//------------------------------// // Chapter 7 — Celestial Encounter // Story: The Runaway Bodyguard // by scifipony //------------------------------// I clamped down, determined not to visibly react. Bored expression pasted on my face, I trotted by with the brochure in my blue-green magic, dodging sidewalk hoof traffic while passing jewelry stores, a coach shop, restaurants, and the Bank of Equestria. I heard the trio follow me, re-engage in conversation, then suddenly stop. As I figured I might actually be in Tan's field of vision, and him in mine from any storefront, I dodged into a restaurant that smelled particularly good, my heart picking up pace again. The Hey Burger! What a name. A big stretch of the imagination because the burger joint served—wait for it—hay burgers. Carrot dogs, too. And hay fries, milkshakes, and juices. Nothing green, however. No head lettuce for the burger or—after a perfunctory glance—bottles of pickle relish beside the mustard, mayo, ketchup, and creamed horseradish. I sat in a red booth with a hard yellow table. The walls used a similar color motif, with coach-works memorabilia hung at random: brass couch-work company brand plates like Deux Cavaliers and Thoroughbred, logo wheel hubs of the same, white and blue license plates with yellow lettering, carriage lanterns—nostalgic stuff, I presumed. A waitress in a standard waitress uniform with a white apron and a paper hat showed up within the minute. With such a simple, and cheap, menu, I ordered a burger, fries, and a strawberry shake. I hoped to have time to eat it, but... there was Tan, talking and talking to Grey and Top Hat. He took out a notebook—and a scroll which unrolled to the ground. I saw large boxes, some checked off. He looked at his watch, the sky, and continued talking. Another guard wandered up, making me wonder if I would be up to eating. The smell from the kitchen made my stomach rumble in anticipation. What the hay. It might be my last truly good meal for months, until I found a job and made enough money. When a griffon landed, one with a white feathered head and greenish lion parts, intuition insisted I wasn't being followed. Coincidences happened—not that I trusted that. As the waitress set a plate before me of a burger on a brioche bun sitting on a heap of hay fries, it occurred to me that Proper Step had been assigned to me by Princess Celestia. That meant Canterlot. Of course, if Proper Step had family, surprise!, in the employ of the crown where might I encounter them? But why stop here? I poured ketchup and brown mustard on the burger and salted the fries before digging in. The meal turned out to be pretty standard fare, but the strawberry shake made me smile. I got an ice cream headache twice sucking through the straw with filly enthusiasm. Then it all came together. Most ponies experience a specific strange shock at least once in their life: A pegasus flies overhead, casting a shadow of wings racing up to you. Your mind acts reflexively and you catch yourself before you run in panic. The "flying predator" reaction was instinctual, not that giant eagles or rocs still lived in Equestria. A half-dozen ponies out of the about thirty in my view out the window jerked in succession. I saw a flitting shadow going north on Castle Way. Two seconds later, a giant white pegasus landed with a thump that rattled the windows and table. Not. A. Pegasus. I saw the gold breast plate inset with a hoof-sized purple gem, the gold spiked horseshoes, the gold crown, then the incredibly sharp spiral horn. I put down my half-eaten burger and took a deep breath as emotions inside my chest bubbled to a boil. I remembered her. Definitely. Unmistakably. She'd towered over everypony at my parents' funeral, but the mare seemed understandably just slightly shorter now that I'd grown. Twenty pegasus guard in brass armor landed around her, and though the combined noise of their shoes against the cobbles raised quite a racket, nothing rattled at all. What I'd heard about an alicorn being part earth pony, and more than the sum of her tribal parts, had to be true. I didn't want to anger Her Highness, but I hated her. My plan would eventually cause her grief, but it would be best that I be subtle, I decided. Hopefully, I'd never meet her personally, nor have to confront her. My magic would never be in her league! She demonstrated that now. The aristo in the top hat pranced up and bowed. After a few words, the alicorn cast a spell I had not yet encountered, even in a book. An average unicorn would levitate a map, like I did with the visitor guide. A high level unicorn might conjure a map from a saddlebag or a bookcase back home. Celestia's golden aura bloomed into a nebulous cloud before her face and the image of a map appeared across the resultant apparition, like paper but transparent. As she spoke, a section of the visualization grew bigger. The enlarged edges faded at the borders of her magic. I found myself out of my chair, my nose touching the cooler window and my breath fogging it slightly. The aristo pointed a hoof and Celestia swiped a hoof across the visible portion. Like an unrolling scroll, topographic lines and notations slid toward a spear-like island close to a mountainous shore. I felt it. Her magic. I felt it when the stallion touched the map. A dot of red and dots of green appeared. Magic is like sound. You drop a rock in a lake and waves propagate for tens of pony lengths. Magic is like light. You light a lantern in a music hall and you can see from the stage to the back seats. As I moved my head, my impressions strengthened and waned. Waving my horn side to side, I found a sweet spot where I could sense the numbers in the alicorn's spell, and intuit some of the equations she used. Her spell mnemonics were lost to me since I couldn't hear her, and I'm sure she'd grown from the foal stage of speaking the magic words she read in a book a thousand years ago. I was new to violation physics and the associated maths, but, if I mentally squinted, I saw the fiery numbers spinning around her like bright satellites, far more gorgeous than her physical majesty. And smooth. And sparse. Lean! Nothing wasted to a dozen decimal points. Where my magical gears might seem rusted comparatively, hers spun in a bath of hot oil. It reminded me of the fault I kept galloping head-long into working up Don't Look, Don't See, Don't Hear. ... and that applied-thaumatology word I'd deciphered last night. Riiight.... Subtract these terms on that integral... I felt my horn warm and my magic surge forward. I followed my insight and cast, murmuring the mnemonic because when you're actually trying to wish a spell into being those very first times, trying to convince the universe that you should indeed be allowed to violate the laws of gravity-magnetics, electro-mechanics, and thermodynamics, the mnemonic words steady the mind and focus your intent as you plead for opportunity. They are the flint and steel creating the spark, the phosphor against the striker igniting the sulfur match stick. Maybe it had been that I'd dipped into the alicorn magic on-fire in my vicinity, or I intuited a trick, but my spell equations clicked into balance and rang a gong in my brain that left my entire corporal being reverberating. Like a spray of pure alcohol shooting blue-hot after crossing an open flame, my luminous blue numbers flew on-fire from off to the left of my sensorium, arched across my field of vision, and in two instants had begun to orbit my head in a ring of afterimages*. Usually my numbers were lazy comets, but something had changed. More digits appeared, not only hard to look at blue, but red, yellow, green, the usual orange. The waitress collided with my hindquarters. I stumbled, causing my cheek to bounce off the window as she fumbled with the tray of food she had balanced on her rump. She shook her head in surprise as my flaming numbers dashed themselves out against the wall and ricochetted off the ceiling, the spell and my moment of epiphany lost forever. "Sorry," the uniformed earth pony said, and before I could angrily jump up her dock about it, she bumped the tray over her head and onto the table in the corner. Two stallions stood there staring at me as if I'd endangered their precious meal. I glanced away, remembering that anonymity was my best friend. Out the window to the left and on the opposite sidewalk, Princess Celestia faced my direction. She waved her horn back and forth, then stepped into the street. Pegasus guards jumped ahead and blocked traffic. A yellow-painted taxi carriage veered and tipped as the chauffeur pulling it locked his knees for traction. Sparks accompanied the screech of his iron shoes. Crowds gathered to watch. Capital-S She looked directly at me. In a moment of hyper-awareness, I saw her purple eyes sparkle. I backed up to my table and sat, heart thumping double-time. Under my breath came out, "Celestia on Roller-skates." The princess didn't see me as she cast about with her horn, mirroring my own actions a minute ago. Of course not! It was a bright sunny day, even with the shadow of the castle wall stalking her. The glare reflected by the restaurant window rendered me invisible. The white alicorn held her eyes open in a look of shocked wonder, but, as the seconds passed, it faded like the last impression of the sun dropping below the horizon. Her head lowered until her muzzle nearly touched the street, causing the clouds of waving hair in her always moving pink, blue, and green mane to cover her face as if she and not the sun had been eclipsed by the moon. She shook herself suddenly. She barked an order and guards trotted up as she regained her composure. I froze like a foal that sees the green eyes of a timberwolf focused upon her. I consciously rolled my shoulders and told myself to breathe. Princess Celestia hadn't seen me—not directly. Reflex demanded I bolt, but that would get me noticed. That would get me caught. Proper Step, unkindness-incarnate though he might be, had taught me discipline. Not looking at the window, I nevertheless saw the princess send minions up and down the street. I took my book out from where my saddlebags lay on the seat beside me. I needed Levitate spun up and fully prepped. I opened to the discussion of the maths of decision matrixes and targeting coercion. Appropriate, since I realized holding the book before my face and feeding myself required me multiply-targeting and ambidextrously-manipulating those targets separately. All unicorns could manipulate one thing, but only higher level ones could independently manipulate many. Of course, Sunburst had earned his cutie mark manipulating a hundred books simultaneously. I remembered vividly him catching the tower of grimoires that fell toward me... How they suddenly sailed away like fleeing cockroaches with light turned suddenly on... How they became a flock of birds and circled, finally roosting themselves properly categorized and in Canterlot librarian order. Like. Pow! I also remembered him suddenly glowing. I saw that monster cutie mark of a sun surrounded by books boil to the surface of his flank. I saw the beatific smile that graced his muzzle. I saw him trot out of the open door at the sight of his family on the street, never to speak to me again. I. Will. Not. Cry! "Focus!" I whispered through clenched teeth as I blinked furiously at at my burger and fries. I converted it all to anger. Why should Princess Celestia win again!? Over and over, the ancient harridan destroyed my life and ruined my destiny. Not this time. Not evermore! I wasn't completely astounded when I picked up the fork and knife and sliced the burger with sufficiently little pressure that it eased through the bread without deforming it. Before today, I'd never succeeded cutting something straight and surgically perfect. Adrenaline obviously made a difference. I wasn't a messy food horse. I understood manners, unlike the ponies a few tables away who stuck their faces in their food and garbaged down. In my peripheral vision, I saw Princess Celestia crouch and spring into the sky with a huge downstroke of her enormous wings. The regiment of pegasi spread their wings. Like a flock of crows, wings almost forming a canopy, they flapped hard and flew skyward, nowhere as elegantly as their princess. I heard the door chime and a, "Welcome to Hey Burger!" as a minion trotted inside.