The Commander paced methodically back and forth in front of Skasis for a brief time before suddenly halting right in front of him and turning herself to face him directly.

“Listen carefully to me, Prissy Hooves,” she began to explain to him, very intensely, “I’m going to give you a chance to speak now. If you do, you’d better tell me everything: everything about you and your missing comrades, who you are, where you’re from, and WHAT you’re doing here. Everything!”

The Commander swiftly brought her face within a nose of Skasis’s, with a display of intensity Skasis had never before seen. After a few seconds, she slowly raised an eyebrow, already impatient waiting for a response. “Well?” she prodded him verbally.

Skasis’s face turned quickly red and he started feeling internally hot and externally cold, in some mixture of fear and subliminal panic.

He clenched his teeth on his own, while his throat tightened itself subconsciously. “I-eh um,” he began, getting caught in a brief few seconds of hesitation before going on, “I’m not good at explaining myself in situations like this. I lose the ability to speak clearly. I-I would rather just have you question me.”

“Unable to handle pressure, hah?” she responded, “I’d expect as much from one of you.“

The Commander relaxed her eyes for a moment as she pulled her face back from his, relieving some bit of the discomfort her intensity had been bringing Skasis.

“But, your honesty might you lead you well with me,” she then said, saying so with nearly the same, almost friendly voice she had thanked him in outside of Private Pansy’s home.

“Thankyou, Sir,” Skasis responded quietly, and with some relief.

“Thank me if you’re allowed to leave,” she snapped back, and then sprang right into questioning him without any further warning, “now, we begin, Prissy Hooves. Who are you?”

“Skasis Greeneyes Paradigm,” Skasis gave the only answer.

“Where are you from?” she asked next.

“Ah-I’ve lived in a lot of places. I’m not really from one place” he said.

The Commander leaned her head in closer to him with a suspicious look for a few seconds, but then relented the expression and retracted back from him again.

“I see,” she says, nodding once. “I would expect you would have to, having parents of,” she went, break for an instant to shudder, “an outlandish mate pairing. Were you outcasted because of them?”

“Well, I was usually an outcast everywhere we lived, but not for that reason,” Skasis replied.

His reply incited her to raise an eyebrow at him again. “Then for what do you believe you were? Do you yourself not find your parents . . . unnatural?” she asked, not shuddering, but still stiffening at her own last word.

“No,” he answered, his voice becoming more glum as he continued, “and I just . . . I’m really not good at interacting with other ponies, socially. I only really have one friend, besides my brother,” he ended sadly, and without mentioning that by his brother he meant his familiar/pet hawk.

The Commander looked away from Skasis, not allowing him to witness her eyes softening for the few seconds that they did.
“I see. I forgot frequent socializing is something commonly instilled among you ground dwellers,” she responded, and then was silent for a brief moment until the softness drained away from her eyes once more. Then she resumed staring him down, and actually narrowed her eyes as she spoke again. So your lack of it makes you something of an outcast, you said? Has that ever left you feeling angered against everypony? Resentful?” she asked in a very testing manner.

“No—not really . . . I mean sometimes-“ he said until she zeroed in on his wavering answer and interrupted.

“So nopony on the ground will accept you because you can’t socialize, and Pegasi won't accept you because you can’t fly. That must be quite a bit of resentment you have built up?” she said almost provocatively, keeping her eyes narrowed.

“I don’t really care that much,” Skasis said with some rising negativity.

“Really?” she kept going without any relent, “Are you sure it doesn’t get tiring after a while? Time after time, no matter how hard you try you know it will still never be good enough for anypony?”

The Commander restrained herself at the last second; emotion had been growing in display on Skasis’s face, and it was enough for a reaction.

“Yeah, yeah it does. And I’m SO sick of it! But it’s not like I’m gonna do anything like. Hmpf. It’s always my fault anyways. No matter what excuses I make up for myself right after something happens, I always have to realize that it was me in the end . . . for everypony else’s sake . . .” he ended his short outburst unable to continue holding her gaze, and just looking away with a face full of bitterness.

The Commander had listened, and observed him carefully, and even stood silent looking as if she were in hard thought for a long moment afterwards.

“Accepting responsibility; for your own failure and failure that may be the fault of others? Another soldier’s quality, partly misplaced, and another I wouldn’t have expected a Unicorn to have,” the Commander finally spoke again, and relaxed her face just slightly as she did so. All the while, utter surprise spread across Skasis’s face once again at her speaking something of such positive regard to him.

“Let us move on,” she suddenly resumed again, “past that and on to more of the pressing matters at hoof. Who are your two comrades, and where are they?”

“One of them’s a female Pegasus,” he began, “her name’s Ditzy Doo, and the other pony is just called The Doctor, and he’s an Earth Pony. Uh . . . they-WE are not really emissaries, we’re ah—travelers . . . and I have no idea where they are, or when they are. I-I don’t even know if they’re ever coming back . . . I’m lost,” he admitted in as much of a self-realization as it was answer to her questioning.

“Why did you impersonate emissaries?” she asked.

“It was just the first disguise The Doctor could think of,” he answered.

“Are you a spy, Skasis Paradigm?” she asked in a very open challenge.

The question hit him so side-ways that Skasis was left struggling to produce even the simple and only response. “Wha-dt-h NO!” he barely managed to say.

The Commander glared at Skasis for a good moment, reading him, and leaving him increasingly afraid of her with each passing second. After that moment had passed though, she suddenly relaxed her expression, all the way back to an almost completely neutral one. She sighed, for the first time Skasis had heard.

“You have no intentions of harming us. You’re just incompetent, and you’ve been deserted. What you did do, however, was not acceptable: lying to multiple officers of My Military, and intending to lie to me myself,” she said.

Skasis braced himself, and held a resigned look on his face.

“As a punishment, you’re going to be taken advantage of, by me,” she told him, much to his confusion.

“Sir?” he asked.

“You can clearly make yourself capable of walking on clouds, and your medical treatment is unlike anything I’ve ever seen or heard of. I have every intention of having you see every soldier in every infirmary,” she stated, and then added on, “and then I just MIGHT have you placed back on the ground among the rest of you.”

Skasis stared at her for a moment, uneasy about the end suggestion she had made. “Can I stay here, Sir? Until my comrades return, at least. I’d like it better to stay up here in the clouds,” he asked her with a clear share of nervousness.

She gave him, in turn, the closest look to confusion he had seen her produce yet. “Very well. But you WILL be taken to treat ground ponies. Your medical skills must be shared with the other two tribes . . . for the sake of our new unity,” she said. "In the meantime you will be escorted to the medics mess hall and then to a secure set of quarters for your permitted eight hours," she then told him.

Skasis took notice after she’d spoken that the sun was setting outside, and assumed it must have been near what was their standard of dinner time. He also grudgingly assumed “permitted eight hours” meant eight hours of sleep, or at least some form of rest. He was still overwhelmingly relieved, however, that at least she had said he was going to be taken to a set of quarters as opposed to being thrown in some kind of dungeon. Though, the concept of being left alone to be taken around by some random set of Pegasi soldiers felt slightly imposing to him. He would much rather have the Commander do it, and for more than one reason, one of which he does not yet entirely know, and the other being that she was the only pony he is even remotely familiar with and used to other than . . .

“Sir, you summoned for me, Sir?” Lieutenant Stratomane addressed and stopped to salute the Commander as he entered in.
Skasis’s face brightened up a good bit upon recognizing the Lieutenant’s voice, and turning around to see him standing right inside of the entryway to the foyer.

The Commander immediately began instructing him, “Yes, our new medical asset needs an assigned escort to be taken between infirmaries, the medics mess hall and my stronghold. Since you’re the one pony who’s had the most interaction with him, I find appropriate to assign the duty to you. You are to take him to the medics’ mess hall this evening, and then return him here immediately. Are your orders understood?”

“Yes Sir!” the Lieutenant replied obediently with another salute.

She saluted him back again and nodded at the two of them. “Get on with it then. I have matters to oversee,” she said, preparing to leave herself.

“Let’s get a move on,” the Lieutenant said to Skasis and turns about to step back out.

Skasis froze for a few seconds, shifting his head from the Commander, who was walking off to a lift off from a balcony, and back to the Lieutenant who had already taken several steps to leave but was stopped looking back at Skasis, waiting. Skasis trotted hastily to catch the Lieutenant and then dropped to a normal walking speed to match his.

As soon as they rounded the corner of the narrow hallway, the Lieutenant’s demeanor changed and the natural, calm smile he’d had most of the day before when he’d escorted Skasis and the others around came back.

“Well, whoever you may really be,” the Lieutenant suddenly began, “I have to thank you again, E—Skasis Paradigm. Those red . . . tablets, I believe I remember you calling them, you gave me performed just as you said they would. My leg was near completely painless for the remainder of yesterday after I’d swallowed your medicine. Oh, and my son! He’s feeling so much better; he’s not even sick in the slightest! And, he won’t stop talking and asking about you, the unicorn who saved his tummy. I’ve never actually seen him idolize anypony before,” the Lieutenant looked nearly as amazed as he sounded as he finished speaking to the young unicorn walking next to him.

Skasis was unaffected initially by being told the medical chemicals carried out the reactions they should have been expected to, but he begun to feel different the more they kept walking. He felt . . . strangely filled, fueled in a way when the Lieutenant expressed his utter delight, and spoke of his son’s apparent looking up to Skasis.

Skasis was hit in that next moment by running flashbacks of things Sundial had said about him, along with other ponies from all across his past telling him quite bluntly how arrogant he was, or how much so they perceived him to be, and it just launched him into his self-devaluation thought process that had become so habitual to him.

“Yeah, I’m not anypony to idolize,” Skasis said.

“He’s a foal, Skasis. He never knew you before, and you just came into his world and fixed everything for him, in a way that not even his own mother and father could do. He’s going to think you’re a hero . . . and little foals need to have some,” the Lieutenant said back, his tone almost stern until the end.

Skasis went back to looking forward, and his gaze fell to the cloud floor as he absorbed what the Lietuenant just said while the two of them walked away.

***

“Sir, returning medical asset as ordered, Sir,” Lieutenant Stratomane announced his and Skasis’s return as the two of them entered the Commander’s small fort.

“Thank you Lieutenant,” she said, approaching them from the middle of the foyer. “Report back here for escort again at 0630 tomorrow. You’re dismissed,” she then ordered after.

“Yes Sir, understood,” the Lieutenant replied, saluting before he turned and left for his own cloud home.

“As for you, Prissy Hooves,” Commander Hurricane suddenly began to inform Skasis in a clearly non-negotiable manner, “your duties will begin tomorrow. You’ll be taken about our infirmaries by my Lieutenant over the coming days, until you have treated every PONY you can in every WAY that you can. Is that understood?” she asked.

“Yes Sir,” Skasis answered, entirely in submission.

“Excellent. Once your medical capabilities have been made use of to the greatest possible benefit to all of the free tribes, you’ll be released your effectively-indentured service. Until then, you serve the new Union of Equestria, and you answer to ME! Is that clear? Prissy Hooves?” she told him thoroughly, and then questioned his acceptance again.

“Yes Sir,” he responded again, in complete submission still.

She allowed her expression to go neutral for the following moment, which Skasis had begun to recognize at that point as her nonverbal signal of approval, to a certain degree.

She turns away from him and walked towards the longer wall opposite the open balcony, heading near the corner where it met the wall which held the exit. Skasis shifted his position to observe what she was doing, legitimately curious.

When she reached the wall, the Commander effortlessly, without raising herself up on her hind legs at all, performs a set of three hoof-jabs at near-sonic velocity, the end result of which was the clearing away of a roughly pony-sized doorway through the cloud wall to some small room behind it that practically resembled a prison cell in Skasis’s mind.

“Although I’ve already determined you mean the three tribes no harm, I am taking every necessary precaution for the protection of our new land. When you’re not under my Lieutenant’s supervision, you’re to be kept in the most secure location possible,” she said and then paused to convey an intimidating stare, “in case you decide to try something.”

In another situation with a different pony Skasis would have likely complained about not being trusted, but he doesn’t. Instead, he moves over to where the Commander is standing and peers inside the room.

The room was less than half the size of his University dorm room, at two pony-lengths long and one pony-length wide. It contained a cot-sized cloud bed protruding from the wall at knee level, and a small opening in the opposite wall served as a face-sized window looking out at some of the underside of upper Pegasopolis, and the misty mountains far off at the horizon.

“These are your quarters for the duration of your indentured medical service. You have eight hours of permitted off-time starting now, and I highly encourage you to use it for shut-eye. I need you awake and focused when you’re taken out tomorrow. You rise when I rise: 0600. Am I understood?” she said, and demanded yet another response of confirmation.

He really would have groaned at the thought of getting up so early had it been almost any other situation . . . but not then, not in response to her. “Yes Sir,” he just complied.

The Commander hovered off of the cloud floor and flapped a pace back out of the entrance to Skasis’s room. She then closed up the opening in the cloud wall behind him and kicked it hard with her hind legs, causing it to rumble and flash with electric charge. It basically was prison cell to Skasis at that point; it was pretty obvious putting a charge into that cloud was meant to keep him from trying to leave on his own.

Skasis didn’t stand there staring at the shut cloud for long. He pretty quickly succumbed to how tired he’d been kept from realizing he was, and settled onto his narrow bed. It took him a long while to fall asleep, and he wondered and worried about Himmel as he laid there trying.

His pet, who had always been his brother to him, went to sleep lonely and miserable as well, back ahead through time in modern Equestria resting atop the roof of Skasis’s dorm building in Canterlot.

Author's Note

Next story portion.

I'll leave the reference for Himmel down here in the Author's notes for a while. Himmel is the name of Skasis's pet/familiar, a hawk who he's had since was a colt (since Himmel's been made a familiar -in magic terminology of most fantasy it means a wizard/sorcerer's pet- he will live as long as Skasis does) whom because of such, and because of Skasis having practically no other friends (except for Shooting Star -a fellow unicorn and student at the Royal Canterlot University back in present day Equestria-) Skasis literally feels that Himmel is his brother.

If question's arise to anypony feel free to ask and I'll add and explanation for all in the author's notes, unless the question raised regards something specifically being saved for a in-story reveal later down the line.