A Place For My Thoughts

by Cavemonkynick

Training

Summer, Week 2, Day 3, Year 990 of Celestia’s Reign (CR)

Today has been one of the best days of my entire life, but first I should probably explain why I haven't written in over a month. Short answer? Lunar Guard training camp. Long answer? Well, you best get comfortable.

The first day of training was a blur of paperwork and shots. I genuinely can't remember just how many holes the medical staff poked in my flank that day and I don't really care to try. I got immunized for things I didn't even know existed. I swear they made half of them up just to stab us with the needle thirty times. This confusing and exhausting process kept us up all night. I wasn't finished with my stuff until around noon the next day. At that point I was able to catch a small nap while the ponies in charge weren’t looking before they sorted us into divisions. Once we'd all been assigned a bed they told us we had until sundown to crash, and then the real work began.

They weren’t kidding. The first seven days, well nights technically, were what they called "Shock Training." Basically it was one physically daunting task after another in full armor kit. If we were awake, we were either eating or working our flanks off. It was brutal, especially the climbing because I wasn't allowed use of my wings unless I fell, which happened a lot. Half of the ponies either quit or washed out that week but I held my own. Then the next week was purely academic. Thankfully I was good at this part. Unfortunately the better I did the more work they threw at me and I just kept soaking up the information like a dry sponge. After seven days of physical torture I was back in familiar territory. I could not make myself slow down. It was almost as if I felt that if I didn’t do good enough they were going to make me run more laps and climb the wall again.

After the first two weeks, things finally calmed down. They took everypony who was left, which was about twenty ponies, and put us all in the same division. We were told from this point on it was all or nothing for us. If one of us failed, we all did. For that whole week we had combat training in the mornings and team building exercises in the afternoon. We all learned basic hoof-to-hoof but then we were taught advanced techniques based on our race.

Unicorns were taught basic combat magic: stunning spells, basic shield spells, some even learned elemental spells like fire and ice but were instructed only to utilize them when dealing with major threats. Earth ponies were taught to make full use of their strength to perform amazing feats with their bare hooves. And pegasi were taught to out-maneuver opponents and take advantage of weak points to avoid drawn out confrontations. I was surprisingly good at this. Turns out I have a really sharp mind. I mean, I know I was book smart but when put on the spot my mind kicks into overdrive and has my next five moves planned out in an instant. My only problem was getting my body to do what I needed it to. I was overpowered too easily but never outsmarted. The instructors picked up on this and pulled me aside for strength and speed training.

The team building exercises were a bit different. The instructors would pick a leader and then present us all with a problem, a set of guidelines for solving said problem, and a time limit. The first few times around were pretty sad honestly, but it was to be expected. We were all still figuring out where we fit in. Somehow I ended up in a sort of joint leadership position with a unicorn named Flourish. I came up with the plans and she got everypony organized and made it happen. After a few days we were clearing any challenge the instructors could throw at us with no problem.

The last week we went over a little of everything we learned then today was our graduation. We were all knighted by Princess Celestia herself one by one. When she reached me, I knelt and she recited something regal. I don’t remember the exact words because this took place at noon, and I’ve become nocturnal so I was tired. When she told me to stand, I did so and looked up at her. I expected her to move on to the next pony, but instead she just looked at me and smiled. Then she told me to look at my flank. I did as I was told and immediately noticed a new addition, a full moon bearing the Mare in the Moon with a bat-like wing that wrapped around half of it's circumference.

Every fiber of my being was focused on not running in circles and screaming like a little filly, Shimmering Sky would have had my head on a platter, so I fell back in line. I couldn’t stop grinning though. After the ceremony we were all given leave, so we all headed into town to celebrate. Somewhere along the line, one of the guys called me Night Wing and it just sorta stuck. It kinda sounded stupid at first, but the more I think about it the more I like it. It beats the hay out of Devin Windelbane, that’s for sure.

Night Wing of the Lunar Guard. Yeah, I like that…

Comments

[Hingard]

This review is brought to you by the group Authors Helping Authors

Name: A place for my thoughts

Grammar score: 9/10 (always room to grow)

Pros: Liked the approach of using journal entries to tell the story. Even with out reading your other story I can get a good understanding of the character.

Cons: Spacing in between paragraphs a definite must. Other than that I could find much else.

Notes: I like the fact that your delving into the back story of one of your main character from another one of your stories. It's something I plan to do my self with my own story. Back to yours everything flowed smoothly, and at no point did I feel like I didn't know what was happening. It would have been nice if the entries were a little longer, but that's just me.

I hope you liked your review, please consider review my story Guardian of the Hearthfire.

[Cavemonkynick]

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Thanks for the review, I'm glad you enjoyed the story. I'll be sure to get to yours as soon as I can.