Doing His Duty

by Dick McKickEm

Chapter the Second: Blue Morning, Blue Day, Blueblood

Clankity, clankity, clank.

Flash Sentry's gold-painted full body plate armor made an obnoxious noise not unlike that of a string of tin cans being dragged behind a carriage with each step he took. The armor was not standard issue among the royal guard, it was a much heavier and more protective model made specially for those in the "Blueblood Corps." He was told he was going to need it for what lay ahead. It was sturdy enough to stop everything from an arrow to a decently sized sword dead in its tracks, but by the Sisters it was not very stealthy

The new personal guard of His Majesty Prince Blueblood didn't need stealth to do his duty, but he did prefer something a little less restrictive than this unnecessarily fancy set of armor. He had from the guard barracks to the recreation wing of the castle to get used to how he was supposed to move in it. Luckily, his two new friends and fellow guards were there to give him pointers and to poke fun at his discomfort.

"If you think this is fun now, wait til you gotta get it all off when you hit the sack." said Cotton Swab with a wry smirk.

"Yeah, oodles of fun." Flash drawled. "Oh, I can already feel it now! No, wait, that's just the chestpiece chafing." He fiddled with the straps in an effort to make it a little more comfortable, to no avail. "No fun to be had there."
 
She snickered. "Well, get used to it. Like it or not, that's your new second skin."

"So you're the new guy, eh?" a mare from out of nowhere asked a mere moment after Flash passed through the door titled "Royal Guard's Barracks".

"By the sisters!" Flash's heart may or may not have lodged itself into his throat at her words. He whipped his head around to see the owner of the voice idly leaned up against the wall, her coat as grey as the underside of a storm cloud, a shock of red hair falling from her head that mimicked the shade of an early-autumn leaf. She eyed the pegasus without a word, sizing him up like any senior guard does to a new recruit.

"I- I am." Flash said, finding his voice and trotting forth and offering a hoof to the armor-clad mare. "Second Lieutenant Flash Sentry, transferred from the Crystal Empire."

She stared thoughtfully at his hoof, left hanging there without another to complete the gesture.

"You're- uh, suppose to shake it." Flash muttered.

"I know." She placed the flat of her hoof on his own and gave it a brief up-down shake. "Cotton Swab. Second Lieutenant, like you."

"Huh." Flash's stare was vacant. "That's an odd name. Sounds like you should be-"

"A doctor?" She finished his sentence with a smirk. "Yeah, I used to be. I joined the guard instead. Hell, the only reason they ever stuck me here was because of my med degree."

"Well...." He blinked. A real live doctor-turned-bodyguard. Now he had seen everything. "Excuse me if this sounds like a pickup line, but how did a mare like you end up in a place like this?"

"Heh heh." she chuckled. "I might have a license to fix ponies up, but I was always better at tearing them apart."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Beg away." Cotton detached herself from the wall and lifted a plate that revealed her exposed flank to Flash. Her cutie mark depicted a thorny white rose writhed in orange fire.

"Woah, that's edgy." Flash said.

"Tell me about it." Swab agreed. "I was the first pony in five generations to get a cutie mark that didn't have a big red T on it. My dad had a cow. My mom had three. The medical profession kinda ran in our blood, you know? My mother was a doctor, my grandmother was a doctor, my great great grandmother was a doctor, so on and so forth. They waved their horns around, closed ponies' wounds with magic, and me? I set things on fire. Didn't stop me from going through the Manehattan earth pony-slash-pegasus academy, though. Graduated the only unicorn in my class. And you know what?"

Flash couldn't help but ask. "What?"

"I hated it. The office, the patients, the nurses, the paperwork. It drove me up a wall. Eventually, I ended up in the guard where my talent for handing out elemental whoopass could be put to use. It's simpler here. I like it."

"So that's my life's story. Feel like ya know me any better now?"

"So," Flash said, trotting ahead and turning around to regard his new friends "Is what they say about the prince true? I heard he beats puppies and eats kittens. Or was that eats puppies and beats kittens? One of those."

Xander, the giant black and white striped guard clanking along next to him laughed loudly, his throaty voice echoing off of the castle's walls. He playfully punched Flash in the shoulder as if to say 'That was a good one!' Flash, in turn, tried not to fall over in a heap of flesh and steel from the nearly armor-denting blow to the body he had been given. Man, that guy had a hell of a hoof!

Flash blinked.

He blinked.

Nopony spoke.

Cotton Swab facehoofed.

Flash was staring down what could be considered the beefiest pony to have ever have graced his eyeballs. Standing a head higher and a foot wider than the two average-sized ponies was a zebra, his limbs and body bound in a thick layer of raw, pulsating muscle. His powerful legs threatened to rip the grey stripes that ran vertically over the rest of him to shreds with every step.

Flash tentatively offered a hoof. "Hello. I'm Second Lieut-"

The wind was immediately expelled from his lungs like air from a bellows. His ribcage threatened to collapse, his spine wanted to snap in half. The zebra was trying to crush the life out of him! Flash knew that he should've written up his will before he left the Crystal Empire! Of all the places and all the times to die, it had to be this place and this time.

Then, as suddenly as he began, he zebra released Flash from his kung-fu death grip.

"Ooooh, trademark bear hug. Gets 'em every time." somepony said.

Flash laid there on the floor, battered and confused, a bright white light filling his vision.

"Dad? Is that you?"

The unamused visage of Cotton Swab eclipsed his view of the heavenly light. "Quit'cher whinin'. And sorry, I should've warned you how friendly Xan can get sometimes."

Cotton's grey face was replaced by a black and white one sporting a dopey grin. This "Xan" waved his hoof "hello" at him with almost childlike energy.

"Xan, this is Flash Sentry, the new guy." Cotton said."Sentry, this is Lieutenant Xander, Longest-surviving member of the Corps. "

He didn't even want to know about the longest-surviving last part.

Cotton helped the prone pegasus back to his hooves. Flash muttered his thanks and turned to regard Xander with as much dignity as he could salvage.

"Nice to meet you too. And might I ask where you're from? It's not every day the guard employs zebrafolk."

"Zony." Cotton instantly corrected him. "Look at his tail, he's half-zebra, half-pony."

Xander did indeed have an atypical tail. Instead of long, slender tail ending in a tuft of fur, he had one composed of less skin and more hair like a pony's. Of course it was cut short like most stallions'.

"Well, I've never heard of a zony before." Flash admitted. "Though, that's probably because I lived in a fantastically conservative time where even an earth pony-unicorn matrimony was a little weird."

The zony had no reply, he merely smiled warmly at Flash.  
He cocked an inquisitive eyebrow. "What's the matter? Cat got your-"

Suddenly and for no apparent reason, Xander opened his mouth wide, revealing a typical set of pearly whites, gums, a dangly uvula, and absolutely no tongue whatsoever. There was a simple pink stump hanging at the back of his mouth.

"...tongue? Boy do I feel like a jerk for saying that."

"I was wondering when you'd figure it out." Cotton said. "Yeah, Xander ain't exactly the chatty type. Not after that voodoo witch mare cut his taster into giblets when he was a colt."

Flash blinked."That's an awfully dark backstory."

Xander shrugged, as if to say 'Well, what can you do?'

Cotton nodded in a sagely manner, despite her apparent lack of sage-ness. "They never did take too kindly to halfborns out in the Summerset Isles." She nudged the the zony playfully. "Big mook was lucky to keep the rest of his body intact living there."

"What a life." Flash said. "And I thought I had woes."

Cotton tilted her head to the side. "Woes? You? Please... what problems could you have that could ever compare to ol' silent-but-deadly here?"

"I spent most of my life living in the Crystal Empire stuck in an infernal pocket dimension where time stood still for a millenia." He said nonchalantly.

Cotton Swab's ears went flat. "Oh."

"Huh." Xander said, a vacant stare painted on his face.

"And it's not like "here one moment, there the next" kind of deal." The pegasus went on. "We could walk and talk just like any other day in Equestria, but time just refused to flow. The sun never set, the grass never grew, we never got tired, hungry, or old. Nopony was born, nopony died. Life was just on pause for a while. After the first, I don't know, two hundred years or something we got used to it. I became a hell of a whiz at poker. But hey, at least I had somepony to play poker with. Not like Princess Luna, from what I've heard. She definitely got the short end of the stick."

"So," Flash said, "anypony else I need to meet?"

"No pony," Cotton said, trotting off to throw open a large wooden hoolocker "but you will have to get acquainted with mister Ironsides here..."

Clankity, clankity, clank.

The trio of ragtag guards from three dramatically different walks of life trotted down the grand halls of Canterlot Castle, on their way to their posts defending the one and only prince of Equestria from any harm that would come to him. Flash could feel a sort of camaraderie with Cotton Swab and Xander, despite having known them for all of two and a half hours. Then again, he always did have a knack for making friends. There was just something about how three ponies with nothing in common could be so easily brought together by a shared goal.

After a few more twists and turns through the castle, the three of them emerged into a spacious square courtyard with an excellent view of the partially cloudy sky and the afternoon sun. At the center of the place was a concrete-lined swimming pool that radiated the sour scent of chlorine. Lounging beside said pool in the shade of an umbrella was a milky white unicorn stallion with a shock of golden blonde hair and a rather thick tome in his hooves.

Blueblood's eyes momentarily flicked to the three with little interest before returning to the book, as he had seen his personal guard countless times before. The prince did a double-take when he realized that the guard consisted of one pony more than he was accustomed to. Without much warning, he locked his baby blue eyes with Flash's, who met that icy gaze with his own stony look if indifference.

The old book let out a cloud of dust as it was clapped shut. Blueblood set it to the side, never once breaking eye contact. "Ah," he said in his distinct high society accent."it seems I've gained a new guard. I was wondering when that old bag would finally send me somepony new." He beckoned Flash over. "I make it a point to know all of my guard, seeing as how I seem to have so few. Please, approach your prince."

Flash did as Blueblood bade him without a hint of hesitation. He bowed as low and as humbly as his armor would allow him to and held it.

"Oh please," the unicorn said with a hint of annoyance "don't be so formal. I can hardly talk to a pony with their nose dragging the floor."

Flash rose.

"What is your name, my subject?"

"Flash Sentry, your grace." His voice was dry and emotionless like a dessert.

"Hmm." Slowly and methodically,  the prince paced around Flash as he looked him over like a piece of meat.

After a full circle around the guard, he asked "And from where do you hail, Flash Sentry?"

"The Crystal Empire, your grace."

"You don't say? How fascinating!" Blueblood sounded... I impressed? Flash couldn't quite place his hoof on it. "An Equestrian pony from the Crystal Empire. By the sun and stars, have I met one of the First Guard?"

"So that's what they're calling us." Flash remarked. "Not what I would have picked."

Blueblood trotted over to the tome. "I was just reading about you, you know." He grabbed the book with his levitation magic and flipped to a seemingly random page.  

"...and lo," He read "the King of Slaves looked upon one hundred spears held in one hundred sets of hooves and wept, a babe in his mother's embrace, for the prowess and glory of the First Guard on the field of battle could stand against armies of fifty times fifty like a mountain against the wind. A wonderful piece of history, don't you think? "

"Those history writers tend to exaggerate, your grace."

Blueblood casually tossed the book aside. "I know, but those exaggerations are not without cause, are they?"

"They are not, your grace."

Blueblood rolled his eyes like a surly teenage child. "Enough with the ‘your grace’ manure. I hear that from everypony that has a pulse and a set of vocal chords. Well, except Aunty Celly or Luna, of course. I'm quite sick of it, really."

"Yes, your--"

Blueblood gave him a glare that could've stopped an elderly pony's heart.

"I understand."

"Excellent!" He declared merrily. "Now, I'm sure you're itching to go stand in a corner and practice your impression of a stone golem. Go ahead, I've quite a bit of reading to do. Let me know if anypony tries to kill me."

Flash Sentry had embedded himself in the upper left corner of the courtyard and his two comrades chose the other corners opposite of his. He had fallen into the comfortably familiar routine of a palace guard. His eyes robotically swept from right to left, then left to right over and over again until every inch of the area had been permanently seared into his mind.

Flash was in his element. This is what he lived for, boring as it was. It was his duty to stand watch while the royalty went about their lives day by day in a grossly oversized castle. To say it was a thankless job would be a tragic understatement. It was a contender for worst career choice on the planet, but he didn't mind. Somepony had to do it, and if that pony had to be Flash, so be it.

Even the best of the guards will eventually get bored with the scenery. Most of the greats had their little tricks for keeping sane while they worked those long hours. Flash liked to count things. He felt that it kept him observant and his thoughts didn't wander off in a random direction like most minds tended to do given enough time.

For example, since he had taken his post Blueblood had turned exactly twenty five pages and drank three glasses of iced tea, Flash guessed that he would soon have to use the bathroom. Xander had scratched under his left breastplate eleven times, he must have had a bad case of armor rash, a common affliction among guards. The same brown-feathered bird had flown by three times in either direction, there must have been a nest with chicks nearby. Noticing all the little things kept him sharp, and it had on occasion helped him prevent a few crises in his days with Cadence.

One by one he filled the long minutes with more counting. When that eventually wore out his attention, he resorted to playing word games. His favorite one involved taking last letter of the name of an object or person and finding something in the vicinity that started with the same letter. For example, Water ended in R and there were several decorative Rocks stacked against a wall serving no purpose at all. Rocks ended in S and Cotton Swab guarded the opposite end of the courtyard. Swab ended in B... and so on and so forth.

He might've had to fight to pay attention sometimes, but Flash never got bored. A thousand years of life tends to leave a pony remarkably numb to monotony. He could've done it all day if he wanted.

Flash was right, soon Blueblood did have to get up and use the restroom. Naturally, he followed the prince to his porcelain throne in case there was an assassin hiding in the latrine. As one might expect, there wasn't a single assailant to be found. Walking with him through the halls and back did provide a welcome, if brief, change of scenery. He could admire the tastefully sewn tapestries and chandeliers or whatever.

As the armored pegasus leisurely shadowed Blueblood's steps, he couldn't help but notice how difficult that this job wasn't. It was exactly like guarding Princess Cadence, right down the the bathroom breaks. Did Captain Whitewater overblow the difficulty of this gig on purpose? Flash was, more or less, the "new guy". It wasn't unheard of for senior guards to mess with new recruits for kicks. Funny... he was at least nine hundred years older than all of the other normal ponies in Canterlot, and yet they saw him as if he wasn't yet out of his mid twenties. Most likely because he didn't look like he had a millennia of guard experience under his belt.

Flash was almost disappointed. The captain suggested that it was the most challenging position he knew of, but serving in the so-called "Blueblood Corps" was downright easy. He decided that the guards were just trying to play a trick on him, and a weak one at that.

What, did they expect me to be nervous? Flash thought. Did they think that I'd be on the tips of my hooves waiting for something to jump out of the shadows and go "boo"? Thats not how guarding w-

He didn't see it coming at all. What happened next completely blindsided the otherwise watchful guard. He heard a sharp clunking sort of noise, like metal grinding on wood. The next thing he knew, a stocky steel-tipped wooden shaft had embedded itself in the floor right beside where Prince Blueblood stood an instant before.

"Crap! Stupid piece of shit..."

The voice came from above, Flash whipped his head around to the source. Barely balanced on the narrow rafters was a thin pegasus struggling to reload a worn crossbow that looked a little too big for him. His face and most of his body was obscured in tight-fitting black wool clothes and mask.

"I believe somepony has tried to kill you, my prince."

"Oh really?"

"Well, you said to tell you if that happened, and so I have."

"Well done. You're the best guard ever. Have a cookie."

The pegasus froze the moment he registered what the two had said. He instantly dropped the weapon, which shattered in an explosion of splinters from the ten foot drop, turned tail, and ran.

"Freeze!" Flash shouted.

"Bite me, tin can!" He- No, it wasn't a he, that voice was too high to be a stallion - she replied.

The nameless mare lept off the roof's support and gracefully glided her way down the hall. Flash took off after her, and with a single flap of his powerful wings... nothing happened. He might have managed a half-hearted hop, but that was it. Flash panicked, he couldn't get off the ground because he was too damned heavy in that blasted mess of scrap metal they called armor.

Flash could do nothing but burst into a clumsy sprint. The Celestia-awful noise of his armor plates colliding with one another was akin to that of somepony trying to play Bucktoven's Fifth with an orchestra of kitchenware. He felt like a pony trying to run through a pool of molasses.

The pegasus rounded the next corner before he could even make it ten feet, but that didn't stop Flash from forcing his way down the hall. Clankity clankity clank. By the time he reached the corner, the mare was nowhere to be seen.

Or so he thought. Had Flash been standing out in the sun too long, or were his eyes telling lies? He couldn't make sense of it. There she was, in all her assassin-ey glory, the mare in black flying back like a feathered boomerang. In fact, she was coming right for him!

"Halt!" He hollered, firmly planting his hooves into the floor, bit down on the hilt of his blade, and drew it with a hiss of steel on leather.

It turned out that yelling "halt" had the same effect on the mare as yelling "freeze." A powerful gale blew Flash completely off-balance when the mare rushed past like the gust of a hurricane.

"S'cuse me!"

It was too much for even a highly-trained crystal guard to withstand. He was knocked on his flank like a total rookie, his sword clattering to the floor. Flash ended up on his side, robbed of the basic dexterity required even pull himself back up on his own. He was as helpless as a turtle lying on its back.

Flash soon felt pounding tremors in the earth and found himself staring at a set of four massive armored hooves alongside another set of sensibly-sized ones.

"S'up, guys." Flash greeted the two.

"Which way did she go?!" Cotton Swab demanded.

Flash grabbed ahold of one of Xander's tree trunk hooves and was easily pulled back to his good ol' vertical self.

"Down there." He gestured to the empty hall behind him. "Good luck chasing her down, she's fast like a freak. Where's the prince?"

"Present and unhurt!" Blueblood chirped, stepping out from behind a stone column.

"The prince is okay, but we lost her. Dammit!" Cotton cursed. "Did you at least get a good look at 'er?"

"Ah, not really." Flash said, rubbing the back of his neck. "It was a bit of a blur. And how did you know it was a her?"

Cotton scoffed. "Rookies."

"Hey!" was Flash's oh so snappy comeback. "I'm over a thousand years old, kind of not a rookie."

"Hmmhmm hmmm!" Xander mumbled, grabbing the two's attention.

"What's up, Xan?" Cotton asked.

Clenched in between the zony's jaws was a feather,  bright bluish green in color.

"Eh, that's a start." Cotton Swab said. "I'll put out an APB: pegasus, female, teal feathers, exceptional flier."

"Turquoise." Flash corrected.

"Huh?"

"That feather," he said "it's not teal, it's turquoise."

"Pfft, are you colorblind or something? It's totally teal."

"No, teal is darker, turquoise is on the light side."

"Oh come on, Sentry, it's the other way around."

"Hey, when you spend your unnaturally long life in a city whose ponies are all named after a limited pool of minerals, you get to know what a turquoise looks like."

Xander rolled his eyes.

"Can't we just say it's green?" Blueblood suggested.

"No," Cotton said "then the guards will have to stop everypony ranging from spring green to herbal green and everything in between. Besides, teal is more blue than green."

"Sompony need to retire the art teacher that taught you your colors." Flash snarked. "Both teal and turquoise are on the green side of the spectrum."

"Oh go rut your self with a flaming cactus, Sentry."

"I don't know, would that cactus be blue or green? You seem to get those two mixed up."

"Oh don't you give me that-"

"Both of you shut your mouths before I have your tongues removed!" Everypony froze where they stood.

"No offense, Xander."

Xander smiled and waved a dismissive hoof at his prince.

"Honestly," Blueblood said in a much calmer tone "it's pretty bad when I'm the one who has to be the mediator."

Cotton Swab sighed defeatedly. "You're right, BB. We could have caught up to her with the time we spent arguing, but it's too late now. Oh well, better luck next time."

Flash opened his mouth to say something, but the words were immediately forgotten when he finished processing that sentence.

"Better luck next time?!" he echoed. "What the hay is that supposed to mean?"

The three ponies gave Flash queer looks, as if he had accidentally spoken an entirely different language.

"It means "maybe we'll succeed next time we encounter such circumstances," my friend." Blueblood raised a blonde eyebrow. "It's a rather famous phrase."

"B-but somepony tried to murder you in cold blood!" Flash all but shouted. "It's not like a servant spilled coffee on your favorite shirt, you almost died!"

...and I would have failed to do my duty on the first day. He mentally added.

Several ice ages passed before anypony said anything. Blueblood, Cotton, and Xander all shared a knowing look amongst one another. Flash barely noticed the traces of smiles that crept onto their muzzles. They quickly grew into full-fledged dopey grins, and soon the three burst into a chorus of laughter.

There the newest member of the Canterlot Royal Guard stood, eyes wide and mouth agape as he failed to comprehend the scene before him. The prince had just had a brush with death and those tasked with guarding his life were laughing it off.

"Ohh..." Xander wiped a joyful tear from his eye.

"Re- heh -remember when I was a rookie?" Cotton elbowed the hulk playfully.

Xander grinned and nodded vigorously.

"If memory serves, you had nearly that exact look on your face." The prince, who was much more composed than his guards, pointed at Flash's dumbfounded expression.

What am I missing out on here!? Flash panicked. Was there something so obvious about this situation that went over his head? It couldn't have been, he did his duties to the fullest of his ability without any mistakes - barring those he could not control. He was vigilant,  steadfast, and professional, yet he just didn't get the point.

"Should we tell him?" Cotton asked her friends.

Xander nodded again.

"It seems to be the most opportune moment to do so." Blueblood agreed.

"Tell me what?" Flash demanded.

They shared another look.

"Why we're here." Blueblood said in a mock mysterious tone.

"The history of the Blueblood Corps."