Flash Memory

by SilverNotes

Rating: everyone
Tags: Flash Sentry, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Other, Drama, Original Character, Griffons, Slice of Life
Length: 5632

On a visit to Cloudsdale, Flash thinks back on the path his life almost took. He's not who he used to be anymore, but is that all a good thing?

From the moment the shield and lightning bolt appeared on his flanks, Flash Sentry knew it was his destiny to join the Royal Guard, but that wasn't always his dream.

Flash is on a much-needed vacation, and has taken his first trip back to Cloudsdale in years. With old friends there to greet him, it almost feels like his previous life was waiting for him to show up and resume it, and the memories as he retraces his adolescent hoofsteps are overwhelming.

A lot of things haven't changed. But he has. He isn't the foal glued to his guitar with stars in his eyes anymore. He's found his purpose. He's moved on.

But is that entirely a good thing?

An entry in the Flash Sentry contest.
A standalone entry in the Eventide Verse.
Also check out author Ko-Fi and commissions.

Published 2023-01-28 20:20:00 UTC
Last updated 2023-01-28 20:20:00 UTC

Pause

"You wanted to see me, Captain?"

Flash Sentry, along with the other guards who'd taken the transfer to the Empire, had had made it clear to them immediately that it was still Captain and not Your Highness, and he stuck to that as he walked into the very sparkly office. The room of the castle had been repurposed, having once held an array of works of art that were now in a local museum, once the traps on them had been disarmed; Sombra had had a taste for the finer things, and hadn't believed in sharing his collection.

"Take a seat, Guardpony." The captain nodded toward the chair, and as Flash perched on it, lit his horn to pull out a bottle and two glasses. "Crystal berry juice?"

"Juice?" Flash repeated.

The captain chuckled. "This is an informal meeting, but it's not quite wine informal." He poured a glass for himself, then, at Flash's nod, poured the second. "Besides, we're still a few years out from a significant crystal wine supply. They're just starting to make it again, and for the old supply, all that's left is a few bottles in Sombra's wine cellar and nopony wants to take the chance he didn't poison it."

"That... sounds wise," Flash said carefully, as he pulled the glass closer with a wing and look a sip. The juice was sweet, cool, and crisp, and he instantly wanted more. Instead, he restrained himself, and carefully asked, "What did you want to see me about, sir?"

There was a smile on the captain's face. He'd been smiling a lot more since moving to the Empire. Flash could speculate that it was because Canterlot had a lot of bad memories, after the wedding invasion, or perhaps it was the cheerfulness of a stallion looking forward to his retirement. He wouldn't be a guard much longer, after all, only until the crystal ponies had trained up their own guards and there was somepony local to handle the job. Then he would "just" be a prince, husband, and father.

He look a sip of his own drink, the glass twirling in his magic. "The whole situation here has been a lot of paperwork, Guardpony." He gestured a stack of pages. "Between all the transfers and replacements necessary to keep the Solar and Lunar Guards running while we're here, trying to find information on how the Crystal Guard functioned pre-Sombra so we can rebuild it, and selecting and training locals to take over when you all return to Equestria, I've been up to my horn tip." The glass rested on the desk again. "It's caused a few things to slip through the cracks."

"Slip through the cracks, sir?" Flash asked, as his wings nervously rustled. Have I done something? There's been some growing pains as we've set up, but I've been following procedure as best I can, we all have.

"Yes, and this one is something that has me a bit embarrassed, because I've been on the other side of this exact conversation." The captain leaned forward, looking Flash in the eye. "Guardpony Sentry, when's the last time you took a vacation?"

Oh.

Flash's ears went forward, each one flicked, and then they pinned back. "I... can't recall, sir."

"That's understandable," The captain picked up his glass of juice again. "Since other than three days each Hearth's Warming, you haven't taken any." Flash opened his mouth to say something, but a raised hoof silenced it. "No need to say anything. As I said, I've been on your side of the desk before. So I'm going to say what my captain told me: The job's important, but there needs to be a pony doing it, not a waking suit of armour." He took a swallow of the juice. "Take time off, go see some family or friends, and come back rested. Understood?"

Flash looked at his glass, and let himself take his own gulp of the cool beverage. "Understood, sir."

"Good. You're dismissed."

As Flash stood on a cloud street for the first time in years, he wasn't entirely sure why he was here.

He'd been ordered to go on vacation, but he'd been at a loss for where to go. He hadn't seen Canterlot in a while, but most of the ponies he'd known there were either other guards, who'd joined the Crystal Guard with him anyway, or the Crown Princesses of Equestria, who could hardly take time out of their busy schedules to exchange hellos, and even if they could, he'd been a low-ranking Solar Guard before his current post, not a personal friend. His parents had moved to Vanhoover a year or two back, but they were busy with their own careers and he wouldn't be able to see much of them if he went, not to mention that the city itself was currently in the middle of a necessary cold snap that had put most tourist-related businesses on hold.

So, on impulse, he'd taken wing to Cloudsdale, where he'd grown up. There'd been a itch to see the cloud buildings again, to be so high that it was easy to forget that the ground existed. Some kind of primal pegasus thing, he assumed, or at least that's what he was sure that his father would say if he asked him. The air was different here, purer, and he took a deep breath as he did a few cool-down stretches of his wings. There were pegasi who spent their whole lives here, never touching ground, and he couldn't blame them.

How many times had he just... wandered these streets, watching the city expand as construction pegasi gathered and shaped clouds? Cloudsdale never seemed to stop getting bigger, as there was nothing impeding its growth like landbound cities. Just sky in every direction.

Of course, there were drawbacks to cloud cities. The expense of imports, for one, and for another, any business hoping to attract customers from the other two thirds of the pony population wasn't going to have much luck. It led to a lot of pegasi going to the ground simply for financial reasons. Then, some had marks that mandated it, like him. Yet more went down to explore and stayed because they fell in love with ground-bound creatures.

Then there were the pegasi who just felt the wanderlust, the need to leave the nest and fly as far as they could. Pegasi had small populations in many nations beyond Equestria; he recalled that, from his schooling, though it was hard to grasp at the specifics of where. Griffonstone, at least, he knew hosted plenty.

His hooves were taking him through familiar streets, his wings resting from the flight here, but Flash didn't know where he was going, not on a conscious level. He only realized what neighbourhood he'd instinctively headed for when he heard familiar wingbeats.

"Flash!" Two voices chorused as he suddenly had a pegasus on either side of him, and he blinked rapidly as he was sandwiched.

"Somebody call the princesses!" said the purple stallion at his left, "We've got a guard out of armour."

The green stallion at his right chuckled and bumped his shoulder into Flash. "Yeah, don't you know that's illegal? You're all supposed to eat, sleep, and live those suits."

"Hah hah hah." Flash rolled his eyes as he looked from pony to pony, unable to keep the unamused expression long as he smiled, the memories washing over him in the face of old friends. "Well, if that's the warm homecoming I'm going to get, maybe I should spend my vacation in Las Pegasus instead."

They look different.

Thunderhead's still all leg, wing, and neck without much body attached, but he seems to have chosen a style for his mane that isn't "I just rolled out of bed" and looks like he's finally stopped trying to grow of moustache. Deluge's retired his mullet, too, and he's picked up even more muscle. He was already a flying brick, and now he's a whole brick wall with wings.

Thunderhead looks strange without his shades, and Deluge doesn't have his choker. I'm not sure if I've ever seen them without them. They practically slept in the things.

"You better not," came a third voice, as a shadow even larger than Deluge fell over them, and all got out of the way as the combination of snowy owl and white tiger landed in front of Flash, beak open in a smile. "Not unless you're planning to ditch these losers and take me with you."

Thunderhead feigned a cringe, taking a sharp breath through his teeth. "Harsh, Genna."

Deluge gave her a similar faux pained look. "Here I thought we were friends."

"Friends?" Genna casually polished her black talons on her breastfeathers, swishing her tail. "Naaaaah, griffons don't do friendship. I just hang around you two so you'll keep the rain off me."

She's barely changed at all. Maybe a little taller. Griffons stop growing later than ponies, I think. And she's not wearing that alligator-skin jacket. Still, it's uncanny. She carries herself like she did when she first strutted into Magnus High like she owned the place.

I think her accent's completely gone now. It'd faded a lot, by graduation.

Thunderhead gave an exaggerated gasp. "And the truth comes out! I'm shocked and appalled."

Deluge made a valiant effort at puppy dog eyes. "You're so cruel. Don't you know us ponies get our feelings hurt easy?"

"Just wait a second while I get my supply of cares--" Genna mimed opening her bag. "--Oh wait, fresh out."

Laughter broke out among pegasi and griffon alike, and Flash found it infectious as he laughed along.

It was like this nearly all the time. Genna would say something mean, but there's a way she holds her wings that you know she doesn't mean it. One of us would fire off something, she'd fire back, and before you knew it we were cracking up at the ridiculousness of it.

I'd almost forgotten.

As laughter faded, Flash gave a little shake of his head. "I see you all haven't changed."

Thunderhead grinned. "I know, right? The band back together, just like old times."

"Speaking of." Deluge bumped Flash's shoulder again. "C'mon, the old part-in-the-clouds we used to go to still has their dinner special. I'll buy."

"Well, I can't say no to that."

"Good." Genna spread her wings. "'Cause I'm dying of hunger. Let's go before they run out of tofu."

She led them, but she didn't need to. As Flash took to the sky, he found that his own wings still knew the way.

Rewind

It was our first summer as friends.

The four of them had gotten their usual table, right by the window, and Flash Sentry sipped at his sparkling apple juice as he looked out at the pegasus, and occasional griffon, who flew or trotted by.

Genna and Deluge used to butt heads. Not just the joking, but some real tension. He wasn't used to anypony being bigger than him, and Genna was big even for a chick her age. They'd dare each other to do things, trying to decide who was stronger or braver.

Thunderhead and Deluge were doing most of the talking, Thunderhead's voice regularly growing louder in excitement before he realized what he was doing and lowered it again. He'd talk with his wings, and Genna ended up giving him a shove once when he smacked her with one of them.

We thought this place looked shady. There were rumours that the owners were criminals trying to lay low. So Deluge dared Genna. They'd eat there together, and prove that it was nothing to be afraid of.

They'd shown up during a rush, and it was taking a while for someone to bring them their food order. He watched the two waitresses, who he'd eventually learned were twin sisters, doing their best to balance on hind hooves as talons passed out plates and glasses onto cloud tables.

It was the first time any of us had seen hippogriffs.

"And then the pink one actually dipped a hoof in and tasted it." Thunderhead mimed dipping a hoof into his soda.

Deluge nodded. "Her face turned five different colours."

Laughter broke out around the table, and Genna shook her head a bit in disbelief. "Wish I'd been here to see that one. Figures I'd be half-way to Las Pegasus during the Best Young Flyer Competition that year."

Flash eyed the bag slung over Genna's shoulder, displaying the symbol of the Equestrian Mail Service. "How is that courier job treating you?"

Genna tensed, talons wrapping around her milkshake and wings going still as she stared at him with golden eyes. Then she shrugged her shoulders and it was like the tension had never been there. "S'fine. If there's one thing us griffons are good for, it's endurance flying. I can cover more distance before handing things over to the next mailcreature in the relay." She paused to take a sip, and she licked the strawberry milkshake off her beak once she'd pulled it out of the glass again. "There's been some buzz around lately about mail-delivery spells putting us outta work, but I think they're just fearmongering."

Thunderhead spread open a wing, making a valiant effort to wrap it around her wide shoulders. "Don't worry, Genna. If you get run out of a job by a bunch of unicorns, you can always work at the factory with us."

Deluge grinned and nodded his head. "Yeah, you can work security and make sure no other ponies try to taste the rainbows."

Genna gave a sharp squawk of a laugh. "Typical ponies." She shrugged off Thunderhead's wing, then forced him to duck as she spread her own. "Only wanting me around because I can scare other ponies for you." She folded her wings again and she focused in on Flash, leaning toward him. "But enough about us. What about you, guardstallion? You've gotta have some real good stories." Her eyes glinted with mischief. "Staying so long out of Cloudsdale... I bet there's a mare, huh?"

Flash's eyes widened. "W-what?"

Thunderhead instantly pounced on the opportunity. "Yeah! You always had a thing for unicorns."

Deluge's grin looked like it should be straining his cheeks. "Or..."

"Or?" Flash repeated, more dread than he'd ever felt infusing the word. I should have taken down that poster when they first came over. One unicorn pop idol and they've never let it go.

"What about an alicorn?" He opened his wings and gave them a flap for emphasis. "Horn and wings. Best of both worlds, huh?"

Genna looked like a cat who'd just caught a mouse. "Yeah, you're right, Del. Lot more of those around these days." She pointed a mock-accusing claw at Flash. "That's why you ditched us, you bagged yourself an alicorn!"

Flash, in that instant, wished that he was a unicorn, so that he could teleport away from this conversation, or barring that, fall through the cloud floor. "I... You three..." He made a desperate grasp toward sanity. "The alicorns I spend most of my time around, one's married and the other is her yearling daughter!"

Genna huffed. "So? There's more 'corns than them."

"Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are older than the nation."

"Yeah, but they sure don't look it." Thunderhead whistled for emphasis.

Deluge nudged Genna. "Hey, what about Twilight Sparkle? With her brother leading the Crystal Guard, bet loverstallion's gotten to meet her."

Genna lit up at that. "Oh yeah! She's a real catch. I've seen pictures." She puffed out her chest. "If I were into ponies, I'd try my luck. She's got a real nice wingspan."

With no sudden transformation into a unicorn coming, Flash settled for laying his head on the table and covering it with his wings. "You're all crazy."

"Okay, okay, not Sparkle," Thunderhead said with a wave of his wing. "What about--"

His words were cut off when one of the waitresses arrived, and the mint green hippogriff expertly laid out the spread of food they'd ordered. Appetite, mercifully, won out over their enjoyment of tormenting him, and the three tucked in as Flash slowly lifted his head again.

Genna always gets their tofu stir fry, with calamari on the side. That was one of the dares to Deluge, for him to eat a calamari ring and if he threw up, she won. Deluge always gets a hayburger and a pile of onion rings, and one of those was a dare back, because she hates onions. Thunderhead gets that huge salad with a few strips of fried tofu on top, and me...

Flash looked down at the thick, creamy potato soup, the bread bowl full nearly to overflowing. He gave a deep inhale, taking in the scent, and suddenly, he was home.

Every Friday, we'd come here after school to celebrate the weekend. Then during the summer, we'd hit their lunch buffet every chance we could.

Genna was usually the one suggesting we go. I still think she had a crush on our usual waitress.

He looked around at the others, chatting amongst themselves. Then he leaned down, taking a sip from the soup and nibble from the bowl's edge, his tongue savouring the potatoes, heavy cream, and a mix of seasonings he'd never tasted before or since.

We went right after graduation. Before I left for Canterlot.

That was the last time.

Together, as if the years had never passed, the four friends ate.

"Remember the Fall Formal?"

"Which one?"

Flash Sentry could hear Thunderhead and Deluge behind him, as his old friends chattered, but as they stepped together into the cloud home, he found himself staring around at the room instead. Deluge was the first to move out, a year before graduation. He never told us exactly why, but I think Thunderhead knew, because he moved in with him not long after. Those two were always basically bothers.

"The one when Midnight Strike and Lightning Dust went head-to-head."

The living room was homey, enchanted paintings adhered to the cloud wall and a couch built out of wall, the careless shape the work of adolescent hooves. He was so proud of that, and then Genna busted part of it when they were wrestling one day. That bit's still lumpy, from her trying to help sculpt it as an apology.

"Oh that one. Yeah, I remember. Still amazed Dust didn't get expelled. Hear Strike got the last laugh, though. She's in the Wonderbolts now."

Flash could smell some spices on the air, coming from the kitchen. Thunder was always a surprisingly good cook. We ate out so much we'd almost forget, then he'd break out something off-the-wall after a long jam session that shocked us with how tasty it was.

"You okay, guardstallion?"

Genna's voice stapped Flash out of his musings, and he looked at her before giving a small nod. "Yeah, I just... It brings back memories."

Genna chuckled. "I bet. We'd practice here all the time." She then looked over at the other two, cutting their reminiscing short with a quick, "Hey Del, you've still got our stuff in the stable, right?"

"Course I do! Just like how you all left it."

"Great!" She threw her foreleg over Flash's withers. "C'mon, let's jam."

"What?" Flash blinked furiously. I haven't touched a guitar in--

"Woo!" Thunder took wing. "Yeah, let's do this!"

Just like I left it.

Guitars for quadrupedal species were tricky, to say the least. Only pegasi could really manage it, by holding up the instrument with their forelegs while their wings handled the strings. Even then, that level of dexterity took practice to master. There were feathers in a pegasus wing that were essentially digits, but their purpose was for making micro-adjustments in the air, not for manipulating objects, and so training them took work.

I begged my parents for it for my birthday. And they agreed on the condition that I practice every day. Thunderhead had to save up his allowance for his bass, and he practiced with me. Even Deluge needed to learn to work with drumsticks, after he got that part-time job to buy the set, because hitting these kinds of drums with your hoof might put your hoof through it.

Genna's the only one who can grab with her forelimbs, but she's our singer. Go figure. But she practiced too. Constantly. Nearly made herself hoarse, a few times. There's notes a griffon can hit that a pony can't, and she worked until she could hit all them.

He was standing in the middle of the cart stable, and the cart in question that occupied it was in pieces. It was one of the ones built to be used in the sky or on the ground, and so Deluge had been replacing the wheels with a better kind of wood, something that could handle a bumpy landing without breaking. It left plenty of room for the instruments, and Flash had been shocked to see his old guitar.

I'd told Del he could keep it, but there's keep and then there's keep. There was barely any dust.

His forelimbs knew where to go, so did his wings. He looked around, and he realized that, when he was absorbed with tuning, Thunderhead had found his shades, Deluge had donned his choker, and Genna was wearing her alligator jacket like it'd never left, even if it did look a bit tighter across her shoulders than it had been.

I was the first to get my instrument, so they decided that meant we should name the band after me, if only to stop the others from bickering over it.

Genna's beak was open in a smile, and she nodded at Deluge. "Alright, count us in, Del."

We were Flash Drive.

The beats were counted, and they played. They'd never needed to discuss what song, because in that instant, all of them knew.

They played the first song they ever had, once instruments had been acquired and Genna had claimed her place with them. It had never been planned, never been written down. It had simply happened, once they'd all been together, the air shimmering with magic. One of those songs that were never crafted, they simply sought out the right creatures to bring them out into the world.

Thunderhead had picked up the bass.

He played the guitar.

Deluge banged on the drums.

Genna sang like a star.

And as they rocked, the light in the garage shone with rainbows.

Stop

Flash Sentry couldn't sleep.

Memories had been clinging to him all day, and when he'd tried to sleep, they'd closed in, becoming a series of near-dreams that he never seemed to fully drop into before he felt jarred awake. He'd finally pushed himself out of the guest bed and headed for the kitchen; Thunderhead and Deluge never minded if he helped himself to some late-night cereal.

But it wasn't them who found him.

"Hey guardstallion." Genna was leaning in the doorway, and he nearly jumped at the sound of her voice; a creature of her size shouldn't be able to move so silently, but he guessed it was the owl in her. "What's got you up so late?"

He looked back at her. In the shadows cast with the single lightning-orb light in the room--he'd never fully gotten used to glow-crystals in the Empire or everlasting candles in Canterlot for illumination--he couldn't make out her expression, but the words were quiet and oddly calm, especially for her.

Flash eventually gave up trying to read her face and shrugged. "Just being in an unfamiliar bed, is all."

"Unfamiliar? You used to crash here all the time." She snorted, something she'd picked up from being around ponies. "We all heard you playing earlier. Don't pretend guard training knocked all the memories out of your head."

"Hey, beds in the Crystal Empire are different. It's been a long time since I've been in a cloud bed."

"Yeah, it has, hasn't it?" Her striped tail lashed in the shadows. "Been a long time."

They stared at each other. The lightning-ball continued to flicker with tiny, barely-audible zaps.

He was the first to push. "What's with the look, Genna?"

The face doesn't mean anything. She's learned how to open her beak, tilt her head a certain way, to make it look like a smile or smirk, but it's just that, learned. Eyes can change a little, but there's still much fewer muscles there than a pony, few ways to change the shape. The real expression's in her wings. Her tail. Tension in her talons. Her voice.

She's upset.

"You haven't come back before now," she said, and the calm of the words sounded like the deadly serenity of creeping frost. "And when you did, you didn't tell us you were in town." Tail lashed again. "Someone could really get the idea you wanted to leave it all behind. Leave us behind."

"I can't just casually fly from the Crystal Empire every other weekend." He was tired, and the retort was out before he could think to stop it.

Genna took a step forward. Talons raked through cloud with discomfortingly slowness. "You weren't in the Empire for all of it." Wings weren't just open, but arched, a posture that meant challenge. "The Empire wasn't even here for all of it." Another step, more furrows in the cloud. "You were a Solar before you were a Crystal. Canterlot's right there. Cloudsdale flies right past it every few moons."

I'd be backing up by now if she'd advanced on me like this when we were kids.

As it is now, I know five ways to incapacitate her.

I don't want to. She's my friend.

Genna wasn't done. "You left. We had all these plans, for the band, for our lives, and you left to join the guard and left those two knuckleheads falling back on the weather factory and me stuck as a courier. And then you just blow into town like this..."

"You could have gotten another guitarist." As offerings went, he already knew it was a weak one.

She snorted. "You were there, just now. There's a magic in the music when it's all four of us. When you left, you took it with you."

Flash shook his head. "It wasn't going to work out. None of us got marks to be musicians. You don't understand--"

"Don't you bucking dare, Flash Bradley Sentry!"

The words sounded like they should have woken the whole house, but Flash knew better. Griffons could decide how loud, or quiet, they were to a listener, overwhelm a single target with a roar that others barely heard.

Genna reared up, and her talons sank deep when they landed in the kitchen floor again. "I get to be hurt. I get to be upset. Even if I'm a big stupid griffon who can't understand your fancy cutie mark destiny, I get to feel betrayed when something takes my plans and my friend away. I get to be mad that you didn't write, didn't visit, and then show up like nothing happened!"

Didn't write?

They sent a letter while I was in training. I still have it.

I was going to write back...

The training was brutal. I ached so much, could barely drag myself back to the barracks and into a bed to sleep. It was weeks of that, with my mark urging me forward. Everything narrowed to the next training, the next lesson, pushing myself to the breaking point.

I wrote back... didn't I?

Flash drooped. Head fell, ears went limp, wingtips met the floor, weighed down by realization.

...I didn't.

Genna looked at his silent sorrow for a long moment, before turning around. "I'm going back to bed."

His eyes raised, watching her, and the words were barely more than a whisper. "...They aren't all jokes, are they?" She stopped, and he kept going. "When you say those things. About griffons. About yourself. It isn't all banter, is it? It's..."

"Things ponies have really said about me?" Her head turned to look at him over her shoulder. "And on the bad days, things I say to myself?" She let out a low, mirthless chuckle. "You've just put that together now, guardstallion? You're pretty slow on the uptake sometimes, you know that?" A deep sigh, and she slowly turned back toward him. "Thunder and Del keep trying to get me into therapy. I just haven't found a therapist yet I don't wanna throw for distance."

Flash nodded at that. She never did like anypony trying to pry into her thoughts, and that's therapists in a nutshell. Then he sighed as well. "You're right. I... Marks aren't the be-all and end-all. I should've talked to you all more, rather than just taking it as a given that we'd go our separate ways and we'd made peace with it. And I should've kept in touch, instead of burying myself in my training. I..." He let out his own weak laugh. "I had to be ordered to take a vacation."

Genna opened her beak briefly, and he recognized the smile before she gave a shrug. "You're right too. Maybe the music thing was never gonna take off, no matter what we did. Maybe even with you guys getting music marks, we'd bomb. I guess I just figured, if we did, we'd be bombing on our own terms, and we'd go from there. Together." She looked to one side, and he knew she was eyeing the bolt and shield. "Then you were the first to get that bright light and it's like all the eggs got dumped out of the nest without a chance to hatch."

"I'm sorry." It didn't feel like enough.

Genna shook her head. "Don't be sorry. Just be..." She gestured vaguely in the air with her talons. "Around. I can take losing our guitarist, but I also feel like I lost a brother. We were tight back then, all of us."

We were.

"I'll write letters," Flash promised, "I'll make time for it, as long as something's not threatening to destroy the Empire." He stepped closer to her, smiling up at her. "And we should... do this again. Get together and jam, like old times."

Genna smiled back. "I'd like that."

He raised a hoof and offered it to her. "So... we're cool?"

"Yeah..." She raised her foot, curled her talons, and bumped the hoof. "We're cool." She yawned, and gave a few slow, sleepy blinks. "Now I'm gonna go back to bed for real this time." She turned away, the loss of anger leaving her movements sluggish. "Night, Flash."

"Night, Genna."

Flash glanced around the now-empty kitchen, and ran his hoof along the talon marks in the floor, smoothing them out. Then he yawned, stretched out his wings, and headed toward his own bed.

The moment he hit the pillow, he fell into a restful sleep.

And for the first time since starting his vacation, Flash Sentry knew why he was here.

Fast Forward

Hey guys,

I'm back in the Empire for now, and you'll be happy to know that I told the captain he was right about the vacation. He keeps saying he's been where I am, but he never goes into details, and I'm afraid to ask for any.

Everything looks extra sparkly after getting used to cloud houses again. I'd suggest bringing sunglasses when you come to visit, since it's easy to get blinded if the sun shines off a building the wrong way. Or a local. It never seems to bother the crystal ponies, but maybe they just instinctively know when to avert their eyes.

The new, local recruits are making progress with their training, but it may be a while before we can head back to Equestria. We don't just need guards, but officers, and that takes more than the basics. The captain doesn't want to cut corners, and given that he's also the prince, I can see why.

I might be extra busy for the next couple of weeks. King Thorax is making a visit, so with his royal entourage we'll be up to our ears in changelings, and I don't doubt they'll want to train with us. He's still working on building up his own guard, too, after all. I'll still do my best to make time to write.

Keep looking after my guitar. I'm looking forward to getting my wings on it again next time I visit. Maybe we can write a few new songs in the next jam session, instead of just playing the old ones.

Your Friend,
Flash Sentry

Flash let go of his quill, and rubbed at his sore jaw with his hoof. It was a indicator of how out-of-practice he was with mouthwriting that a short letter like this could hurt, and had him all the more determined to get back into practice. With a combination of hoof, mouth, and wing, he carefully slid the letter into an envelope and applied the stamps, placing it next to his bed so she'd remember to mail it off in the morning.

On his bedside table was a photograph, one that he'd immediately gone to find a frame for once he'd pulled it out of its hiding place. Three pegasi and a griffon, all just barely out of school, were standing together in their graduation caps, giving joyful smiles to the camera.

Those days were in the past, he knew that. But they didn't have to be completely gone.

Flash put on his helmet, and marched toward the door. And for the first time in a long while, he felt like a pony wearing armour, instead of armour wearing a pony.