• Published 14th Oct 2022
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The Last Nightguard - Georg



The last Nightguard is coming. Nothing will stop him until his nemesis is destroyed, not even death. Or children.

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9. Learning Experience

The Last Nightguard
Learning Experience


“Educational opportunities for guardmembers are provided through the training office, although external training courses may be taken through approved Crown educational institutions in any deployed area, with approval of your superior officer. Reimbursement for such training is limited by the following chart…”
—Manual of the Royal Guard, Volume Three


One simple sheet restored a certain fraction of dignity that Eb had feared lost forever when he had grown used to being sprawled out across a hospital bed, hairless, and otherwise naked under the direct observation of a princess. It was a very small fraction, but it kept his simmering fury of vengeance from breaking out in goosepimples with every draft of wind.

His hatred of Nightmare Moon continued undaunted, although he could feel it slip away with every hour of fitful slumber. When your whole world is nothing but a thousand years of a single thought, one screaming eternal thread of unspeakable agony, and that thread is suddenly cut, the tension recoils like a snapped clock mainspring. The shredded clockwork of his life filled Ebon Tide’s head throughout the remainder of the day, with occasional breaks as he woke enough to be fed or relieve himself.

Hatred was one thing. Hating the creature who was feeding you and applying a cold bedpan to your under-furred belly…

“You are a loathsome traitor,” muttered Ebon from under the fringe of his sheet.

“Truth,” agreed Princess Luna. She looked over the new tray of foodstuff which had just been delivered to his hospital room, and which had woken him up when it had been pushed into the room. The nurse had beaten a fairly rapid retreat or Ebon would not have spoken so freely in front of a witness. He allowed more pudding to be spooned into his mouth, determined that he would only taste ashes and vengeance, but it seemed to be some sort of egg-based whip with colorful topping.

“Is every bit of food in this pestilent era covered in sugar?” he grumbled once the bowl was empty.

Without saying a word, Luna speared a piece of some sort of pastry with a serving fork, then held it to his lips. From the look of it, the substance needed to be chewed with the small stubs of teeth that he had begun to grow through pain and itching, but one bite and it dissolved onto his tongue, filling his entire mouth with a slimy coating that left Eb coughing until Luna gave him some water.

“What deception is this,” he managed between coughs, “that something sweeter than sweetness hath such a cloying touch that it strangles the mouth? ‘Tis a sugar’s sugar cloaked in disguise.”

“My sister calls it cake,” said Luna, observing a second forkful of the substance with considerable skepticism. “I call it flank padding. And yet, if you eat a little of it with every meal, one begins to anticipate it, and eventually I presume it becomes a requirement.” She dropped the fork on the tray with a clatter and turned her head. Even from his awkward placement on the bed, Ebon could see the beginning of twilight outside the window, and it became obvious what the princess was avoiding.

“The hour of Night approaches,” he growled. “Why are you not at your task, Princess?”

The way the late sunshine reflected off her coat made it obvious that Luna flinched. The washed-out colors shifted in long ripples along her flanks, and her eyes definitely remained fixed upon the sugar-laden tray. “My sister has accomplished the task for many years in my absence. I have a responsibility to your care.”

“Thy responsibility is to Equestria. I am a pathetic excuse. Even the least of the timorous creatures who populate this place of healing could stick a tin pot under my belly and stuff sugar into my face.”

The fire under Eb’s ribs only flared as Luna ignored him. He breathed in through bared gums and the faint gritting of growing teeth, enjoying the cold air against the itch and pain.

“Coward,” he snarled. “You are no princess.”

“I am no coward.” Luna’s voice was flat and tense.

“Then why do you hide? Rise to your destiny! Night approaches, and your place is to raise the moon!” Eb had pulled himself to the side of the bed and leaned out over the tray of over-sugared food, ignoring how bits of his bloody spittle were flying as he shouted.

“Your sister stands in your place as you hide here, quaking in terror. Why would you need my assistance to take your worthless life if you give yourself to Nightmare again? You refuse to raise more than a spoon! Even the Nightmare would turn its nose up at your pathetic—”

ENOUGH!” Luna stood up with one motion, upending the full dinner tray onto the ground with the shattering of ceramic dishes and splash of wasted food. She turned and left the hospital room in several swift strides, letting the door close silently behind her.

The swirling boil of anger that supported Ebon Tide proved to be a fickle master. He sagged back onto the bed, gasping for breath after his unexpected effort while a nervous nurse poked her nose into the room.

“I heard—” she started, only to break off at Eb’s fierce glare.

“Princess Luna hath departed to raise the moon,” he managed. “Clean this mess so she is not faced with a menial task upon her return.”

* * ☾ * *

Without the sound of the crier walking his patrol, it was nearly impossible for Eb to tell the time, only that the veil of Night had fallen outside his window, and the nurses scurried outside his door like rats terrified of the toothless cat within. The room was an empty tomb, devoid of living creatures with only the echoes of unknown activity outside. When the sound of the door disturbed his fitful sleep, Eb was unsure if he was grateful or enraged at the interruption.

“Well,” he growled. “It took you long enough.”

“I had to wait until Mama wasn’t looking,” came a very quiet voice in return. There was a faint clatter of small hooves on the hospital tile, then Peanut popped her head up at his bedside. The little yellow-eyed monster looked hopeful, and perhaps a little worried, which cast his inner self into storm clouds of turmoil. He was all prepared to shout at Luna again, to rage at her incompetence and cowardice, and to have a child step into his line of fire and quench that release of his concealed anger was… troubling.

“I didn’t expect you,” admitted Eb in a dramatic understatement of epic proportions.

“Mama said they didn’t expect my little brother either,” said Peanut. “I asked if they could send him back, but they said no.” The little bat-winged monster looked around the room and her furry ears drooped. “I guess Princess Luna said no too.”

“No to what?” asked Eb.

“I wrote her a note,” admitted Peanut. “Since you were feeling so bad, I thought Princess Luna could stop by and cheer you up. I mean she’s really old and you’re really old, and old ponies like to talk to each other a lot.”

Eb was beyond words. The air in the room sucked out of his lungs and he could feel the bed ever so slowly begin to rotate underneath him. He should have been incoherently furious, but he could not muster his rage against a child, in particular one so young and innocent in demeanor. He could not even swallow the bile creeping up his throat, but he did manage to croak, “A note?”

“Yeah.” Peanut rested her chin on his mattress. “Like we do in school. You know, with all the commas in the right spot and not many pictures scribbled in the margins. Dear Princess Celestia. Only this was for Princess Luna.” She paused with a panicked expression. “Or at least I think I wrote Princess Luna.”

“She visited, so you must have scribed her name correctly,” admitted Eb once he had managed to recover slightly, trying to picture the Princess of the Night politely receiving the little monster’s letter and patting her on the head like a puppy. “She has been a fairly constant companion since your visit. She is not here now, because she departed to raise the moon, as is her duty.”

“Cool,” breathed the little batpony with wide eyes and a sharp reversal of her previous droop.

“To be honest, I expected her back by now,” continued Eb, who still felt revolted at having a princess take care of his bodily waste disposal, but the need was beginning to grow the longer he thought about it. “It is good of you to visit, but I require a nurse now. Please, go get one.”

“I… kinda snuck in,” admitted Peanut. “There’s a nurse at the end of the hall who likes to talk with the guard, but if I go tell her, I’ll get into trouble. I’m not supposed to be here.”

“The Nightguards of this era are incompentent fools,” snapped Ebon Tide, biting back any further criticism at the startled expression on Peanut’s face.

He could merely send the child away and then kick up a fuss loud enough for the nurse to be alerted, but he despised the thought of being treated like a disobedient toddler, or worse, a doddering old fossil. Far worse would be requiring the innocent youngster to fetch the bedpan in Luna’s stead.

If I stay here, I will wet the bed or worse.

“I need to use the jakes,” he snapped under his breath instead. “If you would support me, I believe I can make it on my own.”

“The jakes? Oh, the bathroom!” Peanut vanished from the edge of his bed and began to poke something underneath. “My mama taught me how to use the pedals. This one here lowers the bed so it’s easier to—”

The bed lurched and tilted, making Ebon Tide slide to the bottom and tumble to the floor. Thankfully, he had not fallen far, and his wings had opened instinctively to brake his speed, although it took him a few minutes to get the unfamiliar membranous appendages tucked back where they belonged once he struggled upright.

“Oops,” declared Peanut. “Maybe it’s this pedal.”

The bed tilted the other way, narrowly missing Ebon Tide’s head as it returned to horizontal. He was beginning to get a feel for the way disaster followed the little monster, so Eb managed to push himself away from the bed just a moment before Peanut’s hoof found one more lever and the whole bed dropped like a rock, missing Eb’s stubby tail by a small fraction.

“I lived through a thousand years of exile with the Nightmare,” he muttered just under his breath, trying to recover from his near-death experiences. “And I’m going to get killed by a child inside of a hospital.”

“There,” declared Peanut. “It’s at the bottom of the piston, so I can just pump it up when you get back on it. My brother and me used to play on the beds last year, until mama found out.”

It galled Ebon Tide to say the word, but it would have been a worse embarrassment to lie on the floor in a puddle of his own urine, so he bit back his anger and said, “Help.”

“Oh! Yeah, you need help walking since you’re so old. I’ll get underneath and—”

“No!” snapped Eb. The disgusting thought of being astride a young filly like some demented pervert drove energy into his shriveled muscles, and he heaved himself up, bracing his wobbling legs beneath him like wriggling worms. “Lean against me,” he commanded. “It is a short walk.”

It was a lie. The distance between his bed and the gleaming light in the jakes was further than he had ever walked before, even during the worst of forced marches with full pack and weapons. The only thing that kept him upright instead of collapsing was Peanut, and her most likely response to the inevitable disgrace of his bladder failure. By some miracle, he managed to reach the distant facility and ease his rear onto the porcelain device before release, although he was still intensely embarrassed at having the child in the room.

“Shoo,” he muttered.

“But what about your trip back to the bed?” asked Peanut.

“That will be a while.” A second urge overcame Ebon Tide, and he tensed up with the faint plop of poop into the modern jake. “I have not had a bowel movement since entering the hospital,” he admitted to cover his embarrassment. “I feel as if I have a belly filled with ancient gravel. When I am done, however long that takes, I will call for the nurse.”

“Mama says you need to stay hi-drated when you’re sick,” said Peanut. She stood on the tips of her hind hooves and manipulated the sink to produce a glass of water, something which still baffled Eb with the complexity and expense of the marvel. The convenience was extraordinary, but still…

“Water,” said Eb, taking a drink and luxuriating in the crisp, cold sensation. There was no sand spread across the bottom or insect corpses floating in it, but it still felt strange not to have it boiled or mixed with beer in order to keep from succumbing to the trots or bloody stools. The ‘glass’ was yet another modern world wonder, being made out of what looked like paper and coated with a waxy substance so it would not dissolve. “I appreciate the gesture. This is not the water of my era. The food likewise…” He shook his head, feeling the chill breeze across the back of his neck where his growing hairs had barely gotten to a thin stubble. “It is so strange.”

“I know what you mean.” Peanut turned and looked away, giving him a tiny margin of privacy to do his pooping without observation. “When I’m sick, mama brings me familiar food. You’ve probably got a bazillion things that you can’t find anymore, like— Oh!”

With the velocity of a sling bullet, the monstrous child darted to the door, paused to peer out into the hallway, and was gone.

* * ☾ * *

Luna was happy. She did not deserve to be happy, or want to be happy, or intend in any way to be happy, but in some small and unexpected way, she had become happy by way of circumstance.

It might have started when she showed up at Celestia’s balcony, where the sun had been resting on the horizon like an exhausted soldier after a long march. It needed to be put to rest so Night could emerge, but her sister had simply been sitting there staring without moving until Luna moved up by her side.

“Is it stuck?” she asked by reflex, in the ancient jest the two alicorns had shared through many, many twilights and dusks.

Celestia had nearly fallen over. She scrambled around as if her mind had been a thousand furlongs away, and even stepped on her own tail in the process. “Luna,” she managed after a long moment of staring.

It would have been so easy to snark something about being glad she still recognized her sister after so long, or make a bitter comment about exceeding her allotted time. Instead, Luna had kept her mouth shut and just waited. Eventually, after a few aborted attempts by Celestia to shape words of her own, the enormous rear ever so gently touched down next to Luna’s seat, and the two sisters sat side-by-side once again.

The sun went down.

The moon went up.

And that was it.

No more. No less.

Luna had been terrified that she would be unable to control her beloved moon after so long, that it would have grown so accustomed to Celestia’s touch that it would refuse to move, that it would pull her back inside of it for another thousand years.

All that terror shorted away with a single presence, leaving not even wisps of fear.

She could not, dared not say a single word. Not about their last fight, her terror for a thousand years in the moon, the poor stallion she had subjected to her will in order to prevent any more deaths on her tattered conscience. As long as she remained still and Celestia remained still, they had once again what Luna had feared was forever lost. It was a feeling she had missed without realizing it, and she was so entranced by the sensation…

…she fell asleep.

* * *

It was late at night by the time Luna made it back to the hospital wing of the palace, all wrong turns and corridors that looked different in the shadows. The echo of Nightmare Moon felt far away for a change, replaced by a permanent glow of worldly joy that nothing could dampen.

Not even Ebon Tide.

She had placed far too much of her magic into the crippled stallion, mixed with her spite and anger. The first thing she needed to do when returning to his room was to tap a certain amount of that dark magic out of him, leaving only a token quantity to assist his slower healing progress. Perhaps he would be better cared for in a facility that was more specialized to his injuries. Doctor Hurwitz had said the colony of Manehattan had a medical training facility that was the best in the entire pony world, which just had to be better than the treatment he was getting in the palace. After all, the medical professionals here had not applied a single herbal poultice to the poor stallion, or even bled him for more than a few tiny vials.

Entrance into the hospital room was accomplished with all the grace and silence of a princess, which she promptly broke with a panicked gasp when she saw the bed was empty.

“I’m in here, nurse,” came a voice from the jakes. “Give me a few drips of the clock to finish.”

“Oh.” Luna did not want to admit her own momentary fright, but the sound of Ebon’s forlorn reply made her divert the topic by adding, “The day after I returned, I didst place such a lump of stone into my jake that I stopped it up and the water overflowed.”

There was another small, subdued plop. “No danger of that, Your Highness. I have a bellyful of gravel.”

She found his jest far funnier than expected, and drifted over to the window in order to distract her mirth with the distant dance of her beloved stars. After all, it would not do for a princess to laugh out loud at such a crude jab from one below her station. She could repeat it to Celestia tomorrow when it was time to raise the sun and lower her moon. Her sister would laugh. It would be good to hear her laugh again.

Luna could still feel the feathery touch of Celestia’s wing across her back from where they sat for hours, looking up at the stars without saying a word. Well, if you did not count snoring. Luna tried not to admit that she snored, but it was one of the things that came with being an alicorn long ago, so she learned to accept it.

Acceptance of her current lot was far more difficult, and became harder the longer she thought about it. A deep chill descended upon her back with every memory of that terrible, horrible time that she forced herself to relive. The magic she had poured into her loyal Nightguards and their allies on that terrible night had been for a good purpose, or so she thought at the time. There had been untapped potential in her ponies, which the Nightmare wanted to use for power, for glory and admiration. With it, she controlled their minds and flung them into battle. There could be only one alicorn in the world, and it was to be…

Despite her best efforts, a small tremor twitched at her flanks, and the room seemed far too small and cold.

Nightmare Moon had seized back that power in desperation to fight Celestia. She had not cared about their lives, or what harm removing the magic would cause. Hundreds of her ponies had cried out in anguish, screams of raw agony that echoed through her mind for a thousand years. Hundreds of ponies had been transformed into the same creature as Ebon Tide. Hundreds of lives were extinguished in an instant when the Nightmare violently reclaimed the gift she had given.

Ebon Tide was frail, even with the recovering he had done so far, and to remove even a portion of her power, the rage and fury she had poured into his fragile mortal frame, could kill him like snuffing a candle. Yet to send him to a far-off colony would be even more lethal as he raged uncontrolled with no focus for his anger. She had tied their lives together with her foolish action just as certainly as if they had been wed, and now she had to live with the consequences: stay in his presence until he burned off the excess magic or live with his death somewhere out of her sight.

Actions had consequences. Luna frequently forgot that ironclad rule when she acted out of emotion instead of thought. Ebon Tide’s current monstrous shape would be a constant reminder of her failure, both now and then. To send him away would be to ignore her crimes, to sweep them under the rug without any punishment. And yet…

The moonlight pouring through the window wrapped around Luna’s shoulders like a silver cloak, clothing of such magnificence that no mortal thread could compare. Likewise, the palace threatened to wrap her in cloying praise, with every pony in awe or shaking respect. None of them turned away in disgust, or turned up their nose at her crimes. Like her stars, Celestia accepted her, so they did also.

There was no punishment, no scourging for her acts. No penalty for betraying her country. No consequences for her treachery against her own flesh and blood. Celestia had nearly died, and the murderous deeds of Nightmare would have only grown beyond imagination when the whole world was doomed into darkness and ice as a result. But instead of the stocks and the whip she deserved upon her return…

She got sweet chocolate pudding, and her sister’s unconditional love.

“There is no bath in this bathroom, but there is paper,” came Ebon’s voice again, shaking Luna out of her morose mood. “It is too frail to bathe with, and if it is meant to be scribed upon, it is far too soft, and there is no inkwell or quills.”

“It is meant to wipe your bum,” said Luna, feeling more than a little superior that she had encountered the substance first and learned of its use.

Eb did little more than grunt in response. After a fair amount of time, he added slightly muffled, “Unicorns made it, I presume.”

That warranted some investigation, which made Luna stifle a welcome giggle when she saw how little of the paper was left on the roll, and how much was wrapped around the hapless stallion. Magic was the answer to his problem, although Luna was less than pleased at how much of the expensive paper wound up being flushed down the jakes. After ensuring that her patient also washed his hooves like she had been cautioned, she gently lifted much of his diminished weight and walked him back to the bed. Of course that meant she had to continue holding him suspended while she tidied up the sheets, silky soft things far better than the homespun cloth that had adorned her former royal bed.

“Princess,” said Ebon. “The magic you forced upon me… It saved my life, correct?”

Luna fumbled with the corner of the sheet, then stuffed it roughly under the thin mattress. “The rage and fury of our magic was meant to strengthen your body and give your mind purpose, lest you fade away. As you use it to heal, it shall become less, until it eventually fades. Still, we do not give you permission to die until you have accomplished the task which my sister placed upon you.”

“She did not tell me to kill you,” snapped Ebon with bared teeth, or at least white-speckled gums. “I decided to do that on my own.”

“A decision as poor as mine own, with far smaller scope.” Luna hesitated while floating Ebon Tide up into his bed, nearly bumping him into the wall on the other side since he felt so light. “And yet, if you had succeeded, my sister would have been alone… Did you have any siblings?”

Ebon struggled to get under his sheet. “One. A sister, who was lost in my early years to disease. My mother miscarried several times after I was born, until she too died from something the doctors could not diagnose. And then my father died fighting the griffons.”

“I have never been without my sister,” admitted Luna. “Not one week has passed without her presence, both welcome and unwelcome. We did not know how much she missed me until this eve, when you forced me to her balcony to carry out my responsibility. A thousand years without me, when I can barely remember a week’s absence. Should events have turned in a different fashion, with her banished while I struggled to hold our ponies safe…”

Moving slowly, Luna returned to the window and regarded the moon again, with the stars spread across the sky in their infinite beauty. Behind her, Ebon Tide shifted around in his bed, seeking comfort where it was least likely to be found.

“I do not hate you all of the time now,” admitted Ebon after some consideration. “I’m glad Peanut convinced you to stay with me, otherwise I would have taken my… that is your anger out on the nurses, and most likely broken another leg.” He rotated one hoof with only a minor wince. “You were correct to remove the cast. I believe it is nearly healed now. At this rate, I will be back at the pells in a few moons, instead of dying with every orifice in my body crammed full of tubes. I owe that child a vast debt of honor.”

“The letter was most… strident,” managed Luna, who concealed a smile at the memory by studying the distant stars. “There were drawings within the margins and everything. Although the spelling was quite creative.”

“She certainly is a persistent little monster,” admitted Ebon. “And if I’m not mistaken—”

The hospital room door behind Luna thumped quietly as a small pony entered the room, only to stop cold at the doorway and gasp, with the thud of something hitting the floor.

“Princess Luna,” whispered a very young voice. “Mister Ebon Tide, that’s Princess Luna over at your window!”

“I think I know—” started Ebon, only to be cut off by the child again.

“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, it’s Princess Luna! Am I supposed to curtsey or bow or shake hooves or what? Am I going to get into trouble? Mama says I’m not supposed to see her! Did she get my letter? Is she sick too? I only brought one bottle of pop! Should I go get another one? Do princesses drink pop? Is there something important outside your window that she’s looking at?”

“Peanut!” chastised Ebon Tide, much as if he were speaking to one of his own long-dead children. “Calm down. Sit!”

There was another quiet thud behind her as if a small rump were hitting the tile floor.

“Your Royal Highness, Princess Luna,” began Ebon Tide in the full rolling cadence of a Nightguard although skipping several of her titles, “I would like to introduce Peanut of House Glory, Clan Silversmith. Peanut and several other small relatives snuck in to see me a few nights ago, and I was rather rude to them. I’m glad to see that she has returned, and from the package I see on the floor in front of her, she brought a gift.”

“We are pleased to meet you, young—”

Luna turned around with a polite smile appropriate for the current occasion, with the smallest of lifting at the corner of her lips and her eyes hooded slightly. That is until she saw the small batwinged monster, and her heart nearly stopped in abject terror.

I thought they were dead! I thought they were all DEAD!