When Darkness Falls

It has been 12 long years since I had taken that test. An average time period of bodyguard training would have been centered around 1 year, but since I was so young at the time I was forced to wait until I was of age. I began my advanced training the day I was physically able to move without pain from the Endurance I had to face. I also took the opportunity to take some extra curricular activities. I took classes on Criminal Investigation so that I would be more prepared to handle such situations if they arose, as well as such activities that would help me become more observant of my surroundings. I honed my skills and technique, eagerly awaiting the day that I would become an official member of the Royal Guard. The day I turned 18 I took up my armor and swore the oath: "Until the last drop of blood leaves my body; Until I draw my last breath from my lungs; I shall defend Equestria and it's rulers, as well as all who inhabit it. I swear from this day forth, that mine enemies may take my life, but they will never harm Equestria." It was an oath that I was more than proud to follow without question, and without regret. I resided in the castle, waking up early every morning to make sure that Celestia was up and about to raise the sun, and to also make sure that Luna was awake to lower the moon. There were some days where she wouldn't get the opportunity to sleep during the day, so she would just make up for it at night after she raised the moon. I would always be on hand when the Guard itself needed back up or extra patrols trying to be as dedicated to the Guard as possible. My main position as Celestia and Luna's personal bodyguard came into play when they would leave the kingdom. Either on special occasions or Royal business, I followed right behind. In the 7 years between when I took my oath and woke up here in this dark realm, I had traveled to all places known in Equestria along with occasionally leaving Equestria traveling to neighboring kingdoms. One of the places that we had gone to that intrigued me the most, was a kingdom called Canterlot which was populated mostly by the Unicorns. Similar to how the Pegasus had their own city of Cloudsdale. The Earth Ponies in that era didn't have their own residence. They lived all across the land, making sure that all of Equestria wouldn't have a shortage of food. Once I had asked Celestia and Luna about giving them a piece of land to call their own, but unfortunately there wasn't an area large enough. There weren't many times when I had to actually get physical with anypony. When I did, it was just usually angry protesters or something along those lines. I even stopped an assassin on two separate occasions. Not like my presence mattered much, they never would have been able to present a challenge to Celestia or Luna. I always wondered for the longest time, if they were really that desperate for attention or were just plain idiots.

Over the years even though all that I had going on, Celestia, Luna and myself would always set aside a day for us to have fun. Our friendship was very important to us all, especially with how close we were. But things weren't going as wonderful as any of us had hoped. Over the years, Luna seemed to become more...withdrawn. She began speaking in the old Royal ways, using old time proper grammar and speaking loud at times. Her and Celestia began having arguments on occasion. I had respected their privacy enough that I couldn't bring myself to ever eavesdrop on them, even though I wanted nothing more than for the arguing to stop. When the disagreements first began, they were quickly resolved before the night was over and they would both apologize. But as more time went by, it became clear that when Luna would apologize, she wouldn't mean it at all. On the days we would all sit down for dinner, or would even spend time with each other, you could fell that something in her was changing. There were even times when she would uncontrollably go off on me saying hateful things. It was if something was slowly bringing her hate out in the open more and more. Neither Celestia or Luna would talk about what all the arguments were about, even to me they tried their best to keep it to themselves. All I could do after a certain point was just sit back and hope that things would go back to the way they once were all those years ago...

*************

I had asked the guards that patrolled the early morning hours to start waking me up on a daily basis. This day in particular started off as another other normal day, they would wake me up and I would have an early breakfast waiting for the time to awaken Celestia. Not many of the guards were the conversational type, so most mornings I would talk to the head chef, Ardy. He used to reside in Canterlot, where he took classes in Culinary Arts. He moved here with his wife and began cooking for the Princesses several years before I first came here. He took his job very seriously and to this day remains one of the best cooks I have ever met. "Good morning, Sunny." "Morning, Ardy. Sleep good?", I replied while taking a seat at the counter wiping the remnants of sleep from my eyes. "Surprisingly well. And yourself, sir?" "About as good as anypony can. And Ardy, I've told you before you don't need to call me 'sir'.", I said. "Well, when you have been raised to be polite and elegant it will kind of stick...sir." We never had much to talk about, he'd ask me about things were the day before and I would sometimes ask about his family. And every time he would always something good to say about his wife and child. When he would talk about them it was as if nothing else in the world existed. I always had great respect for him.

The time had come for my days work to commence. I walked through the tunneled staircase heading for the personal quarters. I opened the door to see she was still sound asleep. I quietly trotted over to her bed, and nudged her, "Princess, it's time to wake up. It is one hour until the sun needs to be raised." She rolled over and opened her eyes before saying: "How many times have I told you, you can just call me Celestia." I smiled and with a slightly smart attitude replied, "Sixteen years and I'm still working on it, ma'am." She chuckled slightly before finally sitting up and got out of bed. I then exited Celestia's room and headed for Luna's to see if she was up and ready. I opened the door and saw her sitting by the window looking out over the land, but she didn't look as though she was enjoying the view. I trotted up beside her and began looking out the window as well. Seeing the moon shining down across the quiet and peaceful place known as Equestria was something I never got bored of looking at. "Beautiful, isn't it?", I asked rhetorically. She glanced at me for a slight second before returning her attention to the moon-lit view. "At least somepony believeth so", she replied using old grammar. "Is there something troubling you, Princess?" "It is nothing of importance, Sunny.", she said flatly. "You know that if its causing you or Celestia problems that it is important to me as much as it is to you. You can't hide anything from me, I've known you too long." All of the sudden she quickly turns and yells at me with high aggravation in her voice...and it also sounded as if there was another voice screaming along side hers: "Thou hast only known us for a mere 16 years thy mortal whelp!" I stepped back in fear, shocked at how she would say something like that to me. She pulled back and shook her head, placing a hoof against her temple as if in pain. "We apologize, Sunny. We did not mean what was just spoken, we have had a lot on our mind as of late and we wish not to discuss it openly." I regained my composure and plainly said: "Very well, Princess. You better start getting ready, its almost time for the moon to be lowered." I turned to leave and as I trotted away I could just barely make out Luna grunted under her breath. I did not pay much attention because I was still shaken from the way she had suddenly lost her temper. Later on that morning when the time came for the sun to be raised, Luna was not present outside with Celestia and myself. She lowered the moon, but why she didn't come with us to the balcony and chose to keep to herself was something she never did. We were worried that something was wrong with her, but I could tell that Celestia knew more than she was claiming.

My duties on this day were going to be somewhat different than usual. Cyrus had asked if I could come to the barracks and give the introduction to the new trainees. I didn't wear armor like most of the other guards did. My armor was thick enough to stop a blade of some type, but it was also light enough that I could get around faster if I needed to. I put on my armor and left the Castle heading for the barracks. It was a beautiful day, and everypony was enjoying it. Some were shopping, playing in the park, or just hanging out with their friends and acquaintances having a good time. The sun was shining, and everypony seemed just as happy as ever. When I had arrived at the barracks I entered through the front door, and was greeted by Reap. I threw up a hoof in salute, "Sergeant Reap." Reap stood there looking at me for a moment before finally saying: "Put your hoof down, I'm not your CO anymore. And it's Commander now." "I see the last few years have treated you well?", I asked while lowering my hoof. "I guess you could say that. Cyrus is getting ready to retire and I reckon I'm going to be taking his place as Captain. That's just going to be fun", he said with high sarcasm. We both laughed and I finally asked, "Are the trainees waiting in the main room?" "Waiting to be chewed up and spit out like a piece of gum.", he replied metaphorically. "Better not keep them waiting long then. They're just going to love running drills for the first time.", I said using some sarcasm of my own. I then headed for the main room with Reap following behind me. I suppose he was wanting to see just how verbally brutal I could get after that 'disagreement' we had on my first day of training. I trotted through the door to see them casually talking amongst themselves. "ATTENTION!", I called loudly. They all quickly jumped in line like they were instructed to do so, and did it with more haste than the usual trainees. I began trotting down the line pacing back in forth in front of them as I spoke: "I am Sunny Night, personal bodyguard and escort for Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, have been for the past 7 years. I started my training when I was only 9 years old, and though some of you may laugh at the idea you WILL come to see that no matter what age you are or how strong you are, its your will to continue that makes a true Royal Guard. As long as I am here and speaking to you all, the first and last words out of your filthy sewers will be 'sir'. Do I make myself clear?" "Sir, yes, Sir!" "Bull-spit, sound off like you got a pair!" "SIR, YES, SIR!" "You have signed up to be in the Royal Guard. This will be the longest and toughest time any of you have and ever will be put through. Some of you will walk away, crawl away, or be carried away depending on how much of this Tartarus-spawn training you can take. No matter what condition you leave, remember this: It takes determination and teamwork for the Royal Guard to work like it should. And no matter what you may think...no matter how rich you are or who your parents are you remember this, your flank belongs to the Guard now. You will not eat, sleep, blow your nose, or even scratch yourself without your commanding officers say so. Now lets get to work, I want each and every one of you to report in the work area and be ready to follow your instructors orders by the time I count to three! ONE!" By the time I had finished saying one, they had all left the room haste-fully before I could even reach two. "I see you haven't slowed down any" I turned to see that Cyrus had entered the room while I was talking to the trainees. "Captain Cyrus", I said while saluting. "At ease Sunny. It's good to see you haven't lost your edge." "I did learn from the best after all.", I replied. "Correction, I taught the best."

After I had spoken with Cyrus and Reap for a few minutes I went back to the castle to see if there was anything else that needed to be done. I ran into Celestia in the lobby when I entered, "Hey. Is there anything else I need to do?" "Not really, there isn't anything else scheduled for today so just take the rest of the day off. You've earned it, and yes for once take no for an answer.", she said jokingly but serious. "Yes, ma'am." "Sunny...", she began to say referring to me calling her ma'am. I turned my head as I headed upstairs and said: "Still working on it...ma'am." I decided to just lay down for some rest, the day wasn't over yet so I had more than enough time to kill. I took off my armor and left it by the door before finally laying down and drifting off to sleep. But as I laid there sleeping....the nightmares that tormented me once before, paid me a visit...

*******

I suddenly jerked awake, cold sweat pouring from my face once more. As I wiped the sweat from my brow, I began to faintly hear Celestia and Luna, they were arguing again. I jumped up and stepped out my door heading for Celestia's room where the arguing was coming from. The door to Celestia's room suddenly flew open, Luna had just left the room heading in my direction. As we got closer I started to ask Luna what was amiss, but she roughly bumped my shoulder saying: "Out of our way!" as she continued on without remorse. I turned and continued into Celestia's room. Soon as I entered the room, she collapsed to the floor overwhelmed with tears and sobbing. I rushed to her side, "Celestia, what happened?!" As I knelt down next to her, she lifted her head and tried talking through her tears: "L-Luna is...leaving Sunny. And w-we don't know i-if shes ever going to c-come back." She then latched to me letting all of her sobs out on my shoulder. I turned my head back to look where Luna was walking. I could feel tears arising in me, but I did my best to hold them back. I didn't break down and sob, but I couldn't stop the tears from running down my face...

Celestia continued to cry for several minutes. I tried my best to calm her down, still trying not to sob uncontrollably myself. It took a while before she was able to get a hold of herself. When she had recovered, Celestia explained what happened. Luna had came to Celestia to ask if the moon could rise earlier than usual, and stay up longer as well. Celestia tried to explain to her that it wasn't possible due to the balance of nature; Crimes could increase, and creatures as well as dangerous animals would be out roaming longer than they should be. When Celestia had said this, Luna began shouting very loudly to the point that Celestia claimed that she could fell tremendous wind-like force behind her voice. And the arguing ensued, becoming more hateful with every sentence said. Finally, Luna said that she no longer wished to be here any longer and that she would be better off dead than to be here. That was when she stormed out, not uttering another word. "Do you want me to go after her?", I asked. "No...this is her choice. As much as I don't want her to leave, this is what she wants. Leave her be...", she answered sadly. "Do you think she'll come back?" "I really don't know, Sunny. We can only hope that she will at this point." She then glanced outside to see how late it was getting, before finally getting back to her hooves. "Come on...its time for the sun to be lowered.", she said sounding depressed. It took everything Celestia had to put all of what has happened aside so that she could do what she needed to do. As I watched the sun slowly disappear behind the horizon, I had never before realized how beautiful it truly was. I had felt like a complete idiot, never noticing the sunset in all the 25 years I have been alive. It was truly a shame that it was going to be the last sunset I would ever see...