Chapters Charity Heart yawned as she finished reading her book. Ever since Midnight Centurion had taken his position as Captain of the Friendship Guard(her mother's royal guard), it felt as though she'd taken on every last one of the royal duties they both had. She understood that he had a busy schedule and couldn't always do his duties, but she did everything nowadays. She just wished there was a way that she could take a break and let her brother have a turn; make him see how she felt.
She took off her usual royal garb and yawned again, climbing into bed.
Midnight Centurion
Midnight Centurion yawned as he finished his patrol of the castle, coming to a stop at his sister’s room. Captain of his mother’s ‘Friendship Guard’ wasn’t what he’d always wanted, but he was just happy being able to pursue his dream while still being close to his family. As always, he opened the door, gasping when he saw his sister writhing and whimpering in bed. He took off his armor and looked to a pegasus guard named Wind Glider. "Get one of the other princesses, or Prince Flash Sentry, and bring them here immediately." He instructed firmly.
The white pegasus stallion nodded, flying as quickly as he could to get to one of the Princesses, or to Prince Flash.
Meanwhile, Cent darted over to his sister's bed, crawling in with her. He sighed and gently wrapped a wing around her. Just as her nightmare seemed to subside, they came back far stronger, her horn lighting up with dark blue magic and pinning him to a wall. This went on until Twilight and Luna entered the room, gasping as they saw the blue magic aura around Charity's horn turn a deep, dark, blood red color. When Princess Luna fixed the pony's dream, her magic turned to its normal color before it faded all together.
The two princesses shared a look as Charity slowly sat up, blowing stray bits of a frizzy mane away.
She looked at her mother, who had a morbid, worried look on her face, and said, "Mom? What's wrong?"
Once again, the Princess of Friendship and the Princess of the Night shared a look before sighing. Twilight helped her youngest out of bed, telling her to come to the dining room, Midnight Centurion following because he was sure he should be there.
The doors closed behind them, and Charity sat on a cushion across the table from her mother, who sat by Luna, while her brother sat beside her.
"You all know the story of how my jealousy turned me into Nightmare Moon so many years ago," Princess Luna started, "But what you don't know is of the forces that aided in my transformation; a dark creature known simply as the Miasma."
"The Miasma is a very, very terrible thing." Twilight informed, taking over. "It'll occasionally play around with somepony, but every once in a while, it'll find somepony that it considers a well-matched host and latch onto it, like with Luna becoming Nightmare Moon."
"But there is more to the Miasma than there seems." everypony turned to the door, seeing Celestia join their conversation. "It's very rare, but once in a while the Miasma will find a perfect host. Whenever this occurs, the Miasma will latch on and not let go, creating uncontrollable nightmares for the pony it's attempting to inhabit. That is only the beginning though. If time goes on long enough, the Miasma will not only change the pony's body to its liking, but it will also destroy their mind; obliterate them from the equation."
"Charity Heart," The blue unicorn's head darted in Princess Luna's direction, "We believe that the Miasma has chosen you as its perfect host for the first time in over three thousand years."
The half-blind pony looked down, not sure what to make of all this.
"Is there anything we can do to stop this?" Midnight Centurion spoke up. "Some kind of spell?"
"We may have one chance, but it's slim." Twilight informed, standing up. "For now, all that Charity can do is fight; hold onto her ponydom and not give in to the Miasma. Cent, I need you to come with me."
Cent nodded, following his mother out of the Castle, and then into the Everfree Forest while Luna went with Charity, locking the mare into her room and staging Guards of her choice at her door to make sure nopony went in or out.
Twilight came to a stop in front of Chest at the base of the Tree of Harmony. "You remember the stories I told you about the Elements of Harmony, right?"
Cent simply nodded, not understanding what the Elements of Harmony had to do with the chest, or what the chest had to do with his sister.
"Well... inside this chest is a different set of Elements; the Elements of Friendship. When I decided I wanted another foal, this chest appeared at the tree. I want you to take these Elements, and find their proper bearers. Once you've done that, train them on how how to use the Elements. After that, we'll need Charity to give in to the Miasma so that these Elements can destroy it, and save her." his mother explained, loading the gemstones into a saddle bag and giving it to him.
He sighed. "H-How will I know if I find the right for each element?"
"The gemstones will glow in that pony's presence."
Midnight Centurion was starting to get frustrated. Almost two days it had been since his mother entrusted him with finding the bearers of the Elements of Friendship-Cheer, Compassion, Devotion, Candor, Charity, and the not named sixth element- and he'd not found a bearer for any of these gems. In his quest, he'd found many ponies that were cheerful, compassionate, devoted, had much candor, and were highly charitable, but not during any of these meetings had one of the Elements glowed. He was starting to lose faith in his ability to complete his task until, while watching Sea Song defend the honor of her parents, had one of the gems, the green emerald risen from his bag as it glowed.
The green gem flew over to the brown and blue pony and planted itself right where the chestpiece of a royal guard's armor would be, a silky white thread going of the gem and around the pony's neck until it reached the gem again. The instant Sea Song saw the familiar face of her best friend's brother, she asked, "Cent, what in Equestria was that all about?!"
"That's you giving me back hope for my mission." he informed, giving a relieved look that it was somepony he knew. "See, my mother told me to take these gems-elements rather- and find their bearers."
"Cent, it still makes no sense." she informed.
"Look... This thing called the Miasma is trying to take over Charity's body. These Elements, the Elements of Friendship, are the only things that can save her, but they need bearers that can use them. This one is the Element of Devotion- similar to Rainbow Dash's Element of Loyalty- and it chose you Sea Song..." He looked away a bit. "I... I need your help to save my little sister, Sea Song."
Sea Song looked down. At first, she wasn't sure what to make of all of this. But now that she knew how much trouble her friend was in, she knew what her answer had to be.
"What can I do to help?"
My Night Guard the Confidant
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.
The Elements of Charity and Compassion
"So what do we do now?" Sea Song questioned, walking into Sugar Cube Corner with Midnight Centurion. "This is the sixth day that you've searched, and the only Elemental bearer there is at the moment is me."
The pair had been joined by Sky Wishes on the way back to Ponyville. The blue pegasus had agreed to aid in the search, but she didn't really know what she could do to help. She was fairly shy, so it was hard for her to just go up to ponies and try to figure out if they were an Elemental bearer.
"Well for starters, I think that trying Canterlot for the Elements of Charity and Compassion was a bad idea. That alone took two days, and the trip back here to Ponyville took a whole day in itself." Cent frowned, pressing his ears down. "I'm starting to lose faith in my ability to do this."
Sky Wishes frowned and thought for a moment before she grabbed a blue ribbon and tied it around Cent's primary feather, like Charity had done almost every day when she was little. "Charity probably hasn't lost faith in you. You're her big brother, and she knows that you're doing everything in your power to find the ponies that can save her. She's being brave for you Cent; nopony else. So you need to be brave for her too."
Cent smiled a bit and nodded, gasping as the perfectly cut, light blue jewel floated out of the bag and onto Sky's neck. From the gem came a lovely silver thread that fastened the Element around her neck.
Sea Song's mouth was wide open. "All three days, and we had the Element of Compassion with us the whole time." she mumbled.
Sky blushed a bit,rubbing her shoulder. "Come on in. Maybe some food will help to clear our heads." She reassured.
Cent nodded as he sat at a table, and the trio became a quartet as they were joined by Strawberry Malt; an employee here at Sugar Cube Corner.
"You all just order whatever you want; it's on me." she reassured.
"A-Are you sure Strawberry?" Sky Wishes asked. "I mean, you could get in trouble."
"Don't worry." the pink unicorn promised. "Mr and Mrs Cake can take it out of my paycheck, and besides; you're my friends. Doing things like this for my friends just makes me feel so good inside, and fills me up with energy."
Now, the dark purple diamond shaped jewel flew out and fastened itself around Strawberry's neck with a braided black thread.
Once they'd explained, and finished their meals and milkshakes, the quartet went to where Cent was sure he'd find the Element of Cheer.