I had a goal of saving enough to enroll in Prancetown University, even if that meant at the affiliated high school level. Getting paid in gold bits twice in one week assisted that goal. Getting free lodging, more the better.
I arrived in the suburbs at a squat three-story mansion in Orchard Hills just before 6 PM. It would have been a hour earlier if there was a bus line closer, or a taxi at the end of the bus line. It looked like it might have been an old boarding home at one time, but despite it being infected by the distressed-brick construction endemic of the Baltimare area, someone had painted the trim nicely white and well manicured ivy grew along the walls. A black iron gate lacking rust implied some wealth. A brass-appointed regency brougham and a newish landau Towne-coupe wagon parked along a circular drive, and the surrounding lawn looked recently tended by a goat herd, if not totally green.
I compared the address in polished brass to the scrawled card. I nodded and pulled Trigger's overnighter behind me as the small suitcase jumped and twisted on the blue and ruddy cobblestones. Motivate would have been a less exhausting spell, since it reciprocated even on uneven ground. I growled, wondering yet again why I couldn't master it.
The doorbell chimed an impressive tune, almost like the mansion in Sire's Hollow. I expected a butler, but a gum-chewing twig of an earth pony opened the door. She wore just a brief frilly white blouse with a torn shoulder and a single hoop gold earring, and nothing else. Her blue eyes matched her blue mane and her fur had the faintest pink tint.
She nodded at the card when I showed it to her.
"Just in time for dinner," she said. As she lead inside, I realized three things.
The torn sleeve was intentional style—I noted the superior knotting in the hem.
Her rear end was large, eye grabbing, and not entirely in proportion to the rest of her. No stallion would bother with me in her presence.
Her cutie mark was a yellow rubber ducky, different than Dr. Feel's. That had to have an interesting story associated with it.
Glory introduced me to five other earth pony mares gathered around a mahogany table. I introduced myself as Grimoire. I wore a goth black one-piece miniskirt dress that exposed my special eponymous cutie mark, had anypony cared to look.
Judging by the various styles worn by the mares, all were aged between 20 and 25. I decided that dressing up had been the right decision. Each one had packaged herself to show off her best assets; even Glory, whose best asset followed her without a stitch on. I noted red silk on one. Another wore pearls on a smart tailored one-piece tan work suit that ended in slit bell-bottom pantaloons. Though I spotted ripped denim on another that descended to her fetlocks, the fraying was too regular to be accidental.
Nopony wore a gang tee-shirt or a plaid skirt.
Nopony lacked for some discretionary bits to spend now and again.
It appeared I had graduated from grade school after all. It worried me that the new school didn't look co-educational.
Female unicorn staff brought out platters of vegetables, buttered new potatoes, cross-seared and grilled white aubergine steaks, and egg bread rolls with butter pressed into flowers. Everypony filled their plate and dug in. Everypony looked tired at some deep level. It embarrassed me that I felt like a perky pony. I really wanted to ask questions. Did anypony work guard duty like I did? Were they accountants? Did they manage other levels of syndicate business? I resisted and fidgeted in my chair.
I was the only filly in the room.
Glory sat next to me. She chewed each bite thoroughly and ate from a half-filled plate without taking seconds. It explained her figure and mine, since I was gobbling my second plate. My round curves barely hid muscle, however; I'd hit the heavy bag and the speed bag for over two hours in gym this afternoon. Glory put down her fork with two distinct clicks, but spoke as if musing out loud.
"Steeple Chase sleeps at least once with every mare that moves in here."
Even though I magicked my fork around, I juggled it and it landed behind my chair with a clatter on the hardwood floor. I coughed out a potato, and kept coughing. Glory hit me on the back, hard enough to leave bruises. Earth pony, right?
I stopped coughing—out of self-preservation.
A staff pony in a pastry chef uniform expeditiously turned around and returned to the kitchen with her platter of fruit tarts. All eyes focused on me as if I were the missing tarts. Rosebud, the big grey Clydesdale in the red silk dress, sniggered into her napkin. Her magenta eyes sparkled.
Real? A test? Hazing?
"Who's Steeple Chase?" I asked neutrally.
"He runs gaming on the west side and, as best I can tell, works with five other ponies in pony resources for the syndicate. This house is in his purview."
"He..." I coughed. "—sleeps here?"
Sugar Pine, the fine-boned tall green pony with a brown mane, emerald eyes, and frayed denim, said, "My dear, you do utter the euphemisms, do you not?" Her patrician accent out did mine, when I unleashed it.
Rosebud shouldered her and Sugar Pine glared back.
Unfortunately, I did understand. Despite being a business venture run by a "queenpin", one that seemed to span the big northeastern cities of Equestria, it seemed to have some of the bad aspects of what happened when you let stallions run things. I really did not care what this or that pony decided to do amongst themselves or with companions. I knew what the term herding meant. Ponies that hung out in gyms, lived in hostels, fought prize fights for a living, or guarded ponies transporting unnamed goods across town in the dead of the night were not well-bred by definition. I had learned things neither Proper Step nor Princess Celestia wanted me to learn. I only had a problem with ponies ordering me to do stuff I didn't agree to do.
Like transporting product, becoming a mule.
I'd cleared up that part. As far as what Glory had implied, I hadn't thought it bared mentioning.
Everypony clearly awaited a response.
Channeling my inner perky pony, I smiled widely and asked, "Is he any good?"
Sugar Pine banged her forehead on the table. The silver and tea cups rattled. She did it a second time for good measure. Fortunately she had pushed her empty plate away.
Nopony volunteered how C.A. employed them, but the evolving banter did devolve to sports and we talked about that and the fall fashion styles that were beginning to be released since spring was nearly over. Eventually, I found I'd been assigned a room. Some staff pony trained in stealth had spirited away my luggage and I found it unpacked, folded, and put away in a chest of drawers and a standalone wardrobe. My makeup had been arrayed on a mother-of-pearl inlaid vanity table with a unicorn mirror I could splash with a blip of magic to illuminate. Somepony had taken the liberty to fill in the missing gaps in my supplies with hoof polish, rouges, and mascaras. It missed my purpose for the supplies entirely. My eyebrow rose at the brand name.
"Steeple Chase better not charge me for this," I stated loudly.
Glory looked at the clothes in my open closet and said, "Like the food and the service staff, it doesn't come out of your salary. Steeple Chase does expect you to show your gratitude, however."
"You didn't answer my question."
"He doesn't charge—"
"My euphemism question."
"Not really into judging. I like my colts like I like my meals. Anything can be tasty if I am well prepared."
That rubber ducky cutie mark became even more intriguing. "Do you like him, I mean as a pony?"
"Sugar Pine calls him 'vainglorious.' Rolls off the tongue. Vainglorious. Vain-glorious. I haven't bothered to look up the word." She shrugged. "I like what I get from him."
The bedclothes were satin and the sheets had been turned down. The furniture looked plain, but was clearly made of expensive rosewood. A chocolate square lay on my pillow. That said, I saw no lock on the door.
It intrigued me that the syndicate vigorish earned by the book for each of my fights helped pay for "services" such as this. It must have cost a pretty gold bit or two.
Nevertheless, I put a chair under the door knob. The sum total of Glory's nihilist patter and her semi-monotone made me think she would have as much qualms about sticking a dagger in my throat as greeting me. I didn't want to know what she did to earn her bits. I hoped that Steeple Chase didn't turn out to be like The Monster.
Vainglorious meant...
Boisterous.
Pompous.
Self-aggrandizing...
On my terms, I told myself. On my terms, then maybe. I was willing to learn. Better to be experienced when I met Sunburst again. I wasn't going to chance losing him for fear of being inquisitive on a subject every mare needed to learn, and as best I could tell, most liked participating in.
I checked again that the chair would make a loud clatter if the door were forced. Tomorrow, I planned to take the train to Prancetown to check out school admissions. Along the way, I resolved to look for apartment-for-rent signs.
I ate breakfast and returned in the afternoon for dinner. I quickly gathered that Prancetown school cost a lot of bits. Somehow, the town and university building with slightly purple-tinged red brick and white trim made brick look both good and stately. Maybe because everypony used the same materials. I saw a lot of upper crust wandering around, but heard many accents.
I'd eventually have enough for admissions. Maybe by spring semester. I wondered if Celestia's command card would work there, but worried the alicorn would somehow track me down because of it.
One good thing: I saw cork boards upon which graduate students and teacher assistants offered tutoring services I could afford. Some were magic students.
Steeple Chase wasn't there when I returned "home."
The next day was a repeat of the first. I sat by in the library while an older student tutored a younger one in magical equations, but I couldn't hear them talk. I figured out how to leave responses to tutoring adverts.
Glory was missing at dinner. So was Steeple Chase.
I asked Sugar Pine. She informed me they were downtown together.
"Is he ever here?"
"Now and then."
"I need to know how I'll get my assignments."
"Don't worry your pretty head. While you live in the house, it costs you nothing."
"I'm in this for the bits. The gold ones. Not the luxury, nor the relaxation." And to learn something, but I didn't think she would understand or worse, misunderstand.
Sugar Pine smiled mutely and shrugged before she trotted away.
Tutoring happened mostly in the library or at the outdoor cafe tables outside the Cocoa Bean kiosk. Armed with tutor pictures posted with their adverts, I first sought Sparkling. His name seemed promising. Watching him work with other students quickly disabused me that he was more than helping explain homework.
Meadowbrook had the name of a famous mage still revered after many centuries for constructing five separate biological arcana. She seemed to understand analytic geometry and violation physics from what I could overhear. I began to prepare to approach her during her open hour. Then she pulled a "slide rule" from her saddlebags. Granted, it looked like a complicated contraption with a dozen circular sliding scales. Celestia's ancestors blessed her with a horn. Using an earth pony computer killed it for me.
A total bust, that day.
And I missed my train and took the later one.
When I arrived home, I found everypony had finished dinner already, desert included.
"Any leftovers?" I asked the mares sitting in the salon.
Rosebud laughed out loud, shaking her head. Turns out that the staff ponies went home right after cleaning the kitchen. Worse, they locked the service areas.
What was I, a foal? I wasn't going hungry—I'd grazed all day at the Cocoa Bean on fruit and pastries, and worked it off at the campus gym when I sneaked in. I shrugged it off until morning, when I overslept. I woke to find breakfast served and gone, as in not available. Nopony served lunch, not on week days.
I left in a huff. I took time to check out apartment rentals. It worried me that not only had I not gotten an assignment since the mule incident, but I didn't have a contact. Steeple Chase might not even be the pony I needed. Or worse, he might be. What if my supply of bits dried up?
I sat in a park, worrying. It showed me how far I'd sunk. I really didn't want to start over again, and that realization felt really bad. Growing exasperated, I returned to Baltimare, attended the gym I'd paid up my dues at least until fall, and murdered the speed ball. When I got an offer to spar, I was exhausted enough that I didn't draw the earth pony's blood, though I did draw a crowd and some cheers when I sat on a pretty pink pony's rump.
Well, there was always Mobtown Mattresses.
Steeple Chase returned on the weekend. Both days he sequestered himself in the south wing of the building, beyond hallways paneled with dark wood and lit with brass lanterns. In meetings. Through my window, I saw ponies in suits come and go. All the mares except the purple pony whose name I did not remember were missing. Not with Steeple Chase, I learned, relieved.
The next day, the mares returned. Steeple Chase entertained the purple pony that night as it turned out. I wrote a note and asked a guard, a mare in a black suit, to give it to him.
I didn't get a response by breakfast the next day when I headed out to Prancetown by train. I'd gotten my head screwed on again by that time. Studying Marlin's always helped in that way, and I'd had my nose in the book all weekend, and on the train ride.
Broomhill Dare, the third and last of the magic tutors advertising on the bulletin board. She had openings today. I ripped the orange paper free and folded it to take with me to my table to use as a bookmark as I studied. It had only one time slot not crossed out. No reason to let some other pony think they could beat me to it.