“Sir, returning medical asset as instructed, Sir!” Lieutenant Stratomane announced, saluting as he and Skasis came to a halt just after entering the foyer of Commander Hurricane’s fort.

The Commander was standing just inside the opening on the wall opposite the large fireplace. It was a narrow opening, not even two ponies wide, and it led out to a small balcony that allowed a sweeping view of the entire half of the landscape that it faced. Even standing on the inside of the opening to it, as she had been, one could easily still overview much of the surrounding world.

“Dismissed,” she replied, returning his salute with a dismissal nod after turning to face the two of them.

The Lieutenant dropped his salute and exited the room, leaving the Commander and Skasis alone.

“So, what’s this I hear about you talking to my soldiers in a condescending manner, Prissy Hooves?” she asked suddenly, the instant the Lieutenant had left, catching Skasis completely off-guard and leaving him unable to even produce words. All he could do was simply experience the swift tensing of the muscles in the back of his neck, and the uncomfortable sensation of being hot under his fur that came with being under scrutiny.

The Commander stood waiting, examining his face with a piercing look.

“Do you think you’re better?” she asked with such a simple tone, as if it were just an ordinary question. All Skasis could do was begin to express his distress on his face.

“Do you think you’re better than us, Unicorn?” she questioned him furiously, barely holding back from a yell.

“What? No,” Skasis finally managed to force out at least a pair of words.

“Then why were you speaking like that to MY soldiers?” she demanded.

“Wh-th-that’s just . . . uh-how I talk . . . when ponies ask me stupid questions. T-that’s just how I am,” he answered, stuttering out the truth.

She lifted her head high and lowered it very slowly in a raised, acknowledging nod. “I see, so you’re Arrogant,” she concluded.

“ . . . What?” Skasis couldn’t even respond any other way; her words hit him so sideways.

“You’re arrogant,” she explained her conclusion so simply, “you don’t think you’re better than my soldiers, or better than Pegasi, you just think you’re smarter than everypony else.”

By that point Skasis was beginning to mentally cave in. He has no verbal reaction to her, he just stood there, shifting through facial expressions ranging from offended to confusion, until his internal self-image shield shatters from her precise strike. All he wanted to was shut down: just leave everything and go mope by himself like he always had . . . but that wasn’t an option now; he couldn’t escape anymore. He dropped his head and shifted his eyes’ focus to the side, deliberately avoiding looking at her.

“. . . Yeah,” he finally conceded to her . . . and to his reality.

The Commander relaxed her expression upon hid admition, and nodded once, as had become her usual.

“I see. It’s not surprising; vanity’s pretty common among you,” she said.

Skasis clenched his teeth together hard, trying to generate some sensation strong enough to overpower the pre-tear sting that was crawling up the ridge of his nose. His eyes, however, were already on the verge of watering. The moment with her that just passed had truly cut him deep.

“You asked to stay here, in MY city. That is by far THE most outlandish request I have ever heard, given the cirumcstances, from anypony. Despite how outlandish it sounded, I agreed to allow it BECAUSE of your value as a medical asset,” she told him.

The Commander stepped uncomfortably close, luring Skasis to raise his head and find her threatening war-face noses from his.

“I won’t revoke my acceptance of your request to stay with us, but understand this, Prissy Hooves,” she said, quietly and threatening, and almost with a growl, “that attitude has no place here. Got it?”

“Yes Sir,” he responded in the weakest, most hollow and submissive voice he had ever used in his life.

The Commander backed off after he did, and stepped several paces away moving towards the doorway to her own quarters. She stopped half way, looking back and taking notice that Skasis had been severely shredded by her concise assault.

“Skasis,” she called for his attention.

Skasis lifted his head back up in her direction, most of the will to do so coming from her having used his real name.

“I was also informed you actually took a position of authority and direction amidst the infirmaries you were taken to, as well as that you found the ability to project yourself despite your. I commend you. Those qualities are the beginnings of leadership, something all true soldiers possess. You’ve displayed a number of traits befitting of a soldier now. For one of your kind that’s exemplary, and I’ll give you my recognition,” she makes the effort to tell him.

Skasis’s eyes seemed to dry in seconds, and their irises swelled as before when the Commander removed her helmet to him outside of Private Pansy’s home. For him, her speaking so positively of him sunk in just as deep as her harsh attack had cut.

“. . . thank you . . . Sir,” he said.

“Is there anything else you would like to raise in this debriefing before I permit you to retire?” she asked him.

He had to think for a moment, not really positive of anything having been asked the question so suddenly after what had just transpired. “Ah-Is there anyplace I can take a shower? Or, I’m sorry, Sir, may I be allowed to take a shower?” he asked hesitantly.

“A shower?” she asked, with a disapproving raised eyebrow making Skasis instantly regret answering her question.

“Yes Sir,” he chose to just say something, since he had already trapped himself with his own response, “my coat is kind of . . .”

Skasis stopped when the Commander looked at him with an expression that clearly said that she’d had enough, and he just prepared to hang his head again.

“Vanity abounds in your kind,” she replied, shaking her head.

“I’ll see you at 0600,” she then said, turning about and walking away into her own quarters for the night.

With nothing else to do, Skasis dragged his hooves over into his narrow little room, and even used his magic to lift the charged cloud closed beyond him locking himself in.

He spent an hour trying to fall asleep, wondering again about what was becoming of Himmel in his absence, and about who he himself had once been . . . until just recently. And who he might now be collapsing into as the Commander landed blow after blow on his entirety of his identity.

***

The next two weeks went by at something of a normal pacing, with Skasis mainly being taken through the same routine every day. There were no such things as weekends, not amongst the Pegasi of this time period, and since he’d yet to be taken to treat ground ponies Skasis could only assume there was no such thing as weekends or time off at all. He just guessed that such a thing wouldn’t come about until the Princesses first came.

Day by day, Skasis got used to routine expected of him, and by the time two full weeks had actually passed it had begun to almost feel normal. The fact that it had begun to feel as much did unnerve him a little bit, just every other swift adaptation to unwanted changes he’d gone through in the past had as well. But, his submissiveness won out, and he resigned to the reality that was now his: he was here in this time period now, until either . . . until either The Doctor and Derpy returned for him, or he ended up dying here however long he might end up living after the recent founding of Equestria.

***

Skasis rushed through the air, carried by a strong Pegasus guard flying alongside Commander Hurricane and three others. They were flying in a sloping descent towards a large building of stone down in the dale below, the largest that Skasis could see amongst all that had been thrown together in the short time the tribes had been there for.

“So, Prissy Hooves,” Commander Hurricane suddenly spoke to him, “how are you taking to your new, disciplined lifestyle?”

“Really well, actually,” he responded, much to her evident surprise.

“I really actually enjoy having structure and a set routine. I just . . . I never had the self-discipline to impose them on myself. That’s why I loved the University so much, or—part of the reason,” he explained to her.

The use of the word university only incited confusion and its accompanying curiosity, though. “University?” she asked.

“The place where I learned everything I know,” he gave the simplest explanation he could, remember only after he’d used the word that no universities existed yet.

“I hardly believe that you ground-dwellers have anything matching the regimentation of MY military,” she countered back with a racist tone similar to that of Private Healed.

Skasis was overwhelmingly relieved at her focus on racism, however, and found himself able to speak without as much worry knowing she would likely default to it.

“Uh . . . no, i—it’s not anything close,” he assured her. “W—we just had classes-or instruction in certain subjects at specific times on set days,” he said after.

“Hmf, I still wouldn’t idly believe that you all could tolerate living under such conditions,” she reaffirmed her belief.

“Well . . . a lot of ponies did drop out first year . . .” Skasis had to admit, as even though he was just using her racism to try to get away from any actual questioning about what a university was, what he admitted was a true statistic.

The Comander let out a horse-snort. “I would suspect as much,” she said.

Skasis lets his head hang so that he faces straight downward to the ground. It served to make her assume he had deflated as he normally did after such comments from her, which he may have had the circumstances been different. However, it also allowed him to look down across the great spanning valley at all the moving shapes of different colored coats. There were so many ponies moving about in just this area . . . all having fled in a mass migration from their race’s former homeland in the north.

“Is there really still so much racism here after the unity?” Skasis wondered to himself as they flew on and the ground grew ever closer, “I wonder how much the Hearth’s Warming Eve plays must have been exaggerating the change in the leaders’ hearts?”

He picked his head up again suddenly upon recalling the immediate memory of finding Private Pansy the mate of an Earth Pony, and that the Private and Smart Cookie were good friends in reality.

“You’re different, Prissy Hooves,” the Commander said all of the sudden.

He snapped his head over to her, ripped out of his spacing gaze at all the ponies below.

“You’re a strange pony, and outlandish as I’ve already said. But you keep displaying qualities worthy of a soldier. You’re more relatable to a Pegasus than initially took you for . . .” she admitted, and in a manner that made Skasis believe it took a lot for her to do so.

Skasis had never, up until that point, considered being called a Pegasus a compliment, as . . . well to him, being from modern Equestria he just regarded all ponies as just that: just ponies. But from her, right then, the comment means the world to him. He even let his mouth fall open a ways in reaction to just how unexpected it was.

“Welcome, to the Valiant Commander Hurricane!” a tremendously projecting voice cried out from below, announcing their arrival. The five Pegasi landed on the stone outlay before the steps leading up to the large wooden double doors of the gathering hall. The guard carrying Skasis lowers him onto his hooves first, actually placing him onto the ground and not merely dropping him from a pony’s height up as the Commander had last time.

“I’m going to present you to other tribes’ assemblies, and disclose the information about your medical abilities. You will likely begin being taken to treat Earth Ponies and Unicorns soon after today,” the Commander explained to Skasis as they all walk up the steps.

“S-s-sir,” he begins to ask, drawing an actual look from her, “can I still stay in the clouds?”

She responded to him only with what was perhaps the strangest look she had given him yet, and then turned her head forward again and seemed to debate his request.

Before she can answer, the doors are opened and a grand hall with a long banquet table is revealed. Skasis followed as the Commander walked inside. The four accompanying guard entered as well, remaining just on the inside of the door: one pair on each side. Skasis went on with the Commander. She stops just before reaching the table, and he hesitates before trotting the extra two steps forth and to the left, standing at her side.

Author's Note

Well, here we are, at chapter 7. Another short one right before a long one, and our first REAL time-skip, though only jumping forward by 2 weeks.

No, for anypony wondering, Pegasi of the founding time period are not always dirty or anything, they just are kept generally clean by flying through the heavy rain of a good storm every so often, and just look down on the other two tribes' (in particular, the Unicorns) treatment of washing themselves as some kind of leisurely relaxation activity (i.e. long showers or baths).

Next chapter will be longer again, and you'll get to see/hear the other leaders and their associated assistants :)

Hope everypony's enjoying . . . though from thumbs count it seems a growing number aren't :(