The Princesses' Quill

by AtrumVenator

Chapter 1: The First Day

Chapter 1
The First Day

---

“Your first mistake was underestimating me, you’ll never get a chance to make the second.”

---

A tall gray unicorn stallion sat quietly strumming a guitar. He played nameless blues progession, merely allowing the music to flow and shift as he continue to play. Nearby two young foals sat watching the stallion play. One was a gray unicorn colt with a streak of white through his coal black mane, and the other was an even smaller filly who could’ve passed for the colt’s twin, had she also had a horn. These two were brother and sister and they were absolutely entranced by the stallion sitting before them. The young filly was in awe of the instrument itself, but the colt, he was viewing his hero. The instrument itself did not matter to him, only that this stallion, his father, was playing for them.

But then the song stopped, and the stallion put down the guitar with a sad smile on his face. He looked at his children, beaming at them widely. His eyes told a different story, he was rapidly blinking and couldn’t meet the eyes of his children.

“I want you both to know, I love you very much. And no matter what, I’ll always be by your side.” He then looked his son in the face, as if seeing him for the first time, “Gallant, protect your sister, never leave her side, no matter what, promise?”

“Dad what’s-”

“Promise me Gallant.”

“I promise.”

The older stallion then turned to his younger daughter, “My darling, you be sure to listen to your brother, he will care for you when I’m not around.” The young filly didn’t quite understand, mewing happily at the attention from her father.

The colt was not so easily placated however, “Dad what is going on?”

“I’m sorry son, but I have to go now, the abyss calls.”

Wait thats not right, he didn’t say that.

The stallion morphed and shifted into a terrifying monster made of shadows that struck Gallant aside with a single blow. His sister was screaming somewhere in the distance, blades came from the shadows reaching for his neck as he scrambled to get away. Looking up into monster he saw himself reflected, though twisted and deformed.

---

Gallant Quill, the smuggler turned guardspony recruit woke in cold sweat. His coal black mane was plastered to his body. Today was to be his first day of guardspony training, and he had woken up from a nightmare nearly two hours early. He had heard stories that guardspony training was brutal the first days, so he rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. Each time he closed his eyes the image of the monster from his dream surfaced. So for two hours, Gallant laid in bed, waiting for the time when new recruits are woken up.

Gallant had been “fortunate”, he was told, to have been enlisted on the day before the next group of recruits had begun training. However, because there were very few Lunar Guard recruits, Gallant was going to be doing his initial training with the Royal Guard, before moving to being trained by actual Lunar Guards in what protecting the night meant. Thus, they were woken up by Sergeant Spectre with a brisk hour long run around the city. After that they had been allowed to have breakfast, which consisted of oatmeal and mush. High in calories and nutrients, it was as tasty as it sounded.

Given that the other recruit had some time to bond the train as they were arriving, Gallant found himself searching for a spot to eat alone at. As he passed by a table, one of the other recruits noticed his cutie mark, and spoke up, “Hey! Are you Hidden Quill?”

It seemed that Gallant’s reputation as a smuggler and someone who could get things, was known even here.
“That depends who’s asking.” Calm and collected Gallant masked himself in his usual business face, best not to step on any toes yet.

“The name is Thunder Flicker, and I’ve heard you’re a pony who can get things.” His blatant stupidity at revealing his actual name left a bad taste in Gallant’s mouth. He would not do anything for this pony even if he hadn’t been attempting to turn over a new leaf.

“I’m not in that line of work anymore. You’re wasting your time.” With that, Gallant turned to leave, carrying the metal tray of his breakfast with magic while he studied the floor.

From just within earshot, he heard Thunder Flicker turn to his buddies around and say with a sneer, “I heard he tried to off himself, thats the only reason he’s even here, they should call him Broken Quill, just like his father, what-” He never got a chance to finish his sentence, as Gallant’s metal tray slammed into his face, knocking him off the bench and onto the floor. It was quickly followed by Gallant himself, driving his fore hooves into Thunder’s unprotected stomach.

Thunder had been initially surprised by the ferocity of Gallant’s attack, but the unicorn stallion’s smaller size, lack of sleep, and developing withdrawal symptoms, weakened the strength of his blows. The pegasus stallion easily threw the unicorn off him and rose to his feet. The burning anger that had lit Gallant’s eyes during the initial attack. In it’s place had come the cold hardened stare of one who had fought many opponents of greater size and strength. His once mirthful and cheery blue eyes had become the steel blue for which he was famed. Those who didn’t know him were not aware of how ruthless he could be. His days as a smuggler had given him a street fighting knowledge none of the other recruits could match, even if they were physically stronger than him.

But even the best fighter knows when the odds are against him, and as the pegasus stallion’s gang surrounded him, Gallant was face with several options.

He could run, but that would most likely lead to having more trouble later on. The next option, would be to stand and fight them, which would probably not work out too well for him. The tird, and the only realistically available option, was to turn and attempt to take out Thunder Flicker, the obvious leader of the group, and end it right here.

Gallant considered all of this in less than a second. He chose. Teleporting immediately above Thunder Flicker, he used the momentary confusion caused by his disappearance to drop all of his weight down one forehoof, and into the pegasus stallion’s left wing. The pegasus staggered and let out a sharp cry of pain, only for the gray unicorn to repeat the same move on his right wing. Feeling his grip on his magic slipping, Gallant teleported one last time behind the pegasus, and bucked him in the back of the head. Thunder flew forward to be caught by one of his friends, as Gallant vomited over the mess of his spilled food tray. He had almost certainly given the pegasus a concussion, and at had probably fractured at least one wing bone.

Gallant regretted it, but knew it had been necessary, after his initial outburst at the pegasus’ derogatory name for him and the insult to his father, there had been no turning back. At least now the recruits would leave him in peace.

The gray unicorn turned to the group behind him, fixing them with a stare that made them shiver with fear, he remarked, “Don’t ever call me Broken Quill.”

With that he turned away taking a little food of the other’s plate left alone on the table. Truthfully, it was insult to his father that had sent him over the edge, but he wanted to give the perception that something so little could set him off. They would fear him, and that was good. In time, they would respect him too, but they would never, ever challenge him.

---

Gallant knew the drill sergeants would come down hard on him. And they did. He was subjected to very forceful shouting from Sergeant Spectre as he was forced to do hours and hours of push ups. In true military fashion, it began to rain as Gallant was nearing his fourth hundred set of ten push ups. Not once in the four hours that he had been out next to the Equestrian flag pole did Spectre stop his tirade of insults and slander. Remembering how weak he was from various circumstances, as well as Spectre’s utter beatdown of him the day before, Gallant was not inclined to turn on the sergeant even when a barrage of insults regarding his father were thrown at him.

Very few were aware of who Gallant’s father actually was, though the information was not kept a secret. In actuality, many ponies simply never made the connection that the two could actually be related, considering he was a what appeared to be a common street pony, and his father was most certainly not.

After what seemed like an eternity, the sun beginning to set on the horizon, “Alright recruit, get your flank inside, get some food. You fight like a street pony, and anybody trained is going to wipe the floor with you! You pull any shit like this again in my mess hall, I will personally throw you out of my Lunar Guard. You got an anger problem colt, it’s high time you get that under control, or one day you’re gonna run across someone you just shouldn’t have fucked with. Get the hell out of here.”

Breathing shakily as he limped towards the mess hall, Gallant could not help thinking, It was worth it.

---

Luna was just waking from her daily rest when there was a knock on the door of her bedchambers. Looking at the clock, she realized she had slept a little late and it was now time for Dark Spectre to bring his weekly report on the happenings of the Guard Academy, and more importantly, on what their new recruit was doing. Opening the door, the highly greeted her with a crisp salute.

“At ease Dark,” She said with a giggle, “There is no need to be so formal here, thou art one of our most trusted advisors, after all. Please, do come in.”

Clearly uncomfortable with not having formalities, Spectre nonetheless acquiesced to the Princess’ wishes. “Er right, so you wanted to hear about how Gallant Quill is doing?”

She gave a small smile at the mention of Gallant, “Yes, tell us what went on today.”

“He got pissed off, got in a fight, nearly killed the other pony, and regretted nothing.” Spectre said flatly, waiting to see Luna’s reaction to the news.

She did not appear even remotely trouble by the possible death of the guard, “Why exactly did he attack the other pony?”

“He had made a comment regarding Gallant’s attempted suicide, as well as making some sort of remark relating Gallant to his father. Um, if I may speak freely your majesty?” Spectre was slightly hesitant to say what was on his mind.

“Of course, Sergeant, go ahead.”

Spectre hesitated, choosing his words carefully so that he could say exactly what he meant, “Gallant is brutal, cold, calculating, and downright unforgiving. But he isn’t an angry pony, not by nature, something has to set him off, and it might seem small to us, but huge to him. He acted rashly in starting that fight, but he damn sure finished it. We were lucky that we didn’t have to send that pegasus home in a body bag, as it stands, Gallant didn’t break anything, and the pegasus will be able to continue his training. Unfortunately, Thunder Flicker is a distant cousin of Prince BlueBlood, which will surely mean trouble for us in the long run.”

Princess Luna, despite her years away, still knew how to deal with angry nobles upset over some trivial matter, “Leave that to us, Spectre, we will circumvent any attempts at retaliation. We can’t have our star recruit being knifed in the back before he even manages to graduate. When will Gallant be allowed a visit to the outside world?”

Chuckling slightly at the dig on the isolated nature of basic training, Spectre replied, “Not until he graduates from basic. In about nine weeks.”

The small smile she had worn when first talking about Gallant was back, “Good, good, make sure he visits us during his free time, we will have much that must be discussed then.” She gestured towards the outside where there was almost complete darkness, but the moon had not yet risen. “We must perform our duty, go and we shall see you again next week.”

---

It was nearly 10 o’clock in the evening before the recruits were allowed to sleep. Gallant stumbled to his bunk and almost immediately passed out, but not before his bunkmate peeked his head down from the top bunk, “Hey you awake?”

Groaning Gallant replied, “Unfortunately, and you’re keeping me that way, what do you want?”

Ignoring his discomfort, the pony responded, “I’m Rogue Scholar, I saw what you did today and that was awesome man, I’m glad you took that asshole down. Get some rest, I heard day two is even harder.”

“Great, thats awesome.” And he passed out. Gallant had unknowingly made his first friend at basic training.

Comments

[GuyFace]

Kick his ass, rookie. Rip out his trachea and put it in upside-down, so the next time he talks, he'll sound like a mare!

[AtrumVenator]

2117731
Not really Gallant's style, that seems so inefficient. I mean why would you put the trachea back in? That just makes them slightly more dead than they were when you took it out in the first place.