From the Flames of a Phoenix

        I spent my time waiting just looking around the room, which took seriously no time at all considering everything was in the open. There was two desks set up on opposite sides of the rooms and next to each were two beds. Each desk had a single chair. There wasn’t anything else really in the room except for a few knick-knacks on the desks.

        I went up and starting fiddling with said knick-knacks. They were just some little puzzles to solve when you’re bored. I was trying to get the metal loop off of the little puzzle, but I kept failing. I kept trying until the door opened up and Inkwell stepped in.

        I stopped playing with the puzzle and waved a hello at her, “What’s up, Inkwell?”

        She gave me a small smile in return and replied, “Princess Celestia ordered me to join the guard with you.”

        Wait. What? Just like that? What about the boot camp thing she has set up?

        “She ordered you to join the guard? Why?”

        She gave me what I guess is the pony equivalent of a shrug, which is just lowering the front of her body by two inches or so and standing back up.

        “I’m not sure why exactly. All I know is that she wants me to stay with you.”

        Well that’s strange. I gotta ask someone higher up about this, preferably Celestia next time I see her.

        “Alright, we-”

        The door slammed open and an orange earth stallion bounded through the door. His red mane was cut into a mohawk.

        “Hey there, newbies! Welcome to Charlie company, fourth squad! I am Sergeant Dawn and I am your squad leader!”

        I pointed to myself, “Private Richard”.

        Inkwell seemed scared out of her wits from the sudden appearance and Dawn practically yelling into her face and did not answer.

        “Well, com’on! We don’t have all day!”

        Dawn walked out the door and I had to poke Inkwell in her side a few times to get her to snap out of her frightened state and follow.

        We caught up to Dawn and we walked through the hallway that intersects the main residential section. He pointed out what each room was and we would take a quick peek inside. The canteen was the first room on the right and it was pretty spacious. Plenty of room for a hundred or so hungry guards.

        However, the first door on the left was the showers. The room may have been a little too spacious, as Inkwell seemed nervous that there was no barriers between the seperate shower heads. I asked her why it would bother her when they are naked anyways. She just said it’s different. Meh, must be a pony thing.

        Dawn made a comment about how she’ll have to get used to it as they don’t make exceptions, even for the female members.

        He then led us to the end of the hallway, which had six more rooms. Four were rooms for lieutenants, only three in use currently, and a single room for Captain Shining Armor. The last was a training room.

        It was fairly large and was clear of pretty much everything except for racks at the side which had swords, shields, bows, and spears.

        “-and I was like, bam! Bam! Slam! I took out all three of them in seconds!” Dawn bragged more about his past friendly spars with some of the other guards.

        “That’s awesome, but” -I motioned to the various racks- “what’s with the weapons and shields? How would you guys even use them?”

 “Unicorns use their magic, pegasi fly while they carry them with their hooves, and-”

He stopped and looked confused for a second.

“How do we earth ponies even use them?”

He shrugged, “I guess we just use one single-hoofed weapon or shield. I’m not sure if we could dual-wield unless we stood on our back hooves, which only a few ponies I’ve seen can do.”

Dawn pulled each type of weapon from the rack and handed it to Inkwell and me to try out. The bows had actual sharp arrows, which Dawn told us they were enchanted to do no harm for training purposes. Hm. I wonder how often someone randomly gets shot.

The sword was a new experience for me as all I ever had used was my M16 and a knife. Same with the spear and shield. It felt really… medieval to be using it all. My shot with the bow was just horrible. I guess I’m okay with a sword, I’ve had training in close combat with blades, just not as long as the one I was shown.

The spear was a completely different story, I had some trouble adjusting, but I was able to maneuver quickly as it was a lot lighter than the sword and even though it was much longer than I was used to, it was like practicing with one of those wooden poles me and my squadmates had once sparred with.

I’m not exactly sure what I had to do with the shield, so I kind of just made myself as small of a target as possible and hid behind it while messing around with it. It had two straps I could use to put it on my forearm, which I assume was made for a front hoof, but it works well enough regardless.

The entire time Dawn had been bragging about past victories and I offered to duel him for the hell of it. He told me I would get my chance tomorrow and that it was time to go back to our room.

He led us back to our room and left me and Inkwell with a copy of “Rules and Guidelines of the Equestrian Solar Guard”. He walked out and told us to read up. Me and Inkwell each sat down in a chair and brought it up to one of the desks and opened up to the first chapter.

Ponies don’t sit in chairs like humans normally do, they tend to sit on their haunches with their front legs holding them up. It was similar, but they had a different posture so it made it more natural to sit like cats than humans.

The first chapter of the book was on the different ranks in the guard, namely Private, Corporal, Sergeant, Lieutenant, and Captain. It was missing the various ranks in-between. I’m guessing since the low amount of guards and the fact that barely anything has happened and so extra ranks are not needed for organization.

It also told us various info about each rank, such as proper titles and such. Call privates private, corporals corporal, and so on. Hah, I remember my first time calling a sergeant sir. He was not happy and made me run until I could barely move my legs because of the blinding burn I felt.

Whenever Inkwell had trouble understanding one thing or another, I would explain it to her in detail until she got it.

Eventually, Dawn came back and told us that it’s time to eat. He led us back to the canteen. We followed him inside and then to a table with four other ponies sitting down.

Dawn explained to us, “This is the rest of fourth squad. that there” -He raised a hoof at a yellow unicorn with a blue mane- “is Seeker.”

Seeker nodded his head, “Welcome friends.”

Dawn pointed at two pegasi, the first one had a white coat and mane with buzzcut hair, almost unnoticeable with his similarly-colored coat, while the other was dark brown with a black mane. They were Breeze and Switch, respectively.

Breeze waved his hooves wildly in the air, “Hey! New squadmates, awesome!”

        ...then promptly fell face first into his tray of salad.

        Ponies. Heh.

        Switch, however, looked up from where he was glaring at his salad and growled, “Hello.”

        “And lastly, this is Chasm.”

        The last pony he pointed to was a completely black earth pony.

        He resolved his reaction to merely waving a hoof at us while he ate his salad.

        Breeze pulled his face out of his salad and Inkwell practically whispered, “Hi…”

        I chuckled a bit at her shyness and stated myself, “Hey guys, glad to meet you all. I’m Richard and this” -I pointed to Inkwell- “is Inkwell.”

        Inkwell, Dawn, and I went to a counter filled with food and grabbed various things. Turns out that ponies each fish, namely Pegasi, but the other two races can also eat it, Pegasi just have a natural liking to it.

        We sat back with the rest of the squad and I learned more about each of the ponies. Chasm did not talk once while we were there. It kind of disturbed me to see someone so silent. I gotta ask Dawn about that once we are back in our room.

        Besides him, I found out that Breeze is constantly joyful and never seemed completely interested in anything someone had to say. His polar opposite, Switch, was a walking ball of hate. He always grumbled something along the lines of, “I hate lettuce. I hate forks. I hate talking.”

        It was pretty funny to say the least.

Last was seeker. He was way different from the rest of our squad. He was an enigma to me at least. He did talk, but he always seemed calm about everything. He would occasionally quote something from random ponies from the past whenever the quote became relevant to our topic.

        Between their personalities, and Dawn’s ego, I would say we have a pretty diverse squad. Is every squad like this? I took a look around at some of the other tables and noticed a distinct lack of crazy.

        Guess not.

        We kept socializing with our squad until everyone at our table finished and we left to the showers. Before we reached the other side of the hall, I informed my squad I had to check the room for clothes. Inkwell decided to follow me and on the way back to the room, she spoke up.

        “I don’t know if I can shower with all of them by me… what if they stare?”

        I rubbed the top of her head as we walked and replied, “It’ll be fine, trust me. I’ll make sure none of them try anything.”

        “Would you really be able to?”

        “Yes, I promise.”

        Not entirely sure what the deal is, considering they are all naked anyways, but I’ll still make sure the stallions don’t try anything regardless.

        “Thank you Richard,” she nuzzled my side and kept her barrel pressed up against me.

        Must be a comfort thing.

        I opened the door to our room and held it open only for her to tell me to go in and that she’ll wait outside. I shrugged and walked in.

        On a desk was a stack of fabric, which I assume is my clothing. After a quick check, I found it had two jeans and two pairs of shorts along with four basic grey shorts. The jeans had two pockets on the side below my hips and two more below my knee caps and on the side also.

        I grabbed a pair of shorts and a shirt and headed back out through the room. Inkwell and I walked back to the showers in silence. I got a few looks from some of the guards inside already showering when they saw Inkwell leaning up against me, but I brushed it all off. Besides, I’m only helping a friend.

        I placed my clothes on a bench near a corner that Inkwell claimed for herself. I undressed and quickly bathed myself under the shower head adjacent to hers. Thankfully, no one bothered her. Regardless, I still think it’s silly. It’s not like water cascading down her th… never mind. If that happened back on Earth, I’m pretty sure most guys would not hesitate to check a girl out. Clothed or not.

        Regardless, the showering went off without a hitch and we were back in our room in no time. Dawn was still not back yet, so I just picked one of the beds on the right side when entering and hoped it was not his. Inkwell decided on picking the other bed on the same side, so she was about three or so feet away.

        I ended up sleeping diagonally across the bed, but regardless, my feet hung over the edge and it constantly felt like I was being pulled off the bed. It sucked and it made me miss the bed I had the night before, but I’ll just have to deal with it for now. I’ll make sure to mention it when I meet my platoon leader.

        For now though… now it’s time to relax.