Ms. Glimmer and the Do-Nothing Prince

by scifipony

41 — Feeling Filly V: Alpha and Omega

I flung myself left, bouncing off the door, bashing shoulder-first into a box. My guard leapt Hue and Cry to gallop up the stair. My Illuminate triggered at level three; the bright flash blinded me.

No way would the Canterlot City Constabulary or Royal Military Constabulary allow monsters here. I waved a rear hoof, halting my guard to forestall further embarrassment. Lightning fast reflexes. 'Nuf said.

Somepony whined, eyes covered with an enormous appendage, standing upright like Spike the Dragon would, at Ensign Berrytwist's height. Through purple phosphines, I saw shaggy forelimbs. She—because in mammals, stallionhood was obvious when rearing—she was definitely female. Wiry curly fur covered her body except her stomach, which looked pinkish white. Her ground-pepper grey-white hair was sheared like rounded topiary at her ankles, her upper chest, and at the crown of her head. One of her hairless ears pointed upward, mutilated so the triangle of flesh stood vertical, unlike the right, which flopped over, weighted with a silver diamond stud. She actually stood on four limbs in a very small space. Dull shovel-like claws, three to four hoof lengths long, clicked nervously as she shuffled.

Her eyes captured mine. I'd lit a white sprite that stuck to a ceiling rafter like a glob of paste. In it, she had colorless eyes, like my former teammate Crystal Skies' albino sister had. Faintly red, it gave her a piercing gaze, despite squinting. Inadvertently; her body language was that of a dog. A topiary cut tail tapped the wood plank floor.

She wore a blue Prench constable cap, a steel spiked black collar with a blue cape, and a copper badge on a strap. She stood rigid. For whatever reason, she appeared incapable of breaking our gaze, or to speak other than to whimper and radiate docility.

"Speak," I said, her cowardly aura hitting me wrong. Oh, dear. Ponies said that to their dogs. My face heated up.

"Omega this," she mumbled. Her oversized canines, two of which qualified as shovel-like small tusks, got in the way. She shook, pronouncing with spittle, "Must 'princess' say."

I nodded. My famous P-word rule. Wait. That was Old Ponish! Omega was zed in the ancient tongue.

She bowed her head, maintaining eye contact. "Alpha, Princess is. Diamanté Omega in 'questias's service is."

Old Ponish was a dead language, though I read it in every other grimoire. Had been a dead language, apparently. I tried, "Please stand. By my leave, address me as—" Ms. was a modern term. "—Mage Glimmer."

Her tail thumped faster and she nodded. A white flip notepad dangled on her wrist; she flipped it open. Her stubby school pencil made a scritching sound as she wrote, before turning her claw in a way no pony could articulate a hoof.

The page read, "Short hoof understand perhaps?"

I smiled.

Whilst her toothy canid smile was not welcoming, I recognized the effort. She wrote upside down to add, "Understand Equestrian. Sorry frighten you. Omega scary pony."

I chuckled.

Hue and Cry spoke beside me, causing whiplash. "You've met our forensic expert. Omega is going to make detective directly out of the Constabulary Academy. She has a keen nose and brain, but she's a bit shy."

Omega's eerily red eyes met mine the instant I returned my gaze. How her species defined shy wasn't the pony way. She nodded though. My eyes dropped to her badge. It read, Ambassador "Omega" Tears of the Moon.

"Ambassador?"

Hue and Cry said, "Omega is—"

I interrupted, "Tears of the Moon is her name—"

Omega waved a claw, for the first time looking away, distressfully sputtering, "Omega is! Omega is! Need never be more."

Hue and Cry said, "She's a diamond dog, a refugee from a colony northeast of Ponyville. Badly abused, judging from the wounds she suffered when escaped—"

"Omega is," Omega insisted with a canine whine—with the nuance that Omega explained everything.

I sat and put up both hooves. "Stop. If she wants to tell me her story later, she may." Moon Dancer craned her neck around the door frame.

"Princess alpha is. Omega Finder of Tears of the Moon is. Name use may. Omega good, though."

Hue and Cry ducked her head. "I apologize. Princess Celestia appointed her the Equestrian ambassador to the diamond dogs, to make her an Equestrian citizen because the Peerage refused to grant the carnivore asylum at the princess' request. Unfortunately, Omega clearly needed it."

Everypony and everycreature looked uncomfortable. I extinguished the sprite.

In the returning dimness, Omega's squint vanished. The muscles in her face relaxed. Not only did the wrinkles around her eyes disappear, but also her lips, which had in retrospect resembled a snarl. Skin slid to cover her dentition including her tusks, in an albeit bulgy non-pony fashion. She went from looking threatening to looking like a puppy dog. She'd sheared her fur around her head to magnify the little-puppy affect.

I gasped as did Moon Dancer and Cadance who had climbed up behind her. Having experienced the transition to puppy-cute, I fought letting it influence me, instead focusing on the fact that she did actually glow, and not by the reflected light from the doorway or distant hatchway, or a rime of direct horn light. Her glow was ghostly. I'd have put it down to some species-specific bioluminescence, but my horn detected faint waves magic. Diamond dog, no, Diamanté magic.

I liked magic!

I'm going to have to get to know her better.

The diamanté pointed a claw at some algal dark green spots on the floor surrounded by yellow tape. A splat displayed the quarter crescent of a hoof print.

"Yeah, that's my hoof. Stepped in it. The royals must use honey-scented machine oil—"

"Oily?" Omega's pad read.

"Yes. I wiped it there." I pointed at the furniture cover on a sofa with a green smear. Looking back at the spots, I realized it looked dark. "It dried?"

"Not oil," Omega's pad read. She levered herself down to the smear, folding where no pony would, accentuating muscles and ligaments. She sniffed.

Her body consisted primarily of muscle, predominantly her forelegs rivaled by her smaller squatter hindquarters. Her torso seemed an after thought—half mine's volume—though her ribcage seemed quite stout.

She was a digger. If her legs could bend out and splay just so, she could dig like a mole. Diamanté magic had to be digging magic.

Cadance tapped my shoulder, pointing at Omega's pad.

It read, "May I smell you?"

I nodded.

I examined her up close, and glowing, as she first lifted my rear right hoof, the correct one, to sniff and nod, then sniffed me all over. Dogs saw with their noses. I didn't object when she sniffed in places that made Cadance clatter nervously, especially when I spread my limbs to make the examination easier. Another way for me to telegraph that I wasn't the same type of princess as her.

Omega stepped back, spiral pad up. Hue and Cry presented a stuffed sample bag to the diamanté, opening it for her.

She nodded.

Hue and Cry stated, "Your cloak?"

I recognized the black silk garment and nodded.

The diamanté scribbled, "Bed made, soiled sheets. Scent there recent on you. You intimate with same pony?"

I nodded. I decided not to look at Cadance.

"Confirmed," appeared on the pad.

I asked, "Do you smell cinnamon?"

She looked puzzled and scribbled, "Smell many stallions and mares on you."

I sniffed myself, remembering the spot where the prince had leaned against me, after I'd fought a griffon, and having perspired. I caught faint a cinnamon odor, or did I imagine that? Did my emotions color my perception?

Omega sniffed the spot and frowned, opening her toothy mouth to speak but then not, looking perplexed.

"Never mind," I said, trotting closer to the row lit by the open attic hatchway. "What else did you want to ask?"

Hue and Cry said, "We didn't find Firefall, but her scent lingers in spots, including a spot where she slid on her back."

She pointed at some yellow tape and wing marks in the dust with chalk around them.

I looked at the smudges. "Or dragged."

Omega's pad read, "Firefall's scent confirmed."

Hue and Cry added, "More odd stuff. Plenty of pony prints. Dust blown off of furniture—"

I blinked, remembering what I'd seen from the attic hatchway—realizing I didn't see it now. I trotted toward the horn glow, brow furling. "Were bags hung from the rafters?"

"Not when we arrived—"

A voice I didn't want to hear finished, "—But... Ponies had tried to hide the fact."

I trotted around canvas-covered torchére lamps to see a unicorn. Magenta roiled around his horn. It didn't hide that he had a peppermint-candy swirled white and violet mane. The mauve stallion wore a casual tan suit, with a dark brown bowler perched between his ears. His white blaze resembled Sunburst's. His magenta eyes tracked my approach like those of an archer with a loaded bow.

I'd dealt with the Interpone agent before.

I'd fought him in the Sofa and Quill factory on Chestnut Street, which was yet another time I'd almost gotten myself killed. I almost deserved it. I'd stupidly let myself get mind-controlled by Running Mead and had been sent to kill the agent. He and I had bad blood. I'd later made a Hobs deal with him to capture the crime boss that had controlled and abused me, using nettle-ewe-addicted Sunset Shimmer as bait.

I'd gotten my cutie mark when I'd torn Running Mead's cutie mark from his flank.

The copper proved greedy, though, reneging on his part of the bargain to let me run after he hooked the big fish. He resented he hadn't bridled me and that I had spirited away Streak at the same time.

I trotted up three-legged, grinning evilly. I played with my torn hear, which for the record stung when I did that, pointedly looking at his ear. In the factory, I'd been in the act of shooting him with a Force bolt during our fight—but acting against one's deeply rooted principles broke Running Mead's mind control. Considering my injuries, my magic might have allowed the defensive shot that might have killed him, but instead I'd jerked and squirmed midair, shooting wildly, before crashing badly.

I nevertheless burnt off the tip of his ear, a third of the way down.

I said, "Now we match like colt- and filly-friends, eh? I'm thinking of a diamond piercing for mine. Were you to buy a matching one, you could pretend to be the dashing pirate scoundrel you are—on the inside. Arrgh!"

He pursed his lips as his expression congested, but didn't lose his cool as he had during the press conference prior to my coronation. Reporters from the major newspapers had learned I was the Hero of Hooflyn, moments before he marched in to pull his horse apples. Couldn't read the room, that one.

"So, Aurora Midnight. You turned out to be Doña Carne Asada's 'daughter,' after all. You were Running Mead's most effective enforcer because you'd been groomed by her. Your mayhem is practically a masterpiece. Nothing innocent about you, Princess."

"One. Kick," I said under my breath.

He trotted closer, close enough that I smelled the camomile tea on his breath. They called that "Getting in your face." Worse, it forced me to look up at him. With a smirk, he added, "Princess Celestia pardoned you of all your crimes. That means you can talk without incriminating yourself! Tell me about the Elderberry Shipyards. Did they sell airship keels to the Prince of Storms, under Carne Asada's direction?"

The son of the owner of those shipyards, Safe, had worked for me with Citron, Crystal Skies, and others to protect Carne Asada. After I'd taken over the syndicate, I'd read her files. I cautioned him to steer clear of his mother. Carne Asada had enough blackmail to make the corrupt mare do practically anything, but she'd volunteered selling those keels, forcing Celestia's navy to fight battle cruisers built upon them. I'd burnt that file because I'd known it would follow Safe around and destroy his life.

I protected my own.

I lost my amused grin as I stepped back. I had my hoof up near my right ear, so... I jabbed the stallion in the nose. I could have slapped him, but why?

Cartilage went pop! Fresh crimson splattered my blue hoofie.

Author's Note:

Changed Ice Sickle from Captain of the Armies to the Army on 3/3/24. Note pertinent to this chapter, but it will show up later.

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

Why is Sunburst’s last name Mortorboard?

[scifipony]

11840722
Good question.
When I wrote about him, his name lacked "rhythm" and something to define his character. Most ponies get two, so why not him? Considering his status as a former but flunked student of Celestia (reasons noted first in the Enforcer and Her Blackmailers) and him authoring papers with Sunny Daze (Celestia's born name), I wanted a scholarly second name to fit the bill. You've got to admit, Sunburst Mortarboard, a mortarboard being the name for a graduation cap, and in prior centuries a professorial hat, fits the bill.

FYI, I established in the stories that ponies sometimes change their name to match their cutie marks or for sentimental reasons.