Becoming a bodyguard is about learning to spot danger and to thrust the pony you are guarding to safety. You want to do this without getting yourself injured or killed. Especially the latter.
I didn't ever want to become a royal guard. Not that I'd ever want to protect Celestia. I suspected that anything that wanted to kill an alicorn would either be really dangerous or really crazy, or both, which could make me really dead. While I might hate the Princess, who would want the responsibility of choosing between life or eternal day or night if you failed? I feared what her dubbing me an Earl might actually imply.
With my team assembled, we trained. My earlier training with the bodyguards for Carne Asada's lieutenants taught me the essential moves to get us into a carriage, through a door, a window, or into any protected space while putting a hoof through the temple of an attacker if need be. With my new employer, my options increased.
If attacked, Carne Asada expected me to cast Teleport.
That would rarely be appropriate as I might need time to target a safe place. I practiced conventional moves. With so many physical or magical choices, I understood I'd be too distracted to think of my safety. Counterintuitively, I needed my own bodyguard. Citron stepped up. It made sense, since he was mostly about flash and not bang. Sure, he delighted in burning up inanimate things, but, if a pony managed to get himself surrounded by a ring of fire, well... Stupid pony. I was mastering Force very slowly, and Citron was a master of it simply because he didn't want to hurt ponies. It made him effective though, because flying bolts of plasma are unpredictable, dangerous, frightening—and devilishly inflammatory.
I found it nice getting paid well, living in my own flat, doing naught but training. No late night assignments. Occasionally Carne Asada called me to visit one of her mansions, ask to take her on a joy ride, talk to me about us traveling—inevitably to be interrupted by business I didn't want to hear the details of. Thankfully, she didn't insist on me hearing it either; she knew I'd make a stink.
She addressed me as "Hija." After weeks, I got used to being her daughter.
I stood aside in a parlor with lots of hardwood furniture wrapped in red corduroy upholstery surrounded by brown satin wallpaper. Skylights lit the room dimly as she read a scroll she held open with two hooves on a table. I wondered why she didn't use her wings like every other pegasus I'd met, but maybe it was the servants and guards she had around. I'd found little written about the mountain folk of Equidor, which I suspected she was. Did they consider it rude to show their wings?
Did they have a nudity taboo?
Would I ask? Nope. Not that kind of brave.
"Hija," she said, letting the scroll roll itself up, nodding to the earth pony who took it away in his mouth.
I walked up. "Carne Asada?"
She smiled. I got a glimpse of pointy canines. "Have you been to Las Pegasus?"
"No. I'm a bit young."
Her grin widened. She knew my situation and my disguises.
I added, "Not enough bits."
"Don't play a foal with me; frugality is a choice. Congratulations with your team and your skills are improving. You are an asset. Broom-tail and Safe are making like rabbits again. Good work! Remind them, no foals."
Did she have eyes everywhere? My face had warmed. The mare grinned again.
"Hija, I have business interests in Las Pegasus, mostly legitimate. That es scroll finalizes all the preparation for a Grand Galloping Gala at the plushest venue I'm part owner of. It's a command performance of all my local functionaries. There is an es saying that what happens in Las Pegasus es stays in Las Pegasus. That's a problem when what's staying in Las Pegasus is my fair share of profits. I believe in maximum disruption when I have leverage. I have leverage, now. Put it another way, I am feeling safe enough to attend the gala because you will be there. Prove me right."
I gulped. "Are you sure?"
"Por supuesto," she said. "Which is why these ponies are here."
She waved over the pair of tall unicorn stallions from the far door to the room. A light blue aura popped in a spray of sparkles and they were directed by the unicorn servant to approach. "This is Curry Brush and Needlepoint, the best tailors in Baltimare. They make you a most fabulous gala dress."
"Um." I whispered, "I may need to fight—"
The mare was up in an instant and she put a hoof to my mouth. "Shhh, hijita mia! Tranquila! They tailor it however you design. You did such a good job with your sexy pink tights at the gym! I know you know what to tell them so you can move properly. All I ask is that it must be eleganté and very beautiful."
I ended up with a gala dress, an evening dress, a ballroom dress (with bustles for waltzing), a sundress for croquet and outdoor events, a bathing suit (that was weird because who wore clothes to swim? Nobles?), various business suits both in masculine and feminine cuts, and one Canterlot court gown in formal sun-gold and white. Like the latter was going to happen! Even if I could actually fight in it, thanks to slits and releasing hems, I secretly spilled ink on it.
Filly move. Also self-knowing self-preservation. I could imagine myself one day petitioning Princess Celestia at court to meet her in the flesh, then giving her the thrashing she richly deserved.
Could happen.
In any case, I eventually ended up with a full wardrobe of duplicates in various colors and it cost me nothing but my pride. Carne Asada made me model them all. The ink stain had disappeared.
She wanted me to take on the White Windigo?
#
Before I continue, let me ask a question. What kind of sadistic parent names a foal Grape Sucker?
I mean, Grape aka Punch Drunk was named Grape by his parents because, well, he looked the result of bathing a foal in a bathtub of concord grape juice. The stallion who owned The Grande Wine Bar and Salt Lick Las Pegasus Hotel and Dance Casino would later that evening profess to me that this was exactly what his mother had named him. The fellow had tan fur with a white mane and a black blaze. Not buying Grape Sucker for a minute. I mean, even if the pegasus kept on flying out of his crib as an infant to steal grapes from the kitchen to gum and drool upon, not buying it.
Nevertheless, 🎶gorgeous🎵. Steeple Chase finally had a competitor in the virile category. This fellow wasn't muscular or chiseled like that first earth pony I'd thrown myself at, nor was he at all tall, but his legs and wings were lithe, his mane and tail clipped and perfectly styled, and his glasses refined and business-like. He looked... controlled. Studied masculinity. Not too much. Not too little. Just enough to make me shiver. Confidence, that's what it was. Not at all like the hoodlum I suspected he was.
It didn't hurt that at his shoulder he had the crooner singer songwriter that went by a single name: Dino. Yes, that Dino. The Dean of Diatonic, Divertimento Dissonance, in the flesh, feathers, and fur complete with a quarter-notes-in-a-trash-can cutie mark. He was the most goth of the Las Pegasus Plumage Pack so I had had a record of his (Reflective Ballads for a Sunny Daze), and indeed he was very purple, royal purple, and obviously pickled. Grape Sucker leaned into the singer to support him. Though he held up a cider and soda on the rocks in his wing feathers, he deftly caught Dino's falling wine goblet without spilling a drop.
Impressive muscle control and coordination.
Grape Sucker, even encumbered, managed to bow slightly at our approach. (Not so much Dino.) "Doña," he said, in a high tenor voice, "My apologies. You let canaries out of their cages and they get flighty."
When it took more than a second for Carne Asada to respond, I realized there might be a double-entendre there. The Queenpin hadn't been traveling recently, it seemed. I stepped closer to her, between them and us.
Carne Asada said, "Nonsense. I want everypony to enjoy themselves!"
I took an instant to scan the room, to make sure nopony had made any particular move. Citron stood a pony length behind in a suit. We weren't chewing gum because Carne Asada had made us spit it out, forcing me to choose whether there were secrets I wanted to keep or not. Many ponies mistook him for liveried help, which I thought fortuitous. He knew it and moved purposefully.
The two personages smiled at each other, while Dino said something about a record deal to somepony fawning to his right. I looked from Sucker in his white shirt, white slacks, and black bow tie to Carne Asada in her red dress and purple scarf. It had shocked me earlier to see her put something into her eyes. They changed the color of her eyes, shading her irises so she didn't need to wear sunglasses in the bright (for her) ballroom.
It wasn't as big a surprise as it could have been. I'd suspected a misidentification on my part all along. How many mares with an Equidorian accent could have been at my championship prize fight that night? At the skybox level? Where Carne Asada had been the promoter?
Contact lenses. No magic there. You learn something new everyday.
Carne Asada, now as then, had been the mare in the red dress, the one that had kicked me in the head.
Her style. She had called me Boludo then, but now she called me—
"Hija, let me introduce you to Grape Sucker. Grape Sucker, this is my daughter, Glitter."
I curtseyed. I was some sort of asset. Yeah. Asset.
I wore a dress with my mane tied and pinned into a matching silk scarf. Both were pale yellow with cute daisies that made me look my biological age and therefore less dangerous. Both glittered in all the right places with diamond dust, but would let me pin the suave pegasus on the floor before he knew it without ripping a hem or unraveling my do. My mane and tail were dyed mauve to match Carne Asada's, and my contacts matched hers, but weren't so dense that they dimmed the room. They ached and dryness caused me to blink more than I liked, but I could deal.
It made us look related. One did not ask a queenpin whether she had a husband that had presumably been a unicorn. One could turn up dead asking that.
Carne Asada liked to be disruptive. Okay with me, so long as she didn't get in the way of me doing my work. She paid well.
I met many pony personages that night and ate too many fried broccoli and crab hors d'oeuvres. Many tried to chat me up, but Carne Asada keenly ran flack for her minion and I got to play the little lady as Proper Step had trained me to be without any of the hostess responsibilities. I acted like some pony's pet lost in downtown Baltimare, eyes wide, looking around. An act, of course. I had to scan the room, checking for anypony wanting to stick a knife into Carne Asada or perform a spell, all the while calculating escape vectors. It worked.
Apparently, I looked both adorable and vulnerable. That earned me an impromptu serenade by the entire Plumage Pack!
The room lights dimmed and Carne Asada, Grape Sucker, and I got a spotlight on us as the five appeared on stage, Dino having trouble holding his drink and standing at the same time. I stood behind Carne Asada, as much to keep in contact for a Teleport spell as I did in embarrassment, as the lyrics had substituted "Glitter" for the titular filly's name.
They sang A Filly Named Faerie, the single happy song on the Dino album I had back in Grin Having. Even drunk, Dino could sing. Had the stallion walked up to me afterward and beckoned me to follow to his room, I'd done so without a second thought.
In retrospect, that would have been the time to assassinate Carne Asada. It didn't happen. In fact, nopony had the temerity to upset her beyond Grape Sucker's maladroit. As we returned to the Princess Suite at the top of the hotel and Carne Asada pulled off her jewelry and scarf, she mentioned that as I watched.
I stood in the door of the bedroom. The carpet was brilliant white. The furniture, the same, or would be: it appeared to be either blue-green, or flashing shades or red, blue, or purple. The mare had flung open the draperies to let in the neon lights of Las Pegasus and shut off the suite lights. She'd had me cast Illuminate strategically so everything was as dim as she preferred so she could cast away her contacts.
"So what he said about bird cages was significant?"
"He's not happy I'm here. I suspected as much."
I tapped my hoof on the carpet nervously, then decided. "Um. Carne Asada. I'm sorry about fangrlling like that during the serenade before. I had my Teleport queued up all the time. Let me assure you that the team stepped up during the situation."
The mare smiled, giving me an amused look. "I almost sent you to Divertimento's room afterwards—"
"What!? No!" I found myself pacing in a circle in the living room, bouncing off the back of the couch and the coffee table like a ball in a pinball machine as I alternately missed noticing one or another as I tried to process one or the other of interesting scenarios that came to mind. My face blazed with heat like it had been set on fire. Me, with Dino. Yeah. He was old—but experienced! And, that velvet voice. I remembered the posters I had of him from when he was younger. Ponies didn't often wear clothes, and that was good...
From the bedroom door, I heard, "I was a filly once. Vigorous recreation would do you good. But that horse's flank sometimes mistreats mares and I'd hate it to be you that breaks him of the habit."
I stopped and stared.
She showed her fangs again.
I blurted, "Power corrupts."
"That's what I like about you, Starlight Glimmer." She was using that name again. Why? "You are not new to this game." She gestured back into the bedroom and I followed wondering what she was going to try now.
I smelled acrid makeup remover from a pink bottle and she hoofed about a cotton pad as she continued in front of the mirror. She said, "What did you think of Grape Sucker?"
"Nice colt. I talked more to him than anypony else, tonight, I guess. Don't believe that name is real for minute."
"Like Gelding?"
"Ha ha."
"Hija, seriously."
"Professional. Personable. Businesslike. Nervous around you."
"I fronted him the bits to build his mini Canterlot mountain on a cloud and extend his wine café into a hotel palace and dance casino. More bits helped him get the Plumage Pack together and under contract."
"He is enterprising."
"Indeed, he is." Off came the lipstick onto a tissue. "Did you like him?"
I smiled. Did I? The way I was dressed today, I knew he was going to dismiss me as way too young for me to learn anything from him, but I said. "He's nice. Yeah, I like him."
"Since we are going to be in town for a few days, I'd like you to pay him a visit for me and give him a message."
"Like... a letter?"
"No. I'm not keen on leaving evidence. Tell him: Investments should show profits."