At the lunch rush at a small cafe in Canterlot the next day, there seemed to be only one topic of note.

"Have you heard that that Lunar Guard is having his appeal today?" Upper Crust asked her husband over her sweet roll.

"Hmm? Oh, that Lieutenant?" Jet Set replied in a disinterested tone, looking over the newspaper. "I can't understand why they're even bothering. It's completely obvious he's guilty."

"Indeed," Upper Crust agreed with a inclination of her head. "If it were up to me, I'd keep him locked up forever. Make an example of him."

"If we can't trust the Guard, whom can we trust?" Jet Set stated, turning the page of a newspaper and pushing the thought from his head as a waiter arrived with a teapot. Refilling the noble's tea, the waiter moved on to the next table, the sole occupant of which was glaring at the upper class ponies backs.

"Two coffees, sir," the waiter said, placing the cups and saucers on the table with the faintest of clinks.

"Thank you," Phillip Finder said without looking up.

"Will your date be here soon?" the waiter asked, wondering how long it was going to be before he had to return to take another order.

"Not a date," Phil replied, reaching for his cup to take a sip. "But she'll be here any minute now."

"Ah-CHOO!"

Phillip half-jumped out of his skin, the coffee flying from his hoof and spilling everywhere. The waiter and everypony nearby jumped as well, looking around for the source of the noise, which was quickly located.

"Sorry!" a small mare squeaked, grinning embarrassingly at everypony from the center of the room. She had a light brown coat, flowing black and blue mane and tail, light brown eyes, and a cutie mark of a twisted ivy leaf. After a moment of staring, activity around the cafe returned to normal as everypony returned to their lunches. The mare walked over to Phillip's table.

"Sergeant Miley Hooves?" Phillip asked, still trying to figure out how such a small mare could make such a loud noise. For a moment, he'd almost thought that a bomb had gone off.

"Yes, sir," Miley said, sitting down across from him. "Sorry if I startled you, I think I'm fighting a bit of a cold...again."

"I'm glad you agreed to speak with me," Phil said. "I've been getting stonewalled for two weeks."

"I'm glad you're trying to help," Miley said, nudging her coffee cup. "The rest of us have been doing our best to help with Silent Knight's appeal, but the new lieutenant has been keeping us busy."

"New lieutenant?" Phillip asked.

"Tandem Check," Miley replied with a frown. "He transferred in soon before this happened and took over when Silent Knight was..." She paused, then glanced around as if expecting to see him nearby. "To be honest, he probably wouldn't like me talking to you. Silent's name is mud as far he's concerned."

"But not with you?"

"Never!" Miley said fiercely. "I've known Lieutenant Knight almost since he's started in the Lunar House Guard. Nopony is as loyal to Princess Luna as him; he'd never try to hurt her!"

"So why did Princess Luna say he did?" Phillip pressed. "Why did you and four other Guards say he did at his trial?"

Miley shifted uncomfortably beneath the accusation, her face cresting into the look of a pony lost in a dark woods. "Because he...he must have..." Her eyes became unfocused, and Phillip realized that she was forcing herself to remember something unpleasant. Something frightening.

"All right. How about we start at the beginning?" Phillip said in a more gentle tone. "Tell me what happened that night."

Miley took a long, slow breath, brushed her mane back and began to speak.

"It was late at night. I was standing guard in the east wing. Lieutenant Knight was in his office; he would have been getting ready to leave at that point. Princess Luna was in her chambers.

"Suddenly we all heard shouting about an intruder. Naturally, everypony nearby came running, myself included. We found Lieutenant Knight in a hallway near Princess Luna's chambers. He said he'd been attacked by an intruder who had disappeared down the hallway. We went to go look for him while he went to Princess Luna's chambers to check on her, but we found no sign of an intruder."

"Were there any places in the hallway that the intruder could have hidden in?" Phillip asked.

"We checked all of them thoroughly," Miley said. "It took a while because the lights were broken."

"Broken how?"

"The lamp lights burned out that morning, and maintenance hadn't gotten around to them yet," Miley replied. Phillip gestured for her to continue. Miley sipped from her coffee and swallowed slowly, as if gathering her courage.

"Just as we were finishing our search, we heard Princess Luna yelling for help from her chamber: 'Guards, help! Silent Knight has gone mad!' When we got there, we saw..." She paused, as if afraid to speak further. "...Lieutenant Knight was attacking her with his sword. She was fending him off, trying to get him to calm down, but it was like he couldn't hear her: he just kept attacking her again and again. It took all of us to hold him back long enough for Luna to use a sleeping spell on him. Nopony was hurt, but..."

She spoke as if recalling a terrible nightmare, still trying to convince herself that it was just a dream. "There's more, isn't there?" Phil asked softly.

Miley nodded. "When he woke up the next morning in the brig...he couldn't remember what happened that night! He didn't even remember the intruder!" She looked down at her now-empty cup. "Princess Luna was shattered. She didn't feel like she could trust anypony anymore. And then he was brought up on charges..." She paused, then brought her hoof up and slammed it down onto the table, making the cups rattle in their saucers.

"It's not fair!" she shouted. "He doesn't deserve this! Silent Knight should be back home, where he belongs!" Her rant came to an abrupt halt when she realized that everypony in the cafe was staring at her again. She waved at the other patrons, smiling apologetically. The cafe returned to it's normal activity once more.

"I just don't understand why he would do that!" she said more quietly.

Phillip thought for a moment. "When you saw Lieutenant Knight that night, did he have any injuries?"

Miley frowned in concentration for a second. "A small cut on his cheek. He said the intruder cut him with a knife. We bandaged it after he'd been knocked out."

"Did he describe the intruder?"

Miley shook her head. "A pony in a hooded cloak. He didn't get a good look at him."

Phillip was silent for a moment more, his head bowed as he turned over theories and facts in his mind. After about a minute, he finished his coffee and stood up. "Can you get me in contact with the other members of the House Guard? I'm going to need to talk to them as well."

"I will," Miley said.

"Good," Phillip said, taking out enough bits to pay for both coffees and a tip and placing them on the table. He extended his hoof towards Miley. "Thanks for taking the time to talk to me, Sergeant."

"Thank you for agreeing to help," Miley replied, shaking his hoof as she stood to exit. "We're all worried about the boss. Silent's one of the toughest ponies I know, but..." She swallowed, cringing a little. "You know what those animals at Clovenworth are like."

Phillip did know, considering that he'd been at ground zero for the "Clovenworth Riots" a month ago. The healing fractures in his ribs still hurt when he thought about it.

"We can get him out of there and back home," he reassured her. "Just trust me."

"Thanks," Miley said, giving him a quick salute as she turned and walked away down the street. Phillip watched her for a moment, then turned to leave as well.

"Ah-CHOO!"

The thunder-like sneeze was immediately followed by a loud crashing. Phillip turned back to see a three-carriage pileup in the middle of the road. "Sorry!" Miley apologized.

Shaking his head, Phillip went back on his way, still considering his limited options. As long as Silent Knight was still in prison, there wouldn't be much he could do to help his own case.

Meanwhile, a fog had settled over the waters off the coast of Manehattan. A low, heavy ship slowly cut through the choppy water, sounding out a lonely foghorn and puffing out smoke through the smokestack near the stern.

"This is ridiculous," the Navy sailor at the helm grunted through the toothpick clenched in his jaw. "First the compasses go haywire, and now this."

"Watch your speed," the navigator warned him, squinting through the fog out the windows of the bridge. "The last thing we need is to smash up on the rocks." The helmspony lowered the speed a little, relying on muscle memory to steer them safely through the water.

Down below deck in the hold, two Guards sat before a barred cage, staring at the shackled prisoner within. Silent Knight ignored them: staring down at the floor, he went through the faint memories that swam in his mind as if they were a training manual, forcing the pieces together...

The hallway was dark, and his hoofguards clicked against the tile floor. In his mind, he forced himself to remember stepping forward into the shadows. A flicker of movement in the darkness, and then a blaze of pain as a knife blade cut through his cheek, drawing blood. A shape pulled forward, a large pony in a dark cloak with the hood up, holding the knife in his left hoof. "Intruder!" he shouted, instinctively moving to counterattack, but the figure immediately faded from sight, and he saw the darkness surge forward as if it was alive, claiming him...

Shaking his head, Silent rewound the memory. The intruder. Yes, he remembered the intruder that had appeared from the darkness and cut him with the knife. He held onto that thought, forcing himself to go over every inch of the figure's body. He remembered the attack, the knife blade drawing his blood, and then...

CRASH! An impact like a cannon blast rocked the ship, knocking everypony down and pushing them up against the starboard wall. There was a rushing sound, and water began to pour into the hold, icy chill biting at the ponies hooves; the ship had run up against a rock, and was holed below the waterline.

"We're taking on water!" one of the Guards shouted. Even as he spoke, the water began to climb faster, reaching up towards its victims heads. The same thought occurred to everypony at the same moment: even if the ship might not be sinking, nopony wanted to be around when the water reached the boiler.

"Abandon ship! Everypony to the lifeboats!" a voice shouted from the top of the stairs into the hold. The two Guards both turned to look at their prisoner.

"You go, I'll take care of him," one of them, a unicorn, said to his partner as he grabbed the keys from a ring on the wall. He hurried over to Silent as his partner ran up the stairs. Unlocking the cage door, he hurried inside and removed the shackles from around his hooves and wings. Grabbing him by the elbow and keeping a magical grip on the handle of the baton sheathed at his side, the Guard began to guide Silent up towards the stairs, slogging through the water that was rising past their knees.

Suddenly, there was a loud grating sound and the ship tilted violent, knocking both of them over. A huge wave of water rushed in like a charging army: Silent had just enough time to process the oncoming tide before it seized him, violently ripping him from the Guard's grasp and pulling him down and into the darkness.

The water pressed down on every inch of his body, mercilessly sapping his heat and crushing the air from his lungs. All he could see was darkness; all he heard was his own heart pounding in his ears, marking his remaining time. He struggled against the weight of the water, trying to swim, but with no way to know which way was up, he couldn't tell if he was swimming for the surface or diving deeper. The effort of not breathing made his lungs burn.

A lightness began to spread through his body, reaching his head. This was the end; he was fated now to drown beneath the unforgiving waves of the sea, forgotten and alone, and he might as well accept it, just open his mouth, breathe in and let it go...

Suddenly, he saw a faint glimmer of light above him. Turning, his mind formed the image of Crystal Wishes, a caring smile on her radiant face, beckoning him upwards. Determination surged through his body: he had to live, had to see her again. Pushing through the pain, he began to swim again, using his wings along with his legs to propel him upwards towards the light even as his limbs went numb and a fire spread through his chest. Just as he thought he couldn't take it anymore, that his lungs and head would burst, he broke the surface. Gasping in the clear, cold air, he treaded water, turning as he regained his bearings.

Through the fog, he could see the ship a few meters behind him, tiled on its side like a wounded animal and slowly sinking. He also heard muffled shouting coming from the other side of the ship, calling his name, and realized that he'd come up on the side opposite the lifeboat.

Sensing movement above, he looked up to see a seagull flying low over the water, holding a fish in its talons. The sight of the bird, and the gray skies above him suddenly drove the point home for Silent Knight: this was his chance! Pushing through the exhaustion in his freezing limbs, he began to swim after the seagull, hoping it would lead him towards land.

After about a half-mile of swimming, Silent dragged himself up onto a rocky shore, panting and shivering. Pausing only to shake himself off, he began to trot quickly up the shore, spreading his wings out to help them dry faster. A slow, chill wind blew, biting into his sodden coat. The fog was clearing up, and he saw that he was in the middle of an open plain, the long grass around him beginning to fade into dull browns. Seeing a good-sized boulder sitting like an island amidst the sea of grass, he climbed atop it and paused, slowly turning around to try to find any landmarks. But all he saw was the grass waving at him all the way to the graying horizon.

This was bad. He didn't know where he was, he had no supplies, and the lone rocks scattered amidst the still grass provided no shelter. He tried flapping his wings to take off, but they proved useless: the neutralizing spell had yet to wear off. Sitting down on the boulder to rest and catch his bearings, Silent pondered his limited options. Right now, he had three major concerns: staying alive, evading the Guards that would no doubt be looking for him soon, and getting back to Canterlot. Whatever had happened, it had put Princess Luna's life in danger, and put him in prison for a crime he was certain he did not commit. Even if his rank and title had been taken away, his cutie mark remained: it was his duty to protect the Princess. And if there was a threat to her life, it meant that he had to get to her side immediately. And if he could prove his innocence along the way, so much the better.

Suddenly, his plans to find a patch of ground to curl up on and wait until he could fly again were interrupted by a loud whistling. Looking up, he saw a train pulling several cargo cars chugging across the plain in the distance. Knowing that two one-time-only chances in a row was not something to be passed up, Silent began to run, trying to reach the tracks before the train got too far ahead. Sprinting a full quarter mile, he pulled up alongside the train cars. Reaching up, he managed to grab onto a ladder in between two of the cars and pulled himself up and onto the train coupling. Carefully, he edged around to the side of the cargo car and seized the fortunately unlocked handle, sliding open the door. He started to pull himself inside when he saw something moving in the darkness within. He paused, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

He never got a chance. Something suddenly reached out from the shadows, seized him strongly by the hoof and yanked him inside the car before he had a chance to think. "Get in here and close the door, you crazy pony! You want us all to catch cold?"

Silent fell onto a layer of hay on the floor, the door slamming shut behind him, and looked around in astonishment. The dim light of a small lantern on the floor illuminated three ponies, all dressed in ragtag clothing and looking in need of a bath and shave, staring at him in mild curiosity. Hoboes, he realized.

"You fall in a lake, young'n?" one of the hoboes, a middle-aged unicorn with a yellow, weatherbeaten face and a long black beard wheezed, lifting up a tarp and draping it around the shivering Silent. "What're you doing, wandering around in the cold?"

"Waiting for a train," Silent replied, pulling the tarp around him and making sure that it covered his cutie marks. "I got lost in a storm last night and starting following the tracks."

The old hobo nodded, now pulling out a deck of cards and shuffling them. "So, you running from or to somethin'?"

"To," Silent replied. "I got into some trouble in Manehattan and need to find my way back home. Where's this train headed?" In the back of his mind, he felt a brief flash of guilt at how easily the lie came out. Then again, it wasn't a complete lie...

"Canterlot," one of the other hoboes grunted. "I know a place outside of town where you can get settled in until you can find yer folks." Perhaps mistaking Silent's continued hypothermic shivering for apprehension, he grinned reassuringly. "Don't you worry, young'n. We'll take care of you."

Silent was hesitant to place trust in hoboes, but he eventually realized that he didn't have much of a choice. He had taken a chance and accepted the risks, and now he had to live with the consequences that came while still trying to move forward. And besides, local knowledge was always helpful. He pulled the tarp tighter around himself and shifted closer to the soft warmth of the lantern. There was nothing left to do now but accept the bearded hobo's offer to deal him in.

Author's Notes:

While Phillip makes a new ally, Silent Knight makes his way back to Canterlot. Bit by bit, the two are beginning to peel back the curtain...

Am I doing all right so far?