One last trip around, for you.
Author's Note
THIS STORY IS AN ALTERNATE ENDING TO METRONOME'S FIC "Blue And Gold" AND WILL NOT MAKE ANY SENSE (SERIOUSLY) UNLESS YOU HAVE READ THAT FIRST.
Blue and Gold and White
Years later, Blueblood stood in front of a mirror, carefully adjusting his bowtie with his magic with all the seriousness of-
No, no. That didn't seem right. For a moment he could've swore his reflection blinked.
Wrapped about, wrapped through each other: white coat on white coat - white coat is white coat - beneath the still white covers of Blueblood's bed. Shining Armor was the first to fall asleep, as always, with the royal guard working him much harsher than Blueblood's own necessities of nobility; and though Blueblood was really quite parched and could, yes, do with a glass of water, he did not want to remove himself from Shining's tangle.
Instead, he stared at his ceiling. Despite moon-glow's best efforts to send themselves through the curtains that draped the windows of the room, the ceiling (a staunch white in daytime) left itself a blue imitating the color grey. Or, perhaps, a grey imitating the color blue. Blueblood was never a very imaginative pony, but still he tried to will the sights of Canterlot ahead of him: Statues and gardens, towers and stars - lights hanging on, warmer than the moon's own. They flickered into and out of his head, broad brush strokes lacking detail. He recognised them as faint memories, possible futures. Nothing he could place in particular, even with his immense knowledge of the city. Blueblood was not a very imaginative pony.
Now, instead, he tried to will his heart inside another. To let shooting star fly overhead, to let flesh join and melt and mold into itself, to let miracle happen, to let two become one. This thought had wedged itself inside his mind as of late - the sharing of a body, the “becoming one”. He felt like it's the sort of thing he should feel bad about thinking. He certainly hadn't brought it up to Shining. It was sort of… rotten, wasn't it? Like the sort of thing a colt reads in some pulp comic book. The stallion with two heads! Unnatural, that was the word. That was certainly the word. It was incredibly unnatural. So why, then, did it seem this constant craving? This gnawing, this wanting, this frittering, flickering, unforgiving stain inside his head?
Shining Armor snored, reflexively twitched a hoof. Blueblood shook his head a little, cleared any remaining thoughts from his mind. He really should be asleep by now.
Blueblood recalled the time a zebra mare came up to him in the street. It was spring, he was walking down a canterlot road, on route to a cafe he had become a frequent of. He knew the way well enough that he let his hooves guide him more than his eyes: let the rhythmic plodding guide itself. Though, as he wandered, his eyes couldn't help but notice the strange monochrome mare that seemed to… stare at him. Stare, not glance or steal looks as he was used to ponies around him doing, being nobility and all, but a full stare. It creeped him out, really, and only more so when she actually put her hoof on him to stop him in the street.
It was the only time he had ever seen a zebra, let alone talked to one. Well, she did all the talking really: “All that you want and all you deserve, in the end it is yourself that you serve. All you are now and all you can be, follow the compass: They will all come in three. Listen to my words, my warning you should heed: blood that is blue is still able to bleed.”
Blueblood was still processing her words when she walked off. After a few seconds of meaninglessly staring into thin air he (quite accidentally) audibly muttered to himself “What a lot of nonsense.” Then, still not realizing he was speaking aloud, “And the meter could have used some help, that third line was practically forced in.” So he turned around and walked back home, pretending those words weren't rattling in his head all the while.
Shining Armor was practicing stretches in the private bedroom when Blueblood cantered up behind him and-
Well, what Blueblood did was completely inappropriate.
It was a long walk to the throne room. It was a long, cold, shameful walk to the throne room: He rarely liked being summoned to see his aunts there, after all all the nice conversation happened in the dining room - the dining room that was, alongside Blueblood’s own room, practically on the opposite side of the castle to the throne room - and the sudden no-notice summoning today seemed to suggest very bad news. Still, Blueblood trotted. Trotted a little faster than he normally did, heart beating a little faster than it normally would, mind racing a little faster than he thought it could. Polished, cold, cold marble under hooves and the light, screech clip-clopping that came from his walking across it.
As nice as the castle was, it was an awful place to walk alone: most rooms in the castle were just… long, empty hallways. They stretched on and on, let every single sound you make echo outward, let the distance remind you of the isolation you accompanied yourself with. Sometimes there were guards at some ends of the room, staring. Always staring: straight ahead, or at you. Blueblood couldn’t decide which he hated more. He hated to be stared at, but the way some guards just… stared. At nothing, just staring into thin air - as if transfixed by some invisible, other worldly force - that was just as awful too. Even when you walked by them, looked right back, it was more as if they were staring through you. As if you weren’t even there. This is the sort of thing Blueblood tried not to think about when walking through the castle, but he could never quite shake it from his mind. Always there in the back, a little thought rattling around.
If there was one nice thing about the empty, lonely, creepy hallways, it was the windows. A fair few hallways (where architecturally possible) adorned their walls with many a window, stained-glass or otherwise. It gave you something nice to look at, the stained glass windows beautifully hoof-crafted, and the regular windows at least giving a nice view of Canterlot.
Canterlot was a nice place to look at. Especially at dusk.
Occasionally, for the mid level events in Canterlot - important and noble, though not important and noble enough for the princesses’ attendance - Blueblood would be asked to host. Today, one of these mid level events was taking place: an important step in Equestria's technological advancement, but at present only interesting to invested academics and Canterlots small but (self-described) ‘elite’ sect of artists. The event was to be hosted in a local theater, made up for the day in the garb of a new sort of “kinevision center” - a name that likely wouldn't stick - simply by replacing the theater's usual red curtains with a single, taut white curtain and the inclusion of the newly developed “film projector” - a name that had a much greater chance of actually sticking.
It was Blueblood's role to greet and engage with ponies - or schmooze as Shining Armor might put it - in the lobby pre “grand opening” (the event was named this even though the temporary set up would be closing that same day) and then to give the grand speech that led into the demonstration of the new technology. There was, quite frankly, almost nopony there that Blueblood was at all interested in meeting. The only ponies that turned up who he gave a damn about were Shining Armor - star of the show! - and his sister, who “dragged him along” (said in a kind and playful tone).
Indeed, yes, Shining was the “star of the show” after Blueblood had caught wind of the developing technology, and suggested to Bright Motion - developer of both the “film projector” and the “kinevision film” it displayed - that ought not he capture the gallop of a pony as his first outing? As, after all, this development represented a culmination of the power and consideration and ability of ponies as a whole, and what better way to represent that - that being both how far we've come and what we have always had inside us - than with the innate, raw power and ability each pony is given? And, yes, he knew just the pony - just the pony! Royal guard, a fine one at that, he had come to know, just through time getting to know the royal guard is all, and he, of course, being a royal guard, is in shape and may display a fine gallop to be captured, yes? And so it was.
While it was true that Shining Armor did have a beautiful gallop, Blueblood still believed that it was not as beautiful as his dancing - or his morning stretches for that manner.
Soon Blueblood gave his speech - how it was the culmination of years of effort and represented a great leap forward in the arts and sciences - and then the kinevision film was ready to be shown. Ponies in the very back of the theater-turned-kinevison-center clanked and rustled and tried with the projector until they managed to make an image appear on that taut white screen at the front: a, one must admit, quite handsome stallion, blue mane, determined look, start of a gait that - my goodness, didn't it just move? There, for a second, it actually moved and folded through and carried on, almost smoothly in this way that just suggested the visions of a dream - until something went wrong. The film had stopped moving whereas something else in the projector didn't stop moving and now the room was filled with a quite horrible noise somewhere between a screeching and a whirring. The kinevision film had caught fire. Blueblood stared at the screen, at this vision of son amant, blown larger than life and burning to death in front of him.
He felt, as the royal face of the event, that he ought to return to the stage and say something to all the ponies in attendance, but the only words he could manage were “That's a shame.”
Blueblood stared at the mirror for sometime. He knew it was quite impossible for a mirror to blink - or, rather, it was quite impossible for one's reflected self in a mirror to blink independent of the one that is being reflected. He considered the possibilities for a moment: a mere trick of the light, a severe deterioration in mental capability, an immature unicorn playing some sort of prank on him. He chose to believe the first, at least until it happened again when he told himself it must be the third - he even conjured up a vocal “Whoever you are, stop that at once!” to reassure himself - even though, deep down, he knew it must be the second.
Blueblood did not make an appearance at the grand galloping gala that night.
As fast as his mind was racing, his thoughts suddenly all came to a stop. And his hooves beneath him too - he was stuck here, marble floor beneath, staring out a window. What he saw was not the beautiful sights of Canterlot. No, it was snow. A whole lot of snow. More than he’d seen his entire life before, he was sure: endless, endless, endless snow. And there, in the distance, his white coat barely distinguished from the white snow behind it: a Stallion, trekking through, kitted in winter garb, colorful mane. This stallion who was trying to find something that was lost a long time ago. Trying, right through this window in the middle of this castle in the middle of Canterlot and not, notably, in the middle of a snowstorm.
So there was Blueblood, frozen himself as much as the icy tundra he was looking at - that he really couldn’t be looking at - trying to understand what in Equestria he was seeing. It was then that he realized if he were to keep standing here any longer, staring at this thing which was very likely not even happening, that he would be late to meet with his aunts.
He was never late to meet with his aunts. Why should he let a little bit of snow stop him? So he kept walking.
“Wait, so what did she say?” Shining Armor asked this as he pinged a piece of popcorn off of Blueblood's forehead in that sly, loving way that only he could ever get away with.
“Well, I don't… I don't remember word for word but it was something along the lines of, um… Follow your compass to serve yourself, the future you deserve will rest ahead. But it rhymed, of course. And then, uh, everything you wish to become, will turn up in three not one. That rhymed too. What she said I mean, what I said just now was more of a half rhyme. Then, something like, my warning you must heed because Blueblood you will bleed.” He stared off into nowhere as he spoke, rather than his familiar comfort of Shining's deep blue eyes.
“What, and you never met her before?”, Shining asked.
Blueblood shook his head. “Not in my life.”
“Are you sure?”
Blueblood looked, now, back to Shining. “I think I would remember if I had seen her before.”
Shining Armor considered this for a moment. “Weird.”
Blueblood turned from the Something he was faced with back to the Nothing he was considering.
Shining Armor thought a bit more. “It's- Maybe it's like what you told me about your cutie mark. It's the compass that shows you follow your destiny, right? And like, she's saying your compass serves yourself, like your destiny is your own not what anypony else carved out for you, right?”
Blueblood shrugged.
Shining just waited for a moment, then found another piece of popcorn to throw at him.
He stood, there, in front of his two aunts, in front of those towering flesh statues of princesses, in front of Celestia and Luna - in front of the royal guard they had decided to bring in tow, and he really couldn't believe that the words were actually leaving his mouth. “What if I don't?”
Luna couldn't believe it either, Celestia simply refused to believe it. So they both stood as if nopony had said anything at all.
“I mean it, what if I don't stop? What if I continue this relationship with… with this pony?”
Celestia closed her eyes, clenched her maw. Luna took the burden of responding. “Then we could not, with true faith in the future of you, your role, of Canterlot and Equestria, we could not let you be prince.”
Words once again tumbled from his mouth, but Blueblood was not the one saying them. “Is that it?”
There, again, was no response.
The two - Blueblood and Shining - sat in the theatre almost alone, apart from a pony in back preparing to run the film projector. It was the day before it would all be shown to the public and, with Shining being the star of the show, Blueblood thought it only fair he got a sneak preview. The two sat next to each other, the only seats filled in the theatre, but they still tried to seem… casual. Normal. Just two friends or business acquaintances or important ponies or whatever it is they were to ponies who weren’t them. They kept their hooves carefully at their sides, not looking at or touching or hugging each other, barely allowing themselves to speak. Even if it was only one pony who would see them, that's one pony more than they needed. So they just stood and stared ahead. Waited for the whirring and clink that brought on, maybe a thousand times taller than the real deal, that ghost of Shining Armor. They stare, maws practically agape at the dream they were shown: Shining Armor was practicing stretches in the private bedroom when-
No, that’s not right. That’s not what the film showed, that’s not what it- He really was losing his mind, wasn’t he? That’s definitely not what the film showed.
The Canterlot dusk was really quite beautiful - especially when you had some Prancesecco in your system. Shining Armor had known this for some time. Blueblood was only just realising it. The orange-yellow glow of the final few wisps of sunshine making themselves clear through cloud and stone, drifting hazily on the royal garden's collection of lilies, orchards, roses… Of everything.
Blueblood and Shining drifted on just as hazily themselves, sharing these dumb little looks and laughs and, goodness, if the sunset was beautiful what did that make him? Ha ha. He was beautiful. You could just- Blueblood just found himself staring right in those impossible eyes like always.
He suddenly felt the need to check if anypony was around - he couldn't see any. Just the now blue-ish, grey-ish glint to marble form: of paw, of claw, of wing and maw… A horrible old statue, really. Blueblood was familiar with it as an… adversity his aunts had once faced. But still, the ponies seemed to be alone.
And they were going to take advantage of that.
Blueblood leaned in for a kiss, right in - smacked the maws together, drunk in every sip of Shining that he could. Oh, that got him drunk! And swung him close, and swung himself around Shining, and held and let hoof caress and move open mouth and maw inside maw and tongues moving as they should and the two so close that they managed to share a single shadow and never stopping with the moving and the caressing and the hooves and the tongues and the love through it all…
The statue had never once seen such a display of love - a display of love that so boldly threatened the princesses' want of their sick little harmony. It almost made him… Sad. Sad that it wouldn't have its chance. But no, statues don't get sad. Right?
Blueblood, by now, had stopped staring at the mirror and had opted instead to stare through the mirror. He couldn’t really tell what the difference between the two were, but he knew there was one and he knew it was significant.
Shining Armor ran his hoof through Blueblood’s mane as he was wont to do when the two were alone - ‘I can’t help it, it’s just so… smooth’ as he had once put it. Blueblood once found it mildly annoying, but had since fallen to love it. It was relaxing, therapeutic. Through the dull motions they existed together, they existed as- Well, they existed together.
“I…” Blueblood started speaking but had no words to say.
He turned himself closer to Shining.
He kissed Shining
Shining kissed Him.
Wasn’t it nice?
Blueblood stood again - again? - in that throne room, stood in front of those ponies, all those ponies. His aunts that stood tall and their backup band of important guards. They stared at him, stared at him with a piercing glow.
“Well?” Princess Celestia asked.
Well? Well… Hmm. Blueblood just looked ahead. Some part of him wasn’t turning properly, some cog out of alignment. Some blindspot in his vision. Well?
Luna sounded angry when she prompted him. “We asked if we were understood.”
Oh, of course. That’s what- this is what this is. Blueblood gulped, readied the words in his throat. “I..” It was hard to get the words out: He let himself breathe in, breathe out, work a rhythm that could force them through his mouth. “Yes. I und-”
Ping.
Blueblood felt something bounce off of his forehead. He didn’t dare look for the source - a fluke, a drop of water, an overly large speck of dust - goodness, who cares? His life was falling apart. Maybe that’s what it was, some chunk of his own life torn out and chucked back at him. “I underst-”
Ping.
That was not a fluke. That was, Blueblood realised, a piece of popcorn. It had to be.
Ping.
Again, again. Third time’s a charm. And with it, now, a whisper. “Pssst.”
Blueblood tried not to look. Nopony else was looking, so why should he? I mean, this wasn’t happening right?
“Blueblood! Hey, Bluey!” Shining Armor had the worst whisper in all of Canterlot.
Ping.
Blueblood looked.
“Bluey, hey!” Shining Armor, it appeared, was a piece of stained glass window. This was not possible, Blueblood felt the need to mentally note. “How’s it going?”
Blueblood looked to his aunts, then back to the piece of stained glass. If he wasn’t crazy before, he sure was now: “Not- not good.”
The glass contorted itself into a frown. “Why’s’at?”
“They know about us. Or- Shining and I.” Everypony else either could not hear Blueblood or they just acted like they could not hear Blueblood.
The window seemed - if it were at all possible for windows to do so - to think. Evidently, it chose action instead of words.
Ping!
“Oh come on, I do not see how that helps.” Blueblood sighs. “They don’t want us together and there’s nothing I can do.”
“So?” Shining, the window, the glass, Blueblood’s own potential delusions, chose only one word.
“So?” Blueblood repeated it, incredulous.
“So?” The glass was earnest. “Hey, your compass points to you! Or whatever it was that zebra said. You know, this world cannot hold us! You can go your own way!”
“They’re going to stop me from becoming Prince.” Blueblood said.
“Well, they’re going to stop me from ruffling your hair, and pinging you with popcorn, and sneaking you kisses when no-pony is looking, and getting interrupted mid morning stretch, and saying ‘I love you!’ as many times as I want, and spending the rest of my life with you. That’s what they’re going to stop me from doing, just so you know.” Shining said.
Blueblood didn’t say anything.
“Blue blood still bleeds, and that crown is sharp.” The window pane had a point. “I still don’t get that other one about your future is threefold or whatever.” The stained glass shrugged.
Blueblood still didn’t say anything.
“You have a choice, I’ll leave it at that.” The mural of Shining seemed to fade back to whatever was there before.
Not without one last ping.
Blueblood turned back to the other ponies. Swallowed, braced himself, let out… Let out something.
“What if I don’t?”
Blueblood continued to stare through the mirror. He stopped even noticing the movements of his supposed double, just looking right through. It had never felt so… open? Without much thought, he took a hoof and tried to rest it against the mirror.
It went right through.
“Strange.” Blueblood said, aloud. He had gone so far around the circle he was back at the beginning. And then Blueblood started to put his other hoof through, and then the rest of him. The whole of him, the All of him, going right through that mirror, right into…
Nothing.
Nothing.
Still nothing.
It was odd, being nothing. Well - not nothing, there was a certain Nothing to it, an unmistakable Nothingness to Blueblood as a whole, but still, in the back, like a film projector whirring in the corner of his eye, Something. Everything, really. All that he was, all that he had been. All that he was going to be. Whirring on and on and on, on loop, in double, in triple, mashed and screwed and jumbled together, running on and on, different every time… All those disparate pieces as- as one. The two of them. As one. He could feel it, and he could swear he could almost see it, but so much more than that it was… Nothing.
Still, still nothing.
Still, still, still nothing - it went on like this for quite some time.
It went on like this forever.
Nothing.
Forever.
Nothing.
Forever.
And then there was something. There was a lot of something. White bed covers hiding white coat as part of white coat, on top of white coat, alongside white coat: two forms wrapped through and about each other. Blueblood and Shining Armor. The bed was tucked awkwardly into a small room, cramped between and in front of oak bookshelves stacked head to hoof with enough literature to last a lifetime. Literature that lay soaked in beams of sun, working their way in through an awkward window carved in the, yes, also oak walls - a small window that looked on (through branches and leaves) into a small pony town with small pony buildings and small pony roads and nothing the likes of the towers and castles back home in canterlot.
Blueblood took a moment to let it all sink in, hardly conscious or with it at all. Still reeling from what must have been a nightmare that he just woke up from - still reeling from the sudden sensation of regaining all of one’s senses, at once. Of the sudden return of the background noises and hums and grumbles that he once took for nothing before knowing what Nothing really was. He looked, now, at the stallion strung about him.
“How did- How did we get here?” It was the only thing Blueblood could ask. Some blindspot in his vision, some cog missing from his machinery.
“What, do you mean- Do you mean walked? Like what route did we walk from the cafe?” Shining was a bit puzzled.
“No, here… Here. Ever.” Blueblood smoothed out the sheet beneath him with his hoof. “All of it, ever, how did we get here?”
Shining Armor paused for a moment. “Are you- Are you alright?”
Blueblood gulped. “Yes. No, yes- I-” He started nodding at nothing in particular. “I think I’ll get some water.”
The tangle, the oneness, soon gave way to two: The One of the bedsheets and Shining (of warmth, of love, of everything Right and True) and the One of Blueblood and the room (of a… coldness in the air, of an unfamiliarity, of a memory seeping and sweeping in and out and back and forth). Blueblood, for a moment, just felt his hooves against the ground. Nicked them to the wood, made sure it was real. Made sure he was real. He was, and so was it. So he trotted down the stairs.
Before he had even finished the last few steps, a voice peaked up at him - “Bluey! Back so soon?” It was a voice he could recognise but not one he could place until he saw the pony it came from: Shining Armor’s sister. What was it, Twilight Sparkle?
“Oh, no. Yes. Sorry, I’m just going to get a glass of water.” Blueblood started nodding again, trying to reassure himself of something. He continued to canter in search of where exactly the glasses were - from which point he could try and find the water too.
“Oh, let me!” Twilight didn’t give Blueblood a chance to take another step before she hopped on through to the kitchen, swinging about pitchers and glasses and cupboards with her magic - not stopping speaking for even a moment. “You know, if you’re not feeling well, you should really tell me. I’m sure I can help! Or I’ll know somepony who can help. Or somezebra, Zecora has a cure for, like, everything. Are you sick? I guess you could just want a glass of water. Everypony gets thirsty sometimes, that doesn’t make you sick. I guess I shouldn’t just assume that you’re sick. Are you sick?”
She came prancing on back through to Blueblood, a glass of water levitating towards his maw - ready for him to drink. He took it up in his own magic and took a sip before responding. “No, I’m- I’m fine.” Sip. “Just- Sorry, I understand that this is a silly question, but I am curious, would you humour me for just a moment? I’d be greatly interested in hearing your side of the story, is all, on… Well, just on me and Shining staying here.”
“Uhh, sure.” She was confused, but Twilight was always willing to take a chance to explain things. “Well, it’s nice having you stay. I like being able to see my brother more - I really missed him since I moved to Ponyville, so having him stay here with me is like a dream come true! And you’re both pretty helpful around the library when I need you to be, even if your stuff can get in the way sometimes. Is that- is that what you meant?”
“Oh, no, that’s-” He stopped. “No that’s… I’m glad to hear.” And nodding again. “I’m… I’m glad to hear.” Blueblood finished off the rest of the water in a single go and put the glass down on a table beside him. That silence came back over and this time he had no cure.
Twilight looked at the ground for a moment - that same oak wood that made up the entire library - then back at Blueblood. “I hope you don’t think I don’t want you here. I know we don’t- Shining Armor really loves you. You make him happy. I like having you both around.” She awkwardly shuffled her hoof across the floor. “Tell- Tell shining I’m getting takeout for dinner. For all of us.” She smiled the best she could.
Blueblood simply nodded and returned upstairs. Made his way back into the sheet, back with the only thing that seemed sensible to him. The only pony that seemed sensible to him. “Twilight says she’s buying ‘takeout’ for us tonight.” Then, with genuine curiosity, he tried again to ask that one question rattling about inside his head. “I’m sorry, I- Why, remind me, if you can, why are we staying here? Here, with your sister? Here, and not the palaces of Canterlot?”
“What, you mean why did we end up shunned from all of Canterlot, spending our days in somepony else’s spare bedroom?” Shining thought about it for a moment. “Love. I believe it was love.”
“Hmm…” Blueblood muttered. “That’ll do it.”
“Yep. That’ll do it.”
There was a bit of quiet in the room before Blueblood leaned back into Shining Armor, before Blueblood let himself speak up again. “When’s the last time we had popcorn?”
Shining Armor didn’t have the chance to respond - Blueblood had already swept in, fallen into this kiss: this magic moment, the two back again as one, with maw and tongue shared and repaid and held and given and taken and all the time that had come and gone and disappeared and all the feelings built up and torn down and hidden away in little lock boxes, all this time and feelings and energy and soul and body and maw and tongue, all this that had gone to waste, here, now, right there between them, a part of them, this kiss, this moment - and apart from them, nothing else mattered. They were here. The one of them, the two of them, the three of them. Blueblood and Shining Armor and interest paid, and here, soul and spirit, and he couldn’t quite say why, Blueblood couldn’t, but it felt…
It felt three times as special as any moment that came before.
