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"This is a serious drill, Roseluck," Celestia said. "Aren't you supposed to be below deck?"


 
"Aren't you supposed to be in full uniform?" Roseluck smiled up at her Princess from the deck of the Celestia,. thHers pwas not a glamorous assignment, but she had taken the post as soon as she'd earned athe choice. It wasn't a glamorous assignment. Equestria had been forced to learn a lot in a hurry in the early years of the war, such as how to build military vessels at all, and the Celestia was one of the first pony-built warships that wasn't basically a few turrets snapped onto a container ship. She wasn't the largest, the best-armed, the toughest, or the fastest; she was consigned to home-waters duties indefinitely; literally every part of her was obsolete; and something broke down every other day; but she proudly bore the name Roseluck had been raised to know and love. She was the only choice the earth pony could have made.


 
"I am _*not_* wearing that." Celestia snorted and loosed another volley of shells towards an imaginary target far beyond the horizon. Roseluck giggled. Once her ship had been assigned to the Royal Defence Task Force--a fancy name for a group of outdated ships that would stand and die to see the Princess escape if she was ever attacked--the earth pony had seen the real Celestia. Her serene, decorous mask, the idol Roseluck had been raised to adore, had been torn away in short order.


 
The real Celestia hated forms, uniforms, and protocol; insisted on getting her hooves dirty; pointedly ignored her doctors' and advisors' admonishments regarding her forced rapid growth and choice to join the Navy; and did _*something_* every day to rebel against the inactive assignments she was always given. Nopony dared take that away from her, and a screeching of metal against metal suggested she had chosen another "accidental" collision as today's something. Under the cover of her guns' lingering smoke, even the sharpest-eyed pegasus wouldn't be able to confirm the collision was deliberate.


 
"As you wish, Princess," Roseluck said, once her ears recovered from the awful noise. Her disillusionment had been jarring at first, but the earth pony found this Celestia to be a pony she could let her mane down around. A pony at all, in fact. A pony far better and deeper than her image and idols. A pony, she almost admitted, she could see herself spending the rest of--


 
"No, no, no no no." Roseluck shook her head and forced a laugh. No. That was silly. She was silly. She got up and trotted across the deck towards the nearest hatch. She had duty to attend to, before she worked herself into another panic and fainted. Serving with the Princess herself was the greatest privilege she had ever earned, and she was one more nervous failure away from a medical discharge. Unlike Celestia, the earth pony couldn't just ignore her doctor.


 
Celestia glanced back at the ship behind her just in time to spot a rose-coloured tail disappearing below deck, and sighed. While she had learned to conceal her emotions through a millennium of practice, her little ponies never could hide their feelings, especially not from her. Ignoring Roseluck's would only work for the rest of the war; what in the world was she supposed to do afterwards? Pretend to feel the same? Send her home? Give her a medal for... what? That seemed especially inappropriate, but what _could_ she do? Acknowledgement broke ponies as surely as ignoring their feelings.


 
Celestia wondered if she could get away with hanging her head. Probably not, she decided. On command, she launched another volley of shells out over the water with barely a thought. There wasn't anything else she could do.

"This is a serious drill, Roseluck," Celestia said. "Aren't you supposed to be below deck?"

"Aren't you supposed to be in full uniform?" Roseluck smiled up at her Princess from the deck of the Celestia, the post she had taken as soon as she'd earned a choice. It wasn't a glamorous assignment. Equestria had been forced to learn a lot in a hurry in the early years of the war, such as how to build military vessels at all, and the Celestia was one of the first pony-built warships that wasn't basically a few turrets snapped onto a container ship. She wasn't the largest, the best-armed, the toughest, or the fastest; she was consigned to home-waters duties indefinitely; literally every part of her was obsolete; and something broke down every other day; but she proudly bore the name Roseluck had been raised to know and love. She was the only choice the earth pony could have made.

"I am _not_ wearing that." Celestia snorted and loosed another volley of shells towards an imaginary target far beyond the horizon. Roseluck giggled. Once her ship had been assigned to the Royal Defence Task Force--a fancy name for a group of outdated ships that would stand and die to see the Princess escape if she was ever attacked--the earth pony had seen the real Celestia. Her serene, decorous mask, the idol Roseluck had been raised to adore, had been torn away in short order.

The real Celestia hated forms, uniforms, and protocol; insisted on getting her hooves dirty; pointedly ignored her doctors' and advisors' admonishments regarding her forced rapid growth and choice to join the Navy; and did _something_ every day to rebel against the inactive assignments she was always given. Nopony dared take that away from her, and a screeching of metal against metal suggested she had chosen another "accidental" collision as today's something. Under the cover of her guns' lingering smoke, even the sharpest-eyed pegasus wouldn't be able to confirm the collision was deliberate.

"As you wish, Princess," Roseluck said, once her ears recovered from the awful noise. Her disillusionment had been jarring at first, but the earth pony found this Celestia to be a pony she could let her mane down around. A pony at all, in fact. A pony far better and deeper than her image and idols. A pony, she almost admitted, she could see herself spending the rest of--

"No, no, no no no." Roseluck shook her head and forced a laugh. No. That was silly. She was silly. She got up and trotted across the deck towards the nearest hatch. She had duty to attend to, before she worked herself into another panic and fainted. Serving with the Princess herself was the greatest privilege she had ever earned, and she was one more nervous failure away from a medical discharge. Unlike Celestia, the earth pony couldn't just ignore her doctor.

Celestia glanced back at the ship behind her just in time to spot a rose-coloured tail disappearing below deck, and sighed. While she had learned to conceal her emotions through a millennium of practice, her little ponies never could hide their feelings, especially not from her. Ignoring Roseluck's would only work for the rest of the war; what in the world was she supposed to do afterwards? Pretend to feel the same? Send her home? Give her a medal for... what? That seemed especially inappropriate, but what _could_ she do? Acknowledgement broke ponies as surely as ignoring their feelings.

Celestia wondered if she could get away with hanging her head. Probably not, she decided. On command, she launched another volley of shells out over the water with barely a thought. There wasn't anything else she could do.