A manticore had a way to fill up the room. Of course, Megara the Lioness wasn't a pure-blooded manticore—not that it mattered—and she wasn't quite as large as her full-blooded kin—not that it mattered—but she was an immense, powerful creature of legendary proportions. It would take her two or three bites to eat a pony, instead of just gobbling them up in one go. She was chocolate brown, just like Pebble, and had a shock of cinnamon candy red mane that exploded outwards in all directions. Her front legs were longer and thicker than her back legs, and bowed outwards rather like a bulldog. Like all manticores, she had a bit of an underbite, and two petite tusks poked upwards on each side of her muzzle. Of particular note, she had horns, which some manticores had, though Sundance didn't know if they were magical in nature.
When he looked at her, he felt a curious tautness in his inner thigh muscles.
"Sundance, this is Megara. My sister." The stout earth pony cast a sidelong glance up at her sibling and then said, "Nutmeg, this is Sundance."
"This is Sundance?" The unimpressed manticore spawn let go a powerful snort that blew her sister's mane off to one side. "He picked a fight with an owlbear?"
"Meg… please. For once—"
"There's not much to him, Pebble. Not much at all. What am I supposed to work with, exactly?"
"You will work with what you are given," Pebble deadpanned.
"I'm standing right here," Sundance said to the siblings.
"Indeed, you are," Megara said to him, "and now that I look at you, I'm somewhat concerned. Have you considered library work perhaps? Chartered accountancy? Bookkeeping. Something indoors?"
Pebble grunted and rolled her eyes.
Shoving her smaller sister aside, Megara stomped forwards, got right up into Sundance's face, and then lowered her head until their noses were almost touching. He couldn't help but notice that just one of her front legs was thicker than the whole of his body, and she had a satisfying solidity that spoke to him in some weird way that he did not wish to acknowledge. There was something equine about her, but also something leonid. Every single one of her whiskers quivered as she sniffed him and her fiery orange eyes had a scary preternatural glow to them.
"Well, go on"—she spoke in a playfully condescending tone—"attack me. Show me what you can do. I can see that you're angry, so why don't you do something about it. Let me have it."
Since she asked for it… he decided to let her have it.
"I feel sorry for whomever has the chore of changing your litterbox," he said to the manticore spawn that towered over him. "I bet you leave behind some scary-big kitty crunchies."
There was a gasp as Pebble took several steps backwards. Meanwhile, Megara continued to stare down at him, as if she sized him up for a meal, and after several long seconds, a wry smirk spread over the left side of her muzzle. Quite unexpectedly, she reached out, bapped him with her enormous broad paw, and almost sent him tumbling from the affectionate force of her gesture.
"I can work with that," she said to her sister. "He's soft cookie dough, but he's got a mouth on him."
Sundance, who attempted to recover himself, struggled to get his legs steady beneath him. The playful bapping almost took him right to the floor and it occurred to him that if she so desired, Megara could break every bone in his body with no real effort on her part. Something about this realisation set a fire in his belly, and left his hindquarters a bit too hot for comfort. Megara was looking down at him, and once he found some strength in his noodly legs he stared up at her in bold defiance.
She was a monster—but an attractive one.
"There's a bit more to you than I expected," Megara said whilst she gestured with her still-raised paw. "You didn't attack me. Honestly, I thought you would. You've got that general air of stupidity and that 'act first, think later' about you. Consider me pleasantly surprised. That you chose wit as a weapon bodes well for you, Morsel."
With nothing to say in response, Sundance chose to stand in silent defiance.
"Can't tell if this is courage or general stupidity," Megara said, mostly to herself. "Might be a bit of both. I've heard some stories about you, Sundance. Like flying into Canterlot during a full on gale. The gentry had themselves a pretty good laugh about it. So… tell me… do you want to learn how to handle yourself in a fight?"
Without hesitation he replied, "Yes."
"This won't happen overnight." Extending her still-raised paw, she poked at him a few times, touched his scarred neck, and seemed to be examining him. "It'll be painful. And bloody. And humiliating at times. And did I mention that it'll be bloody and painful? I don't make soldiers. That's not my way. There'll be no fighting with honour. No code of conduct. Sometimes, soldiers lose because they are soldiers."
She thumped her neck with her paw whilst she stared down her muzzle at Sundance.
"Around here, we fight to win. We fight dirty. Every dirty trick, every dishonorable deed… we do them. We toss sand in the eyes and gash the groin. We don't fight fair. If this bothers you, you need to tell me now before we commit to this. I don't wanna waste my time. There's others I could be helping."
This time, before he offered up his response, Sundance had himself a bit of a think. He was a baron. A lord of the land. With these titles, a certain amount of honour was expected of him. He was supposed to act a certain way. Follow a code of conduct. But then he thought of Corduroy, and her insistence that he send out others to fight in his stead. Perhaps fighting in general wasn't expected of him. He thought of Flicker, a fellow lord. Flicker was rough, coarse, and a fighter.
The issue was more complicated than he realised. As Sundance stood there, uncertain, the whole of his future stretched out before him. So much depended upon this moment. This would be his legacy. His future. What he chose to do right now would define him as a ruler. He thought of the previous Milord and his expression soured as a bad taste manifested in his mouth. What would Princess Celestia expect of him? Should he be Sundance the Honourable?
No, he decided.
"We fight to win," he said to Megara, "or not at all."
She struck him a second time; a playful, affectionate gesture that almost sent him right down to the floor. Electric sparks danced around his teeth as they clattered against each other and fiery pain blossomed in every joint in his body as the shockwave of her not-so-tender touch bounced recklessly through him. The pain was such that it left him woozy-headed, and as he stood there trying to hide his discomfort he had his first second thoughts.
"You look like you're about to pass out," she remarked.
"Is it that obvious?" he asked.
With a mock-serious expression, she stood nodding while also replying, "I'm gonna do a whole lot worse to ya. You can't even imagine. Last chance… wanna back out?"
Teeth clenched so his mouth couldn't betray him, he shook his head from side to side.
"Whew, you two are getting along. Well, in the way that my sister gets along. Which is to say that she generally doesn't. That's why she's the Manticore at Arms." Pebble sighed, then moved closer. "I am so relieved."
"It seems that we have a lot to talk about," Megara said. "We should go do that."
A change of scenery brought about a change of mood. Sundance, thoughtful and distant, hadn't said much at all. He was content to allow others to talk. Pebble had much to say, things worth hearing, and it only made sense for him to listen to her. The plan, such as it was, was laid out. Megara would come to the Sunfire Barony. He would learn how to handle himself in a fracas. Then, while it was summer and the days were long, excursions would be made into the northern lands of the Sunfire Barony to deal with some of the problems that lived there. Megara would keep him alive and out of trouble; that was her mission. He would learn to fight and bring order to his lands; that was his mission.
If everypony did their part, both baronies and Equestria at large would prosper.
Megara the Lioness lived in a den. It wasn't some smelly hole in the ground; far from it, though she did live beneath a tree. The root system and the earth were shaped to form a large, roomy domicile—something big enough for the enormous manticore spawn to live comfortably in. There was no bare earth, but rather, smooth, flowing shaped stone and wood. Rather than flat surfaces and hard angles, there were rounded corners and gentle slopes. It was pleasant and Sundance found himself rather taken with it as a living space.
For Sundance, a city-dweller, Megara's den forever changed what a living space was. He'd grown up in apartments; buildings made of brick, steel, glass, and wood. Hard right angles with straight walls and floors. Curves were rare things, inefficient space far too often sacrificed for the sake of necessity. Square footage was all that mattered and justified the astronomical cost of rent.
Twisted, gnarled roots formed columns and pillars that separated the rooms in strange organic ways. As for the rooms themselves, some had walls of shaped stone, while other rooms had a curtain hung between roots. Something about it all tickled his imagination and left him thoughtful. It changed everything Sundance believed a room to be in much the same way the dome homes redefined what a living space was.
"Do you understand your objectives?" asked Pebble, who sat comfortably upon a patchwork pillow.
"I do," Megara replied with a polite nod to her sibling. "You want me to go to the Sunfire Barony. By the end of the summer, I am to have this fella"—she stabbed her extended paw-finger in Sundance's general direction—"in fighting shape. On top of all of that, you want the northern reaches of the Sunfire Barony and the Tarhollow region pacified. Because that's been a thorn in our side for a while, and you fear that trouble might move south with all the publicity and exposure the barony has had recently."
Sundance too, now worried about this more than a little since it was brought up.
"Permission to speak freely," Megara said to her sister.
Impassive, Pebble did not react when she deadpanned in return, "This is not a formal affair."
The manticore spawn reached up, rubbed the side of her neck with her paw, and then she attempted to smooth out the curly ringlets of her shock of cinnamon candy mohawk. "Maybe so, but… uh, this is bound to be hurtful."
"The way I see it"—Pebble's deadpan was a fair bit more deadpanny than usual when she spoke—"you're about to cause Sundance a lot of pain in the very near future. Because of this, you shouldn't be so worried about hurting him now. If you've got something to say, do so now. He's a big boy. Brutal honesty might sting a little, but that's life."
Before Sundance could offer his own opinion, Megara had her say.
"Pebble, you've given me a tall order. Might be biting off more than I can chew. It's not just keeping two lands safe, or doubling the size of the territory that I have to patrol… though that is worrisome too in its own way… but I don't have much to work with. This guy"—she turned and made eye-contact briefly with Sundance—"no offence, is an overboiled noodle. He's soft. Weak. Gonna go out on a limb and say he has a glass jaw. What I am trying to say is, I don't have much to work with here so I don't know if I can promise the results I am known for."
"You will make it work," Pebble said in a low, forceful deadpan. "Or you won't be coming home."
"Oh… there it is. Lady Dominator. The win condition. I knew that was coming."
"Circumstances demand results," Pebble said, her deadpan now logical, cold, and calculating. "Taken as a whole situation, nopony cares about individual excuses. This affects us all. You're the Manticore at Arms. Do your job… or step aside so that somepony else can."
Sundance, who feared that he was the cause of this sibling squabble, tried to think of something to say.
"I'll do my job. I'll do my best to get results. But if I am to be honest, I'm not sure what we can expect."
"Make it work. I have faith in both of you. I am positive that Sundance has something he can contribute. Find a way. See that he does. Find his strength and work with that."
"I will," Megara replied. "It's just… that's a lot to ask by the end of summer on top of everything else."
"Perhaps form an adventuring troupe," Pebble suggested. "For all we know, Sundance might have valuable leadership skills. A company of adventurers might be just what he needs to shine. You will make it work, Nutmeg. You always do."
Conflicted, torn by all that was said, but knowing that his own objectives had to be added to the heap because results really were all that mattered, Sundance interjected his own voice into the conversation and said, "One more thing. One more objective. One of my own."
"And what would that be?" asked Pebble, who brought her dominating, calculating gaze to bear upon Sundance.
He sighed, summoned his courage, and prepared to tell the two sisters about the peculiar behaviour of the animals on his lands, as well as the unsettling dread that dwelled in the mountains to the east…