The Royal Guard At Hearth's Warming

by Limits

1. Dismissed

Hearth's Warming. It should have been a time for me to go celebrate, right? Well, get this: I had just gotten accepted into the Canterlot Royal Guard! Awesome, right? But since it was Hearth's Warming, my division, along with the rest of the Guard, got to go home. That meant my first job was going to be somewhere around Winter Wrap-Up.

Well, horsefeathers.

"You all did well this year. Dismissed." That was Shining Armor. If you don't know who he is, then you're probably not from around here. I'm Miz Fortune, a newbie here in the guard. And I was not about to get dismissed before I got a job.

I could see my fellow Guard members trotting off. For mid-winter, there was no snow so far, but they had predicted it soon. For now, though, snow was a thing of legend, and I had to imagine the happy little Guard hoofprints.

Now, I'll get this off my chest: I'm kind of timid. I kind of just stood there while my Guardmates trotted off, instead of going up to the captain myself. So, trying not to look like a thinking-impaired janitor pegasus stallion, I let him come to me.

"Aren't you going home?"

"Well, I, er." Real sophisticated, I know.

"What?" Shining Armor seemed to be confused. Trying to redeem myself, I managed to spit out the following:

"I want a job."

"You want a job?"

"Yeah, I...yeah."

Shining Armor looked at me for a bit. "You do know the date, right?"

"I do, it's just that...I don't want to be sent home before my first duties as a Royal Guard!" There. I said it. Take that, shy side of me!

It was quiet for a minute. It was also decidedly freezing cold for a minute. The captain was mulling it over in his head, or at least that's what I think happened.

"Alright, here's the deal. I'll be in the castle spending time with my sister and my wife, along with the royal family. You know what I mean?"

I nodded.

"You keep an eye on the Princesses and such, and I'll keep an eye on you. Don't...do anything rash."

I was beginning to get exited.

"Got it?"

Oh, this is great! I thought. I nearly nodded my head off there. I hope he didn't think any worse of me.

"Alright then. It's chilly out here, what say we both go inside?"

---

My first order of business, I felt, was to familiarize myself with the place. The castle was much larger than any building I've seen (even the Cloudsdale library, and it's terrifyingly easy to get lost in the non-fiction section there), and the sooner I knew where everything was, the better.

I trotted past the throne room, finding myself in a hall. The first room on the left had a door ajar, and a symbol with six sparkles on it was emblazoned there. I heard a low hum, like something being heated by alicorn magic. Food, maybe?

"Hello?" inquired a voice from the room. I stood there, noticing now how loud my hoofsteps had been.

"Um, it's only me--keep going about your business," I said.

"Me who?" Yup. It was the Princess Twilight Sparkle, alright.

"A, uh, um...a guard."

"What's a guard doing here during Hearth's Warming Eve? Regardless, come in, I need somepony to sample something."

Sample something? I guessed that it was food, after all. While entering the room, though, I decided strongly against it.

It smelled like somepony had taken that one boutique owner's cat and dropped it into a pot of sewage, then taken her out and deep-fried her. I looked at the food, wary but asserting to the reasonable side of me that something a Princess cooked couldn't be that bad. I mean, come on, who would be physically able to make food that tasted that bad? It had to taste better than it smelled, right?

Not realizing that this miniature war I was waging was keeping me from speaking, I was yanked back to reality by the Princess' voice. "Well? Eat up."

"Thanks," I said. I poked it once with a hoof, then leaned down and tasted.

My poor mouth. I am never subjecting it to that again! There was definitely some rat poison in there, and maybe some radioactive spinach from long ago. I had other pressing things to deal with, though.

"Is it any good?"

Quickly, I invented a fantasy world in my mind full of happy, smiling rainbows and clouds. I wished with all my might to be there, and I thought that, for a second, it had worked--

Nope. My eyes had gone open, and I was still coping with the aftertaste.

"Y-y-yeah, it is. You sh-sh-should, um..." I tried to think of something, anything to say that would stop the recently crowned Princess from feeding the abomination to her family.

"I should...?"

"You should sell the rights to it to the Cakes!" Yeah, that had to be a viable option, right?

"Now, why would I do that?" Curses! Foiled again!

I could feel the hairs on my coat rising in nervousness. There had to be a way to protect the Princesses and Prince! Come on, think, Miz! My mouth was going dry, and I was swallowing frantically.

"I-I-I have to g-g-go. Duties, and all th-that." Head swimming, I backed out of the room. I had meant to go warn my higher-ups, but only got as far as the powder room. Just as well. I let my hindquarters drop to the ground and hung my head, trying not to think about getting sick. There was no janitor, so I would have had to clean it up by myself.

Twenty minutes later, I had regained consciousness and was reflecting on how in Celestia the food--what was it supposed to be, anyway?--could have been that powerful. I spent a couple of seconds thinking, then decided that it wasn't worth it. I got up and exited.

On my way out, I found myself in a hall. For a second or two I thought it was the same, but, looking out the window, I could see the slope of the opposite side of the mountain. I looked back, started forward, and nearly ran straight into Shining Armor. As it was, I jump-flew to the side, narrowly avoiding a collision.

"Oh, Captain sir. Thank goodness you're here! Don't let your--" I started, but was cut off.

"My sister cook? I know, I learned that one the hard way." The captain smiled knowingly at me. "Don't worry, Twiley's not cooking for Hearth's Warming; Celestia is."

"But, I just saw her in her room, cooking!" I exclaimed, confused.

"Uh-oh." He frowned. "Did she feed you?"

"Yes," I said, my voice faltering.

"Ooh." He cringed slightly, then continued. "Don't worry, I'd keep the rest of the Guard on hand if Twiley was cooking."

"O-okay," I said. "Well, continue on, Captain sir."

Author's Note:

I wrote this while looking at a Jello ad starting: "A lot can go wrong during the holidays."
Coincidence? I think not!

Comments

[Mother3Forever]

Sounds like every holiday with my family.

[Limits]

3664965
Glad you liked it!