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// Chapter 54 — On the Run, but From Whom? 
// Story: The Runaway Bodyguard 
// by scifipony 
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Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear proved tiring. I snagged a long blue sweater and a knit cap off another clothesline along the way, and a pink sweater blouse for me, so when I had to give up casting I was disguised. I fluffed his longer than typical tail. The blue-dye and clothes, combined with his fine bone structure, made him believably mare-like. The fall of the sweater hid his wound and the makeshift bandage contained the bleeding. I tied my mane in pigtails. Moving slowly, I imagined we looked like we were casually, not out of necessity slowly, strolling.

His pale complexion and pained expression would have said otherwise to anypony looking closer.

None of the team showed up.

Neither did our assailants. I chalked that up as a win for our disguises and luck, but I kept wary. While we sat under umbrellas outside a tea shop, where I got much needed water into my erstwhile instructor, I did spot a pegasus flying overhead.

Nothing particularly strange about that, except for a singed tail.

Did they know I was headed to Cranberry Junction? I knew none of the syndicate "affiliates" in the area. I did know that we would meet another escort at the depot, so I did want to get there. I just couldn't do that directly, now.

A hole shot through one's leg would look suspicious to any physician. I couldn't just trot him into any old hospital, though I would if it got bad enough.

I did know Prancetown pretty well, though. It was half a league north of where I wanted to be, but worse come to worse, I could just take any train into Baltimare and let Steeple Chase sort it out for me.

Maybe Broomhill Dare would help? I'd think of something if I had to cross that bridge.

A long bus ride, a takeaway hay burger for lunch, and some further strolling got us further and further away from Cranberry junction. Then I saw two unicorns, both with a bit of fur scorched off their flanks. Evidently, somepony had matched me up against top level professionals. They walked near the bus terminal I'd just entered. I'd cast my Don't Look, Don't See, Don't Hear spell too late and knew it, but other ponies hadn't been looking for us and didn't notice us fade into the background. I got behind a chatty group of mares in red business pants suits and a stack of luggage.

Citron's "horns" trotted on by.

Maybe we were lucky. Maybe we were being herded.

Five blocks further on, Safe sat on a bench and shook his head. "I'm spent."

I found a newspaper on the curb. I tri-folded it like he was a business commuter and hoofed it over. "Try not to pass out."

When he just nodded, ears too limp to flick, I began to worry. 

"I'll be right back."

We had passed a used wagon dealer a block back. Ten minutes later and five gold bits lighter, I returned hitched up. He let the paper slump and looked at me glassy-eyed. Fever was setting in.

I floated him into the pony cart, sat him up, and trotted into Prancetown. I made him drink the bottle of sugary lemon soda I bought at a kiosk along the way and he belched. I headed toward the university campus. It was the shortest path to my flat or the train station also in town. I really needed help, even if picking out the most discreet hospital was all I could ask. There had to be an infirmary amongst the colleges, right? Track stars and hoof-ball players broke legs. Some ponies, probably pegasi, even threw javelins for sport. Right? 

My charge might have looked wiped-out, but I judged we could just look like two pony college friends returned from an outing headed toward the dorms. We drove past crowds of students, and while we were noticed, we might as well have been invisible.

I hoped other ill-intentioned ponies weren't likewise camouflaged.

I'd come in from in from the north, an unfamiliar direction, but I spotted the brown roof of the Cocoa Bean and the tall college buildings that surrounded it amongst century old trees. I turned that direction.

Early afternoon classes had let out. Prime time tutoring was about to start. I was wondering if today was one of her days when I spotted a brown-maned orange pony ordering at the outdoor restaurant.

She spotted me as she accepted her drink in a paper cup in her aura. Frowning, she passed over a coin and trotted over to meet me.

"Pulling, huh?" she asked as we approached. "Didn't think you were the type."

I smiled, tentatively. "I need a little bit of help."

"Huh?" Broomhill Dare said, looking beyond me. Her cup jerked, almost falling, but she caught it with just a little spill that splat surprisingly loudly on the red and grey bowtie pavers of the walk we stood on.

From behind me, I heard an echoed, "Huh?"

I glanced at the sweater-clad stallion with a barely passable blue dye job trying to look like a mare. His ear flicked. He'd drunk the entire big bottle of soda and had gone from ashen to merely pale, even if you could only see that in his nose and the thick hair around his cheeks. He looked beyond me.

Broomhill Dare blinked. She swallowed.

I looked from one to the other and back.

"Do you know him?"

"He doesn't know me," she stated flatly, turning away.

Safe muttered, "Tartarus, she certainly does not!"

I felt my skin grow cold and my eyes widen. As quickly as I could say it, I said, "He's hurt. I need help."

"Hurt?" she said, not looking back.

"A javelin."

She growled, closely imitating an angry dog. Her magic, Levitate, grabbed one of my traces and she tugged me around forcefully. I had to follow or be unhitched.

We headed toward the athletic fields and stadia buildings. Prancetown was an "Ivy League" school. Unlike other universities, athletes didn't get scholarships. I saw fewer ponies, and those dressed up in orange and black uniforms on the track had better things to do than notice us, like study between sets. The grounds between some buildings were actually devoid of students.

In a deadly serious tone, she asked, "How do you know him?"

She jerked the trace hard. A rope snapped and my hitch unbuckled. The rope slapped my rump, likely on purpose. I whinnied and jumped aside as the two-wheeled cart tilted forward. 

"Hey! Ouch!" cried the stallion just before Broomhill Dare caught the cart and lowered it so the fellow didn't tumble out.

"Prancetown is expensive," she stated, not answering me nor even looking at me. Instead she glared into my charge's eyes. She gestured with a hoof, as if making a tally. "I know that well. Been working hard and saving to pay that tuition."

In barely more than a whisper—it was all he was capable of—he said, "The syndicate hired me as her instructor. Like you."

Her voice became mousy. She blinked at me, then looked away, clearly embarrassed. "I— I do odd jobs." Louder, to Safe, she almost shouted, "And you, you keep your mouth shut!"

Secrets. Of course, I lived in a glass house, too. I shrugged and said, "Don't care if you're divorced, evil step-siblings, or former sheep rustlers. He's hurt. Somepony is after us, and I need to get somewhere safe before they kill us."

"And to a doctor," Safe added, shivering. I touched a frog to his forehead. Hot. Fever was starting to set in.

"Not going to help if our tails find us first," I pointed out.

"You may be right," he conceded.

"You're being followed?" Broomhill Dare asked, clearly having been listening to what was in her head more than what was outside it.

"Not directly, but they're persistent and a tad prescient."

"What was your plan?" she asked.

"Cranberry Junction was the plan, but the passenger depot in town would serve as well." I explained where I'd come from and vague details.

"You thought hiding in your flat might work?" she mused.

"We're we there, you could call in a doctor."

She blew angry air though her nostrils. "I suspect none of your ideas are good. You covered a lot of ground, yet they followed you. Are they after him—or after you?"

That thought made me look around, but I spotted no prying eyes. Nopony on roof tops, either. I shrugged and quickly buckled together the trace and hitched up.

Meanwhile, Broomhill Dare had found a broom. I'd seen her use whisk brooms she kept in her saddlebags to deliver messages and do odd tasks. A heavy duty push broom came zooming up from where a janitor had laid it beside a metal rubbish can. She laid it under her, then floated it up between her legs against her barrel and stomach.

She rose into the air.

My mouth dropped open.

"Don't try this when you get home. You'll kill yourself. Head south-campus and turn right on Faculty Road. If I don't meet you by the time you get to Elm, worry."

She rose like a machine rather than a pegasus, then banked smoothly up and over the closest building.

"She can fly."

"Newszzzzz to me," Safe said, sounding delirious. "Too many high level you-knee-corns, me thinks."

I quickly got up to a canter, the best I could manage. Not an earth pony. Speaking to myself, I said, "And now I understand her cutie mark and talent. Pushing more than dust and dirt, obviously. Why Broom for a name? Something she did as a foal? Did it make her obsess about brooms, making it inevitable?"

"You're a nerd, aren't you?"

Safe had his forelegs draped over the side of the cart. He swayed drunkenly, more so than my canter ought to have made him do. At least he didn't look like he was feeling any pain. Feverishness can work certain wonders.

I turned a minute later on Faculty Drive and, a few minutes after that, Broomhill Dare glided on over before I got to the turn circle at Elm. She threw the broom into the cart as we turned south toward the administration buildings and offices. Now and again, I saw ponies beyond windows, working.

"You're not being followed, best I could tell."

"Nice trick."

"You get as good as I am having only one spell by really working the variations and minutiae, and by studying your life away."

"I've always wondered why I couldn't lift myself with Levitate."

"Anchoring," she answered. "Magic source and target must be different is what I've read."

"But why?"

"Indeed. That's why I'm taking Quantum Theory."

We bumped and bounced over the railroad tracks. North Station was used for campus-bound freight and not passengers. We trotted toward the river. I now saw one of the few athletic endeavors the university was renowned for: Rowing. A couple of long boats with five earth pony stallions and mares in orange and black tank tops pulled at oars, while an instructor sat at the fore, crying rhythmically through a megaphone, "Pull! Pull!" 

The boats glided east on the river.

We crossed over a bridge that paralleled the train trestle and reached the residential streets in no time. Slender street followed the rails and would curve around and finally pass the passenger station.

I felt exposed, but plenty of trees and small buildings lined the road. So far I'd only seen just two ponies, one trimming bushes with clippers, the other on a porch swing, snoozing. Nevertheless, I asked, "Can you fight?"

"I throw things really well."

The peanut gallery chimed in. "Oh colts, she certainly does! Brooms, 'ssspecially."

I looked back and huffed at him. He acted more energetic than he really ought be. I worried more that he'd suddenly collapse and I'd kick myself for not finding a hospital.

Kick was a bad word to be thinking.

Some pony landed a hoof just behind my right ear. Half a hoof-length closer to my muzzle and the strike would have smashed in my temple and you'd never be reading this testament.

As it was, I didn't know when I hit the ground.