The New Age

Charity Heart sighed as she walked around the castle. Her mother had agreed to let the young unicorn travel around the palace freely so long as she had a guard with her at all times, and she hid in her bedroom when Princess Luna was around. The Princess of the Night didn't think it was a good idea for  Charity to leave her room at all, let alone wander in the castle, but Twilight knew her foal; not being around other ponies and not being allowed plenty of space to roam would just make things harder for Charity. Right now, she was in the fenced off gardens, watching Celestia lower the sun as Luna raised the moon. It wasn't just a beautiful sight; it was also what signalled the arrival of her night guard. She'd been told she'd be getting a new one since the previous night guard had to leave due to a crippling leg injury

When Charity turned to see  her new night guard, she was surprised to see that he wasn't a bat pony like she was expecting. Instead, he was a tall, orange pegasus stallion with a sea green mane, yellow eyes, and a green snake for his cutie mark.

"Uh, are you alright Princess?" he asked.

Charity didn't realize until now that she'd jumped nearly a foot back due to the unexpected bright coat this stallion sported, or that she was staring. She brushed slightly and rubbed her foreleg with her hoof. "Uh, yes; I just wasn't expecting a pegasus guard- let alone one with such a brightly colored coat."

The stallion just chuckled. "Happens all the time; don't worry." he reassured, helping her up. "Private Cobra at your service Princess Charity Heart."

Charity frowned a bit at that before regaining a more understanding face. "Please, just call me Charity... very few other ponies will."

"I also come equipped as a confidant." Cobra joked, causing Charity to laugh for the first time in weeks. "Seriously, if you need to talk about something during the night shift, I'm all ears, and it'll stay between just us."

Charity smiled, her ears flattening against her head. "Well... my whole life, everyone has said that I'm royalty, and that makes me special... but I don't feel that different from any other pony. I mean, I'm blind in one eye, so that's different, but otherwise, I'm just a regular old unicorn. I am no different from Strawberry Malt, or Stargazer, or anypony. But nopony realizes that. And to top it all off, my brother left me with every last one of the royal chores we were supposed to be sharing when he joined the guard; I have nopony to help me." She explained.

Cobra smiled. "Well, here's what my little brother and I always did in Appaloosa. Instead of arguing about who got the easy chores and who got the hard ones, we decided to equally share them, and to make them go faster, we'd make a game out of them."

Charity smiled a bit. "No offence to you and your brother, but most of the royal work we do is setting up for conferences, attending conferences, doing paperwork, and smiling and waving, along with keeping the tabloids at bay. None of that can be made into a game.:

Cobra nodded. "Sorry... I-I just wanted to help."

Charity smiled and lightly put her hoof on Cobra's side. "And you did. It felt really good to get all of that off my chest. Thank you."

The orange pegasus sighed, chuckling as the unicorn yawned. "Tired Princess?" he guessed, and Charity just nodded. Cobra gently lifted Charity Heart onto his back and extended his wings, flapping them to get just ever so slightly off the ground before carefully flying Charity into her room. She smiled when they arrived, getting off his back and levitating a brush over so that she could do her hair. She yawned slightly, running the brush through her mane and then taking off the crown her mother had been making her wear since she was little, along with the chest piece, before going to bed.