The Enforcer and Her Blackmailers

Chapters

Chapter 1: PTSD
Chapter 2: Much in Common
Chapter 3: Work Issues
Chapter 4: I Prefer Stallions
Chapter 5: Reading Barthemule Recommended
Chapter 6: Using What She Learned
Chapter 7: Grimoire Ascendent
Chapter 8: Shimmering Issues
Chapter 9: Theory into Practice
Chapter 10: Blind-sided
Chapter 11: I Don't Kill Ponies
Chapter 12: Revelation
Chapter 14: Prodigy
Chapter 15: Exam
Chapter 16: Night Hauler
Chapter 17: Night Flight
Chapter 18: Pony of a Different Stripe
Chapter 19: Accounting for Wrong Decisions
Chapter 20: Fright Night
Chapter 21: The Curious Cure
Chapter 22: House Rules
Chapter 23: Likely, Meet Inevitable
Chapter 24: Breakthrough Consequences
Chapter 25: Backed Into a Corner
Chapter 26: Any Plan in a Storm
Chapter 27: Gambit
Chapter 31: New Book 2 - Starlight and The Persistent Princess
Appendix 1: Chapter Descriptions
Appendix 2: Glossary
Appendix 4: About the Cover
Appendix 5: Outline Materials
Chapter 13: Unintended Consequences
Chapter 28: Act Three, Scene One
Chapter 29: To Ring a Unicorn
Chapter 30: Epilogue? The Third Protégé (and Tears)
Appendix 3: Errata

Chapter 1: PTSD

Author's Note

There is a REMASTERED version. Please read that instead of this (the original published) version.

Though this story was written before all the others, this is the immediate sequel to The Runaway Bodyguard.

You will find minor discrepancies between the prequel and this one.

Keep in mind that this is a first person story told by Starlight. She's only going to admit what she wants you to know; same goes for the prequel. Ask her.

Chapter 1: PTSD

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

A flash bang lit the reflective dark caves electric blue. Had to be Eye Bee. I cringed behind a faceted stalagmite, fighting off flashbacks of my last night in Hooflyn when Carne Asada and her gang had fought it out with the coppers while she expected me, her lieutenant and bodyguard, to save her flank. I worked to help ponies, to keep the peace and the bits rolling in; I wasn't there to clean up her stupidity in getting into a shootout with the authorities. Spoiler alert: unicorn magic isn't made of rainbows and giggles. Nopony that horrid night cast low level stun spells, even the constabulary.

I escaped that bloody nightmare resolved to fix my mistakes, to win entrance into a magic school in Canterlot. Just my bad luck to test into Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns the same day Running Mead, the boss of Lower Canterlot, blackmailed me into becoming his enforcer.

This exercise felt too real. Three years on the street in Baltimare and Hooflyn had honed reflexes that gave a pony night terrors. I trembled, wanting someone to stun me already but unable to quit casting a wriggling-eel of a spell, Don't See Don't Hear Don't Look, to let that happen.

Sunset Shimmer's arrogant voice boomed, sounding closer. "That goes double for you, Glimmer. You're a first year who placed into a third year class. You won't pass by simply being the last pony standing!"

Strobing flashes of magenta, pink, and topaz announced other fire fights—none near me. I forced myself to breathe. In…out…in... This wasn't real. Dial it back. Nopony was going to be hurt. In the harsh street world, I assured I was the one in control; I was the pony who kept the peace.

Mostly.

This game made me crazy.

A close bang sounded; I reflexively renewed my invisibility illusion spell, sweating as I worked to generate the noise, the random numbers, that made it possible.

Keep calm—

I couldn't take this! Disgusted with myself, I reached into my saddlebag like an earth pony. I found four slices of valerian root that littered the bottom by probing with my tongue for the cheesy fibrous things. It was legal (for adults), but contraband at school. I needed calm and was trained not to cast Levitation while maintaining an illusion. Doing so might preserve my dignity, but could let extraneous magical potentialities leak past my tenuous illusory cloak.

It did, however, defeat my desire to be seen, be stunned, and be done with the stupid exercise.

Horse apples! I loathed the idea of letting out the soilder inside again, but the whip of self-preservation had trained me well, and had saved my life many times.

I'd barely begun chewing when Sunset Shimmer said, "Maybe I'll just shoot you myself!"

I lost my spell.

I sensed a unicorn's aura before the sound of an in-teleport reached my ears, and deduced the approximate balance node of the pony's exit teleport target before the pop. By reflex, I balanced the same math I sensed, applying a two-yard transform on three axes. I saw Sunset appear as I disappeared, knowing she saw me. Reflex drilled by repetition turned into instinct gave me total control; I appeared above and behind her a tenth of a second later, fully expecting her to be good enough to sense my entrance and roll, ready to shoot. She did not disappoint. What she didn't know, and I could not stop myself from doing, was that I could cast Mirror.

Her stun bolt flashed off at a normal to the angle of attack. I dropped with my knees flexed. Hard learned quick draw street techniques let me queue spells, inaccurate but good enough. Having cast Mirror, I transformed the rest into force spells as I fell, screaming my frustration at my overly trained reflexes...

Her unexpected leap at me made it almost impossible not to shoot her. In the three years since I had run away at age 12, I'd never used a force spell to intentionally harm a pony offensively—property often enough, but never intentionally a pony. I twisted midair. I turned the stalagmite I'd hidden behind into pea gravel, melted a glowing gash on the ceiling, and set myself on fire with the backlash from stifling a spell that would have ripped the aggressive teaching assistant in half longitudinally like a rag.

I dropped, slid along the ground, and rolled more from shock than from the sight of flames or the smell of burnt fur. I'd gotten myself mostly extinguished before Sunset Shimmer conjured a bucket of water to finish the job. Nauseating smoke drifted in white layers as I coughed out water I'd accidentally inhaled.

I lay there shivering and humiliated. So much for me watching educated unicorns to see how they performed magic differently than the gutter trash I had let myself become. I heard the clatter of hooves approaching: my classmates. Right. The street tough brought down by her own misfire. More humiliation.

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

I levered myself up, hurting from burns and scorches to my forehead and right side, not looking back at her or anypony else.

"Not you, Glimmer."

I shivered, but didn't look as she lit her horn and the sound of the other students' hooves echoed and died away in the distance.

"I counted five spells going off in—let's call it three seconds. Look at me!"

I turned. The bright white sphere of light drowned out her aura, illuminating her yellow hide and red-and-yellow mane as if she were truly on fire. She had a scorch mark where she'd barely skirted the proximity effect of my first bolt, just above that curious fire-eclipsed sun cutie mark on her flank. Star cutie marks were reputed to indicate high degrees of magic; was a sun a star semantically? She cleared her throat and I looked at her face. Her green eyes seemed to shimmer with an internal bale flame.

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

"Nothing so prosaic, blank flank." She chuckled. "Celestia—" She didn't say Princess Celestia, you know, the one with a full sun on her rear end. "—is grooming me to run Equestria one day. Let's call it six spells in ten seconds, if we count that spiffy invisibility spell you couldn't keep powered up for trying."

Powering wasn't the issue. It wasn't combat magic; it required constant attention. Shrug it off. Others had to be able to queue spells. "So?"

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

I only let loose a few quiet snorts. The herb I chewed gave me clarity and thankfully numbed the increasing pain of my burns.

But my motion let her see I had a chaw in my mouth. "What's that? Spit that out!"

I complied. I didn't know if using combat magic instead of defensive magic was grounds enough to get me expelled—might, if Sunset Shimmer phrased it right. Contraband probably wouldn't make it worse.

She levitated the chewed fibers, sniffed, and placed them in her pack. "Not Celestia's stalking horse, then. You are a fascinating mare, blank flank. There appears to be many things you can teach me, Glimmer, and me you. After we get your wounds healed."

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

Was Equestria filled with blackmailers?

Chapter 2: Much in Common

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 3: Work Issues

Sunset Shimmer jumped off the couch when I entered the waiting room, her yellow and red mane practically blazing in the bright light of the potion lamps. "What did he tell you?" She sounded nice. She sounded worried.

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

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

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

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

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

She proved that she was a high-level unicorn by following me with an echoing bang within ten seconds, and trotting up behind me. "That was rude."

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

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

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

"Dude!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Sir?"

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

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

"Why?"

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

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

He continued. "And about the upper-classmare. A friend?"

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

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

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

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

"I didn't think—"

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

"I will not sell product."

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

"You misunderstand me. I don't need to work." I turned and walked away. I suspected at this point everypony had heard of the fire fight this afternoon, including the force spells, and wouldn't be surprised to learn I was a former gang member trying to reform herself. He had little to blackmail me with, suddenly.

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

I kept walking because I had to. Did he know where I'd run away from? I hated that I was accustomed and attracted to dangerous games, and to that feeling of being effective—even as a thug—that counteracted the feeling of worthlessness that was Sunburst's legacy to me.

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

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

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

I looked around the street and saw a number of Running Mead's lackeys, including a pale blue pegasus with a white-streaked blue particolor mane—his aerial spy, no doubt. I worked up a general spell I could transform to Force or Teleport. I could probably handle this, so instead of departing I spun the purse in a whirlwind spiral flourish into by saddle bag and faced him. "I won't sell product."

"Stubborn."

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

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

Author's Note

Next:
Chapter 4: I Prefer Stallions
Starlight wakes up in Sunset Shimmer's bed and realizes she's been sleep walking—or sleep something.

Chapter 4: I Prefer Stallions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—and suddenly I was here.

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

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

Right. Sunset Shimmer's adopted father was the princess' physician. I looked at the brocade gold and ivory bedspread, heaped on the floor with an empty wine bottle on top. Gold satin sheets, too. Rumpled.

I nodded.

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

I stood and used my magic to flick a piece of glass from my hide and apply pressure to the wound. Meanwhile, Sunset Shimmer had rolled over and was working to control her breathing. She kept glancing at me, then looking away, trying not to break out laughing again.

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

I had brought product?

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

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

"No! I'm sorry I laughed. No!"

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

She turned and kicked me.

I reflexively jumped back, but her rear hooves still connected lightly with my shoulder and my wound started to bleed again. Ticked, I picked her up in my magic and hurled her toward the bed, stopping her fall at the very last second. She bounded up as I yelled, "What's going on here?"

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

When I didn't respond, she began pacing in a circle around me. "You promised me a present. You bought dinner. Then insisted that I take you home and when I said no, you began crying until I conceded."

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

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

"I— I don't— Never!"

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

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

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

My spell had backfired.

She continued, "Were a stallion ever to get the courage to ask me out—" When the only other solar cutie mark in Equestria graced its monarch's butt, it was undoubtedly difficult, even discounting her abrasive personality. "—I'm sure I would prefer them, too. Take what you can get. Fun's fun, right?"

I scoffed, dark memories flooding back. "Except for magic, I'd have foaled three times over—" I saw her startled shock, then heard my own words. With a gasp, I trotted out onto the balcony to the railing, hyperventilating.

I had remade myself into street trash that had somehow connived her way into an ivory tower reserved for the very aristocrats I'd turned my back upon. It was becoming clear. The backfire wasn't as well healed as I had deluded myself into thinking. Had I not been in a hurry to leave, the doctor would probably have checked me into a hospital. I had blacked out. No, I had probably been sleepwalking, finding a way to live the dream of a life that a part of me believed I ought to live as the daughter of proclaimed "Heroes of Equestria." Meeting Sunset Shimmer had planted the idea in my subconscious. Had I bought the nettle-ewe from Running Mead to seduce her? It made twisted sense. The boss was probably tickled pink. I banged my forehead on the banister.

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

I shook myself. "The nettle-ewe wasn't a gift." I looked at her, into her green eyes. "I can't remember probably because I blacked out because of the backfire. Some wicked backroom gremlin in my mind decided to use it to seduce you into— I have no idea what."

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

"Right. Thanks."

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

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

"You have?"

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

Her eyes narrowed. "I see."

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

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

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

She puffed up. "Three stallions—!"

"More than that."

"—at your age, and all because one selfish spoiled egotistical colt got his cutie mark and left you?"

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

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

Still, no tears.

Only ice.

I felt myself levitated back to the bed as I relived the moments when Sunburst got his cutie mark. There'd been a strobe of rainbow light. I'd jerked a book from the tower of books, causing it to fall on me. None hit me because Sunburst discovered he could levitate hundreds of separate items independently at the same time, and self-levitate, both impossible magic. Then he'd just walked out of my life. My soulmate, gone.

Because of a stinking cutie mark. He got his cutie mark and I didn't.

I hoped I remained a blank flank until I died. And considering the life expectancy in my profession, that might just happen.

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

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

"In excruciating detail. Apparently you didn't know him as well as you thought."

"You think? Give the pony a prize."

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

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

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

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

"You do remember telling me that, right?"

"I do. As for why I left home, I went to find Sunburst. That's what I told myself, anyway. Had to wait until I stopped growing so I wouldn't be dismissed as a foal, or taken as a truant. Why I ended up in other cities, learning to survive, until I came to Canterlot before the beginning of the semester, I really don't know. Lack of courage? Didn't want to learn the truth why he never spoke to me again? By the time I got here it was too late."

"Too late for what? He got married?"

"At eleven? I used the application process to sneak access to school records. Turns out he was in Celestia's school only for a few years; somewhat of a brain. I figure a Saddle Arabian diplomat learned about him. A mercantile league in their confederation probably offered him employment. I'm guessing he and his big sister now live half a world away in the Great Sandy Desert. If you can wield a hundred spears independently at one time, you're a one-pony army who can guarantee the safety of mega-caravans. Why wouldn't he go? Let's face it, he was out of reach before I even thought of leaving home."

"Pathetic."

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

I spent all night… Playing?

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

"I am."

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

"A mare has to do what she has to do. And, unfortunately, I'm terrifically good at it."

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

I sighed and nodded. But first, I had to do something about the blackout-sleepwalking thing. And I didn't want to know what I did that she considered "playful." Sheepishly, I asked, "Maybe we could go downstairs and talk to your father about what happened. The blackout, I mean."

She craned her head around to look me in the eye. "Downstairs? Seriously? I'm Celestia's protégé, her first protégé in a century; she gave me the tower. She gave the purple runt one, too, but hers is in Kind Hart Park, in the low rent district beyond the bailey wall. I wouldn't bring a playful mare, or stallion, home if my father were living there. Eeew."

Author's Note

Next:
Chapter 5: Reading Barthemule Recommended
Starlight's doctor, Sunset Shimmer's father, suggests she might have a talent for healing magic.

Chapter 5: Reading Barthemule Recommended

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

Until tomorrow at least.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

Up three flights of unlit stairs, worn and wavy by decades of hooves, lay a graffitied plywood door. Three flights was actually good; it got me away from the slight scent of urine that permeated the entrance hall. I cleared the simple ward that served as a lock since the door had only a latch; since I had never been good at wards, it had to be simple. I had no possession worth stealing anyway. Inside, the porthole and casement were open as always. (To ameliorate that smell thing I mentioned.) On the pile of last week's hay I used for a bed lay a note delivered by "pegasus express." I had no secrets any more.

Undoubtedly work; I didn't even look.

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

She had a solar cutie mark. I didn't.

And she had earned it in the street before being found. Cutie marks made a difference. Hers kept her from getting laid. More importantly, they changed ponies.

Me, I changed myself, thank you very much. A blank flank and proud.

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

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

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

Author's Note

Next:
Chapter 6: Using What She Learned
Starlight asks Sunset Shimmer to blast her with a force spell; the result is... unexpected, and enlightening.

Chapter 6: Using What She Learned

I took advantage of my two-day free pass from schoolwork and found Miss Verdigris again. She had the SBS Omnibus sent down. I got much farther, and made copious notes before I again fell asleep in the mid-afternoon on my notebook.

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

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

Thus, I fell asleep contemplating what an overlay of a Barthemule Omega Transform might do to a force spell. Change its shape?

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

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

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

"You've been avoiding me."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Her spell hit me full on in the chest.

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

It wasn't a force spell.

Gasping, I looked at her where I lay and asked, "You can't do a force spell?"

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

"Did you at least observe me—?"

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

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

We tumbled in a pile of hooves and manes, with Sunset Shimmer screaming incoherently as she bucked me off her. I scrambled up as every nearby university student began trotting over. Yeah, nopony could teleport as quickly as I had. Nopony measured my inaccurate targeting because, well, they didn't know it was inaccurate.

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

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

"Can you levitate?"

Eye-roll. "Of course—"

"Same basic spell, just concentrated and directed through the air at a point."

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

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

"Perhaps you could teach me—"

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

"What?"

"Nosey posey."

"No, really. Maybe I could help."

"Not possible." I broke into a canter. I looked at her and she looked eager. "Were you observing me before like I asked? No—? Are you observing my magic now?"

"I—"

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

Author's Note

Next:
Chapter 7: Grimoire Ascendent
Starlight the Enforcer does her job frightening a pony who won't pay up and realizes something about cutie marks.

Chapter 7: Grimoire Ascendent

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

No chance of that.

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

In an empty windowless alley, I took out a makeup kit and a stencil. I brushed on black, brown, and white powder to create the toothy-book cutie mark I had concocted. A puff of hairspray acted as a fixative between colors. I tied my tail into a bun and wrapped it in black ribbon, hiding the identifying green stripe. Last, I donned a hooded black cape that went as far as my haunches, and stepped into a light set of deceptively rusty horseshoes. I'd constructed them of thin steel and wood. I'd carved antlers scavenged from a thrift shop so that the complete giddy-up added six inches to my height. The antler decoration mimicked the exposed hoof of a stallion with a sexy, very masculine fetlock. Pebbly rubber made the shoes stealthy and goat-sure. I put my hair up in a bouffant, spritzed the minimum of hairspray, and looped a loose ribbon around my chin to assure the hood kept my face shadowed. That it looked faintly like a bridle just added to the distracting oddity of a costume I had designed to obscure the identity of Running Mead's enforcer. I assured my saddle bags were secured under the cape and trotted off.

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

Surrogate physical violence.

As I approached the address on the blue note, I started casting Don't See Don't Hear Don't Look. A brass mailbox on the old, soot-stained but still respectable, brownstone read "APT 2202 RYE BALD". The facing building, a more fancy brownstone with a glassed-in multilevel stairwell, looked promising. I could certainly pick the unwarded lock, and would have had it been past midnight, but I liked to sleep so I decided not to wait out the evening. Don't See Don't Hear Don't Look was hard to combine even with simple levitation so I couldn't pick the lock now.

The hoof traffic didn't disappoint. I quietly followed an office worker inside and soon stood on the stairway platform between the second and third floor.

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

No—

It was a shtick! He was a comedian.

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

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

Rye Bald was still bowing, taking in the applause of his imagined audience as I popped in on-target. I seamlessly addressed the comedy-pony, saying, "Thank you. I so love being adored."

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

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

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

Too close!

But I could work with it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I hated cutie marks.

If the absence or presence of an imagined cutie mark could change a pony that simply, I wondered idly as I walked home, could removing a real cutie mark have a curative effect? Not something anypony could test, of course, short of painting it over, or doing something so unthinkably violent it would even repulse Grimoire. Still, I speculated happily that cutie marks themselves might be a magic separate from a pony—perhaps like a permanent parasite—as I walked.

I resolved to start studying psychology.

Author's Note

Next:
Chapter 8: Shimmering Issues
Starlight tries to teach Sunset quick draw, but finds Celestia's protégé doesn't think in numbers at all.

Chapter 8: Shimmering Issues

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

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

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

"What?"

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

She blinked, blinked again. "I—"

"You missed taking magic kindergarten, didn't you? Look, I understand you were living on the street, but this is fundamental." I scooted back on the bench and waved a hoof to invite her to join me. Soon we were like two face-to-face sphinxes, the book in my blue-green magic between us.

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

"So, she's not omniscient."

"Cheeky filly."

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

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

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

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

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

"You're talking combat magic!"

"Didn't you ever have to face bullies—" That was evident in the flash of her eyes. "When you're a foal, there comes a time when bullies learn to evaluate the magic you're using and how good it is before deciding whether or not it's safe to torture you. That is a skill acquired in magic kindergarten, not regular kindergarten. You want to continue being a high level unicorn? Learn to read other ponies' magic. Learn to read Princess Celestia's magic. Now that would be interesting."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You're obviously a freak."

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

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

"You are talented."

"Don't insult—!"

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

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

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

"You must practice your spells a lot, at least long enough to learn to make the shape and manipulate it effectively."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Second— what? That's not possible."

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

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

"Fifteen— no, wait, I think my birthday was the day of the practicum. Guess I'm sixteen."

"You've gotta to be kidding me."

I shrugged.

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

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

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

"Tartarus?" I asked.

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

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

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

As if.

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

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

Author's Note

Next:
Chapter 9: Theory into Practice
Sunset's talk of visiting Tartarus gives Starlight reasons to stay in Canterlot. She also casts her first healing spell.

Sunset Shimmer walked up to me, looked into my eyes, then glanced about my head, obviously reevaluating the double star "shaved" into the fur of my forehead, which wasn't growing back yet.

If you haven't taken a close look at the cover art for this novel, do that now.

Chapter 9: Theory into Practice

I did not sleep over at Sunset's.

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

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

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

Then again, my teacher wasn't a high level unicorn herself, having demonstrated nothing beyond levitation. I could agree that attending a magic school was rounding out my education, teaching me history, health, civics, charms, and earth pony magic (potions)—all topics I had ignored—as well as spells I was just plain bad at, like wards. To the extent that I could ask teachers questions, I had thought it worth the trouble to attend class instead of becoming the favorite patron of the librarian at the well-stocked Canterlot libraries, my usual method of operation. I was beginning to wonder if I could tough out the end of this semester and the senior year before I entered university study where I might get much better answers.

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

For a while, that evening while I continued reading the SBS Omnibus, I came close to saying to Tartarus with it all. Maybe I ought just go somewhere my past couldn't follow me. But then thanks to Sunset Shimmer, I had knowledge that Princess Celestia's Tartarus prison really existed. And thanks to knowing Sunset Shimmer's name and her father's, when I came to a chapter that unexpectedly ended in the omnibus, I realized that I not only had access to a rare book, I also knew what "redacted" meant and also knew of the existence of the ultimate library: the Star Swirl the Bearded Time Wing of the Canterlot Library.

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

Imperfection reassured me. The dynamic of ponies finding their place on merit could be symbolized by burning trash. Purification brought a new start. I needed a new start, now that I accepted Sunburst was lost forever.

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

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

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

I slept better that night than I had in ages.

Author's Note

Next:
Chapter 10: Blind-sided
A punked-out blue pegasus delivers an order from Running Mead. Starlight doesn't like that it contains the word "eliminate" in it.

Chapter 10: Blind-sided

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

Since I had just exited the university and was now trotting through the adjacent restaurant and bookseller district of Canterlot, and because she looked like a punked-out thug, considering the gaudy gold chains she also wore, I walked by as if she were invisible.

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

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

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

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

"A good restaurant."

"I know!"

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

I slowed and let her cut ahead of me, thinking of oat shell pasta stuffed with cheese and pesto. My last silver bit might cover it and gird me for my next job later tonight.

Already in Cliffside, two blocks from the Strand, with the deliveries thinned to one lone work pony hauling construction materials and a chatting unicorn couple, Streak did a dive bomb landing, startling everypony including me. I reflexively quick-draw-teleported seven feet and dangerously close to the brick wall of a brownstone. Worse, I materialized a yard in the air.

I landed, not flexing my knees in time, and hurting my rear leg as a result. I glared as Streak approached on my right and noted the other ponies hastening away.

I huffed and trotted left down the side street.

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

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

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

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

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

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

In a low voice, I said, "You ruin my ability to do what I am here in Canterlot to do and I'll leave town, and good riddance. The boss won't be happy with you."

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

"Then he's a foal."

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

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

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

"Did you mean eliminate as in eliminate?"

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

"I don't sell product and I don't—" I couldn't even say kill ponies. My rage grew like a summer storm, hot and quick.

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

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

"The boss insists."

I cursed. I'd learned intricate profanity in Baltimare and Hooflyn, and I proceeded to spew most of it—despite the unlikely familial relationships and impossible geometry issues it proposed—as I turned toward the narrow alley behind me. I knew Streak's wingspan would prevent immediate pursuit so I began to queue teleportation spells...

Author's Note

Next:
Chapter 11: I Don't Kill Ponies
Starlight fights for her life against a capable foe convinced she wants to kill him.

Chapter 11: I Don't Kill Ponies

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

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

And real.

Because, it was real.

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

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

The sleepwalker's force spell triggered.

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

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

I found myself screaming, "No!", as I began rolling and yawing through the air, spine forward, toward shadowed obstacles, none of which were likely soft. There were many ways to cripple oneself in a fight. Spell backfire was only one.

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

Paradoxically, I found myself already in an expanding sphere of green, forced to complete the calculation using the transform as I collided with an end-table and a crate, one full of horseshoes from the clatter it made as it was shoved aside. As I hit the floor, the barrier proved rather too elastic and since the end table was shoved against an immovable wooden bench, it still struck my rump, bruisingly. Worse, the rebound sent me spinning off like a billiard ball toward a high stack of crates. Once again, the spell conformed itself, sliding like a deflated ball on the actual floor rather than keeping me centered in a sphere. Fur rubbed off as I collided, rear hooves forword, into the crates, which not unexpectedly proceeded to fall over since I'd shoved the bottom one rather hard.

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

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

"Ow, ow, ow!" I heard myself crying as the sound of bouncing earthenware shards came to an end. I heard the sssish of streaming water and the smell of smoke drifting together with the dust my crash had lofted in the air. The warehouse in which we fought became otherwise deadly quiet.

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

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

I felt beat up and horribly exhausted. I saw tumbled-over furniture, exploded cartons, and scorches in every direction. How long had we been fighting? I'd run out of strength once in Baltimare and had barely escaped with my life. Also, 232 Canton was on a street packed tightly with brick two-story walkups, essentially what in a better neighborhood might be called toy townhouses. Warehouses lay at least three blocks further uptown. Worse, did I track him here, chase him here, or get chased here?

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

The moment that finished coming out of my mouth, I couldn't believe I'd said it. Grimoire wouldn't have. My side began to stiffen as the bruising set in. I added, more because I was tired than anything else, "And I don't like to hurt ponies, either."

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

Celestia on Rollerskates! I'd forgotten the Grimoire voice, and now my head began to spin, too. He had moved, but not far because I heard a splashing sound. I hazarded a glance around a teakwood breakfront, and through glass saw water levitate from the cleft pipe to extinguish the burning boxes. At the sound of a sudden crimp, I ducked. The spraying water stopped.

An average unicorn could not levitate flowing water. His levitation magic was also strong enough to crimp a copper pipe. I prepared a stun spell. I had to put him down quickly and get away before I became unable to function.

I nevertheless lowered my voice. "I'm here to scare you into leaving Canterlot. Did I do that?"

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

"What did I say?" I asked.

That made him pause. I took the moment to examine my surroundings and to hobble, and I mean painfully hobble, out of a position I could easily be cornered in. I felt my ears swiveling as I tried to hear if he moved, and thanked myself for taking the time to properly ensure my horseshoes would help me move silently. I could now see three spots, one he had vacated between the aisle of shelves, another in a castle of stacked sofas, and another atop a catwalk that I could teleport to. I prepared quick draw transforms for all of them. The upper level of the warehouse, behind me, had dirty windows that I now realized admitted the orangey light of dawn. Being up over 24 hours accounted for my being tired.

He said, "For starters—" He'd moved.

I crouched reflexively, putting down my lame leg. I saw stars and nearly fell over, but I kept my spells. I kept my spells because I'd burnt the need into my brain, like breathing. Keeping your spells could save your life.

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

"Huh? Really?"

"Indeed."

He'd come to my north, judging by the windows. I teleported to the sofa area for better cover, then replied. "That's a good one. I'm going to have to write that one down."

From my new vantage point in a bunker of sofas, some yellow, some brown, all corduroy, I still couldn't see exits. The windows didn't show a neighboring roof line. I couldn't just teleport blindly to the opposite side of the wall. I might teleport below ground level or three-stories up, or there might be traffic I'd strike, or another building with walls I might materialize within. Sleepwalking Grimoire might have known where she was, but I'd lost that information.

"The way you delivered the threat certainly convinced me to believe what you said."

"I've had practice."

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

"—I don't kill ponies. My boss—"

"—Running Mead?"

"Are you a constable?"

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

"That proves it."

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

I checked my voice; still at the proper register. "You are a constable."

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

He teleported where I'd crashed into the tower of crates. An instant later, I teleported into the shelving area, splashing down in puddles of water mixed with burnt shredded cardboard. A second teleport sent me against the wall, behind the end of the shelves.

If he could teleport, that raised his magic level even higher.

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

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

He saw my magic.

It was complete luck that I realized he'd chucked a dozen broken chowder mugs (from the crate that had nearly crashed on my head). I caught the shadows whizzing down at me and reflexively triggered a teleport.

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

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

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

My spell held.

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

No good.

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

Could Fellows cast Force? He'd thrown things instead of blasting me. Certainly, he could stun—a third spell average ponies often learned, after Light and Levitate, was Stun, if they needed a self-defense skill.

The candystripe-maned stallion picked his way silently around the furniture, entering my abandoned bunker of corduroy sofas. He wasn't coming close enough to my vantage point that I could hit him with a full strength stun bolt, and I wasn't going to use a force spell, not now. If he wanted to hurt me, he would throw things.

I carefully reached around and shoved my face into my saddlebag to retrieve a mouthful of quills, avoiding the feather part because the last thing I needed was for them to make me sneeze.

I waited until he had passed under the catwalk, taking my time to select where I would make my last stand. My magic was indeed weakening, and I was going to have to charge him if I were to stun him. I decided that the stacks of wooden chairs next to a dozen mattresses set on their edge would work best.

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

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

Calligraphy nibs are blunt. These hit their mark before he could even flinch, and caused him to jump into the air with a loud whinny, then roll away as if avoiding bees. He bucked over a dresser.

I teleported to my hidey-hole, knowing for a moment he'd be completely distracted and might not even figure out where I'd appeared.

And I appeared on target, a thick wall of mattresses between him and me. I quickly levitated more quills across the floor to a decoy location—and sat down as I needed a rest, rolling on to my left haunch. It hurt. I leaned into a mattress with my shoulder and left a smear of blood.

I heard him knock over something that gave a loud wooden crack when it fell, then silence.

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

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

I chuckled. Back in Grin Having, before I ran away, adults referred to me by that title and it was hollow, hollow—hollow now that my soulmate had abandoned me to realize the life-wreaking reality of his cutie mark. The fact of the matter was that nopony wanted to meet the real me, not even myself.

Though he tried to move quietly, I felt my ears move as I caught Fellows' hoof beats echoing off the walls to either side of the mattress. I could not have picked a better hunting blind. Time to do a course correction.

I levitated more quills and flung them in the direction I suspected he was, from where I wanted him to think I was.

I was rewarded with a "Yow!" and a swear word I'd yet to learn. It sounded like one, anyway. I also heard something heavy fall and clatter metallically. He'd been levitating missiles just as I suspected.

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

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

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

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

Wait for it...

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

Wait for it...

I used the levitation spell to shove furniture, and a chair jerked a lot closer than I would have hoped. No matter. I triggered the teleport.

Of all the rotten luck! I appeared desk-level three pony lengths from the mauve stallion's right shoulder, catching him winding up to throw an assortment of pot metal horseshoe coasters and stock pots. I fell, and despite bending my knees in time, I only had three that were good. The fourth spiked me with pain that took my breath away; I collapsed in a quarter-turn corkscrew.

Fellows shook his head and with barely a smile—what might be described as a satisfied workpony's expression—rounded the ten hovering objects around his head and threw them toward mine. He did not trust me not to try to kill him, I guess, and felt justified using deadly force.

I was no ordinary unicorn. Only the shock of pain delayed me from triggering the rest of my quick draw queue. The omega transform went smoother than ever. The force spell triggered even before I was about to want to do so. The expanding green bubble moved at the speed of a trot, intercepting the pots and paper weights barely half-way to their target, flinging them upward arcing overhead to hit the wall behind. The bubble hit the mattresses behind me, knocking them down like dominoes. It swept up chairs, sofas, and a few left over quills. Before me, it caught Fellows, stunned by the sight of my spell, like the cow catcher on a locomotive. He toppled toward me, then bounced off the rubbery surface like a plastic horse doll. He landed, rather adorably I might add, hooves up on a white and paisley red sofa with mahogany trim, his best parts visible for all to see.

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

I checked that my cloak was properly in place, then grunted, shaking as I got up. I half-staggered toward him, limping badly with an iron taste in my mouth. I was bleeding from my lip because of how I'd just fallen. To him, Lady Grimoire had to look particularly grim. I looked into his magenta eyes. He blinked. Just because he jerked and wasn't able to move, didn't mean he couldn't hear or wouldn't understand.

I said, "I said I don't kill ponies, and I meant it. Hopefully, you'll take the hint and leave the Lower alone. The one thing I do know is that my boss has other enforcers. I'm just the most economically efficient one. You seem like a nice pony, mostly. Let's not meet again."

With that, I limped toward the closest fire door. I felt like I might keel over any moment, and might be sick on top of it from what the pain was doing to my stomach. Nonetheless, I prepared a stun spell and a teleport.

Good thing, too.

Author's Note

Next:
Chapter 12: Revelation
Trying to escape, Starlight takes desperate measures. Will it cost her her soul?

Chapter 12: Revelation

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

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

I teleported past them, my quick draw approximation landing me in the street. I had enough strength to dodge a yellow cab pulled by a green stallion who didn't have the time to swerve, though he did have time to curse.

Before I could topple on the curb, I teleported one last time past a shoe shine kiosk halfway down the block—and struck a brick wall with the momentum of avoiding the taxi. Though further bruised, I was saved the ignominy of falling on the sidewalk. I heard the shoeshine colt jump up, his brushes, files, and rust-cleaner scattering around him. I again left a blood smear as I levered myself upright again. I adjusted my cloak to hide the wound and walked.

Now everything was whirling. I struggled to get numbers moving in my head. I wasn't going to be able to teleport any time soon. As I approached an alley, I turned into it. Early morning sunlight streamed down it, illuminating broken pavement and the morning dew condensed into the cracks, as well as a stinky overloaded dumpster. Unfortunately, it also illuminated a wagon with unicorns unloading bolts of fabric for the factory. The sun was behind me, and though I cast a long shadow, none of the workers noticed me.

I stood there, breathing hard, working up the numbers. Behind me, on the street, I heard ponies talking, and one galloping—and he wasn't pulling a taxi. The hue and cry had begun.

Slowly, relying on the rubber soles of my horseshoes to keep quiet, I walked down the alley until I finally got Don't See Don't Hear Don't Look properly spun up. Now, I only had to keep it going despite the pain and a real chance I might faint. Slowly, one-two front steps, one limp, repeat. I had to duck a two-hundred pound red velvet roll that would have surely laid me flat and unconscious, but I got past the wagon. I approached Cottonwood, which meant that to the right lay Elm. I tasted blood as I sucked my lip.

I stopped at the sidewalk and watched a mare in a red business dress trot by. She didn't seem to notice me, even when I threatened to step into her path. So, the spell still worked. Avoiding traffic and succeeding, barely staying upright, I got to Elm, a less busy cross-street. Delivery wagons interspersed with bus-and-eight—each harnessed pony in metro-white and purple livery—that pulled dozens and dozens of salary ponies and their supplies to stores that would open within the hour. I was about as far from my flat as I could get, and though relatively close to the university district, the last thing I was going to do was show up and beg Sunset Shimmer for help in my current state. I nearly collided with a cut fruit vendor, but only knocked over his chili powder shaker and had to fight to keep the spell and not sneeze at the same time. The pony in white and blue pinstripes stared at the ground where the shaker had mysteriously leapt.

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

I found my old alley, the one I'd spent part of spring in. I did not feel an ounce of nostalgia for it, or any contempt for the amalgamation of plastic sheeting, both rigid and tarp-like, that surrounded a lean-to near the dead-end fence. I limped forward and soon smelled a pony who, like myself not long ago, rarely had the opportunity to bathe or the luxury of a nearby toilet.

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

He just was.

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

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

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

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

That left me with a cut across my withers and a bloody lip, not to mention a startling limp that surely Detective Fellows had taken good note of. Stupid me. What had possessed me to lecture him, as if anything I might say could sway him. Stupid.

Stupid.

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

Or would I?

I glanced at my bunk mate. Though he had stopped jerking and jittering, he did shiver a bit, but he did kept his head buried in his blanket. "Good fellow. Just keep looking away."

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

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

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

Just work through it.

It took about an hour, and fully half of that resting with my eyes closed, but I began to see more detail in the numbers that came back when I moved the tissue in the sliced flesh on my upper back. Craning my neck, I could mostly see the slit skin. It began to vibrate and I could perceive a pattern of knitting that seemed to be innate and right for the skin and vessels lying below it in layers. This feedback told me what was right and I told it to become right again.

Oddly enough, it did as bidden. The flesh heated up and became feverish, and after a half-hour, the scabs worked loose and fell off, revealing skin that puckered a bit. It looked faintly scared, but under my fur it looked basically perfect.

I worked on my lip and—though it pulled up, probably giving me a faint sneer—in ten minutes it felt whole. I levitated the blood away, if not the smell.

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

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

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

It fascinated me that I could learn as much as I did about my own anatomy, and trust me, I knew very little anatomy. It was like being handed a broken machine and when you went to repair it, you found it came with a very detailed, easy to understand repair manual. It kind of made sense. School taught that all ponies grew from a single cell. Ponies could heal. That meant that somewhere inside us all lay both the operations guide and a full schematic as well as the repair manual. I kept that in mind as I detected the correct pattern of the ligament, and used brute strength to pull the stretched tissues back into place as the cells raced frenetically to mend themselves because I simply told them they could and they should. This time the fever filled my whole body, and maybe I suffered a bit of delirium because I was dimly aware of an immense pain that caused me to shudder and moan, but I managed to continuously maintain the spell spinning as if it were my breath itself. I sweated buckets, but persisted.

And then it was done.

I glanced at the homeless stallion. He shivered. Perhaps he had looked and had seen me encased in a green glow. Perhaps he was frightened just by the sound I emitted. Or maybe he need to go and thought his life depended on controlling his bladder. Nevertheless, he kept his eyes averted.

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

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

With a sigh, I carefully stood and hit the tarp ceiling. I put my weight on my leg, then pushed down; the fracture twinged, but if I walked slowly, I felt convinced I would not limp. I took precious moments to comb my hair and used a square of cloth to dry the sweat off. I checked my flank for smudges—and for a half expected cutie mark.

Thank Celestia and all the forces of nature it was still blank. I checked my ponytails; perfect.

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

"Yes, my lady."

I shuddered at the title, but knew he wasn't clairvoyant. I nosed myself from under the tarp and pushed the bags of stuff aside and entered the alley.

At least a couple of hours had passed; I felt each one of the 26-plus hours since I'd last arisen. My tongue wanted to stick to the roof of my mouth and my eyes were dry, from dehydration. There was a pond in Blueblood park were I could drink if I found nothing else.

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

Author's Note

Next:
Chapter 13: Unintended Consequences
Starlight realizes the real crime she's committed and it horrifies her.

Chapter 14: Prodigy

That somepony who noticed my malaise, of course, was the T.A. in my last class that day. As I walked down the hall toward the exit, not even toward the exit that lead toward the university library, but toward home, somepony walked beside me and without a by-your-leave, leaned ever so slightly into my right side. She was yellow furred and warm.

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

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

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

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

When I didn't answer and disconsolately walked toward the street, she walked ahead of me. "Look at this! I'm beginning to see the numbers!" In front of us, fiery numbers played and spun like fanciful butterflies. She seemed inordinately pleased with herself and happy, both also uncharacteristic of her.

"Is that a joke?" I all but whispered.

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

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

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

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

"Beat up? Deserved it? Nobody deserves to be beat up. It's that neighborhood you're living in on Lower West Gallop."

"Wait? You know where I—?"

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

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

"And I'm so much better?"

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

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

"Who's down in the dumps today?"

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

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

"Even you beat me up."

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

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

"So you weren't beat up?"

"I am beat up." Absolutely true. Two white unicorns under a tree and the old greens keeper with a straw in his mouth had joined into the audience. Sunset Shimmer dressing down a lower-classmare was always a spectacle. If she fought back, more the better. "And if somepony reputedly quite talented herself would teach her supposedly magically talented student how to cancel a spell, she might have avoided some of it."

She swished her tail. "Hehe." Still, she didn't look all that contrite despite the faintest blush, but the dig hadn't succeeded in digging in, either. The nasty part of me wondered if she'd gotten laid last night.

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

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

"Something is," I whispered.

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

I knew where we were headed and complied. "Perhaps I need to teach you judo, first. You're probably not so much kicked as knocked over? Am I right?" Of all the rest of the nattering she did along the way, the only thing I paid attention to was that she said that if I would be willing to take a roommate, she could find me a room for a gold bit and ten silver a month. That made me think of the twenty and one bits of silver guilt that jingled in my saddle bags, essentially double the amount I made on most jobs. Yeah, sell more of my little remaining soul off.

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

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

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

As he separated the fur and palpated areas, causing me to grimace, he said, "And I suppose I should have seen the other fellow?"

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

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

"I was."

He paused. His dark green eyes flicked to look into mine, then back to my rear haunches. He stepped back. It took him about ten seconds and he spotted the healed injury across my withers. The scar was kind of red, and obviously new. Thinking about it rationally, he had to realize it was long and deep enough to require stitches, but was perfectly straight and perfectly thin and perfectly sealed. It had soaked my cape with blood. Flowing Waters got a beatific smile on his face. "Which transform? You know how to use calculus with imaginary numbers?"

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

He looked out the window at the late afternoon sun. In a low voice, he asked, "And you did this on yourself?"

"Well, yeah."

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

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

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

I shrugged, but something fearful was growing in me.

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

I was actually shaking. He glared at me with a passion someone his age normally didn't show. I complied nearly in shock, pushing my magic into my leg and harnessing it against the fracture in the bone. His eyes, magnified behind his bottle-bottom glasses, stared unfocused into my green aura as he sampled my numbers.

"A green-stick fracture," we both said together.

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

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

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

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

He had a lot of fears about a process he'd never tried and learned, but I wanted him to get to his point. "I could have paralyzed myself, or—"

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

I nodded noncommittally.

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

"I'm a first year, bumped up to third because of exams."

"Well, that's something I have to tell Princess Celestia about—"

"Uh—"

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

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

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

I nodded.

"Equestria needs its brightest minds, now. There is something known as 'trailing studies' and 'assigned tutors.' You may not know this, but there is a silent war going on. Incursions by magical beasts, and a few neighbors needing to be discouraged from raising armies."

I blinked, then understood. Spies. Special operatives. "Both my father and mother were killed in that.... I actually know, though I don't think I understand."

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

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

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

I never did. I never had. I probably never would.

Still, the idea of getting into the university much sooner worked for me. I would rather learn all the things I needed to learn sooner than later, because sooner or later my job with Running Mead was going to kill me. Better that I wring dry what I could get from Canterlot quickly and leave alive.

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

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

Would the princess want a criminal as her personal physician? Even were her physician a member of the peerage and the daughter of Heroes of Equestria, I suspected that answer would be an emphatic "no."

Author's Note

Next:
Chapter 15: Exam
Starlight finds herself in the scarred Luna tower taking an exam. She's told, "Impress us with your magic, Dearie."

Chapter 15: Exam

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

So, I slept in and skipped all my classes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

When I finished, I expected a drill of some common spells, just like they had asked the five of us before. Instead, the proctors climbed the steps to the fifth row of desks and took seats. The yellow one with the grayed pink curly mane said in a Hooflyn accent, "Impress us with your magic, Dearie."

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

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

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

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

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

Risky? Yes, because I had to maintain concentration, but if I couldn't concentrate now, perhaps I didn't belong here anyway. Always test your limits.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Her ear flicked.

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

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

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

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

Right. My spell didn't include a don't smell clause.

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

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

I was having fun.

Chomp.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wasn't the sweat lathering me obvious?

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

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

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

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

Author's Note

Next:
Chapter 16: Night Hauler
Streak makes Starlight pull an interesting wagon loaded full of unaccountably perfectly legal herbs.

Chapter 16: Night Hauler

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

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

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

I approached and gazed into the wagon.

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

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

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

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

"I will Miss Number."

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

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

My mouth dropped open. "What?"

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

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

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

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

"It's kind of romantic," I said drolly, "but that isn't why we're here?"

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

"I thought you didn't pull!?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Author's Note

Next:
Chapter 17: Night Flight
Starlight goes flying—and finds something enchanting about Streak.

Chapter 17: Night Flight

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

Unaccountably, the wagon remained aloft as Streak flapped her magnificent wings of blue white-peppered feathers, flapping strenuously, cord-like muscles pulling grand downstrokes, literally reaching into the air and heaving us upward. Even fully extended, her wings were each barely a pony-length. Now, more than ever, I realized how ridiculously inadequate the pegasus physique really was. Even a rudimentary knowledge of physics provided enough to understand that you just could not scale up a sparrow to pony size without making its wings disproportionately larger to its body, and there was that bit that a pony tail couldn't function as a rudder. And, as she gained altitude, she continued galloping in the air.

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

That manifestly had not happened. And, of course, Streak was laughing her ass off.

"You— You— punk!"

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

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

"You're no longer a virgin."

Still collecting my wits, I blushed, and saw Streak smiling back at me. She held her wings rigidly outstretched with the feathers of her right wing up and her left wing down. "Flying," I responded as the realization dawned on me of how she ruddered. We banked in a gradual downward spiral.

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

"I know one that can."

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

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

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

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

"Jilted. Always sad."

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

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

Boasts much? "I didn't know pegasi could fly things other than what they carried on their body."

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

Cloudsdale, I presumed.

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

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

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

I put all fours on the bed of the wagon. Though "the rig" was as firm a platform as the ground, I felt unbalanced. I took out my supplies, which I sorted in the lamplight. I said, "Am I scaring some neigh-do-well or deadbeat? Hey, don't look!" I found her staring as I levitated my makeup compact, brush, and hairspray. Where had this convention of being embarrassed when somepony watched you get dressed come from anyway?

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

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

"Couldn't arrange a safer venue?"

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

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

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

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

There wasn't an aura!

But there was magic. Logic dictated I was right. Reflexively, I cast the healing spell, modulating the Barthemule mathematics to project my aura into her spine. I had to refine the imaginary axis over and over—the tardiness of our Everfree contact helped in that—until I morphed the spell as if I were massaging her muscles. Perhaps because she ached and I suddenly sensed her fatigue and a buildup of lactic acid, or perhaps mere persistence, but my consciousness finally slipped into her.

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

But I saw more.

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

Numbers!

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

Perhaps I already had.

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

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

Nor did I want to.

Author's Note

Next:
Chapter 18: A Pony of a Different Stripe
Streak's trading contact seems a bit alien, but proves understanding.

Chapter 18: Pony of a Different Stripe

"Grimoire! Grimoire!"

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

"Yes! Yes, I hear you."

"Fell asleep, Sweet Celestia! Lack of attention span, Grimoire? Anyway, good. Grab hold. The landing will be bumpy."

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

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

Suddenly, it all made sense.

Wings were the horn of a pegasus. The internal structure, while inadequate for true flight, performed a queer, immensely complex variant of levitation. No. No-no-no. It tasted more like Teleport. Micro-teleportations, perhaps? It had to be. The magic flowed, instead of from Streak's brain, from a bundle of nerves on her spine, through her wings, and filled her feathers. A field of synchronicity spread out to everything attached to her body, its strength varying in proportion to the distance from her wings.

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

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

Her wings flared, becoming a huge blue feathered fan.

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

She kept her wings flared, though she flexed them a bit. "Well," she said, flapping a bit, "Nothing like a good flight. I haven't felt this good in days."

And I knew why. In-flight massage services.

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

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

I leaped out and landed on rocky soil, kicking away stones into the grass. Levitating the wagon, I said, "I can help with that."

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

I set it down gently and followed alongside her. I began prepping quick draw force spells. "What exactly are we fighting? Does the competition know what we're doing? Is it a raiding party?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

I whispered to Streak. "Does he always talk this way?"

"In rhyme, yes. It breaks my head to think how she does it." Whispered, "He's a she. Don't insult her." Louder: "Lady, my friend will approach you slowly."

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

I saw a hint of muzzle. Totally black! Even a black beauty pony rarely had a black muzzle.

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

I halted. She walked in a circle around me, keeping her distance. I could see into her hood and found the outlines of a face, painted white and black in stripes. As the light changed, I could see the form of her mane. It was spiked up in a mohawk and… dyed in white and black stripes, also. And another thing.

I sensed magic.

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

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

"Is that good?"

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

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

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

Streak said, "I didn't know."

"You didn't try to find out."

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

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

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

"Hey!" said Streak.

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

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

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

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

"Got it."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That instant, a roar sounded near the tree line at the edge of the clearing.

Author's Note

Next:
Chapter 19: Accounting for Wrong Decisions
Starlight finds common ground with Streak, and is assigned another "job."

Chapter 19: Accounting for Wrong Decisions

The roar sounded hungry.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Easy peasy, right?

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

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

"Say, Streak, if air hauling is your special talent, why is it that you're a punk working as an errand filly for Running Mead?"

She looked back briefly, saying breathlessly, "Spear me through the heart, why don't you!" She flapped and lunged through the air, carrying us over the Ponyville plain.

Once we landed in Palisade Park, and she had a few minutes to cool down, we found a previously hidden tarp to tie down over the load. As Streak packed her tack away and restored the simple hitch, she asked, "Why do you want to know?"

I shrugged into the harness she held up with the bridge of her nose. "Because I think I know why I made all the wrong decisions I made and ended up here. I was wondering if you knew yours."

"You'd make a bad diplomat."

"Maybe." We plodded along a secluded path until the Strand ended, then along a service path as we left the Cliffside district. We'd soon be in the Lower. It seemed logical that the constabulary wouldn't expect product to be shipped in from the better parts of the city, so I wasn't worried. I was just as glad I wasn't the only pony wearing a cloak on this rather cool night.

"Well," Streak started with a sigh. "I'm nowhere as educated as you are. For a pony from my background, there aren't many options. Cleaning, cooking, postal service. But I found I had this talent. Hitch me to a wagon and I can haul anything, even jumbo loads, long distances. Not many ponies are stronger than me. Unfortunately, they're mostly stallions and they keep it that way. It'd have been better if I didn't have the silly cutie mark; maybe then I'd be happy being a drudge."

I nodded and she continued.

"But I can't be happy, and the stallions in Vanhoover won't hire me. They say I'll ruin things. In the nomad city, a guild runs the air service and they refuse to admit me. I come from Vanhoover, they say, as if that were a reason. The only wrong decision I made is not finding a way to be patient. Ya need plenty of gold bits to buy a moving van, the cargo blankets, and gear to pack and unpack stuff you haul. I need enough gear to credibly take on jobs hauling goods between customers and clients, or furniture between old and new homes, and I need bits to pay stallions to hustle the crates. That's the difference between a few years and a decade, and I can already feel I'm losing my edge. I'm going to have to compete for business. I must be able to haul the most the fastest. Ten years from now, will I?"

I huffed. "You've got it together better than I do. I'm impressed."

"I've always thought you a snob, but coming from you, that's praise."

"You're welcome. For me, I've got plenty of avenues to follow, but I keep on taking detours. I've got an offer to become a physician."

"A doctor, really?"

"Or I could fall back and go into town government."

"Riiight." She quieted. "Well, maybe. But with a criminal background?"

"Somebody has to catch me first, remember. I could remain a thug, but I am beginning to think there's no future in that."

"But that's not it. None of it is your special talent."

The cutie mark. Of course, she'd say that to a blank flank. I took a deep breath as she directed me off the service path, across the sidewalk and onto a northbound avenue. "There's the whimsical choice. I'm telling everypony that my boyfriend left to become a soldier of fortune overseas."

"At, what, sixteen?"

"Eleven. He's like you. His gift is special."

"But more in demand."

"Something like that. These last three years have taught me combat magic short of being a front line soldier. I could become a soldier of fortune—"

"—and find him? Nah, we both know that won't happen. Doubtless he's found an exotic foreign mare with long legs and twirly eyelashes and has fallen madly in love. He jilted you, didn't he?"

"That he did."

"Good riddance. I hope you find your own dream soon."

"I hope one day soon you leave Canterlot and I never see you again."

"You too." She stopped and lifted a hoof. I reached over and clopped mine against hers.

We unloaded the wagon in a roll up garage, but as Streak was locking it up, Tailor appeared. He pointed to stairs that led to a second floor with a balcony and an apartment with a row of dark windows. I made note of the address and the street, and the placement of trash cans, lamp posts, and water plugs. I decided teleport spells were my best bet if anything were to go wrong.

Inside, lit only by the light of the street lamps coming through the open drapes, I saw a familiar silhouette on a shadowy sofa. Yellow magic levitated a squat glass with chunks of ice that clinked as he swirled it.

Streak said, "I'll just be leaving."

Running Mead said, "Please stay. This concerns the three of you."

I said, "But mostly me."

He said, "For one so young, you are perceptive. I first wanted to congratulate you on your last job. You eliminated the irritation quite spectacularly. I couldn't be more pleased."

Everypony in the room understood the euphemism well. Streak, standing beside me, turned and looked at me, perhaps reevaluating our earlier conversation. I studiously held a flat expression. I had left Detective Fellow unharmed but for a cut ear and bruised dignity, and with civilians entering the warehouse floor, and the police swarming around afterward, I doubted anything had happened to him. Whether for spotty news reporting, or intentional misinformation, Running Mead seemed to have a different idea of my last job's outcome. Since he didn't ask for a report, I decided it best not to correct him.

If he was waiting for a thank you to his complement, he was going to wait a long time.

He swirled his drink and sipped it. "Remember that comedian you paid a call on?"

"I thought my performance was top notch that night."

He put his drink down on a table. "And it was. Streak reported the whole thing."

She chuckled weakly. "I was positioned on the roof. Quite dramatic. Scared me, even."

Running Mead stood and paced in front of the sofa. After a few moments, he said, "The foal turned informant."

My whole body went cold, down to frogs of my hooves. I knew where he was headed and I didn't like it.

"I'm only effective at certain jobs."

"That means you failed with the comedian."

"You agreed sometimes it wouldn't work when you hired me, but it usually does. You wanted fewer incidents the constabulary might be interested in. I gave you that."

"But now the constabulary is interested. This time, you need to set an example for those who might think they can get away with unbecoming behavior toward their debt holders."

"There are certain things I won't do, Sir."

"Don't sir me. There's gold bits to be made this time. Plenty of them."

"I won't—"

"—dirty your hooves? Come on, Grimoire. There are certain things in life that if you do them once, they change you into something else. Your first stallion, for instance."

"Been there, done that."

He picked up the drink, swirling it. "It's the same when you eliminate a pony. You may as well learn and improve your skills."

"I— No."

"'No' isn't an answer, Grimoire. You do understand you have no choice. You come from a town outside Horseshoe Bay? You're friends with Sunset Shimmer, Princess Celestia's protégé. You were sighted leaving the Quill and Sofa Factory Outlet Store. Do I have to paint it out for you?"

"I won't do it."

He tapped the side of his head with his hoof. He suddenly slugged down his drink and set it on the table, causing the ice to circle within the glass. As he approached me, I smelled the whisky on his breath. "Well, I'm just going to have to convince you, aren't I…?"

Author's Note

Next:
Chapter 20: Fright Night
Starlight wakes about to commit murder. She has to think fast.

Chapter 20: Fright Night

It felt like one of those dreams where you become aware that you were dreaming and you feel like you've woken up. You get to make choices, talk, do things but realize you can't move and you have no control, and realize that you've woken up in another dream. You find yourself somewhere where you don't belong. And you recognize it's not where you want to be.

And then you see there's blood.

A smear went across two kitchen floor cabinets and across the face of the stove, making a downward arc to a shattered soup bowl. On the stove simmered a small stock pot filled with, from the smell of the garlic, probably marinara sauce with olives. I saw carrots, macaroni, and celery on a sideboard along with appliances and cutlery. The table in the bay window was set with one place-setting and a daffodil in a little vase. I looked out through sheer drapes to see the apartment building from which I had stalked the comedian Rye Bald. In the middle of the kitchen floor, on white and black checked linoleum, lay the heretofore mentioned pink stallion, with a black-dyed mane judging by its yellow roots, bruised and broken with his face growing puffy, his right foreleg bent the wrong way, and a bloody kick mark across his ribs. He lay there moaning and shivering, trying to cover his head with his hooves.

I looked at my hooves and could only conclude that the somepony who'd beat him was me.

The sleepwalking incidents all suddenly made sense. They weren't due to a backfired force spell or to the side effects of Flowing Water's cure. Running Mead had somehow twisted my will to his own. Sunset Shimmer had claimed that I'd acted inebriated, but I had been unreasonably successful in manipulating her to the point of getting into her bed—maybe even having had sex with her—to the moment just before getting her to try nettle-ewe, which, of course, because Sunset's drinking binges were well known, was a perfect strategy for Running Mead to find influence in Canterlot Castle. My first time "sleepwalking," my last memory of Running Mead was me refusing to sell product. Both previous times that I had woken up from the dream, I had woken at a key moment when I was about to violate my deepest principles.

Mind control. Magical mind control. One of the most illegal magics; short of raising the dead, a unicorn could do nothing worse. It was always a bad practice to read something into a pony's name when examining his cutie mark, but his was a mug spilling a foamy yellow liquid. The ability to metaphorically make a pony drunk and pliant and having a name like Running Mead were too much of a coincidence. Like I had with Grimoire, he had doubtlessly assumed the name. His special ability might even be a spell he'd learned to cast very well.

And here I stood, suddenly awakened, facing the ultimate decision point: the ruin of my life.

Tailor's voice said, "Stop toying with him. Put him out of his misery, already."

I jerked my head around, looking into the living room. I saw evidence of the damage I had caused last visit, but Rye Bald had put everything back in place, taped up the glass of the china cabinet, and put a cardboard patch where the mic stand had punctured the wall between the living room and kitchen. On the ugly avocado green carpet, in the doorway to the kitchen beside the sofa, Tailor stood near Streak. She peered over his shoulder, her wings flared to balance on the back of the sofa.

On impulse, I bellowed at them and screamed profanities. I had no doubt that up to just seconds ago, I had acted insane.

Their rabbit brain took over. Had you ever wondered whether ponies could jump backward? Well, they proved it. They did, Streak going as far as the door.

That gave me fifteen seconds or less to find the best solution. After that, intuition told me, everything got worse.

I glanced at the marinara. I had been in the living room; I knew what could be seen from there.

I knew I faced the greatest performance of my life. Two lives depended on it, mine most importantly.

I prepared Levitation. Meanwhile, I reared and crashed down on the floor. Then reared again, whinnying madly, but creeping further from the door.

The third time, I swept the counter with my tail, dumping a colander, knives, and glasses to the floor as I came down square on top of the comedian, my hooves to either side of his head.

I dragged him under the breakfast table and put the chair between us.

I reared again, another bellow already escaping my throat. I scattered utensils as I backpedaled into the view through the kitchen doorway. This gave me time to ready my force spell while moving things around the kitchen.

I lifted the stock pot and, as I rotated it toward me as if to spill the contents. I hit the silvery vessel with a green force bolt.

The pot, alas, rocketed through the glass window to the street below, but the viscous liquid inside cooperated perfectly. Suddenly super-heated, it exploded outward making a wet, hollow thud. I'd triggered my quick draw levitation spell as if to catch the liquid right before me and it did pretty much as I hoped. The boiling glob fanned around me, but didn't hit me.

Unfortunately, it wasn't marinara. It was probably minestrone, and it was more brown than red.

I grabbed soup-coated leaks and hurled them to the floor as a last touch, jumping back as I did, crying, "Well! Didn't know a force spell could explode somepony. Did you?"

I turned to Tailor and Streak, but they'd already spun away, gagging and staggering.

I followed them, blocking their view of the kitchen. "Well, you're not going to be any help! Go ahead, leave. I'll clean the mess up; I could use the anatomy lesson. Tell Running Mead it's done."

"Yeah, we will," they said, the door shutting rapidly behind them.

Everything would have been perfect, but for the stock pot and the window glass in the street at 3 AM. Nevertheless, looking through the window, I saw the pair dash from the building, never glancing in the wrong direction. I stuck my head out the window, waiting for them to rush around a corner, then levitated both the dented pot and the broken glass back up.

It was at this point that I realized Rye Bald had gone unconscious and that he was bleeding from a gash on his right shoulder. I found a jar into which to levitate the small puddle while I put magical pressure on the wound. Unconscious, he might bleed to death.

In any case, I wasn't going to leave him here, but looking at his face and side, I began to wonder if he might have a concussion or internal bleeding.

If he died, I became a murderer.

I could cauterize the five inch wound, or try healing him. I chose the latter because a burn scar was just one more thing I would have to ask him for forgiveness about, and to make this work, I would have to beg forgiveness.

I had to stop the bleeding. I substituted the mason jar and my knee to apply pressure in place of the levitation spell, pressing the rounded glass into the wound while pushing the healing magic behind it.

After a few fits and starts, my aura sunk through his skin.

How long I worked, I didn't know. I was too frightened to marvel at the scenery. I just asked for the instructions and forced the skin, sinew, and blood vessels to mend. Though I was certain I did a shoddy job, I found the skin sealed around the wound when I finished. The few other cuts had stopped bleeding on their own.

Of course, he might have internal bleeding. It might already be too late. What he needed was a real doctor.

But, if I dropped him off at a hospital, there would be questions. If I left him without being seen, he'd surely identify me. Running Mead would be furious, deadly furious.

But if he died?

I knew a doctor who wouldn't ask a lot of questions. I hoped.

I levitated the blood on the outside of the jar to the inside, then cleaned up the floor around and under him. In a moment of inspiration, I found a paring knife and coated the cutting edge before tossing it to the floor. A culinary accident might put the constabulary off the track. The jar went in my saddle bags.

I suspected Running Mead would trust his eye witnesses and take Rye Bald's disappearance from that perspective. Nothing would hit the newspapers; he'd take that as a cover-up of a botched constabulary operation.

Assuming Rye Bald didn't blow the whole thing wide open...

I'd deal with that later.

Meanwhile, I had to find him help while keeping him alive and out of the grasp of the constabulary. I gave the room and my clothes a quick going over, and swabbed up with ammoniated floor cleaner from underneath the sink.

I ended up lying atop the stallion and teleporting him a dozen times through empty streets and alleyways through a darkness made all the more concealing by clinging pre-dawn fog. That nopony, especially no-constable, noticed was a miracle in itself. I knew where I could find a wagon that wouldn't be reported stolen. I just had to make sure I could get to it.

I cast Don't See Don't Hear Don't Look as I slunk up the steps to the second floor apartment. Were Running Mead still here, he'd have had a guard outside. I peered through the window at the shadowy furniture, anyway.

I listened at the rollup garage for a minute, then worked a minimal force spell on the padlock until I cut through the loop and rotated it open. I dropped it in my saddlebags, then slowly rolled up the garage door, minimizing the hard to hide noise.

It was a relief to both find the wagon and to find it empty, though the unmistakable mediciny saccharine smell of nettle-ewe lingered. I levitated the stallion into the cart, on top of rags I scrounged, and took a minute to see if I could get him to drink a mug of water from the laundry sink. He drank until he began coughing, then lapsed unconscious again.

I took off my costume and fixed my hair into pigtails.

Soon after, I left the garage closed with the lock hanging in the hasp and pulled through the empty streets of Canterlot. An hour later, as the sky turned blue, then purple and orange, I was on the switchbacks down the mountainside. Thankfully, the brakes worked sufficiently that I didn't lose control. At the bottom, I checked Rye Bald and found signs of life. He was sweating now, and cool to the touch. I trotted onward through growing exhaustion.

Five leagues found me at the Kettle turn-off near Ponyville an hour after dawn. None of the early morning haulers paid attention to me, other than saying good morning. I pulled on down the farm road, past barns and by fields. I saw farm workers in the distance bent over vegetables, but if a lone pony pulling a wagon with oddly small wheels was remarkable, nopony showed it.

I recognized the irrigation path, and the ditch, and the trail that lead into the forest. I even saw our wagon ruts. I had to levitate it through the loose dirt section and was soon traveling deep into ever darkening forest. Soon I could not tell if it was night or day, except for occasional breaks in the canopy where sun would shine down like a spotlight on a stage.

Once, I heard something creeping along side, keeping pace. I shot a force bolt that direction and heard nothing more. The comedian, if anything, seemed less responsive and I found myself shaking. Eventually, I came to the clearing with the blue leaves that I could only assume secreted a contact poison.

I solved the problem of traversing it by putting on Grimoire's horseshoes and using the discarded lattices that the zebra had protected her cart with. I put a section down crushing the leaves below it, pulled the wagon that distance, put another section down, pulled further, retrieved the first section and put it ahead of me, pulled, and so on.

I soon found myself at a wide-boule tree that had been hollowed out to make a living home. Gourds and drying herbs hung by ropes from the branches. Some dappled sun occasionally made it through the canopy to play lights on the few windows.

I hesitated to knock on the door, stopping with my hoof an inch away. For some reason, I was certain the zebra wouldn't be home, that all this had been folly. My life had been a folly.

If Rye Bald died, I'd be his murderer.

I should have taken him to the hospital, played it safe, gambled for a lesser ruin!

What have I done?

Author's Note

Next:
Chapter 21: The Curious Cure
Zecora insists only Starlight can save Rye Bald's life and gives a history lesson.

Chapter 21: The Curious Cure

I never did knock. After about a minute, the zebra healer opened the wide round door. She peered silently at me and at the cart with an expression of how did you get here, and, besides-which, who are you?

I levitated the comedian out, maintaining him lying down. I looked from the beat-up stallion back to the zebra and said, "I need a healer really badly."

Deep blue eyes looked at me like they had just seen me. She nodded, wordlessly pointing inside her home with a black hoof.

Tears streaming down my cheeks, wobbling with the last of my energy, I followed her inside to find an unexpectedly small room that looked more like a pantry kitchen than a living space. As directed, I placed Rye Bald down on a table shoved against the wall. While she examined him, I looked around.

A cauldron filled the center area, on a hearth filled with charcoal with an ingenious shuttered flue that opened to a hollowed out branch that worked as a chimney. Clay pots of orange, red, and purple were stacked many deep on shelves. Bales of herbs were wrapped in tight packages of waxed and oiled papers; some hung from the ceiling. The smell was somewhere between a spice pantry and a chemistry lab. Pointy ovoid stylized masks as tall as a pony, some smiling some leering, were propped in a corner. A lumpy hoof-sewn mattress filled another corner between a roughly carved dresser and an unusually spotted, but otherwise empty, wall opposite the door.

I stiffened when I realized the wall moved.

Attention riveted, my tears drying, I stepped closer and realized the wall moved because beetles swarmed on it—black ones, with a shiny green tinge that shimmered in the potion light from a half-dozen small potion lanterns. I could hear a click-click as the insects moved, climbing over one another, gnawing at the wood with pincer-like mandibles. They tore off tiny splinters, and upon eating their fill, would clamber toward a tiny mouse hole at the bottom of the wall. The silver-barked sticks that had been tied in a bunch in Streak's wagon were attached by pegs at the margins of the wall, the ceiling, and the floor. The sticks corralled the zebra's excavators and kept them at work extending her abode according to her design.

"I am sorry I must be curt; but quick please, how was he hurt?"

I faced her, feeling cold and guilty. I took a deep breath and said, "Beat up. Kicked. I don't know exactly. I— I did it, but I wasn't really there."

"I ask for a reason noisome, need I treat him for a poison? And chilly filly, the missing you is plain to see for queer magic swirls around you in an odd degree."

Magic. I was under an enchantment still? Rye Bald, first. "No poison. Even sleepwalking, I'd only know how to fight. Not only wouldn't I know how to use poison, why would I use earth pony magic when my magic is far more potent?"

She nodded and pointed at the pink pony who sweated and lay, wheezing, eyes shut, not moving. She pointed at his shoulder. "And this, to me, is something amiss."

The gash. "I healed him." But unlike my work on my withers, this looked ragged, red, and scabbed. Sure, scar tissue had filled and stopped the bleeding, but in comparison, it appeared the work of an amateur. "It was all I could do at the time."

She nodded again and grabbed an orange clay flask. She walked to a tea kettle beside the caldron. She poured steaming tea into two wooden cups on a basket plate, then with a dexterity of an earth pony sure to marvel any unicorn, she nosed the flask on to the plate, and the plate onto her muzzle and forehead, and carried it all to our table, sliding them before me without spilling a drop. A strong astringent herbal tea struck my nasal passages, together with the scent of honey. She sat, raising her cup between her hooves for a sip. "All of this down you must drink, for in the next hour must able you be to think."

She looked at the pony's scar. She then looked at the scar on my withers.

Related to Dr. Flowing Water, are we? In spirit at least. "You want me to use my magic?"

"An idea so stark it misses the mark?"

I pursed my lips, but neither nodded nor shook my head.

She reached for the pony, lifting his eyelid, revealing an unfocused magenta eye. He didn't respond. I began to shake ever so slightly as she tapped the air around his head without actually touching him. The puffy swelling on the left side meant I'd probably boxed him with my hooves. A kick would've outright killed him. It had to be something with his brain. "I'm no doctor."

The zebra said, "A healer heals best when her knowledge she can trust, but with a life on balance a mare must do what a mare—must."

I decided I needed to be careful about what I said around Zecora as she popped the lid off the canister and shook some leaves into my tea. I recognized the mediciny saccharine scent of nettle-ewe.

She caught my expression and said, "At poor Zecora you need not glower; using this herb once does not abuse its power."

"Call me Starlight Glimmer. That's Rye Bald."

"Of this Grimoire you wore like a mask, I am glad that we in the light of the sun now bask." With a sigh, she drank her tea in a gulp and gathered herbs and vials. My tea was too hot to gulp, or perhaps the idea of the drug scared me. And her mention of poisons. But if she was certain I could help, and since my top concern was assuring that my assault didn't lead to Rye Bald's death, I drank the sweet, lemony, metallic-tasting drink.

I watched with growing fascination as Zecora mixed ingredients and chanted in continuous rhyme. In minutes, she created mustard poultices and odd salts drawn out of leaves. I could see magic swirling around her hooves and knew it wasn't all potion magic. It didn't involve numbers, per se, but it did involve magic being pulled out through her hooves; she was manifestly not manipulating magic summoned by chemistry or the rules of contagion and sympathy. After minutes, I could almost grasp how she physically manipulated the magic pulse by using the motion of her body.

It was the nettle-ewe talking.

I sat back, sipping the last drop of the tea so unconsciously that I was surprised to find myself holding the cup in my magic. All my fatigue had disappeared, replaced with an uncanny clarity. On a whim, I ran a Barthemule transform on a weak levitation spell, watching Zecora's tiny room swarm with a flock of burning numbers, circling and diving and combining, a galaxy of computation all in my head. First the omega and then color-charm corollary. And if that worked…

When the spell triggered on its own, I saw I had to finish by adding a two-foot delta to the sum to prevent a time paradox because suddenly I was floating midair, in a spherical green aura of force just big enough to reach from the tip of my horn to the tips of my hooves. It held me completely aloft.

After two heart-beats, enough for Zecora to glance my way and raise an eyebrow, it popped.

I blurted, "But pegasi micro-teleport!" What had I done? What had the drug done to me? Oh, no—

This was why it was so addictive!

"Starlight Glimmer!" Someone shook my head; hooves held my cheeks. "Starlight Glimmer, come back and shimmer. Now you must focus; we need your hocus-pocus."

I lived in a new type of starry dream world, one surrounded by potentialities that showed that the magic pulse would do my bidding if only I chose what to command it to do. I felt incredibly focused and horribly distracted at the same time. Invincible and impotent. A paradox of understanding.

Zecora waved the purple crystals in front of my nose. A scent of rancid turpentine went up my nose and struck me knife-sharp, clearing my head of everything, clearing away the noisy numbers and the chattering voice of worry in my head. In that instant, I existed, silent.

Zecora's rhyming voice filled the background, but didn't reach my consciousness. I knew what she wanted and she drew me physically forward. Without real thought, I scrambled onto the table, smelling the sweat and dried blood and bile sickness of the unconscious stallion. I let intuition work as I regarded the bruises and contusions around his head. I dimly became aware of a thick nimbus of numbers whirling about me, but muted and marshaled and working more efficiently and reflexively than ever before.

Zecora waved more salts by my nose, emerald green ones this time. The herbal concoctions, except for the poultice, were all to guide me and to control me, to calm my mind—to allow a mare to do what this mare had to do.

I touched my horn to Rye Bald's temple and found myself floating in the midst of a lightning storm. Electricity sizzled and spat from every little cloud, lighting the region with a blue and white strobing glare while filling my senses with ozone and thunder. In this uncanny space, rain surged not so much in raindrops but as an almost-ocean of air droplets, foamy but transparent. In it, I sensed a growing wrongness—a taste of mineral sharpness in what the environment told me ought to be wet purity. And when I looked for it, I changed place to find a wall of what at first seemed like intrusive columnar granite, but proved to taste more like marble. It had to be bone, but it looked so crystalline to my eyes that I wasn't sure if I was thinking in metaphor or magic. I saw the cracks. I could see the storm pushing at the rock face and realized the bone thrust into this space did not belong. It grounded and dissipated the electricity of the gray clouds, and the pressure was building between the the element of water and the element of earth, making the ocean thicker, darker, and cold.

I asked the marble what was wrong. Where did it belong?

It told me. I told it that it had to return, and with my constant, consistent voice telling it to do so, so it did, pulling from my magic and making it its own—reconstituting, repairing, retreating. And as I babbled on, the storm strengthened in all its blue-white glory, and the rain became a proper sweet salty mix, warming gradually until…

I woke, opening my eyes. I was laying on Zecora's red-ticking mattress. My drool wet the cloth in a rivulet that stretched to a puckered seam that demonstrated the zebra wasn't much of a seamstress. Two sensations struck me hard that instant: the first, the need to pee, the second, with a choke, that I was going to vomit.

A wooden pail shoved unceremoniously under my muzzle at the right instant solved the latter splendidly. The wood bottom made a resounding thunk. The sounds I made only left me more nauseated. I threw up the last two days of food, by the volume of it, and possibly some of my liver. The instant I could get my trembling hooves under me, I shot out the door with Zecora's assistance and found relief by lantern light. It had to be the next evening. I heard birds and weird chittering sounds, and saw no light other than wane shadows of surrounding trees by the flickering kerosene light. I was surprised my bladder could hold that much. Like a racehorse, so the old saw went.

When I returned inside, shaky on my hooves, my head literally thumping as if it were about to explode, I found Rye Bald awake, covered in blankets beside the glowing coals of the hearth below the cauldron, smelling of wood smoke. I could hear him laughing, a horsey sounding noise, emanating mostly as puffs of air from his nose. He looked shrunken into himself, but had a cup of tea clamped between his front hooves. I had healed his leg, too.

I gathered he would survive.

I stopped and stared, trying to compose myself. I had to say something, but guilt left me tongue-tied.

Perhaps because his voice wouldn't work, he said in a whisper, "You don't have to apologize. Zecora explained that you were under an evil enchantment. She also explained that you saved my life, that if you had taken me to a hospital in Canterlot, I likely would have died."

I looked to Zecora. The lantern hooted as she blew it out, wafting the smell of kerosene and soot my direction. By the potion light, her eyes glittered as she nodded gravely.

"But I beat you."

"No. A monster beat me."

"Had I not pursued such a hateful life, I would not have become the pony that had been manipulated to hurt you."

"Had I not decided that telling a joke was more important than earning a living, I might not have racked up a debt that put you in a position to be used and abused. I know I'll have nightmares about this." He shuddered, "But I'm not completely stupid either. There is plenty of fault to share but plenty else not to share."

I lay on the floor and Zecora brought me a tea, too. "For what it's worth, I want to help ponies, to protect them. I don't want to hurt them. And that's what I told—"

"Running Mead?"

"—Running Mead, yes, before he did what he did to me. I consider myself more of an actor than an enforcer. You saw my act. I scare ponies into paying up, basically. Didn't work on you, though." I sipped simple honeyed chamomile. It helped the headache.

He adjusted the blankets. I could see plasters adhered to his side and a pink crust on the left side of his face. "Maybe we haven't chosen the best professions. Perhaps I should go back to being an accountant."

"I've got an offer to become a physician."

He smiled, a ragged thing that didn't quite reach the right side of his face. He probably had a lot more healing to do. He said, "From what I've been told, that might be a good choice."

But, did I like it? And if it required drugs to be good at it? Without them, getting lost inside somepony or being able to do little more than first aid would not qualify me to be a nurse, let alone a doctor, or to become the princess' doctor—not that a criminal would ever be allowed that close. I sighed.

The next day, we worked out that he would take a train from Ponyville to Manehatten as soon as he had recovered. If Running Mead had an inkling he was alive, we'd both be in trouble. I facilitated his relocation by finding a purse filled with twenty gold bits in my saddle bags. At least sleepwalker-me had extracted a hard bargain, and had collected payment first. I gave him fifteen. Though he was understandably reluctant to say how I could find him should I need to prove my relative innocence at some point, I did get him to agree to post me the address of someone in Ponyville that would know how to contact him.

The next day, I stood outside in the dim dappled sunshine, a meal in my belly, my hair up in pigtails, and my saddlebags strapped on securely. I looked at the Everfree and thought of its dangerous denizens. "How is it," I asked, "that you live here safely without weapons or battle magic?"

"As an equine you see I am no phony, but as the forest is concerned I'm no pony."

"The creatures of the Everfree don't like ponies?"

"Give them their due and consider it true: Near a thousand years ago I've heard from the spirits in verse, the two reigning ponies destroyed harmony—and grew this elemental curse."

I blinked at her. Reigning? And now there was one? "The princess?" She was certainly old, but that old?

"You are surely keen; all is proven, in a castle's ruin, I have fully seen."

If I had time, I was going to have to do some research. But I also had to get to school. I had appointments with councilors, a class schedule to rearrange, and I was supposed to have started yesterday.

And I had a problem to solve. If there was one thing that I wasn't going to do, it was get close to Running Mead ever again. My profession as an enforcer was over. Worse, I lived in Running Mead's territory, which was why I'd given Rye Bald Sunset Shimmer's address, not my own.

Author's Note

Next:
Chapter 22: House Rules
Sunset solves Starlight's rent issue. Problem is, Starlight must share her bed.

Chapter 22: House Rules

Sunset Shimmer found me in the administration office, getting a photo identification card for advanced placement at the university. I turned when I heard someone humming a tune and saw her walk by the office door. She saw me, too, for she popped her head in. Her unaccountably cheerful person soon trotted inside. I looked away, but knew the yellow pony with fiery hair stood behind me. The councilor noticed Princess Celestia's protégé and stood straighter and carefully explained which professor I needed to find tomorrow in which building on the campus, as if she were being tested.

As I walked out, putting my card in my saddlebags, Sunset Shimmer said, "You're supposed to smile when they take a photo."

"I've had little to smile about recently."

"Acing the exam Celestia gives her prospective protégés?"

Exaggerate much, do we? "I pretty much failed the history part."

"Piffle. A good tutor will fix that."

Not her, of course.

"I heard what you did. Not anywhere of the caliber of magical conjuring I did—"

"—or the runt—"

"—but your performance was commanding," she emphasized. As we clopped down the stairs to the main exit, she added, "And the runt's performance was purely pathetic. I watched from an observation balcony. She had no control! It was lucky she didn't explode! Almost killed me. She's lucky Celestia prevented anyone from prosecuting her for the damage she caused. The exchequer covered all of the repair costs both public and private."

"Don't sound so happy that she might have exploded!" I chuckled.

"Yeah, I wouldn't want that even for the runt. But— But my performance is now improving with the tutoring you gave me. Soon Celestia will notice."

I stopped just as we reached the door exiting into the quad. Other students grumbled, having to walk around us to go through the doorway. Nopony, except perhaps me, was stupid enough to say anything to Sunset Shimmer. "You don't seem like the type who would wait to be noticed."

"Celestia has been working with the runt a lot recently."

"Well, go to the princess. Show her your tricks. Ask for help."

"I dunno. There's assignments and…"

I rolled my eyes and trotted out. It took until I stopped at the boulevard that a contrite Sunset Shimmer caught up. I liked my little flat with its simple bed and two windows, but, manifestly, I could not go home.

Sunset Shimmer asked, "Okay; what's wrong?" She looked at the restaurant that I did, with its gaudy red and yellow plastic decor.

Across the street down the block was the Hey Burger!; my stomach growled. I would be earning no more money, and I had no place to live. In a short time, perhaps longer if I were frugal, I would be grazing in the parks. I might get away with sleeping in the university library stacks, but eventually it would be in an alley, under an overhang, trying not to be soaked by an evening rain. I said, "Remember that roommate situation you were telling me about for one gold and ten silver? I need it."

The mare walked around me, stepping in the gutter so her green eyes could look inquiringly into mine. She stepped aside, checking my flank to assure herself it was still blank, then probably would have checked my temperature had she a thermometer available. "Nonsense," she said. "And the Hey Burger! it is, my treat."

"You don't have to do that."

"I do."

She said nothing, even as we sat at a plastic yellow table with red plastic bench seats. The waitress wore a green outfit with a funny field-hat that looked like two pieces of green cloth standing up with green lace connecting the two sides. It covered her mane. After she took our order and trotted away, I said, "It's not nonsense. I— I lost my apartment."

"And your job. It's written all over your face. You don't want to return to the Lower, either. Can you afford a place in Canterlot? No."

I felt my appetite waning. Which was ridiculous. I needed to eat up so I wouldn't go hungry later. "You're not helping."

"What?" she said in mock outrage. The miracles of fast food and unicorns able to heat meals with force spells meant that the waitress trotted back with two steaming sesame seed bun sandwiches, a hay stack of fried alfalfa, and an orange soda for me and a small cider glass for her with brown-amber liquid and a foamy head that creeped over and slid down the side. She saw my eyes and said, "Non-alcoholic."

I blinked. I was going to ask what was wrong with her when she said, "I am helping. I said 'nonsense' because that's what you finding a place to live is. Don't be a silly filly. You can stay with me."

Reflexively, I said, "No."

"Really? How much money do you have left? Do you really want to work at Hey Burger! grilling or serving burgers while trying to keep up AP and university coursework, especially with the princess likely to look in on you at any point? The gigs or whatever you did before certainly pay better than what you're going to get cooking, cleaning, or selling dresses. And don't give me horse apples about living on the street again. We are both way beyond those horse apples. Eat."

I did. The sandwich dripped with cheese and ketchup. The alfalfa and oatmeal had been mixed into a perfectly spiced ground patty and smothered with warmed-up mustard, pickle-relish, basil, and grilled onions. It was grass-eater heaven. For a few minutes I didn't think about her offer until she said, "And I won't charge rent. But there is only one bed, you know."

"Ugh!" I put the sandwich down and shook my head.

However, Sunset Shimmer was if nothing else persistent in getting what she wanted. Eventually, I agreed—certain it would not end well.

That night, she gave the functional tour of her ivory tower. Everything from the glassware in the basement laboratory to the reflector telescope in the attic observatory. She spoke in full teaching assistant mode, assigning me desk space, shelf space, closet space, garden space (the pots on the third level), laboratory table and fume hood space, pantry space, and kitchen space—not that it looked like the pristine salt and pepper, brass accented space had ever been used. "The Oat Bran O's are mine!" She showed me how to use the plumbing and the heating, and how to refresh the lantern system that in full use mode could make most every surface of the blue and gold accented marble residence glow softly.

At least she let me choose my side of the enormous bed. That would be the right.

Frankly, for a sixteen year-old who had fought in the Hooflyn gang wars and seen too much of the violent underbelly of Equestria, I was unaccountably petrified of going to sleep that night. I could protect myself, I had no doubt. But this being vulnerable thing, that just didn't work for me.

I had no idea what Sunset Shimmer had in mind, or why she didn't just order in another bed, but it was her house and it was her rules.

I was the beggar.

After a fabulous shower, I took my side and snugged in under satin sheets far finer than any I'd had as a foal. She did the same, but left on a lamp to read. I didn't think I would sleep a minute, unsure what she would do, and my heart racing anytime she moved or readjusted her position. But the sheets were airy and the mattress cushy. The slight breeze from the open balcony blew clean air over my nose, some times tickling, and brought no real sound as it faced the precipice.

Perhaps it was the five league trot up from Zecora's, or the two climbing the switchback Ponyville Way Incline to the city itself, or the day arranging school matters unsure of my situation. I did sleep, and soundly.

And woke with dawn rays filtering through lace draperies with a cool breeze that brought the sounds of twittering birds. My bed mate had not molested me. Perhaps she had heard me when I said I preferred stallions. That, however, did not prevent her from snugging up to me in her sleep.

I grew aware of warmth against my back. I commended myself for not flinging myself from the bed like a crazy pony, but instead I lifted my head and looked back. She lay there, sheets kicked off by one of us, her golden velvet back against my lavender pink making us a pair of Cs. Her usually poofy hair matted against her face and spread out in night-sweat glued-together curly ropes of yellow and red across her pillow. She snored almost imperceptibly and somewhat daintily for such a large mare.

As I shimmied a bit to break contact, she began to shiver. Even after I gently levitated the sheets over us, it continued. She twitched. After a few minutes, I heard the faintest moan.

I lay my head on the pillow and felt bad. I shimmied back, made contact. In a minute she quieted and fell more deeply asleep.

And so it proved: over the next nights, despite being bombastic and imperious during the day, though decorous around me, she made no advances. But every time I awoke, whether I had staked out the middle ground or had drifted so my hooves hung over the edge, there I'd find Sunset Shimmer, her rear and and withers snugged to mine. I wouldn't call it snuggling, and it manifestly was not. But it seemed like—felt like—wanting to be leaned against, to find contact, to not be so terribly alone.

In this, I became aware, we were alike.

The both of us were abandoned. Her by a heartless mother when old enough to be weaned but young enough to have known no adults, an orphanage, nor foster parents. Never cared for. Never held. Me, I didn't remember my parents, though I certainly had to have been held.

I'd been the accidental git of a pair of ponies that by themselves were talented business sorts, but who'd together become cheerful bumbling foals. They'd married after my arrival and during the subsequent journey evolved into a team that would become "Heroes of Equestria" before I was four. That left me old enough to know I had parents, to have photographs of myself with them, to remember grieving them—but way too young to remember their voices or their love. A butler raised me—no father figure, just a proper stallion—along with a governess he hired who provided lessons but shied away from love. He'd told me once that servants must always provide impeccable service, and with a butler named Proper Step you can guess it was perfect to the point of being mechanical and cold, but I understood deeply that a foal needed more. Much more. It drove me deeply into my books. And with my friendship with Sunburst, somepony temporarily filled the void.

But Sunburst had abandoned me, too.

Sunset Shimmer and I had the same issues; we felt isolated. Contact could fix that, and I grew certain that she would ask no more than I could give. But on the fifth day, I rolled over. In the dawn, I extended my left legs gently over her and bent my right ones under me such that they wouldn't get in the way. Oddly enough, it played into my need to protect and the new warmth against my stomach lulled me rapidly to sleep.

Neither of us complained. We each slept well.

I wondered if this was what being a sister meant, caring for one another, being just a little bit more without having to ask. My parents had been killed before they could give me a little sister, which might have prevented me from changing my life as radically as I had.

A sister I could deal with, for now, anyway.

She wasn't a friend, though. I knew the signs well enough that if I went there, disaster would strike. For now, like this, life became pleasant.

She had a cutie mark, though. Disaster was likely, if not inevitable.

Author's Note

Next:
Chapter 23: Likely, Meet Inevitable
While the situation with Sunset Shimmer deteriorates, Streak delivers an ultimatum.

Chapter 23: Likely, Meet Inevitable

I enjoyed a good two weeks of camaraderie until the blemishes became apparent. Sunset Shimmer had deigned to teach me spell canceling (finally).

Why? She admitted she had learned enough of how I conceptualized magic that she thought we could conceivably speak a common language.

Her technique involved feeding the spell the right wrong numbers—her term, not mine—until the spell became incapable of working. For her, she took the shape she visualized the spell as and pulled it inside out. Since spell casting was about accuracy and marshaling the numbers, how could numbers do anything but change range or targeting? I sensed she had an idea about transforming the equations, but that didn't feel right, either.

Then I had the bright idea of having her demonstrate spell canceling on me so I could see what she meant, using my most studied spell: Force.

"I'm not good at that one."

I said, "Oh, come on. I know you have problems with Force, but you're not trying to cast it; you're trying to cancel it."

Her inability to cast Force showed there was a fundamental difference between her and I, but after verbal cajoling, I got her to agree to do so anyway.

We were outside the school, on the quad, under the shade of a tree on a hot afternoon. We planted ourselves facing off as if in a magic duel, though way too close. I opened myself up, clearing my horn of any calculations, listening and observing, trying to monitor her magic as it formed, bloomed, and intentionally decayed.

That was the plan, anyway.

I watched the pulsating green shimmer of her aura light up at half a pony-length away. I could see the numbers circulating in the magical apparition encasing her horn, coalescing, becoming something. For a moment, I thought perhaps that was the point. I sensed the patterns of a field of force slowly distorting and collapsing even as Sunset was grunting with effort, perhaps too loudly because other ponies started watching. I leaned forward, trying to get the gist of it—

—when she fired a bolt at point blank range.

The physical shockwave lifted my forequarters as if I were rearing. I collapsed backwards, hooves up, laughing and soon crying at the same time, feeling as if tickled by a dozen feathers at every sensitive spot. I gasped for air and could barely breathe and worried I might pass out. I'd let her shoot me twice now, and, frankly, was relieved she hadn't figured out her problem with Force. She groaned and grunted, and in my peripheral vision I could see her fighting to stop the continuous green auroral discharge almost as if it were me drawing the flood of magic out of her.

But that wasn't it; it was fear.

She fought fear.

"Oh, Brandywine," she moaned as she rolled to her side, smashing herself forcefully to the dirt, and then, and only then, did it stop.

Combat reflex rolled me over, even as I took in great lungfuls of precious air. My former third-year potions instructor was galloping over, his black suit tails flapping. I thrust myself back up on all fours.

"She meant to do that! She just got a bit stuck. No harm done!"

"Shimmer!" The pallid, faintly pink stallion with a long silky black mane said quietly with a faint sneer. He appraised Sunset Shimmer through narrowed eyes.

She rolled onto her stomach, dirty with bits of grass in her mane. "I lost control. Starlight was just tutoring me and I lost control."

I nodded.

She nodded, though I couldn't read her expression.

"The princess' tutelage isn't enough? Pity."

Her expression remained neutral enough, and I kept mine earnest enough, that the teacher accepted it and trotted off, obviously barely convinced that Sunset Shimmer hadn't just tortured another student or that he hadn't just witnessed a duel. He looked annoyed that he hadn't caught her doing something he could report.

I suddenly understood, though. I'd forced her to cast the one spell she'd never get right and had publicly humiliated her. "I am dreadfully sorry!"

"It's not working any more," she said to the ground, hanging her head. Her mane covered her face like a limp yellow and red veil. "It was supposed to help me control thoughts of my past, but it didn't. Now I remember. I need a beer. And I'm going to have a beer." She stood, levitated the soil and bits of grass in her hair, and dashed the mess to the ground before stalking off.

Sunset Shimmer hadn't shouted at me.

Or blamed me.

She'd admitted to a teacher she'd failed.

And lied to deflect the blame from me!

She was ill. Celestia on roller-skates! It had to be my fault.

She got roaring drunk, which meant mopey and talkative and wobbly on her hooves. And when I got her to bed, she wouldn't lay still. She just wanted to talk and talk and talk.

Mostly, this meant complaining about her and Princess Celestia's relationship, or lack of it, or the runt getting all the attention and Sunset Shimmer getting none. After awhile, I levitated a text book over and tried to study, tuning her out, giving appropriate responses at the right moment, ignoring how after awhile she lay and shoved herself side to side, next to me. I let her have whatever made her feel better.

I could tell she felt very frightened. She expected to lose her position as Princess Celestia's student and felt powerless to do anything about it.

After an hour of her nattering on, repeating herself endlessly, I began to have enough of it. If she would only act instead of waiting to be noticed…

Ugh!

I closed the book and concentrated on the healing mathematics that had let me slip into Streak by gently offering to massage her back. It took a few minutes, but I soon sensed the great knots and aches all over her body. As subtly as I could, I set up the feedback loops and offered her tired muscles solace. Maybe it was her intoxication, but her muscles let my ministrations in. I kept it light, minimized the effort I needed to exert, and I kept focused on her voice, not letting my consciousness slip in any further than necessary.

I focused on her breathing through my contact against her ribs.

I focused on the slickness of the satin sheets, the stark white of the walls, and the moon through the balcony doors.

She calmed in stages. First she kept forgetting the point she wanted to make. Then she lay her head on her forelegs, mumbling. Then I heard the soft wheezing that meant she had slipped into slumber. I opened my book, having gotten into the groove of renewing the spell as it started to unravel, continuing the massage while reading.

When she gave a great big sigh in her dream, I looked at her and smiled.

Two days later I learned what Sunset Shimmer's "it" that "wasn't working" was; I didn't smile.

Nettle-ewe.

Somehow—and I fervently hoped it was from one of Running Mead's competitors—she had gotten a supply of the weed. Credit her for having decided to smoke it in the fume hood of her downstairs laboratory. I figured this out because the machine worked best when closed and she had used it open. She could hardly climb inside; it was too small.

I searched for and found a burnt leaf that resembled a prickly lamb's ear.

My fault, of course. I may not have willingly sold her on the idea, no more than I had willingly beat up Rye Bald, but my history had made me the pony who brought sickness upon any innocent in my life.

I didn't know how to bring it up, either. She was my host. And she would brush it off. Regardless, I refused to tell her that brewing nettle-ewe as a tea made it more effective. If the merest idea of nettle-ewe tea actually excited me, I could easily imagine that whatever feeling it gave her had addicted her, and I didn't want to make that more intractable.

And why had this happened? If merit alone couldn't merit you the attention you wanted, you had to ask—but time and again, she refused to ask. I could not see why she would shy away from it, considering her personality. There had to be an intrinsic friction between the student and her mentor.

What occurred to me was that they both had solar cutie marks. There could be room in the sky for only one sun. I had observed time and again how cutie marks shaped ponies' attitudes and changed how they interacted with others. There was an imperious royal flavor to Sunset Shimmer's personality. I suspected that even if Sunset Shimmer's cutie mark were a moon instead of a sun, the relationship would still be destined to fail. The princess' name was Celestia after all. Nothing else reigned in that universe.

Cutie Mark magic was too subliminal, too insidious in its action. It took an outside observer to see the tyranny in it.

Under the stress of it, Sunset Shimmer was cracking.

Too many times over the next days, the only way I could get my roommate to sleep was to massage her, but only when she was intoxicated. I might have been encouraging her bad behavior for all that she never mentioned it when sober.

And then my life fractured.

Walking to the Tea And bakery near the banking district one morning, I realized I had company. A blue pegasus trotted near me, and gave a flutter to walk beside me when I glanced over. That she wore a white blouse and wore her mane pulled back into a bun gave me pause, but being dressed smartly like a salespony in a dress shop did not hide her hauteur or suddenly make Streak more lady-like. I'd had the clothes, learned the act, and practiced the manners; this wasn't it.

I walked by the cafe tables and striped-velvet wallpapers of the Tea And. A butter smell wafted into the street from the little shop. I sighed that I wouldn't get the strong tea and the croissant I had so craved to eat while studying my astronomy text, but, in fact, I was willing to keep walking around the castle without saying a word until I got to the next bailey gate so that I could leave Streak behind. I had begun to like her and Running Mead had made me a monster in her eyes.

"Grim—"

I cut her off, not changing my pace. "I quit."

"You can't do that."

"I can and I have. I quit."

"No, no. Ya don't understand. He sent me to tell ya that ya can't quit."

"Or what?" I intentionally slammed her shoulder to upset her gait and got in front of her. She stopped nose to nose with me. I hissed, "Or he will blackmail me? Let him try."

I turned, leaving her sputtering. As I cantered toward the security of the gate, she landed with a thump in my path just out of earshot of the two unicorn guards. They did come to attention, though, as Streak said, "But I saw you k—"

"You saw nothing. If you think otherwise, you're a foal. I quit. You should, too, while you can... Excuse me," I said politely, bowing slightly as if I were speaking to a business contact, and ducked around the nonplused pegasus to trot through the gate.

"Trouble, young lady?"

"I paid that bill," I muttered over my shoulder.

I quickly found an empty courtyard between buildings where I laid down on the grass because I was shaking. It wasn't as if I hadn't expected it to happen, or that hadn't expected Streak to be the messenger, or that I would likely have to jettison everything and move on to another city. No.

When she landed in front of me, I noticed her yoke cutie mark. All that her cutie mark represented had driven her into a life of crime. At least I'd chosen my cesspool. How many lives had a silly magical brand destroyed, or was destroying now? Running Mead's own had driven him to become a sociopath.

I rocked and grieved for Streak.

Author's Note

Next:
Chapter 24: Breakthrough Consequences
When Sunset twists Starlight's discovery about cutie marks to her advantage, Starlight finds she doesn't mind.

Chapter 24: Breakthrough Consequences

Sunset Shimmer returned home late, both high and drunk. For a while, I thought she was having trouble breathing and that I might need to take her to a hospital.

Or to visit her father.

I should have taken her to her father, but if I've learned one thing in my life it is that thinking about what you would do if you were in a crisis and acting during a crisis were two completely different things. Later, I'd think about it and realize that I hadn't wanted the doctor to learn I'd introduced his adopted daughter to nettle-ewe—and that I hadn't wanted to piss off Sunset Shimmer into throwing me onto the street. I might act as if I were willing to ditch everything and start anew elsewhere, but, in the crucible, I didn't feel so glib or willing.

I endured an hour of her standing in the kitchen, her eating the contents of a box of cereal, then starting another, all the time talking about the intricacies of this or that spell whilst I did everything I could to keep her from casting the spell while drunk, including Levitation by pouring out her cereal for her lest oat bran O's go flying like drunken birds pinging or plunking into every window, cabinet, or plant. Her issue: something the princess had said (surprise!), something about the runt being in need of her attention and Sunset somehow not.

Could this be interpreted as a compliment, Sunset?

Absolutely not, Starlight!

I saw another cutie mark driving its owner insane. Ponies would be better off without them.

Getting her to bed proved another ordeal all together. She'd suddenly hop up from the mattress and prance toward the balcony—off which I worried she might try to fly. I locked the glass doors. I tried massaging her, beginning to wonder when I'd become both her nurse maid and enabler.

Even that didn't work at first. I kept increasing the pressure I applied until I worried I might actually be hurting her; she seemed totally anesthetized. Eventually, my efforts quieted her to a low mumble, peppered with a few flailing of hooves and sputtering remonstrations.

I'd grown quite adept at making her muscles contract and flex, hurrying out waste fluids and toxins causing her fatigue and pain; it appeared to feel good. I no longer feared I might lose myself, at least in this territory. It did take up enough of my attention that I understood I'd get no further studying done until Sunset Shimmer fell asleep. To make that happen, I spread my ministrations from her neck down her back, and finally down her legs and flank.

Her flank proved interesting...

While healing Rye Bald's brain and skull, I had known I'd dealt with something substantially more complex and active than simple muscle. I still couldn't remember the entire experience, but I remembered enough that I realized that, as I probed Sunset Shimmer's half-red half-yellow sun cutie mark, I examined something more complex than skin and fur coloration. Moreover, I had encountered something odder than anything in a unicorn's body except perhaps her horn.

A unicorn horn is a physical manifestation of the body that allows the direct manipulation of magic, like the wings of a pegasus allows specific manipulation of flight magic. These magic organs were flesh, blood, and bone. The cutie mark, on the other hand, appeared totally different, though like my horn, it communicated information back to the brain by radiating magical energy that the nerves picked up as a signal.

Though this thing on her flank seemed akin magically to a pegasus' wing, as I probed it I discovered only muscle. I could ask it questions; I got vague impressions of lifting celestial bodies and wings of fire, and great skill at magical symbology. But it had little substance, though her body fed the area with increased blood flow. I sensed a magical aura and began to think that it wasn't tissue at all, but magic somehow localized into an aural projection of an organ. It seemed like a magical symbiont, though to my way of thinking, that meant little more than a parasite since it changed a pony to suit its purpose.

I thought about it a while, then got the muscles and skin in the area to shift in coordination but in opposition. In effect, I tugged the cutie mark aside and it shifted about an inch downward. If my magic were water in a pool, I'd say I'd found something gelatinous and had found a way by paddling to move it by water pressure.

Sunset Shimmer grew very quiet and froze. After a minute I worried it was because of what I'd done. My heart thumping in my chest, I let go of my magic. The mark snapped back into place.

Sunset turned her green eyes toward me. They seemed unfocused, wet as if she'd been in tears. Slurring a bit, she said, "That hurt, but for a moment I stopped thinking about the runt and Celestia snubbing me and nothing mattered any more." She laid her chin on her legs and sighed. "What a relief. Could you do that again?"

I whispered, "Not tonight."

"Oh, too bad." She closed her eyes, rolled on her side, and fell instantly asleep.

I felt like I had gotten caught with my muzzle in the cookie jar. I'd made a epic discovery, but had experimented on another pony. The optics of that act looked bad; totally unethical. Yet...

Yet...

Yet, I'd had an epiphany.

I jumped off the bed and examined Sunset Shimmer as best I could. Her chest raised and fell rhythmically, and when I prodded her around, she shimmied herself under the sheets I held up for her.

For the first time since the day Sunburst had gotten his cutie mark, I wished I had one, too. I'd have been able to examine myself.

The implications of my discovery—if for no other reason than it snapped Sunset Shimmer's mania and allowed her a moment of solace—caused my brain to overheat. What would Understanding Pony Behavior have called it? Cutie Mark regression therapy? Could this be it, the something that I could actually help ponykind with?

I looked at my flank. Still blank.

Shoot!

On reflection, I felt kind of relieved.

The next day, at breakfast, we had the discussion I dreaded all night. Sober (apparently), surprisingly with no hangover, she brought up the sticky subject of me massaging her to get her to sleep. I felt uncomfortable when she shivered with unmasked pleasure as she told that me that she had "adored the sensation" but had decided not to acknowledge it because it would have made us both uncomfortable. "So, I'm acknowledging it. Thank you," she said.

She continued as I stirred my bowl of oaty O's, looking down at the granite kitchen island. "But that mental chiropractic manipulation you did last night, that we need to discuss."

She listened as I described my discovery and my theory that, "...it isn't so much a part of a pony's body as a magical manifestation generated by the nervous system. All ponies have magic. I've directly sensed it at work in a pegasus—even zebras have it; it's not a stretch that earth ponies have it too—"

"Wait, zebras?"

"I've met one."

"This new magic Father taught you lets you see this?"

I wasn't going to correct her about how I learned the magic and powered on. "That and seeing auras and the numbers in them, which, with more practice, you will see, too."

"I'm going to have to learn all this. But how does this magic generate a cutie mark?"

"Generate? That might be a philosophical question. What I theorize is that pony magic, let's say, crystallizes the moment of realization, for lack of a better term, allowing the apparition to act as a reinforcement for the putative skill or talent, while creating a dominance marker in the social hierarchy. It takes a pony from being a generalist and promotes—no, enforces—the stratification of the herd."

"Sounds like you're taking those psych books too seriously."

I felt my face flush and let my anger leak out. "If you had been where I've been, seen the ugliness I've seen, spent time observing from on high and from the gutter, been beat up and used by the marked ones, you might have a better appreciation of what I'm implying."

She smiled at me and my outburst, crunching thoughtfully on a spoonful of cereal. "I dominated the street; I was the user, trust me on that. But I've experienced oppression, too. I'd dearly like to understand why a simple sun holds power, and why a cutie mark of seven stars seems better destined for greatness than a setting sun."

She saw my theory from an opposite perspective. But as I opened my mouth to clarify, she raised a hoof to stop me and said, "I'm supportive of you studying this new magic, but you do know that what you did last night was..."

The implication hit me as she looked for a word. My heart raced and my stomach soured. She had been drunk, high, and virtually anesthetized; had I been a stallion and not a mare— I quickly inserted the word, "Wrong," before she inserted the word every mare dreaded.

She chuckled, the sound coming out her nose. "Let's say, 'inappropriate.' 'Unethical' is floating in my mind, too..."

My whole body cooled. Another blackmailer.

"So… In an effort to be supportive of research I too am interested in, let me tell you how it's going to be: No experimenting on other ponies, only on me, getting my permission first and under my supervision. Do this and we'll just forget how we got to this point."

I nodded.

"You'll start writing down everything you learn, your Barthemule derivative equations, any spell mnemonics you create, your theories, your experiments, your observations, with drawings and all the data you collect. I'll provide any tools you require. I'll find an undergrad faculty advisor who will listen to me and won't interfere with your work when the need arises to legitimize the research. We'll review the research together and you'll help me with the maths and magicks. When we have the science sewn up, we'll submit it to Celestia with my name as lead researcher. Got it?"

"I get to do physical research on your cutie mark?"

"Within limits."

"You get me what I need and help write it all up?"

"Sure, but you must make me an expert in the new magic."

"I'll teach. The learning's up to you."

"Yeah," she said, quieter. Perhaps she thought of her troubles learning to visualize numbers and master quick draw. That turned into a smile and she trotted around the island and held up a hoof. "Deal?"

I felt the emotion growing in me like an increasingly strong wind against a stand of strong trees, trying to blow them over. What was this expanding feeling?

"Deal," I said, doing the hoof bump, then hugging her with tears in my eyes.

She was giving me everything I wanted to fulfill my purpose in life. I could give a copper bit about credit or her motives; I'd have my new magic and a true understanding of the abomination of cutie marks, and maybe a way to help all of ponykind through the darkness the magical aberrations caused.

Sunset Shimmer didn't push me away; instead she hugged me back.

Nevertheless, she looked at me strangely when we parted. She asked, "Maybe I should hit you about the head and shoulders? Does that type of treatment make you happy, too?"

"Nope," I said, and lifted Sunset Shimmer and our bowls of cereal in my magic. Her legs scrambled for purchase reflexively in the air. She had been correct when she had said levitating monsters from Tartarus pretty much made them ineffectual. My cheekiness stunned Sunset Shimmer such that I managed to carry her to the counter built across the dining room's picture window without further protest. It looked out across Canterlot Castle, with its fairy towers and soft curving ramparts illuminated in the dawn-light, blazing orange and throwing dense shadows. I set down our bowls and spoons, levitating napkins and a bud vase with a single daisy to complete the place setting.

I knew what she wanted. "Enjoy your breakfast and the view, my future queen."

She wanted power.

As she laughed, I thought how I'd been Carne Asada's bodyguard in Hooflyn—until she committed the sin of stupidity and made it impossible to protect her life. I was happy being a lieutenant so long as I got what I wanted.

If nothing else, it provided cover.

Author's Note

Next:
Chapter 25: Backed Into a Corner
Starlight's past rears up to threaten the key to her new life.

Chapter 25: Backed Into a Corner

I got fifteen days. I guess I should have been thankful for what I got, but I resented the shortness of the span to Tartarus and back.

Fifteen days to do a half-dozen tests. Enough time to learn enough to think a cutie mark had no physical connection whatsoever to its host. Was it some sort of strong electro-magneto-magical force that kept it in place and conforming to the skin?

Fifteen days to attend senior classes, and one at the university: library science. Mid-session transfers were difficult, but I got Miss Verdigris as a professor and quickly earned supervised direct access to the rare books collection, and unearned unsanctioned unsupervised access to a card catalog that included the Star Swirl the Bearded Time wing with tantalizing short descriptions of scrolls and objects.

Not enough time to research a whole new obscure force of nature, however.

Could it be an attractive force consistent with an attractive spell opposite in polarity to that of the anti-gravitational force generated by Levitation. What if it were a spell in stasis? Could I cancel an intrinsic self-reciprocating spell like one cast into an object? I had my eye on Charms and Artifacts 101 for next semester.

Of course, I had to learn how to cancel spells by translating yellow-horse-speak into standard mathematical nomenclature—another thing for which fifteen days proved insufficient.

It was also fifteen days believing that I might have a full life doing something that mattered, and that I could finally get about the business of enjoying what I did and maybe help ponykind.

What chance had I had of being left alone? Little more than the chance of an ice cube in warrior-Sunburst's presumed desert home. Analyzed objectively, Cutie marks were the ultimate source of all evil in my life.

I did my best to stay on the castle grounds, the school grounds, or the university campus. I stayed out of Canterlot as much as possible unless accompanied—actually cajoled—by Sunset Shimmer for meals or supplies. I didn't want to admit what I knew viscerally.

But I did have to get to school.

The dread disruption came on wings of blue. On the sidewalk of Castle Walk Boulevard, within sight of the school, I walked with my magical mechanics textbook levitated inches from my nose. I saw a blue fast moving form and heard the sound of wings braking and flapping to a stop before me, then the clatter of four hooves. I reflexively swatted with the open book, but Streak danced and fluttered back. She had kitted up in full punk mode, including gold chains, lip piercing, and a spiked-up mohawk mane. No pandering to Starlight Glimmer's precious aristo sensibilities this time.

"Whoa, Nelly. No shooting the messenger, Grimsy." She kept backpedalling because I didn't stop, even as I put the book away. As it became apparent I would continue on to the front quad lawn, she frantically took off and fluttered like an angry crow protecting a meal. "Stop. Please!"

By now, every pair of eyes, except for a couple of first-year gossips, had turned to face us. Who was this pegasus attacking Sunset Shimmer's protégé?

"Get out of my way!" I yelled. I didn't care.

"I'll follow ya inside. See if I don't."

"Not in this lifetime you won't."

"What ya going to do, shoot me?" she asked loudly, playing to the audience, trying massive downstrokes of her wings, causing me to walk into a wind, as if that could dissuade me.

My aura lit on my horn as I prepared Stun. Truthfully, I didn't want to use it because I didn't want to hurt her. If I did, she'd crash and likely break a wing. I'd be arrested for assault.

She apparently saw Grimoire, a crazy pony whom she thought she'd seen murder another by causing him to explode. Her voice squeaked with her effort to control its volume. "He's forcing me, honest. Please!"

"Fine." I stopped. I saw movement, but not a protective teacher. A silver-maned deep blue stallion with a blue French cap and a copper badge on his uniform. "Quickly," I hissed.

As she reached into her black messenger bag, she said, "Boss said give you this." She had a blue paper, folded like origami into a book. A Grimoire.

As I tried to pluck it with my magic, it stuck in the frog of her hoof, pinched tightly.

I heard a police whistle.

"Look right," Streak said.

Reflexively, I complied, gazing toward downtown Canterlot and the mass of morning hoof-traffic passing the bank and cafe. When the note released into my magic, she said, "Boss don't trust me either."

What had happened? A photograph?

I stuffed the note in my saddle bags as the constable came galloping up, yelling, "Halt!" Streak ignored him and shot away. His Levitation proved too weak to stop her.

The middle-aged constable, huffing and puffing, asked, "What did she give you?"

I was way ahead of him, a veteran of the gangs of the eastern cities. I had already grabbed a random sheet and before he finished his sentence; I hit it with a force spell, burning it to a cinder. A puff of white smoke wafted away as I said, "Don't know, don't care," and walked away.

"Wait, miss?"

He wanted my name; no free pass. Best change tactics. "Starlight Glimmer," I said. I turned and looked into his amber eyes.

He said, "Why did you destroy—?"

I let myself visibly deflate and my brow furrow, shaking my pigtails. "Because she was an obvious ruffian, trying to sell something," I said, my voice turning into a wail. But I dropped it to a whisper to say, "Probably weed." Then again loud, distraught, I wailed, "In front of all my friends!"

"I'm very sorry about that—"

"As you should be."

"Yes, um—"

"What? I'm late for class."

He took out a pocket notebook. As I stood, soon tapping a hoof, he touched a levitated yellow pencil to his tongue then began scrawling. "Miss Starlight Glimmer, you see, there's a bulletin out about a pegasus that fits that description. She's wanted for questioning. Did you see anything on that paper she gave you?"

The blue origami grimoire? "Other than it was purple, no. Not really."

"I see. Well, if she accosts you again—"

"I'll be sure to tell her to visit the constabulary office and ask for—?"

He sighed deeply, closing the notebook with a soft clap and returning it and the pencil to a pocket. "Officer Lapis Lazuli. Thank you for your time, Starlight Glimmer."

He made sure I knew he knew my name, and wasn't happy. Had to hope I'd only left a sour taste in his mouth. "Don't mention it," I said, then as he strode away, I said under my breath, "Really, don't mention it."

I didn't want to be a sensation, but there I was, a sensation. Ponies I didn't know asking questions and gossiping. Turns out I'd burnt up my homework and had to deal with a pouty teacher who thought she had been getting a new teacher's pet.

I didn't get to look at the note until I used the lavatory between classes. In a dark pink-painted stall, finally no longer under scrutiny, I unwrapped it half expecting to find weed or another controlled substance. I found two words cut and pasted from a magazine.

Sunset Shimmer.

Author's Note

Next:
Chapter 26: Any Plan in a Storm
Starlight is desperate to save Sunset. And she really hates to lose.

Chapter 26: Any Plan in a Storm

I knocked a couple of first-year mares aside barreling from the lavatory, heading for the stairs. The halls were clearing, except for a few grabbing books from lockers as the morning sun streamed in the window at the end of the hall.

The bell rang.

A last gold stallion slipped through the doorway and shut the door, recognizing I wasn't a classmate as I skidded up to the room. That left me winded, pressing my face against the cold rectangular window to see Sunset Shimmer in a wall-side desk, rustling through her saddle bags and bringing out papers.

I slid to the worn, darkly-stained wood floor, feeling as dented and trodden by horseshoes as the centuries-old oak planking looked. A small purple mare trotted quietly by, tardy as I, frowning at me.

Not kidnapped, then. What good would kidnapping do for Running Mead? If he wanted influence through a minion with access to Canterlot Castle, namely me, he stood to lose it if he got the royal guard involved and my affiliations became known. Still, I was no expert in criminal psychology, despite spending time involved in a few such organizations.

With a sigh, I levered myself up and trotted to class against growing paranoia that I shouldn't be leaving the keys to my new life unguarded. Though tardy, I shot from the room a minute before the bell, leaving a potions quiz incomplete to make it to her class as the bell sounded.

A tide of pastel ponies surged outward as I arrived, none yellow with a yellow and red mane. When I could stick my head inside, I saw Sunset Shimmer sigh and lay her head on her desk, her bright tresses cascading over her face.

The auburn teacher in a brown dress said, "Excuse me!" squeezing past as I entered. Standing beside my patron, I asked, "Are you okay?"

Without lifting her head, she groaned and said, "Why are you here?"

I packed her notebook and quill into her saddle bags, pulled her unenergetic self standing with grudging assistance, and placed her saddlebags on her back. "What you need is a mug of strong sugary tea."

"Won't help," she said… and said again as we sat in the largely empty cafeteria with that mug of deep red liquid and a rapidly dissolving ice cube before her. She deigned to sip it, then affixed her green eyes on me, "Why've you done this to me? I could have snoozed for an hour upstairs."

"I was worried."

"About what?"

Well, that was an awkward question.

A pegasus delivered a note from a crime boss with a threat on your life this morning.

Though she hadn't asked, I assumed she thought my "gigs" in the Lower were either acting or musical in nature—Proper Step had insisted a filly needed to learn to sing, and occasionally I sang pop and bridleway show-tunes around the ivory tower while doing experiments, cooking, or showering. I couldn't tell her that I had worked as a racketeer's enforcer. That would ruin everything. I'm sure Running Mead would find my discomfort amusing, but I doubted the imagined humor was what he had had in mind with his note.

Instead, I said, "You were fine at breakfast."

"Say, isn't your library science class now? You were so excited about getting that book. Go. Leave me be." Her hair slid over her eyes as she bent to sip her tea loudly.

"You planning on going into Canterlot for lunch?"

"Scrounge up your own lunch, Glimmer," she hissed. "Go."

I found her at lunch on the castle-side quad, under a tree, munching brown-bagged sliced apples and curried hay, reading a textbook. As I passed by behind Sunset Shimmer, the usually wary pony continued reading placidly, not noticing me.

At least she looked less downtrodden than before.

As I walked around the building toward the front lawns, intuition, or something seen subliminally, made me look toward Castle Walk Boulevard. I saw a pony with a white blaze.

This wasn't me thinking I saw Sunburst, who had both a white blaze on his muzzle and white socks. I'd seen Sunburst everywhere I looked the year he left for Canterlot. Well, maybe it was a flavor of that old hyperawareness mixed with the memory of fighting another with a white blaze, locked in a battle that I'd expected to end with me dead.

I moved to stand in the shade behind a fragrant cypress tree and looked. Was it Fellows coming out of the bank wearing a tan business suit, white shirt, and red tie, "idly" looking around from the vantage point of the granite steps?

Not dead.

Of course, Running Mead was stupid enough to believe that, which meant he didn't have spies in the constabulary—yet.

Certainly, Fellows suspected his appearance would scare away Grimoire? Of course, the detective might have learned that a suspicious blue pegasus pony delivered a blue note to a snitty filly with a chartreuse-striped purple mane.

I glanced around. No students stood close. A few talked or ate their sandwiches, laying on the lawn, studying. Others looked at an impromptu hoofball game in the rear of the school. Despite the blue-sky reflected in the windows, I felt certain nopony watched me.

I cast Don't See Don't Hear Don't Look and trotted quickly to the street. The illusion had its usual drawbacks, and the number of observers also attenuated the spell. One odd head turn, expression, reflexive dodge of something not fully seen by any potential observer, even an unnoticed ear flick, could break the illusory verisimilitude that interfered with the senses and, in a cascade, cause everypony to look. Things I touched might disappear, especially if small—or fail to disappear, meaning things would move without a levitation aura. Perhaps worse was the personal danger of pony or vehicular traffic. Nopony would avoid a collision.

I stopped before the sidewalk and watched Fellows, assuring it was the self-same mauve pony with a white candy-stripe in his purple mane, just before he clattered down the steps and strolled toward the Hey Burger!. I waited for a student to pass, then timed my crossing to avoid a northbound bus and a southbound van, the latter by inches, blowing my tail in the draft. Hoof-traffic was light, but it felt like threading a needle, me having to concentrate on the spell and being aware of everything 360 degrees around me, including the ponies, pasteboard restaurant menu signs, cafe tables, newspaper racks, and other sidewalk obstacles that limited my ability to dodge. My neck began to hurt from swinging it around rapidly and I began to sweat, and I well knew the spell didn't mask that distraction.

I caught up to him past the Hey Burger!, where I noticed the tip of his ear. A triangle of about two inches had been sliced off; he was probably not too happy about that. Better that than dead, though.

He purchased a stick of apples, jicama, and watermelon dipped in chocolate from a window, but other than occasionally glancing at the school, I had no new clues as to why he was here. I noticed a little orange colt foal with a quacking wooden duck on wheels pulled by a string, trailing his mother. His eyes seemed to follow me as he approached. Add the height of the caster's eyes leaving gaps in the caster's perception to the weaknesses of the spell. With the strain of casting the spell growing too much, I ducked into an access way and watched Fellows amble away to be lost in the crowd.

A "Mommy! Mommy!" was also lost in the crowd noise. I was going to have to be wary of young foals, and probably animals too.

I timed it and let the spell unravel as I exited onto the sidewalk.

It left me too much to think about in class the rest of the day. My practical magic teacher actually banged on my desk. I realized she'd said, "Stop cloud gathering, Glimmer—!" before she dropped her ruler.

A charred piece of wood smoked on my desk top. I tried to look contrite, but trying to blush just doesn't work.

I got to meet the vice-principal. Yippie.

I had to face it. All signs lead to the conclusion that my life would soon implode. Needless to say, I felt torn when a somewhat-revived Sunset Shimmer hauled me away from studying at my desk on the first floor of the ivory tower to join her in Canterlot for dinner. I said, "There's oat bread and veg in the pantry."

Her eyes had dark circles under them. "Are you trying to get on my nerves, today?" she asked, then led me with a tug of her magic. "Silly filly."

At an all-you-could eat herb and hay bar, she also bought a hard cider, and another when I whispered, "Me too," before we got to the cashier. If there was any time I needed it, it was now. Watching the crowds in full bodyguard mode, looking for constables or gang members, had my every muscle tight. We found a table with me facing the storefront and an eye to the swinging kitchen door.

Celestia, how I hated this. How could I have found this at all fun?

Right. All the attention and praise... Being useful. Protecting a life. Being the fastest quick draw of them all...

I bowed my head to sip the golden liquid in the glass, the effervescence tickling my nose as I put my lips to the liquid. My reaction was instant. "Bleech! How can you drink this yucky stuff?" I couldn't tell if I hated the sour or the astringent medicine taste worse as I tried to remove the taste by scraping my tongue with my front teeth.

"More for me," she said, dragging the glass next to hers in her magic. "What's up with you today?"

I looked down at my plate. The whole basil leaves, red and yellow nasturtiums, and the pile of potato and ground alfalfa beet salad had seemed more appetizing when I'd heaped them on my plate. Hers had halved tomatoes, arugula, caramel hay stalks, and celery root purée. I looked up to find her green eyes regarding me.

I said, "I realized how important you are to me."

She started blinking as I realized the many ways in which what I had said could be misinterpreted. It didn't help that my face grew warm. Her face went through a panoply of expressions, all uncomfortable. "I don't know much about this friendship thing, but I don't think I've been much of a friend." She munched on a forkful of hay.

"I've sworn off the institution—"

"After Sunburst?"

"Yeah." So why did I care about Sunset Shimmer, and truthfully, that punk Streak? "We've both had lives where that just doesn't make sense."

"We're survivors."

"Exactly. But for a few weeks, I thought I might evolve beyond that. Unfortunately, I've made choices in my life that I regret all of a sudden." I didn't realize it at first that I glared when she picked up her glass. It registered with her the instant it did with me because she put it down unsampled. I added, "I hope you won't make decisions you'll regret."

"I'm sure I'll make loads of them," she said prophetically, hefting and downing the entire glass.

Later, I hugged her in bed—after she fell asleep. Something told me it might be the last time.

It didn't take a day to realize her choices already haunted her and would destroy my dreams. It didn't seem possible, but she became more grumpy and more irascible. Not only did she look like she was hungover, despite only two ciders the night before, but I overheard the gossip fillies mention her name as I returned from the university library. Seems she'd bawled out a student during a practicum she had administered. As I lingered around the group, a lavender platinum blonde said she heard Sunset had boxed the ear of a student. Another said she was on report with the principal.

Incidents the princess would hear about.

I returned to the ivory tower and checked the fume hood in the basement laboratory. As I suspected, no scent of nettle-ewe smoke. There was always a chance she had listened to me and voluntarily gone cold turkey.

I hissed, "Yeah, tell me another!" and slammed the glass door down.

Whatever the reason, her supply had dried up, and I would bet bits to biscotti that I knew why. The best I could hope for was that she would seek out help or, at the very least, tough it out. But when she returned home later, and despite being a wreck, with hairs in her mane standing out, and wincing at loud noises, she acted nice, almost sweet and deferential around me.

I'd introduced her to weed, after all. Who might be better able to get her more?

I could understand. I had amazing memories of the influence of the drug. That Zecora had helped me through the experience with her salts, guidance, talk of spirits, and metered doses of the herb prevented it, barely, from stepping from fond memory to a craving.

The next day, before my third period class, I stood at the second floor window facing the boulevard. I spotted Fellows again. I now knew that the downtown constabulary shared office space with the royal guard and was less than a dozen blocks away, but still. What was his game?

I saw him again near the end of lunch, too.

At dinner, in the kitchen, we ate poorly seasoned spinach and garlic oat pasta that Sunset Shimmer tossed together with olive oil. With her barely able to keep up a nervous banter, she finally asked how I spent my time in the Lower.

"Acting," I prevaricated, curtly, and that proved sufficient to delay the inevitable.

I trotted up to school at dawn while the janitors busily swept for the new day, the cafeteria cook prepared the day's meals, and athletes showed up for early practice. I kept vigil at the second floor window sill with a mug of steaming honeyed tea, a math book, a sheet of paper, and a quill. As normally-didn't-get-out-of-bed-until-the-last-second students showed up, with, to my relief, Sunset Shimmer amongst them, I spotted dear old Fellows across the way, rapidly heading in the direction of the constabulary, but not so fast that he couldn't spare glances at the school and the pastel ponies streaming into the building.

By then, I had written a checklist of my options.

One: I could throw it all away and spend my last gold bits on a train ticket to Dodge City or Trottingham. I had more skills, now, even if I didn't have a diploma or a degree to prove it. I might get honest work.

Two: I could go home. I'd have plenty of money, would even be able to pay for tutors; let Proper Step try to restrict me now and insist on making me a proper lady! I'd love to know who had made him the administrator of my trust fund. However, both Running Mead and Sunset Shimmer had correctly deduced I came from around Horseshoe Bay. Grin Having stood five miles away in the hills.

Either of these two options seemed like running with my tail between my legs. Quitting. The argument that a mare had to do what a mare had to do just rang hollow.

Three: I could visit Zecora. Assuming Zecora would trade me for nettle-ewe—and I sensed she might refuse—that solution was fraught with problems, like getting caught bringing an illegal herb into Canterlot, to name one, or possibly drawing the ire of Flowing Waters or Princess Celestia herself. I had no criminal record or enemies that weren't criminals, yet. Becoming saddled with either was the risk. This option allowed me to expand the length of time I could research and study. Of course, Running Mead would find another way to obtain his goal, which I still wasn't clear about, so how could I counter it? How much time could I buy?

Four: I could go to Flowing Waters and tattle about Sunset Shimmer's addiction. I could go to the Princess herself, for that matter, but the result would be the same. Sunset Shimmer would retaliate by mentioning that I introduced her to the weed, and perhaps that I had had sex with her, something I couldn't refute since I didn't remember. No chance I'd become the princess' next physician; a slim chance that I might avoid Tartarus.

Five: I could take Sunset Shimmer to Zecora. I presumed the zebra knew how to cure addiction considering that she knew how to prevent it. However, I could see Sunset Shimmer objecting to visiting the Everfree Forest, or letting herself be treated by a folk healer. This option also exposed Zecora as Running Mead's nettle-ewe supplier. If Sunset Shimmer retaliated, she'd hurt Zecora, too. Or she might just threaten to retaliate to get nettle-ewe. I owed it to Zecora to protect her from harm. Last, it would raise questions in Sunset Shimmer's mind as to my involvement…

Six: I could work with Sunset Shimmer to ride out the storm of her withdrawals. She might not be able to cast Force correctly, but she was huskier than me and no lightweight mage—she was Princess Celestia's first protégé after all. I might be able to corral her for awhile, but she'd get away. I knew the authorities could control a dangerous unicorn by ringing her horn, but that meant both obtaining the prohibited toroidal amulet and getting the unicorn to cooperate to allow you to put it on her horn. My situation was reality, not fantasy; if I acted without Sunset Shimmer's permission, at least she'd retaliate only against me unlike in option five, maybe not as forcefully as in option four, but I'd be out on my ear with no help for my project, and an enemy who'd likely thwart any research In the future. At best, it would buy time as in option three.

Six: Abandon Sunset Shimmer, get work force-heating burgers, and find a flop house with ponies who attended school from distant cities. This was the weakest option of all since I gave up my one strong asset, Sunset Shimmer, and left Running Mead plenty of time to blackmail me or hurt another I might associate with.

The five minute bell sounded. I packed my supplies, drank my cold tea, and trotted to class. As I sat in my desk, looking at the blackboard upon which the teacher wrote the topics for today's lesson, I thought sourly how my options were to 1) quit, 2) lose everything, 3) be beaten into submission, or 4) get arrested. Might as well jump off the Canterlot Precipice as go back to work for Running Mead. That would be number 5, wouldn't it?

I hated that Running Mead stood to win big or not lose anything he hadn't lost.

The teacher continued yesterday's lecture about the Resignation Interregnum. Three-hundred years ago when Princess Celestia had retreated to the Crystal Mountains, she had left Equestria under parliamentary rule. The teacher talked about cultural shifts. During that time, ponies of any means wore clothing in public. Many wore outlandish frilly costumes, even stallions, that always covered a pony's cutie mark. It was a time when philosophical and political thought ran that ponies, whether commoner or gentry, were equal under the law and, like Princess Celestia's sun cutie mark, cutie marks were thought to intrinsically differentiate ponies. Some historians even thought that the fashions of the interregnum seemed to indicate that ponies thought it rude to display cutie marks, though my teacher poo-pooed that conclusion.

I found it fascinating that for about thirty years, everypony thought that cutie marks made ponies appear unequal. But more interesting was the idea that costumes made one's identity. I thought about Grimoire. I thought about my former life in Grin Having.

The inkling of an idea bloomed in my head.

That afternoon, I cut class when I ascertained Fellows had finished his occasional patrol. I took my bits and did some very careful shopping in the Canterlot fashion district.

Author's Note

Next
Chapter 27: Gambit
Starlight confronts Detective Fellows and proposes a deadly plan.

Chapter 27: Gambit

In Canterlot, as in Manehattan, ponies wore clothing more often than in other cities. Those who did were professionals or members of the upper class. Except for athletic uniforms, occasional sweaters, or rare tides of fashion, average students rarely wore anything other than their saddlebags or a messenger bag. Of course, nobody remarked about the few smartly dressed aristocrats who also attended. In any case, most exposed their hindquarters, for at our age ponies were usually proud of newly acquired cutie marks. I was proud I didn't have one, but today I needed to hide that fact.

As I listened to Sunset Shimmer grumbling while she dragged her aching body out of bed, I rapidly dressed a few floors below and dashed out into the early morning chill.

I caused rather a stir when I appeared at school, first in the cafeteria making a fragrant Earl Graymare bergamot tea, with three spoons of sugar, and then sauntering through the halls. Nopony recognized me. A young baroness even greeted me politely. I remembered my manners, stressed my eastern accent, and used proper elocution, deferring to her with proper forms of address to explain who I was. Proper Step would have been proud his lessons stuck, though not that I had been deferential to a baroness.

Clothing made the mare.

My history teacher smiled as I managed my ensemble with practiced ease, crossing the front of the classroom before my fellow students, then paraded down the aisle to my desk beside the window. I imagined she thought her lesson the day before had struck a chord, and it had, though not in the way she thought.

It amazed me that nopony jeered when they figured out it was me. Most stared agape as I removed the big floppy straw sunhat with the diaphanous daffodil yellow and pink scarf tied around it, revealing my mane tied into a bun, sprayed stiff with hair gloss. I slid the hat under the chair and took off a canary yellow messenger bag, from which I slid the sole notebook that fit inside the petite basket-weave accessory, placing the bag in the desk and closing the top. I positioned my notebook perfectly centered on the pine desktop with my new pink feather quill parallel to the top edge, also centered. I arranged the skirt of the yellow cotton dress through the back of the chair together with my tail and flounced down with nothing out of place, demonstrating that I had practice moving in fabric. The actually kind-of-plain two piece outfit had a slightly pinkish white-collared ruffle neckline, with butterfly sleeves trimmed with matching lace, from which fell daffodil yellow bell-bottom culottes that dropped to my fetlock. The pink ribbon at my dock matched the faded pink sparkle of the polish on my hooves above the bright lemon yellow of my horseshoes.

With the hat, the ensemble hid me completely. Considering my upbringing, I could carry it off with a correct amount of poise sufficient to confuse everypony who stared trying to reconcile today-me with yesterday-me.

Even with the shoes—and the quick tailoring necessary to fit the close-out discovery in order to make it possible to gallop in it (by lifting a few hems and darting a few seams that I had to point out to the seamstress)—it only cost me two gold bits and five-and-twenty silver.

Fellows didn't show up until mid-lunch.

Decked-out in full aristocratic daytime costume, I merged into the crowd near the bank like some upper crust mare out shopping on the town. My presence in the crowd, like a large rock in a brook, merited a few paces of clearance on all sides.

I wondered if the detective had more than one suit; he still wore his tan one, this time with a creme color tie in an overly tight four-in-hoof knot. And the same brown bowler. I watched him stop, nudge up the brim, and look at the school from no more than a pony-length behind him, hiding in plain sight as it were. I studied him as he stared across the boulevard. His sliced ear added to an already square-jawed ruggedness, especially when he flicked it. I thought that if he were to choose to pierce his ragged ear with a diamond stud, a kind of pirate fashion popular this year for stallions, he might even look dashing.

Time to get on with it.

My heart already beat too rapidly; it was a gambit that could cost me everything. I prepared the numbers for a stun spell as I began my approach, just in case. My horn held up the brim of my floppy hat, leaving it free of obstruction. The sides of the hat drooped down to my neckline and the collar rose high. I crossed in front of him, but he saw neither my distinctive mane nor my pink-lavender fur. He reflexively stepped back from the curb to give me room. A few paces beyond, I glanced back and saw him sigh, turning coincidentally to follow me, not coincidentally heading to the constabulary.

His heavy horseshoes made a distinctive ring against the pavement and sometimes he muttered to himself. I found it easy to stay a few paces ahead of him until we strolled out of the sight of the school. We had passed the few restaurants frequented by students, going three blocks before we approached a department store with wide glass windows filled with wares from shiny appliances to seasonal clothes. It would work for what I'd planned.

As his shoes clopped very close, I purposely backed into his way, causing him to nudge me in the rear. "I say!"

"Excuse me, m'lady," he said.

In return, I said quietly, "Running Mead."

"Wait, what?"

"Keep it down." My heart was in my throat. "Don't stare at me. You are not the only one watching."

"I—"

"Pretend to look interested in the merchandise in the window. Walk ahead. Don't look back. I'll follow and talk."

"Yes, m'la— Grimoire?"

"Walk, okay?" I hissed.

He passed me, stopping to stare at a black Trottingham-cut suit. After a pair of mares in red business dresses trotted by, I said, "I quit the business."

"So I heard."

"What?" Playing my own game, I breathlessly passed him and stopped before a display of Hearthswarming Eve tree ornaments. The Running of the Leaves was still a week away, but retail had its own rules.

He stopped a pace behind me and said, "Rye Bald sent me a letter."

"A nice one, I hope." In my messenger bag, I had the letter he'd posted from the Ponyville Golden Oak Library sent to Sunset Shimmer less than a week after I'd healed him. I went nowhere without my insurance.

"One about how you were used, and that you obviously didn't want to commit assault, but that doesn't mean you weren't committing a criminal act."

"I can get you Running Mead. Might that allow you to overlook what you saw at the Quill and Sofa warehouse?"

"It might," he said. He continued after we swapped places and I looked in at children's clothes. "But he's a slippery son of a dragon. The few times we thought we'd bridled him, he slipped away."

"He uses a mind control spell."

Fellows perked up and I could see enough of his reflection to know he looked toward me. I had mentioned dangerous capital dark magic.

"Manners!" I warned loudly.

He looked away. "That would explain much."

"I'd rather not experience it again, but I'm pretty sure I can arrange to have him dealing drugs. He might even try murdering me, just to make a point. Would that work?"

"That surely would work."

"One night, at sunset, probably less than a week from now, I'll head into the Lower. Don't worry. You'll recognize me. I'll be with Sunset Shimmer. Follow discreetly and don't lose us."

"Or I could just arrest you now."

"Do you really think you could do that? I've nothing to lose except an attempt to bring Running Mead to justice. I could be gone and you'll never see me again. Literally. Instantly. You've fought me. You know. Try me, Detective Fellows. Better yet, trust me."

"Fine. I'll give you a week."

"Don't threaten me. I want this as much as you do, and you won't catch me if you try. I know how to disappear. You had nothing until now, so be patient. Prepare." My accent had thickened on its own, so I stressed it. "On my honor, sir, I swear I will deliver when the moment of opportunity presents itself. And, it shall present itself."

"I shall endeavor to be patient, m'lady." He bowed his head slightly, doffing his bowler and placing it over his heart.

Giving the barest curtsy appropriate to his office due from me, I tipped my hat so he got a good look at my face and that weird double-star around my horn that was beginning to grow in. "How gallant of you, kind sir," I said and winked.

With that, I strode off. I almost couldn't hear for the pounding of my heart and the taxi and truck traffic in the street, but I didn't hear his horseshoes against the pavement, nor had he moved when I glanced back after crossing the boulevard.

I would carry out my part.

Would he carry out his part? If I were wrong about that, I suspected nobody would find my corpse.

Author's Note

Next:
Chapter 28: Act Three, Scene One
Sunset hits bottom and tries to convince Starlight to get her what she needs.

Chapter 31: New Book 2 - Starlight and The Persistent Princess

Author's Note

Hello dear reader from years ago.

A second book (a 30k novella, actually) now continues the story of The Enforcer and Her Blackmailers. It is an alternate universe ending for this story; it runs from chapter 31 to 40 in The Enforcer and Her Blackmailers (Enhanced & Augmented). That story is a remaster of this original novel with additional details, events, and a better history of Starlight’s time in the gangs. I remastered it because I completed the prequel for this story, The Runaway Bodyguard, and Starlight’s original adventure begged to be updated to make the stories sync better. If you liked Starlight the Enforcer, you will like her entire life story more. Bodyguard begins when teen Starlight runs away from home to learn magic and find Sunburst.

What follows (Chapter 31: Of Mice and Mares) is a taster, which starts where the epilogue in this story ended.

Chapter 31: New Book 2 - Starlight and The Persistent Princess

Book 2 - Starlight and The Persistent Princess

Chapter 31: Of Mice and Mares

The best laid schemes of mice and mares often go awry. How true!

After having been awake over a day, having been awful to Sunset Shimmer to bring Running Mead to justice, having earned my cutie mark, having confronted Celestia with all the ruin she had brought to my life and to Equestria's, having burned through splendors of my magic teleporting to escape Canterlot Castle, also escaping from the city was too much to ask.

All my hooves dragged, not just my right rear one, by the time I reached the corner of Alicorn Way at Ponyville Way. I blinked up at the News Building, lit brightly, a hive of activity as ponies realized something had prevented the sunrise. I could see that the giant printing presses had literally been stopped.

Little did the reporters know that the most newsworthy pony in town stood right across the street in a growing daze. Maybe it was common sense, not entirely exhaustion, creeping up. Celestia hadn't chased me, yet, but neither had she raised the sun.

I hadn't kept my freedom this long by being stupid. I needed a plan to keep from being caught. A slug-like target, with fluorescent green stripes in her purple mane, trotting down the switchback of the Ponyville Incline would be like a flare at midnight.

I glanced at my flank. Even the auroras in my newly-minted auroras-and-stars cutie mark glared a harsh ionized-oxygen fluorescent green. The abomination moved and conformed to my flesh as I walked. It seemed surreal. Maybe I was dreaming?

No. Celestia had sent Running Mead to Tartarus for stalking Sunset. Should have, at very least. From what I'd learned of her, perhaps worse.

I remembered the elation when I'd magically gelded the crime boss. It felt so right, like deciphering and manipulating cutie mark magic was what I had wanted all along.

Destiny?

I was so demented! The flapping mark controlled me, now. I stomped a hoof. No! Not happening!

Tartarus! My tail and mark were both flares in the morning twilight!

Celestia would search the Incline, would doubtlessly pack the train station and the airship terminal with royal guard and undercover constabulary. Without wings, or the skill to repel down the shear walls of Canterlot Mountain, there was no other way to leave Canterlot.

Oops, sorry—there was the taking an illegal barrel ride over the cataracts! Not happening.

I stationed myself under an awning before the Toque Blanche bakery. The smell of fresh yeasty bread beguiled me as I tied my mane and tail into colt buns, stuffing my green streaks from view. I hadn't eaten dinner yesterday, because that was when the sting operation went down, nor had I had the appetite for lunch, knowing I faced Sunset's ruin. My stomach gurgled loudly. A stallion in the glass window paused with a Prench bread in his magic to regard me with his blue eyes and a smile.

I yawned as I trotted around the corner. I desperately needed sleep but once again homeless, short of sleeping in the park for all the constables to see, I wasn't getting any.

I shuddered. Fellows. I'd forgotten his threat to arrest me. He'd likely issued an all agencies alert for somepony that looked like me! Even if Celestia threatened to pardon me, I didn't want to experience the humiliation of being caught, or worse, giving her the satisfaction of pardoning me and making me feel obligated.

One impossible task at a time. I would succeed, or learn something about myself.

The sun hadn't risen and most retail hadn't opened yet. I needed fur and mane dye, styling gel, and make-up. A sewing kit. And scissors. Definitely scissors. Short tail, short mane, overalls to hide my flank. I could make myself into a yearling colt, given an hour to work and a secluded alleyway to work in. It was after 7:00 AM, however, and I sensed I needed to be anywhere but in the open.

Right! I remembered from my previous visit to Canterlot. Back then I had failed to learn where Sunburst had gone because to do so, I would have had to enroll in Celestia's School because of privacy concerns about a random filly asking personal questions about a student. I hadn't had emancipation papers. I had required permission, which meant Proper Step or Celestia. I had run away from home for a reason: to learn magic. Celestia's money paid for Proper Step, who said learning magic wasn't lady-like. I hadn't known it was a setup. I'd left the city totally shattered, but I had had one good experience on the way out: Donut Joe's!

I trotted faster, glancing at the sky. Purple and deep blue, still. Clouds danced around the higher snow-capped peaks. I could still see the brightest stars to the west. Thankfully, I saw nothing more than a pegasus flitting uptown.

Likely, you've visited Donut Joe's if you've stayed in Canterlot. Diners with neon outlines and white Formica tables were much more common in Baltimare, and the other eastern cities I'd spent the previous few years in, so I felt a welcoming glow approaching it this dusky morning. Apparently, so did a hundred other ponies. The place was packed, which suited me fine. More camouflage. You know that special scent of cooked sugar, caramel, seed oil, and coffee. It hit me, along with moist warmth and the scent of ponies as I opened the door, letting two in business suits step out.

A hefty tan pony with tea cups and a coffee pot in his magic called out through the din, "'Low!" as I pushed in. No chance I was getting one of the crowded, shared tables for myself, nor did I want a place at the standing bars that faced the three windowed walls. Like putting a target on my back. I waited and noticed a mare in a red blouse beginning to stand near the middle of the front counter. I scooted her back in my magic, and stepped in before anypony could even think to move. Yeah, rude, but I'd gotten used to living in Baltimare where eastern ponies were rude and in your face all the time—and it served my purposes.

Soon multiple teabags of Earl Greymare steeped in front of me. Donut Joe dropped a still warm peanut butter stuffed chocolate donut and a pink frosted rainbow sprinkle donut on a little clattering plate before me. I counted over my coins. I'd still have plenty for the cosmetics and clothes, and train fares, but was happy the sugar I poured was free.

With bergamot scent filling my nostrils and my spoon stirring in my magic, my tea rapidly turned into brown-black syrup. I'd been up twenty-six hours. This pony's batteries needed recharging!

I sipped, burnt my lips, then flagged down some ice because I needed a caffeine infusion in a vein, and drinking fast was the closest substitute. I looked at the paper tea bag wrapper as I drank. Who was this Earl of Greymare, anyway? Had she, or he, been forced into service by a tyrant princess also?

Slowly, my energy ramped up, while I reviewed the notes I'd taken about the princess' cutie mark. I kept my position at the counter by ordering progressively cheaper donuts. A chocolate cake curler, then a sugar-frosted. Finally, realizing none of my observations in the library would help me fight her, I closed it and sighed. The big red stallion beside me noticed I looked over at his stack of newspapers. The Inquisition had a large politics section, but little sports, so I rarely bought it. Seeing my eyes, he slid over the sports section.

"Thanks."

"Wonder what's keeping Celestia?" he muttered, before sipping coffee.

I ruffled to the prizefighting results and said—loud enough to be heard over the clatter of plates and din of the crowd—"Dunno. Maybe her protégé got caught up in a sting operation last night, and this morning the replacement she'd been cultivating for a decade refused the invitation and spat in her face?"

"That's kind of specific."

"Would be interesting if true."

He nodded, sipping coffee, turning the page.

I'd burnt a good half-hour and, by the clock, if I left soon I might be able to trot right into a store when it opened—

"Is that Princess Celestia?" a few ponies on the east and south facing windows asked, one standing precipitously and splashing tea on another pony.

My heart leapt into my throat, nearly choking me.

I glanced right. True, without actual sun, you don't get strong shadows. But with orange light on the horizon and lots of street lamps still lit on a main thoroughfare, light does get interrupted noticeably.

A winged shadow too large to be a pegasus swept by going north on Ponyville Way.

I gulped down my tea and stuffed the last of an apple fritter in my mouth. "Thanks," I told the stallion beside me, catching a spit crumb, slipping back into the crowd.

My nemesis had flown north. My destination, Vaquera's Secret, lay south of Alicorn Way and east to Chestnut. I pushed toward the west window, turning toward the entrance. I found an area relatively free of ponies and cast Don't Look Don't See Don't Hear. With nopony looking specifically at me, ducking down was enough to effectively disappear without anypony noticing or caring in the morning rush. Most diners were stationary as they ate, and with my current sugar rush, I could play a hoof ball match. I played dodge-a-pony only three times before I slipped out the closing glass door.

Traffic wasn't heavy, but I could easily step between other ponies in the crosswalk. I trotted to the corner, ready to cross with the other ponies, watching as a couple of wagons of boxes and crates rolled on by, leaving an opening for hoof traffic.

Having dealt with aerial attacks both in the arena and real life, my body reacted before my awareness. I flashed back to a certain griffon attack before my ears alerted me to the sizzle and hiss of feathers under pressure as something closed on me. I twitched, butting the mare to my right as my ears pivoted around and I glanced north.

"Hey!" the mare complained, but the descending sound had reached others' ears and she didn't notice I wasn't there. Gulping, heart racing, I looked where everypony else looked, while side-stepping south in preparation to gallop. I kept hold of the spell—the digits until then like unnoticed floaters in my eyes, spinning and on fire—confident I remained unseen.

Princess Celestia thumped down with bent knees in the middle of the cobblestone boulevard—hard enough to crack the matrix holding the cobbles in place and rattle the windows of Donut Joe's—five pony lengths behind me. I had no doubt the earth pony part of the alicorn chimera was as strong as her other aspects. She wore her golden peytral and crown, and furled her white wings with a feathered thwack.

Her snowy equine perfection—slightly pink in the gaslight and colored predawn, combined with the mysterious flow of her mane and tail—inspired awe. Like puppets, everypony went down on bended knee; even the oncoming traffic halted and bowed, including eight stallions harnessed to a purple and white city bus whose drover applied the brakes heavily, eliciting an appropriately ominous groan for the tableau.

I backed softly from the crosswalk, not trusting the Don't Hear clause of my spell. Celestia didn't look my way, but she did the familiar thing: She waved her pike-like horn back and forth... until she pointed it at me. As she stepped my direction, other ponies looked there.

One pink mare gasped, green eyes centering on me. In a cascade, the verisimilitude dissolved and all eyes alighted on me and widened. Ponies pointed, muttering how I'd suddenly appeared. Most importantly, Celestia also broke through the spell.

Purple eyes speared me.

Of course she'd found me. She was the headmare at her school. The proctors reported my test result. They'd copied Arches Bald's spell from my annotated notes for her. The clauses talked only about not looking, not seeing, and not hearing. It still took copious splendors of magic to cast, and like myself, Celestia could sense the flow of magic and see the numbers with her horn, even if tricked by the illusion in the particulars. She'd been flying around, scanning for magic.

My magic.

Had I stayed in Donut Joe's, I'd have remained hidden.

"Shoot!" I said. I let go of the spell, spinning up Levitate, straightening and checking the tightness of my colt buns as an innocuous way to keep my magic spinning as I gathered my wits.

I backed away.

The great alicorn stepped closer with a far greater stride. I got an education as to how huge she was. I could see under her barrel without dipping my head much. While relatively slimmer than most ponies, her body, neck, and head towered three pony heights, and her deadly sharp horn higher. I understood why the interior of most buildings had high ceilings, if for no other reason than to prevent embarrassing gouges in the plaster.

In her place, I would have stunned me, not let me analyze how to attack.

She said, "Everypony, clear the area." I backed faster. "Not you, Countess."

Most of the ponies stood and trotted away, watching over their shoulders, looking confused. Ponies reversed their vehicles. A couple of bright mares galloped away, understanding the dynamics of the threat. Ponies packed the window at the diner, lacking imagination to conceive violence, and annoyingly limiting my options lest I hurt somepony.

"Some ponies won't take no for an answer," I returned, ticking off in my head what I could and could not do.

Continued in The Enforcer and Her Blackmailers (Enhanced & Augmented).

Or read the prequel: The Runaway Bodyguard

Appendix 1: Chapter Descriptions

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Appendix 2: Glossary

Author's Note

Some supplementary material explaining some terms in the novel as understood by Starlight Glimmer.

Appendix 2: Glossary

Barthemule - A virtually unknown student of Star Swirl the Bearded, famous for his mathematical treatises explaining his mentor's theory of time.

Brownstone - A kind of reddish-brown sandstone used for building. Also, a building faced with reddish-brown sandstone.

Don't See Don't Hear Don't Look - An illusion spell that renders a pony invisible by magically warping light and sound around the caster who must remain cognizant of her surroundings. It also emits a magical sensation that convinces nearby ponies not to look in the caster's direction.

Force - A complex multi-vector variant of Levitation that takes the anti-gravity aspect of Levitation and converts it into a directed force along a specific vector. Because the force rapidly reciprocates between the caster and the target, the resultant beam, when cast by a high level unicorn or alicorn, can generate a plasma.

Enforcer - A violent criminal employed by a crime syndicate; especially : hit man.

Horn - An evolved organ capable of flexibly solving the math necessary to warp normal physics into magic in multi-variable ways.

Grimoire - A book of magic spells and invocations. Typically, an ancient book of large size and arcane knowledge.

Levitation - The most common spell, allowing a unicorn or alicorn to typically manipulate two or three objects.

Magic Pulse - A supposed type of aether that suffuses the entire world and provides the energy that unicorns and alicorns use to warp the otherwise static physics of the world. The only evidence for this material is the behavior of Princess Celestia's mane.

Mirror - A shield spell that can reflect another force spell like a beam of light off a mirror.

Motivation - A derivative of Levitation that can operate machinery. Typically, it is used to power gears and levers. It is considered a refined version of Force.

Mnemonics - The verbal component of a spell, typically poetry, designed to remind the caster of the various magical mathematical expressions necessary to trigger the spell. In some cases, the mnemonics alone can trigger the spell, causing the caster to unconsciously do the required math.

Nettle-ewe - A psycho-active drug that magically increases the speed of thought.

Quick-draw - A style of spell casting, originally developed for competitive casting, that sacrifices accuracy for speed without sacrificing the efficacy of the spell and usually greatly simplifies the calculative burden of the equations necessary to cast a spell.

Spell - n. A codified linguistical-mathematical tract of steps that a magic user can use to learn or remember how to warp reality in a specific intended way.

Strand - Typically, the land bordering a body of water, but can refer to any land bordering an otherwise inaccessible view.

Stun - An spell that converts magic into a continuous electrical discharge akin to lightning.

Tartarus - A mythical hell in which the worst monsters and demons abide.

Teleport - A spell that translates the caster, objects in contact with the caster of limited size and adhesion, and a surrounding layer of air from one point in space to another.

Transform - v. To change (a magical-mathematical entity) by transformation, e.g., by translation, mapping, or through a function. n. A mathematical entity designed to transform a spell to tune, control, and make it into a different spell.

Valerian - Valeriana officials; Probably the most widely known of the calming herbs, valerian root is so effective that it had been designated as a prohibited substance by many of the equine regulatory bodies. In modern times, it is regulated, taxed, and available for sale, but not available to minors.

Visualization - How a unicorn or alicorn views the feedback of his or her horn. Most report numbers.

Appendix 4: About the Cover

The cover art for this novel was commissioned especially for this story from Raikoh-illust. The picture is of Grimoire, and is rendered in Raikoh's stylish take of the MLP cartoon style. The detail is accurate, but intentionally emphasized for the purposes of making a nice cover. (You'll understand what I mean by details better by the third chapter.)

Realizing I was writing a major novel, I wanted something more than my usual frame-capture manipulated in Photoshop. I found his illustration, The New Mare, and was taken by it.

Please patronize this talented artist. Visit his web presence here: http://raikoh-illust.deviantart.com

Raikoh has courteously consented to publish his work-in-progress images for the commission. I particularly like the sketch. He was a pleasure to work with and I felt his commission prices were fair. Find his WIP composite here: http://raikoh-illust.deviantart.com/art/Starlight-Glimmer-WIP-597369650

Appendix 5: Outline Materials

Author's Note

The following is my treatment for Enforcers and Her Blackmailers. Note that it is not in order because as I work through the novel, I move some material to the top for easier reference but rarely delete anything I put in allowing myself to change my mind. My intention is to know the basic gist of the story, and where I want it to end before I start. It contains many false starts and information I changed my mind about. It doesn't constitute an outline, either. I am a stream-of-consciousness writer. For me, I need to know enough of where the story is headed, and how the characters will take it there, that I can get started telling the story of the characters. I want key plot points. As the characters come alive, they then tell their own story, and often try to lead it to places I had no idea of going. Streak is the result, and wasn't in the original planning, but added to the treatment when she became important. She took over, and I am so glad she did as she served to 'humanize' Starlight. But years of experience has shown me how to contain it all. Which brings me back to the treatment. It was a living document up to the point that I no longer needed it, being updated often as I gained insights during the writing phase. If you look closely, you'll see threads I didn't follow, and an alternate ending that—thanks to Zecora's stream of consciousness observation about the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters—didn't happen. I think the regicide ending was much better than the one I'd planned, and it allowed the story to remain in canon when season 6 premiered after I'd finished the story. And yes, Zecora's part was also written as a stream of consciousness. Each time I had to write her dialog, I visited an online rhyming dictionary, then continued.

http://www.rhymezone.com

One last note: I froze the outline somewhere between chapter 20 and 22. I have made no attempt to clean up the text herein, either. I copy and pasted it, only adding the formatting that operation stripped. It may seem like broken English, but I knew what I meant to say. Look at this for an insight into the writing process and nothing more.

Appendix 5: Outline Materials

Enforcer

Workspace
-SG is forced to give up everything. She realizes she can't protect SS because SS won't let her without her explaining why. The why would ruin everything. She realizes that SS is addicted to nettle-ewe, and drinks too much, and telling her father or Celestia would ruin SS' position as a protégé and ruin everything. SG is left helping herself, but doesn't know how. She thinks that SS can protect herself from kidnapping, but doesn't think that is a good strategy for RM who wants influence. The only conclusion is that he wants Grimoire to return to the fold voluntarily or that he will get to SS by the nettle-ewe and force SG into submission.

-SG decides to take down RM, saving SS and Streak at the same time. RM doesn't believe that SG would give everything up, but including her freedom, by going to the police.

-When she sees the guard she fought in the Lower walking near the castle, she tells him that she can help him if he follows her and lets her talk pretending he is doing something else. She explains that she has quit enforcing, though her former employer doesn't see it that way. She will be leaving Canterlot soon, but if before that if she is escorted into the Lower, it will be against her will, and it's probably going to be for something that would interest him and that he might want to follow and listen for something that might help him clean up the lower.

-SG realizes that RM wants Shimmer to do something for him in Canterlot Castle. RM is never caught because he rarely exposes himself, letting his minions do his dirty work, and has this special talent to get people to do things for him that he can use as blackmail. When RM tries to get Shimmer to agree to do something in exchange for weed, she refuses and SG gets to finally witness his talent in action. Though she can sense magic in his horn, his is an inherent talent that doesn't use magic directly and thus cannot be shielded against. Magic is necessary only to initiate the influence. When the guard arrive, ready to arrest him for mind control and attempted blackmail, he uses the influence on them before they can capture him. The melee ends with only the guard under his influence and RM's body guards knocked out. RM twigs to that SG lead the police to him. With no other choice, to prevent from being attacked by the guard under his control, she rips out his cutie mark and corks in a wine bottle. Do Shimmer and the guard wake from control when RM's talent is cut out of him? The guard "ring" his horn, to prevent him from doing magic. SG prevaricates when she releases his cutie mark, saying it was an illusion that confused him and prevented him from using his talent. Shimmer is told her behavior will be reported to Celestia. SG gasps when she realizes she has a cutie mark. With attention focused on her, SG teleports away.

Treatment
-Running Mead realizes SG has contacts at Castle when Sunset Shimmer attempts to follow SG home.

-When RM interviews her, he tries to get SG to sell weed to Shimmer, but SG refuses.

-SG wakes up at Shimmer's ivory tower. Celestia has given her her own lodging and laboratory. SG destroys the weed and finds finds Shimmer's closeness pathetic. Is it?

-Concludes the spell backfire caused her blackout and the bizarre action of her selling weed when she told RM she wouldn't do that. Shimmer's adopted father says he see no evidence that she is damaged, but that the therapy could cause side-effects. All therapies can cause things to happen, however unlikely.

-SG finds the reference the doctor told her about. She practices on herself and finds it allows her to heal quickly, and is better than massage.
Interlude with SG doing enforcing her way, which is being scary and breaking things but not people, but also appealing to reason of the contractee.

-(This might be a good blackout second occurrence). SG is sent to convince a problem pony to leave the Lower. She fights this apparently combat-trained pony to a draw. During the altercation, she tears a tendon (and later uses the doctor's magic to fix it.) She realizes she is fighting a member of the guard, possibly planted to ferret out information about RM. Oddly enough, in their exhaustion they banter and their seems to be some camaraderie, though cautious. She tells him she's Grimoire, but the best she can do with him is know what he looks like.

-SG is used as a guard for the herb trade with the supplier in the Everfree. Probably a flying wagon load. The supplier is Zecora who trades for herbs she can't buy, especially in unfriendly Ponyville.

-After the herb run, RM insists on SG eliminating a dead beat to make an example. When she refuses, she "blacks-out" again. ~~She catches herself while initiating a force spell before hurting the pony; instead she teleports him to the wagon preventing him from taking the brunt of force spell.~~ She catches herself about to kill. She is in a kitchen with witnesses from the boss looking in. She scares them back so they can't see what she's doing. She explodes a pot of tomato sauces with a force spell and convinces the witnesses she killed the victim. She sends them aware,saying she'll clean up the crime scene. She uses levitation to do so and has to heal the victim, too. She takes him to Zecora, who hears her story and is convinced that magic was used on

-SG. She now has RM witnesses that think she committed murder, but no evidence for the police. She convinces the victim not to go to the police but to relocated to another city with the gold coins RM slipped into her saddle bags to pay for her job, trying to further her guilt.

-SG concludes that RM has a mind control spell. (She is wrong; it is his special talent.) She decides to avoid him at all costs. Moves in with Shimmer, she she no longer has a job and Shimmer had invited her. In the days that follow, SG is approached for enforcing, but she insists she quit. She is told that nopony quits, and rebuffs blackmail innuendo saying she actually didn't kill that pony and can prove it. Thus she has nothing to lose and is used to leaving everything behind, and will if forced, so they should just go away.

-Shimmer is under great pressure competing with Twilight Sparkle. She has prowess where TS has potential. She needs SG to teach her quick draw techniques and how to do a force spell. Her force spell is so weak, pony feel tickled rather than bruised.

-The pressure has caused Shimmer to drink and take weed. SG sees that this is self-destructive. Nevertheless, she uses one of these drunken episodes to try the healing magic. It soothes Shimmer. Another time, thinking of RM, she wonders if she can manipulate the cutie mark. She removes Shimmer's completely and it helps her. Thus she hits on equalization therapy.

-SG wants to help Shimmer, to make her get help, but doesn't want to lose her safe lodging.

-SG uses Shimmer as a test subject when she is soused to learn how to use the doctor's magic. It is during a session that she learns a cutie mark can be temporarily removed. This therapy actually allows Shimmer to center herself and let go of the pressure.

-SG begins elaborating in her mind how cutie marks cause ponies to desire control over other ponies, making them unequal. It is often bad.

-SG at the end of the story is found in the Star Swirl the Bearded wing, researching a spell. When Celestia finds her, she thanks SG for arranging RM's arrest, but chastises her for using Shimmer. SG equates Celestia's attitude and domineering personality to her cutie mark, and the inherent inequality it represents. SG then dresses down Celestia for running rough-shod over Shimmer and pressuring her proteges. Celestia says it is necessary, but when SG asks why, Celestia acts as if under a geas that prevents her from speaking. SG is disgusted. Celestia is a damaged leader and ponies are locked into a hierarchy of talent that tears away friendship through inequality. She reaches for Celestia's cutie mark, but isn't fast enough. In the confusion of Celestia realizing she might be under attack, SG thinks better of her actions and teleports away. In the epilogue scene, as she runs away leaving all behind, she thinks she must never try to take away a pony's cutie mark without their consent, because that's wrong, but that if she can prove that equality therapy works, maybe one day even the alicorn would eventually come to her to ask for relief from her curse.

What Does Runny Mead Want?
-Control over the royalty?

-Higher paying up town clients, or clients in the castle?

-Immunity from prosecution?

-Power to run the lower with impunity?

-He was runs a protection racket and is a loan shark. He also is in the herb trade, which tends to benefit his loan sharking. Sometimes he excepts favors in lieu of money. If he could get connections up town, he might be able to lower funding to the Lower's constabulary and make his business safer and more profitable through efficiency.

-He recognizes that SG is dangerous but her scruples allow her to damage property but prevent her from hurting ponies, and therefore him. He figures if uses his talent on her, he can make her do special assignments without her conscious in the way, expecting she won't retaliate, if she knows what she did. Indeed, he can use it as blackmail to keep her in his control.

-The establishment is aware of his business but have been unable to catch him?

-Does the constabulary know his identity?

-Runny Mead has two enforcers. Does the second actually try to perform retribution on SG? Perhaps this happens after SG gets RM arrested and the enforcer takes over the remaining organization?

-Runny Mead could be Shimmer cut off from weed. This might clue SG into an imminent power play. So she leaves a message for the guard she fought that she can deliver Runny Mead soon to set up a sting. He just has to agree to let her get away. The tip off is when Shimmer and her head to the Lower together.

Details

Magic

-All ponies have magic

-Wings focus flying magic

-A horn focuses magic externally

-Lack of either focuses the magic inward

-By modulating magic using their horn, solving equations to produce changes in their projected magic, unicorns make local temporary exceptions to physics.

-The horn is a math coprocessor as well as a magic modulator.

-Any pony can sense the numbers in the magical field, though unicorns specifically use the feedback to gauge the result of their solution.

-Most ponies learn how to decipher the feedback as the numbers, but other visualizations can be effective.

-Deciphering another ponies numbers can give a quick or savvy unicorn and advantage of knowing the type of spell and targeting. It also allows one unicorn to copy another's magic.

Chapter 13: Unintended Consequences

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

He said, "You, filly. Wait."

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

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

His cheek twitched. Maybe I had met him, or he had rousted me once last spring. "You be careful." Translated: Don't steal anything because I'm watching.

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

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

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

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

I did know why my subconscious sent me here.

A mare might have to do what a mare had to do, but I knew how I would have felt if somepony had done to me what I had done to the homeless stallion. Angry. Humiliated. I would probably have blasted my oppressor, true, and I grinned at that, but the having happened would still have been horrible. I still had nightmares of the Hooflyn gang war, or the first time a crime boss' lieutenant forced himself on me. Sure, living on the street or living on the edge opened oneself to being victimized, but it didn't make it right, nor make it right that I felt I had to victimize a nameless faceless pony, give him nightmares, and destroy whatever small illusion of safety and control he clung to.

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

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

To Tartarus with it!

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

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

What would the stallion do with such a windfall?

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

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

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

It was empty.

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

Well, of course the undercover copper had rousted him. I had said I had "slept" with him and had called him "Uncle." That his "niece" looked underage (by design and by virtue of being true), and that he refused to say he knew anything about me—because of my threats—likely got him arrested.

I chose an appropriate curse of something I was unequipped as a mare to do to myself. The oath echoed in the isolated alley like a epithet.

I turned away.

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

From comments I heard whispered, I looked even more horrible than I felt all through the school day. I asked no questions and offered up the wrong spell when a teacher asked.

Unfortunately, somepony noticed.

Author's Note

Next:
Chapter 14: The Prodigy
Dr. Flowing Waters leaves Starlight no choice but to stay in Canterlot, even though it involves the princess.

Chapter 28: Act Three, Scene One

That night, I insisted on eating at home. Unsurprisingly, Sunset Shimmer acted as if she thought it a good idea, that it would save money. Over a bowl of primavera fried hay that I'd tossed together with carrots and squash I'd scrounged up at the back of the pantry, she finally brought it up.

Her red wine unsampled, her hair limply laying across her face as if she no longer cared about her looks, not even making eye contact, she asked, "Remember the night you first slept over here?"

I had expected this, but it saddened me anyway. The mouthful I chewed became like sawdust, but I decided to play the game. "Uh, huh."

Quiet, very quiet: "You brought nettle-ewe..."

I'd brought it under Running Mead's control. Despite her equivocation at the time, I felt certain it had been my chummy presentation that had introduced it to her. Having destroyed it and having warned her hadn't dissuaded her from trying it. Thus had Running Mead lost the battle and won the war. I had thought he had no influence outside the Lower, but now he'd dried up Sunset Shimmer's supply. He wanted a tamed princess' pet and her trainer—the two of us.

I put down the fork. "I warned you."

"Don't tell me you didn't know."

"I knew."

Her eyes came up, and I could see the red rimming them. "Then you can get me some?"

"You need to go to your father and get help—"

She slammed her front hooves on the granite top, rattling the plates and silver. "You don't know my father! He was against me living here alone and..."

I had read about addiction in Understanding Pony Behavior. Addict's logic. It was the addiction speaking. I endured the rage, the tears, and the begging as a sailor might bad weather at sea—no choice but to survive it.

She wouldn't even let me hold her that night to ease her tremors. In essence, she'd sunk so low she wouldn't let me lean to support her. In the end, I knew what I had to do and giving in, even if I honestly could, wasn't it.

The next afternoon at lunch, I left school and walked through the fashion district toward Ponyville Way, ensuring I was as visible as possible and obviously alone. If I was being watched by the constabulary, I saw no evidence. I hoped that this meant Fellows and I had a deal.

I got all the way to the very busy intersection of Alicorn Way and Ponyville Way before a mare trotted up with a green mane styled in a casual flip, wearing a long dress and a smart ruddy bowler hat. She had indigo eyes, and on a closer look, no horn. Wearing a dress to conceal her wings must have hurt. The green dye would have hurt her pride.

I told Streak, "Tell Running Mead he's won."

"I'm sorry."

We both sighed, watching trucks and taxis go by, not budging an inch as we forced hoof traffic to walk around us. I said, "I know you are."

"The boss is very good at finding ways to control a pony."

I looked at the wannabe furniture moving magnate. "Try to believe me when I say he doesn't always get it right. We've got to hope. And the other day, I had to protect myself, and I'm sorry for what happened and for what you saw."

She dismissed it with a snort.

"Now, this is very important. Tell Running Mead I'm going to bring him Sunset Shimmer." I hesitated about the next part because it was intended to infuriate him. I took a deep breath and added, "In exchange for my freedom."

"We're his possessions."

I was counting on that. I needed him to do his worst to me as his victim. I was no innocent, and if he acted and the constabulary saw it, and I survived, I would finally make the world a better place for myself and everypony else.

"Tell him I'll only give her to him personally or no deal. In person. Tailor can guide us. And tell him I have no scruples about protecting myself. Remind him what you saw in Rye Bald's flat." Again, calculated to incite anger.

She nodded wordlessly, possibly sadly and suddenly sick to her stomach as she ambled away.

I endured one more night of moaning and moping, and all sort of piss and vinegar. I wanted Sunset Shimmer desperate enough to do anything I asked, and I wanted Fellows ready. I did hope that he was as professional as he seemed.

Sunset Shimmer didn't go to school the next day. When I returned to the ivory tower, I found her in the vestibule, draped over a gilt blue-velvet fainting couch she'd dragged over, waiting, as I'd read dogs were wont to do. Reddened green eyes followed me as I hung my saddlebags on the umbrella tree, then knelt facing her.

I said, "I've seen roadkill that looks better than you."

"I'll take that as a compliment. I feel far worse, and you know why."

It was time to crack. I managed a sob and lay against the cushion, pressing my cheek against her ribs, laying my horn across her stomach. I could hear her heart beating, but at least she couldn't see my eyes as I lied. "I can't take this any more. This is tearing me apart." Okay, it wasn't entirely a lie.

After a moment, I felt her stroking my mane. Her numbers moved sluggishly. She had the concentration to levitate hair, but probably not much more. "You can help me."

"I want to, and I know what you're asking for. I wanted to be the mare you thought I was, but I guess that was a dream anyway. Couldn't you consider getting real help? Do you really want me to introduce you to my world?"

Her heart beat faster. "No pony is perfect, and yes, I gather it's hard for you, but I promise, this time I'll be careful of what I take and to taper off. I've read what to do. Just help me this once…"

In the dusk, after I had fixed her hair, cleaned her up, and found eyedrops to clear her eyes, we walked through the bailey gate to the castle, nodding at the guards who nodded in return. Minutes later, I led her on to the school quad, where she said, "Deep Thinker is no longer selling. I haven't been able to find her in weeks."

Few ponies remained. I could see lights in the magic lab downstairs. A pair of roan ponies, the "conjuring twins" everypony called them, stood on the sidewalk awaiting a ride. I sat beside a tree, out of view of the street. The grass felt cool and the scent of the pepper tree spiced the air. I asked, "You haven't got a clue, have you?"

"About what?"

I took out a compact I had bought this morning, along with a makeup brush, newly cut stencils, and a pump hairspray bottle. I checked that the black, brown, and white powder pots were in proper order, wincing at the heavy gardenia scent of the cheap stuff. Leaving Zecora's, I had set Grimoire's cape on fire, melted my supplies, and thrown the special horseshoes deep into the forest. Even that hadn't made the nightmare over.

No wishes came true unless you acted to ensure they did. I forced down the resentment of what I had to do.

"Welcome to my world," I said.

Author's Note

Next:
Chapter 29: To Ring a Unicorn
Starlight confronts Running Mead. Cutie mark magic may prove her downfall.

Chapter 29: To Ring a Unicorn

"Welcome to my world," I said, placing the stencil, brushing on the black, and spraying the fast-dry lacquer. As Sunset Shimmer watched, and for some reason I needed her to watch, I layered on Grimoire both physically and mentally. I continued by releasing my pigtails, combing my mane back, and pushing in the beret, creating Grimoire's signature Baltimare tough's bouffant. In a society where stallions wore their hair short, many of the eastern gang members never cut their manes or tails. A few spritzes made the hair style solid. I finished by putting my tail in a bun, hiding the chartreuse stripe. A second-hoof black hip-length short cape completed the costume, though I left the cowl down.

I stood. Sunset Shimmer followed wordlessly. The twin roan ponies still awaited their carriage, lit by a flickering gas streetlight. Both were brownish-tanish in color with black manes, and black points that made them look like they had stepped knee-deep in charcoal. I stopped at the curb and waited with Sunset Shimmer to my right. I sensed them looking and turned to my left to meet their magenta eyes.

I lowered my muzzle as I looked, exposing the whites beneath my irises, showing them predator eyes. I didn't blink.

"Come on, Candy," one said, and they trotted down the block. I waited another minute, hoping everypony who needed to see me would see me and prepare. I suddenly really really didn't want to do this. I could well believe I was facing my death. I could see where I might throughly ruin Sunset Shimmer's life, or get her hurt or killed.

I could be a coward, as I had always been, and run away from my life. Or I could go forward and give restitution for my crimes against society, as well as find some for those against myself. The crisp autumnal chill in the air felt appropriate somehow.

I stepped into the street as the traffic cleared and began a slow stroll toward Lower Canterlot. I didn't make the conscious decision. I just let my body lead. I followed.

As did Sunset Shimmer.

Lamplighters had lit the last gas lights and night had fallen completely before an escort appeared out of the general hoof traffic heading home or out for a meal. It was a lanky mauve stallion, sporting a unkempt black mane and a reversed red billed cap, and a blue pegasus with a spiked mane who joined us as we walked.

"Grimoire."

"Sunset Shimmer, meet Tailor and Streak. Not their real names, of course. Tailor, Streak, meet my friend Sunset Shimmer."

Both shot me an annoyed look. Too many pony ears listening around us. Sunset Shimmer said, "Hey, you're the pegasus who bothered Star— St-St—Grimoire last week."

"Indeed, she is," I said. "She delivered a note with your name on it. Somepony knew you needed help."

If Sunset Shimmer saw any incongruity in my words, I saw no indication. Perhaps the addict inside prevented it. She kept close enough for me to feel the heat of her body, though, but did not balk as we turned at the intersection.

I soon knew where Tailor and Streak led us: The Edge, that park-adjacent eatery district near that Hooflyn-style deli that Running Mead apparently liked. I had worried he might choose to meet in a warehouse or any place unfamiliar that might close me in and force me to take desperate measures, but this was good. No, it was very good. I kept my face a mask and followed. I played idly with some quick draw calculations, but felt certain I needn't fear an ambush at least, not with the moderate hoof traffic we traveled with as cover.

Mid-dinner hour looked to be a perfect time to visit the semi-seedy trendoid three city blocks known for its dive bars and up-and-coming chef-run restaurants. Running Mead liked it, I suspected, because few of the establishments had glass storefronts, and those that did had smoked glass you couldn't see through. With everypony inside eating, or in a rush to get inside, the area outside felt relatively empty. Maybe Running Mead kept it that way by influencing the proprietors with some protection scheme.

I stopped as we entered a block that edged on the small urban park. Lanterns, some gaslit, some lit by potions, warmly lit a predominance of brownstone buildings. A few were white-washed in Canterlot colors, but most were painted forest green or brown, with stenciled signs that read The Draft Horse or Mama's Kitchen or Hayride's. Little planters of daisies and carnations graced the sidewalk. Trees had firefly feeders to attract the cheerful night insects, and in this season, they literally buzzed with wane light. I smelled garlic and the scent of cooking oil caramelizing hay. The cobblestones here, worn from centuries of use, looked recently scrubbed, leaving random puddles that reflected the lights, and, to the east, the newly risen moon.

"What are you waiting for?" asked Streak, prodding me with the stiff pinion feathers of her wing.

I blinked, realizing I'd been woolgathering. I wasn't going to tell her I was finding any excuse to delay, but I took it as a reason to work up some quick draw stun spells, not so much though that my horn lit. Didn't want to scare the locals.

Down the street, where a warehouse from a block over made a slightly more private alcove, lay The Hooflyn Delicatessen. Blinking marquee lights around the sign ensured you saw it. Once again, cafe tables stood beside the establishment with a smoked black window. A brown pony with a tan mane, white socks, and a white horn stood swirling the dark contents of a wine goblet in his amber magic beside a green bottle. He wore a gold corduroy jacket. A couple ponies loitered.

After a minute, I saw light glint off amber eyes as Running Mead regarded me. Well, too late for regrets and plenty of time for Fellows to scope out the situation. I called up Grimoire, finding his deep-toned voice and hoping for his imagined strength. I touched Sunset Shimmer's flank with a hoof and pointed. "We're going there." She gave me a strange look as if I had changed into another pony. "You walk out ahead of me."

And so we did. As she stepped up to his table, I stood off five pony-lengths and said, "You asked to meet the princess' protégé."

"So I did!" He held out a hoof and she reciprocated with a gentle tap.

I watched with keen interest, waiting for any magic beyond his levitation spell. I watched the other ponies who watched me, too. I decided to add Mirror to my quick draw queue.

"My little filly, Sunset Shimmer—"

"I'm not a filly," she interrupted, surprising me, her ears forward. I expected her to be groveling, but certain types of condescension grated on all mares.

He laughed, gently, and turned to his wine, lifting it in his amber-colored aura. A red. It smelled like a claret. I could identify it because Sunset Shimmer drank it when she didn't drink hard cider or beer. "They all want to be seen as older until they realize they'd rather be seen as younger. My apologies." He sipped and put the crystal goblet down with a clack. "I know what ails you."

Sunset Shimmer stiffened.

Still, no unusual magic. Impatience made me half turn as if to walk away, never leaving my eyes off him, of course.

"My dear, dear Grimoire, don't leave me."

I stopped. "We made a deal."

"It takes two to agree to a deal."

I wheeled my body around, keeping my eye on Running Mead while I addressed Streak hotly. "Did you tell him what I told you to tell him?"

"I did. Every word."

Running Mead said, "She did. She said you told her that I had won. You don't run from a winner, Grimoire." He motioned with his nose and his two flunkies split up and walked toward me, but kept their distance as I retreated more steps from Running Mead. Apparently Streak had indeed told him everything I'd said. Keeping track of the two, not to mention keeping track of Tailor about whom I knew little, put me on the spot and made me nervous, reminding me of the last days I spent in Hooflyn. It was the type of reminder that had made me shoot my TA during what should have been a fun defensive spell practicum. I worked to control my breathing.

With a sudden awareness of three hostiles, I nevertheless didn't overreact when Running Mead threw something at me. I caught a heavy purse that, like the first time he'd turned me into a sleepwalker, would have struck me in the head. The creep obviously used it as a tactic to keep idiots like me on the edge and malleable.

Had he understood my fighting technique, he'd have known better. I brought the purple velvet purse to eye level and pulled the drawstrings to see dozens of glittering gold bits. I cinched the purse, licking my lips, but didn't throw it in my saddle bags. Instead, I kept levitating it. It gave me a reason to leave my horn lit so I could fully spin up my quick draw queue.

He added, "I am a generous employer. I insist you stay. I think I'll be able to convince you—" I cringed despite my usual self-control, but he didn't notice and continued, "—to stay on the team. As for you, Miss Sunset Shimmer, I was saying—"

She cried, "I have bits. Lots of bits! A simple transaction and I'll leave you to your business with G-Gr— Grimoire."

"No, no. You don't understand, my little filly. This isn't a business transaction. This is an employment interview."

"I just want some net—"

"—We don't talk aloud about such things," he interrupted, waving a hoof. "You want this." He levitated an envelope and passed it under Sunset Shimmer's nose. She gasped, ears perked.

"Yes, but—"

"As my newest employee, you'll find an unlimited supply. Unemployed, you'll find the plant may as well be extinct. So, here is your first job: I want you to talk to Lieutenant Bright Moon of the royal guard and tell her—"

"I-I can't do that."

"I beg to differ. Do you want to earn your keep tonight by saying yes, or do I send you home to contemplate your sorry life? Either way, you'll eventually do what I ask."

"What? I have bits. Can't we just—"

"Your bits mean nothing to me Sunset Shimmer. I thought you were one of Equestria's best and brightest…"

As I watched him work to break her, I saw it wasn't working because she prepared to fight. She wasn't experienced in combat magic. Perhaps she didn't realize her horn lit as she worked up her teleport spell while holding on to the numbers for Levitation. She had apparently figured out my quick draw technique, somewhat, but her numbers were sluggish, clouded, and not at all hot. Her transform wavered like a heat mirage, numbers floating lazily away and dissipating. Her snatch and dodge wouldn't get her far, if her teleport spell worked at all.

"Don't do it," I warned, snapping her concentration, but not mine. What I waited for was Running Mead to spin up his mind control spell. I had to see how he did it if I were to have any hope of countering it. I put Mirror at the top of my queue.

Sunset Shimmer glared at me. I waved my jingling coins at her. Her anger caused the muscles in her jaw to bunch and her ears to go down again. She faced Running Mead and firmly said, "No," with what certainly was the last of her willpower.

"So determined to be contrary. Tsk, tsk. However, I do think I can convince you." He reached out with a simple levitation spell and squeezed her right shoulder gently. Having done that, he began to speak, telling her how important it was for her to find the lieutenant to remind her of her manners in agreeing to favors without doing them. He went on about how the royal guardsmare would be so appreciative of Sunset's visit. He continued by remarking about how Sunset Shimmer herself was being so nice as to agree to doing him a favor that she would be welcome to take the envelope with her.

"Uh, huh," Sunset Shimmer said, her eyes somewhat unfocused. "Putting it that way, I can certainly see how it helps everypony. Yeah, right, I'll do it…"

She nattered on as my jaw dropped. Running Mead had touched her with his levitation spell, and though he kept Levitation spinning, he now lifted his wine and sipped it as he listened, not touching her at all.

I had expected a spell.

A spell.

Was it his words? No, that wasn't it. I felt no compulsion to agree with the monster, nor to talk to a royal guard, and by the looks of the rest of the audience, none of them did either.

That led to a singular conclusion: His odd ability to persuade ponies had to be his special talent. He had a talent that allowed him to turn ponies into hypnotized sleepwalkers.

Were he a pegasus or an earth pony, he'd be just as good at it.

It was all because of a cutie mark. A filthy cutie mark.

A Force spell had wormed itself to the top of my quick draw queue. I wasn't surprised, nor was I appalled.

A familiar voice in the street said loudly, "I do think that is enough."

I wheeled around again, gasping, keeping an eye on Running Mead, confirming that it was indeed Detective Fellows approaching at an unhurried stroll. I pushed down Force and opted for Mirror again at the top. I dropped the bits, too frantic to keep up the charade at the expense of readiness.

Running Mead glanced around, his ears swiveling rapidly. In that instant, I would have prepared a teleport spell were I him, but I had yet to see him do any magic beyond Levitation. Might he actually only be a low level unicorn? One thing I was sure about, he was as aware of everypony's position as I was.

Fellows continued, "So, Running Mead, has Lady Grimoire told you that this is actually a sting operation she arranged to catch you in action?"

"Thank you," I said sarcastically, my heart now beating double-time. Were the shooting to start, I stood in the middle of the crossfire.

"Is that so? I knew she wanted to quit, but to put me out of business! I didn't see that coming."

I looked from Fellows to Running Mead and back. Why did I get the feeling that these two knew each other?

Had I been set up? But. But, I had been sent to kill Fellows, and had nearly done so in the factory. He stuck to the detective story. Why would he do that? And the police hue and cry following my escape from the factory? That had been real, but it didn't have to have been directed by a detective at the scene of the crime. The factory worker had seen me. Had vandalism been enough for the search?

But, what if Fellows were a competitor or a colleague, fallen out of favor, based somewhere in downtown Canterlot? Sunset Shimmer had mentioned a dealer. Perhaps the fight had resulted in Fellows and Running Mead coming to terms. Some sort of "crime boss" truce? It neatly explained why Running Mead seemed oblivious that Detective Fellows had gotten away.

I was so dead.

Fellows walked closer, the clatter of his hooves echoing in the alcove. It had become awkwardly silent, except for the fireflies that buzzed haphazardly about. My bad luck, all possible witnesses had gone inside the restaurants and only the smells of garlic pastas and hay burgers were drifting out. If I stood a chance of escaping this alive, and taking Sunset Shimmer with me, I had to act soon. If I hit Running Mead square on with Force, I might just have a chance. Around me, the two lackeys' horns lit, one green and one yellow, but nopony fired.

Fellows said, "I wouldn't do anything rash."

"Do you leave me a choice?" I asked, my eyes and ears flicking to targets, knowing that if they all shot, I'd not be able to defend against them all. I thought about casting Teleport, but I'd lose Mirror. I felt so overwhelmed, I feared I might teleport into the ground.

I queued it anyway.

Fellows laughed. "Everything isn't about you, Lady Grimoire. Did you think I was so stupid as to come here alone?"

He dodged left.

I reflexively teleported five feet right and drove myself into the ground. Funny how the spell bent my legs to my stomach so I did materialize above the surface of the cobblestone street, but I still barked my knees and hit my jaw hard enough to see stars.

Running Mead's lackeys fired. Whichever one had fired at Fellows, missed. The other had fired Force at me. The underpowered bolt missed because I'd teleported. It continued and burnt across Streak's rear end; I saw her tail burst into flames. As I rolled evasively, I saw other shots, this time from behind, stunning one of the lackeys. Looking up, I saw an armored mint-green pegasus who threw a javelin that clattered at Running Mead's hooves, preventing him from bolting the opposite direction.

He'd warded off the javelin with Levitation. As he ducked beside his table, he shot what appeared to be some sort of wimpy slow moving amber energy bolt towards a darkened corner of the wall where there had to be an alley. He shouted, "I'm innocent! Protect me from those flying thugs."

Moments later, a bolt of pink shot into the sky. The spasming pegasus cried out, scattering her quiver of javelins as electricity crackled around her. The wooden weapons came clanking down and bouncing as she spiraled way too quickly to the pavement.

I transformed my new force spell using quick draw into Levitation, flicking it out just in time to intercept the armored mare, but with no good control. It stopped her, but it translated her downward momentum to sideways momentum, spinning her on her stomach toward Fellows who had to jump over the poor pony. Sparks flew in her wake. The motion blew out the rest of Streak's flames as she rolled and screamed like a child, wafting a mixed scent of burnt hair and ozone my way.

"I'm innocent! Protect the innocent from these murderers!"

Another?

I rolled just in time to avoid a stun spell—almost; it hit my back right hoof. The leg twitched as it went completely pins-and-needles. Tailor had fired it. Holding on to enough discipline, I spun up Mirror, and not a moment too soon. A uniformed constable standing near Running Mead shot me.

The purple bolt ricochetted off harmlessly, but that wasn't all. A glowing amber tendril reached my way. It looked like an extension of a unicorn's aura, like the aura that glowed around levitated objects, and by its numbers, it was indeed Levitation. I used Mirror as a shield, but the tendril just avoided the manifested optical illusion as I jiggered it around. It extended back to Running Mead's horn. Was he levitating air to extend it?

Yes he was—to grab at me.

A force spell, insufficiently prepared, was all I had. If I could apply—

A Barthemule transform actuated, compelling me to finish the calculation as the sphere bloomed and surrounded me, lifting me off my legs and warding off Running Mead's touch.

Touch? I gasped. He had to touch a pony to make his talent work!

And touch he did. But not me. Suddenly the full constabulary task force was shooting at one another. Soon one would shoot at me and not miss.

Sunset Shimmer hid behind a cafe table she'd knocked over, cringing and shaking, shielding her head. I noticed this because I'd floated closer to Running Mead as my spell ran its course and collapsed under the weight of its temporal paradox.

I worked up another spell as I rolled flat and kept down, unable to run because my leg, which, though better, was largely numb.

From my position, between one moment and the next, I saw that Running Mead, cowering behind a protective constable, had his rear legs and flank up like a racer, ready to bolt again as soon as he could turn the copper blocking his escape. His tamed constable faced the one not yet turned. This gave me a good view of Running Mead's cutie mark: a spilt glass mug of mead.

He made ponies drunk and compliant. His was a filthy, horrible cutie mark, and I could not, would not, let him get away.

In an adrenalized snap, I transformed Force into Levitation into my healing spell, using my memories of working on Rye Bald under the influence of nettle-ewe; I refined it with all I had learned by experimenting on Sunset Shimmer's cutie mark, moving it, impeding its action, and confusing its feedback mechanisms. To that I added my burning, unbridled outrage and bile.

I reached out with no compunction that I might cause harm, dashing my magic into Running Mead's flank without a thought that I might fail.

And I did not fail.

The cutie mark's hum of conceit and bacchanal contentment flooded across my senses, with images of vineyards and the scents of intoxicating oaky wine. I could see horrific magical numbers spinning up in the ecstasy of fulfilling a destiny, a mathematics blissful in the face of atrocity. I shook my head to rid myself of the equations as I reached for the cutie mark's metaphysical connection, that bulb of virtual magic centered in his hip that formed the non-corporeal organ tissue that projected the image of his cutie mark to both sides of his body for all to see.

I grasped it—and ripped with all my strength.

It resisted.

It was like pulling elastic, but I renewed my determination even as I heard Running Mead scream in terror. The constable looked around in confusion for an enemy, but didn't see me immediately as she had to dodge the "innocent" stallion she was protecting as Running Mead fell on his side and thrashed against the pavement, bucking and neighing loudly.

I tore at the cutie mark as the constable turned and focused on me.

Running Mead, with a sick bang, struck himself senseless against the glass wall. I jerked harder, flooding all my magical energy through the connection.

I felt a click.

Like pulling a melted marshmallow from a roasting stick, the faint aura of the glass-mug-spilling-alcohol cutie mark pulled reluctantly away, leaving a gooey tendril of light. Looking like the ghost of a symbol, I dragged the transparent thing until it floated disembodied away from Running Mead's flank. At the instant of separation, the instant when the constable would have shot me, she instead stumbled.

I fought the cutie mark still magnetically attracted to its host. As the constable fell to her knees, I struggled frantically to keep hold of the apparition as my magic faded in exhaustion. I levered myself to a sitting position and saw the almost empty green-glass bottle of Claret. The label read Stags Leap Claret, Applewood, 989 vintage. I wrestled the cutie mark into the bottle just as my spell broke into thousands of burnt-out digits.

The cutie mark inched up the neck.

I got Levitation spun up as fast as I could, barely thrusting the cork into the bottle in time. It squeaked as I pushed down. I held my breath.

The apparition stopped moving, hovering and drifting about the inside of the green smoked-glass bottle.

Giggling, tears streaming down my cheeks, I cried, "Now that's the way to get a cutie mark!"

Something was very wrong with me.

I blinked, dizzy, but it felt the opposite of being sick. Suddenly, my heart felt overwhelmed by emotion. It was... it was... it was an elation and a pride magnitudes beyond anything I could have imagined, or previously identified.

I had done it.

I had defeated a demon!

And learned something profound about cutie marks—how to manipulate them. This, this—joy vanquished all other thought or worry. I felt myself lifted up, literally high. Oddly, the world took on a golden glow, though surely all of this was all in my head.

The shooting around me had ceased the instant I'd wrenched Running Mead's cutie mark free. The compromised coppers shook themselves as my levitated body rotated, giving me a view of a dozen confused combatants and constables who worked to secure the area. I felt so satisfied that I'd accomplished my goal that the idea that anypony might arrest me, that anypony might do anything to hurt me, became a complete non-sequitur.

My burning moment of self-knowledge and destiny passed, though. I found myself touching the ground and my hooves holding weight. I almost stumbled as my still partially numbed leg found itself unable to do its necessary task. I tingled all over, though, and could hardly care. As reality started filtering back into my brain, I smelled the perfume scent of the makeup powder I used to brush on my fake cutie mark. It was gardenia, though it smelled slightly burnt.

Fellows galloped up, causing me reflexively to renew my quick draw queue. From his back pack, he withdrew a rusted wrought iron ring the size of a donut, covered with tiny red iron-hot numbers that to my learned eyes vibrated and danced in place.

Running Mead lay there dumbfounded and stunned, muttering to himself, "Where did it go? It's gone!"

Fellows slipped the ring over Running Mead's horn and from the other saddle bag, he pulled two glass tubs. He ladled the pink contents of one over the ring, then poured the sickly green glowing contents of the other over it.

With a loud crack, the gel crystalized, afixing the ring in place. Well, that made sense. Wouldn't want a criminal tossing his head and launching the ring into the air.

He turned to me and said, "Thank you, Lady Grimoire, you came through after all." He huffed and tilted his head, squinting past me. A smile drifted across his face. "And congratulations on getting a real cutie mark."

I blinked.

I looked.

The brushed-on Grimoire had flaked off. Under the bits of powder lay something indeed new. I saw a doubled four-point star, purple overlaying white, with two turquoise auroras dancing above it. It was the same star burnt by my magic into the fur of my forehead. From my perspective, the auroras looked like they were trying to pull the high magic symbol from the matrix of the cutie mark itself. Since Aurora was my given name, the one I refused to use, it felt appropriate.

But wait. What? My special talent was cutie mark magic?

My special talent was cutie mark magic?

Cutie Mark Magic!?

Okay. Maybe that made sense, considering what I'd learned.

"Cutie mark magic," I muttered, and felt my lips pull up in a half-grin. "Huh..."

In my peripheral vision, I saw Fellows turning to look at Running Mead. He said, "I don't know what you did to him, but you knocked the sense out of him." I watched in horror as his head continued turning to scan toward Running Mead's flank and the doubled dark scar that the unmarking had left.

Instinct that had queued another spell allowed me to transform it into Levitation. It didn't matter that it was inaccurate. I winged the Claret bottle, bashing it hard enough against the glass window that the window cracked. The bottle didn't, but it bounced, spun cork over bottom to smash open on the cobblestone pavement, spraying me with droplets of red wine and bits of glass that bounced like dumped marbles.

Released, like a tiny comet, Running Mead's cutie mark shot back into place on his haunch, causing the stallion to cry out, "Oh!"

"Sorry," I said as Fellows looked from the smashed bottle to me. "Nerves," I added. "Um, I know how Running Mead's magic works."

"Right," he said, standing and drawing out his pad of paper and a pencil. "Go ahead."

As the constable that had moments ago been protecting Running Mead reached out a leg to shake the stallion to his senses, I cried, "Stop!"

To her credit, the mare jerked back her leg.

"Touch," I said, "He does it by touch. It's a cutie mark talent, so all he has to do is touch you physically or via magic. Whatever he tells you that he can make sound reasonable, you'll do. It's like sleepwalking. You have no control over your nightmares."

"I see." As he looked back at Running Mead, I began to get an uncomfortable feeling. Had he seen any of what I had done? No. No more than Sunset Shimmer had, attended by a plainclothes mare who tried to coax Sunset to stop hiding her head under her front legs. Somepony, somepony's protégé, manifestly didn't have the right stuff. Glancing back at Fellows, intuition told me that cutie mark unmarking wasn't what he thought about. As I analyzed the feeling, I began to queue teleport spells. He wasn't looking at me and I had time to glance behind, to see Streak pawing at her singed tail. Blood coated her blackened flank. A constable watched her.

Fellows said, "I know all the help you provided will prove a mitigating factor—"

Blam!

The teleport landed me half a pony-length from Streak, right at the constable's front legs as he reared in fright. I stood, throwing him over. I leapt atop Streak—

Bang!

At the end of the street, I caught my breath and spun up my numbers as a cloud of disturbed fireflies swirled away. The constables turned and pointed as I found what I wanted to see. The royal guardsmare lay flat, jittering spasmodically as she preened a wing. The constabulary airforce was grounded.

Pop!

I teleported Streak above the warehouse, barely making the very edge of the building. We fell half a yard to the roof with a whump that knocked the breath out of us both. I'd gotten the angle right; nopony on the ground would know where my exit pop sounded.

"Can you walk?" I asked. Her burnt flank looked red, raw, and painful.

"I think so," she replied with an unconvincing smile.

I limped with her, occasionally shaking my leg to hasten it waking up. At the opposite side of the block-sized flat roof, looking down on the evening hoof traffic and a lone taxi, she asked, "Why'd ya do it?"

"I see us as victims, but the constabulary has other ideas. You have a record?"

"Not in Canterlot. I threw a brick through a moving company's window in Vanhoover."

I laughed. "Not what I meant. For the record, the stuff in Rye Bald's kitchen was minestrone soup. I helped him escape. So, let's make ourselves disappear. We aren't the big fish in this pond."

"Yeah, thanks. Oh, and this is yours." She pushed her face into her messenger bag and pulled out the purse I'd dropped. Her spiked mane blew like wind chimes in the cool evening breeze. "Really, thanks."

I leaned against the blue pegasus and teleported us to the next warehouse roof. "Don't mention it."

Later, I healed her flank. And split the gold bits.

I also did a lot of thinking about what having a cutie mark really meant.

Author's Note

Next:
Epilogue.
Starlight's story ain't over yet, but even the title is spoilery. Stay tuned for the final chapter!

Starlight's given name is Aurora?

Chapter 30: Epilogue? The Third Protégé (and Tears)

The soft patter of hooves on the Saddle Arabian rug and the slight rustle of enormous wings caught me by surprise. I had expected the door of iron bars that sealed the ancient entrance to the Star Swirl the Bearded wing in the Accadamie building to squeak.

I closed the cinderblock-sized volume of Barthemule's original bound manuscripts and it made a satisfying whump. I stacked, straightened, and inserted my copious notes into my denim saddlebags, using the levitation spell to mask queuing up the teleport spells I had let lapse after I allowed myself in before midnight. I kept my pink quill floating.

A sweet voice asked, "Countess Grin Having, I presume?"

I glanced to the yellow skirt and hat on the floor. They lay on a brown wool carpet woven with images of hour-glasses that matched the pony-sized bronze specimen in the center of the room. It had proven useful to act as a noble castle guest while roaming the grounds late at night. It wasn't, as her use of my title pointed out, presumptuous. I still wore the one piece blouse culottes, and had my hair up in pigtails again, which helped her to figure me out. I sighed. She had probably attended my parents' funeral and had a reasonable idea of my appearance, though I didn't remember seeing her at the age of four. In any case, I had no use for titles bestowed upon my parents after their death.

"Yes, Your Majesty." I bowed my head courteously as dictated by decorum, but didn't look back.

Princess Celestia walked around me and lay before me, and even so, the great white alicorn looked down on me with hard purple eyes. "You've passed the test neither of the other two have passed."

"A test?"

My eyes gravitated to the fanciful solar cutie mark the size of my head on her haunch, but flicked up to her eyes when she spoke. "I dangle forbidden knowledge before my special students and wait for them to break into the library to get it. Sadly, neither Twilight nor Sunset have taken the bait my physician tailored for you. Starlight—interesting choice of name, by the way. Unlike Lady Aurora, it has a synchronous ring like prophesy to it. Sunset, Twilight… oh, never mind."

For a moment, she lay thinking, her fascinating ethereal mane suspended in the unseen winds of the magic pulse; streaks of blue, green, pink, and turquoise hair waved in ripples like a badly tattered flag, hissing and fluttering quietly. When she spotted a scroll on the desk, she unrolled it before her, displaying a mug ring likely left by spilt cocoa. "Where did you find this old thing?" She lowered it and blinked at me. "I mean, really, where did you find it? It needs to be in a specific place to prevent a time paradox and I'd hate to have to break open a millennium-old diary to remember where to properly place it."

The thing had smelled of time. Probably because of my work with Barthemule's mathematics, I sensed the imaginary number time-magic the same way I saw numbers in a unicorn's aura, or an alicorn's. The alicorn's numbers were a magnitude more beautiful than she was physically, fluid and three-dimensional, amazingly simplified yet complex, flushed with fiery color. Perhaps I could perform her simplification on Levitation. It might make the spell instantaneous.

I pointed with my quill, thinking how the drops of blood used to activate the scroll looked fresh, though since we were talking about time here, it could have been the blood of Star Swirl himself—or that of a pony not yet foaled. It purported to allow a pony to travel back in time for a few minutes, but was scribbled with margin notes that made me doubt the cohesiveness and veracity of the otherwise simple spell mnemonics. As Celestia returned it to a top shelf, I admired how the whole room smelled of time, from the age-yellowed magic-infused paper it contained to the musty aged buff color walls.

As she lay again, I asked, "Shouldn't you be raising the sun?" The sky had become pale outside the window.

She chuckled. "Clocks are not set by the rising of the sun, and for good reason. Even I sleep in sometimes..." Her expression hardened. "I'm displeased at how you handled Sunset Shimmer, getting her involved with capturing Running Mead."

"Look no further than your own hooves, Your Majesty. Had you been paying attention—"

"—to her drinking habit? Students sometimes fail, my little pony. I only teach. Learning is up to them. I had hoped that a certain friend might have grounded her."

"Should I have told her father or you?"

"Friendship is an intriguing magic, but the three of you show no inclination for it..." Her voice petered out and she looked to her right, becoming thoughtful and considering her words. "I once taught a former friend of yours—Sunburst."

I tensed. Her eyes narrowed until her gaze rested on my flank.

"When he got his cutie mark, at least six others got theirs, too, cued by an external incident that ended with the opening of a chasm from here to Tartarus. Frankly, from his account of the day, I'm surprised it wasn't you who acted instead of him. I can't understand how he got his cutie mark and you didn't, considering his description of your much stronger magic. He proved a great talent in his field, but male and ultimately narrowly focused with inhibited magical abilities, and, oddly, as put off by friendship as you seem to be. You—you are a generalist of the highest order, as proven by that cutie mark you bear. Yes, the friendly thing for you to have done would have been to have found Sunset the help she needed, and to have waited for her to become well, and to have watched her become the friend you needed. What you did worked well enough, and she survived. 'Scared sober' describes it. She's hit rock bottom and has asked for help, and as a bonus she understands that if there's lesser evils in Equestria the greater ones can be both real an formidable. And that, Countess, is why I train a new generation of heroes for Equestria."

Not only did her last sentence ring of equivocation, both the title and the substance of the statement seemed honed to set me off. "You trained my parents!"

"I did. The both, separately. I later called them my friends."

"Yet you sent them to die, to become 'Heroes of Equestria'."

The princess looked at the floor, her ears folding down. "By the time I sent them they already were heroes, and sadly, yes, I sent them off to die, bound and unable to help."

Bound? Unable? "And all I got was a lousy title?"

Still looking away, she said, "And a grant of the environs of Grin Having, and right to the third coin of all taxes collected, and a governing role."

"I understand what an earl is."

She looked up, ears perked. "Do you? An earl can also claim a right to captain one of my armies. I had great hope for your parents' child, and, though she chose to runaway from her responsibilities, she has since demonstrated a unique martial prowess."

Meaningless babble, commanding armies or running towns. "You hired Proper Step, didn't you?"

"He's the son of my Majordomo and came highly recom—"

"He was a mistake."

"Judging by the result I've seen of your career in Canterlot, I think he did an excellent job."

"You haven't a clue—" I spat "—as to how or why I got Sunset Shimmer involved in capturing Running Mead, do you?"

"The more I learn about you the more interesting you become. Yes, I interviewed Detective Fellows."

My jaw clacked shut. Roller-skates. Horse Apples and Her Majesty on roller-skates!

I checked the prep on my teleports, not that I expected I could outwit the most arch of archmages. "So, you're going to imprison me?"

She snorted. "The paths to enlightenment are diverse, my little pony. There are benefits to working for an absolute monarch. I make the laws you've broken."

In other words, laws meant nothing to her other than as tools.

Then, suddenly, I understood. How had Running Mead put it? This is an employment interview. More blackmail, or just naked coercion?

"Countess—"

"Don't style me as anything I haven't earned." And why, in Equestria of all places, wasn't there a mare-name for an earl? I wasn't a count who happened to be a mare.

"Starlight, then. I'd like to make you my third protégé."

"I won't take Sunset Shimmer's place."

"Now you give me hope. That's the first friendly thing you've said!" She laughed that delicate laugh, misinterpreting me. "I can surely teach three—"

"I won't take your blood money, either!"

She sighed. "All of what I've given you up to this point may have been 'blood money', but this offer—this offer—you've earned. Equestria needs independent thinkers."

"Sure she does. Independent enough to see the tyranny of cutie marks and that of a leader who supports the stratification they cause? I won't be co-opted into—"

She stood suddenly, towering over me at near the height of a horse. Her magical majesty struck me dumb. My needle must have struck home. "I live to preserve Equestria! She has unimaginable enemies. And the worst will hit in four years—"

Then something happened.

In terror, I stood, knocking back my chair. Not from awe, but from what choked off her words and that she didn't immediately realize what had happened! The region around her mouth blurred as you might see an illusory lake over a hot desert. Her voice became a garble of muffled sounds.

When she realized what I saw, her brow furled as she tried to shout through it. Finally, she said, "—ruins. It was all my fault." Hearing her voice again, a stream of tears ran down her cheeks. She added, desperately, tears splattering on the carpeting, "I train guardians for Equestria who may be able to do what I cannot."

I remembered Zecora's tale about the Everfree forest that implied there had once been two rulers in Equestria. Two! Worse, I remembered that Zecora had implied there was a curse.

That—what I had seen—that was a curse. The princess was also under the influence of a geas that prevented her from fighting the curse.

What could curse an alicorn for a thousand years?

She was a regicide...

And, deep in my heart, I knew that at the root of the murder would be found the interaction between cutie marks and the hardship they caused. I wanted none of it. Let Sunset Shimmer and the runt deal with it, as damaged as they might be!

I touched my nose to my saddle bags and teleported to the royal gardens, two stories down outside the travertine stone walls of the Accademie building. Surprised that I had succeeded and not encountered a counter-spell, I dove under the denim saddlebags. The old greenskeeper watched with a straw in his mouth in the anomalously long pre-dawn twilight. I teleported again and again, choosing buildings by shape and material to funnel the pops and confuse the ear of anypony who might follow me.

I used Don't See Don't Hear Don't Look to escape the castle grounds through the east bailey gate. I didn't see any evidence of heightened security, yet. I purposely ran into a mare in a red business suit, just to break the spell and make everyone wonder how they missed me, not to wonder where I'd appeared from. I apologized and blended in with the early morning crowd.

I'd lost the yellow blouse by the time I hopped on a bus being pulled down the Ponyville Way toward Ponyville. The sun had still not come up.

I judged it a message from Princess Celestia, but I didn't understand its meaning. What I did know was this: I had an insight into the true enemy of Equestria and now had the tools to dedicate my life to correct it.

Ironically, it was what my cutie mark was telling me.

The End

Author's Note

I hope you liked the story. Please leave comments. If they are in regards to Sunset Shimmer, read below first.

At the time of publication, S6E7, this story can still fill in Starlight's unknown backstory. As of the third Equestria Girls special, this story ceases to be canon. Since Equestria has princesses, queens, and princes, I've added in a peerage of lesser landed nobles and aristocrats without too much worry that it conflicts with much. Much of this background is used in Sisters in All but Blood. A Sunset Shimmer story written after this one that fills in the backstory hinted at here—basically why Sunset turned away from Celestia and began to drink—is named Sunset Goes to Hell. Amongst other things, it revisits the battle with Running Mead from his POV of view; let’s say that Starlight was distracted and didn’t see a few things... Further Sunset backstory from Celestia’s POV can be found inCelestia and the Battle for Sunset. If you liked this story, I suspect you’ll love both of these stories.

Enforcers came into being when I began to write the sequel to Bedroom Interlude, where Starlight is sent on a mission by the Cutie Map to help Sunset Shimmer, only to find Sunset in no mood to be helped by her former "friend." Why? Enforcers explained that bit.

As a bonus, I've included one of my writing tools. I write what I call a story treatment before writing a story. It contains how I expect a story to end before I write it, and the story points in the plot that I hope will get me there. If you are interested in one author's writing methods, feel free to give it a look see. Appendix 5: Outline Materials

I've written other stories about Starlight Glimmer. Please go to my story page for more good reads.

Appendix 3: Errata

During the writing of any long work of fiction, there are two main periods of time. The first is the writing of the story, the second is the revision of the story. In the case of a novel, writing usually takes months. Revision usually takes much longer and involves a series of drafts that include copy-edits and rewrites. This novel is no exception to the rule. I wrote the bulk of the 55,000 words in Enforcer and Her Blackmailers in the span of a month. Revision therefore should take longer.

It is taking longer.

However, I'm publishing the completed novel as I revise it, and, well, I've encountered issues. In this section I will note anything that I changed that might make a difference to your imaging the places or characters in the story, or content that might affect your conception of the plot.

March 28, 2016
- The story originally portrayed Starlight Glimmer as having two ponytails. I stand corrected. These are called pigtails and the text was revised to reflect this.
- The season opener The Crystalling added some backstory for Starlight Glimmer. The following paragraph in chapter 4

"At eleven? I used the application process to find access to school records. Turns out he was in Celestia's school for a couple of years until a Saddle Arabian diplomat learned about him. A mercantile league in their confederation offered him employment. He and his big sister now live half a world away in the Great Sandy Desert. Seems that if you can wield a hundred spears independently at one time, you're a one pony army—and can guarantee the safety of mega-caravans. He was out of reach before I even thought of leaving home."

was changed to

"At eleven? I used the application process to sneak access to school records. Turns out he was in Celestia's school only for a few years; somewhat of a brain. I figure a Saddle Arabian diplomat learned about him. A mercantile league in their confederation probably offered him employment. I'm guessing he and his big sister now live half a world away in the Great Sandy Desert. If you can wield a hundred spears independently at one time, you're a one-pony army who can guarantee the safety of mega-caravans. Why wouldn't he go? Let's face it, he was out of reach before I even thought of leaving home."

April 25, 2016
- When Grimoire shoots the soup pot, she doesn't cancel her levitation spell. She just shoots the pot. Sunset hasn't taught her how, yet.