The many bags I was carrying were finally tiring me.
They were degrading to be wearing and caused me to feel as though I was some sort of pack animal like one of those revolting mules, the thought of that hideous species on its own nearly made me lose my lunch. Not to mention by Celestia’s fat ass, why couldn’t the pegasi have given me some clouds! But no, there wasn’t one in the sky to be seen.
Those lazy feather bags probably fell asleep, yet I’m sure our taxes will be used to pay for their work despite their laziness. They have us under their wings yet we don’t even realize it.
I myself had never actually seen a pegasi, though it wasn’t unheard of for pegasi to leave their larger cloud cities(like Cloudsdale) to live on the ground, the town closest to the farm was just too small for any to ever bother to move there, and this was the first time I had gone traveling.
I attempt to weave my way through the large crowd as I had done previously but blinded by my vivid thoughts I ran nuzzle first into a stallion knocking him over as I hurried to the closest store.
I turned to look at the deep blue unicorn I had knocked over. Seeing the many medals that covered his expensive looking vest I winced.
Well he looks important. Noticing the unique pattern of the uniform he was wearing my eyes widened with shock. Great I just knocked the Captain of the Royal Guards down I thought as I both took his bits bag and reached out my hoof to help him up.
Captain Fast Sword of the Royal Guards was having a tiring day.
The large amount of tourists swarming Canterlot due to the all-important Equestrian Games were proving… difficult to control. To put it mildly that is.
And that was only the tip of the iceberg. He also had to neatly order the many ponies swarming the newly made arena to prevent any trampling, stop any cheating or smuggling of weapons into the arena, stop the many thefts caused by the sudden increase of more rural folks in the rich city, preventing the destruction of many of the nobles and cities property, and later meeting the princesses to watch over the entirety of the Games. All that without mentioning the hundreds of other small tasks necessary to stop total chaos to take over the city in this great event.
All in all Fast Sword was looking forward to his lunch break.
Imagine the shock he found himself in when all the sudden distracted by these many exhausting thoughts he found himself laying nuzzle first in the cobble street on his way to Pony Joes Donuts.
What… happened?
I saw a leather covered bronze hoof reached to help him up and I gladly accepted it.
“Are you alright sir, I’m terribly sorry about knocking you over. I am afraid I was a bit distracted by my many vivid thoughts.”
It was a young voice… yet cold and calculated. It had the tone of kindness yet there was something wrong about it. Unnatural.
Royal Guards like myself are trained from the very beginning on how to tell what a pony is most likely thinking or feeling based on their facial expressions. We could use spells meant to read a ponies mind but that was only taught to the most trusted Guards and it was highly disapproved of. Despite this with nearly 30 years of experience in the bag, I was unnaturally gifted at telling what a pony is feeling based on their expression or how they acted.
But I this was one of the unique times where despite my 30 years of experience with the Guard I couldn’t tell the emotion of the speaker from the voice alone.
After being helped to my feet I finally got a look at my mystery pony. He was a very handsome bronze Earth Pony wearing some sort of odd assortment of leather clothing hidden under a neat brown coat. He was caring a few light bags on his back and a pouch on his left side. Along with that he was wearing googles to cover his eyes preventing me from telling anything else on how the pony was feeling.
There was an odd way this pony held himself, it was like the nobles who stood up proudly trying to project there superiority to the other ponies they consider less than themselves. Fast had hated most of those ponies since they had always looked down at ponies like himself despite only having acquired their high position in government due to birth.
He had never seen this much self-confident on a little colt before. It was… unnatural. And there was something else to, he couldn’t place it but there was something about the colt he just… respected. Almost as if he were next to the princesses themselves.
He frowned suspecting the worst as he responded,” I am alright. Thank you for your concern but I’m afraid I was equally at fault for that accident, my day has been stressful and I am afraid I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have”
The odd colt gave a convincing laugh as he responded saying, “I’m sure being Captain of the Royal Guard has its… disadvantages, doesn’t it?”
I was shocked.
“What are you and how did you know who I am?” I said genuinely scared of this colt who was able to tell what my position in the Royal Guard was despite the fact I had never introduced myself.
“I do not know what you meant by what I am, but my name is Callidus Gears, and your metals say your name on it. I just pieced together the fact that you share the same name with the Captain whose name also is Fast Sword and the fact you are wearing the Captains uniform and made the reasonable assumption that you must be Captain Fast Sword of the Royal Guard.”
That settles it this thing was most defiantly not a young colt, a foal the age of what he seemed to be would barely be able to tell the difference of the uniforms of the Royal Guards, and much less what it means!
“Excuses me sir but may you please remove your googles.”
“My googles! How come? I do enjoy the protection from the sun they provide, and it makes no sense to remove them seeing as we can enjoy a perfectly civilized talk with them on”, the thing was cleaver I will give it that but I was no fool and it was clear just by looking at its posture that it was no colt.
We were attracting a small crowd and I was in a hurry to get this over with. “I said take off your googles, if you refuse I will have to remove them by force.”
He just looked directly at me his smile turning into a small controlled frown as he put his hooves to his glasses.
“This is hardly what I would consider civil, but I have nothing to hide so let this be a sign of trust between us.” And with that the thing that appeared like a ten year old colt took off its googles to reveal bright green eyes.
Changeling.
I was confused, I had helped Fast up almost immediately after I had realized who he was and though I had taken the pouch of money he had daggling from his uniform that would hardly explain the burning look of hatred he had given me as soon as I had removed my googles.
Maybe I should give him his bits back and apologize. It’s not as though I could go anywhere with the circle of ponies now tightly surrounding the two of us.
The ponies watching were giving the scene a wide mouth look of shock. What pony would have thought that Fast Sword would just start threatening a young colt like that? He had always seemed nice enough to all the ponies and they were all gathered around trying to figure out what had happened.
“Come with me now, monster.” He growled under his breath as he continued to glare at me not even attempting to hide the clear hate on his face as he stared at me.
I figured I should give him his bits back now.
“Excuses me but may we please handle this situation more civilly? First I am not a monster. Second I apologize for taking”
He interrupted me by assaulting me with a spell that made me unable to speak.
My eyes opened with fear as I silently cursed myself for not bringing the auto refillable crossbow, I then quickly pressed one of the many buttons on my glove trying to eject a pen.
The pen only just appeared at my hoof when a sound of anger louder than anything I have ever heard before came from within the crowd.
Everyone turned to face the pony who had screamed.
And with a voice unmatched in causing pure fear and terror, a new glimmer of hope came to me despite my terrifying situation.
HOW DARE YOU ASSULT MY SON!