Royal celestial archives, department of military history
Event:
cardinal points war, first deployment of the royal guard
Provided by:
Onyx Buster
Earth pony
Male
sergeant of the royal guard of Equestria
The day started really nice. I had quite the arousing dream, the captain didn’t feel like he needed to scream us out of bed and Celestias sun was bright and warm. It could have been such a beautiful day.
I had a rather small breakfast, which mainly consisted of the strongest and darkest coffee I could find. Around 7:30 a.m. I got my armor, put that golden monstrosity on and went to take over from Midnight Jewel.
She entered the guard just two months ago and was assigned to guarding the hallway to the diplomats’ wing of the castle. It was a boring task and it was quite regular for rookies to get jobs like that.
I for myself was anything but a rookie, but I was also no morning pony. The last time the captain saw it fit to yell at me before my shift started, and before I got my cup of liquid tolerance for the world, I threatened to buck his private parts. And I did so in a language that was quite colorful, to say the least.
Anyway, my foul mouth had earned me three months of the most boring post in the whole castle, but at least I met Midnight Jewel. She was a small, slender unicorn mare with a coat as black as the darkest of nights. Her mane and tail were orange, with a single gray line in them. Her cutie mark was an arrangement of three small white stars. Her eyes had a similar orange to her mane, only a few tints lighter.
I loved that mare, although at first I thought she was just a pretty face and nothing more. I always took over from her in the morning, so we met every day. A few days after my transfer we started talking. At that point she only knew me and the third buck in rotation, Winter Gust. He was a hyperactive young pegasus, barely old enough to join the guard in the first place. Midnight asked me what my name was, how I got this position, why I always look like I was ready to kill somepony and many more things. After a while, I gave in and replied.
I soon learned that she was quite bright and wanted to join the guard as a supporting mage. Her special talent was light magic. We spend some evenings and weekends together and I decided to ask her out when my sentence was over.
When I arrived at our post she looked as beautiful as always and smiled at me as I rounded the corner. I made my way over and grumbled something that was supposed to be a ‘good morning’ to her.
She just laughed. “You know you look funny when you glare daggers at everything like this?”
I raised one eyebrow and cocked my head slightly. “You do remember that I’m no morning pony, do you?”
She walked around me and attempted to inspect me. “You look like an earth pony to me and I kind of always thought all earth ponies were early risers. You know, strong connection to nature and stuff like that.”
I huffed. “I have a strong connection to the nature around 11:00 a.m. until then, nature can bugger off.”
Midnight giggled at me and shook her head. “You’re cute when you’re grumpy, Onyx.”
I said nothing and tried my best not to smile like an idiot for being called cute by her. But I think she already knew at the time that I adored her.
After that, we switched posts and I started my shift by staring blankly after her when she left. A few minutes after Midnight was out of sight, I smiled slightly and nodded to myself. “The Armor of the night guard really looks way better than ours, regardless of the fact that the mare you’ve fallen for wears it or not.”
A slight chuckle came from right behind me and my eyes widened in horror. Somepony had heard me. “We are very pleased that you seem to appreciate our design … and our guards.”
I knew that voice. Even without her very distinctive speech pattern I would have known who that was. I slowly turned my head and tried to crack a smile. “Good morning princess Luna, your highness.”
Another chuckled escaped her. “You can stand at ease, Onyx Buster. I’m here for informal matters.”
Even if she would have ordered me, my whole body was as tense as it could get. “You honor me by knowing my name, your highness.”
Luna shook her head. “It’s nothing. I prefer a more personal approach towards my subjects. My sister likes her guard to be as uniform as possible and therefore has slight problems getting everypony's names right. My night guard however is smaller and every pony in it is far more individualistic.”
I bowed my head before her. “They must all feel very special.”
Luna took a deep breath and smiled a little bit mischievously. “They all are something special. But, you already knew that … at least in regards to one of my guards.”
I simply nodded, denying was useless at this point and no guard would lie towards one of the princesses. Meanwhile Lunas gaze took on something warm and motherly, normally things rather attributed to Celestia than her. “I saw in your dreams how you feel about Midnight Jewel. If you would want to, I could pull some strings to arrange your redeployment into my night guard.”
It took me whole five minutes before I could close my muzzle again and another two before I could form a coherent thought. “Why would you do that? ... Your highness.”
Luna smiled. “I just want my subjects to be happy.”
I thought she was yanking me around. “Princess, I’m very grateful, but I don’t know if…”
She raised one hoof to silence me and suddenly looked very serious. “I would never make fun of the honest feelings I saw in your dreams. My offer stands as long as it needs to. If you feel like taking me up on it, you know where to find me.”
I slowly nodded and stammered. “Thank you, your highness.”
Luna left, with the kindest smile I’ve ever seen on her lips and whispered. “The dreams and the night are my domain. It’s my pleasure to help those who seek for love in one of them.”
As the time went by, I thought about Lunas offer and what to do with it. It was almost too good to be true, but it was a word form a princess. Why would she lie about it? She even knew my and Midnights names. After all, there was not much to lose, but all the more to win. I decided to stick to my plan, I would ask Midnight out after my sentence was over and if she agreed I would suggest to her to join the night guard. That would make for an excellent surprise.
It was only a few minutes after noon when suddenly my armor made a sound I never heard outside of training. The so called ‘emergency order spell’ was coming to live. The blue star in my armor, which carried the enchantment, bellowed a single order. “All guards, get ready for deployment! This is not a drill.”
The blue Star my armor had encased in its chest plate repeated the order two times over. Not many ponies knew, but the gems that were built into every guard armor carried powerful enchantments within them. One enabled the princesses to relay their orders to every guard pony, no matter where they were.
I bolted past the first corner and into the direction of the barracks. The first thing to get when we were deployed was the full battle armor and our weapon of choice. Next step would be the assembly at the front yard of the castle, where we would get our orders.
Only two minutes after the initial order I reached the barracks and made haste for the armory. The halls were cramped with ponies and it felt like an eternity until I was in for it.
Earth pony battle armor was extremely heavy and for one pony alone nearly impossible to equip. Two unicorns assembled my armor around me with precise telekinesis. After every plate was in its place I grabbed my spear, attached it to my side and left for the yard.
Only twenty minutes after Celestias order had been magically relayed to every royal guard in Canterlot we stood in the front yard of the castle. Exactly one thousand ponies of each tribe, plus roughly 500 night guard.
Princess Celestia appeared in a flash of golden light in front of the formation of her guard and allowed herself a moment to let her eyes wander over every single pony in sight. “Guards, we are at war.”
Nopony made a sound. We all knew that something bad was going on if Celestia ordered the full deployment of the guard, but we expected a Monster, not a full scale war. “Not even half an hour ago, a messenger from the gryphon empire delivered a formal declaration of war against Equestria and all its allies.”
Princess Luna touched down in front of her own guard and continued her sister’s speech. “We hoped it would never come to this, but we have to fight.”
Both princesses spread their wings and seemed to tower over every one of us like giants. “WILL YOU STAND WITH US?”
Both of them spoke in unison in their royal Canterlot voice, but our reply managed to drown them out nevertheless. We screamed our compliance loud enough for the whole city to hear it. These were our goddesses, every pony in Equestria would’ve followed them to wherever they led us.
Celestia and Luna had their chariots brought over and gave orders to their captains in the meantime. Celestias royal guard would be dispatched to the western coast and deployed around Baltimare, Filly Delphia, Horseshoe Bay and Manehatten. In the meantime Luna and her night guard would take post at the eastern coast, even though no pony knew if and what may live beyond the great eastern sea, the princesses wanted it to be guarded.
I have to admit, I was little bit depressed over the fact that Midnight would be dispatched on the other end of Equestria.
While our formations shuffled to start deployment I made my way over to her. She looked uncertain and maybe a little bit frightened. I managed to get next to her before she noticed me. “Afraid rookie?”
Her head snapped around and she was about to yell at whoever called her a rookie. But when she recognized me, and saw the sarcastic smile I always put on when I teased her, she snorted. “Buck you, Onyx! Aren't you even slightly worried about ponies dying? Maybe that some you know might die?”
I nodded and put away that unfitting smile of mine. “We all are. I have to admit, the last few years we had more operations than in the whole last century, but we all are a little bit afraid of what might happen.”
I lowered my head to her ear and whispered. “And none of us had expected a full scale war.”
Midnight blinked one time, very slow, like she was contemplating about something I said. “Understandable.”
An officer of the night guard gave a sharp whistle and screamed Midnights full name and rank, which is never a good sign. All soldiers know exactly that their officers are really, really pissed when they call out for them like this. It’s like your mother calling you by your full name, you just know that shit is about to hit the fan.
With a sheepish smile she looked up to me and pointed one hoof into the direction where the call originated from. “I think I have to go, otherwise ‘daddy’ might really lose his temper.”
I looked at the colt and glared daggers at him, before returning my gaze to Midnight. “Take care of yourself. … I don’t want to guard that hallway all on my own.”
The Mare in front of me nodded and her eyes became hard as steel. “You too. I couldn’t stand that jerk Winter Gust all by myself. I swear if I catch him staring at my flank ever again I will neuter him.”
We both snorted and shared a hearty laugh.
I watched after her when she left and the night guard marched out of the castle yard, with only half a dozen remaining around Lunas chariot. More than once I had thought about telling her how I felt right then and there, but I didn’t know if that would be a wise choice. She was right, one of us could easily bite the dust in the next weeks or months. I just wouldn’t want to put neither her nor myself through the constant fear for a loved one. And I may have been afraid to be rejected, ... maybe, ... just a little bit.
Suddenly, somepony nudged me and hissed into my ear. I just shifted my gaze and hissed back, but when my eyes again searched for Midnight I already lost track of her. She just vanished in the midst of the night guard.
When I was nudged a second time I was kind of angry and turned myself around. Another guard pointed at something behind himself and whispered. “Hey sergeant, the princess has called for you.”
My first impulse was to yell at him for denying me the last few glances at Midnights, admittedly, beautiful flank. But my subconscious sealed my mouth and screamed at me to comply with whatever the princess wanted.
I stepped forward and saluted to Celestia, while she nodded with a serious expression. “You are sergeant Onyx Buster?”
My hoof was set back onto the ground and I took the stoic, stature like, pose for which the royal guard was famous. “Yes your highness. Sergeant First Class Onyx Buster, second lancer squadron.”
She nodded again. “Captain Winternight told me you may be one of the best lancers in the guard. Is that correct?”
I didn’t understand the significance of that and therefore was mildly confused, but that’s nothing which leads a royal guard to drop his stonily act. “I currently hold the record for the most breached phalanxes in lancer training, your highness.”
The princess tapped one hoof on the ground and seemed to be satisfied with my answer. “Very good. Onyx Buster, from now on, until this war is over, you are relieved from your duty in the regular royal guard forces and henceforth serve as one of my personal guard. You only have to answer to calls from the princesses of Equestria, nopony else is allowed to give you any orders. But in the same manner that no other guard can give you any order, you can’t order them. Did you understand?”
I knelt down and lowered my head. “Yes, your majesty.”
The motherly smile, which normally was omnipresent on Celestias muzzle, returned to a certain degree. “I thank you for your service, my little pony.”
She turned around and made way to her chariot, where five other guards already waited for her. “Princess Luna and I will attend a meeting with the other princesses in Ponyville. Captains, you have your orders, forward march!”
The gathering of ponies around Celestias and Lunas chariots were their newly assigned personal guards. Though, I doubted that we could deal with anything that posed a real threat to one of the princesses.
The first ones who climbed their chariots where Luna and Celestia themselves. While two pegasi each strapped themselves to the harnesses of the vehicles. Everypony else climbed into the chariots afterwards and waited silently for the take off.
While Canterlot grew smaller the princess addressed us. “Does none of you have any questions about the situation?”
We all looked at each other, not sure if it exceeded our privileges to ask the princess any questions about what was going on. In the end, one of the two unicorns cleared his throat. “Your majesty, I would like to ask why we are going to Ponyville. The town is rather remote and beside the fact that Princess Twilight Sparkle takes shelter there, there isn’t much it has to offer.”
Celestia fixed her gaze on the unicorn stallion and nodded. “You are right Sapphire Twister, but Luna and I need to talk to Twilight. Hopefully before it is too late.”
One of the pegasi who pulled the chariot, the mare was called Amber Snow, turned her head. “Too late for what, your highness?”
The Princess heaved a heavy sigh. “Technically the gryphons didn’t declare war to Equestria as a whole, but rather personally to Princess Twilight and what is called ‘the friendship kingdom’ by most ponies. I fear they might try to kill her.”
The second unicorn stallion tapped his hooves and seemed to talk to himself. “Equestria is a federal kingdom, the gryphons should be aware of that. They wouldn’t mistake the, metaphorical, friendship kingdom for a single state. And even if there would be a province that’s called ‘friendship kingdom’, it would still be part of Equestria and therefore war against it would mean war against ponykind as a whole.”
We didn’t knew if he was talking to himself or to us, but the princess took it as his contribution to the conversation. “Magic Step is absolutely right. The gryphons didn’t make a mistake, they did this on purpose. But the reason is something we can only guess, at best.”
The flight from Canterlot to Ponyville took a few hours and when we finally took down in front of princess Twilights castle, everything was over already. The gryphons had timed their attack perfectly, they attacked only mere minutes after we received their declaration of war. But the attempted assassination of an alicorn, as well as the bearers of the elements of harmony, did backfire on a surprisingly epic scale. Not only had the gryphons been repelled, their losses outnumbered Ponyvilles civilian casualties three to one.
While princess Celestia commanded the citizens to keep their distance from the castle princess Luna started to caste a few spells on the location itself. We assumed she was casting different wards and protective spells, even our unicorns had no idea what she was doing. And all non-unicorns agreed to not startle her, who knows what might happen if one of her spells became unstable. After she was done, Magic Step only mumbled a few sentences. I only overheard ‘overkill’ and ‘way out of our league’ and stuff like that, obviously I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
After Luna had cast her spells and Celestia touched down from her little speech, a bright blue flash appeared in front of the castle door. Princess Cadence and her husband had arrived, both were panting heavily. I’ve knew Shining for years before Cadence decided to get him a promotion to the rank of ‘prince’, but I’ve never seen him as exhausted as this.
Magic Step, Sapphire Twister and the two unicorns from Lunas guard rushed over to them with sheer terror plastered all over their faces. Each of them instantly started to cast a spell, which they later explained as some sort of energy exchange spell. Obviously Shining and Cadence had teleported the whole way from the Crystal Empire to Ponyville. I’m an earth pony, so you could guess my magical expertise, but even I knew that this was nuts. Celestia flew to ponyville in her chariot for a reason.
Right when Cadence and Shining recovered far enough to talk a whole sentence without gasping, they instantly made use of that ability. “What has happened? Why are we at war? Is Twilight alright?”
I felt it was mildly disturbing that they managed to speak in perfect unison, although they both where exhausted almost to the point of unconsciousness. Luna came up next to them and hushed the pair. “We too just arrived. But as far as we can tell Twilight Sparkle is unharmed and Ponyville, though it suffered a surprise attack, is in remarkably good condition.”
Celestia stepped over to her niece and nodded. “Luna is right, although the gryphons managed to catch the town off guard, they were repulsed with only minimal losses for the ponies of Ponyville.”
Shining armor and the three princesses proceeded to the gate and Celestia raised a hoof to knock, only for a pink earth pony to tear open the door before the princess had even touched the wood. “Hi princess, the others already thought you were delayed.”
Some of us guards already dropped to a battle stance, but the Princesses were far less surprised and signaled us to stand down. Celestia just giggled slightly. “Hello Pinkie Pie, It seems you are still at your very best when it comes to you pinkie sense. Can we come in?”
Pinkie Pie stepped aside and made way for Celestia and the others to enter. “Of course you all can come in. I made special princess council party cupcakes. I even made them with everypony’s cutie marks on top, so we all knew which cupcakes are ours and which not.”
Her tone suddenly became really serious, almost angry. “This time Dashie will have no excuse if she ate all of my cupcakes.”
After the princesses had entered, Pinkie Pie examined us all and smiled as wide as she could. “Sorry, but the princesses don’t want anypony else around for their chat, you will have to wait outside.”
Her eyes grew wide for a second, then she immediately looked at Sapphire Twister. “My tail is twitchy, you should keep an eye for falling thingies.”
The whole scene was surreal and strange to a degree I hadn’t witnessed ever before, although I have to admit, it was the first time I met Pinkie Pie in person. After she had closed the castle door I leaned over to Twister. “What the buck is a pinkie sense and what does she mean with that stuff about falling things?”
His face was deadpan. “I have no idea.”
Within mere moments of that answer we heard a call from a balcony of the castle. “Caution!”
We managed to look up for whatever was the source of that call and Twister took a dented gryphon helmet right to the face. All the while a small purple dragon stood on the balcony and watched down onto us. “Sorry, that thing slipped away.”
Twister rubbed his muzzle and grumbled. “I already don’t like that pink mare.”
I for myself didn’t say anything, I was quite busy laughing my flank off.