Ink Spot nodded, the corner of his mouth quirking just a bit. "I was sent in to provide them with a cover story." He sighed. "I don't know how or why Celestia selected me. I suppose she read my profile from when I applied to join the Royal Secret Service, back when I was barely a colt. Silly thing I was back then...
" Anyway, she sent a scroll right to my office requesting that I come to her aid, for Crown and Country, all that. I guess I still had a few of those silly fantasies from when I was younger, because I snapped it up." He looked at her, obviously embarrassed. "Would you believe I actually went out and bought a tuxedo and a Super Secret Spy Decoder signal watch?"
Twilight couldn't help snickering at that.
"But.... all I was supposed to do was come in, babble something about birdwatching to explain two ponies in a cloud full of cameras and binoculars, linger a few days, and then be on my merry way." He looked her in the eye. "But... after I met you..."
Her breath caught in her throat.
"I kept finding excuses to linger on," he confessed. "After the first day or so I 'suggested' to the Princess that I might be of use as a, um, close agent, that I could help protect you. She seemed surprisingly enthusiastic about the suggestion."
"She would be," Twilight said, her voice flat as a table. She had a brief vision of Celestia gleefully dancing along the rooftop overhead with marionette strings in her hooves: High on a hill stood a lonely goat-herd lay-de-odel-a-de-odel-ay-de-oh....
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/30242/26/nightmare-night-and-nyx/chapter-26