Guarded Emotions: The Final Season

by Alabenson

Frenemies

“Now, Moonwhisper, I know you have some feelings about my being here. But, you have to admit it was about time we all sat down and introduced ourselves, and what better way to do that than over a nice cup of tea?” Greater Good said as he flashed Moonwhisper his friendliest smile. Moonwhisper, for his part, stared daggers at Greater Good while sipping his tea in frosty silence.

“Well, personally I’m glad you decided to visit,” Twilight said. “I’ve been meaning to speak with all the heads of Equestria’s ministries ever since Princess Celestia told me she wanted to take over, but everpony’s always so busy. So, what exactly does the Equestrian Intelligence Division do, anyway? All the books I’ve read on Equestrian civics just tend to gloss over it.”

“Oh, we watch for potential threats to Equestria and deal with them when necessary,” Greater Good said. “Though we really haven’t had all that much to do in the last few years thanks to the efforts of you and your friends. And, that’s given me plenty of time to think about all the work you’ve done building bridges with the other species, which brings me to why I wanted to speak with you today. I thought, in the spirit of everything you’ve been working on, it might be nice to set up a meeting between the military heads of the various kingdoms. You know, to introduce everycreature, set up some agreements on mutual defense, that sort of thing.”

“That sounds like a great idea! What do you think, Moonwhisper?” Twilight asked.

“It sounds reasonable enough so far,” Moonwhisper replied cautiously. “Setting up lines of communication between the respective commanders and establishing mutual defense plans would be to Equestria’s benefit. The tricky part would be contacting all of the various representatives and coordinating schedules. As I understand, King Thorax and Queen Novo both have subordinates who handle military matters, but Prince Rutherford and Dragon Lord Ember oversee their forces directly and neither seems the type who’d want to name a representative.”

“Well, Prince Rutherford didn’t want to, but Dragon Lord Ember did manage to find somecreature she trusted. Apparently, there’s some egg thing going on in the Dragon Lands that she has to oversee,” Greater Good said.

Twilight let out a nervous chuckle. “Um, it kind of sounds as though you’ve already contacted the other kingdoms about setting all of this up.”

“That’s because I have,” Greater Good replied. “Don’t worry, its not for another two weeks or so, so you still have time to make any preparations you might feel you need to. I don’t think you’ll need to do all that much, though. Everything’s going to be held in Canterlot and I’ve taken the liberty of letting the delegates know that you might not be able to make an appearance yourself, what with school being in session. Those students are the future, after all.”

Greater Good was abruptly interrupted by the sound of Moonwhisper’s teacup being crushed within his magical field. “So, you set up a major, international conference without speaking to any of the princesses and you’re only informing us about it a mere two weeks before it happens?”

“Actually, I did talk to Princess Celestia about doing this, which is why I was able to reserve space in the castle. Incidentally, did you that Princess Celestia will sign just about anything you put in front of her if you catcher her between her last meeting of the day and dinner?” Greater Good said with an air of innocence. “And besides, we can argue about how I may or may not have put together the largest gathering of international military leaders in history under everypony’s nose for days. The important part is that both you and Princess Twilight agree that having this little get together is a good idea. In any event, its much too late to cancel or reschedule it at this point, so its not as though you have any alternatives.”

Twilight and Moonwhisper stared at Greater Good in shocked silence for several seconds, until finally Twilight turned to Moonwhisper. “Dear Celestia, he’s as bad as Discord.”

“He’s certainly as obnoxious as the draconequus, however unlike Discord I’m fairly certain you could have Greater Good thrown in a dungeon somewhere if you really wanted to,” Moonwhisper said.

“Now now, let’s not get too excited. Princess Twilight isn’t going to have me thrown into a dungeon because she’s a kind pony who more importantly doesn’t have a castle in her dungeon. I know that because I checked before I came here,” Greater Good added. “So, why don’t we all take a few deep breaths to calm down before getting down to the main reason I came here.”

“And what would that be?” Moonwhisper asked through tightly clenched teeth.

“Why, to review the state of the guard before the conference, of course! And also to drink tea, but I’m all out of tea, so…” Greater Good shrugged as he levitated an attaché case onto the table. “If we’re going to start talking about mutual protection with our neighbors then we should really understand where we stand right now. And besides, I’m certain our future reigning princess could benefit from an overview as well.”

*********

“…and that covers the last of the major garrisons,” Greater Good said as he levitated the papers concerning the Manehatten garrison onto the neat pile of all the other reports they had gone over already. “All that leaves are the satellite postings and that should cover just about everything we need.”

“I never realized that the guard was so…scattered,” Twilight said.

“The official term would be decentralized, but its an apt observation. Up until a few hundred years ago the guard’s organizational structure was based on the model used by the old pegasi legions, who had a very robust administrative structure. However, Princess Celestia felt that left the guard to inflexible to meet the needs of the different parts of Equestria, so she opted to reorganize the guard using the structure employed by the unicorn kingdoms. It granted the guard captains more authority and involved gradually phasing out the ranks between captain and general,” Moonwhisper said.

“And as a result, each guard captain gets to run their garrison like their own personal fiefdom,” Greater Good snorted, momentarily dropping his jovial demeanor.

“You’ll have to excuse Greater Good, he’s been a rather outspoken critic of the guard’s structure for years,” Moonwhisper said. “The point of having the guard structured the way it is is to allow garrisons to adopt protocols tailored to the needs of the ponies they directly serve.”

“Which is fine, as long as nothing ever happens that would require outside garrisons to provide support. You know, such as, say for example, just a purely hypothetical situation, some tin pot warlord were to take over Canterlot. But what are the chances that would happen a fourth time?” Greater Good said.

“Enough!” Twilight finally yelled. “I get it, the guard probably need to be reorganized, or at the very least somepony needs to review how things are being done. But would you both please stop arguing and focus on what we need to talk about right now?”

The two chastened stallions each promptly slumped back into their seats. “Of course, Twilight, you’re absolutely right. I apologize for losing my composure,” Moonwhisper.

“I guess I did let things get a little heated there,” Greater Good admitted. “Anyway, getting back to business, in addition to the main garrisons the guard has a number of minor postings all over Equestria. They’re mostly wilderness outposts or lookouts with a hoofful of guards at most.”

“A significant number of them are also quite old, especially the more isolated ones. In fact, if I recall correctly, there’s one that actually dates back to the time of King Bahamut,” Moonwhisper said as he shuffled through the papers.

“King Bahamut? As in Princess Platinum’s father King Bahamut?” Twilight asked in shock. “That can’t possibly be right, a post that old would predate any other settlement in Equestria.”

“The Mount Everhoof outpost,” Greater Good affirmed. “Its barely even worth mentioning aside from its age. Just one guard who warns the occasional wanderer away from the mountain’s main avalanche zone. The frustrating part is it probably does have a good reason for existing, but nopony has any clue what it is, not even Princess Celestia.’

“Are you sure it even has a purpose anymore?” Twilight asked. “Maybe this is just a case of ponies doing something even though the reason for doing that doesn’t exist anymore.”

“That’s the thing, we know there really is a reason for it, but we just know what it is,” Greater Good replied.

“Oh?” Moonwhisper said, raising an eyebrow. “That’s new to me. And how exactly do you know that the purpose for the Mount Everhoof outpost’s existence is still present?”

“We sent an expedition up to the mountain’s summit a few years back,” Greater Good explained. “According to the expedition, there’s some sort of cave near the top of the mountain that’s blocked off by a magic barrier. Based on the descriptions of it we think it was made by some sort of unicorn magic, but nopony has any idea what’s in there or how the barrier was made. I’ve spoken with every mage in Canterlot, along with Princess Celestia and Shining Armor, and nopony’s even heard of a spell with the duration and power involved. I even managed to track down Starswirl and asked him about it, and apparently whatever that barrier is has been there since back before his time. But, even he doesn’t have a clue as to who created it or why exactly. Starswirl’s advice on the subject was essentially to just leave it alone.”

Twilight frowned at this conclusion. “I’m not sure how comfortable I am with the idea of there being a mysterious cave blocked off by magic that not even Princess Celestia or Starswirl the Bearded fully understand. I’d feel a lot better if we at least had some idea about what’s in there.”

“I understand how you feel, but its not a circumstance where we have any viable alternatives,” Moonwhisper said. “What works to our favor is that this mystery cave might be in one of the most inaccessible locations in Equestria. Mount Everhoof is nearly impossible to scale and the wind currents surrounding it are powerful enough to stymie a full-grown dragon. As I understand it, the Wonderbolts won’t even go near the place. Frankly, I’m just impressed Greater Good was able to get a team up there in the first place.”

“I’m not sure how all that helps the fact that we don’t have any idea who put that barrier up or why,” Twilight said.

“It doesn’t,” Moonwhisper admitted. “But it at least means that its unlikely any of Equestria’s enemies could access or even find out about its existence.”

“I guess you’re right,” Twilight admitted. “For now, I guess we should focus on things that might actually become a problem.”

Comments

[ShiningBeacon]

A very well done chapter. I am enjoying how you are tying in background elements from the show into the story for the buildup towards the climactic episodes at the end of the series. Things that I had not thought of but seem obvious in hindsight, like that outpost at the base of Everhoof. All in all, it was well done except for a few editing errors here and there. In particular:

“Now now, let’s not get too excited. Princess Twilight isn’t going to have me thrown into a dungeon because she’s a kind pony who more importantly doesn’t have a castle in her dungeon. I know that because I checked before I came here,” Greater Good added. “So, why don’t we all take a few deep breaths to calm down before getting down to the main reason I came here.”

Other then minor quibbles, I really only have nice things to say about your characters and I think you’ve done a good job on this story. Well done.