All hooves meetings, in general, are largely useless. Instead of our leaders taking two minutes to update each of us on the information we need, their leaders pull all of the officers together during some odd hour and cram us into the briefing room.
Nine times out of ten, the briefing is just a chance for the big wigs to talk to a crowd and feel good about themselves. Occasionally, something interesting comes out that we get to find out before everypony else. That is the tenth time.
This meeting was about the royal wedding. Again. For over a month, we’d heard about nothing but the royal wedding, the extra contacts, the fact that ponies were going bonkers, and that we’d be busy. We had been busy.
I was personally glad for that. Being busy kept my mind off the fact that Soarin and I had only talked twice in the same amount of time and it was kind of awkward on both occasions. He clearly didn’t know what to say, and I was still feeling stupid for what I’d done. So I did what any mare would do: I made an excuse both times and ran off before things got too deep.
Work also kept my mind off the fact that Trixie was growing in popularity, had her own money, and was now paying a pony to do her chores on the chore board in my apartment. She, of course, referred to it as ‘our’ apartment now.
At the head of the room, the door opened and Captain Armor walked in with Vice Colonel Glamour in tow. We all stood to attention.
When he reached the podium, he waved a hoof and we sat. “Thank you all for coming. Not that you had a choice.”
We all fake chuckled. Bleh. That was a part of the job I didn’t enjoy, pretending to laugh at bad jokes our superiors made. Honesty was a better policy.
“I know it is Friday and some of you will be starting your weekends soon so I want to keep this brief,” Shining Armor went on. “Please keep the information I am about to share a secret as we are not yet able to discern the credibility of it.”
And just like that all of the ears in the room perked up. Secret information? Credibility? Those weren’t generally wedding words.
“As inconceivable as it may be, I recently received a letter threatening the security of Canterlot. It does not specify in what way or when, but this is the sort of thing that we can’t overlook. Especially with a big event coming up that would be a prime target.
“This may be a prank. It may be a statement. We’re not sure. All we know is that it is a threat and whoever made it had the ability to slip into my office unnoticed. As such, we’re looking internally first. You are not to disseminate this information yet, but I want you to heighten your security even more.”
Heighten security more? With what resources?
One of the cohort commanders cleared his throat. “Captain, a question, please?”
Shining Armor nodded. “Of course.”
“We’re already spread thin, sir. My section leaders are screaming. Is Command going to give us any help at all on this?”
I’m glad he asked! I certainly wasn’t going to open my mouth.
“Right. The answer is yes. We’re going to use the wedding as cover. It is causing more tourism than expected and that fact is headlining all of the papers. We’ve sent out orders to bring in city guards from around the kingdom to help with the city guard here.
“The Canterlot city guards from the palace precinct will assist with the wall patrols. The wall patrols will assist with the palace security, and the palace security will tighten the perimeter of the VIP areas.”
Lieutenant Astral Dyke cleared his throat and stood up. “But no additional ponies for the House Guards, sir?”
“That would be too obvious for now. I’m still working on getting you more ponies for Princess Luna’s Guard. In the meantime, you’re going to have to make do with Windchaser and her ponies,” Shining Armor explained.
“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Dyke replied before sitting.
“Alright, that is all from me. Colonel?” Shining Armor said as he looked to vice colonel Glamour.
“As mentioned, you are not to share these details with your ponies yet. One of them may be the culprit. We are going to strengthen the pass requirements for the palace. Being in uniform is no longer enough. You are to order your guards to challenge any pony not wearing a badge, this includes friends and superiors.
“All guard, support, and staff ponies will need to display their badge at all times. That includes you. Don’t keep your pass in your helmet, wear it on your collar where it will be easy to see.”
That was oddly specific. How did she know about my helmet pass? This was going to be highly annoying.
“Keep an eye out for anything odd. Remember, if you see something, say something. That is all.”
Shining Armor gave a resolute nod and waved a hoof. “Dismissed.”
We all waited for them to file out before the murmuring started. A threat against the city was a highly unusual event. A threat dropped off in the office of the Captain of the Canterlot Guard was even harder to believe. It was probably a really bad joke, but we couldn’t take it that way.
It was also good we’d be getting some help. I needed it. We all did.
I pulled my helmet off and retrieved my pass. Mine was different than most of my peers. They had access to their work areas and logical extensions of them. My pass was full access to everything but Princess Luna’s area. I didn’t want that anyway.
My access wasn’t really something I wanted to advertise as I didn’t want ponies thinking I had my job because the princess and I were friends. It was a factor of it, sure, but only because I’d helped her during the last attack on the city.
What a weird thing. We’d been attacked. That was a first in who knows how long. Now we were being threatened? What was going on! I lingered in the briefing for a while to listen to the gossip but nopony knew much of anything. It was all speculation which meant it was time to get going.
Once my pass was affixed to where it needed to be, I headed off towards Princess Celestia’s wing. I didn’t have an appointment, but I wanted to talk to her about my situation with Soarin. She would probably have some good advice.
While I wasn’t interested in ponies reading too much into my all-access badge, I did take advantage of it and decided it would be faster to cut through the command area to get back to the living area of the palace faster.
I was going through that area when things got weird. The whole place was oddly quiet. It was as if no business was being conducted and, in this area, that was never the case.
Usually there were guards at their posts and aides were coming and going. None of that was happening right now. Even if all the officers were in another meeting, there should have been ponies at the security checkpoints.
This was very weird. Not just weird, but wrong. I narrowed my eyes and concentrated as hard as I could on trying to detect anything abnormal. I wasn’t sure how the ability worked. During the Summer Sun Celebration, I’d just been able to see the dark energy all around.
That wasn’t happening now. There didn’t appear to be any miasma present and that was what made ponies act odd during the festival when Nightmare Moon returned.
I cautiously crept down the hall, my coat standing on end. Whether I could see the miasma or not, this felt wrong. It was almost as if something was in the air. Either that or I was imagining a situation that wasn’t real.
At the end of the hall was Shining Armor’s office. Maybe everypony was in there? I needed to let him know something was going on.
As I got closer to the door, it opened and Lady Cadence trotted out. When she saw me her eyes went wide. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m sorry, I was just passing through! Then I noticed all of the guards were gone and… and wait! What are you doing here?” I demanded back.
She tipped her nose up. “My husband-to-be works here and I was looking for him, obviously.”
“Is he in there?” I asked, my eyes narrowing. She sounded different somehow.
“He is not, so now I am going to find him,” she said before trotting past me.
I held out a hoof and set it on her chest, stopping her.
She hissed. “You dare touch me?”
“Where is your pass?”
“My what? Don’t be silly! You know who I am. Everypony knows who I am!”
“New rules. Everypony has a pass. Where is yours?”
Lady Cadence swatted my hoof off her chest. “I don’t have a clue, but I can assure you I won’t be needing it after I talk to Shining Armor about you. You… what is your name again?”
“Sunny Day. You go tell him I challenged you for a pass,” I replied before glaring. Whatever pony I’d met seemed long gone, and I didn’t like this one. If I’d known back then that she was like this, I would never have wanted to sleep with her.
She stormed off in the direction I’d come, leaving me alone. I opened Shining Armor’s door and peeked in. There wasn’t anypony inside. Everything looked normal, and I wasn’t about to go in without permission.
I pulled the door closed and continued on my way. When I took the small bridge that linked the palace and supporting areas, Shining Armor just happened to be coming my way. I stopped and stood to attention. “Captain, a word, please?”
He plotted forwards as if he hadn’t heard me, his eyes staring off into space.
“Captain!”
Shining Armor blinked and focused his attention on me. “Yes? What is it, Lieutenant?”
“I thought you should know that the guards in the command area are not at their posts. No pony is. The whole place is empty. The only pony I saw as I passed through was Lady Cadence.”
His ears shot up. “Empty? How? I was just there. Thank you, lieutenant. I’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“Should I go with you, sir?”
He shook his head. “No, thank you. I’m sure there is just some sort of misunderstanding. Carry on.”
“But, sir, I can help. I’ll just—”
“Lieutenant, if somepony other than your commander came into your unit and started poking around, what would be your reaction? In your case, what if it was a sergeant? I appreciate your enthusiasm and initiative, but you may end up causing more harm than good. Carry on.”
My nostrils flared in annoyance. He was right, but I didn’t like it. What was a lieutenant from the wall guard going to do? I didn’t want to let him go alone though. Not that I had the choice. I stiffened, threw my chest out, and nodded. “Understood, sir! Go get ‘em.”
He nodded. “You can be assured I will,” he responded before marching off resolutely.
I waited for him to be gone before deflating. If I was a major or somepony higher up, I could have gone too. Being a wall guard commander was great, but it might have been time to start thinking about my career plans.
That would go on the list of things to do after dealing with my Soarin situation and maybe just before figuring out how to get Trixie’s ego to deflate slightly. Maybe Princess Celestia could help with that too.
With one more look over my shoulder in the direction Shining Armor went, I continued on my trek to see the princess. When I arrived, Sergeant Storm Rider was standing guard. “Pass, ma’am.”
I pointed to where it was on my collar. “It’s right here. This is as pass as my pass gets.”
He shook his head and said in a dull tone, “No, ma’am. The new pass. The special Princess access pass. New regulation.”
“What? No there isn’t! I was just in a meeting not long ago. There was no mention of new passes!” I said louder than I intended.
Storm Rider stroked his chin. “Is that so? Did they specifically mention that there wasn’t a new pass to see the princess?”
“What? No! They just ordered us to wear our pass on our collar at all times. No new passes! What is your game?”
The guard at the opposite side of the door was staring at us with his eyes wide.
Storm Rider grinned brightly. It was probably the first time I’d seen him truly smile. “Come on, LT. You came up with your pass on. We had a good thing going here. You changed the game, so I played along.”
I stiffened. “There is no new pass, is there?”
“No, ma’am,” Storm Rider replied.
“I’m in uniform! I could have you written up for lying to an officer!”
He nodded sagely. “You could, but you also may have admitted to maybe assaulting the princess not too long ago and I let that slide.”
As wound up as I was, I did see the humor in it. “We’ll call it even. I won’t write you up because it was just a harmless prank.”
“Why thank you, ma’am. I hope you have a good day. You look a bit strung out,” he said before knocking loudly three times and then pulling the door open.
“I am, I need her advice,” I replied before starting to trot passed. As I got halfway through I stopped and turned around. “I like you.”
“I like you too, Lieutenant,” he replied.
“Okay, we’re friends now then. That’s an order.”
“Doesn’t work that way, but alright. I’m in.”
That was good news at least. It was nice having a pal in the Guard that wasn’t a direct subordinate. Storm Rider was a pretty good pony. I should invite him out for drinks at some point just to get to know him better.
Just drinks, though. Sometimes it was better not to diddle where you dallied. Hopefully he wasn’t expecting diddling. That was a potential later, though. Now it was time to deal with my current problems head on!
“Oh, Sunny, I didn’t expect you today,” Princess Celestia called from her desk.
That was a fairly rare occurrence for me to see her working. As I looked over, however, I realized she wasn’t really working.
The princess’s desk was covered with about a million popsicle sticks and she was building some sort of castle out of them. “Hi… no, I thought I’d drop in for some advice if you’re free. I can’t tell if you’re free, though. That doesn’t exactly look like business of the realm.”
Princess Celestia flew two sticks together and then started to glue them. “Not exactly. I’m building a castle so that I can show my Fillies and Colts Magic Introduction class what is possible using levitation only. Their assignment will be to work in pairs to build famous buildings in town with their magic alone. Won’t that be cute?”
I took my helmet off and set it aside as I trotted over to her construction area. “Yes, it will. Do you always make your own projects? I thought some staff pony would do that.”
Her head bobbed up. “Sunny Day, surely you know me better than that! I take all of my classes very seriously. The other teachers do their own work, so why shouldn’t I?”
“Because in addition to being a teacher, you’re also the pony responsible for running the entire kingdom? That’s kind of a big deal,” I said, seemingly stating the obvious.
“Your point is well made, but a great leader does her best to lead by example. My goal is to inspire my students and staff alike. If you’re going to talk the talk, you’d best trot the trot,” she said before bringing her newly combined sticks down to the castle wall.
“You continue to amaze me,” I replied, welling up with pride in my sovereign.
The princess smiled. “Well, thank you. Now, you needed advice? Would you mind if I kept working on this while we talked?”
“Yes. No. I mean, yes advice. No, I don’t mind. Can I help or does it all have to be done by you?”
“You can help, just be sure you use your levitation skills only. Now, what kind of advice can I provide?”
“Relationship advice. You know I was sort of seeing Soarin, right? That stallion you sort of had a hoof in putting me back together with,” I started before picking up two sticks in my magic and going after the glue.
“The Wonderbolt, yes. I’ve seen him perform. He’s quite good,” she replied as she concentrated on more sticks.
“Right, him. So, we had a pretty ugly disagreement about a month ago and ever since things have been cold between us. He wanted to take our relationship further than I was willing,” I explained.
Princess Celestia’s eyebrow arched and her head popped up from behind the tiny castle. “He was pressuring you into a sexual escapade you weren’t comfortable with? I took him as a, what do you call it? A ‘vanilla’ pony. To be honest, it must have been pretty far off the beaten path for you to refuse. No offense.”
All at once my ears, cheeks, face and the back of my neck got hot. It took a lot to embarrass me but she’d done it quite expertly.
“What? No!” I squealed in protest. “Princess, I realize I talk a lot about my love life, but this isn’t like that. He’s a good, honest, sweet pony! He wanted us to move from casual partners to something more concrete. Like exclusive dating or marriage or the worst thing ever, meeting his parents!”
“Oh yes, that makes far more sense!” the princess replied, which only led to me feeling more embarrassed.
“Yeah, so he wants more, I don’t! At least, I think I don’t. Our fight was bad and after it I felt awful. I’ve been in a funk. I want him but I don’t want what he wants and now I’m not even sure we’re friends. What do I do?”
The princess softly landed her glue and popsicle sticks. “Sunny, this is a very difficult situation. I can give you advice, but I can’t promise you it will work. We’re talking about matters of the heart here. There are no hard and fast rules. No books with instructions.”
“I know, but I need something. Anything! I don’t want him to be hurt. I want to at least be friends. He’s a good pony and he deserves good things, but I can’t pretend to want something I don’t. That will just end up worse, won’t it?”
She nodded. “Be true to yourself. When you talked to him, did you try to explain why you feel the way you do?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know why I feel the way I do. It made him feel like he wasn’t good enough or that I didn’t really like him. I guess. It isn’t him though! It isn’t anypony. I’m just not ready to get serious. I like having the freedom to be me.
“If I see some mare or stallion that catches my fancy, I want to be able to engage them without it being a crisis of conscious. I can’t do that while I’m with a pony. That just isn’t me. My eyes wander, though! A lot! Why would I put a pony in a situation to be hurt even more? To be betrayed?”
Princess Celestia picked up her popsicle sticks again. “I don’t know that you need my advice. You’re making a very mature argument. It is logical. Soarin is responding with feelings, however. Logic and feelings can sometimes be in conflict.”
“You seem to be the only pony who thinks I’m mature,” I muttered, feeling the hairs of my coat stand up. “First Cheerful says I’m just a big filly. Then he had the audacity to say I was immature at dinner. That’s what set me off.”
The sticks that were floating in my magic started to glow red before bursting into a small flame. Princess Celestia turned towards them, blew them out, and then carefully pulled them away from my magic.
“Sunny Day, you are an immature pony in some ways. In others you are not and that is perfectly fine. Nothing is absolute, but I am concerned this is setting off your temper.”
“I feel like ponies aren’t taking me serious for what I’ve accomplished, and that makes me mad. It is like when everypony constantly compared me to Twilight. Only this time it is some random strawmare that doesn’t even exist.” I picked up two more sticks. These two didn’t burst into flames.
Princess Celestia moved hers down to start building up the model. “You’re going to have to decide for yourself on what that means. Some ponies hide their immaturities. Others embrace and even celebrate them. Only you can choose for you.”
I wrinkled my nose and glued the sticks together. “Thank you. Homework for me, yay! You know, I actually really like working with you.”
The princess smiled. “I enjoy working with you, too. I’m sure together we’ll make a great team.”
“I think so too, but can we go back to Soarin for a moment while we do? How do I be less logical and more feeling when it comes to him?”
“That is a tough question. Try putting yourself in his position. Imagine if you felt the way about him he feels about you. Or rather, imagine how he feels about the relationship, not the pony. Pretend to be him and then say what you think would make you understand. Does that make sense?”
That sounded difficult but it was probably the exact thing I should do. “It makes sense. It’s a challenge and I don’t mind that. Alright, I’m going to try. I’ll go see him this weekend after I think this all over.”
The princess nodded. “I hope it works out for the both of you.”
“Me, too. So, I have an hour or two free before I need to be at the Mare Contraire. Do you want a levitation buddy? Since you expect your fillies and colts to do this in pairs?”
“If it isn’t an inconvenience to you, I’d be glad for the help.”
“You help me, I help you! Now, do we have a plan for this thing?”
Princess Celestia nodded. “Oh yes, if you look to my tack board, I drew it up there.”
I looked over and just blinked. The little castle I was seeing was a gate house. The gate house to a massive castle with a giant, elaborate keep in the middle. “Princess…”
“Yes, I may be going a little overboard, but I find this soothing. Come on. You build wall sections while I work on this, alright? There’s only twenty or so!”
The price of advice was evidently going into model making. On the scheme of things it wasn’t horrible, but she really was overdoing this. The fillies and colts would probably spend the whole class trying to play with it.
If it was what she wanted, though, it was what I was going to do. I pulled over a bundle of the sticks and started to figure out how I was going to do it. “Alright then. Walls it is!”
We worked together in silence for a while before something tugged at my memory. “Say…”
“Yes?” she replied without looking up.
“Have you noticed Lady Cadence acting any differently lately?” I asked cautiously.
The princess was focused on carefully building a window. “We haven’t spent a lot of time together as of late. She’s been very busy with her wedding planning, which I think is testing her temper.”
That was an understatement. “Right. So, I’ve run into her a few times and she’s seemed different to me. Certainly not her normal sweet self. Have you thought about maybe checking up on her?”
Princess Celestia looked up. “How do you mean?”
“I don’t know? Just making sure she’s still herself?”
“Sunny, that is an odd thing to say. What are you suggesting?”
I shook my head. “I don’t really know. She just feels different to me. I saw her today and she was almost hostile towards me. That seems out of character.”
The princess let her sticks glide down again. “Did you see anything around her? Like you did that night?”
“No, I didn’t. Believe me, I looked.”
The sticks floated back up. “That is good. Thank you for letting me know. I’ll see about spending more time with her. Perhaps she could use some advice.”
That was a relief. I nodded. “Yes, Princess. I think anypony planning a huge wedding could benefit from your advice.”
She softly chuckled. “I’m not so sure. I haven’t been a bride in hundreds of years.”
My sticks fell out of the air and clattered onto the desk. “Wait, you’re married? Were married?”
Princess Celestia’s ears shot up. “Oh my, is that Raven calling me? Look at the time! See you later, Sunny! Finish up those walls before you leave, please.” She hopped up and hurried out, leaving me alone.
“What!” I squawked after her.
What was going on!