"A Changing of the Guard"
Chapter 3: Reluctance
Down and unknown road
To embrace my fate
Though that road may wonder
It will lead me to you
Although he would have liked nothing better than to remain with his wife for the rest of the day -- and forget the day was happening all together -- Shining Armor and Cadence eventually parted and began to work on packing up a few more of his mementos, Shining wrapping them while Cadence tucked them carefully into the boxes, the two working silently until half the crates were full and his wife declared she needed a short break from the work. He nodded to her as he closed the most recently filled box and stepped away as she lifted them with her magic before heading towards the door. Despite her many years of visits, Cadence had not yet mastered the ability to open the office door in near total silence as he had and the sound of its movement felt like an explosion in the otherwise silent office. Turning fully away, he gazed out the window when the familiar tang of her magic brushing against his own senses as she carried the first of his crates out for him.
The soft click-clack of her gilt-shod hooves echoed slightly before the door closed but he did not turn to look at her as she departed; not because he didn't want to -- Cadence was as lovely now as she had been years ago and though he was getting old, he wasn't dead by a long shot! -- but because his earlier breakdown had left him a little too embarrassed to say more than he had earlier.
Ever since he was a colt, Shining Armor had had a great respect for mares, instilled partially by his parents, but also by Celestia herself and he did not consider himself a chauvinistic stallion by any means, but he was a stallion who was used to being the one who gave comfort and security to others and the brief role reversal had been a blow to his already damaged ego. Catching sight of himself in the polished glass, however, he had to admit that even though the talk with Cadence had not actually cheered him up, it had in some ways lifted at least some of the melancholy to the point he no longer felt in danger of being crushed by it. It had felt good to get his worries out in the open, even if only briefly and he was grateful beyond words that his wife always seemed to know exactly what was needed to be said.
But it also left him drained emotionally as well as mentally and he felt his head tipping forward to rest against the window, the sun-warmed glass brushing just below his horn as his blue eyes gazed into the outside world and the utter... normalcy... of it all. The sight which greeted him was one he had seen a thousand times over and more; the eastern training yard filled with various guard ponies both young and old going through their daily routines. In a way, he had to admit that Cadence had hit the metaphorical nail on the head because it made his heart swell with pride that the guards -- his guards -- were doing what they were supposed to in spite of his own dilemma and a years old conversation with his own captain came back to him unbidden.
"Tell me what you see out that window, Shining Armor." he had said.
"I see ponies training, sir."
The chuckle behind him caused him to turn his head slightly to look at Captain Dust Storm who was sitting at the desk doing his daily requisition forms -- something Shining despised helping with, but never turned down because he enjoyed spending time with the captain -- and not looking up. Dust Storm was one of the few earth ponies to ever ascend to the rank of captain and was perhaps one of the most dependable and straight forward to grace the guard in years, he refused to play politics and lived his life and carrier by simple sensibilities of his upbringing. Whether or not he was actually liked by individual guardponies depended on who was asked, but he was almost universally respected.
"You're looking, Shining Armor, you're not seeing."
"I don't understand, sir."
The captain chuckled again and pushed his bench back, strong hooves sending light thunder rolls as he moved to stand by the younger stallion. Like Shining, he was clad in his guard armor but had forgone his helmet while in the office which allowed his natural deep blue coat and fire red mane to be seen for its true appearance. Normally it would have been the same pristine white as any other Celestial guard's but the private setting was more casual than outside and being able to be himself was a rare privilege for the captain that he shared with only a few ponies whom he trusted completely; something Shining Armor felt honored to be privy to and it made him smile.
"Something funny, Lieutenant?" the captain asked.
"No sir, just thinking about how everypony is so easily fooled by the guard armor."
They both laughed at this for a moment and nodded to each other. It was no secret that, aside from obvious differences in breed and stature differences brought on by gender, royal guards all looked alike to the general public of Equestria. What most of them didn't know was that the coloration was actually part of the guard "uniform" rather than being a requirement of enlistment and anypony who ever saw the cadet classes in training would be treated to a field of polychromatic ponies just as diverse as anywhere in Equestria.
That all changed when they received their armor, however, as it had long ago been determined that circumventing a guard's oaths and attempting bribery was far more difficult if a potential deviant was unaware of what guard they were dealing with and having one easily pass for another made for easy changes to accommodate injuries and illnesses considering the armor even covered a pony's cutie mark. Shining Armor had been fortunate to be possessed of a natural ivory coat and blue mane that did not necessitate the glamor enchantments of his armor to make him appear "in uniform" the way most of his fellow guardponies did except when he drew night duty and made use of it to turn himself dusk grey.
"True enough, true enough," came the response. "But that's beside the point, take another look out the window and tell me what you see."
Try as he might, Shining Armor saw nothing different than what he did before and said as much.
Dust Storm shook his head silently and raised his hoof to point. "You're still looking, Shining Armor, you're not seeing."
"I'm not sure I understand the difference, sir."
"When I look out there, I see the ponies, yes, but beyond that I see wills, discipline and drive. They may not want to be running endless drills, truth be told most of them don't, but they do it anyway because they want to prove something, either to families, to each other or to themselves. That is the essence of what a guard is, doing what needs to be done even if you don't' really want to do it. The guard isn't a brotherhood or a sisterhood, it's a family, and family does what needs to be done to help family. And that's what I see when I look out that window, I see family helping family move forward in spite of their own hardships and missteps."
He turned to look at the young lieutenant and smiled to him before asking, "Understand a little better now?"
He hadn't understood it at the time, hadn't really seen what his captain was alluding too but rather than lie and hope to get away from a lecture, he had fessed up and shaken his head which Dust Storm had appreciated; years later, after his own promotion, he had finally understood the lessen and had sought out his old captain to tell him as such.
Turning slightly, he laid eyes on one of the pictures still on the shelf and wrapped his magic around it to levitate it over to him, one hoof raised to rest lightly on the frame. In it was a picture of himself and Dust Storm, the older pony's coat having long turned grey and his fiery mane little more than a faded tan, but they looked happy in the picture as they shared a mug of hot cider and reminisced about old times, the two no longer needing to be formal with each other. Pinned to the frame was one of the old style Merit ribbons that Dust had given Shining as a good luck charm just prior to the old ponies death. He had told him at the time that the ribbon was over four hundred years old and had been passed from guard to guard for decades and that one day Shining would pass it on to another pony for the same reason; but of course he'd never done that nor found a pony that he could give it to.
"You always had a way of making the lesson stick, didn't you sir?" he asked the photograph. "Even if it was years later that we finally figured it out." He still remembered the send off for the old captain during his own Changing of the Guard when nearly half of the active duty guard had come to see him off with a final salute. Briefly, he wondered if he would receive the same but shook his head so as not to contemplate it and instead wrapped the picture reverently before placing it in the crate and turning back to the window to look out at his ponies once more.
It was an interesting sight to say the least.
As always, the field was full without being crowded with both mares and stallions -- some armored, some bareback, others dealing with Bronze Cadet armor to toughen them up -- went through whatever drills their sergeants had on the menu for the day and cross training was rampant. In the air, on the thin layer of clouds above the field and on the field itself, pegasai, earth pony and unicorn alike trained with each other in hoof to hoof combat, air to ground tactics and vice versa, dodged magic and weapons, lifted weights and all manner of other exercises regardless of their breed; Shining Armor did not believe in segregation by breed and had almost from day one of his captaincy developed training regimes which would work every pony to their fullest while showing favoritism to none. It was, of course, impossible to keep up morale without recognizing exceptional individuals and rewarding those who went to lengths above and beyond the call of duty, but having everypony on semi-equal footing always made sure that no matter how the pony came to the guard, they left as the best they could be.
He chuckled softly as he thought about it, because he had even worked that bit into his recruitment/welcoming speech for the cadet hopefuls and for a heartbeat he felt like saying it again once last time for no other reason than to do so. The slight rapping of a hoof upon the oaken door, however, made him think otherwise. Beckoning the visitor in with a slightly gruff "enter" he did his best to scowl as a familiar magenta aura wrapped itself around the door and pushed it open with an elegant silence as an equally familiar mare crossed the threshold to stand before him as she magically swung the door closed in her wake.
"Captain Armor," she said formally.
"Archmage Sparkle," he replied.
Had anypony walked in and looked at their stony expressions, they would have sworn that a tension existed between the siblings that could not be quantified by mere words; likely the result of some wedge driven between them in the past over some slight. No such thing had occurred though and this exchange had, over the course of nearly thirty-odd years, become something of a game between them. In the grand tradition of younger siblings everywhere, upon her promotion to a rank that equaled his own, Twilight's first action had been to politely rub it in her brother's face that he was "no longer the boss of her" and it had been his responsibility to remind her that she would always be under his hoof as he was older and arguably wiser. The argument had lasted all of about four seconds before neither of them could hold in their laughter any longer.
Today, it was Shining Armor who lost the stare down first and cracked a smile before laughing softly and trotting forward to hook on foreleg around his little sister's shoulders to receive a fierce two-foreleg embrace in return.
Twilight Sparkle, had changed as little as he and Cadence over the years in terms of appearance and was still the lean, lightly muscled mare she had been throughout most of her adult life. Her coat was still the same rich shade of lavender it had always been and her aura of magic had only grown stronger with the passage of time. Truthfully, the only signs of her approaching age were the way the pink highlight in her mane had faded to an almost colorless white and the addition of a pair of small rimmed glasses that set perched on her nose; the consequences of eye strain caused by decades of late night reading. Beyond these, the most glaring change was that she no longer went unclothed the way most ponies preferred and instead wore a simple cobalt blue robe lightly embroidered with stars and decorated with two dozen golden bells, though today a small black box also lay across her back.
"I wasn't sure you'd want to do that old gag today or not..." Twilight said quietly as they broke their embrace to give each other room.
"If you had come in an hour ago, I probably wouldn't have," he leaned forward and hugged her lightly once more. "It's good to see you, Twily."
"You too BBBFF," she replied. "I was hoping to get here sooner, but I ran into Cadence on the way in and she said you two had talked a little bit."
He nodded to her politely as they stepped a bit further away, slumping his shoulders a little but keeping his head up this time. "Yeah, she always did know what to say to me... and I apologized for being distant to her. I suppose I owe you an apology too on that regard. Things... things have just moved to fast, Twily. Five weeks ago everything made sense and today seemed like it was another world that I'd never get to. But now that it's actually here I just..." He shook his head and Twilight nodded in return.
"Shining Armor, there's nothing I can really say that'll cheer you up, I know that up here," she pointed to her head. "But you're still my BBBFF and I want to try if you'll let me."
"You picked a hay of a time to try your new psychology textbooks out, kiddo," he replied with a raised eyebrow.
"That's Archmage kiddo to you, mister." she replied, but frowned when it failed to produce the smile she had been hoping for as he turned away to look out the window once more and she trotted up to stand beside him, the bells of her robe jingling lightly as she did so.
"Is that my uniform?" He asked, not looking at her but nodding to the box atop her back and she nodded in return.
"Yeah, I picked it up just a few minutes ago from Rarity, she said to take better care of it in the future cause she won't always be around to fix the rips."
Contrary to the way she would tell the story of their younger days, Shining Armor and Twilight Sparkle had argued just as much as any siblings anywhere in Equestria. True, they had never had an actual fight until his wedding rehearsal and in his defense, that hadn't really been his fault, but their heated exchanges and desire to one up each other had been legendary around their neighborhood. He could tell by the way she tensed up that she was expecting him to say something, maybe a joke, maybe a bit of an insult, maybe a combination of the two when it came down to it, but he found that his mind was completely blank and he could think of nothing to say. The look of worry in her eyes when she turned to face him was almost as bad as the look of pity Cadence had given him, but strangely it didn't hurt as much. Rather than speak, however, he took hold of the box in his cerulean colored magic and turned away to levitate it to the desk.
The Guard always appeared in armor for most situations, but what was not known to most was that officers all had dress uniforms for formal occasions when armor would have been considered gouache and inappropriate. Opening the box revealed his own dress uniform, crimson red and decorated in gold and white trim that he had been married in all those years ago but had not actually looked at in over twenty years and looking at it now made his heart sink once more. Letting his magic dissipate, he turned away to walk up to his picture on the back wall.
"Shining Armor...?"
"I know you're worried about me, Twily... but I"m okay, really."
She regarded him for a moment before speaking quietly. "You're a terrible liar, Shining..." she whispered. "And it's not just me... Cadence, Oak Heart, Crystal Night, Bright Glow... hayseeds, even Quill is worried about you, these last few weeks you've shut everypony out and I don't care what Cadence said to me a few minutes ago I know you're still hurting. I know you're going to be hurting for a long time, but you need to get out of this funk somehow."
Hearing her list off his -- now grown -- foals made him wince slightly and if even Twilight's thick-headed husband had noticed his mood, then things had gotten worse than he feared. But what was more, he didn't know how to open up further and tell his story again or fess up that he was hurting more than he cared to admit. There was a time he had shared everything with Twilight but he could not bring himself to say to her what he had said to Cadence, even though he was sure his wife had already told her about it. In the end, all he could do was change the subject and hope that his sister caught the message.
"Just..." he began before looking back to his portrait, then back to the neatly folded uniform atop his desk. "The uniform really brings out the best in me, doesn't it, Twily?"
She nodded slowly, following his gaze. "Big Brother," she whispered, leaning in to give him an affectionate nuzzle before stepping back a little to give him some space. "Cadence told me what you talked about... you don't have to repeat it. I know you're hurting more than you're letting on and I know it's because you are being forced into this decision; so few things in Equestria have a mandatory retirement age it's almost ridiculous to make this one of them. But horseapples, don't question your life over this."
"How can I not, Twily?" He asked. "I'll tell you the same thing I told Cadence... when a pony can just be brushed aside because he can't fight time, did anything he did really matter in the grand scheme of things?"
"It did, Shining Armor, you've helped so many ponies I can't even count them all, both in the guard and out of it. You've pulled victory out of defeat in more campaigns than I can remember, and that's saying something with my memory. Your record speaks for itself, but you're dwelling on the things you didn't do rather than the things you did. Chancellor Bookkeeper was right when she said that most ponies who get summoned to a council meeting beg and plead when they know it won't do any good. But you didn't do that, you're a stallion who's always known what was best and you've looked for the best in all situations. I don't want you to start questioning yourself now... don't let that confidence you've gone through life with fade out now."
"How did you know what Bookkeeper said?" he asked, almost incredulously and the irony that out of all the things she had just said, that that tidbit should be the one that stood out was not lost on either of them.
"She and I have tea together twice a week while we go over translations of old scrolls," she said. "But that's not important right now and don't change the subject."
"Sorry," he replied. "But Twily I didn't do all this alone. Seriously, in the grand scheme of things I made the decisions but my troops are the ones that carried them out and its them that made me look good. I... I guess in the end all I ever wanted to do was do right by them. I never wanted to be a hero or anybody's role model, I just wanted to protect the ponies I love. Being Captain let me do it a little easier, but at the same time it made things that much harder. Do you know how many ponies I've lost over the years? How many friends I watched die when I couldn't get to them in time? How many families I had to go to to tell them that... that their wife or husband or foal wasn't coming back!? Celestia's mane, Twilight! You and Cadence... tartarus!... all of Equestria makes me out to be some kind of larger than life hero like you and the other Elements of Harmony! But I'm not, I'm just a guard pony that's tried to do the best he can and in the end all it's gotten me is a lot of headache, heartache and a lot of lost years!"
"You want some cheese with that wine?"
He blinked. "What?"
"You're whining, Shining Armor," she said with a smug grin.
"I am not whining, Twilight Sparkle... fashionistas whine... royal guards brood, complain and rant, but we do not whine!"
The smug grin did not disappear from her face, but rather it turned into an understanding smile as he felt his anger dissipate with her joke and he chuckled ruefully. "I walked right into that one didn't? What did I do to get a sister and a wife that know just what to say and when to say it?"
"You were always just yourself, BBBFF." she replied. "Shining Armor, you can think what you want, but the lives that were lost and the lives that you saved are mutually exclusive, they can't balance each other out. I've been there too you know, I was with you when we marched against the changeling hives... I was there with you when the Trogs invaded and more. I saw ponies die, Shining Armor, and every time I felt guilty and thankful because it wasn't me. You're right, your not whinig, but you're letting all of this be an excuse to let out guilt that you don't deserve."
"Psychology one-oh-one?"
"Something like that, so I'll tell you the same thing you told me when you found me crying in my tent that one time." She cleared her throat and placed her hoof against her chest, assuming a soft scowl and looking him squarely in the eye. "No matter what you might think, you're in a war, and there are two ironclad rules when it comes to a war. Rule number one, is that good ponies die in war... and rule number two is that nopony can ever change rule number one."
He looked at her sternly as she used his own words against him, remembering vividly the incident that she spoke of and regarded the memory as one of his darkest. It was the first battle in which the Elements of Harmony had been needed to participate in, first as ambassadors and then as soldiers. In the end, it was Twilight, Rainbow Dash and Applejack who had been in the thick of it, but Twilight had gotten the worst of it when a guardpony had taken a changeling blast for her and died of his wounds while she tried desperately to save his life. He had never wanted her or her friends to witness the horrors of war, but the world was not always sunshine and rainbows and he had used those words to comfort her, appealing to the logical side of her mind to ease the emotional turmoil. It was somewhat fitting that she was doing the same to him.
"What do you want me to do, Twily?" He asked after a short pause.
She smiled to him softly. "I want you to realize you did the best you could, Shining Armor, and that you're not being brushed aside. You've paid your dues a thousand times over and now you're square with the house again, hold onto the dignity that you've always had and realize that there are things you can't control. This is one of those things, I know it hurts, but you have ponies who want to help you deal with it if you'll just let them."
"In other words... buck up and deal with it, hmm?" He sighed. "I know in my head you're right, Twily, it's my heart that needs convincing. I guess... I guess if I'd chosen this path myself it would be easier, but it's the fact that I can't control it that makes things harder. I guess I feel like I'm abandoning my ponies when it comes down to it because I didn't argue for the job."
She shook her head. "No, shining Armor, that's not what I meant at all." she sighed softly. "In another ten years I'll be in the same situation you're in right now, I'll have give up my position or be forced to give it up. Maybe I'll go on to be a researcher, maybe Quill and I'll move back to Ponyville or something, I don't know, but when I'm in your position, I hope you'll tell me the same thing I'm about to tell you."
"And that is?"
"Face your problems that way you've lived them. Don't "buck up" as you put it... but be the Equestrian Royal Guard that you've always been." She smirked. "Just in my case, say 'Archmage' instead of guard."
He regarded her quietly for several long breaths, letting her words sink in and mulling them over as her amethyst gaze met his sapphire one, the two of them locked in an unconscious battle of wills between logic and emotion. It was a battle both wanted to win but in the same time both wanted to lose and on some fundamental level he knew that. But like with his wife earlier, he found that he could not stand up against his sister's words and in the end, his gaze softened lightly.
"Thanks, Twily... want to help me get the rest of this stuff boxed up so I can get dressed?"
"I'd be honored, Shiny."
And a thousand years
Would be worth the wait
It might take a lifetime
But somehow I'll see it through