We continue Shining Armor’s preparation to guard Princess Cadence on her diplomatic journey. He is just waving goodbye to his sister who is leaving on her own fated journey. Thunderchild did make sure that the two soldiers that pull her chariot will keep an eye on her. Unfortunately the two are a bit too obedient and will follow the order of the Mayor to attack the mad Goddess of the Night. Shining points out that the correct command would have been "Fall back and regroup!" There was simply no way two soldiers could have beaten Nightmare Moon and even the “few elite platoons” Twilight asked her brother for would likely haven’t had any chance against the Nightmare. In fact attacking her with an army could force her to use her more destructive abilities and obliterate Ponyville in the process. Shining compares this “direct” attack strategy to the fighting technique of Zebrafrican warlords, only to be hit immediately by the Pegasus interviewer for the seemingly racist commentary. But he makes it clear that he was talking about warlords, not zebras in general. This is also the first time we see one of the interviewers notes in this story; the first chapter didn’t have any of them. The promotion takes place at the Parade Grounds and Princess Cadence is already present in the VIP lounge. It also seems that Shining already has a “slight” crush on her and declares her best pony. His ceremonial armor is painted in an embarrassing bright purple but he comforts himself knowing that his combat armor is dark green colored. Now that is irony, soon he will see more than enough of green. And Princess Cadence actually likes purple colored armor, not a particular heroic color but then again the main hero is purple as well. But it is also strange that he already speaks about the three Alicorns despite Luna still being sealed inside the moon at this point and the fact that he just ignored the story of the mare in the moon in the last chapter. We also learn that he is a level 7 magician while his sister would have level 11 if the scale wouldn’t end with 10. The Pegasus interviewer can not resist making a Dungeons and Dragons joke. The Unicorn interviewer points out that it is strange for him to be the “only one” capable of casting the city protecting force field and still not have a higher level. Shouldn’t Twilight, the Princesses (at least Celestia) and some court magicians be able to cast the same spell if it is that important? Shining points out that the system rates overall magical abilities and not just the strength of one spell. Next to the armor, a belt and a scabbard, there is also a ceremonial sword that will have its role in this promotion. At a signal they will have to don their armor in five minutes and then present their weapons to the Princess. As a tradition and a sign of inter-racial unity neither magic nor wings are allowed to be used in this process. It isn’t easy for the Unicorns and Pegasi but they all manage to do this and Major Sharpe even takes the time to give one especially nervous cadet some calming advice. Shining was smart enough to practice it and by now the only problem he has is the horrible taste of the buckles. He wonders if this is the real reason that they held a toast from their canteens right afterwards. They rise up on their hind legs while holding the blades, striking a heroic pose for one minute. Eventually Princess Celestia orders them to ease and drink to their promotion. Under thunderous applause they and the Princess take their drink and while it is only water, this is exactly the kind of refreshing drink they needed right now. One by one there are given their new orders and the new officers are infused with Celestia’s own essence. The rule book warns very clearly that this will usually turn fur white and eyes blue and in a slightly creepy moment Shining assures himself that it will not influence their thinking. But his promotion is different; he gets detached from the service of Princess Celestia and attached to the service of Princess Cadence. And he was cynical enough to assume that this is the point where Princess Cadence learns about this new development. Celestia innocently asks her sister if she has any objections and everyone stares at the younger Princess to await her answer. Shining himself amusingly has chosen to stare at a spot on the wall instead. Cadence needs some time to get over her surprise and the Sun Goddess still acts like this was a minor oversight on her side. Someone in the audience fittingly sings “Trolololo…” until that person is silenced. In the end Cadence is able to follow protocol and accept the new situation. Maybe this was her final test as a diplomat; in the future she will have to keep her self control in much more hostile environments.
As Shining reaches his new commanding Princess she can still hardly believe what Celestia just did. Spike and Twilight were not able to remember him but just like Celestia Cadence seems able to recognize Shining Armor, which makes sense since she is also an Alicorn. Or alternatively the surprising way the Sun Goddess introduced Shining to her speed up the process of her remembering him. While he met her as Twilight’s foalsitter, both were teenagers and their friendship could have become more if their lives wouldn’t have taken them in different directions. But now that he meets her again after all these years his admiration for her didn’t diminish in any way and to him she is more beautiful than ever. But despite these conflicting feelings he is able to greet her with the proper protocol. From her own unsure reaction he guesses that Celestia’s actions had more impact than he imagined or that Cadence might feel something for him. To break up his own embarrassment at the situation, Shining jokes to himself that love between a Royal Guard and a Princess is forbidden. In fact there are no laws who a Royal Guard might love or have a relationship with, there is just a warning that some flight teams try to secure the best flyers that way. Then it is Prince Blueblood of all ponies who breaks the ice and reminds the Princess that she is in control of the new branch of the Royal Guard and can even write the protocol book if she wants. It makes sense that he would act nicer around beings he views as his equals or even superiors and maybe Cadence was the one he asked to “cure” his mane. Shining does appreciate that and reminds himself at the running joke that the prince must be useful as blood donor. I guess with that name this gag was unavoidable. Surprisingly Celestia herself doesn’t approve of this joke and reminds her guards that he isn’t spare body parts but her foalish fool. Both Shining and Cadence try to cheer each other up in this strange situation. Now he needs to choose the other guards before the Princess will leave on her 2 year journey. Prince Blueblood will soon leave on his own much less important diplomatic journey to Stalliongrad. It is hard to say if this mission in the middle of nowhere is a punishment, an attempt to teach him something or just a trick to get him out of the castle before Nightmare Moon returns. With Celestia is might be all three of them. He is travelling in his traditional and slow ship, the Wind Fish IV. The Sun Goddess still tries to claim that she had forgotten one of the most important changes to their military structure but no one is buying that. But even after that one Cadence still call her “Auntie” and thinks already about the next steps before their departure. They still need to choose the guards, inspects their ships and have a formal dinner and there is hardly any time for it. Before leaving Celestia tells them that if on the upcoming Summer Sun Celebration the sun will not raise on time they should just continue their journey. It is clear that she fears what Nightmare Moon might do to her sister, should she find her and this is the reason Cadence has to leave before the return of the mare in the moon. But the Sun Goddess is obviously very hopeful that the event will end with the healing of her sister. Princess Cadence still needs to learn how to give orders and Shining tries to lighten her mood by constantly calling her “ma'am.” Unfortunately it doesn’t work.
Soon they are in the castle's West Wing with Civil Servant Sir Humphay Appleby and Baarnard Wooley. They did walk past the office for six times (!) to avoid work and continue their discussion about hoofball. Only after Baarnard and Cadence tell them to get on with it, do they make some progress. To Shining’s surprise the Princess does follow the sport as well and is able to argue about it. And he does seem to share her interest in hoofball as he still remembers the game they and Twilight watched. While her office and her bedroom are relatively far off when viewed from the inside of the castle, she can easily travel between them by flight. The placement of her office in the admin area is also clever since it allows the civil service and the ministers to take care of the countless ponies that try to reach Cadence after their audience with the busy Princess Celestia was rejected. Also her door can only be opened by a specific spell Shining doesn’t know. That one might hinder the Changeling Queen later on. There they find the file about the sixty possible applicants and a scroll. His scan of the scroll shows them that it doesn’t contain a “Neighponese exploding tag”, a normal explosive or a dreaded tax bill (The horror! The horror!) but it does contain a suggestion from Princess Celestia for 4 specific ponies to join the new guard. The four ponies are Sergeant Thunderhead, Private Captive Audience, Private Running Gag and Lance-Corporal Apple. Shining also talks about the side effect of the see-through vision spell at might let him see organs and he never wants to see something like that again, hinting that he either saw a horrible accident or has more combat experience than we knew. They make progress with the selection of the soldiers and soon three of the four suggested soldiers arrive with one of Running Gag's terrible jokes. Sergeant Thunderhead hints very clearly that Celestia told them what would happen. Shining thoughts about Cadence’s “Why couldn't you just say that?” shows nicely that he can be as cynical as his sister. The Sergeant also predicts that while Apple will be able to avoid the brunch with his family, Twilight will likely not be that lucky. If her brother only knew that this would hardly be her biggest problem there. Soon they start organizing the selection of the soldiers and Shining tells Cadence about his sister’s mission. She is happy that Twilight will experience something new and wonders if the purple unicorn was worried about it. The line about her being more worried about the legend of the Mare in the Moon than the task ahead leads to an entertaining misunderstanding.
Their work continues until Cadence’s hunger forces them to take a break from all these files about ponies, donkeys, zebras, griffins and one minotaur they strangely not recognise. They briefly talk about Iron Will who chose motivational speaking over continuing his work in the military. Instead of an impressive dinner the Princess just orders hayfries from a small salad and beanburger stall. She briefly talks about her hoofmaiden Sunset, considering that name the maid might even be an aspect of Princess Celestia keeping an eye on her sister. Then she talks about how they might be offered meat to eat as a test on their diplomatic journey. In this world a pony eating meat is still very unusual and Cadence only did eat fish and chicken as a part of her diplomatic etiquette lessons. And the ponies as herbivores aren’t the only ones having problems with it; eating beef is causing tensions between the various Griffin Nations. The Royal Guard is also trained to consider fish and chicken emergency rations; the only problem is that the salt in the fish still makes the ponies extremely drunk. Private Gag tries another horrible joke. This ends with a pony called Pony and a griffin called Griffen being added to the guard. Having a griffin and a zebra on their mission should also make their diplomatic encounters somewhat easier. Next to the work the Princess also enjoys a nice game of Tetris. I wonder how this could look like in this world, is it an enchanted toy or maybe a spell?
Then it is time to inspect their fleet, the Flotilla (Spanish for small fleet of ships): The Frigate HHS Invincible, the Scientific Survey Corvette HHS Enterprise and the Gunship Corvettes HHS Dreadnought and HHS Falcon. The ranking Air Naval officer is the female Commander Shepard. Shining is sure that he would never be able to get his sister off the Enterprise and thinks about how strange military rankings can be. But he is quite interested in the numerous weapons of the Invincible and how each gun can be loaded with confetti and streamers. They fought their “wars” with apple pies, what did you expect? Then again the weapons could still be loaded with something else and his speech about swords hints that he knows more about battles then it seems. He talks about more technical aspects and finally both he and Cadence give the new unit a speech. For now she can’t infuse her guards with her essence, which is a shame as guards infused with Harmony would have been extremely useful when Discord returns. Prince Blueblood is also ready to leave and quite happy about the upcoming flight. In fact it is one of his favourite hobbies next to making life hard for anyone he views as inferior but it is nice to see him more fleshed out. Shining wished the prince would have chosen to become a navigations officer, he does have the talent for it and then he wouldn’t be in Canterlot for the most time of the year. Shining’s parents are currently on a vacation so they won’t be able to say goodbye to him and considering that his own sister didn’t recognise him, they wouldn’t fare any better. After an uneventful dinner Celestia gives Cadence one last hug before they will not see each other anymore for quite some time. This heartfelt hug also shows how close the Sun Goddess is to her sister and how much she is worried about what might happen on this journey. Cadence’s mortal parents are also there to say goodbye and Shining realises that not a single member of his family is there for him. But in a nice bit of companionship Sergeant Thunderhead tries to cheer him up in his own way. The Princess is so sad about the departure from her family and friends that she doesn’t even notice Shining Armor calling her “Cadence” instead of “ma'am.” After that his joke about “ma'am” finally makes her smile. He asks the other four if they have any smart remarks but for now they have nothing to say. Their next target is the Griffin Republic where will attend the inauguration of the new President and according to Shining this first step of the journey was already more difficult than he was expecting it to be.
Then we suddenly switch perspectives and it takes some time to realise that we are listening to Sweetie Belle. It is the night before Luna’s return and the same time Shining Armor became part of this story. Just outside of the Boutique the foal notices a strange being following her. It seems almost like the shadows of past existences the ponies encountered when the G3 world was destroyed. Sweetie Belle sees herself living with Lyra, Bon-Bon and a filly named Tootsie Flute. This was a fan theory about the foal’s life before her role as Rarity’s sister was established. For a moment Sweetie Belle feels like being part of something rejected from reality before her own history comes back to her. The shadow seems to want to tell her that this feeling isn’t wrong and maybe in one part of the multiverse she lives like that. Who could this shadow might be? The sister she never had or the version of herself that never was? But suddenly it is gone and Rarity finds her sister. And just like Shining before Sweetie Belle is (for a very short moment) not recognised by her own sister. The white unicorn didn’t see the shadow and Sweetie Belle herself had completely forgotten the incident until the interviewers asked her about it.
