Awwwww I loved this such a good story! Well done!

This was good.  :)

You already know how I feel about it. Just commentin' so you know I read it.

D'awwwww I hope this story continues, but it's completed. Insta fav + thumb

Good job, I'm favoriting this. Be more confident.

What a great story,seriously,I almost shed a tear. That's extremely hard to do. Great job on this fic.

This is so beautiful.  

(Time for the cliche phrase)

Instant favorite!

Short, simple, and brief. And one hell of a story. Me like long time.

That was really sweet.

There's so much potential in Shining Armour's character that the season finale didn't even touch on. I'm so glad there are such talented bronies to provide gems like this story and this song.

*notices the most adorable of all screencaps of Shining Armor, and has to read*

That was ... sweet.

MEIN GOTT

This was sweet.

~Jack

Shout's out to NorsePony by the way, for helping immensely in editing this.

Dat title.

Just awesome, Obs. As usual.

I had a feeling this would get featured. A very good job sir.

I was expecting this to be sad, but I'm glad I read it. What a sweet story.

But this namby pamby story still hasn't gotten me any closer to my cutie mark.

YES! There's not enough of these kind of stories!

Brilliant!

Great story.

Congrats on making the front page!

This is nice.

T'was a great story...

FUS RO *dawwwww.*

Truly gropin- I MEAN TOUCHING

Too awesome!

Try to relax...I'm not going to eat you

LOLS XD

adorable

Slightly said, but heartwarming overall. Love it.

good, but still doesn't fill the void of "why oh why did they handwave everything of importance in the last episodes!"

speaking of which, why no mention of Shining Armor's Cutie Mark? You've got a lot of territory to cover and no canon to restrain you, go for it!

D'AWWWWWWW!! .... that was so sweet.

Wow, this turned out to be a lot happier of an ending than I had expected. Not that I think that's a bad thing, haha. Nice little feel-good story here, great work, Obs!

manly tears; they have been shed

I have nothing to say other than it was incredibly well written, and a great idea. Fantastic job.

hmm weird a happy ending takes me closer to crying than any of the other endings wth

Manly tears

This made me cry when i finished. Not much but still. The only books i've ever read that made me cry were Past Sins and I Could Have Been. The greatest books of all time in my life..... This is a close third for me. < thats happy btw.

i was listening to bbbff while reading this and it just made me burst out crying. especially when he talked about dying. but i did kinda smile when twi was saying how he had the best scores ever. please please please add another chapter. I'll love love love you forever if you do.

These were the questions I asked when I saw the finale. "Twilight has a brother? Where was he for oh... EVERYTHING important in the last two years? Equestria really takes civil defense seriously I guess..."

I agree you could have gone further in some parts, but I really think it's a nice fleshing out of Shining Armor's background. Made me well up a few times.

Princess Celestia's mane is an Aurora Borialis... not a rainbow.... but great story anyways

D'aww. That was nice. Good work, Obselescence. I'm glad it had a happy ending. Those are my favorite kinds of endings.

(As a side note, your name is terribly difficult to spell without looking at it every five seconds. Or maybe that's just me being a derp. Meh.)

Very nice.

Nice.  Really all I can say about it.

First, I'd like to say thanks for writing this story, I'm glad it exists. I'm in the Air Force and I also have a younger sister. I put off enlisting because of this exact reason. It still makes me feel guilty... Like I've left her behind. This feeling is likely never to go away, but just knowing that other people have also been put in this situation is comforting.

Hmm...the Equestrian military must take things very seriously. I mean, they don't get to leave at all? Maybe, it's a stallionpower issue. What I mean is that they probably don't have the numbers to rotate shifts.

Either way, this story is sweet and the emotions were done well as the bond between Shining and Twiley.

Good work!

Silver out!

It might be just me, but I didn't found this SO sad. Actually, it was more like... Hearthwarming. Cute story, very well written, explores a bit further into Shining Armour and Twilight's relationship, develops SA's character a bit more, and it had a good feeling overall. Just like a few other people here said: Given the fact that SA's character and his relationship with Twi were explored very little in the show (so fans have, as Truth_Seeker said, "a lot of territory to cover and no canon to restrain" them), I feel like this story could be continued, at least, with a second chapter. But, it's your choce after all. If you ever decide to continue this, I (and several more?) will be waiting anxiously. And, if you decided to write this as a one-shot, then I just have to say that I'm glad I read it, and I certainly enjoyed it. A lot.

Whether it is on a new chapter or in a totally different story, keep up the good work!

FimFiction needs a tag for "D'aw-Inspiring" stories like this one. Well done, 3.5/5 stars.

Ohh, Twilight, you have no idea, don't you?

I really d'awwwed at this, you did a great job with the TS/SA bigbro/littlesis dynamic. Hope to see more from you soon!

Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. It's heartwarming and adorable, the brother/sister relationship between the two. I really enjoyed this.

Shining armor just looks so derpy!

At least his coat is white,that way he can join the Royal Guard.I mean,with the way the selections are going,only white and grey ponies who look identical are accepted.The total military strength of Canterlot would be a whopping 23 at this point.  

But big fan of the story,I absolutely enjoy moral dilemmas.

The way its all played out is just so in sync with what Shining Armor would do.So for that,I grant you a mustache.

Nice story. The ending wasn't what it was made out to be, but made sense.

>>512033512033 what i think is that they dye the mane and coats, like buzz cuts in the army.

I felt that Shining Armor had the best opportunity for characterization beyond "Twilight's Cool Big Bro", but the show didn't exactly go beyond that. I'm glad this fanfic was written to make up for it.

Moustaches! Moustaches for all!

very sweet

HNNNNNG!!!! Awesome story I wanna second chapter!

GAH MY HEART! Screw you man, real, genuine, manly tears are forming in my eyes RIGHT NOW! You magnificent bastard!

Awww this is so dang sweet! I'm glad bronies like you are taking Shining Armor out of the whole wedding/marriage context and really giving him a backstory well done!

Nice little ponyfic. Well done

One little thing, I was wondering if we could of seen him get his cutie mark. Just a suggestion

But seriously, this was great!

This was such a wonderful character study of not only Shining Armor, but also Princess Celestia.

“I understand,” said the Princess, and by some miracle of empathy, it sounded as if she really did know what he was feeling. “It’s not easy having a little sister, is it?”

No wonder she asks him those questions.  No wonder he feels like she understands.  That's the moment my heart melted.

Thank you for the beautiful story.

I thought it was amazing and touching but it feels to short for my tastes. I think you have a good shot at getting into EQD it truly is an amazing story

Aww. Shining Armor is best BBBFF. I really can imagine him putting his dream on hold for another year so he could spend more time with little Twilight.

I almost cried, but not quite... I loved it though!

:'( Beautiful.

check out my read of this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlo4TbQHf7o&feature=plcp

>>509319509319

I think, if this was really how it happened, he would get his cutie mark from this decision. He choose to protect Twiley rather than protecting Equestria. His cutie mark IS a shield with the large star from Twiley's cutie mark.

I almost and I said almost cried almost

I thick we are all going to start calling Twilight Twiley on no!

(Sniffle) That was beautiful, and I have to say. It was amazingly written and it really brought out the dawwwww, and bittersweet from me.

This seems to me that this story should have a slice of life tag instead of sad.

Manly tears were shed this day

aww, I love how much Shining Armor cares for his little sister. So precious

This is a great start for SA's canon characterization and a heartwarming, well-written story in general. I kept thinking "How wrong you'll turn out to be, Shiny, some years down the line" as I read this story, so I would love to see more from you between this SA and Twilight, after she becomes Celestia's apprentice (presumably living in the palace) and as she moves to Ponyville (the heartbreaking farewell). Perhaps some stuff with this SA and Cadance as well, why not?

That was a meaningful story. ;w; I liked it a lot. So very sweet... Shining Armor decided to be there while his sister was growing up -- the Royal Guard could come later.

Image: http://imageftw.com/uploads/20101021/1287655132689.jpg

I love sweet stories like this. :D They're not heart wrenching -- they're heart warming. We need more of these. And we need a tag on FIMFiction to go with it. Heartwarming is the opposite of Sad and needs its own tag. [Heartwarming]. Do it, Knighty.

Not as sad as I expected, but keep in mind it's rather hard to make me sad, congrats for getting on the front page btw, /)?

It’s not easy having a little sister, is it?

That was it. My heart melted. And the ending... somehow I didn't expect it. But it was perfect.

This story stabbed straight to my heart for 2 reasons: first, last year I went to college in another state and ended up moving back home because I realized my family is more important to me than a fancy school. And second, just a couple of months ago, my BBBFF (yes I actually have one) moved to Missouri to be with his girlfriend and it feels like my heart got ripped out of my chest. All this Shining Armor stuff is making me angry and sad and heartbroken and nostalgic and just the teensiest bit d'aww.

So thank you for this sweet and well-written story!

Highly d'aww and pretty nice.

Happy to see and read.  Write more stuff!  

I have mixed feelings about this story. I wish I had more of a relationship with my little sister. =\ Great work though.

I must say, however, that I really love your depiction of Princess Celestia and her relationship with the guard. Really nice. Thanks for sharing this.

So Heartwarming!!!!

I cant help it!

D'AWWW...

Nice story. Not sad, as the tag says, but rather heartwarming.

With all you wrote, though, I begin to wonder how frivolously Shining Armor was allowed to marry Cadence. I mean, what about his royal duties?

Image: http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/20203452.jpg

Towards the end, before the final decision, I was seriously considring putting on the Dr. Horrible "Everything You Ever" song to fully milk the sadness of leaving Twi behind. The song wasnt needed after the decision to wait.

We need more Shining Armor here on FimFic.

I would enjoy a sequel detailing his leave, Twilight's reaction, and why she wanted to follow Celestia. Was it in the vain hope of seeing her brother again? Was it to inevitably get back at her for stealing her only sibling? The mind can only wonder.

Oh my god filly Twilight's reaction

first I was like

and then I was like

It's a nice, touching tale.  Only one thing really deserved the Sad tag implicitly, however; the troll in my soul weeps that that title wasn't for a good submissive-SA slashfic.

Regardless, thanks for that.