Gilda's capt- Gilda's major was practicing her speech in her quarters. Gilda wasn't sure why Gleaming Shield was being so- so Gleaming Shield about the little ceremony they'd dreamed up for the provisional ensigns. It wasn't even going to be a proper commissioning, since they would be provisional until the true officers and Gilda's non-coms were satisfied that their choices weren't going to shame the new regiment.

But Gilda supposed that Gleaming Shield felt liable, personally responsible for making new officers in the Princess's Armed Forces, that it touched her personal honor in a way that regular recruiting and the usual organizational grind did not. So she was going over and over that piece of foolscap she'd carefully inscribed with her speech.

Gilda, on the other claw, was almost giddy in her freeing irresponsibility. Nothing she did really mattered, so she could concentrate on making everything she did matter for the birds and ponies under her authority. This little conversation, for instance.

Gilda had lured the second of six - no, eight pairs into the valet chamber she'd commandeered outside of Shield's personal quarters. The hammock Gilda slept in was coiled in the bottom of the office desk which took up the majority of the little room. The chair itself was rolled outside in the hallway, which left very little room for the prospective new provisional ensign and the pink hippogriff with a recently-tacked-on lance corporal barred stripe trapped behind said probie.

"This ain't the first time I've told one of you ponies this, and it ain't gonna be the last," Gilda began, cracking her neck, standing in the doorway, subtly trapping the two of them in her lair. "This here isn't the way that these things usually go, and it isn't the way it probably will go once we're on a more orderly basis. But needs must when the draconequus drives, and the Major needs ensigns for her platoons now, and not six months down the line. That's you, Fruits Basket."

The batpony mare managed to not look cowed, despite Gilda's dark tone and looming threat.

The little hippogriff behind the bat pony managed to look at the same time both fascinated and a bit irritated. The latter confused Gilda, she'd have to dig into that afterwards.

"You see, Fruits Basket, you won't be an actual ensign until you prove to the rest of us that you're actual officer material. I'm not sold on the whole plan, to be honest," Gilda lied. "Officers are officers, and ranks is ranks, and you smell like ranks to me."

The mare's eyebrows dropped into an iron-browed stare, not frowning, exactly, but...

"Yeah, you disagree. That's a good thing. The last thing we need is a would-be sergeant pretending to be a shave-tail. You want this, Fruits Basket?"

"Yes, Master Sergeant Gilda, I want this."

"Why do you want this, Basket? Tell me in your own words."

"I'm the twelfth non-commissioned officer in thirteen generations, Master Sergeant. Time out of mind, Fruits ponies have served the Royals with honor and distinction. We've been EUP ponies since before there was an EUP."

"That ain't convincing me that you're officer material, Bowl. That's telling me that you're a mistsucker, and are from an ancestry covered by nothing more than mud and mist. You pegasi think you fly over everything else in creation, but mist or mud, it's all ranks, ain't it? What makes you think you can rise above your origins, Fruits Basket?"

"Thestrals aren't pegasi, Master Sergeant. We serve next to them, but we aren't them. There has never been a thestral officer. Not in living memory, not in oral tradition, not in written records. For almost a thousand years, we've been in the ranks or corporals. Once in a blue moon someone makes sergeant's stripes before they have to retire."

The little hippogriff was staring down at the back of her probationary ensign's neck. Gilda looked at that little pink pitcher taking in every drop, and wondered what she was thinking of this.

"There's the matrons of the Night Shift," Gilda pointed out, rhetorically. Not that Gilda really knew much about the matrons or the Night Shift, just what she'd been told recently, in the course of the other officers and lesser non-coms berating Gilda and her unicorn for making a mess of things with 'Bob'. That had been a heck of an education, and one that Gleaming Shield really should have known, being a Canterlot pony as she was. Gilda had the excuse of being an ignorant mud-daubed barbarian from Griffonstone.

"The Night Shift isn't a military organization, Master Sergeant. You know that. Their ranks aren't military ranks, their duties aren't soldierly, their enemies can't be fought with spear or blasted with falcons. For all of these years, across five entire eras, a bat-pony's only hope for recognition in this mare's army has been to retire, have two foals, and be accepted into the Night Shift. My great-great aunt Grape Shot was the sixth Witching Hour. My great-great-great grandmother Cherry Pit was the second Dream Razor.

"Master Sergeant, for a thousand years, the only ambition open to a thestral mare in service to Equestria was to be a matron. Rarer than roosters' eggs, one each out of five hundred, once in a generation. Your Major has given us another option. I don't think you know how much that means. I'll fly through fire to prove that this can happen, that this is real."

Gilda tried to stare down the burning-eyed bat-pony, and failed.

"Well, shit, this conversation went sideways. I was going to give the two of you the whole officers-and-corporals speech, but look at the thaumcast adamantine ovaries on Fruits Basket here, Lance Corporal Eye."

The hippogriff wasn't listening.

"Fish Eye! Eyes front and center!"

"Master Sergeant marm! Yes marm!"

"You ain't from Trottingham, Eye, I don't want any Trottish rot outta your beak! Speak the Princess's Equish!"

"Ma'am, yes, ma'am!"

Gilda resisted the urge to sigh, and stared across the now slightly cross-eyed bat pony at the hippogriff standing behind her. Say this much for the batponies, they were drilled to a fine precision. It didn't even occur to provisional Ensign Basket to look away from Gilda and eye her lance corporal.

"Ensign Basket, why do we give a lance corporal to every wet-maned Ensign? Are they pets? Little robin's eggs we give new officers to raise and prove that the troops are safe in their careful hooves?"

"No, Master Sergeant, they're bat-mares, assistants to the new officer, to keep their kit, follow their officer, run errands, run messages, and so forth."

"That is the manual answer, Ensign Basket. It is also wrong. We put children in charge of grown birds, grown ponies, because it's the only way we make officers out of overgrown foals. The academies do a great many things very well, but they're absolutely shit at making adults out of children. Only a good corporal can do that.

"Wipe that grin off your beak, Eye, I said a good corporal! You ain't a good corporal yet! The raising of this here ensign - your precious ensign, Lance Corporal Fish Eye - is in the capable hooves of Corporal Staff, the pony we're actually putting in charge of Platoon Five. You, my kitling dear, aren't even a foal! You're an egg, a robin's egg. You're Ensign Basket's robin's egg. She is to have the care of you, as you have the care of her kit and kaboodle. If she lets you break, then that's it for her. The platoon is as much Corporal Staff's responsibility as it is Ensign Basket's - and Basket was a lance corporal herself when she came to us, she knows how that goes, don't you Basket?"

"Yes, Master Sergeant!"

"Good, I think we're all in agreement here. Ensign Basket here has agreed to this demotion - and you know in your hearts of hearts it's a demotion, don't you ensign? And she's agreed to take up the care of you, you great gawky goof. Do you know why you're here, Eye?"

"Because you foalnapped me, Master Sergeant!" the pink idiot piped up.

"Did I give you permission to speak in the presence of your superiors, Lance Corporal?"

"No, Master Sergeant, ma'am!"

"Good, you are instructable. I was beginning to wonder."

Gilda looked down at the bat-pony trapped between the pink idiot and her own overlarge self. "Perhaps it will work out in the end, Ensign Fruits Basket. Because the truth is, most actual ensigns delivered by the academies are more like your idiot lance corporal here, than you yourself.

"The world's turned upside down," Gilda sighed, looking at the ensign and her gormless over-educated lance corporal. "Four winds blow us all home."

She stood aside, and waved the prospective ensign out of Gilda's little office."Go on, wait with the others, Ensign."

Gilda dropped her wing down in between the departing batpony, and the hippogriff following like a duckling waddling after her momma duck.

“Not you, Lance Corporal, wait a tick. Go on, Ensign, I have to drop a word in this bird's ear."

Gilda walked Fish Eye backwards into the office, and closed the door behind them.

“All that, Fish Eye? Was grade-A chickenshit. You know what chickenshit is, right?"

“The poo that comes out of those flightless birds ponies keep for their eggs, right? And object when you try to eat them?"

“Yeah, filthy, smelly little beggars, dumb as sump-rats."

“Are sump-rats particularly stupid, Master Sergeant?"

“They live in sumps, don't they? Don't matter. Most of what I just said was for the benefit of your ensign. Not you. When I have something to say to you and the other bat-folk, I'll say it to your faces. And with nogriff else listening in. Which is the way things ought to be."

“Uh, OK, Master Sergeant? I don't really understand why I'm here."

“You're here because you've got too much potential to waste you in the ranks, but you're too pig-ignorant to be trusted with the lives of others. You look, sound, and smell like an officer. But you have none of the training or the instincts. I think, I haven't had much time to pay attention, sorry about that, but I'm a busy bird."

“No, that's fine, I know you have other ponies to foalnap…"

“That's good. A good bat-hen knows how to sass her officer, and knows when to do it. When's the right time to mouth off at your superiors?"

“When you're alone with them…?"

“Exactly. And why would that be right?"

“Because… uh, you don't want to undermine them in front of the troops?"

“Gold star, Fish Eye, gold star. Now, another thing, the way you smell. I want you to get your stink on Fruits Basket."

“My… stink?"

“Yeah. The one big problem with Fruits Basket is that she don't smell right. She's going to be all over the officer part of the job, but is missing a lot of the polish. The gentlemare part of things. In short, you. Get your stink on her. Especially the way you keep your kit. I can see that much just looking at you. You'll be a great bat-mare. Just…"

“Don't sass her in front of others, keep her gear clean, make sure she smells like an officer."

“Gold star, Lance Corporal. Now go out there and make your ensign shine."

“Yes, ma'am, Master Sergeant!"

And the pink menace fumbled her way out of Gilda's office, chasing her new shave-tail mistress.

Four winds blow us all home.

Trixie glared at Sparkle, standing up there in her awful new regimentals.

“...honesty, the most important virtue in our role as the Princess's proxy among our ponies. If we can't be true to our oaths, how can we be true to anything else? This is why we are so very careful with which ponies we offer the princess's commissions…"

Utter nonsense, of course. Half of the provincial regiments' commissions were up for actual sale; the other half were commissioned by acclaim, literal elections, curried favor among the troops they were, eventually, sworn to protect, lead, and send off to die.

And were the regulars any better? Look at Sparkle.

“...the shield and the sword! We must be as firm and as flexible as good sword-steel, sharp enough to cut through to the heart, strong enough to take the blows meant for our fellows, our flock, our herd! We are the brandished sword, we are the burnished shield!"

Giddy war-mad fool. Trixie shifted uncomfortably in the new undress that white mare with the preposterous put-on accent had forced her to wear. Even the daily dress in this regiment would be gaudy and eye-catching.

Trixie's eyes darted to the left again, at the two pretend ensigns she'd agreed to make out of her new herd of corporals, their gunners standing proudly behind them.

“...going forth to fight those fights which can't be avoided, to right those wrongs which nopony else will right! The other Guards regiments stand fast in the realm's defense. They have their role! Our role will be to go out into the world, and…"

Cinder Cone glanced back at Trixie from behind the soon-to-be Ensign Ramrod, and smiled.

Trixie flinched.

When had Trixie started fearing being seen? Where did that thought come from? She had loved being the center of attention when she was a foal. Loved playing assistant for her father's shows. Had wanted nothing more than to go out there on stage and garner applause for herself.

Both Ramrod and Cinder Cone were gunners from Trixie's old battery. Promoted, of course. The Royal Artillery wasn't about to give up well-seasoned senior gunners to Sparkle's white elephant.

Oh, there's applause. What had Sparkle just said? The eight new ensigns were braced to attention, but the other officers and sergeants and corporals and so forth were applauding.

As were Trixie's entourage of corporals she barely knew. Trixie began belatedly applauding. The hauling corporal and the caissons corporal behind her smiled at Trixie and the ensigns beyond her.

“...every tribe, every species, every creature! We've been too tolerant of our own intolerances, too fixated on threats to see the fellow creature under the fur, under the feathers, under the… er, coat. Which is why we've chosen you six…"

Well, yes, Trixie would grant that to Sparkle. She'd picked a bunch of unexpected shavetails. Two griffons, two batponies. A unicorn and a pegasus among the other line platoon ensigns, and Trixie's two, of course, but those other four… Trixie didn't really pay attention to these things, but she was fairly sure that batpony officers were nonexistent, and for a raving bigot like Gleaming 'Kill 'Em All' Shield to have chosen not one, but two griffon ensigns?

Trixie ignored the rest of Sparkle's speech, and started at the big griffon sergeant standing over by the doors. Master sergeant, now. Was this her influence? They said, when Trixie had asked, that Master Sergeant Gilda was just Sparkle's ascended bat-hen, a lance corporal who'd hit the jackpot when it came to influence.

Trixie had gotten a good read on Master Sergeant Gilda as she and the new captain-no-lieutenant-no-really-captain-this-time and Trixie had hashed out Trixie's battery from all the equine resources they'd scraped up and piled in a tangle like a jackdaw's half-built nest. The few ponies who'd been willing to follow their disgraced lieutenant into the unknown of a new regiment. The recruits with any sort of technical education. Trixie's new corporals, Glenda - who was, Trixie was pretty sure, Gilda's hen in the battery - and an enthusiast named Mews Gate for the caissons.

While they argued and argued over the idea that simple gunners could stand ensign to a falcon section without the year of gunnery school, Trixie had taken the measure of Sparkle's griffon, and came to the realization that there was no way that that had been a mere lance corporal. Maybe she'd been hiding inside the shell of a lowly glorified file-closer, maybe she'd been sandbagging, maybe it was just some sort of accelerated late adolescent burst of personal growth but that… that was a big cat-bird. In all the senses of the phrase.

Trixie wasn't the most observational of ponies, prefering to be seen rather than to see. But even she could see that something strange was afoot in the command structure of her new outfit.

Trixie looked back at her new corporals beaming at the two new ensigns in their ceremonial ranks in front of Trixie, all of them glittering in the new regimental uniforms.

And why shouldn't they, and her by extension, be seen, anyways? Trixie swished her right foreleg back and forth a bit, and watched it glitter. Maybe the uniform wasn't that bad.

“...and that is why I am proud to welcome you eight into the sisterhood of honor, and challenge you to take up the Princess's good steel! Welcome to the commissioned ranks, and make the Princess proud!"

Author's Notes:

Thanks for editing and pre-reading help to Shrink Laureate, and brainstorming and general kibitzing to Damaged, Walker of Voids, and the general Company.