"Do you get along with your sister?" asked Sundance as he followed along after Megara on their way to the armory.
It was darker now, though Sundance couldn't guess the time. Thick clouds rolled in overhead, so the stars—were there any to be seen—were obscured. Ponies and other creatures were still very much active. There were no electric lights here, none that Sundance had seen, and the dim was lit with soft, warm glows cast by candles, lanterns, and magic. It was beautiful—and rather like home.
"My sister and I are best sister-friends," Megara replied.
"She seemed a bit hard on you just a bit ago," he said to her.
"We're hard on each other, but you haven't seen that."
"Hard on each other?" He was confounded, mostly because Pebble seemed to be in charge while Megara was a subordinate. One was clearly in charge while the other took orders, and this made him think a bit about the relationships he had with the creatures in his care.
"I am accepted because Pebble tells others how I really am," Megara explained. "And then she makes sure that I really am that way. She holds me accountable. I am held to a very high standard. In return, I get acceptance that I might otherwise not have. I'm a monster… a manticore. When I was little, I was cute, and a curious little something that others found adorable. But now… as an adult… I am a manticore. I pick fights with rocs and dragons and other manticores and chimerae and ogres and whole armies of goblins and I win. I win and that scares you little ponies silly because I do it so effortlessly. The very thing that offers me some small amount of societal acceptance just so happens to also scare those I protect. Pebble deals with others so I don't have to. It's hard to be rational when you're about to piss yourself in fear."
"I don't think you're so bad," he said as he doubled his pace to keep up with her.
"That's kind of you to say," she replied as she slowed down slightly so that he might catch up. "I keep Pebble from overreaching. She's too aggressive for her own good. To focused on competing and winning. I'm better at threat assessment and I'm big enough and bossy enough to tell her when she's overextending or in over her head. She listens to me. I can tell her when she's being stupid… and I often do. Everything that we have, we have it because we work together. Pebble is new to the aristocracy. She's new blood. There's a lot of friction there… which you seem to be blissfully unaware of. But Pebble plays the game to win, because when she wins, we all win. She and I and Sumac and Silver Lining and Boomer, we've had to fight for every scrap we have. Fighting is what we know."
One thing was true: Sundance did avoid the nobles, by and large. He kept to himself. Those he associated with came to him, like Flicker. Maybe this needed to change. But this worried him a bit, because there were rules that he didn't understand, and this sounded a bit like secondary school, the parts of it that he absolutely loathed. He just wanted to do his job, and not have to worry about a popularity contest.
"We're here," Megara announced. "Welcome to the armory. Let's have a look around, shall we?"
The armory was a narrow stone building that ran long and deep into the ground. There were stairs leading down, and then stairs leading up. Two balconies ran the length of the structure, which was just spacious enough for a pegasus to fly indoors. Racks of spears could be found closest to the door on the ground floor, with helmets stored on the balcony above. Bales of arrows could be seen on the right beyond the spear racks, and bows on the left. As he stood there taking it all in, Sundance could not help but wonder how much all of this cost.
Equipping a garrison or arming a militia had to be expensive.
Megara stopped just beyond the bows, next to a rack of weapons unfamiliar to Sundance. They looked like spears—but didn't. Long, thick handles, but not too long, with dangerous metal heads that looked a lot like swords—but didn't. The heads were too broad, too wide. Just heavy looking elongated triangles mounted on the end of a rather stubby pole.
"What are those?" he asked.
"Cleavers," she replied as she held out her broad paw towards them. "Traditional weapons of the Pegasus Pony Tribe. Take note of the shafts… thick and easy to grip with clumsy fetlocks. Part spear, part sword, and part axe. You fly by and take a swing at your enemy. It's a weapon that exploits momentum. Or, in a pinch, you can drop it on a foe. But then you're left weaponless."
Sundance moved closer, leaned in, and examined the cleavers on the rack. He'd never heard of such things before, at least he could not recollect such a thing. Maybe they were mentioned in school, but he doubted it. These weapons had seen action. The wooden shafts were marred, scarred, and worn smooth in some places. He saw notches in the metal, along with scratches and gouges.
"Spears replaced cleavers in many militias and guard regiments as a cost-cutting measure," Megara said to Sundance whilst she sat down on the floor and made herself comfortable. "Spears were lighter. Cheaper to make. Didn't require as much strength to be effective. Something tells me that cleavers aren't your thing."
"I can't even imagine myself trying to use one," Sundance admitted. He turned away from the rack of cleavers to have himself a better look at Megara, and what he saw intrigued him. In his eyes, she seemed so at ease with herself and with life. He admired her confidence and rather wished that he was a bit more like her.
"With the way that you're looking at me right now," she said matter-of-factly, "I would guess that you're imagining something else."
There was so much that he wanted to say. So many responses. He wanted to tell her that he'd never seen a manticore up close before. Her eyes—now glowing like lit orange coals—were endlessly fascinating to him. What made them glow and how did said glow affect her vision? The more he looked at her, the more equine aspects that he spotted—the mere suggestion of equinity. She was a hybrid, a creature made of many parts. And her wings—she had interesting wings. Not bat wings, like the nocturnal pegasus ponies, but still membranous. He lacked a frame of reference to compare them to, which bothered him somehow in some way he didn't fully understand.
She was a creature made of peculiarity.
Sundance realised that he'd grown up and matured enough to look past all the things that might have once scared him. Ponies, in general, were wary of the unknown and things they didn't understand. For some, wariness was replaced with outright fear. He thought of his first meeting with Corduroy, which caused him immediate hot frustration with himself. Now, as he stood here studying Megara, he felt so stupid when he thought of his past self.
"What's it like to be you?" he asked.
Her whiskers quivered and her notched ears stood erect. "What kinda question is that?"
"I just wanted to know—"
"What's it like being me?" Bending and bowing her neck, she lowered her head down until she was at eye-level with the curious, questioning pegasus, which took some effort. "Well, ever since I was a little infanticore, I've struggled with acceptance. I started out as the runt of the litter, because I was part pony. So I got chewed on and I had it rough. Through remarkable circumstances, I got to live with my father, and I had a family that loved me dearly. I had a grandmother, and a grandfather that almost gave me cavities with all the candy he gave me on the sly.
"He wanted me to feel special and loved. But when I was all hopped up on sugar, I became a tiny terror. Not sure if all that candy helped or made matters worse. But having a loving, accepting family made things worse. They did. Really. Because I knew what acceptance felt like, it hurt even more when I was rejected by other ponies. It stung. A lot. And as I got bigger, I got scarier, and it got so bad that some ponies in Ponyville actually started a petition to send me away.
"So what's it like to be me? I have to protect scrawny little pipsqueaks that don't always want me around and aren't always as grateful as they should be. And that sucks eggs."
Before he realised what was going on, a dreadful confession slipped out of his mouth: "I was once a problematic pony. But I'm getting better. I have friends that don't look like me at all and I think I'm kind of proud of that."
When she half-smiled, he felt immeasurably better.
That half-smile became a smirk when she asked, "Shouldn't you be picking out a weapon?"
The question caught him off guard. What did he know about weapons? Not a thing. The pointy end got stabbed into something that you didn't much care for. With a turn of his head, he began to examine the cleaver on the rack just beside him. What would his mother say? It would inflict grievous bodily harm. With his luck, he'd do a flyby and it would get yanked right out of his grip. Or maybe no. After all, he had successfully buried a splitting maul into the back of an owlbear's skull, and this weapon worked on similar principles.
He shivered when cold chills froze his dock.
"Do you have any advice or suggestions?” he dared to ask. "Is there a weapon that you favour?"
Right away, the she-manticore raised her right paw and rubbed her protruding fuzzy chin. She sat there for a moment, thoughtful, and then offered her response to Sundance's question when she said, "I don't need a weapon. I have me. My big, beautiful body is a weapon. My father says so too. Though he did say that I have sickening cleavage."
"Sickening cleavage?" Some of the colour drained from Sundance's face and there was a soft swallow that disturbed the following silence. Then, before the silence could return in force, he asked, "Should a father say such things?"
Puffing out, Megara smiled, and revealed multiple rows of teeth. "Oh, my father is proud of my sickening cleavage. When I was still just a little nipper, and growing into what I would one day be, he took notice of my cleavage and told me to develop it until I had the very best possible cleavage that a young girl could have. He gave me tips and advice so that my cleavage would be devastating. He wanted the whole world to see my cleavage… and be afraid. My dad is the best."
"Devastating cleavage?" Sundance somehow managed to ask through his profound befuddling bewilderment.
"I do my best work against crowds," Megara explained whilst she made a broad sweep with her raised paw. "It's like going swimming. I just dive in and then I go to work with my claws. Lotta broad swipes. The bigger the crowd is, the more successful I am. I mean, at a certain point, I can't miss. Just take a big swipe and heads and limbs just come right off. Guts get torn open and innards just spill right out. Panic takes over the crowd, and as the gore and grossness fountains, the enemy starts getting sick. There's usually vomit at some point, and then when there's vomit and blood and slippery noodle-de-doodly intestines all over the ground, and whatever I'm fighting falls over into the puddles of goo that I've made out of their comrades. They can't get away because everything is too slippery, and at this point, I am clawing at their backs and ripping out their spines and—say, you don't look so good, Morsel. Do you need some fresh air? What's wrong? Do I have carnivore breath?"
"I'm fine," he squeaked as his stomach made a valiant attempt to crawl out of his throat and escape from his mouth.
"I'm not very good at describing my sickening cleavage," she said, and was quick to offer an apology. "Really, I'm sorry about that. My dad… he's great about telling other ponies about my sickening cleavage. He'll tell anypony that'll listen. Very descriptive. He's very proud, you know. Loves to talk about his daughter's cleavage. I wish that every girl had a father like mine. The world would be a better place. Why, he's even told Princess Celestia all about my storied cleavage. She laughs when he tells her, but it's all in good fun."
"Princess Celestia has heard about your cleavage?" He swallowed again, but could not be certain that his stomach would stay put.
"Princess Celestia calls me the Huggernaut. She too, makes an effort to be cleavage-positive. Why, if I didn't have all this support, I might have turned out to be a very different manticore. I really am a lucky girl."
"You are, really."
"You're so sweet!" She gave Sundance another friendly bap and this time, she almost dislodged every last one of his teeth. While he swayed and tried to recover, she practically gushed as she spilled out more of her heart to him. "There's just so much that a girl has to worry about and having a good father helps. My dad is the best. He taught me how to fight. He beat the stuffing out of me and didn't hold back just because I was his sweet little Nutmeg."
"Should a father do that?" asked Sundance, who now felt some measure of concern.
"If a girl can't trust her father to beat the stuffing out of her, then who can she trust? If he would have held back and coddled me, I wouldn't be who and what I am now. And as for you, friend… I'm going to give you everything that I have to give, just like my father did with me. And you'll be better for it." She inhaled, her whiskers quivered, and she reached out to steady Sundance, who still swayed from side to side. "My father read books on how manticores rear their young. I think that helped. When and if I find a mate, he's going to have to go that extra mile, just like my father did. Because I deserve it!"
"You do," Sundance replied as pinpricks of light exploded in and out of his vision.
"We still haven't found you a weapon."
For a moment, the pain threatened to overwhelm Sundance, but he somehow managed to recover. As a throbbing sun came to life beneath the skin where he was struck, it occurred to him that this would only get worse. These little baps would either toughen him up, or they would break him. He thought about what she'd said, about how weak he was, and his jaw firmed up a bit as he became determined to prove her wrong.
"I have a few javelins at home," he said to her. "Started to teach myself how to throw them… but then life happened as I was busy making plans."
"Javelins, huh?" Raising her right paw, she extended a black claw from her index paw-finger and then picked at her teeth for a moment, perhaps because she was worried about carnivore breath. "That would keep you out of the fray… maybe. And that might mean less headache for me. Can you throw?"
"Maybe?" He shrugged with his wings. "River Raider seemed to think I was average."
The she-manticore heaved a long sigh, then shook her head. "Then you can probably throw just fine. River has wacky standards on what is average. Let's get you a quiver of javelins and get out of here. And maybe some war darts. Yeah, let's do that. I just might have something to work with."
Sundance—who was practically smitten with his new teacher—nodded.
"Come on, you. Let's get what we need and then go find Pebble so that we can tell her that we're leaving…"