This was my last day here.
At 9 AM I went to the hill my father told me, where my brother and I had played long time ago. The sun was only showing one half, leaving the sky with its particular dawn colour.
Noticing the sound of my hooves, my dad looked back at me.
"Hey there Flare, thanks for showing up." he said
"What is it dad? Why did you want to meet me so early? And why did you ask me to bring my weapons?" I asked him while showing him my bag.
"Well, like I said, we have something unsettled. And since this is your last day, well, I wanted to give me a treat for once."
"What are you trying to say?"
"You know I trained you Flare, and also Shining Armor, but yesterday you proved me I was wrong all along for choosing him over you."
I was surprised at that, not because he was saying he was wrong, but because of what he was implying.
"So you watched the fight between me and Shining." I affirmed.
"Yes, and I must say I am very proud of the outcome."
"But that wasn't supposed to be the outcome, Shining wouldn't fall for my tricks, you trained him!"
"And since I trained him, I want to be sure to not lose as he did." he said while unsheathing his longsword with his mouth.
I stared at him a while, was he really wanting to have a fight with me? What was he trying to prove?
Finally, I followed suit, I grabbed my gauntlets, the retractable blades and my sword.
We didn't move for some moments, with our guard up, waiting for the other to make a mistake.
I took three steps forward to my dad, shortening the distance to five hooves; he advanced two more, now we were at three hooves of distance.
Without warning, he made a quick slash at my neck height and I crouched; I hit his chest with my front hooves and made him step back, so I threw myself at him, grabbed him and performed a big outer reap.
In the floor he slashed again, barely missing me, so I stood up and retreated a few paces.
"Looks like those judo classes worked really well for you son" he said.
"Thanks, they work really well with my fighting style."
"Don't forget who taught you."
"I won't, but there are things I know you haven't taught me."
"Oh yeah? Show me." he scoffed.
And so I did, I was holding my sword in my mouth pointing to the right, and I switched it to the left. Dad never taught me swordplay with a reversed grip, assassins developed that. I also stood on my hind hooves, rising my front ones from the ground, leaving them fall at my sides.
I put my hind right leg behind me, making my chest point in diagonal from my position and my father's. And with my front left hoof, I taunted him with a wave.
"C'mon dad, I'm not going to be here forever" I said with a smile
He lunged with the sword, and I parried downwards. So he slashed at my legs, and I jumped while giving him a kick which disarmed him and made him flinch. I grabbed his sword and passed it to him to keep fighting.
Like Shining did, he hacked and slashed, right and left, but I just dodged him. I stood again in all fours and clashed my sword with his. We both were at disadvantage because the other was using their sword on the opposite side, and my dad knew that too, he could see I haven't fully mastered the reversed grip.
While our swords were still fighting for the space in between, I punched my dad with my hoof, and did it again a few more times.
He was dizzy, but was still standing, as I tackled him he hit me in the head with the hilt of the sword. Now I was the dizzy one.
I slashed at him, but didn't hit him, he was too far for my sword to reach him; but his sword was longer, so he slashed upwards and disarmed me of my sword.
I was in trouble.
I fell on my back, and felt like I lost conciousness, not because of the hit, but because I ran out of breath.
My lung capacity is way lower than the average earth pony; I can't keep up a fight for more than a few minutes with my fighting style, so I have to finish quickly, that was why I had the retractable blades, to help me defeat the enemy in a shorter amount of time.
But I didn't want to use them on my dad, that was like cheating. I didn't mean to use them on Shining either, but I had to before he killed somepony.
I saw my dad taking a big leap towards me, slashing his longsword downwards. I rolled aside and in the process hit my dad with my backhoof right in the snout.
I ran to my sword, and just as I picked it my dad had slashed me downwards again, but this time I parried it with my hoof, switched my sword grip to normal and disarmed him again, this time for good.
With my sword poking his chest, I looked at him at the eyes.
"Looks like I finally win" I said.
After a moment of silence, he smiles.
"Well done Flare, I am very proud of you" he replied.
"Why was this battle about again dad?" I asked him while sheathing my sword.
"You already forgot? I said that we had something unsettled, we never had a fight like yours with Shining."
"But what were you trying to prove after this? That I could beat you if I wanted?"
"No, I wanted to prove if my choice in the past was correct." he implied.
"What choice?" I asked him again.
"The right student; I never had to choose Shining over you, Flare." he said sadly and looking away "boy was I wrong."
After another silence, I spoke:
"Dad, you did the right thing; Shining was more used to your teachings than me, he is your perfect student, not me. I can't deal with your swordplay, so you had to teach Shining instead, while I developed my own way of fighting; I could never be Captain even if I were your full-time student."
He didn't speak.
"Choose anypony to train, you'll still be my dad no mather what happens." I assured him.
"Thanks Flare, seriously."
We closed in for a hug.
"I hope everything turns alright, and if not..." he started.
"Don't worry about that now, whatever that has to happen will happen." I said.
"I love you son."
"I love you too dad."
And stayed like that for some time.