“Come on, you got three more in you! Now, push!”
Nick grunted as he strained under the weight of the rocks that were placed into a modified harness on his back. In his low plank, his muscles screamed out in pain as he tried to push himself up. With a final, defeated grunt, Nick slumped to the ground, rolling so the rock wouldn’t pin him there.
“Now, what was that? I’ve seen you do much more than that with Ironwood’s squad.” Captain Hurricane stood over him. The pegasus mare’s burning gaze would’ve made Nick flinch if he wasn’t so exhausted.
“And look at you! You have barely bulked up at all over the past few weeks. What gives?”
As Nick rolled to an upright position, he ran his hand through his sweaty mop of hair. He really needed to get it cut. When he pulled his hand away, he saw some of his strawberry strands of hair stuck to his palm. Was he going bald? He nearly began vomiting.
Hurricane saw this and immediately backed off slightly. “Hey, you alright? You’re not sick or anything, right?”
Nick shook his head. “I don’t think so. I-” Nick’s stomach growled loudly, interrupting whatever he was about to say as his stomach cramped up.
“Horsefeathers. Don’t play dumb with me. C’mon, let’s have Mending take a look at you.
As they walked back into the castle, Nick blanked out for a second. When he came to, he was standing in the doorway into the medical ward, Mending looking at him curiously.
“Nicholas? You seem a bit… off today. Are you not feeling well?” Mending used the distraction to herd Nick with prods from her hoof, eventually guiding the human to sit on one of the medical cots. “Last week you seemed fine. Has anything changed?”
Nick leaned back, a yawn escaping his lips. “Well, I haven’t been getting much sleep lately. And, I guess I am constantly hungry, which is kinda new.”
“Don’t forget your hair is, quite literally, falling out of your head,” Hurricane added.
With piqued curiosity, Mending lit her horn, and Nick felt her magic ruffle his hair. Sure enough, strands of Nicks’s hair came clean from his scalp in small clumps, floating in Mending’s telekinetic grasp.
“Is this normal for humans?”
Nick blinked his drooping eyelids. “I don’t think so.”
Mending turned away from Nick. “Captain, could you send for William? I think Nicholas here is becoming delirious.” Hurricane was out of the room before Nick could protest.
“Now you, just relax. We’ll get to the bottom of this.” Gently placing a hoof on Nick’s chest, Mending forced the human to lay back fully on the cot.
Nick closed his eyes and tried to doze off, but the growing feeling of pain in his gut kept him awake despite how tired he felt. A few minutes later, he heard two feet and four hooves enter the room.
Will yawned. Hurricane had barged into his room yelling about Nick. Normally he would’ve been more awake, but he had only fallen asleep a few hours ago. “So, what’s up?”
“Nicholas doesn’t seem to be feeling well,” Mending explained. “He says he hasn’t been sleeping, is constantly hungry, and he seems to be having cramps in his midsection. Given that I am fairly certain he has been eating at every mealtime, I find it hard to believe that he could still be hungry.”
Will chewed on his lip for a moment and adjusted the bridge of his glasses on his nose. He looked at Nick as if asking for permission. A look that Nick didn’t see as his eyes were still closed.
“I was worried that this would happen. I think he just needs… a different kind of food.”
“But the castle chefs make some of the finest foods in the Everfree Township. What could his diet be lacking?”
Will saw Nick shake his head from the bed, silently saying one thing: ‘Don’t say it.’
Will turned and sat on an adjacent cot, looking to the two mares in the room. He started to talk, paused in thought, then started again. “Well, humans need a decent amount of protein in our diets to stay healthy. It’s how we build muscle, and it helps keep us from getting sick.”
Hurricane piped up. “So, you need more of this... protein, right? How do we get it?”
“Well, the easiest way… is to eat… flesh.”
Mending and Hurricane’s eyes went wide. “Humans are Meat-eaters?” both say in disbelief, but Mending flinched much more than Hurricane, who’s eyes just turned steely.
“See these?” Will said, opening his mouth wide, and pointed to his canines. “And these?” Will pulled his cheek back, revealing his molars in the back of his mouth. Hurricane got closer and inspected the teeth while Mending still cowered a good distance away. “It means we’re omnivores, that we both need meat and vegetables to survive. We have some humans back home called vegetarians who only eat vegetables, but they can get their other nutrients, like protein and iron, artificially. We… can’t really do that here.
Will nearly whithered under the hard glare he was receiving from Hurricane. She hummed thoughtfully before she brought herself to eye level with the human.
“So… answer these questions for me.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Will nearly whimpered.
“Have you ever eaten a pony?”
“No.”
“Would you ever eat a pony?”
“Not one here! You’re like… people? People-ponies? You talk!”
“So you only eat things that can’t communicate with you?”
“Ye- wait. No. NO! I meant things that aren’t intelligent enough to speak. Like… like… Fish!”
Hurricane took a long, silent look at Will. And, to his credit, he was still standing and his pants weren’t stained yellow. “So… are we good?”
Hurricane paused for another moment, and Will tried his damnedest to look Hurricane in the eyes.
“Okay, let’s go.”
Will sputtered for a second. “Wait, what?”
Hurricane landed and began making for the door. “We’re going to see that you and Nicholas get some meat. You mentioned fish, and luckily for you, I don’t think the princesses will mind very much in that regard. So, let’s go get you some fish.”
“But where are we going to get fish from?” Will asked. “Don’t all ponies just eat things like carrots and apples? I haven’t seen anything aside from that here in the castle before, and I’ve met Chef Julienne.”
“First of all, ponies can eat much more than ‘carrots and apples,’” Hurricane said, a hint of disdain in her voice. “Secondly, most ponies can’t stand the smell of cooked fish, but some pegasi eat it quite often. Nick, get your flank up! We’re going to get some fish, and you’re not getting any if you stay here!”
Will had never seen Nick move so fast to get out of bed, suddenly wide awake. Nick followed hot on the hooves of the captain as Hurricane led them to the door to the barracks.
“Wait here,” Hurricane said, as she zipped into the room. Seconds later, two very disheveled looking, and quickly armored pegasus guards stepped through the doors, with Hurricane behind them.
Hurricane placed a wing on the back of one of the two pegasi, with a bluish-grey coat and navy mane. “This here is Lieutenant Sabre, she and the private here will be escorting you two to Meadwing’s, ain’t that right Sab?”
The mare in question groaned. “Yea, yea. Couldn’t let me ‘ave a few more minutes could ya? I jus’ got off the night shift.
“Heh,” Hurricane snickered. “You know I have to get those other flab-flanks in gear. You and your company are the only ones who are gonna be off duty for this.” Hurricane gave Sabre a shake with her wing, one Sabre pulled away from while batting the other mare’s wing away with her own.
“Aye, Captain, but you owe me.”
Hurricane suddenly dropped a small bag in front of the Lieutenant. The bag itself nearly left a crater in the stone floor.
“That’s this month’s pay, plus a little extra for taking our human friends to an early breakfast. You pay for them, keep the townsponies a safe distance away, then you get to come back and get some shut-eye. Deal?”
Sabre felt the weight of the bag with a hoof, the sound of metal coins jostling around caught Will’s attention. “Honestly Cap’ when did ye get the time to get the bits. Ah- nevermind.” Putting the bag of coin on her belt, the lieutenant turned her attention to her two charges for the morning. “Well, lads, ye ready ta’ go?”
Nick looked at Hurricane quizically. “Is the guard truly necessary. You weren’t following us around the castle, and we’ve been introduced to the public.”
Hurricane hummed. “Well, the common pony may not be aware of you yet. We have no idea how they will react. It is more for your protection that the lieutenant goes with you.”
Nick knew that she was right, but that look in the mare’s eyes told him there was more to the situation that he couldn’t see. With a loud stomach growl, he lost all motivation to press for more information.
Will shrugged. “Well, if you are sure.” Will gave a sloppy salute to the captain before turning to Lieutenant Sabre. “Please, lead on.”
Will hadn’t seen the scowl that crossed Hurricane’s face as he was already following Lieutenant Sabre down the hall towards the stairwell that led up to the main floor of the castle.
-~xXXXx~-
It was getting closer to the first set of training for the castle guard, as Captain Hurricane paced the outer walls of the castle. She enjoyed these moments of quiet and relished in the fact that she didn’t have to play the harsh guard captain for once. She tried to do this every morning, coming out and watching the sunrise over the eastern horizon.
It was still dark out, Princess Luna’s stars littering the black sky above, everything lit by the pale blue light of the moon, but hints of orange began to peek up over the tree line. Looking down at the abandoned training field, Hurricane remembered that she’d be actually overseeing today’s training. As she was looking at the pegasus flying rings, she caught a shadow moving out of the corner of her eye.
‘Now that’s odd,’ Hurricane thought. ‘Nopony should be out here this early.’ She followed the vaguely pony-shaped figure with her eyes as it came to the corner of the a-frame obstacle course element before disappearing beneath it.
With a practiced flap of her wings, Hurricane glided down as silently as an owl to the training field below, staying to the shadows under the walls. As Hurricane snuck closer, she was able to hear a pair of voices coming from within the a-frame.
“-momentsss away from blowing your cover. Had you opened your muzzle one more time, you would’ve been ssseen as a liability.” It was a stallion’s voice Hurricane didn’t recognize, the elongated pronunciation of his ‘s’ reminded the captain of the sounds snakes made when they stuck their tongue out of their mouth. However, her ears perked when the second voice spoke up.
“Do you know what I have to deal with? Do you really have any idea? I have been dealing with both featherbrains and horn-heads for the better part of a year now! Now I gotta deal with some hot-head monkey alien thing. Somepony needs to put that human in his place!”
Hurricane scowled. There was no denying it. That was
Ironhoof.
“Hisss plans take priority over your petty sssquabblesss with the tourisssts.” The stallion audibly sucked on the inside of his cheek as he spoke. “Now that guard captain has become sssussspicious of you, which means Hisss plans must be pushed forward. We musssn’t loose the element of suprissse. If we are to take this town, we must ssstrike soon.”
Hurricane had heard enough, and she took off into the early morning sky. Unbeknownst to her and to Ironwood, the stallion grinned wide as he caught a glimpse of the guard captain in the now rising sun.