//------------------------------//
// Chapter 20 — Menu Matters 
// Story: The Runaway Bodyguard 
// by scifipony 
//------------------------------//

A month later, as Celestia raised her sun over a light dusting of late season snow, I saw White Towel.  I trotted by, wearing my new uniform.  

His breath condensed around his muzzle as he said, "It's been a week and you're adding an extra block to your training each day."  He looked at the blue-green training trunks I wore, matched with a light jacket over a tank top.  All had the Bite O'Kale grocery logo embroidered on it.  "You've entered the Baltimare Celestial Race?"

"I have.  I get a raise by agreeing to race and wear the clothes.  Also, I get an extra hour paid each day I train.  I get a bonus if I finish the race.  I said, 'Yes, thank you, boss!'"

"The race is seven leagues.  It commemorates the trek of a pony three centuries ago from somewhere near where Ponyville would be founded to the gates of Canterlot Castle."

"Up hill?"

He nodded.  "Up hill.  Some earth pony spotted a Timberwolf invasion from the Everfree Forest, back when it had a much greater extent.  With no pegasi near, she ran to inform the Princess."

"Tough assignment, maybe less tough for an earth pony."

"Tough, yeah.  The mare, Sprinter, delivered her message then died from a burst heart right in front of her."

I'd seen pictures of the throne room where the alicorn held court.  I imagined a lemon yellow mare with a pink mane come huffing in, before speaking and exploding at Her Majesty's hooves.  Like a packet of ketchup underhoof.  I gulped and said, "Maybe I don't—"

"Endurance training is great, but not if you injure yourself physically, nutritionally, or by failing to rest at the proper times."

He gave me that silly-filly look adults were wont.  I straightened up.  "Bummer.  Do I sense that you are selling your services?"

He moved a hoof horizontally before him.  "Strictly on the house."

"Pro bono?"

"Pro-motionally."

"Okay, then."

"Okay, what?"

I gave him a sunshine-y smile.  "Okay.  You may train me, pro-visionally."

"Seriously?"  He grinned back.  "One condition—  No, two—"

"Awww!"

"You call me 'Coach' not 'Mr. Whistlebutt.'"

I guessed that arrow had struck the bullseye.  I nodded. 

"No flirting."

I stopped and gave him the once over.  He wore a green jacket with sheared wool around the neck.  In the sunlight, I saw crows feet around his eyes.  He had his silver whistle cutie mark bare in the cold air.  Deep in my psyche, that he had a cutie mark mattered.  

Negatively.  

I said, "You're not really my type."

The yearling Sunburst I imagined had an agile intellect.  It would be hard for anypony to surpass him physically as a young stallion.  Whistlebutt wasn't in the running in either category.  

He said, "I guess I should be relieved."

Zing!  I chuckled and trotted along. 

He followed, keeping pace, but soon crossed the street because the width of the sidewalk prevented us from walking side-by-side while studying me.  He studied me intently, once walking into a blue pegasus who squawked like a bird before fluttering over him, peppering him with some choice words I added to my mental dictionary.  He flicked an ear and took out a notepad and flipped it open, then jotted in it with a yellow pencil.  

That's when I walked into traffic at an intersection watching him.  

"Hey!" I heard.  

Not a lot of taxis in this part of town.  Working class.  Bits were precious and a pony could walk for that price.  The brown earth pony in a yellow jacket slammed her hooves down and pulled the brake on her yellow cabriolet.  I reflexively jumped back to the curb, but cast a spell to push her away, causing her and the vehicle to veer a half-pony length.

"Trotting here!" I said.

Pulling away, she said, "Blind and dumb!"

Whistlebutt looked concerned catercorner at the intersection.

"I'm okay!"

He nodded.  

I proceeded, deciding to pay attention.  Nevertheless, I did marvel at how quickly I'd cast Levitate.  As a unicorn doing an earth pony job, I used the spell constantly.  Did I know it so well that I had subconsciously shortcut the prep?  Was I so paranoid that I'd learned a new reflex to protect myself?

I really needed a magic teacher.  Though Whistlebutt wasn't a magic teacher per se, he was a unicorn.  He had promised to teach me his fighting methods.  Queuing, I think he'd called it.  Nothing had leaked out about me.  No truant officers or representatives of the crown had poked around.  I hadn't encountered gang members, though I'd seen plenty of sketchy characters, and noticed graffiti.  The style of the lettering and phrases marked territory like dogs peeing—best I could tell. 

The celestial race turned into an opportunity.  He could flaunt his stuff.  I got a free taste of his wares.  The magic would doubtlessly wait until he trained me to fight properly, but I could observe him. 

For the last five blocks, he'd definitely been observing me.  He jay-walked after waiting for a wagon-drover with barrels canter by.  "Do you have water in those saddlebags besides your books."

"It's hard to levitate liquids."

"That would be a no?"

"No."

"First advice.  Despite the cold, you sweat—or perspire if you'd rather.  Dehydration, even small amounts, counteracts your training of your muscles.  Makes you likely to injure yourself.  It leaves you quickly exhausted or, worse, headachy and feeling sick."

I nodded as he spirited a sipper flask of blue glass toward me.  I asked, "Have you drank from this?"

"No.  I guessed a few things about you."  

I realized my throat was dry as I gulped the lukewarm water.

He continued, "What about your breakfast?"

"That'll be cracked oats.  I put them in a jug with oat milk in the walk-in fridge at Kale's last night so they'll be ready when I arrive."  I licked my lips, imagining the creamy crunchy treat I had awaiting me.  "It's convenient and I don't have to store anything at Mobtown or cook in their shared kitchen.  It's packed in the morning."

"Uh, huh," he said, and trotted on.  He set a good pace, despite his age.  "Many runners choose to eat afterwards because they feel a meal diverts energy to digestion.  I'd recommend at least a juice before running.  You can't go wrong with a dilution of orange-lemon in your canteen.  More minerals than apple juice."

He let me run ahead of him and set the pace, though occasionally he told me to run around the block so he could rest.  He herded me toward the harbor district.  He sat on a bench in Riverside Park and told me trot down various paths that circled the two-dozen acres.  I ran out of steam and finally walked a bit, coming up behind him on the overlook.  I studied him as he gazed past the docks to the green-brown flow of the Palomino River below.

His ears flicked.  Without looking back, he said, "You added six city blocks over yesterday's run."

"You've been stalking me again."

"When I realized you were running, I wanted to make sure you didn't get yourself injured."

"Good excuse."

"Needing to stay hydrated was your biggest mistake thus far."  He turned around.  "Let's see the flask."

I shook it and it swished.  "I refilled it at the water fountain near the Pickle Ball courts."

"Good filly!"

I grrr'd at him and he smiled.

"Let's fix biggest flaw in your program.  You don't need carbs before you set out, except maybe on race day.  After is good, but as you push yourself, you'll need more protein than I think you're getting."

"You don't know for sure?"

"I couldn't get close enough to see if you're eating eggs or beans, since you eat at the grocery most of the time.  You've admitted you don't eat dairy.  You should, if that's a choice.  Oat milk is mostly sugars; you need to change that."  He got up and trotted downhill toward the docks.  "Let's deal with that, now."  He waved to follow. 

The masts of the clipper ships and the black stacks of a paddlewheel boat began to loom as we approached within a block of the river.  Seabirds called as they glided overhead.  Warehouses abounded, all bustling with earth ponies pulling pallet-carts of cargo or hustling crates about.  Situated between two such facilities, we trotted up to a glassed-in establishment with a green roof and awnings.  Whistlebutt liked things that were green.

"Le Petit Pescatarian Pegasus?"  I asked, skeptically, but yes, he pulled open the steel-framed door with his green aura and I followed him in.  It was one of those market plus café restaurants, with skylights that made the inside bright, but as we walked in I didn't like what I saw.  

There were wood stalls that sold imported produce like Abyssinian barley stalks, giant scaly jackfruit, and escarole.  The faux outdoor market paraphernalia looked transplanted from Prance.  However—

It smelled of the ocean.  That salt smell, and something off, not horrible mind you, but it brought up memories of visiting the beach on a damp day after a big storm had passed.  Jetsam and tidewrack.  I thought of black ropes of leafy iodine-scented seaweed on the sand.  I remembered flies buzzing around it.  I had failed to forget the silver-sided creatures that reflected the patchy sun, stranded and dead.

That specific stink did not fill my nose here.  I got evocative hints.  I smelled whiffs of bleach and pine cleaner, and...  Worrisome were two things: First, the ponies behind the counter and populating the wrought-iron cafe tables and chairs in the indoor courtyard were almost entirely pegasi, except for a scattering of earth ponies.  Yes, feathers do have a distinctive dander scent even on ponies.  And second—fish.

I looked.

Fish on ice.  Whole.  Silver and bronze.  With eyes.  I spotted giant insect-like hard-shelled creatures, also laid out on ice inside glassed-in counters.  Red-on-top and white-on-bottom with too many legs, plus articulated antennae.  I wrinkled my nose.  I later realized that the stink had been imagined, or remembered, as had been the iodine I tasted.  The restaurant was immaculate—but it had felt real to me.

I credit Whistlebutt for noticing me stiffen up. 

"Gelding, I thought you'd been brought up to have a refined palate."

I swallowed.  I didn't say anything, but in my discomfort I nodded without meaning to and almost said Sire's Hollow before I coughed out, "The town I lived in was a majority unicorn, uh, city."

He intentionally interposed himself between me and the display cases.  He pointed at the tables, full of chatting pegasi.  Above, a few pushed-together cloud tables hosted teenagers with open notebooks, studying and eating fried food.   Beyond them, I saw exposed red brick with patches of lath and plaster.  Ivy grew abundantly on the lath and clung to the brick under a peaked roof with dozens of skylights that let in mid-morning sunshine.  A few pictures of fishing boats and sunset-lit beaches shared the walls.  The ponies were mostly blue and yellow, a common pegasus color, with a couple of green ones and a single white one.  The few earth ponies where the big brawny types.  Two were red and one was a white brown-spotted Appleloosan.  The last time I'd attended school, the mean foals had called such ponies throwbacks.  This one, however, waved at Whistlebutt.

"He knows you?"

"I'm training Spilt Ink."

"Why is he here?"

Whistlebutt faced me.  "You see the green-maned yellow pegasus stallion with the white mare?  I'm training them, too.  A tag-team."

"A...?  What now?"

"Not important.  In what physical way do pegasi exceed earth ponies?"

"I—"  I caught the pegasus couple noticing us, then focus on me and my clothing.  The mare put a hoof over her mouth, clearly chuckling.  Her mane and tail were pale blue, like the ice of a glacier I'd seen pictures of in a book.  I looked into Whistlebutt's eyes, mine narrowing.  "I haven't a clue."

"Endurance and energy expenditure.  Their wings.  You run up a hill, what do you feel?"  

I noticed my exhaustion from trotting since dawn.  

"Right.  Most like to hover a lot, and the physically-inclined like to soar.  Hill climbing is a trifle compared to launching a pony weight 20-30 stories into the sky, and whether or not you soar on a thermal or just swoop and dive, as a pegasus you have to keep your wings out.  It exacts a toll.  Kinesiologists call it micro-injuries.  We try to control and cause them during training; it encourages muscle growth and ultimately builds endurance.  In pegasi, it's not training, it's a hazard and a daily occurrence.  Your body needs protein to make the repairs, more than your stomach can produce with typical equine foods.  Unlike cows or ruminants, ponies can digest protein-rich foods like milk at any age."

"That's a secretion—"  I wrinkled my nose.  Proper Step agreed I was picky, which was why there was the taste it once rule.  I'd kept him to his word, too.  And before you pin me on it, ice cream is entirely different.  It's a phase change, cooked, and mostly sugar.  And don't pin me on cream in my tea—every good establishment also offers oat creamer.

"Well, that's true.  There's archeological evidence from bone fragments that our cave pony ancestors actually ate meat, and even a True Horse will occasionally eat something that they inadvertently kill.  Pegasi—"

"—eat fish.  I guess I knew that."

"Are you squeamish?" he asked.

Truthfully, I thought about blood—I'd seen my own a few times now—not dead fish on a beach, when I said, "Nooo..."

"Or chicken?"

I stomped a hoof.  "I am not a foal!"

"Let's put it this way.  If you want to get stronger...  If you want to fight...  Diet is your key to success.  Menu matters.  Milk—"

"Ewww."

"—or fish.  Look.  It is a bit much to take in for a unicorn.  You see no unicorns here."

I looked around.  No horns in sight, nor though the kitchen serving window where ponies wore mushroom-shaped chef's hats and wielded spoons and pots with their mouths—that was another thing about non-unicorns: how was that conceivably sanitary?  I admitted, "You're right!"

"That's because we aren't as physical as the other tribes.  Not really athletic, but that doesn't mean we can't make ourselves strong, or learn to fight."  He sighed.  "Too much for one day.  I get it.  How about we try again tomorrow—"

I put a hoof on his chest as he started to herd me back to the door.  I was a strong mare.  I'd done the tough things.  I knew myself, perhaps too well.  "We do this today or I won't do it tomorrow," I confessed.

He gave a curt nod and smiled.  "Stick with me and I'll make you—"

"Right.  A champion."