Noble Blade could not get her out of his head.

No matter what he did to pass the time that soft, sweet face always came back to him in his memory. In his line of service as a bodyguard and a one-pony striking force alongside his other friends, he had met many beautiful mares that had tried to snag him for themselves. But he didn't like the focus he got by a few desperate mares all vying for his attention that he would never see again anyway. If he got attention, that meant he was no longer inconspicuous. And he liked being humble anyway. It was sobering to him, something he appreciated. And so he had learned to ignore the focus and go to work on the mission he was assigned to, steadily making him into somepony that wasn't flattered easily by a hot stare or a sultry smile.

But for some odd reason, he found everything that the yellow pegasus did to be the most enchanting, disarming, and beautiful thing he'd ever seen. She wasn't even trying to, and yet every time she smiled, whether at him or at something else, he felt himself lock up in place in awe.

And it wasn't just the smile, either. From the way her mane and tail fell behind her to the way she just moved across the ground to how she carried herself, everything about her captivated his attention. Most of the time he had to restrain from gawking at her in wonder.

And he had somehow gotten a date with such a heavenly pony! He couldn't describe his unbelievable luck in words. He didn't deserve such a high honor.

Of course, he wasn't reluctant to date her. He was happy about everything that had happened so far. But what concerned him was Discord. He remembered how serious he had gotten when he had mentioned that Fluttershy was going on a date with him. He remembered Discord's flaming green eyes and his deep, snarling threat to spread his ashes over the deepest, darkest depths of Tartarus. Noble felt like they had departed on good terms, but he had a twinge of fear that Discord did not approve of him with a pony that meant so much to him.

Noble contemplated all of this as he got ready for the day on Friday. He paid special attention on this particular day to refine his appearance. He would be better than normal. He would make Fluttershy happy this day. He washed his face thoroughly and styled his mane expertly--a little combing to the side didn't hurt all that much. She deserved the best, and it would not be worth her time to spend her time with an improperly prepared pony that couldn't even think clearly at her appearance.

He let his mind wander for a bit. What would she look like? Would she do her mane differently? Would she wear a dress? Noble didn't know if she should, but he figured if they were going to a fancy restaurant, fancy dress would be expected. The day before, he had gone to Rarity's boutique and had bought a square-rigged tuxedo Rarity had suggested for him. Clothing was a social mark in Canterlot; the more flamboyant clothes you had, the higher in station you were. So Noble, unwilling to emulate any mark of Canterlot, had decided to not wear anything in the gilded city. He figured the rich and fancy ponies looked like overstuffed peacocks, and had consequently refused to associate himself with them.

But every so often Strong Heart, his father, had forced him to pull on a suit and go out if it was for a serious social occasion.

Tonight qualified as a serious occasion.

Noble Blade finished checking for spots on his face and opened the door to the hall, glancing back at the suit of armor standing up at the side of his bed. The armor still had a bit of smudged permanent marker on its face. Noble sighed in resignation and rolled his eyes at the sky with a funny expression on his face. He muttered, "Firestorm," under his breath, silently made a mental note to clean it later, and left.

Noble opened the door to the throne room to see the table set for breakfast. He was surprised; normally he would take the trouble to make breakfast. Today, Prench toast and cinnamon rolls were set out for six--the Guardians, Spike, Starlight, and Twilight. The latter was settling herself in her chair with Spike following after her while Freedom Fighter poured orange juice for her using his damaged mouth.

"Freedom Fighter?" Noble asked in confusion.

The pony nodded, setting down the pitcher. Noble noticed his right arm seemed to tremble, and Freedom Fighter instinctively clutched it, wincing slightly.

"Did you do the ritual?" Noble asked suspiciously.

Freedom Fighter's red eyes traveled to the ground guiltily. The weapon-loaded pony nodded.

Noble thinned his mouth in disappointment. "I told you, if you ran out of the room you had, you need to stop there and not go any further." He glanced at Twilight and looked back at him. "Not in front of her. I'll talk to you later about that."

Freedom Fighter nodded slowly, still not looking at him.

"How many did you kill yesterday?" Noble continued.

Freedom Fighter pointed at the tray the cinnamon rolls were on.

Noble Blade counted them. "A dozen?" he asked. When the pony nodded again, Noble Blade took a deep breath. "Why?" he asked him.

A small flicker of light flashed across Freedom Fighter's scarlet eyes, a gleam of anticipation. It was eager, and Freedom Fighter grew stiff. Then he relaxed his composure and he looked straight at Noble Blade. "They deserved it," a voice came from him.

Noble Blade just froze. Did he just hear...words come from him? It was impossible. It was physically impossible for him to be speaking, not since his vocal chords and tongue had been irreparably damaged--

"Oh, uh, SURPRISE! Heh heh," Freedom Fighter laughed nervously, scratching the back of his black mane.

"I-I don't understand," Noble mumbled. It was impossible! It shouldn't have been possible at all, and yet here he was speaking with him clear as day! "Di-h-how did you-WHAT?!"

"I know, right? It feels amazing!" Freedom Fighter started to bounce up and down like Pinkie Pie, making small squeaks every time he hit the floor and he started to say the next few words like Pinkie Pie too--fast and excitedly. "See, yesterday I came to the castle after I did my crime-fighting vi-gi-lan-tay work. The ponies I had saved wanted to know my name, but I couldn't tell them because, you know, my mouth was torn to shreds! I wanted to tell them who I was and get back to them later and I, uh, it got me thinking. What if I could actually have normal conversations with other ponies? I want every pony to know and understand my thoughts the way I want them to, and not have them interpreted by obscure hoof gestures. So my other voice thought--" he went into a distorted voice, "If any pony knows what to do, it's Twilight." He went back into his normal voice. "So I came to her and I presented my issue, and she ever so kindly decided to search for a spell to give me speech. Eventually we found a spell that makes my thoughts be read aloud--whatever I'm saying in my head gets said out loud without the use of my mouth!"

"Gosh, I can't believe we actually did that," Spike mumbled, collapsing in his seat next to Twilight's. "I'm super tired right now."

Twilight yawned groggily. "We stayed up pretty late last night trying to find a spell that worked for him. We tried everything from regrowing his tongue to using the Tongue Loosener spell."

"Except it only works if you actually have a tongue to begin with," Freedom Fighter's thoughts pointed out merrily. Then he dropped his voice into a distorted one again. "Hey, don't joke about that kind of stuff in front of her! We want to get her to like us, remember?"

Twilight jolted her head back upon hearing the other voice out of Freedom Fighter. "What was that?" Twilight asked uneasily.

Freedom Fighter bulged his eyes. "Did I just say that out loud?" he asked. He looked at Twilight. "Sorry. I try to keep him down sometimes, but he's just rude at times."

Noble hurriedly made a "Ssh" motion with his hooves, then motioned for Twilight to continue with a jerk of his head.

"Eventually we came across," Twilight yawned. "the Thought Manifestation Spell. That was the only thing that worked for him." Twilight tried to use her magic to take a bite of Prench toast, but she miscalculated and the food went into her mane.

"I-this--this is incredible!" Noble exclaimed joyously. He was clutching his head with his hooves. "I can't believe it!"

"Me either!" Freedom Fighter cried happily. "Now I can talk! It's been so long since I was able to talk! It's amazing!" He embraced Noble roughly. Noble felt the hilts of the many daggers he wore jam into his body, and he winced visibly.

"Wait, wait, wait. You were able to talk before in your life?" Spike asked him curiously.

Freedom Fighter suddenly looked very uncomfortable. "Yeah..." he said, relaxing his grip around the knight.

"Well then, what happened to you that made you lose your...tongue and...stuff..." Spike's voice grew very nervous as Freedom Fighter leveled a glare at him so sharp it could cut glass. He swallowed.

Freedom Fighter continued to glare at him with so much intensity Spike began to shake. After a bit of this Freedom Fighter growled, "I don't want to talk about it, son. Does that answer your question?"

"Y-y-yeah, that'll work," Spike agreed.

Freedom Fighter's stare softened immensely. "Good. Please don't get on that topic again, do you understand me?"

Spike lowered his head. "Okay," he muttered reluctantly.

And all of a sudden Freedom Fighter jumped into Rarity's chair and sniffed the Prench toast. "Aaah...smells delicious! I wonder how it'll taste like!" He stabbed the bread slice in front of him with a large knife and ripped about half of it off with his teeth. He chewed it with an analytical face. "Hmmm...tastes like..." He paused for dramatic effect. "Nothing!" he declared jovially. He then swallowed and somehow managed to look guilty. "Sorry...about, you know, talking while my mouth was full," he jokingly apologized.

"In your case, I don't think it matters," Twilight told him. "You know, since you're not actually using your mouth to talk." She leaned her head next to Noble and asked, "Is he always like this?"

"I can't say for certain," Noble replied to her. "I've never heard him talk before, much less act like this."

"You talking about me over there?" Freedom Fighter asked, chugging down a drink of orange juice. It was unsettling for Noble to hear him speak so clearly and drink his juice at the same time. "I like to talk about me as well."

"No, Firestorm likes to talk about himself," Noble corrected him. "You, I think, just like to talk. And as for me, I think I like to listen to you talk. This is amazing! This new gift is just priceless. Now I don't have to continually look at you to interpret your body language!"

"I love it too!" Freedom Fighter said clearly, even though he had a huge bite of Prench toast in his mouth. "Now I don't have to do all those hoof gestures! Thanks so much, Twilight!"

Twilight blushed cutely. "Oh, stop it...you've already thanked me twenty-three other times since you got this power." She tried and failed to get another bite of Prench toast into her mouth.

"Well, you're right. I don't have to thank you...again." Freedom Fighter rolled his eyes. "But I'm going to anyway, since I now have something I thought I'd never get back again! So thanks again!" His black tail swished.

"Twenty-five," Twilight said softly.

They ate for a little bit longer. After they all had some food, Noble Blade looked evenly at Freedom Fighter, his deep blue eyes boring into his red ones. "Don't think the fact that you can talk now will distract me. I want to know more about the ponies you killed yesterday," he said in a serious tone.

Freedom Fighter threw his napkin to the center of the table. "They weren't ponies," he said. "They were griffons."

"Griffons?" Twilight asked, tilting her head. "Why would griffons be in Ponyville? Were they running a stand in the market?"

Freedom Fighter admired his reflection in the knife he had used to eat breakfast. "They were criminals," he growled. His change in tone was not unnoticed by Twilight, who squirmed in her seat uncomfortably upon hearing him. Freedom Fighter saw her squirm, took a deep breath, and continued in his normal voice. "They were robbing three innocent mares in an alley at sword point and crossbow. If I hadn't shown up, they would all be dead."

"Who were they?" Spike asked after a moment.

Freedom Fighter looked at the sky for a second, then said, "I think their names were Derpy, Octavia Melody, and...Vinyl Scratch," he said. He lingered for a moment before saying Vinyl's name for some reason.

"Those three?" Twilight asked with surprise. "You seriously saved them?"

"Do you know them?" Freedom Fighter asked.

"Everypony knows those three," Twilight said. "Those are three of the most recognizable ponies in town! You could pick all three of them out in a crowd! And you saved their lives?"

"Absolutely," his thoughts relayed to her. "As I said, if I hadn't shown up, they probably all would have ended up dead."

"And now instead of them, twelve griffons are dead," Noble said.

"Are you saying you would rather have three innocent civilians die?" Freedom Fighter asked in outrage. "Would you prefer you have the thieves live?"

"I'd prefer it if you didn't refer to those extreme measures," Noble replied. "I'm not saying I wanted the civilians dead, but you could have been a little gentler with the griffons!"

"Gentle?" he echoed. "You know that I'm not afraid to do bad things to bad ponies. I speak softly--silently, most of the time--and I carry a really deadly stick to hit ponies with. The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. I will never hit at all if it can be avoided, but when the time comes I will never. Hit. Soft." He leaned forward with each emphasized word. "Some ponies die in the world. All the time. But this way, I get to decide who dies."

"Nopony has to die," Noble told him. "In a perfect world, that should not be the case."

"But this is not a perfect world!" Freedom Fighter slammed his left hoof down on the table so hard a small piece of it chipped off and flew away. "You know that as well as I do. The world may seem safe and secure and lovable at times, but the world is full to bursting with ponies that want to only hurt those beneath them. Remember what you've seen, Noble. Remember the missions we took, and the ponies you saw there. You've seen ponies forced to the sewers because the proud and the stuck-up want the land they have for themselves. You've seen entire towns on the brink of starvation because other ponies above their level would prefer to stuff their fat filthy mouths with food instead. You've seen unimaginable poverty on the fringes of Equestria's borders. This is no perfect world, and it never will be. If this were a perfect world, you and me and Firestorm wouldn't be protectors of the peace. Why would they be needed in a perfect world? And I know that you prefer being a knight, anyway. Tell me, Noble. If you were not a knight, what would you be instead?"

Noble looked down. After a while he said, "A lesser pony than what I am now."

"Why did you become a knight?" Spike asked him.

"To follow in the hoofsteps of my father. To preserve and protect my country and to serve it with every ounce of strength I possess," Noble answered. "I have given my life in its service...and I have been forced to take the lives of others. Were it up to me, I would that no pony should fall by the sword."

"But we don't always have that choice. Sometimes we must decide who must rather perish; the innocent, or the guilty," Freedom Fighter said in a tired, heavy voice, like he was explaining it exasperatedly to a schoolchild. "And if there are no criminals in the world, the world is a better place."

Noble stood up out of his seat. "If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make that change that you want to see in the world! Start by maybe not committing mass murder!"

"Don't act like you haven't committed war crimes," Freedom Fighter snarled, also standing up. "I've seen you do it. I've seen just what exactly you can do when you get really, really angry. You've killed vanquished creatures and corrupt leaders in cold blood before. You're just as guilty as I am in that respect."

"But-but I try to do better!" Noble Blade protested, his voice cracking just a bit. "I try to not be like that! I don't dwell on my past mistakes the way you do!"

That seemed to strike a nerve with Freedom Fighter. He snapped a combat baton off his hip and it unfolded to the side with a loud click into a meter-long striking tool. "My past will never leave me, Noble!" he screamed, and his scarlet eyes grew as hard as flint. "You know exactly why! It will stay with me until I die! It can't be washed away, Noble! The stains and scars it left on me are permanent!"

"ENOUGH!" Twilight thundered, and the two fell silent immediately. Freedom Fighter slowly folded the stick back up and put it away sheepishly, avoiding looking at Twilight. Twilight glared at both of them. "Look, nopony wins in an argument. Nopony has and nopony ever will. Your arguing has improved nothing. Stop it this instant and apologize!"

Both stallions were suddenly extremely bashful. Noble pawed the ground for a few seconds before saying remorsefully, "Sorry for trying to make you uncomfortable. A true friend never does that, and neither does an honorable knight. I humbly ask your forgiveness."

"You're...forgiven," Freedom Fighter said slowly. He said the word forgiven like it was painful to say it for some reason. "Sorry for yelling at you," he shamefully said. "I should have known better than to lose myself in front of the princess. I'll do better next time."

After a moment of silence Freedom Fighter cleared his throat in his mind, preferring not to irritate his damaged throat. "Well, anyway, if you wanted to know, the griffons didn't get away," he said, sitting back down in Rarity's spot. "Except for one, I think. I knocked him unconscious, but I didn't see the body later. Once I threw a knife and it hit him in the shoulder instead of the back."

"How'd you know it was the back and not the shoulder?" Twilight asked. "Isn't the shoulder part of your back?"

"Well, he screamed," he said. "When you get hit in the back, you don't scream uncontrollably. You just let out a little gasp."

"Uh, excuse me," Twilight asked, looking at the dark warrior, "but how do you know this?"

"Personal experience," Freedom Fighter replied bluntly.

"When you say personal experience," Twilight said slowly, fearfully, "does that mean you stabbed somepony else in the back before, or did somepony else stab you in the back before?"

Freedom Fighter looked up. "Both," he said.

Twilight gave a very nervous laugh that showed a lot of teeth and said nothing.

Only a few seconds later, the uncomfortable moment was broken. In flew a pony through the top window of the throne room. The pony sniffed deeply and sighed in contentment. "Who-o-o-oh, that's good," Firestorm said, settling down in Rainbow Dash's seat. "Whoever made this, I award you the highest honor I can bestow." He breathed into his hoof. "The hot air from my mouth!" He waved his hoof in a random direction. "Sorry about, uh, being late. I had woken up really early and I decided to go and fly around town before anypony else woke up. And I, uh, I had a question I was thinking about. A really deep, thought-provoking question."

"Oh, really?" Twilight asked excitedly. "I like it when other ponies have those kind of thoughts. What was the question?"

"Oh, uh," Firestorm said, waving a hoof, "It's nothing. Probably it's too deep for some of you lower life-forms to understand."

"Try me," Noble Blade told him. "Go on. State this profound, thought-provoking question you had."

"All right." Firestorm put both his hooves to the sides of his head and thought for just a second. He then slowly said, "Okay. The question I had that I never thought about before is..." He paused for a little bit more, then said, "Is a piano...a string instrument...or a percussion instrument?"

Twilight recoiled her head just a little. "Really?" she said. "That was the big, thought-provoking question you had?"

"Wait, wait, wait. Hold on," Noble said, extending a hoof to silence her. "Let him finish."

"Are you actually interested?" Twilight asked him incredulously.

"Well, uh..." Noble faltered for just a second, a little bit of red on his face. "A little?" he admitted.

"See? Such a good boy," Firestorm said with a grin. "Anyway, like, you use physical force to push the keys, right? So that'd be considered percussion. But the piano also uses strings to actually make the sound. So which one is it?"

"I think the piano is in its own separate category of music," Freedom Fighter though aloud. "And the reasons that you outlined are precisely the reason why."

Firestorm froze. Then he slowly rotated on his butt to look at Freedom Fighter with a look of absolute shock. His eyes were the size of dinner plates; his pupils the size of a pinprick. His mouth was open slightly.

"Oh, didn't you know? I can talk now. Technically."

Firestorm screamed at the precise moment Starlight Glimmer entered the room.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

The force of his scream made her suddenly slide backwards like she was in a tempest, and as she slid out of the room, covering her ears, the doors to the room blew inwards with a mighty slam.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

For the third time in three days, Discord spat out his Earl Grey tea. He wiped a bit of dribbling tea off of his chin and growled something incoherent through his teeth about, "Stupid loud noises making me do spit-takes all the time." He then shook his head and continued with his work.

Discord was outside his home in Chaosville, trimming his bushes from above with a razor and shaving cream while holding a cup of his favorite tea in his tail grip. He was good at multitasking. While he was not only trimming his bushes and drinking the tea a very close friend had recommended he try, he was also thinking about something rather disturbing to him: Noble Blade.

It wasn't that there was anything bad about him, per se. It was rather that Noble Blade was now completely infatuated with the very first real, understanding friend he ever had. Discord didn't want to just eject him out from the world without a reason, however. Discord was better than that...and also because Fluttershy would probably be mad at him if he did do that.

Tonight was Noble's date with Uncle Discord's little figurative non-figurative niece, and Discord could not be more edgy and nervous than tonight. He hadn't experienced anything like this before. There was that one time at the Grand Galloping Gala, sure, when Fluttershy had taken along that really weird hippy Tree Hugger, but this was a little different. It wasn't just a date with a friend, it was a date of one of the most precious ponies he knew with her potential special somepony! If she really did find a special somepony, her relation to Discord would probably become distant and cold. It undermined the importance Discord had to her.

"I swear to you, Fluttershy, that if he does not prove himself to be worthy of you, I will seek him out and I will seal his fate," Discord swore with every ounce of seriousness.