She Drives Me Batty

by I Thought I Was Toast

Canterlot Knights Part 3

Gasping, disheveled, and burnt blacker than the Nightmare’s bloody heart, I dragged myself into the station a whole ten minutes late and collapsed into the most dishearteningly lazy salutes it’s ever been my misfortune to snap off. “Night—” My stance actually wavered as I gasped, strangling sweet oxygen out of the air now that I had escaped the inferno outside. “Nightingale Mooncrest, reporting for duty, sir!”

The night watch captain—a surprisingly grizzled thestral in need of a shave, a trim, and an extra hour of training—looked up from his reports to give a deep, rumbling laugh. “Well, well, the mighty Mooncrest finally deigned to grace us with her presence? Where’s the fire? You look like the sun itself just tried to eat you, soldier.”

“Sun? No, sir.” I was slowly getting into good and proper posture. “Marefriend? Yes. I wish I could say wrestling manticores was worse, but when an earth pony sinks their hooves into you—”

“—there’s no force on Equis that can pry ‘em off. Aye, aye. I’ve heard that excuse before.” The captain rolled his eyes. “Used it a few times myself, though I wasn’t expecting anypony with your sort of track record to need it. Way your junior sergeant put it, you have a sun-blasted sycamore trunk up your ass.”

“I tried, sir.” It took little effort not to squirm after years of practice, but there was no stopping my neck as it steadily burned hotter and hotter. “Really, I did. But she was always one to cheat if she could get away with it, and I can’t exactly fly if she planned to have my wings pinned when the clocktower called fifteen to.”

“Haha! Fair enough!” Slapping his desk, my CO for the night rattled the contents. “You’re just lucky your designated noncom is just as late as you are.” Flashing his fangs in a grin, the pot-bellied stallion continued chuckling. “The lucky bastard.”

I blinked but did little more, still saluting as I was. “Excuse me, sir?”

“Not my place to tell, soldier.” The captain waved a hoof at me and returned to shuffling through his papers. “And at ease. Now let’s see… you’ll be patrolling the cloud district. You familiar with that part of the city?”

“Yes, sir! I used to live there, sir!” I stood a little straighter rather than drop from attention.

“Right, right… You’re the daughter of Dia and Diablo. Of course you know the cloud district.” The captain snorted as he flipped through some more papers. “Don’t even know why I asked.”

A flicker of a frown marred my face. “Sir, with all due respect, I appreciate it more that you not bring my parents up.”

“Trying to escape their shadow, eh?” There was a brief flash of fangs and a chuckle. “Good luck with that, soldier, they’re more than legends around here.”

My stoney facade cracked just a little bit further. “Yes, sir. I’m very aware of that, sir.”

“Well, the good news is we here in the Canterlot Guard don’t give a rat’s ass about stuff like that. We leave that to the nobles, and we stick our noses to the grindstone. It takes a lot to stand out when we’re right in the shadow of not one, but two royal guard detachments, so take all that guano about cozy positions and toss it out the window.”

My eyes flicked down to his abundant pudge, but I kept my mouth shut.

“Now at ease, already—before I order you to stand down. You’re so stiff it’s like taking a two-by-four to the head every time I look at you.”

“Sir, yes, sir….” Relaxing had the unfortunate side effect of freeing me up to squirm as the minutes dragged on. I stood there, waiting, and he sat there, doing paperwork. Somehow, despite all the practice standing in front of doorways growing up, it was a million times worse when it mattered. I felt like a freshly shaven private every time I twitched or shuffled or shifted from hoof to hoof.

“Uh… sir?”

“Yes, cadet?”

“Shouldn’t I be doing something?”

“I gave you your briefing.” He snorted. “All that’s left is to wait on your partner.” There was the loud bang of a door being slammed, and muffled swears filtered through the thin, paint-chipped walls as hoofsteps hurried towards us. “Ah! And speak of the devil.”

“Sorry, Captain Gallows, sir! Lost track of time! Won’t happen again!”

If I had been a blazing and broken mess when I stumbled in, Silver Fang was the perfect picture of how a guard should be. His salute was crisp and snappy, and he fell at ease with ease. There were no awkward twitches or shuffling limbs, just a cocky and self-assured soldier ready to get to work and make up for being late. The fact he could do it all with a smug little smile and still keep it by the books had me burning all over again at how this was going.

“Took your sweet time today, didn’t you, corporal? Don’t tell me another banshee dragged you into her lair?” The captain scowled hard even as his eyes twinkled.

“Can’t help that I’m a monster magnet, sir.” Fang’s smirk grew by a whole three millimeters, still by the books but by the Nightmother was he pushing it. “What’s our assignment for the day?”

I didn’t know whether to be impressed or hurt that he hadn’t looked at me yet. That took real skill.

A skill I apparently forgot just from a bit of snogging and some no-good, extra-saucy cuddles. Gah!

Snapping back into tip top form, I kept my eyes squarely in the distance. Chest out, eyes forward, hooves snapped together with nary a lash from my tail, I made sure I looked like a real soldier.

“Bit too eager to prove herself, ain’t she, corporal?” The captain chuckled, not even looking up as he rifled through his papers, our assignment already lost and forgotten among all the papers he went through while we were waiting. “Your assignment is simple. You’re patrolling the cloud district with a shadow looking at joining up. Name of Nightingale Mooncrest. Show her the ropes, put her through the paces, signal your turns before swinging your monster magnet. Last thing we need is reports of another banshee wailing.”

“On your orders, sir!” The crisp swiftness of Silver’s salute was contrasted by the unyielding eternity of my own. “Cadet Nightingale! Let’s move out!”

It was only as we made it outside that Silver turned to slug me. “Hey, hey. So you’re my shadow, huh? Sorry for being late.”

“It’s fine.” I rolled my eyes as we took wing to circle up and head for the cloud district. “You just made me look better.”

“Diamond wouldn’t let you go either, huh?” With a laugh, Silver Fang did a loop and I dutifully followed from my place in formation behind him. “Hah! Mares, am I right?”

“We are a strange and mysterious lot.” I nodded sagely, only to glide silently for a few moments. “So anything exciting ever actually happen up here?”

“I stopped an assault once.” As we banked over the clouds and settled into the fwoofy streets, Fang cast his head about. “Not proud of it, but I did.”

“And just what the hay is that supposed to mean?” I tried hard not to frown.

“Pffft! Just that the asshat really had it coming.” Waving his hoof dismissively, Silver Fang gestured for me to follow as we started our route. “You know how nobles are.”

“Oh…” Welp, that was just one more reason to avoid Canterlot. “Is that it, though? I knew Canterlot was cushy, but that just sounds…”

“Boring? Easy?” Silver Fang hummed as we trotted down the street, street lamps flickering with little jolts of lightning as their charge slowly petered out for the night. Little, fluffy clouds of steam puffed from the chimneys of stores and houses, while windows winked out one by one.

Silver Fang basked in the silence as we moved forward. Head raised to look at the Nightmother’s painting, he didn’t need to watch where he went as he lazily moved through the route. He barely needed to click, he knew it so well, and the lack of anypony except us made that easy. “I like to think of it as safe and secure. That is our job, isn’t it? To keep citizens happy and content?”

“Well, yeah, but…” I bit my lip and looked around at it all. “…there are plenty of places that could use you more.”

“Are there, now?” The hum increased as he flicked his ear without looking back. “Way I see it, the pony that needs me most is Echo.”

“Oh, that’s a load of guano and you know it.” I couldn’t help scowling. “Echo said she told you to go out on tour. She’s more than capable of managing on her own while you’re away.”

“That isn’t the issue here, is it?” Silver Fang chuckled and let out a sigh as we turned down another street. “Sure, I could leave her here to wait for me until I’m done touring, but why would I ever want to put her through that?”

“You could take her with you, then.” My tail lashed a bit as he laughed at that suggestion.

“That’s an even worse idea, Night! She wants to be a sculptor! Right here in Canterlot is perfect for her. There’s plenty of stone in the mountain, and a great big market of nobles that love seeing how great they are! No… the only reason I’d want to take her away from here is if we decided it’d be better to raise a family somewhere else.”

“A family?” I shook my head. “Dude, you are in it deep if you’re thinking that far ahead. You just gave her the promise ring. You’re barely out of— Wait, no. She’s still in school! You’re insane to be thinking that far ahead.”

He finally looked back, grinning like a loon under moon. It was just so smug and dad-ly that I had to look away. “Oh, so it’s insane for me to think that far ahead for me and Echo, but not insane for you to look that far ahead when it comes to your job?”

“What do you mean by that?” My neck bristled and my wings rustled as I tsked.

“I mean, have you even thought about you and Diamond in all of this?” Gesturing around everywhere, Silver’s grin turned into an almost imperceptible frown—microscopically small and by the books, the perfect facade. “She’s an ambitious mare, just like you. What makes you so sure she’ll be fine just waiting for you to come home?”

I didn’t answer.

Silver went back to watching the night sky as we kept on slowly walking, only one ear was swivelling as he clicked, though—the other perked and primed for my response. The houses and stores slowly grew as we moved on through the district, and eventually we were patrolling through the mansions drifting out over the edge of the mountain. As we passed by Grandpa and Grandma’s big, old, thundercloud house, I could feel it just looming over me, judging my inability to answer a simple question.

“We’ll make it work,” I managed to rasp out, licking my lips and swallowing. “You said it best. She’s like me—ambitious. Work will keep her busy, and if it was really a problem, she’d tell me. Diamond doesn’t dance around shit like that.”

Silver Fang’s hum was long and hard as we kept up our patrol.

“Well?” My snort was spot on, but my stomp was disappointingly muffled by the clouds.

Not even a crack of thunder escaped. It said good about the pegasi who built the street, but was just about as frustrating as finding out I had an apple with no worm.

“Mmmm… Perhaps Echo was right to kick me.” Silver sighed.

“Come again?” I blinked.

“You know!” He laughed and looked back with a grin. “Back at the Greasy Wheel when she kicked me for trying to bring this up.”

“Oh, right. So that was Echo, then?” I tilted my head. “‘Cause Diamond was acting really suspicious.”

There was another laugh and Silver Fang stopped to slug me. “Oh, no, it was both. Your marefriend bucks harder than most seasoned cadets.”

Snorting hard, I rolled my eyes. “I would hope so. She trained with me in junior guard for a solid three years.”

“That still leaves plenty of time for her to have gone to pasture.” Silver Fang chuckled before eyeing me up and down. “You know, if you and Diamond weren’t such a bunch of day dwellers I’d offer to let Echo and I help out. See about expanding our little herd. Gets a lot less lonely when you’ve got somepony to cuddle.”

“Ewww… dude, don’t even joke about that.” I slugged him back a little harder than I needed to. “My Aunt Mercy is moving to Ponyville with her sights set on Dad, and I just… Seriously, don’t joke about it, alright? ‘Sides, where’d all that talk about Echo needing you go?”

“Night, I wasn’t joking there. If you were part of the herd, you’d need me, too.” Silver shook his head and shrugged. “Not that I was expecting you to go for it, but me and Echo both want the best for you and Diamond. Sorry if I struck a nerve. I didn’t know about your Aunt.”

“Ugh… I can’t even afford to be mad at her.” My wings rustled as I frowned. “She lost her fiancé just after getting pregnant, and she quit the motherbucking guard. She’s messed up and won’t let anypony but us help her with the darn foal, and to make things worse, her guano-guzzling dad kicked her out of her clan. It’s… way above my paygrade.”

“Wow. Okay, I am officially really sorry for bringing up the herd thing now. That sounds like soap opera levels of drama.” Silver tsked and shook his head. He opened his mouth to say more only to pause and swivel his ears at a crashing sound in a nearby ally. A cursory inspection revealed it was nothing but several ravens digging through the adjoining restaurant’s trash, though, and we returned to walking, finally coming full circle to begin our route again.

“Welp, that’s the route, then. Easy enough, right? I know you’ve been training for this and more since before we even met.” Silver stopped to grin at me and gestured around. “Peaceful, quiet, good for the heart and soul. That’s the Canterlot Guard’s life.”

“Fang, I don’t know about you, but the fact we could slack off for the whole route talking doesn’t exactly seem like a highlight to me.” I glanced around the empty streets.

“Then you’re aiming for the wrong post, don’tcha think?” Silver arched his brow and cocked a grin as he pointed off towards the castle. “Perhaps you didn’t really notice with those stars you always had in your eyes, but the Day and Night Guard are just as boring. More so, actually, they can’t afford to let their image slip and talk. They stand around in front of doors all day long and push piles of papers that reach miles high. You want excitement, you’re better off staying a lowly grunt wherever you ship out to or trying to get into the Dawn Guard.”

With a huff, I crossed my hooves. “Hey! I’m not saying I’m bored; I’m just wondering when I’m gonna start seeing some nice, strict, discipline.”

“Night, your definition of well-disciplined is so strict that you oughta be seeking medical attention for standing erect for more than four hours.” Starting up the route again, Silver Fang took point. I couldn’t see his smug little smirk, but I could totally hear it. “Do you remember how we met?”

“How could I forget? You nearly pissed yourself thinking Princess Celestia was gonna bake us into a cake.” Shaking my head, I dutifully followed and tried not to fall asleep standing up.

“Do you remember how long you stood there alone in the castle pantry guarding those cookies for fun?” The smirk grew smugger.

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Had to have been long enough since I caught you.”

“You were there for hours, Night—a literal eternity by foal standards.” With a laugh, Silver Fang trotted over to the side of the street to look over a rough patch of clouds. The work of litterers, no doubt.

The absolute fiends.

How anypony could stand littering, I had no idea. Even in the cloud districts all the trash needed somepony to pick it up, and now we’d need to file a freaking report to help the trash scouters have an idea of what they’d be looking for down under. I squinted at the patch, eyeballing it and taking some notes in my little black book before we stamped and smoothed things back to a nice functional state.

“Handled that pretty well,” Silver Fang chuckled. “You sure you can’t find your discipline here in the Canterlot Guard?”

“Dude, shut up….” Rustling my wings, I allowed myself the tiniest scowl. “You know I can’t. I’ll never get into the Lunar Guard coming up here.”

Silver rolled his eyes. “Girl, the Nightmother dotes on you so much that she’d probably just let you join if you asked.”

“Don’t even joke about that.” Whoops…. Didn’t mean to growl there. “I am not getting into the Lunar Guard on nepotism. I’d rather the sun gouge my eyes out.”

“I hate to disappoint you, Night, but you get in the Night Guard and you will always end up dealing with guano-guzzlers who think you got in scot free.” Silver sighed. “Even I deal with that, and I’m just a grunt in the normal guard. Fact is, you, me, Echo, and all the other foals Princess Luna doted on since returning have a bit of a rep. The more she likes you, the worse it is, and she likes you a lot. There is no escaping that shadow if you’re aiming for her personal guard.”

“And?” I refused to let my scowl deepen as we resumed our patrol. “Where else can I go? The bucking Day Guard? Dawn Guard is gonna be nothing but trying to outdo my parents, and there’s no way I’m joining the Crystal Guard.”

“Well… Day Guard would be a good way to shove it in everypony else’s faces.” Silver’s snicker was choked as he held back full belly laughs. “Probably the only way you could make those bat-brained nobles down in the undercity hate you more. Get in the Lunar Guard and they’ll just be jealous. Get in the Day Guard, though, and you’ll break over a thousand years of tradition. They might get aneurysms just from the thought! Haha!”

And there was the laughter, loud, carrying, and very noticeable as we made our way through the mostly empty streets.

“You do know ponies are trying to sleep, right?” It was getting harder and harder to maintain the stoic facade, my frown fighting the urge to morph into a full blown glower.

“Oh, hush now, Cadet.” Silver chuckled and waggled his eyes as he looked back at me, literally pulling at his stripes before sticking his tongue out. “One little laugh isn’t enough to get us in trouble. You act like I’m disturbing the peace.” Taking a turn we hadn’t made before, he clicked his hind hooves together and almost pranced down the street.

“Discord damn it, Silver. If you’re breaking the route just to make a point, I—”

“I’m not breaking the route to make a point, Cadet~ I’m just showing you how everypony on the squad does it.”

The rowdy sounds of a bar could be heard from down the street as we advanced, the building lit up like a sun compared to the rest of the neighborhood. As we approached, another patrol stepped out of the building and I froze in shock at the sight of them popping some salt cubes. Before I could process it, Silver was up next to them, and he laughed like nothing was wrong, giving out hoof bumps and greetings until the other patrol waved and was on their way.

Like a switch was flipped, I bolted forward to hiss in his ear as he went inside. “Are you nuts? We can’t get salted at work!”

“I agree, Cadet. Much better that we get tipsy. Am I right, guys?!” He held a hoof to his ear and gestured around.

It was only then I noticed the place was absolutely packed with guards from the last shift—mostly pegasi, but even a few unicorns were sitting at the cloud tables enjoying their drinks and rolling dice. When Silver asked his question they roared in approval and called for the barkeep to give us a round on them, and I was left in the awkward position of accepting a flask from a bar maid so smoking I couldn’t help but dumbly nod and take it when she giggled.

“First-timers get the good stuff~” Before my overwhelmed brain could even begin to think up a response, she was gone with a leathery flap of wings, back to tending to the other patrons.

“Homina homina homina…” Come on, mouth, work. There were a million reasons this was wrong. Popping open the flask, I could smell it. Freshly donated bloodwine, brewed to be drunk new rather than aged.

“Come on, soldier~ What are you waiting for?” Silver’s callback from the door was enough to get me going again, allowing me to advance in the other direction and break back out into the nice, cool night air.

“Oh, sweet Nightmother above, give me strength.” I gulped at the air and shook as I dragged my chuckling companion back down the street. “So many infractions… I don’t even… and there was that other patrol… and… and…” Casting my gaze to the stars as if they’d hold the answers I needed, I found none. Slugging Silver’s shoulder was satisfying, but only for a moment, and I glowered at him as he stood there smirking, sipping from his flask like it was nothing.

“What the buck was that?” I gestured back.

“Tradition?” Silver gave a lazy shrug and took another sip.

“Tra— That is not a tradition! That is flagrant rule breaking!” Walking right up to him, I poked his chest. “How many patrols stop at the pubs like that?!”

“Ok, it breaks the rules. Still a tradition, though, and one that’s been around a long, long time for the night shifts. Everypony does it.” Seeing Silver lick his lips after uttering such horrible delinquency made his face just look oh-so punchable.

More pokes would have to suffice. “Then. Why. Don’t. You. Report. It?”

“Pffft. Report it to who, Night? Captain was in there last night!” Shaking his head, Silver snorted and stamped a hoof. “No reason to make waves. I file a report, then he has to do something. There’ll be a bunch of official investigations, and a lot of slaps on the fetlock, and all it will do is waste our time, taxpayers’ money, and make me public enemy number one for the whole division. Not worth it. No, thank you.”

“But… but… The Rules! The Regulations!” My limbs flailed as I tried to gesticulate. “This is exactly what I mean! There’s just no discipline! You’d never see this in the Lunar Guard!”

“No… but you’d see it in the Dawn Guard from what I’ve heard of them.”

That got me to close my mouth.

“We work hard, play harder.” Silver chuckled and started walking again. “It’s just how we do things. There’s no competing with both the Solar and Lunar Guards their way, so we carve our own. It’s something you’ll need to get used to, because no unit is as stoic and stoney as those two.”

“Hrmff!” It took a lot of effort to not cross my hooves and pout, instead forcing myself back into that well-trained stoic facade. “You probably could compete with them if you bothered to try.”

“Says the mare who complained about nothing ever happening in Canterlot.” Silver fell back to pat me on the back. “What is there to even compete over, really? Nah. Better we let them have their ‘fun’ while we get to have ours. I’ve got all I need with Echo.”

The silence that fell between us after that was stiff and awkward. I could see his ears swivel to perk any time I took anything more than a slow, measured breath. Whatever response he wanted, though, I just didn’t know what to say. We were just going in circles at this point, and—

An apology, maybe? For what?! I hadn’t done or said anything wrong.

Even if it felt like I did…

“Night.” My name was whispered softly, gently, and without Silver looking my way. “Please don’t sulk like that. It’s unbecoming of a future Lunar Guard to let their ears drop more than a few millimeters. That’s almost a whole centimeter you got there.

“Look… I’m not saying you should give up your dreams or change who you are, but I do think you really need to ask yourself if you want your job to come before Diamond. You like Diamond, right? Maybe even love her? There are plenty of places closer to home than Hollow Shades or the frozen north or whatever danger-ridden, far-off outpost you think is best to prove your mettle. Sure, it might take longer to get to your end goal, but how much extra time with Diamond is that going to give you?”

Biting my lip, I still couldn’t respond for a few minutes. “There’s… no point in worrying about it now. Who knows where I’ll pick? I’ve got a lot of places to check out still.”

“But are you going to think about it?” Silver’s tail lashed.

“Yes….”

“Heh. Thank you, that’s all I ask.” He looked back to grin like a loon under moon. “Well, that and maybe a fourway, but only one of those is good for you as a friend.”

My ears burned as I calmly, and completely without fluster formulated my response. “Fat chance. Your soldier’s salute isn’t nearly stiff enough to pass my inspection.”

Author's Note:

There's a small part of me that reads what I've wrote here and notes that I may accidentally be setting myself up the same way I did in dC/dt--you know, joke about things I expect to never happen only to look back 100k words later and despair that the jokes are no longer jokes. I would rather not accidentally set things up such that Night ends up getting all da mares in a herd, but if it does happen, you can all blame me and this chapter for ruining everything.

I've accidentally set up romances before, after all. This is how it starts, regardless of if I want it.

Comments

[Numinos]

Heh, she really needed that talk. Great chapter : )

[badninja]

Night really needs to talk to Diamond Tiara. She needs to think if they really do have a future together because DT will want someponey to be there.

[Drahciruohz]

Wooo. Good stuff. Silver’s definitely got his priorities straight. Going to be interesting to see where Night ends up.

[Dorath]

“Do you remember how long you stood there alone in the castle pantry guarding those cookies for fun?”

Oh, oh! Silver Fang is the little Reprobat! I completely missed that.

there’s no way I’m joining the Crystal Guard.”

Hey, what's wrong with the Crystal Guard?

[geomease]

Shipping goggles on

[Sollace]

you have a sun-blasted sycamore trunk up your ass.

That's one way to put it

if it does happen, you can all blame me and this chapter for ruining everything.

Well if it does happen, and we get that promised foursome, I'll know who to thank for it.

[Asolem2]

“Well… Day Guard would be a good way to shove it in everypony else’s faces.” Silver’s snicker was choked as he held back full belly laughs. “Probably the only way you could make those bat-brained nobles down in the undercity hate you more. Get in the Lunar Guard and they’ll just be jealous. Get in the Day Guard, though, and you’ll break over a thousand years of tradition. They might get aneurysms just from the thought! Haha!”

Now that sounds fun

“No… but you’d see it in the Dawn Guard from what I’ve heard of them.”

And so much more