"Princess Celestia cordially invites you to the wedding of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and..." Twilight gasped in shock at the words on the page. "My brother‽"

As soon as those words passed her lips, Twilight went silent, her pupils shrinking to pinpricks and her mouth hanging ever-so-slightly open. Her friends stared at the strange sight, torn between trying to help and waiting to see how long Twilight could go without blinking. After thirty seconds went by without anypony declaring a bet on the latter, Applejack decided to step in and try to snap her friend out of it.

"Your brother's gettin' married?"Applejack put her best emphasis on those words, which for her just meant raising her voice, in the hope that a second shock would shake Twilight out of her current stupor. Just for good measure, Applejack grabbed hold of Twilight's hoof and started shaking. "Well, congra-"

But that was as far as she got. Twilight pulled her hoof away and stared at Applejack like she had just eaten a peach. "B-brother?", she stammered, eyes darting around so quickly they turned into a purple blur. "Who said anything about me having a brother?"

"Um, you did," Pinkie said. "A few seconds ago."

"What? N-no I didn't! That's crazy!" Twilight started laughing, and her friends took a collective step back when she dropped the wedding invitation but her horn kept glowing. "There's no way I have a brother! No, that would just be ridiculous!"

"Twilight, darling, it's all right." Rarity stepped forward, doing her best to put on a warm, unconcerned smile. "You don't have to pretend your brother doesn't exist. I'm sure that..." She picked up the invitation, and skimmed it to find the name, "Shining Armor wouldn't appreciate that."

"You have no idea," Spike muttered from behind Rarity. Meanwhile, Twilight was looking at least a little bit more sane, if slightly deflated.

"No, you're right, Rarity." Twilight smiled, and combed her hair back into its usual, everything-is-fine-and-nobody's-dead style.

"Of course I'm right," Rarity declared, and allowed herself a little smile as all of her friends rolled their eyes. "And I, for one, forgive you."

Twilight's face went from 'slightly nervous' to 'very confused'. "Forgive me? For what?"

"Why, for not telling us that you had a brother, of course!" Rarity wished she had a fan that she could snap open. "Honestly, Twilight, how many times have we all gossiped about our families, and you've completely forgotten to mention him?" At that moment, a terrible thought occurred to her, and she stage-whispered, "Is this another Zephyr Breeze situation?"

Twilight laughed, and waved a hoof dismissively. "No, nothing so bad. He's just... unmemorable, you know?"

"What do you mean?" Applejack asked.

"Well, he's in the Royal Guard..." Twilight began, but was almost instantly cut off by Rainbow Dash.

"Wait, your brother's a guard? Since when are they forgettable? Some of the most awesome ponies of all time have served as Celestia's guards!"

"That's right, Rainbow Dash." Twilight smiled, but it was the kind of smile that Rarity was used to seeing on Cheerilee when talking to children. "Now, can you name a single member of the Royal Guard who isn't one of 'the most awesome ponies of all time'?"

Rainbow took a moment to wrack her brain, then shrugged. "Okay, fair enough. Still, bit rude to hold his job against him."

"Well, it's not just that." Twilight seemed a little more comfortable now. "He's only a corporal."

"Yeah, so? You rise up the ranks pretty fast in the Royal Guard. He probably just signed on recently, and soon he'll..."

"He's been a corporal for twenty years."

Rainbow Dash shut up. Twilight, oddly enough, grinned as though she had just dropped the punchline of the most hilarious joke of all time.

"Yeah. He's what they call an 'eternal up-and-comer'. He's got plenty of potential, a lot of drive, and he lifts heavy boxes without a horn, but he just can't seem to catch a break. Even before stuff like Nightmare Moon and Discord started making the Royal Guard look bad, Shining kept on missing the mark and losing out on promotions. Some unpolished armor here, a slack in your stance there, the occasional badmouthing of his superiors, and Corporal Shining Armor may as well be his birth name." Twilight chuckled a little, and Rarity could have sworn she heard Spike trying to muffle a snigger.

"That's not very funny," Pinkie Pie spoke up. She motioned for Fluttershy to join in.

"Pinkie's right," Fluttershy mumbled, just loud enough to be heard. "I'm sure your brother tries very hard to be a good guard."

"And he's clearly been trying harder than you give him credit for," Rarity indicated the invitation, "seeing as this invitation refers to him as the Captain of the Royal Guard."

Twilight's eyes bugged out, and Spike gasped in shock.

"Honestly, Twilight, when was the last time you spoke to your brother? This isn't the sort of thing that just happens overnight."

"Of course it didn't happen overnight," Twilight said. "That would be ridiculous. My brother has been the Captain of the Guard for the past thirteen years."

"Wait, I'm confused," muttered Rainbow Dash. "Why did you tell us that Shining Armor was this complete screw-up?"

"Because that's his cover story," Twilight admitted. "If anyone finds out I'm related to him, that's what I'm supposed to tell them."

Applejack cocked a quizzical eyebrow. "But why would you tell us that, instead of just saying that your brother's the captain of the guard?"

"Applejack, I'm the personal student to Princess Celestia herself. I've got enough of a target on my back without bringing up that my brother is the single most powerful unicorn in Equestria!"

"Wait," Pinkie Pie said, "I thought you were the most powerful unicorn in Equestria."

"I didn't mean magical power," Twilight clarified. "In terms of that, he's only the second most powerful. No, I was referring to influence."

"You can't be serious," Rainbow scoffed. "How much clout can the captain of the guard really have?"

Twilight gritted her teeth, then her horn glowed. A conical shield spell suddenly encircled the picnic, and the air between each pony felt much thicker. "This is a silencing spell," she explained. "Nothing we say can be heard by anypony outside of this cone."

"Um, Twilight?" Fluttershy raised a hoof as though she were a foal asking a question in class. "We're alone. There's nopony around who could hear us."

"I'm about to exposit some of our government's most sensitive information," Twilight growled. "The only reason I am allowed to know any of this is because I'm a master of occlumency. And if Shining Armor had taught me even a single mind-erase spell, I wouldn't be telling any of you a single word of this, even underneath this cone. Equestria has enemies the likes of which none of you have ever seen, and they could be anywhere."

"And?" Rainbow Dash flexed her muscles. "We're the ones who took out Discord. We can totally handle a few spies."

Twilight shook her head solemnly, a gesture mirrored by Spike. "Rainbow, this isn't an enemy you can just punch, or shoot with friendship lasers. That's not our foreign policy anymore. Politics is far more complicated than any of you have ever had to know, and girls, I say this as your friend, none of you are even slightly ready to enter a world of international espionage. If we are being spied on, the only way to survive is to know nothing, or be really good at playing dumb. In this case, we have to go with the latter."

Rarity saw something move in the corner of her eye. She turned, and didn't see anything. Her mind found it could not decide if something was there or not, and she quickly turned to face Twilight again. It was probably nothing.

It was hopefully nothing.

"Now then," Twilight began. "When I say the words 'the Royal Guard', what comes to your mind?"

"Those guards in fancy gold armor who patrol Canterlot and guard the princess," Applejack answered instantly, and the other girls nodded their agreement.

"Well, that's only a very small part of it. Royal Guard is actually a codeword that refers to any organization that is either under the princesses' control, or otherwise exists to exercise their will or protect them. It makes Canterlot double-talk very context-sensitive."

"So, which Royal Guard is your brother in charge of?"

"All of them. The Day Guard, the Night Guard, S.M.I.L.E., the Peanut Butter Hoof Gang, Duskmantle and the Royal Assassinorum, even the Order of Her Resplendent Lady's Eternal Dawn. Somewhere down the line, they all take their orders from him. We're the only branch of the Royal Guard that reports directly to Celestia, and not to Shining Armor."

"Wait, since when are we part of the Royal Guard?" Rainbow Dash demanded to know.

"We're the Elements of Harmony. We act on the orders of Princess Celestia, protect her and her interests (i.e. the kingdom of Equestria and the overwhelming majority of its inhabitants), and generally push an agenda that lines up with all of her policies and doesn't emphasize any of our personal interests over hers. What else would you call us?"

"Fair enough. Please continue."

"Gladly." Twilight turned back to the others, and got back to spilling state secrets. "It's generally more convenient for my parents and I to pretend that Shining Armor isn't related to us. If anypony who knows how important he is knew that they could get to him through us, I'd have been kidnapped five hundred times in the past week."

"But you also have a cover story for if they find out," Fluttershy pointed out.

"Yeah, and you've all managed to prove just how flimsy that story is. That story would maybe buy me five minutes against a total idiot of a kidnapper, and less than two seconds against any serious threat. Honestly, if I thought any of you were actually enemy agents, I'd probably have teleported halfway across Equestria by now."

Fluttershy laughed nervously. "Well, nice to know that we're above suspicion."

"Yeah, let's go with that," Spike snarked. Twilight looked around the group to see if there were any more questions.

Rarity cleared her throat. "So, does your brother really run all of those organizations? I mean, I've heard a few rumors attached to some of those names. Even just one of them seems like it would a logistical nightmare to be in charge of, never mind all of them at once."

"Yeah, my brother's pretty cool." Twilight beamed with pride. "Basically, you know how good I am with books and organizing them? Imagine that the government is a library, the Royal Guard are books, and my brother is me." Rainbow Dash's mouth fell open in shock. "Yeah. Shining Armor can mobilize thirteen armies to thirteen entirely unrelated points in Equestria, without anypony ever knowing, and without even getting a migraine. On top of that, being the second-most-magically-powerful unicorn alive today almost seems like overkill."

"Almost?" Applejack asked.

"Remember the dragon migration?" The others nodded. "Now imagine if every single one of them had been trying to kill us. There's only so much one unicorn can do against an army of dragons."

They all went silent for a moment, their imaginations populating their minds with horrific vistas of fire and death. Fluttershy started crying, while Rainbow Dash went cross-eyed. Rarity shuddered, and Applejack found herself curling up and praying.

Meanwhile, it seemed Pinkie Pie had some more questions. "So, if your brother's supposed to technically-not-exist, what's the deal with this wedding?"

"Dung if I know," Twilight admitted. "My best guess is, they'll be banking on the fact that nopony in Canterlot looks twice at the Day Guard, and nopony outside of Canterlot even cares. Try to pass him off like he's always been their leader, or something."

"But he has always been their leader."

"Very good, Pinkie Pie." Twilight cut a slice of cake, and offered it to the arguably-insane arguably-pony. "You get extra cake."

"YAY!" Pinkie stuffed the cake into her face without another question. Meanwhile, the others seemed to have recovered from their brief crisis of existence. Twilight decided now was as good a time as any to wrap up the picnic and get moving.

"Okay, girls. We'd better get moving. Now, once we get into Canterlot, the worst thing you can do is make a beeline for Shining Armor. Just play it dumb, and at some point he'll probably be able to get us alone and explain what the plan is with this whole wedding thing. Also, watch out for any suspicious ponies, but don't jump to conclusions. They might be on our side. Any questions?"

They all shook their heads. "Good. We've got a train to catch."

Author's Notes:

Shining Armor. The Big Brother Best Friend Forever. The only character from Twilight's past who offered any perspective other than 'Work hard, learn, and use your skills to better Equestria' and was supposedly listened to, yet whose impact on her was so minimalistic that she was still a complete introvert laser-focused on books throughout all of magic school. A character whose closet-nerd characteristics might not even be canon, who continues to be mocked and derided as bland and useless in a world where we've realized that Princess Cadence is Ma-Ti and that Ma-Ti is hardcore.

Luckily, there's fanfiction.