Chapters 1-3: Blood on My Feathers

[Grimoire is Starlight Glimmer years before the Our Town incident.]

- 1 -

I sat gazing across the harbor in Baltimare, Mareland, watching a three-masted ship furling its sails as earth ponies pulled hawsers warping it into dock. The weather crew vanquished the dawn clouds as I retreated into the shadow of a warehouse to keep from overheating, preferring the cool autumn breeze to the morning sun beating down on my blue fur. I had thought I was a good pony. I'd gotten to the point of managing crews in the family business. I had done what Dad and especially what Maman asked. I ought to have been married a month ago.

I had a feather and katana cutie mark. I liked to fight. Now I had blood on my feathers. I wasn't a bad pony, but I had been grounded, having to lay low on the opposite side of Equestria from Vanhoover until the air marshals lost interest in the case with the family's help.

I wasn't a bad pony.

"I'm not," I cried to the sea, jumping into the air. I sliced with my wings, punching the hulking shadows of my mistakes. For minutes, I cut the air not pony flesh, spinning, kicking, slashing, yelling my frustration. My wings sparked red with the crystal that grew from the vanes, stiffening them, making them brittle. When I flexed just right, they knitted into a razor edge.

I had blood on my feathers.

I settled back to the cobblestones, breathing hard. I sweat. Moisture beaded at my hairline, and dripped. It hid the tears I blinked away. That was good since stallions didn't cry.

Yeah, if so, what did that make me?

I reared and trampled down my protective yellow slicker and stuffed it and my rubber boots into my saddlebags, then trotted out to the street, having no energy to launch into the sky. I can't say I'd been happy with my life in Vanhoover, but it had provided purpose; I had thought I understood my responsibilities and myself. It had been hollow, though. It made my life now even more so.

As I reached the street, I noted with a startled whinny that a dark brown earth pony loitered at the corner of the warehouse. He had blended into the the red brick, dirty with decades of grime, until seemingly he had wanted me to see him. He wore dark steel chains around his neck and a grey-brown tee-shirt that blended in so well he might as well have been naked. His chocolate-brown eyes glittered though, and I noticed a smile.

I turned to take the street in the opposite direction, but he trotted to follow, then suddenly said, "Ewww. You smell like sardines."

His voice sounded melodious, not at all gruff or gravelly or deep as his squared-off muscular looks and clothing had made me expect. I stopped and looked back in surprise, then said, "I've got a part-time job cutting bait for the fisher-pegasi on pier 7."

He stopped. His nose pulsed, but he grinned. "With your wings?"

I wasn't used to explaining the one thing that made me especially weird to a total stranger I'd met on the street. At times like this it felt like an embarrassing quirk rather than a special talent. I opened my mouth but nothing came out.

He said, "That makes total sense. I watched you shadowboxing, flinging yourself around, staying airborne while slicing the air with your wings. It was amazing!"

"Amazing?" I repeated, feeling my face warm. Nopony had ever used that word to describe my cutting talent. Usually "creepy" or "scary" came to mind. I laughed then, realizing, "You meant my shadowboxing. I've trained in—"

"No, I meant your wings."

"Really?" I guess I didn't know what to think about his words. I did face my original direction. When he looked startled and started to follow, I added, "I work at The Petite Pescatarian Pegasus. I got turned around."

"Part-time for lunch?"

"Cook's assistant. I'm, uh, very skilled, uh—"

"Cutting, slicing, and dicing—?"

"—Food," I interjected.

"—Fish," he corrected. "My supervisor is a pegasus, and she's completely unashamed about bringing a hot fish breakfast to completely gross us out. I'm used to the smell of fried kippers, so... I think it's cool. More cool than my talent, anyway."

He seemed the chatty sort, but he didn't seem like one of those ponies being friendly to sell you something. "I'll take the bait."

His gait lost a beat, as if he hadn't expected me to ask. "Um. I throw ropes and chains, and make them return to me?"

Yeah, that sounded as strange as they came. It might be a good epiphany story. As we turned to walk uphill toward the restaurant, I asked, "Like a lasso? You catch things?"

"Not quite. I can grab things by making the end wrap around what I aimed for, but it's mostly knocking something down."

I stopped at the front door to the restaurant. It looked like a Prance Market, with a green-painted wood façade, but with lots of glass and daisies in hanging pots. Inside, it was an ivy-walled solarium with cloud tables at the second level. We looked at each other.

Feeling an urge to break an awkward silence, I blurted, "Have you tried bowling? I mean, with a rope?"

The husky fellow blinked, then smirked and chuckled, "No, but I'm definitely going to try that. It'll get me banned from the bowling alley, but it'll be worth it."

The glass door behind me rattled open. "Crys," yelled the kitchen manager, Seasoned Way, her pink wings flared. "About time you got here! We're short-hoofed and a huge fly-away order landed. Move your flank!"

I waved at the dark earth pony, saying, "See you next time," and trotted in. I bristled. SW had used a nickname again, despite my asking her not to be so familiar. Whatever my type was, she wasn't it. My katas kept me looking trim and something made mares flirt no matter how disinterested I was. I thought about it and frowned. I bristled mostly because she had interrupted my conversation with—

"Shoot. What was his name?"

- 2 -

The next two days, I returned to the place I had shadowboxed, wondering if I would meet the earth pony. He didn't show. It saddened me, but maybe there were friendly ponies in Baltimare after all. I felt a little less lonely.

On the third day, an hour before dawn with the sky a tiniest bit dark blue, I walked toward the fishing pier when I saw another pony. Brick warehouses loomed on either side, but working shifts didn't start for two hours; the streets were empty. Despite the occasional gaslight, shadows swirled around the stallion as he walked with his head down. The blackened steel chain wrapped over his withers jangled and announced itself. Any thought of bemoaning waking before the roosters vanished. With a smile, I trotted rapidly to meet him.

"Hey, you okay?" I asked as his exhausted eyes lifted to see who approached.

"Crys, was it?" He chuckled, and took the opportunity to plop his flank down. "A hard night."

He remembered my name! I sat down, looking at him. A pony like him, you couldn't see a bruise for trying, but I saw crusted blood on his neck below the jaw. "What do you do?" I asked.

"Er— Security work. I freelance."

"All night standing?"

He quirked a smile. "All night trotting, across the whole miserable city."

I scooted closer and lifted a hoof. "Let me look at that."

His narrowed eyes caught mine. He looked instantly dangerous and I halted my reach, then he nodded.

I brushed his short fur and specks fell off. "Movers bash themselves up all the time and act too stallion to notice. I know first aid." I saw the small cut, but it had closed. "You fought somepony? It's not bleeding, now."

"It happens. I scared the idiots away."

"You escort armored wagons?"

"Something like that. It pays very well—"

I'd taken my insulated bottle from my saddlebags and unscrewed the top.

He waved it off with a hoof. "I'll clean it when I get home."

"I'm sure you will. This is tea; you look like you're going to collapse and not make it home. Have something to drink." He looked suspiciously at the red cup I put on his hoof with my wing. "I washed it last night and haven't drank from it since."

He looked a bit embarrassed, but lifted it to his lips. "Not too hot! Thanks." He drank it and I poured more. "Name's Pig Pen, by the way. You'd think that the foal that got his name by finding every muddy puddle would scoff at germs, but..." He shrugged and drank a second cup.

I said, "I'm not sick and I wash with soap." I unwrapped the waxed paper from a toasted Prance roll stuffed with soft cheese.

"Hey. That's your breakfast!"

"The name is Crystal Skies. I intended to share half, don't worry."

He exchanged the cup for the sandwich. "Crys for short?"

I blinked, then bit into my sandwich. Cris not Cries, but nopony but one ever got it right. "If you don't mind me calling you Piglet."

He snorted, but made it sound like an oink.

I didn't see Pig Pen for a week, but he showed up outside the restaurant at the end of my shift. He walked up and we hoof bumped. Without thinking, I said, "If you're not busy, we could—"

He shrugged and said, "'fraid I can't hang right now, but I wanted to... Well." He coughed into a hoof. "You like fighting, I can tell, but do you like the Fights?"

"Fights?"

"Tag team. Gymnastics competition. Pony fights. It's Shadow Strike up against Princess Grim for the championship and I scored good seats. I've got an in with the promoter." He waved a couple of blue tickets with Fight Night! inscribed in lightning bolt font. "It's in three days—"

I snatched a ticket between my primary feathers before he could blink. I had no idea, other than gymnastics, what the event was about. Stallions fighting for a sport had to be an earth pony thing. Managing movers got me all over the city and I hadn't heard of anything like that anywhere on the Vanhoover cloud deck. "Where's it at? Where do we meet?"

He grinned.

- 3 -

I was flabbergasted when a white pegasus mare with a glacial blue mane glided into the arena for the interview portion. Though Baltimare had a hoofball stadium, the venue was a converted dry dock that had once been used for building airships. Afternoon sun streamed in from rows of windows at roof level, but magical lights hung from the remnant of the construction crane that had been parked such that the main girder spanned the ceiling.

A indigo blue unicorn, also a mare(!) with a midnight blue mane and tail, pushed open the corral gate with a hoof and joined the pegasus. She wore a costume that had an embossed silver peytral with a moon emblazoned upon it. The form-fitting tights left nothing to the imagination. Her mane, put up in a colt bun, was tied with a crown-like silver bandanna with a pale moon. The costume sported a ridiculously large cutie mark with the same motif, surrounded by black storm clouds. Nopony could mistake the giddy-up for anything but a satire of Princess Celestia. Very cheeky, but I'd come to realize that Baltimareans were rude and crude, so I wasn't entirely surprised when the audience cheered more for the svelte unicorn than the coldly elegant she-bull of a pegasus.

"That must be Princess Grim," I said over the roar.

Pig Pen leaned in and I felt his breath in my ear. "She creamed Punch Drunk in her first bout. It was regulation although it was a practice. I heard it from one of my buds who uses the gym she does. He saw it come down. She insulted the stallion's pride and he went for the jugular. She cleaned his clock with a rear hoof punch."

"Was he any good?"

"He lost last year's championship on points despite being favored."

I whistled.

"He's got this eastern kirin mojo going on that makes him untouchable. Oh-colts, did she touch him! One strike and they carted him off to the hospital."

"Kirin?" I moved his head with a hoof so I could speak into his ear. "Did you hear what kirin school of martial art he practiced? That shadowboxing you saw, that was me practicing Nirikan Fire Stroke katas." I was being generous about that specific display of frustration. "A kirin trained Master Fire Flick when he lived across the Western Sea. He owns the dojo we attend—attended."

Pig Pen moved such that our cheeks briefly touched, before he pulled aside and said, "I've read lots of interviews, but I don't remember anything like that."

We faced forward as the audience quieted and Shadow Strike, the pegasus, heaved a very unladylike insult at her opponent at the start of the interview. Something in obvious gutter slang about being a coward combined with the stink of horse apples. I couldn't remember it exactly, though. I raised my hoof and rubbed the frog across my cheek, wondering why it tingled.

Princess Grim looked at the mare as if she'd encountered a squirrel run over by a wagon. She delivered a few words in return, most multisyllabic, with the clear diction of a noble or maybe the princess. Her voice never raised more than what could be clearly heard, nor was it colored with anger. She clearly infantilized Shadow Strike, who lunged forward, fluttering her wings as the referee tackled her and was dragged trying to restrain her.

A soft blue-green glow manifested around her horn for an instant, then went out in clear disdain, as if the pegasus wasn't worth a single splendor of her magic. The pony radiated an aura of danger.

"She's going to win," I said.

"They're both mares," Pig Pen pointed out, snorting.

I swatted him with a wing and said, "No. The princess."

"Ah, so you're a monarchist."

"What?"

"Her fans call themselves monarchists. I'd wait until the interview is over before betting anything, newbie."

I nodded.

When it came to the arena of the spoken word, the unicorn mare was as sharp and cutting as one of my feathers, effortlessly so. Clearly well educated, I suspected her retorts went beyond Shadow Strike's comprehension and that of a fraction of the audience. Well, the stallion fraction. She got cheers from the mares, who were easily 60% of the audience, which also surprised me. Princess Grim had the steady unflappable demeanor of Master Feather Flick. He taught Daylily and me that attitude was as important as muscle memory. Losing control of your emotions could make you lose as quickly as lack of skill.

By the end of the interview, I judged Princess Grim didn't care. She got an opportunity to shadowbox and she did so without a hint of noticing those that cheered around her. She lived fully rooted in the present. I knew how hard it was to stop thinking or worrying about what came next, from kata practice, from getting distracted and knocked to the mat by Master Feather Flick.

"Princess Grim is going to win," I said as Princess Grim trotted toward the corral gate and Shadow Strike took an egotistical pre-victory lap around the edge of the arena at ten pony heights. I knew whose hoof I wouldn't want to have to dodge.

"Shadow Strike is the 7-4 favorite."

"That's surprising."

"They both beat earth ponies to cinch this match, but Grim has trouble beating pegasi."

I thought about that, but said, "Nevertheless."

"You wanna lay a bet?"

I blew air though my lips. "Rent's due tomorrow. I've nothing to spare if I want to eat. I do appreciate the seats." We were behind the VIPs, in the fifth row. "They're fantastic."

"How about a gentlecolt's bet?"

The staff were dragging mats, pommel horses, rings, and horizontal bars into the arena for the gymnastics portion. I looked him in the eye. "In what manner?"

"You win, I do something you ask me to do."

"If you win?"

He grinned. "You kiss me."

I coughed into a hoof. Was that a stallion-y stallion challenge? I examined his face, the few stray whiskers around his muzzle, the way he had slicked back his mane. He had bought us both championship tee-shirts with Fight Night! written across them in rainbow colors. Nothing sloppy or unkempt about the earth pony with a sloppy unkempt name; his chocolate cologne wasn't overpowering to cover up scents all ponies had and ought not be ashamed of. Had a mare issued the same challenge, I judged I would have instantly prevaricated, not wanting to navigate all that it implied. I had almost been married, then two days before the wedding, wasn't going to be. I understood pitfalls from stepping in them.

Him? My smile grew and I chuckled, raising a hoof. "You're on."

He bumped my hoof, then said, "Wait. You didn't say what you'd bet!"

"I?" Ciders? Dinner? Suddenly inspired, I indicated the arena with my wings and tapped his shirt with my primaries. "Perhaps we could spar, since you like fights. Dunno. I'll decide."

He smiled too, nodding his head curtly. "Works for me."

While the gymnastic competition went on, he bought us corn-battered fried carrot dogs and sparkling ciders. As we ate at the bar in the feed-bag area, I talked about all the stupid things that happened in a restaurant kitchen. Too soon, the gong sounded for the "Mane Event." I found it amazing that something with so much hype could start and complete in exactly five minutes. The announcer dragged out the introductions. Each contestant got to prance around to the cheers of their partisans. The rules got explained, like the part that Princess Grim could not strike Shadow Strike's wings nor could the pegasus hit the unicorn's horn.

Pig Pen added, speaking behind a hoof, "If there were an earth pony, neither the unicorn nor pegasus could strike the earth pony's gentle parts."

"But the unicorn's or pegasus' ones are okay?"

Pig Pen shrugged.

The not-earth-pony mares hoof bumped in the center of the area, then trotted to the opposite side of the expanse. "That adds another dimension to this."

"Oh-colts, it certainly does."

The bell rang and Princess Grim launched herself so explosively that were she a pegasus, she'd being hurling towards the rafters. She hit a gallop in two strides and was halfway across the arena before Shadow Strike nonchalantly fluttered into the air. I saw muscles moving fluidly on the unicorn that most earth pony stallions flexing rarely displayed. I thought, locomotive.

For all that unexpected physicality, Shadow Strike defeated the charge by simply hovering. Suddenly, the glacial-maned pegasus, jerked right, whinnied, and flapped high into the air. I saw a blue-green aura roil like a forming thunderhead around her horn. By the rules, Shadow Strike had to land at least every 15 seconds, and there were big clocks with a pony-length red second hand that made her obligation easy to see. As she touched-down near the arena fence of jumbo nailed-together shipping pallets, she seemingly mistook her glide path. She suddenly spun and stopped such that she rattled the wood. I heard the thump because it happened ten pony-lengths from me and I saw down feathers fly.

Her face went red with rage as she shot into the air, wings humming with her effort. She reached her apex below the rafters, then stooped like a hawk, furling her wings and diving hooves out. Despite the bulbous boxing gloves the opponents wore on all hooves, at that speed she'd shatter any bone she struck on a unicorn, including her horn. She flared her wings at the last moment, unexpectedly bringing her rear legs to bear.

She missed by hoof lengths, but no hit was no hit. Princess Grim simply stepped aside, without a flinch or extra effort, as the backdraft blew her tail. Her horn flared. I judged that her spell worked by the way Shadow Strike yawed, slipping right and left through the air, like a sparrow caught on a gusty day.

The audience cheered as Pig Pen spoke into my ear. "See how she evades the magic?"

That fascinated me. I knew unicorns could lift and pull things with their magic, but Shadow Strike moved with grace against a force more powerful than the wind. Maybe Princess Grim wouldn't have it so easy after all. "I'm going to have to learn that technique."

"Maybe, one day I can help with that."

"Uh-huh," I said, as Shadow Strike flew a set of figure-eights around Princess Grim, her punches missing.

The unicorn had been backing toward the arena fence, and when Shadow Strike repeated the pattern one too many times, the unicorn leapt at her. Shadow Strike skimmed her side against the fence. This prevented her from flapping her wings lest she hit them on the fence rim, forcing a glide where she lost altitude with every pony length. Just in time, she squirmed out of the magic and slid down and away, taking the moment to touch down. She stumbled as the unicorn charged her, devilishly fast considering that nopony ever considered a unicorn as strong or fast.

I found myself jumping, cheering, waving my wings as Princess Grim chased her down. She flapped madly like an albatross, ponderously lifting into the air with a couple of pony lengths to spare, despite her tail being pulled by magic hard enough that it was clearly straight back.

Shadow Strike executed a barrel roll. She riposted so suddenly, Princess Grim threw herself aside. Shadow Strike snagged the bandanna around the unicorn's colt-bun, dragging her aside. The pegasus banked just in time as her opponent slid through the straw and dirt, raising a cloud of dust before she thumped into the fence.

Like a sparrow protecting her nest from a marauding crow, Shadow Strike looped back again and again, forcing the princess to duck and scrabble away, getting her to strike the fence again as she did so. Only the fifteen second rule saved the unicorn from inevitably getting hit. Shadow Strike didn't want to be anywhere close to those gloved hooves.

At two and a half minutes on the clock, Pig Pen said, "Wanna reconsider? If no pony lands a strike, Shadow Strike is ahead on points, now."

Princess Grim shook herself out, following the retreating pegasus with her eyes. She tied her mane back into the bun with the lost bandanna, determination showing on her face. She reminded me of a lily white pegasus I knew.

"Nope."

"Good. I'm getting excited."

Princess Grim did a lot of galloping around. I became convinced Pig Pen was right about the points, until the pegasus dropped in another hawk stoop, but performed a tight barrel roll as her opponent dodged. On the return, her right boxing glove connected with the indigo pony's nose with a loud smack. Her head jerked left and I clearly saw a gout of blood spray out. Yet, like I'd been taught by Master Feather Flick, she accepted her change of momentum and used it to fling herself around. Shadow Strike tried to make it a one-two in order to knock her out, but found herself dodging a full-on buck that would have likely broken her neck had she flown into it.

The pegasus landed near but too far away, executing a touch-and-go as the unicorn galloped with less vigor, too exhausted to cross a distance she would have nearing on five minutes prior. When she missed a lunge and Shadow Strike soared upwards, I could feel every drop of frustration the unicorn felt. Until that moment, nothing had affected the pony; now, she reared and crashed down on her front hooves, screaming incoherently as her opponent flapped higher and higher. I saw the clock directly before her, exactly as she did, as she thrashed her tail in front of me. Her eyes shut. She screamed as if she forced all her emotion out through her lungs.

Fourteen seconds. Shadow Strike could stay aloft until the bell rang.

Thirteen seconds—

A searing blue-green beam of magic crackled from her horn. Eyes closed, she hadn't aimed it at her nemesis! My first thought was she would've vaporized the mare. My second thought was complete disappointment.

I didn't have a third because the arena lights exploded with a clanking bang. Glass, red-hot metal, and burning wood shot out in sprays of debris and swirling rainbow sparkles. The whole sundered construction, likely no more than the size of a big pony, dropped seven stories. Glass and metal splashed out across the arena like ice hit by a sledgehammer.

Princess Grim jumped aside.

I sighted Shadow Strike as the spooked pegasus struck her hip into a rafter ten stories up, as she flapped desperately away from a shot that was actually nowhere near. The shock stunned her. She forgot she had wings. She plummeted like a rock before she realized, flapping manically, fighting against gravity and rushing air to find lift and convert it into a swoop. My heart needn't have jumped into my throat because her wings snapped full; she flattened her trajectory hoof lengths above the dirt, pitching upward dangerously close to the arena fence.

The arena lights had all shorted, not only the center one. In the late afternoon light, shadow filled the arena. I couldn't miss a dim magic aura.

A blue-green nebulosity spread across Shadow Strike's shoulders as she zoomed toward one of the posts providing support for the fence. Princess Grim used a shove. Instead of banking right and using the magic impetus to avoid the pole, Shadow Strike banked left against the magic.

Her barrel impacted the pole, wings and legs to either side. Her boxing gloves continued without her into the audience and she cracked her jaw against the post that had started life as a lodgepole pine. Because nopony could unsee what was about to happen, everypony had gasped at the same time. The thunk was audible.

"Ooo," I said, frowning, starting to turn away. "That hurt..." I trailed off. A blue-green aura enveloped the mare and she settled six pony lengths to the ground.

The ref and Princess Grim rushed over, the latter sitting on the pegasus to pin her while the former counted her out. I knew what I'd seen. Despite the sheer force of emotion the unicorn had shoved into her scream, I understood she'd had completely controlled her emotions, channeling them to her bidding.

"That's something," Pig Pen said, like me, sober while the crowds around us cheered and chanted, "Princess Grim! Princess Grim!" He added, "Maybe she is a princess. What pony breaks her enemy, then saves them? Shadow Strike would have kicked her before pinning her were the roles reversed."

"Master Feather Flick would say Princess Grim acted honorably." As the ref got the mare to rear and named her the new champion, parading her around for all to see, I asked, "You know what else?"

He snapped out of his thoughts and turned his chocolate brown eyes on me.

I jumped up and fluttered over my friend. "Princess Grim won and so did I!"

"Oh...? Oh!" His lip went up in the barest pout.

I smirked, without a clue as to why he had made the bet he had. Wanting to see his reaction, I kissed him anyway.

His eyes grew wide. Shock. Maybe I ought sometime explain why I had blood on my wings. I ought add that I often did what my gut or my heart directed, ignoring my head. Regardless of his reaction, I knew I could defend myself, so why not? I felt the bristles on his chin poke my lips. Not at all like kissing Daylily.

He didn't instantly step away, and I refused to back off, but, when he did, a crooked smile crinkled his muzzle. "Say. I know a great joint for sweet fortified cider and grilled hayburgers. Let's go bowling, too."

"Sure."

I didn't know what had clicked in his brain, and wouldn't figure out for awhile what was up with his bet. He didn't need to use his rope to win at bowling. Darn. Later he agreed to spar with me at his gym. I did understand I now had a friend in Baltimare.

Chapter 4: The Gym Confessional

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- 4 -

Because of his schedule of jobs, we didn't spar for two weeks. I practiced my katas everyday because I refused to embarrass Master Feather Flick by not being ready. When I showed up at Twenty-four Underground, he trotted over with a laminated card.

"A membership? You didn't—"

"Don't be a ingrate," he said, swatting my shoulder lightly with a hoof—mirroring my swatting him with a wing at the fights. "I don't want them bugging you to join, and this way you can use all the showers, lockers, and attend classes. Okay?" he finished, arching an eyebrow.

The place was clean, white walls with black carpet and shiny steel equipment on rubber tiles. Modern. It smelled like sweated-up old gym clothes. I wondered how Feather Flick could keep his kirin-style dojo scent-free and Equestrian-style gyms never could.

I got a locker for my street horseshoes as metal wasn't allowed on the floor. After a tour that ended in a corner with mirrored walls and mats, I stretched and warmed up my wings by hovering. He jogged in place, commenting, "You take fighting with your wings seriously."

"Master Feather Flick emphasized the whole body; I walked here so my legs are warmed up. Legs and wings together can match an earth pony's strength."

"Them's fighting words."

"Maybe," I said. "Since I think this isn't about showing off so much seeing how well we can fight, perhaps we should shadowbox first? Show what you got so neither of us accidentally hurts the other."

"Hurt me?" he said with a dismissive grin. "Sure." He blinked at me, as if waiting.

"You've seen me before. You first."

"Ah, wily." He performed a cat stretch, grunting, then jumped up, swiping with alternating front hooves. He thumped mats hard and reared, boxing swiftly. He was as fast as I was fluttering within the bounds of the enclosed space. He bucked, then twirled on his forelegs and aimed back hooves.

To my eye, it wasn't a kata—sequenced defined moves drilled by repetition intended to ingrain strikes to make them reflex. No. He improvised. Somewhat brutish, it nonetheless demonstrated he knew how to direct force to his hooves efficiently. When he stopped, plopping his flank down, I noted how hard he was breathing and glanced at the clock again. Limited stamina. Somepony didn't do his daily gallops.

I landed and bowed toward him, then started swaying. When I felt a shimmy like a harp string buzzing, I walked in place, kicking up my hooves until I punched in the cardinal directions, then bucked and boxed in pairs front and rear, then transitioned to albeit wobbly spinning kicks with my wings out. This twirled me aloft, a hoof length shy of the ceiling but I compensated, continuing to kick and punch, until I leveled off low enough that I could swoop and yield, which lent me the momentum to swipe with a wing cut and follow up with a trailing hoof without breaking my lift. The two story ceiling was high enough to add a repeating flip and a rotation. The Knitting Dance, that kata was called. I did it well only when within the zone.

In any case, it was also the Grasscutter Dance. I could move the muscles in my skin, not so different than bristling or imagining a chill. Think gooseflesh. Doing so, made the vanes in my feathers align into a razor edge. I could cut tall grass. I'd scythed wheat to help a schoolmate once. Another time, being a bratty foal, I'd shredded bed sheets hanging on clotheslines... around the neighborhood, with Daylily flying behind me, egging me on. It had gotten me grounded—her, too.

I got lost in it.

Pig Pen stuck out a foreleg.

I dove under it, pulled up flaring my wings, circled him once shifting my flank so I shed most of my momentum, and came down sliding backwards.

Unfortunately, not sliding: the flooring was rubber. My hooves touched and I flipped backward. I flapped and lowered my pinions reflexively, pitching myself forward. I stalled, stretched out, front hooves nearly at the ceiling, then I dropped. With a flutter, I dropped and landed on my back hooves, rearing.

Pig Pen asked, "You meant to do that, right?"

I coughed, then heard applause from the direction of the medicine balls, where ponies had obviously gotten an eyeful. I felt my face go beet red. I lowered myself into a bow.

I muttered, "Not only did I flub the landing, my spiral kicks sucked and I got the mouse wheel totally wrong. Master Feather Flick would have used the cane."

Pig Pen got between me and the stomping hooves. He said, "Hey, hey. Shoo. Scoot. Get a life. My pegasus, not—" He coughed, turning to me, and said, "Exaggerate much? You could busk during the summer and earn serious bittage with that act."

"Not an act," I muttered, then shivered thinking what would happen to me if I contemplated defiling the Way of the Nirik. As I rose from the bow, to face him, I saw ponies dispersing. A few grumbled.

"Still amazing. I'd love to put you up against Ma'am. Question. Do I have to worry about getting cut?"

"No. I'm in control."

"I'm going to pull my punches. Can you? And, do you know how to fall?"

"First thing Master Feather Flick taught me: falling. Punches? I think so."

"Start slow. Shadowboxing. Say, 'Ready,' when you want to get real and I will."

I nodded and started my Buzzing Fly kata, looping and sliding around him, watching his eyes sparkle as they followed me. "Ready!" I aimed a swipe.

Bang! I found myself on my back behind him, wings splayed out. "What?"

He clattered about to look down into my face, grinning.

"Again!"

"Sure."

Bang! I lay on the mat like last time, not quite as stunned, noticing this time slight aches on my right shoulder and pulling sensations in my left leg. I also had presence enough to come down rolling on my spine this time, slapping my rump, wings, and tail on the mat, to dissipate the wicked earth pony strength he had imparted into me.

"Again!" I said, and this time Pig Pen shook his smiling face in disbelief.

I switched up the leg I jabbed with this time, but paid more attention as he jumped at me. Sure enough, he caught my leg and shoulder, twisting his neck and hindquarters as he reared up. Over I went.

Bang! This time, however, I slapped the mat and rolled back into the air. With a few quick wing beats and my momentum, I banked around, found him coming down from rearing, slightly twisted, not quite on four hooves. I dove under "the bridge," planted my fore hooves, and wrenched him up, adding my stifled momentum to a buck.

He flew up with a oof. Not far enough, because he came down on my flank, knocking me away.

We lay there, blinking at each other. I asked, "Fought pegasi before?"

He rubbed the back of his head. "I've experience, thanks to my line of work."

"What did you do?"

"Remember the tag team event? It's a wrestling move." He demonstrated. After half-hour of us explaining to each other what we'd done, sweating buckets, he trotted back with a couple bottles of orange sports drink.

He said, "That bridge thing. Had you sharpened your wings, you'd have sliced all four my legs."

I looked away, accepting the bottle in a wing. I didn't like to think of that, but said, "Yes."

"Wicked."

"Not too deep, and I probably wouldn't have unless desperate. I got into a lot of trouble with Daylily as a foal. Sharping makes my feathers brittle. The second time I wing clipped myself, Maman found me Master Feather Flick to teach me discipline. Unicorn magic to heal pinions and secondaries is expensive."

He nodded, evaluating my wings before trying to open the bottle. "Crown tops, shoot." He put out a hoof to take my bottle back.

"Not carbonated?"

"No, why?"

I smiled, brought my other wing around while rotating the bottle with a scissor grip. I sharpened and the glass made a ski-zzzz sound until the glass neck separated below the crown and bounced on the mat.

His mouth dropped open. "Amazing," he said, giving me his bottle.

Repeating the trick, I said, "No. Corundum." I put down the second bottle of Cragodi-ale, looked around to make sure nopony was looking our direction, judged the light from the hanging light fixtures, took a few steps, and held my wings outstretched so they reflected the light at him while sharpening.

He blinked; stunned I decided. I couldn't see the ruby sparkle that deeply outlined my feathers, but had before in a mirror. He studied at my wings, then his head moved; he looked at the all of me.

"I could look at that all day. I sooo wish I had a camera."

I had felt proud. Now I felt a little exposed. I furled them back. Not exactly what I expected, especially since I had pretty much admitted to being a living, breathing, ruby-edged razor blade. I saw no fear. His admiration bewildered me.

I faced him and grabbed the bottle in both wings, making myself small as I drank it. He chuckled at my antics.

He got us sparring. Incrementally, we became better matched. Pulling punches was good, and I began to feel pummeled. One last bout and we ended up blocking each other's attempts at throws, trips, charges, punches, and my lifts and yields. We had both reared, boxing, when I tripped myself. I compensated, but the chaotic move forward caused him to jump back, and I turned it into a clench but we fell back together, me on top. Barrel to barrel, he tried to roll to pin me. With wings as leverage beyond my legs contacting the mat, I stopped that out of reflexive self-preservation. Rolling could damage them. Flapping to push him into the mat, I got him splayed out as he struggled and kicked. I lowered my body more, pinning him further.

Had we been truly fighting to hurt one another, I had no doubt he would have found a way to throw me. I might have tried to lift him a couple of stories and drop him.

Instead, he said, "You win. Um. This may look odd to the other ponies."

I thought about it, then realized our position muzzle to muzzle, barrel to barrel, groin to— "Yow!" I realized what touched and jumped off, fluttering back.

We both sat, lathered from our efforts, breathing hard. I actually smelled his chocolate cologne on me. Why that didn't feel weird again bewildered me, and I tried to puzzle out what I felt.

"You said you were almost married. Why not?"

I blinked at the non sequitur. I grasped the distraction and said, "Daylily."

"Her name?"

"Yeah. You see, my family is from Prance. I'm... Master Feather Flick had a word for it: Nisei. My parents and grandparents immigrated to Equestria."

"What's that have to do with the price of hay?"

"Daylily's parents emigrated from Salerno. We're all first generation Equestrian. Our marriage was arranged when I was 2 years old."

"Your? What!?"

"My family owns Supersafe, the main moving company in Vanhoover. Her family has a hold on hauling with Always Ontime."

"A marriage between, what, families?"

"A merger. The families have coordinated for years, based on us, on this."

"The wedding?"

"The not-wedding, now. Daylily was always somewhat coltish, in a very Salernitano fashion. I still like her. I hate our friendship ending this way. We palled around as far back as I remember, got into trouble together, went to school together, rough-housed together, sparred together; she got us to sneak away to Vanhoover-Below and camp in the Golden Stag Redwoods together... (The deer animate the trees and really hate campfires.) I covered her flank when she went around fighting bullies—"

"Dated?"

I blew air through my lips. "Wasn't necessary. We knew each other well."

"Thought you did. Might have been necessary?"

I looked down. "Yeah. Maybe. Not sure if I would have wanted to. As she became a yearling filly, especially after we entered college, she became, um..."

"Girly?"

"Let's say 'less coltish'."

"Dressing up? Makeup—"

"Celestia, no. We both agreed makeup was— Got in the way of a good kiss, but I never pushed further."

"Go on."

I closed my eyes. Seeing the past. I felt cut, like I was bleeding out. Why was I doing this?

I took a deep breath, and said, "We had friends."

"Jealousy?"

"I don't own her."

"You're a better pony than me, but then I figured that."

Maybe I trusted him?

"She had friends."

I hit a hoof on the mat, beating it. I had lost a friend, and I knew it. "I asked Fidelity to be my best stallion. We took Accounting 50 together. Daylily was a year older than me, but had met him in a biz class. Seemed like a good choice."

"The wedding was arranged for the day after my 21st birthday, but the day before that, we met with the wedding planner. Fidelity looked annoyed all through the meeting. Daylily looked, well, pretty in a white silk blouse, but uncomfortable otherwise. I thought it was the way Fidelity answered everything monosylabically, but I missed the byplay. His grandfather had been a Clydesdale earth pony, which explained how big he was and probably how deep green his fur and feathers were. His amber eyes and mane made me think fire that day. Outside, Fidelity asked, 'We're going through with this?'

"I thought, and I remember my shock, We are?

"I all but spat back at him, 'It's been planned since I was 2—'

"That's when he got in my face. I nearly tumbled into the void between the buildings, but got my wings going. He yelled, 'Do you love her?'

"Can you believe that?

"But he was right. I hesitated. Seconds.

"He sucker punched me. Sent me down the sidewalk into a column, which puffed away in hunks of cloud. He shouted a lot of words at me, surprising words considering how refined and polite he seemed in class. The worst were, and they stuck, were, 'You're as cold as the blue shade of your wings.'"

Pig Pen asked, "Did you believe him?"

"I got angry. I flew at him and he punched me back down again, but my training clicked. We fought. He kept yelling at me, 'Do you love her?' Knocked me out of the air, kept me from retreating.

"I started cutting him. All that time, Daylily stood there, neither shocked nor appalled. Not even when her lily white blouse got dotted with blood. The stallion kept hitting me, despite dozens of cuts. I lost my anger when I realized that—because I didn't answer him—he might actually kill me. But I couldn't lie. I couldn't stop him.

"That's when I slashed his eye."

I pulled a wing around and looked at it. I flexed and saw the red outlines on my first four primaries flash for an instant. "I have blood on my wings. Daylily grabbed him up when he fell back whinnying in pain, then held her wings up to guard from me slashing him again. I froze. She got him to fly off with her. The air marshals came; the wedding planner had called them."

Pig Pen said, "And now you are in Baltimare."

I didn't love her. And now I've lost my best friend.

I nodded. "Long story made short."

I felt soiled. I felt ashamed. I stood and turned toward the entrance. "I—I'm going. I don't deserve—"

Pig Pen grabbed me around the withers. He pulled me down. The big fellow actually hugged me, something neither my mother nor father had done in, well, I didn't remember exactly. "You defended yourself; don't cut yourself, too."

It occurred to me that I ought to wrest myself free, but I didn't. I shivered instead. "I'm a bad pony. I have blood on my feathers. I didn't love her."

He chuckled in a self-deprecating way. "It's always hard when we learn we are cowards about something."

I bristled at the word coward, but I heard the word we, too. It had been true. For both of us, apparently. I had adored my friend, Daylily, but had never felt attracted to her. Our wedding was a fait accompli. I'd never had to love her, but I should have. I should have told her when I didn't.

"Enough, okay," I said, pushing him away. "Thanks."
He punched my shoulder, lightly. Perhaps to distract me, he added, "You're good at fighting; I can tell you like it. I think I should introduce you to Ma'am and get you a job you might find more interesting than cutting bait."

Chapters 5-7: Fighting for a Job

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- 5 -

Who would have thought security could be a euphemism?

A few weeks later, we met in a park on a cold morning. Because of my work on the docks, my winter coat had grown in. Pig Pen wore a jacket. I spotted red pegasus wings braking hard as the mare descended to our redwood picnic table with a paper bag in her mouth. It had Fish on Fifth printed on it. Her red fur and feathers, her auburn mane and tail, even her blue eyes looked unremarkable. Her gold nose ring caught my attention, however. Dark mascara and gold eye shadow made her look intense.

"Ma'am?" I asked.

She put the oil-stained bag down and grabbed apples for Pig Pen from her messenger bag. "Same as yours is Midnight Star." She winked.

Pig Pen had advised me to make up a name, despite him using Pig Pen. I watched as she unwrapped two cartons of fried fish, by the smell, and something else. She pulled off the metal wire handle, then pushed the cardboard down, unfolding the carton into a plate, revealing browned crispy fingerlings and a mess of toasty fried onions, glistening with oil. I could smell the garlic and saw the cracked pepper. The Petit Pescatarian Pegasus tended toward gourmet dishes, but this reminded me of the Salernitano meals Daylily's mère used to cook when her family had our family over for dinner. Hardy. Chopped and fried, with lots of onion or other vegetables. Imported tinned fish, always marinated.

We ate the kippers and onions in silence only broken by the crunch of Pig Pen's apple. The red dots of hot sauce surprised me, and burned my mouth, but after finishing I realized how perfect it all tasted together. This could become a favorite.

"So," she began, throwing aside her napkin, "Did the big oaf explain what we do?"

"Not in so many words."

"Good for him. You can fight?" She eyed me. I wasn't large for a stallion, so we were practically the same size.

"I—"

I reflexively caught her wing slap with my wings before she could strike my nose. She stepped up on the table, kicking our empty cartons to the grass as Pig Pen jumped out of the way. I couldn't help focusing on the gold ring in her nose as she shoved me away from the bench until we were both standing on the grass. I was huffing when she jabbed at me with her right hoof.

I buzzed back, sliding back and forth through the air, sure she would follow and hit me if I turned tail on her. She didn't leap into the air. Instead, she stepped hard on something and a small pole flipped up. She caught it with her wings, scissor grip, and thrust one end at me. I dodged, but she did it again and again, alternating sides, causing the air to whistle. A javelin. I thought to kick it, but worried the point might score my leg or poke my frog. I wondered if she could throw it, too.

This was a test.

I flexed, adjusted my wing beats faster so I could add an intermediate thrust and... Clank!

I sliced the rod in half. The pointy part flew past my ear, while the other part sprung back and walloped Ma'am across the jaw. She stumbled back while I crashed down before her; the rod was at my cutting limit and I fouled my airfoil. I bounced back with a side kick.

She jumped onto the picnic bench, saying, "Enough, enough!"

I stepped out of reach. "Yes," I said.

"Yes?"

"Yes, I can fight."

"I think I believe you." She returned to a bench and tapped the table, motioning me to sit. "Pig Pen vouched for you and checked to see if you're in the constabulary or associated with another gang. You seem clean. Muscle, I don't need. I need ponies who can think, do their job, and leave without breaking horse apples for the fun of it."

"Breaking things?" I looked at Pig Pen, who studied the single cloud in the otherwise blue sky.

"Not breaking things," Ma'am clarified. "The syndicate ships things, and you don't need to know what, across the city. Sometimes other ponies interfere. Me and my crew run interference to ensure the shipment arrives safely."

"Security?" I asked.

"Security," Pig Pen repeated.

Ma'am nodded, bobbing her head back and forth with a funny look. "Yeah, call it security. Once a week, five or six times a month. Pays a gold bit each shipment."

More than a week's salary.

"More for special orders, or if the higher up ask for you by name."

Pig Pen said, "There are no rules."

Ma'am added, "Ponies will try to hurt you."

In a lower voice because a pair of early morning joggers were trotting by, Pig Pen said, "It isn't exactly legal what the syndicate ships—"

"—Or our security work."

Ma'am said, "We don't ask what the mules carry, and we will get you a private security guard card. Run-ins with the constabulary are rare. The syndicate came under new leadership, what, six years ago, and they've got their act together. It's run like a business."

It sounded like what my would-have-been Salernitano in-laws called The Family Business, which is why Daylily's family emigrated, though in a way they had started one of their own considering how they dealt with fly-by-night haulers—and helped us with the constabulary when investigators didn't like the way Maman and Dad ran their business. Legal and illegal sometime varied in definition by who used the word and how the bits dictated. Like me being in Baltimare instead of in jail for assault in Vanhoover.

Pig Pen nodded.

- 6 -

Being a pegasus, I had never trotted that far for that long, ever, in my entire life. We went in groups of six to eight, with Ma'am and somepony we referred to as the mule, regardless of whether he or she was a unicorn, pegasus, or earth pony thatweek. Crossing the town late at night or in the day—or for the first few weeks of the year in snow—left a pony achy, damp, and cold.

It didn't get real until one night a half-dozen crazy pony toughs wearing blue and red satin capes came screaming out of an alley way. All earth ponies. They barreled down on us each with a two-by-four clenched in their jaws. Worse, the end bristled with nails.

Ma'am left Pig Pen, Breakaleg (a piebald earth stallion with a silver mane), and me to block the way while the rest galloped off. It helped that I could fly at anypony who dodged to follow the mule, but these rival gangsters knew how to fight a pegasus, too. I dodged spiked clubs, flicking up into the air as I tried to apply my rear hooves to knock somepony, anypony down.

We had to engage for two minutes, enough for the rest to sprint blocks away. I did get one chasing me to club his companion. Then, thanks Pig Pen and me sparring, I was able to name one of my katas and we double-teamed a third and kicked him into the gutter.

When one goon got away from Breakaleg and grazed Pig Pen, causing him to buck, I lost it. I shot up, like I remembered Shadow Strike doing at the fight, then stooped, coming down screaming, evading. With a club in her mouth, the mare had to use her neck or twist her body. I came in so fast, she chose the wrong side to protect. I slit her open from flank to shoulder. She spooked, as the drag on my wing set me careening off in front of her face. That sent me into a spin trying to find my horizon. As I found lift, I found the remaining gangster. I flared my wings, got my rear legs forward, and planted both in his shoulder with a meaty crack.

Next thing I new, I found myself laying in the gutter. The trickle of melting dark icy snow shocked me up. I saw two sets of brown eyes on me, Pig Pen's and Breakaleg's. "You okay?" they both asked.

I laughed. I threw myself up, despite the back of my head and right wing hurting.

"Maybe he isn't," said Breakaleg, having thrown himself back. "Did he hit his head?"

I sobered, catching the groan of one of our opponents raising himself up. "Maybe we should go?" I asked.

Pig Pen explained, "I think he likes fighting," as we high tailed it, galloping on a detour toward the next checkpoint so we could again provide escort. I began laughing, feeling the rush. I nevertheless took out my first aid kit as we ran because Pig Pen was bleeding.

- 7 -

You mean, like... hazing?" I asked Ma'am.

"No, it is hazing. Word is Carne Asada herself picked the little pampered foal, and I don't like anypony, even her, foisting nopony on me without me first checking him out. All I know is he is a navigator. You have my permission to cream him if he turns out to be as stupid as I expect. Got it? I'll take the heat and ask forgiveness later."

Pig Pen and I said in unison, "Yes, Ma'am!" I saluted with a wing as he did with a leg. We both snorted, dodging her wing slap.

Ma'am left us standing on a street corner to which we returned at 3:30 AM, to wait. And wait. I had flown up and shut off the gas valve to the street lights, which left us in the cold and dark. The snow had melted days ago. Small comfort. The restaurant and salt lick named 7 had closed over an hour ago. I ought to have packed my insulated bottle with hot tea, but I'd hadn't been thinking. Regardless, a gold bit was a gold bit.

Ma'am's group came trotting up E. Redwood pretty much on schedule, slowing as their guide, the newbie, noticed the lights and noticed us. As they got to the intersection, Ma'am said, "Your turn on the hoofball pitch," turned onto Light Street and hightailed it, leaving the newbie behind in the intersection. Presumably to block us.

I glanced at Pig Pen and he glanced at me. What were we to do? Was the small stallion, a colt I gathered considering his stature, poorly trimmed fetlocks, and a his rather creepy dark full-hooded cloak. The hood was back, revealing a purple mane in a gang bouffant and a grayish purple horn.

A unicorn.

We looked at each other. The expressionless colt backed up to a street corner, looking around. He found a coin in his blue-green magic and inserted it into a newspaper machine. He pulled out a section of the paper as the door banged closed, loud in dead of the night, placing the rest of it on top of the green machine. He then reached into the gutter, picking up the bottle Ma'am had spilled there hours ago. Sunny Daze orange juice. He brought it to his lips.

I flinched, my stomach turning. I clearly saw where somepony had curbed his dog.

The colt grinned maliciously as he placed the unsampled bottle down on the newsstand with a loud clunk. Both of us stood aghast, until suddenly the extinguished street lamp above him lit with a blue-green light, which more surprisingly changed and brightened until it glowed a sun-like yellow.

I got a really bad feeling. Carne Asada's Syndicate, I'd read recently, was one of the biggest Family Businesses in Baltimare—other cities, too. I gulped. Who was Ma'am hazing here? The unicorn or us?

I'd seen unicorns lift things. I'd seen a unicorn light his horn. I'd seen Princess Grim blast the lights in the arena, and heard the syndicate had a few more geniuses like that. Were I to fight Princess Grim, how would I do it? I'd not like being grabbed and thrown into the street. I gulped.

The unicorn said in a rough voice that sounded like he was trying to sound older than he was, "Seriously?"

He lit the lamp above me to my left. I jerked, as if physically slapped. I felt exposed. I tensed, ready to fight the sharp-horn shoving me to the ground.

He grabbed the newspaper, snapped it, and trifolded it like for reading on a bus. A moment later, "Oh," he said, "Grape is going for the title this year—'

"Pincer," I said to Pig Pen and launched down Light Street, to get behind the unicorn to flank him.

As I passed, the crazy sharp-horn threw the orange juice bottle at me. He missed, but all the juice ejected and sprayed my wing, fouling my airfoil and causing me to teeter in the air. Simultaneously, a blue-green cloud of magic lit up my mane and jerked me as hard as somepony biting my hair then jumping aside. I fought not to bash into the cobblestone street. Fortunately, I'd planned to bank around and make the unicorn have to deal with two attacks at the same time, so I used his help to pull me around and toward him. I saw Pig Pen galloping along my flight path beyond the unicorn.

The unicorn stiffened in realization, perhaps frozen in indecision. I would sweep by to the right, cutting toward his face to leave a big scar. Pig Pen would sweep him off his feet from the left.

The next instant two things happened. The unicorn danced backward, his freeze obviously a cold calculated ploy, and jerked my trajectory exactly into line with Pig Pen's charge. I fought the irresistible force keeping me in line with no time to spare.

Pig Pen realized what the unicorn had done at the same time. He reared trying to stop or change course.

We both failed.

I collided with my friend, barely missing head butting him, which probably would have knocked us cold. Nevertheless, pulling up, I clocked Pig Pen in the jaw. That dragged me down enough that I pulled him back with the rest of my body. Him rearing, we keeled over into a bouncing tangle of limbs, rolling and sliding across the cobbles. Bruising.

The unicorn threw the paper at us. It ripped into two dozen bits of newsprint, fluttering around us like confetti.

I heard horseshoes clattering away on east on E. Redwood. A few seconds after, I heard the miscreant chortling with glee.

I looked at my wing. I'd cut him and blood dotted my feathers. He galloped down the street as I pulled myself from under Pig Pen who, though stunned, also looked that way. I said, "What the fudge just hit us?"

I felt like Shadow Strike after Princess Grim's last move.

Turned out the unicorn's name was Grimoire, like the scary old books with metal latches, the kind that reputably ate scholars that weren't studious enough. He had a tiny cut on his nose. The yearling colt alternated from emotionless to what felt like a pasted-on emotion. He also had this tendency to tilt his head down and look at you with the whites of his eyes exposed below the iris. Like a wolf. Like I imagined Princess Grim was like before a fight.

He scared me.

The syndicate was training him to replace Ma'am, who had gotten promoted. Worse, he asked for Pig Pen and me by name on his assignments.

Chapters 8-11: Join the Herd, Do the Work

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- 8 -

Ma'am said goodbye, but didn't say to where. The next time I got the card that detailed where to meet for a security detail, complete with one gold and six silver, I wasn't surprised to learn Grimoire would lead. There were other supervisors I'd worked for by then, but Grimoire—the navigator who knew every street in the city—often took over. He directed us when we saw suspicious ponies trailing us one afternoon, one time taking on four ponies himself and sending us on. This pony had nerves of steel and the demeanor of a leader. Never asked what he wouldn't do.

I didn't want to get on his wrong side.

A bunch of us met, including Breakaleg and a relative newbie named Citron, who I'd seen break somepony's pastern bone when the idiot decided to haze the lemon meringue pie-colored yearling. He was a quiet, dangerous pony who was always business and never horsed around. I got why Grimoire had asked for him—us.

Grimoire began with, "We're going to be hit. No sugar-coating the danger, so if anyone wants out, I'll vouch I gave you the choice. Who's out?"

Pig Pen stepped close enough that I could lean on him. Knowing we would have to fight made it better, right?

"Anypony? Nopony?"

I shook my head when Pig Pen did.

"In that case, we're splitting up." In exchange for a mare's pack of Lotsobub gum, he magicked over a black saucer-shaped object that got put into her companion's messenger bag. The white stallion brayed.

He'd become the mule.

Grimoire gave the four ponies instructions and sent them off. It seemed irregular that the security detail would carry the hot potato. More so, since I recognized the saucer shape. My mother had the same makeup compact, imported from Prance.

When they disappeared from sight, as Grimoire walked us down the street, he said, "I'm the mule."

Pig Pen said, "No way."

Grimoire had explained his deal, that he never carried product. That's how I gathered he was a gang lieutenant-in-training, not hired security like Pig Pen and I. I said, "Which is why you suspect opposition?"

With a sour expression, Grimoire said, "There were clues." He gave me an evaluating look. I wore a black jacket and pants for warmth and to hide my blue fur so I wasn't as easy to see. "How much for your giddy-up?"

"Five, with the cost of the tailor."

"Good," he said, stopping at the mouth of an alley, magicking over five silver bits and a uniform. "Strip."

I changed into— This was embarrassing. A powder blue waitress uniform, with a skirt and a white peytral apron. I had to cut wing holes, but the fabric was sturdy; my tailoring didn't destroy the garment, though maybe I should have slipped and put the kibosh on the whole daft idea. At least the skirt was long enough that I could pull it down to hide my gender.

Pig Pen waited at the end of the alley, hoof on his jaw, having watched. As I passed, he said lowly, "Looks really good."

"Not my kink," I hissed back.

"Mine maybe— Wait, you have one? Do tell."

Grimoire smiled, missing the by-play. "Trust me. My route, best we don't stand out wearing what looks too much like C.A. Syndicate colors. Wait."

He pulled out a smaller makeup compact for a final indignity. He brushed on blue sparkle eye shadow, pulling down one lid then the other, finishing with black eye liner. Stuff that Daylily and I had agreed we didn't, hadn't, needed.

Citron asked, "What's with the makeup?"

"A fetish." To me: "Can you fly?"

I nodded, fluttering a few seconds.

"Good." We trotted north together, me taking point. Suddenly, magic redid my mane into a mare's bun. Then he braided my tail.

I turned and grumbled, "Not your action figure, Grimoire."

He grinned.

Citron quipped, "The proper term is doll."

"What-ever." I did feel like a dress-up doll. At a glance, I supposed I looked like a ugly waitress. Citron wore a striped horse blanket with tassels. Pig Pen wore a brown knit sweater that blended with his coat, but in the light looked preppy. Grimoire wore his hooded cape. Not a group I'd peg as gang-affiliated.

On a bench seat at the rear of a bus rolling toward the northern suburbs, I asked. "The plan?"

Grimoire's face looked uncharacteristically concerned. "We catch the 3 PM Downtown Local at the train station."

The long way back to the harbor where we usually made drop-offs. We all nodded.

"And this," Grimoire nodded. He had previously popped two sticks of gum into his mouth. He pulled with his teeth half of the pink bubblegum, which fizzed with blue-green sparkles, then gave it to Citron.

The dour guy popped it into his mouth.

"Unsanitary," Pig Pen said and instantly clenched, turning green. I reflexively put a wing over his shoulder, pulling him into me. "Hey," I said under my breath. I patted. "You okay?"

He nodded as Citron gasped, eyes widened. He pulled out the gum and Grimoire accepted it, popping it in his mouth. I hugged Pig Pen tighter.

"Yeah," he whispered. "If I can deal with blood..."

"Okay, then." I didn't move my wing because it felt good.

"You have to keep it in your mouth," Grimoire said.

Citron said, "Right. Contagious magic. Impressive."

I tightened my grip on Pig Pen. "Not a contagion." I'd researched encyclopedia articles on magic, and read a magic kindergarten primer. "Two objects in contact stay in contact separated."

"Tin Cans. Foal magic," the unicorn clarified. "After five seconds out of your mouth, the spell fades. Let's see the range. Crystal Skies?" Pig Pen had let my name slip, so we used it now. Grimoire bit off a piece and shoved it into my mouth. I did look at Pig Pen. It wasn't as if I was going to be kissing him, tonight. "Put it between your teeth and cheek."

I glared at him, then heard muted through the bone, "Fly out to the drover and ask how long to the station."

My eyes went wide. "What's a drover?"

Citron said, "The last pony on the left of the team pulling the bus."

"The driver?" I asked.

"He's not sitting on the bus, so he's a drover."

I flew out and asked, then reported, flying beside the green Clydesdale. "He says five minutes."

Grimoire nodded. I gave him a pinions up with my first primary feather, and zipped back in. He was pretty amazing. We all had to accept a chewed piece of the communication magic and it had nearly a two block radius. Pig Pen looked less than thrilled, though I could tell he liked my wing over him when he didn't push me away.

That got us sitting on a train that didn't depart for forty-five minutes. Grimoire brought a newspaper as he was wont, offering it as he spread us out. "A group is more suspicious than late travelers." When I grabbed the home section, which had the cooking columns and advertising insert, he asked, "Why?"

"Waitress, right?" Besides, living by myself in Baltimare had taught me coupons saved bits.

Pig Pen sat facing into the aisle. I faced forward across it, two seats behind. I couldn't see Citron or Grimoire who were further back. I found a pegasus reviewer named Genuine Gold who mourned a rooftop restaurant that had closed while introducing a new South City Equidorian one, worth a visit if you liked saffron.

Feeling watched, I lowered the paper. Nopony had entered our car, the last one, but I noticed Pig Pen's eyes on me. A smile grew on his face, then he slowly drew his eyes down to my flank, then out to my hooves. I blinked in surprise as he slowly reversed the track, but I buried my nose back into the paper, snapping it. When I finished the article, I peeked at him.

He grinned back. The blue garment, it was special. Not something risqué I'd missed, but not cotton that could be easily washed. Instead of starched and stiff, it laid gently over my haunches and the medium-length skirt draped over my leg like a sheet. I revealed my form. Tailored, possibly couture. Like the hooded cape Grimoire wore that fit him so well. I rubbed my frog across my left haunch to feel the jersey-like material.

Pig Pen whistled. Not loudly, but enough to make me look up. He said, "You're looking mighty fine, there." He grinned.

I had heard that "the clothes make the mare," but I wasn't one. The only mare we'd talked about was Daylily; he'd only talked about guys he'd known. Was he into clothes? Was he taking an opportunity to bait me?

With a smirk, I pulled up my skirt a hoof-length.

He enthusiastically nodded, brown eyes twinkling.

I lifted my rump enough that I could pull it up further, revealing my feather and katana cutie mark only a quarter.

"That's the way," he said, wagging a hoof in an earth pony equivalent of a pinions up high-sign.

Grinning, I wrapped my tail to hide what I'd revealed.

"Awwww."

I said, "What, too coy?"

I flicked my tail, but before I lift the skirt more, Grimoire sang, "We can hear you."

Citron added, "Yeah, get a room already."

I snorted and dropped the newspaper, then laughed, realizing I was having fun. I heard Pig Pen chuckling. I took the opportunity to lift my rear end and brush the skirt completely back, revealing my entire cutie mark. The big-city full-sheet newspaper hid my gender.

I looked at Pig Pen. His eyes narrowed as he glanced to the back of the car, then widened as he lifted his eyebrows twice at me, nodding. I returned the gesture, looking at him.

Really looking at him.

The earth pony was as squared-off as they came. Chin, flank, and barrel. You might expect him to wear a Stetson and be a cowpony in Dodge Junction. Husky, but not so much that it hid his muscles when he moved. He didn't trim his fetlocks when he got a mane cut, but he visited the farrier often enough that his hooves, despite tramping across the city, had no nicks or edge wear. I paused on his cutie mark. A pile of leaves spraying out as if somepony had jumped into them. Autumn leaves, orange, deep red, brown—pretty unique. Not sure why I hadn't noticed.

My eyes flicked up. He tried coy and embarrassed, but failed.

I looked down. Then my eyes glided right to his gender. It was rude to look. Definitely male. I lingered there, thinking first of my own, then had a weird realization.

I had palled around with Daylily most of my life. Many where the times I'd followed behind her. She had never worn skirts since she'd become a mare. Dresses were only for events. She had never been one to hide herself with a stiff tail, and in the last few years she had wagged a lot more. I'd noticed that much, but I had never looked or stared despite opportunities provided me.

I hadn't been interested?

Somepony cleared his throat. Pig Pen.

I'd zoned out staring. My face heated up and likely glowed red. Not wanting to meet his eyes, I kept looking, then realized I held the paper and brought it up and put my eyes behind it. After a minute, I lowered the edge of the paper.

His eyebrow arched.

I noticed my eyes trailing down as a fascinated part of me took control. I straightened the paper and huffed, evaluating my thoughts. I decided I liked playing the game and was okay doing it. I folded the paper width-wise, as if I wanted to read a bottom column. I raised the edge and rotated my hip slightly left.

I heard a thump. I looked to see the fellow had slipped off the bench seat, surprise all over his face. I didn't unfold the paper until the train jerked into motion.

I had never flirted with Daylily. I wondered if I had missed something.

- 9 -

I felt certain Grimoire had been right about being hit when, at midtown, a dozen ponies dressed in light blue sweaters climbed aboard the first car. With the train in the station, even that far ahead, it was unmistakable. It wouldn't be a college pep team, not at 3:30 AM. I had often fallen asleep studying at that time. They made their way, checking passengers but not harassing them. They looked for territory trespassers. I had folded my newspaper beside me, but brought it up after properly arranging my skirt. They made it to the fourth car as signs announcing the next station flickered by.

Grimoire said, "Keep calm," through the gum.

I heard their hooves. I heard hooves gathering around where I sat, causing my heart to race.

I turned a page and saw coupons.

A stallion asked, "Why's a cutie up so early for her morning shift?"

Thank you Grimoire, I thought. Great camouflage. I found a coupon for 50% off Salerno's Finest olive oil. Turning the paper to support it with my left wing, I brought my right wing over and flexed it to show a slight red sparkle. I scissored out the coupon—and the shield hiding my gender—in firm, loud snips.

Half of the ponies jumped back, and a few stumbled. The train slowed and stopped at the station, causing the door behind me to swish open. I heard hooves scrambling and rushing out of the car.

When the door snapped closed and the train jerked into motion, Grimoire said, "You rock, filly."

I answered, chuckling, "Thank you, I think?"

He added, sobering. "That was not the attack from Mr. Nopony."

We exited at the steamship terminal, to which Grimoire said, "That's our fourth trespass." As we left close together, trotting for the bridge into the city, the generally unflappable cloaked pony often lost in thought, shouted, "Bring it on!"

That got ponies on benches waiting for the train or a bus to look at us in surprise. Nevertheless, I shouted, "Yeah!" in unison with Pig Pen and Citron.

- 10 -

The trek across the bay, then up the west side of the harbor, went as smoothly as always with Grimoire. He knew the city well. I flew above the street lights, sometimes over buildings when blocked by skyscrapers. Constables didn't avoid streetlights, but gang patrols often did. I had good night vision, and could weave a block this way or that and still keep contact through the gum. As the others traveled west on Eastern, I spotted another pegasus in the sky above me on the outskirts of the park.

The pegasus turned toward me. Everypony was turning onto Bank. "Trouble," I warned.

Grimoire turned left on Castle, then galloped toward Spark as I tried to glide away nonchalantly from what I suspected was a constable. He had a flashing sky-telegraph on a peytral.

Moments later, a second pegasus shot from a rooftop perch toward everypony. This one had a flasher, too.

Had they expected us? I dove in toward the group, in case I was wrong about them being "coppers" as Grimoire called them. Was this the hit? I flexed my wings, ready to slice and dice.

I landed with a bang beside Grimoire, wings out, ready to protect everypony.

Constables galloped from either direction. The second pegasus skidded on sparking steel horseshoes to seal us between two streets in a warehouse district.

I knew Grimoire was a top lieutenant-in-training, but Pig Pen had mentioned syndicate in-fighting. At least I knew that a note sent to Vanhoover would get my family to bail me out before bawling me out. Didn't know if they'd help the others. It showed something about me that I didn't flee when I could have.

A pony detective with with a tan trench coat ambled in. "Flank down, you four. You're under arrest."

A constable let off a red bolt of magic that caused a puddle to hiss before Citron. I saw the yellow nebulosity fade around his horn.

"No worries, guys," Grimoire said loudly, then through only the gum, "Let this play out. I can handle it."

Pig Pen whinnied in dismay, but I sat after he did, then Citron. Grimoire sauntered into the light of a street lamp before sitting as the earth pony detective took out a spiral notebook.

He asked, "You... must be, uh, Gelding?"

Grimoire subvocalized. "That's the game."

Who was Gelding? Grimoire? I whispered, not moving my lips. "What'll we do?"

"Cooperate. Trust me." Audibly, "What's your name?"

"Does it matter?"

"When I lodge a false arrest complaint, it will."

The detective flipped over a page.

"What's the charge?"

"Carrying contraband. Transporting. Conspiracy."

Grimoire smirked. "I see."

"You want to surrender it?"

"Come again?"

"Surrender the contraband. Are you really a gelding? Do you understand Equestrian? A gelding is—"

I knew: pre-Equestrian Zephryn pegasus royalty castrated stallions to make court and palace servants safe. Babbleloin earth ponies used gelding as punishment. Unicornia's matrilineality dominated early Equestria and brought an end to both practices that reportedly ended up with geldings being more than average stupid.

"Call me Sir, if you prefer."

I sniggered.

The detective shouted, "Search them!"

A constable patted me down. Other than bits, I had naught. The mare had me stand and splay my wings downward. The mare wasn't careful. Tensed up, I had not unsharped my feathers.

"Ouch!"

She lifted a bleeding leg. Before the mare could then frisk my feathers, I relaxed them. When she finally checked my tail, she tensed.

The constable near Grimoire said, "Uh, Gelding doesn't have any!"

"What? Gelding...? He's a gelding?"

"Sorry, sir. He's a she. Definitely a she. Not an illusion."

"What?" I hissed.

"Shush," came back from Grimoire.

My mare piped up. "The waitress is a cross-dresser, too."

My face heated up and went beet red.

Grimoire said through the gum, "Crystal, am I good or what?"

I hissed. "Shut it!"

With that tone of being funny while trying to overcome nerves, Pig Pen said, "More of a drag princess."

Grimoire/Gelding turned her flank toward the detective and provocatively moved her tail aside, while she murmured through the gum, "Does that make me a drag prince?"

The detective pointed at a long, skinny cardboard box that slid out of Gelding's saddlebags. "That! Contraband."

"He recognizes the box," Gelding told us, then aloud, "Please don't."

He asked, "Don't? What?"

"You really don't want to look."

The fellow rolled his eyes, pointed. "Constable Beignneigh?"

"I warned you," she said. Beignneigh hesitated.

"Are you a crazy pony?"

I heard, "Yeah!", through the gum and saw her shrug. "Well. It is embarrassing."

Beignneigh, a lieutenant with a gold bar on his peaked hat, tore the end of the sturdy box. He grunted, pulling hard, struggling until something made a slithering noise as it pulled out. Something long. He stopped when everypony could see a dome top. In the street light, the thing had an unmistakably fleshy pink color.

Long.

I knew something as pink as that which became long. Intimately. I mean, I am a stallion, well past puberty. I knew that part of my anatomy well. Urges? I learned pretty early I had to deal with such things or deal with bed sheets I'd have to explain, or simply go completely crazy.

Long.

Fleshy pink.

Grimoire, no Gelding... was a she! Did mares...? Of course they did. I'd figured out that I misunderstood Daylily's signals and frustrated her urges. If mares didn't have a special somepony willing to share their—theirs, did they need a stand-in? I blinked for a moment, then our little flirting game on the train came back to me. I began to wonder about Pig Pen. What I had stared at. My heart began beating faster and I felt... I was feeling... More than pleasant. Speaking of urges, I swiftly became glad the constable mare hadn't stripped the cloaking clothes off of me.

The lieutenant broke my train of thought, saying, "Um. Sir?"

Gelding chimed in. "I warned you it was embarrassing!"

It had to be. I had to know what... tool a mare would use and I fixated on the box.

"Open the stupid thing!" the detective roared.

Beignneigh ripped the box along the glue seam, revealing...

Eh, disappointing. The gold cursive lettering read Petites-filles, literally Little Fillies. Mane conditioner, I figured since I was close enough to read the smaller print in Prench. Provocatively shaped, very like the Prench; we were more open about sex than Equestrians. Not the something mares used for fun. Did a tool like that have a name?

Gelding caught the discarded box, rotating it, slapping the cardboard to get the attention of the stunned audience—pointing. "See the address label. 'To Gelding.' Was taking it to my aunt. She always took care of me and my friends, and we thought—"

"Open it! What's in it?"

I heard the seal crack. I smelled... honey?

Gelding grumbled, "You're going to have to pay for that."

It took until past dawn for the constables to fail searching for the real contraband along the streets Grimoire had galloped. The pegasus constable verified where they'd spooked, and that I'd landed directly and couldn't have been the mule.

Gelding departed tail high, smirking, the detective's name and badge number in her saddlebags.

Despite plenty of ponies on the street, we had to be followed. Gelding went into a few busy five-and-dime stores and walked through a cafeteria restaurant that had an exit on a different street. She made sure we saw her pack of Minties gum, at which point we discarded ours.

"Is it over?" I asked.

"Nope. Gotta make the delivery. Expect trouble." She led me ahead and whispered as we passed ponies hoofing it to pier and warehouse jobs. "I knew they couldn't arrest us without cause. Your cutting the constable could have gotten us popped."

I shuddered; nightmares of getting bailed out by family returned.

She said, "It's all about self-control."

I nodded, remembering, "I saw Princess Grim win the championship when it looked like she should lose. She controlled her frustration; she used it, channeled it. I understand."

Gelding huffed. "Was that what she did? Interesting. That's the idea, though. After it's all over, I'm going to teach you to evade me. That'll give you more confidence."

"Sure, thanks, sir—ma'am."

Gelding laughed then, but not when we stopped in another restaurant with an awning covered patio and a surrounding hedge. "I am going to try magic that's really hard to do. It takes concentration— I need you guys to touch me and stay touching."

Her magic dragged me to lean against her side, to which I exclaimed, "You're a mare."

She sighed. "And I prefer colts. Wanna date?"

I shook my head.

Pig Pen took her right side. When she magicked Citron's hooves onto her flank by her tail, to hold while walking, his face went so red I'd swear I felt the heat. "A-ar-are you sure?" he asked.

She'd been female for two hours and he had a crush on her? Could have been funnier. She could have had him clamp her tail with his lips, which would have provided a more detailed view. I thought of Pig Pen's cologne. Her scent, too...

"Positively. Would you rather walk three-legged? You need to see and fight, if need be."

"Yeah, but—"

"You're not mounting me. Do it!"

The spell made us invisible to the extent Gelding could keep a clear picture in mind of everything around us. We marched very slowly, but the bussers in the restaurant looked around when they realized we disappeared, so it worked. We had to dodge pedestrians and wagon traffic, but we got to the meeting spot without getting run over.

It worked by making ponies not want to look our way, or hear us so long as we whispered, so she said. We squeezed past the guards at the front door without touching anypony, which would break the verisimilitude of the spell. Five minutes later, waiting for our opening, we scooted into a small warehouse off to the side from other ponies.

I could rightly call them gangsters, not ponies in a street gang. Family in the Salernitano-sense. They wore suits and jackets, open-necked collars, not a few with gold chains, and three bodyguards with knives. A pegasus with a black shirt held a short javelin upright. Tables arranged like a horseshoe had ponies impaneled like at scholastic jury. None resembled a professor. The highest-up mare by her demeanor, had a scar that ran from her right jaw to her left forehead.

One pony on the right returned from another room, complaining about his late shipment. Gelding stiffened. The headmare, a pink earth pony with grey hairs on her face and in her brown mane, told him, "Cool your rusty horseshoes. I'm sure Grimoire was waylaid and sent the mule on a long detour."

My body went cold. Grimoire had been made the mule. If the others had been caught and the Detective had gotten the contraband... Had the detective been clued into us coming? To steal the shipment?

"I tripled the shipment," the red stallion declared. Hooves banged. Everypony argued.

He had to be the "Mr. Nopony" Grimoire had mentioned. In cahoots with a rogue constable, were they ripping off the syndicate? Bad idea. Bad news.

Here we were, in a den of thieves.

Did Gelding have the original shipment?

Gelding whispered, "Stay with me. You won't be seen. Pretty sure, at least." The glowing nebulosity around her horn bifurcated and grew brighter. Sweat dripped from her. She shouted, "What's this about a mule!?"

Everypony looked as Gelding "appeared," pointing at Mr. Nopony. She levitated over the glued-together box of mane conditioner, setting it down on the table before him as other ponies stepped back. "You and Mustang clearly gave me the package and told me over my objections that I was now the mule. 'Join the herd, do the work.' Carne Asada made a deal with me that I would never be the mule. Perhaps you owe us an explanation?"

In a quick swoop, the pony grabbed the package and leapt for a rear door.

"To Tartarus with that!" Gelding screamed and shot a dazzling beam of blue-green at him. She missed, probably just as intentionally as Princess Grim had. The lintel burst into flames with an explosion of black smoke and splintered. Mr. Nopony reared and pedaled his legs, dropping the box. Ponies gathered around him; others surged around the pink pony, while others leapt at Gelding.

Pig Pen tackled Gelding to the ground as a dazzling beam of red shot over their heads. Jack-knives clicked and flashed. Citron shot a dazzling beam of yellow that set tables, then ponies, ablaze. I leapt into the air, feathers sharpened to protect our two downed ponies. I sliced an ear, which went flying, but Mr. Nopony's partisans were desperate.

I got a lot of blood on my feathers.

- 11 -

After separate interrogations, Gelding explained she'd triggered a "lower management reorganization." Turns out she'd safely hidden the shipment, not trusting Mr. Nopony that Carne Asada had broken their agreement.

Carne Asada was the head of the Family.

I dragged Pig Pen home with me since I lived closest; spattered with blood, we looked like refugees from a Nightmare Night party gone horrifically wrong. I hated making him climb five flights, but I'd snagged the coop apartment. It had a pegasus bathtub wider than my three pony length wingspan. More importantly, it had an enchanted washing machine. I set the taps filling the tub, strew strawberry salts, and got Pig Pen rearing so I could pull off his sweater. He'd looked drained, but he perked up when he realized I undressed him. I thunked the garment into the machine.

"Can I return the favor?" he asked.

I wore the waitress uniform. Gelding had told me to keep it and tailor it, and given detailed cleaning instructions, sporting a knowing gleam in her eyes. I thought about the flirting and about the difficult night. I nodded and reared.

He found the maximal way of having to touch me while removing it, especially my flank. He smiled a lot.

I thought about attraction.

In the fight, during the arrest, I realized how badly I would feel if I lost him. I liked looking at him. I liked making him happy. I liked feeling him near. He made me glow the way Daylily never had.

I pushed him into the shower, made sure I rinsed off the dirt, sweat, and blood then, two hooves on his rear, marched him into what he called a birdbath.

We soaked away the aches, then splashed each other. Finally, I had to preen. Since when my mère had taught me, nopony had watched me do it. I channeled my embarrassment into excitement and made a show of it, slowly moving the oil from the quill-tip up the feathers with my lips.

"That doesn't look so hard," he said.

I surprised us both by saying, "Wanna try?"

He only wrenched two feathers, but in a minute got passably good enough that I let him work one wing while I preened the other.

Then he did something with his tongue...

It took everything not to gasp. My legs began to shudder as I let him continue, not wanting to interrupt lest he stop. I collapsed with a splash in the water much too soon. He put hooves out to keep me from retracting that wing. I put a hoof to my mouth to hold in noises that wanted out.

When I couldn't take it any longer, I shoved him back and did the one thing I knew would keep him from trying again. I kissed him.

That worked.

His frown afterwards showed he didn't like that we stopped there, but he was a gentlecolt. He slept on the couch. I spent an hour after I heard his faint snore thinking things through.

Chapter 12-13: Taking the Initiative

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- 12 -

I met Citron at the Rockhoof Ave train station in Hooflyn. The outdoor depot had black steel girders and rust-stained tan brick walls.

The first thing the teenage colt said was, "Yor not my type, bro." His Hooflyn accent was thick.

"And Gelding is?"

He whacked me on the shoulder. "I like the way ya think." He whacked me harder.

"You could ask her out, you know."

He sped up his trot, tail thrashing, ears aside. "She's older than me. I'm only a freshman in high school."

That explained why he had grown into his hooves since we'd first met. Wings slightly out, ready to fly, I commented, "I've seen chickens the same color as you."

"Ha, ha. Yellow. I know I'm a wuss. What's dat make you?"

My letter: I'd written I was "thinking of" and "trying talk stuff over." Weasel words. I learned the gang pyromaniac was smart, keeping up grades despite being absent because of "jobs," and using the money from them and part-time at a deli to pay for a high-line apartment for his folks. His father had lost his job days before getting his pension. Citron thought it was due to his arrest for burning down an empty warehouse (he had), though he'd been acquitted.

I talked about the "dating" I was doing with Pig Pen.

"Say it," he told me as we sat on the grass in a nearby park, "Yor working up to your first time. Trust me, it gets better after your first time, so stop being a wuss." He tapped his map, "House of Yes is a great late night spot. Gotta have an ID to get in; not my style, but Pig Pen'll like it."

My first time.

Yeah, kid-genius was right: I'm not Pig Pen's first pegasus.

Oddly, the thought I wasn't his first made me more confident. I also thought of Fidelity and Daylily, and hoped they would make each other happy.

- 13 -

I left an emergency contact with the landlady in case something happened in Vanhoover and my parents called for me. That's how nervous I was. I inspected Pig Pen's overnight satchel thoroughly before hustling him off to the train station.

I planned the afternoon and evening. I wanted it to be special, somewhat cultured. I'd made reservations and placed bookings. I discussed it with Citron, done my own hoof-work, and he'd helped me pick the best spots.

I told Pig Pen what to pack, when to be ready, and when I'd pick him up. Nothing more. I wasn't Daylily. No need to worry about unexpected foals.

Exciting.

We left our bags at the Mareiott Hooflyn hotel in within sight of the Hooflyn Bridge, and I took him for craft ciders at the Rattle and Hum in midtown Manehatten. A pint made him less nervous as I took him to the Maretropolitan, dragging his hooves, to see a special exhibit: Modern Mean Streets.

Then I had trouble dragging him out of the maze of graffiti-painted brick walls and hanging photographs of buildings covered in prismatic spray paint. Ironic, considering our profession. Graffiti wasn't only for tagging territories; it presented doves and timberwolves, satires of constable brutality, and highlighted oppressed and marginalized ponies trying to make sense of their world. Sadly, I ticked off the tags of three gangs that got past the curators.

I wing-fed him a gourmet hayburger at Black Iron Burger and had to clean avocado off his tie before we galloped off to the Maretropolitan Opera House to see an urban remake of Canter Lot; the original musical that launched the sadly cut-short career of the black beauty unicorn mare named Midnight. He got it better than I, perhaps having grown up with that vibe. I was glad to have surprised him, but happier to have gotten to wrap a wing around him in the darkened theater.

On the way to the last place at midnight, I found Ice Cream Pony, a pink cart where they mixed in everything from fudge and fruit to hot peppers and popcorn. I had to beg the owner not to close down. It turned out Pig Pen was dairy intolerant. He enjoyed a hot tea while I garbaged down on chocolate with malt balls and caramel corn.

That got us to The House of Yes. I liked the name because I wanted Yes to define our evening. It turned out to be a discotheque playing house and drum n' bass, filled with colored lights and packed with dancing ponies that made the building throb. Cider flowed, and I could smell the sweat and feel the heat. I wasn't thrilled, and wondered about Citron's recommendation.

Then I noticed it.

Mares danced with mares. Stallions danced with stallions. No mixed couples, unless some ponies were drag princesses or princes!

Pig Pen was already backing away, but I smiled and swatted him on the flank. The startled pony leapt in, then proved that he could also dance and had stamina. Stamina would be essential for our final stop. I got two strong black-tea ciders into him as insurance.

I didn't bother, myself; I was wired on anticipation.

Way past 2 AM, we got to the hotel room kissing as we trotted down the hall, banging into the walls. A suite. Marble and gold everything, with a birdbath that masqueraded as a pool. Fastidious as always, he insisted on bathing despite me pulling off his suit and tie, failing to push him into the bedroom onto the bed I'd covered with (surprisingly cold) rose petals. For his insolence, I insisted on him demonstrating his preening prowess, and he did until I was screaming. Going limp, the worried guy carried me on his back toward the bed.

I was faking it. Still damp, I sprayed everything with wet feathers as I dead-lifted him with all fours, mostly dragging him across the marble tiles, the both of us laughing.

What followed went... very slowly. Payback, maybe. I was impatient to learn what I didn't know. My alternating between hope and certainty that I'd like it, made it hard... Well. Hard. He wanted me to feel everything. It felt like torture, but in a good way.

Somepony knocked loudly on the door.

The suite had a clock that projected numbers on the ceiling. 3:21 AM. Pig Pen jumped and hoofed me.

"Tu m'emmerdes!" I screamed in frustration as I popped out of my body and back into my head. I shot up to the ceiling, striking the plaster with all four hooves, my wings sharpened. I threw open the door, despite it being extremely visible what Pig Pen and I were about to do next.

A squirrely brown pegasus—with his blue mane up in a slicked-back gang bouffant, a silver ring in an ear, a stained white tank top, and an index card—leaned against the door jamb. His magenta eyes scanned from my face to my hooves; since I had reared up, he missed nothing. He raised an eyebrow and showed me the index card.

It read: Grimoire. Rarity Beach. South end of boardwalk near Veteran's park. Sunrise. Today's date. A sketched map showed the other side of the bay from Hooflyn.

"What the fudge!"
The dude huffed, hoofed over six gold bits, lit a sulfur match, and burnt the card before walking away.

Chapter 14: Disturbing Revelations and Premonitions

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- 14 -

We had no time to be pissed. We galloped across the Hooflyn Bridge and made it to Penn Station in time to have the doors snap closed on our tails. We walked on the boardwalk as the sun rose. The surf crashed against the beach. I flew in with a coffee for Pig Pen as Citron, then Gelding noticed us approach.

The cool breeze pulled at her hood and my feathers as she asked, "I suppose you learned about the job just last night?"

"At 3:21 AM, precisely," I spat.

"We were in a hotel room in Hooflyn having—" Pig Pen added.

I swatted his ear with a wing. TMI.

"Hey!"

"Hay is for breakfast, earth pony."

"We?" He looked from Gelding, to me, then back to Gelding. "I meant to say I was on vacation."

I sighed. "We weren't getting any sleep, anyway." My first time before the better next times would have to wait.

Pig Pen grinned at me. I wanted to melt into him, but swatted him anyway.

"Yeah." He rubbed his ear, checking for cuts.

Gelding said, "Something stupid happened," and explained she'd requested us and Citron a week ago. A gang messenger had actually scared Citron's father last night delivering the assignment. He didn't, hadn't known his son had a higher paying side gig. She also explained she'd been promoted to bodyguard and this assignment was her first moneymaker since the reorg.

We found the pony of mystery, delivered by rowboat before dawn: an indigo unicorn dressed like Gelding in a dirty-brown cloak that hid his appearance. I saw all this from the air, going up to look for unwanted eyes or feathers aloft. I wondered if this was another setup, but Gelding seemed more upset about the snafus than suspicious. I saw nopony, and Gelding led us through the park to a residential area.

I walked with Pig Pen, resting my wings, as we approached Cheesequake Park, which looked like a forest, dark with the morning sun shining on it. He took out his gum and popped it in my mouth, the act alone ramping up my nerves. He whispered, "I spoke with Gelding about Citron—"

I popped the gum in his mouth with a kiss. "He's cool, and smart." I grinned. "He helped me plan our evening last night."

His eyes widened. He waved a hoof as we switched. "She says she selected us purely on our performance, so I'm okay with it. Guess what? Gelding is Citron's age, or younger."

Switch. "A high schooler!? I—"

Pig Pen bit off the gum for me just before Gelding looked back. She saw our lips parting and gave us an eye roll. She sent me aloft, then to scout the trail deep within the trees. I spotted early morning joggers and a yellow pegasus short-cutting over the park; nothing alarming. Gelding's age, though, worried me. Gave me a premonition.

In the middle of the park, the mystery pony sat and spoke up when he had only whispered previously, "We can stop here." He let his unicorn horn headband fall to the leaf-strewn path.

Gelding cried, "Safe, you horse's flank!"

"For the record, the name's neither an adjective nor a noun." A play on "Gelding is a verb," which I'd heard her say to the detective. Very hard to forget that line.

I asked, "You know dis horse's flank, Grimoire?"

"More like threatened to break his handsome face if I saw him again," she growled.

Citron's horn lit. "Gangsta move. What game ya playing, creep?"

"Not playing. Carne Asada wants new bodyguards. Grimsy though you three colts were the best candidates to promote alongside her."

Her was supposed to be a revelation. A game?

"What!?" She sounded like a filly. "I didn't. I would have, but... You're putting words in my mouth."

"The boss agreed. I'm here to train you."

I spat. "I don't like this one bit."

He bobbed his hoof, counting. "Pay's excellent. You trade-off shifts. One week on—"

"Less freedom. Irregular schedules work for me, except for last night," and this goon was responsible for that! I grabbed Pig Pen by the withers, fluttering beside him, to lead him away.

"What Carne Asada wants, she gets. And Grimsy, don't get pregnant. Her rules—"

Daylily's face flashed in my mind. I sharped my wings and dove at his face. I bounced off blue-green magic, before being placed gently on my hooves. I heard "Thank you," through my gum.

Pig Pen stood next to Gelding, and Citron between her and Safe. Blackened chain rattled ominously. Like a cloud in an updraft, Gelding shot between our herd and pulled a punch a hoof length from Safe's nose. He sniffed the muddy thing with disdain.

Citron dragged her back between us as Safe said, "She goes by many names—"

"Gelding?" I offered. "Old news."

"How about Princess Grim?"

Gelding turned to face us with narrowed eyes. "Fanboi on me and—"

Pig Pen whirled around, bouncing on his hooves. "Wait whaaat!? Of course. Gotta be. It explains everything!"

Of course it did. Her ability to fight. Her offer to teach me to evade her. Her strength despite being a unicorn. But it went further. What Carne Asada wants...

My subconscious shocked my heart into a stuttering rhythm and repeated words I had been half listening to: ”You've been paid for a live fire training.”

Gelding stiffened and yelled, "Hot potato!"

It meant she'd seen an attack and I hadn't. I followed her nose and saw the shadow of wings flicker below the canopy. As Gelding snatched up Safe in her magic and galloped down the path, I saw a gauntlet of death.

I shot up toward the branches. The park service had culled trees and pruned branches for airiness, barely enough for careful flight and perfect for ambushing. Pig Pen crashed through the brush paralleling me.

Though dappled light and crooked branches confused my sight, I couldn't miss wood that was long, straight, pointed, and angled down. Following the angle, I saw Gelding galloping on the path.

I yelled, "Incoming 10-3 o'clock." Out of breath, I added, "Javelin!"

The pegasus threw as I dive-bombed her, wings sharp. Peg Pen reared as he threw his chain. Thwack!

Safe howled, splinters turning his nose into a hedgehog. "A javelin? What the horse apples, C.A.!"

I cut leaves and green shoots as the yellow pegasus glided out of reach with her quiver. It turned into a game of tag, with two pegasi, the other a camouflaging green. Citron set saplings afire around a pond, chasing at least two unicorns, one of which Pig Pen lamed. When I sighted Yellow land on a tree, I used the gum to point her out to Pig Pen. He threw, but his chain wrapped around the perch and only the end struck the pegasus. Though dazed, she nevertheless planted and pointed her javelin like a pike. Committed to my dive, she'd skewer me. The Way of the Nirik kicked in, causing me to strike a further out branch with my fore hooves with a sharp tock-tock. I accept the momentum change, tumbled up, struck another branch with my hindquarters, but flung out my wings and slid sideways through the air, downward.

I sliced her back between the wing joints, shooting sideways through the chained perch. Her wings went limp. I heard dropped javelins clank and clunk down through the trees.

Remorse struck me as I saw blood on my feathers. I'd cut a crippling blow. My remorse didn't last long, because the next moment, the other pegasus proved this wasn't a training exercise but an invitation to murder. Green threw before I could inhale to shout.

Intuition or shadows caused Gelding to jump and shove Safe, who galloped beside her. The javelin cut her flank but shot through Safe's haunch as they exited the forest. They went tumbling. She dragged the bucking, screaming stallion under a picnic bench as I shot into the trees after Green.

A hesitation and Gelding would have died. Green had aimed for her. Murder.

I knew Daylily's Salernitano history.

At her mother's sweet sixteen, her aunt fell suddenly ill. She coughed blood until she died. Poison. That sparked an internecine war within the Family, because Daylily's mother was suddenly Princessa, the last living daughter of the Doña, the queen. She had worked to be legit in a grocery distribution business and was considered weak. It turned out the Doña's husband had an illegitimate daughter that had wormed high up in the Family, and despite not being matrilineal blood, she had ingratiated herself with the dowager grandmother and gotten her to pull strings.

Daylily's family emigrated.

I understood. Gelding wasn't being trained to become a bodyguard. She might not even know her ancestral heritage, or perhaps she had been hoof-picked. I had clearly witnessed an assassination attempt. Gelding was Carne Asada's crown princess and had no clue she'd been coronated.

Or marked for death.

Chapter 15: Disturbing Conclusions

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- 15 -

Gelding teleported.

Only princesses in Canterlot teleported.

She teleported away with Safe in a bang and fizz of sparkles, after devising a deception where Pig Pen wore her distinctive cape and Citron wore Safe's. The colt couldn't levitate a pony weight for trying, but acted wounded as Pig Pen carried him away. The disguise flushed Green; he'd seen I'd made it so his wingpony would never fly again, and lost control. I kicked the quiver from him and broke his nose, while Citron set his tail on fire, at which time he zoomed away trailing smoke into the woods. I sliced up his javelins and ran for it, the deception working well enough that we encountered two scorched unicorns, one limping, who immediately split up upon recognizing their mistake and fled into the town.

Friendly C.A. met up with us in Cranberry Station, the drop point, late afternoon. They led us to an earth pony healer's new-age office. He'd grown a gourd the size of a house and filled it with so many herbs, weird sticks, and apothecary jars with dead animal parts and luminescent mushrooms, it left little walking space between worktables, bookshelves, and cauldrons. The mixed floral scents and alcohol made me sneeze.

He treated Safe who looked zombie-pale.

Gelding looked like she'd suffered a wagon collision. Her left eye had swelled up, despite ice and a mustard poultice. Cuts and bruises peppered her hide and she limped. I thought, Princessa Grim, as she rushed to us in relief, slapping away her cloak, which Citron offered. She hugged us briefly, like a stallion. "I'm so glad you got away. Good job. You saved us."

"We didn't do that much," I said, lowly.

"They couldn't follow us, not directly. Cyclone Beaujangles, who hates my guts, and Mustang bankrolled by breakaways in the syndicate wanted to kill me, all of us. They ambushed us. Anyway, their mistake. Here, take my bonus. Split it between you guys."

Ten gold bits!

She was the Family's princessa; they were fighting over her—and she didn't have a clue. Something else: She was a mare and—thanks to a few revelations I'd had about Daylily—I could smell it. Despite being beat up, her special somepony was going to have a good night. I felt bad for Citron.

I still had a premonition. Blood dried on my feathers and the bad guys laying in the gutter didn't change my dread.

I told Pig Pen, "I've gotta to visit my family."

"I'm going with."

When I explained that meant the Vanhoover cloud deck, he insisted more adamantly, though he would complain about drinking the Cloudwalker potion at the balloon terminal. ("Did they have to let the eye-of-newt go putrid?") We at least had the gold to pay for a railroad sleeper compartment and more to clean up in Vanhoover Below.

The two-leagues-in-radius cloud deck was as modern as Las Pegasus', with magically supported roads for the minority population of unicorns, unlike Cloudsdale still dominated by conservative old pegasus-first Zephryn clans who refused to modernize. Vanhoover remained dangerous: between roads and floors lay only clouds—and a half-kilometer drop for non-pegasi.

Midafternoon the next day, my breakfast oats causing heartburn, I pointed out the Supersafe-Always Ontime headquarters beyond fields of prismatic cirrus cloud. It sported a delicious wheat grass lawn, oak trees, black-veined marble steps, and flat walls that mimicked an eastern seacoast brick and glass Art Neighveau skyscraper. Ponies recognized me as we strode up. Buck Up, a crew leader I'd managed, flew in an upper door. I hoped no visitors were with the air marshals lest my whole daft idea blow up in my face.

Pig Pen commented, "Both company names are still up."

"Takes bits to remove 'em."

"After six months? Do you really want something to be wrong?"

I gulped and shook my head. "With syndicate Family business trying to implode, my gut sees all the fault lines in our two families."

"Don't tell me you're going to do your duty and marry Daylily? You know enough about yourself now that you know that won't end well."

My horseshoes clattered on the steps. "I know, and I'd never do that to Daylily. She may hate my guts, but I'm her friend. Our parents might try to force us, but I don't love her. Not in that way." He leaned against me and I reflexively put a wing over his back. I added, "You taught me so much."

"Then let's go back. Let's finish our first night together, at the hotel."

"I'd like that," I said, visions nevertheless crowding in of finding new management in place, finding Daylily's parents having run for their lives because Salernitano politics had clawed into Equestria, or inter-family squabbles driving the two formerly allied businesses into the ground. "We will, but I have to do this. I'm the glue—and I left."

Pig Pen slowed, eyes widening as we entered the cavernous atrium. Seeing me, pegasi scooted into the shadows of side halls and the dozen other levels. He reacted by touching shoulders and getting slightly ahead of me, despite being under my wing.

The architect had mixed classic miniaturized thunderhead cloud decks and dark updraft walls with continuous lightning illumination, curving marble staircases, and squared off empire-style columns. Sun streamed in windows as through breaks in storm clouds, burnishing them and causing contrasting shadows.

Pig Pen whispered, "Is i-it going to rain?", at which point from the uppermost deck a silhouette interrupted the light, not retreating but descending. He stopped us, eyes glaring as if he had spotted a giant eagle, muscles tensed to withstand attack.

She could have been an eagle. "Maybe," I murmured.

Salernitano ponies tended toward bronzes and browns, with dark manes. This tall, lithe pegasus was the negative of that, with fur the white of fair-weather clouds, hooves and muzzle the pearl-grey of dusk, and a mane the faded-reddish-yellow of daylily stamens. Her mane cascaded straight down like a thundering waterfall.

Daylily had a white daylily cutie mark. She wore a lace blouse with a yellow bow as she alighted before us, folding her wings, her unblinking arctic-blue albino eyes locked with caramel-brown ones.

She said, "I see you figured things out." Her eyes moved to examine the dark earth pony beside me.

I belatedly snatched my wing back to my side. "Daylily, this... is Pig Pen."

"Charmed, I'm sure."

"He's a colt-friend."

She shook her head as she proceeded around him not missing a detail, then pushed her velvety nose between our touching flanks and rudely confirmed his gender from hoof-lengths away. Geranium perfume mixed oddly with chocolate cologne as our fur gathered static, crackling while she pushed the rest of the way through. She swatted Pig Pen's nose with her tail.

"Hey!" he cried, snugging together.

She nodded. "A special somepony. Ruggedly handsome, and about flapping time, Crys. I approve!"

My mouth dropped open.

She sighed, shaking her head again. "I met Fidelity last year in Introduction to Business Management 2; he told me my 'brother' was 'hot.' Ponies see us as brother and sister, Crys! When I explained our engagement, he explained all the things I misunderstood about us. Flabbergasted, I tried everything to get you to lay me, short of pinning you to my bed. I really wanted to do that but understood, finally, and flung Fidelity at you to confirm it all—then arranged your escape to Baltimare."

Pig Pen looked from me... to her... and back as she added, "You're as dense as a stone. It's a wonder you can fly."

"He is," agreed Pig Pen, "Dense."

I sputtered. "Fidelity, you? I thought—"

Pig Pen said, "—Never were."

I threw a wing over him to keep from falling over. My friend, my friends...? Daylily and Fidelity weren't a couple? Were they... still my friends?

My heart beat rapidly. A cold sweat made my fur go damp. "I slashed his eye!"

"His eye's nearly healed. None of the cuts were deep. He insisted he'd make you admit it to yourself. Stubborn, pigheaded stallions, the both of you. Fidelity is going to give you a stern talking to, but I suspect you wanted to defend... your illusion."

I looked down and said weakly, "I don't love you."

"At least not in that way, I... know." She blinked as a tear rolled down her cheek. She lifted my face with a wing. "Crys, it's a real—" Her voice caught. "—gift to know I can now find my own special somepony without hurting you." She then lifted up Pig Pen's head, which caused him to start back, but she pulled him nose to nose. "You'd better take good care of him or I willhurt you."

He whinnied and shied back, but I held him. "I told you she's a bit coltish and very Salernitano."

Hooves crashed against the floor.

Shocked, I found my mère shaking with rage, my Dad rapidly trotting up behind her. The purple mare with the pink-striped blue mane crashed down again, her magenta eyes blazing. She yelled, cursing in Prench, causing a dozen set of pegasus eyes on all levels to jump out of view. "Tu ne vas—You are not going to break the marriage contract. Not happening!"

On the other side of the hall, the Always Ontime side, Daylily's parents galloped in, sliding to a halt a pony length from my parents. The dark brown stallion and auburn mare looked from my infuriated mother to us, back again, then zoned in on me, standing, holding Pig Pen. Dad stepped over to explain as my mère fumed and stalked toward us.

Daylily turned around, blinking at the outburst as much as I did. She sidestepped and interposed her larger body as Pig Pen added another layer between us. Her voice went down a register as she said, "Stop."

My mother did not, of course, stop. Never did. "Je me— I don't care about l'expérience sexuelle or... misbegotten beliefsabout stallions or mares. Ciels Cristal has une obligation to his family—"

"And I don't?" asked Daylily, coldly, ears folding forward.

"You will shut up."

I shook, infuriated. I shouted, "You aren't her mère!" and pushed forward, wings up—reflexively sharpened.

Daylily flared her wings and caught me with a rear hoof, barely missing Pig Pen with her thrashing tail. Mine thrashed, too. She said, voice even and darkly ominous. "Do you still want me to run the merged company?"

"That is not the issue! My son's stupid—"

"Or do you want me to quit? Crystal Skies will always be my friend whether I marry him or somepony else, and I will never ever let anypony hurt him."

I saw her parents nodding. My mère ground to a halt, but her red-faced frown shadowed further as I saw her boiler about to explode, this time for real.

Daylily said aside, "I'll handle this. It's going to take awhile, if you stay. Master Feather Flick says in face of family, retreat may be honorable—"

"Exactly," Pig Pen interjected. He did that thing earth ponies do, pushing his prickly nose under me, lifting me with his head; before I knew it, he had me on his back, rushing down the stairs into the sunshine.

"Sweet Celestia! I thought my folks were a pain in the flank! Your mother, that's a force of nature."

"Like Carne Asada, what she wants she gets. They have my address. Daylily will contact us, first. I'm betting on her."

My legs quivered and my wings felt so mushy I feared I might crash if I flew. I grasped him and held on with all six, nose in his mane. He smelled good, like chocolate and specialness. His muscles moving below me felt magical; his warmth made me feel protected. Loved. "I-I love you," I said into his ear, causing the hairs to rustle and his ear to flick.

"—and you love Daylily. I guess I should count myself lucky you prefer stallions!"

"You know," I nodded, feeling understood, "I do. I prefer you. And I'm glad." I hugged him.

"Running here!" he complained, then said to a pair of ponies waiting at an air taxi stand, magenta and green eyes wide, "Mypegasus."

I nibbled his ear. "You know, The Grand Zephyr Vanhoover does have land pony suites..."

- End -

Author's Notes:

(If you liked the story, did you press the like button and up vote? Please do. Your action will make the story more visible and attract more readers.)

In ~~French~~ Prench, the word for mom is Maman (used as address) or Mère (used in a possessive). I mean, mère and mare...! Mum, which appeared in all chapters up to the last, posted Nov 9, 2021, was ~~British~~ Trottingham for Mom. I corrected all previous chapters. I also added some graffiti images in 14, the alternate cover in 4, and my first graffiti cover into 1. All this occurred Nov 9th.

Crystal Skies is a pretty perceptive dude. I hope he didn't spoil much about The Runaway Bodyguard. He and his earth pony play a fairly important supporting role in the main novel, but now knowing his parents, life long friend, and history, you might understand his quirks a bit better. This story is an example of an unreliable narrator story. It isn't so much that he is lying (though Grimoire does in the main novel) or prevaricating—he is very honest and forthcoming—but as Daylily points out, he has his own view of reality and his knowledge may be limited.

The overlaps between the novel and side story are intentionally inaccurate. It is well known that witnesses rarely report seeing or hearing the same thing. We remember what is important and forget what doesn't fit our mental context. Or we omit what is embarrassing by equivocating or prevaricating. In a literary sense, the differences are important, and interesting if you notice those discrepancies. As as 1st-person writer, I can get away with this ~~crap~~ stuff.

Saleritano horses are real, so I felt entitled to add them to the Enforcerverse's stable of Clydesdale, Shetland, and Saddle Arabian ponies. They are from Italy, naturally, and are considered "high spirited." Think Sicilian in this context. You can sense you wouldn't want to get on Daylily's wrong side.

Weird gender goofs in the novel where Crystal Skies was sometimes male and sometimes female, and comments by my pre-reader, ended up with me allowing this couple to be gay. They really insisted. A particular comment from Javarod in response to Crystal Skies saying, "Hay is for breakfast," in conjunction with the M/M Shipping Contest 2021 announcement, spawned this novella. It took eight days to write.

Am I LBGTQ? No. Relatives? Yes. Part of the community? Thanks to my wife and my departed mother, I have known people of every letter, and have attended many movie festivals and Pride events. Any errors, omissions, or cultural mistakes are my own misunderstandings.

The main novel also has a female-to-male character in Part Four, and I count one such person who rectified his life as a friend.

Love, Friendship, and Gangsters

by scifipony

Chapters 1-3: Blood on My Feathers

Chapter 4: The Gym Confessional

Chapters 5-7: Fighting for a Job

Chapters 8-11: Join the Herd, Do the Work

Chapter 12-13: Taking the Initiative

Chapter 14: Disturbing Revelations and Premonitions

Chapter 15: Disturbing Conclusions