Everyday Life With Guardsmares
Chapter 63
Previous Chapter Next ChapterHonour Bound
Corporal Honour Bound swore to Celestia she’d never drink again.
At least not while meeting old friends. Particularly ones who might become new flames. And especially not ones whose career advancements put her own to shame.
Thankfully, she’d managed to wake up without a hangover. She’d also managed to put the awful, conflicted feelings she’d felt yesterday behind her, but oh, how they’d tortured her dreams that night. Going far beyond merely bizarre, she’d imagined things that were almost impossibly strange.
She was driving the Royal Engineer's automobile; except it wasn't an automobile. It was a flying carriage, somehow also powered by steam. Chasing her was Lieutenant Kilfeather, except he wasn't flying by himself; he was sitting in his own flying carriage, wearing Princess Luna's tiara, and commanding the pegasi pulling him to hurry up and catch her. Except one of them was a minotaur, and even Sparkshower was part of his team at first, though later it was just another pony in heavy armor, and she was flying alongside Honour.
And Anonymous...
Well, he started off sitting next to her, simple enough. But then he was running in the air, the carriage lashed to his back as he pulled it along the sky. Later still, while she’d just turned to glimpse back at her pursuer, he'd become the steam engine itself, pushing the pistons by squatting and standing up again. All while telling her how simple it all was, of course. And then she joined him, working the other piston, too!
Castlerook snuck into the mess somehow, as well. She’d had to stop the carriage to pick up more water and fuel, and he was there -- at some kind of roadside motel in the sky -- wearing a Captain's swank uniform and with Glamerspear fawning all over him.
‘Guh.’
‘What nonsense.’
Why did she always remember the really weird ones?
Having reached the Royal Engineer's chamber doors, Honour Bound knocked and entered when bidden.
"Corporal Bound reporting for duty, sir."
She was stung with an instant sense of deja-vu as she saw Anonymous, By Appointment to Their Majesties Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, Royal Engineer, squatting down in front of the mirror beside the door. And he wasn’t wearing his usual suit, either.
"Good morning, Corporal!"
"Good morning, sir..."
‘Are those dungaree navy slops?’
She tried not to furrow her brow too much, but it was difficult.
"... New outfit?"
With a chipper smile on his face, Honour’s Very Important Pony, who isn't actually a pony, stood up again and adjusted the matching-color belt attached at the waist. It was a set of denim working-pony's overalls.
For a Lord of Equestria?
And not just any Lord, but a high-placed member of the Blue Chamber?!
"Yes! Well, no, actually, I've had them for months -- I just haven't worn them yet. Can you believe I forgot to pull these out yesterday? Why, I ordered them way back when I first started amassing parts to build these steam engines!"
Wearing thick-soled leather work-shoes, he placed his hands on his hips and turned in place, proudly showing off his new outfit.
Honour was no fashion snob like Glamerspear, but... seriously?
"Overalls, sir?"
"Sure! Being a grease-monkey can make things messy, and I don't want to spoil my nice suit."
‘A what-monkey, now?’
Before she could wonder just what kind of simians existed on her VIP's home planet, she noticed the icon on his breast. An embroidered red-on-white patch read 'Royal Engineer' in a cursive font.
Okay, that was kind of cute.
Anonymous reached one hand into a deep side pocket. "Got a hat for it, too!"
The same 'Royal Engineer' patch was on a visored hat that was also made out of denim. Stretching out the elastic band with one hand, he slipped it onto his head. It perfectly completed the ridiculously low-brow outfit. Honestly, he looked ready for a shift at the Fillydelphia docks -- unloading a ship in port, or perhaps working in the yards building one.
But then again, wasn’t that basically what he was doing now?
Building a new kind of ship?
And he certainly looked comfortable in those warm, cozy coveralls. All things considered, it was actually an appropriate outfit for his work at present -- provided he didn't run into a Princess or two with it on. That must mean they were going back to the garage today.
Before she could open her mouth to ask if that was the case, Anonymous grabbed a toolbox full of parts from one of his workbenches, then turned and nodded at her. "Ready for another day in the Royal Garage, Corporal?"
She swallowed. Hopefully it was going to be a ‘working on the automobile’ kind of day, rather than a ‘careening dangerously out of control around the palace grounds’ kind of day.
"Yes, sir."
"That's good to hear; I greatly appreciated your help yesterday." The Royal Engineer smiled warmly at her, then furrowed his brow and put the toolbox down on the ground. "But I have to apologize. This morning, I realized this probably isn't in your job description. And I remembered what you told me on Friday."
That was when they’d reconciled after her outburst. During it, she gave him a low-down on what her duties really entailed. Honour had a pretty good idea of where he was going with this.
"So, please, before we begin: is this acceptable? Using you as a laborer on this project? And asking you to learn how to drive my automobile?"
That was a good question.
Honour narrowed her eyes. "Strictly speaking, sir... Probably not." She sighed. “I can't keep watch for your safety if I'm helping you work on your machine. And I definitely can't keep watch if I'm trying to pilot it, either. So, technically, I'm derelict in the performance of my duties."
He nodded. "I thought that might be true. I don't suppose there's anything we can do about it?"
She shrugged. "I don't know, sir. Believe me, I enjoy helping out more than standing around, but shouldn't you have somepony else for this sort of thing? An assistant? Or two?"
The Royal Engineer sucked on his lips and shoved his hands into his pockets. "You'd think so, wouldn't you? I'm going to have to put together a team very soon, that's for sure, if I'm going to get any real kind of work done..."
After staring reflectively at the wall, he shook his head. “I just don't know where to begin with that. I really don't know that many ponies here, especially not outside of the palace. I have a sneaking suspicion that Her Majesty assigned me bodyguards in an attempt to change that; she and Purse Strings have always been on my case about getting out more and socializing."
Honour started to think about making a suggestion, but he carried on. "Anyways, before I start filing paperwork and interviewing candidates, I really wanted to show off a piece of actual industrial technology. Something to build up some excitement, some real tangible interest. It'll be easier to recruit good ponies that way, I imagine. And, as impressive as it would probably be for me to drive a car around, it's even doubly so if it's a pony who learned it in just a few days."
Clicking his tongue against his teeth, he pulled his hands back out of his pockets, and rested his chin in one hand, supporting it at the elbow with the other. "To be perfectly frank, the real problem is that I want the next step to be setting up an actual workshop and foundry. It's a big ask on the treasury. I think it's the right move, but Her Majesty has, in the past, expressed a desire to take things slowly."
He shrugged. “Which I can appreciate, but if I can show off this brass-construction steam automobile in a few days, then maybe it'll convince her enough to let me take the bigger step forwards that I have in mind."
This was quite a lot to take in at once. This wasn’t just her VIP sharing an immediate concern with her; he was talking about the future of his work.
Work that would change the face of Equestria.
As much as meeting Castlerook last night made Honour feel like an inadequate underachiever, when she was so close to the Royal Engineer's bleeding-edge technological work, she found herself forgetting about her lowly rank and almost nonexistent plans for the future.
And anyways, hadn't it been exciting to learn how to operate his automobile?
Wasn't reading his book interesting, even if a lot of it went over her head?
Was she not engaged when she worked alongside her VIP, examining and repairing his machinery?
She sure was. There was only one answer, then.
Honour looked Anonymous in the eyes. "If you really want me to help you with this, sir, then we can always bring down one of your other guards to be actually on-duty and watching."
The Royal Engineer lifted his eyebrows. "That's allowed? Putting somepony else on-shift just because you're fiddling around with valves and gears with me?"
She nodded. "Yes, sir. And, as I think I've mentioned in the past, it's usually far more interesting being on-duty than simply waiting upstairs on-call, so I doubt anypony would mind it."
The warm smile returned to his face. "Alright, if you think it's acceptable, then I'm all for it. Perhaps Specialist Sparkshower would be best? She'll have an easier time following us in the car, after all."
Honour agreed. "I was just about to suggest her, sir."
"Excellent! I'll wait for you to get back."
Saluting, she turned to leave.
"... And, Corporal, by the way..."
When her VIP called out to her, a hoof already on the door-handle, she turned her head back to him.
"... I really do appreciate your help on this. If you couldn't do this, I don't know who else I'd turn to; it'd be hard to do this with anypony else." He shrugged, with an awkward smile on his face. “We've only known each other for two weeks, but already it feels like we've been through quite a lot. I like to think we have a good working relationship as a result."
Honour smiled. "Yes, sir. I think so, too."
He nodded. "See you in a few minutes, then."
"I'll be right back, sir."
As she pulled the door shut behind her and trotted her way over to the staircase, she had a sort of funny feeling about this. It's not that she was wary of veering out of her comfort zone; far from it. The funny thing was, she didn't mind giving up her Royal Guard duties one bit. And, to be honest, of the four members of her quaternion, was she really the most useful combatant in a fight anymore?
Glamerspear was a hothead, but a war hero with a strange power, if a self-destructive one. Sparkshower, meanwhile, after having beaten 'Joker,' was now an invulnerable, unshakable fortress, who even had the temerity to tell Honour that fighting Kilfeather was the right move -- even though she was the one to have been the most terrified of the fight in the first place! And Ebonshield, whose combat powers Honour had yet to see -- but would probably very soon bear witness to -- had already proven herself to be more level-headed than she was. Plus, who knew what kind of fighter Anonymous himself would prove to be?
In their crowd, she was the odd pony out. Compared to those three ponies and their accomplishments, Honour was just a reasonably strong, reasonably skilled, reasonably experienced, and reasonably clever earth pony. If, perhaps, one with a nasty tendency to second-guess herself...
It seemed altogether fitting that, for this assignment, with her squad-mates, that she should metaphorically ditch her combat armor and don a different outfit instead.
Not that she was going to let her guard down, of course.
Kilfeather was still out there, and he had his backup.
But the next time Honour met him, that now-flightless bastard, she was going to run him right over with Anonymous' self-powered contraption.
Now there was a goal worth training for.
She could already hear the pleasant thump the wheels would make going over him.
Suggested interlude music: Johnny Mercer & The Pied Pipers - Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive [1995 Remaster]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PCitYll6pA
