"Good morning," Shining said, opening his eyes and seeing Cadence do the same in front of him.
"Good morning," Cadence answered back. She slowly pushed the covers off her body with a wing and turned to sit up. Shining did the same with his magic, and he too sat up on the bed.
"Where's Flurry?" the unicorn asked, looking around the room.
Just as Cadence was beginning to look around as well a knock came from the door, and then it opened. "Your Highnesses, I hope you had a pleasant night of rest," Paper said in his usual formal but friendly tone. "You have just received a new package from Her Royal Highness Princess of Equestria Twilight Comet Sparkle. Worry not about the safety of your Royal Heir, she is currently once more entertaining herself with the Royal Messenger Her Highness of Equestria sent." He opened the door further as he finished the sentence, to show Flurry wrapped around the head and neck of a smiling grey pegasus with a yellow mane.
"Comet?" Cadence asked as she slid down from the bed and onto her hooves, quietly enough to make it clear she was mostly asking her husband about it.
"Twilight's middle name," Shining replied as he too got off the bed. "Technically speaking. But Harmony knows what obscure piece of bureaucratic documentation he dug up to find that, it's never used anywhere." Next he turned to Paper Letters while beginning to walk towards the door. "Have you been here the whole night?"
"I have, Your Highness," Paper answered with a salute.
Cadence meanwhile headed towards her daughter. "Flurry, dear. Don't mess up this sweet mare's mane."
"It's no problem, Princess," the pegasus said. "I don't mind. The trip back will probably mess it up anyway."
A few seconds before that, Shining blinked. He'd seen ponies still look as lively as Paper did after a sleepless night, so he wasn't discounting the possibility that he really had spent all that time there. But those ponies were usually a few hours away from collapsing, and simply didn't realise it yet. "You did well here," he said, deciding to go with a slightly more formal tone, "good job. You can and should take a break now, you've earned it. In the future, don't feel pressured to tire yourself out too much for our or some colleague's sake, the Guard is a team effort."
"It's no problem, Sir," Paper replied with a small bow. "No problem at all. I am quite adept at standing in one place and waiting alert. But I shall be taking my granted pause later today if that's not a problem, I do wish to pay the library a visit."
Shining nodded, imagining the stallion would fall asleep once he got a few pages in whatever he was planning to read. He knew he'd done so a few times back when he was younger.
Flurry had moved from hanging off of the pegasus' neck to doing the same with her mother's, which was admittedly larger and longer, and so the smaller mare had a chance to grab the package she was there to deliver again. "This is from Princess Twilight," she said, holding it with her wings towards Shining and Cadence.