open Life in Canterlot Castle

[Lucid_Nightlight 923]

((OOC: https://mlpforums.com/topic/179380-life-in-canterlot-castle-ooc-planning/))

 

 

Life in Canterlot Castle is not the professional place ponies think it is. Let's just say that life here is... interesting.

The ponies who work here are not as restricted as one would expect. This is here is their life.

Edited August 30, 2018 by Lucid_Nightlight

[Lucid_Nightlight 923]

An armored bat pony stallion patrolled the hallways of Canterlot Castle. Although he was prepared for anything, he knew that it'd probably be business as usual. To him, this was just another day as a guard.

[Catpone Cerberus 23,598]

@Lucid_Nightlight
Red maned mare walked on the hallway, pulling a small cart filled with different boxes, most of them made of metal and locked with tough locks, she greeted the patrolling guard as she walked towards the castle treasury, the mare was Ruby Shine, and though she looked very harmless, she was the trusted guardian of the treasury, and those foolish enough to try to take the treasure without permission, would have rather warm surprise. Because Ruby wasn't as she seemed, she wasn't just a beautiful mare with trusted job, because she wasn't pony at all.

Door to the treasury opened and the beautiful shine revealed itself as Ruby walked, Ah, finally back, she closed the door after her and started emptying the boxes into the vault, after which she walked in deeper, letting out a relieved sight, as the grey mare turned into a red dragon and laid on top of all the treasure. Indeed Ruby was a dragon, and this was her home cave, in a way, as princesses had offered her a deal she couldn't decline....she would guard the treasury like her own, and she could treat it like her own, with few exceptions of course, but the free food made those minor inconveniences bearable.  

Edited August 30, 2018 by Catpone Cerberus

[Lucid_Nightlight 923]

@Catpone Cerberus

Having nothing better to do, the bat pony followed the mare. Being a patrol guard gave him the right to go almost wherever he felt like going. The only place he could not go was the princess's chambers unless there was an emergency. The bat pony had an idea. He followed her into the vault thing, snuck around, paused for a moment when he saw her turn into a dragon, shrugged it off, kept sneaking, and popped out of nowhere.

"BOO!" He shouted, attempting to startle the dragon. Was it a dumb idea? Probably. Did he care? Not really.

"Y'know you might as well marry that treasure at this point." He wasn't trying to mean or anything, he was just being him.

[Catpone Cerberus 23,598]

@Lucid_Nightlight
Ruby had been able to smell the pony following her, but knowing the smell of batponies and metal, it wasn't hard to figure out it was another guard that followed her, but she didn't expect him to try to scare her. When he did, Ruby wasn't exactly startled, but it did take her enough by the surprise that she blew cloud of warm smoke towards the batpony, it was her version of warning shot, she had few times in her first days here accidentally tried to cook few of the guards when she hadn't noticed the coming in, so she was ordered to give a warning to everypony before actually flaming them. 

After the smoke cleared, Ruby looked at the guard and talked with slightly amused tone "Do you guards have a death wish or something, you always come in without knocking." She wasn't a big dragon, only little over the height of a full grown pony if she kept her head on the same level with rest of her body, and even with her wings and head upwards, she was only little over two pony heights, and length wise she was little under five ponies long. 

She lowered her head in front of the guard, her hot smoke-scented breath blowing on his face "And marry the treasure?" she let out smoke filled exhalation of amusement "I would if the princesses would let me." being a loner creature, Ruby didn't really understand the whole marrying thing that ponies did, but she knew what it meant, and what she said had been true, even if she said it in joking manner. 

[Lucid_Nightlight 923]

@Catpone Cerberus

"Most of us don't have a deathwish, well... except maybe that Solar Guard by the name of Arrow, that guy is always doing something extremely crazy."

The bat pony, who was named Somnus looked at the dragon and realized something.

"You would've been pretty useful when that storm guy attacked."

Whether this was true or not, he had no idea, but it did make sense to him.

"Seriously, the unit I was with during the time had to fall back to Ponyville while other units went to maintain control of other towns and cities. Canterlot would have been lost if it wasn't for Twilight and her friends."

[Catpone Cerberus 23,598]

@Lucid_Nightlight
Ruby let out another amused exhalation to the guard's comment about the solar guard, she found ponies in general amusing, they were so fragile creatures, yet many of them did things even she wouldn't think about doing, on being scaring a dragon over twice their size. For the guard's comment about storm king, Ruby tilted her head thoughtfully "Storm king?" "Yeah, I heard about that whole mess." "He tried to take over my territory too but his troops just ended up filling my food storage for a month." she laughed few times "Probably thought that my kind was as incompetent as the local kind here."

[Lucid_Nightlight 923]

@Catpone Cerberus

"Over 1000 years of peace will weaken a nation. We probably could've held them off if they didn't catch us by surprise."

Some loud banging  and some screaming about a bag of mini sweetrolls could be heard from somewhere else in the castle, but this did not worry Somnus in the slightest since he's heard this before.

"Don't mind that sound. That's just Arrow trying to use the vending machine. This happens about once a week. The guy use to be some sort of adventurer until he took an arrow to the knee, hence his nickname."

[Catpone Cerberus 23,598]

@Lucid_Nightlight
Ruby just shrugged at the guards comment about them getting caught by surprise, she didn't have any comment about the strength of the pony army, she didn't know anything relating it, and she didn't really care either.  She didn't react to the sound too much either, her ear just moved a little as she listened for a second, "Oh, so that's what that is, I have heard it before but haven't really paid too much attention to it since rest of the castle isn't my problem." she suddenly got up and sighed, "Aright, i'm tired of looking down." she then transformed back to the grey, red maned mare and sat back down "Ah, Now I don't feel like talking to an ant."

Edited August 31, 2018 by Catpone Cerberus

[Lucid_Nightlight 923]

@Catpone Cerberus

"Can all dragons do that or can only you do that?" Somnus has never seen a dragon be able to transform into a pony before, so this was pretty to him.

"All we bat ponies can really do is look cool. Other than that, we can do the same thing a Pegasus can do. Usually we aren't controlling weather, for some reason. My best guess as for why is probably because we don't care for being outside during the day, I mean we CAN, but it's pretty annoying."

Obviously he could go outside during the day, but he didn't really like to do that since the sun is a little too bright for his taste.

[Catpone Cerberus 23,598]

@Lucid_Nightlight
"You mean transform? The dragons you know can't do that, but my kind can since we have still bit of magic left." Ruby explained "But I'm only one I know has bothered to do so, since they almost never leave their caves." her expression didn't reveal her emotions "If it helps, I consider all you ponies equally uninteresting, you can be amusing and sometimes do interesting things, but as creatures any of you isn't particularly interesting." and she really thought that, there was the strong ones, the magical ones, and the flying ones, and that was really all, she knew creatures that were all of the tree in the same, most notably her own species, though the magic part wasn't that big. "And why to go outside at all?" "I rather stay in places like this for the whole day and night."

 

[Lucid_Nightlight 923]

@Catpone Cerberus

"This place is nice and quiet, but staying in a place like this 24/7? I probably wouldn't go that far, but this place does have an aesthetic feel to it, sort of like cities during the night."

Somnus loved walking around at night. To him, the night time was beautiful.

"When I was a young colt, I would walk around Canterlot at night with this filly. She passed away a while back though."

Although he misses her, he understands completely that it's just a part of life.

"Something about you reminds me of her actually. I'm not quite sure what it is though."

There was one thing he needed to ask.

"So, are dragons immortal or do you guys just live for a long time?"

Edited September 1, 2018 by Lucid_Nightlight

[Catpone Cerberus 23,598]

@Lucid_Nightlight

"Each their own." Ruby simply said, she didn't really care for walks, she rather flew if she had go go outside, which she didn't do too often. She didn't say anything to the guard telling about the filly, but when he said that she reminded of her, Ruby tilted her head a little "I remind about a pony?" "Besides my appearance in this form, I can't think of anything that possibly could do that."

"Nah, we're not immortal." Ruby explained "We just live few thousand years or so, assuming nothing else kills us first of course." "Oldest dragon I knew was few hundred over a thousand"

[Lucid_Nightlight 923]

@Catpone Cerberus

"That's a rather long lifespan. Most ponies typically have way shorter lifespans. At most we can live to a little over 100 unless you're an alicorn or got immortality from artificial means like myself. Of course my immortality only applies to natural causes, so I could be killed from an accident, or perhaps being stabbed, burned, or anything really."

Needless to say, Somnus will be guarding this castle for a while.

"So, how old are you so far?"

[Catpone Cerberus 23,598]

@Lucid_Nightlight
"I'm aware of that, both the blink of a lifetime of your species and the added immortality, though I don't see why anyone would want to live forever." Ruby said rather nonchalantly "But then again, who would want to die." it was rather interesting contradiction.

When the guard asked her age, Ruby gave him humorous smirk "Has nobody taught you that it's rude to ask about mare's age?" he shook her head "Just kidding, I don't care about your...manners or whatever you call them." "I'm little over hundred, I'm still young......if that wasn't clear from my small size."

[Lucid_Nightlight 923]

@Catpone Cerberus

"Immortality isn't all bad, there are some downsides such as losing someone you care about, but it happens to just about everyone, immortal or not."

He wasn't too far from the truth. Everyone loses a parent or a grandmother, or maybe even a pet. That's life.

"As for my age, I'm 1,500 years old, but of course my body can't age, so that leaves me looking like I'm in my early 20's. I remember the time Luna was sent to the moon. I was patrolling the halls just as I do today. Anyways, being 1,500 years old is pretty nice, lot's of places give discounts to ponies over the age of 60. Other places have some sort of military discount, so I'm saving a lot of bits."

[Catpone Cerberus 23,598]

@Lucid_Nightlight
"It's not losing someone I'm worried about, I have nobody to care about, but you will eventually get bored, because at some point you have done everything you can to entertain yourself." Ruby simply said.

"Well, you are pleased easily for being that old." She commented when the guard mentioned discounts "Though maybe it's just because I have never understood you ponies with the whole bits thing, why to give things for other things if you can just take them?"

[Lucid_Nightlight 923]

@Catpone Cerberus

"No one to care about? That sounds even more boring."

Somus had no idea how anyone could live without having anyone to care about. This was very strange to him.

"Bits are basically currency. Without currency, that treasure of yours would be of no value, it would be no different than the rock. As for just taking things, I'm pretty sure there are laws against that."

[Catpone Cerberus 23,598]

@Lucid_Nightlight
"Not when you're born to live alone." Ruby said calmly "I don't know feelings like love, only affection I feel is towards is my treasure."

"I'm aware how it works, I just don't understand it." she explained "I don't care about the value of my treasure because it's mine, it has value to me and that's all that matters, it's not like I'm giving it to anyone." she took small diamond from the pile and showed it to the guard "For example this, it's just a shiny rock, yet you have made it to be worth of big pile of shiny metal." "But I would rather have pile of something than this tiny rock, yet you ponies do the opposite." she threw the diamond back to the pile "And I know you call taking things stealing, which for you is a crime like you call it, and I know it's not nice for who is target of it, but if you can't defend what you own, do you really deserve it?"

[Lucid_Nightlight 923]

@Catpone Cerberus

"No one is born to live alone. As for treasure, I'm not one to put my trust, faith, and affection into objects. I've learned after a while that it only make us forget or miss the more important things in life. Take Luna for example, it resulted in 1000 years on the moon for her. Some would say that's jealousy, but greed played a major role."

Of course he meant nothing bad by this, he was speaking from experience.

"And as for the whole thing about being unable to defend things, there's always someone bigger than stronger than you. Take for example a yellow friend of mine who warps reality and destroy a continent if he wanted, he could just take all that treasure from you, are you saying that you don't deserve it since you'd simply lose to him?"

Somnus always had a thing about making points. Living for as long as he has can and will result in quite a bit of experience in life.

[Catpone Cerberus 23,598]

@Lucid_Nightlight
"Don't forget who you're talking to, I don't know much about the culture of my kind around here, but back home we dragons have lived as hoarding loners longer than your species has even existed." Ruby dismissed "Only reason we ever see each other is when we either fight for treasure or need to continue our family." "And greed?" she laughed "We are definition of greed, why you think I'm guarding the biggest treasury in Equestria?."`

"Yes, sure I would try to find and destroy them for that until I get either killed or die of old age, but if I would fail, I wouldn't think I deserve the treasure only because I want it." she shrugged "Life doesn't hand you things free, you have to work for them."

[Lucid_Nightlight 923]

@Catpone Cerberus

"Yea, it's a pretty big treasury, do you ever get annoyed when the princesses come in with some wheelbarrow and take a large chunk of it to repair Ponyville for the 5th time this week?"

He wasn't kidding, something is ALWAYS going on there. He was surprised no guards are currently stationed there with the bugbears, parasprites, and the occasional thing coming from Everfree.

"Honestly, I'm surprised Equestria still has an economy at this point."

[Catpone Cerberus 23,598]

@Lucid_Nightlight
"Sure it annoys me but deal is a deal." Ruby agreed "But it also comes back pretty quickly too, it always finds it way back to my gentle care" she understood enough about the economy to know that what went out came always back because of taxes and trade.

"To be honest, I'm more surprised that ponies still live there considering the constant destruction." "There's so much flat land, yet you decide to live next to the most predator filled forest out there."

[Lucid_Nightlight 923]

@Catpone Cerberus

"Yea, a bunch of boring trade stuff. Seriously, researching that sounds pretty boring."

"Destruction isn't limited to Ponyville. There is also some occasional incidents here in Canterlot. The changelings, Storm dude, and all that? It isn't even because they are a super deadly force that we guards lose to them, it's because of a lack of preparation. Despite all these major attacks, no one besides Arrow and myself understand the importance of being prepared."

Edited September 3, 2018 by Lucid_Nightlight

[Catpone Cerberus 23,598]

@Lucid_Nightlight

"Sure it isn't but my point still stands." Ruby commented "One would think there would be at least walls or something if it's really necessary to live so close to the forest." she shrugged "Though I don't know what I expect from creatures of peace regarding defence."