The flight to Cloudsdale hadn’t taken me long. In fact, I’d probably made it in record time. My physical condition was at its peak and Blur had been teaching us a whole lot about flying. Things that as a pegasus I should probably have known but never thought about. In either event I found myself standing outside of my parent’s door far sooner than I’d intended.

Winterspear had suggested I go and talk to our mother. She was right. Not for the exact reason she’d suggested, but she was right.

I knocked three times. It wasn’t too long before the door opened, and my mother blinked up at me. “Silent Knight. Well, then, you decided to come yourself instead of sending another letter?”

So perhaps she was a little mad. “May I come in?” I asked.

Mom stepped out of the way and nodded. “Of course. I’m shocked you didn’t come in uniform.”

As I walked past her, I replied, “I didn’t think the armor was necessary. Dinner rolls typically don’t do a lot of dama—” The whole house was different. The walls were freshly painted, the furniture was new, and nothing was in the same place. The original furniture had not moved an inch after my father had lost his sight. Now it was gone and the replacements weren’t where the old ones had been.

The door closed and Mom patted me on the shoulder. “Close your mouth, Silent Knight. I redecorated.”

“I can see that,” I replied before making my way into the now foreign house. “How’re you?”

She smiled and shrugged. “Doing well enough I suppose. I was surprised but happy to hear my youngest got engaged.”

I settled down onto a large brown chair. It was stallion-sized and designed for larger pegasus frames. Canterlot furnishings were usually designed with unicorns in mind. That meant small or, as they called it, elegant. “I’m glad you’re happy. I was going to come and tell you. I just sent the letter so that you wouldn’t hear second hoof before I could.”

“Oh, I understand,” she replied, sitting opposite me. “Still, there are some things a mother wants to hear face-to-face.”

I sheepishly grinned. “If you make me a list, I’ll do better next time.”

My mother’s eyes narrowed and my heart skipped a beat. Then she smiled. “I’m not used to you being smart-mouthed. You used to leave that for your sister.”

“She’s a bad influence. You should totally punish her.”

“Oh, I think we both know you’re too old for me to swat you on the flank with a wing.”

I shrugged. “You could try.” Looking around again, I changed the subject. “The house looks great. You’ve clearly gone all out.”

Mom nodded and then shook her head. “I had to. Everything reminded me of him. I’d see the ottoman and cry. I’d walk by his chair and cry. It was all a constant reminder that he was gone.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. It was awkward to know how upset she was. “Mom… why don’t you come live with us? I’m not just offering out of some sense of duty. I would like it if you were there.”

“You’re a sweet colt,” she said, reaching over and setting her hooves on mine. “I know you mean it and I’m grateful. I’m not ready though. Not yet. Pegasi are meant to live among the clouds. Perhaps when I get a little older or when you have some foals, I’ll consider it.”

We held hooves and I shifted. “Mom, we’re just engaged. We’re not talking foals yet. I don’t even know if Crystal wants foals.”

My mother snorted. “Oh, that filly is going to want foals, Silent Knight. You bet your commission on that. One day she’ll be following her regular routine and then the next day it will be foals, foals, foals.”

“Thank you for putting that thought in my head, Mom. Besides, Winterspear is older than me. Shouldn’t you be leaning on her for foals first?”

Mom’s brow shot up. “Really, Son?”

“What?”

“You may not have noticed, but your sister likes mares.”

“So? They can adopt.”

“That is true, but the waiting lists are massively long, and they already have a filly. I’m not sure they’ll want another after raising that one. Dot is sweet but she is a hoofful. Plus, there is nothing quite like a newborn foal.”

A smile cracked my lips before I chuckled. “Yes, she is. Fun though. She just has a lot of spunk. She also really likes you and I’m certain Iridescence and Winterspear could use the advice of an experienced mother.”

Mom blinked at that and looked over towards the mantel. Several pictures were there. Most I recognized. The one of my father alone in his armor was absent, though. “Mmhmm, spunk just like Winterspear. Now, when is the wedding?”

“Mom, we’re just engaged. We haven’t set a date.”

Mom shrugged. “Crystal Wishes is a fancy unicorn. You think she isn’t already planning? I want to know if I should be ready to fly down there at the drop of a hat. I’ll need a dress, and that takes time.”

“I… I don’t think you should worry about that. It won’t be for a while,” I said, looking towards the door.

My mind swam with the thoughts of what I had to do soon. The words that Jet Set had given me. My own self-doubts about whether I was meant for Crystal. I had wanted her to know how serious I was. Maybe that had been unfair and selfish. I had taken an oath, though, and it was time to remove a potential threat to the princess.

My mother’s hoof found my chin and she pulled me back to face her. “Why, Son? Why won’t it be for a while?”

Our eyes met. She took one deep look into mine and her breath caught. She grabbed my hooves in hers. “No… No, Son. No. How dangerous?”

“Mom, I can’t—”

“Silent Knight, don’t you dare tell me it is classified or that you can’t tell me about it. I’m your mother and I’ve seen that look before. I’ve seen it too many times in this house and I won’t be lied to again! How dangerous?”

“Dangerous,” I replied.

“Then send somepony else,” she said flatly.

“I can’t, I’m the commander.”

My mother’s hooves tightened on mine. She held onto them as if she intended to never let go. “Send somepony else, Son.”

“You know I can’t do—”

“I know I had to watch my husband recover in a hospital bed a dozen times! I know that half of those times they told me he was going to die. I’ve already stood vigil over your bed once and I don’t know that I can stand to do it again. I’m running out of strength,” she snapped. Tears welled in her eyes and started running down her cheeks.

It was unsettling. My mother almost never cried and, when she did, it was with a reserved and quiet dignity. It broke my heart. I stood, pulling my hooves free of hers so that I could loop them around her in a tight hug.

She clutched me and buried her head against my neck. I just held her as she wept. There was likely nothing I could say short of a lie that would be right and I did not intend to start lying to my mother.

Getting older can be tough, seeing your parents in a different light. I never imagined my mother as a regular mare. One with feelings like this. One that needed to be protected. I softly nuzzled her ears and squeezed her tightly. We were not a hugging family but Canterlot had changed that. At least for me.

Mom sniffled and leaned back a bit. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment and she wiped her eyes.

Lightly, she tapped my chest with her hoof. “He looked just like you when he was your age. I was madly in love with him, too. I didn’t care that he was a soldier. The first time he came back hurt, my world shattered. It blindsided me and I didn’t know what to do. I told myself I had to get tougher. Tough like him. So I did.”

“You did what you had to do,” I said softly.

Mom shook her head. “I let him be too tough on you and Winterspear. Especially Winterspear. I wanted you ready for when he didn’t come back. Maybe if you didn’t like him, it wouldn’t be as bad. I’m so sorry. I never should have allowed that. He was blind, but I was the one that was too stupid to see.”

My jaw worked, but I didn’t have anything to say to her.

She sat a hoof on my mouth. “It’s okay. It’s okay. When do you leave?”

“Soon.”

“When you get back. WHEN. You come see me. I don’t want a letter. You come see me.”

I nodded. “Okay, I’ll come see you when I get back. I promise. You can’t tell anypony or write—”

“I’ve been doing this longer than you, Son. I know. When you come back, we’ll discuss what I’m going to wear to your wedding.”

“Sure. We haven’t picked colors, though. I like blue.”

Mom nodded. “You always have.”

“Yeah.”

She pulled away and said, “Let me make you dinner. Is zucchini still your favorite?”

My hoof trailed lightly along hers as she did so. “Very much. Any way you want to make it.”

“Well, you’re in luck. My friend Cloudy was down at one of the farms near Ponyville recently and brought a whole bunch back. Go set the table and I’ll get it started. I suppose it is time you start telling me more about Crystal Wishes.”

“Sure, I’d love that.”

I sat quietly at my desk going through the unit’s paperwork. It was all completely mundane and I was already going to miss dinner time. Crystal was going to murder me but this had to get done. Leave forms, shift assignments, and a few notes from Iridescence about how she was struggling with finding a replacement sergeant.

There were plenty of excellent candidates, but she was indecisive of whom to choose. That was alright. It was up to her to find the right pony. If she needed guidance I’d be here, but it was a good test for a section sergeant.

It was also something I didn’t want to focus on right then. There were too many things going on in my head. The water was muddy. Before I’d met Crystal’s parents, I was certain she was the only thing right in my life. I still believed that, but I wasn’t sure I was the right thing for her life.

After seeing what being married to my father had done to my mother, I wasn’t sure I wanted that for my own mare and foals. Being a royal guard was all I knew and I couldn’t imagine trying to do something else. If I wasn’t one, who was I? Nopony.

My head hurt, so I tried to focus on the tasks at hoof. Finish the paperwork, finish the unit work. If I didn’t do that, I wouldn’t have to worry about making a decision. Command would replace me.

Well… if there was a command. Sunny had something going on and she was barely paying attention to her own duties, much less mine.

“Sir?” Sogni was standing in my door.

“Yes?”

“Sorry to interrupt. I was leaving for the night but ran into a courier. He had a certified package for you but no pass past the lobby. I signed for it officially. He seemed okay with that.”

That was technically not how it worked, but if you couldn’t trust a royal guard, who could you trust? “Oh, thank you. Just drop it in my inbox,” I said, focused more on the task.

The stallion walked in and cleared his throat. “He said it was time sensitive, sir.”

I chuckled and turned to the next form. “Everything is, Sogni, didn’t you know that? How can anything be a priority when everything is?”

“I understand, sir, but he seemed to really stress that this was extremely time sensitive. He said if I couldn’t bring it right to you, right now, he couldn’t leave it with me.”

Frustration bubbled up in me but I hid it. Sogni was being diligent and it wouldn’t do to react negatively to that. It was the kind of behavior that should be encouraged. “Very well.” I reached out for it. “I’ll open it right now.”

He set the over oversized envelope into my hoof. I tore the top open and reached inside. The only thing in it was a small piece of paper folded over once.

“Anything important, sir?” Sogni asked.

It was. Not officially though. “Yeah. I’ll have to deal with this. Thank you for bringing it up. How is that husband of yours?” I set the missive aside casually. Of course. Today of all days.

“He’s fine. Still getting his hooves under himself. He’s taken on a lot but he is doing exceedingly well with it. Probably better than most ponies and certainly better than me.”

I chuckled and replied, “Aren’t we all. Say Sogni, do you ever worry that you shouldn’t be with a pony that isn’t in the guard? You know, that he won’t understand?”

Sogni’s head tilted and then he shook it. “No, sir, hadn’t really considered that. I’m not sure that should play into love.”

“Valid point,” I replied before looking back to my paper work. “Alright, you’re already late. Don’t keep him waiting any longer. No sense in both of our special ponies being upset. Dismissed.”

“Yes, sir, thank you, sir. Oh, and sir?”

“Yes?”

“Ponies that know me call me Div. You can call me Div, if you like.”

I nodded at him. “Thank you.”

Once he was gone, I picked up the note from Maya again, read it once more, and then set it in my metal waste basket. From my bottom drawer I pulled out one of Runic’s immolation potions. Carefully I pulled the stopper out and dripped one single drop into the basket. The note burst into flame and within a second it was as if it had never existed.

Then I went back to my paperwork. I had to get this done. It all needed to be neat and tidy. The way all of my work was done. Otherwise ponies would have questions. Finish this task, move on to the next.

I turned over another sheet and started on the next one.

“Knock, knock. Shylent Knight… Do you shmell toast?” Sunny said from my doorway, her speech was a little off.

“Toast? No.” At least, I didn’t think the burnt paper smelled like toast. “What can I do for you?”

Sunny walked in. She was out of armor and her saddlebag was crooked across her back. “You should be osh duty,” She said.

“The papers on my desk disagree. I guess you’re done for the day?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I am.” There was no cheer in her tone. No typical Sunny teasing. She pressed, “You should be osh duty right now. Can those papers wait for a little while?”

“I really don’t think so. They need to be done—” I caught her expression. A pained one with the tiniest glimmer in the corners of her eyes.

“Shylent Knight, can thish please wait? I really need a friend right now and you’re the closhest pony to that here.”

“Yeah, Sunny… okay. Just let me lock up, okay?”

She nodded and stepped out of my office. I quickly scooped all of the papers into their various files and locked them in my filing cabinet. As I turned to the door, I paused, took the little time necessary to remove my armor, and tossed my helmet onto the chair across from my desk.

After locking up my office, I asked, “Where to?”

“Obshervation tower?” Sunny suggested.

“Sure,” I replied and we went together to the highest tower in the palace. The one I’d been in when the changelings had attacked. It offered the most amazing view of Equestria that a ground-bound pony could hope for.

Sunny slumped onto the balcony that surrounded the outside. She pulled open the flap of her saddlebag and revealed several bottles of what looked like cider. Really hard cider. Two levitated out; one flew to me, the other to her.

“I shcrewed up,” she said before starting to drink.

I settled beside her and took a sip of the cider. My eyes crossed the moment I did. I can handle a hard cider, but this was something special. “Sunny, I’m sure you didn’t. We all make little mistakes. I—”

“Could you jush shut up and listen?” she said.

I nodded.

“I shcrewed up. I got in my own head and shcrewed everything up. Do you know I pretty much had everything going for me? Things were great but I jush couldn’t shee that. I wash sho concerned that I wash trapped that I did everything I could to eshcape it and got exactly what I wanted. Only that ishn’t what I wanted. It washn’t what I wanted at all.”

She took another long pull from the bottle. Tears started to run down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Sunny,” I replied before taking another sip from mine.

“It didn’t used to be like thish. I just focushed on the job and short of messed around when I washn’t doing that. Do you know what I mean?”

I thought I did, but I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to answer. “Focusing on the job I get, yeah.”

“You would. You knew what you wanted and you got it. I wish I was shmart like you.”

“I, uh… Sunny, I’m not so sure you should be comparing yourself to me right now. I’ve been making a lot of mistakes lately. Some professional and some personal. I don’t know what to do.”

She looked over at me and sniffled. The golden unicorn’s cheeks were streaked with the fine lines her tears had followed down. “Oh?” is all she said before levitating another bottle out of her saddlebag.

My nose wrinkled at the smell of the cider, but I took a long drink of it. “Yeah. I don’t know that I’m doing the right things. I’m trying to live up to the oath, but there is just so much more to it, Sunny.

“When you get out of the Royal Guard Academy, you swear an oath to uphold the law and to protect the innocent. Then when you join the House Guard, you swear to stop any threat and give your life for the princess. That all seems so easy when you’re young, but as you get older it isn’t so black and white.”

The wind whipped across the tower. Despite it being summer, this high up it was bitterly cold and biting.

“They get you when you’re young sho you don’t think about that sho much,” Sunny whispered before downing the rest of her second bottle and retrieving a third.

“Yeah…” I trailed before finishing mine. The unicorn mare levitated another to my grasp.

“I don’t know how to fix thish,” Sunny said.

“Me either. I’m trying so hard to do what I think is right and I just keep messing up. Everypony around me keeps telling me that guards can’t have everything. It is the job or everything else, and I can’t stop being a guard, Sunny. I don’t know how to stop. I don’t know anything else. I see a threat, I have to stop it.”

To punctuate my point, the wind tore against us and nearly blew me over. Sunny shifted closer to me. “You can’t be someshing you’re not, Shylent Knight, but you alsho can’t let others tell you what you are.” She squirmed. “I’m cold.”

“Do you want to go inside?”

She shook her head and leaned against my side.

I looped a hoof around her shoulder and then shielded her with my wing.

“Are you really consherned that you’re going to be killed?” she asked me softly.

“I already almost was once. Iridescence, too. Aren’t you? You could be here today but tomorrow some deranged unicorn could throw a fireball at Princess Celestia. Are you telling me you aren’t going to step in the way?”

“Without a thought… so that she may live,” she whispered.

“Me, too… how do you explain that to a regular pony? That you’d leave them without thinking to save your princess, even though you supposedly love them? They don’t understand us. They can’t. How can we reconcile that?”

Sunny’s head shook slightly and nestled in closer against me.

“I’ve made a mistake,” I said bitterly. How could I put Crystal through that? She loved me and I loved her… but not enough to put her before the princess and my oath. She deserved better, a stallion that would put her first. One that would jump in front of her. My vision blurred with tears.

Sunny set a hoof against my chest. “Ish okay,” she whispered.

I looked down at her and our eyes met. Hers were big and there was a look in them that I’d never seen before.

My eyes were locked with Sunny’s and my heart started to beat faster. I trembled. Possibly from the cold, but likely not. Something was different. Sunny wasn’t being a royal guard. I think she was being a mare and I hadn’t really noticed she was one before.

We held onto each other and stared. Two ponies in the same place with similar problems. I guess similar. I wasn’t sure why Sunny was upset but then I’d been vague too.

The wind whipped across the tower once more and her breath caught. She clung tighter to me. Her eyes dropped.

“Careful, Shylent Knight, we’ve already made enough mishtakes,” she whispered.

I blinked away my tears. “What?”

“Come on, even you can shee that we’re having a moment. Two kindred spirish alone with their problems? Together on thish tower. This ish the kind of moment that ends in kisshing and regret. It sounds like you already have enough of that, though.”

My ears shot up. Crystal deserved better than a pony like me but even still I couldn’t imagine cheating on her. “Sunny, no… I. You’re beautiful but that wasn’t—”

She set her hoof on my mouth. “I know. I know. Just shtop at you’re beautiful. A lesser mare might get mixed shignals.” Letting my mouth free, she looped her hooves around me and hugged tight. It felt more like a royal guard hug, which was okay.

I relaxed and hugged her back. “Come on, Sunny, stop teasing me. You’d never do that to Azurite.”

The mare stiffened in the embrace and her chest heaved in a sudden sob. She shoved herself away from me and snapped, “What do you know? You don’t even really know me!”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“No, nevermind. Jush… I’m shorry. I didn’t mean… look, I’m shorry,” she whispered before wiping her eyes. “Beshides, I should know better. You’re a nice, honesht pony. You didn’t even know we were having a moment. You’d never do that to Crystal Wishes.”

I just stared at her, unable to say a word. What had just happened?

She slowly pressed back against me, so I held her and shook my head. “That may be true, but it doesn’t really make a difference, does it? With this job and all the time gone. The missions and the risk. Sooner or later, she’s going to figure out what I really am.”

Sunny let me go long enough to look me in the eyes again. “And what is that?”

My eyes fell and I replied, “An empty suit of armor.”

Author's Notes:

There comes a time on almost every rollercoaster when the car reaches the top of the largest hill. As it is just cresting the peak you know what is coming next... for the most part. There will be a drop, but then what? All you can do is hold on and enjoy the ride.

That, dear readers, is what I'm telling you now. Hold on and enjoy the ride! We'll see you back on the platform.

If you are enjoying this story, please consider taking a look at Crystal and my's website QuillnBlade.com for extra content such as mini stories, Q&B AU wiki, and special rewards for the awesome folks who support our Patreon. We have monthly art give aways, a Q&B Discord RPG, a several other fun gifts for patrons.