Flash Sentry pressed his muzzle and both front hooves flat against the cold iron bars. He didn’t know how long he’d been here, but it felt like forever. His coat was getting itchy, his boots were full of gunk, and the plaintive musical wail coming from the back of the cell didn’t help. He whirled around and snapped at one of his two cellmates. “Shut up, Cheese!”
The music stopped. Cheese Sandwich pushed back his hat and looked up from where he was seated, his back to the wall. “You’re supposed to play the harmonica in jail,” he retorted, and went back to playing.
His other cellmate’s pale blond mane shone in the gloom, highly visible from his spot huddled on the floor to Flash’s right. “This is probably an excellent place for me to have my nervous breakdown,” Trenderhoof said, his voice deceptively calm. “One does like to be at the première of any new attraction. I’m certain I’ll be the very first to suffer a complete mental collapse here. If I remember my tour with Miss Rarity correctly, Ponyville didn’t have a dungeon before.”
“Ponyville didn’t have a castle before,” Cheese pointed out helpfully, and began playing the harmonica again.
Flash wasn’t really surprised to be here, not after what he’d done. The question wasn’t, “how could this possibly have gone wrong?” There wasn’t really any scenario in which it could have gone right. The real question, the true million-bit question, was, “what was I thinking?”
~~
There are some ponies who think going alone to a book reading is a perfect way to spend a Saturday night, but Flash Sentry wasn’t one of them. Accompanying Princess Cadance on a visit from the Crystal Empire, the sophisticated life of Canterlot, Saturday night off duty—you’d think a Royal Guard could come up with something better to do. And yet here he was, the only pony present at a book signing by a travel writer who claimed to be trying to be “relatable.”
The travel writer, a thin brown unicorn wearing a green sweater, read from a chapter in which he’d eaten seaweed with spruce in Vanhoover. Flash sat politely and with perfect posture—a habit acquired from spending most of his adult life in the Guards—and let his mind wander—a habit also acquired from spending most of his adult life in the Guards.
He hadn’t had a good day. There had been a lot of paperwork, the other guards had made fun of him for being spooked by an opossum, and he’d received a letter from his little brother. It was nice to hear from First Base, but at the same time, it wasn’t, because First Base had a totally unrealistic idea of what his big brother’s life in the Guards was like. He was brave, dashing, and on top of it, he was seeing a princess!
And this was technically true, thought Flash. He saw princesses all the time. They walked past him, and if he was lucky, he didn’t draw attention to himself by sneezing or something. Sometimes he got to say things like “His Blahdy Blahness of Blahvia!” and he supposed that counted as talking to them, or at least in front of them. As for the youngest, the one First Base thought he was “seeing,” he’d seen her a grand total of two or three times, and he hadn’t known much about her except that she was purple and a lot shorter than the other ones, until she kicked some serious monster flank a while back. Then everypony knew all about her, but he didn’t know more about her than anypony else.
It would be kind of cool to get a commendation some time. Something like “Best Guard Announcer of the Year Who Hardly Ever Coughs” would do. Then Princess Cadance would attach it to his uniform, next to the Surprisingly Long Service pin, and he could tell First Base a princess gave him a medal, and that would make him feel important at school.
It would be even nicer to have a real adventure and be really great at something, and have everypony read all about him in the papers, but he knew his limits. Someday, they’d write on his tombstone: “FLASH SENTRY: HE WAS JUST SORTA THERE.”
The travel writer stopped reading. “You’re not really interested in this, are you?” he said.
Flash started and looked around guiltily. “Um, yes! Of course I am!”
“That’s very polite of you,” said the unicorn, and he began levitating his papers and copies of his book into his saddlebags. “I was tired of being The Most Interesting Pony In Equestria. It’s a nice change of pace. I need some coffee.”
Flash noticed his jumpiness and the dark circles under his eyes, and thought that the last thing the travel writer needed was some more coffee, but he said, “Do you need any help, Mr. . . . Mr., um . . .”
The travel writer stared at him through his glasses with narrowed eyes, then let out a sharp crack of laughter. “Do you mean to say you’ve been sitting through my reading, and you don’t have any idea who I am? Priceless. You must have been terribly bored.” He lifted his hoof. “Trenderhoof,” he said, shaking his pale blond mane out of his eyes, "but you can call me Trend. I take the mundane, the simple, and the unappreciated, and I make it relatable.”
Flash clinked hooves with him. “Flash Sentry. I stand around and announce things.”
“Well, come join me in having something with quite a lot of caffeine in it, Flash Sentry,” said Trenderhoof, securing his saddle bags, “and I shall be able to provide tedium tête-a-tête.”
~~
“Have you ever reached a crisis in your affairs, Flash? A crossroads?” said Trenderhoof some time later, as they sat in the coffee shop adjoining the bookstore. “You’ve achieved nearly everything you’d always meant to,” the unicorn went on, absently levitating his spoon around in his latte, “and it’s begun to feel hollow. Empty. You have reached the summit, and now there is nothing left to do and nowhere left to go but a long slide downwards. Do you know what I mean?”
Flash didn’t. His career in the Guards had leapt from pinnacle of mediocrity to pinnacle of mediocrity. The few promotions he’d had were almost all owing to seniority. No—he was not going to look back on a brilliant military career. That was not going to be his road to greatness.
But—but there was what that gypsy fortuneteller had told him! It was all coming back to him now. It was back in the Crystal Empire, the evening of the visit from the Duke and Duchess of Maretonia, right before all Tartarus let loose. He’d been walking around aimlessly, trying to think of something to do, when he’d seen a gaily-painted tent he couldn’t remember having seen before, with a banner reading “FORTUNES TOLD.” There wasn’t any harm in having his fortune told, right? Maybe his future would be more interesting than his past or his present.
He pushed past the tent flaps and peered into the semi-darkness. He could just make out a table with a crystal ball on it, and behind it, a mare swathed in shawls and a turban that clashed with the bright pink of her coat and mane.
“Can you really tell the future?” he said.
“I have the answers you seek,” she said, waving her hooves over the crystal ball. “Let us consult the mystical orb.”
He came forward and sat at the table, feeling like an idiot, but excited at the same time. A real fortuneteller!
“Is there anything interesting in my future? Am I ever going to be really good at something?”
“Hmmm,” said the fortuneteller. “Nope. Not seeing anything yet.”
“Like, maybe I’ll be a great military commander after all?”
“Nope.”
“Or maybe I should quit the Guards and be a musician? I’ve always wanted to be a rock star!”
“Umm. . . I’d say you wanna keep your day job. Ooo! Hey! There is something. That’s amazing.” She brought the ball so close to her eyes that it and they were practically touching. “You are going to be great at something!”
“Really? What?” Flash asked excitedly.
“You’re going to be a great waffle stealer!”
“What?”
“A waffle stealer! You’re going to be the greatest waffle stealer ever.”
Flash removed his helmet and scratched his head. “How am I going to do that?”
The fortuneteller shook the ball. “Reply Hazy, Ask Again Later,” she said. “I dunno,” she said, shrugging. “Just passing it along. That’s all I’ve got.”
She was entirely absorbed in the ball now, and Flash thought he’d better leave. As he slipped out of the tent, out of the corner of his eye, he could just see the fortuneteller shaking the ball again. “Ooooo,” she said, as glittery flakes moved around in its interior. “Sparkly.”
~~
“Waffle stealing!” cried Flash, seizing Trenderhoof by the front of his green sweater. “That’s it! A waffle stealing raid! And you’re going to come with me!”
“Excuse me?” stammered Trenderhoof, catching the latte before it spilled.
“You’re a journalist! You write about food! You said you take the mundane and make it relatable. And what’s more mundane than waffles?”
“This is really rather . . .”
“Strawberry waffles, chocolate waffles . . .”
“I don’t think . . .”
“Apple cinnamon waffles . . .”
Trenderhoof froze, and his eyes suddenly went wide. “Apple . . . waffles,” he intoned. “Apple waffles. Yes.”
“I knew it was a great idea!”
“Yes. Steal all the apple waffles,” said Trend. A tic had started going in his cheek now, too.
“You said you wanted to do something different, Trend,” said Flash, grabbing one thin leg and pulling him to his feet. “Well, this is different. It’ll be an adventure! And you can write it all down!”
Trenderhoof didn’t actively resist. “Apple waffles. Must write it down.”
“C’mon!” cried Flash. He was a leader now! Of something! “It’ll be fun!”