Lost and Found
The Night Guard - Night Mares
Lost And Found
The corridors of the castle rang under the rapid trot of Commander Swift Wings’ hooves as he maintained a brisk pace towards the hangar. The messenger who had delivered the message had been curt, precise, and totally unbelievable. The whole Royal Guard being deployed throughout the castle to search for one lost foal? Inconceivable.
Still, while he was hustling along the corridors, the guards who were running by in the opposite directions seemed to be concentrating on their orders quite well, either barely pausing for a brief salute, or heads down and looking along the floor and behind benches for the rather difficult target of a hiding foal. He climbed the back stairwell to the Royal Guard Hangar two at a time, feeling the creak of old tendons and the ache of his bones far too much for this early hour of the afternoon. The idea of retiring and letting Peaks step into his armored orthopedic shoes had been bothering Swifty for nearly a year now, and a sharp twinge of arthritis in his wings brought the idea back in full force as he reached the top of the stairs and stopped cold.
Commander Snowy Peaks was standing there much as if he had been waiting for Swifty’s arrival, with his counterpart, Commander Buttercup of the Night Guard standing right by his side. They both held a hoof over their lips to forestall Swifty’s impending outburst, and pulled him over to the side of the stairwell for a quick consultation.
“Situation?” asked Swifty in a quiet whisper.
Buttercup yawned before responding, his sharp white teeth proving a sharp counterpart to the bags under the nocturnal pony’s eyes. “Specialist Thermal’s colt is missing. Apparently he escaped from durance vile sometime late this morning, and nopony noticed until a little less than an hour ago. She had built this little structure out of clouds for him to nap in, and the tyke managed to escape, evade the sentry, and vanish somewhere out into the Academy training grounds, or maybe even the castle. But that’s not what’s so interesting. Take a quick peek, and don’t say anything.”
Commander Swift Wings leaned out from his concealment and took a long look at the floor of the Royal Hangar. Two unicorns had taken over the center of the floor and were snapping out orders and receiving reports just as professionally as if the whole operation was a military invasion, and it took several moments before Swifty eventually recognized that the second unicorn was female. Nominally, Lieutenant-Commander Grace of the Canterlot Police Department was only a lowly Specialist in the Royal Guard, but she was acting in perfect coordination with Lieutenant Kudzu, snapping out ‘suggestions’ that Kudzu would place his stamp of approval on before the reporting Royal Guard would flap or gallop away on their assigned task. Just off to one side, a second unmatched pair of guards had set up a mapping table with the grounds of the Academy and castle laid out in miniature, moving little shaped figurines of guards and chariots around in a rather determined effort to ensure all of the exits were covered and search parties properly distributed. Specialist Thermal had the somewhat overfocused expression of somepony restraining an emotional outburst through dedicated work, and the earth pony trainer Petunia at her side looked just as caught up in the details of the ongoing operation as she was. There were even civilians in the mix of ponies who reported on their progress in the search and were deployed out again just as quickly as they had arrived, both uniformed members of the police department as well as several pierced and tattooed young mares wearing the copper brassards of the Hell Week trainees.
After retreating to the company of his peers, Swift Wings took a moment to compose himself before whispering, “Peaks, I’ve never seen an ad-hoc operation like this flow so smoothly in all of my years. How long have you been sitting on Kudzu’s promotion to Captain? Because if you don’t promote him tomorrow, I’m poaching him for my staff.”
“He’ll need alternate Friday afternoons off,” mused Buttercup with a badly hidden grin. “He appears to be attempting a romantic engagement with my new adjunct.”
“Poor bastard,” whispered Peaks, taking a brief look into the busy hangar. “Gourd is going to throw out his back laughing. The joke’s on him. Male or female, she’s doing a heck of a job out there. He’s going to be mightily peeved if Grace winds up at our poker table some day.”
That elicited a brief snort of derision from Buttercup, but the Nocturne did sneak a peek out of the doorway himself, dropping his gold wire-rim sunglasses down to be able to see the activity in the brilliantly lit room. After a moment, he posited, “The two of them do seem to function tolerably well together.”
“What did Kudzu do, Snowy?” asked Swift Wings, taking a peek of his own. “Defeat her in battle? Put a nose ring on her? Find her True Name?”
“No,” said Peaks. “Although I do think a ring may be in their future. I wonder what the kids will look like.”
“Alicorns,” declared Buttercup. “Neurotic, over-controlling, brilliant alicorns.”
“It will be nice to have a few more around,” said Princess Luna.
Silence reigned. After a very short reign, it abdicated its throne to the Princess of the Moon, who cleared her throat and regarded the three rather startled commanders with an upraised eyebrow clearly hinting that the surprise was over, and it was now time for some judicious saluting and bowing, although quietly enough as not to gain attention from the ongoing activity out in the hangar.
The three commanders obliged. They were, after all, well trained by Luna’s sister, as well as married, which carried its own training regime, if somewhat different. After an extremely short and quite direct briefing to their Princess, the three commanders stood relaxed and waiting for their orders, which after a moment of uncomfortable self-examination, they realized were also coming from a female.
~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~
“Ten-HUT! Princess on the floor!”
All across the Royal Hangar, what work was still taking place froze to a halt in a frenzied spasm of sharp salutes from both Royal Guards and even civilians, who were carried away in the general enthusiasm of the activity. Princess Celestia preferred to stride into a situation with a brisk pace and a sharp look about her that brought a secret terror to the heart of any present as they reviewed their recent activities for secret sins that she might have uncovered.
Luna glided.
There was a certain art to being able to drift down a set of stairs with long, slow paces while casting one’s gaze from side to side, never actually looking at anypony but never actually looking away either. Where Celestia tended to unnerve ponies who thought they had done something wrong, Luna induced a certain primal terror unfounded in any actual wrongdoing, for who could possibly remember any of the crimes which they may have committed in their slumber?
She detested the reaction. But she still glided. It was useful and fun.
With Commander Swift Wings stuck in an awkward pace halfway between a trot and a walk beside her, Luna descended onto the hangar floor and up to the two unicorns who were coordinating the search.
“Captain Kudzu. Specialist Grace. How goes the search for the missing foal?”
Both unicorns were drawn up into such identical salutes that Luna was uncertain which one would speak first, but after a momentary hesitation, Kudzu dropped his salute and responded, “Your Highness, the search parties have quartered the entire Academy and most of the castle, with details placed in strategic locations to avoid the possibility of the target sneaking back into already searched areas. Cadets from the Academy are assisting with the operation, primarily in support roles such as the extended sentry details. So far, the results have been inconclusive, with no signs of the missing foal, not even a hoofprint.”
“I see,” said Luna, turning slightly. “Specialist Grace, how about the civilian side of the search.”
Grace dropped her salute with exacting precision and rattled down the facts just as neatly. “Descriptions of the missing foal have been passed along to the Canterlot Police, and a search of the nearby grounds has been ongoing. Hell Week candidates have been paired off with serving Royal Guardstallions in order to extend our search perimeter, and the staff of the castle has been alerted to the operation. Everypony is cooperating fully, but still nothing, Ma’am.”
“Hmm…” Luna lifted her head and looked over at the plotting table. “Specialist Thermal, will you be all right? I know this is a stressful time for you.”
“I’ll be fine,” she replied in a perfectly ordinary and unstressed voice that raised goosebumps up the back of Luna’s hackles.
“Indeed. Specialist Grace. Show me the last known location of the foal, please.” Luna followed the dark green unicorn as she trotted through the ankle-deep cloud over to a rather ragged lump of trampled cumulus scattered around the wall of the hangar.
“Specialist Thermal was serving a double-shift this morning, because we’re a bit short-hooved at the moment, Your Highness. She created a Type Two field expedient shelter out of clouds against this wall, as you can see, Ma’am,” said Grace, levitating up a crumpled blue blanket out of the scattered clouds. “She tucked Standing Water in for a nap while carrying out her second shift. He wasn’t there when she was relieved at noon, leaving nearly a three hour window in which the foal may have escaped or been removed.”
“I understand, Specialist,” said Luna, examining the bits of scattered cloud. “All the more reason to resolve this unpleasant situation as quickly as possible. Have any forensic spells been cast upon the infant’s resting spot?”
“Yes, Your Highness. No traces of teleportation magic, substitution, transmutation, illusion or any other kinds of unicorn magic were found. It’s as if he just vanished.”
“Let’s get a better look at the situation, Specialist Grace. Stand back.” With a soft glow of indigo magic, Luna lit her horn and illuminated the little scraps of cloud scattered around from Miss Thermal’s frantic search. They quivered in place, hesitant at first, but eventually flowing back toward the central position as the blue blanket leapt out of Grace’s levitation field. The blocky structure reassembled itself against the wall of the hangar, the blue blanket zipping inside between several scraps of cloud before the structure finished its magical reassembly.
“Do you recognize the spell, Specialist Grace?” said Luna almost casually after the cloud fragments had settled back into place.
“An inverted entropy spell,” said Grace. “Although I’ve never seen anypony with such a delicate touch as to be able to use it on clouds.”
“Very astute. Now, while I hold the structure together, I will need somepony to examine it for clues as to the young colt’s departure, not you, Specialist Thermal,” continued Luna, stopping the fast-moving pegasus in her tracks. “Captain Kudzu, would you assist Grace?”
The two unicorns took their time examining the lumpy structure from the outside, eventually having Luna levitate it up so they could check the inside walls for signs of tampering. After a few minutes, Kudzu got up close to the bottom edge of the structure and squinted. “Your Highness, I think you missed a chunk. There’s kind of a notch to the bottom of the shelter right here.”
“Moles,” blurted out Petunia. There was a semicircle of curious onlookers a reasonable distance away, and the blocky earth pony stallion blushed at the sudden attention he received. “I mean, Your Highness, ‘e’s an energetic little blighter, after all. Could ‘e have tunneled out?”
Luna did not immediately respond, but a broad chunk of the thin cloud floor to one side of the flimsy structure glowed indigo and flipped over, revealing a trench through the underside of the flat cloud. “The little scamp,” said Luna, her hooves clattering along the underlying stone floor as she trotted briskly forward, making another section of the covering cloud glow indigo and flip over. “He tunnelled under the cloud floor in this direction.” Piece after piece of flat cloud flipped as Luna progressed across the hangar floor, eventually stopping at the chariot parking area. “His trail comes up here. What was parked in this location?”
~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~
An hour ago
It felt good to get out of the castle every once in a while and stretch her metaphorical wings. The sky all the way to Fillydelphia was as clear as it could be, and the drivers of the chariot flapped in perfect synchronization, leaving Celestia nothing to do but look around at all of Equestria spread out below her and enjoy the freedom of a relaxing day. Admittedly there was a teeny thread of guilt at leaving Luna alone in the castle to deal with any disasters that were certainly going to sprout forth from the cracks between the stone walls like ambitious weeds whenever the gardener took a vacation, but her sister was a big mare and did not need her hoof held any more.
Besides, the city council meetings in Fillydelphia were always catered by an elderly couple who made the best cakes.
No paperwork, no complaining bureaucrats, no endless requests to make decisions that others were too timid to make on their own. Sometimes she felt like the oldest mother of quadi-septup-quint-to-the-nth-degree-uplets in Equestria, but for now, she could just be herself, allowing her warm sun to shine down across her back and extending her wings just the least little bit to allow the wind to whistle through them without actually affecting the handling of ‘Mare Force One’ as the Royal Guard liked to refer to her transportation when they thought she was not listening. It was an opportunity she reveled in, and if only flying herself were an option, she would have been up into the sky in a flash, but having a princess show up at a meeting reeking of sweat would be positively unthinkable.
Maybe on the way back.
While gliding along in the chariot, she preferred to close her eyes and try to absorb the entire experience through her skin, even through the distraction of young healthy stallions working up a sweat upwind of her nose, but the wind high in the sky washed away weeks worth of tension and stress, centuries if you counted worrying about Luna’s return. Relaxation flowed down her back with the wind, swept her mane and tail into long ornate curves, and brought a previously unexperienced scent along with it. It smelled a little like ammonia, or perhaps that one time a nest of mice had been found in her chariot, but the rustling noise from underhoof was far too loud to be mice. In fact, it sounded a little like—
“Mamma?”
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Luna is a Mistake Agnostic. There may be mistakes, but none of them are hers.
Many of us called it. I am simply enjoying the fact that not only were we right, but it's having a generally positive effect on everyone's cooperative abilities. Even if many forget this event directly, almost everyone involved will still at least subconsciously remember it. And it'll improve so many relations across the force and further.
5337814 Damn right ! Luna is perfect.
Luna is Best Pony, after all. :-)
Now lets see how her Mother mask holds up under real pressure.
Called it!
Hilarity ensues? Probably.
Something tells me that little Standing Water is going to be the most spoiled foal in all of Equestria by the time this one is over.
HAHAHAHAHA, CALLED IT!!!! Standing Waters is going to be the most well known foal in the castle... and I can guess Luna will enjoy visiting him in his dreams. Oh, the little scamp has a bright future ahead of him... maybe as a James Bond type???? But I can totally see Pinkie Popping in for a "FOUND THE FOAL PARTY!" at some point. Hmmm... I have to wonder if this will become a yearly exercise? Find the Foal seems to be getting everyone to work together well and coordinated. I would not be surprised if it became a classic example of how to run an operation.
Princess Luna, mistress of timing.
Alicorns cheat, but with style.
There could be no better reason.
Mare Force One, nice.
Ahh, and there's the fourth shoe.
I thought as much. It's the Principle of Neonatal Antics, a.k.a. the Rugrat Axiom: Toddlers gravitate towards the most ludicrous situation possible.
In any case, I get the feeling that Standing Water did a lot more good than he may realize. And given that he's probably going to enjoy some of the best cake in Fillydelphia, that's saying something.
Looking forward to more.
5337814
I like that term. May have to use it somewhere.
Also, I love the idea that Luna gets in on the search like it's nothing. No lazing about for the Sisters!
Also also, I have the adorable mental image of Celestia fussing over Standing Water like it's nothing and just sending back a quick note of "Whoever lost their foal, I have them. They may come back a bit spoiled with cake, however. He's adorable! - C"
5339662 Well, Standing Water isn't up to solid foods yet, so Celestia would have to eat his cake for him...
5339509 One of our kids had colic when he was nursing. There is no worse torture for a parent. But nature got revenge. In High School when they did the 'Take the baby home for the weekend' project, he got one that would not turn off. We tried to be sympathetic, we really did. Only laughed a few times. Every day.
5338726 Believe it or not, that section just flowed out of the keyboard in one take.
5338632 Well, they had "Save the Hostage." Perhaps a yearly Rug Rat Roundup (with a few more safeguards) might be in the cards.
5338362 And in twenty years or so when he enters the Royal Guard, there will *still* be serving guards who remember today. And won't let him forget.
5337862 Seems to have the Kudzu/Grace ship working well.
By the way, look for the author note in the last chapter.
'Mare Force One’ - I have to admit I expected you to make a more Apollo sun chariot joke than this :)
You know, I never realized it when I've read this story in the past, but Kudzu starts the chapter as a Lieutenant and ends it as a Captain.
Edit: Kudzu seems to be back at Lieutenant in the next chapter.
8794667
Next comes the tapping o the hoofs...
That bit with the three commanders and Luna is pure gold.