It's The Little Things In Life That Count
The Night Guard - Night Mares
It’s The Little Things in Life That Count
With only a few hours of sleep snatched around lunch, Princess Luna fought a yawn as she stood on the reception platform of the Grand Celestial Skyport with a formal dress contingent of guards for her sister’s evening return to Canterlot. Even without any pegasi, who were in short supply due to messaging duties, it was exactly what a Princess deserved upon landing, instead of Celestia’s tendency to treat an official trip as just some excuse to escape the castle for a few hours.
A rank of proud unicorns with readied trumpets lined the back of the official display, with a long red carpet flanked by two lines of perfectly groomed earth pony guards leading up to the Princess of the Moon, who still might have rather have still been in bed or somehow been able to sleep through the ceremony like her pet opossum, Tiberius, snoring gently in her mane. Still, it was only proper to show her sister that she was fully capable of handling the responsibilities of the Day without anything having caught on fire. Much.
“She’s certainly taking her time,” muttered Luna.
“I’m sorry, Your Highness,” whispered Specialist Grace out of the corner of her mouth. “The Outer Perimeter patrol probably caught them during the outbound leg of an extended sweep. I’ll check to see how close they are now.”
Holding a hoof to the side of her helmet, Grace’s horn glowed a faint green. “Skeet, this is Iceberg. Moon Cheeks wants to know the ETA on Sunstroke and Milkmaid.”
A faint crackling voice coming out of the helmet earpiece could just barely be heard in response. “Copy that, Iceberg. Mare Force One has cleared the inner marker and should be visible in a few moments. Milkmaid has the copilot position next to Cap.”
“Iceberg copies. Good work and out.” Grace looked up at Luna and nodded. “They should be landing in just a minute or two.”
“Thank you, Specialist Grace.” Luna remained in her relaxed ‘Royal Patience’ pose with just the smallest wrinkle in her bottom lip for nearly a minute before asking, “Moon Cheeks?”
Grace looked back at her princess with an upraised eyebrow. “Guard code handles. I thought you knew.”
“Well…” Luna pursed her lips. “No.” With a quick glance at the incoming Celestial Phaeton and the spot of pink and orange in one of the driver positions, she bent down and whispered, “So what are the rest of their ‘handles?’”
“Well, Princess Cadence is Love Bug, Twilight Sparkle is Egghead, and Shining Armor is…” Grace paused for a second. “Shining Armor. He doesn’t have much of a sense of humor about the concept.”
“Harumph,” muttered the Princess of the Moon, Diarch of Equestria, and recently voted Second Hottest Princess in Equestria. “Seems undignified,” she added, while trying not to think of the long, sweaty photography session she had endured in order to be featured in the magazine article.
“Well, it’s better than what Celestia used to be called,” whispered Grace, keeping an eye on the descending chariot as it settled in for a landing. “I can’t imagine who originally suggested ‘Hot Plot’ for her handle.”
Now Luna had to suppress both a yawn and a most unprincess-like giggle as the Celestial Phaeton touched the landing platform. Almost the moment the wheels touched ground, the blur of rapidly-beating wing propelled a small blue colt up out of a strange restraint that had been buckled to one of the seats. With a rebound off the bottom step of the chariot, he skidded to a halt at the bottom of the red carpet and looked around while his mother struggled with the straps to her harness.
There was a distinct and highly subtle exchange of knowing looks between the stallions in the honor guard and the trumpeteers, followed by a perfectly timed salute from the earth pony Royal Guards lining the carpet and a blare of trumpets playing the fanfare from ‘Hail, oh Glorious and Radiant Sun’ at full volume for the disembarking dignitary (Size Small).
The little colt staggered back with a look of pure fascination, a growing grin on his face as his ears perked up, and he began trotting down the red carpet, his nose up in the air and his hooves prancing with joy. His path was anything but straight as the stern saluting stallions to either side distracted his unsteady steps, but in a matter of moments, Standing Water came to a halt in front of Her Lunar Highness, his bright blue eyes looking up with growing reverence.
“Princess,” he breathed.
“You are just the cutest little thing,” purred Luna, scooping the little colt up and giving him a nuzzle. “Yes, you are. Did you and Auntie Celestia have fun in Fillydelphia?”
‘Auntie’ Celestia stood calmly at the other end of the red carpet, looking at the back sides of all of the honor guard lining the sides of the red carpet. Admittedly, it was not a bad view for a single princess, but there was protocol to be followed despite the rising glow of happiness that threatened to spill out all over the place as she observed their reactions. Each and every single one of the supposedly grim guards was grinning (or at least she supposed the earth ponies lining the carpet matched the expressions of their unicorn companions, since she could only see their tails), with an expression that indicated memories of their youth, of days spent in cardboard armor with twigs clutched between their jaws in the defense of Equestria and their back yard. It was a heartwarming moment that Celestia allowed them to soak up before reluctantly clearing her throat to get their attention.
Twice.
“Ten-HUT!” Corporal Capricorn’s voice rang out across the landing pad, and all of the guardstallions abruptly stopped their amused observation of Princess Luna tickling Standing Water’s tum-tum and returned to their proper salute. In the background, the trumpet’s rather ragged start of ‘Hail, of Glorious and Radiant Sun’ stabilized after a few notes, and Celestia proceeded along the carpet as planned, even if slightly delayed, with both Specialist Thermal and Corporal Capricorn marching along behind in perfect lockstep.
“Hello, Luna. Did anything happen while I was gone?” The smile that she had been fighting won the battle, and she could not help but grin at the way her sister was tickling the little colt on his tummy and the way Standing Water was lapping up the attention, even with Luna’s opossum Tiberius having climbed to the top of her head to observe the scene with sleepy eyes.
“Other than a positively exhilarating game of Find-The-Colt, it’s been terribly quiet, Celly.” Luna took advantage of the little colt’s distraction at the presence of Celestia to blow a hefty raspberry on his round little tummy.
“Well, it’s nice to hear you have things well in hoof, Luna. I suppose I could turn in early this evening, if you don’t—”
“Oh no you don’t, sister.” Luna boosted the little colt up and perched him on her back just between her wings, which made him bounce on his new transportation and giggle as Luna’s pet opossum made faces at him. “There are still several hours before sunset, and I intend on catching a nap before facing my Royal duties. Until this evening, my sister.”
The Princess of the Moon turned and trotted a few steps with the giggling colt on her back bouncing in place before she paused and looked back with a mischievous grin. “Go on, Standing Water. Fly to Mommy.”
Luna bounced the little colt a significant distance up into the air, allowing him to use the altitude to glide over to Specialist Thermal and wrap his little hooves around her neck with a glad cry of “Mamma!”
“Dismissed, Specialist Thermal. It’s been a long day. Go get some rest.” Luna winked at her sister as she trotted off, leaving Celestia to shake her head.
“Princess Celestia?” Specialist Thermal struggled to look up as Standing Water climbed to the top of her head to wave at the departing Princess of the Night with Specialist Grace following right behind. “Um. He didn’t sleep on the way back, so if I go put him down for a nap now, I should be able to feed him before I’m on duty this evening.”
“Unnecessary, Miss… I mean Specialist Thermal. Go ahead and take tonight off. I think you deserve it.”
“No.” Thermal got a good grip on her little colt and pulled him off the top of her head, cuddling him into a warm hug. “The Guard is short-hooved this evening from Feather Flu and extra courier duties. I’m needed in the communications department.” She paused with a rather nervous look at Celestia. “If that is acceptable, Your Highness.”
It took effort to ignore the intense non-attention she was getting from the attending ceremonial guard stallions as each one of them exerted their full willpower into non-looking and not-listening in Celestia’s direction. There was really only one thing she could say.
“You’re right, Specialist Thermal. We all must do our part. Dismissed. We’ll see you at work this evening.” Celestia’s eye swept up to the rest of the attentive ceremonial guards, before she turned in a graceful pivot and returned to her remaining Royal responsibilities.
As she strode through the corridors with Capricorn trailing along behind, she remained silent other than to greet others as they passed and to pass along her congratulations to the staff for their assistance in the search for Standing Water.
She had been present at so many of the cataclysmic events of Equestrian history, either as an instigator or a simple witness, and not a single one of them shaped the world as much as the little things in life. An infant alicorn with a smile as brilliant as the sun looking up at her from the side of an old bitter unicorn whose heart had been freed by the magic of love. An ancient dragon, aged and wise far beyond measure, who had seen the birth of the race of ponies and so many of Celestia’s own ancient span of years until he crawled into a well-treasured cave to sleep away however many centuries of life he had remaining. A young filly’s face as she discovered her cutie mark in Celestia’s School for Exceptional Unicorns. A Quilinese dragon defying his father’s wish that he rule the land as a successor, but instead bending his fate to become master of a distant monastery where thousands had learned the magic of harmony at his gentle tutelage. The small notes she wrote every year to countless young ponies and the small ones of other races across Equestria, calming their fears and correcting their foalish misconceptions.
There had been a look of understanding on the faces of every single guard at the landing pad that had almost made an audible ‘click’ to her ears when Thermal had turned down her well-earned day off in order to return to work. Every one of them had been in a similar (although male) situation, fighting off a sniffle or a sprain that could have justifiably been used to warrant a day between the sheets instead of at work, and the young pink pegasus mare had done just what they did in that situation. She had ‘sucked it up’ in order to guard the princesses, and not with some attitude about sucking up like the Royals did every day, but putting her own cute and highly energetic interests behind that of taking her place in service to the Princesses.
It gave her a nice warm feeling inside as she thought of the dedicated young mares who would begin their training in the Academy in a few short months, taking their own places next to the loyal stallions who had guarded her for centuries and being treated as equals instead of lessers. From such small steps did mighty mountains grow. It had taken forever to get Luna’s Nocturne accepted into the Royal Guard, a massive battle of wills that had been fought a single step at a time until the sight of a bat-winged and golden-eyed guard around the castle shadows had been not only expected, but anticipated by any pony who was frightened by the night.
The longest of journeys could only be traveled one step at a time, and there was one last step she had been wanting to take for a long time, but no longer. Once she reached a quiet section of corridor with nopony in the immediate vicinity, she stopped and turned to her silent guardian with a smile.
“Nice work, Sergeant Capricorn,” she said with an added nod.
“I’m only a corporal, Your Highness,” he replied with a baffled expression.
“Not any more,” said Celestia as she turned to begin walking again. The journey at times seemed to have no beginning or end, just steps, and although this particular step had worked far better than she had hoped, there were still many, many steps left to take in the future.
Also LikedSimilarAuthor
- Georg · 53k words · 427 8 · 33k views
- Georg · 3.7k words · 1,102 13 · 16k views
- Georg · 4.9k words · 318 4 · 5.7k views
- Georg · 38k words · 693 11 · 8.5k views
- Georg · 17k words · 332 1 · 5.1k views
- Georg · 21k words · 454 4 · 7.6k views
- Georg · 84k words · 523 14 · 8.2k views
- Georg · 209k words · 652 33 · 7.3k views
Stats
Page generated in 0.067 seconds
Total duration
828 users online
595,496 hits today, 2,280,440 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
I'll post a blog entry on this on Saturday.
Edit: 3:54pm CST: A week-old version out of the cache got published that had Thermal calling the stallions to attention. It's been fixed.
Pfft Subtle. So it looked like there were some story references in there. The infant alicorn sounds oddly reminiscent of the Cadance of Cloudsdale cycle and even the Dragon tickles the back of my mind, though I can't recall where. Is it simply a happy coincidence or?
So who made number one?
And we hear standings second word.
WAIT WHAT!
5345137
ALL OF THEM! SPIES! SPIES IN THE CASTLE! THE CHANGELINGS WERE NEVER DEFEATED AT ALL! DOOOOOOooooooooooommmmmmm....
::Running away in terror::
Anyway...
I vote one of the mares, easiest way to get into an organization is on the ground floor as someone a little different anyway. If someone established begins acting weird it raises flags, but if that transfer is a bit weird, well the police have different habits than the guard do. It'll be excused or politely corrected.
But this is fiction so it could be anyone, 1LT Kudzu maybe?
Friend or enemy is the question.
Well if you're serious... either Grace of the green magic or, if you have a multiple hives with varied appearances setup, Rose of the mind magic.
5345214 Oh damn Grace is a good guess. I think her personality fits it.
Ah yes, the old "women are oppressed because men don't want them getting killed on the front lines" riff. sigh.
Ever notice feminists didn't give a tinker's damn about joining the army, or, well, ANYTHING, until they got the notion that it was some sort of prize or privilege instead of a burden and responsibility? Feminists don't make anything, they just batter the door down on the things men have made and then demand the inside be entirely refurnished to suit themselves.
5345137 Dun Dun DUN!
I do have to agree with one thing here: Sometimes, tomorrow is soon enough to pick up the pieces.
*dies*
If one of the new mares is a changeling, I hope she's happier as a pony than with the swarm and would stand against any changeling attackers.
Standing Waters is awesome. Plus he got a Royal Raspberry from Luna, adorable. I can just see him being eager to go to bed in hopes of seeing her in his dreams for extra playtime... of course, given his habits of escaping restraints, I would not at all be surprised to see him follow Luna into the dream scape and her ending up frazzled from having to protect him from nightmares.
They're ALL changelings.
5345581 Oh, wouldn't that be a kink. I seem to remember a story where everypony and everything in Ponyville was a changeling. or maybe it was several stories...
5345525 Tempted, but no.
5345396 And every one of the guards was muttering under his breath, "Lucky colt."
5345256 Meh, I'll dispute you here, from the land of Amelia Earhart. There have always been a few women who have tried their darndest to get into male dominated fields including combat. Joan of Arc ring a bell? I have no problem, provided they can pass the same physical endurance qualifications as anybody else. It will cause problems, and lots of them, but I believe the end result will be a more effective force (although women in submarines is probably a bad idea).
5345209 Well, yes, one of the mares. That's who I was... I should spell that out.
5345134 You'll have to wait for the story. Seether00 and I are working on it when we get some free time here and there.
5345046 Yes, the alicorn is the Cadence of Cloudsdale cycle. The dragon is an oblique (far too oblique, I think) reference to the original G1 Spike, who has a brief cameo in the upcoming The Traveling Tutor and the Royal Exam.
His codename used to be 'Grumpypants,' but then Sgt. Grumpypants found out about it and made a fuss, so they decided to change it.
All those nicknames, and right in front of Luna.
I love it. He really deserves one now that he's a Prince, every VIP needs a call sign whether they want one or not.
Second hottest? Hmn. I wonder if Celestia or Cadance got top billing, seems like the sort of competition that a Princess of Love might have a leg up in.
Oooo, Pipsqueak has competition for Most Favored Foal.
Ahh, looks like they just collectively made it over the hump.
...
*table flip*
I suppose the other part of the question is who (if anyone) said changeling is working for. We're past the wedding invasion so this can hardly be infiltration in advance of that, or probably even leftovers given the way Cadance and Shining ended it.
Do you have any published novels? If so, where might I acquire them?
5345810
I vote for 'Dungeon Master'!
5346348 How about Wife Tosser???
5346348 I like that idea, it flows in conversation well.
Fun story, as always. Thanks!
I have to marvel at how in the space of a single paragraph 5345256 can turn "getting killed on the front lines" into a "prize and privilege". Those damn feminist parasites, snatching away men's golden treasures!
Really, the only solution is to cut down this foul tree at the roots, and take women's suffrage back away. I don't think there's a person here who doesn't have fond memories of those halcyon days of the 1800s, when only landed men of reason had the terrible burden and responsibility of voting.
5345256
Or, you know, they want to serve their country and believe the best way to do that is by enlisting. And because they don't care what bigots think of their motivations.
They're not battering down some door men made, they're walking past a "No girls allowed!" sign.
But anyway, I'm here because I read through the story. I really should be commenting on that.
Overall, I enjoyed this, with some mixed feelings in the Bad Horse/Cold in Gardez corner (which is not to say that I agree with their assessment of the story, just that they raise some valid points). The story's chock full of great little witticisms and turns of phrase, has some vivid and memorable scenes, and left me overall happy for the experience. Is it perfect? No, and points made in comments in the early chapters -- like "the new recruits should have triumphed based on their specific police skillsets, rather than through general badassery" -- are pretty compelling reasons as to why. I read through those and definitely nodded along with the exposition of missed opportunities.
But if this story falls apart in its thematic depths, it's definitely great on the surface. I found it fun to read, say, Chapter 2, where the new recruits curb-stomp the doubters, similar to how it can be fun to read a Batman comic book and watch him dispatch a room full of mooks. There's never any doubt that THE GODDAMN BATMAN outclasses his opponents, but it's still cool seeing what he's going to pull out of his sleeve. It was weird reading the comment diatribes blasting that scene; I thought it worked fine in the context of the whole work.
That does mean this suffers in its transition to longer form, though. The curb-stomp is meant to be an establishing scene, so that when the protagonists run up against a real challenge later on, we take it seriously, because we already know how little difficulty the previous obstacles posed. I don't feel like the story ever hit that level of tension, and that illustrates how thin the line can be between a superhero and a Sue. The search for the foal at the end, in particular, tripped off my cognitive dissonance bells; there was some exposition of the challenges the mares were facing, how they weren't going to be treated equally, how Luna was "winning the battles but losing the war", etc.; and then we skip the chapter break and the entire Royal Guard has mobilized to search for Thermal's colt. I kept expecting them to be flipping out over the opsec breach, or the fact Celestia was in the room with a presumed unknown intruder, or something, but the fact the search was explicitly for her child and that everypony was unanimously pulling together so effectively and efficiently, undermines any tension in the gender divide. If they were actually "losing the war" for acceptance, then how come Thermal wasn't court-martialed on the spot for being solely responsible for snarling up an already understaffed posting? Whatever your opinion on the question, if there was a single male in the force who had it out for the mares, he should have at least argued that if the reduced efficiency of feather flu was a mandatory-departure issue, the distraction of actively nursing on duty should be too.
One of the earlier comments mentioned showing the small, grating day-to-day discrimination that crushes real gender pioneers. That would have been a powerful addition, and allowed you to reinforce the themes it felt like you were going for. As it was, there was a lot of the women winning, which was fun to read, but it just ended up being popcorn for the folks already inclined to like your protags., and a rage button for the folks who weren't.
The big takeaway here, I think, should be that the crueler you are to your characters, the more compelling the story turns out. (Yes, yes, they did have plenty of difficulties ... but those were largely offscreen. Whenever we saw the characters, we saw them being awesome. Let us see the setbacks and the heartache in real time, too, and how the characters react to that, and how the fallout shapes them and the plot.)
Best,
H
5345695 I knew that wouldn't happen just being a bit crazy.
Isn't it obvious? Fleur de Lis is the changeling!
derpicdn.net/img/2014/7/28/685444/tall.png
I recognize a few of Celestia's little things. I'd love to hear about the rest.
As for this little thing, very enjoyable and a satisfying ending. Thank you for it.
5346922 (making notes for my blog posting)
"But if this story falls apart in its thematic depths..." -- See, there's a problem right there. This is a ship, not a submarine. If you take it below crush depth, things... crush. Most of my work isn't rated above 400 kPa (Kilopascals) anyway. Heck, I really don't think most of what I write should be taken into the deep end of the swimming pool.
"One of the earlier comments mentioned showing the small, grating day-to-day discrimination that crushes real gender pioneers...." -- Which would have taken *forever* to write, and lots and lots of pages. I settled for a Snipe Hunt for Rose and Banehammer, a Death By Assignment for Grace, and a Loophole Hunt for Thermal. What, did you want War and Peace?
"...then we skip the chapter break and the entire Royal Guard has mobilized to search for Thermal's colt." -- Yes. Have you ever seen what happens during a Code Adam (or whatever they call it now) at Wal-Mart? Every single employee and most of the customers mobilize. It's both a frightening and reassuring display of herd mentality among humans.
"...how come Thermal wasn't court-martialed on the spot for being solely responsible for snarling up an already understaffed posting? " -- Because Blame comes *after* Responsibility has been determined. In this case, *nopony* guessed that Discord Jr. had tunnelled out of his crib, and it took a *Princess* to recognize what happened. If there is blame to be doled out here, it falls on the commander of the security section that was responsible for the Celestial Phaeton, much as a Secret Service officer were to wind up on the grill if a baby crawled inside Air Force One and wasn't discovered until a few hours later. Besides, Thermal was *requested* to take an additional shift by a superior officer even after he knew of her extenuating circumstances.
"The big takeaway here, I think, should be that the crueler you are to your characters, the more compelling the story turns out. (Yes, yes, they did have plenty of difficulties ... but those were largely offscreen.) -- The story is not in the difficulities, but in how the characters have dealt with their difficulites in the past and how they are dealing with them now. Banehammer's a widow, she's dealing with it by going back to work. Thermal had her husband run off with another mare while she was pregnant, she's dealing with it by raising her foal. Grace had to (optional: decided to) kill a suspect in a particularly gruesome string of crimes, she's dealing with it by becoming even more withdrawn and violent. Rose is dealing with (not covered in this story, but it's a particularly nasty domestic abuse case that turned into a murder/suicide), and she's dealing with it by not dealing with it. More in the sequel.
5347400 "I'm sorry, Ma'am, but nopony can look that good without being a changeling. You're going to have to go back to the station with us and answer a few questions, like what is your phone number and what are you doing Friday night..."
5348611 The ending was the hardest part. I seriously thought about scrapping the whole thing several times before I sat down and tried to put Celestia's POV on the problem. Now I need a bracelet: WWPCD - What Would Princess Celestia Do?
5346863 In Men's defense, we do tend to put those signs up over all the really interesting places...
5346377 Ooooo. That word might have negative connotations. Wife-a-pult perhaps?
5346293 Given about six months worth of work, I *might* be able to get "The Stormwarden" to a more-or-less-kinda finished state. If I sell a hundred copies on Kindle, I would be exceedingly lucky. I would also starve to death.
5345810 The battle may be over, but the war goes on. Or as the ants might put it, The Picnic may be over, but the search for food never ends. Yeah, and I had fun with Royal Guard handles. From The Traveling Tutor and the Royal Exam, around chapter 12:
“Moon Cheeks?” Lady Spring obviously did not know if she should be insulted or amused, and settled for the constipated look that most Royals got when faced with something they did not agree with, but were too ‘well-mannered’ to verbally protest.
“It’s a handle,” explained Twilight. “The Royal Guard use them for all of their personnel protection subjects. Your son is Lucky,” she added.
“He most certainly is,” agreed Spring, taking a sip. “When I found out you and he were dating… I couldn’t believe it at first. I don’t think we had exchanged a dozen words in the year before you two met. He was always sulking whenever I would suggest some improvement in his behavior or a career opportunity. It only got worse in college. I could scarcely hold my horn up in proper company, what with his abysmal grades and outrageous behavior. We were at our wit’s end.” She took a deeper drink from her scotch. “Although I think the last mare we tried to wed him with may have been somewhat incompatible.”
5348756
> This is a ship, not a submarine.
And if that's your goal for the story, then that's an important thing to know.
To badly overextend the metaphor, 5319337 and 5322689 were down on the seafloor. I remarked how nice it was on the surface, and then a bunch of my comments were the equivalent of pearl-diving. If the story's not meant to be examined under such pressure, then none of those critiques are going to help you write what you want to write.
The thing is — and I think what got Bad and Cold's dander up — is that you easily could have written this story in a way which stood up to that level of scrutiny. I mean that as a compliment; despite our poetic scuffle* I consider you a darn good writer, and I know they do too. It's easy to go into a story that has so much great stuff in it and expect even more out of it. I mean, I'm not the only one overanalyzing here. It's fair to say that I — we — are overanalyzing, but it's worth taking notice when multiple readers are doing that with similar concerns. If nothing else it speaks to a failure of expectations, or that the story's making promises you're not intending to make.
Anyway. Please don't feel like you need to defend yourself here. This got an upvote; I'm just trying to unpack some ambivalence I had, and address issues that nagged at me.
A few clarifications:
I don't think I explained myself well here. You're correct that you did include those scenes, and in fact they should be more than enough to show a pattern of harassment. But. This ties in to what I said right in the same paragraph:
> As it was, there was a lot of the women winning, which was fun to read, but it just ended up being popcorn for the folks already inclined to like your protags.
The snipe hunt ends in the harasser being fired to his face by Luna, Grace volunteers for her Death By Assignment, and the loophole hunt lasts exactly long enough to humiliate the guy pulling rank. These mares are teflon. There's no indication that they're even slightly inconvenienced.
That, rather than the lack of harassment scenes, is my problem. There are no setbacks, nothing that even briefly demoralizes them. The "harassment" is just another curb-stomp.
(Edit: It also occurs to me that none of the harassments
Here's what I was trying to explain: if I was a male in the officer corps with a direct grudge against a female under my command, it would have been so easy to stand up and say, "While I commend the Guard's response, the fact remains that an understaffed unit was forced to mobilize the entire Guard for a security breach which began when an unauthorized civilian was brought into a secured area by Specialist Thermal. In light of that fact, she is relieved of duty until Internal Affairs can conduct a full investigation." Then, to not look like a complete asshole, keep the search going and keep her in the loop as a civilian rather than arresting her on the spot. Bam, you've made your point: allowing females into the guard just created their worst scandal in decades, and it's taking dozens of responsible men to clean up after her.
Not that I advocate this behavior, but it would have been easier than what every single man did, which is to ignore their stated goal of preserving a male Guard and help out.
Every single man on the scene placed "Code Adam" teamwork above scoring points in the gender war.
This speaks really well for the men, but it also means you don't have a gender war. If this is how Guards actually react when faced with females integrating into their unit — bending over backward to treat them well — then why are Luna and Celestia so convinced, just a chapter earlier, that there's a problem?
(I'm not looking for an answer to that question; I'm trying to point out what bugged me and why. What I wrote above is the logical path my brain took as I processed the scene in question. I think we both have better things to do than argue this out.)
--
* It's worth noting that in the latest round of the writeoffs, another author's 2,000-word poem (well, lyrics, but same difference) placed last. My own "Melt" is among the least-read of my stories despite a Seattle's Angels boost. It really isn't you; people just don't react well to poetry round here.
Oh, by the way, my comments are not deep either. In anger management terms, I have a very long fuse and a very small bang. :) Heck, I barely sniffled when Ol' Yeller was killed.
...allowing females into the guard just created their worst scandal in decades, and it's taking dozens of responsible men to clean up after her.
Well, considering the Royal Wedding was just a few months ago, this is... trivial. Besides, instant response of the Nocturne captain at the hangar at that point would be: "Good point, Corporal. I'm assigning you the task of taking this situation to Princess Luna for her personal attention. Hurry up, and take this thermos."
If this is how Guards actually react when faced with females integrating into their unit — bending over backward to treat them well — then why are Luna and Celestia so convinced, just a chapter earlier, that there's a problem?
(underlined) - The problem Celestia was considering was that the guards were not treating the mares as peers. They could take orders from them because they're used to the Princesses, they could give them orders, they can respect their fighting ability, but they were still treating them as 'others.' From the quote: “In any case, although our guards may view our new additions as proper sparring partners, they are not accepting them as guards. Unless something is done, the new class of mares scheduled to graduate from the Academy in two years will face a preconceived idea of their role from their fellow Royal Guards that does not view them as equals, but as lessers.”
In this case, she was worried that a stressful situation would split the guard along a male/female division. As it turned out, she was wrong, but in a very Celestia/Luna fashion that made her appear as if the Royal Sisters planned this all along.
Princess Celestia's Four Rules of Princesshood: Teach a lesson with every decision, try not to complain about getting credit for things you didn't do, drink tea, and eat cake.
It's a decent story in the end, but ultimately I have to agree with the folks who say that it really doesn't live up to its description. There isn't really any conflict here, certainly not on the level implied by the "battle against sexism" message. It was all very gentle and benign in comparison to how the "women in a traditional men's job" situation always goes in reality.
This was an amazing ending chapter. Really can't wait for more
Well, I do have to admit that I was a bit upset that this wasn't written at all like it's predecessor, War of Words, as that is one of my favorite comedies. That being said, I can't complain too much as it was still an enjoyable story and I always will approve another story being added to the Pumpernickel universe.
Also, I must give my stamp of approval to your placement of footnotes. Putting the footnotes just a paragraph away is most acceptable. Most stories that possess them make me want to murder the author most violently because of how hard they are to read on a kindle. I do wish that you could go back and edit your other stories to be like that so I could at least erase all if the underlines under your name (and maybe the frowny face as well) on this list I keep on my refrigerator.
I enjoyed it, at any rate!
I do have to observe though (if perhaps with my metaphorical-tongue-in-metaphorical -cheek) - actually, I find that the Royal Guard are apparently a bit crap at fighting here to be monumentally unsurprising... As if we take the show at face value, the Royal Guard have failed to achieve... well, anything ever in any of the world-spanning crisis, and these have been solved in all but one occasion (two if you count what happened in the Crystal Empire) by a farmer, a librarian, a dress-maker, an animal-sanctuary-owner, a baker and a weather pony and occasionally by a very small dragon... (And the other two by the use of the one Royal Guard who seems to have any skills and his missus...) Argueably their most outstanding moment of usefulness so far was to go "help us, oh-book-one! You're our only hope!" Perhaps realising that, in the abscence of the royal sisters, that they'd only frack it up even more without an alicorn to come and sort it all out for them...!
And mayhaps that Shining Armor being Captain of the Guard is not surprising, since he might be the one stallion that actually is capable of DOING something (even if it IS with help from his wife...!)
One is forced to wonder if perhaps the Royal Guard has become a bit of an Old Boy's Network and/or is not really up to much aside from Being Decorous And Giving Tia Something To Quietly Ogle, considering...!
Sequel! Sequel!
5386993 There will eventually be a sequel. The Night Guard - Wolf in the Fold has been roughed out and will go into production someday as workload permits. That's when I'll reveal which one is the changeling.
5506171
Yeah, Google sure finds some of the strangest things.
5345256
Would I be correct in assuming that you draw a distinction (while still allowing for the two categories to overlap) between "feminist" and the majority of women moving into areas that were once male-only?
5387734
Did you have an editor on this?
5531755 Yes, I did. Several of them, in fact, but if you want to volunteer to help out with anything I'm doing, I'm happy to oblige. March will be a very busy pony month for me.
5691471
Ok, thanks.
Other comments have said everything on my mind, but I want to offer more than just a thumb...
This was fun to read. The ideas could have taken a stronger stance on the issues raised, as mentioned elsewhere, but that was not the story you were wanting to tell. The characters were engaging and the humour well-received.
You can has review!
Very interesting and enjoyable story to read. I wish there was more, another sequel, or side stories.
NEED SEQUEL!!!!!!!! This story is amazing!!
Good to read a decent sized (not too small or too big) story, that is also finished (complete, but always ready for a sequel). Now, to hasten my efforts and finish mine... *sees more story's from author* Sure I have 4 stories to finish, three of which yet to be published... But, maybe one more story.
Time well wasted isn't wasted time.
6925546 The ladies will show up in other stories. Thermal and Grace (as well as Standing Water) will be in the upcoming and taking forever to write story Farmer Bruener Has Some Ponies, while Grace and Rose Petal show up in The Traveling Tutor and the Royal Exam. In all odds, they will *not* make an appearance in Night Mares - Hell Week, because it will have too many OCs to keep track of anyway.
I feel so proud that I got through this thing. Well, it was worth reading, I guess.
8003855 High praise indeed, from a fanbase that has a nearly infinite number of stories in the database.
8003938
Only, like, 107, 000 on this site...
Also, random interesting fact, I have around 4,500 of them in my shelves...