The Last Nightguard

by Georg


7. Children of Folly

The Last Nightguard
Children of Folly


“Dependents of serving guards are not permitted within the patrol area without prior written permission from the guard’s superior and the Officer of the Day. A general exception is made for special occasions like Take Your Foal To Work Day or Spousal Appreciation Day…”
—Manual of the Royal Guard, Volume Three


Before, Celestia had expected Ebon Tide to die and was afraid he might live. Now she was terrified of both outcomes. The clash of desires had left her unable to sleep out of fear that she would creep down into this hospital corridor in her slumber and hold a pillow over the feeble stallion’s face until he passed away, or even more terrifying, that she would force a portion of her own power into the poor creature and create an abomination even more terrifying than her sporadic dreams of shadows and death.

Celestia’s dreams held monsters without end, so many of them with her own face.

She dared not visit his room again, not after her clash with Luna. Likewise, she was unwilling to pressure the doctors, either to kill him or save him, she was not sure which. Important papers began to pile up as she fretted, although she was kept from the less-critical paperwork clogs by faithful servants she had long-ago started to take for granted. Whispers below her hearing began to circulate as an informal network of loyalists took up the slack, running interference from Prince Blueblood’s ‘clever’ schemes and various foolish diplomats who sought to take advantage of Celestia’s momentary lack of concentration. She took to walking in the palace garden to deal with the stress, then pacing through the remote crannies and offices of the bureaucracy at all hours of the day or night. Several dozen ‘spontaneous’ resignations followed from dusty fossils who thought they had found perfect hiding places to collect their paychecks and do nothing for the rest of their long careers, only to hear the direct clop-clip-clop of golden hoofboots drawing near their magazine-decked desks. Sometimes, a window replacement was required as the employee abandoned their workplace by the most direct route available.

Sheer chance can occasionally yield better results than the most astute planning, and so it was that Princess Celestia found herself directly in the path of Doctor Hurwitz as she rounded a distant corner in the bureaucratic annex.

“Oh!” squeaked the elderly doctor, who skidded to a halt with a haze of papers fluttering to the ground and his batpony nurse a mere pace behind. “Your Highness! I was just… We were considering… How did you find me?” he finished, looking furtively for an exit.

Silence had served Celestia well for squeezing answers out of reluctant ponies, and the resulting quiet made the doctor add, “Is this about my patient?”

“Yes,” admitted Celestia despite her wishes. “And his recent developments.”

“I’m sorry!” squeaked the nurse with eyes so wide and white they nearly met in the middle. “I told Peanut she shouldn’t be visiting him but she did anyway and I didn’t think they could do any harm with just one visit but—” The nurse wilted, dropping her nose nearly to the ground which made her white paper hat nearly fall off her head as the tight ball of violet mane bumped it from behind. “Please don’t fire me,” she begged. “I’ll keep Peanut on a tighter leash. She’s such an… excitable young mare, looking to find out things with her friends. We were hoping she would become a reporter,” added the nurse.

Celestia turned her head slightly to look at the bowing nurse, only this time she did not need to use silence to draw out any hiding tidbits of events because the doctor did it for her.

“Nurse Flutter!” he snorted. “Are you telling us that your little… pest interfered with my patient! I was wondering why his progress had taken a sudden turn for the worse. I’m sorry, Your Highness,” continued Doctor Hurwitz smoothly as he turned back to Celestia. “I left strict instructions that all of the nocturnal pegasi were to be excluded from the treatment wing, as you specified. I had no idea her little troublemaker was behind this latest downturn. I assure you, she will be punished, and your exclusion will be carried out to the letter in the future.”

Despite the sewer of emotions churning under her ribcage, Celestia managed to keep her expression neutral and ask, “You mentioned Ebon Tide had a turn for the worst?”

“Ah, that’s his name,” said the doctor, who seemed to miss the nurse’s odd twitch. He scribbled on a clipboard, then gave it a sharp nod as if applying a name to a problem would somehow solve it. “He was doing well, gaining weight and displaying increased response to stimuli despite the broken foreleg he gained from your last visit. He’s nowhere near the level we would like in an ordinary patient, because ideally he should have been walking again by now. Despite the setbacks, he had been making good progress in that direction. He was even giving commands to the night staff for more food.”

“And then?” prompted Celestia ever so carefully.

“A few nights ago, the morning staff came into his room and found he had turned his face to the wall. He refuses to eat now, and says nothing.”

“I see,” said Celestia, grasping at the thin reed she had been presented. It was a loathsome, terrible thing she was about to do, but she had done many things she regretted during her long years, and this was to protect her precious sister, so it was for the greater good.

“Perhaps he would respond better if he were transferred to a specialty care facility in Seaddle or Manehattan? With either city’s larger population base, I’m sure their specialists in unresponsive patients will be able to devise a new treatment plan for his recovery.”

“Your High—” Doctor Hurwitz’s eyes opened slightly wider and he bit down on the rest of his words. A suggestion from Celestia carried as much weight as a direct command, or more. “I can see that,” he said carefully instead. “I will see to his transfer as soon as we can make arrangements. I presume we should continue to exclude the nocturnal pegasi from his presence?”

“It sounds only prudent, considering his poor reaction to Nurse Flutter’s child,” said Celestia, wriggling a little on the inside at the thought of blaming an innocent for her scheme to put Ebon Tide at a safe distance from either alicorn sister. “This is a sensitive matter, and should not be discussed with anypony who does not need to know.”

“Such… as your sister, I presume?” asked Doctor Hurwitz, who began to solemnly write on his clipboard. “I understand totally. No need to complicate matters. I’ll go with him myself to oversee his treatment, and send you regular status reports. You can inform your sister as you see fit that way,” he added.

“Exactly.” Celestia turned on her heel and began walking away. “I shall leave the details to you, Doctor Hurwitz. Please ensure he gets the best of care wherever he winds up.”

As long as it is far, far away from us.

Celestia did not even notice the thoughtful expression on the face of the batpony nurse as she departed.


The unnamed pony in the bed drew the shadows around himself like a blanket of gloom. He was nopony now, nosing away the occasional bowl of food before curling up against the side of the bed again. He no longer listened to the nurses, and ignored all of their attempts to move him into what they thought would be more comfortable positions. Anger guttered in his heart like a smothered flame choked out by a mountain of ashes.

He was a dying monster in a land of monstrous children. The admiring look in their golden eyes haunted his mind, and their happy voices rattled around in his empty head as the world seemed to rotate slowly around him. Children should never be monsters. They deserved to laugh and play without terrible things happening to them. He could remember his own father dying when he was a young colt, and the clinging weight of responsibility draped across his shoulders like anchors dragging him into the dark abyss. He had the duties of the Guard to help him then, to provide a goal in his disrupted life.

And the last act of his life was to betray his oath. To strike without honor, at the one he was sworn to protect above all else.

Still, although he was caught up in his misery, he was not deaf. The tiny clicks and scratching noises alerted him to the return of one of the monster children from before, but only one this time. The hoofsteps advanced slowly with more than one hesitation, as if the child were about to regain his senses and flee. Then the inevitable and unwelcome touch on his bed that made him curl up even more and try to tuck his barely tufted ears flat against his head to keep from hearing what was to follow.

“Psst.”

Then, after a period of time that should have been sufficient to discourage the child, it happened again, only louder. “Psst!”

“Go away,” he muttered from under his cast-laden foreleg. If the hospital had given him the dignity of a sheet, he would have pulled it over his head. “Begone, pest.”

“No,” stated the small voice of Peanut quite authoritatively. “Just because everypony calls me a pest, doesn’t mean I’m wrong, Mister Ebon Tide. Mama told me not to visit you, but she told me your name, and I looked it up in Daddy’s history book. There’s a lot of Tides in there, but I found it way, way back in the back.”

There was a crinkling of parchment, and something sharp prodded him in the back.

“You were just like a captain in the Royal Guard,” she continued. “You had big shiny armor and everything. Mama said you might not know who you are, so I brought the page. I’ll tape it back in his book when you’re done reading it and nopony will be able to tell.”

An immediate response rose to Eb’s mind, but failed to get through his dry throat. To deface a precious book in that way, to tear out a page of a priceless tome was an unthinkable act. Who knows how many ponies labored to copy it out over the years, only to have a child destroy their work. Even if she was a monster, she should know better.

“I know who I am,” he rasped to the unseen child. “I’m a traitor to the Guard. I betrayed the Princesses. Oathbreakers deserve no name. You should not have visited me this evening and brought my shame on you. Begone.”

“But—” started Peanut.

“No,” he managed.

“They’re taking you away,” blurted out Peanut through a quiet sniffle. “Mama says they’re going to take you all the way to Manehattan to a big hospital there and rehabiliityate you and we’ll never see you again and the Sun Princess said so.”

“Good.” He shuddered against the cold metal bed rail. “Her sister made me into a monster. Send me away so I can die in peace.”

Finally, the little pest got the message and fled, leaving a fading trail of sobs in her wake.


The halls of the Grand Palace are guarded well by the Royal Guard, but nowhere is that cordon of steel woven tighter than the Royal Towers where the Two Sisters reside. It is a special honor among the competitive ponies who have ascended to that special task, and they hold to their duties with great sincerity. There were six ponies in Princess Luna’s protective detail this evening, all collected from the regular ranks in a relative rush when the regular batwinged Nightguards were sent to other tasks. Unicorns walked the hallways while earth ponies stood guard at Princess Luna’s door and pegasi kept sharp watch on any window.

Against them was one small child on a mission.

They didn’t stand a chance.

And an hour later, when Princess Luna found the letter slipped under her door, not a one of them had any idea how it got there.