My name is Arc.
You know, there's a lot of stallions out there that would take this chance to make themselves look bigger, sound better or some crap like that. I'm not like that. I'm on duty right now, so at the moment I'm standing, looking straight ahead, as is protocol. The wall ain't all that exciting though, lemme tell you. I'm a wiry sort of stallion at best with a long sort of face and bright emerald green eyes, and my mane is constantly a tangled mess. My coat is the sort of grey that makes up the storm clouds the weather pegasi move around in the times of light rainstorms, and my mane is even darker. Both my mane and tail are made up of a dark, thundercloud black with, and I quote my fellow guards, 'Bolts of lightning' through them. That is to say, Streaks of blue and white.
In the tangled mess that makes up my mane, it looks a bit like a thundercloud preparing to fire out a bolt of lightning.
Thus the name.
I was born and raised in Canterlot and attended Celestia's school for gifted unicorns. I passed with difficulty, and graduated after my school years, where I then went on to train as a royal guard. I met Celestia's pupil once, but I didn't know who it was at the time. As a guard, there are six ponies that are known as VIPs regardless of circumstance, and we're to accomodate them in any way we can. Some pink pony with a mess of a mane worse than mine, a white, pretty unicorn mare, a sporty looking blue pegasus mare, a downright sexy as hell orange mare with a sweet as hat, a cute little yellow pegasus mare who I've met once. She was really, really sweet. And of course, the student herself, Twilight Sparkle.
I guess you want to know my cutie mark as well. I guess I can tell you. I specialise in illusions and combat. Thus, my cutie mark reflects this as a Lightning bolt reflected off of a mirror. I've been teased about it before, all in good fun. In the core, you never make fun of a fellow guard, or you get the shit kicked out of you by everypony else, and that's IF the Captain doesn't get to you first.
Oh, the Cap? Captain Shining isn't a bad guy. He's a bit stiff sometimes and he always seem to go through procedure even if it calls for fast action. Can't blame the guy really though, when his freakin' aunt is Celestia. If you had her as your aunt, you'd be freaking terrified of fuckin' things up too. It's hard enough when you're simply standing outside her bloody door. Trust me, having the princess as your charge ain't a picnic in the least. And Shining can be a bit of a hard ass, but he's loyal to his boys, and we're loyal right back. Ain't nothing that could turn us from our captain, or each other.
I've heard a few things about the commander of the night guards, and that's something I want nothing to do with. Don't get me wrong, I'd serve as quickly with the Knights as quick as I would with my core, but their captain's the husband of Luna herself, so if you fuck up, you have to deal with him.
Don't know about you, but I'd rather a pissed off Shining Armour than a pissed off Prince Defender.
Anyhow. The guard on the other side of this door is my buddy Nightspring and she's tougher than nails and has more balls than all the boys in the core put together. One of the few females on the core, she practically beat the respect from our peers in a street fight when she was just a stripling in the training center. I was being picked on by some obnoxious colts who thought it'd be funny to pick on the unicorn without much control on his magic. Now, don't get me wrong, I have magic. Powerful magic. But it's hard to reach, and only really comes out when I'm distressed. Illusions are easy, but combat stuff... not so much. Anyway, she decided it wasn't fair and she stood up for me. They threw a few insults at her and she decked the fuckers without even breaking a sweat.
I'm rather happy to say that we've been friends since. And I have to admit, she looked freaking hot in her armour.
She has a crimson coat with a deep, dark mane that seems to be black, but look closely and you'll find it's actually a ridiculously dark shade of blue. It's hardly tangled, but it isn't straight and I wouldn't describe it as curled. It sort of cascades. I think she spends like, an hour each morning fixing it up just right. Her wings though man. Her freaking wings.
I have never once regretted being born a unicorn, even if I didn't have a choice, but those wings man. They make me want to just curl up and cry. Curl up and cry tears of wanton regret, sorrow and despair that I would never, ever feel those feathers against my coat and that I will never have a chance with that fine specimen of a mare.
Oh shit, she caught me staring and now she's winked at me. I look away quickly and can feel a blush hitting me. I try to fight it down before glancing back at her and she quirks a brow and wiggles her rump, making me look away again.
"Like what you see there helmet mane?" She asks me playfully.
She is such a tease.
"I would," I reply quickly, "If you hadn't left one of your buckles undone when you put your armour on this morning."
I hear her squeak in shock and start shuffling her head to find the 'undone' buckle. There was no buckle on her armour undone, but she didn't need to know that yet. After about a minute of trying not to laugh, I glance at her as she falls silent and see a petulant (And really, really adorable) pout on her face. She looked at me and frowns.
"There was no undone buckle!"
I grinned and, telekinetically, undid every single buckle that held her armour on, making her squeak again as it crashed to the floor.
"Sure there was. You simply missed it."
She growled at me, annoyed and went about putting her armour back on. Or at least, I'm sure she would have had the princess not stuck her head outside the door to see what we were doing. Spring froze in shock and horror and I stiffened. For a moment Celestia looked at my colleague with a quirked brow, then she looked to me. I continued looking at the wall, suddenly intensely interested in it. With horror, I felt the buckles on my armour becoming undone and it crashed to the floor before I even had a chance to react. Blushing with humiliation, I forced myself to retain my unmoving and emotionless stare at the wall as I heard her (the princess) giggle.
"Look at me, my little pony."
With a gulp, I turned promptly and sat before her, and bowed, as was expected of a guard. Another giggle and I looked up tentatively. She was smiling at me, apparently greatly amused.
"I think you forgot a buckle when you put your armour on this morning. Do try to watch that, okay?"
I could see Nightspring snickering in the background and resolved myself to an eternity of ribbing from her as I nodded stiffly.
"I will see to it Princess." I stated formally before she snaked her head back into her room and closed the door. It was only then I leveled what I hoped was a withering glare at Spring, only making her laugh harder.
"Cow..." I muttered, only making her double over with peal after peal of silvery laughter. With the assistance of magic, my armour was on much swifter than hers, and I was treated to another view of those gorgeous wings.
Sleek, shiny and perfectly maintained, Spring's wings were definitely something to be envied. They were the picture of what athletes struggle to achieve, and what models would give their own hooves to obtain. The black tipped feathers gave the wings a sort of layered look to them, black and red in a sort of colour coded, turn based.... thing.
Dammit, I can't brain when I look at her, she's too distracting. That of course, is her greatest weapon.
That and that blasted scythe of hers.
See, when they take you into training, they give you a weapon to train with. Most times, ponies pick something purely ceremonial, a sword or an axe. Something you never actually use. Spring saw the scythe and fell in love with it. She'd even named her scythe 'Belladonna', after the deadly plant of the same name. In my case, I refused a weapon in favor of hoof to hoof fighting (Of which I took an advanced class since I had extra time on my hooves) and magical assaults taught by a grizzled old ex guard who believed in discipline and positive reinforcement. Sounds like a double standard doesn't it?
However when you're on guard duty instead of patrol, you're not allowed to carry your weapon, since your job is to stand there and look intimidating rather than actually need to fight, especially around the Princess. Mind you, I hear that Prince Defender flat out refused to let his guards go about unarmed, and insisted they keep their weapons clean, usable and sheathed or carried with them at all times whilst on duty. I think that came about from an attempt on the princess that had seen a guard killed, but I try not to listen to rumors around the core, they're rarely true.
Technically, we're not meant to speak whilst on duty, patrol or guard duty. The patrols get more leniency in the matter however, and are rarely punished for speaking on the job, depending on what they're conversing about. Obviously you can't talk about how sexy some mare is when you're on your rounds. It has to be acceptable to the workplace.
So, we worked for our monarchs, and lived for our RDOs, partying and leading generally normal lives on our time off. A lot of the guards have partners and such. Night doesn't, and I don't. I wish I could change that, since I've crushed on her since like, forever, but I know it'll never happen, so I've put it out of my mind. At least, I do whenever I can.
I live in an apartment with three other guys, and I'm the only one who sleeps alone and, most times, quietly.
Welcome to my life.
Before it all went to hell.