Flash Sentry fidgeted slightly in his seat as the personnel officer on the other side of the desk shuffled his papers around in front of him. Flash’s entire future in the Guard was going to be decided by this stallion, so he was sweating profusely.
“So, it says here you've been serving with the Fillydelphia Town Guard for three years,” the gruff old stallion commented.
“Y-yes, sir,” Flash nodded. The officer raised a brow at Flash’s obvious nervousness.
“What made you decide to switch career paths? A life with the Royal Guard isn’t easy or glamorous, despite what the propaganda may say.”
“I know,” Flash said quickly. “But I joined the guard to make a difference. The town Guards don’t have much to deal with besides the occasional brawl or petty theft, and even those are rare. It’s the Royal Guard who are sent out for the real stuff.”
“Bloodlust, eh?”
“Hardly,” Flash disagreed. “But weird things happen in Equestria on a fairly regular basis, and somepony has to keep ponies safe.”
“Well said. Well, your service record is decent, and we do have some new jobs to fill after the Crystal Empire incident. Lot of guys quit or put in for transfer after Sombra attacked. Crystal ponies do okay on their own, but their guard force isn’t very big to begin with; we’ve been trying to fill spots there ever since. Honestly, this review is mostly just a formality. I’m assigning you to the Crystal Empire branch of the Royal Guard, effective tomorrow. You leave on the first train.”
“Yes, sir,” Flash saluted with a bit of a grin. This was just the adventure he was looking for.
“I’ll warn you, a lot’ll be expected from you. You’ll be assigned to the castle itself.”
“Yes…” Flash said slowly. He’d expected as much, so why did it need to be pointed out?
“The castle where Princess Cadance now resides.”
“Yes…”
“With her husband. Our boss.”
“Crud.” The officer was kind enough to overlook Flash’s breach of protocol.
“No pressure. Good luck. You’re dismissed.”
Flash would readily admit that he’d been looking forward to this assignment much more before the revelation that he’d be directly involved with keeping his boss’s wife safe- it left no room for error if you wanted to keep your job. He was trying to make the best of it, though- on the bright side, the entire Guard force there was relatively new, so if he ended up making mistakes, chances are that everypony else would, too, and he wouldn’t take too much heat.
His first view of his new home were breathtaking, and he paused on the train station platform to take it all in. He probably would’ve been distracted enough to stand there staring all day if one of the other new recruits that had been on the train hadn’t elbowed him on his way past. He shook himself out of it and followed the procession of young stallions- about seven total- on their way to report for duty.
He managed to keep himself moving during the trek, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t gawking. Everything was made of crystals- the buildings, the streets. Hay, even the ponies! Flash didn’t know what kind of weird magic had made that happen, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to.
Shining Armor himself was waiting for them outside the doors of the Guard barracks, running a critical eye over what he had to work with. Evidently it wasn’t bad enough to warrant a verbal barrage, because he simply welcomed them and helped them settle in.
Flash was beginning to think that the personnel officer had been exaggerating the implications of working directly under the boss when Shining Armor called them all to attention and began speaking. It was the usual military prep talk, nothing Flash hadn’t heard before, until the very end.
“As many of you are no doubt aware, Princess Cadance is my wife. As such,” he paused, looking them all in the eye. “One hair on her head gets hurt on your watch, you’re out of a job with a big fat black mark on your record, and that’s if you’re lucky. Got it?” The recruits all gulped in unison.
“Sir, yes sir!” they chorused together.
‘What am I getting myself into!?’ Flash wondered.
As it turned out, the answer was not much. After a few weeks of basic training to make sure they were all up to par, he was given a duty roster and set to work, but so far not much had happened. Not that he was expecting it to right away, but he ended up standing around as an ornamental guard while ponies toured the castle more often than anything else. He hadn’t even seen the princess yet, for Celestia’s sake.
“You look bored.”
He’d been guarding one of the various doors with waning enthusiasm when the voice shook him out of his reverie. A tall pink unicorn mare he’d never seen before was standing right in front of him with a barely-retained laugh evident on her face. He snapped to attention, hoping she didn’t report that she’d caught him spacing out. She giggled slightly, and he flushed.
“I don’t blame you. I know I can’t stand standing still for too long. Had to sneak away just now and stretch my legs,” she said cheerfully. He wasn’t technically supposed to interact much with ponies while he was on duty beyond occasionally giving directions, but nopony else was around, anyway.
“Sneak away?” he asked.
“Shiny has a few of the guards standing in the throne room 24/7. It’s a great safety precaution, but it also means I have half a dozen stallions freaking out every time I try to leave the room.” Flash suddenly noticed the wings and crown, panicked, and bowed.
“Your Highness!” he exclaimed, struggling for a moment to retain his balance and not make a bigger idiot of himself than he already had.
“Oh, you hadn’t realized?” Cadance asked with another pealing laugh. “You must be fairly new, then.”
“A few weeks, Your Highness,” Flash confirmed, standing straight but still looking down. “I haven’t been assigned to the throne room, yet.”
“I didn’t think so,” Cadance said cheerfully. “You stand out a bit in this crowd, so I’d remember. Most of the Royal Guard that end up assigned to the castle itself are the Crystal ponies, since this is their home, and your orangey-yellow is very different from crystally-purple.”
“Um… thank you?” Flash said uncertainly. She certainly wasn’t acting how he’d always imagined royalty to act, but then he supposed he’d never actually met royalty before, so what would he know?
“You’re quite welcome…” she trailed off with a grin, motioning for him to offer up his name.
“Flash Sentry, Your Highness,” he said.
“Oh, please, just call me Cadance,” she said. “All my friends do.”
“Uh… friends?” Flash choked, looking at her like she was crazy. Remembering who he was talking to, he quickly reverted to a carefully calm face.
“Of course! I like you. It’s nice to meet a guard who hasn’t perfected the whole ‘treating me like I’m better than them’ thing! I’m going to take it upon myself to ensure that you never do!”
“What?” Flash asked flatly.
“Exactly!” Cadance said happily. “I’ll leave you to it then, Flash. I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of each other!” She skipped merrily down the hall, and Flash watched with growing incredulity, with no way of knowing that he’d just become Cadance’s main target. This was definitely shaping up to be more interesting than his last job.
When Shining Armor handed out the next week’s roster, Flash was somewhat surprised to see that every single one of his shifts was to be served in the throne room.
“Don’t ask me why, but Cadance has taken a liking to you. She wanted you assigned to her personal detail, and I’m not one to tell her no,” Shining Armor explained.
“She was serious?” Flash muttered to himself. He couldn’t decide whether or not that surprised him, based on his previous experience with the princess.
“Don’t get any funny ideas,” Shining Armor warned as he walked away.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, sir,” Flash called after him. He gave one more bewildered glance down at his orders before shrugging, putting on his uniform, and making his way to his post. As odd as the situation was, he still had a job to do.
“Good morning, Flash!” the princess greeted him perkily when he entered the room. The other guards remained stoic as ever, but Flash could swear they were glaring at him for having the princess call him by his first name.
“Uh, good morning, Your Highness,” Flash said nervously. “I’m here to relieve the night guard.”
“Of course,” she nodded. “And I thought I told you, call me Cadance!”
“I don’t think I’m technically supposed to-”
“Who’d you get in trouble with?” Cadance dismissed, rolling her eyes.
“My superiors, probably,” Flash muttered.
“My husband is as superior as they get,” Cadance reminded. “I’d really hate to make it a royal order, Flash. It’d defeat the whole purpose.”
“Um… alright, then, I suppose. Cadance.”
“Yay!” she said happily. “I’d love to keep chatting, but the throne room opens up to the public any minute, and I’ll be busy. Try not to get too bored over there, or your mind will wander again!” Flash coughed in embarrassment, but straightened and adopted the Guard Face™ just in time for the first ponies to begin coming to their princess with their problems.
The Guard presence in the throne room was thinnest right before the day ended, mostly because the front doors had already been locked and there were plenty of guards throughout the rest of the castle, and Flash ended up being the second to last guard in the room- although Flash wasn’t sure whether or not the captain really counted, since he wasn’t on duty.
“So Flash,” Cadance started conversationally. Flash jumped a little, not expecting her to bother speaking to him again, since she hadn’t done so throughout the day besides once when she’d asked him to bring her a glass of water. “How long have you been with the Guard?”
“Since I was eighteen. Three years,” he clarified. He was still unsure where exactly he stood on this whole ‘let’s be friends’ thing- it seemed a bit insubordinate, to be frank- but Shining Armor didn’t seem to have any real issue with it, and Flash assumed it was safe to take his cues from the stallion.
“You’re twenty-one?” Cadance asked. “Hey, Shiny’s sister is about that age. I used to foalsit for her, you know. She’s such a sweetheart.”
“That’s…Princess Twilight Sparkle, right?” Flash asked. Cadance nodded.
“Of course, when I foalsat her she was just a little unicorn,” she sighed nostalgically. “And Shiny here was just starting out with the Guard. He used to follow me around claiming he was practicing being a guard.”
“Well that was a lifetime ago,” Shining Armor laughed, remarkably unembarrassed by the anecdote. “Equestria’s a very different place, now.”
“Yeah,” Cadance sighed, staring into space. Flash couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw a mischievous twinkle enter her eyes. “You know, Shiny, we should invite Twilight to visit us soon.”
“It would be nice to see her again,” Shining Armor nodded. Then he saw Cadance’s pleased smirk and grew suspicious. “What are you planning?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing,” Cadance said. “Actually, there’s going to be Royal Summit here in a few weeks. I hadn’t thought about it, but I suppose she’ll be here for that. Shiny, do you think we should assign her a Guard force while she’s here?”
“I guess that’d probably be a good-” he cut himself off, glared suspiciously at Cadance, who was smiling innocently, and his eyes glanced imperceptibly in Flash’s direction. “Not a chance, Cadance. Twilight’s a big mare, she can take care of herself. If she doesn’t need a Guard force back home, she’ll be able to make due with the general safety precautions we have already in place.”
“Aw,” Cadance complained. “But-”
“Flash Sentry, you’re dismissed,” Shining Armor said quickly, hoping to remove the soldier before his wife got any more ideas. “I’ll keep an eye on Cadance.”
“Yes sir,” Flash said, hopelessly confused about what had just happened. He saluted and returned to the barracks, wondering if the leaders of the Crystal Empire would ever stop being so hard to understand.
As it turned out, the answer to that question was a resounding ‘no’. He continued being assigned to the throne room, although Flash got the vibe that Shining Armor was no longer pleased with this arrangement. He wondered internally if Cadance was blackmailing her husband in some way. Based on his previous interactions with the mare, he wouldn’t put it past her.
One week some time later, the week of the Royal Summit, Shining Armor was practically grinding his teeth as he handed Flash his orders.
“No. Funny business,” he growled. Flash gulped. He wasn’t sure what this was about exactly, but he knew he’d need to be on his best behavior. Which was already in the plan, anyway. They were hosting all four of the nation’s princesses, after all, and nopony wanted anything to go wrong. It was for that reason that all of the rest of the guards assigned to carry out the greeting the final of the four princesses, excluding Flash, were musically-trained Crystal ponies who would be playing a fanfare.
“Why am I here, again?” Flash asked Cadance uncomfortably from his post, which was the closest to the throne. “I stick out like a sore hoof.”
“Somepony has to announce her,” Cadance explained with a devious smile. “The other guards will be too out of breath after the fanfare.”
This seemed a rather flimsy and somewhat suspicious excuse to Flash, and considering the open friendship Cadance had forced down his throat he was about to tell her as much, but thought better of it when the main diarchs of Equestria, who had arrived the day before, walked into the room to await the final arrival as well.
Ten minutes or so later, the doors opened, and the Crystal ponies around the room began blasting out a fanfare. As for some reason guards looked more official if their eyes were closed during big ceremonial gestures like this, Flash didn’t have a chance at first to glimpse the youngest princess and Cadance’s sister-in-law, but Cadance took it upon herself to change that. As subtly as she could manage, she used her magic to nudge Twilight’s steps up the carpet slightly to her right, causing her to bump into the surprised pegasus.
Flash was, needless to say, surprised when an alicorn princess almost literally bounced off of him, but he managed to recover quickly and announce her to the room. Cadance giggled and stepped forward to greet Twilight, and was sure Flash could see that she had a pleased smile on her face. She wondered if he suspected at all what she was planning; probably not, since she’d trained him well enough to be frank with her- a process which had taken quite some time and a fair bit of finagling. Shining Armor, of course, had realized what she’d been up to from the start, but luckily he hadn’t actually been able to do anything to stop her. All that remained was to make sure Twilight never suspected a thing, and she was home free.
‘Phase one complete,’ Cadance thought with a grin. ‘I love playing matchmaker.’
Cadance had no way of knowing just how much that initial encounter would influence both ponies involved; after all, it had simply been meant as a chance first encounter, a barely memorable event. She had not expected Twilight to go through the mirror, meet another version of Flash with the same basic personality, discover a fondness for said personality, and then return with a knowledge of what Flash was like underneath the Guard Face™.
Even better, she had had no part to play in Twilight’s second collision with pony Flash, and was extremely pleased that Twilight seemed to have done half of her job for her. The little romance seed was planted in her, and Flash was plenty used to treating royalty like normal ponies by now. Yes, her plans for matchmaking were well underway, and her duties as the Princess of Love had never been more entertaining. Now that she didn’t have any other pressing matters, though, at least not until the next time she could manipulate Twilight and Flash to be in the same place at the same time again, there was that green stallion from the market who had eyes for the navy blue mare at the cafe…
“Another day, another project,” Cadance said cheerfully to herself, and trotted off to plot against- er, in behalf of- her next victims.