The Soldier and the Princess

by ACW

3

Luna’s Night Guards were training. Around 6pm equestrian time, they had their reveille, where they shook themselves awake, attended to their own personal hygiene and headed to the barracks’ cookhouse to have their breakfast (dinner to other ponies). Then it would be almost 7pm, where they had their regular session of physical training. Even though they were the night guard, the platoon sized group of ponies still underwent the same grueling regiments as the day guard. Since it was newly established since Luna’s return, the training was harder than usual as not only did the ponies have to face physical fatigue, they had to battle their own body clocks.

The number of fresh recruits had not been so small initially. When recruitment posters went up asking for volunteers, many had joined which much enthusiasm, setting high hopes for themselves to be seen donning the royal navy blue armor. Besides, it had seemed that the Lunar Guard armor seemed cooler than the Solar Guards.

However, they started dropping out like flies when the training started. Many of them couldn’t handle the continuous stress placed on them to maintain their discipline, or had dropped due to injuries. Others dropped out because they realised that such a regimental life did not suit them.

Nightshade was one of the ponies who were left. But he was slowly breaking, physically and mentally. After many days of training hard, his body ached all over, his joints cracked and movement was torture to him. His time to see his family was only reduced to one and a half days a week, and even that was no guarantee, due to the dreaded confinement where all the guards were turned out for a surprise inspection. The strictest punishments came upon them if there were mistakes found, such as unpolished armor, unclean bunks or poorly maintained weapons. Nightshade himself had faced three counts of such punishments within the first few weeks he had spent in the Night Guard barracks. He didn’t know what was happening to his family, and he certainly missed them so.

“Push-up positions ready!”

The instructor hollered to the mass of bodies in front of him. Half-hearted replies were muttered, as the platoon sleepily lowered themselves.

“Not fast enough! Recover!”

“Push-ups!”

“Recover!”

“Push-ups!”

Nightshade gritted his teeth as he fought the pain coursing through his chest. Sweat already started flowing down his head and into his eye, sending more stinging sensations through his nerves.

“For Luna’s sake, get a hold of yourselves! It’s been already one month through basic and you still need me to shout at you to move fast?!”

The platoon chorused a reply, and the instructor, satisfied, told them to start their exercise.

“One!”

“Two!”

“Three!”

Nightshade shut his eyes, half in pain, half in concentration. The muscles rippled and contracted each time he pushed himself off the ground. Each time it happened, a spike of pain lanced through his chest, signaling the build-up of lactic acid in his already-tired body.

“Eleven!”

“Twelve!”

“Thirteen!”

The rest of the platoon were grunting in pain, but they still pressed on. “Only the last few left! Come on guys!”
Nightshade whimpered in pain, his breath coming in and out in snorts. His body trembled as he willed himself to hold on. Saliva dripped out from his gritted teeth and mixed with the sweat that already stained the ground.

“Thirty-eight!”

“Thirty-nine!”

“Last one!”

There was a collective gasp of relief as the platoon completed their first exercise. Nightshade, however, stayed on the ground, still pushing himself off the ground to complete his final push-up. Around him, his platoon friends cheered him on, stomping their hooves on the ground and yelling at him to press on.

“Nightshade, you can do it!”

“Last one dude, you’re almost there!”

With one final push, Nightshade attempted to rise. He burst out yelling, the pain too much for him to bear, and focused his entire core into a single task of pushing himself. Yet, with all that effort and encouragement, he only succeeded lifting himself to halfway position, before he slumped back to sweat-and-saliva soaked ground, panting in pain and defeat.

“I-I’m sorry… guys…”

The instructor pushed past the trainees to Nightshade, who had rolled onto his back trembling in pain. He began to bark instructions to the trainees, pointing with a hoof at them.

“You, help me bring him to the medical centre. The rest of you! Get back and get ready for the next exercise!”

More groans came from the platoon, but they still formed up their lines as the instructor and a unicorn hefted Nightshade away to a medic stationed nearby.

------------------------------------------
A distance away, the soldier quietly watched the spectacle unfold from a bench. He locked his fingers together and placed his arms on his thighs, using his hands to support his head. He was waiting for Luna to join him on their usual route together. He hadn’t brought his battle order along as they were now safely stowed in a locker somewhere in the castle. He was dressed in his combat fatigues and wore a boonie hat.

Looking at the trainee slowly being brought away from the training ground, he couldn’t help but think about his own training back on Earth. He closed his eyes and thought back…

“Recruits! Get on the fucking ground and crawl!”

The simulated grenade exploded, signaling to the section of ten recruits to get down and get to cover immediately. They were training in a densely forested area, and trees were readily available for cover. Live 7.62 ammunition flew overhead, forcing them to keep their heads down.

Executing the low crawl may seem easy, but even crawling at a leisurely pace was enough to tire one out quickly. And they were supposed to crawl fast towards their objective and overrun it.

The men moved, like ants spreading out to overwhelm a giant opponent, to find the nearest tree to take cover.

One soldier, however, moved particularly slowly. Despite the protection offered by the guards they were wearing, it didn’t stop the sand from finding its way into the sleeves of their uniforms and forming a layer between the thin elbow skin and the pad. Every movement was torturous as the sand rubbed cruelly against soft flesh.

While the rest were making distinct progress, the recruit at the back would always be one step behind, pausing behind cover to catch his breath and futilely adjust his sleeves to make himself more comfortable.

“Fucking hell! Number 8! One more time you sit up, I’ll fucking make you crawl the whole route again, understand!”

Somehow, the instructor was able to shout over the roaring machine gun rounds.

The recruit at the back didn’t reply, instead choosing to save his energy to drag himself to the next cover in front.

“Damn it! You’re not the fucking infantry! You’re Airborne! And you better crawl like one!”

The rest of the nine recruits had finished their crawl, and were now at the end cheering him on.

“Come on!”

“You can do it!”

“Last ten metres, let’s go!”

With a cry, the recruit dug his elbows into the ground, ignoring the pain that shot up his arms as the sand dug into the raw abrasions and created deeper cuts. His legs thrashed as he struggled to maintain control to move properly as he fought the pain and fatigue.

Finally, he reached the end, and he shakily got up, helped by the other section mates. Dusting the sand and muck off his battle order and uniform, he looked to the instructor hopefully.

He only shook his head at him.

“Eleven minutes. You failed, so you’ve got to come back and redo this.”

Back in bunk, the recruit sat on his bed examining his injuries. He had managed to clean most of the sand away, but he couldn’t do much about the abrasions on his elbows which had left a mess on his skin. It seemed like someone had taken dark red poster color paint and splashed it over his elbow skin with an old paintbrush. The flesh was still raw, and washing it had been extremely painful.

“That looks fucking painful.” His buddy stood next to him holding a bottle of water.

“You think?”

His buddy shifted. “Listen man, you did a good job back there. You didn’t give up…

"Yeah, but i still fucked up didn't I?"

"Well, yeah, but fuck it. 'Cos you're gonna pull through the next one right?"

"Damn right."

He was alerted to her arrival by the almost silent clip-clop of her shoes on the cobblestone. Without looking up, he acknowledged her presence.

“Hey Luna.”

The princess smiled and exchanged greetings. She followed his gaze to the Night Guard barracks, where the trainees had resumed their exercise.

“You know, that’s kinda small for a normal regiment.”

“Indeed, but I have high hopes that it will soon grow in number.”

“Hmmph, will it, I wonder.”

Taking a seat beside the soldier, Luna looked at him and asked “Why’s that?”

“Not many ponies would be willing to go through so much shit just to strut around in heavy armor, let alone to be on high alert most of the time. Also, the working hours are quite shitty, yeah?”

“You’ll be surprised, Celestia does have her own guard as you know, and it’s quite a number. I still remember how it first started off, as a volunteer corp, before more ponies surged in.”

Luna laughed softly as she said “But I think that happened mostly because I came in.”

“What do you-“

The soldier stopped himself.

“Oh.”

“It’s alright. I’m quite over it anyway. But ponies do understand the need for security, because we’re not perfect. So there must be a way to keep everything in order.”

“But must they train so hard?”

“Who knows? The guards are expected to be able to react to any worst case scenario. Therefore I feel that their tough
training is a necessity.”

“It prepares them both physically and mentally, so they can handle stress well when given a tough situation to deal with.”

Luna laughed a little when she said next, “ And maybe, I also want to out-do Celestia’s Guard. I think they are slackening, so I want to give them a little competition and motivation.”

She swept back a few stray locks of mane that had gotten into her face. The soldier yawned as he compared his training to the Guards’ training.

“Seems like there’s a lot that your guard’s training has in common with my training back on Earth.”

The soldier stretched back, holding the back of the bench as he did so. Then he touched his boonie hat.

“You see this Luna? This hat is only given to either the scout troopers or the airborne troops in my army. It may not seem like much, but it had to be earned through three months of grueling training, in both natural and urban terrain. It's like your Guards' armor which can only be given once the trainees have proven themselves through their training."

“Many of the recruits who joined fell out because they couldn’t take it- either they couldn’t be bothered, or because of injuries. The few of us who were left behind were always consistently putting in our best efforts and keeping our heads set on one goal. I could see that same attitude in the Guards earlier when they were training. Despite their fatigue from previous training, they still continued to push themselves on.”

The soldier rolled up his sleeves and showed his arms to Luna. She gasped in shock when she saw the scars on his elbows.

“How did this…”

“Training. I had abrasions on them initially, but sand got inside and made it worse during training. I could only get it cleaned at the end of the day.”

“It actually got worse when I had to take another test the next day.”

“But I understood what it took, and so I gave it my all despite my injuries. I didn’t give up. In order to be in the best, I always had to give my best. Besides, I had my buddies to help support me. People may always call us crazy, that we have nothing better to do, but if no one else does it, who will?”

The soldier leaned back, and continued “Your guards, they’re good. They’re determined and strong, and they stick around for each other. Nothing should change that, because nothing short of the best should be serving the princesses and this land. You know there was a pony over there earlier who I could clearly see was pushing himself clear over his limits. Even though he fell out because he over-strained himself, his friends around were cheering him on and encouraging him. That’s the sort of spirit that should exist among those serving the Guard.”

“After all, that is how defending the home land and maintaining the peace should be, right? Unity is strength after all.”

Luna nodded slowly, looking at the barracks. The trainees had now started their run around the training grounds.

“Agreed. I am very glad to have such ponies serving in my midst. I could not have asked for better ones. Because when I called, they answered. My only wish is that there will be more ponies like these.”

The soldier got up from the bench and turned around.

“Shall we?”

Luna got up also.

“Yes we shall. I always look forward to our time together.”

They strode off toward the familiar path.

Author's Note:

Sorry for the long delay, and probably about the lack of quality of this chapter. I admit it's a bit rushed, but I'm on a tight schedule :(. A bit of comments help a lot! And I'm looking for people who are willing to help me out with this, so pls message me if you've got questions or if you want to help :)

Comments

[Luna Republic]

One of the best I've read! Keep up the good work, man!

[damnaion]

mmmm

[J-TBone]

I like it so far. I wonder where your going to take this. There's so many ways this story can go and I love that. Please keep writing, I think you can get a great full story out of this idea of yours.