1 Morning Rituals
Day Dreaming about Nightfall
My eyes slowly opened, the subtle scent of morning air grazing my senses. It was early, and the sharp blade of reality was slowly cutting away at the veil of grogginess that clouded the lucidity of the coming day. Birds chirping, the modest townsfolk who awakened before the sun, natures beautiful awakening tones that empower all pony kind to partake in a productive day. I was not one of these ponies, the droning headache of being torn from the most comfortable of dreams was always a drag… Throwing the covers off of my bed I partake in the mundane morning rituals. Eating, grooming, a quick pep talk… “A soldier has to be prepared for the worst possible outcomes.” I repeated to myself in the mirror, adjusting my helmet before closing my eyes and taking in one last breath of the fresh morning air to savour. This was the life I lived, working by day, dreaming by night, about night, about my princess… her highness. I smiled, the thought of the royal mare filling me with determination. Perhaps she would reward me with the beautiful sight of her content smile again. I can only day dream, until the moon shatters the innocence of light, and I am bathed in the purifying radiance of Luna’s orb of night.
I was never one to boast my position, and certainly not my stature. I never sought attention while walking to the castle, I held my head slightly lower than the average pony, made no effort to showcase my slightly muscular build, and saw myself as representing pony kind, not a higher authority. Unfortunately as I pass by nopony sees me as what I truly am… To them I’m antisocial, frightening, or at best ‘mysterious’. I let out the smallest of chuckles as I arrived at the palace gate, I take no shame in admitting that the final point mentioned was something I had a guilty pleasure for. I never asked for people to notice me, to know my story, and in a way I was getting just that. However I am required to change my posture as I approach the castle, lengthening my stride I raised my head to greet the gate guards with the typical “You got stuck with the front shift again…?” gaze. It was a mystery to me, either they enjoyed it, or simply didn’t have the backbone to say something. I wouldn’t blame them if the latter was the reasoning, Shining was a total hard plot at the best of times. Speaking of which… “Sir.” I stood my ground, saluting with my right hoof to commander Shining as he passed, Loli tagging closely behind him. “Didn’t even care to make eye contact…” I sighed, something was undoubtedly already going wrong with the new recruit. I continued down the red carpeted hallway, a fellow co-worker pointing out that a small strand of my blue mane has managed to slip from my helmet. A small tuck, and exactly 47 steps later I was where I would spend a good portion of my day. I looked up the golden archway that made up the giant door to the princess’ throne room, amazed at how well trained our maintenance team had performed as usual. There was never so much as a smudge on the entire structure.
Hour three, Celestia has had meetings with several different ponies, two of which I would describe as ‘clearly never done this before’ ponies. It’s funny how little our population really knows about our princesses. For instance, they don’t expect you to appear at the castle in a finely trimmed suit, or a dress that seemingly tries to overtake her highnesses beauty itself…. If that’s even possible. Although I have heard that some of Rarities custom orders have been mind-blowingly gorgeous. Anyway, no, simply being clean as you enter will suffice, there is no point in dressing yourself up. Another mistake a lot of ponies make is they treat speaking to the princesses like writing an academic paper. They write notes, make speech cards, and its painfully boring for both the scribes and the princesses to listen to. Unless you’re here on military business detailing an attack plan, you can simply speak with our rulers, no need to complicate things. “Dust, let’s go we’re swapping out” Timber approached me, descending the stairs to my right. I looked to him with slightly glazed eyes and he shook his head “Listen I know nobody enjoys door guarding but try and look like you’re proud to be here…” I nodded, surrendering my position next to the throne room door, and begrudgingly heading up the stairs. However as soon as I was out of sight a smile crept onto my face. Timber was right, nopony enjoys door guarding, and the only thing worse was Sanctuary… but I loved Sanctuary, and because the squad thinks I hate it and they thing it’s hilarious to do everything in their power to put me there. I suppose the jokes on them.
Sanctuary was a lot like door guarding, except instead of getting the one pleasure of being able to see other ponies and fellow co-workers as they passed you were completely isolated. My fellow squad has always questioned why Sanctuary is necessary because we never actually see anypony go in or out of the room we’re forced to guard. The reason being that Luna, her highness, never cares to use the door. She prefers a more direct route to the Sanctuary, a more private way through teleportation so that she can keep to herself. Just like my efforts while trotting along to work. I first found out about her highnesses activities one day while helping Loli. She was Shining’s assistant, but more often than not was used as a spare hoof around the castle for everypony. She was a beautiful mare, grey with a brown mane, glasses always resting on her snout, and far too young for her position. Anyway, on this particular day Shining had ordered her to clean up the Sanctuary as there had been an accident inside pertaining to an angry Ex-guard. I had decided to help her once my shift finished as the poor girl always had so much on her plate. The inside of the sanctuary was half library and half open space, and until I realised its use it had confused me. Either way we had finished picking up the scattered books and scrolls when we heard a book drop off of a shelf across the room. Loli had looked at me and I knew she was fighting off the urge to mention something about the paranormal. When we went to look we found our princess of the night, she had simply dropped a book, and reaching down to pick it up for her was what granted me her smile. Albeit a slightly awkward one, I was an earthpony so I physically had to pick the book up and offer it to her when in hindsight she probably could have picked it up with her magic. Anyway it turns out that this is where Luna spends her time to get things out of her system. Typically by reading or studying and performing ancient arcane magic’s, which is what the empty space was used for. I came across this discovery by peeking into the room on occasion while on shift, always stealthily of course and besides, the doors could only be opened by the princesses … and strangely me… so they wouldn’t suspect a thing, right?
The final hour was ticking by at a snail’s pace, but I knew I had just enough time to take one last look at Luna before Dust or whoever else would take my place would come up and tell me to get out of here. I placed my hoof on the door and it slid open without any noise. I saw Luna laying on a cushion with a book next to her, she had fallen asleep. I smiled, taking in how beautiful she looked, there was something about her mane that always trapped my gaze, it was like looking up at the stars on the clearest night of your life. It was absolutely stunning. I put my hoof on the door to gently close it again when I felt a hoof poke my slightly exposed side. I slide the door the rest of the way shut quickly and turned to see the confused brown eyes of Timber “How”. I was stunned, I couldn’t speak, and when I could what would I say? How would I explain that I can open the door. “Answer me Dust!” I cleared my throat
“I put my hoof on the door to rest for a moment, It just opened..” I continued to stare into his eyes, there was nothing else to do, as looking away would surely set him off even worse
“Yeah you just set your hoof on the door to rest? What?” He raised his voice as I shrank slightly “Nopony can open this door… Only the Princesses, and you just rested your hoof on it and it opened?” I nodded stupidly “You do realise that I have to report this to Captain Shining yeah?” I blinked, cringing a little as I thought of my commander’s face “I’m not risking my job by withholding information.” He turned and I finally got my first break, so I looked down. I messed up… bad.
Author's Note
Well it would appear that I'm back to writing. It's been awhile everypony, feel free to ask questions, post suggestions, or just say hi in the comments. I can't have a dedicated chapter update schedule as I am in University now and assignments differ in size and time requirements each week but I will do my best to work at new chapters whenever I can. Cheers!
I marched with my head slightly lower than usual, heading down to my commander’s quarters. I was nervous to say the least, and my earlier encounter with my close friend did nothing to help that. Loli had approached me this morning with a concerned look “Commander Shining want’s to have a word with you…” her words sung out inside my head as I thought about them, her usual beautiful soft voice carrying the majority of my anxiety this morning to the next level. “I suggest preparing yourself Dust... I wasn’t told what you have done, but Shining seems extremely unnerved about it.” Almost there, his door was now in sight… His, closed door… What a plothole.. Should I knock? Should I enter? He was expecting me after all… I decided to knock, giving the commander no chance to satisfy his apparent passion for verbally ripping his squad apart. The door was opened and shining looked down on me, he was out of uniform.
“I was expecting you, why the hay did you think you had to knock?” He glared, his nostrils flaring slightly as his eyes burned into mine. Unfortunately Commander Shining was bigger than myself, which forced me to look up at him, as if I were a child. Plothol-…
“Sir, I was unsure if you were prepared, so I gave you the courtesy of knocking.” He snorted and turned, receding into his quarters, mumbling for me to come in. I followed and he slammed the door behind me with his magic, very nearly giving me a heart attack. The extra blood flow from my pumping heart will probably end up helping me stay sharp anyway. He instructed me to take my helmet off, and explained that the use of proper royal etiquette would not be required for this, simply for time’s sake.
“Please explain to me how you opened the sanctuary door.” He was turned away from me, looking at the map of Equestria that hung on the back wall. I took off my helmet, thinking how cliché it was for him to have his back turned to me in this matter. With my helmet on the floor I cleared my throat.
“I’m unsure cap-…” I stopped myself. Informal, I thought “I’m unsure, I simply realized one day that I had the ability to.” Shining snorted again, turning around
“And you came to this realization how?” His tone was very ‘checkmate’ esk , and I could tell he was putting on his best poker face. There was no way of knowing what he was thinking, no tells, no clues. A bead of sweat rolled down my face as I stared into his eyes, there was no point in lying at this point.
“I was on duty one day and decided to try... That’s all” While not completely true it was far from a lie, and there was no way he could prove me wrong “I first tried after I had decided to help Loli clean up the place.”. Shining thought for a few moments, letting out a ‘hmm’ as he continued to stare at me
“What I don’t understand is why you’d even try.. Were you not instructed that what lies behind that door is not of a guards business? Even if you had already seen inside?” His tone was a little calmer, and it helped to lower my fast pulse. However, I hung my head slightly at this, it was true that the princess herself gave the orientation to new recruits, and she said it was nothing important and that Guards should not worry themselves about what’s inside sanctuary. “Well?” I had realized a little too late that I had been standing there looking half at the floor as Shining Armor stared at me, awaiting an answer.
“I.. Yes, her highness did.” Shining continued to stare at me.. He wanted more... He wanted to know why I was looking inside, he wanted to know why I even tried… His horn glowed and I felt a tremendous pressure inside my head as I clenched my eyes shut “AH!” Shining smirked, continuing to cast whatever spell he was assaulting me with“F-Faust, STOP!” I shouted at him, the pain becoming immense as my front hooves nearly collapsed from under me. The pain subsided quickly after that as Shining let out a chuckle and the glow from his horn faded “What do you think you’re doing!?!” I angrily spat at him “Attacking your own Squad?!”
“Only with the princess’ orders” He smirked, seemingly content with his work as he looked at my downed form. “And besides, killing two birds with one stone is always satisfying.” I looked at him, extremely confused, but before I could speak about a dozen other guards revealed themselves inside the room, each hidden by some form of magic. I looked around at the heavily armored, stallions and mares, weapons ready to be drawn “Everypony can get out of here, I think Dust here is safe.” Some nodded and others simply left, either way it was a long couple of minutes before we were truly alone, or at least I was led to believe we were alone. There could very well be another 20 soldiers hidden around the rather large room. “Celestia herself instructed me to use that, it’s a little painful I know, but it shatters illusionary magic.” He continued to grin.
“Why the hay would I be able to cast illusionary magic?” I scowled, “I’m an earth pony.” Shining chuckled to himself, gesturing for me to put my helmet back on as I realised why he had told me to take it off. Our helmets offer some protection from unicorn magic after all.
“We had to assume all possibilities Dust, including the possibility that you could be a changeling spy with malicious intent.” I looked down once again as he told me. Had I really aroused that much concern with just opening the door? I stuttered before clearing my throat for a second time
“And the second bird?” I asked, genuinely curious about his other reasoning to using magic on me.
“To try and force an answer, now I really want to know, why did you even try to open the sanctuary door Dust?” He narrowed his eyes, telling me that it was time to get serious again. I panicked, I didn’t know what to tell him.. From what he had told me so far am I to believe that he has the authorization to torture me? I gulped slightly, the idea of being tortured mercilessly by my commander was not something that pleased me.
“I… Sir…” I sighed, I had one chance to hopefully make commander Shining feel sorry for me, and it was now. “I have an infatuation with our Princess Luna..” A few awkward moments passed as he simply stared at me “I looked inside to catch a view of our beautiful ruler of the night..” Shining didn’t respond, he simply walked out of the room, and I knew from past experiences that I should stay rooted where I was. A few minutes later he came back with that same familiar poker face, not allowing me any information of who he went to talk with, if that’s what he had even done… Knowing my commander he would probably revel in the idea of making me sit there with a butterfly swarm in my stomach.
“Princess Celestia requests a meeting with you Dust, you are to continue your usual door guarding shifts as usual until 18 hundred hours and are expected to be inside the throne room at 19 hundred hours. Dismissed.” He pointed a hoof out his door. I managed to take one last glace at my commander before shyly slipping out of his door. I noticed Loli standing outside of the room, and she looked at me with a worried expression. I waved, and tried to put on the best fake smile I could muster, but it fell through, and she slowly shook her head, looking down.
Author's Note
Another chapter out ^_^. Again feel free to leave comments on how I can improve the story, or if you have any questions. It's looking like there will probably be weekly Monday releases for chapters but that is susceptible to change at any point. Either way, enjoy your week everypony!
