//------------------------------// // Chapter 59 — Profound Leadership Solutions // Story: The Runaway Bodyguard // by scifipony //------------------------------// For a while she alternated between calling me Glitter, Glimmer, and Sparkle seemingly to see which could get a bigger rise out of me. It only served to make me double down on controlling my emotions and acting more professional around her. I eventually realized that was at least partly her intent all along when she supplied me with work uniforms. The finely tailored black cloaks used purple silk inside and were built of technical fabric; they were accompanied by black saddlebags embossed with my grimoire cutie mark. The teeth on the grimoire tomes had glitter, of course, but had been manufactured of the grey flake pounded from steel removed red-hot from a forge. I'd studied a week of metallurgy from Sire's Hollow's blacksmith and farrier, and had even forged a horseshoe. The crinkled jagged surface lacked all luster. It made the evil magical books look all the more menacing. When we were with other ponies, she addressed me as "Hija," Daughter, or referred to me as "mi hijita." Her little foal. I had no idea where she was going with this. If anything, it made everypony on the B- and C-teams less happy to interact with me, more respectful, and more likely to follow my suggestions when I really wanted to be told I might be wrong. I just wanted to be a bodyguard. I suspected she wanted a weapon. I did take some time to skim books about Equidor. Which is how I learned another Equidorian word: Loca. Crazy or, in her case, Crazy Mare. Equestria had only recently signed peace treaties with the southeastern mountainous land. It had been settled and colonized at various times by pegasi, griffons, and hippogriffs. The histories seemed to indicate the aboriginal pegasi called night wings might also have colonized and displaced earlier populations about the time of the Lunar Rebellion, but Equestrian archaeologists were making little headway in the more conservative Crystal Mountains where the aborigines congregated. Equidorian ponies had a cuisine heavy in root starches, made into noodles and fried, and melons spiced with cumin and saffron. I learned that Equestria had accepted many immigrants that had settled in Vanhoover and some in Canterlot. Apparently at least one Equidorian pegasus had settled in Mobtown. Carne Asada had tasked me with improving my hit to miss ratio with Force. I didn't think I had the stomach to actually hurt somepony with it unless I had no choice but to protect myself or somepony else, but I certainly needed to be able to demonstrate I could use force at will as a deterrent shot. Better to break some thing than somepony, right? Broomhill Dare could help us both, which is what I told Citron. The yellow-furred white-maned lemon-meringue young stallion had accompanied me to the Prancetown campus under protest. He sat in Broomhill Dare's favorite spot, his mouth around a straw, sipping his chocolate milk and looking at the scenery. He crossed his front legs. A nice looking coed trotted on by with text books in her saddlebags and her blonde mane waving in the breeze, her tail wagging with a pink bow. His amber eyes followed her. His expression eased. He liked that much of the trip. His eyes didn't miss mine on his. He huffed. "Your teacher ain't here, Grimoire, and that don't change that I'm not really a teach, neither. Gotta flame cutie mark for a reason—" "You're a pyromaniac?" He pointed his right hoof at me and supported it with his left, making an arrow release motion. "An arsonist who don't like hurting ponies." "The purest example of an oxymoron if I've ever heard one." "Who you callin' a moron!" he said, his Hooflyn accent thickening. I reflexively prepped Shield, though it was good only for solid objects, saying, "I-It's a word that says I agreed with what you said. Paradoxically, by casting Force you de facto hurt ponies." He picked up his milk and narrowed his eyes as he sipped until he emptied it and it made a slurping sound. He said, "That's where the 'princess' part of your 'Princess Grim' fight name comes from, ain't it? Big words. S'ok with me because I know you stand behind what ya say. Snooty words might tick other ponies off, know what I mean?" "Yeah. But if it did, I might learn something." He grinned because he had been around me long enough to understand me a little bit. "Something like that." He shook the carton, eyeing it to find the last little bit and poked the straw with his magic as he answered my question. "I don't try to hurt ponies, Grimoire. I never do. I just like pyrotechnics. And the excitement." I looked around. I examined the purple sheet with her hours listed for the twentieth time. This was where she was supposed to be tutoring right now. What he had said about what he thought when casting just didn't make sense—but her missing her next class made even less sense. I motioned for him to follow. It might take me awhile to figure out which building of the remarkably similar looking white-painted wood and ivy-covered red-brick buildings she and I had been in... After over an hour, I found the closet-sized classroom five minutes before the end-of-hour chimes. I'd gotten turned around having to take shelter playing dodge with intermittent rain showers. I certainly recognized the wraparound slate walls covered with equations that made my heart swell with a sense of a home not yet found. The mousy pegasus quantum mechanics professor recognized me in the doorway and motioned with a wing from the lectern to wait. I deflated. Broomhill Dare was MIA. Citron muttered in the hallway, looking out of place in his grey tee-shirt. "Power Ponies 15 is out... today." Statistics, probability, violation physics, and thaumaturgy rolled up together in one subject—what could be more fascinating? I ignored the grousing kid and puzzled out the numbers. After the chimes, the university students took one look at me and my protégé and exited the opposite door. I saw the blue pegasus approach in my peripheral vision and said, "Professor Post Dock, I was looking for Broomhill Dare." I found it hard to tear my eyes away from the chalked equations, but when I did, he pushed up his wireframe glasses with a wing and blinked. His ears drooped. "I was hoping you might tell me what happened." I sighed. "She got a job." Citron piped up. "Got promoted, actually. Was less happy about it than me." I growled, glaring back momentarily, then smiling forward. "My kid brother. His comic book arrived today, but I took him with me." The professor chuckled. "My niece is like that." I chuckled in calculated understanding. "Say. Do you know where she or her husband lives?" "She's married!?" His eyes grew wide. Surprise, not disappointment like Bite of Kale. I shook my head. "Barely. Nopony seems to understand it. I'll make sure to send her back to class when I find her." "Good, good! Tell her she got a 100 on her last paper and I got a sub for Tidy Bytes, but she needs to come back soon or I might have to drop her from the class." "I'll pass that on. Um." Pegasus. Teaching magic. I angled my head to see his cutie mark. An integral sign. Interesting. "Can you recommend a beginner book for this?" I waved at the slate walls. "I'm expecting some boring days ahead and I'd like something interesting to puzzle out..." # Trotting down the hall, Citron said, "Last lead dry up? Can we go home, now?" "The mare is obviously not me. Were I paying for a school like this, I'd be living in the library stacks, attending my every class, and treating my professors to dinner. She's nowhere that makes sense." "Every mare I know, including my Mom, eats ice cream when she's upset. Does she have a favorite ice cream parlor?" I gave the kid a well-deserved you-sexist-colt! glare. Then I thought, Maybe... not so dumb! I put a foreleg over his withers and fast-walked him off the campus, thoroughly confusing him. We walked into The Red Noodle and walked up to the bar. The bartender also handled the take-away orders. I walked out with an address. I gave the pony in the silk vest an exorbitant gold-bit tip, not because he earned it but because he didn't know who his college-coed patron who liked sherried ciders and limoncello was—and might need it for hospital bills later. On the way out, I took a moment to look at the defaced sidewalk. Nopony had taken the expense to fix the cement. The damning broomstick and hoof print impressions remained. I glanced at the building across the street. It had four stories and a dark-shingled peaked roof like most at this winter-snow latitude, but also an itty-bitty fifth-floor platform for maintaining the chimneys. Probably had a hallway or attic access. When I'd learned that Broomhill Dare had a hoof in the death of the former occupant of my flat, I'd dismissed her original quip that she'd seen the for-rent sign on her way home, but she hadn't been lying. Three long blocks further from the campus and a dogleg at 131 Mountain Ave was a house set far back on a densely wooded lot. Hers was a room in the converted barn aka "carriage house" further back and lost behind overgrown brambles that might have looked tasty if you were a goat. Considering it needed paint last year, her digs were probably cheap. She ought to be thrilled she could afford upgrading her lifestyle soon. I stared at the weedy brick carriage path and wondered if I earned more than the other ponies on my team did. I'd seen ponies walking on Mountain Ave, any of whom might notice a commotion. Too much glare in the windows of the main house to see if we might be watched. "Citron." He caught my business tone and his ears swiveled forward. His "business" façade enveloped him. "Dissuade anypony from bothering us. If C.A. show up, feel free to demonstrate your special talent to keep them entertained." "Yes, Sir." He followed me to the door of the groom's quarters and stationed himself. It was late enough in the afternoon that Celestia's orange-tinged sun crept under the dissipating storm clouds. My shadow would be seen through the sheer lace drapery covering the windows, including the four glass panes in the door. My hooves made squelching noises on the leaves. Stealth wouldn't work here, so I trotted up, ears forward, listening for anypony scrambling further into what on the Grin Having estate had been single room with a pot-belly stove for cooking and heating, and a sink. I heard nothing, just dripping water in copper gutters half-clogged with smelly leaves. The drapery—a daisy pattern—obscured the dark interior with the help of the glare. Just in case a certain somepony might not like being bothered, I looked around for anything faintly broom-shaped. I saw fragrant wet laurel shrubs, an overturned rusty wheelbarrow, and a rotted log with fresh woodshed mushrooms just opening. I rapped on the glass pane so that it was jarring. "Broomhill Dare. I know you're in there." "Go away." I jerked back. She wasn't even trying to hide! I might have given up had I gotten no response. I said, "No." After a moment I heard, "No? What?" "No," I replied. "I am not going away." She said something so acidic I thought the drapes might begin to turn yellow and rot away. I hadn't thought her tongue was quite so poisonous. She was quite a bit older than I, though. Did such things come with maturity? I was a big filly; I could take it. I would write some things down in my dictionary of epitaphs, however. "Still not going away." She continued, less fiery, quieter, winding down. She said, "I know what's bugging you. I've kept your secret. Always will. Go away." My body turned to ice. Adults! Creatures that had more years than I did—who had experiential acquired-maturity rather than the constructed-maturity I presented the world—did have some advantages that foals like me really did lack. How could I have gotten to this moment in time and space and forgotten that I had confessed to Carne Asada's tool, Broomhill Dare, that I was the Countess Aurora Midnight? Because... I was still a foal. Foals lived in fantasy worlds; I'd read that in books. I'd woven a fantasy that could have ended with me running to my rabbit-hole in Grin Having to discover an unexpected pony waiting. For forgetting my confession, I might have found a syndicate enforcer holding Proper Step at knife- or Force spell-point! Well... That enforcer might find himself or herself broken in two, but still. Deadly mistakes here. My heart raced. Broomhill Dare had blurted hints about the keys to my kingdom.... Rage screamed for me to turn and buck the door to splinters. But she was also keeping the secret. I believed her too. I took a deep breath. Yes, the lemon meringue pie-colored colt behind me lived and breathed a world of comic book secret identities. Could he be expected to have missed what she said? No. I decided not to imprint her words in his mind. I placed a hoof to the door lever. I pushed it down. It unlatched and the door glided open to reveal an unlit room. "Thank you, Celestia," I said and took a step forward. When I heard my words, I stopped and frowned as my repressed rage discovered an outlet—I struck the side of my head twice against the casing. I really needed to be in my right mind. I did get the attention of my audience, however. I glanced and saw Citron's amber eyes look worriedly at me as I shut the door on him. I saw the orange pony sprawled on the floor blinking up quizzically at me. My self-inflicted injury shocked her. Well, good, I thought. Then thought further. I put a hoof to the side of my head. It came back red. Broomhill Dare said, "You really hate Princess Celestia." "Hate is a word that lacks sufficient nuance." Well, my tactics in the situation must have been correct because the disheveled pony moved. She flopped over once getting up, and she seemed stiff like she'd been sleeping for days on the floor instead of on the messy daybed with the light blue sweat-stained sheets. Her generally curly hair looked frizzed like she'd been struck by lightning, and she smelled intensely of unwashed horse. She had Shetland roots in her ancestry, which gave her long fur that matted and did its really very utmost best to tangle and make her look even more disheveled. Dark shadows made her pale magenta eyes glow, even though they looked very red at the edges. Snot dripped from her nose. Not pony pox; more like pity party. Her bed and body might look unkempt, but not her room. It was a groom's quarters, a one-room apartment, with mortared stone walls and the requisite potbelly stove next to a farm sink. A broom collection of museum quality lined the walls, and she obviously swept the floor and kept everything clean. The big mare hobbled to a cabinet and levitated out a first-aid kit. I let her dab stinging antiseptic and press until the little cut stopped bleeding as I thought it therapeutic for her. The bloody wad arced to the trash pail in her pale pink aura, just before she folded herself back onto the wood floor with a thump. I stepped back, not sure what to make of it. Not a drama queen move. There were no sighs or other attention-getting gestures or sounds. She hadn't fainted. It didn't look like exhaustion either. Or starvation. I'd noticed the cartons cohabiting the trash pail now with the bloody wad. There were days of discards from The Red Noodle. I settled on apathy. She said, "You can go, now." I asked, "Did you realize that I am not alone?" She sat bolt upright and stared at the door. Through the drapes, you could see the branches swaying in the breeze and shaking green leaves. There was also a sturdy, stationary coltish silhouette that looked faintly golden. I glanced where she stared, but looked at her, lit in profile by the windows on the one wall. She blinked for a long while as a realization of her having betrayed me sunk in. She snuffled before more mucus could drip. Her eyes glistened, then tears welled up and began to drip down her orange-furred cheek. She opened her mouth and said, "I don't deserve—" I tackled her around her neck, with my head over her withers in a tight hug, scooping her up as I slid down beside her. She was bigger than I, so it was a bit of a wrestling move that brought her down onto me, but I had her in a tight hug. She was incredibly warm, and somewhat heavy. "Don't, don't, don't," I said, toward her ear, trying to sound soothing, but I had no practice. I didn't know how to do such things, but on instinct said, "Don't add more guilt. Don't." "I don't deserve to live!" she moaned, saying it anyway, struggling with her elbows and neck, trying to squirm away. I held her tighter, ending up on top, pinning her in the hug as she really didn't have it in her to fight. She had the magic to fling me toward the wall or the ceiling, but didn't even try. My face pressed up against her jaw, my tears wetting her fur. My sobs were unmistakable, if she somehow didn't feel how wet her fur had become. She said, "I don't deserve this. Just, just stop." "I'm not doing this because you deserve this. I'm doing this because you need this." I didn't let go—even though she kept crying, even though I kept crying. When after minutes she relaxed a bit, I let us move such that I could cradle her to better hug and pat her. I realized I was reliving and recreating until-then forgotten physical memories of what my parents had done to comfort me more than a decade ago. I didn't understand any of it, and later would chalk it down to pony instinct, but there was... energy? Synergy. Maybe. I'd found none of that synergy in any of my sexual interactions to that point, and in that at least I found relief. It had an ameliorating effect, though. The intended one. Broomhill Dare asked, "Why? Why are you doing this for me?" I thought about that as I continued to hold her. I decided to continue until she didn't need it any longer. After awhile, a tea of answers seeped from my subconscious. I wasn't going to admit that I needed the hug. That would have been completely crass—self-serving and selfish, too—and only a half-truth that could have been completely misconstrued. Lots of good and bad memories swirled together at her prompting, together with something I'd answered to her question minutes ago. I decided an explanation by example would be best. I quoted myself from earlier. "'Nuance.'" I positioned my mouth near her ear and whispered, "I understand what you feel. Her Royal Highness Princess Celestia attended my parents' funeral when I was 4 years old. We had a modest house in Sire's Hollow. She called Midnight and Firefly Heroes of Equestria and gave me their medals. Afterwards, she dubbed me an Earl and made me the Countess Aurora Midnight, with all the rights becoming the title, granting me administration over all the lands within one day's gallop in any direction from town." I took a deep breath, but it came out in a tear-filled sob: "What I had really needed was for Celestia to hug me and tell me... "You will be okay." # Some hours later, we three stepped out of The Red Noodle. Citron belched loudly. Of course he did. He might be older than I, but he was definitely a colt. Broomhill Dare whacked him on the shoulder. "Were you brought up in a barn?" "No," he answered sheepishly. Hugs are good. I'm not going to minimize that I had needed one as much as she did, but it had been medicine like you use to stop the sniffles—it could not cure the germs causing the cold. I hadn't taken us to her favorite restaurant to comfort her, but to confront her. I looked down at the cement. Between Citron's antics and her response, she walked broadside into my barrel. She clip-clopped back. "G-Gelding?" In the gaslights, her pale eyes sparkled like rose quartz. I made a point of looking down and her gaze followed me. Citron chuckled. "Looks like somepony wrote in the cement. Four hooves and a broom. Is it a secret code?" Broomhill Dare started backing. A pinkish aura bloomed brightly around her horn with crackling sparkles and I wondered if she could really be thinking of destroying the evidence, drawing attention to something nopony had yet noticed. I flank butted her, distracting her from her spell enough that her horn went out. I put a leg over her withers and escorted her a few paces down the sidewalk, far enough that we weren't going to be overheard and so that we had a clear view of the tall building across the street. The mare was gulping. I could feel it. I hoped her dinner wouldn't decide to come up, too. The check had been expensive, thanks to the bottle of sherried white wine I'd made sure she drank with her water-chestnut scampi. I told Citron, "We need privacy." The colt's casualness evaporated into a firm stallion bearing. The act alone caused a couple that had been trotting up from the corner to detour onto the street before continuing to the restaurant. I nodded. "Broomhill Dare, tell me what happened. We are friends." Well, I was a filly and I did live in a fantasy so you read that right—I used the F-word. "I—" Her voice cracked. She gulped some more, before saying quietly, "I don't like it. I don't want to be an enforcer. But I'm poor, and I've got expensive tastes." "Like that Ivy League School you're playing hooky with—" She shoved me weakly. "I promised I'd go back, Gelding. You're right. I can't give it up." "Good!" I said, hugging her briefly. "I want to be on Professor Post Dock's good side when I take his class one day." She chuckled. "C.A.'s got the goods on me, so I should enjoy the fruits of my crimes, right?" "About that?" I prompted, facing her again. She gestured at herself with a hoof. "I'm orange and wear brown. Nightmare Night colors; I guess I'm scary. I get assignments to convince ponies to tell me where they've hid things, or to convince them to pay back what they owe the syndicate. That type of thing. Not that often. You explode a tree or fly somepony around with you on a broom; it can be effective. "Not this earth pony, though. He knew I worked for the syndicate, almost immediately. He had hijacked a valuable shipment during transit and had been laying low in Prancetown until the heat dissipated, but got found out. He thought he had the upper-hoof. I thought he did, anyway, since only he knew where he had hidden the goods. He was horrible. He called me names. He tried to get me into bed with him, especially after I told him I was married. Still, I tried to be nice. I wanted to go through my usual set of escalating inducements without having to become terrifying. I guess I should be thankful that he had enough class at the restaurant that he kept his voice low, detailing how he wanted to ride me that evening. He did drink the wine I kept topped up for him, though—like you did for me, tonight." "Like I did tonight," I admitted, nodding. "I was beyond pissed when we left the restaurant!" she continued. Citron interjected. "Rightfully, too. Had I been there, I'd have knocked his teeth in for you." "Um, thank you?" Broomhill Dare said. "And?" I prompted. "I put him on a broom and flew him up to that building over there. He died," she finished, matter-of-factly. I said, "So the crows made a lot of noise the next morning and the townsfolk noticed him up there?" "That's what I was wondering," Citron said, drolly, moving to the opposite side of us, waving some ponies around us that had started to approach. Broomhill Dare said, exasperated, "No, he fell off, obviously." "Oh. Really?" I asked. Annoyed, she replied, "Yeah. Place a drunk on a little square of roof and they often fall off." Citron added helpfully, "Like a watermelon." We both looked at him. I blinked, not getting the likely comic book reference. He said, "What? Maybe it's a seacoast thing. In summer, me and my parents go to the beach. Ya put on a blindfold, take a 2-by-4, and you try to hit the watermelon—to split it open. One time I dropped it on the pavement—" Broomhill Dare made a strangled sound that made me think, There went dinner, but it didn't. I said, "I gather you didn't see how he fell." "But I heard it..." She stopped, angry despite looking ready to faint. "What were you trying to get at about the roof?" "Oh. Architectural. That's a mansard-style roof. Where you set him down is the only flat area. It's where the chimneys come out. It's big enough for work ponies to maintain the chimneys, but there's also a fence." She stood stiffly as if struck by lightning. She whispered, "I heard a bang before he fell. Celestia!" Broomhill Dare held up a hoof, her horn lit. A long corn broom with gray dirty bristles flew out from the back of the restaurant and struck her hoof with a clack. She levitated it under her and I sat behind. We whooshed across the street and up five stories. It felt like straddling a bench in a gale, but my eyes on the actual smaller broomstick said otherwise as I watched the street recede. I held her furry haunches tightly as we orbited the fenced-in gravel area. I wouldn't characterize iron fence as safety-fencing, but the spear-shaped rail heads were more than half a pony height tall and looked sharp-enough to impale a pony. Worse, they were rusty and off-putting. Even drunk, were I ever to be dropped off there, I wouldn't loiter beside them. On the other hoof, given a sharp noise, a spooked pony might easily leap them. I asked, "Did anypony seem disappointed that the stallion died?" "I-I still got paid. My handler told me that nopony would try those horse apples again once the news got out." "You want to know what I think?" "Sure." It was breezy up here and her mane fluttered noisily in time with my cloak as she looked back at me. "Not your fault." "I put him up there." "Yes. Yes, you did. Do you really want this to be your fault?" I pointed to the ground. The wind blew in my mane as I directed her to take us away from the restaurant and people that might notice non-pegasi flying. No need to get some smart pony connecting some dots in an unsolved mystery. Citron clattered up to where we landed. "No," she answered, laying the broom against a tree. "Somepony spooked him and he jumped. That is what happened." "You think happened," Citron corrected. "Thank you," I said with a growl. "You are welcome," he said without an accent. I continued, "The syndicate works by controlling ponies; they've tried enough times with me that I understand that. Sometimes you have to believe you are controlled for them to make that work. Somepony spooked that pony into jumping to his death. It wasn't you. His mother gave birth to him and he died. Not her fault. Not your fault. Got it?" She nodded. "Okay, second problem." Broomhill Dare groaned. "Can I just set you on fire, instead?" "Your magic won't let you," I shot back. At least not if mine were any indicator. "Can I at least try?" "No!" Citron said, "Fillies." We both glared at the colt, but I added, "You know my name is a verb, right?" He made sure his back side was facing away from me, though his tail began thrashing. Broomhill Dare asked, "What's the second problem?" "You need to make up with your husband." She reared with a loud whinny and struck the cement sidewalk with her steel horseshoes with enough fury that it drew sparks, then she pawed it angrily. "You know, I have limits!" I merely grinned. I had made sure she was slightly inebriated. Yeah, she out-massed me by 50%, but this would be a challenge. Could I pin her without breaking anything and leaving her really embarrassed? I nodded. Yeah, I probably could. I just hoped Citron wouldn't start laughing his flank off and cause me to hurt her accidentally. She started to deflate. It started so quickly, I wondered if maybe this wasn't part of the problem. "Why?" she asked. "Don't you get it? You. Safe. Citron. Pig Pen. Crystal Skies. The team. My team. Our team. I'm the leader." I gestured in the air with a hoof. "Yeah. Right. Leader. I'm also the youngest. I'm your student. If you don't get your act together, all of you, and teach me what you know, I will lead you into disaster. Can I make that any plainer?" Citron stiffened. He said, "I'm controlled, too. Aren't I?" "No, Citron. Now's not the time for you to go off the rails, too." He straightened up. "I'm a stallion, not a train. I don't go off the rails, Gelding. I just figured out that when my father lost his job just shy of getting his pension, I had just managed to escape getting charged for arson when I burned down an abandoned warehouse. My cutie mark earned me an easy-peasy part-time job playing with fire but not hurting ponies. It lets me pay the rent on a plush apartment in the city that my parents could never afford, that I really want them to have. Why do I feel like a fly stuck in something he can't see, unable to fly away, wondering if there's a spider nearby?" I walked up to the colt, about to give him a hug. What was with me today? Was I that needy? He raised a hoof. "No. I like you too much." "O-kay." "Okay, then," he said as we both took a step backwards. I stood for a moment trying to parse and re-parse what he'd said and meant by that. Broomhill Dare interrupted. "Follow me." She led us to a patrician neighborhood (as if most of Prancetown wasn't some level of patrician) at the corner of Library and Hodge Roads. There stood a red brick building with white wood details, black shutters, a brick fence, lots of ivy, and an expanse of lawn it probably took a full-time goat to keep trim. It had multiple entrance porticoes with columns and stood a three full stories high. A mansion. The owner had plenty of bits of the gold persuasion. And his wife lived in a groom's quarters. Seriously? This reminded me of a very trashy romance novel I had bartered a servant for back home. It had been well worth the embarrassment on both sides, especially since the servant had been one of the hoof-stallions. By what I had read, Broomhill Dare ought to have been living a very wild and thrilling life indeed, reputedly even having trouble standing thanks to her stallion acquaintance, which is why I didn't believe any of those horse apples I'd read about that at this point in my life. The stallions I'd ridden hadn't... Well, not going there. Citron asked, "You read trashy novels often?" I was muttering to myself, apparently. I shot back, "Do you have a filly-friend?" He whispered, "I'd like to." That sounded an itty little bit too genuine to me. Coupled with what he had said when I had reflexively tried to hug him, I realized I had my flank to him. I caught myself lowering my tail over my hindquarters, hiding parts. Thinking rapidly, I just rotated my rear slightly out of view. Just what I needed: One of my team having a crush on me. He was a looker, though. Why was my face becoming warm!? Broomhill Dare suddenly said, "Yes. I married him. He can be so charming. And yes, he's—" She blinked at Citron and left something you don't say around foals unsaid. "He's one of those stallions that can gather a herd, and I knew that." Citron groaned, shaking his head. "Too much work." Broomhill Dare giggled. "For some ponies, not him." "Stamina," he said and whistled. "Peanut gallery: zip it." He nodded. She said, "I thought I could be enough to change that. I mean, we got along famously. He was amazing fun to be with, day and night. He's very smart and athletic. Didn't realize we were both in the syndicate until we got assigned together one day... Anyway. I wasn't enough. I tried to change him, but I couldn't. After awhile, I couldn't take the needing to make an appointment to be with my husband." I thought about it. About all the contrary ponies in my life. I'd wanted badly to change them all. From Celestia to Proper Step. I'd gotten nowhere with Waddles Worth. Ms. Maple had offered me an unworkable compromise. In the back of my mind, I knew that I was either going to learn something very important from Carne Asada—or she would kill me. Would I change her, or any of them? Not a chance in Tartarus. Commenting partially to my self, I said, "You can't change ponies unless they want to change." Her voice went very low. "I still love him." "I-I guess that's a good start." Love wasn't friendship. So I'd heard. I wasn't sure if I could trust it, either. Either sure made a mess of things. Both. Love and friendship. Me and Sunburst. She nodded. "Which is why he makes me so angry." There that proved it. "Because you can't control him?" She nodded again. "Do you like being controlled?" She started to nod, then realized I'd tricked her. Her pinkish eyes glared down at me. "No, and neither does he, I'd bet." "Nor, do I—which is why Princess Celestia made an enemy instead of a friend. Soooo..." I looked this way and that. It was really easy for me to understand when the mares in the novels blurted certain things outright. Not so easy for me in the flesh talking about the S-word. I felt my face heat up. It was good that it was nighttime. Perhaps I could put it to use as a metaphor. "You said you had fun day and night. The night fun? Did you ever ask him what you could do to make him want to herd with you some night instead with other mares?" She stood there for a full minute, blinking at me. I suddenly understood the meaning of the words, circumlocution and nonplussed. Just in case I had just broken her mind, I considered trying again using explicit words to describe what I wanted an answer about. Yes, I did know those words and their meanings, but then a softer alternative came to mind. "I wonder... If you change yourself, will ponies change to accommodate you?" She took a very deep breath and looked away. "No, I never did ask. Could it be that easy?" "Seriously?" I grinned and paused for effect. "No, I doubt it. It's a start, though. It'll prove if he's a bad pony, disingenuous—" "—or randy as all Tartarus," she finished with a giggle. "Uh, um, ahhh... Riiiight." I coughed into a hoof. "On that note..." I spun up Teleport. I'd been evilly planning on disrupting Safe's evening. I'd been hoping he might be entertaining tonight and that I might catch them in the bedroom in the act so I could learn some "dance" moves. As it turned out, he was entertaining. Sadly, he was a very charming gentlecolt, adhering to all the proper decorum sea captains to princes of industry adhered to. He'd cooked a wonderful dinner of sautéd garlic greens a'la field for the yellow pegasus mare of evening, resplendent with a table of cut leaded crystal, gold-accent china, sparking imported Prance cider, and candles. He had yet to charm her out of her evening dress, though one of the straps had been pushed down to bare her withers. Who had done the pushing, I didn't know, but there was lipstick on his cheek. My sudden appearance, in the only lighted room I could see from the street, was enough to send her soaring through an open dining room window with a startled shriek. The crystal goblets crashed to the marble floor. I was right about a few things. It wasn't that easy. My question of Broomhill Dare was also the right question. The reconciliation took three days and four nights. And... For the record. It was me that broke Safe's handsome nose when he made a pass at me. I didn't care for the joke.