Tales of Harmony

Life as a guard was uneventful, at least when you were stationed in a place like Mareshire. While others might imagine it as a grand and noble adventure, traveling the land, protecting the innocent from danger and defeating wild dangerous beasts, the truth was much more mundane.

For Eclipse for example, life only consists of hours upon hours, spent staring into the same never changing scenery, with only the occasional visitor, to break the monotony.

The only relief of boredom for the young guardspony were the occasional patrols around the forest, to prevent wildlife from venturing too close to the city, so naturally they were his favorite part of the work.

Currently they were patrolling the edge of the forest on the southern side of city. Recent reports of increased sightings, had led his superiors to send his squadron to investigate the area. However, so far they didn’t made much progress. A fact that didn’t go unnoticed by his comrades either.

“How much longer do we have to deal with this?” an especially annoying guard as for what felt like the hundredth time since their patrol started.

“As long as we need to,” the captain shot back. One of his eyes twitched in irritation at the constant complaint of his troops. “So shut your mouth and... “

He suddenly paused and raised a hoof to signal the others to do the same. He looked around, his ears twisting around to try and track whatever it was that he had heard. A moment later, he pointed a hoof, gesturing for the others to follow him, and walked deeper into the forest. He kept going, until he reached a small clearing, where he paused just outside of sight. He turned to his squad and nodded to a lone pegasus stallion standing in the midst of the clearing.

His eyes narrowed as he stared at a lone stallion, who was standing in its center. They narrowed even further, as he noticed wings poking out from his sides. Silently he gave his subordinates a signal to draw their weapons, then he slowly stepped out in the open.

At the sound the stallion turned around and opened his mouth to say something, yet the word got stuck in his throat as his eyes fell on the guards armor..

“Well, well, well, what do we have here? A little birdy separated from its flock?” the captain taunted, as he slowly approached the stallion, who tried to back of from him. He managed to get away two full meters, until his path was suddenly blocked by a tree. He tried to dodge to his right, but again his path was blocked, this time by the other guards who had followed their leaders example and had stepped out of the forest as well. The same was true for his left, so all he could do was back up against the tree and stared in horror at the slowly approaching captain.

“Tell me birdy, what are you doing out here, so far from home?”

“Please,” the stallion pleaded and tried to back off even further, which natural didn’t work. “I don’t want any trouble.”

“To bad” the captain smiled menacingly and raised his sword, “because trouble just found you. You see we don’t like ….”

Before he could finish his sentence, he was suddenly interrupted, as out of nowhere a cloaked figure suddenly appeared right in front of him. While the captain still tried to figure out what just happened, he was knocked down by a punch to the gut, followed by a swift uppercut that made him see stars.

Chaos broke loose, as the rest of the squad tried to fight off the intruder, yet soon they as well found themselves on the ground, as a second figure appeared and together they made short work out of each of the remaining soldiers, until Eclipse was the only one left standing.

Gathering all of his courage, Eclipse prepared to attack, yet before he could do so, something gave him pause.

“Wait,” a familiar voice yelled, causing Eclipse to stare at its source, where a moment later a seafoam colored stallion with a blonde mane walked out of the forest and joined the two cloaked figures, a third one following close behind him.

“Hello, Eclipse” Lux said with a forced smile, while behind him one of the cloaked ponys helped the fallen pegasus back to his hooves. “We were waiting for a chance to get close to you. It's unfortunate that it had to be this way.”

He flashed him an apologetically smile, but Eclipse was only barely aware of what he said.

“What the hell are you doing?” he snapped, causing Lux to wince, yet the rest of the group didn’t seem impressed by it.

“What does it look like?” Blaze remarked snidely, as she used one hoof to help the pegasus stallion back up, causing Eclipse to draw his blade once again at the remark, but before the situation could escalate any further, Lux quickly stepped in and shook his head, causing Eclipse to stare at him in disbelief.

“He’s an enemy, Lux, and you are trying to protect him?”

Before Lux could answer him, the pegasus spoke up. “Please, there’s no need for this. All that matters right now is ….”

A loud screech interrupted him, as behind him the forest began to shake, and a large griffon burst through the thicket. Faster than most could react it turned towards Blaze and barreled towards her. Immediately Blaze let go of the stallion and narrowly avoided the griffon’s claw as it tore through the air where she just had been. Not wasting a single second Blaze used the moment created by the evasive maneuver and used it to send a heavy right directly against the griffins head, a big smile on her face. However, her smile faded as the griffon managed to raise a talon just in time to redirect her attack so that it only hit the air. Realizing that the griffon was a much more serious threat than the enemies before it, Blaze backed off to change into a proper fighting stance, while across from her the griffon did the same. Crouching low to offer a smaller target, Blaze dashed forward, deciding to take on the griffon, who had taken to the air and was now dropping down towards her with its claws stretched out, headon ...only to be stopped as the pegasus stallion suddenly jumped between them. Her eyes widened and she had to do a very sharp turn to avoid crashing into him.

“That’s enough” he said in a surprisingly stern voice, his eyes focused on the griffon. “They are not our enemies. They just saved my life from those guards.”

For a moment the griffon remained silent as it just stared at the scene in front of it, then it slowly turned to face the group.

“You have my thanks.” It said and removed its helmet, revealing the face a female griffin. Thanks to her time spent with her Uncle, Dawn had spent enough time round griffins to realize that she was rather young, not a chick anymore, but definitely not fully grown yet either. Dark black marking surrounded her eyes and the tip of her beak, surrounded by azure coloured feathers that covered the rest of her head and changed back into black at her neck. Her wings were similar coloured, mostly black with an azure coloration around the edges of her feathers. The armor she wore was a deep silver color, with little to no ornaments on it except for a insignia, found on all griffin military, that completely covered her entire body. She turned to the pegasus, her eyes full of concern.

“Are you alright?”

He nodded and gestured towards the others. “Thanks to those strangers, yes. They saved me from .. them.” He glanced at Eclipse, who once again raised his weapon at the mention of him, yet he lowered it again upon receiving a cold stare from both the griffon and Blaze.

“More importantly,” the griffoness continued, “how is your wing?”

“I’ll manage” the pegasus said. He glanced at his right wing, where a bandage was barely visible from under his clothes. He looked back at the griffion and the path from where she had appeared.

“And?”

“Path should be safe from here out,” the griffoness said and glanced behind her. “I discovered nothing worth noting. We should be able to reach our destination without any more incidents.”

“Good.” The pegasus smiled than he turned to the others. “I have to thank you for your help, but me and my companion need to leave now.”

“What, no! You still…” Eclipse began, but he was once again silenced, this time by Dawn putting a hoof over his muzzle.
“You should be more careful where you crash next time,” Blaze said. “Never know who you’ll run into.”

“I’ll keep that in mind” the stallion chuckled good heartedly, then he turned to leave.

The griffoness meanwhile remained for just a moment longer, her eyes lingering on the group, then she turned to leave as well.

The group waited until she was completely gone, then their attention collectively turned to Eclipse, who too his credit didn’t shrink away from the attention. Instead he defiantly stared back at them, though his attention remained mostly on Lux.

“So,” he began “finally letting me get a word in, huh?”

Lux looked somewhat embarrassed by the remark and simply nodded.

“Good,” Eclipse said, “because you have a lot of explaining to do.”