“Dad, why don’t you use your magic making a sword?”
Cross Tree smiled at his son over the tongs he gripped with his teeth, carefully swinging an angry red ingot over to the anvil in the center of the workshop. He quickly placed it in the vise, and with a few masterful flicks of his hooves the sizzling ingot was secure and the hammer was held aloft in the hoof grip. He brought the head down with practiced precision.
“I use my magic to make art. I use my hooves to make tools. And a sword is not a work of art. It’s a tool, just like my hammer here.”
He glanced at his son after each hammer stroke. Dark blue eyes, cool green hair that made Cross Tree taste mint whenever he saw it, a dark green bush of a mane. Tough little muscles on his ungainly coltish limbs. Little Reveille still wasn’t quite used to the loud noises of the workshop, and his eyes and ears still blinked and twitched with each resounding whack of hammer on steel. He had once shied away from the sparks when he was very young, but now he stood firm in his oversized goggles and thick apprentice apron, watching the sparks dance. Little yellow grasshoppers, he’d called them when he first witnessed the act of forging. Cross Tree could call that progress, at least.
“But dad, you use your magic to make everything else. I think it’s cool how you make everything hover in the air and fling it all around, like whoosh! Shyew!”
Cross Tree couldn’t help but smile as Reveille wildly flung his front hooves around. Thank Celestia he wasn’t a pegasus; the boy was flighty enough. “Yes, I guess that is pretty cool. But the fact remains that a sword needs to be made with your hooves. You need to feel the heat. The weight… every blow that goes into creating it. You need to know the sword so you have respect for it.”
The ingot was slowly, surely taking shape under each well aimed strike of the hammer. He could already see it in his mind. He saw the long, pleasing shape of the blade, the engraved hilt, the frightful tip that pointed with singular instinct towards whatever object was placed in front of it. Needing, wanting to cut and stab.
“You see a sword is not a nice tool. Take my hammer.”
Reveille wrinkled his nose as it clang, clanged away. “It’s noisy.”
“Yes. But it’s helpful. This hammer has been with me since I opened the shop. But it’s helped me make pots, pans, shoes, nails, other hammers, axes. Rakes, water pots, helmets, armor. This hammer creates things. If I ever used it to hurt something or somepony, I’d be ashamed of myself. But a sword…”
The ingot began to flatten out. Reveille saw it it becoming harder, less pliable, the blows echoing through his bones that much more clearly. He waited patiently as his father brought the ingot back to the forge and heated it back to its former red hot intensity. Since he couldn’t let his body wander while he was helping Dad or making his own little bits and baubles in the forge, he let his imagination bumble around instead. The vivid colors of the fire and the metal his father heated reminded Reveille of a sunset, or maybe Mama’s hair. She had the most beautiful hair in the world as far as he was concerned.
Cross Tree returned with the ingot heated to a proper temperature. Again, he placed it on the anvil, flicked his hooves, resumed working.
“See how it’s red all the way through? You can see the glow, this baby’s hot.”
“Yeah, Dad.”
“Give it a few test blows with the hammer…”
Reveille blinked every time, watching the little yellow grasshoppers dance.
“It shapes. See that? You have to get a feel for the temperature too. You’ll get used to it. Anyway, a sword is a tool that’s not used for hammering. It doesn’t get you firewood or dig up crops. It’s made for one thing and one thing only.”
Cross Tree stopped hammering and looked directly at his son. “Do you know what that is?”
Reveille’s dark blue eyes twitched between his father and the ingot, still taking shape. He shifted uncomfortably on his hooves.
“To… to hurt things.”
“That’s right. It’s a tool designed to hurt things, nothing more. That makes it a weapon. And that’s why I don’t use magic. I might use my magic to wield the sword when I’m done, but I have to know it inside and out. Whatever I do with this sword has to come from me and me alone. It will be a part of me, because if it ever needs to be unsheathed, Princesses forbid it, I’ll use it on a living creature. I need to know the kind of pain I’ll cause.”
Reveille didn’t fully understand. Cross Tree knew he didn’t. Reveille saw his father as the biggest, strongest pony in the world (except maybe for Mama). Who’d even want to pick a fight with him? One look of those fearsome orange eyes and even a hydra would go running scared! He didn’t want to think about his father having to hurt things. It just didn’t make sense. Dad didn’t start fights, and he never, ever hit another pony, not even when he was screaming mad like the time he found out Grape Vine had hit Peach Tree and made her cry. Real stallions weren’t supposed to make their fillyfriends cry. But Dad had snatched that bad stallion by the ear with his teeth and thrown him in jail himself. Mama had been upset, since because she was a Guard she thought she should’ve handled it, but Reveille thought Mama just wanted to smack Grape Vine around herself too. Peach Tree was nice, and she really liked the flower Reveille brought her. He hoped the bruise on her eye went away soon.
“But you’ll never have to do that, right Dad?” he asked. “I mean, we live in Equestria! It’s safe here, right? Mama and the other Guards keep us safe.”
Cross Tree’s hammering slackened off. He leaned away from the anvil and looked over Reveille’s head, to the Mistypine Forest at the edge of their town.
“That they do, son,” he said quietly. “That they do.”
That night, Reveille snuck downstairs when he heard his parents talking in low, worried tones, which made him worried. Even though it was way past his bedtime, he thought he was grown up enough to be able to listen in on adult talk.
“I don’t want to hear it, Cross Tree!”
“But dear, the boy’s got to learn how to use the things if I’m going to teach him how to make them!”
“Learning your trade is different from learning how to fight! I don’t want my only son near the accursed things outside of the forge. We agreed when we married, Cross Tree! He follows your career, not mine. What if he gets ideas about going into the Guard?”
“Then he does. And who are we to stop that? Songbird-”
“No, Cross Tree! I joined the Guard to protect ponies. And I’m protecting you two on top of that. Isn’t that enough to worry about?”
“He’s growing into a fine boy, Songbird. Learning to fight didn’t corrupt you! It made you the pony I wanted to spend my life with.”
“Don’t sweet talk your way out of this one! I joined the Guard so nopony else would have to. There’s so much out there that wants to hurt us, Cross Tree… I can’t put my little boy in the front lines of that. I refuse!”
Reveille dared to peek his head around the corner, looking through the hall to the front room. Cross Tree sat Songbird down on the big couch in front of the fireplace, holding her gently, stroking her wings and smoothing down her feathers. Mama always liked it when Dad stroked her wings. Reveille guessed it was a pegasus thing.
“I just get so worried, Cross Tree. Other ponies don’t know what we know in the Guard! We’re so safe here, and I want it to stay that way, but it makes it so easy to forget… so hard to see what’s really out there. I don’t want my child to deal with that!”
Cross Tree touched her under the chin, lifting her head. They whispered a few things that Reveille couldn’t hear, and he didn’t dare go closer. After a few minutes of talking, they kissed for a long time and disappeared over the top of the sofa. Reveille decided he wasn’t needed and crept back to bed. After all, they’d kissed, and kisses made everything better.
School wasn’t something that Reveille enjoyed very much. Learning to read and write was one thing—that way he could read about all the cool things the Princesses and Elements of Harmony did. But spelling and mouthwriting drills, pop math quizzes, and listening to their history teacher Peach Cobbler drone on and on about the state of affairs in the Griffin Kingdom two hundred years ago didn’t pass the fun test at all. Who cared what a bunch of stupid old griffins did to each other a long time ago? They didn’t come to Equestria anyway unless the Princesses allowed it. The part about King Sternwold Halfwing was mildly cool, mostly because he was evil and killed his family to stay king and Reveille liked hearing about evil kings getting their comeuppance, preferably by some other brave pony standing up to them. He wondered what it would be like to fight an evil griffin as he stared out the schoolhouse window watching the dandelions dance on a spring breeze, shining bright in the sun. Dad was a unicorn and would beat a griffin with some awesome spell, but Reveille was an earth pony. Not even a griffin could match the strength of a fully grown and well trained earth pony, mare or stallion. One solid buck and he’d send Sternwold flying back over the mountains he came from.
Unless Mama caught him. Remembering the conversation he’d overheard last week cracked the heroic fantasy right in two, ending with Reveille being ingloriously dragged off the battlefield by his ear by an irate Songbird. But it’d always stay a fantasy, because ponies like Mama kept Equestria safe, just like Dad said. He’d never really have to worry about fighting griffins or dragons or whatever else might come out of Mistypine Forest as long as the Guard kept up their watch.
Unfortunately, bullies and stupid girls were far from fantasy. He dreaded school day’s end; at least when he was stuck in class he could let his mind wander. But he met a familiar sight on the school grounds on the walk home: Opal Eye and her silly friends.
“Hey blank flank! You’re gonna get your cutie mark in spacing out?”
“You’re never gonna find it looking up there, blank flank!”
He remembered how angry he got at them the first time he’d been teased. He got so mad he’d cried all the way home after getting into a shouting match with Opal and her gang. That was a long time ago through, when he was just a little colt. Now he didn’t cry. He just kept his head up like Dad said and let their insults breeze over him like wind. Opal Eye had singled him out a while ago because they all lived nearby and had to walk close all the way home. Reveille often considered tattling on Opal to her mother, but Mama said Opal’s mom was a bit of an airhead and it wouldn’t help. He remembered once back during a party he’d seen Mama talking to Opal’s mom and when he saw her next Mama was in a really bad mood for most of the night, and Dad had to keep her from hitting the drinks over ‘really-bad-word-he-shouldn’t-remember ponies who shouldn’t be allowed to reproduce.’
“Hey, I’m talking to you blank flank!”
Reveille jumped at the hard nudge to his side.
“Yeah, what?” he grumbled. Opal Eye stood right in front of him, sneering and glaring with her weird eyes. They started out blue and seemed to change color depending on where you looked at them. She stood a little shorter than Reveille, with an apparently well styled purple mane, and her coat was yellow like newborn chickens. Reveille bet she was a little chicken herself given how she always needed her gang to pick on ponies. That and her cutie mark was some weird rainbow rock. He’d rather be a blank flank than have a stupid mark like that.
“I said, are you gonna go to the town festival or not? Everypony who’s anypony is gonna be there!”
“Maybe. I’m making swords.” Reveille puffed out his little chest as far as it could go. “Dad’s gonna be showing off his stuff. It’ll be way better than dumb old pots or whatever else other ponies will bring.”
“Oh yeah?” barked Opal. “Well my mom’s gonna show off how successful my dad’s mining business is! Without that you wouldn’t even be able to make your dumb old swords nopony ever uses!”
“We’ll use ‘em!” Reveille snapped, bristling. He knew he shouldn’t react, but nopony insulted his dad’s blacksmithing! “If it weren’t for my dad’s swords, your dad’s business would get stomped on by monsters!”
Opal flicked her tail and grinned. “Yeah, right. Nopony actually uses those swords. When was the last time a monster came by town anyway? Like, forever ago? It was just a stupid little bandersnatch that ate a couple chickens. Like you need swords for that.”
“Shut up!” Reveille shouted. “I don’t have to listen to you! You’re not even important. Go have fun with your shiny rocks while us tough ponies keep you babies safe!”
With that he turned around and walked away, ignoring Opal’s sputtering comebacks. He needed to think.
“One bar isn’t enough to make a whole sword. It has be folded and layered with other bars, one after the other. And then you have to make it hot enough to weld those layers together. The last sword I made was for Duke Cordon Bleu. It had to be folded sixty times, end over end.”
Another day, another sword. Reveille no longer blinked. Long hours of wrestling pots and pans into shape with Dad’s trusty old hammer had seen to that. He watched intently as that same hammer came up and down, up and down. The grasshoppers flew free and danced over the floor, bouncing off their aprons.
“But it’s the quenching and reheating that makes it strong. What have I told you about the quenching and the tempering?”
“No blade is made strong unless it’s held over the heat.”
Reveille watched his father pluck up the sword and take it over to the quenching tank. They used good old fashioned water for this part. Reveille often flinched when the blade went into the water, and he did now. Something about the way the heat boiled off, screaming like a pony in pain, was just off-putting to him. If that was what it was like to be tempered, he hoped he never had to go through it.
“That’s right son,” Cross Tree said, taking the blade out of the water and thrusting it back into the fire. “When you reheat the sword, that’s what makes it softer. Just like when you need it soft during hammering, you want the metal to have a little give when you’re done.”
“What good is a soft sword?”
“It won’t snap. It’ll bend. But it won’t break. Of course, soft is a relative term. It’s still strong enough to cut and block when it needs to.”
Reveille could just hear another lesson coming. He gingerly worked the partially completed blade into the furnace, stoking the coals with it. He’d learned long ago to ignore the heat. Wearing the hood helped.
“It’s okay to bend?” he asked over the roar of the flames.
“Sometimes,” his father answered, working the bellows. After a while he dunked the blade again, making the water scream. “Better that than to just snap. Like how you ignore bullies instead of just… flying off the handle, hitting them. You let their insults just sort of… bounce off you. It seems weak, at first. But it’s really what makes you stronger than they’ll ever be. Heh, maybe we should be making shields instead of swords…”
“Why do we have swords?” Reveille asked, remembering the conversation he heard between his parents a few weeks back, and Opal’s teasing. Cross Tree stopped, leaving the blade in the water as he looked at the colt.
“Why?” he repeated. Reveille wrinkled his brow.
“I mean. Equestria’s safe. And we have Guards… I know we live on the border… but why do we need swords? Monsters almost never really come here. What’s ever gonna happen that you have to hurt somebody?”
Cross Tree let his eyes drift to the Mistypine Forest.
“Because the safer you are, the more dangerous the world gets.”
Reveille tilted his head. His father had a very strange, faraway look on his face. He hardly ever got it, and it was usually when he was totally focused on his work, absorbed in the dance of materials and tools as he levitated them all about the workshop. Reveille couldn’t help but be intensely jealous that his father was a unicorn and he was a regular old earth pony.
“Let me explain it to you, son.” Cross Tree sat down on a bench and patted the space next to him. Reveille always liked a chance to be close to Dad and hopped obediently up. Cross Tree pointed at the forest. It stretched out before the village, dark and inscrutable. A single path cut through the trees, heading east. A little ways up that path was a single Guard outpost, the final checkpoint of ponydom before the rest of the wild, untamed world claimed the land. Mama sometimes was stationed at the outpost, but usually she was out on patrol. Even so, Reveille didn’t like looking at that path. That single road out of Equestria, out of everything he’d ever known, shrouded by trees and possibly crawling with monsters.
“We live on the very borders of Equestria. And Equestria is a big, big place. And you’re right. It is very, very safe. One of these days I hope to show you the cities I’ve been to… Manehattan or Las Pegasus. But safety… safety comes at a price, Reveille. That’s why we have the Guard. That’s why Celestia and Luna are always on their thrones and never take a day off. The Forest marks the end of places good ponies go.”
Reveille nodded. Only bad ponies and exiles, or even worse, ponies who just plain didn’t want to live in Equestria walked down that path and past the Guard post, never to return. He couldn’t even fathom it.
“But the very fact that we’re safe means that somepony is keeping the danger away, like your Mama. You remember the stories about how Equestria was founded, and then the Princesses came?”
“They put everything in order,” Reveille said, remembering his school lessons. He liked hearing about the Princesses. “They beat Discord and made it so we could live in peace. And they took all the bad things out of Equestria and made them leave.”
“That’s right. But you can’t have one without the other. It’s like hot and cold. Take all the heat away, you get something very cold, but all that heat, all that energy has to go somewhere out there. Difference is if you create a very safe place with no danger, all that danger doesn’t just disappear like heat. It has to go someplace else, and it stays there.”
He pointed at the forest. “Out there, son. That’s where it all is. All our neighbors who are jealous of us, all the monsters that were run out of town… it’s all still there. Waiting for us to let our guard down. If you go up that path there’s no telling what can happen. That’s why we’re here supporting the Guard regiment. That’s why all the nobles in this county still carry their swords… just in case somebody with a bad case of pony hate comes stomping over that horizon. That’s why I make swords. That’s why I’m teaching you how to make them.”
Reveille scrunched his brow, deep in thought. If weapons and fighting were going to keep them safe, why was Mama so upset about him learning to do it?
“So swords are good?”
Cross Tree smiled. “A sword is only as good as the pony that carries it, son. Remember, it’s a tool. That hammer of mine is used to make things because I choose to use it that way. The swords I make will never be used to hurt another living creature unless they force us to use it. Celestia forbid any of them are pulled out in anger. That’s the problem, really… anypony can pull a sword and think that just because they have one they can do whatever they want. But that’s wrong. A sword doesn’t let you do that. A sword doesn’t give you anything except the ability to hurt things. It’s you that has to make the choice when to use it.”
Reveille looked down at the half-finished sword, still smoldering in the quenching tub.
“What if you pull it out when you aren’t supposed to?”
“Bad things happen, son,” Cross Tree muttered, and he got that faraway look in his eyes again. “Bad, bad things. A sword… a sword can make a pony into a protector… or a killer. It hurts you too. Whether or not you’re the one getting cut.”
“But you’re not a killer, are you Dad? And neither’s Mama.”
“No, son, we aren’t.”
Reveille breathed in sharply. Hearing the world was such a dangerous place was fearful and exciting at once. “I’ll never be able to use a sword to protect ponies unless I learn how to use one, will I?”
“… No, son. You won’t.”
“Then I want to learn.”
“Blank flank, blank flank!”
Reveille hated the walk home after school. Mean little Opal Eye and her friends were after him again after a few weeks of blessed silence. He hated her and her little gang, but since a real stallion never made a filly cry, he just held his head high and pretended to ignore it.
Ever since his father gave him a little wooden sword, he’d brought it to the local fencing master after school to start learning how to whack things with it. He was strictly forbidden from ever bringing it into the school itself, even if that didn’t make much sense to him since pirates and bandits would obviously go after a school that didn’t have swords. But afterwards, he liked to wear it on his belt and pretend he was one of the ponies that kept everypony else safe, like Mama. Oh, she’d thrown a fit and gave Dad the cold shoulder for a week! And she’d boxed the fencing master’s ears too for going along with Dad. His stomach still groaned thinking about the desserts he’d missed during that awful Week of No Sweets.
But this morning she’d mellowed out at last and gave him an extra sweetroll for being such a good and brave little colt. She said she had no problem with him learning how to use a sword as long as he promised he’d never, ever join the Guard. He’d said as much but hadn’t meant it. Reveille didn’t like telling fibs, but he wasn’t sure he could promise to never do something for his entire life ever. That was an awful long time to never do something. What if he got bored?
“Hey blank flank!”
He rolled his eyes. Ignoring Opal Eye never worked. She was even stupider than Gumshoe. At least he got the hint after a while. Why couldn’t Opal Eye just leave him alone? She and her friends just shouted at him from a distance, trotting along like they always did.
“You want a sword for a cutie mark? That’s so lame! No monster’s gonna be afraid of a wooden sword!”
“Yeah, I bet you’re gonna get splinters! And then you’re gonna go home crying!”
“I bet it’ll snap! And then a hydra’s gonna eat you up!”
He couldn’t take it today. He shouted over his shoulder.
“I’m not using it forever! I’m gonna make a real sword, all by myself! And when some monster comes along and makes you cry, then you’ll be sorry! You’re gonna go home scared to your moms and I’ll be the one to save all of you stupid girls!”
That shut them up, at least for a little while. They seemed confused, having never had a victim of theirs talk back. He guessed he must have made himself look pretty scary, since it was a while before the taunting started up again, though it seemed half-hearted this time. He just kept walking, holding his head high like Dad taught him to do. He’d said all that needed saying. Eventually that worked even better than shouting at them. Opal’s little gang looked at him all weird, and then they all whispered among themselves. “Blank flank!” one of them called, before they began to run off to do whatever stupid girls did by themselves.
Opal Eye stared at him weird for a while longer, a bright yellow spot against the green grass. He noticed she didn’t shout at him when she finally left.
“Upward parry. Carry that into a downward swing. Catch the thrust on the crosstree. Grab it!”
Swift Kick stomped his hoof and sent up a cloud of dust from the dry ground, emphasizing the snap of motion Reveille needed to turn aside the fencing master’s sword. Reveille made sure to keep his hooves planted on the packed earth of the training circle, remembering the magic that all earth ponies possessed. The earth embraced them as much as they clung to it, giving them a powerful anchor against attacks that would trip up another creature. He felt Swift Kick’s magic tugging at his hooves, trying to trip him up as he advanced step by step on the fencing master, fending off blows from the wooden sword that hovered in the air between them. Swift Kick was a unicorn like Dad, and even though he wasn’t as big or strong he was really important. All the new Guards learned how to fight from him, whether it be with hoof-knives, wing-razors, or horn-blades. Reveille had opted for one of the more difficult styles: a plain longsword with a mouth-grip. The circular handle made it so the sword could be held in the mouth and swung easily side to side, but the longsword style depended on leverage and good depth perception. Fortunately, ponies were possessed of just that.
He’d been training for a good long while now, and the wooden handle was starting to be worn down by his grating teeth. The wooden sword was heavier than a real longsword to help develop the muscles in his neck. Earth ponies naturally tended towards more burly figures anyway (in fact he’d begun a growth spurt; that really made his day) but Reveille supposed every bit helped.
“Pay attention, Reveille. You let your sword dip too much on that last attack.”
Reveille gritted his teeth and tried again. He was rewarded with a swift whack on the head. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself to ignore the pain. The hard knocks were difficult to take at first, but he’d grown accustomed to them by now. A real stallion didn’t let a few bruises get in the way of his goals.
“Again!”
Their swords crossed. This time, Reveille remembered to keep his head up when he went on the attack, meeting Swift Kick’s parry and pushing hard against it with the crosstree. He shoved inside the fencing master’s defenses and quickly pushed his hoof against the teacher’s chest, signifying a kick that would shatter another creature’s ribs if he was attacking in earnest.
“Good! Good,” Swift Kick pronounced. “Enough for today.” The unicorn smiled as he levitated their swords to the weapon rack at the edge of the training circle. “You’re improving, Reveille. A couple years of progress like this and you won’t even need basic training.”
“When will I use a real sword?”
Swift Kick paused mid-step. “Soon, Reveille,” he said quietly, and then broke out a smile. “Very soon in fact.”
“How soon is that?”
“Soon.” Swift Kick levitated canteens of water to himself and Reveille, who eagerly began guzzling. Reveille didn’t know why water seemed to taste so sweet after hard work, but he liked to think it was magic the Princesses put in the water so tired ponies could rest easier.
When he was done drinking Reveille sat down, rolling the canteen back and forth in his hooves. “Hey, um...”
Swift Kick threw back his canteen and drank deep from it, letting the excess dribble out and wash over his face. It was very hot today, and Reveille knew working magic was a lot like working muscles, except it took extra effort. “Yes?”
“Thanks. For teaching me.”
“It’s my honor, Reveille. Why, without your dad I wouldn’t have the swords to teach with! It’s good to see you following in his hoofsteps.”
Reveille remembered Mama. “It’s good to know somepony thinks so.”
Swift Kick regarded him fondly. “Songbird’s just thinking about you, Reveille. She’ll come around. You should be happy you have a mother who cares so much. I was a middle child in my family, not important to anypony in the slightest. My mother tossed me into the Guard without so much as an adieu!”
“A dew?”
“Word from Prance.”
“Oh.”
“The point is, Reveille... your mother only wants what’s best for you. Or safest, whichever comes first. She’s just having a hard time accepting that only you know what’s best.”
Reveille took a minute to think that through, scrunching his brow. “What do you mean by that?”
“The thing is, Reveille... for all the guidance we get from our parents, eventually we all have to make important decisions on our own. And when that time comes, only you are going to know what’s best for yourself. If you plan to join the Guard you’ll be making a lot of decisions like that.”
Reveille was quiet for most of the day after that.
Another day, another sword. They didn’t make swords often; Reveille enjoyed it when they did. Training had been going well over the last year, and he was looking forward to the day when his father might let him craft his own blade all on his own.
Cross Tree turned and looked Reveille in the eyes. “I’m proud of you, son. You’re just about the only colt in your class who hasn’t gotten into a fight, even with those other troublesome foals. You’ve taken my words to heart.”
Reveille wasn’t sure what to say. Getting compliments always made him stutter and go quiet. But at least he knew he was doing the right thing ignoring bullies. Even Opal Eye had slackened off in recent months. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been called a blank flank.
“When we’re done here, take the day off,” his father said. “You’ve really been coming along in your lessons. You deserve a break. You finish your homework for the weekend?”
“Yeah, Dad.”
“Good boy.”
Reveille did take the rest of the day off as his father suggested. He went into the hills above the town with his practice sword as he usually did. He’d been practicing a long time now, and his birthday had come and gone without much ceremony. Learning the trade, learning the sword was his new passion, even if it hadn’t gotten him his cutie mark on either front.
He liked these hills. They were always green and grassy and quiet with a great view of the town to the west, along with the rest of Equestria. On a good day you could see the mountains of Canterlot on the western horizon. Up here he could run around and pretend he was fighting monsters. Maybe a baldyak, or a manticore. Or a mandragor! Those had tentacles and teeth and everything. Yes, a mandragor was a perfect creature to battle!
He hurried back and forth over the hills, enjoying the soft grass and the sound of a few bees and birds in his ears while he valiantly held off the mighty beasts from the forest, swinging the sword and remembering the routines he’d been taught. Thrust, parry, swing! Find the opening… jab! He alone was the last line of defense. He couldn’t give an inch and couldn’t forget a single lesson. Flower heads and blades of grass went flying as he lunged and struck the shadowy beasts laying siege to the town.
He was so caught up in his practicing that he almost didn’t notice Opal Eye sitting not far off on another rise, looking down at something. He rolled his eyes and put his sword away. Stupid girl! Didn’t she know it was dangerous out here, and only trained swordponies like himself should be this far out? The forest was almost frighteningly close, but he knew Mama had gone on a patrol recently and reported nothing. Opal was dumb, but she was right sometimes. Rarely did anything actually come out of the forest... nothing big enough that had ponies on its daily lunch menu, anyway.
He didn’t want to go talk to one of the ponies who gave him such a hard time in school. He hadn’t talked to her much even after she’d stopped teasing him so much. She usually just looked at him from a distance while he played with the other colts. But a good stallion, Dad said, protected other ponies. So Reveille guessed he’d have to go and tell her off and herd her back to the town. Maybe he’d get an award from the Guards.
“Hey! Opal!” he called, hurrying over to her. She turned around and dropped a flower at her hooves, hastily kicking it away.
“Wha… what are you doing here?” she asked, pointing an accusing hoof. Reveille tossed his head back.
“I’m protecting the town from monsters!” he said. “There’s a mandragor right over that ridge that’ll eat you up if you don’t go home right now!”
Opal Eye’s eyes widened. Reveille noticed at this distance they were purple, but strangely enough seemed to change to a more reddish color, then back to violet depending on which way they were pointing.
“Liar!” she decided. “There’s no monsters out here.”
“Yeah huh! I was fighting one just a minute ago.”
“Oh yeah? Well where is it?”
Reveille felt his careful plans to get an award unravel in seconds. He hadn’t thought she’d actually ask for proof. Saying there was a monster out here wasn’t lying, necessarily. There really could be anything, depending on what slipped past the Guards! Assuming anything big got by them at all.
“Uhh… it’s… right over that way!” he decided, pointing in a random direction. “But, um, it’s… dead.”
“If it’s dead, how’s it gonna eat me up? You’re lying!”
“I am not a liar! In fact, I’ll go right over there and investigate right now, and when we find a monster then you’ll be sorry.”
Opal Eye tossed her purple curls and sniffed. “My mom says the really dangerous monsters never come out of the forest. ‘Specially not a mandragor. Let’s go over there and find nothing, ‘cause there’s nothing there and you’re just being a mean old colt.”
“Pfft,” Reveille said, beginning to trot towards the next hill. There was a lone tree with wide branches at the top providing perfect shade for sitting under. “Pfft! Mean? You’re the one who made fun of me last year.”
“Yeah, but that was last year. Besides, you’re still a blank flank.”
“Whatever.” Reveille kept his eyes open and ears up. As his fencing master said, right when you think your opponent won’t strike, that’s exactly the moment he was waiting for. If there was nothing there, there was probably something there.
They reached the crest of the hill and stood under the shade of the tree. He sighed with relief.
There really was nothing here.
“See?” Opal Eye said, swinging her tail. “Nothing.”
“Fine, fine…” Reveille said, deflated, yet relieved. What if there really had been a monster here?
A minute of silence passed before Opal broke it. “Reveille?” she asked in a quiet voice.
“Yeah?”
“You remember when you said you’d protect us from any monsters that came by?”
“Yeah.”
“… Did you mean it?”
Reveille shifted uncomfortably. Then he nodded with confidence. “Of course I did.”
They stood in awkward silence, Reveille because he was embarrassed he’d been caught fibbing, Opal Eye because, well, she was a girl. They were weird.
“Well, let’s go home,” he said.
Reveille turned to leave. His eyes caught on little red-black beads on the grass. A great many of them. The colt leaned closer and saw they weren’t beads at all, but little smears all over the ground.
“Weird,” he said, and a heavy sinking feeling started to grow in his gut.
“What is?” Opal asked.
“Nothing,” Reveille replied. “Stay here.”
He started walking down the hill once again, into a large clump of taller grass that reached his neck. It scratched uncomfortably as he moved through it. More of the weird red-black stuff was scattered around, in bigger and bigger clumps. The heavy feeling in Reveille’s gut turned into an anvil hanging from his belly button.
“Reveille? Hey Reveille!” Opal Eye yelled after him. Reveille was already turning back.
“We need to go,” he said. “We should go, Opal.”
“What, did you see a mandragor?” she said, rolling her eyes. She was looking at him more than the grass and didn’t notice the glistening spots, so obvious all around him now that he took a moment to look. He started to feel dizzy.
“No, Opal, just... this way.”
He turned around again. The wind blew, and through a part in the grass directly ahead they saw the dead pony. They froze. Everything suddenly snapped into sharp focus. The red of the blood on the grass was more vivid than anything he’d ever seen. The noise of his own blood pounding in his ears was louder than anything he’d ever heard. Opal Eye starting to shake beside him felt like an earthquake.
And the timber wolf looming behind the corpse was the most frightening thing he’d ever seen.
“D… don’t… don’t…” Reveille stuttered, trying to think of something to do, or say. Run? No, timber wolves liked it when you ran. Fight? With what? His puny wooden sword?
“Reveille,” Opal whimpered, and took a quivering step back. The timber wolf stared them down with its unnaturally yellow eyes. It began to snarl, the empty eyes flashing with a macabre magical light. Reveille felt the growl thunder in his chest, shaking him to the core and daring him to cut and run. To give in to the instincts of his kind when they were just silly creatures without princesses to protect them. But his eyes raked over the scene in a mad terror, inundating him with information. He didn’t know the dead pony. But Reveille saw he wore armor, armor the timber wolf’s teeth had found the gaps in. Guard armor.
And there on the grass between him and the wolf lay a Guard’s longsword, shimmering and beautiful in the sun, its keen blade gleaming brighter than all the world’s lights.
“Reveille!” Opal squeaked. The timber wolf started to rise, wooden limbs groaning and cracking.
“Reveille!” Opal screamed. The timber wolf barked in reply. Pony guts hung from his teeth.
Reveille took a step forward.
He’d earned his cutie mark that day. Cross Tree was certain of it.
The burial was a surprisingly short and quick affair. Nopony liked to be reminded of how dangerous their home on the edge of Equestria was. To have it shown to them so brutally… so bloodily. Timber wolves never made clean kills. Songbird had hunted the beast down and slain it herself with her patrol. He didn’t blame her.
He’d wished his son would never even see such a creature in his life. But fate dictated otherwise. Finding the colt covered in blood, the blaring bugle on his flank, was the day Cross Tree had really known terror. From what they could piece together, Reveille had done his best to run back to the village to warn everypony. He hadn’t gotten far. Just far enough.
At least he’d only suffered a few cuts. His ear, though, was mangled. That ruined bit of flesh, which Reveille for some reason decided not to have completely removed, was going to be with the boy for the rest of his life.
Nopony knew how he’d driven off a timber wolf alone save for sheer luck. But he’d done it. He’d gotten his cutie mark, being the early warning system. Guarding ponies. Opal Eye had come out of the attack totally unscathed, and her parents were more than happy to finance Cross Tree’s workshop until the end of time and even pay for everything from Reveille’s schooling to his Guard training. Reveille, however, had turned down the latter bit. Songbird had been livid with rage that one of these beasts would dare try to hurt her son, and wracked with sorrow that she hadn’t been able to protect him.
But that was the point of the Guard, wasn’t it? Somepony had to be there on the outpost, but that somepony was a son or a brother or a mother. Keeping Equestria safe but having to risk so much. Even though their swords were pointed outwards, it cut both ways. Eventually somepony got hurt, and behind them was another pony who couldn’t understand why their loved one had to be it. For there to be safety, something else had to be dangerous to threaten it. For there to be peace, there had to be a sword that would eventually be drawn, and blood would spill and not care where it landed.
But that day had been long ago. Today was Reveille’s first patrol as a fully fledged Guard.
“You sure you’re ready for this? Nopony will fault you if you decide to take an inland posting.”
Celestia, the boy… the stallion now… had such wonderful eyes. Eyes that were keen and sharp, deep and blue as the ocean. He’d promised Mother he’d take a vacation the moment he got his things squared away, and go to the sea. Manehattan. He’d finally see Manehattan.
“Dad, I’ll be fine. For the last time it’s okay. If I got through Mom’s training, I can handle one patrol. She thinks I’m ready. I know I am.”
He’d be going into the woods, with the other Guards. Rooting out anything that might have taken up shop near the town. He had good eyes for that, was usually the first to spot something that was wrong, and the first to alert the others. Always looking for their safety ahead of his own. Yes, that day of the wolf had changed him. Made him more grim. Dour. Ready for action. No more playfulness.
The wolf had ripped that right out of him along with most of his ear. Nopony went untouched when a sword came out of its sheathe.
And Reveille had his own sword now, sharpened, polished, ready to kill. But he’d never even needed to draw it yet. Somehow, to Cross Tree’s unending pride, he’d try to find some way, any other way, to avoid having to let it shine in the sun, beautiful as it was. He’d taken his lessons to heart.
“Be careful, kiddo.”
“Always. Keep the fires warm for me, Dad.”
“Of course.” He looked over Reveille’s broad shoulders. “Opal’s waiting.”
“Ahh… she hid from me, I know it. She wants to be the last one I see before heading out.”
“Is that bad?”
“Nope. Just how I’d hoped, actually.”
They hugged and parted, Reveille walking down the path from the house to the road. Opal leaned casually on the fence, then joined him as they started walking down the road to the Mistypine Forest, where the outpost, his future, waited for him.
They stopped near the hills overlooking the town. Sometimes Reveille still shivered when he looked at those hills, where a single day had twisted the course of his life. Reveille the colt had died just over that rise beneath the body of a wolf and a fellow pony, under gaze of the same tree that still stood tall. The same quiet keeper of memories that stained the grass far deeper than blood ever could.
Opal Eye’s whisper came to him on the wind, reaching to him like a tentative note passed between schoolchildren. “I’ll still be here when you get back. I don’t leave for Canterlot for another three weeks.”
“I know,” he said. “We’ll make it count.”
“Not if you get sent to the hospital again,” she said, and here the walls broke down. She’d become tougher since the day of the wolf too. Worried more than she needed to sometimes, about him. And she’d never been good at showing her feelings in the first place. But here, with him, in the quiet wind with nothing but the chirping of birds to see them, she couldn’t stop herself.
Gently, their lips met. Reveille still tasted the perfume she’d been wearing the first time they’d kissed.
“You come back,” she said simply, noses still pressed together. “I’ll be waiting.”
“And I’ll be heading towards you,” he murmured. “With every step I take.”
He turned towards the path and began the long walk that all border guards took, holding his head high under Celestia’s sun, wearing his mangled ear as a badge of pride. He’d forged the sword on his belt himself. And out there he’d be the one to decide when to use it, if he had to. He wondered sometimes what life would be like if he’d never encountered the wolf, never bothered to take up the sword. But then he reminded himself that somepony else would be out here if not him, and he couldn’t have that on his conscience. Danger was now his lot in life to own. Maybe someday he’d pay for it in more blood. He knew now that nopony held a sword without it cutting away something of theirs in return. It changed them forever.
But as he entered the dark path into the Forest, he knew that for him it’d been for the better.
