Even the Strong Need Help

by Charlie_K

Fourth Entry

Celestia sat at her desk, trying to focus on the paperwork currently before her, and not feel a sense of being overwhelmed by the height of the stack that sat on her desk in the inbox.

More annoying than the amount, was how it managed to sit on her desk while simultaneously conveying an utterly dull sense of superiority over her, almost as if it were mocking her with its presence.

She glared at the stack of documents in annoyance, before cautiously looking around to make sure nopony else was in the room with her. And then in a moment of immortal immaturity, stuck her tongue out at the pile.

That matter resolved, she turned her attention back to the document sitting in front of her.

From what she could make out of it, it was a grant application for additional funding for a beautification project for the downtown district of Canterlot; specifically upgrading and replacement of the street lampposts with a newer, sleeker design of body that was quite popular over in Las Pegasus, and even branching into Manehattan.

It was simple, straightforward, absence of any flowery eloquence from somepony who fancied themselves as a wordsmith... and a complete waste of money that could be better used elsewhere for a project that would have greater benefit elsewhere and otherwise. It was quite simple to decide how to respond in this particular case.

Application denied.

With that set into her outbox, she prepared for the next round of battle against her eternal nemesis.

But before she could mount a flying tackle to perform a proper body slam on her nuisance, the door to her office opened as her Raven poked her head inside.

"Your Highness, Lieutenant Strike is here to see you," she announced.

That was enough to warrant Celestia's attention being redirected away from the paperwork that she still needed to tend to. There were more important matters to focus on, and she doubted she was addressing anything that couldn't wait a few more hours if need be.

"Send him in," she all but insisted.

Raven nodded in response and opened the door further before ducking out of the way, standing aside to let the stallion slowly step into the room.

Celestia observed his entry, and nearly had to do a double take at just what she saw.

In polite terms, Lieutenant Strike was something of an outlier that stood out amongst the rest of the guards on staff at the palace. There was a certain peacock quality about him in how he carried and conducted himself in terms of his presentation, professionalism, and seriousness. Always acting as if he were on parade duty at any given moment, and was expected to be spectacular throughout it all.

His armor seemed like it was always polished to the point it practically gleamed in the sunlight, in a manner better suited for the honour guard. Even his helmet's plumed crest looked like it was regularly combed. His chestnut mane and tail were always well combed and trimmed neatly and evenly, and his white coat always seemed brushed and looking like he had himself regularly steam cleaned to maintain that particular shade of whiteness. Even his storm cloud cutie mark looked regularly trimmed and brushed.

The pony that stood before her right now, didn't quite look like that. In truth he really didn't look like that at all. He wasn't exactly disheveled and dirty, but his appearance was a far cry from what she had become familiar with. His mane and tail didn't look particularly well-groomed, and his coat looked like it was varying shades of white; almost as if the spots his armor would cover were a different shade entirely. Tan lines, perhaps?

She knew that him being in the hospital the past few days would've prevented his usual grooming habits from being something he could practice. But the end result was still something she hadn't expected to observe for herself.

If not for how he walked into her office as if he were marching, and quickly saluting her as he stood at attention, she might not even recognize him as the same pony.

"You're looking well, Lieutenant. How're you feeling?" she asked.

"I'm ready to return to duty, Your Highness," he stated as he set his right forehoof back on the floor. "But Dr. Malar said I needed to speak with you, before he'd actually sign off on my being fit to return to work."

"Of course."

One exercising of her magic, and the door to the room slowly swung shut again.

"Please have a seat, Lieutenant," she politely insisted as she gestured to the chair in front of her desk.

He looked uncertain -even confused- at the request, but did so regardless and took a seat. All the while managing to look like the concept of being invited to sit was somehow a foreign notion he wasn't entirely certain how to process, and was simply mimicking what he witnessed her doing.

That really didn't bode well in light of Luna's earlier assessment. But at the same time that just made this discussion all the more important in light of what they now knew.

"I'm glad to see you're feeling better, Lieutenant. A lot of ponies were worried when you collapsed the other day."

"I apologize for causing them concern, Your Highness. It won't happen again," he stated.

That definitely wasn't the sort of response she'd expected out of him. Maybe a smile, or a brief relaxing of posture, or something.

"Lieutenant, I didn't have you come to my office so that I could reprimand you for doing something wrong. I'm not blaming you for what happened," she clarified.

He didn't speak up in response. He just looked at her quizzically, as if he couldn't comprehend a reason for why else he would've been sent here.

"Lieutenant-" she started, but stopped and sighed and slowly shook/hung her head before looking back at him. "Thunder Strike. A lot of ponies were worried when you didn't show up for your shift the other day like you normally do. A lot of questions were raised in the ensuing search, and far more were raised after you were found. I can't say that I appreciate everything that was uncovered over the past few days, as we tried to figure out just what was wrong."

She paused as she pulled open the top drawer on the right side of her desk, before pulling out a manila file folder and set it down on the top of the desk.

"This file tells a very interesting story," she said as she closed the desk drawer again and opened the folder. "It tells the story of two ponies. The first pony is a very loyal member of the Royal Guard, who's worked tirelessly towards keeping the palace and its staff safe for a period of two thousand, seven hundred and forty continuous days, and has maintained a degree of untarnished attendance that even my former student, Twilight Sparkle, at one point would've found respectable. Perhaps even enviable.

"The second pony is a stallion who's chronically overworking himself through exceedingly long hours, with a work schedule that no rational mind would ever attempt, and has never taken a single day off for himself, for any reason in seven and a half years; not a vacation, not a sick day, not a holiday, and not even his own birthday. All while having the nasty little habit of taking his coworker's shifts and doing their workload for them when he thinks nopony is watching.

"And the most interesting part of the story? These two ponies are one in the same," she concluded as she rotated the file and slowly slid it across the desk for him to read.

He leaned forward slightly, craning his neck to get a better look at the papers in front of him as he examined them with a quizzical eye. But other than that he had no response.

"The reason you fell in the shower, Thunder Strike? It's because your body literally had nothing left to run on at that point. It's a miracle you had enough steam to actually get into the showers to even begin with," she stated.

"There was work that needed to be done, Your Highness," was all he had to say in response as he moved back on the chair to look at her again.

"There's always work that needs to be done, Thunder Strike, it's an unfortunate fact of reality," she said as she gestured with her head in the direction of the paperwork she still had to go through. "That doesn't change the fact the doctors who examined you made it sound like you didn't even have any fumes left to run on. How did you even manage to drag yourself out of bed and to the showers that day?"

"I didn't, Your Highness."

Celestia was about to ask what he meant by his statement, but stopped herself just before the words could get out. She knew he'd been found in the showers with a broken leg. And she knew from Luna that he had been there, because he remembered falling. So if he hadn't been placed there by others, then...

"Thunder Strike, I'm really hoping that I'm wrong here. But are you saying that you didn't get out of bed? As in you never actually got into bed?" she asked.

The fact that he didn't immediately reply, either in confirmation or denial, spoke unsettling volumes.

"You were awake all night?" she asked. "Why?"

"There was still work that needed to be done. A Guard does not rest until all of their work is done," he replied simply.

She sighed in response. "Did you pull Sergeant Pulaski's work detail again in addition to working overtime?"

"Ah, no, Your Highness. Sergeant Reckless was out of commission with food poisoning, so Sergeant Zacharia covered for her, and I worked his shift," he explained.

"So you pulled the morning, and afternoon-to-evening shifts. Did you have to cover for one of Luna's guards on the night shift as well? Did one of them have food poisoning as well? Is that why you didn't get any sleep?"

"No, Your Highness, it was nothing like that. After I finished working Sergeant Zacharia's shift I had to polish my armor, that took a couple of hours and concluded around midnight. After that I still had reports that needed to be filled out and submitted before the start of the morning shift, as per regulations," he admitted. "But I kept making errors in my spelling and punctuation, and had to start over again from scratch to get them right. By the time I finally got that squared away and finished, the rest of the morning shift was already waking up."

"And after pulling an all-nighter, on top of already working all day, you decided that you didn't need sleep and would simply go right back to work on another eight hour shift," Celestia surmised. "I think I'm starting to understand what the doctors at Canterlot General found during your examination, Thunder Strike."

She paused as another desk drawer was opened and closed, and another file folder was brought out into view.

"I had them send over your medical records, because I wanted us to be in the loop on your condition. And what I saw inside, I really didn't believe at the time. But in light of what you just told me? I'm afraid I don't have much choice in the matter," she explained as she laid the file down on the desk. "When I said your body had nothing left to run on? That wasn't an exaggeration, you literally had nothing left. You apparently reached a point of exhaustion, where your body was literally cannibalizing its own mana to convert into physical stamina, just to try and keep you going a little bit longer.

"I have seen a lot of things in my time, Thunder Strike. But even I didn't know something like that was actually possible. You were literally on the brink of death when you collapsed."

"Is that why I couldn't stand back up after I fell?" he asked.

"Stand back up!? Lieu- Thunder Strike, I don't know how you were still alive and even breathing when you were found. The doctors didn't even know if you could be saved. It's only by Harmony's good graces that you came out of it," Celestia stated.

At this point all she could do was sigh and try not to shake her head.

"Thunder Strike, you're working yourself to death. And I mean that in the most literal sense possible. You were very lucky this time around. But after seeing your work record I'm honestly afraid you don't have enough sense to cease pushing yourself to the breaking point. If something isn't done, I'm honestly afraid one day we'll find you dead at your post, and still standing at attention through years of muscle memory alone."

"That won't happen, Your Highness," he stated. "I promise I'll wait until my shift for the day is done before dying."

Celestia groaned in response, quite certain he'd meant that as a serious statement and not a joke.

"I'd rather my little ponies not die on the job, and especially when they aren't even thirty years old yet. I respect your dedication to service, and your willingness to help others when they're in need, but I don't want it to come at the cost of your own life. You've been working for seven and a half years without a break. That's twenty nine thousand, six hundred and forty hours of your own life, dedicated exclusively to being a palace guard. And that's only the hours that we know about you officially working. I'm certain you've been pulling more shifts than anypony realizes; there's no way that a single twenty-four hour period without rest would be enough to put you in the shape you were in."

He didn't say a word in response. He just continued looking at her in confusion as if she were speaking a foreign language right now. Sweet stars above did he even blink?

"Even if I asked you for the names of whose shifts you were working in addition to your own, I don't think you'd tell me," she sighed, knowing it was futile to even try and go that route. He was far too loyal to his comrades to rat any of them out, even if they were taking advantage of his generosity and use him as a stand in if they felt like slacking off. Not that she actually suspected that was going on.

"Can I go back to work now, Your Highness?" he eventually asked. "I've been gone for five days now, and I'd like to make up for being absent for so long."

Celestia shook her head in response. "I'm afraid not, Lieutenant. You were unconscious for three days, even after the sedation wore off and your leg was healed. You might've been fit enough to be discharged from the hospital, but even I know you're still not back to one hundred percent yet. I'm not about to sign off on you returning to active duty until I'm certain you're not going to collapse again."

Something flickered across his eyes in response as he looked at her. Was this what Luna had been talking about seeing? Was it fear? Hurt? She honestly didn't know. The fact his expression remained stoic throughout only added to the uncertainty.

His movements as he climbed out of the chair and stood back up and raised his right foreleg to salute again were slow, borderline lethargic compared to what she'd seen when he'd entered her office just a few moments ago. It was almost like anything resembling optimism and positivity had just been sucked right out of him, right before her very eyes, leaving nothing but a shell behind.

"As you command, Your Highness," he acknowledged slowly.

Comments

[Bronycommander]

It will be hard but nesasary, his health is important

[CRS2018]

I am guessing that his behavior is motivated by trauma.