Loose Ends

by TheCrazedTurkey

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

July 8

It’s been two years already. I know, I should’ve kept better track of everything, but after what happened with my mark and everything, I forgot I had this (yes, for two whole years).

I headed down to the recruiting station about a week after the incident and found the guy who had offered to let me into West Pony.

“Shining,” he said, “You’re a little early. Need something?” I just nodded and said, “Is it okay if I… don’t join when the three years are up? I still wanna be in the Royal Guard, don’t get me wrong. It’s just… I have a family, and I want to wait a bit. Until my sister can take care of herself.” He sat there, silently pondering this. “Well, it’s your choice. And I respect your decision. Just know that I’m in the military, and… something could happen to me. It’s a dangerous job. But, I’ll see what I can do.” I left, glad I had gotten that off my chest. I was a year ahead of my class, so I would have more time with my sister, given I would be graduating sooner and that I now had as much time as I needed.

I spent the weekends hanging out with either Cadence or Twilight, sometimes both. I still didn’t have very many friends, but many of my peers respected me, after what became known as the “shield incident”.

After a few months of reading bedtime stories to her, I taught Twilight how to read. She’s a fast learner. As soon as she had finished learning her alphabet, she became the biggest bookworm I’d ever seen. Whenever she wasn’t playing with me or eating, she was reading.

Soon, she took to calling the toy I’d given her “Smartypants”. Not the best name, I’ll admit, but she’s three years old. The good thing is that she named it at all. She loves that little doll. Apart from Cadence and me, it’s her only friend.

She’s also been learning how to use magic. She’s already developing telekinesis and even turned Smartypants green once! I remember, while Mom and Dad were out, she brought him up to me, crying, and asked me to turn her back. I did, and she was so relieved, it was like I’d just saved someone’s life! I know, I shouldn’t be laughing, I probably would’ve done the same thing, if I was her age.

Over time, I taught her how to fly a kite, how to make people grow facial hair (Cadence looks hilarious with a moustache, by the way.) and how to change the colors of things at will, in case there was another accident with Smartypants. She still has yet to get her mark, but I think I know what her special talent is.

Also, Cadence and I seem to be really good friends. I know, that’s been established already, but I’m talking about really good friends…. Almost like we’re more than just friends. Neither one of us talks about it, we usually just hang out, but I know she feels it too…

September 21

Almost four years have passed since the incident, and tonight, I’m left. I enlisted a month ago, and they said they would send a carriage to take me off tonight.

I called Cadence to ask for her to see me off along with Twilie and my parents. We all met right outside my front door. We were all silent for a while, Twilight was crying, and Cadence was trying to calm her down. I looked to Mom and Dad first.

“Thank you. For everything.” I said quietly. “We love you so much,” Mom said, fighting back tears herself. I approached her and embraced her and Dad. “I love you too,” I replied. “Go kick some ass for us, will ya?” Dad said as I let go of them, trying to be optimistic as usual. Mom kicked him in the shin when he said this, gesturing with her head toward my sister. “Sorry,” Dad said indignantly, rubbing the foreleg she had kicked. I couldn’t help but laugh.

Then, I approached Twilight and patted her on the head. She broke free of Cadence’s grip and rushed at me, clutching me with her forelegs tightly, not wanting to let me go. “D-D-Do you h-h-h-have t-to go?” She sobbed. I stroked her mane and said reassuringly, “Yes. I do, but don’t worry. You’ll still have Cadence, the best foal sitter ever, and I promise that I’m going to come back and visit whenever I can.”

She looked up at me, tears still flowing from her eyes “R-R-Really?”

“Really.”

I was no on the verge of tears as well, remembering the five years I’d spent with my little sister. Over those years, I’d taught her how to swim, we played a game we’d invented where we each put the craziest mustaches we could think of on each-other’s faces, and, overall, I’d watched Twilie’s skills grow and I watched her grow as a pony. “One thing, though,” I said, “Promise me you’ll make some friends. There’s more to life than reading, y’know.” She nodded and wiped her nose, still sniveling loudly. Finally, I looked to Cadence. In that moment, she looked more beautiful than ever. We said nothing, just looked at each other. Finally, I spoke, “Take good care of Twilight.” “Don’t you worry about her,” Cadence said. I nodded and kept looking at her, knowing that my sister was in good hoofs. After a few more moments, Cadence leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. “Good luck out there,” she said, “And try not to get yourself blown up or something.” I chuckled and nodded. After that, I grabbed my backpack filled with the essentials and we waited in silence. Only fifteen minutes passed, but it felt like hours. The lump in my throat was impossible to swallow as the carriage pulled up towards my home. A man in a uniform opened the door for me as I walked in, and I waved to my family, and I slammed the door behind me.

So, this is where I am now. Inside this carriage, lit only by a single lantern, with six other ponies, all of whom are asleep. The sound of snoring fills my ears, and I ask the colt in front, “how long ‘till we get there?”

“Just a few hours. Academy’s pretty far away from the city, for security reasons.”

That’s not what I expected.

Isn’t the Academy in Canterlot?

September 22

I’ve arrived, finally, and boy, was that an entrance!

Before I write about that, though, I need to tell whoever may be reading this about the trip over.

Basically, it was uneventful, except for one moment. A few minutes after the ponies began waking up, a grayish unicorn with a black mane spoke to me. “Hey,” he said, “Who are you?” He was fidgeting quite a bit, shifting his weight from left to right over and over again several times and glancing practically everywhere in the carriage. “Um, Shining Armor,” I replied, staring at the strange pony. He reached out a hoof and I shook it. “Name’s Bolt” he said. As soon as he said this, I noticed his peculiar cutie mark. It depicted what looked like ball of fire, which hovered above a horizontal bolt of lightning. “So, any particular reason you’re joining?” he inquired, still looking everywhere. I stopped a bit, then said, “I felt like I could be useful. Simple as that.” After I said this, he nodded thoughtfully, and settled on looking out of the window, but still constantly shifting in his seat.

“I hear training’s intense. They only want the best, and if you’re not one of ‘em, they either send you home, or you can choose to stay, and you either improve or die tryin’,” he said, glancing at me, supposedly sizing me up, “you look like you can handle yourself, though. I like you.” I sat there, silently. He wore a backpack similar to mine. Just a coincidence, I thought, seeing as we both lived in the same city. By now, almost everypony was awake, but silent. I looked into the corner opposite me, where there was a sleeping Pegasus. He had a white coat and shaggy blonde mane. His cutie mark was a crimson arrow. The strangest things about him, though, were his wings. They were covered in a thick film of some sort of mucus. I leaned over to Bolt and asked, “What’s with him?” “Nopony knows,” he replied, “his name’s Vigil, but that’s all we could get out of him.”

A few minutes passed in silence. Bolt was still fidgeting. Then, the colt up front came back and opened the doors. We were still moving extremely quickly, and the sound of wind filled our ears. Vigil lurched awake immediately. The colt who had opened the doors then said, “Alright, foals, this is where you all get off. You wanna make it to the ground? Use any abilities you’re gifted with to get you there. Unless you’re a chicken, in which case, grab yourself a parachute.” Not knowing what he was talking about, I looked to the ground. We were flying over a large canyon, hundreds of feet up. “Are you crazy?” I yelled over the wind. “No, Princess Celestia is. Now, you need a parachute?” he replied mockingly Just then, I hatched a plan. “Nah,” I said as I jumped out. As I began falling, I noticed that almost everypony except for me, Vigil and Bolt had gotten parachutes. I had been falling for thirty seconds, now. I began to levitate myself with my horn. I saw Bolt was falling headfirst, occasionally sending bursts of energy from his horn, slowing his descent. Vigil was in free-fall, looking quite relaxed and smirking. I stopped in midair to watch. Just before hitting the ground, Vigil opened his wings and flapped them. Instantly, the mucus fell of and he flew upward, climbing higher and higher. For some reason, I decided to follow. I flew upward, holding myself up with my magic, and soon caught up with him. He grinned at me. “A challenger, eh?” he exclaimed, suddenly closing his wings. Again, he fell, but this time, halfway down, he flapped his wings to speed his descent. I followed him, and saw Bolt had caught up with us. We flew downward, side by side, and – I can’t explain it but it felt right, the three of us alongside each other.

Suddenly, Vigil let out another burst of speed, and seemed to create a sonic boom. Bolt and I sped up, and broke the sound barrier as well. It was the most thrilling sensation I’ve ever felt. We were just barely behind him, and nanoseconds before hitting the ground, he opened his wings again to slow his descent and landed. I slowed myself down and let go when I was just above the ground, and Bolt seemed to flip himself over in midair (which was pretty funny, if I do say so myself ) and went back to occasionally launching bursts of energy until he landed as well. I looked at Vigil, and noticed that the mucus was forming around his wings again. “Er… nice wings,” I commented. “Thanks. Made ‘em myself,” He said nonchalantly. I stared at him for a few seconds. He laughed and said, “They’re artificial. When I was younger, I dabbled in genetic engineering. And this is what happened.” He gestured toward his wings as he finished. The three of us looked around and saw that everypony was hiking up to an encampment not too far from where we’d landed. As we followed, I asked Bolt, “Why’d you join in? You were almost finished.” He laughed before replying, “Same reason I enlisted; I wanted something to do.” With that, the three of us headed down to the camp.

When we got there, we were surrounded by wooden cabins and barbed wire that circled the camp. Everypony lined up alongside each other. I noticed that there were a lot more of us than before, and assumed we’d met up with a few other groups. A burly colt paced back and forth in front of us. “Welcome to the Training Grounds, foals,” he yelled confidently, “As some of you may have guessed, this is NOT the Academy. We lied to you. Got you to let your guard down, which you should never let someone do to you. You’ll be spending twelve months here, then you’ll be going back to the Academy, which is really up in Canterlot, where you’ll spend the last twelve months of your training until you are officially members of the Royal Guard. Now for the grand tour…”

So, we followed him around in silence, and he showed us the mess hall, showers, tear gas chamber, obstacle courses, and finally, assigned us our cabins, where we were to sleep every night while we were here. Luckily for me, I got to bunk with Vigil and Bolt. By now, it was time for dinner, and so we were all herded into the mess hall where we ate… something. It was actually quite good. After that, Vigil, Bolt and I headed over to the showers and back to our cabin. In there, we met three other Pegasi, one of them extremely buff, the others…. Moderately buff. The biggest of the three trotted up to me and said, tauntingly, “Well, look what we got here! Fresh meat.” With that, he lurched forward and made to punch me with his front hoof. Without thinking, I created a force-field in front of me. He hit it, and yelled in pain. I then got rid of the shield and the other two Pegasi made to attack me. Bolt sent a burst of magic at one of them, knocking him out. Vigil grabbed the other one other by the foreleg and threw him against the wall, knocking him out. The biggest of the three ran at me, and I grabbed him with – you guessed it – my magic and threw him aside. We then proceeded to pile their unconscious bodies on separate cots. “Assholes,” Vigil muttered as he made for his cot. “Why’d you help me out there?” I asked the two ponies I can honestly say are my friends. “You needed help, so I gave it to you,” Vigil said, “That’s how I treat everypony.” “And you’re pretty cool. I’d say you are one of the greatest colts I’ve ever met,” Bolt added. “No homo,” Vigil stated, blankly, and we all had a good laugh.

Now, both Vigil and Bolt are asleep, and, as I write this, I think of how much has changed in just a day. A few hours ago, I was at home, talking with my sister and Cadence. Now, I’m who-knows-where, about to start training for the freaking military. A few minutes ago, the biggest of the Pegasi woke up and told me I wouldn’t have time to write in this journal, seeing as we’d be training so much. So, I’ve decided not to write in here until I get out of here. See you in a year, I guess.

Comments

[Guardian Jayhawk]

Gotta love the cool guards with dark backstories....
*ahem*