//------------------------------//
// 16 — By Dawn's Early Light Part I (Murderous in Pink) 
// Story: Ms. Glimmer and the Do-Nothing Prince 
// by scifipony 
//------------------------------//

Rather than wake everypony clopping around the trotting track on the gym level, I let myself out early. I'd fought Celestia in the Mistmane Botanical Garden in the southern quarter of the castle grounds the day she'd chosen not to raise the sun. 

My fault. 

Celestia's petulance, but I'd precipitated the episode by telling her no. Predawn had lit the garden all day. 

I trotted along now sunlit paths paved with red and purple bowtie pavers. The pavilion complex was roped off with yellow warning ribbon. Between Celestia using her sun powers to burst into flames and being forced to fry Streak and I, along with Citron's pyro-pony tendencies, the building lay in heaps of charred wood rafters, flooring, and collapsed singed green tiles. Though doused, wisps of smoke curled up. It smelled like a fireplace. Two of the twelve pavilions looked salvageable.

Beyond the ornamental shrubs, I trotted to a grapevine-covered pergola. Celestia, playing mind games, had arranged for me to meet Citron again after a year apart. He'd stepped out of the opposite end of the vine-covered structure. I wanted to see the devastation he'd wrought there. The tunnel was green despite the late season—The Running of the Leaves was soon—few of the big leaves had reddened. 

It bathed me in green light. 

Green light...? My hackles rose. 

Cold sweat condensed on my coat, despite the reassuring clatter of my hooves and the fresh breeze. The green nightmare flooded back. I trotted faster. I remembered hanging upside down in a green sack of goo, as if I'd really experienced it. Thank Celestia, the awful dream hadn't been real; such experiences left scars. The green nightmare was another reason for my young brain to throw PTSD fits—to remind me that being a bad pony had consequences that scared the horse apple out of me. I didn't run or whimper, or let the ring in my ears grow louder, or let the white glare pulsing at the edge of my sight consume me. 

Waking in a bubble bath had shoved the nightmare from my mind. I grasped desperately for memories of soapy warmth, foamy bubbles, and sensuously floating in a honey-scented tub, before seeing the prince's concerned face and smelling his cinnamon cologne.  My panic faded. I was wide awake, after all. I was in control.

Why had he put me in the bath while I slept? I didn't know. I'd have to ask the stallion. 

Garden engineers had removed the final twenty pony lengths of the path. All the ornamental grasses were pulled, the ground tilled to dark soil. I pouted. Citron had fought a delaying battle against Celestia for my benefit. He'd set the tall grass, the pergola, and the shrubs on fire. 

Only a sea pony fountain remained. Four rust-stained alabaster specimens danced on a finned tails. Wide mouths would have spit water had the fountain not been under repair. Setting things on fire was my pyro-pony's cutie mark talent. I'd wanted to judge his ability under stress, thus the pout. None of his craftwork remained, only the faint scent of fireplace and a sign: 

Neighponese Meditation Rock Garden Coming This Spring!

Gardens and parks interested me only as a place lay in the grass to read, or to graze on the lawns when lacking bits. I appreciated the acres of roses. Red and pink were obviously the princess' favorite; plenty of yellow and greenish-white blooms. I appreciated the culinary roses best, and snapped off a few acidic rose hips, carefully avoiding the thorns. Hungry now, I felt entitled to one of the spicy brown sunflower seed-heads up ahead. I'd dealt with Celestia's petulance standing amongst them the day before. 

The plant didn't want to part with it, so I used the jackknife I'd won from a combative "fire-breathing" dragonette of a gang earth pony. I'd tricked Mustang into running headfirst into a brick wall. 

The ivory weapon (made of real age-yellowed bone) snicked open when I touched the metal tab. The bread plate-sized bloom cut loose as if butter. I clicked the blade closed and threw it in my messenger bag. I walked away, chomping it in my magic. The immature seeds and petals made it a complete crunchy breakfast.

My 7 AM appointment approached as I curved out of the gardens, dropping the sunflower in a handy compost bin. Ballrooms hulked on the left and the residence, my destination, on the right. 

I walked to cool down. Didn't want to visit the prince being too sweaty—only enough to remind him of last night. I swayed a little bit, remembering the otter dance, and another dance we'd thrown ourselves into with abandon. 

Leaving the back entrance to the dining rooms, I spotted something pink. 

Not pink with a periwinkle mane. Not Singe. Not that lucky. 

No. Pink with purple-tipped wings and a horn of six turns as sharp as Celestia's. The Princess of Love—the second Equestrian alicorn—who was so insignificant that, like the prince, I'd not learned about her until the procession at my coronation. I'd been waiting Celestia's pleasure on the sidelines when she'd locked eyes with me, like she wanted to challenge me to a duel—while escorting her plus one, Shining Armor. 

Oh, colts! I'd beat up her coltfriend!

I dodged left into the cover of a row of birch trees. Meager cover. Widely spaced. Compounding it, it and I were illuminated by the sun rising over the castle ramparts.

She flew the thirty pony lengths toward me, followed by somepony in brass armor—Twilight Sparkle's brother by the blue-streaked mane poked through the helmet, and the similar tail swishing with annoyance. His tan pants hid his new oversized, involuntarily borrowed, solar cutie mark. A gold lieutenant bar glittered on his collar. 

She alighted without dipping into a curtsy, glaring at me with compressed lips—until her purple eyes met mine. One thing to have murderous thoughts about thrashing a common nopony cur at a royal court event. Another thing when you knew what she'd become.

I sighed, stepping from the shadows of the thin, black-striated white-barked trunks. My lavender coat made hiding ludicrous, anyway. I leaned against a tree, crossing my fore and rear legs while queuing Levitate, not letting it light my horn. Squinting into the sun, I met her eyes. 

The breeze tussled the blond, red, and purple hair in her mane to play around her little teacup crown. Her irises pulsed. Her breathing increased. Perspiration formed around her horn, alive with a nebula of blue-green magic shades bluer than mine.

Proper Step had briefed me that she'd been a peasant villager from northwestern Salerno on the border with Prance. She'd been elevated into the aristocracy in her middle school years.

Pressure built for her to curtsy, what I called the puppet reflex. The imagined force pressed on her withers. Peer and social pressure ran the pony under the harshest taskmaster: Her own mind. Which, unlike me, she had not learned to master and ignore: After Celestia and I had come to blows, I'd sworn I'd never bow to her again. 

Of course, I was a bad pony, certifiably criminal, and arguably evil.

It might have been amusing to simply walk away. I did have an appointment. I sighed, feeling twinges of that social pressure thing. 

I sighed and chose to say, "I credit you for keeping a spell in your horn."

She blinked. I could see her mind going alternately from the realization she had stepped a hoof into it, to picking up a branch from the gardener's pile, as her aura clearly telegraphed, and beating me bloody with it. Identified, I could easily duck it. Her numbers were not in Celestia's league, but strong and simplified in a recognizably alicorn way. 

She said, "P-Princessa Celestia eats her morning crépès i-in the dining room. Hurry and you can meet her before s-she departs." 

She'd lived in Equestria for seven years. Her stiff elocution and especially her accent, a mixture of Prench and Salernitano, still identifiably blurred her consonants and softened her vowels. Hers resembled that of the owner of One Fell Swoop who came from a region called Provence.

I huffed. "Not interested in having breakfast, Princess Mi Amoré Cadenza. Already ate."

"Mais, mais...!" The alicorn fought the same slip into her native language Carne Asada, an Equidoran, had fought when angered or pressured. "I shall not let you cast a spell on Shining Armor!"

"Right. The daily spell." Mark Swap. Celestia bore Shining's purple shield cutie mark. He bore her cursed solar one. I had to cast the spell daily on either Shining or Celestia to keep them swapped—to save Equestria from eternal night and, by extension, me from a fiery death. It didn't matter on which pony; it was contagious magic. The longest interval to keep the escapement codicil safely ticking was a little more than 22 hours, though with practice I hoped to push it to 24 hours. I'd forgotten about the spell; fat chance I'd admit that to Cadance. 

Two plus two equals: "Celestia sent your little Shiny so I could cast on him?"

She flared her wings. "No, no, no..."

"Why?" I pressed her.

"You hurt Shining Armor. I do not trust you!"

"Not trusting me demonstrates your intelligence, unlike another princess I know. However, I've an appointment in a few minutes with the prince—"

She gasped, fluttering closer. Feathers akimbo, she spoke in a strained whisper, glancing back at her approaching beau. "Stay away!"

"From—?"

"Blueblood. Et, et, Shining!"

"Is he your riding partner?" I asked sweetly, loud enough that the husky white pony's ears perked. 

She pawed the ground with a hoof as her cheeks turned cherry red. His, tellingly, did not.

Um, have I discovered something? She'd mentioned Shining. I calculated they were 20 or 21. Still dating? She'd also warned against the prince. Had she had some private "interaction" with him?

Shining Armor sighed, shaking his head.

She glanced back at her coltfriend, then all but spat at me, saying, "Good morning, Princess Starlight Glimmer." As I tensed at her using titles for me, she added, "Will you kick me now?"

She was baiting me; probably thinking if I lashed out at her, Shining Armor would avoid me.

"Please, call me Ms. Glimmer," I said calmly, then took a deep breath. "Celestia decreed I may kick any pony who addresses me with the P-word, any titles really, which you know full well—even inaccurate ones like that. While you succeeded in insulting me as I rudely insulted you and Shining Armor—and I apologize for that—expect some day, nevertheless, to be duly kicked."

"Please, please," Shining armor said, nervously chuckling. "Ms. Glimmer, Cadance."

She kept her eyes on me and made a dainty raspberry sound. She lowered her head a hoof length in a minimal bow, her eyes locked in a stare with mine. "Yes, Your Royal Highness."

I rolled my eyes. "Two, Princess Mi Amoré Cadenza, that's two kicks." 

"Please, please, Cadance." Shining armor said. "There's a reason—"

I raised a hoof, cutting him off. "Shining Armor's right. There was a reason. May I call you 'Cadance?' Please?" In selling, you always ask something easy to get the customer into the habit of saying the word...

She blinked, then nodded, saying, "Yes," possibly conditioned to be unable to refuse a royal request.

"I attacked him because lives depended on it. I know you are the Princess of Love. Cast a diagnostic spell to determine my friendly intentions." I tilted my head sideways. "Go ahead. Cast it."

Her eyes grew saucer-sized. If she thought I opened myself up to attack, that would be an interesting response. I wanted to see if her magic could hurt me.

She said, "It-it doesn't work that way."

"Can't you render me more friendly?"

"My magic requires two ponies."

I pointed a hoof from her to me.

"No, no, no."

"Well, then, I'll cast my spell on Shining Armor—"

Her aura flashed. A heart shape struck me in the chest like a dart. What numbers I glimpsed in her aura were a whole different category of maths. Some sort of intrinsic magic, like Aerial Buoyancy that pegasi cast innately when flapping their wings, or like Running Mead's foul cutie mark mind-control magic that he could piggy-back on a Levitate spell. 

She loved Shining Armor and wanted to protect him. Thinking about it, I sympathized and empathized with how Cadance felt—and my heart opened. I suspected what she felt was a lot like what I felt around Blueblood—warm, arguably fuzzy, and wanting to touch him so badly that I had to be wary lest I do something incredibly embarrassing, mushy, or undignified.

Could you like somepony and not trust them?

Cadance stepped back, blinking. As her mouth opened, her eyes widened. "I-I— This m-makes no sense."

"What?"

She tucked in her lower lip, shaking her head. She waved her horn the same way I would in order to detect the direction of magic, to home in on its source.

I said, "Not enough practice? You attended Celestia's, right?"

"For a few months, but I am not interested the magicks—"

"What? How can a unicorn—an alicorn not be interested in magic?"

"I was born a pegasus."

I sat down hard, bruising my bottom, gaping. I froze up. What did she mean? She was no pegasus... Wait... Celestia had explained something about her sister and necromancy, which, if interpreted counterintuitively, implied that Luna had been made an alicorn using dark magic, which if you thought about it explained perfectly why Luna had decided to destroy the world.

I tilted my head up. The pink alicorn stood above me, frowning and wide-eyed—with Shining Armor to her right, eyebrows up, evaluating his mare-friend's sudden friendly attitude shift. 

I asked, "You were made an alicorn?"

She nodded. "I earned my horn. Nopony is born an alicorn."

O-kay. Filing that away!

"Are you a Hero of Equestria? Like my parents were?"

"No. I was born in Salerno, where I reformed an evil sorceress who leached the love from ponies in our village, but that was years ago. About you..." She tilted her head until her lengthy horn touched my stubby one. They clinked, like two ponies toasting with crystal goblets, then sparked.

She gasped and jumped back. Her eyes became watery. She choked up. This wasn't pain. Her face shouted astonishment.

"What?" I asked.

She looked at Shining Armor, her eyes widening as if she had really seen him for the first time, and he fascinated her. Her tail swished slowly as her gaze traveled from his face to his muscular chest, along his armored back, to his covered flank and suddenly stiff tail. 

She said, "The spell did not work right." Her breath came in gusts. "Amity... passes the feeling of friendship... from me to two or more ponies, but this is not that." 

Her eyes flicked back to his face. She took a few steps, her hindquarters moving closer to him. She caught herself, visibly stifling rubbing against him. She gulped and shook herself. 

"Um," Shining said, his face reddening. His muscles twitched. He might have stepped aside, but likely feared he'd insult her. He gulped.

"It is as if I cast Amour instead. Yet... even when I look at Shining—" 

Her gaze flicked suddenly to me, spearing me with gleaming intensity. She breathed as if she'd run a race. She continued, "—I know that I do not feel what you feel for somepony."

"What? What do you mean?"

She examined my torn ear and copious bruises, shaking her head. Had she read of my fight with the prince in the newspapers? "My spell bounced off...! No. No, no. It intensified, peut-être... Did you change my spell?"

I shook my head hard.

She shook herself as if shaking off a rain shower. She raised her foreleg level with her throat, pushing her hoof repeatedly outward as if pushing out her agitation and disturbing thoughts, incrementally slowing her breathing while straining not to look at Shining Armor. Her hide ticked at his closeness. She wanted to lead him away and her body telegraphed why.

Nice trick, finding calm that way. I felt... envious. 

She continued, "It... It flowed from the more positive pole, you, to the negative pole, me—surprising, like lightning flashing from the ground to the clouds!"

"What flowed?"

"Love," she whispered. "You're overflowing with it."

I snorted, then laughed. "This is why you need to practice magic, daily. It's only a few days ago that I admitted friendship existed, and realized I had friends. And. I got my stupid cutie mark. Still—" I shook my head vigorously "—you're mistaken. I'm Starlight Glimmer! I barely do friendship."

Shining Armor interjected. "You see, Cadance? She's not a bad pony."

I scoffed. "Despite my pardons? Despite my having worked for a mobster?"

He coughed. "Ms. Glimmer had reasons to fight me. I can say this much: Princess Celestia made me Starlight Glimmer's enemy, to entrap her, to keep her from running away. That gave the princess the time she needed to convince Ms. Glimmer to help her." 

Cadance gaped.

Eventually, I had helped. It gave us, together, the opportunity save Equestria and possibly the world: 601 days from now—when her sister returned.

Celestia had used him as badly as she had me. He'd endured loyally and, by extension, helped save Equestria, too. That made him one of the good ponies. My heart still open, I reached a hoof to him with a smile. "Call me 'Starlight,' please." I let him pull me up. 

He told Cadance, "Starlight did what I would have done."

"But, she broke your bones! She scarred your hindquarters!"

I interrupted. "I protect ponies. You think I wanted any of this? Hurting Shining Armor? The Predicament? The titles? The authority? Celestia won't listen to me!" My horseshoe sparked when I struck the pavers. "Since I was 5, I've told her that! But she," I sneered, "wanted a tool; she insisted on forging one and binding me to her purpose. She has done both. I will be the best tool I can be, but not a doormat."

Cadance blinked. "What tool?"

Oh, colts. She doesn't know!

In my head, I heard her repeat scarred your hindquarters. Shining Armor wore pants. He bore Celestia's cursed mark; he had to avoid mentioning the curse or fighting its purpose, or it would trigger and possess him to prevent him from speaking of it or fighting it. They weren't riding partners, or she'd have seen Celestia's oversized solar cutie mark that was so big it wrapped around from his dock to his stallion parts. 

She did not know the 603 day secret.

"A bodyguard," I prevaricated. "She'll live longer than I do, I promise. When we've accomplished our goal, I'll abdicate."

When she heard the A-word, her jaw dropped and would have hit the ground and bounced were that possible. She'd stopped breathing. Shining Armor put a leg over her withers, pulling her close to steady her. Rather cheeky for a guard. 

"Look," I continued, "We started off on the wrong hoof. You looked like you wanted to murder me in the throne room. I understand your feelings... So, how about I teach you how to properly thrash me with that stick you were planning on picking up? The first rule of being an effective prizefighter is to learn how not to telegraph a punch. One day you'll be forced to protect somepony you love."

"I'd never do that! Hit somepony."

"Yet, I read the intent in your magic."

In a low voice, she said, "When I feel negative emotions, my special talent magnifies those, the same as it does the positive ones. Mais... but, worse, love magic does not work on one pony." She looked down, dejected.

"Your love magic clearly worked on me. Do you have problems with targeting? Did it give you erroneous feedback? Let's arrange a practice session together." I really wanted some one-on-one time with her casting so I could sense her magic equations. I wanted to how her cutie mark worked. "You and Shining Armor need remedial defense training." 

When he glared at me, I added. "Which pony got knocked over and unprofessionally hit his head? Really, I was injured at the time; I flubbed trying to hit you so that wasn't even close to my best effort. You could have rolled. You could have caught me in your magic as I stumbled into you, while you protected your head, and utilized my momentum to throw me across the room!"

Because I really wanted to see Blueblood, to find out the secret of our 7 AM meeting, and I really really didn't want to be late for that, I quickly got them to agree to a play date in the near future. With that "yes," I got Cadance to let me cast the daily spell, albeit under her glaring intense scrutiny.

I was starting to like her.