71. The Change
Radish nervously knocked on the door of his captain’s office.
“Come in,” she called from the other side.
Radish entered. Barrel Roller had redecorated Shining Armor’s old office with her own belongings, mostly medals and photos. The fern was still there. Barrel Roller was leaning back in her chair, while Saguaro Shade was leaning against the desk.
“You wanted to see me, ma’am?”
“Have a seat, Root.”
Radish sat down.
“Root,” said Barrel Roller, leaning forward, “you know what I hate more than anything?”
“Paperwork?”
“Well, that’s a close second. But what I hate more than paperwork is a pony who thinks they’re above everyone else. A pony who thinks the rules don’t apply to them.”
“Ma’am, I followed procedure to the letter on the mission!”
“She doesn’t mean you, Root,” said Saguaro Shade, chuckling.
“Yeah,” said Barrel Roller. “I mean the smarmy bastard I marched into Secure Holding. I never liked that Worthy Wagoner. You know the day I was promoted, he put an editorial in the paper saying I was too ‘hotheaded and shortsighted’ to be captain?”
“I saw that, ma’am,” said Radish. “I wrote a letter expressing my disagreement… but they didn’t print it.”
“The point is, you did good out there. You helped our allies, you put a nasty piece of work away, and you rewrote a page or two of the history books. You even filled out your mission report pretty well.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
She reached into her desk drawer and placed a flat box on her desk. “You remember what Celestia said about how you just keep failing upward?”
“Barry, no jokes now,” sighed Saguaro Shade.
“I wasn’t. Root, today you’ve succeeded upward. This has been under consideration for a while, but your performance on the mission cinched it.”
She opened the box. Inside was an insignia for the rank of major- the rank immediately above lieutenant.
Radish stared. “Ma’am? Sir?”
“Congratulations, Major Root,” said Barrel Roller.
“Major?”
“It means ‘big’, Root,” said Saguaro Shade. “As in, a big pain in the flank for Equestria’s enemies.”
“I don’t know what to say,” said Radish. “Except, thank you. I’m honored.”
"But this doesn’t mean you can rest on your laurels,” said Barrel Roller. “More will be expected of you than ever before. More paperwork, too.”
“I understand. I’ll do you proud, Barry.”
“Call me that again, and you’re back to a lieutenant.”
“Sorry, captain.”
Curtsey Blush led Radish down a brightly-lit hallway. She stopped in front of a door and opened it, revealing a furnished apartment.
“So, here it is,” she said. She led him inside.
Radish gazed around the room. "This is for me? To live in?"
“That’s right. It’s the standard private quarters for a major. Housekeeping is on Wednesdays-”
“Sorry, what?” interrupted Radish. “You’ll be cleaning in here?”
“Me or another maid. We can’t have our majors spending their valuable time dusting blinds, after all.”
Radish opened a side door to reveal a bathroom. He walked in and stared dumbfounded at himself in the mirror above the sink.
“Uh, major? Are you okay?”
“I’ve… I’ve never had my own bathroom before.”
She smiled. “I see. This one,” she said, opening a rear door, “is your bedroom. If the pillows aren’t to your liking-”
Radish entered the bedroom. He stifled a gasp.
“I’m guessing you’ve never had a bed this big before?” she asked.
Radish nodded.
“I figured that, since you’re dating, you’d appreciate a mattress large enough for two.”
Radish put his hoof on the bed. “I can finally ask Light, ‘Your place or mine?’ I have a place that’s mine.”
“You’ve earned it. I’ll let you make yourself at home. Have a nice day, Major Root.”
She curtseyed and left the apartment. Radish lay down on the bed. The mattress was firm. The room was warm and quiet. He stretched out and sighed contentedly.
He opened his eyes to see Luna staring down at him.
“Gah!”
“Radish! I have just heard the news! Congratulations, major!”
“Oh, uh, thank you.” He looked around. Luna was standing next to his bed, and the bedroom around them looked discolored and askew. “Is this a dream?”
“Indeed. I could not wait to tell you how proud of you I am! Of course, as my Champion, your station already exceeded any conventional rank. But it is nice that you are being materially rewarded for your achievements, just the same.”
Radish sat up. “Princess… can we talk?”
“About the purloined sun shard?”
Radish nodded. Luna sat down next to him.
“Celestia insists that it is her burden alone,” she sighed. “She is quite stubborn when it comes to the sun. She tells me she has a plan, but she has not been forthcoming with specifics. For my part, I have met with the Wagoner family, and they claim they possess no such thing. They could be keeping it anywhere now.”
“There must be something we can do to make them give it back. The castle’s press office could put out a statement-”
“I think it is best not to take the matter public. If ponies knew how easily a piece of the sun could be stolen without Celestia realizing, many more will attempt to claim shards of their own.”
“That would be bad,” agreed Radish. “Princess Luna… my deed to the Sea of Omens- it’s not the same, is it?”
Luna shook her head. “No. Your parcel of the moon was gladly gifted, not secretly stolen. The moon’s greatness is only enhanced by association with you.”
“Aww, thank you, Princess Luna. I had this idea about- ow!”
Radish opened his eyes. Light Fantastic was laying in his bed next to him, digging an elbow into his side.
“Oh. Hey, Fan.”
“Hey, you,” she said, “I just stopped by to see your new place. And I found you talking to Luna in your sleep. Was she barging into your dreams again?”
“It’s not what you think. We were talking about work stuff.”
“If they make you work in your sleep, you should get paid overtime.”
“I’ll bring that up. What do you think of my new pad? Pretty swanky, right?”
“Yeah, swanky.” She snuggled into him. “Congrats, Rad.”
“Thanks. I feel like such a grownup.”
“I’ve never dated a guy who was actually going somewhere in life. I feel like I’m growing up, too.” She pulled his face close. “So… wanna do something really grownup?”
Radish grinned. “Your place or mine?”
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Nice, a well deserved promotion.
What exactly is the rank hierarchy?
11449371
I go into them in this reply.
Radish is basically in the middle now.
Those two ponies are going to have a field of Radishes someday
I wonder if there is more than one shard of the Sun that was taken. I would assume that searching for them with a heat vision to see an area that might have a unusual heat spike could be the ideal to find them but probably not…
Yeah, go Radish!
11449380
Huh, kind of flipped around and all over the place from what you usually see IRL (and with waaaay fewer ranks), but that's fine.
Betting big, big money that she is an agent of that secret spy organization that we gotten glimpses of now and again during the story.
Let's fucking goooooooo
A well earned promotion for Mr Big Root
Ayooo! He dropped the line!
Anyone else reading this with a big smile on their face for our boy ?
EDIT: New cover art too !
Fitting for the story right now, yes ?
I love me some slice of life reward chapter. It's short, to the point, and absolutely heartwarming.
Oh the missing sun shard is going to lead to a hole new puzzle and i so do love a good puzzle.
Esto es muy sospechoso y también peligroso.
Oh! Oh! Are they going to play Parcheesi and make pancakes?
11449385
What is that? You said that your ancestral family treasure vaults and villa and vineyards were reduced to a whiff of incandescent plasma by a rogue coronal mass ejection? What a mystery...
I get that the show making captain the highest rank in the guard limits options, but this ass backwards ranking system is crazy. Major answering to captains! Next we'll have colonels answering to corporals.
Just an observation freely tossed about like anything else. It appears that your rank structure is more closely aligned to that of the Naval Service, with Captain being the equivalent of a full colonel. As such, I might recommend his new rank should be Vice Commander (equal to that of a Major). That would make a Commander, the next step up, the direct subordinate of a Captain. Feel free to take this suggestion, wad it into a tiny ball and file it in the circular container adjacent to your desk. It's probably a rather "rank" suggestion at best.
11450002
I just think of it like it’s hearkening back to more archaic uses, from the days before “general” supplanted “captain-general” as the premier command rank, and military history was about studying the great captains of the past.
And colonels do answer to corporals, if they’re not in said corporal’s direct chain of command and attempt to enter a secure area said corporal has been ordered to keep anyone from entering who doesn’t have the proper clearance. A colonel could get shot by a corporal by persisting in that attempt.
11450113
Agreed!
Maxim 2: A Sergeant in motion outranks a Lieutenant who doesn't know what's going on.
11450002
I mean, it's also entirely possible for Captain to be more of a title rather than a rank when it comes to the Guard. I usually run it that each City has one captain, and each of the royal guards have captains, but the term captain is simply the easiest way to know whose the big boss while the actual rank of each Captain varies based on what sort of guard detachment they're in charge of. The captain of a small town guard will easily be a lesser actual rank than the Captain of Celestia's personal Solar Guard or Luna's Lunar Guard.
Which, granted, that's not happening here, but my point is more just because the show makes the highest rank Captain, that doesn't mean the system itself is out of wack. I think one of the favorite means I saw of handling the issue in a story was there was a story where Captain was the highest rank obtainable during times of peace and that Shining's actual rank would be higher if there was an actual need for it.
11450368
I could be wrong but historically it works by this principle: you have bunch of soldiers, they need coordination, you have one promoted to coordinate them. If you have more soldiers and one squad leader can't corral all of them - either by not enough available attention or decreased obidience due outnumbering - you promote another and divide soldiers between them. At this stage you don't need more than two ranks in your "army" at all. When you have so many soldiers and other staff that squad leaders stops adequately coordinate between themselves, you invent third rank, meaning leader of leaders. You can name it however you want. For example, leutenant. Then you have leaders of specific branches of military, they being coordinated by higher rank, etc. My point, you invent and implement higher rank only when you have too many leaders with existed maximal rank that they stop being effective without someone whose job would be coordinate them. And it means that Captain for Equestria's army very much could be highest rank because its army just not numerous enough to need higher rank at all.
11450810
As someone else said, though, higher ranks on occassion need to listen to lower ranks. Being a colonel doesn’t let you just bully any old corporal. Corporal might be a lesser rank, but if that corporal isn’t in your direct chain of command, they have a right to stop you if you try and use rank to supersede their orders to say… only let individuals with proper clearance enter a site they’re charged with overseeing.
It’s the chain that matters most, which is why I go with the idea that Captain could also be a title/rank to keep track of who is locally in charge. If each town and city is only allowed one—barring specific royal guards like how Celestia and Luna may have their own personal guard regiments that are seperate from Canterlots local devision—then the word is an easy way to keep track of whose the top of each cities guard without getting into each Captains individual rank.
Luna damn it all I binged this shit while at work and now I'm upset that I'm all caught up! This is a great story and really well paced out. I will now be commenting nice on every update from now on so be ready for that you talented writer
11450002
There’s a way to solve the Captain problem, at least. It could be a duty title/billet/position, i.e. “Captain of the Royal Guard”. The corresponding rank would probably be O-6 (or OF-5, for y’all NATO types) Colonel.
11453080
Aaaannd I see everybody’s already posted about this.
'bout freaking time.
I knew I wasn’t the only one who says that word.
Even while asleep this poor guy never gets a rest.
Oh well... At least he's gotten due recognition for service.