Ms. Glimmer and the Do-Nothing Prince

by scifipony

45 — The End is Neigh II: Bad Morning

As I trotted along, the shadows of scudding clouds along the horizon played tag around me. As I exited the desert garden—with prickly cactus and rocky soil for tall lanky trees with multicolor peeling bark—I walked through a cloud's shadow. It wasn't cold per se. Going at an aerobic fast trot, I'd perspired. Not as fast as I could go, but the sudden cool nonetheless made me shiver.

Thinking of my body let me notice my stomach. The orange juice tea had been a bad idea, considering I'd vomited up the juice yesterday. My queasiness grew and my hide cooled. I felt warm but also cold.

My left shoulder throbbed. I changed course, taking a path toward the castle, led by my subconscious that might be somewhat smarter than the rest of the little horse. I touched the swollen area; it radiated heat.

I touched my forehead.

Proper Step was right. He'd parented me through a dozen flu seasons. He had spotted a sick filly and I'd brushed it off.

"You, Starlight, are visiting Flowing Water right now," I told myself, shuddering spontaneously.

I had flu symptoms—achy, feverish, exhausted, feeling cold. No runny nose or cough. I shivered as my mind processed the possibilities. Thankfully, the clouds east of Canterlot moved and the sun returned, bathing me in warmth and light that made me squint.

I had an infection.

My face and nose wrinkled as my anger flared. There it was in my messenger bag, amongst the brown hair ties and purple scrunchies, Mustang's jackknife, and a copy of Sunburst's book: a pot of silver salve. Dr. Flowing Water had warned me not to heal myself for various reasons, the worst of which was breaking something and passing out and dying of internal bleeding. The admonition to always sanitize a wound, however, had come in second.

The griffon had scratched me deeply. I'd heard of cat scratch fever, learned plenty considering that traitorous cat that had wounded me. Brother Gruff's talon couldn't be considered sanitary in any sense. Who knew where he'd scratched!

I'd gone and sealed the wound without cleaning it.

Did I have blood poisoning? The word sepsis bubbled up. Jittering, I stopped short. These were the scaredy-cat thoughts of a mare who'd had her hide split open by a punch, ribs broken, and a postern obliterated causing her to bleed practically to death?

That control thing again, wasn't it? All those times I'd had control. I'd done my best. Now, however, I was paying for stupid.

I stalked forward, shouting at myself, "Stop it, stop it, stop it!" I looked through the trees, where they thinned enough to see the castle. I couldn't take the most direct route through the underbrush and brambles, so I followed the path.

Wait!

I stopped, growling. I spun up Teleport. Four or five in a row would get me to the castle immediately. Targeting carefully, I could ensure appearing knee-high to land without injuring myself.

As I got the target vectors set, I lost the mnemonic when placing the main codicil. I reinstantiated the predicate chain and thought the numbers into my horn, getting them to spin and...

I blinked. My targeting vectors drifted.

The numbers, which I always saw as burning digits across my vision and could ignore as well as the floaters in my eyes, weren't burning. They'd become lethargic.

The act of noticing triggered a quantum observational paradox. The digits swirled away.

What?

I sat, rubbing my eyes with the frogs of my front hooves. Frustrating. I was feverish. I wasn't well rested. It was that feeling every scholar hates that tells her that she hadn't bothered to eat or pay attention to the clock, and she'd better close her eyes now because dawn was an hour away and her first class only three beyond.

"Okay, I get it," I muttered. "I'm sick." I got up. I trotted, looking for one of the garden maps. The paths were all clear. Whilst I could return the way I'd come, cutting across paved paths and through trees and over berms was closer. "Where in Tartarus is that flapping map!"

I spotted the post with a square frame and a set of three paths splitting from my own. As I approached, I realized I went asymptotically slower. My energy wasn't good, and I'd exercised with caffeine to push me beyond my limit. I slowed and didn't reach the sign pole before I sat, panting. The side paths apparently curved away from the castle east and west. The middle one went north.

I shouted, "Guards! Guards! Can anyone hear me? I need help!"

Silly me. I'd sent Flash Sentry to pick up Twilight, who'd likely pack dozens of things. I'd set the guards to be weary of an external threat; I could take care of myself. Right? I told everypony that. I'd let the captains drain the ranks and reserves. The gardeners didn't start work at dawn like Celestia, but a half-hour from now.

After five minutes of wanting to get up, I accumulated enough energy to manage the feat. I creaked like an old cart. Exhaustion was like pain: a signal that attention was necessary, not an impediment. I'd mastered all but the most agonizing pain long ago, and even with my postern shattered, having splinters cut open my skin so I bled across the floor, I'd fought and decimated the griffon, saving the lives of at least two dozen of Carne Asada's top lieutenants.

Huh?

The two dozen...? They'd panicked when I'd teleported in, the assassin behind me. Stampeding the conference room door, they'd gotten stuck in the exit as we fought.

That was it, wasn't it?

I'd kept the griffon away from higher value targets than myself. I'd saved their panicked flanks. That was why they'd quickly crowned me Carne Asada's successor when the night wing had become too stupid to live. I'd looked after them for a year besides saving them, told them how to work around Carne Asada's bewildering policies that I hadn't yet realized were intended to foment a gang war. Of course they'd anointed me!

I'd been protecting ponies even then, and didn't realize it.

Truly twice crowned a princess, then.

I really really hated Princess Celestia. She'd been incredibly successful in forging me. She'd made me her sharp tool. To protect ponies. I lived for everypony except myself. I would never live a normal life, never be a common pony.

I screamed, "Help! Anypony! Guards!"

The eucalyptus trees, fragrant as they were, transitioned to bamboo on my right and skeletal hardwood on my left. The gigantic green tubular grass gathered shadows despite the warming sun now way above the castle walls. The bamboo blocked the light, tocking and clunking loudly in the breeze, letting through random flashes and throwing dabbled shadows.

I had a rhythm at this point, though mechanical. Ten minutes from now, I'd be in earshot of the palace. I suspected the surge of energy I felt from that thought was illusory. It had to last long enough and I decided it would. Delusions could be aspirational!

Castle spires and a tower rose into view as I crested a hill. I couldn't get lost.

"What could go wrong now?"

I turned toward the sound a pony's wings made while slicing through the air, relief flooding in that somepony had heard me.

The pegasus' feather rustle, oddly, sounded like the buzz of a cicada.

A rather large cicada.

The bamboo to my right clattered and tocked together resonantly when pushed aside, followed by the clatter and clunk of this second pony's hooves sprinting, throwing rocks and dirt.

The cotton in my head did not stop me from realizing how very wrong the situation felt. I ducked down, veering off the path toward a picnic table and stone benches pony lengths ahead.

I scented cinnamon. That made me stop short—

—Which saved my life.

A pony whizzed by, hooves pointed edge forward, wings furled for the least air resistance. A quarter pony length closer, my temple might have been smashed in or my neck broken.

I reared instinctively, dancing back as a backwash of anise and yeast scent buffeted my mane.

My assailant spun midair, not particularly gracefully. She flared her wings, which looked oddly transparent as they buzzed, then popped open with a canvas sound, to bring the pony to a stop using the picnic table as a back stop for her rear legs. Momentum miscalculated, the pony made a loud oof! and caught herself from flipping backwards.

I recognized clumsy Pastelist from the Stoop, the royal guard Hue and Cry had reported beaten unconscious at the bottom of the Canterlot Cascade. She looked beaten up, but was anything but unconscious.

She hissed like a snake. Her eyes focused on me. Her reflective—or were they transparent?—wings furled. For a moment, her grin seemed to sport fangs. Fangs more like a snake—or like a diamanté's canines—than a night wing's nubbins. Prominent.

Her hindquarters bunched as she positioned to spring my direction.

A curtain of green light enveloped the pegasus left to right. A magic aura. Even compromised by the cotton in my head, I recognized that much. The faux aurora went instantly right to left to reveal a pink unicorn with a periwinkle mane, albeit with a hide peppered in bruises. A cut bled sticky red across her back. Her guard armor had disappeared.

"Singe?" I cried, startled by the unicorn having dropped the perfect illusion. I should have run but, still rearing, I stepped backward with growing confusion as the prince's primary bodyguard leapt at me.