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Prose Equus 28: Fancy Disguise.

By Mandroid
Created: 2022-09-15 12:40:46
Expiry: Never
anonocsafeaction/aie/adventuredrama

  1. Prose Equus 28
  2.  
  3. >Less than an hour after Loki tracked you down and demanded to see a seamstress, you, her, and Twilight were at, where else, Rarity’s boutique that you never recalled the name of.
  4. >And it was your turn up in front of the mirrors first to get measured.
  5. >Goody.
  6. >”Oh Anonymous.” Rarity says as she floats around you like a shark. “We MUST do something about your skin, it’s so filthy!”
  7. “I live a very physically demanding life, Rarity, some dirt under my nails isn’t the worst of my worries.”
  8. >”Hmph!” she pouts. “Well it is simply not proper etiquette for a high society party to walk in smelling like a stable!”
  9. “Hey, I take offense to that.”
  10. >You do NOT smell.
  11. >You glance in the mirror and spot Loki sitting next to Twilight behind you, giggling at how uncomfortable you are.
  12. “Explain this to me again, yeah? Why are we going through all this rigamarole to get into a party full of ponies none of us know?”
  13. >”It’s not for the guests, No-name! It is for the potion!”
  14. “WHAT potion?”
  15. >”That!...Will all be revealed in time!” she exclaims.
  16. >You make sure Loki can see your face, you are NOT amused.
  17. “I’ve never been to the Grand Galloping Gala and I REALLY can’t say I’m looking forward to it.”
  18. >Rarity gives a hoighty laugh. “Oh DO come now Anonymous, this isn’t the Gala! There’s just no WAY I could design garments for an event as prestigious as the Gala in just a few short days!”
  19. >”She’s right.” Twilight says. “This is just some sort of fancy-pancy high society party.”
  20. >You mean rich people went through all this more than once a year? And it could get WORSE than this? That thought alone is enough to make you wish you’d die again.
  21.  
  22. >”Alright, I have what I need from you.” Rarity says.
  23. >Finally…
  24. >You step off her little stand thing and go to sit down as Loki jumps up. “I am next! Show me your skills, seamstress!”
  25. “WHY are you bringing me along for something you clearly need stealth for? It’s not like I blend in.”
  26. >”Because I just NEED you to be there to make sure it gets done, No-name, alright?!” Loki snaps.
  27. >The air in the room hangs silently for a minute after her outburst, you have to admit that you’re a bit shocked.
  28. “…Alright, fine. Relax.”
  29. >Loki looks you in the eye and for a moment almost seems to be embarrassed, but quickly gets on the fitting stand and turns away from you.
  30. >Twilight speaks. “Uh…Princess, can you tell us more about where we’re going?”
  31. >”The estate of some mortal noble I’ve been secretly using as an agent down here for a year or so. Now that we gods are out in the open and I have No-name, I no longer need him.”
  32. “Who’s he?”
  33. >”His name is…Blue…something-or-other.”
  34. >Rarity unleashes an extremely un-ladylike groan. “PLEASE tell me you don’t mean THE Prince Blueblood.”
  35. >”Yes!” Loki says, nodding. “That’s it! I remember his name sounded like that.”
  36. >Rarity groans again, Twilight cringes.
  37. “Something I’m missing?”
  38. >”Let’s just say the Prince and Rarity have had…a bad experience in the past.”
  39. “Faaaaaaaaaaaantastic.”
  40. >Loki looks at her flank in the mirror. “This won’t make me look too big, will it?”
  41. >Just. Fantastic.
  42.  
  43. >As Rarity promised, a few days later and you’re standing before a fancy estate tugging at the collar of your shirt and sweating it out in the warm weather.
  44. >Before you, past the gates, you could see many ponies of clearly shall we say…”advanced” birth milling about and having astoundingly inane conversations with one another about astoundingly inane topics such as croquet, the stock market, and the outcome of the latest episode of Game of Thorns.
  45. >In short, everything that stupid people talked about, just with stuffy accents.
  46. “None of these fools have had a hard day in their lives.”
  47. >To your sides come your compatriots; Princess Twilight Sparkle, who got you in here in the first place, Rarity, who actually knows her way around a social battlefield such as this, and “Brenda” who insisted on picking her own name and insisted it didn’t make her stand out.
  48. >Your eyes drift down. “Loki, that disguise isn’t going to work. No one has ever, in the history of Equestria, had a cutie mark that was just nine lines like that.”
  49. >”You wouldn’t get it, No-name. And shhhh! I told you my name is “Brenda”.”
  50. >Right.
  51. >Your face must have betrayed something because “”Brenda” just puffed her cheeks and stomped away towards the party. “Oh why do I even waste my breath!”
  52.  
  53. “Something I said?”
  54. >You look down at Twilight and shrug, she shrugs back.
  55. >”Don’t ask me, she’s been acting strange since we started all this.”
  56. >You roll your eyes, all you wanted to do was get this done so you could go back to almost being smashed to paste by monsters and worrying about the apocalypse.
  57. >You know, normal things.
  58. “Rarity, any advice before we get in here?”
  59. >Rarity takes a minute to answer you, or indeed notice you’re even there. “Hmm? Sorry darling, I’m just…using my observational skills to try and find our “dear” Prince Blueblood…uhg.” You’d never seen Rarity make that face before, like someone who stepped in slime. “I’d very much like to avoid being in the same room as him, if I can help it. It would also probably be a good idea to find a quick exit.”
  60. >You nod, she was speaking your language.
  61. “Right, if we steal this potion and need to escape, it’d make tactical sense to know where the exits are.”
  62. >”Hmm?” Rarity says. ”Oh, no, I meant in the event that I end up hitting him.”
  63.  
  64. >Later, inside the party…
  65. “A-huh…nope, no, I can’t believe either that the tree was his real father and that the last book isn’t out yet…a-huh…”
  66. >The noble you’re talking to, some senator or councilmember or someone’s father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate or something just…keeps talking, keeps blabbing. It all sounds like a dying animal to you and you can’t make out a word of any of the dribble.
  67. >You’ve had several concussions over the years, felt your brain smash against the inside of your skull, and none of it quite compares to the mental damage this lady is doing to you.
  68. >Just as you’re about to scream, the lights in the room switch off, letting a pair of spotlights illuminate a large staircase. A voice speaks over the room from a speaker. “Hahaha. Everypony, put your hooves together for our host, our Prince, you know him! You love him! Prince BLUEBLOOD!”
  69. >Everyone claps as a very top-heavy pony, one with the golden locks of the sun, exits a curtain and basks in his adoring public. “Thank you! Thank you all for coming! All of you look lovely tonight!”
  70. >As the clapping intensifies, you escape from your prison and make your way to Loki, who’s watching the descending prince and slightly prancing from one hoof to the other, like a cat waiting to be pet.
  71. “Alright, he’s out. How do you want to pla-are you cold?”
  72. >Loki opens her mouth to talk and you can actually see her teeth chatter, even her lips look a bit blue. “N-n-n-no, No-name. J-just focus on the task at h-hand.”
  73. “Loki, it’s summer, how can you be cold?”
  74. >”B-brenda!”
  75.  
  76. >You begin to correct her when a gleam from the prince’s neck gets in your eye.
  77. >Looking, you see that dangling on his chest like an overripe gourd is a gold fitted amulet with a massive sky blue jewel in the center.
  78. >”There it is…” you hear Loki say.
  79. >Wait, what?
  80. “I thought we were after a potion?”
  81. >”Th-that IS the potion, No-name! A simple spell can turn the it into a stone! Fool doesn’t even know he’s wearing what’s basically an amber around his neck.”
  82. >Okay, that’s about as good as anything else. You glance around the crowd as the prince continues to schmooze, clocking ponies with especially watchful eyes atop the staircase, by the windows, and on either side of the doors.
  83. “There are guards everywhere… and we’ll need to separate him from it if we want to nab it without being see. How do you want to play this?”
  84. >”Maybe we can help?” you hear.
  85. >You and Loki turn to look, finding Twilight and Rarity behind you.
  86. “You have a plan?”
  87. >”I’m not ALL book smarts, Anonymous! I’ve spent the last three days and the entire ride over here concocting a masterful plan!” she says, rubbing her hooves together. “Muhaha!”
  88. >Loki was a bad influence…
  89. “Are you going to hypnotize them?”
  90. >”Nope!”
  91. >”Oh! Turn them into toads with your magic?” Rarity asks.
  92. >”Nuh-uh?”
  93. >”Melt them into goo?”
  94. >Everyone turns and gives Loki a look.
  95. >”…What? I’d p-put them b-b-back…”
  96. >”None of those!” Twilight exclaims, turning to Rarity.
  97. >”Then, darling, how on earth are you going to do to get him away from that necklace?” Rarity asks.
  98. >Twilight smiles at her friend.
  99. >Rarity just looks back, until a thought eventually dawns on her. “…No!”
  100. >Twilight just smiles wider.
  101. >”Absolutely not!”
  102. >And wider.
  103. >”NO!”
  104. >There are sparkles in here eyes now
  105. >”STOP!”
  106.  
  107. >Twilight didn’t stop.
  108. >Minutes later you find yourself sneaking through one of the halls with your companions by your side following nothing but the trail of guards and “Brenda’s” “intuition”.
  109. >”You two need to hurry!” Twilight whisper-shouts. “I don’t know how long Rarity can suppress her reflex to vomit!”
  110. >What Twilight said was true, even you weren’t sure how long Rarity could last after the look of disgust she gave when Twilight suggested what she suggested.
  111. >Attempting to put on a seduction act for prince Blueblood to get him to take the amulet off and keep the act up long enough for you to retrieve it.
  112. “Twilight, if you don’t calm down, they’ll hear us.” You whisper-shout back.
  113. “And what do you mean ‘you two’? You’re here as well!”
  114. >”Both of you shut up! I can’t deal with you and this heat!” Loki whispers, sweating visibly.
  115. “Oh NOW you’re aware what season it is?”
  116. >”SHHH!”
  117. >”Captain!” you hear a haughty voice call.
  118. >Peering around the corner, the three of you see Blueblood down the hall approach one of the guards. He looks mighty pleased with himself.
  119. >”Highness?” the guard asks.
  120. >The prince flips his hair and plays a faux-bashful hoof at his chest. “Aha…one of my old flames has blown in with the wind and wants to…’reignite’ things, be a sport and watch the Blue Blood Gem for me until I finish up with her?”
  121. “Nice name, you goon…”
  122. >”Shh!”
  123. >The guard salutes. “Of course, highness.”
  124. >Prince Blueblood enters into a door behind the guard with the amulet, you have to put your hand on Loki’s shoulder to stop her.
  125. “No, let him come out. We want as few witnesses as we can.”
  126. >You shouldn’t need to tell her of anyone around that.
  127.  
  128. >Prince Blueblood soon leaves the room, neck bare, and waves a hoof nonchalantly at the guard. “Don’t wait up! Aha!”
  129. >”Hang on Rarity…” you year Twilight say.
  130. >You loosen your tie and role your sleeves up.
  131. “The picture on the wall just past him, make it drop.”
  132. >You don’t wait for a response and take off in a full sprint down the hall.
  133. >Twilight gasps behind you and reaches out with her magic, causing a massive, framed painting of several ponies and cows, a Claud Moo-Niegh painting you think to drop to the floor.
  134. >The guard reacts in shock to something that costs more than his house falling and nearly gets a call for help out before both your feet connect with his face after you launch into a double-drop kick.
  135. >You and the guard both scramble before you get him into a sleeper hold.
  136. “Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep.”
  137. >The guard fights for a bit, but he’s no match for decades of experience and a body supported by magic golden apples.
  138. >The girls gallop up behind you and get the door open, you take the chance to drag the guard in with you.
  139. >It’s a veritable vault beyond the door, with ancient Cataphracti armors adorning the walls alongside old crossbows from the griffon kingdoms before they discovered black powder, tomes and relics line the sides of the room and in the back, at the end of a red carpet, the gemmed amulet rests on a dais.
  140. >Twilight squees at the fount of knowledge in here.
  141. >Loki sighs in relief. “Finally!”
  142. >The godling runs off towards the amulet, against your better judgement.
  143. “Loki wait-!”
  144. >When she gets close, Princess Loki is lanced by several bolts of blue magic.
  145.  
  146. >You cough your way through the smoke, the image of her being hit burned into your brain.
  147. “LOKI!”
  148. >”Anonymous!” you hear Twilight call.
  149. “Watch the guard!”
  150. >You push the guard’s sleeping body against the wall and rush into the vault.
  151. “LOKI! ANSWER ME!”
  152. >You hear deep coughing on the other end of the room and race towards it, eventually running face first into something large, cool, and blue.
  153. “Gah, what?”
  154. >”D-don’t look!”
  155. >Loki?
  156. “What’s wrong with your…voice…”
  157. >The smoke from the magical trap clears and you aren’t very sure what you’re meant to be seeing.
  158. >Loki was always short, but now she’s tall. She was taller than Celestia, taller than her Mother, taller almost than her brother. Her normally green coat was now a greyish shade of blue with a mane as dark as night hanging from her nape. Red, goat-like eyes look down at you with fear below two horns of eternal frost jutting from her head. When she sees you see her, all she can do is gasp and cover your face with a cool air.
  159. >You can put two and two together, you know what you’re seeing. You don’t know how or why, it should be impossible, but here it was before you.
  160. “…A Frost Giant…”
  161. >”Don’t say it” you thought. “Don’t say ‘well you don’t have to worry about the DRESS making you look big’.”
  162. >”I SAID DON’T LOOK!” Loki shouts, her voice bellowing and deeper thanks to her new size.
  163. “It’s hard to when you take up half the room!”
  164. >”SHUT UP!!”
  165. >”Princess Loki?!” you hear Twilight exclaim. Loki looks like she’s about to scream at being seen by Twilight.
  166.  
  167. >This was, very obviously, bad.
  168. >Loki’s state was causing her no small amount of distress, which was causing Twilight no small amount of distress.
  169. >Hel, it was causing YOU no small amount of distress what with the whole “Seeing the Giants exterminated” thing you went through recently, but someone had to take the wheel here.
  170. “Hey!”
  171. >Loki looks down at you, about to speak but you cut her off with your soldier-voice…and using your hands to clamp her mouth shut.
  172. “You’ve been acting strange all night and now we know why, the cat’s out of the bag. I’m not sure whatever reason there is for it, but I know that if we lose our cool now, you’ll be explaining this to me at the bottom of a dungeon, and THEN your Mother will come get us and figure out what happened.”
  173. >That gets Loki-the-Giant’s attention, and you finally detect the first hint of her intelligence behind those strange eyes of hers.
  174. “You clearly came in here with some sort of plan before you rushed ahead like an idiot, tell me what you need me to do to help you and then let’s do it and you can explain all…THIS later, alright?”
  175. >After some ragged breaths to get herself under control, Loki nods. You remove your hands.
  176. >”The amulet, get it and get that jewel off.”
  177. “What about the defensive spells?”
  178. >”They all hit ME. Do you think I look like this because of them? They would have killed me if I weren’t a master of magic! Their force was so great that they broke my ability to hide…THIS!”
  179. >Well, at least Loki was sounding more herself now.
  180.  
  181. >You quickly grab the amulet off the dais and don’t burst into flames, which is a good start. With some bashing and prying, you manage to free the jewel from the hastily attached base.
  182. “Got it!”
  183. >”Okay, now hold it to my horns!”
  184. >Loki bows her head down and to let you hold the blue amber to her horns, you feel the icy chill of Jotunheim seeping off of them and, to your alarm, the amulet starts to melt like ice left in the sun.
  185. >”You two need to hurry! He’s waking up!” Twilight calls.
  186. “HANG ON!”
  187. >The amulet continues to paradoxically melt and now almost starts to run down your hand.
  188. “Loki this-“
  189. >”-doesn’t make any sense! Yes! That’s why it’s called ‘mysticism’ and not ‘everyone-knows-what’s-going-one-icism’! Put it in my mouth!”
  190. >You drop the melting stone into Loki’s mouth where she quickly tilts her head up and back, letting the potion-turned-amulet-turning-potion drip down her throat. With an icy exhale that frosts the ceiling, Loki melts the remainder of the amulet and drinks of the potion you all came here for.
  191.  
  192. >As quickly as she transformed, but nowhere near as explosively, Loki shifts. Her swollen body shrinks as the potion goes down her gullet, her icy blue skin returns to its “natural” shade, her horns recede into her head and her eyes right themselves. In moments, you’re back to looking at the littlest thorn-in-your-side.
  193. >Loki looks down at the floor forlornly and coughs, her mind clearing of the odd stupor she’s been in all night.
  194. >”Yuck…no one said it tasted like that.”
  195. “Hey.”
  196. >Loki looks up to you, seeming exhausted.
  197. “Are you okay?” is all you can ask.
  198. >Loki sighs and closes her eyes for a moment. “No, I’m not…but I am back to myself. We should get out of here as quickly as we can, I…don’t want to be here.”
  199. >You nod, looking to the door. Twilight is panicking at everything going on, but you quickly help her out by putting your knee on the guard’s neck and ensuring he dozes a bit longer.
  200. “I’m not a wizard but I’m sure Blueblood either knows his necklace is stolen or soon will, even as distracting as Rarity can be. We need to find her and then somehow get through an entire party crowd without being seen.”
  201. >Loki laughs a true noblewoman’s laugh, the “Oh ho ho” kind. “No need to worry, No-name.”
  202. “And why is that?”
  203. >With a flash, Loki assumes the form of one price Blueblood, she wordlessly opens the door and walks out into the party.
  204. >”Mares and Gentlecolts! I’ve come to say the Z-word!”
  205. >Oh no-
  206.  
  207. >Within twenty minutes, the three of you are sitting in the back of a carriage fleeing the estate, Rarity hangs off the side, trying to induce vomiting after Blueblood apparently tried to prench-kiss her, and leaving the three of you to watch the chaos unfolding at your rear.
  208. “I’ve never seen a building that big empty so fast.”
  209. >”Yeah…” Loki says.
  210. >Twilight chimes in “I thought there was going to be a riot!”
  211. >”Yeah…”
  212. “Shame about the fire.”
  213. >”That one actually wasn’t me.” Loki says.
  214. >The three of you sit silently, the elephant in the room getting bigger.
  215. “So-“
  216. >”I’ve always been like that, No-name! Yes! Shock and surprise! Forget what you once knew! Your beloved Loki has, all this time, been a Frost Giant of Jotunheim!”
  217. >Okay, just getting right into it.
  218. “Loki there ARE no Frost Giants.”
  219. >”And yet here I am.”
  220. “But you’re a shapeshifter.”
  221. >”Uhg, don’t insult me.” She says. “An ignoramous like you can’t tell, but that wasn’t ‘shapeshifting’, it was transformation.”
  222. “Is there a difference?”
  223. >”Mhm.” Twilight nods. “A pretty big academic one, actually.”
  224. >A-huh…
  225.  
  226. “So the potion?”
  227. >”Commissioned by me some years ago for this very eventuality. In the event that I was to…lose control, drinking it would empower me to get myself back into form.” Loki pouts and looks at the estate. “How one of my pawns got it, I’ll never know. Perhaps I tipped my hoof one time…”
  228. >Twilight perks in. “But still, this is fascinating. Even as a shapeshifter, there you need a potion to aid you in assuming normal pony form?”
  229. >Loki looks uncharacteristically sullen. “It suppresses my true nature…let’s me be who I am.” She watches the road at the end of the carriage. “I don’t lie when I say I don’t know…what the significance of my ‘true self’ is, you two, nor why there “aren’t” any of me. It’s just…always been this way since I was born. Perhaps it always will.”
  230. >You don’t know if Twilight can tell, but you put your hand in front of her stealthily.
  231. >Loki was being self-reflective, that was enough to put you on guard. You can detect the library’s worth of what she’s not saying, but your recent experiences have taught you when to sometimes let sleeping Diamond Dogs lie.
  232. “Loki, I can tell you want some…distance from this, and I’m willing to give it. But my last words on the matter are that I think you need to make sure your Mother knows about this, if nothing else so it doesn’t happen again.”
  233. >Loki looks to the sky, catching a pair of black birds just as they pass in front of the moon. “I’m sure She already does…” she says. “Uhg, enough. Let’s just…drop it and listen to your friend vomit…” Loki says, turning her head from you and Twilight.
  234. >You silently meet the godlings demands and take one last look back at the chateau.
  235. >You snap your fingers.
  236. “Chateau Boutique, that’s it. Been bugging me for days…”

BiE 1: Introductions

by Mandroid

BiE 2: Train, pains, and narcissism.

by Mandroid

BiE 3: Exposition and espionage.

by Mandroid

BiE 3.5: More trains, soon to be back pains.

by Mandroid

BiE 4: Home Improvement.

by Mandroid