//------------------------------// // Halfway decent first impression // Story: On Duty // by The Sumareian //------------------------------// "Helm?" "Check. Armor polish?" A white stallion adjusted his helm before glancing down at his hastily scrawled list. "Check." Another stallion, his coat a dark grey with a short coal black mane emerged from a nearby room, a trunk levitating behind him. "Telling you wife what this is all about?" came a third voice from, the armories hallway. "Che.... Wait what?" The first stallion looked to his grey counterpart. "Ahem." Both stallions turned their head to the door, there stood a light blue mare, with her deeper blue mane curled up into a bun, had it not been for the cloth apron and the smudge marks from the forges she worked at, she could have easily passed as one of Canterlots most posh and beautiful nobles. "Oh, Topaz. I thought you were taking the day off to see the coronation of Princess Twilight." The grey stallion trotted up to her and gave her a peck on the cheek. "Bastion, you and I both know we don't have time for this, I have twenty more sets of armor to make, and you have five seconds before I kick both your flanks. Now what is this all about?" Topaz glared daggers at her husband, as he shyed away from her side. "We got orders from the captain, well more like an assignment from him." Bastion looked to his partner for some input. "Yeah we got assigned as Twilights new personal guards, and we are being set to Ponyville so we can do what we do best Amy." The white stallion looked determinedly at the wall. "Whiterun I told you my name is Topaz, my twin sisters name is Amethyst, and no she is not interested in you. And if you keep calling me that, I will make everyday for the rest of your life a new and unusual suffering that only a mad mare could and would inflict on another pony" The angry mare glanced back at her husband, and the at Whiterun. "Whats wrong with Amy, Top-" Whiterun reeled back as a small hammer clanged to the ground between him and the now smugly smiling mare. He raised a shaky hoof, before he fell to ground sound asleep. "Now honey we don't need to check how hard Whiteruns skull is again, and think of it this way." Bastion rested his hooves on his wifes shoulders. "We will be able to open up that jewelry store you always to have down in Ponyville." "Wait I though, all of the guards were forbidden from taking their loved ones with them." Topaz remembered the guard-wives always complaining that they couldn't go with their husbands to Neighmaca for the Equestria military retreat, last summer. "True, but we are stationed in the town of Ponyville. If say our family were to, oh I don't know buy a house in town then it wouldn't be either ponies fault that they were with their loved ones while still being deployed." Bastion smiled to his wife whos eye twitched slightly, from either her husbands strangely sound logic or at his metaphoric burning of the guard rule book. "Wait so your telling me that we have to uproot the home we have now, to move to some po-dunk town. so at the end of the day you can simply go home everyday. "Yes, well its either that or we stay at the local sorority house there, nice fillies opening up their home to two handsome stallions far away from the wife and the gossipy elites of Canterlot." Bastion glanced slyly at his wife her light blue face now a bright red, from either embarrassment of anger, Bastion didn't really care which, as he marked this moment as one of the few victories he has had since his marriage to his beautiful wife. And three. two. one. Bastion glanced to his partner as he jumped back to his hooves. "Wait does this mean we don't get to stay with the mares?" Whiterun looked curiously at the other ponies in the room. "No!" Topaz shouted to the still dazed stallion. "Oh, okay resuming unconsciousness." he chirped out groggily, before he fell back down to the ground. *************************************************************** "Excuse me." Bastion called out to a grey pegasus as she loaded more mail into her already large mailbag. "Yes, can I help you." Bastion was caught momentarily off guard by the mares gaze whit had one eye focused on him and the other staring off to space. He hoped she didn't notice he jump slightly at her condition. "Yes, could you please tell me where Golden Oaks library is, me and my friend here are..." Bastion trailed off as he glanced back to where their trunks rested, only to find the pony who was supposed to be near them had completely vanished. "You gotta be kidding me." "Is something wrong mister?" her blonde mane shifting slightly over her apparently good eye. Bastion sighed. "Yes, but nothing I cant handle thank you. now about that library?" Bastion looked back to the mail mare, who had now some how managed to drop the contents of her bag on the ground. "Darnit, why does this keep happening on Thursdays." She hissed as she started picking up the spilled letters. "Oh, uh, here let me help you with that." Bastion ignited his horn, delicately picking up the remaining letters on the floor that the now flustered mare had not picked up yet. "Did I hear a mare in need of assistance." Whiterun burst out of the train stations cafe. "Excuse me for a second." Bastion smiled to the mare, before storming off to the stallion who was now flexing and showing of his muscles to anypony who so much as looked at him. "Hey there ladies, tickets are free to this gun show." He posed several times not noticing the silver aura surround his ear. "Canterlot is that way." He pointed to the capitol while still flexing. "The standards are this- owowowowowowowow" Bastion tugged his childish partner towards him by the ear much to his pained protesting. "Whiterun, we aren't here... well you aren't here to flirt with every mare in a twenty mile radius. Captain Shining wants us to guard his sister." Just as the last word slipped his mouth his partner smiled fiendishly to him. "No, no flirting with the captains sister, I'm not getting sent to some icebox to the north because you think with the wrong head." "Uh excuse me, mister I have a package that needs to go to Golden Oaks anyway, I could just walk you there." Bastion glanced back to the wall eyed mare , he smiled his best smile or so he thought as several ponies behind the mare looked at him in shock and horror. "Yes that would be love Miss.." "Ditzy Doo, but most ponies call me Derpy." she smiled back. "And my name is Bastion, and the pony I'm about three seconds from strangling is my partner Whiterun." He stated with an eerie calmness. "Oh, he's your partner. its a shame such a handso-" "Whoa whoa, not like that, see we are with the royal guard and he is my fellow guard, you know a brother at arms a..." "Thrust buddy." Ditzy burst out laughing at her own joke. "I'm married to my beautiful wife, and we plan on starting a family very soon." Bastion felt his face warm up from his sheer embarrassment. "I'm just giving a hard time is all, my cousin is in the guard and I do the same to him all the time." Her laughing died down . "Come on I might as well give you a tour of the town before you start your jobs." Ditzy started to trot along happily as the two stallion exchanged a confused look.