"WHAT are the bugles blowin' for?" said Files-on-Parade.
"To turn you out, to turn you out," the Colour-Sergeant said.
"What makes you look so white, so white?" said Files-on-Parade.
"I'm dreadin' what I've got to watch," the Colour-Sergeant said.
Swordsong woke up, bleary-eyed, as the bugles sounded in the camp. She turned over and fell out of bed. "What in Tartarus is happening?" she shouted out. It was leave today, and there wasn't supposed to be such loud noises so soon.
One of the sergeants, Whip Flash, shouted out through the barracks, "Turn out, you gutter scum! Your leave is cancelled, as of eighteen hundred hours last night!" He didn't smile, and indeed looked like he'd been drinking. "All you what is musicians get your kit out! Dress uniforms, you horrible lot!"
Swordsong hurried to get into her dress kit. She didn't appreciate the early morning awakening on what was supposed to be a free day. The Royal Guard wasn't the most restful life, but it was regulations that they were supposed to be given a day's rest each week. She swore under her breath as the sergeants hurried the company on.
Into the barracks came an officer she didn't recognise, who called on the sergeants. "Are the troopers ready yet?" she said, not even bothering to look at the soldiers around the room.
"Sir, not yet, sir," said Whip Flash, saluting. "Slackers, sir, useless slackers. Need a spot of discipline, is what they need." He was noticeably unstable.
"Sergeant, you are drunk. Don't bother lying to me," the officer said. "I don't care. What I want is this regiment ready for the hanging in twenty minutes. The Dead March and all."
With that, the officer turned and left the room. Whip Flash looked at the troopers, most of whom looked shocked. "You heard the officer! Faster, you maggots!" he bellowed. The troopers didn't seem to notice as they slowed down their pace. The leave being cancelled was bad enough, but a hanging? Ponies checked their squads, and breathed sighs of relief that it wasn't anypony so close to them.
The noise of quiet gossip spread through the barrack room, and the sergeants started shouting again, rounding on the most idle of their number, until eventually the company was ready and presentable. Swordsong settled into a shocked obedience, the training kicking in as her conscious mind tried to take stock of what had happened.
Somepony was going to be hanged. That meant a grievous crime. Even desertion (at least outside of battle) was given fifty lashes at most. Hanging hadn't even been fit to mention except in passing in her past two years with the Guard. It occurred to her as they were marching out into the compound that she had never actually seen somepony die before. The first death she would see would be one of them.
They had formed up in ranks outside the barracks. Swordsong tried to look over the ponies in front of her, but she was right in the back, and could see nothing around except for uniformed ponies standing to attention in neat rows. There was shouting of orders, passing through the ranks. "Regiment to assume hollow square formation!" bellowed the nearest sergeant as it reached them and continued down the line. The ponies hurried to obey.
The formation consisted of three sides of an imaginary square, which left Swordsong in the front ranks of the middle side. As she found her position, she looked ahead to the gallows. They had been put up recently, but looked as secure as any could look. To complete the ghastly look, there was a coffin lying open on the ground in front of the gallows. She felt sick in her stomach, like something that she'd eaten didn't agree with her.
A bugle sounded, and the regimental band began to play a sombre, slow piece that Swordsong didn't recognise. "Prisoner detail," shouted somepony in the distance, "advance." A unicorn pony in dress uniform along with two Guardponies escorting him had been standing on the opposite side to Swordsong, and began a route passing by each of the three sides in turn, in a sick reversal of an inspection. Swordsong gasped as the prisoner detail passed by her in its turn. The prisoner was Captain Shining Armour himself! His face didn't bear the usual good humour or serious yet understanding, but rather an impassive expression, as if this were all a normal day's drilling and nothing special was happening.
They continued in their route, and after finishing they turned towards the gallows and began to march to it. From the ranks to Swordsong's right, an officer in uniform marched forward. He met the prisoner detail at the gallows. The two guards stood at attention as the officer walked forward. He stood face to face with Shining Armour, and with savage rapidity, he tore the crest from his helmet, tossing it to the ground. He went around Shining Armour, plucking the medals and decorations from his uniform, casting them to the ground as well. At last, he ripped off the buttons from the front of the uniform.
"Shining Armour," he said after a wait. "Your sentence is to be hanged by the neck till you are dead for treason, for murder and regicide. You're a damned dirty traitor. You've disgraced the entire regiment, and you have shamed your parents and wife. How anypony could have murdered their sister, especially in such a brutal and merciless fashion, I will never know - and never want to know. May you rot in Tartarus for your crime against heaven and against ponykind." He turned to the ranks.
"Let it be known to all of you that this shame that we bear for the murder of Princess Twilight Sparkle is not washed away by the Captain's death. It will cover us until we redeem ourselves. Shining Armour's actions have tainted us all. We will bear the shame of it. Look him in the eyes, all of you. Look him in the eyes as he dies, and remember it. Remember his eyes." He turned and headed back into the ranks.
As he faded into the massed soldiery, a drum began to play. Slow at first and rising in speed, it matched what was happening at the gallows. The escorts roughly pulled Shining Armour forward, moving him under the hanging frame. In shape, it looked like an upside-down J, with a pulley system near the crook through which the rope of the noose passed through, with a length on the other side. The noose itself lay low underneath the gallows, so that it could be put around Shining Armour's neck with no trouble. The guard to his left slid it over his head and around his horn, and then tightened it around his neck. Swordsong could see him grit his teeth as they did so, and grimaced sympathetically. She silently thanked whatever deities existed up there in the heavens that it wasn't her at the gallows, and then instantly regretted it. Shining Armour was a much better pony than her. She still didn't believe that he had done what they said he had done. It was an unthinkable crime. Only somepony truly evil could have done it, and that was not Shining Armour.
However, despite the disgust that she felt at the spectacle, she couldn't tear her eyes away from it. She couldn't keep in a gasp when the two guards at the gallows began to pull on the rope, lifting up the unicorn from the ground. Even unarmoured, Shining Armour was a large pony, and the strength of the guards was terrifying. They kept pulling, lifting him onto his rear hooves first, and then into the air. At last he began to struggle, to seem to be something more than just a willing victim. He thrashed as he fought for breath, and Swordsong shut her eyes, willing it to finish quickly. Slowly the drums faded out.
As she waited, there was eventually a murmur of whispers around her, and she opened her eyes. Shining Armour hang, suspended in the air. No longer was he thrashing. He had gone limp, and Swordsong began to breathe again, ashamed at her own relief that he was finally dead. She did not turn or move, but waited for the order to move out. However, it did not come. She stood there, waiting, watching, until she looked at his face. His eyes were still open, still moving. Shining Armour was still alive. She did not know if anypony else had noticed - perhaps the officers did not know - and swore to herself that she would not tell. Maybe, just maybe he would survive this. She waited, stock-still. It was his only hope.
The time passed slowly, and there was no sign of the officers making ready to order a march, and Swordsong began to lose hope. Perhaps they had noticed. Perhaps they wanted the ponies to suffer by watching. That desire seemed to be met, for a pony some distance to Swordsong's left had fainted under the strain. The silence was broken by shouted orders and rebukes from the sergeants nearby, apparently intended to straighten up the slacking guards. Swordsong kept the vigil, though, and something told her that Shining Armour had seen. That gave her hope, though his eyes did not seem to have that.
Her newfound hope did not last for long, for almost ten minutes had passed, and even Shining Armour couldn't hold on forever. How much longer could they be staying here? Indeed even as she looked, he was losing strength and she knew that soon he would die. Silently she prayed what seemed like the first real prayer she had ever made, to whatever gods might be listening. I don't even know if you are real, but if you are, please listen to my prayer, and save Shining Armour from death. He deserves better than this. As she stood there she continued to pray, hoping that for the first time in her life the gods might intervene. However, as she watched, that last hope slipped past. Shining Armour had endured all that he could, and at last he bowed his head and died.
Swordsong watched the scene in abject horror. All those hopes she had had, that all this had been just a terrible nightmare, came rushing back, and she drank them as a parched pony in the Palomino would drink even at a muddy waterhole. Though she knew them to be false, she clung to them as her sole security. For if she relinquished them, then she would have nothing left. Even as she fought to disbelieve the evidence of her eyes the drums began to strike up again, this time a quick march. Swordsong let the training take over her movements, grateful for the distraction from the thoughts running through her head. The world felt unreal, the time seeming to trickle together like treacle. The orders from the officers to form into column seemed like meaningless bellowing, and had it not been for her training, Swordsong would have shutdown completely. As it was, she marched mechanically to the order as the shock continued to echo in her head.
They quick-marched their way back to the barracks. Swordsong couldn't remember for the life of her the path that she had taken from the hanging ground to her bunk, but she was sitting on it now. There were other ponies walking around the barracks, most of them in a daze like she was. She started when somepony tapped her on the back, and then calmed down as she turned.
"Hello there," said one of the kinder sergeants, Starkey by name and pegasus by race. He sat down on the bunk next to her. "How are you doing, miss?" he asked.
"Alright, sir," she said, forcing a smile to her muzzle. "Bit shocked over it, but alright." Even with the kind sergeants, you didn't let your guard down.
He laughed, though not too deeply or too loud. "Cut the sir garbage. Sir is for officers. And how about being honest this time?" He shook his head a little. "Nopony's 'alright' after a hanging. Particularly today's. So why don't you skip the 'okay' crap and get to the truth? It's normal to be upset. So tell me. How are you really feeling?" He looked at her, his eyes staring like gimlets into hers.
She looked at him, and sighed. "I'm bloody terrible, sarge. I thought I'd get a chance to relax and rest today, and then we had... That. Harmony above, I still can't get the image of him hanging there out of my head."
Starkey nodded. "It's horrifying the first time, for everypony. If luck has it, you won't see another. But if you do, I hope you hate it as much. Nopony should ever be calm at that sight." His face darkened. "Though I'm sure there are some as would enjoy it. Those type have no business being guardsponies." Swordsong looked at him curiously. This was the first that she had ever seen a sergeant talking so openly.
"But," he continued, "such business is for a different time. I've been having a few choice words with the officers, and you're a chosen mare. Promotion's on its way - providing, of course, you don't do anything stupid. Now let's get these ponies out of the funk for now. My sergeant did it for me, so it's time to do it for these poor unfortunate souls." Raising his voice, he turned to the whole bunkroom. "Everypony, I know a pub nearby that likes having a few soldiers round. I'll shout a round of beers."
Swordsong felt a little sick. Was this what it was to be in the Royal Guard? Somepony dies, and you try to ignore it and forget it? That just went completely against what she had joined for. She had joined to help ponies, to serve them. Not to watch them die and try and ignore it. Nevertheless, as she pondered these thoughts, she started to see the other side.
Starkey here wasn't responsible for Shining Armour's death. Neither was she. Nor were any of the soldiers around her. Why should she feel guilty about it? All she could control were her own actions. Silently she vowed to herself as she and the other guardsponies gathered that she would not be like this if, and when, she became an officer. No more would they march on a trail of blood. They would swear by honour at last.
FOR they're done with Shining Armour, you can hear the quick-step play.
The regiment's in column, and they're marching us away.
Oh, the young recruits are startled, and they'll want their beer today.
After hanging Shining Armour in the morning.
