The night's late-summer air wafted its way across the field and up the gentle slope of Human Hill, briefly catching the Royal Canterlot Guard cordon tape and causing it to billow out like a sail and better expose the Do Not Cross warning it bore before the light cloth fell back to its usual relaxed state suspended between the evenly spaced posts. The breeze would have felt slightly chilly to most however to batponies like Nightwatch who had done their Lunar Guard training in the harsh mountaintop caves of their homeland it was scarcely worth even noticing and was dulled even further by the Thestral clan tartan draped over one shoulder as she dutifully sat perched at her post atop the alien spacecraft. Golden amber eyes scanned the natural recesses and dips of the field that would have been too heavily shadowed for normal pony eyes and sensitive ears twitched and rotated to pick up any noise not native to the night that would alert her that something was afoul.

All she could hear, however, was the steady turning of crinkly pages behind her that had been a minor source of aggravation for some time now and upon turning to look over one shoulder she found exactly what she had expected - Sergeant Quickbolt lounged out on her back with a questionable magazine in her hooves. The only print on the plain cover was Humans Exposed! which immediately identified it as one of the most notorious and sought-after tabloid editions published to date though the fact that the pegasus had gotten her hooves on a copy came as no surprise to Nightwatch. "Sergeant, you're on duty," the batpony said flatly and locked eyes with the pegasus when one eye lazily tore itself away from the page to meet her gaze, "And your post is watching the southern approach to the ship, not over here with me on the northeast perimeter. What if somepony was using that approach to sneak up on our position?"

Still holding her magazine Quickbolt fluttered up a dozen bodylengths or so and dramatized putting a hoof to her brow as she swept her eyes across the field on the nose-end of the ship. "Oh look! No hostiles on approach to report of, Sergeant Nighty... just like the last four hours we've been here!" she called down before lounging herself out again in midair to resume reading while slowly gliding back down to her previous spot, "If I had to guess it's probably because it's the middle of the bucking night and anypony with half a bucking braincell wouldn't try and get at T while he's holed up in his fortress of a ship, let alone after he beat the snot out of that herd."

"You seem to be forgetting that thanks to things like those-" Nightwatched pointed with a nod to Quickbolt's magazine, "-the majority of the public have only been exposed to the idea it was Miss Heartstrings that did the kicking and not him. Also, Miss Heartstrings is in no condition to defend herself or him any further until that horn heals-"

"Which leaves him to rely on Twilight Sparkle, and you should have seen the look she gave Show when we hauled her away; talk about fire in her eyes. At this point anypony dumb enough to attack Titus is doing us all a favor in potentially removing themselves from the genepool," Quickbolt shot back and flipped to another page without even looking up, "So, with none other than the Element of Magic and personal student of Princess Celestia sleeping with him inside, on top of the recent demonstration of his own strength, I'm going back to my magazine and am going to proceed to not worry myself."

"W-We don't know that she's sleeping with him, from what I recall of the tour he gave us there were five or six bunk rooms which she could be using," Nightwatch protested because she didn't have a better argument that what they were doing was a little pointless other than the tired 'it's our duty' and instead turned back toward the hill for another search of trespassers in the night.

Quickbolt's laugh rolled over the smooth hull like one of the night breezes, "Which is what I said and meant, she's 'sleeping with him inside' of the ship, nothing there to say they're sleeping together. For all the crap you give me about being the lewd one I want to point out it was your mind that drew the conclusion they're rutting."

Though Nightwatch couldn't know that Quickbolt had that bit of privileged information under lock and key in her mind the batpony could almost feel the stupid grin that was probably being shot at her back. "Well regardless, you realize Miss Sparkle probably won't appreciate seeing you with that magazine and she'll have every right to report you, and I can't begin to imagine how Sir Aelius would react," she said with a shake of her head, "Those images were acquired by theft of one of those book devices from Miss Heartstrings' house, you could try showing him some respect by throwing that thing in the trash where it belongs."

"You worry too much," Quickbolt waved a hoof at her dismissively without even looking up, "And for your information I do respect T. All this shit with getting torn through a portal and crashing here? All the other shit he's had to put up with? He's taken that more or less in stride and been a pretty cool dude about it, at least that's what I think, and for that I respect him a whole bunch because if it was me I'd probably be shitting my armored skirt. On another note, me choosing to learn about him could be taken as a sign of respect, too. And I mean, this was the only place to get the uncensored pictures - all the science magazine articles have the black bars over everything so short of asking him about this stuff how else am I or anypony else going to educate ourselves on what a naked human looks like?"

"Oh please, don't try and disguise your interest by calling it educational. For starters, he's said clothes-"

"I know, I know, it's how he was raised and it's a societal deal or whatever so he's not comfortable without them. Give me some credit, I've read the Foal Free Press article, too," the pegasus defended her interest and stomped out the counterpoint before it could get off the ground. Rapidly flipping to a page she had already passed she zipped over and shoved the magazine in Nightwatch's face when she found it, "But just look at these! That's normal in humans, the females at least. Sorta makes ya wonder how they can run with those floppers..."

The Thestral's eyes only lingered briefly on the image of breasts before she turned away and shoved the magazine the other direction with a sigh, "Look, after getting reprimanded that our lax attitude toward his protection contributed to this whole attack business I don't want to be in the position of letting Sir Titus and Princess Luna down, not again. That's why I'm taking this so seriously, and you should, too."

"I know what you mean but hey, we won't let that happen. T even is helping with that, however I think we both know it must be a bit inconvenient for him at times to always have either us or another pair of guards shadowing him, but he's agreed to having an escort none the less." Quickbolt paused in her continued perusal of the tabloid and her ears folded back as she cast a glance back toward the nose of the ship where she should have been on watch in thought for a moment before she turned back to the batpony, "Remember when Show and that Earth pony mate of hers got away from the town guard and barricaded themselves in the hospital room with Lyra, T, Dash, and Twilight? Well, when we were blasting open that wall I wanted to get in there so bad I charged ahead of the breaching team. Even before we got chewed out by Princess Celestia I felt like I was responsible and I wanted to show T that I was somepony he could depend on. I wanted him to see I wouldn't let him down again like I had earlier that night."

"I know you've got your own way of handling things but you've never taken your duty as a joke and you really buckle down when you need to so I'm sorry if it sounded like I was saying otherwise, I just wanted both of us to be on the same page with each other. And... I don't know, I haven't gotten to know Sir Titus like you have because you two seem to have some understanding of each other-"

"Maybe if you dislodged the stick in your plot just a little bit and acted a bit more casual instead of being the windup soldier whenever you talk to him he'd feel more comfortable to respond in kind," Quickbolt cut her off to advise her from her own experience of her and Titus' interactions and the batpony seemed a little surprised at first but then nodded for her to continue. "If you approach him like you're talking to a superior officer or whatever he's going to mirror your attitude because that's how he thinks you want to be spoken to. I was like that when I first met him, too, but what I did that loosened him up was inadvertently step over that professional line with a comment I made about the press. Let me tell you, he was quiet for a second and I was worried I had seriously messed up but he rolled with it and that's how we hit it off," she said and went on to explain some of the conversations they had had and even showed Nightwatch the rude gesture Titus had taught her though it went completely over the Thestral's head.

"I see. Well, like I was saying... I'm not as familiar with him as you are but I get the impression he does rely on you. And thanks for the advice, one of Princess Luna's instructions when I took this post was to become acquainted with him to try and make him feel more at home so I'll try being less formal. Now come on, we've been aimlessly chatting for long enough," Nightwatch got to her hooves with a stretch and leapt off the side of the ship to glide gently down to the grass below with Quickbolt following her shortly after, "We can pass some time by patrolling the outer perimeter before the shift change."

"Whatever floats your flanks, Nighty. You know~..." the pegasus' voice was oozing with sing-song tones that made a small patch of fur on the back of Nightwatch's neck stand on end, a sure sign she wasn't about to like was going to be said. Quickbolt, however, just casually floated along beside her and was too preoccupied with the magazine to notice the fanged look of distaste aimed her way, "If you're looking to be less formal just act a bit more like me, just take a page or two out of my book and he'll be the one who starts talking to you."

Nightwatch continued her disapproving look at the magazine and the pegasus as she turned it sideways and opened the centerfold with a snicker. Creating enough space between herself and Quickbolt for plausible deniability should anypony see them Nightwatch sighed, "I don't think anypony could be like you simply by trying, sis."

Author's Notes:

Thank you so much for the inspiration Atty!