There once was a pony with a very unfortunate name. It tended to make introductions very awkward for the stallion. Fortunately for him this name was in Stalliongradi, and because he spent much of his time in the Domain of Canterlot, most ponies would not understand the meaning behind it even if he told it to them. Still, at the advice of his brother, he had chosen what he had been told was a more sociable name. This stallion instead went by the name 'Red Ink'. Tragically, it only made him more frightening to schoolfoals, demonstrating fully that his brother was not a very kind pony.

Red Ink was a guardspony–specifically, the Captain of Princess Celestia's Honor Guard. It was a prestigious position, and one which he had only recently acquired. Many ponies would have killed to be so close to the Princess. Indeed, it was the existence of such violent and ambitious ponies that necessitated the position in the first place. Red Ink had loved the position, but he was beginning to feel like he might prefer a bit of distance from his ruler.

Red Ink was not afraid of very many things. In some way, that lack of fear came with his position. He had led the Blizzard Revolution, overthrowing the evil Baron Frostbite and freeing Stalliongrad. He had charged into battle more times than he could remember; he had even fought and killed a dragon in one-on-one combat, once. All these feats meant nothing as he sat on a small cushioned bench outside Celestia's private chambers, watching the ornately crafted doors.

He had been waiting for almost two hours, with no idea what was going on inside those doors. The guardspony had no idea that inside, Celestia was finishing off a short novel she hadn't been able to enjoy in past days. Contrary to what her secretary had noted, the princess not only was not in a current appointment, but in fact had managed to secure the entire day free. She was fully conscious of Red Ink's waiting presence outside, and forcing him to wait without total knowledge of her attitude was a fully conscious choice that illuminated her to be a true master of politics. To define that term in the words of famous statespony Neighbraham Lincoln, it meant that she was fully capable of fooling all of the ponies all of the time. She generally exercised restraint in this capability, but Ink's crimes had earned a show of both her skill at manipulation, and her anger.

After a full two hours of waiting, a pegasus mare flew through the doors slowly and calmly. She was technically his subordinate, though he had never felt less in command in his entire life. She approached on gentle wings, unable to walk due to the short stubs that should have been her hind legs. When she spoke, it was in a soft, almost pitying voice. "She's ready for you now, Captain."

Red Ink stood, adjusted his thick black jacket, and started walking toward his fate. His subordinate, one Private Marathon, spoke over her shoulder as he passed. "Be careful. I've never seen her like that." He had no idea that the message had originally come from Celestia's mouth, and on her orders. The fact would have mattered little, as it was still the truth. Red nodded grimly, determined to face his fate with dignity.

It took only a few more steps for him to enter Celestia's chambers. The mighty ruler of all Equestria was staring out the window at the rising sun. Though her only motion came from the flow of her ethereal mane, she nevertheless was aware of his presence. She displayed the trait by addressing him as he approached.

"Sit down, Red Ink."

He did so silently, claiming the cushion closest to the door. It was incredibly soft, twisting to accept the pegasus' wings without resistance. On a better day, he might have likened it to a pile of puppies, completely missing the morbid insinuation of the analogy. "You wish to be speaking with me, Princess?"

Celestia turned only her neck, glancing back at him with a single eye. Her speech was strained and slow, as if each word had to be held back from delivering a torrent of spite. "I have to wonder about your Equiish, Red Ink. Your brother and father both speak it perfectly."

"I did not take well to lessons. I thought better to spend my time learning battle."

"I see." Celestia rounded fully, striding across the room on slender legs to take her seat opposite the captain. "I also see no point in wasting our time discussing petty issues. Do you know why you are here?"

Red looked away as he answered. "No."

"Very well. I will start with a simpler question, then: as a member of my Honor Guard, what is your duty?"

"I am stopping criminal, and fighting wars."

Celestia shook her head. "Those are actions. They define how you pursue your duty. But they are not the duty itself." She watched slowly as Red Ink's eyes wandered around the room before raising her voice suddenly. "Listen to me!" He moved as if shocked, jolting suddenly on his cushion and staring directly at the Princess. "Your duty is to protect myself, my sister, and Equestria. Now. Do you know why you are here?"

Red placed his hooves to his brow, thinking. After a long silence, Celestia would wait no longer. "You still don't understand it? Do you remember what occurred in Baltimare, two weeks ago?" Her horn claimed a fragment of purple crystal sitting near the window she had previously been staring out of. It hovered in midair between the two ponies, glowing with magic and memories. Only a moment later, a huge structure, wreathed in flames, appeared in the air before the would-be guardspony.

Red Ink's brow creased, and he nodded. "I failed to apprehend target."

Celestia shook her head. "You still don't understand. Of course not." Her towering figure rose and fell in a deep breath. "My concern isn't that she got away. You're here, Ink, because you endangered the lives of my subjects. Three ponies died in that fire. Had it not been for Captain Shining Armor's presence, it would have been six."

Ink snorted derisively. "I would have caught her if he had not felt need to run off-"

"He was right!" Celestia's usually calm tone broke again with surprising force. After a moment of silence, her composure returned. "Shining Armor understands what it means to be a guardspony, and evidently you do not. I understand that the point of the Honor Guard is to make difficult decisions, but the lives of innocent ponies must come first. Not only did you fail to protect them, but your loss of control put them in a danger they would not otherwise have had to face. To reduce the point to its most basic level, Red Ink, you killed three ponies."

"But-"

"No." The word was not shouted or punctuated by force or anger. "There is no excuse for this. The law is clear on this matter. Your actions amount to murder, and for their quantity you would be assigned to die." Celestia then rose and walked to the window again to stare out as she spoke. "Fortunately for you, Equestria is not ruled by strict, unyielding law. I am nothing if not a believer in forgiveness and redemption. The only question is whether or not you are capable of such a reform. I do not pretend to have much faith."

Celestia's long, slender horn ignited in golden mana, which in turn levitated a tightly bound parchment scroll. "Effective immediately, you are stripped of your rank and standing within the Equestrian Guard. From now until I see fit to restore to you those titles, you are considered to be just another Equestrian citizen, albeit one serving on a royal mission. You are to take this message to my student, Twilight Sparkle, in Ponyville. From there, she will have orders concerning your continued service. This is your one chance, so please behave yourself." Then Celestia stepped away from the window, in perfect time to the shrill whistle of a distant train at the Canterlot Station. "I've included a ticket with the letter. You should hurry if you want to catch your train."

He'd been forced to actually land on the caboose of the moving train, and present his ticket to the conductor in the midst of the roaring wind. Twice, in the process of shouting over the noise, he'd nearly lost his scroll. Thankfully his long black coat had provided a much needed pocket. Having been permitted into the nearly-empty train, he collapsed into a seat and took comfort in the embrace of the familiar garment.

The fabric was cheap, rough wool knitted tightly enough to keep out the snows and winds of his home without concern for the comfort of its wearer. It hung down his back, covering his cutie marks and only permitting his tail to peek out the end. Here and there were patches where a spear or a sword or even a bolt of magic had come too close to his body. More than a few corresponded to shallow scars that were visible through his own coat. They marked him as a warrior, skilled for his relatively young age of twenty-eight. But then, that skill was what had ultimately put him on the train... wasn't it?

He shook his head to clear the thought. There was nothing he detested so much as self-doubt. It should have gone away, and yet like the weight of the scroll in the pocket beneath his wing, it clung to him. He glanced down toward the rolled parchment, and his eyes stopped on his chest. It bore his newest scar, and also the one he was least proud of. A strip of raw flesh, pink and vulnerable without the fur of his coat to hide it. It stretched from his right shoulder at the base of his neck all the way across his chest and down to the very tip of his front-most left rib. Its width was uniform, just wider than an average pony's hoof. Then again, it had been the parting gift of a larger-than-average pony. That he'd lost to her only incensed the ex-guardspony further.

As the two closest stops on the line, the ride from Canterlot to Ponyville never took longer than an hour. That the train was headed downhill only added to its speed. Even this rapid means of transit, however, was far too slow for an impatient stallion with the weight of Princess Celestia's ire bearing down on his mind. He stared at the scroll in his pocket.

It sat still.

He shook his head and turned out the window. There wasn't much to see by way of civilization; just grassy hills and forests, and the occasional distant mountain. He was vaguely aware that places like Vanhoover were somewhere in the direction he was looking, in the distant west. On the other hand, his only interest in maps as a colt had been studying old battles. Was the closest city a hundred miles away, or a thousand? Out of the deadliest combination of boredom and temptation, he turned back to the scroll in his pocket.

He could almost picture it with beady black eyes. It stared at him curiously, but made no motion.

He dragged his eyes away with the dense muscles of his neck, built up from hard days learning to wield sword and spear. Once his mind was free, he began to scan the train. Perhaps there was something more interesting to look at within than outside it.

The passenger car was nearly empty. Only two other ponies were present, those being an elderly couple that sat on paired benches. The stallion never bothered to look up from his newspaper, barely listening as his wife rambled about finding a gift for their granddaughter's cuteceñera. From his rather distant seat, Red Ink persisted in eavesdropping for about thirty seconds. After that, the torture was too great to bear.

The seal on the letter lacked any sort of magic. It opened with a simple twist of his hoof, revealing a plain note.

I'm disappointed, Red Ink, but I can't say that I'm surprised.

You'll have to be patient, unless you've learned unicorn magic since we spoke.

-Princess Celestia.

Red Ink screamed.

"Now, Spike, just put those last two books up and we'll be done with the geography section." Twilight Sparkle, librarian of Ponyville, surveyed her domain with satisfaction.

"Finally," the young dragon grumbled, climbing the short shelving ladder with the tomes in question tucked against his eyes. "Then I get to go help Rarity?"

Twilight didn't answer immediately, due to a surprising interruption. Neither the infant reptile nor the books remained at their height for long, however. It seemed a miracle that the door didn't explode into splinters from the three forceful knocks that resounded. Following the blunt assault, Spike rose slowly from the floor with both books impaled on his namesake ridge of scales.

"Oh, that must be Rainbow!" Twilight exclaimed, turning toward the library's primary entrance.

"Wait, Twilight!" her assistant yelled as he struggled to remove the reference works categorized violently on his back. "I've got a bad feeling about this. Most of the books are still on their shelves. And since when has Rainbow even known we have a door?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Spike, it's got to be..." Twilight's words fell away as her magic opened the door to a somewhat surprising looking pony.

Twilight Sparkle's mind processed an immense of amount of information very quickly. The stallion in front of her was obviously not Rainbow Dash, in no small part because he was a stallion. Unless, of course, a unicorn had miscast Starswirl's Effluvescent Shifting–though that was unlikely, given the general lack of Archmagi in and around Ponyville. She knew she hadn't cast the spell herself; she'd avoided it for years after she made the very mistake she was pondering. She'd apologized to Shining for weeks. And, almost like magic itself, she was off topic. She refocused on the stallion in front of her.

He was bulky and well-muscled, but not particularly tall. Together, the traits suggested he was compensating for a subconscious perception of a lack in his own masculinity, according to a rather famous pony psychologist. He would also be reckless, and have a violent tendency, which fit with the enormous scar on his chest and the minor ones to be seen across the rest of his face and body. Of course that same psychologist would then be suggesting that his presence on her doorstep was a factor of some subtle (or perhaps less-than-subtle) physical resemblance between herself and his mother. At that point, that train of thought followed its predecessor into oblivion.

Next, part of her memory screamed for her attention. He was familiar, somehow, though she couldn't pull forth a name to match his unique face. Given how consumed she had been with her work on her thesis, it wasn't hard for her to imagine that some loose acquaintances had slipped away from her mind. She gave up attempting to produce his name, as her mind jumped to another, more urgent topic.

The fourth in her series of thoughts was a rather complicated academic metaphor. It alleged that, much like her thought experiment concerning Rainbow circumnavigating the globe at super-sonic speeds, while her mind was working at an incredible speed, it was still taking her a long time to actually say anything. Best estimates from top analytical brain cells put her delay at nothing short of 17.24 seconds, an amount which her social cells described as 'awkward' and 'socially unacceptable'. In a desperate attempt to repair the publicity nightmare, the leader of said cells proposed a rapid, immediate response. It was forced through her speech cortex immediately out of desperation.

"Hellohowareyou?"

His brow elevated, and his wings rustled uneasily, reacting to the strange mare standing in front of him. "I am not knowing this greeting, but hello."

Her mind, still on high alert from its last failure, recovered with sudden analysis. The thick tones of a Stalliongradi accent were obvious. Further, his use of Equiish was so painful, the chairman cell of the Equiish board within her language center retired then and there. The grammar was so bad and the accent so thick that he reminded her of a Con Mane villain–complete with deforming scar! She threw away the idea for its inherent rudeness and chose to greet him in his native tongue.

"Приношу свои извинения. Мое имя Сумеречная Искорка. Это великая честь встретиться с вами"

Ink recognized the words as a rather formal greeting, sounding so stiff and upright that for a moment her mistook them for the tongue of a dragon, rather than a pony. He cocked his head slightly to the side. "Вы говорите по-Стольнградски?" The question denoted his surprise at finding a pony who spoke Stalliongradi at all so far from his home, even given her awkward cadence.

She smiled, but shook her head. "Barely any. I was just improvising off of Draconic, since the languages are very similar. I learned it for my studies, but I haven't had much chance to speak it. I've never been to the 'City of Stallions', if that's what you're asking."

At the use of the world's stupidest nickname for his home, Ink groaned. "Not stallions."

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I said. City name has nothing to do with gender."

"But... it's clearly written that way in all my texts. Some of them are centuries old."

There was a sort of pause as Red pinched his muzzle and shook his head. "Yes, your texts. In Equiish. But my home is much older; it is not even named stupid words that each pony so often uses."

There was something of an annoyance mixed in with Twilight's academic curiosity. She likely found something unfair about being lectured in such utterly broken Equiish. "Well, what does it mean then?"

"Capital."

"Capital? Just Capital? Shouldn't that be what you call Canterlot?"

"Not just Capital." Ink groaned and sat down at the obvious curiosity that proceeded to spill from her face. "Listen, you want history lesson, I will give you one in better time. We are having things to discuss. For now, you are understand that my city is called 'Стольный град'. Or…" His next pause was accompanied by a growling in his throat. "Stole-knee-grad." As if to emphasize his disgust, he completed the action by spitting on Twilight's floor. "One is having to be dead to make this stupid mistake."

Twilight laughed awkwardly as she stared at the blot of his phlegm on the library floor. "Uh, I think you mean 'deaf'."

"I know what deaf mean," Ink responded, with a shrug that produced a sickening and rather violent crack from his toned shoulders. "I am not misspeaking. Now, you are still Twilight Sparkle, so I have something for you." His wing curved strangely in on itself to access the inside pocket of his heavy black jacket–a garment which seemed starkly out of place in the heat of August. She stared at his startling flexibility as his feathers produced a tightly bound scroll bearing a broken emblem of Princess Celestia's seal. In only a moment, it was held out for her. "For you."

"Really?" Twilight took the letter in her magic and turned back to the library's interior. "I wonder why she didn't just sent it by Spike." It took her a few steps to see he was waiting at the door. "Oh, you're welcome to come in, Mr..."

"Red Ink," he answered. The name itched the back of Twilight's memory, but she ignored it in favor of the scroll clasped in her magic. "Spike!"

"What?" the young dragon answered, having finally freed himself of the books decorating his body. He wandered out of the library's small kitchen with a cookie in his hand, but stopped when he saw the new stallion. "Oh, hello."

Red Ink lowered himself and spread his wings. "Dragon?"

The tiny drake spread his hands, hoping to placate the larger pony. "Hey, man, chill. I'm Spike."

"Oh, yes, Mr. Ink, this is my assistant, Spike. Spike, this is Red Ink. The Princess sent him."

Spike nodded, despite the fact that Red Ink was still standing low, as if anticipating a fight. "Okay, cool. So you're a guardspony or something?"

What followed was an awkward silence that put Twilight's greeting to shame. Ink's eyes locked on to the tiny purple dragon, then jumped to the scroll that Twilight had yet to open, before finding a sudden interest in the room's ceiling. The complicate series of optic maneuvers that followed consumed more than a few moments before he finally found his words. "Not... at the moment."

"Oh, well, whatever." Spike wandered past the flustered Stalliongradi toward the door. "Cool coat, by the way. Twilight, I'm headed to Rarity's."

"Okay," Twilight answered, glancing at the small figure wandering away before she turned back to her message. The closing of the surprisingly intact door drowned out the unrolling of the parchment.

Red Ink sat in apprehension, staring at Twilight Sparkle. He still wasn't quite sure what to make of the mare. She certainly had the body of an academic. In fact, she was startlingly similar in build to his second tutor. Yet, despite that, she lacked the scolding quality of a true academic that generally accompanied his every sentence in common Equiish. Its absence meant that he did not hate her on principle. Beyond that, he decided to hold his judgment and wait for her to finish reading the letter. His life was quite literally being held in her telekinetic grip.

He watched as her eyes scanned down the page, line by line, jumping back suddenly like a typewriter at each and every line. She stopped at the bottom, and then a quizzical expression left her to jump to the top of the message again. She read quickly, but it felt like a thousand years for the soldier.

Finally, she put down the paper and looked him squarely in the eye. "Wow... okay."

"What?!" He hadn't intended to shout, but the way she winced as she recoiled left a misinterpretation of his volume utterly impossible.

"Well, a little while ago, I spoke with Princess Celestia about my thesis on the natural spread of friendship. I've been researching the magic of friendship for almost five years now, and I've made some amazing discoveries. Unfortunately, in order to finish my research, I needed a... well, a control group."

The words sounded like something his older brother would say, but they were alien to Red Ink's ears. "I am not understanding."

"Okay, how do I put this delicately? Hmm..." Twilight took a deep breath, released it, and then sucked down another before she built up the courage to speak. "A control group in an experiment is a subject or group of subjects who are, at least initially, unaffected by the controlled variable. So, in this case, what I'm saying is..."

She hesitated too long for Ink's patience. "Just say it."

"The Princess is saying you don't have any friends." The words fell out of Twilight's mouth in a torrent, but they weren't over after the first gush. "She's saying you don't understand the value of other ponies, and she wants me to see if I can't change that. So, basically, you're here to learn about friendship."

Ink's eyes grew narrow, and his stare vacant. His mind simply refused to process her words. They made no sense. He barely heard her as she continued.

"She also said she wanted you to write her Friendship Reports, the way I do. I'll teach you when you're ready to do the first one. Oh, and she wanted me to let you see the letter, so I'll just leave it here for when you're done with... that." He made no more note of her gesture than of her departure. "I'm going to make some tea, and then we can talk about this. Go ahead and read the letter."

The soft closing of the kitchen door managed to snap him out of his stupor where louder, closer words had failed. Friendship? The whole idea was moronic! He was a guardspony! A soldier! Friendship wouldn't help him in a fight, except perhaps to acquire subordinates. But he already had the whole Honor Guard for that! And besides, he had plenty of friends back in Stalliongrad! It wasn't like he was some shut-in idiot. In fact, it could be said that he only had friends in Stalliongrad. After all, the vast majority of his enemies were dead.

Perhaps that should have been a red flag...

The train ride had begun to let him comprehend Celestia's anger, even if he still felt justified in what he'd done in Baltimare. He was prepared to accept a punishment. What staggered his mind was how poorly the punishment he had been assigned seemed to fit his supposed crime. This wasn't some post on the icy draconic border where 'decent ponies' (a term he used as a slur for spineless, inbred cowards) would forget about him. It was ridiculous, like the punchline to a terrible joke. Hoping for a better answer, he trudged over to the parchment Twilight had left behind, and began to scan its message.

No sooner had his hoof come into contact with the parchment than the ink began to swirl before his eyes. Whatever message Twilight had read, it was gone before he could read even two words. The black lines swirled and then separated into completely different words before his eyes, then settled suddenly.

Red Ink,

Now that you've heard from Twilight, you should understand your punishment, even if you don't fully comprehend it. However, there are a few rules that Twilight does not need to know; pay attention, as you'll only have the opportunity to read this once.

This is your only chance to earn my forgiveness. I take the lives of my citizens very seriously. It will be up to Twilight to determine when, and if, you have learned enough. Should you give up or abandon this task, I will task Captain Armor and the Royal Guard with hunting you down, and sentence you to execution. I hope a threat to your life will motivate you, as I can produce nothing else that you seem to care about.

My student does not know why you are there; as far as I informed her, you are simply socially inept. With my apologies to your reputation, I felt that was for the best. You are free to reveal the truth whenever you wish, but I warn you that Ponyville will not react well to the knowledge of your genuine nature.

You will have no access to your father's wealth while in Ponyville; I want you to experience the life of a normal Equestrian citizen, without birthright or bloodlust. To that end, you will have to support yourself. This should not prove hard, but I do warn you that violence of any kind, for any purpose against my subjects is unacceptable. If Twilight reports that you have been involved in a physical altercation, you will have failed. I hope that I make myself clear.

As I said, Red Ink, I am very much a believer in the thought that anypony can redeem themselves, given time. Show me that my faith is not misplaced.

-Princess Celestia

Ink removed his hoof, and the parchment immediately burst into green flames. He pulled away, only to watch as its sparkling ashes fled up and out of the arboreal library through a convenient window. No sooner was it gone than Twilight returned.

"Now, Red–do you mind if I call you Red?–let's talk about friendship."

Despite what Celestia had promised, Red Ink already felt dead.