It was exactly midnight when Rainbow heard a knock on her door. At first she tried to ignore it, but it didn't go away. She muttered to herself, "This better be good."
She opened the door, "What?" It probably wasn't the nicest sounding greeting, but it didn't matter, because nopony was there. Dash looked around, nothing. She looked down and saw a scroll with a midnight blue seal, "What the..."
She grabbed the scroll and walked back inside, shutting the door behind her. She walked over to her couch and slumped down onto it. She opened the scroll, and she read:
Rainbow Dash,
I suppose you're wondering why you received this letter in the middle of the night, and I am sorry for that, but there was a reason for this. I want to offer you a special position in my personal guard. If you chose to accept, please come to the Canterlot Castle within seventy-two hours of receiving this letter. Also, if you choose to accept, please do not bring anything with you, and be prepared to stay in Canterlot for exactly thirty days.
You may not have noticed, but there has been a operative watching you for a month and a half now, and I have decided from what she tells me, you are the perfect pony for a job such as this. This is a position of great honor and requires immense skill, loyalty, and determination. You can always deny, but I hope you consider. I would be honored if you would join the Lunar Guard, you have a lot of potential.
Show the seal on this scroll to the guards at the castle and they will take you to me without question.
Sincerely,
Princess Luna
"That was rather... straight forward." Rainbow muttered to herself.
She thought it was a little creepy that there had been someone watching her for months and she didn't notice, but she shrugged it off quickly.
It took Rainbow a couple hours of pure thinking to decide, and ultimately she decided to accept the offer. The only thing that required thinking was that she would need to leave her friends for quite some time, and she didn't know if she would need to again after the first month of training, or at least she thought it would be training. When Dash was a kid, she often dreamed of being in the Royal Guard, but then she found the Wonderbolts. Rainbow had already given up on the dream of joining them, because somepony else beat her in the tryouts that they hold once every six years. Also, this wasn't the Royal Guard, this was the Lunar Guard, and while they seem to serve the same purpose, they did not at all. The Lunar guard was fairly new, but already known by stories spread by the Royal Guards. A rumor was started that told ponies the Lunar guard protected entire towns with just two soldiers for each one. No one knew if it was true, but it was certainly an explanation to the lack of crime in Equestria.
Rainbow would have tried to sleep again, but she knew that she wouldn't be able too. She was already wide awake because of that letter, so she decided to stretch her wings and go for a fly.
Rainbow opened the door and walked out onto her deck, immediately feeling the chill of the cool night air. She always found it was somewhat easier to do anything in the dark. It was something she couldn't explain, but the night was something that seemed to always make her faster and more agile than in the day. She could never explain it and didn't understand it, it just felt... natural.
She dove off of the cloud platform with her wings locked to her sides and fell towards Ponyville.
Rainbow saw the ground and starting counting down.
500 feet
400
300
200
100... Now!
Dash spread her wings and turned them to the perfect angle and she caught air seconds before she connected with the ground. She pulled up slowing herself to a steady cruising speed while she gained altitude. Soon she was soaring overhead of Ponyville, enjoying the freedom.
Dash wasn't surprised when she saw no lights inside of every building she passed. She passed through most of town and eventually started going down the street that Twilight's library was on. She didn't have intentions of waking up Twilight, but she realized the lights were shining through every window in the library.
She slowed herself and circled the building a couple times. Her usual entrance was open, so she dove through the window, clearly scaring the hell out of Twilight. Dash didn't crash this time, she just slowed to a stop just in front of the bookcase she normally crashed into. "Rainbow Dash!" Twilight half-yelled. "Spike is sleeping!"
"Heh, sorry Twi." Rainbow Dash responded.
"Why are you even here at this hour?!" Twilight seemed the slightest bit angry, then Rainbow saw the books all over her bed followed by tons of research notes, or at least what she guessed were research notes.
"Why are you up at this hour?" Dash found it fun to answer a question to a question sometimes.
"I'm studying!" Twilight's voice was downgraded to a whisper-yell.
Rainbow said something she always wanted to say to this mare, "Twilight, have I ever told you how much you need to get laid?"
Twilight's cheeks turned a dark shade of red, "Dash!"
Dash grinned with the reaction she got from that, then in her defense said, "What? It's true, you're always stuck in this library reading."
Twilight sighed, she wasn't getting the answer she wanted, "Why are you here?"
"Well, I wasn't originally planning to come here, but I saw the lights on and the window open."
"There's always a thing called a door that you could use."
"Nah, doors are too lame. Anyway, I want to tell you I won't be able to do that science thing with you next week." Dash decided it was a convenient time to speak with Twilight about this. She wasn't going to tell her the full story, somewhere in the back of her mind was a voice telling her not to.
"Why?" Twilight questioned.
"The Princess requested to see me in Canterlot."
"Princess Celestia, why?"
"Luna, not Celestia."
"Princess Luna?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"Didn't say." Rainbow lied.
"When are you leaving?"
"Sometime later today, for thirty days."
Twilight was obviously confused, but she didn't question further, "Alright Dash, we can always delay the research for a while. No rush."
"So... I think I'm gonna go for a fly, see ya!" Dash shot back out the window before Twilight could respond.
Dash flew around, and went to check the train station for this morning. She was looking around for the faintest hint of someone following her, she saw nothing, which only makes sense.
***
Rainbow Dash had just gotten off of the train to Canterlot, where she was about to visit Princess Luna. She had already told her friends where she was going, as well as her boss, so she was in the clear. Nopony knew the real reason she was out here, and she did kind of feel bad for lying, Luna's letter didn't say she had to keep it a secret, but she knew she should.
Dash took to the skies the second she got away from the train station, it would only take her a few minutes to get to the castle at her speed.
Like she expected, Dash made it to the front of the castle in just six minutes. She stepped up to the main gate where two guards were standing, doing their job no doubt. She walked up to one of them and said, "I'm here to see Princess Luna." She promptly got out the seal on the scroll the Princess sent her.
Immediately, the one on the left whispered something to the right and told her, "Yes, of course. Follow me miss Dash." The gate opened and she followed the guard inside. They went through the entrance hall and up a stairwell, leading to the main hall. They walked to the end of this hall then took a right, up two more flights of stairs.They took another right leading to another hallway. They took one last left at the end of this hallway and at the end of this corridor were Princess Luna's chambers. It was actually quite a walk, it took a good ten minutes to get up here. They also passed a lot of guards, all dressed in gold armor, standing at attention.
"Here we are." That was all the guard said before leaving to get back to his unit.
Rainbow Dash cleared her throat and knocked on the door.
Almost instantly she heard a familiar voice behind the door, "Enter." Dash opened the door slowly and walked in, "Ah! Rainbow Dash! I didn't expect you would come so quickly, but nevertheless I am glad you accepted my offer."
Rainbow chuckled, barely able to contain her nervousness, "I am honored that you chose me to be a part of your guard, Princess." She promptly bowed, it seemed appropriate.
"I appreciate the formality, but I assure you, it is not needed in private." Rainbow Dash nodded in understanding, "Shall we begin?"
***
Hi. This is almost 100% experimental, im testing myself, so don't be surprised if you see a little bad writing, or a lot. You can call this the prologue if you wish, next chapter will be out in a couple days. On another note, I couldn't think of a relevant name, or find relevant cover art.
Yeah. Sorry guys, but I lost drive for the story a while back, but I just now decided to make it official.
So. Yeah. Once again, sorry. I feel bad for cancelling this, because this somehow got a great reception and I have over thirteen gazillion ideas for it, but nope, my brain refuses to write this anymore.