//------------------------------//
// Chapter 18 — Facts of Life 
// Story: The Runaway Bodyguard 
// by scifipony 
//------------------------------//

"You know where I live?"

He rubbed the back of his neck and chuckled sheepishly.  

Of course he knew where I lived.  "In other words, you've been stalking me?"

"Was not!  Researching you.  Seeing how you move."

"I 'move' well?"  I swished my tail.

I watched his green eyes scan from my face to my rump.  He paused there, but quickly matched my gaze.  "Exceedingly well."

Gotcha!  "I'm too young for you."

"Not to train."

"That could be taken many ways, dear sir."

Even in the lamplight, I could see his face color.  "At least she isn't calling me 'Whistlebutt'."

"Lead on, Whistlebutt.  Walk me home.  I shall point out that a hostel is a shared living arrangement.  I can't take you in with me."

"I wouldn't dream—"

"Really?"

"How old are you really?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

"You're skilled at banter.  One of the things you were tutored in?"

I changed the subject.  "I did not fight—what's his name—Trigger."

"But you taunted him?"

"He started it by being rude, the sexist piece of—"

"Sadly typical of the chronically unemployed yearlings in this city.  He's pretty smart, too, though not interpersonally.  The Pommel gang lieutenant?"

"Was that even fighting?"

"The best fight is when your first attack ends the conflict.  Using an opponent's stupidity against her is fair in my book.  You stunned her.  She got her teeth kicked in during the melee you caused.  One on one, she would probably have not set herself up to get knocked over so readily, but that would be an example of fight smart.  You could have pinned her, though with two cracked ribs, she might have bucked you off out of instinctual self-preservation.  Her error is in the same class of error you made tonight."

"Error?"

"If you're starting a street fight with no rules, fight in the street where you can see your opponent, where you have flat pavement and traction.  What you did to both your opponents that day required sight; you neglected that tonight.  If you could have seen me better, I suspect you would have levitated me instead of punching."

"I've fought in the dark, before.  Oh—"  I walked with a hoof to my chin.  "I'd kicked, too, which was how I lifted the monster.  I—I have to think about that one."

"Go on."

I looked at my companion.  "He was twice your size and mass, and he attacked first.  Knocked me out.  In a lightning storm.  Rain and mud, but in the end I sent him screaming down the road with his tail on fire."

He looked at me skeptically, then down the street.  "In the rain?  On fire?  A true story?"

"Very true."  I'd prepped my spell while he spoke.  I lifted him, like earth ponies lifted weights, "1-2 1-2," as I trotted along.

"I get it.  You're strong.  Ponies are looking."

Factory shift workers in oil-stained blue coveralls exited a steam engine shop, backlit by yellow thuama-arc lights.  I smelled the lubricants and warm moist air that dispelled the chill.  They carried lunch boxes and were talking at the entrance, but a pink mare pointed.  Dozens looked.  

The mare shouted, "Woo-ee, you go girl!"

I lifted Whistlebutt over my back to the other side.  He hit the ground trotting without stumbling. 

Applause broke out and I bowed while the factory fell behind us.

I said to him, "I've peaked at 5 PW."

"I might believe that."

"All that unloading lorries and what not.  The job is worth more than the bits I earn."

"An earth pony in fighting shape might lift twice that."

"I didn't attack Mustang, either.  I don't pick fights, so I might be less of a fighter than you think."

"Dunno."  He turned quiet as we entered the block with my hostel.  "Any other experience?"

"Dunno," I said, mimicking his manner of speech.  "I knocked out a pony, once, but that was an accident.  He had a lead in his mouth and I stepped on it.  How was I to know he wouldn't let go?"

"You?  On a lead?"

"You make it sound so unseemly.  Other than that, I drilled in self-defense.  For a couple years.  Had my training stuck, I would have run tonight instead of fighting you."

I stopped at my hostel.  He kept walking.  It was the only hostel in blocks, and the buzzing red neon sign read, Mobtown Mattresses, but with the "b" out so it actually read Mo town.  It was genuinely hard to miss, as were the sloppy ponies hanging out on the stoop eating dinners wrapped in crinkling waxed paper.  I smelled carrot sausages and peppers and the grease congealing on the hay fries as they laughed.  

I said, "Aww!"  

When he looked back, I pushed my lower lip down and pouted, channeling a filly the age I actually was.  "Aren't you going to k-kiss me goodnight like they do i-i-in the novels?"

That got my bunk mates' eyes flicking from me to him and back again.  

He pointed forward with his nose. "Come on."

I trotted up to him and he walked a block further before turning right.   He led me into Filly's Best.  The door squeaked open to warm air and an overpowering scent of onions, garlic, and cheese. 

Over the din of ponies talking over one another, he said, "One of my favorite joints.  It's how I found you, actually.  Saw you walk by.  Their Fillydelphia cheese steak is the best.  Order it 'wiz-wit'.  May I treat you?"

"You may, dear sir."

It turned out to be grilled aubergine, sliced length-wise, flooded with gooey orange cheese-whiz, smothered with grilled onions.  All on a long crispy Prance roll.  It brought out the food horse deep in my soul.  He bought me two.

I was licking the paper wrapper, over and over, standing at one of the standing tables, my eyes closed in bliss. 

"Another?"

"And risk my filly figure?  Thank you, but I decline.  Too bad I didn't discover these when I lived there."

"Pat's was the best in Fillydelphia, but be careful who you tell.  Them's fighting words to the wrong ponies."

"That city was such a disappointment!  Guilds.  You had to know ponies to get considered to be admitted into one, and needed guild membership to be considered for jobs.  Everypony wants to know your business and your history and who you know.  They roust the homeless relentlessly.   Hard town to establish oneself in if you haven't bits, friends, family, or a job.  Nice, otherwise."

His frown deepened.  Perhaps he was putting together all the things I'd let on.  It didn't identify who I was, but let on more of who I was.  As concern began to dawn, I wadded up my wrapper and his, and shouldered (demurely) through the crowd to throw the waxed-paper into the trash at the exit.

By contrast, the weather outside felt freezing.  My breath and his condensed in front of our faces.   I asked, "What now?"

"Depends," he said.  His confident demeanor from before was definitely replaced with concern.  I guessed I was succeeding.  "Am I going to start training you?"

I threw him a bone.  "I'm not saying no."  I put up a hoof.  "But I'm not saying yes."

"In that case," he said, "I'm taking you home."

As he set off in the direction of my hostel, I asked, "Mine or yours?"

"Yours."

"Well," I huffed, "That won't do!  You know where I live, but I don't know where you live.  The whole circumstances of your recruitment is sketchy, at best.  Besides, you took me out for drinks, to the fights, and dinner.  Isn't this where you suggest that I might like to see your collection of impressionist art?"

That had him waving a hoof before his face.  "I'm not that type of—"

"Seriously."  I flattened my voice.  "If you have a hope of ever training me to fight, I need to know where you live or I will disappear so quickly you will wonder if I ever existed."

He stood frozen, staring at me, green eyes wide enough that they reflected the restaurant sign behind me.

I said, "What?  Too pugnacious for you?"

"I—  No—"

"I've gone through bad stuff and achieved a stable position.  Now you've made an offer, but you've also threatened everything I've built.  One way or another, these horse apples mean I'll be starting over.   I just want to understand in what way."

He thought about what I'd said, then nodded.  He turned the opposite direction and said, "Follow me.  I won't insult you and say you're wrong.  I'm not trotting in your horseshoes, but I certainly do want to train you.  I see sparks crackling off of you when you fight, when you talk.  You have the spirit, and the attitude.  Half the battle is won, as far as I'm concerned.  Hurry.  Here comes the bus."

The coach-and-eight pulled up below a red BTA sign with LocalLink bus numbers.  As we hopped up, I noted the line.  We joined the two dozen aboard, having to stand in the aisle, foreleg around a pole.  The team pulled without even a grunt.  Even though the carriage company advertised Smooth Gyro Braking—meaning that braking recovered energy then used it to restart the carriage smoothly moving—their feat left me thinking about Whistlebutt's comments about the strength of an earth pony in fighting trim.  Without magic, I was a weakling even compared to a pegasus.  The tribes had their abilities and liabilities.  

What risks were I contemplating now?

But, Aurora Midnight... magic!  And training.  In magic.  

We didn't talk because, well, flank to muzzle passengers.  We hopped down midtown, and I paid attention to the street names and numbers.  Two blocks from the bus stop, he halted in front of a three story walk-up, constructed of brick like all the rest of the buildings up and down and to either side of Flanders Ave.  The number, 414 East North Street in white numerals differentiated it from all the others in that it was a palindrome.

"Here's my flat."

"But does he live there?" I asked myself, then looked left and right before saying, "Dunno."

He sighed and levitated out a keychain with a silver whistle key fob.  "As a matter of fact, I do have some impressionist paintings.  Would you like to come up and see?"

"Would I!"