I let out a sigh of exhaustion as I looked at the magical duffel bag on my floor. It had a much smaller holding space than the magical bag I took from the Moon Castle, but it was large enough for what I needed.
Tomorrow I'll be heading back to Thicket, and I plan to stay there for at least a week.
"Don't forget the reason you're going there~" I felt my eye twitch as Macaw talked to me from the other side of my room, my body moving to an expensive bedside table.
I opened the drawer on the table and took out a small mahogany box, carefully levitating the golden chain that acted as a necklace with a crystal shard as the centerpiece, the crystal shard was a gradient color turning from red to green, with a line in the middle, causing the shard to look like two smaller shards magically connected together.
I stared blankly at the necklace before putting it around my neck, knowing full well that I hadn't worn it since returning from the Crystal Empire.
"..." Macaw opened his beak, ready to give his thoughts on what he saw, but he held them instead, staying silent.
I appreciated that.
"Keep the fort safe, Comet, I'll see you soon~" I gave the golden Plunderseed spider a few pets before I exited the room, prepared for the second day of dealing with the delegates.
"Do you have any clue yet as to why Amira is so... You know?" Macaw asked as I made my way to the dining room, already thinking of what foods I'll be asking the cooks to make for me.
"I don't really care," I told Macaw, and I was truthful about it. Amira obviously held some sort of grudge against me for something I did in the past, and if she couldn't be enough of an adult to just say why she feels that way, then she's not worth my time.
And besides, I'll be out of the castle tomorrow, and the Saddle Arabians will be on their way to magical north-west Africa a day after.
I will not need to worry about them.
Just get through the day, and then I can focus on what King Aspen called me for.
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Raven Inkwell took a sip of her coffee as she looked over the documents on her desk.
Following the disastrous arrival of the foreign delegation thanks to the stunt performed by Princess Amira, many of the plans scheduled for that day had to be moved around and changed.
Fortunately, Prince Blueblood's secret project that only Princess Cadance seems to know anything about also made the Unicorn change his schedule, cutting his time in the castle short as he made it known that he wouldn't be participating on the third day of the delegation's visit.
Whether that was a good thing or not has yet to be revealed, but it at least gave Raven an excuse as to why the evening feast had to be moved a day after schedule.
"Raven! It's good to see you up so early!" Raven Inkwell raised her head to look at the door as Princess Celestia walked into her office.
"It's seven, Your Majesty, it's not that early," Raven responded, her hoof moving to pull her mug of coffee closer to herself, only to stare blankly ahead as it floated away from her reach.
"Usually you take until at least eight before you actually start working," Celestia pointed out before taking a sip from the coffee, her face scrunching slightly at the bitter taste, "It needs more sugar," She said before a spoonful of sugar magically appeared beside her head, dropping into the coffee, "And a little cream~" Celestia said with a smile, her horn once more glowing, a similar glow emanating from the mug that floated before her, before Celestia took another sip and smiled.
Raven Inkwell simply stared blankly at the massacre that took place in front of her very eyes.
"It's good for you," Celestia said as her horn shone with golden light, a similar cup magically appearing in the air beside her before levitating over to Raven.
"I don't think sugar in your morning coffee is that good for you," Raven told her before she took a sip from the cup before her, her eyes widening slightly as she noticed it was the coffee she had before Celestia took it.
She looked towards the Princess, watching her give her a gentle smile as she raised her own cup.
Raven Inkwell knew that what she just saw was a supremely impressive feat of magic, condensed down to something as trivial as morning coffee.
"It's not the sugar that's good for you," Celestia told her, "It's the smiling."
Raven blinked, unsure of how to respond.
"I don't know what you're-"
"I approve of you two," Celestia interrupted her before hiding her mouth behind the cup of coffee. She looked down at Raven with a knowing look in her eyes.
"Ma'am?" Raven asked her to explain, her heartbeat beginning to hasten under the eyes of the Alicorn.
"I noticed that ever since Blueblood had his... I'd say change of heart. He began to take more interest in the goings-on of the castle, and with them, I noticed the longer he spent around you, the more you seemed to smile." Celestia told her. "Now, I know that date you two went on didn't go exactly as some would wish, but I am glad to see you're both still close."
Raven's face slowly grew redder and redder as the Princess kept talking. She pulled the cup of coffee to her lips in an attempt to calm herself.
"Also, I do hope you're both using protection~"
Raven Inkwell spat out her coffee, her face a bright shade of red, her eyes wide in shock.
"Oh, don't look at me like that," Celestia said with a roll to her eyes, her horn glowing as she picked up the coffee that was spilled, drying the few papers that got spilled on in the process. "I know what happens when two young Adults find themselves in an empty bedroom with a soundproofing barrier suddenly surrounding them,"
"We- I'm not- I mean- We aren't-" Raven stumbled her words as she tried to defend herself.
"It's fine, I'll leave you to your work now~" Celestia told her secretary, "Have fun~"
Raven stared in shock at the Princess's retreating back, her mind replaying the scene over and over as if taunting her.
She didn't have the heart to tell Celestia that she and Blueblood were merely friends with-
Raven Inkwell paused her train of thought as a new one started building in her mind.
"...Why should I settle for just being friends?" She asked herself quietly as she stood up and began pacing around her office, whispering to herself.
"Because he doesn't think he can do romance? Because of some long-distance relationship with some skank no pony's ever seen? Because he doesn't want to hurt my feelings?" Raven asked herself as she paced in circles on her carpet.
"Who said I should just accept this?" Raven asked herself, "That I should just sit back and give up on what I want?"
Raven turned to look at her window, walking closer before peering down at the garden below, where she watched Prince Blueblood effortlessly dodge Princess Amira's attempt at humiliating him.
"Who said we can't be more?" She asked with a whisper as she looked down.
"Celestia gave me her approval, Blueblood has changed his mind plenty of times in the past, who decided that he wouldn't change it again?" Raven focused down below, staring at the Prince so hard she felt she could bore a hole into his head with how hard she was staring.
She watched as the Prince turned his head up, likely feeling her eyes on the back of his head, and she quickly backed from the window before he could catch her looking.
"Who said a friend with benefits can't become a romantic partner?" Raven paused for a few moments as she let those words linger in the air, before she quickly dropped to the floor, curled up into a ball, and squealed into her arm in order to dull the sound.
Her eyes were tearing up as her breath started to hasten, trying her best to calm down and clear her mind.
After a minute or two on the floor, Raven Inkwell stood back up, wiped the dust off her fur, readjusted her glasses, and took a deep breath.
She closed her eyes, clearing her mind of all the thoughts racing inside her skull.
"I won't lose."
With those words of determination exiting her mouth, Raven Inkwell opened her eyes, a fierce fire burning inside her irises, as she sat back down and returned to her work, all the while planning on how to ask the Prince out for a date after he returns from his next venture.
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Starlight Glimmer sometimes wondered how different her life would have been had Blueblood not busted down Our Town. How would things have changed.
She knew for certain that in that hypothetical timeline, she wouldn't have to sit through hours of a foreign prince trying to impress her with his amazing talent at flirting.
That is to say, Starlight Glimmer was glad that the day was over, and that she wouldn't need to listen to Prince Haakim anymore.
If it wasn't for his position as royalty and a guest of honor, she would have sewn his mouth shut in order to get him to stop talking.
"How does he do it?" She wondered to herself as she lay down on the bed that was a touch too rough in a room that was just a tiny bit too small to really be called comfortable, thinking about how Prince Blueblood could deal with such obnoxious and annoying people for a living.
Starlight was glad she was only a bodyguard, and not a diplomat, or harmony forbid, a politician. She would have cracked in a week.
She also wondered what was on the Prince's mind. Her Prince, not the foreign Prince. She wondered why the Prince she actually cared about was acting so... so distant? No, not distant.
Why was Blueblood acting so occupied? Yes, Occupied is a good word.
Ever since he got that letter yesterday morning, it seemed that he had his mind elsewhere.
Starlight knew that he wouldn't have gotten slapped by Amira if he were actually focused on the here and now, but instead, he seemed to be focused on whatever it was that was written in that letter.
"I'll tell you about it in the future." His words from yesterday echoed in her mind.
The Future... That was something that kept popping up again and again, Blueblood seemed to always be thinking about what would happen tomorrow, or the day after, or the week after, or even months into the future, but never on what would happen to him in the here and now.
Although whenever he does seem to only focus on the here-and-now, he seems to find himself in a fight for his survival, or in an awkward conversation where he cannot find the correct words to convey what he wants to say.
Unless it's a speech to a crowd, in which case he somehow always manages to find the right words to say.
He was weird like that. Perhaps the personal aspect of a one-on-one conversation is what makes him struggle, and the impersonal, almost distant way he conveys his speeches is what allows him to deliver them so well.
She wasn't sure, and trying to crack the puzzle that was Blueblood Platinum only made her head hurt.
The Future...
Starlight Glimmer just wished he'd stop thinking about the future so much.