Ms. Glimmer and the Do-Nothing Prince

by scifipony

39 — Feeling Filly III: The Importance of Good Note Taking

"I'll have you know there's a baby dragon here," Spike said from his perch on Cadance's rump. He had quite a ride because there was quite a bit of swish and sway in that posterior. My average size and athleticism couldn't compete with her beauty, despite her being unfashionably skinny.

"Really?" I asked, interrupted during our conversation. I frowned at the princess. What gives?

"Twilight hatched him ten years ago."

My mind replaced hatched with gave birth to. "Wait, what?"

"Hatched his egg," she emphasized with a giggle. "Part of Twilight's magic practicum for entering Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns."

Ah. That. I'd spent 10 minutes making foals of the proctors when they thought I'd teleported but couldn't teleport back. I was actually using an incredibly finicky hard to maintain spell that made them ignore me. I knocked over quills, blew in a teacher's ears, and changed my presumptive fail (because I was obviously another of Celestia's incapable favorites) to an A+. Fun. I grinned, remembering it fondly.

Spike made an exploding sound that required copious spit, waving his "action figures," which looked suspiciously like an earth pony and a pegasus doll, both stallions. The brown feather harassed the green hoof dressed in farmer overalls. I assumed he was a villain in the comic book story in the saurian's head. He added, breathlessly. "Her magic storm destroyed half of Canterlot, too."

This morning, Twilight had managed to catch a spell I'd lost when I'd been startled, reading my equations and numeric solutions from my horn and keeping the spell alive, complete with my vectors transformed to her POV. The ingénue hadn't even acted as if that was the least bit remarkable!

I couldn't do that, had never thought to try.

I had to admit Twilight Sparkle was the better mage. I totally believed the little dragon, turning to Cadance for more detail.

Cadance shook her head. "Not quite, Mignon. She did open a chasm all the way to Tartarus from the Luna Tower, down Alicorn Way. Fortunately, nopony was seriously hurt because it was so straight. Plenty of bruises when the cobblestones heaved up and threw ponies over, I've been told."

"It was unicorn magic," I grumbled. Couldn't hurt or kill, unless the thaumaturge's life was in danger, best I could attest.

"You sound disappointed," Spike observed, flying his pegasus like a hawk in a stoop at his earth pony.

"How old are you, really?" I asked.

"Nine years, ten months," he answered smugly.

"How many days?"

"Seven."

"Not a baby."

"Dragons live centuries," he countered, aiming a buck at the pegasus doll. "Baby dragon."

"I ran an Earldom at that age." When Cadance lifted an eyebrow, I added, "Supervised. Not wanting to, not realizing Celestia expected I'd rebel and set my inferiors straight—"

"Mais, you were as the Prench say, naïve? Did as told?" Cadance smirked. "Like moi?" A passive–aggressive reference to her misconception of needing to marry a prince?

"Una estupida, as the Equidorians say," I shot back.

"Acted like a baby—?" Spike started.

We two princesses shouted in unison. "Shut up!"

He made a zipping motion, but continued, "No talking about mushy stuff like getting married and kissy stuff, because, you know—"

"A baby flapping dragon," I hissed under my breath.

"I don't have wings," he said smugly, as if that proved something—not catching the bad word.

Hue and Cry, leading the way, snorted. I grinned and Cadance grinned, too. The constable wasn't all "just the facts, ma'am." That she had started our little expedition to the townhouse by informing me without emotion that Pastellist (her full name) had been found assaulted and unconscious at the bottom of the Canterlot Cascade had made me wonder if she were coldblooded.

I pointed at myself. "I'm a princess—"

Without looking up from a staring contest between his two dolls, he told them, "Ms. Glimmer used the 'P-word' and pulled rank."

I stopped, my jaw dropping. Our guard piled up behind us.

"What?" he asked. "I'm Twilight's number one assistant. She doesn't pay attention to anything but her books. She'd starve, if I didn't remind her to eat. She'd forget anything that wasn't magic if I didn't remember the important stuff, like new scary princesses with foalish rules that get you kicked if you mess up."

Cadance's mouth now hung slack jawed as I trotted up to her rear. "Mignon? Is that what you called him?" I pinched the cherubic dragon's cheek with the frog on my right hoof, half shaking him. "You're an adult from now on, Mignon. Got that? Prepare to report all the mushy details to Twilight."

"Hay!" he said.

"Is that a good idea?" Cadance asked, matching my trot.

Reconsidering, Spike said, "I can be adult," nodding. He put away his toys and held his claws ready to cover his ears.

I remembered when Proper Step started pulling this schtick on me: treating me like a foal with bedtimes and not allowing me around interesting adults versus me accepting responsibility, allowing me to host adult parties, and earn ponies' respect. Which grew tiring, but that's another story!

It especially gave me less time to play with Sunburst. I was such a foal, in retrospect, falling for the offer like candy. He and Celestia played me like a cello!

Didn't mean I was above the tactic, however.

I explained, "If he's Twilight's reality conduit, I need to deal with him. He appears capable, so we'll see."

"Maybe." Her demeanor stiffened as she added, "I know why you asked me to go with you to the Prince's townhouse. I get it."

"Oh?"

She growled something about the confrontation I'd fomented this morning. "It's my personal life. Butt out."

I chuckled. "Cadance, you realize you don't have to marry him to ride—"

"Starlight!" Cadance said, turning red as little saurian claws streaked to clap over green side frills—which I assumed were ears.

I leaned into her, smirking. "Relax. Loosen up. Have fun... Keep using my first name."

"Oh... okay." She shook herself out, but Spike had been riding (different meaning) Twilight for years and simply bounced. Her face scrunched and she stomped a hoof. "Mais! Stop treating me like a foal. I know now what is le prince consort. D'accord? No telling me whom I am attracted to, either, s'il vous plait! It me angers." She slipped into her native Prench, babbling on.

I listened, tapping a hoof, then interjected, "You realize you have competition for the prince?" I didn't add that this morning the unicorn had essentially proposed to me.

Her teeth clacked shut.

I added, "I know you like Shining Armor."

Spike perked up. "My uncle?"

"Twilight knows." To Cadance: "He has feelings, you know."

She reddened and nodded.

"My ride comment applies to him to." I winked, knowing that Spike missed no words. I didn't expect that a dragon's skin could blush, but there you were. "Think of his feelings. A friend of mine once advised me not to play with my food."

A friend.

I had friends. I cared about ponies.

That stopped me. When Hue and Cry had asked me to the townhouse, but said nothing about Firefall, other than that they hadn't found her—it had sent my thoughts spiraling. I'd gotten to like Firefall. To get Sunset not to tag along and complicate things vis-à-vis the Prince, I'd convinced Twilight and Sunburst to work on Sunset's inability to cast Force. I understood Sunset had failed to save somepony dear to her because she choked on that spell—in Tartarus of all places. It was one of the traumas that led to her becoming addicted. I needed her to get over it. Learning the spell was a first step. Given my choice of tools, I foisted Twilight and Sunburst on her.

I looked around. "Streak?"

The pegasus trotted up, grinning—

She'd hauled a dozen loads for the Stoop today, and when she'd returned to class sweaty, she'd gone on and on about how Hurricane's armor had tripled her stamina. She was the friend that had said the playing with your food remark.

She was a friend. Which had reminded me...

"Could you fly to the Stoop and find out if everything is still good? ETA on leaving dock? Is that okay, Hue and Cry?"

She shrugged. "I've verified Streak wasn't at the townhouse." Pointedly, she didn't say if the ex-gangster was a suspect. Streak streaked off instantly.

That left our other classmate: Moon Dancer.

The yellow-furred filly pushed her glasses up. Her short red-striped mane was up in a colt bun as usual, looking like a hair fountain. I glanced at her silently behind us, listening to our banter, watching. When the sergeant major had arrived and said she needed us at the prince's townhouse, she had stated, "I'm going."

Not a request.

Considering she'd started my affair with the prince, I'd decided to humor her. I would find out why, eventually.

Hue and Cry stopped on the right (south) side of the street. Because of the Running of the Leaves, the afternoon sun shone through the bare branches of the old elms and oaks. The ivy growing on the mansion townhouse rustled in the breeze, causing dappled shadows on white stucco or brown and red brick walls and making some windows glitter. She asked, "So this is where you last saw Firefall?"

"No, over there," I said, leaping the skeletal shrubs populating the median. My injured left shoulder twinged. I rolled it as I remembered the dark night and seeing the sky through a break in the trees, noting the prince's townhouse half a block beyond. It had a flagstone foundation lower story; grey and tan plates of rock with mortar a few shades darker than the white stucco walls above. Deep brown wood crossmembers matched the framing of the multi-light windows, giving it an alpine look. They merged into a semi-Mansard roof attic level that lacked windows. It had a flat roof, from whence Firefall had departed after her investigations that night. In the dark, I'd imagined the building to be all dark brick, like the buildings in Baltimare, but seeing it the daylight, it looked very prosaic compared to its fancier neighbors. I compared what I saw with my recollection of Firefall fluttering down, framed by dark sky with the moon off to the side, and trees full of rustling leaves—which had made my bodyguard instincts ring with thoughts of ambush. "Here."

As the others clattered up, Spike took out a small scroll and a quill. He touched the point to his tongue, turning it inky green, before touching it to the parchment. I asked, "What are you doing?"

"I take notes for Twilight when she's researching or using her horn. She forgets to write down the details every time." He held the red feather in his claw expectantly. "I'm being adult."

I nodded. "Allllllrighty."

"So," he waved the quill. "This is where somepony foalnapped Firefall?"

"She landed right here." A root had heaved up the sidewalk slightly. I snorted. "She thought I ought to stay the night with the prince, that after she'd warned me I was getting emotionally involved."

"Were you?" Spike asked, jotting, even as Hue and Cry opened her mouth.

Emotionally involved? Maybe the best evening in my life...

And the worst...

Spike's inadvertent characterization of what happened to Firefall percolated into my mind. In my memory, I heard his voice.

Foalnapped.

I gasped. My hoof went instantly to my chest. I felt smothered, like I couldn't take my next breath. My world went emerald green in recollection. Not the glare and clangor of my PTSD. No. Simply a vivid memory of unnatural silence, like you would experience being thrown into a vat of cold liquid with a splash, submerged with your head below the water, ears filled, then held down.

Memories of drowning.

I staggered. Heart racing, I shot my other leg up to my throat, not thinking. I found myself floating in Cadance's blue green magic, but the floating sensation made it worse. I had floated head down in translucent green viscosity, tubes shoved down my throat and every other opening. I remembered gagging, certain my life was ending. Details flooded back. Not your normal nightmare.

Nightmares faded immediately.

This I remembered as clearly as I remembered the other horrible deadly situations burnt into my memory. I remembered just as clearly brutish Cyclone Beaujangles stalking up to me—he'd minutes before laid a hoof punch to the side of my head, an ambush, while I'd been pulling a cart. Knocked out, my kit and cart had dragged me pony lengths down the cobbled street, stunned, recovering my senses. I'd run for my life, staggered really, and collapsed on a lawn where he'd planned to pummel me to death. I remembered him clearly, standing above me, the blue fur, red crest mane, magenta eyes in a Clydesdale pony body, sneering as if I was too filthy to exist, intent upon making me suffer as he murdered me.

That was years ago.

Now: I clearly remembered the slime that coated me, pressed on me, wet my fur. Vividly. I remembered the tube in my throat. It had felt corrugated. As I gulped, it crinkled like the shell of a shrimp—

"Starlight?" Cadance asked.

I gasped and looked up, seeing the Princess kneeling before me. Unlike the PTSD, I'd simply had a very strong recollection. I put my legs down and stood, but shuddered.

"It's less like a nightmare and more like it was real," I said.

I looked at the others, and shuddered again.

"What was?" Spike asked.

"It's scary to think how many times I've almost gotten myself killed." The prince and Citron were right about the death wish. "I had a nightmare when I fell asleep in the prince's bed. It's as scary as all those times I almost died. I remember it like..." I shuddered. "Like it was real." I sat, put my hooves over my eyes and tried not to hyperventilate, not entirely succeeding.

Covering my eyes felt like cowering, hiding from the world. "Get a grip!" I shouted, standing.

Everypony jumped back and stared. Spike blinked, then scribbled rapidly.

"Sorry. What I experienced has to be a nightmare. I'd just—"

"e-x-p-e-r... 'e?'"

"i-e," I hissed.

Spike scribbled, then tilted his head.

"Nightmare has a G."

He raised a thumb claw in an imitation of a pegasus' pinions-up wing gesture.

"—Been visiting the prince. I fell asleep afterward, then had a flapping nightmare. So unfair!" I trotted ahead, passing Hue and Cry. "My subconscious thinks I don't deserve happiness, evidently. Firefall seemed annoyed, but she fluttered off when I told her I could take care of myself." I waved an exasperated hoof toward the castle behind me while heading for the Prince's. I muttered under my breath, "Foalnapped?"

Hue and Cry trotted beside me. "Leaving you alone?"

"I'd thought her more professional. I vaguely remember deciding to give her some extra bodyguard training. Now I'm sorry I wasn't stricter with her. I hope she's okay. I hope her daughter's okay!"

"Her father shipped out as part of the reinforcements for Princess Celestia."

I stopped, covering my eyes with a fetlock. "Bad luck."

"The filly is staying with me and my partner. She's told us everything she knows about her mom and dad. I don't think the mare is AWOL."

I nodded. A constable out front of the townhouse stood when he saw us, but he'd taken care not to be visible through the hedges around the stone fence or through the wrought iron gate. Somepony had paid attention when I'd asked for a low-key investigation. Doubtless every neighbor knew. I hoped they'd not inform the prince or the Inquisition.

I pointed. "Desert Sands opened the door and went in, after which Firefall, who'd been behind me, shot over us all and through the door. Singe, true to her fiery name, became incensed and galloped after her. Mudflats had trotted ahead to—as Firefall had put it—'Make sure yesterday's riding partner had left.'"

Cadance gasped. "Starlight! Sometime indirect language is more appropriate." She blushed, while the dragon she motioned to with her nose obliviously wrote what I'd said.

Hue and Cry jotted a note. "All three bodyguards were there?"

"Yes. Inside. Leaving us two outside, unguarded. I shoved Blueblood inside when I realized how stupid that was."

"None seemed happy?"

"Most of the evening. The dancing, first. Then especially after I'd wheedled the colt into taking me home with him. I had to give the three a stern talking-to about explaining when and when not to disobey their employer for his own safety."

"Didn't like it?"

"They knew I was a better bodyguard than they were."

"In the end, they complied? Resentfully?"

"Not sure how the characterize it. At one point, when they insisted I go home instead of staying over, they tried ordering the prince around. He told them he'd take care of whatever worried them." I shrugged. "Don't know what worried them, after all I'm perfectly safe."

Cadance snorted.

When I gave her the look, she swatted my torn ear and glared at the latest wound on my shoulder, which made it throb.

I started laughing. She joined in.

I admitted, "Safe is a relative term."

"Did Firefall leave with the bodyguards?"

"No. She left through the attic hatchway."

"I see." She closed her notepad and looked at us. "I asked for you, which means your guards, as few as is reasonable. Princess Cadance can ask to accompany you. Your friend, however..." She looked at Moon Dancer who had been attentively and quietly watching from behind.

"How about a duchess?" the yellow-furred filly asked.

A duchess was essentially a petty princess outside the royal bloodline or affiliation, the pony in her domain from whence all power flowed. Were the royalty wiped out, new royalty would be chosen from their ranks, unless there was an appointed crown representative, who'd thenceforth start the next dynasty.

I said, "Moon Dancer's aunt is a duchess."

Moon Dancer said monotonically in her mousy voice, "I succeeded her last night when she died."

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