The Runaway Bodyguard

by scifipony

Chapter 5 — Crises of Identity

Rambler's service left me curious about the luxuries of the other three cars, but interacting with other possibly high society ponies who might recognize the rarity of an up and coming Earl wasn't worth the risk of compromising my flimsy disguise.

Starlight was never going to live a life of fortune or fame. Starlight aimed for lower class anonymity, a mere glimmer of what the powers-that-be intended for her. I wanted to mess with the Crown's priorities until I forced it to dispose of the newly minted Grin Having domain as a failed attempt at assuaging its guilt, making it face the blood at its hooves.

My plan required discipline.

Certainly, amongst all the lessons in manners, dance, letters, speaking, elocution, business, mathematics, politics, warcraft, and self-defense Proper Step had ensured I'd gotten, I'd learned discipline, too. Proper Step... Magic studies were as low on his priorities list as was learning to dig ditches, but I'd studiously maintained what Sunburst had helped me begin.

Sunburst...

He'd gotten his cutie mark and immediately trotted his suddenly handsome flank out of my pseudo-noble life, never to speak nor write to me again...

To attend Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns.

My eyes burned and I fought away tears, blinking furiously—literally becoming furious. I stomped a hoof down on the table, causing the basin of water to splash. I soaped my face and hooves, scrubbing, trying to wash away the feelings that overwhelmed me, then trying to rinse them away until the water felt cold—to no avail. No scrubbing could accomplish that, to wash away an ugly sense of betrayal.

We had learned magic together, prepped together.

We had been going to be the greatest magic users of our generation, together.

We had been going to attend Celestia's School, together.

I would have attended no matter what Proper Step said, despite it having a headmare whom I would have had to fight my instincts not to show how much I despised her. Sunburst, until that very last critical instant, had been kind, funny, and supportive.

I had thought I had had a friend, but I knew now that friendship was just an illusion. It lacked all magic. The tyranny of receiving a cutie mark, marshaling a pony's destiny, made the hope of friendship—forming a network to support a pony throughout her life—the worst canard. Promulgating such a foul deception was as worthy of being denounced as was having committed murder.

I stood there dripping, my cheeks and muzzle now cold. I took a towel, dried, then left the damp thing covering my face as I sunk to the floor.

Sunburst had had awesome goldenrod fur, so much easier on the eyes than my prissy lavender, and a very masculine white blaze and socks. His naturally spiked mane resembled frozen fire. I'd sometimes pull his little scraggly red goatee, claiming I'd misfired my Levitate spell. The oblivious colt never seemed to notice when I sat snuggled up to him in winter to enjoy his warmth.

Perhaps he did notice, or didn't mind. He was a genius in arcane old Ponish. He could explain thaumaturgical arcana and spell math in an accessible way I still swooned for.

I had grown to love Sunburst. I would never have admitted it, but I had even imagined us being wed. He had had a good heart.

Sunburst hadn't really betrayed me. His blasted cutie mark had!

Perhaps, just perhaps, he wasn't completely lost. He would be a great wizard now. I'd moved from my parent's house to the Manor the very week he got his cutie mark, so I could intuit how far he might've advanced with his magical genius. I— I might be of less value to him, especially if his so-called destiny guided him, and despite him having had to have entered the school as a third, maybe second year student...

I shuddered where I lay.

I did have value—as the Countess Aurora Midnight, Earl of Grin Having—not Starlight, barely a glimmer of a wealthy noble. I trailed far behind him magically, but even a great wizard needed a place to call home, and the support to not have to take just any old job... And, possibly, a family to call his own. I imagined how my colt friend had matured and grown into an amazing stallion, nearing his full height at his age. That made me finally smile. Maybe I did have a use for Princess Celestia's blood money. I wondered what a stallion to call my own might be like. I wondered for a moment if he would smell like Woodcutter's shirt had. Masculine. Steely.

Or would it be magical?

I had tripped up traveling to Canterlot. Luck, after the horse apples this morning? He was in his sixth year, probably, at the school. I could find him.

Ask him why he hadn't answered my letters—

No.

Maybe not that.

Proper Step's political tutoring taught me that much.

But I had to know—were we still an us? A him and I? Could friendship endure, or have even survived?

Yes, of course—not stupid! I was justifying reasons to do what would likely end up being a bad idea and a fount of lasting anguish. Still... a mare had to do what a mare had to do.

I'd read enough novels to know that much.

I'd gotten up, brushed myself off, and hidden errant green hair when a soft knock came at the door. "Rambler, young sir."

"Enter."

When he came in with a fresh towel, I said, "It's Starlight, Rambler."

"Yes, Mister Starlight." He took the old towel and mopped the drips on the floor and table with practiced dexterity, before retrieving the basin. "The Pullpony Service offers High Tea at four. You can enjoy it in your compartment, if you choose."

"Yes, Rambler. Much appreciated."

He nodded. "And I can launder your shirt and britches, if you'd like." My culottes did resemble the knee pants the colts of the middle class wore to private schools. Uniforms established hierarchy.

I frowned demonstratively, a skill I'd learned under Proper Step's tutelage. I liked being thought male. I'd play the role offered me.

"Right, young sir. No change of clothes have you? I shall bring spot cleaning cloths after the tea to help." With that, he closed the door with a whispered click that rivaled my hoof-maid.

I was free until the train stopped in Canterlot. I hopped up on the sofa, pulled out my book and notebook, and set my mind on puzzling out Don't Look, Don't See, Don't Hear. I suspected I'd need that one soon enough.

The "High Tea" arrived on a three-tiered tray, two blueberry scones accompanied by marmalade and softened butter on the bottom, a cucumber creamed-cheese sandwich with trimmed crusts in the middle, and a pair of chocolate dipped strawberries in a crown of pastry on top. Sparse, but a railcar kitchen had drastic limits. I knew strawberries weren't in season, yet, so the nice red specimens whispered premium treatment and a unicorn on staff able to cast ice spells. I was getting further lessons in what a gold bit could buy a pony. The scent of Darjeeling filled the compartment as Rambler poured the perfectly brewed copper liquid into a S&W tea cup holding the pot with his teeth and a hoof. He hoofed in a cube of sugar and poured in a spot of milk.

"Lemon?"

"No."

It lifted my spirits. But he was serving me, and that brought up thoughts of the oppression of the classes. He had a pony cart cutie mark. It looked like a big wheeled meadowbrook, but it might also be a long distance rambler. As a blank flank, I had no conception of what the abomination might do to my thinking, but evaluating his made me worry.

I reached into my drawstring purse and pulled out another silver bit.

He said, "Mister Starlight, it is much appreciated but I must assure you that my service is richly paid for by the ticket you bought. Tipping is unnecessary for the Pullpony Service on Applewood & Fillydelphia Canterlot Express."

He didn't look offended. I smiled, lifted his hoof and placed the silver on his frog, then grasped his hoof with my two front ones. "You've made a difference in my day and given me much to think about. It is necessary to me."

He smiled.

It went into his watch pocket. "Thank you," he said. The door clicked closed behind him.

A lot to think about. I was paying to assuage a twinge of guilt. That threatened to lead to thoughts of my parents as well as Celestia's blood money.

Not the same thing. Mouse versus Elephant territory.

I bit into a scone. Crunchy. With melting butter... Delicious!

Dinner turned out to be equally sparse and fine, with night fallen and moonlit trees passing the car, and the gas lights lit brightly. Broiled pepper ambergine-steaks, a giant crisped-skin baked potato with chives, butter, and sour cream, and a sage puree of spinach. Some time after dinner, a soft knock came at my door. Rambler took away my plates but said, "I'll be right back."

Five minutes later he wheeled in a very tiny rolling tray with a wood box on the bottom and cloths and a bowl of water on top. "My apologies, Mister Starlight. Some ponies require more attention and loving care than others. I hoped to get you a railroad robe to no avail." He sighed and took up a cloth. "Let's attend to those smudges now."

It felt slightly too cozy with the two of us in the compartment despite the obviously designed-to-be-small rolling tray. "Smudges? Right, on my—" I was on the sofa. "Um—"

"Can you please stand?" He sat by the tray.

I stood on the sofa.

He waved the cloth in his hoof at the floor. "And turn around slowly."

Had I tucked in all the green hairs? Would he notice that my fetlocks weren't trimmed high like on most colts? Maybe I should have cut—? I turned around.

He chuckled. "I was like that the first time," he said mostly to himself, a happy smile on his face. "Mister Starlight, stallions must remember to look like they work hard, but also to look sharp, not like a slob. I can surely remove most of the coal dust, except where strategic." He winked as he pointed.

I stood where he placed me. I smelled something astringent and something like lye soap. The bowl was a three division sauce dish: pink suds, a blue liquid, and water. With my eyes wandering, I didn't quite notice when he took hold of the bottom edge of my culottes and pulled it taut. The first stain he brushed was where I lacked a cutie mark.

For one thing, I did not fill in my "britches" where a colt did.

I fought not to tense up, feeling his hoof brush my inner thigh. Or to strike out at what ought to have been interpreted by a countess, or any young filly, as fresh. I had to do something—!

"Y-your first time?"

I hadn't noticed he'd put on red-framed reading glasses and that his tongue stuck out the side of his mouth as he dabbed away. He chuckled and said, "My first time striking out on my own—I was like you. No family support, just myself to depend on. My sire wanted me to become somepony. He set his sights high, but I'd become convinced I wasn't that pony he envisioned. Not a doctor nor some fella managing his hardware stores. There!"

He switched to a dry cloth, then scrubbed another black mark a small bristly fabric brush.

As he held the fabric from moving by placing a hoof distractingly by my dock, I asked, "You struck out alone, Rambler?"

"I felt compelled. I up and left. I wanted to find something to do that would make me happy and not somepony else, regardless how well loved. Can you imagine doing something all your life for somepony else and hating it?"

Yes. "You found something to make you happy?"

He sat back and knocked the dust out of the brush onto the tray. "Yes."

"How?"

"I moved to another city, did odd jobs until I found I liked making ponies happy by providing the the services they didn't know they needed." He reached out, put a hoof between the buttons of my shirt and began brushing.

He had my attention!

"When a restaurant promoted me from dishwasher to server, I found I liked being the fella that remembered your name, your favorite hay plates or cider drinks, and knew when you wanted it before you spoke. I found my way into becoming a butler, and then a substitute butler. That let me to travel Equestria on the railroad almost every week. Traveling appealed to my inner colt."

He pointed to his cutie mark. The rambler wagon. Did his cutie mark therefore take him away from his family?

Skeptical, I asked, "You ended up here?"

"Not ended up. I created this job. I went to the various railroads and proposed there would be ponies willing to pay for exquisite service so that traveling might be more of a vacation than the vacation destination they traveled to. A&FR trialed my idea; I tuned it and trained other ponies to handle the sudden demand— Well, that should do. Better would be laundered, but that's clean enough to show you care, make you look sharp while appearing experienced."

"Lemonade from lemons?"

He winked as he dropped the spent cloths in the now murky solution.

"And Applewood gave you the job?"

He smiled. "I've saved my silvers. I manage the Pullpony service, and not because I have to at my age, but because I love it. I get to meet gentlecolts like you. Some day you will be somepony famous across Equestria."

I felt my cheeks color and I waved a hoof side to side. The events of this morning proved I was anything but.

"You are obviously the studious sort." He pointed at my open book and notebook and waved me back onto the sofa. I hopped up with relief. "Either looking for further training for your mining craft, or joining a consortium I'd guess, though none of my business. Maybe taking a few magic classes at the university? Take my humble advice. Find what you love to do. You won't go wrong."

"Sounds like good advice."

"Thank you. May I polish your shoes?"

I looked at the steel ones, then levitated out my brushed brass ones. They did look androgynous. "Oops, no. Mud—"

"Don't be silly." He grabbed them from the air.

"Thank you."

He reached for the cherrywood box under the cart and clunked it lightly on the table. He unfolded it to reveal a cordial glass and squat purple bottle with a cork stopper. Old Stone Fruit Farms it read with a thirty-year old vintage. "You looked taken by the marmalade."

I licked my lips.

"Indeed. I thought an apricot cordial might hit the spot while you study."

I wasn't going to clarify I was very much underage. Regardless, I'd been drinking quarter-beer and diluted hard cider at dinner since I was eight, and once each week-end I got a sip of stronger spirits. Proper Step insisted a noble had to be able to hold her liquor and that no pony ought hold up drink as some sort of mysterious elixir somehow safe for adults to have freely.

I nodded.

The scent of sweet apricot filled the compartment.

I sipped on the few ounces decanted me for hours and hours. I studied late into the night, happy for the time being. I even thought I'd deciphered the meaning of one of the words in my spell.

I thought a lot about finding what I loved to do. Would I? Maybe.

Why couldn't I have gotten somepony like Rambler as a guardian instead of Proper Step?

I woke to that demanding screech of metal wheels against curved rails as the train climbed repeated switchbacks up Canterlot mountain. I threw off the blankets with a start before I realized where I was. I smelled toast and looked down. On the table was golden crusty bread, oatmeal squares, an apple, and orange juice. A red rose bud graced a little bud vase that cast a quickly swiveling shadow as the train rounded a corner. On the chair lay the clothes I'd removed before slipping into bed. They were laundered and smartly pressed, with brass horseshoes gleaming better than new, and the steel ones oiled to a silver-blue sheen and lightly blackened at the edges, which of course made them appear super refined—defeating the cheap gutter rat look I'd intended.

Out the window, pines growing on craggy landscape wheeled by. The wheels screeched again and the train rushed into a tunnel, plunging me into a twilit darkness softened by the still on gas lamp set to low.

I dressed and swiftly redid my hair, having undone it all. While I gathered Rambler had a self-defined duty to gather clothing and shoes thrown silly-nilly on the floor and perform his magic, I trusted he had a servant's sixth sense of not looking at or studying a slumbering charge. I hoped I hadn't thrown off the covers and he'd felt compelled to fix that... No matter now.

I found strawberry preserves for the toast. I ate and drank everything but the oat and pumpkin seed bars. I put one in my pocket and put the three others in a saddlebag. The train had already ceased climbing and rolled on a level trestle. I got repeated glimpses of castle turrets looming ahead as we passed through rock formations at a steadily lower height. I put my muzzle to the window, not for the grand scenery, but to look for pegasi. I thought I might recognize some of those that I'd seen visit the manor or I'd glimpsed around the hollow.

It made my neck hurt.

I adjusted my appearance in the mirror, hid a few errant green strands, and looped the black string tie around my neck. I fumbled repeatedly trying to make it look like Woodcutter had tied it. In the reflection of the window behind me, I saw white buildings slide slowly by, the railroad signs jerk as the cars switched into the main siding, then Canterlot Terminus Station... I popped on the bowler. I spied the rose bud. I'd seen an appropriate button hole in the shirt collar and slipped it in.

Dapper! Especially for a mare.

The train jerked forward slightly as it stopped with a squeal of reversing power wheels, followed by a long relieved sounding hiss of escaping steam. I waited for the clunking of baggage and the clatter of horseshoes to quiet. I looked out the window. It wasn't the platform side. I could see through whitewashed posts that the station was at the edge of the cliff. I looked around, then strained to look up. No obvious pegasi scanning the train, on this side at least.

Delaying the inevitable seemed fruitless. I lacked the experience to know what to expect; however, barring Woodcutter with a lasso or a dozen constables, I ought to be able to make a run for it. Powered with the sugar from the jam and orange juice, that might be doable. I began prepping my Levitate spell to make myself ready to grab and push away any objects, such as lasso, that might get in my way. Pushing ponies away effectively was still a work-in-progress, and I didn't understand why, so that was off the table for now.

I swallowed the lump in my throat, used the spell to lift my saddlebags on my back and to shift the contents around so they were balanced, then pressed down on the compartment latch to open it.

I swiftly looked both ways down the wood paneled corridor. Nopony there. I trotted to the rear exit I'd entered through yesterday afternoon.

"Mister Starlight!"

Author's Note:

Challenge: If I see addition upvotes 👍 beyond the 17 as of 7:50 PM PDT 4/2/21, I will release an extra chapter on Tuesday.

Next Chapter: Shadowy Characters — Starlight navigates the streets of Canterlot, thinking she sees ponies following her. The truth is unexpected.