Prologue

Day 602

I walked into the castle sculpture garden, yawning. The sun had risen at the proper time and nopony found it remarkable—other than the moon zoomed across the sky and got lost in the sun's glare. To compensate for the sun never rising yesterday, the early morning was outrageously hot, especially for autumn. My stomach growled at the sight of pastries and bowls of oat porridge spread casually across a red-checkered picnic cloth, laid out on the lawn in front of an odd white marble sculpture.

The hideous marble thing had mismatched horns on a pony head, with a far-eastern wyrm-type dragon body. Surprisingly, the crazy sculptor had carved mismatched limbs and wings, too. The surrealist-creation's toothy wide-open smile showed non-pony dentition—and was inartistically snaggletoothed.

The duchess had picked a remarkable place for breakfast. Why it was somepony other than the duchess waiting for me was another matter. Maybe that had to do with my performance yesterday...

Yesterday had not been my best day. I might never live it down, toppling over in a faint the way I had. By the time the peerage had gotten the brouhaha all sorted out, nowhere to their satisfaction, I'd had little time to deal with personal matters. That's when I discovered that I, Starlight Glimmer, had friends.

I'm not sure when I started thinking that, but I had. Been thinking. Friends. Cutie mark-poisoning, doubtless. And it was a royal pain. Literally. I mistrusted the situation, and they'd likely all leave me in the end, but for now: Friends.

I had not wanted to sleep in the castle with Celestia living under the same roof, and had declined picking a suite. My intuition refused to trust her. Like me trusting having friends.

That left me where I'd lived the last few months: Sunset Shimmer's ivory tower.

That meant I'd brought my former butler, Proper Step, and my friends, Citron and Streak. I could not decline the royal guards; I understood the necessity for bodyguards, having been one myself. At least they'd posted themselves outside.

Sunset, gone cold turkey from her addiction to nettle ewe—even with medicine prescribed by her father to dull the physical symptoms—could not have been more down. I'd been awful to her. I'd involved her in a sting operation to arrest a crime boss, offering her hope of scoring more of the intelligence-enhancing herb. She had learned how pathetic she was. Despite the news I generated—which swamped the news of her arrest—ponies knew. And Sunset knew they knew.

And I realized I liked her. That I valued her as a friend. Liked having her around.

Sunset couldn't even get herself a colt-friend thanks to her being Celestia's protégé—and her well-known irascibility. It dissuaded prospects, even class climbers. It proved I really liked her if I put up with those horse apples. As for getting her a colt-friend, I'd helped with that...

I huffed, shocked out of my woolgathering, unwilling in the moment to face how I'd helped.

A grey black-maned pony with a schnauzer dog-face trotted slightly ahead of me, watching me with expectant caramel eyes. My former butler, now my... what exactly? Proper Step nodded and introduced me to my appointment. I did not miss the royal guard pegasus that banked away overhead.

The filly waiting, stood. Black-framed glasses magnified deep purple eyes as she frowned, having trouble making eye contact. The red-maned pale yellow yearling curtseyed. Except for big bushy red eyebrows, she physically resembled Twilight Sparkle, even to the stripe pattern in her mane. Okay, except size. Twilight was definitely a runt; likely grew up with her nose in a book instead of a bowl of hay!

I noted the sailboat and horseshoe crest on her turtleneck sweater. I asked, "Lady Horseshoe Bay?" Proper address was Lady plus domain. I spoke first, because protocol dictated I had to speak first or there would be no conversation.

The kid gulped. Kid? Who was I kidding? She was my age or older, but I'd compressed a decade of living into four years, all of them working at the best of my ability to be an adult. Meeting ponies my age made me feel old. I cleared my throat.

"M-M-Ms. Glimmer, I'm Moon Dancer. Duchess Calm Seas is my great-aunt^*."

"Charmed. Sit, sit. I'm the opposite of formality. I don't bite," unless my teeth were all I had to fight with, anyway.

She kicked aside a big book, then jumped and caught the fluttering pages in her pink magic before they could crease. She blinked at me, pushing it under the tablecloth.

"You needn't hide it. I ran away from home to learn magic. My Marlin's Tertiary Primer was my best friend and I've slept with it like a doll."

She smiled wanly. "Books are my best friends, too." She pulled it out. The tome read, So You Want to Make an Amulet? A senior-year embedded spells text.

"Celestia's School?"

"Yes."

"Technically, I'm still enrolled—"

"Really?"

"I never noticed you, but then I noticed Twilight Sparkle only because Sunset Shimmer pointed her out."

"I stay away from her. She's uber scary. Shimmer, not Twilight. We're friends, when she remembers other ponies exist. Twilight, not Shimmer."

Twilight: The pony Celestia was creating friendship magic for, who had no interest in friendship? Check. "Sounds like her. Your aunt?"

"Great-aunt," she corrected me. Her eyes widened. "Sorry! I didn't mean to correct you, um, Your Hi—"

I cut her off before she could put her hoof in her mouth. "I'm no pony special, despite what's happened. I've been homeless more times than I can count, and up until two months ago, I lived in a one-room apartment with a haystack for a bed. I believe no pony is 'better' than any other."

I lay down and looked at the plates of oat porridge and hay pastries that smelled of butter and wonderfully fragrant cinnamon. I served her and myself equal portions as Proper Step placed rose-motif teacups, pouring us Earl Greymare tea. Since Moon Dancer didn't offer an answer, we ate. I got her to open her book, and she opened up. Spell embedding was new to me, and we nerded-out for a while as we chomped. I'd thought adverbial interlocks modified codicils, but they actually provided a range-of-function applied to a spell allowing the amulet to act in the original caster's intent. I took out my notebook to write this down, which pleased her if I read her smile correctly. I even got her home room teacher's name so we could meet up.

Looking up from the page I filled, I asked, "So, why'd your aunt pick here, not a castle dining room?"

Moon Dancer pointed at the unusual statue we sat beneath. Then I realized she meant the empty pedestal beside it. "You've heard of Prince Blueblood?"

"The Do-nothing Prince? Celestia wants me to be his teacher, to see if I could 'make something of him.'"

"Aunt Seas told me to tell you..." She pulled out a lined yellow pad from her saddlebags to read, "'Celestia's nephew can be surprising and it would behoof you learn why.'"

Yeah, it definitively had to have surprised him that he was no longer in the direct royal succession.

"Anything else?"

"Nothing she said. However," she lowered her voice and talked under a hoof, "My great-aunt doesn't really like him very much."

Thus my dance with the peerage began.

____

*Duchess Calm Seas is Moon Dancer's grandmother's sister.

As we walked toward the castle entrance, Proper Step answered my question. "My father—" Celestia's Majordomo Kibitz "—says the princess spoiled His Royal Highness growing up. She felt sorry for him. Except for a rare diplomatic mission, he volunteers for no royal duties. His attitude that Equestria owes him a living grates on the princess, as does his inviting buddies to play Heart and Horseshoe cards late into the night, making a ruckus as they drink the finest apple apéritifs from her reserves."

"I could see that." I chuckled.

The guards stationed at the garden door clanked to attention. Armor rattled. Spears baring the way rose. They opened the door.

Yesterday, in open court, I'd been openly seditious, explaining to everypony, "Celestia will continue to make the laws unless you take action to stop her." Today guards mutely welcomed in a criminal, though admittedly I'd been prompted by the outraged uproar of the audience after Celestia had announced she would pardon me of all my crimes.

So, I'd committed what most anypony would consider the worst of all, doing so while I could, getting in one last crime before the bell rang.

My statement was true, in any case, not that anypony understood it was in their best interests to heed my advice.

Inside, the air felt refreshingly cool. Proper Step continued, "His Royal Highness' propensity to sleep in everyday irritates Her Royal Highness no end."

"Of course it does. She's up with the sun."

When I'd been a foal, Proper Step ensured I'd been awake before dawn to study or exercise, whether I liked it or not—and I had not. He wisely remained mute, despite his having watched me earlier, trotting around Sunset's gym track, levitating a textbook.

As our hooves resounded through the palace halls, I asked, "Are there scandals associated with Blueblood?"

He gave me a look, then nodded. I wasn't the innocent filly he'd helped raise under Celestia's grueling requirements. He understood I'd ridden my share of stallions. He replied, "When he came of age, the princess sent the errant prince to Horseshoe Bay to live under the tutelage of then Duke Frigate Vigilant. He returned months later, rejected in the strongest terms. Rumors were he'd broken something or somepony valuable, but the crown paid well to squelch such rumors."

"The do-nothing prince..." How did they put it in the novel I'd read about the lord living in the gothic manor? "Does he dally with the fillies?"

"I asked Father. Very rarely. Very selectively. Never for long, and with nary a rumor nor a write-up in The Inquisition."

Proper Step had set all the early editions beside the couch, their newsprint fragrant, everything from The Manehatten Times to the rumor rags. I wasn't ready to read what I had wrought and had shelved them. "The Inquisition," was an intentional clod-hoofed hint about which newspaper to read first, considering my new profession.

We approached the door to Prince Blueblood's suite. Tall, white, carved with swirls, and gilded.

I waylaid a pink unicorn in a black and white maid's outfit dashing out of his quarters. Orange juice glasses rattled as she pushed her tray. She bowed deeply as I asked, "Can you answer a few questions about the prince?"

"Ms. Glimmer," she answered uncomfortably in a Trottingham accent. "Sorry, Mum. T'was reassigned the prince this very morn."

I blinked, surprised, as she scooted away. I respected servants enough not to scold recalcitrance. I knew the pressure they worked under, having in retrospect oppressed many as a foal, threatening their livelihood by asking for what they couldn't do.

Others also answered disturbingly. The red hoof-stallion with unlaundered white shirts balanced on his back, said, "Constant Hoof got his vacation granted last night."

A blue pegasus guard answered, "Night Eye got reassigned to the Cloudsdale Residence and flew off last night with her husband and foals."

Nopony could answer my questions. A guard added helpfully, "He left for breakfast 15 minutes ago, with Princess Celestia."

"Not happily?" I asked.

He coughed into a hoof.

I didn't like that I might have to ask Celestia for answers, or confront His Royal Highness without first-hoof information about his habits or temperament. Proper Step had learned volumes about his naïve charge, me, from my hoof-maid and attendants back at Sire's Hollow. I wasn't going to be so lucky.

The double doors to the main dining hall stood thrown open, with a couple of wincing guards. Celestia, in high dudgeon, complained about the lack of cooperation by certain parties and whether those certain parties ought be sent to Saddle Arabia or, better, Yakyakistan!

I knew of the latter nation because of a buttered-tea café my fight coach treated me to in Baltimare. The tapestries on the walls had displayed crude images of true horses and hairy cattle with axe-cut wood buildings. Fantastical, but apparently real, and likely not luxurious enough for the prince.

Shining Armor shouted back, Princess Cadance calming him.

I did not want to meet the possessive pink pony princess today. She'd eyed me yesterday with an intent to kill. She had not been amused that I'd broken his scapula, thrown a soup tureen at him that cracked his canon bone, and swept him from his hooves giving him a concussion. Twilight was responsible for his broken nose, but I'm sure she blamed me for that, too.

I approached the earth pony guard, who briefly bowed. I whispered, "Prince Blueblood's not in there, is he?"

His disdainful frown spoke volumes. He shook his head, but looked pale. A good trick for a cream-colored stallion.

"Do you know anything about him?"

"I really shouldn't say, Ms. Glimmer." He had to guard the miscreant.

"Understood. Which way did he go?"

He lifted a black hoof. "He yelled he had business and stomped off toward the Castle Way Boulevard exit."

By myself, I wouldn't find the fellow, but I had an idea.

Back at the ivory tower, Streak, a blue pegasus with a streaked axe-crested indigo mane, flew loops around the tower in tandem with an auburn mare in brass royal guard armor. It flashed in the sun and especially coordinated nicely with her coat and dark reddish-brown mane. The circling pair reminded me of vultures. Streak waved and shot down to land with a bang on the terracotta pavers, melting agilely into a curtsy. Beyond her usual jangling gold loop earrings and facial studs, she wore the special bling she'd been dressed in yesterday.

"Your Highness—"

I growled and jumped at her.

She fluttered out of reach, laughing and chortling until she fell over. Like Sunset, she'd become my other Canterlot friend through her displays of integrity, beyond our professional connections.

Her antics made me snort and giggle. "Yeah, funny. Don't push it."

"Yeah, Grimoire. I wouldn't want to get kicked by ya. That's how you K.O.'d Punch Drunk, a?"

I nodded. Grimoire. One of my many names, which strung together formed a sentence longer than any Equish teacher would let you get away with. Celestia had strung them together for everypony to hear. I had no business being inside the castle grounds, except in a dungeon.

Sitting, smirking, she said, "I had to get oot of there. Spiral stairs to all the floors means nary a door; Sunset and Citron forgot that." Her face sobered, maybe remembering the kiss Citron and I shared the previous day that had made me tingle from my lips to my hindquarters.

I'd become Sunset's good friend—I'd said that, right? And friends shared, right?

That Sunset and Citron, the only stallion who'd ever had a crush on me, ended up spending the night together had my mind rearing. It had definitely lifted her spirits.

I'd spent the night on a couch on the second level, with Streak faintly snoring on a cloud above me. Proper Step found himself a hidden servant's quarters in the basement near the laboratory. The ivory tower, with interior and exterior spiral staircases, was intended to house one person: Sunset. It had no doors, no privacy, and had suddenly housed a certain pair who seemed oblivious to the fact.

I wasn't.

Oblivious, that is.

Any time that night.

I was... Wow, really!?

The next morning, I couldn't believe I'd pushed them together after that extraordinary kiss Citron given me, prior to the pummeling I'd subsequently endured against the accursed alicorn. The thought of an awkward breakfast with Sunset and Citron— I shuddered. There was no wonder that I'd taken the first opportunity to bail!

Streak continued, "Good part, I suppose, is if they keep at it any longer, they'll be crippled for a month! They'll be easy to chase down and clobber."

Sharing. Too much sharing. I'd pushed them together, and wasn't sure of my feelings.

Streak interjected, "I talked with Firefall." She waved at the pegasus who settled at the door. "She told me that being in the guard isn't all about standing and occasionally protecting the princess. They need pegasi to haul chariots, palanquins, air-vans, and supply barges—really heavy loads," she finished excitedly. Her cutie mark was a huge wooden plow-harness with brass tack finials. It stood out perfectly colored and perfectly readable on her burnt and peeling blackened rump. The insidious mark locked her into a need to haul heavy and to haul hard—a Clydesdale earth pony born in a pegasus body. "I could join up and not have to fight the guilds back home to start a business. I'm liking what I hear."

"Well, that's good, considering—"

She waved a hoof and displayed a stern expression. "Don't worry. I've learned from you to check everything out."

I smiled. "You do know what you are wearing is not simply loaned to you, right?"

She glanced back at the antiqued silver "rope" forged to look like dragon scales. It traced her spine and ran down her tail. It ran to the tip where it formed a spiked knob half the size of a hoof. The artifact split at her wings, forming rounded plates that hovered—actually hovered—over her shoulder bones, and spread out to her wing joints, hiding them in a cup that did not constrict movement. It continued up her neck to either side of her crested mane, widening to protect her skull, before looping around her ears, forming a fan on her forehead. "It's magic. Snaps right on and off, curling itself up like a snake. Not that dumb."

"Celestia wants you to enlist, not necessarily in the royal guard."

Streak smirked again. "Of course she does! Of all the fighting we did yesterday, I was the only one who nearly killed her. Had the border stone fallen a hoof length to the right, I'd have smashed her head or broke her neck. Not sure why that doesn't gross me out, but then she tried to blast you to cinders." She shrugged. "Must've ticked me off."

Streak had struck me out of the path of Celestia's flaming solar magic, which is why she had no hair and plenty of healing burns to the rear of her ribcage. Ticked off seemed a bit of an understatement. She was either very brave or very loyal. Her accuracy and timing proved she was in no way stupid. Well, other than that part about having worked for a crime boss and needing a pardon. I'd worked for two crime bosses now, so I wasn't casting aspersions!

"I'm awesome brave," she said, grinning ear to ear. Had I said the "brave" part out loud?

"You're wearing a national treasure, Streak."

"Ooooo," she said musically. She danced in a circle, admiring herself.

"Do you know who Hurricane Stormchaser is?"

"The most awesome pegasus ever?" She shook her head, indigo eyes locked on me. "Never heard of da grunt."

"You're wearing Commander Hurricane's armor."

"No. Flapping. Way!" She shot into the air, swooping and performing barrel rolls, the wind whistling through her feathers. Her laughing resounded across the ground, the armor extending along the leading edge of her wings, never hindering her flight. "Wow! I mean, wow! Princess! Yay! No wonder I feel lighter and so agile. And strong!" She landed again with a ground-rattling thump. "Do I get to keep it?"

"Depends on what you arrange with Celestia."

She looked down. "I suppose, a?"

"Would you like to help track somepony down for me?"

She chuckled, pointing two blue primary feathers at her indigo eyes. "Nearsighted. Doesn't wear glasses. 'Unique and special,' you called me."

"Yeah, but this pony stands out in a crowd, and you'll see bodyguards shadowing him. Remember Prince Blueblood from yesterday?"

She grinned. "Mr. Arrogant? Ya betcha."

I reached the top of the stairs that circled the ivory tower and stared at the blue door, not opening it. Inside, Sunset and Citron were...

I coughed into a hoof.

Riding or being ridden was the colloquial term, a euphemism if there ever was one, and not at all what that baby dragon was doing last night on Twilight Sparkle's back. Might be in a sweaty exhausted sleep, for all I knew, but I wasn't feeling like finding out.

What I felt...

The night Sunset Shimmer had brought me home, I'd woken in her bed, the sheets suspiciously damp, and I knew what after smelled like. She'd never said I'd ridden her, but I had little doubt in my mind either. I'd been mind controlled by that crime boss I'd mentioned earlier, so it didn't count. Not really—and I can make that assertion because I need emancipation papers to be legally adult and am still of an age where I can still (just barely) get away with saying, "not really."

I'd lived with Sunset for two months. Despite the tower's spacious interior, she'd only offered her bed. Since I'd been down to my last bit, I figured I could pay that rent. The tower boasted sofas, as well as granite floors—neither that I'd insisted upon using. I'd blown by the ick card ages ago; any situation could let me learn something about myself.

Like sisters, I justified it; we were like sisters. I found that she only slept well if I held her. I'd gotten used to the closeness. Likely, she had, too.

Ok, confession time: I liked it.

I'd even massaged her with my cutie mark magic. It calmed her as her inability to score nettle ewe increased and her incompatibility with her mentor, Princess Celestia, had become unbearable. I knew that the addiction had won when she'd neither let me massage her or spoon with her in bed.

No riding. It didn't make a difference to how I felt.

Citron...? Him? My heart sped just remembering...

The yellow-colored yearling with a mane and tail that looked like somepony had swirled a lemon meringue pie with a spoon— wouldn't be my first. However, I'd figured out he had a crush on me the day I rescued Broomhill Dare from deep depression back in Prancetown. He'd never confessed while we worked for Doña Carne Asada. Practically had that day, but the situation made him step back.

Yesterday, he'd made his feelings known.

Unmistakably.

Physically? Gangly. Nerdy mane cut, often talking about comic books. Packaged in his new uniform... well, well, well!

What cinched it, though, was he had gotten to know how I thought and always worked or fought in concert with me. He supported me absolutely. He instantly protected me when necessary without asking. Loyal, but not a sycophant. Take notice if you have a special somepony you want to like you back. Unconditional support and well-advised loyalty is sexy.

It didn't hurt that he kissed well, mind you.

I rarely felt my age. Today? Now...? Yeah.

Confused.

Color me confused.

Proper Step huffed up the landing beside me. Despite being impeccably dressed, sweat spared nopony. I pointed. "You might want to work on your fitness."

"As you wish, Ms. Glimmer."

My. Breath. Caught. Like that, command accepted, no matter how arduous. No argument. Reasonable, considering who he now worked for, even if he was 40. The stallion had been my guardian. Raising me, he had made my life like living in Tartarus... at Princess Celestia's command, mind you—a mitigating factor, though I hadn't seen it as such until last night.

I felt confused.

"Proper Step. Please fetch my yellow dress, hat, and messenger bag." He'd gathered the pieces of my dress, at Celestia's request, where I'd discarded them in the Star Swirl the Bearded wing of the library and somewhere on Alicorn Way as I tried to escape Canterlot.

I'd tailored it to look fashionably aristocratic, and to fight in. It had fooled the nobles in my senior history class, and had fooled Detective Fellows. I'd needed to hide my identity from the Interpone agent so I could make a deal with the horse's flank.

"Yes, Ms. Glimmer."

He swiftly closed the door before rude noises could escape. As the son of Princess Celestia's majordomo, he knew his stuff.

I would meet a pony other than the Prince Blueblood I wanted to interview without a disguise.

I dressed at the base of the stairs, ignoring the ponies in the castle gardens that gawked at me for ignoring the convention about dressing in public.

I had a deal with Celestia to become her student, like Sunset and Twilight, with additional obligations. Yesterday, the princess had mused about Prince Blueblood, "I'd love to make you his teacher, to see what you could make of the do-nothing." That evening, I'd witnessed him strut arrogantly into the throne room—he hadn't even looked at me! Under the circumstances, I'd been the main event, though I had not yet understood the clues at the time.

I was again somepony's tool. Perhaps Lady Horseshoe Bay's tool as much as Celestia's in this. Moon Dancer made me trust her where Celestia had not.

Me?

A tool.

Sharp edged.

Prince Blueblood intrigued me. I acted on my own accord. With nopony to ride, I spoiled for a good fight. Could I be my own sharp tool?

The princess had scheduled an impromptu Sunday morning lesson and I wanted to disabuse her of the habit. After sneaking from the palace, I sat on a wood bench in Blueblood Park, thinking, who gets a lousy little city park named after them? Birds twittered as I relaxed in the shade of rustling autumn leaves. Foals squealed, chasing a ball. I faced the ugly whitewashed warehouses across General Firefly Parkway, sipping heavily honeyed Earl Greymare tea from an insulated metal bottle. Streak had spotted the prince entering a pink granite-faced office building before flying to fetch me.

I took out my Marlin's Tertiary Primer and compared sections with my 400-years more modern Senior Advanced Casting Techniques from Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. I trusted my Marlin's more, not because I often slept with it like a plush bear, but because I'd annotated it with corrections a twentieth as often.

Mid-afternoon, I yawned. Had he snuck out when I'd gone to the loo? Should I venture inside; ask directions? Streak nestled on the pediment of the Widget Building. She waved, looking confident despite her poor eyesight—what—?

I stood as Prince Blueblood turned onto General Firefly Parkway.

He wore a powder blue lightweight jacket and an indigo fedora, resplendent with a raven feather in the silver band. His golden blond mane and distinctive white fur caught my eye. A unicorn and two earth ponies scanned the hoof traffic, turning their heads excessively, even checking the load of a taxi and stake bed. The bodyguards wore light green sunglasses.

One ought to have been in reach of the body they protected.

A demerit.

Definitely.

I capped my bottle, lifting the flap of my messenger bag. The wide brim sunhat of my aristo giddy-up covered my face. The understated culottes and bright yellow butterfly-shoulder blouse covered the rest of me. Hard to miss. Strategic. Nopony would recognize me.

I strolled to the sidewalk, curving toward the prince. The traffic cleared and I jaywalked to come up along side him. I queued Push, Shove, and Pull, all transforms of Levitate, letting Push light up my horn. I'd use it to tap his shoulder, in the unlikely event his bodyguards allowed me. I expected any moment to be stumbling and waving, complaining I couldn't get to him, manufacturing my meet-cute when he came to see what happened to the pretty filly. My specially designed sunhat rested on my horn; it didn't prevent casting.

The lead pink unicorn mare didn't notice me, nor the trailing brown stallion. The flanking tan stallion with the white mane turned his head, looking curious.

He didn't call attention to me!

Another demerit! Did the Prince have other bodyguards?

No.

Did I look non-threatening?

Really?

A pony length from the sidewalk, three from swatting the Prince's hunky flank and compass cutie mark with a hoof, Brown jerked and gasped, stopping.

I sprinted. They would rue the day when Celestia gave me Blueblood's team to train!

Tan cried out as I clattered aside my target. Blueblood gasped and sidled toward the storefront and sped up. Pink whirled around, maneuvering between us.

I magically tugged her periwinkle blue mane toward the street.

She yelled, "Yow!"

I wanted her to collide with me, to get my meet-cute at her expense. Instead, she scrambled left and tripped. As she tumbled into the street with a thump and a growl, her flailing snagged my droopy sunhat, the straw thing bounding off my rump. I heard Tan jump aside to avoid it. I heard an oof, then clattering horseshoes as the remaining pony caught him.

I so looked forward to training them!

The prince's narrowed pale blue eyes regarded me as I cried, "Your Royal Highness—"

I'd tucked my florescent green stripes under the black scarf I'd also worn. Dr. Flowing Water had healed my facial injuries and I'd deigned to use a bit of powder on my nose to blend the bruises into my fur color.

Already frowning, he shook his head, "No." I heard disdain, not recognition.

He walked past the door to the Widget Building, rather than escaping inside, locking it as I would have.

That surprised me!

"'No?' What? Your Royal Highness, we share common interests. Canterlot, Celestia. Let's share high tea at The Trottingham Hill—"

"'No,'" he clarified, "as in, No, not interested."

His guard rushed up.

He sped up. Not breathing hard, either. With a curled lip, he added, "Miss Husband Shopper."

"Oh! Your Royal Highness!" I complained, hoof to heart, despite it being dangerous to walk three-legged at that speed.

The dastard changed to a trot and huffed, "I say!"

"Please don't misconstrue my forwardness, Your Royal Highness."

"I have not, Miss."

He leapt (gracefully) across me, crossing the street toward the park. His cologne hit me. The breeze flowed from the park and I got a snoot full.

I stopped. Cinnamon and mace? Bakery scents?

Unique. And special.

It surfaced warm feelings. Of home. A home I thought of as not being warm... but this feeling surfacing...

A taxi driver shouted, "Lollygagger! Move it!"

I reflexively cringed as Pink, Brown, and Tan dashed around me, none throwing me to the cobblestones.

I would have! Then again, I'd been a mobster's bodyguard.

As I leapt out of the way of the black-checked yellow carriage, the entourage fast trotted east on the park side, then turned the corner to keep the park to their left. Because of the great number of trees, I couldn't cut the corner, but I heard hooves... Dut d-d dut, dut d-d dut... They cantered now!

A whiff of yeast and anise followed in the bodyguard's wake. Was that marjoram and bitter orange...?

I belatedly galloped, ruining the façade I might be a harmless Lady in the peerage trying to treat Equestria's single prince to tea.

They went faster.

Surprising! The prince was physically fit? He was well-built—muscular shoulders, haunches, back, and legs. Hefty stallion parts, too. Ponies ought wear clothes if they didn't want such things noted!

From glimpses through shadowy trees, they turned left again. Rushing northwest across the park, I passed the pond, the swings, the benches, crossing a tasty fescue lawn I'd grazed upon when I'd been homeless, headed for that east-west sidewalk.

I arrived first, ready to "innocently" barrel into ponies. That'd make a funny conversation starter, right? Looking right...

Nopony.

No pedestrians!

Nopony crossing the intersection beyond!?

Shocked, I skidded down on my rump. How fast were they—?

Unicorns... Illusions!

"Duh!"

I had the nifty spell Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear that made me and those I touched invisible. Devilishly hard, I could make it work only when I badly needed it.

Could I use my horn to read the numbers in an illusion spell being cast? I had only succeeded at a distance reading a spell with Celestia. Celestia had used the technique while flying to detect my position while I cast my nifty spell, which proved that detecting somepony was possible, but she had a longer horn for detection. The cursed alicorn had stalked me! She'd wanted a new personal student. It precipitated our first hoof-to-hoof fight, where I demonstratively reminded her, "No means no!"

Could I detect Blueblood?

I waved my stubby horn as if trying to fling it off my head. I stood. I turned... Wait, behind me!

An orange stallion in a blue business suit levitated a tri-folded newspaper and a cup of tea. Phooey. I turned to the trees as an undercover royal guard intercepted the business pony, escorting him back. I walked toward the corner, flicking my ears and waving my horn. Neither earth- nor unicorn-ponies flew, and the latter did not self-levitate without substantial medicinal enhancement that made them noticeably unresponsive. I'd been given nettle ewe tea by a zebra shaman when I'd cast Aerial Buoyancy, but that's another story and a once-in-a-lifetime exception. I studied the trees, but Blueblood wasn't a monkey, even pejoratively. I heard a cicada whir, but detected no magic.

My nose pulsed. Cinnamon scent... but from where?

The guard asked, "Are you okay, Prin—"

I reflexively kicked.

He hopped around, holding a foreleg to his chest. "Ms. Glimmer?" he corrected himself.

I rounded on him when Streak landed with a loud bang. "Was watching just you, sorry."

I had warned everypony that I could handle the situation I fomented, telling them not to intervene. I was stupid. Next time, I'd have everypony track my target.

"Streak, recon these streets." I pointed as she was already in the air.

"Steady Pace, you and the others check the park. They have to be—" I caught myself, the three-legged stallion's amber eyes on me. He wore a blue shirt with a protective vest and a black bowler often worn in town—I had demanded discreet. If Blueblood knew who I was he would not act normally. Best that he think a persistent mare stalked him, rather than me. "Check. Be discreet."

"Yes, Ms. Glimmer." He limped off.

I studied the trees and the deep shadows they cast. Sturdy pines, dark brown bark and full green needles, with silver-bark aspen nearer to the pond. The former were difficult to climb, the latter offered no cover, and both at ground level didn't leave much to hide in as I reached the corner.

"They're not as inept as I thought," I told myself.

North, I could see for blocks, into the foothills leading to the mountain top. Plenty of pedestrians now. The vehicular traffic had rolled on. I turned south, peering into the trees to my right, listening to the occasional insect buzz. The pleasant terpene odor of the trees overpowered any residual cologne scent from the entourage. The warehouse doors on the east side of the parkway presented locked crash gates and barred roll-downs.

"Did I miscalculate?" Looking west into Blueblood Park, I sighted across lawns and along lines of trees north and south. Foals played ball. Ducks fluttered down onto the pond, quacking.

I stomped a hoof. "Those were mighty biased assumptions you made there, Starlight Glimmer," I scolded myself out loud. "Wasn't expecting to learn something about yourself, but there you are!" A green mare with a pink underbelly walked up with my sunhat.

"Made a foal of myself, Pistachio, didn't I?" I asked as I magicked it on.

The guard blinked—not that I expected her to answer, Yes, Ms. Glimmer, you did.

I settled my rump on my park bench just as Streak thumped down.

My stomach gurgled loudly.

"They got away," she said.

I huffed and nodded. "Entirely my fault. Thought too highly of myself. Was this close to him. I could have teleported him by touching him, like I did you, Carne Asada—" I shuddered "—and the griffon."

Streak cringed. She knew the griffon story. "Blueblood would have figured it out it was you."

I nodded. Only four ponies could teleport. Celestia. Me. Sunset. Twilight had succeeded, apparently only once. "If he ticks me off next time, I might anyway."

"Ha, ha. Give him the Grimoire the Enforcer treatment. He'll answer anything."

"And be my enemy for life." My stomach gurgled again. I sighed."We missed lunch. Any good fish&fry nearby?"

"On it!" I heard from the sky as she streaked away.

I'd had better in Baltimare. Canterlot wasn't a seacoast town, but Flying Catch boasted exceptional tartar sauce with crunchy sweet pickles, so I ignored the excessive breading. An hour later, we shot the breeze in the deep shade of the afternoon. Streak considered visiting air lorry companies to get the prices of moving equipment to better estimate what a moving business would cost, weighing that against the enlisted life of being ordered to haul things, but with food, lodging, and reasonable pay that had no need to be spent on anything essential. Not on employees, advertising, or insurance.

A familiar pink mare nosed open the Widget Building door. Five minutes ago, two business stallions had left, and, by his pricey suit and top hat, so had a member of the peerage.

My breath caught. The bodyguard looked both ways.

Streak jerked, nearly flaring her wings. I shot out a foreleg saying, "Interesting."

Streak hissed. "Can't believe I missed a back door!"

"Or a window," I said.

Afternoon sun in her eyes, Pink didn't notice me.

I caught Streak in my magic as she leapt for the sky.

The feedback impulse through the Pull transform of Levitate manifested as a drag on my forelegs, because that's how I constructed the codicils that controlled gravitational force vectoring and anchoring. In Celestia's school, I learned most ponies instead designated their jaws. Made sense. Foals also went biting things to drag them, rather than using the frogs of their hooves. Defining one configurable codicil and predicate chain was simpler than two.

Juvenile.

Proper Step had molded a cultured adult from the moment he gained control of my life at five years of age. He had no tolerance for nonsense behavior.

The impulse dragged my forelegs above my head and dragged me a half pony length across the bench before I flooded my horn with enough splendors to suspend her, her wings buzzing like a hummingbird's.

Streak wore the armor every waking minute because of the speed and power it provided. Addictive. She also loved her bling. Cold and calculating Celestia wanted Streak on my team. Thus the lent armor. I hoped it wasn't because she judged that Streak was willing to sacrifice herself—or to kill—to protect me, as Streak had so thoughtlessly demonstrated. Parents, don't let your foals join gangs!

Streak understood immediately and plunked down, rattling the bench. She needed to learn control.

Pink failed to notice us, and stepped out onto the sidewalk.

Streak looked at me, eyebrows arched and the tip of her tongue sticking out the side.

I said, "We don't lose him this time. Tell the others. Discreet. If I initiate a fight, tell them to inform his guards who I am and order them to stand off, and not to tell the prince."

"Follow discreetly. If you start a fight, advise his guard. Orders."

She made like her name before I finished a nod. I flung a hoof to my hat as the brim blew in the backwash. Now I understood why Boss Running Mead had employed her. Fast on the uptake.

No way would she surrender that armor. Not ever. Evil princess!

I firmed out the wrinkles in my clothes, setting everything perfectly in place. I walked to the sidewalk and sauntered eastward on Firefly to the corner, then crossed. Pink's eyes raked me even as another bodyguard exited. Tan. Not sure he recognized me, or even cared since I was leaving the vicinity. I spun up teleport, having earlier taken a good look at the opposite corner to ensure I could target it. I expected Pink to be smart enough to take her charge the opposite direction I went. I'd appear pony lengths down the street to muffle the sound of the out-teleport.

Horseshoes clattered as the door shut. I might have a chance of tracking by sound alone.

Streak settled deep into the branches of a pine tree, looking pointedly at them and back to me. She winked. I nodded as I walked out of sight around the corner.

I heard, "...went exceptionally well. Let's tell Ink Blotter that More Well didn't scream at me. Won't start a breakaway party, you think?"

"That's beyond my pay grade," said a mare, horseshoe clatter and her voice growing louder. Pink... in the lead?

They were coming my way! Did Pink not recognize me, or not care? Blind? Then again, I didn't think pegasi could be nearsighted until I'd met Streak.

Streak held her wings apart, slowly bringing her pinions together. I backpedaled pony lengths. With no ponies close behind me, I backed far enough to return to the corner at the barest of demure trots.

Traffic was with me. Streets empty of vehicles. Pink walked predictably to the intersection... and crossed the corner, before she caught me in her peripheral vision. Her head swiveled as she drew to a halt, hoof across the curb.

Streak's wings touched as I strode past the building's corner at an incautious pace. No intelligent, or at least no innocent, pony would do that. Timing was everything. I made ready to roll toward the street, to minimize the injury as I would have in the fight arena.

Pink spun and yelled.

The prince broadsided me, his chin grazing my neck above the withers with bruising force; his body shoved into my left shoulder and barrel. He weighed a lot, and the shove had surprising muscle in it. My lungs emptied in a cough. While I maximized my resistance so I was more of a brick wall than a revolving door, including a bit of Shove to upset his gait (by reflex), I spun clockwise, corkscrewing from my hooves to legs-out on my belly, stopping short of my hooves sticking over the curb. A seam ripped, due to intentional tailoring that allowed me to fight. No way he missed the sound, though.

A unicorn, being less strong and less resistant than an earth pony, ought to have been reflected off the impact at a normal, dissipating momentum. He did not stumble toward the curb to his left or fall over. He absorbed the impact, reared to his right, and jumped back a couple of times on two legs. He shuffled his hooves, glaring as I looked slowly from under my sun hat, acting equal parts sheepish and stunned. I did take in a glance at what he put on display before I lifted my gaze to his blue eyes.

They were...

I smiled.

Along the way to his eyes, I did not miss he pedaled chromed steel-shod horseshoes.

They gleamed menacingly. As a prizefighter, in the arena, I'd have popped out Shield or used Shove, both of which a seasoned fighter could counter. Better yet, I'd have sprung out of hoof-reach, rather than risk being struck upside the head with either hoof, or otherwise trampled.

I wasn't in the arena, however. My heart raced nonetheless, and I tensed reflexively to fling myself aside, a movement I hoped my clothing hid.

I blinked, leaving myself at his mercy from his point of view.

"Clumsy much?" he asked as he settled to all fours with a metallic click-clack. I did not miss that lowering barely taxed his back and haunches, demonstrating his strength. Muscles moved visibly and flexed his white coat, which gleamed with a presentiment of perspiration.

The mare in me noticed.

Much about the prince looked superficially nice.

Okay, attractive.

If you thought of him solely as a stallion and not about his station or attitude. I understood why he had mares after his tail, coveting his genes. It was as if Celestia's nephew had inherited an elegant set from his aunt. With the same slightly pinkish white coat of the alicorn that ruled Equestria, there was even a resemblance. Celestia did not have a brother and I would not meet her sister for 601 days; he had to be an earlier elevation like Princess Mi Amore. For a stallion in his thirties, I rated him five stars. Heck, better than most in their twenties.

I said contritely, "I'm so sorry!" I offered a hoof, adding, "I left my bag in the park—"

He lifted his chin. "You are sorry." He sniffed and walked around me, ignoring my hoof. Pink gave me a single evaluating glance, as if I had failed a basic competency test, and followed her charge. My mouth dropped open.

I murmured, "Arrogant much?" Discounting that he might suspect I'd tried to knock him over, his ungentlecoltish snub made my blood boil and my ears burn. I mean, really? I scooted back to sit, watching him cross the intersection. A real prince, that one.

"Miss," said Tan, reaching a hoof down. I hid my eyes under the brim of my hat, lest the royal guard assigned bodyguard duty recognized me.

Brown added, "He's like that. Too many things on his mind."

"I am sorry," I said, slightly whining like I'd taken a reprimand from the prince, but I meant it as an apology to them for what came next.

I hooked Tan's foreleg with my right and "clumsily" fell forward. He tried to avoid my nose hitting his, but I thrust myself up ungracefully as if compensating, hitting his neck and shoulder, striking him with my barrel. This shoved him into Brown. His stomach. He coughed.

I scrambled purposefully, getting my hooves under me, while uttering, "Oh my!" rearranging their collision with a shoulder and a flank butt. I knocked them over. Brown yelped as a stone foundation flew toward his face. He shoved with a foreleg, but slammed his head into a green metal newspaper rack.

It rattled loudly.

"Sorry! Sorry!" I cried, landing legs out, but bouncing up.

The prince had trotted across the intersection. I dashed after. Incidentally, I back-hoofed Brown in the nose. Hard not to break anything, but a properly paranoid bodyguard ought have recognized an ambush.

"Sorry!" I said over my shoulder.

An on-rushing taxi drover blared his horn, carriage brakes screeching. I leapt aside, but shoved the earth pony and his hitch magically, reflexively.

"You flapping have a death wish?" he shouted, waving a hoof as the mare in a red business suit he carried bounced on her seat, her emeraline glare piercing.

"Maybe," I replied, then louder, so the prince might hear. "A bit clumsy. Sorry!"

"Idiot aristos!"

I made a show of "stumbling" as I crossed the curb, then trotted faster. "Nice blond tail!"

Blueblood swished his tail in irritation. Nice flank on that stallion, too, I decided as I caught up with Pink. She ensured she ambled between us.

I sniffed. I pouted because I didn't smell his bakery inspired cologne!

His blue eyes alighted on mine, and the hat which I'd kept atop my head. I looked down, "Um."

He huffed.

"I am a bit clumsy," I offered with a self-deprecating tone.

We passed a recessed entrance to an office. Bronze Shield, an earth pony guard with coloration to match, nodded, then stepped out. A glance rearward confirmed the clatter behind was Brown and Tan catching up. The three would have a surprising chat.

"And persistent," the prince added.

"And sorry. I found my messenger bag when I fell. I was wearing it!"

"Finding you wore your purse is, I suppose, good, but it proves you are a sorry mare."

Sorry as in type, not as in contrition.

Pink lifted an eyebrow, acknowledging her client's uncomfortable remark, or guessing the stallion's next remark.

I beat him to the punch. "I am not looking for a husband, so you need not worry your handsome big head about that!"

He sniffed. Snooty, but amused, too? "I am not shopping for any female companionship; you need not apply."

"You think our meeting was accidental?" This was attempt number two.

"I don't believe in fate. Nothing more supernatural than my aunt living a thousand years." He glanced pointedly at his cutie mark. "Destiny is a lie."

I looked up from the fascinating compass flexing and relaxing on his flank and smiled happily, meeting his eyes. "I also think that the idea that a cutie mark defines your destiny is ridiculous. It serves only to control the masses. Do we have something in common?"

"I doubt it."

"Which leaves?"

"Leaves what?"

"Our meeting? Accidental?"

He trotted faster, but not like when he'd escaped toward the park earlier. "Ha. Obviously not. Ha!"

"Correct. I have business with you."

He blew air though his lips, ending with a throaty, snooty, "Ha!"

"Pink here knows I ambushed you—"

Pink moved closer to me and tried to slow. We connected our well-muscled furry shoulders. She failed to divert or block me, her gait stumbling. I wasn't in fighting trim, but nearly there. "What's your name?"

"Singe," she replied reflexively.

"Singe, I know Mirror Shield." Not well enough to stake my life casting it; the spell countered Force—should she think to try it as her name implied she might.

Brown, Tan, and Bronze Shield walked together. Singe noticed. A perplexed expression passed across her face.

The prince glanced behind. His eyes narrowed. Maybe he reevaluated "business" and "ambush?"

I tried a list. "Breakaway party...?

"Peerage...?

"Lady Horseshoe Bay...?

"Her grandniece, Moon Dancer—?"

"Stop!" he said, and he did, physically.

I trotted a pony length ahead—

Splash.

Squelch.

I jerked my hoof back, having stepped over the curb. Cold water dripped. I flicked away mud, but some stuck to my frog. "Ew. Yuck."

Both Blueblood and Singe had stopped. Credit them better situational awareness. A water main had broken uphill, sounding like a waterfall. It fountained, excavating soil, sidewalk, and cobbles. Wagons double-splashed through water that spread toward the drain on Firefly Parkway. Heavy mud had deposited out in an alluvial fan crossing Cedar.

"—says the little filly."

I'd used vocabulary too close to my age.

He wrinkled his nose. He looked at my hat, then the mud.

I blinked at him.

He pointedly looked at my hat, then pointedly at the mud. He added, "One would expect..."

When I blinked again, he pointed a hoof. "Sufficiently broad."

"You want me to—? Put... You want to step on my hat? To avoid the mud?"

He nodded.

"Seriously?" My anger rose to a warm simmer as I bristled down my spine.

He nodded. "I am a prince."

Under my breath, I muttered, "Not in the best sense of the word," but I mustn't lose my audience. I grinned, transformed the Shove I had reserved for Singe into Levitate. I smoothly glided him above the mess, strategically placing him on the dry cobbles after a bus rolled by, its wake mussing his stringy limp mane.

He didn't flinch.

Neither did the pink unicorn, but while his eyes widened, hers narrowed.

Singe's green magic scooted me across brusquely, forcing me to make sure I came down trotting on the uneven cobbles. Tit for tat, I had to dash across to avoid a green Clydesdale draymare pulling a barrel tanker. That left Singe on the other side of the double long, giving me plenty of time to catch the Prince without interference. Had she hoped I'd trip?

He trotted, nose in the air, not deigning to notice.

I said, "I'm interested in your business. I might be able to help you, were I to fully understand what you might find useful."

"You don't live in Canterlot."

"My accent is a clue." I'd let out my patrician accent, from Sire's Hallow, though that had been chopped at by living in Baltimare, dealing with unsavory ponies whose patois didn't sound like Equish.

Singe clattered up, but I snugged in close requiring her to nose between us to separate us, and I mean using her nose. I spun up Shove again, to sweep her if her magic touched me. I'd be forced to squirm out of her magic, something as a prizefighter I'd trained to do, but I might bump the Prince...

Not a bad result, actually—

He said, "Eastern. How's that useful to my interests at court?"

"I ran a business—" for a couple of weeks "—that spanned all the cities on the eastern seaboard." Arguably half a year, as I managed all the primary underlings under the boss.

His mouth narrowed and he blinked a few times. "Credentials."

"Bona fides?"

"As in I need some."

I turned it back on him, asking, "I know you are Celestia's nephew, but beyond that?" I could be cagey, too. "Give me a taste of what you might share."

"Are you a seller or a buyer?"

I smiled. "Remains to be seen."

"No," he said, stopping before a restaurant, a simple open window on the street. A powder blue, yellow-maned pegasus in an apron and paper hat tended the steam tables. I smelled before I saw them, grilled zucchini, peppers, and purple aubergine beside a pyramid of wooden skewers. A pile of onions and tomatoes sat beside a fryer. This explained Feather Pierced's feather-as-a-shish-kabob logo. I flit around the prince, which allowed me to block Blueblood from continuing down Firefly.

Broiled shrimp.

Many pegasi were pescatarian because the rigors of flight on their muscles required more protein than a pony hay-heavy diet provided. I inhaled the garlic butter they'd been browned in. I smelled the shrimp. My mouth watered.

I caught the Prince's blue eyes. "Usually the higher ranked individual pays, or the stallion."

He raised a skeptical eyebrow.

I sighed. "Whatever His Royal Highness wants," I gestured flamboyantly as I dropped a gold bit. It wobbled loudly until I hoofed it flat. A week's rent in all but the best Canterlot neighborhoods. The proprietor and the prince noticed. I ordered the shrimp, rice-breaded, and flash fried to a crinkly confetti coating. Blueblood chose zucchini, but asked for "seeded tomatoes so they won't drip, lightly dipped in peanut sauce. Not messy." He knew his street food.

I held my shrimp as the prince stepped away into the shade of a tree. Didn't seem a pony to insist on only fine foods. Surprising.

As Singe managed to hover between him and I, to my left, I added, "Shrimp for the pink lady. Singe? Breaded?"

She nodded. Ah, she understood, as I had come to as an athlete, that a bit of protein helped maintain muscle—and tasted good. As Brown, Tan, and Bronze Shield came up on my right, I ordered, "Combos for the team; shrimp for the pegasus." I pointed at Streak who waved at the surprised proprietor from the roof.

In a low whisper, Singe stated, "You're Ms. Glimmer, aren't you?"

I whispered back, "Heard the name Princess Grim?"

The mare blinked, then her eyes narrowed "Uh..."

"The prizefighter," I filled in for her. If she recognized the name, she'd at least know I'd won a championship, thought not the theoretically-cheating part.

She nodded. "Uh, huh."

"Don't call me Princess. I promise not to kill him, but if you think I might, feel free to intervene."

I spirited a piping hot skewer over to her. She looked confused, but huffed on it to cool it as the "team" took my place while I walked to the prince. When Bronze Shield lowered his sunglasses under his bowler, she recognized him. He explained in low tones.

The prince finished nibbling his skewer, then dabbed his lips with a napkin. He had extras, and I none, but he threw them and his skewer into a rubbish bin. I had no doubt that had been calculated to piss me off.

He said, "Singe seems to trust you."

"I bribed her."

He snorted, somehow making that sound dignified. As he walked, the pink unicorn scooted ahead of us, eating and checking out the next intersection. Buildings were much less fancy here, or well-kept. Peeling paint. Fewer gilt hearts and dancing mares. The Lower, as in Lower Canterlot, was where ponies who labored for a living lived or worked in shops that didn't cater to aristo tastes.

He said, "I have a business meeting. If you want to give me a reason to be interested in you, now's the time."

I pulled off the last shrimp with my teeth, smacked my lips, and discarded the stick. I decided on another list.

"Pharmaceuticals." I pulled out a yellow root from my messenger bag. I chewed it when I needed calm. I could buy it despite my age because I had emancipation papers. I tilted my head. Considering my new job, I suspected little restricted me now.

"Valerian root," he identified. "Disgusting to kiss a mare who chews that."

"Tastes like dirt." I bit off a piece and chewed.

Citron hadn't minded I chewed valerian, and he'd kissed me the second time, too. Then ridden Sunset. The calm couldn't descend quickly enough.

"Insurance," I added. The Syndicate had many protection rackets going, a few functioned as legit security depending on the neighborhood.

He nodded.

"Neighborhood banking." High interest loans. I'd heard ponies call it loan sharing, and—not wanting to know incriminating details—I'd never asked why. I'd been blackmailed in Canterlot to be an enforcer to see such loans repaid.

He nodded.

"Hotel investment." That had to do with laundering bits. Somehow. I didn't want to make a foal of myself by asking why anypony would wash bits. Wanting to be a bodyguard, but being tasked to do pony resource management because I had the knack, I avoided knowing the details of the criminal side of the business. I had been explained the term plausible deniability by the best in the business.

That's a story in itself.

"Sports promotion." Running sports books, which financed the renting of venues and more betting. As a prizefighter, I'd been paid from the proceeds. A big clue? Celestia had announced I was Princess Grim at my debut, but he hadn't been listening.

He said, "Nothing political?"

"Interaction with the constabulary." Bribery. Tipping them about rival activity; one of my bright ideas. "Influence with judges and city councils." Targeted donations for difficult elections.

"Not the peerage?"

Technically. Well, Yes. Intimately. My participation thanks to Celestia's insistence, by coercion as far as I was concerned. "I have—" I coughed "—acquaintances."

"You met Lady Horseshoe Bay? Not Calm Seas, but... Moon Dancer?"

"Yes. This morning, as a matter of fact."

"How... is she?"

"Happy. Healthy appetite. As in love with magic as I am and very smart. Arguably pretty if she made the effort. With purple eyes and a yellow coat, if she didn't tie her red mane in a colt bun but styled it, she'd have colt friends. I like her. I'm going to meet her at school—"

I caught myself too late. He nodded his head as my face heated up.

I asked, "Gave you a freebie, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did."

"Did I pass the test?"

"You obviously attend Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. A filly claiming your achievements is likely lying, at best exaggerating, and, if not, claiming credit due others. Newbie."

Newbie? There's age and there's what you do in your few years. If he only knew—! Instead of huffing—acting like a filly—I said, demurely, "I shared. How about you?"

"I didn't say I was obligated."

"You—what? I bought—"

"—me a snack." He gave me an arguably gouache horse grin. "Thank you. Obligation fulfilled."

"You—"

"If I see you around town, I might ask about Moon Dancer. We can negotiate then, newbie."

"Underestimate me at your peril."

"You do the same." He shrugged. "For now, you are nothing to me. At least graduate before you try again. You may leave."

He waved a hoof at Singe, gesturing for her to dismiss me. He glanced back at Brown and Tan, pointing with his nose at me. He didn't register the hesitancy in his own ponies. If he noticed Bronze Shield, he didn't react.

Talk about underestimation!

What if I gently laid him out on the sidewalk and pinned him? Followed by an accidental tickling? He might feel obligated to answer a few questions. Could I make that look accidental? Yeah, if he continued to be unobservant...

I fashioned my mouth into a faux gape, taking the time to prep a Pull I aimed at his flank, queuing a general Levitate in case I got the opportunity to do more.

I gauged his gait, adjusted mine to have my left hoof in the air at the right moment. I pretended to stumble on a sidewalk crack, falling left. I swept back at his two front legs, pulling his hindquarters behind mine.

When I would make contact, I expected to lean into him and roll him over and spin him 90º so I could sit on him as he slid to a stop behind me, hopefully getting a hoof on his stallion parts. I juggled a Levitate because I was a nice mare: I'd cushion his fall and his head to prevent a concussion or contusions, and to minimize sidewalk burn rubbing off any of his precious faintly pink pearly fur.

What actually happened came as a total surprise...

I slid across the sidewalk into a café, across polished terracotta tiles. On my right side. My hat spun off into the air and I heard it plink off a window. My hip struck a wicker chair, toppling it over on me. That redirected my path enough that I avoided a table leg with my horn, but (ouch!) not with my muzzle. I heard the breakaway seams in my dress rip as I slammed to a halt against a whitewashed stone wall with an indelicate thump across my back and neck.

Despite being spun, I quickly caught sight of the prince. He had reared; blue magic that matched his eyes scintillated around his horn. The apparition between us resembled a net with hoof-sized bulb-like nodes. Bits to biscotti, that was a third or four level Shield spell. I was too far away to tell—or stunned. Our eyes met. His lips lifted into a half-smile. Not a deprecating smile. Amusement? He let the spell fade.

I wasn't a threat?

I was stunned, not in a physical sense. I'd visualized success and had merited defeat. I'd been outmaneuvered!

A twinge of fear spiked my heart, despite the valerian. Fear. It made my limbs tense to run, or reflexively mindlessly batter an enemy. Nothing as intense as when I'd been dived-bombed by a griffin, whose glove of knives had cut into my haunch even as I teleported her from Carne Asada. Unexpected prowess, definitely.

My hooves jerked and my hide ticked. Adrenaline. My mind cleared. I spat out the chaw and it clunked wetly against a table leg.

Had I been outclassed, too?

Was I going to learn something about myself!?

Excited, smiling, then starting to grin, I reached to my stinging nose; my hoof came back sticky red. A crinkle confirmed the table leg had broken my septum. No wonder it ached.

I replayed it in my head. I'd made skin contact. His flank muscles had unaccountably braced before I triggered my spell. As I shifted my vectors to compensate, he braced differently. I was in motion, but I'd ceded initiative. Hooves I'd planned to sweep lifted from the strike zone. His body already added chaotic motion to mine. My horn seized up as I lost track of my own vectors through space. Maybe his hip struck mine. He'd maneuvered himself like a wedge, lifting and rolling me over his back as he reared. Magic enveloped me like a bunch of carrots in a bag. The sense of acceleration up, over, and beyond was as if I'd been heaved by a greased wrestler. I hadn't realized I was flying through the air...

Had he overreacted? No. No way. I knew a show of overwhelming power when I saw one.

He'd put the annoying little filly in her place.

Stupid little filly. You underestimated him! Twice today! The gentlecolt even warned you.

My grin widened, certainly becoming feral. I suddenly felt happy happy. He might be better than me!

Working theory: He was better than his bodyguards. It explained why Singe, Brown, and Tan acted like extra eyes and backup—like Bronze Shield, Pistachio, and Steady Pace were to me—rather than shields.

Speaking of backup... As the rotund chef of the cafe bistro came screaming out of the restaurant, Streak thundered out of the sky. The earth trembled when her horseshoes hit. Unlucky brick or tile got crushed. Keeping my order in mind, she landed behind a row of shrubbery out the prince's sight when he glancedthat way.

Her angry eyes could have set foliage on fire. She seethed and hyperventilated. She'd been the only one to use lethal force against the cursed alicorn. I raised a warding hoof, shaking my head once. Wearing that armor, I suspected somepony would get hurt badly—and it wouldn't be Streak.

The prince trotted toward the ruddy-colored mare, who waved a soup ladle, her toque blanc barely staying on her blond mane. The colt had everypony fooled!

Maybe.

Maybe not. Celestia had put me on his handsome tail; she suspected I could learn something she could not. I understood this now.

Clues snapped together. I gasped, standing in shock. He had read my magic! The targeting vectors, at least. I could do that trick, though most low-level unicorns poo-pooed it when I suggested anypony could. Celestia definitely could. Her nephew?

No flapping way he's a blood relation, Starlight!

The prince wrinkled his nose. "My friend is a bit clumsy." He motioned to Singe, who trotted up, throwing me a worried look. Bits changed hooves, and the chef did a double-take, recognizing the prince. She bowed, leg bent. He nodded.

"Clumsy?" I roared, swiping the wetness from my nose, thrashing my tail, lowering my ears forward. I hoofed at the breakaway under-seam on the blouse, freeing my lateral movement, smearing it red. The rip in the poofy lace shoulders was real. As he blinked at me, I magicked my hat on and levitated five wicker chairs. I threw them from all sides. Being light, they'd cause little damage, so my magic didn't interfere with my aim—only their momentum.

Singe by reflex, not a disregard of my orders I'm sure, shoved the prince aside and down. The closest chair skimmed the flat of her hindquarters at the dock. The next bounced off her withers, staggering her. I repurposed the expended Levitate, redirecting the furthest chair.

The prince, sliding on his side, scrambled and lowered his head to avoid the fourth furthest chair he was in the path of. The third chair hit a table, exploding a porcelain vase of daisies, shooting water toward the street and flipping the table.

The fifth chair, however...

Exploded into flinders of wicker, which pelted the prince. He shielded his eyes with a foreleg. The debris-fall sounded like a blip of hail from a thunderstorm. Blueblood had hit it with something akin to Force, but with neither heat nor static electricity. The pop sounded like an in-teleport, which made me think of vacuum and implosion. Too far away, alas, to read the numbers of a non-alicorn with fidelity.

Greed rose in me, like thirst in a desert. I coveted that spell.

He stood, horn glowing blue, slipping as wicker rolled under his shoes. The chef dodged into the restaurant, slamming the glass doors with a bang and a rattle, as Singe levered herself up. On the street, my guard and his arrayed themselves so they could act on command, but kept their distance. Tan and Pistachio, eyes on us, trotted opposite directions into the street and stopped traffic. Beyond, pedestrians fled, spooked by the commotion, though a few watched intently. Four moved closer, to witness the spectacle. Evidently, evenstaid Canterlot had fight fans.

I approached the prince, preparing a short range Teleport, adjusting the vectors. Even inaccurate numbers would get me behind him so I could buck him down. I queued Levitate as a deception. A soft blue-green nebula glowed above my brow.

He would detect Levitate, if he could read numbers. A feint or my intent? He'd have to decide.

Streak's horseshoes clattered. The prince's baby-blues flicked to my shadow. Had he recognized her? Or Hurricane's armor?

He asked, "You have wealthy parents, don't you?"

Nope. Didn't recognize me, or her.

"My parents are dead."

Well, maybe not dead, according to Celestia—who I didn't entirely trust since she'd gotten them into the position where for the last decade of my life, I'd lived with the memory of their funeral, one that lacked bodies to bury.

He coughed, looking pained.

I continued. "I want to conduct 'business' with you. Why are you so obstinate?"

He touched his face. Wicker had scratched him. A drop of blood welled up.

"Your methods—" He glanced at his guards, who stood off. Arguably, they could claim they countered my guards. "I would rather choose my own clients."

I stopped a half pony length from him, well within punching distance. With his longer legs, he had an advantage when fighting like an earth pony. An aura roiled around his horn, as did my magic around mine. I admired his physique as his muscles moved under his coat. Was he trained? Beautifully so!

I changed the vectors in my Levitate to favor his right side. He compensated.

My eyebrow arched, despite my trying to stay cool.

He prepped something resembling Shield in his horn; what he used before. I could taste his numbers, though not his equations. They had none of the searing blue alicorn simplification I applied to my spells.

"For example," I said, "I would love to learn that Shield Net variant. That Implode transform of Force would make my magic more reliable protecting ponies—not worrying about setting bystanders or surroundings accidentally on fire. Let's trade!"

He blinked at me. "What would you trade?"

"I could share who interested me in you."

"Who?"

"You want me to give you another freebie?" I leaned forward, sniffing. The breeze was from my flank. No bakery smell. Phooey. I reached into my messenger bag and he stiffened, his aura intensifying. Yes, I did have a hooves-length bone jackknife in there, a souvenir from my previous gangster life. I brought out a pink and silver tin of Spicy Jam's Gingermint. As I opened it, I waved a hoof. "What? I chew valerian root."

I popped a tablet in my mouth, and as I crunched the spicy hot confection, I zipped another between his parted lips.

He whinnied in surprise.

"Garlic." I said. "On the skewers."

As he blinked, I swooped forward with an attack he wouldn't expect, one that I'd used the previous summer with great effect in Northeastern Equestria. I tilted my head, thrust out my neck, and kissed him.

A dangerous gambit! I didn't wish to lose my tongue. Naturally. Yet, it proved instinctual for ponies not to bite. I'd kissed dozens and dozens of stallions and mares to assert my authority, and by extension, Carne Asada's. Eventually, ponies expected the tactic. A majority became tactically respectful. So disappointing! I'd learned so much!

His hooves went click-clack, click-click-clop, as he backed into a table. I pressed forward. Garlic, ginger, and pony is a fascinating taste! He didn't bite, so I gently cast Push on the back of his neck, pulling him closer.

His Celestia-length horn pushed up my hat.

"Oh!" I said as he got with the program. "Oooh!"

Eventually, I stepped back, having to catch my breath, and snatching back my hat. Breathing hard, I grinned at him with a partially dissolved white tablet clamped in my front teeth. I'd tongued it out from where he'd parked it between his teeth and cheek.

When his eyes crossed in recognition, I crunched it. "Want another?" I asked.

"Uh, um... Sweet Celestia, no."

"I'll give that an 80%. I've had better."

He touched a hoof to his lips. "Grading me? Not yet a mare after all?"

I huffed. "Universities grade students, you know."

"I know you attend Celestia's, little filly. Don't prevaricate."

"Miss Verdigris and I are best buds." She was the tremendously helpful Canterlot University librarian.

"Her," muttered Blueblood, having dealt with the very talented mare, but obviously gotten on her bad side. Well, well! Another data point.

"For your information, that kiss was not the Kiss of Death."

"Who are you? A mobster? Shaded under that hat, I can't see your eyes or face."

I smiled at his dismay. "Intentional." I always had to be looking around without being seen as looking around.

"You've covered your cutie mark."

"He wants to know my name. That's progress. Until yesterday, I didn't know you existed. Oh, don't look crestfallen. We haven't been formally introduced," I said demurely.

He huffed, looked away, then speared me with a glare. "I'll spare you the titles, stylings, domain, and given names. I am Prince Blueblood. Who may you be?"

I took off my hat and unwrapped my black scarf-wrapped mane, then sketched a curtsy, though Proper Step would admonish me that neither were necessary nor protocol, and ought not be done. However, Carne Asada had schooled me that in war, maximum disruption and confusion worked to your advantage. I wanted to confuse him. His eyes went from my muzzle (dripping blood, having smeared his muzzle), to my eyes, ears, lingering on the green stripes in my mane gathered into a colt bun, and finally to my horn roiling with my aura. I kept a spell in my horn for obvious reasons, as did he.

I huffed. Still didn't recognize me? Was he willfully ignorant of current events, living in a bubble, or plain arrogant? Another data point. I shifted my eyes right, tilting my head until I came up with another clue for him with a gasp. "I'm the Runaway Bodyguard. Celestia—" I pointedly, rudely, did not say Princess Celestia "—made a point of that, when she first mentioned you."

"'Runaway?'"

"I've run away from a lot of things in my life. A tragic motif. Which brought me to Canterlot, from which I think I'll be unable to run." I shrugged.

"Bodyguard?"

"It's fun work. Don't knock it. The side jobs I did to protect my employer until she became too stupid to live, in retrospect, were very instructive."

"So, not good as a bodyguard?"

"I work as a team." I glanced back at Streak, who stood ten pony lengths behind me, wings slightly lifted, her body at an angle to us. Hurricane's armor was as obvious as her expression of distrust. Her readiness to make like a locomotive, after she'd clearly heard him declare he was the Prince of Equestria, made me like her even more.

His eyes had narrowed. Did he finally recognize the armor?

"Your employer died?"

"Rather spectacularly. I had to choose between saving her, from her stupidity, or 271 ponies I didn't know. Seems I have this bias against stupidity. Or for saving ponies."

"Runaway's a name? Do I call you that?"

"Remember, I have a bias against stupidity."

"You want to do business with me?"

"Yeah. Those spells. Want to know who made me interested in you?"

"Sure."

"No freebies."

He shook his head and growled, looking toward the street where we had an audience of onlookers, four more intent than others standing next to my guard, who stood next to his. Why they stood off would confuse Blueblood for only seconds more, unless he was a total idiot.

I said, "Moon Dancer told me you would be surprising and it would behoof me to know why. Now you get to pay."

"As if."

I had told him no freebies.

The prince had let his attention wander. I had not.

I swapped Levitate for Teleport, and triggered it unnoticed. As time slowed and the darkness of in-between grew around me, I saw recognition bloom in his eyes as his head swung around to see me teleport away. If he knew the spell, or knew of the spell his Aunt used, he had to know I could have used it to kidnap him by touching him.

I did not touch him.

In the time of in-between—holding my breath against the dark frigid weightless vacuum of what had felt like the oblivion of death the first time I'd cast—I did prepare for the next step, shifting my weight into my forequarters, lifting up my rear.

I reappeared half a pony length off his right flank, backed as he was against a café table. Magic had its limits for harming others. Fighting like an earth pony did not, though I did pull the punch. I bucked, causing ribbons of frost steam to rip around me.

He dodged.

He shoved a chair away; that would bruise. My horseshoes connected with the table, flipping it, the centerpiece and silverware flying toward the street. Things clattered and crashed.

Out came Shield Net, but he'd used that tactic on me once before. I dropped and rolled. I hit the lower margin of the shield with a hoof as I rolled under it, which wrenched my ankle slightly and spun me. I caught a table, and swung myself head-on under his hooves, risking he might trample me— but I got under him and sprang upward.

He dodged!

I said, huffing and puffing, "You are a trained fighter." I chuckled, then shouted, "So am I!"

He shoved tables at me, to distract me while he aimed a hoof at my face.

I triggered Force with a Barthemule transform. It triggered before I thought about triggering it because it had a time codicil and was based on magic that by working pretty much verified communication into the past was possible, even if time travel seemed totally improbable. It completely caught him off guard. The tables he threw at me were wood; he threw one at a time. His lift weight limit? Another data point. Table after table hit the force bubble ballooning around me, tumbling off. Slaps against my barrel and shoulder hit me in the magic feedback as the spell lifted me in his direction. He punched, then bucked, but his momentum caused him to collide with the bubble, and it pushed him upward.

I queued Push and let the bubble disintegrate.

Gravity caught him. Seeing him disoriented, I triggered Push to push him onto his back.

I added, "I earned the name Princess Grim. I only plan to pin you and ask a few questions. How about cooperating?"

My magic caught his descent. He didn't succeed in dodging this time, but moved like a fighter, shimmying away from the strong parts of the apparitional surface. I couldn't keep him suspended, and it wasn't because a fall from that minuscule height might hurt him.

His magic mirrored mine, I realized. I am not saying that he cast the same spell. No. He had cast the mirror opposite. His spell nullified my vectors.

I stopped my spell. He fell.

He turned it into a roll, completely dissipating any momentum that might injure, then cast Illuminate directly at my eyes.

I sensed the spell and turned my face—such spells would have blinded us both. I leapt into his blindness, right shoulder forward.

He rolled away at the last instant.

I'd fought a prizefighter who specialized in taking the movements of his opponents, absorbing them, and turning them to his advantage. They called him Punch Drunk, because his movements looked drunken. This wasn't that, but of a similar caliber. He avoided being hit, which in the arena helped you win.

I asked, "Are you trying to cancel my spells?"

"Very astute," he said, leaping at me without hesitation, a smile on his lips.

His smile mirrored mine. I was having fun, and learning something, too. I liked it.

Eventually, I repaid him with a bloody nose. I collected bruises on my chest, legs, and flank. His extra reach and mass with our unicorn magic being somewhat equal, gave him that advantage. One rib ached. One ear felt ripped and I compressed the bleeding ends with my magic. Had we had more stamina, or were he vicious enough to use lethal moves, he would have gotten me. We sat by unvoiced mutual consent, two pony lengths apart.

I liked fighting him because he was better than me. Competing against someone better is a gift. It's how you learn.

I sensed I'd passed a test. I had learned something about myself, too. Fear came and went, but channeled it provided focus. I liked that.

The tables were pushed aside. Singe had moved the place settings, daisy-filled vases, and chairs out of the way. Our audience had grown beyond the original four curious ponies and guards, and the mortified restaurant owner. I spotted a pony with a camera; a reporter. My hat had gotten trampled. I'd torn off the dress when he'd attempted to tangle it around my legs. My messenger bag had taken a hoof thrust. I took out my notebook, letting him see the small Marlin's tome and the metal thermal bottle he'd dented and hurt his hoof on.

I licked the end of my quill, and jotted notes about how I thought I could use counter-spells.

He pressed a cloth napkin against his nose. "You're Ms. Glimmer, aren't you?"

"Very astute," I mimicked him, not looking up as I swiped to the reverse page. "Had you not ignored me yesterday during my 'debut,' you might have figured that out sooner."

"You are the 'Unnamed Filly, The Hero of Hooflyn?'"

I sighed. "Carne Asada's life or theirs. I chose to save the 271 ponies, and I knew one of the EBI agents. Green and Green had treated me nicely once, when in retrospect I doubt she thought I was the middle schooler I was dressed as and likely knew I was C.A.'s infamous bodyguard. You knew about the hero bit?"

"I was in Manehatten when the gang war and riots broke out. I read that edition of The Manehatten Times and saw your gory picture. So you ran the Carne Asada Syndicate for a while?"

"Smart colt. 'Ran' is a nuanced word, and Celestia and I disagree on that point." I finished a couple of notes in short-hoof, including one reciprocity equation and shut the notebook loudly. I waggled a hoof at him. "You're not off the hook. Celestia thinks you are a 'do-nothing' prince—another freebie—but I think she's wrong. I'll find out, and I want you to teach me how you fight. I gave you information—"

"What Moon Dancer said? I'm skeptical."

"It came from Lady Horseshoe Bay. I gather she isn't well, nor does she trust you."

He tilted his head. "Interesting."

"Not a freebie, Your Royal Highness."

He smiled at me. My using titles for him was completely unnecessary. The expression reached his eyes. "Be at my suite in the castle residence at 7 AM. We can finish by the time you need to trot off to Celestia's for your homeroom." He got up and I stood, too. He added, "Don't follow me. I have business to conduct, and won't take kindly to you interfering. You won't learn anything."

"Maybe," I said.

He looked at the bloody napkin he held to his nose, then tossed it. "Fillies should be seen and not heard."

I pouted theatrically.

As he trotted away, a worried Singe hoofed over further gold bits to the restaurateur and rushed off.

What could he teach me at his suite at 7 AM tomorrow? In 45 minutes. My mind filled with possibilities. I hoped for something deliciously inappropriate.

I sat splayed out on the terracotta and jotted more notes about a sinusoidal wave function I suspected he'd woven into his Shield transform to manifest the knots in the apparitional surface. The restaurant got rebuilt around me.

Nopony had the courage to ask me to leave.

The old tan pony gave me the evil eye through his bottle-bottom glasses. "Magic accelerates the healing, but it's your body doing the healing! There's limits. That's why you cracked the same rib I fixed yesterday."

Dr. Flowing Water: Celestia's royal physician, now mine. Sunset's adopted father, which made me think of what mischief she noisily perpetrated back in her ivory tower with Citron, making me nervous I might blurt something.

"I— Um. I was doing the Princess' bidding?"

Magnified green eyes blinked. "I've raised Sunset Shimmer from a feral foal. You're a piker in comparison."

"Sorry, sir."

"The princess installed you, what, 24 hours ago? I am beginning to think you like fighting."

"I— Well— Yes? Expect him to visit later today. The Prince."

"Why?"

"I... broke his nose?"

He sat back on his stool, his magic fizzling out. I lay on the examination table, a slow-to-warm metal one. He pushed up his head mirror so he could put two eyes on me. "That's all?"

"Yeah?" I looked away.

"You'd better work on defense. Were you my daughter, I'd ground you and send you to your room."

"She's there now." Sunset. Not alone.

"Consider it a request, Starlight. Is she doing well? I haven't seen her today."

My face heated up. "Arguably, pretty well? I'm guessing? From experience...?" I coughed into my fetlock.

He looked confused. "How much pain are you in?"

"Medium?"

"That doesn't excuse you from concentrating on my spell. Princess Celestia said to train your talent for this into a skill. Next semester, assigning a medical magic class and anatomy for surgeons."

"With everything else I'm taking?"

"Sunset says you'd read while you sleep if you could find the spell. You don't faint at the sight of blood, either." He glanced at the wet rag on the table, smelling of alcohol and herbs. "Do you really keep a book floating before your nose when you use her gym...? Of course you do. You out-magicked the Princess!"

"Maybe?"

"Give this old stallion a break."

"Celestia nearly killed me?"

His eyes moved right then left as he thought about it, before he nodded. "True. Now concentrate. You, my little fight pony, need to learn this more than anypony. It might save your life, and until you can heal the princess, I can't retire."

I sat up, hooves clanging against the table. I felt an unexpected burning in my eyes. Becoming a doctor, and only a doctor, was my only hope of becoming a normal pony. "She said the R-word?" Retirement.

"She did."

This stallion had offered me a dream months ago, one that the dreadful choices in my past had convinced me I'd never be able to make my own.

Healer.

Doctor.

Physician.

Cutie mark magic gifted me with a talent similar to Dr. Flowing Water's cutie mark talent. I could tell a body how to heal itself—how to heal itself extraordinarily fast. My own included. If I survived the cataclysm that loomed 602 days from now, I could disappear and make a life anywhere in the world, where nopony knew me. Far away from anypony who might threaten to make me their tool. "That's great news!"

I wasn't going to say that I would run away from any commitment to be Celestia physician after he retired. Then again, I was evil and often stated as much. Everypony who knew that fact ignored it at their own peril.

He stood and rotated the mirror down, reflecting the westering sun from the window. "Concentrate!"

I escaped into Canterlot, ponies making way as I galloped around a corner and onto the Strand. Only Firefall shadowed me, but she was cool. Streak and her had bonded, with Streak proudly sharing everything she knew about the Ms. Grimoire she'd worked with, including my criminal and patrician past. I was okay with that. To protect me, my guard needed to understand me.

The auburn red pegasus helped me through the portcullis in a borrowed cloak, after saying, "Capable, not stupid... Right? Still following you. Discreetly."

Best I could ask.

Saved me from a command dinner with Celestia—after I'd cast my "daily spell" on the alicorn, because the pretty pink possessive princess wasn't ready yet to let me cast on her colt friend instead. Streak ran flack, allowing me to sneak out the servants' entrance, and would suffer an incredibly delicious meal for her effort.

Still wore the armor. Celestia would give her the hard sell to join my personal guard.

I slowed to a trot. Celestia's brand new sun team had lowered the sun and raised the moon without the prior hitch. The best restaurants, cafés, and bakeries stood lit up for primetime dining. Ropes hanging magic pebble lanterns—blue, yellow, lots of them green—brightened the trees in Palisades Park to my right. Lamplighters ran up the street, lighting flickering gas lamps that made the ruddy green river-stone cobbles glow invitingly. A thrumming melody from a night club pointed out a bouncer that eyed me with great intuition that I spelled trouble. A ballad singer sang in the park, surrounded by poorer folk who picnicked and enjoyed what had become a balmy and, for me with a somewhat muddled brain, sensuous night.

The red-lined black silk cloak felt suspiciously comfortable. I stopped outside a Salernitano restaurant from which garlic and oregano scents drifted. The thing draped my hindquarters, low enough to cover all but the bottom points of my doubled star and auroras cutie mark. Not exactly the perfectly concealing style I preferred; worse, it had no hoodie. I wore a black scarf instead. I kicked at the hems and realized it didn't constrict me.

I sighed.

Somepony had replicated my tailored fight clothing and manufactured for me to "borrow" it. I might never have privacy again, not that I had had any until I ran away from home four years ago. I understood that once Carne Asada had taken interest in me, she'd had me followed. She'd known what I'd lost the night of the lightning storm, shown she knew the treasures in my saddlebags by returning pilfered items, and had likely interviewed every pony I'd ridden—recording details of my preferences, if she hadn't set up the itinerary to teach me new tricks!

Was Celestia that different from the blackmailing crime boss? At least the alicorn had the best interests of Equestria in mind. I trusted that much.

My interests? I blew air through my lips. I still needed to learn who I really was. To become myself, or at least to enjoy my life.

I pulled the knot in the gauzy scarf, spiriting it into my messenger bag under the cloak. I fluffed the locks of my mane, revealing the florescent green stripes, then tied it into pigtails. I dug out hair ties.

Ponies might recognize the Hero of Hooflyn. I had to learn to live with that. Accept the good; accept the bad I had wrought. If I could suffer having friends, I could suffer the unpleasantness yesterday saddled me with.

Nopony noticed. That caused me to laugh, to pick up my pace. It's not all about you, Starlight Glimmer!

I remembered One Fell Swoop, which had good tea and Prance dishes like quiche, pasta, ratatouille, and a pegasus delight, bouillabaisse, at the end of the Strand. Maybe I'd treat Firefall and learn how her flaming waterfall cutie mark had changed her.

I heard a fleeting cicada buzz. Green light flickered in the corner of my eye.

He strode out of a woodsy part of Palisades Park—near where Streak had parked her aerial wagon that night we had secretly gone to the Everfree, to trade with Zecora Zeb for restricted herbs like nettle ewe. I'd gotten the zebra pardoned for being a grower. I wondered if the recluse would ever know.

His bodyguards, Singe, Tan, and Brown dropped from the shadows nearby, like apples on a moonless night. Shady characters, literally. Blueblood dealt with the peerage and politicians, best I'd figured, which were shady characters, figuratively.

The prince pointed his nose down the street. I noticed anypony I'd fought. No way he didn't notice me!

Anger didn't surface, perhaps because the last day had left me rethinking my life. That I'd found myself accepting friendship spoke volumes. Instead, being ignored spurred me. I bolted after him.

Tan then Singe noticed me, then tapped their master's flank. Brown took up point, commendably. The prince looked at me. His right nostril was black and blue. A slim bandage covered the wicker cut.

"About our 7 AM appointment, Your Royal Highness?" Still a dig, considering he knew the difference in our stations.

He motioned with his head to join him.

My heart fluttered. After our sparring match—after the invitation—I had a higher opinion of the arrogant flank. He was especially easy on the eyes. I smiled, thinking inappropriate things about tomorrow.

I failed to suppress a giggle and, embarrassed, quickly added, "The little filly in me—"

The scent of cinnamon and mace struck me. Butter pumpkin bread?

I huffed, then inhaled deeply. One of the few good memories Sire's Hollow offered, surfaced. The staff baker could bake any cake or fancy tart. The little Earl of Grin Having hosted parties, and her table needed to be exquisite. What Sugar Plum really excelled at were breads—pan and flatbreads, sourdough and Prance-style, rounds or baguettes—but better yet vegetable butter loaves: peasant dessert, neither noisome sweet nor plain. Pumpkin, carrot, zucchini. Sugar with butter turned this foal into a beggar. Proper Step never let me eat my fill—had to maintain my figure—but ensured I got my reward for good behavior.

I blinked away stupid tears. I sorely needed good feelings after the disappointments of the last weeks.

I expected the arrogant do-nothing prince to say something perverse to ruin the moment, but astonishment spread across his handsome features. Without his hauteur, he looked so friendly that my traitorous heart expanded in my chest with every beat.

What was I feeling? Toward him?

He staggered seeing my face, his expression turning to shock as if something he read there resonated. His bodyguard looked affected also; they stood frozen, staring, surprised as we clattered past them, before he too halted.

I said,"You made me remember something precious. Thank you."

He seemed stunned, not hearing me, so I added, "The little filly in me likes surprises. Still... any clue what you've planning tomorrow morning?" I smirked, then shivered with anticipation as his cologne scent strengthened. My fur practically crackled as if electricity filled the air.

My awareness expanded. I heard ponies walking across the street. I heard strands of music from behind. Ponies talked in a café, and cups clinked. I felt connected to the world, then reached a hoof toward the realization, as if it existed like a thing—

The prince froze as if I'd touched him.

"Are you okay?" I asked, reaching again randomly for what I sensed or intuited.

He blinked, dazed. Innocent? Oddly, maybe so. It was as if he'd dropped his façade, only to remember his whole persona had been an act. It left him...

He looked lost.

It triggered a need to do something I'd done only a few times...

Because I needed it, too. I understood with all the change in my life, I was lost, also. I'd learn something about myself if I could do it, so maybe it was a selfish impulse.

I stepped closer.

He didn't flinch.

Closer.

He didn't flinch.

Did he suck on cinnamon mints? Breath redolent with aromatics cooled my nose. His nostrils flared. Did he remember my gingermints before I'd kissed him?

I stepped closer—muzzle to muzzle.

Everything I'd learned about him made me think he'd be appalled or shrink back. I invaded his personal space. His eyes watched me, his blues like sky-color gems flicking side to side. Certainly my stooping to using a kiss as a dominance maneuver ought have made him wary.

I swallowed hard, feeling that maybe he felt hurt or, or... or something.

Had I found some pony I liked?

Liked!?

I hugged him. Grabbed him against my chest impulsively, laying my neck alongside his. Because... I thought I now understood that—that's what ponies did when another felt bad, so I did that.

I.

He was a stout stallion. Substantial. My forelegs barely reached. Muscular. Warm. Soft hair tickled my neck. He was sturdy. He felt muscular, not soft.

Masculine.

Our embrace felt so good, I hugged tighter, letting my being flow into his. The flow felt— insubstantial, but still a brook of burbling irreality; real, like splendors filling up my horn, powering a wish, transforming pure desire into reality. My desire. The mechanism in the soul of a unicorn, spinning, finding sparks in the in the deepest darkness, turning chaos into order, revealing light.

Not anything I'd felt riding a pony! Tangential to how I'd held Sunset, a friend, knowing that I pressed away her loneliness from a life of abandonment.

It was...

No.

The word hormonal barged into my consciousness, breaking the windows and smashing the china.

I blinked, then raged at the unfairness. To Tartarus with reasonableness! This, I wanted to go on and on!

Yet...

What I wanted and what could be were two different things. Life had taught me that lesson.

I stepped back, gulping for air, swallowing disappointment.

"Bad day?" I asked in a whisper.

"Was," he replied breathily, unvoiced. He lifted a hoof, tentatively.

He asked permission!

I nodded and he hugged me.

His hug mirrored mine, as if he'd copied me exactly. The glorious glow, the mysterious flow—I let it return, but this time I imagined it flooding into me, through me, then out from me doubling in quantity from deep within my heart. I felt his welcome compression of me, the blood pulsing in my skin, the crinkling cartilage of my ribs. He shuddered once before letting go. His warmth lingered. His wonderful cinnamon scent, also. On my fur.

I'd been capital-H Hugged.

It felt like the contentment of a full belly after a warm meal on a winter day, but with a hard to define meaning: the word glow felt like this.

I took special note of how I'd released that special flow, feeling the warmth and my speeding heart return upon command, forever learning the trick. I was going to want to do that trick again and again with other ponies—

Doing so felt good. Really good.

He said, "You fill the void."

Did he read my emotions? "Bad day?" I repeated. "My fault?"

A swift single head shake. Were we staring into each other's eyes?

We both looked suddenly away, forward down the sidewalk. My startlement shut off the flow as my face warmed. I certainly did not look at him with love! The bodyguards shook off their daze and formed around us.

Having accepted the possibility friendship existed, did I feel what normal ponies did? Had I so blinded—so numbed myself—that I missed this? Had I not understood or completely ignored ponies when they talked about what I'd experienced?

Too embarrassing.

I changed the subject. "Come with me to One Fell Swoop. The food's great."

"Not really hungry anymore."

I blew air through my lips. "Returning from a secret business meeting in the park, before dinner time." I snorted. "Why don't I believe hunger's a real excuse? A pony who meets business ponies ought to understand the concept of a few drinks while others eat. My shiny new and as of yet unused palace stipend will pay for it."

"I don't want to be noticed."

"Me either!" I laughed, drawing the prince faster with my magic. "One Fell Swoop is as much of a shadowy dive as restaurants get on the Strand!"

North on Piñon Pine, the restaurant fronted on an alley called A-Street. The Prance-style cottage had brown wood, daubed stucco, and shutters framing windows open because a fire roared in the fireplace. Gem-crusted antique wall mirrors bounced light, augmented by table candles. Arguably romantic, the confusing shadows made it hard to recognize ponies beyond your table.

Firefall swooped down. The bronze and red mare stopped the prince's bodyguard, pointed at her magenta eyes with her primary feathers, then at their eyes, then stepped inside to arrange seating before ushering us in. The royal guard sat with her two javelins at a table where she could watch the doors and windows, and us.

Blueblood said drolly, "At least she's drawing attention to herself."

I intercepted the restaurant owner, a green mare with a silver and blonde mane in a bun. Across a basket of cut baguettes, she said, "Mademoiselle Glimmer! Haven't seen you in months." She glanced at our table. "Professors from school?"

The Prench could put sensitive things quite suavely. I nodded. She didn't comment on my undesired status change. My two silver bits clattered on her tray. "They say they're not hungry, so some light plates—"

"Field greens? Garlic spinach? Ratatouille?"

I nodded, adding, "Et vin de table, s'il vous plaît."

She changed her trajectory, floating the bread and a crock of fresh churned chive butter as my group sat. A token of appreciation did expedite service. Carne Asada had taught me that trick, and I'd gotten good at the dance last year as I met with her lieutenants across northeastern Equestria.

"The Art of the Meal," the prince stated. The wood legs of my chair scraped the floorboards as he hoofed over a napkin. He coughed. "I've been overheard stating that."

His chivalry swept my absurd recollections of last year in Baltimare from my head. "So, you confirm your business is meeting ponies and selling information?"

"Exchanging," he corrected, scooting in my chair. "So I've heard."

I chuckled. "So... am I demonstrating I have the requisite skill set?"

"It would seem."

He picked up the beurre verte, examining the whipped contents with a growing frown. He so much looked like he might taste the oniony smelling butter that Singe reached out worriedly. I grabbed a bread and buttered it. He crunched it without acknowledgement, but an eyebrow lifted. Had the prince not yet been sent to Prance on a diplomatic mission, or to visit the continent? I'd have gone the year I'd run away, when less than half his age and at nowhere near his station in life.

When I dug into the salad, so did he. Same with the spinach and ratatouille, and later the nicely browned, cheesy quiche. Not hungry, huh?

Wait. Might he be letting me "taste" his food for safety?

Maybe not. He poured the plain red served, sniffed it demonstratively, swirled it to see the meager legs on the glass, and tasted it—like he had studied under a strict sommelier (I had). By some miracle, he didn't turn up his nose—but then he had eaten street food...

He held the green bottle near my glass. "May I?"

I gasped, but quickly covered with, "Technically underage, despite the emancipation papers."

"Haw, haw," he said pompously. "I grant thee leave, Ms. Glimmer, this evening."

I leaned over and whispered in his fuzzy ear, "Why, Your Royal Highness! Are you trying to get me drunk?"

"I've been seen to do that."

He poured. Thin-bodied, it felt overly chilled to my lips, which I'd learned hid defects. A faint berries and maybe mushrooms aroma. No vanilla. No Prench oak. Mostly pinot then, which accounted for the lack of tannin. Not Castle Canterlot cellar quality, but adequately Prench. I'd been taught my limit growing up because a Lady had to know—half a glass—but I wondered if he knew his when he let me pour more for him. Good for softening him up, anyway. I stifled a glower when Singe seized the bottle before I could pour him a third glass.

The cidering must have had an affect on me, for Blueblood got me talking about the months before the gang war doing "productivity facilitating." I said, "It's okay. Celestia pardoned me for everything from the moment I was born—wait, 'conception' onward—so, as long as I don't implicate anypony, I can talk." That much I was careful about. "I'll ask payment for the freebies later."

He laughed through his nose, but nodded.

He listened attentively, never asking questions I might refuse. I liked the attentively listening part. Part of me remained cynical. I'd expected him to blather about his pompous self, he was a stallion after all, but I could be underestimating his interest in salable info. I was proud of my evil past and that I'd saved as many ponies as I could; I'd share with the Canterlotter if I heard he'd used me.

Had I underestimated his maturity? Was he truly attentive, truly interested?

I could test him.

As Firefall finished her bouillabaisse, wiping her mouth with a napkin in her feathers, I stood suddenly. "I treated you to dinner. Take me dancing!"

He led me with his magic toward the castle as I gathered my wits.

A big earth pony stallion bouncer, with the pink crew-cut mane, spotted me a block away. He wore black baggies and a sweatshirt with "Tag Yo'it" emblazoned in yellow. He managed the entrance line of twenty-something party ponies dressed in couture chiffon and lace, waiting behind a rope. We weren't dressed fashionably. In a black cloak, I looked goth, if you ignored my school-filly pigtails.

A big "no" formed on his lips. Since being rejected could be Blueblood's plan, I shoved the prince behind me. Singe took the opportunity I presented, lowering his hat with the raven feather over his face.

"How long's the wait?" I asked.

Deep-set amber eyes in a dark brown face met mine. He shook his head. I stuck my hoof into my messenger bag and found the coin I wanted by the ridged edge because only those bits had ridges. Pinched in my frog, I offered my hoof.

He shook his head. Any maître d' in Las Pegasus would have reached out. He said, "Too young."

I slid him in my magic as I stepped out of earshot of the waiting line, not far enough to diminish the thrum of violins and the blare of saxophones amongst the drums coming from inside. Flashing prismatic lights escaped under the curtains. I undid the pigtails.

His eyes narrowed as my tresses tumbled down. I said, "I won't be cidering."

"Doesn't matter." He snorted air through his nostrils like a bull.

I wrapped a foreleg around the prince's neck, knocking off his hat.

"I say!" Limp blond hair slid across his face.

Singe hissed. "Don't do that."

I confided, "Let's not announce I'm Prince Blueblood's bodyguard. I won't be cidering; he will. We'll wait for a discreet corner of the room, and will blend. I tip well." I flicked my hoof up between his eyes, again flashing the shiny bit.

His eyes glanced beyond me. Not many ponies ever saw the prince. This time his hoof met mine. He bit the coin; gold would be soft.

We waited two minutes. Firefall landed and pranced in, motioning with a wing to wait. The bouncer's eyes followed her; her light armor proved my words. The line chattered as we entered. So much for discreet.

I again put a foreleg around the prince's withers. "More art of the meal? Am I passing?" I asked into his ear, over the music.

The DJ cried, "Say hay, Canterlot!"

Discussing grades proved his point about me being a school filly; I cringed back as his muzzle reached to my ear.

He blew in it. Warm. Humid.

I jumped back as he pranced, tail high, to a big booth toward the back, shaded from the disco ball.

Nice view! I beamed and shivered.

A cute colt waiter maybe a year older than me, wearing only a black satin tie against his tan fur, greeted us.

I said, "A Pink Squirrel for the blond. A Surely Contemplative for me, and... Is sparkling water fine for the rest of you?"

Singe let him finish the first drink, then glared at us both when I hoofed the second into his magic. Even so, he managed to get me to talk about myself again. This time I related adventures navigating between gang territories transporting who-knew-what across Baltimare. I included talking about Citron and my team because I'd gotten blanket royal pardons for the lot of them.

"I wanna dance," I spoke into his ear, pretending to be whiny.

He pointed at his compass, his cutie mark, and waved a hoof.

"You said you wanted to make me happy."

"Do you think it's a good idea to ensure everypony recognizes me?"

"No, of course not!"

I strode toward the entrance, Firefall fluttering after me thanks to the high ceiling designed for the pegasi dancing in the air.

The bouncer wisely stepped aside when he saw me push the curtain aside. "How much for the baggies?" I asked.

"Not for sale."

I pointed at my flank, hidden by the cloak. "His Royal Highness wants to blend and his cutie mark is recognizable. His flank is more your size than mine."

"Show me yours," the fellow said. His eyes flicked to Firefall who stood in the doorway, a flat expression on her face. "And we'll discuss."

"Is this a show me yours and I'll show you mine?"

"You are asking for my pants."

I sighed, lifting the cloth to reveal my freshly-minted stars and auroras.

"Princess—"

I aimed a kick, but he dodged.

"—Grim. Princess Grim!"

I pulled him closer by the shirt, flattening it to read, Tag Yo'it! Approving the tag team fight logo tee-shirts and hoodies was one of the thousand things I'd done during my two weeks as the Doña. The syndicate owned the concessions as well as running the sports book.

"They weren't kidding you're sensitive about the title!"

"You're a fights fan?"

"You are her, as if the royal guard isn't a punch to the nose. The sports page had five pages on you, Princess Grim, conquering Canterlot."

I had a silver bit in my hoof. "Lend me the pants and I'll autograph anything you want on your shirt."

"Anything?" He lifted an eyebrow.

I grinned widely. "You find me some bling, too, and I'll even autograph something rude."

"Deal!"

As he rushed inside, I caught him. "Send a few tee-shirts to the palace with your best inappropriate ask. I want to disabuse the princess that I'm a nice pony."

He laughed. He must have seen one of my fights.

His shirt opened, dressed in the baggies and monogrammed scarves with sequins from a singer named Shores, I coaxed the prince onto the dance floor. He quickly did...

Rather well! Eyes on the other dancers, he quickly flowed and swayed like them with the music.

Me? Not so well.

What I saw was ponies executing random movements that lacked formality or structure, sometimes completely changing axis for no reason. Mimicking it countered my muscle memory of waltzes. Spasmodic described my dance form. Since ponies chose any twitch or jog they wanted, I overlaid the beat with minimum-movement fight exercises: katas taught me by a mob teammate named Crystal Skies, the defensive ones. You avoid being touched by your imaginary partner, though not in time to a beat. It kinda flows. I didn't stumble over myself, except once which merited me more space on the floor, but while my efforts kept me moving, I felt like a toddler imitating an adult. I struggled staying in-sync.

Really bad idea, Starlight!

Blueblood's blue eyes followed me. I demonstrated I was a brute where he was clearly refined. I expected him to soundly put the little filly in her place.

Instead, he moved closer, circling me, isolating one movement—a bob and sway—not challenging me. But...

Showing me what to do!?

Alright. I'll follow you this one time. You'd better not trick me!

I bobbed and swayed, circling him. He emphasized his shoulder...

He corrected me!

I copied him. My dance became more fluid, despite my bruises. My muscles warmed; my aches dissipated. He added a flourish with a hoof. I copied it. He moved in closer; added a dodge. From my Windblown Leaf kata!

I drew my nose in the opposite direction, a parry to his thrust. I weaved in more, and got caught in the rhythm of sway-and-bob, dodge-and-change. We flowed faster around the dance floor, powered by a blustery virtual wind.

It felt less like ponies dancing and more like leaves swirling in a breeze.

Or... We had mass. We snubbed our noses at gravity and inertia. It felt good. We became interconnected...

Like...?

Like...

Exactly! Like otters playing as they swam through a stream.

He started touching me: his barrel pushing out as we momentarily leaned into one another. Then his neck crossed mine as we met and alighted off. The music the DJ spun morphed from song to song, the beats speeding or slowing. The rhythm and lights controlled my hooves. The sense of pony against pony transformed my world into an experience more magical than I could have imagined.

Except...

I overheated, and it wasn't my emotions. Not entirely. Maybe a little. Whilst the cape I wore was light and airy, it held in heat. I sweat—okay an understatement. It clung to my moist fur, outlining and defining every curve. Worse, it pulled.

As we separated, I pointed my muzzle in the air. The levitated cloak spattered a pair who whinnied, stumbled, and disappeared out of the lights. Still dancing, I balled it up and threw it toward the booth.

The cooling sensation across my back and flank felt really good.

The prince laughed. He slid across my exposed left side, came up mashing my damp chest fur down, causing me to rear and come down, my legs brushing off his flank. The click of my horseshoes matched the drumbeat as he brushed across my right as I spun to follow his tail, which, with a snap and a flourish, tickled my nose.

Cinnamon.

My perspiration glistened across fur in the flashing prismatic lights. His stuck-up act this afternoon telegraphed fastidious. He obviously had degrees of fussy, or it had been a complete act. That he didn't flinch from my sweat inordinately pleased me.

He'd combined other ponies' moves with mine and found something spectacular I could mimic. Had he learned to predict how I moved?

Those baggies ought have made dancing difficult. He had thrown his shirt aside when I'd tossed my cloak, exposing the tuft of fur on his chest. Perfectly packaged. Despite the sequin scarves and the blue bow tie he left on. Alluring. He moved as if his coat was anything he wanted it to be. Total muscle control. What a decade more experience made!

Admiration was very close to envy. I had much to learn. I vowed I'd learn it from him.

All of it.

I was having fun. I understood deeply that the prince made that happen. Grinning, I dove and wove in at him, and restarted our otters-swimming-through-air dance. We'd cleared our spot on the dance floor and the spotlights followed us around. I concentrated on him. I wanted to dance, and wanted him to rub his fur against mine as he did so. Frisson. Every follicle thrilled, crackling with static electricity as we brushed. The perfect sensation? I wanted to repeat it, over and over, and did.

Addicting.

I'd remember this night forever.

When he wanted, he knew how to treat a mare. He sensed my physical condition, and water bottles periodically danced around us. He sensed correctly I didn't want to stop, and made sure we never missed a beat.

While I had to slow at times to prevent becoming lathered, it seemed like he had an internal fan. The only thing peculiar was his scent. I'd become horsey. His scent strengthened and shifted, and...

Were there variations of cinnamon, like bell tones in music and sparkles in light? Did I smell yet other substances?

Fascinating.

Hypnotic.

The royals had their own royal perfumer, no doubt. Blueblood was unique.

And so very special.

Despite the dancing, the lights, the music, and the scents, I recognized my growing confusion: I saw the prince in a totally unacceptable way. He was somepony, a personage, a royal, a stallion—who suddenly understood and learned how I thought. He wanted to do so, and enjoyed it! (So obvious.) It made him happy to make me happy!

And I was.

Happy.

Deliriously happy.

The root of delirious is delirium.

That was a threat. That friendship-rearing-its-ugly-head thing. Except I wasn't simply receiving—

I'd soon be begging!

"I'm hungry," I declared and dragged us back onto the Strand.

I led, carrying the confused prince beside me in a blue-green nebula. I couldn't meet his eyes. He didn't complain; nor did his bodyguards. When I set him down, I continued leading. Our fur rubbed at times. Neither of us were stable. Neither of us drew away. I didn't want to. It felt like I held him in thrall, like I'd enchanted him. Vice-versa, definitely. Without actual magic.

My emotions muddled up; it was us in front of the park all over again. My heart expanded. It felt akin to heat.

But not heat, maybe electricity?

No... like magnets attracting one another. A palpable force...

Something flowed between us.

Was it hormonal?

No, no, no, no!

My hide cooled and dried as we clattered awkwardly onward. I understood the colloquialism hot and bothered.

And sparks flying.

I gasped. What was flapping wrong with me!? I liked him? I looked at his face in profile, his bodiless blond mane cascading into his blue eyes. He frowned, his nostrils wide, brows going up and down. He was bewildered, also.

His eyes flicked my way.

I jerked my gaze aside. Then looked again.

My feelings intensified each time I looked at him!

Our eyes met. We whinnied and looked away, off-kilter.

He pushed my buttons—the right-wrong or wrong-right ones. He learned what I liked. He liked to do that.

I'd never met a pony that could do that and, trust me, I'd met plenty who desperately wanted to manipulate me.

We weren't alike.

He hadn't been orphaned. He hadn't had to learn to fight—needing to succeed or die. He hadn't been honed into a tool with a compulsion to protect ponies.

We weren't alike.

Had somepony thought us a match? Celestia hadn't directly pointed me at her nephew. She'd said, "I'd love to make you his teacher, to see what you could make of the do-nothing." The duchess, through her grand niece, had unmistakably pushed, but implied he was an enemy.

I shook my head and my mane slid into my face. I tied it into a bun as I caught a whiff of sugar pastries. The real deal, not his scent. I turned, reflexively magicking everypony like dolls. Firefall whooshed into Pâtisserie la Reine, reading my mind.

"Sit, sit," I told the others, "I'll find something," scanning the cases for inspiration, desperately hiding my jitters and failing utterly.

I pressed my nose and the frogs of my hooves against the cold curved glass.

I saw gateaux: chocolate, coconut, and cherry, the type that two bites would fill you and make you sleepy. I passed custard, tarts, and apple pies. I pointed a hoof at some stacked baguettes imagining them with warm butter, then saw vegetable loaves. I sidled over. I tapped the glass. Click click.

Firefall's magenta eyes regarded me, reflected and distorted, as I stood and the server hoofed the plate of slices into my magic. I blinked, pointing my nose at the déclassé bread, and said, "See. I'm no princess. Just a pony."

She snorted.

I inhaled. "They didn't have pumpkin. The carrot's fragrant, though." Her nose pulsed as I added, "The cinnamon and butter scent: From one to ten, how strong?"

"Mild, delicate maybe?"

"It's prominent to me."

"Maybe your nose is better trained?"

I chuckled. "Did you notice the prince smells of cinnamon?"

"Can't say I did."

"Go give him a sniff."

"Ummm..." Her face, already reddish because of her fur, reddened.

I gave her puppy eyes. She rolled hers. Under her breath, she said, "She wants to eat something that smells like him? Is Canterlot going to survive this?"

I set the plate and crock of butter on the table; the prince pulled out a chair, at which point Firefall stuck her nose in his mane as he moved across her. Her eyes widened, but she shook her head.

"Five," I asked?

"Maybe three, licorice and..." She snagged a slice in a wing, sitting at the next table. "I like licorice."

The prince asked, "I'm not a ten?"

I rubbed my cheek against his without thinking. Thinking better of it, I grabbed a slice, smeared it with soft butter, and shoved it in his mouth.

He looked startled as I was. His scent grew evident, as did his amused smile. I smiled in return. I had a discriminating nose—

—that was making me crazy!

Looking down, I murmured, "To me you're a ten."

Oh, horse apples. I said that.

I swiftly added, "Is this something you do to the fillies; figure them out, then make them like you? I'm too dangerous to toy with."

He swallowed, then said nonchalantly, "The fillies and mares seen pursuing the prince want him to make them more, to fill them up. You're overflowing. And you share. That makes you amazing and makes me want to understand you better."

Stupid pony.

He likes me.

My heart raced as I gobbled an unbuttered slice. I leaned against him, struggling not to cough with the dry contents of my mouth. I failed, sputtering crumbs as he patted my back.

Our bodyguards watched our comedy routine. Firefall fought not to roll her eyes. The prince levitated me a glass of water.

He got me sheepishly talking about myself. Maybe he thought it calmed me. I explained I'd run away from home to learn magic, but that led to how instead I'd learned to fight, and that it had freed me.

The temperature at the back of the restaurant plummeted.

Firefall looked stunned, possibly because my observation of ponies was that you didn't admit such things, and if you did, not in such a blasé manner. You were supposed to cry, to shriek, to look like you might hurt yourself. The prince didn't flinch though his warm fur rested ever-steady under my cheek. I can't fathom how he managed it. I couldn't have.

He asked, "This is why you needed your teammates Broomhill Dare and Citron to teach you to use Force? You didn't trust yourself?"

He'd listened to everything I'd said and connected the dots. He'd chosen calm and normal to keep me from exploding. Did he actually understand me? Was he like me? No, he hadn't lost his parents at a young age, run away from all he'd known, or been honed into somepony's sharp tool.

I said, "I like the feeling of being in control... too much. I'll never again be chattel. I trust myself not to become The Monster if I fight with my head to master my emotions. I want to protect ponies. And. I will."

He chuckled. "Seems like you'll fit well into the family."

I scooted away, pushing him with my hooves. "Don't compare me to Celestia!"

"It wouldn't be fair. To my aunt."

Whose family? "Wait, what!? I'm not marrying you!"

"Wouldn't think of it."

"Me either. "

"Good."

"Fine." I buttered some slices and offered him one.

He chomped it from my magic like an earth pony, leaving me holding the remainder. Which I did. He took a second bite, then another. Chewing from behind a hoof, he added, "Besides, you're a much more direct, see-what-you-get type pony, compared to Auntie." A last bite. After swallowing, he finished, "So I've been heard to say. No comparison, really."

"Am I that 'direct?'"

He answered things I'd said and done, and a few things that he'd likely gleaned from the papers after our fight this afternoon. That led me to tell him how I worked to prevent the gang war in the northeast, and then when it was inevitable, how I'd tried to prevent as many ponies getting hurt as possible. Once crowned the new Doña, I had changed everything to emphasize commerce over violence. It was Celestia's point that I had not gone far enough reforming the syndicate; she asserted I'd lost my nerve.

She was wrong.

I explained that Celestia didn't understand that I polarized ponies. Factions in the syndicate had formed: those who would fiercely protect me and those who preferred the former status quo, and viciously fought change. I foresaw war, and I didn't want to be responsible for further deaths. (I had a running tally in my head.) I'd runaway to learn magic and had gotten off track.

I ghosted the organization.

Whether Blueblood made his living as an information broker gathering and disseminating information across Canterlot, or it was only his hobby, he was very good at ferreting out information if I were any measure. I'd given him a lot of freebies, but I'd unburdened myself and had reserved names and details that might incriminate others. Not stupid.

Eventually, I'd exact payment.

I asked, "So, you don't find me—"

"Repulsive? No."

I blinked at him for a few seconds. "I was going to say 'weird.'"

He huffed. "I'm no judge. You come well recommended."

"By Celestia?" I snorted. "That's suspect in itself. I can't tell you the reason she'd recommend me—" curse-breaking "—so don't ask."

"The prince is related to her," he said in his odd way. "He reputedly trusts her with these few things." He coughed into a hoof. "I would love to take you to my place in town to show you... a few things... about me, were you interested."

Singe immediately waved a hoof no. Tan and Brown agreed, looking rather like they'd overeaten though I was pretty sure they had not eaten any of the carrot loaf. Their dour expressions confirmed they likely thought, We had a long day and now this?

I leaned forward and glared at the three. "Celestia agreed to let me to train all the bodyguards on staff. My specialty. One of the first things I'll teach you is how to tell your employer why he can't do what he wants to do, and how to drag his flank away when he's being stupid."

I pointed my hoof from Blueblood to Singe and back until they took Blueblood to the next table to talk. Firefall sat beside me.

"If you were my daughter, I would tell you it's time to pack up your toys and go home."

"How old is your daughter?"

"Seven. That's not the point. Everypony in the palace knows that stallion is trouble."

"Are you worried he might try to ride me? Be worried for him!" I chuckled, but when I looked into her magenta eyes, they speared me.

She continued, "You're getting emotionally involved."

I snorted, then giggled. The royal guardsmare shook her head in disgust. I was going to have to show her how to drag my flank away when I was being stupid—or greedy.

Turned out the prince had a small townhouse on Tribeca Parkway in downtown, and Brown rushed ahead to ensure everything was in order. Firefall quipped she'd bet it was to ensure yesterday's riding partner had left.

I said, "Yet, no scandals?"

"Are you planning on visiting The Inquisition to write a tell-all?"

"Maybe?"

She looked unconvinced. "He invited you. Being discreet doesn't mean he's not randy."

Works for me. I shrugged, grinning.

As Singe unlocked the door, I asked Blueblood coquettishly, "Are you inviting me up to see your impressionist paintings?"

He blinked, clearly confused.

I tried, "Etchings...?

"Something exotic to attract a naïve filly into your inner sanctum?" So you can have your way with her?

I put two hooves on his flank and pushed him toward the open door. "It worked the last time I asked a stallion. He'd actually had six different full-sized reproductions from Hay Stacks by Mérens!^†" Expectedly, gratefully, distractingly, my future fight coach had turned out to be gentlecolt about other things that night...

Firefall flew past us inside with a "Wait!" dragging my mane in her wake. An infuriated Tan dashed after, yelling a word to add to my dictionary of pony invective.

He said jauntily, "Here's to hoping you'll have a good impression."

I groaned, then realized his bodyguards and mine were inside. We stood outside. Alone.

You read that right.

Alone.

They called the one-room wide four-story tall homes toy townhouses. Manicured hedges or skyscraper cypress separated pocket-sized yards with a lawn that couldn't feed a goat's kid. High-priced, they packed the row houses in, five blocks east of Castle Way Blvd and four blocks north of Alicorn Way. Ancient trees grew in the winding parkway. Heavy branches sported a dense canopy of rustling autumn-colored leaves, throwing flitting shadows from the street lamps they obstructed. The nice quiet secluded street provided too many places to hide in and ambush from.

I shuddered.

Hooves pressing his buttocks, I pushed until he clopped to the stairs. He brushed my nose with his tail as he turned around.

"Shoes," he said, when I made to step past onto the stairs into the living area. He glanced at the carpeted white stairway as he stepped into fluffy white slippers.

I grumbled, dropping my brass with clanks on the black-veined white marble vestibule tile. The insert in my left rear hoof rolled out like an oblong bit. His eyes followed until it flopped over.

"My frog goes numb. Were I to get a stone in my shoe I could bleed to death without realizing it. Only needing an orthotic is a pretty good result considering they replaced the entire postern bone."

"The whole thing?"

"After an assassination attempt I foiled. Who knew bones shatter so easily when you're thrown across a room?"

"I'd never have known."

"Had physical therapy. Months. Citron knows. Sunset, too—I'm living with her. Nopony else yet in Canterlot. Consider yourself privileged. You're learning more about me than most ponies." I followed him.

"Interesting story?"

"You auditioning to be my biographer? Gonna write The Runaway Bodyguard?"

"Something more interesting."

"Yeah. Right." I laughed.

This floor proved to be a business-like conference room, done in carved mahogany set off by red velvet cushions upon a white carpet. Wait— The thick threads were cut and combed upright so it looked like close-cropped albino grass. I rubbed a frog across the shag pile, one that could still feel reliably. I couldn't decide if it tickled or caressed. Nice.

I didn't see more because a thump and a bang echoed from upstairs, followed by furniture sliding to strike a wall accompanied by a sizzle of magic. I jumped as it jangled my high-strung nerves like all the wrong keys of a piano struck simultaneously.

Blueblood jerked into motion, hitting the first steps of the next flight of stairs. "What happened?" he yelled. He turned to me, stating, "Mudflats can be graceless."

Five seconds passed, my limit and I stomped forward to throw the prince out of the way when somepony, Tan by the sound of him, called, "It's nothing—"

Singe added loudly, "It's a bug! We stomped it. We knocked over the icebox."

"Everything's inside now," Brown (Mudflats?) added helpfully.

I...

I didn't like that.

The prince chuckled, sounding embarrassed. "Desert Shield has a cockroach phobia."

I blinked. Why would the prince, this arrogant stallion particularly, apologize for his servants? Or point out he had cockroaches! I got teleport spinning, though I could only guess about the layout of the next two levels, attic, and possibly the widows-walk terrace these houses had. I called, "Firefall?"

I looked right, startled when the prince touched my shoulder with his. His horn glowed. With few lights on, his magic looked faintly greenish.

Two heartbeats. Three. I looked into Blueblood's blue eyes, shook my head, and kissed the wish predicate of Teleport with my guessed vectors.

Sparkles whooshed from my horn like a pyrotechnic; his touch had thrown off my mass calculation. I heard, "Incompetents!" probably from an attic space.

Yep. That could be nopony other than Firefall.

"High-strung much?" asked the prince, sliding me in his magic out to near the center of the room.

"Me, definitely. In the last 48 hours, I was caught in a firefight between the constabulary and a crime boss, then had to beat your aunt away when she wouldn't take no for an answer." I inhaled deeply and, suddenly wrung out, plopped into a thickly upholstered chair. "Twice!"

"Can I get you a seltzer? Something stronger?"

I stuck my tongue out slightly, working to keep a smirk off my face. Trying to get me drunk was a good sign. "A fruity aperitif?"

"I can manage that."

He opened a cabinet with a hundred colored and oddly shaped bottles, with crystal glasses that likely matched the palace pattern.

He said, "A demi-hoof, no more."

"Whatever makes you happy—"

I suppressed a gleeful squirm.

"—Sour plum, bitter orange, apricot—"

"I like apricot!" It brought back a fond memory of a train ride and a more innocent time. I smiled at him, thanking him silently. He got a look not unlike that which had worried me seeing him exit the park—which led to the hug...

I decided that was him reacting to me when I wore my emotions visible for all to see. Getting a cutie mark, acknowledging friendship existed, liking somepony— I was acting weird right now. No better way to say it.

"Follow me," he said, trailing a cordial glass with a golden orange syrup past me in his now properly light-blue aura. "It's where I'm going to impress you."

"So you say." I swiped for the glass but he scooted it out of reach, upstairs, where I heard it clink on an unseen glass-topped table.

I found a study. He swished up magic pebble torchiere lamps, adding to a lantern that lit the stair to the attic level. I saw overstuffed sofas that would be wonderful to lay on, bookshelves lined with tomes, tables with knickknacks, and a low conversation table with pillows strewn around it. My little drink glowed amber in a spotlight. Antiqued brass tastefully accented everything with a masculine flare.

Desert Shield and Mudflats stood in a dark alcove to a further room, startling me when they moved. Singe pranced down from the attic service level, looking pleased. She crossed the landing to continue downstairs, but stopped strategically blocking the way down.

I noticed.

I noticed I stood outnumbered four-to-one, so I lifted my drink in my magic to have a cognate spell spun up while Force queued itself—I instinctively went for that one because that was the one that I freed myself with when I learned how to fight. Notwithstanding, liquor splashed in your eyes reputedly stung.

The prince told Singe, "That's enough for tonight."

The pink unicorn replied, "Your Royal Highness, we agreed—"

"No. You are mistaken." He touched a hoof to his heart. "I can take care of what's necessary." He turned to the earth ponies. "That means you, too." He glared, and pointed with his nose to the stairs.

I told his guard, "I promised Singe I wouldn't kill the fellow. Honest. He's more of a love bug than I'd thought."

Singe sighed. "I've wrapped up the other matter."

The prince said, "I'll wrap up this one."

"Do that," she said rather imperiously, waiting for the earth ponies to scoot past her before she descended.

I asked her, "Where's Firefall?"

"She left off the terrace," she said and was gone.

I whispered Firefall's last word, "Incompetents," and sipped the drink, which instantly sent amazingly complex apricot vapors up my nose. "Singe can act business-like when she wants to. I'm going to do you a favor by training them."

He laughed worriedly.

I sipped from the glass and smiled, letting good associations filter back. I noticed the photos and trotted over.

All were in plain black frames with no mat. It caught my eye that some were photographs of paintings, none of which were Celestia, but one made me think of her. The horn. Pike-like, with eight turns, set in a pink blaze. He wasn't as tall as her, judging by the alabaster desk he stood by and the crystal ball upon it, but proportionally he had the same physique as the princess, which made him look spindly despite defined musculature. His mane and tail were lime green, with streaks of blue and black. Oddly, his fur shared the same sunflower-yellow cast as Blueblood's blond mane and tail, but it was long and bristly enough that the painter had to work the strokes to keep him looking stately and not unkempt. Black wire glasses magnified brown eyes, making him look severe rather than scholarly.

I looked from the picture, to the prince who gave a wan smile from behind me, to the picture again.

"Everypony has parents," he stated, which made me think of my father, maybe alive maybe dead, sharing the same green-streaked purple mane I had. He added, as if sensing my emotions, "Even if they're no longer around."

"Who is that?"

"The Prince of Summer, Archmage Daze."

While it might be his father, it couldn't be Celestia's brother. Nopony other than Celestia had been cursed to live a thousand years in the expectation she'd see everything she'd worked for fail and die. She and I did share something: having lived with having lost everypony we ever knew. A gentle touch of a hoof pressed me left toward the next picture before my mind wandered down a path it would be difficult for me to climb back from.

I shook myself, then glanced at images of stallions and mares obviously in the peerage, one ribbon cutting ceremony with Blueblood genuinely smiling, and a few of him visiting vaguely familiar landmarks anypony of my supposed breeding ought recognize. I didn't. Geography, other than knowing every street in a city I had to work in, was not one of my better subjects. None of the images were captured in the northeast, in any case—

Except one.

I paused on a young mare with a swaddled infant in a lacy pink pram. The streaky red hair of the foal caught my eye, then the darker similar mane of her otherwise palomino mother or governess. I decided mother, recognizing first the carousel in the background of what proved to be an actual photograph, then second realizing this was a scene from Horseshoe Bay near where I was brought up.

I'd visited that carousel, which boasted chariots pulled by carved and brightly painted pegasi and griffons, with snarling dragons you could perch on, and a magically flaming phoenix who held a carriage in its claws that every foal wanted to ride. I recognized the mare's resemblance to Lady Horseshoe Bay, Widow Dowager Duchess Calm Seas. I had likely entertained her at least once at Sire's Hollow—and forgot doing so.

I remembered the Lady's warning, delivered by Moon Dancer: "Celestia's nephew can be surprising and it would behoof you to learn why." The why part was inscrutable; the surprising part seemed true enough.

I said, "I will have to visit there again." Unvoiced, I was asking, Who's that?

"All the prince's memories are precious. That's..."

Into a pause that lengthened uncomfortably, I said, "The Flying Horses Carousel. Near where I was born. I was brought up in Sire's Hollow in the piedmont that's a day's gallop from that beach. I went on an outing at the beginning of each season. I got to ride that once. I even rode the Phoenix Carriage. Though I tried for the brass ring and missed it, I remember crackle and blaze of the cold fire. It me want to learn more magic. I guess I do have a few happy memories hidden in the darkness." I tapped my head.

"No wonder your emotions spiked, looking at that picture."

I turned to him, looking into his earnest blue eyes. On impulse, I shimmied, writhing to the left in a short approximation of our dance earlier.

He mirrored it to the right, causing me to shiver with remembered delight. I pointed out, "We seem to be particularly in-tune tonight."

"I am good at reading emotions."

"Which is what makes you good at your job? Or at bridling the fillies—"

"Ms. Starlight!" he huffed, looking hurt, slightly insulted.

"Sorry." I looked away. "I'm not the most trusting pony."

"I understand. Everything you do strikes me here." He tapped a hoof to his heart. "I want to learn everything about you, to understand enough to become you. You fascinate me."

I fascinate him? "You know how to say the right things," and how to make my heart speed in anticipation.

"I work at it."

"But you're not a good kisser—"

"80% grade isn't good?"

I blinked at him. "Uh, above average?" Did he remember my every word?

"I can do much better," he insisted. "I am very good at learning. Teach me. I'll lay a wager that I can achieve a 100% under your tutelage."

"You are a brazen arrogant son of a dragon, Your Royal Highness. What do you get should you win?"

"Anything you want."

"That's... what?" My heart skipped. "Okay, you sneaky colt. What do I get if I win?"

He surged forward, kissing me before I could react. Not that I planned on running. Quite the opposite.

Ohhh! Good student! My lips tingled, then the rest of me. Were four legs enough to keep a pony standing? Each thing I demonstrated, he mirrored, then tuned it rapidly into something that took my breath away. Conceding he'd won the wager only by my actions, I pushed him toward an overstuffed sofa, but he led me by the lips to an adjacent more practical room.

He wasn't bluffing when he said I could teach him. I learned more about myself than I'd ever thought I'd learn, because he had an uncanny ability to sense what I preferred, even when I tried something different or guessed it might be fun.

He earned that 100% grade.

As far as the wager went, we both won.

†A Mérens is a type of French horse, so Clod Mérens from Prance is a ponyfication of Claude Monet from France, who painted the famous, on topic, Hay Stacks series. From The Runaway Bodyguard, Starlight is a fan of impressionist paintings because, like her, what you see from a distance is not what you see up close.

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 a nightmare. You find yourself somewhere where you don't belong. And you recognize it's not where you want to be.

I remembered a stallion, but forgot his name. He played my body like a cello, when I didn't even know I had strings that could sound so melodiously. The soft bed. The primal sounds. The scent of cinnamon, split through a magical prism into a spectrum no unicorn could comprehend...

I reached with my hooves to catch what fled, but I couldn't move them.

I couldn't move!

As in the worst of dreams, the best of delights changed—

Memory fragmented—the images, the what-had-been-perfect—left a sense of a wonder exchanged for a reality of things forever forgotten.

Calm snuck in like a thief in the night, to anesthetize me, even as palpable wrongness congealed. I fought. I fought being controlled. I fought being drugged because... that's what it felt like... and I always fought.

In a snap of horrifying clarity, my world turned dim monochromatic emerald green. I blinked into the dim glow, at clear globules that lazily floated past.

Bubbles?

I became cognizant that my head pounded. My weight rested suspended on my rear legs and hips, pulling tendons and muscles. Blood rushed downward, throbbing, pulsing in my ears. My sinuses congested. Worse, something snaked up my nose. In my mouth, I noticed something equally horrible, square, corrugated, and hard. With my tongue, I rubbed and pressed furiously but it wouldn't move. My throat spasmed. Worry rushed in. Don't gag.

Don't.

Please don't.

I was supposed to be asleep. Anesthetized, I gathered.

I manifestly was not.

If I lost the fight, I'd surely inhale—

Did the tube go into my lungs? Stomach?

Both?

I could only squirm as I realized other openings had merited invasion.

I bit down. The tube crinkled like shrimp shells despite its rubberiness. I pressed down with my front teeth. My jaws ached, but I couldn't bite through.

I breathed; thick and viscous; not air!

No, not drowning. Not drowning. Not drowning... Not drowning...!

...Nightmare.

Of course it was.

Why did my subconscious whip me like this? Did I believe that I was so undeserving that I needed to torment myself? I'd found happiness, arguably friendship—undeniable pleasure.

I'd learned this about myself—that I could find these things.

My magic(!)—forgotten, suddenly remembered: I pressed against a tremendous mental weight—

Not realizing—

No splendors of magic!

Blue and purple phosphenes blinded me. Pain thrust blue-white jags through my eyes like hot needles, and a migraine bloomed. I'd lost my connection to the magic pulse. All my splendors, drained away.

Not. Possible.

You can break out of a nightmare, right? Right? When you realize it is one. Right? This was one.

Right?

What else could it be?

I felt like I'd never be happy again.

"Let me go!" I screamed, a scream that sounded only in my mind. My voice did not work in the green nightmare. Vocal cords didn't work when drowned in liquid.

The green, fragments of what I'd lost, the lack of control—it pressed in, crushing me.

Because.

I gasped awake.

I flailed my legs, splashing warm water with my rear hooves, hitting a tile wall with my right forehoof and something softer with my left.

"Oof!" a pony cried, but was fast and grabbed me before I could back-hoof him with a return sweep.

He released my leg instantly, as if he'd trespassed.

I'd woken in a humid room that smelled heavily of honey. I lay on my back floating in a porcelain slipper tub. Tan travertine tile lined the walls with wavy lines of rust color, interspersed with gold accents. Somepony had lit a dozen fat candles to illuminate the room with flickering light that cast mesmerizing shadows. Sitting beside the tub sat Blueblood, his golden hair limper than usual.

Soap foam dripped from his chin. It explained much.

Moisture glistened across the lower rim of his eyes. Unless he had experienced my dream, those could not be tears. Likely soap in his eyes. He blinked even now.

I remembered the green nightmare.

Why? The only redeeming aspect of a nightmare was that you forgot it moment you woke!

I shuddered, then hugged myself in a shiver that made it to my lips with a burr.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

I studied those eyes. Multiple flames made his irises resemble smoothly ground sapphire, glinting with clear concern as they shifted, taking me in, looking for hurt. I sniffed the air. The candles were honey-scented, but something exuded cinnamon. Him. That made me remember what he'd done, all he'd learned, and what he'd taught me I could feel.

That simple four letter word, feel, did no justice to those sensations. I put my right hoof to my heart. Internal thunder grew, overwhelming my nightmare memories as my breathing grew rapid. I couldn't blush more because I lay in tub of hot sudsy water. My heart expanded to touch my ribs. It felt that way. It was as if my reactions worked overtime to counter the worry in his face; I expanded with relief and remembered joy.

I whispered (huskily, because what I felt took over my vocal cords): "Very much okay."

I directed all the intangible and indescribable overflowing in me—at him.

He staggered, despite sitting. His hooves slipped and skittered from under him, clicking against the grout. He teetered, unbalanced, his chin descending toward the cast-iron porcelain-encased tub.

I thrust myself forward, ejecting a great wave of soapy water as I twisted to catch him in a hug. I banged my ribs. Suds flew through the air. Candles hissed out, or doused themselves splashing into the tub to float and bob. The scent of paraffin combined with the honey, cinnamon, and soap.

He weighed... quite a bit more than me, so I quickly rested him on the edge, steadying him, studying his stunned features as I blurted, "Are you insane?"

"You fill me up," he said.

That again. I didn't understand—or maybe didn't want to understand. The implication exceeded friendship. It implied love— "But, but! Are-are you ok?"

He nodded once, blinked twice, then finally hooked his front hooves over the edge of the tub. His hooves splashed in. His mane dripped. "What's Equish for beyond ok?"

I grabbed with a hoof on either side of his head and kissed him as deeply as I could, employing everything we'd learned that we liked.

He breathed heavily and moaned. While he reciprocated better than I expected, it did not revive him to the extent that he took over. Was he rattled? Had I done something wrong? Why was he worried?

In the end, my mind decided that he humored me in some way.

I asked, "Are you alright?"

"You fill me beyond full."

I grinned. He wanted another kiss! I said, "Then give me back all that I've given you, you foal!"

"Can I do that?"

"Sure you can. Share it all with me!" I ordered, tilting my head and closing my eyes in expectation he'd kiss me.

Instead, a flood of magic pressed against me. Pulsing pink and white light blinded me, even through my eyelids, rumbling through the bathroom and rattling the apothecary jars, glasses, and the flower vase on the sink. I squinted and that didn't help, reflexively hugging the stallion, splashing more water. I hit my hips to keep from toppling over, but got myself repositioned so I hugged him more firmly despite the brightness, despite the magic.

As the magic streamed through me, only then did I realize it came from him.

Whatever the magic was, it felt good.

I hugged harder and heard a crisp plink, like the pop of a delicate glass Hearths Warming Eve ornament made when it broke. Then...

Silence.

I shook myself awake; I'd momentarily drifted away. I held Blueblood. The darkness of the night had returned—except for the greenish negative afterimages of his pink flare, the flicker of four candles on the sink that had survived the tub tsunamis, and the drip-drip-drip of splashed bath water from a tub now scattered with red rose petals.

"I did that," he murmured.

"You did that," I said, petting the side of his neck because I wanted to assure myself he really was there, before rubbing my frog along the line of his jaw, and finally feeling his very sharp horn—mostly to check if it were hot. I grinned and smirked at the same time. "Too bad I didn't catch the numbers in that little magic storm you unleashed." I shivered, remembering, smiling. "That gift of magic you gave me, it would make even the worst day better."

"I—I did... what you asked. I had hoarded every little bit of what I got from you. I know that now. I shared, like you told me to, something I was told I could not—must never do. I gave it all away, but now..."

His voice cracked, then caught. He blinked. As I watched a tear run down his cheek, my feelings for him doubled, then doubled again.

"...it's coming back!"

"Of course it is, silly colt" I laughed, feeling an uncanny truth falling into place. "It's something I'm learning, too. Ponies are like this, apparently. They give and other ponies give in return."

"That's... extraordinary!"

"Here's some more—!" I splashed more water as I hugged him, kissed his cheeks, his nose, then his lips (with a nibble) once again.

When he pulled back and I relaxed into the water, a grin grew over his muzzle. He said, "I think I would like to share some more."

Blue nebulosity pulsed around his horn and I floated into the air, dripping water and suds that splatted on the floor. He trotted us both toward the adjacent room.

"I'm wet!" I squealed and mock flailed.

"That's even better!"

We'd both fallen asleep in our exhaustion. The bed was moist, and somewhat cold, but neither of us cared. The sheets smelled of pony sweat. Mine, and his. Honey wafted in from the humidity of the adjacent bath. Cinnamon lingered. Barely perceptibly.

I'd woken, having slept minutes or maybe an hour, I didn't know. We lay head to tail, and he felt warm as I shimmied carefully closer, not wanting to disturb the gentle hiss of his somnolent breathing.

Tonight put all my previous experiences with stallions in a different perspective. I had to process that.

Later. Riding was a part of everypony's life. I needed that perspective.

Moonlight streamed through a far window. Candles flickering from the bathroom added light, illuminating his compass cutie mark. I'd had mine for two whole days now! He may have had his longer than I'd been alive. Deep inside, I loathed them. They warped pony minds, locked them into unchanging behaviors, and made ponies unequal. Cutie Marks were a scourge for all ponykind. I now knew that they could be cursed, removed, and switched between ponies if you understood how.

Yet, looking at his very handsome flank, with the compass design on his haunch, I could not help but wonder: How did it make him feel? Had its inception changed him? Why did marks look so unlike any other animal coloration? Shouldn't they be spots, or stripes, or gradients?

Impulsively, I reached over and lightly kissed the mark, feeling his fur tickle my lips. It felt like most every other part of him. Well not his hooves, lips, or—I coughed. I kissed a few more places, the top and the center and beside it, until the skin around it twitched and his breathing changed.

I stopped and smirked.

What did it mean to him?

I'd gotten my cutie mark when I'd realized I could look into and manipulate the magical organ. For me, and for me alone, cutie marks spoke their secrets.

Why not? I thought.

I reached in with my magic and asked—

Nothing! Nothing there!

I stifled my gasp, a hoof over my mouth.

I carefully sat up, not jostling the bed. I pushed my magic in, slowly, ensuring everything was correctly calculated and efficiently cast.

No cutie mark.

He was a blank flank!?

No way!

I thrust my magic into my own haunch to compare. I sensed my mark's ticking determination to drive me to transform what it considered abominations, as clear as the pale blue light outside the window came from the moon.

Prince Blueblood had no cutie mark. Was this the secret the duchess suggested I discover?

I cast a third level Illuminate spell as a 45° daylight-colored spotlight sprite to closely examine the mark; the magical organ looked real; I extinguished it.

I waved my horn back and forth. I sensed lingering magic, but the maths felt intrinsic. Pegasi cast Aerial Buoyancy intrinsically with their wings to fly. I had seen the numbers, but I had needed to use a version of Flowing Water's medical spell to see deeply enough into Streak's spine and flight muscles to discover that fact.

What did I sense here? An illusion? Could it be a tattoo? Not that: It colored his fur and fur grew out.

I took a moment to sniff him. He did smell a little different than earlier this evening. I was glad he didn't wake. I wanted to memorize his scent. I wanted to identify it on myself. I grinned when I found it on my haunch, before climbing out of bed.

In the study, I picked up my aperitif from the conversation table. The apricot tasted top-notch and warmed my throat. I lit my horn wanly, not wanting to ruin the pleasant gothic darkness of the house.

I saw the stairs and remembered the pink pony prancing down them. An icebox in an attic? I went up, thoughts of Firefall returning. One stair creaked.

I halted, heart racing. His bodyguards had finally seemed menacing. Which, of course, they should—when appropriate.

Silly filly! I chided myself. Leave, already! I had school tomorrow. I had that 7 AM appointment at his suite. Probably not a good idea to bring up the riding part if he doesn't, I thought. Nope.

After school? Maybe? I grinned.

Go home. Get some rest.

I continued up. Simple white paint finished the plain wood door. A utility area for servants.

I pushed the lever.

It didn't move.

Locked.

That wasn't suspicious, right? It wasn't suspicious that I reached into my messenger bag and found a hair pin. I could move the tumblers in the lock with my magic, but the straight metal helped me sense through my teeth what moved so I could turn the cylinder.

I'd been in the mob. Run it at one point. When a burglar on staff offered to teach, I'd taken her up on it.

I wasn't doing something suspicious when the lock clicked faintly, right?

I opened the door to the warm, dark, low-ceilinged space. No windows. My horn threw more shadows than light because the space was filled with boxes and crates. Dusty cloths covered sofas. Lawn chairs stood stacked to the right. That looked like boxed paintings. Cobwebs laced a few rafters and made my hide tick.

Pony hooves had left trails in the dust in a couple directions. The air smelled musty, and of something else... I widened my nostrils and inhaled. What?

Honey? I sniffed more, then heard a thump behind me.

I spun around, away from the landing. I looked down.

I saw spatters, in one case having made a crater in the dust. Having read a few mystery stories, my mind saw red.

My eyes had not.

I blinked and realized I saw oily drops... that smelled like honey.

Honey-scented oil? I snorted. How patently royal! Honey-scented candles? Honey-scented machine oil? Made sense, I suppose.

I looked up.

No machinery hung suspended above me. Empty rafters.

Where was the icebox they'd slammed around? My ears swiveled.

Had I imagined the sound? Maybe. A little puddle of green glistened further up, where somepony had slid amidst chaotic loops of hoof prints.

A saw a wing mark.

Odd.

More furniture; no icebox.

I stepped further. My ears swiveled. My heart beat faster.

I was spooking myself. Which wasn't how I wanted to end a uniquely special night!

I turned my head, skewing my light about. Shadows pivoted around a pull down ladder to the terrace. It was down.

I climbed carefully to the hatch not wanting to slip and bark my chin, wake the prince, then have a lot of explaining to do. I rotated the latch and popped my head into the cool night air.

The moon lit the flat tar and gravel terrace brightly. A breeze played with dewy leaves strewn around the clearly unused pegasus access way. I glanced at the orb that dominated the sky, squinting and letting the mare on its surface become the Mare in the Moon.

I was one of the few ponies alive that knew that specific lunar feature was the essence of Celestia's adopted sister Luna imprisoned to serve a thousand-year sentence. In 601 days, she'd roar back, intent on destroying the world.

Firefall had undoubtedly launched herself from here without disturbing the leaf litter. A nearby oak rustled. I looked, my senses heightened.

The breeze. Naught to see. I shivered. I stood in a moat of darkness, my hindquarters exposed to the unseen below.

I dogged the hatch.

Submerged again in the creepy attic darkness, I waited for my eyes to adjust. From my higher perch, I looked around.

Some rounded, suspended shapes caught my eye. When I looked, they resembled pony-sized bags of beans, but weren't muslin. My magic light glinted off them, demonstrating they were darkly colored.

I almost cast a sprite that way but stopped myself. What was with me tonight? Snooping?

If I were to have a chance at a relationship...

Did I really think the word relationship!?

I retreated down the ladder. I stepped into a cold puddle of the honey oil, reflexively flicking it off. I felt justified wiping my hoof on a furniture cover.

I swiftly exited the attic. I used the pin to re-lock the door—since it had a key-lock on both sides, avoided the creaky stair—then left the house as swiftly and silently as I could.

The prince was a big colt. He wasn't going into an emotional tailspin because I left without saying goodbye or leaving a note.

I had kissed him. His flank. His blank flank. I giggled, pleased in oh so many ways.

Firefall didn't greet me when I shut the front door after myself. The lock snicked closed. I saw trees, shadowed buildings, gas streetlights flickering, and no pony on the street.

The Prince's bodyguards weren't here? After the stink they'd made? Firefall's absence worried me more. Had she gone off duty, I'd have expected a replacement. I would bring that up tomorrow.

I headed toward the castle.

A half a block later, Firefall landed. She asked, "Shouldn't you stay the night with the prince?"

I asked archly, "Were you looking in the window?"

"I— " She flared her auburn wings, face darkening. "Um— Of course not!"

I looked at her and she wasn't her usual crisp self. I smelled an indefinite sweet scent about her, then realized she'd gotten spiced vegetable bread in her armor.

I asked, "Any suspicious ponies around? Other than me?"

"Uh, no."

"Go back to the castle. I was the predator on these streets two days ago. I can take care of myself."

"The prince?"

"Is sleeping. That's an order. Go!"

She fluttered off. Had I trained her, she would have refused that order.

I trotted, shaking my head, now really alone—except for hoof traffic I encountered on Castle Way Blvd. It might not even be midnight, yet. For a moment, I thought about Teleport, but sleepiness and the numbers not balancing in my head convinced me it was a waste to try. Illuminate was about my speed right now. Besides which, I'd miss a serene night.

I thought about the prince sleeping on the bed, instead.

I smiled.

I thought of our dinner, the otter dance, the dessert, and the extraordinary events in the townhouse. I briefly regretted snooping... but I'd gotten away with it.

What I wasn't sure about was the revolution in my thought processes. I couldn't feel a connection to Blueblood? Could I? It made no sense. Considering how strongly I felt about Citron... this was rapidly becoming confusing, and I felt my thoughts tangling up as my face heated.

Yesterday at the coronation, I'd seen Sprinter, an EBI stallion with whom I'd shared a hotel bed for a couple of days, with all the benefits. I'd seen Sunburst, also, for the first time in a decade. Unlike Sprinter, I'd never ridden my foal-hood "friend," but had certainly wanted to marry him. A decade ago.

I should have ignored the duchess' request!

The guards at the gate let me through the portcullis with a simple, "Good evening, Ms. Glimmer."

If they smelled the prince on me, as unlikely as that might be, at least they had the decency not to mention it.

I nodded at the guard flying by Sunset's ivory tower. The grey night wing nodded back. I pushed open the door cautiously.

The hinge creaked.

I cringed and pushed faster, which resolved the issue but not the echo. The half-light revealed a brass umbrella stand, a mirrored changing bench, and an ornate red fainting couch. Sunset had dragged it over a few days ago. Laying on it, she'd moaned in the throws of withdrawals, guilting, wheedling to take her to a supplier of nettle ewe she deduced I knew. Addict's logic. I'd "broken," with plenty of dragon tears, to convince her she had control. I would use her to cut down Boss Running Mead and had needed her to suspect nothing. He had threatened her. To protect her and force her to find help, I'd arranged a sting operation.

I needed to set that couch on fire and throw it out a window.

I sniffed. Cooking, not burning furniture. Midnight. A stair spiraled up toward a light. Sizzling sounds. The smell of garlic, oregano, olive oil...

Somepony was cooking... Salernitano food? Not Sunset. Her idea of dinner was reservations, and her food never smelled good.

Two sets of hooves: Walking. At least they weren't riding each other. Loudly. My skin turned hot remembering an hour ago. Wasn't sure if I'd been similarly loud.

A thump sounded behind me.

A punked-out Streak had landed in the doorway, her ear and body rings jangling as she furled her wings. She wore her stuffed messenger bag and the silver compact camera she'd used working part time for the Canterlotter. Hurricane's armor snaked over her back. Suddenly I understood how the royal guard wore plate armor all day: Embedded magic! Duh.

Anypony who could dispel embedded magic would devastate Celestia's army. I'd have to discuss that—

Streak scuffed her hooves on the mat and trotted in. "Saw you on the way home. Looked so wrapped up in thought, decided not to disturb ya."

My face colored.

She smiled, nodding. "Went to my apartment in the News Building and developed my pictures from our battle with Princess Celestia." She sang, "Got some compromising show-and-tell!" She grinned widely. "Caught hero shots of both you and Citron, with cursed flames roaring around the princess."

Horseshoes clattered on the stairs, making my thoughts implode. I flashed on the prince and me; thinking of Sunset and Citron doing the same made my tail stiffen. I didn't, couldn't, face them. Tinkling magic enchanted the lanterns into a dusky yellow glow. My ears swiveled, following their progress.

Sunset said, "We've so much to talk about!" Her voice sounded excited. No pain of withdrawals coloring her tone. No resentment for the compromising position I'd tricked her into in the sting operation.

Of course she had lots to talk about!

I hadn't thought of Citron as her first stallion, but after listening to Streak's reporting, I suspected he was. Certain details (perhaps all details) were too much information. Memory of her sleeping snug to my stomach, flashed through my head. Another of Citron stepping up, putting a hoof under my chin, and kissing me deep into my soul galloped after it, causing my tail to stiffen once again. I thought how well the Prince had performed after I'd taught him what I liked. Citron had experienced many teachers. It totally left him competitive...

Sunset stopped behind me. "Starlight?"

I inhaled sharply, so emotionally discombobulated that I feared how I would react seeing her gold and red maned-self flank and flank with lemon-meringue pie-colored Citron. I was merely a filly, wasn't I? Still a teenager for a year or so.

Instinct urged me to run. I knew better.

I turned.

Yes. There they were. Next to each other.

She had that special happy expression I'd worked so hard on the way here to wipe off my face. Her green eyes sparkled, as did his amber ones. He alone wore clothing: a tomato sauce-stained apron. His effort had been the source of the delicious smells. Still, he snugged his flank against hers. None of that "polite" distance ponies usually kept, even couples. Honest intimacy looked like this.

What had the prince and I looked like?

I hadn't been honest. With myself, least of all.

Sunset's mouth opened; her face paled. "Starlight! You're hurt."

Her horn lit with a green aura as she moved my head side to side. Her father had fixed my broken nose, again, but with the makeup washed off she saw new bruises because she paid attention to detail. She pursed her lips. I followed her gaze and touched my glued ear. Yep. No longer glued. Parts of the split had flopped opposite directions. A drop of blood smeared my frog and it stung.

The bath had unglued it. Probably. I knew nothing about medical glues. Or why I'd been in a bath, for that matter.

The prince hadn't cared how I looked, nor that I was wet as he carried me to his bed.

I'd left my cloak in the Prince's downtown apartment, which oddly left me feeling undressed. Ponies didn't normally wear clothing. We hadn't certainly, doing as we had.

I blushed.

"Have you put antiseptic on that?" She dragged me toward the washroom. I went all deer-in-the-lantern-light as Citron shrugged and grinned—some bodyguard he was! "Seriously, Starlight, sometimes I feel like your Mom or... or something! Have you always been this violent?"

The sting operation had introduction her to my Grimoire persona and my gangland past. In Canterlot, I'd separated my classroom life from my life being blackmailed into becoming an enforcer—because I'd been far worse, enough to earn my extraordinary royal pardon. The colts and fillies at Celestia's, including the school's alpha mare Sunset Shimmer, knew me only as a talented and especially bookish filly. Being Sunset's friend provided effective camouflage, letting me dodge questions about where I lived, or how I could afford my tuition.

Had I always been this violent?

Had I always been this violent!?

"My parents are dead. Killed. Thanks to Celestia," I said.

Sunset dropped the iodine with a whinny. The purple bottle bounced on the rug. For Citron and Streak, their death was old news.

"Until two days ago, I thought that. My mother's magical misfire and disappearance were certainly due to a head injury as Celestia's spy. My father is likely a prisoner of one of the mob families running Salerno, a hostage for the Doñas to hold against Celestia, and not dead. Hopefully. But. That's how I've lived since I was a foal—thinking my parents dead."

Sunset's eyes widened. She understood, intimately, for different reasons, because she'd been abandoned on the street before she could talk. Dr. Flowing Water was the only father she knew; Celestia had tamed her from a feral foal and was arguably the only mother she knew. Fraught described that relationship. "I'd loved my parents and then, one day, somepony told me they'd been murdered.

"I ran away when I could be mistaken as adult.

"Weeks later, on a drenching rainy day, I passed a big red earth pony on the road to Fillydelphia. The stallion struck me unconscious and stole what I freely shared an hour ago. I woke, dragged through the mud. I remember his words as he psyched himself up to murder me, that my mere act of breathing polluted the world.

"I learned violence, first hoof. I discovered magic could save me. I fought. I fought. I learned I could fight. Violently. I learned I need never be chattel again. I set him on fire!" I bellowed.

I stood there shaking with anger, huffing, confused. My skin burned so hotly it ought have set my fur aflame. Tears streamed down my cheeks. "He was my first stallion!"

Were I them, I'd have run from the crazy pony. I jerked as the intent to gallop away whipped my muscles into motion. Fractions of a second later, I might have built up the momentum to barrel them all over and run and keep running.

I loved to fight. I loved the violence I wrought and how I could save ponies with it. The foundation of it, of my life, was fundamentally twisted in an act of evil.

Sunset tackled me and turned it into a hug. "Starlight, oh, Starlight! I didn't know!"

Citron hugged me, too, strongly, and that felt really good; moments later Streak's wings wrapped around us all.

They said many soothing things. I shuddered and shook and cried. I didn't deserve this love, any more than that weird heart-expanding emotion I felt being with the prince. I had no choice but to endure. Something inside insisted I soak it all in—and... relaxing slowly, I did.

The soft words from a new pony's mouth cut through everything. I heard them because, growing up, a certain stallion's voice had made my life as difficult as living in Tartarus.

Proper Step said with devastating sincerity, "It's all my fault. I am so sorry."

Everypony heard it. They let me lever myself up to face my former butler, now my chargé d'affairs. The brown and black stallion collapsed to his knees, his head bowed. "I cannot morally beg your forgiveness. I verbally tender my resignation so I may leave your sight forever."

I blinked at him. Then it clicked. "You sent the red stallion?!"

"No! Celestia, no!" He would not look at me though, only the carpeted floor. "I let you run away. The princess counseled me you'd run that year if you had the mettle to become somepony great. When you ran, I thought, no, I'd better find her. She's only a filly. Despite the princess' order, I had raised you, mind and body. I knew better. I—I nevertheless issued the order that if you were found to let you get away. Fire Feather found you in Canterlot, but pretended not to see you. I am responsible for you being savaged. I've failed my basic duty as a stallion, let alone being a halfway decent pony."

My throat constricted. I wobbled, shaking. "I hated you. I hated you!" Tears streamed, rolling from my cheeks down my neck. "But you made me all I'd become. You and the tutors taught me everything, including the determination I used to defeat the Monster. To defeat all the monsters. To defeat the evil that infected Celestia. If we now have a chance to save the world, you are responsible for making that possible."

He said, "I disagree."

I stomped a hoof. "I need you. I don't accept your resignation! Celestia wouldn't let me if I did."

He stood there, knees bent, trembling, an example of pony turned insane by a cutie mark and stallion pride. I added, "We will talk this through, but I can't right now." I trembled, sitting involuntarily. Who knew being emotional could be so tiring? "Talk to your father." Celestia's majordomo. "Tell him everything, anything. You should. If they don't understand how their tool works and its modes of failure, how can they use it properly?"

He nodded, likely perceiving it a royal order. He stood not looking at me, trotted to the door, and left.

An instant later, my friends bowled me over in another group hug. Of course they did. I had friends, though I didn't understand the concept, nor did I trust it.

Later that night, we all slept in Sunset's huge bed. We should have changed the gold satin sheets. They smelled of a day's worth of after. I hoped it hid the prince's scent on me; I wanted that solely for myself. The breezes from the opened balcony doors helped. The moon lit the castle ramparts and onion domes beyond. We slept piled together, all trying to keep me warm and feeling safe. No riding was involved.

I didn't sleep well, but I did feel safe. I began to understand what it meant to be loved.

Rather than wake everypony clopping around the trotting track on the gym level, I let myself out early. I'd fought Celestia in the Mistmane Botanical Garden in the southern quarter of the castle grounds the day she'd chosen not to raise the sun.

My fault.

Celestia's petulance, but I'd precipitated the episode by telling her no. Predawn had lit the garden all day.

I trotted along now sunlit paths paved with red and purple bowtie pavers. The pavilion complex was roped off with yellow warning ribbon. Between Celestia using her sun powers to burst into flames and being forced to fry Streak and I, along with Citron's pyro-pony tendencies, the building lay in heaps of charred wood rafters, flooring, and collapsed singed green tiles. Though doused, wisps of smoke curled up. It smelled like a fireplace. Two of the twelve pavilions looked salvageable.

Beyond the ornamental shrubs, I trotted to a grapevine-covered pergola. Celestia, playing mind games, had arranged for me to meet Citron again after a year apart. He'd stepped out of the opposite end of the vine-covered structure. I wanted to see the devastation he'd wrought there. The tunnel was green despite the late season—The Running of the Leaves was soon—few of the big leaves had reddened.

It bathed me in green light.

Green light...? My hackles rose.

Cold sweat condensed on my coat, despite the reassuring clatter of my hooves and the fresh breeze. The green nightmare flooded back. I trotted faster. I remembered hanging upside down in a green sack of goo, as if I'd really experienced it. Thank Celestia, the awful dream hadn't been real; such experiences left scars. The green nightmare was another reason for my young brain to throw PTSD fits—to remind me that being a bad pony had consequences that scared the horse apple out of me. I didn't run or whimper, or let the ring in my ears grow louder, or let the white glare pulsing at the edge of my sight consume me.

Waking in a bubble bath had shoved the nightmare from my mind. I grasped desperately for memories of soapy warmth, foamy bubbles, and sensuously floating in a honey-scented tub, before seeing the prince's concerned face and smelling his cinnamon cologne. My panic faded. I was wide awake, after all. I was in control.

Why had he put me in the bath while I slept? I didn't know. I'd have to ask the stallion.

Garden engineers had removed the final twenty pony lengths of the path. All the ornamental grasses were pulled, the ground tilled to dark soil. I pouted. Citron had fought a delaying battle against Celestia for my benefit. He'd set the tall grass, the pergola, and the shrubs on fire.

Only a sea pony fountain remained. Four rust-stained alabaster specimens danced on a finned tails. Wide mouths would have spit water had the fountain not been under repair. Setting things on fire was my pyro-pony's cutie mark talent. I'd wanted to judge his ability under stress, thus the pout. None of his craftwork remained, only the faint scent of fireplace and a sign:

Gardens and parks interested me only as a place lay in the grass to read, or to graze on the lawns when lacking bits. I appreciated the acres of roses. Red and pink were obviously the princess' favorite; plenty of yellow and greenish-white blooms. I appreciated the culinary roses best, and snapped off a few acidic rose hips, carefully avoiding the thorns. Hungry now, I felt entitled to one of the spicy brown sunflower seed-heads up ahead. I'd dealt with Celestia's petulance standing amongst them the day before.

The plant didn't want to part with it, so I used the jackknife I'd won from a combative "fire-breathing" dragonette of a gang earth pony. I'd tricked Mustang into running headfirst into a brick wall.

The ivory weapon (made of real age-yellowed bone) snicked open when I touched the metal tab. The bread plate-sized bloom cut loose as if butter. I clicked the blade closed and threw it in my messenger bag. I walked away, chomping it in my magic. The immature seeds and petals made it a complete crunchy breakfast.

My 7 AM appointment approached as I curved out of the gardens, dropping the sunflower in a handy compost bin. Ballrooms hulked on the left and the residence, my destination, on the right.

I walked to cool down. Didn't want to visit the prince being too sweaty—only enough to remind him of last night. I swayed a little bit, remembering the otter dance, and another dance we'd thrown ourselves into with abandon.

Leaving the back entrance to the dining rooms, I spotted something pink.

Not pink with a periwinkle mane. Not Singe. Not that lucky.

No. Pink with purple-tipped wings and a horn of six turns as sharp as Celestia's. The Princess of Love—the second Equestrian alicorn—who was so insignificant that, like the prince, I'd not learned about her until the procession at my coronation. I'd been waiting Celestia's pleasure on the sidelines when she'd locked eyes with me, like she wanted to challenge me to a duel—while escorting her plus one, Shining Armor.

Oh, colts! I'd beat up her coltfriend!

I dodged left into the cover of a row of birch trees. Meager cover. Widely spaced. Compounding it, it and I were illuminated by the sun rising over the castle ramparts.

She flew the thirty pony lengths toward me, followed by somepony in brass armor—Twilight Sparkle's brother by the blue-streaked mane poked through the helmet, and the similar tail swishing with annoyance. His tan pants hid his new oversized, involuntarily borrowed, solar cutie mark. A gold lieutenant bar glittered on his collar.

She alighted without dipping into a curtsy, glaring at me with compressed lips—until her purple eyes met mine. One thing to have murderous thoughts about thrashing a common nopony cur at a royal court event. Another thing when you knew what she'd become.

I sighed, stepping from the shadows of the thin, black-striated white-barked trunks. My lavender coat made hiding ludicrous, anyway. I leaned against a tree, crossing my fore and rear legs while queuing Levitate, not letting it light my horn. Squinting into the sun, I met her eyes.

The breeze tussled the blond, red, and purple hair in her mane to play around her little teacup crown. Her irises pulsed. Her breathing increased. Perspiration formed around her horn, alive with a nebula of blue-green magic shades bluer than mine.

Proper Step had briefed me that she'd been a peasant villager from northwestern Salerno on the border with Prance. She'd been elevated into the aristocracy in her middle school years.

Pressure built for her to curtsy, what I called the puppet reflex. The imagined force pressed on her withers. Peer and social pressure ran the pony under the harshest taskmaster: Her own mind. Which, unlike me, she had not learned to master and ignore: After Celestia and I had come to blows, I'd sworn I'd never bow to her again.

Of course, I was a bad pony, certifiably criminal, and arguably evil.

It might have been amusing to simply walk away. I did have an appointment. I sighed, feeling twinges of that social pressure thing.

I sighed and chose to say, "I credit you for keeping a spell in your horn."

She blinked. I could see her mind going alternately from the realization she had stepped a hoof into it, to picking up a branch from the gardener's pile, as her aura clearly telegraphed, and beating me bloody with it. Identified, I could easily duck it. Her numbers were not in Celestia's league, but strong and simplified in a recognizably alicorn way.

She said, "P-Princessa Celestia eats her morning crépès i-in the dining room. Hurry and you can meet her before s-she departs."

She'd lived in Equestria for seven years. Her stiff elocution and especially her accent, a mixture of Prench and Salernitano, still identifiably blurred her consonants and softened her vowels. Hers resembled that of the owner of One Fell Swoop who came from a region called Provence.

I huffed. "Not interested in having breakfast, Princess Mi Amoré Cadenza. Already ate."

"Mais, mais...!" The alicorn fought the same slip into her native language Carne Asada, an Equidoran, had fought when angered or pressured. "I shall not let you cast a spell on Shining Armor!"

"Right. The daily spell." Mark Swap. Celestia bore Shining's purple shield cutie mark. He bore her cursed solar one. I had to cast the spell daily on either Shining or Celestia to keep them swapped—to save Equestria from eternal night and, by extension, me from a fiery death. It didn't matter on which pony; it was contagious magic. The longest interval to keep the escapement codicil safely ticking was a little more than 22 hours, though with practice I hoped to push it to 24 hours. I'd forgotten about the spell; fat chance I'd admit that to Cadance.

Two plus two equals: "Celestia sent your little Shiny so I could cast on him?"

She flared her wings. "No, no, no..."

"Why?" I pressed her.

"You hurt Shining Armor. I do not trust you!"

"Not trusting me demonstrates your intelligence, unlike another princess I know. However, I've an appointment in a few minutes with the prince—"

She gasped, fluttering closer. Feathers akimbo, she spoke in a strained whisper, glancing back at her approaching beau. "Stay away!"

"From—?"

"Blueblood. Et, et, Shining!"

"Is he your riding partner?" I asked sweetly, loud enough that the husky white pony's ears perked.

She pawed the ground with a hoof as her cheeks turned cherry red. His, tellingly, did not.

Um, have I discovered something? She'd mentioned Shining. I calculated they were 20 or 21. Still dating? She'd also warned against the prince. Had she had some private "interaction" with him?

Shining Armor sighed, shaking his head.

She glanced back at her coltfriend, then all but spat at me, saying, "Good morning, Princess Starlight Glimmer." As I tensed at her using titles for me, she added, "Will you kick me now?"

She was baiting me; probably thinking if I lashed out at her, Shining Armor would avoid me.

"Please, call me Ms. Glimmer," I said calmly, then took a deep breath. "Celestia decreed I may kick any pony who addresses me with the P-word, any titles really, which you know full well—even inaccurate ones like that. While you succeeded in insulting me as I rudely insulted you and Shining Armor—and I apologize for that—expect some day, nevertheless, to be duly kicked."

"Please, please," Shining armor said, nervously chuckling. "Ms. Glimmer, Cadance."

She kept her eyes on me and made a dainty raspberry sound. She lowered her head a hoof length in a minimal bow, her eyes locked in a stare with mine. "Yes, Your Royal Highness."

I rolled my eyes. "Two, Princess Mi Amoré Cadenza, that's two kicks."

"Please, please, Cadance." Shining armor said. "There's a reason—"

I raised a hoof, cutting him off. "Shining Armor's right. There was a reason. May I call you 'Cadance?' Please?" In selling, you always ask something easy to get the customer into the habit of saying the word...

She blinked, then nodded, saying, "Yes," possibly conditioned to be unable to refuse a royal request.

"I attacked him because lives depended on it. I know you are the Princess of Love. Cast a diagnostic spell to determine my friendly intentions." I tilted my head sideways. "Go ahead. Cast it."

Her eyes grew saucer-sized. If she thought I opened myself up to attack, that would be an interesting response. I wanted to see if her magic could hurt me.

She said, "It-it doesn't work that way."

"Can't you render me more friendly?"

"My magic requires two ponies."

I pointed a hoof from her to me.

"No, no, no."

"Well, then, I'll cast my spell on Shining Armor—"

Her aura flashed. A heart shape struck me in the chest like a dart. What numbers I glimpsed in her aura were a whole different category of maths. Some sort of intrinsic magic, like Aerial Buoyancy that pegasi cast innately when flapping their wings, or like Running Mead's foul cutie mark mind-control magic that he could piggy-back on a Levitate spell.

She loved Shining Armor and wanted to protect him. Thinking about it, I sympathized and empathized with how Cadance felt—and my heart opened. I suspected what she felt was a lot like what I felt around Blueblood—warm, arguably fuzzy, and wanting to touch him so badly that I had to be wary lest I do something incredibly embarrassing, mushy, or undignified.

Could you like somepony and not trust them?

Cadance stepped back, blinking. As her mouth opened, her eyes widened. "I-I— This m-makes no sense."

"What?"

She tucked in her lower lip, shaking her head. She waved her horn the same way I would in order to detect the direction of magic, to home in on its source.

I said, "Not enough practice? You attended Celestia's, right?"

"For a few months, but I am not interested the magicks—"

"What? How can a unicorn—an alicorn not be interested in magic?"

"I was born a pegasus."

I sat down hard, bruising my bottom, gaping. I froze up. What did she mean? She was no pegasus... Wait... Celestia had explained something about her sister and necromancy, which, if interpreted counterintuitively, implied that Luna had been made an alicorn using dark magic, which if you thought about it explained perfectly why Luna had decided to destroy the world.

I tilted my head up. The pink alicorn stood above me, frowning and wide-eyed—with Shining Armor to her right, eyebrows up, evaluating his mare-friend's sudden friendly attitude shift.

I asked, "You were made an alicorn?"

She nodded. "I earned my horn. Nopony is born an alicorn."

O-kay. Filing that away!

"Are you a Hero of Equestria? Like my parents were?"

"No. I was born in Salerno, where I reformed an evil sorceress who leached the love from ponies in our village, but that was years ago. About you..." She tilted her head until her lengthy horn touched my stubby one. They clinked, like two ponies toasting with crystal goblets, then sparked.

She gasped and jumped back. Her eyes became watery. She choked up. This wasn't pain. Her face shouted astonishment.

"What?" I asked.

She looked at Shining Armor, her eyes widening as if she had really seen him for the first time, and he fascinated her. Her tail swished slowly as her gaze traveled from his face to his muscular chest, along his armored back, to his covered flank and suddenly stiff tail.

She said, "The spell did not work right." Her breath came in gusts. "Amity... passes the feeling of friendship... from me to two or more ponies, but this is not that."

Her eyes flicked back to his face. She took a few steps, her hindquarters moving closer to him. She caught herself, visibly stifling rubbing against him. She gulped and shook herself.

"Um," Shining said, his face reddening. His muscles twitched. He might have stepped aside, but likely feared he'd insult her. He gulped.

"It is as if I cast Amour instead. Yet... even when I look at Shining—"

Her gaze flicked suddenly to me, spearing me with gleaming intensity. She breathed as if she'd run a race. She continued, "—I know that I do not feel what you feel for somepony."

"What? What do you mean?"

She examined my torn ear and copious bruises, shaking her head. Had she read of my fight with the prince in the newspapers? "My spell bounced off...! No. No, no. It intensified, peut-être... Did you change my spell?"

I shook my head hard.

She shook herself as if shaking off a rain shower. She raised her foreleg level with her throat, pushing her hoof repeatedly outward as if pushing out her agitation and disturbing thoughts, incrementally slowing her breathing while straining not to look at Shining Armor. Her hide ticked at his closeness. She wanted to lead him away and her body telegraphed why.

Nice trick, finding calm that way. I felt... envious.

She continued, "It... It flowed from the more positive pole, you, to the negative pole, me—surprising, like lightning flashing from the ground to the clouds!"

"What flowed?"

"Love," she whispered. "You're overflowing with it."

I snorted, then laughed. "This is why you need to practice magic, daily. It's only a few days ago that I admitted friendship existed, and realized I had friends. And. I got my stupid cutie mark. Still—" I shook my head vigorously "—you're mistaken. I'm Starlight Glimmer! I barely do friendship."

Shining Armor interjected. "You see, Cadance? She's not a bad pony."

I scoffed. "Despite my pardons? Despite my having worked for a mobster?"

He coughed. "Ms. Glimmer had reasons to fight me. I can say this much: Princess Celestia made me Starlight Glimmer's enemy, to entrap her, to keep her from running away. That gave the princess the time she needed to convince Ms. Glimmer to help her."

Cadance gaped.

Eventually, I had helped. It gave us, together, the opportunity save Equestria and possibly the world: 601 days from now—when her sister returned.

Celestia had used him as badly as she had me. He'd endured loyally and, by extension, helped save Equestria, too. That made him one of the good ponies. My heart still open, I reached a hoof to him with a smile. "Call me 'Starlight,' please." I let him pull me up.

He told Cadance, "Starlight did what I would have done."

"But, she broke your bones! She scarred your hindquarters!"

I interrupted. "I protect ponies. You think I wanted any of this? Hurting Shining Armor? The Predicament? The titles? The authority? Celestia won't listen to me!" My horseshoe sparked when I struck the pavers. "Since I was 5, I've told her that! But she," I sneered, "wanted a tool; she insisted on forging one and binding me to her purpose. She has done both. I will be the best tool I can be, but not a doormat."

Cadance blinked. "What tool?"

Oh, colts. She doesn't know!

In my head, I heard her repeat scarred your hindquarters. Shining Armor wore pants. He bore Celestia's cursed mark; he had to avoid mentioning the curse or fighting its purpose, or it would trigger and possess him to prevent him from speaking of it or fighting it. They weren't riding partners, or she'd have seen Celestia's oversized solar cutie mark that was so big it wrapped around from his dock to his stallion parts.

She did not know the 603 day secret.

"A bodyguard," I prevaricated. "She'll live longer than I do, I promise. When we've accomplished our goal, I'll abdicate."

When she heard the A-word, her jaw dropped and would have hit the ground and bounced were that possible. She'd stopped breathing. Shining Armor put a leg over her withers, pulling her close to steady her. Rather cheeky for a guard.

"Look," I continued, "We started off on the wrong hoof. You looked like you wanted to murder me in the throne room. I understand your feelings... So, how about I teach you how to properly thrash me with that stick you were planning on picking up? The first rule of being an effective prizefighter is to learn how not to telegraph a punch. One day you'll be forced to protect somepony you love."

"I'd never do that! Hit somepony."

"Yet, I read the intent in your magic."

In a low voice, she said, "When I feel negative emotions, my special talent magnifies those, the same as it does the positive ones. Mais... but, worse, love magic does not work on one pony." She looked down, dejected.

"Your love magic clearly worked on me. Do you have problems with targeting? Did it give you erroneous feedback? Let's arrange a practice session together." I really wanted some one-on-one time with her casting so I could sense her magic equations. I wanted to how her cutie mark worked. "You and Shining Armor need remedial defense training."

When he glared at me, I added. "Which pony got knocked over and unprofessionally hit his head? Really, I was injured at the time; I flubbed trying to hit you so that wasn't even close to my best effort. You could have rolled. You could have caught me in your magic as I stumbled into you, while you protected your head, and utilized my momentum to throw me across the room!"

Because I really wanted to see Blueblood, to find out the secret of our 7 AM meeting, and I really really didn't want to be late for that, I quickly got them to agree to a play date in the near future. With that "yes," I got Cadance to let me cast the daily spell, albeit under her glaring intense scrutiny.

I was starting to like her.

As I trotted up to the ornate double-doors, I thought about how Cadance became flustered about Blueblood. The prince was a mercurial enigma, and despite the craziness and intimacy of last night, I had no reason to trust him. Like him? Maybe. Be intrigued as all giddy-up? Oh, colts, yes.

I snorted, nevertheless prepping Levitate under the threshold of lighting my horn.

I was late. No guards to announce me, I rapped with a hoof.

It audibly unlatched. The left side creaked as it opened, stopping wide enough to squeeze through.

I blinked at the bright sunshiny room so unlike the dark interior hall. I saw a carved wood sofa, gilt and upholstered in paisley; to the right, a corner of a heavy walnut table; beyond, barrister bookcases stuffed with law books. I saw a massive carved beam in the ceiling. Like the bathroom at his toy townhouse, it had a rusty-white and tan travertine floor with walnut parquet near the edges.

"Blueblood?" I asked. Well, more like whispered. This felt spooky. "Sorry,"I sang quietly, 'I'm late. A perky pink paranoid princess waylaid me..."

I swiveled my ears forward, straining.

Nothing. Quiet. Eerily so.

I sighed but smiled, given an excuse to light my horn as I pushed through. Part of me wanted to throw the door open, but instead anchored the panel so it couldn't be slammed on my neck or barrel. My eyes strained to adjust to the bright light as I looked for movement. The instant my rump cleared the doorway, I snapped my tail away.

A shadow whirled from behind the door. I jerked around— A direct view of the sun through tall windows dazzled me. My horseshoes clattered, but didn't mask the muffled thumps of an attacker's rubber-bottomed shoes.

Had the Prince been attacked? I had to save him!

My bodyguard reactions clicked in. I retargeted the vectors of Levitate to repel the shadow as I got body slammed against the unopened right door panel. Having discussed learning to fall correctly with Shining Armor, my skull did not bounce off the heavy door. I knew when to tense my muscles.

As I banged against the wood. Pony mass followed, striking me, emptying my lungs with a painful cough. Stallion mass; definitely more than mine; not Singe attacking me.

Pinned.

Worse, he shoved me up and off my hooves. I heard the thud and squeak as he adjusted his position, rearing, sliding me up so I had no purchase, and no leverage.

The door whooshed shut amidst the faint tinkle and pop of magic sparkles. Not a strength-advantaged earth pony, then.

I tried to interpose Levitate between us.

His left foreleg flashed up and pressed across my neck—

Adrenalized, heart thumping, I recognized the pressure and congestion of a strangling chokehold. I'd won a prize fight against an earth pony twice my mass with the name Ground Thumper using a pin and chokehold, but that had been in an arena that had rules—like don't kill your opponent!

As my head began to pound and ears buzz, unable to fill my empty lungs, instinct kicked in. I bucked though suspended, which made it harder to hold me. He pinned me with his chest, not his barrel, which protected him from my hooves. Rearing freed his forelegs to choke me. Though he wasn't an earth pony and his fur wasn't red (it was white), and it wasn't a lightning storm (and it wasn't even raining), Force replaced Levitate in my horn.

Force had been my most unreliable spell, though I'd set my first monster on fire with it. The year after, I hadn't known whether I was casting the static-discharge battle form of the spell (lightning) or the frictional tool form (plasma). I'd needed to shut my eyes and scream in rage to successfully cast, and had only succeeded when in dire need...

Or when not targeting ponies.

With purple and blue phosphenes pulsing in my dazzled eyes, and an edge of darkness swirling like windigo clouds at the periphery of my sight, this was dire need, but failure meant death.

So, I targeted a tulip chair between the door frame and the sofa.

A blue-green flash bang caused it to burst into a pillar of flame, hoof lengths from my attacker's rump.

He flinched aside, which slid me rearward across the door. I bucked again, hit the left door frame, shoving myself forward as splinters shot across the floor. Flames roaring beside him, he shifted his hooves, letting me catch him with only one hoof down.

A second buck forced him to rotate, lose his chest pin, then lose his choke hold.

I squirmed free and fell, flexed the joints of all four legs, and sprang up.

It wasn't my best maneuver, but I was disoriented. Had I connected as I'd intended, with my skull against his jaw, I'd have knocked him unconscious—and I'd have a terrific headache. My horn could have punctured his throat; actually legal for stubby-horned unicorns in the arena because I could crack my horn, and was more likely to blind myself with blood than win that way. As it was, I connected with my shoulder.

He rotated back, forelegs flailing.

I landed on my belly, gasping for air.

I watched Prince Blueblood peddle his legs, still rearing, trying not to go over. I transformed Force to Levitate. I didn't shove him the rest of the way. I'd fought him yesterday. He could squirm out of anything, and he'd expect that attack.

I lifted him, broke his contact with the floor, and flung him head over hindquarters like a windmill vane as I thrust him upwards. He didn't squirm out but chose to cast magic.

I braced, expecting to be thrust at.

Instead, I managed to fling him all the way to the ceiling! A three-story high castle ceiling. One with ornately carved beams to look like tree branches encircled by thick vines. In the plastered interstitial ceilings, I saw frescoes of a jungle canopy with glimpses of blue sky. I saw a monkey staring down in one, and red and green gesso parrots roosting in another as the prince flailed around, realizing he'd made a mistake.

"Hey!" he yelled, "Put me down right now!"

"Or what?" I shouted up at him as the smile on my face broadened. As I stood, I felt a bruise puffing up on my right side, and a twinge of a muscle pulled in my neck when I fought to protect my skull from the door. "You gonna kiss and make up?" I puckered my lips at him.

"I-I-I will— Hey, how did you do this?"

Good question. He was three stories up. I'd never levitated a pony higher than they could fall without badly injuring themselves.

"Dunno. I've fought off ponies trying to murder me before. One allowed me to discover Force to fight him. Another, a griffon, I blasted with the same spell. I threw her across a conference room to crater a marble wall. I dunno. Maybe you shouldn't make me think you might kill me?"

He squirmed until he was hooves down. "I was trying to make a point."

"And learned a lesson instead?"

A blue nebula roiled around his horn, which made me think the spell he cast inadvertently complemented mine. Did he have a spell to catch himself if he fell? Did that mean I could hold him higher without my wonky magic "worrying" I might injure him?

This nevertheless meant he couldn't dare juggle spells to attack. Though, I'd be a foal to trust that. It gave me a good view of his adorable stallion parts, which last night's darkened room prevented me from seeing. His belly area made it plain that the skin under his fur was black like Citron's, though his nose and face were obviously porcelain pink-skinned.

Putting myself in his place, I'd spit at me. He might be too refined to think of that. I moved him across the ceiling as I trotted away from the rising smoke, taking no pains to prevent him from knocking into one beam or another.

"Hey!" Smoke from the smoldering chair formed a grey haze at ceiling height. He coughed.

I positioned him over wood-backed sofas and torchiere lamps that if fallen upon might result in broken, well, maybe lots of broken bones. I stepped out of range of any fluids he might aim at me. I banged him into another beam as I surveyed the palatial living room. Lots of gilt furniture and fabric, with mountainous tapestries on one wall, painted scenes of Equestria on another, and two walls of windows that looked out on the fairy-arched ramparts to the east (and the sun) and the gardens to the south, with Sunset's bronze onion-domed ivory tower looming to the southeast. I wondered if he'd watched me leaving and arriving daily.

I looked back up at him. "For the record, I enjoyed that little test of yours. I don't want to discourage trying again, so long as you understand the pitfalls. A warning, though: Don't think to threaten any pony under my protection as a workaround. You won't end well."

"Warning taken. Let me down now!"

"Afraid of heights?"

"Ms. Glimmer!"

I trotted toward the burnt chair. "Were I up in the rafters like you, I'd at least have spat at me. Maybe even pissed—"

"Test over, test over!" He waved his hooves.

Laughing, I lowered him. Over the sofas and torchiere lamps, naturally. When he realized I wasn't joking, I got to see a nifty second or third level Shield apparition appear in the shape of a ramp. It had the springiness of a firm mattress. He bounded off, but clumped with too much momentum into a barrister case. A cracked pane of glass shattered on the floor as I pulled a table-cloth from a sideboard and smothered the flames on the chair with a loud whumf.

I kept an eye on him.

Rubbing his bruised shoulder, he said, "You remind me of my father. Same sense of humor: none. Do whatever it takes to achieve your ends. No mercy when fighting. Overpowered magically."

"That safflower stallion with a pink blaze and a crystal ball?"

He nodded.

"Um, wait, I was distracted, you know! His name...? Um. Archmage D— Um, Dazzle, Daze?"

"You've seen his portrait?"

"Duh." I straightened up even as I felt my face warm. "Wait? Overpowered? Was that a complement you gave me just now?" I especially liked being praised, particularly for something earned.

"My father was rather socially-inept."

I made a raspberry noise, but laughed. "May be true about me. Still, a complement! Thank you." I dropped the scorched formerly white tablecloth to the floor. "Not really sorry about the chair, though."

His horn glowed blue.

I morphed Levitate into Shield reflexively, but he conjured water. I jumped back from the splash and the white-grey humid smoke as he doused the last of the danger.

"Nice trick," I said.

"Can't conjure?"

"Can't teleport?"

"Point taken. Well taken, actually. That was a Resignation Interregnum, Randy Carver original end-chair you burnt up there."

I blew air through my lips. "Don't I technically own all the furniture, now? Along with you royals?"

He sighed. "Yes. And yes, you indeed passed my test."

"I passed the test?" I grinned up at him, my horn still lit.

He pointed at my horn still being lit. "Yes. You passed."

I did a little filly dance, smiling, hooves clattering.

"How old are you really?"

Flashing on last night, I said, "Does it really matter? I'm good." I winked. "In many ways—and you're still strong enough, where it matters, with coltish good looks besides, despite being ancient history."

"Hey."

"Hay is for breakfast. If you'd been listening when Celestia introduced me, you could have looked up my age from the peerage registry. Though yesterday, I kept you too busy to research. Don't I know!" I'd worn him out and left him sleeping in his bed, exhausted due to his ancient history-ness.

I remembered my cutie mark discovery, or rather his lack thereof. I stepped over and, with conscious rudeness, lowered my head to examine the compass closely. Amazingly real. The way the hairs were colored metallic gold and steel blue. I even sniffed, but smelled oatmeal soap not cinnamon.

"Magic?" I prompted, my nostrils still pulsing. I didn't outright want to call him a blank flank, though I'd call ponies a name in a fight if it brought me an advantage.

He rotated his rear end away from my scrutiny. I pouted.

"You are young."

I raised my chin and sniffed. "Old enough, apparently! About that third level Shield you cast. Did you learn it from Shining Armor? I've put him on notice he's teaching me about his special spell."

"I try to stay away from Celestia's tools."

I climbed onto a sofa and gave him the look, trying not to laugh. "You know, I am Celestia's tool, right?"

"Lieutenant Armor is way too loyal and straightforward. I suspect your loyalty lies elsewhere?"

I blinked at him, feigning innocence and failing.

He went on: "That guard is perfect for Princess Mi Amoré Cadenza, and he is after her tail if she would simply glance over her dock and realize it."

"And who is this pony perfect for?" I asked, smirking. "You?"

He snorted. He walked past the sufficiently large spot on the sofa beside me and sat on a chair.

No necking then. Disappointed, ya betcha.

I asked, "About Cadance. Were you two an item?"

He got a crooked grin. He touched a hoof to his chest. "You understand now why I test mares who take to following me around like ducklings, right? A mare like you is the exception to the rule, and when you become 'ancient history' like me, the endless parade becomes boring. I have to praise the little alicorn princess that she could be discreet, but that didn't make her less annoying. A little over a year ago, she brushed up against me as I entered my suite. When she told me clearly what she wanted, and followed me inside, I did my best to make her ready."

I shivered and nodded. He could do that expertly.

"Then I tossed her out of my suite in a lather. I slammed the door on her presumptuous pink hindquarters. She screamed her frustration for the entire castle to hear. I suspect if ever she found the necessity to ride her coltfriend, it was then." He sighed. "That stopped the duckling impression, but didn't stop her from eyeing me like a tasty cake at the Great Galloping Gala, or giving me coy looks at meals when nopony was looking. One more reason to avoid 'family' dinners with my aunt."

I nodded again.

"It's the problem with being as good-looking as I am, and still marriageable."

I snorted. "We all have issues! So... Now that I've been tested... What do I get for all the fun and bruises?" I knew what my body wanted, but he telegraphed that wasn't on his mind.

"Father was my age when he started training me."

"How old were you?"

"Five? Times were chaotic. Discord made Equestria difficult for ponies, and I was too young to understand more than simply hating that my parents ignored me because of it. I acted out, but then I guess my father and mother expected that."

"They..." I blinked. "...expected that you'd 'act out?'"

He chuckled. He levitated a crystal pitcher, poured two goblets of orange juice, and levitated them over. "Celestia named me Blueblood when she introduced me at court, like she introduced you the other day, but with far less controversy."

"You have a different name?" Did it go with the cutie mark!? Oh, wait, it was fake.

"Celestia named me after the Blueblood they named the central park after, the diplomat who made peace with the Zebra Confederation. You're seriously not good at history."

"I'm a practical pony." I lifted my chin.

"You're a foal, but you'll figure that out eventually."

He gulped his juice before clicking down the stemware on a table with a sigh. I sipped mine, glaring at his condescension. A bit too acidic for me. Both.

He added, "Father and Mother named me Blue-eyed Brawler."

I snorted, spraying orange droplets off the top of the liquid. "Not a courtly name!"

He grinned. "Blue-eyed, when I was good; Brawler, when I was bad. Father and Mother never told me what mischief I got into as an infant, no doubt impressive. When I bloodied the noses of three colts that bullied me on the way to school, Father told me enough was enough."

"You remember that?"

"Yes. What Father put me through to teach me discipline afterwards I'll never forget. I regret that day greatly. It ruined my life."

I put the juice aside and walked over. Standing, I looked him in the eye. "You propose to put me through that?"

He waved a hoof dismissively. "You're highly disciplined. I can teach you why you normally can't put a hoof on me, like in our fight yesterday. It's my special talent. My father wanted a warrior pony. Equestria needed one, or so Celestia agreed."

Ah, maybe we weren't so different! Celestia was his boogiemare, also.

"A warrior who gets beaten-up before he accomplishes his task is worthless. You for example."

I scoffed. "Me?"

"Do you have a high pain threshold?"

"Not really. I learned that if I don't fight despite the pain, I'll lose, probably something important enough that I'm fighting for it. There's always healing magic, which I can now cast on myself."

"You—" He blinked. "You can—?"

I smirked, using his phrase: "It's my special talent. Related to it by the mathematics, anyway. I stole it from Flowing Waters' aura."

He sniffed, then lifted a hoof. "Better not to get hit."

"Definitely. Though the direct route through an obstacle is sometimes more unexpected."

"So, why do you like fighting so much?"

"Don't forget the magic component here. Hoof in hoof, hoof to heart. Probably Celestia's doing, bless her wretched heart: it makes me able to protect ponies and I am finding I really like that." That and figuring out cutie marks so I could eliminate the scourge on ponydom. If he could operate thirty-some years without one... There were clues here!

He raised an eyebrow. "Truthfully?"

I looked at my hooves. "It's fun, okay? The learning magic, especially; practicing it; the physical training. Ensures nopony controls me. Mostly. Okay?"

He gave a sad laugh. I wondered if he thought of Celestia as I did when he parroted,"Mostly."

"You?"

"I want to teleport. Teach me."

I stepped back, my jaw dropping down. "Um. So far as I know, only Celestia, Sunset Shimmer, and Twilight Sparkle can cast that spell."

"And you, Starlight Glimmer."

I gasped. "We all have celestial names! It's coincidence, though." My mom named me a more down to earth Aurora Midnight.

"You agree to teach me the so-called impossible spell and I'll teach you Archmage Sunny Daze's techniques. I think he'd approve of you."

"Why do you want to know?"

He coughed. "I hate being followed. By ducklings, and by Celestia's eyes in the sky."

"There's that. Hard spell, though. Very unpleasant." I unstrapped my messenger bag, which being on my right—and my having been shoved on my right side against a door—accounted for the main bruise across my ribs. I floated out my notebook, which naturally opened to that page because I'd studied it so long. "This one?"

His eyes shifted back and forth, then widened.

I shut it with a loud clap and stuffed it back in my bag.

"That one."

"Teleport feels like you're dying the first few times. Still does, but I'm used to it."

"Nevertheless."

"You're going to teach me your transforms of Shield and your vacuum form of Force."

"That goes without saying."

"The last pony so stupid as to use that phrase with me ended up mortgaging his home to get me to sign a contract because he suspected I could become a championship prizefighter and really wanted to train me. He proved right. Are you as stupid?"

"I will teach you everything my father taught me, including his magic because he taught me that, too—if you teach me Teleport and anything else you know."

I rubbed my chin. "I know a few spells. Do you wish me to enumerate?"

"I trust you."

I wouldn't trust me! I wasn't sure whether I'd teach him the alicorn spell-simplification I'd learned from Celestia. I would probably wait until he stopped being a challenge, then teach him to make him harder to beat. You had to test your limits. I shrugged, then grinned, spitting into my hoof. "Deal?"

"How old are you?"

"What? I'm an athlete and a pardoned criminal! I don't do refined unless I want to, and then thanks to Celestia's Majordomo's son, who raised me, I can probably out refine you if I chose. So, deal?"

He tried to hoof bump me, but I angled my hoof, intercepted the flat of his, and mashed our frogs together, rubbing them as he jumped up and scrambled over the back of the chair. "Still a foal," he cried.

"When I want to be, and proud of it."

Scoffing, he walked three-legged until he got to a basket of kerchiefs. He wiped his hoof on a daisy-pattern one. He wore only a powder blue bowtie, now wrinkled and bearing a charcoal smudge. It matched his glittering eyes. He motioned me to follow.

My eyebrows lifted and my grin widened. He was really leading me toward his bedroom?

Down the hall, I did see the ornate gleam of a brass bedstead. However, he stopped at a credenza and a ceiling-height gilt wrought iron mirror. He said, "I'm taking a big risk. Don't make me regret today."

"I do mature mare, as well as silly filly, as you well know from yesterday." Both were an act, of course. I was a good observer. Well tutored. I'd rarely had the chance to experience either directly, although I was racking up some normal experience come to think of it.

"I suppose."

He splashed magic through the mirror. The wall behind rumbled and the whole section rolled back.

"They really built secret passages into castles? I thought somepony made that up writing gothic romances!"

"I searched until I found the plans for the castle, then chose my suite well."

Inside, lights flickered, lighting a staircase. That led down to...

It might have been a dungeon, once. I looked at a complete one-person gym, with a trotting track, punching bags, and a target range. All sorts of gleaming chromed muscle torture machines, scattered free weights, and red practice mats. Scorches of black where thrown fire had splashed and cracked cold chiseled Canterlot mountain bedrock made impressive wall art for any fight gym.

Celestia had a right to suspect her adopted nephew kept secrets. I whistled before saying, "This is going to be fun."

Prince Blueblood had clocks built into the bricks, the wood furniture, even into the weight machine. Some showed the day and date. He might be obsessed. He professed to have known the second I'd been late to my appointment, and admitted to toughening my test—to his lasting chagrin. I'd gotten into a groove, rearing, punching a heavy bag he held steady, when he cried, "Enough."

I growled.

He rolled his eyes.

I knocked him back and off the mat by combining Push, a one-two punch, and a rear sweep kick against the sand-filled suspended cylinder. His left rear hoof skidded on stone.

He huffed, backing out of danger. "You're sweaty. As it is, you've barely the time to cool down and get to Celestia's without galloping."

"Yes, Coach. Sorry, Coach." I shook myself out to spatter him with said sweat, then giggled all the way to the stairs, grabbing up a towel and swishing my tail widely, in case he wanted to look.

He didn't. He started racking weights.

I pouted.

I was so lost reviewing the last day, I found myself already walking up to the purple-painted stone school building. My hackles rose; I was being watched. I reflexively tied my disheveled mane into pigtails, glancing discreetly, noticing ponies my age. My sweaty fur had dried in random cowlicks. Ponies probably thought I'd condescended to play hoof ball with the colts this morning; I smelled as horsey. Eyes followed me. I'd been recognized as special despite not being dressed, despite not wearing that jade coronet Celestia had gifted me—the one styled like my cutie mark...

My new stars and aurora cutie mark...

Every foal, filly, colt, and yearling followed my progress. No doubt, some knew more about me from the newspapers and society rags than I remembered about myself!

Why hadn't I planned for this?

Okay. A bit distracted, maybe, especially by stallions and new friends?

Friends. That word again.

I. Had. Friends.

And guards. I heard, then saw my shadows: Green and pink Pistachio and— Not Firefall, but Steady Pace. I'd sent Firefall home late last night. She'd likely gotten her shift changed. She was a mom. She needed rest.

I asked Pistachio. "Do you need to follow me to class?" Dozens and dozens of pairs of eyes watched.

"No. But you were oblivious leaving the castle."

I looked down guiltily, walking away from them. "Sorry."

"Doing our job, Ms. Glimmer."

Even that styling seemed a title. Likely everypony knew how I hated titles.

My horseshoes clicked as I mounted the travertine steps and looked back. Ponies watched, some whispering and gesturing happily, as if seeing a celebrity. Others frowned, looking angry as if I'd torn the social fabric from under them. In the hush, I heard the traffic on Castle Way Blvd clearly. Nopony moved to cross my path. One moved to the side of the portico, making way for my ascension (that word!).

Across the lawn, from the south, trotted a yellow mare with yellow streaks in her red mane. An eclipsing sun cutie mark graced her flank and saddlebags. She had to weave through the crowd; the other students didn't skitter out of her way the way they would have three days ago, the day I'd tricked Sunset Shimmer into coming with me after school to capture a crime boss.

"There you are, Starlight! You missed the yummy breakfast Citron cooked." She frowned at the guards, waving a hoof at them as she curved onto the entrance walkway, "Shoo! Go' way!"

I did my deer-in-the-carriage-lanterns imitation.

"Don't stand there," she said, waving me up as she approached the stairs, her magic forming on my hindquarters, shoving me forward. "We need to talk, Glimmer."

As I jumped toward the open doors, she stopped and rotated to glare at the other students. "What? She's the same filly that nearly blew up her horn in one of my classes, the same filly you ignored in the halls last week! Sheesh! It's not like the headmare isn't Princess Celestia, and her first and best protégé, moi, doesn't get to boss you around all the time. Get a life!"

She backhoofed my rump for all to see, causing me to half buck, then clatter into the entry hall. The sting brought me back to reality; I circled back to face her. Meanwhile, the students on the stairways and in the middle of the atrium, scattered down the halls. I recognized my history and home room teacher. The coward's eyes widened and she coward reversed back toward the classrooms.

When I glared and growled at Sunset, she shouted back in full bully T.A. mode even as she trotted past me, "Little fillies room, Glimmer. Now!" She snapped her tail and nailed my nose.

"Ow!" I swung around, but with enough sense not to send my friend flying as reflexive anger warmed my face and lit my horn.

She turned down the hall, glancing back. "Glimmer!"

Ponies dodged out of her path. I got with the program, rushing intentionally too fast to follow her, eyes looking down, muttering loudly, "Sorry! Sorry!"

Inside the white-tiled little fillies room, she yelled, "Everypony! Out! Now!"

Two fillies rushed from the sink, one leaving a makeup compact, the other leaving the tap open. A pink filly, no more than third year, squealed, flushed, and banged open the green stall door before galloping out, crying. She trailed tissue stuck to a rear hoof.

Sunset pulled me to the furthest sink, raising her hoof to call out. "Anypony listening in will get their ears boxed. I know who you are!"

Sunset's turquoise eyes assessed me from rump to nose, all while her ears swiveled and followed hoof falls in the hall. Her eyes didn't miss my disheveled fur, nor the bruise puffing up under my messenger bag. "You need to seriously thank me. A few of those dweebs almost bowed to you, then they all would have, though I'm sure they know all about you and your aversion to all things royal. It seems you're famous."

"No kidding!"

"I've set them straight. Everypony is talking about it now. So where's my—" she imitated my voice "—'Thank you, Sunset?'"

"Thank you, Sunset." I leaned forward and planted a peck on her velvety nose.

She jumped back, rubbing it vigorously. Funny, some months ago I'm pretty sure I'd been kissing her deeply, and had possibly rode her, though she'd never confirmed that. (I'd been mind-controlled.) "You're welcome, I guess."

I turned off the tap, then levitated the compact with a pale red rouge and blue eyeliner. I sniffed. Not cinnamon. I felt slightly disappointed, which said much about where my head was.

She turned the tap back on, grabbing paper towels. "Who'd you fight now?"

"Prince Blueblood."

The towels fluttered to the floor. "What?"

"He tried to kill me, but I fixed his wagon."

"And they didn't arrest you? Oh, wait, they probably wouldn't—"

"He's perfectly fine."

Shaking her head, she magicked off my messenger bag to examine my purpling bruise. "You're not."

"We're friends now. Fun and games. No worries."

"Gah! Remind me not to play with you two!"

I smirked—a double-entendre lurked in those words. My face warmed. I quickly said, "I am totally going to teach you how to protect yourself better."

"Yeah, last week wasn't my best effort. I still ache like I have a flu, but that night, outside the deli, I knew my body would shatter if I didn't snatch that envelope of nettle ewe waved under my nose. How I cast a spell at all, let alone not have my horn backfire the way yours did!? Father's medicine keeps down the craving; my ears are buzzing and I have a metallic taste in my mouth." She comically scraped her tongue with her front teeth. "Not my best effort, Starlight," she finished with a growl.

The tear that ran down her cheek belied her annoyed tone.

I watched it drip to the floor, darkening a dropped paper towel with a spatter.

"You saved me," she whispered. "Celestia explained it to me. It hurt listening to her, but everything you kept telling me I was doing wrong, with her, with my choices, was as wrong as you said it was. You saved me. I'll always remember."

She snuffled and looked away, trying to hide it.

I looked past her, toward the open door, which was far too empty considering the busy minutes before first classes. "Don't credit me too much. Safer would have been to snitch, to your father or Celestia, then to have run away from the horse apples I'd caused, but I got greedy and decided to break that the son of a dragon who had destroyed both our lives."

She shuddered, then let out a long breath. "Which led to a day without the sun, which fomented your brawl with Celestia in front of Donut Joe's, which resulted in the reason I marched you in here." She shucked more towels from the metal box, wet and wrung them out, then proceeded to neaten my fur. "If you don't start acting weird, like anything substantially changed from last week, or act like you want attention, or like you're afraid, most everypony will let the change slide. Act like your irascible self. Ignore ponies like they don't exist as you've always done. They'll get the idea." She dried and combed my fur with crumpled towels, then threw them into the flippy-topped rubbish bin. She redid my pigtails, too, tugging, pulling, braiding, then tying them together, looping them around my head like flower garlands. When I'd been a foal, my mane had never grown out enough to do that. While it pulled at the roots, it felt cooler than down.

"Thanks," I said.

"Back at you. But really, Blueblood?" She stiffened, ears perked forward, her tail straightening. "Not you and him, last night—?"

I trotted out of the bathroom, tail held high. "We've got classes. Later!"

"Not getting away that easily!"

I did outpace her, despite the artificial pastern. Athlete. Won the Baltimare Celestial Race, unicorn class, gold-plated medal to prove it. I've mentioned that, right?

Good sense came to Sunset, and she didn't chase me upstairs. I trotted slowly, trying to remember something, anything, about last week's classes. I failed. Too much had needed to happen as my plan to capture Running Mead came together. Again presentable, nopony noticed me in the equine river.

I noticed Moon Dancer. Her shortish reddish mane, loosely tied up with a purple scrunchie, was a hair fountain atop her head. She levitated two big open books before her face, warning everypony to scoot out of her path. Her black-rimmed glasses magnified dark-purple eyes that rapidly darted back and forth.

During our picnic breakfast, I'd gotten she was shy.

I said, just loud enough, "Nice tactic to keep everypony away."

Eyes glanced up. She gasped and coughed. The forest-green bronze enchantments text spun across the floor; I stopped it with a hoof. Her mouth made like a fish.

"Starlight's good enough."

"Hi," she said, barely testing the privilege I implied.

"Funny how you attend a school for half a year but don't notice somepony distinctive, until you've been introduced?"

I slipped her books into her black saddlebags, which matched her black and crimson cable-knit turtleneck, which went very well with her yellow fur. Nice ensemble, and I said so.

Given the excuse, she said, "Thank you."

"Could we have lunch together? Talk spell-embedding. I had fun. Please?" I asked the clearly uncomfortable filly, who nodded subtly. As I walked by, I added, "Prince Blueblood proved surprising. Surprisingly fun."

Her shocked gaze followed my rump. Wonder what she knows that I don't…

My homeroom was my history class, and as I entered I remembered I had an essay due today. Though history wasn't a good subject, I hated appearing a bad student to a teacher. Teachers, after Librarians, were the best ponies. Coaches ranked third. You never knew when you might need to learn something you didn't know you needed, and I wasn't coy about bringing apples, doing favors, or taking a pony to dinner to obtain what I needed. Business ponies called it networking.

Excuses made a student unworthy of extra help. A disappointed expression on my face, head held low, I walked in. I thought, That whole coronation thing ain't a bad excuse, though.

The pre-class chatter ceased. In a wave. A wave spreading out toward the back of the classroom. Until it splashed against the supply cabinet and bookshelves at the opposite end, and an oblivious still talking somepony cried, "Ouch!" when his friend smacked his rump. He half-bucked causing a stack of papers to slide over. Sheets floated, see-sawing to the the floor.

I sighed.

I passed behind the lectern, across the front of the class, then took the aisle against the windows to my desk. A week ago, after having been a blank flank that had worn no clothing to class, ever, I'd shown up in a couture yellow outfit I'd tailored as camouflage to meet with Detective Fellows, then used it to sneak into the Star Swirl the Bearded Time Wing, and to chase down Prince Blueblood. The aristo-fashion had cued my classmates that there might be something unconventional about the magic egghead who sat quietly in class, except when she had the right answer for the teacher.

Besides everything else, the former blank flank now had a stars-and-auroras cutie mark on her naked hindquarters. I twisted my hip so I sat on my right flank to hide the abomination, setting my notebook and quill on the desk with too loud a thump and click, not looking up.

The sharing of gossip and weekend events didn't resume. Of course not. One pony coughed.

I sighed, again.

I wasn't a force of nature like Sunset Shimmer. She'd learned to boss ponies around before she'd learned to speak. Impressive, considering she'd gone without words until seven.

I could fight or browbeat one pony into submission. Crowds or audiences... that was different. The one exception I could remember was in Hooflyn.

About a hundred mobsters and gang members, including borough lieutenants, had regrouped blocks from the Old Equestrian Post Office that had minutes ago exploded. Spectacularly. Sending a noxious red mushroom cloud into the sky. Bringing an end to the gang war. I'd come to tell them Doña Asada had died. I didn't tell them that I'd let her die in the explosion she'd set. Carne Asada had always introduced me as her daughter, probably to give me extra leverage running messages for her.

They decided I was the new Doña.

I was covered in blood—I'd saved 271 ponies after a building exploded, remember? That didn't dissuade them. Neither did my crying, "No!"

Repeatedly.

Okay, maybe I didn't have an exception to handling a recalcitrant audience!

What could I say to my classmates that wouldn't be construed as a royal command? I hated this.

I hated this.

I hated Celestia and her stupid choices a thousand years ago for dealing with her sister that ended with me sitting in this class! My eyes burned. I sniffed, feeling badly used and resenting it, Celestia, and everypony to all giddy-out. I wanted to cry.

I blinked away a tear.

How many times had I insisted that the last time I had cried was the day Sunburst left me, having gotten his cutie mark? I was a liar. To myself, foremost.

Friendship and cutie marks changed a pony. Apparently.

I laid my head on the desk, let go of my pride, and let the dam break. Tears ran down, wetting the cover of my daisy notebook. Sobs echoed in the silence, and even hearing those infantile sounds didn't stop my meltdown. Nor did the sound of me sniffing the snot back up my nose, before that completely ruined what little reputation as a tough I had left.

Horseshoes clopped slowly up the aisle to my right, then stopped. I heard the fizzle and pop of magic.

I swallowed, catching my breath. I swallowed and sniffed, and wiped my nose on my fetlock because dripping mucus was too far even for me. I looked up.

Mrs. Lookback, my history teacher, stood offering tissues from her golden magic. The amber-eyed palomino knew better than to say anything after I gave her the saddest red-rimmed look I could give her. It said, I really really REALLY want to be left alone right now!

Teacher-sense kicked in and she walked away. I wiped my nose and eyes and laid my head down, looking out the window at the waving willow trees that couldn't hide the castle bailey wall behind, blinking away the salty tears as they waned. Mrs. Lookback took roll call, skipping my name, probably because Ms. Glimmer sounded awkward.

During her lesson about the end of the Resignation Interregnum, she promised us a spell to show a cutie mark through clothing that Worry Wort, a baron in the peerage, had invented, even as ponies stopped wearing clothing again. History at Celestia's school centered around spells and magical developments because, well, magic school.

Nopony watched me. I saw a colt exchange a note with a filly. Another pair shared a textbook and whispered. I merited a glance, nothing more than what would happen looking around, feeling bored, or stretching.

I took that as a win.

Then, a minty green middle-aged mare stuck her head into the classroom—the vice-headmare, Ms. Maple. Her blue eyes found me; she gestured me outside...

I said, "Yes?" to mitigate the awkwardness of the rule that common ponies couldn't initiate with a royal. She had a white-streaked pale green mane and tail. I had no clue why she had a maple leaf cutie mark, sported a purplish-red color that clashed with her fur.

"Are you okay, Ms. Glimmer?" Not Starlight. Not informal.

Dried snot matted my right fetlock, making it crispy. My eyes were likely still red. "Doesn't every yearling my age have her emotions out of whack?"

"I don't know how to answer that. You fit no stereotype."

Looking down the hall behind her, I saw another student, colored like a roaring fire. The golden unicorn had a blazing red horn, mane, and tail. She had magenta eyes and was old enough to be growing into her hooves, but was clearly a foal not a filly. She spoke with a mare in an olive green uniform jacket with a white belt and matching messenger bag who wore a red beret. I didn't recognize the red-slashed black insignia or the RMC in it, or the white pips, but having been in the mob, I recognized a copper. No copper badge, though, only a name bar that read, Hue and Cry.

Did parents really name their foals such things? Well, I knew for a fact Blueblood had been named Blue-eyed Brawler, but then again, come on! If I ever foal, I'm going to find a random name in the town directory!

I said, "Celestia dumped too much responsibility on my head, and it got to me."

She blew air through her lips. "Don't I know how that feels! She's never here— Never mind. My door's always open, you know that?"

I nodded and smiled. She had truly cared for her new student that day nopony-me had shown up in Canterlot, at school, trying to enroll. I'd shown visible bruises under a poor quality linen dress I'd worn to disguise the fact, looking as if I'd been abused. I mean, who would imagine a teenager would be working with the EBI saving Canterlot from a dragon invasion, right? She made sure I was safe, and followed up with the EBI. She'd consoled and counseled me repeatedly about my PTSD from Hooflyn and the gang war. "I do. Thank you."

Her magic reached into her purse. She held a cloth near my cheek. "May I?"

I didn't wear makeup—or mascara like Celestia did—that could have gotten messed up. That didn't hide my most recent set of bruises. Which had likely added to my weird classroom cachét. I recalled Proper Step wiping smudges of mud or fireplace ash from my face this way before I'd run away. "What?"

She dabbed, then scrubbed to below my right ear. The torn ear. It had become unglued and partly flopped back. "Did you lay down on your quill? That's ink."

"Shoot!" I'd had lain my head on it while crying. I'd taken smeared mascara to the next level. Good reasons not to cry! "Shoot." I snorted at the ludicrousness of it, then laughed.

Ms. Maple grinned. "Your emotions are definitely out of whack. Seriously, Starlight—"

Starlight, as if I were nopony. I nearly hugged her. I took a deep breath and asked, "What's up?"

She pointed at Hue and Cry.

"Who's the foal?"

"Firefall Blaze's daughter Cinder, a second year."

"My Firefall?" Who'd said she had a daughter? A seven-year-old. Who'd possibly married, or at least ridden, a unicorn?

The constable switched places with the headmare, who led the foal down the hall. The mare saluted. She had piercing caramel-brown eyes.

I nodded.

"Ms. Glimmer, I'm Sergeant Major Hue and Cry of the Royal Military Constabulary, Investigations Unit. May I ask you some questions about Corporal Firefall Blaze?"

My body went cold. "Is she missing?"

"AWOL. She's got Celestia-1 security clearance and is assigned to the palace, so this is worrisome." Meaning she knew the 603 Day secret and this flathoof probably didn't know that. "When did you last see her?"

Did the coppers suspect the pardoned mobster? "Last night, before midnight?"

"Can you be more precise?"

"Ten to? I heard the castle clock strike midnight after I entered through the portcullis."

"Close enough. Where?"

I gave an intersection."

"Anything strange?"

"Actually, yes. At first I thought she wasn't on duty, then she flew down after I'd trotted from the house. She seemed surprised I hadn't stayed over. I ordered her to go home since I can take care of myself." I wriggled my torn ear catching the copper's eye, which didn't exactly prove my point.

"She followed your order?" Her eyebrow went up.

"Yeah. Her deportment the entire evening had led me to believe she'd disobey that order."

"As she should have. May I ask which house?"

Thinking of the prince's thing for secrecy, and that he might be keeping a residence from Celestia, I answered, "No."

"You may need to answer that later, Ms. Glimmer. May I ask what you were doing directly before you last saw the corporal?"

"I was riding somepony. No, it wasn't her."

The sergeant looked from my head to my tail, noting every bruise and the torn ear. Her expression remained neutral. I wouldn't want to play Heart and Horseshoe cards with her. "You decline to say with whom?"

"Yes, until Celestia says otherwise."

"I see. You know that Cinder is very worried about her mother?"

"As I am. I'd begun to think Firefall was the most professional of the palace guards."

"How so...?"

She questioned me for minutes after that, until Ms. Maple came up the hallway behind us with Twilight Sparkle in tow.

The runty purple unicorn looked displeased. She levitated a book, a scroll, and a quill with which she scritch-scritch-scratched loudly on the scroll while walking. She saw me, frowned at the sergeant, then, into the new quiet, said, "Um—" She clearly wanted to say Princess, but emotions of awe, fear, respect, and curiosity flickered through her face. Probably thought about dealing familiarly with a princess named Celestia, of me having beat-up her brother, recollecting Celestia nearly killed her that day, and Celestia's later declaration that I could kick anypony who didn't address me properly. Twilight got it right when she continued, "Ms. Glimmer." Her eyes sent daggers at the vice-headmare. "Hard to not fail a test that you know the Princess is going to give you, on a lecture—when they pull you from the class giving said lecture!" She sidled up to me, still glaring at Ms. Maple, clearly of the opinion that I had the power to fix things and understood her outrage.

I did. And. I did.

This was the pony Celestia was inventing friendship magic for? I nearly scoffed out loud.

The constable closed her notebook with a snap that made me look. "I should be going."

"Please find her."

"I'll do my best."

To Ms. Maple, I said, "Speaking of lectures, Mrs. Lookback was going to share a spell that I'm sure's going to be on my test, and I'm going to miss it. I like spells."

"Me, too!" said Twilight, nodding vigorously.

"You won't be disappointed with the interruption," the vice-headmare stated. She opened the door, told the mare I had been reassigned, and levitated out my messenger bag with the notebook and quill from my desk diving inside as it flew.

Annoyed that my classmates would likely take being reassigned as some sort of royal prerogative, but not sufficiently annoyed to protest leaving history class, I grabbed the book, scroll, and quill still floating in Twilight's magic and stuffed them into her overfilled saddlebags. The little mare essentially did weight training trotting with that oversized load. When she pouted, I decided to think of her again as a filly and not a mare nearly my age.

Starlight, Starbright, what little mare do I see tonight, with her nose oh so rosy red and her horn all aglow?
—Sunburst, the evening before he got his cutie mark and his friend didn't.

Ms. Maple led us to a faculty conference room on the lowest level. Being below grade, it had basement windows at ceiling level, frosted to prevent nosy students from spying on teachers. A pink and red marble table, with a gilt bullnose, ran the center of the room, hosting rolling black gilt net chairs that contrasted against the green slate covering three of the walls—also in a gilt wood frame. Mahogany cabinets and chests of drawers bulked like an eastern city skyline against the remaining wall. They had gilt handles and locks. A magic-powered icebox glowed faintly yellow beside a sink and a sideboard lined with a double row of crystal glasses.

An executive lounge. Carne Asada had had an interest in hotels in major cities up and down the east coast, and I'd been her bodyguard or messenger in many a room that resembled this, though few had so much gold. Grape Sucker's Las Pegasus hotel had had plenty, comped to high-roller business ponies. An extra large, red-cushioned, executive chair pushed into a corner beside an L-shaped mahogany desk, carved with gilt acanthus fronds, clued me into who usually used this room, that and that the princess' runty protégé trotted to the second seat on the far side, close to said desk, which was clearly customary for her.

She immediately looked across the table, where Sunset Shimmer glowered, golden forelegs crossed across her chest and looking aggrieved.

Sunset muttered, "Does Princess Celestia really want us in the same room after all this time?"

"Who are you?" Twilight asked, glaring. "Other than the school bully?"

"I was her first personal student."

I coughed and cleared my throat, getting everypony to look, including Ms. Maple—and Moon Dancer, the shy aristocrat having chosen the farthest seat.

I said, "Actually, her first student this century was my mother, Mage Midnight. Sorry, Sunset. You're number two. Twilight, you're number three, though you probably took the place of Sunburst, my friend from foalhood. He flunked out. My fight with Celestia was about her wanting me to be number four and me refusing until she made me an offer I couldn't refuse." Moon Dancer jerked to attention when I looked at her. "I am going to make a wild guess here, but you are about to be designated number five."

She looked at Twilight, who startled looking at her, then said, "I don't think so..."

Ms. Maple said, "I'm going to fetch your teacher. He's late, and a bit scatterbrained, and very nervous about his promotion. We'll talk later about your rearranged schedules." The door clicked shut behind her.

Twilight asked, "The Princess isn't teaching us?"

"Unless somepony switched her gender," Sunset pointed out, acidly. I flinched at the word switched. Her gender, I told myself, not her cutie mark. She looked down at the table, rubbing marble as if she could hide her reflection in the surface. "She never wants to teach me directly, anymore."

"Sunset. This morning. I thought you said you talked with her about your relationship—"

"I thought wrong, okay? Actions speak louder than words." Her green eyes flashed at me. "You're one to trust what she says!"

Twilight said, "The princess is kind and trustworthy..." She trailed off, eyes unfocusing. She likely remembered the battle at the pavilion, and that she learned Celestia had hidden a grim secret, one that could have left Equestria a frozen wasteland. Oh, that and a possessed Celestia had tried to incinerate her. Her mouth slowly opened.

I said, "Royal decision. Moon Dancer, do you know what happened the day the sun didn't rise?"

She shook her head, causing her scrunchie to loosen, and her short hair to slowly cascade down.

"Sunset?"

She nodded. "She explained about the Summer Sun celebration."

"See, Celestia does trust you.... Moon Dancer? Before our teacher trots in, you need to know. Twilight, her brother, my friends Citron and Streak, and I broke a curse Celestia had saddled herself with by breaking harmony. Not solid what harmony is, but I ended up switching Celestia's and Shining Armor's cutie marks to do it. Technically, Shining is cursed now because harmony actually cursed her mark, but switching de-fangs the curse completely so long as their marks stay swapped because Shining doesn't rule Equestria."

Moon Dancer whispered, "The Princess of Marks. Your magic is cutie mark magic?"

"Oddly enough, yes. Unfortunately, harmony cursed Celestia and her sister Luna at the same time, so technically there is a second power-hungry alicorn that can control the skies by herself. Since two days have passed, in 601 days from now, she will return to attack Celestia and bring eternal night to the world. I am, or I gather we are, tasked with preventing that from happening."

Sunset added, "And if you breathe a word of this, Celestia will be forced to kill you."

Moon Dancer jumped up, hooves banging on the table.

Both Twilight and I cried, "Sunset!"

Moon Dancer stood there, shaking. Tears started dripping.

The red and yellow unicorn grinned widely. "Sorry. I couldn't help myself."

Twilight shoved her chair back and rushed over to embrace the young mare. "Lunettes, Lunettes! Don't worry. Aside from the curse thing, the princess is really as good and kind as everypony says she is." From the nickname, Prench for glasses and a play on her name, I gathered she and Twilight really had been friends.

Sunset muttered, "Tell me another."

I sat down beside her and rolled my chair so I could lean into her. "Stop worrying about Celestia. I'll discuss her attitude with her. If that doesn't work, I'll wallop her upside the head."

That made her chuckle. The princess was the one chink in Sunset's armor.

"That said, I understand what she's trying to teach you."

Sunset pushed away, glaring at me with her emeraline gaze.

"Everypony else you can boss around. Her? You melt like ice in the summer sun."

"A joke!"

"Nope. That's called a metaphor. Seriously, the next time she blows you off, you need to pull a Sunset."

"A—? What?"

"Pretend she's me, then tell her off. Demand she teach you. Demand answers. Ask her why she ignores your needs. Act confidently, like the friend who saved me this morning in front of school." I pulled out a gold bit from my messenger bag and snapped it onto the table. I knew it was actually harder to do something for real than to think about doing it, so I added incentive. "I'll wager you four more of these if she doesn't open up to your best effort."

"That's more than my allowance."

"Don't worry. You're giving me the perfect excuse for a fight. If your best effort fails, mine won't."

Sunset Shimmer's smile grew until it was genuine. Pearly teeth gleamed. A knock interrupted what was going to be a sisterly bear hug.

Chairs rolled and books thunked as we arranged ourselves properly around the table like well-conditioned little high school students. It didn't occur to me to ask why the teacher would knock.

The door unlatched and a pony eye from the dark hall peered in. "Am I interrupting?"

"Streak?" I asked.

She opened the door. "I—"

"Is something wrong?"

Blue feathers fluffed as she half opened her wings. Hurricane's armor struck the door frame, denting the wood. Streak scooted in, eyeing the damage, muttering, "More like that. Bad day."

I wanted to tell her that a classroom wasn't the proper venue, but could tell she wasn't herself. I waved a hoof at the others, who swiftly found a book to read.

I asked, "Does this have to do with Firefall?"

"The constable talked to you, too?"

"Yeah, she's missing."

"The sergeant has—"

"Sergeant major—"

"Starlight, not the time! The copper has me pegged as the culprit, I just know it. And no, I didn't do it. Saw her fly away, though."

"Where to?" I asked.

She gave me a look, so I asked, "Toward the castle?"

"That much I can answer. No."

Dejectedly, I said, "I was the last to talk with Firefall."

Streak sighed. "She was going to be my instructor this morning, but it got worse. When Shining Armor started teaching me instead, I heard somepony diving at me."

I rolled my eyes. "Let me guess. Princess Mi Amoré Cadenza?" Maybe I hadn't pegged her personality as well as I thought.

"No. The Princess."

Twilight piped up, "Princess Celestia?"

"I think she hates me."

I quipped gleefully, "You're the only pony who nearly killed her."

Blue wings shoved me back, rolling my chair and me away. "Had she hit me, she'd have caved in my rib cage."

"But she didn't."

"A? A! See that? See that!?" She showed me bruises darkening on her shoulder, lines of scratches from her neck to her barrel, and a fresh bandage on her burnt flank. "You bet I shot away. She buzzed my tail, no matter which way I swooped. She's a crow worrying a hawk, just scarier. I thought I was going to die! For a big pony, she's wicked fast. Can't bank or roll as well as I can, especially with me wearing the armor, but she cheats!"

"Cheats?" Twilight echoed with me. While I grunted agreement, Twilight scoffed. I thought, You've got to learn that in the real world, your enemy kills you any way they can.

I eyed the petite purple unicorn. "Celestia rules Equestria. She is far more than the illusions you have of her. Look up disillusionment. You're going to understand the meaning at this point." I turned back and prompted Streak, "Cheats?"

Streak furled her wings and with less fire said, "She teleports in front of you. Again and again. She forced me to kick away her kicks—to protect my head with my wings, even. Thank Celestia—GAH! Whatever, for the armor, or I'd've fallen oot of the sky. Her strikes could shatter bones. This went on ten minutes, until my heart wanted to burst and I couldn't dodge branches or pitch up from the ground!"

It wasn't occurring to her that she was a pegasus who went ten minutes avoiding an alicorn attack."Then what?"

"She teleported me in front of Shining Armor, freezing my lungs. I skidded across the trotting track into his hooves. I lay there gasping and she told him, 'She needs more stamina. Work her. Starlight will teach her how to turn an attack to her advantage.'"

"I will. I'll make it fun, trust me."

"Fun for you."

"Admittedly."

"The princess put her muzzle in my face. Nose-to-nose. She said, 'You need to learn to cast the magic in the armor. My friend Hurricane Stormchaser did.' I nearly peed myself. That's when she sent me here." Streak looked pointedly at the four horns in the room. "I feel out of place. I'm a pegasus, for Celestia's— I'm really out of place!" she wailed.

"Um," said a new, albeit familiar, voice from the open door. He cleared his throat as he trotted in. "Miss Streak, there are two earth ponies enrolled as first year potion students, and a pegasus graduated as a master amulet craftspony last year. So, yes, you're in the right class."

Sunset and Streak blocked my view of the door. Looking around them, I saw a stallion with a goldenrod coat and red hair. He had a matching red-crested mane, goatee, and tail sticking out of his royal blue star-studded wizard's cloak.

I froze.

He cleared his throat and coughed nervously as he reached into the wagon load of books that trailed in his magic, and sent one floating onto Streak's back. The sky-blue book was a magic primer: happy foals pranced on the cover. "Basic terminology. Memorize it. I'll pull you better from the university library for tomorrow's class."

Had... Sunburst... not seen me?

Streak grabbed the book in her primary feathers. She grumbled, maybe because putting an object on a pegasus' back was rude, and sat at the back of the room. Moon Dancer scooted to Twilight's side, but Streak didn't notice.

I could see how my friend could be made to feel out of place.

I rolled in beside Sunset, shifting left as he trotted right, staying hidden, but I jumped and shrieked when he dropped his entire load of tomes, grimoires, wood tablets, texts, and scrolls on the table extension of the desk.

He didn't look back, though my heart sped. What had Celestia told me about him? Right: "He proved a great talent in thaumaturgical 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."

I was earning high marks in the latter subject. Or flubbing it, spectacularly. I didn't know!

Sunset noticed my nerves and hissed. "You okay?"

I gulped.

She magicked over a glass—not recognizing Sunburst, though I had talked about and described him to her—and poured water from a pitcher with sliced limes bobbing in it.

That—and my shifting behind Sunset—caught Twilight's attention. She stared. I could read her mind: Shy in front of new teachers, how self-defeating. Streak leafed through her book with her long feathers, still looking rattled while Moon Dancer craned her neck to see the amusingly big pictures while glancing periodically upfront.

"So—" Sunburst started.

I fumbled the act of swallowing a sip of water, got it all the way down my windpipe, then coughed droplets all over the place.

I swiveled behind Sunset, trying to breathe as distressed tears gathered. I nevertheless kept Sunburst out of sight, and Sunset inadvertently aided, spinning about and clapping my back as I doubled-over, hacking. Glancing through yellow and red hair, I saw him finish organizing his pile of books into piles, first by size and then by repeated swapping, likely alphabetizing.

Librarian.

"As-as I was saying. What was I saying?" He shook his head, then coughed into a hoof as I quieted. "Um, I think I am as surprised by this assignment as you are. I have no lesson plan or curriculum because this is my first official class. I've tutored foals and ponies your age. Dozens of adults! In practical casting and th-th-thaumaturgical semantics. I'm wiz at figuring out what you're sticking on in your head."

He posed sideways to flaunt his wizardly trappings—his long waggly goatee, silvery metal-rimmed glasses that magnified dark turquoise eyes, and the stars on his cloak—only lacking a pointed Star Swirl the Bearded hat with jangly sleigh bells.

When nopony laughed, golden magic pushed up his glasses. "Equestria coronated a new Crown Princess—"

Nope. Didn't recognize me. No way. Maybe the braided garland hair? The torn ear and bruises? My mature mare curves? Or maybe his lens prescription had expired!?

"—who is reputedly also a wizard, though mage is a more gender-correct term, in conventional magic, diagnostic magic, and battle magic, much of it reputedly complex, and that doesn't include at least one spell she was observed having invented ereyesterday. Princess Celestia wants her best students up to speed, though she hasn't yet told me what that means. She sent me home to Ponyville yesterday to move to Canterlot. I am, or ra-rather was, the librarian at the Golden Oak library."

"Wow," Twilight said, "I'd love to live in a library!"

"You bet. You never want to leave home, and you can read all the books in bed—" He coughed into a hoof. "Th-the best I can do is speculate on the urgency of the matter from those who know the Princess of Marks. Her new royal highness is said to be demanding, impatient, and very competent. The latter was very true—best I can remember her from when we were foals, though I'm sure she remembers little of me. Keep that in mind when you study, and that she's probably going to be auditing your assignments and tests, and grading you as much as I will."

Surprise, a dash of amusement, then a pinch of anger finally burned away my nervousness. I lifted a hoof.

Meanwhile, Sunset Shimmer shook and shuddered in her chair, her withers bouncing. At first, I thought she had finally figured out who he was to me and didn't like it. Then a snort escaped her muzzle and I knew it was something far simpler. The only pony in the room that didn't know the Princess of Marks listened was him.

What had Sunset said? I couldn't help myself.

"She's going to be grading us?" I asked in a strained whisper to disguise my voice, though thinking about it, I realized I'd had a piping foal voice back then. I held Sunset's chair preventing the bulkier mare from rolling out from between us. She twisted to look at me—then got a half-smile, sensing a prank.

"Yes. Princess Celestia says she has quantifiable scholastic requirements going forward, over a year and a half timeline."

"She told you this?"

"Oh, well." He coughed and pushed up his glasses. "She was rather busy and the new princess' chargé d'affairs filled me in on her needs and attitude."

"You said you knew her? Did she teach you anything?"

He huffed, his demeanor changing on a silver bit, souring. "Not to depend on others... but to depend on yourself. Yes. Definitely. She taught me that." Growling, he trotted over to the books, pulling out almanac-sized hoof-books with waxed brown-fiber covers, and levitated one to each of us unicorns.

Mnemonics, it read, by S. Mortarboard with S. Daze.

"Yes. Since I specialize in semantics, it's as good a place to start as any, and it answers your classmate's question. She was a pony I called Starlight Starbright and she taught me this. No matter what the foundation—no matter what the structure and even if it towers above you—it takes only moving the balance point, the keystone, to cause the cascade. If you can readily find the keystone in a structure or a spell, striking it or setting it, you can cast that spell. I found keystones for her. She'd get stuck, even when she fathomed the vastness of the spell space and could locate the singularities. I'd find her where to push. The best spellcrafters author the mnemonic to evoke the internal sensation that lets you push a keystone point. When I realized the enormity of the technique I'd discovered, I earned my cutie mark."

He lifted his cloak to reveal what one might think was a sun rising behind a mountain or cloud, rampant with a spray of four-point stars. A decade ago, I had thought I saw books arranged edgewise in a semicircle around a sun because I had just tipped a hundred tomes over on myself. My friend had saved me from being crushed to death.

It hadn't been books he'd focused on: Clued into his thought processes, I clearly saw the business end of an old-timey key with the books as key wards and the space between the books as key bits. His cutie mark was a magic key radiating sparkles.

Twilight raised her hoof, after glancing at me. "Teacher?"

"Yes?"

"Twilight Sparkle. Um? Teachers usually write their name on the board."

He shook his head and blinked, which I remembered was his equivalent of a face hoof (in this case) or shocked disbelief. I could almost imagine a bean rattling in a can. I remembered I found it adorable.

Once.

Long ago.

He trotted to the green slate levitating yellow chalk. He tapped out:

Sunburst Mortarboard

"You can call me Mr. S. However, because of my lack of advanced degrees and being only your age, all the research and treatises I've published are co-authored with my faculty advisor, so you'll see S. Mortarboard & S. Daze. S. Daze is—"

While he talked, Sunset froze. She slowly stood and I noticed she shook, ever so slightly. With Sunburst facing the board, she approached him, stalked him really, until she stood less than a pony length away, breathing hard through her nostrils. What I could see of her face, she frowned and bared her teeth.

Streak noticed, dropping her book as she fluttered onto the table, causing Moon Dancer to squeak and scramble away.

"You're that Sunburst," Sunset accused in a low sinister voice. "You're that lousy colt that abandoned Starlight when he got his cutie mark."

He rotated his head to match his blue eyes with hers, his eyes flicking to notice that a turquoise aura roiled around her horn.

She screamed, "Aren't you!?"

I heard Streak launch into the air as I belatedly realized what could go badly wrong next. Sunset Shimmer knew my history. She knew that for all my prevarication about running away to learn magic, I'd only had to do that because Sunburst had left me. He had indeed been the one that could discover the keystones that I was too stupid to discover myself. Not only that, she understood that I had thought that I might find Sunburst—and have my life be again like he had never left me. As foalish as the thought was, my attachment had been the fatal attraction that had overcome inertia and made it possible for me to run away. Last night, she'd learned all the hurt I'd endured because of that decision.

That I'd been savaged.

All because of one "lousy" colt.

Head down, stubby horn pointed at his chest, Sunset Shimmer charged him. In that instant, I loved Sunset.

In the next instant...

It felt like the shockwave of an explosion. Having a year ago in-teleported a fractional second after a celestial-ton fertilizer bomb had detonated, I recognized the shockwave impulse against the front surface of my body. Your body jerks back; you feel it in your guts.

But— nothing exploded.

Yet, everything in the room jerked away from the red-haired stallion... Displaced hoof lengths into the air, rotated clockwise and shifted right as a single conjoined unit. Everything not bolted down lifted together with no regard for mass. Turned, examined like sculptures in a hoof. Ponies, books, glassware. For a second, enough to gasp for the air punched from my lungs, we hung suspended. Then dropped.

Streak, in magic-enhanced flight, found her trajectory redirected into the ceiling. She cratered the plaster. A disintegrating small crystal chandelier tumbled along her uncontrolled trajectory for the transom window above the door. All Celestia's crystal serving pieces slammed down, many shattering. The water pitcher bounced, erupting water, splashing me as I landed back in my chair and rolled back. Crystal, brass chandelier parts, shards of broken transom window, and plaster crashed down with the racket of a china bowl of dried beans and nine-penny nails.

Nifty defensive spell Sunburst had!

Not entirely unexpected. He had caught a hundred heavy tomes to save my life, and shelved them. Alphabetically, I'd noted that the next day, having started to cry seeing the books from our disastrous game.

Librarian.

In training. Obviously.

Sunset slid back on her rump, but immediately righted herself, only to be knocked over by Streak who had bounced off a wall. I levitated both aside as they rolled away in a tangle of legs, jumping the obstacle.

I cast Pull to anchor myself if he cast Impulse again. Despite my bruises and torn ear, I saw him recognize me as I stepped forward. His mouth dropped open, but his eyes narrowed warily.

With all that had happened in the last 36 hours since my coronation, the last 2 1/2 days since I'd told Celestia to pound sand, really, this confrontation felt ill-timed. I had once loved this colt. I'd ruined my life pursuing him. I'd thought the pony was my other half. My soulmate. My one and only friend. I'd denied it, but subconsciously I'd vowed to marry him. I had found him adorable. The yearling stallion he'd become only added fuel to the fire of the emotions raging inside.

I wanted to sock him.

I wanted to hug him and start crying.

I wanted to run away. (I'd grown good at running away. Intuition screamed do so.)

I stopped in front of him. We blinked at each other as Streak and Sunset thumped into one another and a chair struck a wall behind me. The two sounded too agitated to get out of each other's way.

"You—" I yelled, but my voice cracked. I croaked out, "You abandoned me."

He shook his head in disbelief. "I—? I—?" His voice ramped up, "I— WHAT?"

He ceased to look adorable. Male, he out-massed me. His muscles visibly shown. The veins on his head and neck bulged as his eyes widened and face reddened.

Rage.

"After what you did, you have the AUDACITY to excoriate me!?"

Fight reflex kicked in, bringing clarity. I backpedaled, saying, "You got your cutie mark then walked out of my life!"

He clopped away, muttering to himself. "I told her it wouldn't work." His magic picked up a notebook and a quill, shoving them into a briefcase. "I told the princess! I'm so stupid. Stupid! How hard can it be to say No!" He punctuated the word by clopping a horseshoe on mahogany.

He panted, working to control his breathing, facing the desk. He shoved a copy of what had to be his book into the briefcase with a thump.

I said, "No is not an answer Celestia accepts."

He zipped the brown fabric so hard, it should have thrown the briefcase over his shoulder. He rounded on me and came muzzle to muzzle, hot breath scented with oats heating my nose.

"You! You slammed your door after I went to tell my parents who were waiting in the street. When I came back to invite you to my Cuteciñera, nopony answered. That afternoon, your butler said you were ill. My invitation got returned. When I got a scholarship offer to attend Celestia's School at dinner time, I galloped over to tell you, but your butler told me I was no longer welcome. I didn't believe him... not at first. When a pegasus caught me climbing the fence, like I always had to see why you hadn't shown up at school, he threw me in the street and told me you thought I was making a foal of you and to go away. He broke my rib. I wrote letters but, when a dozen came back, I understood: You were envious. I could learn spells easily, and my cutie mark demonstrated that. You couldn't take it. So you threw me in the trash, like a porcelain-headed pony doll with a tiny chip, no longer worthy of the Lady Countess of Sire's Hallow, the Earl of Grin Having. I was a commoner, a nopony who lost his usefulness. I vowed I'd show you. I did. I made somepony of myself. I've revolutionized the field of magic semantics!"

He huffed and shouldered me brusquely aside. "With Princess Celestia as my co-author, supporting my findings!"

His horseshoes screeched as he halted his stomping out of the room. When I looked, I saw Proper Step blocking the door frame, wearing my dark green livery with my stars and auroras cutie mark crest.

"You! You were her butler!" Sunburst scoffed, reared and crashed his horseshoes down. Glaring, the redhead spat on the floor, levitated him aside, then stomped down the hall. He screamed, his voice fading down the school corridor. "I quit, Princess! This will never work!"

The PTSD tinnitus returned with a fearsome squeal in my ears. My world fogged with glaring white. I shook. My mind was blank and quiet as Sunburst's words ricocheted around the inside of my skull like steel ball bearings. The meanings couldn't register because...

Because...

How could they? The pony had said the sky was made of grape jelly but it rained apple juice. His words contradicted reality.

Proper Step looked as distressed as he'd been last night, stricken as if he'd seen somepony die.

Thinking about it, maybe he had.

Me.

He knelt, prostrating himself. Voice quavering, he said, "I did that. What he said. To increase the pressure on you. Sunburst's walking out on you was the opportunity the Princess said to look for..." He pressed the upper part of his muzzle and his horn against the floor so he could not meet my eyes.

No doubt in my mind that he wanted to die.

"It's true," I stated, admitting altered reality.

The sledgehammer struck glass. My world shattered. Everything I'd based my life upon crashed in shards to the floor around my hooves. Like a rag doll, I followed, barking my knees, banging my shoulders, and striking my head.

Blue and purple phosphene stars whirled around amidst the pain I understood I deserved.

I pushed Sunburst out in a moment of pique, and Proper Step took advantage and made it permanent. Which means Sunburst didn't abandon me. Everything I've based my decisions in my life, my opinions of the trustworthiness of friends, even the corrupting nature of cutie marks is...

Completely baseless.

I'm melting. I'm disappearing. I'm...

I covered my eyes with my forelegs, moaned, and started rocking.

I heard ponies gathering. I heard hooves. I heard voices, but the words sounded inside out and backwards. Feathers rustled, but I grew warm so it wasn't only Streak who held me.

"Hey!" somepony cried. Horseshoes clattered, scrabbling away against the floor. I got tugged aside, wrenching my neck. I heard ice cubes battering glass.

A gout of ice water splashed me in the head and muzzle. Ice and lemon slices bounced off my horn and rolled off my shoulders and across my back.

"Gah!" I cried, leaping to my hooves, flinging aside Streak who'd taken some of the splash.

Sunset Shimmer stood there, holding in her magic the two emptied pitchers she'd thrown in my face as my washed out mane dripped on the floor. Around me, I saw my classmates—and in the doorway, Ms. Maple and Mrs. Squick, the school nurse, wearing her nurse's hat with a red plus symbol.

Sunset said, "Well, that worked. Seriously, Starlight! Now you can stop being that colt's victim and live your life free of that past."

I blinked at her.

...The fiery mare was right. I whispered,"That sounds familiar."

"Me and Celestia. What you've told me... like... a hundred times! Fair's fair."

I nodded and dripped.

The nurse put a frog to my forehead and looked into my eyes. Somepony found a towel. The adults got me trotting through the halls, where ponies saw their new princess dripping followed by an odd entourage. I kept thinking of what I'd learned and the label Sunset, who had acknowledged herself as my student, had applied.

Victim.

No longer a victim.

I felt myself lifted onto a bed. In the nurse's office. I let myself be examined.

Was I free? Was this true?

Near Mrs. Squick's desk, blocking her glass cabinet of first aid bandages and antiseptics, stood ponies worrying about me. Friendship went both ways, and somehow I'd merited their attention and concern. I didn't understand it, but now I began to think I probably could learn. I knew one thing, looking at the yellow mare with the mane that resembled fire frozen in time: Like Citron, she demonstrated she supported me, whether I liked it or not. I started blinking as my eyes misted up. Tears ran down my cheek.

Love felt like this.

Ms. Maple asked, "Do you want to talk about it? Streak explained it—"

I wiped the tear with a fetlock. "Oddly, I'm okay. I'm learning something important about myself."

"Talking it out definitely helps."

"I will. With my friends." I felt what I'd felt last night with the prince—not the riding part, but the expanding feeling. My heart expanded. It had expanded when we met on the Strand. It had encompassed him when I held him in the bath, causing him to release this burst of emotion magic. Looking at Sunset, I felt that expanding feeling. Like Cadance had said—as had the prince—I overflowed. Tears streamed down my cheeks.

I was a ceramic pot. I'd been badly crazed. I'd been dropped and I had shattered into a hundred pieces, one for each book Sunburst had saved me from being crushed under. So many pieces, none of them fitting together like puzzle pieces. I glued myself together—now. I would not be the same.

Through the open door, I heard a voice increasing in volume. "Ow, ow, ow! Stop that!" I heard marching hooves and somepony who sounded like he was being dragged against his will. Princess Cadance strode into the office and said, "There you are, Ms. Glimmer!"

Behind her, she dragged Sunburst. She held his right ear in her magic. His brass shod hooves slid in place, like the wheels of a locomotive when the train starts but spun because they couldn't get traction. "Ow!"

Her magic flicked out. Released, he sat on his butt. He glared up at her, then jerked his head around to face me, seeing me on the table. I had stood in his horseshoes. I understood the resentment he felt because I'd felt it, too. I'd lashed out, and he had too. He'd made something of himself: a librarian and magic scholar. I'd made myself a criminal— and a princess, which I thought of as the same thing. We'd both learned something about ourself.

His expression went flat.

I slid out of the bed before Cadance could cast a heart-shaped spell, stepping close enough to nuzzle him. I knelt on my front knees. I'd noted what Proper Step had done, and I heard the old stallion gasp in the hall as I copied him. I curved my neck forward and laid the upper part of my muzzle, pointing toward my chest, on the floor. My horn clicked on the tile as my horn touched it, preventing me from touching my forehead to the cold hard surface as a pegasus or earth pony could.

I said, "Everything you said was true. I closed the door on you. I shut you out. I learned what it feels like to earn your cutie mark three days ago. I did a horrible thing to you. While circumstance conspired to separate us, I let my pride keep me from finding you and discovering what went wrong. I knew you. I knew you wouldn't abandon me, but let myself distrust my heart. I knew where you lived. I knew your family would throw a cuteciñera for you. The next day, I learned you would come to school here. Yet, I. Did. Nothing. I exchanged pride for my best friend and soulmate, and I apologize. I only now understand what is truly precious."

Twilight murmured, "She's truly a princess."

"Starlight—" he started.

I cut him off. "Don't forgive me reflexively. I am not doing this to obligate you. I hurt you. I am responsible." I raised my head. "We are two different ponies now. The Aurora Midnight you called Starlight Starbright and her Sunburst are long-ago memories and can never again be. I morn them."

Cadance sucked in a breath.

I looked and saw the Princess of Love choke up, majorly, lips quivering. I humored myself by telling myself it was all my fault. Tears streamed down her cheeks; considering she wore mascara like Celestia, it wasn't pretty.

I overflowed again.

I looked at Sunburst. His eyes glistened and he rattled the bean. His breath caught, then he smiled. "You're right. You really aren't the Starlight Starbright I once knew. But, I am very happy to make your acquaintance, Princess."

I forgave his use of the P-word.