//------------------------------// // Chapter 5: Honesty // Story: Breaking Dawn // by Detsella Morningdew //------------------------------// It was still six hours until Meadowlark would get off work, and for obvious reasons, Luna was not yet available. Smarty told her that Luna would randomly switch with Celestia for their courts to switch things up, but today was obviously not one of those days. And while apparently, full alicorns did not need sleep, it was still probably unwise to disturb Luna from hers. So it was back to Silent Wind at the recruitment office. She smiled as they walked in, a strange sight for a guard. Though maybe perhaps not for a Night Guard. Aurora had to admit, she almost never saw them around. Even at night. But given some of Luna's training, that was probably the point. Once they got closer to the table, she brought out a clipboard with a small form attached. Ah, paperwork. "So, I take it that you are ready for the next step?" Both of them nodded. She hoofed over the clipboard, which as it turned out, had two copies of said form. It was surprisingly short. Basic information followed by a short questionnaire about any potential medical conditions. Aurora looked up, confused, but Silent Wind apparently was prepared for her question. "We acquire most of the relevant papers from the city hall, including the test that determines your magical signature. That is the only identifying feature of a pony that is completely impossible to forge, which is why all three branches of the Guard now use that for identification." As Aurora passed her finished paper back to the thestral and passed the clipboard to Smarty, a relevant fact stuck out in her mind. "Oh! I'm pretty sure some of Smarty's papers have a security clearance attached to them. Will that be a problem?" The mare smiled. "Don't worry. Information is distributed on a need-to-know basis, and the correct ponies handle these sorts of situations." Aurora briefly wondered when, exactly, another pony's identification papers had been classified. Smarty hoofed over her paper along with the clipboard, which Silent Wind slipped into a pair of saddlebags behind the desk. The mare got up out of her chair. "All right, that seems to be in order. Now for the simple physical evaluation. If you would come with me?" She made for a door at the back of the room, gesturing briefly for the two of them to follow. Aurora and Smarty looked around the hall they stepped into, the concrete floor and white-painted brick walls a stark contrast to the cozy room they had just left. "So, by your statements earlier, you have had some sort of military or perhaps police training, though the second is unlikely in this case. Since it obviously is not from the Guard, where exactly did you get it?" Aurora's discomfort showed clearly on her face as she tried to think of a way of saying it without revealing anything important. She didn't exactly know Silent Wind's clearance level. "Well, Luna-" The mare waved her off with a hoof, suddenly stopping in the hallway. "I see. I don't think we need to do this, then. If Princess Luna gave you even a second glance, you will have met these requirements already. These standards are merely to make sure that a recruit's basic training won't have any damaging long-term effects." The mare smirked. "And if our Sovereign really gave you actual, more-than-a-few-days training, I suspect you will find your first few weeks as a Night Guard a fair bit easier than most." Aurora thought back to their training, this time not to the image that had haunted her for weeks, but before that, when she enjoyed it. In around the same way that a bodybuilder likes lactic acid. "I guess that makes sense." They walked back out of the hallway. "So... when do I see you next? And where?" "How soon were you hoping to start?" Aurora shrugged. "As soon as possible?" She smiled. "Then tonight seems like as fine a night as any." Aurora suddenly remembered that if somepony gives you a choice, you need to choose. Otherwise ponies will choose for you, and not necessarily in a way you will like. Getting used to a new sleep cycle would have been nice. But she had a feeling that just like Luna, this mare was not going to accept redos. "Besides, we already have one other recruit ready to start his training. And don't worry about the location - we'll find you." They both nodded before leaving through the front door. Smarty turned. "Is everypony in the Night Guard like that? I mean, before Luna, I had no idea somepony could be so nice, yet sadistic." Aurora rolled her eyes. "I wouldn't exactly call that sadistic, Smarty. I'm pretty sure they'd take things that literally in the Day Guard, too." "I know, but she knew exactly what you meant. She did that on purpose. And it was fun to her." "Were you really expecting the ponies in Luna's guard to be that different from Luna herself?" Smarty shrugged. "I dunno. I just didn't expect the resemblance to be so uncanny." "You aren't having doubts about joining, are you?" "Of course not! I didn’t even have to go through Luna’s training, but I stayed because I liked it. And because of you, but that’s besides the point. I didn't say I didn't like Luna. It was just... one of her more obvious traits. And since this is so related to our training..." "Yeah, yeah. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’d noticed, too.” Aurora chuckled. “I just can’t believe myself for not remembering Luna’s lessons." "Really, Aurora? You couldn't have told us before you signed your life away?" Aurora looked down at the floor, blushing. "Sorry, mom." Her mother's glare softened, and she sighed in resignation. "I knew in my mind that fillies often started to exhibit independent tendencies after they get their cutie marks... but I guess it's just hard for me to really feel that in my heart. And I suppose that probably counts double, given your situation. Still, even though I wouldn't stop you, would it kill you to think of us first, and let us know?" "No... I'm sorry. I... I just got excited about it, and then one thing lead to another..." "We understand, sweetie. You're very busy. I don't need you to tell me everything. But this just feels... out of the blue. I thought you were supposed to focus on making friends... socializing... that sort of thing. Before, uh... it's too late." Her father gasped in sudden recognition. "Wait, if you're going to join the Guard..." "I can possibly find time to do both. Make friends and... uh, prepare myself." Aurora shuddered, the golem's body appearing in her mind forcefully. She shuffled her hooves. "It's not perfect. But I should have at least some time off for you, and probably Meadowlark as well." Cherry tilted her head. "Meadowlark?" "Oh, she's a nice unicorn I met when I went to apply to the school. I was going to meet her after the school lets out, at twelve." She sighed again. “You’ve been friends since you started school, and we haven’t met?” “Well, uh…” Aurora rubbed the back of her head with a hoof. “I met her then, but I guess she tried a lot harder than I did to be friends. She has known me for a while, though. And she helped me a lot, too.” “Don’t be too hard on yourself, sweetie. Both your father and I spent a good portion of our lives with our snouts behind a book. As long as you take some time to look up, you’ll be fine.” “But the real reason why the Guard is a good idea-” “-Is that you can hide your nature that much longer. Isn’t that right?” Aurora looked at her father with surprise. “Yes, that’s exactly it.” He nodded. “So that means you’ve already cleared this with Princess Celestia, am I right?” She nodded, looking down. “I’m sorry that I thought of telling her, but completely forgot-” “Don’t worry about it, Aurora. I had a feeling that you’ve inherited my remarkable single-mindedness. And don’t worry about my support, either. You have it. Any extra time you can spend not cooped up in that castle is a win in my book.” Her mother smiled. “You have mine as well. Even without Equestria-shaking events forcing your hoof, the Guard is quite a respectable profession. I’m only frustrated that we only get this second-hoof.” Aurora blushed. “Thank you. And I’ll uh… be better about telling you stuff.” She paused. “As long as I can tell you.” Smarty cleared her throat. “And I’ll make sure to help, to make sure there’s at least a 50% chance of that being true.” “Hey!” “What? I forgot about it this time, too. That’s why I said fifty percent.” “Hey!” The house that Meadowlark described wasn’t particularly hard to find. It was rather close to the school, actually. It was nice. Not just “Canterlot” nice, either. The home-y kind of nice. The little flower garden out front didn’t seem to be arranged carefully to impress the neighbors. There were just some flowers in there, not arranged in a particular way. But they were pretty, and they smelled nice. It made Aurora a lot more confident to knock. “Aurora! You came! Come on in!” She stepped inside, wiping her hooves as she entered. “Is this the filly you were talking about?” What must have been Meadowlark’s mother stepped into the entrance hall of the house. “She looks older than you described.” Meadowlark shrugged it off. “She had a growth spurt. Aurora’s not that much younger than me.” Aurora looked at her in surprise. “Really?” She smiled. “I didn’t go for higher education. Most of my skills are more of the practical variety.” “Regardless, dinner is almost ready. Aurora, you are welcome to join us. You too, Smarty.” Meadowlark’s mother left. Aurora looked at her new friend in slight panic. Meadowlark laughed. “Don’t worry, my parents aren’t huge sticklers for manners. You’ll be fine.” “That’s not the problem! I’ve read all about proper table manners, and Celestia even taught me a bit. But I can’t use any of them! I have no magic in my hooves!” She blinked. “Wait, really? I thought-” Aurora lowered her voice. “My leylines were destroyed by dark magic.” Meadowlark winced. “Ouch. What happened?” “I’m not entirely sure if I’m supposed to tell you this part until the investigation is finished. Wait, never mind. If I can trust for you to not talk about that, then I can tell you about this.” Meadowlark took a deep breath. “Okay. Whatever it is, though, this isn’t the place for it. I’ll go tell my parents that I’ll be late for dinner.” “You don’t have to do that. I can deal with the embarrassment, and this can wait until after.” “And my parents will want to know how a filly lost her front legs.” “They’re not completely lost.” Meadowlark shuddered. “It’s still a long time to be without magic.” Aurora stopped herself from replying. This isn’t the place to talk about it. “I’ll just go tell my parents. My room is the second door on the left down the hall.” She pointed with a hoof. Aurora walked hesitantly in the direction she had pointed. It felt weird being in somepony else’s house. The castle was different, somehow. Meadowlark’s parents were not exactly poor, it seemed. It wasn’t often that you saw flooring that was entirely carpeted. The walls were painted a soft pink, and vines were painted subtly across the top. The doors were made out of some sort of dark wood that was heavy and looked expensive. Her room was similar. It had a lot fewer books than Aurora was used to, but that was to be expected, really. Most of the books that were actually there seemed to be hoof-written. Is Meadow an author? “All right. We should be good now.” Her horn lit up, and the sounds that Aurora had been hearing from the rest of the house abruptly ceased. “What was it that you wanted to talk about?” Aurora gaped. Privacy spells were not exactly easy magic. Meadowlark blushed. “I’m not exactly a powerhouse of a unicorn, but I can do fiddly spells like this just fine.” “Right. So you attended the School before working there?” “Yeah. Most unicorns in Canterlot at least try.” Smarty coughed. “So, we explored those caves some more. Found a city. That sort of thing.” She gasped. “Really? You’re not just pulling my leg here?” “Yep. She even uncovered a plot to-” “Smarty!” “-kill most of Canterlot and managed to stop it pretty much on her own.” Aurora put her head in her hooves. If she wanted anypony to know that they had almost died, it certainly wasn’t Meadowlark. Okay, she probably would have still told her. But certainly not so bluntly. And with a lot less personal praise. “I didn’t actually know all that much about the plot, really. I just made a whole lot of assumptions based on context.” “Yeah, only because I was the clumsy idiot that set the doomsday device off.” “You can’t actually prove that you set it off, specifically. It could easily have been on a timer and your investigation was just a coincidence.” “...Really, Mom? That’s your excuse?” Meadowlark cleared her throat, and both of their heads snapped onto her. Aurora rubbed the back of her head. “Oh… sorry about that.” She turned to Smarty. “And what’s this about Aurora being your mother?” Smarty blanched. Aurora nodded. “It’s okay, Smarty. The whole reason we’re here is because we can trust her.” “Uh, well… I wasn’t there, so it’s hard for me to explain. Okay, I was there, but that’s not the point.” Aurora decided to help her out a bit. “For my practical examination, I had decided to make a completely lifelike golem from genetic material. Nopony except Princess Twilight seemed to be paying attention, though, so I… uh… tried to create a wellspring, too.” Meadowlark gaped. “It worked?” Smarty decided to take over. “The only reason it did was because of some very unique circumstances. Mom using some of her own wellspring. The fact that I already existed as a rather small wellspring in her bonded artifact-” “Bonded?” “She didn’t know it at the time.” Smarty pointed at the compass around Aurora’s neck. “That’s me, by the way. And there was a third thing, but we can get to that part later.” Meadowlark nodded weakly. “I knew something was special about you. Both of you, that is. There had to be a reason why your test results were classified. Once I knew that you had become Celestia’s student, I thought I understood why. And the way you and Smarty interacted was a little… off. But what happened in the caves? What’s this about a ‘doomsday device?’” She sighed deeply. “That’s quite the story.” Aurora nodded. “Still, I wouldn’t go down there quite yet. Aside from your magic probably not working very well, we don’t want to disturb any evidence. We still don’t know where the ponies are that set it up in the first place.” “It’s a shame this has to be kept secret, though. Saving everypony in Canterlot definitely deserves a medal or something.” Her expression told Meadow that she didn’t agree, but she nodded anyway. “Still, everypony knowing that they were in that much danger would probably cause a panic. Even after the fact, I’m still a bit nervous.” Aurora looked a little guilty. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll be fine. Thank you for telling me, though.” “There is, uh… there’s more I wanted to tell you. The kind that really has to stay secret.” The location of Meadowlark’s house sunk in a bit more, and she suddenly realized that they were probably minor nobility of some sort. “Even from your parents.” Especially, she added in her head. “I thought I was already supposed to keep the cave thing secret.” Smarty shook her head. “No, that was just the normal type of secret. Sure, it would cause a panic, but it wouldn’t be a disaster if it got out.” “Oh.” Smarty locked eyes with her. “Meadowlark, you are one of the few ponies that Aurora considers to be her friend. She trusts you. If you betray her on this, it will mean her death, you understand?” Meadowlark gulped. “Okay.” “Smarty! Stop scaring her!” Smarty sat down. “If you don’t want to tell me-” Aurora took a deep breath. “No, it’s okay. She’s just being a bit… protective of me, that’s all.” Smarty huffed. “But she was correct.” Meadowlark suddenly felt like her silencing spell wasn’t nearly good enough. “What sort of secret could end up… like that?” “Well… I’m slowly Ascending.” She blinked. “Did I imagine the capitalization of that word?” “No. I’m, uh… I’m turning into an alicorn.” Smarty raised a hoof. “Well, technically, you already are. You have all three types of magic, just not that much of pegasus or unicorn magic.” “Did the other Princesses… go through this?” “Yeah.” Meadowlark gulped. “Uh… why aren’t there more alicorns, then?” A flash of fear ran through Aurora’s eyes. Smarty answered the question. “All of Equestria’s Grand Mages were once alicorn ascendants. Starswirl the Bearded. Crimson Spectre. Stellar Horizon. Twilight Sparkle.” “Oh.” “All except Twilight died.” Aurora looked at Smarty thoughtfully. She certainly didn’t know about all of this. Twilight, yes. That she had been Grand Mage, definitely. Nothing about Starswirl or Stellar Horizon. What is Smarty doing with her free time? My job, Mom. “So you really weren’t just being extra protective.” “I know her parents understand a little of the danger, and they would never hurt their daughter, but I don’t really know you. I know you’re a nice pony, but I don’t want you to let something slip in the spur of the moment. As much as Mom doesn’t want to worry you, you need to know the stakes.” “No, you’re right, Smarty. I’m not sure it was even a good idea telling me this. I’ll definitely keep the secret, that’s for sure, but I still don’t know how wise it was.” “Well, Celestia thought it was a good idea to tell the truth to your friends.” Meadowlark smiled. “I suppose you’re right. Then I have something to tell you two as well. It’s, uh… not exactly as big as what you two told me, but soon, I’m going to be a bit more than a clerk. I’ve been studying to be a part of RGIS for a while now!” “You’re going to be a guard?” She chuckled. “I don’t exactly look like the type, do I? But I’ve always had a certain eye for detail.” She glanced at her cutie mark. Now that she wasn’t behind a desk, Aurora could see it, too. A quill and ink certainly didn’t look anything special, but Aurora knew personally that cutie marks could be very different from a pony’s initial assumptions. “And protecting ponies with knowledge is exactly the kind of thing I want to do with my talent.” Smarty laughed. “So basically, you might soon be the only pony who actually has the clearance to know what we just told you?” Meadow blushed. “I don’t think I’ll get that far up. I’m not some sort of genius. But while I liked working at the School, I just felt like I could be doing more with my talent.” “Well, we have one more thing to tell you, then.” Meadowlark looked at Aurora with trepidation. “I promise it isn’t as bad as the last two things.” “Right.” “We just joined the Night Guard.” She looked at them incredulously. “Okay.” Aurora explained. “All right, so other than, uh, actually liking the Guard, things are going to get a little dangerous for me going forward.” “No kidding.” “So basically, I can still get training that is at least similar to Luna’s-” “Wait, Luna trained you?” “We didn’t tell you that yet?” Meadowlark waved a hoof. “Doesn’t matter for now. Please continue.” “So I can still get training, but I can still have time to be with my family and stuff. Friends. That kind of thing. Plus, the armor kinda disguises me, so when the changes start becoming a bit more visible… I can actually leave the castle still.”