Mister Clockerson had been a member of the royal guard for a few years and fit in quite well. The ponies in the office he occupied changed over time. It was nice to hear the pairs of ponies that got assigned to the office talk about work and their lives. Mister Clockerson did not get much gossip, or get out much himself. There wasn't even any windows for him to look out of during the night when he was off duty. Of course he was always on call in case somepony needed to know the time in the middle of the night. Being a royal guard is a twenty-four hour job. During the night he could relax though.
Except for one incident during his first year, a unicorn student had apparently summoned a gigantic dragon, except for that everything had been quiet. Which was good. Mister Clockerson was ready to serve in any fashion he could, but his non-timekeeping skills were extremely limited. Not to mention that in a crisis precise timekeeping is not a critical ability. Mister Clockerson took pride that he was most important when things were quiet and calm. Life was best when royal guards had nothing to do.
He had a partner in duty. The calendar on the wall next to the door helped keep track of days the same way Mister Clockerson kept track of hours and minutes. Thought it always seemed that a new calendar was transfered in just as Clockerson had gotten used to the current one. Each one was appreciated, even if a few of the calendars brought in by the pony guards had... somewhat lewd tastes in what is approprate to show in a professional office. Though Mister Clockerson supposed he shouldn't blame the calendars for such lewdness. They were just doing their job same as him.
It was with the help of the current calendar assigned to the room that Clockerson knew that it was Summer Sun Celebration. The longest night of the year when all the ponies celebrated Celestia and the defeat of some ancient evil a long time ago. Clockerson reminded himself once again that it meant the pony guards would be late and probably have hangovers when they reported in after the all-night parties.
Clockerson reminded himself of this as morning came. He couldn't see outside of course, the office has no windows. There was something of an edge to the darkness of the unlit room. He was not a supersitions clock but the palace did not feel right. Something about the sounds that could be felt more than heard through the marble walls. Something was wrong. The darkness of the unlit room felt more oppressive than it should.
Mister Clockerson could heard the sound of ponies galloping. Raised voices from outside the palace could barely be heard through the closed door of the office. Which meant that either the windows in the hallway were open or the raised voices were very loud indeed. Mister Clockerson hoped the rest of the guard could handle whatever the problem was.
His duty was clear. It might be a crisis, the pony guards might not need to know precise time, but that did not absolve him of his duty. A quartet of hooves ran down the hallway just outside the office. Which spurred him to further action. Or, to be accurate, spurred him to inaction. He was no longer the latest and greatest magical clock on the market, but he still had plenty of fancy abilities. One of which was that during the night the clock hands and numbers glowed so they were visible in the dark. He was supposed to turn them off when dawn came and there was light enough to see. Mister Clockerson was smart enough to know exactly when dawn was supposed to happen, but something told him the sun had not risen yet. So instead of turning off the magic glow he did his best to glow even brighter. Anypony that so much as glanced into the office would know what time it was. Even with the longer than normal time glowing would drain his magical energy and hasten when he would need either to be recharged or replaced.
It didn't matter if an evil goddess of night spread her dominion over all of Equestria. Mister Clockerson would spend the rest of his existance making sure ponies could tell the time even if he had to burn every thaum of magic in his crystals to keep himself visible in the darkness.