> The Runaway Bodyguard
>  by scifipony
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> Prologue
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Starlight, Starbright, what little mare do I see tonight, with her nose oh so rosy red and her horn all aglow? 
—Sunburst, the evening before he got his cutie mark.  

(A rainboom had startled his filly friend into toppling a Jenga tower of grimoires.  The same rainboom also entangled a half-dozen other fateful friendships in the same quantum thaumaturgical-mechanical event that would determine the fate of Equestria and the end of Princess Celestia's long reign.)
> PART ONE: The Runaway; Chapter 1 — Trigger
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I'd seen tee-shirt and chain-wearing ruffians much like these specimens before, loitering around Baltimare and harassing ponies.  Never so many together, however.  I had always stayed away from everypony.  I had no friends because, well, friends always left you in the end.  As for acquaintances... you had to trust a pony enough to answer revealing questions in order to receive gossip in return, thus I didn't know anything about the group of ruffians I'd spotted as I walked down the street toward them.

I entered the intersection. 

A wolf-whistle escaped the unruly herd.  I glared at the black-nosed red roan stallion responsible, his lips still puckered.  I credit myself for engaging, not putting my muzzle in the air as my butler Proper Step had trained me to do, nor huffing like the snob he'd tried to train me to be.  The filly the servants had nick-named Shy would not have survived by herself in my world.  

When the sorry excuse for a grown-up stallion whistled again, I spat on the cobblestones.

His blue eyes widened, as did his grin. 

"I'm too young for you," I muttered, then added loud enough to be understood in the shocked silence of the herd, "and far too much for you to handle."  I kept eye contact as I continued through the intersection. 

Earth ponies.  Me, a unicorn.  

Not my brightest move, but before I relate how I learned humility and found some self-improvement goals, let me set the stage...

First off—to get it out of the way because it is of scant importance who I had been—I am (or rather had been) the Countess Aurora Midnight, the Earl of Grin Having, Lady Presiding of Sire's Hollow, daughter of Midnight (the black beauty opera star) and Firelight (post-equus, the first Earl of Grin Having).  Princess Celestia had dubbed my parents Heroes of Equestria.  

Both were dead. 

All those titles—  Naught but blood money, hoofed down directly from the Crown.  

The princess had sent my Mom and Dad on a "mission of opportunity," one from which they'd never returned.  And, for that, Her Royal Highness saddled me with their post-equus titles, lands, an estate, the theoretical right to lead one of her armies, the statutory right of the third bit of any taxed, and the responsibilities of administering all that—all at the age of 5.  As if that could make up for the loss of my father calling me his little pumpkin or my mother singing me to sleep.

I couldn't give the wealth away to the poor or the oppressed whom deserved it more than I.  My wealth devolved from the Crown; it wasn't truly mine.  No.  I could only renounce. 

I did the only thing I could do to truly foul Celestia's plans...

I ran away. 

Which is how I found myself in the mideastern seaboard city of Baltimare just before the Running of the Leaves as the climate changed from hot and humid to cool and uncomfortably muggy.  The city was a monument to brick as a cheap construction material.  There were ten story department-store skyscrapers of tan brick.  There were squat factories the size of city blocks of red brick.  These myriad factories filled precincts with chimneys that belched soot that colored the sky smoggy brown and everything else black, making dirty the decorative bricks and cement work of every building as well as the white brick of the few patrician homes in this mostly working class earth pony section of the predominantly earth pony city.  

Fabled Canterlot—where Sunburst, the love of my life, lived—it was not.  The tenements and the so-called brownstones where everypony who was nopony lived were built of reclaimed brick of all hues.  Most were covered with faded splats and hints of pink or blue paint that in bygone eras had been used to cover their raw state when it was fashionable and ponies could afford the paint.  All were the ghastly chimeras of budget-restrained architecture.  

The angry bear of a city hunkered down under a menacing orange and yellow late afternoon sky.

I rather liked it here.  Baltimare promised anonymity, delivered in spades. 

The wind blew in from the ocean as Celestia prepared to lower her sun and raise her moon.  I smiled.  My saddlebags bounced against my barrel as my iron horseshoes clattered on the broken pavement, some of it worn cobbles, some tar and stone.  The pink overstuffed canvas contained my few bits, notebooks, a special book on spell maths, a repaired lightweight tarpaulin I would not need today, a few clothes, and an instant sesame noodle bowl for my dinner.  Everything I earned; everything I owned; everything I wanted.  

Today...  

Today, I'd graduated!

Just a minute ago, I'd chuckled and skipped like a foal, unable to contain myself despite my need to disguise my far too young age.  In this city I could easily be arrested as a truant; I undeniably was one, too young to live alone.  I wore my mane and tail in a tight bun, not the pigtails I had been wont to do.

I'd fled Sire's Hollow the instant I'd reached my likely full height.  I'd filled out in my haunches and other feminine spots.  (Remember parents, if you feed those foals well, they will grow quickly!)  I'd slimmed down since and my muscles had hardened visibly—in part from living in parks and street encampments, in part from hustling to eat more than the fescue grass that grew free of charge in the parks, while finding time to keep up my thaumaturgical studies. 

One part of my body was hungrier than the other.  

My hustling for bits paid off.  I'd run away mid-spring.  Mid-autumn, I was about to sleep in a real bed.  I'd earned the bits.  I'd earned the right.  To Tartarus with the blood money paid me to forget my real family.  I'd earned the rent for a bunk in a hostel and a shared shower down the hall.  

The foal I'd been had avoided bath time like the plague.  Today I anticipated luxury.   I was a foal no longer.  

Which brings me back to that fateful Baltimare intersection...

As I approached it, I'd sobered and slowed to a walk.  I was glad I did.  I'd noticed the gathering of youthful ponies, all older than me but none old enough to be truly adult.  "Yearlings!" Proper Step would have sneered.  It was a term borrowed from true horses who populated the forgotten plateaus and badlands.  The animals matured so quickly it seemed like overnight rather than actually a couple of years.  They lacked symbols, tools, and language.  Overall, yearling rather well described these brutish ponies in their late teens and slightly older.  

The unkempt individuals—loitering in the intersection constraining traffic, such that a wagon had to bump over a curb, and convincing a working pony in blue overalls to decide to head elsewhere—were prime examples of yearlings.  They talked loudly, gestured wildly, and bumped pointedly into each other.  They chose to wear clothing, but had chosen white low-class tank-top tee-shirts.  The stallions wore manes and tails as long as a typical fashionable mare, and all had piled their manes up into what I knew as a "bouffant" clipped in place by black barrettes.  

The mares looked overly girly in garish reds or pinks, with makeup and bracelets, except for a buzzed-cut blonde palomino who wore brass stud piercings.  (Didn't brass have lead in it...?  Poisonous...  Oh, never mind.)  It worked; she looked tough, more so maybe than her gold chain-wearing stallion companions.  

I'd seen the sort around, and hadn't thought about it.  I'd never seen so many together, though.  I had always stayed away from everypony.  I had no friends because, well, friends always left you in the end.    

I crossed the intersection, and as I said before, a wolf-whistle escaped the unruly herd.  I glared at the black-nosed red roan stallion with his black mane piled atop his head, his lips still puckered.  He displayed chains of gold, and a clip of gold on his ragged left ear.  Compensating much?

Shy and runaway did not mix.  Got a mare trampled under-hoof doing that—and it had during my first weeks on the road last spring...
> Chapter 2 — Escape from Sire's Hollow
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I studied myself in the full-length mirror.  I shed my breakfast clothing so the white linen dress pooled on the floor at my hooves.  I kicked it away.  The flawless silver reflected an image of a pony who was... good enough.  I'd shooed my hoof-maid, thus my coat wasn't curried, but it was an even shade of lavender.  An artisan had inlaid the mirror frame with mother of pearl.  I could see the dark wood paneling of my open wardrobe, stuffed with dresses and outfits arranged perfectly by color and type, laundered with a faint scent of gardenias.  A clearstory perfectly lit me in a pool of faintly bluish, perfectly indirect soft light.

No shadows.  Except in my soul.

A greenish blue aura formed around my horn and I piled my pigtails above my head, simulating the more adult bun hairstyle of my servant.  I whispered, "It's official.  You haven't grown taller since last years Hearth's Warming.  Nopony’s mistaking you for a foal ever again.  A yearling, more likely.  It's today or next month."  I tilted my head and my reflection's violet eyes looked at me inquiringly.  "Your choice."

"Now," I answered.

I grabbed the stodgy khaki outfit I was required for tenant inspections, the one with pockets in the blouse.  The pleated skirt didn't cover my lavender flank, which made it less than functional.  It revealed my flank was blank, a state which was perfectly fine so far as I was concerned, but it made me look younger than I wished to affect.  The blouse proved overly starched and crinkled as I struggled to open a sticky bottom drawer.  I extracted a pair of old steel horseshoes and a small light-weight tarpaulin I'd collected over the last year as I'd hatched my escape plan.  I grabbed blue culottes from a hanger that that banged against the wood backing of the wardrobe.  Though  lightweight and pricey, they resembled work pony working-blues if not inspected too closely.

Proper Step, my butler and my Crown-appointed guardian, was true to his name.  I owned dozens of both casual brass and dress high-hoof patent lacquer shoes, including decorative ones keyed to specific outfits, and I was expected to wear them.  I knew enough from the novels I'd read that where I planned to run away to, the brushed and polished brass shoes I wore today would flag me as wealthy.

In my nightstand, I rooted out the gold bits I'd managed to get my hooves on.  I'd been told repeatedly that a lady did not need her own money.  Her servants bought her necessaries for her, but I could ask for change or return things when I wasn't supervised.  

I dropped my cache into a stained red velvet drawstring purse I'd found discarded in the dirt last autumn.  I stashed it in my saddlebags to prevent jangling.

I inserted a small spell book.  To myself, I sung, "No need to be bored!"

My heart beat rapidly.  Loudly.  I hoped the sound wouldn't give me away.

A tall thin grey stallion stood in the entry hall at the bottom of the stairs.  Proper step looked about thirty, young for the position.  He wore black frame glasses that matched his black bushy moustache and close-clipped black mane and tail, together with his usual long-tailed black jacket, white shirt, black bowtie livery.  The jacket incidentally revealed his side-by-side and perfectly upright perfectly parallel golden horseshoes cutie mark.  As I descended the marble stairs one resounding step at a time, his brown eyes followed my progress and inspected my appearance and demeanor.

That pony, affecting his usual neutral unmoving expression, was the bane of my existence.

That would end today.

Hopefully.

His eyes continued to inspect.  I knew I had my outfit and hair arranged all a-right, but I feared my body nonetheless worked to betray my evil intentions.  My corporal being had reasons to balk at my spirit's desire.  She enjoyed regular meals, soft beds, good tutors, and plenty of books to keep her mind occupied.  

Life was good so long as I didn't dwell on why I had such a good life.  Princess Celestia had bribed me with her blood money—it made me sick!

I squared my jaw and inhaled deeply.  I forced the issue and said, "All is well?"

"Yes, my lady," he said in a high pitched gravelly voice.  I think he liked my squared-jaw.

I clattered across the travertine vestibule, trotting by him quickly, as a hoof-stallion opened the main brass doors to usher me outside.  Descending the granite steps, I thought how I missed my old house and my old room.  That place where I could be as messy and disorganized as I wanted, with the guitar I couldn't play and Midnight Haunt band posters nailed to a plaster wall.  Even after my parents' death, going through my goth phase, that had been home.  In my heart, it still was.  Funny how I could remember my old sanctuary better than I could remember my parents' faces.

It had taken years for the Crown to build the manor.  I'd been transferred here at age 8½.

It had stopped raining at dawn, and pegasi had thinned the clouds substantially since.  In the damp morning light, the manor stood prominently on its grassy green hill abutting the stone wall that enclosed Sire's Hollow.  Clear spring air let me spot the mossy red tile roof to my old house, beyond blocks of shingled roofs, cottages, and shops.  A servant kept it preserved, I understood.  It was the property of the Earl of Grin Having, after all.

Not that Countess Aurora Midnight could be allowed to live somewhere so plain.  Goodness, no.

Waddles Worth had been smelling the red roses along the cobble driveway.  He looked ready to sample a petal or two.  The chamomile lawn, with its miniature daisy flowers, looked good enough to eat, and smelled delicious.  The closest as any of it came to my lips was last evening's tea.

No more evening teas for me.  Good riddance.

"Milady!"  The slight and noticeably rotund blue unicorn bowed and tipped his tweed pork pot hat.  It sported a crow down feather stuck in the ribbon; he had lost his aunt recently.  He wore a matching tweed jacket with thick lapels and a weathered wool messenger bag that held the official estate account books.  

I glanced at his his cutie mark, a loaf of bread with a pencil stuck in it. 

"Good Sir."  I dipped my head.

My property manager lead the way through town with its white and brown rock-sided homes and masonry, most with dark roofs and moss growing.  I spotted the town clock and assured myself that my timing was good.  We trotted through the the gates and thence along Clover Road to inspect the tenant farms.  I'd intentionally nixed the lordly carriage.  I could.  Even though I was a minor, I was still the Earl of Grin Having.  If Proper Step didn't stick his prim muzzle in it, I often got my way on the little things. 

Mid-spring signaled the time to renew the tenant leases, thus this journey was intended to progress my internship.  Winter Wrap-up had occurred a month ago.  Tenants had since sown their seed and repaired their out buildings and fences.  We needed to inspect their work and check their accounts. 

"Accounts are very important," was Waddles Worth's favorite saying, and he often made me repeat it, but I understood it was true.  As an Earl, my estate collected the third bit of any taxed, in this case, the rent on each tenant's lease.  In practice, there were costs.  If the costs were due to negligence, laziness, or lack of ability, I was supposed to call off the lease.  In practice, I attended today to learn my duty.  I'd never be able to boot a poor farmer from his livelihood, no matter what Waddles Worth said, and if my luck held, I'd soon never have to deal with that possibility again.

Predictably, as we crested the eponymous Mulberry Hill, we trotted on past the cutoff to the Pleasant Tone farm.  I smiled.  Waddles Worth was the type of pony to ensure you got your work done by making it hard to be lazy when you became tired late in the day.  He would start with the furthest client and work back to the nearest.  Ten minutes later, I made my move.

"Um...  Mister Waddles Worth..."

He looked back.  I did my little uncomfortable filly dance, trying to look like my eyes were beginning to turn yellow.  From where we stood—surrounded by on one side by tawny-barked trees that hadn't fully leafed out and on the other by tailored fields that had sprouted spring crops of lettuces and radish and borage—I could see clearly to the stone farmhouses of two farmsteads, one of which had an active chimney sending up smoke that might account for a faint scent of bread.  

"Um..."

I knew very well how to manage my water budget, but he didn't know that.  He got a faintly exasperated look.  He turned forward, but failed to hide his eye roll.  He didn't slow as he said, "You wouldn't want me to treat a filly any differently than I would a colt would ya?"

"Um..."  My skin cooled at his tone.

"Milady rejected the carriage ride?"

"Um...  I did."  

He wouldn't think of sending me into the trees, would he?  There might be poison ivy.  Worse, I had been managing my water and really didn't need to go, and then he would complain about girls and their bladders.  

In his continued silence, I realized the carriage ride was a perk to a stallion as unathletic as he.  

Regardless, I had to see if I could make my plan work.  "I could run back to town—"

"No, Milady. The Root family farm has a perfectly acceptable privy."   

The furthest tenant.  A relief not to be sent into the tree, but a scheduling roadblock nonetheless.  The clock was ticking, literally.  

I tried, "Um, Mister W—"

"A colt would—"

"Enough said!"  I growled, then resolved to be less unintentionally transparent.  If I complained further, he'd doubtlessly turn around and accompany me home to regale Proper Step that I was too young, too rebellious, too unsuitable, or too female for the job.  That would merit me more tutors and less free time.  Today, I needed to be unsupervised, or my plan would fail.

I felt completely oppressed! 

I trotted obediently behind.  He picked up his speed, but not for nearly long enough.  I spent time watching his bread cutie mark distort as the flesh on his rump jostled.  I formulated plan B.

I didn't have a map with me, but I believed I understood where the roads and farms of Grin Having were in relation to Sire's Hollow.  I looked for landmarks.  I saw roads in the distance, cataloged the odd trees and the location of the gravel quarry.  I couldn't just run back to Seaborne Road because Clover wound around and went north-south like Seaborne did.

The dirt road eventually ended in the Root family farm.  True to his name and the greenish kohlrabi cutie mark that graced his mud-brown flank, Root Crop farmed only vegetables dug from the ground.  The two stallions chatted while I looked around.

Outbuildings with cellars were scattered across the near farm.  A chimney loomed over the larger building that he used for pickling or sugar extraction.  Dozens of growing frames and a single greenhouse filled the remaining space around the farmhouse we started walking toward.

Scattered rocks grubbed from the soil made just walking an obstacle course.  The main house was the typical mortared-together black, brown, and grey stone found in the soil.  

"Those shakes look rotted," I noted, pointing at the wet mossy roof. 

Root Crop's brow furled.  I may have exaggerated.  The pair went inside before me, still talking, any thoughts of my eyes turning yellow lost from Waddles Worth's mind.  

Root Crop's wife, Root Cellar, dressed in plain white and tan dress with a green apron, swiftly provided tea and tinned sugar beet biscuits.  She even curtseyed to me and said, "MiLady."

Embarrassed by my criticism about the roof, I smiled and sipped from the generations-old earthenware cup.  The ceramic sported a crazed brown-stained daisy.  As I nibbled a hard biscuit with my front teeth, she took a cue from the arguing.  The back door made a creaky sound as it closed behind her. 

I waited until they were deep into it over an account book and stood up suddenly.  "Um..."

The unicorn and earth pony pointed vaguely outside.  

"This might take a little while..." I tried. 

"Inspect the outbuildings while you're at it," Waddles Worth added. 

Yes!  More time. 

I fled through out back, the spring door striking my rump hard enough to make me sprint away.  I found Root Cellar by the well, pinning damp clothes to a line beside a heap of soiled linens waiting for her pedal tub and wringer.  The pink mare smiled with a clothespin in her lips, pointed, and returned to work.  It was the near universal recognition of what a mare probably needed if she were looking about.  Maybe my eyes looked a bit yellow?

As I found the privy, I wondered how an earth pony attaching clothespins with the help of hooves kept the wash from being muddied.  One whiff when I pulled open the privy door stopped me from wondering anything.  I decided to wait for the trees.  I looked around, caught my bearings, and set off across a field of green and purple vines.  Probably potatoes.  I even spotted a lean-to shed at one end.   I wasn't concerned about Root Cellar; she likely thought nobles inscrutable, something I knew for a fact!  

The fancy bronze shoes I'd been made to wear bogged me down in the muddy spots.  I debated whether to discard them later, when I changed, instead of cleaning them, but was certain I'd need to sell them.  I reached the near woods in a couple minutes and took care of business. 

It had taken over an hour to get to the farm.  At 10:30 AM, the wagon train would leave going north on Seaborne.  I wanted to get there just as they departed.  It might seem counter-intuitive, but big teams of eight or ten husky stallions could move quite fast, especially on the downhill toward Horseshoe Bay.  I could get winded trying to catch up, or worse, noticed.  I wanted to hitch a ride. 

I had no choice but to follow the deer paths through the still bare woods wandering toward the quarry.  Deer could be dangerous, but ponies never saw them, just their cloven-hoofed spoor.  What I followed wasn't a road in any sense.  I had to shrug by prickly bushes and jump over roots the diameter of my chest.  

Spring blue bells made pools the color of the evening sky fallen to the nooks between tree roots.  Golden amaryllis waved in the breeze with happy white faced daffodils playing at their side, but shiny fuzzy bramble ferns and raspberries ran across the ground also, and, like a teacher with a ruler, each harshly taught me how to identify them and their chosen habitat with a choice deep scratch on a knee, fetlock, and flank.  A crown of a browned and winter-bleached thistle, which would have been tasty in season, hid beside bushy foliage.  Brushed by my magic, it leapt at my face.  I jumped back with a scratch that ran from chin to ear.  My shriek might have been heard back at the farm.  At least I knew to identify three and five-leaf poison ivy, some with angry red-tinged leaves.  I pushed them away magically.  Again, and again.

At least I hoped I did, anyway.

It wasted precious time, but I eventually stepped out of the trees onto bare, scarred rocky ground around the quarry.  I spotted the heap of grey and white boulders I'd used as a landmark.  It marked the edge of the gravel pit.

But it wasn't the pit.  And the boulders were a mining debris talus. 

I blinked at a valley that gently sloped downhill, and the wood reinforced archway into the ground about three pony length wide and high.  Rails ran from the darkness within.  I saw an ore wagon and a red earth stallion with a brown Mohawk mane.  He used a hoof and his teeth to wield a shovel.  He scooped from a pile of black bitumen at the end of the rails.  I heard the scrape, then a muffled thunk into the hauler.  I had been faintly aware of the sounds, but had ignored them as not in the context of the gravel pit I approached.

I collapsed on the cold ground, still blinking, searching in my head the map I'd though I memorized.  The estate leased out a gravel concession, but coals weren't part of the Grin Having royal grant.  I remembered black marks on the map...  

"Ugh!"  I'd mixed up north and south!  Worse, there were a dozen country roads through woods and dales.  If I had gotten lost already.  Phooey!

I studied a scratch that ran from my fetlock to my right knee.  I'd never be able to hide the wounds from Proper Step, not when it weeped blood.  I couldn't just return to the manor, pretending a prank or misunderstanding.  There'd be a lot of explaining to do.  

"I have to make this work!" I said, but keeping it down. 

A second stallion, a beefy black-smudged straw-color fellow with a blond mane—a Clydesdale for sure—trotted over to buddy, then laid out tack before the wagon traces.  A third miner, a minty green mare with a light green mane and tail, both bound up in a bun, joined her fellow with the tack.  The black smudges that covered her accentuated her musculature.  She, like her fellow miners, looked very strong. 

With a quick smile, I unwound my pigtails and whipped my mane and tail into  mature-looking buns, taking care to tuck in the green streaks to make me less recognizable.  I spent some moments cracking dry mud from my fancy horseshoes, then swapped with the blacked steel ones, then put on the work-blues that hid my cutie mark, or rather my lack thereof.  

Coals were weighed, sold, and taxed in Sire's Hollow.

"Sirs!  Ma'am!" I called, hobbling up, handing my head.  I worked to look exhausted, and it wasn't entirely feigned.  The area smelled faintly of tar and pony perspiration.  

As they looked silently at me, I cast full Levitation and moved coal to the wagon without a by-your-leave.  It proved heavy enough that I could move only a book box amount at a time, about two pony weights.  That amount was especially good for my age. 

That earned me smiles and nods.  I thought about the red stallion's neck and jaw strength.  He'd shoveled twice as much with each scoop!

With the last squared-off dark brown coal lain atop, I said, "I kind of got lost heading toward Havenport—" the next major town beyond the village of Sire's Hollow.

The Clydesdale said, "I'm Chisel Hoof.  This is Stratum and Deep Digger."

"I'm Starlight."  It was the name I'd insisted to use with Sunburst, short for "Starlight Starbright," after the song.  It sounded friendly, not noble or related to celebrity.  Maybe not friendly enough, though.  Sunburst had left me when he'd earned his cutie mark, so maybe my affectation hadn't helped. 

"You weigh a trifle, little missus."  Compared to the Celestial tons they hauled. "Hop on top.  We can take you as far as Sire's."

"Uh-huh!" the others agreed.  In minutes, the three had hitched themselves up.  Downhill, the jostling ride didn't take long, but I spent the trip wondering about the "little missus" remark.  I got smudged like the adults.  It added to my disguise and hopefully my apparent age.

I knew it had become very late.
> Chapter 3 — Deception
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I waved goodbye at the Seaborne southern cutoff into Sire's Hollow.  I clearly saw the clock tower.  11:25 AM.  I galloped north.  

Once again my memories of a trip more than a year ago, combined with my proven wonky map-reading skills, betrayed me.  I wasn't minutes out of town before the road climbed through rolling hills.   Clouds had cleared without pegasus help and bright sun poked out.  The further I got, the warmer it became.  That accounted for the maples leafing out.  A breeze that faintly smelled of the sea rustled the canopies of light green leaves that obscured each bend in the road.  Feeling isolated, I quickly passed other travelers, none thankfully residents of Sire's Hollow.

My khaki blouse darkened at my neck and the pits of my legs.  Overheated, I wished I could shed my clothes.  Worse, I was passing ponies only because they pulled wagons.  I was no earth pony to be running a race.  I was fooling myself.  A forty-five minute lead might well prove insurmountable.

I might walk to Havenport, never riding a covered wagon.  Leering Fire Feather or eager-to-please Milds might spot me flying over.  Waiting the night was bad.  Fierce bear and clever deer that hated pony intrusions infested this wilderness.  Worse, searchers might get ahead of me and spot me approaching Havenport.  Proper Step, who thought highly of how he trained me, might think I'd been ponynapped!   

I gasped and frowned.  I needed to avoid constables, too.

I pushed harder.  

Maybe I should have taken the train.  Discounting that it was the most obvious way to run away, they did publish schedules and the depot stood on the south cutoff outside of town.  Eight trains stopped most days.

Plenty of merchants and village ponies traveled via rail.  I was well known, even to the ticket seller.

Good reasons to have chosen the wagon train.  My throat burned as I huffed onward.  Bad planning to be late!  Pony merchants shipped goods this antiquated way on routes not serviced by rail, like up and down the rocky coast to the tiny towns of Crescent Moon and Embrayment, and to bustling but isolated Harbor City.  Ponies traveling en masse was safer.  The wagon master provided services like feed bags, repairs, and water while rolling between destinations.  Individual ponies only had to concentrate on hauling goods.  I'd read in a couple of novels that said wagon masters accepted a limited number of passengers, and in Sunset at the End of the Road, one wagon master became the protagonist's romantic interest, and later her soul mate.  

Not that I needed another soul mate beyond Sunburst.  

I'd slowed to a walk, wishing I'd packed water, when I heard the faint clop of many hooves.  My heart sped and I trotted ahead around the bend.

I saw three-dozen carts, wagons, and trailer trains, pulled by more than a hundred ponies.  The wagon train wound right to disappear around the next curve, cresting the hills I'd been traversing almost a half-hour.  I slowed slightly to match their pace and catch my breath.  

Every vehicle was covered, but not as romanticized in books with bowed willow arches that stretched waxed linen or burlap.  Such hoof-built wagons hadn't carried families migrating west of Canterlot Mountain for generations.

All sported weathered canvas dyed sky blue, mauve, or tan.  Ponies tied the fabric over high-ceilinged vans, high-sided ore haulers, and slat-sided flatbeds.  I saw hewn wood, boxed fruit, and stacked barrels.  Some wagons had rubber-rimmed wagon wheels instead of steel rimmed ones.  Many of these were four pony heights in diameter, while others barely reached my withers—all in service of requiring the least effort from the pony teams pulling substantially more than their own weight.  

Sparkling nebulous auras painted the wheels of the wagons that had no hitch or traces at all.  I caught up and sampled one spell with my horn, trying to imagine and disambiguate the spell mathematics.  Unicorn drovers cast Motivate, a bizarre and hard to follow transform of Levitate.  It provided rotational force.  Sure, one could just push with Levitate, but that became swiftly tiring.  Motivate reciprocated, recasting itself until it wore thin.  You could cast it repeatedly all day long, once you overcame inertia.

And figured how to make the confounded spell work!

Keeping this army watered, moving, and fed while ensuring swift repairs kept wagon trains profitable, where they survived the expansion of the Equestrian rail system.  

I cantered along, searching for the wagon master.  Ten Clydesdales pulled one long flatbed stacked high with giant barrels of liquid.  None of them broke a sweat.

Wow.  

I looked forward to days learning how the wagon trains worked, and to comparing it to the events in Sunset at the End of the Road.  Maybe, I'd write the author about what I'd learned.

Which was something a rich foal with free time on her hooves might do.  I sighed.  I was leaving that behind.

Focus!

I found a trio of stereotypic white-canvas covered westward-ho wagons positioned mid-train.  The appearance was a façade.  Modern enchanted stone rods and magical welds held together a light frame of thin slats of wood laminate.  Inside worked kitchen staff and somepony sewing a ripped tarp.  I saw boxes of supplies.  One pony poured liquid into small barrels she wore as saddle bags.  Another scooped oats and caramel hay sticks into a clothespin line of Elk's Run branded black feed bags.  The pale blue mare with peppermint-striped hair had to be the water mare.  

A second blue mare with a flowing pink mane gave orders.  I spotted her wagon wheel cutie mark, complete with a stick to roll it along.  That cinched it—Miss Trotter, according to the name tag pinned to her long-tailed white linen vest.  She'd stuffed her pregnant pockets with notebooks, screwdrivers, and pliers as well as red, yellow, and green reflective signal cards.

"Hi, I'm Starlight Starbright."

"Oh, hi."  

I was a nose taller than she was.  Grey hairs speckled her coat and hair.  Magenta eyes regarded me, alighting on my work blues, the dark smudges, and sweated-up khakis, before returning to a half-completed check list held in a red nebulous aura as she trotted along, no lie, backwards with her wagon.

"I—I meant to meet the train in Sire's Hollow, but... work... detained me."

"I see.  Is your pony cart or wagon catching up to us—?"

"No, that's not it."

"Don't usually take on passengers, don't ya know."

"I can help."

"Fully staffed.  Mayfly!  The right rear hub on Finest's cider wagon is looking a bit wobbly."

"On it!" cried a pony before a purple pegasus dove out of the wagon and soared back six wagons, to hover, tilting her head as she tried to get a bead on what her boss had spotted.

"You were saying?" Trotter asked.

"I can help.  I can levitate two pony weight.  I've mastered being able to plant Illuminate on multiple objects and it will last a full hour without me refreshing it."

"Huh?  That'd have proven useful last winter, but we're overnighting in towns for the next week.  Not much call for that."

The sweat on my fur cooled.  I needed to join this train.  I didn't know how to cook or repair wagons.  Wagon trains were a business; businesses existed to earn money.

I pursed my lips and rummaged in my saddle bag.  Keeping the flap down to hide the contents, I unlaced my thrown-away purse.  No time to be haggling.  

I levitated a gold bit in front of her checklist.

"Why didn't you say so?" Trotter asked.  She inspected both sides, then bit it.  Seeing my widened eyes, she explained, "There's a reason it's called a bit.  Gold's a soft metal, just malleable enough to dent with your teeth.  This is real, and this is business, don't ya know.  If you wanna ride, be prepared to wash dishes, paint repairs, or stir soup.  Walking along aside is free.  Your meals are paid through Market's Vineyard if you help, Nana's Bucket if you don't."

"It's a deal!" I said, beaming.

I heard hoof beats cantering up behind me, then heard a familiar voice ask, "Milady?"

I shouldn't have reacted.  I shouldn't have looked.  I was a common worker drifting northward seeking better employment.  No way I'd respond to somepony addressing a pony above my station.

Reflex betrayed me.

I looked back and saw a stallion wearing a dirty black bowler hat.

The tall elegantly-boned pony towered over everypony, but looked scrawny for a work stallion, especially in this wagon train.  The unicorn's finely pointed muzzle and thin sapling-like legs were appropriate considering his name was Woodcutter.  He supplied the manor with wood for its dozen fireplaces; he leased Oak Bluffs woods from the estate.  As Grin Having's silvaculturalist, he managed the tracts, planting fast-growing trees with the aid of his earth pony staff and magic to replace what he cut.  

He was Proper Step's buddy and a peer; they both served the estate.  The two stallions played chess, according to Rock Scissors, my personal hoof-maid.  I glanced at his axe cutie mark.  He wore a blue denim work shirt with matching saddle bags.  Rope and tools stuck out.  He had tied his dapper black string tie just so.  

The flatbed of logs I'd passed: His.  I groaned.

"Countess Aurora Midnight, it is you!"  He bowed while trotting.  His stiff brown mane dropped over his right eye.  He doffed his round brimmed hat with green magic matching his iris color.  "What are you doing here?"

Trotter looked from him to me.  She halted.  I, Woodcutter, and the wagon train moved on—until she sidestepped to the other side, deftly avoiding the on-coming team and disappearing.

With my gold bit.  

Not good. 

"Milady, what are you doing?"

"I—"

"Proper Step warned me that you had some flighty ideas and were reading adventure novels he really regretted not taking from you.  If you're supposed to be inspecting my holdings three days hence, that means you ought to be inspecting the Clover loop farms today, but you aren't, are you?"

The lump in my throat conspired to choke me.  I couldn't speak.

"Young lady, Proper Step would insist that I escort you home this very minute."

"Your wagon!"

"My team knows what to do.  I'll catch up this evening."

I shook my head.  Vigorously.  Like a foal.  I couldn't.  I wouldn't.

"Come now.  Day's a-wasting."

"No.  No!"  I turned and ran.

He had considerably longer legs than I.  He was relatively well rested,  having not just galloped uphill.  That, and, oh yes...  

He had a rope.

When I ran into a hemp loop that deftly slipped around my head and tightened around my neck, I learned he knew how to throw a lasso.  It tightened further.  My blood throbbed around my neck; horse sense insisted I stop lest I be choked or be pulled unceremoniously to the ground like a bull by an arrogant rodeo star.  

We stopped in front of each other as the wagon train, to my lasting humiliation, rumbled on by, each successive team of ponies looking either amused or perplexed.

Look at the runaway.

Did he really have to lasso her to keep her from running?

She must be much younger than she looks!

"You have me," I said, growling.  "You will regret this day."

"Will I, Countess?"  He shrugged.  "Proper Step assures me you'll grow up and make a fine Earl.  You'll make the Princess proud.  You may laugh at your foalhood antics one day with one of my sons."

"In your dreams!"

"Celestia knows I laugh at my own peccadilloes."  He turned his head and pointed downhill with his nose.  "Best get it over with.  My sire tanned my flank plenty of times.  I'll tell you my favorite hijinks as we go."

"Spare me."

"As you please, Milady."

He led with the lasso.  I closed my eyes as an ache increased behind them.  Of course he did.  I would in his position.  He was undoubtedly right about Proper Step and what I would think ten years hence, left to Princess Celestia's diabolical brainwashing.  

Oppressive culture fomented oppression in the next generation—don't ya know, as Trotter would put it.  I felt oppressed.  I felt frustrated.  I had to save this, but didn't know how.

Trotting with my eyes closed, I felt occasional tugs.  I worried about strangulation every time I slowed even a bit, but he kept me to the road without me having to look.  After a few minutes, I couldn't hear the wagon train at all.  

Like a foal, I'd closed my eyes and the wagon train teams had ceased to exist in my humiliation.  As if.

Eyes open, I decided to keep up, if for no other reason but comfort.  That made me conscious of the steel tang of male perspiration dried on his shirt.  The breeze blew past him into my face.

On myself, I smelled the scent of bitumen—tar.

The loop of rope sagged until it was at knee height between us.  He held the end tightly in his teeth, like an earth pony.  Really, though, he was smart.  One could Levitate only so long.  Maintain-time for alternating frequency activation spells was directly proportional to magical strength.  Able to lift two pony weight already at my age, I figured Woodcutter at his age well knew his weight-time limitations.  I would have worried about tiring on the trip back to the manor.  

I switched to the high-stepping walking gait Proper Step had insisted I learn since I might one day need to demonstrate it when attending festivals at court in Canterlot.  One, two, three, four—

I stepped on the sagging loop, gripping the slip knot around my neck.  I meant it as a prank.  I had no hope of running, but was angry at being detained.

The unexpected jerk and forward momentum tripped him up.  He fell forward, his jaw locked on the rope.  Chin foremost, he struck the pavers with an audible crack!

I cringed, then gasped.

His bowler rolled in a circle on its brim, spiraling until it dropped beside the stallion who had collapsed unmoving to the grassy roadside.
> Chapter 4 — On the Lamb
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I knelt beside Woodcutter.  He lay unconscious, tongue lolling out!  I put my cheek near his nose.

I felt puffs, and smelled his breath.  He liked his cider.

Not dead.  Thank Celestia, not that the corrupt alicorn had anything to do with him being alive!

I looked down the grade and up.  Rustling maple leaves and broad trunks hid the happenstance from all judging eyes.  

Not only was I a runaway, I had now committed an assault to-boot.  Heart pounding, I found he weighed more than a pony weight as I dragged him into the cover of the trees and laid him flat on grass and pink-flowered clover.  I heard hoof falls.  

I leapt, snatched up the bowler in my mouth like an earth pony, and hid in the shade of a big tree, hunkered down at the height of the spring grass.

When the pair of gossiping farm mares were well passed, I  spat out the salty tasting hat.  I looked at my victim.  Still breathing.  Still unconscious.  Unlikely to die.  As they said in pony-boxing, glass jaw.  Fine-boned earth ponies were fragile.  Unicorns more so.

I reached over and pulled up a mouthful of the very green grass I sat in.  I smelled a mowed-lawn smell as I chewed, contemplating.

Hmmm.  Sweeter than lemon grass. Tasty!

I examined the bowler.  His blue denim shirt really did match my smudged culottes.  I opened his saddle bags and found a wallet.  I pulled out twenty silver, the equivalent of the gold he'd caused me to be cheated out of.

I really needed his shirt.  Having his rope made sense, too.

Did I need to add thief to my resumé?

Perhaps not.  I reached into my saddle bags, grabbed a pen and tore out a page.  I horn-wrote an apology and an IOU, and signed it Aurora Midnight EoGH.  I emptied his purse, gaining five more silver and six copper.  Proper Step would reimburse his friend.  Maybe.  With him, who knew?  I shrugged. 

When I shoved the note into his saddle bag, he groaned.  I jumped back as if burned, looking alternately at the flap as it settled over my note and at his face.  He frowned, moved his jaw a bit, mumbled and shifted onto his side with a sigh.  

I waited...

He grumbled as I undid his string tie and pulled the button-down shirt from under him, but he still didn't wake.  I changed into it, navigating buttons that were on the opposite side than on mares' clothing.  Why different?  I shook my head.  It fit in a blousy albeit masculine fashion but tightly about the withers.  I tossed the tie in a saddlebag and popped the bowler on my head, repositioning my bun to hide it.  I looped the rope around my left (lighter) saddle bag, adjusted my tail into a colt-bun (more of a tube shape then a flower shape), and scooted.

No way would Trotter let a runaway join her wagon train.

That meant getting to the train depot as fast as pony-possible, while avoiding being seen with a likely hue and cry already in progress in town.

What could go wrong?

Galloping downhill proved easier than up.  That Seaborne Road ran outside Sire's Hollow rather than through it worked to my advantage.  Ponies that took the by-pass weren't townsponies.  The road went straight for a league and I could see ahead despite persistent haze.  I had to make myself scarce in the slow-to-leaf-out trees a few times, hunkering down in shadows.  I had an illusion spell copied into a notebook, one that I sensed I could get right with further study, but now was neither the time nor the place to try and again fail at an invisibility spell visibly.  

Later, a constable came trotting up.  I jumped a fence; there were no trees in this section.  I rushed to an abandoned thresher and made as if working on it.  

The brown stallion wore a blue Prance hat, one of those that looked like a small cake box with a duckbill brim.  In my peripheral vision, I saw a blue uniform and cape.  The clouds were gone.  I caught a flash off copper epaulets or a badge.  Certainly, he had seen me hop the fence.

I used the rope as if measuring a curved bit of slightly rusty metal as I heard his hooves come to a halt.  My heart beat faster.  Had I thoroughly hidden the green streaks in my colt-bun?  Was he staring at my clothed flank?  Felt like an hour me of sweating, measuring, and jotting into my notebook.  Okay, probably a minute. 

"Have you seen—?"

I lowered my voice and said, "Nope.  Workin' here."

"I see."

He sighed.  I listened to his hooves scuffing pavers heading north.  I measured more.  I measured more.  I measured...

I glanced and didn't see anypony.  

I sighted up the road; no constable.  Maybe he'd taken the northern cutoff.  I could see the town clock.  Already mid-afternoon.   I hadn't heard the train.  The tracks crossed Seaborne south of the southern cutoff, so I'd for-sure hear or see it, haze or no.

The next train would arrive soon.

I trotted past Clover Road, but saw nopony.   Thankful for small miracles, I pushed my luck rushing up Southcut Avenue.  Insects buzzed as the air warmed.  I did see ponies, none I recognized, one levitating a white suitcase—a mare, dressed plainly but nicely with a bit of lace.  Considering nopony need to wear anything, doing so made a statement.   They were probably relatives of a merchant, or friends that had stayed a fortnight, now headed home.

I trotted toward the station.  

I knew the stationmaster.  A small wine-colored fellow with a yellow mane and beard.  Proper Step insisted on my "Going on Holiday" at the beginning of each season and we'd taken the train each time to places like Manehatten.  Each time, the stationmaster had insisted on chatting me up, talking about how the train worked and the "amazing" things I'd see.  He'd also given me a lollipop each time, even last time despite my now looking like a yearling filly.  Funny how I couldn't remember my parents faces, but through repetition I remembered the danger of being recognized. 

The stationmaster sold the tickets. 

Trotting slowly behind the passengers, I scanned for the other Sire's Hollow constable.  We had two, though I'd met neither.  The train depot was the most obvious route a runaway could take to be quickly too far away to find; it's why I'd avoided the idea.  All that had to happen was for somepony to notice I'd taken a train and I'd be quickly traced.  Grin Having employed pegasi, after all.  

The stations on a train line were known.  I'd be forced to wait at each depot for a known time if I transferred, thus be seen by an increasing number of witnesses who might report what I did.  My odds got better depending on the number of available trains at each destination after I switched to another train, and then another, but the odds were... not in my favor if I got spotted boarding the first one.

I had no choice.  I had to gamble.

I saw the lacy mare.  She had settled on to a bench at the end of the platform, her ticket sticking out of a book.  The white-maned white unicorn faced me before I spoke; I looked away from her amber eyes.  Intuition told me that Shy was the pony who could get my needed result.

"M-M-ma'am."  I squared my jaw, lowered my voice, spoke in a whisper, and made it sound like I had laryngitis.  I looked into my saddle bag and reached with my magic as I said, "Might you help me please?"  I levitated out my remaining gold coin.  I coughed.  "Could you please buy me a ticket?"

"Young sir, I certainly can."  She had a Dodge Junction accent.  The merchant that ran the candy store had moved from there years ago.  As a nosey candy-loving foal, I'd asked.  "Which one?"

"Next one, please."  Cough.

"Will do."

I cleared my throat.  "Much obliged, Ma'am."

"I'm certain," she said and trotted to the window.

I looked up.  Her stallion partners studied me.  Between the work clothes, the working class bowler, and the smudged denim, I guess I didn't look immediately like a filly.  The three unicorns decided I wasn't dangerous, or interesting.  One opened a newspaper; the other two looked over his shoulder.

I looked around nonchalantly, trying not to look shifty.  I listened for the approach of new hoofs on the gravel leading to the platform.  Horseshoes on wood planks approached.

The white unicorn said, "Here we go.  The passenger cars were booked, but there was a coach open.  You gave me a gold bit, so I guess you knew that."  

A ticket and one silver and eleven copper levitated in her golden aura.  She dropped them into my blue-green one.  Way less change than I expected.  I felt my face warm up.  I rapidly looked down.

"Thank you, ma'am," I said with forced sincerity.

"You have a fine day, now."

"I will," I squeaked.

I did have my ticket, so I wasn't going to complain about a five-silver train ride costing nineteen—and I didn't want to make a scene.  It was worth it not to encounter the stationmaster, in any case.  Moreover, I heard a distant chugging sound.  A curved line of billowing smoke approached beyond a tree-covered hill.

The stationmaster opened his door.  I looked away and stood near a post, my ears swiveling to track his specific steps.  He headed for where the locomotive would stop.  I loitered toward where the caboose would stop, if there was one.

Wheels screeched against the rails and steam puffed as the train swiftly entered the station, then slowed to a stop, steaming and puffing loudly.  I coughed for real inhaling the coal smoke.  A conductor swiftly opened the door to the last car.  It sported apple-red wood siding that read Applewood and Fillydelphia Railway.   The balding blue earth pony had dyed-black hair in his mane and tail.  He wore a black vest with a pocket watch hanging from a silver chain.  I waved my ticket at him. 

He glanced at it, looked both ways along the platform, and noted the other passengers had headed for the front of the train.  He faced me with pleasant bright blue eyes and took my ticket.  After a glance, he began walking, as earth ponies were wont to do, on three legs instead of four as he held it up.  His name tag read "Rambler".  

He said, "I'll show you your compartment, straight away."  

"Compartment?"

The interior of the train was... fancy.  Lots of dark reddish wood, probably cherry, well polished, with brass appointments.  I saw plush fabric, likely red velvet, with black and gold trim.  I noted the dainty yet masculine little bud vases mounted between the lighting sconces, each with a seasonal daffodil in a little squirt of water.  Daffodils lasted one day, so that meant they were fresh.

"A roomette, young sir."

"Roomette?"

"A small sleeper compartment.  The middle coach has general seating so you can socialize with the other passengers.  The second car is the dining car.  Or you can request a menu.  Your meals and drinks are included with your ticket.  Welcome to the Canterlot Express."

"Canterlot Express?"

Rambler stopped after leading me half way down a corridor of shut doors, all with frosted glass etched with flowers and hearts.  "I assume you are traveling on business, young sir?"

"I am," I quickly said, barely remembering to keep my voice low.

He opened a door into an area the size of a large closet or a small pantry.  It sported a small sofa, a rotate-out table, and a fold-out chair, and a microscopic privy closet.  He demonstrated how to pull down the sleeper.  Enough room for two, if they liked cozy.  He added, "The train arrives in Canterlot at 11:42 am.  We begin the ascent of the mountain after we pass Ponyville Depot at 10:55 am.  The scenery is exquisite.  I recommend it.  Did you have any luggage up front?"

"No."  The train jerked.  I heard the locomotive begin huffing, heard the screech as the drive wheels momentarily lost traction then worked against inertia in a totally physical non-magical sense.  

Going to Canterlot?

"You look tired.  May I bring you some hot water to wash up?"

"And a snack?" I asked, stomach growling, suddenly smiling.

"Of course!  An apple and a caramel hay stick?"

"Please."  Plat du jour pour les petits garçons.  An apple and a candy; I guess he believed the young part of young sir.  I turned to my saddle bag and gave him a silver, a good tip, in exchange for my punched ticket and he left.

The ticket read Canterlot Express.  The sleeping compartment and meals explained the nineteen bits.  I found a schedule on the back of the door.  The last east coast stop was Sire's Hollow, starting in Manehatten, stops in Fillydelphia and Baltimare.  What I had wanted was in the other direction, but Canterlot worked.  All the other trains were locals that would give Proper Step closer places to search first.  If he didn't guess I might've squirreled away high value bits for long distance travel, I could definitely make this work.

I didn't want to be in Canterlot anywhere close to my avowed enemy, the princess, but too late now.

Rambler brought me that basin of hot water, which was porcelain with a rose pattern.  Everything had a gilt Applewood and Fillydelphia locomotive logo.  It came with a matching towel and sage soap, the snacks on a silver tray etched with same patterns, and a copy of PONY magazine as well as this morning's Manehatten Times.   Both showed an A&FR stamp in red ink.  

The Times headline blared, "GANG QUEEN PIN ACQUITTED!"

I stayed in my room and skimmed the newspaper.
> 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!"
> Chapter 6 — Shadowy Characters
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I gasped and jumped back.  Rambler waited on the platform, framed in the doorway as I turned the corner.  My heart rate spiked and purple phosphenes swirled in my vision.

I lost my spell prep.  I had to work on not doing that.

He asked, "Young sir, are you all right?  Did you sleep well?"

I chuckled nervously, glancing over his head.  No constables in direct view.  From my experience yesterday, I expected nothing to go my way.  I began my spell prep, which would cause a green aura to form around my horn, but I wouldn't blow a getaway for assuming it impolite.  "I slept quite deeply."

"Good, then."

"Thank you for everything."  I glanced at my brass shoes, indicating my pleasure at having unexpectedly clean clothes that no longer smelled of my perspiration or Woodcutter's steel scent.  I did smell... a hint of lemon and the innuendo of lilac—subtly masculine.  Probably in the starch when he ironed my khakis, or a spritz of cologne.  I would miss this fellow...

If he hadn't given me up to the authorities.  I finished my spell prep whilst I kept my smile from fading.

"My pleasure.  But first—"  He sat and reached to my collar.  With deft earth pony hooves, he untied and retied my string tie into a jaunty bow.  "There.  Ready to conquer the world."

"Find something I love to do, right?"

He winked and stepped aside.  "Do that.  Definitely."

"I will," I said, stepping into the sunlight.  My pause in the railcar's doorway wasn't enough.  I squinted under a hoof, but it gave me an excuse to scan my surroundings.  I saw ponies.  None resembled constables, or pictures of royal guard I'd seen in books.  My heart raced, but I kept my spell spinning.  The faint impressions of the numbers of the spell equations swirled through my vision as my horn solved the requisite equations—like the ghosts of strangely shaped comets.  Nopony in the sky.  No pony on the roof of the depot.

I spotted the white unicorn mare from yesterday, wearing a yellow sundress sporting point de venise rose-motif lace—the expensive stuff—and an elegant floppy sunhat that shielded her face completely.  The stallions accompanying her carried her pink and white overnight case in addition to coltish teak trunks.

I walked up behind.  I didn't join them.  When the mare glanced back, I affected the scratchy voice I had yesterday and said, "Thank you."

She smiled, nodded, and continued her conversation.

I followed them out of the station closely enough to be mistaken for part of their group.  I spotted a brochure rack and grabbed a map and a visitors guide.  I opened the visitors guide, giving me a good reason for having a lit horn.  I over-powered the spell, ready to fight.

There it was: Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns.  Castle Way, a few blocks to the right off of Alicorn Way.  I glanced at a street sign.  I walked on Alicorn Way.  Canterlot Castle dominated the city twelve blocks directly uphill.

I'd stopped in shock.  I scooted to "rejoin" the group, but I felt my skin cool.  In less than an hour, I might meet Sunburst.  Learn what had happened... 

How surreal!  I now knew the meaning of the word because I felt it in my gut and it made me dizzy like I was in a dream.

"Don't overthink it," I warned myself.  

At Ponyville Way, a wider thoroughfare than Alicorn Way, the group turned left.  I waved as if I'd expected that.

I needed to take account of my surroundings and to stop acting like a stunned filly.  I waited for a couch and eight, a city bus, to cross.  The other traffic was hoof traffic, some pulling pony carts.  One galloping yellow cab dashed through the intersection before I crossed and looked up the street.

I counted thirty ponies in this block.  Most wore business suits, stallions and mares alike.  Three wore no clothes.  Two mares wore saddle parasols in full-length dresses fit for a high tea, in red and gold.  All but two were unicorns.

Canterlot is a unicorn majority city.  

The other two were pegasi, but they trotted well-dressed in black jackets with wings outside, one blue and one white, conversing with their co-workers.  The buildings were all white-washed stucco, over brick judging by an unrepaired cornice.  Purple swirls and hearts were popular motifs to paint on walls, though I saw a few dancing mares.  Some plaster work and store signs looked gilt.  Canopies—most stores had them like they also had glass fronts—varied greatly in color.  Many were red or royal blue.

The turrets of the castle loomed ahead, and beyond that tall lithe white towers with indigo onion domes.  The crenelated bailey wall looked six stories high.  The sun had started to wester, causing the ramparts to cast a shadow into the city.  The end of Alicorn Way would soon be shadowed.  The dark and light contrast seemed ominous...

An aspect I kept well in mind.

I peered into a quill and sofa shop across the street, an excuse to glance the way I'd come.  After a minute, I felt some confidence that I wasn't being followed.  Canterlot was an expensive destination.  Proper Step had no reason to think I had any bits.

Except for Woodcutter's...

Logical or not, I wasn't taking chances.  The proprietor of the store—an orange mare in a pinstriped blouse–trotted to the door.  I turned away and continued west, brochures afloat.  A theatre advertised a play about "Cats" and it being held over another week.  The chocolate store smelled tantalizing.  After gazing into a couture taller, a brass furniture store, and a perfume shop, I understood I'd entered the high rent district.

Instead of being inconspicuous, my nice clean and pressed work pony giddy-up might be too dressed down not to be noticed.  I spotted a dozen tourists, some dressed in flowered shirts and some not dressed at all.  Okay, maybe I didn't stand out that much.  I took a deep breath and decided just to enjoy the wealthy Canterlot ambiance as I strolled.

I didn't notice the incongruity until I cantered right up to it.  My subconscious did, however.

Was that Proper Step!?

Instinct swiftly turned me sharp right and I stepped into a bakery, the door chime dinging.  Scents of yeast and sugar struck me square in the nose.  

The bakery So Famous baked bread.  I saw braided eggbread, loops of boiled rolls, lengths of golden Prance bread, and loads of brown seeded-bread both round and oblong—most of it in baskets piled up in the window, creating an irregular wall of brown crust with some viewing portals to the street.  More rested in whicker basket bins behind the counter.  A deft unicorn in white baker's linens wielded ten saw-knives simultaneously to slice breads for a dozen pastel ponies, all mares, that packed the little shop.  I smelled and saw pastries arrayed on blue porcelain trays at the same time I spied the single empty cafe table.

"I'm sorry," I said, only fully lowering my voice at the end, blocking a pink filly no more than a year older than me with a poofy yellow blouse only matched by her poofy mushroom-like yellow mane.  Simultaneously, I grabbed coppers from my purse and dropped them on the counter, swiping what was closest.  "I'm waiting for a filly friend."

I sat.

Blue eyes frowned at me, then she smiled and nodded.  

The table provided a view through the doorway.  The sun illuminated the north side of the street harshly.  

Blinking away afterimages, I glanced at my impulse buy.  I saw a tricorn hat pastry—dough folded into a triangle with jam stuffed in a tiny dough-cup at the center.  It glittered with green, yellow, and pink sugar crystals that set-off what looked like a shellacked exterior.  Looking up and squinting again outside, I bit into the weird cookie.  

Honey!  It had been brushed with egg-white and honey when baked.  I almost, almost, looked at the thing in surprise.  But I worked to resolve the image of the pony that made my subconscious shock me into hiding.  

I stopped chewing.  In profile, he resembled Proper Step.  My butler and guardian was average size but long of bone.  He had a refined hardened look, thinner than typical ponies and not at all tall and elegant like Woodcutter.  He faintly resembled a schnauzer dog, especially the shape of his head—though not his perfectly shaped ears that I swear could point any direction so long as it was in the direction of a misbehaving filly.  Proper Step's moustache accentuated that.  Sunburst had explained to me that most stallions couldn't grow facial hair, but those that did usually shaved it.  In Sunburst's case, I suspected he let it grow to look grown up.

Proper Step used it to look both older and authoritative, as did this Canterlot pony. 

Same moustache.  But... his mane looked wrong.  My eyes adjusted fully, I realized the pony was a milk-in-tea brown, not blue grey like Proper Step.  I felt my shoulders slump.  

He was older; wispy grey bangs blew across his forehead.  He dressed in unmistakable livery: a red tailed corduroy jacket with a dun-colored wool collar and fore-cuffs over a grey pullover.   A gold chain led to his jacket's watch pocket from the gold timepiece he lofted impatiently in his magic.  It incidentally matched his cutie mark.  He wore his mane and tail ponytailed with white yarn.  

He resembled Proper Step, down to his mane style.  

Wait.  This pony wore gold pince-nez.  Proper Step had the eyes of an eagle with me as its prey and needed no glasses.

I crunched on the cookie, not liking the coincidence.  I took another nibble.  Ponies resembled their parents in shape and build, if rarely in color—unless it was a mixed tribe affair.  Could they be related?  Proper Step spoke nothing about his past.  He acted as new and empty and uncaring as a newly enchanted golem most of the time.  Could he really have a family?  I almost scoffed.  Maybe this was an older brother and they shared the same trade... 

A brother he might have called to trace a runaway ward?

Tan—I decided to call him that.  Tan stood before a cake shop, blocking my view of tall frosted lemon and chocolate layer cakes displayed in the window.  The arc of antique silver letters on the glass read Mister Cake's.  A dead giveaway.  He put away his pocket watch as shadows approached.  More assistance to track me down?

A purple and a yellow mare talked as they appeared.  Each unicorn wore a demure black business dress, each tailored to have the same tails that Tan's jacket had, exposing a halved lemon and a feather-duster cutie mark.  Guess which had the lemon?

Tan sighed.  He pointed over his shoulder at Mister Cake's, issued an order, and trotted off.  

I stood.  

"Excuse me.  Mister Colt?"

I stopped mid-step.  Apparently my giddy-up worked quite well.  I looked.  

Ten-knives Baker levitated me over a white paper bag, crimped at the top.      Hum & Touching and Colt were scrawled in black ink.  

Considering how few coins I had left, I grabbed them with a smile.  I paused in the doorway, hoping the pink mare had already left.  I hadn't kept track.   I waited as Tan crossed the next street continuing uphill, glanced to see no obvious tails to the east and to note the two mares had entered the cake shop.  I fast trotted after.  

I dismissed taking a different route.  Better to see your enemy than to be ambushed.  I had paid attention to my warcraft studies.  

He could be bait in a trap.  Yes, and how crazy was I?

A third liveried mare stepped out of what I gathered was a department store.    Sacks on Alicorn Way.  Appropriately, the brown earth pony with raven hair was weighed down with sacks of packages in her teeth and balanced on her back.   Tan whirled a hoof as if he wanted her to go faster, and with typical earth pony physicality, she cantered along and swiftly turned left onto Castle Way.

Celestia's school was to the right.  50:50, right?  I hoped so.  

With me a half block behind him, Tan turned right.

I pursed my lips.  My visitors guide up before me so I kept my spell spun up, I rushed ahead, but kept to the left side of the street.  I slowed at the corner.  

Tan walked up to a unicorn stallion aristocrat wearing a black top hat and a blue business suit.  It matched his powder blue coat and black streaked blue mane.  Top Hat and Tan slowly strolled, entering into conversation.  It didn't look like Tan was watching me.  

If it was a trap, I'd predictably followed.

I kept pace behind, approaching the portcullis in the bailey wall.  A light grey stallion earth pony with a white mane approached Tan, facing my way, and  waved.  My heart bounced in my chest, even though Grey's blue eyes weren't on me.

Tan and Top Hat stopped.

Which made it worse.
> Chapter 7 — Celestial Encounter
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I clamped down, determined not to visibly react.  Bored expression pasted on my face, I trotted by with the brochure in my blue-green magic, dodging sidewalk hoof traffic while passing jewelry stores, a coach shop, restaurants, and the Bank of Equestria.  I heard the trio follow me, re-engage in conversation, then suddenly stop.  As I figured I might actually be in Tan's field of vision, and him in mine from any storefront, I dodged into a restaurant that smelled particularly good, my heart picking up pace again.

The Hey Burger!  

What a name.  A big stretch of the imagination because the burger joint served—wait for it—hay burgers.  Carrot dogs, too.  And hay fries, milkshakes, and juices.   

Nothing green, however.  No head lettuce for the burger or—after a perfunctory glance—bottles of pickle relish beside the mustard, mayo, ketchup, and creamed horseradish.

I sat in a red booth with a hard yellow table.  The walls used a similar color motif, with coach-works memorabilia hung at random: brass couch-work company brand plates like Deux Cavaliers and Thoroughbred, logo wheel hubs of the same, white and blue license plates with yellow lettering, carriage lanterns—nostalgic stuff, I presumed.  A waitress in a standard waitress uniform with a white apron and a paper hat showed up within the minute.  With such a simple, and cheap, menu, I ordered a burger, fries, and a strawberry shake.  

I hoped to have time to eat it, but... there was Tan, talking and talking to Grey and Top Hat.  He took out a notebook—and a scroll which unrolled to the ground.  I saw large boxes, some checked off.  He looked at his watch, the sky, and continued talking.  Another guard wandered up, making me wonder if I would be up to eating.  The smell from the kitchen made my stomach rumble in anticipation.

What the hay.  It might be my last truly good meal for months, until I found a job and made enough money.

When a griffon landed, one with a white feathered head and greenish lion parts, intuition insisted I wasn't being followed.  Coincidences happened—not that I trusted that.  As the waitress set a plate before me of a burger on a brioche bun sitting on a heap of hay fries, it occurred to me that Proper Step had been assigned to me by Princess Celestia.  That meant Canterlot.  Of course, if Proper Step had family, surprise!, in the employ of the crown where might I encounter them?

But why stop here?

I poured ketchup and brown mustard on the burger and salted the fries before digging in.  The meal turned out to be pretty standard fare, but the strawberry shake made me smile.  I got an ice cream headache twice sucking through the straw with filly enthusiasm.

Then it all came together.  

Most ponies experience a specific strange shock at least once in their life:  A pegasus flies overhead, casting a shadow of wings racing up to you.  Your mind acts reflexively and you catch yourself before you run in panic.  The "flying predator" reaction was instinctual, not that giant eagles or rocs still lived in Equestria.  A half-dozen ponies out of the about thirty in my view out the window jerked in succession.  I saw a flitting shadow going north on Castle Way.

Two seconds later, a giant white pegasus landed with a thump that rattled the windows and table.  

Not.  A.  Pegasus.  

I saw the gold breast plate inset with a hoof-sized purple gem, the gold spiked horseshoes, the gold crown, then the incredibly sharp spiral horn.

I put down my half-eaten burger and took a deep breath as emotions inside my chest bubbled to a boil.  I remembered her.  Definitely.  Unmistakably.  She'd towered over everypony at my parents' funeral, but the mare seemed understandably just slightly shorter now that I'd grown.

Twenty pegasus guard in brass armor landed around her, and though the combined noise of their shoes against the cobbles raised quite a racket, nothing rattled at all.  What I'd heard about an alicorn being part earth pony, and more than the sum of her tribal parts, had to be true.  I didn't want to anger Her Highness, but I hated her.  My plan would eventually cause her grief, but it would be best that I be subtle, I decided.  

Hopefully, I'd never meet her personally, nor have to confront her.  My magic would never be in her league!

She demonstrated that now.  The aristo in the top hat pranced up and bowed.   After a few words, the alicorn cast a spell I had not yet encountered, even in a book.  An average unicorn would levitate a map, like I did with the visitor guide.  A high level unicorn might conjure a map from a saddlebag or a bookcase back home.  Celestia's golden aura bloomed into a nebulous cloud before her face and the image of a map appeared across the resultant apparition, like paper but transparent.  As she spoke, a section of the visualization grew bigger.  The enlarged edges faded at the borders of her magic.  

I found myself out of my chair, my nose touching the cooler window and my breath fogging it slightly.  The aristo pointed a hoof and Celestia swiped a hoof across the visible portion.  Like an unrolling scroll, topographic lines and notations slid toward a spear-like island close to a mountainous shore.  

I felt it.  Her magic.  I felt it when the stallion touched the map.  A dot of red and dots of green appeared.

Magic is like sound.  You drop a rock in a lake and waves propagate for tens of pony lengths.  

Magic is like light.  You light a lantern in a music hall and you can see from the stage to the back seats.  

As I moved my head, my impressions strengthened and waned.  Waving my horn side to side, I found a sweet spot where I could sense the numbers in the alicorn's spell, and intuit some of the equations she used.  Her spell mnemonics were lost to me since I couldn't hear her, and I'm sure she'd grown from the foal stage of speaking the magic words she read in a book a thousand years ago.  I was new to violation physics and the associated maths, but, if I mentally squinted, I saw the fiery numbers spinning around her like bright satellites, far more gorgeous than her physical majesty.  And smooth.  And sparse.  Lean!  Nothing wasted to a dozen decimal points.  Where my magical gears might seem rusted comparatively, hers spun in a bath of hot oil.  

It reminded me of the fault I kept galloping head-long into working up Don't Look, Don't See, Don't Hear.  ... and that applied-thaumatology word I'd deciphered last night. 

Riiight....

Subtract these terms on that integral...

I felt my horn warm and my magic surge forward.  I followed my insight and cast, murmuring the mnemonic because when you're actually trying to wish a spell into being those very first times, trying to convince the universe that you should indeed be allowed to violate the laws of gravity-magnetics, electro-mechanics, and thermodynamics, the mnemonic words steady the mind and focus your intent as you plead for opportunity.  They are the flint and steel creating the spark, the phosphor against the striker igniting the sulfur match stick.  

Maybe it had been that I'd dipped into the alicorn magic on-fire in my vicinity, or I intuited a trick, but my spell equations clicked into balance and rang a gong in my brain that left my entire corporal being reverberating.  Like a spray of pure alcohol shooting blue-hot after crossing an open flame, my luminous blue numbers flew on-fire from off to the left of my sensorium, arched across my field of vision, and in two instants had begun to orbit my head in a ring of afterimages*.  Usually my numbers were lazy comets, but something had changed.  More digits appeared, not only hard to look at blue, but red, yellow, green, the usual orange.

The waitress collided with my hindquarters.  

I stumbled, causing my cheek to bounce off the window as she fumbled with the tray of food she had balanced on her rump.  She shook her head in surprise as my flaming numbers dashed themselves out against the wall and ricochetted off the ceiling, the spell and my moment of epiphany lost forever.

"Sorry," the uniformed earth pony said, and before I could angrily jump up her dock about it, she bumped the tray over her head and onto the table in the corner.  Two stallions stood there staring at me as if I'd endangered their precious meal.

I glanced away, remembering that anonymity was my best friend.

Out the window to the left and on the opposite sidewalk, Princess Celestia faced my direction.   She waved her horn back and forth, then stepped into the street.  Pegasus guards jumped ahead and blocked traffic.  A yellow-painted taxi carriage veered and tipped as the chauffeur pulling it locked his knees for traction.  Sparks accompanied the screech of his iron shoes.  Crowds gathered to watch. 

Capital-S She looked directly at me.  In a moment of hyper-awareness, I saw her purple eyes sparkle.

I backed up to my table and sat, heart thumping double-time.  Under my breath came out, "Celestia on Roller-skates."

The princess didn't see me as she cast about with her horn, mirroring my own actions a minute ago.  Of course not!  It was a bright sunny day, even with the shadow of the castle wall stalking her.  The glare reflected by the restaurant window rendered me invisible.

The white alicorn held her eyes open in a look of shocked wonder, but, as the seconds passed, it faded like the last impression of the sun dropping below the horizon.  Her head lowered until her muzzle nearly touched the street, causing the clouds of waving hair in her always moving pink, blue, and green mane to cover her face as if she and not the sun had been eclipsed by the moon.  

She shook herself suddenly.  She barked an order and guards trotted up as she regained her composure.

I froze like a foal that sees the green eyes of a timberwolf focused upon her.  I consciously rolled my shoulders and told myself to breathe.  Princess Celestia hadn't seen me—not directly.  Reflex demanded I bolt, but that would get me noticed.  That would get me caught.  Proper Step, unkindness-incarnate though he might be, had taught me discipline.

Not looking at the window, I nevertheless saw the princess send minions up and down the street.  I took my book out from where my saddlebags lay on the seat beside me.  I needed Levitate spun up and fully prepped.  I opened to the discussion of the maths of decision matrixes and targeting coercion.  Appropriate, since I realized holding the book before my face and feeding myself required me multiply-targeting and ambidextrously-manipulating those targets separately.  All unicorns could manipulate one thing, but only higher level ones could independently manipulate many. 

Of course, Sunburst had earned his cutie mark manipulating a hundred books simultaneously.  I remembered vividly him catching the tower of grimoires that fell toward me...  How they suddenly sailed away like fleeing cockroaches with light turned suddenly on...  How they became a flock of birds and circled, finally roosting themselves properly categorized and in Canterlot librarian order.  Like.  Pow!

I also remembered him suddenly glowing.  I saw that monster cutie mark of a sun surrounded by books boil to the surface of his flank.  I saw the beatific smile that graced his muzzle.  

I saw him trot out of the open door at the sight of his family on the street, never to speak to me again.  

I.  Will.  Not.  Cry!

"Focus!" I whispered through clenched teeth as I blinked furiously at at my burger and fries.  I converted it all to anger.  Why should Princess Celestia win again!?  Over and over, the ancient harridan destroyed my life and ruined my destiny.   Not this time.  Not evermore!

I wasn't completely astounded when I picked up the fork and knife and sliced the burger with sufficiently little pressure that it eased through the bread without deforming it.   Before today, I'd never succeeded cutting something straight and surgically perfect.  Adrenaline obviously made a difference.  I wasn't a messy food horse.  I understood manners, unlike the ponies a few tables away who stuck their faces in their food and garbaged down. 

In my peripheral vision, I saw Princess Celestia crouch and spring into the sky with a huge downstroke of her enormous wings.  The regiment of pegasi spread their wings.  Like a flock of crows, wings almost forming a canopy, they flapped hard and flew skyward, nowhere as elegantly as their princess.

I heard the door chime and a, "Welcome to Hey Burger!" as a minion trotted inside.
> Chapter 8 — The Card
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

If Princess Celestia had wanted to find the magic user that had surprised her—or worse, a certain runaway earl she'd been informed about—she wasn't looking for the dozen pegasi tourists at the counter or the late lunch-going pair of earth ponies near me.  Or the pair of old biddy unicorns I'd noticed sharing photos of their grandfoals in the opposite corner.  Or the earth pony waitress.  The unicorn cook, on the other hoof?

I heard steps toward the back as I chewed my previous piece of hay burger and sliced another.  The sound of brass horseshoes stopped half way to the kitchen.  A cook, of course, wouldn't demonstrate high level magic.

Which left me.  

Squelching the thought of making mistakes that would leave bread, burger, and silverware clattering to the table or floor, I separated the bun from the burger, unscrewed the top of the mustard jar I now held, dipped my knife while still holding the fork up, then split my magic yet again and picked up the shake and aimed the straw into my mouth to wash down the burger I'd swallowed.

I turned the page slowly as the hoof falls came up behind me.  Looking from the dexter to sinister sides of the parchment page, back and forth, I suspended everything else statically because I felt moisture beading at my hairline.  

Still, pretty impressive.

A royal guard mare trotted by and turned to face me.  "Hello," she said, cordially and with a friendly smile.  

The young pale blue unicorn held her helmet to her side with purple magic that matched her purple eyes.  I understood why she used her magic and not a leg: the same reason I did, to have a defensive spell spun up.  Her mane was white with grey streaks that looked transparent.  Her helmet didn't have the Trojan crest the others had—then I realized everypony had their mane shoved through, though that didn't explain her long straight mane.  

Enchanted helmets.  Surprise!

I glanced at her.  I put down the shake, slathered the horseradish mustard on the slice of burger and set it and the utensils down—including the knife before I realized it.  I lowered the book. 

Her eyes studied me.  She was quite young, probably a new recruit which meant only a few years older than me, but her gaze was penetrating and disconcerting.

Of course it was.  She was trained to see flaws in other ponies.  Being nearly my age, she could see when a pony was pretending to be a gender that wasn't her birth gender.  For that matter, maybe Rambler had, too, but every fiber in his service-oriented diplomatic being caused him to treat everypony as individually special in his or her own right.

The guard said, "May I speak with you?"  I took note that her voice wasn't loud or boisterous, but low enough not to disturb the other patrons.

I left my voice natural, knowing I wasn't fooling anypony.  I did wear culottes and not britches.  I affected annoyance, however, despite saying, "Sure?  What's up?"

"Did you just cast a spell about a minute ago?"

I shifted my book up and down, then lifted my fork, knife, shake, plate, the fries, and the quarter of burger together individually, then plunked it down loud enough to make a point of control without making it seem like I'd dropped them.  I am the highest level unicorn, I thought, laughing at myself as I knew well how far I had to go to catch up with somepony as powerful as Sunburst.  "You could say that."

I hoped she didn't see me sweat.

"You may have seen Princess Celestia on the street just moments ago?"

"I did.  I think I recognized Mount Aris on a map.  Was that a good place for a debrief?"  Tutors had pounded geography into me with my other studies, such as warcraft.  Aris had a distinctive triangular shape.

The guard stood blinking and her smile faded into a neutral expression.  "I see you aren't interested," she said with mild sarcasm.  "However," she tapped a hoof on my book, which I continued to levitate because... you know full well why I did.  She added, "You do seem to be a student of magic."

Right.  Not many ponies went to a fast food restaurant and read a magic textbook for grins and giggles.

She read, "Marlin's Tertiary Primer for the New Age Thaumaturge."  She squinted.  "First edition.  That book is, what, three hundred years old?"

I turned to look at the maroon cover.  It had a gold embossed bearded unicorn head on the cover with a pointy stars-and-bells hat.  The shellacked coconut fiber binding didn't look new, but wasn't brittle thanks to regular restoration spells cast upon it.  The parchment inside had yellowed and crinkled, but it smelled like a library and I liked that.  No, 410 years, I thought, but only nodded.  "Nice, huh?"

"You are less old than you look.  Are you a student at Celestia's school?"

"Nope."  I put down the book with a sigh, but picked up the knife to shift around the remaining fries.

"Well, regardless," she magicked a card from a compartment in her armor.  She laid it on the table with an audible click-clack.  "Should you ever decide to attend, present this card and you'll be given immediate consideration."

"Really—?" I said, but the mare had already trotted by me.  I ignored her grumbled words about "ingrates" because they meant I'd achieved my goal of being dismissed.

I lifted the card.  It was the size of a business card, but of some brass alloy and brushed such that it gave off a blue and green moiré pattern as I moved it.  Imprinted on it was the number 578 and a rune.  I brought it to my eye because I could tell something was odd about it.  It took notice of my examination and a spark traveled the length of the crossed, deformed H-shape.

An anti-counterfeiting measure, freshly conjured by the princess herself.  I caught the faintest sense of its spell equations before the spark went out.  I put it in my saddlebag.  It gave me something to puzzle at when I got bored.

I finished my lunch, paid, and left.  I looked up and down the street, but Celestia's—what, butler, majordomo?—and the rest of the servants and guards were long gone.  Except for the two at attention at the portcullis leading into the castle, the only ponies I saw were the constant traffic of business ponies and ponies pulling carts, vans, taxis, or busses.  

It isn't all about you, Aurora Midnight.  And, it wasn't this time.  Next time though?

There were plenty of buildings on the west side of the street, none of which were businesses.  I took out my map to confirm that they were university buildings, and these were the ones that had overflowed the major part of Canterlot University that had been founded inside the walls of the ancient Fortress Canterlot.  I started noticing students with books on lawns and under trees, more often gabbing than studying.  The buildings were stone and white masonry, with purple side walls and half turrets, most with large windows to draw in the morning sun.  Of the five I passed, three looked like clones of the first.  

The fifth one looked more prosaic, and, unlike most buildings in Canterlot, had been built of purple brick and not plastered or painted white.  It had a peaked black roof that housed a third of three floors.  It had three turrets, the largest in the middle, made of purple and tan brick in a pattern that swirled and spiraled upward, capped with a conical roof itself capped by a tiny purple and gold onion dome that matched the motif of the castle.  The roofs all had a smattering of golden stars and some large letters.  I guessed it was an abbreviated motto in Old Ponish.  The entrance was a grand stone affair with golden stairs of travertine.  A bunch of fillies played outside, levitating a ball between them.

Unmarked, but with a red loop on the map to point it out, it had to be Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns.

I again paid attention to any one near that might be looking my way, or just suddenly not looking my way.  Restaurants, a magic shop, a bakery, and a toy shop stood across the street.  All had windows full of glare that made them impossible to easily look into.

I strolled past, went about half a block, then turned around rapidly.

Nopony seemed to have been paying attention.  I folded the map and put away.  

I suddenly didn't want to do this.  My stomach complained, but I scoffed at it.  If I'd been able to finish my meal after the scare with Princess Celestia, this was a sherry trifle.  What worse could happen?

I found I didn't have the answers as I turned down the paved walk to the famed golden stairs, a lump growing in my throat.

Some of the fillies said, "Hi!" as I trotted by and I smiled at them and said, "Hi!" back.  Other than I saw only unicorn faces, what I saw through the windows looked like any other school despite it being segregated.  Of course it looked like other schools.  There was more than just magic to life, as Proper Step was wont to say.  Thaumaturgy was probably sandwiched between history and physical education, but one would hope it focused on practical and advanced magic.

I was right about the steps.  They were just oddly stained red, orange, and green travertine that looked gold in the distance.  The doors were brass.  I saw black tarnish where tiny hooves has scratched it.  In the entrance, I found an open atrium with stairs going up and down on the left.  I could see a lower level lit below through an open area in the center.  Second and third story galleries crossed over the atrium.  All the balusters were ruby red cherrywood, topped with banisters of gold.  

Hanging down in the middle, lit by a skylight, was a four-story banner of the dear princess.  It precessed like a pendulum and lightly undulated in a cross-breeze like her mane.  The Empire Art Neighveau graphic had her raising the sun in purple, gold, and red, her wings flared, her body extended to make her look impossibly svelte, and her hooves stretched to the sky and touching a globe that resembled her cute mark.  I wondered if the banner was as big as the headmare's ego. 

With classes in session, the wide empty halls sounded hollow and looked lonely, with black and white checkered marble scuffed by generations of junior horseshoes.  The walls were wood paneled with ingenious pop-out lockers on plank seams that, judging by the inlaid runes, were definitely magic.  I looked through a tall glass window in a door and remembered.   

I hadn't attended school since I was eight.  By then, both Sunburst and I had been advanced to fourth year since both of us were reading adult-level spell books when others were still dealing with books that contained many pictures.  My parents had been big on reading to me.  My earliest memories involved one or both of their voices.  My father always insisted that I sounded out the words, even if he were reading to me, and asked me to explain them. 

Sunburst had been a magic nerd and he powered his way through learning anything, with a big sis willing to indulge him and help him learn all the words.  We'd met in kindergarten where I first discovered that when he explained a spell, I quickly understood it.  Mind you, these were variations of levitate or illuminate, simple things like up versus down or how to scrub.  He had a knack for explaining, and a love of showing how by finding and reviewing just the book I needed.  

The day after Sunburst earned his cutie mark, I'd gone to school to find he had not gone.  The herd of students gathered around to ask if he was well, since Sunburst and I had been each other's special somepony (well, not officially, nor would we have admitted it had anypony if they asked).  I hadn't known until the teacher announced he'd left for this very school in far away Canterlot.  It made me feel embarrassed; I cried all the way home.   Proper Step found me willing to accept private tutors and too upset to protest much about moving to the Manor.

I hadn't thought about "the herd" back in school for what felt like forever.  I remembered the fun playing at recess and comparing brown bags at lunch, vaguely.  Faces, smiles, teasing, laughter...  Friendship was fleeting at best.  I didn't remember talking to any of my classmates after that.  Perhaps Proper Step had done me the favor of keeping them away. 

I shook myself as a teacher noticed a shadow and glanced at me.  I'd seen a green slate board with Forest Occupation 221-232 and at the edge of the board, Silvan Detection.  History wasn't a forte of mine, but I seemed to remember that Equestria had been overrun by forest monsters once and Canterlot had needed to be liberated.  Something about the Everfree and the Queen of the Timberwolves... 

The next door showed me what looked like a cooking class making soup, attended by young mares mostly about my age considering the admixture of foals that hadn't yet reached full height.  Red clay potted shrubs and grasses dotted the tables.  Herbs?

Only one class of the rest I peeked at focused on spell casting.  Chalked math filled that green board.  I saw one student trying to change the color of a white ball.  It flickered purple, but the flushing color wouldn't stick. 

As I trotted to the doorway with the Admin sign, it occurred to me that all the classes taught magic at some level.  Nice, but I shook my head thinking that learning about spells cast during an historical event wouldn't make it stick any better for me, though cooking and potion-making might combine well, not that an earl would be learning something her servants could do for her.  

I trotted into the administration office and involuntarily gasped.  Okay, it was more than squeak and less than a shriek.  Reflex can be disastrous.

An earth pony constable stood leaning against a counter.
> Chapter 9 — The Command
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I squeaked as I halted in the doorway.

The husky auburn stallion stood straight.  He had a red mane and he flicked his tail at my self-announced entrance.  Magenta eyes turned to regard me and a bored expression turned to a smile.   He wore a blue gendarmes cape and short collared shirt.  His prance cap lay on the counter beside an open saddle bag from which spread out file folders like a pushed-over pile of sand.

Was I so transparent that Proper Step could pinpoint what I might do if I ran away?  Was this the power of adult thinking?  

I glanced behind me, almost bolting as my heart tried to seize up.  Then I remembered an earlier thought.  

It isn't just about you.

Everypony had their own agenda, but if I acted guilty I'd surely become the officer's agenda whether or not Aurora Midnight actually was.  

I forced myself to look at him and say, casually, "Uhh.  Sorry?"  

No other ponies occupied the four blond wood desks behind the dark oak counter, each scattered with stacks of paper, books, and pens.  A red stapler stood out.  I saw only one apple.  The hard white chairs on this side of the counter were devoid of delinquents awaiting scoldings.  A mint green unicorn mare glanced out an open office door and sang, "It'll be a few minutes!"

I awaited the constable.  Would my name pass his lips?  Would my run end in the next few seconds? 

Instead he stepped closer, his eyes alighting on my acquired bowler, my clothing, then stopping to note I'd covered my cutie mark in a city were many ponies, especially the young, wore clothes that nevertheless revealed that intimate—to me—detail.  He looked at my string tie, tied professionally by Rambler, then into my eyes.  

I fought to keep eye contact, but decided that the confrontational superior mode Proper Step explicitly taught me to affect—yes, he and I had spent hours looking into each other's eyes without looking away while trying not to blink—was the opposite of what I needed.  Bow to authority.  I looked down. 

"Excuse me for asking, but are you presenting as a colt or dressing up?"

Not, Are you the Countess?  

"Um...  Dressing," I said, using my normal voice, ending with a squeak.  Was I a door hinge?  I wanted to hit my head with a hoof.

My dressing up as a young stallion wasn't fooling him.  And I wasn't sure what "presenting" really meant and took it as spending too much time sequestered with adult tutors and isolated from foals my age.  Him walking behind from one side of me to another revealed his peculiar magnifying glass cute mark.  It had an eye in the center.  I'd have bet anypony real bits that the thing led to a compulsion to be observant.  The more I interacted with ponies I didn't know, the more I realized their cutie marks made them easier to read and to perhaps predict their behavior.  

"Pretty sharp," he commented, "considering what you had to work with."

"The culottes or the lavender fur?"

"The not-britches.  There are plenty of pink, lavender, and mauve stallions, trust me.  I've been told hair spells are incredibly difficult to master and don't last."  He waved a shiny black hoof shoed with black steel over his hornless earth pony forehead.  "Our forensic criminalist is a unicorn."

"I've read that about manes, too."

"Convincing," he said.  

I felt my face warm, though the disguise was thrown together through the worst of happenstance.

Standing in front of me, he lowered his head to look me squarely in the eye.  His magenta ones looked backlit, though that was them reflecting light askance from a window.  He asked, "You aren't a bully, are you?"

I swallowed.  I felt under a magnifying glass.   Ponies of high station were often bullies in a fashion, certainly using bits or power to get or enforce their way.  Another reason to hate the tool Celestia was trying to fashion.  I shook my head.  "Nosir—"

The mare in the office said, "No lectures, Farsighted.  They had an assembly about the matter yesterday."

He had looked back, but he looked at me again from his normal stallion height so I had to look upward.  "We take bullying seriously."

Thoughtlessly bristling, I kept our eyes locked.  "Apparently."

An eyebrow went up, but so did his smile.  He returned to leaning against the counter.   He added, "The Canterlot Constabulary needs resourceful unicorns to join our ranks."

The clerk said, "This isn't recruitment day, either."  I heard a chair scrape the floor. 

He lowered his voice and directed the seat with his hoof below him as he told me, "Really.  Training in forensic spells, crime scene potions, detection cantrips—"

"You're a detective?"

With horseshoes clattering closer from the office, he half-whispered, "Yes.  With fast-tracking, you can make detective sooner."  Louder, facing the administrator.  "When you graduate."

"When you graduate," the mare echoed.  She had blue eyes and a pale green mane styled into a page-colt.  She blinked and frowned momentarily when she glanced at me. 

No way she recognized me as anything but a student, so I didn't react.  

I continued to stand near the door as the two spoke in low tones, looking briefly into two of his folders.  The detective jotted on a small flip sheet notebook.  He packed up his saddlebags with a thank you and departed.  As he passed me, he reiterated, "When you graduate.  My name?"

"Detective Farsighted."

"Sharp," came his voice retreating down the hall.

As I trotted to the counter, my heart began racing again, realization setting in.  

"Do I know you?" the mare asked, her voice naturally sing-song.  Sweet.  "I should.  I've dealt with most of the students here."

She had a name tag.  "No... Ms. Maple.  I—"

"Well, that's a relief!"  She tittered.

"I have a question about—"

"Oh, I don't know about that."

I did my best to not give her a disapproving look.  We'd had occasional dinner parties at the manor where the Countess Grin Having had to play host.  It always devolved into a learning opportunity, with coaching before and a written test afterwards.  I'd met her type, usually a society mare, all lace, fluff, and giggles.  Disarming.  Camouflaged.  A cragadile when you got to the topic of the ask. 

Ms. Maple wore a white starched collar with a blue ribbon tie.   I could hardly miss her purple-red maple leaf cutie mark.  Sweet indeed.  Maple was likely short for Maple Syrup.  The cutie mark incidentally clashed with the color of her fur.  Cutie marks presented many levels of insidiousness if you analyzed them deeply enough!  

Sweet made ponies lower their defenses.  

So, I asked my question, "Can you find some information about a friend of mine who goes here?" talking over her inevitable interruption so thoroughly that I didn't hear what she said. 

She gave me a patented disapproving-teacher look.  

I said, "Do you know who I am?"

"I— Well..., no.  You didn't give me your name."  She smiled. 

I smiled.  I chose, "Starlight Starbright," over Aurora since though Sunburst knew my actual name, he'd never used Aurora Midnight with me.  

"I see.  And where do you go to school?"

She really was getting on my nerves.  I affected cheery and said, "Not here.  Can you see if my friend Sunburst is here?  He started years ago," I presumed.  I mean, of course he did.  Did he?

She looked up as she thought.  "Sounds familiar.  Don't know, though."

"Could you please look?"  I pointed a hoof into the office she had just left, full of filing cabinets. 

"Where are you from?"

"From the same town as Sunburst."

"And you want to attend this school with your friend."  A statement.  

That reminded me.  I magicked out the card I'd gotten thanks to Princess Celestia and snapped it on to the counter with a brassy reverberation. The metal contrasted against the darker wood, but her eyes traced the spark she triggered by looking at it.  She reached for it with her magic. 

I pushed down with mine. 

She pulled it toward her a hoof-length and I doubled my downward pressure.  

She pulled harder.  

I pushed harder.  

The tug of war continued for half-minute and surprisingly she stuck her tongue in the corner of her mouth as we each used incrementally more magic.  Then she bent over the counter to take a look.  

I covered it with a hoof.  "Sunburst?"

"I'll see what I can do," she replied and trotted into the office.   

I could see the muscles under her maple leaf cutie mark ripple as she reared and horsed heavy boxes around.  A clipboard hit the metal side of a cabinet.  Her tail had white streaks in the pale green, and she swished it, then swished again. 

"Uh, huh," she said to herself as her tail relaxed.  Louder, she said, "Look, Starlight, I'm sorry about that.  Farsighted was right about your giddy-up.  I let myself react to that adorable bad-colt look you're presenting.  Thought it would be fun.  However..."

She paused.  I stood up straight, ears twitching forward as she loudly went through page after page of something.

She continued, "However, that card under your hoof is called a Command.  It comes from Headmare Celestia herself."

Uh, oh!  I backed from the counter toward the door.

I froze when she craned around to look at me, saying, "She explained it to you, didn't she, that I must admit you if you test even for minimal magic?  The voice rune contains her words on why she issued it."  Maple turned back and stepped further into the office.  I heard her unlocking then tugging open a clanky filing cabinet.  Her tail flicked into view then disappeared.  "What did the princess give it to you for?"

"I got it this afternoon," I said, trying to process what I'd just heard.  My mind shied away from the prospect of attending school again with Sunburst and instead flitted to what I had done to earn it.  "A royal guard gave it to me after I'd been listening into a spell—"  

I gasped.

My spell!

I had been eavesdropping on Her spell, registered clues to why alicorn magic worked so well, and had applied it to mine, strengthening it by magnitudes...  AND I HADN'T TAKEN NOTES!?

The counter rattled as I dumped my notebooks and my Marlin's Tertiary Primer.  I opened to my transcription of Don't Look, Don't See, Don't Hear on one pad and my notes on the math in the other.  I levitated a couple of pencils, one red, from the closest desk and wrote with both, not at the same time, of course, but holding the two let me minimize the time having to move the writing instrument.  

Frankly, how did earth ponies and pegasi take good notes holding a pencil in their lips like a kindergarten foal?  

I quickly got lost notating the simplifications I'd seen, the transform that I had seen performed on the illusion spell, and the sensations I'd registered.  I even recast the wish predicate, refactoring it twice, because it misstated the reality stator that inducted my magic.   I know it's sacrilege, but I leafed through Marlin's and wrote margin notes where I'd become absolutely sure that the ancient thaumaturge had been dead wrong.

"Uh, Starlight?"

I shrieked and threw my pencils in the air.

Ms. Maple dodged like a veteran teacher.  I had no idea how long I'd worked in that concentration fugue, but she definitely had been looking down at the open notebook for some time.  I knew full well that teachers learned to read upside-down as part of their training.

My brain felt overheated.  Or, at least, that was the sensation of perspiration that beaded on my forehead.  I looked and realized I'd scribbled out... five pages of equations, full horn-calculated mathematical solutions, and annotations.  Suddenly polite, or contrite, Ms. Maple hadn't moved the Command card at all, but she did turn over my Marlin's in the blue cloud of her magic to read the title and nodded knowingly.  The book did look old, and impressive, and moving it did smell like a sacred library.

"You've advanced way beyond sixth year."  She gave me a grin.

My face heated up.  Forgetting that I was a unicorn at all, I reared to the counter and used my forelegs to close the notebooks and Marlin's and to scrape them together and hug them to my chest.  

"S-sorry," I said.  About the thrown pencils.  Otherwise, I was babbling.  I had a vulnerable spot: Ponies praising me!

"That looks like a university level spell and your math seems sound.  Looks like you've aced the written half of the entrance exam already."

"I'm not trying—"  I took a deep breath.  "If my math is so good, why can't I cast beyond variants of Levitate or Illuminate?  And beyond those Sunburst needed to explain to me, like Scrub or Sparkle?"

She again looked up as she thought, though it might have been a stifled eye roll. "Well, that explains why you came to Canterlot.  Let's see...   You need a better manifestation coach?  Maybe a good Old Ponish arcana tutor?  Maybe your brain—"

"My brain!?"  I guess I needed to work on my teenage eeew reflex.

She chuckled.  "Both your brain and horn grow in size and complexity throughout foalhood.  Neuronal connectivity to the horn depends on genetic heritage.  Some infants cast magic instinctively right out of the womb, to the horror of the family and community.  I'm dealing with one teenager who didn't manifest baby magic, or any magic, until she was an early teen—what we call a magic-retentive.  During her practical magic test, she triggered a magic storm that destroyed some castle buildings and much of Alicorn Way.   It took weeks to repave."  

She looked at the Command card.  She hadn't touched it. 

I looked and it sparked at me.  "Right.  I've demonstrated minimal magic?"

"Good.  You pay attention."  She snorted.

"I—"  How does a pony control a blush?

"As I said, I think I understand why you're here.  Looking for Sunburst is only part of what you're seeking.  Your friend is an important reason, I'll grant, but you need better teachers, too."

She paused and we looked at each other.  Was she also the drama teacher?

For my part, I magicked my work back into my saddlebag.  When that wasn't enough, I made the card follow into the under-flap pocket.  

My heart was racing again when I finally blurted, "Sunburst?"

She took a deep breath.  I didn't like that she was avoiding this part.  

"Please," I said.

"I did find Sunburst."
> Chapter 10 — Broken Heart
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I whispered, "You did?"  You found Sunburst?

"The name was familiar.  I've only been vice-headmare for a year, though."

My skin grew clammy.  That sinking feeling ponies speak about?  It felt more like a shrinking feeling.  Ms. Maple seemed to grow larger and the counter, too, as if I were turning back into a foal.  A foal who lost her parents, whose hopes got crushed, and who learned just how powerless she was.

Maple continued, "You belong in this school, my dear, even if Sunburst isn't here now."

"He's not here?"

"He's not here.  But, that doesn't mean you can't be here."  She smiled, but I saw a reflection of myself in her expression because I saw concern creeping in.

"I came to find him."

"He was here."

"And he's gone, now."  

Loneliness set in.  I became aware of a silence, like a still winter day.  Grey.  Stark.  Nopony to care for me.  Nopony at all.   

I asked, "What happened to him?"

Her tail swished and her ears lowered.  "I—  I can't say."

"Why did he leave?  Did he graduate?  Did he flunk out?  No, no, no... not possible!  Not with that cutie mark...  That cutie mark...  Does it mean he did something bad?"  I started shaking my head.  Not possible.  Not Sunburst!

"I can't say."

"When did he leave?  Right, you can't say."

She nodded, her expression unhappy.

I asked, "Why?"

She looked up briefly, then said, "Remember Detective Farsighted?  Remember bullying?  At Celestia's we take the welfare of each student very seriously and follow the EEA standards very closely."

"What does that have to do with it?  I'm just asking what happened to my friend."

"Privacy, and, Miss Starbright, what do I really know about you beyond presenting yourself as a colt and you being a high level unicorn?"

"But he's my friend!"

She looked down.  "I trust that he was your friend, but that was... how many years ago?"

When he walked out on me.  I hoped I didn't whisper that, and looked up into Ms. Maple's somewhat neutral expression.  "I really want to know."

"That alone won't help."

I looked behind her.  Into the office.  I saw one file drawer open.  I'd apparently spaced out for a few minutes.  I could just lift her into the air, walk past her and rifle through the files in that cabinet until I found the one I needed.  I could learn what happened to him.  Why he wasn't here.

Why he hadn't visited me before he left.

I looked at the minty green mare.  She had magic, unlike Woodcutter.  Nothing convenient was going to happen to render her unconscious, and while I could imagine persuading ponies to pass off what happened to Woodcutter as an accident, the choices I had before me would be nothing but criminal.  

I found myself blinking and my eyes burning.  I wasn't a bad pony.  I just had issues.

Vice-headmare Maple spoke after putting a hoof on the counter to get my attention.  "Circumstances could change."

I looked into her sympathetic blue eyes and she blinked.  She couldn't read minds because she'd be appalled at my thoughts, at the violence I'd committed, that I had just contemplated.  "How?"

"You could give me that command card.  You could become a student, here."

"Could I really?"  

I actually chuckled—pathetic, really.  I had run away from home.  I had run away from being trained as the Earl of Grin Having.  Though Celestia had bestowed the title upon my parents, they'd been dead for months.  The princess intended it solely for me.  Was she really going to let me go to a stupid magic school when she wanted to train up a minion that she might want to lead one of her armies?  Fat chance of that.   Fat chance of Proper Step not inserting his snooty nose into the matter.  He was Princess Celestia's majordomo's brother, or maybe his son!

I was so screwed.

I had no hope.  She had completely crushed all my dreams under that gold-shod royal hoof.  Again.

Ms. Maple said, "Of course.  Once your parents sign the forms—"

"My parents are dead."

The mare swallowed visibly.  

"Or your guardian.  Or do you have emancipation papers?"

I just shook my head and looked at the ground.

"Is there any other way?" I asked, blinking furiously, my voice becoming desperate.

"Princess Celestia could, but she just—"

"She just left for a mission to Mount Aris—"

"How did learn that?"

"What kind of military leader displays her route in an illusion in front of everypony on Castle Way where a teenager in a burger joint can listen in and learn how her stupid illusion spell is super powered?  She's a foalish idiot!"

"Miss Starbright!"

Tears flooded my vision.  I couldn't wait for Princess Celestia to return without being caught by Proper Step.  Even if she were here, now, what chance did I have of getting her to do me a favor?  An ice cube's chance in Tartarus.

"I'm never going to see Sunburst again!" I cried.  Furious, and heartbroken all over again, I turned tail and bucked the counter.  The loud crack startled me and I heard Ms. Maple's horseshoes clatter back.

I galloped from the office, striking the door jamb because tears blurred my vision.

The vice-headmare's voice followed, "Young lady, you come back here right now!"
> Chapter 11 — Hazards of the Road
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I ran.

And ran.

And ran.  Downhill.  Somehow, I missed getting run over by increasing afternoon traffic.  

A taxi driver pierced my haze.  I stopped nose to nose with the sweaty earth pony stallion as his cabriolet screeched to a halt, sparks flying from the metal-rimmed wheels.  Two aristos, one in a black top hat and a mare in a blue taffeta dress, thumped forward in their seats.  From inside the yellow-painted cab, they yelled.  

Funny how superior ponies got as enraged as common ones, and as red in the face.

I clattered back onto the sidewalk, glaring.  Not my most effective try at intimidation since my eyes felt puffy and red.  I sniffed wetly, keeping snot from dripping from my nose.  Tears dried on my face as the breeze cooled my cheeks.  I glared anyway.

The cabby told me where my mother came from.  I whirled and bucked though he'd rolled onward.

Ponies on all four corners stared at me.  I lowered my head and felt my ears flatten forward as I slinked away.  After a while, I looked to get my bearings.  I saw the hulking castle a half dozen blocks behind me.  I was northeast of it and since much of the city was built on a slope, downhill.

I'd stopped crying.  I hadn't stopped hurting.  I kept walking.

The whole situation felt stupid.  I knew that friendship was stupid and that cutie marks ruined everything.  I had let myself get sucked into thinking I could rekindle what was lost and return to a happier time.

Right.  As if.  

Wouldn't have changed anything had Sunburst still attended Celestia's School.  Proper Step was my guardian.  He'd never allow me to attend a magic school.  Having friends there might even make it less likely.  

I had more important matters to attend to.

Today's revelation begged the big question: "Sunburst, why did you leave me?"

I had said that out loud. 

A purple unicorn mare gave me a weird look as she edged away from me.  I passed her on the sidewalk.

I inhaled deeply, shaking my head.  I knew what had happened.  Sunburst had attended the school for a few years before a visiting Saddle Arabian chieftain learned that my missing friend had a talent to magically manipulate a hundred things independently.  Imagine it!  If those things were a hundred spears?  He could single-hornedly protect a whole caravan!

That had to be it.

Starlight née Aurora Midnight was a nopony in comparison to a stallion's ambition.  He probably had his choice of mares.  And new found wealth.  All half a world away. 

Minutes later, I stopped feeling bad about myself and noticed the buildings had changed and that the city had leveled out.  

Everything looked plain and worn.  I saw broken bricks and peeling white paint.  The shops still followed the white and purple theme of the city, but looked blocky instead of round.  I saw a square turret that was an obvious remuddle upon a repair.  Signs were wood.  Plain white over black paint lettered store windows, or the owners resorted to poster board taped on the inside of the glass.  I smelled an overflowing rubbish bin in an alley before I saw it.  Dirt drifted in the spaces between the cobblestones.  Dandelions and grass struggled to grow in the cracks.  A newspaper fluttered against a lamppost, a red and blue matchbox crushed under my hoof, and candy wrappers skittered along the curb.  

Yeah.  The poorer side of town.  The neighborhood where the working class lived.  A place where my giddy-up was dressing up instead of down. 

I looked back.  

Dozens of ponies trotted this way and that.  The majority wore no clothes.  Those who wore anything wore a clerk's business collared shirt, a food service uniform, or something protective like a hard hat or a heavy work apron.  One in five were earth ponies and I hadn't noticed a pegasus since seeing Princess Celestia's royal guard.   Nopony looked at me other than to avoid walking into me.

I stopped near a store.  I saw wicker bins of tomatoes and kale, and shelves stocked with quarter-bales of various varieties of hay ranging from green, golden yellow, to caramelized brown labeled with brands like Morning Toast, Sunshine Finest, and Whinnies.  I liked my Whinnies for breakfast.  I spotted five common varieties of apple in straw baskets—edible packaging.  

I glanced up the street for a half minute, but if any pony followed, they weren't being obvious.  Nopony looked more out of place than I.  

"We have purple and yellow carrots today," a grey grandpop grocer said.  

I smiled and trotted on.  "Not today."

"You come back now, hear?" he said and winked as he returned to rolling a cart of Brussels sprouts with his hooves over the push bar.  I wasn't the first unicorn that hadn't mastered the simple transform of Levitate called Motivate. 

Was he just being nice or did I look rich?  Proper Step had worked on the acts rich part for almost eight years now, a power move for sure, and had likely succeeded at a subliminal level that was beyond my consciousness. 

I sighed.  The "nice" clothes didn't help.  I'd been trained to wear clothes well.  Worse, I couldn't strip in the middle of the street.  It was a mare-thing pounded into me though it made no logical sense.  Stripping would expose my blank flank, too, which made me more identifiable by color and shape.  

I groaned.  I was a tool, well on the way to becoming Celestia's.  

"No," I stated out loud.  

The inner me replied that the next thing I would know I'd be sent out to save Equestria from some invasion facing certain death while being happy I could serve.   

I stomped a hoof and flicked my tail.   Stupid imagination!

I started noticing foals of various ages and teenagers older than I.  Judging by the sun, school had let out.  I took a moment to brush out the stiff fur on my cheeks showing I had recently cried.  I fixed errant strands of green in my tail.  

The students didn't wear uniforms as I had when I attended school.  I noticed a few straw hats and a daisy-print blouse.  At first I mistook as maids a pair of high-schoolers with folded clothes balanced on their backs, then I read the name on the store they stopped met in front of.  

Share and Wear*.

The blue unicorn and lemon yellow earth pony trotted in.  Through the window, I saw all manner of sundries but mostly clothing.  Old clothing.  Used clothing.  A sign stated, "We buy and sell!"

"This could solve problems," I muttered. 

Every rack held lower class or working class clothing.  A sign emphasized the word vintage.  I stopped before flannel shirts in plaid reds, purples, and greys.  They looked worn and I could see a fray here and there, but when I rubbed one against my cheek, it felt incredibly soft.  And warm.  It was still spring and I planned to be traveling between cities on the east coast.  

The two mares finished haggling with the pink unicorn mare with square-frame glasses at the register.  As they trotted into the racks, I asked, "Can I sell some clothes?"

She had rheumy magenta eyes and pale blue hair combed back to hide that it was thinning, but she smiled indulgently.  "Like what?"

I waved a hoof from my hat to my shirt to my not-britches.  She glanced at each and pointed wordlessly at the corner of the overstuffed shop, at a closet with pink drapes.  

That mare changing-in-public psychopathy again.  I grinned and trotted over.  No choice but to expose my blank flank, but there were fewer eyes to see.

I placed the entire ensemble on the counter and she adjusted her glasses.  After looking inside and out, she quoted prices.  She paused a long time on the culottes.

I asked, "Are these special?"

She glanced at the bun I'd tied my mane in, the colt-style bun I'd tied my tail into, and lingered a moment on my blank flank.  Maybe it was the way I stood, but she explained, "These are a silk blend knitted together with a synthetic fiber derived from wood.  It's durable and has body like cotton, but is especially breathable and fairly light.  I don't see technical fabric often." She inhaled deeply.  "Frankly, you aren't going to want to sell this for what I am going to offer."

The coppers I'd been offered for the other items and the silver for the hat were the sum total about what I knew about the price of clothes.  I hadn't even thought to check the price of the flannel shirt!  She said, "A silver and eleven."

"You're right," I said, pretending.

"Okay, a silver, fifteen?"

I shook my head.  

She hoofed over a slip with my other sales noted.  "10% off if you buy here and I don't have to make change.  Still no bargain?"

I shook my head.

As I grabbed the grey flannel, I butted my flank against the tall blue unicorn filly's flank.  We both said, "Oops!"  I giggled when she did.

Her lemon yellow earth pony friend said, "Oh, I can see why you dressed as a colt!"

The blue unicorn shouldered her friend.  She wobbled into a rack, causing the hangers to squeak on the rod.  "Seeking Lily!  Remember who just got their cutie mark last Hearth's Warming."

I glanced at my still, thankfully, lavender blank flank.

The blue unicorn pony had brown eyes and Seeking Lily looked down, hiding her blue ones, "You didn't have to say that, Pins and Needles**."

"We've been there," the blue pony said, turning back to the rack she nosed through. "My lace and tule, sorry!  I was listening in," she added.  "I recommend the Clotheshorse or Marvelous Missus uptown to exchange rayon-silk blends."

"Where are they?" I said, flipping between the red and the purple flannel shirts.

Seeking Lilly said, "On General Firefly across from the park.  Marvelous Missus has more stuff like uniforms for school academies and work, but nice shoes.  It's next to Donut Joe's on Ponyville Way, four or five blocks from the Ponyville Incline.

"Thanks a bunch!"

"No prob!" she said and grinned.  A spring lily graced Seeking Lilly's flank, of course.  If it had a meaning, I couldn't fathom it, unless it made her a bit of an airhead.  Pins and Needles' one sported three crossed push pins as sharp as her very long horn, each with a purple head.  Not the sewing needles I expected.  I scratched my head.

Since I didn't want my blank flank seen by anypony else, I decided to wear the culottes out of the shop.  

However, if I had a cutie mark...  

In the sundries aisle, I found stuff in branded packages, some wrapped in taped translucent paper: used protractors, lunch boxes, and school binders.  I spotted a wax-paper stencil pack and colored pencils.  I glanced around and found makeup pots and compacts, some with rouges that looked brushed once and rejected.  Inspired, I looked further and found hairspray.  I picked out one without lacquer because if I faked a cutie mark, I would also have to remove it when I washed and a half a fake cutie mark was worse than none!

The stencil set contained a skinny diamond shape.  Perfect.  Simple.  Even my lack of art skills could not mess that up.  My hoof-maid had applied my makeup before I attended dinner parties; I was a rank amateur at this.

I made my purchases and left wearing the culottes and the grey flannel.  I knew better than to enter a dark alley, but I did so the first chance I got.  I didn't encounter sketchy characters, other than a bristly brown rat that fled and smelly water seeping from a closed metal ash can.  

Considerably later with a brand new cutie mark, I trotted into the late afternoon sun.  Oddly, I felt really good about it and held my tail high as I trotted toward the castle district without a stitch of clothing.  I found it ironic that it felt good, but I smiled, swished my tail, and ignored it.

At Marvelous Missus, I sold the culottes and the khakis for considerably more than the blue mare offered.  At The Clotheshorse, I purchased school-uniform dark-brown britches and a belt, and sold the brass shoes.  I felt flush enough to enter bustling Donut Joe's to buy a chocolate curler to munch heading back toward the train station.  I'd remember the luscious sugar and oil smell of the dive restaurant the rest of my life.  An orange and red-hued twilight lit the sky as the absent Princess set the sun from somewhere between Canterlot and Mount Aris.  I trotted down Alicorn way, the morsel of the curler I was savoring held in my magic. 

Eyes up, I caught movement above the depot as I approached.  

A familiar pegasus. 




*My late mother worked at a store with that name.
**Read Pins and Needles for when she chooses the name Sassy Saddles.
> Chapter 12 — Ponyville Way
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I popped the rest of the donut in my mouth and looked into a furniture shop that had an awning.  Swallowing the lump of bread in my throat proved difficult as my heart raced.  I glanced at my flank, thrashing my tail in annoyance. 

The yellow diamond cutie mark had survived the crowded restaurant intact. 

A pegasus stallion, brown and blond-maned, alighted in the middle of the street, causing a carriage driver to trot to the right.  The fellow had amber eyes.  I recognized Fire Feather and his red flaming-feather cutie mark.  

The part-time postmaster of Sire's Hollow messengered packages to and from the manor.  He'd seen me many times.  Last Hearth's Warming, he'd delivered a package of chocolate cherries for Hearth's Warming to my hoof as I exited my carriage. 

My shade of lavender he'd recognize.  My saddlebags... had he ever seen them?  Hoof ponies carried my stuff.  I felt eyes on me.  I lifted my head, swished my tail hard enough to touch my flank, tactically below my cutie mark, and trotted back up Alicorn Way in control of my nerves despite my racing heart.  

I heard horseshoes accelerate on cobblestones, then suddenly clatter to a halt as if he were distracted, followed by hesitant steps my direction.  As I put more distance between us, I heard sounds as if he were stepping forward then back indecisively, as if he didn't want to leave his post.  Soon they faded between a passing carriage and approaching hoof traffic.  

Was he still there?  Looking?  I kept my ears from swiveling back guiltily.  I felt like he hadn't jumped into the sky.  The corner sandwich shop got closer and closer.  

Wait for it.  Don't bolt. 

I forced myself to look at the sandwich-board at the doorway.  Yeah, they made a pun of sandwiches on a board in flowery pastel chalk.  I shook my head and trotted right at the corner.  

I took out my map so I had a reason to have a spell prepped.  It wasn't as if Fire Feather could lift me!  Unless he had others with him, I could roll up the guide and swat at him to dissuade him.  I'd never hear the end of it from Proper Step, but I was trying to avoid ever seeing my guardian again.  

Don't borrow trouble, I told myself, fully expecting him at any second to slam down in front of me like a princess-wannabe. 

It isn't about you. 

Right, he could have been couriering something and noticed a lavender mare.  Had I seen postal saddlebags?  I couldn't remember.  

After two blocks, I turned toward the castle and focused on the tiny words on the brightly colored cartoonish map.  Seeking Lily had called it the Ponyville Incline...  

I stood four blocks north of Donut Joe's.  Ponyville Way curved right as it meandered through a series of switchbacks down the mountain.  I saw a steep downward grade and red interlocked brick pavers.  Despite the grade, a stream of earth ponies, sometimes a team of eight or ten, pulled up large vans and tankers.  

I hadn't been followed, and the darkening sky was devoid of flying ponies.  I turned back to Donut Joe's.  I enjoyed a raspberry jelly donut and a peanut butter stuffed powdered beneigh.  So good with hot tea!

Halfway down the incline, I found a rest stop.  It boasted a two-copper private shower and various tent feedbag joints.  Sleeping on the grass wasn't so bad.   I slept in my cozy soft flannel shirt wrapped in my light tarp.  The only drawback was a cold nose.  The shadowy crags of Canterlot Mountain to either side of the highway-cut framed the twinkling stars and Milky Way.  I fell asleep with shooting stars on my mind.  

The sound of horseshoes and wagon wheels woke me as the morning twilight brightened.  I saw deep blue sky with yellow at the horizon.  The mostly stallion teams checked tack; that accounted for the jingling and clunking.  Dew had condensed on my hooves and mane, but hadn't soaked me.  I still lay on my saddlebags.  Everything intact, I packed and hustled to where the drovers gathered near a fire.  A copper bought me a portion of a quarter-bale and a ladle of hot oat milk, and a warm feeling in my tummy as I trotted again downhill.  

I reflected on sleeping outside.  My flank did hurt a bit; the grass hadn't been level.  None of my morning responsibilities asserted themselves, nopony waited to dress me, and I didn't have to suffer Proper Step droning about this matter or that, or things I was expected to decide, plan, or learn.  Freedom from scheduling was replaced with the sounds of steel shod hooves and wheels on the road, occasional nickers, and laughing conversation.  Most of it proved mundane and boring, about family or what this pony said about a buckball game, or that pony said about who was nice.  Once out of the mountains, the road leveled out onto the Ponyville plain.  I read my spell book as I walked.  The twenty miles straight into town did leave me a bit tired, but not so tired that I did not notice the wide old oak tree that had been transformed into a living library.  If my life was going to be an adventure, what a better place to start than at a living library.  The town clock stood just past eight, so I trotted up to the round door and tried the knob.  

It didn't open.  

I tried rapping on the door with the edge of a hoof.  

"That's not goin' ta work, dearie."

I looked to the road.  Walking by was a lime green mare with her white mane and tail both tied into a bun, not unlike mine.  She pulled an oversized load of what looked like Granny Smith apples.  She glistened with her effort, despite the spring chill.  No doubt her pie cutie mark was an apple pie, a conclusion supported by the apples on the bandana she wore.  

"The nice colt runnin' that thar lye-berry is off ta school about this time."

Colt? I thought.  The mare had blown by middle age years ago.  She had few wrinkles, but she looked to be developing rheumatoid arthritis in her knobby knees.  Regardless, like a typical earth pony, she had her strength and pulled strongly.  Proper Step would seem a foal to a pony like her, let alone a colt.  I laughed and trotted along side her.  

"He has a mane tha same color as my grandson.  Big Mac says he always has his nose in a book."

"Seems natural for a librarian."

"Even when talking to ya!"

We shared a laugh, though I sometimes resembled that comment.

"Ya come on back 'round this afternoon and the lye-berry will likely be open."

I looked away as I said, "I won't be here by then."  

"Izzatso?   Been lotsa young'ns your age been moving into Ponyville last few years.  Ta me, ya look like you're setting yourself up to be independent, like 'em."

"That's pretty right on."

"I won't pry into your family situation..."

Not biting!  "A mare's got to do what a mare has to do."

"Fillies, too, seems.  Two of 'em arrived but a coupla years ago, they did, with plenty of growth left in thar legs.  Talented tho.  One's befriended my Applejack and she's become tha weather captain!  More where that came from.  Friends galore if'in you were to stay.  So... where ya goin'?"

"Trying to sell me on Ponyville?"

"We all are her ambassadors."  She touched her chest and walked three legged.  "We moved here ourselves back when the Everfree still stretched all the way to the Canterlot Hills. Pioneers we wuz."

It explained her accent.  Young ponies moving here and working—and not going to school as a result.  "You started a, uh, homestead here?"

"My Ma and Pa did.  They hit tha road not much older than you, dearie, but it wasn't so friendly.  Bad weather, badder monsters, nothin' conducive to stay'n employed as farmhooves.   Was a wee gal when Ma and Pa found themselves in Canterlot and met the princess, back when tha world was all sepia-toned, wuz it."  

I shook my head and she chuckled.  

"She granted us lands over in that thar direction, she did.  So nice."

"In tha—"  Catchy accent.  "In the middle of the Everfree?   Nice princess."  I snorted. 

"Oh, there wuz plenty of meadows and Pa taught me to chop wood with a mighty fine axe.  Earth ponies don't shy away from work, timberwolves or no.   We found them zap apples, too."

She winked at me.  A glint or morning sun showed she had amber eyes.  "You stay a week and it's zap apple jammin' time.  Worth bein here, I'm telling ye!"

"Zap, what?"

"The lightning comes right out of the sky to pollenate them apples and you get a cracklin' good apple that tastes like a sweet rainbow ought and looks like one, too!  It makes the best jam!  Other than cider season, we make the most bits from it—ponies love it so much.  Canna get it nowheres else."

She was giving me the hard sell.  I wondered what it was about me that made ponies think the best of me.  I hid my past and that I had run away and that I had assaulted another pony.  Worst, the last thing I needed were friends that would pry—friends that might discover my secret and let that get back to Proper Step.  

Ms. Maple had mentioned emancipation papers.  No doubt in my mind was that meant official papers that let an underage pony live her life as she pleased.  Tartarus would freeze over before Proper Step or Princess Celestia granted something that would let me get out of the plans they'd made for my life.

The old mare said, "You've made up your mind to take a trot down a dangerous road.  I can tell, 'spite a good lye-berry run by a fine colt and zap apples com'in into season.  I gave it a good try."

"Yes, you did."

"Well, luck to you, dearie."

I didn't realize how badly I'd need it.
> Chapter 13 — A Trot Down a Dangerous Road
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The old mare added, "And you take you some apples, too."

I glanced back at the Granny Smith apples and shook my head.  "I haven't the bits to spare."

She aimed a side-kick my direction.  "Don't you go makin' an old mare cross.  I wasn't selling you apples; I wuz givin' you apples.  Something to remind you to come back to Ponyville some day."  She gave me a long wink.

I put an overly dramatic hoof over my heart.  "Oh, I'm so very sorry, Grannie, to the depths of my soul!"

"You should be, young'un."

I took an apple, but she gave me the evil eye until I'd put four in my saddlebags.   She pointed me toward the train station, though the smoke from the approaching train gave me a good idea where to head.

I saw pegasi and earth ponies mingling with the unicorns in the town, but few ponies near the station.  When I got a direct line of sight, I saw nopony on the platform.  I galloped.  The approaching train might skip Ponyville altogether.

The train went to Dodge Junction.  I shared regular coach benches with ponies out for seasonal work at the ranches.  Since it was another small town with ponies sticking their muzzles in everypony's business, I took another train, and another, and another until I found myself on the eastern seaboard again, south of Manehattan and east of Fillydelphia, in the city I figured was my best bet to disappear within: Hobo Kin, Neigh Jersey.  Could its founder could have named it more appropriately?

It was the city where the nomad workers of Equestria spent their winters.  They called themselves workers as often as nomads, and I learned many of the mares and most of the stallions did work, some of the time.  Mostly, though, they prized their freedom.  Freedom from having to work to maintain a home, freedom from having to farm for harvests that could as often be poor as good, freedom from having to be bossed around doing meaningless work in a shop, factory, or mine.  Freedom to live wherever they erected their tent, or found a shelter.  Despite the cool spring, most had used up their bits and were setting out to find what Equestria held for them as the new grass turned green and the promise of summer shined on the horizon.

In reality, they were herds of unwashed ponies who would work for a day and loaf for a week, and few were philosophical about it.  One young pony would as likely want naught but his cider, and a grassy knoll to sleep it off on, as another old stallion that might have lost everything he'd worked for and no longer cared to try again.  If I didn't question their reasons, listened to their stories, and just nodded, I could be a student of the road we shared.  I learned the best points of being a nomad pony: Trotting along being in control of my destiny, and being ready to chomp up dandelions growing in meadows of green wild oats.

I did not know I would learn more about myself than I bargained for.  In retrospect, I should have trotted straight for Fillydelphia.  I could have done that in about five days, but I had fallen in love with my freedom, as the herd I'd started with dissipated with each crossroad we encountered until I camped alone at night.  

I would learn something essential—in a lightning storm.

Spring showers bring spring flowers, ponies say.  Nevertheless, the pegasi have to schedule storms occasionally to clear the forests of old branches and to wash the debris of autumn and winter from the streams to the rivers.  That evening, it rained hard.  I'd seen the signpost and I knew if I kept up my trot on White Horse Pike I could make Deep Ford outside of Fillydelphia before midnight.  Excitement overrode my good horse sense.

Rain came in waves, sometime more than a drizzle, and sometimes I had to push against the wind, despite the protection of the trees that lined the road.  I'd sealed everything in my saddlebags and tied my tarp over my back as a makeshift rain slicker, but it couldn't protect my head.  The rain wasn't cold, but not warm either, and the wind made it chill.  Still, a pony trotting, digesting a good meal of cropped fresh grass, generates a lot of heat.  After all, cave horses didn't actually live in caves, I'd read.  They'd just painted pictures on the walls.  I was stronger than when I'd begun my journey.  Mane soaked and sticking to my neck, I didn't feel exactly comfortable, but other than blinking away the raindrops that landed in my eyes, I didn't feel put out.  I'd made my choices; I could live with them.

Lightning flashed and I made out movement ahead.  The clouds above had made the day dark, and as dusk approached, it made it more difficult to see.  As the thunder rumbled through a few moments later, I made out a large earth pony stallion trotting as fast as I, heading back toward Pine Hill, which I'd left at noon.  Like the miner from almost two weeks ago, he looked to be a Clydesdale, or some sort of work pony.  In moments, I could hear his massive hooves splashing through the puddles as he approached.  In the poor light, I could see scars on his face and a glint off his eyes.

"Good evening, good sir!" I said as we came alongside.  I had learned the greeting of ponies on the road.  I even nodded my head as we passed.


#


A sharp pain in my right temple shocked me back to consciousness.  Neigh, I hurt all over, from my hips to my chest to my neck.  Even my horn hurt.  I felt like I'd been crushed by a pile of rock.  A mind fog made it hard to understand the jostling.  My head lolled to the right and bobbed. 

Carried?  Carried by a pony walking three-legged?

A flash of lightning illuminated the forest.  The trunks were increasing in number as we went; I suddenly saw the shaggy monster that held me.  I was being partially dragged up the hill on one side of the road, a foreleg looped under my withers but with my hindquarters carelessly hanging to the ground.  A giant stallion pulled me along.  My hip hit a big root, hard.  The pain stole my breath.  

I was under him and he was carrying me, but where?

Maybe because I was fogged, I didn't think straight.  I forgot all the defense training my tutor had taught me, like being quiet until you understood your situation.  

I said, "Just take my saddlebags.  I've bits in there.  I won't fight you."

The thunder rumbled, drowning out a rustle of leaves assaulted by a burst of heavy rain.  I realized then that my tarp had been ripped off, which was probably why I realized next that I felt half-choked and that my neck burnt.  I no longer wore anything, the least of which was my saddlebags.

The monster stopped.  I yelled as I felt myself thrown head first toward the ground.


#


Was I too stupid to live?  Even considering all the unfairness this world drowned me in, might be.  

I did wake, however, moments after the back of my head had bounced off the wet ground.  Purple and blue phosphenes circled me like exploding comets.  I the splash and the slop of hooves.  Slips jostled me, teasing falls that didn't happen.  The water-logged side of the hill was softer than the stones that ponies had stomped into the bed of the road to keep it level and whole, despite seasonal storms.

I'd encountered one of Equestria's many monsters.  I hadn't expected that the first monster I would fight would also be a pony.  

I let my head loll to the side, despite the pain that caused, despite that he barely held my head high enough to protect my horn from snagging the ground.  A cracked horn would be the end of any normal unicorn life, but he didn't care.  He didn't want to be slowed.

He dragged my rear half underneath him.  As best I could tell in the half-light, he was at least a half a pony length longer than I.  He out massed me by double, all of it earth pony muscle.  I stood no chance of outrunning the creep, or outfighting him.  

I had to do something!  He wasn't treating me like he had any intention of letting me survive the night.

Being dragged underneath him meant that his vitals were within the reach of my hooves, and that wasn't just his stallion parts.   A hoof in his diaphragm could put him down for awhile, unable to find the breath to use his earth pony strength.  Sadly, I had no leverage; my pampered-filly abdominal muscles weren't strong enough.  I needed to be fully on my back to make a proper kick.

A flash of lightning made it easy to see his right leg as he reached forward nearly to my muzzle, still climbing to the ridge to the side of the road that wasn't high.  He slipped and slipped again.  I had little time left.

I used the fading brightness of the lightning to hide my spell prep.  I needed seconds to spin up Levitate.  More than a few as it turned out, with my head pounding.  Then—when he next jammed his leg forcefully into the mud below my chin—I reached and bit down, hard.

My teeth clattered.  I got a mouthful of hair and the littlest bit of skin.  Sudden wet salty warmth filled my mouth.

He stumbled.  I turned my face up and tucked my head to my chest as he inevitably dropped me.  I felt my back hit low roots as my hindquarters splatted on muddy grass.  I pulled in my hind legs and kicked, casting my spell.

Though I started sliding downhill, my left hoof kicked his inner thigh.  Sadly, my levitation spell lessened the effectiveness of my kick.  Worse, I got him suspended only half a pony length before he came crashing back down on me with his enormous chest.

I craned my head out of the way, but the impact knocked the wind out of me.  My hindquarters had slid past his haunches though, and I had spun a bit.  Instinct did the rest as I bucked, landing my hooves repeatedly where his tail met his flank.

It took him a moment to reorient.  He tried to roll over on me.  I desperately cast Levitation.  That pushed him back and made him slide away.  Unfortunately, it was no more than a light punch.  He didn't even flinch.

I was free of him as he got his legs under himself.  He lunged back while I flopped turtle-like on my back on the wet ground, unable to get my legs under me, spinning on the wet muddy grass, still struggling to breathe.

Like a wrestler, he aimed to pin me, again intending to knock the breath out of me.  If he knocked me unconscious, it would be the last thing I saw.

I couldn't let that happen!

I cast a third time, my foggy head clearing as more adrenaline surged through my veins. 

I slowed his descent; I felt his weight only a moment; he failed to crush me.  I strained and grunted as I struggled to lift him off.  He weighed more than the two pony weight I knew I could lift, but I grunted and fought my magic while dodging hooves that whooshed by my head, trying to club me senseless.

I tossed him away.  Barely a pony length.

Oh, come on!

By the time I got my hooves under me, he barreled me over like a bull.  

I kicked away.  He failed to pin me as I rolled farther downhill, fetching up against a big gnarled root.

Without a neigh or a whinny, he stalked toward me.  I cast as he lunged.

I caught him in my magic again, legs pumping in the air, not touching me.  I saw a thick branch above me.  I pushed with all my might and up he went.

It jabbed him.  The branch shook as lightning flashed again.  I'd hurt him, but not much.  By the time the thunder came, I had no choice but throw him aside and try to scramble down the hill.

He charged.  Despite him slipping, he was a rushing locomotive.  Compared to him, I was tied to the railroad tracks.  I'd gotten barely ten pony lengths downhill and had dodged a tree.

I stopped and ducked, casting a fifth time.  Instead of pushing, I caught him up in the air and shoved toward the tree, changing his trajectory.  Again, because of the vectors and his weight, I didn't succeed in much other than making him airborne before I lost the spell.

Nevertheless, he touched down in slipper mud and smashed into the tree.  At full speed.

He collapsed.  I jumped away.

My hooves slipped into a root, but it gave me leverage, so I aimed and connected my hooves with his ribcage.

A peel of thunder rolled in, so I missed hearing the satisfying crack of bone I suspected from the impact I felt through my hooves.  I jumped again and went careening down the hill, sliding on my rump on the wet grass and mud, looking back.

Celestia on Rollerskates!  He didn't stay down!

He lunged downhill after me, sluicing wetly but otherwise as silent as an icy wind and much more malevolent.  I took a clue from throwing him into the tree and picked up branches and rock loosened by the rain on the hill, releasing my magic once I'd tossed them into the air.

Some connected, but he dodged well enough that what hit him hit his shoulders and not his head.

I became furious.  

What did it take to stop the crazy pony?  As he closed, my hooves scrabbled on the stone road.  I aimed Levitate at him, narrowing my targeting, trying to push him to the side, to at least slap him hard.

I couldn't outrun an earth pony on the flat and narrow.

I even hit him on the snout with a rock.  The lightning flashed at the right moment for me to see a smile develop on his face.  

I was nothing to him.  Just some fun on a dark, stormy night.  Some toy to play with, break, and throw into a rubbish bin.

I pointed my horn at him, shut my eyes, and screamed as I cast once again.

I saw a flash through closed eyelids.  A different, closer, short clap of thunder accompanied it—a strange herald for the actual thunder that rumbled in just after it.

The thunder almost drowned out his whinny of pain.

Instinctively, I jumped aside.  Eyes open again, I saw the stallion lose his footing, tumble to his knees, then roll head over hindquarters across the road to slide into the roadside ditch with a loud splash on the other side.

He immediately rolled over and levered himself out of water, mud dripping from his enraged face.

Incensed, I yelled, "What does it take?!"

He pulled himself onto the road and shook a dark cloud of muddy water from his coat, but his stance changed.  Before, he'd been heedless of me, like I was some buzzing horsefly he'd kept in sight.  A trifle.  Now, I saw him jerking himself right and left as if he expected to dodge a rock.

I'd poked my horn through his self-confidence, but not his determination.  I was a weak filly.  Wolves prey.  

No.  Worse.

I was unfinished business.  

A witness.

He inadvertently gave me time to spin up my spell and let my growing rage push as much magic as I could into my horn.  I backed down the road. 

As I continued stepping away, giving myself more distance and more time to target, he finally lunged.

I dropped my head, pointed my horn, narrowed the targeting of my Levitate spell to a pin-prick so I could punch as many splendors of magical force as I could possibly push into my horn to be concentrated onto the smallest possible area of contact.  I aimed where I expected him to be and bellowed, "Noooo!"

Again, a flash.  A blue-green one.

And a bang.

And the hissing puff of a locomotive when it releases the steam.

I dodged to the left, figuring that he was lunging toward me.  Not a prescient move, because he had veered to my left, too.

This time however, he howled in pain.  He rammed me in a grazing blow to my right.

My eyes popped open as he shouldered me, his hooves scrabbling on the wet stone road for traction and not quite finding it.  With him came trailing a cloud of hot steam and the scent of lightning and burnt hair.  Ozone smell comes and goes in an electrical storm, but this stung my nose even as his push had me scrambling for traction as I spun to keep him in front of my horn.

The stallion slipped and slid, huffing and groaning.  His hooves clattered and ground against the wet stone for traction.  He failed to find it and landed with a splash and grunt on his side, then slid down the road. 

Despite my growing exhaustion, I prepped another spell.

He rolled upright.  Even on his stomach, he was eye-level with me—he was that enormous.  I could not see his eyes, though.  In the dusky rain, I saw only darkness in his silhouette where his eye sockets ought to have been.  Maybe it was imagination, but maybe he was a ghoul and not a pony after all.

His breath came in explosive gusts.  I mirrored him in that steam condensed around my nostrils.  Rubbing his dripping face, he shuddered.  For the moment, the rain became a quiet rolling mist.  He dripped anyway.  

Blood.  

Under his breath, he muttered in a gravelly voice, "Just a lousy tainted mare.  Save everypony!  Clean her away—"

Bile rose into my throat.  He was convincing himself to attack again!  Of all the ways ponies could oppress ponies, I'd found malignant psychopathy.  Rage fueled me with adrenaline; I lowered my horn making ready.

His hooves scraped against the stone road, scrabbling for traction, followed by the clatter of hooves retreating.

I planted my legs out and leaned forward, directing all the energy in my body, channeling every last splendor of magic into my horn.

Shrieking, I yelled, "Never hurt anypony again!"

A river of will flooded through my body.  The fiery digits in my vision burned rainbow bright as I directed my very life into my horn.  All my equations balanced, suddenly augmented by the frenetic electric blue whirling beauty I'd learned observing alicorn magic.

I released.

Even through I'd scrunched my eyes shut, the actinic green flash through my eyelids blinded me.  Blistering heat thrust me skidding backwards.

I heard an inarticulate yell.

I opened my eyes to see something I could not have expected.  Earth ponies can run as fast as the wind when they so choose.  The monster had gotten short of fifty pony lengths down the road toward Pine Hills.  Despite orange and blue after images, I saw his tail burst completely into flames.  Gouts of steam, a long skinny cloud of sky-lit white, stretched fifty pony lengths down the road.  It stood in stark contrast to the dark shadows of the forest and the grey-blue of the stormy sky above.  The cylindrical cloud swirled along its long axis as it drifted to my right and over the ditch, pushed by the breeze.  

I'd done something... miraculous.   

Whatever it was, my narrowed Levitate spell, fueled by more splendors of magic than any pony had a right to have and pummeled out of me by rage, had connected to the perfect wish predicate to convince the universe to agree to my bidding.  I'd turned the water in the mist to steam and set a monster's tail on fire.  He trailed red and orange flames.

A light rain washed down on me from the east in which the stallion had fled, soaking me again.  That meant then that it hadn't been a mist that I'd flash heated to steam.  It had been rain—and still I'd set the pony's tail on fire.  

My legs quivered and I collapsed, striking my chest on the road.  I blinked and lost sight of the monster as distance intervened or the rain finally extinguished the flames.  

What was this that I felt?  

I'd beat him.

I'd won.

I'd fought and... 

I'd won.

The rage drained out of me into exhaustion, but that wasn't it.

I felt... proud.  I felt happy.  I felt beaten to a pulp, too, but strangely that also felt okay.  I didn't like it, but no achievement came without sacrifice.

Yes, I felt happy and smiled, even as I smelled a metallic scent I knew meant I had a bloody nose.  In fact, cuts and scrapes bled all over my body.

I spat out salty mucus mixed with hair.  It didn't gross me out, despite the likelihood that I had bits of the monster's hide in my mouth.  Instead, I smirked, thinking that my bite must have hurt. 

I knew now that I could fight.  

I knew that no matter what tried to control me, whoever tried to oppress me and take away my freedom, I could beat them.  

That moment, I ceased to be chattel...  

My mind went blank for seconds as the enormity struck me.

I'd seized control over my destiny.

I began to laugh.

I levered myself up.  My inner thighs hurt and my rear haunches felt sprained.  With a limp in my left rear leg, I searched for my saddlebags and tarp.  I found them thrown aside where a stand of pony height grass had been stomped down.  He'd actually ripped the tarp pulling it off me, but he hadn't even opened my saddle bags.  My book, notebooks, and bits were all there and all dry.

I had no magic left, not a single splendor.  I had to nose under my saddlebags to shrug them over my head and neck to put them on.  I had to roll up the tarp with my hooves and tie it on with the rope in my teeth and with the help of the frogs of my hooves.

As the shock wore off, the aches in my nether regions set in.  My body went cold.  I realized what the stallion had been after.  I wasn't so sheltered by Proper Step and all my tutors that I did not understand this fact, or what he'd done to me, and what useless thing he had actually stolen before I had awoken to my chance to fight back.  

Fortunately, I did have a gold bit left.  I spent it on a healer in Deep Ford for the magic necessary to avoid the consequences of what I'd suffered.  The shiny bit was enough to convince her to write down the "household spells" necessary, and to get her to teach me how to cast them, in addition to writing down the scientific and common names the requisite, moderately hard to find, herbs.  

That left enough bits left over to pay the old purple unicorn not to inform the constabulary about the crime that had befallen a certain blank flank young mare.  I blustered and whined and endured as she pointed her hoof at me and shouted all adult-like, red-faced and cross.  Eventually, she understood that the best she could do was give me a stern talking to about being careful.  

In the end, she took the coins and promised.  I remained hopeful Proper Step would never learn what had transpired.

I was wary of other ponies on the road after that, but it was a different type of wary than you might think.  It excited me that one day I might fight again—I would, however, not be ambushed the next time!  I would never again be too stupid to live.

To achieve my goal, I had to figure out how I'd cast my modified Levitate.  No matter how I tried, I could not simply will that fine bit of thaumaturgy in question to cast at will.  Maybe it was situational?  Maybe it was the sheer splendors of magic I'd flooded my horn with?  It had to do with the wish predicate, that much I understood.  I hoped one day to use what I had learned to help other ponies, to save them from oppression and from hurt.  I knew that keeping that reason in my head was key to effectuating the wish.

There was also the memory that night.  Succeeding because it mattered.

And...

The thrill.
> PART TWO: Talent Realized; Chapter 14 — The Gangs of Baltimare
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A fetlock struck my nose, twisting my head forcefully right.  A gout of blood, like a splash of mud from under a wagon wheel—but red—shot over my shoulder, illuminated by the harsh light in the packed warehouse.  At least three thousand watched.  The old building had been transformed into a makeshift arena using shipping pallets standing end-on and arranged as walls.  

The blood spatted wetly to the straw-strewn dirt as the crowd roared at the first strike my pegasus opponent had landed on me.  It burned and stung at the same time.  The blood I snuffed up my nose caused an instant sinus headache. 

This was the mixed-pony welterweight championship bout.  Shadow Strike, a white glacier-blue-maned pegasus mare, had beaten an earth pony to make it to this match.  Blockzit had been my size, small for a stallion, but the golden-furred red-maned Clydesdale bruiser had been pure muscle.  Pegasi as a rule didn't beat comparable-sized earth ponies, nor did unicorns for that matter.  Shadow Strike and I would not be facing off had we not beat our previous opponent.  

I looked up to catch Blockzit's concerned amber eyes as he waved behind the arena walls.  I grinned and put a hoof to my nose to staunch the sticky flow.  I caught view of Coach as he spun a hoof. 

Right.  I'd lost my spell queue.  I cast first to pinch my nose with my magic, then began the other prep as I followed the audience's eyes upward.  

It was all good.  I'd been hit, but only side-hoofed.  A direct hoof would have broken my jaw or muzzle, but my magical push-aside block on Shadow Strike had worked.  Nothing felt broken.  

The pain amped up my rage.  I needed that—that was the missing puzzle piece.  I still could not cast a certain spell at will, but I sorely wanted to win this match.  I'd get my full cut of the winnings were I to win, and that would be enough to rent in Prancetown, a college suburb far outside the city of Baltimare, where I could get a better job and maybe attend magic school.

That cocky feathered buzzing bee flew in my way.  She zigged when I zagged my magic, evading like the pro she was.  Even when I caught her tail or hoof, she knew how to weasel free.  I could not touch her wings or I'd be instantly disqualified, which made targeting tricky despite practice.  That Coach had taught me how to queue spells allowed me to switch between grasping, pulling, and swatting.  Transposing all the vector math over three-axises by half-a-pony length made my targeting all the more approximate.  I could not afford a mistake.  

Shadow Strike could not hit my horn for the same reason I could not hit her wings.  That'd she'd lain one on my nose attested to her speed and agility.  The few bruises she suffered were all remote-controlled, caused by me forcing her crash into things or into the ground.  Magic punches weren't worth the splendors afforded them.  She stayed out of hoof-boxing range and away from every buck I aimed.  

Infuriating!  I had scouted her, but surely she'd taken time to see my fights and read the newspaper articles.  She worked to exhaust my magic, despite landing every fifteen seconds as the rules required.  I couldn't gallop at her fast enough.  Not an earth pony.  Remember? 

It frustrated me that she deserved the win.  More so that she laughed every time I missed.  

I worked to shove her jabs and feather cuts away while concentrating on prepping my unreliable narrow Levitate spell.  All the arcana I'd read lead me to predict that I could pool immense force at the end of a pole-shaped magical apparition, despite failing again and again.  

From growing experience, I understood I could not directly hurt a pony by force of magic.  I stomped a hoof.  Not fair!  

Sadly, unicorns had evolved to grant wishes.

I ducked as she dived at my back and spun to follow as the disappointed audience groaned.  She was the 3-to-1 odds-on favorite.  I preferred an earth pony opponent any day!  Half my no-decisions were pegasi.

As Shadow Strike touched down as required, I looked up at the glaring lights that illuminated my lack of athletic prowess—and felt a surge in my magic.  

The spell math fell into place and balanced the targeting vectors...

A chill ran down my spine.

Wary green eyes on her opponent, the pegasus pony leapt airborne with a relieved smile, heading for the rafters.  I hadn't charged or tried to knock her over.  The feathered bee's wings fairly blurred as she zoomed out of reach. 

I inhaled, pointed my horn upward, scrunched my eyes closed, and shoved splendor after splendor of magic upward with an inarticulate scream.

The blue-green flash almost blinded me, even through my eyelids.  A loud Crack! followed.  I jumped back reflexively.  "Yikes!"

Hitting the pony-sized glass and wood lights with a sledgehammer would have made no less racket.  Shattered glass exploded out.  Smoking flinders spiraled away as all the arena lights burnt out.

Shocked, Shadow Strike didn't instantly react, but in the next second changed her upward trajectory away from the center of the arena, incidentally toward the roof buttresses.  I cast a lesser Levitate and shoved.  

She closed her wings to protect them, but struck her hip audibly against wood.  

She fell along her trajectory, fluttering as she tumbled, seemingly unable to find level. 

Glass and wood smashed into the ground with a crackling bang, bits splashing outward that I had to jump to avoid.

I cast Pull downward on her muzzle.  She squirmed free and got her wings out to flap against her downward acceleration, so I applied Push against her injured hip.  She gasped, but pulled up anyway.  I galloped to meet her.

At the last moment, I cast Push again to adjust away her flight adjustment.  Had she chosen a rightward yaw, I would have helped her. 

She hadn't.  

I'd scouted her enough to learn that she was left-hoofed.  Having been pulling up desperately so that she essentially reared midair, she body-slammed a pole at six pony heights with a resounding smack.  

I heard the clunk as her head followed her body and her chin connected with wood.  I didn't hear breaking bones, but her partisans where screaming for her to veer so I might have missed that wet sound.  Her red boxing gloves continued into the crowd.

One hit a rearing pink mare in the chest.

I caught the pegasus and levitated her gently down to the ground.  I could have let her drop into a heap, but I wasn't that kind of a mare. 

She was out cold.   My sixth KO overall, not counting my unofficial first one.

As per the rules, I sat down on her as the ref counted her out.  No way she was bucking me off.  

She groaned and said, "Who hit my— me—wha?"

The crowd of thousands roared. 

The ref lifted me with a hoof in the pit of my tank-top jersey, gesturing me to rear with him.  Legs in the air, he grabbed a hoof and pulled it upward.  He bellowed, "Princess Grim, by a knock-out, your new welterweight cham-peen!"

I put a hoof to my nose and it came back red as I pirouetted slowly around on my rear legs.  I snuffed and that made it worse, but despite the pain, I smiled.  

I was happy.  Six straight wins and nothing a spell could not heal.  

Black wash-out dye colored my mane, tail, and fetlocks.  My jersey had an embroidered breastplate design that satirized Princess Celestia's breastplate.  Mine was silver with a contrarian moon in the center.  The same midnight moon graced my trunks like the cutie mark that I hoped I'd never earn.  Blue wash-out dye dyed fur completed the costume, but stained the jersey where I perspired.  

The giddy-up didn't fool anypony that attended the fights.  Hopefully it would fool Proper Step or the evil princess my costume mocked, were either to encounter my picture in passing on a sports page.  We prizefighters were actors on many levels.  

It was the game of bits.  A way to earn plenty of them.  A way to create a new life.  

The ref settled the weighty championship cuirass—formed steel sheet plated with gold, bedecked with red roses and blue spiral ribbons—across my withers.  I trotted around the arena, waving and beaming, to the cheers of the crowd as the officiating doctor tended to Shadow Strike who now stood, but looked dazed.  My fans through blue-dyed roses.

Ponies held open the official gates and others kept the crowd beyond the lines.  My first clue that something had gone off the rails happened when an earth pony bull galloped from the right and blocked my trainer from following.

"Coach!"

A young voice, not my trainer's, said, "Don't worry yo-self about it."

I turned.  

I found a stallion's pink kerchief at the end of a hoof.  I pressed it to my nose and watched the chivalric pony's flank as he walked to the sports book.  He took the bits from the fight promoter, counted out at least a quarter, and brushed it into a pouch.  He scraped out another pile as I approached. 

"Your take."

It amounted to substantially more than I knew my prize purse ought to contain, even subtracting Coach's cut.  Something told me not to say anything since nopony or the promoter said boo.  The whole fight system wasn't legal–despite payments to the Constabulary Retirement Fund—nor was the betting.  

I carried the pouch in my magic as an excuse to keep a spell spun up.  I didn't have pockets in my fight giddy-up, so it made the otherwise threatening move innocent.  

I'd shorted out all the lights.  The late afternoon sun through the dirty upper windows left much of the makeshift arena dusky and full of shadows.  As he trotted into some light from the clearstory, I got my first good look at the stallion.

I remembered the punk—and his gold chains.  

"I have a deal for you.  You'll make plenty more bits than you're making now."

I backed away in disgust. 

"It's not an offer you can refuse."

And...

That brings me back to how the Countess Aurora Midnight, the Earl of Grin Having, ended up in the fight business in the first place...
> Chapter 15 — Trigger
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

To review, I'd been pinned in the mud by a hulking earth stallion.  He had stolen what ponies in proper circles never thought to attach the value of bits to.  My splendrous magic had proved an equalizer.  That day, the twin badges of bruises and bleeding scratches combined with the pride I felt fighting off a much more capable aggressor squelched the fear that might have sent an otherwise normal runaway filly crying all the way home to her butler.

I was not normal.  Read that again.  Try to understand.

Nothing about my life was normal, nor—as it would turn out—would it ever be.  That's not this story, though. 

I had spat at him, the stallion-like creature, and laughed.  Last spring.  In a thunderstorm.  At the ground as the monster ran from me.  

I'd spat.  As a gesture; pointless, though satisfying. 

I'd spat now.  On the street.  In Baltimare.  Red brick buildings and converted warehouses lined the lower class neighborhood.  A newspaper blew down the road into a wet gutter.  The sky looked yellow thanks to smoke stacks that contributed to a faint stink of toil and low wage work.

The pony who had wolf-whistled at me: His blue eyes widened, as did his grin.  The red roan was the obvious alpha horse's-flank in a herd of miscreants.  

I'd reacted.  Something I still worked at squelching, but had failed.  Trained as a noble pony, I had learned to suffer foals—but it was really hard to do!  So far, even the pain of being beat to within a heart-beat of my life hadn't taught me the essential lesson that bullies taught most kindergarten foals.  

His wolf-whistle was new, though.  I'd read in the bodice-ripper novels I'd gotten my hooves on that many mares considered a wolf-whistle a complement, though they'd be loath to admit it. 

My gut considered it an act of oppression.  

As I'd passed him and his primping herd, I'd added, loud enough to be overheard, "I'm too much for you to handle."

In the shocked silence, I'd held my eyes locked on his baby-blues until my neck complained.  It wasn't ten seconds until I heard some mare say, "You gonna let that skirt get away with that, Trigger?"

"No.  Was just admiring the view— Ow!"

Somepony had bucked him.  I could tell from the disorganized clatter and clop of horseshoes.  There was a pause, then clatter as the full herd followed me in a slovenly slow motion stampede.

For my part, my face heated up.  I wore a mid-length skirt to hide my painted-on cutie mark that could too easily get scuffed as I worked.  With any breeze, the fabric hid nothing below my tail.  

Yes.  I had.  Filled out, that is.

I also wore a blouse with an integrated apron that bared my midriff.  In a dowdy shade of grey-tan.  It made Bite of Kale, the grocer I'd convinced to employ me, feel I understood my role as stocker and bag-filly.  Thinking on Trigger's reaction, I was further convinced I understood why the old codger liked having a young mare around.  

Clop-cl-clop clop clop and Trigger cantered behind me, his head tilted and neck down to get a better look.  

Ruuu-ude.

He was close enough that when I flicked my tail—releasing the bun with my magic and whipping it around—I scored his nose.  I pulled down the hem of my skirt, using the excuse to keep my Levitate spell spun up as I repurposed it.

"Ow!" he said rather dramatically, his gait changing to 2-1 2-1.  

Despite my better judgement, I glanced back.  He held a hoof to the tip of his nose.  He grinned.  I couldn't have drawn blood...

He moved the black hoof to show a red scratch. 

I had!

The buck considered it a mating gambit, or feigned it pretty well as he approached until he walked beside me.  I rolled my eyes and sped up.   

He, and then his jeering herd, sped up too.   We crossed another intersection where everypony gave way for the herd, and continued quickly toward the next.  If I hadn't been up since dawn—moving crates of fruit and vegetables, then stocking the shelves, building pyramidal end cap displays of apples and cabbages, sweeping, and finally washing floors during the after-lunch lull—I might have enjoyed the novelty of the attention.  I listened mutely as he studied me, then replied to his herd mates as they asked him if he was going to put up with my "snooty attitude," or my "disrespect", or me "trampling" all over his "stallion-hood."

I rolled my eyes at that last one.  His herd egged him on, not buying that he was "softening" me up.  I did learn some really interesting curses, mostly slurring family members and weird eating habits, but I'm not the kind of mare that repeats such things.

I earned a lame, "What's your name?" out of him next.

It worked on some level.  I stifled a smile but my snort, though barely audible, was unmistakable.  I shook my head.

He ruined it by speaking back over his shoulder, "You see."

Some mare said, "Stop playing with your food!"

"So," he continued, "Cute Dumpling, what kind of cutie mark are you hiding under that dress?"

"Mixed metaphor," I interjected.

"What?"

"Dumplings are not as a rule cute."

He growled.  "What's your cutie mark?"

I answered, "What did that squeaky-voiced mare mean by calling me a 'skirt?'"  I didn't bother to look back, but heard some horseshoes miss a beat.

"I'm sure Mustang didn't mean any disrespect," he said, his voice dripping sarcasm.

"Was it respectful for you to look up my dress?" I asked.

"Hey!"

"Who is following whom?  You could just leave me be."

"You are seriously pushing it, my little pony.  We do business in this neighborhood—"

"Like what?"  I took a deep breath.  We passed through another intersection, the one I needed to turn left on to go to my new hostel, but I didn't turn.  I'd learned over the past half-year that it didn't pay to bring home trouble.  If I was going to be delayed, I might as well have fun.  Predators trying to oppress me were always fair game.

"I—  Uh..."

"Loitering?"

His voice lowered.  "You need to show some respect."  He aimed a hoof at my shoulder.  

A poke by the angle of it, but I pushed it away with as little magic as necessary.  He momentarily stumbled, and the stallions behind him laughed.  The mares sped up, and Mustang said, "We've gone five blocks."

"I know," Trigger returned, then noticed I was glaring at him.  He actually "eeped" when he noticed that I looked at him without blinking.  "Are you asking for trouble?"

I thought about that, which caused me to look away because I did that reflexively when thinking.   

Maybe I was.  

He wore naught but his white tee-shirt and the jewelry.  His fur was a ruddy beige, and he had the five classic black points of his kind, hooves and nose, but his piled-up mane and tail were also black.  For an earth pony, he was no workhorse, nor did he have any Clydesdale in him.  The stallions behind him looked huskier.  That meant he thought himself smarter, either in "business" or in the way he fought.

I still hadn't learned how to reliably cast my special spell.   Was he the one who might help me break through?

I looked at how the muscles in his flank moved, and how he held himself.

"I doubt it," I answered myself out loud.

"What?"

"I thought you might teach me something, but I was mistaken."

He sped up to cross my path and stop me, but I guess I'd intimidated him enough that he didn't take that last step.  It did give me a good, unimpressive view of his rear end.  Now he turned red and angrily asked, "Are you Spurs or 2nd Street?"

"What are you, Trigger?"

"C.A. Syndicate.  We all are."  He lifted a sleeve to bare a shoulder that bore a brand in cursive that read, "CASYN."  The scar was pink and the hair had only partially grown back.  "You're going to regret trespassing—"

"I'm a part of no herd.  And I was walking home after a long day at work when somepony rudely whistled at me and decided to follow me."

He stepped in front of me.

I stepped the other direction around him, taking one last glance at his flank.  He had a fiery-torch cutie mark.  Had his parents figured out that he would have a bad temper when he grew up, to give him a name like Trigger?  Or had he taken the name himself?  Or did he get stuck with it because his friends and herd mates tagged him with it?

As I passed him, I said into his ear, "Gelding."

"Gelding?  I am not a—"  He rushed up on my right side now.

"I was thinking of it as a verb."

His ears laid down pointing at me.  "Do you think you can take me on?!"

I gave the roan a cursory glance.  He had none of the brute strength of the monster I'd bested last spring, nor, I doubted, the tenacity.  I wouldn't learn anything.  Realistically, I might if the entire herd mobbed me, but then I might very well lose that battle.  I wasn't stupid.

"You asked my name," I said.

He jerked his head back and blinked as my apparent non-sequitur confused him.  "I asked— what?"

"My name."

"Gelding?"

"My name."  I would be lying if I said that it was my name, but it wasn't what I'd said to him.

"That's not a very feminine name," he pointed out, looking back at his herd for comment.  They'd gotten quieter through the previous intersections as we approached the next, and some of them had slowed down as we crossed this one en masse.

"Trigger," Mustang, the obvious alpha mare of the herd warned.  Ahead, down the street, other ponies gathered.

"Is Trigger a masculine name?" I asked.  "Or even the one your mother and father gave you?"

"Gelding?"

"You earned your name, didn't you?  What about me?" I asked, wheedlingly, pushing him to accept what I said and to confuse him all the more as we approached the gathering crowd.  I'd hoped for locals gathering around a market district or restaurants.  I couldn't have been more wrong.

We'd walked up to another gathering of late teen earth ponies.  They looked just as disreputable as the ones following me, but instead of tee-shirts, these wore button-down shirts, all flannel plaids, all open in the front, even the mares.  I saw chains and steel bracelets.  Almost all the mares wore red skirts with black lace.

Uniforms.  They were uniforms!

I had gotten Trigger to follow me into another herd's territory.  

Yay, me!  

Nopony looked happy, especially Trigger as he whinnied in shock, then added to my vocabulary of unprintable phrases.

I tried to keep trotting on through, but the rival herd spread across the street and I found myself in the dead pony zone between them.  

"Uh, huh," I said, stopped, and began backing up.  I didn't join Trigger's herd, though.  I sidled to the right until I stood against a building.  Nopony on Trigger's side seemed to be paying attention to me, but they had spread out to cut off the street, and, incidentally, my retreat.

"You've entered Pommel Turf you stupid C. A.'s!" called a gruff mare.  The lemon yellow earth pony had Saddle Arabian in her and she certainly towered over Trigger by a head or more.  Her golden mane had been cropped to hoof length, and gold piercings in her ear and in her right nostril made her look crazy-formidable.  Or maybe it was the slash scar across her muzzle.  She kicked off the rear gate of a wagon parked on the street, which I doubted she owned, and jumped up on the bed.  "Do you want us to destroy you?"

Mustang joined Trigger as the others formed up behind.  The two mobs looked equal in size.  If any of the shop doors were opened, I'd've just slipped inside.  Whether due to foresight on the shop owner's part, or early closing hours, that was not an option.

Trigger yelled back, "We came here to prove a point!"

Of course they had.  

The two sides started yelling at one another.  I wondered if I were seeing the beginning of a territorial war between herds.  They demonstrated the underdeveloped brains of cave horses.  

If the constabulary caught wind of the storm brewing here, there might be arrests.  That could get me identified–and returned to Grin Having.

Not something I wanted.

A war brewing?  Hmmm.

I looked at the Pommel herd alpha mare.  "Whirlaway," I'd heard her called after another pony called her a ditzy blonde.  Sans the ruffian giddy-up and wearing a proper gown or nothing at all with a normal length mane, especially considering her green eyes, she'd have seemed a delicate beauty.  She had the lithe bone structure.

Regardless, Whirlaway was definitely physically delicate.  I wondered what cutie mark lay concealed under her skirt and how it had corrupted her so thoroughly. 

I'd kept Levitate spun up all this time.  I spent long seconds as the herd exchanged insults prepping the spell such that I could accurately reach my target at full force.  Since the attack last spring, I'd gotten to be able to lift almost five pony weight.  Taking a job as a grocery stocker helped with that.  My eyes narrowed as all my spell equations balanced and I saw fiery digits whirl clearly in my vision.

I pushed down sharply on the bed of the wagon.

The vehicle had been built to haul heavy cargo, not just vegetables, and had hefty leaf springs.  The wagon jostled, then bounced.  

The mare tensed, then compensated left and toward the end of the wagon.

I swept her fore hooves from behind and to the right.

Had I not jostled the wagon first, the sweep would not have been enough.  Pushing ponies proved difficult to do forcefully—that can't-hurt-a-pony-with-magic psychological flaw I suffered—but the two forces combined...

Her hooves slipped forward and off the edge of the wagon.  Before she could compensate or think to jump, she fell, striking her barrel against the lift gate.  It made a loud bang.  Her neigh sounded shockingly louder.

Ponies erupted at one another.

That meant they charged toward the center of the fight.

I backed up against the storefronts.  As I passed a spinning barber pole, I got behind the last pony in my way.  Nopony cared about me at the moment.

I galloped away.  At the first corner, I skidded right and around, losing traction only on a rear hoof.  Not at all secure that nopony had noticed, I turned right into an alleyway.  It opened on the east and shadows filled it.

I seeped into those shadows.

I found myself huffing and puffing, and I bent down to catch my breath.  I started grinning, then chuckling to myself.  I really had to learn not to taunt other ponies like that!  Silly filly.  One day I might really get hurt.

I heard horseshoes clatter by.

Then stop.

I had been chuckling.  Shoot.

The horseshoes turned around and I looked up to see Mustang in the mouth of the alley.  She was a svelte little pony.  An earth pony, of course, and I could see by her muscles that she probably earned her name by being full of gallop.  She was the buzzed-cut blonde palomino who wore the brass stud piercings I'd noticed.  Nothing girly about this mare, especially sporting a new bloody nose she took a moment to wipe.  

She had bucked at Trigger when she had thought he might be flirting.

"I see you, Gelding," she said, stepping forward.

I glanced behind me.  My luck, it was a dead-end alley.  Brick walls climbed two stories.  I could smell the stink of rotting fruit in the trash cans lined up near a bolted and gated loading dock.  My heart began to beat faster.

I asked, "Are you the one?"  I renewed my spell prep.  Was she the one who would teach me something?

"Are you some sort of crazy pony?!" Mustang shouted, stepping into the alley as she stalked toward me.  

I backed up, keeping myself in the median where a paved drainage depression, centered between cobbled sides, gave me a more stable footing despite the stagnant icy water that made me splash through.  

I said steadily, and hoped infuriatingly, "A pony named Gelding might be crazy.  She might also be dangerous.  Fair warning."

"As might a pony named Mustang."

I backed into the rear wall, bruising my dock against the cold surface.  I said, "I don't know.  Mustang only implies fast, maybe unpredictable."

The mare charged, screaming, "Predict this!"

She reached to her right and came back with something dirty-white in her teeth.  She bit down and a two-hoof-length steel blade popped out.  As she approached me, the blade glinted to my left.

I took one step forward and bent down as if cringing.

If she were going to cut me, either my face or my neck, she had to attack across and to my right.

As she braked just three pony lengths from me, I lifted her off her hooves.  She continued forward, airborne.  She did have gallop and had run like the wind.  I didn't have to lift her long, but it was enough that she lost track of her hooves.

I leapt out of reach to my right and set her down at the point we would have been nose to nose.  She stumbled and careened forehead-first into the brick wall at full speed.

She didn't even whinny as she dropped like a sack of beans.

I strolled over and saw that she was breathing, though her tongue lolled out—incidentally in a pool of black stagnant water.  I picked up the jackknife.  

I grimaced.  The hilt looked like it had been carved out of animal ivory and looked a sick yellow-brown in spots.  The blade snicked into the device when I rotated it.  I grinned.

"Nice piece of kit, Mustang.  Thank you!"

She didn't reply as I dropped it into my saddle bags.  Laying there, I could see she had spent a good amount of time primping and putting on subtle makeup, including glittery white eye shadow, readily visible in her unconscious state.

I picked up a trash can and dumped the contents on top of her.  It looked like the kitchen waste from a lunch diner.  Mostly cabbage stems, potato peels, bits of pears, and the stones of plums, from the smell of it.  A stream of foul brown paste followed, probably congealed frying oil.

Her skirt had ridden up in her collision.  The mess quickly congealed on her hindquarters over her silver galloping pony cutie mark.  Why somepony with her speed hadn't found a more savory profession, I didn't know.  

I didn't realize I would learn the why's of such questions soon enough.

I set the metal can down beside her, not on top of her.  If you'd heard I'd thrown it at her, you were wrong.  I'm not that kind of mare.  At the head of the alley, I looked cautiously both ways for further combatants.  Finding none, I trotted away.

Turned out the hostel didn't have a hot pot for heating water for tea or for my instant soup.  I hadn't yet perfected a heating spell of any kind.  At the corner, though, I found a food pushcart.  The young colt holding down the fort for his dad sold me a couple of carrot dogs.  I loaded them with glistening grilled onions, horseradish mustard, and pickle relish (the sour dill kind).

I sat on the stoop of the hostel, eating.  The air had cooled and the stars came out, though the city lights made it hard to see them.  I heard ponies talking in the open windows above, and down the street somepony played a harmonica.  

I smiled.  What a pleasant end to an unexpectedly interesting day!
> Chapter 16 — Gelding
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anything can be interesting, if you let it be so.  Case in point...

As the stocker at Bite O'Kale Grocery, Mr. Kale let me take my time building the produce pyramids.  Unlike dear lost Sunburst who could levitate a hundred different things independently at the same time, I managed ten when pressed, six with accuracy.  Compared to an earth pony who had to use his hooves (or his lips, which is just too ewww to consider), I was fast.  

Magic, however, is the mathematics of the physics that makes wishes come true.

Making wishes come true involves wave equations, quanta matrixes, and patterns.  I like patterns.  It's no fluke that all the great unicorn artists are impressionists or create abstract art with fractals and functions.  

I could name a cubist and surrealist off the top of my head thanks to my art tutors: Tableau Palomino or Saleratanio Dappled.  Of course, there was Mérens, my favorite impressionist with his series of haystack paintings done from autumn through winter.  Standing away from the picture, you see the haystacks; close up, you see only rainbow dashes of colors that make no sense tonally, giving no clue to the detail at the higher fractal level.

I am not implying I'm an artist, just that I find stocking apples fun.  I made a game of packing the irregular fruit so none acted as a keystone when plucked.  Today, I'd worked with Ambrosias brought in by train from Vanhoover.   Varying from yellow to red, I assembled puzzle pieces to create a checkerboard of alternating color.

It attracted customers that might otherwise pass us by.  

That made Bite of Kale happy.  He paid me for playing!

Sure, he worked me like a draft horse.  Beat being bored.  I did my best and was accumulating bits.  Libraries in Baltimare charged membership fees that I now could pay.  However, my magic education, as Ms. Maple at Celestia's school aptly advised, required a teacher.  I needed somepony to correct what I misinterpreted, somepony to teach me to see what I was blind to.  I needed somepony to learn how I used magic like roses Sunburst had, so I could grow better.  I could read an arcana for days, but he had been able to point stuff out and suddenly it clicked.

I needed to learn to do that myself.  I needed to attend magic school.

Mr. Kale liked my work and slowly I'd earned his trust.  I noticed when colts might walk by and grab an apple; I retrieved it.  I fixed it when the old earth pony proprietor didn't add up the accounts correctly.  I made sure he took time to eat his lunch and rested up so he wasn't an exhausted wreck when he returned home to Mrs. Kale.  Perhaps that's why she always smiled at me when she visited, despite me being young and maybe good looking.

All that earned me time at the register when Mr. Kale took his breaks. 

That's how one late afternoon after Hearth's Warming, I found myself alone in the shop packing an emptied Ambrosia apple crate with a stallion's groceries.  The sun was setting early and golden-orange light angled in the windows.  The heater fan clinked and whined as it compensated for the always open door.  It kept it warm enough to be considered only slightly chilly inside.

He said, "Thank you, Gelding."

My eyes flicked up.  I felt my skin warm with an adrenalized surge of blood to my limbs. I tried to cover up my actions by blinking, frowning, and looking down to continue to arrange the flour, two canisters of toasted oats, and celery that was next on the counter.

He had a calm, quiet voice.  He wore a business-like pinstriped dark blue jacket, not a coat, with a green sweater vest and a puffy cream-colored cravat that protected his neck like a scarf.  The ensemble arguably went together, looked dapper in a lower middle-class fashion, but left his hindquarters bare.  He stood at an angle to me so the first thing I noticed, beyond his copper red tail, was his whistle cutie mark.  His tail swished as he noted my wandering eyes.

I said, "Don't tell me you're named Whistler or Whistlestop?"

He chuckled.  The stallion adjusted his black glasses with magic as green as grass.  He had dark green eyes to match.  His cravat matched his golden fur, while the whole giddy-up accentuated scattered freckles that hid the peppering of grey hairs surrounding them.  His thinning mane spread to his face and the side of his head like a barely contained spider-plant, but it didn't hide his ears.

They were torn at the tips and thick and puffy in places, almost like a cauliflower.   His nose slanted slightly right, with a dimple in the middle of his muzzle.  He'd been struck hard in the face, and despite healers that could fix such things, or for lack of bits, he had let it grow back wrong.

"The 'she speaks in non sequiturs' part seems right on target."

"Pardon my rudeness," I said, whispering, feigning shyness.  I didn't want a confrontation here.  I packed two bottles of orange pop, then five cans of tuna.  I blinked at that.  Usually only pegasi bought fish items.  I added, "That'll be two silver eighteen copper."

Without looking up again, I picked up the receipt book, jotted the order down and jotted down the arithmetic I'd performed in-horn.  The paper sounded loud when it ripped.  I magicked him the yellow carbon copy.

Coins jangled on the counter, one spinning for an awfully long moment until it rolled in a circle and dropped with a slight buzz on the protective glass.

"Keeps her magic always active."

I narrowed my eyes, realizing this gentlecolt was likely anything but, considering to whom I'd given the name Gelding.  Under my breath, with my voice lowered in warning, I added, "When threatened."

"As you should!"  His enthusiastic voice sounded a bit gravelly and abused from years of shouting, but I judged his delight wasn't feigned.

"I cannot talk during work hours," I said loudly, hearing horseshoes approaching from the storeroom.  I shoved the crate toward him and he caught it deftly.  

He popped on a black bowler, which I didn't take as a good omen; Woodcutter had worn one.  "Yurt Café," he said and walked out.

I looked down and saw five silver bits where he had moments before set down s2.18 with some drama.  On his tab, I swiftly jotted a few pricey fruits and an imported cider, then swept it all into the till as Mr. Kale walked up.  I wasn't going to be caught with extra bits on my person.  

Wasn't going to happen.

Whistlebutt didn't look particularly rich.  If he expected me to come running to return his money, he was sorely mistaken.

My grey-maned dark-blue earth pony employer grinned at me with his too-white, too-straight, obviously false teeth.  He had eyes on my filly curves more than what I had swept into the till.  I didn't mind so long as he kept his hooves to himself.  I had a lot to think about until closing an hour later.

Restocking and helping lock up took another hour, at which time I found myself trotting down the street with a full moon above.  

Light snow had fallen during lunch.  It crunched under hoof while my breath condensed in little clouds as I approached the round tent-like building at Straight Pole and North Culvert Streets, two blocks west and north of the grocery.  The Yurt Café looked trendy and pricey.  The "gentlecolt" was going to pay for my order or would have Tartarus to pay.  While the exterior was sheathed in primitive canvas, air fragrant with scents of brewed tea and frothed milk smacked me as I walked in.  The door tinkled and the mare behind the counter gave an exhausted, "Welcome!"

Whistlebutt stood and motioned to his table.  As I trotted up, he said, "I recommend the buttermilk salt tea, a Yakyakastan specialty here.  Very hearty and far better than it sounds.  May I buy you one?"

His offer got me to sketch a curtsey.  A reflex, but I decided to trust my intuition and sit.  The warmth of the interior was thanks to the patterned rugs that covered both the floors and walls, all woven with abstract or primitive-style images of furry cows, birds, and ponies.  No, I decided they were probably yaks and actual horses considering the elongated proportions.  Triangles represented trees.  The zig-zag lines represented rivers since they were always blue.  The table I sat at had a reddish stone top supported by split logs.  The chairs and counter tops were a variation on the theme in the red and blues of the rugs.  Unique, all of it.  I didn't know where Yakyakistan was, but the beauty of the décor made me hope the land existed and that it wasn't a fantasy land.  Magic lighting left the interior neither dim nor sufficiently illuminated.

Business types sat at the other tables and filled the room with a buzz that required you to sit close to hear your conversation partner.   Good for uncomfortable talk a pony didn't want overheard.

Whistlebutt sat down, setting down two tea cups in saucers.  The tea looked yellow, but it wasn't as if Proper Step hadn't spent time educating my palate.  "Taste it once before grimacing," applied.  Still, yellow tea?

I looked into his green eyes.  He was heftier than me and taller, with a longer pointy horn.  He was unmistakably middle-aged, safely in grandsire territory, but muscular despite that and despite being a unicorn.

"You called me Gelding.  You didn't mention your name."

"Most ponies call me Coach."

"That's a title."  I sipped the tea, then involuntarily widened my eyes.  It was good!  Buttery, with a strong flavor of milk fat, yet incredibly strong.  Black tea flavor powered through, aided by the tiniest unmistakable tang of salt.  A caffeine buzz started building.

"You like?"

"I like."

"It is a title.  Being called White Towel in my profession—really in all that I've done in my life—just doesn't set the right tone."

I took another sip.  It warmed me through and felt smooth on my tongue.  "You are forcing me to rethink my theory of parental cutie mark premonition influencing foal names."

He chuckled.  Probably thought, nerd!  "You're educated."

My patrician accent had leaked out.  I looked at him and his ears flicked back involuntarily.  I had this habit of looking at ponies with my face tilted down, which exposed the whites at the bottom of my eyes.  Three whites, I'd read it was called in the kirin lands across the western sea.  I called it predator eyes.

He went on despite his flinch, "You utilize your opponents' misjudgments against them, like letting a mare charge you before preventing her from braking so she knocked herself out against a wall."

I swallowed and put down the tea cup.  It only clinked, despite my suddenly racing heart.  Was he a constable?

"And you're doing it again, keeping a spell fresh in your horn."

"My tutors taught me how to defend myself."

"But you can fight.  Considering how you spoke smack to Trigger and Mustang, I suspect you like fighting."

I looked at him but said nothing.  Maybe not a constable.  The stray-thought that Trigger had talked about "doing business in the neighborhood" made me think that Whistlebutt was a higher up in the organization Trigger had mentioned.  The... C.A. Syndicate.

C. A.?  Where had I heard those initials?  In a newspaper, I thought.  My eyes were off to the side as I thought and Whistlebutt interrupted me.

"Despite the angle of the sun that afternoon, I'm pretty sure I saw blue-green magic knock over Whirlaway.  She's one of the Pommel gang's top lieutenants.  That was a pretty gutsy move."

I stood up and walked out of the cafe, slamming the door behind me.
> Chapter 17 — Fight Cute
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I should have pocketed those extra silvers.  I'd need them if I had to grab my kitbag at the hostel and jump a midnight train out of Baltimare.  Whistlebutt knew where I worked and, judging by the lack of tea cups or used plates on his table, he understood approximately when I would arrive, which meant he had been watching me.  He knew what I'd done to the...  

Gang members?  

Alarm bells rang in my head.  I avoided the lurid news in the newspapers—especially now that they weren't in my budget—even when I found one discarded.  Business and politics interested me; I definitely read the magic technology section more often than the funny pages.  Still, gangs.  Gangs...  

I was missing something.  Something I knew.  

Hooves crunched in the snow.  Somepony knew better than to sneak up on a pony who helped other ponies smash themselves into a wall.

Yep.  Him.  The stallion caught up, but kept out of range of a hoof jab or kick.  In the flickering light of the gas street light, I saw a frown made evident by the wrinkles around his eyes.  Something to do with my horn being lit?  You think?

He said, "I assure you.  I am not directly associated with the Pommel Gang or the Carne Asada Syndicate.  I do business with them.  One or another of them runs the sport book at all the venues.  I stay friendly and neutral with the various gang members I interact with.  I train ponies to fight.  The gangs need somepony to train ponies.  I'm a free agent."

A name stuck in my head.  I repeated it under my breath, trying to use the sound to jog my memory.  "Carne Asada.  Carne Asada.  Carne...  Where did I—?"

Whistebutt hissed from behind a hoof.  "It's best not to say her name where it can be overheard."

I stopped in a pool of light from a pizza restaurant and another street lamp.  I smelled oregano and cheese.  "The newspaper on the Canterlot Express!"

"Huh?"

"The Manehatten Times.  She's—"  I tapped repeatedly on the cobblestones below the thin layer of white, then remembered the headline, GANG QUEEN PIN ACQUITTED and a strange name in the article that I thought sounded like it might be Equidorian.  Some pony named... Carne Asada.  

A key witness had disappeared.  

I trotted rapidly down the street.

He rushed up.  "Really, Gelding.  I have nothing to do directly with any of the gangs of Baltimare."

"Except for the sports book?  Sports book.  That's what it's called?  I've only read about that in a novel."

"Yes, that's right."

"And it's illegal."

"Well, it's squishy.  The constabulary looks away.  Stallions will be stallions.  Mares adore the fights, too.  There's the Constabulary Conscience League, the pony federation that donates to..."

"That's a 'yes'."

"Yes... well—"

I stepped in front of him, causing him to stop short.  "You are going to cause me trouble, aren't you?"

He should have slid into me; I had been ready to push him over when he slipped on the patch of ice that I had a moment ago lost traction on—now three steps behind him.  His reactions were good, very good; he stepped back.

"I want to train you.  I can make you a contender."

"I don't need to be better than anypony else.  I have no use for titles."

"Let me burst your bubble, then.  If you continue to fight cute the way you've been fighting, you're going to met a bruiser who can fight smart and that pony will break your much-younger-than-you-look blank-flank neck."

His change in demeanor—and the fire in his eyes, which was as likely as not the gaslight behind me—made me take a step back.

He had me pegged in one.

I studied his physique.  Tight, not ripped.  Good reactions.  None of the strength of the monster.  He had pointed out exactly how I had handled the gangs a couple months ago with forensic insights.  He understood how a unicorn fought.  He constituted a threat.

His horn lit up.

He was challenging me!

I squelched a smirk.

Despite his words, I judged he wouldn't and couldn't go far enough to make me terrified enough—or enraged enough–to help figure out my special spell.  That rendered him useless to me.

He said, "If I beat you, you let me train you.  I'll show you how I did it—"

I fled, alternating between a trot and a gallop as best I could, considering the drifts of snow and darker areas that might be black ice.  When I say fled, though, I mean I wanted him to think I fled.

Four blocks later, he still chased me.  I weaved through crowds in front of a bistro and then a theatre, and found myself on a sidewalk lined with bare trees, passing an alley with nopony within a block.

Judging his location by sound alone, I magically swatted his flank.

He whinnied.  He swerved, backpedaling for traction, and veered into the alley.

For my part, I attempted to brake.  All the training Proper Step's tutors had drilled into me on self-defense failed to kick in.  I should have kept running.  The protocol was attack, free myself, run.

I hit snow-hidden ice.  I found myself backpedaling, then spinning at the brick corner where the alley met the street.

I cast my magic to push against the wall I was about to careen into and I reared to help prevent colliding with it with my head the way Mustang had.

The desperate magic maneuver caused me to hit a hard cushion of force and bounce off at a normal to my trajectory—into the alley I'd sent Whistlebutt into.

Ice kept me spinning.

He had fetched up against the wall.  His bowler fell off into the snow.

"Fine with me," he said, pushing his glasses up with a hoof in the moonlight.  He slapped my rear with green nebulosity.  While it only stung, it made me spin faster.

I found myself airborne.  My hindquarters struck high on the alley wall.  Oddly, though it hurt badly, nothing broke.  I bounced off.  At the height I'd hit, I'd have expected to land with crippling velocity on the cobbles.  Strangely, I found my knees bent as I went down.

Still, before my knees contacted the cobble, a flash of light went off in my face.  The alley was dark.  The light, though not at all bright, effectively blinded me.  I found myself prone on my belly, the breath knocked out of me, my knees, miraculously, not shattered.

Another spell lifted me; before I knew it, it plunked me on my back.

I heard the ta-tick-ta-tock ta-tick-ta-tock of horseshoes approaching.

Seeing only purple phosphenes when I looked, I sent a Push out targeting by sound and heard oof!  He shoved me against the brick wall—facilitated by the very cold wet ice below me.  

I hit my horn against a jutting brick and found I'd lost my spell as my ears rang.

Unceremoniously, the middle-aged stallion sat on my chest, pressing on my diaphragm and wrapping his tail into his lap.  Heavier than he looked, probably all dense muscle, I gasped trying to breathe as I struggled under him.

His Illuminate spell lit his horn and face in a green glow as he looked down at me between my two forelegs.

I tried to clap my fore hooves and box his ears, or at least flip away his glasses.  

His horn lantern-light dispelled and a green nebulosity caught my fetlocks, parrying my move.  He held me like that as I grunted, then split his magic to contain my shot with my rear hooves.  Nothing I could do could budge him; he really had me pinned, but I sensed no malice.

When I relaxed, he lit his horn and said, "Really, Gelding, I thought you were smarter than this."

"How are you casting so many spells?  It takes seconds to prep a Levitate, let alone to use Illuminate so quickly."

He nodded.  "Okay, that's the right answer.  One of the things I can teach you is how I did that."

"You'll teach me magic?"  Pfff.  Mind blown.  Stupid filly...

"Do I see a gleam in your eyes?"

Suspicion reasserted itself.  If I could get my magic under him, I might be able to break contact and throw him off.  Big if, though.  Nopony could self-levitate.  It was impossible, which was why he sat atop me so our bodies were one as far as the magic was concerned; I knew this without a doubt.  I said, "You said you wanted to train me to fight."

"You are a unicorn.  You can't fight like an earth pony, or a pegasus, not unless you want to be murdered.  Of course I also have to teach you magic."

"In-teresting."

"Can I let you get up?  By the way, in the type of fighting I'll teach you, you have to pin your opponent to win.  I've done that."

"You win.  Please get off me."

"Your horn's lit again."

"Yeah, what of it?"

"I'm an old stallion.  It wouldn't do to have you throw me off.  Give me a break."

I let my Levitate spin into oblivion and he used his magic to set me on my hooves.  I'd gotten a few good bruises for my trouble, but I hadn't had that much fun playing in a while.  It left me thinking what I could have done better.  It bothered me more that the back of my work clothes now dripped with having been pinned in dirty slush.  

As we walked toward the street, I heard, "Scirocco."  His horn-light blinked off and I felt a warm, dry wind.  Bam, my clothes were dry.

"Teach me that one."

"I can try.  I don't know many spells, actually.  But it's not what you know, but how you use it."

"So I've heard," I snarked.  I used my magic to scuff away at the dirt at my withers and rump, to no avail.  I'd have to wash clothes tonight.  Not like I had anything else planned. 

"When can you start training?" he asked.

We'd walked to the end of the block and turned west.  I blinked at him.  

He said, "We agreed that if I won, I'd get to train you."

I snorted.  "You harbor a fundamental misconception, Mr. Whistlebutt."

He frowned. "Coach, please.  In what sense?"

"It takes two ponies to agree.  You said if you beat me.  It's basically a quote.  I didn't agree, so, no 'starting training'."

"What?   You a lawyer, too?  You liked our little rumble, deny that."

I gave him a genuine grin, showing teeth.  He abruptly fell behind a couple steps as I said, "I do like fighting, but it's not like I seek it out."

"You fooled me."

I laughed.  "I was a foal today, wasn't I?"  

As he waited patiently for me to say more, he trotted slightly ahead of me and turned onto the next street. 

I stopped and said, "You know where I live, don't you?"
> Chapter 18 — Facts of Life
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You know where I live?"

He rubbed the back of his neck and chuckled sheepishly.  

Of course he knew where I lived.  "In other words, you've been stalking me?"

"Was not!  Researching you.  Seeing how you move."

"I 'move' well?"  I swished my tail.

I watched his green eyes scan from my face to my rump.  He paused there, but quickly matched my gaze.  "Exceedingly well."

Gotcha!  "I'm too young for you."

"Not to train."

"That could be taken many ways, dear sir."

Even in the lamplight, I could see his face color.  "At least she isn't calling me 'Whistlebutt'."

"Lead on, Whistlebutt.  Walk me home.  I shall point out that a hostel is a shared living arrangement.  I can't take you in with me."

"I wouldn't dream—"

"Really?"

"How old are you really?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

"You're skilled at banter.  One of the things you were tutored in?"

I changed the subject.  "I did not fight—what's his name—Trigger."

"But you taunted him?"

"He started it by being rude, the sexist piece of—"

"Sadly typical of the chronically unemployed yearlings in this city.  He's pretty smart, too, though not interpersonally.  The Pommel gang lieutenant?"

"Was that even fighting?"

"The best fight is when your first attack ends the conflict.  Using an opponent's stupidity against her is fair in my book.  You stunned her.  She got her teeth kicked in during the melee you caused.  One on one, she would probably have not set herself up to get knocked over so readily, but that would be an example of fight smart.  You could have pinned her, though with two cracked ribs, she might have bucked you off out of instinctual self-preservation.  Her error is in the same class of error you made tonight."

"Error?"

"If you're starting a street fight with no rules, fight in the street where you can see your opponent, where you have flat pavement and traction.  What you did to both your opponents that day required sight; you neglected that tonight.  If you could have seen me better, I suspect you would have levitated me instead of punching."

"I've fought in the dark, before.  Oh—"  I walked with a hoof to my chin.  "I'd kicked, too, which was how I lifted the monster.  I—I have to think about that one."

"Go on."

I looked at my companion.  "He was twice your size and mass, and he attacked first.  Knocked me out.  In a lightning storm.  Rain and mud, but in the end I sent him screaming down the road with his tail on fire."

He looked at me skeptically, then down the street.  "In the rain?  On fire?  A true story?"

"Very true."  I'd prepped my spell while he spoke.  I lifted him, like earth ponies lifted weights, "1-2 1-2," as I trotted along.

"I get it.  You're strong.  Ponies are looking."

Factory shift workers in oil-stained blue coveralls exited a steam engine shop, backlit by yellow thuama-arc lights.  I smelled the lubricants and warm moist air that dispelled the chill.  They carried lunch boxes and were talking at the entrance, but a pink mare pointed.  Dozens looked.  

The mare shouted, "Woo-ee, you go girl!"

I lifted Whistlebutt over my back to the other side.  He hit the ground trotting without stumbling. 

Applause broke out and I bowed while the factory fell behind us.

I said to him, "I've peaked at 5 PW."

"I might believe that."

"All that unloading lorries and what not.  The job is worth more than the bits I earn."

"An earth pony in fighting shape might lift twice that."

"I didn't attack Mustang, either.  I don't pick fights, so I might be less of a fighter than you think."

"Dunno."  He turned quiet as we entered the block with my hostel.  "Any other experience?"

"Dunno," I said, mimicking his manner of speech.  "I knocked out a pony, once, but that was an accident.  He had a lead in his mouth and I stepped on it.  How was I to know he wouldn't let go?"

"You?  On a lead?"

"You make it sound so unseemly.  Other than that, I drilled in self-defense.  For a couple years.  Had my training stuck, I would have run tonight instead of fighting you."

I stopped at my hostel.  He kept walking.  It was the only hostel in blocks, and the buzzing red neon sign read, Mobtown Mattresses, but with the "b" out so it actually read Mo town.  It was genuinely hard to miss, as were the sloppy ponies hanging out on the stoop eating dinners wrapped in crinkling waxed paper.  I smelled carrot sausages and peppers and the grease congealing on the hay fries as they laughed.  

I said, "Aww!"  

When he looked back, I pushed my lower lip down and pouted, channeling a filly the age I actually was.  "Aren't you going to k-kiss me goodnight like they do i-i-in the novels?"

That got my bunk mates' eyes flicking from me to him and back again.  

He pointed forward with his nose. "Come on."

I trotted up to him and he walked a block further before turning right.   He led me into Filly's Best.  The door squeaked open to warm air and an overpowering scent of onions, garlic, and cheese. 

Over the din of ponies talking over one another, he said, "One of my favorite joints.  It's how I found you, actually.  Saw you walk by.  Their Fillydelphia cheese steak is the best.  Order it 'wiz-wit'.  May I treat you?"

"You may, dear sir."

It turned out to be grilled aubergine, sliced length-wise, flooded with gooey orange cheese-whiz, smothered with grilled onions.  All on a long crispy Prance roll.  It brought out the food horse deep in my soul.  He bought me two.

I was licking the paper wrapper, over and over, standing at one of the standing tables, my eyes closed in bliss. 

"Another?"

"And risk my filly figure?  Thank you, but I decline.  Too bad I didn't discover these when I lived there."

"Pat's was the best in Fillydelphia, but be careful who you tell.  Them's fighting words to the wrong ponies."

"That city was such a disappointment!  Guilds.  You had to know ponies to get considered to be admitted into one, and needed guild membership to be considered for jobs.  Everypony wants to know your business and your history and who you know.  They roust the homeless relentlessly.   Hard town to establish oneself in if you haven't bits, friends, family, or a job.  Nice, otherwise."

His frown deepened.  Perhaps he was putting together all the things I'd let on.  It didn't identify who I was, but let on more of who I was.  As concern began to dawn, I wadded up my wrapper and his, and shouldered (demurely) through the crowd to throw the waxed-paper into the trash at the exit.

By contrast, the weather outside felt freezing.  My breath and his condensed in front of our faces.   I asked, "What now?"

"Depends," he said.  His confident demeanor from before was definitely replaced with concern.  I guessed I was succeeding.  "Am I going to start training you?"

I threw him a bone.  "I'm not saying no."  I put up a hoof.  "But I'm not saying yes."

"In that case," he said, "I'm taking you home."

As he set off in the direction of my hostel, I asked, "Mine or yours?"

"Yours."

"Well," I huffed, "That won't do!  You know where I live, but I don't know where you live.  The whole circumstances of your recruitment is sketchy, at best.  Besides, you took me out for drinks, to the fights, and dinner.  Isn't this where you suggest that I might like to see your collection of impressionist art?"

That had him waving a hoof before his face.  "I'm not that type of—"

"Seriously."  I flattened my voice.  "If you have a hope of ever training me to fight, I need to know where you live or I will disappear so quickly you will wonder if I ever existed."

He stood frozen, staring at me, green eyes wide enough that they reflected the restaurant sign behind me.

I said, "What?  Too pugnacious for you?"

"I—  No—"

"I've gone through bad stuff and achieved a stable position.  Now you've made an offer, but you've also threatened everything I've built.  One way or another, these horse apples mean I'll be starting over.   I just want to understand in what way."

He thought about what I'd said, then nodded.  He turned the opposite direction and said, "Follow me.  I won't insult you and say you're wrong.  I'm not trotting in your horseshoes, but I certainly do want to train you.  I see sparks crackling off of you when you fight, when you talk.  You have the spirit, and the attitude.  Half the battle is won, as far as I'm concerned.  Hurry.  Here comes the bus."

The coach-and-eight pulled up below a red BTA sign with LocalLink bus numbers.  As we hopped up, I noted the line.  We joined the two dozen aboard, having to stand in the aisle, foreleg around a pole.  The team pulled without even a grunt.  Even though the carriage company advertised Smooth Gyro Braking—meaning that braking recovered energy then used it to restart the carriage smoothly moving—their feat left me thinking about Whistlebutt's comments about the strength of an earth pony in fighting trim.  Without magic, I was a weakling even compared to a pegasus.  The tribes had their abilities and liabilities.  

What risks were I contemplating now?

But, Aurora Midnight... magic!  And training.  In magic.  

We didn't talk because, well, flank to muzzle passengers.  We hopped down midtown, and I paid attention to the street names and numbers.  Two blocks from the bus stop, he halted in front of a three story walk-up, constructed of brick like all the rest of the buildings up and down and to either side of Flanders Ave.  The number, 414 East North Street in white numerals differentiated it from all the others in that it was a palindrome.

"Here's my flat."

"But does he live there?" I asked myself, then looked left and right before saying, "Dunno."

He sighed and levitated out a keychain with a silver whistle key fob.  "As a matter of fact, I do have some impressionist paintings.  Would you like to come up and see?"

"Would I!"
> Chapter 19 — Filly Playacting
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I bounced on the sidewalk like a filly my age.

He sighed.  

The first key on the whistle key fob unlocked the front door; we climbed two sets of metal stairs to a green door on the right.  Number 3.  He operated the lock and the brass deadbolt.  Each snicked audibly and he led the way into an apartment that struck me as much finer than expected.

Golden oak covered the walls in a seamless panel that might have been cut from a single spiral of tree trunk.  It displayed prominent knots amid straight black grain and reflected the gaslight streaming in from the floor-to-ceiling arched windows.  My hooves clicked on a dark plank floor.  Waxed, the surface gleamed as he enchanted the magic sconces that looked like glass kettles suspended by blackened wrought iron links.  The rainbow glass marbles that filled them cast a daylight glow.  

The green corduroy fabric of the sofa looked worn, but the dark wood turned-legs and the finials on the backs looked well-crafted. Carved griffin paws served as armrests.  The tables and chairs showed a similar patina and a consistent classy design, weren't new, weren't bought antiques either, but succinctly stated a neat stallion with masculine tastes lived here.  Even Proper Step might have grudgingly nodded acceptance.

The high ceiling vaulted over the narrow space.  Whistlebutt's horseshoes clattered as he strode into the kitchenette.  The counter caught my eye as he reached for glasses.  It looked like dark granite, but as I approached I realized it was an ice-like amalgam of crushed black obsidian and mica with shattered gems, mostly sparkling slivers and shards of emerald, with a sprinkling of rubies and sapphires.  Corundums.  Aluminum-minerals.  Was it transparent aluminum, um, oxyi, um, -nitrate, -nitride?  Shoot.  I'd paid more attention to my physics tutor than my chemistry one.  AON required magic to synthesize.  Not cheap that countertop. 

"I need a drink," he declared, loudly setting down a glass followed by a crystal decanter of ruddy brown liquid.

"Whiskey?  No ice?" I asked.

He fixed his eyes on me. "Too young for this, Gelding."

"At home, I was told to try everything at least once.  When we had guests, I drank watered-down wine.  On weekends, I was expected to finish a gobletful at dinner.  A lady has to learn to hold her cider.  I did."

He sighed, uncorked the flask, presenting the opening for a sniff.  

I caught caramel and vanilla before the spirit speared the top of my nasal passages.  I jerked my head back.  I said, "I'd prefer a cordial or aperitif."

"I have neither."

"Your loss not getting me drunk."  I grinned.  "Water will do.  No ice."

"I have none."  He poured from a glass pitcher with squeezed limes floating in it. 

I tasted it.  Limey indeed.  I nodded.  

He took a big sip, then tossed back a bit more.  I half expected his magic to ignite the volatile fumes but, as I watched, I saw no blue flames or a flinch from its strength.  I turned my flank to him to survey his flat, but got no reaction.  I swished my tail as the girlish part of my brain, the part I really had no need for, asserted her annoyance. 

He said, "I live here."

"I approve."  

As I turned rapidly to face him, he said, "I'm so happy—"  Then, "You really did get the back of your clothes dirty.  I know a cleaning spell—"

I looked back before lifting the edge of my skirt.  Both sides.  Despite being pinned and wet by slush, my cutie mark hadn't smudged.  Without missing a beat, I pulled the skirt down and kicked it off while pulling the blouse over my head, then stepped out of the sleeves.  My saddle bags hit the wood floor with a bang because, naturally, they contained books.  Loosening my mane- and tail-bun, I flicked my head to encourage the tresses to cascade down in a purple and bright-green flow.  I levitated the garments to the counter, and, taking advantage of the mare-changing-in-public psychopathy, I walked past Whistlebutt's nose, giving him a good look at my flank as I passed.  Of course, most mares wore no clothes, so it was meaningless—except contextually and by convention.  I decided not to rub my tail under his chin because, well, over-the-top.

"You are a blank flank."

Ah, he did look.  I glanced back. 

He added, "You have to be looking for it being painted on to notice it."

"You make a point of examining mare's cutie marks?"

"What of it?"  He took another sip as he also levitated my clothes.  "What is it supposed to be?"

It showed a yellow book in perspective, with white pages and a moleskin-style strap.  "A tome.  I want to make a grimoire, but haven't come up with a satisfying simplified graphic design with teeth that don't look fake when applied.  Too many stencils, besides."

His spell went ping! like a crystal goblet having been tapped.  A cloud of dirt lofted.  The sound had startled my heart into skipping, and me into starting a defensive levitation spell; guess I hadn't decided to trust him.  I turned it into a Push and blew the dirt to the floor as he started to cough.

"Maybe I don't want you to teach me that one."

"The textbook that slipped out is a giveaway of your age."

"Didn't read the title, did you?"  Published by the Mystic University.  Yeah, that one.

"Still carrying books.  You look young to somepony who's seen all types."

"Like you?"

He folded my top and then the bottom.  "I can tell you're well-educated by the way you speak.  Probably well mannered, too, judging by your studied contrarianism—"

I looked ahead and saw his high-ceilinged apartment narrowed with cabinets and closets on the right, a hallway gallery on the left, and as I got closer, a water closet at the end.  I interrupted with, "Ah ha, those must be the impressionist paintings you promised me.  Why am I not surprised: Haystacks by Mérens.  Reproductions."

His hooves clattered as he walked up.  "You think I could afford the real item?  Like you?"

I huffed.  Maybe Countess Aurora Midnight might have been able to afford an original Mérens, once she reached her majority.  This filly had had an allowance, which she had spent on books when not required to spend it on clothes to keep up her image, with the purse held by her hoof-maid so she never actually sullied her hooves with the soiled bits.  "I might have been tempted."

"Ah, ha."

I gave him a displeased glance and he snorted.  

I turned back to the pictures, all in thin understated rosewood frames with simple miters and black mats that went with his countertops and the black handles on the closets.  The Haystacks, which Mérens had painted from life, looked like small round houses with thatched roofs and thatched siding.  All Prance style, of course, not stacked bales like in Equestria.  Three showed stacks frosted with snow with the blue light of morning, and one with the gold of sunset.  The other two were spring views with green returning to the land.  At the very end I saw a different picture.  "The Irises.  Sadly, all cliché for a collection, even if I do like them."

"I bought them a few years ago when I took a student to The Maretopolitian Museum of Art in Manehatten."

Beyond The Irises, I saw six photographs of him each together with a pony wearing a gaudy gold belt encrusted with gems and spanning a fighter with red or green velvet.  Flash photography had darkened the background, but accentuated the bulk of the four earth ponies and the lithe physique of the two pegasi.  One of each tribe were mares.   At least Whistlebutt had the right stuff.  Not a wannabe.  I saw no trophy unicorn.  

Maybe he thought I'd provide the seventh photo.  

"Where do you sleep?" I asked, looking about for a clue.  "In a closet?  Oh!"  I saw a stair baluster ending in a carved fiddlehead sticking out into the doorway of the water closet and realized a stair spiraled around the loo.  I looked up.  The vaulted ceiling had given way to a loft in the back part of the apartment, supported by the cabinetry.  I immediately trotted forward.

"Hey!"

I clamored up the steps to find a converted attic space.  A dormer behind me provided light during the day, and the quarter moon supplied atmosphere now.  I saw a simple teak craftspony dresser and a matching desk spread with notepads.  A glance showed they were notes about me, including my estimated weight, reach, and pony weight lift.  A few notes stated that Trigger said this or Trigger said that.

Trigger. 

The gang member.

Another a yellow stickum note read, Tell Trigger that Mustang is a horse's rear end.

I chuckled, looking ahead toward the front and the arched windows.  In between them and me was a balcony railing where a square bed built for the space lay.  It sported forest-green satin sheets and a half-dozen pillows in pale green.  

He'd made his bed like a good colt!

I immediately jumped and rotated, landing on my back with a squeak of the springs.  I bounced and my mane flipped through the balcony pickets.

"Wow!  How nice.  I guess I missed this part more than I thought I did."  I stayed on the bedspread, and pushed the pillows aside so I didn't lay on them.  

I am not a pig.  

I did wiggle my hindquarters, digging in a little bit, luxuriating in the sensuality of real bedclothes—before sighing.  "Heaven."

I didn't hear his hooves rushing up the stairs.  Modulating my voice to make it sound like I was pouting, I said, "Aren't you going to join me?"

"That's enough!" he declared.  His voice came from the living room.

Tinkling sparkles and green magic surrounded me.  Good to know he could target "around a corner."  You'd be surprised how few unicorns could do that.  Sunburst had taught me that trick.  I felt myself lifted.  I flailed my legs and squealed, not because I was shocked but because I wanted to make a scene.  "What the hay—!"

I floated over the banister, at which point he righted me just below the rafters.  For a final touch, I thrashed my tail squirmed giving him a good view of my underside and my flank as he brought me down on my hooves with a four point clack.

My books lay on the counter, on top of the saddlebags, on top of my clothes.  I felt a spike of anger.  I looked from them to him.

He said, "Stop with the playacting.  This—"  He tapped a hoof on my Marlen's.  "—is a month's bits for most ponies!"

I shook my head.  Over the last nine months, I'd learned it was worth magnitudes more.

He pushed aside the book revealing the stained blue paper-backed journal.  "And this: The Thaumatergical Review Letters.  That's no pony's idea of light reading."

I snorted at how wrong he was.   "I dumpster-dived that one.  I visited Prancetown a few weeks ago.  You'd be surprised what moneyed ponies throw away!"

"I was saying—"

"The book is kind of like a plush bear for silly fillies.  And yes, I do sleep with it.  Give it a sniff.  It smells like me.  Wouldn't want somepony to trot away with it!"

He asked, "Did I pass your test?"

I nodded.  "Yeah.  Pretty much.   A perfect gentlecolt—though really, I wouldn't have protested had you wanted to teach me some lessons in your loft.  Not something a mare can glean from a textbook—"

"Stop it!" he hollered and I stepped back at his intensity.  "What kind of parents raised you?"

I felt my face turn to stone.  

He stepped back as I said, "At five, my world turned upside down.  I ceased to be somepony's daughter and became an orphan—an object to be molded against my will for reasons that are plainly evil.  I was forced to see my life for the fluffy illusion of security it had been, and from then on was forced to see it from the outside as somepony I did not want to become but with no choice but to endure and to play along.

"I can control what's up here."  I tapped my forehead, blinking away tears.  "And now— I can control what I do, and always be in control.  A monster taught me I had to fight, though he took something from me in exchange.  If I chose you to teach me what I missed, that's my prerogative and your choice not to.  But you— You may... not... speak ill of my parents.  Not ever!"  I was breathing hard.  

He said, "Okay.   Attitude, brains, and magical brawn.  I'm good with that.  When can we start training you?"

I swear, I felt my blood begin to boil.  One-track-mind on that stallion.  "I don't belong to you."

"I didn't say that you did."

"You don't control me either."

"I definitely get that part."

"Get this: You don't share anything you learned about me today, or ever—and I'm not confirming or denying any of those horse apples I spouted are true—and you don't share what you deduced written on those papers all over your desk, or in folders elsewhere."

"Understood."

I took a deep breath and sat down.  I magicked on my top over my head, then  stepped into the sleeves. Whistlebutt, watching me warily, sat and sipped.  He had finished half the glass.

"If the little world I've created falls apart, or I suspect anypony has learned what they shouldn't, I'll disappear."  I pulled on the bottom and put on my saddlebags.  "You will know you failed."

"I won't fail."

I got up and magicked open the door.  "I'm not feeling very trusting today."  I pressed the door closed behind me.

It opened again before I'd descended to the first landing. "Gelding!"

I looked up and saw copper bits levitate down to me.  "For the bus ride home.  Gelding, my offer's legit.  You'll be able to afford all the books you want."

I looked at the three coppers on the frog of my hoof for awhile, then dropped them into my saddlebags.  

What did I want?

"Give me space," I said finally, but the locks on Number 3 had snicked closed.
> Chapter 20 — Menu Matters
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A month later, as Celestia raised her sun over a light dusting of late season snow, I saw White Towel.  I trotted by, wearing my new uniform.  

His breath condensed around his muzzle as he said, "It's been a week and you're adding an extra block to your training each day."  He looked at the blue-green training trunks I wore, matched with a light jacket over a tank top.  All had the Bite O'Kale grocery logo embroidered on it.  "You've entered the Baltimare Celestial Race?"

"I have.  I get a raise by agreeing to race and wear the clothes.  Also, I get an extra hour paid each day I train.  I get a bonus if I finish the race.  I said, 'Yes, thank you, boss!'"

"The race is seven leagues.  It commemorates the trek of a pony three centuries ago from somewhere near where Ponyville would be founded to the gates of Canterlot Castle."

"Up hill?"

He nodded.  "Up hill.  Some earth pony spotted a Timberwolf invasion from the Everfree Forest, back when it had a much greater extent.  With no pegasi near, she ran to inform the Princess."

"Tough assignment, maybe less tough for an earth pony."

"Tough, yeah.  The mare, Sprinter, delivered her message then died from a burst heart right in front of her."

I'd seen pictures of the throne room where the alicorn held court.  I imagined a lemon yellow mare with a pink mane come huffing in, before speaking and exploding at Her Majesty's hooves.  Like a packet of ketchup underhoof.  I gulped and said, "Maybe I don't—"

"Endurance training is great, but not if you injure yourself physically, nutritionally, or by failing to rest at the proper times."

He gave me that silly-filly look adults were wont.  I straightened up.  "Bummer.  Do I sense that you are selling your services?"

He moved a hoof horizontally before him.  "Strictly on the house."

"Pro bono?"

"Pro-motionally."

"Okay, then."

"Okay, what?"

I gave him a sunshine-y smile.  "Okay.  You may train me, pro-visionally."

"Seriously?"  He grinned back.  "One condition—  No, two—"

"Awww!"

"You call me 'Coach' not 'Mr. Whistlebutt.'"

I guessed that arrow had struck the bullseye.  I nodded. 

"No flirting."

I stopped and gave him the once over.  He wore a green jacket with sheared wool around the neck.  In the sunlight, I saw crows feet around his eyes.  He had his silver whistle cutie mark bare in the cold air.  Deep in my psyche, that he had a cutie mark mattered.  

Negatively.  

I said, "You're not really my type."

The yearling Sunburst I imagined had an agile intellect.  It would be hard for anypony to surpass him physically as a young stallion.  Whistlebutt wasn't in the running in either category.  

He said, "I guess I should be relieved."

Zing!  I chuckled and trotted along. 

He followed, keeping pace, but soon crossed the street because the width of the sidewalk prevented us from walking side-by-side while studying me.  He studied me intently, once walking into a blue pegasus who squawked like a bird before fluttering over him, peppering him with some choice words I added to my mental dictionary.  He flicked an ear and took out a notepad and flipped it open, then jotted in it with a yellow pencil.  

That's when I walked into traffic at an intersection watching him.  

"Hey!" I heard.  

Not a lot of taxis in this part of town.  Working class.  Bits were precious and a pony could walk for that price.  The brown earth pony in a yellow jacket slammed her hooves down and pulled the brake on her yellow cabriolet.  I reflexively jumped back to the curb, but cast a spell to push her away, causing her and the vehicle to veer a half-pony length.

"Trotting here!" I said.

Pulling away, she said, "Blind and dumb!"

Whistlebutt looked concerned catercorner at the intersection.

"I'm okay!"

He nodded.  

I proceeded, deciding to pay attention.  Nevertheless, I did marvel at how quickly I'd cast Levitate.  As a unicorn doing an earth pony job, I used the spell constantly.  Did I know it so well that I had subconsciously shortcut the prep?  Was I so paranoid that I'd learned a new reflex to protect myself?

I really needed a magic teacher.  Though Whistlebutt wasn't a magic teacher per se, he was a unicorn.  He had promised to teach me his fighting methods.  Queuing, I think he'd called it.  Nothing had leaked out about me.  No truant officers or representatives of the crown had poked around.  I hadn't encountered gang members, though I'd seen plenty of sketchy characters, and noticed graffiti.  The style of the lettering and phrases marked territory like dogs peeing—best I could tell. 

The celestial race turned into an opportunity.  He could flaunt his stuff.  I got a free taste of his wares.  The magic would doubtlessly wait until he trained me to fight properly, but I could observe him. 

For the last five blocks, he'd definitely been observing me.  He jay-walked after waiting for a wagon-drover with barrels canter by.  "Do you have water in those saddlebags besides your books."

"It's hard to levitate liquids."

"That would be a no?"

"No."

"First advice.  Despite the cold, you sweat—or perspire if you'd rather.  Dehydration, even small amounts, counteracts your training of your muscles.  Makes you likely to injure yourself.  It leaves you quickly exhausted or, worse, headachy and feeling sick."

I nodded as he spirited a sipper flask of blue glass toward me.  I asked, "Have you drank from this?"

"No.  I guessed a few things about you."  

I realized my throat was dry as I gulped the lukewarm water.

He continued, "What about your breakfast?"

"That'll be cracked oats.  I put them in a jug with oat milk in the walk-in fridge at Kale's last night so they'll be ready when I arrive."  I licked my lips, imagining the creamy crunchy treat I had awaiting me.  "It's convenient and I don't have to store anything at Mobtown or cook in their shared kitchen.  It's packed in the morning."

"Uh, huh," he said, and trotted on.  He set a good pace, despite his age.  "Many runners choose to eat afterwards because they feel a meal diverts energy to digestion.  I'd recommend at least a juice before running.  You can't go wrong with a dilution of orange-lemon in your canteen.  More minerals than apple juice."

He let me run ahead of him and set the pace, though occasionally he told me to run around the block so he could rest.  He herded me toward the harbor district.  He sat on a bench in Riverside Park and told me trot down various paths that circled the two-dozen acres.  I ran out of steam and finally walked a bit, coming up behind him on the overlook.  I studied him as he gazed past the docks to the green-brown flow of the Palomino River below.

His ears flicked.  Without looking back, he said, "You added six city blocks over yesterday's run."

"You've been stalking me again."

"When I realized you were running, I wanted to make sure you didn't get yourself injured."

"Good excuse."

"Needing to stay hydrated was your biggest mistake thus far."  He turned around.  "Let's see the flask."

I shook it and it swished.  "I refilled it at the water fountain near the Pickle Ball courts."

"Good filly!"

I grrr'd at him and he smiled.

"Let's fix biggest flaw in your program.  You don't need carbs before you set out, except maybe on race day.  After is good, but as you push yourself, you'll need more protein than I think you're getting."

"You don't know for sure?"

"I couldn't get close enough to see if you're eating eggs or beans, since you eat at the grocery most of the time.  You've admitted you don't eat dairy.  You should, if that's a choice.  Oat milk is mostly sugars; you need to change that."  He got up and trotted downhill toward the docks.  "Let's deal with that, now."  He waved to follow. 

The masts of the clipper ships and the black stacks of a paddlewheel boat began to loom as we approached within a block of the river.  Seabirds called as they glided overhead.  Warehouses abounded, all bustling with earth ponies pulling pallet-carts of cargo or hustling crates about.  Situated between two such facilities, we trotted up to a glassed-in establishment with a green roof and awnings.  Whistlebutt liked things that were green.

"Le Petit Pescatarian Pegasus?"  I asked, skeptically, but yes, he pulled open the steel-framed door with his green aura and I followed him in.  It was one of those market plus café restaurants, with skylights that made the inside bright, but as we walked in I didn't like what I saw.  

There were wood stalls that sold imported produce like Abyssinian barley stalks, giant scaly jackfruit, and escarole.  The faux outdoor market paraphernalia looked transplanted from Prance.  However—

It smelled of the ocean.  That salt smell, and something off, not horrible mind you, but it brought up memories of visiting the beach on a damp day after a big storm had passed.  Jetsam and tidewrack.  I thought of black ropes of leafy iodine-scented seaweed on the sand.  I remembered flies buzzing around it.  I had failed to forget the silver-sided creatures that reflected the patchy sun, stranded and dead.

That specific stink did not fill my nose here.  I got evocative hints.  I smelled whiffs of bleach and pine cleaner, and...  Worrisome were two things: First, the ponies behind the counter and populating the wrought-iron cafe tables and chairs in the indoor courtyard were almost entirely pegasi, except for a scattering of earth ponies.  Yes, feathers do have a distinctive dander scent even on ponies.  And second—fish.

I looked.

Fish on ice.  Whole.  Silver and bronze.  With eyes.  I spotted giant insect-like hard-shelled creatures, also laid out on ice inside glassed-in counters.  Red-on-top and white-on-bottom with too many legs, plus articulated antennae.  I wrinkled my nose.  I later realized that the stink had been imagined, or remembered, as had been the iodine I tasted.  The restaurant was immaculate—but it had felt real to me.

I credit Whistlebutt for noticing me stiffen up. 

"Gelding, I thought you'd been brought up to have a refined palate."

I swallowed.  I didn't say anything, but in my discomfort I nodded without meaning to and almost said Sire's Hollow before I coughed out, "The town I lived in was a majority unicorn, uh, city."

He intentionally interposed himself between me and the display cases.  He pointed at the tables, full of chatting pegasi.  Above, a few pushed-together cloud tables hosted teenagers with open notebooks, studying and eating fried food.   Beyond them, I saw exposed red brick with patches of lath and plaster.  Ivy grew abundantly on the lath and clung to the brick under a peaked roof with dozens of skylights that let in mid-morning sunshine.  A few pictures of fishing boats and sunset-lit beaches shared the walls.  The ponies were mostly blue and yellow, a common pegasus color, with a couple of green ones and a single white one.  The few earth ponies where the big brawny types.  Two were red and one was a white brown-spotted Appleloosan.  The last time I'd attended school, the mean foals had called such ponies throwbacks.  This one, however, waved at Whistlebutt.

"He knows you?"

"I'm training Spilt Ink."

"Why is he here?"

Whistlebutt faced me.  "You see the green-maned yellow pegasus stallion with the white mare?  I'm training them, too.  A tag-team."

"A...?  What now?"

"Not important.  In what physical way do pegasi exceed earth ponies?"

"I—"  I caught the pegasus couple noticing us, then focus on me and my clothing.  The mare put a hoof over her mouth, clearly chuckling.  Her mane and tail were pale blue, like the ice of a glacier I'd seen pictures of in a book.  I looked into Whistlebutt's eyes, mine narrowing.  "I haven't a clue."

"Endurance and energy expenditure.  Their wings.  You run up a hill, what do you feel?"  

I noticed my exhaustion from trotting since dawn.  

"Right.  Most like to hover a lot, and the physically-inclined like to soar.  Hill climbing is a trifle compared to launching a pony weight 20-30 stories into the sky, and whether or not you soar on a thermal or just swoop and dive, as a pegasus you have to keep your wings out.  It exacts a toll.  Kinesiologists call it micro-injuries.  We try to control and cause them during training; it encourages muscle growth and ultimately builds endurance.  In pegasi, it's not training, it's a hazard and a daily occurrence.  Your body needs protein to make the repairs, more than your stomach can produce with typical equine foods.  Unlike cows or ruminants, ponies can digest protein-rich foods like milk at any age."

"That's a secretion—"  I wrinkled my nose.  Proper Step agreed I was picky, which was why there was the taste it once rule.  I'd kept him to his word, too.  And before you pin me on it, ice cream is entirely different.  It's a phase change, cooked, and mostly sugar.  And don't pin me on cream in my tea—every good establishment also offers oat creamer.

"Well, that's true.  There's archeological evidence from bone fragments that our cave pony ancestors actually ate meat, and even a True Horse will occasionally eat something that they inadvertently kill.  Pegasi—"

"—eat fish.  I guess I knew that."

"Are you squeamish?" he asked.

Truthfully, I thought about blood—I'd seen my own a few times now—not dead fish on a beach, when I said, "Nooo..."

"Or chicken?"

I stomped a hoof.  "I am not a foal!"

"Let's put it this way.  If you want to get stronger...  If you want to fight...  Diet is your key to success.  Menu matters.  Milk—"

"Ewww."

"—or fish.  Look.  It is a bit much to take in for a unicorn.  You see no unicorns here."

I looked around.  No horns in sight, nor though the kitchen serving window where ponies wore mushroom-shaped chef's hats and wielded spoons and pots with their mouths—that was another thing about non-unicorns: how was that conceivably sanitary?  I admitted, "You're right!"

"That's because we aren't as physical as the other tribes.  Not really athletic, but that doesn't mean we can't make ourselves strong, or learn to fight."  He sighed.  "Too much for one day.  I get it.  How about we try again tomorrow—"

I put a hoof on his chest as he started to herd me back to the door.  I was a strong mare.  I'd done the tough things.  I knew myself, perhaps too well.  "We do this today or I won't do it tomorrow," I confessed.

He gave a curt nod and smiled.  "Stick with me and I'll make you—"

"Right.  A champion."
> Chapter 21 — Pescatarian Mindsets
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I said, 'You'll make me a champion?'"

"I was going to say gourmet, but I like the way you think."  He grinned and led me to the ice-filled glassed-in display cases.

His quip didn't assuage my misgivings and more feelings bubbled up.  It was funny and not in a good way: my food was playing with me!  

Some of the fish were whole, eyes and all, with scales and blue markings that lightened from the dorsal fin on down.  Others were...  I couldn't think of the right term.  Rendered?  So unlike sliced squash or cubed radishes, or especially cut hay ready for hay fries.  More like tomatoes, the way it glistened, or melon.  Gelatin, maybe, but the small white, pale orange, and ominous red striated slabs didn't look like lemon, tangerine, or strawberry.  Beyond that lay seashells, some like snails but much larger, some like... Well, I knew what clams were.  I had a word for the other case.  They weren't sea-insects.  They were...

"Crustaceans," I said.  "I was tutored in ocean biology—" and I occasionally paid attention.  The smell of the seashore again filled my nose; that iodine taste reasserted itself, all thanks to my imagination.

Whistlebutt asked, "What are you thinking about?"

I looked at the armored creatures and said, "He told me it wasn't a planned storm.  Pegasi didn't cause such destruction.  It wasn't the first time I learned about monsters, but it was the first time that I understood that not all monsters were ponies."

I examined the lobsters and shrimp.  The shrimp looked like insects one might stomp caught scuttling across the floorboards.  I appraised the ranks of chitinous soldiers anticipating an antenna to twitch, expecting I'd screech if one did.  I'd encountered live crabs before.  

I related how the storm had blown in from the coast changing day to dark night in minutes, spreading out with clouds so heavy with rain that their bottoms sagged.  Then they burst.  It rained and hailed and battered homes into the higher piedmont of Grin Having, only to break a half-hour after sunset.  It left twinkling stars and the scents of electricity and a crackling in the air.

The next day, Proper Step had taken me and my hoof maid to the beach.  I wore a canvas windbreaker and the stiff breeze in the wake of the storm dragged at it and made it snap like the jib and mizzen on a yacht.  Definitely not a vacation.  Proper Step didn't take me anywhere if it didn't have a pedagogical purpose.  

No, he told me I was here to be "seen" and to "help."  Though the supernatural storm had dispersed, pegasi had populated the sky with blue-grey cumulus, letting the sun shine through anon and thither, like in poems.  

My nose became cold.  I remembered wearing a fluttering scarf.   That grey day, winds tugged at my mane and tail as they made foam break from the waves on the choppy sea.  I waved at ponies when they engaged me.  I talked about how sad it was.  I even held open bags with my magic so volunteers could fill them with detritus as the ponies of the seaside community cleared the mess.     

I remembered asking Proper Step that if monsters caused this, why hadn't somepony fought them.  He'd replied...  Funny, that.  I remembered his face framed by the heavy black coat he'd worn with the collar up, every hair of his slicked-back mane in place along with his moustache as if they'd become petrified.  

"Oh course, somepony fought.  The princess stopped by last night and rested awhile, but insisted we not wake you.  Pity.  It would have been instructive for you to host a tea for her."

I remember having frozen there, blinking not at the wind in my eyes, but that the princess had dared enter my sanctum.  Looking away, I realized I had dropped the bag I'd held for everypony.  My hoof maid took that over.  

I'd stared over the wreckage beyond, at the broken logs and cracked off branches, at the seaweed strewn across the sand, at the motionless silver-sided fish that glistened, looked slimy, and had begun to stink.  I spotted a crab.  

Not everything was dead.  

The crab scuttled sideways and poked at the fish.  The armored thing had no expression.  It wasn't an insect, but a crustacean.  A monster had brought the storm which provided him food.  In that, the windigo had actually been a force for good.

My life had strange monsters populating it.

I shook my head and saw the produce case.  Okay, I guess it didn't have produce inside.  Display case?  No, that was for something in a museum.  I shook my head and mumbled, "Whatever."  

I had related my story as I stared into whatever it was called, but had left out the names, not specified the locale, nor admitted a visitation by a hateful alicorn who existed largely to destroy my young life.  I had been staring at a blue and white crab with small claws and stalk eyes, a different species than the one I'd seen slicing away pieces of fish amongst the seaweed, but similar, too.  

A hoof grabbed it away.

I heard a register and the clink of bits.  Whistlebutt levitated a number on a steel pole as he turned toward me and I looked up.  He said, "I ordered for you."

The stallion was bigger than me.  For a moment, a kinder emotion rolled through me.  Though no pony would replace my father whom I barely remembered, he'd done a fatherly thing and I didn't have to be older than I was, always adult, being a mare that I was now—and would always be in at least one sense.  For a brief moment, I became simply an older filly, somepony that didn't have a care other than worrying about grades at school, collecting posters of her favorite colt-band, and wondering whether she would catch the eyes of a certain somepony.  Nostalgia.  For a moment, I pretended Sunburst was still around and that we were still magic buddies.

I felt like somepony's "little pumpkin."

For a moment.

I took a deep breath and said, "We're going splitsies on that— Coach."

He snorted lightly.  "Sometimes you show your age.  Adults would say 'That's fudge treat, or going fudge.'"

I nodded.  "Still—"

"Not today, Gelding."

I nodded again as he looked around for a table.  Proper Steps' training insisted that the stallion was to pay, unless there was a class distinction and the better was to pay.  Me.  

What-ev.

I spotted the pegasi Whistlebutt trained.  They sat at a large table and I trotted over.  The snowy white mare looked up.  She smiled.  

I smiled, poked a hoof over my shoulder, and asked, "So, is—  Is Coach really that good?"

Her plate had a piece of buttered bread with a chomp out of it, a couple stalks of escarole that smelled of sesame oil, and some charred—skin, maybe, that she'd chosen not to eat.  Her eyes were hard like emeralds, and sparkled with amusement.  Nothing soft about this mare, especially her muscles.  Her bangs flipped up into a scroll over the crown of her head that had to have been lacquered into place.  It looked as stiff as her attitude.

Her left wing whooshed out toward my eyes.  No warning.  No change of expression.  Pure action.

I barely managed to duck.  I felt my mane swept up and aside.

Her extended wing stopped suddenly.

A blue-green aura had caught her wing at the apex of the two bones that formed the fan of feathers—my magic.

For the second time today, I'd cast reflexively.  Or had I?  I'd sensed a threat, or rather, had trotted up with the subconscious thought of provoking.  Yeah, I'd done that.

Regardless, for an instant, I felt very proud of myself.

Our eyes locked.  My hooves clattered on the terrazzo tiles as I stepped just out of reach and let go.

She nodded.

I nodded.

"Oh, he's good," she answered, looking to her stallion companion.  With a lemon yellow coat and a long mane the color of grass piled like a hill above his head, he didn't look at all masculine.  His muscles belied that, as did the toothy smile below his magenta eyes.  He had just witnessed an unprovoked attack.  He simply nodded.

She continued.  "He's so good, the last championship he coached was the Secretariat vs Punch Drunk fight, two years ago.  He coached both fighters!"

"Can he do that?"

"He's fair."

"Good to know.  Let me guess.  Punch Drunk lost."

"Guess?  You don't follow the fights?"

I shrugged and the two fighters looked aghast.  I followed the new discipline of cutie mark science, and if his (or her) parents named their foal Punch Drunk, I could bet—

"Yeah, he lost.  On points.  A brutal matchup.  White Towel is an amazing coach!"

I heard hooves and looked to see Whistlebutt there.  "You're embarrassing me, Shadow Strike.  This is—  Do you want to go by—"

"Gelding," I said, offering a hoof.

Shadow Strike bumped it.  

"I'm On Fire," the stallion said, bumping it, too.  "Interesting name, Gelding.  Strange for a mare, but...  Hmm.  I think I've heard it somewhere."  He put a hoof to his jaw and I realized something.

He didn't look masculine because his mane was up in a bouffant.  The first time I had taken a real note of that was the day I'd met Trigger and encountered what I now knew were rival gangs.  It had set their stallions apart.  Though it had been quite cool outside, inside the restaurant felt warm—yet, inside, he wore only a wide goldenrod color scarf that wrapped his neck.  Hiding something.  A brand.  I didn't know for sure, but I knew I was right.  Like the tagging of gang "logos" on buildings and bridges to mark territories.  Living territories.

Gang member.

"It's a verb," I responded.

He chuckled.

Whistlebutt asked, "Can we join you?"

"Always, though we're just finishing.  A unicorn pescatarian?" On Fire asked.

"An initiate."

Shadow Strike said, "We'll stay.  Gotta see this."

I shuddered involuntarily.  "Thanks, I think."

"No problem."

I listened as Whistlebutt checked their training schedules.  Plates arrived soon after, introduced by a wafting scent of hot oil.  The white earthenware clicked on the metal mesh table top to display in a bed of broccolini and golden caramelized hay what looked like oblong breaded potato dumplings, brown and crocanté.  It didn't smell like fried potatoes, but the oil and pepper mixed with this other scent that, though very strange, made my mouth water.  The scent of that cheese they usually grated on spaghetti made me even hungrier.

I lifted the fork and knife and cut it open to find a slightly grey, white and pink streaked center that steamed.  I didn't wait, other than to blow swiftly on it, before popping it into my mouth.

Yes, I lived dangerously.  As did Shadow Strike and On Fire: Had I spat it out explosively, I might have hit them.

I chewed and tasted and felt my eyes widen and my skin blush.  I was already cutting another piece when I swallowed and said, "This is really good!  Crab right?"

"Aww," Shadow Strike said, obviously anticipating the explosive ejection of food.  "Too bad."

"Not a total loss," On Fire said, adding, "It's always good to see a cute little filly smile in amazement.  Oof!"

That had earned him an elbow to the chest.  "Gotta go," Shadow Strike said, pulling up her companion with a wing as she stood.  They were a couple, then.

Yes, the crab croquettes had cheese on them.  That's a milk product, I know, but cheese was spoiled and fermented and molded, stuff like that.  As far as I was concerned, it didn't count as milk anymore.  I made short work on the three pieces and eye'd Whistlebutt's plate.

He said, "That's enough.  New food should be introduced slowly.  You wouldn't want to be put off your feed."

"Sweet Celestia, no!" I said.

That Her name had passed my lips said volumes about my level of enthusiasm, though he hadn't a clue.  "Coach?"

"Yes."

"Thanks for breakfast.  Still kind of hungry.  Can I have my oats when I get to work?"

"Yes, and eat more.  Start weighing yourself.  Don't let yourself lose weight; weight loss counters you working to build muscle."

"Yes, Coach," I said and that got a grin out of him. 

I spotted a heap of caramelized hay pushed aside on On Fire's abandoned plate.  Like an earth pony, I reached a hoof across the table and dragged his plate over.  I couldn't count the number of times I'd dumpster dived discarded food or grazed in parks over the last year.  It didn't bother me grabbing the plate.  I thought it educational for Whistlebutt to disabuse him of thinking that I might be some father's coddled filly princess.  

For his part, he just snorted and chewed on his grilled swordfish.
> Chapter 22 — Celestial Race
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Training for the celestial race proved to be more of the same, with refinements of what Whistlebutt called my "biomechanics."  

It took me days to understand what he meant about not twisting the stifle joint near my hip or reaching properly with the postern of my right foreleg.  He even positioned me like one of those wooden pony dolls with bulbous joints that you pose when you're practicing figure sketching.  The speed of my trot improved the instant I got what he meant.  When he threatened to swat my flank when I didn't gallop in my sprints, I found myself less exhausted and less achy when I galloped.  

He left me to my own recognizance except to have me occasionally loop around the block so he could appraise my approach and me heading away.  The more I increased my workout, the less he could keep up. 

Oh, yeah.  One other thing.  He insisted I rest every third day, and on my day off from the grocery.  Rest was as important as exercise, he insisted, and the mornings I decided his idea was daft, I found him waiting outside Mobtown reading a book or talking sports with the early-risers.  One day, I found him there two hours before sunrise when it was still cold.  I promised to abide, not because he'd convinced me but because I didn't want to be accused of elder abuse!  

That got me to the race exactly four weeks after Winter Wrap-up on a sunny too-hot day.  The race promoters had water available all along the course.  I put my double-brown-sugar oat energy bars in a fabric purse around my neck in case I started dragging half-way, thus I carried as little weigh as possible.  That I sweated up my silken tank top and trunks, making it stick in cracks and ride up didn't make me happy, but Bit O'Kale sponsored me and he paid the bills.  

I decided the dark stains made my efforts look more dramatic.  Lemonade from lemons!

With pegasi in the race, even with their wings bound, there was no chance I could win.  Pound for pound, pegasi are the lightest of the three tribes and often the fastest.   Yes, an earth pony mare won first place that day, but the six at her flank were pegasi.  

No way was I trying for first.  No training could have enabled that possibility.  It would take stupidity on the part of a non-unicorn athlete to let a much less strong unicorn beat them.  I did try my best, especially when breezes from the docks conspired to keep me from overheating every so often.  My throat and lungs burned, no matter how much water I drank.  Sometimes, even going downhill, it felt like I couldn't lift another hoof and that I was climbing a vertical wall despite what my eyes told me.

Whistlebutt had taught me to expect this, and to ignore it.  The Wall was an "illusion."  I had trouble with illusion spells, so what he said seemed reasonable.  Reality proved hard as a brick wall.  Each time I broke through, the illusion returned.  I felt like I slogged through molasses, or that my horseshoes had turned to gold.  (Gold is denser than lead or iron.)  Regardless, I did my sprints on the downhill and kept on keeping on, knowing that Bite of Kale was counting on me in his enthusiastic old stallion way.

Of course, with a nod toward the historical significance of the race—undoubtedly to honor Sprinter's poor little exploded heart—the last half-league was uphill.  I groaned.  Compared to the steep red brick switchbacks of Ponyville Way that I descended last year, this was a gentle slope—though a slope by any name was still a slog! 

By the time I turned a corner and saw the yellow finish line banner fluttering in the breeze, with my heart thudding in my chest and the blood pounding in my head, the celestial race felt way too historically authentic.  

Sprinter had felt this.  

No wonder she'd died.

A racer bumped my flank.  I responded with an instant push spell and a, "Back off!"

Suddenly, I went from being lodged in my misery to an almost out-of-body sense of euphoria.  Details flooded into my eyes, ears, and nose.  I saw rows upon rows of cheering ponies lined up along the road and waving, newly leafed out trees behind them sporting sweet smelling pink and white flowers.  I smelled my own sweat and the salt scent of the obviously staggering unicorn stallion that plodded beside me.  The black-maned red fellow hadn't even felt my shove.  He was as dazed as I'd been.  I heard the clatter of hooves all around me, barely keeping a rhythm.  

Last, I saw the magic counter beside the finish line.  The big red neon digits—in black cubes suspended in a clear globe of blue nebulosity—read, 97. 

Right, you thought I might possibly win or place somewhere in the race?  Not happening.  Unicorn, like I said.  I completely ignored the ticking time clock on the opposite side of the course as it was completely meaningless.  Yet, in that instant, 100 felt like a nicely round number that would please my sponsor very nicely, might prove fodder for an additional raise or bonus, and thus became insanely desirable.  

My brain on endorphins!

I picked up my trot as, by the rhythm change behind me, did the other ponies.  I quickly left the red unicorn behind me, while a blue pegasus found the reserve to leap over the finish line, then unceremoniously face plant on the cobblestones.  He'd probably forgotten his wings were tied.

98.

Five pony lengths ahead of me, a green earth pony with a lilac-striped blue mane kept pace with a purple unicorn with a white mane.  

Ahead of them trotted a perfectly proportioned golden-maned long-legged palomino model.  She wore a pink silk headband and custom rose-decorated tube socks that accentuated the pricy brass Manticore-brand athletic horseshoes she wore.  Earth pony though she may have been, her long-legged stride demonstrated she was not pushing herself.

Nevertheless, she crossed the finish line next.

99.

Without announcing my intent, I slowly closed on the two remaining runners in front of me.  My throat burned like a desert and I could hardly quiet the loud huffing sounds I made.  I didn't know how much juice I had left, but I reserved it for the final sprint.  I discarded any thought of pushing aside either opponent.  It wasn't a fight, after all.  I'd be disqualified for cheating.  I really didn't want to disappoint Bite of Kale.

That didn't mean I didn't keep a eye on the purple stallion's horn.  I spared a few brain cells to think about the targeting distance to his left rear leg, so if he tried something I could retaliate.  I pushed little magic into my horn, keeping it unlit, just enough that I wouldn't have to approximate the vectors while stumbling or being levitated.

I did have to dodge a lilac-striped blue tail that snapped toward my nose, maybe not by accident, but it did point out an error on my part.  I had been trying to worm between two ponies on the two-lane highway out of the city heading toward Woodberry.

I purposely lost a step in my rhythm, fell back and drifted to the left so it sounded, I hoped, like I was falling back quickly while staying out of their peripheral vision.  As the pair began their final sprint, their sights on each other, I kept up.  

They forgot me and sped up in increments, trying to keep together with each other without wasting the very last of their energy with a burst of speed that might conversely cause them to lose.

At ten pony lengths from the yellow-striped black line that marked the finish, I lowered my head and broke into my bio-mechanically perfect gallop.  The green mare and purple stallion noticed...

Too late.  I had two pony lengths on them before they adjusted their gait.  I didn't make the mistake of leaping that final distance as the pegasus had, but kept galloping.

A good thing, too.  The red unicorn that had stumbled into me before had copied my strategy.  I saw his head bob close to my withers as the two of us placed 100 and 101 ahead of the preoccupied duo just behind us.

The both of us fell into a canter, but like me, he knew better than to stop.  Whistlebutt had warned me not to stop, but to cool down.  He'd insisted Sprinter's exploding heart had been not the result of the run but her sudden stopping.

"Congrats!" huffed the stallion, falling to a three-legged trot that I matched as he offered a hoof-bump.  I began giggling outrageously, but gave him that bump.

Whistlebutt trotted up with a water bottle in his magic, while a race official in a white hat came by and said, "100—" that was me "—follow me!"

I followed the official as Whistlebutt transferred the bottle to my magic and shouted over the cheering crowd, "Good job, Gelding!"

I popped the bottle top and poured the iced water over my face and mane.  The cold shock somehow sent my heart speeding more.  Barely walking now, I felt like I was stiffening with impending rigor mortis.  I asked the official, "Where are you leading me?"

I thought, Wait, did I get disqualified?

The stallion glanced back.  "Gelding, is it?  Interesting name."

"That's a verb.  And it's Starlight Starbright."  I'd registered under that name.  I glanced back at Whistlebutt.

My coach said, "I knew that."

"Of course you knew that.  Don't use it."

He made a zipping motion across his lips.

The race official laughed and said, "You were the first unicorn to cross the finish line.  Where do you think we're going?"

I gasped, which was pretty difficult considering I was still breathing hard. "Pictures?"

"Yep.  And a medal."

"Celestia on Roller-skates!"  Whispering, I said, "No, no, no, no..."  I glanced back at my flank.  My trunks were dark green from the sweat.  Worse, yellow from my right cutie mark had actually started to bleed through the fabric.  Hair spray lacquer could withstand only so much rubbing and moisture.  It looked like a spreading buttermilk spill.  I'd tied my tail and mane into a bun, as I usually did, pushing in the green stripes to hide them.

The whole 'do had frayed.  Green hairs made it look like my tail was a pot from which grass had started to sprout.  My peripheral vision showed me that my mane was no better.

Pictures.

In a major Baltimare newspaper.  

Did any deliver to Sire's Hollow?  Might the local paper cover sporting events?  I had never followed sports, so I didn't know.  

I didn't know!
> Chapter 23 — Career Change
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The life I'd carefully constructed looked ready to unravel.  

"Whoa there, Gelding," Whistlebutt said, touching a hoof to my withers.  He added lowly, "I understand you want to protect your Power Puff Pony super-secret identity.  I'll help with the green hairs, but you've got to slow down."

I swallowed hard, realizing I'd found a burst of adrenalized energy and slowed from a trot to a mere plod.  I saw the grandstands he led me to, with reporters and photographers and, in between, Bite of Kale.  

My boss was actually bouncing in his excitement.  Didn't he know how old he was?

Whistlebutt squirted water in my mane.  "Easier to keep them tucked in."

When he squirted my bunned tail, I tensed up and walked like an automaton.  It felt weird, him steadying himself with a hoof on my dock while tucking hairs with his magic.  I realized suddenly I could do this myself, and realized further that my wits had been scattered and I needed to gather them back up.  

He said, "Towels."

"What!?"

He pointed toward the sponsor tables where folded towels were stacked.  Though many pony lengths away, I grabbed two and I saw his differently green magic grab another water bottle from a steel vat of ice water. 

"Wait," he said as I unfolded my load.  

He squirted the cutie mark that bled yellow onto my green trunks.  The stain dripped away.   

He inhaled sharply.  "Uh, oh!  I hope you're still overheated..." 

He had snatched the towels from me and dunked them in a vat of ice water.  I barely had time to gasp at his idea before he slapped the towels over my saddle area, hiding my midriff.  Cold.  I gasped loud enough to get looks, then shuddered as he proceed to wrap the second towel around my neck.  I gasped again.

The cold and wet did feel good, though.

He was camouflaging the color of my coat, disrupting the obvious cues to my appearance, and making the wet towels more memorable than things like some dye bleed on my flank.  He tied the frigid fabric tightly around my neck so it wouldn't slip, tight enough that I felt blood pulsing from my still rapid heart.

I had a thought about hiding in plain sight. "Reading glasses?"

He shook his head at the non-sequitur.  "Huh?"

"Reading glasses?" I hissed. 

He grunted and a red square-frame pair levitated up to my eyes.  They were half-height.  I could look over them.  

As I passed the Bite O'Kale sponsor table, the bouncing old stallion and about two dozen grocery store fans began stomping their hooves.  "Yay Starlight!"  "Well done!"  "So proud!"

On the table, beside samples of apples and, of course, ornamental edible kales, I saw billed-hats and tee-shirts.  "May I?" I said, grabbing the unicorn version of the hat and placing it on my head, stuffing my still damp bun into it so it pulled up on the back of my neck and back from my horn, disguising one additional feature of the still missing runaway Countess Aurora Midnight.

Bite of Kale was already bouncing in for a big sweaty hug, but the race official motioned frantically for me to hurry after him.  I shrugged as I picked up my trot to get beside the white pegasus wearing a Baltimare Celestial Race-branded white jacket.  "We've now got the three winners, so we're going to do a swift awards ceremony.  There will be a big dinner ceremony tonight, so don't be late!" He looked at a clipboard hoofed to him.  "Starlight Starbright... that's how you want to be addressed?"

He saw me gaze suspiciously to the crowd of ponies dressed in button-down casual non-athletic dress, some with pads of paper in-hoof or floating together with pencils, and a gaggle of photogs still screwing in flash bulbs.  He said, "Awards and pictures first.  Then you visit your sponsor, then we call you for a press interview."

"I signed up for this?"

"Actually you did, if you read the entry form.  Quick, what do you want to be called?"

I mumbled, "Mmm... Starbright."

"Mrs. Starbright?"

She shoots, she scores—a buckball reference for the rest of you!  I nodded.

He stopped and adjusted the towel around my neck to push it away from my number placard so it didn't read just 66.  That also made the Bite O'Kale gold embroidery logo completely visible, too.  "On the podium.  Fastest time to the left."

A brown, stilt-legged, thin but muscular earth pony with a short tan mane and tail stood to the left.  Next to her was a pink pegasus with a golden mane that curled outrageously, looking like cumulus clouds above her with smoke trailing behind.  Dents in her hair showed she'd tied it back previously—and maybe should have left it that way.  Perspiration dripped from her hairline.

I, of course, dripped on the podium in large splats.  At least I wasn't overheated anymore.

I bumped hooves, click, clack.  I got a "Congrats!" and a "That was a great time for a unicorn!  Nice."

"Thank you," I said, stepping up beside them.

"Mares and Gentlecolts, may I present this year's tribal winners of the 207th annual Baltimare Celestial Race!  Bolt, from Saddle Arabia."  He pointed at the earth pony.  "Arrow Trace from Vanhoover.  And Mrs. Starbright, a Mobtown resident."  

As the press and the gathering crowd of hundreds stomped their applause thunderously, I marveled that any city would want mob in any moniker for their town.  The word had many connotations, all of them bad as I recalled.

Another race official, a unicorn with silver-grey hair and pale blue fur walked up and magicked on a gold medal suspended by a blue ribbon.  The second he stepped aside, the flash bulbs began popping.  Despite the bright day, I still blinked and took the opportunity to push the reading glasses up—intentionally ruining scores of photos.

All three of us in the winner circle had sponsors, so off I trotted.

Bite of Kale was still bouncing, or had started again.  Keeping strategically to the opposite side of the table from him, I said, "Mrs. Kale is going to get on your case again if you come home aching."

He grinned and kept springing like a pony half his age.  "You won!  You won!  Best investment in years.  So happy!"  He lowered his voice as he added, "Mrs. Kale can kiss my—"

"—I really tried," I said quickly then added, looking down and affecting the bashfulness that he preferred, "I kinda think it was lucky that I came in first for the unicorns."

"Nonsense.  You give everything 120%!  However, um...  Why didn't you ever tell me you were married, Mrs. Starbright?"

I coughed.  "Does it really matter?"

"No."  His grin momentarily morphed into a bit of a leer before he added, "Of course not."

I whispered, "Actually, the race official got the name thing all wrong..."

He stopped.  I stopped.  We both laughed, and weirdly all the Kale fan club laughed with us.  I saw that many of them had fibrous green stuck between their teeth.  Samples.  I sensed an odd symmetry to the scene.

Whistlebutt had stood away from me during the medal ceremony and my schmoozing during my return to the sponsor table, but as I followed the white race official who fetched me a few minutes later, my coach trotted along side.  I sensed this was him being experienced in these things and acting professional.

He seemed to be commenting on my thought when he said to me, "The more I watch you, the more I realize you are always acting.  I wonder who the real Gelding is."

I felt my left eyebrow raise as a proxy for my still damp hackles.  It was possibly one of the worst things he could have said to me, but he hadn't finished.

He added, "Don't worry.  I know our deal; I'll stick to it, absolutely."

"Do that."

Reporters starting shouting questions.  Shutters clicked.

"How does it feel to have won the race?" was the clearest question.

I snorted.  "Exhausting."

Amid the resulting laughter, I added, "Unexpected.  I just trained hard because I wanted to please Bite of Kale of Bite o'Kale Grocery who invested so much in me.  He really cares about everything!"  Including having a pretty stocking clerk around, which I did not add.

I fielded a bunch of other questions about how I worked to cross the finish line as the 100th contestant when three other ponies had turned the last hundred pony lengths into a tough race.  I recounted all that, and described my training regime, what I had eaten (and that I now liked fish).  I asked to have explained some nerdier sports jargon in the reporter's questions.  "I'm new to this athletic stuff.  Have mercy on me."

That got a flurry of different questions about my background that I redirected until a rather rotund pegasus, a tan white-spotted one who had used sports jargon on me twice—and explained it—asked, "I see Coach White Towel is with you.  Is he your trainer?"

"Yes...  Yes, he is."

"Is coaching races a new thing for him?" he followed up, not addressing Whistlebutt who stood behind me.  "He usually coaches prizefighters.  Are you a fighter?"

...Was I...?

I liked the fighting I had done, and it had brought out the best in me magically, but it wasn't what he meant.  

I glanced back, then grinned widely.  Whistlebutt nodded, stepping slightly forward.

"You're training for the fights?"

Whistlebutt answered, "We've yet to work out the technicalities—"

Reporters shouted over each other, and the few reporters that had lingered around Bolt and Arrow Trace after their interviews seemed to startle.  They looked my way, then trotted quickly to join the gaggle.  With Whistlebutt beside me now, more flash bulbs went off, and photographers moved closer in to get us in a tight frame.  I shielded my eyes with a hoof.

I was really glad of the towel, the glasses, and the hat.

Whistlebutt raised his voice and continued, "If all goes well, I expect her to enter the arena later this summer."

"Is she—" "—have the stuff—" "Is she good?" "Can anypony beat Cyclone Beaujangles?"

He raised a hoof.  "I wouldn't offer to train her if she didn't have championship potential."

"She's a unicorn!" an old pegasus gasped and shouted the obvious.

"Yes.  She fights smart and mean."

"I'm known as Gelding," I said, peering at the crowd through narrowed eyes.  

When that got a few blinking blank stares, I added, "That's a verb!"  I flexed my muscles, showed my teeth, and growled like a rabid dog.  

The reporters, despite their otherwise sporting professional demeanor (which granted wasn't really well-mannered), found themselves cheering and raising hooves in the air.  That made my face heat up.

"Remember, Cyclone is still middleweight, maybe even edging into heavyweight class.  My protégé here is a standard welterweight—"

So he knew my weight, too?  "I'll fight him," came out of my mouth.

Silence, for a heartbeat.

A tall red earth pony, whom I'd asked a newbie sports question back when I didn't understand his jargon, now shouted, "Do you even know who Cyclone is!?"

Another cried, "He beat Secretariat!"

"Beat him up, you mean."

I asked Whistlebutt, "Your last champion, Coach?"

He nodded.  

"Do I have a chance?"

"Maybe.  He's an earth pony."

The reporters started shouting questions again. 

Whistlebutt said, "He'll have to slim down and come down a weight class, though.  She's well muscled, and I'm not letting her gain an ounce of fat—or become a cartoon character like some ponies—" implying Cyclone "—to go up a weight class.  Cyclone's fat and musclebound.  His decision."

"I'll fight him."

Silence ensued, again.

Whistlebutt locked eyes with me and I looked into his green ones for at least ten seconds, then he grinned.  "Coach Reaver, Cyclone's coach, isn't going to be happy when he hears that."

I turned to the crowd and said, "Awww.  Too bad!"

Even the other winners and more of a crowd had gathered to see what the hubbub was about, but Whistlebutt said, "Thank you, but that's all for now."

As we walked back toward the sponsor tables, he even raised his voice at the reporters following us.  He'd dealt with fight reporters before, I gathered, and he put them in their place by naming their individual names as in, You keep this up and I won't let you interview us.

It didn't take many steps before I encountered Bite of Kale.  He'd probably tagged behind me to see if I mentioned the grocery in the press gaggle.  Obviously, he'd gotten an earful.  Two earfuls.  He wasn't bouncing anymore.

He asked, soberly, "Are you really training to be a fighter?"

I couldn't tell from his tone whether he was about to fire me or if he was merely curious.  I couldn't read him, and since I'd been hoping for a raise or bonus and didn't want to lose my job right now, I lowered my ears and stuttered when I said, "Y-yes.  G-going to be."

His mouth just opened and hung there.  Then a "Wow!" came out.  He raised a hoof to the side of his mouth, as if he were speaking confidentially, but with reporters trying to hear as we walked away, and the herd of ponies and Kale fandom around us, that was impossible.  He said, "Mrs. Kale is an intense fights fan.  She goes to every local event.  What's the word they use these days...?  She'll be stoked!  You realize you'll still have to keep your primary hours at the store, right?"

I nodded.  "Rrright."

He reached out and got that hug he'd been jonesing for since I'd first seen him.  I made an oof sound.

As Whistlebutt and I trotted off, moving rapidly, I asked, "How popular are the fights, really?"  Looking back, I saw the reporters who knew better than to follow but were still following.  The photographers were still taking shots, and I reflexively dragged the towel back over my flank. 

"You have no idea what just happened."

"You're right," I said, shaking my head.

"Your demure deadpan trash talk is perfect.  Keep it up."

"O-Okay."

"About Cyclone...  That challenge is going to get back to him and Reaver.  I want you to know he's dangerous."

"How so?"

"Enough so that I would say, start watching your flank.  He was a street fighter I recruited when he was sixteen.  I got him cleaned up and got his nose clean.  A typical bully, he associated with the Marvel gang and got caught twice for thuggery in some protection scheme.  After I'd gotten him to focus and build muscle in the right places, Reaver swooped in and snagged him.  He even paid out the contract I'd signed him to.  I can't prove it, but I'm sure he's on 'roids."

I had him explain the sports jargon word and felt my eyes widen.

"Street fighter?" I asked.

"That's the important point.  With an ego and undeniable testosterone poisoning.  If you see a big blue muscular dude with a red Mohawk, best slip away, else engage him in the middle of a street or in a crowd.  In an alley, or where nopony is around, he might use weapons, or crowd you and panic you with his sheer bulk.  He has no stamina for a long bout, and he knows it.  He attacks first and he attacks hard, trying to make you think he's a maniac, to panic you, and he holds grudges."

"Sounds like a certain princess I know," I murmured.

"Certain—  What?"

"Ignore me."

He shook his head.

"Do you know where the Silver Stream Gym is, on West Chester?"

"Three blocks from the hostel, with the unlucky horseshoe sign out front?"  It pointed down because the very prominent bolts had rusted out.

"The one.  Be there tomorrow morning at 8 AM.  I'll talk to Bite of Kale and get the day off for you."

"You think?"

"You know it.  As to your question.  The fights are very popular.  Welterweight is the most popular weight class for the sport."

I lifted my gold medal in my green magic.  It depicted a prancing unicorn high-tailing it with 207th Annual Baltimare Celestial Race written in script around the edge.  It felt light.  I could tell without biting it that it was gold plated.  "What about the soirée tonight?"

"I know you don't want to go, so I'm not pushing it.  Considering that..." he pointed behind us.  

A few hopeless hopeful reporters jotting notes followed well behind as we retreated.  I was beginning to wonder if there'd be bigger columns written about me as a fighter than about me as the unicorn winner of the race.  I was glad I'd gotten the name Starlight not mentioned.  There was the barest possibility that Proper Step remembered what Sunburst called me, and it would not take too much for him to possibly see through my flimsy disguise, were he allowed to contemplate a big newspaper photo of me.  

"Considering their reaction, you'd actually learn the true meaning of Mobtown were you to go."

I didn't plan to go.
> Chapter 24 — Pretty in Pink
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I got a different impression of the gym than I'd gotten having passed it by.  A tenement faced the cross-street, a former warehouse that like this one had been converted into housing.   You could see extra floors through the tall warehouse windows, the type with wire in the glass to withstand breaking when hit with stones.  The new floors were hard to miss, as was the laundry hung to dry from the awning windows that were operable.  Built on a downslope between streets, it revealed a long angling solid wall like a receding gum line reveals the roots of an old pony's teeth.

I took a good look at the white paint that curled away from the reclaimed brick lower class buildings were typically built with.  It looked like dried mud, and made the building resemble a cockroach going through a molt.  The sign, though... 

The rusty bolts were intentional decoration.  The real fasteners held the unlucky horseshoe tight to the wall.  A close look reminded me of the good silver back home, just before some hoofpony polished it, you know, oily black dust on dull metal...  The sign might really be silver.  Didn't bode well for membership costs.  

The open door was big, blocky, solid metal, painted blue, and repainted so many times that I could see ridges where previous brush strokes had forced subsequent paint to augment existing grooves.  The stairs downward were swept clean up to the grit accumulated in the space between the riser and tread.  The wood had worn into visible troughs to show where right and left hooves had trod over some untold eon.  The light shone brightly, even if it were a naked bulb in a cheap porcelain fixture.

The grunge ambience, if you could call it that, struck me as calculated.

It didn't take more than a few steps before that old gym-sock smell, mixed with the stink of excessive perspiration, struck my nose like a punch to the muzzle.

This was no gym for wimps or norms.  Nah-uh.

The bottom of the stairs revealed a basement that had once been cold storage for the former warehouse.  Brick partitions criss-crossed the space with wide arches that buttressed and supported the weight of the building.  It reminded me of the wine catacombs I'd seen in an archeology book.  Intervening non-load-bearing walls had been demolished, and you could see bricks that hung from mortar but did naught but make the space look demolished.  The decorating themes had undoubtedly been both "crude" and "unrefined."

For all that, a string of bare bulbs left the whole expanse exceptionally well lit.  With the calculated slipshod opening of the space, half a block in depth and breadth, every nook and cranny looked stocked or utilized—

I reflexively jumped back onto the steps.

A three lane running track ran the perimeter of the space and a pegasus a-hoof had purposely sped past my nose.  I saw his moss green tail snap at me; the tan cur raised a wing to wave.  He chuckled as he called back, "Foals should look both ways before crossing a street!"

Face hearting up, I jerked—catching myself before racing after.  Though my upbringing taught me little about sports, other than my self-defense training, I'd read a novel or two where the stallion love interest had endured fraternal or military hazing to the empathetic consternation of the mare protagonist.  I'd been hazed myself, having become a nomad (ponies didn't like the name hobo), having lived in homeless encampments last year.  Depending on how threatened I'd felt, it didn't end well for the hazing individual—nor me.  I remember one snowy night being stupidly left no choice but to seek the protection of a tree and the heat of a blanket of rotting leaves heaped there by the wind.  

"Self-control," I admonished myself, hopping over the track despite the next red stallion being ten pony lengths away. "There's always later."  I smiled.  "Honey catches the unsuspecting flies."

Coach Whistlebutt came trotting from the weigh-training machines.   One clattered loudly as a bulky white earth pony released a stack of square weights on a cable.  The word "gym" came from the root of a word that meant "exercise naked."  Many stallions did just that, providing, for example an—let's just say educational—view of the white male mammal that had been doing squats at the machine that had just clattered.  I gave him a calculated grin before looking dismissively away.  

Despite my history of using nudity psychology to my advantage, I was about to turn that strategy on its ear.  Yesterday afternoon, a race official had trotted over with news after Whistlebutt had left.  He'd said, "There's a cash prize for unicorn first place—at the dinner."  

He'd read me well.  He'd handed me two tickets, though I judged that wearing the gold medal meant I'd get in.  I'd sold both.  

Two things about the soirée, no three:  One, it was a mob scene; I was happy to stand behind the velvet ropes.  Two, the buffet was good—and the nine medal winners got first dibs.  Three, I shocked the pegasus second place winner, her name was Lift, when I went directly for the grilled salmon and crab cakes.  She stumbled and broke her plate.  

The five gold-bit prize made me happy.

I'd left after the after-dinner presentation, avoiding the meet-and-greet.  It meant shoving aside a particularly persistent purple paparazzi.  Considering my prospective new career, it was time to build a reputation.  

Besides, I had shopping to do before Sacks or Needful Markups closed downtown.  I was preparing for my next career, one where I'd have to deal with muscle-herds of the stallion persuasion.  While I found some of my ensemble off the shelf, I also had to buy some fabric and pieces in need of tailoring by closing time.  With silver bits to throw around, I convinced a pair of sisters to run their sewing machines past midnight, darting and seaming very special outfits to my specifications.

Here's a lesson: Anything you learn can be useful.  

The year before I ran away, the manor housed a servant named Thimblelina, a unicorn with a scary silver needle and thimble cutie mark, a silver-white coat, and a red and purple streaked mane.  The name "Mousey" would have suited her better for that's the way she acted, scared of her shadow, always skulking in and out without interacting.  

Proper Step had tasked her with tailoring my wardrobe.  Fillies grow out of clothes quickly.  Already deep in my goth period, I wasn't particularly pleased that Proper Step had ordered that my black and grey-brown frill skirts and button-down blouses be hemmed last.  I'd ordered Thimblelina to work on what I'd wanted, not the waltzing dresses she been told to work on for an upcoming event.  

Yes, in my desperation that I might not be able to wear my favorite clothes, I had threatened to rip the hems she worked on.  That merited me massive waterworks; she thought I might fire her, which I guess was what I'd implied.  She acted like she might die.

Thus I learned the facts of class oppression first-hoof.  I also realized the whole thing might backfire and I might lose what little I'd won in my musical and clothing rebellions.  I apologized and apologized, and began wheedling to get her to teach me how to sew.  

She liked that about as much me threatening to rip hems.  It was "below my station!", but I'd demonstrated I could be the cur and insisted.  What could she do but comply?  She'd been taught by her mother, and when I stopped being threatening, she taught me what she could.

It was beneath my station; she worried what she did might get out, but I liked the extended periods of silent concentration as we worked together.  She liked the warmth and comfort of my "parlor", my room, over the stark servants' workroom despite the boy-band framed posters, the thick curtains I kept shut, and the occult pentagon and skull souvenirs of concerts I'd never been allowed to attend.  

The work involved magic and calculation, constantly moving needles, tying knots, releasing hems, cutting fabric, and holding fabric together in shape and in place.  She taught me how to build dresses from scratch, using and authoring patterns.  Thimbles fascinated her because she'd failed to learn how to provide an opposite magic force when she pushed a needle.  It had been one of the things Sunburst helped me with so I helped her improve her magic over the four months we worked together.

She still liked thimbles when she departed for her next position, but the last thing she told me was she was faster now and would be able to earn a better wage.  It left me wondering about ponies being bound to their cutie marks.  Was the thimble on her flank obsolete?  

Along the way, I'd learned the fundamentals of dressmaking.  I added to my wardrobe enough elegant dark pieces that I could occasionally slip them into my daily wear.  

With that knowledge, I'd prepared for my adventure at the gym.

I wore pink.

Don't laugh!  

I pretty much instantly had all pony eyes on me for being flash, if not for nearly getting flattened by a pegasus on the track, or overtly ogling an earth stallion, or for having a famous fight coach trotting over to greet me.  Of the hundred-odd ponies working out, even the dozen or so mares looked my way.  I merited frowns and a few looks of disgust from that quarter.  I huffed.  I didn't care a single horse apple; if they thought it reflected badly on sports-mares, they needed to toughen up.

I wore a hoodie of a thin velvety material that felt like velour, but kept me cool as I had trotted in the warming morning air.  It would breathe because it was an enchanted "technical" fabric far too expensive for me to have budgeted—but if it worked as it should when I sweated, it would be worth it.  I'd tailored it.  It draped exactly along my barrel with slits to allow freedom of movement and dipped into tails exactly where it fastened at my dock, as if it had been made especially for me, which it had.  I'd braided my tail and dyed it completely purple.  The tails of the hoodie hid my actual tail, but if I lashed it they didn't restrict me.  I'd dyed and braided my mane, also, piling it up into a couple of loops atop my head like a basket and pinned it there with a stick.

The hoodie hid it all, and shadowed me up to the end of my muzzle.  This counterintuitively made my eyes standout—I'd checked in a mirror.  The brightness of the pink made my lavender coat grey by contrast; I liked that.  The color and cut left no dispute as to my gender.

"Gelding?"

I lowered my hood and smiled.

"You've reinvented yourself, again."

"Too subtle?" I asked and batted my eyelashes.

He narrowed his eyes and sighed loudly.  "We have an agreement."

"Flirting, not allowed."

"Good, then.  Follow me.  I chose this gym not because it's close to you, but because it's the best fight gym and it'll accommodate your, uh, peculiarities."

Besides the red of the bricks and the dirty grey-color carpeted floors, blackened steel machines dominated our path beside the running path perpendicular to the entrance.  The primary colors—reds, deep blues, dark greens, and golden brown—of the ponies sitting between stacks of weighted cables added color as we passed.  Many looked bewildered.

I kind of liked bewildered in ponies.

As we approached the east wall of the gym, the clack of weights going up and down returned, along with the chatter of voices.  I saw signs that were drawings, suggesting exercises and repetitions.  I saw others that warned about using weights properly, doing stretches, and how to stop bleeding.  

Sweet.  

We headed toward wide-open double-doors from which came a damp scent.  I looked both ways before crossing the running track.

I heard showers.  The floor changed from grey carpeting to white and green hexagon tile, the type laid down in mats.  The grouting around the sheet seams looked cockeyed and was a different color than that around the smaller square pale yellow wall tile.  Inside, I saw a long line of green stalls, which from the sound of flushing had to be the loos.  A rose-pink pegasus mare fluffed her feathered wings in front of one of a long line of steel sinks admiring herself in front of a scratched mirror, then proceeded to preen with her lips.  Beyond her, I saw a line of lockers also painted green, some of which were either bagged up or had been pried open and mostly fixed.   Across from them came clouds of steam.  In between was a blond wood bench.  It looked in good shape, polished smooth by an endless supply of pony flanks.  A palomino earth pony with a white towel over his withers sat hunched over, looking exhausted, beside a folded business suit and a red tie.  He didn't notice when we walked by.

I passed the open showers.  Two mares soaped each other to one side.  An old blue unicorn stallion stood with his eyes closed, blissfully enjoying an endless stream of hot water.

I felt my lips compress.  Unisex facilities.  At the end, we came to a partition.  Stained brown canvas had been stretched over yellow scaffolding and irregularly sewn into a "room."  It cut off five pony lengths of the communal showers and a third of a bench.  A gate was wired into the scaffold and had been locked with a padlock.  

Whistlebutt held the key in his magic.

"How thoughtful," I said, taking it.

"Not 'thank you?'"

"Thank you," I said, curtseying.

He pointed at my hoodie and said, "Please don't make this harder for me than it has to be."

I unlocked the padlock and pushed open the gate.  I saw an open floor-to-ceiling locker with another padlock and a key, a third of a protruding bench, and a shower nozzle at the other end.  A mirror had been hastily nailed to the wall.

I said, "You were the one that said you liked how I was making like a muscle-herd at the press gathering yesterday.  Attitude.  Being unique."

He peered in as I slid off the hoodie and stowed it with my saddlebags in the locker.  I slammed it shut, latched the padlock, then proceed to pull at it until the metal hasp and the locker itself began to complain, then let go so it clanked.  

He eyed my tank top.  It resembled satin, blazed fluorescent pink, but was another technical fabric.  It fit so tightly that you could see in detail how I had curry combed my fur this morning, but you couldn't see color through it.  Even wet, it wouldn't turn transparent.  It was the same with my tights that went from my waist, over my haunches and down to my fetlocks.  Stretchy in the extreme, it fit similarly tightly but didn't feel constricting.  Best of all, for my purpose, it outlined every curve, every joint, every tendon, and every muscle.  It revealed everything when I swished my tail, but securely hid my lack of a cutie mark.  The tights were deep black, with a pink stripe leading to my dock before splitting to run over my flanks to my lower ankle.

Whistlebutt, well, whistled.  "This goes beyond being unique into the realm of trouble.  This isn't the time to be playing dress up.  Silver's likes having a reputation for training champions, but we aren't the only customers."

"I know what I'm doing," I said, shouldering him aside as I exited my little domain.  As I stepped out, the green earth pony mare with an orange mane hanging down her neck dropped her soap, but didn't pick it up.  She tapped the pegasus beside her, who looked up, then also starred.  I waved.

"Stop that," Whistlebutt said.

"I'm just being friendly."

"I know you need to dress up, but I have a bit more experience in this—"

"Do you—?"

"I want you to go home and change into your Bite o'Kale giddy-up from yesterday."

I lowered my voice.  "I know what I'm doing."

"And that's what, pray tell?"

I stepped closer so the audience of four—no five now that a brown pegasus had stepped out of a loo and noticed the pink blazing at this end of the room—couldn't overhear.  "Have you ever lived in a homeless encampment?"

"I— What—?  No."

"You've got a bunch of ponies; some are just scared, some down on their luck, some sick, some willing to throw their lives away to drink cider until they can't see straight, and some of the above a little crazy and possibly mean on top of it.  The city gives them tents, wants them to stay hidden in the parks, but they choose the streets to huddle upon.  They have blankets.  They graze or beg for bits.  It's not ponies you choose to live around, but when they group together regular ponies aren't going to chase them off, and your homeless neighbor isn't going to rip you off.  They shout at one another for the most minor of minor things, and laugh until others feel slighted, then shove and posture.  I've had to live with them dozens of times, and you know how you get left alone?  You shout the loudest, you shove the hardest, and you make everypony think that they'll hurt worse than you will if they cross you."

His mouth dropped open.

I smiled.  "Pink says more elegantly, don't you think?"

He blinked.  His voice was a whisper.  "You lived in a—a—"

"Homeless encampment?  Many, coach.  In Baltimare.  In the Tincup Wildlife Preserve outside of Fillydelphia.  In fallow fields herding with the migratory workers.  Brings new meaning to adapt or die, doesn't it?  I guess you didn't get it when I hinted at my past that night at your place.  I'm not crazy or sick, and my seemingly lousy luck is simply because I left an untenable situation with insufficient resources.  I will earn my way, and, to be clear, if I can't get ahead here, or you happen to ruin what I've gotten so far for myself, I will start over and learn from my mistakes.  I am not stupid.  I may be wrong, but don't mistake me for stupid."

"This explains much."

"Like what?"

"How you can fight..."  He gasped.  "That monster you mentioned!"

"A learning experience."

He looked at the hexagonal tile floor for about a half-minute, then shrugged.  "The accommodation meets your approval?"

I latched the outer padlock and said, "I've seen mansions less accommodating of my needs."

"Really?"

"Look, I didn't mean to frighten you."  

He tensed up.

I walked ahead, nodded to the gawking mares who still dripped soap.  I said, "Feel free to rise," as I passed them.  Oops.  I'd meant to say rinse.

Whistlebutt trotted up and led the way out.  "I am beginning to understand you better."

"Good," I said.  "When you fully understand me, fill me in."

He laughed.
> Chapter 25 — Fight Fundamentals
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

We spent most of the next hour on a tour of the facility.  When I realized he was going to explain why each machine, dumbbell, or medicine ball was important, I galloped back to grab my notepad and a pencil.  No, I did not trip on the bar of soap the surprised mare dropped.  I did kick it though, caught its trajectory in my magic, and slammed it with an unimpressive crunch against a tiled wall.  It disintegrated in beige slivers.  Strange how magic worked with throwing soap but not so well with throwing ponies.  The pink notepad with lavender pages slipped into a hip pocket tailored for it.  I jabbed the neon blue pencil into my mane. 

I had plenty of notes by the end of the grand tour.  Whistlebutt had to demonstrate the torture devices, though.  Gym denizens tended to vacate the area as we progressed into it.  Even in the aerobics class area, ponies abandoned the cycles and jump ropes when the unicorn instructor, in black tights no way as nice nor revealing as mine, called for a sudden break and cleared the rubber mats.  He frowned at me as we approached. 

Yay.  No friends.  Didn't need them; didn't want ones that would leave me when I wasn't needed, anyway.  

I learned something interesting at the "free weights"—what an oxymoron considering gym dues and the sheer mass of iron plates and wheels stacked about.  A unicorn was expected to lift her own weight installed on an iron bar with her forehooves, slightly more with the rear.  This was twenty percent less that her stallion friend.  Pegasi typically matched that with their wings and at least doubled that with their legs.  The strongest earth ponies doubled that again, though some of the best weightlifters could lift eight to ten times their weight on their rear legs only.  

Whistlebutt said, "Don't get bucked in the face."

"Duh."

"Not that a muscle-bound muscle-herd would make it as a fighter.  No mobility.  No flexibility.  Excessive muscle mass interferes with your gait.  It's a pegasus who's most dangerous in that respect.  A pegasus can fly most of the fighting match, land suddenly, and clobber you.  As a unicorn, you must avoid being touched.  It's also why you weight-lift with your horn.  Doing it often makes the spells more reflexive and improves your instantaneous pony weight score."

"Which is why you were interested in the sole stocker at Bite O'Kale Grocery?"

"Amongst other things," he said, trotting away with his chin slightly higher.  

The tour ended with me running laps, a bakers dozen.  The track proved to cushioned and nice.  Strategically placed ceiling fans added a breeze to make it congenial as I sweat.  Funny how the nose got used to that old gym funk. 

My run ended with an intense stretch session.  It felt like Whistlebutt was pulling my legs off.  He'd push down on my posterns or pull one my rear legs fighting my need to flex.  My spine even made crackling noises as I did "cat" stretches.  

Mind you, this lifted my flank in the air.  My consternation, okay pain, caused me to swish my tail a lot.  When I looked, I discovered I'd actually drawn an audience.  Mostly of stallions.  You guessed that, right?

Immediately after, given a moment to chug a cold flask of water to "rehydrate," I realized the attraction was where and with whom I stood.  

I approached a red teardrop-shaped bag the size of my head, made of lacquered fabric, hung by a spring.   One of five.  Just beyond hung massive cylinders of the same fabric.  I'd seen a pony push one of those and I guessed by the lack of sway each weighed as much as a true horse.  

I thought back to my notes and said, "A punching bag and a speed, um, ball?"

"Speed bag.  Now we work on boxing."

"Hoof-ti-cuffs?"

"You sound like a nerd, sometimes, Gelding."

"Thank you, Coach!"

So, I would have an audience?  Come one, come all!  See the pink foal play fighting!  I caught a snicker and turned my head to look, but I couldn't see who'd let loose.  Even the aerobics instructor in his insufficiently tight tights had sidled up at the edge of the growing crowd.  

I glanced at Whistlebutt who shook his head.  I realized he was significantly older and greyer than most of the ponies haunting the gym. 

Did they think he was going senile picking me to train?  I turned briefly to the audience and gave them a vacant smile with a relaxed pose and a tail swish.  One idiot clapped. 

"So what are we doing here?" I asked innocently. 

Whistlebutt demonstrated how to bat at the speed bag with the sides and tips of the hooves.  He had to rear to do that, so it was a twofer exercise.  He asked me to rear and touch the bag with the frogs of my hooves so I could feel its weight.  He also asked me push it around with my magic.  I took notes, standing, swishing my tail for balance, giving the audience a good view of my flank.  

I kept standing.  Funny how all that racing strengthened my hindquarters.  

He then batted with his hooves and the springiness of the device allowed him to build a rhythm that brought the bag back at him as he batted it away.   I found his tickity-tickity-tickity two-minute performance impressive.  He was more fit than his stodgy character let a pony realize.  He had knocked me down and sat on my chest in the alley, so I knew that about him.

When he finished, I returned to all fours and looked under and around the speed bag as if it were some sort of alien monster.  That caused the audience to rustle a bit and I heard barely suppressed chuckles and some mutters.  

I began prepping a spell as I reared to "address" the ball. That was the right word, wasn't it?  I did some practice air boxing to either side, then adjusted my stance closer.  That merited me a few more chuckles in the otherwise now pretty much silent gym.  I could hear the fans whir.  

I squinted, moved in close, then batted with my left hoof. 

Predictably, the speed bag rebounded and struck my nose. 

I stepped back with a dainty, "Ow!"

Somepony laughed and said, "Aww, did the pretty pink princess hurt herself?"

Princess!?

My ears twitched, ranging.  Yes, I had prepared the prank as a show, but Princess?  

Really?

I targeted by sound alone, spinning in time to see a beefy golden Clydesdale work pony jerk suddenly from his hooves in a cloud of blue-green nebulosity.  I'd caught the stallion mid-guffaw.  His jaw clacked shut as I shoved him about a pony length upward, my limit, spun him on his back, his bad-pony bouffant untying and his red mane trailing as I thrust him down.  As I was beginning to understand was typical, my spell spun to bits before I could put in the full energy my flash of anger demanded, but he landed with a satisfyingly loud oof!

I leapt over and sat hard on his chest, side-saddle, before he found his wits.  I batted away his fore hooves and pushed with my magic as he tried to kick me under the chin with his impressively muscular hind legs.  The audience surged back, bowling over some of their brethren, providing me with another curse word to add to my dictionary.

"Enough!" bellowed Whistlebutt.

"Sorry," I said less than contritely.

When I looked up, Whistlebutt coughed into his postern, hiding his mouth.  With a twinkle in his eyes, he added, "Don't play with your food!"

"Aww," I said, imitating the buffoon I sat on even as I lifted my hindquarters off the stallion's ribs and swatted his muzzle with my tail.  Remember.  Braided.  Ouch.  

The annoyed stallion gasped for breath and rubbed his nose, muttering, "Princess Grim is more like it."
> Chapter 26 — A Princess is Born
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Whistlebutt pointed to where he wanted me to stand in front of the speed bag.  "Concentrate, okay?"

He demonstrated how to determine the right distance and height of the bag, and had me practice moving my hooves in a circular motion without touching.  I saw he assumed I had no idea what I was doing, which was correct.  Moreover, he didn't want me clowning around either.  It didn't take long for the audience to grow bored and leave.  Finally, I started hitting the thing.

Yep, he was more physically fit than I.  I could hit it back, get it to reciprocate one or three times, before bruising my knuckle.   "Maybe I don't have rhythm.  This makes waltzing look easy."

"You can waltz?"

"Had to learn."  I suddenly had a bad taste in my mouth and said it that way.

"If you can dance, you can do this."

Wait, did I just admit to a patrician past time?   Frowning, I pushed myself for awhile, marshaling on even after he switched to having me use a spell to bat at the speed bag.   

That proved hard, too!  Causing Push to focus a quick hard punch, then being ready to hit a randomly responding target with a slightly differently angled force vector with an appropriate amount of fast Push at the right instant was incredibly challenging. 

I sweat.  I felt inadequate.  And dizzy.  The flow of ever-changing magical numbers, usually as easy to ignore as floaters in my eyes, became a violent red and orange torrent.  At times, the pulsating flow made it hard to focus on the moving sack of sand. 

Hypnotic, actually.   

A hoof shook me on my withers.  "Enough...  Enough, already!"

I blinked, looked at Whistlebutt, then took in him motioning down with a hoof.  I realized I was swaying dangerously on two legs and did as told, putting down one hoof then the other, unwilling to ceed to gravity even though my hip ached and my legs shook.  

Between breaths, I whispered, "That's really hard."

"Oh, the fabulous energy of a teenager."  He showed me his pocket watch.  It had two sub-dials, each with a red hand, one of which pointed at 10.  "Ten minutes, Gelding."

"Didn't feel like that."

"This was an example of the magic techniques I can teach you."

I sobered instantly and felt my ears swivel forward.   "Which are?" 

"Quick repetition of spells, or long duration variation—?"

"Variation."

"We'll work on the other, too.   You're not going to seriously hurt an opponent peppering him with magical punches, but you might disorient him..."

I probed my mane with my magic, found the pencil, and took notes.

After a rest, more laps, getting knocked over by the punching bag, and literally throwing around some weights, a pony hailed us from the entrance.

"Who's she?" I asked, dropping aside a dumbbell with a thud and rolling back onto my hooves.

"Part of the reason you're here today," he said, then as I made to follow, he pointed behind me.  "Rack 'em."

"Huh?  Oh.  The weights."  Six of various small sizes littered the mat.

Gym courtesy.

By the time I trotted up, my coach was in a conversation with a unicorn mare wearing a white lab coat with a stethoscope draped over her withers.  Affectation?  Uniform?  

No name tag.  

Likely not a uniform but a costume.   She had matching white patent lacquer saddlebags.  Her fur was a shade pinker than mine and she had a minty green mane hair-sprayed into a backwards spiraling flip.  I frowned at her yellow rubber ducky cutie mark.

"Dr. Feel, meet Gelding.  Gelding, Dr. Feel."

I lifted a hoof and said, "Charmed, I'm sure."

She looked at me like a bug, her sky blue eyes going up and down as she took in my perspiration-matted fur and my very pink giddy-up.  She rudely looked into my eyes as if she saw into my head through glass marbles.  Her nostrils pulsed and I saw she was sniffing me, too.

To Whistlebutt, she said, "I'm not a pediatrician."

I stomped my right hoof, inadvertently helping prove her assumption.

She looked down, then up again.  "She's paying you well, I assume?"

I tensed and leaned forward.

Whistlebutt stepped between us.  "Standard arrangement if she proves able, which is why you're here, Doctor."

She stepped around him.  "Gelding, is it?"

"It is, ma'am."

"A well mannered filly with a name like that?"

"It's a verb, ma'am."

Her neutral expression didn't change.  Not even a presentiment of a smile.  "Coach," she said, keeping her evaluating eyes on me.  "Did you explain to her my role in the fights?"

"I figured you could do that well enough."

She nodded and gestured for him to step away.  When she noticed a gathered crowd, she frowned and made shooing motions until the area cleared.  She wore stainless steel horseshoes.  I realized we stood in a small arena.  The section of the former catacombs had brick arches on all four sides.  Somepony had laid out a hefty straw rope in a circle that stuck out into the other adjoining areas.    I'd stepped over not noticing it.  No machines, balls, or weights currently lay inside.

"I do two things.  First, I examine fighters and certify they are fit to fight.  Second, I patch them up after they beat each other silly.  I am not a necromancer.  It is important not to get yourself killed.  Sometimes happens.  Coach told you that, I hope."

"Not in those words."

"Well, they do.  I suggest you consider another career."

"Uh... no."

"I see."  She blinked, then looked away, seemingly momentarily flummoxed.  Perhaps she expected logic to work on me?  She inserted the ear tips of her stethoscope into her ears and said, "In that case, I need to examine you."

I nodded.  

She tapped the plenum on the instrument's diaphragm, flinched, then pressed it to my chest.  It was cold, despite my fur.  She touched it to at least two dozen spots on my chest, barrel, back, and even my stomach.  On cue, it gurgled for her.

She looked into my ears with another scope with an illuminated cone, then into both nostrils pulling them open with the device.  Last, she had me open my mouth wide.  "Ahhh—"

"Not necessary."

I closed my mouth and she jerked the instrument back.  "Keep it open."

She spent quite a bit of time looking, I realized, at my teeth.

"Well?"

"I am not done, yet."  She put her instruments in her saddle bags and touched a hoof to my lower neck.  At least her horseshoe wasn't as cold as her stethoscope.  

A blue nebulosity pulsed around her horn; a glance confirmed the air around her hoof glowed.  I concentrated and sensed spell numbers in Brownian motion, but couldn't see the patterns.  The spell had at its root mathematics I'd yet to learn.  My heart began to beat faster as the prospect sunk in.  I opened my mouth, then felt strange.  A bit of an ache in my stomach.  A momentary shortness of breath.  A tug in my groin.  A cramp in my abdomen.  They came and went immediately.

Her left eyebrow raised as a half smile slithered onto her face.  Lowering her voice, she stated, "You're between 13- and 16-years old.  Fourteen or—"

I stiffened.  I whispered, "How could you possibly guess that?"

"Your teeth.  Shape, wear, color, gum line."  Whether it was suggestion or whatnot, the roots of my front teeth itched.

"Not your spell?"

"That, too.  Roots spread in the jaw.  Un-erupted teeth.  Yeah."  It sounded like a nifty spell, but I didn't like being laid open.

"And my age...  It matters, how?"

"Has White Towel laid a hoof on you?"

I narrowed my eyes and looked into her blue ones.  It didn't phase her.  I was a slab of meat.  I said, "Other than whipping my sorry flank and pinning me to the cement, no."

She sighed.  "I meant, has he pressured you to—"

"A perfect gentlecolt, sadly.  I did try—"

"Mental immaturity—"

"Watch it!" I growled.

"Exactly," she said, taking my retort as a confirmation.  "Has anypony explained the minimum age requirements of the sport?"

"It's a sport?"

"Seventeen."

"And the problem is?"

"You are not seventeen."

"Neither are you."

"She's not as well-mannered as I thought."

I moved closer, causing her to press harder on my throat.  I ignored the pounding of my pulse.  "I'm not speaking in the third person about you."

"You know what I mean."

"It is your word against mine."

"Tell me, Gelding.  How old are you?"

"Are you even a doctor?  Are you even licensed?"

Her eyes narrowed and her jaw clenched.

I added, "Do you have admitting privileges at any hospital?"

She snorted.  "I don't carry my credentials with me, but I can bring them.  Do you have your emancipation papers?"

I knew better than to admit anything.  I jerked my head as a thought struck me like a horseshoe making a ringer.  "I wonder if the medical board knows you officiate at the fights?  They're not exactly legal—"

I gasped and looked down.  I felt a sudden hard pounding in my chest.  Then a second time as my heart skipped a beat.  I could only imagine what happened when the blood rushed into my heart, and, instead of being shunted to the next chamber, splashed like a miniature tsunami into the wall as the organ failed to beat.

I looked up and met the doctor's hard eyes.  I said, "Associated with gangs—"

Stupid me.  

My heart skipped one beat, beat once, then  skipped it again.  Spash!  I began to feel ill.  And angry.  And... I paused to actually think.  About things like anomalous cutie marks and the lack of a name tag.

My stupidity made me feel even angrier.

I shoved her away with Levitate.  Her steel horseshoes squealed on the hard floor.  That broke her contact with my chest.

She immediately reached out, but I caught her hoof and held it as I backed off out of reach.  She kept pushing, but that meant she twisted her leg joints in my grip.  She couldn't make contact.

The weird sensations in my body ceased.  As did the sense of somepony squeezing on my heart.

I said in a deadly deep monotone, "We have an understanding, then?"  I torqued her leg just a smidge to make my point.

She opened her mouth and I prepared to twist hard if stupid happened.   Maybe she saw my aura intensify because she quickly said, "Yes," then loud enough for everypony in the gym to hear, "She's good to fight.  No issues."

Whistlebutt stepped up, looking at me.  I'd let go of the doctor who—and I give her credit for her nerve—just put her leg down as if we'd only been hoof-bumping.  "No issues?  Are you sure?"

"I'll certify that."

"Good.  Good.  Very good."  He smiled, clearly relieved.  I saw some sweat had beaded at the line of his mane.  He caught himself going to swat me on the flank as maybe he might have a lady-friend from decades ago; he thought better of it and patted me collegially on the withers.

Moving my lips only, I said, "No hard feelings?"  As Dr. Feel curtly shook her head, I continued aloud, "She must be excellent at first aid and trauma if she works for the fights?"

Dr Feel interjected, "Just so you understand, my specialty is setting fractures and pinning bad breaks without need of surgery.  I can also stop external bleeding, and most internal bleeding, which I'm very good at discovering.  That means you'll heal quicker and bruises won't darken—much.  I can also sew up ear tears and the like."  She evidenced the barest of smiles.

Whistlebutt nodded, saying, "She's the best, and the promoters pay her well."  He looked beyond the doctor toward the entrance and added, "Which brings us to the other reason she's here."

A bluish-purple earth pony walked our way.  His short mane and tail were a burgundy color.  His eyes were magenta.  As he approached, I realized that even though he was a stallion, he was the same height as me. Eighteen or nineteen.  I had the immediate impression that he was no wimp.  He was so sinewy, his muscles stood out through his fur.  He looked like a model in an anatomy book.  He was in no way a "cartoon character" as Whistlebutt had used the term.  He looked perfectly muscled, like any more would have looked bulky or less not sufficiently trim.  If I understood correctly, that meant he kept his strength and mobility balanced at their peak level.

He was a fighter.

In my imagination, I'd held up what I thought Sunburst would look like now as an ideal of masculinity.  This stallion, though...

Sexy.

"Grape—" Whistlebutt began.

I had reached out a hoof.  "I'm Gelding.  Nice to meet you.  The name's a verb, by the way."

Somepony watching in the gathered audience snorted.

"Hey!"  I turned and pointed at the herd, ranging my hoof around until a certain golden Clydesdale work pony gulped and ducked his red-maned head.  

"Sorry," I said, turning back and extending my hoof to the purple dreamboat.  "Fanboys can be so rude, sometimes."

Grape smiled, bowed, and took my hoof with the frog of his.  "Enchanté," he said in a deep voice.  He touched his lips where my hoof met my skin and I felt an electric tingle run up my leg.  It wasn't magic.  He was an earth pony.  But it felt like that.

Nothing I could do to stop it—my face heated up.  And I found myself sketching a curtsey in return.  Reflex.  Thank you, Proper Step!

"Princess Grim!  Princess Grim!" the pony gallery began chanting, first with a couple of voices, then everypony.  

My face colored as I noticed a playful sparkle in Grape's magenta gaze.  I rolled my eyes.  

I said, "I may never live this day down."

Everypony went silent when I turned my head toward the main group.

Grape said, "That may be true."

"I am not matchmaking, you two," Whistlebutt said, stepping between us.  "Grape is here to spar with you, Gelding.  I am not a professional fighter, and I need to see how you'll react to a real fight."

Grape walked around him to stand by me, "And that's why you asked me here?"

My hide ticked and itched with him so close.  I had to force myself to concentrate on what was being said.  I side-stepped, needing to find just a little distance and some of my wits.  I had to work to grab back my suspicious nature.  What had Whistlebutt said?

Oh, right.  I asked, "A real fight?  Is this hazing, or some sort of initiation?"

"Think of it as getting to hitch up the wagon and drive it around before you buy.  A test."

"Well, I like to fight."

"But will you like it when you get hurt?  I'm not going to put in the effort and spend the bits training you to have you quit and run crying when somepony gives you a black eye or breaks your nose."

"You think I'll quit?" I asked in an unintentionally ominous voice.

"Not really, but given your, um, apparent maturity, I can't say for certain."

Dreamboat said, "Mizzenmast clobbered me in the first fight Coach arranged for me.  Broke a rib, too.  But I still wanted to be trained."

I looked at Grape.  He nodded.

I asked, "Who am I fighting?"

Whistlebutt replied, "Grape."

My hooves banged together and clattered as I whirled ungracefully around to face the stallion.  My dreamboat transformed in my mind to an ironclad warship with four big cannons.  I was more likely to crack a hoof than to bruise him if I landed a blow on that tight body.  My eyes ranged up and down his physique, and I found myself mentally naming muscles I knew you couldn't see on most ponies even if they flexed and posed.  

Yes.  I had.  I had been tutored in anatomy.

Grape noticed my eyes and smiled as they flicked up to his.  At least I hadn't tried to glance at his stallion parts (he wasn't wearing anything besides a messenger bag), and that showed that my mind was at least on the right track!  His tail swished in amusement.

He said, "It's part of my job to train and practice."

I gushed, "And you do it so well!"

"Thank you, I think."

Whistlebutt cleared his throat and I looked at him.  "Here's the deal.  We're going to have a fight with regulation rules.  You will get hurt."

I looked into his green eyes.  I could tell he was earnest.  He meant it.

"That's the point?"

"It is."

I looked at Grape, I looked at Whistlebutt, and I looked at Grape again.  If ever I were to find the whatever-it-took to find the special fighting spirit I'd found as I fought the monster, this might do it.  What was a little pain to achieve that goal?  Of course, Grape was going to have to catch me if he had any hope of "clobbering me."

I huffed.

"You are outmatched.  You will be hurt.  Do you want to go on?"

"I'm not a foal.  I'll fight."
> Chapter 27 — Fight!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I'll fight."

"Okay, then," Whistlebutt said.  "If you want to quit at any point after your opponent has laid a solid kick or punch on you, you hit the floor three times with a hoof.  This isn't about winning or losing, it's about experiencing the downside of fighting.  If at any point you realize fighting isn't for you, you hit the floor three times with a hoof and you tell me that.  Best that we know.  Step over the rope and you lose the match.  Stallion parts on an earth pony are off-limits, as is hitting anywhere near a unicorn's horn.  You fight with regulation gloves.  A knock-out wins the match.  A knock down where you pin your opponent by sitting on him for a ten-count wins the match.  Do you understand?"

"No hitting his cute stallion parts?  I wouldn't dream of it!"

Grape began chuckling.

Whistlebutt said, "Grape won't be trying for a knock-out, but you understand as a unicorn, it's best not to let him engage you in close-in combat.  Keep your distance and study how he moves.  Just because this bout is intended to let you feel what it means to lose a fight, that doesn't mean you have to take a beating either."

"I can hit him?"

"This isn't a street fight, Gelding, or a joke.  Are you taking this seriously?"

"Deadly seriously.  I expect to learn something about myself."

"O-kay...  The bout lasts five minutes.  Should you manage not to get hit, we'll schedule another bout.  Do you think you're ready, Gelding?"

My heart was already racing.  Anxiety grew in my stomach.  I wanted to start now.  "I was born ready."

"Grape?"

"I need to warm up."

"Of course.  You should, too, Gelding."

Dr. Feel trotted up and quickly examined my opponent.  Again she didn't warm the stethoscope and he flinched.  Maybe she liked that.  A couple minutes later, she nodded.

I knew that the additional time he took to warm up only meant the acid in my stomach got to bubble and I might overthink it.  For the moment, all thoughts of Grape being sexy had evaporated.  He did a few cat stretches, then dashed for two quick laps on the track.  When he returned, he did some more stretches.  I imitated some of his easy ones, but I quickly realized he was so limber he might be a contortionist.  

He began swaying in place, sometimes catching himself almost as if he were about to fall.  I noticed him dodging an imaginary foe and I recognized moves consistent with my defense training.  Essentially, moving with the attacker's blow to minimize it, then possibly taking advantage of his momentum to trip or throw him.

I swallowed hard.  I wanted to look away, but he fascinated me.

No doubt about it, I was going to get hurt.

My inner pony lashed back at me.  He's going to have to catch us, first!

"Ready," Grape said.

"Okay," I said.

He started trotting in place, and considering my nerves, I decided to do the same.  Whistlebutt moved us to the center of the ring.  He said, "It's a regulation bout.  Please don't disqualify yourself by forgetting the rules.  Yes, I know it doesn't count, but still."  I looked at the older stallion and I wasn't convinced his spiel was aimed primarily at me.  I swallowed hard again.  "I'll get mad.  Anypony want me to review the rules?"

We both yelled, "No, Coach!"

I looked at Grape and he at me.  We both chuckled.

"Oh, come on!" Whistlebutt said.

Feeling considerably better, I rolled my eyes.

Grape pulled a special set of padded horseshoes from his messenger bag and Whistlebutt offered me two pairs of the odd things.  Rubber formed the shell of the shoe that held it to the hoof.  A gummy blue substance lined the contact surface.  I hit it against the cement floor and the shoe rebounded high enough that I lost hold of it.  It flipped and bounced off the bulbous cushioned red fabric front edge.  It was a foreshoe.  The rearshoe was padded at the rear and much more gummy on the bottom since a strike from a buck might be lethal.  

I put them on.  My traction on the floor became absolute.  If I landed properly, I could stop instantly from a gallop, or break all four ankles.  I shoved hooves against the cement and could get it to squeak but not slide.   Very interesting.  

Whistlebutt took out his pocket watch.  He said, "On three.  1.  2.  Fight!"  He clicked a button and jumped aside.

I barely heard the crowded gym fill with cheers.  The rabbit brain would not be fooled as my heart rate spiked.  Fear.  The primal motivator.  I instantly jumped back, feinted left and dashed right.  Belatedly, arguably stupidly, only then did I prep a spell.

Grape stood like a stalk of wheat, gently swaying in the wind.   I slowed down when I realized he wasn't advancing on me, simply tracking my movement.  I paced the other way and realized something else.

He had his eyes closed!  His ears swiveled as I paced back and forth, but he looked like he was in a state of trance.  His ribs expanded slowly and eased gently back, almost as he were preparing for sleep.

Intuition told me that he wasn't giving me a gap to attack in or an opening.  He had to have fought unicorns before.  He had referred to training to fight as part of "his job."  He waited for me to probe him with magic so he could learn my weaknesses.  I used the gumminess of the shoes to silence my steps and breathed through my mouth to silence my breath.  If I used any magic against him, he'd use it against me.  

But I had to try something.  What?

He continued to track me with ears alone, despite the noise of the crowd crying things like, "Punch!  Punch!" and "Hit her good!" and "Give him a zap!"  And that was...

Because the gummy shoes made a squelching sound as they unstuck from the cement as I lifted a hoof.  What bother.  I froze.  Let him make a move.

Whistlebutt said, "One minute."

I let the time tick by, but the stallion just swayed and looked oh so relaxed.  I had to fight with these gloves on.  It probably meant the difference between a jab breaking my skull open and just knocking me down.  But, still, "A-nnoy-ing!" I said aloud.  

Laughter broke out in the audience.

This was the reason I wanted to make Don't Look, Don't See, Don't Hear work.  I dropped the Levitate, since Grape didn't seem to be attacking any time soon, and tried to spin up the frustrating spell.  

Before I ran away, I'd become adept at moving quietly.  As a growing filly, I needed to eat.  As a teenager, that meant I needed to eat at just about any time of day.  Proper Step was a stickler for planned meals and prepared healthy snacks of nuts or raisins, and had told me sharply not to annoy the servants if I became hungry.  He told me if I only ate more slowly, chewed more thoroughly, I'd feel more sated.  Such horse apples.

I had to stay trim and look lady-like!

Horse apples, too.

I can't tell you how many times I'd snuck a chomp or two from the lawn.  Plenty of times.  While fescue may look nice, it's as bitter as chicory.  Worse, the gardener kept it pretty trim, so it was a lot of work to make sure nopony knew I was grazing like some pauper pony.

To remedy that, I'd learned to be stealthy.  When I found Don't Look, Don't See, Don't Hear, and I realized I wouldn't master it any time soon, I practiced moving about without my horseshoes on.  Hooves are sound insulating and don't clatter if pressed down slowly.

That's how I eventually made it downstairs undetected to the servants' level, after mapping all the creaks in the floor and the stair treads.  By the light of the kitchen windows, I searched the pantry and found the cookie tins.

"Two minutes."

Bare hoofed, huh?  I looked at Grape.  He hadn't moved while I'd been lost in reverie.  Maybe he wasn't so slick, after all.  Well, my illusion spell equations were balancing, but like always something was missing.  I could tell I had the math down, bless Princess Celestia's frozen heart for that much, but the targeting just didn't compute.  Yeah.  Hard to concentrate with the rabble of an audience behind me while facing a pony with the aura of a gentlecolt that had agreed to hurt me.

I let go and the spell spun to pieces, digits shooting like red meteors into the periphery of my sensorium.  Despite the chorus of "Awww!" from the audience, I started to pace back and forth, my horn extinguished, making sure that Grape got to sway back and forth and not just fall asleep.

I stopped.  I lifted my right back hoof, dragged it against the postern of my left and loosened the shoe.  I cast Levitate and removed it.  I did the same with my left shoe.

The audience went silent as I levitated the pair up.

I waited for Whistlebutt to bellow, but he didn't.  He had specifically stated fight with gloves.  But I wasn't fighting.

I stepped with a fore hoof to my right, then lifted it to make it make that distinctive sound.

I reared and took a tentative step left.  I could see that Grape's ears had swiveled ever so slightly to my right.

This was the part where somepony in the herd could call out what I was doing.  I'd be stuck if he charged me, not being able to buck away an attack.  However, no audience pony cheated.

I got an inkling of what ponies found in watching the bloody bouts.  It wasn't the brawl.  

It was chess.

I smiled and cookie-stepped out of his field of vision.  When I was pretty sure he wasn't tracking me any longer, which could be a ruse and was a risk, I crept closer.  I knew from my midnight runs through the darkened servant's level that things like iceboxes, cabinets, doorways, and tables actually reflected the sound of a misplaced step.  They were like shadows to the ears.  I could feel the pressure of reflections and over weeks I grew to know when a chair had been moved, or a door left open without actually seeing it.

The crowd might allow Grape to do the same and notice my approach.

"Three—"

I placed my gloves down softly.

"—minutes!"

The only way I could win this thing was if I could lay a square hoof on Grape and, as he said, clobber him.  But he was a resistant earth pony.  What were my chances?

Better than zero.  

All I had was subterfuge and speed.  I knew that a fully prepared spell had perfect targeting, but, if I was close-in, an area of effect would do.  I watched Grape's ears begin to tick.  Perhaps he was worrying that his strategy wouldn't end in a win.  All he had to do was open his eyes...

I cast Illuminate.  Most unicorns learned the spell at an early age so as not to sleep in a darkened room, or to read a storybook under the covers.  Letting it manifest on your horn was easy.  No targeting necessary.  Few progressed from that casting.  Thanks to Sunburst, I'd realized I could cast it on any surface or in the air.  We'd played dodge-sprite and flashes.

I thought about what I had done to the golden Clydesdale.  Illuminate and Levitate were from completely different spell arcana, with incompatible math.  They had different types of rhymes for their mnemonics.  Think pentameter verses haiku.  However, they targeted—if you knew you could do it—identically.  I practiced switching between the spells a couple times until it felt like it was the best I could do.

I stood broadside to Grape, the closest my nervous rabbit brain would allow me.  Heart racing again, gloves back on, I flexed my hindquarters and swayed my hip back and forth (to the appreciative enjoyment of my stallion audience) in preparation for a swing and buck, firmly placing my forehooves to the ground.

I committed.

I flashed a blue-green sprite near his eyes on the opposite side of his face from me and switched to prepping Levitate as I transformed my targeting, tensing for his reaction.

Any normal pony would have startled, maybe reared back.  Not him.  He swayed into a sideways roll away from me and toward the erstwhile sprite, almost as if he were falling down.  Had he fallen asleep?

Couldn't be.

He shifted out of my approximated targeting zone just as I calculated him being closer.  In a desperate move, I switched from my intent of lift to push, targeting his far side to push him towards me.  Not that he could possibly still have his eyes closed.

Most of the magical impulse got wasted due to my guess.  Nevertheless, he rolled away as if he had unexpectedly stumbled.  He stumbled in my direction, at least.  I transformed the equation back to lift.

His eyes were open and he counter-rotated his head against the trajectory of his body to spear me with both magenta eyes.  But as he recovered from the stumble, he had moved closer to me with distracting slowness and overcompensated.

The instant my horn completed my vector subtraction, I cast.

He lifted upward off his hooves with his strange momentum intact.  This was where I planned to jerk him high enough to flip.  I shifted my weight onto my front hooves and began to rotate my body for a place-kick buck.

He squirmed like a young foal having a tantrum.  He demonstrated the bodily consistency of a grape-flavored gelatin dessert, rolling counter to each and every targeting change I tried.  Trying to catch water might have yielded a better result!

His general trajectory skewed toward me, but now as I rotated to kick, he fathomed my plan and used my reactions to tumble to where I would be and by then, I'd have rotated past.

I let go of the spell.

That caused him to fall, but he tucked and jerked drunkenly, transforming his vectors into a roll.  With all that muscle on him, he twisted his trajectory into a slide and began to pop up even as I tried to recover from my disastrous two-legged spin.  He translated his movement into a leap, going the direction I was about to face as I got my rear legs back under me.

Thank goodness for the gloves.  I stopped short of sliding.

But so did he, as he used his incredible musculature to convert his leap into rotational force.  Had I tried that, I would have torn whole muscle groups from the bone.  Without Levitation spun up even a little, I saw his rear dark red-gloved hooves in my peripheral vision growing way too large far too fast.

I jerked back and ducked my head, trying to withdraw into a leap away.

A hoof struck across the side of my face, bounding off the ridge of my right eyebrow.  Blue stars filled my vision as I thrust myself into a leap away, anywhere but where I was.

Disoriented, I managed to thrust myself away far too well.

My hooves landed wrong.  The stickiness of the gloves tripped me up and I went head over hindquarters, careening toward the archway pillars.

I stopped short of the rope, and the brick.  I immediately scrambled up, thinking Levitate, Levitate, Levitate.

To my credit, the spell spun up immediately despite me having struck my horn twice in my somersaulting.  The reverberation buzzed in my ears.

Grape had again frozen, three point, as if caught mid-motion by some creative photographer and rendered as a purple sculpture.  He swiveled his head toward me until both eyes were on me.

Sweat dripped from his face as he held the pose.

He stood ten pony lengths away, looking in my mind like a stalking timberwolf that wasn't quite sure whether it was safe to immediately attack his prey or to let it bleed out.

It wasn't safe.

It wasn't safe...!

To move.

My right eye was blurry as the phosphenes cleared.  An unfamiliar ache spread across my eyebrow to the opposite temple.  A trickle of liquid missed my eye; it felt like I was crying on my right side. I decided it wasn't that different than when I'd fallen and bumped my head a few times before.  Except for the trickle of blood, of course.

However, I was angry.

My shoulder began to ache.

I glanced there.  I saw a rip in my tank top, clear through the seam.  One would think that a cushioned horseshoe couldn't cut a pony, but one would be wrong.  The skin had separated like fabric on a couch, and red began to ooze out.

I growled as I faced him again.  Yes!  I needed anger.

I lowered myself until I lay on my belly to conserve my energy and to keep my legs from shaking.  Keeping my eyes fixed on him and my muscles ready to spring, I lowered my head and concentrated.  I finished my spell prep as Whistlebutt announced, "Four minutes."  

I'd been hit.  I'd absorbed my required injury.  Injuries.  

There was no way this side of Tartarus that I was going to quit!

I pushed my anger into the spell and narrowed it.  Then narrowed it even more, trying to push it to a point and lengthen it into the required tube reaching all the way to the purple example of pony perfection.

It.

Didn't.

Work!

"Ugh!"

I refined the targeting.  I worked on the wish predicate.  I felt the threat in those unblinking eyes that faced me.

It wouldn't trigger.

I lifted my rear and screamed, letting the frustration travel from my belly, up my throat, and into my horn.

Nothing!

I crept closer to him, settled, and pushed into the narrow magic tube that I had so handily thrashed The Monster with.  I tried to feel the sheer menace of my opponent who had just proved that, baring some miracle, would indeed clobber me.

"Argh!"  I bellowed again, my hindquarters again up as I focused my emotions through my body together with all the magic I could marshal in that virtual thrust of energies.

I got closer.

Still he didn't move.

Still I failed to trigger it.

I bellowed again.

He didn't move, but I did.  

I had to trigger this spell if I had any chance of winning this.  I swore by all the hate I had for the wretched ruler of this realm, I would do this.  I had a fraction of a minute to spare.  I had to figure this spell out.  

To do so, I needed Grape to charge me!

Lifting up my rear as before, I yelled, "What?  Too much of a gentlecolt to hit a filly when she's down?  You sexist flankh—"

Proving that earth pony muscles could propel a body in contradiction to the laws of physics, he went from static to barreling my direction with no intervening acceleration.

I forced my magic forward.  Fire already!

It took a fraction of an instant to realize that it was not going to work.  Perhaps I had to be certain that I would die to actuate the spell, not just scared out of my wits.  The apparition I wanted to project, while long, was still thankfully narrow.  With the speed of thought, I retracted the tube and transformed the... the... Force spell into a hoof-sized push at a point in space.  The effect of a magic hit might be whimpy, but added to his forward momentum...?

I used the tension in my hindquarters to rear up and present my fore hooves as I had to the speed bag.

He hit my mark and I pushed for all I was worth, successfully casting.

He rolled to the left as if somehow I had spun him sideways, but it was him rolling, his muscles guiding him past the obstacle, his training, his de-fensive off-fensive method of fighting.  

I adjusted closer and pushed again.  With the lack of grace of an inebriate that had truly pickled himself, his body seemed to roll bonelessly away from any force I applied.

He closed in.

Horror rose inside.  I might have actually succeeded in firing my frustratingly out-of-reach spell, but I had no time to prepare it now.  What I did have was a greater attack surface, thanks to the inverse square law and his mad approach.

I pushed toward his chest.

It didn't stop him, but it brought him up short because his wobbly trajectory  had again transformed.  He reared, bringing his red-gloved hooves up toward my face.

I felt the sudden reaction of his weight against my magical push as I shoved directly into his chest and this time he failed to slide away.

I wisely lifted my rear hooves so I was on their forward tips, reducing to zero the amount of drag the gummy part afforded.  I slid back on the comparatively slick fabric part even as I saw him reach his legs around the visible apparition of my spell against his body, leading with his left hoof and following with his right.  He was using my spell to anchor his legs and to direct force through them at my face.

I knew that I'd heard something about boxing before, because the term one-two punch came to mind.

The best I could do was rear up further and back away to dodge from his left hoof.  With no choice but to get hit, I did the most expeditious thing and kept going, unbalancing myself so that I fell backward.

And still I pushed the spell at him, desperately trying to keep him.

His left punch fully missed, but now I was indeed going over and backwards.  It was truly a pity that a unicorn couldn't self-levitate.

I reflexively shuffled my rear hooves, and shouldn't have.  That kept me balanced and within reach an iota too long.

His right punch connected with the bridge of my nose.  As the fabric dragged across and I lifted my head trying to compensate, I felt the snick of the cartilage cracking, then heard the sick wet sound from the inside.

Not a happy sound.

I pushed with Levitate with all I was worth, even as my neck snapped back and aside as the impulse of the strike carried back along my spine.

Over I went.

Despite a new bloom of pain, I had enough presence of mind to roll my head down toward my chest as I fell back.  My defense tutor had first taught me how to fall, though never directly onto my back.  I managed to land my flank first then roll and protect my all important horn—and skull—from impact.  I yelled with all my growing rage that I could have been so easily defeated.

That yell turned into an oof as my wind got knocked out of my lungs by the impact against the cement.  I didn't lose my spell, but I did lose my targeting.

I'd lost track of my position in space, between the punch and the vectors of chaos demonstrated by my fall.  Intuitively, I compensated by spreading out the apparition, the volume of space where my projected magic manifested separate from my body.   I channeled my fear and anger.

The blue-green nebulosity spread out into an arc that described a circular section of a sphere and took on a molasses-like consistency that rapidly solidified.

Grape stopped as I slid back on the ground, the back of my head fetched up against the hawser-like rope delineating the arena.  The apparitional surface was wide enough that he couldn't roll one way or another even as he tried.  I tilted it and compensated to support his shifting weight as he pulled one pseudo-drunken antic after another.

In effect, for a few seconds, I'd stopped and trapped him leaning toward me.  I pushed with my rear legs trying to find some better traction, but that only brought them to my belly as the rope barrier kept me from going any further.  I could see the archway pillar to my right.  I'd luckily missed striking my horn by a hoof-width.

Though a pony, Grape actually roared his rage.  His teeth clacked as he snapped at me, as if he would bite had he had the chance to connect.

I guess I'd managed to hit a sore spot with my taunt.

Wait a moment!  My legs were flexed and I had caught him overbalanced toward me.

I  swept up my rear legs.

I let go of my spell.  

He fell toward me.

I brushed his ear with my right hoof, missing, but his instinctive dodging to my left combined with him reflexively trying to slow an inevitable face-plant in my groin, I struck him with my left hoof.

I hit his temple.

He jerked forward in a spasm.  His full weight landed on top me with stunning force.  He weighed about what I weighed, but if you've ever been so unlucky to have a sack of flour roll over on you (I had when I was six), it's substantial.

I had no wind to be struck out of me, so that was good.  I gasped.

He had landed bonelessly on me.  

My mind screamed, Dead!

Okay, I must have breathed, because I shrieked, batting with both my forelegs even as I planted my rear hooves.  I thrust with my hips, and as that lifted him, I got my fore hooves under him then my rear hooves, and I shoved him to the right.

I shrieked again as he landed beside me with all the animation of that remembered falling sack of flour.  My thoughts shifted 180° counter-clockwise and I jumped up.  

He couldn't be dead.  I couldn't have killed him.  What had I done?

I was atop of him, ear against his chest with the speed of an earth pony.

Thump, thump.

"Thank Celestia!" I cried.

I lifted my front half and his chest went up and down.  As I stood over him, blood from my side dripped on his leg.

Whistlebutt stallion-hoofed me out of the way as Dr. Feel galloped to his side.

Somebody on the other side of the rope said, "She knocked out Punch Drunk!"

Shouts of the same roared out all around, then cheers.

Dr. Feel's sky blue magic popped in and out of his body as she confirmed,  "He's out cold."

"Punch Drunk?" I said, knowing I'd heard that name.  "Punch Drunk?  Wait?  Not the stallion Shadow Strike said Secretariat beat to cinch the championship?"

"The one," Whistlebutt said, not turning from the purple stallion laying beside him.  "So much for him trying for the championship this year."

The crowd chanted, "Princess Grim!  Princess Grim!  Princess Grim!"

I hissed and blinked.  "Celestia on Roller-skates."

Grape, aka Punch Drunk, groaned, then coughed.  He tried to get up, but Whistlebutt pushed him down.  "Wha?  W-W-Wha haffened?"

"Just rest, my friend."

I looked at the crowd.  They were cheering me?  I'd been incredibly lucky just now.  I'd figured out Shield, which I'd studied since I'd first started defense training.  Proper Step hadn't included it in the curriculum.  Of course not.  But I'd researched and had repeatedly failed to manifest it.

Until now.

I reviewed the math, modified the wish predicate to what I now knew it needed, and pushed splendors of magic into my horn.

An arc the size of a slice of watermelon manifested and I turned to face the closest ponies.  They cheered even more.  I felt my face warm.

My aches were coming painful.  The hit above my eye had started to grow puffy and sent intermittent spikes of blue agony toward the center of my head.  Oddly, I felt good.

I'd just beat another pony unconscious.

I'd just beat another pony unconscious.

I had just beaten another pony.

I liked the feeling.

A lot.

No, I adored it.

"Well, well," I said, letting the shield spell spin into oblivion, and smiled.
> Chapter 28 — Let's Make a Deal
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It took some minutes for Dr. Feel to finish healing Grape.  Something about preventing a hematoma.  He became mostly lucid.  

I bent down and looked into his eyes.  They seemed unable to focus.  I said, "I'm sorry about what I said."

"You're— you are a sheer-re-ous contender.  And you'tith totally mental.  Ow!"  He flinched.

"He's got a concussion," the doctor said.  "I'm summoning an ambulance.

A little more than a half-hour later, I'd had the cut on my side and my head glued shut.  Yes, she used instant-dry glue.  Sitting, she'd grabbed my bloody nose with both hooves and jerked it toward her, realigning the sideways part.  She pronounced it minor, saying that at my age it would heal within the week.  She used her magic and internally pushed for a few minutes against the bruises, pressing out the blood and forcing the capillaries to clot and seal.  She told me that the remaining color would be gone in a day or two, remarking that with my fur color I wouldn't notice it anyway.

Looking into a mirror in the showers, I saw crusted blood around my nostrils and over my eyebrow, and noticed blue and red tones that couldn't be mistaken for naught other than what it was.  I tapped the glass as if comforting the mare in the reflection and walked on.

That left me alone with Whistlebutt in my little "office" in the showers.  A unblinking glare at my brand new fan ponies stopped them in their tracks.  Not caring a wooden bit what my coach thought, I stripped and treated myself to that unending supply of hot water.

He sat fidgeting like I had as five year old waiting for dessert after having cleaned my plate.  I took my time, letting my subconscious process all that had happened.  I knew there were peculiarities, but couldn't entirely put my hoof on it.  I kept my eyes closed as I enjoyed digging the lather into my fur combined with the luxury of an uninterrupted shower.

"Coach?"

He stood.  "Yes?"

I pointed with a leg dripping suds at the clothing I'd flung to the tile floor.  "Could you please cast your cleaning spell on my things?"

"The torn one, too?" he asked, picking up the tank top, sniffing as if it might harbor a dead rat.

"Please.  I'll get it repaired, but I'd rather not throw it in my saddlebags with everything else."

That occupied him for the few minutes it took me to rinse off, then use my magic to towel dry.  The frisking against my fur seemed to bother him a bit and he looked away.

I whisked my saddlebags over and took out my clam-shaped makeup compact, brushes, stencils, and hair spray.  I sat sideways to him so I could both look at my flank and alternately look at him.  As I placed the first stencil, I said, "So, Coach, did I pass the test?"

"You definitely took damage, and still KO'd Grape!"

"Punch Drunk.  His parents certainly didn't name him that!"

"Nor yours, Gelding."

I sprayed gentle puffs of hair lacquer, then scooched around to keep my sight lines before applying the base powder on the other flank.  "Punch Drunk, the pony Secretariat beat to become champion.  I looked her up at the library after Shadow Strike mentioned her."   

"Shadow Strike," Whistlebutt echoed, looking away.

"Is she all right?" I asked, looking up.

"Probably.  For all I know.  Coach Reaver snapped her up.  Tag team isn't as big a draw as fights, but when I told her I wanted to start training her for the fights, she went to him.  He bought out her tag team contract.  She's got the same spirit as Mustang, but she actually thinks under pressure.  I was thinking next year or the year after for her, but—" He banged his hoof against the tiled wall.

"You keep plenty of brands in the fire?"

He looked sharply at me.  "You don't do that, you don't make the bits to survive, let alone thrive."

"Nice apartment," I said, referencing the thrive part.

He took a deep breath as I sprayed lacquer and returned to the second layer on the opposite side.  I asked again, "So what's the deal?"

"I train you, beginning today.  I think you've got the goods.  You're definitely this year, like I thought.  Grape was undefeated* after Secretariat.  Do you understand what you achieved?"

"Pure and utter luck," I demurred.  A puff of spray.  I set the stencil and brushed the other side.

"Don't sell yourself short.  Most ponies fold under pressure—but you perform incrementally better!  The only downside is you have an unhealthy lack of fear."

"I've just forgotten how to show it.  His counterattack when I first attacked?  You were lucky there weren't projectile horse apples when he twisted around like a spaghetti monster and sent hooves at my head."

"He's got that drunken-fighting technique down perfectly.  A kirin master from across the western sea taught him; he grew up there.  Trust me, in the future, you'll get ample opportunity to scout your opponents, or I'll work with you about what we know to counter their attack and defense profiles.  Frankly, I thought he'd land that left-right jab and land you in the hospital.  I knew he was tightly wound.  He's incredibly disciplined and his daily practice regimens are grueling.  But your sharp tongue actually made him mad.  I didn't pay him to ensure he'd scare you away from fighting.  I'm sorry about that."

I shook my head and snorted.  "On the contrary.  I said I wanted to learn something, and I did!  Shield has flummoxed me for years.  Happy happy joy joy filly now," I said, bobbing my head, swaying my shoulders and wriggling my flank, dancing in place and smiling.  "My fault for prodding his stupid stallion ego?"  I sounded a raspberry and lifted the last stencil and inspected the results, fanning my flank to help the lacquer set faster.  I snapped closed the clam shell and simultaneously packed away the brushes and makeup.

"Most fillies your age are having fun playing with makeup."

I could tell it wasn't a jab.  "I was made-up for specific formal occasions, and it wasn't for play, nor was it particularly fun."  I stood as I pulled out a second set of clothes, also pink, from the saddlebags and stuffed the cleaned one in after my supplies.

"You had extras?"

"I've learned the benefits of frugality, including buying in quantity in order to demand discounts."

"I see."

"The deal.  What's our deal?  I thought talk of discounts and frugality would bring you back on track."  I pulled on my top, then stepped into the trunks, then placed the saddlebags over my back.

"I'll give you a stipend for living expenses while you train—"

"As in, what do I pay for?  Gym membership, what?"

"I pay your expenses and manage public relations while you train until you're ready for your first bouts.  Going forward, you pay expenses out of the prizes you earn.  They call it prize fighting for a reason."

"I keep the prize and I pay you?"

"No.  I manage that."

"Are you saying we split the bits?"

"That goes without saying."

"Not a sports pony, Coach.  Keep with the program.  Explain stuff to me."  I stepped closer until we were practically nose to nose, though I had to look up.

"The industry split is "20/80."

"80% for you?"

"That goes—"

"'Accounts are very important,' MiLord!"  I parroted Mr. Waddles Worth and the phrase that warmed his bit-grubbing heart.  "You expect me to fight to within a hoof-length of my life and receive no real bits?"

"I didn't say that."

"I need accountings, then.  On paper.  Out of my 20% comes what expenses?  Do I incur debt for my training, fees, PR?"

"You—  Um, well..."

I pulled out my hoodie and put it on despite the moist warmth in the shower room.  Walking past him and up to the gate of my little (probably expensive) office, I added, "I want at least 50/50."

"What?  Are you out of your mind?"

"I may be a little crazy," I said as I walked through—and slammed—the gate behind me with a swift kick, causing the whole canvas-covered scaffold to rattle.  "But you knew that, right?"

The gate squeaked as he followed me.  "Where are you going?"

"I need to think about all this.  What I'm willing to put up with."

I got stares in the mirror from a couple ponies I passed.  Even a pony that had improperly closed the door to the toilet cubical let his mouth drop open.  He slammed it.  

The door, not his mouth.

"Gelding!  I can make you a champion!"

"Do you even listen to me?" I shot back, loud enough that anypony in the showers or outside would hear.  "I'm not interested in notoriety or fame.  The opposite really.  I've made my offer.  I'm no foal."

I trotted by dozens of ponies on the weights and running the track that stared in silence.  I galloped up the stairs, then turned downhill and kept on the sidewalk.  I heard Whistlebutt's voice as he charged up the stairs.

That made me mad.  I did not want to be harangued.  Due to the shower, or maybe the physical shock of being injured wearing off, my head and shoulder really started to ache.  I heard his hoofs on the sidewalk.  

"Ugh!"  The sound came from deep in my belly and made my chest rumble.

Though it was ridiculous, I tried spinning up Don't Look, Don't See, Don't Hear.  If there was really a time when I really wanted to shut everypony out of my existence, now was the time.  Downhill was too easy for him and he could sprint.  I wasn't going to flip him the way I had the golden Clydesdale.  I wasn't stupid.  I might still need him.  He represented a unique opportunity.

I made myself aware of every store sign, every open glass door, every window, every crack in the pavement, every wagon pulled uphill and the pony cart with barrels behind me.  As he came closer, I broke into a gallop and quickly rounded a corner.  Nopony looked my way, but I saw a small crowd of chatting work ponies in blue overalls, carrying metal lunch boxes that looked like mailboxes with handles.  I took in everything because I had this overwhelming need to hide fueled by my aches, anger, and annoyance.

I cast the impossible spell simply because if I didn't I might explode.  Maintaining the hyper-awareness my spell notes repeatedly reiterated I needed to keep, I noticed when Whistlebutt stopped on the corner, huffing.  He scanned the street.

He turned down hill behind me.

"Celestia on Roller-skates!" I cried.  I was already headed away from my hostel.  I didn't know where I wanted to go, but I knew that on my right lay a hill.  I dashed diagonally across the street and nearly got run over by an obstinate delivery pony pulling a van loaded with boxes and jugs of cider.

I turned the corner and dashed further, maintaining my awareness as best I could, cataloging the new scenery, expending splendors of my magic like putting bits in a juke box.

At the next corner, I dashed down a narrow cobbled alleyway converted into a walking street of small shops and restaurants.

I spotted a tea shop quaintly named Spot of Tea with Lemon and leapt inside, causing the door to knock against the wall.  The tinkle bell chimed as if abused.

As I turned to peer out the doorway, I heard a "Welcome to—  Uh.  Hello?"

The seconds ticked by and Whistlebutt didn't show.

The proprietress of the tiny tea shop bumped into me.  We both shrieked.  I lost the spell, not that it had done me any good beyond practice.

The minty green pegasus matron said, "Oh, dear.  There you are."  She adjusted her eyeglasses.  They made her amber eyes look huge.  I recognized her Trottingham accent.

Trottingham ponies knew their tea.  This might be good!

It was!  I enjoyed a black tea with cream and honey, and a peel of lemon served on a rose-pattern porcelain tea set.  The scones she served did not take the prize for fluffiness, but with clotted cream melted in and topped with lemon curd, they went a long way toward allowing me to regain my perspective and dignity.  I relaxed and took off the hoodie.

Mrs. Smithe—there was a definitive e in the name the way she pronounced it—paused as she poured me a second cup from a teapot that had been wrapped in a rose-patterned hoof-towel.  She asked, "Are you all right, dearie?  It looks like you might have run into a door."

Run into a door was a universally known euphemism shared by mares.  I lifted a mirror-polished spoon and looked at my nose and eyebrow.  Dr. Feel might have been over-confident in her assessment.

I used it to stir more cream into my cup and chuckled.  "You should see the other guy."

"Oh, my."

I had plenty of time to think and sufficient bits to pay for my extended tea time.  Leaving, I asked a question and Mrs. Smithe gave me directions.

"Research," I told her.

______________

*Undefeated, but Punch Drunk had had a record number of undecideds for the last few years.  You have to win matches to win a championship.
> Chapter 29 — Research
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Baltimare has a number of city newspapers, but I remembered the discarded one I picked up upon first arriving in the city, The Baltimare Sun. It had more sports pages than news pages, which I'd had no use for, but beggars couldn't be choosers. Now I did care. After fifteen minutes at a trot, I strode into a brick building (no surprise there) under a marque that had Celestia's sun cutie mark as part of the logo. I wasn't going to hold that against them... yet.

A dark brown earth pony sat at the reception desk. I said, "I'd like to speak with the sports editor."

"Who may I tell him is visiting?" He had dark brown eyes and was rotund, probably from sitting all day. He looked like a big chocolate bonbon.

I pulled my race medal from my saddlebags and put the blue ribbon over my head. As the fellow ogled the gold medallion, I said, "The unicorn winner of yesterday's Celestial Race."

The receptionist looked up, blinked when he noticed my nose and eyebrow, then said, "A moment please."

He turned to some horn-shaped device and spoke briefly in a hushed tone. He pointed.  "Walk down the hall to the right. Room 107."

"Thanks."

It proved to be a large hall with a high ceiling, Art Neighveau gas lamps, and rows of cubicles. It smelled of ancient bureaucracy and too many lunches consumed at too many desks. I could hear the furious clickity-clackity of numerous typewriters. Another receptionist sat there at a desk that spanned the opening into the room, guarding the lift-up gate entrance to the cubical area that also extended her desk. She was typing.  She lifted her reading glasses and pointed to the chairs. 

I sat.

A couple minutes later, a familiar face ambled up. The rotund white pegasus with tan spots had a carrot stick wagging in his lips. He saw me. His eyes widened as his wings flared. "Gelding, right?"

"That's right."

He motioned with a wing and said, "Come on back."

I ducked under the desk extension before the receptionist could move. Maybe I was an athlete.

His cubical sported a dark wood desk, obviously a cheap veneer. It was totally scratched up by weird mementos. The rusty dumbbells were only surpassed by a sheet metal model airship with none of the sides ground smooth. A sharp piece of ropy lava sat beside a bunch of pliers and copper wires. A little round basket, half-built, lay next to his typewriter. This was amid piled almanacs, sports rule books, and scrap books with clippings falling out, not to mention an outbox filled with sheaf of unevenly stacked papers. More piles littered his shelves. The one free wall of the pony-height cubical had framed photos of athletes, mostly in uniforms. I quickly spotted a photo of him and Punch Drunk.

I smiled, glancing long enough to read the name plate on his desk. "Cordial Cowherd, I presume?"

"Should I call you Mrs. Gelding?"

He'd heard me first introduced, but I didn't want him to connect me to Starlight or Starbright. "They're calling me Princess Grim, right now."

He swiped away a photo book. Equestria's Greatest thumped to the floor, revealing a wooden chair. "Please sit. Princess Grim is it?"

He found a yellow notepad. He spat out the carrot and replaced it with one of a dozen scattered sharp pencils. The points had probably contributed to the finer scratches in the wood. 

He asked around the pencil, "Am I getting an extended interview, today?"

"Well. Maybe you'll get a, um... I don't know the word. Scoop?"

"Go on."

I let my anger bubble back. "Yesterday, you answered a lot of my questions. I'm a newbie to this sports professional thing."

"You said that, and I believe you."

"I have more questions."

"Fire away."

"Prizefights are big business, am I correct?"

He had been looking at me, but had probably been preoccupied by thoughts about why I was here and what he might ask me. With prizefights ringing in his head, he finally saw my face and my wounds registered. He blinked and the pencil fell from his mouth. It stuck point down in the grass-green rug.

As he got up to take a closer look, I pushed off my pink hoodie and lifted my tank top to show him the sealed two hoof-length long cut that ran from my shoulder down onto my withers.

"Tartarus!"

"Is it...? Big business, I mean?"

"Absolutely. Unlike sanctioned sports, most of the bits are distributed between the sports books and the fight promoters. The bigger the draw, the bigger the purse, and the bigger the mountain of bits that get distributed. The constabulary doesn't make a fuss even though organized crime has their hooves in it because everypony's frog gets greased, if you take my meaning."

"I think I do."

"What prevents the sport from going mainstream is the greasing. Let's call it for what it is. Bribery. Various northeastern city gangsters, led reputedly by the Carne Asada Syndicate, make sure that doesn't change. Probably more bits in the fights than any other sport. It's a northeastern thing, really, probably because up here we're all a bit rude, crude and muzzle to muzzle. Everypony loves the fights. Even little old biddies lay bets."

"Mrs. Kale's wife is an über fan, I'm told. Don't write that down." 

He had reached for a pencil, but picked up the carrot with his wing.

"Okay." He popped the carrot in his mouth and chewed.

"How much money in the prize purses?"

He thought about it and said figures, the numbers ranging from no name bouts to championship bouts.

I found myself standing. 

I forced myself to sit. 

"And how much do you think training a fighter costs?"

He spoke some more, referring to a few books he dug out of the pile. He knocked over the stainless steel airship. I righted it, nodding to his words as I did so.

The pegasus asked, "Can I answer any other questions?"

"You've been very informative." I made a point of smiling and swiveling my ears to face him expectantly.  

He searched for and found another pencil, not noticing the one still sticking up in the carpet. "So... You said a scoop?"

I grinned. "I KO'd—" I put a hoof to my lips and looked dramatically upward. "I think that's the word. I... KO'd Punch Drunk at the Silver Stream Gym. On West Chester. About, oh, two hours ago."

He broke the lead on the pencil.

I added, "A regulation bout. Private, to the gym at least. Plenty of witnesses. They sent Punch Drunk to Mercy Medical with a concussion."

He got up and peered at me again, examining my nose, my side, my eyebrow. "You got off cheap, I'd say. Punch Drunk is renowned for turning aside any attack and turning your efforts against you." He found a third pencil and jotted further notes.

I nodded. "He took defense training and turned it into a wicked offense."

"I'm guessing you've got an even more wicked evil spell in that horn."

I chuckled and popped out my fancy new shield.

He pressed the blue-green apparitional surface with a wing and his feathers folded back. "That's not much... How did you knock him out?"

"I dropped the shield and whacked him upside the head." I demonstrated, rolling onto my back and batting my hooves. "The dreamboat nearly crushed me landing between my legs."

"Sweet Celestia!" He stood up. "I-I may not quote you verbatim, but...! Can I quickly confirm he's at Mercy Medical? It's not that I don't trust you, but we're going to press in less than an hour and I have to have some corroboration to get this published. This is on the record, right?"

"Of course it is, Mr. Cowherd."

"She knocked out Punch Drunk," he said as he disappeared down the "hallway" created by the cubicles, then said it again.  

I stood and shouted. "Use the name Princess Grim!"

I heard a laugh and I chuckled in return. Wasn't it Whistlebutt who'd implied all PR was good?
> Chapter 30 — Let's Make A Deal
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two hours and three more broken pencil leads later, I trotted down the steps into the Silver Stream gym. Yep. Still smelled of pony perspiration, mostly the stallion sort. Whistlebutt immediately popped up with a hard-to-miss whinny from where he had been spotting a pegasus at the bench press. He trotted over, looking more and more angry as he approached.

When he got close enough, he said in a low voice, "Where did you disappear to?"

"About my offer—"

"Are you ready to reconsider?"

"Yeah. You could say that. I gave an interview to Cordial Cowherd over at the Baltimare Sun."

"You-you... What!?"

"The fellow is a fount of information. Oh, and, my story of KO'ing Punch Drunk is coming out in the evening edition, on the front of the sports page, above the fold. Don't know how much you read the papers, but that's pretty prominent. He even sent a stringer to verify my account with Grape and interview him. Grape's feeling much better, by the way."

Whistlebutt clunked his hoof against his forehead. "Sweet Celestia."

"About our deal...?"

"20/80," he repeated.

I took a deep breath and let it out. "That's not what I said."

I wasn't going to mention the name Coach Reaper, not yet, because I was pretty sure the shady character wasn't ethical and would find a way to blackmail me. That and because I thought Whistlebutt was probably better for me, and at least visibly ethical. You never know with ponies, of course.

He said, "Do you have any conception of the costs involved?"

"I do, now. In detail, as compiled thanks to years of reportage. Accounting matters, White Towel."

"You don't get it."

"Probably, I don't. Not totally. Frankly, I could take it or leave it. About my offer?"

"50/50?" He scoffed.

I tilted my head, frowning. "Did I say that? I don't think I said that."

"It's ridiculous and you know it."

"That's right. I said 60/40."

"What?"

I tapped my hoof, giving him about a minute to stop sputtering and to figure out where I was going with this. As his complexion went from beet red to something more like his own green coloring, he found his voice again. "Not happening."

"I clearly said 65/35."

"Are you insane?"

"Didn't you figure that out the day we met? Really, sir. Ugh!" I threw up my forelegs and turned. "I really don't need this. You think about what I've told you and what is important to you and what's important to me. If you can do that and you can come up with an accounting of expenses, debits, and projected offsetting credits, you know where you can find me at Bit O'Kale." I demonstratively stomped up the stairs in a huff I really didn't feel. He'd make it worth my while, or I wouldn't bother. And if he retaliated somehow, I'd just move on.

I might have my blind spots; I would definitely make mistakes, but, you know, I understood that I could take what the world threw at me. Bottom line, I would succeed. Who needed friends and cutie marks when you could apply your mind to problems?  If you looked at setbacks as challenges and handled what came at you in the moment, life became interesting and surmountable.

As far as I was concerned, I'd already given the bent hoof to Celestia's plans for my life. I just didn't care beyond that.  

Somewhere down the line I might even solve the conundrum of cutie marks, but I was okay with that goal being further off.  Prize fighting bits might have advanced my goal forward a few years, but what the hay.

By the end of the week, I signed a contract. Whistlebutt got himself a lawyer and an accountant, and even admitted to his own cash flow. I could see I was actually squeezing him badly at 65/35 as I read the first accounting he brought me as I sat on my lunch break on the loading dock behind Bite O'Kale. 

He really wanted me. Gosh!

It reassured me that his hype was genuine, that all the pain I would endure would be worth the trouble.

However, the last thing I wanted was to give him any reason to buck me when I wasn't looking, or to embezzle funds. I praised him for his work and told him he was hard of hearing: I'd only asked for 50/50.

He was okay with that.

Maybe out of gratitude, or maybe to needle me where it really hurt my pride, he did something he had told me he couldn't do. He brought me a new spell to learn!

He told me he'd brought the duplicated pages to all the unicorns he'd ever taught. The pages looked fresh to me. I didn't believe him, but I copied them carefully into my notebook, anyway. I took one look at the arcana and the wish predicate; the equations brought back the taste and thrill of Princess Celestia's spell that day on Castle Way in Canterlot.  

The spell checksummed, which meant I might be able cast it. Whether it functioned was another matter. I knew this much: The ponies able to cast it were all documented in history books, but, so far as I knew, none other than the princess herself could cast it today. 

I told him it was a spell for the highest level unicorns. 

He said, "And you're not?"

He had me there.

That's how I began to study Teleport. It certainly would have solved the problem handily when Punch Drunk charged me, had I already mastered it. Or when The Monster had caught me...

I studied hard.
> Chapter 31 — Trigger
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

In retrospect, everything went wrong that day. I was a fighter, as was she. We were each champions, but only one pony could be the champion. 

I was a unicorn.

She was a pegasus.

That should have been to her advantage. The sports books acknowledged that with an actual line 17 to 4 payout should I win. Considering the vigorish, I was the 3 to 1 underdog.

But I was a unicorn.

Ponies don't think being a unicorn through to its ultimate implication, and most unicorns didn't give ponies anything to think through. Everypony knows that most unicorns know just Illuminate, Levitate, and usually one further idiosyncratic spell like being able to clean clothing, to instantly make bread dough rise, to find gems, and what not.  

Unicorns work miracles. Think about that. 

Most are not magicians; they are thaumaturges. If you don't know the word, look it up now. Most unicorns never realize this about themselves. Most are...

Satisfied.

A unicorn prizefighter had to be satisfied with her magic and her performance in the arena. The rules of the fight provided balance and implicitly accepted the typical unicorn tendency to be satisfied with their performance.

Nothing could satisfy me, however. Nothing ever would. Not after Sunburst had demonstrated that the right understanding could unlock better, challenging, or fun spells that also made me more. 

I could be in control. I could be powerful. I performed miracles, and a unicorn did not have to be an alicorn to do so.

I had just shot lightning—or had it been fire? (I'd scrunched my eyes closed!) 

With a bang and a clang, wood, metal, and glass whirled and spun apart, pinging and popping as it showered down. Sparks flew amid a downward spray of twinkling thaumaluminescence, green with sparkles of blue and red. I'd hit the middle arc light, but the arena's lighting had been interconnected via a contagious-magic spell. All the lights went dark. The angled late afternoon sun streaming in through the clearstory replaced it with gloom. Shadows flooded every level of the grandstands and the rafters, incidentally projecting an eldritch spotlight on a startled white pegasus who hit her flank on a rafter and tumbled out of control, wings out, flapping haphazardly against sudden pain, spasms, and the terror of an uncontrolled crash to the ground.

I'd done it! I'd cast my special spell, but that wasn't important now. 

The arena clock read 4:47. Thirteen seconds before the judges would ring the bell. Shadow Strike had buzzed me, forced me to run, squirreled herself free of every magic grab and thrust I'd tried, and bloodied my nose.  

I'd done nothing to impress, until now, but it was naught but property damage. 

Shadow Strike was ahead in the judge's points.

I'd performed a miracle. I had my chance.

Shadow Strike righted herself and avoided the ground as she swooped up from a high speed crash in the dirt, teetered on the edge of control, and flapped to decelerate and pull up. As an expert in calculating vectors and velocity, I knew her trajectory in the very core of my horn, and reflected that in the targeting of my second queued spell. Levitate tuned for Push mirrored her predicted movement. An easy transform. The physics of flight limited her motion and what adjustments she could make on a critical path to safety.

I knew she was left-hoofed. I wagered the championship on her reflex action. 

I pushed right and she yawed left.

Like Mustang had done almost a year before—not galloping into a wall but flying into a pole—Shadow Strike knocked herself unconscious with a bang heard throughout the arena.

I cringed with the spectators as an empathic puckered "Ooooo!" echoed throughout the space.

I caught the glacial-maned white pegasus, her feathers akimbo, in a blue-green nebula of magic. I lowered her unconscious body gently to the ground.

It surprised me that I was still that kind of mare. 

It was my sixth KO overall, not counting my unofficial first one, nor when I accidentally knocked-out Woodcutter who was too dumb to let go of a lead. As per the rules, I sat down on her as the ref counted her out. No way she was bucking me off if she suddenly awoke.  

She groaned and said, "Who hit my— me—wha?"

The crowd roared. 

The ref lifted me with a hoof in the pit of my tank-top jersey, gesturing me to rear. Legs in the air, he grabbed a hoof and pulled it out. He bellowed, "Princess Grim, by a knock-out, your new welterweight cham-peeeeeen!"

I put a hoof to my nose and it came back red as I pirouetted slowly around on my rear legs. I snuffed and that made it worse, but despite the pain, I smiled.  

I was happy. 

Six straight wins and nothing Dr. Feel's spellcasting couldn't heal.

Flash bulbs strobed from the audience, but the anemic light didn't help. I wore my Celestia satire costume, the dark blue one graced with a midnight moon cutie mark on both my trunks and in the center of a silver breastplate embroidered on my tank top. Fan pictures would show a blue pony with a black mane, all dyed. Fighters often wore costumes or took on personas. 

Prizefighting was a game of bits. A way to earn plenty of them. A way to create a new life. 

I received the championship cuirass, plated with gold, bedecked with red roses and blue spiral ribbons. Coach, having put on his best green tweed jacket over his Team Grim tee-shirt, trotted up.

"Magnificent. Do you believe me now?"

I nodded as one photographer, a powder-blue brown-maned unicorn, dashed from all the way across the arena—rather than from the judges stage from whence I'd expected the now tardy press gaggle.

"Sorry, late," he gasped. 

I looked where I expected the other reporters. Beyond the gate, I spotted a confusion of ponies in the shadows. The underdog had won. Confusion was to be expected. Such horse apples made bookies and promoters nervous.  

Coach stood next to me, not touching, having learned that when I perspired, the wash-out dye tended to stain everything. The photographer held his camera in his yellow magic. He adjusted the cuirass with a hoof, motioned the referee in place, then nodded.  

"1, 2, 3!" Click.

The flash bulb exploded. The silver reflector crumpled and collapsed.

"Well, phooey!"

An official waved us to the main gates as Dr. Feel attended to Shadow Strike. The pegasus kept on insisting on standing with her wings flailing out as we walked by. Dr. Feel kept pushing her down and mumbling some choice curse words at her.

My nose wasn't getting fixed any time soon.

I trotted out of the shadowy arena on three legs, waving to the cheers of the crowd. After fourteen fights—8 wins, 2 losses, 4 no-decisions—the cheers hadn't grown old. Beating up ponies to make other ponies happy still felt weird, but whatever. Ponies gave me permission. It kept my conscience clear. Getting bits didn't suck, either. More fun than anything I'd done as a countess!

Ponies held open the gates into the recesses of the arena. Others kept the crowd beyond the velvet ropes. My first clue something was amiss was when an earth pony bull galloped from the right and blocked my trainer from following.

"Coach!"

A young voice, not my trainer's, said, "Don't worry yo-self about it."

I turned. I found a stallion's pink kerchief at the end of a hoof. I pressed it to my nose and watched the chivalric pony take the bits from the fight promoter slash bookie, count out at least a quarter, and brush it into a pouch. He scraped out another pile as I came to his side. 

He said, "Your take."

It amounted to substantially more than I knew my prize purse ought to contain, even subtracting Coach's cut. Something told me not to say anything since nopony, even the promoter, said boo. The whole fight system wasn't legal, despite payments to the constabulary retirement fund. The betting less so.  

I carried the pouch in my magic as an excuse to keep a spell spun up. I didn't have pockets in my fight giddy-up anyway. My first direct look in the warehouse gloom at his black-nosed red-roan face validated what my ears had figured out. I remembered the punk, his greasy black bouffant and his gold chains, not to mention his unsteerable filly-friend with an attitude.

"Have I got a deal for you! You'll make gobs more bits than you're making now."

I backed away in disgust. "Trigger."

"There's certain offers you shouldn't refuse."

The gangsters had dressed for going to the fights. Gone were the adolescent tee-shirts. All wore dark blue pin-striped business jackets (bare-chested). Some wore dark wraparound sunglasses, though with the lights out, that seemed like a liability. The stallions wore bouffants. The mares wore blue plaid dresses, though none of the same cut. One wore a mini-skirt, the rest knee-length except for the oddball with a full bustle and crinoline. Gold rings, silver earrings, and bracelets abounded. 

No dolled up Mustang, though. MIA. Pity. No second chance to break her.

The group of young miscreants kept the reporters back with practiced glares. They had a pet unicorn. Her pink aura formed around a camera a pony held over his head. The flash bulb exploded.

That explained a lot.

Trigger continued. "You remember Cyclone Beaujangles?"

How could I not? His name had come up in the Celestial Race press gaggle. Whistlebutt had held him up as a real life boogiemare. As I trained as a fighter, I concluded his whole story was inflated. As I racked up wins on the circuit, Shadow Strike trounced him. In his subsequent fight, he kicked a unicorn in the horn, effectively sidelining his career for the year. I'd heard the unicorn could still cast spells.

Then, two weeks ago, I'd met the stallion in the muscular flesh. While I had months ago quit working at Bite O'Kale as prize purses provided plenty of income and store hours made it hard to ramp up my grueling training, I hadn't bothered to craft another out-of-the-arena persona or gone to the trouble of moving to better digs other than Mobtown Mattresses. I didn't need the distractions of living the high life; for me, such things were totally last year, my life as a foal. I'd grown up to appreciate the simplicity of frugality.

That said, a lavender mare that walked around town wearing simple dresses with her purple mane and tail tied in a severe bun, resembling her picture as the winning unicorn from the Celestial Race, proved hard to miss.

The bulked-up ripped stallion proved equally hard to miss. He looked as blue as a mountain lake in the morning sun. Nopony could unsee his fire-engine red Mohawk mane. Like a battle flag. 

As winter approached, the sun had risen late and I'd spent time in line at the Buckstars buying my morning tea-cooked oats. With everypony rushing off to work, the sidewalks were crowded. Draymares pulled early morning deliveries, messengers cycled by on bikes, and one bus after another rumbled by, each pulled by teams of six, snarling traffic.

The hopped-up stallion could care less whether the streets were full or empty. My first cue that something was amiss came when I saw a pony suddenly jump sideways and crash into the brick wall between storefronts half a block away. I saw the pink mare's startled green eyes as she hit, then slid down. Amply warned, ponies near the disturbance gave way. A saffron pegasus fluttered up, squealing, a hoof held to her stomach.

I blinked in disbelief. Then I saw a stallion whose bulk was clearly due to 'roids. At twenty pony lengths away, his eyes fixed upon me. They were amber; they could well have been on fire.

I clunked down my carton of maple sugar black tea oats atop of the green newspaper dispenser I stood beside. It sold the Baltimare Sun. I remembered everything Whistlebutt warned about. The stallion was a street fighter deep in his twisted core; he preferred fighting dirty. His suspension from the fights proved it. His demonstration that he didn't care about anypony as he shouldered ponies aside on the street seconded that observation.

I needed to keep him from pinning me against any surface, and to keep him surrounded by crowds where he couldn't indulge his inclination toward murder—assuming he cared. When he head-butted a Clydesdale stevedore that I knew because he lived around the block, causing the fellow to fold to his knees, I wondered if anything could stop him from expressing what he wanted.

This was the type of thing that made you wish the constables actually patrolled your neighborhood!

I backed up, carefully, but quickly. The street was a rather steep downhill of cobblestones. The paved sidewalk was little better, being cracked by years of disrepair and strong summer rains, and wedged up in places by overgrown tree roots.

He bellowed, "You want a piece of this, Gelding?"

"I said I'd fight you. I meant in the arena—"

"Liar! You talk horse apples, you make me look bad—"

"I've said nothing about you since the race—"

He stopped and bellowed, his face turning red. "You seriously want to die, don't you, Gelding!" 

"That's a verb, you know."

"A threat? Another threat? As if I'd let you touch me!" He stalked forward. "Beg your sugar colt nicely, and you might convince me to leave you only paralyzed from the hip up!"

I gave him my best what-the-fudge look, eyeing the traffic and the sidewalk. Ponies jaywalked trying to get away, snarling the wagon traffic even worse. It worked to my advantage. 

All this time, I'd prepared Levitate. Now I was ranging it on him, recalculating the distance as I let him get closer and closer. Behind me, I spotted a delivery cart parked up in the entrance way of Riddles' Hardware Store. It hadn't opened. A red colt wearing a blue delivery cap wedged himself out of the way against the window.

It happened to be constricting a sidewalk that was further narrowed by an overgrown birch tree. I jerked dramatically, intentionally, approaching it as if I'd noticed my predicament. I made sure I looked like I was forced to take the curb and the wedged pavement between it and the tree as I continued to retreat.

It made me look pinned between the traffic and tree.

Cyclone dashed forward as I stepped over a root and by the blocks of cement into the clear. It left us separated by a pony length. Like the muscle-herd he was, he led with a right-hoof punch.

He wore blackened steel horseshoes, size extra-large.

He wasn't so stupid as not to notice the pavement and stepped appropriately. That wasn't the trap I'd set, however.

I cast Levitate against the two hooves he had on the ground at that moment, breaking his gait, then on the third that he shot down desperately trying to catch himself from tripping. His legs tangled a half-a-beat later, making him visibly stumble. I let him try to recover as I watched the traffic adjust to the jaywalkers.

Wait for it.

Wait for—

I pushed.

Best part of it all, it was very sunny. No way anypony could see my magic, not that any might fault me for casting something nasty having been stalked by the loudmouthed pony that had injured a half-dozen ponies he'd pushed aside.

He went over, waving his left foreleg trying to find some balance. Skittering hooves landing on uneven cobbles didn't help. He threw himself left toward the curb, trying to avoid the traffic. He slipped and slid hooves-first into the street.

A delivery van loaded with bags of flour and bales of hay couldn't swerve in time.

I don't think I'll ever forget that brittle breaking-stick crunch as long as I live. I landed on my rump and began retching.  

My reaction wasn't feigned. 

Physicians like Dr. Feel might be good at mending pony bones, but I felt certain that Cyclone Beaujangles would never walk again. It was somewhat of a mercy that he had struck his head going down and lay there unconscious, tongue lolling out.

Ponies helped me up and told me how lucky I was. A mare with her mane hidden under a dandelion scarf brushed the dirt off my dress. Her school-age son babbled how brave I was. Others summoned an ambulance. I returned to the newspaper dispenser, grabbed my carton of oats, which hadn't cooled all that much, and inserted a copper. I pulled out the sports page and left the rest on top, then trotted quickly up the street to the gym just in case some pony had called in the constables.

Oh, I remembered.

I looked Trigger in his eyes, which even in the shadowy light looked very blue. "Beaujangles, uh huh."

"He was a test and you passed. It  satisfied the higher ups that there are services you can be well-paid to provide."

I broke my stare with the gangster lieutenant before I decided I might rather like to set him on fire. It would be a hollow victory. I turned around, but saw no safe egress. I was surrounded. I felt envious of Shadow Strike's wings.  

My glance upward touched upon metal beams and wood siding. Glass reflected the glimmering setting sun from the clearstory. The warehouse rented for the arena, I'd been told, had been designed for the construction of tall ships back when Equestria built its air navy. It explained why it didn't have upper floors for increased product warehousing. Catwalks and walkways lay just below the rafters seven stories up. And directly above where I stood, the "upper story" connected to a glassedin two-story office area. It was probably where naval officers managed the ship construction. The lights I'd destroyed had been where a crane had many years ago hung down.

I could not fly. I knew it was unlikely that I could batter my way through the goons that surrounded me. Worse, were I to actually get off another force spell, I was sure I'd be tackled before I made anymore than one pony regret cornering me.  

I wasn't stupid. 

What I could do, and the worst that could happen would be that I failed, was once again try my newest spell. I might even learn something about myself. I'd spun it up successfully on a dozen occasions, but each time I'd sensed something I could only describe as a presentiment of oblivion awaiting were I to kiss the wish predicate to life.

I had my bits. I had what I needed for the next phase of my life.

I stood cornered, ready to lose my freedom if I didn't try something.

A hurricane, not unlike the dark storm a rogue Windigo had hurled at Horseshoe Bay some years ago, whirled with flaming digits in my head. Internal electricity formed and lightning struck as I balanced the equations with that oh so lovely math the evil princess had so helpfully illustrated for me.

I held the purse of bits in the air, the nebulosity of my blue-green aura pulsing and expanding around the starting-to-jangle contents. Everypony stared at me, awaiting my next caustic retort to Trigger's goading. Meanwhile, I worked up the spell equations, then factored-in the breach-chaos codicil, and let the numbers flow as splendor after splendor of magic sluiced into my horn. That meant I let the targeting on Levitate disintegrate and turn into mere guesses. The purse began to vibrate as I lost track of where I applied counter-gravity to keep it afloat.

I needed a target.

The open porch I'd seen; I felt positive I knew where it was. All that time I'd spent on trying to get that stupid Don't Look, Don't See, Don't Hear to work had made me very observant of my surroundings before I needed to be.

I felt the warmth of completion. Digits stormed orange and red like wind blown embers in my sensorium, coming close to blinding me.

"Well," I huffed.

Trigger tilted his head to better hear my words. Unfortunately, at this point in my work with the spell, I had no choice but to say the cheesy mnemonic aloud.

"I wish I may, I wish I might... Teleport."

The world around me jerked 5° rightward, like a gear ticking in a clock. My perception of reality slowed as transform after transform triggered around me. The physical laws broke down along fractal surfaces; my view pixelated. What I'd wished for didn't exist in the normal world, but belonged naturally to the realm of incredible densities and unimaginable gravities, the stuff that laughed at the pressures needed to make a diamond. A shell of light, crackling with blue lightning spread out from inside me, stopping then restarting my heart and making every hair on my spine and neck stand on end. It spread out even as I dropped my pouch of bits. Even so, they fell slowly like I'd been plunked into a vat of glycerin.

The crackling grew until it reached a pony length around me.

The world vanished.

For an eternity and for an instant, I found myself engulfed in utter darkness. Suspended weightless in a lightless void, I realized I was in vacuum. My mouth had been open. My lungs emptied violently, worse than the hardest cough, and I heard my scream—not directly in my ears, but as transmitted through my flesh. A cold magnitudes more frigid than the inside of Bite O'Kale's walk-in refrigerator chewed through my fur to my skin, trying to freeze me solid at the speed of thought.

I had sent myself into oblivion. To death.

This is how I die—

I landed, knees bent, my head falling on a wood plank floor. Surprised, my head continued down and my chin struck the wood, making me see stars.  

I gasped. Air! Air!

I heard a loud bang, and another bang echoed back so the two overlapped. I groaned even as I worked to fill my lungs over and over again.

I blinked and saw frost steaming upward in ribbons off my fur. I coughed, and a bit of mucus flecked with blood spattered my hoof. Despite my dizziness, despite exhaustion, despite the ache in my chest from the worst cough of my life, despite my having struck my chin, I looked around. Frost—my perspiration, my congealed blood on my nose—steamed upward toward rafters that were now less than a story above me.

I jumped up. Though wobbly, I saw the glass front of the management office. To my right, over the guardrail, I saw the grandstands. Letting myself take in everything, I became aware again of the crowds still cheering. They didn't comprehend something had happened that had made their new champion, Princess Grim, work an incomparable miracle that only alicorns accomplished.

"I did it. I did it!"

A heavily accented voice called out. "Che! Boludos! What es happening?"

"Sweet Celestia," I whispered, looking around. I needed out of the building. I'd teleported, but if I'd been surrounded by gangsters before, I'd probably just landed near the bosses. Of course the promoters were affiliated. Where better to watch the fight than from a sky box? I looked out through the clearstory that ran the length of the building, which was now at eye level. I spotted a flat area of corrugated metal on the next roof, where the furnaces and chimneys came out. I need to get there and quick!

I had a handle on the spell setup prep. I just needed to fix the snapped wish predicate and refactor the codicil!

The spinning red and orange digits began whirling. It made me dizzy. And nauseous. I blinked as the exhaustion of the fight, the pain of having been punched in the nose, the adrenaline of having been cornered, and the strain of casting the highest level of spells bucked me to the curb. I didn't even bother to try to Levitate my purse of bits. I bent my head down, bit the fabric with my teeth, and with my target fully envisioned in my mind and not bothering to lift my leaden head back up, I cast my second Teleport.

The blackness I experienced was not the oblivion I'd encountered in between one place and another. It was nevertheless total. 

I passed out.

No, it was not a good day.


- End of Part Two -

> PART THREE: New Career; Chapter 32 — The Hard to Refuse Offer
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The shadowy mare sighed. "I really want you."

My heart raced in response.

"If you really want to be a bodyguard, I will es settle for that. I've been es seeing you've gotten every opportunity. I am not going to waste effort by insisting on making you do es something you will not do."

"That... That's generous of you. Am... Am I getting the job?

"Por supuesto! ...So, what do I call you?"

"Grimoire is fine, when I'm working."

"When not? Gelding?" She snorted. "I haven't the huevos for that verb to have meaning you intended. Let us es see? There es Starlight es Starbright from your Celestial Race application. That is a foal's name, yes?"

"Hey!"

"Es verdad. Ah, look how her eyes would es sparkle in the moonlight. How about es Starlight Glimmer?"

"Let's stick with Grimoire," I shot back.

"One day you will be comfortable with me and my teasing, but, yes. Another concession, Grimoire, hija." 

She reached into her pocket and I flinched. 

She didn't face me, but continued speaking around something she held in her lips. "A concession for a concession. Answer me this: What kind of pony, neigh, what kind of unicorn who can learn to teleport joins an es syndicate when she owns an infinite, how you say, honeypot like this?"

A bronze and copper rectangle glittered at the right edge of her mouth. The rune noticed my gaze and a green spark ran the length of the crossed H shape.

My command card. Entrance to Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, admissions exams waved. Exclusive—that went without saying, as White Towel would say. Having learned teleport, I might even get tutored by Princess Evil herself! A "honeypot," if you liked that type of sickly sweet.

My cheeks became warm. I had been pickpocketed by the colt with the dipper cutie mark that had stumbled into me. 

Dipper cutie mark. 

Naturally.

I did not need the card. I did not need her line of questioning, either. Frankly, it spooked me back to my senses.  I began casting Teleport.

A pony tackled me from the left. Feathers slapped me in the face, poking me in the eyes as forelegs wound around my withers, hooking my right foreleg.

Tears blurring my vision, I took advantage of the momentum of the shove. I rolled right, intentionally kneeling, using his attempt at compensation to throw the pegasus before landing on his rib cage. (Grape had eventually forgiven me and given me some very personal tutoring.) The pegasus coughed the air out of his lungs as we slid toward the edge of the stage. I cast Push to keep from being raked by his rear hooves. He ought to have been more protective of his wings—

Another pony piled on before I could poke the first's wing joint with my horn. This stallion had barreled in from a hiding place in the curtains from my left. I managed to punch a hoof into his stallion parts, then kick him off when he curled up with a strangled whinny.

The pony conducting this violent orchestra jumped back. "Don't leave, yet, hija."

I flopped like a fish that had inadvertently jumped onto a boat, banging the persistent pegasus against the floor again and again, getting him to release me as I tried to stand, but a third pony galloped from behind my prospective employer. This mare had had time to evaluate my actions. Though I Pushed at her, she flattened herself and slid as I got my hooves under me. With the pegasus stallion swatting my flank with a wing, the mare dove underneath me, sweeping my legs, upending me and throwing me forward.

I was no gymnast. I transformed Push to a blue-green Shield across the floor just in time as I fell. My knees and my jaw bounded off the magic cushion.

I sprang back up, straining my shoulder muscles as a fourth pony landed on my back. I tried to buck, but the pegasus tackled me again and the mare had turned around and grabbed my flank.

Two earth ponies weigh a lot. Still whimpering, the unlucky stallion joined the pony calzone with me as the lavender aubergine filling and immobilized me, standing. I squirmed to no avail.

In desperation, I switched to Teleport.

"Really, I thought better of you," the mare in charge said, approaching me despite my glowing horn. "I am planning to let you choose whether to work for me or not, so there's no need for you to leave before I make my proposal."

I grunted trying to push a pony, any pony, off. I kept casting, but the numbers failed to keep spinning, the wish predicate kept addressing a non-temporal reality, and the equations kept sliding out of balance.

"I know enough about Teleport to know you cannot cast if you have to teleport everypony hugging you." She touched my horn with the pink frog of her hoof. The shock of the soft pad caused me to lose all my prep. "I gave the es spell to White Towel to give to you, after all. I had to learn Old Ponish. And I can do analytic calculus."

Sometimes you get what you ask for. You probably want to know how I went from fainting after casting Teleport for the second time to being invited to interview to become Carne Asada's bodyguard. It is a study in making all the right decisions and not understanding the implications...
> Chapter 33 — Ain't that a Kick in the Head
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I felt like I was awake in a dream; nothing worked except my lungs expanding and relaxing. I could see, so I guessed my eyes worked, too. Flares of golden lights turned it all into fog banks of prismatic glare that twirled and drifted as I moved my eyes trying to make sense of it all. Purple and blue sprites flitted about like spiky little balls of electricity, zipping and zapping, making me dizzy and nauseous at the same time.  They pulsed in time with the pain throbbing in my head, eclipsing the fire in my nose from where I had caught Shadow Strike's hoof.

The fog seemed to separate and a shadowy figure approached. A head lowered and came further into focus. I was in the warehouse. Still in the warehouse. My teleport had backfired. 

"What have we here?" The high-pitched voice belonged to a mare. I could glean that much. She had an accent. 

I groaned.

"A unicorn having a, how you es say, death wish?" She pointed and a blue hoof came into focus. "Fighters are boludos by definition. We thought this one was es smarter?"

I heard another voice that I couldn't make out over the ringing in my ears. I did, however, get my eyes to focus.  

I saw blue eyes blinking at me out of the fog. I then saw a burgundy scarf pushed up to form a ridge by a purple mane and pushed out by her ears. She had mauve fur that was almost colorless enough to be considered grey. She looked young enough that she wasn't middle-aged, but that might be the result of makeup and the scarf, and possibly the long-skirted burgundy dress she wore. She was big-boned, but petite and long-legged like a pegasus, though somewhat voluptuous without being fat. She was an earth pony; no pegasus would tolerate wearing a tight-fitting frock like that without displaying her wings.

"Really?" the mare said, sounding disappointed. "Somepony should kick es sense into the hija of hers, tell her not to be es stupid. Maybe me? Buen."

She did it. My head thumped like a coconut.
> Chapter 34 — Trigger
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I felt like I was awake in a dream; nothing worked except my lungs expanding and relaxing. I couldn't move, no matter how I strained. I might as well have been staked in the squelching mud that sucked at my limbs and body. Mist rose around me despite the rain. Lightning flashed blindingly in the dark, followed with ponderous inevitably by thunder. Despite the shish-shish of the rain, I heard a hoof fall. (On grass? On Wood?). Then another, and another, approaching, getting louder, heavier... My ears swiveled and I moved my eyes to the edge of my vision, straining, trying to see what stalked me, what made the sound. The staccato beat of my heart and the rush of blood in my ears drowned out the peal of thunder that followed another flash of blinding blue. 

I saw a pony in red. An earth pony. Huge. A giant amongst workponies. He'd struck me, then dragged me from the road, then up the hill. Then, as the rain had fallen and the lightning had flashed, he'd...

A hoof rushed for my head! I couldn't move my legs to protect myself...

"Tartarus!" I screamed and sprung upright—

—in bed, thrashing away constricting sheets. 

Sheets.

I slid the frogs of my hooves beside me to assure myself the fabric was real. I hear the zzzht of the fabric. I breathed so rapidly, I was becoming dizzy. I kept seeing the monster that had attacked me, though I felt the very real sheets and the mattress that supported my flank.

The monster hadn't worn red. Nor a dress. 

"Calm! Calm there!"

I blinked and the nightmare faded. There had been no royal guardian of dreams back in those days.  

I looked toward the voice. It was still dark, but not totally so. As my eyes adjusted from REM sleep, I saw moonlight and flickering neon streaming in from a floor-to-ceiling window that, as I focused upon it, seemed to continue beyond the plaster ceiling and to below the plank floor. Closer to me came the soft glow of a lantern filled with thaumaturgical marbles. A hoof lifted the handle and shook the brass-clad glass bulb to increase the light, making it rattle.

At the other end of the hoof, I saw a lanky roan stallion. His nose was black as if he had stuck it into the soot from a kerosene lantern. His hooves and lower legs looked similarly dipped. He had a lustrous long charcoal mane that cascaded over his red-furred neck and shoulders and reflected the lantern light. He lay with his rear legs out across a silver coverlet, on his barrel. He snapped closed the book he was reading and I smelled the comforting old library book scent wafting. 

He said, "Hearken, the princess awakens from her slumber."

Blue eyes. Red roan stallion. I hissed. "Trigger!" I looked down. "You're reading a—a book."

"Too surprising that a thug might actually enjoy reading? My mother is a librarian."

I recognized my magic book. I instantly tried to grab it away with my magic, but got rewarded with an instant stab of pain from my horn, and an explosion of purple and blue phosphenes for my trouble.

"Calm there, Princess. Don't do magic."

As my vision cleared, I noticed he lay there without clothes. The black jacket, gone. 

And I wore no clothes under the satiny sheets—which I nevertheless grabbed up to my neck. Of course, ponies normally did not wear clothes. I thought of all my petty sneering about nudity psychopathy, but felt a chill. Bits of the fear and helplessness from my nightmare rushed up, though I could not remember the gist of it. My limbs cooled. I was in a bed. 

He was in the bed with me.

"Actually, I'm on top of the comforter."

I jerked back and hit my head on the headboard. My head made a coconut sound and that reminded me of... something.

"I can't read minds, but your glancing about with widening eyes made you easy to read."

"Don't call me 'Princess,'" I said, trying to find my mental equilibrium. That was difficult since the pain in my nose and in my head reasserted itself. I felt my thoughts slow as if my head were filled with cotton, or fog. "I hate princesses."

"Would you prefer Gelding? I'm willing to bet you made that name up just for me on the spot when we first met."

I gasped, and my head started throbbing. "Somepony kicked me!" I remembered the red dress at least, and the blue eyes. "One day, that mare will regret ever having met me!"

"Still got some fight in you, huh, Gelding?"

I wasn't wearing any clothes. I smelled strawberry scent on my fur. My mane pooled around my neck in glossy locks of purple and green. No dirt from the arena clung to my hair. My eyes crossed as I looked at my nose. The crust of blood was gone and I saw a thin line of glued skin.

I wore nothing.

"For your sake, you better not have bathed me!"

He grinned. "Blank flank."

I surged forward—

About a hoof length. 

An enormous load of exhaustion asserted itself and all I succeeded in doing was throwing off the covers which fluttered down around me. I sunk back down with a groan, sliding until I lay flat.

Trigger sat up, reached over, and tossed the covers back on. I hadn't been tucked in since the last time I'd seen my parents, but soon I was snug with the warm downy comforter under my chin.

"Look, Gelding. I'm no monster. I was told to look after you, and you really were a mess. Athletes stink, and fighters worse because they sweat and roll in the dirt and get blood on them. Did you think I would let a pig fresh from her muddy sty wallow in my bed? One covered in blue dye?"

Flashes of my dream returned. Trigger wasn't the monster, but it made me think. "Two KOs."

He tilted his head. After a moment's thought, he asked, "I thought your record was six?"

"Not my wins by knock-outs. The times I've been knocked out."

"I'd heard nopony'd succeeded in doing that despite your two losses."

"That mare and another. Both monsters. Afterwards, I set his tail on fire in the middle of a thunderstorm. Her... She will rue the day." The red-dress mare. My eyes were closing as if they had lead weights pendant from the eyelashes.

"Sleep is the best thing."

"What did you see?"

"When I showered you? Other than that book cutie mark that scrubbed right off? That you're a cutie, but other than washing you and shampooing your mane? I didn't take advantage, I was told to take care of you. I follow orders."

"That's good," I said, surprised that my declaration was followed by a big yawn.

"Dr. Feel gave you some medicine after she cleaned up your nose. She said that if you couldn't do magic right away not to worry, it'll come back. Other than that, sleep."

I found myself slurring my words. "You. Stay put."

"Perfect gentlecolt, I promise." He made a plus sign across his chest and laid back down before opening my book.

"You. Read. Old Ponish?"

"I like the pictures."

Of course, there weren't any pictures in Marlin's. Just text, equations, violation physics trans-dimensional dot clouds, and my messy margin notes. You needed a certain genius, or a horn to understand the math.  

"That's... horse apples, and you know it," I said as my awareness faded into darkness.


#


I awoke to a tantalizing smell. Probably barley or millet and rice, with butter. Hard to miss the butter smell, but also something unexpected—a marine undertone. The porridge made me think of home and servants that might have brought me oatmeal in bed on a cold weekend morning. Aches from tightening bruises and a dull throb centered in my forehead cast doubt that the last year or so had been some sort of bizarre dream. 

I heard a hushed, "Yeah, bub, da bits are for you."

"Thanks, sir." I heard coins jangle and the whoosh of wings. I'd become quite good at hearing wing movements having fought so many pegasi.

The smell grew. 

Trigger said, "I can tell you're faking it, Gelding; gotta little sis not much younger than you."

I rubbed my eyes. By day, the apartment looked nice, if sparingly decorated. I saw a picture of daisies, a brown sofa, a modern white laminate monstrosity of a breakfast table with tan Bakelite stools and not much more. 

My roan nemesis stood in a flood of afternoon light with a tray upon which sat an earthenware bowl, spoons, and a wax box with red writing likely filled with porridge. My stomach growled just before I growled. 

"A conflicted teen. Oh, goodie!" His eyes sparkled. 

"You know there's a dead animal in that porridge, right?"

"I know you like the Le Petit Pescatarian Pegasus—that name's a mouthful! Sis long ago stopped playing the yuck card on me. You're an only foal, right?"

I gulped. Too close to home. He slid the tray over his head onto the bed, then deftly emptied the container into the bowl with a hoof and his nose.  

Steam rose. A golden barley and hominy corn slurry, with bits of white-and-pink long-leg crab. I licked my chops, then slurped in my tongue with a quick blush. 

He added, "I knew you were strange the day we met. You flicked your tail in my face, called yourself 'Gelding,' kneecapped a gang boss to our great good fortune, and creamed Mustang. Nice... Scary... But nice."

I grabbed a spoon in my magic, then gasped, surprised and relieved that my magic worked fine.

"Yep. Healed. Boss woulda been pissed somethin' bad had Dr. Feel failed."

"For the record, Mustang creamed herself," I said, chewing on the creamy porridge. It brought an unexpected smile to my face. I waved a hoof modestly between us and added, "I merely assisted her trajectory."

"Huh? Lost some teeth and her nose's still crooked. Remind me not to ask you for 'assistance.'"

Despite the spoon in my mouth, and the glutenous texture and flavorful seaweed broth making me wonder if I were still dreaming, I snorted.  

Which hurt. 

Bits of barley rose up my nose. 

I spent the next few minutes snuffling while Trigger did his best to hide his amusement by watching out the window at the traffic—and not outright laughing.  

As I finished, I spent the time staring at his flank and burnished legs and tail, not something I'd normally have done but for my position propped up on my back in bed. Despite him being lanky, and boney as a result, part of me liked the view.

He swished his tail as I dropped the spoon in the empty bowl. He knew I'd been sizing him up. He looked from his position in the sun into the darker room. His eyes glowed like a drop of liquid blue sky. The glare in his eyes probably saved me from him noticing my face warm and turn red.

Stretching, I asked, "What now?" 

My back popped in a few places as I magicked the tray aside. Apart from feeling that I'd been beaten up last night, which I had, I felt well-rested and strong.

"I start training you."

My body went cold. The scene last night, where gang members cut me from the herd, came back. Photographer's flash bulbs exploding when hit by magic. Coach prevented from following me out of the arena. Me learning that my potentially lethal encounter with Cyclone Beaujangles had been set up. Gold bits swept into a purse. Me realizing my freedom was so threatened that I spun up Teleport and managed to make it work!

My freedom...

I found myself standing beside the bed, breathing hard. I narrowed my eyes. My freedom was precious. 

I said, "Those words coming out of your mouth make me think of me being on a leash—like a dog."

His crooked smile struck me as essential Trigger. He waved a hoof, "Don't make it sound seemly. First off, you're too young for me in that sense." He stepped out of the sunlight and added, "Second, don't disappear on us again, I'd be in all kinda hurt if you left. While you'd likely find it all funny and such, you'd be missing out on a real opportunity." 

He pointed.

I'd missed the night stand and a grey velvet settee chest. Upon the nightstand I saw my take of bits piled into a white porcelain bowl. A shiny heap of copper, silver, and gold. Next to it lay Marlins. Between the settee and the wall was my championship belt, and in a pulled-out drawer of the chest, was my saddlebags and the contents of my locker from Mobtown Mattresses.

I whispered, "That's a lot of bits."

"An advance on wages. The sports book is owned by our employer."

"Your employer."

"You're getting twitchy, aren't you?"

I was. 

My hide was ticking. I'd unconsciously queued up Levitate. I found myself calculating a grab of the bits, my saddlebags, and Marlins. Could I teleport it all and myself?

Or would I knock myself out again?

I looked at him, realizing green glowed around my horn. I took a deep breath. I reflexively cracked my neck first right then left. "Yeah. Yeah, I am."

"Think of all those pricey magic books you could buy with a steady stream of bits."

I glared. "What is my freedom worth?"

He sat and gestured with both hooves. "Let's not exaggerate, okay? You know, I know, you'd be of no use if you weren't interested in the gig. I think you will be."

I narrowed my eyes at him.

He waved his hooves, exasperated. "Right, I need to convince you."

I nodded once.

He sighed as he walked to the bed. He lifted the tray with a hoof and placed it on his back. As he walked into the kitchen with it (behind a wall to the left of the breakfast table), he said, "The C. A. Syndicate has rivals. You see, it makes it hard to turn a profit when stuff ent 'cross town doesn't make it."

I stomped a hoof. "I'm not going to be some sort of, of, of— mule, transporting stolen goods across town. Not. Happening."

The dish and tray clanked in a steel sink. He looked around a corner back into the combined main room and bedroom. "It pays a lot."

"I am not a criminal."

"Says the pony who beats up other ponies for a living."

"That's a sport."

"Yeah." He laughed. "Riiight." 

He disappeared back into the kitchen. I heard water running. Dishes clunked as he washed them.

I could just disappear. This very moment, he was pointedly giving me time to gather my stuff, fully prep my spells, and... I looked out the window. I saw an interior courtyard between ugly brick apartment blocks. Some clothes waved on half a dozen clothesline hung from windows to the fire escapes. The little park had trees denuded of leaves because of the season, a rusty bench, and a swing set. An easy Teleport, were I willing. However, at the moment, all I needed was to trot out the front door.

I looked at the bits. I'd been paying for library privileges out of my fight purses. They were expensive in Baltimare because magic libraries existed only in patrician parts of the city, where I didn't live, and they weren't public. I'd been saving bits and thinking of attending a school in Prancetown, all expensive. That dream required a steady job.

"Not as a criminal," I said aloud.

"Heard you the first time!" he shouted over the water, which he shut off. I heard him rim shot a hoof towel in a wicker basket. I looked up as he walked back into the room. 

I said, "No way am I becoming somepony's mule."

"Okay. Okay. It's not like I'm whipping up a potion with my extensive potion expertise to turn you into one, you're too cute. Won't let that happen."

He winked.

I frowned. "Thanks, I think."

"How about—I think I could convince them of this—you accompany the 'mule team' and if somepony tries to waylay them, you distract them enough that the team can escape? Call it guard duty. That way you're not really associated, and once you're done distracting, you just 'disappear.'"

I thought about it. It did fit one of the definitions of conspiracy, however.

"I don't like to hurt ponies."

He snorted and said, "Yet, that stack of bits—"

"—says that I fought other ponies, all of whom understood they were in it to be hurt and to hurt other ponies. Not the same thing!"

"Cyclone—"

I yelled, "Celestia on roller skates! Don't go there! Had you not goaded him—"

"I didn't arrange that."

I huffed. "Regardless. He didn't do that on his own accord!"

"I heard he hated you." He shrugged. "You weren't safe, regardless. Heard it barely took a nudge." 

I snorted my anger out of my nostrils as I levitated the coins, scraping them from the porcelain dish into my saddlebags. That reminded me. "You didn't pay Coach, did you?"

"White Towel coached you to a championship, that's plenty of payment. He'll demand a bigger cut from fight purses going forward."

I smiled, despite his words. "Not if he coaches somepony who understands how to negotiate."

"Few ponies are as talented as you, or so willing to give up fame and fortune."

The gears in my head suddenly seized up. I said, "His first offer was 80/20."

"Really?"

The implications in that one word made the blood drain from my face. "80/20 was ridiculous."

"Yes it was, and what you negotiated was good. He should have done better. So, stop looking like a filly after a bully stole her favorite doll."

He let me wobble for about a minute, rearranging my scattered wits and reconstructing my self-confidence. White Towel could have done better. And I'd done what I'd done starting from nothing. It had been a good deal, and he had fulfilled his half of the bargain. 

So there.

He cleared his throat. I jerked my attention to his blue eyes. 

"Think about C. A.'s offer. Think of the bits you'll give up, for working a few days every week or two."

Really? Interesting. A few days? I sat down. "You're not saying how much."

"You're good at math. Subtract your purse from the bits you stowed. That's a six-month retainer, though we'll spend half that time training you."

Considering that a gold bit could pay a month's rent at Mobtown Mattresses with maximal perks, and two could pay for a reasonable flat with a roommate... 

Visions of books and school started to percolate into my brain. I shook my head, even as I said, "For working about a week in a month?"

"More or less. If you prove good, you'll be more in demand, but you'd be paid for it. And, usually, nopony bothers shipments."

"Just sometimes?"

"Unfortunately, sometimes. That's costly."

I looked away from his blue eyes to my open saddlebag. "Coach has to be paid." I gasped. "And he didn't even get a photo with me and the championship belt for his trophy wall!"

Trigger sighed. "The fellow is good at his job, but far from cooperative as far as C. A. is concerned."

Like me and Celestia. I understood that. "I have conditions."

"C. A. is as stubborn as you are. Best you don't go there."

"You want me—"

"Oh, I want you—" he said with a maybe not-so-mocking salacious grin.

I gave him a look. "I have conditions. That's one of them."

He compressed his lips. 

I stood and waited for him to speak, staring pointedly into his oh-so-blue eyes. 

After a minute, he blinked and sighed, looking out the window. "He understands how the economy works. We don't make the rules."

I got his implication. "That's true," I said, thinking of Princess Celestia.

Her meddling had led to the deaths of my parents. Compounding that, her efforts to make me one of her drones had eventually led me to run away from it all. All of it, totally unfair. Royalty made the rules. What I could expect from Celestia, if she ever caught me, would be analogous to what Whistlebutt would receive if I forced the issue to get him his bits.

Ruin.

Oppression, caused ultimately by cutie marks. Whatever the source of the infernal things, one day I'd fix that, but that tomorrow wasn't today. Today we were all under the hoof of somepony more powerful. Tomorrow, maybe we'd be more equal. 

I felt a cold sweat coming on. I'd already stolen some of the alicorn's beautifully magical alicorn math. And— And Trigger, and by extension the C. A. Syndicate, knew that I was a blank flank. They knew my approximate age and what I looked like uncovered, unmarked, and undisguised. I shook myself out almost as if I'd had a bucket of water thrown on me.

"You okay?" Trigger asked.

I inhaled deeply and let it out slowly—to steady myself. I'd disappeared once. I could again. This time, I could fight. I looked him squarely in the eye, despite feeling my confidence waning. I asked, "Training?"

"You've lived in Baltimare over a year—"

I winced. Coach had had a file. How much did they know about who I was? What did they suspect? I pushed that out of my head.

"—You know the city, but you'll need to know it like the front of your hoof. You're also physically fit. You can fight. We maintain that and work on your magical skills—"

My heart leapt. They'll teach me... magic?

The bed's springs creaked as stepped back onto it. I laid down in a sphinx pose. I said, "I'm listening," but I really wasn't.

I was such a foal. So immature. 

So easily bribed with candy.
> Chapter 35 — That Stinks
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I liked my candy. Maybe that's why they fed me so little of it.

My first teacher turned out to be a taxi driver. Crossroads lived up to his name and matching cutie mark. With a white streaked black mane and a deep yellow coat, the husky earth pony doubtless matched his carriage, though I never got to see it. I suspected the C. A. Syndicate had some share in his taxi medallion, but he never said anything other than to teach me all the best routes in the city.  

By hoof.

Having committed the Borough Map to memory—the  layout of the various overlapping territories claimed by the various "organizations" in the city—I understood he knew how to get from point A to point B with as few "trespasses" as necessary. Some days we traveled during the morning rush, some days the evening one. Twice a week, we walked during the late evening, or after the bars closed. The latter meant seeing the sunrise either from The Woodlands that overlooked the city to the northeast, or from the bay.

Calling a stallion that pulled a five-seater for a living "physically fit" was an understatement. Despite my training runs for the fights, I found myself having to speed up almost every block to keep up. At least I slept well.

He chattered about fares that had caused him trouble, like a repeat fare, a filly who kept on reversing the numbers in an address and the letters in street names like "Stone Heave", which was "Heather Stone." Both existed. He insisted I learn address numbers and cross streets, so I could reroute without having to resort to maps.

"You're not going to take out a map and light it up if you are trespassing in somepony's territory, now are you?"

Beyond work, he barely opened up. I didn't know if he had children, or if he was even married. Of course, I never admitted I was a runaway or that I was an Earl. Or that I had a hobby moonlighting as Princess Grim, despite him admitting he picked up fares on fight nights so that he could see some of the fights and be ready for uptown fares afterwards.  

I guess my blue dye disguise worked well. He certainly didn't recognize me.

Soon he was assigning me destinations, having me map them at home, and letting me lead. And fail. He'd point out pedestrians to expect at certain hours that I didn't want as witnesses. He'd point out unwise trespasses. He'd point out traffic delays and missed detours I was too stupid to think to take. I learned a lot of foul language and was happy he didn't have a ruler to hit me with, too.

The only thing I learned to do with magic in that first month or so was that Trigger could make potions. He could cook too, but I guess it makes sense if you can cook magic you can cook food.

Which meant he could read my magic book.

I trotted into a smokey apartment one night and started coughing. I rushed to the kitchen, expecting to find his tail smoldering and wishing I could conjure water.

I found him stirring a foul indigo blue soup bubbling in a cast iron stock pot with a long-handled whisk grasped in his teeth. I held my nose with a hoof and asked, "What horse apples are you making?"

He didn't miss a beat, talking around the handle. "The potion to turn you into a mule." He grinned, after a fashion.

"No, really."

He glanced at what I first mistook for a bakery recipe book on the white tile counter.

"Hair regrowth? Um. Might sell better if it didn't stink."

It was more of a scrapbook. He'd pasted in magically duplicated pages from a book—you could see the shadows of wrinkled discolored parchment. The margins were filled with very neatly printed notes in masculine dark blue and black ink. He'd never be a doctor with such legible hoof-writing. I saw trans-dimension dot clouds that annotated relatively simple integral equations that he had solved into matrix tables over the next three pages. Many of the number sequences rhymed and they actually demonstrated a perceptible rhythm. My eyes were drawn in, flashing left to right. Was that true of my horn calculations? 

"Wait. That's dactylic hexameter! Potions require math?"

"Well, duh." He spat the whisk into the sink and hoofed off the gas burner. "Earth ponies make things grow and become stronger." He shrugged. "I guess the maths help me channel that. As I did better at maths, I got better at these 'horse apples'. Classmates liked to call me an egghead until I earned a rep that brought an end to that: Plenty of bloody noses to go around."

I blinked, not so much that he had to fight, but had had to fight not to be bullied. I said, "Trigger."

"Yes?"

"I meant the meaning of your name." I felt my lips compress, realizing that I expected confirmation of my pet theories. His cutie mark was a flange lever with a spring. "You got your cutie mark when you realized math let you make potions, right?"

He started laughing. He ran water in the sink and started washing the whisk.

"What's so funny?"

He snorted and kept snickering. "Your serious expression."

"Yeah, funny." I sighed and shook my head. Not everything was about cutie marks. I looked at the potion. It was more of a smelly recipe than a spell. I started to see that I might be able to cast it, which was difficult without a wish predicate or a proper mnemonic other than the description. Could I use Illuminate's predicate, instead? 

He dropped the whisk from a red plaid hoof towel into a drawer with a bang. 

I looked at him.

He said, "Yes."

"Yes? Yes, what?"

"Yes, that's when I got it."

It took a couple seconds for me to connect "it" to my cutie mark question. I gasped. His recipe book immediately glowed bright bluish green.

"Hay!" He grabbed away the book. I'd reflexively cast a high-level Illuminate on it. Remember, I'd long ago blown past just lighting my horn.

"Hay, back!" I cried, levitating it back to the counter, rifling the pages back to the recipe. "It's just light," I said, reflexively pouting.  I added, "I'd never hurt a spell book."

"They're sacred?" he asked, archly.

"All books are," I corrected. I flashed back to when Sunburst got his cutie mark and the tower of heavy grimoires and tomes toppled over toward me: An intersection of gravity, mass, and cutie mark magic. "And deadly."

"I see," he said, looking over my shoulder at the glowing book.

My hide at my shoulder ticked at his closeness. Together with my revelation about Trigger, it made it difficult to concentrate but, after a few minutes, I spellified the recipe. The ingredients seemed to be metaphors: "spaghetti", "an oft-used comb." Others he told me were magic channels, like "soil from the roots of turf." Quantities and weights harmonized with the matrices of numbers...

Who was I making a foal of other than myself? I knew nothing about potions.

I cast it on my own front fetlocks, which had not grown in particularly thick this winter. It refused to trigger, no pun intended. I grunted and tried again.

Trigger noticed the glow around my ankles and knelt down to examine it. The short hairs crackled with static amongst the popping sparkles. His closeness caused the hide on my legs to tick, but he got this professional look on his face and I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"Well, you are a unicorn," he said.

"Which means?"

He touched a hoof to his chin. "Not an earth pony."

I snorted.

"Look. Nopony can tell if it works when you apply it; I tell customers that all the time." He stood. "Hair magic is problematic, you can't just grow long hair instantly because a pony is an animal, not a plant. Different 'ingredients.' If you did, it'd fall out. You could make a toupeé, or a wig in your case, but who wants that?"

I looked at my still not luxurious front fetlocks. "I couldn't braid them this year." 

"And she pouts again."

I turned to walk away.

"Don't be that way."

I huffed.

"I mean—" He huffed. "At least stop my book from glowing!"

"It'll make it easier to read at night! Ok, ok. Never learned to cancel spells." I had been going to work on that with Sunburst, but, then, you know... cutie mark. "I apologize."

"Look, Gelding, sorry. You wanna to try an experiment? Put some of the potion on the your rear right fetlock and use that as a yard stick..."

I did.

We ended up eating at the carrot dog pushcart at the corner. Even outside, the stallion making the dogs asked if I'd stepped in something. Still, it was better than the flat, even with the windows open to air the place out. We discussed spell math around bites of carrot, onion, and pickle relish slathered with spicy brown mustard that made my tongue tingle. He couldn't calculate worth hay without a conjoined stick contraption marked with logarithmic gradations—something earth ponies called a "slide rule"—but he understood analytic geometry and integrals. He probably should have been studying to be a magical pharmacist or a civil engineer, not a managerial-level thug.
> Chapter 36 — Hazing Days of Spring
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, Trigger bought me ice cream that night, too. I was letting my guard down. 

Which, perhaps, was why Carne Asada chose Trigger to usher me into her organization. I knew that friends always leave you in the end, and that other ponies will use you if you let them.

He had long ago accommodated to my requirements of being his roommate, including buying a day bed and a folding dressing screen he could open and unfold every night. The "princess," who was never so-called, always got the bed—of course.

He dragged me to the funky Ham Den neighborhood of Baltimare to buy a new wardrobe. This included an actual standing pine closet-type wardrobe from a beatnik carpenter who carved it and couture from new age seamsters whose atelier smelled like white sage and who really really wanted to sew in magic channeling crystals in the seven chakra colors and add frills at the cuffs. (I demurred, though my cultured upbringing did appreciate the effort.) 

Trigger insisted that my pink athletic tights and sweats had to go. I had to look like a different pony, not a former prize-fighter or market clerk. I purchased a hooded cape, some severe schoolmarm blouses that wouldn't interfere with galloping or rearing to box, and a maxi-dress with crinoline that I could use in a pinch. It added 10 years to my age. Nice. I went with black, purple, and mud-brown. My goth younger-self cheered.

I also bought a new makeup set from a grey old mare who mixed powder pots to match and contrast with my fur, including art brushes that could position the tiny dabs with precision. I decided going bare-flanked made sense sometimes, and a new cutie mark was in order. Something a little more... elaborate.

Trigger caught me having painted on two dozen cutie marks from my flank to my shoulder. 

Mugs. 

Flowers. 

Boxes. 

Sand timers. 

Stacks of books.

He stated, "You'll also have to pick a work name."

"A work name?"

"Gelding is pretty famous these days, despite having Princess Grim as a fight name."

"What's yours?"

"Trigger."

"What's your real name?"

"What do you think?" 

I frowned, suspecting my revelation of his name and cutie mark was actually based on a fabrication on his part. It didn't really matter, did it? I wouldn't trust what he said. 

I realized that while a common cutie mark and a forgettable name was what I needed, maybe the opposite made more sense. A disguise could be something to attract attention away from the pony in the disguise. Best that the disguise be remembered instead of the pony. Call it camouflage, instead.

I settled on a book with white-teeth and a steely-grey latch lock. I saw book cutie marks all the time, but none that looked willing to eat you if you opened them. Silver glitter powder provided a perfect metal patina; that necessitated a few coats of lacquer, but it truly shined.

Yes, I'd been dubbed Princess Grim. "Grim," however, described the whole business I dealt with now—grim and scary, especially now that the sun had set and I stood alone on a street corner where everypony went home early because nopony needed warehouses to be open at night, right?

I fussed with my purple hair clips, looking around nervously as I waited for the meetup to commence. I'd watched Trigger put up his mane in the gang de rigueur bouffant, but... earth pony, right? Piling up the hair in the back, teasing it, and getting it to fluff up proved difficult for me. I admit it. Servants had always done my hairdos. I'd only ever magically learned how to braid pigtails and a bun. I was such a disgrace to filly culture!

At least I knew how to dye my green locks purple.

I heard a whisper of approaching wings before I heard hooves clatter down each of the four approaches at my intersection. It felt like an ambush, but I had had Levitationalready spun up and I queued up a Push variant. I shoved the last clip into my hair.

"Ouch," escaped my control as I swiftly lifted my hood. The rustic black fabric crinkled. It had body. It stood up and rested on the tip of my horn, shadowing my face.

Clink, clink. Somepony played with a chain. 

A dark red pegasus mare wearing a red tartan plaid skirt and black blouse landed catty-corner from me, on a post box with a quadruple clank. To review: I'd learned in my fight training that unschooled non-unicorns thought most unicorns had a limited range of affect with their magic.

This was true!

Also, they thought most unicorns could only light up their horn and levitate two or three items, other than possibly doing a trick related to their cutie mark.

This was also true.

Just not for me.

I looked at her, pausing for a perplexed few seconds on her gold nose ring, then realized with a gasp that I couldn't fully see down the streets to either side of her.  

The hood affected my peripheral vision. Best laid plains of mice and mares...

I grabbed away two hair pins and felt the bouffant slightly slip in the back. I pulled back the edges of the hood in a fold, lifting it off my horn and getting it to snag the upraised hair in back. I jabbed in the pins and hoped. 

It gave me another 45º combined view. Now, I could see others in gang colors. Stallions. Wearing black pants and white tee-shirts.

I guess stealth wasn't on the menu tonight.

No choice but to let myself be surrounded! The half-minute that took allowed me to fully prep my spells with likely vectors and holds.

"Hey, Breakaleg! What we got here? A goth colt?"

Score one for the disguise. The lift horseshoes had done the trick. I'd painted them matte purple to match my fur color, with a grey strip at the base—a faux finish horseshoe. Oh, yeah! After the hair on my rear fetlock had started growing in, I'd popped for Trigger's potion on the remaining legs for a gold bit. Combed and trimmed right, it was enough to make me look coltish. 

On the other hoof, despite the group looking like C.A. members, none of what the hoodlum had said was the pass-phrase.

"Nope, Spiker. Just a wet-behind-the-ears, wannabe."

When I turned to face the palomino earth pony who'd said that, Breakaleg clobbered me upside the head. Behind the ears as it were. I saw purple and blue phosphenes, but as I staggered right I triggered my spells.

I grabbed Breakaleg, levitating the piebald stallion with a silver mane three pony lengths up and over me, flipping him on his back. At the same time, I spiked Spiker out of the way. As he stumbled away, I dropped Breakaleg where Spiker had stood. Unlike a cat, the palomino did not land hooves down. I understood my wonky magic well now. The spell didn't let go until he could fall without being badly injured.  

He nonetheless landed like a bag of beans with a loud "woof!"

He lay stunned as I finished turning my stumble into a spin and landed rump-down on his stomach. You try breathing with an almost full-grown mare on you.  

He reacted by kicking, but I knew this wrestling move well. I'd studied diligently since White Towel had embarrassed me the previous winter.

The obviously hormonally-poisoned Spiker jumped back at me to save his homie (that's the word, right?). I'd hoped he would and smiled. While I kept Breakaleg from bucking me off or clobbering me again, I didn't restrain the outward waving of Breakaleg's hooves.

I heard that wet snap of when a metal-shoed hoof strikes nasal cartilage. Just goes to show you that the side-effects of magic made of "giggles and rainbows" that can't hurt ponies directly can set up devastating results. I failed to dodge the spritz of blood and felt it swiftly cool on my cheek.

"Stop right now, you stupid excuses for horse apples!"

Everybody froze, even the pony I sat upon. Oh, was I crushing his stallion-parts? Oops. Too bad (even if my face did get slightly warm).

My right ear was ringing and my head throbbed in time with my heartbeat. I'd taken worse. A glance showed me the middle-aged red pegasus mare, who'd settled on the post box, now hovered above us all. If looks could kill.

I said, chuckling, "Aww, haw-haw. I was having fun."

"Shut it."

She didn't tell me to get up, but my glancing around showed me nopony would immediately attack me. Best I could tell in this light, her eyes were blue. She looked at my flank where my acrobatics had exposed my cutie mark.  

I flicked the cloak back over my nakedness. Catching her eyes and holding them without blinking, I tilted my head as if waiting for something.

And I was.

She said, "What are you having for dinner?"

I replied, "Fish." I added, glancing at the others, "Cod's my favorite, and I like it battered and deep fried with tarter sauce."

The last bit wasn't part of my pass-phrase, but it was true. I might as well have told the earth ponies I ate horse. Three stepped back. Considering what I'd just done to Spiker and Breakaleg, them waiting until then to step back made me wonder about their intelligence.

"What's your name, son?" asked the pegasus.

"Grimoire."

"Fitting. Considering." She glanced at my rear.

"Yours?" I asked.

"Ma'am."

"I see... Ma'am." I found that bullish gold nose ring really distracting.

"Your sofa might be warm and soft, but we’ve got business to do."

I stood, keeping my eyes locked with Breakaleg's brown ones as he slid back rapidly on his back like a turtle until he stood again with a clatter.
> Chapter 37 — Making Friends
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ma'am introduced everypony. I was clearly the only... what? Intern? One blue earth pony wore black saddlebags that matched his black pants. It was clearly not my business to know what the saddlebags contained. I was the sole unicorn. She rattled off an address on the east side of the bay and waited. I thought about it and gave her a route Crossroads wouldn't insult my ancestry for stating, pointing down the correct street before enumerating each street, direction, intersection, and turn.

With a nod, she told me, "If we meet another gang, Grimoire gets to distract them for at least two minutes. Everypony, follow me."

Eight ponies, me included, set off to walk halfway across Baltimare in the dead of the night. You could see the stars, it was that clear. Despite being late spring, the breeze blew cold. Thankfully, my cloak proved warm. I wondered about the white tee-shirts.

Trigger had testified that rare would be the days we met resistance. We did see some ponies. A few inebriates stumbling home from the bar when it closed. I saw a couple of earth ponies too obviously in new love that insomnia overruled better judgement. The pair didn't see us until we were close enough to see the color of their startled eyes in the lamplight (green and magenta).  

They hastened away.

Other than that, a few early dock workers trotted by keeping their gazes averted. That was it until I could smell the bay, the saltwater with a whiff of the sewers that polluted it.

As we strode down E. Redwood, an intersection came into view. As I could see further and further down the double-wide northern cross street, I spotted two ponies: a muddy brown earth pony with an equally muddy-looking mane and, beside him, a pale blue pegasus with a blue mane. Both had brown or deep green eyes. Hard to tell since the street lamps were coincidentally out and it was quite dark.

Ma'am said, "Your turn on the hoofball pitch." She corrected her route, turning south on what turned out to be ironically named "Light Street." An interesting detour, but now my heart raced.

Cut from the herd, I moved to the middle of the intersection to indicate I was blocking the newcomers. They watched the retreating group until they turned east at Mincer Street, a street-wannabe alley, then focused on me.

Feeling exposed, I retreated to the furthest street corner where there was a lamp post and a red newspaper machine. Measuring my hoof steps, I continued to prep Levitateand decided Illuminate might prove useful. I might need to grab or blind an opponent.

Neither seemed to be in any hurry to engage as they approached. The pegasus fluttered up to the black awning over a doorway of a brick building. 17 Restaurant. Closed. The other building of the intersection was newer: an ugly cement front (over brick). The airborne stallion had a long mane and his tail was full, if not entirely short. The pair stopped and stared.

I swallowed hard.

Okay. This fight had no rules. I had to get that through my head. Like the monster I'd met on a rainy night, I had no idea what might become of me if I lost. I didn't know what these two wanted from me, though I'd been right in guessing the monster had wanted me dead that fateful night. He'd already gotten what he wanted.

Coach's words came to me. "Attitude. If you don't have that, you'll lose."

How right!

I squared my shoulders. I gave a quick glance at my surroundings. As I had learned about most eastern cities, Baltimare would not win any clean-and-neat prize. I saw gum wrappers, crushed cups, and a spilt half-empty juice bottle in the gutter. Somepony had curbed their dog near by, recently from the fragrance. 

I was dimly cognizant that the juice bottle looked like orange juice as I found a coin and inserted it into the newspaper machine. Keeping an eye on the two rival gangsters, I took out the The Baltimare Sun and pulled out the sports section. I left the rest of the paper on top of the machine as courtesy dictated.

They kept looking.

I picked up the orange juice bottle—Sunny Daze brand with a smiling pink-maned white unicorn on the label. I brought it to my lips just to see their reaction.

The pegasus flinched.

I grinned. Okay. Idea forming. This wasn't a fight with rules. There were no rocks to throw, but if I threw the glass bottle it would not strike the pegasus hard enough to injure him. However, if he decided to follow my "homies" and I threw it properly I might take advantage of what my magic would do to the bottle.

I placed the juice bottle down on the newspaper stand with a provocatively loud clink, but kept my magic on it. I looked up at the gas lamp atop the high post. Not sure why it was out. Fire wasn't a good spell for me and, really, it didn't matter.

Keeping my eyes ready for a charge, I reached my magic up and cast a third level Illuminate on the lamp. It glowed green, but I tuned it to a nice brilliant yellow-white. My audience blinked at me, both covering their eyes with a hoof.

About 45 seconds had passed since Ma'am had taken the team on the detour. Still no attack. We're they really going to let me get fully prepped?

Did I miss anything?

I spared some glances around while allowing my ears to swivel, straining for any sounds foreign to the city at night.

No. Nothing. Just my ear still ringing from being hit by a hoof.

At the one minute mark, I sighed and muttered to myself, "Seriously?"

At the 75 second mark, I reached out to the lamp post across the intersection near the pegasus. I lit it and tuned the light as I had previously.

The pegasus watched cautiously.

See, I was saying, I'm above average at magic.

I grabbed the newspaper. With a loud snap, I folded it length-wise in three columns to match the print. One more fold horizontally and it was ready to read on a crowded bus or train. I'd learned a lot since coming to Baltimare.

"Oh," I said, reading the first article. "Grape is going for the title again this year—"

The pegasus shot south on Light Street.

I magically impelled the juice bottle, wide mouth forward.

He dodged, but between the limits of my magic propelling it, the backdraft off his wings, and the jerk I gave the bottle as it almost crossed paths with him... the juice ejected.

Half the big bottle sprayed his right wing feathers, immediately fouling the air foil just as he was trying to dodge yet again. It wasn't much, but I also triggered Grasp. It turned out I was ethically-challenged after all. I caught not his primary feathers but his blue mane—and pulled hard downward.

While this caused him to curve down and toward me (or maybe that had been his intention from the beginning), I heard galloping earth pony hooves clattering my direction.

Maybe a pincer had been their plan all along. I'd watched a few tag-team matches, enough to know I didn't like the sport. I was, at my core, a loner. Besides, I had learned to like not relying on anypony beside myself.

I started to lose my grasp on the pegasus as I pulled down. That was alright because the earth pony had reminded me of Mustang's mad charge. Sometimes physical ponies really did misunderstand the physicality of lesser-muscled unicorns.

As they barreled at me from both directions, I stiffened as if frozen in fear. At the last moment, I corrected the pegasus' trajectory with one last pull and jumped back.

Okay, I stumbled back while jumping because both put on speed in a final dash.

The pegasus realized what was about to happen and pulled up.

The earth pony realized what was happening and deceleration caused him to rear as he tried to skid to a halt.

I realized I would be blinded if feathers slashed my eyes. I slid backwards on my rear end and only got swatted by the very tip of a wing across my nose.

The pegasus' right front hoof clocked the earth pony in the jaw. The flyer caught enough resistance by the strike that it pulled him down just enough that the earth pony, now propelled backward head over hindquarters, nosed him in the stomach. They tumbled into a pony pile of feathers and bloody bruises in the middle of the street.

I put the frog of my hoof to my nose. Blood dripped from a short slash.

I threw the paper at them and heard ripping. I'd just wanted to add a final shock as I clattered upright, but the ten-page sport section unfolded and filled the air with fluttering newsprint.

I galloped east on Saratoga as the two untangled themselves.

Nearly two minutes was enough of a distraction. I ran giggling and chortling. Not necessarily the best strategy if I didn't want to provoke them into following me—but it really felt good.
> Chapter 38 — Dog and Pony Shows
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

By the time I found the shadowy warehouse a block off the docks, I felt sick to my stomach. I worried that the group had been caught or ambushed. I had kept ruminating. It made no sense that the two rival gang members had taken so long to attack, unless they had actually wanted to waylay me. I galloped the last length to the wood and brick building and threw open the corrugated doors with a bang, huffing and puffing.  

What I saw made me freeze. 

Ma'am hovered above the group. 

All eyes focused on me. Everypony froze, too. Amongst the group stood a light blue pegasus with a dark blue mane beside a muddy brown earth pony peppered with bruises. The tableau lasted a couple heartbeats before the entire lot all pointed at me and broke out laughing. Spiker fell over, snorting—disgustingly ejecting a bloody tissue he had rolled in his nose.

"Celestia on roller skates!" I hissed. It had been a dog and pony show all along, with me jumping through the hoops.

Ma'am swooped down and landed a pony length away. She swatted my nose with a wing. "So impertinent. Her royal age-less-ness definitely does not skate!"

I blinked, then lifted my hoof to my stinging nose. The cut bled anew. "I passed the test?"

Ma'am flew off to a table. Hoisting a bottle of Sunny Daze orange juice with a wing, she said, "You walloped Pig Pen and Crystal 'The Knife' Skies but good. Got away with just a cut on your nose, all limbs and extremities intact. That says nothing about countering Breakaleg and Spiker's clumsy dance moves. You're not stupid, you're not a klutz, and you're not so mental that you love to fight when you don't have to." She shrugged. "We made the delivery."

"Thank you, I think?"

They laughed again. I'd read about hazing in at least one book I'd read. I now understood the definition.

As the sun rose, the seven of us—except "the Knife"—gathered in an adjacent park for breakfast. Ponies hastening to work or jogging in sweatshirts studiously averted their eyes and modified their path. While we waited for Ma'am who left to fetch breakfast, my five stallion homies took the time to insult one another and act like grade-schoolers at recess, fake fighting and horsing around included. I endured questions answering as vaguely as I could, including one about the type of fillies I preferred. They'd pegged me as a teenage colt. When one asked—in crude language I shan't repeat here—if I'd had relations with any, I nodded affirmative.

Well, I had, in a manner I wasn't willing to share.

That resulted in me being good-naturedly shouldered and shoved about, getting a foreleg over my withers, and Spiker delivering a "noogie" to the crown of my head. Colts and stallions! I endured their collective physicality, shoving them away only when I feared they might as a joke try to squeeze something I didn't possess.  

I later took notes about what I recollected. My Grimoire persona might improve if I could act the part better. 

Would teenage Sunburst, I wondered, given a similar excuse, act like an uncouth male idiot with others his age? I wondered what he would look like with longer legs, fuller muscles, and that fuzz that had looked like moss on his chin grown into a beard. A roughhouse? Would I like that kind of colt? 

Ma'am landed with a loud clatter of hooves on the picnic table. She brought boxes of jelly donuts and chocolate curlers, a basket of red apples, and something fried that smelled incredible enough that my mouth watered.

My homies didn't share my opinion of the smell, but grabbed the donuts and apples aside to eat like the little piglets they were.  

I reverently unfolded the top of the grease-stained takeout box to find what Baltimaren pegasi called "fish and fry"—crusty spice-speckled bread-battered cod on a bed of lettuce, surrounded by golden-brown hay fries. I worked hard not to drool.

Ma'am said, "The Fish Net. Rooftop access, so it's just for pegasi. I thought you deserved a treat."

"For me? Wow." I lathered on as much enthusiasm as I could, none of it feigned. I levitated a steaming hot piece, huffed to cool it off, and took a bite. Crispy. A bit salty. I could taste a hint of malt vinegar as my eyes widened and my eyes rolled slightly upward. "This doesn't need tarter sauce at all!"

"But it's worth it. Dip some."

I tried it both ways. The sweet pickles in the mustard-mayo sauce had been hoof cut into irregular sizes and crunched nicely. The batter had been peppered and considering the hour, it was probably the freshest and first plate of the day. So good.

"Please share," I said. 

Now, I'm not going to say I wanted to share, because, well, the flaky white fish really was that good. I knew that a pony stomach could only take so much protein-loading. From experience. Suffering the cramps of colic was no picnic, and I knew it made me mean. I suspected the free meal and me demonstrating I knew my limits were Ma'am's way probing me and my bravado.

The testing wasn't over when we split up. I realized within a few blocks that Ma'am was having me followed. The fact that nopony seemed to know that I was a filly not a colt probably meant the C.A. Syndicate did not let anypony know who everypony was. That made sense, considering what I'd seen of the bottom level of the gang, today's group of muscle-herd stallions being prime examples.

Crossroad's training paid off in this respect. In a few blocks, I slipped through the east entrance the Able Woolpony Municipal Building, which I knew spanned the block with multiple entrances. I hustled into a second floor little-filly's room and changed in a green-painted stall. I braided everything, fetlocks, pigtails, and all—and added blue yarn bows. I scrubbed the grimoire cutie mark makeup into the toilet and painted on an archery target, then put on a grey and blue blouse that looked vaguely like a school uniform when I knotted around my collar a blue scarf so it looked like a tie, leaving my hindquarters bare.  

The interior of the cloak had an olive lining. Couture is nice as it lets one specify such things. I rolled it inside out and tied it with yarn so it looked like a sleeping mat. With it on my back and my makeup, stallion horseshoe lifts, and hairpins stowed in my messenger bag, I trotted toward the entrance on the northwest side of the building. 

As I approached, I spotted a constable in a black uniform and peaked hat heading that way. I trotted faster to get to the bronze and glass doors as he did.

"Sir?"

He pushed the door so I could exit and followed me out. The Appaloosa had brown spots and a light blond short-cropped mane. His brown eyes were friendly. "Yes, filly?" 

"Do you know how to get to Baltimare Polythaumic?"

"High School?"

"Yes, sir."

"It's not close, but it's only one bus if you're okay with walking about eight blocks to the 83..."

Funny how the company you keep can scare away your so-called friends.

The subsequent weeks went nominally well. Trigger reported that his superiors liked what they learned about me, and might soon start actually paying me. My stock of bits had dwindled thanks to clothing purchases, restaurant meals, library fees, gym dues, and having to split the exorbitant rent with Trigger. Whatever he did, he got paid well, and mostly these days kept him on a schedule that I didn't have to see him much other than at lunchtime, or to hear him snore in the same room when I was trying to study.

My magic training still consisted mainly of relatively elementary (for me) library books and an occasion journal I found. The one time I got a syndicate-provided unicorn instructor, I couldn't get Force to work as we sparred. All I got for my trouble was a singed tail and a scorched shoulder. I did manage to shoot an empty stewed carrots can, knocking it over, so at least the skeptical pink mare believed my claims at some level.

A look from her frosty blue eyes made me shiver as she left me that day with, "If you can't use it to defend yourself, you'd best run and not get yourself toasted."

I asked to go over the math she used, to examine the vectors in her aura as she cast, but that got me looks like I was some sort of crazy pony. I wasn't going to compound it by claiming I'd once read Princess Celestia's aura from across a street when my "teacher's" aura was too dim for me to see in daylight or to sense without me sticking my horn in it (which she manifestly would not let me do).

Epic fail, the whole thing.

When I complained to Trigger, he burst out laughing. He looked ready to pee himself in disbelief when I admitted to reading Celestia's aura and continued, going into the circumstances. He did get me time with trainers at a syndicate-sanctioned gym, The Goldpony, for some dirty hoof-to-hoof tips and sparring. Amusing. Helped me get over my reflexively pulling my punches to pegasi wings, unicorn horns, and earth pony private bits. I didn't like it as much as I expected I would. For a unicorn, they told me I could punch well.

I saw a lot of the city by night as an unpaid intern, participating but as the chorus line not the actual cast. I felt I'd been turned into some sort of a voice response navigational aid more than anything else. Nopony had the temerity to attack, though I did get to stand as a boogiemare one time and watch Marvel gang-members wearing primary-colored capes posture and pose, then run away after I did little more than raise my eyebrow as Proper Step had taught me. 

Trigger bought me a potions manual. I now know that I can't do potions, or cook very well for that matter.

Weeks and weeks after the hazing, I received my first real assignment. Either a graduation present or a final test, I didn't know. All I knew was that Trigger returned home with an address on an index card. Once I'd memorized the address, he went to the stove and lit it in the burner and let it roll up into a blackened crisp. I knew it was a real assignment when he hoofed over gold bits and explained I would always be paid in advance.
> Chapter 39 — I'll Bray for You
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I could only presume I would be leading a delivery, and spent a good amount of time developing routes and detours, checking them against the map book I had bought when working with Crossroads.

I was so full of energy by the time the evening of the appointed day arrived, I found myself dancing on the edge of my hooves. Dressed as Grimoire, I left our shared apartment near midnight once I'd ensured through the peephole that nopony haunted the shared hallways. At an easy trot, I would make it to the meetup point, not breaking a sweat.

I stopped outside the apartment lobby. Post boxes with metal doors lined one wall, with metal cubbies below for packages that couldn't fit. I noted I had a delivery as I passed through the glass and metal entrance doors, letting the security lock latch behind me. I noticed a shadow separate from the darkness, despite my eyes being accustomed to the bluish interior lights.

My body cooled as my subconscious reminded me I dealt with dangerous things these days.

I froze, ears swiveling toward the tree-filled northern part of the courtyard. In retrospect, nonchalance was called for. My limbs grew icy, but annoyingly I began to sweat. Instinct had me cue up Force, for all the good the worthless spell did me most days. I let the equations balance and set the vectors for the wood bench with the rusty scrollwork back in that direction, then let Levitate begin to queue since they shared aspects of the same spell arcana and I might switch them rapidly.

I whispered to myself, "You know this is going to be embarrassing if it's the high school couple smooching or the grandma in 2C looking for her cat again."

I trotted down the three brick stairs and onto the cobble path unconvinced, considering the time of night. If I could make it past the buildings to the street...

A mare sneered, "Gelding? Yeah, that's her. The foal who thinks her name is a verb. The bitch looks a bit less feminine than when I last saw her, though."

Oh, yeah. "Mustang." I recognized her, too. "I live with your former colt friend. He thinks I'm a pretty fine piece of—"

The earth pony leapt over the bench into the lamp light. "Yeah, sure, let's talk trash." She stretched her neck, making a popping sound. "Please, give me an excuse."

Something dark inside wanted me to light her mane on fire the way I had blasted The Monster's tail. Instead, I gritted my teeth and asked, "Why are you here, Mustang?" I made her name sound like an epitaph.

"Your assignment, obviously."

I stopped my slow and steady approach into striking distance. "You're part of my team?"

She spat. "Your team? See how she thinks highly of herself? No."

"Good. I'd just assume hand you your flank on a platter as work with you."

It might have been my imagination, but her eyes seemed to flash red. Her face colored in the lamp light, and she pawed the cobblestones with a steel horseshoe. I knew it was steel, because the strike issued a spark. Her muscles bunched at her shoulders as her tail began to swish.

I'd come close enough that if she charged, I'd Push her upward as I reared in with her initial lunge, then clock her jaw with a right and put her down with a left to the temple.

Instead, I said, "Does your friend really want you to pick a fight with me? I'm sure the pony didn't accompany you to scrape you off the sidewalk."

A hard to miss flinch separated a silhouette from the brick wall of the apartment block, in front of some bushes near the corner. Mustang jerked into her right mind, blinking, and stepped back. I took the opportunity to grab her co-conspirator and drag him forward.

The dark red stallion stumbled toward me with a surprised whinny. His brown comb-back emphasized a prematurely receding maneline. With my eyes adjusted, I saw the earth pony was one of those taller fine-boned types with a pointy muzzle. Not particularly muscled nor fat either. His eyes sparked caramel-colored as he walked just far enough into the light to illuminate him. I saw... anger.

Thirty, maybe?

I asked, "With whom am I having the pleasure of making an acquaintance?"

My switch to polite mode stopped whatever he was about to excoriate me with. He coughed, cleared his throat, and said, "You are as crazy as she said."

"Mustang! You told him I was a crazy-pony? How considerate!"

His eyebrow raised.

I mimicked his expression.

Mustang growled. "Watch your mouth—"

"And if I don't?" I asked, catching his eyes and holding them without blinking. I have good peripheral vision, and saw Mustang look back and forth between him and me. I took the moment of safety to queue two Push spells, one for each pony.

When Mr. Nopony blinked, I said, "You know, and I'm certain at least Miss snotty-pony does, that I've got to get going to work. I'd be really angry if I got chastised for arriving late, and you really don't want to see me angry." My voice lowered as I spoke. In that I felt it sounded more masculine, I resolved to keep my voice in that register.

Mr. Nopony said with an edge of authority, "Mustang."

She looked to him. He looked back. 

What was going on here? I didn't like that Mustang had glommed onto a more powerful pony, nor that they... What exactly was going on?

I swiveled my ears about, which both noticed and Mustang smirked. Weakness, I was sure passed through her mind.

Nevertheless, I scanned everything with my ears. I heard naught but passing wagon traffic on the street beyond the buildings.

I began working up Teleport, even as it forced me to drop both the Levitate-related spells. Once could get me back into the lobby, where I might be able to throw packages. Twice—and I could cast it twice without a stumble—I could also make it to the street.

I didn't like being spooked.

"Enough, already," I said, exasperated. "Either tell me what you want, or punch me, but get it over with."

Mustang reached a hoof into her saddlebags. 

I tensed. A throwing knife?

She took out a long, skinny cardboard package the length of her canon bone. She said, "For you."

"A present?" I'd meant it to be sarcastic; it came out worried.

"It's what you're carrying tonight."

"What!? I'm no mule. I. Do. Not. Carry product. That's the deal!"

Mustang said, "How the mighty have fallen." She brayed like a mule. At me.

Teleport spun warmly ready, spitting red digits like comets through my vision. I need only make a wish. Carefully, as she brayed some more, I queued up Levitate, also, and prepared to juggle the spells. A unicorn fighter might have guessed why I took so long to respond and attacked.

My need to concentrate fading, I addressed Mr. Nopony. "I had a deal to join this organization. Is somepony breaking our contract?"

He snorted. "Contract? You join the herd, you take the orders."

"I gather by you, you mean me?"

"Just take the stupid package. You got paid, right?"

"In gold bits."

Mustang looked narrowly at her boss, who said, "Do the work."

"Make me."

"Do you really want to disappoint Her?" Carne Asada, obviously.

As my heartbeat sped up, I took the moment to look around as if I were thinking. Could this be another test? Did they want to see how pliant I was? Had Carne Asada herself decided to break me? 

Not that I would allow her to break me.

Or had Mustang poisoned the well at a much lower level?

"Was that a threat?" I asked.

"No," he said, scrunching his muzzle so obviously that even a foal could see he was lying. 

"That's good, because I could disappear and She would lose a valuable asset. That might make her unhappy." I put up a hoof when Mr. Nopony looked ready to retort. "Sure, she could retaliate against Trigger, but do you think I care? He wasn't of much use. Coach can take care of himself. As for the others, do I really look like I'm the sort to make friends? I'm in it solely for the bits, considering the piss-poor ability of the magic tutors you've offered me, but I have my limits."

Mustang took my last words as acceptance. She tossed the long box at me, possibly to break my spell concentration and to stick it to me.

I was a prize fighter and adrenaline, my life blood, coursed in my veins. I grabbed for it, intentionally doing what I'd bet she'd hoped for. I caught it hoof-lengths from the ground, then sent it on a chaotic path past my flank, then under my barrel, then up before my face, juggling it in half pony length jerks, then letting it spin lengthwise back at her face. Specifically at her eyes.

She gasped and ducked.

I started laughing. Yeah. Let's play a game.

I waited long enough for Mustang to release her cringe, and for Mr. Nopony's face to redden just enough that he was about to shout at me with a full head of steam.

I teleported with the package...

Into the lobby with a bang that rattled the post boxes.

Still laughing, I re-queued my expended spells on the scaffolding of the equations and transformable vectors.  

I pulled. I pushed. I closed a silvery metal door with a number on a brass plate. 

Less than 5 seconds passed, but it was just enough to complete transforming the spell and short enough that non-magical ponies might think a teleport really took that long between in and out.

I teleported.

I reappeared between the two buildings on the west side of the courtyard, two-dozen pony lengths from the bench and the two gangsters. I made a point of laughing as I had when I first disappeared, juggling the package as I had then, too, with it as far away from me and moving exactly as it had.

This time my juggling it was no joke. Who had increased the gravity by a factor of two? It felt like I'd just gotten up from a hot bath and that my saddlebags carried lead rather than a change of clothes and some makeup compacts. I barely kept my Levitate spinning. As the pop from my in-teleport stopped echoing, lights snapped on in windows from the first floor to the top floor in all the buildings. I laughed loudly, but gasped for breath at the same time.

Enough show time. 

With no spring in my step, I trotted toward the street as Mustang and Mr. Nopony retreated into shadow. I made a show of lifting my dark cape to expose my grimoire cutie mark in the lamp light, then swiftly packed the package in my saddle bag.

I turned the corner and was gone.
> Chapter 40  — Sticky Situation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I  turned left at the corner, west. Yeah, I exited the apartment grounds quickly, but had the pair decided to follow, they would have caught up quickly—my body felt that wrung out.  

I resolved that I had two self-improvement goals. Learn how to use Force when I needed it and learn what I was doing wrong that made me want to climb into bed and hibernate when I used Teleport. The situation did give me the time to reflect on all that I had done wrong, and what I could do next.

Not running away again as soon as Trigger seemed confident he'd domesticated me answered what I'd done wrong. Play the game answered what I would do next.

I was a foal. The whole situation left me spiteful and angry, but intrigued. I could fight and I could think. And if I had to, I could run. The Monster had taught me I wasn't invincible, but also that I could make ponies pay that got in my way.

Play the game. I felt the thick liquid protected by the box shift back and forth as I trotted to the meetup, causing my saddlebags to rub such that they kept reminding me of my opening gambit. I was a target. No doubts there. Anything I'd let slip to Trigger—was he in cahoots with Mustang?—was suspect. I didn't discuss routes with him, and hadn't. He might have seen the destination before he hoofed it over. He might have seen the map pages I poured over.

Change everything.

On the way, I detoured into a Stop-n-Trot and grabbed a black can with a green lightning bolt logo. By the time I arrived at the meetup, the grape Power Mad Pony drink had me buzzing and much recovered, though whether it was the cause of the ache in my stomach was hard to judge.

I found seven ponies milling suspiciously at the corner, with a pegasus chewing gum and leaning on a newspaper rack while another idly kicked a light pole with a hoof and watched the gas light lantern sway. I saw neither Ma'am nor Wagon Wheel, the team leaders I'd worked with previously. As I feared, I was indeed The Pony in Charge.  

I recognized Spiker, Breakaleg, Pig Pen, Crystal Skies, and a lemon yellow dude who went by Citron. The green pegasus mare, in a black blouse and a red plaid skirt with the blond hair, and the white earth pony were new, but she looked in her early twenties and he had a torn ear and a healed scar on his jaw. They were likely veterans and somewhat experienced.

Citron made Grimoire seem downright dour. I'd assisted over a dozen deliveries by that point, most with different teams until the last three. That team had included older stallions—we're talking early twenties here–and this second unicorn intern. Citron's yellow coat, amber eyes, and white-streaked blond mane, while seemingly a comical lemon meringue pie combination, together lent him a mean and somehow scary presence. His silent competence worked to maximize that. When a Clydesdale earth pony tried to haze him, he fractured the poor fellow's right-front pastern bone and walked away like a ghost, showing neither glee nor contrition, just disdain that the pony had interfered with getting the job done.

Considering his short leg length to body ratio, I felt confident the fellow was my age or younger. I'd lost my parents and suffered being honed into an evil princess' tool until I'd run away. I could only imagine the horse apples he'd endured to have also runaway at the same age I'd done so. I assumed. I presumed because he had that blank"runaway" look I'd seen in homeless encampments. He could have just been a juvenile delinquent, but I chose not to ask.

"Follow," I said, tossing my empty can into a waste bin before turning back the way I came.

A few glanced at the bin, obviously wondering why I hadn't chosen to litter. The rest noticed the aura around my horn, saw I had spells queued, and realized I was serious. The group, a couple of chains jangling, clattered up to surround me. Their attentive silence confirmed who was in charge.

Me.

The green mare, probably the oldest of us, asked, "What's your name?" Her gum cracked as she chewed. Because she was slightly ahead of me, I smelled the bubblegum.

Keeping my voice low and deep, I said, "Call me, Sir."

Credit where due: None who knew me sniggered.

She said, "Um... Yes, Sir."

I said, "We are going to be hit."

I heard a gasp, and saw everypony start to survey their surroundings, eyes darting, ears swiveling. Citron's horn lit.

"No candy coat. This is dangerous. Anypony who isn't up for a fight can just leave now. I promise I'll vouch for your going AWOL as a choice I gave you. Okay, who's out?"

Spiker said, "Once a puncher, always a puncher."

I waited the time it took to take a dozen steps and asked, "Anypony? Nopony?" I looked around and everypony shook their head.

"In that case, we're splitting up."

"What?"

I stopped between street lamps with a darkened grocery store behind me. 

"You!" I pointed at the gum-chewing pegasus. "Give me your gum." When she reached for her mouth with a wing, I added, "The pack."

She passed it over. Lotsobub brand, with a pink bubble logo surrounded by magic sparkles. Seven sticks of ten left. I dropped it in my saddle bag, exchanging it for my larger makeup compact.

The white stallion had a messenger bag strapped across his white tee-shirt under his open jacket. I lifted the flap and levitated the black saucer shaped object inside.

Softly, nervously, he brayed. 

I nodded, letting him think he was the mule. I pointed at him, her, Spiker, and Breakaleg. I rattled off streets and intersections. One dozen in total. Spiker might come off as a bit derpy, but he'd shown himself to have a good memory, for grudges if nothing else. I'd had to break his nose a second time, but he'd become my best bud after that.

I told them I'd meet them downtown and escort them to the delivery point. I swatted Breakaleg's flank. He reared and whinnied as they dashed off.

As the four turned left and out of sight, Citron commented, "White Charger is actually their best fighter."

I shrugged and walked to the corner before saying, "I'm the mule."

"No way," Pig Pen said. I had told them about the deal I had thought I had.

"Which is why you suspect opposition," Crystal Skies added, fluffing his feathers. "Sir."

I smiled, shaking my head at his jab. "There were other clues."

Pig Pen, as always, wore a brown knit sweater that blended with his coat. Citron. Well, Citron was weird. He wore a horse blanket. I suspected it was cotton, but it had some weight to it. It was beige, and had streaks of blue, red, and gold running crosswise. And fringe. And tassels.

Only the pegasus wore gang colors. His black jacket and pants, which might have been a silk blend so as not to impede his flight, looked pricey. The tee-shirt was dime-store quality. "How much for your giddy-up?"

He looked right and left. "Uh, four silver. Five with the tailor and all."

"Good." Luckily, as a pegasus, he was about my size. I reached into my saddlebags and pulled out my after-work camouflage and some coins. As he took the coins, I said, "Strip."

He stopped in front of an alley, mouth open. Fortuitous. I handed the clothes over. I pointed with my nose.

I heard some feathery snipping sounds and a minute later, Crystal Skies stepped out in a facsimile of a waitress; uniform, white apron and all. The blue matched his coat. He'd cut wing holes at the hemlines. When he arranged the skirt over his flank, I glimpsed his chef knife cutie mark. The Crystal "The Knife" Skies moniker made extra sense, now.

He looked annoyed.

"Trust me. My route, best we don't stand out. Wait." 

I pulled out my smaller makeup compact. I brushed on some blue powder as an eyeliner. The little clues are what make a questionable disguise believable to a cursory review. He stood aghast, saying nothing as I pulled down on one eyelid then the other.

"What's with the makeup?" Citron asked.

"A fetish," I deadpanned. "You can fly?"

"I'd go natural if I couldn't."

"Good." I trotted north.

Citron and Pig Pen flanked me. When Crystal Skies took point a few pony lengths ahead of me, I realized he wore a bouffant. I hissed, called him back, and proceeded to tie his mane into a bun. His hair was silky, and I had to tie it tightly. 

When I braided his tail sticking out of his skirt, he complained. "I'm not your action figure."

Citron said, "The proper term is doll."

"Whatevs."

I made my bouffant into a colt-bun, sticking straight up atop my head. 

We caught the bus just after we arrived at the stop. Lucky, since it ran hourly at this time of night. The six-and-coach had interior lights. Crystal Skies looked like a mousy waitress heading out for an overnight diner. Pig Pen looked like a tired dropout graveyard worker. Citron looked like somepony recently arrived from Dodge City. I kind of stood out, in a goth sort of way. 

Nothing gang here.

Counting us, there were six passengers one of which was a homeless mare lightly snorting on a bench seat. My homies looked to me. We headed north. They knew that was the wrong way.

"What?" I said.

"The plan?" Crystal Skies asked. 

"We catch the 3 PM Downtown Local at the station."

They all nodded. 

"And this," I said, took out the gum and unwrapped two sticks from the silver foil, stuffing the pink gum in my mouth. Ugh. Sweet. I chewed for a minute trying not to let my jaw cramp, then began working up a spell. The last time I'd used this was the week before Sunburst got his cutie mark. We'd worked hard on getting it right, because we had reasons, which meant I did all the work and studying. Yes, I could do magic, but sometimes I was too dense to get what I read. Sunburst had been good at untangling how I thought.

In retrospect, it meant we'd shared an indirect kiss.

I felt my face grow hot and probably red. What was with me—and him—after all these years!

Whatever it was, it helped me remember clearly enough to get Tin Cans spun up after about five minutes trying. I felt a familiar effervescence in my mouth. As the mnemonic name implied, it kind of worked like a pair of tin cans connected by a taut string.

I gabbed the hunk of gum with my magic, bit it in half and offered the pink gob, around which visible sparkles popped, to Citron. True to his dour form, he just popped it in his mouth without expression.

I whispered, hardly vocalizing. "Can you hear me?"

His amber eyes went wide and a pulled the gum out.

I chuckled and grabbed the gum back, popping it back in my mouth.

Pig Pen said, "Unsanitary."

I said, "You have to keep it in your mouth."

"Contagious magic," Citron said, sounding impressed.

"Foal magic," I amended. "Gotta keep it in your mouth. After five seconds, the spell will evaporate. Let's see what the range is." 

I bit off a piece and shoved it into Crystal Skies' mouth. He glared at me, then opened his eyes as I spoke.

He asked, "What's a drover?"

Citron said, "The last pony on left of the team pulling the bus."

"The driver?"

"He's not sitting in the bus, so he's the drover."

He flew the twenty pony lengths from the back to the bus. I then heard, "He says five minutes."

I nodded.

He twisted his wing to point a primary feather upward. "A pinions up," I later learned.

The train waited at the station, and we waited for 45 minutes for the departure. I had us separate, each with about a stick of gum in our mouths. The pegasus flew the length of the six cars, then took the advertising insert from the paper I'd bought. When I asked why, he made a scissoring motion with his primary and secondary feathers.

"Coupons?"

He nodded.

Thus we shared the paper. I took the sports section.

Midtown, twelve sketchy ponies in light blue sweaters climbed aboard. I felt particularly good that we'd decided to stay together in the last car. They didn't seem to notice anypony except the pegasus, though I could tell at least their leader evaluated everypony. When Crystal Skies acted the mousy part, hiding "her" face in her colorful part of the paper, then began noisy clipping out a coupon with her wings, the group lost interest. No telling what she might snip if they got fresh with her. The second stop after entering the first car of the train, they exited the last one.

That wasn't the attack I was expecting Mr. Nopony had set up. I took deep breaths to calm my stuttering heart. For a few minutes, the organ kept rhythm with the train wheels against the rails. Then I saw the bay, docks, and quays all lit up. A few ships were tied in dock, one being unloaded despite the time by husky stevedores.  On the water, another ship stood tied up, a red and a green light at each end blinking to mark fore and aft. We were far southwest of our destination as we reached our stop by the steamship terminal near Riverside Park.

I'd trespassed in three territories, as proven by the train inspection. The steamship terminal edged on a fourth. I was mixing it up and trying to act chaotic. 

None of my efforts could change the location of my destination, though. If somepony had leaked the time and place to a rival gang, or Mustang and Mr. Nopony had set something up to embarrass me, chances were that we were in for a battle, or for a good gallop.

I absently brayed under my breath, which got the other's attention as we stepped onto the platform. The doors on the train huffed closed, and the locomotive chugged as it pulled the silver cars away. I wondered if I looked as haggard as they did.

To Tartarus with it all. "Bring it on!"

"Yeah!" My three companions replied. That got looks from ponies waiting for the northbound train on benches and by the coffee vending machine, none of whom looked remotely like gangsters.
> Chapter 41  — Long and Pink
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Follow," I said. "And you, into the skies. Mind your distance. I've only one stick left."

"Yes, Sir!" replied Crystal Skies. We'd learned the hard way that a city block was the limit of the spell, less if a building got in the way. As it had. Twice. I didn't like re-chewing a four stick chaw of, at this point, slimy spent gum. It made me queasy; like Pig Pen had observed, "Unsanitary." 

It didn't occur to me to stop at a vending machine as we trotted out of the sparse commuter-rail building. I was keyed up.

I did my best, but there really were limited options. Fells Point was directly north across the bay, and the area was roughly an eight block grid. Not impossible to keep under surveillance, especially at night. I went east from Locust Park, crossed around the dockside rail yard, and took the pedestrian bridge under the highway across the bay. I took S. Clingtown Street north to Foster Ave, Fleet, and Eastern—going west until I could cut north and then west through the park. It was a quarter to five when it all went sideways.

We trotted down Bank Street, when I heard "Trouble," through my jaw from Crystal Skies. I turned left on Castle, then galloped to Spark, turning right, dashing west on Spark Court.

A charcoal grey pegasus mare with a blue-grey mane in a black constable uniform landed with a bang in the middle of the road.  

Crystal Skies did the same beside me a second later. Both pegasi flared their wings—to make themselves look bigger.

Other constables came running, half earth ponies and half unicorns, along with a second pegasus, a pale blue one with a white mane landed, cutting off our retreat.

Before we could turn, there were eight total.

Nothing like having eyes in the sky. Shame that our air support wasn't as dark as the coppers.

I had Teleport queued. I sweated and it wasn't just the gallop. I could only teleport where I understood the vectors. The windows in the buildings were dark. Warehouses and offices were built to prevent prying eyes. I could get beyond either pegasus, but all things considered, a second Teleport would probably make me faint. If the first didn't do the job.

I huffed. "What the hay?" I said loudly.

A ninth constable, probably a lieutenant as he had a peaked hat, came galloping up with another officer trotting behind. This one wore a white shirt and a tan raincoat.

The lieutenant said, "Flank down, you four. You are under arrest."

A yellow aura formed around Citron's horn.

I rapidly put up a hoof to stop the colt, but a unicorn constable let off a red Force spell. It splashed a pony length in front of Citron, causing the dew between the cobbles to boil and hiss.  

"No worries, guys," I said, keeping my voice deep and even—despite my racing heart and an odd need to hyperventilate that I struggled to control. Arrest might result in ponies learning who I really was. Under my breath, I added, "Let this play out. I think I can handle it."

Pig Pen whinnied in dismay. Everypony sat.

The earth pony detective—I decided that what he had to be—trotted up into the light of a street lamp. He took out a spiral notepad with the frog of a hoof from his coat, put a pencil in his mouth, then motioned with the pad at me.

I moved forward into the light, then sat again.

He looked scruffy and squinted with one eye. Grey fuzz gathered around his lower jaw in an imitation of thick moss. Best I could tell, he was a golden palomino, though judging from the color of his beard, I'd have wagered his slicked-back black mane was dyed.

He looked at his pad, looked at me, then back at his pad. "You must be, uh, Gelding?"

I subvocalized, "That's the game."

Crystal Skies: "What'll we do?"

"Cooperate. Trust me." I asked louder, "And what's your name?"

"Does it matter?" he asked.

I didn't like his answer. Mr. Nopony's game had a high ante. "If I lodge a false arrest complaint, it might."

He snorted, rolled his collar to show a copper badge that was too far away to read, then jerked the next page of his notes over. It didn't escape me that another unicorn constable trotted from Court onto Spark.

I changed tack. "What's the charge?"

"Carrying contraband. Transporting the same. Conspiracy."

"I see," I said calmly. I let my Teleport spell spin down and replaced it with Levitate. I pushed back my hood, but kept the spell going. I wasn't a foal.

"Do you want to surrender it?"

"Come again?"

"Surrender the contraband. Are you really a gelding? I mean, you don't seem to understand Equestrian all that well. A gelding is—"

"You can call me, Sir, if you prefer."

Crystal Skies sniggered.

The constables tensed up.

The detective shouted, "Search them!"

With that we were told to stand as eight constables patted us down. Pig Pen did have a nasty blackened steel chain, which from the sound of it hitting the cobbles had to weigh ten pounds. Citron had a pocket knife, one of those red jacketed ones with multiple pen knives, screw drivers, and a pliers. One constable pointed out a magnifying glass. Crystal Skies had naught. Didn't need one, and he did manage to inadvertently get a constable to cut open his foreleg when he checked his razor sharp feathers.

The constable checking my flank, looking under my tail, said, "Uh, Gelding doesn't have any."

"What? Really?"

"Sorry, sir. He's a she. Definitely a she. Not an illusion."

Another piped up and said, "The waitress is a cross-dresser, too."

I said under my breath, "Am I good or what?"

Crystal Skies replied, "Shut it!"

The detective stepped closer, but remained on the opposite side of the circle of light from the gas lamp. The constable flipped aside my cloak to display my grimoire cutie mark while the other removed my saddle bags. The detective examined my flank and tail-end longer than was strictly necessary. I rotated my rear toward the detective and moved my tail aside, just to make it more embarrassing for all that looked. As if I could care two horse apples whether they looked or not. 

The stallion running the show watched as the unicorn constable emptied my saddlebags on the sidewalk. The box slid out.

The detective said, "That. Contraband."

I said, doing my best to sound exasperated and annoyed. "Please don't."

"Don't, what?"

"You really don't want to look."

The detective rolled his eyes, then jerked his nose toward the box. "Constable Beigneigh?" The one with the peaked hat.

I said, "I warned you."

Beigneigh's aura surrounded the box, but he hesitated.

"Really? Are you a crazy pony or just a failed comedienne?"

I shrugged. "Well. It's embarrassing. Just saying."

The detective sighed. He motioned with his muzzle and the constable, a lieutenant as I could see a gold bar on his hat, ripped open the lighter end of the box. Though the content of the box was sturdy, it had been packed tightly to prevent damage. The unicorn struggled with it, and it made a slithering noise as he revealed something long.

He stopped when everypony could see a symmetrical vaguely mushroom top. Even in the dim light, it became obvious the thing inside had a fleshy pink color.

Long.

Fleshy pink.

Gelding... was a she.

"Um. Sir?"

I chimed in with, "I told you it was embarrassing."

Becoming flustered, the detective said, "Open the stupid thing!"

The fellow ripped the box along the inside glue seam, revealing...

A bottle of Petites-filles, a bottle of overpriced mane conditioner from Prance. I'd read it smelled like roses and honey, and left a mare's mane incredibly silky. Truly, I did miss some aspects of living the life of a countess and being pampered. And, I had told you I'd run through my bits, right? Wonder how? The package had arrived by late post today and I'd been too busy preparing for today's mission to bring it in.

Despite the danger, I reached for the discarded box. The shock of seeing the conditioner bottle was so total, that even as I rotated the waste cardboard around, nopony said boo.

I said, "You see? The address? 'To Gelding.'" I slapped ends of the cardboard to make noise. "We were taking it to Aunt Hairpin as a present. She always took care of me and my friends and I thought—"

"Open it. What's in it?"

The lieutenant cracked the seal. Soon I could smell roses and... a hint of honey.

Grumbling, I said, "You're going to have to pay for that."

The verdict came back, "I think it's probably mane conditioner." He even tasted it, then wrinkled his muzzle and spat. "Nope. Definitely mane conditioner. Doesn't taste at all like it smells."

The detective grabbed the box and looked at address label. He compared it to his notes and lifted his pencil to write something.

I interrupted him. "I'm going to need your name now."

"Silence! Constables. She dropped the real package. Briquette, take Ceil and retrace their path to where they realized we'd spotted them. Check the rooftops in case their pegasus dropped it there. Check the curbs and gutters, too. I want that package!"

"What does it look like?" somepony asked.

The detective's face reddened as he shouted, "That box! Like that box."

The detective then locked his green eyes with mine. "Where'd you drop it?"

I rearranged my cape, hiding my fake cutie mark. It hadn't even smudged. "Drop what?"

"Are you stupid?"

"Now you're harassing a citizen going about her business. I'm adding that to my list!"

I kept my eyes fixed with his. 

He did not win that game.

He stomped off and talked to some other constables. I took the cardboard and frowned. I really needed the box to be intact. I screwed on the top of the Petites-filles and looked at the bottle. It kind of resembled stallion parts, but you would have to have a warped mind to think that.

I realized I was chewing on spent gum. It really wasn't that sticky, but being bubble-gum, it was somewhat sticky. In the lamp light, you could barely see the fading sparkles when it came out of my mouth. I took the minutes as I waited and pieced the box together. They'd opened my compacts and dropped my brushes in a pile, but I would have bet real bits none connected the makeup with my cutie mark. The gum held—with the addition of the left-over strip of gum, which wasn't needed anymore. A couple of hair ties made it more secure.

I pealed off the mailing label, and got 90% of it, dropping it in a waste can.

The lieutenant watched me and my homies. Finally, I said, "I really am going to want his name and badge number. It's his case, I presume? Do I need to hold anypony else responsible?"

The officer found his own notepad and scribbled down the badge number, which resembled what I could make out of the copper badge flashed at me earlier. He gave me the page.

"Detective Land Hover? Must have an interesting cutie mark."

"A flying disc. Like a boomerang, just round."

"I see." I dropped the page in my saddlebags and scraped in the coins, makeup, and brushes after it.

"Gelding?" He asked in return.

"It's a verb."

The sun had risen by the time we continued west on Eastern Street.
> Chapter 42  — Reorg
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Too many things didn't add up. Even if the other four had been caught, they would have known me as Grimoire, not Gelding. The slip up came from higher up the food chain. I knew the game wasn't over.

As a result, I figured we would be followed.

I made a point of walking us under a long awning where early bussers were setting up café tables on the sidewalk and preparing for the breakfast rush.

Citron said, "We will be followed."

I nodded. "I think you're right."

Pig Pen made to swat the unicorn's ear with a hoof, but he caught it in his magic.

I said, "Which is why I am going to try something really hard to do. The magic takes a lot of concentration, and I need you guys to stay in formation around me. Don't let anypony bump into me and you have to stay where I put you. Can you do that?"

Crystal Skies stated "You're a mare."

"And I prefer colts. Wanna date?"

He grimaced and shook his head vigorously. 

I made the pegasus and the earth pony lean into my right and left side. I told Citron to put his hoof on the top of my hip, but he specifically kept trying not to touch me on my dock. "You sure?" he asked, his face coloring. 

Hung up on me being a filly, too? Really? I rolled my eyes. 

"Yes. Don't unbalance yourself. Can you walk three-legged? I want you to fight for us if need be."

"Yeah, but—" 

"Good. Contact is essential, so do it." 

I cast Don't Look, Don't See, Don't Hear. I'd gotten it through my dense head that I'd gotten it work a few times, notably when I fled Coach the day he tried to gouge me out of a fair portion of my fight purses. Problem was, it was difficult and I couldn't really tell if it worked. I knew that when it worked, it hid everything in contact with me, otherwise my running suit would have been seen running down the street, and ponies would have looked, seen, and probably heard.

I felt the equations balanced. Some of the bussers had noticed us being, well, intimate. This time when they returned with a table between them, they either ignored us really well, or the spell was working.

As we walked, I detailed the limits of the spell and why they had to carefully hold on to me. They liked being invisible, but not that they might get run over if not careful.

I continued west on Eastern, went south on Wolf to Wonderland Gables Street and found the address Trigger had given me on the card he had burnt on the stove. I had to dodge into the street twice to avoid dock workers, but other than that, we made a good steady pace as the sun started to warm my dark cloak.

The doorway lay open, with an earth stallion in a black jacket and black tee-shirt slouching in the shadows near by.

Three abreast wasn't easy, but I took it slow and relied on the parameters of the spell. I could hear the soft sound of our hoof falls, the shishing of Crystal Skies' feathers and an errant clank from Pig Pen's chain, but nopony else would so long as I kept aware of every thing around me. We weren't invisible. Everypony just didn't want to notice us. The spell gloss notes had warned that young foals, dogs, and cameras would all register our presence.

None were nearby.

We walked down a hall and in a few minutes, found a meeting hall. Additional guards waited in the hall, but the doorway was between them and us, so we entered still unnoticed.

I paused to get a really good bead on everypony there, and there were plenty. That took a minute, and fortunately nopony found a need to exit or enter. I crept forward toward an empty area, and the others kept tightly touching. That made me feel quite good. We'd all been wronged, not just me, and they understood that much.

I realized the speaker on the left was the dark red pony I'd first had the pleasure of meeting six hours ago: Mr. Nopony. I looked around and didn't see Mustang, bless her heart and gizzard.

He banged a hoof on the table. "Look at the time! How long are we going to wait? I told you, I didn't trust that pony from the moment I learned her name. She's trouble."

"The reports were good," another pony said. These were all second level or higher in the syndicate. I recognized none, though the gang attire on some completely confirmed their affiliation.

"The reports were wrong."

"We can't search the city, not in the morning rush."

"Which gets worse every minute we wait." He banged both forehooves on the table, then paced behind it. "At this point, my shipment is probably lost. The client is at the coffeehouse waiting. What do we tell him?"

"Cool your horseshoes. I'm sure Grimoire was waylaid by the trouble and sent the mule on a long detour."

"Right." He threw his hooves in the air. "It's lost. The shipment's lost."

Mule echoed in my head, and I felt the others tense up. I hadn't given anypony details of what had transpired prior to our meetup, but this was a setup. No pony in my team had been designated as the mule except me and I'd come with the product.

My homies could deduce why the other members of the team were MIA.

With my anger peaking, I spun up Levitate, then for the heck of it, I tried juggling Force. Today, right now, it might just work.

Somehow, all the math balanced. I saw so many digits flashing through my vision, spinning on three different axes, I was half-blinded. It didn't hurt that Force and Levitate were related, but my Don't Look, Don't See, Don't Hear didn't falter either. My anger left me hyperaware. It didn't dare falter. Maybe my magic understood that.

Mr. Nopony groused, "I tripled the shipment."

"What? You did what?" asked a pink mare. She looked nominally in charge and clearly middle-aged. She stood. "You what?"

"The client looked ready to accept a bigger shipment, and said he had the bits. So, yeah."

"No wonder you're acting like you sat in honey and the bees found you."

"And the shipment is... lost. It is too late to go out to look."

"No, it's not" I said, loudly and angrily, adding under my breath, "Stay with me."

My team pressed against me harder. Because I spoke directly, I would be noticed. Them, maybe not. 

Pony eyes met mine as they searched and then did indeed notice me with a start. I felt my horn begin to overheat because of the strain. With steady and measured slowness, doing the best to be aware of each gang pony flinch and a guard sliding into the doorway, I reached under my cloak and pulled out the pasted together box.

Frankly, it bobbed as if it were palsied as I floated it over to the table Mr. Nopony had so recently abused. His brown eyes followed it until I set it down. It felt good to let go of the extra spell! He didn't look up at me.

I said, "What's this about a mule? You and Mustang clearly gave me the package and told me over my objections that I was now the mule. Carne Asada made a deal with me that I would never be the mule, but you told me 'join the herd, do the work.' Maybe these other ponies would like an explanation?"

The fellow had a very sticky frog on his left hoof. In a quick swoop, he grabbed it, dropped it into the crook of his foreleg, and leapt for a rear door.

"Tartarus with that!" I screamed and shot Force ahead of him.

Luckily for my actually casting spell, other ponies dodged aside and out of my targeting range. I still missed, but the lintel of the doorway burst into flames with an explosion of splinters and greasy black smoke. Mr. Nopony reared, pedaling his legs and dropping my box of conditioner. Some ponies gathered around him, while others leapt at me. Others surged around the pink mare.

Like a brown-furred Rockhoof, Pig Pen knocked me to left, hard, then shoved me to the floor hard enough that I lost all my spell prep.

Crystal "The Knife" Skies screamed like a banshee as he flung out his wings. Wetness reminiscent of the color of roses sprayed. And... that may have been an ear flying toward the wall like a lopsided wren.

The floor to my right burst into yellow flames hit by a bright yellow Force spell. I saw Citron spray his magic as two second levels made to escape with Mr. Nopony, one of which shot a green Force spell which set the table beyond where I'd stood on fire. I swiftly smelled burning hair and a thump as somepony yelled in pain as he rolled out flames beneath himself.

"Neat Trick, Citron," I said. My chin rested on cold ceramic tile which ought not have been combustible.

I lost track of what happened next, since I got piled upon under ponies that apparently thought they were protecting me, not suffocating me. 

Things got sorted out over the next few minutes. Apparently, I'd triggered a lower management reorganization.

I later got admonished not to begin shooting when I knew that my target had grabbed something worthless. Well, worthless to them, anyway. I got grilled for over an hour, explaining all that had happened with the three other ponies backing up my story in different rooms.  

I also hoofed over the lined yellow paper with Detective Land Hover's name and badge number.

From what the pony in charge said, I guessed Cyclone Beaujangles would consider himself luckier for what had happened to him than what might happen to Land Hover or Mr. Nopony.  

Nopony detailed anything. 

Nopony needed to. 

As far as the product went, I explained that, no, I wasn't stupid. Yes, it was safe. I would see it delivered in good time, if somewhat late.
> Chapter 43 — Meanwhile, Back at the Apartment
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The buses ran regularly mid-morning and it took less than an hour to ride home. Between the bus stop and the apartment, I found a public restroom to change out of the cloak and horseshoes. I released my mane and rubbed off the cutie mark, replacing it with a nondescript square that implied a book. Close enough, especially since I had to use the wrong shade of yellow for it. I'd given Spiker my main makeup compact.

The four had gotten themselves arrested. They'd fought when cornered by Land Hover. Of course, my makeup compact wasn't contraband, but hitting an officer still got you busted.

Ironically, had I not decided to get fancy about my detour and had gone directly by another route, I might have gotten through while the others dealt with the constables. Showing up with a bottle of conditioner might not have ended quite as well. Without Citron's, Crystal Skies', and Pig Pen's tale of woe and that Land Hover knew me as Gelding not Grimoire, it would have been my word against Mr. Nopony's. The thought made me shudder.

As I trotted through the lobby, I glanced at our mailbox before heading to the flat. I hoped Trigger wasn't home. I really didn't trust him right now and feared I might sock him if he said something flippant.

Then I came to the door and saw it was open a crack. I felt my jaw bunch up and I just about went stomping in, ready to shout and vent all my frustration on the not so innocent fellow.

I saw a bit of yellow pine at the edge of the ivory white door. Splinters. I deflated and felt my limbs grow cold as I noted all the scratches on the lock. Somepony had jimmied it, failed, and then just crowbarred it.

I took a deep breath as I spun up Force. I felt deservedly proud of my earlier performance, but then again I didn't really want to burn up the curtains or carpet. I had a better idea. Thanks to cups of black tea freely given during my debrief—okay, interrogation—I felt sharp as a tack. Sure, caffeine was a drug hyping me up through my fatigue, but it was my drug of choice when the theobromine in chocolate was unavailable in quantity. 

I pushed open the door to peer in. When you pay good money for rent, they even oil your hinges occasionally.

I immediately saw the contents of the coat closet on the floor, with my pink hoof galoshes thrown against the opposite wall. Beyond, the chairs had been overturned. I saw Trigger's trunk emptied and clothes strewn about. The bed clothes, gold tone satin and a brown summer blanket, slumped to the floor between the living area and the kitchen area. A couple pots, shoved out of the bottom cabinet clattered. 

And a pot top. The blackened cast iron top of Trigger's stock pot rolled out making that hollow sound such things made until it hit the carpet and flopped over.

That's where he was. Or she. In the kitchen.

I opened the door a bit more, getting a good look at where everything now lay. I finished prepping my spell. It felt like it activated. I hoped it did, anyway, and quickly pushed the door almost closed behind me.

The temerity of the burglar! After my long day at work, he, or she, was going to rue they'd ever been born. 

I crept forward, updating my internal picture of the apartment as I saw more clothes strewn around. The flankhole had even tossed aside my Marlin's. It lay thrown on the floor, two or three pages creased over.

Heck, sold to the right dealer, that book was worth a fortune!

Some perverse part of me wanted the pony to be Trigger so I could finally have the excuse I craved, but it was a palomino who walked around the corner, not a roan pone. The stallion wore coal-smudged denim slacks and a blue long sleeve longshorepony shirt. The requisite knit cap that together spelled dockworker had been pulled down over his face and muzzle, hiding his short mane completely.

I watched him go to the wardrobe Trigger had helped me shop for. He checked where the drawers he'd pulled out would be inserted, checking with a hoof to assure himself he hadn't missed anything and there could be no secret compartment. He then went to the back where it rested against the wall, wrestling it forward. It moved easily. Never underestimate the strength of an earth pony. I though he might just tip it over, but he didn't find what he looked for.

Then he saw the dining table. The inelegant white-laminate thing with green squiggle designs had side rails behind which something might be hidden. He bent down and craned his head to look.

I hurled the heavy pot top at his head.

With my magic, you bet it wasn't about to do any real damage, but I kept the Push spinning getting ready to shove as the cast iron stock pot top gently (ugh!!) bounced off his withers.

He jumped hard enough that he flung the table toward the window, breaking the panes with a loud crash. Adding insult to injury, the style-monstrosity impersonating a table bounced directly back. Not only had he hit the table with his head, it hit him back.

Ooooops.

Never underestimate the strength of an earth pony.

He slumped to the floor and the table slid into the kitchen, further breaking broken dishes and making an unbearable clangor with the strewn about pots and pans. Two cabinet doors splintered and a table leg bounced off the ceiling. Trigger's cast iron potion pot rolled out to my hooves.  

"KO. In one," I said. "Huh."

Prize fighting pretty much by definition resulted in flowing blood. Noses, split skin, you know. I'd seen plenty of mine, and it wasn't blue despite all the work Proper Step had put into training me. A pony, hit atop the head will bleed profusely. 

It was unsightly.

Seeing the pool growing on a white floor rather than the straw and dirt arena floor actually made me gag. I ran for the bathroom, found a hoof towel, and pressed it in place for a few minutes. That staunched the flow. The miscreant breathed. I saw a steady pulse on his neck.

He certainly had a concussion, but I wasn't taking a chance of him waking for a second bout: In the clothes strewn on the floor, I found a couple belts. Unexpectedly, they proved hard to tie. The terry-cloth belt to Trigger's robe worked well enough. I hogtied the burglar, grabbed a kitchen mitt, and stuffed it in his mouth.

No need to annoy the neighbors if he woke. 

As a last measure, I looped the leftover belts around his legs and around the posts in the headboard of the bed. The bed was made of iron. 

Even with earth pony strength, escaping would be a stretch.

I galloped out of the building, after taking a minute to try to get the broken door to stay closed. Despite being affiliated with the Carne Asada Syndicate, I was happy that the local constabulary office was on the opposite side of the block.

Five minutes later, two stallions and three mares in black uniforms burst into my apartment. All were equally burly. I glanced at my mail box, before trotting down the hallway to look in. It was extremely obvious that the wound was self-inflicted. The pot top didn't even have blood on it.

Palomino pony? The color rang the bell. 

I'd peered in just in time to see a constable pull off the blood encrusted knit stocking cap. A black mane flowed out, such that it could gunked-up with hair gel and blood. 

I chuckled. Add a tan raincoat. "Land Hover."

After an ambulance took the erstwhile burglar away, I answered questions and filed a report with a buff mare with whom I ended up talking strength training intervals and isometric stretches.  Later, I found the label I'd peeled from the box that had contained my Petites-Filles. 

It had my address and apartment number. He had done some picking through the trash. Hadn't seemed the type.

The constable left me with her business card and an invitation to visit her at her gym. I suspected she recognized me as Princess Grim, but was way too professional to fangrl about it.

I thought about it for exactly 14 seconds, before I scrounged up one of Trigger's overnight cases. I fetched the cardboard box from the post box and swapped packaging. The product—a metal thermal flask that weighed twice as much as the hair product—was also a cylinder and a bit wider. The hair ties wouldn't do. I found package tape and discarded the gum.

I dumped the cardboard and sadly the conditioner down the hallway garbage chute, then packed Marlin's, my library books, some strategic clothing, makeup, my spare bits, and the boxed cylinder. 

I decided that all-in-all, I felt safer staying at Mobtown Mattresses. Everypony knew a flimsy padlock on a locker wouldn't hold anything worth taking the trouble to steal. I knew how it worked.

I made the delivery a day later.

A week after that, somepony walked by while I stood at a lunch table in the park eating a carrot dog smothered in relish and mustard. He slid an envelope under my orange soda even as I sipped it through a straw.

It contained five times as many gold bits as I'd been paid previously and a note that had an address and two words.  

New Lodging.
> Chapter 44 — Living with Compromise
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I had a goal of saving enough to enroll in Prancetown University, even if that meant at the affiliated high school level. Getting paid in gold bits twice in one week assisted that goal. Getting free lodging, more the better.

I arrived in the suburbs at a squat three-story mansion in Orchard Hills just before 6 PM. It would have been a hour earlier if there was a bus line closer, or a taxi at the end of the bus line. It looked like it might have been an old boarding home at one time, but despite it being infected by the distressed-brick construction endemic of the Baltimare area, someone had painted the trim nicely white and well manicured ivy grew along the walls. A black iron gate lacking rust implied some wealth. A brass-appointed regency brougham and a newish landau Towne-coupe wagon parked along a circular drive, and the surrounding lawn looked recently tended by a goat herd, if not totally green.

I compared the address in polished brass to the scrawled card. I nodded and pulled Trigger's overnighter behind me as the small suitcase jumped and twisted on the blue and ruddy cobblestones. Motivate would have been a less exhausting spell, since it reciprocated even on uneven ground. I growled, wondering yet again why I couldn't master it.

The doorbell chimed an impressive tune, almost like the mansion in Sire's Hollow. I expected a butler, but a gum-chewing twig of an earth pony opened the door. She wore just a brief frilly white blouse with a torn shoulder and a single hoop gold earring, and nothing else. Her blue eyes matched her blue mane and her fur had the faintest pink tint.

She nodded at the card when I showed it to her. 

"Just in time for dinner," she said. As she lead inside, I realized three things.

The torn sleeve was intentional style—I noted the superior knotting in the hem. 

Her rear end was large, eye grabbing, and not entirely in proportion to the rest of her. No stallion would bother with me in her presence. 

Her cutie mark was a yellow rubber ducky, different than Dr. Feel's. That had to have an interesting story associated with it.

Glory introduced me to five other earth pony mares gathered around a mahogany table. I introduced myself as Grimoire. I wore a goth black one-piece miniskirt dress that exposed my special eponymous cutie mark, had anypony cared to look. 

Judging by the various styles worn by the mares, all were aged between 20 and 25. I decided that dressing up had been the right decision. Each one had packaged herself to show off her best assets; even Glory, whose best asset followed her without a stitch on. I noted red silk on one. Another wore pearls on a smart tailored one-piece tan work suit that ended in slit bell-bottom pantaloons. Though I spotted ripped denim on another that descended to her fetlocks, the fraying was too regular to be accidental.

Nopony wore a gang tee-shirt or a plaid skirt. 

Nopony lacked for some discretionary bits to spend now and again. 

It appeared I had graduated from grade school after all. It worried me that the new school didn't look co-educational.

Female unicorn staff brought out platters of vegetables, buttered new potatoes, cross-seared and grilled white aubergine steaks, and egg bread rolls with butter pressed into flowers. Everypony filled their plate and dug in. Everypony looked tired at some deep level. It embarrassed me that I felt like a perky pony. I really wanted to ask questions. Did anypony work guard duty like I did? Were they accountants? Did they manage other levels of syndicate business? I resisted and fidgeted in my chair.

I was the only filly in the room.

Glory sat next to me. She chewed each bite thoroughly and ate from a half-filled plate without taking seconds. It explained her figure and mine, since I was gobbling my second plate. My round curves barely hid muscle, however; I'd hit the heavy bag and the speed bag for over two hours in gym this afternoon. Glory put down her fork with two distinct clicks, but spoke as if musing out loud.

"Steeple Chase sleeps at least once with every mare that moves in here."

Even though I magicked my fork around, I juggled it and it landed behind my chair with a clatter on the hardwood floor. I coughed out a potato, and kept coughing. Glory hit me on the back, hard enough to leave bruises. Earth pony, right?

I stopped coughing—out of self-preservation.

A staff pony in a pastry chef uniform expeditiously turned around and returned to the kitchen with her platter of fruit tarts. All eyes focused on me as if I were the missing tarts. Rosebud, the big grey Clydesdale in the red silk dress, sniggered into her napkin. Her magenta eyes sparkled.

Real? A test? Hazing?

"Who's Steeple Chase?" I asked neutrally.

"He runs gaming on the west side and, as best I can tell, works with five other ponies in pony resources for the syndicate. This house is in his purview."

"He..." I coughed. "—sleeps here?"

Sugar Pine, the fine-boned tall green pony with a brown mane, emerald eyes, and frayed denim, said, "My dear, you do utter the euphemisms, do you not?" Her patrician accent out did mine, when I unleashed it. 

Rosebud shouldered her and Sugar Pine glared back.

Unfortunately, I did understand. Despite being a business venture run by a "queenpin", one that seemed to span the big northeastern cities of Equestria, it seemed to have some of the bad aspects of what happened when you let stallions run things. I really did not care what this or that pony decided to do amongst themselves or with companions. I knew what the term herding meant. Ponies that hung out in gyms, lived in hostels, fought prize fights for a living, or guarded ponies transporting unnamed goods across town in the dead of the night were not well-bred by definition. I had learned things neither Proper Step nor Princess Celestia wanted me to learn. I only had a problem with ponies ordering me to do stuff I didn't agree to do.

Like transporting product, becoming a mule.

I'd cleared up that part. As far as what Glory had implied, I hadn't thought it bared mentioning.

Everypony clearly awaited a response.

Channeling my inner perky pony, I smiled widely and asked, "Is he any good?"

Sugar Pine banged her forehead on the table. The silver and tea cups rattled. She did it a second time for good measure. Fortunately she had pushed her empty plate away.

Nopony volunteered how C.A. employed them, but the evolving banter did devolve to sports and we talked about that and the fall fashion styles that were beginning to be released since spring was nearly over. Eventually, I found I'd been assigned a room. Some staff pony trained in stealth had spirited away my luggage and I found it unpacked, folded, and put away in a chest of drawers and a standalone wardrobe. My makeup had been arrayed on a mother-of-pearl inlaid vanity table with a unicorn mirror I could splash with a blip of magic to illuminate. Somepony had taken the liberty to fill in the missing gaps in my supplies with hoof polish, rouges, and mascaras. It missed my purpose for the supplies entirely. My eyebrow rose at the brand name.

"Steeple Chase better not charge me for this," I stated loudly.

Glory looked at the clothes in my open closet and said, "Like the food and the service staff, it doesn't come out of your salary. Steeple Chase does expect you to show your gratitude, however."

"You didn't answer my question."

"He doesn't charge—"

"My euphemism question."

"Not really into judging. I like my colts like I like my meals. Anything can be tasty if I am well prepared."

That rubber ducky cutie mark became even more intriguing. "Do you like him, I mean as a pony?"

"Sugar Pine calls him 'vainglorious.' Rolls off the tongue.  Vainglorious. Vain-glorious. I haven't bothered to look up the word." She shrugged. "I like what I get from him." 

The bedclothes were satin and the sheets had been turned down. The furniture looked plain, but was clearly made of expensive rosewood. A chocolate square lay on my pillow. That said, I saw no lock on the door.

It intrigued me that the syndicate vigorish earned by the book for each of my fights helped pay for "services" such as this. It must have cost a pretty gold bit or two.

Nevertheless, I put a chair under the door knob. The sum total of Glory's nihilist patter and her semi-monotone made me think she would have as much qualms about sticking a dagger in my throat as greeting me. I didn't want to know what she did to earn her bits. I hoped that Steeple Chase didn't turn out to be like The Monster.

Vainglorious meant...

Boisterous.

Pompous.

Self-aggrandizing...

On my terms, I told myself. On my terms, then maybe. I was willing to learn. Better to be experienced when I met Sunburst again. I wasn't going to chance losing him for fear of being inquisitive on a subject every mare needed to learn, and as best I could tell, most liked participating in.

I checked again that the chair would make a loud clatter if the door were forced. Tomorrow, I planned to take the train to Prancetown to check out school admissions. Along the way, I resolved to look for apartment-for-rent signs.

I ate breakfast and returned in the afternoon for dinner. I quickly gathered that Prancetown school cost a lot of bits. Somehow, the town and university building with slightly purple-tinged red brick and white trim made brick look both good and stately. Maybe because everypony used the same materials. I saw a lot of upper crust wandering around, but heard many accents. 

I'd eventually have enough for admissions. Maybe by spring semester. I wondered if Celestia's command card would work there, but worried the alicorn would somehow track me down because of it.

One good thing: I saw cork boards upon which graduate students and teacher assistants offered tutoring services I could afford. Some were magic students. 

Steeple Chase wasn't there when I returned "home."

The next day was a repeat of the first. I sat by in the library while an older student tutored a younger one in magical equations, but I couldn't hear them talk. I figured out how to leave responses to tutoring adverts.

Glory was missing at dinner. So was Steeple Chase.

I asked Sugar Pine. She informed me they were downtown together.

"Is he ever here?"

"Now and then."

"I need to know how I'll get my assignments."

"Don't worry your pretty head. While you live in the house, it costs you nothing."

"I'm in this for the bits. The gold ones. Not the luxury, nor the relaxation." And to learn something, but I didn't think she would understand or worse, misunderstand.

Sugar Pine smiled mutely and shrugged before she trotted away.

Tutoring happened mostly in the library or at the outdoor cafe tables outside the Cocoa Bean kiosk. Armed with tutor pictures posted with their adverts, I first sought Sparkling. His name seemed promising. Watching him work with other students quickly disabused me that he was more than helping explain homework.

Meadowbrook had the name of a famous mage still revered after many centuries for constructing five separate biological arcana. She seemed to understand analytic geometry and violation physics from what I could overhear. I began to prepare to approach her during her open hour. Then she pulled a "slide rule" from her saddlebags. Granted, it looked like a complicated contraption with a dozen circular sliding scales. Celestia's ancestors blessed her with a horn. Using an earth pony computer killed it for me.

A total bust, that day.

And I missed my train and took the later one.

When I arrived home, I found everypony had finished dinner already, desert included.

"Any leftovers?" I asked the mares sitting in the salon.

Rosebud laughed out loud, shaking her head. Turns out that the staff ponies went home right after cleaning the kitchen. Worse, they locked the service areas.

What was I, a foal? I wasn't going hungry—I'd grazed all day at the Cocoa Bean on fruit and pastries, and worked it off at the campus gym when I sneaked in. I shrugged it off until morning, when I overslept. I woke to find breakfast served and gone, as in not available. Nopony served lunch, not on week days.

I left in a huff. I took time to check out apartment rentals. It worried me that not only had I not gotten an assignment since the mule incident, but I didn't have a contact. Steeple Chase might not even be the pony I needed. Or worse, he might be. What if my supply of bits dried up?

I sat in a park, worrying. It showed me how far I'd sunk. I really didn't want to start over again, and that realization felt really bad. Growing exasperated, I returned to Baltimare, attended the gym I'd paid up my dues at least until fall, and murdered the speed ball. When I got an offer to spar, I was exhausted enough that I didn't draw the earth pony's blood, though I did draw a crowd and some cheers when I sat on a pretty pink pony's rump.

Well, there was always Mobtown Mattresses.

Steeple Chase returned on the weekend. Both days he sequestered himself in the south wing of the building, beyond hallways paneled with dark wood and lit with brass lanterns. In meetings. Through my window, I saw ponies in suits come and go. All the mares except the purple pony whose name I did not remember were missing. Not with Steeple Chase, I learned, relieved.

The next day, the mares returned. Steeple Chase entertained the purple pony that night as it turned out. I wrote a note and asked a guard, a mare in a black suit, to give it to him.

I didn't get a response by breakfast the next day when I headed out to Prancetown by train. I'd gotten my head screwed on again by that time. Studying Marlin's always helped in that way, and I'd had my nose in the book all weekend, and on the train ride.

Broomhill Dare, the third and last of the magic tutors advertising on the bulletin board. She had openings today. I ripped the orange paper free and folded it to take with me to my table to use as a bookmark as I studied. It had only one time slot not crossed out. No reason to let some other pony think they could beat me to it.
> Chapter 45 — Witchy
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Broomhill Dare held court in the far reaches of the table area surrounding the Cocoa Bean. Notably, it was away from overhanging trees and shielded from the sun by a tall building that had no windows on that side. Peaceful. Quiet. Cool shade. Good for concentration beginning from noon onward.

The orange-coated unicorn couldn't miss me listening in, though each time I grew aware that she glanced my direction, I was deep in my book. She wore a dowdy brown maxi dress and a brown v-neck sweatshirt that left her legs and neck bare down to the curly orange thatch between her shoulders. I did not miss that shade of her clothes went very nicely the color of her curly brunette mane.

The mare had a practical streak. She worked on getting one young stallion to learn to tune his Illuminate spell away from his magic color. She didn't demonstrate though. She helped another mare work on levitating multiple objects using mathematical functions I knew helped because you could change the numbers and increase the period frequency of the results. Marlin's had a page devoted to that: a spacial geometry section near the beginning of the book.

She did not use a slide rule.

Neither did she demonstrate any magic. I didn't even know what color her aura presented, let alone maybe find my chance to taste a side wave function of a violation crest-fall in said missing magical aura. 

I began to believe Broomhill Dare might prove to be a bust, even as she tutored two additional students after the two I saw. She was popular, which meant a good rep, but that meant she didn't have much open time according to her schedule on the advertisement.

This had the hallmarks of another bust.

Her cocoa mug exploded. I flinched and looked so quickly that I saw her reaction. She'd thrown a Push spell just in time, and shaped it in a quarter arc a pony length in radius.

Shield. To JIT a spell like that, she either knew how to queue or had lightning quick reflexes. 

Pale pink nebulosity guttered around her horn, like still-ignited-gas in a gas lamp with the supply just switched off. I'd never seen that color, but I sensed numbers sputtering of like random sparks from a burning log. Each was as strongly defined as the last until her aura vanished in a spray of sparkles. 

I closed Marlin's and my notebook, hoof on the Teleport spell I'd been researching. I really needed that one to stop wringing me out like a wet rag. I watched unabashedly the rest of her lesson.

She sent the white unicorn stallion off, sighing when he went out of earshot. He could manifest fire, but couldn't moderate the intensity. It frightened him and he tended to flinch. Bad move. That tended to throw little flames randomly about. I'd be scared, too, if I were him.

Broomhill Dare turned to face me long enough that I could see she wore wire frame glasses and had magenta eyes. Pale magenta eyes. I'd read of the scholarly debate on whether eye color usually determined aura color or vice versa. She gathered her half-dozen books and a stack of papers into her saddle bags, also brown, and put them on.

I stood. I'd thought she had an open time slot I might take. She was leaving, anyway?

She slowly walked around the two tables between us until she stood across from me. Her eyes went from my average short horn, to my mane piled up in a spike atop my head in a colt bun, to the pulled back hood of my Grimoire cape, to the book covered by my one hoof, to my worn daisy-sparkle little-filly notebook.

Grimoire's cloak looked a bit cartoonish in the context of the university campus, like I was trying to pretend to be a mage.

I empathized with her when she sighed deeply, then shook her head before continuing by.

"No, please," I said stepping to block her.

She looked down at me. She was one of the tall ones with a pointy horn of six spirals. She said, "You're what, 12—?"

"A lot older than that," I insisted. I had intended to lie by saying eighteen and felt suddenly like a foal as I had not since Waddles Worth had figured out my bluff and dared me to relieve myself in the woods. My voice cracked as I added, "I can pay. Twice your advertised rate. Three times."

"You're too young. I don't teach foals."

"Please."

"No."

I stepped in front of her, again. Short of teleporting around me, she could only evade me with her words. If I could only find the words stop her from evading me!

When she persisted in going around yet another table, my eyes alighted on her sweat shirt. I'd seen a letter or two in the folds of the fabric as she sat. I had thought I'd seen a P, an N, and T. I'd assumed it read Prancetown U. 

I read it all now.

Fight Night! It was the event name used to advertise the prize fight and tag team events.

"I'm Princess Grim."

She coughed, bringing up a hoof to her mouth before she started laughing. "You?" She sobered. "I refuse to teach liars, especially."

That froze me solid, my heart thumping so hard in my ears that my head shook with each beat. 

If she said more, I missed it. 

A liar. Was I liar?

Of course I was a liar. I ought to have a cutie mark in it! I lied all the time. About who I was. About what I was. About my age. I'd even implied that Trigger had had sex with me.

Sweet Celestia! Did this tutor have a telepathy spell? 

Maybe not. Of all the lies I'd told, being called out for the one truth wasn't fair.

It percolated down into my brain that I'd started acting bratty. Like a whiny foal in a grocery causing all the other mares to glare at my mother. Fixated. To the point of crying and screaming. Fixated. On candy.

I really liked my candy.

And I wasn't lying, either!

My attention escaped its prison to let me view the world again. Broomhill Dare had gone. The muscles in my neck nearly got sprained as I jerked right. The brown-dressed orange mare still shook her head as she navigated the labyrinth of steel chairs and reddish stone-topped tables.

True to Tartarus, I was fixated.

I launched myself, regardless of the heavy chairs I struck along the way. I got Push spinning, and I shoved the rest aside when I could. The cacophony got the mare to look back, and she got to see me leap a pile-up of tumbled-over chairs I failed to shove out of my way. My right rear horseshoe clattered as it struck a table on my descent, which meant I landed wrong with a counter-clockwise rotation. Fight instincts honed over the most of last year kicked in, protecting my knees and hooves. I rolled. I ended up going under a table and a chair on my side, the latter which I flipped over as my wider hips connected with the heavy legs. My cloak ripped, saving me from scrapes in addition to bruises. I pushed more of the chairs aside in a more measured move as I stood.

Broomhill Dare stood with an I-don't-believe-I-witnessed-that-comedy-act smirk, even as she endeavored to hide low giggling behind a brown-polished hoof. She stood on the sidewalk perimeter of the outdoor eating quadrangle, amused.

I righted the chairs immediately beside me, sliding them under the tables, before stepping into the middle of the sidewalk.

Rrrriiip!

I'd stepped on the edge of the cloak. The outside fabric gave way where it had pulled apart during my five-pony-length slide. The inner silk lining ripped from the stretched hem, then shredded, effectively cutting in half the cloak from my left side to my spine. The portion covering my tail and cutie mark, no longer weighted, slid off to the right.

She, and about five passing students, now watched my act. Two earth ponies clasped tall cups of cocoa between their hooves as they sat to watch the shenanigans.

How only "Phooey," escaped my lips and not one of the paint-blistering epitaphs I learned, I'll never know. Perhaps a hidden discipline?

Nothing here to convince her I wasn't a foal in the literal and in the figurative sense.

I pulled the whole cloak off over my head, glancing at the tutor as I did. She kept watching. To compound or emphasize the perversity of the moment, I warped my Push into handling vectors, then proceeded to fold my ruined cloak as I would a comforter with my magic supporting the torn part making a neat square.

I was as naked as a pony got. I'd left my saddlebags on the table. At least I hadn't smudged my Grimoire cutie mark.

I'd stopped her. Now what?

I was too Princess Grim.

I reared and began shadow boxing. Beyond a good morning gallop and throwing dumbbells (the metal, not the pony kind) around the gym, I loved hitting the heavy bag and getting the perfect rhythm on the speed bag. Shadow boxing isn't the same thing, of course. You were boxing an imaginary opponent, dodging imaginary strikes, working to acknowledge your weaknesses and preventing your persistent imaginary opponent from taking advantage of the openings found. It was also about keeping on the edge of your hooves, dancing around, never remaining static.

And, of course, looking really cool.

I got into it fast, hopping about, then going down on threes to execute an upper cut and preserving my back. Rearing and fighting looks fun, but a pony hip and spine isn't designed for standing forever. Managing your energy, preventing injury... that was also what it was about.

A triple pummeling to the barrel, rearing to execute a one-two to the jaw, and one-two to the nose, with a finish to the temple. Dodge, dodge, jump back, and mix it up by dashing on all fours behind and then to try a flank kick or a full buck. The rearing and block, block, block, punch. Scratching my nose, then rapid one-twos while dancing about. Repeat, repeat.

I exited the zone long enough to see if I still had an audience. More students had stopped to watch, including a few in the windows of adjacent buildings. The barista at the Cocoa Bean called "Woot! Woot!" when I rotated so I saw the cherry red stallion.

Most importantly, when I danced about to see Broomhill Dare, she had a beatific smile on her face, and she mirrored my bobbing and weaving, on all fours, of course. 

Definitely a fight fan.

Definitely.

I advanced slightly, working my routine, and feeling my sweat begin to bead on my forehead and in the pits of my legs. Shadow boxing naked, with a slight breeze, actually felt really good. Not at all like working out in tights in a gym with limited circulation, enduring gym-clothes smells, and the heat of over-exerted hard-body ponies.

I wiped my brow and flicked away dew. And advanced on her.

Subconsciously, the bobbing mare stepped back to maintain her personal distance. Her dress pushed into some chairs I'd tipped over.

Rather than stop the show, I cast Levitate and tuned it into an upward Push. As my vectors firmed, I very slowly lifted her four hooves while limiting it so I didn't push up her dress or press on her barrel, or muss her curly hair.

She didn't immediately notice.

If I did this to a fighter, it didn't matter what tribe, the response would have been instantaneous. A twist to a random direction. A flutter away. I levitated her a couple of hoof-lengths before her eyes widened. 

She didn't freak, however. I lifted her just above table height, then proceeded to maintain our distance as I shadow boxed us back through the labyrinth. I did have to kick some chairs and skid a few aside with a hoof. I didn't want her to experience anything short of the smoothest ride, but when I got back to my table, the strain hit me.

I set her down on the opposite side of the table, pulled a chair up behind me, and sat down with a sigh.

Sweat dripped into my eye, causing me to blink and rub it. So much for looking cool.

She clapped her hooves together.

A heard a dozen others stomping. I waved my legs at the other ponies, trying to act modest, to get them to stop, and the other thing... Show's over. Go home.

The ponies took the hint and dispersed.

The breeze had picked up and I felt suddenly cooled off. When I looked at the tutor, I saw her pink fluttering flame aura sparkling. Most unicorns would have magicked an actual hoof-fan or a flat sheet of cardboard and used that to fan somepony. She levitated the air directly. Moving air tussled my bangs so they flipped against my horn while blowing perpendicular to my body. 

Nice trick.

Almost as hard as levitating water.

She said, "You can box. You could be who you claim to be, with a dark blue dye job. I took you for a colt, but even so I thought Princess Grim was a much bigger mare. I've met a few fighters. Bad colt Cyclone and, of course, Punch Drunk. I can't see how they wouldn't cream you."

"There's a theater aspect to the costumes. You want to look imposing."

"I guess."

I added in a lower voice. Was I feeling embarrassed? "I didn't want ponies to recognize who I really was."

"You played Princess Grim?"

My fur crinkled as it dried in locks. I sat up straight. "Well, the fighting was real, but yeah."

"I see. Sorry I called you a liar."

I shrugged, trying to act cool about it. She looked down, momentarily contrite, which let me examine her magic down the length of her pointy horn. It spiraled up the grooves in her horn. The effervescence and excessive sparkles had thrown me, causing me to look for traces of a mathematics that weren't what I expected. 

I said, "I've read about Breeze. This is not that weather spell, though. Are you repeatedly casting Push?"

Her magic guttered out and she looked at me. "Levitate is my only really good spell. It's a periodic sinusoidal reality wave, so I cast Levitate and modulate it thinking of contra-octave C. The tone of the lowest octave of the piano which pulses 32.703 times a second. As long as I hear the tone, the spell persists." She pushed up her glasses, her magnified eyes blinking. "You understood that?"

"Levitate Push, Pull, Fold... Force all require transforms. I carried you from the sidewalk using a matrix vector transform that applies Push at a point duplicated on a time axis over a field defined by an oscillating function. I can play the piano well enough to pass as well-mannered in some circles, so, yes."

"I see." Her eyes moved four times, and then again, which made me think she had noticed my enumeration of Levitate transforms. 

I continued, "I really need—"

"And I am going to be late." She stood precipitously. 

"To what?" I demanded, caught my tone, and softened it with, "If I may ask."

"You may," she said, taking a route out of the quadrangle, avoiding the mess of chairs I'd made.

"Where?"

"Midterms. I'm a graduate student and a teaching assistant. It would not do if the pony proctoring the test wasn't there to distribute them on time."

"Ah," I said, as she turned left and broke into a fast canter forcing me to race to catch up. Longer legs. "Would you tutor me?"

"How old are you?" she asked, again.

"Please don't ask me questions you know I won't answer."

"I see," she said, glancing back at me over her shoulder. "A big filly wouldn't ask questions she knew the answer to."

My horseshoes made a grinding sound as I came to an abrupt halt. 

Broomhill Dare continued, then turned the corner going left. She was gone.

"That's not fair," I said in a low voice. "You're not my Mom. She's dead."
> Chapter  46 — Tripudioetcanticumomania
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Was this what it felt to be a foal put in her place? It didn't feel like being admonished by Proper Step; that was pure resentment. This, though?

I was too young. Broomhill Dare was right. 

Which was why I wasn't about to give up. When I found my gallop again, the mare was nowhere to be found.

I assumed proctoring a test couldn't take more than an hour or two. I didn't know what building, but I figured if I patrolled those nearby, I'd notice exiting students and follow that lead.

I wasn't sure what I was going to say. It didn't matter. I patrolled for a few hours until dark clouds gathered from the east and droplets began to fall. I didn't see any flux of student, nor lights go on in buildings.

I wanted to believe she had lied about test, but I knew better.

The sun on the horizon colored the bottom of the clouds orange. Thanks to my exercise today, despite and because of the intermittent showers and a lack of an umbrella or usable cloak, when I returned it home, I exuded a definite wet-dog smell. My stomach grumbled. I didn't know whether I wanted food or a bath more.

As I approached the front door, I found one of Steeple Chase's guards sitting on the covered porch at the entrance. The minty green mare wore a black denim jacket with a black blouse and plaid skirt.

I said, "Hello."

"You are late," the mare in black replied. Noting her eyes sweeping me, I checked my flank. Yep, lacquer is pretty waterproof.

I shrugged, walking up the steps. "Stuff kept me busy."

She stretched out a hoof, blocking me from the door. "You are late."

"I am."

"House rules. Don't arrive after curfew."

"Curfew? Like the time that good little fillies need to be snug in bed? Seriously?"

"That's the rules."

"Then you're saying you're not going to let me in?"

"You're a big filly now. I think you can figure that out."

I felt my breathing increase and my face warm. "Is everypony trying to treat me like a foal, today?"

The mare smiled wanly and lowered her leg. When I made to move, she put it up again and shook her head.

My eyes burned. I turned away as the porch light turned on, saving me from being seen with tears forming. I blinked for awhile, looking across the lawn as dusk came quickly. Wind thrashed the trees and with darkness came sheets of rain.

The brick porch was cold, but I lay down, trying to figure out to where my confidence had fled. Or my anger. If the guard stared at my cutie mark long enough, she might see the flaws, but I didn't care.

My stomach, cared. It growled after a half-hour. I looked up into her green eyes.

"Do you have any snacks?"

"South on the road, you'll find Squash Baking and B. B. Q's. Both open, next to Hotel 86."

I ended up offering her some copper bits and she gave me her bag of Frizzies malt-vinegar kale crisps. After a while, I told her I was going to use the bushes since she wasn't letting me inside. I got a shrug. Guess she wasn't the gardener. When I turned the corner, I realized my window was on the second floor at the furthest corner. 

I could have fought my way through the front door, then fought guards inside. I might have won, and I doubt any would have been willing to injure one of the syndicate's assets. I didn't have the will at the moment to fight that fight. I couldn't think what it would prove.

Aloud, I said, "I'm enjoying my pity party, I guess." 

I felt mellow and melancholy, not myself in other words, but sensed thoughts percolating deep inside. Emotions, memories, and aspirations began to blend, forming a hot tea that suddenly overflowed the cup.




I know there's always days, I am going to feel down,


That's when I'm the dray, 


I've got naught but a frown,


On those days, 


It's time to give thanks, for what I have,


I have my magic,


I have my health,


I am in my right mind,


I have my strength,


I have my freedom,


How can I really mind?


I still have breath, so I have poss-i-bili-ties,


I still have life, and all the impossibilities I've witnessed—


The friend inside is always dependable, and so very kind,


She me keeps safe, 


It's something she does, 


Every— day.


I have magic,


I have hope,


I am in my right mind,


I will see another day,


I will perform, miracles,


Every— day,


How can I really mind?


The friend inside is always there, 


She's dependable,


And so very kind,


And it's something she does,


Every— day...


I caught myself with a start. My voice rang back at me and I stilled my prancing hooves.

I. Had been. Singing. (And dancing.)

I shook myself and my mane out with a whinny. A quick scan of the side yard—bounded by cedars against a brick wall—showed that nopony guarded here, and the last half-hour had done little to make me suspect a patrol. I'd have put a pegasus on the roof. From where I stood, I could see anything on the shake roof beyond the gutters up to the ridge with the north-east pointing rooster weather vane. I saw naught.

I wiped the sweat off my forehead. No pony had seen that, Thank Celestia! I mean, really. I knew tripudioetcanticumomania was possible in any pony; I'd scoffed at it, having read songs in a novel where an entire village had been affected. But. Still. 

"Embarrassing!" My jaw clacked shut when I realized I just sang that...

I do feel better.  

Except for one thing...

I used a stand of maple trees next to a blank section of wall. It wasn't as if I hadn't dealt with such issues the months I'd walked across Equestria, and the weeks and weeks I spent homeless in various cities. Had I been fastidious or modest back in Grin Having? I'd certainly broken the habit.

I always took care of myself. And there was always tomorrow.

I walked up to my darkened window. 

Minty was right. I could find a restaurant and a hotel, but I didn't want to. I spun up Teleport. I knew the layout of my room. The housekeeper put everything back in its place, no matter how I tried to redecorate. My vectors would be perfect.

The out-teleport rang loudly. I stood on my purple tweed carpet inside my room. The wardrobe, drawers, desk, and bed stood in their designated place, the latter with the silver satin sheet turned down and a chocolate on the pillow. I drew the curtains aside with a hoof and eyed the empty lawn.

Had anypony heard my performance? Had anypony cared to look?

Not with the sorry lot that lived here.

So far as my teleport went, the fact was that nopony this side of downtown Baltimare knew a pony could teleport. Unicorns thought the spell to be mythical; considering its complexity, even high level unicorns were right to think that. 

That meant nopony knew what a teleport sounded like.

I unloaded my saddlebags and dropped the rag of a cloak on the desk. "At least I can sew."

A hoof rapped on the door. "Grimoire. Are you hurt?" It was Glory. She certainly was a nosy pony for a nihilist. 

"I'm okay. Don't come in."

"Pardon me for caring! Missed you at dinner, so we figured you were ill. It sounded like you fell or knocked over your chair."

"I'm okay."

"Ingrate." 

Her hoof steps retreated. I put an ear to the door. No guards came galloping to defenestrate me. I shrugged and muttered, "It's after curfew and I'm inside. What problem?"

A few moments later, I murmured, "Nobody heard my song."

I blinked, decided my tripudioetcanticumomanical outburst didn't matter that much, and shrugged. First crush, first kiss, first song... It fit into the category of growing up. Right? Right?

I slapped my towel over my withers, grabbed my makeup bag, and sauntered to a shared bathroom where I soaked for a long time in a hot tub of lavender bubbles.
> Chapter  47 — Round Two
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Next morning, I was the first pony down to breakfast.  Not a stretch, because I would have done my morning trot first had I not worried about confronting a silly wrong-side-of-the-door issue upon returning.  Nopony appeared surprised I was there, and Glory was the last to arrive.  Staff ponies laid out scrambled eggs, hay-biscuits, cheese, and fruit.  First in, first fed, first satiated.  It made up for my kale crisp dinner last night.  I stuffed some red apples into my saddlebags.  

That got me looks from the mares.  Gonna lecture me on manners?

I then took three hay-biscuits—which looked like fluffy adobe bricks, both in color and texture—and stabbed them with a knife.  I stuffed the crusty delights with soft cheese.  A guard (not Minty) interrupted my surgeries to hoof over a note.

"Is this my assignment?"

"Steeple Chase wants to talk to you."

I realized I'd stuck my tongue out as I worked.  I licked a hole in the bread to clean-up the overloaded cheese and packed the rolls inside with the apples.

"Tell Steeple Chase I am no fan of formalities.  Next time, instead of a note, tell the lord of the manor to send an assignment and not to waste my time or his."

As I walked away from the aghast guard, with a crowd of mares each mouth agape, I snapped away the card from the guard's hoof with my tail.  The pale blue paper fluttered to the terrazzo tiles.

As I trotted toward the entrance, I added, "I have plans today.  Tomorrow would be fine."

When I walked down the steps in the Silver Stream Gym, I thought how the upside-down unlucky horseshoe sign looked as unsightly as ever.  It smelled like a fight gym: pony perspiration and gym socks mixed with a taint of blood.  Somepony had sparred early this morning—and been cut badly.  

It felt like home, though I wasn't here to stay.

I wore a purple dress and had let my mane remain natural today—fluffy and girly, with bangs that gathered on one side and which tried really hard to block my left eye.  Nopony recognized me as I walked to the bits register.  Like all gyms, and by that I meant any celebrity business, they sold high-priced logo gear to their clientele.  I didn't recognize the noob who folded down the sport section behind the counter.

I pointed.  "I'd like the championship sweats in brown."

"Let's see.  Yes.  Got brown.  Hoodie, too?"

"Yes.  And the coffee tumbler.  No, the one with Princess Grim on it."

"No problem—"  The teenage red and blond colt looked up through the glass, then stood.  He rubbed the peach fuzz on his chin.  "You're—"

With the swiftness of a punch, I covered his mouth with a hoof.  "Say nothing and I'll buy anything in the case and autograph personally it to you with anything you want it to say, no matter how rude.  Fanboi on me and I'll autograph your nose with a horseshoe.  Don't make a fuss."

He nodded, blue eyes wide.

After a hour on the bus and the train, I found a spot outside the Cocoa Bean, under a shady tree.  With the storm gone and the air fresh and warm, I entertained myself by reading a torn 20-year out-of-date mustard-stained Thaumatergical Review Letters I'd found in the dumpster out behind the Celestia Library Complex building.  Ripped, but readable.  A particularly fascinating study tried to falsify the codicils thought to make time spells possible.  I completely lost track of time, pun intended, though the math made my horn overheat.  My gut insisted the authors failed to prove time spells impossible.

When I reached for my now cold chili-pepper Equidorian Silver cocoa, I realized Broomhill Dare had taken up station, tutoring a pink unicorn with horn-rimmed glasses.  The student had an overbite.  His green eyes met mine, then darted back to his book.  The orange pony had her back to me.

I rotated my ears forward.  

Broomhill Dare reviewed practice midterm questions, the terminology of which I wasn't sure I understood.  The answers made it obvious she referred to categories of codicils and predicates, and how they differed thaumaturgically.  I preferred Marlin's jargon, but then the library Sunburst and I shared had been populated with classical volumes.  When she commented off-hoof that in practice finding the harmony between the parts of the spell was the difference between casting powerfully and casting reliably, I felt absolutely certain that I needed her to tutor me.

The pink colt dashed away without looking at me.  When the tutor began packing her supplies, I trotted over.

"These are for you," I said as my aura evaporated from around the folded hoodie, sweat pants, and tee-shirt.  I purposely let the tumbler drop a hoof-length so it made a metallic clunk.  I kept my orange sparkle marker floating aside me as, when nervous these days, I liked to keep spells queued.  "Um..."

She looked at the blue and pink graphic of Princess Grim with her hoof held high in the air, adorned with the championship belt.  Drawn, of course, since Trigger had interfered with photographs being recorded that day.  Her faint magenta eyes came up and she frowned.

I said, "I'm sorry that I made you uncomfortable, yesterday.  I know you're a fight fan.  The least I can do is autograph these."  I unfolded the shirt, making visible the word Champion and the year.  "I didn't write anything yet because I didn't want to write something obsequious... or pathetic."

"I still don't tutor foals."

"I am not asking.  I'm apologizing.  I should have known better than to imply you could or would tutor somepony not enrolled at Prancetown University."

"There's that part about lying," she added, matching my gaze unflinchingly.

Tough Cookie.  One of the founders of Equestria, I thought before frowning about whether I remembered that right.  History... not my best subject.  I sighed, "About that..."

"Princess Grim isn't your real name, and I get that.  It's just not the best policy, and I know that."

"Once a teacher, always a teacher."

Her orange face reddened.

"You're really Princess Grim?"

"Hooves and horn.  Which means I know fight ponies.  For example, my first bout was against Punch Drunk.  Regulation, but unofficial—"

"Really?" she practically cooed.  "Such a hunk."

"He took my hoof when he met me and said, Enchanté!"

She sat attentively with her hooves together in the air.  "And?"

"I laid hooves on him.  Actually, only one, and knocked him out."

She began to clap her hooves together.  She paused as her mouth opened, then she clapped more enthusiastically.  "Oh, wow.  I remember reading the article on the front page of the Baltimare Sun sports section.  The unofficial KO.  And it proves to really be by an under-aged filly, not even an earth pony at that!  Okay.  Wow."  She sobered, then waggled a hoof proudly, "He's going to win the championship this year, just you wait."

"Because I retired."

"You and him.  That'd be the re-match for the record books."

She stood up and said, "Okay, okay, I got it: To Broom Hill Da— by the way, there's a silent R-E, so it's spelled D-A-R-E, and Broom Hill is one word regardless of how it sounds. —'To Broomhill Dare, Punch Drunk was an earth pony hunk, but no match for a unicorn's horn.'  Is that cool?"

"Sure.  I can autograph each item differently."

"Oh.  Nice.  Going to have to think about— And I'm going to be late to class!  Come with me."

"Can I?"

"Don't worry about it."  She grabbed her things.

I trotted behind her, answering her questions, quoting statistics, and describing stallion prizefighters I'd met—all the intimate details.  She liked that, a lot.

I didn't understand why.

The Barthemule Physics Annex building, while it had a three story glass front, proved to be an otherwise unremarkable red brick building with white wood trim.  The interior golden oak walls and hoof-worn black-veined marble floors reminded me of the decor of my Grin Having mansion, only in cheery light woods instead of aristocratic dark mahogany and walnut.  As a TA, I expected her to be teaching a single-digit numbered freshman class in a generic tiered-stadium hall.  I'd read that happened, in a novel taking place at a college.

She led us into a room no bigger than a doctor's waiting room that barely fit twelve desks.  The three walls other than the one with the windows were clad with black slate floor to ceiling, chalked with equations and matrices.  The room smelled of chalk dust and academa—despite one of the five other students, a white unicorn mare who perspired profusely and wore gardenia to mask it.  I sat at the back, entranced.

I'd never heard of Quantum Mechanics nor seen the violation math discussed by the mousy pegasus(!) stallion who taught the class.  I scribbled furiously in my notebook, though I suspected I understood Old Ponish better than his equations.  My statistics training was sorely lacking.

Afterwards, I found myself in a fugue, plugging in numbers to see what I got despite my horn heating uncomfortably.  I flipped between my notes on Teleport and what I'd written, suspecting I might have learned something important.

"Is this a friend of yours, Miss Dare, or another perspective student you're trying to scare away from Prancetown?"

The elderly blue pony had square wire-frame glasses and had shaved his mane to a patchy white stubble.  I looked up and said, "So magic acts like light: simultaneously a particle and a wave?  Why do we see a sparkle when it becomes a particle?  It isn't actually a, um..."

The fellow pushed his glasses up his muzzle, the way Sunburst did when startled, only he used a wing.  His feathers made an interesting rustling sound.  "Photon.  No, i-it isn't."  He waved at the blackboards.  "The math implies an answer, but the theory is all about probabilities."

"But it signals lost magical potential?"

"Scant."  

He looked at me, then scanned my somewhat frumpy dress trying to ascertain my actual form and possibly guess at the cutie mark I'd yet to be cursed with.  

He turned to Broomhill Dare and said, "Might be a freshman next year, or you coached her.  No additional teaching assignments!" he finished walking to the door.  Fading away with his hoof-falls in the hallway, he added, "The others are beginning to think you're a teacher's pet.  You aren't."

I said, grinning, "You know how to hustle."

She snorted.  "You do, too, P.G."  It sounded faintly like Pidgy. A nickname was encouraging.  "Are you some kind of prodigy?"

I shrugged, then reflexively shut my notebook when the mare glanced down at my Teleport spell.  I stood from the desk and packed it.  I said, "I like magic.  Unfortunately, I'm not always that good at it."

"I'm not sure if you are equivocating or dissembling, but that's still lying—"

My mouth dropped open.  It was as if she had purposely run her carriage over my puppy.
> 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.
> Chapter 49 — Impulsive Much?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

After my second teleport, I collapsed on the table, chin on my knees, more drained than I had been having soaked an hour in a hot bath last night. Sadly, I knocked over my unfinished cocoa, which flowed beyond my muzzle off the edge of the table and dripped loudly on the cement. I reached out with my tongue. That's all I had the energy to do for awhile...

She revived quickly. I explained my problem from were I lay and we ended up talking past sunset, until a lamplighter came by to dispel the darkness to which we were oblivious. You know. Unicorns. Illuminate. 

She said, "I know a great place for spaghetti." We walked into town, lost in conversation.

When I recognized it was so dark that the stars twinkled above, I sighed.

"What?" she asked.

"There's a curfew at the, uh, boarding house. I'm looking for an apartment, but haven't found anything. I'm, um—" Freelancing? "I'm paid well. I can afford comfortable accommodations."

"You have a patrician accent when you stop acting like a street urchin. Oh!"

She stopped and I walked past her, looking back. "'Oh', what?"

"I saw a sign for a second floor flat. Probably too pricey..." I saw her eyes open wider; she probably recalled the gold and silver bits that rolled out of my saddlebags earlier. "Or not."

"I did want to get out of Baltimare."

"Come on."

She galloped off in another direction.

The old grey mare with a white mane stopped with the key in the door at the top of the stairs. She'd seemed jovial, especially happy to see Broomhill Dare who she knew from the library down the block. She sobered as she spoke.

"I have to tell you. The young stallion who lived here died."

"He died?" I prompted. Young and died rarely appeared in the same sentence.

"Yes. Nice colt, wiry if a bit clumsy, which half explains it."

I looked at my companion, then back into the mare's brown eyes.

She said, "He fell off a building."

"That's odd."

"I heard he drank a lot of cider and decided he was a pegasus. I'd understand if you—"

"Not a problem," I said, probably more to impress Broomhill Dare than myself. I didn't think I believed in ghosts.

Inside, flat really described it. One big long room with a tiny bathroom that barely fit a slipper tub. A closet-sized efficiency kitchen huddled against the far wall, with an avocado green icebox and a tiny but matching single-burner stove. Half the walls where floor-to-ceiling windows. The rest were whitewashed brick. The stained golden oak floor made the place resemble a dance studio. I'd definitely hang mirrors, but would need blackout curtains.

Boxes and furniture had been piled together near the front door. The poor dead stallion's stuff.

"This is perfect," I said.

"Mule Train's sister is coming next week. He's paid up until then."

"How much?"

She named a price and a deposit, then stopped. "Wait. You look a bit young."

I dumped my saddlebags for the second time. I gave the mare all my coins, save five silvers. I needed train fare, and probably money for food, and lodging if I was too tired to mess with Minty when I got back to the boarding house.

I signed the lease and the old mare filled her purse, me having prepaid six months rent.

"That happened," I said.

"Impulsive much?" Broomhill Dare asked.

That moment, the moon chose to rise over the roof tops, flooding the room with bluish light. It swamped my brightly glowing horn. The room looked solemn and inviting at the same time, as if ethereal ballerinas might begin prancing tails-up at any moment. 

Broomhill Dare gasped and said, "Look!" She trotted over to a window and it became obvious the mullions were actually a door frame, and the window latch actually a handle. She opened it to a flat roof that had red square tiles a pony could walk on. As I stepped over the window frame, I spotted two green throw pillows soaked by last night's rain.

Her pink aura splashed the water out of a squat hoof desk that might serve as reclining dinner table as she said, "Makes you realize your stuff doesn't matter. When you're gone, your gone."

My stomach growled. The apples and cheese-stuffed rolls seemed like from yesterday.

She put her nose in the air and I also noticed the smell of spaghetti. My stomach piped up, convinced I smelled olives, peppers, and tomato sauce. 

"That's from The Red Noodle. It's on the opposite end of your block. Let's get takeaway and celebrate your new life!"

Were I not almost in fight trim, I'd never had made it to the train station before the last Baltimare-bound train left Prancetown station. I had a full stomach but lots to think about, so I didn't sleep on the ride home. I hired a taxi for a silver bit to take me to the mansion.

As I walked up the driveway, Minty came to attention. As I walked up the steps, my horn aglow, she said, "Curfew—"

I teleported into the empty dining room with a bang. "Too tired," I said and covered my mouth as I yawned.

"Miss Gelding!"

Not Grimoire. Somepony knew my history. I turned to find an older stallion had spoken. His grey-streaked mane was up in a uniform bouffant wearing a red-trimmed black suit that matched his dark red coat. He walked toward me. Not a unicorn.

"I'm too tired for curfew nonsense," I said, hooves on the stairs. "Talk about it tomorrow."

"Steeple Chase wants to talk to you as soon as you arrive."

"And I want a sack of gold bits. Everypony is disappointed, sometime."

"Really Miss G—"

"It's just Gelding, and you really need to understand, sir, that's a verb."

The fellow swallowed visibly. He looked miserable. He'd just seen me teleport and had an impossible task.

"Fine! Go wake him up. He'd better be sleeping, or I will be sorely disappointed." I walked past him down the hall and he rushed past pressing against the wall to avoid me.

"Yes. Wait." He disappeared through a door and I heard voices. I was disappointed when a mare wasn't hustled out as I was ushered in.

I found a large suite that resembled the main study at Grim Having Mansion. The walls were carved dark wood planks and the ceiling patterned tin tiles. A flower-pattern plush rug-covered business-like masculine salt and pepper granite tiles. An imposing desk sat across from a picture window. Bookshelves held... 

I walked up and read the spines. Royal Equestrian Code and parliamentary rules. Law books. 

Bor-ing. Probably silly things the syndicate had to circumvent.

Beyond, two side-by-side doors opened to a darkened room with a four poster bed. The rumpled sheets were slightly reflective red satin.

Steeple Chase leaned back in a big red fabric chair. The Clydesdale stallion wore a red house robe like a cloak and easily out-massed me by double. Keeping with the red theme, his fur was bright red and his mane a coppery auburn. His fur and his mane stuck up in tufts, so maybe he had been asleep—or recently occupied with a mare. His eyes were amber. The burly fellow would have been imposing if he didn't look to be less than ten years older than me. As I found myself staring, I realized his youth might have been illusory because the square-jawed earth pony was certifiably model-level handsome, more so because his almost studiously disheveled state made him look like a bad colt.

Which, technically, professionally, he was.

My noticing that he was wearing only a house robe made my reaction to him suddenly worrisome. I thought of the mares and what Glory had told me—and realized it was all true. Next I would see hearts and roses framing him! I kicked myself and hopped around for a few seconds, holding my right rear leg to my stomach to break his enchantment.

Was it a spell?

No. He was handsome and knew how to use it to control a mare. I did not like being controlled. This helped me find my anger and scattered wits. 

Narrowing my eyes, I stated, "You have an assignment for me."

"Miss Gelding—"

"Just... Gelding."

"I know, I know." He rolled his eyes. "It's a verb; a word, not an action."

"Assignment." I raised a hoof.

"You are making assumptions." He reached across the desk to his gold pen set, then stroked the stylus absently before he added, "You were assigned to this house for training purposes."

"Not what I was told. Recently, some ponies made some bad assumptions about me." I thought about the shoot-out that happened because a pony thought he could outwit me. "It did not end well." 

He got out of his chair. His mass suddenly reminded me of The Monster. His movement caused his robe to slide off, which made that observation worse. He asked, "Are you threatening me?"

"I didn't have to lift a hoof last time." I walked to the desk, reared, and clunked down my horseshoes knowing I might scratch the mahogany. My posture brought me to eye level with him. "You know Cyclone Beaujangles? Trigger told me they sent him to attack me as a test. I wonder if he can walk, yet? I really hate being tested."

The C.A. executive actually grinned. Oh-colts, really?

Stupidly, I belatedly lit my horn by prepping a spell. Force. Doubly stupid.

He countered, "You do have a reputation, and you deliver in spades."

"I'll ask—" I was about to say again. My position had weakened. "Do you have an assignment for me? Or not?"

"Every mare in this house—"

"Not happening."

"Aren't you going to wait until I finish my proposal?"

I pursed my lips. I reached for the heavy pen set with a hoof. Like an earth pony, I rotated it around, then tossed it over by shoulder. It went bang. "Sure, go ahead."

"I see. There are rules in this house. Curfew. Eating meals together—"

"Sharing your bed."

He gestured outward with a hoof. "Did I say that?"

I growled.

Continuing to gesture, he added, "I do the testing. I decide who passes. I decide who gets assignments. I decide who gets promoted."

"Promoted?"

"I hear you think on your hooves and are unflappable. I'm beginning to wonder about the latter. That's why I have to test you. If you're good enough, I'll see you're promoted."

"To what?"

"Enforcer. You've got the skills."

"What, now?"

"When ponies refuse to do as told, or refuse to pay up, or come from a rival gang to steal from the syndicate—somepony has to discreetly step in despite impediments, for instance bodyguards, and, you know... cause some bruises, maybe break a bone or two—"

"I won't hurt ponies."

"Ha. That's a lie."

"I fight defense." He started to move around the desk. I glared at him, stopping him. "Unless attacked, or you wantme to fight you. Then it's copacetic."

"Big words for a formerly homeless filly."

Horse apples. Was I getting into the habit of confessing about my background? I continued to glare without blinking.

He sighed. "Okay, probably bodyguard would be a better fit. The job description should be obvious, even for you. That's my instructions, anyway."

"Protecting ponies. If attacked? From being attacked. So long as nopony tells me anything I really shouldn't know, I could do that."

He snorted. 

"There's also my no-mule-rule. Applies to me being a bodyguard."

"You have... principles?" He smirked.

"And bodyguard pays better?"

"If you're good at it. Better than you were before."

I thought about my new flat. I thought of saving enough bits to attend Prancetown officially. I also though it might be a fun way to practice and hone my magic.

"Training?" I asked. 

"That requires assignments."

"Which you decide?"

"That's right."

"I suggest you decide to give me assignments."

"There's the matter of the rules."

"My rules or your rules?"

"House rules." This time he walked around the desk. The sconces and down-lights threw shadows that highlighted muscles typical of workhorse ponies. He was... massive in many ways. A stallion. I noticed that and I gulped. 

Propped up on the desk, my flank felt accessible and exposed.

I stepped down and backed toward the doorway until I knew my exact position in the room. My hide ticked and my muscles quivered. Jangling nerves kept me tripping up the Teleport equations, but I kept my Force prep. With him backlit, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, certain I would sense him if he charged me.

A took a second breath, but couldn't center myself.

I trained my patented glare on him, having to look up, forcing him into a staring contest as I warned him, "Don't think I can't beat you bloody if you attack."

He chuckled. "You think I'd be so stupid as to fight you alone?"

My peripheral vision caught shadows moving outside.

I reflexively shot out the main picture window with Force. Shards rebounded and peppered the big stallion, who whinnied loudly trying to protect his face with a foreleg. At the same time, since I cast the spell while turning my head, usually a bad idea, I left a hedge row of green flames across the lawn. I recognized Minty diving back toward the front porch and some other totally panicked purple pony galloping away toward the driveway. His hooves hit the cobbles running, throwing sparks. His retreating cadence was unmistakable, all the way out the gate and to the street.

By complete miracle, I'd missed hitting anypony from Steeple Chase to Minty.

The glass continued to tinkle on the granite as I dashed around the back of the desk. I'd inadvertently positioned myself well. I'd learned in the last year that many ponies tried to look muscular at the expense of general fitness. Lifting weights, but neglecting to run, skip rope, and pedal left many with no stamina. Somewhere Steeple Chase had a private weight room. I scrambled around the desk and greeted him as he retreated from the window, panicked by the flying glass.

"Hi!" I said, having transformed Force to Shield. He hit a glowing soft wall of blue-green between us and bounced back. I shoved my magic at him as I advanced until he had to step back or sit. On glass. "Lightning fast reflexes. Sorry about that."

He spoke unprintable horse apples.

"Language! There's a Lady in the house." 

Luckily, he couldn't see I meant Lady to be capitalized. He sputtered as I pushed him back until his nicely squared-off flank loudly smacked the wall between the bookcase and the shattered window. Without the room lights in my eyes, I saw the entire lawn illuminated by the still flickering flames. It remained empty.

Of course, somepony could force the door, but I suspected nopony would. I heard nopony trying, at least.

"I guess I would make a good bodyguard."

I kept pushing, forcing him to rear up. I reared, too, but was still a head shorter than him. I pushed until the apparitional surface of my spell warped around his barrel, pushing his forelegs back and pinning them. The tips of my fore hooves struck the wood panel to either side of his truly massive ribcage—albeit, just barely—and made a satisfying click-clack. Barrel to barrel, I could feel his heart thudding against my chest. 

What a satisfying feeling. Surely he could feel mine racing. I felt his every jagged breath and his fuzzy warmth.

A trained prizefighter would have known how to wriggle out of my magic hold, or how to stress the torsion nexus of my apparition to cause it to gutter and locally weaken at the greatest distance from my horn. An earth pony prizefighter would have tripped and pinned me two seconds ago. A pegasus would thrown me with her wings into the glass daggers still hanging in the window frame. 

Not Steeple Chase.

"So," I asked, glancing outside briefly, "House rules or my rules?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

Inspiration made me nuzzle the stallion on his chest at the base of his neck, taking care to press against his major arteries. I felt his blood pulse and when he began to gulp. 

Oooh! He smelled good; it had never occurred to me a stallion might smell good. He'd showered no more than an hour ago with oatmeal soap, but there was something more. Musk. I nibbled. Okay, I got a hair between my teeth, which wasn't what I imagined when I'd reflexively done that, but then a momentary vision of soaping another pony flashed into my mind. Had I done that with Sunburst? As little foals, we probably had! My imagination overlaid a grown Sunburst over...

I shook my head, then said, "Good. I want an assignment."

"Not happening."

I used my magic to pull him closer, then banged him against the wall. My magic couldn't hurt him this way, but did he know that? "Bad colt! You didn't understand me."

"I— I didn't?" he asked, tone changed.

"No. You see, I am not like all the other fillies, or anypony else associated with the Carne Asada Syndicate. Sure, I like my bits, my toys, my snacks. I have my agenda, but I don't really care that much for that stuff when it compromises my freedom. I gave it all up once; I'll do it again." I banged him once more.

"Okay," he said, not sounding particularly frightened. Fearing I'd missed something, I glanced outside, listening hard. The flames had gone out, and nopony had re-entered my field of vision. The door out of the suite remained closed. If somepony hid in the bedroom, my swiveling ears heard neither a bed spring nor a hoof on the granite floor. The stallion's legs quivered, but not tensing as if he were planning to batter me with a power move. I looked up into his amber eyes.

I asked, "Are you listening to me?"

He nodded vigorously.

Wait. I expected to see fear, or anger, or rebellion. This felt like... anticipation. I narrowed my eyes. "Do you like this?" I asked.

"I— Well—" His fur was red, but was his face coloring?

I rattled him once more. When his head bounced back down, I saw a flicker of shock metamorphose into an instant of barely hidden disappointment. 

I'd misfired, startled the horse apples out of him, and pinned him to the wall. Despite that, I'd also told him I didn't hurt ponies except in defense or with permission. He'd read the reports on me; he'd known about Gelding, so he'd probably already known that, too. The thought made me want to really hurt the stallion, to make him actually fear me, but I could not. 

I'd already lost.

His grin widened. I was almost certain I intuited his thought process. I hoped I did, because if he thought it was fun to be held helpless by me, well... I just didn't get those horse apples.

I had choices. Give up and do as told, including staying the night. I could also just count it all as lessons learned, disappear, and restart my life somewhere else. Maybe Dodge Junction?

I really liked the idea of saving to attend Prancetown. I liked my new flat, being called Pidgy, having someone intelligent to talk magic with, and pretending sometimes to be normal and common. 

Was Steeple Chase really that objectionable? 

"Yes." I shouted my own answer into his face.

His grin went away.

I said, "Let's make a deal."

"What sort of deal?"

"You give me assignments, training, and a promotion to bodyguard."

"If you're good enough."

"When I'm ready, I concede that."

"And if I don't?"

"An asset I think Carne Asada might really like disappears on your watch, never to be seen again. I wonder. Do you get promotions? Bonuses? Or are new fillies all you get? Gosh, you might lose your job!"

"Your proposal sounds rather one-sided to me."

I stepped back, keeping the shield spell between us. I let him back onto all fours. He stepped on broken glass. It must have jabbed the frog of a hoof because he winced. "I think maybe you like getting beat up."

"I—"

I waved a hoof. "Too much information. Don't provoke me because I wouldn't find it fun, but I would protect myself."

"That sounds like a demand, also, not a deal."

"It is a demand. The deal: I won't spend a night with you—until after I get my promotion, and start the job." I stepped forward, warping my shield around his body such that the sparkles flashed and popped against his skin and disturbed the short red hairs on his chest. I sniffed him again, first his furry chest then reaching up around his flicking ears. My tail swished. I smelled some cider on his breath. "You actually smell pretty good. Not what I expected. I might learn something from letting you touch me. That's the deal."

He chuckled.

I shoved him, hard. He whinnied and stepped back. More glass crackled under his hooves. He didn't look that worried, but he wasn't laughing either.

"Dock my pay for the window. That was a misfire." I backed away from the door. I realized I had started to sweat at some point during the fight. From my experience at the gym, that meant I smelled horsey. I hoped he liked that. I'd read that many stallions did. 

Nevertheless, I felt calmer near the exit. I dropped my shield spell and found I could spin up Teleport. Finally! 

I turned to the door and looked over my flank. "And I am moving out next week. This is a hostile working environment."

"You can't—"

I lowered my head, revealing the whites under my eyes, giving him a predator eyes look. "I realize you are strange. Do I need to add stupid? Not becoming of a hunky stallion. I'm not taking the barest chance of baring stupid foals. Understand?" I refused to be more explicit, or more promising.

He replied, "Your rules." Not a question; a statement.

"That's a good colt."

I slammed the door behind me with a rear hoof. The older fellow saw my horn shining and wisely backed up and out of my way. 

"I'm paying for the broken glass. My bad. Please apologize to the mint green mare for me, whatever her name is. My discussion with Steeple Chase got a bit overheated, that's all."

"I will."

"Thank you."

As I trotted upstairs, a couple of the other mares' door whooshed shut. I barred my door by levitating the wardrobe across it. I slept surprisingly well, vaguely remembering dreams where I pinned a big red stallion in some rather intriguing and compromising poses.

Color me confused.
> Chapter 50 — A Proposition
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

None of the other mares in the house would speak to me. They ignored me at the table, except to pass platters when I requested it, never asking any returned. I guessed everypony took it personally that I'd had the temerity to speak up to our shared hunk of a stallion.

"I've been ostracized from the herd," I pouted at breakfast.

That got me looks.

When I started laughing so hard I had to steady myself from sliding off the chair, eyes that had alighted on me darted elsewhere. Those same eyes went wide when I received a note from the staff ponies. Gold and silver bits lay on the silver tray.

Reading it, I said, "Goodie. An assignment. Thank the dear colt for keeping his side of our bargain."

The escort job would take me three leagues north of Baltimare to the very north end of Lake Raven Reservoir. I'd never been there, so I took day trips to Roosterville, Phoenix, and Weather Bee, to see how the locals spent their pre-dawn and early mornings, memorizing the map book pages for the area. The afternoons, I trekked through the park. I picnicked under canopies of beech, hemlock, and hickory. With nopony around, I grazed on yellow-flowered wood sorrel and green vines of spicy garlic mustard. Both made for a tasty breakfast.

The old earth pony we escorted from the docks at 3 AM four days later wore a blue pork pie hat that matched his dyed mane and fur. His mackintosh repelled the dewy morning fog. He kept the collar flared, but his shifty green eyes made me speculate he might be wanted by the constabulary. I didn't want to know. I explicitly told everypony my preference.

Citron and a couple earth ponies I worked with once before accompanied me. It was good that I had the lemon meringue colt, since at dawn we encountered a "forest ranger" at the periphery of the park. Citron knew our routine, and he'd grown nicely into his hooves during the last few months. He trotted nonchalantly onward as I blocked the thirty-something palomino unicorn. The "ranger" wore a believable uniform khaki shirt with brass buttons and a like-colored wide-brimmed campaign hat. Dew had stained his clothes and hat darkly. His breath condensed in the morning coolness.

I saw no copper badge, but I could pretend, right?

I asked, "We were looking for a picnic area with benches. Can you direct me?"

"No." He made to pass me on the trail.

I pulled back my chin as if shocked, stepping in his path, reaching into my saddle bags. "How unfriendly. It's right on my map, but I can't figure out where we are." I now had spells queuing and a random piece of paper floating in the dusky light. His eyes were caramel brown and angry.

He tried to peer into my hood, but I pulled it forward and kept the sunrise behind me. He grunted before trying to shoulder past me, the former prizefighter.

"Hey!" I said as he bounced off trained muscle. I added a flank butt to make him stumble. I saw, and smelled, horse sweat. Despite the cold. "How rude. I just want—"

From zero to cast, most unicorns that are trying to be fast take one-half to a full second to prep a spell and cast it. He was fast, but I was prepped already. I dropped, in case he aimed Force. His Push sparked gold as it hit the top of my Push. He'd aimed at my face. I'd aimed for his back legs, and he folded backwards, skidding across wet grass, sitting.

"Are you trying to pet me?" I asked demurely.

He leapt, trying to barrel by me offthe trail, hitting my Shield. He sank in a half a pony length, then rebounded hooves over hindquarters. He rolled back up to all fours. At least a street fighter. Okay; I might learn something. Teeth clenched, he pointed his gold-glowing horn at my chest. Or maybe not.

Newbie error. You don't have to point your horn to cast in that direction. It telegraphs your intent.

By the time his spell, some kind of static shock spell, crackled through where I'd been, I'd bull-rammed him in the stomach and threw him. Fortunately for him, I had a stubby horn. He rolled over my back and landed with a thud and an, "Ugh!"

I pinned him. He didn't fight back with horn or hoof. Instead he started retching. Horn. Stomach. Right? (He'd had hay and carrots for breakfast.)

"Really!" I huffed. "You could have just told me where the picnic benches were. I mean. Come on!"

When he got control of his stomach, he tried to yell. I ended up holding his muzzle shut for about five minutes, in his sick due to our mutual geometry, until he nodded that he would return the way he came, quietly.

That's a snapshot of what an eventful job looks like. Most of them are nothing hay-burgers.

I caught up to Citron at the edge of the lake, small waves clacking beach pebbles together in a meditative quiet, spiced with bird song. I saw a magically propelled-boat round a tree-lined point with a waving red hazard flag. I let my protégé report the successful send-off and went directly to Prancetown. 

I found my flat newly emptied and the middle of the room illuminated by the morning sun. I sat, rolled on my side, and slept contentedly until evening. A long gurgly noise woke me. I stretched out, pointing my hooves and tail and sighing, before massaging a shoulder stiff from laying on a wood floor. My stomach growled plaintively.

"Okay! Okay. The Red Noodle, was it?"

The day I'd signed the lease, Broomhill Dare had used Levitate to send a whisk-broom with a note to the restaurant; she had an incredible range. They'd sent a delivery colt. Today, I walked around the block of whitewashed townhouses and multi-level homes, some also painted yellow or light blue, all with white trim under generous elms. Each street corner had catty-corner restaurants, though I found a laundry and a couple of markets. The north side of Birch Ave had a few tall buildings, the brick five-story, right across from the Red Noodle, being the largest. Tape and traffic cones highlighted where the town was narrowing the cobblestone streets by adding modern cement sidewalks. Some gravel-filled wood-lined holes waited to be poured. I sniffed and caught garlic on the breeze.

I stepped around the construction obstacles to the restaurant. Looking down, I saw something that made me smile. Somepony had dropped a broom on the cement before it completely set. I saw hoof prints roughly astride where the earth pony must have stepped to retrieve the tool and inadvertently sat. 

The wait for a table was an hour, so I elected to sit at the bar. Perhaps my mane still pushed into a bouffant deflected the inevitable question of my age. I had dug into my spaghetti and treat-balls, magically twirling pasta around my fork, when I felt somepony watching me.

I kept eating until the bartender in a white shirt and black bow tie placed a pink drink before me. I smelled almond, chocolate, and based on the condensation on the outside, vanilla ice cream. Red sugar sprinkles rimmed what Proper Step had taught me was a martini glass, and a cider-soaked cherry sat on top. The bartender pointed a black polished hoof.

A tan earth pony sat around the corner. He had a horse-crest cut just past hoof-length and wore an open-collared blue shirt. He had some Saddle Arabian in him because he was tall and refined-looking, though only in his mid-twenties. A long scar on his jawline and blue eyes made him look both weathered and intriguing. I gave him a come-hither wave.

He started, "Hi. I'm—"

Waving a hoof, I said, "Sorry. I can't accept this. I'm underage and I don't want the restaurant to loose its cidering license."

"Oh." He sounded surprised, but only an ear flicked. The bartender slid the drink in front of him. Helpful Hanna. The stallion sat on the stool beside me. 

Before I could object, he said, "Hey, Blender! A Surely Contemplative for Lady—" He raised an eyebrow at me.

Wasn't going to say Aurora Midnight. 

"Gelding." I wasn't working—when I saw the bartender pour ginger soda and Grenadine into a tall glass of ice, I didn't add my catchphrase. 

The fellow smelled like he had been doing hard labor as earth ponies are wont. Not horsey in a bad way. Thanks to Steeple Chase, I was becoming a connoisseur of stallion physicality. In my ingenué-like momentary examination of him, he added, "I'm Safe. That's my name, not an adjective. You'll have to decide that yourself."

"Nice pickup line," I said as he swiveled on the stool to show his cutie mark on a muscular flank. I, of course, looked closely. I saw a warding hoof held up and a white picket fence. "Safe, huh?"

He smiled. "New to the neighborhood?"

The Surely Contemplative arrived with two straws and two Mareschino cherries. I popped a cherry in my mouth. It tasted like pure sugar, but not like a cherry, disappointingly. I was fond of cherries. I followed with a sip. The fizzy ginger soda cut the garlic flavor in my mouth nicely.

I faced him. "Well, thank you," I said, sketching a sitting curtsy, then channeling my patrician accent. "That said, sir, I'm not a filly to fancy rolling in the hay. That is the correct phrase?"

"Uh, close," he said, his ears flicking again. The way-too-helpful bartender slid Safe's dinner plate before him. I saw aubergine and white cheese, breaded and pan fried, in a red lake of chunky tomato sauce and toasted garlic.

Not trying to be annoying or anything, I floated my fork and knife over and cut a piece, before saying, "May I?"

I had it to my mouth before he answered, "Sure."

"Oh, that's really good!" Gooey cheese, garlic, rough cut polenta breading. Fragrant oregano. How could it not be?

"I'm glad."

"And, yes."

His left ear flicked. "Yes? Huh?"

"Yes. New to the neighborhood."

More ear flicks. He cut a piece of his dinner, then stirred the rejected drink and sipped it.

I asked, "What is it?"

"This? A Pink Squirrel."

"Doesn't taste like squirrel, I hope."

"Squirrel?"

"A scarred bush-tailed scoundrel and I once had a disagreement over some acorns. He bit. I bit back. Nasty. His hair, that is."

He chuckled. "Your reputation precedes you."

I put down my fork and knife with two loud clacks. I narrowed my eyes in his direction, but kept my horn lit with a Push.

I saw my blue-green aura reflected in his too cool blue eyes. "As advertised," he added. He smiled, finally, though I didn't take it as friendly.

"My name, you know, is a—"

"—Gelding is a verb—"

"You are making me wish this really was about a roll in the hay. I might learn something. As it is, you're ruining my supper."

"That's not my intention. I'm told you are what mages call a high-level unicorn, one with ambivalent ethics."

"Let's call them uniquely fungible," I corrected. "Was that supposed to be a complement?"

"It's a proposition."

I sucked in a breath. "That is an overloaded word, dear sir."

"No sense of humor, so I've heard." He raised both hooves. "Sorry. I've got a job you might be interested in."

I found myself breathing faster and my heartbeat becoming rapid. I swallowed and inhaled deeply. Keeping him in my peripheral vision, I sedately picked up my utensils. I twirled my spaghetti while queuing up Teleport. He let me stew almost five minutes as I finished my dinner. My best guess was Safe was a member of a rival gang, despite the lack of tattoos, chains, loud dress, or other signaling.

He took out a coin purse and nonchalantly stacked gold bits near my vaguely red drink. I blinked, then looked up. He was taller than I.

I wiped sauce from my lips, saying, "What kind of job?"

"Oh, this and that," he prevaricated.

My tail swished. "You are paying for my dinner."

He lay a hoof on my shoulder, and it was no accident. Doing so connected our two masses, his 150% of mine, and made Teleport immediately untenable because I would have to teleport him and I would be over my mass limit. He knew that.

Somehow. 

Maybe.

My hoof firmly on his, ready to brush it away, I said, "I have a job already." Lower, I added, "You cave-horse-brain stallion gangster-types just don't get that I do what I do because I want to, not because I have to. I earn my bits. I can start again and I'll earn again just fine. Worse for you, I don't have to earn any bits and I'd be perfectly fine." I thought, Homeless or back at Grin Having, didn't matter.

While I had been speaking, he'd added more gold bits to the stack with his other hoof.

I growled. "Not happening."

I pushed his hoof hard enough to rotate his stool, but not to knock him over. I trotted away, unwilling to telegraph to everypony that I really was the highest-level unicorn this side of Canterlot—and to test if he had brought friends.

He hadn't.

Over my shoulder, I added, "If you see me again, walk away. I'd hate to see such a handsome colt accidentally trip and hurt his pretty face."

I was on the train back into Baltimare before I realized it. I huffed. Well, I did need a mattress for my Prancetown flat, anyway.
> Chapter 51 — Pony of Mystery
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

After my morning run and back at the boarding house breakfast table, I found myself still irritated by the smooth talker. The mares kept their distance and their tongues. On the other hoof, I got four further assignments one after another that took me all over the outskirts of Baltimare. I couldn't complain. I could afford to buy lots of nice new furniture, and I spent every last bit. Between Broomhill Dare's working with me on my magical incompetencies and a C.A.-provided instructor who liked that I could now get Force to work, even if only at least once in any session, I felt I was on a roll.

Then came my fifth assignment.

It was the most far afield, yet. The first not to involve Baltimare at all. I'd pickup up a pony of mystery who'd arrive via skiff on Cliffwood Beach. That was across Rarity Bay from Hooflyn. I'd escort him through the Cheesequake Park to the Cranberry Junction railway depot, southeast of Prancetown. 

I got to request my team. I chose Citron as my second, with Crystal "The Knife" Skies and Pig Pen as muscle. I liked ponies that could think; I'd worked with too many that relied on gut or emotion. For whatever reason, none could meet me before dawn on the appointed day, at the outlet to Whale Creek and the west end of the beach. I suspected Citron at least would be studying maps of the area surrounding our meetup. I had no choice to research everything myself while planning how to brief the team on the necessary little details just before the pick up.

Not a pain in the flank—a challenge. Keep thinking that, Aurora.

I camped the evening before beside a couple of homeless ponies in the Veteran Memorial Park, sharing bargain last-week quarter-bale of hay I brought, a rubbish can fire, and the homeless pony security system. I slept well and hustled to the outlet from Whale Creek as the first light seeped over the oceanic horizon on a beautiful clear day. The wood and gravel path through the park had been well kept. I saw a nice boardwalk to my west, crossing Rarity Beach, and some early ponies jogging on it. Trees to my right concealed some expensive whitewashed grey-trimmed beach houses, but they were far enough away I doubted anypony would notice us, or care. The ocean lapped lazily up and down dark sand beach, hissing and roaring loud enough to conceal any casual sound.

Orange sunlight hit the tops of the Hooflyn Bridge across the bay, and a couple of tall spires in Manehatten a few leagues beyond that. My mouth dropped open. Over the next minute, the grey-blue opposite shoreline and dark rectangular silhouettes of tall buildings burst into luminous liquid color. Light sparkled off of windows. Waves rolling on the ocean suddenly turned blue, throwing enough glints and glimmers to make me squint.

I gasped when I heard hooves in the sand, jumping around with Push instantaneously queued. Citron wore a greyrunning suit, but it was hard not to be blinded by the yellow fur of his neck and face.

He wore a deep scowl as an accessory. He looked around with the whites of his eyes more visible that usual and his ears plastered forward.

"What the Tartarus, Grimoire? A homie banged on my Mom's door at midnight, telling me to meet you here."

A chill went down my back, setting my tail a-swish. "That's odd."

"Yes, odd. Mom didn't like the look of da dude. I keep my hobby on da down low and need ta know."

"I asked for you a week ago, if that's any consolation."

He gave me a spooked look, which I returned. We nodded at each other, both shooting a look to the boardwalk where a sharp-winged blue pegasus landed beside a brown earth pony who had been sipping some coffee. He took the paper cup from him with a curled wing and downed it. They began walking our direction as the wind started blowing. The ponies' bangs blew across their eyes. Mine did, too.

"Gangs all here," I said, waving.

Pig Pen had circles under his eyes; even his chain jangled lackadaisically. Crystal Skies had his usual cool above-the-fray attitude that made him hard to read.

I pursed my lips before asking, "I suppose you just learned about the job last night?"

"This morning," Crystal Skies said. "3:21 AM, actually."

"We were together on vacation in a hotel in Hooflyn, having—" Pig Pen added, before the pegasus swatted him upside the head with a wing.

"Hey!"

"Hay is for breakfast, earth pony."

"We?" He looked from him, to me, to him again. "I meant to say I was on vacation."

Crystal Skies sighed. "We weren't getting any sleep anyway."

Pig Pen grinned up at Crystal Skies before his friend swatted him again.

"Yeah," he said, rubbing his ear gingerly, checking for feather cuts. "We barely caught the 4 AM at Pen Station or Knifey would have had to fly here and give my excuses."

I said, "Something stupid happened."

"That's saying a mouthful."

"Not optimal," I continued. "I don't suppose anypony beside me knows anything about the terrain between here and Cranberry Junction."

I drew blank stares.

"Prancetown?"

Pig Pen said, "I visited a cousin who had a dorm there, once."

"Tartarus," Citron swore, and we all nodded.

As I led us south to Clifftown beach, I recited the roads that led to the railroad depot and levitated over a full fare train pass to each pony. If one of us delivered the pony of mystery to any depot, he or she could be hustled aboard. I sketched out the path I'd planned through the various townships and parks, using the byways I'd researched. I never took maps with me. Best not to leave clues if we got waylaid. Such things happened, had been made to have happened—the memory of the corrupt detective, Mr. Nopony, and a shootout making my hide tick. I told Citron to buy a map if we got separated, nevertheless, as the route was way too difficult for him to remember without having studied it ahead of time. No time for perfect when good-enough would do.

I spotted a rowboat at the crest of the sea grass berm of the beach. Surf and wind had partially erased the drag track from the water's edge. It could be no more than an hour old.

"Watchers?" I murmured.

"On it," Crystal Skies said, a blue feather fluttering down as he whooshed upward. My companions moved away from my side to frustrate any pony targeting us.

Citron said, "Five pony lengths south on the berm." The shadow in the grass lifted a hoof. "I'll check it out," he added, a yellow aura faint in the dawn light pulsed around his horn.

Ears rotated forward, I heard, "Do you think it snows here much?" The offbeat weather reference was a pass phrase.

Pig Pen who had stopped ahead of me, looking the way we came, asked, "You really trust your friend, don't you."

"Friendship is a delusion," I replied. "Don't confuse it with work."

"Um— I mean, Citron is kind of young. He's grown hoof-lengths in the few months I've know him."

"How old do you think I am?"

The brown stallion blinked, pushed up his lips thoughtfully. "Twenty, maybe?"

"Flatterer. He's trainable. His family situation, not unlike mine, may have matured him. I trust him as much as I would anypony."

"Not much?"

"Based on performance."

Citron trotted up behind a pony with definite Saddle Arabian ancestry. Tall. Fine boned. He wore a hooded full cloak not unlike mine. With my costuming background, I spotted the bad indigo-blue dye job from the stains on his hooves where it had dripped from his shaggy fetlocks. What little mane poked out, turquoise and blue, made me think wig. His tail matched, but looked too long for a stallion. Probably hair-pieces that only mares wore. The hood hid his face up to his muzzle, safeguarding his identity, which I appreciated. No need to have answers to questions that might later be asked. The taut peak confirmed he was a unicorn, however.

I said, "You are Turquoise, Turk if I need to pretend we're close. Let's say we are new exercise buddies on a long hike. If anypony says "Down!," you duck and cover. If anypony says "Run!," you follow us at a gallop, or, if you lose us, you keep running, then hide. Stay in the middle. No small talk. Understand?"

I got a curt nod. 

Well, that was refreshing. He didn't look at all nervous and he knew how to keep his mouth shut.

"Are we protecting you from the good guys or the bad guys?"

"Both," he said in a voice so breathy I suspected it was really a loud whisper. Was that a grin?

"Sheesh," said Crystal Skies as he landed, sounding crestfallen. "Nopony's paying us any attention."

I took a moment to share some gum I had chewed, eliciting an odd look from Turk when I did. I then led to the south end of the beach. Knifey did as he was wont, hovering, going up, circling, then returning to trot beside us, repeating. Were he to dive unexpectedly, that would indicate company. 

We trotted along a short boardwalk, then cut through the Veteran's Memorial Park. I approached the panhandler at the entrance. I'd talked to and slept next to him. I floated two dozen coppers into the scruffy red-furred blond fellow's tin cup and said in passing, "Git yah'self a snoot full oy grub. Do i'now."

As our hooves hit the cobbles, I heard, "Aye aye, Capt'n."

We took Lakeshore. The ruffian saluted when I glanced back to see him taking Greenwood, ensuring there were no immediate witnesses to our passing waiting to be questioned. 

We kept to residential streets in a tree-filled, almost park-like setting. That left us exposed to early risers looking out their front windows, but only for 20 minutes before we trotted under the trees in Cheesequake Provincial Park. I knew which trails to take to keep us hidden for the the maximum amount possible before we were forced to use main roads, and eventually to take a public bus or two if it became clear walking was too much for our charge or I thought we might have been seen.

Turk said, "We can stop here." 

I whinnied and stopped. Everypony stopped. Crystal Skies swooped down from a tree branch, immediately wary.

He had fully voiced his command; he hadn't whispered it. I recognized his voice instantly.

"Safe!" I almost shouted. "You horse's flank!"

He lowered his hood, revealing his scarred jaw line and his blue eyes. A fake unicorn horn on a blue headband slid off, too. "Safe is my work name, everypony. For the record, not an adjective or a noun." He winked at me and smiled.

"You know this horse's flank, Grimoire?" asked Crystal Skies.

"More like threatened to break his handsome face if I saw him again," I growled, stepping forward on three-legs, hoof raised.

"Gangsta move," said Citron, horn alight in the dappled early light. He stepped between Safe and myself. "What I wanna to know what's da game he's playing."

"Not playing a game. I'm here because Carne Asada wants new bodyguards. Grimsy thought you three colts were the best candidates to promote with her."

"I did?" I sputtered. "Not. I mean, I would. But. What? You're putting words in my—!" 

"The boss agreed. Tag, you're it. I'm here to train you all."

Crystal Skies hovered, shaking his head. "I don't like this one bit."

"Hear me out." Safe sat and crossed his forelegs, addressing my team, not me. "First off, the pay's excellent. You trade-off shifts with other teams, usually a week on and a week off."

The pegasus huffed. "Less freedom. I like getting assignments on irregular schedules."

"What Carne Asada wants, she usually gets." The stallion smiled slyly. His ears flicked as he pointed at me, "Oh, yeah, Grimoire. You can't get pregnant. Her rules—"

Crystal Skies came down, wings flared and slashing before Safe's face, but I intercepted with Shield and pushed him off by transforming the spell to repel on the inside, then gently grabbing him. 

Reflex. 

As I set the pegasus down, I found Pig Pen glaring at Safe, too, having stalked up on my left side, his blackened chain rattling. 

It hit me and I hissed. When had I acquired a herd?

I cleared my throat loudly. That got everypony's attention before I said, "He's trying to get my goat." 

Before Citron could counter my movement from the right, I'd stepped around him. I didn't give Pig Pen a chance to react. I stopped with a hoof close enough to Safe's pulsing nose that he could smell the mud smeared on my horseshoe. His eyes widened, and he did sniff, but he did not flinch. His ears flicked, though. 

I smiled. "Tell Carne Asada there's a spell for that. Also, I don't have a goat nor a lawn for him to mow." Not north of Sire's Hollow, anyway. 

"If you really want me to, I will. You four are going to get to know each other really well. For instance, our mystery mare has other secrets, doesn't she?"

Citron dragged me back with a hoof on my withers. I let him. 

Safe added, "She goes by many names—"

"Gelding?" Citron offered. "That's old news."

"How about Princess Grim?"

Pig Pen whirled around. "Wait, whaaat!?" He began to bounce on his hooves. "Of course. Gotta be. It explains everything! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!"

I turned around slowly, my eyes narrowed. "Fanboi on me just a bit more, and I'll loosen a few teeth with a hoof."

"Okay by me if you'll autograph them." The brown earth pony gave me a big wide grin, then turned to Crystal Skies and added, "She's really her!"

I stood there blinking, nonplussed. "You're not thinking. You can't mean that!?"

He turned back and grinned wider. Then again, he had joined a gang and wore a heavy black chain around his withers.

"I still don't like it," Crystal Skies said, taking to the air again. "Not one bit. I like our life as it is. Come on, Pig Pen, let's go."

Pig Pen's expression sobered. He glanced at me, then turned away.

"I'm here to train you," Safe said, quickly.

"Well good for you!" Crystal Skies spat. 

His right ear flicked and his lips compressed. "Let me put this somewhat differently, in a way that will keep your attention. You four have been well paid for a live-fire training session. You've already missed who's stalking us. They won't be trying to kill you. Well, at least the unicorns will be using Stun. The others—" He shrugged. "I think you'd better hear me out before they find us."

The fur on the back of my neck stood. Between having lived amongst homeless, in a hostel's shared dormitory, and becoming a champion prizefighter, when instinct rang the bell, you acted and asked questions later.

I yelled, "Hot potato!"
> Chapter 52 — Hot Potato
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

My team scattered without hesitation as I grabbed up Safe in my magic and ran. Crystal Skies spiraled up and arrowed through the forest canopy, snapping branches as he went. Pig Pen crashed through the underbrush to parallel the trail, plenty of the end of the chain looped in his lips, while Citron dashed ahead to scout for the ambush I implied by the direction I had looked. Citron couldn't lift a full pony weight either magically or physically, so I had the potato who whinnied, flailed like a child, and complained, "Put me down, you foal!"

"Sticks and stones—"

Crystal Skies yelled through our shared magic, "Incoming 10-3!"

I skidded to a stop, looking 10 o'clock up and 3 o'clock (to my right), ready to duck. Safe yelled, "What theTartarus?" I heard from different directions a chain rattle and a whizzing hiss.

The pegasus added, "Javelin!"

"Javelin—?" I repeated.

Bang!

Metal hit wood. I leapt forward through what turned out to be a hail of splinters. Luckily I'd been looking away. Safe hadn't. 

He yowled, now flailing at splinters that turned his muzzle into a porcupine. "A javelin? What the horse apples, C.A.!"

Pig Pen had flung his chain and struck the javelin; I heard the jangling as he jerked it back into a manageable loop. This was a classic example of why you don't want to get into a fight with an earth pony. As best I understood it, unlike a unicorn, his strength was in no way hampered by psychological reluctance to hurt a pony. Scary. For my part, I had to lower Safe closer to the ground the faster I ran or risk losing the spell as the magic took into account me galloping faster and making my carrying him riskier. 

"You lose points for letting me get hurt!"

"Want to tell us who or what is chasing us?"

"Fat chance—"

"Celestia on roller skates! Safe—"

"I mean, I—I can't." 

I jerked him over a big rock to the side of the trail. I barely missed smashing him into it because of my speed—honest.

"I can't! Normally, I wouldn't share by professional choice, but this time the boss wouldn't discuss it so I just can't!"

"I find that hard to believe."

"Honest! Want me to pinkie swear?"

I heard wings. Foliage ripped and branches cracked. A light blue afterimage banked along the trail, swerving right and up again. It confirmed Crystal Skies had spotted hoof traffic in that direction. Pig Pen crossed my path to follow his friend's lead.

From Citron: "Horns!"

I asked, "Why wouldn't she discuss—?"

"We're talking Carne Asada, here. Guessing? She's wants to scare you." He tossed away the last sliver he'd pulled out with both hooves.

"For your sake, I hope so."

When the trail looped to my left, I smelled smoke just before I had to leap a burning branch. Saplings and brush burned on both sides of the trail, and I heard somepony crashing away.

"No Force spells, Safe? Really?"

"Maybe they played with matches?" He squirmed, judging my ire. "Look, I can gallop faster than you can."

Turk was a unicorn. Safe was an earth pony.

"Good," I said, flinging him upright and letting the Levitate spell unravel. I subvocalized, "Citron!" as Safe stumbled, then hit legs pumping in a fast trot.

Through my magic, I heard, "I've chased two unicorns off. Doubling back."

The pegasus added, "One in flight."

"Ha!" Pig Pen said, faintly, "That one will have a limp. Doubling back."

I said, "Do that."

"Talk to yourself much?" asked Safe.

"I'm a good listener." To Crystal Skies: "Three on the run, then?"

"Didn't say that!"  Crystal Skies’ voice echoed, the magic buzzing the teeth in my jaw ahead of his voice passing through the air as he came screaming down from above. "Duck!"

I shouldered Safe. He tumbled into some brush as I skidded in the dirt. A wooden clank announced a javelin hitting the path ahead of me. The point fetched up on a stone, flipping it into the trees.

I caught up Safe on the scruff of the neck, covered in dew-wettened leaves, and pushed him forward. 

"Go!" I yelled. "There must be a second pegasus. A bit more than a test, Safe, don't you think? Somepony doesn't like you." We hit a gallop as the trail opened up. Citron got in front within a few seconds. I heard Pig Pen breaking through saplings to get in behind us.

"Or you," Safe returned.

I blinked, then shook my head. Just concentrate on getting out of here. At some point, we'd leave the park and enter a lightly traveled side-street through a small business district. It would be safer from ambush, but it would also leave us more exposed to ponies that didn't care if they were seen or not.

Pig Pen's pace suddenly doubled as I realized I'd missed something Crystal Skies had said. As we turned a bend in the trail, I heard jangling and a grunt.

A metal chain went whirling through the air above us. Wood splintered. A pony shrieked. I heard a loud oof!

I glimpsed a yellow pegasus tangled with metal in some large upper branches. Three sticks, like long pine pool cues but pointed, clanked and clunked woodenly down through the canopy. Unfortunately, Pig Pen's chain was wrapped around branches that now caged the akimbo stallion and not following his javelins down to him any time soon. Crystal Skies fluttered down either to free the chain or keep the downed pegasus downed.

"Come-on!" cried Citron.

We galloped ahead, getting glimpses through the trees of the street lamps, modest homes in need of paint or repair, and a warehouse. I worried about the second javelin throwing pegasus going to help fight Crystal Skies.

"We just have to get to the buildings—"

The trail opened up on a grassy knoll with redwood picnic benches. I saw Citron's horn suddenly glow brightly, but it all happened faster than I could process.

Both Safe and I flinched, and that saved the two of us from getting skewered like an onion and zucchini on a barbecue kabob stick. The javelin creased my flank, ripping the trailing fabric of my fluttering cloak. Safe, a quarter gallop behind me, wasn't as lucky.
> Chapter 53 — Blood Also Freezes
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The javelin passed through the fleshy part of Safe's right back leg. It tore something as it passed through, dragged him back, and spun him counter-clockwise. His head hit me in the shoulder, before the rest of him crashed into me. We tumbled into a tangle of legs and cloaks and sudden sticky wetness. Rolling over the still dewy ground, we fetched up against a picnic bench. The javelin thunked into the damp ground. It buzzed loudly. 

"Uh! Uh!" he cried, shocked. He flopped like a fish that had accidentally jumped out of the water onto a bridge.

Still on my side, I spun around and pushed with my rear legs, sliding him under the table across the muddy ground underneath it. It smelled of algae and rancid nuts.

The shot had come from in the direction we'd slid. I scrambled beside the bench, trying to figure out from which direction I actually needed to take cover.

I heard a crackle. A flash hit the trees and I heard the sound of large wings flapping for all they were worth. I looked, but the sun came from that way. I blinked away blue phosphenes. 

Citron slid in behind me, scanning the skies, showing he had my back. Still in the trees, Pig Pen's colorful language told me he wasn't far behind.

I dragged Safe back onto the grass.

His rear leg looked worse than I'd hoped, but then even a little blood always spread and made things look much worse than they were. Smearing a wound with smelly mud didn't help.

I'd seen blood before. I seen plenty of mine as a prizefighter.

Still, I gulped.

"Crystal Skies's out of range," Citron said.

"I'm not." My teeth buzzed. "Nopony's near, best I can see."

I cast Levitate, stripped off the blue-dyed pony's cloak and mine, then pressed on both sides of his wound with relatively clean fabric. 

"Uhh!" He whinnied loudly, then gasped and went limp.

Pig Pen dashed over to keep watch, looking the opposite direction of Citron. He glanced and observed, "Went clean through."

Citron asked, "Cauterize the hole?"

"I'm no healer. Pressure is working, I think."

"What next?"

I looked around. It was a block to the nearest street, but while I saw ponies, some outside a grocery to the right and another pulling a pony cart, they weren't many and hadn't noticed the ruckus. If I could get us a few blocks in, I might find a good hiding spot.

I queued up Teleport.

"Citron, put on Safe's cloak. Pig Pen, put on mine. Pretend you've got the hot potato for all you're worth. Take him toward that grocery over there. Limp like you've been hit."

Pig Pen nodded. "I've had a broken leg, before."

Citron asked, "You?"

I laid Safe's limp head on my reclining haunch and said, "Improvising. Misdirect them. Get me time, then disappear. Don't get hurt."

I triggered my spell. The vectors for a two block straight-shot west ricocheted in my head. Sparkles popped from my horn like spray of sparks in a fireplace. Frowning, I took a deep breath and failed with another fizzle-pop. Gritting my teeth, heart thumping, ready any second to be dive-bombed by two javelin-wielding pegasi from the direction of the sun, I tried again.

Total darkness and total cold enveloped me. I forgot to close my mouth and clamp my nose. My breath rushed from my lungs more forcefully than a whooping cough.

I appeared, pushed upright against a hard wall. I coughed again and mucus spattered with dots of blood decorated the brick. Unicorn magic! It did anything to keep from hurting a pony, even up to rearranging your posture. Safe rolled toward the sidewalk, gasping, very much suddenly awake, trying to stop his fall. He'd at least had his mouth closed.

My throat hurt, but in the pain I knew I was alive.

I glanced back.

I saw the park: trees, dark in contrast to the daylight, were a green smudge. I spotted the picnic table and a olive-green cloaked pony rushing another cloaked pony south. The hurried pony limped outrageously.

I'd appeared within five pony lengths of my intended spot, which was plus or minus 1/2%. Pretty good for guessing. I rotated the vectors 70° and hugged Safe around the neck as he pushed himself upright.

Darkness.

Bang!

The out-teleport echoed off storefronts. Some foals playing buckball stared, letting their red ball bounce away and roll into the gutter. I saw houses and a tree-lined street with very few wagons parked outside.

"Stop that!" Safe said, trembling as frost steamed off of him, his ears flicking. I saw frost on his wound as I compensated for my vectors and pushed my luck. I could not see my target three houses away, this time behind a tall whitewashed fence.

"Sorry!"

I teleported again.

We reappeared, this time in somepony's fenced-in backyard. I saw a brick barbecue, a swing set, and a garden full of borage, cabbage, and lettuces. I lifted my rear left hoof just in time to keep from tumbling back into a swimming pool. I'd cut that one close.

The fence and wood siding on the house muffled the out-teleport.

Chilled to the bone, I started shivering. Frost had gathered on my hide. His, too. The blood on Safe's leg looked frozen, but it began trickling again as he sat hard, dizzy from what he'd experienced—being in the darkest, coldest icebox three times. Oh, and that can't-breathe thing.

"Tartarus. It's all true."

"That high-level unicorn thing? You betchya."

If anypony had heard us in the house, they'd have shown themselves by now. I sat, also, my eyes flagging just a little bit as exhaustion failed to completely creep up. I shivered from the cold, which the rising sun helped. My studies with Broomhill Dare about not pumping too many splendors into my spells was paying dividends... that or the adrenaline in my bloodstream. I applied pressure over the wound with Levitate, looking around.

I spotted a clothesline with linens.

"I'm going to need a doctor."

"Not stupid," I replied. "Carne Asada, though? Are you sure this is her doing?"

"Let me tell you about Carne Asada. A few years back she decided that she needed to bring down a bridge in Fillydelphia. To ensure nopony would trace back the job to her or her blood relatives, she tricked her sister's husband into being on that bridge when she collapsed it."

"Too much information," I said, waving a hoof.

"It was in the newspapers. The EBI couldn't prove it and she was acquitted of her part. He was a royal guard, and he'd foiled a lesson Carne Asada had planned for his charge at a stadium that same night. He ended up taking the blame for setting up the disaster. A Tartarus-level crime; husband and wife ended up going*; he came back**. Still... her sister's husband!"

"You're on her bad side? Am I?"

"Me, no. You, definitely not. You've interested her for awhile."

I compressed my lips. "Wonderful," I muttered.

"That said—"

"Even more wonderful?"

"—she tests her employee's loyalty now and again."

While he'd been talking, I ripped up some linen into long strips. I tied one on his leg and he gasped when I pulled it tight.

I'd been working on Don't Look, Don't See, Don't Hear for minutes when I heard an old lady come home with her grand-filly. I cast, hoping it worked, because they almost immediately opened the rear door. They headed for the root cellar. 

I walked Safe forward as we limped into the house, then out the front door, nopony the wiser.
> Chapter 54 — On the Run, but From Whom?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear proved tiring. I snagged a long blue sweater and a knit cap off another clothesline along the way, and a pink sweater blouse for me, so when I had to give up casting I was disguised. I fluffed his longer than typical tail. The blue-dye and clothes, combined with his fine bone structure, made him believably mare-like. The fall of the sweater hid his wound and the makeshift bandage contained the bleeding. I tied my mane in pigtails. Moving slowly, I imagined we looked like we were casually, not out of necessity slowly, strolling.

His pale complexion and pained expression would have said otherwise to anypony looking closer.

None of the team showed up.

Neither did our assailants. I chalked that up as a win for our disguises and luck, but I kept wary. While we sat under umbrellas outside a tea shop, where I got much needed water into my erstwhile instructor, I did spot a pegasus flying overhead.

Nothing particularly strange about that, except for a singed tail.

Did they know I was headed to Cranberry Junction? I knew none of the syndicate "affiliates" in the area. I did know that we would meet another escort at the depot, so I did want to get there. I just couldn't do that directly, now.

A hole shot through one's leg would look suspicious to any physician. I couldn't just trot him into any old hospital, though I would if it got bad enough.

I did know Prancetown pretty well, though. It was half a league north of where I wanted to be, but worse come to worse, I could just take any train into Baltimare and let Steeple Chase sort it out for me.

Maybe Broomhill Dare would help? I'd think of something if I had to cross that bridge.

A long bus ride, a takeaway hay burger for lunch, and some further strolling got us further and further away from Cranberry junction. Then I saw two unicorns, both with a bit of fur scorched off their flanks. Evidently, somepony had matched me up against top level professionals. They walked near the bus terminal I'd just entered. I'd cast my Don't Look, Don't See, Don't Hear spell too late and knew it, but other ponies hadn't been looking for us and didn't notice us fade into the background. I got behind a chatty group of mares in red business pants suits and a stack of luggage.

Citron's "horns" trotted on by.

Maybe we were lucky. Maybe we were being herded.

Five blocks further on, Safe sat on a bench and shook his head. "I'm spent."

I found a newspaper on the curb. I tri-folded it like he was a business commuter and hoofed it over. "Try not to pass out."

When he just nodded, ears too limp to flick, I began to worry. 

"I'll be right back."

We had passed a used wagon dealer a block back. Ten minutes later and five gold bits lighter, I returned hitched up. He let the paper slump and looked at me glassy-eyed. Fever was setting in.

I floated him into the pony cart, sat him up, and trotted into Prancetown. I made him drink the bottle of sugary lemon soda I bought at a kiosk along the way and he belched. I headed toward the university campus. It was the shortest path to my flat or the train station also in town. I really needed help, even if picking out the most discreet hospital was all I could ask. There had to be an infirmary amongst the colleges, right? Track stars and hoof-ball players broke legs. Some ponies, probably pegasi, even threw javelins for sport. Right? 

My charge might have looked wiped-out, but I judged we could just look like two pony college friends returned from an outing headed toward the dorms. We drove past crowds of students, and while we were noticed, we might as well have been invisible.

I hoped other ill-intentioned ponies weren't likewise camouflaged.

I'd come in from in from the north, an unfamiliar direction, but I spotted the brown roof of the Cocoa Bean and the tall college buildings that surrounded it amongst century old trees. I turned that direction.

Early afternoon classes had let out. Prime time tutoring was about to start. I was wondering if today was one of her days when I spotted a brown-maned orange pony ordering at the outdoor restaurant.

She spotted me as she accepted her drink in a paper cup in her aura. Frowning, she passed over a coin and trotted over to meet me.

"Pulling, huh?" she asked as we approached. "Didn't think you were the type."

I smiled, tentatively. "I need a little bit of help."

"Huh?" Broomhill Dare said, looking beyond me. Her cup jerked, almost falling, but she caught it with just a little spill that splat surprisingly loudly on the red and grey bowtie pavers of the walk we stood on.

From behind me, I heard an echoed, "Huh?"

I glanced at the sweater-clad stallion with a barely passable blue dye job trying to look like a mare. His ear flicked. He'd drunk the entire big bottle of soda and had gone from ashen to merely pale, even if you could only see that in his nose and the thick hair around his cheeks. He looked beyond me.

Broomhill Dare blinked. She swallowed.

I looked from one to the other and back.

"Do you know him?"

"He doesn't know me," she stated flatly, turning away.

Safe muttered, "Tartarus, she certainly does not!"

I felt my skin grow cold and my eyes widen. As quickly as I could say it, I said, "He's hurt. I need help."

"Hurt?" she said, not looking back.

"A javelin."

She growled, closely imitating an angry dog. Her magic, Levitate, grabbed one of my traces and she tugged me around forcefully. I had to follow or be unhitched.

We headed toward the athletic fields and stadia buildings. Prancetown was an "Ivy League" school. Unlike other universities, athletes didn't get scholarships. I saw fewer ponies, and those dressed up in orange and black uniforms on the track had better things to do than notice us, like study between sets. The grounds between some buildings were actually devoid of students.

In a deadly serious tone, she asked, "How do you know him?"

She jerked the trace hard. A rope snapped and my hitch unbuckled. The rope slapped my rump, likely on purpose. I whinnied and jumped aside as the two-wheeled cart tilted forward. 

"Hey! Ouch!" cried the stallion just before Broomhill Dare caught the cart and lowered it so the fellow didn't tumble out.

"Prancetown is expensive," she stated, not answering me nor even looking at me. Instead she glared into my charge's eyes. She gestured with a hoof, as if making a tally. "I know that well. Been working hard and saving to pay that tuition."

In barely more than a whisper—it was all he was capable of—he said, "The syndicate hired me as her instructor. Like you."

Her voice became mousy. She blinked at me, then looked away, clearly embarrassed. "I— I do odd jobs." Louder, to Safe, she almost shouted, "And you, you keep your mouth shut!"

Secrets. Of course, I lived in a glass house, too. I shrugged and said, "Don't care if you're divorced, evil step-siblings, or former sheep rustlers. He's hurt. Somepony is after us, and I need to get somewhere safe before they kill us."

"And to a doctor," Safe added, shivering. I touched a frog to his forehead. Hot. Fever was starting to set in.

"Not going to help if our tails find us first," I pointed out.

"You may be right," he conceded.

"You're being followed?" Broomhill Dare asked, clearly having been listening to what was in her head more than what was outside it.

"Not directly, but they're persistent and a tad prescient."

"What was your plan?" she asked.

"Cranberry Junction was the plan, but the passenger depot in town would serve as well." I explained where I'd come from and vague details.

"You thought hiding in your flat might work?" she mused.

"We're we there, you could call in a doctor."

She blew angry air though her nostrils. "I suspect none of your ideas are good. You covered a lot of ground, yet they followed you. Are they after him—or after you?"

That thought made me look around, but I spotted no prying eyes. Nopony on roof tops, either. I shrugged and quickly buckled together the trace and hitched up.

Meanwhile, Broomhill Dare had found a broom. I'd seen her use whisk brooms she kept in her saddlebags to deliver messages and do odd tasks. A heavy duty push broom came zooming up from where a janitor had laid it beside a metal rubbish can. She laid it under her, then floated it up between her legs against her barrel and stomach.

She rose into the air.

My mouth dropped open.

"Don't try this when you get home. You'll kill yourself. Head south-campus and turn right on Faculty Road. If I don't meet you by the time you get to Elm, worry."

She rose like a machine rather than a pegasus, then banked smoothly up and over the closest building.

"She can fly."

"Newszzzzz to me," Safe said, sounding delirious. "Too many high level you-knee-corns, me thinks."

I quickly got up to a canter, the best I could manage. Not an earth pony. Speaking to myself, I said, "And now I understand her cutie mark and talent. Pushing more than dust and dirt, obviously. Why Broom for a name? Something she did as a foal? Did it make her obsess about brooms, making it inevitable?"

"You're a nerd, aren't you?"

Safe had his forelegs draped over the side of the cart. He swayed drunkenly, more so than my canter ought to have made him do. At least he didn't look like he was feeling any pain. Feverishness can work certain wonders.

I turned a minute later on Faculty Drive and, a few minutes after that, Broomhill Dare glided on over before I got to the turn circle at Elm. She threw the broom into the cart as we turned south toward the administration buildings and offices. Now and again, I saw ponies beyond windows, working.

"You're not being followed, best I could tell."

"Nice trick."

"You get as good as I am having only one spell by really working the variations and minutiae, and by studying your life away."

"I've always wondered why I couldn't lift myself with Levitate."

"Anchoring," she answered. "Magic source and target must be different is what I've read."

"But why?"

"Indeed. That's why I'm taking Quantum Theory."

We bumped and bounced over the railroad tracks. North Station was used for campus-bound freight and not passengers. We trotted toward the river. I now saw one of the few athletic endeavors the university was renowned for: Rowing. A couple of long boats with five earth pony stallions and mares in orange and black tank tops pulled at oars, while an instructor sat at the fore, crying rhythmically through a megaphone, "Pull! Pull!" 

The boats glided east on the river.

We crossed over a bridge that paralleled the train trestle and reached the residential streets in no time. Slender street followed the rails and would curve around and finally pass the passenger station.

I felt exposed, but plenty of trees and small buildings lined the road. So far I'd only seen just two ponies, one trimming bushes with clippers, the other on a porch swing, snoozing. Nevertheless, I asked, "Can you fight?"

"I throw things really well."

The peanut gallery chimed in. "Oh colts, she certainly does! Brooms, 'ssspecially."

I looked back and huffed at him. He acted more energetic than he really ought be. I worried more that he'd suddenly collapse and I'd kick myself for not finding a hospital.

Kick was a bad word to be thinking.

Some pony landed a hoof just behind my right ear. Half a hoof-length closer to my muzzle and the strike would have smashed in my temple and you'd never be reading this testament.

As it was, I didn't know when I hit the ground.
> Chapter 55 — Fight Cute Fight Smart
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hard to know whether to count that strike as a KO considering that I regained consciousness while still being pushed forward on the cobblestone street by the momentum I'd given the cart. The cobbles struck my shoulder, and wore at my fur, as my unraveling sweater and my abused hide acted as brake for my entire kit and cart. I saw naught but purple and blue phosphenes. My ears rang and my horn hurt. Yes, I'd struck my horn, too.

I heard yells. I heard a thump and a whinny I thought might be Safe. The next thing I knew, my hitch tugged me upward. The quick release triggered. Between the traces and strap catching under me, the motion flipped me from my right to my left side, tossing me high enough that I came down hard on my ribs. That punched the air out of my lungs. I'd been hit hard enough that I barely noticed smashing the side of my head down, even as I flailed to prevent that, and at least lessened the impact. 

My vision cleared enough to see my ten pony weight five gold-bit pony cart whirl through the air like a kite caught by a gale. Ponies shouted. I heard desperate galloping, then heard whinnies as the cart crashed down. I heard the pine carriage works splinter and crack, then slide into things my eyes at the moment were too traumatized to resolve into images.

A moment later, "Stay away!"

"Or what?" asked a brusque voice that I thought I recognized.

Broomhill Dare didn't get to answer. I heard a meaty thud. Hooves connected with flesh. Somepony collapsed.

"Stupid mares. I hate unicorns. They think they're better than any pony."

My brain felt addled, but I knew I had heard that prizefighter before. It was pony instincts trying to shock a muddled pony back to her senses, to recall previously escaped danger.

I couldn't see well, but everything in me cried run! I stumbled, fell, stumbled and got up, then scrambled away as fast as I could.

I needed my magic, but all I got were sprays of fizzing sparkles and stabbing pain in my head. The bright clouds of whirling blue and purple had started to clear, but the fog inside wasn't dissipating so quickly. I hit a mailbox on a post with my shoulder, bounced off, then brushed a tree as obstacles directed me on to a sidewalk. I blindly raced forward, tripping but catching myself on a frost-heaved piece of cement.

"She went that way!" a second familiar voice cried out: a mare with a discernible Baltimaren accent. "Our crazy-mare."

"She's mine," cried the other pony. A stallion; I could tell by the tone of his voice. A big pony, too, by the thudding of his hooves.

He had a limp, and a dragged hoof, but the power in his stride was unmistakable.

Despite needing to concentrate on not running into something or tripping on the uneven path ahead of me, I glanced back.

The last time I had seen this big blue pony with a red crested mane, I'd tricked him into taking a path along a curb on a busy street. He had been shouting. He had wanted blood. Mine.

He'd walked into my trap.

I'd tripped him.

He had slipped into the busy street and gotten all four legs run over.

Cyclone Beaujangles.

And Mustang.

"I'm dead," I stated, and pushed myself almost up to a fast trot before I stepped on a wooden toy pull-horse left out by some foal. My hoof slid from under me and before I knew it, I lay sprawled out on the grass.

I wasn't getting away. I knew that.

Breathing hard, I gathered my strength and tested my magic. My horn kept sparking, sending lightning to poke and hammer me behind my eyes. My rushing blood made my head throb in time with my heart. 

I concentrated on using my physical strength.

Against two earth ponies... riiight.

I'd kept myself in fighting form, however.

My sight cleared further. Unfortunately, no pony had come out to see what had caused the commotion. Ponies were still at work, the foals still in school. I gauged the slight uphill grade of the lawn—and the tree roots of a decades-old elm in the middle of it. I dragged up the pull toy with a hoof and gauged my distance from the stairs up to the house and the sidewalk I'd rolled away from.

Would Mustang attack me?

No. Were I her, I'd let Beaujangles beat me into a pulp before hitting me, assuming anything was left worth hitting.

My heart raced. Fright and being startled did their work, driving up my adrenaline levels. I practically buzzed, my legs starting to shake. My rib cage heaved. My body screamed for me to gallop away but I couldn't. I saw a smile creep over the prizefighter's muzzle; my catching breath was all that kept me from screaming and missing what was. 

He saw fear in my eyes. He saw me shrinking away. He looked where I hoped he would.

He didn't see me loop the pull rope for the toy around my left rear hoof. He didn't see me making it a long reach to punch or buck at me from the stable cement platform of the sidewalk, weakening any attack he could make.

His eyes centered on my horn. In the shade of the elm and other trees that rustled in the breeze, he clearly saw that no aura pulsed around it.

Likely, he thought the only advantage a unicorn had was her horn. He forgot I had a brain, too.

I asked loudly, "So this was about getting me all along?"

Mustang put a hoof on Beaujangles flank, halting his incipient charge.

She told him, "Carne Asada is losing it. There's ponies not happy with her leadership. The right words in the right ears, and leaks in her organization, got our team inserted in place against Gelding's team." The mare shrugged, lowering her head to address me directly with a grin. "Don't know how those featherbrains couldn't hit you with their javelins. They'd promised me. It could have been embarrassing for the Doña had they gotten you on your first real mission. Ohhh, well. In any case, best we finish you here. You just knocked my boss out cold. He's got a thing about drowning ponies who hurt him. He'd likely encase your hooves in cement at low tide for what you and your unicorn mare friend did to him. Throwing pony carts around! That should be illegal."

"I see you're still full of yourself, aren't you Mustang?"

Her smile vanished. "She's an ingrate. Make it quick, anyway."

The prizefighter stretched his neck left and right and made a crackling noise. "Don't wanna."

Mustang chuckled. "You pay 'em good, but do they listen? Nah."

Beaujangles leapt at me, leading with a right hoof. In the arena, we wore gloves. Hooves are hard, and edged. Dangerous. He expected my guard to come up.

As three of his four hooves went airborne, I rolled away from some gnarled roots that protruded from the patchy grass and soil. Doing so, I swung out my rear leg, whipping it aside. My attacker could see I would clearly miss as he continued toward me.

The toy horse on yellow carved-stone wheels didn't care. This wasn't magic. It followed the laws of motion, gathering leveraged momentum as I put everything into it. The rope went taut. The toy curved up and hit the stallion square on the muzzle.

Teeth and cartilage both cracked loudly. The toy split apart. Wheels got flung aside to bounce into the street; the wood horse shot upward.

The stallion landed hard on the roots I'd just vacated. He made an oof! as he landed. I heard a rib pop, too. He had an instant to flail and correct himself, but he also jabbed his right hoof into the resistant soil instead of my compliant pony flesh.

He yelled. I didn't hear something break, but he would sprain something.

The horse part of the toy landed between his withers. Yeah, it didn't have much mass, but he yelled and flipped aside as if attacked by another foe. I got a twofer: He threw himself hard into the tree trunk.

I was wrong about Mustang.

She'd come around and charged up the stairs. I'd gotten myself to all fours when she landed a jab to my ribs.

I heard a sound like a walnut cracked: a pop and crackle. Not something you want to feel resonate against your heart.

Beaujangles lifted himself up and came at me, forelegs out for a one-two at my stomach. I had to choose.

I bucked him in the chest. I'd aimed for the neck, but I had essentially been KO'd once, so give me a break.

Mustang landed her second jab, this time at my left eye. She, however, wasn't a trained fighter, or trained in any way, I surmised. Her bronze shod hoof hit the outer edge of my eye and a bit of my brow. It dragged my head up, but not in a snapping motion. I felt blood well out of a new cut.

Beaujangles, a hulking mountain of flesh, landed across my flank. He'd gained a lot of weight during his recovery, hopefully loosing some of his muscle. His mass shoved me forward. My head came down just in time that I managed to turn my motion into a head butt, square into Mustang's muzzle. Sadly, my horn missed both her eyes. That could have been ironic.

I hit the lawn. It was softer than cement or tree roots, but I found myself without breath as the three of us rolled down the shallow hill to the sidewalk.

That left me on top of the pony pile. I scrambled up. No way was I going to survive if Beaujangles tried a wrestling pin on me, and in my state, no way could I actually pin him. 

I stumbled back into the street. He got to his hooves and stomped toward me. 

Mustang remained limp. KO'd in one strike.

If the stallion turned and bucked, he'd kill me. He'd also be exposing his stallion parts and he knew I knew that—and that I would delight in taking the shot.

He took a swipe at me.

I barely dodged and he grazed my shoulder, sending me spinning.

He followed with a left hook, but I reared and he got my chest instead of my neck, and with nowhere close to full power. If he could follow through and undercut to my stomach, he'd lay me out flat where he could trample me with all four hooves.

"You broke my horsey!" wailed a toddler with lungs of steel.

The prizefighter jerked his head around to look back at the house. 

Yeah, Coach had said that while Cyclone Beaujangles could destroy an opponent, he wasn't a particularly smart fighter. He fought with ambush tactics and pure mean physicality.

You don't look away during a fight. You don't get distracted.

I didn't.

I let my momentum fully spin me around. That would have exposed my flank to a combination of left and right hooks that could have hit behind my ribs, shocking my kidneys, paralyzing my breathing, guaranteeing unconsciousness.

But... he had looked away.

It took a fraction of a second for me to spring into a buck and execute.

The stallion helped by turning his head back my way as my hooves hurled toward his nose.

The crackling sound was followed by a satisfying thump very much like a sack of flour hitting the pantry floor. When my rear hooves returned to the street, they were slimed. Between being hit earlier, probably by Beaujangles having jumped out from behind a tree, and just having been hit, I wasn't particularly stable.

My legs went right and my body left, laying me out in the gutter. Rotting leaves hid a trickle of water, but at least the fluid wasn't red or sticky.

Prone, I heard the sound of a dozen set of hooves. 

I screamed my frustration. Of course, my nemeses weren't alone. Broomhill Dare had thrown the cart at them, but hadn't mowed them all down. I flopped and flailed, flipping myself on my stomach. Gritting my teeth, I levered myself up and planted all four hooves.

I would make every last pony pay. Aurora Midnight, the Earl of Grin Having, would not go down easily. Had I had my magic, I would have set the entire street on fire: trees, wagons, and pavement. Likely not ponies, but smoke and fire could be just as deadly. 

Sadly, that was not happening right now.
> Chapter 56 — The Afterparty
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I saw ponies racing at me. Some wore black jackets. The mares wore red plaid skirts and white blouses. "Grimoire?" the lead pony asked, stopping well out of my reach. 

A couple of mares went to check on Beaujangles. He would need facial reconstructive surgery this time. Even so, he tried to raise himself up. The closest mare kicked him in his stallion parts, causing the sad excuse for a prizefighter to curl up in further pain.

Mustang groaned, causing the stallion who'd approached her to sit on her chest.

"Broomhill Dare called for backup."

Of course she had gone for backup back in Prancetown. Not just to look for pegasi. She couldn't tell me? Didn't want to get my hopes up? Didn't want to explain how she knew gang members that could help?

My mouth hurt. I felt around my mouth with my tongue, but no teeth moved. I tasted salt and spat blood.

"A bit late, don't you think?" I asked.

A rescuer said to his companion, "I think it is true, what I heard. Grimoire was Princess Grim."

"I'd heard that, too."

"Say," his companion asked, "Can I get your autograph?"

I looked at the gang members around me. I saw a few others dragging the downed "boss" and his lieutenants on to a lawn. Broomhill Dare, her right ear torn and her neck glistening red from a cut, righted what was left of the cart. It bounced on its wheels before she floated over straps from the tack to tie up the "bad guys."

I knew where the locals had heard about my prizefighting past.

I saw Safe helped over to a curb. He looked at the aftermath of my fight. Our eyes met. He pointed a hoof at me and nodded.

Everypony looked sincere. Any moment now, I expected they'd be fangirling and fanboying. I had to stop that. I sighed and sat down, really feeling pummeled.

I smiled, spat more blood, and said, "Yeah, sure. Bring quills and paper. Just don't mob me. And definitely, never call me Princess."

Ponies higher up the food chain arrived moments later, one in a long dark carriage. He didn't give his name. He wore a dark tailored suit with pinstripes and a black hat that shadowed his face as he looked on from inside. In less than ten minutes, ponies had washed all evidence of the incident clean, except maybe for some blood splashed here and there. Some granny got lots of bits to buy toys for her grandfoal.

Ponies vanished. 

Helping hooves lifted me into the mahogany stretch brougham with a black landau top and darkened windows. As the coach and four rolled off, I saw constables trotting up in the opposite direction. They passed us by without a never-you-mind. The "business" must have been paying well in and around Prancetown.

The boss in the hat asked Safe, "Well?"

My "instructor" looked pale, but not ready to die for at least a few hours. He drank from a bottle of water. His leg was wrapped with bandages like a mummy. 

The boss asked directly. "She passed?"

"Yeah, she's good. Really good."

I sniffed. The pony you're talking about is right here, gentlecolts. Instead, I said, "But I lost points for letting you get hurt."

"Who's counting?"

A thought occurred to me and I smiled, bearing my teeth. "Mustang said they were aiming for me anyway."

He didn't look surprised even though he said dejectedly, "Great, I'm nothing but collateral damage."

The boss said, "I think Carne Asada will be pleased with her new bodyguard."

He gave me gold bits as a bonus, beyond the five I'd spent on the pony cart. 

It took me three hours to get "home" after I left Prancetown, the local Boss Never-You-Mind and his enforcers having handled the fallout from my fight with Mustang and Cyclone Beaujangles. He took Safe to an earth pony healer with a grey beard and rheumy eyes that wore a bird nest of the herbs and animal residue he worked with. The pollen and dander made me sneeze, so beyond gluing my cuts closed, and conjured ice for my eye and the bump behind my ear, I demurred from being treated by anything more than alcohol and a wash cloth. 

I wanted out of the vicinity, not just because of the doctor, and fast. I felt marginally better, at least: I had a growing suspicion that much of the incident had been a setup, of me, of Mustang and her patrons. Major retribution had occurred and would be occurring at higher levels in the syndicate. Likely, I had been used as a blunt instrument to force a situation. Cutie marks and strange talents lurked behind that—of that much I was certain—and I want to know nothing more beyond that.

Praise was praise, however. I liked that, especially when I earned it. I decided I wasn't going to leave Baltimare and start over, not just yet.

Regardless, I felt angry. Angry and annoyed. Hurt, too. And. And. Stuff. 

My Grimoire cloak usually made me look anonymous and nondescript. (Yeah, the Prancetown affiliate found my team in Cranberry Junction and we met up while Safe was being sewn up. Everypony was fine but for minor wounds.) 

As I sat on the train, ponies actively kept their distance. One fellow looked down in the crowded rush-hour train at the empty seat on my bench. Despite the ice, my eye was trying to swell shut, but the hood hid that. Sitting, my limp was unapparent. I shrugged. He whinnied and dashed down the aisle to the next car.

Ah. I smelled blood. Safe's. From the morning. 

Despite my janky physical state, I felt a weird buzzing impatience that made me think I had to talk to Steeple Chase. I kept thinking about him obsessively. That made me fidget, almost like I'd had drank a dozen cups of strong black tea. At least my headache had gone away. 

I couldn't get off the train fast enough at my stop. I jumped from my seat. Ponies dodged and pushed out of my way like dried leaves in a sudden autumn gust.

I couldn't stand to wait for a taxi after even a minute pacing at the taxi stand outside the depot; I fast trotted the distance to the boarding house with no regard for complaining injuries. Encountering ponies on the way, I crossed the street or growled at those that got in my way. As my anger ebbed and flowed, I thought more of Steeple Chase, but couldn't logic through my simmering emotions, distant pain, impatience, and agitation.

My state could be summed up by my turning around and kicking open the front iron gates at the boarding house just to hear the satisfying clank-bang as it hit the brick wall and rebounded, a cloud of dirt shaken loose. Very earth pony. Maybe I really did want to beat something up.

Minty came to attention at the front door. She'd been talking to the big grey Clydesdale, Rosebud. The mare blinked at the clamor, rushed across the lawn to the corner of the building, and disappeared from sight.

I stalked to the front door, my limp even more pronounced after having kicked pony-weights of wrought iron. The wounds on my ribs and rear haunch tightened, but I had been a prizefighter, had experienced worse, and continued unfazed. My eyesight in my partially occluded eye was a shade of red, like a bloody snow globe.

I smiled.

The light green pastel pony opened the front door and stepped aside.

"Smart cookie," I commented as I stomped on through.

The mares inside scattered from the living room the instant they saw me in the vestibule. Most thundered up the stairs, though Glory and a new golden mare disappeared into the forbidden kitchen with a staff pony right behind.

I turned the corner to find the elderly door guard in the hall, guarding Steeple Chase's door.

"He's in there, right?" I tossed my mane, causing the hood to slip back.

"I— Yes, I mean he's in a meeting." He saw my face. "Yikes!"

A glance in the mirror confirmed I'd been beaten badly, but I wasn't exactly ghoulish. Yep, I'd washed all the blood off my fur. I grinned. Part of my lip was black and blue. I had all my teeth, thank Celestia. A bit of makeup would have helped, had I ever been taught to do it myself. Not sure where that thought came from. I magicked my hair back in place into its natural flip so I would look as nice as possible considering I rocked that heroine-just-returned-from-the-war look. 

To the mirror as much as the guard, I said, "You should have seen the other pony," and chuckled. 

I trotted toward the door.

The guard flattened himself to the wood panel wall. I was convinced that if he could have climbed it to cling to the ceiling, he would have. He whispered, "He really is in a meeting."

"With a mare, I suppose?"

"I—"

I pushed on the door knob. Locked.

My skin flushed and my anger flared. Like an earth pony, I turned flank and splintered it with a precise buck to the brass lock set.

That flung the door open, banging it against the wall; it rebounded. I caught it with a hoof.

Inside, I saw a mare. No surprise. She was older than the rest of the stable and the stable-master, and wore a gang-style plaid dress and a black denim jacket, accessorized with gold and silver chains. Less likely to be a student of his academy than an alumni. 

I found myself breathing hard, my heart beating very fast. I thought about her, about the big red stallion behind the desk with his mouth gaping, and momentarily about how strangely I was reacting. Why did her presence make me furious, as if she had trespassed? I blinked. I had no referents. The math didn't add up.

To her, I said, "You can leave now."

In a Hooflyn accent, she began, "As if..." I didn't hear the rest of her diatribe. 

I was breathing hard enough that steam condensed around my nostrils. I wasn't using magic. I had no spells queued. I didn't think my magic would work at the moment. I took a step forward.

Her head jerked back as if I'd slapped her. She said, "Okay. Right. I'll be leaving now." 

Smartly, she went to the sliding glass door (new) and trotted across the lawn.

Steeple Chase had taken the moment to gather his scattered wits. He shook his head and stood, quickly dominating the room with his masculine bulk... and his good looks.

My heart raced. I felt faint—and definitely flushed. My legs shook; not fatigue but nervous energy. My stomach knotted as my anxiety moved in, then started unpacking the boxes, looking for something important. Linen, perhaps? 

My eyes met his.

Molten amber. Like butterscotch, only better.

He wore a white shirt and a blue cravat that had been loosened at the knot. Though there was nothing peculiar about it, every fiber of my being noticed that all the red-furred stallion wore was his shirt.

He stepped around the desk.

I stepped forward to meet him, pulling off the soiled cloak with my teeth. 

He asked, "What's this about?"

Breathless, I answered, "I was promoted. I'm a bodyguard now."

"And, for that, you interrupted a business meeting and destroyed my door?"

"Stupid door. It should have known it was in the way. That, that, that mare should have known, too."

As I stepped closer, he said, "We ought to get that busted eye looked at—"

"Later," I said impatiently.

"I know a good doctor."

"Get Dr. Feel and I said, Later!" I yelled the last.

He stopped short, head pulling back. He tilted his head as his eyes narrowed and brow furrowed. "Okay... I don't know what you want."

I didn't, either. Not intellectually, anyway.

I didn't stop when I reached him. Instead, I turned my neck and shoulder so I pushed up against his side. I felt electricity crackle from his fur when it rubbed against mine, but there was no static discharge—except in my mind. I could rest my head on his withers, but I didn't.

I inhaled. 

...He still smelled good. Really good. Of oats and specialness. I shivered. 

I lowered my head against his shoulder and pushed.

He stumbled a step, then pressed back.

I pushed harder, then pressed my entire body against his until he side-stepped instead of resisting.

I pushed him to the open doorway to the bedroom, at which point he resisted less. Blood rushing through my body—my anger and turmoil turned into a new strength—I pushed hard, moved him into the room lit only by light from the windows in the office.

At the right point, I shoved. He landed on the bed and bounced. Nicely. His mane going akimbo. His cravat coming loose. The rest of him looking— Well...

I smiled.

He rolled back up—and his amber eyes focused on me. He touched a gold shirt button.

I nodded and said, "Teach me."

He did.

He taught me everything I asked about. 

Even what I was feeling. 


#


Thus, I kept my promises. To be clear: he had been an opportunity, not an obligation.

I learned quite a lot, some of it surprising, like... this wasn't friendship. It was more like eating. Something a pony did, then moved on until it became necessary again.

Dr. Feel took three days to heal all the contusions, fractures, and the red snow-globe eye; the bruises took weeks because the blood had seeped into nearby tissues. And, no, I hadn't become Carne Asada's bodyguard.

I became a bodyguard, though—would be for various syndicate muckety-mucks, one after another. Each was a training opportunity, each a piece of work in his or her own way. Safe and Mustang had given me a new paradigm to apply. The syndicate wasn't run like typical business, nor a peerage landhold for that matter, something that I'd been taught I could run like a minor princedom. The syndicate traded in vices and forbidden fruit; rules weren't important, only force of hoof and sufficient bits was. Normal ponies didn't act that way.

I wasn't normal, so it was all good.

Each employer tried to take advantage of me, in every venial sense of the word. Mares and stallions. I protected my team, though—and I made that perfectly clear up front in unambiguous words. None forced me to convince them with my magic or my hooves.

I kept to Carne Asada's one rule. I did not become pregnant. The emotional toll of ensuring I remained so...? That would wait until I'd meet Sunset Shimmer in Canterlot, but that's a different story.

On the first hot day of summer, I got reassigned for the sixth time. I arrived alone at an address I'd been told to memorize: a five-story brick townhouse, bigger than the others, with the upper two stories white-painted wood instead of red brick. I saw a widow's walk around the chimneys, and a purple pegasus looking down with his hooves over the black metal railing. Blue eyes followed my movement. 

I saluted.

The pegasus narrowed his eyes.

I looked to my right. I saw a pink unicorn in black denim blending into a doorway two doors down. White drapes to an open casement window on the first floor, and powder blue ones in a closed dormer on the fifth slightly shifted. Hooves clattered on the cobblestones. A forest green unicorn pony in a black jacket walked away, but peered over his shoulder at me.

Security.

A half-smile formed on my face. The lieutenants I'd served had had security details of two or at most three ponies. My team of four had been overkill. 

This team, however...

An orange red-headed pegasus glided over the roof to my right, across the street to my left, then disappeared.

I deduced I was about to meet the Queenpin. Not sure how I felt about that.

I went up the three steps to the door and pulled on the dewdrop knocker. Maybe not a dewdrop. It was painted blood-red.

The thing sounded a gong when I hit it against the brass plate. It should have been a warning sound.

Did I listen?

No.
> Chapter 57 — On Fire
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Idid not realize that I had just 10 seconds to live. 

"Well, that was easier," I said, gasping.

The last EBI agent, a puce fellow in a blue suit, galloped for the building exit. The fire alarm blared wah-wah-wah and strobed. The door jam to burst into flames, lit by my last Force spell. Stinging sweat dripped into my right eye and I began blinking.

I maintained my spell queue and fiery numbers on semi-polar orbits; they processed right to left like comets through my view of the world. For an instant, I imagined my guardian Proper Step, his mustachioed face twisted into a disapproving glare. What might he think to learn that his carefully cultured ward, the Countess Aurora Midnight, the Earl of Grin Having, had mastered battle magic?

My imagination filled it in. His ears turned forward and flattened. Anger.

I heard—or rather felt in my insides—a powerful krump! It sounded deeper than the largest most bass tympani drum struck powerfully once with my stomach next to it. It felt like a punch. Bits of ceiling tile tumbled down. Desks and filing cabinets hopped forward. My heart, pummeled, stopped, skipped that beat, then limped back into rhythm. 

I staggered and fell to my fore-knees as I glanced up at the ceiling, to the second floor, beyond the wall to the post office.

A fuel canister must have exploded. The crates of ammonium nitrate had not.

"Foal!" I yelled. At myself. 

I snapped together the vectors to the doorway I'd seen the last agent gallop toward. A two-story glass façade. I spun-up teleport out of my queue.

Queuing spells saved a huge amount of time, but took a finite amount of time nonetheless. Time to gasp a single breath.

My world went black. Frigid cold limed me in frost and instantly attacked my open eyes with sapping pain. Utter vacuum tried twisting out my lungs through my still gaping mouth. Time wasn't suspended in-between mid-teleport.

For the first time, I wished it to last forever.

It didn't.

I popped back into existence just beyond the travertine portico of the EBI Headquarters. I had transformed only my x-y coordinates so I still faced the street.

Bridge Street here ran roughly east-west, the same as Plaza East in front of the old Equestrian post office where the delivery van had been parked. The western sun should have been to my right. Despite that, orange light brighter than noon mid-summer illuminated the building ahead, from the north. It felt like a furnace at my flank. I saw a blurred band of instantly condensed moisture and lofted dust slam into its brown marble exterior, then splash like a wave against a seawall. Every window burst, punched in before its glass was sucked up and over the five stories of stone.

I understood then, by miracle, I'd avoided the explosion's shockwave*. 

Smoke, dust, and fog rolled over in a cylindrical eddy, then streaked outward. The glass façade of the EBI building, obliterated, tumbled like sea foam across the street.

Ponies, bowled over, slid away from me in the flow.

The vacuum caused by the passing shockwave grabbed my cloak, but not before bits of masonry and glass peppered the tough material. It was like being pelted with stones thrown by a crowd in anger. The cloak tore, then flapped forward over my head. The bruising slap to my flank made me instinctively rear.

Under any other circumstances I might have fought losing my disguise, but I let it be sucked from my forelegs as I skidded away in the wake of the shockwave. Half a hundred EBI agents and support ponies would remember the cloaked crazy pony who'd attacked them (and got the building evacuated). Best I lost the cloak.

I looked behind.

I saw the shell of the Hooflyn Equestrian Bureau of Investigation headquarters in flames, the glass blasted away. The glow of the explosion faded, belied by blistering heat. I saw a burning column of dirty red-brown smoke rise, then spread into a rolling cap of the same noxious color as it cooled while more smoke rose.

I had thought nothing could match the horror of dodging and defending myself in the middle of a riot where gangs fought gangs with Force spells and the constables added an additional front to the war, me running flack as a bodyguard trying to save my employer from what could only be called Tartarus in Equestria.

The explosion aftermath radiated heat that crinkled the hair on my muzzle, but the sight seared into my brain like a hot brand fresh from the coals.

How I would find myself standing in Hooflyn that horrifying day is a cautionary tale...


End of Part Three





*Don't tell Starlight, but her unicorn thaumaturgy granted her wish to survive.
> PART FOUR: The Filly in Mare Horseshoes; Chapter 
58 — The Can't Refuse Offer
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I blinked as the gong "doorbell" sounded.  I felt watched.  Probably by design.  I knew the eyes of a security detail on the street were on me.  I swallowed, then frowned at feeling intimidated.

I huffed.  "How gauche."

I glanced right.  I'd heard a change in hoof falls.  The forest green unicorn now strolled back toward the house and I heard a pegasus wing above flutter.  

Horseshoes clattered beyond the door.  It opened, its hinges creaking.  It looked heavy.  The black-painted slab had to be clad in metal.  The creaking sound was no different than the tinkle bells on a restaurant door, only less obvious.

An old grey fellow opened the door with his horn.  He had a grey mane and was a piebald, wearing a butler's tailed livery and a white shirt with a black bow tie.  Blue eyes regarded me; despite their color, they made him look colorless and ghostly in the gloomy vestibule.  

"Madam awaits," he said in a deep sepulcher voice.

"Okay, cool," I said, stepping onto checkerboard of black and white marble.  The echo-y walls were tiled in grey and black ceramic up to shoulder height in a distinctly foreign style.  The top rail, floor and corner moldings were white and had been decorated with rose patterns in silver wire.  The tin ceiling was a desaturated red that added a sanguineous blush to all those things that reflected it.  

The tapestries on the upper walls lacked substantial color, though I could see they displayed views of a mountainous stark land with craggy peaks, wind gnarled trees, and waterfalls.  Squinting at them, I made out dark-colored pegasi.  I saw greyed reds and greens in the overall blue, grey, and white epic fabric.  

The weavers had depicted a moonlit scene.

Looking down, I saw naught but a dark mahogany console and a hat and coat rack.  Heavy doors closed off the hallway exits.  A marble stair marched to a second floor with black marble treads and turned-mahogany balustrades.  

The light came from behind, a window above the door.  It cast dreary shadows everywhere.

A pony knocked into me, just behind the withers.  

The spry butler jumped back with a whinny as I slid to my right with a surprised oof.  I had not spun a spell up.  Impolite, right?  I nevertheless reflexively cast Levitate with naught but intuition to target.  He was in contact with me, though, which made a complete guess accurate.

The midnight blue pegasus with an even darker blue mane careened off and landed on his knees, even as I pushed him away.  He spun half around and his news-colt tweed hat fell off.  He wore a dark jacket with lots of pockets and a black lining.  He'd flown out of an open door with basement steps to right of the entrance, from the dark.

The kid, a foal no more than ten, grabbed his hat with a wing, which revealed a dipper cutie mark as the jacket accommodated his movement.  He said, "Sorry, Ma'am.  Bit clumsy.  Name's Holly Lever.  Nice ta meet ya."  He nodded to the butler, "Leaves."     

He shimmied out of my downward push like a trained prizefighter, lost traction with his blackened steel horseshoes, legs pumping, then launched into the air and flew to the second floor and shot down the hall to the right.

"What was that?" I asked, straightening my cloak and righting my akimbo saddlebags.

Leaves said, all starched composure again, "If you would be so kind?"  

He pointed down the hall, past the stair.  He walked around me and opened wide doors to the right.  It lead into another high-ceilinged wide hall, this one paneled in blackened wood with dark grey carpeting.  Light from a clearstory filtered down.  A glance confirmed they were glass bricks, not windows.   Gas lighting flickered at pony level from darkly patinaed brass, illuminating some chairs and two reclining sofas against the wall.  I spared a hoof to feel the surface of one with my frog.   Red velvet.  In the general desaturated decor, it looked as red as blood.

Before I could sit in the obvious waiting room, a bell went ting.  I spotted the servant-telegraph.  Three black ribbons to the right of the double doors with silver bells that had intentionally never been polished so they were almost black.

I smiled.  Had I been allowed to decorate the manor at Grin Having, I'd likely have done something very much like this.  Very Gothic.  Moody.  Calming.  The type of thing that made a pony contemplate her life and its meaning, and its fragility.  Madam's tastes ran very much in the same vein as her Lady guest.  As I admired what I saw, I also realized how totally amateurish my bedroom had looked in comparison.  

I chuckled.  Madam probably wouldn't like the goth colt-bands I'd collected records from, either.   Looking back, I realized how much of a foal I'd been.  I felt like a grown up, in comparison.

Leaves' blue magic opened the doors as he said, "If you would please?"

"Thank you, Leaves," I responded in a lady-like manner as I stepped into further gloom.

It looked like the space had previously served as a theatre.  I walked down a gentle carpeted slope.  It was red, of course.  The dark wood showed no marring where seats might once have stood.  Instead of further tapestries, thick curtains hung against the walls to either side and may have hid windows.  Light escaped at the top and bottom.  A couple of gold torchère floor lamps that looked like saplings, cut then gilt, gave off a warm if wane glow at the bottom of the slope.   Black lampshades directed the light decidedly downward.

Beyond, I saw a "stage," and I use quotes here advisedly.  I saw a huge desk and behind that a heavy, throne-like chair.  Bookshelves loomed over them, as did cabinets, made of walnut considering the color.  Light flooded down from a small skylight, but it had the effect of making the color blue and cold.  I saw more tapestries like from the entry hall, but did not see anypony.

That was purposeful—an attempt at camouflage.  Intuition said it was a throne room, veiled in curtains of shadow.

"Es step into the light," a mare said from somewhere up there.  

I shuddered.  The fur under my cloak stood and intensified my discomfort as a half-memory electrified my spine.  Once again, like when I had remembered Carne Asada's name was associated with the "QUEENPIN ACQUITTED" headline in the Manehatten Times, I knew I was missing something.

I trotted forward until I stood below the black lampshades.  My eyes had adjusted to the half-light, but now the room beyond the island of light became enshrouded in darkness.

I said, "In detective novels, this is where the copper interrogates the perpetrator."

The mare said, "She reads.  Is refreshing, but I knew that or you would not be here."

"That's an Equidorian accent."

"Worldly, too.  Very good.  Not very polite, though.  Very direct, I've heard.  You have not yourself introduced."

I blinked for a moment, then self-consciously cut a reflex curtsy short as I said, "I'm—"

"Grimoire.  Also, Gelding the Verb, and Princess Grim.  She wrote on her race application es Starlight es Starbright, too.  She used the first name alone when working for a grocery.  What..., yes... Bite O'Kale?"

I narrowed my eyes in the direction of the voice.  "Carne Asada, I presume.  Shall I take off my clothes?  You apparently prefer me naked."

She chuckled in a bizarrely approving tone.  "I like to know who works under me.  I had trouble tracing you back to Fillydelphia with a private investigator, but a lead led her to a hedge healer a few leagues outside the city."

Sweat formed under my collar.  I wanted to spin up teleport, but worried what would happen were an aura to envelop my horn.  I took a few moments to recall my steps into the theatre from the waiting room.  I had stupidly not paid enough attention to the dimensions of the waiting room, so I wasn't going to teleport much beyond the entry into this space.  

I was interviewing with a gangster princess.  What had I been thinking?

Carne Asada said, and I was sure it was the Carne Asada, "Don't be nervous.  The both of us have had bad things happen in our life.  Tracing you to the hedge healer was far enough back.  Most ponies address me as C.A., or Doña Asada.  I would prefer that you address me as Carne Asada.  We are going to become fabulosa friends."

The rolled Rs.  The trouble with Ss.  Definitely Equidorian.

Again, I found myself blinking in confusion.  Friends?  My stomach clenched.  She had seen into my soul deeply enough to know that the F-word would push me off-kilter.

I said, "Maybe this was a mistake—"

"It's Carne Asada.  Please.  You should use the name, and no 'mis-es-takes,' Hija mia!"

"Carne Asada—" I started.

"Please come closer.  Take the es stair to the left."

My heart raced, and it was all I could do to keep from queuing spells.  I told myself, of course this mare had to play mind games.  She ran an organization that spanned the northeastern seaboard of Equestria.  She had her ways of dominating any situation, as did Princess Celestia.  She had to test me.

Besides, which...  I'd been getting really good at what Broomhill Dare called quick-draw techniques.  Sometimes, I could reflexively push away something with a spell quicker than I could react with a hoof.

I took a deep breath, then a second, and began shrugging out of my cloak.

"Hija.  No need to disrobe.  Trot on up."

That was strange.  Nopony had checked me for weapons.  Granted, I had a horn, but that didn't preclude...

I trotted to the stairs, where I stopped for the seconds it took for my eyes to adjust enough not to trip.  No banister.  Black and white marble treads made the steps obvious to anypony who was not used to the semi-darkness.

Once upstairs, the room felt like a throne room with the mote of light that stretched to curtained walls from whence I'd come.  The area resembled an office, with deep blue curtains below the tapestries to soak up the light and sound.  Her chair towered three pony heights and was straight backed.  Obsidian spheres adorned its edges.  Ponies of all the tribes had been carved into the ebony armrests and back.  Ebony.  The rarest wood, and as hard as concrete.  Carved.  

The heavy wood...  The meticulous furniture...  The stage and the audience hall...  Somepony wanted everypony to understand she was powerful.

My eyes alighted on an architectural model.  After what Safe had said, I recognized the center trestle section of the Fillydelphia Penrose Ave Plate Bridge.  I had crossed it often entering the city.  Arson had all but brought it down into the Hidden River.   I had camped in the wildlife refuge outside Tincup Township.  The light grey girders in the model were luminous in contrast to the muted colors on the desk, including the stacked black and brown folders.

The mare moved and drew my eyes.

She looked like an earth pony, and wore a conventional cloak suspended from a darkened silver torc around her neck.   The midnight blue fabric looked like velvet; it was both stiff and light baffling, flowing across her back to where it was docked with a big black bow to her dark grey tail.  Brown eyes regarded me for a moment.  They glistened as they moved, before she hopped off her throne to regard me a few steps closer.  That illuminated her slightly better.  I realized the stacked ponies carved into the chair had served to confuse my eyes and make it harder to see her, but that was no longer the case.

She looked my size, below average for an earth pony and slightly plump.  As my eyes adjusted further, I saw she was more mauve-furred than grey.  Her mane and tail appeared dark grey because it was more of a desaturated magenta.  I figured it out because she had purposely presented herself in a slight profile.

She had a droplet cutie mark.  A red one.  Saturated red.  I had no doubt it was a drop of blood.  Noticing the direction of my eyes, she swished her tail, causing her tail bow to wag also.

I said, "Why am I not surprised?"

"I am told you can es see how a pony will act by looking at her cutie mark.  Es this true?"

Too personal.  I changed the subject.  "I am interviewing to become your bodyguard."

"Interviewing.  Es yes.  I was hoping for more."  She reached her muzzle into a pocket on the cape.  I spotted something off-white and silver before she flung it at me.

I caught it in my magic before it would have struck me where my throat dove behind my right shoulder bone.  I brought it up and— "That's Mustang's jackknife!"

"What a disappointment for me, that estupida!  I threw her many an opportunity, but she insisted on es stabbing me in the back.  You helped me clean house and eliminate her."

"I didn't eliminate her."

Carne Asada gestured dismissively with a hoof.  A deep purple princess-cut amethyst set in a dark silver hoof ring glittered.  "Eliminate?  It es as, how do you es say, a difference without distinction.  Nice trophy.  Be proud."

I felt my cheeks warm as I closed the jackknife with a click and I dropped it into my saddle bags.  I realized two things.  I had been pickpocketed by the colt with the dipper cutie mark.  

Dipper cutie mark.  Naturally.  

Second, she'd shaken me enough that I'd forgotten about queuing spells and had just lost an excuse to keep a spell in-horn.

"Have been looking for an especial enforcer for what es seems like years.  Have been grooming you for that position."

"Grooming?"

"Training."  She shrugged.  "Been your patrona.  Look how well you have done.  You have trained under an es series of my lieutenants.  Impeccable work, but you made sure they knew who was boss.  With what I learned about the hedge healer, I realized rode two of them."

"Three," I blurted before better sense prevailed over the shock of her words.

"The mare?  Es sneaky, hija.  The two of you."

"Consensual."

"Legal definitions and prosecutors might disagree.  The mare.  Huh?"

"Skin and nerves.  They all function the same."  I shrugged.  "It's meaningless.  Occasionally, I have an urge to pee, too."

She gave a quick snort.  "Good at getting what she wants."

"Good at handling situations," I corrected.  That was all it had been.  Tactical.  Effective.

"Granted.  And can fight.  Cyclone Beaujangles—"

"You?"

She had sat.  She used both hooves to gesture in the air when she said, "What?  You see my cutie mark, yes?"  She pointed at the drop of blood on her flank for emphasis.

"I don't like to hurt ponies."

"What you did to him both times was an es sight to behold.  You ensured it hurt."

"He attacked me, both times."

She smiled, showing bright white teeth.  Surprisingly, they looked sharp.  Wait!  She had canines, very small ones.  Two pair of fangs like a wolf beside otherwise normal pony dentition.

She persisted, "But you enjoyed hurting him?  Both times."

"Fighting, yes.  Hurting...  not really."

That merited me a smirk, but then a nod.  "Lack of brains in an es stallion is an abomination.  Beaujangles needed to be put down.  Brains in a mare, your brains, they are especial.  You would not go around breaking the equipment for the thrill of it.  Es so useful in an enforcer.  You would be es so good at it."

I shook my head.  "I think I understand what you mean by an enforcer, but when I fight I'd rather protect ponies.  If you don't want a bodyguard..."

Silence continued between us for a palpable half-minute.  For my part, I wondered if she would really let me go if I refused her offer.  

Then I thought... Did it matter?  

If she decided to press me, it would be my biggest challenge, yet.  I'd gotten reasonably good with Force, and I was pretty certain I knew the proper vectors to get me somewhere in the waiting room without incidentally targeting a sofa, a wall, or high in the air, any of which would cause the spell to fail.

"She es smi-ling," she pointed out in a sing-song voice that caused my ears dip back.

She scared me.  I flattened my expression and narrowed my eyes.

She added, "I really want you."

My heart raced in response.

"If you want to be a bodyguard, I will es settle for that.  Es since that day you made a foal of Trigger, failed to knock horse es sense into Mustang, and supplied me an inroad into the Pommel Gang, I've been es seeing you've gotten every opportunity.  I am not going to waste effort by insisting on making you to do es something you will not do."

"That... That's generous of you."  Was I getting the job?

"¡Por supuesto! Es so, what do I call you?"

"Grimoire, when I am working."

"When not?  Gelding?  I haven't the huevos for that verb to have meaning.  Let us es see?  Es Starlight es Starbright, it is a foal's name, yes?"

"Hey."

"Es verdad.  Ah, look how her eyes would es sparkle in the moonlight.  How about es Starlight Glimmer?"

"Let's stick with Grimoire," I shot back.

"One day you will be comfortable with me and my teasing, but, yes.  Another concession, Grimoire, hija."  

She reached into her pocket again and I flinched.  

She didn't face me, but continued speaking around something she held in her lips.  "A concession for a concession.  Answer me this: What kind of pony, neigh, what kind of unicorn who can learn to teleport joins an es syndicate when she owns an infinite, how you say, honeypot like this?"

A bronze and copper rectangle glittered at the right edge of her mouth.  The rune noticed my gaze and a green spark ran the length of the crossed H shape.

My command card.

I did not need the card.  I did not need her line of questioning, either.  Frankly, it spooked me back to my senses.   I began casting Teleport.

A pony tackled me from the left.  Feathers slapped me in the face, poking me in the eyes as forelegs wound around my withers, hooking my right foreleg.

Tears blurring my vision, I took advantage of the momentum of the shove.  I rolled right, intentionally kneeling, using his attempt at compensation to throw the pegasus before landing on his rib cage.  (Grape had eventually forgiven me and given me some very personal tutoring.)  The pegasus coughed the air out of his lungs as we slid toward the edge of the stage.  I cast Push to keep from being raked by his rear hooves.  He ought to have been more protective of his wings—

Another pony piled on before I could poke the first's wing joint with my horn.  This stallion had barreled in from a hiding place in the curtains from my left.  I managed to punch a hoof into his stallion parts, then kick him off when he curled up with a strangled whinny.

The pony conducting this violent orchestra jumped back.  "Don't leave, yet, hija."

I flopped like a fish that had inadvertently jumped onto a boat, banging the persistent pegasus against the floor again and again, getting him to release me as I tried to stand, but a third pony galloped from behind my prospective employer.  This mare had had time to evaluate my actions.  Though I Pushed at her, she flattened herself and slid as I got my hooves under me.  With the pegasus stallion swatting my flank with a wing, the mare dove underneath me, sweeping my legs, upending me and throwing me forward.

I was no gymnast.  I transformed Push to a blue-green Shield across the floor just in time as I fell.  My knees and my jaw bounded off the magic cushion.

I sprang back up, straining my shoulder muscles as a fourth pony landed on my back.  I tried to buck, but the pegasus tackled me again and the mare had turned around and grabbed my flank.

Two earth ponies weigh a lot.  Still whimpering, the unlucky stallion joined the pony calzone with me as the lavender aubergine filling and immobilized me, standing.  I squirmed to no avail.

In desperation, I switched to Teleport.

"Really, I thought better of you," the mare in charge said, approaching me despite my glowing horn.  "I am planning to let you choose whether to work for me or not, so there's no need for you to leave before I make my proposal."

I grunted trying to push a pony, any pony, off.  I kept casting, but the numbers failed to keep spinning, the wish predicate kept addressing a non-temporal reality, and the equations kept sliding out of balance.  I got a spray of sparkles from my horn.

"I know enough about Teleport to know you cannot cast if you have to teleport everypony hugging you."  She touched my horn with the pink frog of her hoof.  The shock of the soft pad caused me to lose all my prep.  "I gave the es spell to White Towel to give to you, after all.  I had to learn Old Ponish to understand it.  And I can do analytic calculus."

From another pocket, she extracted with a hoof a small pamphlet bound by slats held together by rings of filigreed silver.  I accepted the sacred thing in my magic.  By the light of my aura, I saw an aged relic covered with runic lettering.  Had my Old Ponish been better, I might have been able to decipher the cover.  The original shellac had worn off or disintegrated, replaced by the polish of centuries of dust, hooves, and lips.  The parchment inside looked considerably newer, but Marlin the author wouldn't have been born for at least a century.  

I recognized the copied pages.

Our eyes met.  The irises in her brown eyes looked enormous, then they pulsed and for an instant flattened vertically.  Was stress making me see things?

I blinked and noticed she held out an upturned hoof.  I sighed as I gave the pamphlet back and she tucked it away.

I relaxed.  Commensurately, the other ponies stopped pressing at me, but remained in contact.  Somepony knew how to incapacitate a unicorn without badly hurting her.

She waved her muzzle at me, with the command card in her lips.

"Take it," she said, meaning me.  She trusted me again to grab it in my magic and I did.

She spat before adding, "Leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  The White Windigo of Canterlot Mountain crafted that object, and she gave it to you.  Why?"

"Windigo?"

"A creature that leaves destruction and despair in her wake.  She has had enough blood on her hooves throughout her history and that of my tribe that she should be called the Red Windigo."

"Celestia?"

"Her name es like poison to those ponies of my land who properly learned the history of the es sacred mountain that she es stole.  Why do you have this?  Why have you not used it?"

I glanced at the red earth pony and green pegasus stallion to either side of me in the gloom.

Carne Asada waved them off me.  "I trust she is not leaving."  She did this while I still held the command card in my magic.

That didn't mean I didn't begin targeting Teleport.

I said, "The alicorn wants her tools.  It wasn't the first time she tried to make me one of them."

"Yes, I can es see why."  Her brown eyes flicked pointedly at my horn, implying Teleport.

"She was casting on Castle Way and her magic fascinated me so thoroughly, I started emulating it. She noticed.  Luckily, she had to fly off to Mount Aris—"

"Ah, yes.  Some yeti es stallion who es styled himself es Storm King failed a naval assault on the Hippogriffs thanks to her.  Pity.  Es sold him keels from the Baltimare es ship yards.  Arranged es spears from a Hooflyn supplier for the Hippogriffs.  I try not to take es sides, yes?"

"There are details I don't want to know."

"Es good.  Plausible deniability.  I understand well."

"Is that what it's called?"

"Why do you have—?"

"A royal guard insisted on giving it to me.  It wasn't her.  I haven't—" I was going to say used it, but I had with Miss Maple.  "—cashed it in because I don't want to be her tool."

"Makes es sense.  Especially considering what it es says."

"You know?  How?  You couldn't have had it for more than a minute or two—"  I growled and rapped my forehead with a hoof.  "You've been through my things before!"

Carne Asada nodded.  "It is es simple spell to read it.  Graduates from the Windigo's Gifted Unicorns school do work for me.  Hearing her voice gave me chills.  She said—"

"Don't!"

"Don't?"  She tilted her head.  "I-I-It esss es very interesting."

"Not.  Interested.  That artifact reminds me of the power she holds and that none of it can capture me," I said, and I dropped the piece of metal into my saddlebags.  "I don't want her filthy words in my head."  

I used the word filthy.  That was the type of word you used with somepony who empathized with what you thought.  This mare of all the ponies in the world understood me.

"You come well recommended by her—"

I narrowed my eyes.

"But, es so be it.  We don't like the White Windigo, yes?"

I nodded, but glanced around me.  Her bodyguards had retreated from my peripheral vision.  When she didn't react, I moved my neck, cracking it.  We stood alone.

Of course, I didn't believe we were truly alone for a moment.  I smelled a medicine-y tea scent on her breath, she was was that close.  I could lead with a right jab and clean her clock before she could dodge.

I remembered what Safe had said.  Blew up a bridge and framed her brother-in-law.  She liked to scare ponies.  In one word: Crazy.

"Hija—"

I mimicked her word.  "'Eee-juh,' what does 'Eee-juh' even mean?"

"Girl, filly, my daughter.  A familiar nickname.  Hija—Grimoire, before I offer you a job as my bodyguard, I want you to know something."

"I'm listening."

She touched her chest.  "For years I've wanted one unobtainable thing.  If that's the only thing I win from you today, it will be enough.  Since I took control of the es syndicate, I've offered unicorns that showed magical potential the Teleport spell I showed you.  You see, the White Windigo for all her power and glory is es still a pony.  She eats, she sleeps, she mates, she breathes, and performs all the bodily functions all ponies do.  She and only she can cast this es spell today.  Grimoire, I want to know how it feels."

"Are you asking me to teleport you?"

"You teleported Safe.  I am es so envious I could k—"

"Don't say it."

"Es still envious.  Please."  She actually batted her eyelashes.  Not the best look on a middle-aged mare that looked undefinably foreign and physically scary.  She added, "I watched you.  You measured each step, keeping track of the entrance, the height of the stage.  Already prepared for a quick exit, yes?  Please, take me with you."

My gut told me this would be the first and last time any pony, save perhaps a lover or her aged mother, would hear the word "please" pass her lips.

I wasn't against it.  A glance would confirm the length of the waiting room and things like whether it was actually an L-shape.  From that, I could re-vector and cast, hitting the cobbled street at a full gallop.

"Okay.  You won't like it, though."

"Let me judge that."

"It feels impossibly cold and is black as a Windigo's soul.  If you open your mouth or try to breathe in-between, you'll cough the air from your lungs and feel strangled."

The mare nodded.

"Okay, then.  Really, it's very unpleasant."

She tilted her head and gave me a half-lidded frown.

I looked to the exit door, finding it in the gloom.  I saw the pegasus' perch where stage lighting would hang and said, "I don't want to be mobbed after you reappear."

"Nopony will mob you," she said, then louder, "right?"

Somepony directly behind me in the curtains said, "No mobbing, promise."

I snorted and caught myself.  With the weight of four ponies gone, my equations quickly balanced.  I kissed the wish predicate and let the Celestia codicils simplify my numbers.  A whirling rainbow of digits orbited me brightly, becoming streaking afterimages, making it hard for me to see at all.

Could a pony looking into my eyes see a bright light leaking out?

"We have to be in contact," I said as I reached out to touch her.  I decided it was more polite to touch her cape instead of her bare fur.  

What I felt at her withers wasn't muscle.

I felt a wing joint.

I almost gasped, but caught myself.  As a pegasus, she was a large pegasus.  She would be hollow boned, which would mean I would have miscalculated our barycenter and pulled more splendors from my reserves than necessary to power the spell (Broomhill Dare had taught me that).  We would overshoot by a pony length.  Each hoof length discrepancy would equate to a centi-Celestial of mass.

Science.

"Here goes," I whispered.  I'd tuned the vectors beyond my usual crafts-pony care and felt reality become impatient as the physical laws of nature warped and our coefficient of mass went infinite all along an arrow line.

The world shifted five degrees to the right like a gear in a clock.

Time slowed and I saw Carne Asada's eyes widen very slowly.  A blue-green supersonic shockwave crept out from our (indeed offset) barycenter like a bubble emerging from the surface of a pot of warming honey.  Lightning spidered across the apparitional surface as it grew beyond our sequestered mass and the mathematics went irrational.

Absolute darkness.

Frigid cold.

The feel of a pony beneath the frog of my hoof.  A sense of companionship.

Bang!

We reappeared in the waiting room.  

Carne Asada flung herself away with a squee of amazement.  "Aaeeeiii!" she cried, suddenly prancing about like a pony my age might.  "Fabulosa!"

At the same time, another pony shrieked so loudly that my heart almost stopped.

I spun around.  I found Broomhill Dare having flung herself off one of the reclining sofas and in the process of knocking aside one of the chairs.  A reflexive orange Shield formed in front of her as her glasses landed somewhere behind her

Carne Asada couldn't care less about the commotion.  Frost steamed off her fur and mane, and I could see her half flapping sequestered wings.  Her couture cape had been hemmed to contain and hide them, but at any moment I expected a feathered appendage to rip free.

The purple pegasus guard burst out of the auditorium first, followed by a green earth pony whose entrance shoved the pegasus forward and flat on his stomach.

The butler opened the door and peered in.

All eyes were on Carne Asada.

Perhaps it was the sheer pressure of so many gazes that did it, but she suddenly sobered.  Her smile remained beatific.

"Again!" she said when she met my eyes with her sparking brown ones.  She pointed a hoof to Broomhill Dare and said, "You, follow us inside.  Leaves, ask our other guest in."

"Yes, My Lady."

"Grimoire?"

I nodded, but looked where I'd landed and gauged the overshoot.  The obvious pegasus weighed about 20% less than I did, even with extra appendages.  I glanced at the room, noting it was both L-shaped and narrowed toward the audience hall.  I had my calculation if I needed to effect a 1-2 escape later.

"Ready."

"As you Es-questrians es say, I was born ready."

We popped out slightly closer to her desk.  The exit pop barely echoed, and the entrance pop followed at the speed of sound.  Again, Carne Asada pranced about, her tail high, clearly thrilled as frost steam rose above her.  I shuddered.  I didn't mind teleporting.  It had its uses, but finding it fun ranked at the bottom.

Broomhill Dare entered the throne room, but stood there with her ears flattened sideways and her head crouched, adjusting and readjusting the black frames on her muzzle as if she could hide behind them.  She stood there until Safe trotted in behind her.  The orange pony's ears went back when she turned and saw him.  I clearly heard a growl.  They gave each other an unhappy look.

Safe trotted into the light of the torchère lamp, Broomhill Dare hesitantly following.  Carne Asada stood beside me and did not invite the ponies up.

As she inhaled to speak, I interrupted.   "Do I get the job?"

Her eyes met mine.  She had a toothy smile that warned me that the gears were moving rapidly inside her head.  

She sidled closer to me and said, "My little caballita, you need to learn to read me better."  Before I could more than flinch, she had leg over my withers and she hugged me to her side.  She was warm and I could feel her bound wing.  It felt very bony as if it lacked plumage, which might explain why she kept it hidden.

She faced her supplicants.  "Mi hijita, Starlight Glitter, es my new point bodyguard."

I was so shocked, I almost blurted Glimmer.  Neither were good.  Didn't like the familiarity of her words—or her, despite getting the job.  I sensed challenges ahead on many levels, but I didn't push her away.  Why?  Was I startled?  Intimidated?

Carne Asada continued, "When I travel, she goes with me.  Safe?"

"Yes, Doña," ears forward.

"Four ponies pinned her.  That is not acceptable.  You need to train her more, and train her team to keep her free es so she can look after me.  Understood?"

His ears flicked as he nodded.

"As for my most creative enforcer—"

Broomhill Dare's ears flattened back and she stepped back, tail swishing worriedly.  Barely audibly, she said, "I am not an enforcer."

"Who pays your tuition at that pricey university?"

"You do, C.A."

"It takes an es certain type of magic to convince a pony to fall off a building."

"I didn't convince—"

To me, Carne Asada said, "So modest, that mare.  A stallion from the Pommel Gang hijacked an—let us es say—expensive agricultural es shipment.  He laid low in Prancetown."

"Please don't—" she begged.

"My little witchy pony bought him extra cider at the bar and later gave the wobbly foal a broom ride to the roof of a high building."

Broomhill Dare sat hard, head down so her poofy mane hid her face. Her glasses clattered to the floor.  Safe looked down at her, his ears flicking as he tilted his head.  For that matter, I tilted my head, too.  I'd met Safe at a restaurant that Broomhill Dare had recommended.  The Red Noodle.  I'd noticed recently poured cement entering, and had seen the impression of broomstick with hooves centered over it.  My landlady had said her former tenant had fallen off a building.

Without thinking, I said, "My flat?"

Broomhill Dare nodded with a low moan.

There was that enmity she and Safe had shown that day I'd pulled the wagon with him on it into Prancetown.  I added, "You're married, aren't you?"

"Not really," the pair stated practically in unison, then glared at each other.

Carne Asada said, "Except when convenient, like last weekend.  All of you," she nudged my shoulder, "remember: no foals.  It's the rule.  That es said, Dare, I know you want to es study, and I need you to get better, so that's okay."

"Our agreement."

"Schooling for doing jobs.  Simple, yes?  You'll make a great enforcer one day, since mi hijita has refused to fill the position.  In the meantime, she needs to learn how to reflect those heat beams you unicorns can launch.  Shield Mirror, right?  When I travel, Glitter and I travel; you attend us.  Es see what she is doing wrong.  Correct her.  She is especial to me.  Understood?"

"Yes, C.A."

"Hija.  Go find your team.  Tell everypony they are promoted to senior positions.  More bits for everypony, you too, Dare, Safe.  Yes?  Understood?"

Carne Asada stepped back to her desk and my cloak fluttered loudly in the silent theatre as it fell into place.  Like that; interview over; dismissed.

An awkward reunion followed in the waiting room afterward.
> Chapter 59 — Profound Leadership Solutions
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

For a while she alternated between calling me Glitter, Glimmer, and Sparkle seemingly to see which could get a bigger rise out of me. It only served to make me double down on controlling my emotions and acting more professional around her. I eventually realized that was at least partly her intent all along when she supplied me with work uniforms.  

The finely tailored black cloaks used purple silk inside and were built of technical fabric; they were accompanied by black saddlebags embossed with my grimoire cutie mark. The teeth on the grimoire tomes had glitter, of course, but had been manufactured of the grey flake pounded from steel removed red-hot from a forge. I'd studied a week of metallurgy from Sire's Hollow's blacksmith and farrier, and had even forged a horseshoe. The crinkled jagged surface lacked all luster. It made the evil magical books look all the more menacing.

When we were with other ponies, she addressed me as "Hija," Daughter, or referred to me as "mi hijita." Her little foal. I had no idea where she was going with this. If anything, it made everypony on the B- and C-teams less happy to interact with me, more respectful, and more likely to follow my suggestions when I really wanted to be told I might be wrong. 

I just wanted to be a bodyguard.

I suspected she wanted a weapon.

I did take some time to skim books about Equidor. Which is how I learned another Equidorian word: Loca. Crazy or, in her case, Crazy Mare. Equestria had only recently signed peace treaties with the southeastern mountainous land. It had been settled and colonized at various times by pegasi, griffons, and hippogriffs. The histories seemed to indicate the aboriginal pegasi called night wings might also have colonized and displaced earlier populations about the time of the Lunar Rebellion, but Equestrian archaeologists were making little headway in the more conservative Crystal Mountains where the aborigines congregated. Equidorian ponies had a cuisine heavy in root starches, made into noodles and fried, and melons spiced with cumin and saffron. I learned that Equestria had accepted many immigrants that had settled in Vanhoover and some in Canterlot.  

Apparently at least one Equidorian pegasus had settled in Mobtown.

Carne Asada had tasked me with improving my hit to miss ratio with Force. I didn't think I had the stomach to actually hurt somepony with it unless I had no choice but to protect myself or somepony else, but I certainly needed to be able to demonstrate I could use force at will as a deterrent shot. Better to break some thing than somepony, right? Broomhill Dare could help us both, which is what I told Citron.  

The yellow-furred white-maned lemon-meringue young stallion had accompanied me to the Prancetown campus under protest. He sat in Broomhill Dare's favorite spot, his mouth around a straw, sipping his chocolate milk and looking at the scenery. He crossed his front legs. A nice looking coed trotted on by with text books in her saddlebags and her blonde mane waving in the breeze, her tail wagging with a pink bow. His amber eyes followed her. His expression eased. He liked that much of the trip.

His eyes didn't miss mine on his. He huffed. "Your teacher ain't here, Grimoire, and that don't change that I'm not really a teach, neither. Gotta flame cutie mark for a reason—"

"You're a pyromaniac?"

He pointed his right hoof at me and supported it with his left, making an arrow release motion. "An arsonist who don't like hurting ponies."

"The purest example of an oxymoron if I've ever heard one."

"Who you callin' a moron!" he said, his Hooflyn accent thickening.

I reflexively prepped Shield, though it was good only for solid objects, saying, "I-It's a word that says I agreed with what you said. Paradoxically, by casting Force you de facto hurt ponies."

He picked up his milk and narrowed his eyes as he sipped until he emptied it and it made a slurping sound. He said, "That's where the 'princess' part of your 'Princess Grim' fight name comes from, ain't it? Big words. S'ok with me because I know you stand behind what ya say. Snooty words might tick other ponies off, know what I mean?"

"Yeah. But if it did, I might learn something."

He grinned because he had been around me long enough to understand me a little bit. "Something like that."

He shook the carton, eyeing it to find the last little bit and poked the straw with his magic as he answered my question. "I don't try to hurt ponies, Grimoire. I never do. I just like pyrotechnics. And the excitement."

I looked around. I examined the purple sheet with her hours listed for the twentieth time. This was where she was supposed to be tutoring right now. What he had said about what he thought when casting just didn't make sense—but her missing her next class made even less sense. 

I motioned for him to follow. It might take me awhile to figure out which building of the remarkably similar looking white-painted wood and ivy-covered red-brick buildings she and I had been in...

After over an hour, I found the closet-sized classroom five minutes before the end-of-hour chimes. I'd gotten turned around having to take shelter playing dodge with intermittent rain showers. I certainly recognized the wraparound slate walls covered with equations that made my heart swell with a sense of a home not yet found. The mousy pegasus quantum mechanics professor recognized me in the doorway and motioned with a wing from the lectern to wait.

I deflated. Broomhill Dare was MIA.

Citron muttered in the hallway, looking out of place in his grey tee-shirt. "Power Ponies 15 is out... today."

Statistics, probability, violation physics, and thaumaturgy rolled up together in one subject—what could be more fascinating? I ignored the grousing kid and puzzled out the numbers. After the chimes, the university students took one look at me and my protégé and exited the opposite door.

I saw the blue pegasus approach in my peripheral vision and said, "Professor Post Dock, I was looking for Broomhill Dare." I found it hard to tear my eyes away from the chalked equations, but when I did, he pushed up his wireframe glasses with a wing and blinked.

His ears drooped. "I was hoping you might tell me what happened."

I sighed. "She got a job."

Citron piped up. "Got promoted, actually. Was less happy about it than me."

I growled, glaring back momentarily, then smiling forward. "My kid brother. His comic book arrived today, but I took him with me."

The professor chuckled. "My niece is like that."

I chuckled in calculated understanding. "Say. Do you know where she or her husband lives?"

"She's married!?" His eyes grew wide. Surprise, not disappointment like Bite of Kale. 

I shook my head. "Barely. Nopony seems to understand it. I'll make sure to send her back to class when I find her."

"Good, good! Tell her she got a 100 on her last paper and I got a sub for Tidy Bytes, but she needs to come back soon or I might have to drop her from the class."

"I'll pass that on. Um." Pegasus. Teaching magic. I angled my head to see his cutie mark. An integral sign. Interesting. "Can you recommend a beginner book for this?" I waved at the slate walls. "I'm expecting some boring days ahead and I'd like something interesting to puzzle out..."


#


Trotting down the hall, Citron said, "Last lead dry up? Can we go home, now?"

"The mare is obviously not me. Were I paying for a school like this, I'd be living in the library stacks, attending my every class, and treating my professors to dinner. She's nowhere that makes sense."

"Every mare I know, including my Mom, eats ice cream when she's upset. Does she have a favorite ice cream parlor?"

I gave the kid a well-deserved you-sexist-colt! glare. 

Then I thought, Maybe... not so dumb! I put a foreleg over his withers and fast-walked him off the campus, thoroughly confusing him.

We walked into The Red Noodle and walked up to the bar. The bartender also handled the take-away orders. 

I walked out with an address. I gave the pony in the silk vest an exorbitant gold-bit tip, not because he earned it but because he didn't know who his college-coed patron who liked sherried ciders and limoncello was—and might need it for hospital bills later.  

On the way out, I took a moment to look at the defaced sidewalk. Nopony had taken the expense to fix the cement. The damning broomstick and hoof print impressions remained. I glanced at the building across the street. It had four stories and a dark-shingled peaked roof like most at this winter-snow latitude, but also an itty-bitty fifth-floor platform for maintaining the chimneys. Probably had a hallway or attic access. 

When I'd learned that Broomhill Dare had a hoof in the death of the former occupant of my flat, I'd dismissed her original quip that she'd seen the for-rent sign on her way home, but she hadn't been lying. Three long blocks further from the campus and a dogleg at 131 Mountain Ave was a house set far back on a densely wooded lot. Hers was a room in the converted barn aka "carriage house" further back and lost behind overgrown brambles that might have looked tasty if you were a goat. Considering it needed paint last year, her digs were probably cheap. She ought to be thrilled she could afford upgrading her lifestyle soon. I stared at the weedy brick carriage path and wondered if I earned more than the other ponies on my team did. 

I'd seen ponies walking on Mountain Ave, any of whom might notice a commotion. Too much glare in the windows of the main house to see if we might be watched. "Citron."

He caught my business tone and his ears swiveled forward. His "business" façade enveloped him.

"Dissuade anypony from bothering us. If C.A. show up, feel free to demonstrate your special talent to keep them entertained."

"Yes, Sir."

He followed me to the door of the groom's quarters and stationed himself. 

It was late enough in the afternoon that Celestia's orange-tinged sun crept under the dissipating storm clouds. My shadow would be seen through the sheer lace drapery covering the windows, including the four glass panes in the door. My hooves made squelching noises on the leaves. Stealth wouldn't work here, so I trotted up, ears forward, listening for anypony scrambling further into what on the Grin Having estate had been single room with a pot-belly stove for cooking and heating, and a sink.  

I heard nothing, just dripping water in copper gutters half-clogged with smelly leaves. The drapery—a daisy pattern—obscured the dark interior with the help of the glare. Just in case a certain somepony might not like being bothered, I looked around for anything faintly broom-shaped. I saw fragrant wet laurel shrubs, an overturned rusty wheelbarrow, and a rotted log with fresh woodshed mushrooms just opening.

I rapped on the glass pane so that it was jarring. "Broomhill Dare. I know you're in there."

"Go away."

I jerked back. She wasn't even trying to hide! I might have given up had I gotten no response. I said, "No."

After a moment I heard, "No? What?"

"No," I replied. "I am not going away."

She said something so acidic I thought the drapes might begin to turn yellow and rot away. I hadn't thought her tongue was quite so poisonous. She was quite a bit older than I, though. Did such things come with maturity? I was a big filly; I could take it. I would write some things down in my dictionary of epitaphs, however.

"Still not going away."

She continued, less fiery, quieter, winding down. She said, "I know what's bugging you. I've kept your secret. Always will. Go away."

My body turned to ice.

Adults! Creatures that had more years than I did—who had experiential acquired-maturity rather than the constructed-maturity I presented the world—did have some advantages that foals like me really did lack. How could I have gotten to this moment in time and space and forgotten that I had confessed to Carne Asada's tool, Broomhill Dare, that I was the Countess Aurora Midnight?  

Because... 

I was still a foal.

Foals lived in fantasy worlds; I'd read that in books. I'd woven a fantasy that could have ended with me running to my rabbit-hole in Grin Having to discover an unexpected pony waiting. For forgetting my confession, I might have found a syndicate enforcer holding Proper Step at knife- or Force spell-point!

Well... That enforcer might find himself or herself broken in two, but still.

Deadly mistakes here. My heart raced.

Broomhill Dare had blurted hints about the keys to my kingdom.... Rage screamed for me to turn and buck the door to splinters.

But she was also keeping the secret. I believed her too.

I took a deep breath. Yes, the lemon meringue pie-colored colt behind me lived and breathed a world of comic book secret identities. Could he be expected to have missed what she said? 

No. I decided not to imprint her words in his mind.

I placed a hoof to the door lever. I pushed it down.

It unlatched and the door glided open to reveal an unlit room.

"Thank you, Celestia," I said and took a step forward. When I heard my words, I stopped and frowned as my repressed rage discovered an outlet—I struck the side of my head twice against the casing.  

I really needed to be in my right mind.

I did get the attention of my audience, however.

I glanced and saw Citron's amber eyes look worriedly at me as I shut the door on him. I saw the orange pony sprawled on the floor blinking up quizzically at me.  

My self-inflicted injury shocked her. Well, good, I thought. Then thought further. I put a hoof to the side of my head.

It came back red.

Broomhill Dare said, "You really hate Princess Celestia."

"Hate is a word that lacks sufficient nuance."

Well, my tactics in the situation must have been correct because the disheveled pony moved. She flopped over once getting up, and she seemed stiff like she'd been sleeping for days on the floor instead of on the messy daybed with the light blue sweat-stained sheets. Her generally curly hair looked frizzed like she'd been struck by lightning, and she smelled intensely of unwashed horse. She had Shetland roots in her ancestry, which gave her long fur that matted and did its really very utmost best to tangle and make her look even more disheveled. Dark shadows made her pale magenta eyes glow, even though they looked very red at the edges. Snot dripped from her nose.  

Not pony pox; more like pity party.

Her bed and body might look unkempt, but not her room. It was a groom's quarters, a one-room apartment, with mortared stone walls and the requisite potbelly stove next to a farm sink. A broom collection of museum quality lined the walls, and she obviously swept the floor and kept everything clean. The big mare hobbled to a cabinet and levitated out a first-aid kit. I let her dab stinging antiseptic and press until the little cut stopped bleeding as I thought it therapeutic for her.

The bloody wad arced to the trash pail in her pale pink aura, just before she folded herself back onto the wood floor with a thump.

I stepped back, not sure what to make of it. Not a drama queen move. There were no sighs or other attention-getting gestures or sounds. She hadn't fainted. It didn't look like exhaustion either. Or starvation. I'd noticed the cartons cohabiting the trash pail now with the bloody wad. There were days of discards from The Red Noodle. 

I settled on apathy.

She said, "You can go, now."

I asked, "Did you realize that I am not alone?"

She sat bolt upright and stared at the door. Through the drapes, you could see the branches swaying in the breeze and shaking green leaves. There was also a sturdy, stationary coltish silhouette that looked faintly golden.

I glanced where she stared, but looked at her, lit in profile by the windows on the one wall. She blinked for a long while as a realization of her having betrayed me sunk in. She snuffled before more mucus could drip. Her eyes glistened, then tears welled up and began to drip down her orange-furred cheek.

She opened her mouth and said, "I don't deserve—"

I tackled her around her neck, with my head over her withers in a tight hug, scooping her up as I slid down beside her.  She was bigger than I, so it was a bit of a wrestling move that brought her down onto me, but I had her in a tight hug. She was incredibly warm, and somewhat heavy. 

"Don't, don't, don't," I said, toward her ear, trying to sound soothing, but I had no practice. I didn't know how to do such things, but on instinct said, "Don't add more guilt. Don't." 

"I don't deserve to live!" she moaned, saying it anyway, struggling with her elbows and neck, trying to squirm away.

I held her tighter, ending up on top, pinning her in the hug as she really didn't have it in her to fight. She had the magic to fling me toward the wall or the ceiling, but didn't even try. 

My face pressed up against her jaw, my tears wetting her fur. My sobs were unmistakable, if she somehow didn't feel how wet her fur had become.

She said, "I don't deserve this. Just, just stop."

"I'm not doing this because you deserve this. I'm doing this because you need this."

I didn't let go—even though she kept crying, even though I kept crying. 

When after minutes she relaxed a bit, I let us move such that I could cradle her to better hug and pat her. I realized I was reliving and recreating until-then forgotten physical memories of what my parents had done to comfort me more than a decade ago. I didn't understand any of it, and later would chalk it down to pony instinct, but there was... energy? Synergy. Maybe. I'd found none of that synergy in any of my sexual interactions to that point, and in that at least I found relief.

It had an ameliorating effect, though. The intended one. Broomhill Dare asked, "Why? Why are you doing this for me?"

I thought about that as I continued to hold her. I decided to continue until she didn't need it any longer. After awhile, a tea of answers seeped from my subconscious.

I wasn't going to admit that I needed the hug. That would have been completely crass—self-serving and selfish, too—and only a half-truth that could have been completely misconstrued. Lots of good and bad memories swirled together at her prompting, together with something I'd answered to her question minutes ago.

I decided an explanation by example would be best. I quoted myself from earlier.

"'Nuance.'"

I positioned my mouth near her ear and whispered, "I understand what you feel. Her Royal Highness Princess Celestia attended my parents' funeral when I was 4 years old. We had a modest house in Sire's Hollow. She called Midnight and Firefly Heroes of Equestria and gave me their medals. Afterwards, she dubbed me an Earl and made me the Countess Aurora Midnight, with all the rights becoming the title, granting me administration over all the lands within one day's gallop in any direction from town." I took a deep breath, but it came out in a tear-filled sob: "What I had really needed was for Celestia to hug me and tell me...

"You will be okay."


#


Some hours later, we three stepped out of The Red Noodle. Citron belched loudly. Of course he did. He might be older than I, but he was definitely a colt.

Broomhill Dare whacked him on the shoulder. "Were you brought up in a barn?"

"No," he answered sheepishly.

Hugs are good. I'm not going to minimize that I had needed one as much as she did, but it had been medicine like you use to stop the sniffles—it could not cure the germs causing the cold. I hadn't taken us to her favorite restaurant to comfort her, but to confront her.

I looked down at the cement. Between Citron's antics and her response, she walked broadside into my barrel. She clip-clopped back.

"G-Gelding?" 

In the gaslights, her pale eyes sparkled like rose quartz. I made a point of looking down and her gaze followed me.

Citron chuckled. "Looks like somepony wrote in the cement. Four hooves and a broom. Is it a secret code?"

Broomhill Dare started backing. A pinkish aura bloomed brightly around her horn with crackling sparkles and I wondered if she could really be thinking of destroying the evidence, drawing attention to something nopony had yet noticed.

I flank butted her, distracting her from her spell enough that her horn went out. I put a leg over her withers and escorted her a few paces down the sidewalk, far enough that we weren't going to be overheard and so that we had a clear view of the tall building across the street.

The mare was gulping. I could feel it. I hoped her dinner wouldn't decide to come up, too. The check had been expensive, thanks to the bottle of sherried white wine I'd made sure she drank with her water-chestnut scampi.

I told Citron, "We need privacy."

The colt's casualness evaporated into a firm stallion bearing. The act alone caused a couple that had been trotting up from the corner to detour onto the street before continuing to the restaurant. I nodded.

"Broomhill Dare, tell me what happened. We are friends." Well, I was a filly and I did live in a fantasy so you read that right—I used the F-word.

"I—" Her voice cracked. She gulped some more, before saying quietly, "I don't like it. I don't want to be an enforcer. But I'm poor, and I've got expensive tastes."

"Like that Ivy League School you're playing hooky with—"

She shoved me weakly. "I promised I'd go back, Gelding. You're right. I can't give it up."

"Good!" I said, hugging her briefly. "I want to be on Professor Post Dock's good side when I take his class one day."

She chuckled. "C.A.'s got the goods on me, so I should enjoy the fruits of my crimes, right?"

"About that?" I prompted, facing her again. 

She gestured at herself with a hoof. "I'm orange and wear brown. Nightmare Night colors; I guess I'm scary. I get assignments to convince ponies to tell me where they've hid things, or to convince them to pay back what they owe the syndicate. That type of thing. Not that often. You explode a tree or fly somepony around with you on a broom; it can be effective.  

"Not this earth pony, though. He knew I worked for the syndicate, almost immediately. He had hijacked a valuable shipment during transit and had been laying low in Prancetown until the heat dissipated, but got found out. He thought he had the upper-hoof. I thought he did, anyway, since only he knew where he had hidden the goods. He was horrible. He called me names. He tried to get me into bed with him, especially after I told him I was married. Still, I tried to be nice. I wanted to go through my usual set of escalating inducements without having to become terrifying. I guess I should be thankful that he had enough class at the restaurant that he kept his voice low, detailing how he wanted to ride me that evening. He did drink the wine I kept topped up for him, though—like you did for me, tonight."

"Like I did tonight," I admitted, nodding.

"I was beyond pissed when we left the restaurant!" she continued.

Citron interjected. "Rightfully, too. Had I been there, I'd have knocked his teeth in for you."

"Um, thank you?" Broomhill Dare said.

"And?" I prompted.

"I put him on a broom and flew him up to that building over there. He died," she finished, matter-of-factly.

I said, "So the crows made a lot of noise the next morning and the townsfolk noticed him up there?"

"That's what I was wondering," Citron said, drolly, moving to the opposite side of us, waving some ponies around us that had started to approach.

Broomhill Dare said, exasperated, "No, he fell off, obviously."

"Oh. Really?" I asked.

Annoyed, she replied, "Yeah. Place a drunk on a little square of roof and they often fall off."

Citron added helpfully, "Like a watermelon."

We both looked at him. I blinked, not getting the likely comic book reference.

He said, "What? Maybe it's a seacoast thing. In summer, me and my parents go to the beach. Ya put on a blindfold, take a 2-by-4, and you try to hit the watermelon—to split it open. One time I dropped it on the pavement—"

Broomhill Dare made a strangled sound that made me think, There went dinner, but it didn't. 

I said, "I gather you didn't see how he fell."

"But I heard it..." She stopped, angry despite looking ready to faint. "What were you trying to get at about the roof?"

"Oh. Architectural. That's a mansard-style roof. Where you set him down is the only flat area. It's where the chimneys come out. It's big enough for work ponies to maintain the chimneys, but there's also a fence."

She stood stiffly as if struck by lightning. She whispered, "I heard a bang before he fell. Celestia!" 

Broomhill Dare held up a hoof, her horn lit. A long corn broom with gray dirty bristles flew out from the back of the restaurant and struck her hoof with a clack.

She levitated it under her and I sat behind. We whooshed across the street and up five stories. It felt like straddling a bench in a gale, but my eyes on the actual smaller broomstick said otherwise as I watched the street recede. I held her furry haunches tightly as we orbited the fenced-in gravel area.  

I wouldn't characterize iron fence as safety-fencing, but the spear-shaped rail heads were more than half a pony height tall and looked sharp-enough to impale a pony. Worse, they were rusty and off-putting. Even drunk, were I ever to be dropped off there, I wouldn't loiter beside them. On the other hoof, given a sharp noise, a spooked pony might easily leap them.

I asked, "Did anypony seem disappointed that the stallion died?"

"I-I still got paid. My handler told me that nopony would try those horse apples again once the news got out."

"You want to know what I think?"

"Sure." It was breezy up here and her mane fluttered noisily in time with my cloak as she looked back at me.

"Not your fault."

"I put him up there."

"Yes. Yes, you did. Do you really want this to be your fault?" I pointed to the ground. The wind blew in my mane as I directed her to take us away from the restaurant and people that might notice non-pegasi flying. No need to get some smart pony connecting some dots in an unsolved mystery. Citron clattered up to where we landed.

"No," she answered, laying the broom against a tree.

"Somepony spooked him and he jumped. That is what happened."

"You think happened," Citron corrected.

"Thank you," I said with a growl.

"You are welcome," he said without an accent.

I continued, "The syndicate works by controlling ponies; they've tried enough times with me that I understand that. Sometimes you have to believe you are controlled for them to make that work. Somepony spooked that pony into jumping to his death. It wasn't you. His mother gave birth to him and he died. Not her fault. Not your fault. Got it?"

She nodded.

"Okay, second problem."

Broomhill Dare groaned. "Can I just set you on fire, instead?"

"Your magic won't let you," I shot back. At least not if mine were any indicator.

"Can I at least try?"

"No!"

Citron said, "Fillies."

We both glared at the colt, but I added, "You know my name is a verb, right?"

He made sure his back side was facing away from me, though his tail began thrashing.

Broomhill Dare asked, "What's the second problem?"

"You need to make up with your husband."

She reared with a loud whinny and struck the cement sidewalk with her steel horseshoes with enough fury that it drew sparks, then she pawed it angrily. "You know, I have limits!"

I merely grinned. I had made sure she was slightly inebriated. Yeah, she out-massed me by 50%, but this would be a challenge. Could I pin her without breaking anything and leaving her really embarrassed? I nodded. Yeah, I probably could. I just hoped Citron wouldn't start laughing his flank off and cause me to hurt her accidentally.

She started to deflate. It started so quickly, I wondered if maybe this wasn't part of the problem. "Why?" she asked.

"Don't you get it? You. Safe. Citron. Pig Pen. Crystal Skies. The team. My team. Our team. I'm the leader." I gestured in the air with a hoof. "Yeah. Right. Leader. I'm also the youngest. I'm your student. If you don't get your act together, all of you, and teach me what you know, I will lead you into disaster. Can I make that any plainer?"

Citron stiffened. He said, "I'm controlled, too. Aren't I?"

"No, Citron. Now's not the time for you to go off the rails, too."

He straightened up. "I'm a stallion, not a train. I don't go off the rails, Gelding. I just figured out that when my father lost his job just shy of getting his pension, I had just managed to escape getting charged for arson when I burned down an abandoned warehouse. My cutie mark earned me an easy-peasy part-time job playing with fire but not hurting ponies. It lets me pay the rent on a plush apartment in the city that my parents could never afford, that I really want them to have. Why do I feel like a fly stuck in something he can't see, unable to fly away, wondering if there's a spider nearby?"

I walked up to the colt, about to give him a hug. 

What was with me today? Was I that needy?

He raised a hoof. "No. I like you too much."

"O-kay."

"Okay, then," he said as we both took a step backwards. 

I stood for a moment trying to parse and re-parse what he'd said and meant by that.

Broomhill Dare interrupted. "Follow me."

She led us to a patrician neighborhood (as if most of Prancetown wasn't some level of patrician) at the corner of Library and Hodge Roads. There stood a red brick building with white wood details, black shutters, a brick fence, lots of ivy, and an expanse of lawn it probably took a full-time goat to keep trim. It had multiple entrance porticoes with columns and stood a three full stories high. A mansion. The owner had plenty of bits of the gold persuasion.

And his wife lived in a groom's quarters. Seriously?

This reminded me of a very trashy romance novel I had bartered a servant for back home. It had been well worth the embarrassment on both sides, especially since the servant had been one of the hoof-stallions. By what I had read, Broomhill Dare ought to have been living a very wild and thrilling life indeed, reputedly even having trouble standing thanks to her stallion acquaintance, which is why I didn't believe any of those horse apples I'd read about that at this point in my life. The stallions I'd ridden hadn't... 

Well, not going there.

Citron asked, "You read trashy novels often?"

I was muttering to myself, apparently. I shot back, "Do you have a filly-friend?"

He whispered, "I'd like to."

That sounded an itty little bit too genuine to me. Coupled with what he had said when I had reflexively tried to hug him, I realized I had my flank to him. I caught myself lowering my tail over my hindquarters, hiding parts. Thinking rapidly, I just rotated my rear slightly out of view. Just what I needed: One of my team having a crush on me. 

He was a looker, though. 

Why was my face becoming warm!?

Broomhill Dare suddenly said, "Yes. I married him. He can be so charming. And yes, he's—" She blinked at Citron and left something you don't say around foals unsaid. "He's one of those stallions that can gather a herd, and I knew that."

Citron groaned, shaking his head. "Too much work."

Broomhill Dare giggled. "For some ponies, not him."

"Stamina," he said and whistled.

"Peanut gallery: zip it."

He nodded.

She said, "I thought I could be enough to change that. I mean, we got along famously. He was amazing fun to be with, day and night. He's very smart and athletic. Didn't realize we were both in the syndicate until we got assigned together one day... Anyway. I wasn't enough. I tried to change him, but I couldn't. After awhile, I couldn't take the needing to make an appointment to be with my husband."

I thought about it. About all the contrary ponies in my life. I'd wanted badly to change them all. From Celestia to Proper Step. I'd gotten nowhere with Waddles Worth. Ms. Maple had offered me an unworkable compromise. In the back of my mind, I knew that I was either going to learn something very important from Carne Asada—or she would kill me. Would I change her, or any of them? Not a chance in Tartarus.

Commenting partially to my self, I said, "You can't change ponies unless they want to change."

Her voice went very low. "I still love him."

"I-I guess that's a good start." Love wasn't friendship. So I'd heard. I wasn't sure if I could trust it, either. Either sure made a mess of things. Both. Love and friendship.  Me and Sunburst.

She nodded. "Which is why he makes me so angry." 

There that proved it. "Because you can't control him?"

She nodded again.

"Do you like being controlled?"

She started to nod, then realized I'd tricked her. Her pinkish eyes glared down at me. "No, and neither does he, I'd bet."

"Nor, do I—which is why Princess Celestia made an enemy instead of a friend. Soooo..." I looked this way and that. It was really easy for me to understand when the mares in the novels blurted certain things outright. Not so easy for me in the flesh talking about the S-word. I felt my face heat up. It was good that it was nighttime. Perhaps I could put it to use as a metaphor. "You said you had fun day and night. The night fun? Did you ever ask him what you could do to make him want to herd with you some night instead with other mares?"

She stood there for a full minute, blinking at me. I suddenly understood the meaning of the words, circumlocution and nonplussed.

Just in case I had just broken her mind, I considered trying again using explicit words to describe what I wanted an answer about. Yes, I did know those words and their meanings, but then a softer alternative came to mind. "I wonder... If you change yourself, will ponies change to accommodate you?"

She took a very deep breath and looked away. "No, I never did ask. Could it be that easy?"

"Seriously?" I grinned and paused for effect. "No, I doubt it. It's a start, though. It'll prove if he's a bad pony, disingenuous—"

"—or randy as all Tartarus," she finished with a giggle.

"Uh, um, ahhh... Riiiight." I coughed into a hoof. "On that note..." I spun up Teleport. I'd been evilly planning on disrupting Safe's evening. I'd been hoping he might be entertaining tonight and that I might catch them in the bedroom in the act so I could learn some "dance" moves.  

As it turned out, he was entertaining. Sadly, he was a very charming gentlecolt, adhering to all the proper decorum sea captains to princes of industry adhered to. He'd cooked a wonderful dinner of sautéd garlic greens a'la field for the yellow pegasus mare of evening, resplendent with a table of cut leaded crystal, gold-accent china, sparking imported Prance cider, and candles. He had yet to charm her out of her evening dress, though one of the straps had been pushed down to bare her withers. Who had done the pushing, I didn't know, but there was lipstick on his cheek.

My sudden appearance, in the only lighted room I could see from the street, was enough to send her soaring through an open dining room window with a startled shriek. The crystal goblets crashed to the marble floor.

I was right about a few things. It wasn't that easy. My question of Broomhill Dare was also the right question. The reconciliation took three days and four nights. 

And... 

For the record. It was me that broke Safe's handsome nose when he made a pass at me. I didn't care for the joke.
> Chapter 60 —Viva Las Pegasus
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Becoming a bodyguard is about learning to spot danger and to thrust the pony you are guarding to safety. You want to do this without getting yourself injured or killed. Especially the latter. 

I didn't ever want to become a royal guard. Not that I'd ever want to protect Celestia. I suspected that anything that wanted to kill an alicorn would either be really dangerous or really crazy, or both, which could make me really dead. While I might hate the Princess, who would want the responsibility of choosing between life or eternal day or night if you failed? I feared what her dubbing me an Earl might actually imply.

With my team assembled, we trained. My earlier training with the bodyguards for Carne Asada's lieutenants taught me the essential moves to get us into a carriage, through a door, a window, or into any protected space while putting a hoof through the temple of an attacker if need be. With my new employer, my options increased.

If attacked, Carne Asada expected me to cast Teleport. 

That would rarely be appropriate as I might need time to target a safe place. I practiced conventional moves. With so many physical or magical choices, I understood I'd be too distracted to think of my safety. Counterintuitively, I needed my own bodyguard. Citron stepped up. It made sense, since he was mostly about flash and not bang. Sure, he delighted in burning up inanimate things, but, if a pony managed to get himself surrounded by a ring of fire, well... Stupid pony. I was mastering Force very slowly, and Citron was a master of it simply because he didn't want to hurt ponies. It made him effective though, because flying bolts of plasma are unpredictable, dangerous, frightening—and devilishly inflammatory. 

I found it nice getting paid well, living in my own flat, doing naught but training. No late night assignments. Occasionally Carne Asada called me to visit one of her mansions, ask to take her on a joy ride, talk to me about us traveling—inevitably to be interrupted by business I didn't want to hear the details of. Thankfully, she didn't insist on me hearing it either; she knew I'd make a stink.

She addressed me as "Hija." After weeks, I got used to being her daughter. 

I stood aside in a parlor with lots of hardwood furniture wrapped in red corduroy upholstery surrounded by brown satin wallpaper. Skylights lit the room dimly as she read a scroll she held open with two hooves on a table. I wondered why she didn't use her wings like every other pegasus I'd met, but maybe it was the servants and guards she had around. I'd found little written about the mountain folk of Equidor, which I suspected she was. Did they consider it rude to show their wings? 

Did they have a nudity taboo? 

Would I ask? Nope. Not that kind of brave.

"Hija," she said, letting the scroll roll itself up, nodding to the earth pony who took it away in his mouth.

I walked up. "Carne Asada?"

She smiled. I got a glimpse of pointy canines. "Have you been to Las Pegasus?"

"No. I'm a bit young."

Her grin widened. She knew my situation and my disguises. 

I added, "Not enough bits."

"Don't play a foal with me; frugality is a choice. Congratulations with your team and your skills are improving. You are an asset. Broom-tail and Safe are making like rabbits again. Good work! Remind them, no foals."

Did she have eyes everywhere? My face had warmed. The mare grinned again.

"Hija, I have business interests in Las Pegasus, mostly legitimate. That es scroll finalizes all the preparation for a Grand Galloping Gala at the plushest venue I'm part owner of. It's a command performance of all my local functionaries. There is an es saying that what happens in Las Pegasus es stays in Las Pegasus. That's a problem when what's staying in Las Pegasus is my fair share of profits. I believe in maximum disruption when I have leverage. I have leverage, now. Put it another way, I am feeling safe enough to attend the gala because you will be there. Prove me right."

I gulped. "Are you sure?"

"Por supuesto," she said. "Which is why these ponies are here." 

She waved over the pair of tall unicorn stallions from the far door to the room. A light blue aura popped in a spray of sparkles and they were directed by the unicorn servant to approach. "This is Curry Brush and Needlepoint, the best tailors in Baltimare. They make you a most fabulous gala dress."

"Um." I whispered, "I may need to fight—"

The mare was up in an instant and she put a hoof to my mouth. "Shhh, hijita mia! Tranquila! They tailor it however you design. You did such a good job with your sexy pink tights at the gym! I know you know what to tell them so you can move properly. All I ask is that it must be eleganté and very beautiful."

I ended up with a gala dress, an evening dress, a ballroom dress (with bustles for waltzing), a sundress for croquet and outdoor events, a bathing suit (that was weird because who wore clothes to swim? Nobles?), various business suits both in masculine and feminine cuts, and one Canterlot court gown in formal sun-gold and white. Like the latter was going to happen! Even if I could actually fight in it, thanks to slits and releasing hems, I secretly spilled ink on it.

Filly move. Also self-knowing self-preservation. I could imagine myself one day petitioning Princess Celestia at court to meet her in the flesh, then giving her the thrashing she richly deserved. 

Could happen.

In any case, I eventually ended up with a full wardrobe of duplicates in various colors and it cost me nothing but my pride. Carne Asada made me model them all. The ink stain had disappeared. 

She wanted me to take on the White Windigo?


#


Before I continue, let me ask a question. What kind of sadistic parent names a foal Grape Sucker? 

I mean, Grape aka Punch Drunk was named Grape by his parents because, well, he looked the result of bathing a foal in a bathtub of concord grape juice. The stallion who owned The Grande Wine Bar and Salt Lick Las Pegasus Hotel and Dance Casino would later that evening profess to me that this was exactly what his mother had named him. The fellow had tan fur with a white mane and a black blaze. Not buying Grape Sucker for a minute. I mean, even if the pegasus kept on flying out of his crib as an infant to steal grapes from the kitchen to gum and drool upon, not buying it.

Nevertheless, 🎶gorgeous🎵. Steeple Chase finally had a competitor in the virile category. This fellow wasn't muscular or chiseled like that first earth pony I'd thrown myself at, nor was he at all tall, but his legs and wings were lithe, his mane and tail clipped and perfectly styled, and his glasses refined and business-like. He looked... controlled. Studied masculinity. Not too much. Not too little. Just enough to make me shiver. Confidence, that's what it was. Not at all like the hoodlum I suspected he was. 

It didn't hurt that at his shoulder he had the crooner singer songwriter that went by a single name: Dino. Yes, that Dino. The Dean of Diatonic, Divertimento Dissonance, in the flesh, feathers, and fur complete with a quarter-notes-in-a-trash-can cutie mark. He was the most goth of the Las Pegasus Plumage Pack so I had had a record of his (Reflective Ballads for a Sunny Daze), and indeed he was very purple, royal purple, and obviously pickled. Grape Sucker leaned into the singer to support him. Though he held up a cider and soda on the rocks in his wing feathers, he deftly caught Dino's falling wine goblet without spilling a drop.

Impressive muscle control and coordination.

Grape Sucker, even encumbered, managed to bow slightly at our approach. (Not so much Dino.) "Doña," he said, in a high tenor voice, "My apologies. You let canaries out of their cages and they get flighty."

When it took more than a second for Carne Asada to respond, I realized there might be a double-entendre there. The Queenpin hadn't been traveling recently, it seemed. I stepped closer to her, between them and us.

Carne Asada said, "Nonsense. I want everypony to enjoy themselves!"

I took an instant to scan the room, to make sure nopony had made any particular move. Citron stood a pony length behind in a suit. We weren't chewing gum because Carne Asada had made us spit it out, forcing me to choose whether there were secrets I wanted to keep or not. Many ponies mistook him for liveried help, which I thought fortuitous. He knew it and moved purposefully.

The two personages smiled at each other, while Dino said something about a record deal to somepony fawning to his right. I looked from Sucker in his white shirt, white slacks, and black bow tie to Carne Asada in her red dress and purple scarf. It had shocked me earlier to see her put something into her eyes. They changed the color of her eyes, shading her irises so she didn't need to wear sunglasses in the bright (for her) ballroom.

It wasn't as big a surprise as it could have been. I'd suspected a misidentification on my part all along. How many mares with an Equidorian accent could have been at my championship prize fight that night? At the skybox level? Where Carne Asada had been the promoter?

Contact lenses. No magic there. You learn something new everyday.

Carne Asada, now as then, had been the mare in the red dress, the one that had kicked me in the head.

Her style. She had called me Boludo then, but now she called me—

"Hija, let me introduce you to Grape Sucker. Grape Sucker, this is my daughter, Glitter."

I curtseyed. I was some sort of asset. Yeah. Asset.

I wore a dress with my mane tied and pinned into a matching silk scarf. Both were pale yellow with cute daisies that made me look my biological age and therefore less dangerous. Both glittered in all the right places with diamond dust, but would let me pin the suave pegasus on the floor before he knew it without ripping a hem or unraveling my do. My mane and tail were dyed mauve to match Carne Asada's, and my contacts matched hers, but weren't so dense that they dimmed the room. They ached and dryness caused me to blink more than I liked, but I could deal. 

It made us look related. One did not ask a queenpin whether she had a husband that had presumably been a unicorn. One could turn up dead asking that.

Carne Asada liked to be disruptive. Okay with me, so long as she didn't get in the way of me doing my work. She paid well.

I met many pony personages that night and ate too many fried broccoli and crab hors d'oeuvres. Many tried to chat me up, but Carne Asada keenly ran flack for her minion and I got to play the little lady as Proper Step had trained me to be without any of the hostess responsibilities. I acted like some pony's pet lost in downtown Baltimare, eyes wide, looking around. An act, of course. I had to scan the room, checking for anypony wanting to stick a knife into Carne Asada or perform a spell, all the while calculating escape vectors. It worked. 

Apparently, I looked both adorable and vulnerable.  That earned me an impromptu serenade by the entire Plumage Pack! 

The room lights dimmed and Carne Asada, Grape Sucker, and I got a spotlight on us as the five appeared on stage, Dino having trouble holding his drink and standing at the same time. I stood behind Carne Asada, as much to keep in contact for a Teleport spell as I did in embarrassment, as the lyrics had substituted "Glitter" for the titular filly's name.

They sang A Filly Named Faerie, the single happy song on the Dino album I had back in Grin Having. Even drunk, Dino could sing. Had the stallion walked up to me afterward and beckoned me to follow to his room, I'd done so without a second thought. 

In retrospect, that would have been the time to assassinate Carne Asada. It didn't happen. In fact, nopony had the temerity to upset her beyond Grape Sucker's maladroit. As we returned to the Princess Suite at the top of the hotel and Carne Asada pulled off her jewelry and scarf, she mentioned that as I watched.

I stood in the door of the bedroom. The carpet was brilliant white. The furniture, the same, or would be: it appeared to be either blue-green, or flashing shades or red, blue, or purple. The mare had flung open the draperies to let in the neon lights of Las Pegasus and shut off the suite lights. She'd had me cast Illuminate strategically so everything was as dim as she preferred so she could cast away her contacts.

"So what he said about bird cages was significant?"

"He's not happy I'm here. I suspected as much."

I tapped my hoof on the carpet nervously, then decided. "Um. Carne Asada. I'm sorry about fangrlling like that during the serenade before. I had my Teleport queued up all the time. Let me assure you that the team stepped up during the situation."

The mare smiled, giving me an amused look. "I almost sent you to Divertimento's room afterwards—"

"What!? No!" I found myself pacing in a circle in the living room, bouncing off the back of the couch and the coffee table like a ball in a pinball machine as I alternately missed noticing one or another as I tried to process one or the other of interesting scenarios that came to mind. My face blazed with heat like it had been set on fire. Me, with Dino. Yeah. He was old—but experienced! And, that velvet voice. I remembered the posters I had of him from when he was younger. Ponies didn't often wear clothes, and that was good...

From the bedroom door, I heard, "I was a filly once. Vigorous recreation would do you good. But that horse's flank sometimes mistreats mares and I'd hate it to be you that breaks him of the habit."

I stopped and stared.

She showed her fangs again.

I blurted, "Power corrupts."

"That's what I like about you, Starlight Glimmer." She was using that name again. Why? "You are not new to this game." She gestured back into the bedroom and I followed wondering what she was going to try now.

I smelled acrid makeup remover from a pink bottle and she hoofed about a cotton pad as she continued in front of the mirror. She said, "What did you think of Grape Sucker?"

"Nice colt. I talked more to him than anypony else, tonight, I guess. Don't believe that name is real for minute."

"Like Gelding?"

"Ha ha."

"Hija, seriously."

"Professional. Personable. Businesslike. Nervous around you."

"I fronted him the bits to build his mini Canterlot mountain on a cloud and extend his wine café into a hotel palace and dance casino. More bits helped him get the Plumage Pack together and under contract."

"He is enterprising."

"Indeed, he is." Off came the lipstick onto a tissue. "Did you like him?"

I smiled. Did I? The way I was dressed today, I knew he was going to dismiss me as way too young for me to learn anything from him, but I said. "He's nice. Yeah, I like him."

"Since we are going to be in town for a few days, I'd like you to pay him a visit for me and give him a message."

"Like... a letter?"

"No. I'm not keen on leaving evidence. Tell him: Investments should show profits."
> Chapter 61 — Glitterati Bureau of Investigation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Problem was, I liked Grape Sucker. Despite the name. I mean, seriously. If I met his mom, I was going to psychoanalyze her if I had to pin her to the floor to do so. My problem was, I felt that if I delivered my message, it would be the end of Grape Sucker.

Carne Asada... Well. By now you understand that she is a gangster, an actual mobster from Mobtown.  I worked rather hard to make sure I didn't know what she did to make her bits, but I had all sorts of clues. I also had all sorts of gold bits that had nothing to do with Princess Celestia, and spent them to buy or rent plenty of magic books to study in my free time. Being a bodyguard was fun, whether working out, training with the team, or being on point. I don't give a single horse apple if you think I'm being stupid.

This, what I had to do this morning... Not so fun.

He had a home in an upscale residential area of Las Pegasus. Enough non-Pegasi lived in the wealthy sections of town, that property taxes paid for the magic necessary for the roads, earthworks, and foundations necessary for keeping buildings aloft. Being a unicorn in Las Pegasus, I learned, paid better than working anywhere else in Equestria other than Canterlot if you weren't prone to falling nightmares and if you could cast long-lasting stasis codicils to transforms of Levitate. I could cast them for Illuminate, which is why I could light the ceiling of a room, but I couldn't manage it for dynamic spells. 

An orange sunrise lit lawns and flower beds of marigolds and petunias, as well as wood frame houses with red shake roofs, next to sculpted Art Neighveau cloudominiums. It was nerve-wracking, having to be careful not to mistake a puff of fog for foundational cloud. A moment of absentmindedness would send me falling to my death. 

His house had a veneer of flagstones—where heavy equaled expensive—and a grey clay-tile roof. From a distance, I saw him leave with bodyguards in time to supervise the breakfast buffets. No surprise there. Same as the day before. Carne Asada had booked me for visits to her "colleagues" this evening, but I had plenty of free time, and she had guards for the hotel. This was our third day on holiday, and she hadn't asked for progress on her message. 

She would ask, though.

A shadow glided across the cloud house. Crystal Skies fluttered down and landed on the "fog bank." Of course he did. 

"Well?" I asked.

"Got it. Just like in Baltimare. He filed blueprints with Building and Safety when he built his dream house five years ago. Got a variance, too. Excessive weight." The pegasus glanced back, then flutter-hopped down the street so we were out of sight from Grape Sucker's house before unrolling small copies of the plans from his saddle bags. "See here." His long blue primary feather, sharp as a knife and glittering with ruby edges, sliced right through the paper. "That's a vault." He grinned.

I grinned back.


#


I wore the tan business suit Carne Asada had made for me. It had bell bottom slacks that made kicking easy, and a short sleeve blouse, with a white cravat. I matched it with a tan scarf and I wore the contacts, with my hair in a bun. I wanted to look at least twenty, and business-like, especially if the opportunity arose to learn something from the stallion.

Crystal Skies did a loop de loop and Citron kept his distance in his teenager-visiting-Las Pegasus giddy-up. Safe and Broomhill Dare had returned home on business, while Crystal Skies' sister(?), Daylily, spent the day showing Pig Pen the casinos. The pretty white albino Salernitano pegasus had chatted me up briefly, like a noble evaluating a peer, and told me to take care of "Crys." I took a shine to her and didn't object to Pig Pen's day off. I trotted half a block from the house, calculating vectors, when he nodded. 

Nopony looking. I teleported.

The cynical part of me expected the spell to fail. The pegasus lieutenant had a vault, for Celestia's Sake. Had to be stacked floor to ceiling with gold bits, obviously. I'd used the spell enough to know it wouldn't work if I'd injure myself, like materializing in a wall or with gold bits in my chest.

I teleported into complete darkness.

I knew I'd arrived because of the loud pop that made my ears feel like somepony had jabbed a stick into them. That, and that I could breathe the albeit stuffy, frost-scented air. I was so surprised, I fumbled casting Illuminate three times in a row then splashed the entire interior of the vault in blue-green light.

The pantry-sized interior had three aisles of shelves. It wasn't entirely empty.

I said, "I'm in, guys. No gold. No bodies, either, if you were wondering."

Faintly, I heard Citron. "Really?" The vault walls must have been making a difference in the magical connection.

I saw rolled up blueprints, photo albums, and ledger books. I knew the latter well. I'd spent hours two days a week with those back in Grin Having, learning the craft as it were. Not wanting to be made a foal, I trotted down all the aisles, checking carefully for hidden boxes, fake shelves, cantrips, or wards. The thick walls ate sound and muffled my breathing in a way that hurt in its own unique way. I detected nothing hidden and no countermeasures.

They blueprints were of the house, the original restaurant, various sections of the hotel, and another project in-progress. I renewed the lighting spell. The photo album looked like family shots. A little filly, a young mom. They made me think of my dead parents and I didn't want to start crying thinking that my celebrity parents hadn't thought to take enough family pictures of us.

The ledgers. Someone took care to write things down. In really little letters and numbers. I found myself breathing hard and realizing that the air was a bit stale in here.

I had had twenty minutes to recover from the first teleport. The last few days were enough to convince me no one remained in the house; nopony I couldn't handle, in any case. I visualized the blueprint for a moment, carefully calculated my vectors so I wouldn't waste a single splendor, and teleported into the office outside of the vault.

What an office! Very modern. Tasteful. Everything was polished metal, glass, or black-veined white marble. Orange and tan travertine tile provided an earthy floor for the hooves and medium olive-brown walnut wood lined the walls, accenting the white plaster ceiling. Light from skylights and frosted windows made it welcoming and warm. Too cheery for my tastes, but I could work here. I first checked for other ledgers or other evidence I might want to return to Carne Asada, but found nothing other than stuff I would expect running a restaurant or hotel business on a weekly or monthly basis. It looked legit.

I cleared a space. These ledgers went back years. I started crosschecking.


#


Crystal Skies shouted through the gum, "Sucker and his guards just pulled up in a pegasus limousine. Get ready to skip with whatever treasure you've stolen." 

Citron said, "I can be in front or back to fight. Just give me the word!"

I closed the ledger. I said, "Stand down. Just keep in earshot. I got this."

Crystal Skies said, "You're kidding, right?"

"Not so much," I said.

What I didn't want was to let certain secrets out. I took my time and worked up Force. Regardless of how this all turned out, Grape Sucker was going to have to pay something, and fixing his vault would be the least of it. When I was done, part of the metal door had melted and dripped to the travertine tile. The stone made a very loud cracking sound as it cooled, and I took the opportunity to break out a large window to the backside of the house at the same time for good measure. That helped to lessen the burnt metal stink in the air.

It also informed the bodyguards of the intruder in the house.

I popped out Shield, queued some Levitate transforms, and put Teleport at the end of the queue so as not to be entirely stupid. I positioned myself to be immediately visible as ponies came down the hall, and recognizable as Carne Asada's daughter. I hoped everypony running my way had seen me at the party.

That turned out to be two earth pony mares in black suits, knobby blackjack horseshoes, white blouses, and black ties leading the way for Grape Sucker himself in his signature white shirt and slacks. His dapper black bow tie lay pulled open at his neck. Caramel eyes looked wary.

"Carne Asada's daughter," the two bodyguards said, slowing down.

"Miss Glitter," said Grape Sucker, passing them by. "What are you doing here?" His eyes took in the destruction behind me and the blue-green aura around my horn, as well as floating in front of me. He waved a curt hoof and his mares stopped behind him at the ready.

I let the shield vanish, but kept it spinning in my horn at the ready. I said, "I'd like to speak to you in private, if you don't mind."

I glanced left at the desk. He was at the entrance to the room, further than his guards. It was enough for him to see the ledgers as I trotted on up to him as he stiffened up in recognition. Turns out that he was my height. I reached over, tilted my head slightly, and gave him an open-mouthed kiss.

After a slightly surprised jerk and a dainty whinny, he returned it. Ohhh, ho, ho. He knew what he was doing!

"Bubblegum?" he murmured.

One mare said worriedly to the other, "Is that the 'Kiss of Death?"

I stepped back and said, "No, it's not," then demurely, "Could you please leave us. Now?"

Grape Sucker said, "You can leave."

The pair grumbled, but retreated and I heard a door latch. I said, "I didn't think they'd listen to me. I'd have thrown Carne Asada out of the house were I in their place regardless of your orders. But that's me."

Grape Sucker rubbed a hoof across his lips and looked at me. "I think you're a little too young to be looking at me like you're looking at me."

"Says who?" I returned.

"My point."

I rolled my eyes and stepped back, then cracked my gum because I could. "We have business to attend to here, Sucker," I said, changing my tone. I thumped the ledger up and down with Levitate, rattling the glass. 

His eyes drifted back toward the vault. "Did you break open my safe? Did you burn anything inside?" he asked worriedly.

I banged the desk again. "I didn't burn your plans or pictures, if that what you're concerned about," I said.

He relaxed, the tilt of his ears going from looking sick to forward and very worried.

"Carne Asada sent me with a message for you."

"So, that really was the kiss of death."

"Now you're making me mad. These books make me think there is a great big communications problem going on here, or something. You have a vault larger than most banks with no gold inside. You keep meticulous books. Perhaps auditing your receipts will turn up something that doesn't balance, but other than the new hotel construction project, I can't figure out what's wrong here other than some overruns. Your profits are low. Maybe you need a management revamp, but I'm not seeing embezzlement. I got test ledgers sent at me enough times to know what those horse apples look like."

"Yeah, Miss Glitter, you figured it out. Give the message and leave. Doña Asada will take care of the rest."

My ears folded forward and I narrowed my eyes. "Are you listening to me?"

He walked over to a book shelf with crystal flasks. He opened one with a wing and I ripped it away with Levitate. I opened it up and sniffed. I smelled brandy mixed with cider. I filled his glass. "You drink a lot."

"What's left for me?"

"Apathetic a lot?"

He drank it down in one go and grimaced. 

Out loud, I said, "I wonder what's worse than dying? I think we need to take a field trip," I said to benefit a wider audience.

Not wanting him to realize I teleported him, I blindfolded him and held my legs over his ears. His apparent apathy helped and he proved docile, doing as I directed. I couldn't hide that a few minutes later we took a taxi out of his neighborhood without trotting through his house, but a least I didn't have the burden of his bodyguards following us around. He did balk when I had him direct us to the new construction site. I'd spent some minutes comparing the new construction and the plans in my head to the first hotel that had been built out from his original restaurant. What lay around me was nowhere as grand or groundbreaking as that first hotel. Instead, this one would be elegant, concentrating on a luxury spa and resort experience. Whereas the first hotel was a squatter, wider version of Canterlot Castle, this would have wide expanses of oval buildings, courtyards, and pools. It had been under construction for four years. I expected something more complete, but, other than watching Sire's Hallow Manor being built, I hadn't been tutored in construction.

As the taxi driver trotted to a halt at the green fence outside the construction site, I spoke out first. "I expected more progress."

The four of us donned yellow hard hats and entered the site. Most of the foundations had been poured. Not all of them. Expanses of cloud had been gathered at the edge of Las Pegasus. There were rings and swaths of cloud inside cement inside cloud. The magic to support the foundations cost bits; the gathering of extra cloud also cost bits. It saw a half-finished main dance casino and one hotel wing. Workers were busy, with pegasus flying to and fro.

Not that many, however. 

Not as many for the materials being bought and the labor being paid. Eyeballing it, I estimated it didn't balance. Not hardly. I waved my team back so it was the two of us.

Grape Sucker pointed with his front hoof at what looked like a sidewalk, but made of clouds. "I'm going to step right over there. Don't stop me."

I put my left rear hoof below his right hip joint and swept his leg out from under him to pivot him over. I used Levitate and brought him down on his right side with a gentle oof! that barely emptied his lungs. You'd think everypony had been working diligently, but practically all the workers saw when I sat down on his shoulders, pinning him to the cement.

I glared down at him. "And here I was thinking of jumping into bed with you. Are you trying to scar me for life?"

He thought about it for a moment. "Scar you for life?" He started laughing at some inside joke, not like I'd just stopped him from killing himself.

"Embezzlement?" I asked.

"Just let me jump."

"Your answer makes no sense. Where's the bits?"

"Let's save Doña Asada trouble. I jump. She closes it down. Problem over."

"Next answer that's a lie, I break your nose. Embezzlement?"

Our eyes locked. I didn't want to do this, especially with a construction yard of work ponies looking. I took his nose in both hooves... waiting.

Neither of us blinked.

I said, "Please."

"Not embezzlement. Blackmail." 

I jumped up and shouted, "Celestia on roller-skates." I paced in a circle around him, letting things click together. The pictures in the vault and his worry about them, and the plans. Dread started to build. I added, "Tell them to get back to work. Shout it! Now."

He did, standing. They did, finding other jobs to make themselves scarce.

I brought the other two over and pointed to our ears. "Tell me."

He whispered, "I was born a mare."

I blinked. 

Awkward, considering the image Grape Sucker cultivated. 

Explained his high-register voice and the practiced masculinity. The always wearing pants, too. I didn't see how his being different from other ponies made much a difference in the syndicate, but ponies always had personal reasons for secrets. I rudely looked for his stallion parts. His tight slacks didn't leave much for the imagination, including his purposely not wearing undergarments. Prosthetics?

He added, "I transitioned five years ago."

I decided not to quip that I'd still give him a ride. I looked at the wide-eyed lemon meringue colt and blue pegasus. "Him," I said.

They nodded. 

He added, "I had a daughter. They'll hurt her if I stop funding the project as they demand. If the police get involved. If it gets in the news. I'm pretty sure she's safe if I'm dead."

I shook my head. "The project looked like a good idea to me."

"I put it up to bid as everypony does. Little did I know that the lowest bidder would be crooks and blackmailers."

"So says the guy working for the C.A. Syndicate."

His face darkened. "I'm a hotelier. She's my largest investor."

I rolled my eyes. At least he didn't say something about washing bits clean for her, a concept or perhaps a fetish that had thoroughly confused me since I'd overheard somepony mention big establishments laundered them. 

I asked, "Did you tell Carne Asada?"

"Do I look like I want to be unnecessarily dead?"

Citron add, "Says a pony who threatened to step on open clouds. Wait! You're a pegasus!"

"I'm not a strong flyer."

I glared. He was pegasus. Did he think I was a foal?

"What? My mother is an earth pony."

"The one that named you Grape Sucker. Uh, huh."

"So is my father. I was adopted."

I wanted to hit my head against a wall, but none nearby were taller than knee height. "Do you know where your daughter is?"

"My ex made a big stink when I made my decision on who I was. Said I was confusing Hyperglide and that my work caused me to neglect my responsibilities at home, and that I hung out around shady characters. With Carne Asada in the background, back then still fighting indictments, he could easily make his point."

"Do you know?"

"I gave up custody to him, which doesn't mean I don't love her. It's just... I don't know what it is, other I can't be there. I pay child support, and a lot more voluntarily. I'm making sure she goes to the best schools when she gets to college. She's probably older than you."

I growled. "Do you have an address?"

"Of course. I mail bits weekly."
> Chapter 62 — The Case of the Missing Hyperglider
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

We found the address in the pegasus part of town. It had paved roads for non-pegasus traffic, but houses carved from clouds. Tract houses. Not very imaginative. Blocky bungalows, with lots of windows on a single floor and no yard. Crystal Skies looped around back, and then peered in the front picture windows, before smacking down on the pavement where the taxi let us off.

"Looks suspicious."

"How so?"

"Can I break in?"

I shrugged. He zipped off. Not being a pegasus, I'd have presumed you could kick a cloud house apart like any other cloud. Nah-uh. Crystal Skies had other skills, apparently, and returned with a report. "I don't think anypony lives there. The air is musty and the clouds are thin in places. I think it gets renewed monthly, probably maintained by somepony not well paid. The furniture is pushed up to the windows to make it look used. It isn't."

"Hyperglide doesn't live here?"

"Sorry, Pops." Crystal Skies operated the mail box, showing it was empty, then pointed at the mail mare a couple blocks down in the sky. "It's only a mail drop."

His ears drooped.

I asked, "When did you mail your last payment."

"Yesterday."

My stomach growled. "A quick lunch, then we see where that letter goes after it arrives today."


#


Crystal Skies traced the letter to a mansion compound in a wealthy part of town. If what I suspected was true, it took more than the substantial number bits Grape Sucker provided his daughter weekly to pay for the palatial setting. 

I had my theories.

It could all be extortion by a private concern. In my mind, building the hotel and keeping it legit seemed like a better bit-generating enterprise, but then I wasn't a crook.

It could be a competing syndicate. That made sense in that it weakened Carne Asada while gaining prestige and power for itself.

It could be Grape Sucker's ex. Some ponies were no good, considering what he put Grape Sucker and their daughter through. I bet the stallion's cutie mark would be a humdinger. 

I decided that since we'd come this far, we might as well stake it out. I didn't have the firepower to take somepony protected by a compound like this one. What I needed was further information. I knew that Grape Sucker was the victim here, and his daughter even more so. The fellow had taken a small wine café and transformed it into a premiere event venue in Las Pegasus and created the Plumage Pack, magnifying the previously important but not as individually famous stars. Well, except for Dino. Grape Sucker was an asset; I wanted to provide reasons to prevent Carne Asada from writing him off.

A bus stop twenty pony-lengths from the compound gate proved perfect. Lots of bland white-washed stucco wall, a simple bench with a roof casting needed shadow, and a roadway. One glance and I could cast Don't See, Don't Look, Don't Hear all day.  Keep a hoof on me, I explained, and nopony would notice us.

Standing and sitting there for hours did prove uncomfortable. In this snooty neighborhood, only the hired help used the busses, so nopony bothered us. A few carriages and taxis passed by. One discharged ponies in suits that knocked at the gates, then entered the compound. Grape Sucker did not recognize anypony. 

Grape Sucker said, "What if it's where the accountant lives?"

I answered, "Well paid accountant, then. If they live here, then it's important to see who owns the compound and pays the bills." I did notice the sun dipping lower in the sky. Soon I had my appointments with Carne Asada and would have to explain all that I found. 

Another limo pulled by four earth ponies in red livery cantered up. I'd been working with Carne Asada long enough that I queued up Teleport as well as Levitate, being careful not to actuate it enough that I might lose our cover spell.

The hoof pony on the running board at the back of the carriage wore a blousy white shirt and a black tie and sunglasses. He jumped off and hurried to the door. I stood up and so did the others, following me as I took a step forward.

A silver-grey pegasus with a white mane and a three-jag yellow lightning bolt cutie mark hopped down. She had silver-rimmed glasses with thick lenses that magnified blue eyes. Silver saddle bags with the same three-jag mark, overstuffed with giant tomes, weighed her down so much that she made an audible plunk as she hit the ground. She sighed, but soldiered on, taking a first ponderous step. She looked sixteen or seventeen.

Grape Sucker yelled, "Hyperglide!"

I shrieked and jumped aside, scattering the four of us and breaking the spell.

The filly looked our way. So did her hoof pony and pull team, who were likely also bodyguards.

I spun up Levitate and prepared to fight to protect my idiot new client.

As the hoof ponies turned and moved into motion, and Crystal Skies jumped into the air and Citron dove to the right with his horn already glowing bright yellow, amber eyes turned our direction. Magnified, I saw the filly's eyes blink once, then twice, then widen. 

Her saddle bags slid off. "Mommy!"

One instant she was by the carriage—

The next instant it was if a punching bag had slammed into me. The sonic boom that came coincident tore off my scarf and blew back my hair, leaving my ears ringing.

I thought, no way her parents knew to name her Hyperglide as an infant.

I had been slammed together into the pair's tearful hug, each calling "Mommy" and "baby-filly" repeatedly. Then I heard, "Daddy died five years ago and I've been so alone!"

Around us, bodyguards started shooting. Citron set the carriage ablaze, and then the stucco wall on fire. I hoped that was because it had a wood frame.

I hadn't lost my spell queue. During training, Safe worked hard at spooking me and upsetting my balance, and sometimes beating me up to help me learn to keep my spell prep under duress, even when my horn got hit. I kept calculating my vectors. I had been working on them for hours, so it didn't take much refining, despite having to back my oblivious charges away from the live-fire zone, ready to pop up my piss-poor Mirror-Shield.

Finally I had enough: Their sugar, and my prep. "Take a deep breath," I shouted, then crushed their snouts into my chest because likely as not they didn't listen. This served to shut their eyes, too, for good measure.

The world ticked 5° to the right and we leapt into oblivion. A three-fer, over two blocks as the pegasus flies and repeated thrice. New weight record. Luckily, the yellow cab I'd paid a gold bit to wait until sunset still waited. I staggered. Only force of will kept me from passing out.

#

Carne Asada went ballistic, smashing an end table and a lamp with her hooves. Why? I was in no shape to accompany her to her appointment! 

Stupid limits. I puked in the taxi. That cost me a second gold bit to ensure somepony took us to the hotel. I then had the heaves all night. To compound my agony, my magic ceased working for three days, forcing me to do everything like an earth pony foal.

Broomhill Dare laughed her flank off and said I still had to grow into my hooves. Despite the messes I made, Hyperglide insisted I was the coolest mare this side of Canterlot. I told her I was far cooler because I didn't need additional wings to do my tricks.

Things sorted out interestingly after the rescue.

Carne Asada tore up a number of newspapers—because she happened to be in Las Pegasus when a new gang war had broken out and the press noticed the connection. She didn't seem to be upset about that gang war, however. I gathered that a competitor ceased to exist. It was the bad press. She ranted that the EBI would probably be snapping at her tail again and she would have to fix that soon.

Because of the entire adventure, Carne Asada's daughter Glitter ended up with quite a reputation. 

It built over the next month, with rumors that she had the kiss of death. That rumor conflicted with the rumor that she had seduced the pants off of suave Las Pegasus Hotelier Grape Sucker, who suddenly had a glamorous and mysterious daughter himself. The fellow was renowned for having had few mare-friends, but apparently I so impressed him that he had the Plumage Pack serenade me, then I'd swept him off his hooves for a few days-long tryst. 

Word was his special talent had to do with what he could do with his tongue. Our short kiss hinted at that. His last name hinted at a lot. It pissed me off that I never got my chance to ride him. I was willing to bet that there was a lot I really could have learned.

The truth of the few days-long tryst was that I took Grape Sucker's bodyguards and kicked them into shape, a lot of it without my magic. One quit. The next would-be blackmailers would find themselves pulverized. If somepony tried the trick I tried in Grape Sucker's office, Grape Sucker would be safely out of danger so fast he'd have motion sickness. 

Come to think about it, maybe my training regimen had contributed to that kiss of death rumor.
> Chapter 63 — Sometimes You Get What You Ask For
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I read a novel about a mobster that took place by the Sale River in a duchy called Salerno east of Prance, far from Equestria. A dark romance story, populated by overly proud Salernitano ponies, it turned out. Always elegantly tall, both the mares and stallions, with dark eyes and black ears and mane. I thought it would be safe to read in that I wouldn't learn what Carne Asada really did, only what ponies did half-a-century ago. I might learn something about the culture I supported while trying to insulate myself.

Like all good stories, it was an allegory for modern Equestria. Taxes and monopolistic oppression of the common folk abounded, if I understood protection rackets and the peddling of vices properly. Cutie marks and your station at birth pretty much determined your fate, unless you bucked the system and then somepony better, richer, or stronger than you would smash you down. Equality didn't exist. You could be a mobster or a bureaucrat, the author implied. The difference was the level of brutality.

I'd chosen brutality. Peripherally. It did shock me that the giggly peasant filly protagonist ended up murdering her lover when he betrayed the organization. 

The story made me doubly wary of learning what Carne Asada did to earn her bits. I went further and told my team to do the same. I knew I had a lot to learn, yet, and wasn't yet ready to make my break. I didn't want other ponies to make further mistakes on my account.

Carne Asada continued to send me out to deliver messages for her. I ended up meeting dozens of ponies, including those I had met during my first solo delivery fiasco. Surprising how few ponies let me kiss them.

I got a kick out of trying, though.

These meetings entailed miscellaneous discussions about general niceties. There might be prancing around the subject of the message with me working to avoid any actual details of the work involved. Proper Step had taught me to state the problem, then wait and listen. Usually, this involved letting somepony like Waddles Worth do the hoof work, but still, wait and listen applied here. Most of the time, Carne Asada's problem children received the message and found their solution.

One enterprising fellow treated me to a fine restaurant meal afterwards and what looked like would prove an instructional sleepover. Unfortunately, that ended up with a hoof in his stallion parts and a lot of disappointment.

Carne Asada did remark though that he afterward became one of her most loyal ponies. Go figure.

Other messages didn't go over so well. I never had to fight free, even when one lieutenant changed gang affiliation after our heated argument. 

Delivering messages to rival gangs excited me less. Ecology and Economy were two sides of a similar coin. Limited resources supported limited consumers. Carne Asada demanded that her competitor starve themselves. Timberwolves don't take well to losing their forests.

Only my undeserved reputation and Carne Asada's reputedly well-earned fight-beyond-any-reason reputation saved me from any kill-the-messenger situation. Maybe she hoped I'd teleport away?

That had to be it. I was her safety net. I gave her the courage to tighten the reins on all her holdings in northeastern Equestria, and she was doing it. If that meant rival gangs fought her, she didn't care.

I cared. It made my work more interesting and not in a good way. I might actually need to put my skills to the test.

Sometimes you get what you ask for.

It was a hot summer; the evening sun shined along the streets like a fiery beacon. Buildings in this part of town weren't anywhere as tall as in adjacent Manehatten, but for a pony from Grin Having, it did feel like I walked in a canyon. The heat and humidity made me sweat in the business suit I wore. I understood why the teenagers I'd seen in the previous block had broken a fire hydrant and danced in the resultant fountain.

I paced Carne Asada. My team paced me and her two high level associates. Their cadre paced them, and various gang members looking variously disreputable followed along or led the way through the garment district. Vibrant by day, all the shops were closed up now with steel roll-ups over their storefronts, like armor. There was a deli here, a newsstand there, a few salt licks, and ponies trotting in to them. Interspersed were doorways to various walk-up flats above the businesses, next to the warehouses. 

We passed a hotel, but I noted "Residential" in the name and realized it was a by the week or by the hour affair as a down-and-out pony or a frisky couple might require. Ponies, this side of town and wherever I escorted m'lady, sensed we were trouble and kept their distance. Those that loitered, found newspapers to read or a horseshoe that needed cleaning.

A convenient thing about cleaning a horseshoe: while a top notch farrier had specialized curved rasps, nippers, scissors, and scrapes for a hoof-a-cure, most ponies simply used a knife for the task and nopony thought a wit about it. Mind you, going at it in public was particularly crass and low-brow, and my inclination was to actively ignore such behavior like somepony picking his nose.

The shiny new little convex traffic mirror mounted at the lintel was a tad strange, however. It didn't register until the blue pegasus had already flung himself into motion.

We had stepped past the doorway. I was on Carne Asada's right and the doorway on the left. I reacted by trying to push her down and out of my way, triggering a Shove from my queue at the same time.

Inertia won. Carne Asada's horseshoes scraped the pavement and her hidden wings reflexively balanced her. She didn't go down, but twisted into a better target.

He plunged the knife into her neck above her scapula with his wings. My spell threw the assailant head over hindquarters over us into the street, trailing blue feathers gouged out by my overpowering the magic, apparently because saving somepony's life made such things possible. I heard a bang and a crack. The pegasus had meant to rip her open to her ear by barreling her over with his momentum while dragging the knife, but the assassin had lost his wing grip on the hilt and left the knife embedded where it had gone in. 

Small favors.

Carne Asada tensed, her eyes growing wide and wild. I expected any moment to see a fatal pulsing spray of blood, but that didn't happen. The knife remained stuck. I needed her calm while all around us mayhem ensued.

Street covers erupted, then fell, rattling like giant bits rolling then landing on their sides. Out flooded gang members. Hooflyn had far more unicorns than Baltimare, and they joined gangs. Satin capes whipped out from under tee-shirts. Others galloped and soared in. As luck would have it, the Marvel Gang swiftly matched our two dozen with two dozen of their own soldiers.

If they managed a coup d'état, that blue pegasus would be infamous. I had to prevent that. I had to prevent Carne Asada from dying, first.

Carne Asada bared her fangs and screamed, "Kill that Boludo! Kill him! Kill him!" She went off in pure Equidorian after that, rearing, and shouting. Her veins showed through her skin as she did, and blood actively leaked from around the knife she either could not feel, or couldn't care about.

I flicked a side-hoof against her head and she crumpled into my waiting Levitate spell. 

A golden Force bolt shot past me followed by an answering squealing whinny. Citron interposed himself and used his sweaty teenage flank to back me into the doorway the assassin had lurked in. Flicking his tail angrily, he said, "Don't get us both killed protecting you."

"I won't," I said.

He glanced at Carne Asada, lips compressing, and leapt back into the fray.

I thought about the residential hotel. The convex traffic mirror helped me confirm my recollections as to where it was across the street not far away. Sitting, I clamped Carne Asada's nose and mouth shut and cast Teleport.

I popped into a dim apartment. The sun had started to fade, but it left the tweed rug and brown sofa looking orange instead of slightly dirty. The overhead light cast a wane bluish light that might seem brighter later in the evening.

"Excuse me," said an older unicorn in a sleeveless tee-shirt, levitating a bottle of cheap cider and a sports section. He stood in front of a ratty chair, eyes growing wider. His eyes flicked from me, to Carne Asada, to the knife in her neck and the blood dripping toward the floor.

He looked away. "I'll just stay at my brother-in-law's in Queens, tonight," he said, walking out with the bottle and the newspaper, not even locking the door behind him. I was in 5F-West.

I believed him. I doubted he'd call the constabulary. Ponies knew what was good for them.

I took the rest of the newspaper and laid it down to catch the blood, then took off my saddlebags, laying out my first aid kit. My heart was racing, and for a moment I wondered if I needed a sedative, first. I'd seen blood before, mine more than others. I also knew pony anatomy. I'd been tutored. 

Tutored. I had been taught from when I woke to when I had fallen into my bed exhausted, every day of my life as an earl. Now. Because of my newer profession, I'd actually refreshed what I'd learned.

I felt really bad. I couldn't believe I'd let this happen. The one time we had been attacked, I'd failed my job.

"Stop it!"

I took a deep breath. I looked at Carne Asada. I could see what the blue pegasus had intended. Maybe my actions had helped. He had wanted to slice up and down, perpendicular to the axis of her body, or side to side. I had caused him instead to rotate the blade downward so he inserted the knife parallel to her skin and toward her scapula. The point had bounced off the bone, protecting her vitals and major blood vessels.

Had to hurt, though. All my fault.

I started to shake. Fortunately, that didn't affect the accuracy of my Levitate spells. I applied antiseptic. I shaved around the wound. I wadded bandages as sponges. Got sutures and needles threaded, and bandages rolled out. Her red dress kept her wings pinned, but I'd have to bandage around her neck. I set to work with the sharp but too small implements meant for working with the bandages.

Wings better suited to a bat slumped out. Denuded of feathers. Leathery. With a center claw and an end claw that might be pretty useful, if it somehow compensated for her not being able to fly. I checked her eyes and hoped I hadn't given her a bad concussion, but she breathed normally. One bad spasm, a roll to the side, or movement of a wing and she could sever something.

I settled my magic around the hilt, hoping that if I could pull it out the magic would not let me harm her. My theory, anyway. The curse on my magic ought to be useful for something.

Up. Up. Up. Carne Asada moaned. The small hunting knife clattered on the floor.

I pressed wadded bandages to staunch the flow, but I'd had worse bleeders. Bleeding was bad, but cut tendons took a long time to heal. In any case, Carne Asada would remember my failures. I sewed, bandaged, and applied pressure for the length of the entire wound.

I sewed then applied med-thorns. I was well aware that the blue pegasus had been cleaning his hooves prior to the attack. Sepsis was more deadly than poison due to a lack of an antidote.

I wiped the perspiration away that dripped into my eyes. The mare had mumbled. Though I couldn't understand a word, I felt certain she said, "Kill him."

Even if Carne Asada survived, the Marvel Gang lieutenant would be infamous. My reading of the Salerno novel made me think recruiting would go through the roof.

I trotted to the window and looked into the street. I tensed. I felt a bit scattered, but I'd gotten her bandaged in no more than five minutes. I dragged away the sofa to get a better angle closer to the building, to see that more ponies had arrived. Reinforcements. Both sides. I wasn't aware C.A. had reinforcements. Well, of course not. I made a point of such things not being my department.

Wagons in the street were on fire. Shops had been torn open; ponies used metal awnings as shields to fight behind. I spotted the blue pegasus. The miscreant fluttered, dodging a force bolt, gesturing for others to move. The leader. The planner.

The assassin.

"Kill him," I heard. Carne Asada lay unconscious, breathing regularly, her mauve leathery wings twitching.  I ought to stay monitoring her. Her dress lay cut to rags beside her. I focused on her drop of blood cutie mark.

I had let this happen. I owed her.

I stepped over, calculating the math for two spells as I queued them into my horn. My heart beat strongly as my passions rose. I knew my magic well. Made of rainbows or whatever, made to grant wishes, it needed to be managed properly. I bent my neck and brought my limbs to the floor and clamped my teeth around the hilt of the knife.

I positioned it with my tongue so it pointed out. A crust dissolved and tasted salty.

A part of me wanted to be disgusted. A part of me gathered strength instead.

I couldn't keep two spells in mind at once. No I couldn't, but in my current state of certitude, I came very close. I remembered what it looked like have been there on the street, where the blue pegasus had launched himself from the doorway. I knew every detail of that doorway, the surrounding sidewalk, and the closed shops on either side. I knew the position to within a hoof-length.

My in-teleport made a loud bang as I showed up where Citron had pushed me, where the blue pegasus had waited. Frost steamed up as I calmly cast and felt the math of Don't Look, Don't See, Don't Hear balance. The numbers spun blue and red, particularly shiny as the sun neared the horizon and buildings blocked the light. I looked around, confirming what I remembered, adding it to my mental map. I glanced into the traffic mirror, confirming my surroundings and the fighting. The yelling and battle had hid my in-teleport bang, or nopony felt the need to investigate.

I ventured out.

I saw him.

He fluttered down, three storefronts to my left onto an overturned smoking wagon. All I had to do was not get hit by stray magic or thrown pavement. I crept forward, rolling the knife in my mouth to ensure that the cutting edge would be the direction I would strike.

I would make an example of this pony, exactly as Carne Asada wanted me to.

I had to step over an unconscious red earth pony, one of ours I didn't recognize. He bled from a cut across his eyes. His chest moved, so the sooner I got this over, the better.

Another Marvel gang member galloped up, gesturing to the right. The pegasus laughed. Nopony looked where I was. Best I could tell, the fighting had moved half a block away.

All I had to do was rear and hug him. If I did that, I'd repay what he had intended for Carne Asada. If I did it right—and since I'd been tutored in anatomy I was pretty sure I could aim this right—he'd be gone in one heartbeat.

I froze.

He would feel nothing? I was being... nice? 

He had shown no mercy.

There were more important things to a pony than his life.

I reared as the pegasus flared his wings and I ducked my head as feathers whooshed past my ears and missed smacking my horn. He bent his legs to take off, but I was a trained fighter. I thrust forward, with my shoulders and neck, the curved razor-edge of the hunting knife. I didn't miss. In fact, I was aided by the uplift of his wing, his baring and stretching tendons and clearly revealing the joint.

My illusion spell, of course, broke the instant I chose to strike. It had to do so as that's how my magic worked. I saw his magenta eyes as he turned his head, reacting reflexively to my sudden appearance and furious motion. I'm sure he recognized Carne Asada's daughter, even as he tried to torque himself away.

It didn't help. I had worked incessantly to make Grape's training part of my muscle memory and I shifted unerringly as he did. I felt the impact against my teeth and lips.

It... crackled. 

Cartilage. 

I didn't cut deep. I didn't have to. I couldn't have as tendons are very rubbery and resilient. I did slice the artery, though, and the spray blinded me. Saved me from more than glimpsing muscles displacing unrestrained bone—

His scream would live with me forever.

What had I done!?

Moments later, a pony meteor barreled into me. By all rights, it ought to have been a Marvel gang member who then should have torn my head off. Instead it was Safe.

"You crazy Mare! Oh, Sweet Celestia!" I felt him whirl away from the horror. "What did you do?"

I curled into a ball and started retching. I heard Twee! Twee! It was a block or so away, but the constabulary had finally arrived.

"Newbies," he spat, catching me up and throwing me over his back. "Don't cut me with that thing! Don't drop it, either. It's evidence of a crime."

I had the knife in my mouth. I couldn't see. In the arena, I'd been sprayed in the eyes with blood more that once, but it had never stung this bad. 

He asked, "Where's the boss?"

"In the Residential," I said around the hilt, then started heaving again, my ribs pumping. So glad I'd skipped lunch! "5C-West. I sewed her up."

"Good filly."

I corrected him, saying, "Bad pony," and began to cry. 

Now I was The Monster.


#


Broomhill Dare stayed with me when we got to the hotel suite. She kept me standing as I stumbled into the wall and smashed my shoulder into the door frame, then nearly brained myself on the porcelain sink. The knife clattered to the white tiles. She kept me from drowning myself in the commode for my lack of strength. Or I unconsciously wanted...

The orange mare evidently didn't think I was a danger to myself because she eventually left me jittering and jerking on the floor as if I'd had too much caffeine. She flushed the toilet and said, "I'll make a pot of chamomile."

Maybe it had to do with me telling her that I would set her on fire if she hugged me.

I lifted myself up to the sink. I saw my green eyes, but my face was painted in brown. Not red. Of course not. It had dried. Scabby brown.

I retched anew. 

It took five minutes before I returned to the sink and it felt like I had sprained my diaphragm and burnt my throat raw. I looked into my eyes. Each blink I saw either a spray of red or a flash of lightning.

Monster.

I swallowed.

I ripped off the ruined tan suit with my magic, then reached with a hoof for the swan wing spigots. I began to wash. I washed my hooves. I washed my legs. I washed my muzzle. I washed my face. I washed my neck. I bent forward and washed my mane.

I washed my hooves. I washed my legs. I washed my muzzle. I washed my face. I washed my neck. I bent forward and washed my mane. 

I washed my hooves. I washed my legs. I washed my muzzle...

Eventually I had to stop. I'd used up the tiny hoof soap, and the microscopic bath soap, and the little bottle of shampoo. Nothing I did made me feel clean. 

I had been tutored in pony psychology. It was that friendship thing again, wasn't it? Easy answers to difficult questions, and I had broken those rules. I knew I had a lot to learn, especially certain lessons I knew I'd neglected simply because I mistrusted them. I knew they were wrong. I admit that I didn't know what was right, either.

I felt certain I could not ever be clean.

The hunting knife stood bright and sparkling on the drainboard behind the puking swan spigot. I'd cleaned it too in my mania. That was the term, I knew. The tool was razor sharp. I could shave fur down to the skin with that. The thing could be used to find truffles, dig magical roots, trim rope, protect against tassle-worms. Or to commit murder.

The knife clattered into the sink, my Levitate spell broken. 

Of course it broke. My magic wouldn't let me jab it into the base of my horn no matter how much I thought doing so might protect other ponies from harm.

I turned away. I needed a different plan, a more friendly plan.

The orange pony standing there had turned ashen. She slapped me so hard it loosened a tooth. She said, "You try that again and I'm going to kill you!"

I tilted my head, a bit confused, before she hugged me taking my breath away. The warmth and contact made a difference. Didn't make me feel cleaner, though. It merely made the pieces of crazed pottery feel glued together better.

Eventually she asked me a question. It wasn't what I expected.

"Carne Asada isn't in 3C-West. Did you remember the right room number? Safe doesn't want to tear the place apart—"

"Oh, shoot..."
> Chapter 64 — The Perfect Assassin
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hooflyn Mount Canterlot Hospital on Manehatten Ave and Princess Hwy made the general hospital back in Sire's Hollow look like a small clinic in comparison. It stretched into three wings, with three floors above ground and one below. Like in Baltimare, it had been built of brick, but here the brick had been purpose-built to look nice. Colored various warm shades of leafy and woody brown in color, they harmonized with the mud brown-framed windows each supplied with magical air coolers to deal with the hot summer air. Pink and white flowers under tall trees tried to convince a pony this wasn't the middle of a big oppressive city. 

The interior had been recently renovated, with plenty of glass and polished steel, but also a lot of soft fabric in cheery greens and yellows. Dancing mares and hearts dotted pillars and beams. Of course they did: Princess Celestia was the mane benefactor of the establishment.

I guess she could do some good.

It was my third visit and today, as previously, it wasn't as Carne Asada's daughter or Gelding. Previously, I'd been some random pony who had come to volunteer. Hospitals always needed volunteers and, inscrutably, ponies always wanted new friends, so that allowed me to visit all the public floors, and some of the restricted areas. I chatted up lonely patients and ran messages.  I had easily found the room the constables guarded. I'd learned the nurse's rounds. I'd scoped out what rooms contained what equipment and what hallways had the least traffic, while being the most helpful mare I could be. I worked hard. I had to—or I might start thinking about sprayed blood or about Carne Asada's reaction to my solution.

At least she hadn't killed me.

These last few days I'd worked until I dropped from exhaustion into sleep. That helped. Now to see if my alternate plan would do the job, psychologically.

I had washed all the mauve dye out of my hair and tail, and replaced it with a green that matched my natural stripe. It wasn't the right shade, but two tone worked well when I braided it into pigtails. I tied a blue ribbon into my tail that matched the blue ribbon tie on my blouse. I'd purchased the middle school uniform in a thrift shop and tailored it so it didn't restrict my movement, and to fit my fuller form. I'd have been in high school now had I been a normal pony. The middle school blouse made the larger saddlebags look in scale and less likely to be searched. The school uniform only had a blouse.

I was still a blank flank.

Thank Celestia! And when I say that, I mean that with all the gratitude I can possibly muster. It had occurred to me later—after the OCD washing, after the slap, after being chewed out by Carne Asada—that I had been really talented at what I had done. 

What if that had proved to be my special talent?

My heart beat into my throat. Heat welled up and my ears began to ring, my mind trying to erase the world in a glare of white. I stood in the lobby of the hospital and I turned toward the display of ferns, tears streaming down from my eyes, soaking my cheeks. What if I had gotten a cutie mark in that? What if I had gotten a cutie mark for being a... monster—?

"Little filly, are you all right?"

Relative silence replaced the scream in my head.

The elderly yellow mare had white speckles throughout her muzzle and silver throughout her flowing mane and tail. Green eyes regarded me through thick glasses. Finer Touch was the afternoon reception volunteer. I turned and buried my face in her mane. It smelled of orange blossoms.

It was true. I was broken.

"Now, now, deary."

"My mommy."

She walked me toward the desk. "This is the right place for her to be."

"I-I know."

"Do you need help getting to her room?"

I shook my head vigorously, beating myself with the pigtails but not looking up. No need to push the limits of my disguise. I mentioned the number of a room on a floor below where I needed to be. Crystal Skies had pulled plans for the hospital, so I had confirmed everything I needed to know, and knew distances to the hoof length. I magicked the pink date-coded sticker in place and proceeded down the hall.

I continued blinking away tears. I really had frightened myself. Again.

The nurses in lemon-lime pajama uniforms, decorated with roses and plush purple bears, were too busy to bother with ponies that weren't asking for help. Hospitals are generally quiet places by design, but not silent. There are always beeps and boops of flashing monitors. Ponies moan. Wheelchairs are opened or hoofrests put down. Infusion stands rolled with unbalanced wheels, hit walls as ponies in blue gowns stumbled through the hall, or were knocked over. Trays clatter.

Teleport spells pop. 

Actually, I timed it with a pony banging a bed pan against a tray table calling for the nurse. That worked.

I appeared in the blue pegasus' room, ducking down and casting the second spell, trying to take in everything I could see as fast as I could do so. I'd been in enough rooms that I knew the standard equipment and the standard layout of the odd numbered rooms in this wing. I expected that the young stallion would likely be asleep, dozing, or least likely reading a book. I'd have a few seconds to solidify my awareness of the room. I ducked below the tray table and monitor that had been pushed aside along with a chair and an open privacy curtain. A little more stuff than I expected, but that made it easier to hide and I worked to add it to my mental model.

The door to the room opened, bringing in my first test. Hydraulics prevented it from banging into the wall, but it revealed a constable. A purple earth pony with a short brown mane peered in with brown eyes, his blue peaked cap askew. I could not miss the displayed copper badge.

He had a baton clamped in his teeth. Around it, he asked, "Did you knock over something?"

Hyperventilating came from the bed. I looked. At this point, I realized Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear was working. The blue pegasus' left side, including his foreleg, was immobilized in a cast. Made sense, since both appendages shared muscles. His eyes looked bloodshot. He didn't have bags under his eyes; he had luggage. He had shoved himself up in the bed so he was against the headboard, with all the tubes and wires trailing from the monitors and infusion bags. "They're here. They've come for me. They're going to get me."

The copper turned toward the nurses' desk. "Twinklestar. Blue Lightning needs his shot, before he breaks something again."

A rotund red mare bustled in, complimenting and cajoling, getting Blue Lightning to relax so she could lay him back down. She injected something into his lines and nattered on with him about little stupid things that made him smile. Or it was the happy juice.

I understood how that worked. Carne Asada had gotten me valerian root. I chewed on some right now. It tasted like eating dirt, but it often helped, despite my crying earlier.

The nurse left.

So he had taken psychological damage, too? I can't say that I was entirely unhappy about that. Stabbing Carne Asada hadn't affected him. I'd seen him laughing and gleeful before I... Best that he had a taste of what he needed to feel, I thought.

I took a deep breath and got up. The nurse had left the door open a hoof length. I slowly pushed it closed, then held the latching handle, letting it close and latch soundlessly and waited.

Nothing.

I looked back toward the bed. Cheap flowers lay on the nightstand. Two of the three sunflowers, the spicy hot ones with the black centers, had been chomped on. I saw a couple of newspaper sport sections, of course. I approved. It didn't surprise me to see the latest issue of Playpony. I liked Playfilly myself when I could wheedle a copy from Crystal Skies. Family and friends had visited. He wasn't under arrest as a gang member—I hadn't been 100% sure, but I was now. He had been taken into protective custody as an innocent bystander. His buddies had likely jerked the play cape off of him when he ran, thinking of his friend's family when the constables reported him dead and bled out on the street.

He'd been lucky. As had I.

Blue Lightning stared out at the city. There were plenty of high buildings, but I could see the Hooflyn bridge off to the right. Straight in the distance, across the bay, was where my adventure with Safe as my erstwhile teacher had begun one bright morning. Lots of brick buildings stood surrounded by a few glass skyscrapers that had begun to be built near the shoreline. With pegasus flying to and fro, it was a calming sight.

I had business, though.

I queued Push, to clamp his muzzle closed if I needed. I also worked on vectors for Teleport if I needed them. I had escape routes for me or us, depending on what was necessary. I had the team on standby. Unluckily, I couldn't keep the gum working because of the sight lines, patrolling constables, the incredible amount of vehicular traffic, and all the metal and bricks in the buildings. I wasn't thinking I'd need it, though. In any case, didn't want my ponies hearing me muttering like the deranged filly I'd become.

I took my time. I made sure of everything.

Eventually, I walked in front of the window.

Yes, I've become really good at Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear under the right conditions. Moving traffic and flying pegasi? Well, that's a lot for me to convince a pony he's seeing when he's looking directly at me. Static backgrounds are best.

I waited.

His smile faded and his eyes widened. It was pretty good happy juice, all things considered, or maybe he was as broken as I was: He didn't scream. He only blinked. I didn't even have to let go of my spell.

He whispered, "You are the perfect assassin."

Now it was my turn to blink in confusion. "How so?"

"Carne Asada's daughter? Am I right?"

I shrugged.

He tilted his head and rubbed an eye with his left free hoof and saw me again.

I said, "No, and yes. The thestral called me her spiritual daughter for what I did for her. It makes me sick."

"What?"

"What I did to you."

He huffed. "Yeah. You failed to kill me. I get that. When you blood the knife, you need to complete the deed. The griffon that taught me told me it was easy. Guess she was right: I'm just a soft pony."

I said, "What did you mean?"

"That you failed—?"

"No," I interrupted. "The perfect—"

"The perfect assassin." He shuddered. "I'm as good as dead already. I guess that's why it's so clear. You."

"Me?"

"You. You could knock off any boss you wanted."

Magic didn't work that way. The illusion would break when I struck, but I wasn't going to say that. I shook my head.

He scoffed, emboldened because he thought it didn't matter. I strengthened the Push in the queue, ready to switch the moment he escalated toward hysteria. He continued. "Worst case, if you were pure evil, I could see you creeping into the throne room, stepping up to the princess, and—"

"Stop!" I hissed, keeping my voice down, despite wanting to yell. My spell might make it so ponies didn't hear me, but I wasn't sure that ponies also had to be able to potentially see me to not see me and not hear me. I made a mental note to test that one day.

It took almost a minute of blinking, tears streaming down my face, wrestling out of mind the vision of the Canterlot court dress Carne Asada bought me. Next time I opened my wardrobe, I would burn the rag. Yes, I hated Princess Celestia, but I would not trade my life to take hers. One day I would fight her and conquer her evil, but not that way. Not ever.

Was that Carne Asada's plan for the White Windigo?

I didn't know. Making me her assassin? Well, that wasn't going to work.

I said, "I'm not here to kill you."

He had watched my whole clownish performance. Maybe that's why he smiled. "Are you chicken?"

I pointed a hoof at the pigtails. "Disguise, got it? That's really good happy juice they're giving you."

"Yeah. The best. Get it over with before I start caring again and start screaming. You know, you took everything I really care about in life away from me." His magenta eyes began to grow wider as he thought about what he had just said. 

I said, "As I intended. Did you know you can't stab yourself in the horn using your own magic. I tried."

"You... You, what?"

"It doesn't work that way. It won't let me hurt ponies, including myself. And I am too chicken to use my hooves. I'm not going to kill you."

He opened his mouth widely as he inhaled.

"Unless you make me," I added swiftly. 

His mouth clacked shut. He let the air out silently. I smirked, feeling suddenly slightly better.

I reached into my saddlebags and tried to grab the heavy box in my teeth. It didn't work. Shoot. I glanced at the door. I glanced at Blue Lightning. Well, I could better queue Teleport if I let the illusion spell go. It felt like a fog lifted. The moving digits spinning in your vision become like floaters in your eyes after awhile, but keeping a visualization of your surroundings also in your mind, and thinking deductively at the same time...

I smiled.

"I can see you better," he said. "I think it's wearing off."

I shook my head and levitated out a lavender box. Well, technically, lilac and brown. Imprinted in white letters, it read, "Li-Lac's Chocolates!" It was neither cheap nor gourmet, though I had taken the 60% cacao bonbons inside and melted them together with some rather richer ingredients. I took out other boxes.

"I'm sorry—" I started. 

"Chocolates aren't going to cut it, Glitter. I don't forgive you," he said.

"There a few things you need to know. First of all, I don't forgive you either. You ruined my life a little bit less than Princess Celestia did, but it's a good thing. I think it'll be a good thing for you to."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Good for you. I'm more than half-dead never able to fly again. I hope you feel guilty the rest of your flapping life."

"I will. I did it. I saw it. I'm a monster."

He stopped talking. Wisely.

"There is a unicorn pony named Knitting Needles, a physician in Trottingham. He is a fellow at the Queen Bliss More Medical College and he is a neurosurgeon who specializes in limb reattachment. I talked to a Wonderbolt whom confirmed he helped him fly again."

"Yeah. I'm a poor colt from Hooflyn. Not happening."

I said. "I am Carne Asada's personal bodyguard. I am well paid. I've been saving since I started the gig. I melted all my savings into the candy in these four boxes. Yes. It's blood money. I suggest you be careful who you let open and move those boxes for you. I further suggest that you leave Equestria for Trottingham the instant you can leave this hospital, with constabulary escort if you can manage that. Go to the docks. Eat a candy. Book an airship. Carne Asada was so tickled pink about my vivisection of you that she gave me a thirty gold bit bonus, which is the contents of the fourth box." I levitated them all into the credenza, stacking them behind the tissue boxes and spare pink water pitcher. "The mare is mercurial. Don't dilly dally."

I turned away. My horn lit as I assembled precise vectors. He lifted his hoof. "Wait, wait. Please."

"I'm not going to kill you."

"Sweet Celestia, no pony'd be that cruel. I mean—?"

"No, I'm not. What is it?"

"I d-didn't say anything about Rose Thorn being upset about business margins."

I was betting that would be a Hooflyn or Manehatten C.A. lieutenant I'd yet to meet, one who might have known when Carne Asada was traveling through her own turf. "Book the first airship," I reiterated.

"I will."

With that, I teleported to the street below. I'm sure that confirmed for him that the goofy looking teary-eyed middle-schooler was indeed The Perfect Assassin.
> Chapter 65 — The EBI
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

...I coughed, breathing in liquid though I could clearly see that I sat slumped on dry ground. Cold. I was cold, but a warm breeze rustled the leaves. I coughed again. I tried to suppress it, starting to panic. My throat filled as warm liquid welled up inside. Drowning? I was drowning? I noticed a salt taste, then sticky phlegm, in my mouth that proceeded to drip out the side of my lips because it came up my throat of its own accord. I saw my legs. 

That made no sense.

I saw hooves of pure black. I saw legs with fur darker than coal. This wasn't dye. 

Those legs, that body wore body-hugging tights. Silk and tight elastic. The pressure was all that had kept... me alive this long, pushing against the pulse of my heart. Every thump, a countdown into oblivion.

A hunting knife, a large one, was stuck to the silver hilt into me, through my throat, all the way to my heart.

My— My— 

A purple pony in similar dark clothing skidded on the rocks and slid in through the bushes, causing branches to snap and rustle. His black grease-smeared green-striped mane—the same green color of the streaks in my own mane—flopped across his face. His hooves went to the wound, applying pressure. "Midnight, no, no, no!" he whispered, streaming tears down his muzzle.

Behind him, a yeti pushed aside a branch.

I coughed, sputtering blood, "Firelight, run!"


#


I woke with a gasp, my whole body clenched in a cramp ready to pull muscles from the bone.

I heard breathing beside me. In. Out. A whistling hiss. It was only a nightmare. I relaxed.

Broomhill Dare shared the hotel suite with me, and my bed. Returning the favor I done for her back in Prancetown, I supposed. 

Her pony snore made my world seem... oddly okay. Why my subconscious turned my guilt into fabulating an experience of my parents' secret-agent death, I didn't know. I reached for the valerian root with a hoof, not wanting to disturb my bed mate with faint magic light. It tasted like I chewed dirt. Fitting, somehow.

In. Out. Whistling hiss.

I got some sleep.


#


Carne Asada wanted to finish some business before her train ride back to Baltimare tonight. Her doctor wanted her to get bed rest. Good luck with that. This is why I sat at a table, outside the conference room in the hotel business center. We'd reserved the entire floor. I had my magic text books spread out and notebooks open. It gave me a chance to watch the parade of borough chiefs walk by, yet be alert for mischief.

I was mindful of the name and reason I'd learned from Blue Lightning. I was also mindful that I couldn't let Carne Asada know what I had done or learned. I had to solve this problem myself.

Peytral, one of Carne Asada's Hooflyn "business" staff, came galloping up the stairs as one of the regular guard, a brick red earth pony bruiser, watched with amusement. The staff pony, who had golden fur and eyes, also had verdigris hair in his green mane and tail which made him look as tarnished as his soul. He skidded to a stop in front of me. Huffing and puffing, he said, "The EBI is here." Equestrian Bureau of Investigation. "They know the boss is here—"

I thought, Aren't you the pony in charge of things like this? I said, instead, "And you let slip—"

"Agents coming up the other elevator bank—"

My chair flipped out from behind me to hit the sofa. I dashed into the meeting room, where I said, "Maple Town—" I'd taken to calling the chiefs by where they'd hailed from because I didn't want to acknowledge knowing their names.  "—EBI's in the building. Take the stairs to the convention level."

The grey pegasus flew out the open door. The backwash of the mare's wings flung me to stumble into the room. Carne Asada banged the table.

"Es stop them from coming up here!" she yelled. "They can't es see me like this. They'll connect me to the skirmish."

The mare had her left leg and wing immobilized and bound by bandages around her barrel. She wore a purple dress that had been butchered to hide most of the bandages and her pony heritage, but plenty of ponies had learned she was a thestral, though I didn't understand her obsession about hiding it. One look would serve to show any new pony that she had both undergone reconstructive surgery and that she was also, at very least, a pegasus pony. She sat on a wheelchair.

I had no quick fix—between the extra weight of the chair, the fact that I hadn't learned the layout of the hotel, and the absurdity of floating her with no support for her injuries in the absolute cold of in-between. My magic might decide I could hurt her, even!

"Too late," Peytral said, cringing and shaking in the door. 

I didn't throw him under the bus. I wouldn't later, either, though I might excoriate him with a few choice words that were bouncing around my head, distracting me from planning. 

Distracting.

The idea of Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear was attractive, but with the guilt I carried around, I didn't trust myself at the moment to have the proper perfect concentration. I'd also learned about a class of spells called counter-spells. So long as they weren't here to arrest her...

"Get me a blanket."

Peytral jumped outside as I told my boss, "You have a cold."

"I do not."

I looked at the tea service, and the wide bowl-like handle-less tea cups. "I beg to differ."

I took Maple Town's cup, dunked a hoof in it, and messed up Carne Asada nice simple mane style, pasting the hair back and making some strands lay limp on her forehead. I don't know who was more surprised, Carne Asada or Peytral, as he came in with a plush brown blanket stamped with an hotel logo on his back.

I levitated Carne Asada. Other than a startled whinny, she bore it with little more than a bit of a pained expression. I had pigeonholed her doctor after the surgery and gotten him to talk about the muscles and tendons he'd sewn together, and where he'd reconnected them to bones, and what nerves were effected. I treated her like a delicate snow sculpture as I placed her on a supporting bench seat.

I tossed the wheelchair under the table where I hoped it wouldn't immediately be seen, even as I settled the blankets (Peytral had brought two) around her. I poured more tea, and put the steaming thing in front of her, tossing Maple Town's cup into the waste bin where I heard a pop as it broke. 

I barrel-rolled a hoof in front of my nose. "Make as if drawing in the steam. Breathe in. Cough. Snuffle."

"I don't have a cold."

"Pretend. Blink a lot. You look in pain. Make it seem like it's in your sinuses."

"Cadaponi es estúpido," she muttered, but snuffled loudly.

I pulled up the blinds on two of the seven outside windows with a loud zwitt-zwitt, filling the dark room with sunlight. I would bet the resulting Equidorian words that filled the air were choice words about my ancestry. I dashed to the opposite side, cranked open the blinds just enough and dashed out.

"Peytral. Sit. Stay." I heard pony flank hit wood with a squelch.

I righted my chair and sat as the further elevators dinged. Red Brick (I didn't know his actual name) sidled over and watched as somepony trotted down the granite hallway.

I checked the ribbons holding my pigtails and then my tail. Shoot, I had the grimoire cutie mark painted on. I adjusted the blue ribbon on my white middle-school uniform blouse and levitated a library book, a protractor, and a couple of yellow wood pencils. I'd kept wearing the uniform as Carne Asada had noticed my disguise, commenting that I ought to wear it more often. I'd had no choice but to normalize the overly cute immature thing lest she question why the sudden purchase. 

I think she wanted to taunt me about having a bit of a clothing fetish. Yeah, enjoy the irony, why don't you?

A very green pegasus trotted around the corner. Only one. She wore a blue pin-stripe suit jacket, white blouse, and blue tie. She wore an ID badge around her neck with a gold cloth strap. The badge was enclosed in a polished copper frame, in case you might doubt it was official. Her fur was yellow-green, her mane and tail forest green. Her longish wings partially obscured a wooden house cutie mark.

I saw that all in one glance.

I thought about snidely saying, "Interesting choice of profession."

Instead, I startled. I whinnied loudly, throwing the pencils and protractor into the air, and letting the library book bang down, creasing the open page, as it slid away. I immediately reached my magic for the errant book and spun it further away. Coincidentally, the pencils (not the faceted ones, luckily in my case), rolled toward the edge of the table. I popped up. Like a cat, I batted to capture one then the other.

I looked up. Brick Red escorted the EBI agent my way. She took out black-framed glasses with her wings and put them on, eyes on me.

I slunk back with the pencils, acting embarrassed. I let my flank slide off the seat, pushing my chair back. I ineffectively pushed the library book further toward the edge. 

It gave me enough time to see she wore no amulets. She didn't even have a purse. She looked fairly fit, but then most pegasi did because of the flying. Not in fighting trim, in any case. I let myself duck below the table and inserted my muzzle such that my eyes were on her. I bumped my nose, thumping the table, loudly complaining. "Owwie, ow, ow."

The pegasus pony used a wing to push my library book back toward me. I kept my magic on it, causing her primary feathers to flex more. They were normal feathers, not like Crystal "The Knife" Skies'. The edges of the vanes of his feathers were ruby and sharper than broken glass. Some ponies, I'd heard, had steel vanes, but I'd yet to meet one.

The EBI agent was sufficient threat without being an immediate danger.

"I'm Agent Greene and Greene. Do you know where..." She hesitated. She did not say, Your Mom, though that would have been a triumph. Instead, "—where Mrs. Asada is?"

I nodded shyly from under the table. I reached up a hoof and pointed at the conference room.

As Greene and Greene turned away, I winked at Brick Red and he led the way. I spun up Shove.

The instant the pegasus walked in, I scrambled quietly to the outer window of the conference room. The green pegasus kept on this side of the long mahogany table, sparing Carne Asada from having to look into a bright sunny day. The glare would prevent her from seeing me laying my ear against the cool glass unless she looked right at me.

Carne Asada snuffled loudly and said, "You again?"

Greene and Greene said, "The Bureau in Hooflyn is actively investigating the Knife Rumble in Graves End." That was the name given it by the newspapers. My vivisection of Blue Lightning had caused a feeding frenzy in the press, with sensationalist black-and-white pictures sporting black rectangles over the eyes to protect the "innocent". Carne Asada's death might have been equally spectacular, and arguably a gang skirmish would have been only back page news, so I was responsible for that, too. "Did you have anything to do with that?"

I suppressed a guilty chuckle.

"He's not a lawyer," Carne Asada said simply, waving steam into her nose.

The pegasus took a deep breath. "After that incident in Las Pegasus—"

Arguably, also my fault.

"—with you in town, and now this, with you in town. Coincidence?" She shook her head.

"I have a cold and I am going home to Baltimare tonight."

The pegasus appraised her. "Leaving town in the dark of night? With a cold? Perhaps you should stay in bed in this nice and cozy hotel of yours in Hooflyn, Mrs. Asada, where we can keep an eye on you. We're assembling a grand jury. I have few questions to ask, too."

Carne Asada coughed loudly, pointing her right hoof awkwardly at Peytral who had beads of sweat welling up on his golden brow. She repeated, "He's not a lawyer."

The agent's snout twisted in momentary annoyance, but she reached into her ID placard. I barely caught myself from shoving her to the floor in a magical flinch. She took out a business card and presented it with both wings.

Peytral snatched it.

"Have a lawyer by this afternoon, or expect an arrest warrant by this evening." She bowed her head slightly and trotted for the door.

I didn't have to feign disturbing my study materials this time as I hit the table leg, diving for the table. I sunk down below the level of the table top, horn lit, moving books into a stack as the mare gave me a smile as if I were somehow adorable. Did she think I had crayons? She trotted to the first bank of elevators. Soon, she was gone.

I dashed in on Carne Asada. Peytral was bringing out the wheelchair.

"Sorry," I said.

Carne Asada said, "Hija, Hija. This accelerates plans I already had. Peytral?"

He dropped the wheelchair he had with his mouth and front leg with a bang. "Boss?"

"Get the lawyer who handled the last trial." The trial I had read the headline about on my train ride to Canterlot, the one where she had been acquitted.

"Silver Quill?"

"Him."

"On it," he dashed out.

I immediately shut all the blinds. I helped her back into her wheel chair and refreshed her tea, stirring honey into it. Finally, I tried, "This is all my fault."

"Boludo," the mare said. She bent her head down and sipped her tea loudly. 

I'd been around her long enough that she used the lowbrow term affectionately to chide me. 

"About Las Pegasus: It would have blown up without being managed anyway. It paid me dividends. What you did to that featherbrain, that was art—no blood daughter of mine could have done better. Es Starlight Glimmer, a mare has to do what a mare has to do. Keep on being magical." She sipped her tea.

I fetched Maple Town, then returned to my table. I rested my head on top of it, feeling confused. Keep on being magical? Eventually, I popped some valerian root and chewed, hoping for calm.

Crystal Skies arrived a few minutes later with lunch. He'd flown across town to buy some supplies and to stop at a special rooftop pegasus dive-joint. He pranced in, tail high, carrying the sack in his jaws. The logo read Baa Harbor Crabber Shack.  

I cleared the table in one second flat.

As he put it down, crinkling papers as he spread out the packaged food, I reached up a hoof. I rubbed the blue fur on his muscular wing with my frog. "It's got crystal, too!" I said, aloud. It crinkled, even as it felt soft.

He said, "If you're going to make a pass at a stallion, doing it in a middle-school uniform is a bit too kink—"

I slugged him lightly where I had, okay, caressed him.

"Hey."

"Hay is for earth ponies," I chided him. "What pegasus treats did you get?"

Broomhill Dare came trotting up the stairs as Crystal Skies unwrapped pink and white crab legs steamed in foil with butter. The shells had been scissor-cut. I did not miss that Safe stepped out of the elevator immediately after she passed. Neither did I miss that Broomhill Dare's mane sported a sweat curl that looped around her horn where she normally had poofy curly bangs.

She trotted up, saying, "You got lunch— Oh." She saw the crab legs and her nose wrinkled. She veered a little left. Safe talked with Brick Red and suddenly stood very upright.

I chewed my valerian, hoping for a little calm. If it weren't for the soil flavor of the valerian filling my nose to the detriment of the scent of the food, you bet I would have smelled something horsey emanating from her, too. I knew what afterwards smelled like. I said, "I thought you might have gotten lunch when you finished the errand. Shouldn't have taken that long."

"Um."

I spat the chaw into a paper napkin, then pulled a long white and reddish piece of meat out toward my mouth.

Working with a pegasus and a pescatarian unicorn, she knew how to play it cool. When I shoved the hay fries and malt vinegar cup her way, she grabbed some and asked, "Did I miss anything interesting?"

I said, "Crystal Skies, you're right. Peppered hot sauce butter! Nice."

"Am I right?"

"Uh-huh."

I looked at Broomhill Dare, particularly at the sweat curl. I swallowed, and said, "Maiden's Cure."

"Maiden's Cure." She blinked a bit. "What's that?"

"A 'household' spell I learned from a healer in Deep Ford, and the herb that goes with it. I can testify that it works. I've needed it a couple of times. Now I understand how you can sleep over every night with me. You two have been making like little spring bunnies sneaking away during the day—"

Crystal Skies bounced a crab shell off my horn.

"Hey!"

"Stop that," he whispered, practically hissing and pointing.

Broomhill Dare had turned bright red. She didn't look angry, though.

I opened my mouth. "Carne Asada—"

Crystal Skies hit my horn again, and the shell rebounded off the window of the conference room.

"It's important," I said, looking from him to her, pointing. Broomhill Dare had turned to see her husband talking to Brick Red, then her expression changed to one of calculation. Their next tryst? Her face didn't become that much less red, however. 

Hmm.

I was going to have to ask her what she had learned from him. I might need that to manage some misbehaving stallion one day.

I opened my mouth. "—"

I caught the shell in my magic. "Three times is gratuitous," I said, tossing the shell into the pile.

I took a deep breath, and added, "You did miss something, though. Both of you, listen. It's important..."
> Chapter 66 — Master Stroke
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

We rented a gym a block away that closed at 10 PM. It wasn't as if the owner was going to refuse, but I ensured he got well paid. Citron took the 49 bus up from his parents' flat and the team met for training. I had included others the last few nights who didn't meet my standards on Carne Asada's guard staff, but not tonight. I didn't want distractions.

I went up to the speed bag and went for it as if I would tear it apart. Safe ambushed me and I teleported away, and so it went until—despite all the frost I dragged out of in-between—we were all sweaty and exhausted. After a slovenly half-hour not saying much at a late-night soda fountain—I had a strawberry oatshake—we went off to collapse in our beds.

I had a nightmare about racing around never arriving in time for what I never knew what before I raced off again. At least it didn't involve blood or my family.

Carne Asada stopped getting visitors. No surprise there. It left her more agitated than normal. If she was stuck in the city, she wanted to see ponies. I knew what that eventually meant for me, so I trained harder—magically and physically. I studied the map of the neighborhood. I took long walks at various times of the day, usually with either Citron or Crystal Skies shadowing me. I dressed as much like everypony as I could manage. I took the hotel concierge out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and spent time talking about all the great restaurants, shops, and stores within the surrounding eight or so blocks.

When Peytral gave me an address three days later, I was ready. I thought it inconceivable that the Marvel Gang would try anything again, let alone so soon. Still, I hadn't met anypony named Rose Thorn, or somepony who had a telltale cutie mark. I couldn't gauge the mettle of the stallion.

I presumed he was a stallion...

Regardless, I felt I was back in top form. My head felt clear. I could hold Teleport with ease just shy of casting it. I had picked a short, easy stroll to the office building along sidewalks that wouldn't be too full of pedestrians. I double-checked it with a trusted pony and Citron. Crystal Skies mustered another pegasus to watch the roof tops, apartment windows, and fire escapes along the route for suspicious ponies. I felt we knew all the steam-grates, alleys, and doorways. 

With repeated magic treatments, Carne Asada no longer needed the chair, but she was visibly slow. She didn't care. She wanted out. A carriage could get caught in one-way unpredictable midtown traffic, so we agreed to walk. I couldn't dissuade her.

Four city blocks distance total. Two bus stops if she needed to rest. We set off out of the workers' rear entrance through the kitchen, with her wearing a blue windbreaker, a black scarf, and dark sunglasses.

I suspected we would have the coppers for an escort by the time we got halfway there. "Out," I subvocalized.

Crystal Skies, Pig Pen, Broomhill Dare, and Safe all said back, "Clear." Citron looked both ways out of the underground carriage park and nodded.

A sunny day in the city. Hot but not so muggy. Lots of little clouds scudded across the sky, but otherwise nice. All I had to do was scan my surroundings for city ponies acting out of the ordinary, making sure Carne Asada wasn't getting tired, and walking. Citron watched, too, but focused on me and looking the opposite direction I looked. We had gotten pretty good at the coordination. He sometimes hummed an urban beat, so as to keep us in rhythm and turning to look 180° in the opposite direction. 

I spotted our office building up ahead, but something nevertheless didn't seem right. I said, "Eyes?"

"Nope." "Nothing." "Can you give me a clue?" "I think there's an EBI a block behind us."

I swiveled my ears about and said, "I'm sorry. Let's go faster."

Carne Asada looked tired but increased her gait just shy of switching to a trot. Around me I heard the sounds of hooves on cement, metal horseshoes and wagon wheels on cobbles, steam pipes hissing in the streets, a horn blaring, one pony yelling about the ancestry of another's, a myriad of conversations, the squealing of brakes, a distant subway train...

I started calculating vectors for the third floor of the office building. I made sure to touch my side against Carne Asada's.

And a whistle? Did I hear a whistle? Like the wind, but different. Compressed. Dopplered. "Are there pegasi approaching?" I asked loudly so the other guards might also look. I looked at roof top level, but saw nothing.

Louder.

Above me?

What?

I looked straight up as Crystal Skies cried out, "Sweet Celestia!"

I saw death.

Instinct made me flank butt Carne Asada away toward the stone side of the building even as I cast Teleport. She had only a half pony length until she bounced into the red granite façade with her injured side. I did my best to jump back even as my equations balanced.

Between one adrenalized racing heartbeat and the next, the dive-bombing griffon appeared, wings flared and booming like a struck drum, her index claw slicing into the skin of my flank as my spell triggered.

Contact. 

Time slowed as the world jerked 5° rightward. 

Me. 

And...

The griffon hen. 

The bird had eyes as green as emeralds and as bright as fire. They turned to focus on me. I hadn't thought to ask if others experienced time the way I did when I teleported, but I got that the bird lioness realized I'd stolen her prey, prey that ought now be splintering into fragments of bone and wet sinew. 

She had a white feathered head, with a yellow crest and a hooked raptor's beak that could snap off a hoof like the end of a carrot. It faded into dark brown feathers, streaked with grey, into thin legs that ended in a yellow talon. Not satisfied with an average sharp eagle talon, this griffon wore chainmail gloves that ended in scythes. One turned red with my blood. Beyond, her lion parts were similarly equipped on her paws to render anypony into a sum of her parts.

Death. I saw death.

The darkness of oblivion formed up around me as a spark of lightning crackled, outlining a sphere to encase the two of us. Her mouth opened measurably to inhale. I did not correct this mistake on her part. Instead, I calculated what I could do next.

Force came to mind. 

Of course it did. 

It wasn't entirely the wrong instinct as it usually was. I could push, pull, or shove. I could flash a light in her face. I could try Teleport. Maiden's Cure would do no good. In that tenth of a second before I could separate us, her muscles could react. I would find myself eviscerated.

Fear—like that night of rain, mud, and lightning—hit full force. Breakfast wanted out.  Only slowed-time prevented my shuddering from rattling my teeth. I could not muster anger. The griffon had aimed for Carne Asada, not me. I wasn't her target. I was a cockroach she had inadvertently tread on. 

Intent made me no less dead.

The force of the fear made my limbs grow cold even before the darkness fully engulfed me. It froze me. I didn't want to end here. I had much to do, much to learn, yet. In seconds, I expected that in a flash of pain I would simply cease to exist. Or, maybe it would be a lot of long lingering pain first. The result would be the same. 

Did the length matter afterwards?

I calculated vectors for Force, letting go of Teleport. I had no brain cells left for any spell other than the repeatedly primal one. She was in the process of flaying skin from my flank. The distance vector I needed was as precise as such calculations got except for when sewing, and couldn't be easier. A sliver of a hoof length would make no difference. 

My fear tamped down on that part of my brain that wanted remind me how my magic worked. Had it not, I might have fainted or exploded, either equally fatal.

The absolute cold of in-between bit past my fur into my skin as I squeezed my eyes closed and clamped my nostrils.

I saw light beyond my eyelids.

I cast.

Blam!

I screamed at the flash and the whoosh of flames. I felt myself propelled backward and I hit a bookshelf. I knew it had to be a bookshelf because it wasn't a flat surface. My right rear cannon bone cracked with a pain so sharp, it erased the pain I felt hitting everywhere else on my right side, before I fell to the floor—dislocating the break. I screamed harder.

I opened my eyes.

I lay in a large conference room. Ponies scattered from their chairs for the door. I heard the thumps and yelling as they got stuck. The griffon had hit the black lacquer table, causing it to rock, knocking at least one pony unconscious. As the big, muscular griffon got up, I saw I'd burnt off all the feathers under her beak and blackened her right talon, the one she'd sliced me with. Two of the four knives glowed red. She belatedly realized that and flicked off the glove. It flew across the room, struck a window. The pane crazed and a hoof-sized area turned to snow, but it didn't break out. It had to be tempered. 

The griffon was smoking, and it wasn't anything the syndicate sold. 

Her green eyes locked on me; slit irises pulsed. I stopped screaming. Maybe it really was shock. Or prey reaction to recognizing a predator. Maybe dying didn't hurt that much.

Maybe it was the primitive horse's brain screaming, run!

I swallowed as she limped toward me, burnt feather smell reaching my nostrils.

It hit me. A realization. Blue Lightning had said he had been trained by a griffon master fighter. 

Oh, Tartarus!!

What was I to do?

Digits whirled in my sensorium. I hadn't lost my Force spell? The vectors were wrong now, but it still spun! "Fight or flight," that was what the response was called. 

All flight mechanisms were broken. Fear had queued fight instead.

In a shaky voice, I said, "These ponies are too soft for you. You could easily fight out of the building. I'm not worth it."

She continued to stalk across the room.

Other ponies whinnied in fear and pain, trying desperately to get out of the door, none thinking to let somepony else out first. They had to be Carne Asada's lieutenants, I decided.

It was was enough of a delay. The spell spun up with reasonable ranging vectors, counting down the distance. The fear-queued-fight-instinct, or the adrenaline, whatever, it allowed me to apply the alicorn simplification and the digits went crazy, spinning into a fiery blue line bisecting my reality. This was either going to be spectacular, or I was going to be scissored like that crab I ate a few days ago.

I tried one last time. "Do you really want to die?"

I guess griffons are more lion than eagle. This hen roared as she lunged. I didn't even aim ahead of her path as Citron the Force-expert advised, or into the ground where Broomhill Dare advised. I did as instinct commanded.

I lowered my head to point my horn at her, shut my eyes tightly, and yelled, forcing every last splendor from my core toward my head. I could not have made her strike zone clearer had I drawn a dashed cut-here line across the back of my neck. One swipe and I would be cleanly sliced into two bouncing pieces if my spell failed. Keeping my eyes closed was clearly the best thing I could do.

I let go as if I let go of life itself.

A blue-green flash and the recoil slid me through a pool of sticky wetness into the bookcase, flinging me back into the deadly not-flat wall. My head, back, and forelegs bounced. Pain from my leg stopped me from breathing. When your ears are ringing from a thunderclap, the second bang doesn't sound as loud.

I opened my eyes in time to see the griffon rocket into the opposite wall twenty pony lengths away. The marble shattered, then flaked off as she slumped to the floor, leaving a beast-sized indentation behind. She visibly breathed, but blood bubbled from the nostrils in her beak and streamed from her right ear. 

When I gasped, the air smelled of ozone, burnt feathers, and the iron scent of my blood.

My magic hadn't incinerated her, but it had hurt her. Was my magic vs force paradigm flawed? I couldn't hurt ponies, but I could at least protect myself?

My leg really hurt. I made the mistake of looking down. Legs don't go that way. But I didn't faint. When you're bleeding like that, fainting without securing help isn't a good idea.

My magic blast had gotten the attention of the other ponies. That allowed their bodyguards to push them back into the room, they themselves coming to secure the griffon and take care of me and stop the hemorrhaging. A few even thought to calm their employers' fears.

In the end, all the lieutenants were thanking me even as a "company" doctor galloped in to deal with my serious break. 

Ever resourceful, I told them all that I expected was for each of them to pay me a visit in the hospital. "I'll tell Carne Asada if you don't."

I smiled as I lost my battle with consciousness. Somepony had tattled. I would find out whom.
> Chapter 67 — Pony Princess Presiding
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The doctors gave me the good happy juice. I remembered being hooked up to a unit of blood in the conference room, reminding everypony to visit me in the hospital as they loaded me on a pegasus-borne stretcher, and then nothing. Probably for the best.

The wooziness faded as I realized I was splayed out on my back. A light rain pattered against a window. I blinked and saw a team of winged dots scudding storm clouds around. I blinked. More and more I realized I was breathing and that, like my magic, that was a miracle.

I lay in a bed, the blue light of the rainy day reflecting off illuminated monitors. I felt the ache of the saline drip jabbed into my right foreleg, saw what was arguably cheery yellow sheets, and noted that my right rear leg stretched upward connected to a series of pulleys and cables. I heard bleep-bleep-bleep. Bandages wrapped the appendage and various esoterically-shaped, spiraling clear splints, each with holes like in bubble cheese. It was as if a surrealist had been let loose to design medical equipment. I did not miss the brown blood stains on the bandages.

I didn't tell you everything about the fight in the conference room. I had known almost immediately that I wasn't fighting for my life. I was fighting so that giving up my life would not be entirely in vain. Had I not stopped the griffon, she would have torn through Carne Asada's lieutenants. My cannon bone was broken and displaced. Arteries were severed. Blood pumped...

I didn't have to be a statistician to understand I would die first before help came.

I looked at my leg. It felt numb. Tartarus, I felt numb! I looked away and out the window. Funny how I had courage for so many things, but sometimes I really was a foal. I could pretend. I could pretend there were no consequences. I could pretend I was invincible.

If I ignored reality.

This was the pony that would some day figure out cutie marks? She would find ways to keep their curse from oppressing ponies lives? She would help ponies find the equality they sorely deserved? Someday she would save all of Equestria?

Yeah, I was such a naïve foal.

I watched the pegasus weather team outside the window as the fog slowly cleared. The fog in my brain, not so much. Laying on your back after a while does become uncomfortable.

When I looked at my leg, I looked at my hoof. It was swollen from interstitial blood and bruises, and looked deeper purple than the normal lavender color. Tilt forward, I thought. 

You thought it would be easy? I fought against fear that I had let command me, and it provided me images of me wheelchair-bound to make the point.

"Stupid hoof," I said, spinning up Levitate despite the medicine that made my numbers lethargic. Slowly, slowly, I got the transforms going. This might take minutes, but I'd do this if it were the last—

I gasped.

By reflex, I’d tilted my hoof forward. Without magic. It really hurt.

I did it again, and again. Then a unicorn nurse pushed open the door with a loaded syringe in her light blue magic, the needle stuck in the little vial.

"Miss Glitter, you're awake!" she said with a sparkling smile.

I said, "No more painkillers or sedatives."

"The doctor says—"

"No more painkillers or sedatives," I repeated.

"I don't think your mother will be happy about that."

"You know who I am?" I asked. "Do you know who my mother is?"

The nurse put down the vial on the table. The syringe bobbed back and forth as she glanced at the monitors and straightened a sheet, manifestly not wanting to answer. 

Eventually, she lifted the medicine again and turned to the door. "I'll mark it rejected and send a note to your doctor."

"Do that."

"There's metal pins and plates in there, now, Miss Glitter. Medical magic can perform miracles reconstructing your leg, but as it heals it will hurt. How about something like willow bark extract?"

"Over-the-counter is fine, but I want to open the bottle myself."

She nodded and left.

Many adult ponies chewed valerian root. Most considered it a disgusting habit the first time they either chewed it themselves or kissed a pony that had, but you can buy it anywhere, if you are old enough. Because of my oh-so-tender age, I could not. The product was taxed and regulated. 

Nopony told me this directly, but: I figured out that the syndicates and gangs distributed valerian root at a reasonable price and at super high quality, unencumbered by regulation or taxes. Handling such nuisances were the buyer's responsibility. Extralegal organizations handled transportation and distribution. As far as the C.A. Syndicate went, I didn't know if, I didn't know who, I didn't know where, and I didn't know how. I just knew.

Not too hard to abstract from one product to many. Nopony anywhere in Equestria prevented you from purchasing happy juice. It was however taxed and regulated, and in some cases required you to also have proof you had a doctor and a shrink you visited regularly. The C.A. syndicate likely provided a more private solution for ponies willing to pay. 

I presumed.

I did not want one of Carne Asada's hooks in my veins, so I refused the painkillers and sedatives.


#


In my fantasy that I might live, I had promised myself I would uncover the tattler. I sent Citron back to Hooflyn with a message that my supplicants should now visit me in the hospital. He promised to return the next day.

Carne Asada had moved me to a hospital she had invested in up in Baa Harbor Mane. Yes, that Baa Harbor, absolutely the number one best pegasus seafood town in all of Equestria. It consisted of a cloud village floating over a cannery town on a coast dominated by a fishery industry that served pegasi all over the world. Earth ponies and pegasi worked side by side, managing the boats, the sea, and the weather that tended to stormy all by itself despite the vigilance of top flight weather teams.

When I told the hospital nutritionist I was a pescatarian, the pegasus was tickled pinker than her already rose pink. Meal times became the sunshine in my day because, I think, the kitchen staff felt challenged to see if there was a denizen of the sea I wouldn't eat.

It made the doctor happy. This pony needed her protein!

With no need for happy juice, I got cleared for rehab. Had I not trained as a prizefighter, I might have given up. Facial injuries and hoof injuries are worse than limb injuries as far as the pain goes, but it hurt and I could deal. After a week not moving, moving exhausted me. I'd lost an incredible amount of muscle mass. My body had turned to eating itself to heal itself. I had deflated like a balloon. I could not feel from the rear pastern to the frog of my right hoof and would require a plate in the horseshoe to protect me from stones. I could cut myself and not realize I was bleeding to death. The numbness might get better, but would take a very long time to heal. I quickly learned that I would walk and trot again, but I would never win another Celestial Race. I toughed out each session, even if it left me grunting and neighing in distress.

It wasn't so much that I wanted to continue to be a bodyguard. It was that I knew there were monsters out there and I wanted to be able to fight them. Besides which, I had ended up with an injury very much like Blue Lightning's, if not anatomically identical. Both could leave us disastrously disabled. Both could have led us to bleed to death. Both required massive reconstruction. If he followed what I had directed him to do and used my blood money, the both of us would be undergoing rehab at the same time.

No way was I going to allow that punk to have a better result than me!


#


The therapist had me hobbling in tears of pain for hours each day. The doctor then had me back in bed, strung up, encouraging the bone to grow straight and strong over the new infrastructure of gold and thaumatergic gem lattices. 

I was laying like that, splayed out on my back, covered only by a thin sheet, when I began receiving visitors from Hooflyn.

Most brought flowers, some choosing tasty varieties and others feasts for the eyes. A few brought chocolates. One pegasus mare, her feathers still damp from the rain, brought a lobster bake steaming from the docks. I wasn't going to let on that the hospital food was actually good, and we shared buttery boiled potatoes, corn, clams, mussels, a giant crustacean, and plenty of good laughs.

All bowed when they entered. It wasn't as if I were royalty simply because Carne Asada called me her daughter, but my visitors seemed to think so. She was the "Queenpin", which was actually a newspaper term not one the syndicate used. That "queen" part, nevertheless, made the hated title of "princess" actually reasonable. I'd plated on another courtesy title. I was Princess Glitter, adopted daughter of Carne Asada, the Countess Aurora Midnight, the Earl of Grin Having, Lady Presiding of Sire's Hollow, daughter of Countess Midnight and Earl Firelight.

I was willing to be a princess... only to the extent that it served my purposes.

The lieutenants talked about current events, Canterlot politics, sports when I found an enthusiast. Punch Drunk looked like the contender for the championship this year. I made sure to steer the conversation back to Hooflyn and to business. I carefully chatted in generalities—sort of like how I understood about valerian root. Anypony that looked determined to give details, I clamped their mouth shut with my magic. I mentally related business to aspects of running the estate or running Grin Having, keeping it "general" as if I were talking about something I'd read in a business textbook.

I understood that Rose Thorn was as likely his or her name as Gelding or Glitter was mine. I did my best to be personable. Chatting and actually using techniques I'd been endlessly tutored and tested in turned out to be surprisingly enjoyable. It helped me ignore the pain. Ponies talked about good profits and bad, transportation bottlenecks, not getting financing, investments paying off, supply chain issues, personnel who they wanted to fire but couldn't, border skirmishes, diplomatic issues with neighboring borough leaders. I began to see why Carne Asada was busy all the time, and spent time with her minions or going over reports and making plans. I pointed out things now and again, but listening seemed to work. Most of my supplicants left much happier than they arrived.


#


A knock came at the door. I was still settling in after being hooked back up to the cabling. At least the gum I chewed was fresh and minty. "Yes?"

"It's Red Spirit, Miss Glitter. Are you decent? May I come in?" His voice was throaty.

"I don't consider myself a particularly decent pony," I replied. True. "You may, however, enter."

The black-maned, sandy brown stallion actually voiced, "Ha ha," as he pushed in. He had bristly hair, the kind that didn't stand down. He had cut his mane into a crest that tilted right and separated into tufts. I noticed his short cropped tail twitched nervously. I noticed that unlike most of the rest of his cohort, he wore nothing more than a black string tie that matched his mane, though there was a yellow rain slicker folded on his back next to a bouquet of sunflowers. The brown-centered, tasty spicy ones.

My eyes went to his muscular flank. I watched a red flame cutie mark, blown rearward by an unseen wind, flex and relax.

He noticed my gaze and smiled.

I raised the ante. I looked slightly forward of his cutie mark, between his legs, and smiled.

That elicited a disturbed whinny, but he swiftly laid the snack flowers between the vases of roses and pink gladiolus. He missed the table with his raincoat and it smacked on the floor. Drizzle wet the window, and had wet him on the way from the railroad station. He smelled pretty good, like he had rubbed some rosemary oil in his fur.

"What borough, may I ask?"

"Sunset Park."

"The docks on the waterfront. Lots of warehouses. So, Sunset. May I call you that?"

"Sure."

"Strong season for commerce, though the other boroughs are complaining about supply chain woes. Business good for you?"

He replied after a noticeable pause. "Great, wonderful. You know, I really don't want to impose." His eyes, which were green, went from my face down my body, then back up to my horn. "You look... uncomfortable. I should be going. I only wanted to pay my respects."

I'm not saying some of the other lieutenants weren't cagey or had been the stallion you'd want to take home to mama, but intuition made me think this guy deserved testing a lot more than Flatbush had, and Flatbush was actually greasy from the olive-smelling stuff he combed into his mane and hadn't been able to sit still. (He'd turned out to be a sweetie pie, though.)

I threw off the sheet with my left leg. Such things never go as dramatically as you would like, and an edge snagged on a cable and pulley. "Shoot," I said. I had Levitate ready to send into my horn, but I didn't want to light it. Not yet. "Could you, Sunset, please?"

He smiled at me, looked at me laying there with the sheet mostly off, then at my face. When he looked ready to bolt, I shook my head once side to side, then pointed my nose. He raised a hoof, considered whether he might have to step on the bed, then stretched out his neck instead. 

I adjusted my hips.

His eyes dipped, then he shot his jaw forward to clamp the corner of the sheet that had stuck there, then finished dragging the sheet to pile on the metal hoof board. He completely missed he'd climbed onto the mattress for a moment.

I hadn't used my magic for the simplest thing and had rubbed it in his face. 

"Hot," I said.

"In here, uh...?" 

Actually, slightly chilly. I asked, "Are you married?" 

"No—"

"Special somepony?" I shot back.

"N—N—"

"Good. No hurry, then." I patted the side of the bed. "I seriously crave attention."

His eyes rose from fixed on my right hoof to look into my eyes. He held it long enough for me to think it was natural for him to dominate his subordinates that way, then he broke off the gaze intentionally. "Uh, Miss Glitter, I-I don't think the boss would like me doing that." He wanted to leave.

"Are we talking about another boss, or Carne Asada here?" The Marvel Gang, perhaps?

He glanced at the door. He hadn't latched it. "C.A.," he whispered.

"The one who's only restriction is 'no foals?'"

"She... actually says that?"

I nodded. "I have a reputation to maintain," I added, patting the mattress beside me while adjusting my hips, doing my best to convince him the rumors with Me and Grape Sucker were indeed true.

He swallowed visibly. He took a step like a marionette with multiple puppeteers that were acting different plays. 

"Sunset, wait!"

He gasped. "What?"

I pointed my nose at the door. "Close the door softly, and press the Privacy toggle switch." Not a lock, only a red flag to indicate a procedure was in progress. "Somepony walked in the other day." I sang, "Embarrassing!"

Of course, a unicorn could do all that herself, if she had her magic. I implanted in his mind: Was it gone? Had she burnt herself out when she blasted the griffon? I had made sure he could see I wasn't the strong, muscular pony from that day. I was tied to a bed. I was physically weak. 

He shuffled around the bed, the gears in his head obviously overheating. Would he? Would he not? Would I need to have him dragged back to the hospital after he bolted? I didn't want Carne Asada to question what I was doing.

His shoulders straightened. He pulled on the knot of his tie to loosen it a bit, then gently latched the door and pressed the Privacy toggle switch so it clicked.

A suaver, more self-assured stallion trotted back.

I encouraged him, voice throatier. "Oh, that's much better."

As an earth pony, he had strength. In a fight, contact with an earth pony opponent meant serious hurt or a loss. He, of course, was a hoodlum. If he were Blue Lightning's intel source, Blue Lightning presumably knew what he let be known could result in somepony's death. Sunset might know how to fight; I doubted he was born to his rank and must have had to.

Might it be worth it to take down Carne Asada's daughter if the Boss wasn't possible? He had the strength in his hooves. He would have seen no guards on his way to the room, or outside the hospital.

I patted the bed, working up Shove with contact vectors just shy of pushing it into my horn.

He came closer.

I said, "Kiss me."

He blinked, then leaned over and kissed me on my cheek.

I made a raspberry. "Seriously? Are you in pretending to be my father, or are you in the running for fathering my foals?" 

I'd gotten that one from Broomhill Dare. Safe had gotten her into role playing. She described it all to me, and the reasoning, recounting some of the better scenarios they'd done. The stories always gave me a fit of the giggles, and then she'd join in, but apparently that line with Safe as a pirate captain had worked magic. In any case, I understood role playing. I did it all the time.

As he stepped closer, I parked the gum by my molars and invited him forward. Spearmint on his breath. Ponies planning playtime don't prepare with a breath mint to visit a young mare alone in a hospital room, do they? Was I decent? he had asked.  Telegraph, much?

I had to turn my head and reach up, but he kissed me deeply. High marks for making my lips tingle and playing languorous tongue wars. I pulled back, before he seemed done. I was stretching my neck. Worse, he had all four hooves on the ground. If I were to give him the best opportunity to murder me, that just would not do!

"I give that a solid 80% mark."

"What, am I in high school?"

"Okay, 83%."

"Sweet Celestia."

"Only one princess in this room!" I pouted. "You could do a lot better."

"How?" he asked, defensively.

I patted the bed.

"Not enough room."

I waved my hooves above my chest and down my body. "I could tell you the exact volume of space you could occupy above me, but then you'd call, Nerd!"

This time he did really take a good look at all I offered him, lingering between my rear legs, then frowning at my traction apparatus.

I said, "I think you'll fit. Just be careful not to hurt me." I didn't bat my eyelashes, but I did smile.

Good colt! He took directions and his warmth and weight settled on my barrel, but not elsewhere. I guess he was a gentlecolt after all, or he had other intentions after my warm up. He didn't jostle my broken leg at all. I liked this. I squirmed a little bit to maximize the feeling of being protected it invoked in me. His pleasant rosemary scent grew stronger. 

He kissed me again. Deeply. Definitely cracking the ninetieth percentile! 

I used my ears to range the movement of his forelegs. He had me pinned, but not my pelvis, thought the traction did a good job of immobilizing me. He kept his forelegs to the side of my head, not touching me. Maybe he would touch me later, if I allowed there to be a later. I transformed Shove into Pull as we shared more spit, and prepped it into my horn, lighting it. 

His attention was elsewhere. 

I sensed my heart beating faster and my interest growing, though I felt none of the hormonal cocktail of crazy that had driven me to Steeple Chase. I put my forelegs around his neck, then relaxed and enjoyed being ridden until he felt he had done his best to impress.

He had, too. Pity.

He smiled at me, looking somewhat relieved. 

I smiled back, then said, "That was the kiss of death."

His face drained of blood, visible in his lips and cheeks which went a pale yellow. He used his earth pony strength trying to fling himself free, but I held him pinned with my magic, though my forelegs did help a little.

I said, "Such a compromising position, too."

In my peripheral vision, I saw a shadow grow against the misty sky. Something thumped the window. Both of us looked. Crystal Skies hit the window again, glaring at the two of us as Sunset squirmed. He stopped holding himself up. Now I could feel his stallion parts, but by their size, I could tell they weren't going to be any fun.

The pegasus thumped again, giving his best imitation of a slavering mad dog, then did something even I didn't expect. He ran his feathers in a circular motion on the glass face. It made a screeching-scratching noise, and a white line grew. He was cutting the glass. Made sense, since he had told me he could scratch sapphire with his feathers. How he did the trick while flying I didn't know. Crystal pegasus, right? I had an inkling that he might have been a burglar before he joined the syndicate.

The stallion in my hold started to shake. I hoped I wouldn't scare the piss out of him, considering our relative positions. Nevertheless, I continued. "My colt-friend might find out. He has a fiery temper."

Somepony galloped down the hall. I was going to hear it from the nurses about that! Somepony knocked. "Sweetie?" Citron asked. "Are you okay?"

"Everything's good, at the moment."

"What?" Sunset asked. "What's going on?" He squirmed some more.

I pouted. "You're not talking to me about business and I have questions about somepony! I also have these really freaky alicorn mind-control powers. They mess you up if I use them on you. Like, for example..." I moved my mouth to his ear and whispered, "Hey, stop cutting the glass."

Crystal Skies backed off and hovered, narrowing eyes on us.

"See?"

He nodded, not fighting any longer, instead shivering.

"Take a picture," I whispered again.

Crystal Skies lifted a box camera he had around his neck. I grinned widely, mashing my cheek up against Sunset's so it would be a good portrait of us. The camera flashed.

"You can go."

Crystal Skies hovered closer to the window, looking reluctant. I heard through the gum, "Are you sure?"

"Really. Go now."

Crystal Skies gave me that protective look I got from my herd these days, did a barrel roll, and disappeared.

"Dear Heart," I whispered toward the door.

"Uh-huh."

"I'm okay. You sit by the door and wait, all right?"

"Yes, Sweetie."

I levitated the stallion off of me, flicking the sheet back on, and smoothing out the wrinkles. With everything proper, I set him down on his hooves beside the bed. He sat down hard on the floor. He didn't even look like he would run if I closed my eyes and counted to ten.

"The kiss of death is real?" he asked.

"Do you know a pony named Blue Lightning?" I returned.
> Chapter 68 — Pony Resource Manager
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I returned from Baa Harbor, directly to Baltimare. I found that Carne Asada had converted for me the set of three dressing rooms, the ones to the right of the theatre stage she used as her throne room. She knocked out walls to make the suite, and even removed the bricked-in windows, filling them with glass blocks in a bubble design when I asked for more light. After the hospital stay, I'd lost my taste for goth things and found myself becoming depressed in darkened rooms. 

I sat at an oak table I used for a desk, behind which I could hide nothing. Behind me stood a bed I never used and a treadmill, medicine ball set, spring hoof pulley torture devices, and saddle weights my physical therapist Bright Side and I worked with two hours a day.

Carne Asada wanted to watch me. 

I heard five sets of hooves and looked up to see the Doña herself stop in the doorway. While keeping my pencil in the air, I slid the drapes closed, causing the curtain hooks to screech, and cranked the skylight shutters. 

She smiled and Peppermint, the green unicorn captain of Carne Asada's B-team bodyguards, followed her in. I kept the pencil aloft because Peppermint knew it took slightly longer for me to switch spells than to only have one prepared ready for my horn. I had retrained all the staff unicorns with my techniques and fighting style to make my life easier. I recognized the threat of his accompanying her. 

Carne Asada said, "Hija, any other pony doing what you've been doing would be dead by now."

But I'm not. I nodded, putting down the pencil with a click-clack and letting go of my magic. "Direct, undiplomatic, and Old Skool as ever."

"You've consolidated relationships with all the syndicate principals in all the eastern cities we have territories in."

"I haven't hidden my lunch or dinner dates." Couldn't ask gang lieutenants to come traipsing up to the main residence to signal the constabulary that something was up, now could I?

"I'm aware you used my security and visited discreet restaurants for discreet conversation. And you kept notes that match the reports I get back."

"I never lock my desk." Not that any lock would have stopped her, even if I had drawers to lock them in. "Nopony ever talks specifics about their business. I'm a consultant. I listen. I teach them basic business principles when they obviously lack them, and encourage finding competence over seniority or muscle. I answer questions. I make strong suggestions. We talk sports, cosmetics, and gossip."

Peppermint stood next to her as she said, "The boroughs of Hooflyn are reorganizing. Wind Sail, Prospect es South, and es Sunset Park—" she used the borough names as I insisted "—have taken lower management roles, and three other boroughs are asking to consolidate operations and have abandoned... an industry altogether. They're standing up like soldiers and not acting like jealous siblings."

"Yes, and this is bad, how? They tell me profits are up and territory incursions are down."

"Margins—"

"Are down?" I slammed a hoof on the desk, eliciting from the unicorn the evil eye and a green aura around his horn. "I am your bodyguard. The next griffon may kill me, then you. You hired me to do a job, then thought to tell everypony I was your daughter to mess with ponies' minds? Seriously? Did you think I wouldn't wield the weapon the way I might a knife, a hoof, or my horn?"

This was where she would bring up Blue Lightning. When the newspapers had discovered that he had disappeared, the constabulary had kept mum despite yellow dog press speculation that he had taken a swim with cement horseshoes because he was a witness. Had Carne Asada erased him, surely the EBI would not have stopped their high profile investigation of her—but with her you never knew. For Carne Asada, principle always trumped business.

Well?

She kept eye contact until she didn't, then sat on the velvet director' chair in front of my desk, waving the unicorn away. He backed out into the hall very slowly.

She conceded, "I don't understand all you did."

"I'll teach you." I reached for one of the same books Proper Step had gotten my tutors; they were as pricey as had undoubtedly been my tutors. They lay scattered at the edges of my desk and stacked pastern-high on the floor beside me. 

She waved a hoof. "That's what underlings are for. I get reports that aren't in brainy-filly-speak. Bottom line looks good in that it lets me accelerate my plans. Starlight Glimmer?"

That name. She locked gazes with me again. "Yes?"

"Ask permission next time, even if you are laid-up in the hospital."

I nodded.

She glanced at the books on the desk, the gym equipment, the paisley drapes that cut the light to twilight levels. She reached into a peytral purse that blended with her blue dress, looked under the flap, then at me.

She said, "You gave your life to save mine. Don't think I didn't notice."

I grinned, showing my teeth. I defeated a flapping griffon master fighter! "Don't exaggerate. I'm tough."

"You died, twice. They barely revived you, twice. I saw you jump when they applied lightning shocks to your heart... What blood you didn't leave on the floor you lost to internal bleeding, they told me. The hospital wasn't close enough. They had trouble finding enough blood. You died—and I did not."

My hooves turned ice and I shuddered as a chill traveled the length of my spine. "Yeah. Well. Whatevs." I chuckled. 

No wonder I'd taken so long to wake up; I almost hadn't!

I sat there breathing hard. Dizzy. Feeling like I was in that storm fomented by the windigoes when I'd been a foal, this time in a boat without a rudder. Circling. Circling. 

She reached into her purse and came out with a manila envelope. "You asked for this and I'm giving it to you."

"Asked for... I, what?"

"They shot you full of medication but you fought yourself awake to see if I was okay. You saw me in the ICU and babbled even when I put a hoof across your mouth, but I understood what you wanted and why. I had to think about it, find out who this Ms. Maple was before I convinced myself that your obsession was something you were angry about, not something you wanted so you could take advantage of this." She reached into the purse and flipped my command card across the desk so it slid in front of me. The H-shaped rune noticed my attention and a green spark traced its outline. "You hate her as much as I do, so I'm not so jealous as to think you had plans to leave me."

She hoofed the envelope over.

I magicked out papers. They shook in the air just as my hooves did. I noticed the indentations of pressure-type official seals and wax seals that weighed down the last page so it acted like a pendulum. Odd. Was this indeed official? I looked at that end piece. I saw red wax, gold foil, and black ink cross-sealed though the stack with indented stylized loops and hearts. I saw a judge's signature, notary signatures, and something it took me a half a minute to remember the word for (though it was right there on the page). Apostille, an overseas document legalization stamp, one each for Trottingham, Prance, Saddle Arabia, Salerno, and Equidor competing for space on the page. "What? What is this?"

"What you asked for," she answered, reaching over and tapping the top page. I turned it over, then had to leaf through a set of instruction pages to find that actual legal document's front page.

I blinked. I read it. Then blinked again.

"Emancipation papers, what!?" I kept looking, scanning page after turned page. "Starlight Glimmer?"

"You es said I could pick a name, though admittedly you were drooling and fighting for consciousness. Hijita mia, this makes you legally an adult anywhere in the world that matters." I looked up and saw Silver Quill nodding beside Carne Asada. The elderly snow white pegasus took out an ink pad and a notebook, and invited in Bright Side, my therapist as a witness. The pink earth pony mare looked really uncomfortable, but she put on a smile that matched her happy pony face cutie mark. "It's legal once you add your hoof print and your es signature."

Even after Carne Asada and I were again alone in my office, I kept flipping the pages back and forth, amazed. Died and reborn, was I? I wondered if I could use it to kick Proper Step out of my earldom. The hoof print and signature were mine, whether it read Aurora Midnight or not. Princess Celestia might fight it, probably would fight it, or use a royal decree to reverse it, but the only earl in Equestria might be able to fight back with the peerage's help...

Thinking Her name brought up another question. "Why do you hate Celestia so badly?"

The mare's breathing increased and I could see her face darken at the word Celestia. She gulped back anger. Her wings strained against her dress and I heard a seam unravel. Any pegasus would have flared her wings. She stood and paced, hissing. "The White Windigo." 

"I'm sorry. If you don't want to answer—"

"Genocide," spat Carne Asada, trembling as she looked down at me. "The crystal caves of the Canterlot Mountain Range are my people's ancestral home! Es stolen! She killed our queen, and when we fought back, she tried to erase my kind from the world. After nine centuries, she will pay, and... I know you will help me for your own reasons." She rubbed her head with a hoof. "I—I have to go lay down."

The whole encounter left me unaccountably worried. Was everypony somepony else's monster? Why did I feel that my freedom came with chains attached?

The next week, she accelerated her plans and I soon understood why she had used the term soldiers earlier.
> Chapter 69 — The Runaway Bodyguard
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I caught myself dragging my right rear hoof, again. 

Half-convinced it was psychological, I felt the friction despite the rear and bottom of my leg remaining all pins and needles. The unconscious tendency wore away the front surface in an unsightly fashion, like a woodworking rasp, and made me trip or bash into things when I tried to up my rear-body training. I felt half the mare I had been.

"Bedraggled" fit the image I wanted to project this morning, walking across the grass at the North Community Park in Prancetown. The petite blue mare lay on a red-check cloth; she wore a white linen blouse that made her cutie mark—four pink pony forelegs hoof-bumping—stand out. The new Sunset Park had taken the first express train from Hooflyn. 

At 8 AM on a weekend, I saw stray colts on the pitch practicing hoof ball and two elderly types trotting along the stone path around the pond. The water lapped peacefully. Trees sported yellow leaves that rustled in the breeze. Autumn approached and you could smell the crispness in the air. Nopony to overhear, few to get caught in an unlikely crossfire—I approved of the venue. I wore a yellow strapless sun dress and a not-so-floppy hat that didn't interfere with my sight lines. 

Her white tail thrashed with unease as her purple eyes followed my approach. The dark circles under her eyes spoke volumes. Her three hench-ponies sat under separate trees. Safe and Broomhill Dare lay down side by side facing opposite directions ten pony lengths away in the sun, while Carne Asada's monitor, a C-team pegasus bodyguard assigned to me, took point hovering near the shore.

"Craving breakfast company?" I asked, but even as I sat, she hoofed out plates of honeyed caramelized hay and apples, along with two bottles of Sunny Daze OJ. 

"Craving answers," she said, laying out implements that included taking out something wrapped in a purple satin napkin that wasn't a napkin. The square of fabric had been ripped from a Marvel gang cape. She unrolled it to reveal a hunting knife. 

I looked, not touching. It was missing specific scratches and a chip on the up-curved razor edge. No dried blood. New. Nasty. Symbolic. 

"Not mine." 

I had seen Blue Lightning's knife drop into molten iron at the Equestrian Alloy Foundry in downtown Baltimare, had heard the splash.    Safe had been right; squinting into the fierce heat and the act of throwing it in had helped clean away bits of the darkness lingering around me.

"Doña Asada hoofed me the knife, the scrap of cape, and a one-word message to deliver to my predecessor: 'Retire'. I accompanied him to the airship terminal and saw him off safely."

"I'm having an influence, I guess?"

The mare pushed around the hay on her plate, but I could see from her darting eyes she was measuring her words. She added, "When I returned, I found a—" she coughed "—'recall notice' for all the satin capes in Hooflyn."

I frowned, thinking immediately about who I needed to take to lunch in Baltimare and later to dinner in Fillydelphia. I could ask Carne Asada, but intuition said I should wait for her to tell me. Tellingly, I was neither dead nor reprimanded. "This could negatively affect production and syndicate PR."

"You think?"


#


It went from bad to worse as summer turned into fall. The vendetta toward the Marvel Gang spread across all the metro areas because they were affiliated organizations much like the Carne Asada Syndicate was, except with less central control and with more hot heads. That destabilized territory boundaries and encouraged the remaining gangs to look for advantage in the resulting chaos.

It seemed like Carne Asada wanted to start a war.

I didn't like this because it made my job protecting Carne Asada more difficult. If I hadn't enjoyed my job at some level, I think I would have left about then. Sadly, I wasn't that smart. Apparently, I had a multi-faceted sugar addiction.

I used the tools I had at hoof for all they were worth: Celestia's training thanks to Proper Step, White Towel's fight-smart training, and the implied power of being Carne Asada's "daughter." 

I was the Earl of Grin Having, and that meant as an earl I would have had the right to command one of Princess Celestia's armies. That went with the title, and it was a title rarely bestowed on anypony. Yet, what had I been taught? 

Magic? No. 

How to fight? No. 

How to command an army? My stars, no! Not that I would have prosecuted a gang war for Carne Asada!

I had been learning how to run the business of a provincial-sized estate and to an administer a town, so I went with that. My goal was to minimize the danger to Carne Asada while not kicking her hooves as she walked her tightrope. As a side bonus, I got taken out to nice restaurants and invited to special home-cooked meals on a regular basis. I spent a lot of time traveling, meeting a lot of ponies you wouldn't want to take home to meet mama. 

It became a collaborative effort, with those who would listen and work with me. I emphasized becoming competitive at the expense of some of our profits, cutting into the business of the other gangs because Carne Asada's goal of cutting into the business of the other gangs was something everypony clearly understood. Where I could, I convinced them into cherry picking the clients we invested in and letting the dregs go to our competition. I got them working with our debtors so they could repay. Getting the intermediate levels in our guard and transportation workers to weed out the hot heads and put the smart fighters in charge helped further, especially when I convinced their higher ups to emphasize defensive strategies, ensuring no one could affect the flow of product or cut supply chains. Let the competition waste their time protecting assets they didn't need to protect. I convinced some of the lower bosses to pay the newly promoted better, and to contract the ponies I helped train to train their best ponies better.

Then I added an innovation: Where possible, know where the constabulary was. Yes, keep from being caught. Better: Fend off some attacks by tipping off the coppers.

Incarcerated, competing gang members were removed from the playing field and, if they got popped more than once, sometimes removed for good.

I, of course, wrote extensive sanitized notes about every meeting and every proposal, and results when reported to me. I took to leaving my notebook on my desk. 

Carne Asada had said I needed to ask permission. I preferred to ask for forgiveness, but at least I was upfront about it. 

Surprisingly, I found very few red-penciled corrections. I didn't have to fend off any griffons, either, though I accompanied Carne Asada to restaurants, business meetings, hotel visits, and to various pony's homes. 

Returning from one well-attend party, we rode a coach-and-two brougham late in the evening. Both the earth ponies pulling at a canter could fight and wore quick-release harnesses. I had my grey party dress hiked up so I could straddle the dashboard to keep watch, while Citron kept watch on the tail board, and Crystal Skies watched overhead. I knew that Carne Asada could see in the dark as well as I could in the day, so she accommodated my nervousness by scanning the road ahead of us. I could smell rain in the clouds that the moon played hide-and-seek with, which made me worry about pegasi attacks.

"Rosedale is unhappy he lost two ponies last week," I observed, over the sound the wind, the clatter of the cobbles under the wheels, and the rhythm of earth pony hooves. I avoided listening to business details, but some facts were general enough I judged I could learn them in a newspaper.

Her pupils were so wide and her irises so thin, her eyes looked more like round windows letting in light than eyes as they fixed on me. "And his profits are down. I understand this. And yet, I am es safe." She waved a hoof at the night sky. "You do your job well, Hija."

"You could be safer. It doesn't have to be this way. Having to recalibrate. To keep on compensating." My mane kept blowing in my eyes. I compensated by pushing it up and over.

"'Risk is essential for the growth of any enterprise,'" she quoted. "I read that in one of your books! Stagnation is its own risk, and I've held back too long on the progress of my plans. The White Windigo is ageless, but I am not. Again, Hija, you do your job well. Our time is near. I have no complaints."

"And, you saying it, worries me even more."

Carne Asada smiled, showing her fangs. She shoved me lightly on the withers and said, "Hija, you are—how you say—being an es silly filly, now?"

As if.


#


I stood in Carne Asada's way, blocking her path, my horn lit. A curl of frost steam waft from her hips.

She looked exasperated. "If you teleport me away, again, I will fire you."

I looked askance at the red brick archway, thought about it, then said, "I think it might be worth it."

She glanced at Peppermint, the forest green unicorn beside her, and the stallion levitated me aside very gingerly. She added, "Yet, not actually worth being fired for?" she asked, chuckling, and trotted out of the International School's main yard for the adjacent city sports park. 

I followed, chewing on some choice words. The whole thing was a mess. I'd been dragged out of bed by very respectful toughs at 5 AM when I'd though I had the next four days off and had stayed up late, reading. I'd had time to grab my Grimoire cloak and nothing more before I was levitated hooves up to Prancetown Station with Safe and Broomhill Dare to meet up with Carne Asada's private rail car when the train made a one minute stop at 5:36 AM. I had none of my make-up. I'd washed all the dyes out of my fur and mane. I was a blank flank. But it got worse.

Gang Summit. 

You read that right. 

What the fudge!? Does anything about Gang Summit sound like a good idea to you? If you say yes, you are either stupid, a sadist, or a member of the constabulary—possibly all three.

Yet, here Carne Asada and I were, in Hooflyn, at a—yes, we didn't use the G-word out loud—summit, but still... Stupid. And worse than stupid. Somepony else had picked the venue! I had venue plans thanks to Crystal Skies and plenty of gold bits. It was a hodgepodge of red brick and grey brick two- and three-story buildings repurposed into a school, with a courtyard and a sports track/skate park underneath elevated railroad trestles—but I couldn't get eyes-on to check it out, and nopony in the syndicate had ever attended the high-class magnet school. I had visions of another griffon dive-bombing me, though there wasn't a cloud in the bright blue afternoon sky. I wondered if Carne Asada had paid the Hooflyn weather bureau director off, because I'd thought I'd heard they had been brewing a storm, or maybe I was thinking metaphorically. I saw roofs. I saw windows. I saw metal trestle beams shudder as a train rumbled overhead. At least nopony could hide on top. I had Crystal Skies hovering. Other gangs had a pegasus in the sky, too.

I liked the idea of peace. Why didn't anypony else? 

Ponies wouldn't get hurt if the gangs declared a peace. Hey, even a truce would help. The newspapers didn't go so far as to declare it a gang war, but I knew from my facilitator meetings, everypony considered it one. Despite all my mitigation suggestions, and all the other ideas we had come up with together, ponies still got hurt, or worse. Territories fluctuated. Business suffered. More ponies in the constabulary, the guard, city governments, and the judicial system had to be paid to look the other way. Everypony except the EBI, who couldn't be bribed... Wartime taxes by any other name. What was it if not war?

A high school seemed like neutral territory. Everywhere I looked, I saw ponies. I didn't think for a minute they were students, even though on a weekend afternoon, I might expect them in the city park. The Running of the Leaves had taken place almost four weeks ago and my breath threatened to condense when I huffed in the chill. It might snow any day. My cloak helped a little. We clattered through cement bleachers onto the "skate track," a narrow long urban recreation area with lanes intersecting lines for a hoofball pitch and positioned around the supporting members of the trestle. My art training lead me to see all the negative metal spaces above, in the cement behind me, in the brick buildings, in the darkened windows hidden by glare, and in the rustling skeletal trees framing the park—shadows in which any sort of monster or pony could hide. 

Shadows I knew I would utilize.

I saw an open invitation to assassination. Knowing what a perfect assassin was capable of, I randomly sauntered in front of the team. I scanned the sky for griffons and really wished I hadn't stayed up reading late last night.

On the field, everypony noticed me. I was indisputably the youngest bodyguard, and while the cloak hid my blank flank, without the lift shoes, the clothing looked oversized and failed to have the intended aging affect. Carne Asada had both paraded me as a filly and as a mare. At least my costuming fiasco kept all pony eyes on me, not my "mother," as we stepped off softer composite ground onto to running track, causing our horseshoes to clatter again.

The other groups approached from the cardinal directions. By their red, blue and gold capes, I recognized the Marvel Gang. The Avenue P Gang wore random pieces of clothing or none, but each wore a purple hat or cap. The Fleethooves wore white tee-shirts or sweats, each with a bandoleer studded with spikes. I'd been briefed that they swung those like chains, and many hid knives in them. While Carne Asada stopped in the first lane of the track, the others didn't immediately catch her power move and continued to approach from their entrances into the park.

The unicorn stallion leader of the Marvel Gang, a golden palomino with a blond mane and a red cap-and-cape comic book combo stopped suddenly, the fabric fluttering dramatically over his back in the breeze. He shouted, "You want peace? We need concessions!"

As I scanned my eyes past the bleachers, I saw a smile grow on Carne Asada's face. She wore a thick coat with re-enforced fibers, her purple scarf, and sunglasses. The tip of her scarf fluttered, too. As I looked another direction, she began to laugh.

"Concession? Who was it who attacked me? Who was it that es sent a griffon to crush my daughter? Look, even now she drags her leg, not yet recovered. You ask for my concession?" She spat on the pavement.

Thanks for pointing out I wasn't as good a bodyguard as I used to be, Mom!

"That's not the point. You are driving business away—"

"Not how I es see it."

My ears perked up. I thought I heard something differentiating itself from the traffic sounds and machine noise of the city. Under my breath, I said, "Eyes. To the south."

"You're putting the squeeze on us, C. A., and by us, I mean Fleet and P, too. They see the writing on the wall, with you tagging our territories and all. Back off and we'll back off. Think of the lost business! If you don't, we will gang together–"

"You? Form an es syndicate? You ponies can barely wipe your—"

Tweee! The sound came through on a breeze and nopony could miss it. The coppers. They'd figured out the impromptu summit location?

The unicorn stallion turned as red as his cape, spearing me with his fiery glare. "You informed on us? You low down—"

Citron fired a yellow beam of Force his way before the magenta aura around the Marvel gang leader's horn even intensified.

I'd turned and shoved Carne Asada back with my hooves, then tripped myself I'd turned so quickly. Peppermint caught me in a cushion of green magic as I got my shield up behind us and pushed the boss to retreat. She broke into a gallop. The whole agreeing to the summit thing was stupid, but she herself wasn't stubborn enough to resist me now.

Crystal Skies: "Coming across the 9th Street Bridge and East on Hunting Town. Two dozen, at least."

"North?"

"Not yet. Looking."

Tipping off the coppers was a page from my playbook, and coming from the opposite direction of our retreat did make it look like I'd called in the tip. Too bad I hadn't thought to do so.

I heard the other gangsters galloping after us. I looked back and confirmed that and saw constables leaping the school yard fence beyond them. I didn't like any of that, not one copper bit.

We took Knoll Son to Court, where I bounced Carne Asada onto the bench seat of our waiting Regency Brougham carriage, brooking no complaints, before Broomhill Dare did the same for me, dropping me on the dashboard before I could more than flail my legs once. I landed on my stomach with a thud as we slammed into motion.

I cried out, "I remember there's a park— Coffee Park, five, six blocks west. We can go to ground there."

"There's a subway entrance closer," Citron chimed in from the tailboard. "I'd go there. We can be in Manehatten in a half-hour."

Carne Asada grabbed me with her hooves, pulling me up. She shouted to the drover. "Go north on Court."

"Can't. One way. Cling Town?"

"North toward the Hooflyn Bridge."

"Yes, Boss!"

The carriage tilted and I scrambled as I lost my balance again. I needed to get myself on station. I heard a bang and a fizzle, and could only assume somepony was shooting at us. My Grimoire lifts had had rubber integrated into the horseshoes, which I sorely needed right now for stability.

"I need you somewhere safe while this sorts out," I shouted, climbing into a seat. I startled at the crowd of ponies boiling onto the street. I saw plenty of C.A., but there were other gangs to, and not just Marvel, Fleethoof, and P, either.

I looked at the middle-aged mare as I spun up Teleport, having lost it being dumped on the floor. With her scarf wrapping her face and her sunglasses, not to forget the clothing that wrapped wings that pegasus often used to speak a second parallel language, she could be hard to read. The grin on her face was anything if not hard to read. A sinking feeling in my stomach insisted she had planned all this. Had she called in the constables? Had her response to the Gang Summit been a coup d'état with her letting herself be the bait and me the savior? 

Brass clasps latched. She finished strapping on a black messenger bag purse across her chest like a peytral. It had a red droplet cutie mark emblazoned on the flap.

I reached out my forelegs to her withers and with more force than necessary, jerked her flat on the bench seat so she was no longer visible through the windows. It did nothing to wipe the grin off her face, even when I sat on her haunches to keep her down.

"Why north? Why the Hooflyn Bridge?" I asked, the metal rims on the carriage complaining as we skidded on to Cling Town going north. It surprised me to see a wagon half-a-block up lose control and roll over. Ponies scattered as we quickly passed by. "Crystal Skies. Broomhill Dare! What's up?" Shop owners were pulling closed crash gates and garage doors, with customers inside.

I heard from Citron, "This is a Fleethooves' corridor. Hear that buzzy horn? I think that's their alarm."

"Agreed," cried Crystal Skies.

I watched with growing horror as a riot broke out and we rode through the first few blocks of it.

"Why North?" I asked again, sharply. "I need to protect you!"

"The White Windigo—"

I heard the roar of a fireplace followed by a thunderous bang. A vertigo-inducing drop to left and the sensation of the carriage fishtailing was followed—in extreme slow motion—by me seeing a half-arc of smoking wooden wagon wheel hurtle upward in front of my face, cutting through the front of the brougham. 

I had triggered Teleport reflexively.

I clamped my mouth and nose shut as a sheet of blue lightning spidered across the sphere of enveloping blackness like dragon claws. I blinked.

Traveling in a carriage at a gallop is not the time to be doing targeting by the numbers. I had to be watching for attacks and for obstacles in our path ahead, staying aware of where there were no ponies, no buildings, and no wagons that if I targeted would cause my spell to fail, while understanding my speed so I could negate that because if I didn't and the spell "perceived" I'd injure myself, it could also fail.

I flipped our vectors, x, y, and z—tried, anyway. It felt like hitting a brick wall midair without the brick wall. My insides bounced nonetheless but nothing ripped, and we fell upward, before gravity caught us and Carne Asada, now laying above me draped over me. I had barely an instant to squirm midair like my defense teachers had taught me, as Grape had re-enforced, so as not to break my neck, and to somewhat cushion Carne Asada's fall as she landed atop me and then slid across the broken sidewalk. I recovered quickly enough. Before I could take a breath, I shoved her toward the stairs of a brick walkup and behind a pair of smelly silver ash cans.

I saw our brougham down the street keel over. Our drive team dove free of their hitch whinnying, dodging wooden spears hitting their flanks as the demolished dash hit the cobbles, the carriage doors following, the wood and glass disintegrating in flinders mixed up with shredded upholstery that sprayed against a storefront, shattering the glass because the unfortunate owner had still been cranking down the garage door. The yellow earth pony leapt away. Bouncing wheels chased another pony who miraculously dodged behind a light pole that rang like a bell when struck. Our drover slid into curb to be dragged away unconscious by his teammate as gangsters fired again. 

"Citron!" Where was he?

"I'm okay!" he said. "Just a cut." He dashed from an alleyway. 

"That way!" Carne Asada ordered. The fall and my shoving her on her back had tussled her worse than I thought. Her dress ripped and freed her wings. The atrophied leathery appendages didn't quite stick to her sides the way a pegasus wing at rest would have, and each of her wings had two claws: one at the elbow and one at the wing tip. She pointed with her left elbow claw, then adjusted her cracked sunglasses with it. She trotted north on Cling Town, her dark wings shifting right and left as if helping her to balance.

Before I could stop her, Peppermint came galloping up with other C.A. They engaged the Fleethooves who had gone from being perplexed that we had survived being thrown almost a block from a wagon accident to determined to perpetrate mayhem on my charge. 

There were way too many gang members of all affiliations on this block. 

My right hoof dragged as I followed Carne Asada. I growled and gritted my teeth as I added that to my need-to-concentrate thoughts, then trotted fast to catch up to the crazy mare. I spun up Teleport again, thinking that Shield would be a good second in the queue. What if the group of us tied her up and sat on her in some shop backroom until it all blew over?

The team formed around me, with Citron watching my back. Blood dripped down his neck from his right ear, now ripped in half, but he grinned with his horn alight. He didn't seem to notice the blistering and charred burn across his flank that added a certain immediacy to his flaming cutie mark. Crystal Skies kept a look out above, and Broomhill Dare helped him and alternately tripped ponies who were fighting along our route or, or more amusingly, threw trash cans or post boxes. Between them all, we picked our way behind abandoned or parked wagons, street posts, newspaper machines, and other urban cover as ponies fought around us. They fought between gangs. Or they fought against the constables, who had roused themselves and got bogged down in the unexpectedly wide-spread riot.

I couldn't understand why it continued to blow up.

"Why?" I asked.

Carne Asada said, "Hija. You made this all possible."

"Me?"

"You convinced ponies to become organized, to have the best qualified ponies to be doing the job, not to waste effort or bits, to put ponies predisposed to fighting where their fighting would do some good, not just to cause general mayhem."

"I didn't tell them to do this!"  To emphasize the point, a few unicorn gang members of I-don't-know-what-rival gang dodged behind some wagons and Citron shot Force in that direction. I saw Peppermint run another direction. Suddenly sweating, I hustled Carne Asada between a parked lorry and a shorter stake-bed that had barrels in it.

"This?" the thestral asked. "This cleaning up of the streets?"

"This is not cleaning. It's fighting."

"Fighting, cleaning, es the same thing. You bake a cake, you break some eggs." More shots.

"You make all this fighting sound like a good thing!" 

All I had wanted to do was to atone for a moment of mania. I had done something monstrous, then one thing lead to another, and I saw ways of making things better for everypony. I'd seen ways to be useful. It had seemed right that it made my life before I had run away have some meaning. I had seen it as a way to allow ponies in the syndicate to need to fight less to achieve better results, with much less violence.

Had I deluded myself?

Or had I just been being used? 

"Hija, we es share many ideals in common. We agree ponies should be able to do what they are good at. We both hate the White Windigo. After today," she said excitedly, gesturing grandly with her wings that looked like they had been plucked. "After today, we will be on a road to make that all reality!" She would have flared them if she had enough strength in them, but she lifted them reflexively high enough. 

A unicorn saw her wing movement.

I saw a blue aura.

I wasn't touching her.

I leapt forward, twisting so I could push her head down and sweep her out of the unicorn's line of sight. 

I didn't entirely succeed.

The plasma from a Force spell sizzled past us setting the stake bed posts and the closest barrels afire with blue flames. Carne Asada's silk scarf whooshed and burnt in an instant. I was on her as she fell, patting out her deep red mane. Fire had burnt toward her scalp in little glowing sparks of orange. Hairs on the skin of her wing smoked, but she dunked that in the water flowing in the street gutter.

I then twisted around, realizing the shoulder of my cloak was on fire and doused that. It hadn't burnt through. I'd only caught the edge effect.

Carne Asada laughed lowly. I'd have expected a whimper, at least. I knew how sensitive pegasi wings were from my year as a prizefighter. Flopping awkwardly with her wings, she nevertheless righted herself with her usual grace while looking into the street. "Going to get in my way, boludo?" she asked under her breath.

She used her left wing's elbow claw to open her messenger bag and grabbed with her teeth, by a hefty tooth-grip loop, what looked like a pine cone. She struck the brass object against the fender of the lorry the way one might the lid of a jar to loosen it, then she flipped the thing up and in an arc over in the direction of the unicorn that had sent the force bolt.

I saw a flash and heard a report like the sound a green-wood log makes when it explodes in a fireplace, only magnitudes louder. The sharp pop numbed my ears, leaving a ringing sound, and it was followed by shooting sparks and gouts of flames. Thrown debris peppered the side of the wagons, and I felt a pebble bounce off my hoof.

Screams followed, and I caught a glimpse of a bloodied tan pony running, trailing flames behind him, his hooves galloping until he tripped and I heard him slide to a stop. I heard moans.

The unicorn gangster with the blue magic would not be the first I'd see die that day, nor would he be the last. He was the first I saw die and whose death I knew I could have prevented.

I stood gaping.

"I don't need the finicky magicks to protect myself, Starlight Glimmer." That name again. "Let's go," Carne Asada said, shocking me into motion when a pony claw pricked into my flank. 

My whole body went cold in horror with a sudden realization: I had saved Carne Asada's life. Twice, today. I understood her words. I understood her deadly intent. In that moment, I understood that circumstance had presented me with an opportunity to choose. Despite all that I knew about her, I had acted as I had—and had saved her. 

How many ponies would pay with with their lives because I did my job well? Had I not shoved her head down, it would have been Carne Asada who died in flames, not the tan unicorn. 

I really was a bad pony. I was The Monster.

In the back of my mind, I began a death tally as we proceeded north. 

The neighborhoods became progressively better as we approached the bridge, and we had to skirt the blocks the constabulary had cordoned off, but there weren't enough copper badges in blue uniforms yet to bring order to the chaos. It helped all of us, including the B and C team, that we all wore passably civilian clothes. Pig Pen with his chain and me with my dark cloak were the sketchiest of the lot, blood and burn marks amongst us aside. Even when we could have slipped through out of the fighting, nothing could dissuade Carne Asada from going north and, with me in my shock and apathy lacking the initiative to bind and gag her for her own good, none would buck her wishes. 

As the sunset turned the Hooflyn Bridge orange and it became easily visible above the park and shorter buildings to the northeast, the fighting between gangs got worse, not better. I understood it was a major transportation corridor for our goods from the docks. This close to the financial district, various diversions from the hard realities of city-pony life sold well in the few dozen blocks of high-rises amid the remaining historic brownstone buildings that had been here for centuries. Fewer shops had crash gates uptown, and glass from busted windows littered the street and sidewalks. Smoke layered the air, and at times made it hard to see. Some wagons burned and crackled, while other's were turned over in heaps of smoking charcoal. Here and there I saw ponies that didn't move, might never move again, all wearing colors of P or Marvel. That they weren't civilians didn't make it better. That Carne Asada saved us from a well planned ambush with her last pine cone didn't make it any easier to stomach, or that I'd told her do so.

"Makes me feel young again," I heard her murmur to herself. "Reminds me of fighting the imperialists from the forests when I could still fly, and making them pay."  I saw her laugh as we walked around the stilled forms. Others ran, for the moment too frightened to fight us. I heard distant shouts and bangs, but silence made our hooves sound loud in the moment.

She added, "But for my boludo brother-in-law, none of this horse apples would have been necessary. Could have been free of the White Windigo, the both of us, Equestria, the world. Esa Tirana, she would have died a hero es saving her little ponies when I collapsed the Fillydelphia Estadio down on her head, but no! Today I free my hooves—" she flexed her wings "–and my wings of chains so that we do es so much more better tomorrow."

It didn't surprise me that the constabulary closed down the Hooflyn Bridge, or that Bridge Street was empty, but for wrecks and abandoned lorries and wagons. At Blue Jay and Myrtle, we got bogged down again. This time, Carne Asada didn't have any pine cones to help us with. We were near the provincial court buildings and the college. I could see the Old Equestrian Post Office in the next block. Grey granite archways and arched windows made up its street-level façade, while large two-story square windows went up three further levels and were framed with white granite. Two rounded towers with grey conical roofs on one side made it look vaguely like Castle Canterlot, while a square towering castle-keep made it look fortress-like. Two pony height rounded dormer windows in the blue-grey mansard roof completed the monolithic institutional appearance of the massive historic edifice.

"We're going there," Carne Asada announced.

In the end, that proved doable, but not the way I liked best. Broomhill Dare found a spot at one end of the block where she could throw things down approaching streets. Citron took station at the other end, from whence we crept, with the rest of the group keeping us from being followed or hounded from high atop another building. Despite Carne Asada claiming the post office was her destination, she was alright keeping to the opposite side of the street. Fine by me. The post office, which close-up looked like a mega-mansion mated with a small castle, was in the process of extended renovation. Most of the upper story glass was painted white, and many of the ground floor windows were boarded up. One exception was The Green Hoof Grocery, but it's owner had hastily pushed racks and shelves against the window and boarded up the double-door entrance on his way out. I didn't worry we'd be watched from that side. I judged the threat, if any, was from the storefronts beside me and the office windows above me. Or possibly the abandoned open wagons that lined the curbs of the street.

Crystal Skies curved out of the cover of the Cat Pony Memorial Park to the north and came zigzagging down Plaza East coming west toward us, flying low. His head flicked right and left as he peered into carriage cabs and down into wagon beds.

A bright orange beam shot out from above me. Carne Asada grunted as I pushed her tighter against the wall, but my eyes followed the frictional cylinder through the air. As was typical of such apparitions, it missed, but Crystal Skies banked wildly to avoid the heat flash and plasma cone that projected from its endpoint. He struck a brass carriage light with a wing. The severed lantern careened into the air, but friction and the loss of momentum was more than the pegasus could compensate for. He bounced off a van, went tumbling through the sky then, fluttering for all he was worth, spun down the street almost to the end. The brass lantern followed him, bouncing, the glass cracking out.

I heard a bang-whoosh! above me. A ball of bright red fire unrolled like a serpent's tongue from a fourth-story window while sparkling glass exploded away, to come tinkling down and splash like a solid wave of ice on the sidewalk and into the street.

Citron's yellow Force bolts shot out further windows. I spared glances, shielding us with Shield from raining glass. Soon I feared the building might catch fire, but beyond smoke, which quickly went from black to grey, soon there were no more flames.

Anypony trapped in the building didn't want it to be burnt down either. I looked down the street.

I asked the team. "Where's Crystal?"

"My pegasus can walk," Pig Pen answered. "Broke wing, tho." At least Crystal Skies reported the wagons, lorries, and carriages appeared clear.

I had to stop and clear each address. All had triangle glass fronts that angled at thirty degrees in from the street to a doorway. The law office had a red marble entrance gallery with impressionist paintings. The wooden racks in the candy store had been pushed across the door. The bank branch had a crash gate pulled across behind the glass, and its lights were out. 

Celestia chose that moment to put the sun to bed. Orange and purple light showed a teller window, but no guard. I saw gleaming steel weight machines in the fitness center. I identified another law office—

"That wagon's mine," Carne Asada said from where I pressed her against the brick. The black end claw of her right wing pointed beyond my muzzle at a squat blue-grey van. Rearing, I'd easily be able to do a pull-up to see over its roof. It looked both unharmed and vaguely armored sitting there on industrial-strength leaf springs with heavy duty metal-rimmed wagon wheels that looked recently brushed so they showed almost no rust. A special delivery that got stranded? 

Glancing at the inline double-hitch, I could see it was made for Clydesdales. I said, "This rig is more than I or even the both of us can pull. We're not earth ponies."

"Silly filly," she said, rummaging with her mouth in her purse. I cringed reflexively, though I knew she'd thrown her last pine cone. I heard the telling jingle before I saw the ring of three keys she grinned around, snagged in her fangs. "We're delivering."

I pushed her back against the wall when she stepped toward the van. She smiled when I took the keys in my magic and showed her the stubby vehicle key, which I could recognize as not being a wide house key or an old-school door key. I spun up Mirror Shield because an iffy spell was better than none and edged out, taking my time. Clouds far to the west reflected the colors of the twilight. As my eyes adjusted, as would those of any other pony watching, I could see better into the windows of the building front above me. If anypony remained that hadn't fled, I supposed they didn't want their presence advertised: I saw no windows cranked or lifted open. The lingering smoke may have been a reason, too. A pegasus wouldn't want to cast a javelin through glass, nor would Citron cast Force lest it splash back, but there were plenty of spells that could work. Illusions, for instance, which I did not understand except for one stupidly complex one.

I saw black glass. I saw unmoving white curtains and shut blinds. I swiftly unlocked and threw open the van double-doors. Seeing only some barrels and wood crated boxes, I jumped in and levitated Carne Asada in after me toward the front.

I tensed, waiting for thumps or clanks, or the static discharge of a spell. None came. I heard a can rolling in the street, but I'd identified that one earlier. 

I murmured under my breath, "We're in the van mid-block. Any eyes?"

"No," came back.

With my head down, I could stand in the wood-paneled interior. She sat and so did I. I glanced at the barrels. They were metal pony kegs, so-called because filled with cider they weighed one pony weight. These were strapped in pairs, one above the other. The crates looked much larger, put when I pushed one, my first guess was it weighed about the same as each pair.

"Delivery?" I asked.

"Por supuesto," she said, digging into her purse. "Crystal Skies got this for me." She pulled out some paper tied with a string, which in a very pegasus manner, she took with her wings and untied. Though shaky, the claw proved very good for pulling out the knot in the twine. She unfolded—

"Blueprints," I cried, surprised. The van doors faced west. The twilight lit the plans and the Old Equestrian Post Office to the left that they depicted, in details down to decimal pony length measurements and hash-shaded shadow-outlines of the adjacent buildings on the opposite side of the block it abutted. I saw the area circled in red pencil was labeled vault.

"A heist?" I asked, not liking it one bit.

Carne Asada chuckled, clearly taking my question as a joke. She clacked the temples of her cracked sunglasses together and placed them in her purse, training her brown eyes on me. The bright twilight compressed her irises into slits, giving her dragon eyes. Her singed dark red mane glowed. My breath caught. 

Predator. Prey. I was the prey. 

She owned me.

"Nopony has es stored anything of value in the vault since the princess decommissioned the post office a decade ago. I have a use for it, though." She gestured with a wing and a hoof to the van's cargo. 

I glanced at the crated boxes of nailed together scrap wood. I saw red diamond-shaped stickers that had been torn off, but it struck me as not particularly important or valuable stuff. Somepony had scratched out some printing, but Carne Asada cleared her throat distracting me from reading more then NH4. I looked back to the plans to avoid her eyes, focusing on the measurements. "Um?" I asked.

"Poof," she said, touching the frog of her hoof to my horn, causing me to gasp. "The miracle that is you." 

With her claw, she had snagged compass dividers from the cache of odd stuff in her peytral purse, but dropped it on the plans unable to hold it. She pointed with a hoof outside and to the plans, "That's this, that's that."

My brain was so messed up, I finally got it on her third try. I grabbed up the dividers with my magic. As I determined the position of the van from the vault, I said, "You want me to teleport this stuff into the vault."

"So es simple, yes?"

"I guess," I said. I had my tongue out as I figured out the numbers, after taking a few moments to shove the pony kegs and boxes around to be sure I understood their masses. The boxes were heavier than I thought. 

I asked, "You've been following my progress at the gym?"

"So proud, Hijita! I know you want to teleport the entire pony cart, but five pony weight is not so bad. One day, one day."

Each crated box massed nearly five pony weight.

I sighed. Five each of the dual pony-kegs and boxes. "After I do this, can I take you somewhere safe?"

"Of course."

Citron quipped, "Good. Marvel has brought in some new unicorns and they're proving a headache."

I wanted to be home. To sleep it off. To consider disappearing somewhere in Trottingham for good. "Okay. Let's get this over with as fast as possible." 

The little filly in the middle-aged mare caused her to stamp her hooves happily.

I teleported Carne Asada along with the first dual pony-kegs. I took my time, measuring my splendors, checking my math, and balancing my vectors to maximize my efficiency and minimize any error that might inadvertently exhaust me. I knew I'd left in-between because I heard the out-teleport pop echo on a space the size of the great hall at Grin Having. That and I could breathe. The darkness was total.

Carne Asada said, "Keep it dim, Hija," touching my flank.

The shock caught me mid-cast of a third-level Illuminate spell. I flinched, side stepped from her claw touch and jerked my head around. Like I had done when I'd misfired—when Steeple Chase's stupid statement that he would not fight alone had spooked me—I sprayed the spell. A stripe of effervescent sparkles forked out in fractal branches from twin ribbons. The two whip-spiral lines painted the closest wall, part of the ceiling, stacks of government-issue metal and wood furniture, and Carne Asada herself in a blue-green glow.

The thestral hopped back, gasping, clearly startled at the circumstance. The line colored her right wing, set her dress aglow, and her tail. I'd missed her eyes; that would have blinded her. I knocked over the pony kegs, which together rolled away. She circled herself, looking at what I had done, frost steam glowing as it rose from her.

Anticipating her question, since it was the one Trigger first asked, I said, "I don't know how to cancel."

Her right hoof glowed, too. She stared at it and said, "When you play with unicorns, expect to be burned."

That sounds rather unfriendly, I thought. "It'll work as a flash light," I tried.

She tried laughing. "The air is fresh enough."

"Yeah." I looked and found vents. That much was a relief. "I'm getting the rest of it. I want this over yesterday."

"I applaud your work ethic. Always will. I want the next ones over there."

I popped back, head held low into the van, Shield at ready in moments but nopony had invaded or shown hide-or-hoof on the street. I shook out the frost that had gathered on my mane and jogged in place as I warmed myself preparing the next spell. Now that I had a better sense for the thick viscous liquid in the kegs, I horsed around the box. Some sort of mineral filled it. Crushed gravel? Some sort of salt? Some ingredient to create a highly profitable happy juice that would advance Carne Asada's plans at an accelerated rate?

Best I did not know. Not knowing the details was always best. Plausible deniability.

Warmed up, I slid a crated box so I could grasp it between my forelegs in the growing darkness. I felt the strain of nearly maxing my limit, but that brought a sense of warmth as I exited into the vault, though halving "impossibly frigidly cold" was still pretty darn cold. 

Carne Asada, still aglow, huffed. "Thought you might have abandoned me."

"Teleportation can't be instant if you have to do it many times. Want me to freeze solid? Employ a moving company next time."

"No. This will do."

"Thank you, I think?"

I thought to ask Citron about the street and confirmed it was safe before cycling two dual pony kegs this time. She had me levitate them to specific spots, then asked for the remaining kegs first. My hooves crunched on stuff on the floor, but I didn't want to waste time investigating things that would delay the moving process.

After I brought the next crated box, I noticed an acrid scent in the air and I nearly slipped in something oily on the floor. "Is there something wrong with the ventilation. I should Teleport you—"

"Don't worry. Everything's fine." She sounded winded and I noted sweat on her brow by the thaumalight radiating from her wings as she waved at me to go. I shrugged, cracking off a bit of frost that had hardened on my cloak.

It took me progressively longer between each delivery, but by the time I brought in the last crate and levitated it beside the pony kegs and the stack of discarded furniture, she seemed rather satisfied with what she had been doing. In the wane light I'd created, I'd gathered she'd opened at least one of the crates. She'd also spread out stuff she'd had in her purse. Stuff crackled underfoot. 

She didn't seem particularly shy about it either. She stepped up to the last crate, looked for what I realized was a rectangular process of some sort. She bucked it. That opened a spout and gravel-sized crystals poured out.

She trotted away from the dust that formed the acrid smell I'd detected before, like lofted salt or dust on a dry day. As I backed away, my right hoof slipped again. I jumped back over a spill of what I realized was some sort of oil mixed with a different powder. That made me look at the pony-kegs and I realized one of the far kegs had split open and I smelled something between grease and machine oil. Was that what was on the floor? Somepony had left the vent vanes cranked closed, or had she closed them? It concentrated the smell. 

I wanted to say, "Can we go now?" What came out instead was, "What is all this?"

She faced away, again rummaging in her purse. "The White Windigo and I have played a game for the last decade, where she has kept me in check. I never expected she would forfeit one of her game pieces." I heard her strike a match with a loud crack! 

Carne Asada had asked me to keep my Illuminate dim. The match glowed very bright yellow and orange which reflected off an institutional white-washed wall. Despite her directly blocking the flare of the igniting phosphors, I reflexively reacted by lifting a hoof rather than by doing what intellect demanded I do instead—grab or snuff the match.

Too late.

She dropped the match to the floor. The powder-oil mixture puffed into yellow actinic sparkles that crawled in eight different directions. I pushed her aside without a thought, trying to stomp out the fire.

She kept to her hooves, steadied by her out-flung wings, chuckling. "It's all right. It is intended, Hija. It's all good."

Stomping it out didn't help. It burnt even completely covered, moreover it spread out the glowing embers and the combustion kept going. I had to hop off lest I burn my frogs or overheat my shoes. Sweeping it made the flame spread more because of the oil. I didn't have an appropriate spell. I tried Levitate, but it was too much like water and flowed out into the air. It whooshed, crackled, and actually burned faster, sending up slimy red smoke. I began to cough.

"I think we need to leave," Carne Asada said, sounding disappointed in me and like she was growing impatient. Okay, maybe it was also the tapping of her hoof.

"Why?"

"Why, she asks? It is the point of the whole day!"

"The war?"

"No, how ponies will respond to what they think is war. I called in the tip." In accentless Equestrian, she said, "'Carne Asada will be at the International School and is behind everything.'"

She continued, "The EBI will call in all their agents. Every single pony from every es single field office. They'll be ready to investigate once the constabulary gets the city under control. Do you know where all the agents will wait? The Hooflyn office, which is where all the records on me are now stored. The Hooflyn EBI Headquarters, my lovely daughter, is on the other side of this wall."

I thought of thrown brass pine cones and running ponies on fire. 

I thought of bridges being blown up, brother-in-laws framed for the crime, and a royal guard and his Equidorian wife sent to Tartarus. 

I thought about Princess Celestia saved from having to die heroically to save a stadium full of ponies that did not blow up. 

I thought of fuses that burned without air that I could not snuff out. 

I thought of a very green very professional pegasus named Agent Greene and Greene who had treated a seemingly nonplussed middle-school filly at face value without judgement.  She was on the other side of that wall.

Carne Asada wrapped a leathery wing over my back. I felt her bare warm canvas-like skin. I felt the claw dig in slightly. 

My hide ticked as she asked, "Don't you think we should leave now?"
> Chapter 70 — On Fire
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I did not realize that I had just 10 seconds to live. 

"Well, that was easier," I said, gasping.

The last EBI agent, a puce fellow in a blue suit, galloped for the building exit with a reflective mirror sheen Shield flickering as he went. The fire alarm blared wah-wah-wah and strobed. The door jam burst into flames, lit by my last Force spell. Stinging sweat dripped into my right eye and I began blinking.

I maintained my spell queue and fiery numbers on semi-polar orbits; they precessed right to left like comets through my view of the world. For an instant, I imagined my guardian Proper Step, his mustachioed face twisted into a disapproving glare. What might he think to learn that his carefully cultured ward, the Countess Aurora Midnight, the Earl of Grin Having, had mastered battle magic?

My imagination filled it in. His ears turned forward and flattened.

I heard—or rather felt in my insides—a powerful krump! It sounded deeper than the largest most bass tympani drum struck powerfully once with my stomach next to it. It felt like a punch. Bits of ceiling tile tumbled down. Desks and filing cabinets hopped forward. My heart, pummeled, stopped, skipped that beat, then limped back into rhythm.

I staggered and fell to my fore-knees as I glanced up at the ceiling, to the second floor, beyond the wall to the vault of the Old Equestrian Post Office. 

Carne Asada had put me in an untenable situation. No matter what I would choose, ponies would die. She had thought she and Princess Celestia played a game of life and death, and that somehow the princess had forfeited a valuable pawn to her. She had wrapped a wing confidently over my back, trusting in our shared hate that I would do as she expected.

Her logic, like an improper mathematical proof, was flawed. I had lifted that wing.

I had trusted Carne Asada! 

I still hated the princess, but because of how Carne Asada had abused my trust in the last months, weeks, and throughout this very day—ponies had died because I helped. 

She had asked me to Teleport her away from the vault. Instead, I had pushed her aside before I cast.

Only the spilt fuel-oil canister must have exploded. 

Carne Asada was dead and I was responsible. 

That meant I was alive, which meant the crates of ammonium nitrate had not yet exploded.

"Foal!" I yelled. Of myself—standing frozen, contemplating happenstance, circumstance. Circumstance had granted me a miracle: an extra second of life, two at most!

I snapped together the vectors to the doorway I'd seen the last agent gallop toward. A two-story glass façade. I spun-up Teleport out of my queue.

Queuing spells saved a huge amount of time, but took a finite amount of time nonetheless. Time to gasp a single breath.

Lightning spidered up as a sphere of nothingness consumed me. My world went black. Frigid cold limed me in frost and instantly attacked my open eyes with sapping pain. Utter vacuum tried twisting my lungs out through my still open mouth as I continued shutting it as fast as I could. Time wasn't suspended in-between mid-teleport.

For the first time, I wished it to last forever. I really hoped Broomhill Dare and Citron and the rest had run for cover as I screamed they should.

Time in-between did not last forever.

I popped back into existence just beyond the travertine portico of the EBI Headquarters. I had transformed my x-y coordinates so I still faced the street.

Bridge Street here ran roughly east-west, the same as Plaza East in front of the Old Equestrian Post Office where the delivery van had been parked.  It was four one-way boulevards wide, two servicing the bridge and two city. The westering sun would have been to my right before sunset. Despite that, orange light brighter than noon mid-summer illuminated the building ahead, from the north. It felt like a furnace at my flank. I saw a blurred band of instantly condensed moisture and lofted dust slam into the brown marble exterior, then splash like a wave against a seawall. Every window burst, punched in before its glass was sucked up and over the five stories of stone.

Smoke, dust, and fog rolled over in a cylindrical eddy, then streaked outward. The glass façade of the EBI building, obliterated, tumbled like sea foam across the street.

Ponies were bowled over like wooden toys and slid away from me in the flow.

I understood then, by miracle*, I'd avoided the explosion's shockwave.

The vacuum caused by the just passed shockwave grabbed my cloak, but not before bits of masonry and glass peppered the tough material. It was like being pelted with pebbles thrown by a crowd in anger. The cloak tore, then flapped forward over my head. A bruising slap to my flank made me instinctively rear.

Under any other circumstances I might have fought losing my disguise, but I let it be sucked from my forelegs as I skidded away in the wake of the shockwave. Half a hundred EBI agents and support ponies would remember the cloaked crazy pony who'd attacked them and, by unmitigated force of will, had gotten the building evacuated. Best I lose the cloak.

I looked behind.

I saw the shell of the Hooflyn EBI headquarters, the glass blasted away. The glow of the explosion faded, belied by blistering heat. I saw a burning column of dirty red-brown smoke rise, then spread into a rolling cap of the same noxious color as it cooled while more smoke rose.

I had thought nothing could match the horror of dodging Force bolts and defending myself and Carne Asada in the middle of a riot.  The explosion aftermath radiated heat that crinkled the hair on my muzzle, but the monstrous smoke mushroom seared into my brain like a hot brand fresh from the coals.

It took a moment for me to see when I looked away from the building. I rapidly descended the steps, away from the heat, gasping for air. Air came, in a comparatively cold wind pulled in from down the street by the updraft of the fire. I'd heard naught but the echo of the blast, which was plenty loud, but as the booms cleared I heard screams and moans.

I realized the toy ponies I seen blown away from me were the EBI agents that had not yet run far enough away from the building when the blast occurred. With my eyes adjusting, I saw...

I gulped.

More fodder for nightmares. 

For whatever reason, the first thing I did was braid my mane into pigtails and my tail into a bun as I trotted faster. A crumpled puce stallion wore a necktie and I pulled that free, because I tied it on as a tourniquet on the mare laying broken beside him who wouldn't last half a minute more without it. She would never walk again, but she might live. I levitated them as I dragged them toward others I found bleeding, cut by flying glass or still with a transparent dagger embedded. 

In those few minutes, I learned the true meaning of the word triage. The act of separating those ponies whose lives you can save from those you can't so others can live, carves a piece from your soul with a serrated knife; I feared I had little enough to spare. I could only push ripped clothing compresses with two hooves and a Push spell on so many bleeding ponies no matter how loudly I sobbed or cursed my very existence. 

Not everypony had been knocked unconscious, however. Soon other ponies arrived. A stallion performed compression on a pony I'd given up on, and the mare coughed back to life and gasped. Others got dragged or levitated over. Within five minutes of the blast, ponies were sweeping away the glass and forming a field hospital around me, but I kept working...

With a whinny, I noticed a reporter had showed up. I saw a camera. He didn't need a flash bulb because of the fire. I found myself holding compression bandages on three ponies, one with two hooves, while wrapping a bandage on a fourth without really even being aware I was in a fugue. I had stopped mid-sentence directing somepony to do something I suddenly didn't remember.

I blinked.

A stallion said, "Shock's setting in," about me.

I looked down.

My naked fur and pigtails were splattered and wet with blood, my hooves down on a pegasus' wing. Ironic. Fitting. All that glistening redness painting me. The bloody outside matched the twisted inside, now. The earth pony next to me moved over and took my place and another pony rushed up to take over the bandaging.

I saw the press photographer blanch, lowering his camera. Blood dripped from his ear. He had taken the picture of me when I'd looked at him, or in the last minute. Didn't matter. 

He'd photographed a monster.  

I swallowed and got up, backing away.

"Thank you," the closest of the EBI agents said. She was a very green pegasus mare I very much recognized: Agent Greene and Greene. Others thanked me, too. They knew I wasn't one of them and didn't care. 

I saw dozens laying surrounding me. 

Alive. 

Even as I saw the first EMT wagon come bouncing over the debris down the road, followed by a fire fighting lorry, I had to let that fact get past my need to deny what I had clearly done.

I had saved ponies.

I had saved...

I had...

No.

Ponies had died because of me.

The math clearly didn't balance.

I turned away and got up to a trot, tripping once because I dragged a hoof.

I realized I still had the gum in my mouth when I felt it buzzing. By some miracle, I hadn't coughed it out or swallowed it.  Normalacy asserted itself. I parked it against my molars and asked, "Are you okay?"

"Thank Celestia!" came Citron's voice, followed by Broomhill Dare's with a much more colorful sentiment that implied sexual positions... I think.

I said, "Don't care. Status!"

"No bad casualties. Glass cuts. Saw a Marvel pegasus sliced in half—"

"Enough." I thought furiously, images of the explosion and blood-soaked ponies mingling with the fighting I'd seen today. That, and the krump sound when I knew Carne Asada was no more. "Orders are to retreat south down Bridge Street. Disengage east where you can. Let emergency vehicles through. Got that? Those are orders!"

"Copy that."

I added, "Pass it on."

"I will," I heard Safe say.

If that dispersed our ponies, that would be best I could hope for. Fewer might end up hurt. If it was the last thing I could accomplish, I would get my team out of Hooflyn. With Carne Asada gone, the Syndicate would dissolve into chaos because the war would continue like a ship without a captain; it would dash itself to pieces in the shoals.

"Where are you?" Citron demanded.

I said, "Bridge Street, heading south from the EBI Headquarters."

"You were near the blast!?"

"Was in it."

"No way!"

"I'm a ghost now."

"Ha, ha," Citron said. "We're on Blue Jay, probably a block away judging by how strong you sound."

"Keep retreating," I said, "I'll catch up."

I didn't assume I'd be safe, though I expected the blast would have frightened any but the most stubborn gang members away from the fight. I kept near to vehicles, with Shield and Teleport queued. I stopped only once to see caped ponies dashing west toward the parks. I backtracked when I noticed coppers coming up from the provincial courthouses. I undid the pigtails and bun. They had to look embarrassing, considering the blood. 

After trotting a total of five blocks, I caught up with no less than seven dozen C.A., many of whom looked bedraggled. For obvious reasons, the lamplighters hadn't been around to light any of the street lamps—but at least the moon had risen!

As a group, they saw me approach. I slowed and let my hoof drag so they could recognize me. I really didn't look like myself right now.

I clearly heard Citron's voice as he did recognize me. He saw me covered in blood that had begun to crust. "Not a ghost. A ghoul."

"You certainly know how to flatter a filly," I responded.

In the cold bluish moonlight, I saw all of my team, including Crystal Skies who had his wing bandaged to his side. I saw Peppermint, but not any of the C team. I recognized Downtown and Sunset Park amongst the C.A., and it was Downtown who asked, "Where's Doña Asada?"

I hadn't thought that one out, had I? Stupid.

I slowed my approach to the motley herd, their eyes on me as I looked unblinking into each of their intent gazes. I heard the sound of my scraping hoof and knew they did, too. My breath condensed in front of my face as the evening chill set in. I didn't have a cloak. I didn't wear anything. They knew something was wrong. What I said next would make a difference, but I had no plan—only my disgust and a sense of deep cutting betrayal. You gave them your trust, but ponies always left you in the end. What could I say? Would I be destructive or constructive? I didn't know my own mind.

Then it came to me.

I stopped and looked at them all. "You all saw the explosion?"

That merited nods.

"Carne Asada is dead. My mother," I sneered with as much contempt as I could muster, "proved too stupid to live."

Sunset Park sat down hard. A few others did as well. Muttering began as I watched and waited. Clouds of breath rose in front of my face. I wondered if all that I had taught over the last half-year had had any effect at all.

No. 

No, it hadn't. 

Carne Asada's ghost proved strong. A bad omen, for sure. My ears swiveled and strained to hear something too low to register. My brain supplied what I thought I heard.

Hija.

Somepony echoed it. "She's her daughter."

"Doña Asada's Daughter?"

Dozens of pony voices all spoke over one another. "You heard her say it enough times." "I did. Right in front me." "CA's hammer?" "Yes—no, she's The Mechanic!" "She has the kiss—" "That blank flank covered in blood is Glitter?" "She is." "That's right!" "Sweet Celestia, that's a lot of blood." "She's Glitter." "Glitter!"

I cried, "Wait, what!?"

That broke the log jam. Flood waters splashed through and overflowed the banks of the river.

"Doña!" somepony shouted.

I sat hard, waving both hooves. The street was cold and dewy wet. "No, no! Not Doña! No!"

Sometimes you get what you ask for. You could think it couldn't get worse, but it did.

They listened to me.  

Over new shouts of, "Princess Glitter!" they started bowing. For whatever reason, Crystal Skies called me "Princessa Grim" with the Prench accent he sometimes affected. 

With all the racket, I don't know how some other gang didn't take the opportunity to ambush us and offer us our flanks on a platter. Nopony heard me tell them never to call me princess—either that, or the foul word is hardwired in pony brains. At least Citron and the A and B team kept on station, and got us hustling out of the downtown area.

Funny thing about being named princess...

I told everypony that I was declaring a one week truce. I told them we were retreating back to our territories from since the Running of the Leaves, and to slash all our new tags with equal signs to acknowledge that. I told them that we were to disengage unless attacked, announce we would take no quarter if attacked, then if attacked fight to teach the needed lesson.

Did they listen?

Yes. 

Yes, as a matter of fact, they did. Every. Last. Flapping. Word.

In every city across the entire eastern seaboard of Equestria.


#


By the afternoon of the next day, I fully understood I was a moth circling a candle flame. I was the proverbial filly in mare's horseshoes. 

Thanks to Carne Asada's mania and my filly ability to construct a fantasy world around me, I had managed to convince an organization of very dangerous ponies that I was their queenpin. Yes, I could fight. Yes, I had been tutored and had helped organize things on many levels, but I hadn't been the infrastructure. I hadn't been the puppet master so much as an annoying stage-hoof suggesting changes to the script. Or maybe a mechanic; I had greased the axles, polished the coach works and brass, and replaced kit with modern tack. I had neither designed nor built the brougham. I did not know how the syndicate actually worked or what it sold, except barely conceptually on any real level.

Conceptually.

I...

I could...

I could learn.

Sunset Park, Downtown, Flatbush, Brightown, and others from Hooflyn, Fillydelphia, and Upper and Midtown from Manehatten met me for breakfast at the hotel. My first question had been who would support me, and who they thought might not. My words could be construed as a deadly implication to action. 

I knew this. I was royalty. 

Princess Celestia had absolute power and now so did I. 

Its application was how I got C.A. gang members out cleaning up the city, helping the constables notice damage caused by other gangs, and more erudite lieutenants generally answering official questions with nuanced candidness that deflected attention away from the Syndicate. Ruling by fiat wasn't the word. Through respect? 

I let the fact that Carne Asada had died "leak" to the press. From a heart attack. She'd been "startled" when her peace plan had failed. The Manehatten Times got the scoop that her body was on its way by ship to Equidor.

With mauve dye in my mane and tail, I wore a smeared-blood cutie mark, a starched white blouse, and a frilly red gothic-lace cravat that matched the big red bow I had tied at my dock.

My dangerous-looking cutie mark didn't convince me, nor my stomach, that I held absolute sway over the syndicate, however. Any time I thought I might be able to rely on ponies and keep my distance from the real work of "the business", Mustang's word's the day that she and Cyclone Beaujangles tried to beat me to death came to mind. 

Those words came to me with incredible clarity. 

She had been speaking to Cyclone when she said, "Carne Asada is losing it. There's ponies not happy with her leadership. The right words in the right ears, and leaks in her organization, got our team inserted in place against Gelding's team."

Later, Citron knocked and led Trigger into the empty conference room. It was the same one where Agent Greene and Greene had interviewed Carne Asada. I made sure the silver blinds to the public area were closed. Pegasi had it raining outside to extinguish the fires around the city and the roan pony had a slight wet horse smell. Though the Hooflyn Bridge was closed to normal traffic due to the riot lockdown, I'd gotten him smuggled across the bay simply by asking. 

Citron's ear had been glued together expertly and I'd been told it wouldn't scar. When the fur grew out on his flank, Dr. Feel had assured me the burn scar wouldn't be apparent.  I didn't believe her. His skin under his yellow fur was black, so it looked as if his fiery cutie mark had burnt his flank to charcoal.

I waved him off. He shook his head. I glared. He grumbled, but left.

Trigger looked at the paperwork carpeting the conference table, then at me, his eyes alighting on my blood smear cutie mark. The bay was distantly visible out the window, despite the clouds, rain, and buildings.

He shook his head. "My little sis is older than you."

"She isn't," I said, though with dimples, she was cuter. I'd gotten his files an hour ago. Mine, too. Carne Asada had been truthful about not tracing back further than the hedge healer, or at least she hadn't recorded if she had learned I was an earl.

"Promoted, huh? What do I call you?"

I put down the quill and let my horn go dim as I stood. "If I told you my real name, your teeth would hit the floor and bounce. Gelding is good amongst the inner circle—"

"Glitter, without the P-word, otherwise?"

I nodded and smiled. "You remembered!"

"Funny. I thought I was on your punch-in-the nose list."

His crinkled smile betrayed his nervousness. I could smell it, too, as I approached. I tilted my head and kissed him on the lips. As he pulled back, I placed a hoof behind his ears to gently make it clear that was not what I wanted. He got with the program. I quickly realized that maybe Mustang may have had something to get jealous about!

We stepped apart, his eyes darting around in concern. He wiped the moisture off his lips. I knew what he would say before it came out of his mouth. "That was the k-kiss of d-death, wasn't it?"

I rapped him on his withers. To make the point, I turned around and snapped my tail at him as I sauntered back lazily to my seat, waggling the red bow while holding my tail aside to let him see anything he chose to look at. I had learned a thing or two in the last year on how to manipulate stallions. When I sat, I said, "No. Some idiot came up with that in a panic and I let ponies spread the rumor." I shrugged. "I don't roll like that, but don't try convincing ponies otherwise, okay?  Too useful."

"O—kay."

"I have a proposition for you."

"That I can't refuse?"

I grinned toothily. "That you shouldn't refuse, for your own good. I was going to offer you gold bits and an airship ticket out of Equestria because you actually did treat me squarely. Then I got your files and read about you and your family. You are as good an actor as I am. Middle-level, not a tough at all. Manufacturing happy juice, but also a recruiter. You brought me to Carne Asada's attention... and she promoted you. I am still going to offer you that ticket, and a bonus, but I'm sure you've got bank accounts. But first, I need an executive secretary."

"A... secretary? What now?"

"Somepony smart enough that I can explain how I want the syndicate to do things without me understanding how it actually does those things, and see that they get done as I intended."

"You don't want to dirty your hooves."

I winked and raised a hoof. "Got it in one."

"Not a good idea."

"Yeah. Ya, think? I'm going to have to trust somepony, and now I think that pony may be you. It will eventually go off the rails. Any business association with me will become toxic. This is why I am reserving you an airship ticket."

"I see." He coughed and moved to the window. He put a hoof on the rain speckled glass. "If I refuse?"

"I know where your family lives—"

"You!" His eyes darted to me and his face darkened. Good trick, considering it was black already. 

"Hey! I've got them airship tickets, too. Just because the colt of the household is a jackass doesn't mean they should suffer. I may be a princess now, but I'm not as heartless as Equestria's one is." 

The pony plopped down as if all the energy had been sapped from him. Tears streamed from his eyes. Citron had stuck his head in to look. I briefly shook my head and the door quietly shut.

"Good. That's settled."

He said, "Uh-huh."

I dragged typewritten papers and files over. "When I read what you had been doing, especially in organizing my championship bout, I got excited. I need to get a whole bunch of things changed in the syndicate in the next few days to stabilize things. Some of the core businesses ought to go legit. If I get this right, I think some concerns can also be decentralized with a board of directors, maybe? Oh, and I also want to present the belt at the championship. I'm pretty sure Grape is going to win. Right, and pay White Towel. Hey! Are you listening to me?"


#


To be clear, I hired other secretaries to cross-check my information. We did work well together, even if I think Citron got a little jealous that I had Trigger sleep with me one night. Sadly, that was only because I passed out from exhaustion in my suite. I never got my chance to ride his stallion parts.

Before dinner, Broomhill Dare trotted in with a newspaper folded in her magic. With us alone, she unfolded it and placed it on the table so I could see the masthead of The Manehatten Times. The headline read, 

Nameless Filly, Hero

Taking a black and white photo by firelight, then printing it in halftone newsprint, pretty much guarantees you'll get something horribly contrasty. The lack of full-spectrum light when capturing the image will pretty much ensure you can't guess the actual fur or mane colors of the subject ponies. Still... Blood. A blank flank filly in pigtails, her horn aglow, sat amongst a dozen ponies. Naked, she was drenched in sprayed blood. Her braided mane, her face, her coat. Drops and splashes of red. Her hooves. Her hooves pressed against a pony's chest over his wings. Magical nebulosity pulsed around torn rag compresses pressed against six ponies unceremoniously dragged to within range of her horn. And, with all that multi-furcated Levitate going on, it seemed she was winding a scarf around another pony's leg. The newsprint posterized her eyes to white as if they glowed with infernal energy. 

I decided that was a reflection of the fire, but it looked spooky nevertheless.

I scanned the article to make sure that the filly really was nameless. I didn't hear the orange mare as she said it, but replayed in my mind. I asked, "The library?"

"Yeah. I found a newspaper article about the Earl of Grin Having's kidnapping. You are her."

"Uh, huh," I said, putting down the paper and saw the mare make a zipping motion with a hoof across her lips. I added, "I hope Proper Step doesn't get the daily edition." I ripped out the article and tucked it into my notebook.

"You are too cool for words, Aurora Midnight." She turned and strode out of the room, tail held high. "I'm proud to have you as a friend."

I scoffed.

Over the next six days, I got little sleep. I even worked in the private rail car shuttling between cities. One more skirmish did occur despite the warning that my syndicate ponies dutifully gave. After that, the war ended because we fought like timberwolves, I was told. That added three more ponies to my mental tally. I listened to the report personally because I needed the blood cut into my soul. I need it to spur me into finding a way to free ponies from their awful behaviors. I was certain it had do with cutie marks and royalty at some level, and was relieved that the bloody cutie mark I wore on my flank, while richly deserved, was still only painted on.

The syndicate transferred ownership and title of the apartment block Citron and his family lived in to him and his retired dad, and paid the taxes that involved.

Thanks to me exchanging pegasus mail with Crystal Skies' sister, Daylily, he and Pig Pen found themselves offered a partnership in a legitimate security and investigation firm in Manehatten. When they asked about it, I gave them a hug and suggested they ought to take the opportunity and leave the syndicate for good. I bankrolled them.

I pre-paid Broomhill Dare's entire Prancetown graduate tuition, including a generous stipend and dorms for however long she would need it, and told her I expected her to have the title of Doctor of Thaumatergy before her name before a few more years.

Safe... Well. Whole different story! 

He was the son of the mare who owned the firm that laid down the keels that Carne Asada had sold the self-styled Prince of Storms and his yeti wives. That mare had done the negotiation in person. Safe was the heir to a dirty shipping fortune. I gave him Carne Asada's files and made sure he read them. They were the ones she had used to blackmail him. I then shot them with Force before his face and burnt them into blackened curled cinders. I told him, "Your mother is bad news," and left it at that.

With Trigger's help, I identified all Carne Asada's indentured servants (read: blackmailed). We picked out everypony we thought didn't start out corrupted, or had subsequently gone feral. Each received a letter they were instructed to burn. It contained an admonishment to go legit and reparations to help with that. 


#


The day of the championship fights arrived. Broomhill Dare joined Citron and Peppermint to escort me into the venue. She froze though, when I opened a door into a locker room and found Grape on a massage table being worked on by an earth pony masseuse. I had been very worried she might throw herself at the dreamboat stallion. Despite her insistence that she wanted her relationship with Safe to remain monogamous, with this one purple stallion, I knew that given the opportunity, she'd bear his foal any day. In any case, I didn't think she was Grape's type.

Grape looked beyond her and said, "Hi, Gelding."

I waved and said, "I expect a good fight tonight." I caught his masseuse's big magenta eyes and motioned with my nose. The fellow got it the second time I motioned and hustled on out. I was the fight promoter, after all.

When Broomhill Dare merely stepped aside and still said nothing, I shoved her forward with two hooves on either flank. 

"This is Broomhill Dare. She's a big fan." She stumbled forward and I magicked her tail out the way so I could shut the door.


#


I got both her and Pig Pen front seats at the arena.

The view from the sky box, the glassed in management and supervision offices for the former airship assembly plant, wasn't what I'd hoped for. The fight ticket consisted of six events, including wrestling, athletics, a battle of the bands, and a tag team before the championship bout. One event was interviews with sports professionals and reporters. I could hear well enough, and the concession's cornbread carrots on a stick and curly garlic hay fries were passable. The tag team included pegasi, so I actually could see them fighting, but I'd already pretty much decided the night before I wasn't going to teleport in with the championship belt from the sky box.

My security knew my plans, of course. Keeping it a secret from the rest of my syndicate operatives took a bit more work. The blue dye and the old costume less so. Patience, attention to detail, and knowing how to act allowed me to squeeze into the press gaggle, in my grimoire cloak with Citron at my side. I finally got a good unobstructed "front-row" view of the fight: Dragonheart vs Punch Drunk. I smiled broadly. Two lithe, but muscly, earth pony stallions, both sexy. 

Because of too many undecideds, lack of decisions by knock-outs, low point counts in wins by decision, and having lost the championship match against Secretariat, Punch Drunk was the 3 to 2 underdog, which I learned was pretty good. It didn't reflect his chances of winning, only my sports book's chances of making money on the way it expected ponies to bet.

As I watched the purple pony avoid the attacks of his bold opponent like embodied smoke, I felt lucky it wasn't me in the arena tonight. Broomhill Dare had had the right of it: I had won my championship by subterfuge verging on cheating, and calculated luck. This bout was a constant dance of brute muscle against grace that continued for five riveting minutes until the bell rang. Neither pony drew blood, but sweat dripped from each stallion as if rain in a thunderstorm. There was lightning, even if it was only in the hearts and minds of those who watched. Dirt and straw stuck to them where they had rolled and skidded away from each way to avoid a grapple or a strike. Punch Drunk did manage to land a punch on Dragonheart's flank during the first minute of the fight as they tumbled together without otherwise touching. Punch Drunk also got a point when Dragonheart tripped during the third minute, though it was only in response to feint after a parried attack.

The two fighters met in the center of the arena and hoof-bumped gloves. They didn't have to wait long for the referee to jog back out from the judges to grab Punch Drunk's right forehoof, making the stallion rear. "Punch Drunk, in a decision by points, your new cham-peen!"

The ref did the pirouette thing with Grape on two legs, then paraded him around the arena as the fans shouted his name, cheered, threw roses, and stomped their hooves. The photogs, still corralled by security, snapped away with their long lenses, not even noticing as I stripped off the cloak and extracted from the duffle bag the championship belt I had received last year. The flowers were refreshed, and the bright work polished to a perfect sheen. I placed it over my head, then shouldered the fellow next to me.

"Excuse me, please."

I'd been somepony in a hoodie next to him a moment before. Now he blinked at the blue mane and fur, and the familiar dark costume with the silver peytral moon. A unicorn. He gasped.

Citron said, "Yeah. It's Princess Grim. Could you step aside, please?" 

He didn't wait. He shoved ponies aside and opened the gates. That released the reporters and the photographers to gallop into the arena—and Peppermint and Citron, and ponies they'd tasked to help. I felt like the world orbited by the sun, the moon, and the stars as I also crossed the arena. I was aware of the shutter snaps and the lenses pointed at me as much as at the new champion and White Towel who galloped out to meet the both of us. The old green unicorn asked, "Is that you, Gelding?"

I didn't answer him. Instead I stopped in front of Grape and smiled into his dreamboat magenta eyes. "Congratulations, Champ!" I told him. I craned my neck forward and kissed him.

When he returned my advance with wet gusto, the audience roared.

Did you really think I was going to miss the opportunity? Come on, now! 

I levitated the belt over its new owner, then posed for a photo with Grape with White Towel between us. With Grape's permission, I also made sure White Towel got that picture of him with me wearing the belt so he had a complete set of pictures for his trophy wall.

In the commotion and celebration during the after party that evening, I slipped away. Teleport proved useful. 

I left a note for Citron telling him not to follow. I left a note for Trigger advising him to leave Equestria. I sent letters to all the borough chiefs I trusted with a notice that I had abdicated, which also stated I hoped they would heed my advice and take most of their operations legit by working together.

I crowned nopony.

I had done all I thought I could do to prevent the syndicate from dashing itself to pieces on shoals.

I had learned everything I could. 

I left Baltimare.

Time to start over.




* Don't tell her, but her unicorn thaumaturgy granted her wish to survive.
> Epilogue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Winter brought snow on pegasus wings, then got wrapped up, then spring warmed and summer threatened. Eventually, events and further adventures found me and drove me to Canterlot.

I watched Sprinter trot away down Castle Way, not even looking back. I'd been so nice to him, too! He didn't even kiss me goodbye, but I guess that was understandable. I'd saved the EBI agent's life and told him what to say when he reported for his debrief, so I'd saved his career, also. Two days we'd shared the same bed in a small hotel room. Nevertheless, standing outside Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, he could not help but realize our age difference. Foals played ball games on the left lawn and chattering teenagers studied on the right, eating junk food and gossiping. 

Too much to reconcile, I guess.

What I'd been through in the last year, and once again the last week, felt like a nightmare, like fevered dreams from another universe. Princess Celestia could have gotten enough clues to figure out who the unnamed mare was in the aftermath of what had just ended, though I'm sure she never saw me when she came roaring in. The EBI could have cross-checked Sprinter's story. They could have decided to find me, to identify me. The best I could conclude was that the EBI was indeed an independent agency from the other constabularies, particularly independent of the royal constabulary. 

I didn't want trouble, or to trouble anypony. Nopony could neigh-say that I had been very helpful in my own contrary fashion. How I had become yet another pony's pawn after running away from the syndicate is an entirely different story in and of itself, and it involved Citron, too. 

Maybe, one day, I'll tell you that one.

My many months crossing Equestria by hoof had been more eventful than I'd wanted, but I understood more than ever before. Cutie marks were a curse. You could make friends, but in the end everypony had their own agenda and only that was what they found important. 

I kept watching down Castle Way. The white castle wall and the schools were to the north on the left. Major scholastic- or peerage-oriented businesses or restaurants were to the south. I lost sight of Sprinter as he shouldered into a crowd of Canterlot ponies. 

I sighed and blinked rapidly. Many of the ponies were dressed in tailed coats or dresses. Some wore hats. Mostly unicorns. Unicorns, like Citron, who I had sent into danger and who had disappeared. Like the rest of my team. Sometimes, you pushed them away. Sometimes it was more like Sunburst... 

Huh. Now I really started blinking. Who cared about that foalish colt anyway?

Don't answer that!

Regardless. Everypony left you in the end.

It was lunch time at school. I wore a plain white farm dress with a nondescript purple flower pattern. Compared to other clothing Canterlot ponies wore, it looked inexpensive, but I'd tailored it so I could move. I didn't yet have an idea how I would package myself if I got into the school, whether I'd admit to being a blank flank or choose a mark to paint on. I wanted to blend in. I wanted to correct all the blind spots in my magic, and maybe one day use my magic to save the world from cutie marks.

As I trotted up to the purple building, I noticed my rear hoof still dragged a little and decided not to correct it today. The worn scuff up the front of the hoof hadn't grown out completely, yet. Soon, if I keep up my therapy exercises, I'd be free of it, and eventually the lingering numbness and the prosthesis I wore in a rear horseshoe to protect my frog. 

I bounded up the travertine steps and into the impressive multistory atrium vestibule. I looked at the stairs going up and down, the stone floors and the rich wood banisters. Because I understood evil better because I understood I was capable of it, I did not feel offended seeing the banners of the sun alicorn twirling in the breeze. 

Princess Celestia had created me, after all.

I had been a princess. I had acted like royalty. I knew what it felt like to exercise absolute power. Unlike my mentor, I had given up the habit voluntarily.

The lively flow of unicorn students, carrying books, chattering, laughing, and heading out for lunch in all the halls did much to lighten the tenor of the building. I smiled. It wasn't a temple to an evil deity. It was only a school for magic.

Very few of the young ponies wore clothes, so I didn't blend as well as I would have liked to. On the other hoof, almost everypony had a cutie mark if they were older than a foal, so I decided I'd made the right choice covering up as I trotted along past the rows of lockers and open emptied classrooms. I smelled buttered oats and baked apples; I had an idea which direction I'd have to go to find the cafeteria, but here I was. The sign above the door read, "Administration."

Inside, I saw a counselor talking with a student at the counter. Another blue-maned mare ate a sandwich at the desk beyond, but the offices looked empty. I asked the mare.

"The vice-headmare is in the cafeteria." She pointed left and down.

The lunch smells intensified as I found the stairs to the lower level and my nose guided me the rest of the way. Through double-doors, I saw a row of glass-fronted steam tables and heat lamps staffed by two unicorns wielding ladles and tongs. Dozens of students sat at tables with their trays, all talking. The din of clacking utensils, plates, and pattering voices made me unaccountably grin.

It felt... normal. How weird.

I walked by the serving counter and the staff smiled at me. Butter oats, hay burgers, hay fries, salads... baked apples, half of them glistening in cinnamon sauce and half encased in hard-shell caramel. Kid tastes, I thought. I shook my head, feeling a bit sad that Proper Step had never allowed me to be a child. I wondered if it was something I could learn.

I scanned the room looking for Ms. Maple.

The room was L-shaped. A number of teachers sat around the corner and I recognized the minty green mare with a pale green mane cut into a page colt, particularly as she tittered and pointed at a silver-haired mare's joke. On my last visit, the mare had been acting like an air head until I had punctured her façade with the pin of my lack of humor. Even in an educational microcosm, society stratified along lines of age and power. I noticed younger ponies gathered in one part of the cafeteria, older ponies in another. The athletic types, mostly colts, overflowed their pushed together tables by a window. As for the teachers... a full two rows of empty tables separated them from the rest of the room—with the exception of a purple foal, muzzle submerged in her hay fries stack, behind a fort of textbooks she was so engrossed in that she didn't notice the ketchup dripping from her horn from her killing her hayburger.

Ms. Maple's blue eyes lifted and focused on me when I breached the inner row of empty tables, coming closer. A booth seat ran the length of the mirrored wall and I could see myself approaching, as could her friends around the table. The other teachers rotated to look.

I locked eyes with vice-headmare.

That lasted about ten seconds, with neither of us blinking, before she said, "Excuse me, young lady!"

I gulped and looked down. Doing so made me feel suddenly vulnerable. Weirdly, a tear rolled down my right cheek.

One teacher asked her seat mate, "Is she your student?"

Another said, "No. Do you recognize her?"

I saw salad plates, one with a drop of pink dressing on an uneaten leaf and a few discarded half-chomped buns from consumed hay burgers. They'd pooled their hay fries with ketchup, and only three were left in the center. Ms. Maple had a hoof on her tea cup.

Ms. Maple reached with her other hoof to my withers. "You want to sit down?"

"Yeah," I said, still looking down. I saw her cutie mark, a red maple leaf. It still clashed with her fur color.

To her cohort, she said, "I—I think we're done with lunch."

Soon we were alone. 

I looked up when she levitated trays away and scooted her tea in front of me. My nose pulsed on its own accord and I smelled chamomile. I inhaled and leaned in for a sip, cognizant only after the calming warmth spread in my mouth of the implication of accepting something some other pony was drinking. 

I wore cheap clothing. 

I acted strangely.

Maybe I needed to stop thinking things through so much. Yeah, maybe a good idea.

Ms. Maple said, "You are safe, here."

Am I? I thought, rather than saying it. Princess Celestia drew breath on the other side of the castle wall I could see through the window. I nodded anyway.

Her hoof pushed up the sleeve on my dress. As I sipped more of the tea, she waved the same hoof to get my attention and said, "May I?" before slowly moving the hoof down to my flank. I let her lift the rear of my dress, exposing my blank flank. Interesting. I glanced and saw her blue eyes flick right and left, then focus on mine as she let go of the fabric.

She asked, "Who did this to you?"

"Did what?" I asked.

She tapped my forearm as lightly as a butterfly landing. Even with the lavender fur, the faint black and blue was unmistakable—if you knew what to look for. I remembered my previous visit to the school and the reason she and Detective Farsighted had been meeting. Bullying.

"Oh, horse apples," I said, causing waves on the surface of the tea.

"Language."

That was a way too complicated a story to explain to a mare who worked directly for the princess, the same princess I didn't want to connect the dots to me having inadvertently helped her, which could get me identified. I swallowed hard. "It's not what it looks like."

"Your dragging a hoof?" She paused. "You getting beat up?"

"Well," I said, rubbing the back of my head. This would have been easier had Sprinter not chickened out, not wanting to be noted looking obviously too familiar with a young mare who had ridden him. I did have something helpful, though. I reached into my messenger bag and levitated out his business card. "This might explain things."

She held it before her face. "Agent Sprinter? Equestrian Bureau of Investigation."

"I was protecting ponies."

She looked skeptical, checking both sides. "You protecting ponies, not him protecting ponies?"

"Protecting him specifically. Others, too. You can ask him. He'll explain—at least what he's allowed." Hopefully not the sleeping with him part. 

She didn't look entirely satisfied, but she tucked the card into a mossy-green pocket book she had on the table with a sigh.

"Sprinter is an historical name, you know," she commented.

I jumped at the chance to change the subject and pulled out my medal from the Baltimare Celestial Race. That impressed her. I could tell.

"You hungry? Want something to eat?"

I shook my head. "I saw no fish and fry, so I'll pass."

She snorted. Magicking back the medallion, she said, "You're that flighty filly from about three years ago that was presenting as a colt, aren't you?"

I nodded.

"You've grown at least three hoof-lengths and filled out quite nicely, too. I can see that 'protecting ponies' thing now that I'm looking at how fit you are."

"Thanks, I think?" Should have seen me before the griffon master attacked.

"I am going to talk to Agent Sprinter, in person."

"He's nice, if a little dense."

"You want to give me that command card, now?"

"About that..."

She nodded and led the way upstairs to her office.

Her office had gold-color blinds that she kept cranked open just enough that she could see ponies moving outside. Staff and student helpers had returned since I'd left. I could hear voices of other students entering the main area because the vice-headmare didn't close the door completely. She had a wide blond wood desk, spread with various textbooks. A picture of a red-haired brown stallion in a brass frame stood at one corner. One of his teeth appeared to sparkle. She had a red apple sitting on a filing cabinet, which drew a half smile to my lips. She sat in a big wood chair. I sat in the smaller one in front.

Princess and supplicant, I thought cynically and drew out the command card to counter her power move. I looked at it and a green flare traced the H-shaped rune on its copper surface. It clattered on the wood.

"I can start you this afternoon," she said, reaching for the card.

I covered it with a hoof.

"Again?" she asked. Her suppressed eye roll was unmistakable. 

"Must you show it to Princess Celestia?"

She blinked as if she couldn't believe I'd asked the question at all. Something that, as White Towel was wont to say, went without saying.

I said, "Can I still enroll without it?"

The mare sighed. "Of course you can. The headmare's recruiting slogan now is Equestria Needs Unicorns. Everypony thinks she is planning something big for the 1000th Year Summer Sun Celebration. A unicorn who protects ponies that has a command card is a candidate in my book."

"But?"

She sat back and put her forelegs behind her neck. "I need your parent's consent to admit you."

I slapped my emancipation papers in front of her, which distracted her from the command card. She jumped on them, paging through them eagerly.

"Starlight Glimmer?"

"Yes, Ms. Maple."

She examined the seals intensely, feeling the wax with the frog of both her hooves, and holding the inked ones to the light, even casting a spell. "You're a mare of the world. Legally adult in any nation where age counts. This name—" She tapped on a page above Carne Asada's signature. "—looks familiar."

I pulled back the document before she could react.

"I need a copy of the endorsing page," she said, grabbing it back with an equally quick spell. She used a spell to duplicate the page onto another piece of paper, then took out an ink pad and asked me to stamp my hoof print on it.

"I seem to remember you studying some advanced spell math, but I'm going to have to test your magic proficiency, anyway."

I said, "Sure. But first, can you put your hoof on top of mine?"

I had reached across the desk as I spun up a spell. I estimated her weight and our resultant barycenter and she put a silver polished hoof on top of mine. As digits began zooming like blue and white comets across my sight, I added, "Take a deep breath and hold it."

When I realized she had done exactly as I had asked, I cast Teleport.

Her blue eyes grew wide in slow motion as the world clicked 5º to the right. Lightning spidered up the sphere of consuming complete darkness...

When we reappeared, I sat in the big seat behind her desk. She sat in the small seat. The blinds rattled with the pop of the out-teleport.

I got a goofy grin on my face. I was the highest level unicorn.

She shuddered as frost steamed off her fur, then drew her hoof back from mine and brushed some whiteness off her withers. 

Nonchalantly, she said, "I talked with two students today who can do the same trick. Speaking of which," she said, getting up and trotting to the door, sticking her head out. "You. Yes, I'm speaking to you. Being a teaching assistant isn't permission to bully your under-classmates. Be nice. Don't go—I need to talk to you."

Leaving the door open, she came around the desk. 

My mouth still gaping from what I was absolutely positively sure I had heard and wasn't possibly going to embarrass myself by asking to confirm something I certainly should not have missed, I circled the opposite way back to the lowly student supplicant chair.

Me. 

Maple said, "No need to waste our time with a magic proficiency test."

"Nah-uh," I pretty much grunted, closing my mouth but not getting it to work, either.

"I will have to test you, Miss Glimmer, to determine the correct grade level for all your other subjects. You were home schooled?"

I nodded. "T-t-t-tutored, but the same idea. Lots of practical experience, afterwards" I rolled my eyes. "Lots.  Years. And, and I understand the need."

I filled out a lot of forms. I did the scribing using an enchanted quill and magic ink with the command card laying on the desk between us like an unacknowledged timberwolf. It did not like being ignored. When I signed the last document, I must have glanced at it because it again recognized me and we both looked at the green flare as it traced its path of verification.

Ms. Maple said, "It would be a shame not to know why the princess picked you."

"It would be," I said dismissively.

I should have noticed the blue aura around her horn. Helpful Hanna purposely took my statement as permission to cast the playback spell.

I grabbed up the command card as it started speaking, heading for the door.

A voice I still recognized from over a decade ago rang clearly in my ears. Princess Celestia sounded like she'd been speaking into her hoof, so it was hushed when she said, "This one demonstrates abilities at a level that I've been seeking. Do not overburden him or her, or you will answer to me."

I rushed nose first into a mare standing in the doorway, bouncing off the side of her neck. She was somewhat heftier than me, and I might have mistaken her for an earth pony for that, except for her horn. Her yellow fur was much more golden than Citron's, and her mane, mostly red, looked like it was on fire.

"Was that Princess Celestia?" she asked.

I backpedaled into the office. Seeing my opportunity, I let Levitate unravel and dropped the command card. It clattered, sounding like a small protractor. If I judged her correctly... My having run into her coming toward me, me backpedaling—

She stepped forward.

Crunch!

She hopped back. "Oh! Sorry!"

"No worries."

I scooped up the parts into my saddlebags for latter forensic dissection, sparing a glance at the frustrated minty green vice-headmare. She looked at the same time both contrite and disappointed. 

Then her adult eyes narrowed with pedagogical deviousness. She said, "Miss Shimmer. Take Starlight Glimmer here to the afternoon class you're TA'ing. I want to see if she's a fit for that level."

"She's new?"

She waved my admission forms.

"On it," she said, then, "Follow me."

She had a solar cutie mark that struck me as very similar to Princess Celestia's, except that the prominences on the right were red instead of yellow, almost as if smoke from a wildfire had crossed her sun. As she trotted into the hallway, students saw her and swiftly made way.

She said, "The full name is Sunset Shimmer, by the way. New, huh? Can you even do magic?"

I didn't laugh in her face. I got the feeling from the deference the other students gave her as we proceeded down the hall, and the warning that Ms. Maple had given Sunset Shimmer from her office doorway after I had cast Teleport, that I did not want to be in conflict with the alpha mare of the school. Not on my first day, in any case. If I lost my cool, I knew who would would be obliterated. I did not want to be expelled.

I looked at my hooves and replied. "A little bit," I said.

"You sound like the runt."

"Who's that?"

"My biggest pain in the flank. My competition for private lessons. More or less ruining my life, that's all."

"Well, then, don't let her do that."

Sunset shouldered into me and chuckled. "I think I like you," she said. "So, show me what you got."

"What I've got?"

"Please don't blow a hole through Canterlot all the way to Tartarus. That's been done already. Wasn't funny."

I laughed. A comedienne, I thought, as we climbed a staircase. Two could play at that game, and since I felt appearing harmless was my best strategy for staying on the good side of the alpha mare, I decided to do something every unicorn could do but with an extra-goofy flare.

As we circled back around the central open area of the school on the third floor, with the banners of the sun alicorn waving, I spun up Illuminate. I scrunched up my nose as I applied the alicorn simplification codicil to ramp the spell up to fifth level. I stopped walking and ensured all the math balanced. Blinding digits zipped across my vision, but I held my numbers as I wiggled my nose harder and harder.

It took about a half a minute until I sneezed.

I cast as I did so, my head propelled into chaotic motion. Mostly, the bright luminosity sprayed across the atrium, spattering the long flag depicting Celestia, but I managed to splat banisters, floors, lockers, ceilings, two dozen students who squealed and bucked, and one teacher who immediately started stomping toward the stairs. 

Sunset Shimmer looked down. Her chest and legs glowed in all the colors of the rainbow, all in the proper order.

It wasn't snot, but I said anyway, "Ewwww!"

She looked at me, got a stricken funny look on her face, and fell over, hooves in the air, as she burst out laughing. The rest of the story, I'll tell you some other time.


The End