The Night Guard - Night Mares

by Georg

Instincts

It was, determined Celestia, a little pegasus colt curled up in the luggage and folio bags that filled the bottom of the Celestial Phaeton in preparation for her meeting in Fillydelphia. Contrary to popular opinion from many ponies with rather strange views of their Diarch, Celestia did know what an infant was, even though she never had one of her own. She was also aware of which pokey-out or pokey-in bits the two different varieties of infants possessed, as well as many other informative little bits of trivia about the reproductive system of ponies that would have stunned Twilight Sparkle into a coma. What she was not aware of, was what this little colt was doing in her chariot.

“Aren’t you a little cutie,” cooed Celestia, hunching her neck down to get a better look at the shadowed interior of the carriage in the hopes of perhaps spotting a nervous mother or even a older nanny type concealed behind the luggage. After a quick detection spell just to make sure, Celestia hefted the little colt up into the wind, which he reacted to by instinctively opening his wings and buzzing them like a little sewing machine.

“Your Highness?” drifted back on the slipstream as the drivers all looked back over their shoulders, resulting in a rather unsteady ride until the superior officer motioned his subordinates back to work.

“Corporal. How far are we out of Fillydelphia now?” asked Celestia, more as a courtesy than out of actual curiosity. It was obviously less than five minutes, and the little colt squirmed in her magical grip as the carriage began a long descent to landing.

“Five minutes, Your Highness. Um. Is that Specialist Thermal’s little colt?”

“Standing Water,” said Celestia, bouncing the infant in her magic to his great delight. “I knew I had seen him before. Any idea how he managed to stow away on my secure carriage, Corporal?”

“Um. No, Ma’am.”

She spared the corporal a single glance and let him squirm for a moment. “Are you quite certain, Corporal Capricorn?”

“Ahhh… Yes, Ma’am. I take full responsibility.”

“Very well, then. Once we land, I’ll have one of your fellow guards run the cute little tyke back to his mother.” Tiny flailing limbs propelled the colt almost out of her magic before she caught him again, which he seemed to find quite amusing, in particular when his soggy diaper was caught in the slipstream and vanished behind the carriage.

“Only with enough rope,” muttered one driver.

Despite Standing Water’s continued escape attempts, the carriage came floating down into the Fillydelphia mayor’s private landing spot unscathed and still bearing the number of ponies it inadvertently carried upon departure from Canterlot. Mayor Marble stood in his customary spot, flanked by the two mares in Night Guard armor who had been sent as an advance team, and all three of them regarded the little naked colt that Celestia was carrying with a certain degree of pop-eyed amazement.

To his credit, Mayor Marble recovered first, stroking his magnificent handlebar mustache with one hoof and grinning enough to make Celestia consider if he might possibly be related to Pinkie Pie.

“Your Highness,” he rumbled in a deep tenor, “allow me to be the first to offer congratulations on the birth of your handsome young son. What’s his name?”

“Standing Water,” responded Celestia automatically. “And he’s not—”

“Mamma!” declared Standing Water, wriggling his bare rump in joy as he recognized his name.

“Can I hold him, ‘Mommy?’” snarked Mayor Marble, somehow managing to grin even wider as he held out his forehooves.

“Ooooh, you scoundrel,” chided Celestia, some of the infectious grin sneaking onto her own face. “Just for a few minutes before we send him back to Canterlot. His mother is going to be frantic.”

“Be careful, Your Highness,” said Banehammer, moving a little closer. “Standing Vatter, he doesn’t like—”

The moment the little blue colt realized he was in the hooves of an unfamiliar stallion, his giggling turned into a shriek of panic, squirting out out of the mayor’s grasp like an overstressed bar of soap and rebounding off the cobblestones to leap straight back up against Celestia’s warm neck. There was astonishing volume to those little lungs and his shrieks of panic echoed around inside of Celestia’s head to the exclusion of anything else. Even Luna would not have been able to make herself heard over his shrill screaming until a gentle patting on his back and a few soft words cooed into his ear calmed him to a few blubbering sniffles.

“As I vas saying,” continued Banehammer, taking her hooves off her ears, “Thermal’s little colt, he not like some ponies.”

“My ears,” whimpered Mayor Marble, cringing away from the colt.

Other than Banehammer, none of the Royal Guard were acceptable to Standing Water either, not even when Corporal Capricorn did an entirely adorable routine that curled his bottom lip and made funny noises which he claimed worked marvelously on his own little colt at home, but earned him a sharp bop on the nose from a wailing infant who clutched onto Celestia’s neck like a little blue tick. One of the drivers was promptly promoted to a courier and sent back to Canterlot to explain that the situation was completely in control, even though it was not, and that the chariot would be returning promptly with Standing Water just as soon as the critical meeting was over and the appropriate restraints were fitted to restrain its exuberant little passenger.

The meeting, since it was the whole reason for the visit, took top priority, and Celestia carried her unexpected visitor to the city council chambers for a most unusual and quite brief discussion.

“So, Mayor Marble,” said Celestia, trying to get a strand of her mane out of Standing Water’s vice-like jaws. “I understand you wanted to see me about a new section your fair city is adding to the main park, but I fail to see — Ouch, you little scamp — fail to see exactly why I needed to travel all the way here just to look over a few plans.”

Celestia’s acute eye swept across the city council, all of whom had volunteered their services at coltsitting and all of whom had been loudly rejected by the little colt.

When the mayor failed to reply, looking away from Celestia and seeming to find a nearby spot on the wallpaper absolutely fascinating, the Director of Public Works cleared her throat with a quiet, “Ahem. Well, Your Highness, actually… there have been all kind of rumors about this ‘Crystal Empire.’”

And she actually made air quotes with her hooves, which caused Celestia to almost snort with laughter, but she shamelessly passed it off as one of Standing Water’s brisk tugs on her mane.

“I assure you, the Crystal Empire is peaceful and not a threat. My niece Cadence is there right now, helping guide the crystal ponies back into our modern Equestria and WILL YOU PLEASE NOT TUG THERE? Oh, not you.” Celestia boosted the little colt up from where he was seeing just how long he could suspend himself by grabbing a chunk of mane with his teeth and pulling up his legs. “In summary, the Crystal Empire is fine, the crystal ponies are friendly, and I’m certain they would all welcome visitors from Equestria, particularly if they brought lots of bits to buy souvenirs and took lots of photographs. Cadence says they sell some of the most amazing snow globes. Anything else?”

Police Commissioner Cudgel stood up and cleared his throat rather nervously with a sideways glance at where Rose had taken up her guard position inside the door to the meeting room. “Well, Your Highness. There has been considerable concern about how the Griffons would react to the appearance of a city inside what they consider their domain.”

“They consider anything they can see to be their domain,” interrupted the Director of Public Works before being shushed by Mayor Marble.

“Anyway,” continued Commissioner Cudgel, “we’re not going to see any new hostilities with our friends and neighbors to the north, are we?”

“No,” said Celestia quite firmly, while trying to figure out just how to phrase the results of the rather complicated relationship that Luna’s diplomatic efforts had created. “The Misty Mountains aerie has recently had a… unexpected change of leadership, and their new Wingmaster is most assuredly a friend to all ponies. Now, since there are no further security issues, did you have any other issues of importance?”

The Director of Parks stood up as his colleague sat down. “Well, Your Highness, there was the matter of your new statue.”

“As tall as the one you already have of me in the park?” said Celestia, struggling to keep Standing Water away from his newly discovered glittering toy and getting repeated blows of a tiny wing to the face for her trouble.

“Yes. A little taller, actually.”

“No.” She spit out a small feather. “Spend the bits to put a statue of Luna beside mine. See if the same sculptor is available, Cold Chisel I believe is his name. Same price, if he’ll accept.”

And he will. He’s been asking for Luna to pose for a lot of sketches lately, some of which she won’t show to me.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Anything else?”

“No, Your Highness,” sounded the chorus as the council could not keep their eyes off Standing Water’s attempt to scale Mount Celestia in pursuit of the sparkling gem on her tiara.

“And have a nice trip back to Canterlot,” added Mayor Marble.

In Canterlot, a panting Royal Guard covered in sweat dropped into the Royal Hangar and regarded the busy nerve center that it had become before calling out, “Who’s got Communications Relay duty? I’ve got a message from Princess Celestia for Specialist Ther—”

There was a blur of eye-burning pink across the hangar floor and Specialist Waverider found himself suspended against a nearby wall with two bloodshot eyes just inches from his own.

“Standing Water? Where is he?!”

“Fillydelphia with Princess Celest—”

The blur of pink flashed away and out the hangar door, scattering pieces of feminine Night Guard armor in its wake and leaving an entire hangar full of stunned stallions all looking into the distance at the rapidly receding pink dot.

“Specialist Thermal, you are relieved from duty to retrieve your colt. Dismissed,” announced Kudzu, Commander Peaks’ adjunct, at which there was a smattering of applause that echoed around the hangar, growing until every stallion and even the mares in the cavernous room were stomping their approval.

“Settle down, soldiers,” announced Kudzu. “The search is over, but we still need to spread the word and wind down the operation.”

“Lieutenant Kudzu, shouldn't somepony go after her?” asked Waverider, still a little stunned at the pink pegasus and her rather abrupt and speedy strip-tease exit.

Kudzu gave him a look that indicated a certain level of tolerance for silly questions had already been reached for today. “Since the search is now over, I’ll send one of the younger specialists along with the foal’s bag while you go inform Princess Luna.”

By the look in Waverider’s eyes, he would much rather have attempted to chase down the frantic mother.

Habit and custom are powerful forces, even making their mark on alicorns, and Celestia had been focusing so much on the brief meeting and keeping Standing Water from plucking her bald that she had completely forgotten that Rose had been standing at the inside door to the meeting until she had turned to leave and the soft pink glow of her magical aura opened the door. For just a moment, Celestia’s mind wandered back in time to when most of the Royal Guard had been composed of mares, and it took the gurgling laughter of Standing Water swiping at a loose wave of mane to jolt her out of her recollection.

“Your Highness?” Rose had perfected the positively deadpan look of the serving Night Guards while somehow managing to keep her natural ability to fade into the background and practically vanish. Celestia nodded as she proceeded through the door and held the little colt out for Specialist Banehammer, who was guarding the outside of the door.

“Mamma!” declared Standing Water, scrabbling against Banehammer’s strong foreleg in an attempt to regain his much more interesting perch.

“He does seem to like you, Your Highness,” huffed the hefty earth pony, trying to keep the little pegasus pinned as they walked.

“I haven’t seen this much enthusiasm since I gave Twilight Sparkle her library card,” said Celestia with a chuckle that died out rather rapidly as she spotted a young photographer and a reporter hurrying down the corridor towards them. “Oh, drat. Rose, could you…”

Rose quickly trotted ahead, using her magic to gently lift the camera that had been lowered for a picture. “Please, no photos.”

The photographer took in the sight of two mares in Night Guard armor, one holding onto a naked squirming infant colt, and the Princess of the Sun with a bad mane day. “You’re kidding, right?”

The lowered camera was raised again, and the photographer found himself nose-to-nose with the very serious guard. “No. Photos.”

It would have taken a very perceptive pony to spot the spell being cast in the tell-tale faint pink glow from Rose’s horn and to deduce the probable result if the hypnotized reporter and photographer were to wander back into their newspaper. If nothing else, the scandal pages would have been able to produce tons of sales just from the relative lack of information, and the fledgeling female guard program would have been used as a paper-selling gimmick for weeks. With the smallest of magical pressures, Celestia damped her guard’s spell as she stepped forward with a practiced smile.

“Belle Plume! How good to see you again! Please, introduce me to your photographer. I don’t believe I’ve met him before.”

“Mamma!” The little colt took that opportunity to burst free from Banehammer’s tight grip, bouncing once on the hallway floor before his buzzing wings propelled him right back onto Celestia’s neck in his somewhat delayed quest to reach the shining gem on top of her head.

Not even pausing, Celestia continued with a chuckle. “Of course, introductions are due all around. Miss Plume, this is Standing Water, the son of one of my new Night Guards.”

“Ah-ha!” Belle Plume drew a notepad and pencil with a speed that an Appleoosian cowpony would have envied. “So it’s true then, Your Highness, that the current search ongoing at the Canterlot castle is a preparedness exercise in an attempt to coordinate both military and civilian emergency response in the event of any upcoming disaster, correct?”

“Why, whatever would give you that idea, Belle?” responded Celestia with a practiced smile that concealed her real amusement. Sometimes her reputation for intricate planning worked as an advantage as the press constructed their own story for any odd event. Well, with only the smallest of nudges. In all probability, the newspaper article was already written, with a few small blank spots for quotes and an appropriate spot for a photograph, which Celestia always considered a bit excessive. After all, the newspaper probably had photographs of her looking almost the same back to their founding, except for the rare and awkward times some enterprising young colt would catch her somewhat mussed, like today. Still, there was no sense in making things too easy for their attempts to catch her unawares, so she kept an eye on the photographer while Standing Water was temporarily fascinated by the reporter’s words and relatively immobile for a few seconds.

“Obviously the new integration of Canterlot policemares into the Royal Guard preceding this exercise was to establish lines of communication within the civilian infrastructure. After all, the debacle of the Royal Wedding and Discord’s release both showed serious flaws in the existing structure of the Guard, and there has been all kinds of talk about what measures you were planning on taking to fix the situation.”

“My dear. I just can’t keep secrets from the press, can I, Miss Plume?”

The press pegasus blushed. “Well, it was obvious, after I saw how well the search efforts were being coordinated between the Royal Guard and the police. I knew there was something going on behind the scenes, and we followed your schedule right here to verify the story before we go to press.”

Celestia nodded, considering how many times the steps in that process had been reversed. “I’ll be more than happy to chat with you before we leave. The whole castle is probably buzzing with activity right now, but the messenger I sent back about an hour ago should have things back to normal by the time I return. I can hardly wait to see what Luna is planning for her turn.”

“Mamma!” declared Standing Water, struggling to reach the tantalizing gemstone in Celestia’s crown even as the daring photographer raised his camera. This time it was Miss Plume who raised a wing to block the photographer’s shot before giving a winsome smile to Princess Celestia and her little passenger.

“Snapps, let’s give Princess Celestia a few minutes to get presentable first and we can talk on the way up to the chariot. Can I hold him while we’re walking? He’s so cute.”

“...of course the Academy has been dealing with various settling-in issues regarding housing and there is a considerable backlog in the remodeling involved in getting a sufficient number of bathrooms, but other than a few other minor issues such as that, the Royal Guard seems to be handling the transition quite well. Any actual parity in numbers will be decades down the line, of course, but both my sister and myself are quite pleased at the way male and female guards are working together the way they did back a thousand years ago. Ahh, here we go.”

The opening door to the rooftop chariot landing pad revealed three fairly startled Royal Guards in various states of activity, none embarrassing, fortunately. Two of the guards were wrestling with a foal seat and the associated buckles, straps, cords, knots, and snaps that came with it, attempting to get it properly installed in the chariot, which seemed to be quite a problem as the designers of the seat had never contemplated the possibility of it fitting in the Celestial Phaeton. The third guard was puzzling his way through a set of crumpled instructions, showing signs that pure frustration had caused them to be wadded up and thrown away several times already, only to be retrieved in the forlorn hope that some sort of actual information might be gleaned from the Quilian or Prench language and arcane drawings that seemed to go with a different model of seat, or possibly a coffee maker.

“Gentlecolts,” said Celestia, gesturing to the reporter and her photographer. “This young mare has a few questions about how you are coping with the introduction of mares to your ranks. I’m making an exception to the normal Guard policy of not speaking with the press, so I expect you to be on your best behavior.”

“Honestly?” said Corporal Capricorn with a startled blink and a look like a colt opening presents on Hearth’s Warming Day.

“Absolutely,” said Celestia. “The honor of the Royal Guard deserves nothing less.”

“If it’s all the same with you, Your Highness,” said Belle Plume, flipping a page of her notepad and turning to the two female guards, “I’d prefer to start any interview with the girls.”

“Beg pardon?” bristled Capricorn before he could think. “Girls? These are sworn Royal Guards in addition to their considerable previous service to the Crown as police officers in Canterlot. They’ve proven themselves by putting their lives on the line even before they put on the armor of the Guard, and I believe you owe them both an apology.”

The silence stretched long between the stern Royal Guard and the startled reporter before Miss Plume swallowed and responded, “Yes. Yes, you’re right. Please, allow me to apologize, officers. I did not mean any disrespect.”

“Thank you, Miss Plume. Apology accepted,” said Specialist Rose, just as solemnly and plainly as if she were addressing a press conference. “If you will step this way, we can conduct the interview out of the way of the rest of the guards. They’re quite busy with their assigned tasks.”

Banehammer slipped over to the three stallions struggling with the foal seat and whispered to Corporal Capricorn, “Thanks. Ve owe you vun.”

“You’re Royal Guard now,” whispered Capricorn in return. “The Guard protects its own. You don’t owe me anything.” He turned the instructions sideways and squinted at a diagram. “Unless you know how to install one of these Tartarus-be-damned seats.”

“The hubby, he alvays took care of things like dis,” said Banehammer, pointing at the instructions. “How is you supposed to even get a little colt in there vith a strap fastened across here.”

“There’s a buckle here, I think,” said Capricorn, pointing at the crumpled sheet. “Or it’s a blotch.”

“It’s a buckle,” said Princess Celestia, looking over both of their shoulders and trying to keep Standing Water from reaching the interesting paper. “There’s one in the parts bag, but it looks backwards. Are you sure those are the steps for putting the seat together for Ponies? It can be used for Minotaurs or Griffons too, according to the box.”

Even after the reporter and photographer flew back to Canterlot, it took far longer than anticipated to put together the seat, complicated by Standing Water’s attempts to escape when strapped in and resulting in several complete rebuilds as childish flexibility trumped Equestrian (or possibly Quilian, or maybe even Minotaur) engineering. The little colt was taking his frustrations out by lowering his already low tolerance for non-mommy ponies, absolutely refusing to be held by Rose at first, then fighting his way out of Banehammer’s hooves, and eventually just clinging to wherever he could get a grip on Celestia while insistently repeating in a constantly louder voice, “Mamma?”

“The next Royal Chariot I get is going to have a foal’s seat built in,” fumed Celestia, trying to unknot a ball of straps while Standing Water clung to one hind leg.

“Fasten the hock strap over the gizlet and snap securely to the mizzen clip,” read Corporal Capricorn for the uncounted time in the hopes that repetition would cause inspiration, looking as the four soldiers under his command carefully inspected the spread-out collection of parts.

“What in my name is a mizzen clip?” snapped Celestia, suddenly switching to a consoling tone as Standing Water began to scream. “Now, there, my little pony. We’re just trying to get you strapped in so we can get you back to mommy. Where’s Rose with that bottle?”

“Sorry, Your Highness,” apologized Specialist Banehammer, trying to be heard over the noise while she sorted through six different mechanical buckles, none of which fit any of the included straps correctly. “Ve’ve tried each vun of the formulas from the local grocery vhere ve got the diapers, but he just doesn’t vant any of them. Rose vent to a specialty organic grocery store to see if they have any neutral soy—”

“Yipes!” Celestia almost jumped up into the air, spreading her wings and balancing on her hind legs as Standing Water tumbled to the ground, his startled eyes as large as saucers. “I’m sorry, little one. I’m not lactating,” she continued with as soothing a voice as possible.

“Mamma!” Standing Water bounded towards the edge of the landing pad and the multi-story drop beyond it only to be snagged in Princess Celestia’s magic and dragged back. “Mamma!” he cried again, bringing his wings to a furious buzz and making Celestia fight to keep a grip on him.

“Hey, it’s Milkmaid,” said one of the guards, pointing to a small pink dot in the sky that was growing larger by the minute.

“Specialist Thermal,” whispered his coworker.

“Oh, thankthestars,” gasped Celestia. “I’ve never been so glad to see one of the Royal Guard in my life.”

Corporal Capricorn took a quick look at his watch and frowned. “She’s made amazingly good time.”

“She’s not slowing down,” remarked Specialist Banehammer with a sideways glance at Her Royal Highness, Princess of the Sun, Guardian of the Daytime Sky, Sol Invicta, and Waver of Small Diapered Colts. “Your Highness, it vould work out better for you if you vere to hold Standing Vater up to one side instead of right in front of—”

The sound of joyful parent meeting squalling colt was almost immediately followed by the sound of embarrassed adjunct guard and son impacting with the royal personage she was supposed to be protecting from just such impacts. Fortunately, Princess Celestia was substantially larger (and softer) than Specialist Thermal and her son, and due to a considerable amount of braking by the young mother just before impact, their combined collision only knocked Her Highness back a few steps. To Celestia’s chagrin, she was immediately apologized to with such enthusiasm that even her royal status did not allow her to get a word in edgewise.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, sorry! I didn’t mean to hit you! Pleasedon’tfireme! I was just so worried that I flew all the way here from Canterlot and I thought something terrible had happened to my son but I see he’s fine and you’re fine and I’m really, really sorry that I ran into you like that it’s just that he gets so cranky when he’s away from mommy and I didn’t want him to be worried or throw a fit or scream or anything because then he gets colic and yells all night even when I put a few drops of honey in the bottle even though I’m not supposed to do that oh please don’t throw me in jail for that Princess Celestia! Yipe!” While she was still in mid-air, the energetic little colt had squirmed around in his mother’s grasp enough to finally get his mouth on his desired target, and with a contented grunt, he settled down to serious nursing.

Princess Celestia chuckled at the sight of the energetic little colt and her mother as they landed awkwardly on the ground and shifted positions, with Standing Water not missing a single suckle. She floated a couple of cushions out of the chariot and carefully arranged them around her bodyguard for privacy from the collection of curious onlookers.

“Don’t worry about it, Specialist Thermal. After all, you did throw yourself into the line of fire to rescue your Princess from the assault of a rather energetic little attacker.” Lowering her voice, she added, “He was rather upset when he found out I didn’t have any milk for him. Nipped me a bit too.”

“Sorry! I’m sorry for messing up your—”

“Nonsense,” scoffed Celestia. “It’s been so long since a male has nipped me around there I’d nearly forgotten how it felt.”