Now, much to my disappointment I did NOT immediately drag Luna off to the nearest gothic clothes store so I could take her to a late-night party at Vinyl's club. No, quite to the contrary, I wasn't that cruel. If I'm being perfectly honest, I wasn't even all that upset with her to begin with, but someone had to say what I said, and none of the castle staff were going to do it! I doubt Celestia would've done it either.

Plus I mean, let's be honest with ourselves. Luna could pull off the punk goth look really well. Am I wrong? Yeah, I didn't think so. I don't need to be Fashion Police Rarity to know that.

I did tell her about my favorite nightclub, however. Not just because it'd be pretty fitting for her to mingle with her fellow denizens of the night, but because I wanted to help her. Vinyl would probably appreciate the publicity, not to mention it'd give her a very different dynamic from Celestia.

See, miss Unconquered Sun stands up like a perfect and unbreakable statue, and her general benevolence and political savvy gives her an image of being a friend to everyone and someone that only has the best interests of everyone in mind. In that way, she's respectable and the kind of pony everyone should aspire to emulate at the very least.

Luna, however, didn't give me that impression. Just based on what I knew of her history after the conversation we had, I could tell that she was a very fickle and emotional pony. While she certainly carried herself with a stoic confidence that seemed more akin to the practiced airs of the nobility, her affinity for art in all forms and the way she spoke with exuberance about the musicians, artists and warriors of her time told me that the front she put on really didn't mesh with who she was. Her rather destructive civil war with her sister a thousand years prior could attest to that.

If I had to compare the two, Celestia would actually come off as bland. I mean, Celestia's interesting and all, but she converses with just about everyone with that motherly cadence to her voice and practically radiates the soothing confidence that puts so many ponies at ease around her. That's not to say I haven't at least had a glimpse into a side of her that very few get to see, but if I had hands, I could count the glimpses on just one of them.

In any case, I hadn't really come to the castle just to get to know Luna or spend time with Celestia. It was an interesting diversion certainly, but I had a more mundane task to attend to. I knew that whatever Celestia was doing with Spike, I could trust her with him, but that sort of thing went without saying. I'm pretty sure a dragoness would trust Celestia with her eggs! Oh, wait....

Uh, that's a story for another time. I promise.

It was after a short while of her telling me about some mare named Dainty Dove and me telling her about a few of the more recent incidents in history, such as the rise and fall of Stalliongrad, that I left her to her own devices. She apparently had things to take care of herself. I wasn't going to push her on that, I'd done enough of that already. I may be an asshole on occasion, but I would like to believe that I have a good measure of when enough's enough...usually.

With the halls all to myself outside of the occasional guard and wandering staff member, I made my way to the barracks. I say that like it's nothing at all, but in reality, the castle's layout is pretty confusing. The only reason I knew where I was going was because I'd walked these halls plenty of times on the way to the training grounds.

The Royal Guard is a very serious group, don't ever forget that. Their creeds are so firmly embedded and specific that it can take years to learn, and the results speak for themselves. The Royal Guard may technically be a branch of the Equestrian military, and they can be deployed if necessary, but their primary role in everyday life is to do the crown's bidding. It's part of why Celestia's always so busy.

With them taking orders directly from Celestia or whoever she delegates certain tasks to, that means that even when the nation's not shoving problems down her throat, she's reviewing reports and activities from her guards posted all over Equestria. She's turned it into an art form by this point, but that's still a ton of work to do almost every day. Even I wouldn't want to have that much paperwork. I guess that delegating responsibilities helps, as long as you have people you can trust.

The origins of the Royal Guard are pretty interesting too. Without going into details, the best way to describe them is that they're the modern, militarized version of the old Solus religion Equestrians once followed en-masse. Nowadays, you remove the daily sun worship, but keep the structured discipline and military traditions. I'm sure some still pray to the sun, because tradition, but for the most part Royal Guards don't feel the need. Their goddess talks to them directly, after all.

All that being said, it's easy to forget just how serious they are when you're in the barracks watching them take turns doing keg stands. Not recently mind you, though I'm sure they had one Tartarus of a party after the whole Eternal Night thing. I briefly recall several of the guards mentioning something about it being a rite of passage...either that or hazing. If it's the latter, that's a pretty toxic practice.

Either way, the training grounds were as noisy as they'd ever been. The clash of steel on steel and hooves against training dummies sounded off with resounding clarity, even from where I was standing in the hallway. It echoed from the open windows leading to the massive yard area, an area directly next to the mountainside Canterlot as a whole is attached to. I could even hear the distinct noise of drill sergeants putting their new recruits to task.

It wasn't a lifestyle I could ever handle, personally. You know, living that life of strict rigidity and such. Despite my physical fitness, I don't think I'd last a week in boot camp, let alone what the Royal Guard is put through. They regularly have to do boot camp over, specifically to keep them active and ready to go at a moment's notice. The ones in charge tend to come up with their own forms of boot camp to really screw with their soldiers.

First time through? It's a combined version of three different forms of military standard boot camp. Each of the three pony races are separated from each other to be put through a training regimen that suits their race's skills. Makes sense, since a unicorn couldn't possibly keep up with the kind of physical fitness an earth pony soldier would have, nor could they match a trained earth pony in hoof-to-hoof combat. Just the same, it'd be unfair and pointless to put an earth pony through the kind of aerial agility training the pegasi have to go through, because no wings.

The second stage of boot camp winds up intermingling the separated trainees and pairing them up in sets of two and three in order to practice team-building exercises. After a week, they are then grouped up into teams of six in order to execute group strategies, two of each race. The Royal Guard emphasizes being able to rely on your fellow guards just as much as you can rely on yourself. The philosophy is that if you can't learn to work with those around you, then you're already doomed to fail. Stand with your herd or die alone.

Maybe that's harsh, but it works for them, so who am I to criticize?

Mind you, that's being somewhat overly dramatic about it, but it gets the point across. The Royal Guard teams often tend to break up for certain duties, like hallway patrols and the like, or standing guard at the more important rooms of the castle. Not very efficient to have groups of six patrolling a single section of the halls, right?

I was never a fan of them guarding my room whenever I stayed at the castle. Sometimes a filly doesn't want to go home after a long day of studying, but at the same time, how am I supposed to relax when I know they can potentially hear me just outside my door? It's hard to chill when you know there's someone just outside your door.

The two guards standing watch at the entrance to the yard saluted as I walked through, their deepened voices booming out an announcement to everyone there.

"Lady Twilight Sparkle on the yard!"

The guards knew me when they saw me at this point. Ignoring the fact that I was their Captain's younger sister, I regularly stopped in to train with them when I wasn't out and about. At first, they'd been hesitant because I was technically a civilian, regardless of my status as Celestia's student. Fortunately, Celestia had smoothed things over, so it wasn't a problem once I proved I could at least keep up with them during basic training, despite my bad leg.

They were also hesitant because I was their Captain's younger sister and what if I got hurt because of them, but Shining put their minds at ease eventually.

"Alright! At ease, recruits!" I heard an all too familiar voice shout out with all the intensity of a grenade exploding in the distance. "Seems we got ourselves some prissy civilian coming to have a look around and grant you limp-dicked sons of bitches some mercy! Give me a hundred, then take five! I expect you all back out here bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to go for three more hours!"

I heard just three ponies groan in disapproval, and immediately, I cringed. This wasn't going to end well for any of them. I knew how any form of bitching about your exhaustion went down when you're in boot camp.

"What was that?! Who the fuck had the balls?!" I heard him shout again. "Just for that, give me two-hundred more, and you all better pray to Celestia you're done by the time I'm done with our fancy guest! Get to work!!"

They could only be fortunate that no one made a peep aside from the unanimous grunts of exertion. I watched them all bend their forelegs and jut their hindlegs out far behind them, straightening them out and resting their weight on the edges of their hooves. I can't even do those properly, considering the state of my hindleg. Doesn't stop me from trying though.

I began to walk into the yard as their drill instructor approached me, a tall and muscled stallion that looked just as uniform as the others wearing their official armor. You could still tell the recruits apart, but that was only because they hadn't earned their armor yet. They were just wearing the basic, unenchanted stuff meant for sparring and training.

The only reason I recognized the drill instructor was because I spent plenty of time on the yard. His presence was fairly constant, and despite his disapproval of me showing up whenever I damn well please to get in on their training, he respected my ability to keep up, even for a little while, regardless of my status as a legal cripple. For a soft, spongy civvie, I had a lot of drive in his eyes.

"Miss Twilight Sparkle!" he practically shouted, approaching me in a brisk trot. "To what do I owe this unexpected, as always, visit?"

"Sorry to interrupt your big, bad shouting, sergeant," I stated calmly with a smile. "Just looking to speak with a certain big and buff mare recruit of yours. Gadget Steelmare?"

He rubbed his chin, snorting and growling in his throat. "Oh yeah. That one."

I quirked a brow. "Problems? Already?"

"Nothin' too serious, but I can already tell she's gonna be a problem," he said, motioning for me to follow. "She got caught last night flirting with one of the other recruits, and when questioned, she admitted to flirting with one of the guards before that."

I walked with him towards the barracks, the sounds of the recruits working to get through their exercises fading away as we walked. "Well...I mean, that's not surprising, considering."

"Yeah, one of those herms. Still," he said, glancing over at me out of the corner of his eye. "I expect better from ponies that come recommended by you."

I sighed and shrugged. "I'll have a talk with her, but she's a grown mare, and I swear half her brain is in her crotch. I can't make any promises, Barbut."

"Yeah, you do that. Right now, I've got her skipping breakfast so she can clean up the entirety of the barracks, and she doesn't get so much as a slice of bread until it's absolutely spotless," he explained, an almost sadistic grin lighting up his expression. "S'what she gets for not keeping her loins in check. I suggested she get herself a suppressant prescription, but she swore she'd do better and it wouldn't happen again. I'm holding her to that."

"Think she'll make it through?"

He shrugged. "She's strong and she's certainly capable. The physical aspect of boot camp won't be a problem for her, and she's more than capable of following instructions with no complaints. Her magic, however...."

I nodded, frowning. "Yeah, I'm aware. Her magic's about as strong as an early adolescent."

"Stunted, but nothing we can't fix. It'll just be harder on her," he said, stopping in front of the barracks. "She wouldn't be the first we've whipped into shape! Go on in, just don't help her with anything. You can come join the recruits in the yard when she's done if you want. We'll be doing some mock-sparring today!"

"Let me guess: you want to make use of my presence?" I offered with a knowing look. "My magic, specifically?"

He elicited a sound akin to a 'grumph' in response. "You saying you don't want to smack around some new recruits that don't fully understand what they might have to deal with one day?"

I turned to push the door to the barracks open, smiling to myself. "Well, I never said that. There's just a problem regarding my broken muzzle."

"Pff! You're a fancy mage, I'm sure you can come up with something."

He left to go deal with the recruits right after that. Given the short time he spent dealing with me, it was statistically very improbable that all of his recruits got their exercises done. He'd set them up for failure, and I knew for certain that he was relishing the chance to put them through their paces even more than that. He enjoyed his work a little too much.

I stepped into the barracks to the sound of a creaking door, and the vague muttering of what was clearly Gradios. It cut off immediately when I pushed the door shut behind myself, the clunk of the metal latch on it grabbing Gadget's attention. I could see the brief panic in her wide-eyed expression just before she realized it was me and not her drill instructor.

"Oh, damn! You scared me half to death, Canterlot," she sighed, her tall stance slouching visibly. "Do not do that to me."

"Didn't have much choice," I offered, looking her over. "You don't look so great."

Just at a glance, I could tell that she was starting to soak in her own seat. The light coming in through the small windows in the barracks illuminated her fur well enough to show the faint sheen of sweat on her fur, and the way her breathing was exaggerated made the problem all too clear to me. To anyone that didn't know what was up, it would appear that she got some serious exercise in recently, but I knew it was because she was Stalliongradi.

"Da, not so great. I would open the windows more, but I am afraid I will get in trouble," she said, pushing her mop bucket towards where I was. "It is very easy to get in trouble here."

I watched her shakily move the wet mop from the bucket to the floor, doing her best to put some effort into it despite the weakness of her magic. "Well yeah, that's kinda the whole point. Among other things, boot camp tends to drill it into every recruit's head that life's not fair, so they need to be tough enough to deal with any problem."

"Well, I am certainly tough enough! It is the heat I have a problem with." she huffed, panting faintly while doing her best to focus on moving the mop around.

"It's a little stuffy in here," I noticed, my horn lighting up as I reached out to each window in the barracks and shoved them open. "There we go."

"What are you doing?!" she hissed, her eyes darting between the windows. "Close them!"

"Eh, relax," I said, waving her off. "I thought it was stuffy in here! You benefitting from my indulgences is just a side-effect. You're welcome, by the way."

"If you say so..." she muttered, setting her mop down to look in my direction. "So, why are you here, boss?"

"Shopping for furniture for the house, need some input on what you'd like for your room," I said, reaching into my saddlebag to pull out a catalogue. "Pick out what you want, I'll pick it up. Go for stuff that's expensive-looking."

"Why expensive-looking?"

"Appearances," I stated simply, sitting down on one of the beds. "It's my house and you're renting a room from me. The idea that your room wouldn't come furnished is just absurd, and reflects poorly on me."

"It really matters that much?"

"You would be surprised, and probably a little disturbed."

"Well, I cannot stop to look at it right now," she said, motioning to her mop. "I have to get this done."

"That's fine! I'll come around again tomorrow. Just pick out whatever you want and I'll get it ordered," I said, setting the catalogue down on the bed next to myself. "So...heard you couldn't keep your dick in your sheath."

"Oh come on, not you too, boss!" she groaned, rising up to her hindlegs curling her hooves around the mop, instead of using her magic. "She hit on me first! What was I supposed to do?"

"Funny. Barbut didn't mention that part," I said, taking the time to stretch my bad hindleg out in front of myself. "So she hit on you, and you reciprocated?"

"Da, but the instructor did not care," she said, scowling at the floor as she pushed the mop around. "I am here with no breakfast cleaning the barracks, and that cyka is getting away with it!"

"Yeah. Not very fair, is it?" I asked, though I already knew the answer. "That's just how it is. Either way, I suggest you keep yourself in check, at least until you're out of boot camp. You're under far more intense scrutiny because you come recommended by both Celestia and myself. You can bet that mare wanted to get you in trouble, but I'd only assume that if she knew you got in here because of someone like me."

She snorted and stopped mopping for just a second to stare at the wall. "I am surrounded by small, attractive mares, and you are telling me not to flirt with them?"

It was difficult to really get a read on her, but judging by the way she was tensing up and twitching her ear, she seemed agitated. Not agitated as in, I'm going to break something, but more in the sense that she was mulling something over in her head and she really didn't like where it was going.

She turned to give me a dirty look, her expression seeming more like she'd just bitten into a rotten lemon. "You are pure evil, Canterlot."

"Yyyup! You should know that by now," I said, cracking a smile. "You're just gonna have to suck it up and control yourself. Feel those impulses to flirt, and recognize them as something to be crushed under your hoof."

"You may as well tell me to go on suppressants," she said, turning back to her work. "That better not be what you are telling me to do."

"Nah, not at all! Just saying that you need to keep yourself in check," I said, slipping off of the bed. "At least until you're out of boot camp."

"Yeah, yeah, sure thing..." she grumbled, glancing back at me. "Is that all?"

"Yup, pretty much! I'll probably see you out in the yard," I said, a grin slowly spreading across my face as I turned to leave. "I'm going to be assisting with training today."

"...I feel like I should be afraid."

"Considering he's probably going to make an example of you because you're on his shit-list?" I said, pushing the door open. "Yeah, you should be."

I left Gadget to stew in that small bout of anxiety, stepping out of the barracks just as another instructor and another small batch of recruits trotted past me. Her voice bellowed out as she stomped past me, the recruits trotting in step and repeating after her. There were three of them lagging behind, but that wasn't very surprising to me. According to Shining Armor, there's always at least one pony that winds up overestimating what they're capable of. They might be able to fight through it, they might not, but there's always at least one.

I wandered the yard, observing the current members of the Royal Guard going through their own motions while the recruits were being put through their paces by their instructors. You could tell the difference between the recruits and the Royal Guard very easily: the recruits had armor that was less polished and less intricate, while the Royal Guards had thoroughly polished and shined armor that carried a special sheen to it that someone trained the way I was could see plain as day.

By the time I made my way to Barbut's group, they were deep into a new set of exercises, likely to further punish them for that one idiot that dared to voice a complaint. I could see the sweat in their fur, and it was more than obvious that they needed a break, but the whole point of this kind of thing is to make you realize that you're capable of far more than you think you are. That or you can leave, no one's stopping you. You just don't get to come back.

While Barbut barked his orders at them to work them through their exercises, also known as a good, long ordeal, I took the time to follow the exercises off to the side. It was unlikely I'd be able to keep up, but I also didn't need to. It was just something to do until he was ready to use me. I could feel it getting my blood flowing as I worked through the push-ups, my heart began to race the longer and faster I trotted in place, and being able to use their training dummies for the unicorn guards was a pretty good way of flexing my arcane muscles. They're designed to function the same way dragonscale works. You know, making magic slide right off and do very little to them, things like that.

Having to lift one of those a hundred times is a slight strain for me. For the average guard, it was an arduous task just to do that twenty times. That's just the power of a trained mage.

By the time ten minutes had passed, I felt the familiar heave of panting breaths in my chest and the exhaustion in my legs. My horn had a pleasant tingle in it, a clear sign of exertion, and the occasional errant spark told me I was getting the equivalent to a good burn going. I had nothing else planned for my vast stores of magic, so putting some good work in seemed like a good idea to me, on top of whatever Barbut had planned for me.

"Alright! At ease, recruits," I heard him shout, which almost prompted me to relax as well. "Since you're all so disinclined to bother with physical exertion, I think it's about time we introduced you to a special training partner that likes to pay us a visit!"

I took that as my cue to walk over and stand next to him. I could feel the eyes of the recruits focusing on me, but some of them were too unnerved and winded by what they'd just gone through to look anywhere but straight ahead until they were prompted to do otherwise. Those were the smart ones.

"This-" he half-shouted, motioning a hoof in my direction. "-is Lady Sparkle of House Sparkle. Accomplished scholar, younger sister of the Captain of the Guard, and Princess Celestia's personal protege. She was also responsible for the redemption of Princess Luna, Celestia's sister. As those of you with more than a single brain cell can probably also guess, she is a very accomplished mage."

Several of the recruits focused their gazes on me in an entirely different way, particularly the unicorns. There were many stereotypes and racist beliefs that still endured to this day, but there's a grain of truth in every lie. In this case, it's an absolute truth: unicorns have a natural, instinctual draw towards other unicorns with immense magical power.

Our race has a history of idolizing unicorns with great magical power, regardless of whether or not they had good intentions. It led to several dark periods of history, along with several far greater ones, but it was an immutable part of our instincts. It played into unicorn elitism, and the fact that the number of unicorns hooking up with other races in a more established relationship was far lower than with any other race doing the same thing.

I can only imagine how many unicorns absolutely hated some of our past leaders, but wound up hate-fucking them anyway.

Mind you, I'm not saying that all unicorns are driven by instinct like that, but some of us are far more in-tune with it than others. We're all tempered by the society we live in though, so even if it's instinct, there are plenty of things about a pegasus or earth pony that excite us as well. Don't try to tell that to the nobility though. The very insinuation that we might still be driven by our base instincts doesn't sit well with them...mostly because it reflects very, very poorly on them as a whole.

"You all will be training with her today. We're going to see how well you lot can deal with a mage gone rogue!"

I grinned and eyed Barbut, who gave me a quick nod. "This training is very simple! I'm going to restrict myself to the third tier of spells in my repertoire, non-lethal, and you're going to come at me in groups of twelve for ten minutes. If even one of you can lay a single hoof on me, so much as touch me, I'll consider it a success on your part. Sound good, Barbut?"

"Sounds perfectly fine, Lady Sparkle," he said, giving me a brief smile before returning his neutral gaze to his recruits. "Obviously, don't aim for her face. I assume all of you know better than that. So help me if you don't. Now clear the yard so I can break you all down into group of twelve!"

It didn't take me long to find myself in the center of the area of the yard we had to ourselves. Word was already getting spread around the rest of the yard about what was going on, and the other guards were already starting to come around to watch. I didn't exactly plan on making much of a show about it, but if they wanted to watch, it wasn't my place to stop them.

I went through a few stretches before the recruits were ready. I could see Gadget had finished with her work and had been assigned with a group already, despite just getting there. I wasn't going to take it easy on her just because she was hungry however, and believe me, she was hungry. You don't do the kind of strenuous physical activity the Royal Guard requires in boot camp without needing the appropriate sustenance.

At least she didn't look scared.

"Alright, first group, take one minute to strategize, then get into position!"

I glanced in their direction and turned to face them. Four earth ponies, four pegasi, and four unicorns. They were already talking, trying to come up with a strategy to reach me, and to their credit, they at least didn't look afraid. Whether that was due to them being ignorant or just genuinely being excited by the prospect of getting to take a shot at me, I couldn't say.

Once Barbut said they were out of time, the four pegasi took to the sky above me, circling around me in a sloppy circular pattern. It was easy to tell that they weren't trained, despite my lack of military training. The same could be said for the earth ponies and the unicorns. The earth ponies hadn't bothered to grab a shield of any sort to protect them from my spells, and the unicorns weren't hunkered down behind their stockier frames.

Regardless of a pony's resilience when it comes to magic, it's never a good idea to take any spell head-on. You always want something significant between you and a blast from a unicorn, let alone some kind of magical relic. This was going to be fun.

"Alright, recruits," Barbut shouted, stomping a hoof against the dirt. "Subdue the rogue mage!"

Author's Notes:

Hooray, a thing!

I feel bad about how long it took.