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// Pause 
// Story: Flash Memory 
// by SilverNotes 
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"You wanted to see me, Captain?"

Flash Sentry, along with the other guards who'd taken the transfer to the Empire, had had made it clear to them immediately that it was still Captain and not Your Highness, and he stuck to that as he walked into the very sparkly office. The room of the castle had been repurposed, having once held an array of works of art that were now in a local museum, once the traps on them had been disarmed; Sombra had had a taste for the finer things, and hadn't believed in sharing his collection.

"Take a seat, Guardpony." The captain nodded toward the chair, and as Flash perched on it, lit his horn to pull out a bottle and two glasses. "Crystal berry juice?"

"Juice?" Flash repeated.

The captain chuckled. "This is an informal meeting, but it's not quite wine informal." He poured a glass for himself, then, at Flash's nod, poured the second. "Besides, we're still a few years out from a significant crystal wine supply. They're just starting to make it again, and for the old supply, all that's left is a few bottles in Sombra's wine cellar and nopony wants to take the chance he didn't poison it."

"That... sounds wise," Flash said carefully, as he pulled the glass closer with a wing and look a sip. The juice was sweet, cool, and crisp, and he instantly wanted more. Instead, he restrained himself, and carefully asked, "What did you want to see me about, sir?"

There was a smile on the captain's face. He'd been smiling a lot more since moving to the Empire. Flash could speculate that it was because Canterlot had a lot of bad memories, after the wedding invasion, or perhaps it was the cheerfulness of a stallion looking forward to his retirement. He wouldn't be a guard much longer, after all, only until the crystal ponies had trained up their own guards and there was somepony local to handle the job. Then he would "just" be a prince, husband, and father.

He look a sip of his own drink, the glass twirling in his magic. "The whole situation here has been a lot of paperwork, Guardpony." He gestured a stack of pages. "Between all the transfers and replacements necessary to keep the Solar and Lunar Guards running while we're here, trying to find information on how the Crystal Guard functioned pre-Sombra so we can rebuild it, and selecting and training locals to take over when you all return to Equestria, I've been up to my horn tip." The glass rested on the desk again. "It's caused a few things to slip through the cracks."

"Slip through the cracks, sir?" Flash asked, as his wings nervously rustled. Have I done something? There's been some growing pains as we've set up, but I've been following procedure as best I can, we all have.

"Yes, and this one is something that has me a bit embarrassed, because I've been on the other side of this exact conversation." The captain leaned forward, looking Flash in the eye. "Guardpony Sentry, when's the last time you took a vacation?"

Oh.

Flash's ears went forward, each one flicked, and then they pinned back. "I... can't recall, sir."

"That's understandable," The captain picked up his glass of juice again. "Since other than three days each Hearth's Warming, you haven't taken any." Flash opened his mouth to say something, but a raised hoof silenced it. "No need to say anything. As I said, I've been on your side of the desk before. So I'm going to say what my captain told me: The job's important, but there needs to be a pony doing it, not a waking suit of armour." He took a swallow of the juice. "Take time off, go see some family or friends, and come back rested. Understood?"

Flash looked at his glass, and let himself take his own gulp of the cool beverage. "Understood, sir."

"Good. You're dismissed."





As Flash stood on a cloud street for the first time in years, he wasn't entirely sure why he was here.

He'd been ordered to go on vacation, but he'd been at a loss for where to go. He hadn't seen Canterlot in a while, but most of the ponies he'd known there were either other guards, who'd joined the Crystal Guard with him anyway, or the Crown Princesses of Equestria, who could hardly take time out of their busy schedules to exchange hellos, and even if they could, he'd been a low-ranking Solar Guard before his current post, not a personal friend. His parents had moved to Vanhoover a year or two back, but they were busy with their own careers and he wouldn't be able to see much of them if he went, not to mention that the city itself was currently in the middle of a necessary cold snap that had put most tourist-related businesses on hold.

So, on impulse, he'd taken wing to Cloudsdale, where he'd grown up. There'd been a itch to see the cloud buildings again, to be so high that it was easy to forget that the ground existed. Some kind of primal pegasus thing, he assumed, or at least that's what he was sure that his father would say if he asked him. The air was different here, purer, and he took a deep breath as he did a few cool-down stretches of his wings. There were pegasi who spent their whole lives here, never touching ground, and he couldn't blame them.

How many times had he just... wandered these streets, watching the city expand as construction pegasi gathered and shaped clouds? Cloudsdale never seemed to stop getting bigger, as there was nothing impeding its growth like landbound cities. Just sky in every direction.

Of course, there were drawbacks to cloud cities. The expense of imports, for one, and for another, any business hoping to attract customers from the other two thirds of the pony population wasn't going to have much luck. It led to a lot of pegasi going to the ground simply for financial reasons. Then, some had marks that mandated it, like him. Yet more went down to explore and stayed because they fell in love with ground-bound creatures.

Then there were the pegasi who just felt the wanderlust, the need to leave the nest and fly as far as they could. Pegasi had small populations in many nations beyond Equestria; he recalled that, from his schooling, though it was hard to grasp at the specifics of where. Griffonstone, at least, he knew hosted plenty.

His hooves were taking him through familiar streets, his wings resting from the flight here, but Flash didn't know where he was going, not on a conscious level. He only realized what neighbourhood he'd instinctively headed for when he heard familiar wingbeats.

"Flash!" Two voices chorused as he suddenly had a pegasus on either side of him, and he blinked rapidly as he was sandwiched.

"Somebody call the princesses!" said the purple stallion at his left, "We've got a guard out of armour."

The green stallion at his right chuckled and bumped his shoulder into Flash. "Yeah, don't you know that's illegal? You're all supposed to eat, sleep, and live those suits."

"Hah hah hah." Flash rolled his eyes as he looked from pony to pony, unable to keep the unamused expression long as he smiled, the memories washing over him in the face of old friends. "Well, if that's the warm homecoming I'm going to get, maybe I should spend my vacation in Las Pegasus instead."

They look different.

Thunderhead's still all leg, wing, and neck without much body attached, but he seems to have chosen a style for his mane that isn't "I just rolled out of bed" and looks like he's finally stopped trying to grow of moustache. Deluge's retired his mullet, too, and he's picked up even more muscle. He was already a flying brick, and now he's a whole brick wall with wings.

Thunderhead looks strange without his shades, and Deluge doesn't have his choker. I'm not sure if I've ever seen them without them. They practically slept in the things.

"You better not," came a third voice, as a shadow even larger than Deluge fell over them, and all got out of the way as the combination of snowy owl and white tiger landed in front of Flash, beak open in a smile. "Not unless you're planning to ditch these losers and take me with you."

Thunderhead feigned a cringe, taking a sharp breath through his teeth. "Harsh, Genna."

Deluge gave her a similar faux pained look. "Here I thought we were friends."

"Friends?" Genna casually polished her black talons on her breastfeathers, swishing her tail. "Naaaaah, griffons don't do friendship. I just hang around you two so you'll keep the rain off me."

She's barely changed at all. Maybe a little taller. Griffons stop growing later than ponies, I think. And she's not wearing that alligator-skin jacket. Still, it's uncanny. She carries herself like she did when she first strutted into Magnus High like she owned the place. 

I think her accent's completely gone now. It'd faded a lot, by graduation.

Thunderhead gave an exaggerated gasp. "And the truth comes out! I'm shocked and appalled."

Deluge made a valiant effort at puppy dog eyes. "You're so cruel. Don't you know us ponies get our feelings hurt easy?"

"Just wait a second while I get my supply of cares--" Genna mimed opening her bag. "--Oh wait, fresh out."

Laughter broke out among pegasi and griffon alike, and Flash found it infectious as he laughed along.

It was like this nearly all the time. Genna would say something mean, but there's a way she holds her wings that you know she doesn't mean it. One of us would fire off something, she'd fire back, and before you knew it we were cracking up at the ridiculousness of it.

I'd almost forgotten.

As laughter faded, Flash gave a little shake of his head. "I see you all haven't changed."

Thunderhead grinned. "I know, right? The band back together, just like old times."

"Speaking of." Deluge bumped Flash's shoulder again. "C'mon, the old part-in-the-clouds we used to go to still has their dinner special. I'll buy."

"Well, I can't say no to that."

"Good." Genna spread her wings. "'Cause I'm dying of hunger. Let's go before they run out of tofu."

She led them, but she didn't need to. As Flash took to the sky, he found that his own wings still knew the way.