I love them dear hearts and gentle ponies, who live in my home town…

My eyes opened slowly as a ray of sunlight passed through a nearby window. I didn’t get as much sleep as I’d hoped to get, but after feeling the press of the mare in bed next to me, I thought I could get over it.

Good morning, children! Welcome to this fine morning in Crystal Lane! I am your host DJ Shimmering Skies, host of Crystal Lane Radio and here’s the news! We’ve got news out of Yakyakistan, and it seems like the latest round in negotiations between Yakyakistan and Crystal Lane seem to have fallen apart after a Yak diplomat-

I shook my head and turned off the radio off, turning off the voice of the mare on the radio. It wasn’t like the Yaks could take us in a fight anyways; they still used technologies and strategies that could have worked over 200 years ago before we had modern-day firearms. I then turned to the mare next to me, my partner in the Guard, and I kissed her lips, “Wake up, Clear,” I said to her.

“Why?” she eventually asked sleepily.

“We’ve got the watch in an hour, come on Clear Night, get up,” I replied.

After a few minutes of cajoling and prodding, Clear finally started to get up and I could finally get to the shower.

Clear Night and I had been together at this intimate level ever since we joined the Guard a year back. We had joined the Order of the Crystal Sword, the main military order of the Faith, back when we were fifteen, and after three years of training and then one year of guarding the Temple of the Mares of Harmony, we were promoted to the Crystal Guard. Of course, we both knew the obligations that a member of the Crystal Guard had with their partner, the intimate bond that partners in the Guard had to form to finalize the union between them and the Goddess. It is said that the act of intercourse is the holiest union as it symbolizes the coming together of two bodies into one soul and that one soul coming into union with the Goddess and her powers of love, symbolized by the Crystal Heart on her flank. I always thought that was weird but I couldn't complain

After taking a shower I then waited for Clear to hurry and finish up. We had about forty minutes to get to our CO for our post assignment, and being late for that is definitely not something one wants to do. At least I didn’t need to go to the daily changeling training sessions anymore; I hadn’t needed to since I joined the Order of the Crystal Sword. “Hurry up, the walk may be short but you know our CO loves to take forever to tell us our posts,” I called to her

“I’m almost finished with my mane, Luminous!” Clear called back from the bathroom.

“You’re gonna have a helmet covering that up for the majority of the day, Clear,” I said rolling my eyes.

“What about the time before that?” she argued.

“You mean the short walk to the palace?” I asked.

“… Fuck off,” I heard her say bringing a smile to my face. She soon exited the bathroom saying, “Alright, let’s get the heck out of here.”

I gave her a quick peck on the lips before opening the door. “Another day in Paradise, right?” I said as we left the house.

The sight outside was fairly normal, clouds overhead keeping the sun from appearing, glistening crystal structures all around dominated by the humungous home to the Goddess herself, the Crystal Palace, and the lack of activity on the streets on account of how early it was. Our rout was going as it normally did as well, left from our house down to the corner, another left down a block to the Crystal Palace, and, after a quick flash of our IDs to the Gate Guard, into the entrance from where we would get to the barracks to get our weapons and our Guard Barding. “One would think that I could get some good Ironshod weaponry with how untouched Crystal Lane is, right?” Clear said whilst pulling on the barrel piece.

“What? Is a good ‘ole Crystal Rifle not good enough for you? Ironshod might have been Equestria’s premier gun manufacturer pre-war, but Crystal Guns and Ammo is the only place that I know of that produces our signature rifle,” I replied pulling on the leg pieces of the barding.

“You and I both know that they use that old Ironshod factory, so basically they are using Ironshod tools and parts to make their guns, even the Crystal Rifle,” Clear argued.

“It’s not the same, Ironshod guns are normally bullet based, and our guns are normally energy-based with a Crystal Spark in them. No rifle out there is like ours, even the Zebras can’t have made a rifle like the Crystal Rifle, you go out there and find a Zebra Rifle worthy enough to compete against it and I’ll put myself up for public use for an entire week,” I rebutted.

“It’d be almost worth the search just to see you up on those posts,” Clear laughed.

“Luckily I won’t need to, because there is nopony who can find such a rifle,” I smiled.

Soon afterwards, we both had our Guard Barding on and we were on our way to our CO to see what our post assignments were. The barding was based on the design of Royal Guard barding of pre-war Canterlot, and it was colored baby-blue due to the crystal that made up the barding. Clear always said that she loved the look of the armor on me because of how it perfectly matched the baby-blue coloring that my eyes and carapace had.

After a few minutes of walking towards our CO’s office, we finally arrived and, after a process that took way too long to complete, we had our post assignment: The Goddess’s personal guard and it seemed like that’s what we were going to be assigned to for quite a while. Clear visibly smiled as did I, guarding the Goddess was a tremendous honor, considering we were the last, best line of defense for the Goddess should any intruder get into the Palace.

A few minutes later, we arrived at our post outside of the Goddess’s quarters, relieving the current ponies on watch there. With ourselves finally at our post we finally could relax, it wasn’t like anypony could get this far, right?

Quest Completed: Just another day…
Level up!
SPECIAL Increase: Perception rises to 4.

Author's Note

Thanks for reading this, and I need to tell you guys that I might take more time with the next chapter as I need to read some materials to hopefully improve my ability to create a good story.