Author's Note

Hopefully I tagged this correctly. Was thinking it might be more Teen than Mature, but figured err on the safe side.

On Duty.

Iron Feather stood in a corner. He didn't do anything bad, it was just his job. He's a royal guard, standing in the hallways was just what they did.

Now it wasn't all that they did, contrary to some ponies opinions, but guard duty was important to do.

The corner he stood in was at an intersection of two hallways, due to his position each one was 45 degrees to him granting him an excellent view down both without needing to move his head much.

Stoicness was part of the job, which lead many to call them the living statues of the castle. This has caused small games amoungst the castle staff. From attempting to put funny hat or other items on the guards, to the more common games of trying to get them to react to non-threatening actions.

The only ones to have successfully caused a guard to break form were the maids. The mares had developed their own version of that game wherein they teased the stallions standing guard.

Feather had heard from some of the other guards about the maid's game but had dismissed them. He knew they enjoyed waiving feather dusters over the guards cleaning them like they would a normal statue.

He was a couple hours into his shift when a maid came into view. She was wearing the standard uniform with a blue coat and a purple mane.

The maid looked around a bit before smirking and approaching him. Floating up the feather duster in her magic she began to dust him. Moving it over his armour before bringing it about to wave in his face.

It tickled but he resisted the urge to sneeze. Seeing that it wasn't having an effect the maid moved in and nuzzled him lightly. Feather glanced down to look at her as she planted a light kiss on his cheek and gently running a hoof across his leg.

He focused back on his duty and tried to ignore the maid as her caress got a little more bold and began to wonder to his body.

A commontion nearby caught their attention as another maid ran up.

“Hey. Haven't seen you before, are you new?” The new maid asked of the one who had been teasing Feather.

“Yeah.” She answered timidly.

“Good. Blueblood made a mess, and it's all hooves on deck to clean it up newbie.” The maid stated, a hint of cruel authority in her eyes.

Both maids left him alone.

Several hours later found Iron Feather in the same stance as earlier. He had had his lunch break and was waiting the 3 hours for his shift to finish. He kept up his vigilant guard of the corridors.

As he waited he felt a hoof gently stroke his back. This surprised him, but he kept his posture. Twitching an ear he activated one of the enchantments on his helmet.

The spell let him see directly behind himself revealing the corner. It seemed a bit shadowy considering the windows and artificial lights illuminating the hallway, but he passed it off a trick on the light and his own body.

He kept up a watch on his own back, as well as the hallways, for 15 minutes. Deciding it was just his imagination he shut off the spell and went back to guarding.

Another 10 minutes later he felt the hoof again, this time with the back of his neck being teased by a mare's breath.

Reactivating the spell let him catch a dark blue hoof disappearing. Hearing a giggle brought something the Lunar Guards said to mind.

Princess Luna could walk through shadows.

He kept watch for 20 minutes without the hoof returning. Hoping that he might've been wrong, he shut the enchantment off again.

15 minutes later and the hoof returned. It slowly and sensually moved about his body. As it moved down and around his barrel he felt himself reacting to the touch.

All he could think about was how he only had 2 hours left on his duty.

The hoof lightly stroke his belly as it made it's way back. He felt breath against his legs.

As the hoof got more and more intimate with him he tried to think of how long his shift had left and on watching the hallways.

When he had 1 hour left on his shift he felt something warm and moist wrap around his unit.

Sometime later, a couple guards, one in uniform and one out, were on their way to relieve Iron Feather. They help a loud yelp and hurried up to his post.

The next day Iron Feather was told to report to Princess Celestia herself first thing after sunrise.

He stood in the throne room at attention, staring at the far wall behind the throne. Sitting some distance to his side sat Princess Luna.

Celestia sat in front of the throne and dias rather than on it. On her face was clearly Disappointment #3 (as described in the unoffical handbook “Royal Body Language and Expressions” that all the guards are required to read) aimed primarily at Luna.

Other than those three the only other thing in the room besides furnishing was silence. Not an awkward silence or anything, but the silence of those waiting punishment.

From carefully quick glances and clever use of peripherally vision, Feather could see what he figured to be a silent conversation between the two sisters. Luna, while sitting regally to the untrained eye, had several small twitches and shifts of weight that gave the impression of a filly waiting to be scolded.

Eventually the Lunar Diarch broke the silence first. “The maids do it all the time, and I was in disguise at first. Then Blueblood made that horrible mess and another maid found me and assuming I was a new hire made ME help clean it up.”

“Luna. Dearest sister, that's not why I called you here. Heavens know I tease the guards all the time myself. You're here because of what you did to Bluey. Making it so that his bathwater and shower produced that mess when he tried to clean himself was just plain horrible.” Celestia said. Her tone changing from comforting, to co-conspiratorial, and finally settling into chastisement.

“You didn't have to clean it up, how he managed to fill the room hoof deep with that stuff...” Shaking her head, she changed lines of thought. “So if I'm here about that, what about the guard?” Luna questioned, nodding at Iron Feather.

This drew his own attention as he was wondering much the same.

“I just wanted to see him, considering the position you were in when you got caught. What's you name guard?” The Solar Diarch asked of him.

“Iron Feather, Your highness.” He stated.

“Yes. Your grandfather was in the guard as well if I'm not mistaken.” Celestia mused.

“Yes Ma'am.”

Looking him over she replied, “You certainly inherited his looks. You are dismissed.”

Iron Feather turned around and marched out the door. He pointedly ignored the sisters as they chatted about the guards and began to scheme about teaming up on teasing them.

Once outside he ran into his friend who had caught him the day before along with the relief guard.

“Hey, so since the captain figured you'd be shaken up from this meeting, and that you normally have an afternoon shift, he's given you the day off.” Silver Guard informed him.

“What about you?” Feather asked.

“Well, I was ground zero at Blueblood's latest mess. My armour's still not fit to be worn so I have the day off as well. We could both probably use some drinks.” Silver said as he lead his friend towards the barracks to change out of his suit.