The sky ship finally makes landfall, it’s broad side facing towards the large doors of the extravagant castle-palace. Soldiers or guards of some kind began forming up into lines, flanking the path from the ship to the doors. Their placement was as much to keep watch over the sky ship and corral it’s hoof traffic towards the castle-palace, as it was to keep the slowly gathering crowd of civilian pony equines from interfering. These pony soldiers all had the same uniform colour palettes, wore golden and ornate platemail armour, and carried beautifully crafted spears. But strangely enough, their armour did not offer as much coverage as the scale mail of the Imperial forces, nevermind the honourguards. Most glaring of all was how their entire undercarriage was completely exposed, with nothing but a strap underneath to secure the entire main plate! It was almost as if their armour was more ceremonial than functional. Was this just another show of their opulence? Was it telling of a weak, performative military, engendered by a lack of true opposition? Or were these just a special class of guard, with their true military forces equipped differently? At this stage, I could not guess.