Be good, don’t rock the boat. Don’t make waves. Go in, entertain, but don’t mingle. You’re not a guest, you’re part of the act.

Do that, do it right, and the alicorn princesses wouldn’t execute you.

That last part didn’t make a lot of sense to him. But then, he didn’t know a lot of alicorns. The only alicorn he knew had been the pinata that Surprise had made for their finals in Party Favors. And she had only gotten a B- on that. The professor said it lacked a good satirical edge. Which… probably meant that the newly crowned princess of the newly enprincessed Equestria weren’t the kind of princesses to execute someone for a bad joke.

But he’d be offended at the implication that he’d ever tell a bad joke. That was why he was here, wasn’t he? Top of his class, studied under Professor Top directly, youngest-ever pony to win a Golden Bell. All that hard work, all that studying.

All of it for this. A royal chance for a permanent royal position. Professor Top was taking a well-earned retirement, and now there were big floppy shoes to fill. Big indeed, as Professor Big Top had been a pony who came from a generation of comical geniuses that thought that the larger the pony, the larger the laughs. “Jolly” might have been used by his audience to describe him, because they certainly had never been late to one of his lectures to think otherwise.

Ponies didn’t understand just how much effort went into this kind of work. Pride and practice, blood and sweat, skill and patience.

Without any of those, a Royal Fool was just an imbecile that jingled.

Yet here he was, tonight’s entertainment, not making waves. The Fool sighed. Maybe it was the makeup. He never understood the point of it. He took pride in his lavender blue coat, why hide it under a layer of paint. At least let him design his own face.

Right, contemplate that later. Don’t rock the boat full of ponies ignoring you.

Some hushed “ooohs” and polite applause drew his attention, and he noticed a small crowd around a pair of bright red ponies balancing on one another, an orange glow amongst them.

Oh. Looks like the Firemouth twins managed to get in after all. Good for them, shame he hadn’t been around to watch them defend their fire-eating thesis.

Flame Firemouth, the twin currently not downing a hoof full of hot death, caught his eye and raised an eyebrow, motioning her head to the crowd around her. He knew that look too well.

Better get a move on, Fool. They’ll only be entertained if you give them a show.

Right then. They wanted a Royal Fool, they’d get a Royal Fool.

Taking up in a corner of the room not dominated by politicking unicorns and pegasi officers trying to look intimidating in fake armor, he took the deepest breath he’d dare take and reached into his sack, jingling slightly.

If he knew these ponies better, he’d have told jokes. Closer still, maybe an act with squirting flowers or something that honked. Whoopie cushions, if it was a truly intimate event, or maybe a rubber chicken if he was feeling particularly daring. But that was too high concept, too much setup. Nobility wanted things that were simple, elegant, form-laden.

So he did what he did best: he juggled.

Three balls entered the air, falling slowly in a circle. A few ponies looked back at him, then back to whatever was more interesting. Which was most things. Three balls in a circle was the stuff of foals. Not Fools, and not Royal Fools.

Still, as he warmed up the Fool let himself slip into two minds. The first one could keep watch, survey, judge the crowd and pass the secrets of their smiles onto the second mind for processing and adjustment.

The second mind held the Trick, and nothing more.

Three balls become four balls, then five balls. He looked across the room, trying to see if he could spot- Yes, there she was. It was hard to miss her.

Rumor had it that the Princesses weren’t much older than he was, barely into his second decade, yet she towered over even the oldest pegasus generals that surrounded her. Bright white, a pink mane that seemed to shimmer just a bit. Wings and a horn. Laughing politely at a not-so-funny joke, undoubtedly.

Yes, their new Princess Celestia certainly had regality down to a practiced art. He’d have tipped his jingling hat to her, one professional to another, were his duties not so serious.

Still though, weren’t there two alicorn princesses? Six balls, seven balls. His eyes strained, scanning the corners for what he might have missed, until he finally found her.

The younger princess looked all the world like her sister’s opposite. He supposed she was, day and night and all that. Celestia had been a shining beacon of sociability that was the center of attention in the same way the planets orbited the sun. Her baby sister was less a wallflower and more an entire cliffside garden, all dark colors, and one angst shy of a brooding. She had taken up near the corner of one of the ballroom’s grandiose windows, staring out across the crowd. She looked… not quite unhappy, but disinterested. Content to ignore and be ignored by the nobility that seemed, to him, to give her a wide berth.

That, he thought, is the look of a princess who does not want to be at her own party.

Eight balls, nine balls, ten balls. He wondered if she had noticed him? A few of the guests were starting to. He wasn’t surprised. The best jugglers he knew could do fifteen balls, he was up to ten.

By the time he was done, he’d do thirty.

His record was forty.

And he knew each ball like the back of his own hooves. After all, his own hooves had crafted each one.

But more than just the number of balls, it was about the patterns. A simple rise-and-fall would never pass Professor Top’s class. He had gone above and beyond that, and now the balls flipped through the air in patterns of color. They criss-crossed one another, sometimes hanging too high, or too low, or arcing to the left before pulling to the right quickly. Each one falling back down to his waiting hooves to be granted their next acrobatic assignment.

It was never just intuition. Intuition was for imbeciles with bells. Fools studied, Fools practiced, Fools calculated. He had spent sleepless nights pouring over the formulas for each one.

After that, it was just a matter of getting the spin right. He supposed it would be less impressive if a unicorn were simply levitating them.

But the Fool was an earth pony.

More balls joined in the dance. Fifteen, twenty, twenty five, thirty.

The princess, the dark one by the wall, had come over to him now and was watching the display. Her head tilted as the balls spun, trying to make sense of the impossible orbits the orbs inhabited. She was squinting, studying, trying to figure out the trick even as the balls moved faster and faster. As each one passed, he would check it off a mental list, refreshing it as need be.

Crimson red, abyssinian rubber. Two stone weight, gives 2% less than standard juggling average. She smells like lavender. Two inches hubward, five degree adjustment.

Sunlit yellow, magically manufactured rubber. Bounces three times stronger than the Happyface Custardpants established scale standard for Professional Jugglers, also falls curved. Are all alicorns that tall? Compensate for properties, eighteen degree adjustment for the curve.

And on they went. Rubber spheres were tornadoes, loop-de-loops, figure-eights inside figure-eights. Each pass faster, each ball in its place. Every shift brought more gasps from the crowd, though the princess, given a wide berth, remained silent.

The Fool was happy that nobody asked him to tell jokes right now. He didn’t trust himself to speak, because his body wasn’t his anymore. He was a conduit, a puppet for the Trick, merely its mortal shell sent to this realm to bless those around him.

And it wasn’t over yet. Without missing a beat, he reached for his final bits of material. The puzzle piece that turned a prank into a true masterpiece.

Two pies. He had baked them himself. Now, they joined the dance.

The dark princess gasped, and he grinned. The Trick would allow him that much.

Faster went the balls and pies, no longer content with such simple patterns and loops before. His face was serene, his hooves were a blur. Thirty balls and two cream pies became an elephant, a tiger, a two-wheeled cart. More dimensions, more complexity; a juggling act worthy of an alicorn.

A small part of him noticed the sheer size of the crowd that had gathered around him. The band had stopped playing, even the Fire twins had stopped and were watching him with mouths agape.

But none of them mattered. Nobody mattered but the alicorn edging closer to him, watching him, not taking her cyan eyes off him. Enraptured.

They locked eyes, finally.

Stars, she was beautiful.

All at once, the Trick had found its target, and ceased.

With one final flick of his hooves, the balls cascaded around the princess, swirling in one final cyclone of color and depositing themselves back in his satchel.

But the creampies remained suspended in midair, spinning and hovering as she looked up at them and—

His body no longer the vessel for comedic gods, the Fool’s mind snapped back to reality as he realized the horror of what was about to occur.

He had gotten full marks for this trick because it had a victim. Especially because it had a victim.

The magic of anticipation now gone, twin pies descended right onto the face of one half of Equestria’s ruling family.

Shit.

Shocked gasps rippled through the crowd. It was over. His head would be on the chopping block by tomorrow; they’d turn him to stone and leave his headless body in a courtyard as a warning to future Fools.

Shouldn’t have rocked the boat. At least he’d go out having given it his all.

Blinking in disbelief, the shocked princess reached a hoof up to her face, and took a taste of the pie.

She grinned. Her smile was the shape of a crescent moon.

“My compliments to the chef,” she said, then she laughed.

The tension faded out of the room as the other nobles laughed as well. There need not be an execution, and the joke, like the pies, had landed.

The music resumed, the party-goers mingled away from the Fool, though the Flame twins remained, ribbing him and singing his praises. But the Fool didn’t hear the music, or the mingling, or even his friend’s compliments. Only one sound filled his mind.

That laugh! That incredible laugh. As clear as a cosmic bell, filled with the joy of a billion stars that knew all the jokes the universe hadn’t let ponies in on yet. He’d juggle a thousand balls, he’d juggle flaming swords, he’d juggle the moon itself just to hear her laugh again.

Anything, just to see Princess Luna happy again.

The Fool now knew what the makeup was for. It helped hide the deep blush she had slapped across his face. And she had done it with a smile.

Author's Note

There, now that "Clownfucker" t-shirt Twilight found in Luna's closet finally makes sense.

Thanks to the discord and Trolleytrainer for the proofread.