The Sparrow in the Storm

Chapters

1-1 The Old Soldier
1-2
1-3
1-4
1-5
1-6
1-7
1-8
1-9
1-10
1-11
1-12
1-13
1-14
1-15
1-16
1-17
1-18
1-19
1-20
2-1 The Young Stray
2-2
2-3
2-4
2-5
2-6
2-7
2-8
2-9
2-10
2-11
2-12
2-13
2-14
2-15
3-1 The Reluctant Empress
1-21

1-1 The Old Soldier

The mare sat on her bedroll in the predawn darkness, staring off into the east as she waited for the sun to rise.

She made not a sound as she waited, nor moved a muscle. Instead, she kept her feathers close against her sides, warding off the chill of the early spring morning. A cold breeze tugged at them, but other than a blink into the face of the wind, there was little indication that she felt it at all. She only sat and waited.

And waited.

Almost an hour later, the dark twilight sky turned from purple to blue, then to yellow, a creeping color that started in the east and slowly inched over her head. Only when the first sliver of the sun poked up above the horizon did the mare let a slow breath out of flared nostrils, and stood upright.

Her motions were slow but purposeful, as much a blend of age as they were of practice and habit. She dropped a bundle of sticks she’d amassed the night before in a ring of stones left by some other traveler long ago, but instead of lighting it with a tinderbox or a match, she put the tip of a feather into the wood and closed her eyes. A moment later, a spark of flame grew from her wingtip, crawling over the wood and slowly twisting the twigs into black and gray scraps of charcoal and ash.

She flicked a bit of ash off of the feather and tucked her wing back against her side. Fire had never been her strong suit, but she’d had her practice over the past few years. It came easier to her than it did in her youth, though she knew she was no master over that school of pegasus magic.

The flames illuminated her features as she worked, cooking her breakfast on a tin pan she kept with her personal belongings, the few she had left in the world. Age had begun to turn the buff coloration of her muzzle white, and wrinkles had started to set in under ruby red eyes. Her mane and tail, once colored like the leaves of autumn, looked more and more like the snows and bare stones of winter. Even her feathers had started to grow crooked, despite the meticulous care she gave them—a care matched only with the attention she gave the pile of metal plates and blades sitting by her side.

When breakfast was finished, the mare stood up once more and spent the next fifteen minutes attaching that metal to her body. Without a squire or a traveling companion, donning the armor took much longer than she would have been used to thirty or forty years ago, but now, for a single aging mare on an unnamed road between a forgotten village and an undiscovered town, she may as well have been meditating. Each piece was attached methodically, the ancient straps of her cuirass fastened to a snug yet comfortable tightness, each piece tested to make sure it didn’t impede her range of motion or impinge on any of her joints. When she was finished, a shake of her limbs rattled steel plates trimmed with gold—though the gold had begun to tarnish, and in more than one place, the aging steel was flecked with rust.

Two strips of metal scales fastened to leather straps were next, and these the mare attached to her wings. The bones of her wings fitted comfortably into the grooves under the scales, and the scales flexed and twisted with their motions. Finally, the mare unwrapped a sword from a cloth bundle, and when she parted it a hoof’s width out of its scabbard, blue metal let loose a small cloud of white mist which quickly dissipated into nothing.

The armored mare hooked the scabbard to the left side of her armor, just under her wing, and set about packing up her camp. It took her only a few minutes with what scant possessions she owned, and when she was finished, she kicked dirt over the remains of her fire, smothering the flames. Then, setting her eyes to the south, the mare closed her eyes, took a deep breath, held it for a moment…

Another moment…

A moment more…

She opened her eyes as she let the breath out, and then she began to walk.

There was smoke on the southern horizon. A dark cloud, heavy and black.

The mare paused along the dirt road as she emerged from the grove of trees and looked up, squinting into the sky. She knew what it meant—she’d seen it too many times in her life. Only two questions came to her mind as she watched it drift over the pristine countryside, casting a foul shadow on the ground below: how long ago had it started, and how many ponies would she find underneath it?

Frowning, the mare loosened the latch on her scabbard that kept her sword in place and spread her wings. A few flaps were all it took to get her armored body into the air, even despite the gaps and notches in her feathers and the weight of steel on her back. Old instincts were hard to change, and soon she was flying for the smoke, almost drawn to it, while her eyes scanned the countryside below for any armed ponies. It was almost like old times, only this time, she flew alone, and not with a company of soldiers surrounding her.

Once she was high enough, the source of the smoke was easy enough to spot. A couple of miles to the south, a small hamlet stood on the bank of a shallow, meandering river, with simple houses of stone and thatch scattered around a horseshoe in the river’s path. Several of the houses had been reduced to smoldering timbers and ash, though there were still a few yet untouched on the far side of the settlement. A stone mill stood strong along the river’s edge, and surrounding it were several figures, little more than dots from so far away. But experience told the mare why they were surrounding the mill, and what exactly they wanted.

It only took her a couple of minutes to close the distance to the hamlet, and by then, she’d descended enough to fly under the smoke. Rather than land on the outskirts of town and approach on hoof, the armored mare chose instead to aim directly for the mill and land just outside of the ponies clustered around it. She counted twelve ponies as she landed, each of them armed with something sharp and a few wearing scraps of armor as well. They were dirty and skinny, and altogether it told the mare everything she needed to know, and everything she suspected from the moment she first saw the smoke to the south.

Bandits.

She didn’t need to announce her presence; the stomping of her hooves on the ground and the rattling of her armor plates garnered the attention of a couple of the bandits, and a few shouts quickly raised the alarm. Soon, the mare found herself staring down all twelve of them, their attention turned away from the mill they were trying to break into to the intruder who had landed in their midst.

“Who are you?” one of the bandits asked her, a unicorn who brandished a soldier’s sword in her magic.

“She’s gotta be a soldier,” another observed.

“She’s Legion! Can’t you tell?” exclaimed a third.

That exclamation brought worried looks to some of the bandits, and eyes immediately turned skyward, wary of other pegasi about to descend on them. But the unicorn with the stolen sword turned on her companions and growled at them. “If she was with the Legion then there’d be more than just her! She’s just an old mare in armor!”

“That’s Cirran armor,” somepony in the crowd said. There wasn’t any missing the worry in his voice. “And she’s got some kind of freaky metal hoof. Boss…?”

The armored mare narrowed her eyes on the unicorn’s sword. “That’s Legion property,” she said, her voice even and flat. Then her red eyes shifted to the unicorn’s face. “Drop your weapons and lie on your bellies. I won’t ask again.”

“There ain’t no more Legion, birdy,” the unicorn sneered. “Your unicorn queen in Everfree got rid of them. Everypony knows that. Even out here on the frontier.”

The mare raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure about that?”

“Sure as I am that somepony’s gonna die today.”

The unicorn flourished the stolen sword in her magic and took a step forward as if she was about to charge the pegasus. In response, the pegasus lowered her right wing until the tip touched the ground, and the moment the unicorn took a second step, she bared her teeth and twisted to the left, dragging her wing along the ground with the motion. When she raised it from the dirt, the metal scales covering it shimmered with ice and frost, and a trio of icicles left her feathers at blinding speed. By the time the unicorn took her third step, the three icicles had already struck home at the soft flesh and muscles of her neck, and her eyes bulged out in surprise as she lurched forward. There was no fourth step—the bandit leader hit the ground with a thud, the sword clattering into the dirt by her side, and her red blood soon began to seep out from under her crumpled body.

For the rest of the bandits, it was all they needed to see. A few ponies cried out in surprise; a few more cursed. All of them took startled steps back, and when the armored mare glared at them, what little resolve they had left broke like a dam of sticks trying to hold back a great river. They tossed their weapons into the dirt and fled, each pony galloping away as fast as they could, outrunning the icicles they imagined to be pursuing them in their hasty retreat.

The armored mare watched them run, and only when they were all gone did she turn her attention to the stone mill. Stepping around the dead body of the bandit leader, she picked up the Legion sword in her feathers and raised her voice. “You can come out now. It’s safe.”

Slowly, hesitantly, the great wooden door on the mill was unbarred and opened. A couple sets of nervous eyes peered out, but when they saw the armored mare standing over the body of the bandit leader, the door opened much wider, much quicker. “You killed her?” a stallion asked, stepping out from the mill. He looked up and down the street, looking for any bandits that might appear from around the corners of smoldering buildings, but when he didn’t see anything, he turned his attention back to the stranger. “Thank you! Thank you, soldier, you saved our lives!”

“I doubt they were interested in your lives,” the mare remarked, and she rolled the bandit’s body over with her hoof, though unlike the other three, this one was made of metal, and a sheen of frost clung to the steel. “Your food seems more like it.”

“Explains why they wanted into the mill. That’s where we keep our winter stores, buried in the ground.” He shook his head. “Last year was a bad harvest. Drought killed a good number of crops, and the river almost dried up. We’ve all had it a little lean ever since.”

But then he brightened up and held out his hoof. “Name’s Peppercorn. Thanks for helping us, Miss…?”

But the mare didn’t answer. Instead, she took his hoof in her natural one and gave it a shake. “Who’s she?” she asked, gesturing to the dead bandit. “And where did she get a Legion sword?”

“I don’t know nothing about who she is. Not like it matters now,” Peppercorn said with a shrug. “As for the sword, well, there used to be an old Legion fort ten, maybe fifteen miles north of here. It hasn’t been occupied in years. Not since some trouble happened back in Everfree.” He hesitated, then took a step closer. “Was she right, though? The Legion’s really gone?”

The pegasus’ nostrils flared as she took a deep breath. “The Legion’s gone,” she said with a small nod. “But not the legionaries.”

“Well… I’m glad there was at least one legionary looking out for us today.” Peppercorn smiled at her. “Those bandits burned down a couple of houses, but nothing we can’t rebuild. The important thing is that nopony died. Well… nopony except her, I suppose.” Behind him, the rest of the hamlet’s denizens had slowly trickled out of the mill, warily looking around them just as Peppercorn had.

“Do you think they’ll be back?” the mare asked him.

“After what you just did to their leader? No, I think they’ll go somewhere else. They won’t be our problem anymore.” He shook his head, then looked back at the mill. “We, uh, can’t exactly offer you much in the way of payment or reward for our thanks. Is there anything we can do to repay you? Even if they didn’t kill us, if they took all of our food, we might not have made it to the first harvest.”

“Food would be nice, now that you mention it,” the mare said. “And maybe an ale, too. Garuda knows that I haven’t had an ale in too long.”

Peppercorn eagerly nodded. “Hey, you saved it for us today. You deserve at least a little of it. I’ll go get some for you.” He turned around to go back into the mill, but he stopped when an elderly pegasus mare stood in the doorway, her jaw agape. “Erm… Whistling Wind? Are you okay?”

Whistling Wind only walked past him on knobby knees, her wings still somewhat raised over her shoulders in surprise. She didn’t find words until she was almost face to face with the armored mare. “Commander Typhoon?” she asked, her voice but a hoarse whisper. “Is that… Mobius, is that you?”

The mare locked eyes with her fellow pegasus for several long seconds. “No,” she said, and she bowed her head before stepping around Whistling Wind. “The Legion is gone. And so is Commander Typhoon.”

1-2

Typhoon found the abandoned Legion fort easily enough. Once she had some warm food in her belly, and a mug of ale as a bit of a reward, she merely followed the river to the north. It meandered this way and that through green countryside, dipping under trees that crept down to its shores or slicing a path between little hillocks. The river probably had a name, but Typhoon didn’t know it. She hadn’t stuck around long in Peppercorn’s hamlet to find out. And if Peppercorn had mentioned the hamlet’s name, well, that had already slipped her mind. After all, the names of places only mattered if she had a destination to reach.

They hadn’t mattered for months now.

Similarly, the fort she spotted in the distance must have had a name, even if it was only a name used by the garrison and the nearby settlements. But now, its moss-laden timbers gave no hints as to what they were once named. The fort had been placed on an island in the middle of the river where the water broke around great granite stones, and a half-collapsed bridge connected it with the river’s western bank. Typhoon knew that the bridge was not designed to be especially sturdy; the fort was to be garrisoned by pegasi, and pegasi had their wings to easily cross over the river’s waters and into the fort. The bridge had only been constructed so the ground-bound cousins of the pegasi could access it, and it would have made a poor avenue of attack for any force attempting to storm the fort.

As it stood now, though, it wouldn’t have mattered. The southern wall of the fort had collapsed, thanks to the rushing waters of the river eating away at the southern tip of the island and undermining its foundations. Any creature that waded through the waters or swam to the island would be able to climb over the massive gap in its walls and access the interior of the fort. Normally, Typhoon wouldn’t expect them to find much, but if a bandit had found a legionary’s sword inside, then there were probably still relics within its rotting walls that would be better off kept out of the hooves of some ponies.

She circled the fort once to check if there were any bandits sitting in the overgrown courtyard, but her sharp eyes revealed no signs of danger within its decrepit walls. Holding her wings straight, the old soldier slowly wheeled about, gliding in circles through the hot air rising off of the island until her hooves touched down on dry grasses with a crunch. Her muscles remained tense when she landed, and ruby eyes slowly scanned her surroundings for any potential threats lying in wait. But all she saw was moss and leaves, and the only thing she heard was birdsong and the rumble of the river over stones outside of the fort.

Eventually, Typhoon let out a breath and walked forward, toward the large building in the center of the fort that served as the soldier’s barracks and mess hall. The roof of the building had collapsed, though whether a storm had taken it down or it was merely time taking its toll on the structure, she couldn’t tell. The door had fallen off of its rusty hinges, and when Typhoon stuck her head inside, all she saw was more of Mother Nature’s work in reclaiming what was once hers. Rotted tables stood here and there, some flipped on their sides, most covered in moss, grass, and even the occasional colorful flower sprouting from between their boards. Birds chirped at her from what remained of the rafters, and a startled fox lifted its head and yipped when it saw the intruding pony before slinking off into the rubble.

Typhoon stood in the doorway for many moments, imagining what the building would have been like during its heyday. Forts like this had been Equestria's projection of civilization into the unsettled country beyond the Compact Lands, the pristine land that Commander Hurricane, Princess Platinum, and Chancellor Puddinghead had led the three pony tribes to almost forty years ago. While Everfree City had become Equestria's grand capital, pony civilization pushed outward in all directions, into the wild and untamed lands filled with countless dangers and monsters. To protect those ponies, the Legion would establish forts around potential sites for settlement, and civilization would follow. The forts were a symbol of progress, of taming the wilderness, and each one allowed Equestria to grow larger, expand further. They projected strength and confidence in the union of the pony tribes, and the soldiers that garrisoned them were proud stallions and mares.

Not that it was evident anymore. Legionaries had once walked these floors and sat at these tables, finding a moment of companionship with their fellow soldiers to vent their frustrations about their superior officers, talk about the local mares and stallions from the nearby settlements, and wonder when they would ever see some action. It had once been a sign of life, but looking around her, Typhoon knew that soldiers hadn’t been here in ten years, maybe more. Instead, it was dead and abandoned, a relic of the past, decaying like the pride she once held in being Equestria's protectress. She wondered who had signed the order abandoning the fort.

Turning around, Typhoon made her way from the barracks to the building positioned against the eastern wall of the fort. Like the others, it was in a bad state of decay, with its roof on the brink of collapse and vegetation eating away at it; unlike the others, it had a foundation of stones, and the old rocks had resisted the passage of time. Typhoon knew it doubled as the smithy and the armory, just as it did in all of the Legion’s standardized forts, and as such, worth an investigation. She walked over ancient cobbles forming the floor of the smithy, feeling ash from the forge’s great fires rubbing its way into the frogs of her three natural hooves, and lifted a rusty pair of tongs off of the ground and put them back on their hook on the nearby wall. Hesitating for a moment, the old soldier then shook her head and stepped into the back of the smithy, her hooves stomping over the fallen door.

The fort’s armory had clearly been ransacked some time ago; that much was certain. Though vegetation had failed to take hold in the old room, owing to the lack of sunlight from the intact roof, the benches and tables had been thrown aside, and armor stands lay scattered across the floor. The weapon racks on the walls had fallen off their mounts, and the lids of arms chests had been smashed open by heavy stones or hammers or even hooves, their contents raided. The only weapons Typhoon found inside were a pair of rusty daggers sitting in a pool of brown rainwater, and a broken sword leaning against a wall. Fitting; just like the fort itself and the soldiers who once garrisoned it, they were tools of war without a purpose, forgotten, abandoned, and waiting for time to reclaim them once more.

Since there was nothing useful or dangerous in the armory, Typhoon left it and walked across the courtyard into the last of the three buildings worth investigating. The wooden building hiding in the corner of the fort had done better than the barracks, but not as well as the smithy and armory. Typhoon knew it was the commanding officer’s quarters, and if there was any clue to the fort’s fate, then she would most likely find it there. But she paused before entering, wondering why she cared so much. After all, the Legion was dead and gone; the unicorn queen had seen to that. What did it matter that she was standing among ghosts?

“Because I’m a ghost,” she murmured to herself. “And ghosts are all I have left.”

She gave the door a push, and it came off its hinges in splinters.

Like everything else in the fort, time and scavengers had not been kind to the officer’s quarters. The desk had been smashed apart, and its remains scattered across the room. Shelves had been thrown to the floor, likely in search of any hidden treasure, the rotting books piled up in the corner a testament to just exactly what kind of treasure the looters valued and what they didn’t. Typhoon didn’t expect to find anything useful, but to her surprise, inside of a splintered crate in the back of the room next to the officer’s rotting bed, she found a Legion galea with a scrap of paper tucked inside of it. An eyebrow raised, Typhoon pulled the paper out of the helmet’s lining and unfurled it between wingtips:

Southerly, I give my thanks

Southerly, I give my goodbyes

The Northern Storm is calling,

And no more will I see your eyes.

Typhoon read the simple poem twice more, then rolled it up and tucked it back into the helmet where she’d found it. It said so much, yet so little. But the emotions of the fort’s commander weren’t hard to guess, and neither was whom he placed his departure’s blame on.

She just hoped he understood why she’d done it.

Another deep breath, and Typhoon left the officer’s quarters behind—but not before taking the galea with her. After a quick stop back by the armory, the old soldier returned once more to the fort’s courtyard. After finding a suitable spot, she drove the broken sword into the ground, and then rested the helmet atop it.

Taking a step back, she removed her own helmet with a wing, cradling it against her chest. Wind tousled what remained of the black plume sticking out of the galea, giving it some facsimile of life, but nothing quite as close. Once upon a time, the fort’s commanding officer had worn that helmet as they made their rounds and reminded their troops of why they were stationed here. But now, in a decaying fort long abandoned, it served no purpose.

It all-too-uncomfortably reminded Typhoon of herself.

After a few minutes passed, Typhoon donned her helmet once more, turned around, and took off into the sky. There was nothing for her at the fort, but she felt glad that she’d visited anyway.

Some ghosts needed to be laid to rest, one way or another.

1-3

“Come on, push!”

“I’m trying! The stupid wheel’s half-buried in the mud!”

“Then unbury it!”

“With what? My hooves?”

“No, you idiot, the shovel! Oh wait, never mind, you traded it for a few sticks of colored chalk in Farrier’s Ferry!”

“Colored chalk is great for foals! Some parents’ll pay good coin for it!”

"Not if our wagon's stuck in the mud!"

Typhoon’s ears perked from high in the air at the sounds of the shouting match far below her. She blinked, snapped out of her daydreams from hours of flying over empty countryside, and turned her attention to the ground. There, along a winding path that hugged the edge of the river, a pair of ponies stood behind a large wooden wagon. Half of the wagon’s wheels were on the compact dirt of the road, but the other two had slipped off the embankment and slid down into the mud by the water’s edge. The wagon, loaded to the brim and then some with crates and supplies, had sunk up to its axles in the mud, and looked hopelessly stuck.

Letting out a breath, Typhoon pitched her wings and dropped altitude almost like a rock. She flared them before hitting the ground, wincing ever so slightly when her shoulders reminded her she wasn’t as young as she used to be, and landed on the dirt with a solid thud. Her sudden drop from the sky went surprisingly unnoticed by the two ponies, which she could now make out in more detail now that she was on the ground again.

“If you’d been paying attention to the road, we wouldn’t have been in this mess!” the first pony, a copper pegasus mare, squawked at her companion. Her wings were flared in irritation, all but fully extended to make herself look bigger, though the ridges of her ribs just gently protruding into her sides suggested she could stand to put on a few more pounds.

“If I’d been paying attention to the road?” the other pony, a similarly copper earth pony stallion, challenged her. “You were on the side by the embankment! What, do you want me to watch your side and mine for danger at once?!”

“You should have known you were too far over on my side of the road!”

“You should have known we were too close to the edge!”

It was at this point Typhoon cleared her throat, and both ponies by the wagon nearly jumped out of their skin. They whirled on her, the pegasus pulling a letter opener out of… somewhere, and held it between her feathers, giving a not-so-menacing jab in Typhoon’s direction. “Who are you? What are you doing here?!” the mare demanded, and she jabbed the letter opener again. “I’ll cut you and sell your hide for leather, don’t think I won’t!”

Typhoon’s only reaction was a raised eyebrow and a dismissive glance at the letter opener. “You would need a lot more than that to get through this armor.”

The stallion jumped in at this point, deftly snatching the letter opener out of the pegasus’ wing and sliding it into one of his pockets. “Legionary!” he said, a wide smile on his face. “So good to see a friendly face around here! Better a soldier of the Legion than one of the Queen's Royals, I always say." He laughed a little too loudly at the quip, and he quickly pulled a tarp down over a crate, covering the brand burned into the corner. "But don’t mind my sister, she’s a bit of a feckless idiot, always starting fights she shouldn't."

The mare snapped her attention straight at her brother. “I’ll show you who’s a feckless idiot, Saved!”

“Earned, you’d be lost without me, though I do admit, the idea of going solo had crossed my mind…”

“Oh yeah? You want to do this?”

“Name the time and place, sister!”

“Right here, right now! C’mon!”

Typhoon almost deflated as she sighed and shook her head. “If you two could not kill each other for a second, maybe I’d be able to help.” She nodded toward their wagon. “That the problem?”

Both brother and sister looked back at the wagon, momentarily distracted from their spat, and nodded in unison. “Yeah, we were on our way from Farrier’s Ferry to Green Glade, when somepony didn’t watch the road and got us stuck here,” the sister said.

“You should have said something instead of sightseeing and watching the river!” the brother spat back, throwing his hooves into the air in frustration.

“Right!” Typhoon said, perhaps a little more forcefully than necessary, if only to stop the brother and sister from going at each other’s throats again. She stepped between them and pushed each pony to the side with a wing, and once they were no longer nose to nose, hopped off the embankment and into the soft mud down by the river’s edge. She put her shoulder to the corner of the wagon and gave it a shove, succeeding in pushing the wagon about an inch out of the mud, but she felt her hooves begin to slip and she had to relent lest she end up falling into the wet brown ground. Frowning, she turned to look back at the siblings, who were standing side by side on the road, watching her with curious eyes. “I can get it out of here. I need you two to pull from the harness.”

“And what are you going to do?” the stallion asked. “Push it out of there yourself? No offense, ma’am, but just because you’re a soldier doesn’t mean you’re stronger than two ponies half your age.”

“She’s not even a real soldier,” the sister said to her brother, but she didn’t make any effort to hide the comment from Typhoon. “The Legion’s been gone for three years, and that armor doesn’t look like she takes good care of it.”

That comment earned a glare and an irritated snort from Typhoon. “Hitch and pull, or wait until somepony else comes by to help you out. Your choice.”

Brother and sister glanced at each other, and both rolled their eyes. “Fine, fine, fine!” the brother exclaimed. “Just for you, soldier. I’m telling you, though, we’re going to have to unload the whole wagon just to make it a little lighter, then pull…”

Nevertheless, the siblings hitched themselves up to the wagon, the brother on the right and the sister on the left of their tandem harness. When they were done, Typhoon positioned herself beside the wagon, between the two half-sunken wheels, and spread her wings out. “Okay, pull on the count of three. One, two, three!”

It was more like the count of four, given the siblings’ skeptical hesitation, but they began to pull, and Typhoon put her wingtips down beneath each wheel. She closed her eyes and focused on her emotions, channeling them through her wings. In a few moments, ice began to spread across the mud. Soft brown mud soon hardened into ice slicks, and with something hard to put the wagon’s weight against, the wheels began to climb out of the mud. The siblings strained some more, and Typhoon threw her weight against the back of the wagon, and after a few strenuous seconds, the wagon was free of the mud and back on the embankment, its wheels finally on solid ground.

“Ancestors above and bones below, that actually worked!” the brother exclaimed. He unhitched himself from the wagon, raced around behind it, and seized (practically stole) Typhoon’s hoof to give it a shake—only to realize he grabbed her metal prosthetic and gasped in shock and pain when a layer of ice swiftly enveloped his hoof. “Gah! Talk about a cold touch!”

“Don’t touch that one,” Typhoon warned him, albeit several seconds too late to be useful. “Cirrus skysteel. It channels pegasus ice a little too well, if I’m being honest.”

“Yeah,” the stallion gasped, clutching his hoof and wincing. “You’re telling me!”

The sister, meanwhile, stood on the embankment and looked down at the layer of ice coating the mud. “You did all that?” she asked Typhoon in disbelief.

“It certainly wasn’t the warm spring day,” Typhoon countered with a raised eyebrow.

The other pegasus shook her head and cantered closer. “I know that we pegasi have some kind of magic other than just standing on clouds and flying around, but shit, girl, I mean, uh, ma’am, that’s some serious stuff! The most I can do is get a little gust of wind to come off my wingtips, and one time I lit a candle. But nothing like that! How’d you do it? That something you learned from a griffon?”

“A lifetime of experience,” Typhoon muttered, averting her gaze. “Be glad you can’t do what I can.”

“Sounds like a lifetime of experience we could really use,” the brother said, vigorously shaking his hoof to try and get some feeling back in it while he sat on his haunches. Looking up at Typhoon, he offered her his widest grin. “You know, I don’t think we properly acquainted ourselves, now did we?”

“No,” Typhoon flatly stated. “You were too busy threatening to kill me, and then each other.”

“Right.” The stallion beamed at her and held out his other hoof for Typhoon to shake. “Name’s Penny Saved, and my sister’s Penny Earned. We run a trading company, though, well, I’m sure you’ve noticed that it’s not as smooth an operation as it otherwise could be.”

At this, he sent a sharp glare at his sister, who ignored it to look at her own hoof. “I can’t help it that my brother’s a bonehead,” Penny Earned grumbled.

“And I can’t help it that you’re an airhead,” Penny Saved countered.

“Yeah? Well I’d rather have air in my head than bones!”

“Would you? You’d rather have a balloon than a skull?”

“I’d rather have a dog than a useless waste of space like you, but I’m allergic!”

“Oh, is that my fault, too?”

“For all I know it could be!”

Typhoon sighed and rubbed her temples with her wingtips. “I never should have stopped to help you two…”

1-4

“The Queen’s Royal Guard aren’t really all that recognized out here. Or that popular, for that matter. A company of them went into Farrier’s Ferry about a month back to collect taxes, but they got run out of town by a bunch of legionaries that had settled there. They haven’t been back since.”

“It wouldn’t matter if it was the other way around,” Penny Saved remarked to his sister. “Point is, Farrier’s Ferry didn’t have to pay taxes for two years when the Legion disbanded. The Royal Guard wasn't big enough or ready enough to enforce the law throughout all of Equestria, so when the Legion went ‘poof’, so too did all semblance of the crown’s authority.” The stallion chuckled. “And when ponies don’t have to pay taxes, well, they’re not too keen on having to pay them again.”

Typhoon walked alongside the wagon as the siblings pulled it along the road toward Green Glade, and raised an eyebrow at the remark. “And what do you think is going to happen when the queen’s soldiers come back in bigger numbers?”

“I don’t know, but we plan to be far from it,” Penny Earned said with a grin. “You’re from Everfree, right? I don't think the Legion puts old soldiers out on the frontier... no offense.”

Typhoon merely grunted at that. "Yes, I’m from Everfree. I'm not too familiar with what’s been happening on the frontier.”

“Well, with the Legion gone and the forts all abandoned, it’s been kind of a free-for-all on the frontier. Ponies like us have to move supplies around to all the towns now that communications have been cut off with Everfree. Of course, that also means there’s lots of bandits prowling the roads and sacking towns… have I mentioned how happy Saved and I are that you’re traveling with us?”

“Only a couple of times now.” Typhoon let her eyes scan the trees closing in around the road, looking for any signs of bandits laying in wait. But just as it had been for the past three hours, she saw nothing, and she doubted any bandits were going to attack a wagon escorted by a mare as dangerous as she knew she looked. “How much do you know about what happened in Everfree?” she asked them.

Penny Saved shrugged as he walked. “Only thing anypony this far south knows is that the pegasi and the unicorns had a big spat after that war with the spiders. The unicorn queen wanted to have her soldiers supplant the Legion, and their commander gave up his post in protest. Kind of a stupid thing to do if you ask me, but if the point of the whole thing was to stick it to the queen, then I’d say what he did worked. Soon as that happened, all the legionaries on the frontier followed his example and abandoned their posts, too. Way some of them speak about it, it sounds like they weren’t going to bow to the queen just for her to replace them with her own ponies and kick them out of their posts. I assume that’s what happened with you?”

Typhoon worked her jaw from side to side. “Something like that,” she admitted. “It was a little more personal for me. I… I wasn’t happy to see everything Commander Hurricane built up get torn down by his own daughter.”

“That’s right, the unicorn queen was his daughter, right?” Penny Earned wondered aloud. “Forgot about that. News from Everfree rarely made its way out into the Frontier. The only reason anypony knew what was happening in Everfree was because of all the legionaries who deserted their posts and took up residence in the nearby towns. And they never had anything good to say about her.”

Typhoon grunted in acknowledgement and flexed her wings some, the metal scales attached to them hissing as they slid around on well-oiled hinges. “I couldn’t say anything bad about Queen Platinum,” she finally said after a minute of silence. “But these days, it’s hard to say something good, either.”

“Sounds like you’ll fit right in on the frontier,” Saved said, shooting her a wink. “What brings you out here anyway? Most of the legionaries either settled into frontier towns or formed bandit gangs, and it doesn’t seem like you’ve done either.”

“I’m… looking for somepony,” Typhoon said. “I don’t know who they are or where they are. But I’m looking for them all the same. Until then…” A shrug. “I’ll help ponies who need helping. It’s what the Legion was supposed to do before I—before it was disbanded.”

Brother and sister exchanged a look. “How are you going to find somepony if you don’t know where or who they are?” Earned asked her.

“Don’t know,” Typhoon admitted. Ruby red eyes flicked in the merchants’ direction. “Know any powerful wizards?”

“We try to avoid crossing paths with anypony that could turn us inside out with their mind,” Saved said, adding a nervous chuckle for good measure. “There’s a couple of unicorns that I’d guess you’d call wizards living out in the frontier, in their little towers or whatever. Not sure if that’s who you’re looking for, but they were out here for a good reason. And that’s reason enough to not go there.”

“They’re dangerous,” Earned added, and her features turned into a sharp frown. “Why else would they build towers outside of the Legion’s reach in the frontier? Whatever they’re doing, the wizards in Everfree didn’t like it, otherwise they’d be up there instead of in the middle of nowhere. But if you really want to find one, ask the ponies in Green Glade. I’m sure somepony has to know where the nearest nutjob with a horn is holed up.”

Typhoon gave her a curt nod. “I just might.”

“Hey, it’s your funeral, ma’am.”

More walking, more birdsong, more creaking of the wagon’s wooden joints as the pair of siblings hauled it to their next destination. Somewhere in overhead in the dense canopy of trees, a woodpecker drilled into the bark of a dead tree, its beak hammering out a sharp staccato that echoed throughout the forest. The world seemed at peace, belying the danger hidden within this far out on the frontier. And if Typhoon hadn’t run into her share of bandits and monsters since venturing south out of settled Equestria, she could almost believe the picture of peace that the world painted for her.

“What’s it like living out on the frontier?” she asked the two siblings.

“Boring,” Penny Earned said with a huff and a hang of her head.

“Dangerous,” Penny Saved said with a huff and a roll of his eyes.

Almost immediately, the two siblings glared at each other. “Well, maybe for you!” they both shouted at each other at the same time.

“Is… that so?” Typhoon asked, raising an eyebrow. “I mean, I get it. Being a soldier means long periods of boredom punctuated with frantic bouts of danger. But I’m curious what makes it so for you, besides the aforementioned bandits and the like.”

“Well, the frontier was never really connected with the rest of Equestria besides from the Legion forts,” Penny Earned explained. “News gets here slowly, if at all. Saved and I were born in some little town called Watercrest. I doubt you’ve heard of it, and Everfree barely knew about us. The closest Legion fort was about twenty miles away, which meant we might as well have fallen off the face of the Earth. The only news we got was whenever somepony went to the fort, and when the forts were abandoned a few years back, well, you can fill in the gaps.”

“And not being connected to the rest of Equestria means we’ve got all sorts of problems out here,” Saved said with a huff. “Bandits are probably the biggest problem now, but they weren’t ten years ago, when the Legion actually worked. You lot did a good job keeping them under control. But even more dangerous than the bandits are the monsters. Ponies aren’t the only smart things living out here, and a lot of them have sharp teeth and empty bellies.”

“The Legion did a good job taking care of them, too. Watercrest had a couple of problems with manticores or ursas, and one time a sea monster swam up the river… probably the most exciting thing to happen to that town since it was founded.” Earned finished her addendum with a shrug. “What about you, ma’am? What’s your story?”

Typhoon worked her jaw from side to side. “Does the name ‘Typhoon’ mean anything to you?” she asked the siblings, and she studied their faces closely in a sidelong glance to see their reaction.

After a moment, the two merchants looked at each other, raised an eyebrow, then turned puzzled looks to Typhoon. “Not that I can recall,” Saved said. “He somepony important?”

The old soldier let out a muted grunt. “Not anymore.” She shook her head and continued on, eyes turning forward once again. “I was an officer in the Legion, in Everfree. I led armies and fought battles. Then the Queen replaced us during the war with the spiders. I decided to leave rather than watch her destroy the last piece of Cirra we have left—or worse, be an accomplice in it.”

“Cirra?” Penny Earned asked, tilting her head. “I think my grandma used to tell stories of that place, stories her grandma told her when she was a filly… that’s where we’re from, right? Us pegasi?”

Typhoon winced at the genuine question. “There once was a mighty empire of pegasi across the sea, the Cirran Empire,” she explained. “The griffons nearly destroyed it, but Commander Hurricane saved our race by leading us across the ocean, away from their claws. When he founded Equestria, the Cirran Legion was the last bit of our history we still had from the days of our mighty empire. And now it’s gone.”

“Ah.” Earned fluffed up her wings and looked sheepishly away. “I, uh, see why that’d bother you, then.”

“I dedicated my life to serving the Legion,” Typhoon said. “I started when I was a filly. All told, it was forty-odd years of service both here in Equestria and back in the old Compact Lands. The Legion was all I knew.” She let slip a slight exhale that might have been a sigh. “And it’s gone. There’s little room in Equestria for an old soldier, so I decided to go south and see if I could make a difference out here.”

“So you’re like a sword for hire, then?” Saved asked her.

That got a concerned glare from Earned. “If you even think we can hire her long-term after the disaster in Farrier’s Ferry, I got some news for you, brother.”

“And whose fault is it that we got lost on the road and by the time we got to the town half of the food we were carrying had expired, huh?”

“I’m not a sellsword,” Typhoon growled, expressing her frustrations with the label and the potential for another sibling argument. “I don’t sell out my skills for pay. I help ponies who need helping, and all I ask in return is a warm meal, a place to sleep with a roof over my head, and some supplies to get me along the next leg of my journey. That’s all.”

“So, you’re like a wandering knight, then?”

Earned scoffed at her brother. “Knights are a unicorn thing, idiot. You really want to compare her to that after what the unicorn queen did to the Legion?”

When Penny Saved blanched, realizing his mistake, Typhoon dismissed any misunderstandings with a wave of her wing. “Knights aren’t Royal Guardsponies. I worked with the knights of the Diamond Kingdoms back in the day. While they lacked the discipline and cohesion of the Legion as an army, they were often skilled in single combat, and driven by a sense of moral duty and honor. Chivalry is what they called it. And while the Legion could patrol and protect the Compact Lands and Equestria as small platoons and centuries, there are many stories of valiant knights traveling the countryside and lending aid to those in need.” After that explanation, she finished off with a nonchalant shrug. “I may not be a unicorn, but ‘wandering knight’ might be the closest thing to a fitting label. A soldier needs an army, after all, and I have none.”

“The Wandering Knight of the Lonely Legion,” Penny Earned said somewhat wistfully. “You meet any bards yet? I bet your story would make for a good tavern song.”

“I haven’t done anything worth singing about,” Typhoon countered. “Doing the right thing shouldn’t be a big deal.”

“It’s a big deal to ponies who can’t do it themselves,” Penny Saved said. “And in a place as unpredictable as the Frontier, ponies could always use some hero to sing about.”

Typhoon’s reply was a disinterested huff and a flick of her tail.

The conversation thus ended, Typhoon returned her attention to the surrounding countryside, and the two siblings soon launched into their own conversation, debating on what they should try and stock up on in Green Glade and what they would charge the townsfolk for their supplies when they arrived. For Typhoon, it just became more of the background noise of the countryside, but after another half hour, her ears twitched at some distant sound, and she held out a wing to stop the siblings’ chatter.

“What is it?” Penny Saved asked, anxiously looking around. “Bandits? Monsters? Should we run?”

“Shh!” Typhoon shushed him and spared the siblings a stern look. All three ponies immediately fell silent, their ears turning this way and that as they listened for the sound the old soldier heard. The sounds of nature filled the ensuing silence, but it wasn’t too much longer before a faint and distant roar made its way through the trees.

“What was that?” Penny Earned asked, and her wings inched out a bit further from her sides, brushing against the harness she wore.

“There’s some kind of monster out there!” Saved nervously hissed. “We should turn around, try to find another way!”

Typhoon’s eyes narrowed in the direction of the roar. “That’s a dragon.”

“A dragon?!” both siblings exclaimed in unison.

“Some miles ahead of us yet,” Typhoon added. “But coming closer.”

“What do we do?” Earned asked her. “Saved can’t exactly fly away like you and me!”

“You better not leave me here!” Saved shouted at her. “I don’t want to be dragon food!”

“Quiet,” Typhoon growled at them. Both siblings immediately snapped their jaws shut and watched her with wide eyes. After a moment, Typhoon angled her head toward the tree line by the side of the road. “Pull the wagon in there and unhitch.”

“Then what?”

“Then we wait.” A shrug from Typhoon’s left wing snapped open the flying latch on her scabbard and loosened the sword just in case, and she flexed her wings once to make sure the wing blades were ready for action. “Come on. It’s getting closer.”

The Penny siblings certainly didn’t need to be told twice, and they hurriedly pulled the wagon off the side of the road and hid it under some trees. Then they quickly detached themselves from the harness and hid behind the trunk of a great oak, Saved at the bottom while Earned flew up into a higher branch and perched there. Typhoon, for her part, simply stood under one of the boughs of the oak and kept her eyes trained skyward, waiting to see what would appear from beyond the horizon.

That didn’t end up taking all that long. Within a few minutes, a speck of crimson appeared in the sky, and the birdsong in the trees around the three ponies fell deathly silent. Typhoon watched with a small frown on her muzzle as a great red wyrm flew overhead, its leathery wings momentarily blotting out the sun as it passed by. In between its massive claws it carried a two-pony wooden wagon, not unlike the kind the Penny siblings owned, loaded with supplies strapped down to the frame. Typhoon watched it fly away, at least until it disappeared behind the canopy of the trees once more, and its roars grew ever fainter.

“Did you see the size of that monster?” Penny Earned exclaimed as she dropped out of the tree. “It was carrying an entire wagon in those claws! It could have just plucked ours right off of the road and ate us for a snack!”

“That’s probably what it did to whoever was further up the road than us!” Penny Saved said, and he sat down and took a few panting breaths. “What if it comes back? We’ll be next!”

But Typhoon merely turned back to look down the road in the direction the dragon came from. “How much further is Green Glade?”

“Probably another hour or two out yet,” Earned said. “At least, as the wagon rolls.”

Typhoon nodded. “Right. Then let’s keep going. I have a feeling we’ll find out more about this dragon there.”

1-5

The one good thing about the dragon sighting was it kept the Penny siblings from bickering until the three ponies arrived in the town. Instead, brother and sister kept their eyes turned skyward, searching for any sign of the dragon’s return, and even the slightest sound practically set them jumping out of their skin. Typhoon popping open her Legion canteen for a drink of water on the road made Penny Earned snap her wings open in alarm, smacking her brother in the side of the head, which made him cry out in startled shock, and the old soldier could only sigh and shake her head. There were times when Typhoon missed having companionship on the road during her lonely wanderings, but this wasn’t exactly one of them.

True to Penny Earned’s estimate, it took the three ponies another hour or so to finally catch a glimpse of Green Glade as the trees around the road began to thin out. A clearing in the wood dominated the side of a large but gradual hill that civilization had carved out for its own in the middle of the woods, the abundance of lumber lending itself to the construction of four dozen, maybe more, houses and buildings dotting its slopes. Green grass had readily taken in the landscape freed up by the logging on the hillside, right down to the waters of a blue river cutting through the base of the hill, giving the settlement the appearance of an emerald sitting on top of a sapphire. But for all its beauty, there was only one thing that Typhoon cared about, and that was the lack of smoke or raging fires devastating the town and its surroundings.

“The dragon didn’t attack this place,” she observed, speaking more to herself than for the benefit of her two companions. “But it came from this direction.”

“Maybe it attacked somepony on the road and they ran back to the town for help?” Penny Saved offered. “That was a merchant’s wagon, I’m certain of it.”

“Well, hey, at least that’s some of our competition taken care of, right?” Penny Earned offered with an uneasy smile. When Typhoon frowned at her, she fluffed out her wings and looked aside. “Just… trying to make light of it and all.”

“Don’t,” Typhoon told her, and she resumed walking toward the town. “Lone dragons are dangerous. They’re also clever and greedy. They consider ponies beneath them, and if it has a hoard nearby, I doubt it takes kindly to a pony settlement on its doorstep.”

“Wouldn’t it just… attack it, then?” Penny Saved asked. “Burn the whole place down?”

“Yes. Normally, they would.” There were more pieces to this puzzle than Typhoon had initially suspected. She needed more information; with the Legion gone and Equestria’s authority on the borders nonexistent, small towns like Green Glade would be at a dragon’s mercy without anypony to defend them.

“Maybe the ponies in town know something about it.”

Now thoroughly intrigued (and somewhat concerned), Typhoon spread her lightly colored wings and launched herself into the sky, her pegasus magic turning gravity into a mere suggestion and disregarding it. The Penny siblings cried out in indignation and dismay at Typhoon abandoning them, but they were close enough to the town that Typhoon didn’t fear for their safety. They’d be fine, and if the dragon did come back, they’d hear it long before they saw it—or it saw them.

Aiming for the large clearing in the center of the town, where the slope of the hill had been negated by packed earth hemmed in by enormous logs, Typhoon alighted a few minutes later and tucked her wings back against her sides. Her ruby red eyes looked around her, but she saw nothing. There were no ponies walking up and down the streets, making idle conversation, or manning the little market stalls erected around the dirt plaza. The buildings were shuttered, dead and dormant, and not even the light of a candle escaped the dirty panes of glass that Typhoon could see. For all intents and purposes, Green Glade was a ghost town.

Frowning, Typhoon turned toward the closest building and walked up to the door with measured steps. She flexed her wings once, feeling the reassuring weight of the metal blades on each one, and let her wingtips droop a little to loosen them up in case she needed to strike fast. Then, with her heavy metal hoof, she pounded three times on the door and held her breath as she listened for a response, any response, from inside.

The barest scuffle slipped its way out from beneath the crack in the door—the sound of a hoof sliding across wood, perhaps. Knowing that meant somepony was at least alive inside, Typhoon knocked again and raised her voice. “Come on out, I need to speak with you. I have questions.”

The noise inside immediately stopped—if only for a moment. “What are you doing outside?” came a muffled voice from within the house. “If she sees you out there, she’ll eat you!”

“Who?” Typhoon asked. Then her brow lowered. “If you’re talking about the dragon, it flew east an hour ago. I haven’t seen it since.”

“She could come back!” was the hissed response. “You don’t know that she won’t! Safer to wait until tomorrow!”

Typhoon rolled her eyes. “I’m a soldier,” she said. “I’ve fought dragons before—and lived.”

She waited to hear how that response was received, and after a few more seconds, the groaning of an old iron latch sliding through its ring was her answer. The door opened up just enough for a unicorn to stick her head through, her sky blue face and straw-colored mane turned up to the sky as if she expected the dragon to drop down on her house the moment she showed herself. When that quickly proved not to be the case, she turned purple eyes to Typhoon, frowning for a second at the beat-up armor she wore. “Legion?” she asked her. “I thought you were all gone?”

“Nihil erit post Legionem,” was Typhoon’s response, though it was all-but muttered to herself. Then she shook her head. “The Legion is gone, but there are still legionaries who fight in its name.”

“A legionary is what we need right now.” The unicorn nodded and opened the door a little wider. “Come on,” she said, “before she comes back. Erm, ma’am.”

She slipped deeper into the building, and Typhoon followed her inside. She didn’t bother shutting the door, though the unicorn quickly fixed that with a look and a brief glow of magic to push it shut. Once it was closed behind her guest, the unicorn pulled over a wooden stool and sat down on it, deflating as she let out a long sigh. “I’d offer you something to eat, but, well…”

It was then that Typhoon noticed how skinny the unicorn was; it wasn’t too hard to count her ribs with just a glance. Though she must have only been in her twenties, hunger and frailty left her looking nearly twice as old. The way she leaned against the table to support herself left Typhoon wondering just how long she’d gone without eating. “What is happening here?” she asked her.

“The dragon,” the unicorn said—though groaned would have been a more accurate description as her stomach pitifully gurgled and she tried to silence it by pressing a hoof into her gut. “She’s the problem…”

Typhoon sat down opposite the unicorn and dug into her saddlebags. A few moments later, she dropped a piece of bread on the table accompanied by two daisies and her canteen. The sight of food immediately made the unicorn stop, and the mare bit down on her lower lip as her eyes locked onto the closest thing to a proper meal she’d had in a long time. “Here,” Typhoon said, nudging a chunk of bread closer to her. “Eat it—slowly. Too much too quickly will be the end of you.”

As soon as Typhoon offered the bread, the unicorn snatched it in her magic and stuffed it into her mouth. She moaned in pleasure as food hit her tongue, but a stern look from Typhoon made her freeze for a moment. The soldier’s warning heeded, the unicorn slowly chewed through the bread and swallowed it bit by bit, and she hesitated a moment before taking the next piece in her magic. “By the divine Sisters… I’ve been living off of grass for two weeks. I ate my last loaf of moldy bread a month ago, and blight rotted my potatoes…”

“What is happening here?” Typhoon asked her now that she had some food in her empty stomach. “How can I help?”

“Do you think you can kill a dragon?” the unicorn asked her. “Because that could help, Miss…?”

“Typhoon,” the old soldier said. “I have experience fighting dragons before.”

“Well… that’s good, Typhoon, ma’am.”

“Don’t,” Typhoon said, holding up her flesh-and-blood hoof. “I would prefer it if you didn’t.”

The unicorn, though surprised by the request, hastily nodded. “Sorry. I’ll try to remember that. I’m Bluegrass, by the way.” When Typhoon nodded in acknowledgement, Bluegrass stuffed another piece of bread in her mouth, swallowed it, and tapped her hooves together. “Well… I guess I can start with the Legion going away. You soldiers used to do a good job keeping the frontier safe. Sure, we had to deal with things like timberwolves and the occasional manticore, but they weren’t anything Green Glade couldn’t deal with on its own. But once monster dens weren’t being hunted down and destroyed anymore, well, that’s when things started to get bad.”

“So I’ve heard,” Typhoon interjected. “But a dragon isn’t a monster. Not in the sense of a timberwolf or a manticore or even a hydra. But they’re usually solitary, and when they do cross paths with a town, rarely is there a town left standing when it leaves.”

“That’s because Marquise Firestorm isn’t like other dragons, or so she claims.” At that, Bluegrass scowled and crossed her forelegs. “I don’t know where she came from, but after the Legion disbanded, she flew in from somewhere and put all of us under her scaly claw. She calls herself our feudal lord and demands that we pay taxes to her if we don’t want her to burn down the town. Green Glade, Tawneyton, The Crossings, we all have to give her tribute every fortnight or she’ll kill us all.” Bluegrass gulped and added, “And she’s proven willing to do it. Some of the ponies in Hill-On-Hollow refused to pay her tribute and attacked her when she came to demand it from her. She burned the whole town down and killed everypony she got her claws and teeth on. She… likes to remind us about it. Regularly.”

“Tribute?” Typhoon asked, one eyebrow climbed up her forehead. “Frontier settlements aren’t particularly wealthy, not like cities are. What sort of tribute does she expect from you?”

“Anything anypony could deem has value,” Bluegrass said. “If we manage to collect any bits, we have to turn them over to her. But since we only get bits if we sell things to caravans, she pushes us to sell everything we can produce, or give her things of worth. We’ve had to sell almost of our food instead of saving the harvests for ourselves, or we trade it and any crude crafts we can make for shiny bits and baubles the merchants sometimes bring with them. We’re starving and she won’t even let us keep enough wealth to buy or trade for food so we don’t die!”

Typhoon slowly nodded. “I assume you’ve tried to bring this up with her, then.”

“One stallion did, yeah,” Bluegrass said. “Sycamore Shade was his name. The Marquise ate him on the spot and then told us we had one less mouth to feed. Nopony’s had the courage to say anything since.”

“Why not leave, then? Surely it isn’t worth it to be rooted to one spot and starve to death.”

At that, Bluegrass anxiously rubbed her hooves together and looked around, as if the mere question was dangerous. “We can’t leave,” she said, her voice dropping in volume. “We’re peasants and Firestorm is our lord. She won’t let us leave, and she’s made it pretty clear what will happen to us if she catches us on the run.”

“Death of the cruelest magnitude, I assume,” Typhoon guessed, and Bluegrass gave her a nod in the affirmative. “Do you know where her lair is?” she asked the unicorn.

“Apart from to the east? I’m not sure,” Bluegrass admitted. “Look for any mountains or caves. I think dragons like those. But…” She shook her head in frustration, and she looked at Typhoon with worried eyes. “What are you going to do? You can’t kill her by yourself!”

Typhoon shrugged. “I don’t know if I can kill her,” she admitted. “It’s one thing to hold your own against a dragon. It’s a different thing to kill it. Only a couple of ponies in history have ever managed it by themselves, and those were mainly the strongest wizards of the Diamond Kingdoms of old. Of the pegasi, only Commander Hurricane and his son pulled it off.”

Taking a breath, Typhoon stood up with a quiet rattling of her armor. “Ideally, I’d take a century of legionaries with me to deal with this. But I don’t have a century. I’m just one mare. But if I can’t kill this dragon, I may be able to chase her away. I’ll see what I can manage.”

“You’re going to fight her by yourself?” Bluegrass asked, shocked.

“If she won’t listen to reason, then yes.”

The unicorn blinked in incredulity. “But… she’ll kill you!”

Typhoon shrugged. “Maybe. But I don’t plan on dying.” She turned around and opened the door with a wing, but paused in the doorway. She looked back at Bluegrass and added, “There are a pair of merchants on their way with a wagon full of supplies. Tell them that I said they’re to distribute it to you all for free. I’ll bring their payment back from the dragon’s hoard. If they don’t, I’ll set fire to their wagon when I get back.”

Bluegrass blinked. “Should… should I tell them that part, too?”

The old soldier looked at her for a moment. “Only if you want to,” she said. Then she stepped outside and shut the door behind her.

1-6

High above the earth, the only sound was the wind. The wind, and the rattling of armor.

Typhoon held her wings out at her sides and glided on a rising thermal, taking the momentary reprieve to work some of the soreness out of aching muscles. Apart from the constant gusts at altitude blowing against her ears, the only other sound to accompany her solo flight was the clicky-clack-clatter of the scaled blades on her wings. The metal plates jangled together with a muted din as the wind got between them and shifted them around, and the little motions she made to keep her balance during her flight only added to the hushed cacophony.

It was also hot up in the sky, flying under the weight of heavy metal armor, but it was nothing Typhoon wasn’t used to. Though the ravages of time had stolen much of the youthful vigor that once carried her through the campaigning days of her youth, a lifetime in service to the Legion had blessed her with endurance even at an old age that could give an earth pony a run for her money. Uncomfortable and draining on her stamina as it was, Typhoon knew it was better than the alternative: getting caught in the open sky without her armor, and being a dragon’s breath or a swat from a claw away from a quick and violent death.

There were clouds up at altitude, and Typhoon picked one that looked solid and changed her course to alight on it. Her steel-shod hooves sank an inch into its puffy surface when she landed, but the floating platform was a welcome reprieve from hard flying. It gave her a chance to sit and survey the land far below her, and her ruby red eyes slowly scanned over everything, taking in every little detail for as far as they could see.

West, back the way she had flown, was the town of Green Glade, nestled in its pocket in the forest. Apart from the odd farm or house in forest clearings here and there, it was the only sign of civilization for miles in that direction. Typhoon wondered how much of the land she was looking at the dragoness had claimed as her own fiefdom. What invisible borders marked the end of Firestorm’s influence and the start of de jure Equestrian land?

She looked north. She was in the wilderness, the untamed frontier beyond the reach of Equestria’s control. The river that ran through Green Glade twisted and turned as it went to the east and then jogged north. That river ran past the abandoned Legion fort many miles away, somewhere beyond the horizon, and beyond that, its headwaters started somewhere within Equestria’s borders. But when did Typhoon leave those borders behind? Did it even matter anymore if there was nopony out here to enforce them? How far would she have to fly back north to return to Equestria’s rule of law, to land it had legitimate control over?

Her eyes scanned over her shoulder to the south. She had been flying this direction for some time now. Anything to put distance between herself and Everfree, where the unicorn queen ruled over her crumbling nation. Anything to put miles upon miles between herself and that city, and the demons it held and enemies it sheltered. Traveling so long to the south made her understand just how much Equestria’s rule of law had collapsed with the Legion gone. She noted with some disgust that a small part of her felt satisfied at that. What word did the griffons use to describe that feeling? Schadenfreude? Queen Platinum had brought the country’s current ruination down upon herself, and with the Legion gone, her throne was getting harder to sit upon.

But Typhoon wasn’t far beyond Equestria’s southern borders to worry about the dethroning of its queen. She looked back to the east, where a crimson tyrant treated the helpless ponies under her scaly claws like slaves to be worked to death for her profit. The land became rugged the further east she looked, with the forests and hills giving way to sparsely wooded rocky outcroppings. The land was too poor and difficult to access for most ponies, and the distance from the river would have made it an unappealing site for a settlement. On top of that, it was likely a haven for monsters—even from this far away, Typhoon could see the colossal remains of an old roc nest, and the giant birds were almost as dangerous as a dragon for a lone pony. She wondered if Firestorm had chased the roc away when she set up her den, or if the bird was gone by the time she’d made this stretch of the country her home. It was a shame the roc was gone, though; with a little bit of planning, Typhoon might have been able to get the roc and the dragon to fight, and the problem would have all but solved itself.

It took her some time to scan through the rugged terrain for the dragon’s lair, but after a few minutes of searching, she settled on a likely candidate. A couple miles into the cliffs and canyons was a rocky shelf that would provide an ideal place for a dragon to land on, situated right next to what Typhoon suspected was the entrance to a cave. On top of that, the vegetation that clung to the rocks around that cave was withered and brown, likely scorched dead from the heat and noxious fumes filling a dragon’s lair. It was hardly some marquise’s palace, but it might as well have been a castle all the same. It would take an army to storm the den and slay the monster inside, and even still, not a lot of soldiers would survive the ordeal.

And Typhoon was about to fly into it by herself.

“You’re trying to kill yourself, aren’t you?” she muttered to herself as she tried to piece together a plan. “Can’t live with your failures in Everfree?”

The old soldier gave her head a rough shake to scatter those thoughts away. They were distractions, and she needed to focus if she had any hope of flying out of that cave alive when all was said and done.

Closing her eyes, Typhoon thought back to a time when she was a younger mare, still in the prime of her life. She had fought dragons before with her century, but the circumstances were markedly different. Legion training for fighting dragons was to never make a move on their home turf, use a pegasus’ greater speed and smaller size to zip around the monster and out of the range of its claws, and to use hit and run attacks to minimize the risk of getting struck by a lucky swing. And of course, there was the fire breath, the most dangerous part of fighting a dragon. Even a near-miss would singe and shrivel feathers and send a pegasus plummeting to her death. And it was a lot harder to dodge a dragon’s breath when it was a one-on-one fight.

Typhoon exhaled sharply through her nose and opened her eyes. There weren’t a lot of options, but if anything Bluegrass had told her was true, then there was no chance of trying to resolve the situation with talk—not that she would have tried, anyway. Dragons were vain creatures by nature, and if one of them had assumed a pony noble title to lord over the helpless towns within the reach of its lair, there was even less of a chance that it would be moved by reason, especially coming from a single mare. Force was the only thing likely to get the response Typhoon wanted out of it, so force it would be.

Setting off from her cloud, Typhoon gained even more altitude as she began to approach the dragon’s lair. Altitude would be her friend in more ways than one. It would help keep her concealed until she was ready to strike, the dragon would struggle to carry her heavy reptilian body into thinner air, and Typhoon could readily trade height for speed. Positioning would be half the battle. Unfortunately for the solitary pegasus, the other half would be decided by luck.

When she was finally in position, she pushed another cloud towards the den to serve as her observation post. She had guessed right when she singled out the cliff shelf as a potential target for Firestorm’s lair; now that she was closer to it, she could clearly see the cavernous maw of stone leading deeper into the rugged rocky terrain. The smell of sulfur hung in the air, leaving the mare to crinkle her nose in disgust. But there was no movement on the ground below her, no shimmer of red scales under the midday sun. Typhoon might have been the only living thing around for miles, save for the dragon deep in her lair. That was good, at least. Far away from civilization, there wouldn’t be any other ponies who could get caught in the battle about to unfold.

Though on that thought, Typhoon frowned at the dragon’s den beneath her. If Firestorm wasn’t out in the open, then how was Typhoon supposed to fight the dragon on her terms? Taking the fight to the dragon’s lair would be suicidal. In such a confined space, her speed and agility would mean little. But, from what she remembered of the size of the dragon, Firestorm would have to come out to hunt sooner or later. Dragons that large needed to feed regularly, and if the poor frontier towns she was lording over couldn’t provide her with a regular stream of gemstones to snack upon, she’d have to find other things to eat, like manticores. And if the dragon didn’t feel like emerging to hunt until later in the evening, that gave Typhoon plenty of time to prepare.

She looked around, noting the large number of clouds lazily drifting in on the wind, and a plan began to form…

When the grand and majestic Marquise Firestorm, Lady of the Southron Villages awoke from her nap, her first thought was that she must have overslept. As slitted golden eyes turned toward the entrance to her den, she was surprised to find only dull gray light filtering in, and not the reds and golds of the approaching sunset. She frowned and stood up, stretching great crimson wings, the small mound of pony gold she slept on jingling as it fell free of her softer underbelly scales. She looked around her den, at the hoard of treasures she’d amassed, and the wagon of her subjects’ latest tithe sitting by the corner. She’d spend some time to sort through it later, maybe after she’d filled her stomach. It was hard to keep herself satisfied with the wealth she was collecting off of her subjects. Wealth was power, and the more she amassed, the larger she grew, and the stronger she became. Maybe it was time to find another pony town to put under her protection…

Long, sharp claws scraped and clacked against stone as the dragoness climbed up the ramp and out of her den. When she emerged into the open air, however, her scaled brow lowered in a frown. Gray clouds hovered all around her den, heavy and fat with rain, like a storm was about to break at any second. Wasn’t the sky clear and blue with only a few clouds earlier when she first returned from her latest excursion? Where did this storm come from?

Firestorm spread her great leathery wings and flapped them a few times, building up the energy to take her heavy reptilian body off the ground. It didn’t help that there was no wind, only a slight breeze. If there was a storm coming, she would have expected there to be more wind. But it was like the heavy gray clouds had all gathered around her den and then stopped, waiting for her to emerge. It was ominous, foreboding, and something about it made her scales crawl.

Still, she was a dragon, the queen of the skies and the terror of all who cowered under her shadow. There was nothing foreboding to a dragon, a creature of fire and fury who could kill with ease. She was the Marquise, and her hold over her subjects was absolute. They would serve her faithfully or perish.

A sharp pain suddenly sliced across her left wing, and the Marquise let loose a roar that was more surprise than it was agony. Her flight faltered for a moment, and when she looked back at her wing, the leather between two of its fingers was slashed and bleeding. To her surprise, crystals of frost lined the fresh wound, though the heat coming off of her body quickly melted it away.

Before she could react, a similar slashing pain struck her right wing, and Firestorm roared and bared her teeth. She swore she saw a shadowy silhouette slip into the grayness of the clouds around her, and out of rage, she let loose a bellow of fire in the direction she thought she saw it flee. The scalding heat quickly dispersed the clouds in front of her, but there was nothing else to show for her efforts.

“Leave these lands,” a voice called out from the storm. It seemingly came from everywhere at once, yet also nowhere, making it impossible to pinpoint its origin. “The ponies of Equestria are not yours to rule over. Leave now, or be prepared to fight.”

It was a pony’s voice, and that made the Marquise’s blood boil. “Coward!” she roared into the storm, and she started to climb in altitude to find the vile creature that would dare assault her person. “You dare challenge me? You ponies are vermin, fit only to serve your betters. And I have staked my claim to these lands!”

“Then defend it,” came the pony’s voice once more, and the clouds around Firestorm began to rumble with thunder. But rather than wait for the next attack, the dragoness inhaled sharply, filling her massive lungs with oxygen, and let loose a torrent of fire in every direction.

Far above the raging dragon…

Typhoon looked down from her perch in the clouds, the dragon’s blood dripping off of the scaled blades she wore on her wings. Clipping Firestorm’s wings as best she could before announcing her intentions to fight was an invaluable advantage, slowing the clumsy lizard down even more, but she watched with concern as the dragon’s fiery breath burned away the storm clouds she had assembled for cover. They wouldn’t last too long at this rate, so she needed to do what damage she could before it was all gone.

Giving the cloud beneath her a good kick with her metal prosthetic, Typhoon launched herself into the air as the storm she assembled began to rumble. Apart from a quick spin to align herself with the dragon, Typhoon hardly opened her wings, letting gravity build up her speed as she descended on Firestorm. She once more targeted Firestorm’s wings, knowing her bladed crests weren’t long enough or sharp enough to cut through the dragon’s armored hide, and just before impact, she pulled her wings away from her sides and braced them as best she could. The large scales at their crests hit first, the flutes on the scales gouging deep wounds into the membrane on Firestorm’s right wing, while the successive scales widened the wound and turned it into a ragged tear. The dragon’s blood splattered against Typhoon’s neck and sides, seeping into her feathers and making them unpleasantly stick together. But the old soldier was used to the bloody business of combat, and she powered through it to once more turn her energy into altitude to set up another strike.

Or at least, that was what she wanted to do. But a chunk of flesh from Firestorm’s wing had jammed itself in between the scales of her bladed wing, preventing the pegasus from opening it fully as she came out of her dive. Gritting her teeth, Typhoon stuck her opposite wing out as far as she could and angled it ever so slightly, immediately launching herself into a dizzying corkscrew to eject the bloody mass out of the blades of her wing. Centrifugal force took over from there, and in the span of a few seconds, both her wings were usable again, and she began to climb.

But the unexpected change of her flight plan had denied her a clean getaway, and Firestorm hissed and roared as she finally trained draconian eyes on her assailant. “Legion!” she shouted in rage, and her massive wings, bloodied as they were, sent her lunging after the retreating pony before Typhoon could get her altitude back. “Blight on the nests! Smashers of eggs! I will jam my claw into your beating heart and tear it out through your entrails!”

Fire followed her words immediately after, and Typhoon had to quickly roll to the side to avoid turning into a ball of fire plummeting out of the sky. Still, it was close enough that it made the hairs on her tail curl from the heat, but a tingle ran through her mane a moment later and her hair began to stand on end. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, a brilliant flash of light arced out of the clouds around her, and Firestorm’s shriek behind her told the soldier that the lightning had found its mark. When she looked over her shoulder, however, the red dragon had recovered from the strike, with only a charred black spot on her nose for all the trouble Typhoon had gone through to set up the storm. The pegasus cursed to herself and used the heat from the dragon’s scalding breath to try and climb a little faster. Firestorm’s fiery breath had broken up the storm before Typhoon could coax a lightning bolt out of it, and as such, the bolt the clouds finally did give her was far weaker than she had hoped.

Wheeling about, Typhoon swiftly switched tactics and charged directly at Firestorm while she was still recovering from the lightning strike. She’d lost too much energy on the last attack and dodging away from Firestorm’s fire breath, and she didn’t have a good chance of both outclimbing the dragon and not being burned alive, not while she was weighed down by her heavy armor. The dragon’s big wings, wounded as they were from her attacks, would give her the advantage in a straight line, so fleeing was out of the question. The only recourse left was to try and close to a knife-fight, getting inside of the dragon’s attacks and assail her wings and stomach while using her small size and speed to stay out of danger.

Before she could close to melee range, however, Firestorm recovered from the lightning strike and locked Typhoon in her slitted eyes. Her throat filled with an orange glow as she inhaled, and then a torrent of fire was heading Typhoon’s way. There wasn’t enough time to dodge it, so instead the only thing Typhoon could do was tap into her deep reserves of pegasus magic in an effort to withstand the blast. The old soldier gasped as she channeled her ice magic to do so, the painful memories that fueled it momentarily jumping to the front of her mind before she pushed them into her wings, and in the blink of an eye, Typhoon had turned herself into a missile encased in ice that plunged straight through the dragonfire. She maintained her concentration until the bright yellow light around her disappeared, and then with a grunt and an arch of her back, she burst out of the dripping remnants of her icy shell and ripped her frost-laden sword from its scabbard in one violent motion.

Firestorm could only blink in surprise at the emergence of the pegasus unscathed from her fiery breath, and so utterly failed to react before Typhoon spun around and drove the frozen point of her sword into the side of the dragon’s face. The impact of the enchanted weapon punched through the thin scales lining Firestorm’s upper jaw and sliced through seven scales before Typhoon wrenched it free as she sailed past the dragon’s head, leaving wounds jagged and frosted from the icy magic of the blade, and Firestorm howled and clutched at the wound with a scaly paw on reflex. Rather than let her momentum carry her past the dragon, Typhoon quickly snapped open her wings, shedding whatever ice still clung to her feathers, and whirled around, driving straight at Firestorm’s opposite wing and cutting a large tear through the membrane as she passed. Even as she swung around to cross underneath the dragoness’ body for another attack, she spared a moment to let icicles build on her left wing and, flying upside down for a brief moment, launched them up at Firestorm’s underbelly. Two of the three projectiles shattered against the dragon’s scales, but one found a gap in the armor and struck deep, the protruding segment dripping red with crimson before melting away and falling free.

Disoriented, in pain, and under assault from seemingly all sides at once by a lone pegasus, Firestorm could do little but flail and lash out at random. Her tail whipped through the air with deadly force, and she swung her claws in wild strikes while she twisted and turned to try and find the pegasus before she could land another sword strike. She bellowed and blasted fire all around her, trying to wreathe herself in flames and reduce the lone legionary to ash, but all she succeeded in doing was blinding herself with bright yellow and orange flames against the dull gray of the breaking storm. And she was losing altitude as well, as her random movements robbed her tattered wings of the efficiency they needed to fly, and the dropping feeling in her gut was growing stronger by the moment.

But even on the backfoot (or back claw, as it were), Firestorm was still a dragon, and Typhoon was still a single pegasus trying to take down a creature a hundred times her weight. Typhoon could only win through death by a thousand cuts, while Firestorm only needed one lucky swing to end the fight. That lucky strike came as Typhoon swerved to swoop over the dragoness’ lashing tail, only to see a red claw directly before her. She fluttered and veered her wings to dodge the strike, but to no avail; the best they managed was to turn her body a bit to the side before scales met steel, and the old soldier cried out in pain as the blow rent steel apart and crunched something within her chest from the impact alone. Blond feathers flew free from her wings as Typhoon violently tumbled backwards through the air, her sword launched from her mouth and flipping end over end before it fell into the trees below her.

Still, pain was something Typhoon was used to, and coupled with the adrenaline pumping through her veins, she was able to block most of it out. Even if her chest burned with every breath and the tendons holding her wings into their sockets ached from the whiplash, she managed to right her tumble before she hit the ground and limply flutter her way to the earth, coming down hard on one of the stony cliffs nearby. She wasted no time scrambling to her hooves, knowing that lingering even a second could spell death, though when she tried to force herself airborne again, a sharp jabbing pain in her chest and nauseating dizziness in her head quickly put a stop to those efforts before she could even get her hooves off the ground. Gritting her teeth and tasting blood in her mouth, Typhoon instead turned around and looked back the way she came, eyes narrowing on the crimson death already swooping down at her, smoke billowing from the dragon’s nostrils.

Cursing at herself and her carelessness, Typhoon desperately turned to the one option still available to her: a cave in the rocks leading down into the darkness below. By some luck or misfortune, Typhoon realized she had landed next to Firestorm’s lair, the only shelter from the dragon’s wrath in sight. The last thing she wanted to do was flee into Firestorm’s home turf, but there wasn’t anything else she could do; she could barely fly, and staying out in the open was naught but certain death. Not that the lair was much better either, but it at least gave her a chance to get away from Firestorm’s dragonfire and cobble together some prayer of a plan.

Hearing the dragon’s roar behind her, Typhoon flung herself into the cave opening, a blast of scalding air hinting at the broiling death that would have found her if she hadn’t moved. The entire mountain seemed to shake as Firestorm landed on the cliff moments later, and Typhoon stopped her retreat long enough to stomp her hooves on the ground and channel her ice magic into creating a translucent wall to block off the cave entrance. Firestorm immediately began to melt it away with her dragonfire, but it bought Typhoon several precious seconds to scamper deeper into the lair and find a place to hide.

It was dark deep in the mountain, but Firestorm’s fiery breath provided enough illumination for Typhoon to make out her surroundings. The tunnel opened up into a large cavern that reeked of sulfur and charred flesh, and right in the center was a pile of thousands, if not tens of thousands of gold and silver bits, surrounded by gems, gilded trinkets, and other valuable pieces of jewelry. Further out by the cavern walls were piles of trade goods like fine silks and fancy rugs taken from the far-flung corners of civilization, all amassed within this cave as Firestorm’s personal hoard. It was impressive, and though Firestorm might not really be a pony marquise like the title she had adopted, she certainly controlled the wealth to support her claim.

But gold and jewelry was not going to save Typhoon from the angry dragon that had her cornered, and she could see no other way out of the cave, nor a means to flee into a deeper cavern. The only thing she could do was try to hide and hope that she could ambush the dragon and score a lucky hit with an icicle. She wished she hadn’t lost her sword when Firestorm struck her; the magic blade was definitely sharp enough to cut through Firestorm’s belly scales, unlike the blades hanging off of her wings…

Even then, Typhoon knew that an icicle would hardly cut it, unless she managed to strike something vital through the dragon's armor. But then she realized something else: a good chunk of Firestorm's hoard, maybe even half of it, was made out of flammable trade goods. She remembered from her prior experiences with fighting dragons that there was a reason dragons hoarded wealth. Wealth was power, both as a social symbol, but even more importantly as a tangible effect. Dragon greed compelled them to hoard wealth, and the more wealth they seized, the larger and stronger they grew. And with that important realization, a tiny glimmer of hope sparked to life in Typhoon's head.

What was left of the ice in the tunnel shattered against Firestorm’s weight, and Typhoon threw herself under a wagon to the side of the hoard of treasures, hoping that the shadows would be enough to hide her until Firestorm drew closer. She had barely tucked herself under the laden wagon when the dragoness herself stomped into the cavern, smoke billowing from her nostrils, her scaled lips drew back in a sneer. “Come out, little legionary,” the dragoness taunted. “There’s nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide. Are you too hurt to fly? One bite and you won’t hurt anymore!”

The dragon stopped before her pile of gold and drew in a long, deep breath. “I can smell you, pony,” she growled, and one of her crimson claws dug through the pile and scattered bits everywhere. “Your sweat, your blood… I was going hunting before you attacked me. It’s been too long since I’ve feasted on a pegasus. You were always gamier than your cousins, but there’s nothing tastier than charred pegasus wings. Maybe I should thank you for offering yourself up to your marquise!”

She stomped over to the wagon, and Typhoon gritted her teeth and summoned icicles to her feathers. As soon as the dragoness lifted it up, she leaped out from under the wagon and flung them, six in all, directly at the dragon’s face. Startled, Firestorm flinched and drew her head back, and the icicles largely shattered harmlessly against her armor. But Typhoon, ignoring the pain in her chest, slid beneath the dragoness and pressed her wingtips to the ground. When she lifted them a second later, a large spike of ice rose from the stony earth and impaled its tip in Firestorm’s belly, soliciting a roar and a spray of fire that danced through the cave even as red blood began to drip down the ice.

But it was all Typhoon could manage; exhausted, in pain from what was likely a broken rib or two in her chest, and her pegasus magic weakening from continual exertion, she was too slow to dive for cover before Firestorm could react. Great crimson claws seized her barrel and hefted her off the ground, and Typhoon cried out in wheezing pain as Firestorm squeezed her chest in her grip, aggravating her broken ribs. She could only wriggle helplessly as the dragoness brought her up to her face, pinning her with her slitted golden eyes.

“Finally,” Firestorm growled, getting a good look at her opponent for the first time. “You’re a bit old to be a soldier, aren’t you?” she remarked, noting Typhoon’s graying mane and tail, and the wrinkles on her face beneath the sweat and soot. “You’re long past your time, pegasus. But you fight like no other pony I’ve ever fought. Before I execute you for your crimes against your liege lord, tell me your name so I know whom I kill.”

Typhoon grunted and managed to get some air into her lungs. “Typhoon Stormblade,” she wheezed. “Daughter of Hurricane Stormblade. Last commander of the Equestrian Legion.”

“Those names,” Firestorm hissed, and she scowled in deep hatred. “The daughter of the Black-Winged Terror and his Legions. Cirrans. The elders tell stories of how your kind smashed our eggs and drove us out of our nesting grounds decades ago. How you and the earth ponies and unicorns turned the lands south of Krennotets into a frozen wasteland. Killing you will be an honor no dragon could ever hope to match!”

She drew in a breath, ready to turn Typhoon into ashes, and the old soldier stared her down, ready to meet her death with honor. But Firestorm trembled before she could billow fire, and her grip on Typhoon weakened. To Typhoon’s immense surprise, Firestorm’s claw began to shrink, and the dragoness let out her breath as a cough of smoke. “What is—NO!” the dragoness shrieked, and she dropped Typhoon altogether and turned her attention to her hoard—a substantial chunk which, being made out of silk, wood, and other fuel—was now burning into ash from the wild spray of fire Typhoon had managed to solicit out of her with her icicle.

“My hoard!” Firestorm screeched, lunging at the flames and trying to smother them with her claws, all the while steadily shrinking in size. Typhoon looked on in relief as the diminishing hoard caused its owner to similarly diminish, her draconian muscles thinning away and her over armored bulk reducing in mass. More and more Firestorm shrank in size as her hoard burned away, until the screeching dragoness was left only a couple of ponies tall rather than a couple dozen.

The fight had suddenly become a lot fairer.

Forcing herself to her hooves, Typhoon summoned the last reserves of energy she had and let ice build on her wings once more. “Leave now, Firestorm, or I will be forced to kill you,” she said, her voice hoarse with pain and raw from the smoke.

“Monster!” Firestorm roared at her. “What have you done?! Everything I’ve amassed, everything I’ve worked for, gone! I… I-I’ll kill you!” She lunged at Typhoon, but Typhoon let spikes of ice fly from her wings again, and two struck deep into Firestorm’s weakened armor, eliciting harsh screams from the dragoness. She fell to her belly with one spike jutting out of her shoulder and one buried deep in her flank, and tried to burn Typhoon with fire, but only managed to sputter out a guttering flame that was more smoke than flame.

Typhoon extended her wings and rattled the sharp and jagged scales on them, holding them out at her sides like two terrible, crooked saws. “Your final chance,” Typhoon warned Firestorm, watching the dragon's suddenly frightened eyes, and she widened her stance as she anchored herself before delivering a decapitating strike. “Leave these lands far behind you, and never think to subjugate a pony ever again, or I will end your life.”

Draconic pride wrestled with fear for a moment, but Firestorm’s fear won out in the end. “You insect! You... you worm!” she shouted at Typhoon as she scurried away and toward the cave entrance, the dragoness who once called herself Marquise reduced to petty insults. Only when she felt she was safely out of Typhoon’s range did the dragoness turn tail and flee, her claws scraping across the stone before she launched herself off the cliff and flew away on ragged wings as fast as she could.

Typhoon waited for several minutes, just in case the dragoness was stupid enough to return, but the only sounds she heard were her own ragged breathing and the crackling of the fire in the back of the lair. Only once she was sure that Firestorm would not return did Typhoon let down her guard and fall to her haunches, struggling to breathe in the increasingly-smoky cave as the fires raged over what was left of Firestorm's hoard. Gritting her teeth, the old soldier tried to drag herself out of the cave, but with her adrenaline slipping away, the pain in her chest and the exhaustion of her fight conspired together to rob her limbs of strength and send her flopping helplessly onto the ground.

As her eyes rolled back, Typhoon blacked out knowing she'd at least died an honorable death.

1-7

Typhoon waded through a river of blood, hot, rancid, and sticky.

It lapped at her chest and had fouled her feathers to the point they were useless. They were ratty and matted needles poking out of bloodstained wings like straw, and flapping her wings gave her no lift whatsoever. It only served to splash blood around, blood that inevitably found its way into her mouth, her eyes, her nose.

Somewhere in the distance, high-pitched shrieking and chirping rose above the ocean of crimson, angry, pained… and growing louder.

Typhoon gritted her teeth, tasting copper on her tongue, and tried to wade through it as quickly as she could. She tried to use her magic to freeze the deluge of death so she could climb over it, but it failed to answer her summons. Her hooves slipped on bones beneath the crimson tide, and she momentarily floundered in the blood as she tried to regain her footing, wings flailing wildly. When she did, she greedily sucked down air, and bloodshot eyes fixated on the gray silhouette of land in front of her.

It was the only way out.

She set off as quickly as she could, all six limbs splashing through the blood as she hopped and swam for the only solid ground she could see in any direction—all the while the screeching behind her steadily grew louder. She hazarded a look back over her shoulder to see a gray cloud of leathery wings and fangs closing in from the scarlet horizon, and her heart jumped into her throat. She knew what would happen if that ball of death fell upon her. Land was her only hope.

Blood splattered in her eyes, rendering her all but blind, but she felt the ground beneath her hooves begin to rise. Somehow she had made it, and she threw herself onto solid ground in relief, the blood dripping off of her limbs and body. But as soon as she collected herself, she realized something was deeply wrong. She wiped the blood out of her eyes and gasped in shock when she realized she wasn’t standing on land. No, the island in the sea of blood was a tangle of lifeless bodies, pegasus, unicorn, and earth pony alike, all dead from grievous wounds as if it was the work of a bloody hatchet. But their wounds did not weep. Instead, they were all frozen over, scoured by some hellish blade and then sealed shut with ice. The cold emanating from them only added an unearthly chill to the island of graves Typhoon now stood on.

And in the center, impaled to the bodies beneath it, was a purple unicorn’s head, a silver crown encircling her sandy blond mane, and her horn replaced by a curved blue sword that ran through her skull, throwing off frosty clouds from the length of its naked steel.

“No,” Typhoon croaked, reaching a hoof out toward the head of the unicorn queen as she staggered closer. “No, I-I never…” But her words were drowned out beneath a cacophony of screams.

Typhoon looked up.

A tempest of fangs and leathery wings fell on her, ripping, tearing, and snapping.

Typhoon awoke with a gasp that turned into a choked scream as a lance of pain stabbed through her lung. She gritted her teeth and curled up on reflex, dragging her limbs across the stony, sooty ground beneath her. Her ragged breathing turned into coughing that in turn became more pained grunting, but after holding her breath for as long as she could and trying to will the pain to subside, she finally got enough clarity in her senses and control over her body to assess the situation.

She raised her head from the ground, feeling soot and ashes coating her face, and when she gave it a shake, they fell from her coat like gray snow. The cave floor all around her was similarly coated with ash, though it was hard to make anything out with the minimal amount of sunlight that made it into Firestorm’s lair. But what did get inside illuminated the twisted and charred remains of the dragoness’ hoard, burnt to cinders by her dragonfire and still smoldering faintly.

Of the dragon herself, there was no sign. Typhoon was surprised that Firestorm hadn’t come back to finish her while she was unconscious, but destroying the dragon’s hoard and chasing her off after proving she was capable of killing the ‘Marquise’ must have convinced the crimson reptile to not risk it. As it was, Typhoon could only hope that she had flown far, far away from here and would never come back. She didn’t think she had it in her to fight the dragon off again, especially not without her magic and barely able to fly.

It took the aid of Typhoon’s wings to force herself off the ground and stand upright on shaky legs. Her head swam and her vision flickered red from the pain, but she mustered what magic had returned to her while she was out cold to press her hoof to her injured ribs and coat her belly with a layer of ice to cool and numb the pain. It was then that she realized the miserable state of her Legion armor, bent in some places from Firestorm’s devastating blow and split through in others, with her helmet completely missing. Gritting her teeth, Typhoon shed the entire metal mess, leaving it in a pile on the cave floor only after pausing long enough to remove her saddlebags from the outside. The strap on one of the bags had broken and its contents were missing, no doubt strewn across the forest outside of Firestorm’s lair…

Her breath hitched in her throat, eliciting in turn a pained cough that left her wincing and grimacing. Her sword. She’d lost it somewhere in the forest when Firestorm struck her. She needed to get it back, needed to find it. Losing it wasn’t something she could afford—not after everything else she’d lost in the past few years.

It was the last thing that remained of her family that she had to her name.

She started to hobble toward the exit of Firestorm’s lair, but before she departed, she looked back at what remained of the dragon’s hoard. The promise she made to Bluegrass (and in turn, the Penny twins) came back to her mind, and she instead made her way back to the pile of bits and gems in the middle, the only thing to not burn in the fire. With her newly empty saddlebag, she scooped as many gold coins and gems into it as she could, baring her teeth slightly at the uncomfortable sensation of the much heavier bag on her left than her right. That would do as payment for the merchants, and likely then some. And if they were brave enough, there was more waiting here for them or any other brave explorers to uncover.

With Firestorm’s gold weighing her down, Typhoon finally stepped out of the abandoned lair and looked around. To her surprise, the pale light of morning had begun to stretch across the eastern sky, broken up here and there by the gray shadows of distant clouds. She must have been unconscious the entire evening, a fact that her now-grumbling stomach was all too eager to remind her about. So, before she launched herself off the cliff and tested her wings, she sat down, set her saddlebags next to her, and took stock of what she had left after yesterday’s fight.

Thankfully, her right saddlebag had held all her critical supplies, like her rations and canteen. But when she opened it up to get at them, the first thing she saw was a crumpled dreamcatcher resting on top of everything else. Frowning, she pulled it out of the bag and noted that the wooden frame holding the woven threads of spider silk together had splintered in two places and one of the strands of silk had been cut. The damage must have happened during her fight with Firestorm... but at the very least, she hadn't lost it.

"Guess that's why the nightmares are back," she grumbled to herself, gently setting it aside to get at her rations. She'd have to find somewhere to get it fixed, and that meant finding a wizard or somepony who understood enchantments and magical artifacts. She wasn't looking forward to the inevitably sleepless nights between now and then.

She thoughtfully munched away on her cold breakfast as she looked out over the horizon. She’d survived the fight with Firestorm and emerged victorious; that left the unfortunate question of ‘what next?’. She knew a part of her would have been happy to die in the fight, but here she was, beaten but not broken, victorious, and somehow still alive. That meant there was still a road to travel down, but where it would lead, or even where it was, she did not know. All she knew was that she had to follow it, wherever it was, and find what was at the end… whatever that was as well.

After a quiet half hour to fill her stomach and reflect in the solitary wilderness out in the highlands, Typhoon stood up and crept toward the edge of the cliff. She looked down at the rocks and trees beneath her and stretched her wings, giving them a few tentative flaps to make sure they could hold her weight. Her chest ached from the exertion, but if she took it slow and glided as much as she could, she felt confident she could carry herself through the skies.

Of course, she would have to find out one way or another.

She took a deep breath.

Held it.

Tipped forward.

The wind tugged on her mane and began to slip under her feathers.

There, in that moment of weightlessness, that breath of time hanging between the sky above and the ground below, she found it.

She was still alive.

For better or for worse.

Her wings caught the wind and she flew, soaring out over the trees.

1-8

Typhoon alighted on the forest floor a few minutes later, grimacing and wincing as she did so. Though she’d proven she could fly, she could only do so for a short time, and it hurt all the while. Instead of continuing her search for her sword from the air, she decided it’d be easier to conduct from the ground. Though there was always the risk of running into cockatrices or manticores or other unpleasant monsters when wandering the forest on hoof, Typhoon wasn’t too concerned about any of that. Her fight with Firestorm likely scared any living thing away, and if she did have to defend herself, she still had working wingblades. And besides, there was only a small area the sword could have gone, and Typhoon knew she’d see the signs of the sword long before she saw the weapon itself.

After a night to sleep off the terror of a dragon soaring overhead, the forest had tentatively returned to its usual music, adding a calming background melody as Typhoon’s three naked hooves and single prosthetic padded over the mossy ground, leaving icy hoofprints in its wake. Birds chirped out songs of avian love between the trees, and a gentle breeze toyed with the notion of bringing more rain to the forest after the artificial storm Typhoon had constructed the night before. A woodpecker hammered away at a rotting tree somewhere in the distance, adding a sharp staccato to the air, while a pair of far-off ursine growls managed to tease ever so faintly at the mare’s ears. It made her pause for a moment, but she merely gave her head a shake and carried onwards. So long as the bears didn’t bother her, she wouldn’t bother them.

Wandering for a few minutes more, Typhoon came to a small stream winding its way through the rocks, only deep enough to get up to her knees should she wade through it, yet teeming with minnows, water striders, and mayflies. She would have crossed it without a second thought, but something white and almost see-through floating on the surface caught her attention. When she scooped it up with her wing and brought it closer to her face, she realized it was ice, and looking upstream she saw more of it floating along with the river currents. Frowning, she tossed the ice back in the river and began to trot upstream, following the many twists and turns in the stream along its rocky shores.

Eventually, she found the source of the ice. About half a mile upstream, a tree that had fallen across the river wore a sheet of ice like a translucent dress, its mossy branches hidden behind a veil of white. Icicles hung down from its trunk and reached into the stream’s waters, where they would slowly freeze the water in a trail leading from the tip before it grew too large and heavy and broke away, only for the process to begin anew. And rising from the middle of the tree trunk like a steel branch was a curved sword, the blue sheen on the blade seemingly bluer and brighter by the ice coating it halfway up to the hilt.

“There you are,” Typhoon murmured to herself, and she made her way closer to the tree, careful to avoid stepping on any of the icy rocks along the shore closest to the fallen timber. She was surprised that the magical sword hadn’t cut its way entirely through the tree, but she was thankful for it nonetheless. Prying it out of frozen wood would certainly be easier than trying to chip it out of a frozen river. She guessed she still had some luck on her side after all. The last few years, and for what felt like most of her life, had all but convinced her otherwise.

She hopped onto the tree from the base of its roots, holding her wings out at her sides to keep her balance as she began to step across the slippery, frozen wood. Far from the sword, the wood was only covered in frost, but the closer she drew, the more solid and treacherous the ice grew. In the end, she used the tip of her metal hoof to chip out craggy hoofholds in the ice to make sure she wouldn’t slip, and though it was slow and laborious work, she finally made it close enough to the sword that it was within her reach.

Before she wrenched it out of its icy plinth like some kind of sword in the stone with a wintry twist, Typhoon stood at a distance and took her time to admire it. That sword was so close to her side for so long that she had taken it for granted; almost losing it while fighting Firestorm made her realize not only how much she needed it, but how much of her was inside that weapon. The curving, steel blue blade released clouds of frost from its metal, forged from legendary pegasus skysteel. This weapon had started its life as like many other pegasus swords, nothing more than a cloud, a wispy blanket of cirrostratus high in the sky, almost too high for pegasi to fly up to. But it had become something more when the ghostly remains of a windigo had been added to the forge. The icy nature of the cirrus cloud and the magical, freezing hatred of the windigo had melted together in the forge, shaped by the magic of the pegasus who forged it, shaping skysteel nopony had ever seen the likes of before, and likely never would again. And there was no pony in the world who could wield it to its full potential besides its master, Typhoon.

She leaned forward and wrapped her teeth around the handle, shivering at the touch and at the painful memories inside the metal that poured into her being. Memories of cold flagstones on her belly and the smell of alcohol and sweat made her shiver and her skin crawl. Tears slipped out of squeezed-shut eyes and froze down the length of her muzzle, while frost formed on her feathers and glittered in the morning light. Soul-crushing pain and misery made its way out of the sword, that hateful sword, and into the mare grasping it, but after a moment, they failed to hold any more sway over her. That pain and misery was a part of her, a piece of her soul she had put into the sword at the skyforge, and reunited with its master, the pain fit neatly into the hole she had cut from her heart.

Pain and misery. That was what made Typhoon who she was. That was what made her sword what it was. The runes etched along the base of the blade had been written in old Cirran, a language few alive today could still read, but Typhoon knew what they wrote out: Hiems Osculum, Winter’s Kiss. In the cold heart of the darkest winter ponykind had ever known, a single forced kiss had changed who Typhoon was as a mare, and had made her the strongest ice empath in the world.

So many ponies had come and gone, along with their memories, many painful, many pleasant. But those memories, the memories of that winter, Typhoon knew she would carry with her the rest of her life, just as she carried the sword forged from them. They made her who she was. They made her strong, but they cut deep to the bone, deeper than the icy knifing winds of the harshest blizzard she had ever lived through an entire lifetime ago.

Typhoon locked her teeth tightly around the grip and wrenched the sword free, shattering the ice fusing it to the log and sending shards of ice and splinters of wood flying into the air with one harsh motion. The sword returned to the embrace of its master, and after taking a deep breath, Typhoon slid it back into its scabbard, feeling the comforting weight of her burden and her power once more nestled under her left wing. The growth of the icicles hanging from the log stopped, and with a quiet snap, the last globule of ice broke free from the tip and began to float downstream.

Typhoon watched it meander along the current for a long time, until it rounded a bend in the stream and slipped out of sight. Then, nostrils flaring, the old soldier took a deep breath and looked to the skies.

A flap of feathers and a ruffle of wind, and she was gone.

1-9

“Come on, either pay up or give it back!”

“But that pegasus said she’d pay for it all!”

“Then where is she? She’s probably dragon food, and no way can we afford to turn this whole thing into a charity trip!”

“Yeah! Look, I get it, it sucks, but think about this from our perspective! What kind of merchants would we be if we just gave everything we had away for free? We’ve gotta eat, too!”

“We’ve barely eaten in days!”

The sounds of commotion made their way up to Typhoon’s ears as she returned to Green Glade, and she grumbled inwardly as the words of the argument grew clearer the closer she flew. Though she didn’t get the sense that the Penny twins were bad or greedy, she had told Bluegrass to have everypony in the town take what they needed from the merchants on the promise that she’d bring compensation back from the dragon’s lair. It was understandable they’d be more than a little upset if what was supposed to be a profitable business venture turned into a ruinous charitable donation.

Not that she thought the Penny twins had much to complain about compared to the ponies of Bluegrass who were on the verge of starvation after suffering under Firestorm’s extortions for so long…

Still, she angled her wings and began to drop from her glide, her approach as of yet unnoticed by the bickering ponies below. She trained ruby red eyes down on the ground and frowned at the circle of increasingly agitated ponies forming around the pair of merchants and their wagon. Common sense seemed to be one thing the merchants didn’t carry in ample supply; perhaps it would be better to think twice about withholding food from a town full of starving ponies with nothing left to lose because they can’t afford to pay for it. If she didn’t intervene, there probably wouldn’t be much left of the twins by the time the ponies of Green Glade were done with them.

“Wait, there she is!” somepony from the crowd called out as Typhoon finally descended into the town square, landing hard on her hooves and grimacing as her injuries made themselves known again after a long while effortlessly gliding on thermals. Ponies gasped in shock and disbelief as they saw the old soldier battered but undeniably alive, and they all started to press in around her as they murmured to each other—at least until the merchants rushed to Typhoon’s sides and practically used her blond wings for shelter.

“There you are! Great to see you, old friend old pal!” Penny Saved said, throwing his foreleg around Typhoon’s neck and forcing her into an awkward hug. “We were just, uh, doing what you asked of us! Giving the good folk of Green Glade our supplies, free of charge!”

“Yeah!” Penny Earned exclaimed, and she even leaned in to brush her cheek against Typhoon’s. “Things just got a little… rowdy. Saved just wasn’t giving things out fast enough for their liking, is all!”

That garnered a glare from Saved, who leered over Typhoon’s neck at his sister. “I didn’t see you making to help! You’re the one who said we should pack things up when she didn’t come back this morning!”

“I was just trying to protect my business investment!”

“Yeah, more like trying to save your hide! I saw you thinking about flying off, don’t deny it!”

An irritated frown settled on Typhoon’s lips. “Stop touching me or I’ll turn you both into icicles.”

The soldier’s cold words had the intended effect, and both merchants jumped away from her sides in a flash. They regrouped by their wagon, and when Typhoon fixed them with a look, Penny Saved laughed nervously. “D-Don’t worry, we’ll get right on unloading the wagon, right, sis?” he said, forcing a smile to his face and punching Penny Earned in the shoulder.

“Ow!” the pegasus gasped, wincing and clutching her shoulder with a hoof. “That hurt, you brainless idiot!”

“Not as much as it’s gonna hurt to get torn apart by angry villagers!” he hissed back at her. “Now come on!”

Typhoon rolled her eyes and stepped away, the crowd around her parting as she walked. The townsponies all watched her in awe, the survivor of a fight against the dragon that had tormented them so, and they gave her almost a reverent amount of personal space as she passed by them. Typhoon ignored them, her eyes instead only scanning through the crowd for the one mare she had actually spoken to in Green Glade.

She found Bluegrass looking on in disbelief from the front step of her home, and when Typhoon approached her, the unicorn rubbed her eyes as if she was seeing things. “You… lived?” Bluegrass asked her.

“Yes,” was Typhoon’s obvious answer. “I did.”

“Then is she…” Bluegrass swallowed hard. “Did you deal with Firestorm?”

“I didn’t kill her,” Typhoon said. “I wasn’t able to. But I did make sure she wouldn’t be a problem anymore.” The soldier shifted her weight from one side to the other and winced when her ribs reminded her of their injury. “Took a beating. She almost got me. But I destroyed her hoard and chased her away. She won’t be a problem anymore.”

Bluegrass shifted anxiously and looked to the skies. “Are you sure? What if she comes back?”

“She won’t,” Typhoon said. “She’s a dragon. Dragons respect power. I destroyed her hoard and nearly killed her by myself. I told her if she ever tried to do something like this again, I would finish the job. She won’t be back.”

Though Bluegrass still seemed unsure, the conviction in Typhoon’s voice seemed to at least allay some of her worries. The mare let out a breath and the tension in her shoulders seemed to dissipate along with it. “If you’re so sure… then thank you, ma’am. From the bottom of my heart, from all the ponies in Green Glade and all the other towns that dragon extorted… thank you. I just wish we could repay you somehow.”

Typhoon shrugged her wings, the metal plates on them rattling slightly with the motion. “Normally I’d ask for food, drink, and someplace warm to spend the night when I come to a town,” she said. “But I understand the first two aren’t really an option.”

“Of course they are!” Bluegrass practically exclaimed, and the enthusiasm in her voice caught Typhoon off guard. “You’re the one who got all these supplies for us! It’s only right that you at least get to have some of it! And if you want someplace to stay, you can have my bed for the night! I’d be honored!”

“Well… if you insist.” Typhoon silently conveyed her appreciation with a nod, though she stopped and pursed her lips for a moment in thought. “Actually, there’s something else you could help me with.”

Bluegrass tilted her head to the side. “Oh? If there’s anything we can do for you, just tell us!”

“I need information,” Typhoon said. “I have a few questions I’ll need answered.”

“Like what? I don’t know much, but if it’s something I do know, I’ll be happy to share.”

“Do you know of any wizards around here?” Typhoon asked her.

Bluegrass’ friendly smile melted into an awkward one, and she crossed her forehooves at the question. “I see. Well… how’s about we discuss that over something to eat, okay?”

Within an hour, the smell of a hearty stew had filled Bluegrass’ house, and Typhoon felt her stomach protesting more and more the longer it went unfilled. The rations she’d eaten after waking up that morning were hardly the most filling food, and after all the energy she’d expended flying to Firestorm’s lair, fighting the dragon, and flying back, she looked forward to the chance to fill up on some warm food.

“Was it scary?” Penny Saved asked from the other side of Bluegrass’ table. After they’d distributed their supplies to the ponies of Green Glade, the two merchants had invited themselves into Bluegrass’ house with Typhoon, though the unicorn didn’t seem to mind too much. They had brought the food, after all, and even if things had gotten tense just an hour earlier, that wasn’t something Bluegrass was going to forget.

“It wouldn’t scare her. She’s a legionary,” Penny Earned said, shooting her brother a reproachful look. “Killing dragons is what they do!”

“Not anymore, they don’t,” Saved said, crossing his forelegs as he leaned back in his chair. “Considering the queen got rid of them all.”

“You know what I mean!”

Typhoon sighed to herself and fit her feathers through the handle on the side of her mug of ale, freshly unloaded from the Penny twins’ wagon. “Yes, I was afraid,” she said, interrupting the twins’ argument. “You have to be a madmare to fight a dragon by yourself and not be afraid. It doesn’t matter how good you are. Make a single mistake and it can be the end of you.” She winced as she shifted, feeling the sharp pain in her chest, and added, “It almost was for me.”

“You’re hurt?” Earned asked her, concern washing over her face. “You don’t look like it. I mean, other than the scrapes and bruises.”

“One of my ribs,” Typhoon said, gingerly touching the spot on her chest and sucking in a sharp breath when she felt the bone beneath it. “It’ll take some time to heal, but I’ll live.”

Bluegrass, who had been listening along from the fireplace as she kept an eye on the stew, turned toward the conversation happening at her kitchen table. “If you need a place to stay…”

“No,” Typhoon said with a shake of her head. “Thank you. But I couldn’t take advantage of your hospitality for that long.”

“It wouldn’t be a bother at all!” Bluegrass insisted. “I still feel like I owe you so much, after all you did for us.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Typhoon stated, and the flatness of her tone put an end to that argument.

After a moment’s silence, Penny Earned cautiously returned to the topic. “I can’t imagine flying for that long with a broken rib, though. You’re going to be grounded for a while.”

Typhoon shrugged. “I flew back here. I’ll push through the pain, unless you two have something that can help with that stashed away in your wagon.”

The merchant twins gave each other a look that didn’t go unnoticed by Typhoon. After some unheard conversation passed between the two’s eyes, Penny Saved turned to Typhoon and tapped his hooves together. “Weeeeeellllllllll, we always keep a little something stashed away for when we go to bigger cities. I’ve heard it’s good at taking the edge off of pain, but we wouldn’t know anything about that, right, sis?”

“I’m not the law out here,” Typhoon said with a frown. “The Legion is gone, and all I want to know is if you have something or not that can help keep me on my hooves.”

Penny Earned let out a breath and dug into one of the saddlebags she’d kept close by her side since entering Bluegrass’ home. After a moment, she retrieved a small cloth pouch, the top cinched by a simple drawstring. “How much do you know about whispersalt?”

“Enough to know that it was popular with the milites in the barracks when I was a younger soldier,” Typhoon said. “When Cirra started trading with the unicorns and earth ponies after the Exodus, that was one of the more popular things to come out of the Diamond Kingdoms. Use too much and it takes your voice away for a while. Thus the name.”

“But it’s also a sedative,” Earned said. “It helps ponies sleep at night. A little pinch might be enough to take the edge off of your broken rib until it’s healed.”

Typhoon gave the pouch a long look, but finally, with a flare of her nostrils and an exhale of breath, she swiped the bag to her side with a wing. “I’ll see if it helps,” she said. “Thank you.”

Penny Saved cleared his throat, and when Typhoon shifted her gaze to the stallion, he flicked his ear in the direction of the pouch. “You know… just want to bring it up that, well, we still haven’t been compensated for everything. Just, you know, putting that out there before anypony forgets or anything…”

Rolling her eyes, the legionary snatched the strap of her saddlebag in her teeth and lifted it off of the floor. She dropped it onto Bluegrass’ table with a heavy thud and tipped it over. The flap of the bag flopped open, and the merchants’ (and Bluegrass’) eyes widened at the clattering of gold coins and gems spilling out across the table. “Take what you want,” Typhoon said. “I tucked away some money for myself for the road. And, if you’re feeling adventurous, there’s more of that in Firestorm’s lair to the east of here.”

The two merchants stared at the pile of wealth in shock for only a moment before both lunged forward and dragged as many coins and gems toward themselves as they could with their forelegs. “That dragon was loaded!” Penny Earned exclaimed as she used her wings to sweep up some gemstones with her feathers. “Some of these gemstones are very rare!”

“It’s enough to fully cover everything from this trip, and then some!” Saved excitedly shouted. As he slid the coins into a saddlebag, he looked at his sister. “How much more do you think is up there?”

“I don’t know but I think we should find out!”

While brother and sister began to plot grand schemes of heisting Firestorm’s lair, Typhoon pointedly turned her attention toward Bluegrass. “If your townsfolk are feeling up for it, they might want to go after Firestorm’s lair as well. The wealth will help get you back on your hooves and get more supplies you need. I doubt this one wagonload is going to last very long.”

“I’m not sure we’ll have the strength to get up there so soon,” Bluegrass admitted. “But we’ll try.”

“It’s not going anywhere.” Typhoon took a sip of her ale and then set it down with a foreboding clack. “Now, about my earlier question…”

“The wizard one? Yeah… well, the stew’s finished, and I mentioned I’d rather discuss that over food…” Bluegrass floated down four bowls from a nearby shelf and ladled a helping of stew into each one, then set them down in front of each seat at the table. The Penny twins immediately started to dig into theirs, acting far more famished than the soldier who’d only eaten trail rations since fighting a dragon and the townspony who hadn’t had anything to eat in days because of said dragon. Instead, Typhoon patiently waited while Bluegrass sat down at the table and allowed herself a spoonful of stew before talking. The unicorn shivered and hummed to herself, and she couldn’t help herself but grab a second before she found the strength for words. “Oh, I haven’t eaten anything this hearty in so long…”

“Yes,” Typhoon agreed after taking a mouthful of her own. “It’s excellent.”

The deadpan compliment spurred Bluegrass back towards the topic the legionary was waiting for. “Right. Wizards,” she said, setting her spoon down while the other three ponies watched expectantly. “There have been a few over the years. Mostly passing through, though. They never stay too long, especially not when the Legion was still around. I don’t think most of them were on good terms with Everfree.”

“Not usually, no,” Typhoon acknowledged. “Wizards are dangerous ponies, especially when they refuse to conform to the laws and practices of Archmage Diadem’s school of magic. Many of them go to the frontier to get away from the eyes of ponies who care about what goes on in their workshops and laboratories.” Her eyes narrowed as she added, “Sometimes, however, a wizard who’s willing to cut corners or try things the Academy forbids is the only way to solve an unconventional problem.”

Penny Earned blinked and swallowed her spoonful of stew. “Is that what you have? An unconventional problem?”

Typhoon’s silence, or rather, her lack of a reaction entirely, was her answer.

Bluegrass nervously chuckled and tapped her hooves together. “Right, well, ponies out on the frontier are… familiar with that. Which is why we aren’t usually too happy about any wizards who come to town. Sometimes they’re helpful, dealing with a monster or something, but They often build towers in the middle of nowhere and stay there. Which is fine by us. I’d rather not cross paths with somepony who can fry my brain with a spell.”

“Or rip out your soul,” Typhoon muttered to herself.

“Uh… what?”

“Nothing.” Typhoon dismissively waved her wing. “Are there any towers nearby? Preferably occupied?”

“Not close to Green Glade, no,” Bluegrass said. “But there’s a pretty good town southwest of here by the name of Boiling Springs. I think they have a wizard or two that stops in at their market for supplies every so often. It’s centered around some hot springs maybe two days’ walk from here. Or, well, I don’t know how long that is as the pegasus flies. It’s close enough that Firestorm could have gone after it if she wanted to, but she would have had to contend with too many ponies that could fight back. Does that help?”

The old soldier nodded. “Yes,” she said. “It does. It’s a direction at least, and a big town is what I need. The more ponies there are living there, the more likely somepony will know what I need to find out.”

“Maybe we should head there too,” Penny Saved said to his sister. “It would make a good place to stock up after all of this.”

“After we go get all that gold,” Penny Earned assured him. “We can’t just let free money pass us by!”

“Or us passing it by.”

“You know what I mean!”

“I’m just saying!”

Typhoon shook her head, blocking out the twins’ bickering. “Two days’ walk will be an afternoon’s flight for me, if I have the wind at my tail. I’ll leave in the morning.”

“So soon?” Bluegrass asked, her ears folding back in disappointment. “But you only just got here! Don’t you think you should rest for a bit and let your ribs heal?”

“A good night’s sleep is all the rest I can afford right now,” Typhoon said. Though as she said that, she frowned and thought back to the dreamcatcher in her bag. “Or the best I can hope for. I can’t delay forever.”

“Then at least let me offer you my bed. I can afford to sleep on the couch one night. Having something soft to sleep on should help with your ribs.”

Typhoon thought for a moment, considering the offer, and finally nodded. “Thank you,” she said. “You’re too kind.”

“Nonsense!” Bluegrass exclaimed with a smile. “Only trying to repay you however I can! And make sure to eat up, there’s plenty of stew for everypony. I’m already ready for seconds!”

1-10

Fangs. Leather. Blood. Bodies. Screaming.

Typhoon sat bolt upright in Bluegrass’ bed, startled awake by the familiar nightmare, only to gasp and clutch at her chest as she agitated her ribs. She doubled over, hissing through clenched teeth, sweat pouring off of her hide and sticking to the sheets. Squeezing tired eyes shut, Typhoon did her best to blot out the pain and disorientation, and when it finally passed, she started to relax and control her breathing again.

She had left the curtains to Bluegrass’ bedroom window open so that she could rise at first light, but the sky outside was still dark, if a bit silvery by the horizon. Her nightmare had woken her up before the sun, though by the looks of it, sunrise was only an hour or two away. She doubted she’d be able to get to sleep again… not that she really needed it. Old age had weathered away at her need for sleep, which had proven to be both a blessing and a curse for many reasons. It’d been so long since she was a common hoofsoldier stealing naps when she could that she’d all but entirely forgotten what it was like to sleep for more than five hours a night…

Her chest still ached anyways, and the pain would have stopped her from slipping off to sleep again even if she tried. So instead, she forced herself out of bed, landing on the hard floor with a muffled clop of her hooves, wincing once more at her agitated chest. Grumbling, she shuffled across the floor to her belongings, and after a moment’s hesitation, she drew out the small pouch she’d received from the twins the night before.

She stared at the plain brown fabric for a long time before she finally loosened its drawstring and poked a feather into the opening. When she pulled her wingtip out, bluish-white crystals clung to the vanes of her feather, maybe ten altogether. But even despite the pangs of pain pinging around her ribs, Typhoon hesitated. Morals and codes screamed at her from her past, reminding her of the example she was supposed to set for the Legion, for the institution that she had dedicated her life to.

An institution that no longer existed.

The Legion was dead. But she was still alive. The pain in her chest told her that much.

Typhoon put her feather to her lips and sucked the crystals off, feeling them melt against her tongue with a saccharine chill. It slowly spread across her mouth, across her gums, and down her throat, causing her to shiver before it finally settled in her gut. And just like that, the pain started to fade into nothing more than a dull throb, even when she let out a wheezing cough that passed through numbing vocal cords.

Awake and with her bruised ribs dealt with, Typhoon looked down at her saddlebags, shrugged, and draped them over her back, just behind her wings. The skies were still dim, but if she flew up high enough, she’d see the sun a few minutes before the ponies on the ground did. The sooner she flew toward Boiling Springs, the sooner she would get there. And as she took down the broken dreamcatcher from where she’d hung it above her pillow, she was determined to find the mage that supposedly visited there as quickly as she could. The fewer nights of fangs and blood, the better.

With her bags strapped to her barrel, her sword hanging from her side, and her wing blades curled up, wrapped in cloth, and hanging from hooks at her flanks, Typhoon padded out of Bluegrass’ bedroom on quiet hooves. The house was dark and still, and when Typhoon hesitated in the threshold, she heard the quiet snoring of the unicorn on her couch in the living room. For a moment, the old soldier considered waking her host up to say her goodbyes, or at least wait until the unicorn was awake to leave, but she chased those thoughts away with a shake of her head. She’d only have to fend off more pleas to get her to stay longer, and the last thing she wanted was to leave the ponies she’d helped on a sad note. No, it was better to just go and hope for forgiveness later. Besides, the endless thanks made Typhoon uncomfortable. What she was doing wasn’t worthy of praise and thanks. She was merely stopping along her selfish journey to lend a hoof where she could before continuing onwards. It was sad that such a thing was considered noteworthy out here on the Frontier, but that only further illustrated what had happened under the unicorn queen’s watch.

Maybe if she had tried harder, Typhoon could have prevented it.

But that was the way things were, and Typhoon shook her head. She only gave Bluegrass’ sleeping form a respectful dip of her head before she quietly skirted around the sleeping mare and slipped on out of the door, taking extra care to make sure its hinges didn’t squeak as she opened and closed it.

The cool air of morning greeted her in the streets of Green Glade, and she looked around at the dark windows of the houses lining the streets. In another hour, they’d be filled with light and activity, but for now there was nothing. Even the Penny twins’ cart was still and quiet; she only knew that the twins were sleeping in the freshly unloaded back under the canvas thrown over it because they’d announced that such were their sleeping arrangements the night before as everypony broke for sleep. Unlike Bluegrass, Typhoon had no qualms about leaving without saying goodbye to them. They could be fun in their own way, but Typhoon longed for the quiet stillness of a solo flight after everything she’d been through the past few days. Maybe if the old gods were willing, the forgotten gods of Cirra, then she’d see them again someday.

Spreading her wings, Typhoon let the cool air flow under her feathers for a moment before she began to flap them, letting her pegasus magic propel her heavy equine body into the sky. Climbing would be a laborious task this early in the morning, she knew, but hopefully once she was at altitude, she could coast to Boiling Springs on the rising thermals as the sun warmed the ground below her. Taking her wing blades off certainly would help; while they were essential in a fight, especially in the air, they made flying that much harder. And at the moment, Typhoon knew she was in no state to go picking fights. She just hoped to avoid trouble until she reached her destination.

Her shadow was the last thing to linger in Green Glade, a blur of dark gray that flitted out of the gray morning and disappeared without a trace.

As Typhoon flew southwest, the hills and forests of the frontier slowly flattened out into plains filled with waving green grass stirred by an incessant breeze. Typhoon wasn’t sure where anything that could be described as ‘Equestria Proper’ ended and the land only referred to as ‘the Frontier’ began, but she had a feeling she’d crossed that boundary when she left the hills behind. The hills and forests were like one final obstacle to keep civilization in and the lawless chaos out, and she had little idea of what she’d find this far away from Everfree. She had rarely left the heartlands of Equestria herself in the last years of the Legion, and the last time she had ventured this far away from Everfree, she’d lost her hoof.

Even just thinking about it made her fetlock tingle where skysteel had been magically melded to the joint. She had lost a part of herself on that expedition, so very long ago, but she had gained something far greater in return. And that only made it hurt worse when that something told her ‘goodbye’ and walked out the door for the last time.

Still, those were unpleasant memories, sad memories, and Typhoon shed them with her magic as snowflakes fell from her feathers. Instead, she focused on the flight ahead, and if she could see anything out to the southwest that told her she was coming up on Boiling Springs. True to her earlier hope, a steady tailwind had developed behind her, helping to push her closer toward her destination even as she only flapped her wings sparingly from the ache in her chest. It was starting to creep back, little by little, but the last thing Typhoon wanted was another featherful of whispersalt mid-flight. The one she’d taken in Bluegrass’ bedroom had left her feeling drowsy, her senses not quite that sharp, and they were only now returning to her alongside the pain.

Down below her, the plains grew pockmarked with little ponds and streams, and in the last cool whisps of the morning air, some of the ponds visibly steamed. The vegetation around those ponds was lush and green, while between them it grew shorter and stunted. Typhoon didn’t need any other evidence to know she was flying over an area filled with hot springs, the outpourings of underground rivers that brought up hot water and life to the surface of the world. And if she was already over hot springs, then Boiling Springs couldn’t be too far away.

She spotted a road from above, and drifted over to align it with her shadow. It was a dirt path, but it was wide and well-traveled; even off in the distance, Typhoon could spot the squat silhouette of a pair of wagons moving in opposite directions. Farmsteads began to dot the plains, with crops arranged in rings and strips between the ponds and springs dotting the land. Lush and healthy, the plots of land looked big enough to keep a hundred ponies fed through winter each. And soon, emerging through the hazy day like a mirage, Typhoon saw her destination.

The town could hardly be called a city, but it was far more substantial than anything Typhoon had encountered since leaving Equestria proper behind, and it easily dwarfed Green Glade in both density and sprawl. Where the rare rough ground of hills and gullies came together to funnel the spring runoff into a small lake, civilization had clustered around the warm waters, with countless wooden buildings huddling close by the shoreline. Cobblestone streets threaded their way between the largest of the structures, giving the chaos of the town an axis to focus itself around, even while unpaved dirt paths snaked this way and that between the mishmash of architecture competing for space. Windmills took prominent positions on the crests of hills like sentry towers, and a few wooden boats dotted the shimmering surface of the lake as it glistened under the midday sun. It looked every bit a settlement rich with history and life, a locus of civilization to stabilize the chaos of the frontier.

Typhoon spotted what looked like a market square from afar, a large open space between several buildings paved with flat stones and filled with colorful stalls, and she made that her destination as she began to descend into the city. Mentally, she started to run through a checklist of things she needed to accomplish, feeling like she was creating a list of errands for herself on just another day out in town. First and foremost on her list was tracking down any information about a wizard that supposedly lived around these parts, but she also knew that she needed new armor after discarding her mangled set following the fight with Firestorm. Arguably that was even more important than tracking down a mage living in the lawless frontier; the last thing she wanted to do was go chasing after a mage without any sort of protection. On top of that, it would be a good time to grab some more rations and medical supplies, and simply just learn more about Boiling Springs. Information would be the difference between life and death out in the Frontier.

Noise like she hadn’t experienced in months soon greeted her ears as she circled down into the town market. A hundred ponies, maybe more, filled the open space with their colorful bodies and voices, and merchants hawked their wares at anypony passing by, each straining to be heard over the others. Their stalls were filled with countless goods, some mundane like bread and cereal crops, others exotic like spices and silks hauled in from across the country and beyond. That duality seemed to reflect in the customers themselves; for every merchant or minor aristocracy bedecked in fine linens and a few shiny bits of jewelry, there was a hardworking commoner with dirt on his hooves or a simple roughspun cowl on her head to keep away the sun. The odd pair of town guards shuffled through the crowds or watched for trouble from the side, and as Typhoon touched down in the town, a unicorn and a pegasus wearing dingy armor stepped forward to inspect her before she even found a moment to get her orientation in the bustling square.

“Stop, pegasus,” one of the guardsponies, the unicorn, challenged Typhoon as she and her companion imposed themselves between Typhoon and the market stalls ahead of her. “A word.”

Typhoon merely raised an eyebrow and waited expectantly, looking the pair of ponies over as she did so. Their armor was ill-fitting but maintained, with the unicorn’s set dangling loosely around her barrel, and the backplate of the pegasus’ cuirass pried open to allow him to squeeze his wings through. Speckles of brown rust marred the surface underneath the faint sheen of oil, indicating these two ponies had inherited their old armor but were doing their best to keep it serviceable despite that. The unicorn rested a polearm against her shoulder, looking like it came from a unicorn knight’s armory but crudely stripped of its gems and gold plating, while the pegasus kept a legionary’s sword tucked under one wing, sheathed in a scabbard hanging by a strap from his neck and shoulder rather than hooked to the side of his armor like a proper legionary. The mare’s long mane and the stallion’s growing beard made it clear neither was a veteran of either the Diamond Knights or the Legion—they were just two ponies who had stepped up to provide security for the town with the Legion gone and Everfree’s rule of law all but absent.

“Another armed ruffian flying into town looking to stir up trouble,” the unicorn guard growled with contempt. “Get back on the road, pegasus. Or maybe we’ll give you a long stay at the constabulary.”

“Do you usually so openly threaten former legionaries passing through town?” Typhoon calmly asked them.

Both guards tensed, and the unicorn shifted her polearm in her grip from leaning against her shoulder to leaning away from it. “So you are a legionary, then,” the unicorn growled. “Scouting for your century in broad daylight? You’re bold.”

“Or stupid,” the other guard remarked. “The Legion only trained soldiers to fly in formation and fight. They don’t know what to do if somepony isn’t giving them orders.”

“I feel like I should be insulted,” Typhoon droned, and then her expression shifted to a frown. “I’m from out of town. I just flew in from Green Glade, where I got a much warmer reception than this. Would you mind explaining to me why Boiling Springs is so hostile to legionaries?”

“You really don’t know, bandit? Or are you just playing dumb?”

“Let’s take her in, work her over a bit,” the unicorn suggested to her companion. “Maybe if we twist her wings a bit she’ll tell us where the rest of her rotten century is camped out.”

Typhoon quickly put two and two together. “You have problems with a rogue century of former legionaries preying on your town?” she asked them. She bared her teeth for a moment as a flash of irrational anger broke through her discipline before she regained control of her emotions. She shouldn’t have been surprised that former legionaries would turn to banditry with the dissolution of the Legion, but the proud veteran in her had hoped that even the common soldiers held the same respect for Cirran honor and tradition that she held close to her heart. “I’ll have to see if I can deal with this later,” she muttered to herself.

The sudden outburst and surprising reaction made the two guards pause for a moment, and they shared puzzled looks. “You… really ain’t from around here, aren’t you?” the pegasus guard asked, though his voice still dripped with suspicion.

“I would hope that much would be obvious by now.”

The unicorn frowned, but she returned the polearm to resting against her shoulder with a shift of her foreleg. “Why are you in Boiling Springs, then?” she asked Typhoon. “You don’t look like another senior coming here to retire and soak your old bones in the springs. And I’d rather know why somepony with a sword and wing blades is staying in my town.”

“I’m looking for somepony,” Typhoon said. “A wizard or mage of some kind. I was told one lives nearby.”

“That fellow with the wet robes and the long horn?” the unicorn asked, and Typhoon arched an eyebrow at that description. “Yeah, I’ve seen him around a few times before. Smells like a fish, too.”

“Where does he live?” Typhoon pressed. “Does he have a tower I can fly to?”

“Nopony knows where the bastard lives, nor is he all that willing to share,” the pegasus guard commented. “He teleports into town about once a week to load up on supplies and then teleports back out. Says as little as he can to other ponies. Guess he sees conversation as a nuisance to avoid. Good luck trying to get more than two words out of him.”

Typhoon frowned at that. If she had a direction she could travel in, it would be trivial to fly up to the wizard’s tower and insist on having her voice heard. Teleporting was another matter entirely. If this wizard was powerful enough, he could teleport into town from miles away, maybe from a hidden lair underground. She’d never find him on wing.

“When was he last in town?” Typhoon asked them. “Is he due for another supply run soon?”

“Few days ago, I think?” the unicorn shrugged. “Not sure when he’ll be back. Best bet is to keep your eyes open for a unicorn that sticks out like a sore hoof. He usually shows up in the morning as soon as the markets open to get what he needs and disappear before it gets busy.”

“Thank you,” Typhoon said, and she filed that information away. At the very least, mages were creatures of habit. If this wizard only showed up at a certain time of day, that dramatically narrowed down the amount of time Typhoon had to be on the lookout for him. Then, noticing the guards were still hovering in front of her, she gave them both a deadpan glare. “Am I free to go, or is there anything else you want of an old legionary?”

The guards looked at each other and both took a step back. “Not if you’re trying to get involved with that wizard,” the pegasus muttered, and the unicorn nodded in agreement. “The last thing I need is the attention of some hornhead that can teleport my bones outside of my body with a thought.”

“Good,” Typhoon said, though before they turned around to leave her be, she roughly cleared her throat. “In any event, I need to find a blacksmith. Given your warm welcome, I don’t suppose a former Legion blacksmith would put down roots in a town like this?”

It took a while for Typhoon to find her way to where the guards suggested—‘the mill by the lake’ was hardly the most distinct of directions—but a little bit of walking around finally took her to where she needed to be. The smith had set up their workshop at one corner of the lake, where the fresh water provided a handy and nearby source of water to quench steel, and an easy way to move things into town by boat. Typhoon let the sound of hammer striking steel guide her to the smithy, and when she looked into the open-air workshop, she saw exactly what she was hoping to see: a muscular pegasus stallion with a military manecut pounding away at the beginnings of a cuirass, sweat running down his neck and shoulders from the heat of the roaring forge only a few feet away.

He looked like the kind of stallion to make some mare very happy, Typhoon thought to herself. Too bad she was twice his age.

Typhoon leaned against a post, watching as the pegasus shaped the armor with blows from the hammer held in his mouth. Embers flickered along the feathers of his soot-streaked wings, and every so often, he would summon a little bit of fire magic and heat the steel at a spot before pounding out an imperfection in the armor’s shape. He was Legion trained in the art of smithing, Typhoon could tell that much from watching him work. Only when he hoisted the dull red metal off of the anvil and dumped it in a trough of water did he turn to acknowledge the older mare.

“…Ma’am,” the smith said, touching one white feather turned charcoal gray with soot to an equally sooty brow. His other wing grabbed a skin of water and he held it to his lips for several long drinks before he pulled it away with a pleased grunt. “Name’s Hammer Fall, at your service. I didn’t see a requisition order come in. Chain of command is getting sloppy.”

“There’s a reason for that,” Typhoon mused, and the smallest curve of an amused smile shaped the corners of her lips. It felt good to talk to somepony from the Legion, somepony who understood the listless grief of having a part of one’s identity suddenly dissolved. And even though he’d addressed her as ‘ma’am’, it came across as decidedly informal. In a way, the sardonic remark put Typhoon more at ease, feeling comfortable with another lost legionary trying to make sense of his life.

“So I heard,” Hammer Fall remarked, and he sat down on a stool by his forge to wipe his forehead with a dirty rag. “I would have appreciated a bit more warning from the Commander. I would have taken the time to secure some things before I suddenly became a civilian again. The century disbanded as soon as the order reached our camp, and ponies went their different ways. Most back to their family, but others decided to stay out here in the Frontier. Not all for good reasons.” He sighed and stared up at the ceiling of the wooden awning extending over his forge, but Typhoon knew he was looking through it, at some memory in the sky on the other side. “Lost my skyforge in all that business. How’s a skysmith supposed to work skysteel without a skyforge? You can’t, ma’am. So now I’m stuck on the ground working ground steel.” He stiffened as if he suddenly realized who he was talking to, and old discipline kicked in. “Sorry, ma’am. Just a soldier grousing about the bad end to better days.”

“I understand all too well,” Typhoon murmured, and her eyes drifted away from the smith’s face for a moment. “I did what I did because I felt I had to. I just didn’t expect it to turn into all of…” She gestured vaguely around them with her wings. “All of this.”

“You did…?!” The blacksmith started and his eyes widened. “Commander…?” he whispered, suddenly awestruck, and he abruptly stood bolt upright and struck a crisp, if out of practice, legionary salute. “By the gods, I didn’t… I-I’m sorry… ma’am!”

Typhoon rolled her eyes and put him at ease with an irritated wave of her wing. “I’m not your commander anymore,” she scolded him. “The Legion is gone. Remember? My rank means nothing. Not anymore.”

“It still means something to us,” Hammer said. “All of us, drifting without a purpose, all because Queen Platinum wanted a personal army… you’re the only thing we’re loyal to anymore, Commander.”

“You have no reason to be loyal to me,” Typhoon insisted. “You didn’t even know who I was until I let it slip. Maybe I shouldn’t have.”

“I will admit, I didn’t recognize you without your armor.”

“My father’s armor,” Typhoon muttered.

“You wore it longer than he did,” Hammer cut in, though he still checked himself when he saw the annoyed look forming on Typhoon’s face. He sighed and sat back down on his stool, giving his head a little shake. “You were the face of the Legion for all my life, even if the face I pictured in my mind was younger and… idealized. Same goes for everypony I served with. Didn't help that your face isn't all that detailed on coins. Hell, there are pegasi out there that want to name you Empress of Cirra, or so I’ve heard…”

That notion earned a surprised and somewhat confused scoff out of the old soldier. “Empress of Cirra? Really?” She shook her head in disbelief. “If it were that easy, my brother wouldn’t be freezing his marks off under the last windigo’s winter in River Rock. Besides, uniting the tribes under the banner of Equestria was my father’s work. I wouldn’t work to see it undone by claiming a title that only exists to divide and destroy.”

“If what you see on the Frontier isn’t proof enough that dissolving the Legion did more to break Equestria than that, then I don’t know what is,” Hammer plainly stated, and it earned a wince from Typhoon that she failed to hide by looking away. Uncomfortable silence followed, and after it had stretched on for too long, Hammer chased it away with a clearing of his throat and a change of topic. “I don’t suppose you flew all this way just to find a Legion blacksmith to chat with. What can I help you with, Commander?”

Relieved by the change in topic, Typhoon turned her gaze back in the direction of Hammer and his forge. “Armor,” she stated simply. “I need protection before I leave Boiling Springs. And I’d rather get a set from a Legion blacksmith who knows what he’s doing than anypony else.”

Hammer nodded and looked Typhoon over, appraising how much material he would need to make a set for the old soldier. “I can make something, aye,” he said. “What happened to your old set, though? I can’t imagine anything I make will come close to the enchanted set you’re used to. I don’t have void crystals or an archmage’s expertise like Hurricane did when Star Swirl made it for him.”

“I wasn’t able to take it with me when I left Everfree,” Typhoon admitted. “It’s somewhere in the capital. I got by on a normal legionary’s set for a while, but it was damaged beyond repair fighting a dragon.”

“A dragon? Really? By yourself?” When Typhoon nodded, Hammer could only whistle in disbelief. “How old are you, Commander?”

Typhoon shrugged. “Fifty-four? You stop counting when you get past forty. Believe me.”

“You’re a grandma fighting dragons and I’m sitting in here pounding steel in the prime of my life.” The blacksmith chuckled, and Typhoon rolled her eyes, though the curve to her lips belied the levity behind it. “Really makes me reconsider what I’ve been doing with my life.”

“No, you’re doing just fine where you are,” Typhoon told him, and she stepped closer to the smith when he pulled out a measuring tape, a stick of charcoal, and a scroll to write her measurements down. “My joints hurt enough without a dragon nearly crushing me to death between its claws. And after a grueling fight, all you want to do is sleep for an entire day, but you wake up after five hours because you’re old and you can’t sleep like you used to. Plus your feathers start growing in raggedy unless you give them extra attention…”

“You sound like my grandma,” Hammer said with a snicker.

“I’m old. I’m entitled to a little complaining every so often.” Hammer chuckled as he wrapped the measuring tape around Typhoon’s barrel and checked the number, and Typhoon stifled a quiet snort of her own. As the smith moved onto measuring the distance between her wing joints and her collar, she redirected the conversation. “Do the guards give you trouble for being a legionary?” she asked the smith.

Hammer sighed and rolled his eyes. “Ah, I see you got that welcome,” he said, and he scribbled down his measurements on his scroll of parchment. “No, I had settled into Boiling Springs before the Lost Legion set up shop down here. I’m not sure how much you know about all that business…”

“Little to none,” Typhoon admitted. “When I resigned and dissolved the Legion, it was functional, if decimated after war with the spiders. That's about the best I could say about it. I didn't stick around Everfree to see what became of it. And I don't get reports on this sort of thing anymore. All I know is that the bulk of the remaining legions we had were spread out around the Frontier to try and keep the peace.”

“Well, there’s not much to know about it all, really,” Hammer said. “The Lost Legion’s a bunch of former legionaries who thought they’d take out their frustrations on being fired en masse by turning to a life of banditry. You can only imagine how the discipline and training of the Legion paired with the dirty business of stealing and killing has made them into a menace around these parts. Plenty of towns like Boiling Springs have had to contend with them attacking travelers and caravans along the road, or looting and burning small settlements.”

Typhoon gritted her teeth and a low growl of frustration managed to slip its way out of her throat. “They dishonor the Legion,” she bluntly stated. “I taught them better than that.”

“Unless you personally tutored the thousands of legionaries in service by the time you dissolved it, Commander, I don’t think that’s true.” At the old mare’s frown, Hammer merely shrugged and stepped back. “There were always going to be bad apples, especially when standards are slackened to fill in the ranks during war. You can’t blame yourself if the rotten ones start making a stink when it’s all said and done.”

After a moment, Typhoon sighed, and her wings drooped a bit. “I suppose you’re right,” she reluctantly admitted. “But if I cross paths with any, I won’t give them any quarter.”

“I don’t doubt that for a second, ma’am.” The smith picked up his notes and looked them over while Typhoon watched. “If you’re going to do that, then you’ll need protection. Unfortunately, without a skyforge, I can’t make skysteel armor.”

“Ground steel will work fine,” Typhoon said with a dismissive wave of her wing.

“No, I don’t think it will.” At Typhoon’s raised brow, Hammer set the paper down and sighed. “Skysteel’s biggest strength over ground steel is its weight. A standard issue Legion cuirass and helmet weighs about a third of an identical ground steel set. And I don’t mean to doubt your physical fitness or make assumptions about your age, ma’am, but if you want to fly for more than short bursts, you don’t want to be wearing this. You’ll need something lighter.”

“How light?”

“A hauberk would be the best protection for its weight, but it’s not that good at piercing protection,” Hammer said, gesturing with a wing to a chainmail coat hanging from a hook in the corner of his forge. “Plate’s better for that, but it’s heavy.”

Typhoon nodded along. “I’m not a milite, Hammer. I’m familiar with armor weight classes and the tactics associated with each.”

“Right.” Hammer chuckled and gestured vaguely toward the center of town. “I’m used to amateurs asking me to armor the town guard, not professional soldiers. I guess a better way to go about this is through practical means: how do you like to fight, Commander?”

“Speed kills,” Typhoon stated matter-of-factly. “It was the only thing that kept me in the fight with the dragon. Fast strikes supplemented by magic when necessary. I try to avoid relying on my armor to absorb hits for me if I can afford it.”

“Then we want something that can take a hit, but only as the last line of defense.” After a moment of thought, Hammer fluttered over to a chest in his forge and rummaged through it, ultimately producing a strip of leather covered with scales. “A modified lorica squamata might do the trick. Scale pauldrons connected to a steel peytral would provide the bulk of the protection on your core. We connect it to a half-plate on your back to protect your shoulders and wings rather than full-plate going down to your hindquarters. Scale bracers will protect your forelegs; solid steel in the Legion style would be too heavy and slow your steps. All of this over cloth padding.”

He flew back to his workbench and scribbled down his ideas, leaving Typhoon to try and visualize the protection in her head. “For all your talk about not weighing me down, that sounds like a lot of metal,” she commented.

“Much less than full plate armor in the unicorn style,” Hammer said, “and better protection than a simple legionary cuirass. The scales will provide good protection without being too heavy, and the mail will at least protect you from slashes at your sides or neck. Plenty of mobility without being overly heavy.” He set his stick of charcoal down and gave Typhoon a smirk. “Just don’t expect it to be quiet. That’s a lot of metal clattering around.”

“I’m not concerned about that,” Typhoon said, dismissively waving her wing. “Fighting is loud, and it always seems to happen to me. Might as well skip the part about skulking around trying to avoid it and get it over with.”

“That’s the spirit.” Hammer tapped his measurements and glanced back at his forge. “Will you be in Boiling Springs long? I have some other orders for the town guard, but I’ll move this to the top of my list.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Typhoon assured him.

“The Legion gave me more than this town ever has,” Hammer insisted. “I remember what it stood for and the mare who made it great. Hell, I’ll even do it as a favor.”

Typhoon sharply frowned at him. “Don’t,” she said, and she dug into one of her bags with a wing. She retrieved several golden bits and a couple of gemstones and dropped them on Hammer’s workbench as the smith’s eyes widened. “Fighting the dragon was good for something,” she said, an amused lilt coloring her voice.

It took Hammer a few moments to find his voice. “Shit, ma’am, for that I’ll spit-shine the damn thing if I have to.”

“Regular polish will be fine, thank you,” Typhoon said, smiling as she shook her head.

“Whatever you say, ma’am.” Hammer slid the bits and gemstones over to one corner of his workbench and rolled out more parchment to start sketching a design. “I’ll get the details finalized today, and then I’ll dedicate tomorrow to forging it for you. Thankfully I’ve got mail from another project I can link together to save time, so stop by in a couple of days from now and I’ll have it ready for you.”

“I look forward to it.” Typhoon gave him a nod and took a step back. “Thank you for doing this, Hammer.”

“It’s an honor, ma’am.” Hammer said. “Anyway, I assume you had a long flight in. Why not loosen sore muscles at one of the springs while you’re here?”

The thought of hot water loosening tense and bruised muscles was an idea Typhoon knew she wouldn’t be able to get out of her head until she indulged herself. “I think I just might,” she said, and with one last wave of her wing to the smith, she turned around and trotted back up the toward the city.

1-11

There were so many springs in and around the town that Typhoon found it almost impossible to choose one when she flew up to a cloud to scout them out. Eventually, she settled on one situated on one of the city’s eastern hills, where the water bubbling up from the springs ran down the rocks in tiny waterfalls until it pooled in the lake. The springs themselves offered what were assuredly spectacular views of the surrounding countryside, and the large wooden building nestled between them promised food and drink for the guests as they bathed. Hammer was right; it was exactly what Typhoon needed after a long day’s flight, and maybe the warm waters would help her aching chest.

Gliding down from her lofty perch, Typhoon landed on a large wooden deck jutting halfway off the side of the hill, her hooves striking a swift staccato against the boards as they touched down in succession. A few ponies sitting at tables or leaning against the railing overlooking Boiling Springs gave her casual glances before returning to their own conversations, though a couple of wary looks failed to escape her notice. It ruffled her feathers to know that any pegasus who looked like a former legionary would provoke that response in the people the Legion once protected, and it took her a few extra shakes of her wings to get her feathers in order and comfortable as she surveyed her surroundings.

The deck was more like an outdoor lounge of sorts, with plenty of tables, chairs, and couches scattered around to allow ponies to relax when they weren’t soaking in the hot springs. At this time in the afternoon, the deck was only half-full, with towel-clad patrons enjoying an early dinner before presumably things became too crowded. A few attractive mares and handsome stallions in fine silks drifted between the different patrons, checking in on them and offering food or refreshments as needed. It wasn’t too long before a purple earth pony approached Typhoon, respectfully bowing his head as he drew closer.

“Welcome to Eagle Springs, Miss,” he greeted her in a soft and pleasant voice. “My name is Lavender. You look like you’re from out of town; if that’s true, Boiling Springs welcomes you.”

“I already got the soldier’s welcome in the markets,” Typhoon wryly remarked, eliciting a sharp wince from the stallion that he quickly covered up under the mask of professionalism.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Miss,” he said, offering her another respectful dip of his head. “But I assure you the atmosphere at Eagle Springs is much more pleasant. Is there anything I can get for you? Food or water? Or perhaps some guidance to the springs?”

“Yes, on all accounts,” Typhoon said. “Whatever the chef’s special is, I’ll take that. As for the springs, I’d appreciate something private.”

“We have several smaller pools around the edges of the springs separated by woven mats that would be perfect for a private soak. And the chef’s special is a sauteed asparagus and mushroom dish topped with a flower of the day. I believe today’s flower is calla lilies.”

Typhoon’s mouth watered at the thought of appetizing food. “That all sounds great. Especially the lilies. They’re a favorite of mine.”

“Then I certainly hope we don’t disappoint, Miss. If you’d follow me…”

Lavender turned around and began to walk off the deck and toward the buildings in the heart of the springs, and Typhoon followed. The two ponies walked past a bar that was just beginning to open up to a few early customers, and more silk-clad attendants bustled between the buildings as Eagle Springs prepared to receive the evening’s visitors. Soon they left the deck and the buildings behind, instead emerging onto a large open-air stone terrace filled with the sounds of running water and genial chatter. Countless springs and streams bubbled out of pools in the stone, with most trickling down to a large pond wreathed in steam and filled with countless colorful ponies. Mares and stallions, young and old, families and friends, the springs were host to a cross-section of the ponies who called Boiling Springs their home, all relaxing and enjoying the simple luxury of hot, fresh water. It reminded Typhoon of the Cloudsdale bathhouse, one of the centerpieces of the symbol of pegasus might and their proud Cirran heritage, but married to an earth pony love of the natural world.

Typhoon’s attendant led her past all of this, taking her along wooden pathways laid across treacherous rocks and between a half dozen small bubbling pools. At the far end of the terrace, overlooking Boiling Springs itself, were numerous partitions made from reeds woven together and supported on simple wooden trusses. Steam rose from behind several, and a couple shots of laughter punctuated the springs with their noise. Hanging from the foremost post of each partition was a small piece of wood, with one side painted red and the other painted green. Lavender went up to one with the green side facing outwards and flipped it over with his hoof, then gestured past the woven walls. “I think you’ll enjoy this one, Miss. There’s nothing better than watching the sun set over the city while soaking in the springs. I’ll have somepony bring you your food and drink shortly.”

“Thank you,” Typhoon said, moving to enter, but when she saw the stallion tentatively lift his hoof off the ground she stopped and chuckled to herself. “Of course. How much?”

“Two bits for an hour in the springs, and two for the food and drink,” he said with an apologetic smile.

Typhoon nodded and dug through her purse until she pulled out ten bits and dropped them into his outstretched hoof. “Three hours, then. Keep the two extra for yourself.”

The attendant tucked the bits away in a pocket hidden in his silk robes and bowed deeply. “Thank you for your kindness, Miss. Please, enjoy your time in the springs.”

He left her to enjoy the springs on her own, and Typhoon stepped past the woven walls, taking a deep breath of the warm and humid air. Beyond the barriers was a small bubbling spring, maybe large enough to comfortably seat four ponies around its perimeter, with more woven mats covering up the stone to provide traction on the slick rock. Two benches stocked with towels flanked the spring, and a carefully manicured and well-tended tree grew from a corner of the bubbling water to provide shade during the daytime. At the far end of the private spring, the rocks thinned out to only a few inches wide, where the bubbling runoff trickled over the stones and down the hill, ultimately collecting in a stream that fed the lake in the center of Boiling Springs. Framed beneath the drooping branches of the tree and the glittering waters of the spring was the sun, creeping onwards past midday as it made its trek westward. In two or three hours, it would finally reach down to touch the far horizon, and Typhoon could only imagine how splendid that would look. Hopefully she could see the sunset before her time in the springs was up.

The aging mare shed her bags from her back, carefully setting them down next to the wall on her left, and placed her sword in front of them, the hilt angled ever so slightly toward the water. She stopped and stared at her unconscious placement of the weapon, and only shook her head with a snort. What need did she have to make sure her sword was in reach of the spring? What ambush was she preparing for while she bathed in the waters? What menace would she have to defend herself from while dripping wet from her soak?

“You’re an old soldier,” she muttered to herself, and she tentatively tested the temperature with her flesh and blood forehoof, humming as she felt the pleasantly hot water lap at her fetlock. “Fighting’s all you’ve ever known. Couldn’t even stop long enough to be a grandma, let alone a mother…”

Rocky steps laid submerged beneath the surface, and Typhoon used them to step into the water. She let out a sigh and instinctually fluttered her wings as the warm water worked its way up past her withers, and for a moment, she felt like she was floating on a physical manifestation of bliss. She closed her eyes, drawing the steamy air through her nose and letting it fill her lungs, then slowly rocked backwards until she sat down on a ledge. The water lapped against her chin, and she ducked her head beneath the water for a moment, completely submerging herself in the spring. When she emerged, she did so with another sigh and groan of satisfaction, and she leaned back against the edge of the pond and hummed as she felt the warm water bubble up through cracks in the rock by her hind hooves. The aches and pains plaguing her chest and joints seemed to melt away, and the old soldier was already thanking Hammer in her mind for the recommendation. It was exactly what she needed. It even reminded her of home, of the Cloudsdale Bathhouse…

“Why did you come here, Queen Platinum?”

…perhaps a little bit too much.

“You would betray Equestria over this? Over Cirra?”

“Call me a traitor and I guarantee somepony will take it upon themselves to make sure you don’t leave Cloudsdale alive.”

Typhoon frowned and tried to blot out the memory, the memory from the last time she’d soaked in the Cloudsdale Bathhouse. But try as she might, she couldn’t stop her brain from setting the stage behind her closed eyes. In the marble white halls of the bathhouse, a pegasus and a unicorn sat in a pool of gently bubbling, steamy water, scowls on both their faces. Typhoon felt the scowl on hers; matching it was the one beneath the sharp magenta eyes of the unicorn sitting across from her, and the scathing retort she was about to deliver.

Typhoon once more ducked her head into the spring water, letting the sensation of hot water running over her face and neck push the memory away for her. No. Not yet. She wasn’t ready to confront those ghosts. She doubted if she ever would.

She held out as long as she could before breaching the surface with her snout, blowing steam from her nostrils like a surfacing dolphin’s blowhole. When she opened her eyes, she paused when she saw three young mares hesitating in the entrance to her private spring, and she fixed them with a sharp frown. “Occupied,” she brusquely told them, turning around and putting her back to them with a grunt.

“Oh of course, I’m sorry, we didn’t mean to intrude,” one of the mares said, though approaching hoofsteps seemed to bely that statement. “I’m Juniper, and these two are Wren and Sparrow. We’re with Eagle Springs. Your attendant said you might like a massage after a long day flying.”

Typhoon raised an eyebrow and turned around, giving the three mares a closer look than the dismissive glance she’d spared them earlier. They were three, a pegasus and two unicorns, wearing the white silk robes that Typhoon had seen the attendants wearing earlier. All three had smiles and young, pretty faces—almost too young, Typhoon noted to herself. They all looked like teenagers, closer to mares than fillies but teenagers all the same. The pegasus had white wings with blue primaries, one unicorn had gray dappling on her green face, and the second had curiously mismatched eyes, one blue and one pink, that she tried to obscure beneath a wave of messy mane. Their features gave them an exotic appeal, and Typhoon understood immediately why Eagle Springs would employ them to attend to its guests’ needs.

“I never asked for a massage,” Typhoon simply told them.

“It’s free of charge for the private springs,” the dappled unicorn, Juniper, said, and her companions nodded in agreement. “Besides, no trip to the springs would be complete without a massage, and for you, a preening. Wren has a very delicate touch when it comes to feathers,” she added with an accompanying glance at the pegasus by her side.

Typhoon considered their offer for a few moments. While she wanted nothing more than to enjoy the springs in quiet and solitude, she had paid for three hours, after all. And besides, a massage and a preening did seem like a tempting offer…

“Fine,” Typhoon said, turning her back to them once more and spreading out her wings so they draped over the back of her stone seat cut into the spring. “Might as well enjoy the peace and quiet before launching myself back into the fray.”

The unicorn with the mismatched eyes paused and gave Typhoon a curious look. “You’re a soldier?” she asked. Something marked her voice that took Typhoon a moment to place her hoof on. Awe, maybe?

“Nihil erit post Legionem,” Typhoon only murmured to herself, the words of an ancient oath slipping out of her mouth almost subconsciously. “Not anymore.”

The dappled unicorn shot her friend a disapproving look, then sat down behind Typhoon. Her horn glowed with orange magic, and soon an aura appeared across Typhoon’s shoulders and back. “Relax and take slow, deep breaths. We’ll do all the work. You just lose yourself in the moment.”

Typhoon felt Juniper’s magic press into stiff muscles, and a sigh managed to escape her lips. The unicorn giggled softly, and Typhoon felt her roll her magic across her back, from one shoulder to the other, back and forth. While she did so, the other pegasus, Wren, gingerly took Typhoon’s right wing in her hooves before placing her muzzle down to the roots of her primaries and slipping one between her lips. Typhoon stiffened at first at the intimate contact, but forced herself to relax as the other pegasus slowly and carefully preened her wings for her. It had been so long since she’d let another pony touch her wings in such a matter that she felt awkward and uncomfortable at first, but gradually she found herself warming to Wren’s touch.

Just as she was starting to drift off and zone out, however, a sharp, startled yelp snapped her out of her meditative bliss. She snapped her head to the left, toward where the sound came from, and her eyes harshly narrowed on what she saw. The unicorn with the mismatched eyes, Sparrow, dropped Typhoon’s sword from her magic with a frightened shout, and the magical blade clattered on the rocks, with strands of wispy frost seeping out through the narrow slit where hilt met scabbard. Both Juniper and Wren stopped what they were doing as well, and Juniper angrily snapped at Sparrow. “What are you doing, idiot?!”

“That sword!” Sparrow cried, shrinking back from it in fear like a dog cringing away from its master’s club. “It’s evil! It’s filled with hate!”

“What are you…?” Typhoon started, but the words failed when she saw her opened saddlebags and their contents spilled across the floor. While Juniper and Wren had distracted her with a massage and preening, Sparrow had been digging through her bags. But before Typhoon could react, she heard a knife slip from its scabbard and felt the cold bite of steel against her neck, right under her jaw, as Juniper pressed it to her throat with her magical grip.

“Stay still and nopony has to get hurt,” the unicorn hissed into her ear. Then she turned to her friends. “Grab her things and go.”

“But the sword—!” Sparrow began, only to be abruptly cut off with a growl from Wren.

“If you’re too much of a wuss to carry it, give it to me!” the pegasus ordered, stomping past Typhoon and Juniper and giving Sparrow a rough shove as she reached for the weapon.

In that moment of distraction, Typhoon quickly channeled her magic and kicked off of the bottom of the spring, driving the back of her head into Juniper’s nose and eliciting a bloody crunch and shout from the young mare. Leaping out of the spring, Typhoon squared her stance as Juniper staggered backwards, blood pouring from her broken nose, but her grip on her knife still steady and strong. “Bitch!” the unicorn screamed, and she thrusted her knife at Typhoon, only for it to harmlessly slide off of her coat. Juniper’s eyes widened in surprise, and when she fetched her knife with her magic, the blade glistened with ice along its length, completely blunting the edge.

“Something tells me you’re not part of the hospitality staff,” Typhoon dryly remarked, spreading her wings and slowly stomping toward the three.

But rather than taking the opportunity Typhoon had given them to flee, Juniper instead barked orders to her fellow thieves. “Get that stuff and go! What are you waiting for?!”

Wren nodded and snatched Typhoon’s bags in her mouth, making to take off with them, but Typhoon was faster. Channeling her ice magic into the water running off of her coat, Typhoon filled the air with tiny icy shards, only large enough to leave scratches but nothing more. Yet the sudden explosion of ice and the accompanying pain from a dozen or so small cuts was enough to stun the three young mares, and Typhoon used her open wing to splash water from the spring at Wren, freezing it the moment it made contact with the pegasus’ hooves and wings, binding them together and pinning her to the ground. The pegasus squawked in surprise at the sudden freezing sensation holding her down, and her grunts and gasps soon became shivering stutters as her icy restraints sapped the warmth from her limbs.

Juniper recovered the fastest and quickly snapped at Sparrow, “Get her out of there!” before lunging at Typhoon. But the youthful unicorn was little match for the seasoned veteran, and Typhoon waited until the last moment to pivot on her hooves and use Juniper’s momentum against her to toss her aside and through the partition dividing her spring with the one beside it. The woven mats fell with a clatter as Juniper flailed through them, ending with a splash as she fell into the neighboring hot spring, sending a group of pegasi all lounging in the waters scrambling out of them in alarm. The unicorn stuck her head out of the water and gasped as Typhoon walked to the edge and stuck her hoof into the spring, and within moments the entire surface was covered with two inches of ice, trapping Juniper save her head in the water below.

Typhoon grunted, feeling pain in her chest from that maneuver as she aggravated her rib injury. So much for a relaxing stay at the springs; she might need an extra hour to melt that pain away. But there was still one would-be thief to deal with, and when Typhoon turned around, she saw Sparrow trying to free Wren by prying the ice apart with her magic. When Sparrow saw her looking at her, however, the unicorn froze in fear, locking up with widened eyes as Typhoon slowly walked toward her. “S-Sparrow?” Wren asked through chattering teeth, struggling to see what was happening with the angle Typhoon had frozen her head at. “W-What’s h-h-happening? G-Get m-m-me out of h-h-here!”

But Sparrow didn’t react as Typhoon drew closer. Instead, the young unicorn could only watch as the aging soldier stopped right in front of her, a disapproving frown hanging on her muzzle. It was only when Typhoon’s metal hoof stepped in a puddle of water and the liquid froze solid with an audible snap that Sparrow flinched, turned tail, and fled as fast as she could, leaving her two companions behind as she careened through Eagle Springs, trying to put as much distance between her and Typhoon as possible.

Typhoon watched her go, and moments later Lavender galloped up to her with a concerned and apologetic look on his face. “Are you alright, Miss?” he asked her, and his eyes widened as he took in the carnage from Typhoon’s brief tussle with the would-be thieves. “Oh, by the Sisters and the Stars, what happened?”

“Thieves,” Typhoon said, gesturing to the two frozen mares in her spring and the spring beside it. “Or at least they thought they were. They’re better at giving massages than stealing, it would seem.”

The purple earth pony glowered at the two frozen mares. “On behalf of Eagle Springs, you have our most sincere apologies for the inconvenience,” he said to Typhoon. “We’ll refund your money and see to it that these scoundrels are dealt with.”

“Don’t be too hard on them,” Typhoon said with a wave of her wing. “They’re kids.”

Lavender sighed. “There are too many urchins roaming Boiling Springs since the war with the spiders,” he said, shaking his head. “Sisters know what we’ll do with them all, especially when so many turn into criminals.”

“Give them the chance to work off their punishment, then,” Typhoon said. “They seemed like the kind of ponies Eagle Springs could use, and it will help get them off the streets. I was enjoying my massage and my preening. Until they tried to rob me, of course.”

After a moment, the earth pony shrugged. “I’ll see what we can do, Miss,” he said. “And once again, my most sincere apologies. We’ll get this mess cleaned up as quickly as we can. Is there anything we could do for you to right this dreadful wrong?”

Typhoon shook her head. “It’s alright. Just get me my food and drink and I’ll be satisfied.”

“Of course. I’ll make sure they get to you right away.”

He bowed and then trotted away, and Typhoon shook her head and returned to her hot spring, slowly lowering herself into the water once more. Wren still shivered in her icy cage on the left, and Juniper sheepishly smiled at the irritated patrons in the frozen spring to the right, but Typhoon ignored both of them. She had paid for three hours in the spring, after all, and she was determined to enjoy it.

1-12

Typhoon perched on the protruding beam of a half-timbered house’s roof and scanned the marketplace below her. As the sun rose over Boiling Springs, the merchants busied themselves with unpacking their stalls and stocking them with fresh goods for the day’s sales, and a few other early risers wandered along the dirt and cobble streets on errands or morning exercises. The rising sun marked Typhoon’s third morning in the town, and despite spending every waking moment between sunup and noon observing the market, she had failed to witness any sign of the elusive wizard’s appearance.

That didn’t deter her, at least. Not yet. She was a soldier on a mission, and having a goal to attain helped keep her grounded and sane. As a young milite, she had learned to appreciate menial and repetitive tasks for occupying her time and hastening the arrival of her leave; as a legate, and later a praetorian, goals gave her a direction to orient her energy and stratagem around, a beacon of results in a dark fog of uncertainty. Finding that wizard was her beacon now, and the only directions she had to go on were the words of the town guards she encountered when she first arrived three days ago.

At any rate, when Typhoon was not busy assuming the role of Boiling Springs’ gargoyle watching over the market, she dedicated her time to tracking down the wizard in other ways. By day, she would pick a direction and fly three hours out to see if she saw any sign of a tower occupying the distance, only to return empty-hooved for dinner. By night, she drifted between taverns and inns, questioning those that would talk to her if they knew anything about the wizard that visited the town market. Both avenues had gotten her nowhere, and Typhoon felt herself growing increasingly agitated as the nights went by. It didn’t help that her ruined dreamcatcher failed to protect her rest, though she’d found out after the second night that a feather of whispersalt usually kept her down enough to have dead, dreamless sleep.

The hours ticked by, one after the other, a relentless march of time dragging its hooves onward. Typhoon scarcely moved, hardly daring to breathe in case she missed something in the market. The higher the sun drew, the more ponies filled the open space, wandering between the stalls, haggling and laughing, then hauling home their day’s provisions. The ponies of the town guard occasionally gave her looks from down below, their mismatched armor rattling as they clumsily patrolled the streets, but by the third day, they’d grown used to watching Typhoon’s shadow stretch across the square as she silhouetted herself against the sky. But for all her patience, as the crowd began to thin out around the lunch hours, Typhoon only released an annoyed sigh and let her wings droop ever the slightest in disappointment and frustration. It seemed today would not be the day this mage made his appearance.

The creak of a hoof on rusting metal perked her ears, and Typhoon glanced over her shoulder with a sharp eye to catch a pony hesitating on the final rung of the ladder fixed to the side of her rooftop roost. When she saw a blue and a pink eye looking back at her, startled and anxious, Typhoon stood up and turned around to face the intruder. “Back again?” Typhoon asked her, her mind going back to the incident at Eagle Springs only a few nights ago. “You’re either brave or foolish. Maybe both.”

That admonishment got the unicorn to blink, and her nostrils flared for a second as she took a sharp breath. A moment’s exertion and the unicorn hauled herself onto the roof where, after a short scramble onto the center beam of the roof, she started to walk toward Typhoon. The old soldier watched her warily, keeping one eye on her horn and the other on her hooves, until the young mare stopped just out of reach and summoned the courage to look Typhoon in the eyes. “You’re a legionary, aren’t you?” she asked, her voice wavering with a certain uncertainty.

Typhoon gave her another look up and down, noting the scars, the bruises, the split lip on her pale brown muzzle that never healed properly. Her eyes, one a vivid pink and the other an icy blue, were unusual less for their color and more for the bright sharpness to them, that glint of ambition and drive that Typhoon had seen in the eyes of many promising legionaries and decorated officers. She brimmed with a warrior’s spirit, a soldier’s spirit, but it was trapped in the shell of a street urchin, a lost mare to whom comfort was a stranger, not an old friend.

After dissecting the mare with her eyes, Typhoon finally gave her head the slightest inclination. “Was,” she said, watching the unicorn’s face for any response. “Not anymore.”

She waved her wing and turned around, her eyes scanning the sky for her next flight while dismissing the unicorn. “Your friends are in Eagle Springs working off their punishment. If I were you, I’d join them. It’d get you off the streets.”

“Was?” the unicorn asked. “You don’t stop being a legionary. Just because there’s no Legion doesn’t mean there’s no more legionaries.” When Typhoon continued to ignore her and started to open her wings, the unicorn stomped her hoof down. “Ante Legionem nihil erat.”

Typhoon paused, and after a moment, she looked back over her shoulder. “Et nihil erit post Legionem,” she murmured back. Finally, closing her wings, she turned about to face the young mare again. “Those are old words. Words that have no more meaning.”

“They must mean something to you,” the unicorn said. “They made you stop. They wouldn’t if you weren’t a legionary anymore.”

Typhoon frowned, and with a sigh, she shook her head and sat down. “Fine. What did you say your name was again?”

“Sparrow,” the unicorn answered her. “And I never said what it was in the first place.”

“One of your friends blurted it out when you tried to rob me,” Typhoon said with a shrug. “Doesn’t matter. It’s an odd name for a unicorn, though. You have a pegasus parent?”

Sparrow pawed at the ground with her hoof and looked away. “Something like that,” she muttered, and then she stopped her pawing with a stomp. “I want to become a legionary. I want to protect ponies like the Legion did. It was the only good thing out here in the frontier, and now it’s gone.”

“Go join the town guard or something,” Typhoon said. “Or go to Everfree and join the Royal Guard. They’re the army now, not the Legion.”

“Exactly!” Sparrow exclaimed. “They’re not the Legion. The Royal Guard never protected us. When the spiders started sinking towns, the Guard was more concerned about charging into the tunnels to strike back than they were pulling ponies out of the webs and rubble. The Legion did that. They dragged us out of there and got us away from the death.” Then she scoffed. “And have you seen Boiling Spring’s town guard? Half of them won’t buy armor from the blacksmith because they think he charges too much and he was a Legion smith. They hate the Legion, and so they’re marching around in their stupid hand-me-down armor just so they don’t have to buy anything from him. And those that do buy things from him have no idea what they want so they cobble together these big suits of heavy armor and they're useless.”

“Then you’re out of luck, kid. You can’t become a legionary when there’s no Legion left. You can’t just will it back into existence.” Typhoon stood up again and opened her wings in preparation for her flight. “My advice? Go find something better to do with your life. You can’t live off of stealing forever. One day, you’ll steal something from the wrong pony, and nopony’s going to care when you get a knife in your ribs in a back alley.”

Sparrow scowled sharply at her. “Fine. Maybe I’ll go see if the Lost Legion wants a new recruit. Maybe I’ll learn something from them.”

“You think a bunch of legionary bandits are going to take a unicorn into their ranks?” Typhoon asked her. “Good luck finding their camp, if you can even reach it. It might be on a cloud somewhere.” Then she shook her head. “I’ll have to pay them a visit after I find this wizard,” she muttered to herself.

That made Sparrow cock her head. “The wizard? You mean Deep Blue?”

For a moment, the surprise made Typhoon’s stomach flip. “Deep Blue? That’s his name? You know him?”

Sparrow nodded, and a crooked grin erupted on her muzzle. “By accident. Juniper and Wren and me met him, uh, the same way we met you. We tried to rob him and he caught us, and we had to give his things back. But I managed to slip away this big blue gemstone he had and he had to come back to town after he teleported away to find us and get it back.”

“I’m surprised you’re still alive,” Typhoon said with a shake of her head. “Wizards practicing in the Frontier only really do so because they got kicked out of the Academy in Everfree. And the only way to do that is to mess with something the Academy outlaws.”

“He's grumpy but he's not mean,” Sparrow said, and her grin only grew wider. “He kinda thought it was impressive that we got away with what we did. Said that nopony in Everfree ever pulled one over on him like that and got away with it, even for a little bit. He gave us some money for the stone back, and uh… well, he kinda asked us to keep an eye out if any merchants came into town looking for gemstones. Blue ones specifically.”

By that point, Typhoon had closed her wings, and she subconsciously took a step toward Sparrow as she told her tale. To know that the mage was this close, that somepony not only knew him, but knew his name… “I need to speak to him,” Typhoon said, urgency dripping into her voice despite her best efforts to remain neutral. “Can you help me do that?”

The moment Typhoon saw Sparrow’s smile twist into a gleeful grin, she was reminded of another annoying unicorn that bothered her years ago at a similar age, and she could only brace herself for what she knew was coming.

“Wellllll I could,” Sparrow all-but-sang as she pointedly angled her shoulders away from the old soldier. “But only on one condition.”

“I am not training you to be a legionary,” Typhoon flatly stated. “I’m too old to deal with another young mare who thinks the Legion’s all guts and glory and isn’t mature enough to take it seriously. I’m not going to train somepony who doesn’t know what she’s getting into.”

“I know what I’m getting into!” Sparrow protested, and her gleeful grin turned into a frustrated pout. “I know it’s not all glory! I know it’ll be hard! But I can take it! I’ve slept on the streets every night for the last ten years! I’ve been beaten and robbed and cheated! Whatever you think I can’t handle, you’re wrong!” But when Typhoon remained impassive, Sparrow harrumphed and turned away. “Fine! Guess you’ll have to find Deep Blue yourself!”

Typhoon could see the carrot dangling from Sparrow’s statement, knew that the young unicorn was doing her best to bait Typhoon into giving her what she wanted… but with a defeated sigh, Typhoon let her wings sag a bit and rolled her eyes. “Fine. You want to learn how to fight like a legionary? I’ll show you. But if I find out you’re lying to me, I’m going to drag your sorry flank back up to Eagle Springs and freeze you to the ground in ice so thick it’ll take days to melt free. You understand?”

“Crystal!” Sparrow sang, and when she turned back to Typhoon the young mare was practically prancing on her hooftips. “When do we start? What will you teach me first? Do you have a sword I can borrow?”

“First we start by visiting the blacksmith,” Typhoon said. “I need to pick up my new armor from him. Maybe he has a piece of scrap iron you can borrow or something.” Turning around, she launched herself into the air with a beat of her wings, swooping out over the market as she gained some altitude for her brief flight. “Meet me there.”

“Hey, no fair!” Sparrow shouted in frustration, hopping and stomping on the rooftop. “I can’t fly! Slow down!”

“Should have thought about that before you joined the Legion, kid.” Typhoon shook her head as she flew away, leaving the young mare’s protests behind her. At least the gods had seen fit to give her wings instead of a horn. It made leaving annoying noises behind so much easier.

1-13

“How’s it feel, Commander? Weight’s good, balanced?”

Typhoon stood in Hammer’s workshop and screwed her face up as she bobbed on the tips of her hooves. After a few minutes of donning her armor (with Hammer’s help) and getting her straps and restraints fitted, the old soldier found herself trying to get a feel for a kind of heavy armor she’d never really worn before. The heavy steel peytral protecting her chest pulled down at her shoulders, and the half-plate reaching midway down her back left her hindquarters feeling dangerously unprotected. The pauldrons and leg bracers on her forelegs at least had a familiar weight to them, if not a familiar sound as the scales mutedly clattered with her motions, though most uncomfortable of all was the quilted cloth that provided padding between the disconnected pieces of armor. It felt like a cocoon, pressing against her legs and pulling on her chest in ways that restricted her freedom of movement.

“A bit heavier in the front than I’m used to, but I’ll manage,” Typhoon admitted. She gave her wings a few tentative flaps and lifted herself into a short hover, then landed on the ground with a grunt. “Distance flying might be difficult, but it shouldn’t slow me down in a fight. It’s not all that heavier than a skysteel cuirass. The cloth feels odd, though. I’m used to fighting without anything restricting my legs.”

“The Legion may have been the finest fighting force the world has ever seen, but we still could stand to learn a thing or two from the unicorn knights,” Hammer explained. “A little bit of quilted cloth can go a long way in protection without much weight. It should provide enough protection against glancing blows that you won’t even notice them. The padding is thick enough to stop arrows as well, at least from a distance. I wouldn’t try my luck at point blank.”

“I wasn’t intending on it, but you never know,” Typhoon admitted. “I suppose it will take some time getting used to. It’s a lot to put on, though. Not like a cuirass and bracers, which I could manage by myself.”

“The gambeson should suffice in a pinch, but I made sure the straps on the other plates are easy enough to reach by yourself,” Hammer assured her. “It just might take a bit more than tossing a cuirass over your shoulders and popping your wings through. But at the very least, I can give you this.”

He reached out to his desk with a wing and flipped a Cirran-style galea onto the crest, then held it out to Typhoon. Typhoon, in turn, took the helmet between her wingtips, and after flipping it around, she pressed it down atop her head, finding the holes for her ears with a little wiggling. It had no plume, no onyx plate or gold trim like she used to wear in her battles of old, but it was skysteel, light and strong like the clouds it was forged from. “This I can trust,” Typhoon mused, and her lips curved upwards as she felt the familiar and comforting weight on her head.

“It’s my old helmet from my days in the field,” Hammer told her. “Might be a little big on you, ma’am, but it’s practically good as new. I never had any close encounters with monsters or bandits. Working the forge, I was always well away from the actual fighting, but you know how it was.”

“‘Every pegasus a legionary, from the troops in the field to the mothers nursing their foals,’” Typhoon said, repeating a saying she’d long heard throughout her lifetime of service. Rare was the pegasus who had never received a basic instruction in fighting nor had felt compelled to honor their warrior blood in their youth. War was a part of the pegasus soul, the worst impulses curbed through Cirran honor. In that vein, service in the Legion was the highest honor, the most noble of obligations. And it was not something a pegasus parted with easily.

Typhoon took the helmet off of her head and offered it back to Hammer. “I couldn’t take this from you. You earned this as a soldier of the Legion. It’s yours to keep.”

“I don’t need a relic to remind me of my glory days,” Hammer said, scoffing and pushing it back toward Typhoon. “I’m not going to be fighting anymore, ma’am. The only time I swing my hammer is to shape steel to protect other ponies. And if I wanted a new helmet or armor, I could just make it.” Then he sighed and looked away. “Besides, I lost my old cuirass when I lost my skyforge. Some Lost Legion-type is probably wearing it right now. I’d feel better if you at least put the helmet to good use stopping all that nonsense.”

After a moment, Typhoon relented and tucked the helmet under her wing. “If it puts you at ease, then I’ll keep it,” she said. Then, following a moment more, she raised an eyebrow and gave him a sideways look. “Do you happen to have a mirror here?”

Hammer couldn’t help himself but snort. “I didn’t take you for a vain mare, ma’am.”

“No. But if I’m trying to get what I want out of a pack of bandits or a troublesome wizard, I at least want to know that I look the part of the formidable old soldier.” Her lips pulled back ever so slightly to reveal teeth. “I never really wore dresses or makeup when I was younger. Armor, though…”

“Birthday shopping for you must have been difficult,” Hammer chided.

“I did ask my mother for skysteel pteruges when I was fifteen.” Typhoon couldn’t help herself but smile a little as she remembered simpler days four decades prior while Hammer started rearranging some open space in his workshop. “They’re scout armor, though, and I was a legate. She teasingly offered to demote me if I really wanted them, though.”

“Tsch. I’m sure the grunts would have loved that. You probably turned heads when you were a young mare.” He snatched the corner of a tarp in his teeth and pulled it down, revealing a large if dusty mirror—and missing Typhoon’s sharp wince at his comment, reflected back at the mare through the glass. Still, after brushing some of the dust off with his wing, Hammer took a step back and beckoned Typhoon forward. “Come on, get a good look. I’m sure you’ll like what you see.”

Typhoon stepped forward, recovering enough to give Hammer a sly glance as she passed by. “You’re a little too young,” she teased, brushing her armored shoulder against him in the process. She saw the momentary fluster on the blacksmith’s face in the mirror and gave her gray-streaked tail a flick as she drew herself up before the mirror and turned her head this way and that. “Nothing beats skysteel… but this is masterful nonetheless.”

It was more than just a hollow platitude; the peytral was exceptionally forged, the steel flowing from the shoulders to a ridge that followed Typhoon’s sternum from the base of her neck down to her breast before tapering away to give her forelegs room to maneuver. Scale pauldrons affixed themselves to the shoulders of the peytral by latches and straps, each one with almost a hundred individually cut scales layered over each other and bolted to a swatch of leather, with a matching design in the form of a pair of bracers protecting Typhoon’s forelegs below the knee. The steel half-plate reaching from her withers to the start of her croup protected her spine, again with a slight centerline ridge to deflect blows away from the body, and large holes in the sides gave her ample room to pop her wings through and maneuver them as she pleased. Her belly and flanks were bare and unarmored, but the cloth gambeson beneath the armor at least gave her some minimal protection where metal lacked. All of the steel had been finely shaped and hammered out so carefully that Typhoon could barely notice any irregularities in the surface, and black-painted engravings even decorated the peytral’s collar.

“I’m good at what I do,” Hammer said, leaning against a crate full of iron scraps and admiring his own handiwork while Typhoon turned this way and that to look her armor over from different angles. “Ground steel’s more stubborn than clouds blasted into metal with magic, but it can be shaped if you know how to speak to it.”

“Is that with sweet nothings or with loud curses?” Typhoon asked him, looking back over her shoulder at him with a ruby red eye.

“Encouraging compliments with some stern scolding sprinkled on top. Sometimes you’ve got to beat the metal like you’re spanking a misbehaving foal.” Typhoon snickered, and Hammer lightly chuckled. “Probably a good thing the gods haven’t given me a foal to raise. I’m probably not cut out for the whole parenting thing.”

“It’s harder than it seems, and it doesn’t seem easy to begin with.”

Hammer thoughtfully nodded. “Yeah, I suppose. Your colt came out alright though, from what I heard… err, if you don’t mind me saying, ma’am.”

Rather than remark on that, Typhoon drew herself down with a reserved nod. “I wasn’t perfect, but I did my best,” she murmured to herself, and her gaze wandered to her reflection in the mirror. Beneath the strong armor, an old and tired mare stared back at her, her eyes filled with regrets and lessons learned.

Panting and hoofsteps pointed Typhoon’s ears backwards, and through the mirror, she saw a young brown unicorn appear in the workshop entryway behind her. Typhoon and Hammer turned toward Sparrow as she leaned against one of the posts supporting the workshop’s ceiling and pulled a few strands of her mane that had escaped its tie back out of her face. “I’m… here…” she panted, and when she saw the curve of Typhoon’s lips, she frowned at her. “You could have waited for me!”

“I could have,” Typhoon agreed. “I just didn’t see any particular reason to. You knew where I would be and where you were going.”

When Sparrow simply glared back at her, Hammer chuckled and scooped up a rag off his workbench, tossing it to the unicorn with a wing. “You and the Commander know each other?” Hammer asked her. “I should have known you’d find her one way or another.”

“She tried to rob me at Eagle Springs after I left your forge,” Typhoon explained, but then she cocked an eyebrow at the smith. “You know her?”

“Enough that I should have warned you you’d probably cross paths with her at some point,” Hammer said, and Sparrow scowled at him as she wiped the sweat off of her brow and out of her mane with the rag. “She’s a bloodhound for legionaries. As a former soldier myself, and a blacksmith no less, she’s often by my smithy once a week asking if I’ll make her a sword. She’s a great errand runner if you don’t mind paying her in war stories, though it seems like you two have something else going on.”

Sparrow tossed the rag back to Hammer, who caught it on the same wing he threw it from. “She’s going to teach me how to be a legionary!” Sparrow proclaimed, even bouncing in place with excitement like a filly half her age.

Hammer turned to Typhoon in surprise, and Typhoon rolled her eyes. “I need to meet with the mage who visits this city, and she claims she can set up a meeting. If foalsitting her while she swings a sword around is the price for it, then I’ll pay it.”

The young unicorn huffed. “You could at least try to pretend to be interested!” she whined.

“This is a transaction, not a day in the park.” Then Typhoon turned to Hammer. “I don’t suppose you have practice swords locked in a chest somewhere?”

Hammer shook his head. “I’m not a stallion-at-arms, so no. But I do have some scrap swords I’ve been meaning to melt down for a while yet.” He jostled open the crate full of scrap metal with the crest of his wing and began to rummage through it. After a few seconds, he pulled out a dull steel blade, its edges rounded and rough like chiseled stone and flecked with orange specks. “This ought to do the trick for practice. It’s got no grip on the tang, but that shouldn’t be a problem for a horn.”

He set it down on the table, but the metal had yet to come to a rest before Sparrow seized it in pink magic, twirling it around with her horn and getting a feel for its weight. “What’s wrong with it?” she asked him, holding the length of steel up to her mismatched eyes and squinting at the dull edge. “It looks like it’d be fine if you sharpened it up.”

“There’s imperfections in the steel. You strike that against something too hard and it’s liable to snap right in half.” Hammer started to reach his wing into the crate for a second sword, though he paused and offered Typhoon a raised eyebrow first. “Will you be wanting one?”

“No,” Typhoon answered. “We won’t be sparring.”

“Oh…” Sparrow said from across the workshop, though when Typhoon glanced at the young unicorn, she thought she saw a little bit of relief in her face.

“Suit yourself.” Hammer gestured behind his workshop with his wing and added, “I keep some practice dummies in the yard behind the shop. I need to make sure my swords can hold an edge after all… and my armor can stop one. Just…” he hesitated and pointed at Typhoon’s sword as the old soldier picked it up and hooked it onto the side of her new armor. “Just, if that’s what I think it is, please don’t use it on my dummies. You wouldn’t believe the price of wood and straw these days…”

“Unless we’re attacked by bandits, the sword stays in its scabbard,” Typhoon assured him. Then, turning to Sparrow, she gave the unicorn a glance before walking away from the open forge and onto the grass outside. “Come on. Let’s start by stretching.”

“Eeee!” Sparrow squealed, though she abruptly froze in horror as she realized what sound had just left her muzzle. Hammer smothered a laugh in his wing, and Typhoon only paused and eyed Sparrow with a deadpan expression. “Sorry!” Sparrow apologized, and she bounded out after Typhoon with a vigorous shake of her head. “It’s just that… I’m training with a legionary! This is so awesome!”

“No. It isn’t,” Typhoon deadpanned, her stern tone dampening some of the unicorn’s enthusiasm. When they were in the open grass, the old soldier took a breath and fixed Sparrow in her gaze. “There is nothing fun in being a soldier. It is not something you do for recreation or enjoyment. It is not a sport. It is not ‘awesome’. When you are a soldier, you hold the power to kill in your hooves. In some cases, it is expected of you. Demanded from you. And in the same breath, you forfeit your right to life. There will be many out there who want to take your life from you, and only you can protect yourself.” She narrowed her red eyes, red as the blood they’d witnessed in many long years of service. “Do you understand?”

Sparrow tried to meet their intensity—but cowed after a mere breath. “Yes,” she said, averting her eyes and lowering her head.

Typhoon watched her, and her nostrils twitched as she drew a breath. “Hmph,” was her only response, her thoughts hidden behind a contemptuous exhale. And just like that, she returned to the task at hoof. “Set your sword down and find some space. Start by stretching your legs. Lift one hoof off the ground, press it against your belly, then slowly stretch it out as far as it can go.”

“Like this?” Sparrow asked, drawing her right forehoof up to her belly and then sticking it straight out. She frowned and wiggled her hoof, her mismatched eyes narrowing at it as if it was making a fool of itself, and her along with it. “Miss, uh…Wait, what am I supposed to call you? You never told me your name. Did Hammer call you ‘Commander’?”

“He did,” Typhoon acknowledged. “You may not. You will not use formalities with me.”

“Why not?” Sparrow asked, cocking her head in confusion. “Not even ma’am?”

“No,” Typhoon insisted, and she frowned at the young unicorn. “I was a commander in the Legion, and the Legion is gone. You may call me Typhoon if you must.”

Typhoon expected her name to get a reaction out of a young mare so obsessed with the Legion, but was instead surprised when it failed to elicit even a curious one. “Alright,” Sparrow said with a nod. “Guess the whole storm things makes sense for pegasi… But, uh, why are we stretching? I don’t have to move to fight. I’ve got a horn.”

“Do you think just because you can hold your sword between you and your opponent without touching it that you won’t have to move in a fight?” Typhoon asked her.

“I can move a sword with my magic faster than a pony can rush me,” Sparrow insisted.

“Do you think you could stop me from rushing you?”

Sparrow opened her mouth to retort, thought better of it, and snapped it shut. “Fine,” she admitted, memories of her and her friends’ botched robbery in Eagle Springs likely flashing through her mind. “Can you at least show me how to do it? I feel like I’m doing something wrong.”

“Because you’re doing it too fast. Watch.”

Typhoon took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and opened her wings. Stretching and her warm-ups had been a daily routine for countless years, and she effortlessly slipped into the motions of stretching each of her muscles with intention and purpose. One hoof at a time, she raised and curled her legs until her hooves brushed her belly, then extended them as far as they could reach, before sweeping each leg out to the side and bringing the hoof back down to the ground. She did this several times for each leg, and she added wing waves and flaps to stretch out her flight muscles and energize the source of her magic. When she opened her eyes again, she saw Sparrow trying to mimic her, sans the wing stretches, and her movements had gone from shaky and uncertain to slow and deliberate.

“Do you feel your muscles stretching?” Typhoon asked her. When Sparrow nodded, she continued: “Just because you feel relaxed or you haven’t been active lately doesn’t mean you are. Muscles grow sore from overuse, but they also stiffen with disuse. They let us move, and so that is their natural state: movement. That’s why stretching is important. You loosen your muscles and prepare them to work at peak capacity longer than they otherwise would. It can be the difference between life and death on the battlefield.”

“But… aren’t we just doing some sword practice?” Sparrow asked her. “There’s no life-or-death situation today.”

“No,” Typhoon agreed. “There isn’t. But it’s easier to learn now when it’s peaceful and not right before a battle.”

The two mares continued to stretch, moving from their legs to their shoulders and hindquarters, their backs, and then their necks. Typhoon worked her jaw from side to side as well, more out of habit than anything else, and when Sparrow gave her an odd look, she explained. “I don’t have a horn. I have to hold my sword in my mouth. And a good legionary can change which side she holds the blade with her tongue and teeth alone.”

At the mention of her sword, Sparrow shot the weapon in question a fearful glance. “What is that thing?” she asked her.

“My sword,” Typhoon bluntly answered.

“But when I touched it I…” Sparrow shivered at the memory. “It felt like it wanted to kill me.”

“It probably wanted to,” Typhoon agreed. Then she pointed at Sparrow’s scrap sword and pivoted the conversation away from that topic. “Yours will not. Pick it up and let’s start with the basics.”

Sparrow gave Typhoon’s sword one last wary glance, but she hefted her weapon in her magic and gave it a twirl before leaving it idly floating in front of her. “Shouldn’t we go over to the dummies first?” Sparrow asked, noting the distance between the two mares and the straw-stuffed practice dummies at the other end of the yard.

“No. First, we work on your form. Now, hold your sword in front of you, tip up and readied.” Sparrow repositioned the weapon in her magic, and Typhoon slowly walked in a circle around the young mare and her weapon. “I never trained unicorns to fight,” Typhoon admitted, “so most of what I have to teach you will be translated from how I would train a pegasus legionary. But there are a few things that I do know about unicorn swordplay that I can share with you. First, let’s start by fixing your grip.”

“My grip?” Sparrow blinked and looked at the pink aura surrounding her sword. “What’s wrong with it? It’s magic. I can hold it any way I need.”

“You’re holding the entire sword in your magic,” Typhoon said, and she gestured with the end of her wing to the glow surrounding the sword from tip to tang. “When you swing with it, you swing with an equal force over the length of the sword. That means your swing is only as strong as your telekinesis.”

“My telekinesis is pretty strong,” Sparrow said, and she gave her sword a few practice swipes. “If this had an edge to it, I could make it cut.”

“Why does an axe or a hammer have its head on the end of a stick?” Typhoon asked her. “Why not connect it directly to a mouthheld handle? The answer is leverage. Shorten your grip to the tang and then try swinging. It’s harder to hold, but you can leverage the weight of the sword to hit harder.”

Sparrow did as instructed, and her magical aura shrank to only cover the tang of the naked blade. She gave it a few experimental swings, and her tongue poked its way out the side of her mouth as she swung it about and wrestled with the mass. “I feel like I’m going to slip off the sword,” Sparrow admitted when she drew the weapon back towards her body and let it idly levitate again. “The tang’s too smooth.”

“You would know better than I how you feel with your magic,” Typhoon said with a shrug. “I do know that unicorn smiths would inlay the hilts of their weapons with gold or silver wire. Those metals are like magical sponges. They’re sticky, and it’s harder for a unicorn to lose their grip on something webbed with precious metals. That seems to correlate with what I’ve seen, both on the battlefield and in the ballroom.”

Sparrow furrowed her brow. “In the ballroom…? Wait, did you just make a joke about stuffy nobles and gold?”

“Did I?” Typhoon only asked back, leaving Sparrow flustered and groaning. “Come on. Next let’s talk about your stance. And before you ask what’s wrong with it, you should know what my answer is going to be.”

“Ughh… yes, mom…”

1-14

The sign hanging above the tavern door proudly named the establishment ‘Warbler’s Roost’ in vivid, colorful letters, and beneath them, a colorful bird perched on a soup ladle rising from a bowl of steaming stew. The glow of candlelight shone through polished windows and into the dusty street outside as shadows crept over Boiling Springs, and laughter and music spilled out into the town with every opening of the door.

One of those openings came at the glow of a unicorn’s horn, and a young mare with mismatched eyes and an old mare with shining armor stepped inside. Sparrow found an open table and trotted over to it, while Typhoon gave the tavern a cursory scan before following her. The patrons were young, mares and stallions in the prime of their life, and they pranced and danced in the open center on a floor polished by thousands of stomping hooves, led by the lively performance of a trio of bards singing by the fireplace. It was loud, chaotic, and energetic, and Typhoon felt exhaustion grip her old bones just from watching them.

When Typhoon joined Sparrow and sat down in her seat, the young unicorn was already looking longingly at the group of mares and stallions spinning each other about in their dance. “This place is too noisy,” Typhoon grumbled, giving her head a shake and turning her back to all the commotion behind her. “The food better be worth it.”

“Trust me. If the scraps me and the girls sometimes got from the cook were good, then the full thing’s gotta be delicious,” Sparrow assured her. “Besides, it’s not all about the food, you know. Don’t you like music and dancing?”

“When I was a filly, yes,” Typhoon admitted. “A lifetime in the Legion has ruined all my joints, so I can’t enjoy dancing like I used to. Music I still like, so long as it's not bawdy tavern songs or any heroic tales twisted by bards.” Her eyes flitted to the bards in the tavern and she had to suppress a disdainful scowl. “If they’d seen what I’d seen, they wouldn’t be singing about it. And I’m happy they don’t.”

“But don’t you want to have somepony singing about you?” Sparrow asked. “It means your name lives on after you die. You’d be a legend!”

Typhoon scoffed. “Legends can be bad as often as they’re good,” the old soldier countered. “Would you like it if you did something foolish or stupid and it became the only thing anypony ever remembered about you?”

Sparrow’s ears fell and she sheepishly shifted in her seat. “No, that’d suck pretty bad… but I’d still rather be remembered than forgotten. I want somepony to know that I was here. That I lived and I did something. Even if it wasn’t great.”

Typhoon watched Sparrow as she tilted her head away and hid her blue eye behind a lock of mane, leaving only a red one to peer at the bards singing their music. For a moment, the old mare felt taken back in time to when another unicorn with red eyes sat across from her fifteen years ago and bemoaned the same things… but only for a moment.

“Too many ponies are remembered for the wrong reasons,” Typhoon said dismissively, and she waved down a barmaid with a wing. “And too many who deserve it are not.”

“Welcome to Warbler’s Roost,” the barmaid said, a smile appearing on her face even if it faltered for a moment when she caught sight of Typhoon’s intricate and heavy armor and the sword resting against the table. “What can I get for you?”

“Food and ale,” Typhoon said, and she threw a couple of gold coins down on the table. “I don’t particularly care what, so long as it’s filling.”

“Fish!” Sparrow cheerfully chirped. “With lilies and greens! Oh, and some ale, too!”

“Sure! I’ll get those right out for you. Enjoy the night!” the barmaid said, and with one last look at Typhoon’s armor and scars, she scampered away just a little too quickly to escape the old soldier’s watchful eye.

But it didn’t matter to Typhoon; instead, she turned her attention toward Sparrow. “Most unicorns I know can’t stand meat,” Typhoon noted. “Even earth ponies are more likely to eat fish than them. Not as much as pegasi, but still.”

“Do you think I could afford to be choosy?” Sparrow asked her. “I had to take whatever I could get! Besides, I heard that meat helps build muscle. I need that if I’m going to be a legionary.”

“You need a lot more than muscle if you’re going to be a legionary,” Typhoon said. “Your magic is your greatest strength. Work on honing it. Controlling it. Maybe then you’ll be able to make something of yourself.”

Sparrow nodded, eagerly taking in Typhoon’s comments as if they were holy scripture. “Will you show me tomorrow? We spent all day working on my stance and my grip and swings and we didn’t even get a chance to hit the dummy!”

“No,” Typhoon flatly stated. “Tomorrow you’re taking me to meet Deep Blue. That’s what we agreed on.”

“Awww, come onnnnn,” Sparrow pleaded. “He’s not going anywhere! We can practice in the morning and you can meet him in the afternoon!” When Typhoon’s eyes narrowed, Sparrow pouted and changed approach. “You know you won’t be able to meet him unless I help you, right?”

“I agreed to give you a training session in exchange for helping me meet Deep Blue because I am fair. Not because I am nice,” Typhoon warned her. “Do not mistake one for the other.”

The veiled threat made Sparrow shrink in her seat, and after a moment, she let out a sigh. “Okay… fine. We can meet up in the market tomorrow at sunrise and I’ll show you how to meet him. Fair’s fair and all that.”

After a moment, Typhoon nodded once. “Good. Thank you.”

“Yeah, don’t mention it…” Sparrow grumbled and, sighing, she put her cheek on her hoof and looked out once again at the ponies dancing in the tavern. “You got any stories?”

“Stories?”

“Yeah, stories!” Sparrow perked up again, and she sat up straight in her chair. “You’re an old mare—uh, experienced veteran,” Sparrow hastily corrected herself at Typhoon’s frown. “You’ve gotta have some crazy stories, right? I mean… that scar on your face, it had to come from somewhere!”

The mere mention of the long scar over her right eye and down her cheek made it itch and burn, and Typhoon closed her eyes. “That is not a story for strangers,” Typhoon said after forcing herself to take a slow breath. “That one is… too personal.”

Something in her voice made it clear to Sparrow that the topic was not open to discussion. “Oh…” the young mare said, and she glanced away, feeling uncomfortable. “Well, uh… what about any other ones? I’ve got some good stories too. The one on my lip I got when I… woah! What’s going on with your wings?”

Typhoon blinked her eyes open, confused, and when she glanced down at her wings, she saw snowflakes forming on her feathers. With an annoyed snort, she roughly shook her wings, knocking them loose and momentarily creating a snow squall around her that melted as soon as the flakes hit the floor. “My magic,” Typhoon said.

“Your magic?” Sparrow asked, and she leaned a little closer against the table... before she seemingly thought better of it and leaned away. “Like what you did at Eagle Springs? You froze Wren pretty solid... I didn't even know pegasi had magic like that!”

“All ponies have magic,” Typhoon corrected her. “Unicorns have the most visible form. But pegasi and earth ponies have it, too. For earth ponies, it gives them strength and hardiness, and it allows them to subtly control the growth of plants over time. For pegasi, it allows us to fly and walk on clouds. But if you’re trained in it, a pegasus can also express it in other ways.”

Holding out her wingtip, Typhoon pressed it against the table, and a small circle of ice began to expand against the wood, much to Sparrow’s amazement. “Pegasi are… creatures of emotion. Some ponies claim that we can fly because of our love for the freedom of the boundless skies above us. We love the ability to go where we want, to do what we want, to be who we want. It’s a very emotional connection with the world. And somewhere along the line, somepony discovered that we could channel our emotions to control the elements of the world itself.”

She lifted her wing from the table, and after a moment, a small flame danced on the end of her wingtip. “Unicorns cannot control the four elements of the world—the earth, the air, the fire, the water—but pegasi can. I can’t explain why; a wizard could explain it better than me. But the elements are tied to our emotions. Anger summons fire. Fear channels the earth. Joy bends the winds to our will. And ice is… sadness.” Typhoon tucked her wing back against her side, her vision drawn down to the circle of ice already beginning to melt on the table. “Most pegasi will never channel their emotions in the way needed to control the elements. Some will do it accidentally after great trauma or overwhelming excitement, but never again. But if you’re trained, you can do it at will by focusing on a thought or a memory that’s tied to the relevant emotion. And once you open that door, make that connection, sometimes you channel your emotions subconsciously when a particularly powerful memory strikes you.”

Typhoon raised her eyes, finding Sparrow's eyes staring back at her, filled with sudden understanding. “That’s why I ‘iced up’ a moment ago. And that’s why I will not discuss that memory with ponies I do not trust.”

“I… see,” Sparrow said, and her eyes seemed to soften some. After a few heartbeats of silence, she cleared her throat. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You did nothing wrong.” Typhoon hesitated for a moment, and then she put her metal hoof on the table, where the warm air in the tavern made the wispy fog emanating from it all the more visible. “I lost my hoof in a battle against buffalo,” she began, her mind going back to a battlefield long ago and far away. “Do you know what those are?”

Sparrow nodded, though it was uncertain. “I think so? They’re like, really big cows or something, right?”

“Perhaps to put it simply, yes,” Typhoon said. “They’re massive creatures, twice as tall as an earth pony and three times as strong. The prairies around here used to be some of their stampede grounds. When Equestria was still young but unified, settlers and Legion colonia claimed land increasingly further away from Everfree for the nation. The buffalo pushed back, and it was the duty of the Legion to protect our settlers.”

“That must have been easy,” Sparrow said, her eyes slowly lighting up with fascination. She started to lean over the table, her ears pointed squarely at the soldier sitting across from her. “You could fly and buck lightning from clouds! What could the buffalo do against that?”

“More than we gave them credit for,” Typhoon admitted. “The buffalo tribes started to rally together to drive our settlers back off of their lands. Attempts to solve the crisis diplomatically were fruitless, but in hindsight, I understand why. It’s unreasonable to ask somepony after breaking into their home to compromise and part with some of their valuables in the name of fairness, so to speak. But when diplomacy failed, the Legion was sent to break up the tribes. We won the initial fight in the field, but the buffalo retreated into a narrow canyon, and in the middle of the night, burned some kind of magical plant in great bonfires. The smoke drifted over our cloud camp and we all lost our magic for the better part of a week.”

“You lost your magic… in your cloud camp?” Sparrow’s eyes widened. “But wouldn’t that mean you would…?”

“Fall?” Typhoon nodded. “Yes. We did. I woke up when I fell through the bottom of my tent. The air was filled with confused screaming. I managed to glide into a river that broke the worst of my fall, along with my shoulder and a few ribs. Most of the legion wasn’t as lucky. Those of us that survived did our best to regroup and find defensible terrain to hold out as long as we could until another legion could arrive to rescue us.” She held up her hoof and looked it over, noting where the skysteel joint had been magically fused onto the end of her fetlock. “I got charged and trampled during the last of the fighting before we were saved. I was lucky my hoof was the only thing injured beyond repair. I had to have it amputated and replaced when I got back to Everfree.”

“Woah…” Sparrow mused out loud. “See? Now that’s something that would make for a great song! The last stand of the legion against all odds! Come on, even you have to agree that would make for a great bard’s tale!”

Typhoon frowned back at her. “A story where most of a legion died after falling from a cloud in their sleep and the survivors were trampled into the dirt in a canyon?” She could only derisively snort at her own summary. “I fail to see where heroism comes into play. We underestimated our enemy and nearly all perished because of it. There was nothing glorious about it. And a lot of good soldiers died because of my mistake.”

“Your mistake?” Sparrow blinked and cocked her head. “Wait… Hammer called you Commander earlier today. Was that your legion?”

Typhoon nodded once, and she looked off to the side, at the dancing patrons and the singing bards, for wont of something to focus her eyes on. “I was their legate, and I led my soldiers into a trap. A lot of good pegasi died because I made a mistake. If the gods were just, I would have died there with them. But I didn’t. And sometimes I wonder why, after all this time, after all my battles, they’ve let me live for so long.”

Sparrow brought her hooves together and looked down at the space between them. “Maybe they’re not done with you yet?” she posited. “Maybe they’ve got plans for you?”

“Or maybe I’m being punished,” Typhoon countered. “After all I’ve seen and done, all that’s crumbled…” Her voice trailed off, and with a sigh, she sat back in her seat, listening to the wood creak under the weight of her armored back. “Forget about it,” she said after a moment, and she all but shoved the conversation topic away with a wave of her hoof. “When you get old, you get sentimental. Soldiers don’t expect to live until they’re gray in the mane. We don’t know what to do with ourselves if we do.”

The young unicorn gave her a skeptical look, as if she saw right through the shield of humor Typhoon used to deflect from the topic. “There’s always time to find something new,” Sparrow said. “Life’s too precious to waste whatever time you have left.”

The barmaid chose that moment to arrive with their food, setting it down between the two mares with her magic, ushering an end to the conversation. But even as Sparrow thanked the barmaid and began to shovel food into her muzzle, Typhoon could only stare at her plate, lost in thought.

She snatched her tankard of ale in her wing and raised it to her lips. She hadn’t had a stiff drink in a while… and now she felt like she needed one more than ever.

1-15

The morning was heavy and the air smelled of rain. Warm and humid, the air clung to Typhoon’s feathers and frazzled her stiff, graying mane. If Typhoon opened her mouth, she could taste the weather in the air; Boiling Springs would be soaking wet by noon. Nopony would be out in the market once the storms started, and Typhoon feared that would extend to the wizard she planned on meeting.

The door to one of Warbler’s Roost’s rooms slid open with the groan of its heavy iron hinges, and Sparrow wandered into the communal area where Typhoon sat with a wide yawn, rubbing at mismatched eyes with the back of a fetlock. Blinking twice, she spotted the legionary and shuffled over to the table, flopping down hard in a chair and letting out a sigh and another yawn. “Morning,” she mumbled.

“You’re late,” Typhoon noted. The fork held in her wingtip stabbed at a pile of scrambled eggs like a lance at a ragged band of infantry. “Sunrise was an hour ago.”

“Was it?” Sparrow squinted with bleary eyes at the open windows lining the room’s walls. “It’s so dark and gray outside…”

“Rain.” Typhoon took one bite of her food and set her fork down, then stood up with a grunt. The armor hanging from her body rattled with the motion, and she flipped Hammer’s helmet onto her head with a quick flourish of her wing. “Come on. We don’t have all day.”

“But I haven’t even eaten yet!” Sparrow protested, but when Typhoon raised an eyebrow at her, the young unicorn sighed. “Can’t you at least let me enjoy this morning? That was the first time I’ve slept in fresh bedding in at least two months!”

“I’ll give you coin for another night once you do your job,” Typhoon told her. “I need to meet Deep Blue now, and if we wait any longer, then it will start to rain, and I doubt he’s going to want to visit the market when it’s raining.”

She started to move for the door, and Sparrow reluctantly stood up and followed after her, though not before picking up the rest of Typhoon’s eggs off of her plate and holding them in her magic as they left. “I doubt that’ll bother him all that much,” Sparrow muttered, and she pinched off a chunk of egg from the mass levitating by her head and floated it into her mouth. “The guy smells like he lives in a bathtub. I guess personal hygiene is the first thing to go when you’re a crazy wizard.”

Typhoon pushed open the door and stepped out into the street, feeling the cool spring wind tickle her ears and whistling lightly over the earholes in her galea. “In my experience, true wizards cared more about their craft than their appearance,” she remarked. “Clover the Clever was never afraid to get her hooves dirty with field work. Diadem the Scholar kept herself clean for her lectures, but her mane would be a frazzled mess after nights spent in her study without rest. Star Swirl the Bearded goes without saying.” As she walked down the street, she couldn’t help but snort dismissively. “Wizards obsessed with their image waste time they could use to help ponies by devoting it to themselves. Real wizards don’t care what they look like so long as their magic helps ponies.”

“Yeah but like…” Sparrow crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue. “The guy could at least invent a spell to not smell like mildew all the time…”

The two mares continued down the street, Typhoon leading the way to the market and Sparrow following along behind her, quickly finishing off the rest of Typhoon’s breakfast. Throngs of ponies crowded the streets, all hurrying about to conduct their morning business before the rains hit, but Typhoon’s armored presence parted the crowds without effort. Wary glances fell first on her armor, then on her wings, and hushed whispers floated along the winds and past Typhoon’s ears. But the old soldier disregarded it all, even the frowns from the town guards she passed by. They simply weren’t worth her attention.

They did, however, fail to escape Sparrow’s notice. “Ponies don’t like you,” she observed as she trotted up to Typhoon’s shoulder. “And I thought being an urchin was bad.”

“The bandits around here have ruined the memory of the Legion,” Typhoon curtly answered, and her lip twitched as she bristled at the thought. “I never would have tolerated this from my soldiers. I trained them better. I gave them honor and showed them how to carry it. What they do with my training now is a disgrace.”

But her shoulders sagged and she let out a defeated sigh. “Though maybe I was wrong about that. Maybe I was a fool to think that without the Legion my soldiers would still be legionaries. And maybe I’m a fool to be wasting my time on the frontier instead of trying to do something with what little I have left.”

She glared down at the street, stewing in her frustration. And Sparrow, though she opened her mouth to try and push back, found she had nothing to say to the old soldier’s bleak musings.

When they made it to the edge of the market, Typhoon changed the topic at hoof like a shift in the winds. “We’re here,” she announced, turning to put a red eye on Sparrow. “Summon him.”

“Geez, he’s the magician, not me,” Sparrow said with a roll of her eyes. “I can’t just make him appear like that.”

Typhoon narrowed her eyes. “You have been giving me the impression that was not the case. I hope you haven’t been lying to me.”

“I just didn’t mean like that,” Sparrow grumbled, and she pressed her hoof against her forehead, right under the base of her horn. “I mean that he showed me and the girls how to let him know that there were gems in the market he’d be interested in. It’s still up to him when he bothers to show up.”

“When was the last time you called for him?” Typhoon asked her.

“Like, maybe a month ago. It’s been a while,” Sparrow admitted.

“Good.” Typhoon nodded her head. “If it’s been some time then he should answer. So summon him.”

“Would it kill you to say ‘please’?” Sparrow muttered under her breath, but she nevertheless turned around and started walking toward an alley along the perimeter of the market. “He enchanted some bricks over here so we could let him know if there was something worth his time in the market while being discreet. He hates dealing with other ponies and especially the town guard, so the less time he spends in Boiling Springs, then better. Or at least that’s what he’s told us before.”

Typhoon followed Sparrow into the alley, her eyes wandering over the nondescript bricks lining the walls of the buildings on either side. “I’m starting to understand how he feels,” she said. “I imagine the town guard isn’t too happy that a powerful mage is frequenting their town. Especially since they have to know that they wouldn’t be a match for him should he appear with malicious intent.”

That made Sparrow pause, and she looked back at Typhoon with a note of concern. “Have you ever had to do that?” she asked her. “Fight against evil wizards?”

Typhoon’s nostrils momentarily flared. “In my time, yes,” she admitted. “It’s never pleasant. Especially when one was after my heart and I had to put an icicle in his.”

Sparrow blinked. “Like… literally or…?”

The old soldier chose not to answer that, instead gesturing with a bladed wing toward the bricks, the metal scales lining the crest rattling as she did so. “Go on,” she ordered the young unicorn.

“Alright, if you say so.” Sparrow’s magic picked a rock off of the ground and tapped it against a series of bricks in quick succession. “If he feels like coming here, he should appear from the wall. It’s some kind of portal or something. But I don’t think he’s gonna be happy that I got a legionary with me.”

“Leave all that to me,” Typhoon assured her. “I’ll say what I need to say. Hopefully he’ll be willing to help.”

“And if he isn’t?”

Typhoon shrugged. “I haven’t thought that far out yet.”

“Aren’t officers supposed to think in like, strategic terms or something?” Sparrow asked her, chucking the rock aside. “Don’t you have to think ahead?”

“‘Plans are useless, but it is nevertheless important to plan,’” Typhoon said, and when Sparrow gave her a look, she shrugged. “It’s an old saying in the Legion. Point is, it’s important to both think ahead and be able to improvise. Don’t let one compromise your ability to perform the other.”

After a moment, Sparrow frowned at her. “You’re just bullshitting me, aren’t you?”

“A commander never reveals her intentions with words, but with actions,” Typhoon quipped, and at Sparrow’s exasperated groan, the line of her lips curved ever so slightly in bemusement.

That curve didn’t last long as the grout between the bricks glowed blue, and with a grating groan, the bricks curved in on themselves, revealing a magical void that filled the hollow space they used to occupy in the walls. After a moment, a blue unicorn emerged from the blue glow, his horn long and pointed as it pierced a mess of a blue mane streaked with green hairs. Light blue robes decorated with patterns of white and blue swirls hung from his frame, though the sleeves on his forelegs were clearly damp, as was his coat itself around his fetlocks. He stood on the tall side for unicorns, with the tip of the lanky Sparrow’s horn rising only to about his nose, and standing a full head above the smaller Typhoon, weighed down with age and armor as she was. A scruff of a beard decorated his chin, and as he walked into the alley, a drop of water fell from its hairs and struck the ground.

“Finally,” the wizard muttered as he emerged, his voice smooth and flowing like running water. “I was wondering when somepony was going to get to one of these towns with gemstones. If that had kept up, I’d have had to deal with that annoying dragon and remind her whose turf she’s encroaching on…” Sapphire eyes fell first on Sparrow, but at the clicking of metal, immediately jumped to the right where they met ruby and widened in response. “Legion? What is the meaning of this?”

“She… asked to get in touch with you,” Sparrow said, taking an anxious step back when she saw the scowl that plastered itself across the wizard’s face. “She—”

“Deep Blue,” Typhoon interrupted, addressing the wizard by name and pushing Sparrow out of the conversation. “I need your help.”

“My help?” Deep Blue repeated, surprise coloring his words. “Do you take me for some common hedge mage? Your petty concerns aren’t worth my time, whatever they may be. I am an archmage in all but title, and only then because that misguided mare at the Academy made it clear I was no longer welcome in Everfree. Go fly back there if you want something enchanted, old mare.”

“I’m not welcome there either,” Typhoon said, and off to the side, Sparrow blinked in surprise. Then the old soldier opened up her saddlebag, dipped her wing inside, and dropped a couple of sapphires and aquamarines on the ground. “I’m willing to pay for some of your time. I heard that you were looking for these.”

Deep Blue’s eyes narrowed, and his long horn glowed with glittering blue magic as he picked up one of the sapphires and looked it over. After a moment, he looked back at Typhoon, and with a snort, tucked the gemstone into one of the pockets hidden in his robes while his magic picked up the rest. “I guess this wasn’t a total waste of time, then. Fine, you’ve earned a bit of my day. What is it that you want?”

“Can you break a hex?”

The wizard paused. “Hexes are powerful magic,” he said, slowly. “Fey magic. Stronger than the curses the darkest souls of ponykind have ever created. Who cast it?”

“Luna.”

That one name made Deep Blue take a shocked step back, but it was Sparrow who reacted first. “Luna?” the young mare blurted out in disbelief. “You mean one of the Sisters? Not just, like, some other pony named Luna?”

Typhoon shot her an annoyed glance, but nevertheless the tip of her muzzle gave one small bob up and down.

After overcoming his shock and searching for words for several seconds, Deep Blue only shook his head. “No. Her magic is powerful, her knowledge ancient. If she cast a hex, then that is beyond my knowledge to break.”

Typhoon’s wingtips twitched and her nostrils flared for a moment. “Do you know anypony who might be able to?”

“Other than Luna herself? No.” Then he paused, thinking for a moment. “At least, not any ponies…”

The old mare took a breath. “Who?”

“It’s… complicated.” Deep Blue tucked the rest of the gemstones away, then angled his head back towards the swirling portal behind him. “Come. Maybe I can help you after all.”

With that, the wizard turned around and stepped through the magical void, his tail disappearing into the wall with a slight glow of light. Typhoon, a small frown on her muzzle, followed right after him. And Sparrow, after a moment of confusion, astonishment, and hesitancy, swallowed hard and galloped after them before the portal flashed shut.

1-16

Vertigo overtook Typhoon as she followed Deep Blue through his portal, the magic that powered it tunneling her body across reality in all defiance of the natural laws of the universe. As the flash of light and the momentary motion sickness faded away, Typhoon grimaced and gave her head a shake to restore some normalcy over her faculties. Magical transportation had never been her favorite, but it had its uses. And when it came to breaking a hex cast by the alicorn of moonlight, Typhoon wasn’t about to complain about any magic involved along the way.

“I suppose in proper company this would be the part where I welcome you to my home and tell you to make yourself comfortable, but I don’t often entertain guests,” Deep Blue said, walking away from the portal without looking back at Typhoon or the young unicorn that scampered in after them. “I’m honestly not sure if I have a spare chair around here to begin with. My work is too important to be interrupted by distractions… but I’ll make an exception for your unique request.”

His voice echoed in the chamber, and as Typhoon craned her head around, she understood why. Rather than a tower ornamented with windows giving gracious views over the green grasslands, the three ponies appeared to have entered what looked like a large, vaulted cave. Plain, natural limestone formed the walls around them before curving into the ceiling, while streaks of miscolored water dribbled from spiderlike cracks in the stone and dripped down stalactites into a large pond dominating the center of the room. The pond glowed with a magical blue light, almost as blue as the clear skies outside, and its glow produced enough light to see inside.

Surrounding the pond were the artifacts of Deep Blue’s work and life. While the pond dominated the center of the cave, Deep Blue had made the walls surrounding it his own, with a wide pathway that delineated the circumference of the pond allowing access to anything he might need throughout a day. By the portal they had just left was a long table that followed the curve of the pond, with countless scrolls piled across its surface and spilling onto the floor. Clockwise from that, shelves, chests, and lockers contained anything the wizard needed to keep stored; from the crack in one stone chest, a chilly frost spilled onto the floor, not entirely unlike the frigid prosthetic hoof on the end of Typhoon’s foreleg. Further along the perimeter, a simple kitchen worked under some enchantment, with knives slicing carrots and potatoes of their own volition before tossing them into a pot of boiling water, filling the cave with the wonderful aroma of a fresh stew. Finally, a large and luxurious bed stood pressed up against the wall, the blankets left in a messy pile and spilling onto the ground near the water. But nowhere did Typhoon see a tunnel or path leading out of the cave itself; apart from the portal they had just walked through, there was no way in or out.

“I was expecting a tower,” Typhoon remarked. “Don’t all wizards have towers?”

Deep Blue sputtered and whipped his head back, fixing Typhoon with an offended glare. “Only wizards who are so self-conceited that they feel the need to remind anypony and everypony where they live and of some idea of social stature that they affix to themselves. I’ve found they tend to be more of a nuisance than they’re worth. They attract witless idiots who think they’re strong enough to steal some elderly robe-wearing unicorn’s treasures and then smear their blood into the tiles when a golem stomps them into paste. And then you have to maintain golems just to clean the mess up and deal with the smell before it gets rancid…”

He waved his hoof in disgust. “Much better to just set up a workshop somewhere unseen and unknown. You have to deal with far fewer interruptions and distractions to very important work. And I feel no need to display my own importance to the ponies beyond Equestria’s borders. When my work is finished, they will know my name, and know just what I’ve done for all of ponykind.”

“What work is that?” Sparrow asked as she cantered up behind the two older ponies, her mismatched eyes filled with wonder as she looked around the cave. “I’d kinda like to know where all those gems we’ve been finding for you are going…”

“Water,” was Deep Blue’s response, as if that answered everything.

Unfortunately for Sparrow, it did not. “What do you mean, ‘water?’ You want water? Boiling Springs has got plenty of it. And it’s warm, too!”

The wizard sighed in exasperation. “I didn’t invite you here to impart the deep wellspring of my wisdom on you. In fact, I didn’t invite you here. Only the legionary.”

“And what, I was just supposed to miss out on all this wacky wizard stuff?” Sparrow shook her head and trotted up to Deep Blue’s table, trying to make sense of the runes and notes scrawled across countless sheets of parchment. “Not a chance! I’m not gonna miss something as exciting as this!”

Deep Blue gave Typhoon a look, and the old soldier just shrugged. Then his horn lit up, and with a loud pop! Sparrow disappeared.

Typhoon’s wings flared. “What…?”

“She’s fine, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Deep Blue assured her. “I merely sent her back to Boiling Springs. She’s been helpful to me, and despite what Archmage Diadem lectures in her academy, not all of us left Equestria because we’re terrible ponies. Some of us just don’t want to be disturbed by auditors sticking their noses into important work to make sure we aren’t breaking any so-called ‘laws of magic.’” He snorted derisively and took a seat at his table, the only seat, and raised an eyebrow at the legionary. “But I’m not here to entertain you with my life’s story. I’d rather not entertain you at all, but as I said earlier, you’ve earned a bit of my time. And truth be told, it’s been a long time since I’ve encountered a hex. You’ve even earned a bit of my curiosity. But before I begin, I do have to ask: why not have one of the mages in Everfree look into it, soldier?”

In response, Typhoon removed her helmet and set it down on the table, letting her graying mane fall loose. Deep Blue squinted at her face, unobscured by armor, and after a moment, his eyes widened in surprise and recognition—but only for a moment. “If you know anything about what happened in Everfree,” Typhoon simply stated, “then you already know why.”

Deep Blue blew air at a strand of his damp mane hanging down by his muzzle and nodded. “Not much as I ought to, with the pegasus triumvir standing right before my eyes. Word doesn’t travel far down here. All I know is that the Legion is gone, dissolved by your hoof. Some sort of dispute with our dear Queen Platinum, third of her name. Who, despite being separated by some two decades in age, is your sister, if my knowledge of Commander Hurricane’s children serves me right?” He shook his head and fixed Typhoon with a questioning look. “Curious, then, that one sister rules in Everfree, and the other is fleeing from it—and haunted by a hex from the alicorn of the night.”

Typhoon awkwardly glanced away. “I never said that I was the one hexed.”

“There is magic about you, soldier. Even more than emanates from that Tartarus-chilled weapon you carry by your side.” He declined his horn in the direction of Typhoon’s sword for emphasis. “And even if I wasn’t sensitive to magic, it was obvious in your words. You wouldn’t go through all this effort to find me if you weren’t the one suffering from it… and desperate to get rid of it.”

Typhoon set her jaw, having no answer to the wizard. “The hex is not related to what happened between me and my sister. It’s an older slight that only manifested when I left Everfree and was no longer responsible for its protection. What I did for Luna to hex me is not important. Only getting rid of it is.”

“If you’d rather keep that your own little secret, I won’t pry,” Deep Blue assured her. “As I said, I understand wanting privacy. But even if I don’t know the reasons, I need to at least know what it is so that I can help you. Or at least, rather, point you in the right direction to somecreature who can.”

“Luna’s domain is the night and dreams,” Typhoon said with a shrug of her wings. “I would think it would be obvious.”

“Death is also her domain,” Deep Blue added. “There has never been a necromancer of her skill and prowess, even if her alicorn blood aids her in both. Perhaps the hex is upon your soul, not your sleep.”

That idea sent a shiver down Typhoon’s spine, and she fidgeted her wings as she pushed that unpleasant thought aside. “Then I should count myself lucky it’s only my dreams that she hexed,” the soldier said. “Since I left Everfree, my dreams have been haunted by nightmares of my past. I crossed Luna in a way that deeply angered her many years ago, and now she reminds me of it nightly. Peaceful sleep is impossible now.”

“You would be dead from sleep deprivation if that were true,” Deep Blue observed. “Even if you need less sleep as you age, every creature still needs some.”

At that, Typhoon dug into her saddlebag and pulled out her broken dreamcatcher, setting it down on the table and pushing it toward Deep Blue with a wing. “This has worked for a time,” she said as the wizard picked it up in his magic and looked it over. “I thought it was a useless charm at first, but the pony I got it from assured me it would help. He wasn’t wrong. But now it’s broken, and the nightmares are back.”

After a moment, Deep Blue let out an impressed hum. “This is spider silk,” he said, his magic giving one of the silk strands a gentle tug. “The great spiders that infested the tunnels beneath the frontier could give dreams physical form by spinning them into silk. Even now, just exactly how they can do this is a mystery we may never solve with the war over and their burrows torched. But since it’s made out of dreams, it knows, in a sense, how to entangle them. It would have indeed been effective at keeping Luna’s nightmares away from your sleep—when it was intact.” He paused, then looked askance at Typhoon. “Who made this?”

Typhoon’s nostrils flared for but a moment following a sharp exhale. “Mortal Coil.”

“Him?” Deep Blue asked, eyebrows climbing up his forehead. “Didn’t he die twenty years ago? Unless he knew about the spiders back then and didn't tell anypony, he wouldn't have been able to get their silk to make this. Equestria didn't even know about the spiders until a few years ago when they started sinking towns.”

At that, the old soldier merely shrugged, accompanied by a mumbled, “Well, he made it.” But she reached out with her wing and, using the tip of her feathers, dragged the mangled dream catcher back towards her. “Who do I go to to break the hex? And in the meantime, can you fix my dreamcatcher so I can sleep?”

Though the look on Deep Blue's face made it obvious that he found Typhoon's non-answer unsatisfactory, he sighed and let the topic drop.“As for who can help you, I have an idea.” Deep Blue turned toward the wall of the cave, and with a little tug from his magic, a map of the known world floated toward the table. He smoothed it out with his hooves, and Typhoon’s eyes wandered over the hoof-drawn borders, scanning first over the well-defined east and the old Compact Lands, abandoned to the torment of the last windigo’s winter, then to the west, where the sharply-drawn Equestrian coastline faded into vaguely-defined suppositions on what lay beyond the nation’s borders. It was there that Deep Blue put down a hoof, in the sketches of tall, dark trees that dominated what remained of the west edge of the map, beyond a murky sea. “If there’s anycreature in this world that could break Luna’s hex on you, it would be the elk.”

Typhoon furrowed her brow at that. “That’s a long flight. And we barely know anything about them. Other than the odd wizard or adventurous explorer, almost nopony has ever visited their lands.” She fixed Deep Blue in ruby red eyes. “How do I know you’re being honest with me?”

The wizard scoffed. “I have no reason to lie to you. If you think I am, feel free to disregard my suggestion and find your own way to break your hex. It matters little to me either way.”

Frowning, Typhoon eventually sighed and nodded, her wings sagging a little bit as if already weary of the journey that awaited them. “You’re right. My apologies. But that’s still a long flight, and I don’t know how many more miles I have in my bones. Are you certain they can help?”

“The elk receive visions in their dreams. They can even communicate with each other while they sleep. It is their second world,” Deep Blue said. “They navigate it as effortlessly as you pegasi can the sky, or us unicorns the threads of magic that hold the planes together. Maybe not just any elk can break your hex, but I see little reason to doubt that one of their most powerful seers would be more than a match for the alicorn of the night’s adopted stewardship over magic that is not ponykind’s own.”

After a moment, Typhoon allowed herself a small nod and a ruffle of her wings. “Okay. It’s… well, it’s something. I suppose I’m not exactly in a position to complain.”

“If you find your own means of breaking Luna’s hex without the elk, then by all means, go for it,” Deep Blue said. “But I would caution you against turning to a fey to break fey magic. You might end up losing much more than your sleep.”

“Noted.” Typhoon’s glance fell back down to her dreamcatcher, and after another frown, she picked it up and tucked it away. “There will be many nights between here and there, though. I won’t get far if I don’t get my dreamcatcher fixed. Can you fix it?”

“I can…” Deep Blue hesitantly began, but the way his words trailed off made Typhoon pause. “I have some spider silk. But only a few strands. It was all I was able to scavenge before the Royal Guard burned all the barrows it could find. That is not something I can just give away for free.”

Typhoon’s eyebrow climbed towards her graying mane. “Those sapphires I gave you…?”

“You bought my time and my advice,” Deep Blue told her, frowning sharply. “Not something as valuable as that.”

“Then what do you want for it?” Typhoon asked him. “I won’t make it to the elk without it.”

Deep Blue’s magic shuffled through the papers on his table and retrieved one covered with runes and sigils. Typhoon squinted at it, trying to make sense of the alien language, while the wizard rested his hoof on the scroll. “If you help me with my work, then I’ll fix your dreamcatcher for you.”

“I should know better than to get involved with the projects of wizards the Academy chased out of Everfree,” Typhoon said. But after a moment, she drew a breath and let her red eyes meet the blues of the mage standing across from her. “What is it?”

The wizard smiled back at her. “There’s a reason I know so much about fey. For twenty years, I’ve been trying to capture one. And you’re going to help me with that.”

Typhoon was silent for a moment. But ultimately, she sighed and let her wings droop.

“I suppose death is a nice substitute for restful sleep, isn’t it?”

1-17

“Boiling Springs is not built around natural hot springs. At least, not naturally formed through the mundane means of nature.”

Typhoon sat on a stony hillside overlooking Boiling Springs, Deep Blue standing in front of her on a rocky outcropping. A cool, damp breeze rustled the prairie grasses around them and teased with the tip of Typhoon’s right ear, causing her to flick it in irritation. A few tiny pinpricks of rain dotted the old soldier’s nose; the gray skies above seemed to confirm that her morning prediction about the day’s weather was about to come true.

Yet if Deep Blue showed any indication that the incoming weather bothered him, Typhoon certainly couldn’t see it. When Typhoon had asked him to elaborate on why he wanted to catch a fey, and how in the world she was supposed to help him with it, the mage had simply stated that it would be easier to show Typhoon. A spell and a flash of his horn, and the two ponies had left his hideaway behind, much to the discomfort of Typhoon’s stomach.

While she sat behind him and let the queasiness in her gut dissipate, Deep Blue looked out over the sprawling town beneath them and a note of passion crept into his voice. “There’s not enough tectonic activity in this part of the frontier for there to be hot springs. The only time anypony out here felt an earthquake was right before the spiders collapsed a village into one of their barrows. Yet Boiling Springs wouldn’t be here if there weren’t nearly a hundred hot springs dotted around the hills and plains. And the reason is simple: this is a kelpie’s playground.”

Typhoon cocked her head at that. “I think I’ve heard of those before,” she said. “Platinum’s Landing had one or two in the harbor that plagued shipping during storms. But Boiling Springs doesn’t seem like it has a kelpie problem.”

“Sea kelpies are a nuisance at best,” Deep Blue said with a dismissive wave of his hoof. “They only hold sway over briny water. If anything, sailors have far more to fear from sirens than sea kelpies. Here, though, a freshwater kelpie lives in the springs. My guess is she was carried here during a storm and got deposited into the lake one or two thousand years ago. Over time, she’s shaped this place to her liking.”

“Kelpies can move through storms?” Typhon asked him. “And one or two thousand years? She’s been here for that long?”

“To your first question: yes. That’s one of the reasons why freshwater kelpies are more powerful than sea kelpies. They have control over any clean, fresh water. That includes rain, and by extension, clouds and storms. I’m sure you as a pegasus understand that.”

“I did my fair share of tours with the Weather Legion when I was a filly,” Typhoon said with a shrug and a nod.

That made Deep Blue pause. “How old were you?”

“Ten or eleven. I did my mandatory year and then started training for a centurion’s post in the Eighth Legion.” At the mage’s concerned look, Typhoon crossed her forelegs. “Every pegasus had to give to Cirra after the Exodus. Even the foals. The Weather Legion was a good way to build muscle for long flights and expose us to a legionary’s lifestyle before we reached conscription age. And being Hurricane’s daughter, it was expected I dedicate my life to the Legion like him. I didn’t mind it all that much. Foals like playing with clouds.” After a moment, she cleared her throat and prompted, “And the second question?”

“If she liked where she ended up, why would she leave?” Deep Blue asked. “Kelpies prey on unsuspecting travelers by luring them into the water so they can drown them and eat them. These lands used to belong to the buffalo before the Legion drove them away. If she had a steady supply of victims, then she would see no need to move. And over time, as she shaped the land to her liking, the hot springs drew in more travelers. Boiling Springs may only be a few decades old, but the city wouldn’t be here without the springs.”

“And nopony noticed that ponies are disappearing?”

“If one pony disappears a month, would a town of hundreds notice?” Deep Blue shook his head. “I’ve been investigating the kelpie here for three years. Tracking her movements and behaviors, her tendencies. She’s very careful, and hunts only when she needs to. She picks ponies at isolated springs or conjures storms to give her cover to hunt. She doesn’t want ponies to know that she’s here, otherwise she risks being driven out of the home she’s made for herself. She’s unlikely to find another place as good as this one to hunt.”

Typhoon nodded in understanding. “That makes sense. So Boiling Springs has a kelpie living in its waters, and she’s eating ponies. Not a lot, but enough to matter,” she summarized. “And you want to stop her from menacing the town?”

To her surprise, the mage dismissively snorted. “The ponies of this town are not my concern. I don’t care whether she eats one or two a month. If I really wanted to help solve Boiling Springs’ mortality issues, I’d burn down those camps of pegasus bandits along the roads.” He cast his gaze at Typhoon, sapphire eyes meeting ruby. “I suppose you might have missed the point. A kelpie can control water. That means she can control the weather. If I can capture her, then I can control her. Do you know how many problems I could solve if I could control the climate?”

“All this… to do what a weather team can do?” Typhoon cocked her head, her eyebrow climbing up in confusion. “Pegasi can move clouds. Put enough clouds together and give them a kick, and you’ve got a storm. The farms around Everfree enjoy regularly scheduled rain and sunshine, and they’re incredibly prosperous.” As she finished saying it, however, she winced. “Or… well, they used to. The Royal Guard still tries, but they’re not as good at it.”

“Are you seeing the cracks?” Deep Blue asked her. “Weather teams require cooperation and skill. A kelpie’s magic only needs her will. And you pegasi can only change the weather. She can do much more than move clouds.” He gestured up to one of the tall hills overlooking Boiling Springs, and after a moment, Typhoon recognized it as Eagle Springs. “Remember when I said that freshwater kelpies can control all clean, fresh water? That includes the water in the ground, not just what evaporates and condenses into clouds. There is more water beneath the earth than the average pony could possibly imagine. Entire lakes and river systems flow beneath rock and stone. The driest desert might have a lake of clean water under a mile of sand. She can control that, redirect it as she wills. She can make any land, anywhere, arable. All she needs is a little water.”

The wizard gazed back out at the large lake that dominated the center of the town, his eyes narrowing as if he was searching through the wind-waved waters for his elusive fey—and Typhoon knew that he was. “If I can capture her, bend her to my will, then I will not just be one of the greatest wizards who ever lived. I will be one of the greatest ponies who ever lived. I can use her magic to create a world of plenty. What need will there be to kill and steal when everypony has enough to eat and drink? How many problems can we solve if ponies aren’t desperate to find their next meal?”

Typhoon frowned, feeling alarm bells clattering in her skull. “Too many ponies with great abilities think that they can change the world for the better,” she warned. “They don’t see what might happen to the little ponies caught in the middle.”

Deep Blue looked back at her with one eye over his shoulder. “Did you think you were changing the world for the better when you dissolved the Legion, Commander Typhoon? Did you think being an accomplice to the murder of the last piece of your beloved Cirran identity was for the greater good? Did you stop to think about the little ponies caught in the middle when you used your power to tear down one of the cornerstones of Equestria over a disagreement with your sister, or did you act out of petty anger? How many ponies in this country suffer because of what you did?”

Anger flashed in Typhoon, but in Deep Blue’s unwavering look, it turned to shame. And ultimately, the last commander of the Equestrian Legion turned her head away, unable to meet the wizard’s eye.

After a moment of horrible silence, Deep Blue gave his head a shake and turned back to watching over the lake. “Don’t lecture me on morality, Commander. I have thought about the little ponies. I’ve known famine and death. I was a colt in the Compact Lands when Crystal barbarians burned down my small town’s farmlands, and the onset of the Windigo winter followed immediately after. My mother starved to make sure I had enough to eat when we made the long trek to Equestria. She died on the ice of the frozen seas between our old homelands and Platinum’s Landing when our caravan ran out of food. Forty years later, I can finally make things right for her. No foal will have to watch their mother become a skeleton just to make sure they have enough to eat.”

Slowly, the wizard’s features set into a hardened frown. “But that doesn’t concern you. What does concern you is that you’re going to help me capture her if you want me to fix your dreamcatcher. What you do after that is up to you, but having you here now simplifies things.”

Typhoon raised her head to look at him, and found sapphire eyes looking back at her. Ruby met them for a moment, and then the aging mare sighed and stood up. “Alright,” she said, walking up to Deep Blue’s side and casting a wary glance down at the increasingly choppy waters below as the wind from the incoming storm picked up and larger and larger raindrops began to pepper her face. “Fine. Maybe the kelpie will eat you for all I know. But I’m not exactly in a position to argue.” She sighed, long and heavy. “What’s your plan? And where do I fit in?”

Deep Blue, seemingly satisfied, turned back toward the ledge and pointed at the dark clouds overhead. “I’ve seen her use this pattern many times before. Clouds gather and it rains, first lightly, and then heavily for two to four days. One time she made it last five days, but that was likely because she couldn’t find a victim to drown.” His attention turned to the town below, and the hot steam rising from many of the lower-level springs surrounding it. “The rain makes it harder to see, harder to hear. It gives her cover to hunt. And every so often, some fool decides that they’ve been without a dip in the springs for too long because of the foul weather, and ventures out alone to one. Then the storm gets worse, making it harder to see or hear. That’s when she strikes.”

Typhoon felt her gut clench and her wings twitched in response. “You’re planning on using me as bait, aren’t you?” she asked him.

“A lure,” Deep Blue corrected with a huff.

“Forgive me for not seeing the difference.”

“All you need to do is draw her out,” the wizard said. “Lure her out of hiding. To put it bluntly, you’re aged. There’s gray in your mane and white on your muzzle. If you go in without your armor and without your sword, she’ll see you as easy prey.”

Typhoon drew herself up, and her left wing idly stroked the scabbard of her sword. “You want me to not only be alone, but unarmed? Against a fey? Weren’t you warning me about how dangerous they are?”

Deep Blue rolled his eyes and let out a little irritated huff. “I would prefer if you didn’t play dumb with me, Commander. Or maybe senility is getting the best of you. But forgive me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you regarded as the strongest ice empath who has ever lived?”

The soldier’s eyes fell down to her metal hoof, and she raised it off the ground. In the warm and humid air, a faint fog wisped off of the perpetually-frigid metal, and when a raindrop struck the polished surface, it froze in a splatter of ice. “The pegasi only rediscovered empatha fifty-some odd years ago,” Typhoon said. “There hasn’t been a lot of time for competition since the Exodus.”

“Disingenuous.” Deep Blue’s magic seized Typhoon’s leg and pulled it straight out, catching the soldier by surprise and making her own her wings for balance. “You can freeze water at will. That makes you more dangerous to the kelpie than she is to you. When she shows her true form, she’ll be at her most vulnerable. Freeze her, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

“You make it sound simpler than it is,” Typhoon muttered.

“You simplified my plan greatly,” Deep Blue said with a shrug.

Typhoon squinted at him. “And what was your original plan?”

“Apart from wait for ponies to fall victim to her traps and hope to be in the right place at the right time?” Deep Blue tapped his hoof against the breast of his robe, where he had tucked away Typhoon’s sapphires earlier. “Sapphires are blue for a reason. Their magical frequencies resonate closely with the innate properties of water. I’ve been charging them with magic and using them to line that pool in my cavern as a cage for her. It’s separated from the rest of the water she draws her magic from, and warded in about a dozen different enchantments to make sure she’s unaware of it. When I had enough, I would connect it to the river that flows beneath Boiling Springs and trap her there once she saw fit to investigate. Then it would just be a simple matter of binding her and acquiring a token to make sure she cannot raise a hoof against me.”

He shrugged. “I would succeed in my endeavors inevitably. But with how long it has taken me to acquire an appreciable number of quality sapphires and aquamarines, I would be waiting years before I finally had enough to feel confident that I could successfully lure and contain her. Your presence speeds things up considerably.”

“Happy to help,” Typhoon grumbled. Then her eyes turned to the skies, though more warily now that she knew that the clouds and the rain were under the influence of something far more ancient than she. “So, when do we begin?”

“Tomorrow,” Deep Blue said. “I will find you and we’ll go over the plan. What inn were you staying at?”

“Warbler’s Roost was the last one I rented a room in,” Typhoon informed him. “I guess I’ll be there again tonight.”

“Then I’ll find you there,” Deep Blue said. And without so much as another word, his horn lit up with a magical glow, and he disappeared in a flash of light that left Typhoon wincing.

Moments later the sky opened up, and a hard and heavy rain beat down on the aging mare. Typhoon’s lips curled downwards in a frown, and she blew a tuft of wet mane away from her eye as the heavy downpour fouled the feathers on her wings.

“I hate wizards,” she muttered to herself, and began the long trudge back to Boiling Springs.

1-18

Typhoon felt like a drowned rat by the time she finally made it back to Warbler’s Roost, and now that she knew that the kelpie living in Boiling Springs was at least partially responsible for the downpour, a part of her felt a little bit justified in helping Deep Blue capture her. Still, that didn’t fully alleviate her concerns, of which she had many. But both she and the wizard knew she wasn’t in a position to argue. She needed those strands of spider silk from Deep Blue, and even if she had thought about stealing them herself, she neither had the skill nor the expertise to repair a magical artifact like her dreamcatcher on her own. And given how far removed she was from Everfree, it would be a miracle to stumble upon another wizard anywhere close to Boiling Springs. She could only hope that Deep Blue’s motivations were purely for the betterment of ponykind.

If they weren’t… well, fate sure had its way of making sure ponies like that get what they deserved in the end.

After taking a moment to fetch some towels from the room she’d reserved at the inn, and dumping her armor in a corner of said room to be dealt with later, Typhoon dried herself off as best she could and took a seat in front of the fire crackling in the hearth. There, she laid her sword at the foot of her chair, easily within hoof’s reach should she need it, and closed her eyes as she let the heat dry off her coat and the fanned feathers of her open wings. Her mind started to play out scenarios involving the kelpie, and how watery fangs would sink into her neck if she let her guard down for a moment… but a deep breath pushed them away. The meditations of many nights before battles let the old soldier control her mind and its wanderings, and she felt herself drifting into a light sleep even as the tickling of a faint few snores played at the back of her throat.

“There you are!”

The exclamation turned one of those snores into a hard snort and a half-choked cough, and Typhoon’s head shot bolt upright and her wings tensed at the sudden shattering of serenity. Her ears turning preceded her eyes identifying the source of the shout, and she saw a practically-drowned Sparrow stomping over to her, her tail leaving a trail of water behind her like a drenched mop. When the young mare stopped in front of Typhoon, her shoulders tensed like she was about to swat at her with her foreleg, but instead, only an angry glare fell on the soldier instead of a hoof. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you! I can’t believe you and Deep Blue just threw me out of there like that!”

After a moment, Typhoon simply shrugged. “I can,” she said, turning her attention back to the fire warming her coat.

Frowning, Sparrow yanked a chair over with her magic and sat down right by the soldier’s side. “That asshole teleported me right into the middle of the big lake! I had to swim back to shore! And then I came back here to see if you would come back, but you didn’t, so I decided to go looking around town for you, and then it started pouring, so I had to gallop back! You weren’t ever going to bother looking for me, were you?”

“Probably not,” Typhoon bluntly stated. At Sparrow’s indignant look, the old soldier only sighed. “Filly, I’m not going to lie to you to stop you from getting your feelings hurt or anything. I worked with you because you knew something I needed to know and I was willing to trade my time for it. If you thought there was something more out of that exchange, then I’m sorry to disappoint you. But as soon as I’ve got what I need from Boiling Springs, I’ll be leaving, and to put it bluntly, you can’t keep up with me on hoof while I’m on wing.”

Sparrow froze, and Typhoon pointedly didn’t look her in the eyes, as she knew she’d only see hurt and betrayal. “But…” the young mare started, and after a moment she leaned closer to Typhoon. “But you only showed me one thing about being a legionary! We only had one time, I-I mean…i-isn’t there more?”

“You know very well that I gave you what I promised you,” Typhoon told her. “If you want more than that, then go talk to Hammer. I know he pretends otherwise, but he was trained to fight, even if he ultimately became a blacksmith. Every soldier in the Legion learns how to swing a sword in armor. But I can’t afford to spend my time teaching a filly how to play soldier. Not when there’s more pressing concerns.” Silence held for several heartbeats, and then Typhoon fluttered her damp wings and closed them by her sides. “I hope you understand.”

The silence dragged on for several moments, heavy, uncomfortable, and suffocating. Typhoon didn’t know what was going on in Sparrow’s mind; frankly, she was too tired to care, and she wasn’t interested in turning her dismissal into an argument. Then Sparrow’s chair groaned over the wooden floorboards, and hooves clopped their way across the floor. The door swung open, letting in the noise of the rain falling outside, then closed not with a slam, but with a gentle click of the latch.

The old soldier let out a breath and her wings drooped. “It’s for her own good,” she muttered to herself, and she sighed and closed her eyes, leaning back in her chair once more. But try as she might, her meditations struggled to push away those pink and blue eyes, and the remainder of her fitful midday nap proved elusive.

Typhoon slept little that night. There was too much on her mind to worry about sleep, and she was reluctant to use more of the whispersalt she’d gotten from the twins that had kept her sleep dead and dreamless. Too much of it left her head feeling cloudy and murky, her normally acutely sharp senses dulled and sluggish. She would need her reflexes at their best if she was going to serve as bait for Deep Blue’s plan.

Polishing her armor and cleaning her magical blade sufficed for sleep as a means of soldierly meditation, and when morning finally arrived, Typhoon held up her peytral and frowned into the reflection of the aging mare staring back at her. Deep Blue was at least right about one thing; without her armor and without her weapons, the mare that looked back at her from the polished metal bore the wearied face of a pegasus that had passed her prime. Her mane was graying, the wrinkles beneath her eyes had started to become permanent bags, and her muzzle, though still largely buff in color, was streaked with white hairs. Though a lifetime of service had left her in excellent condition, and her neck muscles were still heavy and strong from swinging a sword for most of her life, there was little reason to assume that the aged pegasus was once one of the finest and storied soldiers in the Legion. And judging by how little recognition she had out on the frontier, despite serving as one of Equestria’s triumvirs for much of her life, she was at least confident that she could play the part of an ordinary mare until the kelpie decided to strike.

The smell of fresh bread baking in the inn’s kitchen signaled to the sleepless mare that morning had finally arrived, and after stowing away her armor and sword in her room’s trunk and locking it up, Typhoon wandered out into the main room to wait for Deep Blue to return. She didn’t know when he planned on doing so, but she didn’t have any other plans until then. So, throwing a few bits down on the bar as she passed and exchanging a nod with the earth pony preparing breakfast, the pegasus chose a table with a look out the window to the street outside and waited.

She ultimately didn’t have to wait too long. With a loud pop that startled the other early risers in the common room, Deep Blue teleported into the center of Warbler’s Roost, brushed off his robes and sent a small splash of water falling onto the floorboards, and looked around. When he saw Typhoon sitting in the corner, he cantered over, disregarding the mixture of both curious and nervous looks from the other ponies in the inn. “I had a feeling you would be an early riser, what with everything you told me yesterday,” Deep Blue said, pulling out a seat across from Typhoon and sitting down. “Are you ready to get started?”

“When I get some breakfast in me and we have something resembling a plan, sure,” Typhoon said, looking off toward the kitchen. “Food’s not ready yet.”

“Then we can work on the latter while we wait,” Deep Blue said, crossing his forelegs. He nodded out the window, where the skies were still dark and gray and raindrops streaked down the glass. “The storm’s still going strong, but it’s not heavy yet. That means she’s hunting but she hasn’t found suitable prey. Like I said yesterday, the storm will get heavy and intense when she closes in for the kill. If she chooses you, that’s your warning she’s about to strike.”

“That seems to be skipping a few steps,” Typhoon noted. “She has to choose me in the first place. I hope you have some idea on how to make sure she does.”

“I don’t have to do much of anything,” Deep Blue said. “Remember when I noted that there’s powerful magic about you, and I could sense it? She will be able to sense it too.”

Typhoon raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t that just drive her away? I’m not some average pony then if I smell like magic, so to speak.”

“On the contrary, I think it will pique her curiosity,” Deep Blue said. “On top of that, you’re hexed, not cursed. It’s fey magic, not pony magic. And to use your metaphor, it smells different. But it was cast by Luna, a pony, so it will be off. To put it simply, you’re perhaps the most interesting thing that the kelpie will have encountered in a very long time. She might be wary, but she’s going to investigate once she senses it.”

“She might already have gotten a whiff of me, then. I was at Eagle Springs when I met Sparrow. If she made those hot springs, then I’ve already soaked in one.” She hesitated, then added, “And I used my magic there when Sparrow and her friends tried to steal from me. I’m not sure how much she keeps track of what happens in her springs, but she might already know what I’m capable of.”

Deep Blue frowned. “Was the weather clear then?”

“Wasn’t a cloud in the sky,” Typhoon said with a shrug.

“Then she was dormant. She seems to enter a sort of sleeplike state between meals. Lying low and passing the time until she gets hungry enough to hunt again.” Deep Blue let out a relieved breath. “Which is a relief for us; if she had been active, then yes, we would need a different approach. But it seems like she wasn’t, so that shouldn’t be a problem. At the most, she would have had the sense that something different had come to Boiling Springs. If that’s the case, then your little burst of magic might actually have stirred her from her sleep, and now since she’s awake, she’s hungry.”

“Guess I rang my own dinner bell,” Typhoon murmured, frowning out the window to the wet world beyond. “Alright. So I find some spring on the edge of town and sit down for a soak and wait for her to come after me. When the storm gets worse, I’m in danger.” Her ruby red eyes followed a pair of young mares galloping down the street, trying to do their best to get to their destination despite the rain. “What will she look like? I’ve never seen a kelpie before.”

Deep Blue only shrugged at that. “I haven’t seen her myself. I’ve only seen the obvious signs of her activity. But in her natural form, she would look something like a seahorse. An elongated muzzle, fins and ridges along her head and neck and hooves, that sort of thing.” He paused, then added, “Have you seen a seahorse before?”

“Once in a novelty store in Everfree,” Typhoon said with a little nod. Then she cocked her head ever so slightly and her wings ruffled. “Did you say ‘natural’ form?”

“Kelpies can disguise themselves,” Deep Blue said. “They need water to do it, but it creates an illusion that’s on par with what some of the greatest illusionists in pony history could conjure. Archmage Mirage wrote a thesis on it some three hundred years back. Kelpies use their magic to arrange water vapor in the air to distort their image into something that looks indistinguishable from reality. I don’t know what image she’ll take, but she’ll approach your spring under disguise and investigate. I wouldn’t be surprised if on rainy days like this she’s walking around town under disguise, seeing if anything has changed.”

That made Typhoon’s ears perk up, and her gaze instinctively swiveled over the odd couple of other ponies sitting in the tavern as Warbler’s Roost’s small serving staff started bringing out breakfast to the paying patrons. “And you’re comfortable discussing all this in the open despite that?”

“If we were outside in the middle of town right now, then no,” Deep Blue said. “She will not step hoof anywhere that’s dry. It’s anathema to her very existence. And though I generally dislike these quaint little taverns and the sort of company they attract, this one is dry and has an excellently thatched roof. She is not here.”

“If you say so…” One of the serving staff brought a simple plate of toasted bread with butter and a small omelet on the side and set it down in front of Typhoon, who gratefully nodded and took her fork between the feathers of her wingtip to start eating. The serving mare looked questioningly to Deep Blue for a moment, but when the wizard waved her off with his hoof and a shake of her head, she bowed and quickly cantered away. Only when she was gone did Typhoon set her fork down, a quarter of her breakfast already finished off in a few hungry bites. “So that just leaves the matter of enslaving her, then,” she concluded.

“If taking subtle barbs at my life’s work through your lexicon makes you feel better about what I need you to do, then so be it,” Deep Blue said, the corners of his muzzle turning down slightly into an annoyed frown. “So long as you actually do it and we can both get what we want out of this.”

“Not like I have much choice in the matter,” Typhoon mumbled, and she took another stab at her breakfast to indicate she had nothing left to say.

After a moment, Deep Blue nodded to Typhoon’s metal hoof as she rested it on the table. “As I said yesterday, when she shows her true form and lunges at you, she’s at her most vulnerable to your particular magical strengths. She’ll be mostly pure water at that point, animated by her magic and held together around other bits and pieces of organic material that generally constitute a living being. If you’re fast enough, you should be able to freeze her solid. She’ll be powerless.”

“I thought you said she had power over all fresh water,” Typhoon said. “Ice is just solid water.”

“If she were a being of ice, then I’d be concerned,” Deep Blue assured her. “But she’s not. She’s water, not ice. And while she’s frozen, she can’t do anything.”

“Then what?” Typhoon pressed him.

“Then nothing.” The wizard reached into his robes and produced a clay jar inscribed with countless tiny runes, which Typhoon noted glowed with the faintest sheen of blue magic. “While she’s frozen, I’ll break off a lock of her hair and keep it in here. When it thaws, I’ll have power over her. She won’t be able to raise a hoof against me, not while this is in my possession. Through dominating a part of her body, I gain power over the whole.”

Typhoon eyed the jar warily. “And if that were to break?”

“Then she would be free of my power over her and would likely conjure a storm and flee,” Deep Blue said with a dismissive wave of his hoof. “That hypothetical will never come to pass. I’ve enchanted the jar to strengthen it, and once her token is in my possession, I will keep this in a safe, dry place where nopony will ever find it. Then I fix your dreamcatcher and we each go our separate ways, satisfied.”

“If you say so…” Typhoon stabbed at her breakfast some more, taking the opportunity to eat and make sure she had energy for what was likely going to prove a very dangerous day. “Whatever. It sounds simple enough. Am I going in alone on this, or can I count on your help in case something goes wrong?”

Deep Blue shook his head. “This will be your responsibility. I can’t risk accompanying you in case seeing two ponies scares her away. On top of that, just like how she should be able to sense the magic that surrounds you, she’ll be able to sense my own arcana, honed from years of schooling and natural talent. There’s a reason why interactions between fey and wizards are usually initiated by the pony in the equation; trained and skilled wizards are dangerous game for a fey. Unless a fey has reason to want to ensnare a wizard and their skills in one of its traps, most will opt for going after easier prey, like commoners.”

Despite that statement, Deep Blue reached into his robes and retrieved a simple silver pendant with a cut sapphire hanging from a delicate spiral of metal. “When you freeze her, use this to summon me to let me know the deed is done. Just hold it and speak my name; I’ll know you’re calling, and I’ll teleport to you. This is the safest way of doing this; the enchantment on the pendant is minor enough that the hex on you will mask it from the kelpie’s senses, and I don’t have to be nearby in case she catches wind of me.”

“Without my armor or sword, I was afraid I’d have to go out there without any metal hanging from my shoulders,” Typhoon dryly quipped, and she took the pendant on her outstretched wingtip and then dropped it around her neck. After rolling her shoulders once to get it to sit comfortably, the mare scooped the last of her breakfast off her plate, shoveled it into her mouth, and then finished it off with one gulp. “Risk to life and limb aside, I guess that’s simple enough. Any idea on where would be the best place to go for a solo soak?”

“I don’t think it matters much so long as it’s private, secluded, and not too far from the central lake where she likely resides,” Deep Blue said, standing up from his seat. “I trust you’ll be able to figure it out on your own. I’ll be waiting for the good news.”

Before Typhoon had a chance to reply, his horn lit up in a bright blue aura, and with another audible pop and a flash of light, the wizard teleported away, once more drawing a few startled looks from the other ponies gathered in the tavern.

After a moment, Typhoon took a breath and stood up, sliding her chair back against the table with the lazy push of a wing. “This kelpie must be a looker, the way he talks about her,” she muttered to herself. Then, taking a breath to steel her nerves, the old soldier stepped outside into the rain, spread her wings, and took to the skies.

1-19

Flying in the rain was hardly something to sing about, in Typhoon’s experience. The rain was cold, the winds buffeted her feathers and constantly tried to blow her off course, and the raindrops spattering into her face were both irritating and blinding, all while the heavy water drenching her coat and wings tried to drag her back down to the ground. She didn’t understand why some pegasi loved it so much, but then again, ponies often asked her why she enjoyed flying in the snow when most would rather be inside sitting next to logs crackling in the hearth. It would be hypocritical to judge, wouldn’t it?

But winter was far away, and Typhoon didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter before her. Normally, she would fly above the clouds to avoid the rain, but if she flew up too high, she couldn’t see the hot springs dotting the countryside around Boiling Springs. As she flew through the wet and gray malaise, the aging pegasus did her best to scan around the city, trying to find something that was sufficiently isolated to draw in the kelpie without risk of somepony else stumbling across it, while still close enough to the city to be believable that somepony had decided to fly out to it on a whim. It was a tough job trying to find the perfect candidate, and Typhoon felt like she was trying to find the coin under a hundred cups after the showpony had shuffled them around. The best she could do was take a guess and hope she was right. If she wasn’t, then she could only pray she’d still have a chance to try again tomorrow. She didn’t want to think about what she would do if the kelpie found another victim and didn’t resurface for a month, since catching her was part of her deal with Deep Blue.

Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.

As she circled over the lake in the center of town in ever-widening circles, Typhoon spotted a promising candidate a little bit toward the south end of Boiling Springs. There, crumbling boulders that had rolled down one of the nearby hills lay scattered about a slightly elevated hillock, and the shelter they provided allowed a sparse copse of trees to rise out of the thin and grassy soil. The trees provided enough cover from the air that Typhoon couldn’t clearly see into their center as they swayed in the wind, but even through the rain, steam rose just high enough for Typhoon to know that there had to be a spring concealed within the perimeter of tree trunks. It was a long walk but a short flight from town, and anypony walking around it wouldn’t be able to see what was happening within the copse without stepping hoof inside first.

“If there’s any place to get murdered by a seahorse, that’s the one,” Typhoon muttered to herself. Turning her wings and putting the wind at her flank, she began to glide back down to earth, feeling like the cold rain on her back was pushing her towards the ground. Or, perhaps more accurately, toward the hungry maw of her would-be fey predator.

At least she could appreciate the warm waters of the spring for a little bit before freezing them solid…

She flared her wings and put a few extra flaps into them to slow herself down before she touched down on the ground, but even that wasn’t enough to stop her from sinking in the cold mud up to her fetlocks. The mare grimaced at the feeling of the mud squeezing into the frogs of her hooves, and she pulled them out of the squelching mud one at a time and did her best to shake them off before continuing onwards. “Been too long since I was on the campaign trail,” she muttered again, her mind wandering back to any of the many expeditions she once campaigned in, either as a young soldier or an officer. A pang in her heart reminded her that she would never see those days again, those simpler days of serving her country, and she did her best to push it down. The last thing she needed was memories of the good old days distracting her while bathing with a fey.

As she drew closer, however, her ears twitched at the sound of music… or more accurately, singing, faint and solo. Her features hardening into a wary frown, Typhoon cautiously pushed forward, her left wing idly reaching for the missing scabbard latch for the sword that was supposed to be at her side. She paused before cresting the hill, her heart beating a little faster without the usual skysteel assurance she was so used to carrying around, but at the last moment she reminded herself she was overthinking it. Deep Blue had said the kelpie would come to her, not the other way around. But then again, neither he nor she had discussed what they would do if somepony else beat her to the springs. What if the kelpie went after the wrong target?

The old soldier’s frown sharpened, and she pushed up the last few strides of muddy hillside, determined to flush the stranger away from the spring so she could have it to herself and maybe end the kelpie’s body count in Boiling Springs one pony early. But when she made it to the top of the hill and cleared her throat at the brown figure soaking in the water and singing to herself, the challenge resting on the tip of her tongue instantly evaporated when a blue and pink eye looked back at her, startled. Instead, after an awkward moment, Typhoon could only blurt out, “What are you doing here?”

Sparrow froze, her singing abruptly stopped. After a moment to read Typhoon’s face and the look of surprise that covered it, the unicorn sank a little lower into the bubbling, steamy waters. “What does it look like?” she asked. “I’m trying to enjoy myself.”

With her initial surprise wearing off, Typhoon’s brow lowered. Just because it was Sparrow and not some other pony didn’t mean her end goal was any different; the young unicorn needed to leave now, for her own good. “Go enjoy yourself somewhere else,” Typhoon said. “You shouldn’t be out here. It’s not safe.”

“Why? Because of a little rain?” Sparrow stuck her tongue out at Typhoon and, as if to prove a point, slipped down into the water until the steaming, frothing water lapped at the hairs of her chin. “You want in? Fine. I can share. But I ain’t going anywhere.”

Typhoon bared her teeth for a moment in frustration, and her tongue recoiled in her mouth to deliver a rebuke, but she stopped herself. If the kelpie was nearby, she couldn’t let slip that she knew anything about the dangers of being in the water alone during a storm, and she certainly couldn’t channel her empatha and freeze Sparrow out of the waters without showing her hoof far too early. The entirety of the plan relied on the kelpie being unaware of Typhoon’s magic, or that the aging pegasus even knew she existed in the first place. The water had ears as well as eyes, and a shiver ran down Typhoon’s spine as she imagined a fey was watching her from the spring, from the steam, from the rain itself. Could she drag Sparrow out of the spring without tipping her hoof to the kelpie?

A long, slow breath escaped Typhoon’s lips, and the old soldier decided instead to step down into the water. An idea started to form in her mind, and for the moment, she put the concerns about the kelpie aside. The water was warm and inviting, instantly chasing away the chill of the rain and the cold gusts of wind that accompanied it, and dissolving the clingy cold muck stuck to her hooves. For the time being, at least, being present in the same spring as Sparrow would stop the young mare from becoming the kelpie’s next victim, and it was still early in the morning. Typhoon was fairly confident she could outlast Sparrow in the spring when the young mare grew bored or hungry, and then she’d have it to herself.

And even then, spending a day in the hot, soothing water wasn’t exactly the worst way to kill time. Though the injury to her ribs had mostly subsided in the days following her fight with the dragon, the warm waters of the spring helped to chase away the lingering aches, at least for a little while.

When she finally slipped into the spring up to her shoulders, Typhoon sighed, found a submerged rock to sit on, and leaned back against the stone rim of the spring and closed her eyes. It was a delightful combination of sensations, truth be told; the warm water on her body and her open wings, floating limp in the water by her sides, massaged out the aches in her joints, while the cool rain falling on her face kept her from overheating in the water. The bodily comfort began to pull at the back of her mind, where her brain had started to remind her that she hadn’t slept the night before, and she felt herself beginning to doze off.

But before she did, she drew in a breath and opened one eye. Sparrow still sat across from her in the water, her muzzle practically submerged, and watching her with her mismatched eyes. Typhoon saw something in those eyes—was it wariness or intent? Fear, maybe?—that stirred the old soldier to speak. “I’m… sorry about what I said to you,” she began. “Yesterday. I didn’t need to be that blunt.”

Silence held, save for the rainfall hitting the leaves of the trees around them, and the soft popping of millions of tiny bubbles as they rose to the surface of the spring and broke apart. On and on it dragged until, finally, Sparrow raised her muzzle from the water to speak. “It’s fine,” she said, her voice quiet, unsure. “I understand.”

She slid a little closer, and though Typhoon raised an eyebrow at the seemingly peaceful resolution of what she thought was going to devolve into a shouting match, she didn’t question it. “I’m… glad,” Typhoon started, and she closed her eye again and leaned her head back until her muzzle was pointed at the sky, where the growing raindrops continued to patter on her face. “It’s just…” A sigh. “I knew a mare your age, once upon a time, who wanted what you wanted. She thought it would be all glory and bravado. But she could never be a part of it. She was a unicorn, for starters. That didn’t mean all that much then, but I was the one who had to tell her no. And it hurt her. Hurt our relationship. I don’t think we… I don’t know.”

After a moment, Typhoon groaned and raised her head off the ground, rubbing at her temple with a wet wingtip. “I didn’t want to tell her no. I didn’t want to crush her dreams like that. But they were impossible dreams. Because of who we were. And I wonder if maybe, if I hadn’t had to have said no, if I’d still be in Everfree now. I just… I don’t know.”

Sparrow had slid around the perimeter of the spring, and had closed almost to Typhoon’s side. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know…”

“You wouldn’t have,” Typhoon said, dismissively waving her wing. “I’m not one to talk about my past. What’s done is done.”

They sat in silence once more, all the while as the winds of the storm blustered through the leaves of the trees and the grasses of the prairie, and the downpour of rain grew heavier and harder. But that silence was broken when Typhoon’s ears twitched at the sound of panting approaching from the direction of Boiling Springs, and she opened her eyes to see a mare standing at the edge of the spring, soaked to the bone from the worsening storm, her legs and belly caked with mud…

…And with one blue and one pink eye set in her brown face.

In a split second, the quiet and stormy day exploded into chaos. Typhoon had just enough time to register what she was seeing before she realized the sudden mortal peril she was in. She began to channel her magic and lean away from the Sparrow in the spring right as the illusion disappeared over its face in a burst of steam. Where once the face of a young unicorn with mismatched eyes and a scar on her lip had been, a creature with a long, translucent blue muzzle with two dozen long and curved fangs jutting up and down from its lips appeared. The kelpie’s eyes were like two black whirlpools surrounded by bony spines, and a spiked and spiny coronet ran down her head and neck in place of a mane. Spiny fins protruded from her neck at the base of her jawline, colored in a swirl of blue, white, and yellow like the rest of her body, and powerful muscles under the spiny armor on her neck flexed as she lunged forward with her snapping maw, sinking those malevolent hooked fangs into Typhoon’s shoulder.

But that was the kelpie’s mistake. Her hooked fangs had barely cut into Typhoon’s skin before the pegasus’ magic burst outwards in a cloud of supercooled frost. The kelpie’s eyes widened and a surprised and pained scream strangled in her throat as ice overtook her, freezing her head and neck solid with a loud crack before spreading out over the surface of the spring. In a split second, Typhoon’s sudden outburst of empatha had frozen the entire spring solid, kelpie and all, and with a pained grimace, the pegasus wrenched her shoulder free of the kelpie’s frozen maw, clutching at her coat as blood began to run down it before her magic froze the wounds shut.

All this happened in the blink of an eye, and when it was over, Typhoon leaned back against the spring, gasping as her racing heart hammered in her chest, driven on by the sudden surge of adrenaline. Only after several seconds and many gulps of air did Typhoon shape her magic to free herself from the ice and crawl out of the formerly hot spring. Even then, she stumbled back a bit before sitting down at the base of the nearest tree, her ruby red eyes warily looking on at the frozen monster in front of her.

It was then that Sparrow, standing at the edge of the frozen spring and too shocked to move, finally found her voice. “What the fuck is that?!” the young mare screamed, recoiling from the kelpie ice statue jutting halfway out of the spring.

Only when Typhoon’s heart slowed down did the soldier answer her. “What I was here for,” she breathlessly said. And then, finally, she clutched the pendant hanging around her neck and held it to her lips. “Deep Blue, your fish is frozen.”

1-20

Hardly ten seconds passed before Deep Blue arrived with the distinctive pop of his sudden appearance, eliciting a startled yelp from the still-bewildered Sparrow and even causing Typhoon to flinch a little as her adrenaline rush tapered off. The wizard spun about in a quick, almost frantic circle to gain his bearings, and when his eyes fell on the kelpie in the spring frozen mid-lunge, he practically threw himself forward to the water’s (icy) edge. “There you are…” he breathed, eyes wide and a shaky hoof reaching out almost to touch the kelpie’s frozen snout.

Typhoon roughly clearing her throat made him draw back, and when his eyes met hers, he seemed to remember some of his dismissive dignity and collected himself. “You’re alive,” he observed, though his gaze lingered for a second on the bite mark in her shoulder. “Cutting it close?”

“You never told me she might already be at the spring waiting for me,” Typhoon said, and with a grunt, she forced herself to stand, though putting weight on her foreleg made her wince. In one motion, she removed the pendant Deep Blue had given her and tossed it back to him with a wing, which the wizard tucked back inside his robes with a bit of magic. “That little omission nearly got me killed.”

Deep Blue raised an eyebrow and cast a look back at the kelpie. “She was waiting for you? Maybe she was more proactive in setting traps for her prey than my hypothesis anticipated. Though given what we discussed earlier, I’m surprised she drew you in when you were supposed to be looking for someplace private and unoccupied to seem like enticing bait.”

“I landed here first because it looked like the perfect place from above. Then I heard singing, and was curious.” Then the old soldier’s eyes fell on Sparrow, who had slowly walked around the spring and gravitated toward Typhoon’s side, though the young mare kept her distance and her worried attention on the frozen fey between them all. “She was wearing Sparrow’s skin when I found her. I was worried Sparrow would be the kelpie’s next meal if I left her alone. She almost got me, but then the real Sparrow arrived.” She shifted her focus toward Sparrow and cocked her head ever so slightly. “What were you doing here? Were you following me?”

It took Sparrow a second to realize Typhoon was addressing her, but when she did, she gulped and nodded. “I… I-I was going to ask you to reconsider the… y-you know… training thing,” Sparrow said, her voice turning into an embarrassed mumble, and she looked away in shame, only for her gaze to cross over the frozen monster in the spring. “That was… a kelpie? Why did she look like me?”

“She might have seen you before and decided you made appealing bait,” Deep Blue supposed with a shrug. “Your appearance is distinct and would be alluring to her prey. One has to wonder how many lecherous stallions she drowned and murdered by taking on the guise of an attractive young mare alone in a secluded spring.”

Sparrow shivered despite the warm but lessening rain still falling from the clouds above. “That’s… creepy,” she finally said, and she gave her tail a little flick as if to push away some of the bad thoughts swirling around her. “I can’t believe something like that could have been watching me and pretended to be me to kill ponies…”

“It sounds like Boiling Springs didn’t exactly lose much of value, if those were the kind of ponies she targeted. I can even sympathize a little bit; I’ve had to kill most of the ponies who’ve tried to see under my tail,” Typhoon said with a shrug, and her left wing fidgeted as if to reach out towards the young mare, though her wingtip never left her flank. “But I think that’s too much of a coincidence, isn’t it? That her disguise was the one pony I wouldn’t expect in this town to be a kelpie, and to be quite frank, even passersby would remember if they saw her face.”

Though Typhoon’s blunt comment and surprising solution seemed to hint at a past that Sparrow’s mind struggled to reconcile, the young mare eventually seemed to set the many questions it invoked aside… at least for the present. “You mean… she pretended to be me because she knew you were coming?” Sparrow asked, cocking her head. “But why? How?”

“I don’t know,” Typhoon said, and her eyes slid over to Deep Blue. “Care to explain?”

“Some kelpies that are old and experienced enough learn how to read a pony’s soul,” Deep Blue said with a shrug. “I suppose after drowning enough victims, a fey becomes intimately familiar with the moment the soul leaves the body and can study them through familiarity. She may have done the same to you as you approached and took on a guise that would get you to lower your guard.”

“And you didn’t think to warn me about that?” Typhoon asked, an irritated edge of a growl creeping into her voice.

Deep Blue’s response was to shift his stance and raise an eyebrow at the old soldier. “I would have, had I any reason to suspect that there was anypony in Boiling Springs important enough to give you pause should you see their face. You’re a smart mare, Typhoon, and you would have immediately suspected something is wrong had she pulled the guise of somepony from your past instead. What I was not expecting was that a petty thief young enough to be your granddaughter that you had only met less than a week ago would cause you such emotional turmoil that the kelpie sensed it and used it against you.” He cocked his head. “Now I’m curious, Commander. Why is that?”

Typhoon fidgeted as Sparrow turned to her, confused and somewhat shocked, while Deep Blue merely watched her with rote curiosity in his gaze. “She… reminds me of somepony I know… used to know,” Typhoon finally admitted, struggling to force even those few words through her teeth. Her cheeks began to feel warm as she remembered nearly spilling all those foolish worries to a murderous monster wearing Sparrow’s face, and she pointedly looked down at her hooves.

Then, taking a deep breath, she narrowed her eyes at the kelpie. “My magic likely won’t keep her forever. Not with the spring refilling with hot water.”

At that, Deep Blue reached into his robes and withdrew a simple clay jar, though upon seeing the faint silver runes on it, Typhoon knew it was anything but. “Best to do it now and savor victory later,” the wizard agreed, and he removed the lid form the jar with his magic and approached the kelpie. Drawing what looked like a simple iron chisel from another hidden pocket, Deep Blue leveled the tip at the root of one of the kelpie’s prominently exposed fangs and gave it a solid blow from a rock lying nearby. Both Typhoon and Sparrow winced hard at the loud snap that followed, and when it was finished, the mage placed the tooth in the jar, sealed it once more, and touched the tip of his horn to a little notch in the lid. Magical energy flowed from the grooves of his horn and seemed to crawl down the sides of the jar, filling the etched runes, and one by one they flickered to life with a brilliant silver-blue glow.

When it was finished, Deep Blue held it in his hoof for a moment and simply admired it. “So close…” the wizard whispered to himself, and then with one more flare of his horn, the jar disappeared with a flash of light.

“That was far more than a lock of hair,” Typhoon idly noted, remembering her earlier conversation with Deep Blue that morning.

“Simpler than trying to justify to you what I really needed when you were hesitant to help me in the first place,” Deep Blue said with a shrug. “If I have her fang in my possession, she can never turn her maw against me. As I said earlier, controlling a part of her lets me control the whole, and the best place to start would be the weapon she would use to kill me with. I think you would agree those teeth are sharp, if that bite on your shoulder is anything to go by.”

“Don’t remind me,” Typhoon muttered, and she subconsciously rolled her shoulder. But then she shook her head. “I suppose I don’t really care what you do with her, so long as it’s not another mistake I have to fix before I die. But I held my end of the bargain. Now you hold yours.”

Deep Blue nodded, and his magic pulled Typhoon’s dreamcatcher out of his pocket and floated it over to the soldier, along with a small silk bag. “Here. You’ve more than earned it. And in case you break it again, here are a few strands of silk to make repairs. The further west you go, the less likely you are to come across somepony who has some. Be careful.”

“I will,” Typhoon said, taking both and tucking them under her wing. Then she eyed the kelpie one last time. “Though I should count myself lucky that my prize won’t be plotting how to kill me.”

“I’ve been preparing years for this moment,” Deep Blue assured her. Then he reached out and rested his hoof on the kelpie’s frozen nose. “Thank you for your help, Commander,” he said to Typhoon, giving the old soldier a respectful nod. “You’re meddling with magic that even I would hesitate to involve myself in. But you’re tenacious, if nothing else. I have confidence you can pull through.” Then, to Typhoon’s immense surprise, the corners of Deep Blue’s lips reversed themselves, rising into a slight smile. “If you make it back from the lands of the elk, I would appreciate hearing about them. There are very few ponies alive who know what they’re like.”

“I’ll keep that in mind if I’m in the area,” Typhoon said with a slow nod.

“I look forward to it, Commander. Best of luck on your journey.” And with a flash of his horn, the wizard and the kelpie disappeared from the spring, gone to the hidden cave that Deep Blue had made his home.

Typhoon stood in place for a few moments, looking off into the empty space where they used to be, before giving her head a small shake and letting out a small breath. “You’re going to regret this one day, Deep Blue. I have a feeling,” she muttered. Then, turning around, she started to walk north, back to Boiling Springs.

Sparrow blinked behind her, still trying to process what all had happened and what trade she had just witnessed, when she realized she was about to be left behind. “H-Hey, wait!” Sparrow shouted. “Where are you going?”

“Back to town,” Typhoon said, without even looking over her shoulder. “I need to get my things together. It’s time to go.”

“B-But I… my training?” Sparrow hesitated, raising an unsure hoof. “Typhoon?”

The old soldier continued on, not waiting for the young mare. And finally, biting her lip, Sparrow trotted off after her… even if she trailed several paces behind the entire way back.

2-1 The Young Stray

It was a perfect day for training.

Sparrow woke up, yawned once, and stretched her forelegs before crawling out from under her lean-to, thankful that the storm had passed them by the night before. Instead, the sun was shining, golden and warm, and the birds seemed to twitter to each other in excited anticipation of what they were about to witness.

Breakfast was quick and simple, something light to get some energy in her body without being heavy to slow her down or make her sick while exerting herself. After that it was time for stretches, and then her magic made short work of the armor she strapped to her body. Though it was only a few pieces, Sparrow had painstakingly polished them all the night before, ready to shine like the sun itself when she sparred with her mentor. She could already envision the steps she would take, the moves she would make on confident hoofwork as she matched her pegasus opponent’s quick strikes and the triple threat of her trio of blades with careful distancing between herself and her weapon, keeping her fast opponent at bay. The feeling of triumph and elation that would overtake her when she finally, finally, beat a seasoned veteran of the Legion, aged as her bones were becoming…

At least, that was how Sparrow always dreamt it would be like.

In reality, the cool, damp breeze of a foggy morning on her face stirred her from an uncomfortable sleep, and the young unicorn groaned and rubbed at her eyes. She rolled over on her bedroll and gasped at the sharp stab of pain in her back, one of her myriad collection of bumps, bruises, and cuts that Typhoon had inflicted on her over the past week. Normally she was used to sleeping on the hard ground, or whatever little bedding and cushioning she could scrape together in whatever town she decided to stay at for the season, but the injuries from her training coupled with a lumpy bedroll left her feeling like she was sixty-one, not sixteen. And it didn’t seem like there would be any end in sight; every day, after their instruction on form and technique was finished, Typhoon would ask Sparrow if she wanted to challenge her and test what she learned. And Sparrow, proud and determined to prove herself as she was, always accepted.

She was very quickly learning when to keep her mouth shut when it came to the old legionary.

Once she had groaned and winced away the edge of the pain, Sparrow carefully sat upright, hunched under the canvas edge of her lean-to as her eyes wandered over her surroundings. As usual, Typhoon’s bedroll was already wrapped up and stashed next to a tree, the aging mare having awoken two or three hours before Sparrow and flown ahead to scout the surrounding landscape before returning for breakfast. Sparrow blew an errant strand of her mane out of her face and forced herself to stand up, her magic dumping a messy pile of sticks in the bowl of dirt in the ground Typhoon had made her dig out for their firepit, then snatched the tinderbox Typhoon had bought for her before they left Boiling Springs to start the fire. It slowly grew in strength on the leaves and the dried moss Sparrow had collected over the course of their journey, and while it did so, the young unicorn went and found a quiet spot in the nearby tree line to take care of her morning business.

She had barely returned to camp when a fluttering of feathers heralded Typhoon’s return, and the old soldier eyed the fire as it guttered and struggled to climb the sticks and bits of bark Sparrow had left for it. “Cold, damp mornings like this, it needs a bit of help,” she scolded, and she sat back on her haunches and took a drink of water from her waterskin, her coat already shiny with a sheen of sweat from her morning flight.

Sparrow frowned and sat down across from her. “That little tinderbox isn’t anything compared to pegasus magic,” she grumbled, watching the feeble flame cling to a knobby twig as it struggled to peel away the bark. But when Typhoon didn’t move, her ruby red eyes only watching her patiently, Sparrow groaned. “What?”

“I’m not going to finish your job for you,” Typhoon said. “It’s your job to get the fire started and get something warm going for breakfast while I’m scouting the path ahead.”

“But you have magic!” Sparrow exclaimed. “Just set it all ablaze with your freaky pegasus magic!”

Typhoon scoffed, a little noise from the older mare that sharpened Sparrow’s agitated frown. “If you need me to start a fire for you, then how can I ever expect you to fight without me to protect you?” She took another sip from her waterskin, corked it, and casually tossed it aside. “Fix it. If the fire goes out, we eat cold gruel today.”

Sparrow bared her teeth, if only for a moment, and scooted closer to the smoldering pile of wood. “Fine…” she hissed, and then leaning down until her muzzle was practically in the kindling, she began to gently blow on the flame. Little by little, bit by bit, the flame grew in strength as Sparrow fed it oxygen, and only when Sparrow finally heard a steady crackle of the heat boiling whatever sap remained in the twigs did she feel confident to add larger pieces of fuel to the fire.

When it was done, the young mare sat back and raised an eyebrow at Typhoon. “Better?”

“It’s a fire,” Typhoon plainly stated. “Don’t expect me to compliment you for doing what I asked after prodding.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever…” Sparrow muttered, and her magic pulled over two tins from the bag of supplies she carried, put some oatmeal in each, and then held them over the flames with her magic to heat them up. While she held the minimal concentration needed to keep them hovering there, she looked back at her sword resting next to her bedroll. “So what are we gonna cover today?”

“Your hoofwork,” Typhoon told her.

“We’ve been going over my hoofwork for three days!” Sparrow cried in exasperation.

“Your hoofwork has been bad for three days.”

Sparrow huffed, and the tins in her telekinetic grip trembled slightly as some of her emotion bubbled off her horn. “Fine. What’s bad about my hoofwork? All you ever tell me is that it’s wrong.”

“Many things,” Typhoon said, and she stood up, calmly spreading her legs into her battle stance to illustrate her point. “When you’re in a fight, you should be resting with your weight on the edges of your hooves, ready to move them at a moment’s notice.” At that, she moved through a quick flurry of steps, her hooves barely skimming above the ground and sometimes kicking up a small shower of dirt and pebbles as she stepped, pivoted, twisted, returned, all with speed and agility that seemed unnatural for a mare her age. Then she stood upright and stomped her hooves into the ground, and added a slight lean to her frame. “This is how you stand. You plant your hooves in the ground when your focus goes to your sword. Your legs are too close together, and you can’t move them without tripping yourself up.” To quickly demonstrate, she tried to repeat her actions, but each time her range of motion was limited as her legs fought for standing space, and she fluttered her wings to keep her balance when she tried to pivot and her left foreleg momentarily stuck between her hind legs as she took her step back.

Then she sat back down. “I understand it’s a unicorn instinct to want stability when using your magic. I can’t really imagine what it’s like to cast using a horn, and your magic is more deliberate and calculated than mine. But you’re not a wizard, and you don’t have the benefit of being able to hurl spells from safety. If you’re going to be a soldier, you’re going to be in the thick of it, and if you can’t move, then you’re dead where you stand.”

Sparrow felt her shoulder blades pinching together as she weathered the sharp criticism. “I’m not a pegasus,” she weakly protested. “I’m not as nimble as you. Just because I’m a little slower than you are doesn’t mean that I’m doomed.”

“I have killed you five times in our sparring sessions since we started our travels together,” Typhoon noted. “That is without my magic and without my wings. All I have is my sword in my mouth and my hooves to get around. Your magic has not stopped me from getting close to you, and your posture has not given you room to react when I do.”

“I don’t see how any amount of training is going to stop me from getting destroyed by a veteran legionary,” Sparrow grumbled.

Typhoon narrowed her eyes, and after a moment she stood up. “Set the oatmeal aside for now. Grab your sword.”

Sparrow blinked, and though her patience with the old mare was awfully thin, she quickly did as she was told, though not without a little trepidation given their argument. Her magic fetched the sword Typhoon had bought for her from Hammer from her scant belongings and she scrambled to her hooves, quickly cantering along by Typhoon’s side as the legionary sought out some flat ground to use as their practice field. When she did, she turned around and expectantly gestured to Sparrow, who held out her sword for Typhoon to reach.

As she had done since they started sparring, Typhoon ran her wingtip down the sword’s edge, leaving a thin film of ice along the blade that would stop it from cutting without putting too much weight on the metal. Sparrow swallowed hard as Typhoon released it, expecting the old soldier to fetch her own hateful sword and promptly bury Sparrow in the arena with it, but the soldier only took two steps back and dropped her sword on the grass. “We’re going to work on your hoofwork a different way today,” Typhoon announced.

“How?” Sparrow asked. “No matter what I do it’s never good enough for you.”

“Because I’m trying to teach you how to fight like a legionary with a horn instead of just how to be a legionary.” The old mare pointed with her wing to Sparrow’s sword as the unicorn hovered it by her side. “We’ll try something different today. We’re going to spar, but I won’t use my sword. All you have to do is hit me once and you win. If I knock you off your hooves, then you lose.”

“What’s the catch?”

“No magic,” Typhoon said, and Sparrow felt her ears perk a little in surprise. “If using your magic is making you focus too much on your horn and not on your hooves, then we’re going to get rid of that distraction. Hold your sword in your mouth like a pegasus does. It doesn’t have to be perfect since I won’t be knocking it from your teeth with my own sword. But when your sword is in your mouth, the only way you’re going to be able to hit me is if you can keep up with me.”

Sparrow opened her mouth to retort, but she stopped herself before the words could come out. Wasn’t this what she had dreamed about, in a way? Practically thrown herself at Typhoon to get? Though the mare hardly made for friendly company, she hadn’t given up yet or simply flown off without her. And here she was, offering to teach her how a pegasus fought. Not a unicorn, and not a Royal Guard, but a pegasus legionary.

Sparrow brought her sword to her muzzle and turned the blade to her left, then slipped it into her mouth, feeling the tingle of her magic on her tongue fizzle away as she released it from her telekinetic grip. Her tongue pushed awkwardly against the wrapped metal hilt in her mouth as she tried to get it to sit nicely, and by accident it slipped back into the gap between her incisors and molars much like a bit would, though far larger and heavier. “Ffson fee guh,” Sparrow tried to articulate around the hilt, and when Typhoon raised an eyebrow, the young unicorn frowned. “Uh on ol in in my mouf muh!”

“You learn to speak around it with practice,” Typhoon said, shrugging. “We’ll worry about that later. Is the hilt set firmly in the gaps between your teeth where a bit would sit?” When Sparrow nodded rather than continue to make a fool of herself by attempting to talk around the foreign object in her mouth, Typhoon allowed her stance to widen a bit. “Good. Keep it there. You get all the grip you need between your teeth without worrying about cracking them or knocking them out. Don’t try to change sides for now like you’ve seen me do. Just keep the sword on your left and try to hit me.”

Her wings flared a bit as she settled into her ready stance, and Sparrow awkwardly tried to mimic her pose. “Remember, stay light on your hooves. Keep track of where each one is and don’t get your legs tangled. I’ll keep things slow to start until you get used to the weight in your mouth, then I’ll start getting faster. If you fall over, you lose.” She paused for a moment to take a breath, and Sparrow took the opportunity to breathe in sharply through her nose and try to slow the pounding of anticipation in her heart. “Ready?”

Sparrow swallowed once, shifted her grip on the sword one more time with her tongue, and nodded.

Contrary to her promise, the legionary did not start slow, or at least, that’s how Sparrow felt when Typhoon lunged at her. Sparrow barely had a moment to react before she hopped backwards as Typhoon tried to drive a hoof at her fetlock, and after dancing away from Typhoon’s leg strikes, she swung her sword at the pegasus to try and drive her back and give herself some space to work with. But Typhoon, fast and nimble as she was, only slipped under the sword and then checked her shoulder against Sparrow’s sending the unicorn reeling backwards.

Yet Sparrow was able to find her hooves before she fell, though she did have to use her sword for a moment to prop herself up and not tumble to the ground. The grip slid uncomfortably through her lips and against her teeth and the guard pushed against the side of her face, but she was able to plant her hooves and get back to a stable stance before Typhoon came back at her again. The old soldier only gave her a second to catch her breath before she darted into melee, trying to use her hooves and wings to trip Sparrow up and win the impromptu challenge.

Sparrow stumbled and staggered, constantly feeling Typhoon’s limbs hooking her hooves out from underneath her whenever she tried to take a step, and every time she tried to settle down and anchor herself so she could take a swing at the legionary Typhoon would slide out of reach and shove her shoulder or flank to put her off balance again. But she moved and pivoted and caught herself as the legionary pushed her this way and that, and after a minute she stopped trying to put the full weight of her body behind each swing and found greater success in warding Typhoon away with little swings and twists of her neck. Her last swing swept through some of the graying hairs on Typhoon’s mane, and for a moment, she felt confident she might win after all.

That confidence quickly dissolved when Typhoon rammed her shoulder into hers, then rolled across Sparrow’s back in the same motion, and stomped on her tail as she reeled from the shove. When Sparrow found her hindquarters surprisingly anchored in place as she tried to gain her balance, the only thing she could do was let out a cry and fall to the ground in a flailing mess of legs.

Sparrow winced and groaned, feeling the wind knocked out of her from her hard landing, and spit her sword out of her mouth. “Ow…” she wheezed, and when she finally got some air back into her lungs, she looked up to see Typhoon standing over her with a slight arch to one of her eyebrows. “Did you really have to pull on my tail like that?”

“Better than bucking you under the dock,” Typhoon said. “Which I considered before deciding that would be mean.”

“Ha ha… thanks,” Sparrow said, recognizing the old soldier’s characteristic dry humor with some forced laughter. She managed to at least prop herself up with her forelegs and rolled back onto her haunches before picking her sword back up and sliding it into its simple wooden scabbard. “I almost got you once though.”

A slight bob of her head was all the affirmation Typhoon gave her. “You got close. You moved better once you got used to the weight. And you didn’t just stand in one place and try to fend me off. It was what I was hoping to see.”

She offered her hoof, and Sparrow gratefully took it and hauled herself back to her hooves with the soldier’s help. “So… I did okay, then?”

“I still would have easily killed you if that had been an actual fight, and if I had my sword, I would have struck yours near the point and turned your nose to the sky before kicking out one of your legs… but it was adequate for now.” She gestured with her wing to the campfire, which still crackled and flickered in their camp. “Let’s get back to breakfast and then get back on the road. We’ll see if we can make it to the next town before nightfall, or at least an inn. It’s going to rain by tomorrow morning and I don’t want to be caught in it.”

She fetched her sword and started making her way back to her camp, but Sparrow lingered a moment after her. The compliment Typhoon had given her may have been as backhooved and dismissive as anything the old soldier had given her so far, but it was still a compliment nonetheless. If she was improving enough that the legionary noticed it, then she was on the right track. She wasn’t just flailing hopelessly after her life’s dream—she was taking steps to realize it.

With a little more pep in her step despite her aches and sores from a brutal week of suffering under a veteran legionary’s training, Sparrow cantered after Typhoon, her head held high and proud.

2-2

Following their sparring and their breakfast, Sparrow and Typhoon broke down their meager camp, loaded up their possessions, and continued along the road, plunging deeper into the west and an unknown destination. Though Typhoon was the seasoned legionary who had carried her heavy armor and equipment for long marches most of her life, and Sparrow the lanky young mare who had never owned more than a dirty knapsack, a chipped knife, and a scant few personal possessions, the latter regularly was the one to shoulder the majority of the load. Though Typhoon claimed that she needed to stay light and unburdened so she could quickly take wing in an attack, Sparrow was more certain that the old mare just wanted to take some weight off of her aching joints.

Morning turned to noon, and apart from a quick stop for some food, the pair of mares kept their march going. Occasionally they would pause so Typhoon could fly ahead and double check a fork in the road that she had noted during her morning reconnaissance, but for the most part they marched along the miles in relative silence. It was only during a pause along the roadside under the shade of a large elm to rest for a moment did Sparrow attempt to break it.

“The heat with all this stuff I’ve got to carry… it’s something else,” Sparrow casually stated, and when she ran her hoof through her short mane, she noted it came away glistening with sweat. “I’m not used to traveling so heavy… or for so long.”

After a moment, she discreetly glanced in Typhoon’s direction, waiting to see if the legionary was willing to pick up the conversation. Typhoon only looked off into the distance for some moments, her eyes trained vaguely in a north easterly direction. But speak she did, even if it took some time for words to actually leave her lips. “The Legion had me carrying more than that when I was your age,” she recounted, though it was less the snappy remark of an elder to a member of the younger generation, and more an observation colored by wizened wistfulness at memories gone by. “Had to fly with it, too. Armor is heavy, and when you have to carry your rations and gear, it sometimes felt like you were carrying an earth pony on your back.” The corner of her lip twitched. “They’re pretty dense, if you haven’t ever tried.”

“Heh, well, if you count street fighting and wrestling, then maybe,” Sparrow said, and she realized she was rubbing the old split in her lip with the back of her fetlock. Typhoon noticed it as well, and when the old soldier quirked a brow at her, Sparrow felt compelled to answer the unspoken question. “Got that when I was twelve,” she said, her memories of her short but hard life coming back to the forefront of her mind and settling there like old scars. “Somepony threw out a whole cake behind their house. I think by the noise it must have been an unwelcome present in a failing marriage, but to me it was a gift from the gods. Well, I wasn’t the only one who thought that too. A bigger colt tried to take it from me, but I wasn’t going to let him.”

The tip of Typhoon’s graying mane waved as she bobbed her head once in understanding. “I take it you taught him a lesson, then?”

“Psssh. I was the one who got taught a lesson. That lesson was to skip town because Crooked Bar had a knife and he wasn’t afraid to cut me to steal my cake.” Sparrow chuckled a little bit at the memory of the fight, now that the fear and pain of the moment had faded away into memory. “I broke his nose, though. Bet that cake didn’t taste too good with blood in it.”

Typhoon made a breathy grunt—not quite a laugh, but something similar nonetheless—and shook her head. “You’ve got spirit, at least. Can’t deny that. I remember being fiery when I was a filly, too.”

“Really? Pff. I don’t buy it.” Sparrow waved her hoof at the old soldier. “You’re like ice, through and through. Not fire. Even your magic is mostly ice magic!”

The corner of Typhoon’s lip disappeared for a moment as she sucked on it, and her wings fidgeted at her sides—though Sparrow had only traveled with her for a week, she noticed that the old soldier’s little wing shuffles often marked a topic she was loathe to talk about. So she wasn’t too surprised when Typhoon quickly deflected. “Growing up will do that to you,” was her cryptic non-answer. “And I had to grow up faster than most.”

Rather than linger in uncomfortable silence, Typhoon cleared her throat and broached a topic that wasn’t related to travel or training. “I don’t mean to pry, so you don’t have to answer me if you don’t want to. But I have to ask: is Sparrow your real name?”

The question was a surprising one, and it took Sparrow a moment to think it through. When she did, a faint warmth colored her cheeks and she abashedly glanced away from the soldier sitting across from her. “I mean… it’s the only name that anypony would know me by.”

“So it’s not your given name, then.”

“No… not really…” Sparrow let out a little titter when she saw Typhoon arch an eyebrow at her. “Okay fine. My, uh, real name is Hydrangea. You know, because of the eyes? Hydrangeas can be blue and pink; at least, that’s what my mom told me when I was a foal. She was an earth pony, so I took her word for it. But I hate the name, so please don’t start calling me that.”

“I won’t,” Typhoon assured her, though Sparrow caught the ghost of a smirk on the soldier’s whitening muzzle, if only for a flash, and already knew that Typhoon would find some way to tease her about it later. “Though if you’re sensitive about your eyes, I can understand why you wouldn’t want to be reminded about it.”

Sparrow cringed at the reminder, and she squeezed her blue eye shut. “Yeah… Let’s just say that I would wear an eyepatch to cut out all the attention if it meant I wasn’t half blind in back alleys. Nothing good comes from the eyes. Ponies remember me at a glance, which made it hard living on the streets for a lot of reasons. Plus there were always the creeps who wanted to bed something exotic…” At that, she made an exaggerated gagging noise and angrily swished her tail across the grass she sat on. “The other urchins were the worst, though. Crooked Bar used to say I was so poor I couldn’t even afford matching eyes. At least in Boiling Springs, Wren and Juniper also had striking marks and colors, so I felt more comfortable running around with them than hanging by myself…”

Typhoon nodded in understanding. “My hoof and armor attracted plenty of stares wherever I went, so I know what you mean about unwanted attention,” she sympathized. “But as for your name, if you didn’t like Hydrangea, why call yourself Sparrow? I don’t see the connection.”

“My father was a pegasus and he used to call me ‘Little Bird’,” Sparrow said, and when Typhoon cocked her head and furrowed her brow, Sparrow shrugged, already knowing what the mare was wondering. “I assume that my mom had some unicorn blood on her side, and I ended up being lucky enough to get the horn. I’m a mutt, yeah, but I like to think that just gives me a little bit of something good from every race. Maybe there’s some Crystal in there, too; that’d be neat, wouldn’t it?”

To Sparrow’s surprise, Typhoon seemed to trip over one or two potential responses that died in her throat. When she finally did speak, it was accompanied by a fluff of her wings as if to ward something away from her. “Considering the implications of how exactly Crystal blood would have to have gotten into your family tree, given when I was your age they had only just stopped burning villages and abducting unicorns to try and have Crystal unicorn foals, it would probably be for the best if there wasn’t any,” Typhoon simply noted.

“Alright, yeah, maybe that wouldn’t be neat,” Sparrow conceded. “But uh, yeah, I was already used to my dad calling me Little Bird when I…”

She swallowed hard, and though she tried to push it away, she felt shivers overtaking her. She closed her eyes and flattened her ears as nightmares assailed her senses. The thunderous crack of crumbling stone and rock, gigantic monstrosities armored in black chitin picking through the ruins and sinking their paralyzing fangs into those who couldn’t get away, the screaming, the screaming…

Sparrow gasped, her eyes fluttering open as she shook herself free from her trauma. Across from her, Typhoon’s wings flared in alarm, and the old soldier’s left hoof was halfway raised in the air, as if to reach out to Sparrow, but when the two mares made eye contact, she lowered it back to the ground. Swallowing hard, Sparrow slowly continued in a trembling voice, trying to use her teenaged bravado to push her terrors away as if nothing had happened. “I, uh… t-the spiders sank my village when I was ten. Everypony I knew… gone. Just like that. The spiders didn’t take me because I was buried in the rubble of my house. I could only catch glimpses of what was happening outside. I still have nightmares about it sometimes. But they took everypony, and they would have found me eventually, but the Legion arrived and drove them off.”

Typhoon’s ears perked and her eyes widened almost imperceptibly, but she refrained from saying anything about what caused her reaction. Instead, she only silently listened as Sparrow allowed herself to open up with a story few ponies had heard in the past six years. “I couldn’t see much of the fight, but I could hear it. There was lots of shouting and shrieking, though it was mostly the pegasi doing the shouting and the spiders doing the shrieking. Then they dug through the rubble and pulled whomever they could out from it. There… weren’t many. But there was me.”

She felt her features brighten a little as she remembered being taken out of the dark hole that had become her town’s grave on the strong wings of armored legionaries and being presented to a stallion with a black plume of feathers running down his helmet from nose to neck. “They took me to the legate, and the legate said he would keep an eye on me until they found my parents. But they didn’t find my parents. When night came around and I hadn’t seen them, I started crying. Just… wailing. I thought the legate would have tossed me out of his command tent, but he took some of the little wooden horseheads he had in his… I don’t know, war chest? What would you call it?”

“It doesn’t really have a name, but I know what you mean,” Typhoon assured her. “I’ve spent my fair share of time studying a map and moving wooden pieces around to get an idea of my and my enemy’s armies and work out a stratagem before battle.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I mean. He took those out and gave them to me,” Sparrow said. “It was just… just a stupid little thing, to try and get a crying filly to shut up by distracting her. But it helped, I guess. It gave me something else to think about. When I finally fell asleep, he put me in his cot, and when I woke up, there was already breakfast waiting for me. He even crushed a little spider when I saw one and screamed.”

“Sounds like he cared about the lost filly camping in his tent.”

“I don’t know if he did or not; he left me in the nearest town when he took his legion and flew elsewhere,” Sparrow said with a shrug. “The town was supposed to find a foster family for me, but I ran away before they could. As far as I was convinced, that was too close to where the spiders had just sunken my home, and if I didn’t run, they would catch me too. I at least felt safe with the legion, but it wasn’t like they were just going to carry me with them when they flew off again. But I… well, I did remember his name. Legate Singing Sparrow, though to be honest, I don’t think I heard him sing once while I was with him.” The corner of her lip curved upwards at the tiny little joke.

“Ah… I see.” Typhoon nodded her head in understanding. “So you took on his name once you were on your own. And now I understand where your fascination with the Legion comes from, at least.”

“The Legion saved me, Typhoon,” Sparrow said, swallowing hard and letting out a breath as she felt like some weight had been taken off her shoulders. “My whole life changed when the spiders sunk my town. I went from being a filly with two loving parents to being an orphan on the streets. As far as I’m concerned, Hydrangea died down there with the spiders. It’s been Sparrow’s story since then—not hers.”

Typhoon was quiet for a moment, and the longer she abstained from speaking, the brighter Sparrow felt her cheeks becoming, suddenly cringing at herself for unloading her history on a mare old enough to be her grandmother. But eventually, Typhoon just stood up with a grunt and shook her wings out. “That last part may have been a bit melodramatic… but thank you for sharing that with me,” she said, and she offered her hoof to Sparrow to help her stand. When Sparrow took it, and found herself hauled to her hooves by the deceptively strong older mare, she was surprised to feel Typhoon’s wing briefly brush against her side, almost as if a facsimile of a one-legged hug.

Sparrow leaned against the feathers, or at least tried to—they were already gone and back against the legionary’s side before she could even shift her weight. But she bowed her head a bit and took a step back when Typhoon let her own hoof fall away from Sparrow’s. “Yeah… anytime,” she said, but when Typhoon turned around to pick up her own assortment of things and started off down the road again, she cocked her head. “So, uh… you got a sob story you wanna share too? Make this a group therapy session or something?”

“No,” was Typhoon’s flat answer. “There’s still daylight left. Let’s focus on getting to the next town, okay?”

The young unicorn sighed at the evasive answer. “Fine, have it your way,” she muttered, and her magic picked up her gear and slung it over her back. But when she picked up her knapsack, she took a moment to open it up and pull a small wooden horse head out of it, cracked and splintering from time, and the paint rubbed away by the years.

She closed her eyes and pressed it against her cheek for a moment before dropping it back into her bag, closing it up, and starting down the road after the old soldier.

2-3

In the dying light of the setting sun, it was hard for Sparrow to see what Typhoon pointed at with a raised wing and a tautening of her muscles. But when Typhoon told her what to look for and she squinted her mismatched eyes, it was barely visible as it drifted across the yellowing sky, like a phantom or a ghost.

“Is that… smoke?” Sparrow asked. When Typhoon nodded an affirmation, she cocked her head. “So, we’re close to town then?”

“Unless there’s a large town up ahead, that’s too much smoke for chimneys,” Typhoon said, and her wingtips twitched as she considered flight. “It’s not thick enough for a forest fire, and it’s not black with burning dyes and curling paint. A camp, maybe.”

“That’s a lot more than a campfire,” Sparrow observed.

“Yes. But not for twenty or thirty.”

“Maybe it’s a popular camping spot or something?”

Typhoon shook her head at that, and this time she fully opened her wings. “I’m going to go ahead and check it out. See if there’s any danger.”

Sparrow sharply frowned. “And what, I’m just supposed to wait here for you to get back?”

“That was the implication, yes,” the soldier duly noted.

“Yeah. Sure. And if it’s dangerous?” Sparrow took a step forward, and she let her magic briefly dance around the hilt of her sword for emphasis. “You said it’s like, twenty campfires. That’s a lot of ponies! Wouldn’t you want to have some backup?”

“If I’m going to get into a fight, I would prefer to do it without having to foalsit,” Typhoon simply stated. “You will be safer back here.”

That was enough to elicit a frustrated stomp of her hoof from the young unicorn. “Safer? Screw safer! I’m not going to sit back here, alone, while you fly off for who knows how long, doing something dangerous without me. You’re supposed to be teaching me how to be a legionary! How can I do that if you won’t let me at least follow you and see what you do when you’re put in danger?”

The analogy made Typhoon’s eyes narrow. “We don’t train soldiers by throwing them into combat before they know how to fight with a sword. There’s training camp for that.”

“Well unless a camp suddenly poofs back into existence, I think we’re going to have to get a little creative with it,” Sparrow said, exasperation creeping into her voice. Then she remembered old tales, bedtime stories, and before she knew what she was saying she blurted out those thoughts. “The knights of the Diamond Kingdoms took their squires with them wherever they went. Even far from the walls of River Rock. That’s how they trained, through experience! And when you think about it, I’m basically your squire.”

“That so?” Typhoon’s eyes traveled over Sparrow, sharp and scrutinizing, the gaze of the veteran enough to make Sparrow tense up even if she stood her ground. “Except I’m not a knight.”

“You also say you’re not a legionary,” Sparrow reminded her. “So if you’re not a soldier, and you’re not a knight, what are you then? A sellsword?”

That moniker immediately made Typhoon bristle. “I don’t fight for coin, and I never will,” she sharply rebuked Sparrow. But the younger unicorn stood her ground, matching her blue and pink eyes to Typhoon’s ruby red, until the aging warrior frowned and shook her head. “Fine. We’ll go together. But you will not draw that sword unless your life is in imminent danger. If I have to fight, you stand off to the side or run away.”

“But I can help you!” Sparrow protested. “I can—!”

“Get in the way?” Typhoon interrupted. “You haven’t mastered the basics yet. The only thing you could accomplish is putting yourself at risk and forcing me to protect you while also trying to protect myself.” A sigh followed that, and the tips of Typhoon’s wings drooped. “Look… if one day you prove you can keep up during our training, then I’d be glad to have a second sword at my side. But that day will not come unless you do as I say and stay out of danger. Do you understand?”

There was an apologetic lilt buried in there somewhere, but just noticeable enough that it caught Sparrow off guard. “Uhh… sure. Fine. I won’t get in your way.” When Typhoon raised an eyebrow at that vague promise, Sparrow groaned. “The sword stays in its scabbard. I promise.”

A curt, soldierly nod was Typhoon’s acknowledgement. “Good. Stay behind me. And keep your eyes peeled. Danger could come from anywhere, especially when moving through the forest.”

Then she was off before Sparrow could give her a response, and the only thing the unicorn could do was trot after her.

Into the forest they went, following the road as it twisted and turned its way under the canopy of green leaves. But there was something different about it this time, and Sparrow could feel it running an icy feather down her spine. What once might have been notable only for the comforting shade on a hot day now seemed to host unknowable danger, as if dark entities flitted between the leaves on a breeze with murderous intent. Every little sound in the forest seemed sharper, seemingly unnatural in how natural it was, as if it was a ruse or a trick to lull the two ponies into a sense of comfort. Sparrow felt her whole body tense, and little shakes and tremors seemed to grip her barrel against her will as the quiet anxiety seeped into her bones. It was one thing to be caught by danger unawares, but quite another thing to know there was a very real possibility she was purposefully walking into its unknown lair. And that, for a young mare who had somehow survived all manner of spontaneous threats in her sixteen short years of life, made all the difference.

After what felt like hours, but was surely only minutes of creeping along the shaded road, Typhoon held out her wing and turned her head toward the sky. Frozen like a statue save for her ears and eyes, the soldier held that pose for many long, torturous seconds as she scanned the glimpses of the sky through the fanned leaves above them and tried to pick out something through the sounds of nature. Sparrow stood behind her, her lower lip disappearing between her teeth as she strained to hear or see what had set the old soldier on edge, all the while her heart felt more insistent on making its feelings known inside her chest and her tail flicked in agitation at the unknown surrounding them.

Finally, Sparrow couldn’t take it anymore. “What is it?” she whispered, taking a few cautious steps closer to Typhoon’s side. “Danger?”

“Get behind a tree,” Typhoon whispered, and the bladed scales on her wings rattled as she flexed them. “Now.”

“Why?”

Then the forest exploded into chaos.

The sounds of nature were replaced by shouting and the cacophony of clattering metal as armored figures careened through the canopy in noise and feathers. The colorful plumage of nearly a score of pegasi slammed back down to earth like a hammer upon an anvil, and almost immediately after, steel flashed with blinding brilliance through the speckled sunlight that followed them through the canopy. But this was no coordinated ambush, no trap laid for the two mares wandering the road by their lonesome. As pegasi crashed through leaves and branches and slammed into the ground with either their hooves or their flanks, and the cry of steel on steel sang through the trees, Sparrow realized that the fighting and chaos was not meant for them.

Nevertheless, she drew back several paces and pressed herself against the sturdy trunk of a nearby tree as her mismatched eyes danced across the chaos before her. Her first thought was a clash between bandits and militia; she was no stranger to seeing such violence between settlements since the cruelties of life had thrown her out onto the streets and the Legion had disappeared from Equestria’s frontier. But in between the blurred movements of pegasi fighting with the speed, agility, and ferocity their winged race was known for, Sparrow realized that she only saw plate armor, bladed wings, and curved swords—all fashioned in the make and style of the Legion. Red-plumed helmets seemed to dance and fan in the chaos like the feathers and tails of the combatants upon whose heads they perched as swords flashed and cries and warnings bounced between the pegasi.

But where Sparrow had expected rigidity and discipline among the warriors given their equipment and race, what she saw unfolding in those few seconds before her was anything but. There were no neat lines, no pairs or wings of soldiers fighting as one or with tactics neatly laid out under the speckled shade of the canopy. There was only the brutal thunder of the melee, a free-for-all fight where any plans and order had long been discarded in a desperate struggle to survive. Twenty pegasi fought and bled and screamed under the waving leaves, but instead of one battle, there were ten.

If it had only taken Sparrow a few seconds to take in the chaos around her as she retreated to the shelter of an oak, Typhoon was even faster. As soon as the veteran had dissected what was happening before her, she launched herself into action, bladed wings flashing as she moved with speed Sparrow had never seen from her before, neither during their sparring sessions nor when she and Wren and Juniper had tried to rob the soldier at Eagle Springs. Rather than strike for flesh, however, Typhoon’s wingblades turned steel away from steel and left ice in her wake. In a blurry dance that Sparrow never would have thought possible from a mare her age, Typhoon had decisively brought the fighting to a frosty standstill as glistening walls of ice separated the combatants and cooled their murderous intent—if only for a brief moment of icy respite.

Still, the exertion was enough to stagger the old mare, and when the icy chill swept silence onto the battlefield as the surprised soldiers regrouped, the only thing Sparrow could hear (apart from the beating of her own heart) was Typhoon’s strained panting. But the old mare marshaled some discipline over her body and stood tall, her piercing gaze sweeping over the shocked faces of the legionaries like a harsh commander regarding the lack of discipline from her soldiers with disgust. The effect was profound, and Typhoon commanded the attention of all twenty pegasi who had moments ago been trying to kill each other—even though they still shot wary glances at their enemies and their swords trembled in their teeth.

“Gladium reconde!” Typhoon barked in a language Sparrow had only heard once before, though knew without a shadow of a doubt as that of the once-mighty pegasus nation of Cirra and the Legion. “Ordenem savate! What is the meaning of this?”

“Treason, ma’am!” came one sharp reply, and a white stallion with gray wings and strands of a black mane cropping out from underneath his helmet and its transversely-mounted red plume stepped forward. He momentarily held his open wings parallel to the ground in what Sparrow assumed was a pegasus salute, then turned and sneered at the crowd of pegasi gathering across from him while more formed up behind him as the two sides separated. “These pegasi call themselves soldiers, but they have turned their backs on the Legion and all that it stands for. They have seized the town of Dry Fens, fortified it, and defy the laws of the Frontier!”

“The Legion is dead!” a soldier from the other side shouted back, even as she and the rest of her cohort anxiously drew back. Sparrow could see even from afar that those pegasi had suffered the worst of the fighting, with many nursing injuries and bleeding onto their damaged armor. “Typhoon won’t bring it back for you! She’s the one that did this to us!”

“Legate Lost Winds still remembers what the Legion meant!” the stallion, whom Sparrow could only assume was a centurion by the style of his helmet, shouted back. “Fly back to your fortress, vermin, and let everypony know that Commander Typhoon stands with us!”

That statement had a shocking effect on the other group of pegasi, and after exchanging nervous glances, the mare spat at the ground and spread her wings. “Everypony will have their due, and the Lost Legion will have theirs!” she shouted as she took wing, and before anypony could change their minds and launch back into exchanging blows, the beaten cohort of soldiers tucked their tails and fled.

Typhoon watched them go, looking as if she wanted to chase them down and interrogate them further, but the centurion whistled his cohort into formation and they all saluted the old mare. “Commander,” the centurion said, “I am Centurion Tern. You do not know how relieved we all are to see you.”

“I could say the same,” Typhoon mused, and a flick of her left wing put the soldiers at ease. “You’re the first legionaries I’ve seen since I left Everfree. Though perhaps I hoped it would have been under better circumstances.” Her eyes once again drifted through the trees, though the fleeing soldiers were long gone beyond the branches and leaves. “What is going on here? What is happening at Dry Fens?”

“That,” Centurion Tern said with an apologetic smile, “is a long story. Perhaps it would be best if you heard it from Legate Winds back at camp. He would very much like to know that the Commander of the Cirran Legion has left Equestria and roams the Frontier.”

“Former Commander,” Typhoon corrected him, and her wings shifted in awkward discomfort.

“Just because you say you are no longer our commander does not mean we see it the same way,” Tern said with a shrug of his wings. Then his eyes fell on Sparrow, and one eyebrow lowered while the other climbed. “And who is this that you have with you? I see she has arms and armor, ragtag as they may be. A unicorn milite?”

But Sparrow ignored him; her mind was racing a mile a minute, and she finally left the tree behind to stare at Typhoon. “Commander of the Cirran Legion?” she asked, and when Typhoon looked at her, Sparrow thought she saw the old mare’s shoulders sag and her wings droop, if only for a moment. “I thought you were a legate?”

Rather than Typhoon answering her, Tern did with a bark of laughter. “A legate? Do you not know who you were traveling with?” he asked her. When Sparrow only gave him a confused look, he laughed again and shook his head. “Filly, you’re in the presence of Commander Typhoon, supreme and last commander of the Cirran Legion in Equestria, and the daughter of Commander Hurricane himself!”

2-4

“Commander Hurricane… was your father?!”

Sparrow couldn’t believe what she had just heard. Her brain almost refused to process it. But Centurion Tern had said it, and judging by the way Typhoon scowled in his direction and how her wings seemed to pinch her shoulders, it was the truth.

Tern, for his part, seemed amused by Sparrow’s shocked expression and Typhoon’s suddenly sour demeanor. “She seriously never told you?” he asked Sparrow, and when the young unicorn shook her head in disbelief, his attention shifted to the old soldier. “Why didn’t you tell her? Seems like you could have had a fan this entire time, ma’am.”

“Because I don’t want a fan,” was Typhoon’s muttered answer.

But the damage had been done, and Sparrow’s eyes had stars in them. “Your father was Commander Hurricane!” she repeated in awe. “Emperor of Cirra! Savior of the pegasi! One of the original triumvirs! And you’re… you’re his daughter!”

Typhoon rolled her eyes and muttered out of the side of her muzzle, “Yes, that’s what being my father implies…” She fluttered her wings and puffed out her feathers, as if they were a shield that would ward away any more uncomfortable worship and gushing. “But I’m not the commander of anything anymore,” she said, and this time her eyes pointedly narrowed at the centurion standing across from her. “No matter what you may think. I’m not going to walk into your camp and start issuing orders. The Legion is defunct. Its dissolution was my last order. If you reorganized into your own Legion to protect the frontier in the absence of the Royal Guard, then you have my blessing. But I am not the commander of whatever formation you serve.”

Tern opened his wings in a placating manner and respectfully dipped his head. “I did not mean to offend you, Commander—erm, Typhoon,” he hastily corrected at Typhoon’s disapproving look. “But for many of us out here, the Legion was the only thing that mattered to us. We saw its glory wither away as Platinum supplanted us with her disorderly band of conscripts and adventurers she calls the Royal Guard. We saw how she boxed you out, whittled away your influence, and downplayed the service and sacrifices you had made for Equestria. She didn’t even allow the Legion a proper death on the battlefield. It was her political backstabbing that defeated us.

“But we still believe the Legion has a place,” Tern continued, and he resolutely nodded to emphasize his point. “If not in Equestria, then at least outside of it. The Legion is the history of the pegasi, of Cirra. Our history. And we will not let a unicorn destroy it from her throne.”

“Ante Legionem nihil erat,” one of the soldiers behind Tern said, and the others nodded in approval.

“Et nihil erit post Legionem,” Sparrow said, and when she suddenly felt the curious looks of a dozen pegasi fall on her, she coughed lightly and abashedly scuffed her hoof on the ground. “I, uh… I learned the words when the Legion saved me from the spiders,” she admitted. “That’s why I asked to squire for Typhoon. She didn’t tell me she was Commander Hurricane’s daughter, but she did tell me she was a soldier. Even though the Legion’s gone, they were there for me when I needed help. They gave me a second chance. Maybe I can give other ponies a second chance too.”

“‘Squire’ is such a unicorn term, but I suppose given the circumstances the comparison is apt,” Tern noted, and he turned back to Typhoon with a curve along his muzzle that crept dangerously close to being smug. “If that isn’t a striking argument for what the Legion means for us out here, and what it still represents, then I don’t know what would be… ma’am.”

Typhoon’s tail flicked and she glanced away, her eyes seemingly searching for something through the oaken sentinels around her. “There have been a lot of ponies who have wanted the Legion to be something it couldn’t be, or shouldn’t be,” the old soldier mused, and Sparrow cocked her head at the cryptic response. But Typhoon chose not to elaborate, and instead let her shoulders fall with a weary, if silent, sigh. “Sparrow and I have been walking from Boiling Springs for days now with little but trail rations and sleeping mats for comforts. Though an army camp is hardly a luxury, I would prefer to spend the night with pegasi I once called comrades around warm fires than under the quiet of the stars. Of course, I wouldn’t presume to take advantage of your hospitality—”

Tern cut her off with a sharp wave of his wing. “Ma’am, our camp is well supplied, and it would be a great boost to morale for the soldiers to see you with their own two eyes. We’ve been skirmishing with those traitors in Dry Fens for weeks now. You can imagine how exhausting it must be to fight with somepony as equally trained as you are, especially when you called them brothers and sisters when diving into the spider tunnels just a few years ago.”

Sparrow thought she saw something akin to pain wince across Typhoon’s face, though the veteran’s features quickly slid back to their usual stoic neutrality in the blink of an eye. “I’ve suffered that betrayal from brother and sister before,” she said with a small, slight nod. “But I thank you for your hospitality. It is appreciated.”

“I don’t think any of us could call ourselves legionaries if we turned you away, ma’am,” Tern said. Then he turned to his subordinates, whose posture immediately stiffened when their commander’s gaze fell on them. “Rainy! Azure! Willow! Triumph! You four fly ahead to camp and inform the legate that we’ll be having guests this evening. Keep your eyes out for any more of those Remnant bastards. They’ll probably be sticking their nose someplace they shouldn’t once they learn that Commander Typhoon has blown in, and I don’t want anypony getting picked off by flying alone.”

The four named pegasi saluted and took to the skies, slipping off through the trees in a wedge formation and quickly flitting out of Sparrow’s sight. When they were gone, Tern shifted his attention to the rest of his company. “Vortex, Tailwind, you two up front. Tempo, Shellack, you two take the rear. Whorl, you’re in the sky. I don’t want to get jumped on the walk home. I’ll escort the Commander and her companion, and then we’ll all sit around the fire and share ale and stories.”

When the rest of his company dispersed on their assignments, Tern turned his attention back to the two mares and gestured down the road. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll have us safe and sound in Camp Stratopolis in an hour.”

The walk to Camp Stratopolis was peaceful and quiet, despite (or perhaps because of) Centurion Tern’s precautions, though it certainly hadn’t put Sparrow at ease. Walking along a trodden path under the thick canopy of trees, knowing that another company of pegasi could crash through them without any warning like before, kept the young unicorn on edge. But Sparrow noticed Typhoon’s sweeping gaze constantly scrutinizing their surroundings as they walked, and neither she nor Tern nor any of Tern’s subordinates seemed alarmed or brought their party to a sudden stop.

Perhaps she would have felt better had conversation followed them between the trees, but there was little to be had. As much as she wanted to gush to Typhoon, to ask her what it was like to live in Everfree and command Equestria’s military, to grow up and serve with the legacy of her father, the Commander Hurricane, on her shoulders, it was abundantly clear even through her excitement that the old mare would not discuss it further. Typhoon hardly looked Sparrow’s way, and whenever Sparrow had dared to try and catch the soldier’s attention to start a conversation, Typhoon would frown at her and the words would die on her lips. Even Centurion Tern had given up on trying to engage Typhoon in conversation when the soldier had made it clear that she was not interested in discussing the events that led to the dissolution of the Legion, shrouded in mystery as they were to Sparrow, and even in some part to Tern.

When their hour march had about ended, Sparrow nearly jumped out of her coat when several more pegasi appeared through the trees, dropping lightly to their hooves around her. Even Typhoon flinched at the sudden and quiet appearance of more armored figures, though Centurion Tern hardly moved. It took Sparrow only a second to recognize Whorl among their number, and when the soldiers gave Tern a salute—and wide-eyed stares to Typhoon—she realized they must have been sentries flagged down to greet them before entering the camp.

“Legate Winds is waiting for you at his tent, sir” one of the sentries said, and when Tern nodded, the sentry turned to Typhoon and stood straight as a statue, his wings opening in a perfect salute. “Ma’am… it’s an honor to have you among us.”

Typhoon paused, her eyes flitting over the stallion’s posture. “You’re a little young to have served in the Legion,” she noted, and after making that observation, Sparrow scrutinized him a little closer. His limbs were lanky but strong, a small tuft of blue hair sprouting from his chin akin to a youthful goatee. Sparrow pegged his age at around nineteen or twenty, and realized what Typhoon had.

“I… wanted to join when I was a colt, ma’am,” the sentry said. “I was too young, of course. The Legion dissolved on my fifteenth birthday. Some gift that was. But the queen is incompetent and I had heard rumors that it still survived out on the frontier, beyond Everfree’s influence…” His words trailed off with a shrug.

Centurion Tern used the moment to interject. “Legate Winds knows what he’s fighting for, what the Legion stood for. Many pegasi have flocked to his aquila in the years since the Legion was dissolved. From his standard, the legacy of Cirra, everything that the pegasi once stood for, will live on.”

Typhoon regarded that sentiment for a moment, and her gaze flitted to Sparrow before jumping back to Tern. “I had made some effort to open the Legion to unicorns and earth ponies, too, during my term as commander,” she observed. “Yet you only mention pegasi. Why is that?”

To that, Tern simply shrugged. “The Royal Guard was founded by a unicorn and conscripted earth ponies to fight the spiders in the tunnels. That, if anything, is their Legion, and that’s what they have proven loyal to.” Then he looked over his shoulder, far through the trees. “The traitors in Dry Fens welcome them, though. Bandits and criminals care not what dirty friends they bring to the table so long as they share greed and malice in their hearts.”

“We heard from Triumph that you and the traitors skirmished before the Commander put an end to the fighting,” the sentry said. “I’m sure it was a sight to behold, but the Legate also wants to hear your report. He wants to wrap this business up, the sooner the better.”

“He’ll have good news on that, then,” Tern said, and relief flashed over the faces of the sentries. “But the call is his alone to make. Plus, the Commander’s arrival will certainly change some things.”

Typhoon’s wings twitched, and though Sparrow thought the old soldier wanted to argue that point, she only let out a clipped “We’ll see.” Then she pointedly fixed her attention on Tern. “If your legate wants to hear from you, you shouldn’t keep him waiting.”

Tern nodded and waved his wing at the sentries, who all backed a step away and saluted. “I’m sure it’s you he’s most interested in hearing from, ma’am. But you’re right. We’re almost at camp.” He whistled once through his feathers, and the rest of his company fell in rank behind him while the sentries took the lead, leaving Sparrow feeling pointedly the odd unicorn out in a flock of pegasi. “Best not to keep him waiting, then.”

2-5

Unlike its namesake, Camp Stratopolis was not a magnificent sky camp perched atop the clouds in the bright blue of the sky. Truth be told, the only reason it may have qualified for its name was for the nostalgia of its pegasus protectors. Clinging to whatever shreds of their Cirran history they had left in the face of an Equestria that had tried to forget it, and them, the name may have simply served as a defiant scream into the closing chapters of Cirra’s history. It was certainly not grand, nor impressive, nor particularly impregnable to warrant such a name, at least to other ponies.

But to Sparrow, those flaws made little difference.

A few minutes more of walking had taken them to a clearing in the forest where the trees grew sparse on a patch of flat and stony ground that had interrupted the pliable terrain of the forest. As they passed by scores of fallen trees, remembered only by the broad stumps they had left behind, Sparrow’s eyes fell onto a multitude of canvas tents arranged into neat rows behind wooden palisades, with plumes of wispy gray smoke rising from dozens of campfires and joining into one great cloud above the camp. Soldiers stood watch on simple wooden towers overlooking the palisades, soldiers trained on a bare clearing outside of the camp, and soldiers circled the skies above it, coming or going from their assignments. High above the camp, several small clouds seemed to hold still in the sky, and though she couldn’t see from down below, Sparrow was certain that there were teams of pegasi perched on each, surveying the surrounding countryside for any approaching threats.

Sparrow recognized this all immediately; it was a Legion field camp, and the memory of one was seared into her mind, never to be forgotten.

It was a sight that Typhoon, once Commander of the entire Equestrian Legion, was deeply familiar with as well, and she surprisingly came to a stop as her eyes settled on it. Her sudden movement (or rather, lack thereof) caused the rest of the ponies around her to pause, and even Centurion Tern cocked his head at her as her eyes slowly meandered over the sights and her ears twitched at the sounds. “Ma’am?”

Typhoon blinked once, twice, then gave her head a rough shake and resumed marching. “Sorry,” came her apology, and a shiver ran down her spine and flicked her tail. “It’s just been a while. I didn’t think I’d see one of these again.”

“Ah.” Tern offered her an apologetic smile and waved over the camp with his wing. “I’m sorry we weren’t able to make it more magnificent for you, then. Things being what they are, we had to settle for something rough in the woods.”

“I would have thought it’d be in the sky,” Sparrow noted. “Especially since you said that the other legionaries have earth pony and unicorn allies?”

“The Legion only used sky camps for traveling armies,” Tern said, and his eyes fell on Typhoon’s metal hoof, which seemed to emit more frost at the comment. “Commander’s orders.”

“I wasn’t going to lose another legion like that again,” Typhoon grimly muttered.

Tern nodded, then turned back to Sparrow. “Our enemies include other pegasi. You know our magic can disperse clouds as easily as it can shape and move them? An attack on a sky camp by another army of pegasi, or even a skilled raiding party, would disperse the entire thing in minutes and our supplies would be scattered across the countryside. It’s safer for the legion’s cohesion to keep our camp and supplies on the ground while we campaign. It opens us to attack by our ground bound cousins, but…” He merely shrugged. “I have yet to meet an earth pony or unicorn that could fight a legionary sword to sword and win.”

“When I’m done training under Typhoon, that’ll be different,” Sparrow claimed.

That statement was met with a scoff from the centurion. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, filly,” he chastised her, and even the rest of the soldiers around her snickered. Heat burning in her cheeks, Sparrow frowned and ducked her head.

Typhoon’s ear flicked at their laughter, and she abruptly changed the topic by resuming her march forward and forcing everypony else to keep up with her. “How long have you been encamped here?” she asked, her eyes traveling over the defensive fortifications and woodwork.

“At least a month, perhaps two by now,” Tern said with a weary sigh, and even some of the legionaries around him quietly groused to themselves at the reminder of how long they’d been bogged down in one spot. “The traitors in Dry Fens fortified the town. They’ve been using it as a base of operations to project power all over the frontier. Rooting them out has proven difficult and costly, so Legate Winds has tried to starve them out.”

“This legion doesn’t seem large enough to starve out a town,” Typhoon noted. “How many are you?”

“Five thousand… on paper, at least.”

“So perhaps half that,” the old soldier concluded, and when Tern gave her a reluctant nod, she shook her head. “I assume the other side has similar numbers, ruling out an assault. So you’re trying to intercept their foraging teams and prevent them from gathering supplies.”

“I see your eye for strategy is still as sharp as ever, ma’am,” Tern said with a small laugh.

“And your legate’s seems lacking.” Her scathing mark elicited grumbles from the other soldiers, and the legionary continued. “You cannot make them submit from thirst; a captured cloud will provide enough water for a town for a week, and you can’t hope to bust all of them in the sky. And if the town was well stocked, they could live off of that for some time, while an army in the field depletes the countryside.” Her expression shifted to one of concern and she turned to Tern with an arching eyebrow. “Where do you get your supplies?”

Tern shrugged in nonchalance. “As you said it, ma’am. We’ve had to live off the land. There’s a stream in the forest we use for water, plus the clouds if necessary. There’s some game in the woods, though not much. But the farmers around the neighboring towns are happy to contribute some provisions if it means we take Dry Fens.”

“Their attitudes have almost surely changed by now, even if they don’t show it. A legion in the field is just as hungry as an army of bandits, especially if it stays in one place long.”

“Maybe you and the legate can figure out a plan to kick them out of town,” Sparrow interjected. “If they can’t starve them out, then they have to force them out.”

“It would be costly, but it’s probably our best bet at keeping the legion together,” Tern agreed. “We just can’t leave empty-hooved. Not after all this time and fighting. Morale wouldn’t recover.”

Typhoon’s jaw worked side to side, and her ear flicked through the hole in her helmet. “The fighting needs to stop, one way or another,” the old soldier finally said. “That much I can agree on. Equestria can’t take this lawlessness on the frontier.”

“I’m surprised you still care about Equestria after what it did to you,” Tern observed, though he faltered under the sharp look Typhoon threw his way.

“My father founded Equestria,” she snapped at him. “Just because it killed Cirra doesn’t mean I want it to die too.”

A silence settled over the group following Typhoon’s retort, and the group entered the camp proper through the gap in the palisade, passing by a couple of awed sentries who couldn’t help but stare as Typhoon walked past them. The only thing Sparrow heard above the drone and din of the camp was a muttered “Cirra isn’t dead,” by one of the legionaries surrounding them, barely audible under her breath.

Still, when their group entered the confines of the camp, Sparrow felt a similar sense of awe and déjà vu wash over her to what Typhoon must have felt upon seeing the camp from afar. Being this close to the sights and sounds of the camp, seeing the legionaries drilling with their weapons, cooking around campfires, and polishing their swords and armor transported her back in time to when she was ten and angels in armor had plucked her from the spiders’ burrow that had swallowed her home and her life. She had longed to see this sight again, and one day walk among it in armor of her own, and at the moment, she felt closer to that dream than ever before.

But as she looked around, she felt reality grating against nostalgia, that bright moment in her new lease on life that she had polished so much finally rubbing edges with the abrasive reality. The ground had been churned into a mess by thousands of hooves, and that dirt seemed to get everywhere—on the wooden stakes outlining the camp’s perimeter, on the canvas tents that housed the camp’s inhabitants, and on the weapons and barding of the camp’s defenders. The soldiers looked weary, and many were covered in scars, some old and some new, while more than a wingful had bandages on their limbs, their faces, their unarmored hides. Talk was muted, subdued, tired, and even the legionaries on their hooves moving about camp moved slowly and sluggishly. Sparrow understood why the soldiers escorting her and Typhoon seemed defeated when Tern had admitted they’d been encamped in Camp Stratopolis for a month or two; the constant toll of battle, of clashing with what was essentially another legion as equally trained as they were with the benefit of a defensive posture, was chipping away at the morale and resolve of its soldiers.

What she also noticed, however, was the way that Typhoon turned heads as she followed Tern through the camp. As rumor became reality, the legionaries of Legate Winds’ army perked their ears, stood up, and slowly started to follow the procession. Whispers spread throughout the camp, growing in volume and strength as more pegasi joined the throng, and it wasn’t long before cheering replaced those whispers, adulation directed at the aging, armored mare who represented everything the Legion once was.

What Typhoon thought of it all, she didn’t say, but it wasn’t too hard for Sparrow to tell what it was from the way her feathers seemed to bristle against her armor. What Sparrow couldn’t understand, however, was why Typhoon seemed so loath to embrace it all. Even she knew that if the old soldier wanted to, she could assert command over this legion and use it to police the frontier as she wished. So why, if given the offer, would she turn it down?

The group suddenly came to a stop, distracting Sparrow from her musings, and though she generally had a slight height advantage over the shorter pegasi with her lanky unicorn limbs, it took her some craning of her neck to see past the forest of red and black plumed helmets surrounding her. Approaching from the other direction to meet them was an older stallion with ghost-white wings and wispy strands of a gray mane poking out under his black-plumed helmet. His armor, glistening with the luster that only skysteel could hold, was trimmed with a golden edge, and etched into his pauldrons were three feathers kinked in the shape of chevrons. Sparrow recognized that armor, having seen much of it when she stayed in Legate Singing Sparrow’s camp years ago, and she knew right away who it was that stopped in front of Typhoon.

Legate Lost Winds’ salute was more than just a military salute; as he spread his wings flat with the ground, he also slightly lowered his head, as if suggesting a bow to royalty. Typhoon seemed to stiffen in response, caught off guard by the sudden show of respect, and doubly so when the other pegasi accompanying the legate mimicked the motion. Like a ripple, it seemed to spread throughout the pegasi gathered around them, until it seemed like the entire camp had bowed their heads in Typhoon’s direction.

Typhoon’s response was strained. “What are you doing?” she asked, and even she flinched back at how loud the question seemed to be in the reverent silence that had swept through the camp.

At that, the legate raised his head and smiled warmly at Typhoon. “Welcome home, Commander. We’ve waited for this day for a long time. I always hoped that you would one day find your way to us. Dreamed of it, even.”

The old soldier narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “If you’re asking me to take command, then I cannot. The Legion is no more.”

“Ante Legionem nihil erat, et nihl erit post Legionem,” Legate Winds said, and in a surprising show of wing dexterity, brushed the trailing edge of his feathers over the twisted feathers on his pauldron. “The Equestrian Legion is no more, but the Cirran Legion survives. Born anew, perhaps, but surviving and growing, shaped by hardship like the hammer tempers steel. Equestria may have forsaken our ancestry, but the memory of Cirra lives on within us. And what would Cirra be without its empress to rule it?”

2-6

“No.”

The single word had been a long time coming, as Typhoon had refrained from uttering it until she was in the legate’s camp and away from the crowd of soldiers, and Sparrow could tell the utterance had marinated in her distaste for the proposition laid in front of her. Now, isolated in Legate Winds’ tent with only Centurion Tern joining them, Sparrow could see just how sharp Typhoon’s loathing over the idea of becoming an empress was, from the scowl on her weathered and whitening muzzle to the way her ruby red eyes seemed to be hollowing out the stallion sat across from her.

The emphatic one-word response was potent enough to make even the legate flinch. “Why not?” he asked her, leaning over the simple wooden table and the crude map of the surrounding countryside on it as he tried to puzzle out the surprising refusal. “It’s yours to claim.”

“It is not,” Typhoon rebutted, and she placed her hooves on the table, tipping the haphazardly assembled wooden platform in her direction. “The title was dissolved by my father when he saved our people from the griffons. There hasn’t been an emperor of Cirra in sixty years.”

Tern, who stood off to the side of his legate, carefully cleared his voice. “By technicality, ma’am, your brother—”

“Do not,” Typhoon starkly warned the centurion, and the stallion’s mouth snapped shut as he found an interesting spot on the ground to look at. Sparrow blinked, taken aback by Typhoon’s cold response, and when the old soldier shifted her metal hoof on the table Sparrow was surprised to see a matching hoofprint made of ice clinging to the wood before the day’s heat began to melt it.

Lost Winds spared Tern a look, then turned back to Typhoon. “You are right that the title has not been used for quite some time, Typhoon,” the legate said. “It was buried when our people were desperate and we had to rely on the generosity of the earth pony and unicorn tribes for survival after fleeing the griffons. I believe Hurricane claimed that it was because Cirra was weak and not deserving of such a title. But it was always there, ready to be restored once Cirra itself was restored.”

The table creaked as Winds shifted his weight over it, and the little pool of ice melt that had started to accumulate from Typhoon’s hoofprint began to meander toward the middle of the wooden boards. “Cirra as a country stopped existing when my father helped found Equestria,” Typhoon said. “It has been gone for years. Though we pegasi carried its legacy in our hearts and flew its flags, they never supplanted my—or my father’s, for that matter—devotion to Equestria.”

“And what devotion did Equestria show us in return, Commander?” Legate Winds countered, and Sparrow was surprised to hear a small bite of steel creep into his voice. “When the spiders started sinking cities, the Queen publicly questioned the Legion’s commitment to fighting back. She painted our decision to focus on rescuing survivors and clearing barrows to save who we could before they were eaten as us being complacent in letting attacks continue. She purposefully turned the public against us so she could funnel more recruits into the Royal Guard, her private army that answered only to her.” By the end of it, Winds’ composure had cracked enough to reveal his teeth through the frustration of his parted lips. “Commander Hurricane founded Equestria on the understanding that Cirra would survive in the embodiment of our duty to protect it. Platinum used the deaths of thousands at the claws of the spiders as an excuse to wipe out that legacy and make her power absolute.”

The little trail of water meandered this way and that across the table, slowly pooling around a notch in one of the boards by Lost Winds’ hoof. Typhoon frowned at it, her tail flicking once and brushing across the dirt floor of the legate’s tent, and the wood creaked as she shifted her weight. “Cirra’s duty was to keep Equestria safe, yes,” she agreed. “But all we could do against the spiders was treat the symptoms, not cure the scourge. The Royal Guard could do that with its vanguards of earth ponies strong enough to wrestle the monsters one on one and its mage companies that could tear through barrows with ease. And when all was said and done, I knew that keeping the Legion around, depleted and dissatisfied as it was, only invited more danger for Equestria.” She sighed, deeply and heavily. “I saw it happen once before. When an army thinks the state is against it, that the politicians are conspiring in the shadows to cast them aside and replace them with inept loyalists, a lot of ponies die. I couldn’t let that happen to Equestria. To my father’s creation.”

“If I may, ma’am,” Centurion Tern chimed in, and Typhoon turned an ear in his direction and gave him a sideways look. “What part of your father’s Equestria remains? It’s no longer a triumvirate, an equal partnership between pegasus, earth pony, and unicorn. When you disbanded the Legion and resigned, Platinum replaced you with Gray Rain. He may be the late Iron Rain’s son, but he is no true Cirran. He’s the Queen’s puppet more than anything. Even Chancellor Puddinghead resigned in protest, and made it clear to Equestria that he was taking the earth pony seat at the triumvirate with him. Oaf that he was, he was still popular and had been their chancellor for many decades. No earth pony would dare take his place, even if Platinum offered it to them on a silver platter.” He shook his head. “Equestria is a unicorn’s country now. And the sooner they wipe away our history, the sooner the pegasi will accept that.”

Lost Winds mused on that, and then he looked aside—not to Typhoon, but to Sparrow, and even though his words remained directed at the old soldier across from him, his eyes made Sparrow blink and her ears perk forward. “Do you know why the unicorns called their nation the Diamond Kingdoms before they joined Equestria, ma’am?”

“My study of history was limited to Cirra and the art of war,” Typhoon admitted. “There was little room for unicorn dynasties.”

“Fair enough,” the legate said with a shrug of his wings. “The answer is as simple as it sounds, though the history is convoluted and full of backstabbing and political skullduggery. There were once many unicorn kingdoms and princely states, but one by one, cunning kings and queens folded them together into one nation. Histories erased, dynasties uprooted and destroyed, legacies all entwined together under that plural. Kingdoms. A collection of equals, crystallized and bound together in an unbreakable bond. But in the end, there were no equals there, just one absolute monarch, and a collection of lesser houses that played along under the pretense that they were just as important as the one sitting on the throne.” His gaze slid off of Sparrow and back to Typhoon. “Does that sound familiar to you, ma’am?”

“You’re imagining something that isn’t there, legate,” Typhoon insisted. “And frankly, talk like this only proves my point. It was better for Equestria to let the Legion die, and Cirra along with it.”

“Can you say that the world outside this tent is better without the Legion, ma’am?” Lost Winds asked her, and he gestured with his ghostly wing toward the canvas walls of the tent. “Equestria is a broken nation that can only truly claim control over Everfree and Platinum’s Landing. The earth pony merchant league along the coast is seeing a resurgence in autonomy and power, and the unicorn nobles who ostensibly serve the crown of their queen now rule their fiefs as they see fit without the Legion to remind them of the price of undermining Equestria for their own gain. And the wilderness, the frontier that the Legion once policed and pacified, is lawless and dangerous. If the Royal Guard was to prove itself fit to be our replacements as keepers of the peace and not merely the queen’s personal army, they have failed. It is every pony for themselves out here. We’re the only ones trying to bring some sense of order back to the wilderness.”

Sparrow found her eyes drifting down to the dripping of water as it slithered through a crack between the table’s boards and fell to the dirt ground below it, and her ears twitched when the silence in Typhoon’s lack of a response was interrupted by the groaning of wood. “I know you don’t want to see it because Queen Platinum is your sister, ma’am,” the legate said as he took his weight off the table between them. “But she broke Equestria when she broke the agreement it was founded on. Whatever her reasoning, she broke it when she tried to take the responsibility to protect the country away from you, and away from the Legion. Now, she’s paying the price for her games, and finding out that the army she has now is nothing compared to the army she had then. It is an army that could kill spiders, but not bandits and rebellious nobleponies.”

Centurion Tern nodded in agreement. “If we can’t do our job and protect the ponies on the frontier as a part of Equestria, then it’s our responsibility to do it apart from Equestria. We need to rebuild and reorganize the Legion out here. Since we can’t do that in Equestria anymore, it only makes sense to resurrect the polity the Legion was built to serve. A reborn Cirra will protect the ponies of the frontier far better than Equestria ever could. And without the infighting of unicorn politics to tear it down from within, it will be a better tribute to Hurricane’s memory than the twisted mockery your sister has turned it into ever will.”

Typhoon worked her jaw from side to side, and her wings fidgeted at her sides, brushing over the armor forged for her in Boiling Springs. In a sense, Sparrow couldn’t help but notice how different she seemed standing across from Legate Winds; where the legate wore skysteel armor in the Cirran fashion and took every opportunity to champion the memory of an empire long dead, Typhoon, the daughter of its last emperor, insisted on separating herself from its history, and wore a motley assortment of ground steel armor that bore resemblance to nothing. To Sparrow, it seemed like the past was looking to the future, while the future looked back to the past.

But she had been a part of both. She was a unicorn, not a pegasus, but it was not the Royal Guard that had saved her life. That, she owed squarely to the Legion, and the steadfast discipline and proud traditions of its soldiers. When the spiders sunk her village and killed her parents, it was angels on wings who pulled her out of the rubble, not ponies in gold armor.

“If there was… one thing that we felt like we could count on out here, it was the Legion,” Sparrow spoke up, and though her resolve to speak faltered when the three pegasi all turned to her, she swallowed hard and continued. “The spiders might have been different, but everything else… the monsters and bandits and all that… it kept us safe.” Her eyes drifted to Typhoon, blue and pink against red. “You kept us safe. And it’s been… well, it’s worse now that the Legion’s gone.”

After a moment, Typhoon shook her head. “Things will get better,” she said, and then she turned back to the legate and bowed ever so slightly. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe Equestria is broken beyond repair. Maybe it would be better if the tribes separated again and Cirra was reborn. Maybe I made a terrible mistake when I ordered the Legion disbanded. But I didn’t want to see bloodshed between those who could separate being a Cirran from being a pegasus, and those who couldn’t. And if splitting Equestria apart means our grandchildren will spill each other’s blood when Everfree wants to reclaim its right to rule today’s frontier from tomorrow’s Cirra, then I can’t become a part of that either.”

She sighed, and the strict military posture Sparrow was so used to seeing from the old mare, even as she lay sleeping in their nightly camps along the road, seemed to sag with it. The old mare looked down at her hooves for a moment, and when whatever thoughts in her head had passed, her tail swished and she turned around. “I’m sorry,” she muttered, and extending a wing, she parted the tent flap and disappeared into the camp beyond.

2-7

Though Sparrow emerged into the fading daylight only seconds after Typhoon, the aging mare was already gone by the time her eyes adjusted to the light, carried away on her strong, soldierly wings. But, given that she was the only unicorn in a camp of thousands of pegasi who didn’t see her as an equal to be respected, the young mare with the mismatched eyes sighed and picked a direction to wander at random, hoping that maybe she could follow the excited whisperings of the legionaries to track down their idol. The camp buzzed with energy and excitement, and as the meal hour drew near, that buzz only redoubled into an excited frenzy as the legionaries of Legate Winds’ legion gossiped over Typhoon’s sudden appearance amongst their ranks like a class of excited schoolfillies.

It was only after an hour of frustrating and fruitless searching that Sparrow realized she was looking in the wrong place to begin with. Given Typhoon’s reaction to Winds and Tern showering her with praise and making their pitch to her to become the empress of a Cirra reborn, the last place the old and weary soldier would want to be was in camp, surrounded by the adulations of her adoring fans. It did make Sparrow a little self-conscious to realize how she was included in that group, and she did wilt a bit at the edge of the legion’s camp when she wondered whether Typhoon would spurn her now that she knew the old soldier’s history. Would Typhoon still let her squire for her now that the cat was out of the bag, or would she fly off and leave her behind?

That fear clawed at Sparrow’s stomach as she started nosing her way through the trees. Hopefully Typhoon hadn’t already flown away and abandoned her entirely. A sour part of Sparrow’s mind grumbled at another part that reminded her that, if worse came to worst, Boiling Springs was only a few days’ hike back the way she came.

But, whether by luck or something else, Sparrow did ultimately find the old soldier leaning up against a tree quietly eating her trail rations, staring out at nothing in particular through the trees that surrounded her. Typhoon’s ear flicked back in Sparrow’s direction as soon as she heard the soft fall of the unicorn’s hooves on the ground, and she swallowed the bite of her meal before asking without turning around, “Did they not feed you?”

“I didn’t ask,” Sparrow ultimately said with a shrug, not that Typhoon saw it, and she walked forward to sit down at the base of a tree facing the legionary. “I wanted to know where you flew off to.”

Typhoon had already put another piece of dried flowers and bread in her muzzle, though she didn’t bother waiting to respond. “Why?” she asked around the mouthful of meal. “I’m your trainer, not your chaperone.”

“Yeah, well let’s just say that being the only mare with less than six limbs and a stick on her head was making me feel like the odd one out.” Sparrow sighed and frowned. “They won’t respect me. I’m just a stupid filly playing soldier to them. They probably only let me into their camp because I was with you.”

After a moment, Typhoon shrugged. “Respect has to be earned,” she said. “The respect of the Legion is hard to earn.”

“Can’t earn it if I don’t get the chance,” Sparrow grumbled. Her horn flickered to life and she started rummaging through her bags for her own set of rations to have her meager dinner alongside Typhoon, and as her magic unwrapped some of her bread, she hesitantly parted her lips. “Typhoon?”

“Hm.”

“What happened with your brother?”

The older mare paused at the question, her mouth open as Sparrow interrupted her from taking a bite of her dinner. She closed her jaw and her lips pressed together into a thin line for several seconds, and her ruby red eyes scanned across the dirt and the blades of grass on the ground. “How much do you know about my dad—Hurricane’s family?” she asked, answering the question by posing another to the young mare sitting across from her.

“Apparently nothing, if I didn’t even know you were his daughter when you told me your name,” Sparrow groused. “I know that one of his foals was the Commander of the Equestrian Legion, which I just learned is you, and that another is Queen Platinum the Third. And now I know that he had a third foal that I never heard about before?”

Typhoon slowly nodded, and she shifted to a more comfortable position against the tree. “Nopony in the Legion liked to talk about him. Nor really anypony in Equestria, for that matter. Maybe if your parents were unicorns, then you would have heard about him.” As Sparrow questioningly cocked her head, Typhoon subconsciously gave her wings a little flutter and pressed her forehooves together. “When our father was off in search of a new home to escape the eternal winter, there was a group of discontented legates and praetorians who felt that it would be better to fly back across the sea and fight the griffons for our old homelands rather than trying to find yet another safe haven to the west. But they needed somepony with a claim to the title of Emperor to get the rest of the pegasi to fall in line, and with Hurricane gone, they went to his son.”

“And he accepted?” Sparrow asked, and when Typhoon slowly nodded in affirmation, she sharply frowned. “But Hurricane wasn’t dead. Why would he do that if your dad was still alive?”

“Because Cyclone was a teenaged colt with a fiery temper who grew up with dreams of glory to match the accomplishments of our father,” Typhoon bitterly remarked. “Remember, he and I were born and raised shortly after Hurricane led what was left of the Cirran Empire across the sea to flee from the griffons. Hurricane was surrounded by legacy and reverence, so much so that he always felt smothered by it. But to us, it was something we measured ourselves by. We wanted to be as great as our father, if not better, to live up to his name.” She shook her head, and when she traced her hoof across the ground, it left a thin line of ice where the metal touched the dirt. “When the legates made promises of glory to Cyclone if he picked up the title of Emperor, he accepted without hesitation. And I will admit, if they had come to me instead, I would have given it serious consideration. I might even have accepted as well. I don’t know.”

Ice burst out from under the old soldier’s hoof, startling Sparrow and seemingly even surprising Typhoon, who immediately stomped it into the dirt. “The point is,” she said, and this time her eyes locked with the young unicorn’s, “Cyclone betrayed Cirra, our parents, and me because somepony poisoned him with that title. He arranged a trap to get me out of the picture, started a civil war, and invaded the Diamond Kingdoms when trying to get them to bow to Cirra to make up his armies to fight the griffons. It only stopped because our father happened to return from his search just as the fighting began to escalate and there were enough soldiers loyal to him to stomp it out. When the dust settled, the unicorn king was dead, our mother was slain, Cyclone was forced into exile… and captivity had made me a different mare.”

The cold, shivering silence of that icy and ominous statement seemed to sap the warmth out of the air, and Sparrow felt a shiver run down her spine. “I… guess I can see why you didn’t want the centurion to talk about that.”

Typhoon curtly nodded, and after a moment, she shifted her attention back to her hooves and her evening meal. “I lost my mother and my brother because somepony tried to summon the specter of a dead empire with that title. Countless ponies lost their lives. And now I see it happening again, only the legates this time want me to be their empress, not my brother.”

“But you’re not a filly anymore,” Sparrow countered, and she was met by the raising of one of Typhoon’s eyebrows. “You learned how to lead, right? You were the Commander of the Legion for years. You’re older than both the centurion and the legate. They wouldn’t be able to manipulate you into doing something bad.”

“If I took that title then there would be no going back,” Typhoon said, and a sharp frown creased her muzzle. “Equestria would be broken forever. The pegasi would abandon it in favor of flying behind a flag of soldiers and war. And what happens when Everfree stabilizes and looks to bring the frontier back under its control, only to find a nation of warriors on its border idolizing the militarism of Cirra?”

Sparrow winced at the question, because she knew the answer even if she didn’t want to believe it. “If you were the one in charge of it, then you could find a way to make things work.”

“I am nearly sixty years old,” Typhoon plainly stated. “I have pushed my body to its limits for most of my life and suffered painful injuries that I still bear the scars from. I don’t know how much longer I have left, but I make no delusions that I will live long enough to die surrounded by great grandfoals.” She let out a hollow sigh and fanned one of her wings, her eyes idly looking over the crooked and weathered vanes of her aging feathers. “I don’t know how long the turmoil in Everfree will last. It might outlast me before the queen gets things back under control. And if it does, I couldn’t guarantee that whoever succeeded me as empress of a reborn Cirra would be willing to reintegrate with Equestria. Once the genie is out of the bottle, she is not so easily put back in.”

The young unicorn looked down at her meal and sucked on her lower lip as she thought on that. She knew that Typhoon was right; if the daughter of Commander Hurricane gave her name and blessing to the idea to revive Cirra, could Equestria ever peacefully reclaim the frontier? Would the Cirran Legion, no longer loyal to Equestria and the unicorn who ruled it, willingly submit themselves to the country that had dissolved them after the war with the spiders? How red would the rivers run?

But Sparrow did know one thing, and that was that the rivers were hardly clear today. Bandits and monsters prowled where the Legion once kept the frontier safe and under control, and now the remnants of its proud legacy bled themselves on each other’s blades and devastated the land around them. Sparrow didn’t know much about war or politics or the oft repeated mistakes of history, but she did know death. The War of Silk may have ended, but the killing never stopped.

“Then what are you going to do now?” Sparrow asked her. When Typhoon gave her a questioning tilt of her head, the unicorn jumped to her hooves. “We have to do something, Typhoon! They’re killing each other out here. Who knows how much worse it is somewhere else? Dry Fens is just one town in the middle of nowhere, but what if war came to Boiling Springs? The guards there were already scared of bandit legions attacking it, but they’re no match for them! They’d be slaughtered!”

“What do you expect me to do?” Typhoon asked her, and she tucked away the remnants of her own meal as she stood up to meet Sparrow eye to eye. “I am one mare, and even if you were just as good of a soldier as I am, that makes two of us against thousands. Whatever is going on here isn’t our fight.”

“But innocent ponies are dying because of it!” Sparrow protested. “The Legion was supposed to protect ponies! It might be gone, but that doesn’t mean we let ponies die! We owe it to them to do something!”

“Getting involved in the fighting isn’t going to stop that,” Typhoon countered. “You can’t stop bloodshed by shedding more blood. Thinking like that is going to get you killed.”

“Then what can we do?” The unicorn stomped her hoof in frustration, and she momentarily bared her teeth as her question ended in an exasperated growl in the back of her throat. “We can’t just leave without doing anything! Who knows how much longer these two legions will be fighting! Who knows how many more ponies are going to die!” Then, under her breath, she muttered, “I thought you were supposed to help ponies.”

Yet Typhoon’s sharp ears heard it, and anger flashed over her face—but only for a brief moment. Almost as soon as it appeared, it was replaced with a weary, defeated sigh. “I thought so, too,” Typhoon murmured back, and she lowered her head and let her wings droop ever so slightly. “That’s why I disbanded the Legion. That’s why I left Everfree. After everything that had happened, I thought that was the last thing I could do to help ponies. But I may have only made things worse.”

“Then let’s make them better, okay? Let’s fix it,” Sparrow urged her. “Even I know that you can’t bring peace back to the frontier with a wave of your wing, but we can at least save one town. We can work with Lost’s legion and save Dry Fens. Maybe we can even get the legionaries who took it over to see reason!”

“What do you mean, ‘reason’?” Typhoon asked her. “They’ve gone from soldiers to looters. They have no discipline left.”

“But how much you wanna bet that word’s already spread around Dry Fens that Commander Typhoon was spotted nearby?” Sparrow pointed back in the direction of Camp Stratopolis. “The pegasi in there probably aren’t the only ones that still respect you. If there’s one mare in the world who could put a stop to this without lifting her sword, it’s you! At the very least, we have to try!”

Typhoon rubbed the crest of her wing against her muzzle and looked away, her eyes studying something off in the distance as her mind wandered in its own thoughts. After a few silent moments, she sighed and gave her wings a fidgety flutter. “I… you might be right,” she finally admitted. “At the very least, the longer the standoff with Dry Fens goes, the weaker Winds’ legion is going to become. It’s already in a sorry shape.”

Sparrow felt excitement rising in her chest as she hammered home her plea. “You could take this legion and set it up to do something good for the frontier!” she exclaimed. “Finally get some law and order back here! Not as the Cirran Legion or the Equestrian Legion, but Typhoon’s Legion!”

The old soldier shot Sparrow a dirty look. “I can’t stay around and lead a legion again,” she told her. “I need to keep going west. But if I can at least leave something in a better state than how I found it, leave something good behind me…”

Her words trailed off, and with a slight shake of her head, she angled back toward the direction of the camp. “I’ll need to think about it more. I can’t give Winds and Tern what they want, but I’ll talk with them and see if I can give them what they need.” She started to walk, and after a moment, looked back over her shoulder and beckoned for Sparrow to follow her. “In the meantime, let’s get some warm food. If we’re going to be staying here for a little bit, we might as well get to know the soldiers.”

The thought of warm food, and the prospect of getting to speak with more legionaries like a fellow soldier, quickened Sparrow’s steps, and soon she cantered along at Typhoon’s side.

“Yes, ma’am!”

Author's Note

December was a bit of a wild month for me so I wasn't able to make some progress on this for the longest time, but we're back now. Let's keep the ball rolling, shall we?

2-8

“Unicorn! You’re falling behind! Keep up, or we’re going to leave you out here!”

Sparrow wanted to shout something back at the pegasus in armor flying overhead, preferably something rude and snappy, but it was already enough of a hassle just trying to get air into her burning lungs. Sweat poured down her coat, her hooves felt like they were going to fall off, and it was all she could do to not froth at the mouth as she sucked wind and sputtered while running nearly full gallop under the morning sun. And to make matters worse, the colorful tails and wings of the pegasi galloping out in front of her were pulling away, disappearing behind a wall of mud clods thrown up by their hooves on the still-damp ground.

Of course, everything was exacerbated by Centurion Tern as his shadow flitted across Sparrow’s face, leisurely gliding along above her and sometimes buffeting her with the downwash from his wings. “Those recruits are wearing armor that weighs more than you, and they’re leaving you in the dust!” he taunted her, and when her mismatched eyes flicked up to him, she swore she could see a hint of a contemptuous smirk curving his muzzle under his stern, soldierly expression. “You don’t pick up the pace and there won’t be any breakfast left for you! I know gruel isn’t much to your refined unicorn palate, but hot gruel’s better than cold!”

Gritting her teeth, Sparrow summoned all of her willpower to resist snapping back at the centurion… but it hardly proved enough. Her anger got the better of her, and she speared the centurion with a glare. “I’ve… eaten… worse… than… that!” she forced out between panting breaths.

“That so?” Tern folded his wings against his sides, and before Sparrow realized he wasn’t going to open them again, he landed firmly on her back with all four hooves. The weight of his armor added to the impact, and Sparrow let out a startled yelp that turned into a choking sputter as she fell to the ground and buried her muzzle in the mud. As she pulled her head out of the dirt, coughing and retching, Tern landed in front of her and fixed her with a frown. “Consider that your breakfast then, unicorn. I’ll tell the cooks to not hold anything back for you since you’ve already eaten.” He spread his wings and jumped into the air, looking back at Sparrow only long enough to say, “Clean yourself up when you get back before we move to sparring. It’ll be hard to see how many times you hit the dirt when you’re already covered in it before we even start.”

Then he disappeared, flying off ahead to harass the new tail of the pack of pegasi, his armor catching the morning sun one last time before swooping down low over the next hill. Sparrow only sat in the mud, occasionally spitting out wads of brown saliva, propped up on her shaking, aching forelegs while her heart raced from both exertion and anger. Ultimately, however, it was a good five minutes before her breathing slowed down enough that she could force herself back to her hooves and finish the morning run at a trot instead of a gallop.

“I fucking hate that bird shit fucking flying armored pigeon, stupid fucking piece of…”she grumbled to herself, her words trailing off into exasperated pants. It wasn’t the first time Tern had picked on her during the morning run, and as the only unicorn training with the rest of the raw replacements Lost Winds’ legion had picked up over the course of its campaign, she knew the torment was far from over. But at Typhoon’s insistence, the centurion had agreed to include Sparrow in his daily drills, and Sparrow, as much as she had long wished for it, was finally getting a taste of real legionary training.

Like her travels and sparring matches with Typhoon so far, though, Sparrow was starting to think she had really underestimated just how grueling becoming a legionary would be.

By the time the young unicorn had made her way back to Stratopolis, she’d managed to pick most of the mud and grime out of her mane and coat with her magic, and had quickly waded through a stream to wash the rest off (and slake her thirst in the process), so she hoped none of the other pegasi would see just how much she’d embarrassed herself on the run. Those hopes, of course, were immediately dashed when she saw one of her fellow trainees sitting in the shade outside of the camp, and he snickered as she approached. “You missed a spot, Sparrow,” the stallion said, hopping to his hooves. “Behind your horn.”

“Fuck’s sake…” Sparrow grumbled, and she felt around the base of her horn with her magic until she found the small clod of mud and grass and tossed it aside. “What did Tern say?”

“The centurion said that you wouldn’t be joining us for breakfast on account of you stopping for a snack on the run,” the stallion said, and as Sparrow walked into the camp, he matched her strides at her side. “I saved a little something for you, though. I figured if you at least have something in your stomach other than mud you’ll have a better chance at not getting laid out so easily during sparring later.”

“I’m glad you’re so confident in me… but thanks, Chinook.” She looked back over her shoulder, and at Chinook’s easy smile, she let a little bit of warmth loosen the taut line of her lips. “If we get matched up, can you take a fall for me? Just one?”

Chinook barked his youthful laugh and patted Sparrow on the back with his wing. “I would, but then I’d be the one who lost to the unicorn. You have to earn that win yourself.”

“But you’d be the first! Isn’t that something to be proud of?”

“Yeah. In your dreams. I’d make my Cirran ancestors so proud.”

Shadows flitted overhead as a century of pegasi took off and flew off toward the distance, their armored bodies glittering in the air and the blades on their wings rattling as they flapped. Sparrow paused to watch them fly, wondering if they would encounter any of the defenders of Dry Fens on their patrol. It was one of Typhoon’s changes in strategy after taking unofficial command of Legate Winds’ legion: fewer pegasi would go scouting, picketing, or foraging, and instead would conduct reconnaissance in force to make them less vulnerable to raiding attacks and skirmishes from the defenders in the town. The Legion’s once-commander wanted to have all the information she could work with to plan out her next move, and while she reduced the number of missions and the threat to Winds’ dwindling legion, it left plenty of time for the other centurions to rest their troops and train up green recruits.

It did leave Sparrow wondering when, if ever, she was going to get to do more than be picked on by the centurions during training.

At least it wasn’t all bad. Unlike the rest of the pegasi she trained with, Chinook had been kind to her, and though he teased her like the others, it was good-natured instead of mean-spirited. As she sat down at one of the wooden tables near the camp kitchen while Chinook fetched the little bit of food he’d set aside for her, she found herself studying him from afar. He was a lean pegasus with a sienna brown coat and a sky-blue mane that looked perpetually windswept, and his eyes were gray like stones. Two feathers along the leading edge of each wing were black like charcoal, and as he walked back to her with a bowl of lukewarm gruel in one wing, Sparrow noted the odd little limp in one of his hindlegs, maybe from an old injury that never healed properly. She had to wonder just how old; she was sixteen, and she doubted that Chinook was more than a year or two older.

The tin plate full of something that could only charitably be called oatmeal clanged on the table as Chinook dropped it and sat down across from Sparrow. “Might be a bit cold, but at least it’s something.”

“You didn’t heat it up for me?” Sparrow joked, snatching the bowl with her magic and using her telekinetic grasp to float the globs of the slurry straight to her lips. It definitely lacked for seasoning, and the cold, lumpy texture wasn’t appetizing, but it certainly beat mud.

“I don’t have a horn to hold it over the fire without burning myself,” Chinook shot back. “You’ll have to do that yourself.”

“Meh. It’s fine. Food’s food. I certainly didn’t have a whole lot of warm meals growing up on the streets.”

Chinook winced. “Sorry.”

“Why would you be? It’s not like you killed my parents. That’s the spiders’ fault.” Sparrow took another couple messy bites of her gruel, trying to force it down before the bland taste and texture sapped away her appetite. “How about you?”

The young stallion blinked. “What about me?”

“What happened to yours?” Sparrow asked him. At Chinook’s confused look, she cocked her head. “I mean, that’s why you’re out here, right? Unless Lost Winds is your dad or something, but he doesn’t exactly look like a family stallion.”

“Oh, no! No, no, they’re fine,” Chinook said, and he waved his hoof to assure her. “They’re living a quiet life in some small town on the southern frontier. That’s why I’m here, really. With things being as bad as they are without the Legion on the frontier, I needed to do something to help them.”

Sparrow smiled at that and slammed her hooves down on the table, making her bowl of gruel jump and Chinook flinch. “That’s what I keep trying to tell Typhoon! The Legion did so many good things for the ponies out here that there’s no wonder ponies are trying to bring it back! Ponies like you are proof that Equestria still needs the Legion, one way or another!”

Chinook abashedly rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m glad you think so highly of me, but I’m just trying to make my parents proud and make the frontier a safer place the only way I can think of.”

“Yeah,” Sparrow said, and then her smile flagged for a moment. “I get that.” She grabbed ahold of her bowl with her magic and lifted it up to her lips, covering her muzzle and her face for several seconds, then dropped it back to the table with a clatter. “So, were your parents legionaries or something?”

“They were,” Chinook said with a nod, and his eyes wandered back to his memories. “My mom was a soldier and my dad was a medic. They were part of Typhoon’s legion when she pacified the buffalo after they broke the treaty with Equestria.”

“Typhoon told me about that one,” Sparrow interjected. “The buffalo burned some kind of smoke and made them all lose their magic, then nearly killed them all. That’s how she lost her hoof.”

“That’s the one. Mom broke her ribs when she hit the ground. Like, all of them. At least that’s what she says. My dad found her and some other survivors and patched them up best he could.” He chuckled and added, “He must have been some medic to keep a mare without a rib cage from dying out there. Guess that’s why she married him to make sure he never left her sight in case she needed him again.”

“Lucky mare,” Sparrow said with a small laugh. “They fly with Typhoon on any other campaigns? Have any other crazy war stories?”

“Nah, nothing really interesting,” Chinook said with a shake of his head and a wave of his wing. “Obviously it took mom a while to get back into fighting shape. By then, all the treaties with the buffalo had been renegotiated and signed, so she and my dad were stationed at a fort near the old stampede grounds Equestria had opened up for settlers. The garrison was there to make sure the terms of the treaties were followed and to mediate any disputes between the buffalo tribes and the settlers. They got to know the buffalo fairly well over the years; that’s why I’ve got a buffalo name, actually.”

“Really?” Sparrow asked. “I thought your name was a little weird.”

“I could say the same thing about yours, Sparrow.”

Sparrow chuckled and glanced away. “Yeah, well, there’s a story behind that. I’ll have to tell it to you sometime.”

“I’d love to hear it,” Chinook said with a smile and a little flutter of his wings. “Though I guess since you asked me a bunch of questions, it’s only fair I get to ask you something in return.”

Sparrow’s eyebrow rose. “Yeah? Sure, ask away.”

“How did you get your flank mark?”

Sparrow blinked, the question catching her off guard. She looked down at her flank, shifting in her seat a little to get a better look at it. The blue silhouette of a bird seemed to glow in the morning sun, and in its pointy beak was a pink rose with long, sharp thorns. “That’s… uh, well, that story’s probably not very interesting.” Her tail swished as she settled back down and turned back toward Chinook. “You been staring at my flanks?”

“Only if you’re alright with it,” Chinook quipped. It was hard to see under his ruddy brown coat, but Sparrow was sure she thought she saw a bit of red on his cheeks.

Her coat, however, didn’t hide red as well, so she quickly looked away. “If you ask next time, then maybe.” She awkwardly coughed, curled her tail up over her lap, and stood on it with her forehooves to try and stop it from swishing. “Well, uh, flank mark… yeah. You know Boiling Springs?” When Chinook nodded, Sparrow shrugged. “Well, when I first blew into Boiling Springs a couple years back, I met another filly named Wren. She and I got along well enough, but we were both terrified of this other filly named Juniper. The three of us were all street foals, but Juniper thought Wren and I were encroaching on her territory up at the hot springs. She was a little older than me, so her magic was better than mine. She would shove Wren and I around—literally. And if you’re up at the hot springs, those rocks can be slippery. Falling’s dangerous. Well, maybe not for Wren since she had wings, but definitely for me. But those were some of the best places to try and get some money or some food, so it wasn’t like Wren or I were going to give that up, right?”

“So, I take it you and Wren decided to team up against Juniper?” Chinook posited.

“Kinda,” Sparrow said. “One night I found Juniper picking on Wren. She had pinned Wren down and was pulling her feathers out with her magic.” That statement made Chinook wince, and Sparrow shared his grimace. “Yeah. Nasty. But I’d had it up to here with her and I got involved. Juniper and I were like two cats fighting. There was a lot of biting and bucking in addition to the magic flying around. But when all the fighting got the attention of some of the town guard, Wren tried to distract the stallion that found us so we could run. When he cornered her, I tried to save her in turn, and when he turned and cornered me, well, Juniper broke a brick on his skull and we all ran out of there as fast as we could.”

Sparrow chuckled a little bit at the memory. “When the three of us were safe, I turned to Wren and Juniper and told them that we needed to stop fighting each other if we were going to survive in Boiling Springs. We’d have a better chance if we worked together. And, well, after everything that happened that night… Juniper agreed. She apologized to Wren, and soon after, the three of us were in business trying to rob the ponies who visited the springs to get by.” She looked down at her flank again and shrugged. “I didn’t even notice until a day or two went by that I suddenly had a picture on my butt. I wouldn’t think that getting in a street fight and teaming up with my bully would be my life’s purpose, but here I am.”

“It’s probably a little more abstract than that, but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t an interesting story at least,” Chinook said with a small chuckle. “Maybe it means you’re a peacemaker.”

“Maybe it means that I should be a birdwatcher and a gardener.” Sparrow shook her head and craned her neck to get a glimpse at the image on Chinook’s flanks. “You want to tell me what three curly lines going down a mountain means?”

“Maybe when you tell me how you got your pegasus name,” Chinook said, and with a grunt, he stood up and offered his hoof to Sparrow. “Come on, it’s almost time for drills. Wouldn’t want to give the centurion something new to punish you for, right?”

Sparrow took his hoof and stood up with a sigh. “Maybe he’ll run out of things if I just run through them all, right?”

“I wouldn’t count yourself so lucky.”

2-9

There wasn’t much to the training field in Camp Stratopolis; apart from some training dummies stuffed with dry grasses and leaves and a simple shack that held a few dozen blunt iron training swords, its only notable feature was the wide expanse of churned up mud. Thousands of pegasi had stomped and trampled what was once a small grassy clearing into a quagmire of brown muck through countless days of intense training. They had watered the ground with their sweat and sometimes their blood, but it was on that field where the raw recruits honed their skills into the disciplined killing machines the Legion was known for, and where veterans would keep their talents sharp when they weren’t putting them to use against their former comrades.

Unfortunately for Sparrow, she found herself becoming a little too familiar with that mud in the more up close and personal way.

But she was determined that today would be different. As she and Chinook left the camp behind to join the rest of the century of raw recruits on the field, the young unicorn was already running through a list of scenarios in her mind in an attempt to avoid embarrassing herself when it was her turn to fight in front of the pegasi. Though training with the other recruits wasn’t as difficult as her previous sparring sessions with Typhoon, the opponents she faced never held anything back, unlike the old mare’s measured and patient approach to training a novice. With Tern insisting that she learn how to fight like the other pegasi with sword in mouth to make the fights fair, Sparrow found herself constantly on the back hoof as she struggled to keep up with her nimble opponents as they danced around her with the use of their wings. And it didn’t help that Tern continued to find ways to pick on her by pairing her up against more skilled adversaries she was always certain to lose to. But this time would be different.

“You’ve got a little pep in your step today,” Chinook observed, a wry smile clinging to his muzzle. “Feeling good about your chances?”

“You bet,” Sparrow said, and her tail swished a few times with her confident strides. “I’ve got a new strategy I’m gonna try out.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“Not lose. I figure I’ll stick to that plan, see what happens.”

Chinook chuckled at that, and he lightly punched Sparrow’s shoulder with the crest of his wing. “Bold strategy. Think you can pull it off?”

Sparrow shrugged mid-stride. “I’ve got a lot of experience with losing, so I figure at this point I know what to watch out for. I just need to not do what made me lose the last few times and then I’ll win.”

Chinook snickered again, and Sparrow struggled to keep a straight face under her bravado. “Right, right. Of course. And what’re you gonna do if Tern makes you fight Drifter? He’s bigger and faster than you. I’m pretty sure if he flapped his wings he’d blow you away.”

Sparrow’s steps faltered as she imagined that scenario, and her gaze fell on the stallion in question out ahead of them as he stood among several of the other recruits gathered about the field. Though she had never spoken with the stallion before, she and the rest of the recruits knew he was the best of their number. Large for a pegasus (though according to Typhoon, not as large as another pegasus she knew), Drifter had lived up to his name and blown into Stratopolis a month back to join with Legate Winds’ legion. According to Chinook, Drifter used to be what the pegasi called a ‘Storm Shepherd,’ a pegasus who used their cloud magic to redirect or disperse wild storms that threatened settlements on the frontier. Unlike the more controlled weather in Everfree and Equestria proper, storms posed a dangerous threat to settlements on the frontier, and many places were prone to tornados. Storm shepherds had to be fast and strong to contend with the raw power of unchecked nature on the frontier, and though Drifter hadn’t come from a military family, his strength and speed lent him well to becoming a dangerous soldier.

Of course, imagining all the ways Drifter could crush her on the field wasn’t exactly great for the small amount of confidence Sparrow had managed to amass, so she awkwardly cleared her throat and tried to push those images away. “We’ll, uh, burn that bridge when we get to it.”

“That’s not how that saying goes.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Uh huh.”

By the time they reached the rest of their century, the two young warriors didn’t have much time to mingle and chat before somepony let out a shrill whistle. Eyes and ears turned skyward, and upon spotting Centurion Tern flying over to them, the assembled recruits hastily formed themselves into ranks ten wide by eight deep. As Sparrow and Chinook shifted to find their appropriate positions in their rank, the unicorn only had a second to realize that Tern wasn’t flying alone.

Despite the discipline and professionalism that had been drilled into them through their training, the assembled recruits couldn’t help but whisper in surprise as Tern alighted with his companions. But even Sparrow knew that the whispers weren’t for Legate Winds at Tern’s right, but for Typhoon at his left. Sparrow found herself sharing in their surprise as the old mare’s eyes scanned over the recruits, and she found herself whispering to Chinook, “What’s she doing here?”

“Why are you asking me?” Chinook whispered back. “You know her better than me.”

“I haven’t exactly seen her a whole lot since I started training with you guys…”

“Milites!” Tern shouted, and the whispers were immediately silenced by the blade of his voice. “At attention! Today we have guests, and I want you lot on your best behavior! The Legate and the Commander have requested to observe today’s singles combat to assess your capabilities when your life is on the line. Personally, I feel that many of you have a long way to go until you prove yourselves capable of fighting as a unit, let alone by yourselves, but today that will be their decision to make.”

Sparrow certainly didn’t fail to notice how Tern’s eyes drifted toward her as he said that, and she quietly clenched her teeth as she did her best to stare straight ahead at attention like a statue.

“War does not wait until everypony is ready,” Tern continued, “and the longer we wait, the longer the wound of treason festers in Dry Fens. Evidently, the Legate and the Commander have laid out their plans, and they want to know how many competent replacements they can count on to fill the gaps in our lines. Prove yourselves today, and glory on the field of battle will be yours sooner than you think.”

After a moment to let those words sink in, Tern dismissively waved his wing to put his recruits at ease. As the ponies of the century relaxed their posture, the centurion turned aside to Typhoon and Winds as if to see if they had anything more they wanted to add, but both soldiers shook their heads. Nodding, Tern spread his wings and pointed out to his sides with his wingtips. “Circle up, ponies. Shrill Shrike, Copper Field, I want you two to start. First to score a hit to the neck wins.”

As the milites spread out into a circle and Shrill Shrike and Copper Field fetched training swords and cantered to the middle of the ring, Sparrow and Chinook shuffled off to the side. “I thought for sure he was going to send me out first,” Sparrow whispered to her friend. “Start the day off with a bit of Sparrow pummeling.”

“He wants to put on a show for the Legate and the Commander,” Chinook said, and as Shrike and Field squared up and touched their right wings together in sportsmareship, he added, “Shrike and Field aren’t the best fighters, but they’re fast. You’ve seen them practice before. It’ll look really dramatic.”

Sparrow scoffed and glanced aside at Typhoon’s stoic expression as the two mares in the ring let fly at each other in a flurry of feathers and feints. “If Tern thinks he’s gonna fool Typhoon by putting two flashy mares against each other in the ring, then he’s dumber than I thought. She’s old enough to be his mom. She’s seen thousands of soldiers in her life. Two wide swinging cuckoos aren’t gonna convince her they’re up to snuff.”

Chinook snickered and gave Sparrow a light shove with a wing. “I remember you losing to Shrike bad yesterday.”

“Listen, it’s really hard to see where her sword is when every time she moves it’s like an explosion of feathers,” Sparrow grumbled.

Their attention drifted back to the fight before them, and despite her earlier observation, Sparrow tried to focus all her energy into watching how the two combatants moved to see if she could glean anything about fighting a pegasus that could help her win when Tern inevitably called her name. She watched how the two mares jumped and dived, relying on their wings for mobility as much if not more than their hooves as they circled around each other. Sometimes they would jump up and strike down, twisting their back into putting more speed and power behind their swings, and other times they would lunge low at their opponent’s legs. They used their hooves to lend power to their swings or abruptly pivot their stance, but the more they fought, the more Sparrow felt her eyes drawing back to their wings. They moved quickly and in unpredictable ways, but they never lied. And as more fighters cycled in and out of the ring, Sparrow started feeling more confident about what she saw.

After several rounds of fighters, Sparrow started to wonder whether she’d even get the chance to put what she learned to the test. There were roughly eighty recruits in Tern’s century, which meant forty fights, but at the rate at which they went, she wondered if she’d get the chance to have her turn before dinner. She started rocking on her hooves as her nerves started to agitate her, and when Chinook limped back to her after his turn in the ring, he gave her a concerned look. “You alright, Sparrow?”

“Yeah. Fine,” Sparrow said, and she anxiously eyed the ring as Tern helped Chinook’s opponent climb back to her hooves, dazed and dizzy after the hard hit Chinook had rung her bell with at the end of their lengthy and close-run fight. “How much longer is he gonna make me wait?”

Evidently, Sparrow wasn’t the only one impatient to see how the lone unicorn in the century fared in the wing. Before Tern could call the next match, Typhoon stepped forward. “Centurion, I want to see what Sparrow is capable of.”

Sparrow’s heart jumped into her throat in excitement and anticipation, but also a little bit of dread, and a few sparks of magic escaped off the grooves of her horn. But Tern was far less enamored with the idea, to Sparrow’s surprise, and after giving the unicorn a glance, he stepped closer to Typhoon and Legate Winds. “I’m not sure she’s ready,” he muttered to them, and though the noise of the pegasi gathered around the ring drowned out his words, Sparrow still managed to pick them out. “She’s lagging far behind the rest of the century.”

Typhoon’s ruby red eyes flitted over to Sparrow, though her words remained directed at the centurion. “I’m inclined to believe otherwise. I want to see her fight.”

Tern looked to Winds, but the legate nodded in agreement. “Do as the Commander asks,” he said. “When she asked you to train the unicorn, I hope she was not asking for something beyond your abilities.”

The centurion’s jaw set, and after a moment, he gave the two a curt bob of his head. “She was not,” he said. “But some things you just can’t teach a horn.”

Then he turned back to the ring and raised his voice. “Sparrow! Drifter! You two are next.”

Sparrow’s fury at being doubted combined with her worry that those doubts might be founded culminated in a single word as Drifter stepped out of the ring opposite her to take a sword in his jaws. “Fuck.”

Chinook, for his part, gave Sparrow a worried clap on the back. “Good luck,” he said as she anxiously stepped into the ring. “You’re gonna need it…” he muttered after she was gone.

Gulping, Sparrow took several breaths as she trotted out to the center of the ring, her magic fetching a training sword and running a rag across the handle to clean it off before setting it between her teeth. The blade was warm to the touch from not only sitting out in the sun, but the heat of repeated impacts and the sweat and exertion of the pegasi who had used it before her. It was good, solid metal, heavier than a normal sword, and it tilted her head a bit to the side as she held it, but it felt so inadequate when she looked up and saw Drifter standing over her. Sparrow was used to having a slight height advantage over the other pegasi thanks to her lanky unicorn legs; she did not have such an advantage over Drifter as his shadow fell on her.

As the other pegasi had done, Drifter held out his wing for Sparrow to touch, even though she didn’t have one to match. “Sorry,” was all he said, though the intent of the apology was clear.

Sparrow momentarily popped the sword out of her mouth and held it in her magic so she could answer. “Yeah, me too,” Sparrow said, and she bumped her shoulder into Drifter’s wing for lack of one to match it with. Then she took two steps back and widened her stance while her opponent casually did the same. “It’s gonna suck being the first to lose to me.” Her magic flipped on an old legionary helmet to protect her head, and she stuck the grip back into her teeth and locked it down into the gap behind her incisors.

Drifter gave her the courtesy to set herself, and then he was on her. Two flaps of his wings sent him careening across the ring like a ballista bolt, shocking Sparrow with the speed at which the big stallion moved. Still, two flaps was double what smaller pegasi like Shrill Shrike needed to get up to speed, and when they flapped backwards toward his flanks instead of down at the ground, Sparrow knew he was charging forward, not up or two the side. With that warning, she had enough time to skirt to the side, using her sword to redirect Drifter’s and push it away rather than try and block it in a test of strength that she knew she would lose. The dull iron sang at the blow, tickling Sparrow’s teeth as it vibrated, and she quickly scampered away to try and reset her hooves before Drifter could round on her again.

Unfortunately, Drifter’s speed left her little time to do that either. He bounced off Sparrow’s deflection and whirled around in the opposite direction, and a couple more flaps of his wings reset his momentum. This time when he charged, he charged on hoof, taking a slower but surer approach toward his quarry. His last step was more of a bound as he jumped into the air, trying to use his weight and the arch of his back to strike downward at Sparrow. Sparrow made to dodge to the side again, hoping to capitalize on such a maneuver to maybe take a quick spin and strike at his neck to end the bout in one blow, but when Drifter’s sword hit the dirt, he instead lashed out with his right wing, catching Sparrow in the cheek and knocking her off balance. His sword lashed up from the dirt in an upwards arc at her neck, and when Sparrow reared back to try and dodge it, it hooked her under the forelegs and sent her skyward with a crushing blow.

Dirt and sky swirled around her for a split second, and then the young mare landed hard on her back and gasped at the smack of her spine into the ground. Thankfully, the pegasi who had dueled before her had churned it up into a muddy, sponge-like mess that absorbed the worst of the impact, but it still took her a second to get back to her hooves. And when she did, Drifter was on her again, sword slicing through the air.

There was no time to dodge; even if Sparrow tried, she knew that she would only end up on the dirt again, and Drifter wasn’t using his wings, so she figured he was holding back to try and tag her neck the moment she fell again. That left only blocking his sword, so she took the only avenue open to her. The impact of his sword against hers rattled her teeth and strained her neck as she tried to keep her head upright and force away his attacks, and when he struck her again, she felt the pressure painful twist at the corners of her jaw as the blow tried to wrench the sword out of her grip.

“Fight back!”

Sparrow didn’t know who shouted it; in the heat of combat, the only thing she could focus on was Drifter as she tried not to let the bigger stallion overpower her. But the voice was right; she couldn’t afford to keep wearing herself out absorbing or dodging blows with Drifter. She needed to get some swings in and buy herself some space. If he respected the arc of her blade, then she could keep him honest and not let him close the gap and overpower her so quickly.

When Drifter swung next, she borrowed some of his momentum from blocking the swing to bounce backwards and away from another blow. As her hooves dug into the dirt, Sparrow coiled her legs and lunged forward, swinging at Drifter’s neck in a desperate hope to get a lucky hit. It was not to be, as Drifter blocked it with his own weapon, but the movement was clumsy, as if he hadn’t been expecting Sparrow’s riposte. Sparrow pressed the advantage for all she could, knowing that she only had this one opportunity to try and tag Drifter’s neck before he adjusted, and worked quickly to get inside of the larger stallion’s guard. She made short attacks under and around his sword, trying to find some way to get past his block, and once she felt she might have scored a lucky hit—and in that moment, she thought it was over.

Whether Centurion Tern didn’t see it or refused to acknowledge the slightest glancing of taps to Drifter’s neck, or if it didn’t happen in the first place and Sparrow had merely felt Drifter’s shoulder at the edge of her sword, she didn’t know. But the pause almost doomed her as Drifter swung back hard, and too late she tried to duck under his sword. The metal instead slammed against the side of her skull, exploding the world into a ringing white scream, and Sparrow seemingly lost all feeling in her body as she staggered across the dirt.

When the world stopped ringing, Sparrow felt somepony holding her upright at the edge of the ring as her senses slowly trickled back to her. To her surprise, it was Typhoon’s voice that she heard in her ear when the pony holding her asked, “Are you okay?”

“Y-Yeah,” Sparrow groaned, and she forced herself back to her shaking hooves as her stomach did flips in her barrel. She felt something hot and wet dribbling down the side of her face; it took her a second to realize it was blood, and she wondered how much worse it would have been if she hadn’t been wearing a helmet. “I-I’ve got this.”

“Do you?” Typhoon asked her, and when Sparrow looked back, it took her a second before the two blurry Typhoons merged into one. “You look hopelessly outmatched out there.”

“I can get him,” Sparrow insisted. “It’s just hard fighting six limbs with four. Especially because he’s so big.”

Typhoon shrugged, and then she gestured to Sparrow’s forehead. “And you have something he doesn’t. Use it.”

“I thought you wanted me to learn how to be a legionary?” Sparrow asked, and she glanced back at Drifter, who patiently watched her from the other end of the ring as the surrounding pegasi cheered and hollered for the fight to go on.

“Fighting like a legionary is not the same as fighting like a pegasus,” Typhoon told her. “The basics are the same—hoofwork, movement, and tactics. Those are important. That’s what I wanted you to learn. But nopony here can teach you how to fight with your horn. Only you can do that. Do you understand?”

After a second, Sparrow nodded. “I think I do,” she said, and her magic grabbed onto her sword as it lay half-buried in the mud, blade first. When she hefted it out of the mud, she didn’t put it back in her mouth, but kept it roughly a tail’s length in front of her muzzle, and she pointed the tip square at Drifter’s neck.

Drifter narrowed his eyes as he watched Sparrow adopt her new stance, and after a moment to think, he cautiously took wing and closed the distance between him and Sparrow at a measured pace. When he was halfway across the ring, Sparrow galloped forward and thrusted her sword skyward, forcing her opponent to flutter away from it, only to immediately have to go on the defensive as Sparrow’s sword twisted and flicked around him as she spurred it on with her magic. The pink glow danced around the grip of the blade, spinning it in ways that Drifter struggled to block or dodge, unaffixed as it was to any point in space.

All his maneuvering sapped Drifter of energy and altitude, so he quickly shifted strategies. After parrying a blow from Sparrow’s floating sword, he lunged at her, falling out of the sky to try and get to her unimpeded. But again, by watching his wings, Sparrow saw it coming, and she dived forward to escape from underneath his trajectory, barely slipping under his blade as he hit the ground behind her. Though the move made her drop her sword, she quickly located it as it tumbled out of the air and seized it again, putting it back between her and Drifter once more as the pegasus leaped at her from the ground. Iron rang and Sparrow felt the feedback in her horn like a sharp jolt of electricity, but she managed to hold on and tried to scurry back to her hooves as quickly as she could while she slowed down Drifter’s attack.

Still, the world had not completely settled from Drifter’s hit to her head, and she slipped as she stood up again, falling to her flanks as her balance failed her. The mistake was costly, as in a moment, Drifter was over her, and after a punch of his wing to her nose to send her sprawling on her back, Sparrow felt metal under her chin.

“Game over,” Drifter said around the handle of his sword. “You lose.”

“Yeah, well… so did you,” Sparrow said. Drifter blinked and then looked up at her horn, which was still aglow, and when it flashed a little brighter, he winced as he felt Sparrow twist the sword, rubbing the dull tip of the blunted iron into his skin just behind his jaw.

After a moment, Drifter grunted and stepped back, then offered Sparrow his hoof to stand up. Sparrow gratefully took it and managed to get back to her hooves, then looked around at the suddenly quiet ring of pegasi surrounding them. Confused looks stared back at her, and after a moment, the other legionaries started muttering among themselves, wondering who won.

But that was settled for them when Typhoon shrugged and stepped forward. “I suppose we’ll call it a draw, then,” she said, and though her expression remained neutral when she looked back at Sparrow, Sparrow didn’t miss the quick wink the older mare offered her.

Though perhaps it was said best when she heard Chinook call out from the crowd, “Hey, Sparrow, your strategy worked!”

2-10

“Magic has always been against the rules! None of the pegasi ever tapped into it during training. If I allowed it, those that could use it would have made it their crutch instead of learning the basics. The unicorn is no different!”

Sparrow sat outside of Legate Winds’ tent and rolled her eyes as she listened to the argument unfolding inside. To say that Centurion Tern had taken her draw with Drifter poorly was an understatement. By using her magic, she had fought Tern’s best recruit to a draw, and evidently that was infuriating to the centurion, who had dragged her to the legate’s tent to argue for her punishment.

Typhoon had seen it differently, though, and she had sent Sparrow back outside while she and the Legate confronted the irate centurion. “Do you expect every unicorn bandit and outlaw you fight to hold their sword in their mouth and fight fair?” came Typhoon’s voice from beyond the canvas, and Sparrow smirked a little bit, feeling vindicated as she listened in. “Sparrow switching to her horn should not have made a difference to your recruit. Perhaps he’s lucky that he dazed her earlier in their fight; it spared him the humiliation of losing to the only unicorn in this camp.”

“They’ll have to get used to it sooner or later…” Sparrow muttered under her breath. She frowned and shifted in place, shuffling a little bit back into the shade offered by the tent as the sun lowered and the afternoon dragged on. The armor scraps Lost’s legion had offered her, heated by the sun’s glare and now caked with drying dirt from her fight, only seemed to cook her fatigued muscles and let a sweaty soreness permeate her limbs, but there was no denying that she felt on top of the world after emerging from her bout with Drifter with a draw.

If only her sensitivity to the bright daylight and the crashing of metal elsewhere in the camp would leave her splitting head alone…

“Typhoon brings up a good point. Our enemies in Dry Fens aren’t just pegasi. They’re earth ponies and unicorns, too.” That one was the Legate’s softspoken voice, and Sparrow had to strain a little harder to hear his words, like whispers on a wind. “Our soldiers need to be prepared for everything. When we each joined the Legion, and Typhoon too, I imagine, we were trained with how to deal with unicorn threats. These pegasi need to learn that art, too.”

“If you’ll pardon me being frank, sir, we don’t have access to unicorn knights like we once did,” was Tern’s retort. “That’s not something I can teach them. But they know how to fight pegasi. By extension, they know how to fight against earth ponies. Sparrow confusing Drifter by changing her tactics partway through the fight didn’t change the equation, but it broke the ground rules I had laid out to make sure my recruits kept in mind their fundamentals. I don’t need the recruits forgetting about the fundamentals when they see a flying sword. That’s what I’m concerned about.”

“Then it’s good we got that out of the way then, you agree?” said Typhoon. Tern must have given a nod of his head in the silence that followed, as without further comment, Typhoon continued. “Good. While we can’t train for fighting unicorns, hopefully this will be eye-opening for the rest of the raw recruits. Unicorns can do tricky things with swords in their magic, and if Dry Fens is being held by a patchwork of races with different levels of experience, there will be those who are far more skilled than Sparrow. That is why I’m hoping we can avoid coming to blows with them, but it is a possibility we must consider.”

There was a pause, and then, “Ma’am? Only a possibility of clashing swords with traitors?”

“That is all, Centurion. You are dismissed.”

“…Ma’am.”

Hoofsteps approached the exit of the tent, and Sparrow immediately straightened her posture into something soldierly as the centurion emerged from within. He paused next to her, and when Sparrow hazarded him a look, she was greeted with a sharp frown and cold eyes. But Tern had no word for her, only a shake of his head and a flick of his tail as he turned and walked away from her. Sparrow blinked, looking after him, and she pulled the divot of her scarred lip under her teeth as she wondered whether to follow him or not.

Her decision was made for her when Typhoon emerged from the tent after him, and the old soldier raised an eyebrow at Sparrow’s posture. “Remind me to never post you as an honor guard for something.” When Sparrow stuck her tongue out at her, Typhoon gave her head a little shake and then started walking in the opposite direction of Tern, her wing briefly touching Sparrow’s shoulder. “Come on. Let’s walk.”

“Hopefully to the stream,” Sparrow said, and she gave one of her dirty legs a shake to get some of the dried mud off of it. “I’m getting sick and tired of being covered in dirt and grime today.”

“If a little mud is bothering you, then it’s a good thing you’re not a soldier out on campaign,” Typhoon teased her. “Baths are few and far between.”

“I bet you could just fly through a cloud or something. Lucky”

“Not when clouds are the army’s only source of potable water. But I'll indulge. Let's go to the stream.” Typhoon paused for a moment to let Sparrow catch up to her side, and then resumed her walk through camp. They stuck to the middle of the road through the tents, staying out of the way of the legionaries as they gathered in their eight pony contubernia and sat down to rest and do some maintenance on their equipment and gear before the evening meal. Sparrow felt eyes on her and heard whispers tickle her ears, some good and some bad, and she knew that what she had done that day was already making its rounds throughout Lost Winds’ legion.

“So, what did you hear?” Typhoon asked her, catching Sparrow off-guard. When Sparrow didn’t immediately answer as she tried to puzzle out what to tell Typhoon, the old mare gave her an expectant look.

Realizing that the question was likely more rhetorical than genuine, Sparrow decided to push aside any thoughts of bending the truth and answer her straight. “Most of it,” she said with a shrug. “The centurion is not happy that I did that. But it doesn’t sound like you or the legate are that upset about it.”

“I certainly hope not; I told you to do it,” Typhoon said, and a twitch of her wingtip against her flank told Sparrow the old mare was amused. Then she gave Sparrow a more reassuring look and a slight nod of encouragement. “The centurion is upset that you fought a pegasus to a draw using unicorn magic. He thinks it reflects poorly on his abilities as a leader and a trainer. Pegasi like him think back on Cirra and the Legion and remember tales of glory and pegasus might, and forget that when Equestria was founded, my father and I tried to integrate unicorns and earth ponies into our ranks, to varying amounts of success. I’m sure he’s a good centurion, but Tern would be better served by using what you did as a reminder to never underestimate an opponent just because they’ve never flown in the Legion.”

“Yeah, hopefully.” Then she drifted a little closer to Typhoon. “Soooo… what did you think?”

“Think about what?”

“About my fighting?” Sparrow asked, leaning forward a bit and eagerly trying to read Typhoon’s face. “I’ve improved, right?”

Typhoon’s face, however, remained stoic and unreadable, as it almost always was, and the shrug of her wings took some of the pep out of Sparrow’s steps. “You’ve improved on the fundamentals, yes. That’s important. And you displayed a good ability to improvise using your magical grip. But Tern was right to try to teach you and the rest of the other recruits how to fight without magic and only with the basics.”

“I mean, I guess,” Sparrow admitted. “But the basics never worked for me. I only fought Drifter to a draw because I threw my sword into the air and chased him with it.”

“Yes, you did,” Typhoon said, and she nodded in agreement. “It was flashy and impressive, and he didn’t know how to get around it to beat you. But flashy moves like that are only something you can afford in a controlled one against one scenario. Try to do that on the battlefield, and the moment you open your defenses up like that, the pony next to the one you’re fighting will run you through with a spear.”

“So, what would you suggest?”

“If you use your magic, keep your sword no more than a leg or two’s reach in front of you,” Typhoon advised her. “Give yourself space but don’t create a void in your defenses where you have no options if somepony gets inside of your weapon. Use the distance to keep things in front of you, and give or take ground as you need it. And if whomever you’re fighting does get in close, fight dirty. An enemy won’t expect a hoof to the nose when they try to seize an opening to get around your sword.”

Sparrow did her best to file all that away, trying to visualize the scenarios that Typhoon described to her. It was advice coming from an old soldier who had seen countless battles and who had fought against and alongside unicorns; where else would Sparrow get access to wisdom like that? “I hope I get the chance to try that out in drills tomorrow. But I doubt Tern is gonna let me.” Even though she was in Typhoon’s company, Sparrow still glanced about her surroundings before she dared to speak next. “I know he’s going to take it out on me tomorrow. Everypony knew Drifter was supposed to be our best, and I didn’t get turned into paste fighting him. Tern didn’t want any of us to use magic while fighting, and I did. I bet he’s already thinking up schemes to bust my flank in tomorrow’s drills.”

“There won’t be more drills,” Typhoon said.

Sparrow blinked and cocked her head. “There won’t?” When she realized Typhoon hadn’t stopped walking, she cantered up to the soldier’s side, and as they passed by the guards stationed at the entrance to the camp, she gave them a curious glance to see if they seemed to know something she didn’t. But they just nodded as the two mares passed by, and when they were out of earshot, she pressed Typhoon. “What do you mean? Was Tern right? We’re gonna take the fight to Dry Fens?”

Typhoon took a long breath through her nose, and her wings fidgeted at her sides. “I want to deal with the Dry Fens situation peacefully,” the old soldier said. “Violence is not going to accomplish anything. It would be like smashing two stones of the same kind and size into each other. They pulverize each other and send splinters everywhere, and the pieces are only good as gravel. That’s what would happen if Lost took his legion and assaulted Dry Fens. The survivors would splinter off into the wilderness as bandits, mercenaries, or vigilantes, and the rest would be little more than gravel to fertilize the earth.”

“Eeesh. When you put it that way…” Sparrow winced as she visualized the metaphor and found herself recoiling from visions of dead and dying pegasi scattered around the ruins of a town. “But they’re bandits and outlaws who are holding the town hostage. How are you gonna deal with them peacefully?”

“A show of force, primarily,” Typhoon said, and as the two mares wandered out into the grasses by the small stream that ran past the camp, she found a flat stone to sit down on and take some of the weight of her heavy steel armor off her frame. “I’ve had this legion running drills and scouting in force to show the ponies in Dry Fens that Legate Winds’ legion isn’t weakening, but growing in strength. I know from my scouts that the defenders of Dry Fens have been suffering from attrition as badly as the Legate’s legion is as well. When they see that the disparity between him and them has grown, and not in their favor, then I have a feeling they’ll reconsider their resistance.”

Seeing Typhoon sit down, Sparrow started stripping off her armor scraps and set them aside, then waded into the stream to let the cool water wash away the muck on her coat and the fatigue plaguing her limbs. It was such a good feeling that she shivered and sighed as she sat down in the water, letting it rise almost up to her shoulders. “That sounds good and all, but what if it doesn’t work? What if they’re desperate or itching for a fight?”

Typhoon pursed her lips, and by the way she tongued the inside of her cheek, Sparrow already knew that the mare found the alternative distasteful. “Then I hope my name and reputation is as good with them as it is here.”

Sparrow couldn’t help but snicker. “You gonna play the ‘Commander Typhoon’ card after trying to keep it a secret for so long?”

“If I have to,” Typhoon remarked with a bitter grunt. “I keep thinking back to that fight in the forest where we first met Tern. The ponies on the other side knew who I was. They were Legion once upon a time, too. Despite everything I’ve done, and everything I’ve been a part of, there are still legionaries who idolize me.” She frowned sharply at the ground as she said that, and she snatched a flat stone in her feathers before skipping it across the stream in quiet frustration. “If I can leverage my name to stop names on sticks being planted into the ground, then I’ll do it.”

“I hope it works,” Sparrow began, “but if they’ve gone bandit then I don’t think they’d respect your name all that much. Or the Legion. You think they’d really be holding a town hostage if they cared about what you would think?”

At that, Typhoon gave Sparrow a small tilt of her head and a raise of an eyebrow, and she leaned forward on her seat. “Do you think the Legate and the Centurion have been telling us the whole truth, Sparrow?”

Sparrow’s brow furrowed, and she opened her mouth to speak, but hesitated. “Are they not?”

“What do you think?” Typhoon pressed.

“I… maybe.” Sparrow bit her lip a little more, then shrugged in frustration. “So you’re saying that the ponies in Dry Fens aren’t bandits like they’ve been saying? But why would they lie to us?”

“I don’t think the legionaries in Dry Fens are bandits and criminals, no,” Typhoon said. “I think they’re a legion that’s taken a different path from Lost Winds’ followers, and now the two sides are at odds with each other. One took the town first and turned it into their bastion, while the other took the surrounding countryside and the resources it provides. They’ve been warring ever since, and as far as I can tell, it’s for nothing.”

“But how do you know that you’re right?” Sparrow asked her. “Are you just taking a guess? If the Legate is right…”

“Then it will be a good thing I’ve devoted my time and effort into shaping up his legion,” Typhoon said. “But here’s another thing to consider. Who were the guards in Boiling Springs afraid of?”

“The Lost Legion?” Sparrow asked, unsure where Typhoon was leading her.

“And whose legion are we with now?”

“Lost’s Legion…” As she said it, the gears clicked her head, and she hopped to her hooves in a splash of water. “Wait, Lost Wind’s legion is the Lost Legion? The one that’s been preying on the countryside? Are we helping the wrong ponies?!”

Typhoon’s response to Sparrow’s outburst was a raising of her hoof to calm the young unicorn. “The truth is not that black and white,” Typhoon said. “There is a reason why I asked Tern where and how this legion is getting its supplies when we first met him. He answered me that they were living off the land. An army seizing crops from fields and merchant wagons full of supplies from the roads without proper compensation is little different from banditry, and given what has been happening out here around Dry Fens, it would be easy for the ponies of the surrounding countryside to equate one with the other. It is a necessity they have taken to to supply themselves and deny resources to Dry Fens, and such stories would undoubtedly worry the ponies who live around here.”

Sparrow slowly sat back down in the stream, running through her memories for every story and anecdote of the Lost Legion she’d heard while living in Boiling Springs. She’d heard many tales of flights of pegasi ambushing wagons and stealing their wares or plundering fields, all while wearing armor and striking swiftly and decisively, but she’d never imagined that they were troops of an army just trying to keep themselves supplied and their bellies full while they remained locked in a bitter stalemate with another enemy. Still, Typhoon’s hypothesis and explanation didn’t make it sound any better. “That still doesn’t make things right,” she said. “It sounds like the ponies of the frontier still had lots to be worried about.”

“I never said they were wrong to be worried or angry,” Typhoon reminded her, holding up a placating hoof. “It was an explanation for what was happening out here. It needs to stop, and the best way to do that is to get these two legions to reconcile and put an end to their fighting. Maybe then they can dedicate their efforts to something more constructive, like protecting the ponies of the frontier from monsters and real bandits instead of using them to fight through their squabble.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice.” Sparrow gave her head a little shake, letting some of the water that had crawled up her mane rain back down on the stream. “So how are you gonna convince them to stop fighting and settle their differences? How are you even going to get them to talk to each other? Are you going to go to Dry Fens and set something up?”

“If I go to Dry Fens, then Tern and Winds are going to follow with their army,” Typhoon said with a reluctant shake of her head. “They want me to themselves. Going to the other side threatens their legitimacy, and even though I’ve tried to temper their dreams of a reborn Cirra to keep the frontier safe, I can’t trust that they’d respect my wishes and not do anything rash while I was in the town. I need to be around to keep their impulses under control and remind them why they call themselves legionaries. And I can’t just send a delegation of soldiers; with things as bad as they are, I doubt the message would be received with sincerity.” Then her ruby red eyes looked directly into Sparrow’s pink and blue. “You, though…”

“Me?” Sparrow stood up once again, this time with a little more alarm. “You want me to go into Dry Fens by myself? What if they attack me?!”

“They won’t attack you,” Typhoon assured her. “They’ll remember you, and they’ll remember that you were with me. Your eyes aren’t something that anypony would forget. They’ll have questions, I’m sure, and you have my permission to answer them as truthfully as you can. But the important thing is that you get the word of whoever is in charge there that they’ll be willing to meet with me and Lost Winds at a neutral site in three days’ time.”

“And if they refuse?” Sparrow asked, an edge of worry creeping into her voice.

“Then I will come and get you if you don’t come back after two,” Typhoon said, and when Sparrow opened her mouth to protest again, she silenced her by raising her metal hoof. “I will get you if you aren’t back in two days. I will not try. I will succeed.” Then she put her hoof back down. “Do you think you can do that?”

Sparrow looked down at the water rushing past her legs, thinking it over and trying to wrestle with her misgivings. But Typhoon trusted her to do something, and that was trust she had found hard to come by so far. That was worth more than anything if she wanted to prove herself to the old soldier.

“Okay, fine,” Sparrow said, and she let out a sigh before sitting back down in the water. “Just at least let me enjoy my bath, okay? I wanna look presentable if I’m going to walk into danger by myself.”

She didn’t wait for Typhoon to answer her; with a flop backwards, the unicorn dunked herself into the stream, protecting her from responsibility and danger for as long as she could hold her breath.

2-11

Sparrow looked back at the dark trees behind her as the sun began to rise, weighed down by her armor, a long canvas bundle on her back, and the burden of her mission. In the lightening blue of the early morning, the first wisps of smoke from Camp Stratopolis’ cookfires climbed into the sky, preparing rations of fresh food for the soldiers within its walls. Given everything that had happened yesterday, Sparrow wondered how long it would take the camp to notice their only unicorn was missing.

The young unicorn had slipped out of the camp that morning at the change of the guard, posing as the sentry’s replacement before disappearing into the darkness. Though she didn’t like it, the deception was necessary; Typhoon knew that the legate and the centurion would be opposed to Typhoon seeking terms with the legion they called traitors holding Dry Fens, and if they knew that Typhoon wanted to bring them to the negotiating table and hear their side of the story, there was a real risk they would do something rash. Given the training and strength of Lost Winds’ legion and the defensive posture and fortifications of the ponies holding Dry Fens, if the two armies came to blows then the carnage would be indescribably bloody. That was something the old mare desperately wanted to avoid, and if it meant Sparrow had to play deserter to accomplish it, then the young unicorn was willing to do it.

Besides, Sparrow was sure that Tern would be happy to have her out of his mane. She only hoped that he’d be satisfied with that and not be vindictive enough to send out a flight to kill her before she got to Dry Fens. Even as she thought it, she was really starting to reconsider agreeing to going to the occupied town by herself in the first place, all on Typhoon’s hunch that what was going down on the frontier was a lot grayer than Winds and Tern made it out to be.

She stopped under a tree and gave her head a rough shake. “Less thinking, more walking,” she grumbled to herself, and after a moment to take a bite out of the chunk of bread she’d managed to hide away during last night’s dinner, she turned herself toward the northwest and started out once more.

The quiet melody of the early morning seemed to sing out to her, and Sparrow had to remind herself to keep up the pace and not let the soothing sounds of nature slow her down. She’d spent so much time in the hectic and regimented drill of legion training that she had briefly forgotten what it was like to travel through the wilderness of Equestria’s frontier and appreciate the untouched splendor at the edge of civilization. The country could be beautiful this far away from Everfree, and even in her short and troubled history, Sparrow could appreciate that. If only it wasn’t so dangerous in the aftermath of the War of Silk and the dissolution of the Legion.

Still, she made good time. By the time the sun had fully revealed itself and burned away the morning mist, she’d already put a few miles between herself and Camp Stratopolis. Now her worry was less about the pegasi behind her and more the pegasi in front of her. If she got caught by a patrol from Dry Fens, what would she do? What would they do? Word had to have spread throughout the soldiers holding the town about the arrival of Commander Typhoon and her blue-and-pink-eyed companion and the uncertainty that added to the fighting by now. And even if they were bandits, then surely they would see the value in holding Typhoon’s traveling companion for ransom rather than just killing her outright. It was a line of thinking that left Sparrow feeling surprisingly bitter—rather than having any respect of her own, anything she had was derived from Typhoon and the soldier’s legacy. Her name and her story meant nothing to the ponies of the frontier… but maybe this was her opportunity to start changing that. Ending a war, no matter how small in scale, had to do something for her legacy, right?

What would not be good for her legacy was a sword in the back—and so when Sparrow heard the sound of wind under feathers suddenly appear uncomfortably close behind her, the mare let out a startled yelp and yanked on her sword with her magic as she whirled about in place. The awkward grasp at her weapon stopped the blade from sliding out of its scabbard and instead pried the scabbard off of the hooks on her scrap of armor, and when she came to an abrupt stop after her spin, the sword let go of its protection just in time for the scabbard to come flying off and strike Chinook in the nose as he came in for a landing.

A surprised snort and grunt came from Chinook that turned into a groan as he flopped onto the ground in an awkward mess of feathers and limbs, his graceful landing ruined by the abruptly launched scabbard. Sparrow flinched as she recognized her friend, but as he crawled back onto his hooves, she swallowed hard and kept the point of her blade aligned with his nose. “What are you doing here?” she asked him.

“Ugh… what are you doing here?” Chinook asked back, and when he rubbed at his nose with the feathers of his wingtip, his eyes narrowed on the steel point hovering in front of his face.

“That’s none of your business,” Sparrow said.

“I’m starting to think that it is, though.” The stallion cautiously took a few steps away from Sparrow’s hovering sword, and he warily glanced at it before shifting his gaze back to meet the young unicorn’s. “I went to your tent to see if you were up and wanted to get breakfast, but you weren’t there. I happened to cross paths with Cattail and she said that you relieved her for sentry duty, but when I took a look, you weren’t there.” He glanced around before adding, “This is a long ways away from camp to be watching for the traitors, Sparrow.”

“Would you believe me if I told you I was scouting?” Sparrow asked, and her magic flickered as she let the tip of her sword droop.

“No.”

“…Would you believe me if I told you Typhoon asked me to send a message to Dry Fens?”

Chinook blinked and shook his head. “What?” he asked. “No! You expect me to believe that after all the time and effort she’s put into helping shape up Lost’s legion, she’s going behind the legate’s back to talk terms with traitors?”

“They’re not traitors,” Sparrow insisted.

“How do you know that?” Chinook’s wings partially opened at his sides, and the scaled blades along their crests caught the morning sun as they flexed. “They captured Dry Fens and hold the town hostage! Legate Winds is the only one fighting to save the town and bring peace back to the frontier, and he can’t do that so long as the traitors hold that town!”

He sighed, and when he took a step toward Sparrow, he hesitated when the tip of the mare’s sword raised back up. “Sparrow, just come back with me and we can pretend this never happened, alright? We’ll make something up so Tern doesn’t suspect anything.”

“I can’t,” Sparrow insisted, and she swallowed hard at the hurt look in Chinook’s face. “I told you, Typhoon asked me to do this, okay? You can either come with me or go back to camp, but I’m not stopping.”

Chinook looked away and his wings drooped until the feather knives at the tips of his bladed wings touched the ground. “I really don’t want to do this, Sparrow,” he said, and after another moment of thought, he put his teeth around the hilt of his sword and pulled it out of its scabbard with a frustrated tug of his neck. “So don’t make me.”

“Nopony’s making you do it but yourself, you fucking idiot!” Sparrow growled in frustration, her uneasy trepidation bursting into rage. She bared her teeth for a moment, and her horn flashed as she tightened her grip… but ultimately, she stuck the tip of her sword in the ground and frowned at Chinook. “You know what? No. I’m not going to fight you, and I know you don’t want to fight me. I’m going to Dry Fens because Typhoon asked me to. Fly back and ask her yourself if you don’t believe me. I’m sure you could fly back to camp, get an answer from her, and come back and get me with more ponies if I’m lying to you. But if you actually want to do something to save lives out here, then put your sword away and come with me.”

The stallion hesitated and his face twisted with confliction, but ultimately he slapped his sword back into its scabbard and sighed. “Fine. I still think you’re either wrong or lying to me, but when a patrol from Dry Fens comes after you, two swords will be better than one. And maybe then you’ll realize what the rest of us who have been fighting out here already know.”

“Or maybe you’ll learn something that’s not what the legate tells you,” Sparrow said, and though she tried to stop herself, she couldn’t help but flash Chinook a relieved smile. “Can I have my scabbard back, by the way?”

“You can’t pick it up yourself?” Chinook asked, though some wary levity had returned to his voice, and he scooped up the scabbard with a wing and tossed it back to Sparrow.

“Sheesh, chivalry really is dead,” Sparrow teased him, and she caught the scabbard in her magic. Then, prying the sword from the ground, she wiped the dirt off the tip on the scrap of red cloth at her shoulder and mated blade and sheath together before reattaching the pair to her armor.

“I’m offering my services as a protector, that has to count for something.”

“Right after you threatened me.” Sparrow gave her head a little shake, and then she pointed her horn back up the road, adjusting the bundle on her back with her magic to resettle it in a more comfortable position. “Come on. One pony missing might not be noticed, but if Tern notices both of us are gone, he might send a wing looking for us.”

“And if they ask, I’m trying to stop you from doing something stupid,” Chinook said, chuckling when Sparrow stuck her tongue out at him. Nevertheless, he fell in at Sparrow’s side, letting her lead the way up the road while he kept his eyes and ears trained to the sky.

Now that they weren’t about to cross swords, Sparrow let herself relax a little bit, feeling rather relieved to have Chinook’s company on the road. Having another set of eyes and ears keeping a lookout, as well as another three blades should they need them, was a comforting thought when faced with the uncertainty of the kind of reception she was going to get in Dry Fens. Plus, she simply enjoyed having Chinook around. Perhaps more than anything, she was relieved she didn’t have to fight him for her mission and ruin their friendship.

“So…” Chinook began after a minute of silent walking, “…what kind of message did Typhoon ask you to send to Dry Fens that was so important you had to sneak out of camp to deliver it?”

“She wants me to ask the legate of the legion in Dry Fens to meet with her to put a stop to the fighting,” Sparrow explained, and she glanced aside at Chinook to gauge his reaction. When he raised an eyebrow in interest, she continued. “Typhoon wants to resolve this stupid standoff with words and not swords. But considering how… well, to put it simply, important it is for Lost Winds to have Typhoon in his camp and not in Dry Fens, she knows that if she tried to visit the town herself, then Winds would bring you all with him and attack. Or something like that.” She shrugged mid-stride. “I don’t get all the politics going on, but considering Typhoon used to be a triumvir, I guess she’s more in tune with that sort of stuff.”

“I guess,” Chinook agreed. He bit down on his lip and frowned as they walked, his focus momentarily stolen away from the sky by his own thoughts. “I still don’t think she’s right, though. It’s a bad idea. There’s nothing to gain from talking to traitors and murderers except a knife in the back, or if you’re lucky, in the front. They can’t be trusted.”

Sparrow rolled her eyes and flicked her tail. “Okay, if they’re bandits, yeah. But do you know they’re bandits and traitors? Or do you just say that because everypony else at the camp does?” After a moment, she added, “Have you even fought them? You were in recruit training just like me.”

“No, I haven’t,” the pegasus admitted with a small shake of his head. “But everypony knows that they took Dry Fens hostage and are holding the ponies there against their will.”

“Yeah, like how everypony in Boiling Springs knows that the Lost Legion is a bunch of bandits that attack traders on the road and steal their supplies.”

“We are not—!” When Chinook saw the corners of Sparrow’s muzzle curl into a smug smirk, he sighed and glowered. “Okay, fine, I see what you’re saying,” he fumed, though he tried to push it away with a deep breath. “There might be more to it than what the officers say. But we’ve been fighting them a long time. What makes you think they’ll even want to talk things out with us if they think of us like how we think of them?”

“Because Typhoon asked them to,” Sparrow claimed. “They recognized her when we interrupted that skirmish. They know she’s at your camp. If she says she wants to meet with them, then they’re going to agree.”

She could tell Chinook was trying to agree with her, but his body language made it abundantly clear he was still skeptical, and his wings were restless against his armored sides. “And how are you going to convince them that Typhoon actually wants to speak with them and that it’s not some sort of trap?”

“I’ve got something for that,” was all Sparrow would say, a sly smile curving her lips, and her magic touched the long, canvas-wrapped bundle on her back. “Irrefutable proof.”

“Oh yeah? What is it?”

“You’ll see, don’t worry.”

“That just makes me more worried,” came Chinook’s reply, and he gave the canvas bundle a wary look.

Sparrow chuckled and spared him a wink. “If it makes you feel better, it was Typhoon’s idea.” Then, with a shake of her head, she focused back on the windy dirt road ahead, where the thin line of brown retreated from the encroaching grasses on either side after weeks of disuse. It wasn’t hard to imagine the road disappearing entirely in a few months’ time as the war between Camp Stratopolis and Dry Fens dragged on, preventing travelers and caravans from visiting the town until both the camp and the town itself vanished from the devastation to the countryside. What would it all have been for? Neither side would win, but both would assuredly lose, along with the ponies in Dry Fens forced to endure the siege.

It wasn’t that much longer before they drew within sight of their destination; what was a lengthy walk by hoof was less than an hour’s flight by wing, impressing upon Sparrow just how much ground a legion could cover in a day, and how far the devastation around the town ranged. Though the pair of ponies had walked by fallow or sometimes scorched fields that had been stripped for food or torched in the fighting, that devastation was nowhere more concentrated than around the settlement of the fighting itself. In the distance, a grouping of no more than sixty or so wooden buildings sat along the curving slopes of grassy fields, but it was obvious that the town had been subjected to assault and probing attacks by Legate Winds’ legion that had inflicted serious damage to it over the weeks of fighting. Many of the buildings were charred husks, and those that weren’t had lost their roofs to canvas that flapped and fluttered in the wind. Sharpened wooden spikes protruded from building frames and overturned wagons blocked streets or offered shelter from above. It painted a picture of an embattled and struggling farming town, but one that had been turned into a makeshift fortress that had seen an abundance of carnage. The bodies left lying in the fields around the town spoke to that.

Sparrow grimaced at the ugly sight and tried to keep her eyes away from the fallen littering the grasses around the town. “You’ve been trying to take that for weeks now?” she asked Chinook, incredulous. “What’s left to take?!”

Chinook winced at the carnage and his ears folded back on his helmeted head. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I’ve heard stories from some of the legionaries who went on raids. They put spikes on the rooftops to stop us from landing on them, and they stripped away the thatching so we couldn’t drop coals on them and set the thatch ablaze. Supposedly they have archers in those wagons to shoot at anypony who flies too close. They’re… accurate.”

“Sounds like you two are going to kill each other off before that town falls. No wonder Typhoon thinks taking it by force is stupid.” Sparrow frowned, and after a moment, she shifted the bundle on her back and pressed forward. “Come on. Let’s introduce ourselves.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Chinook asked, and after warily glancing around, he hurried to catch up to the unicorn. “I still don’t think this is a good idea…”

“Yeah, well, too late to back down now,” Sparrow said, and she squinted into the distance as a group of four silhouettes dropped out of a low-hanging cloud and began to fly towards them. The unicorn stood her ground and took a deep breath to steady herself, while she heard the sound of Chinook cautiously unlatching his sword from its scabbard. A look from blue-and-pink eyes and a shake of her head stayed the stallion, but the young soldier let his wings hang open just enough to have the blades along their edges ready in case he needed them.

They were on the pair in moments, though to Sparrow it felt like minutes as she stood on the road and waited. When they arrived, two pegasi stayed high and circled above them, while two dropped down in front. The taller of the two, a lanky mare with long legs and a long neck that gave her a slight height advantage over Sparrow, fixed the two with wary eyes that carried a spark of hate in them, and she bared her teeth before she spoke. “What business do Lost Legion traitors have here?” she challenged, and she dropped the tips of her wings to the ground for emphasis to let the entire length of blades shine in the morning sun. “Come to surrender? Come to die?”

“Come to talk,” was Sparrow’s response, and she returned the soldier’s glare with a harsh frown of her own. “On behalf of Commander Typhoon.”

The name perked ears, and the stallion of the pair of defenders turned to his tall companion. “This is the unicorn that was with the Commander!” he said in an excited yet hushed voice that altogether failed to be discreet. “Parlay told me about her eyes!”

The mention of her eyes made Sparrow cringe ever so slightly, and though she did her best to hide it, she knew the tall soldier saw it nonetheless. Even still, her glare only sharpened, and she took a step forward, pausing when Chinook flinched his wings. Her focus slid to him for a second, then up to the pegasi circling above them, then back to Sparrow. “If that’s so, why isn’t she here to speak to us herself? How do I know you’re not lying to me?”

“She couldn’t,” Sparrow said, answering the first question, and then very slowly, she reached for the bundle on her back, making sure not to make any sudden movements as the soldiers across from her tensed. When she removed it from her back, she untied the knot with her teeth rather than her magic, already feeling a chill settle on her lips. When it was done, she laid the bundle on the ground and began to unwrap it, and continued. “And to prove it’s the truth, she gave me this.”

As Sparrow pulled away the last fold of canvas, a cold frost billowed forth from the item inside, making the other three ponies step back in alarm. But as it cleared with the help of a breeze and Sparrow’s waving hoof, the unmistakable icy blue metal of a curved sword glistened like melting ice under the morning sun.

“Hiems…” the soldier mare murmured, and after a moment, she took a cautious stride forward and put the feathers of her wingtip along the flat of the sword. A heartbeat later, she gasped and drew back, eyes widened in alarm and a fleeting flash of fear as she pulled her wing away from the sword’s hateful magic. After a moment to breathe and compose herself, the soldier gave a shaky nod of her head. “Alright. If you’re here to talk on the Commander’s behalf, then the legate should be the one to hear it. I think we’d all like to know why Commander Typhoon pitched her tent with the Lost Legion and not with us.”

She motioned with her head for them to follow, and after wrapping Typhoon’s sword back up in the canvas bundle, Sparrow returned the legendary weapon to her back. As she did so, she spared Chinook a wink and a simple, “Still worried?” under her breath.

“Yes,” Chinook said, and he tucked his wings back against his sides, but the tension in his shoulders didn’t dissipate. “And now I’m also confused. But I’m going to stop asking questions because you’re not going to be helpful, are you?”

“Nope!” Sparrow sang, and just like that, she started cantering after the defenders of Dry Fens, leaving Chinook to sigh and follow along behind her, apprehension weighing down every hoofstep.

2-12

For a town that had come to mean so much for both sides, and whose fields had seen so much death and misery, Dry Fens was about as uninteresting and unremarkable a settlement in the Equestrian Frontier as any other town not important enough to have its name take up space on a map. Had two legions of dissatisfied soldiers not made it the focal point of their ideological struggle, it would have persisted in obscurity, not even worth a footnote in the annals of history.

As Sparrow got a closer look at the town, she was certain that its inhabitants would have preferred that reality over the one they got.

Though she had observed both the damage to and the fortification of Dry Fens from afar, as the defenders of the town led her and Chinook into its perimeter, Sparrow found herself struck by the misery that had been inscrutable at a distance. The first thing she noticed was that the town stunk. The bloated bodies of the dead baking under the sun in the fields that surrounded it had been hard enough to stomach, but once she stepped between the buildings, a foul, almost saccharine stench of sickness seemed to waft over her. It emanated from dark shadows behind dark windows, but even out in the streets, ragged and gaunt ponies clung to polearms, hatchets, and crossbows with shaky limbs and bloodshot eyes. Most of them were earth ponies and unicorns—inhabitants of the town taking up arms to defend it, judging by their look, though Sparrow couldn’t tell if they had done so willingly or been coerced into it by the soldiers around her. Which, she noticed, seemed less impaired by malnourishment and sickness than their ground-bound cousins. Evidently it was the trained soldiers that were in the best condition; whether that was from maintained rations that came at the expense of the villagers, stricter hygiene practiced by the Legion, or a combination of both, it was clear that the legionaries holding the town still possessed the strength to defend it.

Chinook noticed it too, and though he kept a wary guard up against the legionaries surrounding them, his curiosity got the better of him. “What’s spreading here?” he asked the lanky mare escorting them. “Dysentery? Camp fever?”

The questions coming from a soldier of the Lost Legion made their escort bristle. “That is none of your business,” she spat, glaring daggers at him. “I’m not going to yap with a spy.”

“We’re messengers,” Sparrow insisted, and she slid between the mare and Chinook to try and intercept her ire. “If you don’t want to tell us anything, that’s fine. I just want to talk to your legate on Typhoon’s behalf. Then we can be out of your mane.” When the soldier’s eyes narrowed at her, Sparrow cracked an awkward, unsure smile. “But, uh, we can break the ice, though. My name’s Sparrow,” she said, and she paused to offer the soldier her hoof.

The soldier regarded it for a moment, scrutinizing it like it was a trap. There was also something else in her eyes, a peculiar furrowing of her brow at the name. “You have a pegasus name?” she finally asked, and her attention shifted back to Sparrow’s mismatched eyes with a cock of her head.

“Don’t you?” Sparrow quipped back.

That earned a tiny snort of amusement from the legionary, and she took Sparrow’s hoof in the feathers of her bladed wing for a shake, causing Sparrow to flinch as the featherknife at the tip glided past her fetlock. “Crane,” she said, giving Sparrow a curt nod.

“Sparrow and Crane? An odd flock if ever there was one,” Chinook mused from their side, and though Crane glared in her direction, it was the stallion behind her that abruptly seized her wrath.

“Her full name is Whooping Crane,” he told them, grinning when Crane bared her teeth at him. “We call her Whoop.”

“Shut it, Thermal!” Crane hissed at him, and then she frowned sharply at the two interlopers. “If you call me Whoop, it wouldn’t matter if you were Typhoon’s granddaughter, I’ll kill you.”

Sparrow held up a placating hoof, but she couldn’t help a little chuckle. “If I was her granddaughter I think I’d have less horn and more feathers… and I wouldn’t be wearing scraps for armor,” she said, and her magic tugged on the red cloth that hung from the quarter plate cuirass that offered a limited amount of protection to her neck and chest.

“Hmmph. Right.” At that, Crane beckoned with her head, and the group started moving again, deeper into Dry Fens. “But you must mean something to her if you’re traveling with her. So what are you, then? I don’t see why she would tie herself to the ground to foalsit a lost filly.”

“I’m not lost, and I’m not a filly, I’m sixteen,” Sparrow protested, and the downward curve on her muzzle sharpened when Crane snickered at the rebuke. “And we’re traveling together because I’m her squire.”

“Squire?” Crane glanced back at Sparrow and arched an eyebrow. “She’s the Commander of the Equestrian Legion, not some unicorn knight. Pegasi don’t squire.”

“Well, I’m following her around and she’s teaching me how to fight,” Sparrow said with a shrug. “What else would you call it?”

After a moment, Crane simply shrugged her shoulders mid-stride. “Squire it is, then. So, what makes you special enough to squire for one of the finest soldiers Cirra has ever known?”

This time it was Sparrow’s turn to give a shrug and an unsure sigh. “I… don’t know,” she admitted, earning a few confused looks from the pegasi around her. “She didn’t want to when I first met her in Boiling Springs. Even when I helped her find a wizard she was looking for she didn’t want anything to do with me. Then I attacked her with a sword and might have broken her nose with a rock…”

Crane gave her an incredulous look, actually pausing in shock, while Thermal looked mortified. But Chinook let an impressed whistle slip past his lips. “You drew blood on Typhoon?” he asked, and he patted Sparrow on the back. “Either she’s getting older than she looks or you’re some kind of prodigy. No wonder she took an interest in you after that!”

“If she’d actually been trying to fight back I don’t think I’d have gotten that lucky. But I guess that’s the luckiest nose I’ve ever broken in a fight,” Sparrow joked. “Lucky enough that she took me with her when she left Boiling Springs and has been trying to train me along the way. Though she mostly beats my flank around, at least I finally got some real Legion training the past few days.”

It took Sparrow a second to realize she made a mistake, but unfortunately by then, the defenders of Dry Fens were bristling, any curiosity or lightening of the atmosphere dashed away in a storm of hatred and mistrust. “So you went from studying under the Legion’s last mother to insulting its legacy?” Crane spat with an accusatory growl.

“No, I—!”

“Quiet!” the mare snapped, and the sharp edge to her voice made Sparrow flinch and her ears droop. “The only thing those traitors out there can teach you is how to ruin everything Hurricane and Typhoon stood for in the name of old Cirra. They’re no legionaries, they’re scourge that infests the Frontier while hiding behind the legacy of ponies better than them!”

Chinook raised his wings, the blades on their edges gleaming, and the pegasi surrounding him and Sparrow drew their weapons as the stallion snarled. “We don’t occupy towns and use the villagers as sick and starving pony shields!” he shouted at them. “You can’t beat us in the field, so you’re going to hide here until everypony who lives here is dead, is that it?”

“One more word out of your mouth, colt, and you can join the rest of your comrades in the fields under the sun!”

“Stop!” Sparrow shouted, and she hoisted the canvas-wrapped sword into the air to catch everypony’s attention. When she had it, she glowered at Chinook, then at Crane. “We’re here because Typhoon has a message for your legate. I can’t give it to him if we’re dead!”

Tense silence held over the group for several seconds, and the commotion had drawn the eyes of more than just the few pegasi escorting the interlopers into the town. Shadows watched from darkened windows and a few armored bodies in the street cast their eyes at the scene unfolding before them. At her side, Sparrow felt Chinook lightly brush against her shoulder as if to protect her, even though there would be nothing he could do should blades sing for blood.

Finally, Crane lowered her wings, and the rest of her squad did the same, though the tension remained in the air. “I would really like to know what Typhoon sees in Lost Winds’ band of murderers,” the armored mare said, “and I suppose I won’t find out if you’re dead.” Then she nodded to Thermal. “The colt sounds like one of the Lost Legion’s brainwashed idiots. He’s not worth the legate’s time.”

Chinook’s wings raised up again and he bared his teeth. “If you think I’ll just lay over and die—!”

“We take prisoners, colt,” Crane snapped at him. “You might not get much more than grass to eat, but it’s better than what you show our wounded. Consider yourself lucky.”

“No, he stays with me,” Sparrow insisted, and this time she stepped in front of Chinook, meeting Crane’s glare. “We came together so we’ll go together.”

“You have a relationship with Typhoon, and you have her sword. Your friend does not. You’re the only one worth the legate’s time. I won’t see it wasted by a pony who does nothing but swallow Lost Winds’ bullshit.” She waved her wing, and the rest of her companions stepped forward, wing blades ready should Chinook lash out at them. “He can wait here while you pass Typhoon’s message along, and so long as he doesn’t do anything stupid, he won’t be hurt.” She turned her head aside at Chinook. “I hope that was simple enough for you to understand, colt.”

The fiery young soldier bared his teeth, but his gaze drifted to Sparrow. “Sparrow?” he asked, a little bit of worry creeping into her name.

Sparrow looked to Crane, and when Crane nodded at her, she passed that assurance back to her friend. “Just… don’t start any fights, okay? I’m not leaving without you.”

Reluctantly, Chinook lowered his guard and tucked his wings back against his sides. “Alright, fine. But if you don’t come get me, I’ll come get you.”

Thermal let out a bark of laughter and shepherded Chinook away with an outstretched wing. “Yeah, right. You so much as preen a feather without asking us first and somepony’ll put an arrow in you.” Then he saluted Crane. “We’ll take him to the edge of town, Whoop. Sit him ten paces in front of Sure Shot just in case.”

As they led him away, Sparrow could only look on and frown. She wanted to protest, but knew there was no point. She could only hope that Crane was telling the truth, and that Chinook wouldn’t try something stupid. She didn’t want to see him dead because he was concerned for her, even if he had pulled his sword on her on the road to Dry Fens not all that long ago.

Crane had little sympathy, and after she finished grousing to herself over her nickname, she started walking again. “Come on, let’s not dawdle. I’ve got a very busy day planned of sitting on a cloud and sticking my sword through any more idiots the Lost Legion sends my way.”

“Sorry to interrupt it, then…” Sparrow muttered, falling in behind the pegasus. Hopefully, if the legate was actually receptive to Typhoon’s message, then there wouldn’t be a need for that anymore.

Their conversation soured, Sparrow didn’t put any effort into attempting to resurrect it, instead shifting her attention to thinking about how she was going to word Typhoon’s offer to meet into something convincing for the defending legion’s legate. She knew that if she failed to secure the legate’s interest, a lot of ponies were going to die very soon. If there was no peace, then the Lost Legion would descend on Dry Fens with several newly trained and equipped centuries of legionaries, and though the defenses of the town were formidable, it was clear the sickness spreading here was sapping the defenders’ strength. Negotiations now were the last chance the defenders had to secure peace from a position of power; wait too long, and with the Lost Legion on the ascendancy and Dry Fens on the decline, and the disparity would be far too much to overcome for peace with honor.

As she thought, she took the time to look around Dry Fens and see if she could find any more evidence of the state of the defenders’ forces to add to her argument. Though the town was just a couple of dirt streets that intersected at a central point, there was a lot of activity going on as the centerpiece of the legion’s defense, and there were details that Sparrow hadn’t been able to notice when she first surveyed the town from afar. The thatching pulled off of the roofs to stop the Lost Legion from setting fires to the buildings had been repurposed into sleeping mats for the defenders and cots for the sick and wounded; given that it was the middle of the day, there were much, much more of the latter than the former. Villagers and medics shuffled between moaning wounded warriors, bringing water and scraps of food to try and help them fight off sickness and survive their injuries. Even still, it seemed like a losing battle. Sparrow saw several ponies chewing on the dried-out thatching for want of something to eat, and gaunt, pockmarked, and skeletal bodies of ponies suffering from camp fever stared out into the streets as they shivered in their sickness.

In the center of the town, the defenders at least looked like they had a stronger position to hold. Numerous bastions and watch posts of shaped clouds hovered over the city in endless vigil, and supplies had been neatly arranged and clustered around the small bell post in the center of the clearing. The defenders had pitched a few tents around those supplies, and given their size, they were likely command tents or enclosed infirmaries. There weren’t many sleeping tents like the besieging legion in Camp Stratopolis had, but when Sparrow looked up, she saw several broad strokes of cloud that didn’t seem to move with the winds pushing the rest of the white fluff around. The defending pegasi had likely pitched their camp in the sky, isolating them from the disease spreading in Dry Fens, while the earth pony and unicorn defenders had to sleep in the husks of their homes.

Crane shot Sparrow a glance as she realized the unicorn’s mismatched eyes were wandering over the town and huffed to herself. “I should have put a blindfold on you,” she grumbled, and she flicked Sparrow’s nose with a wingtip to get her attention as she broke off toward one of the tents. “I hope you realize you’re only leaving here if the legate agrees to it. You’ve seen too much that you could tell those traitors in the woods.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Sparrow said with a shrug, her eyes wandering over a line of hungry villagers and soldiers clutching bowls as they waited to get what meager rations they had left. At the very least, they had access to all the water they wanted, as she saw a pair of legionaries pulling off pieces of a captured cloud and using a touch of pegasus magic to condense it into water in wooden cups. “But if I don’t come back, Typhoon will come looking for me. And if she has to come here, Lost Winds will follow with his army.”

“Then we’ll be ready to meet them,” Crane said, and she gave a quick flick of her wing to the pair of sentries standing guard outside of the tent before stepping inside. Sparrow followed her, grimacing at the hostile glances the sentries spared her before she could slip into the shadows within.

The tent was surprisingly warm inside with a little brazier burning in one corner, and the sweet smell of smoke masked another one that danced at the tip of Sparrow’s nose. As Sparrow’s eyes adjusted to the flickering light, her first thought was how similar this tent looked to Legate Winds’ tent in Camp Stratopolis. The far end held a sleeping quarters and some simple possessions, and a table covered with maps and papers filled the rest of the tent. The difference here was the presence of a crude chair at the opposite end of the table and a aging stallion sitting in it, hunched over a scroll as he strained to read in the darkness. When he lifted his head to see who had entered, the firelight lit the contours of his cheeks and muzzle, and though the flesh was thinning and the bones pushed against the skin, Sparrow suddenly froze in place, her right foreleg still held in the air mid-stride.

“Sir, we found this mare wandering near Dry Fens with another soldier of Lost’s Legion,” Crane informed the legate. “She claims she has a message from Commander Typhoon, and she has the Commander’s sword with her for proof.”

Then, turning to Sparrow, she gestured to the table. “Why don’t you show Legate Singing Sparrow what you’ve got?”

2-13

Sparrow blinked, then blinked again. There was no way the pony sitting at the table was who Crane said he was. After all this time, after six long years, there was no way their paths were ever meant to cross again.

But even in the orange glow of firelight, even through the smoky haze that filled the tent with its warm, ashy feathers, even through the sickness that clung to his face, Sparrow recognized Singing Sparrow sitting across from her. Time had not been kind to the stallion, but under the thinning patches of his coat and the red marks and nicks that decorated his muzzle, Sparrow saw the face of the legate whose legion had pulled her from the rubble of her sunken village, and who had personally watched over her until the legion returned to the next closest town. That face and its gruff kindness was etched into her mind’s eye, and even though the one opposite her was scarred and weary, its curves and edges didn’t lie.

But the stallion was ravaged, practically decayed, by time, trial, and disease. The patchiness of his coat continued down his neck until it disappeared under a heavy cloak wrapped around his frame for warmth; even then, minute shivers made his limbs tremble and his ears twitch. Dark patches ringed his eyes, and every movement he made seemed wracked with exhaustion. A small plate of untouched food sat undisturbed at the corner of the table, picked over by curious flies looking for something easier than the shivering, writhing bodies outside.

“Hey!” Crane snapped, frowning at Sparrow and shaking her out of her shock. “Are you just going to stand there? Show the legate what you got.”

“S-Sorry,” Sparrow stammered, and she shrugged the canvas bundle off of her back, gently held it in a soft aura of pink magic, and set it down in front of the legate. She pulled back the canvas corners, and moments later, an icy chill billowed from the exposed steel as it mingled with the hot and humid air inside the tent. The legate narrowed his eyes at it, and Sparrow anxiously cleared her throat. “Typhoon gave me her sword to prove that my message comes from her, not from Legate Lost Winds or anypony else in his camp.”

The legate’s wing brushed over the pale blue metal, and he momentarily closed his eyes and took a slow, shaky breath. When he opened then, he gave Sparrow a small nod and covered the sword back up with canvas once more. “I believe you,” he said in a deep but wavering voice. “Nopony would be able to get this sword away from her without her permission.”

Sparrow momentarily cringed when she remembered trying to do just that in Boiling Springs, and she shivered at the memory of icy fingers of hate curling down the grooves of her horn when she seized the blade in her magic. “Yeah, that was the thought…”

“What I would like to know, though, is why the Commander would choose Legate Winds’ camp to make her quarters, and why she could not bring this message to me personally,” the sickly soldier said, and he did his best to raise his posture into something more authoritative. “If you don’t mind satisfying my curiosity before you deliver your message.”

“Well…” Sparrow fidgeted, unsure of how to phrase it, and worried about offering an unsatisfactory answer to the legate and Crane, the latter of whom seemingly loomed over Sparrow’s shoulder. But the legate gave her a patient raise of his eyebrow, and as Sparrow remembered the kindness he once showed her a lifetime ago, she felt a little more confident about saying things that might otherwise ruffle feathers. “The truth is, we interrupted a skirmish, and Legate Winds’ soldiers chased yours off. We didn’t know what was going on, so Typhoon and I followed them back to their camp. They made a lotta talk about their cause and their fight to try and convince Typhoon to take command, and now Typhoon thinks that if she came here herself, they’d follow her with the army.” She hesitated before adding, “They, uh, want to keep her to themselves. They don’t want her to hear what you guys have to say, I think. So that’s why she had me sneak out of camp to talk to you.”

After a moment, the legate gave another nod of his head and adjusted the cloak over his shoulders, moving quickly to hide the shivers in his limbs. “I feel better knowing that Legate Winds had no say in what you’re about to tell me, then,” he said. “And slightly more confidence that she is not asking me to surrender. I respected Typhoon when she was my commander. She was a good leader, fair, competent, and honorable. But if Lost Winds twisted her to his cause, then even my loyalty has limits.”

“She was… not enthusiastic about what Lost Winds wants,” Sparrow admitted. “They wanted to make her their empress.”

Crane’s soldierly discipline broke down, and she let out a guffaw. “Really? They offered her that? After what happened between her and her brother?”

A little shake of the legate’s head was enough to remind Crane of her position, and the legionary stiffened and withdrew into the background again. But Sparrow nevertheless answered her. “Typhoon told me about Cyclone… but yeah. What Typhoon wants most of all is the fighting to stop. However that happens, whatever it takes, that’s what she’s here for. That’s why she wants to arrange a meeting between you and her and Lost Winds to try to get it to stop.”

The Legate quietly contemplated that for some time—long enough that Sparrow wondered if she needed to try to say more to convince him or not. She could hear Crane fidgeting behind her, the mare’s armored plates gently clinking together as she anxiously awaited an answer from her ailing legate. When Singing Sparrow did give it, his voice was weary and tired. “If the Commander wants to negotiate terms, I’m afraid I cannot do that while Lost Winds’ legion remains a threat.”

“They won’t be a threat if Typhoon puts a stop to the fighting!” Sparrow protested, and she stepped forward, on the verge of putting her hooves on the legate’s table and leaning over it, until the startled rattle of bladed wings behind her reminded her to not make such sudden movements. “She wants to stop this stupid fighting over Dry Fens altogether so you and Legate Winds stop tearing the countryside apart over it. If she can stop the fighting, then you can instead use your legions to keep the frontier safe!”

“What do you think my legion is fighting for, girl?” the legate snapped back, an edge of ire sneaking into his hoarse voice. To Sparrow’s surprise, he summoned the strength to stand up, though his legs shook as they helped support his weight. “I’ve put my legion here to save Dry Fens from being one of Lost Winds’ conquests. Without us, his band of reavers and zealots would have sacked it long ago as they tried to loot the supplies and weapons they need to make their Cirran dreams a reality. We’re the only thing stopping a warlord from carving out territory in Equestria’s frontier and planting a tattered Cirran flag in the middle of it.”

“And how much longer are you going to be able to do that?” Sparrow asked. “Dry Fens is in terrible shape. I can see the sickness spreading around here. Even you weren’t safe from it! Meanwhile, Lost Winds has been training new centuries and getting stronger by the day. Eventually he’s gonna realize that you’re all sick and starving and he’s gonna put an end to you. What does it matter if you die fighting if at the end of the day, you’re still dead?”

“It’s still more honorable to say you died fighting evil rather than live while it festered. Even if you don’t win, at least you may weaken it so somepony else has a chance to kill it,” the legate said, and with a grunt, he fell back to his seat.

“And what happens if nopony comes?” Sparrow pressed him. “What if you had a chance to put an end to this without swords and died for nothing?”

Behind Sparrow, Crane stepped forward. “Do you want me to remove her, sir?”

After a moment, the legate waved his hoof. “Yes, I think that would be best, soldier.”

But when Crane tried to lead Sparrow away, the young unicorn shook her wing off and frowned at the legate. “Is this what you’re going to do, Legate?” she asked him, baring her teeth as frustration cracked through diplomacy. “Fight a hopeless battle even if it gets everypony killed just because you don’t want to talk? Because Typhoon killed the Legion and you don’t know what to do with what’s left of yours except die fighting?”

“That’s enough,” Crane growled, and Sparrow winced as she felt the point of a wing blade scale needle into her neck.

But it was not enough, and in a ploy of desperation, Sparrow blurted out: “What happened to the pony who stepped on a spider for a terrified little filly cowering in your tent after her town sunk into a barrow?”

This time Sparrow gasped as Crane drove the point further into her neck and used the pain to turn her around. But she didn’t take more than two steps before the legate stopped her with a gruff “Wait.”

Crane paused, though she kept her bladed wing jammed against Sparrow’s neck to control her movements, and she looked back at her commander. “Sir?”

“I’ve changed my mind,” Legate Sparrow simply said. “Leave her be. I think there’s more we need to discuss.”

The soldier reluctantly relaxed her submission hold on Sparrow’s neck, and the unicorn slipped away from Crane’s bladed wings as soon as it was safe. “What more, sir?” Crane asked. “It’s clear that Typhoon expects us to surrender. The rest of Lost Winds’ soldiers think they can beat us in the field. We should be preparing for another battle, not entertaining talk of surrender.”

“Thank you for your input, soldier, but you are dismissed,” the legate said, and when Crane’s eyes widened in surprise, his bloodshot ones narrowed. Nothing more needed to be said; with a sharp frown but a soldier’s salute, Crane exited the tent, sparing only a scornful look at Sparrow before she did so.

When she was gone, the legate squinted at Sparrow, his eyes meeting hers; after a moment, he gave her a simple weary nod. “I don’t remember who you are or what town my soldiers pulled you out of,” he admitted, “but I remember your eyes. And I remember the spider.” The corners of his mouth twitched upward for a second as he added, “I never would have imagined that the scared filly with the mismatched eyes would one day be the traveling companion to my commander.”

“Y-Yeah, you and me both,” Sparrow said, and after glancing around the tent, she pulled over a chair with her magic and sat down across from the Legate. “I didn’t… Well, I guess I wasn’t expecting you to be the legate in charge here when Typhoon asked me to bring her message to Dry Fens. I just…”

Her words failed her in an overwhelming surge of emotion. Sitting in Legate Singing Sparrow’s tent, she felt like she’d been brought back in time, to moments after his soldiers had pulled her from the rubble that was once her home. But so much had changed in the six years between now and then. Sparrow was older, stronger, and more tempered by the hardships of life than a sixteen-year-old filly had any business being. And the legate, once a firm rock she’d clung to in the aftermath of the trauma that had killed the filly once known as Hydrangea, had weathered down into crumbling stone under hardship, duress, and disease.

In the end, she found herself asking the only question she could, one she wanted to know the answer to for so long. “What happened to you after you saved me?” she asked him. “How did you go from pulling a filly out of a spider’s barrow to clinging onto a town in the middle of nowhere?”

The legate rubbed at bloodshot eyes with the back of his fetlock, and Sparrow could see the memories of years weighing heavily upon his shoulders. “I kept fighting in the War of Silk until it was over,” Singing Sparrow said. “I fought alongside Queen Platinum’s Royal Guard and watched how they put an end to the fighting when we couldn’t. When the Commander said it was time to either hang up the wing blades or join the Royal Guard as the air corps, I did the former. I’d had enough fighting for one life. I just wanted to work my own plot of land in the frontier. Most of my soldiers wanted the same, too.”

A shiver wracked through his body, and he shielded his muzzle behind a tattered wing as he started to cough a sickly, wet cough. Sparrow’s eyes widened in alarm as it kept going, and she wondered if she should get somepony before the legate managed to suppress it and take a few rapid breaths. He shivered again, before continuing his story as if he hadn’t interrupted himself. “So I did that. I didn’t have a wife and was too old to court one, so I mostly labored by myself on a small plot of land and avoided the trouble in Everfree. Talk of civil war, political infighting in the capital, separatist movements along the coast—I wanted none of it. Fighting the buffalo and the spiders sated my youthful thirst for glory and taught me an important lesson about the horrors that accompanied it. There is no glory to be had in killing your fellow pony because royalty and nobility are feuding over who gets to have the largest throne, and I hoped that I could die without being dragged into it.”

He gritted his teeth as shivering pains slithered across his barrel and down his limbs. “I didn’t get my wish,” he said. “There were many legionaries who were angry that the Legion had been supplanted by the Royal Guard. They blame Queen Platinum and the unicorn nobility for the Legion’s dissolution. Lost Winds is one such pegasus. He and other pegasi kept their swords when they left and almost immediately started using them to cut out territory in the frontier for their own little fiefdom, their own Cirra. I’ve no doubt they see themselves as their own Roamulus from our pegasus history, forging a new empire out of the untamed wilds with sword and lightning.”

“So how did you get involved?” Sparrow asked him. “What made you pick up your sword again?”

“Because Dry Fens is my home now,” the legate said. “This is where I retired from the Legion. And when I heard what was happening across the frontier with Winds’ legion, I started organizing its defense. I reached out to old friends, officers and legionaries who fought with me against the spiders and mustered an army to oppose him. I never got quite the same number of soldiers as Winds did, but I like to think my skill outmatches his. I’ve been able to use the town to hold out against a larger army for months now. I was hoping that, given enough time, my resistance would deter him and break apart his legion of thugs when they realized Winds wasn’t giving them glory and trophies in the field. I was wrong.”

Sparrow’s ears folded back as she thought about the morale of Camp Stratopolis’ soldiers and how its strength had only grown since Typhoon’s arrival to Winds’ legion. “They don’t care about that,” she told him. “I mean, I’m sure some do. But there are pegasi there who are still all in on the Cirra reborn thing. They think sticking with Winds is going to make it happen, and a new Cirra is going to make everything better.” She shrugged. “I’m not a pegasus so I don’t get it. I certainly don’t care about any Diamond Kingdoms stuff. I barely know anything about it.”

“For centuries, the pegasi lived in an empire steeped in pride, patriotism, and military prowess,” Singing Sparrow said. “Its destruction was deeply traumatic to our entire people. I can’t blame those who are lost without the Legion for clinging onto our history for something to give them purpose. I just wish it wouldn’t come at the cost of turning the frontier into a warzone.”

“But there are a lot of ponies who just want to make the frontier safer and think that Winds’ legion is the best way to do that.” As she said it, Chinook came to mind. She knew he wasn’t a thug, and even if he bought a little too much into the Lost Legion’s version of reality, she knew that he just wanted to help keep the frontier safe like the Legion used to do. And she knew he wasn’t the only pegasus in that camp that thought so. “They’re tired of the fighting, too. They’re good ponies. But they believe that you’re a bunch of bandits and traitors who have seized Dry Fens and Lost Winds is trying to siege you out to liberate it.” She glanced away in shame as she admitted, “That’s what I thought too, when they first told me about it. It just seemed simple, black and white. I guess I put a little bit too much faith in what Centurion Tern and Legate Winds were saying.”

Singing Sparrow let out a sigh, though it ended in a grunt and a wince as pain flickered across his face. “Lost Winds was a very capable administrator,” the legate said. “I didn’t interact with him much when we both served in the Legion. I commanded a field legion; it was my job to move around the countryside and respond to threats with force. His legion was mostly used to garrison forts and secure trade routes and roads. But he was very capable of picking competent subordinates, and even though he’s rather soft spoken, he’s very charismatic. It’s my fault for underestimating that when I chose to make a stand against him. I thought I could beat his legion with swords, but evidently, his words have proven stronger than my blades.”

He coughed again, once more shielding his face with his wing. When he lowered it, he only had energy for a small shake of his head. “I can’t go to a meeting with him on Typhoon’s request,” he finally told Sparrow. “It’ll be nothing but surrender. Lost Winds will take the town, absorb my legion, and grow stronger. He’ll grow one step closer to making his Cirran dreams a reality. But if I can at least make a stand, maybe we can bloody him enough to set him back long enough for Everfree to solve its problems and reassert itself over the frontier.”

“Why does it have to be like that, though?” Sparrow protested, exasperation growing in her voice. “Typhoon doesn’t want a Cirra reborn. She doesn’t want this fighting to continue. She wants to negotiate an end to the fighting and have you two actually use your legions for keeping the frontier safe instead of ripping it apart.” She paused, biting her lip for a moment as she thought, then pressed forward from a different angle. “They worship Typhoon in that camp. She’s Hurricane’s daughter. They already see her as their empress, even if she refuses the title. And there are a lot of pegasi in that legion that genuinely want to help but are misguided. If she wanted to broker peace and reorganize your legions, don’t you think the soldiers would listen to her?”

“Will Typhoon stay to command us?” Singing Sparrow asked. “Will she be the one holding things together?”

“I… don’t think so,” Sparrow admitted. “She’s made it clear that she wants to keep going further west. But she’s got some plan to work out a deal for both sides. Otherwise, she wouldn’t send me to ask you to meet her.” With a deep breath, Sparrow leaned in, pleading with the legate with her eyes as well as her voice. “Please, if you want to stop the killing, if you want to save lives like you used to save them years ago… please give her a chance.”

There was silence in the tent, heavy and smothering like the fingers of warm smoke wafting through the air from the fire keeping the sickly legate warm. Finally, though, the legate sighed and reluctantly bobbed his head. “I suppose a meeting to see what she wants won’t hurt. But we meet on my place of choosing. North of town, there’s a small farmstead at the crossroads on the hill. I will only meet with Typhoon and Lost Winds. If he brings anypony else from his camp, if he parks his legion in the fields beyond or the clouds above, I will not see him nor Typhoon. If Typhoon wants a diplomatic solution to the fighting, then we’ll end this like diplomats, not with soldiers or armies.”

“I’ll tell her that,” Sparrow said, and a relieved smile broke out across her muzzle. It wasn’t a promise to stop the fighting, but it was an agreement to a meeting; the real deal that would stop the fighting would have to be brokered by Typhoon herself, and Sparrow knew that the Legion’s last commander had infinitely far more clout than she did. It was a step in the right direction, and she didn’t know whether to find it ironic or fortuitous that Singing Sparrow, the pony who had saved her from death long ago, was the one to see her now. If the meeting went well, and a true peace could be established, then it was not lost on her that she would be repaying the favor to the stallion she took her name from.

Perhaps the legate was thinking the same thing or something similar, because as Sparrow stood up and took Typhoon’s sword in her magic, he cleared his throat. “Before you go, filly, I have to ask: what is your name?” He shrugged his wings and added, almost with a small touch of embarrassment or awkwardness, “I never learned your name when I gave you shelter in my tent six years ago. It would be an affront to fate, I think, if I still didn’t know your name after we impossibly crossed paths a second time years later.”

Sparrow paused, and then she shuffled her hoof. “My name’s Hydrangea,” she said, and after a moment of hesitation, she felt a warm blush build in her cheeks. “Well… was. These past few years, I’ve… been going by Sparrow.”

Her coat felt like it was going to spontaneously combust in embarrassment after admitting to the legate that she’d taken his name, and she wanted nothing more than to flee his tent before he could respond. But she waited, cringing inwardly—at least until Singing Sparrow offered her a small, reassuring smile. “I’m honored, Sparrow,” he said. “And I’m happy to have finally had the fortune to meet you after so long.”

2-14

The farmstead at the crossroads north of Dry Fens had not been lived in for some time. In the center of the fields covering the hills, a small building with a door, four windows, and a small porch held a timid command over the surrounding land, claiming an impressive piece of topography to sit on while not being particularly impressive to the eye. The grasses around its porch were wildly overgrown and the curtains were drawn behind dusty glass. In one corner of the porch, a simple wooden rocking chair had been overturned, and dead leaves gathered in the crook of its arm.

Sparrow took all this in as she hiked up the hillside, following Typhoon just off of the old soldier’s shoulder. She wondered why Legate Singing Sparrow had chosen this particular location for the meeting. If she looked off to the right, she saw the town of Dry Fens sleepily sitting in the midmorning sun, far enough away that she couldn’t identify the damage or blemishes that she had seen when she visited the town on her mission two days prior. The sentry clouds of its defenders hovered over the town, casting distant shadows on the ground below them, and Sparrow was certain that the defenders’ sentries were watching them from somewhere hidden in the sky. But why meet so far away from the town, so far from the legion’s nerve center, when brokering a peace to end the fighting?

On Typhoon’s other side, Centurion Tern and Legate Winds similarly scrutinized the area, though it was Tern that felt the need to voice his thoughts aloud. “If Singing Sparrow wanted to meet at a neutral site, we should have forced him to meet at one that’s truly neutral,” he grumbled. “And if he wanted to kill us, why wouldn’t he pick the center of town?” He glared in Sparrow’s direction, and though she was taller than Typhoon, Sparrow still instinctively tried to hide behind the pegasus to avoid his gaze. “Well? He tell you anything, deserter?”

“He didn’t say. And I am not a deserter… sir,” she remembered to add at the legate’s look. She had to remind herself that technically she had been through Tern’s training, which technically made her one of his legionaries, and so she technically needed to address him with the honorific. Leave it to him to suck all the pride she should have been feeling out of ostensibly fulfilling her life’s ambition. She had expected to feel something, excitement and apprehension, maybe, but not this. Not the hollow feeling in her gut that told her she didn’t belong, that she shouldn’t even be here, that she’d made a mistake.

“Perhaps it’s as far as he feels comfortable flying, knowing what Sparrow impressed upon him,” Lost Winds quietly observed as he surveyed the surrounding area. “This is close enough to Dry Fens that he could feel confident in not being ambushed, and if we brought our army along, he’d have plenty of time to prepare. A mouse won’t stray too far from its hole if it knows a hawk roosts nearby.”

But Typhoon just shrugged. “I think it’s more than that,” the old soldier gruffly commented, but apart from that statement she had nothing else to say. Instead, she chose to walk up the steps of the porch, wrap the feathers of her wingtip around the doorknob, and hesitated for only a moment before stepping inside when it surprisingly turned.

Winds gave his head a little shake and shrugged. “If Typhoon doesn’t sense anything off about it…” he quipped in his soft voice, and he beckoned with his wing for Tern and Sparrow to follow. Sparrow deferred to her centurion, letting him proceed first after Winds, and after one last look at the sky, she brought up the rear, using her magic to lodge a door stop under the muntin to keep it open.

After a moment to let her eyes adjust to the dim light inside, Sparrow observed Typhoon and Lost Winds looking over the sparse furniture and few belongings inside, at least until Tern gestured for her to take care of the window curtains. This she did with her magic, drawing back the curtains to let the midday light illuminate the interior, and she took her time to look around the rooms as she did so. ‘Rooms’ may have been a misnomer, though. There were no doors that partitioned the house, only simple wooden plank walls that suggested divisions into rooms rather than enforced them. There was the entryway, a half-wall to the left that sectioned off a bedroom, a small sitting area to the right, and a simple kitchen and dining room on the other side of the wall that supported the middle of the house. There were few decorations, if any, to speak of, and the furniture was simple and utilitarian. All of it abandoned, all of it untouched for quite some time.

“Typical frontier home,” Tern muttered with a bored shrug. Then he turned his attention to Sparrow, who stiffened at the eye contact. “Go and stand watch outside,” he ordered her. “Let us know if you see anything. And if you wander off again, I’ll make sure you don’t get very far.”

Sparrow’s eyes momentarily glanced toward Typhoon at the threat, but the older mare gave her head a small shake behind Tern’s back and shrugged her wings before turning away. The unicorn shifted her attention back to her centurion and nodded, knowing Typhoon thought little of his words, and gave him a quick (albeit strained) “Sir,” of acknowledgement before turning around and walking back outside.

She momentarily considered righting the rocking chair on the porch and sitting under the shade while looking out toward Dry Fens, but she doubted Tern would find that acceptable, so she walked down the stairs and stood on the grass under the sun. Only there did she let out a long and forceful blow of air between her lips and frowned off into the distance. Consequences be damned, she was really tempted to just disappear down the road and leave her irritable commanding officer behind. But that temptation lasted only a moment; in addition to Tern being right and that she wouldn’t be able to outrun a pegasi on her hooves if she were to do something that stupid, she didn’t really have anywhere to go. Plus, she wasn’t about to abandon Typhoon, and she really didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye to Chinook…

She sighed and remembered how he had pressed her for any details about her conversation with Singing Sparrow on their walk back to camp when they left the town behind. She had just been happy he hadn’t started any fights with the defenders or done something stupid and gotten himself hurt. And she was doubly happy when Tern’s pickets had spotted and intercepted them when they got close to Camp Stratopolis and he was able to vouch for her. If she had just been by herself, she wondered if they just would have killed her on sight. And would they have even bothered to tell Typhoon, or would they cover it up?

It was all pointless worrying about hypotheticals in the end, though. Though Tern had chewed her out and threatened to punish her mercilessly for desertion, Typhoon’s and Winds’ intervention had at least saved her from that fate. And it was worth it when, after some explaining, Typhoon was able to convince the legate to meet with Singing Sparrow. Tern had insisted he accompany the legate despite Singing Sparrow’s instructions, and Typhoon had allowed it on the condition that the centurion not participate in the negotiations. This was a matter that would be resolved between the two legates and mediated by their former commander, and neither Tern nor Sparrow were expected to participate. Sparrow was just happy that Typhoon had decided to bring her along instead of leaving her behind in camp.

Sparrow hadn’t been standing outside for too long before she noticed activity in the direction of Dry Fens. She blinked, then narrowed her eyes when she saw several tufts of cloud rise up and spread out from the city. They were barely visible against the sky, not much larger than a couple of ponies standing flank to flank, and they arranged themselves at varying distances and heights from the center of town. Sparrow chewed on her scarred lip, wondering if this was the kind of thing she needed to report back on, until she noticed one of the clouds seemed to be heading in her direction. This time she turned tail and trotted back up the steps to the open door, where after rapping against the jamb with her hoof to catch the attention of the ponies inside, she announced “Something’s coming.”

“Be more specific,” was Tern’s response as the three ponies inside broke off their conversation. “The legate? A messenger? An army?”

“Clouds?” Sparrow asked, her confusion adding a questioning inflection to the word. “A bunch came out of the town and one’s coming this way.”

Thankfully, Typhoon had the explanation. “Sentry posts, most likely,” she said as she made her way to the door. “They’re checking to see if you brought your army before the legate arrives. Let’s present ourselves and show that we’ve arrived already.”

Typhoon stepped past her and into the morning sunlight, followed by the other three legionaries in order of descending rank. When the aging soldier came to a stop a few paces from the porch stairs, they arranged themselves at her sides in the same orientation they had arrived at the house and waited as the cloud drew near. Even though it was only one cloud, Sparrow still felt a claw of apprehension squeeze her gut, especially as the other sentry posts continued to fan out and drift overhead. Tern felt the same, judging by the way his wingtips twitched as if he was envisioning using the blades on their crests to fight his way out of an ambush, but the legate remained calm and measured, and Typhoon herself seemed practically relaxed. Of all ponies, Sparrow figured she had the least to fear; who was going to attack Commander Hurricane’s daughter, both out of the foolishness of crossing swords with somepony of her skill and magical prowess, and out of respect for the daughter of the savior of the pegasus race?

The cloud descended soon enough, and though Tern all but flinched when it changed its course, it soon revealed little to fear. Two pegasi Sparrow recognized—Crane on the left, Thermal on the right—closed their wings as they guided the cloud down to the ground, using the capricious magic of the pegasi to control the intangible vapor. Standing between them was the pony Sparrow had ostensibly met in a dim tent two days prior, but today looked like a completely different stallion in his gleaming armor and Cirran-blue cloak draped over his shoulders.

Legate Singing Sparrow waited until the cloud came to a stop on the ground before stepping off of it, standing tall on the dirt ground under his own strength. At a glance, he looked the picture of health, with a freshly cut mane, a clean, groomed coat, and feathers preened into neat, razor-like lines in his wings. But Sparrow had seen him ailing, and when she looked, she could still see the signs: a redness around the eyes, red marks and scabs along his neck, the way the thinned musculature around his neck left a noticeable void between the collar of his armor and his coat. Appearances were a strength all their own, Sparrow realized, but when she spared a glance at the three ponies to her left, she wondered how easily they saw through them.

The first words were not spoken by either legate nor their subordinates, but by Typhoon. “Legate Singing Sparrow,” she said, offering the legate a respectful nod of acknowledgement. “My apologies if we’ve spoken face to face before and I have forgotten. I was never the best with faces. It caused me more problems than you can imagine back in Everfree.”

Legate Sparrow answered that with a shrug. “Perhaps that’s for the best for a commander. It’s easier to do what needs to be done when a legion is five thousand faceless ponies and not a collection of friends.” Then he looked beyond her shoulders at the ponies standing around her and frowned. “I made it clear that I would only speak with you and Legate Winds. Nopony else.”

“I didn’t bring them to speak. They will hold their tongues,” Legate Winds said, and he stepped forward to get a closer look at his counterpart. The two stallions seemed to take a few moments to size each other up, and for a moment, Sparrow worried if pegasi could shoot lightning between their eyes from the intensity. But after a moment, Lost Winds yielded and opened his wings in salute. “Legate Singing Sparrow. My scouts thought it was you leading the defense of Dry Fens, but nopony ever saw you on the front.”

It took Sparrow a moment to recognize the barb buried in those words, made doubly difficult by how effortlessly Singing Sparrow didn’t let it stick him. “A competent officer doesn’t need to lead skirmish parties,” he said, and he returned the quick salute with his wings. “If you’d come closer to cracking my defenses, you’d have seen me.”

Sparrow was the only one close enough to Typhoon to hear the aging mare mutter “Stallions…” under her breath, and she moved beside the two legates and gestured with her wing back toward the house. “We arrived some time before you did, Legate Sparrow, and swept the building. I made sure none of your things were disturbed.”

Sparrow mouthed an “Oh…” in understanding, and Tern gave the house a quick glance over his shoulder, but Singing Sparrow gave his once-Commander an appreciative dip of his head. “Thank you, Ma’am. Things being what they’ve been lately, it hasn’t been safe to go back to my little farmstead. It’s good to come home.” He looked back at Crane and Thermal and angled his head toward the house. “Well, if Winds gets two, I get two. Fair’s fair.”

“Fair’s fair,” Typhoon echoed in agreement, and she started walking back toward Singing’s little farm house. Both legates and their companions followed her, though both sides kept a wary distance from each other, and when Typhoon stepped inside, there was even a moment’s hesitation of which legate would enter the house first. It all felt like stupid power games to Sparrow, and when the two legates only resolved it on the compromise argument that Winds would enter first on account of being welcomed in as a guest to Singing’s home, Sparrow felt like she was starting to understand Typhoon’s earlier utterance under her breath.

It did afford her the opportunity to share a few hushed words with Crane as the two mares stood side-by-side waiting for their superiors to sort out something as infinitely complex as entering a door. “I still don’t know how you got the legate to agree to this,” Crane whispered out the side of her muzzle. “Even though you had Typhoon’s sword, a part of me thought for sure this would be some kind of trap set by Lost Winds. And I’m sure my legate thought the same.”

“I guess I can be pretty persuasive from time to time,” Sparrow whispered back, adding a breathy chuckle to the end of her words. “If I didn’t have a history with him, I don’t think I’d be able to convince him.”

Crane’s eyebrow swooped up her forehead like her namesake. “How do you have a history with the legate?” Then she blinked and frowned in thought. “It’s because of your name, isn’t it?”

“Something like that,” Sparrow said, and she couldn’t help but let a little smirk turn the corners of her lips as she teased Crane with her history. “Maybe he’ll tell you about it later,” she added, stepping away from the legionary and following Centurion Tern inside the little farmstead. Crane just huffed and rolled her eyes in her wake.

Once everypony was inside, Sparrow found the small farmhouse to feel just a little cramped, even with only seven ponies standing around—though perhaps in fairness to Singing Sparrow, making the room wide enough for seven heavily armored ponies was likely not a consideration in the building plans. While Typhoon sat at the head of the small dining table on the other side of the wall from the entryway, the opposing camps arranged themselves on opposite sides of the house. Lost Winds sat at the seat to Typhoon’s right while Tern stood behind him and Sparrow stood by the window, and Singing Sparrow sat opposite his counterpart while his two soldiers stood behind his shoulders. There wasn’t much room for anypony who didn’t have a seat at the table, and Sparrow would have liked to go outside and get a little more shoulder room, but she was obligated to stand by her centurion, and even more importantly, she didn’t want to miss anything that was about to be said in the little house.

Before the two stallions could spend more than a few seconds leering at each other from their seats, Typhoon launched right into the heart of the matter. Looking first at Lost Winds, then at Singing Sparrow, she put her hooves together on the table, touching her frigid metal one against her flesh and blood one without wincing from the cold. “So. I’m going to be blunt about this. This war in the frontier cannot continue. Your fighting goes against everything the Legion stood for. You've broken the oaths you swore to protect the ponies of Equestria. You’re destroying the dream my father had for Equestria, and the legacy I tried to uphold while serving as your Commander.” She took a moment to let those words sink in, perhaps trying to gauge any responses from the stone-faced legates sitting at her sides, before continuing. “It is true that the Legion is no more, and the oaths you swore to it might not mean anything to you. But in your oath you also swore loyalty to me, and to Equestria. I am still here. Equestria is still here. Neither of us are as strong as we used to be when you made those oaths. But we’re not dead.” Taking a breath, she tapped her metal hoof against the table, leaving a faint frosty outline on the wood. “The fighting ends today. Am I understood?”

“Ma’am, I never wanted to pick up a sword again after the Legion was disbanded,” Singing Sparrow said. He shifted in his seat, perhaps trying to find a more comfortable position in his armor, and Sparrow watched his face closely for any signs of pain given how sick she had seen him in Dry Fens. But if he felt pain or fatigue, his ability to cover it up was impeccable, and though his voice was a little raspy and raw, it didn’t scour his words. “Dry Fens is my home. When Legate Winds threatened it, I felt compelled to defend it. I have resisted him from the moment his first scouts entered the town and demanded tribute. If he leaves, we can hammer our swords back into ploughshares. It’s as simple as that.”

“Did you even ask your neighbors before you took up ‘defending’ them, ‘Legate’?” Lost Winds accused in his plain and soft-spoken voice; even though it was quiet in the house and the surrounding fields save for the wind rustling through the grasses outside, Sparrow had to keep her ears trained on the table to make out his words clearly. “Did you give them an option to join us? My scouts have seen what you’ve done to the town. You accuse me of threats while you rule like an occupying force. The earth ponies and unicorns who live there are starving, sick, and filthy while your makeshift legion hovers in camps over them like a hoof poised to step on an insect. You expect me to believe they chose this? At any point, you could have taken the fight to me if you had the stomach for it, you could have submitted and gone back to tilling your fields, or you could have left. Keeping your soldiers fed is starving your neighbors. Is the tribute they give you that different from what I ask?"

“It is not tribute. Ponies need to eat, and soldiers especially so,” the ailing legate countered. He crossed his forelegs as he added, “There would be no problem with keeping Dry Fens fed if you didn’t burn down our fields!”

Legate Winds scoffed. “I wouldn’t have to resort to starving you out if you would surrender. I needn’t have burned your fields had you worked with me. There are monsters prowling the frontier that our legions used to hunt, there are bandits and buffalo and rogue free states beyond our borders that we used to contain, and I have tried to use my soldiers to fill in the gap we left behind when the Commander disbanded us. You are making my job very difficult and getting a lot of ponies killed in the process.”

“Do not lecture me about choices and causes,” Singing Sparrow spat back. “Your scouts demanded we give your army food, weapons, and ‘volunteers’ for your fight. Where was your noble cause then? Because for all your talk about guarding against bandits, the only ones we ever saw were your soldiers. We wanted to be left alone. We had a militia that could deal with bandits and were close enough to Boiling Springs we could get help from them if something more dangerous pressed us. You came along and demanded tribute and submission in the name of a new Cirra, and when we weren’t interested, you made it clear that you were willing to resort to violence to get what you wanted. If violence is the only language you understand, Legate, you should remember I’ve been speaking it longer than you.”

Typhoon sharply frowned as the two legates traded insults and grievances, and she bared her teeth in a moment of frustration before intervening. “After today, violence will be a dead language,” she insisted, and her wings momentarily flitted open at her sides, rattling the scaled blades lining their crests. “There is one thing I want in the Frontier, and that is the safety of everypony who lives here. Until Gale—” Typhoon winced in plain view of the two Legates, and then forced herself to continue before they could press, “—until Equestria sorts out its problems in Everfree and makes peace with the earth pony merchant cities, that responsibility falls on old soldiers like us. I don’t want the soldiers who used to serve under me making the situation worse.”

“Ma’am, we have been trying to do exactly that,” Lost Winds insisted. “If you’ll forgive my being blunt, I am trying to salvage the disaster you made for us when you disbanded the Legion and left a vacuum of responsibility for the Frontier. Platinum is a disgrace, the Royal Guard is a joke, and as much as I respect your father’s dream, Equestria is a failed state without the Legion. Everything I’ve seen tells me the earth ponies are never going to submit. The Royal Guard simply can’t move fast enough to police a country the size of Equestria, and we both know they'll abandon the frontier long before they give up on Everfree. We're on our own out here, and a bunch of isolated town militias aren’t going to keep anyone safe. Somepony has to be willing to pick up the pieces of the Frontier. That’s what I want to do. Not banditry or whatever else Legate Sparrow is accusing me of. I know it's not pretty, but it’s the reality I’ve seen, everywhere I’ve been since Platinum destroyed Equestria.”

After meeting Typhoon’s ruby red gaze to plead his case, he narrowed his eyes at his enemy. “We should be cooperating, Legate. Not fighting. But in your delusion to cling to what you call peace, you’ve killed far more ponies than I have. If you don't stand down, there will be more deaths on your head, and more blood on your hooves. Not just of the ponies in our legions, but in all the ponies who will be preyed on by bandits and monsters because the Legion wasn't there to save them.”

“You think seizing towns and forcing innocents into your empire is protection?” Legate Sparrow asked, outraged. “You were a colt during Cyclone’s coup, but I was a young milite. I flew in the skies of Cloudsdale. I killed a fellow Cirran when I clipped off her wing with my blades and watched her plummet to the icy ground below. So much violence and death for nothing. Now I see the same thing happening again.” The stallion shivered, though Sparrow wasn’t sure if it was from the memories or the sickness, and the muscles in his neck flexed for a moment as if he was trying to suppress a cough. “You’re a pretender, Winds, pretending to fight in the name of the Frontier when you just want to be the next Emperor Cyclone. I will never submit to you. If you really want to protect the Frontier, disperse your legion and let ponies ask for your help instead of forcing them under your hoof.”

Though Sparrow could barely see it from where she stood behind him, Lost Wind’s muzzle was angled just enough in her direction to see the sharpening frown on it. “Militias and a dispersed legion can't keep the Frontier safe. Could your militia kill a hydra if it attacked Dry Fens? Do you have anypony with fire empatha to stop the heads regrowing? A century in my legion is all that’s left of Horseshoe Marsh. A bonded pair of hydras devoured the town and all they could do was watch. And there are threats more dangerous than monsters out there. I know an old soldier like you knows the truth of that.”

“Elaborate,” Typhoon interjected, and she leaned in a little closer in both interest and concern. “I know that we used to keep bandit clans under control, but it has been some time since I’ve read an official scouting report of the uncharted lands beyond the furthest settlement in the Frontier. Even still, if you’re talking about bandits, most won’t test even a loosely organized militia. There’s always easier prey.”

“With respect, ma’am, that was only true because the Legion dealt with them quickly. Without an established military, and with so many villages still struggling since the war with the spiders, for a lot of the scum, banditry looks like a better—and longer—life than farming or plying some trade in a backwater town. And there are powerful clans that have organized further west and south. The remnants of Gloriosa Everfree’s clan, some crystals who don’t respect Smart Cookie’s rule, the list is long and won’t get shorter on its own.” Lost Winds explained. “They’ve been bolstered by former legionaries who joined their ranks, giving them formal training, better tactics, discipline… of a sort. The Mustang Clans are some of the strongest; they prey on the more ambitious frontier settlements that are isolated by distance, enslaving anypony they can get their hooves on and leaving ruined towns in their wake. And some of the so-called free cities that exist beyond Equestria, cities that have existed here even during the time of the Three Tribes like Marekech and Brayrut, pay them handsomely for slaves. They’re organized, dangerous, and militias don’t scare them.”

“So you're asking Typhoon to trade bandit clans for a tyrant Commander? Ma’am, for what it’s worth, I’ve never heard of these slavers either. The only conquering force here is Lost’s Legion.” Singing Sparrow stated.

“You can call me a ‘tyrant’ if it soothes your conscience, Sparrow, but don’t you dare call me a liar,” Winds growled, and his quiet voice lended an unnerving menace to his anger. “Talk to any of my soldiers. Maybe even talk to those who flew in to help you. Listen to what they’ve lost. Then call me a liar again.” Once again, he shifted his attention away from his counterpart and toward Typhoon, and Sparrow concluded the legate was using the opportunity to negotiate more with the latter than the former, despite the supposed purpose of the meeting. “I will state my position in the plainest possible matter, Ma’am. The Frontier will never be safe as a scattering of small towns and militias. Monsters will destroy settlements. Bandits and the free cities will enslave our ponies. The more they succeed, the worse they’ll get. Militias and dispersed legions might win a few victories, but they can never solve the root of the problem. Only an organized, systemic, collective approach will. We need a nation, and the Frontier won’t accept Equestria again. Only Cirra has the strength and unity to succeed. A state based on the discipline and memory of our ancestors will succeed where Equestria is failing. I’ve done much of the groundwork already. I’ve aligned two dozen small towns and settlements toward the establishment of a state capable of defending us all. But Legate Sparrow has raised an army of his own to stop me from protecting it. The only way I can fulfill my task is if he stops fighting me and joins me instead, or at least stands aside to let me do my work.”

“Even if he is telling the truth, or the truth as much as he believes his own words, I do not trust him to lead,” Singing Sparrow insisted, and the two legates glared at each other, wings opening slightly in anger and frustration. “If you had come to negotiate Dry Fens’ acceptance into his partnership, then perhaps it would have been considered. But you did not. Your soldiers demanded fealty, they did not negotiate, did not compromise. If you want a new Cirra, we need a new Commander Hurricane. Not a Cyclone.”

Singing Sparrow’s chair squeaked across the floor as he stood up, surprising Sparrow and the other soldiers gathered in the room. Though the legate’s action was resolute, he still had to use his hooves on the edge of the table to help him stand. Instead of addressing Winds, he spoke to Typhoon. “If Lost Winds will not leave Dry Fens, then there can be no compromise. I will return to the town and prepare for what must be done. If he truly cares about the fate of the frontier, then he will use his army against the Mustang Clans and the actual threats beyond it. Until then, he will never have my loyalty, nor my respect.”

Lost Winds only watched his counterpart in silence; perhaps he had expected the outcome, maybe even desired it, and saw no interest in trying to bring Singing Sparrow back to the table. But Typhoon closed her eyes and her lips pressed into a thin line. Sparrow cocked her head as she noted the old soldier’s strained expression, just able to make out her whispered words. “Father… forgive me.” The words were loud enough that Typhoon brought pause to the leaving legate, and when Sparrow's ears twitched back, Typhoon stopped the room—perhaps the entire world—with a single question. “Would you pledge your loyalty to me?”

Singing Sparrow slowly turned back to Typhoon, and after a moment to puzzle over the question, he gave her an unsure, angled tilt of his head. “You were my commander for the best years of my life. I fought under your leadership at the fields of Everfree, and in the badlands campaign. I would have followed you into the great ravine if you’d asked. Had you chosen my legion to be the tip of your spear, I would have considered it the highest honor. You already have my loyalty, ma’am.” he said. “But I cannot serve you if there is nothing for me to serve, and the Legion is no more. You cannot be a Commander without a Legion to command.”

Typhoon took a strained breath, and she finally opened her eyes. “If I become the Empress of Cirra, will you serve me then?”

Stunned silence filled the room, and it took Sparrow a moment to realize her jaw hung agape. Even Tern and Lost Winds seemed shocked by the suggestion, and Crane and Thermal glanced at each other from behind their legate. Singing Sparrow seemed frozen in place, and it took his mouth a few false starts to finally find his voice. “I thought you did not want that? How many ponies asked you to take that title instead of dissolving the Legion?”

“Too many,” Typhoon admitted, only adding more confusion to the room. “You’re right, I don’t want this. But if it will stop the fighting, if it will protect the Frontier, if it is the only way for me to save lives, then I will do it.” She turned to her right and looked at Lost Winds. “Do you pledge your loyalty to me? Will you swear an oath to obey my orders?”

“I… of course, ma’am,” Legate Winds said, and in what Sparrow considered abrupt for the calm and measured stallion, the legate first stood up and then bowed before her, swiftly mimicked by his centurion. “You have my loyalty. You always have.”

“Then I order your legion to stand down. They can return to their homes, or report to me and join the Legion proper to deal with these threats you've described.” The order given, Typhoon turned back to Singing Sparrow. “Lost Winds’ legion will no longer bother your town. But you have a capable army and I need it. More importantly, you have a good head and a good heart. I will not demand your obedience or your fealty. But if this is going to work, if I’m going to undo the damage I’ve done to the Frontier, then I would appreciate your cooperation.”

Uncertainty crossed Singing Sparrow’s weary face, and he glanced at several ponies around the room—Crane and Thermal, Lost Winds, and lastly, Sparrow. The two made eye contact, but Sparrow wasn’t sure what she saw in her namesake’s expression. A question, perhaps? Did Typhoon plan this? Sparrow didn’t know, and perhaps it was that honest admission in her mismatched eyes that finally bent Singing Sparrow’s knees.

“I cannot speak for my town,” he admitted. “The choice will be theirs to make. But if there is one mare who can do what she says and bring peace to the Frontier, then it is you… Empress.”

After another glance at each other, Crane and Thermal hesitantly knelt as Typhoon stood up, and then it was only Typhoon and Sparrow still standing. The two exchanged a look, and soon Sparrow found her knees bending, almost without thought. Their eyes met for one last time, and before Sparrow averted hers, she could see pain, resignation, and maybe a little fear in the ruby red of the new Empress.

2-15

Clouds darkened over Dry Fens, threatening rain.

Sparrow looked up from the windswept hillside as teams of pegasi worked frantically to hold back the storm even as it grew stronger by the minute. The air was so saturated with moisture and humidity that any clouds they busted simply formed back together somewhere else, usually growing on the looming anvil head of the monstrous thunder cloud plodding closer to the town like tumors on its neck. Though the pegasi were masters of the weather, as Chinook explained it to her, there were some storms that even a legion would struggle to break. And for a supercell grown fat off of the rolling expanse of prairie and fields, one such monster had the town of Dry Fens and the ponies gathered there in its sights.

Despite the storm—or perhaps, because of it—the fields outside of the town were a whirlwind of frantic activity. Pegasi from Lost’s legion dashed about as they struggled to set up tents and cut short the overgrown grasses with scythes and bladed wings, hastily assembling a sprawling parade ground in the face of the advancing storm. Their fervent energy, practically bordering on zealotry, had far outpaced Sparrow’s ability to keep up, and the unicorn had stopped by the foot of the smith’s tent transplanted from Camp Stratopolis to catch her breath. Maybe it was a pegasus thing, or a Cirran thing, but she didn’t understand how the winged ponies could buzz about like hummingbirds in their armor just because an empress was about to be crowned.

Though perhaps that was overselling it, she realized, when a sweaty and panting Chinook fluttered over to her and almost fell out of the sky. Stalks of dried grass clung to his coat, his face, and his sweaty mane. When he sat down next to her, the smell of cut grass clung to him almost as heavily as his sweaty stench. “I think I got grass up my nose,” he groused through a water-eyed wince, and when a sneeze inevitably followed, a few dull green scraps of plant flew away from his face, disappearing into the wind and the rest of the cut lawn around them.

“So long as you don’t sneeze it on me,” Sparrow quipped, and she shifted on her haunches slightly so she and Chinook could lean against each other’s backs for support. With Chinook’s weight to support her, she let her attention wander over the myriad feathery figures flitting from place to place like armored birds as they hastily erected tents and prepared the grounds in a mad rush against the weather. “I don’t get why you guys have to do this now. Why not just wait until the storm passes? That thing looks like it’s going to wash us away.”

A bemused snort escaped Chinook’s nostrils. “We’ve waited this long for our empress to finally accept our pledge. I don’t think there’s a soldier in camp who could bear to wait another day longer. I doubt anypony slept last night after Winds spread the news.”

“Believe me, I tried,” Sparrow grumbled, and her ears momentarily flattened against her helmet of their own accord. “All you birdbrains were singing and celebrating long after I turned in. I’m surprised you even have the strength to fly around today.”

“I suppose there’s nothing more energizing than a dream being realized.” Chinook chuckled when Sparrow gave her head a little shake, and she felt his wings shift against her armored back as they fidgeted of their own accord. “It’s been a fast month. I was excited when Typhoon showed up, and then word got around that she didn’t want to help us revive Cirra or be our empress. A lot of us were confused after that. But then she ran the show for a few weeks and suddenly changed her mind.” He angled his head back a bit to look over his shoulder, and Sparrow turned her head to glance back in response. There, she found a teasing smile on his muzzle. “What did you say to her?”

“Why do you think I said anything?”

“Because it seems like you’ve got a way with words,” Chinook said with a shrug. He let his gaze sweep back out over the fields and his wings relaxed from his sides, the feathers combing into the grass beneath him. “First you convince the Dry Fens soldiers not to kill us, then you convince their legate to come to a peace talk, and now all of a sudden, Typhoon’s willing to be our empress. You must have said something with that silver tongue of yours during the parley yesterday.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Sparrow admitted. “I wasn’t even allowed to talk. I just stood by the window and watched it all unfold.”

There was silence between them for a moment until Chinook shifted again. “Well?” he asked, expectantly. “Gonna tell me more?”

Sparrow rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what else to tell you. Typhoon said she wanted peace, but Lost Winds and Singing Sparrow couldn’t see eye to eye. Both accused the other of being the real problem behind the lawlessness of the Frontier, and then when Singing was about to leave, Typhoon asked if he’d stop fighting and swear allegiance to her if she became empress.”

“Huh. You make it sound like Typhoon was desperate.”

“I think she is desperate,” Sparrow said. “She doesn’t want to be an empress. She told me herself. She was afraid that if she became one then she’d break Equestria for good. But I think she’s more worried about what it means for the Frontier if Lost and Singing don’t stop fighting while Equestria is struggling to even get control of itself. There’s a lot of bad things beyond even the Frontier that the Legion used to keep in check, and they’re getting closer and more dangerous.”

“Maybe she’s trying to right her wrongs,” Chinook said after a moment to think. “She sounded like she regrets disbanding the Legion. If she’s reviving Cirra, then she’s reviving the Cirran Legion. If Equestria won’t have us, then she will.”

“Hopefully we make her proud. I know she told me her reasons but I still think getting rid of the Legion was wrong, just like the rest of you. I just hope that bringing it back under Cirra isn’t going to make things worse.” Sparrow let her gaze travel up the hill, to where Lost Winds had relocated his legate’s tent. “I’d hate for her to be wrong twice.”

“She isn’t,” Chinook assured her. “If she didn’t do it, then we’d still be fighting over Dry Fens. I know there’s going to be a lot of animosity between us and them, but united under Typhoon, I think we can patch up our differences. Especially if there’s bad things beyond the Frontier we need to deal with.”

The unicorn nodded in agreement. “Yeah. Between the monsters, the bandits, and the free cities, I think we’ve got our work cut out for us.” Sparrow scoffed at the last one on the list. “I never even heard of the free cities, at least, nothing more than rumors, and I grew up out here. Kinda ironic that they call themselves that and they’re big into slavery. And something tells me they’re going to be a bigger problem than bandits and monsters.”

“Monsters don’t think, and bandits think only slightly more. The free cities are organized and wealthy. They’re the ones who are profiting the most with the Legion gone. They’re the ones we should be fighting, not each other.”

Taking a breath, Chinook leaned forward, giving Sparrow a moment to shift her weight and support herself before standing up. When he did, he gave his head and wings a vigorous shake, as much to knock the grass and grit off of them as to invigorate sore muscles, and stretched his legs out. “Okay, that’s enough rest. If Tern sees us sitting out here he’s gonna kill us both, and that’s gonna put a damper on Typhoon’s coronation. We don’t have much time before it’s supposed to start.”

“Yeah…” Sparrow reluctantly agreed, and she grimaced when she made herself stand up on aching limbs that had just started to lock up from rest. She likewise tried to shake some life into her body and she gave Chinook a parting wave. “Have fun being a flying scythe and all. I’m gonna make sure the tents are all set up right.”

“Pssh. Horns are cheating. Why couldn’t you just use a spell and make the grass be perfectly cut?”

“Because I’m not a grass mage, dumbass,” Sparrow said, and with a chuckle, she turned around and set back to her duties, making her way toward the line of tents that had been hastily erected around the portion of the field that had been cut hours earlier.

Standing in the midst of the tents, Sparrow felt like she was back in Camp Stratopolis—which she supposed wasn’t too far off, as they had all come from the camp and been transplanted here, along with the pegasi flying between them. Sparrow was surprised by how quickly the pegasi had abandoned their fortified camp to move almost within bowshot of Dry Fens as soon as Typhoon had announced her intent to proclaim herself (or, rather, allow herself to be proclaimed) Empress of Cirra. It was almost like in their fanaticism and excitement, the pegasi had forgotten their brutal months-long siege against the defenders in Dry Fens and were happy to celebrate the rebirth of Cirra with them.

Of course, what the defenders in Dry Fens thought about it, Sparrow didn’t know. Though Singing Sparrow had made it clear that he would not pressure the ponies defending the town to join him when he pledged allegiance to the soon-to-be Empress Typhoon, Sparrow hadn’t seen any sign of activity from the town apart from the usual sentry clouds they kept posted above and around it. Whether any of the defenders would join Singing Sparrow or not, Sparrow didn’t know. But she knew she wasn’t the only one who, despite all the fanfare and hope for peace, was shooting occasional concerned glances in the direction of the town.

Even though she had told Chinook she was going to focus on setting up more tents, however, Sparrow ultimately decided against that. It was clear from looking around that the main tents were already established, with a few pegasi hauling up ropes to prop up the canopy of the large mess tent that would complete the arrangement. Her horn wasn’t needed anymore, and though she supposed she could grab a scythe and take to the grass like Chinook, she knew she would just be slower than the pegasi flying laps across the grass with the blades in mouth. So instead, she made her way to the legate’s tent, making sure to stay out of the way of the other legionaries running to and fro, and ducked inside the flap.

There, she saw the mare of the hour. Sparrow had never seen Typhoon look so uncomfortable, standing before an armor rack listening to Lost Winds and Tern explain something to her while another pair of legionaries fussed with her armor and her autumnal mane. It was clear to Sparrow at a glance by the look on Typhoon’s face, even though she tried to hide it, that the aging mare did not want to be there. When she saw Sparrow, though, a spark of relief flashed in her eyes, but the abrupt change in her demeanor also alerted Tern, who turned away from the object of his adulation and the conversation he was having with her to frown sharply at his only subordinate unicorn. “What are you doing here, milite? You and your horn were assigned to help out with the tents.”

Sparrow remembered to force herself to salute, even though her lack of wings meant she had to salute with a hoof to her temple like a unicorn knight rather than a Cirran legionary. “The tents are all finished, sir,” Sparrow said, stretching the truth just a little bit. They all would be finished once the rest of the pegasi finished erecting the mess tent that would serve the food for the coronation, which hopefully wouldn’t take much longer. “I came to see if Typhoon needed anything from me.”

“Empress Typhoon,” Tern corrected her. “You will address her with respect.”

But his words earned a harsh look from Typhoon, and that glare rebuked him even before her words did. “I am not anypony’s empress yet,” she reminded him. Then, addressing Sparrow, she said, “I appreciate it, Sparrow. If you’re all finished, you can stay.”

“Happily,” Sparrow said. She stepped further into the tent but hung off to the side; with Lost Winds and Tern around Typhoon, as well as the two legionaries fastening her armor to her body and preparing her for the big event, there wasn’t a lot of space for Sparrow to get close. “I hope you don’t mind the smell of sweat and grass now that you’re all cleaned up for the big day.”

Typhoon’s tail gave a little flick at the quip, though it and her left wing were soon hidden by a Cirran blue cloak one of the other legionaries fastened around the neckline of her armor and draped over the older mare’s body. Lost Winds gave Sparrow a quick, disapproving look, then turned back to Typhoon. “In any event, I will see to it that the appropriate preparations are made on our end. Whether or not Singing Sparrow wishes to join us is irrelevant. The ceremony will be fitting either way.”

“Good. Thanks,” Typhoon said, and after another glance at Sparrow, she cleared her throat. “I’d like to talk with Sparrow for a bit, if you don’t mind.”

“…Of course,” Lost Winds eventually agreed, and with a nod to Tern, the two officers started making their way out of the tent. The other two legionaries followed them after a quiet thanks from Typhoon, and soon the only ponies that remained were the empress and legionary who had arrived together as knight and squire not all that long ago.

As soon as they were gone, Typhoon let out a lengthy sigh. “I hate all of this,” she admitted to the young unicorn. “I just want to grab my things and fly away. Run away from it all like I did when I left Everfree. But that wouldn’t help anypony. I’d just be making things worse. Again.”

She looked back over her body, at the blue cloak draping her figure in imperial gravitas, and scowled at it. “I should’ve stayed in Everfree when we defeated the spiders. I thought the Legion was too exhausted from the fighting to wage another battle, and those that wanted to continue to serve as soldiers would join the Royal Guard. I didn’t think they’d see it as my sister making me choose between Equestria and Cirra and fight on my behalf. If I’d known they’d see it that way, I would’ve knelt before her and given her the Legion. Then Equestria wouldn’t be in this problem. The Frontier wouldn’t need an empress and the memory of a dead pegasus empire to keep it safe while Gale barely clings onto Everfree. I’ve done so many things wrong these last few years, and now I can’t help but think I’m just adding to that list. This is a shortsighted mistake that’s going to be a long-term problem.”

“Only if you don’t do anything with it,” Sparrow said, and when Typhoon raised an eyebrow, the unicorn shrugged and strode closer. “Like, if you got crowned and then flew away, then maybe. Somepony here would pick up a sword in your name and start hacking away at all their problems while saying they’re doing it for you, just like Winds was doing before we got here. But ponies here will listen to you, Typhoon. If you stay and get them sorted out, then this won’t be a shortsighted stopgap, but something good!”

But the aging mare shook her head. “You know I can’t stay, Sparrow. I have to keep going west.”

“Why?” Sparrow asked. “I know you have to go see the elk and stuff, but you never told me why. What’s so important there that it can’t wait? What are we racing towards? Or are we running from something?” The unicorn stomped the ground in frustration, but at Typhoon’s frown, the indignant tone that had been creeping into Sparrow’s voice fled for cover. “I want to help. I really do. Even when you’re an empress I still want to squire for you… or whatever the imperial equivalent of that would be. Can’t you just be a little more open with me?”

Typhoon looked away, her ruby red eyes drifting to the stomped-down grasses underhoof. “Luna hexed me,” she finally said in a low voice. “Every night I’m plagued by nightmares because I dared to disagree with her. I dared to disagree with a vain mare who sees herself as a goddess and wants everypony to agree with her and approve everything she does. She did something I fundamentally didn’t agree with, and I sought to fix her mistake. Now, if I don’t sleep under my dreamcatcher, I don’t sleep for long at all. That was why I needed to see Deep Blue in Boiling Springs. I needed him to fix my dreamcatcher, and I needed him to point me in the direction of a solution.”

The old soldier let her wings droop, and underneath her cleaned appearance and done-up mane—or, perhaps, because of them—Sparrow was shocked to see just how weary and aged Typhoon looked. “She used powerful magic, old magic. Stronger than curses. There’s probably not a single unicorn mage alive who knows how to break a hex. I even doubt Celestia could. But the world of dreams and the subconscious is the elk domain. If anypony—anycreature—could break Luna’s magic, it would be them. That’s where I’m going. That’s why I have to keep moving.”

Sparrow wasn’t sure what she had expected to hear, but it certainly wasn’t that. She had never met the alicorn sisters—they had never deigned to venture out into the Frontier, especially not while war waged against the spiders—but she knew they were important and powerful, if not necessarily goddesses. “The mare who moves the moon hexed you?” Sparrow asked, incredulous. “What did you have to do to make her that mad?!”

Typhoon only shook her head. “It’s… personal. I don’t really want to talk about my old sins. It happened many years ago, but only when I stopped being a triumvir did Luna feel compelled to hex me.” There was a ghost of a bitter laugh as she added, “You would think a timeless being like her would learn to forgive and forget. Maybe for Celestia, I suppose, but not her. I guess the contrast between night and day is apt as ever.”

Though Typhoon’s refusal to answer disappointed her curiosity, Sparrow concluded that it was probably best to stay out of the old soldier’s business, especially if it concerned an angry moon demigod. “Alright, well… still. To get to the elk we gotta go west, right? And the free cities and the Mustang Clans are west, too. Don’t you think it might be a bit easier to get past them if you used Lost’s legion to deal with the problem? It, uh, might be nice to have an army protecting us, right?”

“The more I stick around, the more Cirra is likely to tie me down,” Typhoon remarked. “It’ll be harder to leave the longer I stay.” But Sparrow could see her working it over in her mind, and ultimately the old mare bobbed her head and turned back to her. “You’re probably right, though. The two of us wandering past the free cities aren’t going to get very far. Even if I flew myself, I don’t have the speed or endurance I used to. I suppose the good thing about being an empress is I’ll be able to negotiate safe passage, through force if necessary. And though Lost Winds has a long way to go, force was one thing Cirra used to excel at.”

“Yeah, and maybe we can get them to stop preying on Equestrians entirely!” Sparrow added. “That’s something that wouldn’t be possible without you! Something that makes it worth it!”

Typhoon rolled her eyes, but at least the corners of her muzzle moved up, not down. “You don’t need to try to oversell it, Sparrow. You’re right; there’s good that can come of this. I can do my best to make sure of that. But there’s going to be bad, too. The bad can’t outweigh the good.”

“It won’t,” Sparrow assured her, and she offered Typhoon an assuring smile. She didn’t know if there was any way to assure a hardened mare almost four times her senior that everything was going to work out, but she tried anyway.

Then there was commotion outside, and as the two mares turned their heads to the tent flap, Chinook’s appeared as he poked it inside. “Legate Singing Sparrow and the ponies of Dry Fens are here, Empress,” he said to Typhoon, and then he shifted focus to Sparrow. “The centurion said you’d be in here. Now that they’re here, he wants to start immediately.”

“Guess I gotta join the parade,” Sparrow said to Typhoon, receiving a simple nod in return. But before she turned back to gallop off, she instead muttered “Ah, fuck it,” and instead stepped forward and wrapped her forelegs around the old mare’s shoulders in a hug. Typhoon flinched at the sudden contact and Chinook started, shocked, but Sparrow didn’t care. She even made sure to brush cheeks with the mare like a granddaughter nuzzling her grandmother, and then she backed off. “Hope I didn’t mess up your mane,” she remarked, and a smirk crawled onto her muzzle. “It’s probably been a while since you’ve gotten it done up.”

Typhoon just scoffed and waved her off with her wing. “Just go, Sparrow. As soon as this stupid thing is over, I’m straightening the curls out of it by wearing my helmet to sleep.”

Sparrow just chuckled at that and departed with a wave, following Chinook out of the tent. Behind her, she heard a sigh escape Typhoon’s lips—though perhaps not one of frustration and anxiety, but a measured, calming rush of breath.

In theory, parade march was an essential component for maneuvering troops in formation, and one of the first things taught to any batch of fresh recruits. But given the nature of the struggle with Dry Fens, it wasn’t exactly something Tern had spent much time drilling his recruits on. Sparrow felt that keenly as Tern and the other lesser centurions in Lost Winds’ legion struggled to shape up their centuries and get them to march as a unit. The battles over Dry Fens had been the actions of small squads or aerial thrashings over fields, and the legionaries had been taught how to fight in such first and foremost out of necessity. Even Sparrow knew it was a backwards way of trying to train a new army, and after today, she had the feeling a lot of focus was going to be placed on hammering down the basics that were skipped in favor of surviving a battle of attrition and siege.

As she plodded over the scythed grasses, struggling to match her steps with the ponies around her, Sparrow couldn’t help but feel like she was participating in a mockery, a farce. The gleaming armor that the new empress’ army was to wear was mixed and motley—nopony had been able to find her a helmet, and she wasn’t the only one wearing armor scraps in the ranks the legion had hastily assembled over time. That only added to the awkward shuffling of the soldiers as they tried to stay in formation, and centurions and some of the veteran legionaries snapped at the recruits and replacements as the centuries inevitably started to dissolve. But it didn’t seem to matter; she could still feel the air buzzing with excitement, and she had to admit, she could taste that high just like the pegasi around her.

That’s when it hit her: this parade and coronation wasn’t even for Typhoon. It was for the rank and file, the legionaries, the swords that would fight and die in her name. Even if it was ugly, the parade was the realization of the dream Lost Winds had sold them. Cirra was reborn, Typhoon was their empress, and it wouldn’t have been possible without them.

And up ahead, past the scattering of plumed helmets before her and the avenue of tents flanking her century on either side, Sparrow could see their destination, and the mare standing just beyond it. With Lost Winds at her right and Singing Sparrow at her left, Typhoon impassively gazed down from a hastily assembled wood and white blocks of compressed clouds in the closest approximation of imperial regalia the soldiers had been able to come up with. Though she still wore the makeshift armor Hammer had forged for her in Boiling Springs, the nearly pristine Cirran blue cloak draped over her left side and the curls and waves added to her autumnal mane lent her an appropriate substitute for imperial air. In that context, the scars that covered her face, particularly the ancient burn that ran over her right eye, complimented the look of a weathered veteran who had bested life’s challenges and was ready to claim what was rightfully hers.

It was an impressive look and an equally impressive notion, to be sure. Which was why Sparrow was sure that Typhoon hated it.

Still, the old mare kept her dissatisfaction hidden; if Sparrow hadn’t known better, she might not have even realized it, and the pegasi around her certainly didn’t. Though she tried to keep her head straight and eyes forward as she marched, she couldn’t help but glance around at the other soldiers around her. Lost Winds’ pegasi were all excited and proud to be there, but off to the side, Sparrow saw many of the bedraggled and weary defenders of Dry Fens looking on with a mixture of distrust and disgust. It wasn’t hard to figure out why. Those ponies had fought tooth and hoof to keep Lost Winds and his soldiers from conquering their town; many had died and everypony had suffered from food shortages and camp fever. Now, Lost’s legion paraded before their new empress like strutting peacocks, victorious and jubilant, while the defenders could only watch and wonder what the point of it all was.

Her century began to turn, and Sparrow accidentally bumped shoulders with Chinook on one side and another mare on the other as the mass of soldiers attempted to keep their ranks as they angled toward an open space before the soon to be crowned empress. Sparrow saw Typhoon’s eyes dart into the mass of soldiers, and the old mare’s cheek twitched as she held back a wince, but when her eyes found Sparrow’s mismatched pair, Sparrow thought she saw her relax slightly. The young unicorn tried to offer her the smallest smile of encouragement, but when Tern rounded on his century to make sure they were all in formation, she hid it away and went back to staring straight ahead with a straight back on straight legs like a model legionary.

Soon the entire force was assembled before Typhoon and Lost Winds, organized by century and cohort, and quickly straightened out by a few inching adjustments by the ranks and file. Though they were joined by a couple of the pegasus centuries of Singing Sparrow’s defending legion, the bulk of the force was comprised of the aggressor, and there was some segregation between the two sides that, one day, would need to be overcome if the two legions were to ever fight together under their empress. But for now, it mattered little, and once everypony was before him, Lost Winds stepped forward to address the gathered crowd.

“Soldiers of Cirra, today we celebrate,” Winds proclaimed, raising his soft voice just barely loud enough to be heard in the parade grounds over the dull rattling of a few thousand pieces of armor and the breeze running over the grassy fields. “The fighting ends today not through bloodshed, but through unity. Unity in the future of a new Cirra in the Frontier. Unity in the belief that the ponies who live so far away from Everfree need not live in fear while their unicorn queen squabbles with her own nobility. Unity in the knowledge that Typhoon Stormblade, protector of all of Equestria and wrongfully displaced by Equestria, has traveled west to continue her work. But not as Triumvir, and not as Commander, but as Empress.”

He looked aside at Typhoon, whose jaw had firmly set as she listened to the speech, and continued. “Typhoon Stormblade, we served you faithfully as soldiers of the Equestrian legion. But Equestria will not have any of us, any more. Now, we wish to serve you, not as Equestrians, but as Cirrans. Your father, Hurricane Stormblade, was the last Emperor of Cirra. That inheritance now passes to you. Cirra cannot live without an emperor to lead us. Will you take the crown?”

Even after their earlier conversation, the way Typhoon looked at the laurel sitting on a plain pillow in front of her made Sparrow worry for a moment that she was still going to say no and fly away. But there was no way around it—it was the peace Typhoon had brokered, and to fly away now would mean a massacre in the parade grounds, right then and there—so she nodded and reached out with her wings. The tips of her feathers gingerly picked up the laurel wreath from either side, and she lifted it to eye level. She stared at it for the longest time, and Sparrow could only wonder what thoughts were blurring through her mind, but with a flare of her nostrils and a sharp breath out, Typhoon lifted the wreath and settled it behind her ears.

There was no turning back now. Thousands of cheering voices from Lost Winds’ legion, and even from some of the defenders of Dry Fens, were the first thing to greet Empress Typhoon Stormblade, the first emperor of Cirra in sixty years, and the twenty-fifth pegasus to hold that title. And judging by the mare’s stiff and uncomfortable stance, Sparrow knew that she didn’t want there to be a twenty-sixth.

It seemed like the cheers went on for an hour, but when they finally died down, Lost Winds retook command over the parade grounds. “A new empress deserves a new oath. Many of us veterans swore allegiance to the Legion and Commander Typhoon in the days of Equestria. Many of us here have never pledged our swords to her. Repeat after me, in one voice.”

Everypony gathered stiffened into discipline, and a reverent hush fell over the soldiers. Even Sparrow felt it, a feeling like she was about to witness something divine. And as the first drops of rain began to fall from the storm hovering overhead, the assembled soldiers swore an oath that had not been used in decades.

“To you, Empress, I pledge my sword and my life.

In health and in ruin, they shall always be yours.

I swear now on my honor and my soul,

That I will be willing to endure anything and give everything in service to the Empire.

If I am to lose a wing, then so be it;

It is much better to sacrifice the skies for my country than to fly against it with two.

If I am to lose a leg, then so be it;

It is much better to be crippled for my country than to stand against it with perfect health.

If I am to lose my life, then so be it;

It is much better to die for the glory of the Empire than to live as a coward.

Before the Legion there was nothing,

And after the Legion there will be nothing.”

3-1 The Reluctant Empress

The town of Stratus was not a cloud city, despite its name. As a rule, cloud cities did not exist beyond Equestria’s borders. They were difficult to build and maintain, and without the magical density of a few thousand pegasi roosting within its white spires, they drifted wherever the winds took them. While many early pioneers thought that moving cities would help Equestria settle its western and southern frontiers, the reality of trying to grow self-sufficient settlements without developed resources to support them on the ground had soon soured many of the idea. That, and when rocs, dragons, and other flying monsters nested beyond the reach of the Legion, a floating town quickly became a wandering advertisement for an all-you-can-eat pegasus buffet.

In truth, Stratus was an unremarkable town with an unremarkable name made remarkable by the circumstances around it. Much like Dry Fens had only become a name on a map because of the blood spilled over it, Stratus only became something of note because of who lived there. For months, the small town that had once been a Legion veteran colonia served as the administrative center of Lost’s Legion, as much as his army needed the skeleton of a state to support it. But now, the small town clinging to a spit of rock looming over a fertile floodplain found itself host to royalty, or at least the pegasus take on it. For a fortnight ago, the first pegasus empress in a lifetime had placed her throne within the town.

As Empress Typhoon Stormblade woke up that morning from another dreamless sleep and looked around her accommodations in the town mayor’s manor, she certainly did not feel like royalty. Stratus had no accommodations of imperial stature (the term ‘manor’ was perhaps satire, but nonetheless it was the only building in town with three floors), and the thirty or forty permanent structures scattered across the rocky bluff and the floodplains around it were dwarfed by a legion of Legion tents that filled the dry ground. The town was larger than Dry Fens once was, but only barely, and it could hardly compare to the nexus of civilization in the frontier that was Boiling Springs. But the townsfolk, all veterans of the Legion who had been granted land in the Frontier to grow their families in exchange for their service, had readily accepted Lost Winds and his cause, and as it grew, had taken to the task of trying to grow the town with it. They had offered Typhoon the finest accommodations they had, and had already set about erecting a grander palace in the tallest vantage point in the surrounding countryside. When Typhoon looked out her window, she could see its frame taking shape with the rising sun as its backdrop.

The aging mare took a slow breath to savor the bed she’d been given a moment longer, and when she could no longer hold her breath, she rolled onto the floor with a clop of three hooves and a dull metallic thud of a fourth. The familiar aches and pains reminded her of their presence like somepony had slipped pebbles into her joints, and though her heartbeat was usually strong, she had noticed it liked to flutter a little bit when she woke up nowadays. When she looked into the mirror set in the vanity in the corner of the room, a weary mare’s face with bags under her eyes and gray in her mane greeted her. Even the hair around her muzzle was starting to whiten, and though her regular exercise kept her in remarkable shape for her age, the slow thinning of her neck around her shoulders meant time was beginning to reclaim what was hers. It was hard to believe that atop everything else she’d done in her life, that old mare in the mirror now had a throne to sit upon and an empire to rule.

“How did you do it, Dad?” she wondered aloud. Emperor Hurricane had ruled Cirra, albeit briefly, when he was twenty. His daughter, now approaching three times that age, found herself in the same position and perhaps feeling just as overwhelmed. Even on the other side of a lifetime of experience commanding the Equestrian Legion and serving as the pegasus triumvir for many years, politics had never been her strength. It was easy to study an opponent and assess the battlefield to give orders that she knew would be obeyed to the letter; it was a far different thing to shape the dreams of zealots and fanatics into a state from the ground up without just building a volcano to blast its destructive wrath across the countryside.

Typhoon’s morning ritual did not take long, though she savored every minute of it knowing that the moment she walked through the bedroom door the demands of a fledgling empire would seize the hooves of its reluctant empress with a steely bite and not let go. When her stretches and coat and mane brushing were finished, she donned her armor with practiced ease, grunting slightly under the weight of the heavy steel peytral Hammer had forged for her in Boiling Springs. Instead of taking his helmet, however, she left it on its stand, where it had spent most of the previous two weeks since arriving in Stratus. In its place, she flipped the golden laurel wreath Stratus’ newly-arrived goldsmith had forged for her behind her ears, flapping and turning them a few times until she could get it to sit comfortably. Though she would have preferred the helmet over the wreath, the regalia was part of the costume, and if she wasn’t going to dress in robes and silks like a real empress, the least she could do was concede the tiny touch of jewelry to give the pegasi whose worst impulses she was trying to corral what they wanted.

She looked again at the mirror when she was finished and narrowed her eyes at her reflection. Tsch. Wasn’t she too old to be playing dress up for the ambitions of stallions?

Her tail flicked once and she turned away from the mirror, returning to her bed only long enough to fetch her sword from the weapon rack she kept within a wing’s reach. Once the scabbard was securely hooked to the left edge of her armor, she made her way to the door and stepped outside, ready to start another day of being an upstart empress.

Armor rattled to the left of the door as she pulled it inward, and the night guard that had been stationed outside her room stiffened into military posture and tried to push the sleep out of his eyes with a neutral, forward stare. Though Typhoon had initially been resistant to the posting, it was yet another of the things she had relented on to satisfy the new Cirrans she now found herself to be a part of. But once she got used to the idea, she did feel a little better knowing she didn’t have to sleep as lightly—not that her sleep ever grew particularly deep anymore. Even still, sleeping in an actual bed with somepony to watch her back while she did so made her wonder why she hadn’t tried to be an empress earlier.

“At ease,” she told the soldier. When he relaxed, she nodded at him. “What was your name again?”

“Windthistle, ma’am,” the stallion said. Like most of Lost Winds’ soldiers, the stallion was barely more than a colt, maybe a year or two older than Sparrow, an adventurous youth throwing his young vigor behind an army that promised to make the Frontier safe again. Her guard changed nightly at her request so she could try to get to know the soldiers that called her empress, and also to try and break down the distinctions between Lost’s soldiers and the volunteers from Legate Sparrow’s legion. She needed to homogenize the army that swore loyalty to her to make sure factions didn’t compete for her favor and make rivals of each other… though she knew that was far easier said than done, when the bulk of the new Cirran Legion was made of two legions that had fought each other almost to the bloody end only a few weeks ago.

“Windthistle,” Typhoon said, making an attempt to commit face and name to her memory. “You’re dismissed. Go and get some rest. I’m sure your centurion will want you on your hooves soon enough, no matter that you’ve spent the night standing outside my door.”

“I will. Thank you, ma’am.” Windthistle opened his wings in salute, hesitated for a second, then followed the salute with a bow like he was bowing to the unicorn queen. Typhoon’s tail flicked again and her eyes rolled at the submissive pose, but she didn’t say anything to him as she walked past. The only royalty most ponies had ever known was the unicorn queen; only the truly wizened pegasi who had flown in the Exodus sixty years ago would have remembered the last time a race other than the unicorns had royalty of their own, in as much as the Cirran emperors considered themselves such.

Beyond her bedroom, the mayor’s manor bustled with all the activity of an army headquarters, and though the early hour of the morning muted the activity, it did not stop it entirely—matters of war and peace were not bound by the waking hours like ponies were. Even as Typhoon made her way down to the kitchen where she knew the chef was already preparing breakfast for her, the empress spied a couple of messengers sitting in the lounge idly chatting while they waited for their superiors to wake up and receive the non-vital news they had for them, while a few other early rising centurions had left their rooms to find a table or desk somewhere in the house to draft up plans for the day’s schedule. As Lost Winds had told it, officers had been detached in Stratus to continue the administrative efforts of his new Cirra while the bulk of his fighting force had been bogged down besieging Dry Fens, and now that the fighting had finished the legion could shift its attention back to the bureaucratic apparatus that had been running in the meantime. Such a development was welcome news to Typhoon, as it meant she could quickly shift her focus towards understanding just what exactly she had to work with in her new Cirran Empire and asserting her control over the system to make sure it behaved in the way she wanted it to.

Though of course, beyond stopping the fighting in the Frontier, she was still trying to figure out how exactly she wanted her brand-new nation to behave…

As had become custom, by the time Typhoon made it down to the kitchen, the chef already had breakfast waiting for her, a simple omelet with cheese, onion, and peppers alongside toasted bread and some flowers to snack on. She took it from her with a wing and made her way over to a table in the adjoining dining room, where she sat down and began to pick away at it with her fork. She didn’t get more than a few bites into it when another pony poked his head into the room, and Typhoon gave Legate Lost Winds a small nod before he joined her at the table. At least he had the courtesy to salute instead of bow, even if the idea of making Typhoon his empress was his idea.

“I hope you slept well, ma’am,” Lost Winds said, making small talk as his quiet, almost ghostly voice strained to be heard over the hissing grease in the chef’s pans in the kitchen as she prepared breakfast for the other officers in the building. “It took some time, but I feel I finally shifted myself out of the deployment mindset now that I’m no longer at the front.”

Typhoon gave him a curt nod in understanding, and she set her utensils aside for the time being. “It is nice to let my guard down a bit after being on the road for so long, yes,” she acknowledged. “I never took the time to seek enjoyment in being a triumvir. My thoughts were always toward my duty, first and foremost. But it is nice to be reminded of it in more pleasant ways after spending such a long time on the road.”

“I know that all too well,” he said with a nod toward Typhoon’s plate.

A light breath of air made it out of Typhoon’s nose, like the first half of a chuckle. “It certainly beats trail rations, though my stomach didn’t appreciate the sudden heartiness after so long eating grains and flowers. So long as Stratus is able to provide while also keeping an army fed, I’ll allow myself to indulge. It’s not the fare that used to be made available for us in Everfree, but it’s far more than what I’m used to.” Her feathers wrapped around a tin cup of water and frost crept out from the vanes a few seconds later. Then, taking a gulp of the ice-cold water, she set it aside and picked back up her utensils. “I know idle chatter isn’t your hobby, legate, so I’ll spare you the exercise. I take it you have news for me?”

“Nothing pressing, otherwise I’d have interrupted your rest to deliver it,” the legate said, and soon his feathers produced a scroll from one of the pouches on his armor. He set it down between them, and Typhoon noted that the wax seal had already been broken. “The census results, tallied and finalized. Your empire has the support of twenty-six towns ranging from small farming settlements to more robust settlements like Stratus and, once it recovers, Dry Fens. In those towns and across the homesteads scattered between, roughly six thousand and seven hundred non-combatants live under your protection, with five thousand soldiers between my legion and Singing Sparrow’s volunteers at your disposal.”

“Almost twelve thousand lives,” Typhoon mused to herself, and she thought on that for a moment while she chewed on her breakfast. “I’m not well studied in economics and demographics since that was never my job as triumvir, but as a commander I don’t think any nation is particularly balanced when there’s almost as many soldiers as civilians.”

Lost Winds’ response to that was a shrug. “We’re piecing together a nation from scratch, spearheaded by pegasi who have grown sick and tired of being cast aside and forgotten by Queen Platinum. Our Legion is our core. But in a week, these records will already be outdated. Your reputation means more towns are joining us and more capable mares and stallions are enlisting. A message from a town called Green Glade in the east arrived this morning declaring their loyalty to you; they’ll need to be counted in the next census.”

The name cocked Typhoon’s eyebrow. “Green Glade? I stopped by there on my journey west. I chased away a dragon that was preying on them and starving the ponies in the area to grow her hoard.”

“Then I suppose we can count on more towns around Green Glade to declare when they spread the news.”

Typhoon shook her head. “They’re on the other side of Boiling Springs, and that city was hostile to legionaries in general. Green Glade may have felt they owed me something when they sent their pledge of allegiance, but siding with us likely means the end of any trade they had with Boiling Springs. I don’t think the other towns would sever those ties lightly, as I didn't visit them like I did Green Glade.”

“If I may, Empress, I think the opposite is likely to happen,” Lost Winds argued. “When enough towns surrounding Boiling Springs and the other holdouts pledge for us, the remainder will be faced with a choice. They can either try to maintain their ties to Equestria, whatever remain in its crippled, decaying state, or they could invest in a new opportunity. The city is a trading hub with a prominent service industry with their many springs. They’d have the chance to position themselves as the foremost economic force in Cirra. As pegaphobic as they seem to be, they’ll sing a different tune when the opportunity becomes lucrative—and the alternative is certainly economically ruinous.”

“I don’t want to be competing with Equestria, Legate,” Typhoon reminded him, and the tone of her voice also implied a warning in her words. “Nova Cirra is here for the protection of the towns on the Frontier that can’t rely on Equestria to address their concerns. If they want to join us, they can. But I won’t be pushing for actively trying to pull settlements away from the Crown that don’t want to join us.”

Though Lost Winds deferred with a bow of his head, his quiet voice belied the submission. “I understand, Empress. But I think it would be wise to consider the benefits of consolidating territory and encouraging more settlements to join us. Nova Cirra cannot survive as a fragmented mess of small towns, and if we can’t survive, then the Frontier won’t have its protectors. We can have negotiations with Queen Platinum over Boiling Springs’ fate if her rule even survives the turmoil beyond Everfree. Until then, we should encourage them to join us. We might fall apart without their resources and influence, especially if they work against us.”

Typhoon grated her teeth together and frowned at Lost Winds’ logic. It was sound and reasonable; Nova Cirra couldn’t survive in the long term without incorporating larger settlements like Boiling Springs that were currently hostile to it. But the part that concerned her, just as it always had from the beginning, was just how different her idea of long-term and Winds’ were, and what that would mean after she was gone.

In the end, she gave the legate a curt nod. “I see. In that case, we should organize an envoy to discuss their concerns and try to work around the current… misunderstandings between us. We should be cooperative and amicable, not domineering and threatening. And if we succeed, them joining with us would actually give us an actual economy to speak of, not to mention double our population overnight,” Typhoon said, and she used her wingtip to roll the scroll back toward Lost Winds. “I’ll look at this tonight if I need something to read before sleeping. Do you have anything else for me?”

Lost Winds shook his head. “Not at the moment, ma’am. I am, however, expecting our scouts we sent west to report back with the latest updates on the situation out there. I’ll admit, I haven’t been keeping tabs on the situation further west with the recent… issue with Dry Fens. If we’re going to address the Mustang Clans and the Free Cities, we need to know what we’re dealing with first.”

“I agree.” Typhoon tossed her utensils down onto her empty plate and pushed it aside. When she stood up, Lost Winds mirrored her, and she subconsciously gave her feathers a small ruffle when he bowed his head. “When the scouts return, direct them to me. I’m very interested in what they have to say. In the meanwhile, I need to assess the readiness of the Legion. I have a feeling we won’t be able to make bandits and slavers stop their ways with words alone.”

“If we etch our words onto our swords, they might have enough time to read them before we take their heads,” Lost Winds quipped, and if it weren’t for the little flick of his wingtips, Typhoon wouldn’t have realized he was making a joke. “That’s about the only way we’ll get them to understand our words.”

“How many swords do you think it would take to hammer out a treaty?” Typhoon asked back, the corners of her muzzle twitching upwards.

“We have five thousand pegasi with five thousand swords. If you keep it brief, we might get the message across.” Typhoon snickered lightly at that, but the levity lasted only another moment before Lost Winds gave her a salute. “I’ll return to the war room, ma’am, if that’s all.”

Typhoon dismissed him with her wing. “Go. I’ll be in the camp if I’m needed. Just follow the crowd.”

The legate’s wings twitched and one of his steel shoes scuffed the ground as his legs fidgeted, but it took Typhoon’s raised eyebrow to get the words out of him. “Are you sure I can’t convince you to have a more proper escort, my empress?” he finally asked. “There are many skilled and veteran legionaries who would be willing to protect you. And we still don’t know if we can trust everypony that Singing Sparrow brought along…”

“I don’t need protection,” Typhoon insisted, and when she shifted her stance, the sword at her side rattled just enough to let a wisp of frost escape the gap between guard and scabbard. “I’m surrounded by ponies who swore an oath to me and Cirra. And I may be gray in the mane, but I’m not as slow as I look.” Then her features hardened into a more sour frown. “And I don’t need you second-guessing Singing Sparrow and his soldiers. I understand your concerns given the animosity between the two of you, but you need to cut it out and get over it. Consider that an order.”

“Have you seen the pillory in camp, Typhoon?” the legate asked her, and rather directly, Typhoon noted, given his usual deference for rank and title. “Attacks and violence from Singing Sparrow’s rabble against ours have ended with a lot of ponies bound and whipped. Hooves will turn to knives, and then to graves. They should not be allowed to camp with my soldiers while serving a stallion who was until two weeks ago our enemy.”

“Your enemy, Winds. You would be wise to remember that,” Typhoon shot back, but when she frowned at the stallion, he didn’t turn his head or avert his eyes. “You both serve me now. Your soldiers serve me. You will do as I say, and when I say you two will camp together and make your legionaries get along, you will do so. I’ll consider it a slip of your tongue for now, but I know that the undisciplined fighting between his legion and yours is not always instigated by his soldiers, and I know that you know it, too. So I will remind you what I’m going to tell Legate Sparrow, and what I’ve told you before as your empress: knock it off.”

Imperial authority thus exercised, the challenge in Legate Winds’ eyes flickered into something else. “Understood, my empress,” he finally relented.

“Good.” Typhoon narrowed her eyes, and her tail flicked with irritation. “That will be all, Legate.”

The stern dismissal left no room to argue, and Lost Winds gave his empress a stiff salute before pivoting about and leaving the room. Typhoon stared at the door he’d slinked through for several seconds, working her jaw side to side, before finally shaking her head and following him through it.

While Lost Winds disappeared to sulk in his office elsewhere in the manor, Typhoon made her way through the front door and stepped outside into the warm morning air. The legionaries at either flank stiffened in salute as she stepped between them, but her attention was instead focused on the morning sky that was just beginning to deepen to its crisp blue and the promise of clear skies ahead. The days were growing longer and morning came earlier and earlier, and the heat so early in the day promised that the height of summer was just around the corner. Despite everything, despite how much she didn’t want and never sought the title she now held in her hooves, despite how much the bickering between Lost Winds and Singing Sparrow threatened to unravel everything if it wasn’t stopped sooner rather than later, a part of Typhoon felt ascendant like the last days of spring before the apex of the sun’s season. She had left Everfree to find a cure for her hex, but she had sworn to herself to stop and help wherever she could on her journey in atonement for the mistakes she made in Equestria. The irony was not lost on her that she stood on the cusp of doing just that on a scale larger than she could achieve as a wandering sword by abandoning her father’s creation, at least temporarily.

As Typhoon’s business lay in the camp beyond Stratus, and not particularly feeling like smiling and waving to the ponies wandering the streets that morning, Nova Cirra’s empress took wing from the landing of the mayor’s manor and climbed into the sky. At least in the air she could still be herself, just Typhoon, and the pegasi on the sentry clouds hovering over the city gave her salutes if she flew close but otherwise paid her no mind. It was a peaceful atmosphere to submerge herself in on her morning flights, to wake up, clear her head, and ready herself for imperial duties with nothing but the wind in her face and the air under her feathers.

She drew out the flight as she always did, but eventually the proximity of her destination as well as the weight of the heavy armor on her shoulders forced her back to the ground where the realities of her situation caught up to her again once more. Her hooves had barely touched the trampled dirt before a sentry called out in a full-bodied shout “Hail, Empress!” and any and all nearby ponies stopped what they were doing to face her and bow. The forest of spread feathers and bowed heads made Typhoon pause, but only for a second, and after acknowledging it with a nod she parted the sea of colorful ponies to enter the camp itself.

The camp around Stratus was not too much different from the waning days of Camp Stratopolis in the campaign for Dry Fens; the legionaries who walked between the tents as they moved with their gear to the day’s assignments were in high spirits and looked on at Typhoon with awe, much as they had in the weeks prior. But with the merging of Singing Sparrow’s legion, the resources of Stratus to support the garrison, and the steady influx of fresh volunteers ranging from new recruits to seasoned veterans bolstering its ranks, this legion camp felt like one of the great camps Typhoon commanded during her days campaigning in first the Cirran and later the Equestrian Legion. Though most of the sprawl was dominated by field tents, permanent structures supporting the mess hall, the armory, a storehouse, and a smithy had emerged at one end of the camp, and a century of legionaries had been given the unenviable task of paving the main road through camp with broad, flat stones chiseled from the surrounding bluffs. The tents had been grouped by century and cohort to make organizing the army simpler and more efficient, and some of the fields around the camp provided enough space to train and drill a dozen or so centuries at a time on grass cut short by blade and scythe. A wooden wall protected two sides of the camp from attack, while the side facing Stratus was built of stone and mortar with a gatehouse, and the side facing away from it was left open to accommodate the growth of the camp. Even to Typhoon, who had seen many camps from field camps on the ground to the massive sprawling legion camps around Cloudsdale, the camp under construction in Stratus was impressive and a reassuring solid foundation upon which the strength, security, and safety of the Frontier could be built upon.

Even though it was a sprawling site, Typhoon navigated it easily, having designed the layout of her new Legion herself. Groupings of tents had their century’s standard in the middle, with each one bearing a number, making it simple for officers to find a centurion or even individual soldiers as necessary. It had taken some time for Typhoon to commit the numbers and at least the centurions associated with each century and cohort to memory, but she was hardly alone in that. When she merged Lost Winds’ and Singing Sparrow’s armies into her new Legion, she’d spent a great deal of effort trying to mix centuries and cohorts to homogenize the former enemies.

Of course, as Legate Winds had reminded her this morning, it wasn’t proceeding without issue. Though no shouting or fighting erupted within her sight or earshot, she knew that was because awareness of her presence in the camp that morning had quickly spread from soldier to soldier. Doubtless the nightly report would detail a list of unruly incidents between the two sides; she just hoped that it wouldn’t come bloodstained. As she glanced toward the pillories in the center of camp, a wisp of smoke emerged from the fan of feathers on her wings when she heard the snap of a whip and a mare’s cry as a centurion meted out punishment on a legionary for some offense while a small crowd of onlookers watched. Which legion the mare belonged to, Typhoon didn’t know, nor did it particularly matter. Until the hatred had finally been flushed out of both sides, the whippings would continue. It was just a matter of figuring out how to do so without splintering the tenuous alliance between the two sides in service to her, a feat far more easily said than done.

Soon, she found who she was looking for. Sitting on some of the grass that had survived the trampling of thousands of hooves, Sparrow sat with her breakfast in her tin, happily chatting with a young stallion sitting next to her. Typhoon recognized him as Chinook, one of the few of Lost’s pegasi that got along with the unicorn, and she also recognized the gap—or perhaps more accurately, the lack thereof—between their flanks as the two laughed between bites of oats. Of course, she barely had time to shake her head or comment on it before Chinook spotted her approaching, and his wings momentarily popped open first in surprise and then for balance as he hopped to his hooves to salute his empress. “Hail, Empress Typhoon!” he exclaimed as he saluted, assuming strict military posture and leaving his tin on the ground, momentarily forgotten.

Sparrow hardly reacted, instead finishing the bite of breakfast in her mouth and then setting her tin and utensils aside with her magic. “Oh, hey. Morning,” she said in a far more casual and familiar tone. “What’s up?”

Of the two, it was Chinook’s reaction that ruffled Typhoon’s feathers, and the old mare rolled her eyes and waved him off with her wing. “Cut that out. I’ve already had enough of it today, and the sun’s barely out.”

“I… of course, Empress,” Chinook said, and when his shoulders threatened to follow the bow of his head, a sharp tut from Typhoon arrested that motion as well. “Apologies.”

“You’ll live,” Typhoon assured him, earning a snicker from Sparrow, before her ruby eyes shifted to the unicorn. “What does Tern have you doing today?”

“I don’t know… drills, I think?” Sparrow asked, and when she turned to Chinook with a questioning tilt of her head, the stallion nodded. “Yeah. Drills. Marching and stuff, because that’s apparently going to scare the Free Cities enough that they’ll let us march right on past them.”

“Drilling is useful for instilling discipline and training soldiers to receive and execute orders in unison,” Typhoon said. But then she added a shrug. “But as for the Free Cities, you’re right. That, and formation flying is far more important than marching as a cohort when it comes to fighting as the Legion fights.”

“It’s like the marching of the sky,” Chinook not-so-helpfully added for the benefit of the pony without wings.

Sparrow’s tongue poking between her lips was her retort, though Typhoon clearing her throat put a stop to her silliness. “While I know you would benefit from the drills, Sparrow, you can forget them for today. When it comes to fighting the Mustang Clans or the Free Cities—and believe me, I fully expect it to come to that eventually—I need you to be able to fight alongside me. Which means I need you to be able to fight.” At Sparrow’s surprised blink, Typhoon offered her a reassuring nod. “When you fought me in Boiling Springs and when Tern made you spar with Drifter, you fought with creativity to stay competitive when you were obviously outclassed. I don’t think fighting in formation would suit you, and without wings, you can’t fight how the Legion usually does. To put it another way, you have the makings of a great duelist with the right training. When we cross swords with the Free Cities and everything further west beyond them, I want you to be able to hold your own without me.”

The unicorn was up to her hooves in a flash, and the grin on her muzzle could not have been wider. “Fuck yeah! Now that’s what I’m talking about!” She spun about as she darted into her tent, her short tail smacking Chinook in the nose in the process, and she emerged a few seconds later with her sword in her magic and her pink aura fastening armor pieces to her frame. “I’m ready! Let’s go!”

“Hey, what about Tern?” Chinook asked once he’d spat the last of Sparrow’s tail hairs out of his mouth. “He’s going to be pissed if you miss drills!”

“Sorry, Empress’ orders!” Sparrow chirped and gave him a playful punch on the shoulder.

Chinook groaned. “Somehow, he’s going to blame me for it. I just know it.”

“Then come along,” Typhoon encouraged him. “I think a second blade would be useful in polishing each other’s skills. Besides, sparring is tiring and I’m not as young as I used to be.”

“Like that has slowed you down at all,” Sparrow said with a laugh. When she saw Chinook hesitating, she grabbed his shoulders in her aura and pulled him closer. “Come on, are you really going to turn down an opportunity to learn from Commander Hurricane’s daughter because you’re scared of Tern?”

“Well, when you put it that way…”

1-21

With the kelpie gone and under Deep Blue’s control, the rain finally began to let up as Typhoon walked back to Boiling Springs. The steady rain, once the mask for the kelpie’s hunting grounds, slowly thinned out, and before long, it had stopped completely, and the sun started to poke needles of sunlight through the dissipating gray clouds overhead. Typhoon wondered if anypony in town would find the sudden shift to what looked like a promising sunny day odd, or if Deep Blue gaining control over the kelpie’s powers would change anything else for the town. At the very least, she could find some relief in knowing that a fey was no longer drowning and eating ponies in the springs the town was known for.

At some point after a lengthy bout of uncomfortable silence, Typhoon no longer noticed Sparrow’s hoofsteps behind her, and when she turned around, the young unicorn was nowhere to be seen. After pausing for a moment, Typhoon let out a small, relieved sigh. Though she was thankful that the real Sparrow’s sudden appearance had saved her from the kelpie’s ambush, she did not want to reopen the fresh wounds of her dismissing the young mare and her unrealistic dreams of becoming a soldier to a Legion that no longer existed. It would be best for Sparrow if she forgot about Typhoon entirely, the old soldier decided, and if she really was fascinated with the Legion enough to bother somepony about it, Hammer would make a fine substitute. The two knew each other, at the very least, and in time Sparrow would hopefully be able to satisfy all her curiosities with him. If she really wanted to make a difference, maybe she would take up residence as Hammer’s apprentice, learning the art of Legion smithing while getting her flank off the streets.

Typhoon shook her head. It was foolish thinking, pointless and distracting. She wanted the best for the young mare with the mismatched eyes, but the old soldier reminded herself to stay detached. Though her attitude and ambitions were hauntingly familiar, Sparrow was just one passing face out of hundreds she would cross in her journey. There would be more fillies like her in her travels, and doubtless many would want the same promise of adventure that had captivated Sparrow and drawn her to Typhoon. Perhaps harsh as it was, this one in particular was nothing special.

Nothing special… save for those eyes. One pink, one blue. Whenever Typhoon looked into them, she saw the ghosts of her past she once thought she had outflown.

…All the more reason to leave Boiling Springs and everypony in it behind.

By the time she made it back to Warbler’s Roost, the sun had finally chased away the last of the kelpie’s broken clouds, and its late morning warmth had started to dry Typhoon’s damp back and soggy wings. Ponies started to trickle into the seats, taking advantage of the sudden change in weather to run errands that had been put off by the rain or take the opportunity to have a nice lunch outside. Even the town guard had resumed their patrols, having spent the past day and a half mostly watching the streets of Boiling Springs from the shelter of overhangs and canopies. It was almost refreshing that the guards in their cobbled-together armor didn’t immediately recognize Typhoon without her armor or weapons, seeing her as just another aging mare with curious scars and an even more curious metal hoof.

Once inside, Typhoon went straight to her room, unlocked the door, and then unlocked the trunk to recover her belongings. She didn’t realize she had been holding her breath until she let it out with a small sigh of relief when she found her armor and her sword undisturbed inside the sturdy wood, and she emptied the trunk’s contents and placed them on her bed as she started to get her supplies in order. Her dreamcatcher, freshly repaired thanks to Deep Blue, was carefully tucked inside her left saddlebag and cushioned by her provisions and other traveling essentials, while her right jingled with gold and gems as she pulled out enough coin to pay for a warm lunch before heading off. Then, bit by bit, she slipped into her armor, first putting on the unicorn-style gambeson and then attaching the heavy bits of ground steel to her slight but still muscular frame. Her magic sword, greeting her with a frigid touch of hatred that left her shivering for a moment before it recognized her magic, followed as it hooked onto the left edge of her barding. And after taking a moment to flip Hammer’s skysteel helmet onto her head and fit her ears through the holes in the top, Typhoon left her room behind, pausing only long enough to pay her dues and get some hot food from the inn’s kitchen before leaving Warbler’s Roost for good.

Pausing in the street, Typhoon took a deep breath of the fresh air and rolled her shoulders, feeling the weight of her new armor weighing her down. Just like in Green Glade and the nameless hamlet and countless other small towns and locales before that, Typhoon felt that anticipation of flying somewhere new along with the small melancholy of leaving someplace old take hold of her, only this time it was magnified. She had stayed in Boiling Springs much longer than she had in any previous town in her recent memory, and though her purpose there had simply been business as usual like the towns that came before it, the ponies of Boiling Springs had left a sharper impression on her than most. Hammer, Sparrow, Deep Blue… Those were names and faces she would remember in her travels.

Her wings twitched, but she hesitated to open them just yet. She usually wasn’t one for goodbyes, but this time felt different. So, when she finally did open her wings and take to the skies, it was to the south, not the west, where the smoke from a forge drifted into the clearing skies.

To Typhoon’s surprise, there were two ponies, not one, at Hammer’s forge when she touched down on the damp dirt. She hesitated when she poked her head around the corner and saw Sparrow laying on a crate in the corner, her head resting on crossed forelegs like a surly cat, and considered turning around and flying away to avoid yet another confrontation with the young unicorn, but Hammer lifted his head from his anvil and spotted her before she could. He opened his wing in a somewhat surprised greeting, and when Sparrow noticed that the sounds of hammer on steel had stopped, she perked her ears and turned toward where the blacksmith was looking. But her lips only twitched, pulling back the barest amount to reveal teeth, and the unicorn pointedly looked away while the two pegasi approached each other.

“Commander?” Hammer asked, stopping a friendly distance away from Typhoon and hanging his smithing apron on a nearby peg on the wall. “I didn’t think I would see you again, to be honest. I was hoping I would, but I didn’t think you’d stop by with your business in town concluded.”

“I… figured I should,” Typhoon hesitantly admitted. “You’ve been a greater help than just about anypony in this town. I wouldn’t want to disappear without saying my thanks one last time.”

Behind him, Sparrow’s ears flicked, failing to escape Typhoon’s notice.

“Well, I’m honored that you would take the time to say goodbye, then,” Hammer said, respectfully bowing his head. When he raised it, he looked back over his shoulder at the unicorn in the corner. “Sparrow told me what happened. A kelpie? In Boiling Springs? And you froze it solid for that odd wizard?”

“Part of a deal,” Typhoon said with a shrug. “He was hunting it and I needed his help. He agreed to help me if I helped him, so I did.”

“I’m glad I never came across anything like that during my time in the service,” Hammer admitted. “Timberwolves and hydras and even the occasional roc were enough for my time on the frontier, and I didn’t even have to do the fighting. A fey is in a whole other league compared to a dumb monster.” He chuckled and added, “You sure you don’t have a death wish, Commander?”

Typhoon’s awkward silence seemed to bely more than words ever would, but she forced herself to break it with a shake of her head and a quick pivot of the topic. “Anyway, I got what I needed. I’ll be heading west now. I don’t know if I’ll ever be back around here, but if I’m not, I at least wanted to let you know you’re doing good by the Legion’s memory. And to thank you, again, for your help.”

“It’s the least I could do,” Hammer said, and he fanned away the platitudes with spread feathers. “Just, would you mind doing me a favor, Typhoon?” When Typhoon quirked a brow, the blacksmith gestured to the peytral protecting her breast. “At least show all the monsters and bandits and anything else that tries to kill you between here and wherever it is that you’re going that I’m just as good with ground steel as I am with skysteel. I’d hate for my work to be the reason you get killed.”

“It won’t,” Typhoon assured him. Then her red eyes fell on Sparrow again, if only for a moment. “And if you don’t mind, can I ask a favor of you as well, Hammer?”

“You could just give me an order,” Hammer teased. “Just like the old days.”

Typhoon rolled her eyes and let the quip pass without comment. Instead, she angled her head toward Sparrow. “Would you look out for her?” she asked him. “She’s been helpful to me, but she’s going to get herself killed if she keeps living like she does. She could be a useful apprentice, another set of hooves, and her magic would be great for handling hot iron. It’d get her off the streets, at the least.”

Hammer looked back at her and rubbed his neck. “Well… I’ll try, Commander. But the smithing life isn’t what she wants. She wants to be a soldier. And I’m not a soldier.”

“She doesn’t know what she wants,” Typhoon bluntly stated. “One day she’ll grow out of it, if she gets the chance. The Legion is dead, and it won’t be long before everypony who sees themselves as a legionary is dead too.”

Before Hammer had a chance to reply, Sparrow finally snapped her head upright and cast a baleful glare at Typhoon. “I don’t know what I want?” she barked, hopping off of her crate and stomping over to the pair of pegasi. “And you do? You don’t know who I am! You don’t know my life! So stop pretending that you do!”

Where awe and excitement at standing in a legionary’s presence had once been, Typhoon now saw only rage filling the young mare’s pink and blue eyes. But she didn’t let the fire of youth sway her, and she only met Sparrow’s glare with an icy look of her own. “You are not a soldier, Sparrow. You are not a legionary. You’re dreaming of something that can never happen. Do something better with your life than wasting it trying to be something you cannot.”

“I can be a soldier!” Sparrow shouted back, and her shoulders rose and fell with the beginnings of hysterics. “Nopony’s born a soldier! They train and they fight and then they are! But you won’t show me! You won’t teach me! Why won’t you teach me?!”

“Because the Legion is dead!” Typhoon snapped back, an aggravated edge breaking through her usually cool discipline. “It’s gone, don’t you understand? What are you trying to prove by clinging onto something that doesn’t exist anymore?”

“That ponies still believe in it!” Sparrow gnashed her teeth and stomped her hooves in frustration. “Fuck, Typhoon, i-it’s the only thing I believe in! Everything else has failed me or left me or used me except the Legion! A-And I’m not going to let you ruin that for me too!” She looked around the room, and suddenly her magic seized one of the swords sitting in a barrel and she brandished it, leveling the point towards Typhoon. “F-Fuck! Fuck, fight me! I-I’ll prove that I’m worthy! I’ll prove that I’m a legionary!”

Hammer and the Commander took a step back, and when Hammer tensed, Typhoon held him back with an outstretched wing and a small shake of her head. “Let me,” was all she murmured to him, and then her attention shifted back toward Sparrow. “Put the sword down,” she calmly ordered. “I’m not going to fight you.”

“Yes, you are!” Sparrow screamed, and then she swung the sword.

Typhoon didn’t have a chance to draw her sword, as the hilt was still latched into its scabbard after her flight across town, and she didn’t have her scaled blades on her wings, not anticipating to use them any time soon. But she did have her wings and reflexes honed from a lifetime of battle, and she used them to fling herself back before the point of the sword slashed through the air where she was once standing. Her hooves scuffed across the ground in the forge’s yard as she landed and found her balance, but Sparrow was already charging out to meet her with the sword in her magical grip, not deterred by her first errant swing and miss.

Icy magic brimmed to Typhoon’s wingtips as it heeded her instinctual call, but in a split second, the old soldier forced it back down, opting instead to flutter backwards again out of the range of Sparrow’s next swing and further into the yard. Rather than end the fight with magic, her wing unlatched her sword when she landed, and she drew her sword and parried Sparrow’s third swing in the same motion, sending it tumbling momentarily out of the unicorn’s grasp. When Sparrow turned her head to try and locate the sword and catch it in midair, Typhoon pushed off the ground with her legs and wings and rammed her armored shoulder into the young unicorn’s chest, catching her off balance. Though the two mares were roughly the same size, Typhoon’s strength and armored inertia was enough to send the unicorn tumbling across the ground, and she landed in a heap a short distance away.

But, undeterred and spurred on by rage, Sparrow was back on her hooves in a heartbeat, and she plucked her sword from the ground. She fully bared her teeth and growled in frustration, turning to face Typhoon once more, who calmly watched her with sword held in mouth, waiting for the young mare to make a move. She didn’t have to wait long; with another shout and lunge, Sparrow leapt forward, swinging the sword at Typhoon again, but keeping it closer to her body this time, and maintaining a stronger magical grip on the hilt as she swung.

It mattered little. Typhoon sidestepped the strike, then swept Sparrow’s legs out from underneath her with her wing. When Sparrow collapsed in front of her, Typhoon held the point of her sword to Sparrow’s jaw. “In a real fight, you’d be dead,” the soldier gruffly stated. “Put the sword down and stop before you get hurt.”

Sparrow lay on the ground panting, but only for a moment; no sooner had she reoriented herself and felt the icy point of Typhoon’s sword did she quickly summon magic to her horn and give Typhoon a rough shove to her chest. The burst of magic caught Typhoon by surprise, and she staggered backwards a half step, but it was the half step Sparrow needed to scramble back to her hooves. She didn’t say anything, only letting out a cry of anger as she swung again and again at the legionary, lashing out in blind rage, hoping to land the hit that would prove her worthy in Typhoon’s eyes.

Yet her furious strikes meant nothing against the sword of a mare who had witnessed a lifetime of battle. Typhoon parried some strikes, but she sidestepped the rest, remaining just out of reach of Sparrow’s wildly slashing sword. The moment Sparrow pushed herself too far, overextended just a little too much, the old soldier was there to close the distance. Darting inside of the unicorn’s reach, Typhoon wrapped a foreleg around Sparrow’s neck and used her armored weight to tackle and pin the mare to the ground. It was then that she touched a wingtip to the earth, and a line of ice lashed out at Sparrow’s sword, freezing it to the earth before the unicorn could grab it again, and remaining firm despite Sparrow’s attempts to wrench it free.

“Stop this,” Typhoon ordered her, speaking around the sword in her mouth, and when Sparrow tried to stand up, she pinned back the young mare’s foreleg and twisted it behind her back, causing her to yelp in pain. “The only thing you’re ready to do is die, Sparrow. You will not be a legionary. You can do many things with your life, but the one thing I will not let you do is pointlessly throw it away.”

“You don’t understand!” Sparrow shouted, writhing and gasping on the ground even as Typhoon tightened the pressure on her leg. “You… you don’t… you… aaaugh!”

For a moment, Typhoon thought Sparrow’s scream was a sign she had pulled her leg too far.

Then she saw the rock.

By the time she saw it, it was too late. A stone the size of her hoof slammed into her muzzle with a painful crunch, and the dazed legionary tumbled off of Sparrow in a feathery, flailing mess of limbs. Her vision swam, her skull rang, and she tasted blood on her tongue and felt it gurgle out of her nose long before the rest of her senses caught up with her. When they did, she hurriedly planted her legs on the ground and made to stand up, only to see Sparrow drop the rock from her magic and instead pick up Hiems Osculum from where Typhoon had dropped it.

The unicorn shivered, and tears ran down her face as her magic trembled around the hateful sword’s grip. “I… I-I-I’m n-not worthless…” she cried as tears stained her muzzle. “I’m not… I-I… I can still… c-can still…”

Her magic fizzled away, and the sword clattered to the ground, an icy patch spreading from where it fell. Sparrow followed moments later, crumpling to the dirt in a sobbing pile, burying her face in her forelegs. Her muffled cries and wails seemed to drown out everything else in the yard, even the ringing in Typhoon’s head.

Hoofsteps on grass made Typhoon turn her head, and she saw Hammer standing next to her, worriedly looking her over. “Commander… you’re bleeding. Are you alright?”

“F-Fine,” Typhoon said, tripping over the first word as blood stuck between her teeth and her lips. She pressed a wingtip against her nose and channeled her magic, numbing the swelling and clotting the break with ice. “A rag and something for the pain, please.”

“Right. As you wish, ma’am.” He moved to start, but hesitated, and his eyes fell on Sparrow. “What should we…?”

Typhoon turned her eyes toward the shaking, sniveling mare, and she felt a sharp pain threaten to rend her chest apart. She clenched her teeth, bared them for a moment through the pain, and then squeezed her eyes shut. She could only see the tears in pink and blue eyes down the length of her sword, and the desperate cries of a mare who wanted to prove her worth to an uncaring world.

“I’ll pay you for the sword,” Typhoon finally said. “And some scraps of mail. If you have saddlebags and some food for the road… great. Will save me a trip to the market before we go.”

Confusion took hold on Hammer’s face, if only for a few moments, before giving way to realization. “Commander? Are you sure?”

“No,” Typhoon admitted, but she let out a sigh and stood up anyway. “But she deserves this. And if Gale couldn’t have it… maybe I can do better with her.”

Author's Note

Sorry it took so long to get this last chapter of The Old Soldier out, but it's here at last! This has been an entertaining prospect to write for, and I'm interested to see what I'm able to turn out in the next substories.

I know we just had a couple of week's break without update, but there will probably be another one before I start releasing the 2-X substory as I work out the details and get a couple chapters written. Things should resume by September, though!

I hope you continue to enjoy the story!
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