Chapter 1: PTSD

Book 1 -
The Enforcer and Her Blackmailers

Sunset Shimmer's voice echoed through the abandoned Crystal Caves deep below Canterlot. "Hey, you foals, this is a lab practicum, not study hall. Some of you are going to join the guard and for the rest of you, this is self-defense training. Shoot already!"

A flash bang lit the reflective dark caves electric blue, Eye Bee's aura color. I cringed and backed into the hard edge of a faceted stalagmite. The icy glass surface against my flank shocked my heart into beating harder and I stifled a scream. My weak reaction made me want to hit myself.

Yes, I had spent my last half-year leading an almost normal life, attending school, finding housing. I'd lived on the street some of that time. Who knew that if you insisted on not cashing in your scholarship chit, you'd have to pay to attend school. Bits wiped out, I did what I had to, and I'd done it before. Getting jobs had been problematic and sometimes frustrating, with me needing to go unnoticed by anypony who might be interested in somepony that looked a lot like me. I made my way, nevertheless, living around ponies that didn't make a living hurting other ponies. Why did all that soft living magnify the horror of all I'd lived through the previous year? Why did it make me lose my courage when all I faced were flashes of light in the darkness?

The previous three years, I'd acted the foal. I'd lived like I was invincible. I'd learned to fight. I'd done bad things, used and abused my body, but I had protected ponies.

I cringed. Maybe the wrong ponies.

The bangs and crackles nearby, the reflections of colored lights, and the relived memory sawed away at the callus I gained living all that badness with a serrated knife, making me bleed emotionally.

A black and white photograph in The Manehatten Times summed up my nightmares. It had been night and the photographer captured on Kirlian film an image by firelight of a nameless blank flank filly in pigtails, her horn aglow, sitting amongst a dozen injured ponies. Naked, drops and splashes of what could only be red drenched her. Her braided mane, her face, her coat, her hooves. Her hooves pressed against a pony's ragged chest wound. Nebulosity pulsed around torn-clothing compresses held against six ponies dragged within range of her horn in a makeshift field hospital that had been gathered around her. She wrapped a bandage on another pony's leg.

That filly was me.

I was responsible for saving lives in the aftermath of the explosion. I'd gotten the building evacuated by acting like a terrorist maniac, which was appropriate considering I'd been tricked into setting the bomb.

Carne Asada had started a gang war that day. I'd worked to become her bodyguard but I'd let myself be transformed into much worse by praise for all I'd achieved.

A green flash. Gold sparkles from a flubbed spell shot away to my right.

I'd convinced Vice-Headmare Maple to admit me without telling the headmare of the school I was there. For weeks, I'd thought I'd found paradise.

Foal!

My luck, Running Mead, the boss of Lower Canterlot discovered me. He hinted at Carne Asada's demise and my position in the syndicate before and after that event. The opportunity to attend Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns was irreplaceable—without the princess knowing I was there, without the knowledge of rivals in the syndicate who didn't like how I'd departed suddenly. I'd suffered with so many holes in my magic training, I was baffled as to how I'd succeeded as well as I had.

Experience taught me I wanted to be an ordinary nopony. One not forced to employ battle magic.

Running Mead blackmailed me into becoming his enforcer. It paid the bills. The delicate edge between me attending school—and being protected by the emancipation papers in my registered name—as opposed to disappearing and throwing my current name and legal status away didn't make my life simpler, though it gave me a meager ability to negotiate my servitude.

There had been other nightmares that made this live-fire exercise too real at a primal level. In the Hooflyn gang war, nopony fought with Stun. I clenched and cringed deeper into shadow. My instincts denied what I heard wasn't the magnitude more deadly Force.

Trembling, I actually wanted somepony to stun me, to get it over with. My over-trained reflexes wouldn't allow it. I looked around myself like a frightened deer, my eyes wide, working to take in the alien landscape of crystal outcrops that populated the caverns below Canterlot. The slippery-eel of a spell, Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear, required hyperawareness. My agitation fought that, but I suspected the spell nonetheless provided some camouflage.

Sunset Shimmer's arrogant voice boomed through the sound of ricochets and shooting fizzles. She sounded closer.

"That goes double for you, Glimmer. You were admitted without proof of your capabilities. You won't pass my practicum by simply being the last pony standing!"

The alpha mare of the school had seemed relatively nice that first day she showed me around. I'd made myself seem low level. I'd intentionally goofed a spell and splashed a rainbow glow on everypony and her in one of the stairwells, and incensed teacher. (She'd missed I'd powered the spell to fifth level because she was self-absorbed.) Sunset Shimmer had lost interest, which I suppose was what I'd wanted.

Anonymity.

Strobing flashes of magenta, pink, and topaz scintillating off hundreds of faceted surfaces announced a new fire fight. Not close, though. I forced myself to breathe.

In...

Out...

In...

Nopony would set me on fire if I wasn't careful. No lion-bird would dive-bomb me and mine to smash me to splinters of bone. It wasn't a lightning storm: No monster would savage me to teach me that I could fight, and that I no longer had to be chattel.

This... wasn't real.

I whispered, "Dial it back. Nopony's getting hurt. Practice. Training. You like doing that. You taught ponies these things—"

Horse apples. My mind knew better and scoffed.

This game made me crazy!

A bang sounded fifteen pony lengths away, on the other side of a jagged crystal curtain of stalagmites. I reflexively renewed my "invisibility" spell; etched into my retinas were the positions of crystal spikes and purplish-red quartzite clusters. If the lights and translucency confused my eyes, they had to confuse everypony's eyes, right?

If I didn't understand my surroundings, I couldn't convince ponies they saw those surroundings instead of me. Glowing digits spinning through my sight like comet-like floaters in my eyes reassured me my maths were right and balanced.

I hissed. "Keep calm—"

Saying it made me tremble and clench, though silence had returned. I wanted to scream! Disgusted with myself, I reached my muzzle into my saddlebag like an earth pony. I didn't trust I could juggle even one spell. Probing with my tongue through broken pencil leads and crumbs, I found a slice of valerian root amidst the litter at the bottom. Valerian was legal for adults—and I was legally adult thanks to my papers—but contraband at school.

I didn't care!

I needed calm, by force if necessary.

I did not like admitting I was broken on at least one level. You trying living through what I did!

I loathed the idea of unleashing the prizefighter, bodyguard, and gang lieutenant chained inside, but the whip of self-preservation would not be restrained. It had saved my life many times. It didn't care if its bearer was desperate to become a good pony that helped everypony overcome the oppression of society and cutie marks. It simply wanted me to survive.

Valerian tasted like dirt. This fibrous slice was no different as I crunched on it. I'd barely begun when Sunset Shimmer spoke from almost on top of me.

"Maybe I'll just shoot you myself!"

It was dark and somehow I sensed the digits in the unicorn's aura before the in-teleport instantiated. That let me deduce the approximate balance node of the pony's exit target before the pop. By reflex, I balanced the same math her aura presented, my mind absorbing her numbers from the magic pulse as I applied a two pony length transform on three axes. It was almost as good as if I'd queued the spell and spun it up myself.

My perception of time slowed as it always did within the spell's effect. I saw Sunset appear. Green eyes flicked my direction in slow-motion. She's seen me. Static discharge like lightning consumed reality and plunged me into the frigid darkness of vacuum, those few instants in-between where I could do nothing but feel my sweat flash freeze as I held my breath.

Bang!

I was back. Reflex drilled by repetition turned me into a flesh and blood machine, eyes ranging about, muscles twisting to counter-act renewed gravity. I'd appeared above and behind her within a tenth of a second.

I'd expected her to be good enough to sense my entrance as I had hers. She did not disappoint. She rolled, and slid aside onto her belly, frost steam from her teleport swirling in a smoky cylinder to splash into her where she fetched up, horn up ready to shoot.

What she didn't know was that I could cast Mirror Shield. The more threatened I felt, the more likely it would work.

Her Stun spell flashed off at a normal to her angle of attack against the plate of my glassy blue-green apparition. I dropped the remaining half-pony length, knees flexed. Hard-learned quick draw techniques let me queue spells, and in a battle situation, I did so without thinking and had while in-between. Queued spells weren't prepped. More like templates. It made targeting inaccurate, but in close quarters, hoof lengths were the difference between a neck strike and a chest strike, which made no appreciable difference if you got hit with super-heated air. Having cast Mirror, I instinctively brought up Force, queuing child spells in a spiral sequence. Of course I queued Force. It had been my worst spell for the longest time, but I'd defeated my first monster with it, so it always came up. I'd become marginally better and, with it, I'd defeated a second feathered monster that had practically succeeded in killing me.

So.

Of course.

Now.

It queued.

Didn't matter that Sunset Shimmer was no monster, not one copper bit.

She leapt at me. Intuition insisted instinct was correct. Her move made it hard not to shoot her. In the three and a half years since I'd run away and started this whole misbegotten adventure, I'd never used Force to offensively harm a pony.

Defensively?

Well, that was another story. I'd wrecked property often enough—that was easier considering how my magic worked and how trainers had explained it to me—but never a pony intentionally. I wasn't convinced it was impossible, however. That scared me. Especially when I started casting before I was consciously aware I'd begun.

I jumped but twisted midair, principles prevailing over instinct. I blasted the stalagmite I'd cringed beside into pea gravel. Bits ricocheted and stung. I next melted a glowing gash on the ceiling. Then, as I inadvertently faced the golden unicorn, I set myself on fire with the backlash from stifling the third force spell even as I cast it.

And— I had been casting it. No mistake. I'd aimed a pony length short of her face. The plasma bloom from end of the cylindrical friction apparition would have splashed her point blank, setting my aggressive teaching assistant's head ablaze.

My mind supplied what happened to kernels of corn suddenly overheated.

I registered searing pain. I dropped, slid along the ground, and rolled more from shock than the sight of flames that guttered and whooshed around my eyes, or the smell of burnt fur. Mine. I’d gotten my forehead mostly extinguished before Sunset Shimmer conjured a bucket of water from the safety table to finish the job. She doused me with my mouth open, gasping.

I coughed liquid as I fought not to drown. Nauseating smoke drifted in white layers along with acrid crystal dust from what I'd pulverized, making me cough and gag as I tried to recover. Mucus, and probably blood, dripped from my lips as I gasped and choked.

It took painful few minutes, but eventually I lay there quiet, chest hurting, shivering and humiliated. My throat burned. So much for me discreetly observing conventionally educated unicorns to see how they performed magic differently than the gutter trash I transformed myself into. I'd been homeless by my own choice, and I'd willing become a gangster, or was that a mobster? What was I doing here?

I heard the clatter of hooves surrounding us. My classmates. Right. They got to ponder the street tough brought down my her own misfire. I felt almost humiliated enough to cry.

Almost.

Sunset Shimmer said, "Show's over here fillies and colts. Class dismissed. I'll post your grades next week and give my critiques to the teacher... Class dismissed! Dismissed now, or do you want me to reevaluate what I thought of today's performances?"

I levered myself up as my retreating classmates grumbled, audibly wondering what I had done. Right, ponies, that was a piss-poor example of battle magic. Hope my comedy act entertained you! Hurting from burns and scorches to my forehead and right side, I didn't look back at her or anypony else as I walked away.

"Not you, Glimmer."

Of course not. I shivered, but didn't look as she lit her horn with Illuminate. The sound of the other student's hooves echoed off the crystals surrounding us and died in the distance.

"I counted five spells going off in... Let's say, three seconds. Don't be a scaredy-pony. Look at me, Glimmer!"

I looked at the hefty mare. She was built like an earth pony, though I judged that my smaller frame was more muscle than hers. A bright white sphere of a second level Illuminate spell drowned out her aura, making her yellow hide and red-and-yellow mane glow as if she were truly on fire. It shadowed her face. She had a scorch mark where she'd skirted the proximity effect of my first bolt, just above that curious fire-eclipsed sun cutie mark on her flank. Star cutie marks reputedly indicated high degrees of magic. Was a sun a star, semantically? She cleared her throat and I looked at her face. In the thaumalight, her green eyes shimmered balefully.

Best to change the subject. "Are you joining the guard? You seem pretty good at this stuff."

"Nothing so prosaic, blank flank." She chuckled. "Celestia—" She didn't say Princess Celestia, you know, the one with a full sun on her rear end. No more than I did, but I had my own reasons for disrespecting our monarch. "—is grooming me to run Equestria one day. Let's call it six spells in ten seconds, if we count that spiffy invisibility spell you couldn't keep powered up for trying. Stars, you'd probably have kept on firing them off if it weren't for your inept clumsiness."

Powering wasn't the issue. It wasn't battle magic; Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear required constant hyperawareness that my frayed nerves had made casting it into a foalish endeavor. Shrug it off. White Towel had taught me to queue spells so he could train me as a prizefighter—others had to know how to queue, also. The ability did not, could not make me stand out. "So?"

"So! You're a high level unicorn. Nopony in her right mind should have assigned you this class! Celestia sent you to test me, didn't she?"

Considering that I feared being found out by— Me, in league with Celestia!? I starting snorting.

The herb I chewed gave me clarity and thankfully numbed the increasing pain of my burns. The snorting and the necessary jaw movement did not eject the chaw, but did let her see I held something in my mouth. "What's that? Spit that out!"

I complied and spat, and she caught the gooey mess of fibers midair.

I didn't know if using battle magic instead of defensive magic was grounds to get me expelled—might, if Sunset Shimmer phrased it right, her being groomed by Celestia and all. Contraband probably wouldn't make it worse. Wait, being groomed by Celestia could be construed in a different way—

My head wasn't working too well all of a sudden.

She levitated the disgusting chaw, sniffed, and tucked it in her pack. "Not Celestia's stalking horse, then. You are a fascinating mare, blank flank. There appears to be many things we can teach each other, Glimmer, after we get your wounds healed."

As she turned and led me away as surely as if I wore a bridle, I rolled my eyes and cursed silently.

Was Canterlot filled with blackmailers?

Chapter 2: Much in Common

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Sunset fast-marched me up the staircases out of the caverns, ten flights of them, into the school cafeteria pantry and directly off campus. That meant we trotted breathlessly into the quad as late classes let out.

I sputtered, "T-the nurse's office is—"

"Not stupid," she said as we walked in warm heavy air. Everypony stared at us, both of us obviously singed. Judging by the looks, and what I could see of my nose, my face was covered in soot. We splashed through puddles left by an afternoon rain. I smelled the lingering humidity. As we transitioned from the lawn to cobblestone streets, she added, "Still trying to figure out if you are."

Without a by-your-leave, she turned sharply into the university bailey gate of Canterlot Castle. I looked at the stiff royal guard in brass armor and helmet. Violet eyes swiveled to follow me, but if he thought the savaged street tough before him was a danger, Sunset Shimmer's presence vouched for me. Letting Boss Running Mead's enforcer into Canterlot Castle was utter idiocy, but it would have been complete lunacy for me to explain it to my present company. Let's not even consider the ethical complexity of what I'd run away from to attend school in Canterlot.

Hopefully, the boss wouldn't find out.

We trotted through various inner gates, past an endless white plastered stone wall with curlicue purple and gold trim, to enter the administration wing. We went up a flight of stairs with gilt banisters, through a wood door with a frosted window and hearts trim, then through an inner door.

The white unicorn at the reception desk, a nurse by the red plus on her hat, stood. "Mistress Shimmer, he's with a patient."

"Tough!" Sunset said.

I gave the nurse a shrug and a tentative smile. She had a potion bottle cutie mark. Her magenta eyes widened and she dove for the supply cabinet.

That bad?

Sunset burst into an examination room containing a brown upholstered examination table, a sideboard with all manner of shiny doctor tools, and a cupboard of bandages, unguents, and antiseptics. The window opened to the palace courtyard and the westering sun. On the table sat a purple unicorn foal with bandaged front knees and a taped ankle. A very grey old tan stallion with a head-mirror, a lab coat, and a sandy mane turned and stared through black-rimmed bottle-bottom glasses. Though his dark green eyes looked huge, they also narrowed as they regarded Sunset.

"I—" she began.

Dismissively, he looked from her to me. He nodded. With his nose, he indicated I should wait near the pale blue cupboard, underneath a state portrait of Equestria's princess in a gilt frame.

To his patient, he said, "Hoofball may not be your sport."

"No sport is," she said quietly as he levitated her to the white linoleum floor. I realized she was a runt and only looked especially young thanks to the razor cut of her dark-purple red-striped mane. Her cutie mark displayed seven stars, if you counted the big one that was doubled as two, which hinted at great magic. Perhaps she wasn't that young.

"Run along, without tripping this time. Give my regards to the princess."

"I will!" the little unicorn said with a giggle and left.

Sunset said, "I—"

He stopped her with another look, then indicated me with his nose. "Did you do this?"

"No, I—"

"That's something."

The elderly doctor approached me, examining my horn in particular, before levitating me to the examination table. "Lay," he said, using his reflector to shine skylight from the window into my eyes as I folded down on my knees. His big eyes blinked through the glasses. "Sunset Shimmer didn't do this to you, right?" he asked as if she weren't there.

"She didn't."

"You were fighting?"

Sunset said, "It was a practicum. Her spell backfired."

The nurse came in, setting a number of vials of colored gels on the counter. The doctor examined my face, and the scorch that ran across my right side.

"No, her spell didn't merely backfire," the doctor said. "It's an intentional backfire. Force from the look of it. Since when has Celestia allowed you to teach force spells, Sunset Shimmer?"

"I—" Sunset stopped herself and peered at me, eyes narrowed, ears forward. She grumbled loudly, then added in a whisper, "I can't do force spells…"

"You can leave," he told her and flicked his tail dismissively. With a huff, she backed out the doorway. The door snicked closed behind her.

He levitated some cotton, wet with a reddish liquid, that he dabbed on the bridge of my muzzle and my horn. It stung. "I'm Flowing Waters, the princess' physician. Did Sunset Shimmer threaten you?"

"Nooo…"

"But you felt threatened?"

I took a deep breath and looked down. My dead parents had been the princess' secret operatives—Heroes of Equestria, I'd been told—but I'd run away from the unearned wealth their deaths had brought me and had made myself worse than low class.

The doctor dabbed and I gasped; I didn't know my horn could actually sting.

I said, "It was reflex, doctor. Not everypony grows up in a safe— uh, happy home."

"I see." He used more cotton and scrubbed the wounds, some of which left me shaking despite my determination to endure. They hadn't hurt that much before, but maybe that was the adrenaline.

"Well, causing a spell to backfire, particularly Force, is a good way to burn the root of your horn. You didn't damage it much—but, if you had, and if you were lucky, you'd only have destroyed any possibility of ever doing magic. Don't do this again. Tell Sunset to teach you the proper way to cancel a spell. I'm told she's way too good at that."

"I will."

"Good. As it is, I'm going to have to do some work and soon you'll be able to use your magic again."

It was almost as if he had pointed down and made me notice my right leg ended in a stump. I tried to think of the equation to lift the red antiseptic bottle, but I couldn't remember the magical algebra; the closest I came to making fiery numbers appear in my imagination was an aurora-like mist. I realized with a fright that I couldn't even see his magical aura as he cleaned me up.

Even earth ponies could see auras! My heart raced.

The doctor said, "Don't worry; I can fix this." My twin ponytails tied themselves together behind my head as if alive, with no visible aura. "Have you seen the seashore?" When I nodded, he said, "Think of waves, rolling in and rushing out, the splash and rumbled of water and sand like your breath, constant..."

Over the next hour, he did fix it.

At first the magical pulse, that ethereal wind that distorted an alicorn's mane and powered unicorns, might have been a myth for what I could sense of it. As he worked, I soon saw flashes of light until my vision distorted into psychedelic swirls; slowly, the pain on my face eased to be replaced with a tingling drawing sensation, as if my flesh and bones were being attracted like filings to a magnet. I began to sense numbers, flashes of dots at first, then foggy neon digits. Soon I saw how he manipulated the magic pulse and knew my magic had returned. My eyes burned, causing me to blink rapidly. I refused to cry.

Another doctor had worked inside me, stopping the bleeding of cuts and bruises. Flowing Waters made Dr. Feels seem an amateur by comparison.

Eventually, his numeric patterns and matrix solutions flashed across my mind like a spring torrent going over a cliff to form a cataract. I sensed the magical-mathematical equivalent of mists and rainbows. Entranced, I relaxed into the fascination of a fractal world where everything, down to the smallest detail, was composed of glowing layers of flowing numbers. I quickly realized these described the nerve connections between my brain and my horn.

As I began to decipher the numbers themselves, I felt him reaching through muscle and tissue. With nary a sense of yuck, I detected how he eased me apart, separating injured tissue and encouraging the blood flow to carry away bits of damaged detritus. I was a broken toy in a carpenter's shop being disassembled, having splintered bits glued together, then enduring a sanding and a new coat of varnish, finally to be fit back together in its original shape. I did not doubt for a moment that he could remove anything from an arrowhead to a tumor without spilling a drop of blood.

Over and over, he cast the spell, solving the same equations with different targets as he moved from my head to the burns on my face and neck. His numbers were overwhelmingly beautiful. Shiny. And incredibly cool.

I memorized the equations I could assemble from the repeating numbers, even getting a faint sense of the spell itself. I felt sad when he finished. The nurse mopped his face of sweat. I had been so engrossed, I hadn't realized she assisted.

Was it possible? Might I get a cutie mark as a doctor? Even I might not mind that.

"Thank you," I whispered.

He smiled, shining an emeraline light into my eyes using a spell. First level Illuminate.

I glanced out the window to see the first stars and a faint orange glow had replaced the sun. He flashed my eyes a few more times, then, satisfied with what he found, he said, "Barthemule."

"A mule? What? Who?" I sputtered.

"Barthemule, a student of Star Swirl the Bearded—"

"Star, who?"

"You need to concentrate on your history books, young filly. Barthemule codified the calculus needed to solve for the equations in the spell I used. You read what I was doing; thankfully you were interested. Some ponies faint—some fight, yelling and screaming. I hate to restrain a pony. Your interest prevented you from feeling attacked."

I shrugged. It hadn't seemed like an attack. "You're a doctor. I understand you have your bag of tricks."

A half-smile formed on his face.

As he lifted me in his magic off the examination table, I asked the other thing I wondered about, "Speaking of tricks, how did you get Sunset Shimmer to be quiet? That's one I could totally use."

He compressed his lips, thinking, then pointed with his nose to ask the nurse to leave. He took a deep breath. For the first time, he looked down as he said, "You two share a lot in common, and I am hoping you'll teach her to become, well..., less prickly. I— She was a feral foal I found living on the street—"

I stiffened. I'd had a tiny third-floor walkup since a couple months ago and technically no longer lived on the streets. But, if he figured out I was a runaway…

"—in the Cliffside Strand district, living under tarps and in cardboard boxes. Set herself up as the queen of the homeless. The homeless called her 'the Queen of Cliffside,' but she couldn't really be that. She didn't even know how to speak. She refused to leave. It took Princess Celestia days to tame her." He paused and I thought days and tame. "If you could help my daughter—"

Another shock. My question proved I had hoof-in-mouth disease, but I had asked. Now I'd obligated myself.

"—well, I'm not going to charge you for the visit today in any case. What happened between you two is your business, but if she doesn't stop pushing everypony from students to the princess, it's not going to end well."

He looked up. We locked eyes, his magnified dark green eyes serious yet pleading. He took off his specks and wiped them with a cloth.

He knew I was a runaway.

"Why would the princess need to tame her?"

"She's incredibly talented, like that purple filly you saw before, and like you, I think."

I blushed and immediately trotted to the door, saying, "Yeah. Yeah, yeah, sure." It opened in my magic. It was as if I hadn't let my magic explode in my head at all.

"Stubborn, the lot of you."

I glanced in a mirror and found that, other than a faint dusting of black straight lines, naked pink skin where the fur had burnt away, and a whitish discoloration over my eyes, I showed no evidence of having been in a fight or having backfired a spell. Well, there were a few iodine stains at the base of my horn, but I brushed my bangs over them. I was no worse for wear, as they said but, glancing ahead, I suspected Sunset Shimmer might be. Standing in the dim hall, I saw her in the waiting room staring at the floor fixedly, her fire extinguished, obvious worry playing unconsciously across her face like on a foal.

I had a premonition that my health might be the least of my problems.

Chapter 3: Work Issues

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Sunset Shimmer jumped off the couch when I entered the waiting room, her yellow and red mane practically blazing in the bright light of the potion lamps.

"What did he tell you?" She sounded nice. She sounded worried.

"That I'm incredibly talented, and incredibly lucky you brought me here. So, thank you."

I also told Sunset Shimmer that she was on the hook for teaching me how to properly cancel a spell. That she insisted that I teach her in return some of my tricks went a long way toward ticking me off.

She followed me like a chick behind a hen all the way to the classroom to retrieve my saddlebags of books, continually chattering about the performance of my classmates compared to the reaction I'd had. By the time she followed me off campus toward the university district I usually cut through, I was about to lose my cool.

She said, "The Hut has good hayburgers and they'll serve me beer."

Despite an answering growl from my stomach, I said, "Nope," and teleported to the opposite side of the block.

She proved that she was a high-level unicorn by following me with an echoing bang within ten seconds. I looked back, surprised as she trotted up behind me with frost steaming off her mane and flank. "That was rude."

"It's been a hard day, in case you didn't notice: you dredging up bad memories, me reacting like an idiot foal, my nearly blowing up my brain… Tomorrow, Sunset Shimmer, is soon enough. Don't follow me!"

But she did, forcing me to queue up teleports until I lost her on the third in a row. Exhausted, having to brush frost from my withers, I fast walked to warm up and did so all the way through downtown and into the Lower in a funk, barely noticing how the nice mansions became commercial buildings that became brick houses that became hodgepodge hovels. Various redevelopment projects over the centuries had given the poor area of Canterlot a mismatched downtrodden patina. Housing varied between big flat square block edifices, four-story rectangular towers, and organic wood and stone remuddles with tin roofs that had grown to fill the interstices like mold. At some point, the bureaucracy had decided to paint so that everything might be white like the castle. The results after decades of neglect was patches of white and decrepit purple scrolls or hearts painted over exposed red brick and chipped and spalled sandstone block. In the evening, with few functional gaslights, all smart ponies made themselves scarce or traveled in herds. The darkness seemed dangerous.

To me, it brought peace. I was a denizen of the night.

"Dude!"

I jumped half a pony length and came down, horn lit.

A shadow separated itself from some trash cans while hooves clattered on the cobblestones as a stallion approached. I pointed my horn at his neck as he stopped below a cracked lamp flickering in a cooling mountain breeze. I relaxed when I recognized Tailor, a lanky mauve earth pony with a black mane. He wore a beaked cap, reversed as was de rigueur.

He said, "Shaved?" He squinted as he came closer, then smiled. "That's a double four-point star centered on your horn. Grimoire! Announcing to the clientele you're a magical badass, are we? Kinda messed up with the razor on your side, though."

I rolled my eyes. A name with grim in it suited me professionally. That I remained a blank flank helped all of it. It made putting on the makeup to create a nasty old book cutie mark easier when I needed to be in character. I walked on past him, stoically silent. That I still had no cutie mark meant being an enforcer wasn't my special talent, thank Celestia and all the forces of nature for that. Despite my competence, hurting ponies was neither fun nor exciting. Breaking things, well… it didn't suck. I preferred protecting ponies, but I had not been hired to do that this time.

Behind me, Tailor said, "Boss wants to see you."

I shuddered. Was I in enough control for a job? "Why?"

"Dunno. Told the bunch 'find her,' that's all."

I would have liked to get into character, but didn't have my uniform with me and wasn't going to lead these scum to my flat in the slim chance that Running Mead hadn't found out where I lived. I settled for undoing my ponytails and piling up my mane behind my head into the bouffant I wore while working, lashing it with the purple ribbons I used for my ponytailers. The mane style made Grimoire look older than she was.

We found Running Mead at The Edge, a park bordered by various dive restaurants and saloons just beyond the better part of town. Canterlot middle-class elite-wannabes often slummed it here, considering it dangerous-chic. Running Mead stood at a cafe table outside a Hooflyn-styled deli restaurant. I could hear voices and the muffled sounds of dishes, but there was no hoof traffic. The boss stood broad and tall; he had obviously come from stout work-pony stock. He was brown with a tan mane, with white socks, white hooves, and a matching white horn that looked dapper with the tweed evening jacket he wore—it sported a style that had been fashionable two decades ago. A tilted glass mug cutie mark with yellow liquid spilling out filled a muscular flank. I could smell the Darjeeling tea he stirred sugar into as I stepped up to him. His yellow aura set the stainless steel spoon on the china saucer with a clink.

"Sir?"

"Little Filly Grimoire, I commend you. You visited Canterlot Castle today!"

Don't blink. Don't react. I had thought he had only had influence in Lower Canterlot. "Sir?"

"Why?"

"An upper-classmare dragged me to a physician. I fumbled a spell."

Amber eyes regarded me as if he hadn't been looking before. I remembered Tailor remarking that I'd burnt off a four-point star around my horn. I remembered reading somewhere that magic had shape in the dimension of the magic pulse. Certain reoccurring motifs in cutie marks corresponded to certain classes of talents; stars specifically were associated with general magical ability proportionate to the size and number of points in the stars. Burns and discolorations left by magic were often star-shaped, which fit the paradigm, but there wasn't much proof of the theory except anecdotally. The "shaved" areas could be considered to look like a boastful tattoo and I decided to go with that angle. I quashed the reflex to look at my reflection in the smoked glass window behind the boss; I had learned in my career dealing with egotistical ruffians that keeping eye contact was essential to controlling a situation.

He continued. "About that upper-classmare. A friend?"

I didn't have friends. They always left you and that was too painful. Sunset Shimmer? A friend? Ha!

I tried not to grimace, but I guess I did because he quickly added. "Certainly something, considering she tried so hard to follow you." His voice lowered, "If not a friend and not a foe, perhaps a customer?"

No. No. No. "I do not sell product. I made that clear—"

"Grimoire. My little filly! What you want and what I want are two different things! For the record, note that I am not asking you to sell product. But— But turning away well qualified customers, like one of Princess Celestia's protégés, the one known for her bad girl behavior and occasional drunken tantrums. My, my." His voice became very low, almost a whisper. "Turning away customers. Did you think I would find that type of behavior funny?"

"I didn't think—"

"Precisely." He blew across the top of his steaming tea and took a sip. "You have made yourself very valuable to me, and not for knocking heads together—" He saw me stiffen and rolled his eyes. "Not for breaking knickknacks, sorry. Be open to Sunset Shimmer. My business is all about contacts. If she wants product, don't let me hear she took her bits to the competition. I won't like that." He sipped some more.

"I will not sell product."

"Grow up. Don't be a foal. I don't want to teach you common sense, but I will if you force me to."

"You misunderstand me. I don't need to work."

I turned and walked away. I suspected at this point everypony had heard of the fire fight this afternoon, including the force spells. If somepony at school figured out I'd been a gang member, I wouldn't be that surprised. If I ceased to care why I was in Canterlot, he had little to blackmail me with—and little to save him from my retribution, other than I didn't like hurting ponies.

"You have a Horseshoe Bay accent when you get emotional."

My skin grew cold. I kept walking because I had to. I couldn't help having to swallow the bile that came up.

Did he know where I'd run away from? Even Carne Asada hadn't delved that deeply into my background. I hated that I was accustomed and attracted to dangerous games—especially to those that taught me magic—and addicted to the stupidly delightful feeling of being effective—even as a thug. It counteracted the feeling of worthlessness that was Sunburst's legacy to me.

When somepony flung something jangly and heavy my way, I morphed a quick draw spell equation into Levitate.

I caught a coin purse a hoof length from the back of my head.

Running Mead said, "You'd walk out on opportunity?"

I looked around the street and saw a number of Running Mead's lackeys, including a pale blue pegasus mare with a white-streaked blue particolor mane—his aerial spy, no doubt. A good catch in a unicorn-majority city. I worked up a general spell I could transform into Force or Teleport. I could probably handle this, so instead of departing I spun the purse in a whirlwind spiral flourish into by saddlebag and faced him. Since nopony was playing coy here, I kept my horn lit. "I won't sell product."

"Stubborn."

"You aren't the first pony to tell me that today."

I felt a pull on my shoulder. "Come here. Let me convince you…"

Chapter 4: I Prefer Stallions

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Here I was, looking down on various weedy herbs strewn over a fine white linen kerchief with rose embroidery. The smell was sharp, medicine-like, and noisomely saccharine. And I was saying, "It lets you concentrate because the things you worry most about cease to interfere with your thoughts. And you feel good."

Sunset Shimmer said, "The price is good." Her voice came directly to my right ear. Her moist breath warmed my ear just before she nuzzled my cheek. The mare inhaled. I felt her ribs against mine. She was snugged against my right side from flank to forequarters, and our rear legs crossed, with her left leg under me and mine under her.The heat of her body warmed me.

That instant I realized that what I thought was a weird dream, wasn't. It was real.

I leapt away, stumbled into a nightstand, upset a lamp swarming with fireflies that hit a wall freeing the swarm, and fell sliding across a parquet floor. I felt glass bite into my shoulder as Sunset Shimmer burst into laughter.

When I looked, she was hooves in the air, gasping and chortling.

As I sat up, a trickle of blood lazed down from my shoulder. The sting felt real. My body cooled at the realization of blood loss.

It was real. This was very real. And, like a dream, all that had come before faded into memories that flew away like startled birds. Untouchable. Intangible. I had been speaking with Running Mead and—

—and suddenly I was here.

In addition to Sunset Shimmer, who was now snorting instead of laughing—tears streaming from her eyes—and of course her bed, here consisted of a perfectly circular round room with archways leading out to a balcony, eyelid windows at least five times my height, and interior arched buttresses that held up another open floor connected by a flying stairway of circles that spiraled upward like a spray of drops in a pond. Gilt loops and hearts decorated the columns and vertical surfaces. The immediate wall held bookshelves which, despite being ten levels high with an integrated ladder, held a smattering of books and scrolls, a dead bonsai tree, a brass astrolabe, a pile of wrinkled clothes, and a few blinking fireflies. Many of the surfaces were a deep blue color—a type of marble. The columns and arches were pure Canterlot white, maybe also marble but hard to tell in the wane light. The balcony's windowed doors were thrown open to the night with the first presentiment of dawn glowing to the east. A breeze blew in, causing hanging crystal potion lamps to sway and tinkle to hidden rhythms. Likewise, gently moving lacy ferns and rustling tea palms grew along the edge of the stairs and floors as if to remind an unwary pony that leaning on non-existent banisters might prove problematic.

It was the interior of a Canterlot Castle tower. Outside, magic globes of light floated on tethers around the castle grounds, lighting a view toward the airships at the Canterlot docks and what looked like a black lake but was the shear drop to the Ponyville plain. This had to be one the dozen standalone ivory towers, a couple of which I could see in spindly shadowy detail, each complete with a gilt onion dome and a stair spiraling around the outside to the mid-level entrance.

Right. Sunset Shimmer's adopted father was the princess' physician. I looked at the brocade gold and ivory bedspread, heaped on the floor with an empty wine bottle on top. White; a Riesling from the scent. Gold satin sheets, too. Rumpled. Sweated up, moisture darkening it.

I nodded.

Nice room, though back home, my library had plenty more books. Which brought back a memory of a remove-a-book game with books stacked to the ceiling I never wanted to remember, but couldn't forget.

I stood and used my magic to flick a piece of glass from my hide and apply pressure to the wound. Meanwhile, Sunset Shimmer had rolled over and was working to control her breathing. She kept glancing at me, then looking away, trying not to break out laughing again. Her fur and mane were matted, as was mine. We'd both sweat recently. I knew what after smelled like, and this— It was—

I reflexively focused.

Spread across the bed, green specks of what resembled chopped parsley lay spilt from the kerchief. It looked like one of Running Mead's products I'd heard referred to as nettle-ewe. Rare. It magically enhanced the speed of thought. Some ponies would do anything to get more. When that included forgetting to work, not earning bits, and not paying debts, Running Mead sent me to remind ponies that his herbal supplements weren't free. My better performances repeated by word of mouth kept others in line.

I had brought product?

"Celestia on roller skates!" I swore as I trotted in front of the bed, agitating fireflies in my wake. I levitated the weed into a green sphere and exited to the balcony, shaking my head.

"No!" Sunset Shimmer jumped from the bed, judging by the clatter of hooves, and was to my side by the instant I cast Force into the levitated ball, lighting it on fire. I juggled the two spells, and caught the burning leaves in a renewed levitation spell.

"No! I—I'm sorry I laughed. No!"

Aware of the intoxicating white smoke that plumed out, I expanded the sphere and levitated it up as high as I could before letting go. It flashed. The breeze tore the resultant cloud to shreds against the backdrop of stars.

She turned and kicked me.

Trained as a prizefighter, I reflexively rolled and dodged, but her rear hooves still connected lightly with my shoulder and my wound started to bleed again. Ticked, I picked her up in my magic and hurled her toward the bed, stopping her fall at the very last second.

She bounded up as I yelled, "What's going on here?"

"I should ask you that!" Sunset's mane of fiery hair seemed to poof out in her rage. "First you're all lubby-dubby and cuddly fun, strutting around town, leaning into me though I kept righting you, and apologizing for being 'sooo rude' earlier." She jumped off the bed and came nose to nose. "You don't remember, do you?"

When I just blinked too astonished to speak, she began pacing in a circle around me. "You promised me a present. You bought dinner. Then insisted that I take you home and when I said no, you began crying until I conceded."

"I. Don't. Cry." Not since the day Sunburst got his cutie mark. What was the point?

"You created truly epic waterworks, trust me on that one." She stopped, looked at me. "Obviously, you were high on something."

"I— I don't— Never!"

She shrugged. "I thought it best to watch over you, considering what had happened to you this afternoon."

What had happened to you this afternoon resonated in my head as she continued about us talking about school, magic, and books. "Then you started getting playful. Quite insistent and unwilling to take a no for an answer." Her laugh came out of her nose as a snort. "S'all the same to me." She shrugged, then smiled. "You're quite talented."

"I prefer stallions," I whispered as I thought about the lost hours between talking to Running Mead and now.

My spell had backfired.

Sunset continued with a crooked grin, "Were a stallion ever to get the courage to ask me out, I'm sure I would prefer them, too." When the only other solar cutie mark in Equestria graced its monarch's butt, that was undoubtedly beyond the courage of even the most exceptional colt, even discounting her abrasive personality. "I say, take what you can get. Fun's fun, right? Were last night a class of mine, you'd earn top marks."

I scoffed, dark memories flooding back. "Except for Maiden's Cure, I'd have foaled three times over—" I saw her startled shock, then heard my own words. With a gasp, I trotted out onto the balcony to the railing, hyperventilating. I'd been tutored in most everything growing up, but sometimes the gaps in what I knew proved to be chasms. I had been a filly in mare's horseshoes.

I had remade myself into one of the lowest of the low, and had somehow connived my way into an ivory tower reserved for the very aristocrats I'd turned my back upon.

It was becoming clear: The backfire wasn't as well healed as I had deluded myself into thinking. Had I not been in a hurry to leave, Flowing Waters would probably have checked me into a hospital. I had blacked out. No, I had probably been sleepwalking, finding a way to live the dream of a life that a part of me believed I ought to live as the daughter of proclaimed Heroes of Equestria. Meeting Sunset Shimmer had planted the idea in my subconscious.

Had I bought the nettle-ewe from Running Mead to seduce her? It made twisted sense. The boss was probably tickled pink.

I banged my forehead on the banister.

"Don't do that," a gentle voice said.

I shook myself. "The nettle-ewe wasn't a gift." I looked at her, into her cyan eyes. "I can't remember probably because I blacked out because of the backfire. Some wicked backroom gremlin in my mind decided to use it to seduce you into—"

Sunset Shimmer grinned and looked coyly at me. "It kinda worked."

"Right!" I coughed. "Thanks!"

"No, no, really. My pleasure, definitely, and please don't feel bad about the weed. I've been trying to get a hold of a sample for awhile now. Pretty hard when you're me. I'm not offended at all."

"You should be." I hissed. "You don't want to go there, trust me. I've dealt with the result."

"You... have?"

Best not to clarify. I coughed again. "Your father guessed my history, and hinted at yours."

Her eyes narrowed. "I see."

"I've lived on the streets repeatedly over the last three and a half years. A mare sometimes has to do what a mare has to do." I looked around myself slowly and added, "You've reformed yourself. I still live and breathe the street, and am no-way no-how in your social class."

Her face darkened. "Whatever crazy pony foaled me, she abandoned me on the street. Never knew a home before the princess. You, on the other hand, started in a home. Your patrician accent is obvious. Your education is a clue. Your refined comportment seals the case."

"I'm going to have to work on losing that."

She puffed up. "Three stallions—!?"

"More than that. The last, the night before you met me when I registered at school, was named Sprinter." I'd control each situation—except for that horrible night in a lightning storm, where I paradoxically learned I could fight.

It didn't count that the exceptionally cute EBI agent had dumped me. They always left you in the end. He'd proven more comforting than passionate, so To Tartartus with him! and his lack of courage.

I'd learned to manipulate stallions. I had gotten to like kissing ponies to startle them, both genders, which had become more interesting when gangsters mistakenly started to think I had the kiss of death...

"At your age—?"

Sprinter's excuse, unfortunately.

"All because one selfish spoiled egotistical colt got his cutie mark and left you?"

I blinked at her, my mouth falling open. What?

Sunburst. My soulmate. Cutie Marks were the root of all pony evil. I wanted to hate Sunburst, but couldn't. It wasn't his fault. It was the cutie mark!

Cutie marks. Cutie marks! Cutie Marks!

My blood boiled and for a moment I thought my head would explode, or my rage would tear me apart—or make me hurt the red and yellow goody-good in front of me! Then, it all just popped. Like a deflated balloon, I settled to the cold terrazzo tiles on the balcony, becoming a pile of rags.

Still, no tears.

Only ice.

I felt myself levitated back to the bed as I relived the moments when Sunburst got his cutie mark. There had been a strobe of rainbow light. I'd jerked a book from the tower of grimoires and tomes, causing them to tumble over me. None hit me because Sunburst discovered he could levitate hundreds of separate items independently at the same time, and self-levitate—both impossible magic. Then, without a by-your-leave or even a simple good-bye and without looking back, he'd walked out of my life. My soulmate, gone.

Because of a stinking cutie mark.

He got his cutie mark... and I didn't.

I hoped I remained a blank flank until I died! Considering the life expectancy in my profession, that might happen.

In my sudden apathy, I hadn't even noticed that Sunset Shimmer had lain next to me, snugged up to my right side. What ponies called leaning. Instinctual. It was usually done standing. Providing support for the wounded.

I felt protected.

For an instant, I wanted to kiss her. Not to startle her, but for my comfort—as if that would help me connect with all I'd lost.

I'm damaged goods; never said I wasn't. "I told you about Sunburst?"

"In excruciating detail. I'd recognize him on the street! Apparently you didn't know him as well as you thought."

"You think? Give the pony a prize."

"I can see why you swore off ever having friends."

I sighed. "Did I tell you why I left home?"

"You told me nothing about being on the street, or whatever you did to survive, until just now."

Well, that was a relief. I guess a sleepwalker wasn't entirely stupid.

She asked, "You do remember telling me about living on the street, right?"

"I do. As for why I ran away from home, I went to find Sunburst. That's what I told myself, anyway. Why I ended up in other cities, learning to survive, until I came back to Canterlot to convince Ms Maple to admit me into the school, I really don't know. Lack of courage? Didn't want to learn the truth why he never spoke to me again? By the time I got here it was too late."

"Too late for what? He got married?"

"I convinced Ms Maple to look into the records. Turns out he was in Celestia's school only for a few years; no mention of why he dropped out. I figure a Saddle Arabian diplomat learned about him. A mercantile league in their confederation probably offered him employment. I'm guessing he and his big sister now live half a world away in the Great Sandy Desert. If you can wield a hundred spears independently at one time, you're a one-pony army who can guarantee the safety of mega-caravans. Why wouldn't he go? Let's face it, he was out of reach before I even thought of leaving home."

"Pathetic."

"Aren't I just?" I stared outside and the sky was a lighter shade of blue. To the east, the sky had reddened.

I'd spent all night… Playing? Why didn't I feel good, then?

"And you're taking it out on yourself?"

"I am." I nodded proudly.

"Pathetic." A firefly had taken to orbiting her head like a halo.

"A mare has to do what she has to do. Unfortunately, I'm terrifically good at that."

"Magic, too. I can teach you to cancel, and maybe you can teach me how you spell cast so quickly."

I sighed and nodded. But first, I had to do something about the blackout-sleepwalking thing. I cringed at the prospect that she might talk about what I was like when I was "playful," when my waking mind wasn't in control. Sheepishly, I asked, "Maybe we could go downstairs and talk to your father about what happened. The blackout, I mean."

She craned her head around to look me in the eye.

"Downstairs? Seriously?" She blinked at me. Her cyan eyes were startling. "I'm Celestia's protégé, her first protégé in a century; she gave me the tower. She gave the purple runt one, too, but hers is in Kind Hart Park, in the low rent district beyond the bailey wall. I wouldn't bring a playful mare, or stallion for that matter, home to ride if my father were living here. Eeeeew," she said, laughing.

Chapter 5: Reading Barthemule Recommended

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"Unlikely, but any medical procedure can present complications," Dr. Flowing Waters said as he checked my reflexes with a tiny hammer. Purple phosphenes still clouded my vision from the lights he'd shined in my eyes. "What it sounds like is stress exacerbated by lack of sleep. I got details about the practicum yesterday. Combat stress can be debilitating, but you're too sweet a filly to find herself joining the guard or the constabulary." Oh, colts, did he ever have me pegged wrong! "You're never going to have to deal with that kind of stress again."

Until tomorrow at least.

He said, "Stop drinking overly strong tea and get some sleep," as he levitated me off the exam table and wrote on a notepad. He ripped off two slips. "This is for school, excusing you for two days. Again, get some sleep. I don't expect sleepwalking, again. This—" He waved the other slip. "—is the title of a book by Barthemule. I saw how you mirrored my spell while I healed the cut on your shoulder. I discussed it with my friend and we agree, any high level unicorn can benefit from a challenging mathematical treatise. At the very least, it'll put you to sleep." He chuckled.

I didn't know about Sunset Shimmer, but I had learned to sleep when I could and not need it in a pinch. Yes, lots of strong tea helped. I wasn't yawning. Maybe sleepwalking counted as sleep. In any case, when I gave the slip to the librarian at Celestia's School, he sent me to the university library. There, I levitated the paper before a white-maned blue-green mare with rhinestone glasses. Magnified grey eyes blinked at the name, then at the girly twin ponytails tied up behind my ears. "Are you sure?"

"Some light reading—" I read her brass name plate. "—Miss Verdigris."

"Hardly," but she trotted over to a special card catalog in a cabinet carved out of white marble. Drawers whooshed out in her magic and cards softly rustled as she flipped through them. "Yes, here," she said. Her eyes narrowed, then she appraised me again. "I don't think you're authorized."

I didn't have to act surprised because I was, and my voice showed it. I used that to power forward. "B—but Sunset Shimmer's father, Dr. Flowing Waters—the princess' physician—told me I should read it."

The glasses came off and a silver temple went in her mouth. "Even so, it appears that our one copy is cataloged in the Star Swirl the Bearded Time Wing. I can, however, get you a redacted version of the book as part of the Stasis and the Biological Sciences omnibus. Will that do?"

I could get used to this name dropping access thing! I smiled. "Nicely."

An old grey pony delivered the book to a room filled with mahogany tables, paneled in stained cherry wood, decked out with red velvet reading couches, below sound absorbing cork ceiling panels. Muted magical spotlights searched for, found, and shined on whatever book lay open, providing just enough light and no more lest it fade precious pigments. The SBS Omnibus turned out to be a genuine grimoire, with a brass lock and bolts, and a wood and linen binding. Not only did it look foreboding, the binding smelled foreboding. Though stained by centuries of hooves and smoke, it was free of dust. In contrast to the outside, the yellowed pages, horn written in careful round calligraphic print, had a reassuring old smell that somehow radiated wisdom. I had a few amazing classic tomes in my parents' library, like my four-century old Marlins, which I kept with me, and an original Jewels Turner's Cis-Lunar—and a first edition of The New Magicks—but this thing was amazing with its olden-pony syntax, cross-outs by the original calligrapher, and margin notes by later readers explaining obsolete words or clarifying or speculating on this or that passage. One read, "If the spell initiates one millisecond in the past, is it precognition?"

I shivered with anticipation. I read about a very subtle mathematics for finding multidimensional temporal and spatial solutions. I could sense that the doctor used it to visualize tissues in the patient through a feedback loop.

The doctor was right about another thing. I fell asleep beside the book, standing at the table. I awoke before dinner, the book gone, my notebook moist from my face laying on it, and a joyous sense of doing integrals in my sleep.

Did unicorns do sleep-spellcasting? I wasn't going to ask Sunset Shimmer as I was afraid she might know.

***

Up three flights of unlit stairs, worn and wavy by decades of hooves, lay a graffitied plywood door. Three flights was actually good; it got me away from the slight scent of urine that permeated the entrance hall. I cleared the simple ward that served as a lock since the door had only a latch; since I had never been good at wards, it had to be simple. I had left no possession worth stealing anyway. Inside, the porthole and casement were open as always. (To ameliorate that smell thing I mentioned.)

On the pile of last week's hay I used for a bed lay a note delivered by "pegasus express." I had no secrets any more.

Undoubtedly work; I didn't even look.

A washbasin. A pantry cabinet. A lopsided knotty pine table on sawhorse legs that acted as a desk. Blankets and a few pieces of clothing for cold or rainy days, and a shared bathroom down on the second floor. What a contrast to Sunset Shimmer's pretty ivory tower!

She had a solar cutie mark. I didn't. Nor did I want the tyranny it represented.

She had earned it in the street before being found. Before she could talk! Cutie marks made a difference. Hers kept her from being ridden. More importantly, they changed ponies.

Me, I changed myself, thank you very much. I was a blank flank and proud of it!

I settled into my haystack, the rustling sound and alfalfa smell surrounding me in basic comfort. I was glad to have run away from the blood money and my patrician upbringing, the fine stone house that stayed toasty in the worst winters, and my stodgy butler, Proper Step, who served as my guardian and my unyielding scholastic taskmaster.

Here, I felt distilled down to my essence. Potent. Somewhere, with all the distraction gone, I knew in my heart I would find myself. I had seen through the tyranny of the cutie mark and knew, some how, that I was going to learn to help everypony through it, too.

I blew the blue paper note aside and went to sleep.

Chapter 6: Using What She Learned

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I took advantage of my two-day free pass from schoolwork and found Miss Verdigris again. I gave her a red apple I'd brought while I regaled her with everything I'd learned about advanced maths thanks to her. She had the SBS Omnibus sent right down. I got further this time, and made copious notes before I again fell asleep in the mid-afternoon on my notebook.

Don't get the impression that I was bored. Far from it. If you've ever had the good fortune to attend a concert of contemplative music sung by a great choir or played on a resonant pipe organ, like the Great Lion Organ in Baltimare, you'd know what I mean. The music resonates in your brain, massages your mind, and controls your internal rhythms, inducing a state of bliss. If it catches you right, your eyelids droop and you might find yourself asleep in a musical realm—only to be woken drooling with a crick in your neck.

So it was with me and these mathematics. The very practice of solving and calculating using it made certain magical thought smoother in a totally new way, providing a sense of predestination, a feeling that something started would finish because it had to do so. Better put, like the beginning of a mathematical sequence implying the end because each coexisted in both time and space.

Thus, I fell asleep contemplating what an overlay of a Barthemule Omega Transform might do to Force, a structured transform of Levitate. Translate its dimensional axes? Transubstantiate it into an object? Change its shape?

The grey library tech pony shook me awake as he took away the book.

I was walking along a red-brick path through a university courtyard, passing by a circle of white and mauve rose beds surrounding a weeping willow—humming, thinking how the scent of roses and certain mathematical functions could be considered sweet—when I heard a voice say, "So, this is where you were hiding."

I stopped. "Sunset Shimmer. So very nice to see you."

"You've been avoiding me!"

"Your father wrote me an excuse so I could take two days off and rest."

"Rest is walking around the university? Rest means staying home in bed!" Her fiery mane seemed oddly as if it were in flames, pushed about as it was by the breeze that rustled the weeping willow.

"Fine. You found me. What do you want?"

"You said you would teach me how you cast spells so quickly. I'd be happy to take you to dinner and—"

"You said I would teach you how I cast spells so quickly. It was actually your father who told you to teach me how to spell cancel." By the set of her jaw and the tension in her muscles, I could see she was clearly about to bristle, and I wasn't really angry with her. I had a job to take care of tonight, but was in no hurry. "Oh, all right."

Her wary smile was quick. "The Hey Burger is—"

"Here. Now," I said, looking to ensure that most of the ponies passing between buildings were paying attention to nothing but their books or their path. I began working up some vector approximations for various spells that might affect the three-dimensional space safely not occupied by any object in the courtyard. "Observe me carefully for a few moments, trying to sense my magic. When you think you have some sense of what I'm doing—" I looked behind me to further ensure no buildings or ponies were in the line behind me drawn between her and me. "—I want you to hit me with your strongest force spell."

"I— What?" She blinked, then narrowed her green eyes. "That wouldn't be fair." She clearly equivocated, though I wasn't sure why.

The longer she took, the better my approximations became. "Oh, come on, Shimmer. I bet that purple runt wouldn't hesitate—"

Miss Prickly's face barely had time to twist into a rage before she fired a bolt at me. Maybe two seconds prep. Despite my queued spell, I nevertheless was able to sense her magic blossom. In shock, I didn't even move.

Her spell hit me full on in the chest.

I fell over giggling as a bizarre pulsing electrical field fizzed and wheezed around me, tickling every inch of my body almost unbearably. It lasted almost ten seconds and left me gasping. I often sneered when I talked about ponies using namby-pamby spells, spells all about giggles and rainbows. Her spell incapacitated me for those ten seconds as completely as a stun spell might have. Had it lasted longer, I might have peed myself.

It wasn't a force spell.

Gasping, I looked at her where I lay and asked, "You can't cast Force?"

"Ugh!" She stomped her fore-hooves, repeatedly.

"Did you at least observe me—?"

"Observe this!" she yelled, ripping a brick from the walkway and throwing it.

Not a force spell, but it did the trick. Shot with adrenaline—my drug of choice—my combat reflexes kicked in. I triggered three teleport spells, dodging the brick by popping to my left, then half a block behind me, and finally—to my chagrin—above her.

Gravity did the rest.

We tumbled in a pile of hooves and manes, with Sunset Shimmer screaming incoherently as she bucked me off her. Frost from my back from traveling through the absolute cold of in-between splatted and instantly evaporated. As I scrambled up, every nearby university student began trotting over. Yeah, nopony could teleport as quickly as I had. Nopony measured my inaccurate targeting because, well, they didn't know it was inaccurate.

"Look," I said, pointing my nose at the gathering audience, many of whom looked like they recognized her. "I'll explain as we walk."

After we turned a few corners around the Alchemistry Building, heading for Castle Walk Boulevard, she blurted, "Celestia won't teach me, and I've read every book I can on the subject! I don't get it. I can't do a force spell."

"Can you levitate?"

Eye-roll. "Of course—"

"A transform of the same basic spell, just concentrated and directed through a cylinder at a point. You can strike with the apparition like a pole or a hammer, or project heat from the end."

She huffed. "Easy for you to say. I mean— I'm sorry, it's just... embarrassing."

I shook my head. "That you don't know it? It's a specialized spell, usually used for demolition and excavation, but also for fighting. Sorry. With your build, I took you for a fighter—"

"I fought. And... Worse than embarrassing..."

A devastated look clouded her face. What could be that bad? Not embarrassment, for sure. I'd cast it the first time I'd tried, coming up with my own heat-projecting version because somepony was trying to murder me, was about to succeed, and I needed to fight back. Using it to fight subsequently had proved difficult. I'd often choked in those situations, but I'd later gotten syndicate teachers like Citron and Broomhill Dare to demonstrate it was matter of understanding the difference between the apparition and area heated beyond it, which improved my fighting skill when I could keep my emotions under control. Casting it simply as a magic pole of force ought never be anypony's problem.

I chuckled, I hoped, disarmingly. "Ask me to do a ward or a cantrip."

Her face lit up. "Perhaps you could teach me—"

I trotted faster, but smiling. "Not today. I've got work to do tonight."

"What?"

"Nosy Posy." I gave her a wide grin. I got that you don't offer a foal candy and expect her not to become attached.

"No, really. Maybe I could help."

"Not possible."

I broke into a canter. I looked at her and she made me think of an eager puppy. Her tail even wagged, though that was because of her substantial hindquarters moving quickly. Stallions would pay me no heed with her around. I thought I ought tell her, then thought there were things a mare had to learn for herself. "Were you observing me before like I asked? No—? Are you observing my magic now?"

"I—"

I didn't wait. I popped back to the willow tree courtyard because I knew the exact range and vector and could easily visualize it down to the waving willow branches and the smell of the perfusion of roses. Pastel ponies shrieked and bolted through the roses before I next popped forward to the sidewalk I had observed near Castle Walk. It worked; by sheer luck, I didn't materialize onto anypony despite there being a crowd that hadn't been there moments ago. The sound of the busy thoroughfare masked my exit pop to all but the few startled ponies I found myself between. I galloped rapidly from view, trailing frost steam, laughing as a fancy-dressed aristocratic pony in yellow frills, and salary-ponies in their blue business suits alike, gaped at my retreating sweaty blank flank.

Chapter 7: Grimoire Ascendent

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Thinking about Sunset Shimmer, I began to wonder whether Princess Celestia had taken on a second protégé because her first one didn't measure up. I chuckled. Maybe I ought ask to be taken on as her third protégé!

Fat chance of that!

I kept my good mood as I headed into the Lower and prepared to assume my Grimoire persona.

In an empty windowless alley, I took out a makeup compact and a stencil. I brushed on black, brown, and white powder to create the toothy-book cutie mark I had concocted. A puff of hairspray acted as a fixative between colors. I tied my tail into a bun and wrapped it in black ribbon, hiding the identifying green stripe and purple color. Last, I donned a hooded black cape that went as far as my haunches, and stepped into a light set of deceptively rusty horseshoes.

I'd constructed them of thin steel and wood. I'd carved antlers scavenged from a thrift shop so that the complete giddy-up added over two hoof lengths to my height. The antler decoration mimicked the exposed hoof of a stallion with a sexy, very masculine fetlock. Pebbly rubber made the shoes stealthy and goat-sure.

I put my hair up in a bouffant, spritzed the minimum of hairspray, and looped a loose ribbon around my chin to ensure the hood kept my face shadowed. That it looked faintly like a bridle just added to the distracting oddity of a costume I had designed to obscure the identity of Running Mead's enforcer. I ensured my saddlebags were secured under the cape and trotted off.

As I walked the shadowed streets in the gathering dusk, I thought about what I had read today. Perhaps I could actually shape my force spell. It might make an impressive show, and, unless I was confronted by an aggressive pony while I gave my little performance, it really wasn't about fighting or defending myself. It was more about breaking things.

Surrogate physical violence.

As I approached the address on the blue note, I started casting Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear. A brass mailbox on the old, soot-stained but still respectable, brownstone townhouse read "2202-A RYE BALD". The facing building, a more fancy brownstone apartment with a glassed-in multilevel stairwell, looked promising. I could certainly pick the unwarded lock at Rye Bald's, given sufficient time, and would have had if it had been past midnight on an empty street, but I liked to sleep so I decided not to wait out the evening. Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear was hard to juggle even with simple levitation so I had to choose between spells, and didn't want to be seen picking a lock.

The hoof traffic didn't disappoint. I quietly followed an office worker inside and soon stood on the stairway platform between the second and third floor. With nopony active nearby, or looking up from the street, maintaining the spell took minimal splendors and concentration.

For a half hour, I watched as the obviously stressed black-maned pink pony paced between his kitchen window and his living room, talking to himself. I spent most of the time looking through ratty yellowed lace drapery, assuring myself he was alone, occasionally having to plaster myself in a corner as a resident used the stairs. Every so often, he stirred a stock pot, once dumping in veg. He poured himself a brown drink from a clear bottle, twice. It calmed him. It wasn't apple juice. When I realized the earth pony addressed a shoulder-height metal pole, I understood he was practicing a speech.

No—

It was a shtick! He was a comedian.

When he bowed to the otherwise empty living room, I acted.

Teleporting through objects, even glass, carried a risk, but I was certain I knew the distance and layout of my target. I went through full spell prep. Somepony down on the second floor saw me and yelled, "Hey, where'd you come from!?"

I popped in on-target while Rye Bald was still bowing, taking in the applause of his imagined audience, "Thank you. I so love being adored..."

For a comedy club that Rye Bald imagined full of applause, it was incredibly quiet except for the bubbling of the garlicky concoction boiling in his kitchen. I could imagine how the overhead brass potion lamp shadowed me precisely, transforming my cowled face into a malevolent mask. The pink stallion backed into the wall with a bang, magenta eyes wide, whites flashing fear.

"First, the show." I clicked my tongue and triggered a special force spell that burst forth with an imaginary number component an infinitesimal moment before my intention struck the magic pulse. A sphere of green opened and spread out, truncated at its base by the threadbare avocado-green carpet, literally shoving and upending everything in its path. The tumbler of whiskey splashed upward as the glass coffee table twisted and lifted the tweed sofa so it tipped back and over, pushing a breakfront, causing the china inside to empty out and break. Opposite it, chairs launched at the outside wall, one of which broke the window, sending glass cascading to the street below. The fake mic stand launched itself spear-like at an exposed pink throat.

Triggering Levitation, I struck the projectile aside. The metal pole embedded itself in the manila-painted plaster wall.

Too close!

But I could work with it.

In my best low Grimoire voice, I said, "Somepony needs to pay his debts. Who might that be? You? But you work so hard! I suggest you pay or volunteer the boss some labor real soon, and stop drinking and smoking your life away. Next time," I waved a hoof horizontally across my neck, "this won't be a show."

I had edged toward the window, checking the street was clear. I stomped and ground glass below my horseshoe, then teleported away. Twice. Three times. To a dark alley even as I heard the twee-twee of a constable's whistle, the officer likely summoned by the bystander on the stairs across the street.

Frost evaporating above me in ribbons of steam, I pulled a quick change in the dead-end, levitating the cloak, ties, and shoes all at once. As I shoved them into the saddlebags, a splash of cold water on my flank and a rag dissolved the offensive cutie mark. I walked back to Rye Bald's street. I finished tying my pigtails as my bare hooves hit the cobblestones.

A blue-coated officer with a Prench police cap saw me and walked over. His copper badge flashed in the flickering light of a street lamp as he asked, "Did you see anypony suspicious, Filly?"

I pouted and shook my head, flapping my pigtails. "My special somepony didn't show up!"

He sighed and trotted off, his baton held in his yellow magic.

I thought about the momentary disgust I felt for Grimoire's cutie mark in the alley as I'd erased it. Though it wasn't really mine, it had nevertheless asserted its cutie mark magic, transforming me into somepony crazy and willingly violent. Somepony who'd almost committed accidental murder. An actor might call the transformation psychological, but I sensed a magical component as well.

I hated cutie marks.

Grimoire and his mark were a fabrication I originally came up with when I worked as a navigator and transporter for the Carne Asada Syndicate. Tellingly, Running Mead never mentioned Gelding, the name by which ponies who really knew me knew me by, as did my enemies—

Gelding was both a verb and a threat.

He never said the name Glitter, but I suspected he knew. Yet, never the high-value P-word title that went with it, which I found interesting. Personas: Grimoire, Gelding, Glitter, Glimmer. All starting with G. I felt unexpectedly glad, sensing that somewhere I still had the upper hoof.

An idea gelled incrementally in my subconscious.

If the absence or presence of an imagined cutie mark changed a pony (as all my names had, did) that simply, I wondered idly as I walked home, could removing a real cutie mark have a curative effect?

Not something anypony could test, of course, short of painting it over, or doing something so unthinkably violent with a knife it would even repulse Grimoire. Still, I speculated happily that cutie marks themselves might be a magic separate from a pony—perhaps like a permanent parasite—as I walked.

I resolved to study pony psychology.

Chapter 8: Shimmering Issues

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I was reading Understanding Pony Behavior, by Verbs and Crow Well, on a bench when I noticed Sunset Shimmer's approach in the corner of my eye. Yellow and red were hard to miss for anypony but a blind one. The page rustled as I turned it and asked, "Can you even see my magic?"

"That's a stupid question. Say, that looks like a university textbook."

"Yup," I said, snapping it closed and stretching in the warm sun I'd reclined in. "Ponies pay me for my work, thus I can afford to buy myself a little something special now and again." Vertebrae popped as I finished the stretch. I could taste a levitation spell reaching out to turn the book so she could read the title. I looked directly into her green eyes, startling her, watching her ghostly numbers fade from her aura. "Leviathan's Corollary, the third, not the second."

"What?"

"The algebra behind the magical maths powering the violation physics you're using to reach for the book." I lifted the book and held it between us. "Don't you see the numbers?"

She blinked, blinked again. "I—"

"You missed out on taking magic kindergarten; of course you did. Look, I understand you were living on the street, but this is fundamental." I scooted back on the bench and waved a hoof to invite her to join me. Soon we were like two face-to-face sphinxes, the book in my blue-green magic between us.

She said, "Celestia placed me in the third grade."

"So, she's not omniscient."

"Cheeky filly."

"My point is that in magic kindergarten, you learn to mimic the magic of your teacher by mirroring your teacher's numbers."

"Numbers?" She tilted her head and her ears shifted forward.

"Most children that age cannot yet generate numbers from equations. I couldn't."

"You want me to cast magic like a foal?"

"It's just another learning method; it would make it a lot easier to teach you. You certainly need it to defend yourself. The most powerful force spell is useless if someone burns you first."

"You're talking combat magic!"

"Didn't you ever face bullies—" Evident in the flash of her eyes was that she had, but had broken most of them. "When you're a foal, there comes a time when bullies learn to evaluate the magic you're using and how good it is before deciding whether or not it's safe to torture you. That is a skill acquired in magic kindergarten, not regularkindergarten. You want to continue being a high level unicorn? Learn to read other ponies' magic. Learn to read Princess Celestia's magic! Now that would change your life."

It had mine.

Simply glimpsing the evil princess' svelte numbers, so much more beautiful than she was physically, had inspired me to rewrite everything I understood about spell mathematics. That led me to formulate a series of alicorn simplification codicils. It had allowed me to cast Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear. I'd never have cracked Teleportwithout the epiphany that fateful day I'd barely escaped her notice.

Yet... Sunset could cast that spell...

"Fine," she said skeptically, impatience unmistakable in her tone.

"Fine. Just stare at my magic. Try to sense what I'm doing."

After a few minutes of her staring, trying sometimes with her eyes closed, sometimes leaning in— "I just see your aura."

"That's good. It proves you're not magically blind. Keep looking… Let your eyes go unfocused…" This was becoming tiring. "Try to imagine how you would cast the spell yourself… You do see your own numbers, right?"

"Ugh!" She had been working her own levitation spell like clay in her mind, not releasing it. I'd seen it fomenting in her aura. In an instant, prep complete, she grabbed the book and slammed it to the redwood slats of the bench so hard that the bang startled a passerby to whinny and caused the wood to groan. At least she was strong. She shouted in my face, "What do you mean by numbers?"

"Well, that's a weird question. You know… bright, flaming, swirly, twirly, digity things that form a cloud in your head when you solve magical equations—?"

"I. Don't. See. Numbers!"

I sat up, taking my turn blinking in surprise. "I clearly sense the numbers swirling in your aura, and can get a good sense of the equations you were solving to modulate the magic pulse. You don't?"

"You're obviously a freak."

"I've read it's pretty commonplace, in fact—" I cracked the book, found Magic, visualization in the index, then flipped pages. "Look," I said pointing as I read, "'Some 90 percent of unicorns report seeing ghost images during spell casting. In modern times, magic users understand the phenomenon is stimulation of the visual and aural complexes of the brain by modulated magical energy. This was determined by the famous Bramble Wine Case where a pegasus pony was initially diagnosed as schizophrenic, but it was later determined that he could see the magic of the unicorns around him.' And here, '…usually takes the form of numbers.'"

"I don't see numbers." She raised a hoof, "But I do see images. Light particles that swirl like snow flurries until they snap into a shape unique to a spell. Levitation is a dodecahedron. I know the spell is ready when they snap. I can control the spell intensity by rotating or pushing around the shape. I target by throwing it."

"You are talented."

"Don't insult—!"

"—I'm not being sarcastic. I impressed! I guess for lack of a better paradigm, you invented your own. It's all very interesting.

"At the practicum, my magical misfire burnt the base of my horn, and I guess I should reiterate how grateful I am that you took me to your father. He fixed something that would have left me little better than a weakling earth pony with a horn ornament. But, here's the interesting part. Disconnected from my horn, I could not sense magic or see auras. In fact, I could not do arithmetic at all; math just didn't want to make sense. But with it restored, I sensed the result of telling my horn to think for me, or better put, to calculate for me. The numeric feedback allows me to judge the results and apply transforms. I'm not sure how you would do that without numbers."

"Pretty well, actually. Have you ever heard of geometry?"

"You must practice your spells a lot, like learning dance steps I'd think, at least long enough to learn to make the shape and manipulate it effectively."

She smiled. "Practice makes perfect. I practice whenever I'm alone. That was the purpose of your classroom exercises for the stun spell; the practicum makes sure you use the spell in a realistic setting."

"Numbers are better. Take a look at this."

I bounced off the bench to the middle of the brick sidewalk. Beds of red and white geraniums lined either side. I waited until there were no ponies around and cautiously prepped a very low power Barthemule-transformed force spell. "Ready, go."

It again popped before I released it—as I said "go"—and with a tiny bit of inspiration, I continued to power it rather than generating an on-off bolt as I might during a fight.

A sphere slowly grew out to three times my length in radius, pushing down the geraniums in its path and causing little pink butterflies to flutter away. Though it cracked some stems, most sprung back up when inside the sphere. Sunset Shimmer, mouth open, touched the magical surface, jerking back her hoof as if shocked. I felt a definite buzz in my head. The surface vibrated like a rubbery balloon. I found what seemed to be the radius numbers and applied a transform. The sphere shrunk, then popped audibly.

Sunset Shimmer said, "Nice trick. A shield spell?"

"Maybe. Don't know. That's a Barthemule transform applied to Force. That's the second time I've cast it."

"Second— what? That's not possible."

"Ask me to cast a standard illusion." I waved a hoof. "Now, that's not possible."

Sunset Shimmer walked up to me, looked into my eyes, then glanced about my head, obviously reevaluating the double star "shaved" into the fur of my forehead, which wasn't growing back yet. She circled me, trampling the geraniums without a thought and surrounding me with their scent. She lingered on my blank flank, once on each side. "How old are you?"

A bit too personally identifying for me, but I realized I didn't need to exaggerate much either. "Seventeenish."

"You've gotta to be kidding me."

I shrugged.

"You're her age? And I suppose you read all the time?"

"Any time I get the chance and can crack a book. I'm very nice to librarians."

"You even sound like the runt, but at least you do magic! I've spied on her. She talks up theories, but when it comes to practice, I've yet to see her in action. She's usually in her tower, muzzle in a book. Our paths never cross. I guess creating a crack through earth and space-time all the way to Tartarus from Canterlot University is a good enough trick to make anypony acceptable as Celestia's protégé. I don't see the point if you don't produce. She's a one-trick pony, if you ask me."

"Tartarus?" I asked.

"Yes, that Tartarus. I went through the rift... well, because I had to, while Celestia wrestled the runt under control. Good thing, too. Sparkle's magic-storm blew through the security perimeter and some pretty ugly monsters escaped. Cerberus went missing for days." She described a combination of modern and stone fortifications built upon the craggy mountains in an ancient caldera—and, well, monstrous monsters. Apparently, if you could levitate a non-magical creature, you pretty much neutralized him.

She spoke with a pained expression and I sensed she left out something substantial. Did it have to do with what "embarrassed" her the other day?

I had heard of The Rift. To think that little purple somewhat goth-looking foal leaving Dr. Flowing Waters' office was my age! Princess Celestia certainly knew how to pick them.

"So. Back to the bench. This time, concentrate and look at my magic until you see, uh, shapes. We'll work on turning it into numbers another day. Later, you'll teach me spell canceling..."

As if.

My half of the bargain turned out to be Sunset Shimmer finally becoming exasperated with the visualization exercise and, instead of teaching me to cancel, dragging me to a hay and herb bar for dinner—where I had a daisy and borage sandwich on Hooflyn corn rye, spread with lots of horseradish mustard—followed by her drinking herself drunk and forcing me to escort her home.

It's funny how four legs aren't enough to steady a pony.

Chapter 9: Theory into Practice

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I did not sleep over at Sunset's. I could tell in her drunken state she was feeling "frisky" and I worried I'd be tempted. I knew I was corrupted in innumerable ways, but getting consent was paramount to me.

I had plenty of questions to pepper my Magic Dynamics instructor with the next day about how unicorns actually cast spells. Essentially, everypony was different. You had to understand the math that implied the spell mnemonics (the poetry). You had to understand the spell mnemonics that implied the math (the equations). It boiled down to how well you could manage the perceivable result of preparing and casting a spell, the feedback, which in turn allowed you to tune your magic. The best way to visualize was, in her opinion, meaningless—an exercise in aesthetics for philosophers and competition spell casters.

My point exactly. Aesthetics counted. Still, Sunset Shimmer's paradigm seemed lame to me, and I mean lame in the sense of limping and being crippled. I needed to help her with that.

Miss Peppercorn lowered her glasses on her muzzle and arched an eyebrow when I asked her about spell canceling. Considering her gaze, I vowed I'd look at that star on my forehead in a mirror tonight, even if I had to go out and buy one, as I was certainly getting a lot of looks lately. She asked, "Why would anypony want to do that?"

Then again, my teacher wasn't a high level unicorn herself, having demonstrated nothing beyond levitation. I could agree that attending a magic school was rounding out my education, teaching me history, health, civics, enchantment, and earth pony magic (potions)—all topics I had ignored—as well as spells I was just plain bad at, like wards. I'd learned of classes of spell modifiers discovered in the last two centuries not found in the older texts that had stocked my library, things like polyglot proverbials and chroma thaunumerolgy. To the extent that I could ask teachers questions, I had thought it worth the trouble to attend class instead of becoming the favorite patron of the librarian at the eleven well-stocked Canterlot libraries, my usual method of operation. I had filled in many gaps in general spell casting that I'd worked-around by force thanks to my epiphany about Alicorn simplification years ago. In a sense, I was already a student of the princess. I was beginning to wonder if I could tough it out to the end of this semester and the senior year before I entered university study where I might get much better answers.

My prospects were circumscribed by what I didn't know more than the advanced arcane knowledge I excelled at.

That late afternoon while I continued reading the SBS Omnibus, I came close to saying to Tartarus with it all. I could simply go somewhere that my past couldn't follow me like Trottingham or Saddle Arabia.

Thanks to Sunset Shimmer, I had knowledge that Tartarus wasn't just a swear word—but that Princess Celestia's prison actually existed. And, thanks to knowing Sunset Shimmer's name and her father's, when I came to a chapter that unexpectedly ended in the omnibus, I realized that I not only enjoyed access to a rare book but that I also knew what "redacted" meant—and also knew of the existence of the ultimate library: the Star Swirl the Bearded Time Wing of the Canterlot Castle Library.

I stared up at the white stone block Accademie Building that housed it. It had crenelations and a patinated copper roof. Despite the setting sun being on the opposite of the building, I still couldn't see into the dark third story window, but I was sure I'd found the spot I'd researched because a royal guard was posted below. Her brass armor gleamed. I trotted away when she turned magenta eyes my way.

Many nights later, with moonlight streaming through the open windows of my always comforting hovel, laying buried in my haystack, I decided I would tough it out. Cool air blew in, scented by a trash heap burning on the street corner, but devoid of other pony smells. The mountain city of Canterlot was a much cleaner city than others I'd lived in, but it felt more like home than Sire's Hollow ever had. Sunburst's abandoning me had proved that a pretty town of wealthy ponies that seemed perfect... probably wasn't.

Cutie marks ruined everything good.

Imperfection reassured me. The dynamic of ponies finding their place instead on merit could be symbolized by burning trash. Purification brought a new start when the old proved no longer useful or practicable. I needed a new start, now that I accepted Sunburst was lost forever.

That drove me in the night to experiment on my own flesh. I had a good idea now of how Dr. Flowing Waters used Barthemule's work. What took time was finding the equations that fit the numbers I'd sensed and reconciling that with a spell that could be transformed.

Eventually, I got that by solving Levitation simultaneously with Force. This worked because both were practical transforms of the other, allowing Barthemule's various transforms to slot into the result. The necessary equations were enormous, and the corresponding spell mnemonics daunting, but I was good at simplification and enjoyed it. My first success happened late in the night when I reached in and found myself massaging the muscles from inside my rear leg.

It wasn't external pressure applied by Levitation. Shockingly, it felt very good. It felt very relaxing.

I slept better that night than I had in ages.

Chapter 10: Blind-sided

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Streak turned out to be the name taken by Running Mead's pegasus spy and messenger. The pale blue pony's mane was carefully spiked today; each of the various different shades of blue formed a separate shaft of color. The whole outrageous 'do vibrated as she fluttered down before me, giving me an eye-level view of her cutie mark: a real head-scratcher. It was an oval brown donut with two brass spikes at 11 and 1 o'clock, each spike topped with a ball.

I had just exited the university and trotted through the adjacent restaurant and bookseller district of Canterlot. She looked like a punked-out thug, considering the gaudy gold chains she also wore (likely gold-plated by the way they lightly lay against her neck and the clinking sounds they made). I felt justified as I lifted my nose and walked right on by as if she were invisible.

Streak didn't take the hint. I heard her hooves clatter on the cobblestones behind me, as the scent of caramelized alfalfa from two hay burger joints competed for the attention of the empty stomachs of the scholastically-challenged textbook set. At least she waited for the cloud of students around us to thin–entirely her fault—before she said, "There's work for ya."

I considered whether to cast Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear or Teleport, queuing quick draw transforms for both, but activating neither. As she suddenly trotted up on my left, I turned right onto Ponyville Way and headed toward Cliffside and the Strand. A plenitude of late afternoon deliveries left me in traffic surrounded by clattering ponies pulling creaking and squeaking wagons, taxis, and vans. Streak fluttered off; I heard her wings whoosh behind me as she leapt away. I didn't mind the rattle of tack or the huff and puff—or the smell of the sweaty predominantly earth pony livery class. Every city had its life blood.

Blood was a part of everypony's life—mine especially, though I did everything I could to minimize its flow. Work, Running Mead, and morbid thoughts attracted one another… I walked, determined to think happier thoughts.

"I know!" I said to myself suddenly, tapping a hoof hard against the pavement and attracting the glance of a black-suited yellow unicorn. She walked beside a cart of clattering bottles of red wine rolling by itself in her violet magic. I tasted the magic, which was probably Motivation, a mathematical self-reciprocating derivative of Levitate and yet another spell I hadn't mastered. "The Fell Swoop," I finished.

The skin around hauler's violet eyes crinkled. "A good restaurant."

"I know!"

"I have a delivery there later, but this is my turn."

I slowed and let her cut ahead of me, thinking of oat shell pasta stuffed with cheese and pesto. My last silver bit might cover it and gird me for my next job later tonight. Already in Cliffside, two blocks from the Strand, with the traffic thinned to one lone work pony hauling construction materials and a chatting unicorn couple, Streak dive bombed in front of me, startling everypony including me.

I reflexively quick-draw-teleported seven pony lengths and dangerously close to the brick wall of a brownstone. Worse, I materialized a pony length in the air.

I landed, not flexing my knees in time, and hurting my right rear leg as a result. My bad one. The jolt turned everything from my postern to my frog to pins and needles. The injury from Hooflyn had all but healed, but I still wore a prosthesis in my horseshoe to protect my frog from stones I might not feel cutting into me.

I glared as Streak approached on my right and noted the other ponies hastening away. I knew she didn't know what she'd done, and she didn't act on her own accord.

I huffed, redirecting my anger at a certain gangster boss, and trotted left down the side street.

I heard her thrash the air and go airborne. To my disgust, her flying made me think of Sunburst. In saving me from being crushed by a tower of tomes and grimoires, he had suddenly discovered a new spell (besides learning he could levitate a hundred books at once): self-levitation. I thought enviously of what I called Pegasus Simulation. One day I would figure out that heretofore unknown spell and wished I had it now. The restaurant was four blocks away. I increased my gait to a canter, trying not to limp as my leg threatened to stiffen up.

Streak landed with a clatter of hooves as I passed an alley on a street of whitewashed warehouses and fancy loft apartments, currently—neigh I say it—deserted.

In my anger, my deeper Grimoire voice asserted itself. "You're herding me!"

"You were ignoring the boss's orders." Her indigo eyes gleamed with amusement.

I wasn't going to blurt was not. Instead, I affected a tired sigh and said, "Don't you know better than to contact me in a good part of town?"

"What?" she asked, then continued in a pouty voice, "Ya trying to protect your secret identity like some comic book hero?" She embellished it with a musical, "Wah, Wah."

"Not original." I hadn't thought of Citron since he'd disappeared—my fault... but then he had followed me against my wishes to protect me, and had volunteered to do the dangerous thing while injured. He'd had a crush on me, had been a kid even if older, and was a delinquent, but intensely professional when it mattered. I'd taught him my best tricks and he'd been my bodyguard when I could only pay attention to Carne Asada. The geeky nerd loved comics. Her evoking my personal ghosts didn't make me more malleable! In a low voice, I added, "You ruin my ability to do what I am here in Canterlot to do and I'll leave town, and good riddance. The boss won't be happy with you."

"The boss told me where to go and to fetch you as soon as ya showed up."

"Then he's a foal."

She smirked. "I'd watch your mouth wuz I you."

This time my sigh was pure exasperation. "Fine. What's this high priority job, anyway?"

"There's this mauve unicorn irritating the boss real bad that goes by the name Fellows. He's got a double unicorn-bust cutie mark and lives at 233 Canton. The boss wants you to eliminate the two-faced son of a dragon."

"Did you mean eliminate as in eliminate?"

"Yes, pissy Missy prissy filly." Baby talk? "Da K word."

"I don't sell product and I don't—" I couldn't even say kill ponies. That didn't mean I wasn't responsible for plenty of deaths—indirectly by my actions and directly by my indecisiveness and gullibility. I would never forget what I'd seen, nor the tally in kept in my head I wanted never to grow again. Again, evoking ghosts! My rage grew like a summer storm, hot and quick.

"But ya'd be so good at it," she said, smiling but looking slightly away, obviously avoiding my angry glare.

"I won't do it; not negotiable!"

"The boss insists."

I cursed. One of my team as a bodyguard for Carne Asada, Broomhill Dare, had made a game of teaching me intricate profanity because none would escape my lips thanks to my upbringing. This foul order, however, deserved it. I proceeded to spew most of it—despite the unlikely familial relationships and impossible physical geometry issues it proposed—as I turned toward the narrow alley behind me.

I knew Streak's wingspan would prevent immediate pursuit. I remembered queuing Teleport—

Chapter 11: I Don't Kill Ponies

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It felt like one of those dreams where you become aware that you were dreaming and you feel like you've woken up. You get to make choices, talk, do things but realize you can't move and you have no control, and realize that you've woken up in another dream, the worst kind of dream, where the routine becomes nightmarish and your life depends on the outcome.

Mine was based on fire and broken things. My heart beat rapidly in my chest, and my throat felt scorched like after running a race.

And real.

Because, it was real.

I awoke finding myself mid-leap between wooden crates and cloth-covered sofas. In that frozen second, I found myself triggering a full prep spell (not a quick draw). Trapped between metal shelves stocked with boxes, stood a wide-eyed mauve unicorn with a white blaze to match the white center streaks in his violet mane.

My victim was trapped, targeted, and had no place to run or dodge. He was casting no defense spell.

The sleepwalker's force spell triggered.

I had woken myself in time to witness an act of murder, or—

Sunset Shimmer still hadn't taught me how to cancel, so I twisted with a hard jerk of my neck. The plasma bloom from the blue-green bolt shaved off the tip of his left ear and burnt off locks of his mane as it continued upward. Shearing through shelving, setting boxes on fire, scoring and blackening a plastered ceiling, and not ending before it sliced a water pipe that managed to spray the stallion and the wreckage, but totally missed the boxes I'd set alight.

I screamed, "No!", as I rolled and yawed through the air, spine forward, toward shadowed obstacles, none of which were likely soft.

There were many ways to cripple oneself in a fight. Spell backfire was only one.

I did have some quick draw spells lined up. I instinctively knew better than to teleport when I didn't know my position, velocity, or orientation in space. I triggered Force with as much of a Barthemule omega transform I could apply to it.

Paradoxically, I found myself already in an expanding sphere of blue-green, forced to complete the calculation using the transform as it collided with an end-table and a crate, one full of horseshoes from the clatter it made as it was shoved aside. As the apparition hit the floor, the barrier proved rather too elastic and since the end table was shoved against an immovable wooden bench, it still struck my rump, bruising me. Worse, the rebound sent me spinning off like a billiard ball toward a high stack of crates.

Once again, the spell conformed itself, sliding like a deflated ball on the actual floor rather than keeping me centered in a sphere. Fur rubbed off as I collided, rear hooves forward, into the crates, which not unexpectedly proceeded to fall over since I'd shoved the bottom one rather hard.

A searing pain shot through my right rear leg from the knee, the leg I'd sprained earlier thanks to my reaction to Streak's dive-bomb landing. This time, something tore, and I felt it happen.

As the boxes toppled, I had sufficient presence of mind to scrabble away. On impact, the fading spell squirted me a pony length clear, but I still got pelted by splintered wood and a coffee mug.

"Ow, ow, ow!" I cried as bouncing earthenware shards skittered away from me. I heard the sssish of streaming water and smelled smoke drifting together with the dust my crash lofted in the air. The warehouse in which we fought became otherwise deadly quiet.

Fellows spoke up. "You had me square on, chap. Why did you intentionally miss the shot?"

It sounded like a taunt, but I knew he was ranging—trying to discover my location, whether it was safe to run. The tactic worked both ways, and it did tell me it was safe enough for me to lever myself up on three legs and prepare to defend myself. I wobbled like an arthritic grandmother and sweated profusely. Was I bleeding or burnt? Who knew what had happened when I was sleepwalking! A quick glance uncovered no blood.

I felt beat up and horribly exhausted. I saw tumbled-over furniture, exploded cartons, and scorches in every direction. How long had we been fighting? I'd used up every last splendor of my magic before, and had barely escaped with my life as a result.

I looked around. 232 Canton was on a street packed tightly with brick two-story walkups, essentially what in a better neighborhood might be called toy townhouses. Warehouses lay at least three blocks further uptown. Worse, did I track him here, chase him here, or get chased here?

I shouted in the opposite direction from which I'd heard his voice, between furniture, hoping the sound reflection would throw off his sense of my location. "I don't kill ponies."

The moment that finished coming out of my mouth, I couldn't believe I'd said it. Grimoire never would have. My side stiffened as bruising set in. I added, more because I was tired than anything else, "I don't like to hurt ponies, either."

That got a response. "Lady Grimoire is it?"

Celestia on roller skates! I'd forgotten the Grimoire voice, and now my head began to ache, too. He had moved, but not far because I heard a hoof splash. I hazarded a glance around a teakwood breakfront, and through glass saw water levitate from the cleft pipe to extinguish the burning boxes. At the sound of a sudden crump, I ducked.

The spraying water stopped.

No average unicorn could levitate flowing water. No ponies I knew could crimp a copper pipe with Levitate. Strong, that one. I prepared Stun, not because I was good at it but because the alternative of Force my instincts demanded would probably prove too bloody accurate. I had to put him down quickly and escape before I became unable to function.

I nevertheless lowered the register of my voice. "I intended to scare you into leaving Canterlot. Did I do that?"

"You are scary, but that isn't what you said after you ambushed me."

"What did I say?" I asked.

That made him pause.

I examined my surroundings as I hobbled, painfully, out of a position I could be cornered in. My ears turned and flicked as I listened for him to move. I thanked myself for the rubber edged horseshoes I'd designed to help me move silently. I saw three spots, one he had vacated between the aisle of shelves, another in a castle of stacked sofas, and another atop a catwalk that I could teleport to. I prepared vectors that tracked the targets as I walked. If I missed the catwalk, it would be all over. The upper level of the warehouse, behind me, had dirty windows that admitted the orange light of dawn. Being up over 24 hours accounted for my being tired.

He said, "For starters—"

He'd moved!

I crouched reflexively, putting down my lame leg. Sudden stars made me wobble, but I kept my spells. I kept my spells because my team back in Baltimare had helped me burn that into my brain, like breathing. Keeping your spells saved your life, and kept your team and employer safe.

"For starters, you said you were going to rip me limb from limb and roast me on a pyre to discourage nosy ponies from putting their muzzle where it didn't belong."

"Huh? Really? More creative than my usual spiel."

"Really?"

He'd come to my north, judging by the windows. I teleported to the sofa area for better cover, then watched as my vectors for the other Teleports readjusted like wires in a pulley system, adding the vectors from the exhausted spell. I waved away the rising frost steam so it didn't flag my position before I replied, "That's a good one. I'm going to have to write it down."

From my new vantage point in a bunker of sofas, some yellow, some brown, all corduroy, I couldn't see the exits. The windows didn't show a neighboring roof line. I couldn't just teleport blindly to the opposite side of the wall. I might teleport into traffic or on a sloping roof. Or Teleport might fail because the spell "perceived" I might directly injure myself, like materializing inside a wall. That often elicited a streamer of sparkles from my horn, as helpful as a flare under the circumstances. Sleepwalking Grimoire might have known where she was; I'd lost that information.

"The way you shouted and kicked, I believed the threat."

"I've been told I'm a great actor."

"I've read reports of Grimoire the Enforcer, but not of any murders connected to him. Perhaps you're good at that so we haven't—?"

"—I don't kill ponies. My boss—"

"—Running Mead?"

"Are you a constable?"

"So you don't kill ponies. You could have fooled me, considering how you blasted down my door and chased me around town all night. I will concede that nopony got hurt—"

"That proves it."

"You're acting like a foal— Wait, you're a punk, barely a mare, aren't you?"

I replayed my voice in my head; it was still at the proper register. "Are you a constable? An EBIagent?" Equestrian Bureau of Investigation. Oh, they'd really like to catch me, if they could figure out who I had been, or what bomb I had unintentionally helped set, or who had last seen Carne Asada alive.

"Call me Detective Fellows. Logically, Lady Grimoire, you should surrender. By now, I'm sure last night's mayhem has been traced here. At the very least, when the Quill and Sofas opens and workers enter the factory floor, they will call for help."

He suddenly jumped into the area where I'd crashed into the tower of crates. I saw glints of what I presumed was Shield or Mirror Shield, but it flickered as if it were hard for him to manifest before it went out.

I'd yet to meet a pony who could effectively levitate water; I didn't trust the demonstration was representative of his true ability.

An instant later, I teleported into the shelving area, splashing down in puddles of water mixed with burnt shredded cardboard. My second queued Teleport had a stupid error in the y-axis that converted into momentum. I slid on three hooves at an angle against the cement wall, behind the end of the shelves. That I rolled instinctively with the impact, thanks to my training, saved me from knocking myself unconscious, but I didn't spin well with three legs. I folded into a heap, gasping through the pain as quietly as I could.

He was more than medium sneaky; quiet as a mouse, in fact.

So...

I was at the Quill and Sofas on Chestnut near Elm. I'd once slept in an alley off of Elm, about a block away, across from Blueblood Park where I had grazed at night during early spring due to lack of bits. The warehouse and factory outlet was at the edge of Cliffside, and I was sure that meant I was on ground level.

It also meant I might find quills. As the first light of dawn streamed in above, I looked up, up, up, and across the aisle to find boxes decorated with swirly letters. The boxes contained cut calligraphy nib quills, which I levitated down, across the floor, and under my cloak into my saddlebags.

He saw my magic.

By complete luck, my eyes caught shadowy daggers hurtling my way. I reflexively triggered my last queued Teleport. He'd chucked a dozen shattered chowder mugs from the crate that had nearly crashed on my head.

I landed squarely on the crane catwalk, a faint clank on the metal lattice announcing my appearance. However, I'd caught a whizzing earthenware shard in my magic as I teleported. It cut across my back at my withers, slit the fabric of the cloak and the skin below, drawing blood and a gasp.

I cast Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear and let go of all other spell prep. The shard that had drawn blood clattered against the body of the crane hook, bounced and hit the metal siding of the upper far wall, then ricocheted a pony-length into a china cabinet, shattering the glass in front and the mirror in back. As glass tinkled to the ground, Fellows dodged. He positioned himself to peer down the row of shelves my sleepwalking-self had cornered him in. He jerked and looked a number of aisles beyond my position, but not up.

He did not look up, even though the suspended walkway swayed, and to my dismay, squeaked ever-so-slightly. It was difficult to balance on three legs.

My spell held. As far as I could tell. That he didn't look up was a good tell, though he might be faking it...

I saw the harshly lit, steeply inclined shed roof of a building on the opposite side of Chestnut Street. I could teleport there, but would I be able to do a second before sliding to my death?

No good.

I stood in the middle of a long warehouse. I saw a steel fire exit door equidistant on either end, neither open. I might be able to target Teleport into a pony-sized square implied by the sweep of the door, but at this distance, I might miss, or misjudge the thickness of the door. Too risky.

Could Fellows cast Force? He'd thrown things instead of blasting me. I assumed he knew Stun. It was the third spell average unicorns often learned, after Illuminate and Levitate—if they needed a self-defense skill.

The candy-stripe-maned stallion picked his way silently around the furniture, entering my abandoned bunker of corduroy sofas. He wasn't coming close enough to my vantage point that I could hit him with a full strength stun bolt.

If he wanted to hurt me, he would throw things.

I shoved my face into my saddlebag to retrieve a mouthful of quills, avoiding the feather because the last thing I needed was to sneeze.

I waited until he had passed under the catwalk, taking my time to select where I would make my last stand. Between the pulsing pain and exhaustion, I didn't know how many splendors of magic I had left. I need to be next to him were I to stun him because of the inverse square law. I decided that the stacks of wooden chairs next to a dozen mattresses set on their edge would work best.

I waited until he looked away and dropped the quills over the side, hoping that he wouldn't see the fluttering things in his peripheral vision. I let go of my spell. Visible again, I quickly queued Teleport and Levitate. The stallion and my falling feather quills gave me the five seconds I needed.

I caught the feathers as they settled on the furniture and, like arrows, shot them at the unsuspecting detective. Unlike last time, to see the aura around my horn he'd have needed to look up. I'd let the quills fall below eye-level just to ensure he wouldn't look up.

Calligraphy nibs are blunt. These hit before he could flinch seeing them attack him. He jumped into the air with a loud whinny, then rolled away as if avoiding bees. He bucked over a dresser, which disintegrated with quite a racket.

I teleported to my hidey-hole, knowing he'd be completely distracted and might not even hear the out-teleport pop.

I appeared on target, a thick wall of mattresses between him and me. As I waved away the rising frost steam, I levitated quills across the floor to a decoy location—and sat down. I breathed hard and sweat. I rolled on to my left haunch and it hurt. I leaned into a mattress with my shoulder and left a smear of blood.

A loud wooden crack sounded; I heard him trip, then silence.

I knew the mattress would muffle my voice toward him, and make it appear as if I were elsewhere. I said, "Surely by now Detective Fellows, if that's your name, I have sufficiently frightened you so that we may agree I've done my job, and that you've done your job. Certainly, you know your cover investigating Running Mead is blown. Can we call it a day and go our respective ways?"

"But, Lady Grimoire, I so wanted to meet you."

I growled. Back in Sire's Hollow, before I'd ran away, adults referred to me by that title and it was hollow, hollow, hollow now that my soulmate had abandoned me to live the life-wreaking reality of his cutie mark.

Nopony wanted to meet the real me, not even myself.

My ears swiveled and I caught Fellows' soft hoof falls echoing off the walls to either side of the mattress. I couldn't have picked a better hunting blind. Time to do a course correction.

I levitated quills off at a tangent, then flung them in the direction I suspected he was from where I wanted him to think I was.

"Yow! Tu m'emmerdes!" he swore, something in Prench. I hoped I'd remember it for my list of curses. Heavy things fell and clattered metallically—he'd been levitating missiles!

Speaking so the echo would convince him of my decoy position, I said, "It's a game. I put on a show—"

"A show? Really? Do you not remember chasing me all over Canterlot, stunning a constable—"

"Stunning, Fellows, stunning. No, believe it or not, I don't remember. Whether you believe it or not, I put on an act. I break a few things, scare a few ponies into fulfilling their commitments. I get bits. I move on. I refuse to sell product—drugs—and I don't want to know where or how the boss carries on his business. I'm extremely low value. So, can we call it quits?" I'd let the Grimoire voice slip. Considering my pain level, and the bead of blood running down my right leg from my shoulder, I didn't give a horse apple, either.

"I can't do that, Lady. I will tell the judge that you didn't shoot when you could have. That'll be in your favor."

Wait for it...

He was nearly in position. I queued Teleport, Force with a Barthemule transform, Stun, and finally Levitate transformed to Shove, knowing the latter didn't need to be at all accurate. On top of everything else, a searing pain shot from between my eyes to the top of my skull as I pushed myself to my limits. Rainbow hot numbers whirled like paper-on-fire caught in a tornado. I was unsure if the blur was me having trouble staying conscious or the strain of the quick draw calculations trying to make my horn explode.

Wait for it...

I shoved the furniture. A chair jerked a lot closer than I would have hoped. No matter. I targeted and triggered Teleport.

Of all the rotten luck! I appeared desk-level three pony lengths from the mauve stallion's right shoulder, catching him winding up to throw pot-metal horseshoe coasters and iron skillets at the noise I'd just made. I fell, and despite bending my knees in time, I only had three good ones. The fourth spiked me with pain. Gasping, I collapsed in a quarter-turn corkscrew.

Fellows shook his head and with nary a smile—what might be described as a satisfied workpony's expression—rounded the ten hovering objects around his head and threw. He did not trust my word that I didn't want to kill him, I guess, and felt justified in using deadly force.

I was no ordinary unicorn, however.

Only the shock of pain delayed me from triggering the rest of my quick draw queue. The omega transform went smoother than ever. Force triggered before I could react to the attack. The expanding green bubble moved at the speed of a trot, intercepting the skillets and paper weights hoof lengths from my skull, flinging them upward arcing overhead to hit the wall behind. The bubble hit the mattresses behind me, knocking them down like dominoes. It swept up chairs, sofas, and a few leftover quills. Before me, it caught Fellows, stunned by the sight ofmy gigantic blob-like apparition, like a cow dazzled on railroad tracks encountering the cow catcher of a locomotive. He toppled toward me, then bounced off the rubbery surface like a wooden horse doll. He landed, rather adorably I might add, hooves up on a white and paisley red sofa with mahogany trim, his stallion partsvisible for all to see.

Simultaneously with the spell bubble popping, I cast Stun. Blue-green lightning zapped him in the chest and surrounded him in a brief blue-white electrical glow, snapping and crackling, leaving the smell of an imminent thunderstorm in its wake. A thunder crack echoed across the warehouse.

I wrapped my cloak over myself then grunted, shaking as I levered up. I staggered toward him, limping with an iron taste in my mouth. My lip bled from my last fall. To him, Lady Grimoire had to look particularly ghoulish. I looked into his magenta eyes. He blinked. Just because he jerked and wasn't able to move, didn't mean he couldn't hear or wouldn't understand.

I said, "I said I don't kill ponies; I meant it. Take the hint and leave the Lower alone. I sure my boss has other enforcers. I'm just the most economically efficient one. Nicest, too. You seem like a nice pony, too—mostly. Let's not meet again."

With that, I limped toward the fire door. I felt like I might keel over at any moment, and might be sick on top of it from what the pain was doing to my stomach. Nonetheless, I prepared Stun and Teleport.
Good thing, too.

Chapter 12: Revelation

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The door opened revealing a brown earth pony in denim with a factory showroom behind him, checking to see what the noise was. Before he could notice I stood behind the door, I teleported past him.

I was surrounded by new fabric smell and roses in glass vases, amidst perfectly arranged living room sofa sets, breakfast-nook kitchen sets, and bedroom and dresser sets. Magic sconces and wrought iron chandeliers lit a room full of mahogany, oak, and maple, with book shelves stocked with faux classics, and bedspreads glowing with hearts. At a black granite kitchen island, below pristine copper pots, a pink mare in a lavender business suit was fussing with a tea service tray and samovar; she jumped at the pop of my out-teleport. Opposite her were glass doors leading to Chestnut Street.

I teleported, my quick draw approximation landing me in the street. I leapt aside from a yellow cab pulled by a green stallion who didn't have the time to swerve, though he did have time to swear.

Before I could topple on the curb, I teleported one last time past a shoeshine kiosk—and struck a brick wall with the conserved momentum of avoiding the taxi. Though further bruised, it left me leaning against the surface, saving me the ignominy of falling on the sidewalk. The farrier colt jumped up, his brushes, rasps, and rust-cleaner scattering around him. I left a blood smear as I levered into motion. I adjusted my cloak to hide the wound and walked.

Everything whirled around me. I struggled to get numbers spinning in my head. I wasn't teleporting any time soon. I turned into an alley. Early morning sunlight streamed down it, illuminating broken pavement and the morning dew in the cracks, as well as a stinky overloaded dumpster. Unfortunately, it also illuminated a wagon with unicorns unloading bolts of fabric for the factory. The sun warmed my flank. Though I cast a long shadow, none of the workers noticed me.

I stood there, breathing hard, working up the numbers. Behind me, on the street, I heard ponies talking. One galloped—and he wasn't pulling a taxi.

The hue and cry began.

Slowly, relying on the rubber soles of my horseshoes to keep quiet, I walked down the alley until I finally got Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear properly spun up. I only had to keep it going despite the pain and a real chance I might faint. Slowly. One-two front steps, one limp. Repeat. I ducked a heavy red velvet roll that swished by my head, pulling down my hood. I got past the wagon. The alley ended on Cottonwood. To the right lay Elm. I tasted blood as I sucked my lip.

I stepped on the sidewalk. A mare in a red business dress trotted by, nearly clipping my nose. The spell still worked. Avoiding traffic and succeeding, wobbly but upright, I got to Elm, a less busy cross-street. Delivery wagons rolled by, interspersed with bus-and-eight—each harnessed pony in metro-white and purple livery—that pulled dozens and dozens of salary ponies and their supplies to stores that would open within the hour. I was as far from my flat as I could get, though close to the university district. The last thing I wanted was show up and beg Sunset Shimmer for help, wrecked like this. I staggered by a cut fruit vendor and knocked over his chili powder shaker. I had to fight to keep the spell and not sneeze at the same time. The pony in white and blue pinstripes stared at the ground where the shaker had mysteriously leapt.

Finicky Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear was magnificent if you could maintain it. Maybe because my life depended on it, I succeeded.

I found my old alley, the one I'd spent part of spring in. I felt no nostalgia for it, or any contempt for the amalgamation of waxed canvas sheeting, both rigid and tarp-like, that surrounded a lean-to near the dead-end fence. I limped forward and smelled a pony who, like myself not long ago, rarely had the opportunity to bathe or the luxury of a nearby toilet.

Having had to live this way—no, correction, having chosen to live this way multiple times over the last three years—the smell didn't bother me, nor did I despise the blue pony who I saw sleeping away beside sacks of clothes and gathered recycling. He wasn't a symbol of decay. He was just another oppressed pony, whether by choice or circumstance, or by lack of a cutie mark that might lead him to be the oppressor.

He just was.

I took no satisfaction in what I needed to do. With the harsh shadows of the new day and the general disinclination of ponies to look down an alley that might harbor something uncomfortable, I let my spell sputter out. It took me a minute to spin up the numbers, and as soon as I knew I had it right, I stunned the poor stallion. He yelped, but with all the street noise echoing about, no pony heard.

I pushed into his spacious shelter. Pushing aside his bags of stuff, three stallions could fit without hooves or flank exposed. I piled the bags into a blind and pushed him with my nose in his noisome flank into a corner, into his blankets so he couldn't see me.

"I'm really sorry about this, but it will be worth your while. Do me the favor of not looking at me when the stun wears off and I'll soon be gone."

He jittered and jerked, but breathed normally with his head facing away. As I took off the cloak with my teeth, I did as I said I would. I reached into my saddlebag, found with my tongue the silver bit I had reserved for visiting One Fell Swoop, and spat it beside him with a clink he could mistake for naught but money. After a few minutes, I pulled the Grimoire costume off. I might not be able to launder out the blood matted into the black fabric, but I folded it into my saddlebags with the shoes. I sponged off the absurd cutie mark and rearranged my hair into pigtails. That took a long fifteen minutes. If the hue and cry reached out four blocks, I'd be caught cold.

That left me with a cut across my withers and a bloody lip, not to mention a startling limp that surely Detective Fellows had noted. Stupid me. What had possessed me to lecture him so he could get a better look at me, as if anything I might say could sway him. Stupid.

Stupid foal.

If only I had Dr. Flowing Waters to help me, but then I would have to get through the bailey gate and into the castle for that.

Or would I?

My bunk mate had stopped jerking and jittering. He did shiver, but he kept his head buried in his blanket. "Good colt. Keep looking away."

"Yes, ma'am," he said in a phlegmy voice.

I took my time, breathing deeply and regaining as much of my strength as I might under the circumstances, resting, as I did, on cobblestones. Eventually, I wasn't quite so dizzy and bone tired. With my head a bit clearer—it helped that I didn't move my leg—I intentionally remembered both massaging my leg from the inside and how the doctor had spoken to my wounds and told them to heal. I remembered the conversation as if it were branded into my memory.

Didn't mean I could do the trick, but I'd get caught if I limped out of here or if they found me. Best that I concentrate and work through it. I had impressed Dr. Flowing Waters with my awareness of the ebb and flow of his spells, and amazed myself that I'd gotten as far as I had.

Just work through it.

It took an hour, and fully half of it resting with my eyes closed, but I began to see detail in the numbers that came back when I moved the tissue in the sliced flesh on my upper back. Craning my neck, I saw the slit skin. It vibrated and I perceived a pattern of knitting that struck me as innate and right for the skin and vessels lying below it in layers. The feedback told me what was right, and I told it in return to become right again.

I persisted. It relented and did as bidden. The flesh heated up and became feverish. After a half-hour, the scabs worked loose and fell off, revealing skin that puckered a bit. It looked barely scarred; hidden in my fur, the wound became invisible.

I worked on my lip and—though it pulled up, making me sneer—ten minutes later it felt whole. I levitated the blood crust away.

My friend moved, rearranging himself but not looking. I said, "I've left you a silver bit. Please humor me for an hour longer."

"About an hour'll be as much as I can hold it."

I nodded, though he couldn't see, regarding my leg. Well, there was no choice and time was running out. I dove my magic into the wound. I had a torn ligament, which caused the limp and the majority of the pain, and a slight fracture that feedback told me was more painful than dangerous. Bruises peppered my upper leg, but wouldn't be visible under my fur except as puffiness, so I concentrated on the worst—the ligament.

I'd been tutored in anatomy, mostly so I could draw and paint. As a bodyguard, I learned first aid and how to tend traumatic injuries. This, however, was a totally different level of information—like being handed a broken machine and when you went to repair it, you found it came with a very detailed, easy to understand repair manualand theory of ops. It made sense: school taught that all ponies grew from a single cell. Ponies could heal. That meant that somewhere inside us all lay both the operations guide and a full schematic as well as the repair manual. I kept that in mind as I fathomed the correct pattern of the ligament and stretched tissues back into place as the cells raced frenetically to mend themselves because I simply told them they could and they should. This time the fever filled my whole body, and maybe I suffered a bit of delirium because I was dimly aware of an immense pain that caused me to shudder and moan, but I managed to continuously maintain the spell spinning as if it were as necessary as my heartbeat. I sweated buckets, but persisted.

I finished.

The homeless stallion shivered where he lay. Perhaps he had looked and seen me encased in a blue-green glow. Perhaps the sounds I emitted frightened him. Maybe he needed to go and thought his life depended on controlling his bladder. Nevertheless, he kept his eyes averted.

I took a deep breath and flexed my right rear leg.

Ah, there was pain. It felt stiff and bruised, but it moved and articulated correctly.

With a sigh, I stood and hit the tarp ceiling. I put my weight on my leg, then pushed down; the fracture twinged, but if I walked slowly, I need not limp. My frog felt numb from Streak's aggravation of my previous injury, but I had had over a year to learn how to deal with that, how to ensure I didn't drag the hoof. I combed my hair and used a square of cloth to dry the sweat. Nothing I could do about my horsey smell, though. I checked my flank for makeup smudges—and for a half expected cutie mark.

Thank Celestia, or rather all the forces of nature—it remained blank. I checked my ponytails; perfect.

I said, "I'm leaving. Give me five minutes, okay? I promise not to visit again if you don't talk about my stay."

"Yes, my lady."

I shuddered at the title, but knew he wasn't clairvoyant. I nosed myself from under the tarp into the alley. Fresh air!

At least a few hours had passed; I felt each one of the 26-plus hours I'd been awake. My tongue wanted to stick to the roof of my mouth; my eyes were dry from dehydration. I remembered a pond in Blueblood Park where I could drink.

At the end of the alley, ponies gathered, talking. The ears of one perked up and he looked my way. The mustard yellow stallion with a green mane and greener eyes wore a simple khaki shirt and tan tie. Though he wore neither a copper badge nor a uniform, EBI agent radiated from him like heat radiating off dark pavement at noon.

Chapter 13: Unintended Consequences

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Careful not to push my newly healed leg, I walked slowly to the end of the alley. I smiled at the undercover copper. He smiled at me, so I turned away from him and on to Elm.

He said, "You, filly. Wait."

I stopped and looked back. The ponies around him looked at me. Having seen where I'd come from, they'd (of course!) formed a low opinion of me, despite the glaringly fine quality of the flower-embroidered denim saddlebags I wore when attending Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. The stallion asked, "Did you see anypony suspicious around here?"

"I was sleeping with my uncle. I'm going to hustle something to eat, or go and graze, if that's okay with you." Grazing was eating some pony's lawn for free.

His cheek twitched. His nose, too, because I was downwind and smelled of recent sweat. Maybe I had met him, or one of his friends had rousted me once last spring.

He said, "You be careful." Translated: Don't steal anything because I'm watching.

"I will, sir," I said, turning away. "Thank you, sir."

It was a very long walk to my flat, but I spent it with a silly grin on my face. It might not be my special talent, but self-healing magic was very cool. To put a cherry on top of the ice cream dessert, when I entered my apartment I found a silk purse filled with silver bits tied with a blue thank you note thrown through my open window.

In a whisper I said, "Thank you, Running Mead. I guess my sleepwalking didn't botch the job after all." I pulled a bucket of water from the tap, put it by my hay stack, then collapsed in my bed and didn't wake until the next morning.

Walking to school, aching from every bruise and the greenstick fracture to my leg, I found myself walking up Elm. A glance showed nopony watching me and I kept my ears purposely perked so as not to look worried.

I did know why my subconscious sent me here.

A mare might have to do what a mare had to do, but I knew how I would have felt if somepony had done to me what I had done to the homeless stallion.

Angry.

Humiliated.

I would probably have blasted my oppressor, true, and I grinned at that, but the having happened would still have felt horrible. I still had nightmares of not being in control during the Hooflyn gang war and of the first time a crime boss' lieutenant implied he needed to ride me before he promoted me. Sure, living on the street or living on the edge opened oneself to being victimized, but it didn't make it right, nor make it right that I felt I had to victimize a nameless faceless pony, give him nightmares, and destroy whatever small illusion of safety and control he clung to.

What had happened to my dream of helping ponies? My dream of finding a way to make ponies safe from the oppression of their cutie marks?

So much for my principle of consent, for that matter.

Despite the heavy tomes I carried in my saddlebags, only the silver bits I carried along with them weighed me down. Running Mead's unexpected generosity constituted my rent, grocery money, and a book I had my eye on.

To Tartarus with it!

I could graze, had grazed numerous times, and I had slept huddled up against a wall in an icy rain. Likely, Running Mead would have another job before the week was through; under the circumstances, it felt necessary that I should eat my pride—with which my larder was full—and ask for work.

The purse contained twenty bits of silver. That I'd spent one on butter pastry, princess oats, and Trottingham sipping chocolate this dawn—reminiscing absurdly of home—soured my stomach.

What would the stallion do with such a windfall?

My first thought was he'd surely spend it on hard cider or buying product. For a moment I loathed myself. Yet, I'd eaten my supper beside a trash can fire or spent the night in a charity shelter beside plenty who self-knowinglyprofessed they'd do just that. There were those who had spent their last bit and lost their job, and sometimes their family, and had had no choice but the hard-scrabble street. Few cared so little for their high station in life that they left to choose the street, as I had, looking for meager opportunity because of overwhelming pride. Few had my salable skills and the fungible ethics necessary to make a life like mine work.

It didn't matter his situation, or if he would drink himself into a coma and die. I knew absolutely I would not feel better giving him the bits—but I'd feel worse if I didn't.

Before I reached the entrance to the alley, I slowed to listen to the clatter of my hooves on the sidewalk. Salary ponies and workers rushed by, on hoof, by taxi, and via a noisy bus. When a lull in the traffic presented itself, I slipped into the alley.

Empty.

As I approached the link fence at the dead-end, I smelled pine solution. Brushes had scoured away the grime of a long habitation leaving the bricks a brighter red than the rest of the alley. Bits of faded green shredded canvasfrom his broken-apart lean-to floated in puddles of water tainted with excrement.

Well, of course the agent had made the constabulary roust him. I had copped an attitude, implying I'd let him ride me by saying had I'd "slept" with him and by calling him "Uncle." Smelling of sweat, they might have thought we'd just finished. That his "niece" looked underage—by the design of my disguise, and that he refused to say anything about me because of my hard not-to-take-seriously threats—likely got him arrested.

I chose an appropriate curse of something I was ill-equipped as a mare to do to myself, and would be nasty if I could. The oath echoed in the isolated alley like an epithet.

I turned away.

I walked with my ears down to school. I didn't cry; hadn't—not that I'll admit anyway—since losing Sunburst. I had no idea why my eyes burned.

From comments my classmates whispered behind hooves, and a note I intercepted, I must have looked even more horrible than I felt all through the school day. I asked no questions and offered up the wrong spell when a teacher asked.

Unfortunately, somepony noticed. Perhaps it was the way I dragged my hoof as I walked?

Chapter 14: The Prodigy

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That somepony who noticed my malaise, of course, was the T.A. in my last class that day. I walked down the hall toward the exit, not even the exit that led to the university library but to home. Somepony walked beside me and, without a by-your-leave, she leaned ever so slightly into my right side. I saw yellow fur, and felt the warmth of her body.

It was cheeky.

It implied intimate familiarity.

It was embarrassing because it was a mare, though in Canterlot girlfriends seemed to be a lot more touchy-feely than ones in Baltimare, particularly where I'd lived where they might just as likely kiss you on both cheeks as knife you for such a prank.

With Sunset Shimmer, I wasn't convinced it wasn't a prank.

I cringed and gasped. I was a mass of bruises barely hidden by short fur on my right side from twisting mid-leap to avoid killing Fellows in the furniture warehouse.

She flinched and looked at me with uncharacteristic concern in her turquoise eyes. Her magic opened the door so we could walk out into the front quad. She asked, "Are you okay? You weren't your annoying self in class today."

When I didn't answer and disconsolately walked toward the street, she walked ahead of me. "Look at this! I'm beginning to see the numbers!"

In front of us, illusory fiery numbers played and spun like fanciful butterflies. She seemed inordinately pleased with herself and happy, both also uncharacteristic of her.

"Is that a joke?" I all but whispered and turned around.

"No. I know illusions aren't your forte, but this is a mirror of what I'm seeing in my head. I can see the numbers, though I will admit it's impossible to manipulate them—" Her grin went away and she sped up and got in front of me again, trotting backward. "You aren't well. What's the matter?"

"Soft. Nice. Concerned? What's the matter with you?"

"I found a little helper with my concentration. But that's me. What about you?" She stopped. "Dish."

Dish? I almost walked around her, but instead stopped and sighed. "I got beat up," I prevaricated, though it wasn't exactly a lie either, "and I hurt and I deserved it and I want to go home."

"Beat up? Deserved it? Nopony deserves to be beat up. It's that neighborhood you're living in on Lower West Gallop."

"Wait? You know where I—?"

"I've got means, and I suspect you do too. You need to move—"

I started blinking as an unfamiliar emotion welled up. She wasn't the only one acting uncharacteristically today. "I'm little better than a vagrant—"

"And I'm so much better?"

"Your arrow is aimed at the sun, mine at the dirt and the mud. I'm bad news with a bad attitude and you don't want to be associated with me."

A pink and an orange pony had stopped to look, attracted by my intemperate speech. Like I cared.

"Who's down in the dumps today?"

Prissy talk? Seriously? I wanted to kick her, which was an improvement in my mood. I ground my teeth and glared.

"Well!" she said, pulling her head back in mock effrontery. "I do want to associate with you. You're a patient teacher, you take crap from nopony, and you're magically talented. That's good in my book. What I don't understand is how you got beat up."

"Even you beat me up."

She huffed dramatically. "I remember it differently. Yeah, I challenged you, but your injuries were entirely self-inflicted."

Indeed, the doubled-star marks from the practicum where I'd burned off the fur in the backfire of trying not to kill her were still visible. "There are parallels," I admitted.

"So you weren't beat up?"

"I am beat up." Absolutely true.

Two white unicorns under a tree and the old greens keeper with a straw in his mouth had joined into the audience. Sunset Shimmer dressing down a lower-classmare was always a spectacle. If she fought back, more the better.

I added, "If somepony reputedly quite talented herself would teach her supposedly magically talented student how to cancel a spell, she might have avoided some of it."

She swished her tail. "Heh heh." She didn't look all that contrite despite the faintest blush, but the dig hadn't succeeded in digging in, either. The sarcastic part of me wondered if she'd gotten a stallion to ride her last night.

I made to walk around her on the grass, but I had been standing long enough for the bruises to tighten up and I visibly winced. Sunset sidestepped into my path, looking concerned.

"You are hurt!" As I rolled my eyes, she leaned forward and examined my right hindquarters, even going so far as to blow air to ruffle my fur, though it would have been far more polite to use her magic. "Glimmer, you look like you were hit with a brick. You're all black and blue. You're lucky if something isn't broken."

"Something is," I whispered.

"That's enough. You are stupider than you look, and that's saying a lot. Follow me. Now!"

I knew where we were headed and complied. She muttered, "Perhaps I need to teach you judo, first."

After being tutored in defense as a young filly—learning how to fall, be thrown, and escape—I'd trained as a prizefighter. Turning an attacker's momentum against them had been a first lesson. Prizefighting had rules. The syndicate had subsequently taught me to fight dirty. Overly trained reflexes were my problem.

"You're probably not so much kicked as knocked over? Am I right?"

Of all the rest of the nattering she did along the way, the only thing I paid attention to was that she said that if I would be willing to take a roommate, she could find me a room for a gold bit and ten silver a month. That made me think of the nineteen bits of silver guilt that jingled in my saddlebags, essentially double the amount I made on most jobs. Yeah, ask me to sell off more of my little remaining soul, why don't you?

We found her bespectacled father in the hall having locked the door to his office. Sunset Shimmer said, "She's been beat up."

I added, "Sunset had nothing to do with it."

The frosted glass in the door rattled as he unlocked it. Sunset Shimmer politely stayed in the waiting room as the doctor turned on the lights and led me into an examination room. I levitated off my saddlebags and hopped on the table as he donned his head mirror.

He separated the fur and palpated areas, causing me to grimace. "I suppose I should have seen the other fellow?"

I giggled at his unintentional pun, but I went with it anyway, remembering Fellows hooves up, his stallion-parts exposed on the the sofa. "He was actually quite cute. The only thing I did to him was stun him to get away." And cut off part of his ear.

"He knocked you down and back. You've lost a bit of fur here. I'm surprised you're not cut up."

"I was."

He paused. His dark green eyes flicked to look into mine, then back to my rear haunches. He stepped back.

It took him about ten seconds and he spotted the healed injury across my withers. The scar was red, and obviously new. Thinking about it rationally, he had to realize it was long and deep enough to require stitches, not just glue, but was perfectly straight and perfectly thin and perfectly sealed. It had soaked my cape with blood.

Flowing Waters got a beatific smile on his face. "Which transform? You know how to use calculus with imaginary numbers?"

I shrugged, which hurt, and answered his questions. He nodded a lot, corrected some suppositions I didn't quite have right, and quizzed me until standing made my leg quiver.

He looked out the window at the late afternoon sun. In a low voice, he asked, "You performed this upon yourself?"

"Well, yeah."

"My, my." He tapped his hoof, as if trying to say something but not coming up with the right words. Finally, he stated, "You're something of a prodigy."

"What? 'Cause I could heal myself? It seemed straightforward when I tried hard enough."

He laughed briefly. "Straightforward? Easy? Young lady, I found those transforms in a book nopony took seriously for centuries. I had to track down the original book in the Star Swirl the Bearded Time Wing of the Canterlot library and convince the princess to even let me in there. You just watched me doing my magic and, with a few hints, figured it out yourself?"

With a little light reading. I shrugged, but something fearful grew in me.

"To top it all off, you performed the magic on yourself, first? I've never had the nerve to work on myself! It took a decade working on livestock before I used it on anypony, let alone Tia." He stared at my blank flank, obviously surprised to find it still blank. It was my silent wish that it would forever remain so. "Show me. Show me, I have to see it to believe it."

I shook down to my hooves, but his passion—better suited to a colt than a pony his age—blinded him. He glared at me. I complied nearly in shock, pushing my magic into my leg and harnessing it against the fracture in the bone. His eyes, magnified behind his bottle-bottom glasses, stared unfocused into my blue-green aura as he sampled my numbers.

"A green-stick fracture," we both said together. Our synchronicity changed my discomfort to wonder.

He had me lie down and together we healed the bone in my leg. About an hour later, we proceeded to treat my bruises, causing the damaged tissues to heal further than they had. The interstitial fluids could not be magicked, but he assured me that the bruises would disappear unnaturally rapidly. As for my withers, he gave me a tube of silver salve for my saddlebags and warned against sealing wounds without cleaning them first.

"Before you get too high on yourself, working on yourself ought to be a magnitude easier than working on another pony because of nervous system feedback; it's just that it takes an incredible amount of nerve to do that because…"

I filled in what I figured. "Because I could damage myself easily." That was the scary part I'd ignored.

"If you'd severed something, you could have bled internally, even fainted, unable to fix it."

He had a lot of fears about a process he'd never tried and learned. "I could have paralyzed myself, or—"

"Yes. This wasn't a good idea, you understand."

I nodded noncommittally.

"Well, that's settled. You're a third year student, right? Sunset Shimmer's teaching assistant assignment is third year."

"I'm rated at first to eighth year, depending on the subject, bumped up because of some exams Vice-headmare Ms Maple administered. I've had a lot of tutoring and—" I coughed. "—in-the-field experience before she admitted me."

"That explains the artificial postern in your right leg, doesn't it, and the nerve damage that requires you to wear a prosthesis in your hoof."

I blinked at him. He hadn't missed it, after all.

He said, "Your nose was broken at least twice, and you've got more than a dozen pressure-cut scars all over your body. Good doctors worked on you, but still..."

I almost laughed. Dr. Feels had also been a quack, as evidenced by her rubber duck cutie mark as well as her lack of accreditation, but somepony had to heal prizefighters that beat each other bloody considering the fights were technically illegal.

I stated, "I protect ponies. My job—"

"Protecting ponies? At your age?" He sounded shocked, but astounded as if he believed me.

"Was my job."

"That you were even younger makes it better?" He pointed at my postern.

I took a deep breath and let it out. If I told him, he might be able to look up reports of the incident and figure out who I was and that I'd protected Doña Carne Asada, but the witnesses were mostly syndicate mobsters and piecing it together would require work and believing hearsay. I sighed.

"A griffon dive-bombed us. I pushed away my employer and teleported myself and the griffon away. The magic I used to defeat the hen, blasted me into a bookcase and broke the bone in half. I saved my employer, and she saved me. Said I died twice from blood loss, but how could that be because I'm here, I don't know?" I reiterated, "I save ponies."

He murmured something that sounded like army?, but my ears swiveled his way too late. "Well, that's something I have to tell Princess Celestia about—"

"Uh, please don't."

"A prodigy like you needs to be fast-tracked into university study. You require senior classwork at very least."

"I—I can't keep up in half my studies."

"Let me guess. History, geography, and literature?"

I nodded. "History is the worst."

"Equestria needs its brightest minds, now. Your body alone screams you've got talents that are sorely needed. There is something known as 'trailing studies' and 'assigned tutors.' Your school's motto recently changed to 'Equestria Needs Unicorns.' You may not know this, but there is a silent war going on. Incursions by magical beasts, and a few neighbors needing to be discouraged from raising armies."

I blinked, then understood. He believed I could protect ponies, and I realized I had told my story with pride. Spies. Special operatives. All needed. "Both my father and mother were killed in that... I actually know, though I—I don't think I understand."

"Princess Celestia took both Sunset Shimmer and her rival as protégés from modest backgrounds and is training them for a reason. Her school finds the best. There is a need, and besides which, you sound like you wouldn't mind. I can sense a greedy part in you when it comes to magic. It would mean access to restricted archives and rare objects."

Ohhh. Bad colt! Offering the foal candy, and me a sugar addict.

Actually, I did mind being drafted. That seemed to be the one constant in my life. Being drafted. Being honed into somepony's razor-sharp tool. I had no idea who the real me was!

So, it was a secret little war that had taken my parents' lives and made them heroes and left me an orphan of elevated means I had no use for. "I don't come from a modest background," I said. "Though I would like more challenging magic classes, I don't want—" Celestia to notice me. "—to bother Princess Celestia—"

"Too late. You no longer have a choice."

I never did. Never had. Probably never would.

Still, the idea of getting into the university much sooner worked for me, if I could manage the fallout.

Princess Celestia. I did not like her. I could not meet her as she might recognize me.

I didn't know if he took my wheedling seriously, to keep my scholastic "promotion" anonymous for a while—and how embarrassing I'd find it... and all the other spaghetti I threw at the wall. At some level, I think he got that I had to want to cooperate.

I hoped.

I would rather learn all the things I needed to learn sooner than later, because sooner or later my job with Running Mead would kill me. Better that I quickly wrung dry what Canterlot provided and leave alive.

In any case, this quashed any thought I had of leaving Canterlot any time soon. I had to stay, even if I was forced to work twice as hard at my "job."

To my chagrin, I would get an interesting blue note that night.

But, before I left and before an oddly mellow Sunset Shimmer took me to a feel-better dinner at the Hey Burger!and didn't drink at all—before all that, the doctor said as he locked up his office, "If you follow a medical track... Realize that I am an old stallion but Princess Celestia will out-live us both. I can't retire because nopony can replace me, except—maybe you could."

A new dream. I could see me doing that and loving it. Tears began to form in my eyes, though. They stung. They burned.

Such a heartless thing he'd said, gifting a momentarily credulous filly a hollowed-out dream.

Would the princess want a criminal as her personal physician? Even were her physician a member of the peerage and the daughter of Heroes of Equestria?

I knew the answer. It was an emphatic, "No."

Chapter 15: Exam

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Three days later, I knew I would be up most of the night on a job. Sunset Shimmer had also presented me with a late afternoon exam appointment on the same day, on the second floor of the university's Luna Tower. I noted the red and gold wax royal seal. The curlicue signature confirmed it had been penned by the school's headmare herself, Princess Celestia. I had regarded it with trepidation, but at least it wasn't a personal interview. I would have declined that. She didn't know my true name. In any case, I'd also taken my placement exam for Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns in the obviously repaired white spire and knew what to expect.

So, I slept in and skipped all my classes.

I levitated an insulated glass bottle of strong black tea made syrupy with sugar as I trotted up to the round white brick tower with its new copper conical roof. What interested me most was the line of crushed boulders that filled the chasm that the runt had opened during the magic storm she had "unleashed" during her examination. I scratched my nose with the bottom of the bottle, sighting down the straight line fault. It ran through an enormous gnarled oak that had been split in two, both edges burnt. With a shock, I realized that a chrysanthemum garden was surrounded by the foundation of a destroyed building, the entrance and egress being the fault line. By some miracle, the chasm followed the path of least resistance down Alicorn Way and off the cliff a few miles away. The catastrophe must have been the talk of the town.

Many of the travertine blocks in the tower looked a bit whiter and more precisely cut than the others. The ragged line ran from foundation to roof. Sunset Shimmer insisted that Princess Celestia herself had intervened; likely the tower would have collapsed into the Regents Building had she not.

And this had happened... I frowned. I was going to have to check the date. It was about the time Sunburst got his cutie mark—and I didn't.

I spilled the remaining tea in a long brown fan across the obscene line of rocks in disgust, my face afrown. Too many bad memories.

"Well!" I took a deep breath. That was the past. Today, I was rested and wired on primo black tea and twenty teaspoons of sugar. "All I have to do is unleash a storm of magic!"

I found myself alone in the auditorium. There had been five other applicants the last time. The four proctors, the same four as before, presented me with a blackboard, a piece of chalk, and math problems to work out. I'd have just treated the math problems like magic and solved them in my head, just providing only the answers directly from my horn, but this time they told me to write them out so that they could see my reasoning. They quizzed me on potions, physics, chemistry, violation physics, and history. I only sweated the history as the proctors scribbled notes on clipboards.

When I finished, I expected a drill of some common spells, just like they had asked the five of us taking the test the last time I'd been here. Instead, the proctors climbed the steps to the fifth row of desks and took a seat. The yellow one with the greyed pink curly mane said in a Hooflyn accent, "Impress us with your magic, Dearie."

The brown-maned grey stallion said, "Chop chop, we don't have all day!" He said it in a way that implied that somepony, perhaps the princess herself, had arranged this command performance, but he wasn't impressed. In fact, now that I had time to think about it, I had registered a hint of resentment in all the proctors' voices, and not just because they had had to stay after the school day to administer an ad hoc exam.

I felt a smile grow on my face that masked the outrage in my heart. You are so on!

I could surely impress them by cutting through the side of the building with a pure force spell, or by triggering my Barthemule transform spell that would upend the blackboard and break the bolts holding down the first row of desks—though really, that spell was still a work in progress.

My most impressive spells were battle magic; they'd ensure I'd be expelled, likely as not. Impress them, they said? My smile became feral; I returned their bored looks with a fanatical glare. Meanwhile, I luxuriated in spell prep I never had time for in battle. One of them, a manila-colored mare with a dirty brown razor cut mane repeatedly cleared her throat. Despite the discomfort starting to register on their faces, three of the four started scribbling notes when nothing happened.

I cast Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear.

Risky?

Yes, because I had to maintain hyperawareness against very observant ponies, but if I couldn't concentrate now, perhaps I didn't belong here anyway. Always test your limits!

The blue stallion with the white hair stood instantly, knocking his desk into his seat-mate to the right with a wooden clack. His seat-mate clapped a hoof atop her clipboard before it fell. The manila pony whinnied when she looked to find me gone. Pink Curly Top said drolly, "A silent teleport? Might be considered impressive. Do hope she comes back soon." When a few seconds passed, they scanned the auditorium only to conclude erroneously that they were alone.

The blue stallion, the eldest, asked, "How long do we wait?"

The dirty brown razor-cut brunette sneered. "The princess will insist we give her the standard five minutes. Shrinking Violet has used a minute of that so far. Right?"

The others nickered agreement as I made my way up to the fourth row of seats, just as the blue stallion put down his clipboard at the front edge of his desk. I grabbed it with my teeth and slid it forward so it tumbled behind the desk beside me. I lightly kicked it so it slid three seats over and tumbled over the edge and down one more row.

Dirty Brown chuckled. "Your levitation getting a bit shaky there, Eye Dropper?"

I sensed Levitate probe out, but as an added bonus, since I was between him and the clipboard and the spell prevented him from looking at me, he couldn't grab the thing. He chuckled without amusement and trotted over to fetch it.

I stepped over the chair back and gingerly slid into his seat. His pen rested in the slot routed out of the wood... I looked to Curly Pink on my right and Dirty Brown on my left. They'd given me good marks in everything but history. No surprise there. Dirty Brown watched Eye Dropper's progress, so I scooped up Eye Dropper's pen with my lips and positioned it with my tongue between my teeth. I'd learned to write like an earth pony, and had done so until I was four. I could still print passably. I drew an A+ next to my practical score.

Eye Dropper levitated his clipboard before him and was at the start of the fifth row. I hurriedly put the pen down, but missed the pencil holder. It rolled.

I flinched out of the way, standing, but somehow not striking the desk.

Curly snickered. "I think gravity is your enemy, today." Though she unconsciously had to lean forward to see around me, she added, "I wonder where Starlight Glimmer went?"

"Two more minutes," the grey-furred stallion at the end said. He adjusted his bow tie as I gingerly stepped to the sixth row, brushing the dirty brown mare's mane with my tail in the process. She brushed it back in place as the grey stallion also straightened his green pinstripe jacket.

I stood there, heart beating rapidly, perspiring copiously, working to keep the numbers marshaled as I kept track of every movement 360º around me, renewing the slippery-eel of a spell, and trying not to grin so hard I lost it. Watching Dirty Brown readjust her nerd haircut gave me an idea. I leaned over and blew lightly into her ear.

Her ear flicked.

I waited a few beats and blew again, a bit harder.

"Eye Dropper!" she cried, ears down, chocolate brown eyes infuriated. She shoved her face into his space and he jerked.

He shook his head, startled, and looked into her glare. "What?"

"You—" She coughed and blushed slightly. "Never mind." Under her breath, I barely heard, "You're smelling horsey today."

I sniffed at my upper foreleg. Right. My spell didn't include a Don't Smell clause.

Curly spoke up. "I don't know about you, but this tactic of hers isn't working for me. Her scores are good, except where Her Majesty advised us, but this 'shrinking violet' routine is a bright red zero as far as I'm concerned. She's a first year taking, what, third through seventh year coursework? Now she has the hubris to ask for advanced placement as a senior so she can attend university part time? Not on my watch."

I sat to her right, dripping-sweat splat-splatting on the maple desktop; thankfully nopony was looking there. As she spoke, she gestured with her pen suspended in her light pink magic. I followed the trajectory with my eyes, like a frog following a fly buzzing excitedly around a rotting plate of honeyed fruit. I moved my head, trying to match its path, my mouth open. Not so easy a task when you've got a cloud of numbers spinning in your head, obscuring your vision—numbers from equations you absolutely had to keep balanced.

I was having fun.

Chomp!

I had to wrench it from her magic, causing the nib to stab my tongue, leaving a bitter taste of ink mixing with blood, but though she noticed immediately and she looked me in the eye, her face remained blank with surprise. She didn't see me, or the pen. I concentrated beyond the pain; the pain was nothing compared to my fight with Fellows on the catwalk.

She continued to look right through me. Her mind didn't even register that I stood between her and the loudly ticking wall clock. In a hideous whine, she turned to Eye Dropper and said, "I told you to stop with the practical jokes!"

"What? I did not! Did you see a magical aura, Clear? Come on. You dropped it."

"Whatever," Dirty Brown said, exasperated. "That's five minutes. Let's fail her and go home."

I prepared a quick draw teleport spell, causing Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear to spin out of balance. I stood at the same time, pushing the desk I sat in aside so that it crashed loudly into the next one.

Around the pen still jammed in my mouth, I said, "I fink I fassed."

As Professor Clear looked in horror, I spat her pen onto the desk, where it bounced and rolled to the edge and dropped to her hooves. They all stood with equal lack of grace, and looked as if they stared at a ghost. Clipboards scattered. Pens dropped to the ground.

"I think I passed." I stuck out my tongue to confirm that it was now colored blue. "And I certainly didn't request advanced placement. I was given no choice but to accept it. Of course, you could make my life easier and fail me, but what would the princess say?"

"Watch your tongue," the grey-furred proctor at the end warned.

I complied, sticking my tongue out again, looking at it. Keeping it out, I said with distorted words, "Is ink poisonous? Professor Clear kind of stabbed me." I looked up.

My clowning got Dirty Brown over her shock faster than the rest. With a dawning smile, she said, "You were there the whole five minutes? One illusion spell cast continuously for five minutes?"

Wasn't the sweat lathering me obvious? Somepony had once told me I could be the perfect assassin, though my magic had demonstrated the idea was impracticable because it wouldn't let me hurt ponies offensively.

I teleported behind her on the sixth row and said, "Yes," then immediately used a quick draw to teleport to the fourth row in front of her, just to make the point that I was the highest level unicorn in the room. I had to step forward because my second spell was off-target by a half step, a decent quick draw margin of error. I pointed with my nose. "Look at your clipboard. You've already given me an A+." She looked down and gasped as I amended, "Well, okay, I wrote it in for you, but I was pretty sure you would agree."

"Where did you learn that. What was it?"

"Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear. I got it from Arches Bald's Compendium of Neat Unusual Illusions. His recursive math gave me headaches, but I found one spell I thought might be practical so I stretched myself, rewrote his lame mnemonic poetry, and worked hard to master it..."

The interview lasted another hour, and even then the excited unicorns were loathe to let me go. I showed them the spell in my personal notebook, the math I used to simplify it (without mentioning the alicorn I'd stolen it from), and all my margin notes in my copy of Marlin's on how I made it accessible. I made the mistake of then showing them my work up of Teleport.

Okay, the attention felt very nice.

Yeah, I passed, but it made me late for my job. Some kind of guard duty, I'd been advised. I trotted out the instant they gave me leave.

Chapter 16: Night Hauler

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5011Camel Caravan turned out to be one of the roads terraced into the mountainside, in an area called Canterlot Heights. You could tell by the lamplighter, dressed in a smart white jacket with black piping who made his rounds in the dusk, that the neighborhood was actually a good part of town, which made me suspicious about whether "guard duty" might be some strange euphemism for something I would refuse to do, like kidnapping. The suburban vibe made me feel exposed and unwilling to change into Grimoire, lest Fellows had posted a description of me with the local constabularies.

My hooves echoed on well-maintained even cobblestones as I entered a strip of old houses, painted in greens, blues, and yellows, and converted to businesses each with signs swinging on posts or displayed in front windows. A common lawn area had been paved with gravel to provide parking for wagons. A plebeian-groomed Streak flew from a doorway to a large deep carryall wagon. It might have been used for carting ore had it had rail wheels instead of oddly small cart wheels that allowed it to roll on the street. It stood before a white-washed establishment with the right address. She hovered with a dozen paper-wrapped packages tied with string, and carefully deposited them in the wagon before looking my direction. Innocuously enough, she said, "Hi."

Plenty of other ponies trotted by; many were salaryponies in suits with loosened ties returning home, but I saw a mother pulling a fancy blue wagonette with young foals in billed caps and blue and gold sports uniforms. Canterlot Heights was a nice neighborhood.

I approached and gazed into the wagon.

It contained few packages for its size, and a number of bales of leaves and sticks. I smelled something faintly like rosemary, maybe something like burnt cinnamon. A few crates lay pushed up in a corner, beside clay canisters in a wine carrier box, each labeled with names I didn't recognize. I did recognize some cut flowers wrapped with wet paper from my potions class: Hearts Desire. None of it looked illegal, though hearts was particularly rare.

The sign in the window read, Prime Number, Herbalist.

Streak said to me, "I knew you'd be a pal and help out."

I stood blinking as an old pink mare with a white mane and very blue rheumy eyes walked out with vials of colored liquid. Extracts of some kind. She placed the basket containing them in the wagon and accepted a purse in return. She took out some glasses and checked the contents. "Exactly right to the last copper bit, child. Next time the clinic needs supplies, be sure to tell me a week ahead so I can get everything you asked for."

"I will Miss Number."

She laughed. As she climbed the steps to her porch, I whispered to Streak, "What's this all about?"

Streak considered me with her indigo eyes. Her mane was brushed back such that the streaks blended. Without her jewelry, she looked maybe twenty and possibly respectable, though not quite middle-class. Streak answered loudly enough that the herbalist could hear from where she waved at us, "I asked for a favor, girl, and you're it. Go ahead. Hitch up."

My mouth dropped open. "What?"

"Hitch up. You're being paid for this. Besides which, have you ever seen a pegasus pulling a wagon down the street?"

I might have, but certainly not in Canterlot where there were few feathered ponies. With my withers still tender, I didn't like the idea, but as I examined the half-barrel hitch, I saw plush padding and sewn felt that would prevent chaffing. I'd certainly pulled my share of wagons in the last three years; before that, ponies had pulled for me.

I nosed under it, and with Streak alternately flying above and trotting beside me, we took the meandering road down the mountain until it met up with Ponyville Way. We followed it through the diminishing business traffic and soon past ponies on their way for a night on the town. We continued all the way down to Cliffside, and when we turned onto the Strand, Streak directed me onto a dirt path into Palisade Park, a green belt a number of miles long with scattered trees. It was thirty pony lengths to the fence that guarded the precipice. After five more minutes, we stopped at a section of fence where the trees colluded to hide the street from view.

A cool breeze blew up from a half-mile below. Southeast, I could see the lights of Ponyville, and beside it a dark gulf which had to be the dense forest beside which the hamlet had been founded. Stars filled the sky and twinkled, magnificent with the lights of the city masked behind us. Meanwhile, Streak dug out a lantern with a large bobèche designed to be bitten to allow earth and pegasus ponies to carry it, hung it on a peg, and flicked her head. A match hissed into spitting flame. I smelled kerosene, sulfur, and soot. As she repositioned it by hovering over the wagon to an interior peg, I offered no assistance. There were certain things you didn't offer the other tribes unless asked, or unless you wanted to insult a pony.

"It's kind of romantic," I said drolly.

"Not my type," she retorted with a snort.

"But that isn't why we're here?"

"No, Grimoire," she said, alighting in the wagon and digging something out. "Time ta change places."

"I thought you didn't pull!?"

"Ya believe everything I say? I guess you're dumber than you look. T'was for the herbalist's benefit. Boss'll probably use her again. Anyway. Switch out."

She fluttered down beside me with an elaborate pile of lustrous black gum straps, strengthened with twine, and matching traces. As I unharnessed myself, she brought out a large collar with a cushy, though sweat-stained, red fabric lining. With deft use of the frogs of her hooves and her teeth, she threaded the parts together with ingenious metal rings. She removed the harness on the wagon, stowing it, and attached her tack to the wagon poles. Soon she shrugged herself into the gear, which by stretching her neck, she wrapped around her loins, docking a loop under her tail. She cinched a girth under her forelegs that, when connected to the pulling collar, left her wings unencumbered. Even the eight livery stallions pulling metro buses wore less complex tack.

After she pulled the last lead tight with her teeth, she said, "Climb in."

I had been so fascinated by the process, I blinked at what seemed a non sequitur. With my forelegs over the railing, I stopped and said, "You know, I can walk beside you."

She had a delicate sweet laugh for a street punk. "No you can't. Get in. Time's a-wastin'."

I did and she immediately pulled, jerking the wagon so I had to squirm to fight for balance as she went to a trot and then to a canter. On the dirt, albeit straight, road, this caused the wagon with its tiny wheels to bump and sway precariously. I put my forelegs over the rail to steady myself, but my protest got stuck in my throat. And me with no teleport spell queued...

Streak galloped toward the fence, directly at Ponyville—five leagues distant and over a tenth-league straight down.

Chapter 17: Night Flight

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I think I screamed as Streak leaped over the fence, throwing herself and the wagon into the air. Heart racing, frightened beyond speech, my terrified rabbit brain took control. Fortunately, I didn't remain spooked for long. I neither peed myself nor bucked; I can't imagine how. A sudden sweat cooled me sufficiently, in the on-rushing wind, that I began to shiver.

The wagon remained aloft as Streak flapped her magnificent wings of white-peppered blue feathers, flapping strenuously, cord-like muscles pulling grand downstrokes, literally reaching into the air and heaving us upward. Even fully extended, her wings were each barely a pony-length.

Now, more than ever, I realized how ridiculously inadequate the pegasus physique really was. Even a rudimentary knowledge of physics provided enough to understand that you just could not scale up a sparrow to pony size without making its wings disproportionately larger to its body, and there was that bit that a pony tail couldn't function as a rudder. As she gained altitude, she continued galloping in the air.

My horn insisted on handing me the calculations about how truly long pegasus wings needed to be, and insisted that even if Streak's wings were that long, the wagon would have fallen and ripped itself free from her harness.

That manifestly had not happened, of course. Streak laughed her flank off.

"You— You— punk!"

"Flattery will get you everywhere!" She snickered so hard, she snorted.

With my forelegs clamped tightly on the wagon rail, I pulled my eyes from Streak's athletic form to the world below. Princess Celestia had only just raised the moon; its wane light cast blue shadows across the landscape, emphasizing the roll of the land and making lone trees and farm buildings stand out on the Ponyville plain. I quickly realized that the dozen star-bright dots spread along a line toward Ponyville moved, and if I squinted, I could make out ant-sized ponies pulling wagons. As I calmed down and my eyes adjusted more, I could see apple orchards and orange groves below, the rows making a repeating pattern almost like a vibration in a glass of water as we glided downward. I saw a patchwork quilt of other agriculture, as well as a quarry with tailing hills beside it. Waves on the various lakes sparkled and glittered, as did the tributary flowing through Ponyville from its source at the Canterlot Cataract. It looked like stars fallen to earth huddling together.

"You're no longer a virgin."

Still collecting my wits, I blushed despite the double-entendre being old history in all senses. Streak smiled back at me. She held her wings rigidly outstretched with the vibrating feathers of her right wing up and her left wing down.

"Wasn't one," I responded, as the realization dawned on me of how she ruddered. We banked in a gradual downward spiral.

"If ya say so." She faced forward. Speaking loudly so I could hear, she added, "Welcome to my world, Grimoire. This is the one thing that unicorns can't do."

"I know one that can."

She laughed. "Her Highness is an alicorn, not a unicorn."

I meant Sunburst. My soulmate. My one-time best friend. "I had an— acquaintance. I knew him when we were foals. I saw him self-levitate." The memory sucked the enthusiasm for flying right out of me. I suddenly felt the wind in my eyes drying them out, while causing a faint annoying whistle from the forward rail as we flew.

"Not the same experience, I'll bet."

"I wouldn't know. He left me."

"Jilted. Always sad."

I looked over the rail, gazing at the great forest that ran west and south of Ponyville. The irregular height of the trees, and the gorge that ran through it heading south, lent it the visual texture of a swatch of blue velvet with a rip down the center. Beautiful. I suddenly missed the trees of the forest surrounding Sire's Hollow. "I'm going to figure out that spell one day."

"I can always use a flying buddy. But, beware, I'm one of the strongest flyers around. Only the very strongest flyers can pull a rig like this. I'd be able to handle this tub with a load of iron ore."

Boasts much? "I forgot that pegasi could fly things other than what they carried on their body." I'd flown in air taxis in Las Pegasus, but they were enclosed carriages designed not to spook unicorn and earth pony fares.

"How'd ya expect we got things up to Vanhoover or the nomad city?"

Cloudsdale, I presumed.

"—Hauling is the one thing I'm special at. I volunteer for these missions whenever I can get them."

I gasped. "Your cutie mark is a yoke!" A donut with ball-head spikes.

"Yah. I take it back, you're not so dumb—just a bit slow. Average for a unicorn. A night flight is faster and safer than having an earth pony making the delivery. Less chance of running into a copperhead returning to Canterlot. Go ahead and change; I know you like to get into cos— uniform before a job. I haven't spotted our contact, yet, so we've five minutes at least."

I put all fours on the bed of the wagon. Though "the rig" was as firm a platform as the ground, I felt unbalanced. I took out my supplies, which I sorted in the lamplight.

I asked, "Am I scaring some neigh-do-well or deadbeat? Hey, don't look!"

I found her staring as I levitated my makeup compact, brush, and hairspray. I still didn't know where the convention of being embarrassed when somepony watched you came from.

She displayed a contrite expression that nonetheless included a smile and the tip of her tongue sticking out. I looked into her eyes and realized she wore brass-rimmed goggles. I glared.

"Sorry! No, I didn't lie about guard duty, a? We meet in the Everfree Forest and it's full of monsters that'd be as happy to eat ya as see ya."

"Couldn't arrange a safer venue?"

"It's complicated. You'll see."

I became Grimoire on the outside, but didn't don the persona. Instead I watched the landscape wheel ever so closer below. When it finally grew monotonous, I looked at Streak, or more accurately at her withers and saddle area, where the strong muscles bunching there almost caused a hump where her wings connected to her torso. So unpony-like and mechanically amazing.

I knew that if Streak looked back, my stare would be a magnitude more rude than hers had been moments ago. Still, she didn't. I gasped when she fluttered a bit, gaining altitude and making a course correction. It wasn't her beauty, though I'd never look at her the same again, or the broken physics of pegasus flight.

No. I sensed a disturbance in the magic pulse, like a unicorn preparing a spell. There wasn't an aura.

There wasn't an aura!

No way wasn't there magic here! Logic dictated I was right. Reflexively, I cast the healing spell, modulating the Barthemule mathematics to project my aura into her spine. I had to refine the imaginary axis over and over—the tardiness of our Everfree contact helped in that—until I morphed the spell as if I were massaging her muscles. Perhaps because she ached and I suddenly sensed her fatigue and a buildup of lactic acid, or perhaps mere persistence, but my consciousness finally slipped into her.

A new red world of liquid, bone, and electrical impulse opened to my inner eye. I could taste lemon-sour fatigue and feel overtaxed fibers become angry and grimace in a meaty fashion. I smelled the scent of a lightning storm; saw a storm of pulses; blue flashing that ricocheted through channels that disappeared into the distance leagues away. So much moved! Sounds of rivers flowing and clay being roughly molded warred for my attention—blood pumping and joints moving, possibly.

I saw more.

At first it was hard to detect: a glowing mist, but once I caught a glimpse, I could focus on it and see it flow like the tides from the Celestia Sea into Horseshoe Bay, forward, slow, back a bit, then forward again. Bioluminescent plankton acted like this: they lit as pressure waves glided through the water. Concentrating harder, I began to sense the particles that appeared, briefly danced and pirouetted, then vanished.

Numbers!

The mist was a magic aura, as the same color as Streak's blue eyes: a tamed, terrifically complex rivulet of the magic pulse. Soon I saw the flaming digits themselves; I worked to decipher their pattern, seeking the equation that underlaid their generation. The skeleton of a spell. I could easily get lost.

Perhaps I already had.

I pulled back, trying to stabilize my consciousness by concentrating on the massage suggestion that had gained me entrance inside her in the first place. The angry fibers told me how to push out the build up of fluids. I did as instructed.

It was already too late. Captured inside the sensual warmth, and ebb and flow of Streak's body, I lost all sense of self and could do nothing as my world ceased to exist.

Nor did I want to.

Chapter 18: A Pony of a Different Stripe

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"Grimoire! Grimoire!"

Everything shook and my right temple bashed into something hard. The side of the wagon. I shook myself awake to hear her shriek my name again.

"Yes! Yes, I hear you."

"Fell asleep, Sweet Celestia! Lack of attention span, Grimoire? Anyway, good. Grab hold. Landing here is always bumpy."

I reared and clipped my forelegs over the railing just in time to see us dip below the tree line and soar quickly above a grassy uneven meadow. The air howled around us. In the distance, I saw a lantern, waved in a circle.

Streak ruddered rapidly, flapped, and ruddered some more, causing us to sway and shimmy. Her feathers spread as she bled off our forward momentum.

Suddenly, it all made sense.

Wings were the horn of a pegasus. The internal structure, while inadequate for true flight, performed a queer, immensely complex variant of Levitate. No.

No-no-no!

The fields of force didn't fight against gravity, they nullified it. With hints of golden equations floating in my mind, my mind also gave it a name: Aerial Buoyancy. Magic.

It had to be. The magic flowed, not from Streak's non-existent horn, but from a bundle of nerves on her spine, then through her wings, and filled her feathers. A field of synchronicity spread out to everything attached to her body, its strength varying in proportion to the distance from her wings.

One spell. One awesome spell. Cast continuously. Performed mindbogglingly well.

I had memorized the sequence of numbers. I might yet create Pegasus Simulation one day.

Her wings flared, becoming a huge blue feathered fan.

The wagon dropped to the ground with a thump and a shimmy that tried to rearrange everything in the wagon, and would have succeeded with me had I not held on. Nevertheless, she was good. Nothing spilt, slid, or broke. She trotted the wagon to a stop.

She kept her wings flared, though she flexed them a bit.

"Well," she said, flapping a bit, "Nothing like a good flight. I haven't felt this good in days."

I knew why: In-flight massage service!.

Ahead, the lantern made a circle again, against the black line of the monolithic darkness of the Everfree Forest. I could not see who, or what, held the lantern.

"Get out," Streak said. "The ground's uneven and I'm going to have enough trouble pulling this the last half-mile."

I said, "I can help with that." I leaped out and landed on rocky soil, kicking away stones into the grass, and levitated one side of the wagon with a lurch off a rock. The whole wagon was heavier than my five pony weight limit.

"Don't. I know you're strong, but I would much rather you be ready to fight. I can pull."

I followed alongside her and began prepping quick draw force spells. "An ambush? Besides creatures, does the competition know what we're doing? Might there be a raiding party?"

She grunted, rolling the right wheel over a large rock. "I wish. Last time a manticore stalked us until I dive bombed him with rocks. There's also basilisks, spiders the size of a plate, house-sized timber-wolves, and cragadiles. Ya seen it in Monstertopia? It's probably here, a? That doesn't count plain creatures like puma or bear. Ya can see why I asked for you."

"I do," I said, shuddering. I felt my ears pivoting as I searched for what in this poor light I might not see.

Our steps thrashed loudly through the thigh-height wild barley. I lowered my head and ripped free a bite, then savored the nutty flavor as I watched the shadow ahead hang a glass globe lantern on an inverted crook staff. The form resolved into a pony shape, which further proved hard to decipher because the pony wore a dark brown full length cloak that even hid his, or her, tail. Coming closer, I could see a hint of glossiness: his hooves, since a mare's fur extended down to the base of her hoof and a stallion's didn't. At a distance of few yards, I became less certain. He seemed awfully small for a stallion.

A voice inside the hood said, "Since there are not one but two of you this night, I first wish to determine your demeanor and your might." I could not place the accent. It didn't sound Equestrian.

"Stop," Streak hissed at me. Louder, "It's me, Lady of Everfree. I have most everything ya requested last we met."

"You I can see, but heed my plea."

A she then. I whispered to Streak. "Does she always talk this way?"

She hissed back. "In terrible rhyme, yes. It breaks my head to think how she does it." Louder: "Lady, my friend will approach you slowly."

I complied. As I craned my neck and strained my eyes to see the face within the hood, it occurred to me I had my hood up and a ribbon keeping it in place. I shrugged, released the ribbon, and let the hood drop as I took a step, then a second.

I saw a hint of muzzle. Totally black! Was she a black beauty pony like my mother had been?

"All right raindrop, it's time to stop!"

I halted. She walked in a circle around me, keeping her distance. I could see into her hood and found the outlines of a face, painted white with stripes. As the light changed, I could see the form of her mane. It was spiked up in a perfect crest a hoof length in width and… half the black hair looked bleached to white stripes. Another thing...

I sensed magic.

She had no horn, which jibed with the sense of earth pony magic, or rather, potion magic—but something more, too. Like she had an invisible aura. What I knew for sure was she was likely armed with powders she could throw or vials she could crush at the first hint of attack, and something that might act as a ward, perhaps embedded in her cloak.

The Lady of Everfree stopped. The lantern light now entered her hood. Deep blue eyes regarded me. I saw an eyebrow go up before she said, "I sense a life of such great potential even the sun might find it consequential."

"Is that good?"

"Like the unknown seed, in the moment it is indeed."

The more I looked at her, the more I became certain she wasn't a pony. She reminded me of a breed that I'd read about, in passing in the days after I'd started pretending that Sunburst had left me to go to another continent. South of the deserts to which he'd have traveled lay rich savannas populated by… "You're a zebra."

The zebra laughed pronouncing the words, "Ha, ha." I guess that rhymed. She added, "By this we know a diva, for yes she can identify the zebra."

Streak said, "I didn't know."

"You didn't try to find out."

Her identity known, The Lady of Everfree used her mouth to remove her cloak and lay it across her back. Her mane, her face, and her body was white-striped over black fur. She even had a weird spiral cutie mark that looked more like a hieroglyph than a symbol. None of it was makeup. Reaching for her staff, she first said, "Imagine me as the parade's drummer and follow me Miss Dumb and Dumber."

Streak quipped, "And I thought she was being nice to you."

Oddly, I understood. She'd said I had potential, but considered it wasted. I shook my head, but some inspiration made me say, "These words that you submit make me blue, but I must admit that they are true."

"Hey!" Streak cried. "Don't you dare start!"

The Lady had the staff crosswise in her mouth, the lantern hanging to the left; she laughed around it. I took our lantern and hung it on a peg on the right of the wagon. We followed along a trail used often enough that it was almost a path. It had no ruts, so it wasn't a road per se. We left the moonlight behind.

Trees surrounded us. None grew straight. Most were bowed or bent, and quite a few looked gnarled, some like twisted wooden animals or ponies. Birds hooted in the night, and something went tick-tick-tick buzz. Every so often, something would skitter through the underbrush, but never showed itself. Here and there shrubs and vines strangled a trunk or filled in between the trees until we walked by a solid wall of thorns and leaves. At lesser intervals, burnt trunks made way for a pocket meadow, probably thanks to a lightning strike. We strode into the fourth one of these we encountered, and there I spotted a light in the distance, which might have been a house—not a very well made house, considering it had windows at random heights.

The Lady tilted her head and planted her staff firmly in the ground. The beads at the end rattled against the lantern. She turned and pointed with a hoof at a field of blue flowers through which the path meandered. "Beware you pony folk, these blue flowers are not a joke."

Streak said, sotto voce, "Trust me, they aren't. Don't touch."

"Got it."

A few steps away, the zebra reached for a big bush of thorns and leaves with her mouth. I cringed, but she grabbed hold of a wooden lattice and pulled away a blind that hid a two-wheeled cart. Streak pulled up to it so she could glance inside. I didn't need to. I could tell by the smell; this was where Running Mead got the product he sold.

Over the next half hour, we sorted the packages between the vehicles until the two of them agreed it was a fair trade. The zebra actually had more product than we had herbs to trade for.

I asked, "What do you do with this stuff? You seem pretty isolated."

"I sometimes make a pill and work to cure an ill. When something happens quite tragic, I often mix up something that's magic. Sadly my life has a hitch; these Ponyville folk think me a witch."

"No accounting for some ponies. You're a doctor?"

"It might be clearer that spirits make me a healer."

I glanced over at Streak who had a pencil grasped in her lips and was checking off things on a pad of paper. I asked quietly, "Do you know what these herbs you gave us are for?"

"I am not amused that these substances are abused, but in my land these plants are not banned. We treasure their merit to commune with a spirit. Of this I don't confuse, in this matter you don't approve."

I nodded. "I don't sell product, but I understand a mare must do—"

"—what a mare must do," the zebra concurred with a sigh, completing what for her was a good-enough rhyme.

A roar sounded near the tree line at the edge of the clearing.

Chapter 19: Accounting for Wrong Decisions

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The roar sounded hungry.

The predator-aware rabbit brain in the three of us took notice; Streak's pencil went flying into the blue leaves as the three of us jerked our head to peer in the same direction.

It took five heart beats before I picked out a green-looking branch as thick as my leg. I cast Force, sending a bolt that boiled the sap where it struck the tree, exploding the branch with a bang. Before the splinters peppered the ground above where the severed branch landed, something enormous crashed through brittle brush and bounded away.

"That monster certainly understands its blunder, thanks to the crack of your merciful thunder.

The zebra healer accompanied us down another path. Though longer, it ended in fallow fields not far from Ponyville Way. We picked our way through loose dirt to a flat, straight irrigation path.

It took twenty-five pony lengths for Streak to launch us into the air. I stood at the front of the wagon, the product in neat cereal box-sized bales shoved to the rear. I didn't want to be reeking of the fresh, incredibly fragrant weed.

With the wind in my face, as we crossed over the Everfree, I thought about the zebra's comments. Many ponies wasted their lives doing things they had to do, maybe searching for what they wanted to do—or being denied it.

Flowing Waters had offered me the moon, and today I had proven to myself at least that I would eventually fulfill the requirements. I just had to gain my bearings, not become overwhelmed, and learn not to faint doing it.

Easy peasy, right?

I had abandoned a life without want back home. Would a physician's life satisfy me? Perhaps a good question was why didn't my current life disgust me?

I had a sense that something fundamental was broken in our world and somehow I was destined to fix it. Vague. Too vague to pin a living on.

"Say, Streak, if air hauling is your special talent, why is it that you're a punk working as an errand filly for Running Mead?"

She looked back briefly, saying breathlessly, "Spear me through the heart, why don't you!" She flapped and lunged through the air, carrying us over the Ponyville plain.

Once we landed in Palisade Park, and she had a few minutes to cool down, we found a previously hidden tarp to tie down over the load. As Streak packed her tack away and restored the simple hitch, she asked, "Why do you want to know?"

I shrugged into the harness she held up with the bridge of her nose. "Because I think I know why I made all the wrong decisions I made and ended up here. I was wondering if you knew yours."

"You'd make a bad diplomat."

"Maybe." We plodded along a secluded path until the Strand ended, then along a service path as we left the Cliffside district. We'd soon be in the Lower. It seemed logical that the constabulary wouldn't expect product to be shipped in from the better parts of the city, so I wasn't worried. I was just as glad I wasn't the only pony wearing a cloak on this rather cool night.

"Well," Streak started with a sigh. "I'm nowhere as educated as you are. For a pony from my background, there aren't many options. Cleaning, cooking, postal service. But I found I had this talent. Hitch me to a wagon and I can haul anything, even jumbo loads, long distances. Not many ponies are stronger than me. Unfortunately, they're mostly stallions and they keep it that way. It'd have been better if I didn't have the silly cutie mark; maybe then I'd be happy being a drudge."

I nodded, agreeing more than I wanted to say, and she continued.

"But I can't be happy, and the stallions in Vanhoover won't hire me. They say I'll ruin things. In the nomad city, a guild runs the air service and they refuse to admit me. I come from Vanhoover, they say, as if that were a reason. The only wrong decision I made is not finding a way to be patient. Ya need plenty of gold bits to buy a moving van, the cargo blankets, and gear to pack and unpack stuff you haul. I need enough gear to credibly take on jobs hauling goods between customers and clients, or furniture between old and new homes, and I need bits to pay stallions to hustle the crates. That's the difference between a few years and a decade, and I can already feel I'm losing my edge. I'm going to have to compete for business. I must be able to haul the most and the fastest. Ten years from now, will I?"

I huffed. "You've got it together better than I do. I'm impressed."

"I've always thought you a snob, but coming from you, that's praise."

"You're welcome. For me, I've got plenty of avenues to follow, but I keep on taking detours. I got an offer to become a physician."

"A doctor, really?"

"Or I could fall back and go into town government."

"Riiight." She quieted. "Well, maybe. But with a criminal background?"

"Somebody has to catch me first, remember. I could remain a thug, but I am beginning to think there's no future in that."

She snorted. "But that's not it. None of it is your special talent."

No cutie mark.

Of course, she'd say that to a blank flank. I took a deep breath as she directed me off the service path, across the sidewalk and onto a northbound avenue.

I said, "There's the whimsical choice. I'm telling everypony that my boyfriend left to become a soldier of fortune overseas."

"At, what, sixteen?"

"A little younger. He's like you. His gift is special."

"But more in demand."

"Something like that. These last three years have taught me battle magic short of being a front line soldier. I could become a soldier of fortune—"

"—and find him? Nah, we both know that won't happen. Doubtless he's found an exotic foreign mare with long legs and twirly eyelashes and has fallen madly in love. Maybe even has a foal." She added, "He really did jilt you, didn't he?"

"That he did."

"Good riddance, a? I hope you find your own dream soon."

"I hope one day soon you leave Canterlot and I never see you again."

"You too." She stopped and lifted a hoof. I reached over and clopped mine against hers.

We unloaded the wagon in a roll-up garage, but as Streak was locking it up, Tailor appeared. He pointed to stairs that led to a second floor with a balcony and an apartment with a row of dark windows. I made note of the address and the street, and the placement of trash cans, lamp posts, and water plugs. I decided teleport spells were my best bet if anything were to go wrong.

Inside, lit only by the light of the street lamps coming through the open drapes, I saw a familiar silhouette on a shadowy sofa. Yellow magic levitated a squat glass with chunks of ice that clinked as he swirled the liquid.

Streak said, "I'll just be leaving."

Running Mead said, "Please stay. This concerns the three of you."

I said, "But mostly me."

He said, "For one so young, you are perceptive. I first wanted to congratulate you on your last job. You eliminated the irritation quite spectacularly. I couldn't be more pleased."

Everypony in the room understood the euphemism well. Streak, standing beside me, turned and looked at me, stepping back one step, obviously reevaluating our earlier conversation. I studiously held a flat expression. I had left Detective Fellows unharmed but for a cut ear and bruised dignity. With civilians entering the warehouse floor, and the police swarming around afterward, I doubted anything had happened to him. Whether for spotty news reporting, or intentional misinformation, Running Mead seemed to have a different idea of my last job's outcome. Since he hadn't asked for a report, I decided it best not to correct him.

If he was waiting for a thank you to his complement, he was going to wait a long time.

He swirled his drink and sipped it. "Remember that comedian you paid a call upon?"

"I thought my performance was top notch that night."

He put his drink down on a table. "And it was. Streak reported the whole thing."

She chuckled weakly. "I was positioned on the roof. Quite dramatic. Scared me, even."

Running Mead stood and paced in front of the sofa. After a few moments, he said, "The foal turned informant."

My whole body went cold, down to the frogs of my hooves. I knew where he was headed and didn't like it.

"I'm only effective at certain jobs."

"That means you failed with the comedian."

"You agreed sometimes it wouldn't work when you hired me, but it usually does. You wanted fewer incidents the constabulary might be interested in. I gave you that."

"But now the constabulary is interested. This time, you need to set an example for those who might think they can get away with unbecoming behavior toward their debt holders."

"There are certain things I won't do, Sir."

"Don't sir me. There's gold bits to be made this time. Plenty of them."

"I won't—"

"—dirty your hooves? Come on, Grimoire. There are certain things in life that if you do them once, they change you into something else. Your first stallion, for instance."

"Been there, done that."

He picked up the drink, swirling it. "It's the same when you eliminate a pony. You may as well learn and improve your skills."

"I— No."

"'No' isn't an answer, Grimoire. You do understand you have no choice. You come from a town outside Horseshoe Bay? You're friends with Sunset Shimmer, Princess Celestia's protégé. You were sighted leaving the Quill and Sofa Factory Outlet Store. Do I have to paint it out for you?"

"I won't do it."

He tapped the side of his head with his hoof. He suddenly slugged down his drink and set it on the table, causing the ice to circle in the glass. As he approached me, I smelled the whisky on his breath. "Well, I'm just going to have to convince you, aren't I…?"

Chapter 20: Fright Night

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It felt like one of those dreams where you become aware that you were dreaming and you feel like you've woken up. You get to make choices, talk, do things but realize you can't move and you have no control, and realize that you've woken up in another dream. You find yourself somewhere where you don't belong. And you recognize it's not where you want to be.

And then you see there's blood.

A smear crossed two kitchen floor cabinets and the the face of the stove, making a downward arc to a shattered soup bowl. On the stove simmered a small stock pot filled with, from the smell of the garlic, probably marinara sauce with olives. I saw carrots, macaroni, and celery on a sideboard along with appliances and cutlery. The table in the bay window was set with one place-setting and a daffodil in a little vase. I looked out through sheer drapes to see the apartment building from which I had stalked the comedian Rye Bald. In the middle of the kitchen floor, on white and black checked linoleum, lay the heretofore mentioned pink stallion, with a black-dyed mane judging by its yellow roots, bruised and broken with his face growing puffy, his right foreleg bent the wrong way, and a bloody kick mark across his ribs. He lay there moaning and shivering, trying to cover his head with his hooves.

I looked at my hooves and could only conclude that the somepony who'd beat him was me.

The sleepwalking incidents all suddenly made sense.

They weren't due to a backfired force spell, or to the side effects of Flowing Water's cure.

Running Mead had somehow twisted my will to his own.

Sunset Shimmer had claimed that I'd acted inebriated, but I had been unreasonably successful in manipulating her to the point of getting into her bed—maybe even having ridden her—up to the moment just before getting her to try nettle-ewe, which, of course, because Sunset's drinking binges were well known, was a perfect strategy for Running Mead to find influence in Canterlot Castle. My first time "sleepwalking," my last memory of Running Mead was me refusing to sell product. Both previous times that I had woken up from the dream, I had woken at a key moment when I was about to violate my deepest principles.

Mind control.

Magical mind control.

One of the most illegal magicks; short of raising the dead, a unicorn could do nothing worse. I had concluded that it was a bad practice to read something into a pony's name when examining his cutie mark, but his was a mug spilling foamy yellow liquid. The ability to metaphorically make a pony drunk and pliant—and having a name like Running Mead—were too much of a coincidence. Like I had with Grimoire, he had doubtlessly assumed the name. His special ability might even be a spell he'd learned to cast very well.

Here I stood, suddenly awakened, facing the ultimate decision point: the ruin of my life.

Tailor's voice said, "Stop toying with him. Put him out of his misery, already."

I jerked my head around, looking into the living room. Rye Bald had put everything back in place, taped up the glass of the china cabinet, and put a cardboard patch where the mic stand had punctured the wall between the living room and kitchen. On the ugly avocado green carpet, in the doorway to the kitchen beside the sofa, Tailor stood near Streak. She peered over his shoulder, her wings flared to balance on the back of the sofa.

On impulse, I bellowed at them and screamed profanities that seemed surprisingly willing to flow out. It left no doubt that, up to just seconds ago, I had acted insane.

Their rabbit brain reacted. Had you ever wondered whether ponies could jump backward? Well, they can. They did, Streak striking the door with a bang—proving they can also fly backwards.

That gave me fifteen seconds or less to find the best solution. After which, intuition told me everything got worse.

I glanced at the marinara. I had been in the living room; I knew what could be seen from there.

I faced the greatest performance of my life. Two lives depended on it, mine most importantly.

I prepared Levitate. Meanwhile, I reared and crashed down on the floor. Then reared again, whinnying madly, but creeping further from the door.

The third time, I swept the counter with my tail, dumping a colander, knives, and wooden cups to the floor as I came down square on top of the comedian, my hooves to either side of his head.

I dragged him under the breakfast table and put the chair between us.

I reared again, another bellow already escaping my throat. I scattered utensils as I backpedaled into the view through the kitchen doorway. This gave me time to ready Force while bouncing things around the kitchen.

I lifted the stock pot and, as I rotated it toward me as if to spill the contents, I hit the silvery vessel with a blue-green bolt.

The pot, alas, rocketed through the glass window to the street below, but the viscous liquid inside cooperated perfectly. One spot, suddenly super-heated, exploded outward making a wet, hollow thud. I'd triggered my quick draw Levitate as Shield to deflect the liquid. The boiling glob fanned around me, barely scalding me.

Unfortunately, it wasn't marinara but minestrone, a peppery soup more brown than red with yellow macaroni tubes and white Lima beans.

I grabbed soup-coated leaks and hurled them to the floor as a last touch, jumping back as I did, crying, "Well! Didn't know Force could explode somepony. Did you?"

I turned to Tailor and Streak, but they'd already spun away, gagging and staggering.

I followed them, blocking their view of the kitchen. "Well, you're not going to be any help!"

I flicked soup off a hoof and Tailor choked.

"Go ahead, leave. I'll clean up the mess; I could use the anatomy lesson. Tell Running Mead it's done."

"Yeah, we will," they said, the door shutting rapidly behind them.

Everything would have been perfect, but for the stock pot and the window glass in the street at 3 AM. Nevertheless, looking through the window, I saw the pair dash from the building, never glancing the wrong direction. I stuck my head out avoiding the glass daggers, waiting for them to rush around a corner, then levitated the dented pot and the broken glass back up.

Rye Bald had gone unconscious and bled from a gash on his right shoulder. I found a chintzy yellow hoof towel to sop up the small puddle and an empty pickle jar to stuff the now red thing inside, while I put magical pressure on the wound.

Unconscious, he might bleed to death. I couldn't leave him. Judging by his face and side, I wondered if he might have a concussion or internal bleeding.

If he died, I became a murderer—for real this time. Not like the first time I'd almost—

At least that last time I had stabbed an assassin—and he had attacked first. Regardless, it had left me unhinged for weeks. Lessons. Lots of lessons learned.

Lessons I hadn't, couldn't have implemented today. Wasn't in my right mind! I had to hold it together.

Think!

I could cauterize the hoof length wound, or try healing him. I breathed heavily, forcing clarity into a screaming whiteness that threatened to erase my existence.

I struck the back of my head on the table, trying to focus myself. I desperately looked down at tightly shut eyes and dyed-black eyebrows.

That's pain. A different type than mine...

The PTSD episode snapped. Silence. Just breathing.

His. I held my breath.

I chose to heal him because a burn scar was just one more thing I would have to ask him for forgiveness about, and to make this work, I would have to beg forgiveness.

I knew what begging forgiveness of somepony you'd thought you'd murdered was like. They're not interested. I shuddered.

Concentrate!

Stop the bleeding!

I smeared a blob of Flowing Waters' silver salve, then substituted the bottom of the pickle jar and my body to apply pressure in place of Levitate, pressing the rounded glass into the wound while pushing the healing magic behind it.

After a few fits and starts, my aura sunk through his skin.

How long I worked, I didn't know. Too frightened to marvel at the scenery, I simply asked for the instructions and forced the skin, sinew, and blood vessels to mend. Certain I'd done a shoddy job, I nevertheless found the skin sealed around the wound. The few other cuts had stopped bleeding on their own.

Hoof marks puffing up on his side, and purpling contusions on his pink-furred head, hinted at internal bleeding. It might already be too late; he needed a real doctor.

If I dropped him off at a hospital, there would be questions. Even if I left him without being seen, he'd surely identify me. Running Mead would be furious, deadly furious.

If he died?

No hospital then, I thought, and realized I knew a doctor who wouldn't ask a lot of questions.

I hoped.

I levitated the sticky blood on the jar and it seeped like slime to the inside. I cleaned up the floor around and under him. In a moment of inspiration, I found a paring knife and coated the cutting edge before tossing it to the floor. A culinary accident might put the constabulary off the track. The lidded jar zipped into my saddlebags.

I suspected Running Mead would trust his eye witnesses and take Rye Bald's disappearance from that perspective. Nothing would hit the newspapers if I did my job right; naturally, he'd take that as a cover-up of a botched constabulary investigation.

Assuming Rye Bald didn't blow the whole thing wide open...

One impossible problem at a time, Starlight!

Meanwhile, I had to find help while keeping him alive and out of the grasp of the constabulary. I gave the floor, cabinets, and my clothes a quick going over, and swabbed up everything with ammoniated cleaner from underneath the sink.

I ended up lying atop the stallion and teleporting him (and the bloody soup-stained mop) a dozen times through empty streets and alleyways through a darkness made all the more concealing by clinging pre-dawn fog. That nopony, especially no-constable, noticed was a miracle in itself. The mop and pickle jar went into an incinerator under piles of smelly trash.I knew where I could find a wagon that wouldn't be reported stolen. I just had to make sure I could get to it.

I cast Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear as I slunk up the steps to the second floor apartment. Were Running Mead still here, he'd have had a guard outside. I peered through the window at the shadowy furniture, anyway.

I listened at the rollup garage for a minute, then worked a minimal force spell on the padlock until the hasp softened, cracked, and rotated open. I dropped it in my saddlebags, then slowly rolled up the garage door, minimizing the hard to hide noise.

It was a relief to both find the wagon and to find it empty, though the unmistakable medicinal saccharine smell of nettle-ewe lingered. I levitated the stallion into the cart, on top of rags I'd scrounged, and took a minute to see if I could get him to drink a mug of water pulled from the laundry sink. He drank until he began coughing, then lapsed unconscious again.

I took off my costume and fixed my hair into pigtails.

Soon after, I left the garage closed with the lock hanging in the hasp and pulled through the empty streets of Canterlot. An hour later, as the sky turned blue, then purple and orange, I was on the switchbacks of the Ponyville Incline headed down the mountain. Thankfully, the brakes worked sufficiently that I didn't lose control. At the bottom, I checked Rye Bald and found signs of life. He was sweating now, and cool to the touch. I trotted onward through growing exhaustion.

Five leagues found me at the Kettle turn-off near Ponyville an hour after dawn. None of the early morning haulers paid attention to me, other than saying good morning. I really appreciated the depth of Streak's ore cart! I pulled on down the farm road, past barns and by fields. I saw farm workers in the distance bent over vegetables, but if a lone pony pulling a wagon with oddly small wheels was remarkable, nopony showed it.

I recognized the irrigation path, and the ditch, and the trail that lead into the forest. I even saw our wagon ruts. I had to levitate it to lighten it enough to pull through a loose dirt section and was soon traveling deep into ever darkening forest. Distant birds serenaded accompanied by a buzzing chorus of biting insects I flicked away with my tail and magic. Soon I could not tell if it was night or day, except for occasional breaks in the canopy where sun would shine down like a spotlight on a stage.

Once, I heard something creeping along side, keeping pace. I shot a force bolt that direction and heard nothing more. The comedian, if anything, seemed less responsive. I found myself shaking, again, a shriek growing in my head and a white glare creeping into the edges of my sight.

In my mind, I saw images of a bloody hunting knife—I smelled an iron scent wafting from it—but that had been the previous time and I knew the pegasus assassin had lived. I'd seen the knife turn yellow hot, the hilt catching fire, melting in a foundry crucible in Baltimare.

I concentrated on the gnarled trees, thorny brush that scratched my fetlocks, and the stink of moldering leaves I pulled the cart through, careful of it sliding away in the mud.

I came to the clearing with the blue leaves that I assumed secreted a contact poison.

I solved the problem of traversing it by putting on Grimoire's platform horseshoes and using the discarded lattices that the zebra had protected her cart with. I put a section down crushing the leaves below it, pulled the wagon that distance, put another section down, pulled further, retrieved the first section and put it ahead of me, pulled, and so on.

I looked up at a wide-bouled tree that had been hollowed out to make a living home. Gourds and drying herbs hung by ropes from the branches. Some dappled sun occasionally made it through the canopy to play darting sprites and shadows across the few mica sheet windows.

I hesitated to knock, stopping with my hoof above the roughly carved wood. For some reason, I was certain the zebra wouldn't be home, that all this had been folly. My life had been repeated folly.

If Rye Bald died, I'd be his murderer. Irrefutably. Whether the act was by my volition or not wouldn't impress a judge. I'd never be anypony else other than a murderer because who would believe mind control?

I should have taken him to the hospital, played it safe, gambled for a lesser ruin!

What had I done?

Chapter 21: The Curious Cure

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I never did knock. After a minute, the zebra healer opened the wide round door. She peered silently at me and at the cart with an expression of how did you get here, and, besides-which, who are you? (She would have made it rhyme.)

I levitated the comedian out, keeping him flat. I looked from the beat-up stallion back to the zebra and said, "I need a healer really badly."

Deep blue eyes looked at me like they had just seen me. She nodded, wordlessly pointing inside her home with a black hoof.

Tears streaming down my cheeks, wobbling with the last of my energy, I followed her inside to find an unexpectedly small room that looked more like a pantry kitchen than a living space. As directed, I placed Rye Bald down on a table shoved against the wall. While she examined him, I looked around.

A cauldron filled the center area, on a hearth filled with charcoal with an ingeniously shuttered flue that opened to a hollowed out branch that worked as a chimney. Clay pots of orange, red, and purple were stacked many deep on shelves. Bales of herbs were wrapped in tight packages of waxed and oiled papers; some hung from the ceiling. The smell was somewhere between a spice pantry and a vinegary-sulfury chemistry lab. Pointy ovoid stylized masks as tall as a pony, some smiling some leering, were propped in a corner. A lumpy hoof-sewn mattress filled another corner between a roughly carved dresser and an unusually spotted, but otherwise empty, wall opposite the door.

I stiffened when I realized the wall moved.

Attention riveted, my tears drying, I stepped closer and realized the wall moved because beetles swarmed on it—black ones, with a shiny green tinge that shimmered in the potion light from a half-dozen small potion lanterns. I could hear a click-click as the insects moved, climbing over one another, gnawing at the wood with pincer-like mandibles. They tore off tiny splinters, and upon eating their fill, would clamber toward a tiny mouse hole at the bottom of the wall. The silver-barked sticks that had been tied in a bunch in Streak's wagon were attached by pegs at the margins of the wall, the ceiling, and the floor. The sticks corralled the zebra's excavators and kept them at work extending her abode according to her design.

"I am sorry I must be curt; but quick please, how was he hurt?"

I faced her, feeling cold and guilty. I took a deep breath and said, "Beat up. Kicked. I don't know exactly. I— I did it, but I wasn't really there."

"I ask for a reason noisome, need I treat him for a poison? And chilly filly, the missing you is plain to see for queer magic swirls around you in an odd degree."

Magic.

I was under an enchantment still?

Rye Bald, first. "No poison. Even sleepwalking, I'd only know how to fight. Not only would I not know how to use poison, why would I use earth pony magic when my magic is far more potent?"

She nodded and pointed at the pink pony who sweated and lay, wheezing, eyes shut, not moving. She pointed at his shoulder. "And this, to me, is something amiss."

The gash. "I healed him." But unlike my work on my withers, this looked ragged, red, and scabbed. Sure, scar tissue had filled and stopped the bleeding, but in comparison, it appeared the work of an amateur. "It was all I could do at the time."

She nodded again and grabbed an orange clay flask. She walked to a tea kettle beside the cauldron. She poured steaming tea into two wooden cups on a basket plate, then with a dexterity of an earth pony sure to marvel any unicorn, she nosed the flask on to the plate, and the plate onto her muzzle and forehead, and carried it all to our table, sliding them before me without spilling a drop. A strong astringent herbal tea struck my nasal passages, together with the scent of honey. She sat, raising her cup between her hooves for a sip. "All of this down you must drink, for in the next hour you must think."

She examined the pony's fresh scar. She then examined the nearly healed scar on my withers. Her eyebrow raised.

Related to Dr. Flowing Waters, are we? In spirit at least. "Yes, I sealed the wound. You want me to use my magic?"

"An idea so stark it misses the mark?"

I pursed my lips, but neither nodded nor shook my head.

She reached for the pony, lifting his eyelid, revealing an unfocused magenta eye. He didn't respond. I began to shake ever so slightly as she tapped the air around his head without actually touching him. The puffy swelling on the left side meant I'd probably boxed him with my hooves. A kick would've outright killed him. It had to be something with his brain. "I'm no doctor."

The zebra said, "A healer heals best when her knowledge she can trust, but, with a life on balance, a mare must do what a mare—must."

I decided I needed to be careful about what I said around Zecora as she popped the lid off of a canister and shook some leaves into my tea. I recognized the medicinal saccharine scent of nettle-ewe.

She caught my expression and said, "At poor Zecora you need not glower; using this herb once does not abuse its power."

"Call me Starlight Glimmer. He's Rye Bald."

"Of this Grimoire you wore like a mask, I am glad that we in the light of the sun now bask." With a sigh, she drank her tea in a gulp, then gathered herbs and vials. My tea was too hot to gulp, or perhaps the idea of the drug frightened me. She had mentioned poison. She seemed certain I could help, though. Since my top concern was ensuring that my assault didn't lead to Rye Bald's death, I took a deep breath and drank the sweet, lemony, metallic-tasting drink, despite my heart beating quickly and trying to tell me to stop.

This was what duty felt like.

I watched with growing fascination as Zecora mixed ingredients and chanted in continuous rhyme. In minutes, she created mustard poultices and odd salts drawn out of leaves. I could see magic swirling around her hooves and knew it wasn't all potion magic. It didn't involve numbers, per se, but it did involve magic being pulled out through her hooves; she was manifestly not manipulating magic summoned by chemistry or the rules of contagion and sympathy. After minutes, I could almost grasp how the shaman physically pulled splendors from the magic pulse by using the shimmy and sway of her body and limbs, and by evoking forest spirits.

That was the nettle-ewe talking.

Lecturing...

I sat back, sipping the last drop of the tea so unconsciously that I was surprised to find myself holding the cup in my magic. All my fatigue vanished, replaced by uncanny clarity.

On a whim, I ran a Barthemule transform on a weak levitation spell, watching Zecora's tiny room swarm with a flock of sparrow-like burning numbers, circling and diving and combining en masse, a galaxy of computation all in my head.

First the omega and then color-charm corollary...

Then ideas and litanies hinted at by massaging another pony.

A pegasus.

Then, if that worked…

The spell triggered on its own. I had to finish by adding a half-pony length delta to the vector matrix sum to prevent a time paradox because...

Because suddenly I was floating midair, in a blue-green aura the shape of a prism of topaz, but composed of a magic field just big enough to reach from the tip of my horn to the tips of my hooves. It held me completely aloft, lifting my mane and tail toward the ceiling as if I were submerged underwater.

After two heart-beats, enough for Zecora to glance my way and raise an eyebrow, it popped. The wooden tea cup bounced on the floor.

I blurted, "Aerial Buoyancy!?"

What had I done? What had the drug done to me? Complexities kept mounting. I'd found the key to Pegasus Simulation! Rainbow neon and hot fiery numbers kept gathering, building, swarming.

Possibilities mounted.

Oh, no—

This was why nettle-ewe was so addictive!

"Starlight Glimmer!"

Someone shook my head; hooves held my cheeks.

"Starlight Glimmer, come back and shimmer. Now you must focus; we need your hocus-pocus."

"Gah!"

I was back in the hollowed out tree. It looked as normal as a hollowed out tree house filled with herbs and zebra carvings might, but then I noticed...

Everything wood in the walls to the thread-thin black hair sticking out near her nose was composed of vibrating, streaming digits.

Numbers were the shape of reality!

I lived in a new type of starry realm, one surrounded by screaming potentialities that shrieked that the magic pulse would do my bidding if I only chose what to command it to do. I felt incredibly focused and horribly distracted at the same time.

Invincible and impotent. A paradox of understanding!!

Zecora waved purple crystals in front of my nose. A scent of rancid turpentine speared up my sinuses and struck me knife-sharp, clearing my head of everything, clearing away the noisy numbers and the chattering voice of worry in my head.

In that instant, I existed, silent.

I sighed.

Zecora's rhyming voice filled the background, but didn't reach my consciousness. I knew what she wanted and she drew me physically forward. Without real thought, I scrambled onto the table, smelling the sweat and dried blood and bile sickness of the unconscious stallion. I let intuition work as I regarded the bruises and contusions around his head. I dimly became aware of a thick nimbus of numbers whirling about me, but muted and marshaled and working more efficiently and reflexively than ever before.

Zecora waved more salts by my nose, emerald green ones this time. The herbal concoctions, except for the poultice, were all to guide me and to control me, to calm my mind—to allow a mare to do what this mare had to do.

I touched my horn to Rye Bald's temple and found myself floating in the midst of a lightning storm. Electricity sizzled and spat from every little cloud, lighting the region with a blue and white strobing glare while filling my senses with ozone and thunder. In this uncanny space, rain surged not so much in raindrops but as an almost-ocean of air droplets, foamy but transparent. In it, I sensed a growing wrongness—a taste of mineral sharpness in what the environment told me ought to be wet purity. When I looked for it, I changed place to find a wall of what at first seemed like intrusive columnar granite, but proved to taste more like marble. It had to be bone, but it looked so crystalline to my eyes that I wasn't sure if I was thinking in metaphor or magic. I saw the cracks. I could see the storm pushing at the rock face and realized that the bone thrust into this space did not belong. It grounded and dissipated the electricity of the grey clouds, and the pressure was building between the the element of water and the element of earth, making the ocean thicker, darker, and cold.

I asked the marble cliffs what was wrong. Where did they belong?

They sang in chorus, telling me.

I told them to return, and with my constant, consistent voice telling them to do so, so they did, pulling splendors from my magic and making it their own—reconstituting, repairing, retreating. As I babbled on, the storm strengthened in all its blue-white glory, and the rain became a proper sweet-salty mix, warming gradually until…

***

I woke, opening my eyes. I lay on Zecora's straw mattress covered in red-ticking. My drool wet the cloth in a rivulet that stretched to a puckered seam that demonstrated the zebra wasn't much of a seamstress. Two sensations struck me hard that instant: the first, the need to pee, the second, with a choke, that I was going to vomit.

A wooden pail shoved unceremoniously under my muzzle at the right instant solved the latter splendidly. The wood bottom made a resounding thunk. The sounds I made only left me more nauseated. I threw up the last two days of food, by the volume of it, and possibly some of my liver. The instant I could get my trembling hooves under me, I shot out the door with Zecora's assistance and found relief by lantern light. It had to be the next evening. I heard birds and weird chittering sounds, and saw no light other than the wane shadows of the surrounding trees by the flickering kerosene flame. I was surprised my bladder could hold that much.

Again inside, shaky on my hooves, my head literally thumping as if it were about to explode, I found Rye Bald awake, covered in blankets beside the glowing coals of the hearth below the cauldron, smelling of wood smoke. I could hear him laughing, a horsey sounding noise, emanating mostly as puffs of air from his nose. He looked shrunken into himself, but had a cup of tea clamped between his front hooves. I had healed his leg, too.

I gathered he would survive.

I stopped and stared, trying to compose myself. I had to say something, but guilt left me tongue-tied. The last time I had faced someone I had attempted to murder, it was a pegasus stallion who had first attempted to murder my employer and would have succeeded except for my inadequate grab and throw. This time, however, I was the sole bad actor...

Perhaps because his voice wouldn't work, he said in a whisper, "You don't have to apologize. Zecora explained that you were under an evil enchantment. She also explained that you saved my life, that if you had taken me to a hospital in Canterlot, I would have died."

I looked to Zecora. The lantern hooted as she blew it out, wafting the smell of kerosene and soot my direction. By the potion light, her eyes glittered as she nodded gravely.

I said, "But, but, but— I beat you."

"No. A monster beat me."

"Had I not pursued such a hateful life, I would not have been tricked into hurting you."

"Had I not decided that telling a joke was more important than earning a living, I might not have racked up a debt that put you in a position to be used and abused. I know I'll have nightmares about this." He shuddered. "But I'm not completely stupid either. There is plenty of fault to share, but plenty else not to share."

I folded much too hard on the floor with a bunch of painful thumps. Zecora brought me a tea, too. I smelled chamomile. "For what it's worth, I want to help ponies, to protect them. I don't want to hurt them. That's what I told—"

"Running Mead?"

"—Running Mead, yes, before he did what he did to me. I consider myself more of an actor than an enforcer. You saw my act. I scare ponies into paying up, basically. Didn't work on you, though." I sipped the simple honeyed drink. It helped the headache.

He adjusted the blankets. I could see plasters adhered to his side and a pink crust on the left side of his face. "Maybe we haven't chosen the best professions. Perhaps I should go back to being an accountant."

"I've had an offer to become a physician."

He smiled, a ragged thing that didn't quite reach the right side of his face. He probably had a lot more healing to do. He said, "From what I've been told, that might be a good choice."

But, did I like it?

What if it required drugs to be good at it? Without them, getting lost inside somepony or being able to do little more than first aid would not qualify me to be a nurse, let alone a doctor, or to become the princess' doctor—not that a criminal would ever be allowed that close!

I sighed.

The next day, we worked out that he would take a train from Ponyville to Manehatten as soon as he had recovered. If Running Mead had an inkling he was alive, we'd both be in trouble. I facilitated his relocation by finding a purse filled with twenty gold bits in my saddlebags. At least sleepwalker-me had extracted a hard bargain, and had collected payment first. I gave him fifteen. Though he was understandably reluctant to say how I could find him should I need to prove my relative innocence at some point, I did get him to agree to post me the address of someone in Ponyville that would know how to contact him.

The next day, I stood outside in the dim dappled sunshine, a meal in my belly, my hair up in pigtails, and my saddlebags strapped on securely. I looked at the Everfree and thought of its dangerous denizens.

"How is it," I asked, "that you live here safely without weapons or battle magic?"

"As an equine you see I am no phony, but as far the forest is concerned I'm no pony."

"The creatures of the Everfree don't like ponies?"

The zebra shaman nodded, her blue eyes sparkling. "Give them their due and consider it true: Near a thousand years ago I've heard from the spirits in verse, the two reigning ponies corrupted harmony—and grew this elemental curse."

I blinked at her. Reigning? Two princess, not one? And now there was one? Did one die? "The princess survived?"

Celestia was certainly old, but that old? In my opinion, Celestia was a curse, so maybe it was her. I'd runaway because of her. My parents had died because of her. Carne Asada had tricked me into setting the bomb, and perpetrated her other evil, because of tales of Celestia's crimes hoofed down over nine centuries...

"You are surely keen; all is proven, in a castle's ruin, I have fully seen." She pointed deeper into the Everfree.

If I had time, I was going to have to do some research. Or pay attention, gasp, in history class. And..

I had to get to school! I had appointments with councilors, a class schedule to rearrange, and I was supposed to have started yesterday!

Worse, I had a pressing problem to solve. If there was one thing that I wasn't going to do, it was get within sight of Running Mead ever again. My profession as an enforcer was over. Worse, I lived in Running Mead's territory, which was why I'd given Rye Bald Sunset Shimmer's address, not my own.

Chapter 22: House Rules

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Sunset Shimmer found me in the administration office, getting a photo identification card for advanced placement at the university. I turned when I heard someone humming a tune and saw her walk by the office door.

She saw me too, for she popped her head in. Her unaccountably cheerful person soon trotted inside.

I looked away, but knew the yellow pony with fiery hair stood behind me. The councilor noticed Princess Celestia's protégé and stood straighter and carefully explained which professor I needed to find tomorrow in which building on the campus, as if she were being tested.

As I walked out, putting my card in my saddlebags, Sunset Shimmer said, "You're supposed to smile when they take the photo."

"I've had little to smile about recently."

"Despite acing the exam Celestia gives her prospective protégés?"

"Exaggerate much, do we? I pretty much failed the history part."

"Piffle. A good tutor will fix that."

Not Sunset, of course.

She continued, "I heard what you did from the gossip ponies on the staff. Not anywhere of the caliber of magical conjuring I did—"

"—or the runt—"

"—but your performance was commanding," she emphasized. As we clopped down the stairs to the main exit, she added, "And the runt's performance was purely pathetic. I watched from an observation balcony. She had no control! It was lucky she didn't explode! Almost killed me. She's lucky Celestia prevented anyone from prosecuting her for the damage she caused. The exchequer covered all of the repair costs both public and private."

"Don't sound so happy that she might have exploded!" I chuckled.

She snorted. "Yeah, I wouldn't want that even for the runt. But— But my performance is now improving with the tutoring you gave me. Soon Celestia will notice."

I stopped just as we reached the door exiting into the quad. Other students grumbled, having to walk around us to go through the doorway. Nopony, except perhaps me, was stupid enough to say anything to Sunset Shimmer. "You don't seem like the type who would wait to be noticed."

"Celestia has been working with the runt a lot recently."

"Well, go to the princess. Show her your tricks. Demand help."

She looked away and waved a hoof nervously near the ground. "I dunno. There's assignments and…"

I rolled my eyes and trotted out. It took until I stopped at the boulevard that a contrite Sunset Shimmer caught up. I liked my little flat with its simple bed and two windows, but, manifestly, I could not go home.

Sunset Shimmer asked, "Okay; what's wrong?" She looked at the restaurant that I did, with its gaudy red and yellow plastic decor.

Across the street down the block was the Hey Burger!; my stomach growled. I would be earning no more money, and I had no place to live. In a short time, perhaps longer if I were frugal, I would be grazing in the parks. I might get away with sleeping in the university library stacks, but eventually it would be in an alley, under an overhang, trying not to be soaked by an evening rain. I said, "Remember that roommate situation you were telling me about for one gold and ten silver? I need it."

The mare walked around me, stepping in the gutter her green eyes looking inquiringly into mine. She stepped aside, checking my flank to assure herself it was still blank, then probably would have checked my temperature had she a thermometer pop in a handy orifice. "Nonsense," she said. "The Hey Burger! it is, my treat."

"You don't have to do that."

"I do."

She said nothing, even as we sat at a plastic yellow table with red plastic bench seats. The waitress wore a green outfit with a funny field-hat that looked like two pieces of green cloth standing up with green lace connecting the two sides. It covered her mane. After she took our order and trotted away, I said, "It's not nonsense. I— I lost my apartment."

"And your job. It's written all over your face. You don't want to return to the Lower, either. Can you afford a place in Upper Canterlot? No."

I felt my appetite waning. Which was ridiculous. I needed to eat up so I wouldn't go hungry later. "You're not helping."

"What?" she said in mock outrage. The miracles of fast food and unicorns able to heat meals with force spells meant that the waitress trotted back with two steaming oat-veggie burgers on sesame seed buns, a hay stack of fried alfalfa, and an orange soda for me and a small cider glass for her with brown-amber liquid and a foamy head that creeped over and slid down the side. She saw my eyes and said, "Non-alcoholic."

I blinked.

I was going to ask what was wrong with her when she said, "I am helping. I said 'nonsense' because that's what you finding a place to live is. Don't be a silly filly. You can stay with me."

Reflexively, I said, "No."

"Really? How much money do you have left? Do you really want to work at Hey Burger! grilling or serving burgers while trying to keep up AP university coursework, especially with the princess likely to look in on you at any point? The gigs or whatever you did before certainly pay better than what you're going to get cooking, cleaning, or selling dresses. And don't give me horse apples about living on the street again. We are both way beyond those horse apples. Eat."

I did.

The sandwich dripped with cheese and horseradish mustard. The alfalfa and oatmeal had been mixed into a perfectly spiced ground patty and smothered with warmed-up garlic aioli, pickle-relish, basil, and grilled onions. It was grass-eater heaven. For a few minutes I didn't think about her offer until she said, "I won't charge rent. But there is only one bed, you know."

"Ugh!" I put the sandwich down and shook my head.

However, Sunset Shimmer was, if nothing else, persistent in getting what she wanted. Eventually, I agreed—certain it would not end well.

That night, she gave the functional tour of her ivory tower. Everything from the glassware in the basement laboratory to the reflector telescope in the attic observatory. She spoke in full teaching assistant mode, assigning me desk space, shelf space, closet space, garden space (the pots on the third level), laboratory table and fume hood space, pantry space, and kitchen space—not that it looked like the pristine salt and pepper, brass accented space had ever been used.

"The Oat Bran O's are mine!"

She showed me how to use the plumbing and the heating, and how to refresh the lantern system that in full use mode could make most every surface of the blue and gold accented marble residence glow softly.

At least she let me choose my side of the enormous bed. That would be the right.

Frankly, for a filly who had fought in the Hooflyn gang war and seen too much of the violent underbelly of Equestria, I was unaccountably petrified of going to sleep that night. I could protect myself, I had no doubt. But this being vulnerable thing: That just didn't work for me.

I had no idea what Sunset Shimmer had in mind, or why she didn't just order in another bed, but it was her house and it was her rules.

I was the beggar.

After a fabulous shower, I took my side and snugged in under satin sheets far finer than any I'd had as a foal—and that spoke volumes. She did the same, but left on a lamp to read. I didn't think I would sleep a minute, unsure what she would do, my heart racing anytime she moved or readjusted her position. But the sheets were airy and the mattress cushy. The slight breeze from the open balcony blew clean air over my nose, some times tickling, and brought no real sound since it faced the precipice.

Perhaps it was the five league trot up from Zecora's, or the two climbing the switchback Ponyville Way Incline to the city itself, or the day arranging school matters unsure of my situation. I did sleep, and soundly.

I woke with dawn rays filtering through lace draperies with a cool breeze that brought the sounds of twittering birds. My bedmate had not molested me. Perhaps she had heard me when I said I preferred stallions. That, however, did not prevent her from snugging up to me in her sleep.

I grew aware of warmth against my back. I commended myself for not flinging myself from the bed like a crazy pony this time, but instead I lifted my head and looked back. She lay there, sheets kicked off by one of us, her golden velvet back against my lavender pink making us a pair of Cs. Her usually poofy hair matted against her face and spread out in night-sweat glued-together curly ropes of yellow and red across her pillow. She snored almost imperceptibly and somewhat daintily for such a large mare.

As I shimmied to break contact, she began to shiver. Even after I gently levitated the sheets over us, it continued. She twitched. After a few minutes, I heard the faintest moan.

I lay my head on the pillow and felt bad. I shimmied back, made contact. In a minute she quieted and fell more deeply asleep.

And so it proved: over the next nights, despite being bombastic and imperious during the day, though decorous around me, she made no advances. Every time I awoke, whether I had staked out the middle ground or had drifted so my hooves hung over the edge, there I'd find Sunset Shimmer, her rear and and withers snugged to mine. I wouldn't call it snuggling. It manifestly was not. It seemed like—felt like—wanting to be leaned against, to find contact, to not be so terribly alone.

In this, I became aware, we were alike. The both of us were abandoned.

Her by a heartless mother when old enough to be weaned but young enough to have known no adults, an orphanage, nor foster parents. Never cared for. Never held.

Me, I remembered little of my parents. I dimly remembered being hugged, being my father's "little pumpkin" when he read me a bedtime story. Not much more. I didn't remember their voices at all. I refused to listen to my mom's records. Ghosts.

I'd been the accidental git of a pair of ponies: one the famous opera singer named Midnight, the other a talented promoter and later her manager. Together, they become cheerful bumbling foals in love, and extraordinarily successful. They'd married after my arrival and during the subsequent journey evolved into a team that would become "Heroes of Equestria," before I was four. I had very few photographs of myself with them, to remember them while grieving for them.

A butler raised me—no father figure, just a proper stallion who had a mission to train me to be a proper lady. He shied away from providing love, but never from seeing that every waking moment I spent was either learning or being tested. He'd told me once that servants must always provide impeccable service and, with a butler named Proper Step, you can guess it was perfect to the point of being mechanical and cold. I understood that a foal needed more. Much more. It drove me deeply into the books in my library, mostly on magic, since being formally taught magic wasn't "lady-like."

With my friendship with Sunburst, somepony temporarily filled the void.

But Sunburst abandoned me, too.

Sunset Shimmer and I had the same issues; we felt isolated. Contact could fix that, and I grew certain that she would ask no more than I could give.

On the fifth day, I rolled over. In the dawn, I extended my left legs gently over her and bent my right ones under me such that they wouldn't get in the way. Oddly enough, it played into my need to protect and the new warmth against my stomach lulled me rapidly to sleep.

Neither of us complained. We each slept well.

I wondered if this was what being a sister meant, caring for one another, being just a little bit more without having to ask. Some unknown enemy had killed my parents before they could give me a little sister, a sister whomight have prevented me from changing my life as radically as I had.

Sunset as a sister, I could deal with—for now, anyway.

She wasn't a friend, though. I knew the signs well enough that if I went there, disaster would strike. For now, like this, life became pleasant.

She had a cutie mark, though. Disaster was likely, if not inevitable.

Chapter 23: Likely, Meet Inevitable

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I enjoyed a good two weeks of camaraderie until the blemishes became apparent. Sunset Shimmer had deigned to teach me spell canceling (finally).

Why? She admitted she had learned enough of how I conceptualized magic that she thought we could conceivably speak a common language.

Her technique involved feeding the spell the right wrong numbers—her term, not mine—until the spell became incapable of working. For her, she took the shape she visualized the spell as and pulled it inside out. Since spell casting was about accuracy and marshaling the numbers, how could numbers do anything but change range or targeting? I sensed she had an idea about transforming the equations, but that didn't feel right.

Then I had the bright idea of having her demonstrate spell canceling on me so I could see what she meant, using Force.

"I'm not good at that one."

I said, "Oh, come on. I know you have problems with Force, but you're not trying to cast it; you're trying to cancel it."

Her inability to cast Force showed there was a fundamental difference between her and I. Still, Force was simply folding Levitate along a couple axises and was conceptually easier than juggling objects, though using it consistently and forcefully did require practice. I wasn't asking her to cast it, just prep it. Spell bindings were visualization without doing the horn work, without gathering the splendors of magic to make the wish. After verbal cajoling, I got her to agree to do so.

We were outside the school, on the quad, under the shade of a tree on a hot afternoon. We planted ourselves facing off as if in a magic duel, though way too close. I opened myself up, clearing my horn of calculations, listening and observing, trying to monitor her magic as it formed, bloomed, and intentionally decayed.

That was the plan, anyway.

I watched the pulsating green shimmer of her aura light up at half a pony-length away. I could see the numbers circulating in the magical apparition encasing her horn, binding to the mnemonic, coalescing, becoming something. For a moment, I thought perhaps that was the point. I sensed the patterns of a field of force slowly distorting and collapsing even as Sunset grunted with effort, perhaps too loudly because other ponies started watching. I leaned forward, trying to understand the gist of it—

—when she fired a bolt at point blank range.

The physical shockwave pummeled the air from my lungs and lifted my forequarters. Forced to rear, legs against my chest, the impulse dissipated. I collapsed backwards, hooves up, laughing and soon crying at the same time, feeling as if tickled by a dozen feathers at every sensitive spot—including those. I gasped for air and could barely breathe and worried I might pass out. I'd let her shoot me twice now, and, frankly, was relieved she hadn't figured out her problem with Force. She groaned and grunted, and in my peripheral vision I could see her fighting to stop the continuous green auroral discharge.

But that wasn't it; it was fear.

She fought fear.

"Oh, Brandywine," she moaned as she rolled to her side, smashing herself forcefully to the dirt, and then, and only then, did it stop.

Fight reflex rolled me into a crouch, even as I took in great lungfuls of precious air. My former potions instructor galloped over, his black suit tails flapping. I thrust myself back up on all fours.

"She meant to do that! She just got a bit stuck. No harm done!"

"Shimmer," The pallid, faintly pink stallion with a long silky black mane said quietly with a faint sneer. He appraised Sunset Shimmer through narrowed eyes.

She rolled onto her stomach, dirty with bits of grass in her mane. "I lost control. Starlight was just tutoring me and I lost control."

I nodded.

She nodded, though I couldn't read her expression.

"The princess' tutelage isn't enough? Pity."

Her expression remained neutral enough, and I kept mine earnest enough, that the teacher accepted it and trotted off, unconvinced that Sunset Shimmer hadn't just tortured another student or that he hadn't just witnessed a duel. He looked annoyed that he hadn't caught her doing something he could report.

I suddenly understood, though. I'd forced her to cast the one spell she'd never get right and had publicly humiliated her. "I am really sorry!"

"It's not working any more," she said to the ground, hanging her head. Her mane covered her face like a limp yellow and red veil. "It was supposed to help me control thoughts of my past, but it didn't. Now I remember. I need a beer. And I'm going to have a beer." She stood, levitated the soil and bits of grass in her hair, and dashed the mess to the ground before stalking off.

Sunset Shimmer hadn't shouted at me.

Or blamed me.

She'd admitted to a teacher she'd failed.

And lied to deflect the blame from me!

She was ill. Celestia on roller skates!

It had to be my fault.

She got roaring drunk, which meant mopey and talkative and wobbly on her hooves. “Brandywine” was apparently a colt she had had a crush on, but she said nothing more about him. When I got her to bed, she wouldn't lay still. She just wanted to talk and talk and talk.

Mostly, this meant complaining about her and Princess Celestia's relationship, or lack of it. Or about the runt getting all the attention and Sunset Shimmer getting none, or Celestia refusing to discuss what she trained her for when she graduated next year After awhile, I levitated a text book over and tried to study, tuning her out, giving appropriate responses at the right moment, ignoring how after awhile she lay and shoved herself next to me, side to side. I let her have whatever made her feel better.

I could tell she felt very frightened. She expected to lose her position as Princess Celestia's student and felt powerless to do anything about it.

After an hour of her nattering on, repeating herself endlessly, I began to have enough of it. If she would only act instead of waiting to be noticed…

Ugh!

I closed the book and concentrated on the healing mathematics that had let me slip into Streak by gently offering to massage her back. It took a few minutes, but I soon sensed the great knots and aches all over her body. As subtly as I could, I set up the feedback loops and offered her tired muscles solace. Maybe it was her intoxication, but her muscles let my ministrations in. I kept it light, minimized the effort I needed to exert, and I kept focused on her voice, not letting my consciousness slip in any further than necessary.

I focused on her breathing through my contact against her ribs.

I focused on the slickness of the satin sheets, the stark white of the walls, and the moon through the balcony doors.

She calmed in stages. First she kept forgetting the point she wanted to make. Then she lay her head on her forelegs, mumbling. Then I heard the soft wheezing that meant she had slipped into slumber. I opened my book, having gotten into the groove of renewing the spell as it started to unravel, continuing the massage while reading.

When she gave a great big sigh in her dream, I looked at her and smiled.

***

Two days later I learned what Sunset Shimmer's "it" that "wasn't working" was; I didn't smile.

Nettle-ewe.

Somehow—and I fervently hoped it was from one of Running Mead's competitors—she had gotten a supply of the weed. Credit her for having decided to smoke it in the fume hood of her downstairs laboratory. I figured this out because the machine worked best when closed and she had used it open. She could hardly climb inside; it was too small.

I searched for and found a burnt leaf that resembled a prickly lamb's ear.

My fault, of course. I may not have willingly sold her on the idea, no more than I had willingly beat up Rye Bald, but my history had made me the pony who brought sickness upon any innocent in my life.

I didn't know how to bring it up, either. She was my host. She would brush it off. Regardless, I refused to tell her that brewing nettle-ewe as a tea made it more effective. If the merest idea of nettle-ewe tea actually excited me, I could easily imagine that whatever feeling it gave her had addicted her, and I didn't want to make that more intractable.

Why had this happened to her? If merit alone couldn't merit you the attention you wanted, you had to ask—but time and again, she refused to ask. I could not see why she would shy away from it, considering her personality. There had to be an intrinsic friction between the student and her mentor.

What occurred to me was that they both had solar cutie marks. There could be room in the sky for only one sun. I had observed time and again how cutie marks shaped ponies' attitudes and changed how they interacted with others. There was an imperious royal flavor to Sunset Shimmer's personality. I suspected that even if Sunset Shimmer's cutie mark were a moon instead of a sun, the relationship would still be destined to fail. The princess' name was Celestia after all. Nothing else reigned in that sky.

Cutie Mark magic was too subliminal, too insidious in its action. It took an outside observer to see the tyranny in it.

Under the stress of it, Sunset Shimmer was cracking.

Too many times over the next days, the only way I could get my roommate to sleep was to massage her, but only when she was intoxicated. I might have been encouraging her bad behavior for all that she never mentioned it when sober.

Then my life fractured.

Walking to the Tea And bakery near the banking district one morning, I realized I had company. A blue pegasus trotted near me, and gave a flutter to walk beside me when I glanced over. That she wore a white blouse and wore her mane pulled back into a bun gave me pause, but being dressed smartly like a salespony in a dress shop did not refine her common brusqueness into hauteur, nor suddenly make Streak's comportment more lady-like. The compact camera with a knob-sized lens was a weird accessory. I'd had the clothes, learned the act, and practiced the manners under threats more bruising than a whip; this wasn't it.

I flinched.

She was lucky that was my only reaction. A first rule for a pegasus fighting a unicorn in the fight arena is the Inverse Square Law. It applies to magic! The second is you don't make physical contact unless you're going to punch a hoof into a nose, jaw, or leg joint without missing.

This prizefighter had gone on to become a bodyguard. I had seen my employer stabbed by an assassin because inertia and insufficiently intense training prevented me from reacting in time or perfectly. I'd gotten that training, then a griffon attacked us.

In my mind, I pulled and swept her off her legs, stomped her wings, and flung her spinning through the closest restaurant doorway without regard that her six limbs and hard skull would strike the brass frame multiple times.Had I been guarding Carne Asada, I would have already teleported to the next street corner and been hustling her away.

Instead, I walked on by the café tables and striped-velvet wallpapers of the Tea And. A butter smell wafted into the street from the little shop. I sighed that I wouldn't be getting the strong tea and the croissant I had so craved to eat while studying my astronomy text, but, in fact, I was willing to keep walking around the castle without saying a word until I got to the next bailey gate so that I could leave Streak behind. I had begun to like her and Running Mead had made me a monster in her eyes.

"Grim—"

I cut her off, not changing my pace. "I quit."

"You can't do that."

"I can and I have. I quit."

"No, no. Ya don't understand. He sent me to tell ya that ya can't quit."

"Or what?" I intentionally slammed her shoulder to upset her gait, then with a hoof and some magic slid her in front of me. We stopped nose to nose. I hissed, "Or he will blackmail me? Let. Him. Try."

With a shrug, followed with a front and a back leg sweep and hold, all physical, I set her like a You-Can-Fly doll behind me, sputtering.

Muscles around my stifle joint and lower neck began to ache and I resolved to return to working out. The ivory tower had a gym that was so dusty, it probably hadn't been used in decades, and certainly had never been by its current owner.

A minute later, as I cantered toward the security of the gate, she landed with a thump in my path just out of earshot of the two unicorn guards. They did come to attention, however, as Streak said, "But I saw you k—"

"You saw nothing. If you think otherwise, you're a foal. I quit. You should, too, while you can... Excuse me," I said politely, bowing slightly as if I were speaking to a business contact, and ducked around the nonplussed pegasus to trot through the gate past a guard.

"Trouble, young lady?"

"I paid that bill," I muttered over my shoulder.

I quickly found an empty courtyard between buildings where I laid down on the grass because I was shaking. It wasn't as if I hadn't expected it to happen, or that I hadn't expected Streak to be the messenger, or that I would likely have to jettison everything and move on to another city.

No.

When she landed in front of me, I noticed her yoke cutie mark. All that her cutie mark represented had driven her into a life of crime. At least I'd chosen my cesspool. How many lives had a silly magical brand destroyed, or was destroying now? Running Mead's own had driven him to become a sociopath.

I rocked and grieved for Streak.

Chapter 24: Breakthrough Consequences

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Sunset Shimmer returned home late, both high and drunk. For a while, I thought she was having trouble breathing and that I might need to rush her to a hospital.

Or visit her father.

I should have taken her to her father, but if I've learned one thing in my life it is that thinking about what you would do if you were in a crisis and acting during a crisis were two completely different things.

Later, I'd think about it and realize that I hadn't wanted the doctor to learn I'd introduced his adopted daughter to nettle-ewe—and that I hadn't wanted to piss off Sunset Shimmer into throwing me onto the street. I might act as if I were willing to ditch everything and start anew elsewhere, but, in the crucible of the moment, I didn't feel so glib or willing.

I endured an hour of her standing in the kitchen, her eating the contents of a box of cereal, then starting another, all the time talking about the intricacies of this or that spell whilst I did everything I could to keep her from casting the spell while inebriated, including Levitate by pouring out her cereal for her lest oat bran O's go flying like drunken birds pinging or plunking into every window, cabinet, or plant. Her issue: something the princess had said (surprise!) about the runt being in need of her attention and Sunset somehow not.

Could this be interpreted as a compliment, Sunset?

Absolutely not, Starlight!

I saw another cutie mark driving its owner INSANE. Ponies would be better off without them.

Getting her to bed proved another ordeal all together. She'd suddenly hop up from the mattress and prance tail high toward the balcony—off which I worried she might try to fly. I locked the glass doors. I tried massaging her, beginning to wonder when I'd become both her nurse maid and enabler.

Even that didn't work at first. I kept increasing the pressure I applied until I worried I might actually hurt her; she seemed totally anesthetized. Eventually, my efforts quieted her to a low mumble, peppered with a few flailing of hooves and sputtering remonstrations.

I'd grown quite adept at making her muscles contract and flex, hurrying out waste fluids and toxins causing her fatigue and pain; it appeared to feel good. I no longer feared I might lose myself, at least in this territory. It did take up enough of my attention that I understood I'd get no further studying done until Sunset Shimmer fell asleep. To make that happen, I spread my ministrations from her neck down her back, and finally down her legs and flank.

Her flank proved interesting...

While healing Rye Bald's brain and skull, I had known I'd dealt with something substantially more complex and active than simple muscle. I still couldn't remember the entire experience, but I remembered enough that I realized that, as I probed Sunset Shimmer's half-red half-yellow sun cutie mark, I examined something more complex than skin and fur coloration. Moreover, I had encountered something odder than anything in a unicorn's body except perhaps her horn.

A unicorn horn is a physical manifestation of the body that allows the direct manipulation of magic, like the wings of a pegasus allows specific manipulation of flight magic. These magic organs were flesh, blood, and bone. The cutie mark, on the other hoof, appeared totally different, though like my horn, it communicated information back to the brain by radiating magical energy that the nerves picked up as a signal.

Though this thing on her flank seemed akin magically to a pegasus' wing, as I probed it I discovered only muscle. I could ask it questions; I got vague impressions of lifting celestial bodies and wings of fire, and great skill at magical symbology. It had little substance, though her body fed the area with increased blood flow. I sensed a magical aura and began to think that it wasn't tissue at all, but magic somehow localized into an aural projection of an organ. It seemed like a magical symbiont, though to my way of thinking, that meant little more than a parasite since it changed a pony to suit its purpose.

I thought about it a while, then got the muscles and skin in the area to shift in coordination but in opposition. In effect, I tugged the cutie mark aside and it shifted about a hoof length downward. If my magic were water in a pool, I'd say I'd found something gelatinous and had found a way by paddling to move it by water pressure.

Sunset Shimmer grew very quiet and froze. After a minute I worried it was because of what I'd done. My heart thumping in my chest, I let go of my magic. The mark snapped back into place.

Sunset turned her green eyes toward me. They looked unfocused, wet as if she'd been in tears. Slurring a bit, she said, "That hurt, but for a moment I stopped thinking about the runt and Celestia snubbing me and nothing mattered any more." She laid her chin on her legs and sighed. "What a relief. Could you do that again?"

I whispered, "Not tonight."

"Oh, too bad." She closed her eyes, rolled on her side, and fell instantly asleep.

I felt like I had gotten caught with my muzzle in the cookie jar. I'd made a epic discovery, but had experimented on another pony. The optics of that act looked bad; totally unethical. Yet...

Yet...

Yet... I'd had an epiphany.

I jumped off the bed and examined Sunset Shimmer as best I could. Her chest raised and fell rhythmically, and when I prodded her around, she shimmied herself under the sheets I held up for her.

For the first time since the day Sunburst had gotten his cutie mark, I wished I had one, too. I'd have been able to examine myself!

The implications of my discovery—if for no other reason than it snapped Sunset Shimmer's mania and allowed her a moment of solace—caused my brain to overheat. What would Understanding Pony Behavior have called it? Cutie Mark regression therapy? Could this be it, the something that I could actually help ponykind with?

I looked at my flank. Still blank.

Shoot!

On reflection, I felt kind of relieved. I filled my notebook with pages and pages of notes and equations.

***

The next day, at breakfast, we had the discussion I dreaded all night. Sober (apparently), not entirely surprisingly with no hangover thanks to all the water I'd made her drink, she brought up the sticky subject of my massaging her to get her to sleep for weeks. I felt uncomfortable when she shivered with visible pleasure as she told me that she had "adored the sensation," but had decided not to acknowledge it because it would have made us both uncomfortable.

"So, I'm acknowledging it. Thank you!" she said.

She continued as I stirred my bowl of Oaty O's, looking down at the granite kitchen island. "I'm totally in to letting you play with me all you want, however that mental chiropractic manipulation you did last night, that we need to discuss."

She listened as I described my discovery and my theory that, "...it isn't so much a part of a pony's body as a magical manifestation generated by the nervous system. All ponies have magic. I've directly sensed it at work in a pegasus—even zebras have it; it's not a stretch that earth ponies have it too—"

"Wait, zebras?"

"I've met one."

"This new magic Father taught you lets you see this?"

I wasn't going to correct her about how I learned the magic and powered on. "That, and seeing auras and the numbers in them, which, with more practice, you will see, too."

"I'm going to have to learn all this. How does this magic generate a cutie mark?"

"Generate? That might be a philosophical question. What I theorize is that pony magic, let's say, crystallizes amoment of realization, for lack of a better term, allowing the apparition to act as a reinforcement for the putative skill or talent, while creating a dominance marker in the social hierarchy. It takes a pony from being a generalist and promotes—no, enforces—the stratification of the herd."

"Sounds like you're taking those psych books too seriously."

I felt my face flush and let my anger leak out. "If you had been where I've been, seen the ugliness I've seen, spent time observing from on high and from the gutter, been beat up and used by the marked ones, you might have a better appreciation of what I'm implying."

She smiled indulgently at me and my outburst, crunching thoughtfully on a spoonful of cereal. "I dominated the street; I was the user, trust me on that. I've experienced oppression, too. I'd dearly like to understand why a simple sun holds power, and why a cutie mark of seven stars seems better destined for greatness than a setting sun."

She saw my theory from an opposite perspective. As I opened my mouth to clarify, she raised a hoof to stop me and said, "I'm supportive of you studying this new magic, but you do know that what you did last night was..."

The implication hit me as she looked for a word with exaggerated slowness.

Without consent.

Then again, it wouldn't be the first time I've transformed myself into the uncaring monster that savaged me in a lightning storm and taught me I could fight.

My heart raced and my stomach soured. She had been drunk, high, and virtually anesthetized; had I been a stallion and not a mare— My mind skittered around, like a cockroach startled by the kitchen light at midnight, and quickly inserted the word, "Wrong," before she inserted the four-letter word starting with R every mare dreaded hearing.

I understood...

Because it had happened to me...

In a lightning storm...

She chuckled evilly, the sound coming out her nose as she punctuated her statements with a circling hoof. "Let's say, 'inappropriate.' 'Unethical' is floating in my mind, somewhere..."

My whole body cooled in understanding.

Another blackmailer.

"So… In an effort to be supportive of research I too am interested in, let me tell you how it's going to be: No experimenting on other ponies, only on me, getting my permission first and under my supervision. Do this and we'll just forget how we got to this point."

I nodded.

"You'll start writing down everything you learn, your Barthemule derivative equations, any spell mnemonics you create, your theories, your experiments, your observations, with drawings and all the data you collect. I'll provide any tools you require. I'll find an undergrad faculty advisor who will listen to me and won't interfere with your work when the need arises to legitimize the research. We'll review the research together and you'll help me with the maths and magicks. When we have the science sewn up, we'll submit it to Celestia with my name as lead researcher. Got it?"

"I get to do physical research on your cutie mark?"

"Within limits."

"You get me what I need and help write it all up?"

"Sure, but you must make me an expert in the new magic."

"I'll teach. The learning's up to you."

"Yeah, that's what Celestia always says," she said, quieter. Perhaps she thought of her troubles learning to visualize numbers and master quick draw. That turned into a smile and she trotted around the island and held up a hoof. "Deal?"

I felt the emotion growing in me like an increasingly strong wind against a stand of strong trees, trying to blow them over. What was this expanding feeling?

"Deal," I said, doing the hoof bump, then hugging her with tears in my eyes.

She whinnied and pulled back, but I didn't let go.

She was giving me everything I wanted to fulfill my purpose in life. I couldn't give a copper bit about receiving credit or her motives; I'd have my new magic and a true understanding of the abomination that were cutie marks, and maybe a way to help all of ponykind through the darkness the magical aberration caused. I might even find a cure to prevent their manifestation in the first place.

Eventually Sunset Shimmer hugged me back. I wanted to kiss her. Had she asked me to ride her, I'd done so joyfully and instantly.

Getting her nettle-ewe?

No.

Nevertheless, she looked at me strangely when we parted. She asked, "Maybe I should hit you about the head and shoulders? Does that type of treatment make you happy, too?"

"Nope," I said, and lifted Sunset Shimmer and our bowls of cereal in my magic.

Her legs scrambled for purchase reflexively in the air. She had been correct when she had said levitating monsters from Tartarus pretty much made them ineffectual. My cheekiness stunned Sunset Shimmer so much that I managed to carry her to the counter, built across the dining room's picture window, without further protest. It looked out across Canterlot Castle, with its fairy towers and soft curving ramparts illuminated in the dawn-light, blazing orange while throwing long dense shadows. I set down our bowls and spoons, levitating napkins and a bud vase with a single daisy to complete the place setting.

I knew what she wanted. "Enjoy your breakfast and the view... my future queen."

She wanted power.

As she laughed, I thought how I'd been generally happy as Carne Asada's bodyguard (and admittedly her top enforcer and later top lieutenant) back east—until she committed the sin of stupidity and made it impossible for me to protect her life. She had forced me to chose between death and more death.

I was happy being a lieutenant so long as I got what I wanted.

If nothing else, it provided cover.

Chapter 25: Backed Into a Corner

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I got fifteen days. I guess I should have been thankful for what I got, but I resented the shortness of the span to Tartarus and back. It was odd that thanks to a certain fiery-maned pony, I actually had a sense of how close Tartarus really was.

Fifteen days to do a half-dozen tests. Time to learn enough to think a cutie mark had no physical connection whatsoever to its host. Was it a strong electro-magneto-magical force that kept it in place and conforming to the skin?

Fifteen days to attend senior classes—and inadvertently make my new classmates feel like dunces—and one at the university: library science. Mid-session transfers were difficult, but I got Miss Verdigris as a professor and quickly earned supervised direct access to the rare books collection, and unearned unsanctioned unsupervised access to a card catalog that included the Star Swirl the Bearded Time Wing with tantalizing short descriptions of scrolls and objects. Fifteen days and I knew where every book, scroll, and grimoire I wanted to read resided anywhere in Canterlot, or where and with whom it had landed on branch loan.

Not enough time to research a whole new obscure force of nature, however.

Could it be an attractive force consistent with an attractive spell opposite in polarity to that of the anti-gravitational force generated by Levitate? What if it were a spell in stasis? Could I cancel it like an intrinsic self-reciprocating spell like one cast into an object? I had my eye on Charms and Artifacts 101 for next semester.

Of course, I had to learn how to cancel spells by translating yellow-horse-speak into standard mathematical nomenclature—another thing for which fifteen days proved insufficient.

It was also fifteen days believing that I might yet live a full life doing something that mattered, and that I could finally get about the business of enjoying what I did and maybe help ponykind.

What chance had I had of being left alone? Little more than the chance of an ice cube in warrior-Sunburst's presumed desert home. Analyzed objectively, Cutie marks were the ultimate source of the all evil in my life.

I did my best to stay on the castle grounds, the school grounds, or the university campus. I stayed out of Canterlot as much as possible unless accompanied—actually cajoled—by Sunset Shimmer for meals or supplies. I didn't want to admit what I knew viscerally.

I did have to walk to school.

The dread disruption came on wings of blue. On the sidewalk of Castle Walk Boulevard, within sight of the school, I walked with my magical mechanics textbook levitated hoof lengths from my nose. I saw a blue fast moving form and heard the sound of wings braking and flapping, then the clatter of four hooves. I reflexively swatted with the open book, but Streak danced and fluttered back. She had kitted up in full punk mode, including gold chains, lip piercing, and a mane of sharp looking spikes glued into a crest. No pandering to Starlight Glimmer's precious aristo sensibilities this time.

"Whoa, Nelly. No shooting the messenger, Grimsy." She kept backpedaling because I didn't stop, even as I magicked the book into a saddlebag. As it became apparent I would continue onto the front quad lawn, she frantically took off and fluttered like an angry crow protecting a meal. "Stop. Please!"

By now, every pair of eyes, except for a couple of young fillies kicking a ball around, had turned to face us. Who was this pegasus attacking Sunset Shimmer's protégé?

"Get out of my way!" I yelled. I didn't care.

"I'll follow ya inside. See if I don't."

"Not in this lifetime you won't."

"What ya going to do, shoot me?" she asked loudly, playing to the audience, trying massive downstrokes of her wings, causing me to walk into a wind—as if that could dissuade me.

My aura lit on my horn as I prepared Stun. Truthfully, I didn't want to use it because I didn't want to hurt her. If I did, she'd crash and possibly break a wing. I'd be arrested for assault. She had put me in check, unable to fight.

She saw Grimoire, a crazy pony whom she thought she'd seen murder another by causing him to explode. Her voice squeaked with her effort to control its volume. "He's forcing me, honest. Please!"

"Fine."

I stopped. I saw movement: A silver-maned deep blue stallion with a blue Prench cap and a copper badge on his uniform trotted with a frown darkening his face.

"Quickly," I hissed.

As she reached into her black messenger bag, she said, "Boss said give you this." She had a blue paper, folded like origami into a book. A Grimoire.

As I tried to pluck it with my magic, it stuck in the frog of her hoof, pinched tightly.

I heard a police whistle.

"Look right," Streak said.

Reflexively, I complied, gazing toward downtown Canterlot and the mass of morning hoof-traffic passing the bank and cafe. When the note released into my magic, she said, "Boss don't trust me neither."

What had happened? A photograph? I remembered she owned a compact camera.

I stuffed the note in my saddlebags as the constable came galloping up, yelling, "Halt!" Streak ignored him and shot away. His Levitation proved too weak to stop her.

The middle-aged constable, huffing and puffing, asked, "What did she give you?"

I was way ahead of him, a veteran of the gangs of the eastern cities. I had already grabbed a random sheet and before he finished his sentence; I hit it with a force spell, burning it to a cinder. A puff of white smoke wafted away as I said, "Don't know; don't care," and walked away.

"Wait! Miss..?"

He wanted my name; no free pass. Best change tactics. "Starlight Glimmer," I said. I turned and looked into his amber eyes.

He stepped back. "Why did you destroy—?"

I let myself visibly deflate and my brow furrow, shaking my pigtails. "Because she was an obvious ruffian, trying to sell something," I said, my voice turning into a wail. But I dropped it to a whisper to say, "Probably weed." Then again loud, distraught, I wailed, "In front of all my friends!"

"I'm very sorry about that—"

"As you should be."

"Yes, um—"

"What? I'm late for class!"

He took out a pocket notebook. As I stood, tapping a hoof, he touched a levitated yellow pencil to his tongue, thenbegan scrawling. "Miss Starlight Glimmer, you see, there's a bulletin out about a pegasus that fits that description. She's wanted for questioning. Did you see anything on that paper she gave you?"

The blue origami grimoire? "Other than it was purple, no. Not really."

"I see. Well, if she accosts you again—"

"I'll be sure to tell her to visit the constabulary office and ask for—?"

He sighed deeply, closing the notebook with a soft clap and returning it and the pencil to a pocket. "Officer Lapis Lazuli. Thank you for your time, Starlight Glimmer."

He made sure I knew he knew my name, and wasn't happy. Had to hope I'd only left a sour taste in his mouth. "Don't mention it," I said, then as he strode away, I said under my breath, "Really, don't mention it."

I didn't want to be a sensation, but there I was, a sensation. Ponies I didn't know asking questions and gossiping. Turns out I'd burnt up my homework and had to deal with a pouty senior-year analytical thaumaturgy teacher who thought she had been getting a new teacher's pet.

I didn't get to look at the note until I used the lavatory between classes. In a dark pink-painted stall, finally no longer under scrutiny, I unwrapped it half expecting to find weed or another restricted substance. I found two words cut and pasted from magazines.

_SuNSet ^SHiMMeR

Chapter 26: Any Plan in a Storm

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I knocked a couple of foals aside barreling from the lavatory, heading for the stairs. The halls were clearing, except for a few ponies grabbing books and slamming lockers as the morning sun streamed through the hallway windows.

The bell rang.

A last gold colt slipped through the doorway and shut the door as I skidded up, recognizing I wasn't a classmate. Winded, I pressed my face against the cold rectangular window to see Sunset Shimmer in a wall-side desk, rustling through her saddlebags and bringing out papers.

I slid to the worn, darkly-stained wood floor, feeling as dented and trodden by horseshoes as the centuries-old oak planking. A small purple mare trotted quietly by, tardy as I, frowning at me askance between two levitated tomes.

Not kidnapped, then.

Of course not! What good would kidnapping do for Running Mead? He wanted influence through a minion with access to Canterlot Castle, namely me. He stood to lose it if he got the royal guard involved and my affiliations leaked. Still, I was no expert in criminal psychology, despite spending time entirely too involved in a such organization. I'd been told I'd been practicing plausible deniability.

With a sigh, I levered myself up and trotted to class against growing paranoia that I shouldn't be leaving the keys to my new life unguarded. Though tardy, I shot from the room a minute before the bell, leaving a potions quiz incomplete, to make it to Sunset's class as the bell sounded.

A tide of pastel ponies surged outward, none yellow with a yellow and red mane. When I could safely stick my head inside without getting my nose broken, Sunset Shimmer sighed and laid her head on her desk, her bright tresses cascading over her eyes.

The auburn teacher in a brown dress said, "Excuse me!" squeezing past as I entered.

Standing beside my patron, I asked, "Are you okay?"

Without lifting her head, she groaned. "Why are you here?"

I packed her notebook and quill, pulled her unenergetic self standing, and placed her saddlebags on her back. "What you need is a mug of strong sugary tea!"

"Won't help," she said…

...and said again, in the empty cafeteria, when I set a mug of deep red liquid with a rapidly melting ice cube before her. She deigned to sip it, then affixed her green eyes on me, "Why've you done this to me? There wasn't a second period class. I could have snoozed for an hour upstairs."

"I was worried."

"About what?"

Well, that was an awkward question. Let's see: A pegasus delivered a note from a crime boss with a threat on your life this morning?

Though she hadn't asked, I assumed she thought my "gigs" in the Lower were either acting or musical. Proper Step had insisted a filly needed to learn to sing (in tune and with perfect pitch), and occasionally I sang pop and bridleway show tunes around the ivory tower while doing experiments, cooking, or showering. Parade songs worked nicely for keeping time during aerobics in Sunset's amazing gym and expanded my lung capacity.

Oh, yeah, Sunset, speaking of which, I also worked as a racketeer's enforcer, though I recently quit, which is why you're in these horse apples.

That would ruin everything. Running Mead would find my discomfort amusing, but I doubted the imagined humor was what he had had in mind with his note.

Instead, I said, brightly, "You were fine at breakfast."

"Say, isn't your library science class now? You were so excited about getting that book. Go. Leave me alone." Her hair slid over her eyes as she bent to sip her tea loudly.

"You planning on going into Canterlot for lunch?"

"Scrounge up your own flapping lunch, Glimmer," she hissed. "Go."

I found her at lunch on the castle-side quad, under a tree, munching brown-bagged sliced apples and curried hay, reading a textbook. As I passed by behind Sunset Shimmer, the usually wary pony continued reading placidly, not noticing.

At least she looked less downtrodden. Strong tea, maybe?

I walked around the building toward the front lawns. Intuition, or something seen subliminally, made me look toward Castle Walk Boulevard. I saw a pony with a white blaze.

This wasn't me thinking I saw Sunburst, who had both a white blaze on his muzzle and white socks. I'd seen Sunburst everywhere I looked the year he left for Canterlot. Maybe it was a flavor of that old hyperawareness—mixed with the memory of fighting another with a white blaze, locked in a battle that I'd expected to end with me dead.

I stood in the shade behind a fragrant cypress tree. Was it Fellows coming out of the bank wearing a tan business suit, white shirt, and red tie, "idly" looking around from the vantage point of the granite steps?

"Ehhhh...." Not dead, then.

Of course, Running Mead was stupid enough to believe that, which meant he didn't have spies in the constabulary—yet.

Didn't Fellows suspect his appearance might scare Grimoire? Of course, the detective might have learned that a suspicious blue pegasus pony delivered a blue note to a snitty filly with a chartreuse-striped purple mane...

What had he remembered about my cloaked looks?

I glanced around. No students stood close. A few talked or ate their sandwiches, laying on the lawn, studying. Others watched an impromptu hoofball game in the rear of the school. Despite the blue-sky reflected in the windows, I felt certain nopony watched me.

I cast Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear and trotted quickly to the downtown street. The illusion had its usual drawbacks. One odd head turn, expression, reflexive dodge of something not fully seen by any potential observer, even an unnoticed ear flick, could break the illusory verisimilitude that interfered with the senses and, in a cascade, cause everypony to look at what nopony had until that moment realized they had not seen.

At the sidewalk, I assured myself it was the self-same mauve pony with white candy stripes in his purple mane, just before he clattered down the steps and strolled toward the Hey Burger! Passing a student, I timed my crossing to avoid a northbound bus and a southbound van, the latter blowing my tail aside. Hoof traffic was light, but it felt like threading a needle, me having to concentrate on the spell and being aware of everything 360º around me, including moving ponies, sandwich-board restaurant menu signs, cafe tables, newspaper racks, and thus-such that limited my ability to dodge. My neck began to hurt from swinging it.

I sweated. I'd learned well that the spell didn't mask that distraction.

I caught up to him past the Hey Burger!, where I noticed the triangle sliced off his ear. That thrilled him. Sure it did. Better than dead, though.

He purchased from a window a stick of apples, jicama, and watermelon dipped in chocolate. He glanced at the school. Exactly why, I still had no idea.

I noticed an orange foal trailing his mother, pulling a quacking wooden duck on wheels. His eyes followed me as he approached, but he looked down shyly at my glance.

He saw me.

Well, add to the weaknesses of the spell the height of the caster's eyes in relation to those looking her direction!With the strain of casting the spell growing unbearable if not untenable, I ducked into an access way and watched Fellows amble away to be lost in the crowd.

A "Mommy! Mommy!" was quickly lost in the crowd noise. I had read the spell didn't work for for animals and foals; now I believed it and understood why. Flying pegasi would prove a pain, too. I resolved to keep in mind the ground I walked over when outside.

I let the spell unravel and exited to the sidewalk.

It left me too much to think about in class the rest of the day. My practical magic teacher actually banged on my desk. She'd said, "Stop cloud gathering, Glimmer—!" before she dropped her ruler.

I smelled why.

A charred piece of wood smoked on my desk top, grey smoke curling upward. I tried looking contrite, but trying to blush didn't cut it.

She sent me to my old friend the vice-headmare. Yippie.

Ms. Maple found the charcoaled ruler rather funny, though she only admitted that behind the closed door of her office. The day I'd won entrance to the world's finest magic school, she had misinterpreted bruises on me as bullying and she had counseled me since. She knew that I'd involuntarily helped an EBI agent named Agent Sprinter before my arrival in Canterlot, but not that I'd ridden him; she had verified I fought to protect the stallion, but not discovered that I had helped Celestia inadvertently. She hadn't yet connected the dots about my past and far past that I really truly didn't want connected. I expected her to tell the headmare if she did. That she wanted to discuss my PTSD reactions took more time than I liked.

I had to face it. All signs led to the conclusion that my life would soon implode.

I felt torn when a somewhat-revived Sunset Shimmer hauled me away from studying at my desk in the ivory tower, to join her in Canterlot for dinner. I tried, "There's oat bread and veg in the pantry?"

Her eyes had dark circles. "Are you trying to get on my nerves, today?" she asked, before leading me with a tug of her magic. "Silly filly."

At an all-you-could eat herb and hay bar, she bought a hard cider, and another when I whispered, "Me too," at the cashier.

If there was any time this pony needed cidering, now was the time: Watching the crowds in full bodyguard mode, looking for constables or gang members, left my muscles twitchy. I found us a table with me facing the storefront with an eye to the swinging kitchen door so nopony could move anywhere without me seeing.

Celestia, how I hated this. How could I have found this at all fun?

All the attention and praise...?

Always pushing my limits with constant training...?

Being useful...?

Fighting to protect a life...?

Being the best bodyguard ever...?

Right... What I hated was now. I cared about my charge. It was personal.

"I am not a coward," Sunset stated, banging down her tray, making the silverware rattle and the drinks foam.

I knew where this was going.

"Is it unreasonable to ask what she's training me for? The 1000th Summer Sun Celebration is soon after I graduate. There's this thing called preparation!"

"Definitely hiding something for nefarious reasons," I deadpanned, which merited me a snort.

I sighed as I bowed my head to sip my cider, the effervescence tickling my nose as I put my lips to the golden liquid. My reaction was instant.

"Blech! How can you drink this yucky stuff?"

I couldn't tell if I hated the sour or the astringent taste worse, as I scraped my tongue with my front teeth. I'd only ever had quarter beers or diluted wines at home. I preferred a fruity aperitif. Learning to drink was yet another thing I'd been tutored in growing up—went with the territory—but this dry stuff was horse apples.

"More for me," she said, snorting and dragging the glass next to hers. "I need it. So what's up with you today?"

I pushed the salad around my plate. The basil leaves, red and yellow nasturtiums, and the pile of potatoes and green alfalfa had seemed more appetizing when I'd heaped them there. Hers had halved tomatoes, arugula, caramel hay stalks, and celery root purée. Her green eyes regarded me.

I said, "I realized how important you are to me."

She started blinking.

There were so many ways she could misinterpret that. It didn't help that my face grew warm. Her face went through a panoply of expressions, all uncomfortable.

She said, "I don't know much about this friendship thing, but I don't think I've been much of a friend." She munched on a forkful of hay.

I swallowed the butter-cumin potato I'd been chewing. "I've sworn off the institution—"

"After Sunburst?"

"Yeah."

So why did I care about Sunset Shimmer, and truthfully, about that punk Streak also?

I added, "We've both had lives where that just doesn't make sense."

She nodded. "We're survivors!"

"Exactly!" I chewed some alfalfa that had been marinated in vinegar and garlic, then waved my fork around. "For a few weeks, I thought I might evolve beyond that. Unfortunately, I've made choices in my life I regret all of a sudden."

I glared when she picked up her glass. It registered with her the instant it had with me because she put it down with a clack, unsampled.

I added, "Don't make choices you'll regret."

"I'm sure I'll make loads of them," she said prophetically, saluting me with the glass before downing the entire thing.

Later, I hugged her in bed—after she fell asleep. Something told me it might be the last time.

***

It didn't take a day to realize her choices already haunted her, and would destroy my dreams.

It didn't seem possible, but she became more grumpy and more irascible. Not only did she look like she was hungover, despite only two ciders the night before, but I overheard the gossip fillies mention her name as I returned from the university library. Seems she'd bawled out a student during a practicum she had administered. As I lingered around the group, a lavender platinum blonde said she heard Sunset had boxed the ear of another student. A third claimed she had lost a shouting match with Vice-headmare Maple and stomped out of her office.

Incidents the princess would hear about.

In the ivory tower, I checked the fume hood in the basement laboratory. As I suspected, no scent of nettle-ewe smoke. There was always a chance she had listened to me and voluntarily gone cold turkey.

I hissed. "Yeah, tell me another!" I slammed the glass door down.

Her supply had dried up. Bits to biscotti, I knew why. The best I could hope for was that she would seek help or, at the very least, tough it out.

When she returned home—despite being a wreck, with hairs in her mane standing out as she winced at noises—she acted nice, sweet, and deferential around me.

I'd introduced her to nettle-ewe, after all. Who might better get her more?

I understood. I had amazing memories under the influence of the herb. That Zecora had helped me through the experience of using it as a shamanic tool with her salts, guidance, consultations of spirits, and metered doses prevented it, barely, from stepping from fond memory to a craving.

The next day, before my third period class, I stood at the second floor window facing the boulevard. I spotted Fellows again. I knew that the downtown constabulary shared office space with the royal guard and was less than a dozen blocks away, but still, what was his game?

He reappeared at the end of lunch.

At dinner, in the kitchen, we ate poorly seasoned spinach and garlic oat pasta that Sunset Shimmer tossed together with olive oil. Barely able to keep up a nervous banter, she finally asked how I spent my time in the Lower.

"Acting," I prevaricated, curtly. That near-truth proved sufficient to delay the inevitable.

***

I trotted to school before dawn while the janitors busily swept for the new day, the cafeteria cook prepared something with fragrant tomatoes for the day's meals, and athletes showed up shouting and roughhousing with each other for early practice.

I kept vigil at the second floor window sill with a thermal mug of steaming honeyed tea, a math book, a sheet of paper, and a quill. The overcast skies fit my mood. As normally-didn't-get-out-of-bed-until-the-last-second students showed up, with, to my relief, Sunset Shimmer amongst them, I spotted dear old Fellows across the way, rapidly heading in the direction of the constabulary. Not so fast that he couldn't spare glances at the school and the pastel ponies streaming into the building!

By then, I had written a checklist.

One:

Throw it all away and spend my last gold bits on a train ticket to Dodge City or an airship to Trottingham. I now had more diversified magic skills, even if I didn't have a diploma or a degree to prove it.

I might get honest work!

Two:

Go home.

I'd have plenty of bits. I'd hire the tutors I wanted this time.

Just let Proper Step try to restrict me now! Him insisting on making a former prizefighter a proper lady? Him keeping her from learning magic? Ha!

I had my emancipation papers!

I knew that despite them being studiously legal, including a half-dozen apostilles, they had a weakness. He would contest them, or would be forced to do so by somepony with the P-word in her title. I'd have to appeal to the peerage to fight back, to remain legally an adult. I was not so naïve to think the politics of that would be easy.

Both Running Mead and Sunset Shimmer had correctly deduced I came from Horseshoe Bay. Grin Having was comprised of the piedmont and the northern shoreline, with Sire's Hollow near the crest. I knew Running Mead had other enforcers and might lash out. I'd be really pissed if I had to protect Proper Step, or the townsfolk, and broken heads would bring Celestia down on me like a load of bricks.

Either of these options felt like running with my tail between my legs. Quitting. The argument that a mare had to do what a mare had to do just rang hollow.

Three:

Visit Zecora. Assuming Zecora would trade me for nettle-ewe—and I sensed she might refuse—that solution was fraught with problems, like getting caught smuggling a restricted herb into Canterlot, to name one, or drawing the ire of Flowing Waters or Running Mead, or Princess Celestia herself.

I had no criminal record, or enemies that weren't criminals, yet. I risked being saddled with both. This option expanded the time I could research and study.

Running Mead would find another way to obtain his goal, which I wasn't clear about, so how could I counter it? How much time could I buy?

Four:

Tattle to Flowing Waters about Sunset Shimmer's addiction. I could tattle to the Princess, for that matter, but the result would be worse for me. Sunset Shimmer would retaliate by mentioning I'd introduced her to nettle-ewe, and perhaps that I had had ridden her, something I couldn't refute since I didn't remember.

No chance I'd become the princess' next physician; a slim chance that I'd avoid Tartarus.

Five:

Take Sunset Shimmer to Zecora. I presumed the zebra knew how to cure addictions since she knew how to prevent them. However, I could see Sunset Shimmer objecting to visiting the Everfree Forest, or letting herself be treated by a shaman.

This option exposed Zecora as Running Mead's nettle-ewe supplier. If Sunset Shimmer retaliated, she'd hurt Zecora, too. Or she might threaten to retaliate to get nettle-ewe. I owed it to Zecora to protect her from harm.

Last, it would raise questions in Sunset Shimmer's mind as to my involvement in trafficking the herb…

Six:

Work with Sunset Shimmer to ride out the storm of her withdrawals.

She might not be able to cast Force correctly, but she was huskier than me and no lightweight mage—she was Princess Celestia's first protégé after all. Let's not forget she had disabled me twice, and hadn't even been fighting. She was a veteran of fighting monsters in Tartarus. I might be able to corral her for awhile, but she'd get away. The addict in her would fight.

I knew the authorities could control a dangerous unicorn by ringing her horn. That meant both obtaining the prohibited toroidal amulet and getting the unicorn to cooperate to allow you to put it on her horn. My situation was reality, not fantasy; if I ringed Sunset Shimmer without her permission (and in what world would she consent?), I'd have an enemy.

Realistically, all of option six made her my enemy. At least she'd only retaliate against me unlike in option five, maybe not as forcefully as in option four, but I'd be out on my ear with no help for my project, and with an enemy who'd likely thwart any research in the future. At best, it would buy time as in option three.

Seven:

Abandon Sunset Shimmer, work Force-heating burgers, and find a flop house with ponies who attended school from distant cities. This was the weakest option of all since I jettisoned my one strong asset, Sunset Shimmer, and left Running Mead plenty of time to blackmail me or hurt another I might associate with. That assumed I cared.

I cared.

Unfortunately, I cared.

I had a need to protect ponies, and was stupid like that...

The five minute bell sounded. I packed my supplies, chugged my cold tea, and trotted to class.

At my desk, looking at the blackboard upon which the teacher wrote the topics for today's lesson, I thought sourly how my options were to 1) quit, 2) retreat and fight defense, 3) be beaten into submission, or 4) get arrested. 6) and 7) were fantasy and impossible for me. Might as well jump off the Canterlot Precipice as go back to work for Running Mead.

That would be 5), wouldn't it?

I hated that Running Mead stood to win big or not lose anything he hadn't had.

The teacher continued yesterday's lecture about the Resignation Interregnum. Three-hundred years ago, when Princess Celestia had retreated to the Crystal Mountains, she had left Equestria under parliamentary rule. The teacher talked about cultural shifts. During that time, ponies of any means wore clothing in public. Many wore outlandishly frilly costumes, even stallions, and always covered their cutie mark. Philosophical and political thought ran that ponies, whether commoner or gentry, were equal under the law and, like Princess Celestia's sun cutie mark, cutie marks intrinsically differentiated ponies. Historians thought that the fashions of the interregnum indicated that ponies thought it rude to display cutie marks, though my teacher poo-pooed that conclusion, and ridiculed the inequality argument.

I disagreed. It was fascinating that for about thirty years, everypony thought that cutie marks made ponies appear unequal. More interesting, they thought that costumes made one's identity. I thought about Grimoire. I thought about my former life in Grin Having and Sire's Hollow.

An idea bloomed in my head.

That afternoon, I cut class after Fellows finished his patrol. I took my bits and shopped carefully in the Canterlot fashion district.

Chapter 27: Gambit

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In Canterlot, as in Manehattan, ponies wore clothing more often than in other cities. Those who did were professionals or members of the upper class. Except for athletic uniforms, occasional sweaters, or rare tides of fashion, average students rarely wore anything other than their saddlebags or a messenger bag. Of course, no student remarked about the few smartly dressed aristocrats who also attended Celestia's school. Most exposed their hindquarters, for at our age ponies were proud of newly acquired cutie marks. I was proud I didn't have one, but today I needed to hide that fact.

As I listened to Sunset Shimmer grumbling while she dragged her aching body out of bed, I rapidly dressed a few floors below and dashed out into the early morning chill.

I caused rather a stir when I appeared at school, first in the cafeteria making a fragrant Earl Greymare bergamot tea, with three spoons of sugar, and afterward while sauntering through the halls.

Nopony recognized me. A young baroness greeted me politely. I remembered my manners, stressed my eastern accent, and used proper elocution, deferring to her with proper forms of address to explain who I was. Proper Step would have been proud his lessons stuck, though not that I had deferred to a baroness.

Clothing made the mare.

My history teacher smiled as I managed my ensemble with practiced ease, crossing the front of the classroom before my fellow students, then parading down the aisle to my desk. I imagined Ms Lookback thought her lesson the day before had struck a chord. It had, though not in the way she thought.

Nopony jeered when they figured out it was me. Most stared agape as I removed the big floppy straw sunhat with the diaphanous daffodil yellow and pink scarf tied around it, revealing my mane tied into a bun sprayed stiff with hair gloss so it hid the green stripes. I slid the hat under the chair and took off a canary yellow messenger bag, from which I slid the sole notebook that fit inside the petite basket-weave accessory, placing the bag in the desk and closing the top. I positioned my notebook perfectly centered on the pine desktop with my new pink feather quill parallel to the top edge, also centered. I arranged the tail bustle of the yellow cotton dress through the back of the chair together with my tail and flounced down with nothing out of place, demonstrating that I had practice moving in fabric.

The actually kind-of-plain two piece outfit had a slightly pinkish white-collared ruffle neckline, with butterfly sleeves trimmed with matching lace, from which fell daffodil yellow bell-bottom culottes that dropped to my fetlock. The pink ribbon at my dock matched the antique pink sparkle of the polish on my hooves above the bright lemon yellow of my horseshoes.

With the hat, the ensemble hid me completely. Considering my upbringing, I could carry it off with a correct amount of poise sufficient to confuse everypony who stared trying to reconcile today-Starlight with yesterday-Starlight.

Even with the shoes—and the quick tailoring necessary to fit the close-out discovery in order to make it possible to fight or gallop in it (by lifting a few hems and darting a few seams that I had to point out to the seamstress)—it only cost me two gold bits and five-and-twenty silver.

Fellows didn't show up until mid-lunch.

Decked-out in full aristocratic daytime costume, I merged into the crowd near the bank like some upper crust mare out shopping on the town. My presence in the crowd, like a large rock in a brook, merited a few paces clearance on all sides.

I wondered if the detective had more than one suit; he still wore his tan one, this time with a creme color tie in an overly tight four-in-hoof knot. And the same brown bowler. I watched him stop, nudge up the brim, and look at the school—from no more than a pony-length behind him, hiding in plain sight as it were. I studied him as he stared across the boulevard. His sliced ear added to an already square-jawed ruggedness, especially when he flicked it. Were he to pierce his ragged ear with a diamond stud, a kind of pirate fashion popular this year for stallions, he might even look dashing enough to pursue for a ride.

Time to get on with it.

My heart beat too rapidly; this gambit could cost me everything. I prepared Stun as I approached. My horn held up the brim of my floppy hat, leaving it free of obstruction. The sides of the hat drooped down to my neckline and the collar rose high. I crossed in front of him, but he saw neither my distinctive mane nor my pink-lavender fur. He reflexively stepped back from the curb to give me room. A few paces beyond, I glanced back and saw him sigh, turning coincidentally to follow me, not coincidentally heading to the constabulary.

His heavy horseshoes rang against the pavement and he muttered to himself. I stayed a few paces ahead of him until we strolled out of sight of the school. We passed the few restaurants frequented by students, going three blocks to a department store with wide glass windows filled with shiny appliances and seasonal clothes. Good enough for what I'd planned.

As his shoes clopped very close, I purposely backed into his way, causing him to nudge me in the rear. "I say!"

"Excuse me, m'lady," he said.

In return, I said quietly, "Running Mead."

"Wait, what?"

"Keep it down." My heart jumped into my throat. "Don't stare at me. You are not the only pony watching."

"I—"

"Pretend to look interested in the merchandise in the window. Walk ahead. Don't look back. I'll follow and talk."

"Yes, m'la— Grimoire?"

"Walk, okay?" I hissed.

He passed me, stopping to stare at a black Trottingham-cut suit. After a pair of mares in red business dresses trotted by, I said, "I quit the business."

"So I heard."

"What?" Playing my own game, I breathlessly passed him and stopped before a display of Hearth's Warming Eve tree ornaments. The Running of the Leaves was a week away, but retail had its own rules.

He stopped a pace behind me and said, "Rye Bald sent me a letter."

"A nice one, I hope." In my messenger bag, I had the letter he'd posted me from Ponyville's Golden Oak Library, sent to Sunset Shimmer's less than a week after I'd healed him. I went nowhere without my insurance.

"One about how you were used, and that you obviously didn't want to commit assault, but that doesn't mean you weren't committing a criminal act."

"I can get you Running Mead. Might that allow you to overlook what you saw at the Quill and Sofas warehouse?"

"It might," he said. He continued after we swapped places and I looked in at foal's clothes. "But he's a slippery son of a dragon. The few times we thought we'd bridled him, he slipped away."

"He uses a mind control spell."

Fellows perked up and I could see enough of his reflection to know he looked toward me. I had mentioned dangerous capital dark magic.

"Manners!" I warned loudly.

He looked away. "That would explain much."

"I'd rather not experience it again, but I'm sure I can arrange to have him dealing drugs. He might even attempt to murder me, just to make a point. Would that work?"

"That surely would."

"One night, at sunset, probably less than a week from now, I'll head into the Lower. Don't worry. You'll recognize me. I'll be with Sunset Shimmer. Follow discreetly and don't lose us."

"Or I could just arrest you now."

I blinked at his audacity. Average-sized for a unicorn stallion and not visibly muscly...

His horn wasn't lit! His only advantage, gone.

Stupidly for him, he was also well within hoof length. I didn't underestimate his hoof-to-hoof training, nor that I had only recently gotten serious again about my training regime—but I was well inside his defenses. I'd could sweep him over into the window, head butt him unconscious because unicorns instinctively didn't parry with their horn, or clean his clock with a bare hoof upper cut to the chin—all within the limits of the dress I'd custom-tailored.

I raised an eyebrow as I asked, "Do you really think you could do that? I've nothing to lose except an attempt to bring Running Mead to justice. I could be gone and you'll never see me again. Literally. Instantly. You've fought me. You know. Try me, Detective Fellows. Better yet, trust me."

"Fine. I'll give you a week."

"Don't threaten me. I want this as much as you do, and you won't catch me if you try. I know how to disappear. You had nothing on Running Mead until now, so be patient. Prepare." My accent had thickened on its own, so I stressed it. "On my honor, sir, I swear I will deliver when the moment of opportunity presents itself. It shall present itself."

"I shall endeavor to be patient, m'lady." He bowed his head slightly, doffing his bowler and placing it over his heart.

Giving the barest curtsy appropriate to his office due from me, I tipped my hat so he got a good look at my face and that weird double-star around my horn that was beginning to grow in. "How gallant of you, kind sir," I said and winked.

With that, I strode off. I almost couldn't hear for the pounding of my heart and the taxi and lorry traffic in the street, but I didn't hear his horseshoes against the pavement, nor had he moved when I glanced back after crossing the boulevard.

I would carry out my part.

Would he carry out his part? If I were wrong about that, I suspected nopony would find my corpse.

Chapter 28: Welcome to My World

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That night, I insisted on eating at home.

Unsurprisingly, Sunset Shimmer acted as if she thought it a good idea, that it would "save bits." I'd tossed together a bowl of primavera fried hay with carrots and squash I'd scrounged up at the back of the pantry. It wasn't very appetizing, maybe because the butter lemon sauce was a little off. My idea of a good meal was takeaway fish & fry, when I had a pegasus to fetch it from a rooftop dive or, when I had no bits, to graze somepony's fescue lawn before the goats arrived to mow it in the morning. I'd not been tutored in cooking other than, of course, to appreciate it when good.

Her fork clattered to the table when she finally brought it up.

Her red claret unsampled, her hair laying limply across her face as if she no longer cared about her appearance, not even making eye contact, she asked, "Remember the night you first slept over here?"

I had expected this, but it saddened me nonetheless. The mouthful I chewed became like sawdust, but I played the game. "Uh, huh."

Quiet, very quiet: "You brought nettle-ewe..."

I'd brought it under Running Mead's mind control. Despite her equivocation at the time, I felt certain it had been my chummy presentation that had introduced the idea that it might be reasonable and safe to use. Having destroyed it, and having warned her, hadn't dissuaded her from trying it. Thus had Running Mead lost the battle and won the war. I had thought he had no influence outside of the Lower, but now he'd dried up Sunset Shimmer's supply. He wanted a tamed princess' pet—and her trainer—the two of us.

I put down my fork with a click-clack. "I warned you."

"Don't tell me you didn't know."

"I knew."

Her eyes came up, and I could see the red rimming them. "Then you can get me some?"

"You need to go to your father and get help—"

She slammed her front hooves on the granite top, rattling the plates and silver. I jumped back as she shouted, "You don't know my father! He was against me living here alone and..."

I had read about addiction in Understanding Pony Behavior. Addict's logic. It was the addiction talking. I endured the rage, the tears, and the begging—as a sailor might bad weather at sea, with no choice but to survive it.

She wouldn't even let me hold her that night to ease her tremors. In essence, she'd sunk so low she wouldn't let me lean to support her. She wanted me to feel guilty and cave. In the end, I knew what I had to do and giving in, even if I honestly could, wasn't it.

The next afternoon at lunch, I left school and walked through the fashion district toward Ponyville Way, ensuring I was as visible as possible and obviously alone. If I was being watched by the constabulary, I saw no evidence.

I hoped that this meant Fellows and I had a deal.

I walked all the way to the very busy intersection of Alicorn and Ponyville Way. Sun caused the empire-style fortress-like sandstone edifice on one corner to throw a massive shadow. The News Building housed the Canterlot Inquisition and above, within the glassed-in faux crenelations, the magazine The Canterlotter. In the cool shade waited, I realized with a start, a mare that I recognized. She trotted up to me with her green mane styled in a casual flip, wearing a long dress and a smart ruddy bowler hat. She had indigo eyes, and on a closer inspection, no horn. Wearing a dress to conceal her wings must have hurt. The green dye would have hurt her pride. Her black and silver compact camera made her look like a tourist.

I told Streak, "Tell Running Mead he's won."

"I'm so sorry!"

We both sighed, watching lorries and taxis roll on by, not budging an inch as we forced hoof traffic to walk around us. Beyond the big windows, continuous rolls of paper whirred through a giant printing press. The rumble made it to the street. Ponies ran with pots of black ink, while a tour guide addressed tourists behind a glass partition. I wondered if any reporters noticed the newsworthy pair that stood just outside.

I said, "I know you are."

"The boss is very good at finding ways to control a pony." The wannabe furniture-moving magnate stared at the sidewalk.

"Try to believe me when I say he doesn't always get it right. We've got hope. The other day, I had to protect myself, and I'm sorry for what happened and for what you saw."

She dismissed it with a snort.

"Now, this is very important: Tell Running Mead I'm going to bring him Sunset Shimmer." I hesitated about the next part because I intended to infuriate him. I took a deep breath and added, "Tell him that's in exchange for my freedom."

"We're his possessions."

I was counting on that. I needed him to do his worst to me as his victim. I was no innocent, and if he acted and the constabulary saw it, and I survived, I would finally make the world a better place for myself and everypony else.

"Tell him I'll only give her to him personally or no deal. In person. Tailor can guide us. Tell him I have no scruples about protecting myself. Remind him what you saw in Rye Bald's flat." Again, calculated to incite anger.

She nodded wordlessly, possibly sadly and suddenly sick to her stomach as she ambled away.

I endured one more night of moaning and moping, and all sort of piss and vinegar. I wanted Sunset Shimmer desperate enough to do anything I asked, and I wanted Fellows ready. I hoped he was as professional as he seemed.

Sunset Shimmer didn't go to school the next day. When I returned to the ivory tower, I found her in the vestibule, draped over a gilt blue-velvet fainting couch she'd dragged over, waiting—as I'd read dogs were wont to do. Reddened green eyes followed me as I hung my saddlebags on the umbrella tree, before I knelt facing her.

I said, "I've seen roadkill that looks better than you."

"I'll take that as a compliment. I feel far worse, and you know why."

It was time to crack. I managed a sob and laid against the cushion, pressing my cheek against her ribs, laying my horn across her stomach. I could hear her heart beating, but at least she couldn't see my eyes as I lied. "I can't take this any more. It's tearing me apart!"

Okay, it wasn't entirely a lie. I hated seeing her this way and wanted the old arrogant Sunset back, who I now realized was kind of fun.

After a moment, I felt her stroking my mane—which oddly made me think of me holding her in the night. Her numbers moved sluggishly. She had the concentration to levitate hair, but probably not much more.

She said, "You can help me."

"I want to, and I know what you're asking for. I wanted to be the mare you thought I was, but I guess that was a dream after all. Could you consider getting real help? Do you really want me to introduce you to my world?"

Her heart beat faster; I heard it. "No pony is perfect, Starlight. Yes, I know it's hard for you, but I promise, I really promise, this time I'll be careful of what I take. I'll taper off. I've read what to do. J-j-just help me this once…"

In the dusk, after I had gotten her showered, fixed her mane, got strong tea and sugar in her to perk her up, and found eye drops to clear her eyes, we walked through the bailey gate from the castle, nodding at the guards who nodded in return. Minutes later, I led her on to the school quad, where she said, "Deep Thinker stopped selling. I haven't been able to find her in weeks."

Few ponies remained. Lights in the magic lab flicked on downstairs. A pair of roan ponies, the "conjuring twins" everypony called them, stood on the sidewalk awaiting a ride. I sat beside a tree, out of view of the street. The grass felt cool. Autumnal air rustled the leaves, and the spicy scent of a pepper tree drifted down. I asked, "You haven't got a clue, have you?"

"About what?"

I took out a compact I had bought this morning, along with a makeup brush, newly cut stencils, and a pump hairspray bottle. I checked that the black, brown, and white powder pots were in the proper order, wincing at the heavy gardenia scent of the cheap stuff. Leaving Zecora's, I had set Grimoire's cape on fire, melted my supplies, and thrown the special horseshoes deep into the forest. Even that hadn't ended the nightmare.

No wishes came true unless you acted to ensure they did. I forced down the resentment of what I had to do.

"Welcome to my world," I said.

Chapter 29: To Ring a Unicorn

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"Welcome to my world," I said, placing the stencil, brushing on the black, and spraying the fast-dry lacquer.

As Sunset Shimmer watched—and for some reason I felt a need for her to watch—I layered on Grimoire both physically and mentally. I continued by releasing my pigtails, combing my mane back, and pushing in berets, creating Grimoire's signature Baltimare tough's bouffant. The stallion version, not the mare version. In a society where stallions wore their hair short, many eastern gang members never cut their manes or tails. A few spritzes made the hair style solid. I finished by putting my tail in a bun, hiding the chartreuse stripe. A second-hoof, carefully tailored for movement, black hip-length bad-weather short cape completed the costume, though I left the cowl down.

I stood. Sunset Shimmer followed wordlessly. The twin roan ponies still awaited their carriage, lit by a flickering gas streetlight. Both were brownish-tannish in color with black manes, and black points that made them look like they had stepped knee-deep in charcoal. I stopped at the curb and waited with Sunset Shimmer to my right. I sensed them looking and turned to my left to meet their magenta eyes.

I lowered my muzzle as I looked, exposing the whites beneath my irises, showing them predator eyes.

I didn't blink.

"Come on, Candy," one said, and they trotted down the block. I waited another minute, hoping everypony who needed to see me would see me and prepare. I suddenly really really didn't want to do this. I could well believe I faced death.

A year ago, I'd looked into a blue sky and saw a griffon wearing knives on her talons about to crash on me and Carne Asada. I'd seen my death then, and according to Carne Asada, they'd barely revived me from my injuries after I'd put down the hen. I saw death now; less immediate, but how many times could I play with fire and survive?

At the very least, I could see where I might thoroughly ruin Sunset Shimmer's life, or get her hurt or killed. It would be my fault.

I could be a coward, as I had always been, and run away from my life. Or I could go forward and give restitution for my crimes against society, as well as find some for those against myself. The crisp autumn chill in the air felt appropriate somehow.

I stepped into the street as the traffic cleared, and slowly strolled toward Lower Canterlot. I didn't make the conscious decision. I just let my body lead. I followed.

As did Sunset Shimmer.

Lamplighters had lit the last lights and night had fallen completely before an escort appeared out of the general hoof traffic heading home or out for a meal. It was a lanky mauve stallion, sporting an unkempt black mane and a reversed red billed-cap.

A blue pegasus with a spiked mane fluttered down to join us as we walked. "Grimoire!"

"Sunset Shimmer, meet Tailor and Streak. Not their real names, of course. Tailor, Streak, meet my friend Sunset Shimmer."

Both shot me an annoyed look. Too many pony ears listening around us.

Sunset Shimmer said, "Hey, you're the pegasus who bothered Star— St-St—Grimoire last week."

"Indeed, she is," I said. "She delivered a note with your name on it. Somepony knew you needed help!"

If Sunset Shimmer saw any incongruity in my words, she showed no indication. Perhaps the addict inside prevented it and that made me morn a lost companion I knew I'd miss. She kept close enough for me to feel the heat of her body. She did not balk as we turned at the intersection.

I soon knew where Tailor and Streak led us: The Edge, that park-adjacent eatery district near that Hooflyn-style deli that Running Mead apparently liked. I entertained how I would throw Tailor at Streak if I felt Sunset and I had to run for it. I had worried Running Mead might choose to meet in a warehouse or any place unfamiliar that might close me in and force me to take desperate measures, but this was good.

No, it was very good.

I kept my face a mask and followed. I played idly with some quick draw Teleport calculations, but felt certain I needn't fear an ambush at least, not with the moderate hoof traffic we traveled with as cover.

Mid-dinner hour looked to be a perfect time to meet for "business" in the semi-seedy trendy neighborhood of three blocks known for its dive bars and up-and-coming chef-run restaurants. Running Mead liked it, I suspected, because few of the establishments had glass storefronts, and those that did had smoked glass you couldn't see through. With everypony inside eating, or in a rush to get inside, the area outside felt relatively empty. Maybe Running Mead kept it that way by influencing the proprietors with some protection scheme.

I stopped as we entered a block that edged on a small urban park. Lanterns, some gas-lit, some powered by potions, warmly lit brownstone buildings. A few were white-washed in Canterlot colors, but most evidenced forest green or brown, with stenciled signs that read The Draft Horse or Mama's Kitchen or Hayride's. Little planters of daisies and carnations graced the sidewalk. Trees had firefly dish-ponds and feeders to attract the cheerful night insects, and in this season, they literally buzzed with wane light. I smelled garlic and the scent of cooking oil caramelizing hay, but my nerves made the scents unappetizing and caused my stomach to sour. The cobblestones here, worn from centuries of use, looked recently scrubbed, leaving random puddles that reflected the lights, and, to the east, the newly risen moon.

"What are you waiting for?" asked Streak, prodding me with the stiff pinion feathers of her wing.

I blinked, realizing I'd been woolgathering. I wasn't going to tell her I was finding any excuse to delay, but I took it as a reason to work up a quick draw stun spell, not so much though that my horn lit. Didn't want to scare the locals.

Down the street, where a warehouse from a block over made a slightly more private alcove, lay The Hooflyn Delicatessen. Blinking marquee lights around the sign ensured you saw it. Here, café tables stood beside the establishment with a smoked black window. A brown pony with a tan mane, white socks, and a white horn stood swirling the dark contents of a wine goblet in his amber magic beside a green bottle. He wore a gold corduroy jacket. A couple ponies loitered, maybe his less scrupulous enforcers. Not bodyguards, as good ones knew they needed to hoof-aside their employer in an instant—but, then again, I might have higher standards then average ponies. I'd beaten the bodyguards of Carne Asada's Lieutenants into shape when their lackadaisical manner threatened to make my protecting the Doña more difficult. Running Mead had never earned that perk from me.

After a minute, I saw light glint off amber eyes as Running Mead regarded me. Well, too late for regrets and plenty of time for Fellows to scope out the situation. I called up Grimoire, finding his deep-toned voice and hoping for his imagined strength.

I touched Sunset Shimmer's flank with a hoof and pointed. "We're going there." She gave me a strange look as if I had changed into another pony; I had. "You walk out ahead of me."

She did so. As she stepped up to his table, I stood off five pony-lengths and said, "You asked to meet the princess' protégé."

"So I did!" He held out a hoof and she reciprocated with a gentle tap.

I watched with keen interest, waiting for any magic beyond Levitate. I watched the other ponies who watched me. I decided to add Mirror Shield to my quick draw queue.

"My little filly, Sunset Shimmer—"

"I'm not a filly," she interrupted, surprising me, her ears forward. I expected her to be groveling, but certain types of condescension grated on all mares.

He laughed, gently, and turned to his wine, lifting it in his amber-colored aura. A red; by the light fruit smell, a claret. I could identify it because Sunset Shimmer drank the varietal when she didn't drink hard cider or beer. "They all want to be seen as older until they realize they'd rather be seen as younger. My apologies." He sipped and put the crystal goblet down with a glassy clack. "I know what ails you."

Sunset Shimmer stiffened.

Still, no unusual magic. Impatience made me half turn as if to walk away, never taking my eyes off him, of course.

"My dear, dear Grimoire, don't leave."

I stopped. "We made a deal."

"It takes two to agree to a deal."

I wheeled my body around, keeping my eye on Running Mead while I addressed Streak hotly. "Did you tell him what I told you to tell him?"

"I did. Every word."

Running Mead said, "She did! She said you told her that I had won. You don't run from a winner, Grimoire." He motioned with his nose and his two flunkies split up and walked toward me, but kept enough distance that I'd be unable to physically counter them. I retreated more steps from Running Mead and the flunkies compensated.

Ok—they were trained to some degree. Apparently Streak had indeed told him everything I'd said. Keeping track of the two—not to mention keeping track of Tailor about whom I knew little—put me on the spot and made me even more nervous, reminding me of that day I'd fought in the Hooflyn gang war. My bowels twisted in unhappy anticipation. These sights, this tension, that was the reminder that had made me almost shoot my TA during what should have been a fun defensive spell practicum.

I worked to control my breathing. Perspiration condensed under my cloak.

With the awareness of three hostiles (I discounted Streak and Tailor), I nevertheless didn't overreact when Running Mead threw something at me. I caught a heavy purse that, like the first time he'd turned me into a sleepwalker, would have struck me in the head. The creep used the tactic to keep idiots like me on the edge and malleable.

Had he understood my fighting technique, he'd have known better. I brought the purple velvet purse to eye level and pulled the drawstrings to see dozens of glittering gold bits. I cinched the purse, licking my lips, but didn't throw it in my saddlebags. Instead, I kept levitating it. It gave me a reason to leave my horn lit so I could fully spin up my quick draw queue.

He added, "I am a generous employer. I insist you stay. I think I'll be able to convince you—" I cringed despite my usual self-control, but he didn't notice and continued, "—to stay on the team. As for you, Miss Sunset Shimmer, I was saying—"

She cried, "I have bits. Lots of bits! A simple transaction and I'll leave you to your business with G-Gr— Grimoire."

"No, no, no. You don't understand, my little filly. This isn't a business transaction. This is an employment interview."

"I just want some net—"

"—We don't talk aloud about such things," he interrupted, waving a hoof. "You want this." He levitated an envelope and passed it under Sunset Shimmer's nose. She gasped, ears perked.

"Yes, but—"

"As my newest employee, you'll find an unlimited supply. Unemployed, you'll find the plant may as well be extinct. So, here is your first job: I want you to talk to Lieutenant Bright Moon of the royal guard and tell her—"

"I-I can't do that."

"I beg to differ. Do you want to earn your keep tonight by saying 'yes,' or do I send you home to contemplate your sorry life? Either way, you'll eventually do what I ask."

"What? I have bits. Can't we just—"

"Your bits mean nothing to me Sunset Shimmer. I thought you were one of Equestria's best and brightest…"

As I watched him work to break her, I saw it wasn't working because she prepared to fight. She wasn't experienced in battle magic, at least against ponies. Perhaps she didn't realize her horn lit as she worked up Teleport while holding on to the numbers for Levitate. She had apparently figured out my quick draw technique, somewhat, but her numbers were sluggish, clouded, and not at all hot. Her transform wavered like a heat mirage, numbers floating lazily away and dissipating. Her snatch-and-dodge wouldn't get her far, if her teleport spell worked at all.

"Don't do it," I warned, snapping her concentration, but not mine. What I waited for was Running Mead to spin up his mind control spell. I had to see how he did it, if I were counter it. I put Mirror Shield at the top of my queue.

Sunset Shimmer glared at me. I waved my jingling coins at her and gave her a toothy grin I didn't feel. The muscles in her jaw bunched and her ears went sharply forward. She faced Running Mead and said, firmly, "No," with what was certainly the last of her willpower.

"So determined to be contrary. Tsk, tsk. However, I do think I can convince you." He reached out with a simple Levitate and squeezed her right shoulder gently. Having done that, he spoke, telling her how important it was for her to find the lieutenant, to remind her of her manners in agreeing to favors without doing them. He went on about how the royal guardsmare would be so appreciative of Sunset's visit. He continued by remarking how nice it was that Sunset Shimmer herself agreed to do him the favor. Furthermore, she was welcome to take the envelope with her.

"Uh, huh," Sunset Shimmer said, her eyes unfocused. "Putting it that way, I can certainly see how it helps everypony. Yeah, right, I'll do it…"

She nattered on as my jaw dropped. Running Mead had touched her with his levitation spell, and though he kept Levitate spinning, he now lifted his wine and sipped it as he listened, not touching her at all.

I had expected a spell.

A spell!

Was it his words?

No, that wasn't it!

I felt no compulsion to agree with the monster, nor to talk to any royal guard, and by the looks of the rest of the audience, neither did anypony else.

That led to a singular conclusion: His odd ability to persuade ponies had to be his special talent. He had a talent that allowed him to turn ponies into hypnotized sleepwalkers.

Were he a pegasus, or an earth pony, he'd be just as good at it.

It was all because of a cutie mark. A filthy cutie mark.

A Force spell had wormed itself to the top of my quick draw queue. I wasn't surprised, nor was I appalled.

A familiar voice in the street said loudly, "I do think that is enough."

I wheeled around again, gasping, keeping an eye on Running Mead.

Detective Fellows approached at an unhurried stroll. I pushed down Force and opted for Mirror Shield again. I dropped the bits as I backed up, too frantic to keep up the charade at the expense of readiness.

All the flunkies flinched at the jingling thunk.

Running Mead glanced around, his ears swiveling rapidly. In that instant, I would have prepared Teleport in his place. Some bodyguard ought to have had a hoof on him already, possibly spiriting him away. I had yet to see him do any magic beyond Levitate. Might he actually only be a low level unicorn? His eyes shifted rapidly; he was as hyperaware of everypony's position as I was.

Fellows continued, "So, Running Mead, has Lady Grimoire told you that this is actually a sting operation she arranged? To catch you in the act of committing a crime?"

"Thank you," I said sarcastically.

My heart beat double-time, my breath becoming loud enough to hear. Were the shooting to start, I stood in the middle of the crossfire!

"Is that so?" he asked, eyes flicking momentarily at me. "I knew she wanted to quit, but to put me out of business! I didn't see that coming."

I looked from Fellows to Running Mead and back. Why did I get the feeling that these two knew each other?

Had I been set up?

But...

But, I had been sent to kill Fellows, and had nearly done so in the factory. He'd stuck to the detective story. Why would he do that?

What about the constabulary's hue and cry following my escape from the factory? That had been real—but it didn't have to have been directed by a detective at the scene of the crime!

The factory worker had seen me. Had vandalism been enough for the search?

What if Fellows were a competitor or a colleague, fallen out of favor, based somewhere in downtown Canterlot? Sunset Shimmer had mentioned somepony she had bought her nettle-ewe from: Actually Fellows, or his henchponies?

Perhaps the fight had resulted in Fellows and Running Mead coming to terms? Some sort of "crime boss" truce? It neatly explained why Running Mead seemed oblivious that Detective Fellows had gotten away.

I am so dead!

My position made it impossible to tackle Sunset and teleport away without being burnt down in a crossfire or magicked by Running Mead.

Fellows walked closer, the clatter of his hooves echoing in the alcove. It had become awkwardly silent, except for the fireflies that buzzed haphazardly about. My bad luck, all possible witnesses had gone inside the restaurants and only the smells of garlic pastas and hay burgers drifted out. If I stood a chance of escaping alive, and taking Sunset Shimmer with me, I had to act soon. If I hit Running Mead square on with Force, I might just have a chance.

I gulped. I hesitated. I— I just couldn't do it. Not unless he shot first, I couldn't. It wasn't so much that my spell might fail, but that not-killing-ponies was too deeply ingrained.

Around me, the two lackeys' horns lit, one green and one yellow, but nopony fired.

Even Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear was out of the question. Were I in their position, I'd reflexively fire where a pony had disappeared.

Fellows said, and I took it he was addressing me, "I wouldn't do anything rash."

"Do you leave me a choice?" I asked, my eyes and ears flicking to targets, knowing that if they all shot, I'd be unable to defend against them all. Casting Teleport, I'd lose Mirror. I felt so overwhelmed, I feared I might teleport into the ground, which would cause the spell to fail instead in a shower of sparkles. When I'd been a bodyguard, I'd trained and surrounded myself with a team, and for good reason! Nopony could look or be everywhere.

I queued Teleport anyway.

Fellows laughed. "Everything isn't about you, Lady Grimoire. Did you think I was so stupid as to come here alone?"

He dodged left.

I reflexively teleported five pony lengths right and drove myself into the ground because my subconscious wanted to duck. Funny how the spell bent my legs to my stomach to make sure the spell didn't fail because of the obstacle of the street, but I still barked my knees and hit my jaw hard enough on the cobblestones to see stars. Frost steam curled above me.

Running Mead's lackeys fired.

Whichever one had fired at Fellows, missed. The other had fired Force at me exactly as I would have—at where I'd disappeared from. The under-powered bolt missed hitting my flank because I'd teleported. It continued through and burnt across Streak's rear end instead.

Her tail burst into flames.

As I rolled evasively, I saw other shots, this time from behind, stunning one of the lackeys. Fetched up on my back, I saw an armored mint-green pegasus throw a javelin that clattered at Running Mead's hooves, preventing him from bolting the opposite direction.

He'd warded off the javelin with Levitate. As he ducked beside his table, he shot what appeared to be some sort of wimpy slow moving amber energy stream left over from the spell towards a dark corner, toward an alley, probably his escape route.

He shouted, "I'm innocent! Protect me from those flying thugs!"

Moments later, an actinic magenta bolt shot into the sky. The pegasus cried out, spasming, scattering her quiver of javelins as electricity crackled around her. The wooden weapons came clanking down and bouncing as she spiraled rapidly to the pavement.

I transformed my new force spell back to Levitate, reaching out just in time to intercept the armored mare, but with no good control. It stopped her, but it translated her downward momentum to sideways momentum, spinning her on her stomach toward Fellows who had to jump over the poor pony. Sparks flew in her wake. The motion blew out the rest of Streak's flames as she rolled and screamed like a child, wafting a mixed scent of burnt hair and ozone my way.

"I'm innocent! Murderers! Protect me!"

Another?

I rolled just in time to avoid a stun spell—almost; it hit my back right hoof. The leg twitched and went completely pins-and-needles—my bad leg that had been numb before, so I knew how to deal with it.

Tailor had fired at me, the miscreant. Holding on to my discipline, I spun up Mirror; not a moment too soon. A uniformed constable standing near Running Mead shot me.

The purple bolt ricocheted off harmlessly, but that wasn't all. A glowing amber tendril reached my way. The energy stream looked like an extension of a unicorn's aura, like the aura that glowed around levitated objects, and by its simple equation of stability, it was indeed Levitate. I fended it off with Mirror Shield, but the tendril avoided the reflective optical illusion as I jiggered it around. The apparition extended back to Running Mead's horn. Was he levitating air to extend it?

Yes.

Yes, he was.

Like Force created a frictional cylinder of air—just with enough intensity to glow—in order to grab at me.

Force, insufficiently prepared, was all I had. If I could apply—

A Barthemule transform actuated, compelling me to finish the calculation as the sphere bloomed and surrounded me, lifting me off my legs and warding off Running Mead's touch.

Touch?

I gasped: He had to touch a pony to make his talent work?

And touch he did. But he'd given up on me. Suddenly the constabulary task force was shooting at one another.

Soon one would shoot at me and not miss.

Sunset Shimmer hid behind a café table she'd knocked over, cringing and shaking, shielding her head. I noticed this because I'd floated closer to Running Mead as my spell ran its course and collapsed under the weight of its temporal paradox.

I rolled flat and kept down, unable to run because my leg, which, though better, was largely numb. I simultaneously prepared a spell.

From my position, I saw that Running Mead cowered behind a protective constable. He had his rear legs and flank up like a racer—ready to bolt again as soon as he could take over the copper blocking his escape. His tamed constable defended against one not yet turned.

This gave me a perfect view of Running Mead's cutie mark.

A spilt glass mug of mead.

He made ponies drunk and compliant.

Something about the physical manifestation resonated in by brain like the visions I'd seen while healing using Flowing Waters' spell. I sensed greasy green smoke and bruising purple that, in my mind, swirled about it; I even scented sulfur in my fevered aural entanglement. His was a filthy, horrible cutie mark. I could not in the depths of my soul, would not, let him escape this time.

In an adrenalized intuited snap, I transformed Force into Levitate into my healing spell, using my memories of working on Rye Bald under the influence of nettle-ewe; I refined it with all I had learned by experimenting on Sunset Shimmer's cutie mark, moving it, impeding her cutie mark's effort to control and make her miserable, confusing its feedback mechanisms. To that I added burning, unbridled outrage and bile.

I reached out with no compunction that I might cause harm, dashing my magic like a storm wave against a rocky headlands, directly into Running Mead's flank with no thought I might fail.

I did not fail.

The cutie mark's hum of conceit and bacchanal contentment flooded across my senses, with images of vineyards and the scents of intoxicating oaky wine. I could see horrific magical numbers spinning up in the ecstasy of fulfilling a destiny, a mathematics blissful in the face of atrocity. I shook my head to rid myself of the equations as I reached for the cutie mark's metaphysical connection, that bulb of magic-in-stasis centered in his hip. It formed the non-corporeal organ tissue that projected the image of his cutie mark to both sides of his body for all to see.

The instant I grasped it, I ripped with all my strength.

It resisted.

Like pulling elastic.

I renewed my determination even as I heard Running Mead scream in terror. He fell on his side and thrashed against the pavement, bucking and neighing loudly. The constable looked around in confusion for an enemy, but didn't see me as she had to dodge the "innocent" stallion she was protecting.

I was a shark. I tore at the cutie mark as the constable turned and focused on me.

Running Mead, with a sick bang, struck himself senseless against the glass wall. I ripped harder, flooding the connection with every splendor of magic I could push into it.

Something cracked and plunked, like a boulder on a mountain that had shifted downward, now on an unstable cliff edge, instead of embedded in granite bedrock.

It stretched. Like pulling a melted marshmallow from a roasting stick, the faint aura of the glass-mug-spilling-alcohol cutie mark distorted as it pulled reluctantly away, leaving a gooey tendril of light. It looked like the ghost of a symbol as I dragged the transparent thing until it floated disembodied away from Running Mead's flank.

At the instant of separation, the instant when the constable would have shot me, she instead stumbled.

I fought the cutie mark, still magnetically attracted to its host. As the constable fell to her knees, I struggled frantically to keep hold of the apparition as my magic faded in exhaustion. I levered myself to a sitting position and saw the almost empty green-glass bottle of Claret. The label read Stags Leap Claret, Applewood, 989 vintage. I wrestled the cutie mark into the bottle just as my spell broke into thousands of burnt-out digits.

The cutie mark inched up the neck.

I got Levitate spun up as fast as I could, barely thrusting the cork into the bottle in time. It squeaked as I pushed down. I held my breath.

The apparition stopped moving, hovering and drifting about the inside of the green smoked-glass bottle.

I giggled. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I cried, "Now that's the way to get a cutie mark!"

Something felt very wrong. My body trembled.

I blinked, felt the world spin around me, but felt the opposite of being sick. Suddenly, my heart leapt with overwhelming emotion.

It was...

it was...

I felt elation and a pride magnitudes beyond anything imaginable. The jaded part of my mind thought this was what sex was supposed to feel like. The other simply decided I’d finally gone right properly crazy.

I had done it.

I had defeated The Monster!

I'd learned something profound about myself, and about cutie marks—how to manipulate them. This, this—joy vanquished all other thought or worry. I felt myself lifted up, literally high. The world took on a epiphanic golden glow.

I had gone right properly crazy.

The shooting around me ceased the instant I'd wrenched Running Mead's cutie mark free. The compromised coppers shook themselves as my levitated body rotated, giving me a view of a dozen confused combatants and constables who worked to secure the area. I felt so satisfied that I'd accomplished my goal that the idea that anypony might arrest me, that anypony might harm me, became a completely unthinkable non sequitur, a stupid joke.

My burning moment of self-knowledge and destiny passed, however.

I found myself touching the ground, my hooves holding weight. I stumbled as my numbed leg found itself unable to do its necessary task of holding me up; I held it to my stomach, shaking it absently to bring it back to normal. I tingled all over, though, and could hardly care. As my trained senses struggled to wrestle my brain back from an endorphin surge to end endorphin surges, I smelled the perfume scent of the makeup powder I used to brush on my fake cutie mark: Gardenia.

It smelled burnt.

Fellows galloped up, causing me reflexively to renew my quick draw queue as I blinked and tried to throw off the dizzies. From his saddlebags, he withdrew a rusted wrought iron ring the size of a donut, covered with tiny red iron-hot numbers that to my learned eyes vibrated and danced in place. Magic runes.

Running Mead lay there dumbfounded and stunned, muttering to himself, "Where did it go? It—It's gone!"

Fellows slipped the ring over Running Mead's horn and from the other saddlebag, he pulled two glass tubs. He ladled the pink contents of one over the ring, then poured the sickly green glowing contents of the other over it.

With a loud crack, the gel crystallized, affixing the ring in place. Well, that made sense. Wouldn't want a criminal tossing his head and launching the ring into the air.

He turned to me and said, "Thank you, Lady Grimoire. You came through after all." He huffed and tilted his head, squinting past me. A smile drifted across his face. "Congratulations on getting a real cutie mark."

I blinked.

I looked.

The brushed-on grimoire had flaked off. Under the bits of powder lay something indeed new. I saw a doubled four-point star, purple overlaying white, with two turquoise auroras dancing above it. It was the same star burnt by my magic into the fur of my forehead. From my perspective, the auroras looked like they were trying to pull the high magic symbol from the matrix of the cutie mark itself. Since Aurora was my given name, the one I refused to use, it felt appropriate.

But wait. What? My special talent was cutie mark magic?

I stopped breathing. I stood that way for seconds.

My special talent was cutie mark magic?

My special talent was?

Cutie Mark Magic!?

I gasped, nodding. Okay. Maybe that made sense, considering what I'd learned.

"Cutie mark magic," I muttered, and felt my lips pull up in a half-grin. "Huh..."

In my peripheral vision, I saw Fellows turning to look at Running Mead. He said, "I don't know what you did to him, but you knocked the sense out of him." I watched in horror as his head continued turning to scan toward Running Mead's flank and the scar that the unmarking had left.

It looked like an equal sign burnt into his hide. Like charcoal.

Like an atrocity.

Instinct that had queued another spell allowed me to transform it into Levitate. It didn't matter that it was inaccurate. I winged the Claret bottle, bashing it hard enough against the glass window that the window cracked. The bottle didn't, but it bounced, spun cork over bottom, to smash open on the cobblestone pavement, spraying me with droplets of red wine and bits of glass that bounced like dumped marbles.

Released, like a tiny comet, Running Mead's cutie mark shot back into place on his haunch, causing the stallion to cry out, "Gah!"

"Sorry," I said as Fellows looked from the smashed bottle to me. "Nerves," I added. "Um, I learned how Running Mead's magic works."

"Right," he said, standing and drawing out his pad of paper and a pencil. "Go ahead."

As the other constable, who had moments ago been protecting Running Mead, reached out a leg to shake the stallion to his senses, I cried, "Stop!"

To her credit, the mare jerked back her leg.

"Touch," I said, "He does it by touch. It's a cutie mark talent, so all he has to do is touch you physically or via magic. Whatever he tells you that he can make sound reasonable, you'll do. It's like sleepwalking. You have no control over your nightmares."

"I see." As Fellows looked back at Running Mead, I began to get an uncomfortable feeling. Was he reacting beyond my magical flinch or statement?

No.

No more than Sunset Shimmer was reacting to me, attended by a plainclothes mare who tried to coax Sunset from hiding her head under her front legs. Somepony, somepony's protégé (the one with the crown), manifestly didn't have the right stuff.

Glancing back at Fellows, intuition told me he had definitely not seen me casting Mark Unmarking. Or comprehended something had even happened. Too far out of context. Nopony could do that. Nopony until just now.

As I analyzed the feeling, I queued Teleport. Again and again. He wasn't looking at me and I had time to glance behind, to see Streak pawing at her singed tail. Blood coated her blackened flank. A constable watched her.

Fellows said, "All the help you've provided will prove a mitigating factor—"

Blam!

Teleport landed me half a pony length from Streak, right at the constable's front legs as he reared in fright. I stood, took advantage of his movement and my momentum, and threw him over. I leapt atop Streak—

Bang!

At the end of the street, I caught my breath and spun up my numbers as a cloud of disturbed fireflies swirled away. Frost steam billowed above us. The constables turned and pointed as I found what I wanted to see. The royal guardsmare lay flat, jittering spasmodically as she preened a wing. The constabulary air force was grounded.

Pop!

I teleported Streak above the warehouse, barely making the very edge of the building. We fell a pony length to the roof with a whump that knocked the breath out of us both. I'd gotten the angle right; nopony on the ground would know where my exit pop sounded. The blood on her flank had turned to ice and it slid off like red snow, plopping on the tar and composite surface. I waved off the steam, not wanting to provide the least clue as to where we'd reappeared—as if anypony down there, beyond completely incapacitated Sunset Shimmer, was a high level enough unicorn to even realize there were atmospheric effects they could trace us with.

"Can you walk?" I asked. Her burnt flank looked red, raw, and painful.

"I think so," she replied with an unconvincing smile.

I limped with her, occasionally shaking my leg to hasten it waking up. At the opposite side of the block-sized flat roof, looking down on the evening hoof traffic and a lone taxi, she asked, "Why'd ya do it?"

"We're victims, but the constabulary has other ideas. You have a record?"

"Not in Canterlot. I threw a brick through a moving company's window in Vanhoover. The owners of Always Ontime hold grudges."

I laughed. "Not what I meant. For the record, the stuff in Rye Bald's kitchen was minestrone soup. I helped him escape and I have a letter to prove it. So, let's make ourselves disappear. We aren't the big fish in this pond."

"Yeah, thanks. Oh, and this is yours." She pushed her face into her messenger bag and pulled out the purse I'd dropped. Her spiked mane blew like wind chimes in the cool evening breeze. "Really, thanks."

I leaned against the blue pegasus and teleported us to the next warehouse roof. "Don't mention it."

Later, I healed her flank. And gave her most of the gold bits telling her I was an early investor in her moving company.

I also did a lot of thinking about what having a cutie mark really meant.

Chapter 30: Meeting in the Library

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Epilogue (in the original published version.)

The soft patter of hooves and the slight rustle of enormous wings surprised me. The door of iron bars that sealed the ancient entrance to the Star Swirl the Bearded Wing in the Accademie building had not even squeaked!

The cinder block-sized grimoire of Barthemule's original bound manuscripts made a satisfying whump as I closed it. I stacked, straightened, and levitated my notes into my flower embroidered denim saddlebags. I'd "allowed"myself in before midnight. I kept my pink quill floating and a single notebook open... just in case I wanted to take notes, or quickly cast Teleport.

A sweet voice asked, "The Earl of Grin Having, I presume?" The sweet in Sweet Celestia was earned.

I glanced to the yellow skirt and hat on the floor. Images of hour-glasses were woven into the brown wool carpeting, and matched the pony-sized bronze specimen in the center of the room. I had masqueraded as a noble castle guest roaming the grounds late at night. I hadn't been presumptuous, as her use of my title announced. I wore the blouse and had my hair up in pigtails, like it had been at my parents' funeral. I had no use for titles bestowed upon my parents after their death.

"Yes, Your Royal Highness." I bowed my head as dictated by decorum, but didn't look back; I didn't stand up; I didn't respect her.

I did track her progress because I didn't trust her. She had been a curse upon my life.

Princess Celestia folded down before me. Even so, the great white alicorn looked down with hard purple eyes. Thin and lithe, my first guess had been she weighed under three pony weight, but then I did a calculation on the pony weights in a Celestial tonne. She wasn't a winged unicorn. The chimera included unicorn, pegasus, and earth pony blood. Fighting pony on pony, I'd have to forget adding momentum and concentrate on leveraging inertia—she out-massed me by a factor of five, confirmed by the delicate but definitive thump she'd made. Uncomfortably close to my pony weight Levitate lift limit, that.

She said, "You've passed the test none of my others passed."

"A... test?"

My eyes didn't meet hers. They gravitated to a solar cutie mark the size of my head, conforming to the muscular flesh of her haunch. Concentric yellow circles evoked a desert sun. They were ringed by gold prominences that reminded me of shark's teeth. Whispered implications of heat powering crystal and dexterous strength rose from the magical nexus to flit around in my head like glowing electric hummingbirds, buzzing.

Buzzing...

buzzing...

When she spoke, I flicked my eyes to hers. "I dangle forbidden knowledge before my special students, and wait for them to break into the library to get it. Sadly, neither Twilight nor Sunset took the bait my physician tailored for you. Starlight—interesting choice of name, by the way."

"A pony gave it to me to manipulate me. I accepted it later as the perfect gift. She's since passed away."

"Sad to hear that. Unlike Lady Aurora, Countess, some names have a synchronous ring like prophesy to them. Sunset, Twilight... Starlight..." She waited a breath. "Oh, never mind. No sense of humor, so I've been told."

She lay thinking, her fascinating ethereal mane suspended in the unseen winds of the magic pulse. Strands of blue, green, pink, and turquoise hair waved in ripples like a badly tattered flag, rustling and fluttering.

She spotted a scroll on the desk. She unrolled it before her, displaying a mug ring likely left by spilt cocoa. "Where did you find this old thing?"

She lowered it and blinked at me. "I mean, really, where did you find it? It was used from a future time and needs to be in a specific place to prevent a time paradox; I'd hate to have to break open a millennium-old diary to learn where to place it."

The "old thing" had smelled of time. Probably because of my work with Barthemule's mathematics, I sensed time-magic the way I saw numbers in a unicorn's aura, or an alicorn's—induction across the length of my horn, except this time on the t-axis, which manifested as a weird itch. The alicorn's numbers resolved to comet-like digits as I concentrated. They were magnitudes more beautiful than she was, fluid and three-dimensional, amazingly simplified yet complex, flushed with fiery color. I became lost in the kaleidoscopic show as she levitated the scroll, reading it.

She waved the scroll like a teacher getting the attention of a student; the red splats on the scroll actually caught my attention.

With my quill, I pointed at a bookcase behind me. Celestia huffed and unfolded herself.

My eyes followed the dried drops of blood used to activate the scroll. They looked fresh, though since we were talking about time here, it could have been the blood of Star Swirl himself (I knew who he was now)—or that of a pony not yet foaled.

I turned my neck to follow the scroll as she took it to a top shelf, saw the disturbed dust, and reared, clopping a hoof on the third shelf, trying to figure out exactly where it had lain. The tip of her tongue stuck out.

The scroll purported to allow a pony to travel back in time for a few minutes. The scribbled margin notes displayed an obvious correctable error that made me doubt the cohesiveness and veracity of the otherwise simple spell mnemonics. As she set it in place just right, I admired how the whole room smelled of time from the age-yellowed magic-infused paper it contained.

I swiftly jotted down in shorthand math my revelations about the time scroll, thanks to Celestia's numbers as she read it, confident I had the time to do so. I filled a page and a half. This room was all about time.

She lay again and read my writing upside down. The ultimate teacher skill. I performed a series of Barthemule transforms on what I'd sensed from her cutie mark, then added three additional pages diagramming the sense of crystal thermo-mechanics I gleaned, and the implication of magical conduits that anchored to the earth a pony with a celestial name.

The sky had long ago become pale outside the window. Keeping the quill aloft, but not lifting my eyes, I asked, "Shouldn't you be raising the sun?"

She chuckled. "Clocks are not set by the rising of the sun. For good reason! Even I sleep in sometimes..." Her expression hardened. "I'm displeased at how you handled Sunset Shimmer, getting her involved with capturing Running Mead."

I glanced at her, at her frown, at the widened nostrils on her soft nose that telegraphed her ire. "Look no further than your own hooves, Your Royal Highness. Had you been paying attention—"

"—to her drinking habit? Students sometimes fail, my little pony. I only teach. Learning is up to them. Mistakes teach better than books. Experience more so. You, Starlight, more than most ponies, understand the importance of mistakes and experience. I had hoped that a certain friend might have grounded her."

I fought my inclination to thunk the quill down. "Should I have tattled to her father or to you?"

"Friendship is an intriguing magic, but the four of you show no inclination for it..." Her voice petered out. She looked to her right, frowning, considering her words. She nodded. "The fourth I taught is a former friend of yours—Sunburst."

I tensed. I caught the falling quill.

Her eyes narrowed. She studied me, until her gaze rested on my new cutie mark of auroras and stars. "When he got his cutie mark, at least six others got theirs, cued by a supersonic pegasism—something her friends in the weather team tell me she calls a rainboom—that spread across Equestria, triggering epiphanies that ended with the opening of a chasm from here to Tartarus by the one whose cutie mark binds them all. Frankly, from Sunburst's account of the day, I'm surprised it wasn't you who acted instead of him. I can't understand how he got his cutie mark and you didn't! He described your magic as much more versatile than your mother's. He proved a great talent in thaumaterigical semantics, but is ultimately male, narrowly focused on his special talent for elucidating and combining spells, with self-inhibited magical abilities, and, oddly, as put off by friendship as you seem to be. You—you are a generalist of the highest order, as hinted at by the iconography of that cutie mark you bear. Yes, the friendly thing for you to have done would have been to have found Sunset the help she needed, and to have waited for her to become well, and to have watched her become the friend you needed. What you did worked very well, expeditiously I might add—"

"I'd argue effectively—

"—and thankfully she survived. 'Scared sober' describes it. She's hit rock bottom and has asked me for help. As a bonus, she understands that if there's lesser evils in Equestria, then the greater ones can be both real andformidable. Those greater ones, Countess, are why I train a new generation of heroes for Equestria."

Not only did her last sentence stink of equivocation, both her use of my title and the substance of the statement were honed to tick me off. "You trained my parents!"

"I did. Mage Midnight and Firefly, separately. I later called them my friends."

My hackles rose—anger for them being thrown away—and for a tormenting old memory reborn. I remembered now that we'd visited Canterlot and Castle Canterlot before—as a family. I recalled rooms and views into the courtyards where I'd played. I'd been a foal; there's things you can't recall unless triggered by understanding. "Yet you sent them to die, to become 'Heroes of Equestria.'"

The princess sighed, looking at the floor, her ears folding down. "By the time I sent them they were already heroes. Sadly, yes, I sent them off against better judgement, bound and unable to help."

Bound? Unable...? Excuses!? "And all I got was this lousy title?"

Still looking away, she said, "Plus a grant of the environs within in a day's gallop of Grin Having, the right to the third coin of all taxes collected, and a governing role."

"I understand what an earl is."

She looked up, ears perked. "You 'protect ponies.' You told Flowing Waters, that. Do you truly understand? An earl can claim the right to captain one of my armies. I had great hope for your parents' foal considering their pedigree and achievements. As expected, she took to her training and has since demonstrated unique martial prowess."

"Do you know what I wanted?" Standing, I could now look her straight in her big purple eyes. "Do you know what I needed? Do you?" I jabbed the quill at her.

She blinked, tilting her head.

"My Mom and Dad died for you!" I shouted, then stopped. Quieter, letting my hot face and trembling punctuate instead, I added, "You spoke kind words at the funeral, which I can't remember. You gave me their medals. You granted them lands and titles I instantly inherited." I stood huffing, breathless... crying. I was actually crying! Tears flooded my vision, turning her image blurry, making her look as twisted as her soul. "All I wanted was a hug and to be told I would be okay!"

She said, "I would have gotten a second Sunset Shimmer, had I done that."

Her words steamed away my tears, drying them instantly. My mouth gaped. My mouth moved, but... I. Was. Speechless.

She continued. "I need what you have become. You can hate me. I am okay with that for now. I can work with that. In that, you are no different than Sunset."

It all made twisted sense. "You hired Proper Step, didn't you?"

"He's the son of my Majordomo and came highly recommended—"

"He was a mistake!"

"Judging by the result I've gleaned of your career back east and in Canterlot, I disagree; he trained you well—"

"You haven't a clue—!" I spat "—as to how or why I got Sunset Shimmer involved in capturing Running Mead, do you?"

"The more I learn about you the more interesting you become. Ms Maple likes you, and, yes, I interviewed Detective Fellows and Agent Sprinter—"

"Celestia on roller skates!" My jaw clacked shut.

She giggled. "Oh! That's a good one!"

My Teleport felt as queued as it could be without being in my horn. Could I outwit the most arch of archmages? Did I have a choice? I targeted the courtyard beyond the window. The quill wobbled midair as bleed-away affected the targeting on Levitate.

She continued, "Thanks to what you let slip to Flowing Waters, I've pieced together where you disappeared to when you ran away. You saved 271 ponies in Hooflyn the day of the Old Equestrian Post Office explosion. Seventeen would have bled to death or lost limbs without your intervention."

"Then you know I got tricked into helping set the bomb. I'm responsible!"

Her eyes widened in astonishment, and yet her smile grew. "A confession?" She pointed a wing at my cutie mark. "The paths to enlightenment are diverse, my little pony. Your mother told me the best way to get you to do something was to say you weren't allowed. She thought it cute."

"You told—"

She grinned. "Forbidding something works better."

"You told Proper Step—?"

"That learning magic wasn't lady like? That was his idea, though he regretted it. I stocked your library with the most precious magic primers, like the Marlin's you keep in your saddlebags, and when that wasn't sufficient, you set out on your own to find your own tutors. The more I piece together your career, the more original your solutions seem—"

"I fought monsters—"

"Yes, and your demons—"

"I was savaged in a lightning storm. Though he taught me I could fight, he nearly killed me. Monsters nearly killed me! Three times!"

"Yet, here you sit, valiant and victorious."

Ugh! "Ponies died around me."

"Auror— Starlight, they probably would have anyway. Others did not because you intervened."

"I did horrible things."

"This is what it means to command, something as an earl you must understand and suffer. You've learned magic. You earned your cutie mark. Because you are who and what you are, in time you will also pay for everything you've done."

"So, you're going to imprison me?"

She huffed, shaking her head. "There are benefits to working for an absolute monarch." Her muzzle down, her eyes lifted; whites at the bottom, they speared mine. Two alpha mares in one room, one superior to the other. "Starlight, I make the laws you've broken."

In other words, laws meant nothing to her other than as tools to get what she wanted. Suddenly... I understood. How had Running Mead put it?

"This is an employment interview!" More blackmail, or just naked coercion?

She huffed. "Countess—"

"Don't style me as anything I haven't earned!"

"Starlight, then. How about this? You can pay for the horrible things you think you've done by letting me finish your education."

"As your third protégé?"

"Fourth—no, I should count Mage Midnight who I helped from afar—fifth in this century, but who's counting?"

"I won't take Sunset Shimmer's place."

"Now you give me hope. That's the first friendly thing you've said!" She laughed that delicate sweet laugh, misinterpreting me.

"I haven't earned any of this. I don't want it."

She sighed. "I didn't gift you your title or lands. Your parents earned them. This offer to train you directly—you've earned that."

"I'm a bad pony."

She rocked her head side to side, likely suppressing an eye roll. "I get that you feel guilt, that you worry that you are somehow evil. I understand that. I also understand how you judge yourself as I judge myself the exact same way. Experience will teach you that all actions can be seen as relative."

I gasped. Evil was relative? What did her heroes do for her?

They kept her in power! Obviously.

"Equestria needs independent thinkers. Equestria needs you."

"She certainly does. A thinker like me, independent enough to see through an unscrupulous royal who exploits the tyranny of cutie marks." My voice quavered. "And t-the stratification they impose that you use for personal power! It's... corrupt. It's... evil. You're... evil. I—I won't let you co-opt me—"

Celestia reared with a whinny of rage, towering the height of a horse, pedaling her legs. Her golden aura enveloped her; her mane blew as if in a gale. Had she next burst into flames, I could not have been more stunned. Her magical majesty struck me dumb; I sat hard, cowering in my chair.

My needle must have struck home!

Returned to four legs, her voice boomed. "I live only to preserve Equestria! She faces unimaginable enemies. The worst will strike in two years—"

Her voice cut off.

In terror, I stood. I knocked back my chair. Not from awe, but from what choked off her words—and that she didn't immediately realize it had happened!

The region around her mouth blurred, like you might see an illusory lake over a hot desert. I held a hoof over my eyes and squinted against oddly desaturated diffraction rainbows. Her voice became a croaking garble of muffled screeches.

When my stance, open mouth, and trembling filtered through her rage, her brow furled. She tried to shout through it.

After agonizing seconds, huffing, jaw working soundlessly, she quit trying. The apparition snapped and she got out, "—ruins. It was all my fault."

A stream of tears cascaded down her cheeks. Her aura dissipated like fog hit by hot morning sun.

I remembered Zecora's tale about the Everfree forest that implied there had once been two rulers in Equestria. Two! A thousand years ago. Worse, I remembered that Zecora's rhyme implied there had been a curse.

That—her mouth covered by unnatural rainbow magic she could not counter—that had to be because of what common ponies called a curse. A geas was a triggered compulsion. The princess fought the influence of a geas that prevented her from speaking about and likely fighting the curse. The geas would eventually make her do something bad. It made her every action suspect.

What could curse an alicorn for a thousand years?

Carne Asada's native folklore had fueled the mob leader's hate. The bomb had been a stepping stone in her planned retribution against Celestia for killing the last thestral princess. Carne Asada had insisted that thestrals had inhabited the Crystal Caves of Canterlot Mountain, the same caverns within which Sunset had held her fateful practicum. Carne Asada's Equidorian mountain-dwelling pegasus tribe held that Celestia had shown no mercy when she vanquished them from their ancestral lands.

I ticked off in my mind: A ruined castle in the Everfree; Evidence of "two reigning ponies" who destroyed harmony; Tales of a princess' murder so compelling that they lasted a millennium and inspired a fanatic to emigrate to Equestria for retribution.

It pointed to one mare, the one mare who had lived that long. Which meant...

Celestia was a regicide; she'd killed a princess and something had cursed her for her actions.

Celestia continued, desperate in her trembling to turn me, tears splattering on the carpeting, "I train..." She seemed to be picking out her words carefully, eyes moving back and forth. "Guardians... for Equestria... who may be able to... do what I cannot."

Deep in my heart, I knew that at the root of the murder would be found the interaction between cutie marks and the hardship they imposed on ponies. I wanted none of it.

The best solution lay in what I had done to Running Mead last evening, and in learning cutie mark magic—I had to pursue that, not let myself become ensnared in her plans or be corrupted.

Let Sunset Shimmer and the runt deal with Celestia, and her curse, as damaged as they might be! She'd trained them as "guardians" and "heroes", after all, as she wanted to train me. They'd fight for her. They'd fight for Equestria.

I thrust my notebook against my saddlebags with a hoof, touched my nose to to the fabric, and teleported to the royal gardens, three stories down outside the travertine stone walls of the Accademie building. Surprised that I had succeeded and not encountered a counter-spell, I dove under the denim saddlebags and chomped my notebook. The old greenskeeper watched with a straw in his mouth in the anomalously long pre-dawn twilight. I teleported again and again, choosing buildings by shape and material to funnel the sound of the pops to confuse the ear of anypony who might follow me.

I used Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear to escape the castle grounds through the east bailey gate. I didn't see any evidence of heightened security, yet. I purposely ran into a mare in a red business suit, just to break my hyperawareness and the verisimilitude of the spell—and make everyone wonder how they'd missed me, not to wonder where I'd appeared from.

I apologized and blended in with the clearly worried early morning crowd.

Author's Notes:

The remastered version continues with new AU material in chapter 31. This story will be marked AU starting with the next chapter. For completeness, here is the original ending published in 2016 that has been cut from this version:

I'd lost the yellow blouse by the time I hopped on a bus being pulled down the Ponyville Way toward Ponyville. The sun had still not come up.
I judged it a message from Princess Celestia, but I didn't understand its meaning. What I did know was this: I had an insight into the true enemy of Equestria and now had the tools to dedicate my life to correct it.
Ironically, it was what my cutie mark was telling me.

Please comment on this first ending. Your up-votes would be appreciated.

In the original version, the final paragraphs allow Starlight Glimmer to find her path and the ethical understanding to found Our Town and to truly believe removing cutie marks helped ponies. I feel Starlight's evil was originally a matter of perspective. Only when she tried to corrupt time did she take it to a different level. As you can see, I foreshadowed all that. For an AU take on Starlight Glimmer, written after seeing The Cutie Map when it first aired, read Lesson Learned. It is my first MLP story. It was written before the Enforcer, but it's still her stubborn essence and unconventional ethics, and it set the mould for a true royal (not Disney royal) Princess Celestia.

A cursed Celestia is a recurring theme in my stories. How else can you explain that she never warned Twilight Sparkle of the true danger she faced at the 1000th Summer Sun Celebration? She forgot? Didn't believe the prophesy? Or, that she couldn't?

Is a curse compatible with canon? Let's say Celestia got cursed...

The curse triggers the morning of the 1000th Summer Sun Celebration.
Nightmare Moon returns.
Celestia gets painted across the sun.
Twilight learns friendship.
Twilight masters the elements and restores Luna.
Celestia returns restored.
Starlight has run away to found Our Town.

Who'd talk about the curse, Starlight's history, any of it? Nopony would, neither Celestia nor especially Starlight, even after they meet again after Starlight’s reformation, any more than anyone would discuss an expunged juvie record. It would be too embarrassing.

Chapter 31: Of Mice and Mares

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Book 2 -
Starlight and The Persistent Princess

The best laid schemes of mice and mares often go awry. How true!

After having been awake over a day, having been awful to Sunset Shimmer to bring Running Mead to justice, having earned my cutie mark, having confronted Celestia with all the ruin she had brought to my life and to Equestria's, having burned through splendors of my magic teleporting to escape Canterlot Castle, also escaping from the city was too much to ask.

All my hooves dragged, not just my right rear one, by the time I reached the corner of Alicorn Way at Ponyville Way. I blinked up at the News Building, lit brightly, a hive of activity as ponies realized something had prevented the sunrise. I could see that the giant printing presses had literally been stopped.

Little did the reporters know that the most newsworthy pony in town stood right across the street in a growing daze. Maybe it was common sense, not entirely exhaustion, creeping up. Celestia hadn't chased me, yet, but neither had she raised the sun.

I hadn't kept my freedom this long by being stupid. I needed a plan to keep from being caught. A slug-like target, with fluorescent green stripes in her purple mane, trotting down the switchback of the Ponyville Incline would be like a flare at midnight.

I glanced at my flank. Even the auroras in my newly-minted auroras-and-stars cutie mark glared a harsh ionized-oxygen fluorescent green. The abomination moved and conformed to my flesh as I walked. It seemed surreal. Maybe I was dreaming?

No. Celestia had sent Running Mead to Tartarus for stalking Sunset. Should have, at very least. From what I'd learned of her, perhaps worse.

I remembered the elation when I'd magically gelded the crime boss. It felt so right, like deciphering and manipulating cutie mark magic was what I had wanted all along.

Destiny?

I was so demented! The flapping mark controlled me, now. I stomped a hoof. No! Not happening!

Tartarus! My tail and mark were both flares in the morning twilight!

Celestia would search the Incline, would doubtlessly pack the train station and the airship terminal with royal guard and undercover constabulary. Without wings, or the skill to repel down the shear walls of Canterlot Mountain, there was no other way to leave Canterlot.

Oops, sorry—there was the taking an illegal barrel ride over the cataracts! Not happening.

I stationed myself under an awning before the Toque Blanche bakery. The smell of fresh yeasty bread beguiled me as I tied my mane and tail into colt buns, stuffing my green streaks from view. I hadn't eaten dinner yesterday, because that was when the sting operation went down, nor had I had the appetite for lunch, knowing I faced Sunset's ruin. My stomach gurgled loudly. A stallion in the glass window paused with a Prench bread in his magic to regard me with his blue eyes and a smile.

I yawned as I trotted around the corner. I desperately needed sleep but once again homeless, short of sleeping in the park for all the constables to see, I wasn't getting any.

I shuddered. Fellows. I'd forgotten his threat to arrest me. He'd likely issued an all agencies alert for somepony that looked like me! Even if Celestia threatened to pardon me, I didn't want to experience the humiliation of being caught, or worse, giving her the satisfaction of pardoning me and making me feel obligated.

One impossible task at a time. I would succeed, or learn something about myself.

The sun hadn't risen and most retail hadn't opened yet. I needed fur and mane dye, styling gel, and make-up. A sewing kit. And scissors. Definitely scissors. Short tail, short mane, overalls to hide my flank. I could make myself into a yearling colt, given an hour to work and a secluded alleyway to work in. It was after 7:00 AM, however, and I sensed I needed to be anywhere but in the open.

Right! I remembered from my previous visit to Canterlot. Back then I had failed to learn where Sunburst had gone because to do so, I would have had to enroll in Celestia's School because of privacy concerns about a random filly asking personal questions about a student. I hadn't had emancipation papers. I had required permission, which meant Proper Step or Celestia. I had run away from home for a reason: to learn magic. Celestia's money paid for Proper Step, who said learning magic wasn't lady-like. I hadn't known it was a setup. I'd left the city totally shattered, but I had had one good experience on the way out: Donut Joe's!

I trotted faster, glancing at the sky. Purple and deep blue, still. Clouds danced around the higher snow-capped peaks. I could still see the brightest stars to the west. Thankfully, I saw nothing more than a pegasus flitting uptown.

Likely, you've visited Donut Joe's if you've stayed in Canterlot. Diners with neon outlines and white Formica tables were much more common in Baltimare, and the other eastern cities I'd spent the previous few years in, so I felt a welcoming glow approaching it this dusky morning. Apparently, so did a hundred other ponies. The place was packed, which suited me fine. More camouflage. You know that special scent of cooked sugar, caramel, seed oil, and coffee. It hit me, along with moist warmth and the scent of ponies as I opened the door, letting two in business suits step out.

A hefty tan pony with tea cups and a coffee pot in his magic called out through the din, "'Low!" as I pushed in. No chance I was getting one of the crowded, shared tables for myself, nor did I want a place at the standing bars that faced the three windowed walls. Like putting a target on my back. I waited and noticed a mare in a red blouse beginning to stand near the middle of the front counter. I scooted her back in my magic, and stepped in before anypony could even think to move. Yeah, rude, but I'd gotten used to living in Baltimare where eastern ponies were rude and in your face all the time—and it served my purposes.

Soon multiple teabags of Earl Greymare steeped in front of me. Donut Joe dropped a still warm peanut butter stuffed chocolate donut and a pink frosted rainbow sprinkle donut on a little clattering plate before me. I counted over my coins. I'd still have plenty for the cosmetics and clothes, and train fares, but was happy the sugar I poured was free.

With bergamot scent filling my nostrils and my spoon stirring in my magic, my tea rapidly turned into brown-black syrup. I'd been up twenty-six hours. This pony's batteries needed recharging!

I sipped, burnt my lips, then flagged down some ice because I needed a caffeine infusion in a vein, and drinking fast was the closest substitute. I looked at the paper tea bag wrapper as I drank. Who was this Earl of Greymare, anyway? Had she, or he, been forced into service by a tyrant princess also?

Slowly, my energy ramped up, while I reviewed the notes I'd taken about the princess' cutie mark. I kept my position at the counter by ordering progressively cheaper donuts. A chocolate cake curler, then a sugar-frosted. Finally, realizing none of my observations in the library would help me fight her, I closed it and sighed. The big red stallion beside me noticed I looked over at his stack of newspapers. The Inquisition had a large politics section, but little sports, so I rarely bought it. Seeing my eyes, he slid over the sports section.

"Thanks."

"Wonder what's keeping Celestia?" he muttered, before sipping coffee.

I ruffled to the prizefighting results and said—loud enough to be heard over the clatter of plates and din of the crowd—"Dunno. Maybe her protégé got caught up in a sting operation last night, and this morning the replacement she'd been cultivating for a decade refused the invitation and spat in her face?"

"That's kind of specific."

"Would be interesting if true."

He nodded, sipping coffee, turning the page.

I'd burnt a good half-hour and, by the clock, if I left soon I might be able to trot right into a store when it opened—

"Is that Princess Celestia?" a few ponies on the east and south facing windows asked, one standing precipitously and splashing tea on another pony.

My heart leapt into my throat, nearly choking me.

I glanced right. True, without actual sun, you don't get strong shadows. But with orange light on the horizon and lots of street lamps still lit on a main thoroughfare, light does get interrupted noticeably.

A winged shadow too large to be a pegasus swept by going north on Ponyville Way.

I gulped down my tea and stuffed the last of an apple fritter in my mouth. "Thanks," I told the stallion beside me, catching a spit crumb, slipping back into the crowd.

My nemesis had flown north. My destination, Vaquera's Secret, lay south of Alicorn Way and east to Chestnut. I pushed toward the west window, turning toward the entrance. I found an area relatively free of ponies and cast Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear. With nopony looking specifically at me, ducking down was enough to effectively disappear without anypony noticing or caring in the morning rush. Most diners were stationary as they ate, and with my current sugar rush, I could play a hoof ball match. I played dodge-a-pony only three times before I slipped out the closing glass door.

Traffic wasn't heavy, but I could easily step between other ponies in the crosswalk. I trotted to the corner, ready to cross with the other ponies, watching as a couple of wagons of boxes and crates rolled on by, leaving an opening for hoof traffic.

Having dealt with aerial attacks both in the arena and real life, my body reacted before my awareness. I flashed back to a certain griffon attack before my ears alerted me to the sizzle and hiss of feathers under pressure as something closed on me. I twitched, butting the mare to my right as my ears pivoted around and I glanced north.

"Hey!" the mare complained, but the descending sound had reached others' ears and she didn't notice I wasn't there. Gulping, heart racing, I looked where everypony else looked, while side-stepping south in preparation to gallop. I kept hold of the spell—the digits until then like unnoticed floaters in my eyes, spinning and on fire—confident I remained unseen.

Princess Celestia thumped down with bent knees in the middle of the cobblestone boulevard—hard enough to crack the matrix holding the cobbles in place and rattle the windows of Donut Joe's—five pony lengths behind me. I had no doubt the earth pony part of the alicorn chimera was as strong as her other aspects. She wore her golden peytral and crown, and furled her white wings with a feathered thwack.

Her snowy equine perfection—slightly pink in the gaslight and colored predawn, combined with the mysterious flow of her mane and tail—inspired awe. Like puppets, everypony went down on bended knee; even the oncoming traffic halted and bowed, including eight stallions harnessed to a purple and white city bus whose drover applied the brakes heavily, eliciting an appropriately ominous groan for the tableau.

I backed softly from the crosswalk, not trusting the Don't Hear clause of my spell. Celestia didn't look my way, but she did the familiar thing: She waved her pike-like horn back and forth... until she pointed it at me. As she stepped my direction, other ponies looked there.

One pink mare gasped, green eyes centering on me. In a cascade, the verisimilitude dissolved and all eyes alighted on me and widened. Ponies pointed, muttering how I'd suddenly appeared. Most importantly, Celestia also broke through the spell.

Purple eyes speared me.

Of course she'd found me. She was the headmare at her school. The proctors reported my test result. They'd copied Arches Bald's spell from my annotated notes for her. The clauses talked only about not looking, not seeing, and not hearing. It still took copious splendors of magic to cast, and like myself, Celestia could sense the flow of magic and see the numbers with her horn, even if tricked by the illusion in the particulars. She'd been flying around, scanning for magic.

My magic.

Had I stayed in Donut Joe's, I'd have remained hidden.

"Shoot!" I said. I let go of the spell, spinning up Levitate, straightening and checking the tightness of my colt buns as an innocuous way to keep my magic spinning as I gathered my wits.

I backed away.

The great alicorn stepped closer with a far greater stride. I got an education as to how huge she was. I could see under her barrel without dipping my head much. While relatively slimmer than most ponies, her body, neck, and head towered three pony heights, and her deadly sharp horn higher. I understood why the interior of most buildings had high ceilings, if for no other reason than to prevent embarrassing gouges in the plaster.

In her place, I would have stunned me, not let me analyze how to attack.

She said, "Everypony, clear the area." I backed faster. "Not you, Countess."

Most of the ponies stood and trotted away, watching over their shoulders, looking confused. Ponies reversed their vehicles. A couple of bright mares galloped away, understanding the dynamics of the threat. Ponies packed the window at the diner, lacking imagination to conceive violence, and annoyingly limiting my options lest I hurt somepony.

"Some ponies won't take no for an answer," I returned, ticking off in my head what I could and could not do.

I couldn't teleport without her reading my vectors and following. Levitating and throwing the alicorn was as effective as throwing a pegasus; she'd simply fly away. I didn't have the muscular strength to physically throw her down without her charging me, but I might physically sweep her if she didn't dodge or flutter up. Her pain points for physical attack were her front knees, back canon bones, her ears, and her wings—which were furled and barely accessible, but entirely my best target.

She really ought to have stunned me.

That aside, I expected to be pushed magically to the pavement, but since the force of Levitate transformed to Push spread out from the apex of the apparition conically, I could likely worm free due to edge dissipation. Force could kill me, but that wasn't her goal.

Nor was it mine.

Only Princess Celestia could raise the sun. She had to live. I wasn't stupid, besides which, it had been me that had accused her of regicide. I wasn't about to become one myself.

I suppressed a smile. I swear, I heard the clack of heavy magnets snapping together in my brain as my plan manifested. I stopped backing and lowered my forequarters as she continued to approach.

One of the first things I'd learned in conventional physics (not violation physics) was simple machines. Wedges and levers magnified force and helped you overcome inertia. Celestia's mass represented inertia, and I had to overcome it.

I transformed Levitate to Force.

Celestia smiled. "I'm glad you didn't think to take hostages."

I scoffed, waiting for her to take the next step. Lowly, I said, "I didn't kill a princess."

Her gait slowed. Her face darkened into a frown. I lowered myself further, tensing my haunches.

I added, "Was it the thestral queen of the Crystal Caves, or perhaps..." What could really get her goat? "—your sister, regicide?"

She flared her wings on cue, and lit her horn.

I had by then already leapt into my charge, head down, almost into a gallop as I closed the five pony lengths between us. I'd spent my mid-teens training to become more and more physically fit, not something a unicorn typically did because, well, not an earth pony. I'd won the seven-league Baltimare Celestial Race (unicorn class), won a championship as a prizefighter (maybe stretching the rules a bit), and had been a bodyguard retrained to fight dirty to protect a mob boss. I felt Celestia slap down her magic, but she only winged my rump, actually squirting me forward.

Startled at my speed, she reared as I triggered my Barthemule transform, having reached my maximum velocity. The apparition bloomed out as it forced me to continue the calculations, its lozenge shape smacking me into and under the alicorn where her ribs and belly met. She coughed. Like a wedge, it shoved the huge equine up on the pivot of her hips, then levered her further up as the spell popped. Any spell I cast broke at the moment it might seriously injure another, but I reared while spinning up Levitate out of my queue. My rear hooves landed; I stumbled slightly but found purchase, channeling my momentum into my forequarters as I connected with her barrel. I shoved with every muscle connected from my rear hooves through my back, stomach, chest, and forelegs.

Tartarus, she was heavy!

Muscles across my withers went sprong! But it was too late for her benefit. Celestia tipped past 90º. Flailing her wings wildly to balance, unable to take off, I managed to dodge her pedaling forelegs as I circled around her left side while transforming Levitate to Grab.

I reached for her primary feathers.

From my experience as a prizefighter, I knew wrenching long feathers hurt, and would earn you a life-long enemy. A pegasus who had worked for me had wing-clipped himself twice (a long story), so I knew I didn't have to pull out many to do the job. Celestia could raise the sun without flying.

She jerked free.

Growling my annoyance, I instead reached for her wing joint. The spell would break before I could wrench it hard enough to injure, but it would hurt.

She wiggled right, and free. A down-wash of air nearly batted me away as I positioned myself near her dock as she fell back.

I wasn't the first to think to attack her wings in hoof-to-hoof combat! Silly me.

I didn't think my wimpy Stun could do the trick on somepony her mass, so I reinvigorated Levitate with more splendors and scrabbled for a farther target. At that moment, I succeeded in stepping on her tail. Her flank connected with my shoulder and I shoved, redirecting her momentum, keeping from being crushed.

My muscles screamed and, this time, something in my left rear haunch pulled. I lost my hoof-hold on her tail before I could pull her tail out of joint, but I nonetheless had my leverage and pulled-free long hairs, which like thin snakes flew through the air as she whimpered.

A pony in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by another force.

Instead of letting her land on her back, I'd flipped her further over in a backward somersault. She caught herself, and my shove as paltry as it was, instead slid her toward the curb.

Across cobbles.

Ouch!

She furled her wings to protect them as she bounced and groaned. I spotted what I wanted to grab: Her crown, which had ejected on its own trajectory.

I caught it, screaming, "No means no!", and whirled it around in an elliptical trajectory.

Before she could recover her balance, with just a few bruises and lost dignity, I swatted her ear with the gold ornament.

Again, my magic would not let me gravely injure a pony. After all these years, I did understand this: Unicorn magic granted wishes. However, I did say the crown was gold. Twice as dense as lead. Three times as dense as iron. I struck her ear. It hurt!

She instinctively balled up, protecting her head with her fore hooves.

For a few seconds, her attention could not possibly be on my magic.

I wheeled away. Around me, a street full of ponies gaped at my audacity, while others startled by my swift attack, or my gaze, galloped screaming for their life.

I was now definitely a criminal. One impossible problem to solve at a time!

I cast Teleport, before one very angry alicorn could think to read the vectors in my magic, translocating myself two blocks south on Ponyville Way.

I had had one shot at effectively using physical violence against Celestia. Realistically... that had been it. Too bad I hadn't grounded her. Two minutes after I'd left the lunch counter at Donut Joe's, thirty seconds after she had landed, fifteen seconds after I'd attacked, I appeared between a postbox and a newspaper machine.

A unicorn in a puce pinstripe business suit flinched, spraying his open bottle of Sunny Daze OJ, splashing it in my the face. I jerked, wiping my eyes with a knee and bashing my right rear sesamoids into the postbox, which caused me to gasp loudly.

That got early morning commuters looking at the weird unicorn with frost steaming from her. Some even jumped back noticing she'd suddenly appeared. From the orientation of ponies and traffic, I could tell that the brouhaha two blocks north had not yet filtered here. Celestia couldn't have a direct line of sight to where I stood. I hadn't. Her sense of magic, I hoped, would be similarly blocked. I had cast hoping statistically that the remembered tight spot would still be empty enough to allow my spell to succeed.

I wasn't at an intersection. I looked into a bustling Spot O'Tea, and the still closed law offices of Weasel, Shark, and Loophole, and a clothing shop whose sign had burnt out. I looked further up the street for a likely destination to quickly go to ground.

What I saw was the News Building. The top, actually. I saw a blue pegasus wing, which drew my attention to the glassed-in oversized crenelations. They published The Canterlotter magazine up there. High enough to be above all the other buildings, the relatively bright oranges and reds of the stalled dawn illuminated it, and bright lights inside helped clarify a clear landing site. I'd been under it less than an hour ago, so I thought I understood the vectors.

Any port in a storm!

The startled business pony with the spilt OJ, said, "—you're going to buy me a new one." It didn't seem to matter that sticky fluid dripped from my muzzle. "Are you listening to me?"

"No," I said, and teleported twelve stories up and two blocks down.

Chapter 32: A Friend in Need and a Friend in Deed

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A pony with sensitive ears, possibly with a bruised one that had just been swatted with a gold crown, might have been able to echolocate my exit and entrance teleport-pop where I had stood.

Inside a building, not so much.

As the darkness of in-between engulfed me, as time slowed and I held my breath, I bent my knees. I appeared a pony length in the air. The bang rattled the windows as I dropped. Of course, I'd pulled something in one leg and bashed the other—so I swayed, catching myself from collapsing on very shaky legs, with an aching shoulder. Orange juice snow sprinkled down from my muzzle.

The overstuffed newsroom consisted of a five-by-five matrix of desks and cabinets. Glassed-in offices lined the two walls opposite the two window walls formed by the crenelations. Six reporters who had been busily typing stood. One tea cup went flying, bouncing on papers before breaking on the floor. The startled yellow mare jumped and swore, trying to mop up the mess over her magazine layout.

I smiled as my mane tumbled in front of my face. Must have come undone during the fight. I pushed it aside and smiled again. "Um. I was looking for the... associate editor? I have an, um, appointment?"

The AE undoubtedly had a private office—not in the cheap seats here, all of which lacked privacy. I got a few stares from ponies still in shock. They started blinking.

I braided my pigtails by instinct as I stared back, then after a few beats, added. "At 8 AM?"

I'd needed to make it seem I'd meant to do that, to "pop" in. Maybe nopony would remark on it.

A pony with black horn-rimmed glasses pointed to the near corridor. "Down the hall, Take a right. Cursive is in the corner office."

"Uh-huh, thanks."

With my withers already stiffening up and my rear end hurting, I trotted as nonchalantly as I could without limping. In a sense, I had treed myself being chased by a bear. I knew full well that the bear could climb. I recalled that some buildings had interconnected basement services, but that might have been only in a city like Baltimare.

As I approached an intersection of halls, where a pony entered his office and closed it, I heard somepony hiss. I took a step and looked left, to Cursive's brass placard and closed door, then right. The hall stood empty, though I heard typing resuming behind me.

At a second hiss, I looked up.

A blue pegasus looked down at me. She popped her head out to look both ways. Seeing nopony else, she clicked a hoof lever and a spring-loaded attic stairway dropped down.

I rushed up. She kicked a spring and the stairway popped back. She shut the access door.

I whispered, "Streak? I told you to leave town!"

"Despite your healing me, I was too worn down to risk being seen gliding off the mountain. They had patrols. At the airship terminal, too."

"This?" I asked, looking around.

The unfinished low-ceilinged room looked like a converted attic or machine space. Tops of the crenelated windows provided some orange light; a pot of glowing enchanted rainbow-colored pebbles provided the rest. I saw pillows, a comforter, a sitting desk, and a chest of drawers. I saw an area curtained off with black sheets. Judging by the compact camera sitting on the desk, that was a darkroom. Ah, I remembered her disguise from weeks ago.

"My coop apartment, a?" she said with her Vanhoover accent.

"Side hustle?"

"Junior on-site photographer. Pays only nine copper a week, it's part time, but I get the apartment. Thought I needed to find something besides hauling."

The office clothes she had approached me wearing made sense. I saw a blouse and underwear thrown on the floor. She still wore what she had been caught in the crossfire wearing last night, as evidenced by the blood stain on the blouse. She'd trimmed her tail so it resembled a masculine bob rather than looking burnt-off.

Noticing my eyes, she sidestepped and pushed a handle with a wing, briefly opening a dormer door in the ceiling, letting in a cool night breeze. "I found a dark spot on the roof to watch if any coppers showed up to investigate."

"Does Running Mead know where you live?"

"Unlikely, considering I was his eyes in the sky. With him, you never know.

"When the dawn seemed to go on forever, I started looking around to see if'n I could figure out what went down. Saw that griffon drop from the sky and you putting it down hard. Constabulary? Your mane puffed out when you tumbled with it and I saw your green stripe. I waved and I guess you saw me."

I wanted to call her stupid and rage about her being "friendly" and taking chances when I'd so wanted her to get away and start her life anew. Instead, I said, "Thanks. I thought pegasi had eagle eyes."

She looked away. "I lost my glasses enough times growing up that Pa figured out it was on purpose and stopped buying them for me."

"A near-sighted pegasus? You are unique and special."

She narrowed her eyes at me. "I saved your flank, Grimoire."

"I appreciate that, but I'm a danger to you. I've got to get out of here as fast as I can. Does the building interconnect at the basement—?"

"Why? The constabulary hasn't looked here, so it's probably safe—"

"That wasn't a griffon. That was Princess Celestia."

"Sweet Celestia!"

"Exactly."

"That fiery amber addict was special to her?"

"Her protégé."

"Out for blood, I guess, for getting the mare involved?"

"Not exactly."

"How, not exactly?"

"She didn't like what I did, but she agreed scared-straight worked. Sunset's asking for help, admitting her addiction." I looked into Streak's widening deep blue eyes and added, "I met the princess last night."

"You got caught? And escaped!?"

"She found me in the library—a secret restricted library—and she did catch me, and I did escape... mostly—"

"But...?"

"Running Mead blackmailed me. You figured out I'm a bit more than an average street tough?"

"Attending Celestia's school? Ha. Everypony knows it's substandard trash!"

"Him reeling in Sunset Shimmer pushed me too far. I decided to throw everything away to get him."

She nodded.

"Remember what Running Mead said when Sunset insisted she just give him bits and leave? 'This isn't a business deal...'"

"'It's an employment interview!'" Streak gasped. "She wanted to hire you?"

I lay down, despite everything that hurt and covered my eyes with my hooves. "I've done a lot of bad things in my life, and she's figured out a few major episodes, enough to remark that she was the one who made the laws, and all that implies, but she still wanted to hire me."

"Why?"

"She's been trying to ruin my life from the beginning. I understand that my parents made their own choices to become involved with her, but her commands led to my parents' death. I ran away from home to escape her influence."

"Are you related?"

"Other than she deeply manipulated my life—"

Streak laughed. "Sounds like my Ma—"

"—and saw to my training—and, despite all the bad stuff, I apparently turned out about right for her needs... Nope, not related."

"Then why didn't you say yes? It sounds like you're already one of her personal prot-chi— crotchety— uh, students."

I inhaled deeply, grimacing. Streak was right. I was in a sense and always had been her student. "I have a reason, and, when I make sure it becomes common knowledge, the princess will not be happy. Part of me wants it out, but I don't want to saddle you with it."

Streak looked increasingly curious. After some thought, she said, "I can keep a secret if I haveta," and zipped her lips.

"She's a regicide."

Streak tilted her head. "A reg-a-what now?"

"She killed a queen or a princess. Maybe both."

"I'm no history buff, but I seem to recall taking tests about wars and invasions, some which Equestria lost. Not really surprised."

"No. Here. An Equestrian ruler. The stories conflict on the details, but there are ruins of another castle in the Everfree that Zecora told me about. My old boss, Carne Asada, was a thestral—"

"Wait, what?"

"Bat-wing pegasus, from Equidor. Her obsession was to avenge the murder of the last thestral queen that called the Crystal Caves under the city home. According to her, Celestia drove the tribe from Equestria." Actually, she'd implied a massacre.

"You believe this, why?"

"Both of these stories happened almost a thousand years ago."

"She's lived that long?"

"I think so."

"That's a long time. I'm forgetting the names of my classmates from Vanhoover; last week's lunch is a stretch, but... okay. A thousand years? Does it matter? I mean, it makes the princess more of a regular pony if she's been evil and reformed, a? I'm sure she had her reasons."

"It matters. Are you sure you want to know?"

"Look, if I'm gonna help you work it out in your head whether you're gonna accept an offer from the princess, then you've gotta say it. If it's the difference between the EBI Most Wanted List and 'I'm sorry I hit ya, ma'am,' cough it up."

"She's cursed."

Streak blinked. "Now you're talking horse apples."

"Right, technically there's no such thing as a curse. Just parasitizing spells that feed on their host with re-wish predicates to keep them strong, embedded spells with triggers that read a pony's actions—called a geas— and cyclic self-repairing error checking to keep other magic from interfering."

"In other words, a curse?"

"Nothing supernatural. High level magicks that I can't even imagine trying to juggle in my horn. I saw the geas in action. She wanted to explain herself, but the magic blurred her mouth and garbled her words. Horrifying. It looked like somepony in a painting where the artist smeared her face with a swipe of a pallet knife, but it happened in real life. She realized it was happening after I'd accused her of regicide, then she compensated trying to get some words out, but failed. If it affects her speech, it affects her actions. She rules Equestria. She seemed desperate to have me join her, and I know why: I'm evil. So is she."

"You're not evil, Grimoire." She blew air through her lips. "Tartarus, you've helped me, especially last night. Nopony ever went to the trouble of not hurting ponies the way you did being Running Mead's enforcer. You said, 'Scared straight' about this Sunset mare, right?"

"Yeah—"

"Evil would have been to sell the mare out and ignore Running Mead's ambitions to advance your own, but you tried to help her. The revenge part is caramel on the sundae. As far as I'm concerned, ya ain't evil."

"You like caramel syrup?" I wrinkled my nose.

"I do. A lot. With salt."

"I prefer hot fudge— Streak, ponies died because of me."

"I thought you said you didn't kill ponies—"

"I don't. I won't, not intentionally. I will protect myself and my ponies. Ponies died around me, nonetheless. Because of the choices I made. And failed to make."

"That doesn't make you evil. Bad judgement maybe—"

"My whole life has been bad judgement! You've heard of Carne Asada?"

"Rings a bell. Some baddy back east, maybe?"

"The Doña of the biggest mob syndicate on the east coast. I was her bodyguard."

"Which is how you put Celestia flat on the pavement! Oh. My. Gosh. What did Running Mead possibly have on you?"

"It got worse. The mare took to calling me her daughter and having me run messages for her to her lieutenants. It became a good copper bad copper thing. Then she became too stupid to live, and ponies believed I was her daughter, and I ended up running the whole enterprise for about two weeks, stabilizing it—"

"Let me guess, so ponies wouldn't get hurt?"

"You don't get it!" I covered my eyes again with my forelegs. "If I'd realized she was using me to prepare for and start a gang war, lots of ponies would still be alive. I wouldn't have had to save ponies."

"Saving ponies isn't evil."

"They got hurt!" I reached into my saddlebags with a hoof. I didn't want to use magic that Celestia might detect. I opened a notebook and rotated it to reveal the clipping of the "Nameless Filly" from The Manehatten Times I'd glued there.

Streak's eyes quickly scanned back and forth.

She boxed my ear!

I jumped back, hitting the low ceiling with my horn. Rubbing my ear, I asked, "What?"

"You, Grimoire, are a flapping hero!"

"I—" I wanted to add I'd been tricked into setting the bomb that had caused the need save ponies.

She raised a wing. "Don't make me swat you again!"

Both quiet for a moment, I heard the typewriters all stop. My ears swiveled toward the newsroom. Frowning, I touched a hoof to my lips, then my ear.

Her ears flicked and indigo eyes widened. She mouthed, "Quiet. Not tea time, neither."

I grabbed for the flask with the magic pebbles. I turned it over, which drained the thaumic potion, cutting off the magic. We lay still in the dusky orange light. I put my ear to the floor while working up Illuminate at 5th level, keeping any of it from entering my horn. I'd bet drenching her face with sticky white light would stun even the princess.

Momentarily.

I thought sourly of Sunset and guessed Celestia had likely mastered canceling spells 999 years ago.

After a minute, I was willing to assume a staff meeting had been called in the newsroom, then I heard patter. No matter how dainty the princess was, like a big earth pony, she had mass. Her royal highness did not "clatter." Still, floorboards creaked under weight and thumped when the area of her horseshoes, open to the rear, struck flooring, expelling air trapped by the frog.

I heard a voice. Unmistakable, really.

Chapter 33: Fateful Flight

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I heard the princess' voice. Unmistakable, really.

"...magic this direction, this height, strong. That pony was her."

Celestia on roller skates! I'd braided my hair magically, reflexively!

Twelve stories above the city, she'd gotten an inkling of it. Of course she could taste the difference between the way I cast magic and how a low level average unicorn might. Combine that with what I'd cast less than thirty seconds after I'd swatted her...

Doors opened and closed. Ponies searched.

I looked at Streak. She shook her head barely perceptibly. I let out my breath. The pegasus wasn't giving me away, though the reward might be rich. I didn't understand, but did at the same time. Friendship.

They walked around the corner and I heard a tinkling laugh. "Let's not publish this. Of course, I'll arrange an interview..."

Great. She's already arranging an interview with The Canterlotter to introduce her next protégé. How could somepony rule a country without cynicism?

By being evil? Okay, pushing it. Still, her level of optimism nauseated me.

We didn't move for 10 minutes. Streak, still cowed, whispered, "Cursed, huh?"

I nodded.

"But trying to fight it?" she asked.

I looked away, thinking about our battle of wills in the library nearly two hours ago. Celestia understood the limits on her; she did try to communicate around them, regardless of how futile it looked. She'd said she needed somepony to do what she could not.

Streak continued, "Maybe it's your duty, since you've seen this curse, to work with and around her—" she coughed "—problem?"

I closed my eyes as a sharp pain grew behind them, and shook my head.

She said, "You resent her—"

"I do. Deeply. Not just for my parents. She even hired my butler, the son of her majordomo, who regimented my life until I had to run away."

"You had— a butler?"

"Did you have to use the word, 'duty?'"

"Uh... Responsibility?"

I growled. That was worse! I didn't like the trajectory of her thinking. I glowered at her camera instead of her because I needed to glower; I knew she was sincere.

She realized I'd clammed up. Quietly, she moved to her icebox, steel grey, one of those heavily insulated ones that had a compartment for real ice instead of needing magic. She unlatched the heavy door, then frowned at the contents.

"Um," she asked, "You don't eat seafood, do you?"

My mouth dropped into a sudden smile. "White Towel, the stallion who trained me as a prizefighter—"

"Prizefighter? Yeah, somehow, that makes perfect sense for ya."

"Anyway, he wanted more protein in this pony's diet. Took me to a restaurant named The Petite Pescatarian Pegasus. Started a love affair!"

"Don't get so excited. It's spinach and crawfish calzones. Got a bunch on sale, left over from the day before. Kinda spicy."

"I like spicy!"

Lots of red pepper flakes, basil, garlic, and oregano. Funny how anything cheesy and pizza-like tastes considerably better cold the next day. We ate like pigs, complete with a burping contest, gazing out the hoof-height crenelated windows at the never-ending dawn view of the city.

No princesses or constabulary showed their wings or hooves.

"She's really pissed at you," Streak said, pointing outside.

I nodded. "Or depressed. Maybe depressed. Very depressed, on further contemplation."

"So..." Streak put aside the plates and pointed a wing at my flank. "You got your cutie mark?"

I looked at the cutie mark. It conformed to the curves and creases of my flank, looking flabby, sitting as I was. Fascinating and disgusting at the same time. It colored me skin deep, purple and white around the stars, aurora-green in the sinuous auroras, with subtle color gradations. The purple star cast a greenish shadow on the white one from the auroras. The hairs looked like they'd grown out that color.

It looked natural. The abomination could be ripped out by the root, restoring my original coloration—except for the equal sign that, as I thought about it, looked like burn scars.

I bit off complaining that cutie marks were the root of all evil. In her eyes I was already spooky and slightly crazy, which was well earned. In the back of my mind, I had expected my marking to be like somepony taking an axe to my hindquarters and chopping out flesh to make a place for it.

It had been anything but. I said, "Better than sex."

She blinked at me, tucking her lower lip under her upper teeth in embarrassment. Her face didn't color, however, as her indigo eyes glanced away and she muttered sotto voce, "She must have ridden some pretty lousy stallions!"

"Really?" I frowned.

"Absolutely. Yeah, I got mine at eight—"

I opened my mouth and she cut me off. "My cutie mark, Grimoire, sheesh. I may have been young, and my epiphany really deep, but I've compared the feeling. Not in the same league, if he knows—"

"But I researched how—"

"In books? Riiight—animal husbandry, I'll bet."

Having learned to run an agricultural estate that had livestock, of course she'd accidentally pegged me. Yes, I'd actually practiced livestock breeding. I thought about Steeple Chase and some of Carne Asada's lieutenants...

Animals.

In a good way. Male animals. "They were all handsome, or powerful..."

"Which means the colt thinks he doesn't have to try hard. The shy and common ones start with knowing they have to convince you, then impress you. Aim lower." This from a mare that had at least five years on me, if not ten.

My face turned beet red, imagining where I'd look "lower" on a stallion; I could tell because my face felt on fire.

I thought about two of the bodyguard team I'd assembled. Rugged Safe with his various scars looked more workpony than glam, and often acted it. His wife, who took Quantum Thaumadynamics at Prancetown University, talked enthusiastically about her role-playing "adventures" with him, but now I understood the attraction. Some ponies were smart in different subjects.

Really, needing to aim lower wasn't a bad revelation. I had something to look forward to!

Which reminded me of somepony else on my team. Aim lower. Citron, now lost, had had a crush on me. My age,unlike all my other stallions. Had I let him in, I had no doubt he'd have done anything to please me—

Streak tapped my mark with her primaries. "Mine has to do with hauling heavy loads. Yours?"

I prevaricated, warming up to answer the question I'd clammed up on minutes ago. "It's my name."

"That grimoire you painted on was your name. This— Oh, right, real."

"Aurora."

"I can see that. Up in Vanhoover, we see them in winter."

I added, "Auroras are visible when the sky is darkest. My mother's name was Midnight."

She gave me a sideways narrow-eyed look. "No chance— I mean, Midnight's not a common name. The—"

"—opera singer. The black beauty unicorn. She named me Aurora Midnight." My mother had been midnight black from nose to tail, including her hooves. Her magenta eyes had made her look ethereal.

Words spilled rapidly from her mouth. "My Pa is an opera buff. He's got all her records. I got sick of hearing the Canterlot! Bridleway Cast Album and— Ugh! I can hear her voice on What Do Simple Folk Do? even now..." She had her wings over her ears. She sobered, shrugged, then startled. "Midnight... who died tragically young—"

"My mother died because of a mission Princess Celestia sent her on." Breathless, I went on, getting it out. "She named them Heroes of Equestria and dubbed him an earl and her a countess, post-equus. I'm the second Earl of Grin Having. Don't dare call me Countess, though! It's blood money and connivery. My name is Starlight Glimmer. Carne Asada named me that and she gave me my emancipation papers in that name as a present for fighting a griffon assassin. They had to revive me because I died saving her life. I earned that name. Unlike all the others, it's truly mine!"

"Starlight?"

I beamed and felt tears form. "That's my real name as far as I'm concerned."

Streak nodded. "Is connivery a real word?"

"It should be. In our meeting, Celestia called my mother Mage Midnight, which I thought really weird, but I guess it means my mother had some special magic. She also implied she trained her. Maybe she thought her daughter might be good at magic, too. She admitted to manipulating me, conniving to create an earl. As you said, I'm already her student, a student by a different name. I've been somepony's tool all my life and I'm sick of it."

"Do you think you're qualified?"

"To be an earl?" I shrugged. "I can fight. Leading an army, though?"

Her eyes grew saucer-shaped. Then she laughed. I guess she didn't understand the peerage, or decided to laugh to show she got the joke she thought she'd missed.

I was the joke.

"You can see why I'm dangerous to hang around. You're a good listener, probably too good. I should listen to you now. What are you planning to do?"

"Well... Guessing that the never-ending dawn will mess with anypony patrolling the precipice, gliding away is my best bet, a? I'm thinking, if you're really wanting to skip out on ya duty—"

I growled.

She grinned. "I get it. I want to haul, not be stuck taking pretty pictures for somepony, or worse. I'm thinking I could get my wagon and take you with, if you could break a certain garage lock?" she asked, hopefully.

"I, uh, um... borrowed it?" When she blinked at me, I explained how I got Rye Bald to Zecora's.

"Guess I shouldn't be miffed. The Everfree is safer than nosing around Running Mead's safe-house right now. I don't need fancy tack or a wagon to carry stuff."

"By 'stuff,' you don't mean me?"

"Silly, of course I mean you. I don't have a big enough sack, but I have other stuff..."

That turned out to be sheets, a blanket, and package twine. Somehow, she convinced me that rather than me trying to sneak out through the basement, or chance being seen trotting on the street, that she could jump off the building with me in tow.

Crawling through a roof door two pony height above the floor—without steps, with muscles strained across my withers and in my haunch—brought tears. Fluttering through on wings was an advantage compared to pedaling legs and pushing on rafters. Before the griffon devastated me, I could have simply done a pull-up. I doubted I'd ever grow that strong again.

"Put your hooves together," Streak said, glancing into the sky worriedly. When I did, she clamped mine and dragged me the rest of the way, clunking one then the other of my rear hooves on the way out.

It felt spooky to see the same dawn sky as a few hours ago. Bulky enchanted fans and air funnels made the roof an obstacle course of motes of darkness. With only a small population of pegasi, who were probably now at work, and no air taxis as in Las Pegasus, I saw clouds but nopony. Close to the edge of the roof, I scanned for alicorn wings.

"I wish you had your glasses. Eagle eyes would be useful."

"How'd you like to be called four-eyes?" she quipped.

I reared and raised hooves as if boxing. "One time, thereafter self-correcting."

"When you were a filly, too?"

"I was the little Lady Presiding of Sire's Hollow. Nopony ever got close after Sunburst abandoned me."

"Right, not happening."

I helped her tie herself into the harness we'd rigged over her front legs to cross around her messenger bag and hindquarters, then around her back legs. Twin tails of fabric tied with twine made loops to wrap around my front legs. Her sheets were brown, which made me think of real tack, something designed for the task that might actually be safe.

She said, "I made something like this to haul my little brother around. Don't worry."

"He's alive, right?"

She snorted. "Pa got me real tack and kit after he found out. Yes, also. Keep up when it goes taut and jump with me, alright?"

She started trotting toward the edge of the roof, flapping her wings, her camera swaying across her chest. At the tug, I trotted, too. A pegasus could jump directly into the air herself. With a load, she had to "convince" it to come along. After about ten pony lengths, I felt an upward tug between my forelegs and barrel. I thought about the contact I needed with something like a book or another pony to teleport it. Clothes, saddlebags, and hats always teleported with the wearer. Pegasi had magic, so their Aerial Buoyancy worked the same as Teleport in that respect.

She jumped.

I jumped...

And found myself flailing in midair, pedaling my legs because I'd gone up and hadn't come down!

I felt pulled forward and up... and over the edge of the building. I saw tarred surface transition to a balcony edge of mortared brick before transitioning to the outer crenelations glazed with glass between. I peered into offices, rapidly retreating as I realized I was nearly tilted upside down. Wind, cooled from our flying, blew my mane and tail. I did not hang like a load on a crane, but stayed level with Streak as she banked and slid through the air. She manifestly wasn't level.

To my upper right, Alicorn Way and Ponyville yawed crazily and rotated as Streak banked, dove, and then used the extra momentum to bring us level moving quickly over roof tops paved in copper and then others tiled in purple shingles.

I swiftly realized that I felt more stable if I continued to trot in the air, rather than go stiffly frozen as my growing unease demanded. Maybe that's why I'd seen other pegasi trotting as they flew. It anchored me, maybe allowing Aerial Buoyancy to flow through me, and made following Streak easier as she flew us out of a plume from wood-burning chimneys, both coughing. She aligned us with alley ways, while keeping close to the roof line. We whizzed across streets perpendicular to minimize being seen. As we flew very near to brick walls, and my hooves got pelted by leaves from the urban trees we passed over, I realized what bothered me most.

You'd think it was the half-hoof length of fabric snugged up in the pits of my legs being the only thing keeping me aloft. That was a close second.

No, it was the lack of control. I trusted Streak this much, but I'd given up control to do so.

My whole life at some level had failed due to me giving up control, or never having had it in the first place.

That's why Streak's use of the words "duty" and "responsibility" irked me so much. If I gave in to Princess Celestia, I would have no control. How could I steer the alicorn if I didn't have her reins in my teeth?

I'd made that mistake with Carne Asada.

I'd helped the thestral make big changes in the syndicate. I'd used everything I'd been tutored about running the business of Grin Having, and the town of Sire's Hallow, applying it with research I did night and day, together with doing a lot of listening to gripes, helping ponies make less violent choices, and suggesting nicely, always always making sure ponies understood I was acting at Carne Asada's—my "mother's"—behest, because that was the racket Carne Asada had dreamed up. She did correct me now and again, but in the end I'd accomplished everything she desired.

She'd taken my good work and started a gang war. This to be able to plant a bomb to wipe out all the EBI's records on her, which she'd learned had been stored in Hooflyn.

No control.

Who had made me this way? Celestia. I'd started as a knife she'd honed.

How could I do what Streak suggested if I had no control? No matter what I devised, no matter what I would plan, the princess and her curse would overrule me. I'd rather be figuring out cutie mark magic and how it affected ponies psychologically. If I were ever to help bring true equality to Equestria and stop the oppression marks fostered, I needed to follow up on what I'd learned, especially what I'd seen in Sunset's, Running Mead's, and especially Celestia's marks.

It was what my cutie mark was telling me.

Which made everything I thought suspect! I needed to study myself, too! Ensuring that I understood how the abomination guided my actions now that I had one, and keeping my mind clear about it so I could counter it.

What I'd learned would be way more effective than trying to guide a cursed alicorn away from... who knew what insidious purpose the curse had! Something to do with the 1000th Summer Sun Celebration, I'd bet, since that millennial event was less than two years away. That circled me back to the duty and responsibility thing. By making my father an earl so she could train me as his heir, Celestia had cursed my life from the very beginning.

I wanted to cry, but Streak had banked over on to the Strand, the boulevard that separated Canterlot from the wooded Palisades Park. I had to pay attention!

Hard to avoid over-flying ponies in this crowded Cliffside restaurant district. We flew a couple blocks east of Canterlot Castle. The hulking edifice was softly lit in colors of red, orange, and purple. Streak glided silently; nopony looked up as the dusk threw our shadows far afield. I'd already been trotting in the air, so I trained my eyes on the path into the woods that Streak targeted, ready to match her ground speed.

All those factors worked to hide anypony flying nearby.

A sudden canvas sound, like a sail opening, startled me. I got buffeted by a great backwash of air off to my right and behind me. Belatedly, I realized I hadn't prepped any spells in the naïve idea that I didn't want to attract Celestia and therefore Celestia wouldn't find us.

I was so naïve.

Chapter 34: One Impossible Task at a Time

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Carne Asada had cultivated unicorns despite her disdain for magic users. Surprisingly blunt and unfriendly, she'd once said to my face, "If you play with unicorns, expect to get burned."

She had wanted access to her "ultimate spell," Teleport. She'd made me her bodyguard when I'd learned it, which is why she had previously given a copy to my fight trainer, White Towel, to reward me with in the hope that I would jump at the opportunity to learn it.

Like a foal offered candy!

Once, I'd used it when a pegasus had stabbed her on the street, spiriting her to safety where I could apply first aid. Subsequently, I'd teleported away a dive-bombing griffon assassin before she could strike. Useful, if not exactly in the way Carne Asada had visualized.

I had plenty of practice casting it.

I spun up and targeted the spell, racing against time. I expected the great big alicorn to grab me with her four legs, or swat me to the ground.

Streak looked back, eyes going wide. She shrieked, "Sweet Celestia!" before flapping for all she was worth up up into the trees. I think she hoped to tangle the princess by diving through dense branches.

She stalled out.

I continued forward and bounced into her flank. She swatted my ear with her nervous tail; it stung as if torn.

Celestia's golden horseshoe dug into my left haunch, jabbing my pulled muscle. Red jags of pain blazed through me. If she wanted to teleport me, she now touched me as I'd touched Carne Asada and others when I teleported them. I kept my spell, racing to cast.

I triggered my Teleport; she triggered one, too.

A loud Skreee! tried to shatter my ear drums. Midair, a sphere of darkness expanded below to envelop me.

Not just below me! The sphere was too big. It enveloped us both as my cheek rebounded in slow-motion off Streak's flank. I scrambled to adjust my vectors and splendors to offset the new barycenter.

I saw Celestia, flared wings suspended mid-flap, her feathers flexing and torquing lazily in a braking maneuver, her right foreleg reaching, teeth gritting, horn a boiling storm of golden nebulosity, with a bandage wrapped around her head to hold a wad of cloth to her ear. Red colored it.

Darkness grew around her and me, two spheres trying to merge like soap bubbles. Blue lightning spidered up, clashing and shrieking along the seams.

Our spells stalled in slowed time.

The world clicked 5º right. The spell restarted.

Teleport₂ tore at my reserves of splendors. It felt like a pony ripping my hair out, only it ripped my magic. I gasped. Unfortunately, air in slowed time didn't breathe in very well, but at least we weren't in the vacuum of in-between.

The world clicked 5º right. The spell restarted.

Teleport₃ felt like a monster clawed and hooked my belly. Apportioning my magic felt like desperately holding my stomach muscles against an attack while trying not to faint.

Lightning spidered up from different centers, her magic and mine competing to complete the codicils that wished us to our disparate destinations in complete violation of conventional physics.

How could I separate us? Wiggling away trying to break contact wouldn't help; Celestia was pushing her hoof into me, while I was sandwiched between her and Streak.

Worse, while time slowed, it hadn't stopped.

Beyond the lightning, the world moved. We were a thrown seven pony weight stone mass in motion.

Equuis pulled us down along a parabolic trajectory. The trees ahead grew larger. The canopies rose above us as the ground tilted into view.

The world clicked 5º right. The spell restarted.

All the muscles in my body cringed. It wasn't only my previous injuries that hurt. I felt progressively strangled by lack of air. Any Teleport required calculating targeting vectors that cancelled or translated momentum, but for the first time in my experience because I was in flight, we added 3-axis momentum after the fact. I tried to compensate, but there was only so much I could do.

Princess Celestia also compensated. The spells screeched like territorial Rocs perched on opposite mountain peaks across a valley.

The view outside the bubble dipped further.

Who had more splendors? Bits to biscotti, I'd bet on Celestia. I might pass out from lack of oxygen before I won this game of chicken. Continuing risked Streak, the locomotive who led the train barreling off the railroad trestle to the ground below. I didn't want Streak breaking her neck in the upcoming train wreak.

The world clicked 5º right. I released my spell; it didn't restart.

Total silence resumed.

Lightning spidered slowly upward as a larger sphere of darkness grew to envelope the three of us.

Celestia teleported us.

Well, it did answer one of those nagging questions. Did ponies being teleported experience the passage of time the way I did when I cast the spell? I remembered succinctly when the griffon hen had dive-bombed me. I'd seen her green eyes focus on me, even as the glove of knives she sheathed her talons with sliced deeply into my flank. Had she realized I'd teleported her away from her prey, Carne Asada? Had I seen her fury bloom?

Yes, apparently I had.

Time passed no differently regardless of who cast. Time during Teleport ticked by slowly, but not my thoughts. Freed of my previous spell, I prepped a new one as I found myself weightless and suddenly freezing in-between.

The out-teleport went Bang!

I cast Shield in front of Streak.

We came down tilted wildly over, but falling toward a fluffy field of chrysanthemums. White ones, considering how they looked pale orange and blue as we nosed down into them. I jerked my legs out of the makeshift harness.

Streak bounced up and off of the shield, caught mid-flutter, and she swerved drunkenly up and then down, like a butterfly caught in a downdraft.

I purposely keeled over into a roll, twisting toward the onrushing ground. While Proper Step had (purportedly) thought teaching me certain things was "not lady-like," defense training had not been one of them. Wealth attracted bandits and foalnappers. I'd learned to fall without hitting my head or horn, or otherwise injuring myself, the day my tutor had introduced me to the mats. Practice had made it instinctual.

I repositioned the shield wildly behind.

I heard huge wings flap as Celestia pulled away, taking the hoof gouging into my flank with her.

I hit, ripping leaves and cracking stems. After two somersaults, I popped up on my four legs.

I shoved the shield at her, while glancing behind. Streak landed in the greenery, stunned, wings splayed, frost steam rising. I hopped back and put myself between her and Celestia, touching my left rear leg to her barrel.

I shoved the shield at the princess. She reared and hopped back, pressed by the blue-green half-arc apparition, strike points flaring brightly.

I shouted, "Back off!", meeting her purple eyes with my glare.

I didn't contest her for who would blink first. I needed to know where I was. I needed to escape...

Taking Streak with me.

That complicated matters.

Castle Canterlot boasted many gardens, but other than laying on a convenient lawn to study a book, I'd had no use for them. This, however, I thought I could guess. The Mistmane Botanical Garden to the south. We stood at the edge of a pocket woods, aspen by the silvery bark. Rolling hills of flowers swayed on the breeze coming up from the Ponyville Plain. The bailey wall beside the precipice stood fifty pony lengths right, with its flowing parapets. Madly flowering rose gardens perfumed my left. Waving giant sunflowers, likely confused by the never rising sun, obscured my view of the castle—the keep and ballrooms, judging by the small stovepipe towers I glimpsed to one side and the grand windowed sweeps of wall to the other, all with easy garden access and a view.

Considering the closest walls protected ponies from accidentally jumping off the cliff ancient engineers had built the castle into, the closest exits were as far away as any exit could be within the fortification. For me, if not for Streak. On second thought, the royal guard would drop her before she flew over the wall.

Princess Celestia released a bright flash from her horn.

I guarded my eyes with a hoof, but it was over and she didn't move to take advantage of my flinch. I queued Teleport.

I looked at her. "This is between you and me."

She stepped far enough back that my shield stopped flashing. I let it contract, saving splendors.

She smiled wanly. "I train heroes for Equestria. I'm not letting you run away."

I cast Teleport, even before Shield faded.

I cringed, expecting at least a Levitate Push to throw off my casting.

Darkness enveloped Streak and I. We passed in-between toward the sunflowers. I had a vague idea what lay beyond the ballrooms positioned near the university buildings inside the battlements. At this hour, I expected them empty, and was already calculating the vectors for my second Teleport as our in-teleport split the dawn with a loud pop.

Streak coughed. She had kept her mouth open and had her lungs emptied into vacuum. "Hold your breath!" I shouted, giving her an instant to gasp. I tuned my vectors to inside the closest great hall.

I cast.

A spray of blue-green sparkles shot from my horn in a bright cascade, hissing like a bottle rocket. My head thumped as if I'd hit against my mattress.

What?

I ducked. The counter spell!? Just delayed? I got Streak on her hooves and we scrambled, heads down, toward a big weeping willow I hoped would shield us from Celestia's sight.

I pointed at my mouth.

Streak inhaled.

I emitted another flare and fizz of sparkles. Shoot!

My heart leapt into my throat. I could very well have alerted the guards, too!

Streak pointed a wing that now held her camera. Not at my horn, but around us in a curve. She whispered, "That red color."

Redness popped into my perception. It had gone from dark blue to red after Celestia had released her flare. Illuminate did not cause this. I wheeled around, looking up. A faint red glow surrounded the gardens; it gleamed as a ruddy Kirlian reflection off the inside parapet wall.

I said, "No, no, no," as I walked toward the castle, pretty sure what I'd find. I waved my horn as I got close. I recognized the magic. Shield. Some pony had us under a dome nearly a quarter area of the castle grounds.

Not just any Shield.

It resolved into a pulsating smokey apparition two or three hoof lengths thick as I approached. I sensed interlinked codicils and magic equations that went beyond anything I'd so far learned, and it had nothing to do with Barthemule. It wasn't a different mathematics, just a simple spell extremely well interlinked, fractalated, and splendor-efficient in the extreme.

"Wow."

I pushed my hoof into it—and it didn't give at all. It could have been stone! This was somepony's special spell, and it wasn't Celestia's because she had cast Illuminate.

I still had Teleport queued. I calculated a vector to just outside the apparition.

A few sparkles shot into the air with a pyrotechnic fizz. I heard a shutter click. I rubbed the pain in my temple, frowning at Streak.

She shrugged, giving a grin that barely made it to her lips. I decided she hid behind the lens to ease her anxiety.

I said, "I'm glad I didn't have you fly for it."

"Yeah, I'd be one of those poor sparrows that flew into a window and broke her neck." She swallowed hard. "What now?"

I narrowed my eyes. "That Shield dome—the physics of dispersion guarantees that whoever is casting the spell is inside with us. We find... her? Him? And if he doesn't stop, I beat the horse apples out of him."

I heard hooves slowing as a big equine pushed through the sunflowers. The princess said, "Or, you could just agree to be my student. It's not that much to ask." She looked to Streak. "You're her friend. Can you talk some sense into her?"

A shutter clicked before I saw Streak twitch downward. It was that puppet reflex I'd witnessed on Ponyville Way. Instinct wanted her to bow. Instead, she answered, "I—I've tried. Um, Your R-Royal Highness." She gulped before quoting Running Mead from last night. "'It takes two ponies to agree to a deal.'"

I moved between Streak and the princess. I had three options:

I could lie.
I could agree.
I could thrash the spell caster maintaining Shield.

I decided not to lie. If I lied to the princess and said I agreed when I didn't, nothing I ever did again would change me from being a liar. I hated to admit it, but my life and hers were inextricably intertwined. I needed any leverage I could get to deal with her. That might be only my word. I had to tread carefully. I had said it many times before, but today it was very true—I was going to learn something about myself!

I wasn't about to agree to anything with the accursed alicorn.

My magical opponent needed to be in the center of the dome to make it this symmetrical only if he cast at the limits of his ability. Judging by what I sensed of his magic, I wouldn't be so lucky. He had only to cast asymmetrically applying more splendors toward the further distance and less toward the near distance to create the impression of a rounded dome, masking his position. I had to test the field strength around the edges of the dome to triangulate his position. He could counter by compensating for my changing location in his vector math so I didn't see differences, but with the vegetation, that might prove difficult.

I backed my flank into Streak. "Inhale," I said.

We popped out below the apex of the dome. Nopony here.

We both splashed into a fountain, Streak on her side. The lapis lazuli-tiled fountain sported four half-fish half-pony statues, their expressions frozen in a perpetual surprised O. No water came out. We were spared being spat upon by sea ponies. Streak fluttered to the brick walk circling it, where she fluffed her feathers to spray away the water, then shook herself out and wiped her camera.

I dodged the liquid. I still saw nopony.

Celestia teleported in with a bang an instant later. She sighed. "It's been a long day for me, too."

I heard a shutter click followed by another.

"Why don't you just raise the sun and go to bed, then?" I snarked.

She shook her head. "You aren't going to find Shining Armor that easily."

Streak said, "At least we know his name so we can ask nicely, first."

I grinned toothily at her. "I'll ask nicely." I glared at the princess as she furled her wings. "One time."

The princess had appeared in a patch of ornamental grasses. She folded herself down. "I'm just going to have to convince you."

"Really? If you knew anything about Running Mead, you'd know that phrase really ticks me off."

She looked ready to apologize, then gave a little royal smile. "I'll wait. We'll wait. The sun will wait."

"Oh! You're going to play chicken with the sun, are you?" Escaping the Shield dome was just the first step of getting into the castle, then escaping from there. One impossible task after another. I'd have to solve them as I got to them. No other choice.

My ears perked up. I heard something rhythmic. Somepony trotting on a brick path, approaching in a pergola trained with grape vines. I couldn't see who, but were I the princess, they'd be palace guards.

I heard no rattle of armor. I didn't think I'd be so lucky as to meet Shining Armor this quickly.

Princess Celestia said, "This way, Quincy. The filly I wanted you to meet went exactly where I told you she would go."

I popped out another Shield, placing it so I could protect against the newcomer or Celestia who was at a right angle to the pergola exit. If Celestia put somepony on the field, they had to be a real nightmare!

As the hoof steps closed, they also slowed and sounded hesitant. Depending on how much Celestia knew about me, they had to know I could strike hard physically as well as magically. Probably prepped a spell, one to disable me. I took the delay to switch to Mirror-Shield and queued my wonky Stun.

When the hoof steps halted just inside the shadows, I also noticed some of the bricks were loose in the walkway leading from it. I queued Levitate as an alternative spell, taking a page from Sunset's very wise low-level unicorn playbook. Given a moment of reflection, I swapped throwing a brick for Stun.

Unexpected was always preferred.

"Well?" I asked.

A unicorn in a green and grey military uniform jacket with a white shirt and green tie stepped out. He wore a matching green field hat pushed down on his unruly white-striped yellow mane. His bright yellow fur was the sun that had not yet risen.

Forget about nightmares—

This stallion was a ghost!

Chapter 35: Somepony to Fight For

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My ghost froze and so did I.

He had stopped at an angle, so I checked out his cutie mark. The pyromaniac's mark had an orange and red flame blown by a breeze, situated in a field of charcoal black. The black didn't belong to the mark; it was his skin color.

He had fought alongside me in the Hooflyn gang war. He had taken position on the tailboard of the brougham as we hustled Carne Asada from the failed gang summit, after the constabulary showed up. We rolled at a gallop when multiple Marvel gang members shot the carriage. While the entire carriage-works disintegrated in flames with me and C.A. inside, I teleported us away. He had dodged incoming Force spells, hurling himself away from the wreck.

His dodging could have been better.

His flank got burnt raw. Dr. Feels had promised his yellow fur would grow back but, unlike Dr. Flowing Waters, she was a quack. At least she'd healed the burn so that he didn't have a pink scar.

He had acted as my bodyguard when I was occupied being Carne Asada's.

He loved comic books.

He had ignored me when I told him not to follow when I ghosted the syndicate. As such, he had been there to help when I'd been foalnapped. Though Carne Asada had died months ago, her zombie second-step plan to kill Celestia marched onward. She had "contracted" out my magic services to an "interested" party that had searched for and found the runaway bodyguard. She'd subcontracted once before, facilitating the sale of airship keels to the self-styled Prince of Storms and his yeti wives. Celestia had fought at Mount Aris three years ago because of Carne Asada.

I figured out that the interested party that subcontracted me had wanted to conquer Canterlot.

I'd gotten to play intermediary in acquiring the remaining part of a scepter with a fire crystal that allowed dragons to use magic. Carne Asada, having finessed me into learning Teleport, had provided a missing piece of an impossible spell exchanged in that transaction: Intercontinental.

Intercontinental might have been experimental, as I suspected that Star Swirl the Bearded time spell I'd found in the library was. Fortunately, it had been based on an only very difficult spell, Gateway, so I substituted lesser magic to pretend to do the greater—or I'd likely be dead. To work Gateway, I had had to continually read the spell. It actually needed to be embedded in an amulet, but I hadn't known that, nor known how.

It trans-dimensionally compressed Teleport to expose a static-apparition of in-between that could connect here to an anchored point potentially leagues away. It opened a circular gateway of absolute darkness pony lengths in diameter. It wasn't so much paper thin as having no Z-axis at all, and could be entered on both sides. The only way for my taskmasters to ascertain where my gateway led to was to step through it and come back. Within the limits of my magic, the functioning spell guaranteed the pony stepping through would at least live to complete a one-way trip unhurt. After that?

Even with the... not-a-pony they got to help me with the targeting vectors, I knew enough to know I didn't know whether or not I succeeded in targeting where I wanted, or at the top of a cloud, or somewhere out at sea. Intercontinental presumably had a greater range than Gateway, and they wanted that range. I could, however, perfectly visualize a very memorable place in Canterlot and surreptitiously substituted that instead.

I'd planned to leap through carrying him and take my chances.

Instead, to ensure I was doing as they directed, they sent my soon to be ghost instead. They hadn't wanted to risk me. Dying or escaping. He'd already been hurt, with a broken leg and ribs, and bandaged gashes and burns.

The gateway collapsed when he limped through.

When I got Gateway spinning again, dragon claws gripping my neck a half-hour later, Celestia and her Royal Guard flooded through before we could test another round-trip with a second sacrifice. The alicorn, of course, stabilized the apparition without a second thought.

An EBI agent named Sprinter and I escaped through it to Canterlot. Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear had its uses. Neither of us found any sign that my former teammate had made it through.

My ghost had been a kid, though he might have been slightly older than me. He had been the only pony I knew who had ever had a crush on me.

He had always had my back. But. In the end. I'd failed him.

Or thought I had.

The stallion's mouth slowly opened. He asked, "Gelding? Gelding! It's really you!" He stepped toward me, then started trotting. From a greater distance, he might have made it to a gallop.

"Citron? You're alive!"

I dropped my shield. Frankly, I lost all my spells. My composure, too. My mouth dropped open as he approached. A half a year had healed his wounds, or maybe Flowing Waters had. He'd grown hoof lengths taller, and a few broader. No longer a colt, less of a yearling, very much more of a stallion.

Still a little geeky-looking in his long-limbed lankiness.

The crisp starched lines of his uniform—with shiny brass buttons, perfect thin lapels, and the achievement of two pips on the black epaulets on his shoulders—changed the equation. He looked good! Oh, colts, it was true what they said about a stallion in a uniform. Of course, with his freaky lemon-meringue-pie coloration, all bets were off—until you had to fight him, then the uniform would make him look dangerous-good.

I dropped all my defenses. The unexpected tactic often worked.

Stupid mare.

He halted just close enough that he raised a hoof to my chin, lifting my muzzle up to his.

I let him.

With a tilt of his head, he kissed me.

He took my breath away.

I'd done this to ponies many times, stallions and mares. It had been a favorite tactic to set others off-kilter. It had been fun in a totally different dimension when fellow mobsters had thought I had the "kiss of death" because the syndicate Doña called me her "daughter" and sent me to do her "errands."

I—

I, um—

I— I kind of liked it! He smelled like he'd dressed in a rush to get here without taking a shower. I liked the animalness of that, too. He kissed me deeply, but as I warmed to the invasion, I realized the kiss had a purpose.

Citron had been a member of my team. Of them all, he had been the most loyal, never disappointing, never letting on a secret. Always professional, like me, when it counted.

I'd taught him all my best tricks. (The non-sexual ones.)

However, the gum he placed between my teeth and cheek with his tongue spoke volumes.

Foal magic.

Deciphering Tin Cans for us had been Sunburst's last gift to me, before he got his cutie mark and abandoned me. The perfect example of contagious magic, once I enchanted the chewed gum, any shared piece of the gum buzzed with our voices when we spoke—even if separated by city blocks. Sunburst and I had talked the night away from our rooms. I'd used Tin Cans to coordinate the team when protecting Carne Asada, and he could cast it when necessary to back me up.

He stepped back and we both gasped.

We stared into each other's eyes (his were molten amber), my heart beating faster for an entirely different reason than a minute ago. Streak had told me I needed to aim lower. Citron had stopped just short of telling me his feelings last year. Because of his professionalism or his inexperience, I didn't know.

I felt his feelings now!

I glanced at Celestia. She lay in the ornamental grass. Her eyebrow raised. Her horn didn't light.

I returned my gaze to his and sub-vocalized, "If you're feeling anything for me, you'd better do that again like you mean it!"

He stepped forward, and kissed me so suddenly I had to step back. Oh, colts, did he mean it! I didn't even worry we might lose track of the gum! I could tell one thing: He'd stopped waiting for me and had been practicing with other mares. Practicing a lot, listening to feedback, getting it right. I approved, very much!

Feeling his passion, I pushed forward and reared. As he adjusted to my superior position, I wrapped my forelegs around his neck and pressed in. Ooooh! Streak was right. This colt really wanted to impress me.

Streak coughed loudly. "Um. Uh. Starlight?"

Yeah. Well. Phooey.

I hoped there would be a later. In any case, if I carried on any longer, I suspected Citron would start having trouble standing without embarrassment. Her uneasiness gave me an idea.

As we separated, I kissed him once on the nose and backpedaled into the pegasus. I tongued the gum in place, bit it in half, and swiped the spit off my lips. Incidentally, I stuck the wad to my frog and whirled around to put my hoof over her mouth.

I said loudly and with disappointment, "Don't know when I'll be able get a room." Situated between Celestia and her, with Citron also partially blocking, I whispered, "Gum. Between your teeth and cheek." When she parted her lips in shock, ears flicked forward, I popped it in.

I credit her with not spitting it out reflexively. I mean, warmed wet bubblegum. Somepony else's. Am I right?

Lowly, I said, "Flare your wings if you hear me."

Her wings went out momentarily as Citron added, "Copy."

Not wanting to be left out, Princess Celestia seemingly chimed in, saying, "So this is the infamous Gelding?" As I turned to face her, she added, "This fills in more pieces of the puzzle. You are 99, so you know."

"'99', what?"

"You may not remember, but your parents were 87 and 88. The gold medallions are all numbered. I awarded Gelding the 99th Hero of Equestria medal in absentia."

I scoffed. "You think I stopped a war?"

"Oh, I know you did. We captured everycreature. Returned the artifact to the Dragon Lands so the Saurians could deal with their rebellion."

I shook my head, wearily. "You don't get it, do you Princess? Had I not been tricked into setting the bomb in The Old Equestrian Post Office, I would not have needed to save 271 ponies from the EBI headquarters next door. Had I not been foalnapped and made to cast Gateway, nopony could have been able to invade the farm down the road, let alone Canterlot. I'm no hero. I'm just gullible and attract bad things into my life!"

She snorted. "Quincy, I want her to be my student. Can you please talk some sense into her?"

"Quincy?" I asked.

"Actually, it's Quince." Also a yellow fruit the same color as citrons. "Citron was my gang name."

"Cadet Second Lieutenant Quincy, actually. He appeared through a magic gateway in the middle of Castle Walk Boulevard, rather worse for wear."

"In front of the Hey Burger!?" I asked. I'd first gotten to observe the princess three years previously from inside that restaurant as she spun up an amazing spell. It had given me clues to what I called alicorn magic simplification. The visit had made an impression! Changed my life, actually. Memorable.

When she nodded, I said, "Spot on! Am I good at targeting or what?"

"Quincy described what Gelding did, was doing, had done, and how he'd fought alongside her. I took it as a your personal recommendation and made him my student at the Guard Academy. Quincy, am I a bad teacher?"

Since he looked at me, he rolled his eyes. "She's making me learn Old Ponish, and her spells break my horn. She's like you with the maths, but next level."

I sub-vocalized. "Shining Armor?"

He continued answering Celestia's question, smiling slyly. "I like my tactics instructor better. The lieutenant of the guard is hooves-on and I can even do Shield now."

A pout briefly crossed Celestia's face, until Citron looked directly at her and stepped between us. She said, "I train heroes for Equestria, and she's one already. I think she can be so much more."

Sub-vocalizing, I said, "Shining Armor cast a Shield dome. Can't teleport through." Louder, craning my neck so I could spear her with my gaze, I said, "Not interested. That old mare won't take no for an answer. Did you ever sell used wagons?"

She chuckled. "You'd be surprised at the deals I've made. Wagons, however, no. Quincy would make a great subordinate for an earl. I'm willing to keep your team together; train them, too. This pegasus, also, if you ask. Streak, was it?"

Streak gulped loudly enough that I heard it. "Um," she said, "Um." I heard a shutter click.

To her, under my breath, I said, "Good excuse. Fly around. Find Shining Armor. Celestia's not gonna hurt you."

Streak fluttered away. Celestia lifted herself on one leg, watching her go.

I said, "Face it, Princess, you're a scary pony."

She sighed. "It makes me sad. Makes me value the friendships I do have. We could be friends, Starlight."

Oh, she didn't know me well! "Got the name right, at least. You could abdicate."

She froze. Her stifled retort likely impinged on the curse. She glared, however.

I added, "You could make real friends if you did."

"I don't have the luxury of thinking selfishly, unlike you, Starlight."

"You ignore things about me, about my team. I am not a good pony. Neither were they."

Citron huffed.

Yeah, Mister I-like-to-see-things-burn. Never ponies; I credit him that.

She relaxed, shaking her head. "Except for a spike eight months ago in Hooflyn—" during the gang war"—violence has been down in the eastern cities for almost a year and a half. Crime is at a new low. I judge by results."

"And ignore the means."

She shrugged. "You learned your lessons, and no, I don't think you are evil."

"Yeah. I have uniquely fungible ethics."

The gum buzzed against my teeth. My eyes in the sky said, "A little purple foal just stepped through the dome over here." I saw blue wings east toward the ivory towers, one of which was Sunset's. "There's a gazebo and steamed up greenhouses. Coincidence?"

"Keep looking." To Celestia: "Here's the problem, Citron— Uh, do you prefer Quince or Citron?"

"I prefer you," he returned with a smile.

I startled, then as my face warmed, I almost swatted his flank. Then I thought, Yeah, that's the right attitude! Suave, if unsubtle. "Sweetie, then. Here's the problem, Princess Celestia is cursed."

He whinnied, stepping aside so he could look at me then turn his neck and look at her. Her attitude remained so cool, she could have had ice flowing in her veins.

"Not denying it," I pointed out.

Princess Celestia smiled, but that vanished quickly.

"She's evil. She's wrecked my life from the start. If I become her student, how can I trust anything she has me do? I learned I have an affinity for medical magic; her physician offered to train me to replace him before she figured out who I was—"

"Oh, I knew who you were."

I struck the brick pavers sharply with a hoof. "I'm also giving that up. I am not saying no because I want to. I want out of this Shield that is trapping us, out of the castle, out of this city, and, I think, out of Equestria entirely." That's the impossible task, anyway.

He studied Celestia, lingering on her bandaged ear. He looked at me. Even in the perpetual dawn light, he could tell I was injured. His eyes alighted on my withers and shaking leg. His examination made me aware of my lingering exhaustion.

Celestia said, "I agree to Flowing Waters training you to replace him, so he can retire, if that's what it takes."

"I'm a criminal!" I shouted, sudden tears filling my eyes. Another dream, crushed.

"You are the Earl of Grin Having."

"You're cursed!"

"Cursed?" Citron asked skeptically, doubt and increasing-worry warring in his expression—my fault for sounding petulant.

"Princess Celestia, if you want any chance of me agreeing to work with you, I need you to show Citron the curse. Don't worry, he's able to keep a secret."

She reacted by steadfastly not reacting.

"Say, 'I am cursed.'"

She took a deep breath and let it out. "I. Am. Cursed." Her eyes widened, marginally.

Right. I didn't understand the semantics that triggered the controlling geas, or how she formulated what she said in her mind, likely complicated by how I'd phrased my ultimatum. Think! Think!

Citron asked me, while looking at her, "If she's cursed, wouldn't it be better to be around her to counter the curse?"

Celestia didn't comment, but I asked, "Have you met Streak?"

"No," came back from the pegasus.

I added,"What power would I have to counter it, Citron? She's a princess. I am not. She's The Princess." I gasped. "Regicide, how did you murder your sister?"

She blinked at me, hesitating, obviously thinking it through, before she answered woodenly, "I did not murder my sister."

That sounded like a statement of fact. I spat, "Or a princess of Equestria?"

"Not... even the queen of the thestrals almost a thousand years ago."

That sounded like a careful restatement of what I'd said to provoke her on Ponyville Way. Blinking, thoughts started meshing like gears in my head.

Under my breath, I mused, "The Thousandth Summer Sun Celebration is less than two years away..."

Coincidentally, Celestia's horn lit with a yellow nebulosity. That might have been because glowing amber clouds had gathered into a storm around Citron's.

The realization struck me. "You have a sister!?" As bad as I was in history class, I certainly would have remembered that!

The grass around Princess Celestia burst into flames.

Chapter 36: Escape!

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Celestia shrieked, jumping away, tripping herself, landing on her side and ineffectively fluttering, unable to launch into the air as she struggled like a wren hit by a tennis racket. She avoided the flames but struck her left wing. With her weight, she'd probably stunned a nerve.

For good measure, my little pyro-pony set the topiary of dancing mares behind her ablaze as well as the wooden pergola the grapes grew on. As the flames roared to life, he shouted, "Run! I'll keep her occupied."

I galloped away. "Why?"

"Her answers!" I heard through the gum. "Even Saddle Ranger would've called horse apples on those!"

An obscure comics reference, naturally. "Don't get yourself hurt. I don't want to lose you, again."

"Reaalllly?" he answered, smugly. "For you, anything."

"Don't get ahead of yourself, comics nerd."

I heard him laugh theatrically, manically, as I found a clear view headed east. I teleported toward a glossy tile roof, presumably the gazebo. I exited through a cloud of my frost steam, still galloping, then leaping two hedges forced to do a steeple chase. I slowed, pain of pulled muscles reeling me back to my senses.

I'd seen mansions smaller than this gazebo. The edifice was a pavilion complex. It boasted multiple open rooms separated by white and purple painted walls, all topped with a green-tiled roof. Gold gilt the edges of beams and sparkled with the orange of the horizon from motifs of hearts and dancing mares. Considering the walls, and obvious pantries and serving kitchens in between, I could not see through the building. I saw glass greenhouses to the south, with hints of ferns and purple butterfly orchids inside.

Streak set down beside me, pointing a hoof into the pavilion. She said, "Somepony's inside. I saw magic shoot up toward the dome just before Citron's fire." She glanced nervously toward the center of the gardens.

"Good work. Too bad you can't throw a javelin like that constable threw at Running Mead."

"If I had one, I'd probably skewer myself. Long distance hauler, remember?"

"A pony can wish!" I trotted to the steps, and into the dusky interior. "Lieutenant of the guard, was he? Report out loud anything you see so Citron will know."

"Uh-huh." I heard her wings flapping, then, "There's that purple—guess she's just a small filly—marching up."

"The runt?" Celestia's personal student? The one who'd opened a gateway all the way to Tartarus? And carved a chasm along Alicorn Way from the Luna Tower all the way to edge of the cliff over half a league away? Could she sense magic the way Celestia and I could?

My eyes widened. Sensing Celestia years ago, in the middle of a boulevard across from the restaurant I sat in, had been easy; her sensing me while invisible might have been harder. Could I sense a regular unicorn like Shining Armor casting Shield? I waved my horn around.

I got nothing.

Maybe the stallion couldn't read ambient magic, either! I paused, casting Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear. Oddly, the darkness and shadows did not make that easier. Vague details flit and pulsed in motes and ripples of grey. What my eyes might notice and what this Shining Armor might notice might be different enough to break the spell's verisimilitude. I imagined the patter of my horseshoes fading into the background of the twittering early morning birds and the rustle of leaves. My perception, maddeningly, remained unaffected by the spell and I couldn't tell if it worked except by others' reactions.

I found a tea urn that momentarily convinced my stuttering heart it was an owl nesting on a stack of rose-motif tea cups in a servant's bay. I rushed by. I had to find my target before Princess Celestia tracked me down. By the occasional grunts over the gum, I could tell they still played tag.

Or... maybe she figured Shining Armor could take care of himself?

A girlish voice asked loudly, "Shiny? BBBFF? Where are you? I know you're here."

BFF? Was "Shiny" Twilight's coltfriend? She was my age, after all, and might have a stallion she rode. Made sense that Shining Armor might have taught her how to walk through his Shield. I'd seen the purple filly enough times, usually surrounded by books that weighed as much as she did. She had to be a high level unicorn, at least scholastically, possibly higher level than me.

According to Sunset Shimmer, the runt had no practical experience—

I heard hoof steps against the plank floor. That way! I trotted quickly, figuring that I'd rather chance a lieutenant in the guard to an overpowered magical generalist, and get it over with before Celestia decided to stop toying with Citron.

I decided not to ask nicely for him to stop as I'd promised.

Past stacked cherrywood tables and chairs, I heard steps. A little closer, I saw a white stallion with an annoyed frown on his face look both ways out of a catering kitchen, not seeing me at all.

Beside him were stacked silver steam trays, blue-decorated white porcelain tureens, and wicker bread baskets. He had a blue-streaked mane and blue hooves that picked up the color of the dawn. The fellow wasn't very big; unicorns were rarely as massive as earth ponies. Closer, I realized he was my size, which meant small for a stallion, but he made it up with large bones and beefy broad muscular shoulders and haunches. He massed one and a half pony weight, easily.

I continued my stalk, going no faster than necessary to keep in mind my surroundings to maintain my spell, sparing a few brain cells to queue a quick draw Levitate. I figured I'd be close enough that targeting errors of 20% wouldn't matter.

A standing pony's rear legs are the easiest to sweep. With the back pointing sesamoids, you can collapse him so he's suddenly forced to sit. If you wheel your hindquarters around—this takes a lot of practice—you can fit under his breast and neck, shove sideways across the closest leg, and throw him on his back. My teachers in the gang had tried to teach me to finish by striking his exposed stallion parts, but I'd never been able to execute on that. I'd first learned to fight as a prizefighter in the arena; there were strict rules against such things!

Blue eyes sparkled as they looked past me through the building. He thrashed his tail and nodded as he stepped toward Twilight's side of the pavilion.

Shoot!

You had to trip a pony moving forward, which took more effort, folding him painfully to his fore knees and if possible down on his chin. A unicorn ought to follow through with a magical grab to the head. This couldn't injure your opponent directly, but if it prevented him from recovering as his chin sped toward the ground, you improved the chance of a KO. Strong fighters might instead sweep on through to his back legs, but his knees and momentum meant you needed to do even more, like barreling under him, at which point you took damage from his haunches. Still, you could hook his stomach pushing upward and, with all your strength, throw him over. Fore stomps to the hindquarters or stomach ought follow.

I'd done something like this to Celestia.

I'd once done this to a street fighter masquerading as a park ranger. Because of our relative momentum, I ended with my horn in his stomach as I did a bull throw. I'd been in fighting shape then. He'd shown me the carrots in his breakfast a moment later. Really disabling. Disgusting, too.

He crept slowly away, trying to be silent, showing me his carefully lashing tail.

I had the advantage of not being seen. Ambush.

With this very same spell active, I'd managed a surgical strike to a pegasus' wing—and subsequently thought I'd murdered the miscreant. Blue Lightning had later called me the "perfect assassin." He'd speculated I could even kill Celestia.

I curved around to Shining Armor's right. That changed the angle of light and darkness enough that I could see strong muscles flex below the fur of a hard flank that could smash my muzzle in with one buck.

This was why I avoided his rear hooves, and a reflex kick.

Well, I now knew Celestia could detect my illusion spell—so killing her wasn't happening, and who besides Carne Asada would think killing day and night would be a good idea? This spell wasn't perfect; none were. I'd learned the hard way—I had to always assume that my magic wouldn't let me directly harm ponies, and to hope for the best when I really needed it.

I leapt, turned with my momentum, and aimed a buck at his shoulders.

Then, as with my attempt on Blue Lightning, the spell broke. Shining Armor got to look (his head jerked my direction), see (his eyes widened in shock), and hear (my hooves resounded on the floorboards as I spun). He jerked away, but a second wasn't enough time for him to sufficiently react.

My shoulder screamed at me from the stress. Muscles quivered. I lost my stance as I shot my legs back. I still planted my hooves in his shoulder with a meaty thud, but slid into him. My right rear leg folded from the pull I'd gotten throwing Celestia. He went down hard, still thrown over on his side by the buck and the mare who followed with momentum meant for the buck but not converted from backward motion.

His head bounced like a coconut.

We slid together, my forelegs scrabbling for purchase as I went, with me ending up sitting on the side of his chest. I cried out as all my muscles went into spasm, or the agonizing snapped-elastic feel made me think they had. His topmost rear leg was flung back, exposing his stallion parts. As he flexed his neck and his tail twirled for balance, I quickly got that his hitting his head hadn't knocked him out. I felt muscles move under my flank.

This guy was a beast!

Fear might have made me execute the murderous gang strike that moment, were I capable of it.

Instead, I grabbed a steam tray in my magic. I tossed it and ducked my head. My magic detected my intent. Metal still struck him, but it glanced lightly off bone and slid away.

"Ow! What are you doing—?"

"Canceling your Shield spell!"

I caught a porcelain soup tureen and wielded that.

He brought up his forelegs. He struck the tureen before I could strike him. Bad move. My magic hadn't slowed it, yet. The porcelain popped into shards that crashed around us. I heard a bone crack.

He balled up, hitting his head again, bowling me over onto the sharp shards with his sudden movement. I got stabbed in my flank and upper back for my trouble, but he looked down for the count.

"Is the dome still there?"

Citron and Streak spoke over each other. "Princess's on her way." "It flickered big time, but it's still up."

"Shoot!" I said, worried I'd have to beat him bloody and really not wanting to risk killing him. I didn't like to hurt ponies, especially ones that hadn't attacked me or somepony first.

He hadn't.

I reached over and flicked his horn. He groaned.

"Now?"

"No difference."

"Shoot!"

With a moan, his training reasserted itself enough that he flexed his neck to look at me. From the way he blinked, not lighting his horn, I knew how he felt. I'd been beat a year ago to within a hoof length of my life, or the hoof strike to my head had made me feel that way. I'd lost my magic for hours. Maybe him?

I'd never be so lucky.

His Shield presented persistence codicils. That accounted for the layering and thickness, and likely strength. Streak had seen magic from here. If it required refreshing—

"What have you done to MY BROTHER!"

The runt. The cute little filly who couldn't run without tripping and hurting herself playing hoof ball. Twilight Sparkle.

A steam tray and lid whizzed past my muzzle. I scrambled back in shock, cutting myself further. Both hit a post with a loud Clang! The metal crumpled to half its length, before clattering apart and bouncing away.

I worked to bring up my shield, with its quarter arc barely enough to hold back a pony. I saw all the trays and tureens rise off the sideboard, together. Dozens of forks and knives rose to escort them.

She was a beast.

I needed Teleport, and I needed it now, but the sight shocked me. I cringed behind the curved apparition. Could I whirl it around to counter attacks from all sides?

Were I her, I'd attack from all sides.

I didn't trust her magic was limited the way mine was. I wouldn't bet my life, but it seemed I had.

"Stop!" the Princess shouted with ear splitting volume. "Stop right now, young lady!"

"Ugh!" escaped the runt's mouth. She looked to the princess who stood wings flared at the edge of the pavilion. A couple soup tureens crashed to the floor, bursting. Twilight glared at me, and the utensils vibrated.

"I mean it," Celestia warned. "That's neither a friendly nor an appropriate response, Twilight."

"But, but— my brother!"

Celestia glanced to me, to Twilight, to Shining Armor, and back to Twilight. "She's not going to hurt him further, is she?" She speared me with expectant eyes.

I reflexively shook my head, and felt sweat drip down. True. I'd done what I could to break his shield. Further violence served no purpose.

The serving items slid back to the sideboard, but not the silverware. They shook as if levitating them now taxed her reserve of splendors. "I am not making friends with her. There's no magic in friendship!"

I chimed in nervously. "Friends always leave you in the end. Friendship is overrated. "

"And takes time away from studying. HEY!" She frowned angrily at me, the purple and red stripes in her mane looking grey as if the color had drained out of her, leaving her bloodless. Her eyes seemed to glow red, but that was a Kirlian reflection off her ruddy aura off the silverware.

Celestia observed, "You both have lessons to learn."

"I'm letting go of my Shield," I stated, eyes more on the sharp utensils than than the petite pony.

As mine faded (in deference to a quick draw Levitate), she tossed the silverware into a sink. It clattered and clashed. She would have rushed to her brother's side, but the princess wisely levitated the ailing stallion beside her—likely saving the frogs of an oblivious Twilight's hooves from being cut on porcelain shards.

"Friendship," I sneered and felt my lip curl. "Sunburst got his cutie mark and abandoned me. My one best friend and soulmate. Look Princess. Look at the pony at your hooves. Look well at what I am capable of. Evil. Do you really want me as a student next to her. Friendship. Really? You don't want me as a friend. I'm just a little bit evil. I always end up hurting ponies. Let me go and you'll never see me again."

Twilight immediately fussed over her brother, patting his face, trying to get him to focus. His head moved, but wobbled. Definitely punch drunk. Celestia shifted to keep me and him in view, then let her magic drop into him. It wasn't a special spell, nor was it one I knew from the numbers I sensed.

I might be a little exhausted and injured to be able to read magic well.

I noticed Shining Armor's cutie mark: a dark blue shield emblazoned with a huge six-point star resembling the one doubled on Twilight Sparkle's flank. Three white stars formed an arc, or perhaps a dome, over the shield. No-brainer as to what his special talent was, or that the two ponies were siblings. I'd have to study siblings and twins one day to see the frequency of similar iconography in their marks.

One day.

Fat chance of Shining Armor and Twilight Sparkle letting me probe them with my magic.

My best hope—against my normal reality that everything was far worse than I understood—was that Shining Armor's spell would fade or suddenly fail. To take best advantage of that, I needed to be in a position that Citron and Streak could simultaneously touch me the moment I teleported. I started by levitating away the five porcelain shards embedded in my hide. I intentionally whimpered when I pulled the only big one out. Blood immediately flowed in a rivulet from my shoulder down my leg. I felt my body cool as it registered blood loss. As I slowly picked my way past the broken pottery, I positioned myself so that neither could miss that I bled. I used Levitate to apply pressure to it and another cut, using the excuse to keep the spell spun up.

I stopped at the edge of the pavilion, outside of physical striking distance from the pair. I judged that Celestia trusted Shining Armor's spell would hold, which didn't bode well for me. I think it kept her from reacting to my proximity to escaping.

She told Twilight, "He's got a concussion, but I don't think it's that bad. Minor crack in his scapula, though." She gently petted his mane as he looked like he was going to try to sit up again, then looked at me hesitantly.

Not apologizing, Celestia! I said, "I'm too exhausted to heal him right now."

Twilight looked up with a small gasp. "She's a doctor?"

"In training. Dr. Flowing Waters taught her the fundamentals."

In training? I asked, "What else are you going to bribe me with?"

With no hint of sarcasm, she answered, "Practically anything you want. Avoid the subject we aren't discussing, however."

Yeah, the curse. I zipped my lips with my hoof and a what-the-fudge frown.

"Ask. I made you the Earl of Grin Having. Only two dukes in Equestria hold sway over more land. There's a city up north I'm hoping to grant Princess Cadence, but currently she's landless. It will be smaller than Grin Having. Prince Blueblood has only a block in Manehatten. I'd love to make you his teacher, to see what you could make of the do-nothing." She looked down at the white stallion. "Shining Armor, too. His hoof-to-hoof training seems to be lacking."

Twilight's purple eyes widened. "No. You can't be serious!"

Serious, or not, she scooted on her bottom so she was between her brother and I. Her horn lit, too. Ok, not entirely dumb.

Celestia said, "Everything I've observed about Quincy, and what he told me of you, makes me think you've plenty to contribute."

I growled. "You'd never give me real power!"

"You collect the third coin of all taxes in Grin Having. Lots of bits translates to lots of power."

"You're missing the point."

"Which is?"

"You're a princess. An alicorn, too. I'm an earl. We are not peers," I said, waving a hoof rapidly right and left, deny any equivalence. "Even at my potentially most powerful, no pony army will carry out an order you countermand."

"You focus too narrowly. The world is not black and white. You are a Hero of Equestria, and I will train you. Equestria needs heroes, right now, or haven't you noticed the monsters and the border raids recently?"

"I know about that Prince of Storms because I know who sold him the keels for his airships, and I saw you with a giant glowy illusory map of Mount Aris in the middle of the street before you flew off. Do you think about security at all?"

"On Alicorn Way?" She gasped. "I remember! I sensed startling magic that day. Another puzzle piece falls into place. Yes, Starlight, those barbarians are an example of how I fight evil. The world is changing. Wouldn't you rather be the solution, or are you going to run away again?"

I sat down, hard. I hurt. I was exhausted. And I was so done with these horse apples!

"The runaway card, really?"

"You ran away from Grin Having."

"Yes. Yes, I did. Nopony would teach me magic!"

Twilight gasped. She got it!

Of course, there was the wanting to find Sunburst, who could help me learn all those stupid things I couldn't get through my hard head.

Celestia scoffed. "You could have fought it. You were a bright filly. Maybe a bit too soft and sensitive. Did anypony take a switch to your behind for not doing as told? I know you never protested." She flared out her wings. "Never did a hunger strike! You never just started learning magic, refusing to learn anything else until we had to concede."

I looked at my hooves. "You're right. I had to learn the hard way to be tough."

"Well, it worked. I admire that about you." I felt my face warm, as she went on. "Then you ran away from the Syndicate. Best I can piece together now that I know you are Gelding, you ran the organization for at least a month, maybe even during the half-year before the incident in Hooflyn."

"Yeah, for a few weeks, and I did my best to keep from knowing the criminal business of the enterprise. Only so much I could do, running it without knowing the particulars, through delegation. There's a difference in degrees of wrong between being a bodyguard and running a crime syndicate."

"Do you think I run Equestria, Starlight? Really?" Her mouth dropped in a momentarily outraged smile. "The peerage and the bureaucracy will tell otherwise. I say what I want; they figure out how. You didn't want to get your hooves dirty?" She scoffed again. "No. No! You lost your nerve! Didn't you? You could have reformed the organization from the top."

My face burned. "Mobsters don't like change that will affect their bottom line, or their power over other ponies. They'd have killed me first."

"I'm thinking you're too smart for that. Do you think my hooves aren't dirty?"

Twilight gulped audibly. We both glanced at the littlest pony at the same time. Her eyes went like saucers.

I answered, grinning, "I absolutely believe your hooves are dirty. You haven't been upfront with your student, have you?"

"I've taken a more—" She paused, which made me think about her curse again. "—friendly tack with Twilight. Thanks to you Starlight, I expect some interesting questions from my most faithful student." She looked down pointedly at the purple runt.

Twilight nodded uncomfortably, though she murmured, "I like tests."

Celestia speared me with her purple gaze. "You are doing it again, Starlight."

I jumped back to my hooves and wobbled. Blinking, I looked around. Citron had parked himself on a lawn outside the pavilion, near a tree he could take cover by, but close enough to charge in. I had not heard or seen his approach, but then I'd been occupied by the company, pain, and exhaustion.

"Running away?" I asked.

"You have made it perfectly clear how you feel about me. Are you or are you not running away from what you feel is your duty?"

"I hate you!" I screamed, causing her wings to flare. "You took advantage of my parents' death to make an earl so you could completely manipulate my life! Did you take Sunburst away, too? He went to your school! You did, didn't you?"

She folded her wings and frowned at me. "It's good to let the anger out, Starlight. But Sunburst? He's a part time librarian now. I'm surprised he didn't send you a letter since he's been one since before you ran away. Your generation—unfriendly, the whole lot of you!"

"A librarian?"

Twilight interjected, "Librarians are the best!" probably trying to defuse the fight between the parent figures in her midst. Sunset was right. Naïve.

I shook my head. I used that to hide my subvocalizing. "The shield?"

Streak said, "I think it's dimmer. 20%?"

Citron said, "Less."

I sighed. Did it matter? What was the worst she'd do to me? Lock me in a dungeon? More likely, nag me day and night, or pile on homework. I needed rest.

I said,"As Streak pointed out, it takes two to agree to a deal. I don't agree to being your student." I poked the auroras and stars newly decorating my rump. "I got this cutie mark I never wanted last night, and what it is telling me has nothing to do with you! Cutie marks and their insidious magic are a totally different thing, and I need to figure that out, not becoming a so-called hero that's going to be subverted by—"

I growled. A curse. Why was I complying about saying the word? Twilight? No, I was simply too exhausted to care.

"Yay, you, Princess!" I waved my hooves at my surroundings. "You've trapped me. Can't escape now, but it's useless. Better to teach Twilight Sparkle to be friendly. Maybe there is magic in friendship! She can save the world with it... from you."

I shook my head, rolling my eyes. "Everypony thinks you'll do something special for the 1000th Summer Sun Celebration. All this gathering together of heroes you're doing, your school expanding with its stupid motto 'Equestria Needs Unicorns!', accepting even criminal students like me in. Maybe the curse will rain down darkness on us all. Obviously, that's what your curse is waiting for!"

I found myself looking out at the pre-dawn—still dark blue, purple, and orange—lingering over peaceful gardens with silhouettes of trees and sunflowers, leaves rustling in a breeze.

"Perfect example." I pointed, waving my hoof dramatically. "Like that. Refusing to raise the sun seems pretty evil to me. In a little less than two years, the celebrating and cursing will be over and you'll let me go. Fine! I'll freeload! I'll stay!"

A crackling noise, like kindling catching in a fireplace, made me look back at the princess. My first thought was I'd succeeded nicely in making her very mad.

I could not have been more wrong.

Chapter 37: Lest Darkness Fall

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Princess Celestia held her eyes so wide, I saw white all around. A bright desaturated rainbow blur hid her mouth. In the dawn light, the faceted illusion lit the half of her body not lit from the horizon, as well as the interior of the pavilion. Unlike in the library, greyed prismatic colors spread like an infection down her neck toward her forelegs and along her back toward her hindquarters. Vines connected growing patches of fibrous cedar-like tree bark. The patches massed over major muscles, pressing, applying pressure, trying to force the white alicorn to stand—or break her apart if she failed to comply.

She fought, shaking and jerking, now hitting the floorboards as she thumped back down. Joints crackled.

I sensed her cutie mark magic raging. I saw what I'd read examining her mark in the library: a connection to the earth. Energy heaved upward from the ground in golden pulses through the floor in time with the aura around her horn. In moments, a stream of it curved up and through her, blowing and beating her mane upward, then bending and shooting toward the horizon and whipping her tail to point along the flow. The force did not seem to care that it had to go through a massive stone castle to do so.

The castle did not burst into flames, but Celestia had.

I'd heard not only the crackle of her joints, but the crackle of fire as she became more and more frantic. Individual flames flickered around the barked areas as she fought having to stand as the curse fashioned her into a puppet. A few patches slipped. On her shoulders. As if she had melted them like wax.

Celestia jumped suddenly, and tossed her head. Her crown went flying, hitting a rafter with a clank, kicking out and bounding across the lawn. When I saw her head bandage burning and the fur underneath where the crown had rested smoking, I understood. Gold conducts heat very well.

While I stood aghast, Twilight cried, "Princess Celestia, Princess Celestia! What's happening?"

She tried to scrape off a patch with her hoof, but jumped back as if she'd touched a hot stove. Despite his concussion, Twilight's brother rolled onto his barrel and reached for his sister.

Twilight looked at her hoof as it if had betrayed her, her face darkening as it had when I'd stuck her brother.

She shouted at me. "What've you done to the princess!" She stalked toward me, but Shining Armor hooked her rear leg. He dragged her back as she strained against him.

Startled into motion by the unexpected, I queued Shield. That worked for solids—

Celestia thrashed again, lifting on her forelegs in increasing distress. Were flames a solid that Shield could repel, or energy? Did I need Mirror Shield? If Twilight also attacked with objects and the curse fired Force from Celestia's horn, could I juggle—?

I got an answer.

Celestia flung herself up and heaved with her neck. That dislodged her peytral. She lifted her muzzle toward the ceiling. Upward the heated metal flew, assisted by a yellow aura popping in around it.

The quarter pony weight of gold did not hit the ceiling as the laws of motion demanded. It curved sharply down, directly toward my eyes.

I threw myself aside—and into a post. My nose broke in a gush of blood, but at least I had a head to have a nose that was broken! I scrambled around the post and saw the peytral missile crash through a second flimsy decorative wall and heard china explode beyond.

My magic would have prevented me throwing a killing blow. I didn't know if the limit to my wish-based magic applied to alicorn magic, however. I had my hoof to my hose and thanked my luck and training I still breathed.

Twilight said, thinking aloud, "There's no such thing as curses! Nothing is going to happen at the Summer Sun Celebration! Starlight, what've you done?"

Celestia stood on all four hooves now. She jerked and fought, but the patches and vines grew all over her body. She blazed with flames, but with nothing on her, they did not consume her fur or skin. I noticed the patches looked less colored, more glassy and transparent.

She was winning!

She was...

She...

Celestia turned smoothly, then jerked a rear hoof like a marionette with a broken string. Then that same hoof placed itself calmly on the floor. The puppeteer had fixed it.

Shuddering, getting back on to my hooves, I remembered cutie marks. They were magic substantial enough to color skin and fur, and to move with the muscles underneath. Yet, insubstantial in that they were an organ that was little more than an aura, without substance, when removed from the body.

Like a cutie mark, the bark and network of vines grown over her by the curse now absorbed into her skin.

Celestia's head turned and craned down to look at the runt. The curse had lost interest in me, having finished its bombardment. Twilight tugged her rear leg, resisting Shining Armor's grip even as he sat, tensing to tackle her.

Suddenly nose to nose with a nightmare, Twilight's eyes widened. The ruddy aura around her horn flicked to life as she asked the cursed flaming alicorn, "Why didn't you raise the sun?"

Celestia spat a word out through the blur, one that could have nothing to do with the curse. It was...

"Run!"

Celestia's aura intensified. Fire whooshed.

Twilight was about to die.

I answered as loudly as I could, baiting the alicorn. "Celestia was leaving me another clue about the curse. Thanks to me, she had a hard night last night and had an excuse to neglect her duties. She wants me alongside to fight it when the curse fully triggers the day of the Summer Sun Celebration. Isn't that right, regicide!?"

Celestia found enough control that she half reared and pedaled her legs. Twilight jumped back, kicking her brother's nose doing so.

The alicorn thrashed the floorboard once, twice, thrice—Celestia fighting her curse and failing—until she faced me, waving her head around. Fire swirled around her now like a swarm of bees, not keeping up with her movements as it waved about on updrafts and breezes. My stomach sunk with the realization that the curse had mastered the magic for raising the sun.

In hopes Twilight would understand, and everypony would hear, I added, "The curse is now going to kill everypony who knows."

I backed up. Shield or Mirror Shield? Teleport would have been better but, because of injuries and exhaustion, I wasn't there. I pushed my flank into a wall bashed open by a peytral. I jerked, stabbed by splinters. I tasted salty blood, which flowed across my mouth and dripped from my chin.

My tongue found a tooth that flapped like a hinge.

A feathered meteor struck me, the same instant the alicorn attacked.

The air knocked from my lungs, I felt heat and saw blinding flames whoosh to either side of me. Flung further into the pavilion, in a tangle of legs and wings, we bounced first off the wall and then slid away.

Fire followed us. It wasn't me who was on fire.

I thrust down my front left hoof. Something cracked. I saw stars as I threw us into a roll and kept us rolling. Flames puffed under us a few times until we stopped. The servant's pantry had tablecloths. I flung one over Streak, and hoofed out the rest the flames, then dragged us back out of her direct line of sight.

I threw aside the scorched white linen and found an even more scorched blue pegasus. All the hair on her flank was burnt off. A slurry of soot mixed with blood painted her haphazardly to her wings. Her tail was naked and raw.

I impulsively hugged her, then whimpered: My left leg. Broken. Not to mention new bruises from hitting a wall and the floor. "Getting your tail burnt off is a bad habit!"

"Stupid me," she moaned.

With lots of hope and nothing else, I dragged us to our hooves, both of us bloody. Her rear was raw and she shook as she stood, but stood nevertheless, determination fighting the pain writ across her face. I pressed my broken leg to my chest. "Can you fly?"

She flapped her wings once experimentally as I got my bearings. With Twilight's motor mouth, it was only seconds until the curse noticed her. As she nodded, I pointed at the opposite side of the pavilion and said, "Get back in the sky. Tell us what she's doing."

Citron yelled, "She's coming your way!" He punctuated that with a strobe of amber light, and the whoosh-bang of a Force bolt striking wood.

Smoking fragments flew and rattled across the floor. Streak dodged into the shadow of the bright light and thrown debris. Momentarily pinned in that spot, she poked out her camera with her wings, clicked the shutter twice, then took her queue to wobble and flutter into the air.

That would be a picture I'd want to see.

I leapt into motion along a parallel interior hall of the pavilion. However, between my nose, my left foreleg, my withers, tightening bruises, and the pull in my right rear flank, I reeled around and hit a cabinet; tea cups clattered and broke.

I scrambled away, should the alicorn attack by sound alone.

"Going to save Twilight," I said lowly, not entirely sure I'd be in time.

Another fire roared to life.

Of course it did. Citron loved to see things burn. The pavilion was wood.

I heard another whoosh-bang as he took another shot, which spurred me to race into the adjacent exterior room. I now understood the building was laid-out as six north and six south pavilions with service areas and hallways in between. I'd reached the last room at the northeast. I moved rapidly toward the garden, fearing Citron would be her next target, if he wasn't dodging her already!

Approaching the banister, I saw flames illuminate the lawns and shrubbery from my left. The blazes were Citron's. Though Celestia on Ponyville Way had used her ability to read magic flows by waving her horn, I doubted with her internal struggle the curse could make her do that. I crawled to avoid smokey air near the ceiling while trying not to cough. I quickly studied the lawn, rock border garden path, the redwood banisters, the trees to my right and tried to piece them into a mental model together with the green tile roof I'd noticed when entering the pavilion complex.

I cast, applying alicorn simplification to the equations. A rainbow of spinning numbers across my sight convinced me I had the spell up, but as I descended the steps to the lawn, I nonetheless prepared to jump aside. "I'm invisible. Going to try pulling Twilight away."

The fence-like walls around the exterior had a single strengthening beam between posts. Shining Armor pushed himself over the edge as he dragged his sister. He landed with a hard crunch on gravel, tail spinning. She slipped after. The runt hit her horn on the beam, windmilling her legs, and landed on top, causing a grunt as she knocked the air out of his lungs.

Beyond, Celestia faced outside. The prismatic bark patches had virtually disappeared into her white fur, but flames circled and pulsed around her body. I saw pink areas coloring her chest; red seeped from a long sinuous burn where the peytral had rested against her. She ranged on Citron, who taunted her. She lowered her head and a gout of fire blossomed out, but he dodged behind a willow tree.

Fire was neither solid nor solely light. Would either Shield I cast work?

I trotted on three legs, getting closer. What could I do to take attention off of Citron so he could find a safer position?

I heard the hiss of the feathers from a pony in a stoop. A hoof-sized border stone arced down. It missed Celestia's right shoulder and hit the floor. It didn't bounce, but slid under her and bashed into her left rear hoof. That hit her golden horseshoe, none of which she'd flung off. It rang like the bell that announced the end of a prize fight. Her leg shot from under her. She spun clockwise and sat hard enough that she yelled out.

"Again!" I yelled a Streak, "But expect she'll be looking."

"I'll try."

Citron dashed across the yard for the cover of a massive earth pony statue. Celestia looked momentarily stunned. As I made it to the siblings, nearly tumbling over on them, I clearly heard Celestia force out more words.

This was worse. "Save me!"

Great, I thought, another impossible task.

Twilight raised a shield, almost a full half-dome. Thick like her brother's. Hopefully sturdy, because Celestia fired at them. The intervening banister took the brunt. Flaming flinders flew over my head as I ducked. Shining Armor flinched, knocking into Twilight. Her shield wobbled as the wood bounced off, but it held.

I touched Shining Armor. I said, "Don't look. It's Starlight. Can you move back?"

"I'm trying," he said, "But I'm barely keeping from throwing up."

A symptom of concussion. I glanced at the red in the sky. "Can you drop the Shield?"

"My magic is stunned."

I groaned. Maybe I could levitate them away? With Twilight shielding? Another gout of fire shot at us. Her shield flung it to the eaves, which burst into flame.

It crazed, however, as if hit by a hammer.

Scratch that plan.

Were I to shoot her with Force at point-blank range, could I knock Celestia down? Would it be worth becoming visible that close? Would Teleport be of anything but a temporary reprieve if we were trapped within the shooting gallery of Shining Armor's dome? She'd hunt us down one by one.

Another stone hurdled from the sky, but Celestia jumped aside unaffected by the loud bang, and dashed to the edge of the stairs, craning her neck horn alight but never getting the shot.

"She's figured out your trick, Streak."

Citron shot at the steps. She fluttered up instead of retreating toward the fire. Not far. The curse hadn't yet wrested control of her wings and she crashed on to the lawn, wings splayed. It looked embarrassing, but not at all disabling.

No matter what I did, chances were one of us would get blasted in the next minute. Were we to scatter, what could we do? Hide—would the curse subside as it had in the library? Wait for Twilight to get so angry that she fought her mentor of a dozen years? Sunset had explained that when Twilight opened a chasm all the way to Tartarus, Celestia quickly brought her magic storm under control.

We were so dead.

Last night, I had thought I had seen death, too. Then I'd worked cutie mark magic.

I looked at Shining Armor's flank. The blue shield and stars cutie mark curved along the skin and bulging muscle, seamlessly replacing skin and fur coloration. I sensed unyielding strength against any force. Running Mead's had radiated conceit and bacchanal contentment as his talent made ponies drunk and suggestive, like the spilt beer in the mug of mead depicted by his obscene mark. Totally different ponies.

"Keep Twilight quiet," I ordered the stallion. "Don't move. Don't get noticed. Citron, Streak, don't fire at Celestia. You might hit me."

I levered myself up and walked where the alicorn furled her wings. She shook her head and levered herself up from the charred grass with her front then back legs.

I sensed energies rising from the ground as she stepped away. Was that the strength she used to fling celestial bodies around the crystal spheres? The huge glyph of the sun, with the big round yellow globe and twisted triangle prominences, was indeed the size of my head.

She didn't act as if she saw me or sensed me. She looked for her last antagonist, side stepping toward me to see around the statue.

Running Mead had been looking away when I chose to attack. I'd been prone on a damp cobble street outside the Hooflyn Delicatessen. I hoped not to be seen by the constable Running Mead had taken over with his mind control magic. I knew then that when I did what I had to, I'd be noticed.

No different now.

I said through the gum, "I'm going to disrupt her cutie mark. When I do that, she'll go down. Be ready. Get Twilight's help. I will be occupied when it happens and I don't know if it will last."

Yeah. It wouldn't.

Not long.

I had no bottles!

I sensed the magical organ like a halo around a spark as I waved my horn. I sensed the active connection to the earth, the streaming of the energies, and a tangled web of something else I could not define. Still, I clearly understood where the mark nestled just forward of her hip and below her tail bone.

I reached out my magic, like adjusting my body position before attempting to throw an opponent. Whilst what I did was my cutie mark talent, it disrupted Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear completely. Burning magic digits flung out chaotically, like I'd struck an ice sculpture with a hammer. I froze, hoping that my lack of movement might award me an instant more of not being noticed.

I gasped and dashed my magic into her flesh. Our only chance was to disrupt the abomination quickly; I thrust forward feeling the Barthemule transforms balancing and locking, letting me grasp for the invasive roots of the magical organ. I flooded in splendors of magic. My blue-green aura lit up Celestia's side even as I sensed the ebb and flow of blood through her hindquarters, saw the marble essence of her bones, and reached through rubbery shoals of tissue and organs.

I grabbed something as tangible as it was virtual. With desperation anchored in fear that I would die momentarily should I fail, I pulled for all I was worth.

Celestia whinnied and reared, and searing heat curled the fur on my face, chest, and forelegs. I was a pony length off of her right side. She tried to wheel around, but her muscles all spasmed at the same time. Either it was my attack, or her normal mind taking the opportunity to attack the curse.

I pulled and pulled, and the mark budged. Again, it acted like pulled taffy. It lengthened elastically as it levered away, growing harder and harder to pull. I instinctively backed up, as if dragging a log with a rope clamped in my jaws.

Unexpectedly, that helped!

The alicorn fought the attack, jerking and teetering, her whinnies and screams piercing the air.

Citron's magic reached out for Celestia's saddle area, his amber aura evident. Streak swooped in. Together he pulled and she kicked. I heard a thud.

The alicorn tumbled over away from me.

The mark jerked free!

Her flames instantly extinguished, snapping off. The difference felt like a splash of ice water.

The alicorn thrashed and kicked on the lawn where she landed with a thump. She screamed once in pain, then cried, "Save me! Tie me up. The curse, the curse!"

Meanwhile, exhausted, I landed on my bruised and slashed flank with a three-dimensional globe of a sun blazing in front of me.

Floating.

Rotating.

Prominences rising, falling, and splashing like lava in the caldera of a volcano.

The disembodied cutie mark wriggled and flexed and surged as it fought my magic grip—like a fish out of water trying to slap the fisher-pegasus with its tail so it could jump back in.

I must have struggled with it for the better part of a minute because Streak cautiously approached, shaking so hard she shuddered. She nevertheless raised her camera at the most astounding sight she had ever seen.

I thought: If I only had a bottle!

Then I thought: What if I put the cutie mark into somepony else?

Wobbly on three legs, I limped the few pony lengths to Shining Armor. Twilight looked up from her brother.

She dropped her Shield, and her red half-dome flickered out. Then the mouth of the otherwise oblivious archmage-in-training opened in horror. She backed away, the whites of her eyes showing, forgetting both Celestia and her brother.

"What have you done!" she screamed.

I plunged the mark into Shining Armor's haunch. It sunk in, but when I let off on the pressure, it surfaced like a rubber ducky in a tub.

Riiight...

Nopony had two cutie marks!

Could I reach in and grab his?

I dashed my magic in at the same time as I shoved Celestia's mark. The reaction surprised me: Like trying to push a second large bread into a too small basket, the original "bread" popped out.

Shining Armor shouted something obscene he probably didn't want his sister to hear and fainted. I now held an ethereal three-dimensional blue shield with three stars orbiting it like moths around a candle.

It struggled and tugged, of course, but not back toward the stallion! No, it pulled behind me. Toward the only cutie mark void.

I blinked and let go.

The mark streaked and plunged into Celestia's thigh. She gave a startled whinny, as if hit by lightning, and bucked herself upright, yelling, "My Stars!"

Citron, who'd been a pony length from tackling her, jumped back, stumbled, and landed on his rump.

Blinking, shaking her head, Celestia said, "Can it be? My sister Luna will return on the morning of the 1000th Summer Sun Celebration!"

Her eyes went as wide as dinner plates. She hurriedly shouted, "The stars will aid her escape. She'll bring a night that'll last a thousand years! You heard me?"

I nodded.

The alicorn sat blinking, mouth gaping, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Starlight! Oh, my stars! You've broken the curse!"

I stared at her flank. We all did, and Streak took another picture. The innocuous shield and stars cutie mark looked ridiculously small. My skin went cold. It had nothing to do with blood loss, though I wiped the blood still dripping from my muzzle.

I shook my head. "We've won the battle and lost the war, Princess. I've doomed Equestria to eternal night."

The alicorn got up, stepped over, and sat beside me. Warm wings enfolded me. "You've broken only the part of the curse restraining me. This is true. My sister will return, but now I'll have you to help me." Twilight barged in between us and hugged her mentor. I pulled out of the embarrassing feathered embrace as she added, "I'll have all my students. We can prepare. We can plan."

"But we won't be alive!" I exclaimed, looking into her violet eyes.

We blinked at each other, then it sunk in and I smiled. "I've only switched your cutie marks! Is there any reason why I can't switch them back?"

Shining Armor said ominously, "You are right, Starlight. You won't be alive."

Chapter 38: Curses, So Many Curses

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My head wasn't the only one's to snap around; we all looked behind in unison. At Shining Armor's voice, even the burnt and bloodied pegasus gasped and fluttered in confusion. Ailing and in pain, which was plain from the frown creasing her face, she nevertheless lifted her camera having gone completely OCD.

A network of writhing vines and greyed rainbow tree bark spread, rapidly cloaking the stallion. Like a puppet, it pulled him upright. Celestia's solar cutie mark filled his entire flank, with prominences meeting and overlapping his spine and tail, and probably his stallion parts. With no intrinsic magic to stop the infection, the unsaturated prismatic apparition positioned itself and faded quickly as we watched, absorbing into his fur.

While he stood perfectly well, he looked ill. A rivulet of blood dripped where Twilight had kicked his nose. His stomach visibly quivered; he gulped, looking ready to vomit. Sweat beaded on his face and his light blue eyes had trouble focusing on those ponies he had recently threatened to kill.

He lowered his head, pointing his horn. His mane slipped over his eyes.

His horn didn't light.

He tried harder, grunting.

No magic. The curse's host had hit his head. Shining Armor had a concussion.

I snorted and said—because the absurdity of it made me—"Oops!"

The whole crazy day, and the pain, and the impossibilities came bubbling up. I looked skyward. Shining Armor's glowing red Shield dome had vanished, replaced by a deep blue normal dawn sky, which might last forever. Switching his cutie mark had canceled his spell as thoroughly as it had extinguished Celestia's earth-sourced fire.

A mental dam broke. I giggled, wobbling and almost falling over. Which would have hurt.

Citron walked over, lifted a hoof, and swept Shining Armor from his hooves. I heard a shutter click. Incidentally, he pushed the stallion away from the pavilion that was becoming rapidly engulfed in flames.

Twilight yelled, "Hey!" and dashed over, glaring at Citron as he backed away. She levitated her brother. Taking the cue, we all backed away from the fire—and narrow-eyed Twilight.

Out of breath and a bit giddy from laughing, I said, "I'm done. Streak's literally toast. I haven't broken the curse, Princess. It attached itself to your cutie mark!"

I took a deep breath, sobered. It all started flooding in. "I can never switch it back. Not ever." I blinked away tears of frustration "I'm going home, then I'm leaving Equestria. Good riddance to you, Princess. I'm done saving your flank."

She put out a hoof, which I walked into, of course. I gasped. There might have been no part of my body she could touch that wouldn't hurt. "We need you, Starlight."

I scoffed.

"I will give you anything you want, if you stay."

"Except power."

Lowly, her violet eyes hard, she said, "I will make you my heir, if that's what it takes."

I scoffed again.

My lightheadedness receded. That probably meant I was about to collapse. Any normal pony would be in the hospital. I tried to pull free, but she caught me again with her wings, making it hard to retreat.

I noticed where she looked. Her eyes went from Shining Armor's new mark to her new one, then to mine, which was also new, before coming back to spear my gaze.

"Is it permanent?"

She would ask that question! I lowered my head to the ground and moaned. Could my life get any worse?

With the sun stalled west of Saddle Arabia, making the noon there permanent, how far did I have to go to find the never-ending dawn between night and day? How many weeks would it take for Equestria to freeze and Saddle Arabia to burn? The only good weather would be at where either the early morning or late afternoon provided an oasis made of sunlight. I knew my ultimate destination and expected I would have to fight desperate ponies the rest of my life.

Could it get any worse?

Yeah, you bet ya! The cutie marks might revert to their original owners.

I'd have a crazy cursed alicorn chasing me, again, out for blood. She'd plunge the world into eternal night and day on either side of the globe, only with me too dead to care.

I sat beside the unconscious stallion. I looked into the cutie mark, finding its glow immediately. Was there anything different about it compared to what I'd learned about Sunset's in all the observations I'd made of hers? Beyond the sense of the attributes and proclivities its presence permeated its host with? I focused deeper.

I was new to cutie mark magic. Every observation brought new discoveries. It interfaced with the nervous system, but how? What did any of it mean?

Thanks to circumstance, I actually found some milestones to trace.

I'd walked up to Shining Armor's Shield dome. I'd seen its intricacy. Layers upon layers of interconnections, tightly woven. Besides providing toughness, intuition told me it provided mechanisms. When I cast Shield it lasted until I stopped casting.

His Shield continued to exist on its own. That mechanism was known as reciprocation. Like the pistons on a locomotive, energy reciprocated back and forth through the system, conserved as forward motion, lost only to friction. A spell could be created analogously. Motivate, which any unicorn other than me could use to roll wagon wheels, was a prime example.

I focused on the very center of the cutie mark, that part which stretched like taffy when I pulled upon it. I pushed my awareness in until I was once again in a wet world filled with electricity and fleshy wonders that were mental metaphors for organs, nerves, muscles, and bones. I searched for anything that might not be permanent. Something that could renew a spell continuously, something that might wear thin and fail over time.

Deep in the center, jags of lightning now and again would spider upward into a huge spherical submarine space. A sun, or a spark seen fractions of a hoof length away, radiated rays out to this internal universe. I magically squinted against the brightness, until I could delve deeper.

My vision split into repeating fractals consisting of rainbow sparkles. Just in time, I stopped myself from iterating the function of violation and spiraling forever downward. The spell utilized a Mandelbrot set to stabilize itself. Relieved that I caught myself, I paused long enough to see change. Every few seconds, the colors shifted toward the red and the reddest layer at the center collapsed, spraying sparkles. The whole pattern adjusted and captured a fraction of the released splendors. Over a few cycles, I saw the whole magical process shrink. When that happened, the whole space I floated in shifted very slightly outward as the magical implied gravity or magnetism binding it in place decreased.

I counted. And counted.

And counted...

And...

and...

......

Fortunately, I had a young stallion with me, who like most, had limited patience.

"Gelding, Gelding! Are you okay?"

I think it was the pain on my withers as he hugged me that actually snapped me back. "Call me Starlight, please."

Pony eyes of amber, blue, violet, and purple regarded me expectantly.

I sighed. I checked my count and did a simple calculation. I said, "On the bright side, I now understand how Sunset cancels spells."

Yeah. "Geometry." A totally different but equally mathematical representation of magic. Sunset might be a flapping genius! She'd asserted, if you could see the geometry of the spell, you could simply disrupt its shape. All I had to do was reach in and push the pattern of sprites holding both marks in place and they'd likely instantly switch no matter how far apart they were. I sensed contagious magic at work: objects in contact, magically displaced, always remained in contact. Quantum thaumaturgical tunneling. The marks knew their host—and would find them.

"How long?" Citron asked.

"There is a time codicil. No more than 36 hours plus or minus 5%. Considering how stretchy the tails were, I'd estimate the anchors could loosen catastrophically in as little as 20 hours."

The princess asked, "So you have to recast the spell?"

I nodded.

I gulped as nausea rose and I felt a sense of doom lower over me. "Mark Swap—" Yes, I could name my own spell! "—is in the contagious family of spells. I think I can recast on either mark and affect both. I can't imagine it would allow me to cast on both simultaneously and asymmetrically, because if I could do that I might be able to create self-renewing anchors that expired asynchronously. If one mark is nestled and the other not, neither can return home. That would force the spell restart, making it permanent, but that breaks the wish predicate that requires the host connection to remain unfettered. No, Mark Swap isn't permanent. It simply can't be, best I can tell at this point."

Celestia stated categorically, "Your special talent is cutie mark magic."

I was marked, in more ways than one. I frowned. I had known all along that the insidious abomination would take over my life and lock me into a pattern I would be unable to change. I resolved to fight it. One day I would eliminate the scourge.

The princess asked the big question: "Will you stay?"

Was I going to let the curse take over again? I huffed. Instead, I asked, "What about the sun?"

The Princess made that tinkling little laugh she made. "King Crystal Hoof broke the sky over 90 years before I was born. Before me, teams of unicorns raised the sun and the moon. I ended up learning I could raise the sun and the moon only because I got it in my mind that my brother ought to join that team, after Queen Platinum's magic recruiters arrived searching for mages in my town. My soon-to-be-adopted sister had learned she could raise the moon, and had fought raising the sun, which broke day and night. Only my special talent allowed me to overpower her, barely."

"You do have a sister," I stated.

Celestia nodded, looking down. "Luna is the Princess of Dreams and she loves the moon. After many years in Equestria, it grated on her that most ponies loved the daytime and cursed the darkness of night. All but the thestral pegasi, who lived in the Crystal Cave. She made them her royal guard. They considered her their queen. When a magical creature of her dream lands took advantage of her envy and she turned cruel, she suddenly eclipsed my sun. I tried for days to mollify her and compromise, but the world remained with a ring of fire in the sky no matter how I moved it.

"In full truth, Luna is stronger than I. When Babbleloin earth pony rebels made her an alicorn, and she learned they had done so by murdering her unicorn and pegasus friends to capture the necessary magic, she turned the desert to molten glass in her fury. That's Green Glass Lake in Saddle Arabia.

"We came to blows. My army of unicorns could not master her, so to save their lives I fought her alone. I had a plan. We had found the Tree of Harmony years before when battling another threat, and the power of our friendship had allowed us to harvest its fruit, the Elements of Harmony. We fought that night, and the battle destroyed our castle, which lays in ruins in the Everfree Forest."

So the spirits had spoken to Zecora! The shaman been right about everything.

"When I finally understood I could not prevail alone, I took up the Elements. I knew their power could not kill, simply transform—though at the moment, to save Equestria and all my ponies, I would have killed even Luna and sacrificed my own life. I knew that I would have only one chance at corrupting them. The world would die as the lands froze on all sides of the world. It wasn't a matter of eternal night and eternal day on opposite hemispheres, with the sun stalled out on our horizon. No. The ring of fire didn't change no matter where I placed it. Crops wilted in the fields. Trees died. Lakes froze. I took the Elements and did what I thought I must.

"I attempted to imprison her in the moon forever. The mare in the moon, that pattern of dark across the white face you see at night—that's my sister's essence. I broke Harmony.

"What I bought Equestria was a thousand year curse. Twisted into discord, the Elements cursed both Luna and I. It turned me immortal, to force me to watch my friends, Equestria, and civilization die while I failed to age. Though I fought every day these last 998 years against the decline and fall of everything my sister and I had worked for, Harmony cursed me so that I could never fight the inevitability that, after a thousand years, I would lose it all.

"It cursed Luna, for she shared fault as surely as I did. She awaits timeless, I hope, on the cold orb of the night. When she returns, scrying confirms that the magic of the Elements latent in her will take me and imprison me in her stead. Still tormented by her mania, she will stop raising the sun. The world will die. When I return a thousand years hence, what will I find?"

Burdened by guilt and despair, Princess Celestia whispered a question. "Will you stay?"

I answered, "Yes."

"You asked about the thestrals. Her guard saw me prevail. They thought they saw me murder their queen. It did not matter that their queen was freezing the world, killing it. We fought a long and bloody war, and yes, I chased them out of Equestria. The curse prevented me from recording the history of that time anywhere but in my head. For all my attempts to eradicate it, a folk story persists in Equidor of a genocide and their homeland being the Crystal Caves of the Canterlot Mountains. It's all true, as far as it goes. Thanks to the curse, you are the first pony I've ever admitted it to."

"Not a regicide?"

The princess covered her eyes. She sobbed. "My sister! My Stars, goodness no." Twilight hugged her and they both sobbed.

Citron stood. My ears twitched, and I heard it, too. "Ponies are coming." Of course they were. We didn't sit near a roaring bonfire—we sat near a castle structure half-engulfed in flames!

I repeated, standing and almost falling over, "Ponies are coming! Celestia and Shining Armor have switched cutie marks. This is bad. Ponies will panic. They might challenge her as an imposter or corrupted!" (Discounting entirely, of course, that she had been corrupted.) I pointed toward the half of the pavilion not yet in flames. "Twilight, Citron, find tablecloths. We've got to cover them, now!"

He galloped into the building, followed by Twilight into a further entrance. I heard his voice in the gum. "Won't tablecloths look weird?"

"There's degrees of weird. Should you discover a Celestia-sized dress, bring it instead!"

"Gotcha."

Both raced back, coughing, carrying smokey-smelling white folded linen in their magic. Shining Armor was easy. Unconscious, I directed Citron to first tie his fore and rear hooves together, then to cover him up like somepony wounded.

The princess soon wore an untailored horse blanket in a fetching off-white brocade pattern. To make the reason for the odd dress self-explanatory, I walked to Celestia's flank and rubbed my bleeding nose on it. More flooded out and I had to pinch it and hold my head up. The stain ought to answer casual questions.

Royal Guard in armor rushed up first, followed by a fire brigade at a canter, pulling a yellow-painted pumper wagon. A unicorn set about conjuring water and others unreeled hoses.

After answering questions and issuing orders, Celestia leaned over and said, "You are going to make a fabulous take-charge protégé. I wonder who will learn more, you or me?"

When I grumbled, she said, "I don't want to get your hopes up, but... your father sent a communiqué before he disappeared. It said your mother had escaped with a head injury using her magic. This, I think is why she disappeared."

"She's alive?" I gasped, electrified.

Celestia looked down. "You don't cast magic with a head injury."

I'd been struck in the head badly enough a few times that I lost my magic. "Usually you can't."

"Right. But when you can, your magic is unfettered. Cast spells are unpredictable and go wild. She never returned to Equestria. Neither did your father, but about six months ago we found a lead. We think one of the crime families controlling southern Salerno might have him imprisoned up in the mountains. There's word of a spy who's a Hero of Equestria. The Five Doñas might think he'd make a great bargaining chip were we ever try to influence their enemies."

"He's alive?" Tears streamed down my face. My nose, already congested from blood began to throb worse, if that were possible.

A guard pony noticed. Celestia shook her head at him, and pointed for him to go with her muzzle.

"Maybe. The Salernitanos have been hosting monsters and barbarians who can pay for secrecy. Waves of refugees from the region have resettled in Equestria over the last two decades, and their tales of the chaos are horrifying. I think the Prince of Storms might have a base there. It seems to me that it would be a perfect first place to send the Earl of Grin Having once I've raised an army for her to command..."

Celestia had me under her hoof.

I was really and truly ridden.

Chapter 39: The Reponyization of Starlight Glimmer

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It felt like one of those dreams where you become aware that you were dreaming and you feel like you've woken up. You get to make choices, talk, do things but realize you can't move and you have no control, and realize that you've woken up in another dream. A nice dream. One that can't be true, because nice things never happen to you.

Despite the ache in my nose, my nostrils felt clear. I inhaled. No scent of blood. It also confirmed who owned the warm fur my hindquarters snugged against as I lay on the bed, and that the clothing I felt on a pony's forequarters was a uniform. The shock of being kissed by Citron had imprinted his night sweat smell in my brain.

I recognized it.

After Celestia took full control of the tool that she had honed probably from the moment she had learned my mother was pregnant... After I learned that I now had a purpose in life for all my fighting and evil tendencies, having been given the hope of rescuing my father... my body crashed hard. I did tell many ponies that I was Starlight Glimmer. I remembered seeing Flowing Waters and being told something about him training me later.

I definitely remembered telling ponies that Cadet Lieutenant Quince, now to be addressed as Citron, was the Captain of My Guard, and that he would sleep with me.

I liked that part.

I rubbed the back of my head against somepony's barrel and shoulder. I didn't hurt much and my muscles weren't at all stiff. Flowing Waters must have healed me somewhat. I whispered to myself, "I'll be riding you later," and giggled. Too long a dry spell!

Breath warmed my ear and I heard, "I'm keeping you to that promise."

My tongue went to the side of my mouth. Gum was plastered there. I giggled some more.

I rotated my head his way. My nose did feel puffy, and I likely looked bruised and pummeled like the prizefighter I had been. Then again, I had trained Citron thoroughly. During our time on Carne Asada's team of bodyguards, we'd sparred and trained. Fortunately, we had had Dr. Feels to fix broken noses. It wasn't that he was unfamiliar with me looking beat up, any more than me seeing him pummeled after he'd lost to me. If he wanted me, he'd just have to get used to me pretty and not pretty.

A soft muzzle touched mine.

I gasped. My heart raced. My body warmed with welcome anticipation. Of course he'd gotten used to my changing appearance! I smiled, opening my mouth. Time to ride!

"Hey!" Streak shouted. "Not alone!"

I opened my eyes. I saw a mane the color of a lemon meringue pie swirled with a spoon. Citron's smiling amber eyes looked down at me. He had that special smile I'd seen on other stallions when they thought they might be ridden. I decided I liked the look. Nothing like wining a good fight to make me think of the afterparty. Yeah, I'm twisted. Don't care!

I moved my head aside and looked up, because that's where her voice had come from.

I saw a small cumulus cloud floating above a lit chandelier sparkling with rock crystal. The magic candles didn't generate heat so they didn't burn the pegasus. Faux clouds decorated the sky blue ceiling. Streak blended in, but I saw her blue eyes. She took that moment to chew her gum, cracking it, just to make sure I knew that she had heard my declaration of intent about Citron. I flinched.

Gum, after what must have been at least eight hours, became pretty nasty. Well, Streak was proving a trooper. I hoped that she wasn't so entangled in my life now that she would lose her dream again. Citron, I knew, was a trooper.

Her wings held her camera over the side and she pressed the shutter.

I grumbled. "Doesn't this castle come with private rooms?"

"So funny. Ha, ha, ha. You wanted us together!" She looked pointedly aside and down toward the far wall of the room. "We really aren't alone."

I looked.

I jumped from the bed with a growl. That I now had splints on my right foreleg threw off my balance and I nearly collapsed that direction. I got twinges in my left haunch and across my withers, but not anywhere as bad as last night—this morning. I squared myself to face my despised former butler, Proper Step.

Only it wasn't him. I'd seen the tan fellow before, wearing red livery with tails. He squinted through a monocle and had a moustache that made him look like a Schnauzer dog. He had more grey hair in his moustache. Celestia's majordomo, Proper Step's father. He had his pocket watch open. "Ah, Countess Grin Having. I trust—"

"No," I said firmly.

He blinked. "No? Lady Aurora?"

"The name is Starlight Glimmer. No domain. No styling. No title. Simply Starlight Glimmer. Understand?"

"Ms Glimmer?"

"Okay, then."

"Ms Glimmer, I trust you slept well."

I smiled and looked back at Citron, who had moved forward so his front legs were on the floor. He winked. I said, "I had a good pillow."

I looked beyond him. Beyond the white carved wood dresser, end tables, and chairs—all gilt—and saw the window. Either I'd slept about twenty hours, or Celestia hadn't raised the sun, yet. I remembered that it took a team, but how hard could it be?

I frowned back at him. "Your name?"

"Kibitz, if it pleases you, Ms. Glimmer."

"The pocket watch, Kibitz?"

"We are on a firm schedule, I'm sorry to say. If I may say so, I've seen photos of my son's young charge. You have certainly grown up strong and sturdy, and filled in well. I am sure the servants will emphasize all your best, and you have plenty."

"Um, thank you? Servants?"

"You three require some tidying up, you especially. We will bring a new uniform for the captain and an appropriate blouse and vest for your pegasus friend."

Streak spiraled down and landed beside me. "The pegasus friend is named Streak."

"Ms. Streak." He gave the tiniest of bows. "Come now."

"What are we preparing for?"

He said over his shoulder as he led through the castle halls, "The princess has prepared an event to discuss the implications of the sun not rising today."

"I suppose ponies are upset."

"This is an understatement. The peerage are more than average enraged. At least this time they have a reason," he finished drolly.

Tidying up involved a gaggle of servants showering me, soaking me in a pool-sized bath, then toweling me dry and styling my hair.

The good part was I insisted the Captain of My Guard guard me. He did. I made sure he got a good show of me wriggling my hindquarters and my smile, with and without suds—though I did catch him yawning a few times. At the end, I got to see them wash him, curry his fur, and dress him in a white button-down shirt. This I did not mind.

I declined makeup, even though they wanted to hide the black and blue on my muzzle. I declined when they asked me if I wanted clothes. They did not fight me. Guessed they sensed it would be a bad idea.

I remembered suddenly Dr. Flowing Waters warning me last night he wouldn't be completely healing me. He'd just done the worst of the internal stuff, like my muscle pulls and knitting the leg fracture enough that it ceased to be dangerous. He had healed Streak's burns more than he had healed me, but she remained obviously wounded with a completely hairless tail. Mustard yellow poultices peppered her hind quarters, which was a good reason for her not to wear a dress. It might hide the wounds, but also rub them. He had skipped healing the cuts I'd gotten from the porcelain shards. Somepony had simply glued them closed, which left them looking red and very visible.

No clothes no makeup suited me fine. I wanted everypony to see the real Starlight Glimmer, cuts, bruises, and flaws included. Nopony found it pleasant to look at somepony wounded. It made them uncomfortable. I felt a simmering rage over being trapped, about all I had gone through, and what my life had become. I felt better thinking ponies first impressions of me were that I was a fighter and that seeing me might be unpleasant. I had rough edges, and nopony had the right to sand them down.

We got time for a private afternoon tea, where we met up with Streak.

While she wore a feminine puffy white blouse that matched Citron's, she'd gotten special treatment. At first I thought the servants had dressed her from bling in her messenger bag, but a better look showed I was wrong. They'd punked her up in dangerous looking tarnished silver chains, cheek piercings, lip clips, and a line of sixteen ear rings that bent her left ear. Her mane hadn't so much been spiked as glued to resemble a blue steel axe, complete with a silver sparkle edge. She pranced in, a silver tail piece as a ridge over her denuded tail, grinning ear to jangling ear.

I recognized the dragon scale pattern.

The tail-piece continued and curved along her spine, hiding it strategically, curried into the hair of her back except over her reddened scarred rump. It dove under her blouse, reappearing to clip to either side of her mane at her scalp, all the way to her forehead, where it formed a scalloped fan that circled her ears. I suspected it nestled protectively over her wing joints, hidden in her sleeves.

Streak thought she wore jewelry.

I sensed runes.

Barely hidden blue numbers flitted at the edge of my perception, not unlike the red-orange incipient nimbus on the ring over Running Mead's horn, only icy cold and wary. I couldn't be sure, but I think I sensed something akin to Shield but not Shield. When I'd learned of Star Swirl the Bearded, I'd seen drawings of Commander Hurricane Stormchaser.

This magic armor looked too coincidentally familiar.

On loan. I hoped. For Streak's sake. It was Celestia saying, "Look, I can make your friend more."

The waitstaff brought tea pots and three-level-high trays of scones, jams, sweets, and savories. Streak's came with cream cheese and dill smoked salmon sandwiches, the crusts cut off. I called foul and ordered a stack of them, thick with salmon. Citron kept his distance as we chowed down and guzzled very refined tea. We took selfies. She looked extraordinary, and I felt unwontedly proud of her. The treats went a long way to improving this pony-pescatarian's mood!

My mood changed when I got led into a room with bright sconces that tried to hide the fact that beyond the windows it was still dawn at an hour before what ought to have been sunset. I saw a podium. I saw it cordoned off with a velvet rope. I saw ponies crowded up to it who looked my way when the servant opened the door for me.

I recognized a press conference when I saw it.

A burly earth pony palace guard in a red uniform stood to the right of the podium at a parade rest; nopony else followed me in. When I'd won the unicorn part of the Baltimare Celestial Race, my soon-to-be trainer had helped run my first press conference. When I'd later started winning prize fights, I'd become adept.

Those, however, had been sports press conferences.

I didn't like not being warned. This was either unfounded trust in me, or some sort of test. I tamped down on my anger.

I gulped, blinking as flash bulbs went off. When the guard didn't introduce me, I said, "I am Starlight Glimmer. Good morning—" Ok, oops.

Everypony shouted over each other. These reporters were Canterlot news reporters. Most wore suits, even the mares, though theirs had flowers and bright colors, red being a favorite. Stallions wore little hats with a press card in the band. Mares wore the card clipped to a lapel or pinned to their blouse. They seemed no less rude and in your face than I remembered Baltimare sports reporters being.

I said, "Quiet...! Now! Or I am answering no questions." Into the stunned silence, I said, "You raise a hoof. I point at you and you ask one question. I may answer. I am smart enough to notice who doesn't play fair. Okay, go!"

I pointed.

The mare said, "Inquisition, Ms. Glimmer. Do you know why Princess Celestia hasn't raised the sun, yet?"

I took a deep breath and let it out. "Bad phrasing. Do you wish to ask differently?"

"Why do you think Princess Celestia didn't raise the sun?"

I smiled, remembering the question from Donut Joe's. "Her protégé, Sunset Shimmer, got caught up in a sting operation last night, and this morning the replacement Celestia had been cultivating for a decade refused the invitation and spat in her face."

"Who—?"

I raised a hoof. It got quiet. I picked.

A fellow wearing a cowpony hat spoke. "Dodge Gazetteer. Miss Glimmer, who was it that 'spat' in the princess' face?"

"Why, me of course!" I pointed again into the suddenly milling crowd.

A mare from The Canterlotter asked, "Was that also you who attacked Princess Celestia on Ponyville Way this morning?"

I nodded, and momentarily the room burst into chatter, which quieted when I narrowed my eyes. "For the record, I had previously told her 'no' when she asked me to be her protégé, and I only metaphorically spat in her face at that time. This time, though..."

I preceded to tell them how Princess Celestia knew my background well enough to know I could fight hoof-to-hoof. (Spoiler: She'd spied on me.)

I asked, "Anypony here ever hear the name Princess Grim?"

A few ponies raised their hooves, and I recognized an eastern cut to their suits. One piped up when I looked at him. "The welterweight champion from two years ago."

I bowed perfectly as Proper Step had instructed his charge, then proceeded to explain in excruciating detail and by the numbers how I brought down the princess and threw her hard into the street, then explained I swatted her with her crown because, "that was the only way I could escape her stalking me." I let the word stalking ring in their ears. I finished with, "When a mare says 'no,' she means no!"

I smiled. I was beginning to feel like royalty. In command of the room. "Next!"

I picked one of the eastern reporters, one very nicely dressed in a red pants suit and tiny day hat with a blue feather. She raised a clipboard in her magic to show me as she said, "The Manehatten Times. Are you the 'Nameless Filly,' the Hero of Hooflyn?"

My breath caught and I blinked as I felt my eyes burn. No tears. No tears, please!

The clipboard presented the actual photo of me from Hooflyn that night, an 8x10 in color. It showed a filly in pigtails with lavender fur and green-striped purple hair. She was spattered in crimson blood, but her magic held down bandages on six ponies. Her eyes blazed with a fiery glow. She was saving ponies.

I blinked more and my throat constricted. Choked up. Glaring white light crept in from the periphery of my vision and a buzz filled my ears. My muscles locked.

Other reporters cautiously asked questions, but they were a din in my ears. I knew I shouldn't explain that I had been tricked into setting the bomb that had caused the need to save ponies. I couldn't tell them that I had had to choose between teleporting Carne Asada out of the Old Equestrian Post Office—from where she'd gotten me to teleport her and the chemicals for the bomb she assembled—or teleporting next door into the EBI headquarters to ensure it got evacuated. She had lit the fuses in front of me.

I had neglected to save Carne Asada. She died.

Though I claimed I'd never killed a pony intentionally, was neglecting to save them from certain death murder?

I didn't know!

Fighting ponies hadn't traumatized me.

No, it hadn't. That wasn't my PTSD.

That I liked the danger of saving ponies had. It scared me, heart to hoof.

Tears dripped down my cheeks. My vision returned to normal. Princess Celestia had set this whole flapping press conference up just for this moment, hadn't she? Evil, evil mare. Of course she had! To make me accept that I could do good.

I could. And I liked it.

Was I broken?

I didn't know!

Sniffling after seconds standing frozen, I thought, To Tartarus with it! I tied my mane into the pigtails the filly in the photo wore, ruining the nice up-do style I'd gotten earlier. The flashbulbs became blinding.

My life changed.

Chapter 40: The Persistent Princess

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Fellows barged into the press conference. The palace guard rushed up to the velvet rope and firmly halted the angry unicorn with a hoof shod in blackened steel. The detective identified himself as an Interpone agent attached to the Canterlot constabulary. He wanted to know if I knew somepony named Blue Lightning—the pegasus who had knifed Carne Asada, whom I had later stabbed with his own knife. From his willingness to bring up a case in a public venue, and his obvious anger, I decided he had run into a brick wall named Celestia. Royals could be so uncooperative and had the power get away with it. After all, she did say she made the laws.

I declined his question and ended the press conference.

When I rejoined my team, I wasn't sure whether to seethe, or to just go apathetic and stop caring. I was so tired of these horse apples!

I hated Celestia for this, but at the moment I hated Running Mead even more. Had he not recognized me and blackmailed me, I'd be just another student enrolled in Celestia's school. Had he not threatened Sunset Shimmer, I'd probably have opted to tell Sunset's father about her problem. I'd be looking forward to higher level classes next year, in both cases likely no longer Sunset's friend, and not knowing that Celestia was grooming me for an impossible task that would likely kill us all.

All roads led to disaster, didn't they?

We entered the throne room. Amongst the throng, a few ponies looked my way.

Okay. Out of the pan and into the fire.

I snugged closer to Citron standing to my right, calmed by his warmth and a quick nuzzle. The sights around me brought disturbing reminders of learning to be a earl when I had no desire to be one and when it interfered with me learning magic, which I badly resented.

Over his shirt, Citron now wore a tailored red jacket that felt velvety against my shoulder. The brass buttons gleamed. White cadet pips on a black field were snapped onto his gold collar. Crossed white silk ribbons decorated it, fastened in the middle of his chest with an antiqued silver buckle emblazoned with a surprising cloisonné crest.

It. Was. My. Cutie mark. Rendered in blazing purple and green!

A stallion in a uniform, and all that. Mine. Labeled as such! Silly, but it made me happy to think that, and I shivered with delight as I pretended all my worries were naught, which made me slightly more comfortable.

Streak, still blatantly wearing Commander Hurricane's armor, waved her camera and broke my impression of her as a warrior pegasus. She posed us together with a good view of the throne room in the background. I leaned my head against Citron's neck and rubbed my cheek. The still nervous pegasus took the picture. Over her silk blouse, she now wore a powder blue sweater vest. Like Citron's, it had a cloisonné medallion, hers pinned to the lapel. Fashioned of darkened silver, the enameled design also displayed my cutie mark.

I blinked, probably ruining a photo.

The room was five times longer than wide. Stained glass windows showed historical scenes from Equestria's past. Considering the dawn light, and the blazing torch-like gilt sconces below their level, all were dark and hard to read. At the one end, rounded steps rose to a platform with running water streaming down on either side. It neither bubbled nor spouted like a fountain, so I speculated it might be water diverted from the Canterlot Cascade as a decorative power play.

I saw two thrones, one to the left which was considerably smaller. I couldn't remember pictures of the throne room, but this made sense. It was no longer a mystery. Princess Celestia had had a sister named Princess Luna. Of course, two thrones.

Along the far wall from where we entered, tiered seating with red brocade cushions and turned mahogany spindle wood banisters lined the wall. In it, ponies wore timeless laboriously-uniform aristocratic fashion: smart thin-lapelled suits for the lords all in black, with white shirts, black cravats and top hats; fancy dresses for the ladies, with much expensive lace and frills, with bows and feathers in a dignified spectrum that lacked brightness and substituted colors burgundy, teal, and olive for primary reds, blues, and greens.

I studied the purposefully fancy lot. I had met many in Sire's Hollow, having hosted dinner parties that were all veiled training opportunities or tests for the little lady of the mansion. Proper Step graded me—or upbraided, if I didn't impress. I might have remembered names once; I saw a few faces I remembered. Most sat closer to the entrance. By their upright posture and their attendants in tailed livery, I presumed the red stallion and his two dapper blue and brown companions were the dukes. I knew I was supposed to bow in deference to them as an earl.

Fat chance I'd do that!

A tan mare with a mane that had gone white, sat next to them and yawned. She looked very familiar—the Duchess of Horseshoe Bay just south of Grin Having? Scanning from left to right, I could tell that beginning about two-thirds over, protocol dictated I could stop bowing and be bowed to. At least the barons at the very end earned their titles. The rest had hereditary titles, and likely acted entitled.

Beyond that, velvet ropes delineated gathering areas for VIPs, bureaucrats, and common folk.

Amongst the VIPs, I spotted Fellows. Probably because he glared. He glared at Streak, which made her eep and flutter back behind us.

I saw Sprinter, too. The sturdy grey earth pony with a limp red-striped grey mane immediately looked away. I'd seduced him despite him being on the "other team" because he'd been blue-eyed and so very cute in a goth way. Still was, but our age difference made him nervous and it had taken lots of wheedling and strategic petting. In respect to what Streak had told me, I decided comforting had its place on the spectrum.

Beyond him...

My heart went Thunk! I felt suddenly faint. The room spun.

An amber aura flashed into existence surrounding me. Citron held me up. "Starlight. Are you sick?"

I shook myself and took deep breaths.

The sudden commotion I'd made attracted plenty more eyes than had the previous entrance of an anonymous pair of unicorns—an officer and a beat-up mare—and a punked-out axe-crested pegasus wearing a national treasure you had to be in the know to recognize. Fearing I might swoon again, I carefully looked away, ready to not make eye contact.

I failed.

I saw blue eyes blink behind big round silver-rimmed glasses. He shook his head briefly as I remembered he did when startled. I could almost hear a bean in a can rattle. His red crested mane and red goatee were uniquely this pony's, especially when set against goldenrod fur, white socks, and a white blaze. He wore a blue velvet cape tied at his neck that went down to his luxurious rear fetlocks.

Had I seen his cutie mark, I might have flown into a rage.

I saw just him. I remembered his voice. I remembered his laugh. He had grown tall and long-legged, into one of those handsome stallions Streak had warned me about. He was handsome in a uniquely nerdy way, and so much more easy on the eyes than I had ever dreamed about. Something in his glasses and his wizardly dress told me emphatically that this stallion had fearsome magic and was my intellectual peer, somepony who might understand me.

No other pony had ever understood me like Sunburst had. He'd always known that little bit that his filly friend misunderstood so that she could learn the spell just like that. He was my age. Despite all my thoughts of Citron and my plans for later, my mind spilled over into Sunburst. He was my age and I could now even ride him. I had fantasized about him before I ran away from home: kisses, cuddling—the best a filly could do, who had not yet connected ponies to what she learned in an animal husbandry textbook.

I found myself walking his direction. Even at this distance, I could tell he recognized me. I could also tell he had begun to sweat. Even if he didn't recognize me, seeing a mare walking your direction with a broken nose, a splinted leg, and obvious sealed cuts across her body might scare any librarian.

A librarian?

Ah, yes. I'd learned the other fact. He lived at the Golden Oak Library in Ponyville. I had been through the town one morning heading toward the train station, wanting to check out an amazing looking library grown into a living tree. Closed. The librarian had been at school.

Had I been there ten minutes earlier, I would have found my soulmate, a recent flunk-out from Celestia's School.

He was the contact for Rye Bald.

I wanted to hit my head against a wall! I walked toward one when a familiar tall blue-grey stallion intercepted me, and stopped me with a hoof pressed gently to my chest. Recognition shocked my heart; I saw stars. Trained reflex immobilized me.

He wore black frame glasses that magnified hard dark-brown eyes, and matched a black bushy moustache that gave him a schnauzer dog face. His close-clipped black mane and tail had a military style to them. I began to sweat.

He wore the same long-tailed black jacket, white shirt, black bow tie livery I remembered him wearing the day I ran away—well, actually, on all days. The jacket incidentally revealed his side-by-side and perfectly upright perfectly parallel golden horseshoes cutie mark.

He wore an antiqued silver cloisonné medallion emblazoned with my cutie mark.

Proper Step bowed exactly the right amount and said, "Ms. Glimmer, you've grown into the very picture of a rugged earl. I shall be proud to serve you once again, speaking of which..."

He pointed a hoof.

A line of five heralds wearing red and gold lifted long trumpets ten pony lengths behind me. A banner displaying Celestia's cutie mark unfurled from them and swayed—her old cutie mark, anyway. They blared a royal fanfare.

My cringe at the loud sound made it possible for Proper Step to herd me back off the red carpet. As he did so, he added, "Her Royal Highness has briefed me of your achievements, your emancipation, and respective ascension in control of Grin Having. I will handle protocol for you during this event. My continued employment will thenceforward be at your pleasure."

My shock and boiling emotions at his appearance, and seeing Sunburst, and Agent Sprinter, and Detective Fellows, let him line the three of us up. He stationed himself just behind me to the right.

"At your pleasure," Ms. Glimmer, is it?

He'd come up with the idea that learning magic wasn't lady-like—but "He regretted it."

As if on cue, the princess walked in from a back door. She wore a magnificent antiqued silver crinoline hoop dress draped in gold Leavers lace, resplendent with sun and flame motifs. The neckline dove in a swoop all the way to between her forelegs. This revealed the lack of her customary peytral and that the fur had been burnt off her chest. The angry pink skin was delineated by a red burn line above, and a series of poultice patches hardly disguised by hastily sewn-on white Chantilly lace that matched her fur color, but not the burn. Having seen that, you couldn't miss the similarly disguised bandage around her left ear—again with a tiny red stain—or the pearl strap that held it in place behind her dented crown. More disturbing was that she walked with a limp, gingerly favoring the left rear hoof Streak had hit with a border stone.

Theatre.

Flowing Waters could have healed us completely.

Now our costumes made sense. Unremarkable in the circumstance was that the dress hid her cutie mark. Bingo.

I'd not be able to fight physically in the giddy-up, but then that was what she had dozens of royal guards lining the hall for. I'd learned the hard way that the alicorn could protect herself, if she didn't let her opponent inside her defenses.

Other ponies followed, escorted by attendants. Of these additional VIPs, I noticed a very miserable looking Sunset Shimmer, her hair limp and her muzzle ashen. When she recognized me, her eyes dove instantly for the red-carpeted floor.

I spotted Shining Armor. He wore the same red uniform as Citron with different insignia, the purple star both he and his sister shared on their cutie marks. He wore black pants that covered his flank, however. A bandage wrapped his head like some hero wounded in battle. Somepony hadn't been paying attention when his teachers taught him how to fall to ensure he didn't strike his skull. I'd cracked his shoulder and leg, but he didn't limp.

Lieutenant Armor, huh? I scoffed.

His larger companion skewered me with her violet gaze. I saw her wings first, pink with purple-tipped feathers, because her wing draped lovingly over his back. Then I saw the horn. The very possessive pink pony princess wore a very compact, but probably very heavy gold crown. This was why Shining Armor was in the royal entourage: her plus one.

Her dress of blue and green transparent gossamer stretched behind her, but did not soften her thin fit appearance one bit, or hide her green crystal heart cutie mark. This had to be Princess Cadance. I had a feeling that had we met in the hall, she might have blasted me with Force without warning.

I let a smile grow on my face, locking my gaze with hers without blinking.

Shining Armor's filly friend matched it.

Oh, this might prove interesting!

Petite little Twilight Sparkle pranced in, tail high, moving faster to catch up. On her back, I saw an amazing sight: a tiny dragon. Tiny, because the monster of his species I had met had been taller than Celestia, four times her mass, and had wanted the magic to invade Canterlot. This green and purple guy massed about half what Twilight did. I couldn't have imagined it before, but his round saurian face actually looked cute. He gazed around with observant vertically-slit emerald eyes, even smiling at me, as he rode on her rump, his front claws gently gripping the side of her barrel.

I took a good look at her cutie mark. Doubled stars the color of mine, but six-pointed, with five small stars, not her brother's three, in orbit. Celestia had mentioned a rainbow pegasism when she had gotten her cutie mark and I didn't.

She was "the one that would bind" us all?

Really? I scoffed.

Twilight looked from her brother and potential sister-in-law, then to me, to her, and to me. She lifted a hoof, gave a half wave, then sped up to accompany Princess Celestia and whisper questions to her.

The filly had connections!

No wonder Sunset Shimmer hated her guts. Friendship magic had to have been designed for the goody-good.

Another white stallion, much beefier, dressed like an officer same as Shining Armor, brought up the rear. He wore an infamous solar cutie mark sigil. His blond mane and tail were perfectly coiffed. His chin chiseled. He nodded as he recognized pony personages.

He didn't even deign to look my direction.

He was... Snobbish.

Entitled.

Arrogant.

"Prince Blueblood," Proper Step whispered as my hackles rose.

"Ah! The 'Do-nothing.' My future student." Oh, yeah, he would make me enjoy breaking him.

The princess came to a halt at the steps to the throne. The heralds blared a brassy note and everypony in the room bowed:

The entourage.

The Peerage.

The VIPs.

Hundreds of commoner ponies.

Citron and Streak.

Everypony but me.

I blinked and looked around. So weird. Like puppets on cue...

...except for Proper Step, who mirrored me.

He tut-tutted at Citron and Streak—who went wide-eyed (in his case) and sweated (in her case). They cautiously rose, eyes on me as I nodded. I had no inclination to bow. After what had happened today, I didn't care. I gave a nod when Celestia looked my way, but nothing more.

I acted like I was her peer.

I'd beat her in battle. Twice! I huffed. Go ahead. Make me!

When she walked to the steps, everypony rose on cue. Many glared at me.

I smiled back toothily at the appalled ponies as the entourage walked to the VIP section. All but Prince Blueblood. He cantered over to the dukes and duchess, to exchange back slaps with the red stallion and talk in hushed tones with the others.

At the top of the dais, the limping Princess stopped and turned around. Kibitz rushed on up, with a folder in his magic.

Before he reached the top, the red duke spoke up. "Here, hear! Your Royal Highness. The Peerage in congress asks why Your Royal Highness has not raised the sun today. Rumors—"

A voice unlike any thundered through the room and made me want to cringe on the floor so I could cover my ears. "You are out of order!"

The earth pony jumped. Being at the edge of the seating when he came down, one hoof missed. Blueblood caught him in his magic as he windmilled and nearly fell to the floor.

Princess Celestia coughed into a hoof. The room silenced, she accepted a page from a folder. She looked at it, then nodded to a snow white earth pony who stationed herself at the bottom of the steps. She wore her raven-black mane and tail in a professional bun. A red ruffle cravat accented a cream-color starched linen collar. She took out a silver quill, waving it show she was.

"Starlight Glimmer. Please step up to the stairs."

The audience murmured. Some of the press conference had likely leaked out. Some ponies likely knew I'd flattened Celestia and had saved 271 ponies in the Hooflyn explosion. The rest rapidly learned the particulars passed around.

Kibitz trotted down to Proper Step, who stood beside me, carrying a duplicate page in his magic. The princess spoke first.

"I, Princess Celestia Regina Sunny Daze of Equestria, Princess of the Realm and Princess of the Day, do proclaim henceforth and forevermore, irrevocably for so long as Equestria continues to exist, against which no law or power, even my own, may modify that all those listed on this proclamation, whether we know their true name or aliases, under their true name or any alias, that they will be forgiven and pardoned of all crimes—"

My heart skipped.

"—treasonous, seditious, capital, felonious, high, or misdemeanor, including besmirching or minor infractions such as required etiquette or protocol up to the moment I inscribe my signature on this document from the moment of their conception: Starlight Glimmer, Cadet Lieutenant Quincy, Streak."

I froze, unable to breathe, blinking. I was evil. I'd done terrible, unforgivable things. Ponies had died because of me. Investigated and prosecuted in detail against the law, I was guilty of many criminal acts.

A pardon made that clear, true, if not in detail.

Proper Step waved the document in front of me. I gasped, glancing toward the audience. I don't think anypony could believe such a thing could be read in front of an open court, but it had. Fellows turned fire-red, grinding his teeth.

That made me smile. The knot in my stomach loosened.

Over the growing din, I explained loudly for all to hear, "She's royalty. Remember, she makes the laws unless you take action to prevent that." Yeah. Seditious. On the list!

I heard gasps, as I ripped the page free and read exactly what the princess had proclaimed.

When I looked up, she asked, "Do you wish to add names to this list?"

"Anypony? Really?"

She nodded.

No way I was adding Running Mead, but I thought about all the ponies that had supported me on my team, fighting along side me the last few years. I took the proffered quill, and annotated the list.

Proper Step took it, and the implements, and trotted up to his father. Kibitz hoofed it over to Celestia. She read, "Also, Broomhill Dare, Safe, Pig Pen, Crystal Skies, Zecora Zeb, Trigger, and..." She paused and smiled, glancing to me with a nod. "Sunset Shimmer."

The golden pony sat so hard I heard it. When startled green eyes looked my way, I smiled and winked. She started chuckling, getting the joke.

Yep. Kissing up to the alpha mare of the school, who had a drug charge to her name, one which Celestia had probably already held over her head. We shared disgust for such trickanery. I liked her. Besides, we had research she'd agreed to do with me! I also needed her to teach me geometric spell casting.

The secretary annotated the original copy; Kibitz gave it to Celestia; she signed it.

When Celestia finally arranged that interview with me at The Canterlotter, I would have free rein to answer quite a few questions, many everypony would find rather embarrassing. I licked my chops.

I looked expectantly up at her, feeling a lot better. All of a sudden, I didn't hate her. Time to dismiss me! I had a stallion I was much more interested in than all this nonsense.

"Starlight, please approach the throne."

I blew air loudly through my lips.

One more weird and disappointing thing on a day of weird and disappointing things! Proper Step led the way as I trudged up the ten steps with a few attendants shadowing me. I looked up at the princess. She smelled of lavender. Once again, I noticed how truly big she was compared to all the little ponies around her. She was the queen bee of the hive, without a doubt.

She sighed. In a low voice, she said, "We did that mane style for a reason." Her horn lit. In a quick sequence, my braids spun apart and locks of my hair tugged themselves straight, then wove themselves up. The ties were applied, and the top of my head—hair piled high like fluffed wool—began to warm.

If anypony noticed how familiar the princess acted, I couldn't hear any loud objection. The murmurs increased, then I realized why.

I saw a crystal hat box open in an attendant's magic. Proper Step nodded and took out a tiny thin circlet of streaked light- and dark-green jade held together by braided silver wire, antiqued such that it looked mostly black. Centered on the jade were two wafer-thin four-point stars, one the same amethyst as the gem sparkling in the princess' own gold crown. Behind the first, offset and rotated 45º, was a star the same size and shape in rare white jade.

My cutie mark.

I sputtered. "Um, um..." I thought hard, becoming pretty sure I remembered that an earl was allowed to wear a coronet, a lesser crown, on certain high occasions.

Of course.

Made sense.

Proper Step nestled it properly atop my up-do and retreated one step down the stairs with the other attendants. Unlike gold, the delicate thing weighed very little, enough to ensure I knew it was there and nothing more.

The princess approached me. I backed, my eyes growing wide, feeling suddenly in mortal fear as if facing a bear... until she said, "Sit."

I became one of her puppets.

I listened.

I sat.

She stepped aside and faced the same audience I realized I now faced. I felt a cushion under me. I glanced down and saw gold-veined marble carved into a simple chair. Looking to my left, I saw a much larger alicorn version.

Princess Celestia spoke loudly. "I wish to introduce to you, my loyal subjects, Starlight Glimmer, Hero of Equestria number 99, one time doing business as 'Princess Glitter daughter of Doña Carne Asada', also known variously as Grimoire, Gelding, Welterweight Champion Prizefighter Princess Grim, and Starlight Starbrite, born the Countess Aurora Midnight, the Earl of Grin Having, Lady Presiding of Sire's Hollow, daughter of Heroes of Equestria 87 and 88 the late first Countess and Earl of Grin Having Mage Midnight and Firelight, and in her capacity as an earl, the Captain and Commander (in-training) of the 3rd Army of Equestria, now in formation."

She took a deep breath, as if waiting for an objection, but all she got was stunned silence, none more stunned than mine.

Sweat dripped into my left eye, making me blink. Not your average introduction. Not in this lifetime.

My right cheek began ticking because I understood she was not done speaking!

"She is hereby appointed irrevocably by me, elevated, to be known as The Princess of Marks, henceforth to be further known as Starlight Glimmer Regina Aurora Midnight, Crown Princess of Equestria."

The throne room broke into a justified roar. Flash bulbs strobed.

I. Had. Stopped. Breathing.

Celestia had given me actual power!

As she had promised she would.

She had elevated me, not even an alicorn, to the station of crown princess. So far as I knew, the princess had never had an heir. Having an heir implied succession. It implied the impending death of an immortal ruler, or that at least she might die within the normal lifespan I might expect.

Her booming voice shouted everypony down. "Those who address her as Princess will merit a protocol misdemeanor and may expect to be kicked by Starlight herself, except on state occasions where conventional titles and stylings are mandatory. Refer to her plainly and formally as Starlight Glimmer, while Ms. Glimmer will be accepted as a styling when necessary at the discretion of the addresser."

Proper Step had addressed me as Ms. Glimmer. He had made sure Citron and Streak stood and didn't bow. He had been briefed regarding the princess-ambush thing.

I had thought it funny when everypony had bowed and I had pretended to be Celestia's peer!

When Luna's curse triggered 603 days from now, if I found no way to stop Celestia from being painted across the moon, I became the country's sole ruler—tasked with saving the world.

My impossible task: Prevent myself from having to run the country.

I was again somepony's tool.

The room spun. I saw bright flashes of blue in my eyes as my stomach tied itself back in knots, with an acid chaser.

I felt cursed. I had no choice but to do whatever she wanted if I ever wished to be free. So foul. Far more foul than blackmail: Reciprocity, and the feeling it engendered, obligation.

I learned later that it was supposed to be impossible to hold your breath until you passed out. Nopony had told my body that. I did remember my first act as princess, folding forward and the floor rushing up as I fainted.

The End

Author's Notes:

Who is the persistent princess? [Also: Regina is the female equivalent of Rex.]

This is the part where you tell me whether you enjoyed the story. Please leave comments, or a critique if you choose. Up votes are appreciated, of course!

The new ending of The Enforcer and Her Blackmailers may be the first story in the Starlight 603-verse. 603 days and counting remain before Nightmare Moon returns and plunges the world into eternal night. So many possibilities! Of course, it depends on the interest my readers have in me writing those stories. Thus far, reader interest is hard to gauge.

Here’s a list of story possibilities. [Update: Sequel: Ms. Glimmer and the Do-Nothing Prince. You can now use the list below as a check-list to see what I chose!]

Can Starlight cut it as royalty, or will she drive everypony insane?
Starlight tries to break Prince Blueblood, but the “do-nothing” turns out to be more than Celestia understood.
Streak has pictures.
Celestia has given Steak Commander Hurricane’s armor. Of course, Streak was the only pony during the fight besides the curse that consciously used deadly force, a ten pound rock, and nearly succeeded.
Starlight must be able to cast her spell on one of Celestia or Shining Armor every 20 hours.
Princess Cadance hates Starlight Glimmer for what she did to her colt friend. This won’t end well.
Cadance and Shining Armor had to explain their relationship to Twilight.
Can Sunset overcome her addiction and inferiority complex? What is her special talent?
Some palace staff have to know about the mark swap. Can that stay a secret?
Will Starlight find her father in Salerno? If that’s half-way around the world, which of Celestia or Shining Armor will go with her?
Interpone Detective Fellows is on an international case. Will he give up? Who was Blue Lightning really? If Starlight goes to Salerno, will he arrest her?
Will Starlight find Mage Midnight?
Can Sunset, Twilight, and Starlight ever get along? Become a team?
Will Twilight be the pony who binds them all?
Starlight has a few competing love interests: Citron, Agent Sprinter, Sunburst, and Prince Blueblood(!?). This might get messy, especially if Sunset picks a colt from the set.
Will Starlight re-assemble her team from Baltimare?
What happens if Starlight fails to save Celestia from Luna’s part of the curse?
Luna is far stronger than Celestia. Without the Elements of Harmony, can the new team prevail against Nightmare Moon?
Will anypony master the Elements of Harmony?
Will Twilight or somepony else discover the magic of friendship?
Will Starlight become a physician? Will any of her dreams come true?
Will Starlight end the scourge of Cutie Marks?

Book 1 -The Enforcer and Her Blackmailers

Book 2 - Starlight and The Persistent Princess

Book 1 -
The Enforcer and Her Blackmailers

Book 2 -
Starlight and The Persistent Princess