A pony with sensitive ears, possibly with a bruised one that had just been swatted with a gold crown, might have been able to echolocate my exit and entrance teleport-pop where I had stood.
Inside a building, not so much.
As the darkness of in-between engulfed me, as time slowed and I held my breath, I bent my knees. I appeared a pony length in the air. The bang rattled the windows as I dropped. Of course, I'd pulled something in one leg and bashed the other—so I swayed, catching myself from collapsing on very shaky legs, with an aching shoulder. Orange juice snow sprinkled down from my muzzle.
The overstuffed newsroom consisted of a five-by-five matrix of desks and cabinets. Glassed-in offices lined the two walls opposite the two window walls formed by the crenelations. Six reporters who had been busily typing stood. One tea cup went flying, bouncing on papers before breaking on the floor. The startled yellow mare jumped and swore, trying to mop up the mess over her magazine layout.
I smiled as my mane tumbled in front of my face. Must have come undone during the fight. I pushed it aside and smiled again. "Um. I was looking for the... associate editor? I have an, um, appointment?"
The AE undoubtedly had a private office—not in the cheap seats here, all of which lacked privacy. I got a few stares from ponies still in shock. They started blinking.
I braided my pigtails by instinct as I stared back, then after a few beats, added. "At 8 AM?"
I'd needed to make it seem I'd meant to do that, to "pop" in. Maybe nopony would remark on it.
A pony with black horn-rimmed glasses pointed to the near corridor. "Down the hall, Take a right. Cursive is in the corner office."
"Uh-huh, thanks."
With my withers already stiffening up and my rear end hurting, I trotted as nonchalantly as I could without limping. In a sense, I had treed myself being chased by a bear. I knew full well that the bear could climb. I recalled that some buildings had interconnected basement services, but that might have been only in a city like Baltimare.
As I approached an intersection of halls, where a pony entered his office and closed it, I heard somepony hiss. I took a step and looked left, to Cursive's brass placard and closed door, then right. The hall stood empty, though I heard typing resuming behind me.
At a second hiss, I looked up.
A blue pegasus looked down at me. She popped her head out to look both ways. Seeing nopony else, she clicked a hoof lever and a spring-loaded attic stairway dropped down.
I rushed up. She kicked a spring and the stairway popped back. She shut the access door.
I whispered, "Streak? I told you to leave town!"
"Despite your healing me, I was too worn down to risk being seen gliding off the mountain. They had patrols. At the airship terminal, too."
"This?" I asked, looking around.
The unfinished low-ceilinged room looked like a converted attic or machine space. Tops of the crenelated windows provided some orange light; a pot of glowing enchanted rainbow-colored pebbles provided the rest. I saw pillows, a comforter, a sitting desk, and a chest of drawers. I saw an area curtained off with black sheets. Judging by the compact camera sitting on the desk, that was a darkroom. Ah, I remembered her disguise from weeks ago.
"My coop apartment, a?" she said with her Vanhoover accent.
"Side hustle?"
"Junior on-site photographer. Pays only nine copper a week, it's part time, but I get the apartment. Thought I needed to find something besides hauling."
The office clothes she had approached me wearing made sense. I saw a blouse and underwear thrown on the floor. She still wore what she had been caught in the crossfire wearing last night, as evidenced by the blood stain on the blouse. She'd trimmed her tail so it resembled a masculine bob rather than looking burnt-off.
Noticing my eyes, she sidestepped and pushed a handle with a wing, briefly opening a dormer door in the ceiling, letting in a cool night breeze. "I found a dark spot on the roof to watch if any coppers showed up to investigate."
"Does Running Mead know where you live?"
"Unlikely, considering I was his eyes in the sky. With him, you never know.
"When the dawn seemed to go on forever, I started looking around to see if'n I could figure out what went down. Saw that griffon drop from the sky and you putting it down hard. Constabulary? Your mane puffed out when you tumbled with it and I saw your green stripe. I waved and I guess you saw me."
I wanted to call her stupid and rage about her being "friendly" and taking chances when I'd so wanted her to get away and start her life anew. Instead, I said, "Thanks. I thought pegasi had eagle eyes."
She looked away. "I lost my glasses enough times growing up that Pa figured out it was on purpose and stopped buying them for me."
"A near-sighted pegasus? You are unique and special."
She narrowed her eyes at me. "I saved your flank, Grimoire."
"I appreciate that, but I'm a danger to you. I've got to get out of here as fast as I can. Does the building interconnect at the basement—?"
"Why? The constabulary hasn't looked here, so it's probably safe—"
"That wasn't a griffon. That was Princess Celestia."
"Sweet Celestia!"
"Exactly."
"That fiery amber addict was special to her?"
"Her protégé."
"Out for blood, I guess, for getting the mare involved?"
"Not exactly."
"How, not exactly?"
"She didn't like what I did, but she agreed scared-straight worked. Sunset's asking for help, admitting her addiction." I looked into Streak's widening deep blue eyes and added, "I met the princess last night."
"You got caught? And escaped!?"
"She found me in the library—a secret restricted library—and she did catch me, and I did escape... mostly—"
"But...?"
"Running Mead blackmailed me. You figured out I'm a bit more than an average street tough?"
"Attending Celestia's school? Ha. Everypony knows it's substandard trash!"
"Him reeling in Sunset Shimmer pushed me too far. I decided to throw everything away to get him."
She nodded.
"Remember what Running Mead said when Sunset insisted she just give him bits and leave? 'This isn't a business deal...'"
"'It's an employment interview!'" Streak gasped. "She wanted to hire you?"
I lay down, despite everything that hurt and covered my eyes with my hooves. "I've done a lot of bad things in my life, and she's figured out a few major episodes, enough to remark that she was the one who made the laws, and all that implies, but she still wanted to hire me."
"Why?"
"She's been trying to ruin my life from the beginning. I understand that my parents made their own choices to become involved with her, but her commands led to my parents' death. I ran away from home to escape her influence."
"Are you related?"
"Other than she deeply manipulated my life—"
Streak laughed. "Sounds like my Ma—"
"—and saw to my training—and, despite all the bad stuff, I apparently turned out about right for her needs... Nope, not related."
"Then why didn't you say yes? It sounds like you're already one of her personal prot-chi— crotchety— uh, students."
I inhaled deeply, grimacing. Streak was right. I was in a sense and always had been her student. "I have a reason, and, when I make sure it becomes common knowledge, the princess will not be happy. Part of me wants it out, but I don't want to saddle you with it."
Streak looked increasingly curious. After some thought, she said, "I can keep a secret if I haveta," and zipped her lips.
"She's a regicide."
Streak tilted her head. "A reg-a-what now?"
"She killed a queen or a princess. Maybe both."
"I'm no history buff, but I seem to recall taking tests about wars and invasions, some which Equestria lost. Not really surprised."
"No. Here. An Equestrian ruler. The stories conflict on the details, but there are ruins of another castle in the Everfree that Zecora told me about. My old boss, Carne Asada, was a thestral—"
"Wait, what?"
"Bat-wing pegasus, from Equidor. Her obsession was to avenge the murder of the last thestral queen that called the Crystal Caves under the city home. According to her, Celestia drove the tribe from Equestria." Actually, she'd implied a massacre.
"You believe this, why?"
"Both of these stories happened almost a thousand years ago."
"She's lived that long?"
"I think so."
"That's a long time. I'm forgetting the names of my classmates from Vanhoover; last week's lunch is a stretch, but... okay. A thousand years? Does it matter? I mean, it makes the princess more of a regular pony if she's been evil and reformed, a? I'm sure she had her reasons."
"It matters. Are you sure you want to know?"
"Look, if I'm gonna help you work it out in your head whether you're gonna accept an offer from the princess, then you've gotta say it. If it's the difference between the EBI Most Wanted List and 'I'm sorry I hit ya, ma'am,' cough it up."
"She's cursed."
Streak blinked. "Now you're talking horse apples."
"Right, technically there's no such thing as a curse. Just parasitizing spells that feed on their host with re-wish predicates to keep them strong, embedded spells with triggers that read a pony's actions—called a geas— and cyclic self-repairing error checking to keep other magic from interfering."
"In other words, a curse?"
"Nothing supernatural. High level magicks that I can't even imagine trying to juggle in my horn. I saw the geas in action. She wanted to explain herself, but the magic blurred her mouth and garbled her words. Horrifying. It looked like somepony in a painting where the artist smeared her face with a swipe of a pallet knife, but it happened in real life. She realized it was happening after I'd accused her of regicide, then she compensated trying to get some words out, but failed. If it affects her speech, it affects her actions. She rules Equestria. She seemed desperate to have me join her, and I know why: I'm evil. So is she."
"You're not evil, Grimoire." She blew air through her lips. "Tartarus, you've helped me, especially last night. Nopony ever went to the trouble of not hurting ponies the way you did being Running Mead's enforcer. You said, 'Scared straight' about this Sunset mare, right?"
"Yeah—"
"Evil would have been to sell the mare out and ignore Running Mead's ambitions to advance your own, but you tried to help her. The revenge part is caramel on the sundae. As far as I'm concerned, ya ain't evil."
"You like caramel syrup?" I wrinkled my nose.
"I do. A lot. With salt."
"I prefer hot fudge— Streak, ponies died because of me."
"I thought you said you didn't kill ponies—"
"I don't. I won't, not intentionally. I will protect myself and my ponies. Ponies died around me, nonetheless. Because of the choices I made. And failed to make."
"That doesn't make you evil. Bad judgement maybe—"
"My whole life has been bad judgement! You've heard of Carne Asada?"
"Rings a bell. Some baddy back east, maybe?"
"The Doña of the biggest mob syndicate on the east coast. I was her bodyguard."
"Which is how you put Celestia flat on the pavement! Oh. My. Gosh. What did Running Mead possibly have on you?"
"It got worse. The mare took to calling me her daughter and having me run messages for her to her lieutenants. It became a good copper bad copper thing. Then she became too stupid to live, and ponies believed I was her daughter, and I ended up running the whole enterprise for about two weeks, stabilizing it—"
"Let me guess, so ponies wouldn't get hurt?"
"You don't get it!" I covered my eyes again with my forelegs. "If I'd realized she was using me to prepare for and start a gang war, lots of ponies would still be alive. I wouldn't have had to save ponies."
"Saving ponies isn't evil."
"They got hurt!" I reached into my saddlebags with a hoof. I didn't want to use magic that Celestia might detect. I opened a notebook and rotated it to reveal the clipping of the "Nameless Filly" from The Manehatten Times I'd glued there.
Streak's eyes quickly scanned back and forth.
She boxed my ear!
I jumped back, hitting the low ceiling with my horn. Rubbing my ear, I asked, "What?"
"You, Grimoire, are a flapping hero!"
"I—" I wanted to add I'd been tricked into setting the bomb that had caused the need save ponies.
She raised a wing. "Don't make me swat you again!"
Both quiet for a moment, I heard the typewriters all stop. My ears swiveled toward the newsroom. Frowning, I touched a hoof to my lips, then my ear.
Her ears flicked and indigo eyes widened. She mouthed, "Quiet. Not tea time, neither."
I grabbed for the flask with the magic pebbles. I turned it over, which drained the thaumic potion, cutting off the magic. We lay still in the dusky orange light. I put my ear to the floor while working up Illuminate at 5th level, keeping any of it from entering my horn. I'd bet drenching her face with sticky white light would stun even the princess.
Momentarily.
I thought sourly of Sunset and guessed Celestia had likely mastered canceling spells 999 years ago.
After a minute, I was willing to assume a staff meeting had been called in the newsroom, then I heard patter. No matter how dainty the princess was, like a big earth pony, she had mass. Her royal highness did not "clatter." Still, floorboards creaked under weight and thumped when the area of her horseshoes, open to the rear, struck flooring, expelling air trapped by the frog.
I heard a voice. Unmistakable, really.