Chapter 12 Who Hides In The Shadows
It was a stormy night in Canterlot, everyone was either asleep or closing up shop for the night. All except for the Lunar guard who had now taken the Solar guards' patrol. The storm did make it harder to see or hear any would-be criminals, but that had never been an issue, Equestria rarely had crime, least of all its capital city. But it would be this lax in alertness that would lead to some less than savory figures mucking about in the darkness.
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"I fucking hate this weather, why did it have to rain on my first fucking shift." Douny thought, trying to relieve the frustration by massaging his temples the best he could through the chainmail balaclava. "Doesn't fucking help that this rain is going to make it a bitch to clean in the morning." He then finished his thought looking over to one of the guards next to him.
"I don't think I've seen you around, what's your name?" Douny asked, easily keeping pace with his partner, though that had mostly been because of the length of his legs.
"Oh thank Celestia, I thought you were going to be quiet all night." The strange purple and blue thestral blurted out, taking a more relaxed cadence with her hoof steps as she did so. "My name's Lunar Gaze, I've gotta say I read the reports on you, but you are a hell of a lot cuter than I thought you'd be." The Thestral mare said very… forwardly.
"Look I'm flattered but, I'm not looking for anything like that." Douny stated flatly, not giving any chance for misinterpretation.
"Worth a shot." Lunar Gaze said under her breath. "So why did a stallion like you join the Lunar Guard?" She questioned
"Well, Princes Celestia asked me what job I'd like, and because of my… experience in Marshall work fields, as I would put it anyways this job just stuck out." Douny explained, looking over to Lunar Gaze, who seemed to have a sly grin on her muzzle.
"So when you say `experience` exactly how much are we talking?" Lunar Gaze asked with a pur, getting a reaction of annoyance from the human.
"This shift can't end fast enough." Douny stated, rolling his eyes.
"Oh come on, lighten up, I rarely get to make these jokes." Lunar Gaze said, chuckling to herself as she kept watching Douny's reaction, only for mild concern to take over as he saw him sharpen his stance and reach for his homemade club. "Douny, what's wrong?"
"I don't know, but I think I see something, stand guard here and I'll check it out." Douny answered as he marched his way to an alleyway. Lunar Gaze had stayed, making sure she had her wing blades extended Incase something happened.
Before Douny could fully turn the corner he was met with a slash to his neck which his chainmail stopped. As he took a step back out of surprise the assailant booked it down the alley jumping and flying over a wall. Being unable to jump over the wall Douny called over to Lunar Gaze and pointed towards the wall in question, to which the blue and purple mare seemed to understand and took flight in search of the attacker.
Douny, not taking another chance with the situation, pulled out his falchion and looked for a way to catch up with his partner, or hopefully find another Night Guard to take flight and help her. Unfortunately, however, it didn't take Douny long to get lost in the rainy streets of Canterlot. thinking of nothing else he could do he kept going in roughly the same direction he saw the mare and attacker fly to until he heard some flapping up ahead.
When he caught up to where he heard the flapping the sight was ugly, Lunar Gaze hadn't been lucky catching the attack, finding her wounded and bleeding from a cut on the left side of her muzzle, knocked out, and a gash across the left side of her barrel a small pool of blood around her. Running to her side sword still in hand he scanned the area with his sword in wrath guard ready to swing down from his shoulder if the attacker showed up in the storming alley before sheathing his blade and getting to her side. Deciding in an instant that her life was more important than some pompous Nobles' rest he looked around to see where the closest door was, finding one on the other side of the street.
Dashing over to it, the human borderline slammed his chainmail fist on the door luckily for him he heard hoof steps coming to the door, and was opened very shortly after, revealing an exhausted mare in front of him. Only for that tired look to be turned into slight fear when she looked up at his almost covered face, any features for her being obstructed by the dark and stormy night. Taking action before she ran off, Douny took hold of the situation.
"I'm Douny I'm in service to Princess Luna in her Majesty's Night Guard, I need your help, a fellow guard was attacked and is seriously hurt I need you to get a doctor or another guard here quickly do you understand." Douny stated, with authority clear in his voice. To which the mare seemed to recognize and nodded bolting to do as the man said as he ran over to keep watch over his partner falchion now out of its sheath and in a defensive stance holding his blade in fools guard (blade being down by his left thigh ready to cut upwards) and held it quickly glancing to the wounded mare making sure she wasn't losing too much blood. Deciding the attacker was long gone now, he kneeled down putting his sword down next to him putting his hands over her wound on her barrel to stop the bleeding.
It seemed like hours passed before some kind of medical pony and a few more thestral Night Guards came down the road, to which the human let out a sigh of relief at the sight. One of the guards came up to the human looking over the situation.
"By the goddesses, what happened?" Guard asked, Douny noticing it was a stallion.
"We found someone snooping around. I went to go check it out, but something hit me and bounced off my armor, she took chase after whatever the hell attacked me, and when I found her, this happened." Douny looked over to the medical pony who was looking her over.
"Good news it looked worse than it is, but the bad news is she will need a few days to recover." The doctor stated matter of factly, as he looked over to the guards "I'm going to need you both to carry her on the stretcher and our friend here can put her on top of it."
Without another word Douny picked up Lunar Gaze and put her into the stretcher, giving her one last look until the guards took her to the hospital, after that the human took off his helmet, mail coif, and mouth wrap, and his padded coif, putting them in his helmet as he looked on at the scene before he slumped over on the wall with an overhead hang keeping him out of the rain, to which one of the few guards still around looked at him with concern.
"Hey, are you alright?" The Night Guard closest to him asked rushing over to his side.
"No… no not really," Douny stated with a dry tone, closing his eyes for a brief moment. "I'm going to report this incident to Princess Luna, we had two attacks on guards tonight, and we have a suspect who has escaped, she's gonna want to hear about it." He finished getting back to his feet and putting his headgear back on, then made his way to the Castle keeping his hand close to his falchions hilt the whole time.
Once he made it to the doors of the palace he nodded to the thestral guards, both of them looking his way.
"Who goes there?" One of the guards asked, her voice slightly confused at seeing the man back so soon.
"Loki and his merry band of bastards." Douny slightly joked more for his own benefit.
"Douny, I thought you weren't supposed to turn in until 5 AM, it's only 3 what's going on?" The other guard stated her voice concerned.
"Long story and I'm afraid I don't have much time, I need to see Princess Luna, it's urgent, I'll tell you both what happened once I have time." Douny stated, giving a tired look to both of the guardsmares.
"She's available, get inside if it's as bad as it sounds she's going to want to speak with you immediately." The guardsmares on the right side, opening the double doors to the palace letting Douny into the dry warm building.
Douny quickly made his way to Luna's observatory, he was shown the location a few times on his tours with the guards, they had shown him all the places where the Princesses might be in the palace if he ever needed to reach them. As he walked he glanced at his right hand, finding that the palm which was once a thin brown leather portion of his mail gloves, were stained crimson from the blood of his partner, everything now hitting him much much harder, once again he had let those near him down.
Beating those thoughts away with brutality he focused on his goal, thinking like that won't bring the bastard who did this to justice any sooner. Finally getting to the doors of Luna's observatory Douny knocked on the door, the knocking sounding much more aggressive than he'd liked though he wasn't sure if it was his nerves or the mail that caused that. The door opened revealing Luna who had a look of shock at seeing the man.
"Douny, we're pleased to see thee, but what hast brought thou? It had been our understanding that thous service wouldn't be over till early morning." Luna said, now fully seeing the state of the tired and now obviously socking and blood stained man. "~And what happened to thee, were thou assaulted?" She asked, finishing her bout of questions.
"Sorry Luna, but I have urgent news, just tonight me, and another guard were assaulted by an unknown suspect who managed to flee. I'm fine, my armor saved me, but Lunar Gaze wasn't so fortunate, she's getting medical treatment as we speak." Douny ranted, almost unable to control the torrent of thoughts flooding his mind like a tsunami wave.
Luna, seeing the state of her friend, walked to his side and brought a wing over his back, walking him into her observatory.
"Come Douny, thou hast earned a break from tonight's work, speak with us, it seems thou is being troubled by something." Luna gently said, walking the man over to the closest seat in the room.
The man took a seat on a chair, the seat itself felt a bit too small but he was fine with that for now, choosing to calm himself down from everything that just happened. Taking off all headgear, equipment belt, and brigandine he let himself feel more comfortable before collecting his thoughts. Once he knew what to say he just let everything out.
"I'm no stranger to war Luna, but I can't explain why after all the violence and blood I've seen, why this whole situation is weighing down on me so much. I mean fuck, I've seen people killed in front of me and I never batted an eye. But this whole situation seems to have shattered that." The man let out, cupping his head in his blooded gloves, unable to take them off due to them being attached to his mail shirt.
Hearing this brought pain to Luna's heart, her ears were folded down, and a frown on her face at hearing the man's woes, she just sat next to the nearly broken man, keeping her wing on his withers. He looked up at her tears forming in his eyes with a bloody handprint on his face. This only brought the feeling of sadness for the man to greater heights as she hugged him with her forelegs and wings, they stayed like this for a whole minute until Douny pulled away.
"Is there a bathroom here?" He asked, wiping away his tears with the mail side of his hand. Luna only pointed with her hoof to a door on the far right side of the room, to which the human nodded and took off his mail shirt leaving only his dark blue gambeson on his upper body.
Luna watched the man head over to his bathroom, after he was out of sight she looked at his gear casting a spell over it to clean the blood and water off, also putting a protection spell over it to keep it from rusting anymore.
"Poor stallion, does he truly have to take on his lot in life all by himself?" She whispered to herself, taking his helmet in her magical grasp and staring at it, putting it down with a sigh. A few moments after, Douny came back out no longer having blood on his face and looking a little better than the state he was originally in.
"Thanks, I… I really needed to clean myself up a bit. I see that you cleaned up my gear, how much do I owe ya?" Douny half-joked, adding a dry laugh.
"Tis no trouble, and don't worry about paying us, we did it to help out a friend in need, it shouldn't rust anymore we also added a protective layer to it with our magic." Luna stated, with a warm smile.
"Thank you, it means a lot to me. But I think I really must go though, I think that I'm going to go to sleep and hopefully talk to you tomorrow." Douny said putting on his gear but keeping his helmet and coifs in it.
"Have a good night Douny, may thee dreams be pleasant tonight." Luna said, giving him a kind smile and nod.
With that Douny walked off, his shoulder slack, he just couldn't wait to get to bed so he could hopefully sleep this hellish night away. Though he had to admit that Luna did help make it a little bit better at the very least. He only hoped that tonight would be a dreamless one, not sure how much more he could take today.
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i wonder who is hiding under Luna night
11607192
Who knows, I can't wait to get to show the end of this arc I think that everyone is going to like where it's going.
11607573
He got PTDS from what happen didn’t he?
11614560
Sort of, his PTSD has always been there, it's just now it's starting to take hold and manifest in more obvious ways
great chapter
11664727
I'll try to answer what I can.
Firstly The unit sizes, I don't think back then I understood small unit tactics so I thought getting out of cover and not holding up would be a bad idea.
Second, I agree looking back it was probably a better idea to spread it out more evenly, it would have probably made it more digestible in some ways.
Third, When it comes to him taking a leadership role or a follower role is a bit more fluid than you might expect I don't want to go any farther with that though because it will be shown way later on.
Forth, When it comes to Spike, I guess I just forgot to add him into some of the scenes his still with Twilight after the meeting between Douny, Thunderhooves and the ponies.
Fifth, Honestly the bed thing was an over site, I wasn't really thinking to hard about the logistics of that scene.
Sixth, During the mental help scene with Twilight he didn't consider her a friend more of an associate in a way, I guess I really didn't make that clear.
Seventh, Arguing with Douny when he has his mind set on something is basically like talking to a brick wall.
Finally, I'm also still a very very very novice writer and I'm still trying to learn, so I appreciate the feedback, and thank you for voicing some of the issues with my work.
Poor mare. Got shot down and then cut down.
11664829
You’re doing really quite well!! I’m definitely marking the story to notify me for updates.