The Raiding Party On Route Trottish
Giles' lance sat on the various padded chairs and assorted couches of the ready room down the hall from the squadron head office. He supposed in some distant past the room had been some rich lady's tea room, or audience chamber, or suchlike. The furniture's solidity and quality testified to its once-excellence of construction, and its significant wear and decrepitude to its age. Each of the lances in the squadron were, in theory, expected to spend a shift during the daylight hours here, awaiting the pleasure of the officers or, more likely, the sergeants.
Giles's lance was down two griffons after the previous day's training. That maniac blue-gray mare and her screeching, plus the sound of those hellish pony guns thumping away underwing… Giles had barely maintained his coolness and calm in the face of both stressors.
Two of his birds hadn't: one had an overextended wing, and the other a concussion. The roc's handler had apologized, but that didn't repair a head injury overnight.
Four of Giles' intact troopers had found some tarot deck in a drawer somewhere, some lady's fancy set of cards. They had pulled a group of overstuffed fancy hoofstools and lounge chairs around a side-table, and were trying to play poker. The occasional curses rose up from the players as they kept discarding major arcana that'd found their way into the deal.
And so it was, facing away from the ready-room door, that Giles was mildly diverted and not thinking about much at all, when he suddenly found himself unexpectedly facing the squadron's most senior non-commissioned officer before he even knew there was trouble on the wing.
That would teach him to not sit with his back to the door. He could feel the troopers sniggering up the sleeves of their gambesons around him as he found himself springing to his paws and spinning in place.
The master sergeant's voice was certainly penetrating.
"That's better, lance corporal. Whose bird are you, again? I don't recognize your beak." Her intense, large eyes scanned over Giles' gear looking for signs of 'moral laxity' or worse, 'slovenly deportment'.
"Gwaine, marm."
"Right, a new bird. Anyways, listen up…"
Giles tuned out his superior's orders with a slight glassiness, distracted in his head by musing on the subject of obscure instructions and standing orders. His world over the last week or so had been a constant sway between obeying the orders of the actual officers and senior non-coms, and paying heed to his immediate superior. Sometimes Corporal Gwaine sounded like he'd swallowed a thesaurus or an encyclopedia. One of those fancier books that taught high-toned birds to sound haughty. It was at times like that, that Giles had had to figure out what the corporal had been on about from context and clues and so on. Luckily, Gwaine did go on.
"Do you understand me, lance corporal?"
"Yes, marm! Collect a cart, and proceed with your- my toms to the warehouse on Ninepenny and Prybar, to collect a Captain Eye. Escort her to, to-"
"Bridlederry, lance corporal. Collect her things. Keep a close eye on her. Make sure she doesn't scarper."
"Scarper, marm?"
"Abscond. Disappear. Take Prench leave. Hie off for the high heather."
"Is… an Equestrian captain likely to desert, marm? In the middle of clanhold country?"
"Technically - technically! The road to Bridlederry is perfectly pacified."
"Weren't there a full fledged battle out that way last January?"
"Yes. Yes there was. Which is why you are escorting Captain Eye under arms. As a protective guard. Among other things."
"I… see, marm. So, full armor?"
The master sergeant looked him over, scowling.
"No, I think duty armor should suffice. If you encounter anything that shoots back, turn about and run like Boreas is on your tail and you just stole from the winds. Don't get captured. Don't let any of your toms or hens get hurt, or it's your neck."
"Yes, marm."
"Look, she'll want to bring back her still. Let her. It'll take up the most of your cart. I don't care. We could use the 93/1st's still, if they're fool enough to let us steal it. I'm pretty sure Eye's possessive of the damn thing."
"The… still. Like a whisky still?"
"Exactly. Except she specializes in gin. Reminds me, if you get a chance, see if the juniper groves south of town are berrying. We can always send a troop out to requisition a harvest before we go."
"The lieutenants had us practicing out by the groves yesterday, marm. The groves have got another week or so before they're ripe, I think?" Giles knew that smell. There had been a wild grove a quarter mile down the loch from Aerie Tarvie.
"Right. Let's see, under arms, cart out of the depot, Ninepenny and Prybar, Captain Eye, Bridlederry, don't let her desert, still. Have I forgotten anything?"
"Here into town, and then out to Bridlederry and back is a three day trip, marm."
"Blast, you're right. Wait right there." The big brown and grey hen disappeared back up the hall, leaving Giles to look around at the round-eyed staring members of his lance.
"Don't all stand there like blinkin' pillocks! Get down to th' barracks and get your day armor and yer ruddy ready packs! The bird 'oo don't have their bluddy rations in ten minutes when I get down there, goes 'ungry in a day an' a 'alf when we're 'alf a mile away from anyfing and eyein' each other's briskets with bleedin' surmise! Step to, toms and hens, step to!"
The ready lance scrambled for the door, rushing to get their gear in order.
"Don't forget your best spears, ladies! We want to march pretty for any lasses or laddies likely to be admirin' our featherin' forms!"
The master sergeant waited for the last griffon scrambling on the heels of said trooper's faster fellows, and then breezed back into the now-empty ready room.
"Here, signed orders, with a requisition for night barracks-space in Fort Guillaume. And you better not take three days for a two-day errand. Get your lazy crab-backs airborne, Lance Corporal G- what is your blasted name, again?"
"Giles, marm."
"Giles! I got enough of an earful from Martin- Lieutenant Martin Gale about lazy Trottish griffons who can't be bothered to exercise their weak and feeble feathers. Move fast, damn your beak!"
"Marm! Yes, marm!"
"Well, go on then, get going! Eye is probably still fussing over the supplies from the Daddy Longleg's old sickbay."
"Er, sickbay, marm?"
"What, didn't I say? You're escorting our new surgeon. See if you can't encourage her to 'borrow' as many medical necessities from her old outfit as you can get without getting arrested."
"Marm?"
The big griffon eyed Giles, and took pity on him.
"Oh, fine, we probably need Ping to go out there and straighten out the transfer orders personally, anyways. He usually seems to do it without anygriff noticing he was there or missing here, but it's probably for the best if he meets you out at the Bridlederry Gate. Safety in numbers and all that."
"Thank you, marm."
"Go on, get!"
Giles got.
Ping sat patiently by the Bridlederry Gate, waiting for his charges. He had a million things to do, and to get organized, but the master sergeant had said his hoof was needed in this, and nopony else's. And so Ping's valuable time had been debited to this single account, two whole days worth.
Less if they could get this goat rope in the air and outbound in the next ten minutes or so.
The short lance finally appeared overhead, gliding relatively quickly down out of the short hop they'd made over from Strings' den of iniquity over in the Pennies. A set of towngriffons fresh out of the stews, for some nightforsaken reason Master Sergeant Gilda had chosen these raw recruits to escort Ping and his charge out to their old squadron to extract Hawk Eye's possessions.
And that damn still. Ping wasn't sure why Gilda wanted it - she didn't drink, and darkness knew Ping didn't, either. And the juice of that hadesbound press had made Ping's life hades-like on far too many occasions for him to love, like, or even really tolerate it.
Lieutenant Colonel Pole had been far too fond of Hawk Eye's bootleg gin.
And there was the villain herself. Ping was pretty sure that Hawk Eye thought of him as a friend. Ping knew how to deal with that particular delusion, and had always been perfectly civil, even friend-like to the overtall blue-green-maned sort-of-mare.
"Ping! You little traitor! Where were you hiding earlier?"
Or maybe not.
"Aw, Hawk Eye, you know how it is. Spinning up a new squadron's a never-ending task."
"Why for the love of little blue fishes would I know that?"
"Oh, right, you were the last pony recruited into the old outfit, right after Rose Hips."
"More importantly, what makes you think you'll get in and out of the old 93/1st with your hide intact? You broke Pole's heart! He's going to be inconsolate."
Ping was pretty sure that was the master sergeant's game. He was to be the distraction as the griffon troopers got Hawk Eye in and out of the hospital before anypony could think to lay hooves on the doctor they were stealing from their inventory. Not to mention anything else that wasn't nailed down.
And a few things that technically were, like the aforementioned still.
"Corporal!" squawked the lance corporal leading his lance of crab-backs. "We're burning daylight!"
And indeed, they were. Ping quickly talked their way through the guarded gate, and the nameless lance corporal got his birds and the empty heavy cart across those few lengths of cobblestone before they were past the no-fly zone, and the whole cavalcade got back into the air, Hawk Eye included.
They set off towards distant Bridlederry, flying low over the metalled Pike with its slow-moving ground-pony traffic, the infamous 'Route Trottish'.
Ping interrogated the hippogriff as they lollygagged behind the sweating griffons in their armor around the cart, the poor birds stuck in the traces panting with their tongues out.
The new lieutenant was right, these recruits were lacking in endurance. Good thing it wasn't Ping's department.
But the slow pace meant that both Ping and his fellow former-mobile-hospital comrade had plenty of breath to argue back and forth. Not that Ping cared to defend his conduct to Captain Eye, but it was his job to turn up Hawk Eye sweet, and make sure she didn't make a break for it while they were in Bridlederry.
Also to get the lists of medical supplies it would be Ping's responsibility to have stolen while they were distracting the squadron's office staff.
A plan of attack having been assembled from Hawk Eye's list of requirements, and Ping's memory of how the supply tents were laid out - Ping was distracted by the smooth charcoal of the pike far below, interrupted by circular black patches of fresh asphalt, in the middle of a burned-out corpse of a town.
"Ginver's Nest," Ping said, distracting Hawk Eye from another sermonette on the subject of loyalty and the daypony virtues. He gestured at the remnants and reminders of January's dreadful battle.
"What? Oh, damnitall. Yeah. That's the place. Ugh, now I'm feeling nauseous. Way to ruin the mood, Ping." She looked over her shoulder, at Trottingham behind them, the walls still barely visible in the sharp spring air. "We were stuck here for a week and a half. Thought I'd freeze to my own scalpels."
The 93/1st had spent three weeks on Route Trottish, most of them here in a series of temporary camps around the edges of what had once been the only significant griffish town in the lowlands besides Trottingham proper. A little blot of the highlands in the middle of the rich ponish plain.
Now it was burned ruins. And Ping and Hawk Eye were surrounded by crab-back griffons in EUP uniforms.
If Ping wasn't fairly sure he could take all of them with one thumb tied behind his wing, he might have had a moment of fear at the situation his inattention and ego had led him into.
The brief moment of nostalgie du sang was dispelled by the thing that both of them saw at the same time, looking back at Trottingham. Piling high clouds blowing in from the northwest, casting the city in a premature late-afternoon darkness that invited a sort of waking prophecy of what was about to fall over the skies over the Bridlederry Pike.
And then they were just a detachment of the Crystal Guard again, and Ping forgot about dead griffish towns and angry, armed griffons. He hurried forward to brief the griffish lance corporal and his file closers with the plan that had already formed, full-foaled within Ping's racing, now-focused mind.
They could probably make this work, assuming that Hawk Eye didn't make a break for it in the storm that was coming.
Giles had assigned each of his closers to a target, and he himself had followed Trooper Gim and Gim's two hens behind the thestral clerk and their potential deserter.
The irony was almost physically painful, like actual hot irons laid across his flanks, or behind his aching eyes.
They'd picked up their pace once the hippogriff and the batpony had noticed the on-rushing stormclouds, leaving the entire party pumping their wings and catching every forward gust to steal another knot of airspeed from the electric air.
They rode the gust front for an hour and a half before it engulfed them, swallowing the formation whole, like a leviathan of the deep snapping up a tuna or a shark or-
Look, Giles MacGregor was not a fishing griffon, nor were the MacGregors a seagoing clan. It was damn spooky, was what it was.
They were soaked by the time they found the field hospital in a decidedly nonmobile facility in Fort Guillaume. Giles had, obviously, never been in the fort, or anywhere near it. Bridlederry and her escort of stonework blockhouses and fortifications had long been the heart of pony dominance of the highlands, a feather of the hated Duchess's wings embracing the rebellious griffish hills. Bridlederry herself squatted fat and sullen in the throat of the widest low-lying entrance to the interior, forcing clan raiding parties to work their way down lesser defiles and hollows towards either coast, before they could reach the fat pony lands below.
The Crystal Guard's raid on the 93/1st went far more smoothly than the average clan rampage. They had a Ping, after all, and inside knowledge. And they had both Ping and the loudly squawking hippogriff as a distraction, providing all due cover for Giles' and Ping's toms and hens descending on the doctor's former quarters and the supply 'tents' - which were in well-fortified buildings behind well-built doors.
Luckily, Ping had let himself be talked out of having Giles' disoriented troopers attempt the assault on the supplies unsupported, and Ping got them past the door-guard before leaving with Hawk Eye and Gim's file to beard the drunken dragon in his office.
Not literally a dragon, although once Giles got a good look at the personnel of the 93/1st, he came to realize that a dragonet wouldn't have been out of the realm of possibility.
And so, as the supplies party cleared out the 'tents' courtesy of Giles' only other sort-of-literate trooper, and the 'still' party pried up the captain's prized distilling apparatus, Giles and the rest of the command party stood in the squadron offices and listened to their former commander ramble incoherently.
They'd timed their arrival perfectly. Lieutenant Colonel Fishing Pole might have made trouble if he hadn't been four drams to the wind, and mawkishly inebriated. Mostly, it was mortifying.
Outside, the storm thundered and roared, a typical late-May gully-washer.
They managed to heap up the captain's effects, her disassembled still, and the stolen medical supplies in their wagon, and escaped in a brief if dark reprieve in between deluges.
They gave up trying to find a warm barracks, and instead piled together in an empty stables around the precious supply-cart, in an almost warm heap.
Giles kept a rotating night-guard, with two griffons for each of three watches. Nopony tried to steal back what they'd rightfully stolen.
The ride back into the city the next day was even slower, with the griffons hauling the heavy cart stuck on the pavement of the pike proper. It took twice as long this way, but they were burdened going back to Trottingham.
Giles flew cover over the cart, which the rather sad-looking hippogriff sat on, instead of flying with the rest of the air patrol. She'd mentioned the night before that Giles' pink ghost was Captain Eye's precious little sister, somehow press-ganged into the gang of rogues and rovers that the ponies called a guards regiment.
Giles wasn't sure what to think about that. The smaller hippogriff had seemed deliriously happy to be there, far happier than any other griffon in the ranks. But Giles supposed that one never did really understand what went on in other griffons' families, their inner lives.
It was far too hard to understand others' outer lives.
As they passed through the ruins of a griffish lowland town, Giles spotted a small hen - a fledgling still, really, half-starved - staring over a tumbled-down wall at the cart rolling by. She had a pile of rocks and broken cobbles sitting beside her, where a talon could dip down and flick them one by one at the passers by.
Giles descended silently behind the unobservant fledgling's back, shoving his spear into its carrying sheath on his back.
She was in his talons, struggling, and in the air before she could squawk.
"Leggo! Claws off, ye great gooby! Imma gonna cleft th' cowans' cresties in twain, I are!" she squawked.
"Like winds ya are, ya wee shitehawk!" Giles shook his prisoner roughly, rattling her beak, and making her drop the stone she'd had in her talons. "What's the story, half bit? Where's yer mum?"
"Bugger me mum, I was gonnae flick a rock at 'em, fer my da, and his broke wing, and our burnt hame! An… an my bruther…" the damn kit started crying in Giles' arms, and he nearly broke down.
She didn't look like Giles's sister, or sound like her, or even smell like her. But she was someone's sister. Or had been.
"Ach, shush, ya wee eejit."
Giles looked around, searching for something to do with his catch. He found a beak sticking out of a window in one of the intact buildings a street or two over from the main road. He beat his wings, keeping his height, and keeping the fledgling from escaping, and peered in the window through which he'd seen the griffon.
There was an old hen in there, staring, terrified.
"You there, old hen. This kit is lookin' for trouble. Trouble don't want her." Giles shook a squeak out of his captive. "You ken this kit?"
"Nar, yer wirship, ain't never laid eye on her."
"Well, I dinnae hae time tae deal wi' her, either. Look, I got yer address. Keep her indoors until we're gone, or I'll hae tae gie rough." Giles tossed the wide-eyed fledgling through the open window. He reached over to slam the shutter closed.
The shutter came off in his talons.
Giles sighed, and grabbed a ration bar out of his panniers, and flung it with considerable force after the kitling, shouting at the two of them, "And feed yer damn waifs an' urchins! This'un was underweight. If the next I catch doesnae hae any more flesh on her bones, I'll come back heer an' hae yer guts fer garters!" He flew off in a huff.
Hopefully Giles MacGregor and his half-forgotten hills-clan accent would never need lay talon in this winds-forsaken town again.
Giles the Griffon of nowhere in particular and the Crystal Guard flew to rejoin his troopers as they rolled northwards back to the squadron and home.
Ping sighed in relief as they cleared the Gate, cargo and captain intact in the bracing and enfolding darkness of true night. Not even the day-ponies' lanterns and streetlamps could lessen the batpony's sense of ease and accomplishment. The trip back from Bridlederry had been painfully slow, but uneventful. The lance corporal Gilda had given them had worked out just fine.
So Ping had been relaxing in anticipation of home when they cleared the lesser gate into Garrison #5 and he was greeted with two hideous old thestral hags camped out in the courtyard in front of the entrance to the squadron's section. Staring balefully at the evening guard, only one of which was a fellow thestral.
Waiting for Ping. In full view of Night and everypony.
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9910794
Oh so you CAN use abscond, but not in the last chapter?
You should have just killed them ping. Killed them before they could ruin everything.
Major Shield isn't going to be terribly pleased by this.
Medical supplies get! Easy when the one you are stealing from is completely drunk. Wonder what other heist the Regiment will do before they leave. Oh maybe they could rob some stuff from Blue Blood, it could be funny.
Now if they could find an assistant and a proper nurse to help Hawk Eye, they would be set. An Anesthesiologist or an herboriste/chemist that could make and administrate drugs would be great too. A zebra even better. Look like the need to recruit/steal/kidnap even more people.
Giles looking out for that little kitling was touching, in a rough-ish kind of way. The right type of guy to be in charge of a Lance. Or a least, I think so.
We haven't got the meeting between Fish and Hawk yet so I am looking forward to that. Oh and maybe we could read letters sent to their mom, both from Fish and Hawk to see the difference between them.
They can't be that stupid... Yes they are. At least tell me they are pretending to be someone mom or grandma in the Regiment.
9916756
Abstracted is also correct, it just sounds a little odd.
If the other "Aunties" are half as imbecilic as these two blundering rot-brains then I'm surprised the other Thestrals haven't just said "screw tradition, nobody cares anymore" and tossed them all out into the sun, fanaticism to the detriment of wisdom is not a recipe for a long lived society.
This story is bringing very fond memories of Terry Pratchett's Monstrous Regiment as well as the City Watch focused books in the Discworld series. I'm also getting some fun reminders of the Phule's Company novels by Robert Asprin, though with a more down to earth tone.
9917360
Isn’t it?! I definitely got a Pratchett 'Guard' vibe from this and you are right about Monstrous Regiment now that you mention it, it definitely has a similar feeling.
Man, wouldn't it be amazing Gleaming and Gilda got their mittens on their very own equivalents of Sergeant Detritus or Dorfl?
*rubs hands together in merciless glee* Oh, this should be good!
9917384
I think that would be harder for Dorfl, as the motivation for that character couldn't be easily replicated in this story. As for Detritus, I mean maybe a Minotaur or a Yak could fill out a similar role. But would a character like that be needed in the story? That's the question to consider. We shouldn't just glom together characters based on ones we enoy from other series. Some things I would like to see, that could be added for some humour, would be an intelligent animal that acts as the mascot for the Regiment once Georgie reclaims her throne as the Queen of her species. Animals have been shown to be somewhat intelligent, like Harry the Bear, Owlowisus or Angel Bunny. So a creature like that could totally fit in but still be useful. Maybe helping load Trixie's cannons like Wojtek the hero bear and mascot. Or maybe some kind of big and beefy warhound, similar to the Mabari from Dragon Age?
I see the story is also making us aware of and pay attention to individual members of the Regiment. Another reason it reminds me of the previously mentioned stories, and one I didn't mention since it's a lot darker/grim. WH40k's Gaunt's Ghosts by Dan Abnett. Still if the story wants to continue the idea of picking up various rogues and specialised troops, then I heartily approve.
9917438
Hummm, you are right that a Dorfl like character can be hard to use motivation wise. As for if a character like Detritus equivalent would fit, I would refer to Terry own word: his characters are archetypes. (Or look at Detritus Tropes page. It's really fitting).
I think how an archetype could fit or even should be present in a story depends on the author talent and plans for his story but I also think it's plausible to work with almost any archetype if you think hard enough.
That peculiar character archetype is not currently present in the this story or the previous one, even if some of the elements are found in others. I honestly think there is a place like that in Gleaming Regiment, a scary bad ass big guy too dumb to fool, carrying a BFG and is the walkibg embodiment of No kill like Overkill. There is something about having a character so big and alien, walking around little ponies that I find incredibly fun.
And yeah, a yak, yeti or a Minotaur could fit the bill but I would lean towards the Minotaur for it. Bonus, it as hands.
And if you expand the search parameter, the MLP comics have some more species that could be used in this story because of the archetype or caricature aspect of them.
This type of story lend itself really well to making use of archetypes and caricatures and the author shouldn't shy away form using them. Even those like Downspout, Buggy Swires or Bluejohn (I think Gilda would recruit them simply to annoy Gleaming)
9917438
Oh and by the way, I agree on the mascot thing. Lady George will need to be replaced.
But they already have a goat in the regiment. That's hard to top but I think he is an enlisted soldier so he can't have the mascot role.
Oh, maybe they could go with a more fantastical creature that live in this magical land. Kudo if it's dangerous.
"I have an army."
"We have a Ping."
Well. Clearly, somebody didn't take the hint the first time around.
Okay, the Matrons think they know the situation better than Ping (their actual agent in the field), I get that, but openly parading their presence in front of the Dayponies they consider the enemy ... that is whopping stupid.
The Sixth Guard is a legitimate, recognized by the Crown, military detachment, why the hay are they stealing medical supplies (from a hospital, meaning that said hospital will run out if there is an emergency, and ponies and griffins likely will die) instead of requisitioning them from Supply?
9916895 The Matrons or Gilda & Ping robbing other units?
9916895
That statement assumes she is pleased by anything.
9918238
The Matrons, obviously.
Robbing other units is standard operating procedure. Check your Infantry Guide!
9918777
The first three episodes of MASH had a storyline where Hawkeye and Trapper arrange for Henry's new, terribly impractical desk to be stolen in exchange for the necessary surgical drugs the thieves had already stolen off the supply trucks.
It is possible this sort of behavior should be below the standards of a proper household cavalry regiment. They're a work in progress.
9918815
Yeah, but why didn't they request supplies through official channels? I know they are ruffling a lot of feathers and they are a new unit without proper infrastructure right now but proper supplying should be plausible. Can't they make use of the logistics available with the other Guards Regiment?
And that made me realize something was missing since the beginning of this story: there is a definite lack of new scheme by Gilda to make money under the table. Ok, I admit securing her new job by making sure it's up to snuff and they won't die an embarrassing death in the near future is important to make sure there will be any future bits to scam of someone and, well, her official salary. But Guilda seems like an opportunistic cat-bird and quite industrious when it come to make a profit so I was expecting something to be going on?
What about Lady George official business that Gilda was helping her with? Or the Turul feathers selling? Do they still happen or Cadence gave someone to George to help her instead?
Another thing that seems to be missing from Good Trooper Gilda is those strange journal articles that were going around and seemed to push some kind of political agenda. Blueblood seemed at the center of this 'conspiracy' but it look like that minor sub-plot didn't get to properly closed or maybe it's better to say that we were still in the middle of it no where near the finish. I am curious to see it continued. In fact, it would be great to see Cadence, Blueblood and his sisters around before the departure East. There is that whole political aspect of this story that was teased at so far but we haven't seen the other players, just the effects of their moves.
And since there is this huge operations in the making, shouldn't Intelligence begin to trickles in? War are made or lost on proper information after all. There should be some way to gather all kind of information about what is going on East.
9919067
Time, basically. Military organisations like to run on well-worn rails, following established patterns where everypony knows where they stand. This new outfit of Gleaming's is doing a lot of stuff very quickly, and not worrying much whose paws it steps on as it does it. And with the new Princess taking over, nopony's even entirely sure who owns things. Even without any actual malice, existing command structures are not in the habit of saying yes to a lot of new questions.
So yeah, if they made official requests for everything they need, followed all the rules, behaved themselves in the eyes of the military, then they might get most of it... three years down the line. By which point a wave of wild rocs would have been unleashed on the world. The well-worn route is not one they can afford to take.
So they're going to grab what they need, go save the world, and ask forgiveness later.
9919152
Huh... actually make sense. Kind of scary how long it takes to organize something that need to react quickly to a new threat.
9919162
The spin up on this organization is wildly implausible in any sort of real world sense. You don't stand up a new Guards regiment over a long weekend like they are doing. At least six months, really, and it's true that it's been over a century since the last new household guards regiment has been formed, the Welsh Guards during the Great War.
The closest to what's going on here is the formation of India's Brigade of the Guards, which was stood up with existing British Indian Army battalions with lineages dating back to the 18th, and in the case of the Grenadiers, the Bombay Presidency in the 17th century, older than anything in the British Army proper other than, I think, the Blues and Royals and the Coldstream Guard.
9918238
This, is akin to the Napoleonic era military... it really was akin to this level of fighting with other units for supplies.
I realized that Lady George must be quite busy these days. Managing her company, helping train the recruits, being a guest of the state and probably having meeting with Cadence to further negotiate more help from Equestria/politics, hunting for her food, meeting with Magus Lyra for the batteries of test the mad mare thought of in order to finally get the crown off... surprised she get the time to sleep.
Maybe she get help from the crown about her food since now she have become a guest of the state (in reality, her status in Trottingham is kind of vague right now). And she maybe have more help managing her company. (She was raising funds in order to hire someone to help her take back her Queendom after all. Could be good to remember that all that money might become useful later on in the adventure.) But she must be still quite busy.
Poor Ping, I feel for him. He doesn't get many breaks.
Perfect stealth.
9919162 Or you can just throw people at the threats when you have more than you need! Like China! You slow down the threat as they have to slog through the bodies AND get rid of all those surplus resource-wasters! It's win-win!
Someone pass Ping a gin and tonic cause things are about to get ugly.
Tarot Poker, ha.
Well ain't she supportive
She's the one that'll keep you alive. So don't let her escape
And now they're stealing it from Pole
Yes, everyone should have a Ping. They're so useful!
Well, she's not a griffin
Ha! Well put.
Oh boy. Poor Ping just can't catch a break
Remarks and corrections:
> before he even knew there was trouble on the wing
Missing period at the end.
The MASH unit didn't stand a chance, they were out numbered one Ping to none. And I am loving his whole... everything in this fic. Polite, professional, but with just those small reminders that for all he seems like a meek, friendly, little clerk.... there is something potentially sinister going on with him and his actual allegiances.
Also.... hello Maxim 2 moment.