Shade was currently standing inside the palace bathroom with Shadow Charger, Dusk Chaser, and Starlit Sky. Actually, bathroom was a bit of an understatement. All in all, the palace had about thirty or so bathrooms, but this one was by far the largest, and it was more of an underground water park. When the palace was built, spells had been woven through the rock that drew every bit of moisture inside of it to this room, where it was collected, heated, and finally formed a constantly running waterfall that streamed over several carefully arranged terraces and slides, and fed into about a dozen large pools. It was a clever system, as it not only supplied the room with constantly running water, but also prevented the interior of the palace from being as clammy and uncomfortable as caves usually were.
They had divided tasks among the Night Guard members by pulling straws. Starlit Sky had just pulled one of the remaining long straws, which meant that she and one other pony would be in charge of cleaning this room.
“Okay,” Shade said. “That means me and Sky are going to work here, and you two are cleaning out the ballroom. Have fun with that.”
Dusk Chaser frowned. “I didn't see you pull a straw.”
Swift Shade tossed the remaining straws to the side. “I'm the captain.”
“A total dipstick is what you are,” said Dusk.
Swift Shade gave him a merry little grin. “I can live with that.”
“What about Moonlight Sonata?” Shadow Charger asked, “She was supposed to clean up the music room, but she came back and told me it's full of really big spiders.”
Swift Shade rolled her eyes. “Oh for pony's sake, what is she, five?”
“Don't worry about it. I'll go help her once we're done here,” said Starlit Sky.
Swift Shade gave her an uncertain look. “You won't just do all the work for her, right?”
Sky smiled a little sheepishly and avoided eye contact. “Eh... I'll try. She's really good at dodging work though. If she put half as much effort into working as she does into getting out of work, she could really get things done.”
“Seriously, Sky, you need to stop letting her walk all over you and then acting like it's some sort of endearing trait of hers,” Shade said. Then she pointed at Dusky and Shadow. “Now, you two. Get going, the ballroom is going to keep you busy for a while.”
The bathroom was one of the places that had been in regular use over the years, and there were no carpets or tapestries to attract any persistent stains, so cleaning it was one of the easier tasks they had to undertake before the princess arrived.
Sky was busy scrubbing water stains from the marble statue of some regal-looking unicorn, when she started talking in a pleasant conversational tone that told Swift Shade she was definitely going somewhere with this. “So, Shade. Do you think we'll still be able to use this place when Luna is back?”
Shade looked up from her own cleaning rag. “What? The palace?”
Sky glanced at one of the steaming, bubbling pools of water. “Particularly the bathroom.”
“I honestly don't think so, Sky,” Swift Shade said, “From what I understand, this place was something of a private refuge or summer home for the princess. We are probably going to spend a lot of our time in Canterlot, and while we're here, we'll stay at the guard quarters. You know, those rooms we've been using as broom closets. I'm fairly certain this place is going to be off-limits for us.”
Sky's scrubbing motions became increasingly slower as Shade talked.
“I see. Now, I know how this is going to sound at first, but please, hear me out before you dismiss the idea I'm going to run by you now.” She turned around and looked at Swift Shade. “I say we secede from Equestria, declare our independence, and claim the palace as our own. I think The Independent Nation of Midnight Castle has a nice ring to it, but we can put that up to a vote. Unless we choose that we don't want to be a democracy. We can put that up to a vote as well.”
Swift Shade looked at Starlit Sky as if the other mare had lost her mind, which didn't seem like much of a stretch at the moment. “For a bathroom?”
There was a manic glint in Sky's eyes. “Yes! Just look at what we would be giving up!” She stabbed her hoof in the direction of one of the pools. “These things are relaxing muscles I didn't even know I had, Shade! Do you know how many water jets every one of those pools has?”
She had been slowly stalking up to Swift Shade while she spoke, and their faces were now only a few inches apart from each other. Swift Shade had started to lean slightly back, and it took her a few seconds to realize that Sky was actually expecting an answer to that question.
“No?” she said meekly.
“Neither do I!” said Sky, “There's just so many of them! I tried to count them once, I didn't get further than two hundred and thirty-three.” She seized Swift Shade's shoulders with her front legs and started shaking her in desperation. “I can't go back to the cold and dismal place that was my life before I learned this bathroom existed! You can't do that to me, Shade!”
“Calm down, Sky!” Shade called, “I know wars have been started over dumber things, but we won't commit high treason for a bathroom! Not like I ever used the thing, but I really think you are overselling this.”
Sky stopped shaking her, and her eyes went wide. “Wait... you never tried it?”
Shade looked at one of the pools and shook her head. “I don't really bathe. I always preferred showering.”
* * *
Swift Shade let out a deep sigh of utter bliss. Jets of warm water were pushing against her body from all directions, kneading every last bit of tension out of her muscles, while myriads of tiny air bubbles gently caressed her coat. She felt so relaxed that she thought she might just melt into a puddle at any moment.
“All those wasted years...” she whispered.
Starlit Sky, who was sitting in the water next to her, pulled her into an embrace and patted her on the head. “I know, Shade. It changed my life too.”
Shade spread her wings under the water, and almost slipped into an ecstatic coma when the pool started working its magic on her sensitive patagia. “Yeah, well, it's worse for me. At least you had a few years to enjoy this.”
“Remember my suggestion from earlier?” Sky said, slightly hopeful.
“Why must you test my loyalties so?” Shade sighed. “Sorry, the answer is still no. Also, you're insane.”
The door to the bathroom opened, and Dusk Chaser and Shadow Charger walked in.
“Hey, Shade. We put all the garbage in bags, but now we don't know where to put the ba—” Dusk said as he entered the room, but when he saw the two bat ponies sitting in the pool, his face contorted into an angry sneer. “Are you two for real?! We are working our flanks off, and you laze around in the tub?”
“I... it... we were done cleaning, and we just... wanted to see if the bubbles still have enough... buoyancy,” Shade stammered. Then she pointed an accusatory hoof at Sky and called, “It's her fault! She tempted me with her magical fountain of joy and happiness!”
“Whoa now, Shade, I did no such thing!” Starlit Sky objected. Then realization seemed to hit her, and she conceded, “Oh, you mean the pool. Yeah, I guess I did tempt you with that.”
Shade jumped out of the water and shook herself, making a dense cloud of droplets erupt from her coat and mane. “Enough with the conspiracies,” she said to Starlit Sky, “We have work to do.”
Then she jumped down on the marble tiles of the bathroom. Her coat, mane, and tail were still dripping wet, but they would dry out soon enough.
Starlit Sky left the tub as well. “I guess I should go check on Sonny,” she said, and walked out of the room.
Dusk Chaser gave Swift Shade a sardonic smile. “All right. Now that you are sufficiently relaxed, captain, maybe you could instruct your subordinates as to how we are supposed to get rid of all this garbage. They only pick up the trash once a month when they deliver our pay, and that was just over two weeks ago.”
“I know,” Shade said, “Listen, it absolutely can't stay inside the palace. Take it outside, stash it somewhere they won't find it.”
Shadow Charger didn't seem very happy with that. “It's a lot.”
“I guess you should start as soon as possible then,” said Shade.
“Yeah, but that would take a really long time, and we still have to take care of the mushroom garden,” Shadow said.
“Wait, mushroom garden?” Shade asked, “I didn't know we had a mushroom garden. Why didn't I know about that? I like mushrooms.”
Shadow Chaser suddenly seemed very interested in the tiling of the bathroom floor. “They're not exactly the kind of mushrooms you'd put in a salad. Well, I guess you could, but you really shouldn't. I could tell you some stories.”
Swift Shade's mouth dropped open. “Did you know about this?” she asked Dusk Chaser.
“Maybe?” Dusk said.
Shade groaned and stomped her hooves in frustration. “Get rid of them! Get rid of the trash! And do it quick-like!” she screamed, and stormed past them into the hallway.
“How?” Shadow Charger called after her.
“I don't care!” Shade shouted without looking back.
* * *
The palace lacked a few modern conveniences, but over the years, the Night Guard had made a lot of modifications to rectify that. For example, while the palace theater had originally been designed with thespian entertainment in mind, the Night Guard had discovered that it could easily be turned into a movie theater by simply hanging up a canvas on the stage and placing a projector at the end of the hall. However, there was one universal truth about the floors of movie theaters everywhere: They were absolutely filthy.
For the better part of an hour, Swift Shade had tried to clean a soda stain out of the theater's thick, silk carpet. She had started out with soda water, moved on to vinegar, followed by about half a dozen different detergents with increasing amounts of skulls and bones on their labels, and right now, she was trying punches and insults, but none of it seemed to really make an impression. While she considered upgrading to bladed implements, the door to the theater opened, and Shadow Charger poked his head in.
“Hey, Shade,” he said in a tone that was entirely too cheerful and immediately filled Swift Shade with an acute sense of alarm.
“What did you do?” she asked.
Shadow did his best to look offended. “I have no idea what you mean. On a completely unrelated note, do you remember when you told me 'I want you to get rid of the trash and the mushrooms, and I don't care if you have to burn down the palace to do it’?”
Swift Shade could feel the blood draining from her face. “I very distinctly remember never having said that!”
Shadow frowned. “You didn't?” There was a very prolonged stretch of silence that was ended by him clearing his throat. “So, here's the thing. I had this brilliant idea for getting rid of the trash and the mushrooms all at once. I figured we could just put all the trash into the mushroom garden, set it on fire, and then close the door.”
Swift Shade felt like her brain was trying to slap its forehead. “I... I can't even...”
Shadow nodded eagerly. “I know. Really good plan. Problem is, it didn't go quite the way I planned it. Now, I have good news, and I have bad news. The good news is –“ he slightly turned his head to make sure his voice carried into the corridor “– Dusky was being a worrywart for no good reason, and I was completely right about how we couldn't actually burn the palace down, seeing how it's made of rock. The bad news is, the ventilation of the palace is apparently not quite up to draining all the smoke.” As if it had waited for an introduction, a thick tendril of oily, black fumes appeared over Shadow's head and wormed its way into the room.
It looked like Shadow was about to say something else, but Swift Shade threw herself forward with three quick strokes of her wings and smashed into him like a catapult stone. They briefly tumbled through the hallway, and then stopped with Shade standing upright and having both her front legs firmly planted on the prone stallion's chest.
“Okay, hold it, Shade,” Dusk Chaser called from slightly off to the side, “I get that you are angry...”
“I am so far beyond angry!" Shade snarled. "The blasted stain on the carpet in there made me angry. I am now well into livid and quickly approaching murderous!”
But before she could carry out whatever it was she had in mind for Shadow Charger, a worried looking Starlit Sky zipped into the hallway. “Eh, Shade?” she said while hovering in the air right next to her commanding officer, “Sorry to interrupt, but I kinda need your help. You remember how Sonny complained about those spiders? Well, when she said 'big,' I thought she mean 'big' as in 'big as an apple.' Turns out she meant something along the lines of 'big as a buffalo.' Long story short, the spiders have taken her hostage, and now they demand to speak to our leader.”
“That sounds serious!” Shadow Charger said quickly, “You should really check that out as soon as possible! Like, right now!”
Swift Shade looked back and forth between Starlit Sky and Shadow Charger, before lowering her head an baring her teeth at the frightened stallion. “Fix. This. Now!” she growled while pointing at the smoke that was accumulating under the hallway's ceiling. Then she flung herself into the air and followed Starlit Sky.
“So, what are you going to say to them?” Starlit Sky asked while they flew next to each other.
Swift Shade's mood was still anything but pleasant. “Unless you count kicks and tooth marks as words, I won't be saying anything. We're Equestrian military, Sky. We don't negotiate with terrorists.”
* * *
Swift Shade was lying on her back, pinned to the ground by four spindly, but frightfully strong, segmented legs. A pair of giant fangs with thick drops of milky venom already accumulating at their tips twitched and waggled just a few inches away from her eyes, but since she was not in the mood for any more shenanigans, she simply clocked the thrashing arachnid on the head with her front hoof, and then bit the stunned creature on the face.
“Not so fun anymore when someone is doing that to you, hmm?” she hissed, and then used her hind legs to push the spider off her forcefully enough to throw it out the palace door. “And don’t come back!” she shouted after it. Then Starlit Sky pulled the door shut, and both of them sat down on the floor, Swift Shade letting out an exhausted huff.
“I agree with that assessment,” Starlit Sky said. Then she grimaced in disgust and let her tongue roll out. “Yuk! Stupid bristles. I feel like I have to shave the inside of my mouth now.”
Herding ten immensely uncooperative giant spiders through half the palace had been a rather taxing and time-consuming ordeal. Swift Shade was just glad that they had managed to do it on their own, without pulling other members of the Night Guard away from their own tasks.
“I guess that means Moonlight Sonata can clean out the music room now,” Shade said, “She might need something other than a broom to get rid of those cobwebs, though. Maybe a cutlass.”
“Maybe we should giver her a little break,” Sky suggested, “She's been through a lot.”
“I think it was harder on the spiders,” Shade mumbled and started walking down the hallway.
Sky hurried after her, and she sounded more than a little annoyed. “Hey, now you're just being mean, Shade.”
“That's not a joke, Sky,” Swift Shade said, “They literally threw her at us as soon as we walked through the door. So either they really didn't know how a hostage situation is supposed to work, or they were so sick and tired of her presence that they just didn't care anymore.”
“You could have at least tried to catch her,” Sky mumbled.
At that moment, Dusk Chaser flew out of one of the numerous doorways that opened into the entry hallway of the palace. “Hey Shade? It's probably getting a little old for you to be dragged from place to place like this, but you should probably know what happened.”
Shade gave him a confused look. “How did you know we were here?”
Dusk glanced back into the side corridor he had just left. “Well, I knew you went to the music room, and it wasn't all that hard to follow you from there.”
Swift Shade frowned, and then walked a few steps forward to take a look past the stone archway Dusk Chaser had come through. What she saw was a hallway filled with torn-off tapestries, fallen chandeliers and broken paintings. She hadn't noticed it while it was going on, but apparently their struggle with the spiders had completely trashed every hallway they went through.
Shade groaned and started rubbing the bridge of her muzzle with a hoof. “Wonderful. Just what I need.” Then she turned to Dusk Chaser. “So, you were about to tell me that everything is finished, the palace looks perfect, and the others are already working on cleaning up this little mess, right?”
Dusk made a big point of avoiding eye contact. “All right, first of all, I want you to know that I'm really, really sorry...”
* * *
A few minutes later, Shade, Sky, Dusk and Shadow were standing in the hallway outside the mushroom garden turned incinerator. Mucky water was reaching up to their hips, high enough to almost cover up their cutie marks. Swift Shade was a bit shorter than the others, and only the tip of the forked purple lightning bolt that adorned her flank could currently be seen. The red cross on the rump of Starlit Sky was still visible, but the three crimson droplets next to it were covered up by water, as were the shafts of Dusk Chaser’s two crossed spears. The snapping turtle on Shadow Charger’s flank was half-hidden as well, but with its goofy grin, it actually seemed to be quite happy with the situation, and almost looked like it might detach itself from his coat and swim away at any second.
“Okay,” Shadow Charger said, while soot-covered bottles and charred pizza boxes were lazily floating around him on the water’s oily surface, “I have good news, and I have bad news. The good news is, my plan to clog the drain in the bathroom in order to flood this part of the palace and put out the fire worked perfectly. The bad news...”
Without saying a word, Swift Shade grabbed his head and pushed him underwater. It took a combined effort from Dusk Chaser and Starlit Sky to pull her off the flailing stallion.
“No!” she screamed while Shadow came back up, desperately gasping for air. “Let me at him! No jury in Equestria will convict me! He's clearly a saboteur, I refuse to believe that anyone could be this stupid without making a conscious effort!”
“Shade, please calm down!” Dusk said.
At the sound of Dusk's voice, Shade's anger suddenly realigned itself on him. “And you! Why are you doing this to me, Dusk? I thought you were better than this! Why are you going along with his ideas, instead of kicking the snot out of him as soon as these ludicrous schemes start pouring out of his stupid mouth?!”
Dusk's expression suggested that was just as much a mystery to him as it was to her. “I don't know! The way he explains it always makes it sound really reasonable and thought-out.” He shot a baffled look at Shadow Charger, who was still busy coughing up water. “I actually think he has the power to make you dumber just by listening to him.”
“Hey now,” Shadow wheezed, “Hoof pointing is getting us nowhere here. Instead, we should work on getting rid of all this water. Now, I have already thought of a plan. All we need to do...”
Shade squirmed free of the other two ponies’ grasp, and clamped Shadow's muzzle shut between her hooves. “Not another word!” she growled. “Now, this is going to play out one of two ways. You can either grab a bucket and get to work, or I can make you drink up every last drop of water in here, drag you outside, and pop you like a balloon.” She leaned forward until their faces were almost touching. “What's it gonna be?”
Shadow's eyes had grown wider and wider while Shade talked. “Bucket!” he squeezed out between her hooves.
Shade nodded. “Good choice.”
* * *
Swift Shade dumped another bucket of dirty water into the freshly unclogged bathroom drain. Then she flapped her wings to lift herself off the ground and picked up the five empty buckets she had carried into the bathroom, one with each leg, one with her mouth. But when she turned around to continue her work, she saw Dusk Chaser standing in the door.
“Hey, Shade,” he said a little hesitantly, “You think it's about time for you to take a little break?”
Swift Shade shook her head. “Can't,” she mumbled around the rope of the bucket in her mouth, “Still so much water.”
“I guess,” Dusk said, “Would be great if those spells could pull water from inside the hallways as well. But I guess then you wouldn’t ever be able to mop the floors, hey?” He looked at Swift Shade and grinned, but quickly realized that his forced attempt at a joke had fallen flat. “Look, Shade, you've been doing this for eight hours straight now, with barely three hours of sleep yesterday, and then there was that little brawl with the spiders earlier. I really think you should get some rest.”
But Swift Shade flew past him into the hallway. Starlit Sky was standing outside, looking just as worried as Dusk Chaser. “He's right, Shade. Come on, you let Shadow go to sleep four hours ago, and he's the one who caused this in the first place.”
“He's a civvy,” Shade said, “I was afraid he might drop dead if I pushed him any harder. Besides, he started crying, and that just made me feel super awkward.”
She still gave no impression that she was about to stop working, and Dusk and Sky continued their pleading while flying after her.
“You won't get this done today in any case, Shade,” Sky said, “You worked harder than any of us, you really should save some energy for tomo—”
Shade spun around to glare at her. “I can deal with this, Sky! Just kindly leave me be and let me work!” she grumbled, and then tried to fly on.
But the sudden turn had made her feel a little dizzy, and her eyelids seemed very heavy all of a sudden. She tried to fall back on her sonar, but forgot for a moment that she was still carrying a bucket, dropping it as soon as she opened her mouth. Since she was paying absolutely no attention to where she was headed while this was going on, the corridor predictably chose that exact moment to make a sharp right turn, and Shade crashed face-first into the wall. All the buckets she'd been carrying clattered to the ground, and she landed harshly on her rump. She glanced around with a profusely confused look on her face and rubbed her forehead with a hoof. “Ouch...”
“Aww, Shade.” Sky sighed and landed next to her. “What are you doing, girl? Come here, let the medic take a look at that.” She quickly snatched up one of the crystal lamps in the hallway to shine a light in Shade's eyes and poked and prodded the bruised area. “Good thing you got a thick skull on your shoulders. It doesn't look too bad.” But almost instantly after saying that, she paused, and then looked over and winked at Dusk Chaser. “Then again, back in med school they always said you can't be too careful with head wounds. So I think maybe you should lie down for a spell, just to be safe.”
Swift Shade looked at the buckets scattered around her. “But—”
“Are you trying to tell me how to do my job?” Sky didn't make use of it very often, but when she wanted to, she was more than capable of pulling off that very authoritative tone of voice only medical professionals talking to their patients had fully mastered.
Shade quickly shook her head. “No, ma'am.”
“Good,” Sky said, “Now, lie down.”
Swift Shade did. The hallway's thick carpet was surprisingly cushy, and she found it remarkably hard to keep her eyes open. Maybe Sky was right, and she had hurt her head more badly than she had thought.
A few moments later, she heard Starlit Sky's voice next to her. “Okay, lift your head up a little.” When Swift Shade did, she felt something soft and fluffy slide under her chin, and almost simultaneously, a warm cover was thrown over her entire body below the neck. “There. Just a little something to keep your head still, and we wouldn't want you to get hypothermic.”
Shade's eyes fluttered open briefly, and she saw that her head was now resting on a pillow, and that Dusk Chaser had draped a blanket across her. A slight frown formed on her face. “Wait a minute, I see what you're doing,” she mumbled, “You're trying to trick me into falling assssssss...” The last word drifted off into a quiet little snore.
Starlit Sky sighed. “Poor Shade. She's taking this whole thing pretty badly.”
“Not really surprising,” Dusk Chaser said, “She's technically the one who's in command here, and she's probably scared that all of this will be on her head. I just hope we can do something to keep that from happening. Out of all of us, she's the one who has the most to lose.”
Starlit Sky seemed uncertain. “I guess. But honestly, I think there's more to it than that.” She shook her head and sighed again. “Come on. Maybe we can at least clean up the worst chaos from our little spider scuffle earlier.”
* * *
When Swift Shade finally woke up, she was wide awake and on her hooves within the literal blink of an eye. “Oh, you crafty little scoundrels.”
She threw aside the blanket and began looking for some other member of the Guard to tell her how much time she had lost. Unfortunately, the fact that the first pony she found was Moonlight Sonata, lazing around in one of the palace drawing rooms, slouching on a causeuse and reading a book like she had not a care in the world, did little to brighten Shade's already somewhat dour disposition.
“Hey, Moonlight Sonata,” she said flatly, “You wouldn't happen to know what the time is, or where I can find the others?”
Moonlight Sonata didn't look up from her book and made a vague gesture with her hoof. “Eh... it’s ten-ish, I think. And they're around, still trying to clean this place up.”
The smile Shade gave her had all the warmth and friendlessness of a frozen over graveyard. “And I suppose you didn't really think it was necessary to lend them a hoof?”
Moonlight Sonata finally looked at her, and her expression switched from bored to hurt. “He... hey. I did help! I was almost eaten by spiders yesterday, that still haunts me.” Her bottom lip began to quiver slightly. “Why do you have to be so mean to me all the time, Sha—”
“How about you cut that out right now?” Swift Shade interrupted her, “You can save that act for Sky, and I'm honestly surprised it works on her.”
The tearful expression slid off Moonlight Sonata like a mask, and she just shrugged and went back to her book. “Whatever. It's not like I even have to bother, you're not the boss of me anyway.”
Shade glared at her. “I kind of am. I did make you an honorary member of the Guard and all. But to be perfectly frank, that was an incredibly hay-brained decision on my part. So, you can consider yourself to be dismissed from active duty.”
“Yeah, don't do me any favors,” Moonlight Sonata mumbled, “Didn't want to be part of your stupid club anyway.”
Swift Shade felt her coat bristle at that. “We are not a club! We are the Night Guard! We are meant to protect and serve the Princess of the Night herself. Do you even realize what an honor that is? Being part of the hoof-picked personal guard of one of the royal—”
Swift Shade stopped abruptly when Moonlight Sonata threw her head back and started laughing. “Oh, give me a break, Shade,” she chuckled, “I lived with you guys for eight months, I know exactly what goes on around here. You goof around, dance the night away, and drink yourselves into a stupor. That's all you do. The only time I've even seen your armor was when you used your helmets to have a drinking contest. And afterwards, you barfed right in front of a statue of that princess you so proudly serve all of a sudden. I'm sure she would have appreciated that dignified little display.” She shook her head and smirked. “You don't get to act all holier-than-thou at me, you bucking hypocrite.”
Swift Shade's ear's drooped, and she couldn't meet Moonlight Sonata's eyes anymore. “I haven't been the most worthy member of the Guard. I don't deny that. But I realize that I made mistakes, and I'm trying really hard to make up for it.”
“Sure you do,” Moonlight Sonata said, “But if that letter had never arrived, you would be dancing on a table with a lampshade on your head right now. You're not sorry because you suddenly realized that what you did was wrong. You're sorry because you know that you are going to get caught. I know the difference, sweet cheeks.”
Swift Shade's shoulders slumped more and more while Moonlight Sonata talked, and when the other mare had finished, Shade was staring at the ground, her wings hanging limply at her side, and she tried very hard to blink away the tears of shame and anger that stung her eyes. Unable to think of anything to say, she simply spun around and stormed out of the room. Shade wanted nothing more than slap that smug grin off Moonlight Sonata's face, but that would not have changed the simple fact that she was absolutely right.
* * *
“Shade?” Dusk Chaser called into the dimly lit hallway, “Are you in here?”
“Yeah,” came her quiet answer a few seconds later from somewhere far ahead.
Dusk Chaser sighed and started to move towards her voice. The palace memorial had always creeped him out just a little, so he had put off looking for her here until the very last moment. It was a very long corridor with smooth stone walls that were lined with slim pillars made from polished obsidian. Every two of those pillars framed a white marble slab that was set into the wall, and engraved with names of former members of the Night Guard. The first name was the name of the guard captain, the names beneath it were the names of the soldiers who had ended their service under his or her command. However, the names themselves took up only a small part of the stone slabs. The rest was covered with brief stories and anecdotes about every single one of the ponies named above. They had to have been inscribed over a long period of time, as the earlier ones were written in a dialect Dusk Chaser could barely understand.
It was mostly simple things, like personal quirks, talents, or even taste in food or music, but all of it was written in a way that suggested whoever put down those facts had known the ponies in question very well, and some of it hinted at how their service with the Guard had ended.
Comet Glare. A stallion of few words, but endless bravery and dedication. I hope that if I should ever face the choice he made, I shall find the strength to do as he did. Never will I forget his sacrifice.
Midnight Dew. Quick with spear and tooth, quicker yet with tongue and wit. Not dragon's breath, nor monster's claw or griffon's blade could touch her, but in the end, time comes for us all. I miss her dearly.
Dusk Chaser felt a chill run down his spine. He couldn't help it, the tone was just so personal that whenever he walked through the memorial, he felt as if he was intruding, looking at things that were not meant for him. There was never any hint as to who had written the inscriptions, but Dusk figured it had to have been the Captain of the Night Guard in most cases.
Dusk Chaser passed by several dozen of those marble slabs on both sides of the hallway, all of them filled completely with writing, before he finally reached Swift Shade.
She was sitting in front of one of the tiles, a cloth wrapped around her right hoof, and was currently wiping the dust and cobwebs off the marble. Dusk Chaser suddenly realized that all the tiles he had passed on his way here had been clean and spotless.
“So,” Dusk Chaser said after a prolonged stretch of silence, “I heard you had a little conversation with Moonlight Sonata? She didn't get into any details, but she seemed very pleased with herself, and that can't be a good thing.”
“She said a lot of things I didn't want to hear. Unfortunately, all of them were right,” Shade said without looking up from her work.
Dusk rolled his eyes. “Moonlight Sonata is never right about anything.”
“Well, broken clock, twice a day, and all that,” Shade said, “How are things going?”
Dusk laughed nervously. “Pretty good, pretty good. No more major accidents. We are making great progress in the kitchen, chiseled away enough cake frosting that you can actually see the stove again. I think things are looking pretty...”
“Dusk, don't,” Shade said and gave him a sad smile, “You know we are not getting this done in time. It will take weeks before the ballroom stops smelling like a trash heap, some of the hallways are still flooded, the entire content of the armory is littered all over the palace because we used it for our LARPing sessions, and the music room is completely trashed. I took a look at the inventory list. They had a harp in there that was over fifteen hundred years old, made from the wood of a tree that went extinct seven centuries ago. I smashed it with my big fat butt when a spider tossed me across the room. And those are just the things I can think of from the top of my head.”
Dusk Chaser tried his best to give her a reassuring grin, and put his hoof on her shoulder. “Hey now. It's not as bad as all that. I think you have a really cute butt.”
Shade had to laugh at that. “You stupid suck-up,” she said, smiling. But it didn't last. “I used to take this seriously, you know?” she whispered, “I never talked about it with you guys, but I'm from a military family. My parents met in the service, and I can't even tell you how much I adored them as a kid. They were everything I wanted to be, and there was never a doubt in my mind that some day, I would do what they did. I actually tried to drop out of school as soon as I was old enough to enlist, but luckily, my folks were having none of it. 'Good luck making officer without graduating,' my mom said, and that was all it took to motivate me.”
She looked at Dusk very intently, and he felt like she couldn't quite settle on whether she was sad or angry. “Top of my class at boot camp. Had my own squad before I was twenty-one! I spent five years in the Deep Corps, patrolling underneath some backwards mountain ranges nopony even knows the names of, stomping out all kinds of nasty critters so they wouldn't crawl out at night and snatch up some small surface town. When I got this promotion, I thought this was the best thing that ever happened to me. Then I actually got here.” She stared at Dusk Chaser, and when he saw how utterly lost and confused his friend looked, it almost broke his heart. “What was I supposed to do here, Dusk? Why did they send us here to guard an empty palace nopony even remembers anymore? What I did before wasn't glamorous, but it was important work. It kept ponies safe, and I was good at what I did. That's all I ever wanted. Why...” She shook her head and looked away. “No point asking those questions, I suppose. Whatever they wanted me to do here, I'm sure this wasn't it.”
“Hey,” Dusk said softly, “Listen, Shade. I remember that when you first came here, you were a massive pain in the neck. You really did your best to whip us back into shape. But things have been like this for a long time now. Seeing how far everything had gone downhill before you ever showed up, there was really nothing you could do about it.”
“Except join in?” Shade asked bitterly. Then she sighed, and continued a lot more gently. “I don't want to put this all on you and the others, Dusk. I promise, I'll try to make this right for you. Tell the rest to be at the theater at fourteen hundred sharp, all right? I'll meet you there.”
Dusk was uncertain if he liked the sound of that, but he nodded. “Okay. If you don't mind me asking, what are you going to do?”
“The only thing I can do,” Shade said, “Salvage as much from this mess as I can.”
Dusk Chaser looked at her doubtfully for a few more moments, but then he turned around and left. Swift Shade moved on to the next part of the memorial. She still had some time left, and she felt that at least this part of the palace should look presentable.
Shade raised her dusting cloth and hesitated. The inscription on this one was different from the others. The names were edged much deeper into the marble, and the writing was slightly askew, as if it had been carved into the stone very hastily and with a lot of force. It listed the names in much the same way as the others did, but instead of a long and personal inscription, there was just a single word cut into the stone beneath them.
Traitors
Shade frowned. The marble slabs had no date on them, so she couldn't tell how old this one was. When she glanced over at the next one in the hope that it might tell her a little more, she saw that, while the names of the Night Guard members had still been written down, the space where the short tales and anecdotes had been on the other slabs was completely blank. Walking through the entire corridor confirmed that it was the same for every part of the memorial further down from the one that had been marked in such a peculiar way.
* * *
The residents of the palace had assembled in the theater at precisely fourteen hundred, just as Swift Shade had asked them to. All of them were whispering amongst each other, trying to guess what Shade could have in store for them, but when the theater door opened, they fell silent almost instantly. Swift Shade walked past the ponies sitting on the theater seats, and every eye in the room was resting on her. None of the ponies present had seen her like this in a long time.
Swift Shade was wearing her guard armor, the dark blue steel polished to a mirror shine, and every strap and buckle impeccably in place. She looked neither left nor right while she strode purposefully onto the stage of the theater, and only when she had reached that elevated position did she turn around to let her gaze wander over the ponies that had gathered in the room. Few of them could meet her eyes for long. During the time all of them had spent together, they had gotten so used to her always displaying a mischievous grin that the serious demeanor she showed now was more than a little unsettling to them.
Just before the silence could grow uncomfortable, Swift Shade began to talk in a tone of voice that was very calm and matter-of-fact. “Since yesterday, you have all worked very hard to ensure that this palace would be able to pass scrutiny from her Royal Highness, Princess Luna. I appreciate all of your efforts, but I think we all knew from the very beginning that in the short amount of time we had at our disposal, we would not be able to mend all the damage our previous transgressions caused. The truth is, we shamefully abused our position as caretakers and guardians of this place. We have failed at our duties, and all of us have fallen short of what it should mean to be a member of the Night Guard.” Shade saw how most of the other ponies in the room began to shuffle uncomfortably, or guiltily stare at their own hooves. But she wasn't done yet. “And worst of all” – she saw some of the ponies in the room cringe in dread anticipation – “I failed you as your commanding officer.”
This declaration was answered with stunned silence and confused looks, and despite having planned this speech out, Swift Shade had to collect her thoughts before she continued. “I had very high hopes for this position when I first arrived here. But when it turned out to be not what I had expected, I grew frustrated, and in the end, I simply gave up on any hope that I might be able to achieve something here. I should have tried harder to pull you out of that hole, and give you some kind of purpose and something to take pride in, but it was easier to just let myself go along with you. Or perhaps it was a kind of petty revenge against the ones who sent me here for no good reason that I could see.” She bowed her head to the ponies sitting before her, who were in turn staring at her in complete befuddlement. “Fact is, I let you all down, and I am very sorry for that. I know that you are all good soldiers, and you deserve better than this. When the princess arrives, I will take full responsibility for the state of the palace and the Guard, and while I can make no promises, I will do my best to make sure that you will still have a career after this is over.”
Dusk Chaser had grown increasingly agitated during Swift Shade's speech, and at that last sentence, he jumped off his chair and stomped towards the stage. “What are you doing, Shade?”
“Owning up to my mistakes,” she said.
“Well, they're not just yours to own up to!” Dusk made a sweeping gesture with his right front leg that included every pony in the room. “This is on our heads as well. I don't want you to sacrifice your career for me.”
Shade gave him a curt nod. “Duly noted. But this is not your decision.”
Dusk's nostrils flared. “Like heck it's not! Would you just cut the self-sacrificial bull—”
“Watch your tone, lieutenant!” Shade snapped.
The effect it had surprised even her. Immediately, Dusk Chaser's posture became ramrod straight, his heels snapped together, and his eyes seemingly focused on something dead ahead in the far distance.
“With due respect, ma'am.” His voice was perfectly level and composed, but the anger behind the words was still very much palpable. “The current state of the palace and this unit is not solely your responsibility, and I refuse to let you take the fall for it.”
Swift Shade's angry frown mellowed out a little. “I appreciate it, Dusk. I really do, but we both know that just won't work. I'm the one who was in charge here, so I'm the only one who can take the heat for this.”
Dusk Chaser still stood at attention, but he allowed himself to move his head to look at her, and his ears drooped slightly. “But why do that, Shade? Why are you willing to throw your career out the window just like that?”
Shade groaned and rolled her eyes. “Because I like you guys, you doofus!” She looked at the assembled members of the Night Guard, and smiled for the first time since she had entered the theater. “Look, I know what we did here was horrible, irresponsible, childish, probably, nah, scratch that, definitely criminal in several different ways, and just all around a crass dereliction of duty.” Her smile changed into an embarrassed grin, and she rubbed the back of her head with a hoof. “But while I hate the fact that I was sent here to sit on my rump and be useless, at least I got to do it in great company. I regret how everything got out of hoof, but I will never regret meeting all of you.”
“Even me?” Shadow Charger asked tentatively, and jumped when Swift Shade hit him with a glare that could have started a forest fire.
“Shadow,” she growled, “since I met you, there were several times when you came closer to killing me than most of the monsters I encountered during my years in the Deep Corps. You are dumber than a bag of hammers with a hole in it, and I've never in my entire life met another pony who could infuriate me as much as you.” She held her angry stare fixed on him for several seconds, but then she smirked and shook her head. “But I know you mean well, and despite everything else, you're a great pal and a great guy. So yes, even you.”
Shadow grinned, and Swift Shade thought she saw the hint of a blush creep into his cheeks. “Thanks, Shade.”
“But you!” Swift Shade whipped her head around to look at Moonlight Sonata. Her eyes narrowed, and it took her several seconds to find the words that could properly express her disfavor. “I don't much care for you,” she then said quietly.
Moonlight Sonata shrugged.
“Listen, Shade,” Dusk said, “I get what you're trying to do, but I don't want this. None of us do.” He walked forward until he stood directly in front of the stage, and his tone became pleading. “Just an hour ago, you told me how much the service means to you. I don't want you to lose that, and you can't ask me to sit by while you give up one of the most important things in your life to cover for my sorry rump.”
“Then what would you suggest we do?” Swift Shade asked him.
“I say we face the music.” Both Shade and Dusk turned their heads to look at Starlit Sky. “Let us try to look as dignified as we can manage. Give Luna her tour of the palace, let her see what we did, and then we accept the consequences. But we do it as a unit. No solo runs. We all messed up, and it's only fair that we should try and spread the blame as evenly as possible.”
Shade was still hesitant. “I don't want to ask this of you.”
“You don't have to, Shade,” Dusk said gently, “She just offered it, and I'm pretty sure all of us are up for it.” The other members of the Guard filled the room with affirmative calls and murmurs. “So what do you say ma'am?” He saluted. “Should we go prepare ourselves?”
Shade stared at the floor and tapped her left front hoof on the thick wooden boards of the stage in a slow, ponderous rhythm. “What if I say no?”
Dusk's eyes narrowed, and his lips split apart to form a wolfish grin. “We'll tie you up, toss you in a broom closet, and when Luna arrives, we're gonna tell her we did that the day you showed up, and that you've been in there ever since.”
Shade eyed first him, then the other members of the Night Guard very thoughtfully. They all appeared to be equally determined.
“Get ready for inspection. Sixteen thirty sharp at the palace gates,” she said slowly, while seemingly trying to keep a close eye on everypony in the room, “Dismissed.”
With a bored expression on her face, Moonlight Sonata looked at the members of the Night Guard hurrying out of the room. “Ah well. Guess we'll have to find another place to crash,” she said to Starlit Sky.
Sky had already stood up and was about to follow her comrades. She looked at Moonlight Sonata, and over the course of about ten seconds, her expression changed from surprise into anger, then disgust, before finally settling on resignation.
“You know, Sonny,” Sky sighed, “I really don't think this is working out anymore.”
Moonlight Sonata frowned. “Huh... bummer.”