A Royal Guard and His Filly

“Well? I’m listening.”

“Yea yea just let me do something first.”

I walked over to where Lily and Star were practicing to check up on them. I was happy to see that Star wasn’t being too hard on her this time. Star was teaching Lily how to approach turns better while working on her stamina at the same time. To put it simply, they were flying fast and doing sharp turns.

“Star!! Lily!!!”

I caught Star’s attention pretty quick but not Lily’s since she was pretty focused on the task at hoof. Star seemed to notice this too since she just plucked her out of the sky and brought her to me.

“Ms. Star I wasn’t gonna spin out this time promise!!”

Star ruffled her mane in response, “I know its just that Dings wanted to talk to us.”

Lily was not pleased. I could tell because she puffed out her cheeks and gave me her best “how dare thou interrupt us peasant” face. Can you tell that I spend a lot of time with Luna? Anyway her little angry look ended up being more cute than scary.

“D’awwwww somepony’s angry.”

I scooped her up and started hugging her all while swinging her back and forth. As you can imagine she did not enjoy this. Not in the slightest

“No NO!! Not in front of Ms. Star!!!”

She was squirming in my grasp and Star was off to the side trying her best not to laugh at Lily’s situation. I eventually set her down when I saw that she was starting to headbutt and when I noticed that Star was pretty close to pissing herself.

“Whadya want!?”

Flustered Lily is best Lily.

“I was gonna tell Star that after your lesson she should take you out to get some ice cream but now I’m not so sure.”

She puffed her cheeks out even more and flared her wings out as far she could. The more threatening she try’s to look the cuter she gets. I couldn’t help but feign false fear.

“I’m gonna tell Princess Twilight on you.”

That fake fear was gone and real fear filled its place. This was not something I want happening. Whenever one of us gets in trouble with Twilight it ends up with her lecturing us. FOR FIVE HOURS. Don’t get me wrong she’s actually a pretty cool mare who can talk about really interesting stuff, like music and ancient myths, but spending five hours with her isn’t exactly safe. I’m not calling Twilight dangerous or anything, she’s a real sweetie actually, its just that for some reason a path of death, destruction, and awkwardness seems to follow her. Ponyville’s been destroyed enough times to prove it.

“N no need to do that Lily. I was just joking.”

The little filly couldn’t help but smirk while Star gave me that “you avoided death” look.

“Lily back to training.”

Lily nodded and took off into the sky followed by Star while I made my way back to Hammer and Buckler who just happened to be gloomy again.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Stomped out his pride again.”

“I don’t have a small horn…..”

“......You know Hammer you’d make a great drill sergeant.”

“Yea I know but I like being a gentle loving grandma instead.”

“It’s an average sized horn….”

“Gentle loving grandma? Didn’t know you could tell jokes too.”

“Yea I’m hilarious. Did you know that I could also stomp out your mini sword if you don’t hurry up and start your story?”

“If anything it’s just a few centimeters smaller….”

“Shut up hornless I’m gonna tell my story.”

“.......Dick….”

Buckler’s really sensitive when it comes to his horn size in case you haven’t noticed.

“Anyway I don’t like my name for a few reasons. The main ones being that it kinda marks me as the strange one in my family and that its a kind of sad name.”

Hammer was confused by that last tidbit, “Dingy doesn’t sound like a very sad name. I thought it was just a variation of the word ding; you know since bells ding and all.”

Hammer always was pretty good at thinking outside the box, “Clever but no. Dingy mean dirty, dull, sullied, tarnished….muddy.”

Hammer was always pretty good at keeping her composure but you could make out the look of disgust in her eyes, “......Muddy? All because you were an Earth Pony?! You’re their son for Celestia’s sake! Doesn’t that mean anything to them?!”

“Not to noble families.”

The one with the little horn had once again collected himself and rejoined the conversation.

“Noble families only care about prestige and image remember? Why do you think so many nobles only marry members of their own race? They want to maintain the pure blood aspect. That’s why you hardly ever see mixed families.”

“So basically Dingy being born into House Belle threatened the pure blood image that they held?”

“Yes, his parents knew that as well. So they gave him a name to reflect his….standing.”

Hammers face was a flurry of emotions. Anger, disgust, sadness, pity and strangely confusion, “How exactly was Dingy born an Earth pony though? Isn’t House Belle a pure unicorn house?”

This is where things get interesting, “ It’s not actually. My great great grandmother was actually an Earth Pony.”

“I’ve never heard of this before.”

“Not a lot of ponies have actually. House Belle has tried its best to erase that information.”

“Let me guess, they didn’t want to ruin their pure blood image.”

“Yes. The only reason I know of it is because my mother told me.”

“That’s surprisingly nice of her.”

“Yea I know, I think she did it out of pity but still it was nice to know that Grass Whistle hadn’t been completely erased from our family history.”

My great great grandmothers name caught Bucklers attention, “Grass Whistle? Isn’t she the pony that helped start the labor unions in Canterlot a century and a half ago? I had no idea she was a member of House Belle.”

“It’s a pretty well kept secret. Even now only a few noble families actually know of it.”

“Amazing, so your family descended from of the most influential mares of old Canterlot? They’re really choosing to keep that a secret?”

“You know how crazy pure blood families.”

Hammer, who had been uncharacteristically quiet, finally piped up, “So your name is basically there anger and disappointment for you?.”

“Pretty much.”

“If you could change your name to something else what would it be?”

“I don’t know actually…..”

“I see, well one day you’ll know Dingy. I’m sure of it.”

“.......Yeaaa anyway I need a favor Hammer.”

“You know the drill.”

Asking favors from Hammer always came with a price. If she was gonna do something for you, you needed to do something for her. She was always pretty lenient with me though since I had Lily. I usually ended up doing things like fixing stuff around the house, getting groceries or just having to spend the day with her and Star. I think she’s trying to set me and Star up or something. Buckler on the other hand usually had to pay her or do some crazy shit like fix her roof or something.

“Alright what do you need?”

“Come with me next Wednesday to Ponyville. I need to pick up some things from a shop down there.”

“Oh uhh alright then.”

“Good now what do you need?”

“The Lunar Rave is tomorrow, do you mind watching Lily for the night?”

“That time of year already? Try not to wake up pink again.”

“One time, one bucking time that happens.”

***

The next day had come and gone pretty quick, and after dropping off Lily with Hammer, me and Star were off to the Lunar Rave.

“Buckler’s already there right?”

“Yea he decided to sleep in the Barracks after our shift so he could be there right when it starts. Knowing him he’s probably trying to get at the batmares again.”

“Honestly I don’t see what’s so great about those batmares, they’re all the same pasty color and have weird eyes.”

“That’s cause you can’t appreciate Bat flank like me and Buckler can. Besides we’re all more or less the same color too you know.”

“Yea I know…..I have a great flank too you know…”

“You say something?”

“No, lets just get there. I wanna make sure Buckler doesn’t go alicorn state drunk on us.”

“Yeaa Bucklercorn is kinda crazy, awesome but crazy.”

We arrived at the Castle shortly after and were greeted a wave of music and by the greatest Alicorn in all the land, Buckler. With his mighty slightly smaller horn and cardboard wings he rules over all drunks as a benevolent prince enticing them with promises of a world with free drinks and bat flank. Star upon seeing our majestic noble prince proceeded to get a drink to help her get, “as bucked up as magically possible.” That’s right they got magic shots here. Said magic shots being purely aesthetic but cool none the less. The Princesses always go all out when it comes to the Lunar Rave. Speaking of Princesses it’s interesting to note that Twilight and Cadence have tried getting in before but as I’ve said previously this party is only for the Royal Pony Sisters and their loyal guard. This fact however hasn’t stopped them from trying to get in, the fact the Shining can still get in though despite not being Captain of the Royal Guard has motivated Cadence even more these past few years.

While Star was off getting smashed to celebrate the arrival of our newest Prince I decided to go chat up our old captain who was currently betting on what method Twilight and Cadence would use this year to try to get in.

“Hey Shining!”

“Hey Dingy been a while hasn’t it?!”

“It has, hard to believe that a year has passed already huh?!”

“Yea!! So whats the top bid this time!”

“Fake Pizza Delivery!”

“Thats it!? That’s lame! At least last year when they said para drop it was interesting!!”

In case you can’t tell its really loud in here

“Hey wheres Luna!! I wanna do a body shot of her!”

“First Celestia and now Luna!? I can appreciate a man with a goal! I dunno where she is though! Here drink this!”

He proceeded to levitate this strange blue glowing drink to me and I couldn’t help but think that this is gonna either gonna wreck me or make me

“S-sure!”

Well it can’t be all that bad right? Right?

“Bottoms up!”

The moment that warm liquid went down my throat it started to hit me. Everything was suddenly becoming a lot brighter and defined. Shining looked like he was glowing and when I looked over at Bucklercorn I couldn’t help but think that he looked majestic as fuck.

“W-woah! What the hell is this!”

Shining just grinned, “ Rum mixed with these magic crystals I found in the Crystal Kingdom! They pack a hell of a punch!”

Oh shit they had actual magic shots this year.

“O-oh shit!”

Shining pulled me in close to his muzzle, “Buckle up there Dingy you’re about to go on one hell of a ride!”