Vicious
Place a centaur in Canterlot, within a world which has learned to fear the male of what they had so hoped would have been the singular example of the species, and you've kicked a boulder into waters which seldom have the chance to become completely still. The idea that her presence was ongoing, with the chance to be permanent... it meant the ripples hadn't stopped. Some of them would join with each other, accumulate force and given enough time, there would be the chance of a tidal wave.
The sisters were watching, trying to anticipate the merger of angry waters before there was any true opportunity for a flood. But they knew how hard it would be spot everything and in any case, there was more than that to look for. The girl had been summoned. The words delivered at the press conference had been chosen to ensure that the only ponies outside of carefully-selected palace staff and Bearers to know that would be the casters. Whoever had pulled Cerea into their world had to know where the centaur was now: given the probable size of the group involved, somepony within it almost had to have read a newspaper, or at least have been within hearing range of frightened gossip. There was an ongoing question as to who those ponies were, and now that they had been given information which could be potentially be acted upon, some sort of action almost had to occur.
But all the palace could do was watch and listen. Their own spies couldn't be truly dispatched without some rough idea of where to go, and any attempted infiltration of what might be a cult always had a chance to backfire. There was always something in a pony which favored the voice of the herd, and when you introduced a new recruit to a group which had been taught to truly think as one...
There were many requirements for being among Equestria's spies, and there had been a few times when not even that steel-strong will and sense of personal identity had been enough.
The palace was waiting for somepony to make a move. The girl herself could be watched, because matters almost had to center on her eventually. But take the focus away from her, even for a second, and they didn't know where to look.
At one point, Luna would irritably declare that it was rather like trying to solve serial murders. (There had been a few of those in the world's history: almost none in Equestria, and even one had been far too many.) That in the absence of clues, you reached the point where the near-best hope was for the killer to be somewhat more clumsy during their next strike -- which essentially meant that in the name of trying to prevent the death count from adding twenty more, some part of the investigator was almost ready to wonder about the benefits to be gained from one. And a volunteer could set up what you saw as an ideal target, create a deliberate decoy to lure the murderer in and hope to stop them before the act could be completed, but...
Would the summoners try to recover the girl? Or would they simply decide that the palace created too much of a shield and bring in something else? Another centaur? Had they even been trying for a centaur in the first place and if not, what had they been after? What was their true goal, and how was summoning supposed to accomplish that at all?
There was an answer. But it would not come quickly, and until the day it arrived from a rather unexpected source, all the palace could do was watch and listen.
And all the while, the ripples would continue to spread.
There were certain problems with being nocturnal, and it took very little time on the Lunar shift before those palace hires began to empathize with their own Princess.
In the case of Nightwatch...
The little mare had her residence within an apartment building (the uppermost floor, with extra-large windows), and there were several reasons for that. Cloud homes were hard to come by in Canterlot: there was always somepony who would complain about a blocked view, and not dealing with endless petty complaints from even pettier nobles could make it easier for those who truly desired vapor to simply commute in from Ponyville. Which seldom happened: the palace encouraged their staffs to live in the city itself, because the capital was its own living entity. One soul manifested from thousands of moving parts, and anypony who was going to work in Canterlot had better learn how that soul breathed. Additionally, homes were just more expensive in the capital, so it was easier to rent and that could still be too high...
Nightwatch was carefully saving to purchase a house, although she had very little idea of when the move might take place. She knew what the fiscal goal was, and faithfully put something aside towards that total every moon. In terms of the total amount necessary -- she could track that, although making adjustments occasionally required somepony to tell her about what had been happening in the real estate market.
The time needed to reach the goal was simple math. But she wasn't going to move until she had somepony to move in with. She wasn't trying to buy her own home: she wanted to own theirs, and -- she hadn't found that very special somepony.
She was single. Very, extremely, sometimes painfully single. And part of that came from being nocturnal.
There just weren't as many ponies working the Lunar shift, leaving a smaller population to work with during her normal off hours. Some capital businesses recognized the need for catering to Lunar social lives: bars could apply for special morning licenses, and most cinemas were open around the clock -- but again, there just weren't as many. (Lunars on their off-days had no trouble sharing 'normal' night hours with partying Solars. It was just that eventually, somepony would notice that you weren't getting tired.) She hadn't found anypony within the palace itself. And when it came to those who lived in Solar hours...
Potions existed to flip the sleep schedule, and Lunars who were about to take their vacations were offered free doses. Nightwatch hated them. She was willing to drench herself with the vials, knew she wouldn't get the full benefit of her time off without them, and still wound up spending a day on each end suffering from something it would take long discussions and the efforts of two worlds to conjoin into the proper term: temporal jet lag. (The hardest part for Cerea would be explaining the jet.) But the potions let her relax under Sun, meet ponies she would never otherwise see, there had been some who'd been interested, she'd felt herself to be on the verge of a relationship and then --
-- she always had to tell them eventually. That she was a Guard, and that could be hard enough. Nightwatch was fully aware that for many ponies, dating a Guard was like dating a police officer, except that diplomatic missions meant you could wind up waiting to see if your loved one came home safely from a hundred gallops away. But also that she was a Lunar, one who was fully committed to the welfare of her Princess, and...
...being with her would mean one of two things: that they would choose to spend the majority of their own lives under Moon, or they would only see her for a little time in each cycle. A romance conducted through brief snuggles and the passing of notes.
Nopony had been willing to follow her. Nopony wanted to wait. And so she understood her Princess that much more, especially on those mornings when the little mare forced herself to slip beneath the cold sheets of an empty bed.
She slept through most of the day, and there were certain tricks for that. Blackout curtains were just about a necessity. Custom-fitted earplugs were often more trouble than they were worth: it took some contorting just to bring them into position, and then there was getting your hooves out of the loops without pulling them loose again. She didn't like earplugs anyway, any more than she liked potions which put you to sleep and, far too often, kept you there. There were ways in which Guards never truly went off-duty, and even sleeping ones needed to be on alert for certain sounds. But the pony outside her apartment door was quiet, and never made the mistake of trying to get in.
The little mare awoke before Sun-lowering, nosed the curtains aside because everypony needed a certain amount of daylight in order to stay healthy: a full three minutes were spent soaking in the light of the orb. Toiletries came next, which included a new kind of mane cream because a mare who spent so much time with part of hers compressed beneath a helmet needed something which would help when it came off and one day, Nightwatch might even find out what it was. Breakfast, a quick cleaning of the kitchen so there would be that much less to do for maintenance during her next night off, and then --
She smelled it before she saw it, the bitterness just barely leaking around the door's frame. And because she was a Guard, she used those pegasus-intended windows for the other approach, leaving her apartment by air, then coming up the ramps from the ground floor to reach her own level, carefully trotting down the hallway until she was looking at --
How many pictures had been taken, during the press conference? The largest group had come when the girl had been taking that strange oath, but they hadn't been the only ones. There had been flashbulbs going off before that: just less of them. Scattered shots had been taken after. And during every one of them, Nightwatch had been at her assigned post: close to the centaur.
Easy enough, for somepony to get a picture of that. And once you had the image, plus a few more from other moments for comparison... after a while, you might start to see something within it. That there was a pegasus who was hovering close to the centaur. And, during those moments when the girl was so horribly stressed (something increasingly visible to Nightwatch, although she wasn't sure who else could reliably pick up on it), hovering a little closer.
The cut-out picture had been attached to the paper, and the paper had been taped to the door. There were a few words written underneath the image: heavy, near-blockish lines which went poorly with the normal curves of the Equestrian alphabet. It was the print of a pony trying to disguise their writing by forcing away anything unique about it, and it had to work around carefully-chosen fragments of pasted newsprint. Something which had been added for emphasis.
She read those words. Then she read them again, because something in her wanted to see if she could do so while forcing her feathers to rest evenly against her sides. After that, she went back into the apartment for a mouth guard, because she knew what the paper had been drenched in and was momentarily grateful to the near-intruder for having used too much of it: smaller amounts were harder to scent, and it was possible that the nausea from removal wouldn't have kicked her until she was halfway to the palace.
She flew towards the towers and without the armor, she was just another Lunar mare on the way in for her shift.
Unless somepony cared to look a little deeper.
Until they checked the Guard roster for her name.
And then they could find out where she lived...
"Now when you're fighting unicorns," the old stallion instructed while Cerea briefly rested beneath the shade of the cottonwood tree, because those moments when her body was allowed temporary respite were still times when her mind was expected to be working, "the usual problem is range. The majority of 'corns with attack spells want to use them at a distance, see? Because backlash comes when somepony hits their horn. Sharp, hard contact with something fairly dense, while it's channeling their magic. Disrupts the spell, sends that power back at them. And that contact is usually made with a hoof."
He paused, looked at her low-resting body while his right forehoof scraped a small trench into the dirt. They'd been over a portion of this on the previous day, and the girl knew when she was about to be tested.
"How do you judge the potential effects?" he asked, and waited.
"The layering of light -- corona -- around the horn," Cerea answered, forcing the words to move around the stitch in her upper right side. "Partial is just... mostly annoying to them, and some of them can work through it. But most of what they could do at that level is just moving small objects."
"And sometimes," the sergeant darkly reminded her, "those small objects are sewing needles moving towards your eyes. Give me the rest."
"Full single layer is the majority of normal spells. Hitting the horn breaks that up, and it'll hurt them physically," she recited. "Not the horn, because that's unbreakable --"
"-- there's exceptions," he instructed. "But you can't do it. You never want to meet something which can."
Cerea nodded, continued. "-- but bruising along their bodies, maybe some minor sprains and bleeding. A double corona would be a heavy attack spell or a lot of power being channeled into something more basic. Disrupt that and it's usually the end of the fight, because the backlash can cause bone fractures or knock them out on the spot. Triple is the biggest castings, or just using everything they have. And if you hit the horn then --"
She'd spent most of her dinner wondering how it happened. What it looked like. And then she'd spent the majority of a night dreaming of the worst.
The girl didn't want to picture it any more, didn't even want to say the words. And for that, the sergeant didn't push her, because somepony else could say them.
"-- they die," he steadily finished. "You'll almost never see anything over a single in daily life, recruit, not unless they know they're safe or they're stupid enough to just show off. A lot of unicorns back up a little before their horn ignites. Clearing some space. A lot of them have that reach reflex, even when they shouldn't. It's a tell, and it gives you a little extra warning."
She let that information join the mass which seemed to be churning within her skull.
"But this is about range." The old stallion snorted, and the far edge of his left upper lip briefly threatened to curl. "There are those who say a unicorn's worst nightmare is an angry earth pony less than a body length away. And there's some truth in there. It's a good comparison for you. A centaur's not like anything else, and that gives you an advantage -- but they need a way to think of you in a fight and when it comes to strength, that's earth pony. You get close, and they get scared. They can't get their corona going without risking a hit, not for more than short bursts, and some just can't cast that fast. The Generals -- they could work with enough speed to fling you away at partial, and there's a few others close to that power level. For the majority, though -- you only see the strongest spells when they think they've got some distance on you. You can watch the corona drop as you move in, assuming you get the chance. And for the typical 'corn..."
He looked her over again: tail to lower sternum, forehooves to head, passing over a lot of sweat along the way.
"The average unicorn can't lift a full-grown pony," he told her. "Or move more than six things at once, and they'd better be the same kind of things: bunch of plates on the way to a table. Grabbing something out of the air, that's moving at high speed towards them -- force can add to effective mass. Something small and dense, going fast -- if the unicorn isn't shield-capable, that can punch through a field. Tell me how this applies to you."
It didn't exactly leave her dealing with one of her favorite subjects, and that topic felt like a partial answer.
"I'm..." I don't want to say it, don't make me say it... But this time, delay would only make him repeat the question. Much more loudly and, if she stalled enough, he would also repeat her answer at a decibel level which would reach the protesters, the capital, and had some chance to send the faintest of lingering echoes towards home.
I want to go home.
"I'm... heavy." It felt as if the words had a mass greater than her own, and also like it was a truly painful comparison.
"You're big," he decided to reinterpret it. "There aren't many who can lift you, or even slow you down. The smartest ones will pull on a single hoof, twist your ears -- but that takes brains. Either way, if you see the field coming, even when you're dealing with somepony way up in the Gifted School ranks, the sword gives you a chance to deflect. That's half of it. What's the rest?"
Think, think... There was an answer: the sergeant never asked the sort of questions which didn't have one. (However, the only reward for getting it right was having to face another question.) Fighting a unicorn, closing in on them because they can't risk as much magic at short range...
...range.
Why did she even have to close in?
Softly, "Distance attacks. From my side."
And he nodded.
"Because a unicorn at close range is usually afraid to cast," Emery Board told her. "But they're still a unicorn. Weakest of the races, physically. There's exceptions: Bulkhead's got some power. But an earth pony with his build, same combat training -- that'll trounce him just about every time. Unless he uses his horn. Not his field. Just the horn. You'll see a lot of different horn types: long, short, stubby, wide. But any 'corn can poke. Some can cut. Unicorn, desperate, at close range -- they'll use their head the hard way. So let's avoid that. Stand up."
She carefully raised her body from the grass, stretched until she was fully upright. (It still left her head well short of the lowest branches: the ponies were small, but the trees were normal.) Waited for him to speak, because Cerea was still learning pony expressions -- but becoming an exchange student meant she had also spent a significant part of the last year in language studies. The momentary contortions of his features suggested someone on an internal quest for vocabulary which had never been meant for frequent use.
"Bow," he eventually recovered. "Can you --"
The blush rose almost instantly, and she told herself that shaking her head so quickly was just a means of trying to redistribute the blood flow. Cerea didn't know how that myth had become associated with centaurs in the first place: her best guess was that it came from the most distant part of the roughly-recorded past, long before the retreat into the gaps. As it was, for the modern age, stallions simply didn't have the discipline to learn archery, or anything which wasn't on the level of drunken bar-brawling: the actual drinking was optional. And with mares... they could take up the study in the earliest part of youth, and there was absolutely no point to doing so. A bowstring was drawn close to the torso, and so puberty brought about a progressive loss of leverage. It was somewhat possible to manage a short-range shot with a more horizontal hold (and she'd done it a few times, possibly by accident), but it was just so undignified.
Guns --
No. She hadn't seen any local firearms, and wasn't even sure how they would work: what Cerea thought of as a standard proportion for a trigger wasn't going to function for a hoof. Besides, when it came to introducing that kind of weapon, she knew the rough ingredients for gunpowder, but not the ratio. Additionally, gunsmithing was an art all its own, and even if she managed to get everything right -- something where she would probably get one attempt before the test firing had the whole thing come apart in and through her hands -- it left her with the same issue as any other projectile.
"Then we'll try a sling," the sergeant decided. "It's easy to rig one in a hurry and the ammunition's everywhere."
Which still left her with the same problem. "Sergeant?" He looked up at her, and somehow managed to do while also looking down. "A horn is a very narrow target. Just hitting it from any kind of distance..."
She was expecting a shout. She got a nod.
"Hitting the horn is a bonus," he told her. "Making them think you could is the real prize. Make them afraid to cast, recruit. Keep the stones coming, and they'll be thinking that any of them could trigger a backlash. If they're afraid..."
Of the sisters, Luna was the more likely to be found with her snout stuck in a book. (There were very few benefits to be found in a thousand years of abeyance, but the younger had darkly observed that if nothing else, she had been offered a wealth of unread tomes. Also that the entire palace was effectively on perpetual Spoiler Alert and telling her about that one supposed event from Book 6 before she reached it would be considered as treason.) With Celestia, you took odds on having the elder trot through the hallways with a field-held newspaper keeping pace in front of her eyes and if the odds-maker was sharing the specific hallway while moving in the opposite direction, you got ready to dodge.
In this case, the white mare's attention had been caught by the picture of a unicorn mare stumbling out of a nearby Town Hall. The photographer had managed to partially capture the little alicorn coming up behind her, if only as a slim outstretched foreleg. This was because most of the focus had been centered on the mare's freshly-torn cape.
The picture was in black and white. This gave Celestia some difficulty in identifying the exact origin of the newest fur stains, but she assured herself that tomatoes were the most traditional source.
There were hoofsteps coming up behind her on the left. The most familiar of hoofsteps, and all the more welcome for the near-eternity in which she had only heard them in the best and worst of dreams.
"And what has your attention at this hour?" Luna inquired as she matched pace, with both of them now heading towards a dining hall: the last meal for the elder, the first for the younger.
The field bubble shifted left. Hues transferred custody, and Luna read.
"Ah," the younger observed. "Much more peacefully than expected."
Celestia nodded. "Pinkie tried to talk them into going with a dunking booth, but they'd already brought the produce to the meeting. I'm just hoping it's mostly out of the town's system now."
"They should still make an effort to keep her from going too far from the tree while alone," Luna observed as they began to pass a series of large art-hosting alcoves. "In case it is not. Shopping should be done in the company of Twilight Sparkle, as it places them both outside. Or perhaps the Lady Rarity now and again, if only to see if there is some chance to have them truly talk --"
One set of hoofsteps stopped.
There was a certain bemusement to the younger's tones and by the time Celestia recognized that, it was too late to do anything about the anticipation. "Sister?"
"What?"
Wryly, with just a hint of snide: "I approve of your redecorating."
The elder made a mistake. She turned, and all it did was leave them looking at the same thing.
"Admittedly, I am somewhat surprised to find it still exists," Luna admitted. "At least in a viewable location. I do recall that part of the treaty was that we had to host it in the palace, and to do so for the remainder of our lives. Of course, their Prince of the time failed to specify a location..."
The elder was silent.
"It is not easy, becoming accustomed to yak art," the younger added. "One generally requires an extended period of inspection to perceive the true intent of a piece. At first, one only sees -- now what was the most typical description? Oh, yes." With entirely too much not-really-repressed-at-all glee, "'The thing.' Or in this case, the stone thing. The two stone things. With the wooden bit in it. Placed at the center."
Completely. Silent.
"I looked for this," Luna casually added. "During the second moon of my Return. After finding that it was not anywhere in sight, and knowing that you would still be abiding by the treaty. Where was it?"
White teeth briefly ground against each other.
"I think," a tight voice barely said, "the last place I had it was the barracks."
"Ah," Luna decided. "And Cerea, in cleaning the area, moved this out to that hallway. Where somepony saw it, perhaps did some rather quick and comprehensive research, then carefully returned it to its proper location. In the name of the treaty."
The pastel mane was no longer flowing.
"The Prince was rather taken with you," Luna smirked.
"Yes," Celestia forced out. "I remember every whisper of his own retinue discussing the perversion that required."
"And so he had art commissioned as a gift to you," the younger mercilessly added. "For the treaty."
The nod suggested several tendons had just snapped.
"Сюжет принцеси," Luna expertly pronounced.
Silence.
"Or, in Equestrian... The Plot Of The Princess."
They both looked at the pair of carefully shaped, rounded boulders, each of which was two full body lengths across. And the wooden bit. Once you recognized what it truly was, you never really stopped seeing the wooden bit.
Luna took a deep breath. Assessed exactly how far away her sibling was, along with the exact amount of near-fire radiating from the white fur. And then, because there were things which a younger sister had to do, said it anyway.
"Rendered in the actual proportions."
And then there was only the chase.
He had deigned to eat lunch with her in the center of the track's oval, or rather, to stand about five meters in front of her while she ate. She had yet to catch him indulging in something so natural as food, and was starting to wonder if earth ponies had the magical option to absorb nutrients directly from the soil.
The sergeant understood that she had to stop and eat, and none of his shouts had been about the sheer quantity consumed. His only words regarding her size were about how it could be used in combat, both against Cerea and to her benefit. She could eat when she needed to, because a brain deprived of calories was also a mind which was going to be short on reason. But he refused to let any moment go to waste, not when there was a recruiting class of but one and none to speak with during what would have otherwise been a break.
Training sessions were for combat. Meals brought different lessons.
"You've seen Guards," the old stallion told her. "You saw police, on that first night in Palimyno. Guessing nopony's told you the difference yet. And that Nightwatch hasn't read that far in the book for you."
"No, sergeant." Fur vibrated at the tips of her ears.
He took a slow breath.
"She'll give you the small print," he said. "But there's something I want you to think about, before she gets to it. A few recruits know it going in, and others had to learn the hard way. What Guards are, and what we aren't."
Her ears were trying to strain forward now, and they really hadn't been made for that. She didn't know what the creator of centaur ears had been thinking: she only suspected it had been thought of towards the absolute end of the shift.
"We're not cops," the sergeant stated. "There's a little overlap, here and there. We can usually detain somepony, and there's a few circumstances where we can arrest. That's mostly on palace grounds. But we don't investigate crimes. If something happens in the palace itself -- and there's been a few of those over the years -- the police take the lead in figuring everything out. You can get some jurisdictional friction there, but it's primarily their job to sort and solve." He softly snorted. "There's a few of mine who still can't remember that when they need to."
Cerea nodded. Listened.
"If you see a crime in town," he went on, with hat and tail as still as something resting upon a statue, "you can try to do something about it. Have to be careful about what is a crime, especially in the little neighborhoods. Zebras have shoplifters, but they also have food baskets out for anyone who drops by. But you'll get the basics there. If you're sure that you need to move in, you can."
Zebras... How many animals from her world had equivalents here, and how many of those were sapient? (There had been mentions of bipeds, but she suspected they were a very small minority.) What was the full population like? Did each major species hold a nation?
But that wasn't the current lesson.
"It's just not a Guard's real job," the sergeant told her. "The first duty -- the real duty -- is to your Princess."
She nodded again. It would take a long time before she truly recognized what his choice of pronoun might have meant.
Groupe de sécurité de la présidence de la République. (No part of her acknowledged that in just about any other language, the term would have been considerably shorter.)
The next words, for a stallion who mostly communicated in shouts, felt oddly soft. But they were also harsh. They grated against the mind, rasped through layers of meaning until their core was carved into the inner surface of the skull.
"We protect," the sergeant recited. "We protect her. If it's protection, any time you have to make a choice, she wins. Save one other pony or save the Princess, you save the Princess." With steadily, strangely decreasing volume, "Four foals die if you move left, but the Princess lives: you move left."
Four foals...
She could picture it. She couldn't stop.
And then he made it worse.
"A collapsing building and she can't fly or teleport, you get her out." And before the crashes could stop sounding within her mind, "If the entire city is going to die screaming and there's a single chance to get her to safety... she's the only choice, recruit. Every time. You save the Princess, you save the nation. You might even wind up saving the world."
Her body rested low in the grass of the oval and in her mind, a city burned.
"There is no number," Emery Board simply stated, "which is not outweighed by one. She's it. Every time."
It was becoming impossible to meet his eyes, staring through phantom smoke and false screams.
"That's what really happened with Blitzschritt, at the end," the sergeant told the girl. "Why the ibex left. I saw them, when I was traveling. Not many ponies do. They remember. Still. Always. Because for an ibex, the first duty is supposed to be the mountains. Nothing's as important. There was one moment when Blitzschritt had a choice. She chose to be a Guard."
His eyes closed, opened again. It was all he would allow himself, outside the realm of scent.
"She died for that choice," the old stallion said, and it was the only moment when he was truly old, when she scented the number of dead he carried with him. "But the Princess lived. And the ibex, they understood what the Princess living meant for everyone. They just thought it was a pony choice. To have an ibex making it -- that meant there was something in Blitzschritt which had been changed. Too much change: that was what they didn't understand. So they left. That way, it wouldn't happen to any more of them. We can go through their mountains, because we honored her. But they don't come down any more, not for long. They think it'll mean losing who they are."
Her head bowed.
"Look up."
It was an order. She did.
"You weren't there," he said. "Neither was I. Before my time. Nothing either of us could have done. But you'll meet her. You're going into the gardens tomorrow morning, and you'll see her statue. I want you to learn about her. Because in the end, she could be an ibex, or she could be a Guard. She made her choice. And now she's a statue -- but she's also a corpse. Dead decades before she should have died, recruit. Just like so many others, since the Guard began. You have to live for your Princess. You have to fight for her. You have to be the one who tells her when she's wrong. But you also have to be ready, at any moment, to die for her. And if you can't make that choice -- that if it's any other number or her, that if it's you or her, that it always has to be her --"
He took one step forward, and the tail finally lashed.
"-- then get up. Don't say a word. Get up, go to the edge of the shield. Wait for somepony to take you back. And you'll never set a hoof onto this ground again."
A knight fights for their liege.
A knight fights for their kingdom.
There can be other lieges. There's two of them to start with.
If the kingdom falls...
"Are there any --"
Two more hoofsteps, taken so quickly that she needed a moment to realize there had been a physical crossing of that space. "-- heirs, was that your next word? No, and the only reason you get away with that once is because you don't know any better. No heirs, recruit. And it wouldn't matter. It's her. That's the only choice. ARE YOU LEAVING?"
Her tail trembled, and the warmth of the sun seemed to lose something as the rays came through the shield. Her hind hooves twitched. But she stayed where she was.
He watched her for a moment, coming no closer. Simply watching, in the moment when the lone fear was her own. The eternal fear of failure.
"That's the only answer," he said. "You took a vow, and you just might take another. Don't forget them. It's her. It's always her. It has to be. Finish your lunch and we'll get back to it."
The stallion turned away, began to walk towards the track. But he said one more thing before he reached it, and she knew the words had been meant for her to hear.
"You can be a centaur," he told the world, "or you can be a Guard."
The Tattler went through a lot of interns.
There was usually an ad somewhere in the classified section, actively seeking new applicants and in part, this was because the publication viewed the majority of interns as single-use. They required a fair amount of training before you could put them to work and if you were lucky, you would get one decent charge out of them. The best were occasionally promoted to the central staff (and Wordia herself had started that way), but the rest were released into the world to make their own way.
They were typically viewed as being single-use, and so that was exactly how they got treated. They were used, and the ones who realized that tended to drop off the subscription list.
What were the requirements for a Tattler intern? It helped to have some interest in journalism, if only so they would know what not to do. But it was much more important for an intern to be attractive. Memorization skills were required, because an intern was going to be shown pictures of the most recent palace hires and therefore they had better be capable of remembering what those ponies looked like, along with where they liked to drink. A smile helped -- Wordia had nearly failed there -- especially if it was the kind of smile which told a pony that the intern was paying attention to them alone. Those who were truly gifted might be issued an expense account, which was good for exactly one admission fee for the club of their target's choice. The ones whom management expected to let go afterwards paid their own way and worked out the lie about being reimbursed later at the same moment their hooves hit the street outside the newspaper's offices for the last time.
This intern was young, was skilled at faking charm, and had successfully used her field to swap one set of drinks. It helped to have the target be consuming for two.
"I know, right!" she falsely laughed, pitching her volume to get over the stomping which echoed from the dance floor. "Just to work for them... I bet those first few moons in the palace feel like nothing else in the world. And of course, you get all the best gossip!"
"...there's..." The target, young, of middling appearance, and who'd skipped past the suddenly-relevant portion of the New Hires briefing book, hiccuped. He wasn't used to having a mare being this interested in him, and the combinations of Dream and Alcohol had moved most of scant surviving Thought to somewhere near his poorly-groomed tail. "...there's a rule about... talking... about what we see them do..."
Her smile became that much wider.
"I don't want you to break any rules!" the intern declared. (Not that she'd told him she was an intern, or anything else which was real. He didn't even have her name, and he wouldn't get all that far into the post-encounter palace questioning before desperately wishing he could forget her face.) "It's just that -- you work for them. With everything that's going on right now. With everything that's living there..."
She leaned forward slightly, as if she was moving into position for a nuzzle. Her tongue briefly caressed her lips (and would never come close to his).
His brain stopped working, and the part which took over wasn't really meant for thinking.
"I was just wondering," she prettily smiled. "Speaking as somepony who gets to work in the palace... what's your honest opinion about the centaur?"
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Oh! Look! We get to see how the mysterious Equestrian Scum Sucker also known as a Tattler intern feeds! Nature is so fascinating!
I like Emery much more this chapter, and every time we see Princess Celestia relatively happy is a win from me. They blew Trixie off a little lightly, but I guess it was mostly her own fault.
Royal Guard Math 1 > anything. Well, 2 > anything now, but that's New Math.
10202485
So long as Fluttershy is not watching, we can discreetly kill it with fire.
i spy with my little eye a continuity error here: cerea being summoned was probably after the marathon dates...... and cerea had a bow.... and arrows, in addition to the sword.... and wanted to be in full plate during her date. at least, she was depicted with a bow and arrows during that scene in some form, but here she hasn't used one, ever?
10202541
She can try (and it's slightly less embarrassing in armor, plus appearing to be bristling with weapons during that date didn't hurt -- remember, D was still on the loose), but it's not very feasible unless she's using the strictly-cinematic horizontal hold-and-shoot. I overrode the original author on this one for a single reason: there are very real leverage issues involved. As Cerea observes, there are certain arm positions involved in a classic pull, especially for a composite bow. There are also biological obstacles.
A crossbow could be used normally and it's not out of the technology question to rig up a multi-quarrel case for one, but both Emery and Cerea are thinking of drawstring models.
ETA: Come to think of it, given the law, those would have been foamhead arrows. "I Nerf at thee!"
10202508
"Hooray for New Math!"
Crossbow could do it, if she's got the upper body strength a stirrup crossbow could serve her quite well. Or perhaps some javelins, verra useful thing, a good javelin.
10202551
well, crossbows would probably be the better choice of training, actually, now that i think about it: crossbows need less training so you can field more men, and quarrels are better armor punchers than arrows are (shot is even better, but that's why we don't use metal armor anymore. you need too much armor to protect the soldier. he can't really move, if at all, and he's slow). hell, that's why swords really stopped being a thing later in battles, cause armor could take a swordthrust, but CAN'T take a maulstrike. stick that on a two handed handle, get a good swing, and say bye bye to your opponents chestplate..... and part of his chest.
the maul, not just for wood and the edf anymore
10202586
That's a common misconception caused by notoriously poor Victorian historical scholarship. There are many types of crossbow the "easy to use," kind are light crossbows used almost exclusively for hunting and are nigh useless against armor. Proper war crossbows have pulls of many hundreds of pounds and if mishandled can maim or kill the user. Modern historians have studied highly credible accounts that suggest becoming skilled enough to use one in battle was five years of training minimum.
So now all the yaks have bad Russian accents. Because it's funnier that way.
Lightning Step.
Emery Board has met ibexes. So has Granny Smith. Wonder if they have any mutual acquaintances.
10202508
And that's why Equestria needs a professional army, dedicated to protect its citizens. Because at the end of the day the Royal Guard is meant only for the Princesses' benefit.
10202541
Let me put it this way, there was a reason that mythology holds that Scythian warrior women would remove their right breast. Supposedly they couldn’t get a full draw with a bow otherwise. They almost certainly didn’t exist, but the problem is a real one (with the more classical sort of bow anyway). Now imagine that problem applied to Cerea.
10202567
I second javelins.
10202627
Is that true of volley fire as well, or did they not use crossbows for volley fire?
Certainly makes that anti-herd instinct spell seem all the more crucial, horrific though it may be to the equine psyche.
I do love these little teases. You write excellent prophecies, Estee, at least in the maddeningly vague department.
Oh goodness. Between the shape of the ear and the shape of the limb... Yeah, not fun.
And now I'm thinking about firearms in this world. (Obviously not mouth-operated ones. Whatever biological miracles go into pony jaws in that Equestria don't apply here.)
Oh! And apparently so did Cerea. And again, Little Macintosh would not work well here.
Knowing Equestrian fiction, the books in question are probably autobiographical.
Nice glimpse at Trixie's ongoing saga, to say nothing of the nature of yak art.
Another interesting glimpse at ibex culture, and how they feared its loss.
It didn't matter what they were made of before. Vimes made them copper through and through.
Okay, Sgt. Board was very clear on how Equestrian Guards aren't cops, but it still felt appropriate.
As for the Tattler intern, I suppose the main thing keeping the disposed ones from going to other papers to tell all is how they'd incriminate themselves. Still, over the years, I imagine somepony's going to be spiteful enough to be willing to take the paper down with them... though that kind of attitude may mean they'd get to stay on.
In any case, the pond's a-churning. The question is what will slosh out next, and whether "slosh" means "tsunami."
It's possible that, having been in Japan, Cerea may have been exposed to the Japanese Yumi bow, which features an assymetric short-and-long half that makes it ideal for cavalry (specifically, it allows the horseback rider to switch sides quickly without smacking the horse in the back of the head). Horseback archery is one of the three main skills a samurai was supposed to learn. More interestingly for this context, though, is how it's used when the archer is on foot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th8VTAgFxr4
Shown here is a female practicing Kyudo; note the side-on stance and the plate (called a muneate) on her chest intended to help keep the, uh, parts out of the way. Also note the left wrist rotates as the shot fires, so the recoiling string is pulled away from the body, and doesn't come back to slap the chest area. It's not perfect - it's possible that Cerea is just so endowed no amount of psuedo-sports-bra is gonna make a difference, but if you in future wanted to go the archery route, this is what I'd recommend trying first. As an upside, since it's naturally fired sideways, it would make Cerea a lethal combatant since she can essentially circle-strafe, something modern PC gamers are used to doing, but actual humans can't. It's just possible that female minotaurs in this story might have developed this technology. Emery might consider minotaur weaponry in the future.
Since Cerea is a lot bigger and stronger though, she'd probably use an O-yumi, a fuedal Japanese ballista, instead. There's no real information about these - they ceased being used during the 11th Century (before gunpowder weapons were introduced) and there are no relics or engravings of the time to show us what they were supposed to look like, or their supposed ranges. I imagine it would be in the vicinity of any European fuedal ballista (400-500 yards). As for ammunition, think of guardsman spears. If accuracy doesn't matter, she can probably load up a dozen and fire off a terrifyingly effective fuedal shotgun. Anything at range would need modified spears with fletching to help keep them stable in flight.
Other options for ranged attacks:
Kusarigama (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kusarigama): A chain or rope with a small sickle on one end, and a weight on the other. This video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VweLV6lW8I) shows some demonstrations of how it is used; note it can be swung around either overhead or to the bearer's side. It doubles as a ranged weapon that can also be used in melee.
Bolas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolas)
A bunch of weights connected with rope, and spun about overhead and then launched at the target. Often comparable with a weighted net. Since Cerea appears opposed to straight up killing things, a bolas or weighted net might be the way to go. A weighted net can also have small hooks added to it that catch to other parts of the net (or the victim), making trivial removal impossible.
Crossbow (or any fixed-torsion-arm-later type armament)
Crossbows were popular because they could be used with little skill or training, although they did require machining small mechanical parts that may not be possible in Equestria. It's likely that Cerea has the raw strength required to simply draw and set a bow as shown in Hero (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5S2cc8ZNTo cut to 0:50) by using her feet, locking the bow in position, loading a bolt, and then she is free to use the weapon one handed (or more likely, one in each hand).
Paperclip handgun
Essentially a rubber band or slingshot. Probably literally what you are referring to in the story as a sling, unless it's actually a sling (a strip of leather whirled about, used to launch stones, made famous by David in David V Goliath, or Ayla from Jean M Auel's Earth's Children saga).
Darts
See 'Equestrian Guard Spears = Arrows for Cerea'. If you've ever tried to throw an arrow, you've probably found it's not effective because the mass-to-size ratio doesn't work for wrist propulsion (arrows punch, a human throw is more of a push). Darts are easier to throw accurately and can be scaled up as large as you need. Also consider a javelin (essentially a dart with feathers) which will give you better range.
A spear-sized dart is more commonly known as a throwing spear. If you really want range, then you can put your throwing spear in a spear thrower (primitive humans really were good at naming things) to throw the spear further.
Noting that Emery has likely already found the perfect answer, I accept these comments are of no real value. I hope this diversion provided entertainment. Carry on~
What is the wood in the status I don’t understand and why does Emery only say her. There two princesses.
I wonder what the compund was on that poster, and if Night took it in for Castle Security to work over, or at least mark up in the books as an attack vector?
Slings are nasty, theres Roman armor with holes in from sling bullets.
I wonder if Cerea can handle Heavy Staff? Reach, Bludgeoning, Tripping, Point End, and is there an African Tribe that uses a slingshot on the end, making the thrower effectively a Trebuchet varient?
Or Javelin, but with Atlatl? Most unicorns wouldnt even be able to see that coming? Or many Pegasi?
10202669
Emery's stuck in his ways. He's been giving this speech for decades now and he's not properly caught up with the times.
10202627
Oh yes, a heavy arbalest is a great way to throw out your back if you're not careful. Using a crossbow like that takes some serious strength training if you want to achieve anything resembling constant regular fire.
He told the world! Ooh!
...
Hmm... The Palace is aware of the Tattler... Do they have counter measures beyond the manual? Similar watchers, etc?
...
Nightwatch appears, but hasn't met anyone else in this chapter, just musing on how her life will change...
...
Main focus is Emery and Cerea! It's nice! And he really knows what stories to tell and what to say, etc!
10202669
10202689
There’s two Princesses, but there’s also two staffs. Solars look out for Celestia, and Lunars watch Luna’s welfare. You’ll see a few Guards of the “wrong” shift during opposing hours, usually near the bedroom.
Yes, chest department can be a problem but not necessary
Take a Mongolian composite for example and contrary to somewhat spread opinion there is not set technique for any traditional bow just a bot more optimal
lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/Oh_ghg7Aj_5lwrKdOJUC0pA-3CjaDu3JL3tQmOZbI-aq8cpEQJVJy_M9262Yhxjwpv3RuVKazdAdO2aIUlicHLDlqlgzrkSb_4cjkslKUEnN3mlkVtE7q2f-ew1jndL2NN9lI7AxToo
Sling in this case is very dependent on teacher's talent, student's talent, student's dedication
Btw Luna's Yakistanish is horrendous)
I can offer my assistance in that regard
10202551
It feels like the role of the Guards is somewhat restricted. That such a trained force is underused. They almost never seems to be sent on any kind of mission, so the chance we will be seeing Cerea going on a quest in the country side or go slaying some Chaos born Monsters are really low. Bummer.
Like Cerea said, if you look at the proportion, the myth of the archer centaur, it was probably the males or the Light Centaur that were archers. In the later case, hit and run tactics with short bows was probably the way they used it. Maybe a short bow is still usable for Cerea.
Really, there are some options for Cerea to gain some range attacks. Many already mentioned some of them in the comments (crossbow, javelins, slings, darts, bollas) but there are a few more.
- Throwing knives.
- Throwing axes.
- Slingshots (different than a sling)
- Chakrams.
- boomerang.
- cavalry crossbow.
- grenades.
Really, good saddle bags, a few pouches or a good harness and she can carry multiple options to get some range. Heck, with her strength and size, most pony small furnitures become plausible ammo.
Edit: I almost forgot. I hope Nightwatch will report the slanderous paper stuck to her door. So they can try to catch who is threatening a Guard.
https://www.fimfiction.net/group/214857/triptych-continuum-rebooted
This story is in the AU folder
10202660
Volley can mean 2 or 3 different things depending on the context. If you mean massed fire in an indirect arc sometimes known as clout shooting that's just as hard or even harder than direct fire in some ways and takes just as much skill.
10202823
Huh. That was what I meant, thank you.
Slings are very effective and practical to carry, but it takes years to become skilled enough to reliably hit a target at range. Not normally an issue as the herdsmen that used slings would have been practicing with them since childhood.
Consider that since Cerea can safely handle raw platinum, adding a speck of it to arrows fired from a short bow gives her what is effectively a grenade launcher.
reminds me of a fantasy novel, where Amazons would actually remove one breast so they could use a bow more effectively...
i think that was "firebrand" by Marion Zimmer Bradley, which is based on the Trojan War legend.
Projectile weapons should be mostly unknown to ponies. I'm kind of surprised they knew was a sling was. No non-unicorn can use one since Estee's ponies don't have the magic hoof grip, and I'm not sure who could outside of a minotaur. And I'm not sure they have the articulation to use one. Combat trained unicorns are probably going to be using spells, not javelins, throwing axes, or blades.
A small enough bow for her to use with her breasts (in such a posture as 10202755 suggested), with heavy enough draw to use her strength, with a platinum sliver as 10202846 suggested? That's practically a Bolter. Better not include the sliver, that'd be a straight inequine weapon. To kill by depriving one of their magic, then having it blow up inside them, horrendously nasty.
Poor Nightwatch, girl deserves a pair. Wonder if she'll draw Cerea out of her shell and into her burgeoning sexuality before she goes back home...
Still ship LunRea though
Cerea will, sooner or later, comment about Nerf Guns with Twiggles in range. Said alicorn shall proceed to create those same toys. Luna will love them, to the chagrin of her sister. And castle folk.
I think we know how the second (or third!) story in this AU will be called now
So several people beat me to the punch regarding ranged weaponry (although I will ask how exactly we expect her to draw a heavy crossbow with several hundred pound draw weight. Seriously full grown men had to use pullies.), so instead: who's the army? I got the impression that The Guard are like the Secret Service, which is very different than the military.
I think Emerys explanation of the guards role is extremely on point. Given that there might be no other who are able to or even know how to take the celestial burden, if the guard would fail and the princess fall, there is a large risk that their literal world would end (thankfully less of a risk with the second sister now (if one disregard any potential incapacitating grief)).
That makes Emerys speech understandable. Because it isn't one ruler vs many a guard have to make decision on, it is one world vs many.
10202846
A Sling with Lead Bullets will travel farther and hit harder than an Arrow, while also being less affected by the wind.
Where the Bow truly shines is in Accuracy. Sling's great for a volley, and decent while hunting (Turns out the "King David" shot is lousy at everything but distance, so while hunting you go for a more Trebuchet-like strike), but if you want to send something downrange and be sure you're going to hit what you're looking at, you go for the warbow.
Ah since she was taken into Luna's service then its sticking to to Celestia.
Confusing to say her when its a diarchy.
10203055
There are enough reasons why bows almost completely replaced slings in 300-400 AD
10203118
Turns out Accuracy is really feathering important
For Equestria, any military tech higher than the Earth equivalent of Roman times is a no go because of how violent they are. Fallout Equestria doesn’t count because it’s an AU.
10203024
If there is some enemy or danger which can harm or incapacite the Princesses, chances the Guard isn't gonna make much of a difference anyway.
Following the sergeant's analogy, the entire Royal Guard would abandon entirely the population in order to rescue Celestia from a burning building which she would likely survive or escape on her own.
That's why I was talking about the need of an actual army.
It's good to see Celestia and Luna at play
10202967 Luna dual-wielding nerf guns ... such a wonderful image
10203024 But what do the Sister actually do that is so irreplaceable? Unless the knowledge was "mysteriously lost" the unicorns can control Sun and Moon just fine, and neither Celestia nor Luna does anything else that the rest of the world would actually give two farts about.
And considering anything that could threaten one of the Sisters directly (an elder dragon, Discord, etc.) would only consider the Guard to be a speed-bump, what practical purpose do they even serve? Even back with the mind-monster (I forget its actual name), the Guards would have been just corpses waiting to happen if not for Cera and her anti-magic sword.
10202973
She can use her hooves-and-lift to draw a set-and-release type crossbow, an example of which is used in Hero
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5S2cc8ZNTo cut to 0:50)
Note Cerea is crazy strong compared to humans. The physical strength requirement is a non-issue, the problem is 'do bits get in the way?'
10203189
Yeah, when it comes to raw force of might, the guard is probably not gonna make much a difference. But that small difference might be what was needed. The biggest problem for a guard then is to know when the act of sacrificing everything else is needed and when that kind of thing is just plain stupid.
There are of course other ways to harm the diarchy (e.g. poison) or to generally irritate them (e.g. the paparazzi). Guarding against those kinds of things are probably more align with what they actually do.
But, yes. Some group that has "defend the population" as it priority and can defend against the monster of the week (besides the elements) is an good idea.
10203195
Just to make something clear, we are discussing Estees canon. In show canon they are replaceable. But here, we got to go back to something we learned in an previous story of Estees in the same canon: "A Mark Of Appeal." In chapter 12 "Voyeurism," we learn that Celestia and Luna became less the stewards of the Sun and Moon when they received their Cutie Marks and more the literal embodiment of the celestial bodies, with Celestia/Sun and Luna/Moon being separate parts of two wholes. Who knows what consequences their deaths might now cause to Sun and Moon. Especially considering that Sun is already damaged.
We also know that in Estees canon, the Sisters got their Cutie Marks during Discords reign. That means that the knowledge of how the unicorns moved the Sun and Moon might very well actually be lost, since records and knowledge from the time before Discord rarely survived past him. Which means that the odds that the death of Sisters doesn't cause the end of the world isn't something anyone wants to bet on.
As for the practical purpose of the guard, as I wrote above here, there are more ways to harm someone then through raw might.
10203195
While would Luna stop at merely dual wielding...
10202551
Foam darts have plastic in them; a Nerf gun would be a legitimate weapon. It might a better one, because that sword will break at some point and there's no way to fix it when it does.
10202551
As much as I hate to contradict, but Cerea was shown to be quite proficient with a bow. She fired over 4 arrows in a split second and effectively and accurately pinned Papi to a tiled wall, showing that there was no lack of power in her shot.
The horizontal or sideways grip she was shown to be using eliminates the obstruction problem. While a horizontal grip does tend to be weaker, that can be alleviated by a heavier draw, and as seen in the date episode, Cerea does not lack arm strength.
Just my two cents based on what was shown in the anime and manga.
I think I'd be much more impressed by Emery's speech if Cerea had made her choice not under duress. It's just kinda tragic as it stands. And I get that her lack of agency doesn't make what Emery said wrong, it's just sad.
10203394
There are times when I genuinely don't know whether to add one sentence or just cancel the story.
Fortunately, I own a two-tailed coin for just such an occasion.
that's generally not the way it works between the guards and the princesses in a lot on continuity
10202627
Yeah. The key word is, in relation to bows, is "easIER," not "easy." In that is takes less years to become good at it. That was, ultimately, why guns replaced crossbows and bows (you could theorhetically train any idiot to use a firearm with the threat of a good beating quite quickly) as they had supplanted slings (which contrary to what D&D would tell you, are the exact opposite of a "simple" weapon to learn to use and also, unlike D&D would have you believe were likely not really a "D4" type of weapon, either and had a longer range than you might suppose. That of course, being largely commensurate with the amount of training and building yourself up.)
10203453
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