Shameless

Shameless

Pavise led his second patrol that day with little more than mechanical obedience to the orders he’d been given. Somehow the enchanting glow of the colorful cathedral glass that punctuated the glossy walls of the Crystal Castle seemed dull and sallow, and the tall shadows cast on the polished floor threatened to swallow him whole as he crossed one intersection and entered another hall.

One stallion flanked him on the left, a pony named Jasper, and another called Blank Slate walked silently to his right. Both had been Shining’s guards, and now they were Pavise’s subordinates. Their sluggish movements flickered in his peripherals and more than once Pavise had stopped and whipped around, only to be greeted with confusion from his guards. His only explanation is that he was still getting used to the lack of sleep.

Emery had made the decision after the events of the tribunal: the remainder of Shining’s guard, five stallions in total, were drafted into Cadance’s guard. It was odd to suddenly take charge of ponies he barely knew, but it did make sense in light of their numbers.

“They didn’t have anything to do with it, and I want as many experienced ponies as we can get guarding the Princess at all times,” Emery had said.

Cadance now had seventeen guards total, and they were all expected to pull multiple shifts a day patrolling the castle interior and perimeter. Three ponies a patrol, and five patrols a day. The way Emery’s schedule had worked out, Pavise would be on his hooves from mid-afternoon to sundown, excluding the time he had to spend outside–and inside–Cadance’s chambers every night. Tonight he would be outside, he had realized earlier with a start, which thankfully gave him some time to think about how he felt.

The shock of the incredible circumstance still hadn’t quite worn off, and Pavise had spent the previous night slipping in and out of fitful sleep. He had only dreamed of being so close to the Princess, and only because of the worst thing to happen to the Crystal Empire since Sombra did he finally get the chance he had always wanted. But every time he thought of it that way–a chance, an opportunity–he felt the bile rise in his throat. He was supposed to be mourning his Prince, not cheering on his death; and that was indeed how it felt whenever his thoughts drifted to his nightly duty and away from the pain of losing Shining.

Pavise was pulled from his thoughts when one of his ponies spoke up; he realized he had been grimacing, and his muzzle almost hurt from the tension.

“Uh, sir, I think we’re about done for this afternoon. Can we go to chow?” Blank Slate, a powder-white pony with a bronze mane had called out to him a little awkwardly. He lacked enthusiasm–not that Pavise could blame him–and seemed to be taking Shining’s death especially hard. Blank had been one of Shining’s lieutenants, after all, and one of the initial batch of guard trainees that Pavise had graduated with, making it extra awkward that Pavise was now more-or-less in charge of him.

“...I guess you’re right. Let’s do one more loop and head down,” said Pavise.

He heard no protest behind him, but knew that the stallions were tired, and so was he. However, he wasn’t all that enthusiastic about eating either. Nopony really was, especially when Cadance hardly touched any of the food brought to her.

Apparently, the morning after the funeral she had requested that two plates of breakfast be served. When the chef had asked her why, she had said “Well, Shining has to eat too–I’m sure he’ll be down here any minute.” Nopony in the dining hall had the heart to remind her of the truth, and it had taken her half an hour to realize; when she finally remembered, she had abruptly left the dining hall and ran straight to her chambers, where she had been holed up since.

The guards trudged past Cadance’s room, and Pavise couldn’t help but stare at the uninviting chamber door. If they hadn’t checked on her thirty minutes ago, he’d just as easily have believed that nopony was in there. No signs of life, no sounds of the day. Her room was an empty pit of despair, but perhaps it was necessary. She needed to grieve, properly, and who knew how long it would take.

“Alright, we’re done for today. Dismissed.” The two stallions behind him rendered tired salutes and retraced the steps they’d just taken, perhaps trotting a little faster now that they were free for the day. Pavise wasn’t so lucky. He lingered by Cadance’s door, hesitating. His tail swished with anxiety.

‘Hey, Princess, just wanted to see if you needed somepony to talk to.’

‘Princess, it’s Captain Pavise–just wondering if you needed anything.’

‘Princess, I just wanted to let you know that I’m here for you.’

His hoof stretched toward the lavish mahogany, hovering, wavering, but he sighed and retreated moments later to the lower floor of the castle.

“Pavise, I want you to go down to the dungeon and check on the prisoner–check on Twilight Sparkle too, while you’re at it,” said Emery in between half-hearted nibbles of breakfast. The mess hall was devoid of any kind of energy–even the food looked depressing, being a simple daisy sandwich with spring leaves and a glass of some sickly-sweet juice. Pavise paused mid-bite.

“Twilight? What is she still doing here? I thought she went back to Ponyville with the rest of her family after the funeral.”

Emery shook his head remorsefully, taking his gaunt face into his hoof. “I don’t know how she convinced me, but she said that it was only right to let her question the assassin, find out his motives–all that jazz. I was notified today that she’s still down there, and she hasn’t left the dungeon since the… you know.” He raised his head and met Pavise’s confused stare. “I shouldn’t have let her have anything to do with it, but she… I dunno. Something about the way she said it, it made me want to let her in. Besides, we’re not doing anything with the prisoner ourselves without the Princess’s orders.”

Pavise nodded slowly, more or less understanding Emery’s reasoning, although he found it strange that a librarian from Ponyville had convinced Emery to let her interfere with the Crystal Empire’s affairs, Element of Harmony or not. He still didn’t really know what that meant.

“I’ll head down there now,” said Pavise. He swallowed the last few morsels of his breakfast and left the table.

Originally, nopony knew that the Crystal Castle had a dungeon. When Twilight Sparkle and her friends had helped find the Crystal Heart, they had discovered a secret passage leading down to the bowels of the castle, and an enchanted door Sombra had created to hide the Heart. Upon further investigation after the fact, more enchanted doors were discovered. These doors led to rooms ranging from storage areas, to apothecary labs, to passages that seemingly stretched on for miles. Among one of the discovered secret areas was the space where their assassin prisoner now resided.

The dungeon itself was nothing special: thick iron bars walled off sections of small caves big enough to hold a dozen ponies at a time, and a single broad path ran between either side’s holding cells. A crack had formed in the wall furthest away, and a stream of water trickled out and pooled on the stone floor. The cells themselves had bedding, buckets of water, and places for prisoners to relieve themselves–well, hypothetical prisoners. Ponies hadn’t the motivation to do anything except mope for the thousand year curse, and nothing especially unlawful had happened after it had been lifted.

As Pavise finished descending the last flight of spiral steps down to the bottom, he spotted Twilight’s form at the very end of the long hallway.

“Halt! Please identify y- oh, excuse me, sir!” a fresh looking guard to the right of the stairs regarded Pavise with sudden realization, quickly squaring his hooves and locking his eyes forward. The spear affixed to his armor clattered noisily on the ground next to him as it broke loose from its home. Pavise didn’t recognize this one–perhaps one that Emery had trained?

“No worries. Are you the only guard down here?” Pavise asked incredulously. A quick scan around the dungeon provided his answer. “Guess so. How are they holding up?” he said, gesturing with his muzzle to Twilight and the prisoner, wherever they’d put him.

The younger stallion remained stiff as a board, barely moving an inch as he replied with a bit too much volume. “Sir, I don’t really know! The unicorn hasn’t really explained what she’s doing, and nopony else really has either–she did ask me to bring her some food, and some books from the library, but-” he reduced to a hushed whisper, glancing nervously toward Twilight, “-they all had to do with Sombra and his magical research.”

Pavise suppressed a shudder. Twilight was messing with Sombra’s magic? Surely no good could come from that. He nodded and made his way over to Twilight, trying his best not to imagine her intentions worse than they hopefully were.

“Miss Twilight, I am Lieutenant Pavise of Her Majesty Princess Mi Amore Cadenza’s Royal Bodyguard,” Pavise said. He gave her a slight bow, unsure of her standing amongst Equestria’s nobility. Was she a Princess too? She certainly seemed important enough, but she wasn’t an alicorn, so it was anypony’s guess.

Twilight barely reacted to his presence, her eyes fixed to the book splayed out before her on the ground. She looked a little better than she had at the funeral, but that wasn’t saying much–at least she had brushed her mane. He stole a look from a page she had just made to turn. It was something to do with magic, maybe some kind of ritual or incantation for casting a spell. Truth be told, Pavise didn’t really know what he was looking at, and was about as familiar with magic as he was with flying. Many other books were spread haphazardly in an uneven circle around the unicorn, and it seemed as though she had already made her way through a number of them in the time she’d been there.

Convinced that Twilight wouldn’t return his greeting, he finally dared to look through the bars at the pony chained up in the dungeon’s last cell–and a pair of dark eyes, brimming with malice, pushed him back a few steps. Every strand of fur on his coat pricked up, magnetized by dread, and he silently cursed himself for neglecting to bring his own spear. His eyes darted up to the pony’s forehead, and he realized with a jolt that the pony had a horn, wicked and curved.

“Sombra!” Pavise said. His wits returned to him, and he sped to Twilight’s defense, creating a pony shield between her and the cell bars. Twilight, however, made no move for safety.

“Actually, he’s probably a traitor–one of Sombra’s acolytes, ponies that helped to enslave other ponies and were rewarded with power in return. It says so here, in this copy of The Darkest Hour: King Sombra’s Rise to Power,” said Twilight, completely unbothered by Pavise’s panicked actions. It’s a history book? He really must have been in a fog. Upon further inspection, Pavise realized that the prisoner was indeed not Sombra, but rather a crystal pony with the same kind of unnatural horn that Sombra did.

Crystal Ponies didn’t have horns, so it must have been through a pact with the tyrant king that he gained the same kind of unspeakable power. His horn was capped with a ring of some unusual metal, engraved with writing he couldn’t make out. Though the pony was lashed to the ground with heavy irons and collared, Pavise somehow didn’t believe the assassin couldn’t melt through the bars and gore him, or cast some terrible spell at them both.

“The thing on his horn is a magic inhibitor, in case you were wondering. I asked Princess Celestia to send one here after I learned that he was a unicorn… well, sort of a unicorn. I guess we should be grateful it’s only a cautionary measure–I don’t think he can cast any magic, not anymore at least. It must have something to do with Sombra’s defeat, or the Crystal Heart. It’s just a shame that-” Twilight abruptly fell silent for a few moments.

When Pavise looked back down at her, he realized that she was trying not to cry. “It’s… a shame that it didn’t stop him from killing my brother.” At this, she finally broke contact with the book, and her words flew at the assassin like the corrosive spray of a spitting cobra.

Twilight tore herself from the ground and charged the bars of the cell, stabbing a hoof against the metal as if to slip through and knock the prisoner out of his chains. “You will never understand what you took from me–took from all of us. You might not tell me anything now, but that’s fine. I won’t be leaving here until you’ve told me everything, until you tell me why you took him from me. If you won’t tell me willingly, I’ll tear the thoughts from your head,” Twilight said darkly. Pavise thought he saw a ripple of strange energy from Twilight’s horn, but a second later it was gone.

“Uh…” Pavise was completely taken aback by Twilight’s outburst, so completely unlike her demeanor the first time he had seen her. She seemed like a fairly level-headed unicorn, if a bit bookish, and was no shortage of smiles and enthusiasm around the Princesses. He wasn’t entirely sure she was managing her grief well, but neither was he sure he had any place to say anything. He didn’t know anything about Twilight’s relationship with Shining, but he figured it must have been a close one judging by the venom in her voice and her terrible emotional state.

“Oh, sorry about that,” Twilight said quietly, edging away from the prison bars and settling back down in front of her book. “I just… I miss him. He might have been Cadance’s husband, but he was my BBBFF-” Twilight noticed Pavise’s confusion and quickly clarified, “-my Big Brother Best Friend Forever.” Pavise nodded, not understanding.

“I… see. I’m not sure what to say, except that I’m sorry for your loss. Everypony is,” he added, his voice low. Twilight sniffed, and finally let the tears free. She hung her head.

“...Don’t worry. I’ll make things right, I promise. I won’t leave here until I do.” Pavise didn’t know if she was talking to him, or to Shining Armor, but hoped she was right. He didn’t trust Sombra’s magic, not at all, but maybe she knew what she was doing–she was Celestia’s protégé, after all. Even he knew that.

As he turned to leave, he glanced again at the prisoner and realized that he hadn’t moved or said anything in the time that he’d been down there. The dark unicorn met his gaze with a sort of hatred and loathing that sent a chill down Pavise’s spine. When the pony realized that he’d caught Pavise’s eye, he grinned.

Having finally gotten around to eating something after another round of mind-numbing patrols, Pavise was as ready as ever to work his first night guarding inside Cadance’s private quarters. All at once he felt ashamed and strangely excited to step into the Princess’s chambers for the first time. He had dreamed about it once, a rather lucid fantasy that must have made Luna herself blush–but that was when Shining was still alive, and when mere fantasy was all that was possible. He knew it was still unlikely that anything out of the ordinary would happen, but he couldn’t keep himself from entertaining those ideas again, and that’s what sunk his head further down into his plate.

He couldn’t get his mind off of it, even as his fellow guards spoke and ate around him. It wasn’t much conversation, but some of the guards had attempted to return to some semblance of normalcy now that some time had passed and the initial shock of Shining Armor’s death had worn off. The ponies who weren’t as close to him, even the guards, had the relative luxury of moving on more quickly than Cadance ever could.

“I hope you’ll be more awake tonight than you are right now, Pavise,” said Emery beside him, dragging him from his thoughts. “It’ll be a long night, and she’s counting on us. Just don’t be alarmed when the Princess, uh…” Emery’s voice dropped to a whisper suddenly. “Understand that the Princess is still mourning Shining Armor’s death. She doesn’t sleep very well.” Pavise couldn’t glean much from his cryptic warning, but nodded anyway.

“I’d never fall asleep on duty, Emery–not when so much is at stake. I’m just-just thinking.” Emery nodded, returning to his own leafy dinner.

Emery shifted, lifting a comforting hoof to Pavise’s shoulder. “I get it. Shining Armor’s not going to be forgotten anytime soon, that’s for sure. Between us and him, we probably trained half of these ponies here.” Pavise glanced across the table at the dining ponies, familiar and stranger alike, and those days he spent guiding them through initial training seemed thousands of years away now. He sighed and finished up the last of his meal before heading to the barracks to get ready.

By the time Pavise got his armor back on and affixed his spear, Emery had already left, and Pavise followed suit with much less spirit. He loathed the butterflies in his stomach. There was no reason to be feeling so jittery, besides perhaps anticipating another assassination. You’re just doing your duty, nothing else. This is nothing special, just what you’ve been told. It took him much less time than he had hoped to reach the royal chambers.

Emery stood like a sentinel outside Cadance’s bedroom, eyes forward and armor polished to a shine as always. If there was one thing Emery never failed to do, it was look the part of a guard captain. Another guard, one of Shining’s named Moonstone, stood opposite the guard captain. They both turned as Pavise approached, and Emery beckoned him over.

“The maid just left, said that the Princess is finally asleep. I guess she didn’t eat anything today either,” Emery said. He sighed, and the plume on his helmet waved as he shook his head. “Just remember what I told you. And be quiet when you go in–she sleeps bad enough as it is.” Pavise nodded. Emery waved him on; with a single deep breath, Pavise plunged into the yawning darkness of Cadance’s chambers.

To his surprise, the door made no noise as it was pushed up, sliding along the polished floor easily. He checked behind the door quickly, then nudged it closed. Pavise was alone now, alone with the Princess at least, and his breath caught in his throat. He waited for his eyes to adjust, aided by the gloomy moonlight filtering in through a frosted window near Cadance’s elaborate four-poster bed.

Cadance’s room was surprisingly unassuming for a Princess. It held the engraved vanity, reading table, fireplace, and plush carpeting that he had expected, but nothing out of the ordinary hung on the walls or dotted the rest of the room’s emptiness. A single oblong picture frame stood on the nightstand by Cadance’s bed, holding inside a picture of what he assumed was Cadance and Shining Armor together–he dared not move any closer to get a better look.

He looked around for a suitable place to stand, still refusing to so much as glance in the Princess’s direction, and finally settled on a space equidistant from the door and her bed. It was as good a space as any, and gave him a good view of the room–a good view of Cadance too. He let his eyes wander, convincing himself eventually that he should look at the Princess to make sure she was still alive, at least.

A cocoon of multi-colored quilts, sheets, and a large cotton comforter wrapped around Cadance’s sleeping form. Her regalia lay by her second bedside table, her shoes on the floor next to the bed; her mane was braided loosely for sleeping and fell next to her, threatening to spill over the side of the bed. She was turned away from him, which he was grateful for, lest she suddenly open her eyes and spy him staring at her. Pavise couldn’t help but think that she was still very beautiful; at the end of the day, even alicorns curled up in their blankets to sleep.

Pavise passed a few hours like that, alternating between staring at the Princess and drifting off in his mind to think. He thought of Cadance, of Shining Armor, of his parents and siblings. He wondered if his little brother would ever join the guard, and sadly considered that maybe their reputation had been too tainted by letting their Prince die. He even thought about training, and if he’d ever be promoted–he’d once thought of going for Captain as a way to stand out even more to Cadance, but now it seemed almost pointless.

After a while, his head began to throb from wearing his helmet for so long, so he quietly removed it and placed it by the low table next to the door; his spear soon followed, unclipped by his teeth and placed against the wall, stable enough. While technically against the rules, it couldn’t hurt to remove for an hour or two.

He suddenly stiffened as a peculiar noise broke the silence, snorting softly as he scanned the room, but relaxed upon realizing it was Cadance; she was crying, it seemed. He had prepared himself for it at Emery’s recommendation, but hearing her in person was–well, it was hard. Pavise watched her, curling tightly into a ball of anguish and hurt. She thrashed around in her bed, kicking at her sheets and flexing her wings underneath the covers. He realized belatedly that she was likely having a nightmare.

“Please! Shining, I’m coming! Please don’t leave me! I’ll be there soon my love, please don’t leave!” Cadance cried out into the night air, and Pavise felt as though his heart were being squeezed in a vise. Her face was wet with tears, glistening in the moon’s dim glow, and she grit her teeth as the nightmare seemingly forced her to relive the loss of her husband all over again.

Without thinking, Pavise left his post and slowly approached the bed. She was still wailing, desperately calling for her dead lover. “Shiny, where are you? I need you, please!” She called his name over and over, and each strangled plea was like a spike being driven into his chest. He knew there was nothing he could do–yet he had to do something.

Cadance tossed her head back and forth, her fur soaked with sweat, and when she stuck a foreleg out of the tangled nest of blankets, he slipped one of his steel hoofguards off and hesitantly closed the distance to hold her hoof. Cadance immediately pulled back, nearly giving Pavise a heart attack, and tugged his foreleg perilously into herself. It was all he could do to keep upright and give her more of his leg until she was curled up around his limb, painting his fur with tears. He stood like that until eventually her cries quieted and she fell into a ragged slumber.

Although he knew that he couldn’t stay like that all night, just a little longer would be okay, or so he persuaded himself. As quietly as possible he slid down to his rump, leaving his foreleg in Cadance’s grasp. It was a little uncomfortable, but equally indulgent, and he felt as though Cadance’s hot breath tickling his fur was a pleasure he shouldn’t have been granted. With those confusing feelings vying for dominance in his mind, he eventually drifted off…

Pavise awoke with a start. For a moment, he didn’t know where he was. Cadance’s room looked completely different in the light, and as the first stripes of daylight filtered in, he realized what had happened.

“Oh horsefeathers!” hissed Pavise, who failed to temper his volume enough. Cadance began to stir beside him, and he roughly slipped out of her death grip. Needles shot through his aching limb from the awkward position he had kept his leg. He slipped on his loose hoofguard, and on his way out of the room he accidentally knocked his helmet loose from the low table and fumbled his spear noisily in a clumsy attempt to retrieve them both. Behind him, he could hear Cadance’s bed groan beneath her shifting weight. He exited the room completely disheveled, helmet canted to one side and eyes wide with anxiety.

“I was just about to get you–you didn’t fall asleep, did you?” Emery gave Pavise a critical eye, looking him up and down. Pavise was petrified, but Emery at last released him from the impromptu inspection and just sighed when Pavise failed to answer.

“Listen, I know pulling all these patrols is difficult, but we have to protect our Princess. She’s counting on us, Pavise, even if she doesn’t say it. We don’t know who else could be out there waiting to take her out, and if we aren’t ready, we’ll lose everything,” said Emery, speaking nothing but the truth. Pavise felt all the more convicted that he hadn’t simply passed out from exhaustion, but had fallen into a somewhat pleasant slumber holding hooves with the widowed Princess. He drew his ears back.

“Right, sorry. Won’t happen again.” Emery nodded.

“See that it doesn’t. Our relief will be here in a few minutes, so you can sleep then.”