A Tale of Dusk

Chapter 15:

Celestia eyed the letter with some trepidation.

On the one hand, spending more time with her beloved children, Dusk and Spine, even if she could never dare utter such a thing aloud where Twilight Velvet could hear, was always a pleasant option and both Spine and Dusk had said many great things about Ponyville and their experiences there.

On the other, openly heading down to Ponyville would directly work against her plans, both for the Summer Sun Celebration and her more … long-term goals. She couldn’t risk alerting the Nobility to her goal, they’d either chew up the invaluable time she had left till the return of her sibling with inane whining or attempt to overtake Ponyville directly to claim all the credit for themselves … and wind up square in the middle of her sibling’s roaring rampage of revenge.

… On second thought, putting several of her more troublesome factions of Nobles in Ponyville suddenly sounded very appealing. Best case scenario, they’d be traumatized for a few generations, whether she won or lost, and in the worst case? They’d serve as a bloody reminder to the rest of the planet why Alicorns ruled the world, or at least the good portions of it.

Still, it was rather rare for Dusk to speak warmly of strange Mares, and the Apple Clan had always had a healthy, if at times overly so, relationship with the Throne. A quick request for a subtle investigation to her intelligence agencies had given her a few files to look through, and this ‘Apple Jack’ seemed to be a fine, upstanding if somewhat bland, socially speaking of course, mare … and then Celestia found the photos.

Good goobering Faust, that mare is huge. Celestia thought, well aware of the irony of her saying that about another Mare, as she eyed the picture, looking for some sort of physical flaw or fault. More than adequately endowed with all manner of womanly attributes along with enough muscles to probably make several legions of her Royal Guard feel inadequate all at once. If the measurements were to be believed, Dusk would be lucky to reach the top of this ‘Apple Jack’s’ shoulders, let alone look her in the eye.

The next folder, one Rainbow Dash, caused Celestia even greater concern. Multiple counts of aerial crashes, disturbing the peace and vigilante actions along with low scores in most of her school and high-school tests … and absolutely nothing in higher levels of education than that. Wherein Applejack had, according to her files, been forced to leave school at the earliest possible age to assist with her family’s farm after the tragic loss of her parents, Rainbow Dash appeared to have simply dropped out and moved on from one dead-end job to the next until she dropped into a rut in Ponyville and stayed there, causing low-level mayhem to the civil servants who were unfortunate enough to become her co-workers in the process.

The files on Fluttershy, however, were extreme illuminating to Celestia, who having had millennia of experiences to draw upon, was quickly able to figure out she was dealing with a very old, very reclusive bloodline that was supposed to have vanished without a trace some six hundred years ago, and irritatingly enough it had been a bloodline that Celestia and her allies had expended a considerable amounts of time, money and effort in making certain it remained ‘vanished’. Partly for revenge for what the progenitor of said bloodline had done to Equestria and her ancient allies, but during the last period in time when that particular bloodline was still clinging to power, Celestia’s Justicars had moved to protect the Thestral sub-species from being consumed from within and turned into monsters due to their unique vulnerability to the dark magic practiced by that infernal family.

Thestrals had enough bigotry to deal without becoming actual blood-suckers.

It also explained the sudden fascination Spine had developed with the buxom Pegasus, especially the urge to possess young Fluttershy the way that Spine had spoken of, and Dusk’s report had outlined in awkward detail as well. Dragons had, and always would be, fascinated with gemstones and crystals, and given that bloodline was involved, well, Spine’s need to possess the poor Pegasus physically could easily be explained.

Of course his bloodline wouldn’t just up and vanish, that would make my life far too easy! At least the Sunstone charm I forced Spine to wear hasn’t sent me a signal, so at least this temptress doesn’t know any Black Magic, or hasn’t used any of it on Spine yet. Which means whatever attraction, unnatural as it is, that appears between Fluttershy and my baby girl is simply a side-effect of that bloodline’s ability, and this is not some premeditated seduction. Still, ironic that the bloodline would show up in a Pegasus family, when the Impaler’s family was so adamantly proud of being purely of Unicorn pedigree!

And of course, Fluttershy’s files also included mentions of this Rainbow Dash character as well. The two had apparently been in the same school, and the reports on Rainbow Dash’s earliest acts of vigilantism had been in retaliation for the bullying and abuse a much younger Fluttershy had been receiving from the sons of some of Cloudsdale’s more prominent Cloud Technicians. Cloud Technicians, whose position in the social hierarchy as opposed to that of Fluttershy’s own parents, who were reputed to be as equally shy and reclusive as at least one of their children, meant the bullying had been allowed to progress to truly dangerous levels before Rainbow Dash’s rash actions had forced the school’s teachers to clamp down hard on all forms of abuse and assault after two of the bullies had found themselves with broken wings and the third …

Eeesh. I have little tolerance for the gits if the Cloudsdale General School’s reports are indeed accurate, but a young filly should not be that violent in this day and age. Celestia looked at the one of the photos included in the file containing what details her agents had uncovered on the yellow pegasus, wincing as she saw the sheer scope of the bracers the fat little colt would be wearing for several years to come, and was probably still wearing, after receiving a punch to the face at nearly mach 1 from Rainbow Dash. The next photo included the aforementioned blue idiot, with one arm in a plaster-cast and the other defiantly raised in the eternal symbol of rebellion, middle digit frozen forever in mid-rotation in-front of a gap-toothed, unrepentant grin.

So, she’s the reason for the Sonic Rainboom. And apparently she turned the velocity of the stunt into the diving power needed to side-swipe two colts twice her size and break their wings in the process, then bleed off the last of the momentum to deliver a right-hook to the third’s face that shattered several bones in her arm, but was not enough to stop her kicking seven shades of crap out of the fat little slug before the adults finally got involved. Celestia tapped a long, slender finger against the rim of her tea-cup as she thought about the possibilities before her. Arrogant yet loyal. Aggressive yet protective. Embraced the Sisterhood’s teachings, and yet Dusk’s letters paint her as willing to work under him, if surly about it. And meeting this ‘Rainbow’ mare face-to-face could do wonders for solving any issues arising from the Sisterhood’s warped teachings.

She had been trying to assign Royal Guards to Dusk and Spine for years, but with Shining Armor’s induction and rapid rise up the ranks, and unfortunate use as a suitably durable target for Cadence’s focus while the younger Princess came to terms with the unceasing urges fostered on Cadence by her ‘Domain’, most of the Guards either had developed a familiar bond with Dusk to the point Celestia worried that they were too relaxed around her children, or would treat the two as a quick way to gain her notice and become bitter about their posting when Celestia refused to consider them for advancement.

But what if the guards are not actual Guards? Applejack appears to be not only physically superior to most of my rank-and-file troops, but if she actually is Granny Smith’s grand-daughter, odds are she’s also stubborn as a mule and twice as vicious when it comes to standing by friends and family. If I can convince Dusk to bring this mare into his tiny circle of friends, give them a nudge here and there and hey presto, one giant amazon-shaped meat-shield between my little Dusk and my sibling when their Exile ends.

And this Rainbow Dash could probably be as good a pick as Applejack … if she can be brought to heel in time. Fast, agile and unafraid of physical confrontation coupled with a decidedly aggressive sense of loyalty towards those weaker than her. While she lacks the discipline I normally strive for, I doubt Rainbow would flinch at flying into Hellfire for somepony she considers a friend.

Celestia looked at Fluttershy’s file, shuddered, and reached under her table for a bottle of something stronger than just tea. Daydrinking be damned, but having one of the Impaler’s descendants around her two favourite beings filled her with concern. Still, if nothing else, the unnatural attraction between her and Spine would at the very least compel her to stand firm with Dusk by virtue of the relationship between Spine and Dusk.

I wonder if I could talk Dusk into casting the hybridizing spell on Spine, if we make it past the Summer Sun Celebration safely. It has been an age since I last spoiled a child, or at least it feels like it. Dusk grew up far too fast, she had to given the circumstances and Spine, like all Dragons, was hardly the cuddliest little thing as a baby. The Solar Princess sighed and leaned back in her seat, feeling the weight of her millennia on her shoulders very keenly now. Or maybe it’ll be that Apple mare. Those are hips made for birthing, and the Apples tend to have big children. Wouldn’t that put the wind up those stuffy Nobles, a half-commoner Unicorn with Dusk’s magical potential and a body like that of a draft-horse? Or maybe it’ll be this Rainbow, and I’ll instead have fast little Pegicorns zooming around my castle? Or …

Images of a dark Stallion, his horn stained an awful, shifting hue of intermingling red, orange and black auras, flickered into Celestia’s mind, his once shining armour corroded and tattered, his eyes rolling with madness even as bloody tears stained his cheeks. If the tears had been ones of grief, agony or relief, neither Celestia nor her sibling had ever been able to guess before the weight of their spell had incinerated the awful bastard and driven his ashes deep into the partially-melted glacier.

Whatever happens, I cannot allow Fluttershy to seduce Dusk, or at the very least have children by him. Even if she is a Pegasus, if such a strong magical bloodline like the Twilights’ combines with her own, it could very easily spawn a being capable of harnessing Blood Magic the same way most beings draw breath. Innocent or not, Fluttershy’s connection to Spine and Dusk must be monitored, carefully, until I can personally see if the Impaler’s bloodline still works to revive their patriarch or if my Templars’ have truly done their duty.

The Solar Princess’s dark musings were interrupted as a new wrinkle appeared before her, a familiar sense of Dusk’s magic as a single page of parchment, in several places stained purple by the power of her favourite mage’s magic, wafted down from the air and landed on-top of Celestia’s pile of folders.

Wondering why Dusk would risk teleporting something as mundane as paper so recklessly, Celestia snatched up the sheet and began to read, her brow growing more and more furrowed as she read the short message, until the Sun That Shone Over All and the Gentle Princess Of Hope’s face was a scowling mask of rage. Wings shooting straight out and trembling with fury, Princess Celestia stood up from her table so quickly the ancient, heavy oaken piece of furniture nearly flipped over, and pulled heavily, repeatedly, upon a silk cord beside her to summon an attendant.

Court would have to be cancelled for today, hang what the Nobility thought of it, and if they didn’t like it they would be given a very blunt reminder of why Celestia had ruled nearly uncontested for a thousand years!

One member of her family addled by obsessive lust was bad enough, and sacrificing one of her more promising Guards to be the object of that obsession haunted her thoughts more than the Princess cared to admit, but Celestia could not risk having Cadence running wild and 'attacking' the general public, hence why poor Shining Armor had to play the role of unwitting bait, at least until her ‘niece’ could fully master her position as the Avatar of Love. And Celestia dared not risk her trump-cards being distracted by torrid personal dramas when nearly a thousand years of planning, plotting and praying for a miracle were about to come to fruition!

It was time to pay a visit to Spine and see if allowing her draconic daughter truly was handling living out from under Celestia’s shadow as well as she claimed, and if not, then perhaps the time had come to separate Dusk and Spine for good, regardless of the cost to both of them. To all of Celestia’s broken, fractured mockery of a family.

Again.

“Princess first, mother second, and damn all the Gods for forcing that distinction on me.” Celestia hissed to herself in fury as a trembling servant poked her head in the door to ask what her Princess required.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Dusk, seriously, you have to come out of there sometime.” Spine grunted, trying in vain to take back one of the library’s cushions from the admittedly formidable-looking fortress Dusk had built into a small supply closet in the back of the library’s private quarters, but the Unicorn’s magic had not only welded the cushions to the door-frame and each other, but had also rendered them almost as hard as iron in the process.

“No I don’t. I can teleport food in.” Came the surly reply, followed by a distinctive and familiar purple-red flash, and then a loud, pointed chewing noise.

“What about the bathroom then?”

“… I can teleport that somewhere else.”

“Is that somewhere else going to be sanitary for whoever’s unlucky enough to wander under your teleportation portal?”

“Not my problem. Is your partner in crime still out there?”

Spine rolled her eyes, looked over her shoulder and shrugged at the Pegasus, who whimpered and squirmed on the spot in embarrassment.

“Yeah. She’s here, and so am I, and we’re not leaving until you come out of that closet and face us like a stallion.”

“When I tried to face you two like a stallion, you two sex-crazed lunatics pulled me down to the ground and tore my clothes off with your teeth!” A slender purple finger emerged from the formidable pillow-fortress, pointing at Spine, then Fluttershy, before quickly withdrawing as Spine made a lunge for it. “If I hadn’t teleported myself out of there, you two would have … would have …”

“U-uhm … sorry?” Fluttershy squeaked, and Spine found herself wondering what is was about the Pegasus she found so adorable, not that a figure that could put super-models to shame was something to sneeze at, as she walked over to give the quivering, shaking Pegasus a hug to calm her down. “Just … my flip was … I j-just wanted to … ooooh.”

“If I hadn’t teleported when I had, you two would be facing a Category 3 Assault Charge right now! I just feel fortunate that I still had my underwear on and was able to steal one of your blankets to protect my dignity!” This time Dusk’s entire hand emerged, formed into the immortal, universally-recognized symbol of defiance, before retreating back into the Iron Pillow Fortress of Doom. “I then had to use a spell of flight and an invisibility charm at the same time to get back home without having the town full of randy, don’t-care-about-the-concept-of-consent Mares jump me and finish what you two started! My head is pounding from the strain of doing all of that on the fly and the last thing I need is having to pull off a repeat performance!”

“Dusk, for Faust’s sake, we’re sorry already. We calmed down, had cold showers separately and, quite frankly, we’re both too sore and chafed to even think about attacking you, let alone having to walk all the way back into town adding to our misery.” Spine stalked back to the fortified closet and dragged her claws down the front of the iron-hard cushions, wincing as her claws blunted against the fabric.

“We can have a perfectly serviceable conversation while I am in here.” Dusk shot back.

“I could leave …?” Fluttershy offered meekly, wrapped in her own wings, before Spine turned and shot her a dirty look, shaking her head in an emphatic ‘no’.

“No. We are dealing with this before Dusk panics and sends Celestia some sort of doomsday letter and this village drowns in solar plasma. Dusk, seriously, you need to talk to us, let us apologise and find a way to make this up to you.”

“Dealin’ with what, darlin’?” Spine flinched as the Applejack stuck her head around the wall of bookcases that ‘hid’ the supply closet from the rest of the library proper. “An’ who the heck made a pillow fort in the library?”

“Dusk did. Fluttershy and I … might have come on a bit too strong and traumatized him, so we need Dusk to come out of the closet so we can talk this over, rationally, like adults, without my mother coming down on us all like the fist of an angry, well, herself.” The Drake explained after a few moments of tense silence, with Fluttershy folding her wings around herself and diving behind a reading couch, squeaking incoherently in embarrassment, while Spine had the distinct impression Applejack had just started appraising Spine in ways that felt oddly uncomfortable given what she’d gotten up to with Fluttershy merely a few hours before.

“Dusk is in the closet? Hah! Called it, knew he was gay!” Rainbow’s voice chortled from somewhere else in the library, prompting mutual groans of dismay and anger from both Dusk and Spine. “What? He needs to come out of the closet and … wait, you mean he’s in the closet right now? Why? That place probably hasn’t been cleaned in years!”

“Believe me, a few spiders and spots of black mold are preferable to getting pounded into a wheelchair by two oversexed vixens. I’m going to start enchanting my underwear with taser spells at this rate!” Dusk grumbled, one lavender eye appearing and glaring out of the hole in the cushions at them all. “Now, the lot of you, get out of here and just … just give me time, okay? I get you two were suffering from a lack of self control and weren’t thinking straight, but I said no. I have enough problems with Mares not bothering with my feelings on getting physical to not have my … assistant and her new best friend trying to do the exactly that to me, especially after I helped get you two unstuck from each other!”

Before Spine could argue back, she felt the familiar tingle of Dusk’s magic surrounding her, and whipping her head around, she could see the same purple-red aura surrounding Fluttershy and Applejack, both wearing round-eyed looks of shock, and the outraged squawking from what sounded like the kitchen confirmed Rainbow Dash had been snagged too. Knowing all too well what was about to happen, Spine merely closed her eyes and prayed she wouldn’t be too sick this time as the uncomfortable sensation of the between, the realm where Dusk’s teleportation briefly deposited its victims as it turned here into there and found herself … at home?

Blinking and trying to stand proved too problematic, her stomach rebelling at the mere thought of trying to get up onto her own feet, but the three Ponies who had come along for the ride thankfully didn’t share her sensitivity to teleportation, jumping to their feet and shouting in surprise, or in the case of Fluttershy, wrapping herself fully in her large wings and assuming the form of a very large, very feathery egg of yellow and pink.

They were in Canterlot, as the towering spires of marble and purple, black and gold conical roofs could easily attest, and given they were sitting on grass so green you could mistake it for raw emeralds, Spine knew exactly where Dusk’s teleportation had landed them, and how many alarms it would have triggered in the process.

“Well … I suppose this solves a great many problems.” The sick feeling in Spine’s belly turned cold as that familiar, if unusually frigid, voice wrapped around her like the hands of doom. “Spine, sweetie, when I said you could bring your friends over anytime, I did not mean like this.”

Turning slowly, mostly out of fear that moving too quickly could see Spine’s lunch violently exploding all over the golden sandals of the Princess of the Sun, which were currently the ground zero of grassy genocide as waves of heat began to yellow, then blacken the grass around those immaculate feet, as a gnawing feeling the lecture she had received such a short time ago would be nothing to the one she’d be enduring shortly, Spine raised watery eyes up to the terrifying visage of her mother glaring down at her with arms crossed under her substantial bosom and a golden nail tapping angrily at the nearly-translucent silk of her flowing garments, with both of her massive white wings flared out for all to see in a clear demonstration of agitation, all of which surrounded by a heat-distortion worthy of the most sun-blasted deserts of Saddle Arabia.

“H-hey mom …” The Drake began nervously, hoping that somepony, anypony, would speak up and give her at least a few minutes of reprieve, but both Applejack and Rainbow Dash were face-down on the grass on their knees, trembling in place, and Fluttershy had somehow managed to form an even smaller ball and rolled herself behind a carven granite bench. “Uhm … funny story?”

“Oh, you’ll have all the time in the world to tell me about it, sweetie. But first, let’s try this one.” Celestia unfolded her arms and the concealed hand emerged, holding a piece of parchment that looked like it was stained purple in places and held a familiar, if uncharacteristically sloppy-looking, spidery script that Spine knew all too well belonged to Dusk. “Now, my darling daughter, if you’d please help mommy out here … start with why on Equiss I shouldn’t ground you for the next century?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Morning dawned for Shining Armor in a weird way.

For starters, he wasn’t in his small room in the castle, which panicked him for a moment before realizing that he’d gone and gotten special permission to go visit his family for an evening, a request that had gotten him some strange looks until Captain Sunbeam stuck his head out of his office, shouting “Cadence Syndrome.”

Then Ponies all over the room started wincing and offering Shining their best wishes … and condolences. His papers had been stamped in rapid order, several promises to keep ‘the pink menace’ distracted had been made and Shining had snuck out of the castle with the aid of a member of the cleaning staff who had hidden him in a cart of dirty bed-sheets.

The second thing that made the morning odd was watching his mother pinning Cadence to the front lawn with a reverse pretzel wrestling move that had Shining’s back aching in sympathy, while his father appeared to be arguing with a group of flustered-looking Royal Guards.

While the windows were enchanted to muffle sound, Shining could quite clearly make out his mother swearing like an Orcish sailor and his father demanding the Royal Guards pay for the damages to the front garden, and then take the Princess back to the castle.

The sun was also a weirdly red shade today. The last time he’d seen that happen had been nearly ten years ago, when he’d just joined the Royal Cadent Regiment to see if he had the ‘stuff’ to become an actual Royal Guard. Then, the Regent of Oliphantia had told Princess Celestia she was fat in the middle of an international summit. It had also been the last time Oliphantia had had a Regent, and that Regent had had to have their tusks removed surgically from a rather awkward place of their anatomy.

Probably going to get the mother of all lectures if I don’t get back into work, ‘Cadence Syndrome’ or not. Shining thought to himself glumly as he watched Twilight Velvet sling Cadence up into the air, spin her around several times and then pile-drive the Princess of Love into a patch of freshly-composted roses, screaming obscenities all the while. And I should probably mention Cadence might need to get tested for Legionnaire’s disease while I’m at it from all the wet fertilizer she’s been violently introduced to. It’s a good thing she’s immortal, because I’m fairly certain a normal person would have had their head pushed into their chest cavity by that move...

It hadn’t always been like this. Once, Cadence had been sweet, lovely, a mare far, far out of his league but a good friend anyways … and then her powers kicked in, and kicked in hard. An already intense mare with far too much fascination in other beings’ relationships turned into the Fiendish Queen of all things Shipping, and then …

Shining shuddered as he remembered the day Cadence had been babysitting Spine and Dusk while his parents were out for the evening, and somehow she’d found the box of love-letters that Shining had written, but never had the courage to actually give to Cadence, either out of crippling embarrassment or his understanding that even the most heartfelt feelings couldn’t bridge the impassable gulf between their social positions.

And after that, the entirety of Cadence’s focus had been on him. At first it had been flattering, a literal dream come true, but the intensity, the overwhelming obsession with spending as much time as she could around him, with him, touching him, had rapidly turned his love into a deep-rooted fear of the Princess. And despite Princess Celestia trying to intervene from the sidelines, nobody had done anything when Shining had tried to tell Cadence to stop, but she’d kept coming on strong.

It was the status quo for a stallion to accept such an aggressive courtship, and when he’d refused to bow, both to the social pressure of centuries of ‘normality’ and his friends drifting away for fear of being tarred with the same brush, the strain had almost broken him.

Almost, but not quite. Signing on with the Royal Guard, and having his mother, an former Justicar herself, leaning on certain individuals to ignore a Pink Princess’s pleas about what duties Shining ‘should’ be doing, and Princess Celestia herself, as Shining had later learned, adding the full force of her divine influence and wrath to his mother’s pleas, had helped Shining take back control of his own life again, given him back the measure of his own self worth and put him under the guidance of individuals who answered only to one Princess, and that was a Princess whose control, whose grip on order, chivalry and Harmony was legendary.

Excluding her … carefully managed indiscretions with the higher-ranked Royal Guards, Princess Celestia had been a literal Faust-send to Shining and his family, especially when Twilight had somehow turned herself into Dusk and hatching a Dragon in the process. Even with his mother’s pension from the Justicars and the money his father brought home from being a Royal Astrologer, there had been no way in Tartarus that the family could have afforded to fire-proof their house or provide the sheer volume of gemstones a growing dragon required for proper nutrition.

Also having relatively close connections with the Bringer of Day and Night did wonders for keeping certain odious facts of life in Canterlot at a distance. Uppity Nobles wanting to buy the house due to its proximity to the Noble Districts found themselves eyeball to eyeball with the Princess’s personal staff and pointedly told to ‘sod off’, the Sisterhood had attempted to ‘lay claim’ to the family to make sure they were ‘suitable’ for close interaction with the Princess before the Justicars came down in force for ‘tea-time’ with Velvet, and having a hundred or so heavily armed and armoured Mares of all four tribes glaring at you hard enough to cause spontaneous combustion from behind their tea-cups had quickly put the Canterlot Chapter of the Sisterhood onto the back-foot and they’d never made a serious attempt since.

And the one time some group of fanatical Dragon-Hunters had kidnapped Spine … well. The Princess had certainly paid for the restoration project out of her own pocket, but there was still some trepidation about moving into a city block that had been recently demolished by an outraged Sun-Goddess bellowing “MOMMY’S HERE, SWEETIE!” while throwing aside chunks of building larger than herself and screaming, terrified kidnappers as she tunnelled through the old apartment complex to get to her ‘baby’.

Turning his attention back from the sky and towards the front yard, Shining watched as a very dirty and dishevelled Cadence was carried away by the Royal Guards, bound and gagged with what looked like a gardening hose, and his parents … were waving goodbye to the Royal Guards. Or at least, his mother was. His father was simply looking at his beloved moon-roses and weeping softly at the destruction Cadence’s short-lived tenure as a garden ornament had wrought in his small, humble dominion.

No. No two ways about it, getting involved directly with the Alicorns has messed my family up something awful. Twilight got turned into a Stallion, mom was forced to retire early due to some ancient law involving Justicars and their children both being involved with the Thrones and dad has to deal with his entire family being wrapped around Celestia’s finger, and she’s his boss ontop of all that.

And yet, he’d sworn an oath of service to that same Princess, Immortal and all-powerful as she was, and had promised a good, honourable soldier that Shining would take up the thankless mantle of Captain of the Royal Guard.

Sighing heavily, Shining rolled away from the window, got out of bed, and prepared himself for another day in Canterlot, and all the madness it brought with it, reminding himself again and again he wanted this, and now that it was all coming at him on a silver platter, he’d best make sure he could handle it as well.