“Let’s see here,” said an armor-clad unicorn from behind his mahogany desk, sighing as the door to his office gained a silvery glow and creaked open. A heavy manila folder very much at full capacity floated inches away from the lieutenant’s face as he squinted at the name scrawled across the top. “Summer Siro— oh, uh... S...”

Standing cross-legged at the door, trepidation swirling through her soft eyes of mint green, was a beige earth pony mare in a frayed cadet’s vest. Her hoof shot up to run through her closely cropped—yet amazingly still disheveled—dark red mane.

“Sirocco, yes,” she interjected. “Summer Sirocco. That’s me.”

Summer started through the doorway. “I got a letter saying to come to this office tonight?”

“Yes, that’s right. Please come in,” he said, before looking up to see that the mare had already entered. “Right. Well, take a seat, Cadet.”

A few lines began to form across the stallion’s forehead, but after indulging in a deep breath his expression promptly returned to its administrative, dispassionate state. “My apologies for asking you to come in at such a late hour,” he said, as his gaze shifted towards the last remnants of sunset shining through his window.

“I’m Lieutenant Buckler.” Gesturing to his left, he added: “And this is Night Captain Quarrel.”

Whipping her head around to greet the unexpected guest standing in the far corner of the room, she flashed the reptilian pony a bright smile and took her seat across from the lieutenant’s desk. Quarrel, for his part, simply nodded.

“Hey, why’s there a Night Guard here?”

Buckler bit the inside of his mouth. “That will be made clear in a few minutes, Cadet. For the moment, he is only here to observe.”

The lieutenant’s horn flared and the folder parted, its contents spreading across the table into a patchwork of statistics, exposition and opinion that detailied the tumult of Summer Sirocco’s five months at the Royal Guard Academy. After a quick once-over of the documentation, he turned his attention to the mare seated in front of him.

“Cadet, I do hope you realize that even applying to become a Royal Guardspony is above and beyond the call of duty for most. To have spent any time at all training in the academy is a sacrifice worthy of respect in its own right. Not everypony has the courage to take on the responsibility of defending Equestria with their life, and your commitment to doing so is truly honorable.”

Something angry had latched itself onto Summer’s heart, and was pumping it far faster than it had any right to be pumped. “Oh.” Again she ran a hoof through her mane. “This isn’t...”

The lieutenant waited for a few seconds before clearing his throat. “I am sorry to have to inform you of this, but the decision has been made by the higher-ups to ask you to resign your place at the academy. This was based solely on the current needs of the organization and should not be taken as a personal failure. Instead, you should take this opportunity to find a vocation more suited to your capabilities and prefere—”

“This is that Skyblaze’s doing, isn’t it?”

The lieutenant pulled his head back and blinked hard. “I— I’m sorry?”

“She’s had it in for me since day one. She gives me two extra miles for the morning canter, all because I was two minutes late for drills one time in my first week. And now she’s getting me kicked out. Does it say in there who started it?” Summer craned her neck towards the desk.

The reports shone silver and slid in unison away from Summer’s edge of the desk. “I’m not allowed to discuss the decision-making process of superior officers. You know that.”

“Oh, come on. I already figured out who it is, didn’t I? You can tell me if I’m right at least, can’t you?” With each sentence her eyes grew wider, her neck craned further, her voice grew higher and louder. “That’s what’s happening here, isn’t it? You’ve got the papers there, so you can see why they’re doing it, can’t you? Skyblaze, right? They’re kicking me out for all these little mistakes and they’re ignoring the big picture! Right?”

Lieutenant Buckler raised his eyes to match her stare. “Are you asking me to tell you what your file says, or are you asking me to tell you what I think?”

“Both! Either!”

The two ponies abruptly switched, as if they had been sitting on a see saw that had just tipped. Summer shrunk down into her stool as the lieutenant stood up and leaned forward, slamming his hooves onto the desk and sending much of the carefully ordered paperwork tapestry to the floor.

“Here’s what I think, Summer.” The lieutenant spoke slowly and quietly, but his words were anything but tranquil. “I think that in this one minute that you’ve been here in my office, the only misconduct you’ve managed to draw attention to is that which must have taken place when you somehow weaseled your way into the Royal Guard Academy in the first place. I don’t know who you are, Summer Si-roh-coh—”

“Sirocco.”

“—Sirocco, but as soon as I saw you standing in that doorway, I knew that this decision was the right one. Come on: look at that cadet’s uniform you’re wearing. What do you do, chew on that thing? When was the last time you had it mended? Have you ever?”

He lowered his head towards the desk until he was at eye-level with his target. “Summer, not once in this whole meeting have you called me ‘Lieutenant’ or ‘sir’. That’s something that a cadet has to do. It isn’t optional.” He flung one hoof towards the door. “And you stepped right into my office before I said you could come in. You can’t just run into a superior’s office like that. These are the most basic—”

Papers that had fallen to the floor joined those still on the desk and floated up to the lieutenant’s hardened eyes. “Late for drills. Late for drills. Failed to salute a superior officer. Failed to complete an assignment. Late for class. Late for dri— are you beginning to notice a pattern here? Because I certainly am.” The papers quickly re-stacked themselves in the manila folder.

“You have no personal discipline. You can’t follow rules, Summer. I don’t know what possessed you to think you could be a Royal Guard, but I sincerely hope that this ‘Skyblaze’ you keep talking about has managed to drill that silly dream right out of you because it’s never going to happen!”

Summer felt like a vice had tightened around her neck, and her eyes began to burn. But she would not cry. The confirmation of her fears, the dissipation of her dreams: she choked them all down, into a hot and humid place somewhere deep within her.

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant.”

Buckler brought his hooves back down to the hardwood floor. “Yes, well, you don’t need to call me by rank any more, Summer.” The lieutenant drew over a few sheets of paper from across the room. “Night Captain Quarrel has requested to speak with you in private. Close that door behind you when he’s done.”

Trotting around his desk, the lieutenant stopped just before passing by the blank-faced mare. “Thank you for your service,” he spat.

---

After the third minute of abject silence, Summer began to fidget and squirm.

“Do you know what just happened?” the Night Guard asked her from his corner.

Summer winced a little. “Could you repeat that, Night Captain?”

“It’s just ‘Captain’. Adding ‘night’ is a Royal Guard thing. Anyway, I asked you if you know why you just got kicked out of the academy.”

“Um, I think that Skybla—”

“You’re trying to be somepony you’re not.”

Summer set her jaw. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Why did you become a cadet?”

Summer replied automatically. “I wanted to help defend Equestria.”

Quarrel scoffed. “Oh, come on. You know that’s no answer. You could have joined a police force, or a neighborhood watch, or been a security guard, too. You’ve already been kicked out, so there’s no reason for you not to tell me, is there? Why the Royal Guard, Summer?”

She brought a hoof to the back of her neck and scratched at her short mane. “I guess I thought it would teach me to be disciplined.”

The Night Guard shook his head. Summer had yet to see him blink. “Militaries are organizations of order, Summer. They’re designed to be predictable, uniform, and efficient: they set rules, and you follow them. You do not ask questions. But you can’t make yourself fit that mold. You either do or you don’t. And you: don’t.”

She watched as the slits in the captain’s eyes flitted downwards for a split second. “Just look at that cutie mark. A palm tree, blowing in the breeze. That’s you, Summer. You’re a free spirit. You were born to do what makes you and your friends happy—not to fight, not to train, not to study. Not to follow rules that you don’t agree with. You were born to live a carefree life.” Summer looked down at her cutie mark and scowled. The Night Guard observed.

“That said, we keep an eye on the Royal Guard cadets, and we think there’s something else there. You aren’t quite comfortable in your own skin, are you? It’s a certain restlessness you have. And we like it. So, we have a proposition for you.”

With an entirely unexpected speed, Quarrel slipped out from his corner and stopped directly in front of Summer, who nearly toppled over on her stool. She clutched at her chest, taking quick, shallow breaths.

“Heh. Sorry about that.”

“U— uh... no problem, Captain,” she croaked. From this close, she could see first-hoof all the little idiosyncrasies of a Night Guardspony: the tiny incisors that poked out from the sides of his muzzle, the featherless bat-wings folded against his side, and of course those blaring headlights and their black, slitted pupils.

She took a deep breath. “So. What is it you wanted to say to me?”

Quarrel wiped at his grinning mouth with his foreleg. “We would like to invite you to join us, Summer Sirocco. We want you to become a Night Guard.”

Summer waited in silence.

“Not many ponies understand that we aren’t born like...this,” he said as he stretched his wings behind him. “We choose this.”

More silence. “Why would—”

“Allow me to explain: If you choose to accept our offer, you will be changed. You’ll get wings like these, and you’ll be able to see in the dark. You’ll even get a little bit of offensive magic: frost spells, fire, that sort of thing.

“But there are deeper transformations than just the superficial, Summer. The spell that changes you will give your personality a little... tweak. It pulls out your deepest frustrations and focuses them, so that you can overcome them. You, for example, would probably develop discipline and a healthy respect for the rules.” He brought his hoof in front of his face and examined it carefully. “It isn’t too much of a stretch to say that you’d become something of a different pony.”

“A... different pony?”

“That’s right, Summer. Which means there’s only question you need to ask yourself.” The captain moved in further still, and bore into her with his shining golden eyes. She had to squint against the light of his gaze.

“Would you rather be a different pony?” he asked.

Summer felt a deep chill run down her spine. She stared back at the Night Guard before her, her teeth clenched tightly behind her firmly pressed-together lips. It took every ounce of her strength to keep her legs from shaking.

“Good. I’m glad you haven’t answered yet. That means you’d think about it, which is something most ponies wouldn’t do. You have a week to make your choice, Summer Sirocco. Make it count.”

---

Summer wasn’t born in Equestria. Back when she was among the littlest of fillies, her father had decided to relocate the family—that is, her and her mother—from the tropical country of her birth to Canterlot. Summer’s grasp of her foalhood memories was weak, but she remembered bits and pieces. Mommy and Daddy were always so tired at the end the day. Sometimes they’d even go to sleep before she did. And in those early years of life when most foals learn how to work together and set goals for themselves, Summer had been learning a new language.

One night in the second month of the family’s new Canterlot life, Mr. Sirocco stopped coming home. Oh, Mrs. Sirocco had tried her best: he’s working late, sweetie; they’ve asked him to work the weekend, dearie; he’s away on business. But even mothers have their limits, and at some point Mrs. Sirocco stopped trying and started believing.

Within a week of finishing her very last day of school and with the freedom of marehood in her sights, Summer mustered the courage to confront her.

“He’s not coming back!” she’d shouted at her mother, who had been wondering aloud what Doso would like for dinner when he got home in the evening. “He’s never going to come back, Mom! Maybe he’s dead. Maybe…maybe he doesn’t love us anymore. But— but he isn’t coming back!”

“Get out,” had been her mother’s listless, repeated reply. “Get out. How dare you speak of your father like that. Get out.”

Summer hadn’t seen her since.

---

“Oh, no! That’s terrible, Summer!”

The newly minted civilian sat curled around an olive-colored cushion on her dorm room floor, and allowed her friend and roommate to console her. Zephyr was one of those ponies who was born to be a Royal Guard: a tall, beautiful pegasus mare raised in privilege, with azure eyes and a pin-straight, navy blue mane that she would have kept short even without the academy’s rules on mane length.

“It’s OK, Zeph. I’ll be all right. Please don’t worry about me too much.”

“You know I’m always here for you, don’t you? You can talk to me about anything.”

Summer looked up at her. “Yeah, Zeph. I know. There is actually something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Zephyr knelt down beside her friend. “What is it, Summer?” she asked, nuzzling the side of her face.

“They asked me to join the Night Guard.”

At once, her ears flicked upright and she drew her neck up straight. “How... how does tha—”

“They use some kind of magic to transform you.” Summer told her everything she knew about the process: how it would change her appearance, how it would alter her personality, how she feared it would detach her from her friendships.

“That’s completely ridiculous! Why the hay would they think you’d want any part of something like that?”

Summer’s silence was the only answer she needed.

“Oh, Summer, you aren’t thinking of actually doing it, are you?” she asked, her voice careening upwards and into an uncommonly high register. “Everypony loves you, Summer!”

“Everypony thinks I’m fun, Zeph. Nopony thinks I’m going to do anything with my life.” Summer closed her eyes. “Maybe they’re right.”

“No, no, Summer; that’s not what I mean at all. You’re so easygoing and caring, you know? You’re like a breath of fresh air. You could do so much good for Equestria if you embraced that about yourself. It’s your cutie mark, after all. Shade in the desert. That’s you, Summer.”

Summer turned away from her friend’s wide-eyed and smiling face. “You know I hate my cutie mark, Zeph. Why would you even bring that up?”

“Well, I think it’s wonderful. You should find a job out there that makes full use of it.”

“That’s easy for you to say: you’ve got a pike for a cutie mark! What am I going to do with a palm tree, sing standards at the Caballo Cabana for the rest of my life?”

“Well, you do have a lovely singing voice.”

“Zephyr!”

“Oh, it was a just a joke!” she replied through a smile. Summer’s head was in her hooves. She was definitely not laughing.

“I’m sorry, Summer. I was just trying to lighten the mood.”

Summer sighed. “Do you know how I got this thing, Zeph?”

The puzzled pegasus put a hoof to her chin. “I don’t think you’ve ever told me, Summer.”

“I cut school and went to the beach with some friends.” Zephyr waited patiently for her friend to finish.

“...And that’s it,” Summer announced. “It just showed up when we got to the beach.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“I’m sorry, Summer.”

“It’s alright. It’s just... I don’t want to be here just to whittle away a few decades and die, you know? I want to do something.”

Zephyr cast her eyes to the floor and bit her lip. “Who doesn’t, Summer? That’s life.”

---

It was an especially busy afternoon at Carrot Crunch when Summer saw the book cover. She’d been working there for six weeks—a personal best. As she was taking a customer’s order, she had noticed that he had been reading some sort of self-help book: Don’t Be Yourself: You’re Better Than That!

But it wasn’t the title that had grabbed her attention. It was the subject of the photo on the cover: a smiling, tan earth pony stallion with a slicked-back, graying mane. Mint green eyes shone through his stylish glasses.

“Excuse me,” she’d asked the customer, “can I see that book for a second?”

According to the author’s bio, ‘Desert Wind’ had been a successful bit-trader for Neighman Brothers before leaving the firm to found a small self-help and motivational speaking empire. This was his first published work. He lived in Manehattan with his wife. Candy.

When Summer’s boss had refused to give her a week off from work, she quit. Then she went home, and began to pack for a trip.

---

Summer knocked on the door to a tiny house on the outskirts of Canterlot, a light rain dampening her coat and mane. Almost as soon as she knocked, she saw the handle glow a deep crimson.

“Coming!”

The door swung open, and the unicorn inside reared back and threw his front legs open wide. “Summer!”

She smiled and stepped into the little house, and into the unicorn’s embrace.

“My goodness, what time is it? Don’t you have drills in the morning?” he asked.

“I missed you, dear.”

“You’re a little wet, hun,” he said, taking a step back and rubbing his cheek. “Should I get you a towel?”

“Nope. But you might want one for yourself.”

Summer shot her coltfriend an impish look, and then shook her short, wet mane as hard as she could.

“Ah!” The unicorn winced away and brought a hoof over the mischievous mare’s back, falling to the floor and bringing her with him. The couple looked at each other, soaked and sprawled out on the peach-colored carpet, and burst into peals of laughter.

Wiping tears from the corners of his eyes, the colt got back up, put a hoof around his mare’s back, and helped her back up before giving her a playful nip on the muzzle. “I missed you too, Summer.”

There are a few couples in Equestria that are simply picture-perfect. Ponies see them from afar—maybe eating dinner together at a nice restaurant, or out for a trot together just before sundown—and find themselves stricken by how right they seem to be together.

Summer Sirocco and Placket were not one of those couples. In a high school setting, their relationship would have been unthinkable. Summer was a cute, approachable mare, whereas Placket had drawn the unfortunate end of the genetic stick, bearing the purple mane of his mother and the burgundy coat of his father. He’d never had much trouble sleeping, and yet he carried bags under his eyes thick enough to show through his dark coloration. And despite his best efforts, he remained just as lanky a stallion as he had been a colt. But while it was true that Summer had never found herself with much physical attraction to her coltfriend of three years, they worked as a couple anyway.

It took a mare like Summer to bring out the best in Placket. Without a playful special somepony in his life, he’d have long since reverted to the tried-and-tested coping mechanisms of his youth: focusing on work, and quietly justifying his loneliness as a cost of living. They were both fully aware that he could never be happy without her. And she reveled in his need for her.

---

On her first trip to Manehattan, in the back row of a brightly-lit auditorium, young Summer Sirocco watched in silence as the stallion bounding back and forth across the stage played his audience like a well-tuned harp. They stamped their hooves and yelled and cheered, and chanted along each time he repeated one of his signature platitudes.

“Be the you that you want to be!” he said in unison with the crowd. “Never settle for what you have. You want to be doing something else with your life? Then what do you do, fillies and gentlecolts?”

“Go do it!” the audience roared.

“That’s right! Go do it!”

As the seminar drew to a close, the audience transformed itself into a mob, frantically waving books, photographs, posters, pens and cameras at the star of the show as he made his way down the stairs along the side of the stage. And the stallion accommodated: smiling for photos and signing everything that made its way in front of him—a difficult task for a mouth-writing earth pony, but he was not without practice.

One particular copy of his book caught his eye: such a slender set of beige hooves held it that he simply had to see the face of the mare they belonged to. Following them upwards, his eyes were indeed led to a beautiful young face.

“Can I have your autograph?” the face asked.

“Of course you can, honey,” he assured her, taking the book from her and balancing it on one hoof, eyes never straying from the mare. “Have you come to one of these before? I could swear I recognize you from somewhere.”

“No. This is my first time at a self-help seminar.”

“Well, there’s a first time for everything, now isn’t there?” he said, charisma dripping from his whitened teeth like venom. He turned his eyes to the book, and gestured to one of his bodyguards for a marker. “So, who should I make this out to?”

“To Summer,” she replied, She took a shallow breath and held it.

The star of the show raised his head and stared heavily into her eyes. His pupils tightened and he refused to blink. Smile still smeared across his face, he leaned over and whispered into her ear:

“How much do you want?”

Summer took two quick steps back and brought a hoof to her cheek. “Wh— wha—”

“Alright, sorry, everypony,” he said through spontaneous laughter, “but I’m late for another seminar!” The crowd responded with a collective groan of disappointment and disapproval.

“Come back next week: I’ll be sure to leave some extra time at the end for you ponies! And remember: if you’d rather be doing something else with your life...”

“Go do it!” the audience cried.

He whispered something to a bodyguard, and within ten seconds he’d been rammed past the crowd and through a doorway to the left of the stage.

Summer stayed put as the crowd dissipated around her, surrounded by photos, pamphlets and books bearing the happy face of the pony she could no longer deny was her father.

Never settle for what you have, was what he had said, and what he had done. He hadn’t settled for Summer’s mother. He hadn’t settled for Summer.

Never settle for what you have, huh? She let a burst of air shoot through her nostrils.

Sounds good, she thought as she kicked away the half-autographed book that lay at her hooves, sending it sliding along the filthy floor to the other side of the auditorium.

---

“Mmm, this is delicious,” she said, sipping the rich coffee she held between her hooves as she lay on a cushion in front of the couch. “Thank you, Plackie.”

Seated above her on the couch, he brought a hoof down to her forehead and brushed away an errant hair of her mane. “Anything for you, hun.”

The two sat in silence. An easy, comfortable silence.

“You never did tell me why you’re here, dear. It’s nearly midnight.”

“Hm? Oh, I just missed you, Plackie.” She could tell him about the academy on another night.

“I know how you feel. To go from living together to just weekends... it’s been pretty tough, hasn’t it?”

Summer turned her head and peered through the window at the nearly starless night. Large beads of rain slammed into the panes of glass: thwack, thwack. “Yeah,” she said. “It has.” Summer placed the mug at her side and crawled up to the couch.

“I still don’t think I’ll ever understand why you decided to join the Royal Guard. Couldn’t say I ever saw that coming. But I’m so proud of you, hun.”

“Thank you, Plackie. You know that means a lot to me.”

“You’re following your dreams, my love. There’s nothing more admirable than that.” He turned to face her, and delivered her a quick peck to the cheek before resting his head on her shoulder.

“And it’s only for a little while, after all. Two years isn’t so long. Then you’ll come back to me here and move back in again, and everything’ll be perfect.”

The corners of Summer Sirocco’s mouth turned upwards. But she was not smiling.

“Then—way, way in the future someday—maybe we’ll get married, Summer. Maybe we’ll get married and we can settle down and move out of the city: somewhere rustic and quiet, or how about somewhere beachy? We could raise a few foals, even. Have a nice, little family, in our nice, little beach house. Wouldn’t that be nice, dear?”

Summer did not respond.

“Honey?”

Maybe we’ll get married.

We can settle.

“Honey, I’m sorry, did I say something wrong?” He took his head off of her shoulder. “I’m not— uh, I mean, I didn’t—”

“You didn’t what, Placket?”

“Summer, I didn’t mean anything by it,” he breathed, drawing his hoof up to her cheek. She swatted it away like it was some hideous insect and he recoiled instantly, his eyes welling up despite himself.

“If you didn’t mean anything by it, then why did you say it?”

“Honey!” he started, before pausing to take a breath. “Honey. We’ve been together for three years. I’m just thinking out loud.”

“Oh, are you? You are? Why haven’t I heard these thoughts before, then?” She narrowed her eyes and leaned forward with hunched shoulders. “Is this the first time you’ve thought about this perfect little happy family you’ve apparently got planned for us? Sounds to me like you’ve really thought it through, haven’t you?”

Placket waved his hooves in front of his face. “No! No, I— well, maybe?”

“Maybe. Maybe? That’s your answer?”

“Honey! Honey, please! I’m sorry, all right? I’m sorry!”

She rose from the couch. “When did you start thinking we were going to get married and have foals together?” she asked him.

“Summer, please, I neve—”

“When?”

Her eyes dug into his, as a new silence snaked its way into the room.

“I honestly don’t remember, Summer. A while ago.”

The mare took two slow steps back, gaze faltering into unfocus. She thought of her dreams and of her realities. She couldn’t really blame him, could she? It was a natural thing for him to think. But now she understood his personal portrait of her: she was a future wife. A palm tree, rooted at home along the coastline. That was Summer.

“I’m sorry,” she choked out through trembling and tears. “This isn’t your fault. I’m sorry.” Summer kissed the silenced unicorn on his forehead.

“I have to go,” she informed him. Then she moved to the door, pulled it open, and stepped outside.

---

Amid the relentless whoosh of torrential rain crashing upon the Canterlot cobblestone, Summer could scarcely hear her name being called by the frantic unicorn galloping after her.

“Summer!” it called. “Summer, wait!”

But on this night, she did not stop for Placket. She would not have stopped for Zephyr, or Skyblaze, or her father, or Princess Celestia herself. On this night, she wasn’t running from her coltfriend. She was running for her life. And it was time for her to take it back.

---

“Does it hurt?” she asked.

“What if I told you it does?”

Summer looked down at the ground. “I’d still do it.”

“You didn’t even ask how much.”

“I’d still do it,” she repeated.

The captain turned to the mare next to him. “It doesn’t hurt, Summer. Don’t worry.”

By the light of the moon, captain and civilian trotted through the tall, iron gateway that surrounded the estate of Canterlot Castle. With each hoof fallen upon the pristine brick walkway, the castle rose higher and higher above her.

“Which one is it?” she asked.

“That one,” he replied, taking to his wings briefly to gesture towards a two-tone minaret of gold with a black spiral running top-to-bottom, a shining silver globe resting upon its point.

Summer and Quarrel stepped through the castle’s titanic marble archway and into its emptied Great Hall, weakly lit by moonlight through darkened stained glass. The beating of their hooves against the stone resounded through the hall, overshadowing the beating she heard in her ears and felt in her chest. Summer clenched her teeth.

The two worked their way up the wide set of stairs before them and, upon reaching the main landing, the meandering staircase to their right. By the time they reached the intricately carved, oaken door at the top, adrenaline was the only thing keeping Summer upright.

Knock, knock, knock.

“Come in.”

He grabbed the iron ring pull at the side of the door, twisted it, and then forced the door open with his shoulder. The giant wooden structure slowly acquiesced.

Behind it was a room of blues and violets, and darkness thick enough to hide the room’s walls from Summer’s view. The faint light that shone through the opened door revealed the floor near the entrance to be made of gray stone. And in the midst of the darkness, illuminated by two tall torches of cobalt flame, stood the great Princess of the Night; her star-speckled, midnight mane caught the light from the flame and took on an indigo sheen as it billowed and flowed at her back.

Summer’s eyes grew wide and she froze in her place.

“This is where you bow,” said the captain, and Summer hastily complied.

“Princess Luna,” she said. “It’s an honor.”

Luna lowered her head and smiled slightly. “Please, come in.”

Summer crossed through the darkness and bowed again before her princess.

“Oh, there’s no need for that,” said Luna, placing her hoof on the mare’s shoulder. “It’s just the first time,” she added with a broadened smile.

“Princess, I— I don’t quite understand why I’m here.”

Luna shot a glance at the captain. “You didn’t explain it to her, Quarrel?”

The guard’s bright, wide eyes grew even wider, and he slapped his hoof against the back of his neck. “Uh, sorry, Your Majesty.”

Luna took a moment to shake her head and breathe a heavy sigh. Then, refocusing on Summer, her smile returned immediately.

“Summer Sirocco, right?”

A giddy grin played across Summer’s face. “You pronounced my last name right!”

“How else would anypony say it?” she asked with a wink.

Luna cleared her throat. “Anyway, you’re here because the Night Guard transformation spell isn’t an easy one. It’s really only my sister and I who can do it, and she has to try a few times before it works. You don’t want to see what happens when it doesn’t work. But it’s usually fixable. Usually fixable.”

The smile fled Summer’s face faster than she had fled from Placket.

Luna’s eyes widened and she again placed her hoof on Summer’s shoulder. “No, no, no, Summer. I’m sorry. That was a little joke.” Turning again to her captain, the princess admonished him: “I told you she wouldn’t find it funny, Quarrel.”

The Night Guard, lips curled in and cheeks filled with air, dabbed at his watering eyes with the corners of his wings. “Sorry again, Your Majesty,” he forced through swallowed laughter.

“I apologize for him, Summer. This is how the Night Guard like to welcome the new entries.” She rolled her eyes.

“But,” Luna announced a bit louder than she needed to, taking a second to glare at the snickering soldier before returning to address Summer, “you aren’t a new entry just yet. There’s one more thing you need to do.”

“Anything, Princess.”

“Summer, the Night Guard transformation is not reversible.” she cautioned, the tone of her voiced distinctly lowered. “I need to know that you aren’t making a mistake.”

Princess Luna blinked deliberately, and stared into Summer’s eyes. “Answer me this: why do you want to be a different pony?”

Well, why had she entered the academy?

I thought it would teach me to be disciplined, she had told the captain just a few days ago. But this was different, wasn’t it?

Summer straightened herself and looked up at Luna. “My problem is not that I can’t follow rules, princess. My problem is that I follow the wrong ones.”

Her eyes fell to the floor. “My father abandoned my family when I was small, and when he did he set a rule: ‘I must never delude myself into thinking that I am of any worth to anypony.’ When this cutie mark appeared it set another one: ‘I must never pretend as though I’m destined for anything other than mediocrity.’”

She shook her head. “And I almost allowed a relationship to set a third one: ‘Someday, I must stop chasing my dreams.’” She scraped at the floor with one of her front hooves, and raised her eyes to meet the midnight mare’s.

“Princess, I want to follow a set of rules that I choose for myself. And if that means becoming a Night Guard, then so be it. Let it serve as my first unbreakable commitment: to Equestria, and to myself.”

Luna and Quarrel exchanged a quick glance before the princess stretched her wings and closed her eyes. “Well said.”

“Thank you,” she replied.

“Are you ready?”

She took a long, slow breath. “I am.”

Luna brought her head low to the ground and pointed her horn directly at Summer. And as a flare of violet light began to slowly build across the length of it, Summer Sirocco found herself softly whispering the only rule she would choose to keep:

Never settle. Never settle.