//------------------------------// // Excerpt VIII // Story: Seashell // by Winston //------------------------------// Seashell VIII From the journal of Sunburst, August 21, 1329 YS: Here's a little bit of an interesting thing I've learned: the princess likes veggie burgers. She loves them. I mean in a serious way. They're her favorite, especially with a big pile of hayfries, fresh out of a deep frier. The greasier and more ketchup slathered, the better, too, both the burger and fries. A frosty cold chocolate milkshake more often than not rounds it all out (if you consider that a 'rounded' meal). Captain Dash likes that kind of food, too. I know this because maybe once a week or so, if there's not too much else keeping them busy, the princess and the captain get together and turn the daily security and logistics report from the usual brief few notes into a working dinner where the two of them get more in-depth into things, usually over a meal of those burgers and fries bought take-out from a fast food joint not too far from here. Tonight was one of those nights. I was on the evening shift. It's a quiet time of day, and not too bad. It's not as good as the midnight shift, when literally everypony but the guard is asleep so there's not much to have to worry about, but nowhere near the noise and commotion of the morning or afternoon shifts with all the day's business going on. The random timer we use to make security sweeps less predictable had just gone off, so I was walking through on a hall patrol. I try to be as unobtrusive about them as I can. I'm pretty good at it, my presence usually goes unnoticed. As a result, once in a while I catch bits of certain conversations that perhaps I wouldn't if the participants knew I was in earshot. I don't worry about it, I'm not the kind to go blabbering. Who would I tell, anyway? Except maybe this journal, I mean. You don't count, journal. Sorry. I went through the big assembly hall first, but the princess doesn't exactly hang out there after the day's business with dignitaries and whoever else needs attention is finished. She doesn't like the official areas, the big dining room or the ministerial offices or anything. Unless she has to do some sort of official entertainment like a state dinner or something, she prefers to eat in one of the smaller personal rooms off in some corner of the palace. It's more private that way, I suppose, something that's hard to come by for a princess. That makes me feel somewhat more guilty about intruding, but it's my job, being a guard. I can't always help it. I was walking down one the corridors and I caught that smell, greasy fast food. I suddenly felt hungry myself, because it smelled good. I admit it, I'm fat. Or I'm a wannabe fat pony trapped in the skinny body of a pegasus who flies too much and works out a lot. Something like that. Anyway, the smell. That's how I knew it was burger night, so it didn't surprise me to find them together in one of the viewing rooms. They were sitting at a table just big enough for two ponies, in front of the huge windows looking out into the gardens and creating a fairly breathtaking scenic view of the flowers glowing in all their bright colors in the last of the day's sunlight. I only took a quick look at them and I didn't hear all that much, just a few sentences passing between the two. I wasn't there to eavesdrop, I just happened by pure chance to see and hear what I did. Captain Dash said something funny. I couldn't hear all of what it was. Princess Twilight did, however. She swallowed her bite of veggie burger and let out a tiny laugh in response. That intrigued me. It's usually so rare to actually hear her laugh that I couldn't help but have my attention captured by it. And... I'm not sure I even feel comfortable writing down what I'm about to. As stated before, I don't mean to spy. If it's only for myself, though, just for this journal and nopony else will ever see it, what harm can it do? The princess said something after she laughed. "Oh, Rainbow, that's just too funny," those were her exact words. She didn't say "Captain Dash". She wasn't formal because it wasn't a superior and a subordinate having a structured professional exchange. It caught me, the way it was two friends - old friends, best friends, the kind of friends who knew each other better than some ponies know their own families. It wasn't just the words themselves, either. It was the way she said them. I'm not sure how to describe it other than that it wasn't the voice we always hear at court. There's a certain kind of voice that goes with the public face a princess wears. This was something else that fit her somehow in a deeper, truer way. It was her real voice, undisguised. It seems strange - because how can a pony have more than one voice? - but I've been around her long enough to know it's true. That real voice comes out in rare fleeting moments once in a while. Sometimes it's with her student, for example. Tonight, it had something in it that I will never forget. It had a lot of genuine happiness in it. It wasn't hiding any feelings and it wasn't restrained to remain detached. For that one moment, right there, she was truly happy and it truly showed. I think it had everything to do with who she was with. It was in her eyes and the way she looked at Captain Dash. There was something in her smile and her body language. She was relaxed and comfortable and letting herself slouch just a little, and not worrying one bit about holding her posture up in the supremely perfect poise of a princess. She was a whole different pony. Once again, with Captain Dash, I caught a glimpse of the real flesh and blood Twilight Sparkle. The whole thing lasted barely a few seconds while I was walking through the hall, passing by the doorway to the room. That was enough. In what I saw and heard in those few seconds, I knew that to the princess, this wasn't just a meeting to receive some report, it... No. I'm being silly. I should scratch all of this out, maybe burn the page. Nopony would ever dare to call it anything else, not even the princess or the captain, because of course it wasn't anything else. Proper separations of personal life and professional duty need to be maintained, and propriety must be strictly enforced, and no one knows that better than ponies like them. As far as what could be happening, it was all business, nothing more. Certainly it would never be suggested that anything personal could be taking place. I'm sure that everything I've written is all just in my head, and all just overactive speculation and reading too much into tiny imagined things. I must be crazy, to be basing all this on just a few seconds I happened to catch. You know what? Yes. Obviously, I'm mistaken about all of this. All I was seeing was a very dry discussion about the security and logistics report. I have to be wrong and there was no sense of deep-running bonds, no feeling of warm friendship, no intimacy, no closeness, no sense of joy in just the presence of the other pony. No, none of that at all. I know there was no way that, on at least some unspoken and maybe even partly unconscious level, the princess was on a dinner date with Captain Dash. It's plain as the sunlight on a clear day that this is impossible. I shouldn't be writing down such obviously untrue things. Should I? But how else... How else can I explain now what I heard from Azure? I admit, I held out on completely believing her at first. She's a child. Misunderstandings happen, ponies can be misheard. There could have been any number of reasons not to take what she said at face value, even if she is simply curious and well-meaning. Once you see it with your own eyes, though... Enough dangerous thinking for today.