This was bad.
Like, end of the world bad. Or at least the end of their world. The four ponies stood around the head of the bed, sweat already beginning to shine on each of them, struck dumb at the evidence before them.
My dear little ponies,
I have decided to take a holiday. No need to come looking, I’m sure my sister can handle everything in my absence.
Yours faithfully,
Celestia,
Princess of Equestria.
The guards had come in that morning after the princess had been late to breakfast. It was unusual for her to miss the meals she shared with her sister. After a fruitless five minutes of knocking at the door they had finally decided to simply come in and check on her. They had been confronted by the little note on the pillow, and a distinct lack of a princess.
"So....” One of the spoke up eventually. “What do we do?”
The other three looked at him, the uncertainty obvious among the whole group.
“I guess,” the only mare in the group started, “That somepony should tell Princess Luna.”
The others nodded their agreement.
“And probably Captain Shining Armour,” This elicited more bobbing heads. Besides that though, no pony moved.
“Sooo....” They all twitched. “Anypony want to tell the Princess?” This caused another round of statues. Somepony sighed.
Two rounds of rock, paper, scissors later and two ‘volunteers’ had been chosen to deliver the news, each certain they were heading to their doom.
-------
“This envelope contains your written orders. Do you need anything clarified Commander Cloud Storm?”
The recently promoted Night Watch stallion before her winced slightly at the mention of his new rank. Commander, great, just great. Now he had responsibility for his own guard post, twenty assorted guards ponies and a rather large area. To top it off one the key lines in the envelope he took from his princess indicated he had to do it all ’In secret, without drawing the attention of the local population. Keep twenty boisterous guards ponies a secret? Bucking great.
“No your majesty, it’s all...clear,” He replied after placing the orders into his saddlebag carefully.
The princess of the moon smiled down at him from behind her desk, she had no clue she’d just signed him away to purgatory for the next six months.
“I know this isn’t exactly what you were expecting, and truth be told I’ll miss seeing you when I go to bed and awaken in the evenings.”
Cloud blushed a little at what she had accidentally suggested. He used to stand guard outside her chamber doors, nothing more, despite what others may have suggested, or he privately wished.
“Still, I cannot think of anypony more qualified for this task. Especially with all your recent work with Guard and Watch collaboration.”
Yea, that was another thing. This was a joint operation. Cloud was going to have to handle a mixed force of Solar Guard and Night Watch ponies. He almost groaned out loud, they were not known for mixing well, and he had to keep them working together as well as under wraps.
“Simply put,” the night princess continued, “I wasn’t surprised when you were recommended for the post by Shining Armour. Two recommendations from him in almost as many months, you must have impressed him.”
Impressed? More like stuck in an eternal honey infused doughnut grudge match.
“Ah that reminds me,” The princess turned and pulled a small amulet out from a draw in her desk and hoofed it to him. “This is a scroll necklace, it can both send and receive messages through dragons fire between itself and me. I’ll be expecting regular reports from you through it.”
“Thank you princess, I won’t let you down.” Cloud tried to be stoic about it all. So he would miss out on doughnut night at the castle, and Mah Jong down at the parlour, and water polo in the pool, and volleyball on the drill grounds, and the bimonthly ninja night down in the city, he’d be fine out in the sticks on assignment.
Ah who was he kidding? This whole thing sucked.
Luna’s face took on a look of concern, her Commander’s face was scrunched up with effort and looked to be on the verge of yelling something drastic.
“Are you all right there Commander?” Her soft voice was tinged with worry for her little pony. He seemed rather overwhelmed by it all. The moon princess couldn’t say she was surprised, the rise to prominence had been rather sudden for him and a lot of changes would need to be in order for the watch pony.
“I...I’m all right princess,” he managed with a small sigh. The dark alicorn gave him a small smile. She put it down to all the excitement of the last few days. Arranging the shifts between the Day Guard and Night Watch over the period of the garden party and its preparations followed by a promotion and sudden reassignment would wear out the best of ponies.
“I understand your train leaves in an hour, is there anything else?”
Cloud Storm snapped to attention and gave his princess a snappy salute.
“No ma’am. I will now commence my assignment.”
Luna widened her smile, “Then go with my blessing Commander Cloud Storm.”
Luna watched him go, his back slumped slightly and shuffling his hooves across the carpet. He closed her office door with a half hearted flick of his tail and she went back to her desk. With a sigh of her own the night princess turned back to the small mound of paperwork she needed to finish before dawn. It was a tiny compared to the one her sister dealt with day after day, but she was proud of the contribution she made to the running of the pony nation.
Using a light magical touch the dark alicorn had just picked up her quill when a massive solar stallion came bursting through her door with a crash, his face a mask of shock and consternation.
“Princess Luna! Your sister is missing!”
-------
Canterlot station was a hive of activity. Families coming and going, packages and cargo loaded and unloaded, the noise was high and constant press of pony flesh nearly oppressive.
For the casual observer it was a perfectly normal day in the central station of the nation’s capital.
For the omnipotent observer, they would note three distinct groups moving through the teeming masses.
The first wasn’t a group so to speak, but an interesting individual. A lone earth pony had just purchased a one way ticket to Ponyville, the first stop on the long haul train to Canterbury. She was young, yellow furred and orange maned. Her flank bore an image of a large, dense cloud with a golden aura hinting at the hidden sun behind. Cloudy Sky, the name she had given to the ticket master, was travelling light with only enough that would fit into two moderately sized saddle bags, a large bag of bits, some writing materials and some good books nestled around a small lunch and large pair of high powered binoculars. She was in high spirits, it had been a long time since she’d decided to just get away from it all and Cloudy was looking forward to it. She chuckled to herself thinking of all the things she planned to get up to, the first being a little bit of nature watching......
Nature, which came in seven different flavours, was taking a walk to the front of the train.
“Don’t you think it’s odd that Princess Celestia didn’t come to see us off this morning?” Fluttershy asked cautiously, breaking the comfortable silence they had shared since leaving the castle. In front of her Twilight Sparkle gave a soft snort.
“Not too unusual. She is a Sun goddess and one of the only two rulers of Equestria after all.” Despite her words, her tone carried a little note of disappointment light enough that it would have gone unnoticed by anyone but the group of friends. The two Pegasi to Fluttershy’s left simply nodded in agreement.
“Princess Luna came to see us didn’t she?” Rainbow Dash added, “Isn’t one princess enough?”
The stallion next to her coloured a little at the memory of their send off that morning. There had been much hugging and a little kissing involved and the memory clearly had him a little uncomfortable.
“I’m sure she was just busy,” he added quickly in an attempt to bring back his train of thought, “It’s like Twilight said, she is a princess and all.”
Seeing his obvious discomfort made the rainbow flyer next to him burst into laughter. “Really bro, you’re still embarrassed about all that? You seemed pretty ok about it at the party last night,” she winked suggestively.
“Shuddup Rainbow,” he hissed, elbowing her in the side, “Last night things weren't exactly....normal.”
This shut her up and the group took on a slightly sombre mood. The Canterlot Garden Party the night before had certainly been a unique event. With the princess of the night as the principal organiser there had been quite the change from the usual sedate high class events. A rock band, poker games and a barbecue of different kinds of mushroom burgers had been simply the most obvious changes. What nopony had planned for is for Cuff Links, a small independent Ponyville tailor to reveal to all the Canterlot elite that he was actually the estranged older brother of the most recent winner of the best young flyer award and three times saviour of Equestira. To say emotions had been running high that night would be an understatement.
“Still,” Twilight started at length, “I’m sure we’ll all hear from Princess Celestia and Princess Luna again soon.”
All the way at the back of the train a knot of pony life was busy hauling large crates into a reserved cargo carriage. A massive earth pony stallion was standing next to the door and saluting the pegasus next to him.
“How many times do I have to tell you Panzer Hoof, put that monstrous brick breaker of yours down while we’re in public, this mission is incognito,” Cloud Storm, commanding officer of the disciplined rabble scolded him quietly, “If we’re not in uniform I don’t want to see that kind of behaviour here. You get me?”
The brick out house of a pony nodded and dropped his hoof to the ground with practiced care.
“Sorry sir. Reporting in, almost all of our assigned equipment is on board, all that’s left is the squad’s personal effects. I would estimate that we’ll be loaded with ten minutes to spare before the scheduled departure time.”
Cloud nodded appreciatively. He’d been given a pretty good team of ponies to work with, a nice mix of swift pegasi, strong earth ponies and capable and diverse unicorns. Princess Luna obviously treated his mission with a great deal of importance. Well, at least more than he himself did. To Cloud the whole thing stank of an excuse for the Captain of the Guard Shining Armour to get him out of Canterlot. He lifted a hoof and looked at it, concentrating on every muscle he had and every ounce of capability in him. After a good ten seconds of glowering at his unchanging hoof he dropped it forlornly. It was, and would always remain just a rock.
“Make sure everypony is prepared to get all this off once we reach Ponyville, we won’t have as long to get it all shifted.”
Panzer nodded, “I know, Shelly was just telling me she’s gotten the confirmation on our moving carriages at the other end. All we need to do is get it off the train and onto the carriages as quickly as possible.”
While they were talking two unicorns passed by the pair carrying a large unwieldy desk in their combined telekinesis.
“Careful you two,” The commander warned, “Add one single scratch to my personally made one of a kind rosewood inscribed by Princess Luna herself desk and I’ll have you cleaning latrines for the rest of your existence.”
The two unicorns looked at him a little worriedly before carrying out their assigned task with deliberate and exaggerated care.
“What?” Cloud asked, responding to the arched eyebrows of the earth stallion next to him, “If I’m going to get promoted I may as well take a few perks.”
“You would do wouldn’t you?”
The new voice, crisp and feminine came from behind the two stallions and cause them both to wince a little.
“Why yes, yes I would.” Cloud Storm snapped, turning to face his Solar Guard counterpart for the mission.
Shelly Stone was an odd unicorn. For one she was a prim and proper pony with long slim pale blue legs and well kept light green mane, yet despite all that was a hard bitten high ranking member of the Solar Guard and only one notch under Cloud Storm. Secondly she had volunteered for this mission to a remote outpost on the edge of the Everfree forest of all places. Anypony willing to do that must be proper loko.
She tutted at him, “Still, you didn’t have to take the thing with you. It’s just adding to our logistics problems.”
Cloud decided to ignore her tone and turned back to overseeing the loading of their effects. “If I’m going to be stuck out there for six months I’m going to bloody bring it with me so I can enjoy it aren't I? You honestly going to tell me you only brought the bare essentials yourself Lieutenant?”
He didn’t look, but the pegasus could feel the heat of her glare on his back. Right at that moment a rack of packaged clothes, dresses mostly, was wheeled past and the feeling abruptly dissipated.
“I may....I may have brought a couple of things....” She stuttered, shuffling a little to see if the rack was being placed safely. “But nothing as heavy and unwieldy as that monstrosity.”
Cloud laughed at that, a short bark which turned into a rolling chuckle. “You’re the one who turned up at the Garden Party last night in a canary yellow frufru dress. You’ve got no legs to stand on calling anything else a monstrosity.”
That just got a huff from the unicorn behind him but she said no more, turning on her flank and moving to check their seat reservations.
Cloud sighed, turning a little to watch her go.
“This is going to be a long six months...”