//------------------------------// // 28 — Public Nightmares Part II: Her Grim Tally // Story: Ms. Glimmer and the Do-Nothing Prince // by scifipony //------------------------------// No mistaking Proper Step's voice as I trotted into the large space. He, Mudflats, Desert Shield, and a castle maid all said, "Ms. Glimmer." I was confounded enough that I continued until I pressed my nose against the glass. The dark grey-topped midnight blue egg-shape ship floated beyond the bailey wall at the precipice to the Ponyville plain, rotating like an air sock in the wind. Suddenly, in a wave from bow to aft, the color changed to a light sky blue with a cloudy white top. It immediately blended in, though since I knew where it was, the coloration didn't fool my eye. Not Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear, but an impressive illusion spell nonetheless. I repeated, "What's a navy airship doing floating near Canterlot?" Proper Step, a pony length behind me, said, "I don't know. But I do have a communiqué from the princess." I remembered the look of warrior Celestia, wearing gold armor that hid an angry whirling stars and shield cutie mark. My former butler held a briefing notebook and I saw some torn newspaper sticking out. The maid strode from the hall with towels and laundry in her magic. I pointed my nose at the door to the suite. She dropped her load on a cart, rolling it out using Motivate, a spell I had not yet succeeded in mastering. An orange juice pitcher and glasses waited on a sideboard. To the prince's bodyguards, I said, "If you don't have security clearance, or have something in your past that would disqualify you, follow that pony out. I will check later." Proper Step snapped open a folded sheet and read, "'The Golden Stag obliterated the village. Fortunately, the mayor had evacuated. I see no issues in handling the diplomacy, and will ask for ponies to help rebuild soon. Take cautious measures.' Signed, Celestia Regina Sunny Daze." "Obliterated," came out of my mouth like a death rattle. My heart skipped, skipped, stopped, then raced in my chest. A light flashed across my vision and I heard a loud ting, like something suddenly overloaded and stunned my inner ear. White fog only I could see drifted into my peripheral vision as sweat beaded and dripped from my hide like I'd run blocks through a city. I ceased to perceive myself in Canterlot. In my mind, I huffed out of breath, pressed into the shadows between wagons on Court Street in midtown Hooflyn. I'd galloped north toward the Hooflyn Bridge after Carne Asada had precipitated a gang war. I knew full well that had been almost precisely a year ago. In the palace, I tensed but didn't cringe or hunker down as my body commanded. I could not hide the sweat, however. Carne Asada had... I gulped for air. Carne Asada had called me Daughter. Made me appear second in command to her. She made ponies believe she was mother by wielding me as her tool. She manipulated me and everypony. Celestia had called me her heir. She'd elevated me to crown princess and made it sound like I was second only to her. She made ponies believe she'd made me her heir by her declaration at my coronation, by a flurry of articles the publication of which she'd likely orchestrated, by manufacturing that I close the Day Court and likely encouraging the drama, by displaying me to the populace at the Running of the Leaves with a #2 on my chest, by making me personable and believably romantically involved with the Prince of Equestria, and by leaving me in charge while she left on her military adventure. Celestia had bent me to her will because, think about it a moment, how could I refuse to save the world all ponies lived in? Carne Asada had baited me into believing I could prevent a gang war. Intuition insisted Celestia had baited me into a similarly powerless situation. I took a few steps. I focused on the pitcher of orange juice. Something normal. Something to distract from my growing panic and the tiny voice crying Run! at the back of my mind. Even that left me breathing hard, practically hyperventilating. My ears rang—loudly. The fog encroached, narrowing my vision, strangling my access to the real world. Hoof falls clattered all around—from dark alleys I'd missed... Screams. Carne Asada had let me manage her lieutenants—in retrospect only pretending she didn't like it. I taught them how to run their "businesses" better thanks to all I'd learned being trained to run Grin Having as an earl—stuff like how to avoid conflict and fighting, even as our syndicate encroached on the territories and "businesses" of other gangs. She used me to make her organization endure at the expense of her competitors, letting me believe I was making things better. The Golden Stag... My intuition didn't trust Celestia not to lie. The Golden Stag obliterated... She was a royal. An absolute ruler. The Golden Stag obliterated the village! Normal rules didn't apply. What was Celestia setting me up to do? Was I about to be responsible for ponies' lives? Again? Run! To fail? So she didn't have to? Run! Again? Run! Smoke made my nose itch and my eyes water, though the air in the palace was clean and fresh. Tarry-sweet plumes of black billowed were Force ignited the asphalt. Wagons burnt and crackled, snapping loudly when wood strapping—turned to charcoal—snapped, collapsing the carriage. Burning hair had its own a special scent. Was that flesh? Run! I took a few more steps toward the orange juice and the crystal glasses beside it, living in a dual reality. My past overlaid the present. I knew that intellectually, but panic made me jerk and wobble. It tried to wipe away my conscious mind, to get me to shriek, to fight, to flee. Run! Sunset had triggered my PTSD in the Crystal Caves below Canterlot months ago. Somepony who was both a bully and a TA had arranged a practicum in a dark location where students could practice shooting Stun at each other, not realizing one student had been a bodyguard protecting the highest value target in the city, getting shot at on every block. Six months before that, in Hooflyn, cornered with the mob boss, I pushed Carne Asada between wagons. She threw a tantrum, kicking things, yelling how dare they attack her! An hour before that, she strapped on a peytral purse even as I pushed her down on the seat of our brougham. Force bolts seconds later reduced the carriage to splinters, but I'd had my hoof on her. I teleported us out. Later, she reached into her purse. It contained... metal pine cones? She threw one at her attacker. The flash made me blink; a krump punched my insides, but all I heard was a ting! Burning wood, sparks, and metal bits peppered the wagons and splashed on the pavement like a breaking ocean wave on the beach. Movement. It drew my eyes. The clatter of hooves burst through the ringing in my ears. A blue pony. Galloping. Panicked. Then, incapable of panic. Muscles kept reciprocating, executing movement through reflex, not conscious direction. Run! I could not remember what he looked like, because certain things you cannot remember what they looked like or you might go insane, but he ran because he could no longer stop. In the palace, I managed a few more steps, coming within a half-dozen pony lengths of the sideboard. The pitcher sweated because it was chilled. I counted six crystal glasses with frosted diamond etching on the silver serving tray. Proper Step reach out with his magic. "Don't touch me!" I said, somehow controlling my voice, making it work, making it sound normal. Maybe. I hoped. I discovered Force in my horn, but I had that under control. The numbers were ill-formed, and the targeting vectors bounded all over Tartarus. Probably wouldn't work. Probably. Please don't work! I wasn't lost. Run! Singe approached, frowning. I didn't want to be perceived as acting strangely. Like a drunk, I slowed, making every movement perfect by ensuring each muscle fired in the right sequence, ensuring that inertia and momentum failed to get the better of me. I neither staggered nor overshot. I shook my head as she reached a rose-colored hoof my way. The blue pony in Hooflyn stumbled and I looked past her at him. I heard him grunt, his screaming going silent as he went chin forward toward the cobbles, then sliding, crumpling, and falling with a thud. Silent. Forever. Run! The stallion was the first in my mental tally. I began it with his passing. A tally of ponies that died because I had failed to act... Ponies that died because I had been so sure of myself, so prideful that I had to save evil Carne Asada's life as her bodyguard... Ponies that, had I let Carne Asada die when attacked... Attacked, how many times? How many!? How many times had I saved evil? That first time: A pegasus had lunged from a blind doorway. The knife flashed, in a split second, even as he plunged it into her. I teleported her away. After having removed the knife and staunched her bleeding, I let her hysterical words of revenge convince me to murder her attacker. With his knife. (I'd failed, but didn't learn that for a few days.) I could have left her unconscious, bleeding. The second time: A griffon dive-bombed us. Backwash from my Force counterattack had thrown me, demolishing my pastern against a jutting bookshelf. Had I mentioned I'd bled so much I'd died? They barely revived me. I could have just stepped back and let the griffon... The third time. At the beginning of the gang war. Our carriage reduced to flinders. I could have teleported only myself. The fourth time: We'd dodged between the wagons. A blue force bolt aimed—without the caster or his magic understanding Carne Asada would stand up in its path—would have cut her down. I'd tackled her. Only her mane, my cloak, and her dress caught fire. She threw the fabric aside, revealing crippled leathery wings she always hid beneath clothing. She splashed her burning hair using water from the gutter like a bird in a birdbath. Then threw something that killed the blue pony who had shot at her. I could have stepped back. Had I done anything else any of those times, I could have prevented a gang war. I reached the pitcher. Not trusting my magic, I sat on a chair, lifted it slowly with two hooves, and poured a glassful, spilling teaspoons of orange juice to splash this way and that. The liquid sounds and the clink click clink of spout against crystal rim helped mask the blue pony's final horseshoe clatter, the sounds of his pain suddenly ceasing as I heard him slide and bump to a stop. The first of my tally. Sixteen would never move again that afternoon. My fault because I wouldn't do what was right. Seven would cease to breathe after I took over the Syndicate for those two weeks... Because... I ordered ponies not to fight unless cornered and if gang rivals refused to let us disengage, I told them be ruthless defending themselves—a strategy calculated to make it less likely ponies would attack in the future. A few sacrificed... Yeah... To prevent wholesale skirmishes turning into constant retribution and endless war. Twenty-three deaths. Death. That word. I owned it. All because I lacked the courage to act when I knew better. No. Twenty-four. Carne Asada tricked me into setting a bomb with her. Her ultimate reason for starting the gang war. She wanted to wipe out the Hooflyn EBI headquarters, where she had manipulated the bureau of investigation to store all their records about her. Her first step in a plan to use my ability to teleport and to make myself invisible (with crippling caveats she didn't understand) to murder Princess Celestia, whom she blamed for the genocide of her people. Her excuse for becoming a terrorist and a mob boss. Celestia later admitted to me that she drove the thestrals of the Crystal Caves from Equestria. On reflection, I realized that must have been after she banished her sister to the moon, which probably looked like a genocidal war from their perspective, but that's another story. Carne Asada had expected me, her daughter, to teleport her away from the bomb after she'd lit the fuses. That left me having to choose between saving her, or what turned out to be 271 EBI ponies. I became the Hero of Hooflyn. Savor the irony. I. Am. Evil. The orange juice splattered as I shook, bringing the glass to my mouth. I drank it. Sour and sweet at the same time, like yesterday. I disliked the acidic drink now more than ever, but gulped it anyway. It distracted me from the memories of the ponies around me that I hadn't had the courage to save, even if it would have cost me my life. Twenty-four dead. I chose to let Carne Asada die. Since I had made that choice, was it murder? Was I a murderer? I was evil! Why did I torture myself? Why couldn't I just not care?