Their names, from left to right, were Misty Rain and Morning Dew. Morning Dew was the one with the slightly deeper voice, which, after a bit of conversation, didn’t really remind Twilight all that much of Rainbow Dash. Twilight learned that they had become honor guards after coming to Canterlot from Cloudsdale, receiving a handsome retainer in return for dying their coat and mane blond.
“Yeah,” said Misty Rain, “not everypony is willing to dye their coat, especially since it covers up your cutiemark.” She twisted in her seat, showing a blank flank. Twilight blushed slightly at the embarrassing absence.
“For...ever?” she stuttered.
Misty Rain smiled, and Morning Dew laughed. “No. It’s just that the dye doesn’t discriminate between cutiemark color and coat color.” Morning Dew explained, leaning forward and using her front hooves for emphasis (of the difference between cutiemark and coat colors, supposedly, given all she did was besides stick them near Twilight’s face was alternate waggling them around). “If we stopped dying our coats they would come back, cutiemarks and all, within days. Actually, the whole reason we get a retainer is that guards need to dye their coats every day, or their coat will start to show. It takes a couple days to fully dye a coat too, or we’d just dye our coats right before we needed to.” Morning Dew flopped back onto the plush bench she was sitting in. “The retainer is nice, though.” she added.
“Besides,” said Misty Rain taking a scrap of paper and a pencil from her saddlebags. “I’s na a’ if we c’n’t stil’ sh’w ‘ou”, she continued, speaking around the pencil as she took it in her mouth and made some marks on the paper. “Nnn... ahh... There!”, she exclaimed, spitting the pencil into one hoof and holding out her sketch to Twilight with the other.
Twilight looked at the seemingly random scribbles. “Uhh...” she hedged.
“Here, let me.” said Morning Dew, taking the pencil and paper. She flipped the pencil into her mouth and began her own sketch. After a minute she hoofed it over to Twilight.
“That’s my cutiemark,” she said as Twilight stared at the intricate drawing, two gleaming drops on the leaves of a clover. Taking back the paper and shifting the pencil back into her mouth she resumed drawing. Twilight tried her best to peer over the paper and divine her superior technique, but after just a few moments she handed it back, now with a drawing of a cloud whose bottom was split into gauzy sheets. “and that’s Misty’s.”
The pegasus in question gave Morning a look and stuck out her tongue, gathering paper and pencil back into her saddlebags as soon as Twilight was done looking. “So...” said Twilight, “ah, how do you know what her cutiemark looks like, given...”
“Oh.” said Morning Dew. “We grew up together.”
“That’s right!” Misty Rain beamed. “We’re both from Marshvale.” She scanned Twilight’s face for recognition, and, finding none, continued. “It’s a little town, pretty close to Cloudsdale, right next to the Muggy Marsh.”
“It’s primarily a water-gathering facility,” chimed in Morning, “most of the residents are pegasi employed by the Department of Weather.”
“It’s pretty boring...” complained Misty, “Plus, since it’s a water-gathering town, we hardly ever got our own clouds to play with or sleep on as foals, especially during the summer. Once we grew up and joined the Department of Weather, we thought we’d get more, but the bureaucracy there is just... I mean, you’d think the government is run by Diamond Dogs or something the way they... Umffph.” Morning Dew had grown alarmed at this last bit of Misty’s speech, and shoved a hoof into her mouth.
“Sshhh!” she hissed frantically, glancing fearfully at Twilight, “Don’t you remember who we’re talking to?!”
“Anyhow,” Morning continued in a much calmer, near-emotionless tone, “I, for one, know how important it is that the Department of Weather implement such policies to keep operations running smoothly. My friend does too, she just... gets carried away sometimes...”
Twilight laughed nervously. “It’s okay, I know you weren’t talking about me,” she said, trying to keep her tone light, instead of surprised and dismayed, “I was only coronated two days ago, how could I have any hand in the Equestrian Weather Department policies of even last week?” She chuckled lightly, at the absurdity of the idea and the strange expression of relief and puzzlement on Morning Dew’s face.
“But..” trailed Morning, “you’re close to Princess Celestia...”
“Yeah,” smirked Twilight, “and she complains about excessive bureaucracy all the time. Trust me, you’re not alone in disliking it.” Staring at the two surprised faces across from her, she had a sudden inspiration. “Tell you two what, I am a princess now, so I’ll look into the weather situation and see if I can’t get the government to loosen a few strings as far as moisture control goes. There’s plenty of water to go around, after all.”
“Oh.” said Morning Dew. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Nonsense.” said Twilight “I just want to hear the rest of your story.” She turned to Misty, “How did you end up in the royal guard?”
“Right!” exclaimed Misty, obviously glad that this rough patch in her storytelling was over, “So Morning and I worked for the Department of Weather, but it wasn’t that great, and then last summer we hear that Nightmare Moon is back, but really she’s Princess Luna again. So Dewy, she’s always liked looking at the Mare-in-the-Moon, she thinks that if she just got back, she’ll need, like servants or something. So Dewy just comes up to me one day and says...”