“Shining Armor, WAKE UP!”
He jolted upright, bumping into the table and knocking over one of his wine glasses. “Present!”
Across the table, Princess Cadance’s normally bubblegum pink was shaded with red in her face and wings. The seething anger in her eyes painted a stark contrast with the prim royal regalia she had donned for their meal. Shining hadn’t seen her this angry since she’d discovered one of her old coltfriends had cheated on her with one of the other noble mares living in Canterlot.
“Am I boring you, Lieutenant Armor?”
“N-no, your highness.”
“Are you certain? It looked like you had just discovered a new sleep aid, the way your head was bobbing.”
“My apologies, Princess-”
“I don’t want your apology, Lieutenant, I want your attention!” Her horn glowed pink with magic, and Shining Armor watched as the wine glass righted itself and the crimson liquid filling it ran back up the stem and pooled in the basin. “When your name came up as in the list of candidates for the position as my bodyguard, it was I who advocated on your behalf because I thought of all the ponies who could do the job, I thought as your friend you at least would take me seriously!”
Shining Armor flinched as Cadance let loose her diatribe, trying not to look as pathetic as he felt. Though the area of the table placement had been cordoned off from the rest of the ship, the sailors on duty were staying much farther away then they needed to. He didn't blame them. The lessons had not been going well and Cadance had been getting more and more frustrated with him. His falling asleep at the table had set a match to the pile of kindling he’d been building up for several days.
“Cadance-”
“That’s Princess Cadance to you.”
Ouch. “Princess Cadance, I offer my sincerest apologies to you. I’ve had difficulty resting since we came aboard the Ambassador. I’m afraid it has negatively impacted my performance aboard this ship.”
It was the truth. In the couple of days since they’d left Equestria, anytime he’d had a quiet moment, his thoughts had turned to Picture Perfect and the letter she’d given him. Having read it a dozen times now, he could still scarcely believe its contents. If she hadn’t given it to him in person, he’d think it was a bad prank from Barrel Roll. His guards had been first to notice his lack of energy when rather than leading them in their drills as was expected, he’d instructed them from the sidelines. Barrel Roll had noticed as well, but had declined to give him anything to help him fall asleep, alcohol or otherwise.
“And what is the source of your restlessness? If your room is not to your liking, we could find you a new stateroom.”
“My room is fine, your highness, it’s something else bothering me.”
“Well, what is it?”
“It’s of a more personal nature, your highness.”
“Anything that effects your job performance is not just personal to you, Lieutenant. Now, are you going to tell me what’s wrong, or do I need to write to my Aunt to ask for a new guard?” Shining Armor sighed and closed his eyes. He’d made Barrel Roll promise not to say anything to Cadance, claiming he could keep his emotions and his work separate. Obviously, that hadn’t been the case. “Well?”
“Picture broke up with me.”
The change in Cadance’s attitude was as sudden as it was drastic. In an instant her smoldering anger had transformed into pure sympathy. “Oh! Oh, Shining, I’m so sorry. I did not know-”
“I asked Barrel Roll not to tell you,” he said with a shrug. “I thought I could keep it bottled up and get through it, but...”
“Some pain is too great to keep hidden, Shining. Especially when it concerns those closest to us.” Her eyes were full of sorrow as she spoke, her voice as gentle as a satin blanket. “How are you holding up?”
“Not well. It’s... I still don’t believe it sometimes. Like at any second I’m going to wake up and be back in Seaddle, or in the Palace barracks.”
Cadance nodded. “That’s a common feeling after a major breakup when the separation is not mutual.” She paused to reflect on the past several days. “Is that why she was so upset in Seaddle?”
He nodded. “I think so. She was trying to tell me in the carriage, but I didn’t understand till I read her letter.”
“A Letter?” Shining explained how she had given him the letter and how he had read it, then recited it to her from memory. “That sounds very... “
“Final?”
“Indeed. She knows me too well. I would have endeavored to counsel the you two back together if she had said anything definite to me.”
Something about that stuck with Shining, but he pushed it to the back of his mind for later. “So, you thought we were a good match for each other?”
“I thought you two were a fabulous couple!” She paused as one of her servants delivered a hot tea. “Was everything she described in the letter accurate?” she stirred the tea ever so slightly. “Have you been concealing your whereabouts and missions from her?”
Shining’s ears flattened and he looked away. “I just didn’t want her to worry about me. With my special talent, I got called up on some of the more dangerous missions that the guard was sent on.”
“And so instead of letting her worry about your safety, as is warranted, she was concerned not just with your safety, but also with your lack of trust in her. A lack of trust she began to reciprocate.”
Shining felt his neck flush. “I was trying to do the right thing!”
“And in doing so did exactly the wrong thing.” She sipped from her teacup. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Shining. Relationships are complicated and messy, and mistakes are common, especially in first relationships.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better, Princess.”
“No, I don’t suppose that would.” She sipped her tea again. “If you want, I could write to her, see if she would be open to reconciling when we return to Equestria.”
His heart nearly jumped out of his chest and did a jig on the table. “You would do that?”
“For two friends? Of course! Like I said, you both make a cute couple, I’d hate to see it end like this.”
Shining nodded vigorously. “Yes, please! If you could convince her-”
Cadance held up a hoof, “You understand that I cannot promise anything?” He nodded again. “Then I shall send it by Dragonfire this evening.” She finished the last of her tea and set it down gracefully. For the first time since opening the letter, Shining gave a small smile.
“Doesn’t tea come after the main course?” He asked slyly.
Cadance returned his smile. “So, you were paying attention.”
“I wasn’t completely out of it.”
“Well, then, my faithful student, there might be hope for you yet.”
That evening, as the last light of the sun was fading over the horizon, Shining found Barrel Roll at the stern of the ship, looking through a pair of binoculars to the southwest. “I never took you for a star gazer, Barrel.”
Barrel Roll lowered the binoculars but still kept a watchful eye on the ocean. “This morning the standing Watch saw a ship traveling behind us, nothing unusual in and of itself. We're still fairly close to home, so we’re bound to come across some traffic.” He raised the binoculars again and scanned the sea. “What is unusual is that it remained in that same spot all day till a few minutes ago, which means it’s traveling at the same speed and heading as us.”
Shining’s ear flicked. “Pirates?”
“Not likely. We're still too close to the mainland for them to operate safely. It could be a courier trying to catch us, but if that was the case, they should have gotten closer, not held their relative position.”
Shining shook his head softly. “Cadance told me earlier today that she’s tied in to the Dragonfire network. If there was news urgent enough to send a courier, we would have heard it by now.”
“So, then it’s just a coincidence,” Barrel Roll stated firmly.
“You know what the Guard says about coincidences.”
“There aren’t any.”
The two sat in silence for several minutes, contemplating the scenario they found themselves in. Finally Barrel Roll spoke up.
“So how did the topic of the Dragonfire network come up? Seems an odd conversation piece for tea and cookies.”
“Cadance offered to mediate between Me and Picture, and she mentioned she could send the offer using Dragonfire.”
Barrel Roll grunted non-committedly. “How’d she find out?” Shining explained what had happened during his etiquette lessons, and the talk Cadance had given him about relationships. “Well, having the Princess of Love in your corner can’t hurt your chances.”
“Yeah.”
He bumped Shining with his wing. “She’ll come around, alright? She still loves you; I know she does. She just needs some time.”
Shining just nodded and kept staring in the direction Barrel Roll had indicated where the mystery ship was seen. “What do you want to do about that boat?”
“For now? Nothing. They’re too far away to catch us without teleporting the ship and all of its crew. We’ll post extra watchers tonight and see where it is in the morning. Hopefully it will have wandered off.”
He sounded exactly as confident as Shining felt about the likelihood of that happening.
Shining woke up suddenly from his first full night of sleep in over a week to a forceful knock on his door. He checked the time as he walked over to open it. Ten minutes past sunrise. The door opened to Barrel Roll already in uniform, flanked by a pair of guards. “They brought friends.”
In the light of day, assisted by the binoculars, Shining could see the topmast of the ship that had been following them since yesterday. According to Barrel Roll, it hadn’t moved at all relative to them, which confirmed that it was indeed tailing the Ambassador. He swung his binoculars to the south and saw the tips of two more masts, the ships themselves staying below the horizon. Probably trying to stay hidden till they were ready. The question was, ready for what?
“Can we go any faster?”
Barrel Roll shook his head. “I already directed the captain to put on as much speed as he could during the night and to try and shake them. They kept with us.”
“So, they’re faster than we are-”
“Which means if they wanted to catch us, they could. So why wait?”
Shining felt a shiver run down his spine. “Why else? They’re waiting for the rest of the fleet to arrive.”
Barrel Roll mulled over his words. “Whatever their intentions, they can’t be friendly or they would have approached us by now. I'll consult with the captain and weigh our options, but if they outrun us, there's no way to avoid them on the open ocean.” He glanced at Shining. “Should we tell Princess Cadance?”
Shining hesitated, then shook his head. “I’ll tell her that we spotted a few ships, but they’re too far away to threaten us.”
“Technically, that is true.” Barrel raised his own pair of binoculars. “And when that changes?”
“If that changes, I shall inform her myself directly.”
“I’ll put the word out in the guard to not get comfortable just yet. If those ships opened their sails, we could be in a battle by sunrise tomorrow.”
Shining did his best to give his undivided attention to Cadance, especially after the previous day to make up for lost time, but he found it difficult to think about anything but contingences and possible events over the next few days. Fortunately, he managed to follow though the proper steps until he reached for his red wine glass when the white wine was being served.
“Did you sleep well last night, Lieutenant?”
Shining frowned as Cadance’s words. “I’m sorry?”
Cadance pointed at the wine glass held aloft in his magic. “Your wine glasses. That’s the first time since we started that you have confused them.”
“Oh, right.” He switched glasses absentmindedly. “Is this correct?”
“Better.” They continued their pretend meal, Shining drawing on half memories and guesses to fudge his way through the process as Cadance watched. After a few more minutes of playing pretend, Cadance waved away the waiters standing outside the cordon. “I think that’s enough table etiquette. You still have some work to do, but I think you know enough that we can focus on other things now.”
“Okay.”
Cadance leaned over the table and touched the cleats of her hooves together, staring at Shining like she was trying to read his mind. “I thought next we could work on proper greetings and pronunciation of titles.”
“Sure.”
She watched as he continued to eat his pretend meal, oblivious to her stare. “I’m looking for somepony to sleep with tonight, and I was wondering if you were available.”
“Sounds good.”
She sighed and pulled the fork away from him. “Alright, Lieutenant, what's on your mind this time?”
“What makes you think-”
“Knock it off, Shining. I can tell you’re still distracted. Less distracted than you have been but not all here yet.” She rubbed her temples. “Is it about Picture?”
He hesitated, then nodded slowly. “That’s part of it. Have you-”
“I sent the message last night like I promised.”
“And have you heard anything?”
She shook her head. “Once the message reaches the Dragonfire hub, it’s sent to the regular mail service for final delivery. As expensive as it is to send a message using Dragonfire, it really isn’t any quicker than the postal service unless you need to send the message really, really far or you're sending it directly to somepony.”
“Why didn’t you send it direct, then?”
“That requires a bit of prearranged spellwork that I don’t have with Picture. I could send the message to Celestia, but I don’t think it would be well received or even understood.” She began to gather her dishes together to indicate to the staff that she was finished with her ‘meal’. “I did give instructions to the postal service that the return letter was to be forwarded by Dragonfire to me, so we should hear from her in the next few days when her letter reaches the hub. Does that help?”
“Thank you, Princess. I will relax till her response is due,” he said, obviously not relaxing in the slightest.
Cadance sighed and stood up from the table. “Very well then. I’ll see you here same time tomorrow.”
“Princess, before you leave, there’s something I need to discuss with you.”
Cadance cocked an eyebrow. “My offer wasn’t serious, Shining.”
He gave her a befuddled look. “Offer?”
“When I said... oh, never mind. What is it?”
“It has to do with our security protocol.”
Cadance slowly sat back down in her seat, her face neutral. “Is there a threat against me?”
“Not one specifically that I know of.”
“Then what do you want to discuss?”
“I wanted to go over what you should do if the Ambassador was engaged in hostilities with one or more other vessels with enough force to threaten the integrity of the ship.”
“So, if we went into battle.”
“Yes.”
Cadance flipped her bangs and crossed her forelegs. “I’m supposed to wait in my stateroom until the fighting is over.”
“And if it looks like the Ambassador may lose the fight?”
“I’ll follow the orders from the captain to abandon ship.”
Shining frowned. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“Lieutenant, I will not abandon these ponies to their fate. If there is anything at all I could do-”
“The best thing you could do for everypony on this ship would be to escape, Princess!”
Cadance stormed out of her chair, "No! No, that’s what Celestia says would be the best thing, but that doesn’t do anything for you or Barrel Roll or-”
“Cadance, we are more than willing to die to protect you!”
“Well then be less eager, Shining! Nopony is going to die for me, not while I have a say in the matter!”
“You don’t get a say in this, Princess. Our duty to you is something nopony can tell us to not to do. Not even you.”
“Rule Zero, Lieutenant.”
Shining tilted his head, puzzled. “Rule Zero? What is that?”
“Rule Zero says ‘The Princess has the final say in all matters, including military’. In other words, what the princess on scene says, goes, so take that self-sacrifice nonsense and stuff it.”
“Princess...”
“That is my final say on the matter, Lieutenant. Out of curiosity, what prompted this question?”
Shining waved his hoof noncommittally. “Our lookouts spotted a few ships in the distance, and it reminded me to go over the procedure. That’s all.”
Cadance looked directly into his eyes. “And there is no threat?”
Shining shook his head slowly. “None yet.” Cadance didn’t break her stare for a full minute before she blinked and gave a little sigh.
“Alright, Lieutenant. I’m feeling rather tired. We’ll pick this up tomorrow. She stepped away from the table and opened her wings to take off, then looked back at him over her shoulder. “Yet.”
Over the next few days, Shining Armor watched as three more ships joined in the pursuit of the Ambassador. By now everyone onboard knew that they were being followed by what was probably an enemy fleet and that they couldn’t outrun them. As they hadn’t taken any overtly hostile actions though, the routine on board the ship were surprisingly normal, with the exception that the Royal Guards began to run damage control drills three times a day. Shining Armor continued his lessons, getting a more in-depth education on the history of Roam and it social and political structure, how to tell if you were speaking to a noble or a wealthy merchant, the latest intelligence reports from the few sources Equestria had in the country, and more.
On the morning of the fifth day, Shining was in the mess with the rest of the bodyguard enjoying a breakfast of oatmeal and dates. It was after the regular mealtime for the military contingent, so the hall was mostly empty, with Shining Armor and his unit making up the bulk of the ponies eating. There wasn’t much in the way of banter this morning, and even with so much empty space the tension in the air made the room feel more claustrophobic. That tension came to a head when a sailor ran up to him and gave him a salute. “Message from Major Barrel Roll, Sir.” He held out the scrap of paper to the Lieutenant, who accepted it with a salute of his own. He glanced at it, then set the message face down on the table, shoveled the rest of his oatmeal into his mouth and took off for the door. When he was gone, Sergeant Stone Wall reached over and picked up the paper Shining Armor had left. The message had consisted of two words: They’re Coming.