Twilight slowly blinks, letting the reality of her new situation sit into her. Her mind realized she was now in a different room and sitting in a wooden chair at a classic small wooden dining table, across from her was the captain sitting in his chair with his feet on top of the table. To his right was a small stack of letters and papers mixed together in a disorderly stack that bothered her organizing instinct.
“..........” Twilight found herself staring at the captain as he leaned back in his chair, in his right hand he held up a paper which she assumed was either a report or request. Despite her staring, he ignores her and silently reads his paper.
‘Does he not have an office? ‘
Her eyes looked over the right side of the large room, peeking at the corner that began the hallway to the other end of his house from the living room. She figured his bedroom and bathroom would be down there as that is the standard layout of homes, but there was a chance there were more rooms. After all, she didn’t get a side view of the house, so she had no idea if it was one of those homes that had a bigger length than width design.
Her eyes slid back to him. She opens her mouth to say something, only for anxiety to grab her throat. She saw how quick he was to antagonize, and to disturb somecreature while they were in the middle of reading… the thought of committing such an action disgusted her. Instead, she decides to keep quiet until he is finished, letting her eyes silently wander the hybrid room of kitchen / living room.
Her eyes travel along the walls of the room, finding some classic decor on the far walls of living room such as, small classy landscape paintings of nature framed within canterlot-styled silver frames, horn trophies of various non-sentient creatures over in his living room, and finally some small potted plants on the window shelves. The placement for them was messy, as if there was somecreature who knew where to place them but another that just put them where-ever.
‘If Princess Celestia is the only visitor he lets in, then she must’ve given them these and placed some of them… ‘
Twilight eyes pauses when she spots a non-landscape painting on the walls. Focusing her sight on it, she finds the painting to be a distant shot of Canterlot. She had to admit, it was a wonderful painting… but it was so out of place next to the nature paintings on the wall.
‘Princess Celestia gives him gifts it seems like... a lot of gifts... ‘
Twilight quickly looks away from the paintings before any thoughts of Dusk Blade’s ‘conspiracy’ start to manifest in her head. Moving away from the gifts in the living room wall, she looks around the small kitchen. The kitchen was fairly old compared to modern Equestria standards, no magically powered fridge or oven, instead a wood-burning cook stove served as the only way for cooking in the kitchen. His countertops were made of polished wood instead of smooth stone.
She eyes the cabinets and the barrel in the corner.
‘Does he use old Equestrian methods of storing food? Weird... but interesting! ’
Finding no more objects that standout within the kitchen she searches for another object to focus her time on. Her eyes eventually spotted an item that stood out… too much.
‘How did I miss that when I walked in!? ‘
A red and gold divan couch stood in front of the living room’s fireplace, with a brown armchair near it and a Canterlot woven rug underneath the seats… Twilight slowly blinked and even rubbed her eyes as she looked at the divan couch again. It was big enough for either him or Princess Celestia to lay on it, but she knew Princess Celestia would probably sit on it. After all, she loved to sit in front of the fireplace.
The longer she stared at it the more she began to envision Princess Celestia laying on the divan couch and the captain sitting together. Enjoying the fireplace together, until eventually Princess Celestia opens her wing for the man. An invitation. Despite his stoic face, he accepts and sits beside her, slowly wrapping his big lengthy arms around her barr—.
‘No! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, n—! ’
“Are you going to keep looking at the junk in my house or say something?” Twilight lets out an ‘Eep!’ at the sudden call-out. The blush she had on her cheeks quickly grew over her face, she spins her head around towards the man and bows her head.
“S-sorry! I-I thought you wouldn’t like it I-if I talked to you while you were reading, S-sir!” She quickly apologizes and bows her head multiple times.
He lets out a grunt. “Not wrong, but you’re here for a mission regarding me, so I'll give you a pass on it.”
“Oh! Okay... um… thanks?” He just rolls his eyes. Letting a moment of silence pass, so she can recover from her ‘conspictory’ thoughts. With a deep inhale and exhale, she calms herself and looks at the captain.
“ Well, can I, uh, …ask you... some um... questions?” She sheepishly asks with a nervous smile on her face.
“Mn.” He gives the slightest of nods.
Twilight takes that as approval. Igniting her horn, she pulls out her notepad and quill. Flipping through the pages, she looks over her organized notes to find the best first question to start off with. It takes her four minutes of silent searching and contemplation before she finally finds it. With a deep inhale through her nose, she looks at the captain with a smile. “May I ask what your name is?”
“Formal or normal?” He says without looking at her, Twilight slowly blinked moments after hearing that.
‘What does that mean!? Casual and... Non-casual names? Is he talking about nicknames? ’
“B-both...?” She says questionably. He lets out a small ‘snerk’ from behind his paper that makes her ears twitch.
She raises a brow, “D-did I say something wrong?”
“No.” He resumes his Stoic look. “You just take off your mentor in a way.”
He tilts the paper down to give her his attention. “I’m Ratimir in a normal setting, Captain of the Lunar Guard, Lord Ratimir of Hollow Shades in a formal setting.”
“Rat-i-mir...” Twilight mutters the name out to herself, letting it roll off her tongue. A befuddled expression on her face as she lets the name sink in.
“What a strange name...” Twilight accidentally lets the thought slip out and quickly puts her hoof over her mouth, she looks at him and finds him looking at her with narrowed eyes.
“Better than a name that describes that time between dawn and dusk, and followed by that shiny stuff that comes off a grinding wheel.” He hisses out. Twilight raises a hoof and opens her mouth to protest but decides to close her mouth and lower her hoof as the comment sinks in.
‘Is… Is my name weird? Or is his name weird…? What makes a weird name actually?
I’ll... keep in mind to keep comments like that to myself from now…’
She opens a new page and writes both versions of his name along with that note regarding talking about his name. While writing, she follows up with another question, “Are you an official lord under Equestria?”
“Mhmm, Princess Celestia gave me the land and title when she moved me to the Lunar Guard.” He puts his current paper down on the table and slides it to the right as he takes another from the pile and begins to read it.
‘That means somewhere in Canterlot there is official documentation for his title! Though... his full title however seems to be in old-ponish. Mentioning the land with the title and an existing title before the name… Mnnn… ’
Twilight glances at his looks once again, he looked decently aged. Few wrinkles and only small bits of gray in his black hair. She flips the pages back to her notes, looking over them and frowning while taking glances between him and the notepad.
‘Princess Celestia said he came some time after Nightmare Moon’s banishment, and took the Lunar Guards out from imprisonment… but from the current guards it seems he was around before they joined... So, he has been around for forty or fifty years! Maybe, but... his title, home, and just something else... Is nagging me. ’
Twilight couldn’t fight back that strange feeling she got whenever she looked at him this close up, it was similar to what she felt whenever she looked up at Princess Celestia. The feeling of looking up at an aged entity, the feeling of smallness. With Princess Celestia it made sense, after all she was an alicorn that has been around for more than one thousand years. Yet, as she sat in front of the captain, that same feeling was filling her stomach.
She rubs her stomach with a hoof and decides to end the feeling once and for all. “How old are you?”
“Don’t know, I stopped counting.” Twilight gave him a blank stare.
‘That... that response is similar to the one Princess Celestia gave me when I asked her age when I was a filly! He couldn’t be that old now! Only beings of powerful magic can withhold their lifespans for long times! I don’t sense an ounce of magic in him! ’
“What about your k-kingdom! P-princess Celestia told me you came from a kingdom u-up north!” Twilight quickly speaks out, in an attempt to avoid diving deeper into that thought.
He tilts his paper down and glares at her. “Princess Celestia told you that...?”
“Y-yes... S-sorry if that was a bad thing to ask!” Twilight looks down nervously fiddles with her hooves.
He sighs and rolls his eyes. “It’s not, just didn’t expect her to give you that much information about me.”
“Well... can you tell me the name of the kingdom or your people... or b-both...?” She slightly shrinks upon seeing him frown.
For a while the two sit in silence, the captain’s blue eyes looking past the unicorn in thought. Eventually, he clicks his tongue and ends the silence. “I don’t remember the name of the kingdom... I was just passing by to get here. As for my people... mnn…”
His face changed to an emotion Twilight rarely saw on others. Contempt. His gaze stared at the table and his lips formed a scowl, he let an eerie silence take the room before his face resumed back to his normal Stoic look.
“I can’t really describe my people well... but I can tell you that I am a… uh “hu-man”.” He tilts the paper back up and returns his attention to it. Twilight stared at him, her previous gut feeling getting a couple of teaspoons of uneasiness.
‘His face... the way he pronounced his race sounded unfamiliar to even himself… ’
Twilight writes that down and puts an underline underneath it, it felt so out of character of him from what she’d seen of him. Glancing back at him, she notices a small frown stick out of his stoic face, realizing she needed to fix his mood somehow, or he might start getting annoyed with her presence even more, so she decides to blurt out a good lift-up question.
"What is the relationship between you and Princess Celestia!”
‘That was not a lift-up question, you dolt! ‘
Twilight curses to herself internally. Looking back to the captain, she sees him putting down the paper and giving a befuddled look at her.
“Princess and… guard captain. Do you think there was something more?” He asks while narrowing his eyes.
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no!” Twilight defensively flails her hooves.
“Mn, I wouldn’t blame you. With how she acts, she makes it seem like we’re friends or more, the damn fool...” He grumbles, saying the last part under his breath.
“You’re not friends...?” Twilight asks with some surprise in her voice.
“No. We’re just strangers who know each other.” He says stiffly as he picks the paper back up, looking over it once more before putting it on top of the previous paper. Twilight frowns at his attitude towards her mentor but felt relief hearing that they weren’t more than friends, but...
“It seems like she gave you a lot of things...” Twilight eyes, paintings and potted plants.
“I didn’t ask for them.”
He lets out a sigh and ruffles his hair a bit. “Look, not to be rude, but your mentor is... annoying. She comes by too often to “talk” to me, asking me stupid questions and ugh...” He pinches the bridge of his nose, “I just can’t be bothered...”
Ignoring the insult of her mentor for the sake of not ruining the mood while he was opening up, somewhat Twilight tilts her head and asks, “Why does she come by so often then?”
Releasing his nose, he throws his paper-holding hand into the air and scoffs. “To check up on me! Like I’m a prisoner, and she’s the damned warden, the only difference is that the warden likes to harass me by coming into my cell to drink tea and ask me how my day is.”
“So, why don’t you tell her to stop coming by then?” Twilight questions as she writes down his opinion of Princess Celestia.
“Would you try to tell an all-powerful creature that can break you with a simple kick or twist your body easily like heated metal from a furnace with her magic to stop coming to your house?”
“......” Twilight stays silent at that. Deciding that was enough information regarding the two’s relationship she moves on to a question that has been bothering her for some time.
“Princess Celestia told me you used to be in the solar guard, an-” Twilight pauses as she notices the sudden irritation that appeared on his face, he lets out a heavy groan.
“Ah yes… The solar guard, those low-grade envious sacks of potatoes!” Twilight presses her back against her seat upon seeing him irritated while wearing a smile.
“U-um... she t-told me you weren't like that much...” Twilight manages to squeak out.
“Not liked… is a big understatement... The solar guard hated me and I hated them, they were upset at me because I was rose up the ranks faster than their moldy stone leaders did in the few years I was there and because of what I di—” He puts his hand over his mouth and looks off, his anger fading for a moment. Twilight pauses as she sees a look of abashment on his face.
Moving his hand off his mouth and letting out a sigh. “I got a little carried away there. Point is, I didn’t have a good time with them and I don’t really like them.”
“Okaaay...” Twilight slowly nods, writing down his opinion of the solar guard. A thought crosses her mind as she replays his rant in her head.
‘What was he about to say...? Why did he look like that when he stopped himself? Did he do something to make him disliked despite what he said? ‘
She writes down about his strange cut-off, deciding not to question him about it due to the high chance of him either dodging the question or getting even more frustrated. Finishing that up, she looks at the next important question to ask him.
‘Should I ask him why he came to Equestria? No, no, no! That seems way too personal! He could’ve come to Equestria to escape captors, or maybe he’s wanted! Nope, nope, can’t ask him that at all now! Next! ‘
She underlines that question and puts a little “ask later!” circle beside it. Moving down the list, she asks her next big question, “Moving on.... Princess Celestia told me that after you became captain of the Lunar guard, you reformed them after their rebellion! How did you do that?”
“Beh, I didn’t reform them.” He says as he puts down the paper and grabs a blue letter from the stack and opens it.
“They’re still the same, all I did was calm them down and tell them to focus their anger on improving themselves rather than going into a pointless war. Despite it being years ago they still manage to hold their grudge.”
“Like you?” He gives her a peeved look at her for that comment.
“Well can you tell me the story of how you did it? I’m really curious to hear about how you managed to prevent a second rebellion!” She smiles slightly.
“That story is too long for you, unless you plan on staying here past dawn.” He says rather coarsely.
“I wouldn—” Twilight stops herself, remembering that she had snuck out without telling Spike. She internally curses herself, if she knew is she stayed longer, Spike would wake up and panic if he doesn’t see her home. Most likely telling the girls and getting the town to do a search party for her, and if she returned during all that, then they would dig into where she went and jeopardize her entire mission!
She gives a defeated look and lets out a sigh. The captain seeing her reaction simply says, “Exactly” and keeps reading the letter with a furrowed brow.
Another glance at her notes and she finds a question and pulls her out of her defeat. “Have you ever met Princess Luna? Or seen her?”
“Princess Luna... Heard about her, never met her and I don’t want to.” He says bluntly
“Why not? She’s technically your um... princess. Shouldn’t you want to see her?”
“If she is anything like Princess Celestia described then she’s even more annoying than Princess Celestia… in fact I think I have an example right here in my hand.” He shuts the letter up and slides it across the table suddenly, Twilight in an act of surprise and panic drops her notepad and quill to quickly pick up the letter in her magic before it slid off the table. Letting the sound of her notepad and quill hitting the floor bounce throughout the room.
Bringing it closer she inspects the letter, she immediately notices the letter was a dark blue with a broken royal seal on the front. Moving it slightly she notices the letter sparkles slightly in the light, it didn’t take her long to realize what exactly this letter was and who it came from.
“T-this is!” Her eyes widened.
Twilight looks up at the captain. “A-are you sure you w-want me to see an official letter s-sent to you by Princess Luna?”
“I don’t care. It’s just a dumb request I have to approve.” He waves it off. Accepting his invitation Twilight opens the letter and begins reading its contents, her face slowly shifting from a neutral expression to one of worry until she eventually pulls her head from the letter.
“Princess Luna wants to make her debut on nightmare night, in PONYVILLE!?” Twilight nearly shouts.
“The real question is what the hell is “Nightmare Night” and why does she want the entire lunar guard to escort her during it.” The captain gripes.
“You don’t know what nightmare night is!?” His complaint did not make her shocked state any better. She slams her front hooves on the table and stands up on the chair.
“Should I...?” He looks at her questionably
“YES!! It’s a holiday that was founded on the fear of Nightmare Moon and turned it into something more positive, so ponies would feel safe at night again! The entire holiday itself surrounds itself on being outside and afraid of the Nightmare Moon coming down and eating ponies!” Twilight throws a hoof up as she explains.
“....and if I remember correctly, Princess Luna used to be Nightmare Moon, right...?”
“Yes! And to add more onto this, the first place where Nightmare Moon appeared when she returned was Ponyville!” Twilight smacks her hoof against the table.
“.......” The captain stared at her with utter bewilderment before looking away and cupping his chin.
“...Mn.”
Twilight on the other hoof was taking rapid deep breaths and loudly talking to herself. “Why would she want to go to the place she terrorized the moment she got back AND bring her entire guard forces with her, on the nightmare where she is most feared! Combined with the fact this holiday didn’t exist before she was sealed, it has only been two months since she came back! She can’t have adapted to this era already! I... I …”
Twilight drops the letter, opening her saddlebag, and brings out her emergency paper sack to hyperventilate into. She could already foresee it, Princess Luna arriving in ponyville with her guard in tow.
Twilight and Spike watched from the front of their library in a state of awestruck as they witnessed Princess Luna walking through the streets of Ponyville with an entire squad of armored bat ponies walking along her sides, weapons in hoofs and carrying menacing glares that could traumatize a foal. Princess Luna wasn’t helping her situation either, carrying a judging stare as she watched all the citizens run all over the place screaming as they sought places to hide from the monarch.
Twilight is snapped out of her state of shock when she is grabbed from her right side and spun around to face a distressed Pinkie Pie.
“Twilight! Nightmare Moon's back to eat us all!” Pinkie Pie says hastily, looking back at Princess Luna and seeing her coming closer to their location, she lets out a scream and releases the unicorn.
“Everpony! Run for your lives!” She wails out as she takes off down the street.
Twilight simply blinked at Pinkie's reaction and then stumbled forward when the earth shook, quickly looking to her left she found a building caught on fire in the distance, It wasn’t long before more buildings caught on fire and more sounds of screams and running hooves surrounded the duo.
“Sooo...” Twilight looks down at the nervous drake.
“Should I get the e-elements or...?” He asks, despite his eyes screaming at Twilight, to please let him get the elements of harmony.
Twilight pulls away from the paper bag and lets out a gasp at the vision.
‘I can’t let this happen! Princess Luna’s reputation will go down to Tartarus, and Ponyville will go into chaos worse than what Discord did! ‘
Determined, Twilight drops her paper bag to the floor and leaps onto the table. The captain turns his head towards her and finds Twilight's face up close to his. He leans back against his chair and looks up at her with slightly widened eyes.
“What the!?” He mutters out.
“We need to stop her! Tell her to go somewhere else! With no guards! On a day other than Nightmare Night! Stop. Her.” Twilight pleads.
“Do you think I can just decline the princess I work under request and expect her to accept it!?” He quickly counters the determined unicorn. Twilight's eyes widen for a moment in realization, she pulls back and raises a hoof to her chin. Thinking quickly, she comes up with a solution.
“Make an excuse! Say the guard is busy and can only send two to escort her to Ponyville, but it has to be a quick drop-off!” She says quickly. He stares at her for a moment, letting her solution sink in then nodding.
“Could work... But I still can’t leave a princess by herself.”
“Princess Luna is an Alicorn! I heard you didn’t send a single Guard to face Discord, why would you send one to protect an Alicorn!?” Twilight says with some frustration.
He sighs and rolls his eyes. “It’s a matter of respect, if I send no guards then she’ll think I don’t respect her authority and a whole road of trouble is gonna start, so I need to at least send someone to accompany her.”
Twilight lets out a grunt at his counter, disliking that she one bat pony would have to be at her side. She closes her eyes and tries to think of a way to counterattack his argument.
‘Princess Luna can’t have a guard at her side, it’ll put everypony on edge! How can I get her a guard without putting everypony on— ’
Twilight's eyes snap open as an epiphany hits her like a wagon full of apples. “Dusk Blade!”
“What about Dusk Blade?” He raises an eyebrow.
“Yes! Dusk Blade, she can watch over Princess Luna in the crowd! All she needs is just a costume for nightmare night that hides her wings! She’ll blend in the crowd easily and watch over Princess Luna!” Twilight explains with a smile.
“....That... That actually could work, hm.” He narrows his eyes and shakes his head.
Twilight beams. “Good! I’ll be there on Nightmare Night, so I’ll do my best to help Princess Luna fit in!”
“Good to know… mnn… I guess you are Princess Celestia’s student for a reason…” He mumbles and stretches his arms and hands. “I’ll send her the plan then...” He moves the remaining papers to the side to pull out his hidden stack of letter paper. Twilight beamed slightly, mainly from receiving her first compliment from the man.
“Can I borrow your quill?” He asks as he brings one page of letter paper in front of him. Twilight wordlessly picks up her quill and hands it to him, her eyes paying some attention to how his hand takes the quill.
“Thanks.” He begins writing the letter. Twilight lets out a sigh of relief, knowing that she managed to somewhat lessen the chaos at Ponyville for the upcoming holiday.
‘And here I hoped to have a good Nightmare Night... Well, I guess it's okay! I can help Princess Luna and get to know her better! Maybe even ask some questions about the lunar guard from her point of view! ‘
“Done.” Twilight’s ears perk up, and she looks at the captain in surprise.
“T-that was fast!” She comments. She didn’t know why but the room felt colder for some reason, a sense of dread starting to enter her.
“I usually Faded Light does this, but since you’re here... Look over this for me, okay?” He hands the letter over to Twilight.
“O-oh! Sure!” Twilight smiles and takes the letter in her magic and looks over its contents.
My Princess,
We are too busy to deal with your request, I'll give you two guards to escort you there, but they are just to drop you off and leave immediately. Private 2nd class Dusk Blade will be within the crowd and accompany you during your time.
Deal with it.
From, Your Captain.
Twilight felt her heart stop upon finishing the letter. Her eyes staring at the line “Deal with it.” a line like that being addressed to Princess Celestia’s sister and one of the highest-ranking officials in Equestria. Slowly, she looked at the captain to see if he had shown any shame or embarrassment, she’d even hoped he realized what he wrote as she was reading it and showed regret on his face.
Instead, she gets the look of a bored captain, waiting to hear her opinion on his letter. Her eyes twitched, and she slowly put the letter down on the table.
“H-how... how could you even think of sending this to Princess Luna!?” Twilight yells at him. He waves his hand off towards her. “It is blunt and to the point, that’s all there needs to be said.”
“You have to be nicer! Polite! Give some room for negotiations! Not just deny her any room for complaints! You didn’t even address her by name! Or show some level of curiosity or kindness to her!” Twilight throws a hoof up angrily.
“Why would I be kind to someone I have never met before? There is no negotiation, she needs to know there is no negotiation. You want to put unnecessary stuff in there...” He says disgruntled.
Twilight shook her head in bewilderment. “Unnecessary!? Did you just say being polite to a PRINCESS is unnecessary!?”
“I called her my princess, that alone should be enough for her to know I respect her.” He rolls his eyes again and puts his arm on the table to hold his head up, a bored look growing on his face.
“What!? No! You need to address her by her full name!” Twilight smacked her hooves against the table.
“It’s one of the basics they teach you in school about writing! You should address beings with higher authority than you by their full name and title when writing a letter to them!” She moves her hooves rapidly as she explains.
The captain narrowed his eyes on her and shook his head in confusion. “Why?”
Twilight’s anger flared up upon hearing that single word. Picking up the paper and starting an argument with the captain about proper letter etiquette. In the training hall Faded Light, Dusk Blade, Moonfall and Fallen Shine all had pressed their ears up against the door, listening to the distant argument inside. Faded Light lets out a sigh, while the rest let out small chuckles every time they hear the captain let out his usual blunt response.
“Sounds like she's having a good time there...” Moonfall says after he chuckles.
“Mhmm.” Fallen Shine nods.
“Today’s going to be a long, long night for you, Twilight Sparkle. I’m sorry.” Faded Light says with some amusement.
“Think she’ll be the same when she comes out, Faded?” Dusk Blade asks.
“Nope.” Faded Light Shakes her head with a small smile on her lips. The group lets out a chuckle at that response and continues to listen in on the growing argument for now. Skipping training for the night, to enjoy listening to the first of many arguments between Twilight Sparkle and their captain.