Flash Sentry had never considered himself a rude pony by any stretch of the imagination, but he couldn’t help staring at the group of bat ponies clustered around a table several rows away. One mare in particular had caught his eye; even though she had a similar range of grey and purplish hues as the rest of her peers, she had a slighter frame than the rest of them with very well-toned musculature to go along with a really cute laugh that carried all the way from the other side of the mess hall. Far as he could tell, she stood out from amongst the rest like a lighthouse in a storm.
As he watched her chatting and munching away with her friends, he found himself wishing that he could see her in combat; it would be like watching a bunny beat up a grizzly bear.
“You gonna eat that?”
Flash Sentry glanced at the four sticks of celery on his plate and shifted his gaze to his patrol partner and self-appointed friend, Crowd Control, on the opposite side of the table. She’d already wiped her plate clean, and apparently had set her sights on the remains of his ration. After mulling it over, he shrugged and pushed the plate over to her.
“Go ahead.”
“Yay!” CC snatched one off and wasted no time in chowing down.
“So, who’re you ogling this evening?” she asked through a mouthful of celery as he drank from his flagon.
He choked on his apple juice and sputtered, “Wha—Excuse me?”
With an impudent grin on her muzzle, she gestured towards the group of bat ponies with a wing. “Sizing up one of them mares? Tut-tut, my dear. I thought Princess Twilight was your favourite bachelorette. Oh, what on earth would she think if you now have eyes for somepony else?”
Flash swallowed his juice and scowled at her. “First off, I’m not—where’d you even get the idea that I’m…” – he gestured vaguely in the air – “you know, Princess Twilight? It’s ridiculous!”
“Hah! I have a witness.” CC sniggered and nudged the stallion seated next to her. “Tell him, Stun Lock.”
Apparently a little displeased at being pulled away from his own conversation, their fellow royal guard flicked his eyes between them and promptly brought both hooves up defensively, saying, “Oh no, don’t drag me into this, Crowdy. I’m staying out of whatever it is you’re bickering about if it involves Shining Armour’s sister.” He then went back to minding his own business.
“Pff. Fine,” CC huffed. “Anyways, where were we? Oh right – ogling.” She waggled her eyebrows and widened her grin. “My sources tell me that you’ve been giving Princess Twilight the salute from down under whenever you see her. Word is that you’ve even had physical contact, oh my.”
Oh, horse apples.
Flash could feel his treacherous blood flowing all the way to the surface of his cheeks. “Look, I—” He tried searching for a plausible way to deflect the issue, but after several seconds of tripping over his own tongue, he growled, “Argh, fine. I like looking at mares, okay? I can’t help it that some of them are really… nice. And that part about physical contact: I just bumped into her once. Once! Everypony won’t let up about that for some reason, even though it’s not unusual—”
“You know the former captain’s got you on a hit list just in case you try anything funny with his sister, right?”
He froze for a moment and then shot her a glare. “Okay, I’m just going to assume that was a joke. He doesn’t even have jurisdiction anymore.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You’re right. He’s technically the emperor of an allied nation, now. And you’re an alleged suitor of his sister, who also happens to be a princess.”
After taking a while to parse through the implications, he felt his jaw drop. “Horse apples.”
“Horse apples, indeed.”
CC giggled and reached for another celery stick, but he slammed a hoof down on the plate before she could get one and wordlessly pulled it out of her range, making as much scraping noises as he could along the way.
“I think I’m still going to declare an embargo for that salute comment, though,” he said with a vengeful grin. “I’ve got the distinct feeling that you’re part of the reason nearly everypony thinks Princess Twilight and I are… an item. If I get wrongfully assassinated, I’m haunting you.”
Her smirk didn’t disappear as he’d hoped, though. In fact, it only got worse as her eyelids slid and stopped halfway down and fluttered at him. “See, that’s what I’m talking about. I’m flattered that you plan to watch me all day and night, but can you really blame me for your rep if that’s your posthumous ambition?”
Flash opened his mouth to retort, but a distant wail cut him off.
“What the hay was that?” he exclaimed as dozens of heads turned towards the mess hall’s closed doors.
More cries of distress and a bit of retching pierced the thick doors, and Flash quickly hopped off the bench to investigate. If something was terrorising ponies out there, the Royal Guard had to intervene. He grabbed his helmet and was just about to put it on when he noticed that he was the only one who had sprung into action. Instead of the rallying cry he’d expected, murmurs and mutterings permeated the mess hall.
“Tonight? Aw, hay no. I just got here!”
“I’m out. See you later.”
“Oh crud. They’re early!”
As Flash sheepishly sat back down, feeling like that time he’d been caught singing in the shower, he noticed everypony else gobbling their food and chugging drinks as if doomsday had arrived. Those who’d finished simply got up and trotted out in a hurry. The grimaces and deep breaths just before going out made him scratch his head.
He turned to Crowd Control for an answer, since she’d served in Canterlot for longer, and found her eyeing the doors with a worried frown. When she finally took notice of him, she gestured at his unfinished celery and said, “If you’re all done, we should go right now.”
But before she could get up, he waved her down for an explanation first. “Wait a sec, what’s going on out there?”
“Durians,” she muttered, the corners of her mouth turning downward.
Flash racked his brain but failed to recall anything useful in his training. “A what-now? Sounds like a diamond dog tribe.”
CC stared at him in disbelief. “You don’t know? How could—” Her expression suddenly softened. “Oh right… they had you on duty somewhere else last time. Well, I’ll tell you once we’re out of here. Come on.”
Given everypony else’s haste, he decided to save his questions for later. By the time he’d got up, she’d already come over to his side and wasted no time in herding him with a wing pressed to his back. Halfway to the door, though, he noticed that all of the Night Guards were still at their table when just about everypony else had gone. Only a few other Solar Guards remained, and they looked just as perplexed as he felt.
Just as they reached the exit, the massive double doors swung inwards and a trolley piled high with what looked like spiky melons trundled in. They had to leap aside to avoid getting run over, and he saw a stocky earth pony pushing the trolley along.
Flash was just about to ask why the fellow had stuffed corks up his nostrils when the smell hit him. At first, he thought of something sweet like cake frosting or cream. A second later, it got a little too sickly sweet, like ripe fruit that somepony had left in under the sun for too long. The sweet stench of mushy, rotting vegetative matter. He had to take a moment to wrestle with his gag reflex.
“Woo hoo, finally!” somepony cheered.
After he’d gotten everything under control, he looked up and saw that bat pony mare from earlier galloping over to assist with the trolley. Its original pusher, however, had different ideas; he simply gave her a grateful nod and dashed off without ceremony.
“Come on, dude,” said CC with a hoof pressed over her nostrils. “Let’s go before they open those things!”
“I take it those are the durians. Are they really that bad?”
She gave him a blank stare.
He coughed. “Sure, the smell’s… funky,” he then gestured with a wing towards the Night Guards busy picking the spiky fruit out of the trolley with grins and various utterances of excitement, “but those guys seem pretty happy about it.”
CC made a face. “There’s no accounting for taste.”
“You ever tried ‘em?”
Her eyes widened. “What? Heck, no. All the senior officers advised us to stay away, and that’s what I’ve been doing. You, the relatively new guy, should as well.”
“Well, when you put it that way…”
“Hey there!”
Flash and CC turned to see one of the Night Guard mares waving at them. He quickly cast a glance back to see if she’d spoken to somepony behind him, then bit his lip when he found nopony else. His pulse quickened at the sight of her cute and friendly smile.
Oh wow, she’s talking to me!
The grey mare shot him a challenging grin. “Why don’t you join us? There’s plenty to go around, and you can decide for yourself whether you should run away every time we get our shipment. I promise it’ll be an experience.”
Some of her fellow bat ponies saw fit to chime in.
“There’s nothing else in the world like durian. You won’t regret it!”
“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it!”
“It’s like heaven in the mouth.”
For some reason, Flash got the impression that his brain had automatically censored something in that last comment. He filed it away for later thought and focused on the decision at hoof. A few other Solar Guards were gingerly allowing themselves to be coaxed over by the peppy mare, won over by curiosity. They looked like recruits; he thought he recognised a few faces from the training yard.
“I suddenly have a distinct feeling that you’re not gonna leave,” CC quipped.
“Nopony’s asking you to stay with me.”
“No, but I think I wanna see this train wreck. You’re doomed like the rest of those rookies.” A grin split her face. “Carry on. I’ll try to survive.”
Once they’d trotted up to the table, the mare said, “Well, five of you this year. That’s better than the three last year.”
“What happened to them?” asked one of the recruits.
His question went unanswered as the mare gave them all a winning smile. “I’m Tsunami, and these,” she gestured towards her fellow Night Guards, “are Tufty, Hay Bale, Hammer, Anvil, Night Wish and Fleet Shade. And we’d like to welcome you to our seasonal durian feast!”
Her companions sounded off with various greetings and welcoming smiles, but Flash did notice a couple of them whispering to one another in a manner that reminded him of ponies placing bets. He chose to ignore them and the nervous voice at the back of his mind.
Flash and the others rattled off their names in kind, and without further ado, the bat ponies went to work on opening the fruits. Cantaloupe-sized and a dull green in colour, the spiky things looked like they had more in common with the business end of a mace than a fruit. He watched in fascination as Tsunami pounded one onto the wooden table – so that the spikes would dig in and prevent it from rolling around, he guessed – and expertly stuck the blade of a cleaver into a narrow, natural cleft on the fruit’s base. She twisted the blade, widened the cleft until it split apart, and then discarded the cleaver to pry apart the durian’s outer rind with her bare hooves.
The two halves parted with a fibrous squelch, revealing innards somewhat reminiscent of a bean pod; but instead of green peas, it had fleshy, milky- yellow lumps that looked suspiciously like a tur—
Flash shook his head to clear away the thought. He did not need that kind of imagery right now.
Unfortunately, the scent that came out of the split fruit didn’t help matters along. One of the recruits, Bulwark, instantly turned green in the face and slapped a hoof over his mouth as his cheeks ballooned out. He whirled around without ceremony and fled, and Flash heard some rather nasty retching once the poor guy had gotten out of sight. A moment later, another recruit bailed on them, though she flew out with a little more dignity and only knocked over some plates and mugs on her way out.
That just left him, CC and another guard named Stratus standing speechless before the culinary horrors. To make matters worse, he had his suspicions confirmed when her heard the soft clinking of bits changing hooves under the table.
Tsunami shook her head and sighed. “Oh well, more for us, right?” Her grin returned as she scooped out a lump and offered it to Flash.
He hesitated, still unable to shake off the notion that it looked like it had come out from the wrong end of a living organism.
After a moment, Tsunami frowned and inspected the lump of flesh more closely. “Hmm, you’re right; it’s not the best piece. Too mushy. I’ll get you a firmer one.”
She popped the entire thing into her mouth and began sorting through the other durians being opened by her companions. Judging from the gusto at which they devoured the stuff by popping entire lumps into their mouths and spitting out bulbous seeds in order to lick them clean like ice cream, they looked like they were having as much fun as colts and fillies with candy at a carnival, which completely destroyed his former perception of Princess Luna’s fearsome Watchers in the Night.
He also had no idea that the terms they used could ever have applied to edible fruit of any sort until then.
“Ah, this one’s a little gassy. Tufty, I think you’ll like this one!”
“Nope, too slimy. Keep it.”
“Skin’s nice and tight, Tsunami. You can let the newbies try this one.”
After extracting another fleshy lump, Tsunami came back and proffered it to him. Flash glanced at CC and Stratus, but they simply stared back expectantly. When a full ten seconds of pregnant silence had passed, he sighed in resignation and gingerly took the durian flesh. Clearly, they’d volunteered him as the guinea pig in this situation.
“I think I now know what the zombie apocalypse smells like,” CC muttered with a scrunched-up face when he brought it closer for inspection.
He whispered back, “Come on, be polite. They’re right over there!”
“They’re big boys and girls. They can take it,” Stratus quipped. “And I agree. She tells it like she smells it. It’s rank.”
A bearded bat pony chuckled. “Ah, nay, my friends. The king of fruits only smells so in order to deter the unworthy.” He then levelled a steady gaze at Flash and added, “The question is: are you worthy of this bounteous delight?”
Flash felt everypony’s eyes upon him and gulped. But then, a little indignation rose up in him when he heard some whispering again. Taking bets on his failure, were they? He suddenly felt obligated to spite them just on principle.
He inched the thing closer to his face and considered sniffing it at first, but thought better of it and bit down before he could change his mind. The instant his teeth sank in and pierced the membrane on its surface, time slowed to a crawl.
Rich, creamy mush spilled into his mouth and oozed over his tongue. His brain attempted to cycle through a list of flavours to match it – custard, onion, almond, caramel and a myriad of others – but nothing felt adequate. Everything fit and didn’t fit at the same time. He also detected a hint of gassiness that nipped at his tongue like bubbles in a soda. As he pulled away, stringy fibres slid out of the flesh in his mouth, between his teeth, and remained stuck to the brown, bulbous seed in the centre of the yellow lump on his hoof like curly, frayed rope.
Slowly, he allowed his tongue to explore the flavour and textures in his mouth. The membrane reminded him of orange pulp. Too much for him to process in one breath, he exhaled, and the scent went straight to the nerves in his nostrils.
Flash stiffened as the odour rammed through his mental defences and hit his brain like a train at full speed. Creamy, ripe sweetness. Too ripe. Like a mouldy tomato waiting to burst at the slightest touch. Like the liquid that pools at the bottom of a neglected veggie bin. And yet, a rich, heavenly aroma that reminded him of the fanciest desserts in the classiest of Canterlot restaurants.
All the while, that little voice at the back of his mind was screaming at him.
It’s garbage!
Delicious garbage.
It’s death!
It’s the way to heaven.
That’s it; I’m done saving your flank.
Bye…
Eventually, he recovered enough of his mental faculties to swallow, and found nine pairs of eyes watching him in rapt attention. He had to take a moment to gather his wits for an answer.
“I… I could get used to this.” He then licked his lips and took another bite.
Nearly all of the Night Guards erupted with cheers and thunderous applause, save for a couple – Anvil and Hay Bale, if he got their names right – who looked at him with wide eyes and loose jaws before nodding quietly in grudging respect.
Hah, that’ll teach you to bet against Flash Sentry!
CC’s jaw had practically fallen to the floor. “What? Bull. There’s no way…” She scowled at Tsunami, who had approached to offer her and Stratus lumps of durian. “Gimme that!”
Flash failed to suppress a grin as CC and Stratus stared at the yellow lumps on their hooves. The longer they hesitated, the wider it grew. Somepony started thumping on the table, and before long, everypony else was stomping or drumming along, chanting, “Eat, eat, eat!”
CC threw him a dirty look and squared her shoulders before chowing down. Stratus did the same.
It was like looking in a mirror.
They both froze as their eyes glazed over, no doubt attempting to process the tide of information flowing over their tongues and surging through their nostrils.
Eventually, CC shuddered and heaved, but managed to gulp down her mouthful before gratefully dumping the leftovers on a plate that Tsunami had held out to her.
“No. I am done. I am so done,” she choked out between ragged breaths. She then threw him a salute. “You’re not equine. That was just… ugh. Tell him.”
CC nudged Stratus, but he remained stock still.
Frowning, Flash trotted over to him and patted him on the shoulder. But instead of snapping out of it, Stratus’ eyes simply rolled up into his head, and he went down onto his back like a sack of potatoes, with his limbs splayed and mush-covered tongue lolling.
“Pff. Drama queen,” CC muttered, rolling her eyes. “I’ll take him to the infirmary, just in case. You gonna help me or what?”
Flash glanced back at the table, and then flicked his gaze over to Tsunami. She locked eyes with him for a moment, then held out a split-open durian before her muzzle and breathed deeply through her nose with her eyes closed. She exhaled slowly through her mouth in a wistful sigh, her tongue lolled out, and a light blush crept onto her cheeks as her webbed wings extended to their full length, twitching slightly.
He gulped. It was kind of hot.
Is she doing this on purpose?
He looked back at Crowd Control, then at Tsunami, then back to her again.
“I think I’ll catch up with you later,” he said, flattening his ears in apology.
The Night Guards cheered again and raised their flagons, and then one of them said, “Sorry, lass. He’s survived initiation. He’s one of us, now.”
CC rolled her eyes and snorted. “Fine. I’ll send a hazmat team to scoop up what’s left of you in the morning.” She then grinned at the others and added, “Try not to kill him too quickly. I want him to have enough time for wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
“Sure thing!”
Flash didn’t know whether to think he’d made a terrible mistake as Tsunami herded him over to the table. CC had abandoned him to his fate without so much as a glance back, dragging Stratus out of the mess hall by his tail.
* * * * *
The following morning, Flash Sentry knew suffering.
Sweet merciful Celestia, make it stop…
CC thumped her hoof on the outhouse door. “Hey, you still alive in there?”
He could feel his bloated guts twisting like a poisoned snake in his belly. It saw fit to remind him every bloody second of imminent discharge, but of course, they always turned out to be false alarms. Except when they weren’t. Then things just got plain disgusting. But in between, he found nothing but pure, distilled agony.
“Hnnggghh!” he groaned.
“Huh, that’s not very convincing. Say, can I have your secret stash of comics when you die?”
Gritting his teeth, he answered, “They confiscated those.”
“I meant your secret-secret stash.”
“They confiscated those, too.”
A distinct pause, followed by, “How about your secret-secret-secret stash?”
How the hay does she even know about those?
“Just—nnngh!—can we discuss this some other time?” he growled.
“Fine, fine. Just satisfy my curiosity: do they look the same coming out as they do going in?”
“Do you want a hoof sandwich?”
She sniggered, but thankfully silence followed and he could finish his business in peace. Relatively.
It took him almost an hour to get everything out of his system, but he still found CC patiently waiting outside when he finally creaked the door open.
“How are we feeling?” she asked with a grin.
He moaned in response, and she fanned her wings almost immediately. It took him a moment to realise that she was doing so because of his breath. Still, he couldn’t fault her for that. His breath could have driven away anypony as easily as a dragon’s. Kind of cool, actually. And he’d wondered why the other guards had been so kindly letting him jump queues for stuff.
“And what have we learned today?”
“Durians come from Tartarus and making new friends hurts; we’re going out for cards and cider this weekend.”
CC raised an eyebrow. “Worth it?”
He gave her a weak smile. “Worth it.”
