The Blueblood Papers: Prince of Blood

Private Cannon Fodder had something of a knack for understatement, and this was exemplified by his appraisal of the Ponyville militia’s readiness for battle as ‘not great’. I would have gone with ‘a complete and total shambles’, but I was ostensibly there to improve their morale, not destroy it with a display of tactless and uncharacteristic honesty. I’m getting ahead of myself, but I felt the need to demonstrate that even my low expectations of what a tiny earth pony village and its surrounding shire could muster by way of fighting ponies were thoroughly dashed by what I saw there. This, however, was the second time that Princess Luna had had me bundled onto the next train out of Canterlot without any time to pack, though I was allowed to select a Pattern ‘12 sabre from the Royal Armoury while somepony fetched Cannon Fodder from where he’d nipped off to buy snacks. Luna had promised me an enchanted sword ‘more befitting my station’, as she put it, but given the urgency of this developing situation I had to make do with the standard-issue length of pointy steel. Soon after, I was escorted by armed guards and a very determined Princess of the Night to the train station. At the very least, the sight of Auntie Luna on a mission to personally deliver me to the train, for fear that I might decide to hop on the train to Yakyakistan instead and run away I imagined, kept other ponies from disturbing us.

That my cutie mark stopped flashing like Hearth’s Warming lights was some small relief, as I was worried that I was stuck with the damned thing glowing like that for the rest of my life. That sort of thing tended to attract attention, and eligible mares would likely be discouraged by its obnoxious flashing like a Las Pegasus neon sign in the boudoir. In hindsight, that would have been the very least of my problems.

Still, my mind was in too much of a mess to formulate an adequate plan to get me out of this latest catastrophe; Princess Luna had dragged me out while Princess Celestia carried on with trying to organise the defence of Ponyville from this new menace, and judging by the raised voices that echoed down the corridor behind me even through the closed door nopony was particularly happy about this turn of events, and not least because of the revelation that it would have to be Changelings coming to our rescue. Still, Odonata seemed pleased by her chance to prove her Free Changelings’ worth in battle, and, assuming that they didn’t all turn on us as the paranoid voice squatting in the back of my head shouted, would at least buy us sufficient time to allow a more dependable regiment of the Equestrian Army to come to my rescue. It was a matter of surviving until such a time, I concluded.

“I do not need to impress upon you the importance of holding Ponyville,” said Princess Luna while we waited for the train. Ponies, mainly civilians who I’m sure felt that whatever journey they were about to undertake was as ‘essential’ as the propaganda posters warning against unnecessary journeys stated, gawked vacantly at us on the station’s platform, though none were brave enough to approach and ask us for autographs.

Other posters slapped onto the walls also warned about enemy infiltrators listening in on conversations, so I was rather surprised to hear Princess Luna speaking so openly about a Changeling war-swarm within a few days’ march from the city. That is, until I saw that her elegant horn was glowing and that the two of us plus Cannon Fodder and the guards were surrounded by a hemisphere of shimmering, pale light. Some manner of sound-dampening spell, I would guess, and I hoped that the ponies staring at us from outside this bubble were incapable of lip-reading.

“Yes, if they take it they’ll cut the main communication line between Canterlot and the front line,” I said, paraphrasing what one of the other, more military astute officers had said in that meeting to give the impression that I had been paying attention and knew what was going on. “Do you think that they will then march on Canterlot?”

“We can only guess at the enemy’s true intentions,” she said, “but that is one scenario we must prepare for.” Princess Luna looked past me at the ponies, quite ordinary stallions and mares going about their business, gathered around the station’s platform. “Canterlot is not completely undefended, but what few trained soldiers remain here are insufficient to defend the city from a full war-swarm, and we fear the enemy may have more forces hidden within our borders.”

I suppressed a shudder at the thought of that nightmare scenario; such a possibility had been discussed, for the Changelings had done such a thing before with their first attack on Canterlot, and given the chaos at the frontline it was all but inevitable that the enemy would be able to send infiltrators through our own lines to cause havoc within Equestria itself. Indeed, they had done so before, attempting to assassinate me in the city itself and other instances of sabotage of important war industries, but to muster a sizable formation of soldiers in the very heart of our kingdom was on a whole other level of horror that everypony had hoped was impossible for the enemy to perform. They were on their last legs, everypony had said, and they were no longer capable of executing anything like the attack on the Royal Wedding that started this war in the first place, for Market Garden’s slow but grinding push into their lands meant that they could not spare the drones necessary for such a thing. Once again, we had underestimated either their capabilities to do these sorts of daring plots or their stupidity in not recognising the need to conserve and carefully manage their ponypower.

“There is still much that we do not know,” continued Luna. “Confound this damnable fog of war. Whatever the enemy’s aim, it is clear that Ponyville is in danger. Listen, Blueblood, the village must not fall to the Changelings, which is why I am appointing you to its defence. You must rally the militia to hold fast until Odonata’s Free Changelings can march to its relief, and there are few other ponies with whom I can trust this duty.”

Oh, I could think of a great deal more ponies better suited than I to lead a group of peasants armed with pitchforks to victory over the battle-hardened veterans Chrysalis has likely sent against us, but against all her better judgement she had chosen me. I felt almost nostalgic for the days when Princess Luna had regarded me in rather more accurate terms as a decadent, useless drunk with about as much right to tell ponies what to do as a pig. However, I’d always suspected that deep down she knew of my cowardly nature, but was feeding me opportunities to try and overcome it.

“And if the village should fall?” I asked. “Hypothetically, of course, but you said that there could be more of the enemy out there.”

With the face Luna pulled I thought I was in for a violent beating accompanied with a forceful lecture about how the word ‘retreat’ does not appear in her lexicon, however, she appeared to remember the deeply painful lesson that she had learnt at Fort Nowhere and no such assault upon my person was forthcoming. “A grim thought, but it is one we must consider,” she said. “If the situation demands that you retreat from the village in order to save our subjects then so be it, I will trust in your judgement. Do not let them fall into the hooves of the Changelings, for their homes can be rebuilt but their lives cannot be so easily repaired. Remember, you are there to buy time for reinforcements.”

She meant Odonata’s Free Changelings, and it slowly dawned on me that I would not only have to make sure these ignorant peasants knew which end of a musket to aim at the enemy, but keep them from panicking and accidentally, or perhaps intentionally as the case may be, firing on their rescuers. “Is there truly no other regiment close enough?”

Luna shook her head. “Our forces are fully committed to the fight in the Badlands and overseas. All we have left here are police and local defence volunteers guarding the roads and security checkpoints. We have our royal guards and the Canterlot militia, but we must hold them back should this prove to be a diversion or should the enemy attempt to march on the city. Celestia will divert newly-raised regiments headed for the front, but it will take more time for them to arrive. The Free Changelings remain the only regiment at full strength capable of reaching Ponyville in time.”

[I believe further elucidation on my sister’s words here are required. By ‘overseas’ she means the on-going jungle war as Changeling forces attempted to invade Coltcutta from Marelacca as well as enemy raids on our colonies in Zebrica. She is correct in that there were fresh regiments en route to the frontline at the time of the Battle of Ponyville, however, by this point in the war the Equestrian rail system was already under intense strain supporting the existing forces already there. Stopping and diverting those units from their planned journeys caused great disruption to the rail timetables and caused no small amount of headaches for local signallers trying to re-route dozens of trains.]

That, I considered, was the real reason why I had been selected above anypony else in the Commissariat to do this; with my prior ‘relationship’ with Odonata, Luna seemed to believe that I would be able to smooth over the inevitable conflict between the Free Changelings and the backward inhabitants of rural Ponyville with my astute political acumen (or ‘bullshitting’ as my comrades in her Night Guard would have put it). I knew from experience that it was too much to ask for everypony to just get along and work together to defeat a common foe, but in the past that was largely because they had very different ideas on how to do that and which one of them should receive the shiny medals at the end of it, and I’d managed to resolve it by threatening court martials and executions until they all understood. This time, however, there was a very real chance, however slim, of it spiralling out of my dubious ability to do that.

“And what of Princess Twilight Sparkle and the Element Bearers?” I asked; damnation, that was another irritating complication. Although, their dubious military acumen aside, perhaps, thought I, they could be used to my advantage, and deflect the blame from me too should it all go to Hades in a hoofbasket as I fully expected.

“No doubt they will wish to lead from the front,” said Luna, with no small amount of pride in her voice. “But their safety is paramount. Make use of their unique skills as required, but do not allow them to take undue risks. I think you know which one in particular I speak of.”

I was about to ask if it would be a better option to simply evacuate them to Canterlot, but, aside from the impact on the morale of the village’s defenders, it would also leave me bearing the sole responsibility for the defence. However, if they remained behind and perished in action while I survived, few things would inspire more opprobrium from all quarters of Equestrian society than that. Besides, I hardly think they would wish to take that option even if the enemy was rampaging through their village in overwhelming numbers and burning their homes, especially a certain rainbow-haired pegasus with more stubbornness than sense. The time between the awful news breaking during the meeting and me standing on the station platform and waiting for the train had been a hectic whirlwind of rushing about, fetching ponies, delivering orders, trying to find a sword for me, and so on, and now that I had a chance to stand still and think I realised just how thoroughly perilous my situation was now.

When the train finally arrived and I boarded it I would have several hours more to ruminate on this. Luna didn’t quite give me a hug before I left, as she presumably thought that it was still unseemly for royalty to display quite that much affection in front of her subjects, but she gave me a pat on the shoulder that I assumed she intended to be reassuring, but given the cold metal of her rather heavy hoof felt more like the hefty burden she had just laid upon my scarred back. Still, she smiled softly and with what looked like genuine care. “I will not lie to you, Blueblood, you face grim odds,” she said, and if that was supposed to help assuage my growing fears then she had failed spectacularly. “Your glorious ancestors prevailed when all seemed hopeless. Should the situation become bleak, think of their example and you too will win a great victory here.”

I was about to point out that, yes, while a number of my distant ancestors had succeeded where all hope seemed lost, a fair portion of them had also died gloriously for the kingdom in the process, and the most famous of which was slain by Nightmare Moon herself, but I thought better of it. Instead I mumbled a half-hearted thanks, and as the whistle blew Cannon Fodder and I were insistently urged onto the train by the porters who had apparently been warned in advance that I absolutely had to be in Ponyville as soon as possible.

In truth, it was a bit of a relief to find myself on the damned thing, as I wasn’t sure how much more chatter with Princess Luna I could take before we exhausted the serious and grim business of the vast responsibility I was about to undertake again and we started discussing the weather. First class had been abolished as part of the war restrictions in place, which also meant I was certainly not going to be allowed my private carriage with the well-stocked drinks cabinet and collection of sordid books with which to distract myself, so I took my place amidst the riff-raff in a third class carriage and sat by the window on a too-hard bench. There, remaining on the platform, Princess Luna stood with her royal guards and waved her silver-shod hoof in that slow, practised manner that Princesses always do as the train pulled out of the station. Some of the other passengers seemed to think that she was waving at them in particular, and to the annoyance of the conductor they rushed to the sides of the carriage to wave back and shout patriotic slogans until she and the station receded into the distance.

Cannon Fodder was hardly a sparkling conversationalist even at the best of times, and he spent much of the journey sitting in silence, save for a brief exchange of words with Yours Truly at the start of our journey, as outer suburbs of Canterlot swept past our windows.

“Are we going to Ponyville, sir?” he asked. I’m sure he knew the answer, he was a damned sight more perceptive than most ponies would otherwise believe.

“Yes, Cannon Fodder,” I answered.

“Will Princess Twilight Sparkle be there?”

I could see where he was going with this, as his very first encounter with the Princess of Friendship, back when she was merely Celestia’s faithful student, was far from friendly. My aide rarely expressed much in the way of emotion; he obviously had them, as all ponies do, but he was blessed with a level of self-control that a monk would envy. So when he looked visibly anxious at the prospect of running into Twilight Sparkle again, even after receiving her apology for subjecting him to a night of experimentation to confirm his status as a blank, I knew that this was truly bothering him. That said, ‘visibly anxious’ as far as his demeanour went would only be interpreted by most ponies as ‘mild case of trapped wind’, but after spending years with this peculiar, magically-challenged unicorn both in the hell of combat and the tedium of paperwork in between, I had a good understanding of his strange quirks, and vice versa I’d imagine.

“I would imagine so,” I said. “But she’ll be very busy with her duties as Princess, especially with-” I looked around and remembered that we were surrounded by civilians who might not react in a calm and reasonable manner to the news of a Changeling war-swarm massing just outside Ponyville “-all of the friendship problems she sorts out.”

That seemed to placate him, and he returned to staring blankly at the majestic scenery of our fair kingdom rushing past us. The journey was uneventful, aside from a few delays caused by our overtaxed rail system prioritising the movement of war materiel to the front than ponies, which meant we spent an hour or so stuck on the side of a mountain while somewhere else further down the line the rail workers had fun trying to untangle another conflict of schedule. My esteemed presence had attracted a wave of initial interest from the few ponies in the carriage after Luna had disappeared from view, but after a few autographs and such they mercifully left me alone with my thoughts. It couldn’t be particularly difficult, I reassured myself; Ponyville might have had merely a peasant militia, but given that they ostensibly defended Princess Twilight Sparkle and lived next door to one of the last remaining monster-infested forests in the realm, then it stood to reason that they ought to have been at least halfway competent soldiers. Reason, however, seems to take a holiday when war is involved, as I was about to prove again.

It had been far too early in the morning when the meeting started and still too early when I’d been rushed out of it, but given the delay in the journey it was around noon when I arrived in Ponyville station. Having skipped the important meal of elevenses, I was rather hungry and was looking forward to what passed for a good lunch in this small village. No doubt Twilight Sparkle would want to get straight to the business of defending their little town from imminent invasion and all that, but I could always quote her idol Princess Celestia and say that a good general never makes important decisions on an empty stomach.

As I disembarked, I took a moment to pause on the platform to gaze out into the village that I was ostensibly here to help organise the defence of, while striking a pose that I’d hoped looked suitably heroic for the villagers that I was allegedly there to save. For a settlement that was supposedly days away from being attacked by a ravenous swarm of Changelings, things looked decidedly normal. For a given definition of ‘normal’ during wartime, that is, as I’d noticed that metal railings that were present around the station and on the sides of streets during my last visit here had been removed, presumably to be melted down and turned into weapons. New propaganda posters were pasted onto walls and the sides of lampposts, imploring ponies to sign up for the Army and for those who remained behind to watch out for the enemy within. ‘Is your friend behaving strangely?’ one poster read, depicting Changeling that was halfway in the process of changing into a smiling pony. ‘Report suspected Changelings to authorities immediately.’ I could imagine Odonata and her Free Changelings were going to be in for a nasty shock if they expected the villagers here to welcome them with open hooves.

[The Ministry of Information’s now-much derided propaganda campaign was feared to encourage undue paranoia amongst the subjects of Equestria, and resulted in a number of ponies being falsely accused of being infiltrators either mistakenly or, in rare cases, to settle a grudge. It is fortunate that unicorn officials trained in the use of the Changeling reveal spell were posted in sufficient quantities across Equestria to ensure that these were kept to a minimum.]

Aside from those peculiarities, ponies still went about their daily business without any apparent worry or concern that the enemy would very soon be at their gates, if Ponyville had any gates, that is. I had expected to see that authorities (whoever they were in this village, as I imagined the elected mayor and Princess Twilight Sparkle had some overlapping realms of responsibility here that they may or may not have sorted out) institute martial law already, or at the very least the village’s militia patrolling the streets. Ponies have varied reactions to impending doom, and one of the most common is to pretend that everything is fine and that the problem either isn’t that much of an issue, or it’s so far away and abstract enough that they think they can worry about it later. It was a better option than blind panic, perhaps. I would have to consider my way out of here before the day was out, thought I, when it all inevitably went wrong for me; if the enemy was clever then they would move to cut the railway, which meant I’d have to chance it on hoof.

“Lord Commissar!” A mare’s voice interrupted me from my plotting. Waiting for me on the platform was a unicorn mare with a pink coat in a commissar’s uniform, and it was an exquisitely tailored one too. It was clearly new in stark contrast to mine, which, although had been expertly cleaned and pressed thoroughly by my valet Drape Cut, had faded from severe black to a charcoal grey and had been repaired with patches. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place her, and the unnerving thought that she might have been a past liaison made its unwelcome entrance into my mind.

She trotted on over with a clumsy gait, as though she was thinking a little too hard about the manner she was walking, and tripped a few times on the uneven surface of this rather ill-kept station platform. When she stopped she seemed to vacillate between bowing and saluting, before settling on the former with a gesture that was somewhere between a nod of her head and a half-bow followed swiftly by the latter.

“Commissar?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m Starlight Glimmer,” she said. The mare beamed with a happy smile, but I could tell that she was a veritable bundle of nerves; her words came in a frantic rush to get out, and she seemed terribly twitchy. I thought perhaps that she was merely overawed by my presence, as some ponies inevitably are when they find my rather more ragged appearance doesn’t contradict whatever lofty image they have of me, however, it also occurred to me that her anxieties had less to do with meeting royalty and a national hero, but were altogether of a more basic nature. Her uniform was brand new and she seemed uncomfortable wearing it (not because it didn’t fit, because it fitted her with such perfection that my Saddle Row tailor would hang up his shears and retire in shame should he see it, but because she felt uncomfortable in any sort of uniform), and so I made a not-unreasonable guess that she had no idea what she was doing and trying to keep everypony else from finding out.

So, it was not just me, then.

“Twilight sent me to escort you from the station,” she said. This Starlight Glimmer was a rather attractive young mare, and though the severe black of the commissar’s uniform and its skull motif were quite off-putting, she filled it out rather nicely. A wavy purple mane peeked out from under her peaked cap, almost teasing at a certain sensuality beneath the grinning alicorn’s skull adorned atop her head.

“You’re on name terms with the Princess of Friendship?” I asked.

The young commissar smiled widely and nodded her head eagerly. “Yes!” she exclaimed. “I’m her student!”

I recalled hearing something about that, but as that information was not immediately important to me in any way shape or form at the time I didn’t think to consider it further. What little thought I had previously given that little fact was the assumption that said student would be a filly, as Twilight Sparkle had been when Princess Celestia had taken her under her royal tutelage. I suppose it would have been only a matter of time before she would follow in her mentor’s hoofsteps, and, at the considerable risk of outing myself as even more of a lascivious wretch than ponies correctly assume that I am, I briefly entertained the thought of the two of them engaging in a few extra-curricular activities together.

“She’s waiting for you at the Castle of Friendship,” she carried on, interrupting the alluring fantasy in my head. No doubt Princess Twilight Sparkle wanted to get started on planning the defence of her home right away, and somehow believed that I would have some sound tactical insight to provide. When it finally dawned on me that, until Odonata and her Free Changelings arrived, I was the most experienced military officer in the surrounding area and therefore what passed for a knowledgeable expert on such matters, I felt a sense of dread even greater than the sensation caused by the thought of an enemy war-swarm popping up in the middle of Equestria.

Starlight Glimmer led me to the Castle, which still towered over all of the quaint little cottages and shops in Ponyville and was visible from just about any point in the small village, and Cannon Fodder followed a few steps behind, warily eyeing the perfectly harmless villagers going about their day as if one might turn out to be Twilight Sparkle. I probably could have made my own way there, but I suppose it was polite of Twilight to send her new student to fetch me. We made some small talk along the way, as ponies stopped and stared at the two of us in our grim uniforms walking through their streets. She had only been the Princess’ student for a few months now—we had indeed met before in a bar, but I was apparently too drunk to remember giving her permission to found an ‘autonomous self-sufficient commune’ on a distant scrap of my land—and following some confusing unpleasantness involving a cult and the theft of cutie marks and time travel that I wasn’t aware of, she ended up here. She seemed shocked that I had no idea of that last issue.

“I must have been at the front at the time,” I said. “News from elsewhere in Equestria doesn’t always reach us there.” Not that I was worried about money, but I wondered if she and the rest of Our Town owed me rent; it was the principle of it, for while it was vulgar to expect royalty to pay up, that certainly did not apply to the common ponies.

“Oh, it’s just that most ponies I meet already know about the things I’ve done, so in a way it’s kind of refreshing to meet another pony who hasn’t.” She made an awkward, anxious grin. “You know how it is, you do a few bad things and ponies never let you forget it.”

I did know, as a matter of fact, but I wasn’t about to admit it to her or anypony else. “I’m sure Princess Luna would agree,” I said tactfully. Then, changing the subject, I asked, “How long have you been a commissar?”

That nervous smile of hers grew wider, almost splitting her face in two. I didn’t think ponies’ faces could stretch like that, unless they were Pinkie Pie, but she managed it. “Since four hours ago,” she said. “Twilight appointed me when we heard about the Changelings. Said the militia needed a commissar to keep an eye on them, and, well, since I apparently successfully led an autonomous collective she thinks that qualifies me to do that.”

That was not what we in the trade would call a ‘good sign’, I thought. I knew that her appointment had to have been recent, given that she’d only just been allowed back into polite Equestrian society after the rather serious time travel incident, but I’d have assumed that the mayor’s office would have followed the diktats of the DoE Act and maintained their militia at an appropriate level of combat strength with a commissar appointed to oversee such things. Still, the ponies who crafted that bill and saw to its implementation assumed that the enemy would only send small units for nuisance raids, not entire swarms, so it wouldn’t have made much of a difference really. I had to admit that I didn’t know if militia units needed to have commissars attached to them. I imagined, however, that the mayor of this village, whoever they were, was likely panicking at the thought of a ‘real’ commissar coming along to judge them, and had persuaded Twilight to appoint the first available pony.

[The Twilight Sparkle Reforms had folded most of Equestria’s formal militia units into the Equestrian Army, which, as Blueblood had explained, left small units made up of local volunteers to guard against enemy raids. Such raids were not frequent in most parts of the country, though acts of sabotage were common in places with heavy industry like Manehattan, but the DoE Act had made it the responsibility of local authorities to set up and maintain these volunteer defence forces, which were colloquially called militias. They were not under the formal oversight of the Commissariat, with exceptions for major cities such Canterlot and Manehattan. It had been assumed that the enemy would not mount anything more than nuisance raids in our land, and therefore large militias were considered a waste of ponies who could be put to better use at the front. However, provision had been made in the DoE Act to allow conscription en masse should the enemy make a large-scale incursion into Equestria, which would necessitate commissarial oversight.]

“There’s a fair bit of overlap between a cult leader and a commissar,” I said. “Both entail persuading ponies to give themselves to a higher cause at great risk to their own lives.”

Starlight Glimmer didn’t seem to understand that I was merely joking, and pulled a slightly offended expression. “Well, this time I don’t have a magic staff that steals cutie marks,” she said, rather huffily.

I changed the subject yet again: “If you’ve only been appointed today, how did you acquire a uniform so quickly?”

“Rarity made it for me this morning,” said Starlight. “Well, she only finished it an hour before you arrived, and I barely had any time to put it on. When she heard the news about the Changelings and my appointment she declared ‘you must have a uniform, darling!’ and locked herself in her shop for the whole morning and then came out with this. It’s a bit creepy that she already had my measurements to hoof.”

“And convenient.”

Were it any other pony besides Rarity I’d have expressed extreme scepticism of her claim, but, though it pained me to concede this, she was a mad genius when it came to clothes, and her tendency to deal with stress by frantically creating stunning works of art in a matter of hours had certainly paid off here. A commissar’s uniform should look imposing, at least according to Princess Luna, to visually embody the ideals for which the Royal Commissariat stood for (I often struggled with remembering what those ideals were supposed to be but I think they were integrity, honesty, commitment, and not getting too drunk on the job), and Rarity’s interpretation fulfilled that entirely. Out of it, I imagined that Starlight Glimmer here would look like a thoroughly ordinary pretty mare, but in it, the severe black of the uniform, tastefully applied gold braid and brass buttons, and the padded shoulders made her look like nothing less than the instrument of the Princesses’ collective will and authority. She was the iron hoof of their justice, or she would be if she could get her facial expression and body language to appear anything else but a bundle of nerves. I, on the other hoof, had deliberately not acquired a new uniform because the patina granted by the years of wear and tear brought on by life on the frontline had not only softened its severity somewhat, with its faded hue and patches, and thus made me seem perhaps a little more approachable to the average young officer and enlisted pony, but also conveyed the impression that I had ‘earned’ my dubious reputation the hard way. Clothes maketh the pony and all that, or at least first impressions count for rather a lot; her facade was that of competence and severity, but her demeanour illustrated her anxiety and inexperience, in the same way that her uniform, though perfect, reflected those insecurities thanks to its newness.

We arrived at Twilight’s castle in due time, having exhausted all possible avenues of small talk save the weather, which was a pleasant and bright Spring day, but not willing to talk shop about our imminent peril just yet. The castle itself was on the outskirts of the village, accessible by a single road and set some distance away from the nearest thatched cottages. This space was normally cleared, and I imagined that when the Tree of Harmony decided to fashion a home for the new Princess of Friendship it knew that ponies would have to walk a not-inconsiderable distance to its front door, and therefore they would be suitably over-awed by its beauty by the time they reach it (and presumably be too tired to do anything but agree with whatever Twilight Sparkle said). That day, however, this cleared space was filled with a formation of soldiers, approximately a battalion’s worth, lined up in rows on parade and blocking our path. As we neared, I could make out two distinct sets based on their uniforms; the majority wore very simple metal armour in imitation of the old Royal Guard, but one platoon, which stood apart from the others, was clad in a uniform made of dark green cloth. All of them were armed with muskets, mostly seemingly brand new, but the ones in the green uniforms had weapons with far longer and more ornate barrels, almost as long as the old Royal Guard spears.

[The muskets in question were derived from the 'jezzail' of Saddle Arabian origin, their longer barrels lending themselves more to defending stockades and other fixed positions than contemporary weapons. Blueblood may be forgiven for not noting, or perhaps mistaking the addition of stabilizing bipod mounts for mere embellishment. Garrison and 'home guard' units were supplied with these on account of their greater range and accuracy, while line infantry retained the lighter and more versatile musket.]

They made for an impressive sight, and indeed I was pleasantly surprised by what looked like a formidable and professional group of soldiers. Perhaps we wouldn’t even need Odonata’s Changelings after all. That feeling would last until I actually met the officers, but I’m getting ahead of myself. At the head was a colour guard, and a big, young earth pony with a red coat held aloft the standard of the Ponyville militia, which was an old and faded quilt with dozens of once-brightly coloured patches attached to a stick. The largest and most notable patch depicted a big red apple, which I assumed was meant to signify this village’s origin in apple cultivation. Standing under the banner was Twilight Sparkle and her friends, along with a group of other ponies in similar uniforms who I took to be the militia’s officers. As I walked closer, taking my time both for dramatic effect and because I was feeling especially petty that day, I also spotted Spike the baby dragon amongst them, who chose to ruin that effect.

“Ugh, finally!” he groaned. Twilight shot him a glare but didn’t reprimand him, which might explain his continued insolence.

“Apologies, the train was delayed,” I said, bowing low as custom dictated. Princess Twilight Sparkle blushed and muttered something about it not being necessary, but that it made her mildly uncomfortable was the reason I continued to follow such protocol.

Now closer, I saw that all the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony were present. Rainbow Dash wore her skin-tight Wonderbolts uniform; Applejack was dressed in the same green uniform as that odd minority of the militia, but her sleeves were emblazoned with the rank insignia of a Regimental Sergeant Major; and Pinkie Pie and Rarity stood a little off to the side, wearing nothing, and making some manner of idle conversation while the military ponies got on with the unpleasant task at hoof. I had seen Fluttershy before at the party at Twilight Sparkle’s castle some time ago, and may have exchanged a few drunken words with her before her habitual shyness made continuing conversation impossible and I duly left her alone. Here, she appeared to be hiding behind Pinkie Pie and Rarity, and, echoing how I felt inside, seemed to be terribly uncomfortable with all of this. Two other ponies I hadn’t met before were also present: the first was an elderly earth pony mare with a lime green coat, wearing a tattered and frayed military dress uniform that was considerably older than I was, topped off with a battered old helmet with more than a few dents in it; and the second was a youngish stallion with a greasy black mane slicked back, who wore a business suit with a necktie decorated with his cutie mark of a bits sign, which I thought to be a rather vulgar affectation.

“I still can’t believe the Cutie Map called Prince Blueblood, of all ponies!” said Spike, folding his little arms over his chest and glowering at me.

“Spike!” hissed Twilight under her breath. “Look, there’s your friend Cannon Fodder, why don’t you talk to him about your club?”

The baby dragon huffed, blowing a small cloud of smoke out of his nostrils. “It’s not a ‘club’, Twilight, it’s a trade union of number one assistants.” Nevertheless, he waddled off to where my aide stood silently observing the proceedings. The two got to chatting, well, Spike did most of the talking while Cannon Fodder entertained him as he usually did by patiently nodding along, and I picked up a few worrying terms like ‘dental plan’ and ‘paid sick leave’.

With that weird distraction out of the way, Twilight cleared her throat and said to me, “Welcome back to Ponyville, Prince Blueblood. I present to you the Ponyville Militia Guard for your inspection before we commence with our strategy meeting.”

If that little speech seemed rehearsed to you, then good, because it certainly did to me. She’d probably practised it over and over as a way to keep her mind off the vast weight of responsibility about to fall upon her head with this latest crisis. As for me, however, I could only feel a vague sense of dread at having yet another dreary meeting to look forward to. Still, the sooner that we got this part over with the sooner we could have the meeting and the sooner I could have some damned lunch, or whatever passed for a midday meal around this culinarily-depressed part of Equestria. Even the grass at my hooves was starting to look appetising.

Still, I gave my thanks for the welcome and bade them to begin. Twilight nodded and turned to the elderly mare in the uniform, and I had a sinking feeling that this old fossil held a position of command in the militia. “Granny Smith, would-”

“Colonel Granny Smith!” shrieked the old mare, her voice high, shrill, and the accompanying accent bordering on incomprehensible quickly identified her as one of the Apple Family clan. She brandished a swagger stick at Twilight Sparkle, and were she not clearly so old I might have intervened. “My pappy founded this here militia when the Princess gave him this here land to protect it from the monsters in the Everfree, and you’ll do well to remember it, little missy.”

Rainbow Dash, who was hitherto looking rather bored by all of this needless ceremony, tried and failed to hold in a laugh, and after a few splutters and snorts she was on the floor trapped in paroxysms of hysterical laughter. Applejack rolled her eyes and gave the incapacitated Wonderbolt a few deft kicks of her hoof, and then moved to quickly diffuse the situation. While this was going on, I shot Commissar Starlight Glimmer a look. I like to think that I’d become rather good at doing those; the grim uniform and a well-practised expression of disdain certainly helped when I wanted to convey without words that I was very much not impressed. She could only respond with another awkward grin and a nervous shrug of her shoulders. It was not a particularly auspicious start.

The stallion with the slicked-back mane, however, sidled up to me in the manner that reminded me of a slithering snake. I know one shouldn’t put too much stock in first impressions, but something about his manner simply screamed that I should not trust this pony under any circumstances. That he wore a garishly vulgar tie and the sleazy smile of a confidence trickster is probably what set off that particular reaction. “Prince Blueblood, it’s an honour,” he said, his voice disgustingly sweet as he bowed low in an overly obsequious manner that felt almost sarcastic. “I’m Filthy Rich.”

“And so am I,” I said, slightly baffled. When he laughed I realised that was actually his name, which explained his cutie mark, and was mildly thankful that he took it as a deliberate joke.

“Granny Smith is the Colonel-in-Chief of the militia,” he explained. “A ceremonial position, thanks to her family’s history in founding the Everfree Rangers.” Filthy Rich waved his hoof vaguely at the ponies in green uniforms, and then indicated to the greater mass in rather primitive armour. “The Ponyville Militia itself was founded and funded by me, and so I’m the commanding officer here. Lieutenant-Colonel Filthy Rich.”

Oh no, thought I. So, this is where the imbeciles who otherwise would have tried to buy commissions ended up after the Twilight Sparkle Reforms, running local militia units in the hope that somepony in the Ministry of War will take notice of their untapped military genius and make them a general. In theory, this Commissar Starlight Glimmer should be keeping an eye on him, ready to strip him of his uniform should he fail to live up to the basic level of competence that it demanded, but she had been in the job for less than a day and possessed an aversion to making those sorts of important decisions. And on that one note in particular:

“Why are you not in uniform?” I asked.

“Blueblood,” he said, sidling even closer to me. He didn’t put his foreleg over my shoulder, but I could tell that he considered it. “Can I call you Blueblood?”

“Absolutely not,” I said. The sight of his face dropping in disappointment made the unpleasant journey and the mortal peril I was about to experience almost worth it, and somewhere, just out of my sight, I heard Rainbow Dash break into another fit of laughter. “It’s ‘Your Royal Highness’ when you first meet me, and then ‘sir’ after that.”

That had deflated him considerably, which cheered me up, of course. Having failed to make me his new best friend, he stepped away to leave what he probably thought was a respectable distance, and explained his lack of appropriate dress for the occasion: “I have such confidence in the Ponyville Militia that I do not feel the need to change into my uniform. We will defeat the enemy before they even set hoof in our fair village.”

“That remains to be seen,” I said diplomatically. “Carry on.”

His confidence still shaken, he trotted off with Sergeant Major Applejack to get the militia in order. While he did that, I turned to Commissar Starlight Glimmer and said in as low a voice as I could manage while being audible enough for her to hear: “He needs to go.”

“What?” she blurted out, and then likewise dropped her voice. “But he’s in charge of the militia.”

“That stallion cannot lead ponies into battle,” I whispered. “He must not be allowed to. As the commissar of the militia, it is your job to make sure that its officers are competent. He does not strike me as particularly competent.”

“But he paid for it,” said Starlight, as though that meant anything. “The uniforms, the training, the weapons, in exchange for him being its commanding officer.”

“And other ponies will pay with more than merely bits if he is allowed to continue,” I said. “Remove him and appoint a pony more suitable to command, or I will do it.”

I moved to join the others with the militia, but Starlight darted forwards, waving her hoof at me. “Slight, tiny little problem with that,” she said, grinning awkwardly again. “There isn’t really anypony here ‘suitable’ for command.”

Perhaps it was because I had spent far too much time around soldiers lately, but I was starting to find civilians rather irritating; they like to question things, talk things out, and one isn’t supposed to just shout at them and threaten floggings until they obey. It did occur to me that I was a bit too harsh with them, however, I reminded myself that the enemy was going to be far harsher with them than I could ever be, and if this village, and more importantly I, were to survive what was to come then I could not afford to coat my words with honey just to make them feel comfortable. “You ran a cult-”

“Autonomous collective.”

“-rather successfully, so you’ve implied; Twilight Sparkle wrote the report that reformed the Royal Guard into the grand army it is today, and though she’s an alicorn princess we can find a way to work around that little prohibition; Applejack runs a farm and therefore ought to know a thing or two about organisation; and Rainbow Dash has been in frontline combat before.” I offered what I hoped was a sympathetic look and sighed, saying, “I’m not telling you to find the next Neighpoleon in Ponyville of all places, I’m asking you to find somepony who is going to take this seriously.”

I left Starlight Glimmer to stew on those words for now, as I was sure this would come up during that meeting that Twilight Sparkle had just threatened to impose upon me. We still had the ceremonial part to get over with before we could get down to brass tacks, so to speak, and I still hadn’t had my lunch, so my stomach was gurgling away as I trotted to where Granny Smith stood before the assembled militia. She was still mumbling away to herself in an accent that was almost unintelligible to anypony born north of the Appleachians. However, when she saw that I was finally ready to join them, she cleared her throat loudly and with much phlegm.

“Ah-ten-hut!” she shouted. Her voice was loud even with her advanced age.

The militia gradually came to attention, some by shuffling their hooves together, others attempted to imitate standard military drill by stomping their hooves but couldn’t do it in unison, and at least three simply fell over. My expectations had been low, but I was still shocked.