The Enforcer and Her Blackmailers

by scifipony

First published 18th of March, 2016

Starlight Glimmer's past and future collide in Canterlot years before the 1000th Summer Sun Celebration. Starlight Glimmer, a teenage runaway, tries to reform herself but her past crimes and Sunset Shimmer make that difficult.

Starlight Glimmer's past and future collide in Canterlot a few years before the 1000th Summer Sun Celebration. Still bruised by the loss of Sunburst, runaway Starlight Glimmer tries to forget her recent past at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns but the crimes of that past and Celestia's original protégé, Sunset Shimmer, make that difficult. What happens will change Equestria forever.

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Sunset Shimmer Goes to Hell is a sequel (mostly) to this novel from Sunset Shimmer's point of view. The Forgiving Lesson is a sequel to The Crystalling and this novel.

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Image (c)2016 by Riakoh-Illust, commissioned for this story. (Click source to see final artwork.)

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¡Muchas gracias! to DoContra for his heroic work as a pre-reader.

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

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

I sputtered, "The nurse's office—"

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

Without a by-your-leave, she turned sharply into the university bailey gate of Canterlot castle. I looked at the stiff royal guard in brass armor and helmet. Violet eyes followed me, but if he thought the savaged street tough before him was a danger, Sunset Shimmer's presence vouched for me. Letting Boss Running Mead's enforcer into Canterlot Castle was utter idiocy, but it would have been complete lunacy for me to explain it to my present company.

Hopefully, the boss wouldn't find out.

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

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

"Tough!" Sunset said.

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

That bad?

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

"I—" she began.

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

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

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

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

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

Sunset said, "I—"

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

"No, I—"

"That's something."

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

"She didn't."

"You were fighting?"

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

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

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

"I—" Sunset stopped herself and peered at me, eyes narrowed, ears forward. In a whisper she grumbled, "I can't do force spells…"

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

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

"Nooo…"

"But you felt threatened?"

I took a deep breath and looked down. My dead parents had been the princess' secret operatives—"Heroes of Equestria," I'd been told—but I'd run away from a trust-fund life and had made myself worse than low class. The doctor dabbed and I gasped; I didn't know my horn could actually sting. "It was reflex, doctor. Not everypony grows up in a safe— uh, happy situation."

"I see." He used more cotton and scrubbed the wounds, some of which left me shaking despite my determination to endure. They hadn't hurt that much before, but maybe that was the adrenaline. "Well, causing a spell to backfire, particularly a force spell, is a good way to burn the root of your horn. If you're lucky, you'll only destroy any possibility of ever doing magic. Tell Sunset to teach you the proper way to cancel a spell. I'm told she's way too good at that."

"I will."

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

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

The doctor said, "Don't worry; whatever you feel, remain calm." My twin ponytails tied themselves together as if alive, with no visible aura. "I can fix this."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Thank you," I whispered.

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

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

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

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

"Star, who?"

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

It hadn't seemed like an attack. "You're a doctor, and I understand you have your bag of tricks." I shrugged. He shrugged. As he lifted me in his magic off the examination table, I asked the other thing I wondered about, "Speaking of tricks, how did you get Sunset Shimmer to be quiet? That's one I could totally use."

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

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

"—in the Cliff Strand district, living under tarps and in cardboard boxes. She refused to leave. It took Princess Celestia to tame her. If you could help my daughter—"

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

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

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

He knew I was a runaway.

"Why would the princess need to tame her?"

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

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

"Stubborn, the lot of you."

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

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

Author's Notes:

Next:
Chapter 3: Work Issues
Starlight's criminal employer, Running Mead, has a job for her and Starlight doesn't like it.

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 Notes:

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

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 that you've woken up in another dream.

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 Notes:

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 Notes:

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 Notes:

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.