“Urff! Rainbow, this is disgusting!”
Rarity stared at the stick lying on the sand. It was about three feet long and maybe two inches in diameter, with one end wrapped in cloth. Across from her, Rainbow held hers in her mouth, though she buried the tip in the ground and spat it out with an annoyed grumble. “Well until you get your magic back, Rares, you’re gonna have to hold it in your mouth.” Her eyes flicked to the cloth-wrapped end and she snickered. “And now you covered the hilt in sand. Good luck getting that off your tongue!”
“This is preposterous,” Rarity huffed, picking the stick up with her hooves and trying to brush as much sand off of the cloth as she could. “Why are we sparring with makeshift swords of all things? Why not hooves and horn? I certainly don’t have the neck strength to swing a sword with any amount of force, particularly when it’s merely a blunt club held between my teeth. And I have no intention of undoing the years of corrective dentistry I went through as a teenager by swinging a club with my mouth.”
“Cuz usually, fighting with a sword is safer and more versatile than just bucking things.” She waited until Rarity groaned and picked up the sword again, gagging as she felt sand touch her tongue. “Besides, you already have the hoof stuff covered. After seeing you fight, I don’t think you need my help with that.”
Rarity grumbled and tried to mutter something, but the stick and cloth in her mouth might as well have been a gag; she couldn’t form anything articulate with her voice. Rainbow tried to hide a giggle and walked over to the nearest tree, dragging her sword along with her. “Alright, I’m gonna show you some basic swings and stuff, and then just try to do what I do. But first, stance.” She chuckled and added to herself, “I feel like my gym teacher back in fifth grade when we learned some basic stuff. Uh, Cloudsdale was Commander Hurricane’s home for a long time, so we remember our heritage,” she clarified when Rarity raised a brow. “We all learn a little about sword fighting when we’re young.”
With her sword resting against the tree, she looked Rarity over. “Spread your legs a little bit and try to hold the sword perfectly level. Left or right side doesn’t matter, though we usually hold it to the right so we can put more power into the swing by swinging right to left, since most ponies are right-hoofed and all that…”
White hooves shifted through the sand as Rarity tried to do as Rainbow told her. The ‘sword’ felt alien and heavy in her mouth, and she really wanted to spit the thing out and wipe down her tongue, but she knew that she’d only end up getting more sand on it if she tried. Rainbow helped her with the final points of her stance using her hooves, showing her to keep her left front hoof extended a bit so she could leverage the sword better by stepping into it as she swung from right to left. “Don’t hold it too tight in your teeth, either,” Rainbow said, pressing on the exposed end a bit to illustrate her point. “If your sword gets hit too hard, you want to be able to drop it instead of it breaking your teeth. It’s better to be disarmed for a moment than to break the teeth around your bars and not be able to wield anything at all.”
Rarity wordlessly nodded and slackened her jaw a little bit, letting the sword rest in the gap between her molars as comfortably as she could. When Rainbow pushed on it again, it had a little give but Rarity could still keep it locked in her mouth. “Good.” Then, turning to the tree, she pointed to the bark. “Watch what I do, and when I’m done, try to repeat it.”
The pegasus snatched her dummy sword between her teeth and stood in front of the tree, naturally slipping into her battle stance. After a second to shake off the rust, she struck at the tree in slow, precise motions. Rarity watched the way her body moved, from the way she stepped into her hooves and recoiled from the strikes, to how her shoulders rolled and neck bent as she threw her weight into the blow, to the lithe and firm muscles rippling under her sandy coat, starting at her neck and all the way back to her taut, sharp flanks—
“See? Easy,” Rainbow said, burying her sword in the sand once more. “Now you try.”
Rarity snapped back to reality. “Oh, ah…” was all she could manage around the sword in her mouth, though to be fair, she wasn’t trying to say anything articulate in the first place.
Rainbow’s eyebrow rose. “You were watching, right, Rares?”
“Mmhmm,” she said with a hasty nod. To be fair, she was watching, though maybe not exactly what Rainbow had meant. Stepping up to the tree, she fidgeted with her grip on the sword and took her first swing. She shied back from the impact, but even through that hesitation she felt the sword jump in her mouth and the shockwave travel down her neck. For some reason it had been more violent than she’d expected, but maybe that was just all in her mind. It was supposed to represent a weapon after all, even if it hardly looked like it. Maybe that’s what made it worse.
Beating up a defenseless tree took nearly an hour as Rainbow tried to drill the basic strokes and swings into Rarity. Occasionally, she’d have to stop and work something out herself that she’d forgotten from her classes long ago. Often she’d bring up anecdotes about the motions she put Rarity through, explaining what they were for and why they were used. She’d share stories about drilling with the other Wonderbolts, like how Soarin’ once sprained a wing in a bout with Blaze, or how Fleetfoot was really into sparring and had been a scout sent to investigate the ruins of the old royal palace in Everfree the year before Nightmare Moon returned. She hadn’t been able to locate the Elements of Harmony like she was supposed to, but both Rainbow and Rarity agreed that it’d turned out for the best. They needed the Elements right where they were when Luna returned the following year.
“Alright, that’s good enough for now,” Rainbow said as Rarity’s splintered stick cracked after the last blow against the tree. Above them, Chirp squawked and craned his neck at the loud crack; the macaw had been doing his own thing for much of the day, but with dusk approaching, he’d returned to their camp to roost for the night. Rarity spat out the broken stick and tried to shake her sweaty mane out of her face while Rainbow brushed her shoulder. “I was hoping to get a little practice fighting in but I guess that’s not happening now, is it?”
“I suppose not,” Rarity agreed, shuffling sand between her hooves. Her jaw ached and she knew her neck was going to be unbelievably sore in the morning; sleeping on a bed of moss and palm fronds certainly hadn’t helped her delicate spine since washing up here, and this was certainly going to make it worse. How she missed the pampering and care of the Concordia’s spa, even if she’d only had the opportunity to visit it once.
Rainbow saw Rarity’s grimace. “You alright, Rares?”
“Sore,” Rarity grumbled. “I feel like that tree did more to me than I to it.”
“That’s training for you!” Rainbow teased, nuzzling Rarity’s sweaty cheek. “That’s how you know you learned something.”
“Twilight would be so proud, I’m sure,” Rarity said. She took a step back toward the shelter, where their food and water waited for them, and immediately winced. “Ouch! What I wouldn’t give to get a massage right now!” Her eyes flicked over her shoulder in hopeful anticipation of Rainbow’s response.
Unfortunately, Rainbow’s thoughts went somewhere else. “Too bad that cool massager didn’t make it…”
“Yes, well…” Rarity drew herself up and took a breath. “If we think of everypony that died in the storm, then I don’t think our minds will ever rest easy. As callous as it may sound, we should forget them.” She swallowed hard. “It’ll make it easier for us to live with ourselves, that’s for sure,” she added in a low voice.
Chirp squawked from the tree, but Rainbow was silent.
“You don’t like that idea, do you?” Rarity asked. She knew the question was unnecessary but she asked it anyway.
“We never really did a memorial for them,” Rainbow said. “We just said a few stupid words when we buried Jetstream.”
“Then let’s do it,” Rarity said, pushing aside her thoughts of sore muscles and aching joints. Rainbow needed this, she could tell, and it might be therapeutic for her as well. Trying to tease a massage out of her could wait. “Let’s gather some wood we can burn for a small fire. It’s getting dark, and soon it’ll be too dark for any minotaurs to see the smoke. That’ll be a good time to do it.” She nuzzled Rainbow’s shoulder, bringing her friend back from her absentminded thoughts. “Does that sound good, darling?”
Rainbow nodded. “As good as we can make it,” she said. “I just hope we can do them right.”
“Me too,” Rarity murmured, watching Rainbow shuffle over to their pile of salvage. “Me too.”