Shining Armour was not having a good day.
He usually could usually deal pretty well with major crisis's, but today might be the day that broke him.
First Celestia and Luna had been acting crazy for weeks. Sure them locking themselves in the throne-room made them much easier to protect but it wasn’t doing much for the morale. THEN all four princesses including his wife and LSBFF had been kidnapped by some insane space entity. Shining supposed he should be grateful for the safety of his daughter
The fact that when his wife had activated the recall rune the hover-basket had materialized two foot above Shining’s head he was less grateful for. The resulting concussion had certainly tarnished his already dour mood somewhat, as had the heavy capsule containing orders from Celestia that that had teleported in a few seconds later, also batering him over the head as he tried to stand up all while Flurry burst into tears.
His daughter, much as he loved her was quickly severing his last nerve. From the second Cadance and the others had left she refused to stop crying.
That had been two hours ago.
Then Discord had started making faces and miraculously she was now giggling and cooing at the living embodiment of chaos. Shining wasn't sure which was worse.
But try as he might he had found no way of stopping the crying. Discord on the other hand was having a marvellous time entertaining the young princess who was enraptured by the ongoing show. Shining internal cringing intensifying each time he checked in on the pair.
Shining had really hoped this day would never come, he loved Flurry dearly but she was one magic surge away from being a natural disaster. Again. Putting her anywhere near Discord seemed like a catastrophe waiting to happen. Not to mention the ever-likely possibility of Discord being Discord and wrecking everything for the laughs.
in fact If he hadn't known about Discord’s abject terror over whatever was happening with the princesses, not to mention his apparently genuine determination at leaf turning he might have seen the giggling baby as a declaration of war. Considering the circumstances however Shining decided simply to hold in a manly tear and put it down to the complete insanity of today.
As much as leaving them together irritated him by some odd logic it was the best option he had right now. Flurry entertained was a safer Flurry. Discord preoccupied was less of a headache for everyone else, especially given he was falling over backwards (sometimes quite literally) to appear helpful and not at all evil.
And in the event something went REALLY wrong he supposed an all-powerful reality bender was a good choice for protection. Still…if Twiley’s friends got get here faster that would be good.
Of course all that would have been enough more than enough but missing wives and reality bending babysitters weren't enough. Oh no Shining had to deal with all this and a riot.
Well not quite a riot…not yet anyway
Trying to rub away his growing migraine Shining walked back out onto the battlements and surveyed the front of the palace. The gathering crowd had grown by at least 50% since he last checked, the badly outnumbered royal guards doing their best at crowd control, but they couldn’t quite get the mob to disperse.
Seeing a lull in the mob Shining’s horn glowed as he pushed the barrier he had erected around the palace outwards another notch. One of the contingency order from Celestia had been to increase the size of the cordon around the palace by quite a bit, mostly for the protection of the general populace. Protection from what she hadn’t specified. However this task had quickly fallen afoul of what Shining was terming the second big problem of the day.
Namely the populace.
Now in his experience Ponies fell into one of two categories. Those who rose to the occasion during a crisis. And those who really REALLY didn’t. Most of the time ponies were a kind gentle race who thrived on friendship and wouldn't dream of breaking out the torches and pitchforks and screaming incoherently. Unfortunately most of the time didn’t include all four Princesses going AWOL and somehow the information concerning the nature their absence being leaked.
Could he really blame the crowd for panicking? Not really…
But could they please stop panicking? and stretching the guards thin to keep civil order? And since bad news travelled extraordinarily fast could they be doing this pretty much nationwide. When manure hit the fan they tended to look to their strong leaders. And that lead to the third major problem of the day.
(The third major problem he could actually do something about.)
Who exactly was in charge? Celestia’s canister had contained a number of contingencies on the matter but they had never anticipated something quite like this.
Celestia? MIA
Luna? MIA
Cadence? MIA
Twilight? MIA
Raven? On her yearly two week vacation
Kibbitz? As Shining looked around his fur somehow turned an even paler shade of white. Kibbitz was leading the mob outside. Apparently this had upset one too many appointments.
.
.
.
As Shining mentally ticked down the rest of the list he realised with horror almost every person on Celestia’s list he knew the status of was unavailable was so somehow unavailable.
Almost
Glancing back inside at flurry he found Discord looking straight at him body vibrating wildly. “Ohh it’s a doozy!” the Draconequus said happily “isn't it good to know that even in such dire times as these chaos ensures?” He then glanced at the sky as if to expected to be struck down , breathing a sigh of relief.
Shining ignored him, he had a far more important problem.
Blueblood.
Now it wasn’t definite, there were still other names on the list, but there was an increasing chance that Prince Blueblood would be nominally in charge of the noble courts. Now in all fairness Shining had been proved wrong… on the rare occasion… about Blueblood, the Prince expertly rescuing the Yakkistan negotiations after Shining had initially botched them for example.
But…
"PLEASE if there are any gods listening let whoever end up in charge be anyone but Blueblood. I know you're out there, my family is talking to you."
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In brane of reality somewhere near Equestria an oracle of the Wardens giggled as she intercepted Shining Armours desperate half prayer.
“Sorry little pony.” She smiled to herself. “Our Prime Directive still applies. Even in the event of Blueblood.”
With that she shifted her esoteric perception back to the Equus Tether and her compatriot. The show was about to begin.
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