Lieutenant Amarna looks up from his typing work in Lieutenant Captain Aten's office as the latter stomps into the office, his face smouldering with indignation as he moved to perform necessary paperwork behind his desk. This sight was nothing new for the Lieutenant, a pegasus chosen as Aten's secretary when Aten was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Captain, but a quick glance at the clock in the office suggests a cause for Aten's grumpy mood.
"Another lecture, sir?" Amarna suggests casually, resuming his typing on the hoof-powered device.
"Yes, and now I'm very behind on paperwork for the afternoon shift." Aten grumbles out. "I trust you've been keeping busy while I was out?"
"Yes sir."
"Good stallion. I promise you one day you will be richly rewarded for your faithfulness. They will pay, soon all of them will pay."
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Aten did his work in an office decorated with replica weapons. Most of the replicas were from pre-unification pegasus tribes as well as a few from the early days of Equestria, when the army reflected the "raw glory" of the pegasi and had not yet been "neutered" by unicorn and earth pony influences. A disturbingly blood-red variant of the pegasi tribe banner hung over the wall behind the desk where he shuffled paperwork and conjured up schemes under the snout of the Captain of the Guard.
Aten styled himself a "spiritual reincarnation" of a pegasus war tribe leader, but most of that was bluster and lies of his own making, supported by a small group of pegasi "yes-stallions" that were really no more than glorified thugs. Their sole purpose was to enforce his "affirmative action" policy of equal numbers between pegasi and unicorns, although interestingly earth ponies were completely factored out of the equation of calculating proportions of ponies in the shift. (Aten excused this apparent hypocrisy by saying it was "impossible due to low enrollment to enforce a true affirmative action policy which includes earth ponies", but his opponents simply argued it was because Aten hated earth ponies even more than unicorns.)
In the end, Aten's power and position depended not just on total adherence to the "ideals" he championed, but the tribal sense within and between pegasi members of the Royal Guard. The half-dozen or so pegasi Lieutenants could draw in the support of lower ranks because those Lieutenants could promise loyalty and future reward to those lower ranks if they placed higher allegiance to a fellow "winged one" over a "horned one" (i.e. a unicorn), and in turn these lower ranks were disgruntled enough to keep the unicorn officers - particularly the ones in the morning shift - from trying to get Aten replaced.
Aten was also convinced that because of the supposed "zero-sum game of popularity" within the Royal Guard, the only way his command would survive, and his dream of being Captain of the Guard to come true, would be to get rid of Shining Armor. It was common knowledge among the Canterlot Guard that Shining Armor was Princess Celestia's "anointed successor" to Captain Gibraltar as well as likely future consort to Princess Cadance, and his assignment to lead in Princess Luna's recovery and reintegration only encouraged this belief to be strengthened and spread.
Luna's arrival in Canterlot indirectly produced an alarming number of "defectors" from Aten's support base, most of them either because of assignment to the Shining Armor-commanded night shift or the opinion that not supporting Luna's recovery was one step removed from treason. Aten's paranoia-addled mind instead suspected a conspiracy against him, somehow and some way, and he would tell wild yarns to anypony that was willing to listen.
Most of all though, he had faith that the Agents of Chaos, despite all their setbacks, would still succeed in their master plan to revive "the chaotic one". It was everything they were working for, because nothing else would matter once that goal was accomplished. "The chaotic one" would end the reign of the alicorns and Aten would be free to become a real war leader, not just play a pretense of one in a castle...
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A snarl and growl passes his lips as Aten finds in his paperwork another setback to his ambitions. Captain Gibraltar had just denied a selection to fill an important vacancy in his shift, which would surely be interpreted as him starting to lose control over events. And it made Aten mad as a bull, indicated by the snorting noises he made behind his desk.
The incident with Star Dancer had resulted in the forced demotion and transfer of Ventas, one of the few unicorn supporters of Aten's vision of equality, to the night shift, producing a critical hole in Aten's ranks of Lieutenants. His public stance on "equal numbers" and suspected antipathy to unicorns demanded another unicorn be commissioned or transferred to replace Ventas, but Gibraltar had denied Aten's choice of replacement. Instead, he recommended Lieutenant Troilus as the replacement for Ventas.
Lieutenant Troilus was a morning shift unicorn, but precisely the last unicorn Aten wanted to have fill Ventas' slot. Before that year's Summer Sun Celebration, Troilus was a marginal figure on the morning shift, at least partly due to his race, and Aten usually didn't have much trouble with him. That changed when Troilus and his squad were assigned to that ill-fated Summer Sun Celebration where "Nightmare Moon" returned, and Aten subsequently suspended Troilus from active duty while a "performance review" was undertaken.
Ultimately, Troilus was cleared of any wrongdoing by the "performance review", but this took a few weeks to get through (and it was suspected that Aten had stonewalled the process as much as he could) and after he was cleared Aten marked him as "reserve", meaning he was intended to fill-in as a last-minute backup for anypony else that went AWOL for some reason. Although this act in and of itself was perfectly within Aten's right to do, it also prevented Troilus from being transferred to another shift to be put back on active duty - and Aten's critics thought that fact was precisely why Troilus was put straight into reserve instead of back onto active duty.
Not surprisingly, this treatment brought a good number of calls among the unicorn component of the Royal Guard for Troilus to be immediately put back onto active duty, all of which were hampered by the fact that Aten had kept the letter (if probably not the spirit) of the Guard's code of conduct in putting him in reserve and that Gibraltar would set a very bad precedent by simply overriding his choice. Gibraltar was now forcing the issue though because of the vacancy, which made any ponies in "reserve" the recommended (but not required) choice to fill the gaps.
Aten didn't see it that way, though. He felt the Captain was pushing him into further weakening his inner circle by activating a unicorn Lieutenant that had become quite popular with his fellow unicorns. If Aten approved this choice, he would be seen as "caving" to popular demand, further weakening his position. Denying the choice and trying to find another unicorn instead would not improve the situation, as any other choice would almost certainly be subject to the same treatment as the previous one, only adding to the frustration and costing time and resources in the process. Aten was being forced into approving Troilus, and he did not like it one little bit.
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Aten redoubled his anger as he stamped his approval of Troilus' appointment and continued on to finish his paperwork. He liked the anger within him, and he would let it grow inside of him because it made him feel like the superior being he wanted above all else to be. The magic of friendship refused to move him - he would not be saved by it, but instead swallowed by destruction.
Aten said no words during his work, but snorting and fuming indicated his bad mood plenty well enough. Lieutenant Amarna was glad Aten was not interrupted during this time, or an explosion of anger would've been guaranteed. Only Aten rising from his chair allowed any kind of relief to enter the room.
"Lieutenant?" Aten asks of his secretary, who looks back at the Lieutenant Captain when he hears the question.
"Yes sir?" Amarna replies quietly, well aware of Aten's bad mood.
"If anypony comes by, tell them I'm in my quarters and will be there the rest of the day." Aten commands.
"Yes sir." Amarna replies again.
Satisfied, Aten now turns and heads towards a door in his office marked for maintenance use only. Amarna is not moved by this seemingly strange behavior, and only looks up again when Aten closes the maintenance door behind him. For you see, Amarna was well aware of the dark secret concealed behind that innocuous door, a secret linked to the great enemy within of the Canterlot Guard...