Epilogue: Polished To A Sheen
Edge Sheen shifted uncomfortably on the mattress, trying to find a decent position. She would have preferred to lie on her back, but the damage her armor had taken from the manticore's tail had left several cuts that were still healing, which meant that she was forced to rest on her chest and stomach until her back had healed.
At least as far as hospitals went, this one was better than average. The Crystal Guards had access to the same facilities and doctors as the Princess and Prince, one of the perks of the position.
In her case, it felt like one last consolation prize before her inevitable dismissal from the Guard.
She didn’t see how they could keep her. It was bad enough that she had failed in the task the prince had assigned her, but now she was a cripple.
The doctors hadn’t even needed an x-ray. They’d taken one look at her ruined left wing before deciding that amputation was the only viable option. If she’d been able to retract it before the impact, it might have been salvageable, but it had been fully extended in her attempt to try and recover from the blow, meaning it had crumpled like an accordion when she hit the wall, pulverizing most of the bones and shredding the tendons in the process.
She closed her eyes in pain at the memory. Even though the wing was gone, she could still feel phantom tingles from where it had been. They’d told her that would pass with time, just like they'd assured her that nothing could have been done to save her wing.
They’d told her a lot of things she wasn’t sure she believed. All she knew was that her time in the Crystal Guard was over. A pegasus that could not fly was not fit to serve.
She heard hoofsteps approaching. Careful to make no sudden moves, she kept her eyes closed and slowed her breathing. With luck, whoever it was would think she was asleep. She really didn’t feel like talking to anypony right then.
“You know, I haven’t spent much time in this infirmary, but I’m betting the food is as lousy as the one in Canterlot.” Shining Armor’s tone was amused, and she felt his hot breath on her ear as he leaned down to whisper, “Commander, you can’t fool the former Captain of the Royal Guard with the fake-sleep trick.”
She opened her eyes reluctantly, watching as Shining moved a chair over to the front of her bed.
“Maybe I was just trying to sleep, sir,” she replied, trying to balance being curt with being respectful. Even if she were discharged from the Guard, the prince was still royalty.
“Well, you shouldn’t sleep on an empty stomach,” he replied, pulling a few fresh haycakes from his satchel with a conspiratorial grin. “Pilfered these from the kitchens on my way down here. Thought you might be hungry.”
As unhappy as she felt, the smell of the warm food did brighten her spirits, if only a little. She took the cakes gratefully, quickly eating them before any of the nurses came to scold her.
“I won’t ask how you’re holding up,” he continued, and now his visage turned serious. “I’m damned sorry you had to lose your wing.”
The warm haycakes in her belly clashed with the cold feeling in her chest, the ice contracting around her heart. “It’s my job,” she mumbled, staring at the bedsheets. She couldn't quite face him just yet, not after she'd failed him.
“Horseapples!” he snapped. Her eyes widened in surprise – she’d never heard him speak quite so frankly before. Then again, he was a member of the Guard before he became a prince.
“There’s nothing in the oath or laws that say losing a wing is part of the job. What happened to you was wrong.”
She looked up at him.
“It was wrong that you were caught up in something I should have been able to handle myself,” he continued. “I was too damn stubborn to admit I needed help with my own problems, and it nearly cost both of us our lives. It cost you your wing.”
He sat there in silence for several seconds, as if choosing his next words carefully.
“At any rate, I don’t intend to let you saunter off into the distance. And not just because I owe you my life, something I intend to see you properly rewarded for, though I suspect Princess Cadance will handle that. I’m here to give you some options.”
“Options, sir?” She tried to keep the note of hope in her voice controlled.
“The first thing you should know is that you are absolutely not going to be discharged from the Crystal Guard.”
She felt her heart leap in her chest, and a smile broke out on her face.
“Of course, you’re not required to stay, but given that you look like I just told you that Hearth’s Warming is here early, I’m guessing you’re fine with sticking around.” He grinned. “Now, I do have to tell you that a spot opened up in Canterlot for a transfer, if you wanted to get out of here and move to the place where all the action is. Princesses Celestia and Luna both said they’d be happy to have you serve on their personal guards.”
“This an attempt to get rid of me, sir?” she asked, still smiling.
“Oh no, not at all. I’d much rather have you stick around. But I wouldn’t be much of a leader if I didn’t give you all your options.”
Edge knew some of her fellow Crystal Guards wanted that transfer, wanted what they saw as greater glory.
It had never been what she wanted. Her heart remained in the Empire, and always would.
“I’d prefer to stay here, sir.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Because I was hoping to offer you a promotion. Even Keel has submitted his retirement papers, and I need a new Captain of the Crystal Guard.”
“Me?” She blinked. “But wouldn’t Lucky Lance be next in line?”
“I’m asking you, aren’t I?”
“But – “
Seeing she wouldn’t be deterred, he sighed. “You’d have found out soon enough anyway, but Lance will be handing in his resignation in the next week. He won’t be a problem.”
It was a lot for her to take in. Just a few minutes prior, she’d been expecting to leave the Guard; now she was being asked to lead it instead. But she'd long prided herself on being quick on her hooves, and so her answer was quick in coming.
“I accept your offer, Your Highness,” she replied.
“Excellent.” His relief was palpable. “It’ll be a few weeks before the announcement, but Even Keel will want to see you as soon as you feel able, to start discussing the changeover.” He started to rise from his chair, making to leave.
“Sir?” She hated to ask, but she knew it would bother her if she didn't.
“Captain?”
She bit her lip. “Can I ask why me?"
Shining stared into her eyes for several seconds, before giving her a gentle smile. “Because you’ve already learned the most important lesson, Edge. You know what it’s like to lose.”
He gave her a pat on the hoof. "Let me know if you need anything else while you're in here."
She nodded, lost in thought. She wasn't sure what to make of his statement just yet, but at least it had given her something new to think about.
"Captain of the Crystal Guard..." she said, letting her voice trail off. It was a big responsibility.
She hoped she was ready for it.
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Good.
This hits hard tbh. 10/10 work
Hmmm
Ayyyyy. It's finally out!
Sweet, I love when characters that have gotten the short end of the stick are, "redeemed" so to speak, especially when they have A+ class characterization such as this case. That's the thing a lot of writers have trouble with, actually making them act like people, good job dude!
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This series has been set more or less in the middle of Season 5, so Flurry wasn't a thing yet.
Chronologically, my story last week came after this one, when Cadance was pregnant with Flurry.
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It's a fun little niche I've found to write in.
Honestly, Spike is the natural next candidate for one of these. However, I'm not sure where or when I'll tackle that one.
You would think that they would address Shining Armor's poor track record in the show. Would have made a great episode regarding the misuse and overuse of The Worf Effect.
This is to remind Edge Sheen that prosthetic wings are a thing, and that they work. Since we're sharing all of her options.
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Actually, did we see those in the show outside of the alternate universes in The Cutie Re-Mark? I'm certainly planning to give her one in the coming novel, but I was planning on it being a little more leading-edge and unproven.
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AFAIK, we only saw a mechanical wing prosthetic in The Cutie Re-Mark. But Kerfuffle had a mechanical hind leg prosthetic in Rainbow Roadtrip that looked similarly sophisticated.
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True, but there's a big difference between a leg and a flight-worthy wing. It's much harder to fly and steer than it is to support the hindquarters.
Of the few criticisms I had with the show, one of them was hitting Shining Armor and the princesses with the Worf bat. Never really sat right with me, but I'm glad we got stories like this out of it.
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Honeslty I question if it is a poor track record considering the only time we see things is when its an end of the world level event like Discord where Shink g Armor and the guards really didn't have a chance since it requeired the EOH.
We don't really see them handling more normal threats save the Sombra Timeline where they are shown to be holding their own against what amounts to a mindless army of machines do to mind control.
The Princesses yeah theu got Worfed hard but the guards really couldn't have dealt with the threats the season finals threw at them.
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The Royal Guard was either beaten or bypassed by armies in A Canterlot Wedding and The Movie, though there are mitigating circumstances. The changeling army was an outside-context problem, and while the Royal Guard hadn't adapted by To Where and Back Again, the Crystal Guard had (by To Change a Changeling, so around the same time). The Movie was just bad signals intelligence and strategic planning. Both the failure in The Movie and the failure in To Where and Back Again can ultimately be laid at the princesses' feet as failures of strategy and command. They set their army up to fail, so it failed.
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The season finale threats are far beyond their weight but this doesn't change the fact that they just kept getting their flanks handed to them. A military that keeps losing isn't good for morale and sense of safety in general. The consequences of a military that keeps getting jobbed for the sake of the protagonists kept getting glossed over in the show.
Even the "normal" threats like Sombra's army are shown very sparsely and more importantly, even Equestria is brought to its knees in that case (the map shows around the top half of the country being occupied) despite being better in pretty much everything like industry and the Crystal Empire being a city state. The fact that you would lose that badly in the first place means that either the enemy is too strong or you are incompetent. Sometimes both if you think about it. Sombra using his soldiers as meat shields probably is a factor for the former.
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The Crystal Empire starting the war strong is no great surprise. It is introduced as being able to largely control Equestria's morale, and while total wars are eventually won by the home fronts with superior production, battles are often won and lost on the spirits of armies. The Eastern Front of World War II is a good comparison. The Wehrmacht was battle-hardened and flush with success in France and the Balkans while the Red Army was demoralized by a lackluster performance in Finland, hollowed out by the Great Purge, and was crucially mis-lead in the opening hours and days of the war by a political leadership that was blindsided by Operation Barbarossa. 1941 and '42 saw huge and economically crucial lands of the Soviet Union occupied and despoiled by a pitiless enemy. But the Soviets held on to the crucial Moscow and Baku districts and with the production therein, the relocated factories in the Urals, and allied Lend-Lease (how much of a factor it played is debated, but it was one, of whatever magnitude) managed to outproduce, attrit and encircle the Nazi army groups.
Sombra in the Cutie Re-Mark is Hitler a la the winter of 1942. He is just as doomed.
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You know I'm honeslty glad to see some one else understand the Changeling invasion isn't exactly one easily repeled when the enemies can be anything, civilians, your comrades, random debris on the ground.it is hard to make a defense when the only people you can trust are the ones you were with the exact moment the attack begian and if you get separated that trust is gone.
Honeslty we don't have any real info on To Where and Back again to know what happened so we can't really judge where the failure happened. Remer Cadence and Shining Armor also were kidnapped so the Crystal Guard failed as well despite having "adapted",
As for the Movie, honeslty the show has shown ews doesn't travel very fast, sure there are things lime dragon fire for fast messaging but we've only seen Celestia and Pime able to do it so who knows how wide spread that is.
The most common form of communication was simple mail which we know from our own history, can be very difficult to travel over long distances, especially oceans and if you aren't really allied with a nation even less likely to reach you.
I am somewhat curious just how large the Royal Guard actually is as we don't really see them outside of Canterlot usually unless they are escorting some one.
Also as I said we dknt guy know what happens when the cameras isn't on them so for all we know they handled major issues that didn't need Twilight and Co.
Honeslty we don't really have enough info on the guards to know how effective they are since like we agree, the season finals are well outside anything theu could handle. Honeslty the fact they tried at all i say speaks volumes to their dedication to defense at the very least.
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as I said the RGs were effectively fighting g machines do to the mind control so its fighting an enemy that won't retreat, won't stop attacking no matter where, lines won't break and are utterly calm at all times.
We also don't fully know how far the war had spread, we knwere there were some crystal on the map but we saw the major battles were taking place in the frozen north which means near the Empire as opposed to on Equestrian Soil.
Leaving aside that Worf Effect, glad to see Shiny getting some attention like this.
I hear people comment on the scene in Slice of Life, at the wedding, and how it's another in a string of emasculations for him.
I watch the scene, and wonder how many weddings he's had to attend since his own before that one was just too much for him to bulldog his way through until there was an excuse for the tears.
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That chapter was a surprising amount of fun to write.
These three chapters have been a lot of fun to read. :) It makes me really regret that the focus of G4 required the show to be chained to the perspective of the Mane Six because it severely limited the ability of the writers to answer one of the most fundamental questions of the show world: if all of these powerful authority figures are walked through every time something bad happens, why are they in authority? As a fandom, we've written millions of words, maybe even approaching billions of words, discussing the world as it is outside of the view of the show. How Celestia, Princess of the Sun, is actually a benevolent and wise ruler of awesome power. How Luna, Princess of the Night, is her sister's equivalent (and often the implications of the fact that she can just take information right out of people's head while they sleep). How the pretty pink pony Princess of Love is a ruler in her own right, entrusted with the stewardship of an empire. Exactly why a stallion presented as a sort of hapless nerd with a surfer dude voice is the Captain of the Royal Guard and then the co-ruler of an empire with his seemingly soft and harmless wife. And on top of that, just how strong Princess Omni-Nerd actually is even without the firepower to do Pony Ball Z with an oversized centaur.
I've liked reading this series of short stories. I have my own personal perspective on the perpetual fandom project of discussing the wider world of the show, one that I'm personally endeavoring to write about in irrationally long form, but I've gotten a real kick out of your perspective on all this. I love the idea of you doing a novel-length thing in which Captain Sheen plays a part and I will be watching your career with great interest.
Right. I finished it. As I THINK I said before, he is derelict in his duty for telling neither his subordinates nor his commanding officer that he is weakened. Mitigating circumstances especially in the latter case, since she is also his wife, but... still a failure as a soldier.
This and maybe the fact the Princess with empathic abilities didn't pick up on his problem are now the only parts that strain my suspension of disbelief.
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I think the idea is less she didn't know he had problems, but that sometimes its hard to talk about problems even if you know they are there. Its like when you are a kid and your parents get in an argument. You know there is a problem, the signs are there, but if they don't tell you what the problem is you can't help fix it. So you let it fester, until ignoring the problem is all you can do as it blisters and gets worse, becomes stagnate. It weakens you, because the problem doesn't go away, until, like with a blister something outside prods it, and it breaks, sometimes violently, other times leaking out and releasing pressure. So with all the pressure gone they can talk, and resolve the problem. Also in this case he definitionally has no CO, as a prince and as the leader of the guard. The closest thing to a superior he has is Cadence but marriage should lift them to the same level.
Finally empathy isn't telepathy. It doesn't tell you what the problem is, just how someone feels in the moment, and having empathy does not excuse a partner from discussing problems.
Admittedly he should have told his subordinates about his current state, but I don't think its enough to be considered a failure, so much as an oversight. A failure would be on the level of retreating without cause, sacrificing others to save himself, or to create an exploitable weakness in the fortification by negligence or malicious act. Failure I think implies that he did not hold up his oaths or code of honor.
11314055
Hmmm... I am perfectly willing to bow to your assertion that "failure" may be the wrong word, but "oversight" implies to me a mere act of forgetfulness or failure to be aware of options. This was more willful than that. He made an active choice to hide the bags under his eyes. To not confide in the (almost certainly) most loving wife on the planet.
And he is part of the fortification, and I can't see him as NOT being negligent to at least some degree. He says as much to Edge Sheen. Enough that if he wasn't Prince Consort he should have been demoted? I will take your word that it was not. But* that a formal reprimand might have been standard procedure... at least in any real-world military**.
*Again, if there weren't unofficial between-spouses avenues to make sure he had learned his lesson.
** Which even in this more mature look at the world I don't think it is. Actually I have a plotbunny about soldiers from the Equestrian Girl's universe getting it pounded into their heads by a commanding officer (who has seen the results of certain REPEATED experimental training exercises), that strict discipline is a liability in the dimension Equestria is in. So, for example, officers should socialize freely with enlisted men, and fear spells should be substituted in boot camp so the instructors can be highly supportive people who are unfailingly polite to the recruits.