bitter, Trendie curled up against the wall. “Thanks for clearing that up.”

It was such an impossibly fine line to walk. Be cruel enough to discourage talk of going public, and yet not cruel enough to risk driving him away. Because Blueblood couldn’t lose Trendie, or the precious moments of peace he brought. These golden moments, shut away from the light of Aunt Cellie’s sun…they were all he had.

“Please understand,” he whispered.

“I understand. I understand how important you are. You want your dirty little secret to stay secret.”

“Trendie…”

“Liking stallions isn’t a crime, Blueblood,” Trendie growled, suddenly pushing the covers back and reaching for his clothes. “The press would have a field day — for about a week. Then no one would care.”

“It’s not — it’s not that. I have responsibilities.”

“Do you?”

“I’m a prince.”

Trendie scoffed. “Because the only thing I’ve ever seen you do is go to breakfast at the palace every morning. Is that what being a prince is about?”

His eyes prickling, Blueblood glared at the other stallion. “Nopony else can do what my family and I do.”

Rapidly pushing buttons into the wrong buttonholes with magic the same shade of pink as his eyes, Trendie sneered. An expression that didn’t seem at home on a face that usually had only smiles for Blueblood. “Oh yes, no one else can say I’m Princess Celestia’s nephew, don’t-cha-know.”

“Get out,” Blueblood snarled at him, finally over the edge. Why wouldn’t he even try to understand?

“Gladly!” Trendie whirled for the exit, but Blueblood came back to himself just in time to catch the doorknob in his own magic.

“Trendie — wait.”

“Blueblood.” Trendie’s voice turned dangerous. “You let me out of this room right now.”

“It’s just—” Blueblood gestured helplessly at the mussed mane, the wonky buttons, the half-undone tie. “We’re supposed to be having a study session.”

Pale with rage, Trendie lunged for the door. “Of course that’s all you care about!”

“Trendie!”

“No! I’m not going to sit here and listen to one more second of—”

Hating it, hating himself, Blueblood clamped his magic down on Trendie’s jaws. Forcing them closed. Gagging him. “Somepony’s going to hear.”

Trendie’s eyes widened in outraged betrayal. He snarled, but the magic muffled him, and though Blueblood braced himself for a counterattack, none came.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out, as he began straightening Trendie’s clothes. “I’m so sorry.”

Trendie stood mute and unmoving as Blueblood combed his hair and rebuttoned his shirt. Straightened his tie and brushed the dust from the blazer where it had fallen on the floor. Trendie wouldn’t meet his gaze. Simply closed his eyes and endured.

Tears trickling over his cheeks, leaving wet trails in the fur, Blueblood stepped back. Only when he turned the key in the lock did Trendie hiss, voice tight with suppressed fury, “I never want to see you again.”

He strode from the room, and with a herculean effort, Blueblood summoned the strength of will to call cheerily into the corridor — “Good cram sesh, Trenderhoof! We’ll crack those polynominals next time, yeah?”

And then he slammed the door shut and dissolved into tears. I never want to see you again. It was over.

“No one else can do what I do,” Blueblood whispered, curling into a ball around the pillow that still smelled of Trendie. “No one else can do…”

“Beautiful,” Aunt Cellie had said when she first saw the compass rose on his flank. “You’re a wayfinder! You could be an explorer, just like Glorious Horizon!”

Confused by the unfamiliar name, twelve-year-old Blueblood just grinned and nodded, as though being exactly like Glorious Horizon was his life’s goal.

Later, his mother had shown him the dusty portrait of a white unicorn mare with a pink mane and a compass cutie mark vaguely similar to his own. “Hereditary Princess Glorious Dawn, a great-aunt about four hundred years ago,” Whitesnow said with a touch of impatience. “Not in our direct line, but honestly, Blueblood, you ought to know this by now. When I was your age I could name every family member since Mistymorn.”

“I’m sorry, Mother,” mumbled Blueblood, eyes on his hooves. “I know her now.”

“But do you know her mother? Her two sisters? Her son? How about her hobbies? The name of the rabbit Aunt Cellie gave her for her ninth birthday?” Whitesnow sighed. “This is important, Blueblood. Aunt Cellie has to feel like she can talk to us about them and we’ll understand. We’re her family, and so are they. All of them. They’re all still present, and she misses them, so we have to make them feel real to us as well.”

She gestured to the hall of portraits — unicorn after unicorn, all alike. The same white fur and graceful spiral horns, hundreds and hundreds of them, all leading back to the one behemoth portrait lit by its own constantly-burning magelights: Princess Celestia herself, dressed in the robes of the reneighssance era, cradling a pink-maned unicorn in her forelegs and eyes ablaze with maternal love.

“I know,” Blueblood whispered, hanging his head.

“Our role is vital to Equestria,” Whitesnow said, an old refrain. “Princess Celestia leads a nation, but she is still a pony. She needs a family. Someone she can be utterly herself with. And for almost a thousand years, that has been our family’s sacred duty. No one else can do what we can do.”

“No one else can do what we can do,” echoed Blueblood. Parroting the words obediently, just as he always did. But as it so often did, a traitorous little thought reared its head: allowing Aunt Cellie to be utterly herself mostly seemed to mean suppressing himself. But duty was duty. He was House Mistymorn, and like every member of his family since a newborn Mistymorn herself had been washed and laid in Aunt Cellie’s immortal hooves, he would do his duty. Squeezing himself into the mould cast by his ancestors. A smiling white-furred face to nod when the Princess Imperial asked a question, ticking the box of family.

“Prince Blueblood!” called Chancellor Neighsay, and an audience of slightly bored parents sat up straighter and applauded politely.

Blueblood strode onto the stage and accepted his diploma with a dignified nod. He swept away, back to his seat in between Whitesnow and the guest of honour. Aunt Cellie dwarfed those in the row behind her and her wavering mane blocked almost the entire rest of the row, but no one complained. No one ever did.

“Well done, Blueblood,” his mother said warmly. And just as Blueblood was wondering if the pride in her voice was actually genuine, she ruined it by turning it to Aunt Cellie and saying, “I’m so proud, aren’t you, Aunt Cellie? It’s wonderful, seeing the younger generations grow up.”

Just like everything else in his life, it was a performance for the one member of their family who was a real pony.

Oblivious as always, Aunt Cellie nodded brightly. “I think this is the ninetieth time I’ve attended a graduation here. The first time was back when it was Starswirl’s Finishing School for Young Gentlecolts, of course, but times change, don’t they?”

Blueblood smiled carefully. The passage of time was a delicate topic for Aunt Cellie. One of those delicate topics that Blueblood had been formally tutored in by his mother and grandfather, with perhaps more care than was devoted to geography or music.

“Some things never change,” he said, forcing a smile. “Like how happy it makes ponies to see their families growing up.”

Aunt Cellie smiled, contented, and cameras clicked. “Quite right, quite right.”

Blueblood kept his smile in place, and tried very hard not to let the tears fall as Trendie made his way onto the stage.

“Prince Blueblood! What did you think when—”

“Prince Blueblood! How did it—”

“When did you find out, Prince Blueblood?”

“How long did the royal family know alicorns could—”

What felt like hundreds of voices, shouting over one another.

His pulse thudding hollowly in his ears, Blueblood stepped up to the microphone. “We’re so glad you could all attend today,” he said woodenly, the yelling ponies almost drowning him out entirely despite the amplification spell. “Please, one at a time.”

With a great deal of ill-natured grumbling, the journalists settled themselves down.

“How did it happen?”

Everypony wanted to know the details. But what was Blueblood supposed to do, when he had no idea what they were?

“Pr-Princess Mi Amore Cadenza showed enormous magical promise from a young age,” he said carefully, stumbling over the unfamiliar title despite his best efforts. “She was the top student at Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns—”

“—We know!” shouted a reporter from the depths of the crowd. “But how did she turn into an alicorn?”

“—And she is a natural empath,” Blueblood forced himself onward, pretending he hadn’t heard. “My aunt tutored her personally for many years, and when Princess Mi Amore Cadenza perfected a new kind of magic, the forces of harmony came together, and the Princess transformed.”

Or at least, that was what Aunt Cellie said, but the guards Blueblood had bribed and bullied had said merely that Princess Celestia and the teenage unicorn she tutored had been closeted in the archmage’s tower for days, with even the archmage herself ejected. There had been all sorts of crazy lights, and then two alicorns had emerged. It was clear Aunt Cellie had her hoof firmly in the pie, as she always did, but she had fed him his lines, and like the good, obedient little nephew he was, Blueblood did as he was told.

The next reporter emerged from the scrum. “How can someone not born of the Princess’ bloodline be royalty, even if they are an alicorn?”

That was the worst part of it. He was out here announcing his own demotion.

“I’m glad you asked,” he said, without even a hint of anger. He was quite proud of himself, really.

Because inwardly, Blueblood was seething. All those hours spent poring over his scrolls, trying to keep abreast of everything happening in the kingdom, so that when Aunt Cellie turned to him he would be informed and ready to help. All those nights curled alone in a cold bed, dreaming of a stupid teenage love affair and the only real warmth he’d ever known. All this sacrifice, and for what? For some stupid little teenage brat to be promoted over his head.

“I am, as you know, a Prince Hereditary, and my aunt is the Princess Imperial. Princess Mi Amore Cadenza will be titled the Princess Royal.”

And princesses royal apparently ranked above him. Cadence had been at the family breakfast yesterday. Only a year after Whitesnow’s retirement, one measly year of having his aunt’s ear, and already he had to share, when the position should have been his alone until he finally brought himself to face the reality that he needed to provide Aunt Cellie with the next generation of her mandatory family.

His gut twisted.

Another flurry of questions — where will she live? Will she get her own tower in the palace? Will she — as if Blueblood cared.

“We’re delighted to have a new member of the royal family, yes.”

No one else can do what I can do. Except, it seemed, someone could. For the first time in centuries, a new member of the royal family.

He gazed out over the crowd, answering the questions on autopilot — and then he froze. His heart stuttered in his chest. Because there at the back was a shock of white-blonde hair and a pair of piercing purple eyes.

Trendie.

The world fell away. Blueblood was nineteen again, on the cusp of adulthood, in that last flash of summer between finishing school and university. Stolen moments with the boy he loved, sealed away in the haven of his dorm.

Trendie had come back.

“Prince Blueblood, what—”

“Alright, everypony, you can stop badgering poor Blueblood now,” sang a sweet voice, and Cadence skipped onto the stage, her ponytail swinging. Her wings unfolded, and everyone gasped. Impossible. A second alicorn in a world of one. It made no sense.

She came to a halt beside him, nudged him out of the way, and grinned down at the reporters. Utterly in her element.

“Alright! Who’s going to ask me my first royal question?”

There was an immediate clamour, and Blueblood stepped sourly away, resenting the sly glance she shot him from under her lashes. She always gave him the creeps. The knowledge that this scrawny little filly knew exactly what he was feeling, could see the swirling maelstrom in his head. It was like she had a direct line into his thoughts, and he hated it. What if she told Aunt Cellie? All his work would be for nothing. His cover blown. He existed to make Aunt Cellie comfortable, to keep the comfortable fiction of her undying eternal family alive, no matter the cost to himself. And if Cadence revealed the truth, what would that mean for him?

“Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, what will you do as your first royal act?”

“It’s Princess Cadence, please,” she corrected the reporter, laughing. “And I’m not sure! Maybe I’ll command the prom committee to make prom twice the size. Do you think I can be royally in charge of the school budget?”

In an instant, everypony was comfortable and laughing along with her. Practically eating from the palm of her hoof. Effortlessly achieving in seconds what took Blueblood weeks. His throat tightening with jealousy and hate, Blueblood looked from Cadence to Trendie — and froze.

Trendie was gone.

No. No, he couldn’t be gone. This was the first time in six years — the first time since graduation that he’d caught even a glimpse of him. No. It wasn’t fair. Blueblood had to see him. He had to say he was sorry.

Moving cautiously, he sidled away from Cadence, playing the crowd as skilfully as any master musician. No one noticed. They only had eyes for her, the shiny new toy. Just like Aunt Cellie.

But for right now, it didn’t matter. For right now, Blueblood was even grateful. She was providing the cover he needed.

He edged down the stairs, around the edges of the knot of journalists, and then bolted. Out through the double doors, into the hallway behind the press gallery. Just in time to see a yellow tail whisking out of sight around the corner.

“Trendie!” he bellowed, breaking into a gallop.

He skidded round the corner — and then suddenly, out of nowhere, there he was. Turning slowly back in Blueblood’s direction, his eyes wide and surprised.

Blueblood skidded to a halt so abruptly they came within inches of each other. He could smell sweetgrass on Trendie’s breath. See the fine downy hairs of his muzzle, as soft as always. The glasses were new. He was taller, too. But his eyes were the same. Soft and sweet as a lavender field.

Trendie raised an eyebrow. “I haven’t heard that name in a long time.”

“Hi,” he said at last, weakly. “Trenderhoof. Hi.”

A guard emerged from a nearby doorway and Blueblood suddenly retuned to himself. He coughed, straightened, and jerked himself away from Trendie. Slapped him warmly on the shoulder, hard enough to make the slighter stallion stagger. “Trenderhoof, buddy! It’s been…” the guard vanished again, and the bravado left Blueblood’s voice as quickly as it had come. “…It’s been a long time.”

Trendie watched the performance coldly. “It has.”

Still panting a little from his madcap gallop, Blueblood tried to be suave. To be better than himself. “I…I don’t — it’s good to see you, Trenderhoof. What…what do you do now?”

Trenderhoof’s eyes narrowed behind the new square spectacles. They made him look harder than the owlish round glasses he had worn before. “I’m a journalist.”

Blueblood exhaled. That had been the subject of countless post-coital daydreams. Secret hopes whispered into the night air. “You made it, then.”

For the first time, the ghost of a smile flickered across Trendie’s face. “Yeah. New Horse Post. Big leagues. But I’m mad at my editor right now.”

At last, a taste of old times. Blueblood leaned in. “Why?”

“Usually he gives me better jobs than junk like this.”

“Junk?” Cadence’s ascension wasn’t junk. It was world-breaking news. It changed everything the mages thought they knew about the laws of magic. It rewrote a fundamental truth of the universe. That there was one alicorn, and one alone.

Trendie wrinkled his nose. “I don’t do society pieces. Well, I do. But not for long. I’m headed out to Fillydelphia. I’m the new correspondent.”

“That’s…big.”

“Yeah. I’m going to find something big. Something that’s…true, on a fundamental level.” The word was pointed. Almost accusatory. “Something ponies will care about, once I show it to them.”

“Something true,” Blueblood whispered, tasting the word on his lying tongue. “That sounds beautiful.”

And then it happened. Trendie softened. Became again the colt Blueblood had known and loved. “I think so. What about you, Bluey? Did you get…everything you wanted?”

“Yes.” The lie came so automatically to his tongue that it was out in the world before he could stop it. “I mean…well…”

Trendie’s face settled back into its familiar new lines of disdain. “I understand."

He was turning to leave, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t just walk out of Blueblood’s life again. Blueblood threw out a hoof to catch him, and then jumped back as though he had been burned. He wouldn’t walk that path again. He would never make Trendie do anything he didn’t want to do.

But Trendie turned his head, one eyebrow raised. “What?”

“Trendie, would you ever…think…about…?” He trailed off. Couldn’t finish the question. It was sordid. Disgusting. Pathetic. Why would Trendie ever want him?

And sure enough, Trendie didn’t. “I don’t date liars, Blueblood.”

“I’m not a liar.” The denial was reflexive. And like so much else in his life, untrue.

The look Trendie gave him was almost pitying. “You’re not honest, either. And I only date ponies who can be honest about who they are.”

“The most uncharming prince I have ever met!”

The words echoed in the air behind him as Blueblood slammed the door in her face. Also the only prince she had ever met. The only prince in the whole of Equestria.

Not that it mattered. Not that he mattered to anypony. Blueblood pressed his back against the door and tried to control his hyperventilating. His heart was pounding hard enough to rattle his ribcage, and the walls of the cavernous room seemed like they were pressing in.

“Prince Blueblood?” a guard asked, quiet and solicitous. “Are you alright?”

Blueblood lurched away from her as though she was diseased, casting a shoddy locking spell on the door behind him. It wouldn’t hold up to anypony with any real skill, but thankfully Twilight Sparkle’s repellent little friend seemed as untalented magically as he was himself.

“Leave me alone,” he snarled at the guard, trying to mask terror with anger. “Keep everyone out of this room, do you understand?”

Startled, she saluted and flapped away, and Blueblood collapsed to the ground and covered his eyes with his cake-covered and hooves. Tried to control his panting breath and waited for the world to stop whirling.

“You really ought to think about getting married, Blueblood dear,” Aunt Cellie had said, that morning at breakfast. So out of the blue that he had nothing prepared. He just stuttered and stammered and defaulted to his old safety net of blind agreement.

“Yes, Aunt Cellie,” he answered with barely a quaver in his voice. “I’ve been thinking that myself.”

And she had smiled, delighted. “Oh, wonderful! You know, I have a lot of thoughts on the matter. Did I ever tell you I introduced your parents? I actually have a little binder prepared.”

And as she slapped it down on the table and fanned out sheaf after sheaf of pink paper, Blueblood had smiled and nodded, inwardly appalled. Recontextualising everything he knew about his parents’ strained marriage and distant relationship, about his mother with raised with the same ingrained obedience to omniscient Aunt Cellie that she had instilled in him.

“I confess I had hoped that now Cadence was a little older,” she said brightly, “But she and Shining are getting on splendidly, and I suppose that we ought to make the royal family bigger instead of smaller, eh, Blueblood?”

She winked at him playfully, and Blueblood laughed even as the room shrank around him.

“But Twilight has a number of lovely and highly eligible new friends, and they’re all coming to the Gala tonight! Isn’t that wonderful? I think that one in particular — she’s a unicorn, and honestly I think she must have a drop or two of Mistymorn blood herself, but so far back it hardly matters for our purposes. Her name’s Rarity. Would you like to see a photo?”

And through a mouth drier than sandpaper, Blueblood rasped, “I’d love to.”

It had been easy to be a boor. Easier still to show the repugnance that he felt for her, for all Twilight’s little friends, who seemed so much younger than him.

But if he was being honest — and when could he ever be brave enough to be honest, even with himself, even in an empty room with the doors barred — no. No. It was fine. He was fine. He was a prince, and a son of Whitesnow and Mistymorn and Celestia herself. Power ran in his veins like blood, and that was all he needed. Power demanded sacrifices. It was part of who he was.

He hadn’t liked Rarity, that was all. He would like one of them, sooner or later. Or like them enough. He would have a foal, and do his duty. He would provide Aunt Cellie with the family she wanted. The blood family that Cadence, despite her wings, would never be.

No one can do what I can do.

A door banged. Blueblood stumbled to his hooves, frantically wiping cake and tears off his face. And found himself nose to nose with the face that haunted his dreams.

Aghast, he stared. It was like seeing a ghost. “Trendie?”

Trendie, for his part, looked equally appalled. “Blueblood? I thought you left.”

“You did?” His heart leapt with hope. Had Trendie been trying to follow him?

But Trendie looked closer to disgusted than loving. “I caught the end of your little show.”

Blueblood smiled bitterly. Wiped his mouth. “I thought you didn’t do society events.”

“I don’t. I’m here as a guest.”

“Then…who’s your date?” It shouldn’t hurt to ask that.

“His name’s Westwind.”

A twinge of pain, deep in his gut.

“I already saw how your date went. Classy as ever, Blueblood.”

Blueblood drew himself up. He was a prince, Celestia damn it. “She was a horrid little tramp. I was trying to be kind, but she couldn’t take a hint. And I’m not surprised: all of Twilight Sparkle’s friends are insufferable.”

“Hm. Speak for yourself.”

His mood flipping, Blueblood had to bite back a smile. An insult not quite as vitriolic as the others. That practically counted as banter. “You think you’d get on with them, then?”

“I quite like the muscular one, actually.” A smile played at the edges of Trendie’s mouth. A smile that, once upon a time, had been just for Blueblood. “She isn’t afraid to say what she thinks.”

It always came back to that, in the end. “Being careful isn’t a sin, Trendie— Trenderhoof.”

“I never said it was.”

“It’s different for royalty.”

“It always is. And how’s the whole royalty thing going for you?”

Blueblood snorted. Gestured to his damp suit. “You can see how.”

“Haven’t found a princess to suit you yet?” There was a mocking edge to his smile.

Blueblood swallowed past the lump in his throat. Wished with all his might he had not been born a unicorn prince of House Mistymorn, and instead as a humble pegasus named Westwind and a bright, loving future ahead of him. “Not yet.”

“And do you, Lady Fleur de Luce, take Prince Blueblood to have and to hold, in sickness and in hoof, until the eternal twilight claims you both?”

She didn’t even look at him. There was triumph in her yellow eyes as she sneered down at her sister, married to a mere lord, while she had bagged a prince. She opened her mouth, and Blueblood half expected her to say take that, Fleur de Lis. But instead she said, very demurely, “I do.”

And the high priest of the Celestial cathedral turned to Blueblood, and with the eyes of the nation on him, repeated the question. “And do you, Prince Blueblood of Equestria, take Lady Fleur de Luce, to have and to hold, in sickness and in hoof, until the eternal twilight claims you both?”

Blueblood turned his head, very subtly. Looked out past the guests, past Cadence and his aunt and the eternally-present Twilight Sparkle. At the small figure in the back row, with the puff of yellow hair on his head, so fluffy it almost obscured his horn.

Trendie was here. Blueblood didn’t know why he’d slipped him onto the guest list. Didn’t know why he’d spent time having a royal guard go down to the New Horse Post offices and badger them for Trendie’s Fillydelphia address. Maybe he liked to torture himself. Maybe he was just terminally stupid. The only thing more confusing was why Trendie had actually come. And why he thought it was okay to bring that hulking orange pegasus along with him.

The priest coughed, and Blueblood whipped his attention back to the front. Away from everything he wanted and everything he could never have.

Back to what he did have. Luce, with her cold yellow eyes and her gleaming white coat. Her storied pedigree and her centuries of high breeding, as rich as his own. Descended, as so much of the nobility was, from Mistymorn. Not in the direct line, of course. Since Whitesnow’s death, no one carried that particular burden but him.

Luce narrowed her eyes at him, and he dragged a smile into place.

Luce knew exactly what she was getting herself into. That was the best thing about her. The little fragment of her personality not entirely dedicated to outcompeting her sister was razor-sharp, and that was all Blueblood needed. Someone intelligent to sit with him at dinner parties, to talk with Aunt Cellie, the press, the high society ponies. Someone who could dance and smile and dress well. Someone who could — his stomach turned — bear him a child. A little scion of House Mistymorn to accompany Celestia into the next era of her endless sunrises, even as Blueblood himself faltered and failed.

For his aunt. For his nation. No one else can do what I can do.

He widened his smile, a rictus grin showing all his teeth, and spoke the words. “I do.”

“Where will the Princess Consort live now?”

More microphones in his face. More questions. It was always the same. Every day was the same. The traditional family breakfast with Celestia, a flurried discussion that ranged as widely or as narrowly as her whims demanded. Affairs of state or affairs the servants were having. The latest marriage she had tricked somepony into. Inquiries after little Patrician or his opinion on the new treaty with the hippogriffs.

Then the rest of the day alone in his study, reading and sweating and trying his best to do everything his aunt asked of him. Govern distant provinces, decide taxes and sentences for the guilty. Anything and everything she wanted.

And then home to Patrician, little white upturned face asking in a small voice if Mommy would come back today, another lie to answer him. Maybe soon, son.

Until the lies could continue no longer and the truth had to come out.

“For her health, Princess Fleur de Luce will be residing in the Lily mansion in the mountains. Thank you for asking.”

Patrician stood beside him, a Mistymorn prince in every line of his bearing. Standing as tall as his little legs would allow. His face a perfect smiling mask, almost entirely hiding the trembling of his lower lip.

A perfect miniature of his father in every detail.

“This is your aunt, Blueblood. Your other aunt.” Celestia giggled like a filly, pulled the stranger into an embrace and pressed a kiss into her deep blue hair. Looked at her with a love that she had never shown Whitesnow, or Blueblood, or even Patrician. “This is Luna. She’s come home.”

He’d thought the skinny little alicorn filly she’d dragged home was just another Cadence. Another created alicorn, instead of — instead of her equal. Her sister.

A family. A family for the Princess. Somepony she can be utterly herself with. No one else can do what I can do.

Except somepony could. Somepony else was, all along. And he had been a stand-in — one of a thousand years of stand-ins. And he had never even known it.

Without answering, without saying a word, Blueblood turned and left. He barked an order at a guard — “Make sure Prince Patrician’s nurse knows she needs to stay the night with him.” — and then he was out of the palace. Running, racing, galloping through the streets of Canterlot. Sprinting until he reached the darkest ally, the seediest bar. The last place on Equus anypony would ever expect to find the Herditary Prince.

“Four ciders,” he croaked. “To start.”

He stared into the foaming golden liquid and tried not to think of everything he had lost over the years. White bubbles on rich brown cider. Too reminiscent of white streaks in a yellow mane, flopping down over warm brown fur.

Trendie.

Miserably, Blueblood laughed into his drink. Twenty years, and he was still hung up on a colt he had loved in his teens. Maybe it was because he’d never had a chance to love anyone else. The duty had always lain before him, impossible to escape. A foal for House Mistymorn, a companion for Aunt Cellie. Except she didn’t need him to do that anymore. For the first time in a thousand years, she was fending for herself. She was pulling alicorns out of nothing, building them from schoolgirl fillies and conjuring them from the moon. From the way she pored over Twilight Sparkle’s letters and magical treatises another one was clearly on the way.

Then there would be three extra alicorns, including another full goddess sister. Aunt Cellie had no need for mortal relatives anymore. But Blueblood was the product of a thousand years of training, and he had no idea how to be anything else.

No one else can do—

“—Buck it,” Blueblood snarled into his drink, spilling it across the dark oak counter.

He was a prince, and nopony could take that away from him. He was a prince, and his son was a prince, and House Mistymorn would always be princes.

No matter how many princesses Aunt Cellie made for herself, she would always need them.

“Blueblood, dear, I have the most wonderful news.”

“I can’t wait to hear it, Aunt Cellie.” The practised smile that came to his muzzle felt more real than his real smile. When was the last time he had really smiled?

“I’m retiring!”

There was a beat. He stared up at her, at the aurora dancing in her mane. “Retiring?”

She nodded, a little smiling curling at the edges of her mouth. Like this was a private joke between her and him. “Retiring.”

“You’re a princess. You can’t retire.”

She smirked. Shrugged. “Even princesses retire sometimes.”

Since Luna’s return she had been like this. Younger. Almost juvenile. Where was his staid aunt, the mainstay of a nation? The figurehead he had spent a lifetime earning the trust of?

“But…who would rule?” Not that he needed to ask. Equestria was now dripping in princesses.

“Twilight will, of course.”

“And what will you do?” And how do I fit into it?

She sighed. “I’m thinking of opening a business.”

Blueblood gaped. Tried to imagine himself answering her phones. Taking notes in her meetings. It was ridiculous. He was royal. She was royal. How could he follow her into this…this farce?

She preened. “My special talent will finally see a little use.”

“Raising the sun?” He eyed her cutie mark. What kind of business could she make out of a service she had provided for thousands of years? What sort of world would she make if she charged for it?

“My other special talent, silly. My secondary one!”

He waited blankly.

“My hobby, remember? Honestly, Blueblood, I did it for you. Not that that was one of my…biggest successes.” She winced apologetically. “But Patrician is lovely, of course. Completely worth it.”

“Aunt Cellie, what are you talking about?”

She flared her wings and grinned. “I’m going to open a matchmaking business!”

As she launched into some ridiculous tale of a business plan and the purchase of a shop in Canterlot, Blueblood gazed into the middle distance and felt the foundations of his universe crumbling away one by one. The bedrock on which he had built his sorry little sham of a life, sinking like quicksand.

“I quite like the family feeling. Maybe not Aunt Cellie, but something similar. What do you think of Auntie Tia?”

“It’s great,” Blueblood said reflexively, instinctively supporting her as he had been raised to do. Then he thought again, and he shook his head. What was the point? She didn’t want him anymore. She only wanted Luna and her precious little Twilight. He had been everything she had ever asked, and it still wasn’t enough. Somepony had said to him once: I only date honest ponies. Perhaps there were worse options in life than giving honesty a try.

“I don’t think anyone will believe it,” he amended carefully. “You’re not their auntie. You’re their princess.”

It was a boundary he’d had trouble with himself over the years.

“Hm.” Celestia pursed her lips. “I still like it, but I see your point. I’ll workshop it with Raven Inkwell. We’ll come up with something that works.”

“Great,” he said blankly. “That’s great.”

Finally, his aunt paused. Leaned forward. Reached out and did something she had not done since he was a tiny colt. She touched his forehead. “Blueblood, what’s wrong?”

Blueblood stared up at her. With her great size, everyone was a foal. Her little ponies. But she had never spoken to him that way. Never looked at him with the fond smile she reserved for her pet students and her long-lost sister. He called her Aunt Cellie, but it was just another title. They weren’t family. He was an advisor, a helpmate. A trusted servant. Nothing more.

But now she touched him, and she wrapped a feathery wing around his shoulders. “Tell me, Blueblood. What is it?”

And the habits and restraint of a lifetime broke, and Blueblood burst into tears.

Celestia stared at him for a moment, but then she enfolded him in her wings. “Blueblood, tell me. Tell your auntie.”

It was stupid — tell your auntie — her whole business idea was so painfully stupid, but it all came bubbling out anyway.

“I don’t — I don’t — I can’t—”

It seemed to take hours, but the whole sorry mess came spewing up out of him. Finally laid bare between them. I don’t like mares. I never did. I don’t like any of this. I drew a map once, when I was twelve, and I came alive, so I never did it again. Because I had to be this. For you.

“But why?” Celestia whispered, when it was done. “Why would you…for years…all of you? All of Mistymorn’s children?”

He hung his head. Whispered. “You needed a family.”

"I’m surrounded by family, Blueblood. And so are you. You’re not alone.”

“But it’s our — our sacred responsibility to — to—” He could hardly speak through the sobs.

“It isn’t — it wasn’t ever. I had no right to ask that. Even if I didn’t realise it. Blueblood, your family did a — a great and noble thing. Mistymorn was my lifeline, after Luna…after she left. And all of you, every single one of you…you got me through the time without her. If it wasn’t for you I don’t know what would have happened, to me or to Equestria.”

It was everything he’d ever wanted to hear from her. No one else can do what I can do. And yet it still felt so hollow.

“I’ve — I’ve wasted my whole life.”

“Not your whole life, Blueblood.” Celestia’s hoof on his chin was gentle. “You’re still a young stallion.”

Blueblood stared down at his hooves. He knew there was grey in his mane. “I’m old.”

“Not from where I’m sitting.”

“From where you’re sitting—”

“Blueblood.” Her voice was firm, and from lifelong habit, he subsided. “You still have plenty of time left.”

“There’s nothing I can do.”

“Nonsense.” She leaned over and tapped his cutie mark. “Why don’t you try this?”

“Try…what? Navigating?”

“Try following your heart. With a talent like yours, I think you’ll be good at it.”

The offices of the New Horse Post were crammed full of ponies, all of them shouting and running, galloping in every direction, scrolls and papers clutched in hooves and wings and magic. It was chaos. The news was hot and the presses were hotter, and nopony had a glance to spare for an old prince when a new princess was poised to take power.

Like a ghost, Blueblood wandered the halls. Creeping past boardrooms, peering into offices. Drifting through without anypony truly seeing him. The same way like he had drifted through life: always present, but never leaving a hoofprint behind.

Until finally, he reached a door marked Editor-in-Chief, and the one pony who had always been able to see him looked up. There was more white than yellow in that fluffy mane now, and the glasses were thicker than they’d ever been. But the lilac-lavender eyes were the same as always. Quick and sharp, seeing straight to the truth.

Trendie rose from behind his desk and walked forward, eyes wide. “Blueblood?”

“It’s over, Trendie,” Blueblood said, suddenly certain that this stallion, this near-stranger, was the only one who would ever understand.

The colt of thirty years before was still there. Still the same as he had been, beneath the wrinkles and the ugly knitted sweater. “What’s over?”

“My…my duty, I suppose,” explained Blueblood. “Everything. You heard the news?”

Trendie gestured to the logos on the walls, the proofs on his desk. “What do you think?”

They both laughed, and for a second it seemed like no time at all had passed.

“I’m sorry,” Blueblood said, as he had dreamed of doing for decades. “Really, I am. I was an idiot.”

Trendie waved a hoof. “We were kids, Bluey.”

That old nickname made his heart skip a beat. “No — I mean, I was then, too. I was an idiot then. But much more recently. I only stopped being an idiot…very recently.”

A little smile. The sweetest reward Blueblood had ever received. “How recently are we talking?”

Blueblood chuckled weakly. “This morning, maybe?”

“There’s a first time for everything, huh?”

“I should have done it years ago,” said Blueblood, looking down as the old frustration bubbled back up. “I just — the lie was so engrained. All the lies.”

“This sort of thing doesn’t have a time limit, Bluey. You can be an honest pony the second you decide to be.”

That was more kindness than he deserved. But Blueblood didn’t protest. Just nodded humbly. He kept his eyes on the floor and let the words tumble out. “I just…I wanted to ask, Trendie. If — if it’s not too ridiculous. I’m just a sad old sack without a job, and you — you’re you. But I want to start being brave. Finally. And I wanted to ask if you’re — seeing anyone. Married. Anything.”

There was a long silence. Feeling any chance of friendship slipping away, Blueblood regretted everything. Too much, too fast. Too arrogant, like always. Should have waited, shouldn’t have presumed. He tried to calculate how far it was to the door, how far to the palace — would Twilight Sparkle let him live in the palace when Celestia left it? — but then Trendie spoke.

“Divorced, actually. Few years ago. We couldn’t work it out.”

His breath catching, Blueblood looked up. “So you—?”

“I could go for a coffee,” Trendie cut him off. “A very short one, mind you. It’s a big day here. Headlines to shake the earth. But I could probably spare twenty minutes for coffee with an old friend.”

Blueblood looked into those evening-coloured eyes and felt that he would melt. “Thank you, Trendie.”

“No promises, of course,” Trendie grinned, and it was like they were nineteen again.

“No promises,” Blueblood promised, his heart beating like a drum.

Side by side, the two of them picked their way through the furore in the corridor, and Blueblood felt the warmth of the rising sun on his fur for the first time in a long while.