Who is Shining Armor, Anyway?
"Princess Celestia cordially invites you to the wedding of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and..." Twilight gasped in shock at the words on the page. "My brother‽"
As soon as those words passed her lips, Twilight went silent, her pupils shrinking to pinpricks and her mouth hanging ever-so-slightly open. Her friends stared at the strange sight, torn between trying to help and waiting to see how long Twilight could go without blinking. After thirty seconds went by without anypony declaring a bet on the latter, Applejack decided to step in and try to snap her friend out of it.
"Your brother's gettin' married?"Applejack put her best emphasis on those words, which for her just meant raising her voice, in the hope that a second shock would shake Twilight out of her current stupor. Just for good measure, Applejack grabbed hold of Twilight's hoof and started shaking. "Well, congra-"
But that was as far as she got. Twilight pulled her hoof away and stared at Applejack like she had just eaten a peach. "B-brother?", she stammered, eyes darting around so quickly they turned into a purple blur. "Who said anything about me having a brother?"
"Um, you did," Pinkie said. "A few seconds ago."
"What? N-no I didn't! That's crazy!" Twilight started laughing, and her friends took a collective step back when she dropped the wedding invitation but her horn kept glowing. "There's no way I have a brother! No, that would just be ridiculous!"
"Twilight, darling, it's all right." Rarity stepped forward, doing her best to put on a warm, unconcerned smile. "You don't have to pretend your brother doesn't exist. I'm sure that..." She picked up the invitation, and skimmed it to find the name, "Shining Armor wouldn't appreciate that."
"You have no idea," Spike muttered from behind Rarity. Meanwhile, Twilight was looking at least a little bit more sane, if slightly deflated.
"No, you're right, Rarity." Twilight smiled, and combed her hair back into its usual, everything-is-fine-and-nobody's-dead style.
"Of course I'm right," Rarity declared, and allowed herself a little smile as all of her friends rolled their eyes. "And I, for one, forgive you."
Twilight's face went from 'slightly nervous' to 'very confused'. "Forgive me? For what?"
"Why, for not telling us that you had a brother, of course!" Rarity wished she had a fan that she could snap open. "Honestly, Twilight, how many times have we all gossiped about our families, and you've completely forgotten to mention him?" At that moment, a terrible thought occurred to her, and she stage-whispered, "Is this another Zephyr Breeze situation?"
Twilight laughed, and waved a hoof dismissively. "No, nothing so bad. He's just... unmemorable, you know?"
"What do you mean?" Applejack asked.
"Well, he's in the Royal Guard..." Twilight began, but was almost instantly cut off by Rainbow Dash.
"Wait, your brother's a guard? Since when are they forgettable? Some of the most awesome ponies of all time have served as Celestia's guards!"
"That's right, Rainbow Dash." Twilight smiled, but it was the kind of smile that Rarity was used to seeing on Cheerilee when talking to children. "Now, can you name a single member of the Royal Guard who isn't one of 'the most awesome ponies of all time'?"
Rainbow took a moment to wrack her brain, then shrugged. "Okay, fair enough. Still, bit rude to hold his job against him."
"Well, it's not just that." Twilight seemed a little more comfortable now. "He's only a corporal."
"Yeah, so? You rise up the ranks pretty fast in the Royal Guard. He probably just signed on recently, and soon he'll..."
"He's been a corporal for twenty years."
Rainbow Dash shut up. Twilight, oddly enough, grinned as though she had just dropped the punchline of the most hilarious joke of all time.
"Yeah. He's what they call an 'eternal up-and-comer'. He's got plenty of potential, a lot of drive, and he lifts heavy boxes without a horn, but he just can't seem to catch a break. Even before stuff like Nightmare Moon and Discord started making the Royal Guard look bad, Shining kept on missing the mark and losing out on promotions. Some unpolished armor here, a slack in your stance there, the occasional badmouthing of his superiors, and Corporal Shining Armor may as well be his birth name." Twilight chuckled a little, and Rarity could have sworn she heard Spike trying to muffle a snigger.
"That's not very funny," Pinkie Pie spoke up. She motioned for Fluttershy to join in.
"Pinkie's right," Fluttershy mumbled, just loud enough to be heard. "I'm sure your brother tries very hard to be a good guard."
"And he's clearly been trying harder than you give him credit for," Rarity indicated the invitation, "seeing as this invitation refers to him as the Captain of the Royal Guard."
Twilight's eyes bugged out, and Spike gasped in shock.
"Honestly, Twilight, when was the last time you spoke to your brother? This isn't the sort of thing that just happens overnight."
"Of course it didn't happen overnight," Twilight said. "That would be ridiculous. My brother has been the Captain of the Guard for the past thirteen years."
"Wait, I'm confused," muttered Rainbow Dash. "Why did you tell us that Shining Armor was this complete screw-up?"
"Because that's his cover story," Twilight admitted. "If anyone finds out I'm related to him, that's what I'm supposed to tell them."
Applejack cocked a quizzical eyebrow. "But why would you tell us that, instead of just saying that your brother's the captain of the guard?"
"Applejack, I'm the personal student to Princess Celestia herself. I've got enough of a target on my back without bringing up that my brother is the single most powerful unicorn in Equestria!"
"Wait," Pinkie Pie said, "I thought you were the most powerful unicorn in Equestria."
"I didn't mean magical power," Twilight clarified. "In terms of that, he's only the second most powerful. No, I was referring to influence."
"You can't be serious," Rainbow scoffed. "How much clout can the captain of the guard really have?"
Twilight gritted her teeth, then her horn glowed. A conical shield spell suddenly encircled the picnic, and the air between each pony felt much thicker. "This is a silencing spell," she explained. "Nothing we say can be heard by anypony outside of this cone."
"Um, Twilight?" Fluttershy raised a hoof as though she were a foal asking a question in class. "We're alone. There's nopony around who could hear us."
"I'm about to exposit some of our government's most sensitive information," Twilight growled. "The only reason I am allowed to know any of this is because I'm a master of occlumency. And if Shining Armor had taught me even a single mind-erase spell, I wouldn't be telling any of you a single word of this, even underneath this cone. Equestria has enemies the likes of which none of you have ever seen, and they could be anywhere."
"And?" Rainbow Dash flexed her muscles. "We're the ones who took out Discord. We can totally handle a few spies."
Twilight shook her head solemnly, a gesture mirrored by Spike. "Rainbow, this isn't an enemy you can just punch, or shoot with friendship lasers. That's not our foreign policy anymore. Politics is far more complicated than any of you have ever had to know, and girls, I say this as your friend, none of you are even slightly ready to enter a world of international espionage. If we are being spied on, the only way to survive is to know nothing, or be really good at playing dumb. In this case, we have to go with the latter."
Rarity saw something move in the corner of her eye. She turned, and didn't see anything. Her mind found it could not decide if something was there or not, and she quickly turned to face Twilight again. It was probably nothing.
It was hopefully nothing.
"Now then," Twilight began. "When I say the words 'the Royal Guard', what comes to your mind?"
"Those guards in fancy gold armor who patrol Canterlot and guard the princess," Applejack answered instantly, and the other girls nodded their agreement.
"Well, that's only a very small part of it. Royal Guard is actually a codeword that refers to any organization that is either under the princesses' control, or otherwise exists to exercise their will or protect them. It makes Canterlot double-talk very context-sensitive."
"So, which Royal Guard is your brother in charge of?"
"All of them. The Day Guard, the Night Guard, S.M.I.L.E., the Peanut Butter Hoof Gang, Duskmantle and the Royal Assassinorum, even the Order of Her Resplendent Lady's Eternal Dawn. Somewhere down the line, they all take their orders from him. We're the only branch of the Royal Guard that reports directly to Celestia, and not to Shining Armor."
"Wait, since when are we part of the Royal Guard?" Rainbow Dash demanded to know.
"We're the Elements of Harmony. We act on the orders of Princess Celestia, protect her and her interests (i.e. the kingdom of Equestria and the overwhelming majority of its inhabitants), and generally push an agenda that lines up with all of her policies and doesn't emphasize any of our personal interests over hers. What else would you call us?"
"Fair enough. Please continue."
"Gladly." Twilight turned back to the others, and got back to spilling state secrets. "It's generally more convenient for my parents and I to pretend that Shining Armor isn't related to us. If anypony who knows how important he is knew that they could get to him through us, I'd have been kidnapped five hundred times in the past week."
"But you also have a cover story for if they find out," Fluttershy pointed out.
"Yeah, and you've all managed to prove just how flimsy that story is. That story would maybe buy me five minutes against a total idiot of a kidnapper, and less than two seconds against any serious threat. Honestly, if I thought any of you were actually enemy agents, I'd probably have teleported halfway across Equestria by now."
Fluttershy laughed nervously. "Well, nice to know that we're above suspicion."
"Yeah, let's go with that," Spike snarked. Twilight looked around the group to see if there were any more questions.
Rarity cleared her throat. "So, does your brother really run all of those organizations? I mean, I've heard a few rumors attached to some of those names. Even just one of them seems like it would a logistical nightmare to be in charge of, never mind all of them at once."
"Yeah, my brother's pretty cool." Twilight beamed with pride. "Basically, you know how good I am with books and organizing them? Imagine that the government is a library, the Royal Guard are books, and my brother is me." Rainbow Dash's mouth fell open in shock. "Yeah. Shining Armor can mobilize thirteen armies to thirteen entirely unrelated points in Equestria, without anypony ever knowing, and without even getting a migraine. On top of that, being the second-most-magically-powerful unicorn alive today almost seems like overkill."
"Almost?" Applejack asked.
"Remember the dragon migration?" The others nodded. "Now imagine if every single one of them had been trying to kill us. There's only so much one unicorn can do against an army of dragons."
They all went silent for a moment, their imaginations populating their minds with horrific vistas of fire and death. Fluttershy started crying, while Rainbow Dash went cross-eyed. Rarity shuddered, and Applejack found herself curling up and praying.
Meanwhile, it seemed Pinkie Pie had some more questions. "So, if your brother's supposed to technically-not-exist, what's the deal with this wedding?"
"Dung if I know," Twilight admitted. "My best guess is, they'll be banking on the fact that nopony in Canterlot looks twice at the Day Guard, and nopony outside of Canterlot even cares. Try to pass him off like he's always been their leader, or something."
"But he has always been their leader."
"Very good, Pinkie Pie." Twilight cut a slice of cake, and offered it to the arguably-insane arguably-pony. "You get extra cake."
"YAY!" Pinkie stuffed the cake into her face without another question. Meanwhile, the others seemed to have recovered from their brief crisis of existence. Twilight decided now was as good a time as any to wrap up the picnic and get moving.
"Okay, girls. We'd better get moving. Now, once we get into Canterlot, the worst thing you can do is make a beeline for Shining Armor. Just play it dumb, and at some point he'll probably be able to get us alone and explain what the plan is with this whole wedding thing. Also, watch out for any suspicious ponies, but don't jump to conclusions. They might be on our side. Any questions?"
They all shook their heads. "Good. We've got a train to catch."
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This is... In my eye at least, totally possible.
Only issue I got is why the "AU" tag?
~Skeeter The Lurker
7561414 It's a fixfic that edits a conversation in the show and alters canon.
7561414 It replaces the BBBFF song and Twilight's angst about getting the news of the wedding from an invitation with a bunch of exposition about headcanon.
Basically, it definitely didn't go down like this in the episode, therefore AU.
Holy fuck I need this to be cannon.
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My point still stands. With the execution given by King here, calling this canon is more than possible.
I mean, who's to say she doesn't know a mind wipe spell and didn't use it on us the audience?
Edit: At least tell me why. Sigh. Guess I can't make a good joke.
~Skeeter The Lurker
So wait, Equestria has all these military organizations meant to protect them, and their first line of defense is to rely on six young women getting along?
Also, I have to be amused by Duskmantle being part of the Royal Guard. And the Assassinorum, of course. Pay no attention to the cellist playing a dirge for your thoughts of rebellion...
Very fun headcanon dump, though there's not much here beyond that. Still, best of luck in the contest.
7561523 They have the option to employ a six-pronged supernuke that has no collateral damage. Why would you not make that your first line of defense?
7561480 Poe's Law, bro. They probably think you meant that utterly ridiculous suggestion seriously.
7561480 I didn't downvote it, I swear!
7561683
That's exactly what a downvoter would say.
Kind of silly to imply that there are ponies that could take Discord down in a couple minutes, when it took the princesses personally stepping in with the elements of harmony to do a single thing to him last time, and none of them managed to do anything against Chrysalis and her army.
Wanting to fix the patheticness of the Royal Guard (and any related headcanon organizations) is fine, but pushing them all the way past to hypercompetence (hypercompetence that never actually matters against any of the Equestria-threatening villains we see, to boot) isn't any better.
7561615
Probably because it relies on six non-trained, vulnerable ponies who all be in the same spot at the same time, with their artifacts in hand, in order to stand a chance against the kinds of villains they're sent at. If there really are ponies who could defeat Discord easily, then it's ridiculously pointlessly risky to rely on the mane six (especially since Discord only lost to them because he was literally playing with them; if he had, say, teleported the elements of harmony to the bottom of the ocean, they'd never have beaten him). Why not keep them as safe as you can unless you have no other chance but with a rainbow laser?
7561693 I know, but I swear it wasn't me. I only downvote something if it looks like it's going off whatever logic (read: none) My Immortal held or is so asinine and poorly worded/spelled/anything that is should be from My Immortal but doesn't have the same humor from reading something something so stupid.
I can't think of what else to add so here's a Sun Horse.
pre14.deviantart.net/4fa2/th/pre/f/2014/300/9/6/good_morning_by_krrrokozjabrra-d84bw4z.jpg
7561615 Exactly as 7561696 said. It's like having the Green Berets on call and choosing to instead send in a Girl Scout troop.
Also, damn I feel sorry for Shining Armor, almost 40 years old and he still sounds like that.
Hey, how'd the rest of it go? No way it went like canon.
Well, I can buy this fully. Though this is another one of those, shame it has to end so soon but it makes sense why, kinda deals. Certainly never thought of the Mane 6 as part of the Royal Guard but that makes sense as well. Sheesh you're giving me all kinds of head canon over here.
Anyway the story was an interesting little read and got the ole brain going. Nice work.
7561851 yea I wanna know how it went to plus I wanna know what rarity saw was it a changeling? Something else?
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Shining Armor is still mind-controlled. He knew it was a trap, but he went in anyway because it's the most reliable way to find Cadance. His people show Twilight the plan, which involves making herself seem like she might discover Chyrsalis so that the enemy captures her (Cadance's behavior having changed after they arrived in Canterlot, so they're fairly sure that she's imprisoned somewhere nearby). The Mane Six set up the ruse, and Chrysalis takes the bait. Twi is imprisoned, she and Cadance are rescued before the wedding even starts, and the Bearers of Harmony bling themselves out to crash a wedding.
7562070 thats a chapter right there so i dont know why leave it as a 1 shot
i2.pinger.pl/pgr42/d5ea0f280017cba6537f9e67
wish she had teleport-ed them all instead of the dome.
7562070 I'd read it.
7562070 the only issue in that plan is Honesty, and that depends on how you write it. If Applejack is told there is a plan but not what the plan entails other than the fact that all she really has to do is truly cater the wedding, is that lying by omission or is that making sure that honesty cant/wont spill the beans if asked she truly cant answer since she really does not know. Fine line there.
The rest of the elements can get away with lying their plots off considering their virtues don't depend on truth or honesty. I mean Kindness doesn't need to rely on truth, generosity can lie easy, loyalty to ones friends means one can lie to a enemy, laughter is the king of lies if you consider pranks and jokes as untruthful things, and magic/friendship only needs to lip at the virtues that undermine its power as long as its truthful to the ones that matter.
You've got some unique ideas here, but all you do is float them and don't actually take them anywhere (except in a perfunctory comment.) Admittedly, this is an exposition dump by design, but that doesn't excuse the whole exposition-dump-as-story design from being flawed.
7562320 What else do you expect when a guy's got twenty-four hours to try and string together something vaguely serviceable? Frankly, I'm surprised that bar up there isn't pure red.
It is a flawed design. But I'd at the very least argue that the average fixfic has more flaws.
This one goes directly into "Favorites". Wish it could be adopted as canon, but the show doesn't do that level of reality.
Threats more dangerous than Discord? Yeah, it's not hard to imagine that. All Discord did was turn ponies' natures backwards and coat the world in sweets. Granted, mind control is a scary thing, but I have the feeling that if you just went along with and enjoyed the chaos, you wouldn't necessarily have to lose yourself along the way. These ponies have it easy compared to most heroes... there have been a few dangerous-seeming villains, such as Tirek, Nightmare Moon (at least what we saw in the Season 5 finale showed that she was pretty ruthless, although Equestria looked to be thriving overall), potentially Chrysalis, depending on how dark you could imagine the emotion-sucking thing, and Starlight Glimmer from certain perspectives, but when you look at even someone like Q from Star Trek, they're easily trumped.
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For the record, I believe Ice.
~Skeeter The Lurker
7562341 How was Equestria thriving when what used to be Ponyville turned into thick jungle? Nightmare Moon's apocalypse seems of the breed that she's too stupid or self absorbed to actually do anything for her kingdom beyond stroke her ego and so everything's fallen into disrepair and/or been abandoned. A famine is quite likely if she somehow managed to make farmlands into monster infested jungle.
Also, the chaos was fun because Discord felt that way. We know from the stained glass that Discord did some more horrible things in the past, like dangling ponies over fire while listening to them scream in horror. Discord's opening play was all fun and games, it would have gone south quickly if he was anything like himself a 1,000 years ago.
7562347
That's racist and you know it.
7561420 I'm sorry, but I'm kinda with 7561696 on this one. This story is, well, kinda meh.
That was an accurate summary of what turned me off about this whole story.
Have yet to even read the other fixfics, but I guess even the concept itself doesn't spare great writers from churning out, well, meh stuff.
7562471 And that's without even considering the deadline.
Where did Twilight get the cake? I don't remember cake being at the picnic, but I guess it was always there.
Awesome and silly. Neat.
7562481 vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/8/89/Pinkie_Pie_flipping_out_S2E25.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/640?cb=20120602020321
The cake was always there.
7562486 Nice shot. I'm getting Deja Woo from looking at that. Now I need to go on a picnic and bring a cake. I've been to 15 picnics in my life and no one has thought to brought cake. Just don't ask how I can remember that because I don't know.
Again, pretty neat slice of life, short story. Understand this was a prompt (I pay attention sometimes) and I was wondering if you wrote this in one sitting?
Thank you for giving my evening some added entertainment. :3
7562548 Pretty much, yeah. Not my best work.
7562549 You're welcome!
i haven't read this story yet but i just gotta say your descriptions hook me so goddamn hard
7562643 The payoff, however, doesn't always measure up.
7562647 you had 24 hours. But this concept could be easily expanded in a bigger fic. Only things like "ponies our side that could take on Discord" kinda break immersion, else this was rather good and has some potential to be quite interesting in a bigger fic.
7562615 Not your worst work either. A couple of thousand words in one sitting takes a bit focus and time. Add in a time limit and a vague mediocre prompt (subjective), you do want you can with the hand you have. I'm under the impression the show's writers don't know what to do with Shining Armor. His wife and child seem more fleshed out if you go by the show.
congratulations, zephyr you are the new flash sentry
7562689
7562680 Your kind words are appreciated, though they obviously don't invalidate any of the criticisms made by people who thought more about my own story than I did. And I'm okay with that.
You guys keep being golden.
7561696 Congratulations, your thoughts are more ordered than a guy strung out on coffee trying to write a vaguely good thing in under twenty-four hours. You win.
7563023 Technically, it's exactly as effective, it's just that most of the problems are circumvented by sticking all the ponies in the same cone instead of separate cones.
How do they expect anyone to NOT assume Twilight and SA are related when they both have the exact same geometric shape in their cutie marks?
7563056 What a ridiculous notion. Next you'll be telling me that Doctor Whooves and Minuette are father and daughter.
what the hell is Ma-Ti?
7563163 And then I knew what it was like to feel old...
Fun fact: You have access to a massive database that will give you any answer you want the instant you ask it. USE IT.
7563196
I know. I feel old, too.
Reminds me of Dishonored's Bottle Street Gang lol. Makes sense if there are horrors in this 'verse. Might see the Outsider hangin' around.