The moment was tense. So, very tense. A pair of golden eyes fixated narrowly onto the blackened figure while he stood statue-still, waiting for his next move that could cost him. The stallion donning just the main piece of night-blue and purple armor had been prepared for everything tossed his way throughout his career, plus a little more, but nothing could have prepared him for this.
Fifteen minutes passing without breaking a sweat soon changed when a lone bead developed near the pegasus' temple as he contemplated the possible outcome of his opponent’s next move. It left an uneasy feeling in his gut, one that he masked effortlessly with much practice from becoming a proud member of Princess Luna’s guard—a respected, high-ranking member, to boot, for nearly five years now.
His steady gaze lifted to the unicorn opposite of him, smugly sipping a strawberry-banana smoothie through a colorful curly straw, the glass itself floating above the table within a golden aura. A look of confidence held strong as the pegasus returned a hardened glare, returning his focus downward to the floridly-placed black-and-white chess figurines. Well, what remained of the black ones, that is.
He examined his options, calculating them meticulously. He makes one wrong move, and that would be the end of it. His chances of winning with just two left against all of the unicorn’s unbeaten army dwindled. Accepting loss was not something he could easily settle with. Though, in this instance, perhaps it would be best to...
Sliding his pawn forward and to the left, he drew back his hoof and cupped them before his muzzle, reshifting his attention to the golden armor-clad stallion seated opposite of him, whose eyes darted about between pieces in a muse.
The lower of one of his own ignited in mystical gold sparkles and beginning to levitate, only to dissipate two seconds after and drop to the board without falling over. Magic took hold of another figurine and slid directly into its black-painted opposition, knocking it over, followed by the one adjacent to it.
Grinning victoriously, the grey unicorn glanced up to the pegasus, declaring one word to finish it off. “Checkmate.”
Smacking both hooves on the tabletop in defeat, the impact in turn shaking the board and knocking over each of the figurines once standing, Night Shadow shouted, “Darn it!”
Chuckles and clapping of hooves beside him and Sharpblade erupted as some other guards—City and a couple of off-duty Lunar—observed the two on their lunch breaks. One held out his hoof with a smirk, while another pouted and handed over a small pouch of bits and grumbling incoherently.
Raising his head, as well as an eyebrow in curiosity, he placed his hooves on the edge of the table before him. Night questioned, “Since when were you a skilled chess player?”
Another aura carefully raised the fruity beverage up to his lips for another slurp, before Sharp responded. “As long as you have been a captain, Night. Maybe longer,” he replied with a shrug, a nicker, and a grin that failed to falter. "All of these years we have known each other, and this you only just recently discover."
Now propping his head up with a hoof, elbow on the table, Night threw back a smirk. "You never quite vocalized it enough—or at all—for me to guess. Though, I suppose it would serve as a perfect explanation as to why you have a chess piece keychain on your house keys."
Snorting, Sharp slapped his smoothie glass onto the table, his grin turned upside down into more of a grimace. He struck a look equal to that of an offended one, as if he had been personally insulted. "I'll have you know that the knight fits just perfectly to my job!"
"Whatever you say, First Sergeant!" Night motioned his hooves in quotation. "Tell me, how does it feel?"
"How does what feel?" Sharp retorted grumpily.
"To be promoted one step at a time."
"Feels just great!" Sharp crossed his hooves, turning his nose up and looking off to the side, eyes closed. After a moment, he opened one to look at Night, inquisitive to what he was now poking at with such a question. "Why do you ask?"
"Because I never had the opportunity to experience it. During your time six feet under, I went from a private straight to captain! No, excuse me, captain in the Zodiacs! Tell me, how on earth does that make sense?" Night queried jestfully.
"I suppose, to the princesses, you were just that meritable?" suggested Sharp.
Night eased back into his chair to relax. "Nah, it's all because of what went down a few years back. Before I discovered you were alive," he grit his teeth at the end for emphasis.
The unicorn threw up his hooves. "In my defense, I was under a mind control spell! I had no clue what was going on until, well... what ever it was you did to break my trance."
"It was Luna who snapped you out of it, but, I'll let you slide for that one," Night gave another smirk, baring one fang out the side. "On that subject... did you ever tell me what they used to revive you?"
Sharp blinked, shaking his head as he took a brief sip of his beverage. "Had to have been after I was buried, but, no. They never told me how the process was done. High-powered necromancy magic is my best assumption, or something of that matter. Probably stuff kept in the archives."
"Fair enough." Night shrugged. "Not important now, and hopefully not ever in the foreseeable future."
"I concur," Sharp replied, beginning to slurp as he finished off the last of his smoothie through a fancy little straw provided by the cafe they were seated outside of. He lifted a hoof to his muzzle to politely quell a burp.
Above the square, the minute hand on the striking clock atop a nearby spire-topped tower ticked into a new position. Its enormous hidden bell rang aloud twice for blocks around. Ears of each guard gathered for lunch swiveled, some hopping down from the ledge they sat on.
"Ah, break is over." Night declared between them, sliding out his chair with a loud metallic grind of the wrought-iron legs scraping on cobble.
Following suit, Sharp tossed a grin in the lunar captain's direction, snatching his helmet off of the ground beside the chair and holding it beside his chest. "Same time next week?"
"We'll see. I will have to find somepony to train me the way of the game," Night countered with a crafty smirk.
The stone-coated unicorn huffed, his nose scrunching up slightly. "That's cheating."
"Oh ho, but it's fine when you do it? I see how it is," the pegasus' smirk widened. The two exchanged a chest bump with a clank of their armors.
"See you then, brother," Sharp responded, giving a head gesture to his fellow guards who joined a slight formation behind him.
"Likewise," Night nodded once, a warm smile curving his lips as he soon himself started towards home.
In his case, the Canterlot Palace was home.
⚔
Each armored stallion or mare he would pass in the castle's intricate system of corridors and infamous halls returned his silent greeting: a nod, or go as far as saluting if without previously recognizing the captain's reserved nature.
Although he faced his job as solemnly as the next pony, Night eventually became acknowledged around the Guard for his way of formality. Even seven years since making the respected rank rather unexpectedly, while some looked down upon it—specifically his fellow eminent officers—with others admiring from a different perspective outside of his command, he insisted on enforcing friendship over protocol within his unit, as learned from years prior of serving in Princess Luna's presence.
As such, respect and uniformity remained traditional. Those were traits Night was not looking forward nor proposing to reshape in his Zodiacs. Alas, his approach was recognized by guards of either branch. He didn't quite mind it so as long as his contemporaries kept in line and performed their jobs as they should.
Shades of armor darkened as he strolled into Luna's wing of the castle, where his squad mates worked day in and day out (with rotations, of course). On the rarest and, typically, the most unanticipated of occasions did Celestia's guards stand watch in this section. As much of an oxymoron as it was, night guards under Captain Fallen Star's order—and sometimes Night's—were stationed here all hours of the day.
Looping around one corner, one quality Night wished for some time soon would be the peace, quiet, and more importantly, the lack of an eyesore of scaffolding from one end of the corridor to the other. He and everypony else despised remodeling as much as the next pony, even though he knew for it to be necessary.
Bluish, crystal-like pillars on corner ends and the matching primer on the walls would soon be replaced by cobblestone, lightweight albeit sturdy. A couple of ponies under Night's order expressed concern for the change with the mutual feeling that Luna's wing was steadily turning into a dungeon.
While only partially correct in their dismay, after all, it was the princess' decision regarding the design. An extension to the building was added in late, as well, to accommodate new barracks for the Zodiacs on the floor below, a new stairwell, an office for Night, a refurbished medical ward, and three extra secrecy rooms to serve each a different purpose.
As a result of the layout alterations, the meeting room would soon be torn down, opening up an enormous space in the wing for workers to begin raising new walls. Thankfully, these changes did not affect Night's quarters... much. Although, for as strange as he was, along with his polar-opposite sleeping schedule, burden came in the form of noise during the morning and afternoon hours that constantly broke his work concentration in his poorly-soundproofed apartment.
Even Luna herself expressed minor regret for approving the revisions. She, out of most ponies who occupied her wing whether it be for work or sleeping in billets while new housing was constructed, was the nocturnal one. Most of the time, that is. Workers minimized clamor as much as they possibly could, so as not to disturb the slumbering alicorn, even though her quarters were designed for muffling sound far more efficiently. No pony seemed to escape the frustration brought with reconstruction.
Night's jaunt weaving under scaffolding brought him to his final destination: the doors leading in to the conference hall, held wide open by holder legs. Inside remained just the center table, and many stacked boxes of paperwork to more than likely be disposed of.
The chairs that formerly surrounded the glass-topped table had since been moved into temporary storage, as well as decorative objects, such as plants, a chandelier, and picture frames or plaques hung up on the one solid wall not made of frosted bulletproof glass.
"Ya think we got enough garbage to sort through, Cap?" chuckled the dark-cyan earth pony, slapping another heavy cardboard box on top of another, sliding it neatly into place.
"Too much if you ask me," replied Night, minding his steps of lingering nails on the floor. He preferred to be cautious, despite kicking guards as part of his uniform. "It is all organized, correct?"
A third, somewhat smaller pony in the room, floating up from behind the piles previously obscuring him, answered for Lodestar. "Down to the date and everything, Captain!"
Night nodded once to the both of them. "Good work, Lode, Skye. If it weren't required of us to hold on to everything, I would simply say make a bonfire out of it and we invite the whole Guard roast marshmallows around it," he joked.
The silver pegasus stallion floating just above the table quietly snickered, while Lodestar laughed more sardonically. "Hah! If only..."
"Just what are we doing with all of this?" Skye Racer landed, his hooves producing an echoing thunk against the cold stone-tiled floor. He eyeballed the enormous collection of documents filed away tidily into over a dozen storage boxes.
Night raised a hoof to his chin, tapping it there. "Well, it has got to go somewhere while they tear this room down. Truthfully, I fail to see why the Archives can't take all of it. All this is doing is taking up valuable space in our cabinets."
"Aye, good idea. Some poor pony down below'll take it, I'm sure; whoever it is that holds on to all of the Royal Guard's files and whatnot." Lode commented, beginning to wrap transparent tape along another box's lid to seal it.
"I wouldn't worry about it too much. Just move it wherever so it is out of the workers' way, I will figure something out sooner or later. After all, it will be a month or longer before they are finished," said Night.
"Whatever you say, Cap." Lodestar took a step back, Skye Racer coming up beside him. "Well, that's that done. Any idea where the cart's at, Corporal?"
The silver pegasus stallion blinked, his ear flicking. "Not a clue, Sergeant. Haven't seen Specialist Stellar Star all day, sir," he responded, wiping down his forehead. "Is it just me, or is it getting a bit warm in here?"
Night's gaze lifted to the vents in the ceiling, frowning. "They better not have disconnected the air conditioning. Do they have any clue of the forecast next week?"
"You would think that is their first concern when working," Lodestar remarked with distinct nerve in his tone.
The gold of Night's eyes shifted down from the ceiling to the other pegasus' light blue stare. "You said Stellar's yet to show, Skye?"
With minor annoyance, he nodded. "Said he was going to grab a cart for us to load all of this junk on," he replied, leaning by his hoof on to one of the boxes, its weight enough to prop him up and not budge, which would have resulted in him toppling over hysterically in front of them both.
That brought a small grunt out of Night, beginning to sweat himself in the stuffy, warming room. "I'll see if I can track him down myself, or get Zipline or Duskbloom to do it. He better not have used that request as an excuse to scurry off and hit the flea market again."
Skye blinked, saying in more of a statement than a question, "Would it surprise any of us anymore?"
"You would think after my last two warnings, he'd understand," Night rolled his eyes, turning to head out. "He better hope I am not the one to find him—"
"Sorry, sorry, sorry!" came a deeply apologetic shouting voice from down the hall. The noise of objects big and small falling over onto the floor were amplified by the tall, slender architecture of the corridors, along with the fast-approaching light rumble of wheels on the hard floor surface.
The three observed as a flat cart with a tall push handle on the rear came to a sudden halt beyond the wide-open double doors. Letting go of it and hurrying into the room panted a bat pony, missing his armor, his mint green cores dilated and chest heaving with every deep breath.
"Better late than never, Specialist." Lodestar's brow arched, the expression he wore and tone of his voice stern with exasperation.
"S-sorry!" Stellar huffed, heart pounding against his chest. He took posture pressed up against the edge of the table to catch his breath. "I'm sorry, Sergeant."
"Don't worry about it, Stellar." Night waved his hoof, flashing a look at Lodestar. "You retrieved the cart and that is all that matters."
He watched as the worry on his face vanished and transformed into a meek smile of immense relief. "Th-thank you, Captain. Again, I am sorry it took s-so long to grab it."
Night returned a reassuring smile of his own to show an absence of any particular disappointment. "You did well. Bring it on in here."
As Stellar moved to do so, Night turned back to Lode and Skye, imposing a silent look that told them without words necessary to go easy on the young stallion-turned-specialist, and so they would with his simple yet earnest order.
Two and a half years later, and he had taken notice of Stellar's ongoing struggle to fit in with the unit, and his own growing urge to step in to try and be of some assistance. Night hated to be one to sit back and observe, even though the advice from his authoritative half insisted on it. But it was the pony in him that wanted all to be comfortable around each other and feel a part of the cause, to play their roles as they should.
By the time Lodestar, Skye Racer, and Stellar Star had begun the hefty process of piling up boxes onto the trolley, Night stormed out of the room, bent on locating the pony behind the lack of cold air flow in Luna's wing before her highness could.