//------------------------------//
// Chapter 39: The Reponyization of Starlight Glimmer 
// Story: The Enforcer and Her Blackmailers (Enhanced & Augmented) 
// by scifipony 
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It felt like one of those dreams where you become aware that you were dreaming and you feel like you've woken up. You get to make choices, talk, do things but realize you can't move and you have no control, and realize that you've woken up in another dream. A nice dream. One that can't be true, because nice things never happen to you.

Despite the ache in my nose, my nostrils felt clear. I inhaled. No scent of blood. It also confirmed who owned the warm fur my hindquarters snugged against as I lay on the bed, and that the clothing I felt on a pony's forequarters was a uniform. The shock of being kissed by Citron had imprinted his night sweat smell in my brain. 

I recognized it.

After Celestia took full control of the tool that she had honed probably from the moment she had learned my mother was pregnant... After I learned that I now had a purpose in life for all my fighting and evil tendencies, having been given the hope of rescuing my father... my body crashed hard. I did tell many ponies that I was Starlight Glimmer. I remembered seeing Flowing Waters and being told something about him training me later. 

I definitely remembered telling ponies that Cadet Lieutenant Quince, now to be addressed as Citron, was the Captain of My Guard, and that he would sleep with me.

I liked that part.

I rubbed the back of my head against somepony's barrel and shoulder. I didn't hurt much and my muscles weren't at all stiff. Flowing Waters must have healed me somewhat. I whispered to myself, "I'll be riding you later," and giggled. Too long a dry spell!

Breath warmed my ear and I heard, "I'm keeping you to that promise."

My tongue went to the side of my mouth. Gum was plastered there. I giggled some more.

I rotated my head his way. My nose did feel puffy, and I likely looked bruised and pummeled like the prizefighter I had been. Then again, I had trained Citron thoroughly. During our time on Carne Asada's team of bodyguards, we'd sparred and trained. Fortunately, we had had Dr. Feels to fix broken noses. It wasn't that he was unfamiliar with me looking beat up, any more than me seeing him pummeled after he'd lost to me. If he wanted me, he'd just have to get used to me pretty and not pretty.

A soft muzzle touched mine.  

I gasped.  My heart raced.  My body warmed with welcome anticipation.  Of course he'd gotten used to my changing appearance!  I smiled, opening my mouth.   Time to ride!

"Hey!" Streak shouted. "Not alone!"

I opened my eyes. I saw a mane the color of a lemon meringue pie swirled with a spoon. Citron's smiling amber eyes looked down at me. He had that special smile I'd seen on other stallions when they thought they might be ridden. I decided I liked the look. Nothing like wining a good fight to make me think of the afterparty. Yeah, I'm twisted. Don't care!

I moved my head aside and looked up, because that's where her voice had come from.

I saw a small cumulus cloud floating above a lit chandelier sparkling with rock crystal. The magic candles didn't generate heat so they didn't burn the pegasus. Faux clouds decorated the sky blue ceiling. Streak blended in, but I saw her blue eyes. She took that moment to chew her gum, cracking it, just to make sure I knew that she had heard my declaration of intent about Citron. I flinched.

Gum, after what must have been at least eight hours, became pretty nasty. Well, Streak was proving a trooper. I hoped that she wasn't so entangled in my life now that she would lose her dream again. Citron, I knew, was a trooper.

Her wings held her camera over the side and she pressed the shutter.

I grumbled. "Doesn't this castle come with private rooms?"

"So funny. Ha, ha, ha. You wanted us together!" She looked pointedly aside and down toward the far wall of the room. "We really aren't alone." 

I looked.

I jumped from the bed with a growl. That I now had splints on my right foreleg threw off my balance and I nearly collapsed that direction. I got twinges in my left haunch and across my withers, but not anywhere as bad as last night—this morning. I squared myself to face my despised former butler, Proper Step.

Only it wasn't him. I'd seen the tan fellow before, wearing red livery with tails. He squinted through a monocle and had a moustache that made him look like a Schnauzer dog. He had more grey hair in his moustache. Celestia's majordomo, Proper Step's father. He had his pocket watch open. "Ah, Countess Grin Having. I trust—"

"No," I said firmly.

He blinked. "No? Lady Aurora?"

"The name is Starlight Glimmer. No domain. No styling. No title. Simply Starlight Glimmer. Understand?"

"Ms Glimmer?"

"Okay, then."

"Ms Glimmer, I trust you slept well."

I smiled and looked back at Citron, who had moved forward so his front legs were on the floor. He winked. I said, "I had a good pillow." 

I looked beyond him. Beyond the white carved wood dresser, end tables, and chairs—all gilt—and saw the window. Either I'd slept about twenty hours, or Celestia hadn't raised the sun, yet. I remembered that it took a team, but how hard could it be?

I frowned back at him. "Your name?"

"Kibitz, if it pleases you, Ms. Glimmer."

"The pocket watch, Kibitz?"

"We are on a firm schedule, I'm sorry to say. If I may say so, I've seen photos of my son's young charge. You have certainly grown up strong and sturdy, and filled in well. I am sure the servants will emphasize all your best, and you have plenty."

"Um, thank you? Servants?"

"You three require some tidying up, you especially. We will bring a new uniform for the captain and an appropriate blouse and vest for your pegasus friend."

Streak spiraled down and landed beside me. "The pegasus friend is named Streak."

"Ms. Streak." He gave the tiniest of bows. "Come now."

"What are we preparing for?"

He said over his shoulder as he led through the castle halls, "The princess has prepared an event to discuss the implications of the sun not rising today."

"I suppose ponies are upset."

"This is an understatement. The peerage are more than average enraged. At least this time they have a reason," he finished drolly.

Tidying up involved a gaggle of servants showering me, soaking me in a pool-sized bath, then toweling me dry and styling my hair. 

The good part was I insisted the Captain of My Guard guard me. He did. I made sure he got a good show of me wriggling my hindquarters and my smile, with and without suds—though I did catch him yawning a few times. At the end, I got to see them wash him, curry his fur, and dress him in a white button-down shirt. This I did not mind.

I declined makeup, even though they wanted to hide the black and blue on my muzzle. I declined when they asked me if I wanted clothes. They did not fight me. Guessed they sensed it would be a bad idea.

I remembered suddenly Dr. Flowing Waters warning me last night he wouldn't be completely healing me. He'd just done the worst of the internal stuff, like my muscle pulls and knitting the leg fracture enough that it ceased to be dangerous. He had healed Streak's burns more than he had healed me, but she remained obviously wounded with a completely hairless tail. Mustard yellow poultices peppered her hind quarters, which was a good reason for her not to wear a dress. It might hide the wounds, but also rub them. He had skipped healing the cuts I'd gotten from the porcelain shards. Somepony had simply glued them closed, which left them looking red and very visible.

No clothes no makeup suited me fine. I wanted everypony to see the real Starlight Glimmer, cuts, bruises, and flaws included. Nopony found it pleasant to look at somepony wounded. It made them uncomfortable. I felt a simmering rage over being trapped, about all I had gone through, and what my life had become. I felt better thinking ponies first impressions of me were that I was a fighter and that seeing me might be unpleasant. I had rough edges, and nopony had the right to sand them down.

We got time for a private afternoon tea, where we met up with Streak.

While she wore a feminine puffy white blouse that matched Citron's, she'd gotten special treatment. At first I thought the servants had dressed her from bling in her messenger bag, but a better look showed I was wrong. They'd punked her up in dangerous looking tarnished silver chains, cheek piercings, lip clips, and a line of sixteen ear rings that bent her left ear. Her mane hadn't so much been spiked as glued to resemble a blue steel axe, complete with a silver sparkle edge. She pranced in, a silver tail piece as a ridge over her denuded tail, grinning ear to jangling ear. 

I recognized the dragon scale pattern. 

The tail-piece continued and curved along her spine, hiding it strategically, curried into the hair of her back except over her reddened scarred rump. It dove under her blouse, reappearing to clip to either side of her mane at her scalp, all the way to her forehead, where it formed a scalloped fan that circled her ears. I suspected it nestled protectively over her wing joints, hidden in her sleeves.

Streak thought she wore jewelry. 

I sensed runes. 

Barely hidden blue numbers flitted at the edge of my perception, not unlike the red-orange incipient nimbus on the ring over Running Mead's horn, only icy cold and wary. I couldn't be sure, but I think I sensed something akin to Shield but not Shield. When I'd learned of Star Swirl the Bearded, I'd seen drawings of Commander Hurricane Stormchaser. 

This magic armor looked too coincidentally familiar.

On loan. I hoped. For Streak's sake. It was Celestia saying, "Look, I can make your friend more."

The waitstaff brought tea pots and three-level-high trays of scones, jams, sweets, and savories. Streak's came with cream cheese and dill smoked salmon sandwiches, the crusts cut off. I called foul and ordered a stack of them, thick with salmon. Citron kept his distance as we chowed down and guzzled very refined tea.  We took selfies. She looked extraordinary, and I felt unwontedly proud of her. The treats went a long way to improving this pony-pescatarian's mood!

My mood changed when I got led into a room with bright sconces that tried to hide the fact that beyond the windows it was still dawn at an hour before what ought to have been sunset. I saw a podium. I saw it cordoned off with a velvet rope. I saw ponies crowded up to it who looked my way when the servant opened the door for me.

I recognized a press conference when I saw it. 

A burly earth pony palace guard in a red uniform stood to the right of the podium at a parade rest; nopony else followed me in. When I'd won the unicorn part of the Baltimare Celestial Race, my soon-to-be trainer had helped run my first press conference. When I'd later started winning prize fights, I'd become adept.

Those, however, had been sports press conferences.

I didn't like not being warned. This was either unfounded trust in me, or some sort of test. I tamped down on my anger.

I gulped, blinking as flash bulbs went off. When the guard didn't introduce me, I said, "I am Starlight Glimmer. Good morning—" Ok, oops.

Everypony shouted over each other. These reporters were Canterlot news reporters. Most wore suits, even the mares, though theirs had flowers and bright colors, red being a favorite. Stallions wore little hats with a press card in the band. Mares wore the card clipped to a lapel or pinned to their blouse. They seemed no less rude and in your face than I remembered Baltimare sports reporters being.

I said, "Quiet...! Now! Or I am answering no questions." Into the stunned silence, I said, "You raise a hoof. I point at you and you ask one question. I may answer. I am smart enough to notice who doesn't play fair. Okay, go!"

I pointed. 

The mare said, "Inquisition, Ms. Glimmer. Do you know why Princess Celestia hasn't raised the sun, yet?"

I took a deep breath and let it out. "Bad phrasing. Do you wish to ask differently?"

"Why do you think Princess Celestia didn't raise the sun?"

I smiled, remembering the question from Donut Joe's. "Her protégé, Sunset Shimmer, got caught up in a sting operation last night, and this morning the replacement Celestia had been cultivating for a decade refused the invitation and spat in her face."

"Who—?"

I raised a hoof. It got quiet. I picked.

A fellow wearing a cowpony hat spoke. "Dodge Gazetteer. Miss Glimmer, who was it that 'spat' in the princess' face?"

"Why, me of course!" I pointed again into the suddenly milling crowd.

A mare from The Canterlotter asked, "Was that also you who attacked Princess Celestia on Ponyville Way this morning?"

I nodded, and momentarily the room burst into chatter, which quieted when I narrowed my eyes. "For the record, I had previously told her 'no' when she asked me to be her protégé, and I only metaphorically spat in her face at that time. This time, though..." 

I preceded to tell them how Princess Celestia knew my background well enough to know I could fight hoof-to-hoof. (Spoiler: She'd spied on me.)

I asked, "Anypony here ever hear the name Princess Grim?"

A few ponies raised their hooves, and I recognized an eastern cut to their suits. One piped up when I looked at him. "The welterweight champion from two years ago."

I bowed perfectly as Proper Step had instructed his charge, then proceeded to explain in excruciating detail and by the numbers how I brought down the princess and threw her hard into the street, then explained I swatted her with her crown because, "that was the only way I could escape her stalking me." I let the word stalking ring in their ears. I finished with, "When a mare says 'no,' she means no!"

I smiled. I was beginning to feel like royalty. In command of the room. "Next!"

I picked one of the eastern reporters, one very nicely dressed in a red pants suit and tiny day hat with a blue feather. She raised a clipboard in her magic to show me as she said, "The Manehatten Times. Are you the 'Nameless Filly,' the Hero of Hooflyn?" 

My breath caught and I blinked as I felt my eyes burn. No tears. No tears, please!

The clipboard presented the actual photo of me from Hooflyn that night, an 8x10 in color. It showed a filly in pigtails with lavender fur and green-striped purple hair. She was spattered in crimson blood, but her magic held down bandages on six ponies. Her eyes blazed with a fiery glow. She was saving ponies.

I blinked more and my throat constricted. Choked up.  Glaring white light crept in from the periphery of my vision and a buzz filled my ears.  My muscles locked.

Other reporters cautiously asked questions, but they were a din in my ears.  I knew I shouldn't explain that I had been tricked into setting the bomb that had caused the need to save ponies. I couldn't tell them that I had had to choose between teleporting Carne Asada out of the Old Equestrian Post Office—from where she'd gotten me to teleport her and the chemicals for the bomb she assembled—or teleporting next door into the EBI headquarters to ensure it got evacuated. She had lit the fuses in front of me.

I had neglected to save Carne Asada. She died. 

Though I claimed I'd never killed a pony intentionally, was neglecting to save them from certain death murder?

I didn't know!

Fighting ponies hadn't traumatized me.  

No, it hadn't.  That wasn't my PTSD. 

That I liked the danger of saving ponies had.  It scared me, heart to hoof. 

Tears dripped down my cheeks.  My vision returned to normal. Princess Celestia had set this whole flapping press conference up just for this moment, hadn't she? Evil, evil mare. Of course she had! To make me accept that I could do good.

I could. And I liked it. 

Was I broken?

I didn't know! 

Sniffling after seconds standing frozen, I thought, To Tartarus with it! I tied my mane into the pigtails the filly in the photo wore, ruining the nice up-do style I'd gotten earlier. The flashbulbs became blinding.

My life changed.