• Published 6th Nov 2014
  • 2,670 Views, 209 Comments

Doing His Duty - Dick McKickEm



Flash Sentry is sent to Canterlot to be Blueblood's personal guard. It's no surprise to find that a sizeable mass of ponies want the prince dead.

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Intermission: The Jailhooves Rock

Doing His Duty

A My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fan fiction

by Wolfram and Hart

INTERMISSION: The Jailhooves Rock

Rose Quartz missed the Crystal Empire.

Sure, she had lived there all of her natural and unnatural life, and she yearned to see what the rest of the world had become after a thousand years, but at least there she did more than sit behind a desk. The Empire wasn’t the most active during her tour of duty, but juggling paperwork comprised less of her time. It didn't help that her desk was crammed at the end of the same hall that led to all of the dungeon's individual cells. It was about as gloomy as gloomy got.

She missed the view from the Crystal Palace, too. Iron bars and grey bricks were all that the underground jail could offer her.

Shuffle. A stack of completed forms were finally pushed into the plastic bin marked "OUT" in permanent marker.

Shuffle. A new stack of nearly identical pieces of parchment were withdrawn from the "IN" folder.

Scratch a scratch. A quill dipped in ink scribbled away a thousand various names and number combinations onto the dotted lines that made up these papers.

With all that being said, Rose Quartz breathed a sigh of relief when she heard the door in need of some oil at the end of the hall creak open.

"Heya Rosie." Flash Sentry said with an unusual lack of enthusiasm.

"Flash!" the jailer cheered. "Thank Celestia. I really needed somepony to talk to."

The pegasus stifled a yawn. "Mmm hmm."

Rose cocked her head to the side. Flash was acting strange. "What's the matter? Wow, you look like somepony beat you with a rubber mallet.

"I feel worse than I look, trust me." Flash turned around and yanked on the chain he held in his hoof. "Come on, killer. In here. Keep on trottin'."

A well-built zebra mare in a black bodysuit and a clinking set of hoofcuffs shuffled in behind him. She took one look at the crystal mare and grimaced like somepony who was having an abysmal day.

"Which one you want her in?" Flash asked.

She made a sweeping gesture to the entirety of the hallway. "Take your pick. We're not exactly overflowing with criminals right now. Keys are on the left wall."

Flash nodded wearily and lightly prodded the prisoner with the pointy end of his sword, ushering her into a random cell. He smiled as he slammed the prison door shut, closing the forlorn assassin into a space where she could not longer be a threat.

Rose Quartz grabbed a spare quill, pot of ink, and prisoner detainment form and waved them at Flash. "I'm gonna need'ja to fill these out for me."

Flash laughed half heartedly "Heh, ponies love their paper nowadays, don't they?"

For the first time that day, Rose genuinely smiled. "Can you blame them? I remember when the stuff was so valuable that they only wrote really important things on it. Now you can just go to a store and buy yourself paper made specifically for writing boring stuff like shopping lists."

Rose was about to make more casual conversation as Flash put ink to paper, but she went right to the big stuff when she noticed his heavily baggy eyes and the red-stained bandages peeking through the gaps in his armor.

"By the Sisters, Flash, what happened to your shoulder?"

The pegasus stopped writing for a moment to cast a disinterested glance at his wound. "Oh yeah, that. Long story."

"I stabbed him." The zebra called from within her cell.

"Not that long, apparently." Flash finished filling out the forms and passed them back to Rose. "Here. That all you need?"

"Damn," she said, skimming the paper over.

"Alright then. I'd love to talk, really, I would. But I gotta go get back to my post. I'll see you on my next day off."

"Okay, some other time then." Rose Quartz did a double-take when she passed over the box marked "Cause for Incarceration".

Flash was already trotting out when she stopped him. "Is this right?"

Flash turned back and cocked an eyebrow "Is what right?"

"It says she's being jailed for... attempted regicide?" Rose checked again then rechecked to make absolutely sure that what she was reading was not a mistake.

"That's it."

"Really?" Her eyes flicked from the forms, to Flash, then back to the forms. "Well you don't see that every day!"

"Actually..."

* * *

If Rose Quartz had been drinking something, she'd have done a spit take "How many countries?"

"Nineteen, he said it himself, and you know what? I believe him. Judging by how they talk about it, that sounds just right."

"The promiscuous porcine prince said that I was the first mare he had known!" Kat ranted from within her cell. "The scullion!"

"Your fault for being gullible, sweetheart." Rose droned back. She rested a pair of elbows on the desk and rubbed her temples. "I still can't wrap my head around it."

"Tell me about it."

"And you said it happens daily?"

"I've encountered two different mares in two days, and both of them wanted the prince to take a dirt nap. I think it's safe to say it's a regular thing for him."

"Wow. Just... wow."

"I know, right?" Flash laughed. "I couldn't believe it myself. It's like the universe has some kind of running joke. Dozens of different mares, all taking potshots at him one by one, and it's just me, a mute zebra, and an ex-doctor keeping Blueblood from being... Spilledblood."

Rose snorted. "Spilledblood?"

"Shut up. It's funny and you know it."

"Sure. Whatever you say, bodyguard."

They shared a laugh.

"Yeah." Flash said. "Anyway, that's just how it's gonna be. Crazy as it is, this is my new life. I've crammed more excitement into two days than a hundred years in the empire."

"At least you're job isn't dull." Rose Quartz said. "I've got paperwork coming out of my flank down here."

"Uh hello?" Flash gestured to the mass of bandages soaking up enough blood to make them soggy as a wet cloth. "You haven't been stabbed yet! I bet you've barely gotten a papercut."

"Mmm, too true."

* * *

Clankity clank. The steel cuirass clattered as Flash deposited the last of his armor into the hooflocker. He stretched out into the unfamiliar comfort of the barracks bed and tucked both forehooves behind his head. Glad to finally get some rest, the pegasus let out a long, unwinding breath.

Then, lo and behold, Cotton Swab trotted up to the side of his bunk and poked him with a hoof. "Sentry, get up and pack your panties. We're going on a field trip tomorrow."

Damn it.

He pulled the standard issue pillow over his face and let out a groan. Peeking out from behind the warm comfort of the sack of goose down, Flash asked "Where are we going?"

"Maretonia."

***

"Hmm.

A filly who thinks herself something more,

Sits cold and alone on a stone floor.

She would see the good prince dead,

After with him sharing her bed."

Katarina awoke from a fitful sleep.

The young zebra squinted at the dark figure of a pony lurking on the other side of the iron door. The pale light of a waning moon revealed only a pair of ocean blue eyes hiding underneath a deep hood.

"H-hello?" She asked tentatively. "Please, I tire of your endless questioning. Leave me be, I will answer you no more."

"Her spirit so easily wanes,

Can she not cope with her pains?"

That pony... was no pony. Only one type of person in Equestria has the mental discipline to speak only in rhymes.

"A shamaness." Katarina whispered.

"... is something you are not.

Tell me: did you truly think that you would not be caught?

They say imitation is highest form of flattery,

But no shamaness should partake in assault and Battery."

"I- I'm sorry!" she said instantly. "I had a debt to the Mother! There was no other way to-"

"Repaying the Mother is no easy deed,

But murder of an innocent is something

She does not need."

Katarina slumped into the bundle of straw that had served as her bed. She did not even want to think of that conceited stallion as anything even related to the word "innocent".

"It was the vile prince that broke my oath." she spat out her words as if they tasted bitter. "He owed the mother just as much as I did, if not more."

She could barely see the shamaness shake her head under that hooded cloak.

"How could an outsider so ignorant of our laws

Be the irrefutable cause?

Indeed it does take two to bone,

But the debt is yours and yours alone.

The Mother has seen fit to show me a meeting that has Come to pass as I lay one day in the greenest of grass.

I have seen what you both have done,

It was an agreement of two ponies, and not one."

"Are you saying...?" No. It couldn't be it. She couldn't accept that as fact.

"Are you saying the price is not to be paid by the guilty party in this?"

"Are you so foolish in your youth

To not see the obvious truth?

The blue-blooded one is not to blame, it was you alone Who has brought you shame."

"But he's a stallion!"

The shamaness threw back her hood in contempt, revealing a mohawk mane identical to Katarina's. Her face was cool and impartial as a glacier. Her words were flatly spoken, but held a dark undertone to them.

"And you are a sexist whore.

Wake up your mind, I must implore.

You are so blinded by shame that you refuse to heed

The voice in your head that says "It was you who is to Blame for the deed!"."

Verbally defeated, Kat sighed. "It's true. I do admit that I was just as willing and eager to copulate as he was, and perhaps I may have bought some part of this upon myself,-"

The real shamaness rolled her eyes.

"-but what else am I to do? I must pay my debts. Only blood may mend my broken vows."

"Ah child, the things your teacher must have told, as you Are one who still clings to the ways of old.

Blood is a dirty way to repay a debt, but there is always A way that is better yet."

The zebra mare reached into an inner pocket on her cloak, and soon the jingle jangle of metal on metal filled the empty jail.

Katarina's eyes widened as the mare stuck a wrought iron key into her cell door. A scrape, a creak, and a squeak later, there was nothing but a shamaness standing in between her and freedom.

"I don't understand."

"The prince and I have struck a deal.

We bargained our desires over a hot meal.

He still cares for you, I'd bet.

I am allowed to assist you in paying your debt.

You may walk out of this prison scott free,

But only if you walked out with me."

"He's just letting me go?" Odd. Katarina had almost felt... rejected. She tries to murder him in cold blood, and he let's her off without punishment? Without justice? What kind of a person would have the best opportunity to take revenge and throw it away like that?

"Make no mistake, filly so frail, you are still in jail.

But you will find the brick walls and iron door

Replaced by a straw roof and dirt floor.

Off we will go to my fortress of isolation,

In the forested heart of this very nation."

The mare smiled warmly, beckoning Kat from her spot resting on the dirty pile of straw. She tentatively picked herself up and inched closer to the mare.

"What was once a warrior zebra this morning

Becomes timid as a doe without warning.

Come, child, there is no time to wander or roam.

We shall away to my humble home."

The shamaness offered a hoof.

Katarina took that hoof.

Author's Note:

Would'a used the original Elvis version, but I love this movie too damn much. I need to make a blatant Blues Brothers reference in the next chapter.

Happy Turkey Day for my fellow Americans.