//------------------------------// // Chapter 45 — Witchy // Story: The Runaway Bodyguard // by scifipony //------------------------------// Broomhill Dare held court in the far reaches of the table area surrounding the Cocoa Bean. Notably, it was away from overhanging trees and shielded from the sun by a tall building that had no windows on that side. Peaceful. Quiet. Cool shade. Good for concentration beginning from noon onward. The orange-coated unicorn couldn't miss me listening in, though each time I grew aware that she glanced my direction, I was deep in my book. She wore a dowdy brown maxi dress and a brown v-neck sweatshirt that left her legs and neck bare down to the curly orange thatch between her shoulders. I did not miss that shade of her clothes went very nicely the color of her curly brunette mane. The mare had a practical streak. She worked on getting one young stallion to learn to tune his Illuminate spell away from his magic color. She didn't demonstrate though. She helped another mare work on levitating multiple objects using mathematical functions I knew helped because you could change the numbers and increase the period frequency of the results. Marlin's had a page devoted to that: a spacial geometry section near the beginning of the book. She did not use a slide rule. Neither did she demonstrate any magic. I didn't even know what color her aura presented, let alone maybe find my chance to taste a side wave function of a violation crest-fall in said missing magical aura. I began to believe Broomhill Dare might prove to be a bust, even as she tutored two additional students after the two I saw. She was popular, which meant a good rep, but that meant she didn't have much open time according to her schedule on the advertisement. This had the hallmarks of another bust. Her cocoa mug exploded. I flinched and looked so quickly that I saw her reaction. She'd thrown a Push spell just in time, and shaped it in a quarter arc a pony length in radius. Shield. To JIT a spell like that, she either knew how to queue or had lightning quick reflexes. Pale pink nebulosity guttered around her horn, like still-ignited-gas in a gas lamp with the supply just switched off. I'd never seen that color, but I sensed numbers sputtering of like random sparks from a burning log. Each was as strongly defined as the last until her aura vanished in a spray of sparkles. I closed Marlin's and my notebook, hoof on the Teleport spell I'd been researching. I really needed that one to stop wringing me out like a wet rag. I watched unabashedly the rest of her lesson. She sent the white unicorn stallion off, sighing when he went out of earshot. He could manifest fire, but couldn't moderate the intensity. It frightened him and he tended to flinch. Bad move. That tended to throw little flames randomly about. I'd be scared, too, if I were him. Broomhill Dare turned to face me long enough that I could see she wore wire frame glasses and had magenta eyes. Pale magenta eyes. I'd read of the scholarly debate on whether eye color usually determined aura color or vice versa. She gathered her half-dozen books and a stack of papers into her saddle bags, also brown, and put them on. I stood. I'd thought she had an open time slot I might take. She was leaving, anyway? She slowly walked around the two tables between us until she stood across from me. Her eyes went from my average short horn, to my mane piled up in a spike atop my head in a colt bun, to the pulled back hood of my Grimoire cape, to the book covered by my one hoof, to my worn daisy-sparkle little-filly notebook. Grimoire's cloak looked a bit cartoonish in the context of the university campus, like I was trying to pretend to be a mage. I empathized with her when she sighed deeply, then shook her head before continuing by. "No, please," I said stepping to block her. She looked down at me. She was one of the tall ones with a pointy horn of six spirals. She said, "You're what, 12—?" "A lot older than that," I insisted. I had intended to lie by saying eighteen and felt suddenly like a foal as I had not since Waddles Worth had figured out my bluff and dared me to relieve myself in the woods. My voice cracked as I added, "I can pay. Twice your advertised rate. Three times." "You're too young. I don't teach foals." "Please." "No." I stepped in front of her, again. Short of teleporting around me, she could only evade me with her words. If I could only find the words stop her from evading me! When she persisted in going around yet another table, my eyes alighted on her sweat shirt. I'd seen a letter or two in the folds of the fabric as she sat. I had thought I'd seen a P, an N, and T. I'd assumed it read Prancetown U. I read it all now. Fight Night! It was the event name used to advertise the prize fight and tag team events. "I'm Princess Grim." She coughed, bringing up a hoof to her mouth before she started laughing. "You?" She sobered. "I refuse to teach liars, especially." That froze me solid, my heart thumping so hard in my ears that my head shook with each beat. If she said more, I missed it. A liar. Was I liar? Of course I was a liar. I ought to have a cutie mark in it! I lied all the time. About who I was. About what I was. About my age. I'd even implied that Trigger had had sex with me. Sweet Celestia! Did this tutor have a telepathy spell? Maybe not. Of all the lies I'd told, being called out for the one truth wasn't fair. It percolated down into my brain that I'd started acting bratty. Like a whiny foal in a grocery causing all the other mares to glare at my mother. Fixated. To the point of crying and screaming. Fixated. On candy. I really liked my candy. And I wasn't lying, either! My attention escaped its prison to let me view the world again. Broomhill Dare had gone. The muscles in my neck nearly got sprained as I jerked right. The brown-dressed orange mare still shook her head as she navigated the labyrinth of steel chairs and reddish stone-topped tables. True to Tartarus, I was fixated. I launched myself, regardless of the heavy chairs I struck along the way. I got Push spinning, and I shoved the rest aside when I could. The cacophony got the mare to look back, and she got to see me leap a pile-up of tumbled-over chairs I failed to shove out of my way. My right rear horseshoe clattered as it struck a table on my descent, which meant I landed wrong with a counter-clockwise rotation. Fight instincts honed over the most of last year kicked in, protecting my knees and hooves. I rolled. I ended up going under a table and a chair on my side, the latter which I flipped over as my wider hips connected with the heavy legs. My cloak ripped, saving me from scrapes in addition to bruises. I pushed more of the chairs aside in a more measured move as I stood. Broomhill Dare stood with an I-don't-believe-I-witnessed-that-comedy-act smirk, even as she endeavored to hide low giggling behind a brown-polished hoof. She stood on the sidewalk perimeter of the outdoor eating quadrangle, amused. I righted the chairs immediately beside me, sliding them under the tables, before stepping into the middle of the sidewalk. Rrrriiip! I'd stepped on the edge of the cloak. The outside fabric gave way where it had pulled apart during my five-pony-length slide. The inner silk lining ripped from the stretched hem, then shredded, effectively cutting in half the cloak from my left side to my spine. The portion covering my tail and cutie mark, no longer weighted, slid off to the right. She, and about five passing students, now watched my act. Two earth ponies clasped tall cups of cocoa between their hooves as they sat to watch the shenanigans. How only "Phooey," escaped my lips and not one of the paint-blistering epitaphs I learned, I'll never know. Perhaps a hidden discipline? Nothing here to convince her I wasn't a foal in the literal and in the figurative sense. I pulled the whole cloak off over my head, glancing at the tutor as I did. She kept watching. To compound or emphasize the perversity of the moment, I warped my Push into handling vectors, then proceeded to fold my ruined cloak as I would a comforter with my magic supporting the torn part making a neat square. I was as naked as a pony got. I'd left my saddlebags on the table. At least I hadn't smudged my Grimoire cutie mark. I'd stopped her. Now what? I was too Princess Grim. I reared and began shadow boxing. Beyond a good morning gallop and throwing dumbbells (the metal, not the pony kind) around the gym, I loved hitting the heavy bag and getting the perfect rhythm on the speed bag. Shadow boxing isn't the same thing, of course. You were boxing an imaginary opponent, dodging imaginary strikes, working to acknowledge your weaknesses and preventing your persistent imaginary opponent from taking advantage of the openings found. It was also about keeping on the edge of your hooves, dancing around, never remaining static. And, of course, looking really cool. I got into it fast, hopping about, then going down on threes to execute an upper cut and preserving my back. Rearing and fighting looks fun, but a pony hip and spine isn't designed for standing forever. Managing your energy, preventing injury... that was also what it was about. A triple pummeling to the barrel, rearing to execute a one-two to the jaw, and one-two to the nose, with a finish to the temple. Dodge, dodge, jump back, and mix it up by dashing on all fours behind and then to try a flank kick or a full buck. The rearing and block, block, block, punch. Scratching my nose, then rapid one-twos while dancing about. Repeat, repeat. I exited the zone long enough to see if I still had an audience. More students had stopped to watch, including a few in the windows of adjacent buildings. The barista at the Cocoa Bean called "Woot! Woot!" when I rotated so I saw the cherry red stallion. Most importantly, when I danced about to see Broomhill Dare, she had a beatific smile on her face, and she mirrored my bobbing and weaving, on all fours, of course. Definitely a fight fan. Definitely. I advanced slightly, working my routine, and feeling my sweat begin to bead on my forehead and in the pits of my legs. Shadow boxing naked, with a slight breeze, actually felt really good. Not at all like working out in tights in a gym with limited circulation, enduring gym-clothes smells, and the heat of over-exerted hard-body ponies. I wiped my brow and flicked away dew. And advanced on her. Subconsciously, the bobbing mare stepped back to maintain her personal distance. Her dress pushed into some chairs I'd tipped over. Rather than stop the show, I cast Levitate and tuned it into an upward Push. As my vectors firmed, I very slowly lifted her four hooves while limiting it so I didn't push up her dress or press on her barrel, or muss her curly hair. She didn't immediately notice. If I did this to a fighter, it didn't matter what tribe, the response would have been instantaneous. A twist to a random direction. A flutter away. I levitated her a couple of hoof-lengths before her eyes widened. She didn't freak, however. I lifted her just above table height, then proceeded to maintain our distance as I shadow boxed us back through the labyrinth. I did have to kick some chairs and skid a few aside with a hoof. I didn't want her to experience anything short of the smoothest ride, but when I got back to my table, the strain hit me. I set her down on the opposite side of the table, pulled a chair up behind me, and sat down with a sigh. Sweat dripped into my eye, causing me to blink and rub it. So much for looking cool. She clapped her hooves together. A heard a dozen others stomping. I waved my legs at the other ponies, trying to act modest, to get them to stop, and the other thing... Show's over. Go home. The ponies took the hint and dispersed. The breeze had picked up and I felt suddenly cooled off. When I looked at the tutor, I saw her pink fluttering flame aura sparkling. Most unicorns would have magicked an actual hoof-fan or a flat sheet of cardboard and used that to fan somepony. She levitated the air directly. Moving air tussled my bangs so they flipped against my horn while blowing perpendicular to my body. Nice trick. Almost as hard as levitating water. She said, "You can box. You could be who you claim to be, with a dark blue dye job. I took you for a colt, but even so I thought Princess Grim was a much bigger mare. I've met a few fighters. Bad colt Cyclone and, of course, Punch Drunk. I can't see how they wouldn't cream you." "There's a theater aspect to the costumes. You want to look imposing." "I guess." I added in a lower voice. Was I feeling embarrassed? "I didn't want ponies to recognize who I really was." "You played Princess Grim?" My fur crinkled as it dried in locks. I sat up straight. "Well, the fighting was real, but yeah." "I see. Sorry I called you a liar." I shrugged, trying to act cool about it. She looked down, momentarily contrite, which let me examine her magic down the length of her pointy horn. It spiraled up the grooves in her horn. The effervescence and excessive sparkles had thrown me, causing me to look for traces of a mathematics that weren't what I expected. I said, "I've read about Breeze. This is not that weather spell, though. Are you repeatedly casting Push?" Her magic guttered out and she looked at me. "Levitate is my only really good spell. It's a periodic sinusoidal reality wave, so I cast Levitate and modulate it thinking of contra-octave C. The tone of the lowest octave of the piano which pulses 32.703 times a second. As long as I hear the tone, the spell persists." She pushed up her glasses, her magnified eyes blinking. "You understood that?" "Levitate Push, Pull, Fold... Force all require transforms. I carried you from the sidewalk using a matrix vector transform that applies Push at a point duplicated on a time axis over a field defined by an oscillating function. I can play the piano well enough to pass as well-mannered in some circles, so, yes." "I see." Her eyes moved four times, and then again, which made me think she had noticed my enumeration of Levitate transforms. I continued, "I really need—" "And I am going to be late." She stood precipitously. "To what?" I demanded, caught my tone, and softened it with, "If I may ask." "You may," she said, taking a route out of the quadrangle, avoiding the mess of chairs I'd made. "Where?" "Midterms. I'm a graduate student and a teaching assistant. It would not do if the pony proctoring the test wasn't there to distribute them on time." "Ah," I said, as she turned left and broke into a fast canter forcing me to race to catch up. Longer legs. "Would you tutor me?" "How old are you?" she asked, again. "Please don't ask me questions you know I won't answer." "I see," she said, glancing back at me over her shoulder. "A big filly wouldn't ask questions she knew the answer to." My horseshoes made a grinding sound as I came to an abrupt halt. Broomhill Dare continued, then turned the corner going left. She was gone. "That's not fair," I said in a low voice. "You're not my Mom. She's dead."