The Runaway Bodyguard

by scifipony

Chapter 48 — Round Three

I bucked the wood and metal chair, knocking it back a pony length. "Celestia on Roller Skates!" I stomped out of the room, sputtering—calculating, but still sputtering. "You are crazy! I need to cut my losses right now."

She galloped after me. "Wait, wait. I'm sorry. It's just that Post Dock just called me a teacher's pet, and, and, and—it's true, his comments aside."

I sped up, she sped up, keeping just ahead of me.

Taller, she had to crane her neck down to look at me as she huffed and puffed to keep up. "I'll—I'll do anything to get ahead. I-I don't like that about myself. I remember when I was your age. I got bullied as an egghead, a lot, and, well, I understand, all right?"

We ran out of hallway. The stairway down went right, but I stopped and looked down without heading that way.

Okay. I could put myself in those horseshoes if I thought about it. I definitely could put Sunburst in them, so, okay. I'm listening, I thought. What came out of my mouth was, "Good."

I sounded like the foal I was. I focused on a lime-green unicorn who stopped climbing upward, blinked his amber eyes, shook his head, and trotted back down. Smart pony. College pony; made sense.

She tried, "You seem pretty smart."

I scoffed. "For my age, right? And you don't teach foals, or liars."

"I—" She stomped the marble tile and it echoed down the hall. "What do you want me to say?"

She sounded genuinely contrite, and frustrated. I suspected that her face had colored slightly red, but I quashed the reflex to look up and see. A chill ran up my spine. My ears did twitch as I made sure we were alone, thinking if I were ever to find the opportunity, now was the time for the gambit I'd had formulated during my long bath last night. Her remark, "Some kind of prodigy," was the key to what I wanted.

Okay. Am I going to do this?

Yes.

"I am going to tell you something that if it got out would cause me all kinds of hurt."

"Then don't tell me—"

I interrupted her. "My real name, my real full name, is The Countess Aurora Midnight, the Earl of Grin Having, Lady Presiding of Sire's Hollow, daughter of Midnight and the first Earl of Grin Having, Firelight."

She backed up as my unwavering gaze met hers. She swallowed. After the exact amount time it would have taken to replay the entire name with titles in her head, belief dawned with widened eyes. Rays of mid-afternoon sunlight illuminated her orange face and made her eyes glow with liquid magenta. She made to curtsy, coming down on one knee.

"Don't!" I all but shouted, then affected a whine. "Please don't."

She shot back up so abruptly, she slightly reared, then came down with a clatter. "I—"

"I ran away. Celestia granted the title to my parents post-equis and turned my life into living in Tartarus. Please, call me Pidgy. I kind of like it."

"An earl! That explains everything. How does it go, 'With the right to command the Princess' Army in wartime—'"

"Not gonna happen."

"And you became a prizefighter and a champion at your age. You were trained to fight from birth, weren't you?"

"Only defense. My guardian didn't think fighting was lady-like."

"The Princess had the right of it. One day you may save Equestria."

"More likely destroy it."

Broomhill Dare scoffed.

"Possibly both," I conceded, "Look—" I waved a hoof dismissively. "—I admit to liking to fight, and I have my reasons for that other than any of Celestia's misguided plans or beyond her blood money. It isn't my thing. Magic is. Good for nothing Proper Step didn't think magic was lady-like either, and if it weren't for a good friend, a real prodigy, probably some sort of arch-wizard now... who had the temerity to leave me—" I felt tears burning in my eyes, pooling, starting to roll down my cheeks. "—I'd barely be able to lift utensils and use my horn as a night light."

I took a deep breath. "Okay? Got that? Enough honesty for you?"

As if she'd missed everything I said, she quoted, "'And a right to the third copper of all taxes collected—'"

Bam. She was mine.

"I earn my bits, every copper. I'd renounce, were I given the chance. I don't need Celestia's blood money. Living on the streets, grazing in a park isn't that bad. Well, except during winter or when it's raining. Like last night. It's a choice I've made, willingly."

"Your parents are dead...?"

"Duh. Definition of post-equis."

"S-she... k-killed them?"

"Got them killed. Same difference. Midnight—"

"Wait. You don't mean...? The opera singer, Midnight?"

"Yeah, the black beauty with the black double-star cutie mark. Mom traveled everywhere, attended parties, heard ponies talking. Apparently, with Father, they were some sort of spies. She made them Heroes of Equestria. I forget their medallion numbers, but you can look it up. Something about a self-styled prince of storms and his yeti wives. None of that counts for horse apples as far as I'm concerned. My parents died. She decided I had the pedigree to be an earl. She had the empathy of an ice sculpture. I ran away. End of story."

Broomhill Dare sat down hard. In the sunshine, moats of dust swirled around her. She covered her mouth with a hoof, thinking, eyes darting this way and that. A few minutes later, she grabbed me by the shoulder and had me follow. We walked in silence through the tree-lined campus all the way to the Cocoa Bean. She bought me a red-chili Equidorian Silver cocoa and had noticed I preferred it unsweetened.

When we sat at the table under near her favorite tree, she said, "Constables maintained you were kidnapped. I remember a friend going on and on about the articles she had read. I think she said there's no other earls in the peerage right now. Candy Floss's big time into celebrities and nobility." She blew air through her lips. "Me with the fights, I should talk!"

"Really? Must have kidnapped myself," I grumbled, inhaling the spicy cocoa vapor before sipping the hot liquid that made red, white, brown swirls of oily foam as I watched.

"I still can't tutor you."

My eyes flicked to hers.

She waved her hooves. "Friends can talk."

Friends, was it? I distrusted the concept, but understood her implication. I decided to cinch the dealpsychologically by applying reciprocity and offered, "I will teach you queuing."

"Queuing?"

"Preparing and holding multiple spells at the same time. Quick draw is when you can hold queued spells and cast and recast any of them at will. It's a fight technique."

"Battle magic."

"A spell casting technique. You don't have to fight."

"Not much use to me. I can only dependibly cast Levitate."

"I find that difficult to believe."

"It's true."

"Only if you grant variations of Levitate aren't different spells. I treat all the transforms as individual spells, and I can't make Motivate work for trying, and unless I'm about to literally die, Force just fizzles."

"You can't cast a force transform?"

I nodded.

"Yeah, right... Blew up the arena lights. Had you not retired, they'd have suspended you for doing that for a month at least, and penalized you—"

"I got the entire purse that night, but that's another story."

She rubbed her chin. "Try casting."

I snorted. "I'm not going to shoot you."

She rolled her eyes. "Blood thirsty, are we?"

"I did cast it the first time when I chased away a stallion..." I looked down. "A monster who... Horse apples! It was right after I ran away. I set his tail on fire. Better if I'd lit his stallion parts—"

She looked around to see if anypony was watching. I glanced and nopony was. She pointed and asked lowly, "What about that tin can? Can you hit that tin can?"

"Target practice? I calculate targeting vectors in my dreams. My approximations are more accurate than most ponies fully prepared spells! What a waste of time—"

"You obviously can't do it."

"Can, too."

"Prove it."

My face burned like Celestia's sun. I purposely prepped the spell while slowly putting down the cup of cocoa, then simultaneously triggered a blue-green beam.

Yellow globs of melted tin sprayed out followed by a loud clang as two halves of sundered soda can, all semblance of painted label burnt off, bounced off a tree trunk and spun on the cement.

I reared and stomped on the table, staring. Broomhill Dare caught my cocoa off-hoof before it spilled, her mouth wide open.

"What problem were you having, again?"

Adrenalized, I imagined the Monster's flank. I kept casting the spell at the two halves of the can, but nothing. Again and again.

My horn went tink!

She'd tapped it with hoof. "It was overheating," she said. "Some problem."

"Tell me about it."

"Fortunately, it's not a spell you use every day."

I didn't tell her about the fire fight I'd fomented a few weeks ago, the one that had proven that if I expected to get any future promotions, I had best master that spell. "Uh-huh."

"Take your cocoa."

It passed from her light pink nebulosity to my blue green one. I sipped the spiced chocolate pensively, confused at what had happened. Was it lack of magic reserves? Was it psychological? Was I just stupid?

Maybe I was actually too young!?

"Let's try another spell. Pick something difficult."

"Okay." I put down the cup. My notebook, it's spine creased as it was, opened to the middle when I put it down. I spun it around so she could read. I'd copied Teleport there.

She looked at it, reading the equations and pointing to the codicils as she did. When she came to the wish predicate, she seemed to realize she'd missed something. She frowned. "Just because I can't cast them, doesn't mean I don't understand the math, but this bifurcated hyper-constant keeps wanting to go infinite on me..."

She tilted her head and realized the spell started on the previous page. When she looked, she stood suddenly.

"Teleport is impossible. It's a myth."

"Not if you've witnessed an alicorn casting a complex spell."

She giggled, then began laughing.

"I did. Princess Celestia cast some sort of map illusion."

Broomhill Dare laughed more. She sounded slightly maniacal.

"She scrolled the map surface around with a hoof; it was like moving a spyglass across a landscape. Impressive. Her magic, compared to her appearance, made her seem downright plain. It inspired me to cast myself." I paused for affect, and lowered my voice. "She noticed."

I knew the instant Broomhill Dare paused to take a breath from hyperventilating from laughter, she'd call me a liar again. I dumped my saddle bags and—in addition to the remaining apples, clothing, makeup, Marlin's, gold and silver bits—out came a singular chit adorned with a rune that seemed to fidget in the late afternoon sunlight. I stopped the rectangle from sliding off the table and pushed it forward.

The copper color caught her eyes and she bent to look at it.

I continued. "She departed with a flight of pegasi, but a guard pony insisted she wanted me to have this."

"And this is?"

"Admission to Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, no questions asked."

"Uh-huh. You want me to tutor you, why?"

"I ran away. From her."

"So you say—okay, right, I will believe you. You ran away, I get that. And this looks, well, very difficult to counterfeit. But Teleport? You're just a unicorn." She began to laugh again, shaking her head.

I looked around. It was late afternoon. I didn't see anypony.

Our eyes met. I pointed at her eyes, then at my eyes, then repeated the gesture as I prepped the spell and two sets of vectors.

I cast it.

I appeared next to her, the out-teleport pop shockingly loud when reflected off her hide. I'd translated my coordinates 90º so that I stood facing at her from the side. The moment she finished turning her neck so she looked at me again, pink eyes going wide, I cast the second time, translating my coordinates to a hoof length above the table. My horseshoes clattered as I landed and looked down at her, translated in the x, y, and z axis.

She looked up at me as I felt my legs begin to quiver with on-rushing exhaustion.

I said, "I-I can't cast illusions spells—" I caught myself and shrugged. "N-nothing except the most stupidly complex, anyway."

Broomhill Dare's legs folded and, like a rag doll, she tumbled to the ground, her head fortunately landing on her saddlebags.

Fainted. Out cold.

Author's Note:

Next: The horse apples hit the fan. An angry Starlight is a dangerous Starlight. No, it’s not who you think.

Wednesday, Nov 3rd, 2021, I will begin publishing a side story to this story. There will be some spoilers, alas. If you are not following me, now would be a good time to do so to get all the updates and blog posts! It will receive new chapters daily.

The story is titled: Love, Friendship, and Gangsters. The following link will be open for all readers sometime Nov 3rd.

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/505593/love-friendship-and-gangsters

Comments

[AbruptUrethra]

Okay, now that's a twist. Starlight really went all-out with this gambit. This could backfire horribly; given how many enemies she's making, and her current line of work, I can think of dozens of situations where her association with her magic teacher got tracked down, and the poor college student got "interrogated".

Countess Aurora Midnight had disappeared some years ago. While Starlight could just disappear herself and restart anew somewhere else, not only would throwing away everything she's built up to hurt (as she herself noted a few chapters ago - when she first woke up in Trigger's apartment, if I recall correctly?), but Countess Midnight surfacing briefly would be very problematic too. The search would be reinvigorated, a new lead would be found, not to mention that Gelding and Princess Grim both had a lot of public appearances and this could link all her identities together.

Going to be very interesting to see what, if anything, comes of this. Huge risk Starlight is taking - let's see if her breaking her own general attitude of distrust is going to backfire.

[scifipony]

Good analysis, good connecting of the dots, but of course I can’t answer. With Starlight, just when you think it can’t get worse, it will. Nothing is as it seems.