Toby slid back, breathing hard, sweat matting the fur of his brow and sticking his armor to his body uncomfortably. But still, he had a smile as he clutched his massive blade.
Across from him, his body glistening not with shadowy magic, but with his own sheen of sweat, Quick Stroke scowled at the one that he had fought to their mutual exhaustion. "You... are not stronger..."
"Good." Toby nodded firmly. "Get food, rest, do again?" He swung his sword around, sheathing it across his back as he rolled his shoulders, working out the tight spots that had formed in the battle. "We get better."
Quick peered at Toby, who was just standing down, like that. No pomp, no declaration of victory or plead for mercy. Just a request to... do it again? "You have taken entire leave of your senses."
Toby fell to all fours, grabbing tough rocks as he contorted to stretch his entire body in place, loud pops sounding as he succeeded at the task and letting out a happy sigh as the tension was forced free. Rather than flop bonelessly, he turned towards the food halls. "Work hard. Eat. Work harder." He inclined his head at Quick. "Want ride?"
"We were battling. For supremacy..." And yet, his opponent seemed to have no particular desire to finish it. That he had fought to fatigue didn't leave him terribly eager to take up the fight anew, but he expected to have to be clever, not for the fight to simply... end. "Do you know how this works?"
Toby inclined his entire body, offering a place to Quick in silence.
Quick swatted the large tsuki. "I can move on my own, and I am not hungry." His words were countered with a low rumble from his belly. "It is past time for breakfast," he defended. "I skipped it to settle matters with you."
"Then we fix." He grabbed Quick suddenly, plopping the pony on his back and surging away without delay, bounding down the tunnels. They would eat, and perhaps spar again, harder. He would be ready to defend his friends.
"Enough time has passed." The ruler clenched the arm of his throne with a heavy scowl. "Send the signal. They had their chance to escape."
And his will was done. Those who were being interrogated or rotting in prison would suddenly know how to escape. They just had to bite down in a specific way, and magic would whisper them away.
Or so they would think. Ponies would shriek in horror as their prisoners were found, dead.
But one griffon didn't feel captured. The tickle came over her, but she didn't need escape, and didn't follow that way out. Why should she? "You're back?" In her room, she had a room, the little tsuki stood on her window sill. "What do you want?"
The little tsuki hopped down into the room. She hadn't told him to go away specifically, which was as close to a greeting as he expected. "Hello," he cried with a big smile. "I was hoping to hear more about your adventures."
She raised a brow. "Come clean." She dropped down, putting them closer to eye to eye. "I already told you about the attack. That's all that 'mattered', so you got your big bonus and you don't need to know more."
"But I want to know more," assured the tsuki, bouncing in place. "You're really interesting, and you've done interesting things. Please?"
The hen smirked a little. She wasn't used to having an actual fan, but it was starting to grow on her. "You want to hear something tense, something dramatic, or something violent?"
He tilted his head left and right, ears flopping as he considered that. "Why not all of them?"
"All of them it is." She sank to her bottom and soon had a tsuki in her lap. She gently petted the over-eager little scribe. "Hope you have your quill ready." The tsuki held up a quill proudly. "Good, 'cause I ain't repeating this!"
And the story began of the time she almost lost her hand in a bet with what she thought was a friend.
When he penned the last bit of the story, he rolled over and looked up at her. "That was a great story, but something's still bothering me."
"Yeah?" She huffed softly. "Ain't much more to tell about it."
"Not about that," he assured, wagging a paw. "I heard griffons learned how to do magic, like unicorns."
"Yeah?" She crossed her arms under her chest. "Is that what you're hoping to hear? Too bad. I don't know much about it. You done with me then?"
He sat up in her lap and reached up to poke her on the break, testing how sharp the tip was, which was pretty sharp. "No, you're fun." He clapped his paws together. "The other tsuki left. The ponies are all serious. You're fun."
A faint smile dared to appear on her beak. Maybe he wasn't just buttering her up, considering she had almost nothing left that could even possibly be useful. "Look, kid. All I know is some griffons have stuff, usually sticks or whatever. They point them, stuff happens." She threw up a hand. "And they never gave me one! Trust me, I asked."
"Oooo." He bounced free of her and grabbed a fireplace poker, thrusting it to point it at things. "That sounds fun! If you find one, will you let me try it?"
"Yeah kid." She chuckled softly at his energy. "I'll share it, at least a little. So how long are the ponies going to have me taking up space in their palace? That ain't normal, is it?"
"No." He hopped, landing facing her and throwing aside the poker in the same motion. It landed with a clatter beside the fireplace. "When you get a job and a new house, you can move there." He inclined his head. "Ponies and griffons are weird, having houses."
"Yeah? What do rabbits have then?" She twirled a finger in the air. "If not a house, what then, smart guy?"
"Dens," reported the little tsuki with proper gravity. "We live underground, so we dig out little cozy places." He fell just to curl on himself, displaying how well tsuki could become little balls of fluff.
"Looks... cramped," admitted the hen, not entirely enthused on the idea. "We griffons like to have stretching room." She reached for the ceiling, but the hand fell about halfway up. "A job, huh? Guess I can't be a lazy jerk forever... What can I do that ponies want to pay for?"
"You tell neat stories," he offered, uncurling and bouncing to his paws. "I write things."
The griffon clicked her tongue against her beak, considering it. "What if you write them down into books, so ponies can buy them? Do ponies like griffon stories?"
"We can find out!" He bounded, landing on the sill with one perfect bounce. "I'll test with one of the stories you told me."
"Yeah... you do that." She pointed at him. "But don't go spreading it all over the place. That's our product."
His eyes went wide and he began to vibrate, his paws coming together in excited little claps. "We're partners!" And off he went before she could argue the fact with him.
"Guess we are..." She mused it over in her head. "Giselle and Arnavon... publishing, yeah..." She turned away from the window, wobbling her talons in the air. "I could get behind that."
Perhaps there was a life for her in that pony city.
Luna lifted an ear, a thump rousing her momentarily, but trains were many things, quiet not being one of them. She pushed it aside. "Are we are prepared as we can be?"
The mare she had spoken to before, who seemed to have taken charge of the unit, nodded. "There isn't much more we can do, Ma'am. As soon we we arrive, we will meet with the local forces and get updated on the situation." She seemed to consider something. "Do you have any means of communicating with them at a distance?"
Luna shook her head firmly. "My ability to enter dreams has a host of requirements. It is a matter of confidentiality that I not simply impose myself save to alleviate the mental issues of those I visit." She raised a hoof to her chest. "If you cannot trust me, I cannot help you, so I take my limits quite seriously, so none need fear my unwanted approach."
"Pity." She tapped her chin lightly, her eyes on the landscape that scrolled by. "Your sister can send letters to Spike, the dragon, can't she? Anything similar?"
Luna tensed as she was compared to her sister. "I know not the specifics of that magic. She did not share it with me. I feel the origin of Spike plays a part in making it work. In either event, he is not in the Crystal Empire, so sending him a letter will do us little good."
"Where is he?" She looked over to Luna. "I thought he'd be first in line. Don't they basically worship him there?"
Spike nodded softly, bobbing a quill as he counted barrels. "Wow, more than I thought you could do. You get a Harmony Point."
Big Mac cheered as he pranced past Spike towards the farmhouse. "Yup!" he announced with a smile. He glanced around the empty yard and the house where Granny resided. "Is Discord coming today?"
"Wouldn't miss it for the world," announced the chaotic spirit, stepping out of nowhere behind Big Mac as if he'd been hiding back there the entire time.
Big Mac and Spike yelped in surprise, but Spike was soon laughing. "You're too good at that. Game's on tonight, be there!" He shot both with finger guns and started towards Ponyville.
"Wherever he is, it is likely of importance," replied Luna with a soft nod. "Twilight would have brought him if she could. Speaking of that, I do wonder where she is at current. 'Tis rare for sister to not send her and her friends towards such troubles."
"Why doesn't she send us?" asked a stallion on a seat behind the mare in charge. "We're ready to tackle Equestria's problems, but she sends Twilight more often than not."
Another mare shrugged. "She has a good record. You can't really argue that."
Discussion rippled across the train car as people discussed the efficiency of sending Twilight to solve Equestria's various issues.
Moonlight hugged close to the car roof she was on, shivering from the cold wind rushing over her form. "Should have... worn more," she complained softly, but she remain attached, listening to the conversation below her as best she could.
She looked forward and over her shoulder. "Fortune favors the bold," she spoke, tone far more even than the dardevil words that had escaped her. She had climbed up along the train, listening at each car. The one way at the back, where she started, was the quietest one.
"Woah," she breathed out, realizing. "Harmony tried to throw me a bone." She rose up to her hooves and started scaling back along the train with slow and careful steps. "Hope they don't lock the windows..."
Her hooves slipped on the smooth steel as she stepped between cars and she vanished. A soft thud of hooves on metal announced her arrival on the platform below. "Woah..." She reached for the ladder on the target car and began pulling herself back up, one clop of her hooves on the rungs at a time.
Hefting herself up onto the roof, she clambered to her hooves and began forward, shivering against the cold. "A hot bath would thaw my soul," she lamented, not a single even warm bath in sight. Just her and the cold windy platform of the train's roof.
Her hooves slid out, her entire body rocking dangerously, but she didn't fall that time, just clinging desperately a moment before she got a hold of herself and pressed forward. "They should make walk strips." There, the last train. She dropped to her belly and threw her head over the side, peeking into a window. Inside was dim and dark, but she could see no ponies in there. With a glowing horn, she unlatched the window and pulled it up. She swung down and collided with the sill, tripping into the room in a pile.
But she was inside, and pins and needles announced she was warming up. She decided to just lay there and enjoy it. She didn't even notice she had fallen asleep until well after the fact and it was too late to act on.
Later, a soldier came to take a nap. He was quite surprised when his hoof hit something mid-stride and he fell forward, crashing to the ground in a grand strip over the body there.
"Woah," came the waking noise of the sleeping one. She sat up, noticing the dizzy but very awake guard. "Oh. Sorry."
"You're not supposed to be here," sternly noted the guard as he turned to face her. "Get off the train."
Moonlight looked at the terrain going past outside the still open window. Her horn pulled the window shut and redid the latch. "I can't do that."
"I... guess you can't," admitted the soldier, rubbing behind his head. "You wait right here." And off he marched out of the room.
Moonlight was alright with that idea. With a little more energy, she flopped onto the bed and was soon lost to the world.
Luna arrived a few minutes later, her horn glowing as she peeked into the window on the door to see the form of the mare fast asleep on the bed. "Moonlight," she sighed out, seeing who it was. "Why is she here?"
"I don't know, ma'am," reported the soldier. "I figured you'd be the best to report this too."
"Yes, yes... Thank you." She raised a hoof to pat his shoulder. "We're on a tight schedule. This train isn't stopping until we get to the Crystal Empire."
He inclined his head. "Send her back once we're there, ma'am?"
"Ideally," agreed Luna as she turned away. "For now, let her sleep."
"Ma'am, um..." He pointed at himself. "I never got my nap, ma'am."
She rolled her eyes dramatically. "Then sleep beside her, or across a set of seats." she pointed to the many benches that adorned the train. "What do you think I'll be doing? They have not a single thing built for my size."
"Of course, ma'am, sorry to bother." He saluted sharply and marched off, presumable in search of a good place to collapse.
Luna looked through the window, peering at the sleeping one. "You are a foolish mare to chase me..."
It was, a little, flattering. "We do not go on a pleasure voyage, this I do promise."
Sombra tapped at a letter floating in his magic. "Unacceptable." His magic grabbed a quill and began writing. "If the prisoners you have were involved in the harming of my..." He almost wrote property but canceled at just the last moment. "citizens! They should be surrendered to me, for public punishment. This will please the surviving family members." He folded the letter tight and sealed it with a flash of magic. "See this reaches our hostage." And off it went.
Arnavon landed and knocked on her window from the outside. It was closed at that moment. "Hey?"
"Yeah what?" He could hear her coming closer, then it swung open violently, slapping him against the wall. He squeaked, scrambling to cling to the wall awkwardly before he bounced off, skidding past her before a final hop took him past her into the room.
"Good, you're here." He clapped his paws. "I had... a little question, just a little one." He smiled nervously.
She noticed. "Did they want you to pump me for more info? They got tired of paying for me?"
"Neither of those," he assured. "When the griffons first came, they... hurt some tsuki." He rubbed behind his head, claws scratching. "The bad kind of hurt you don't get back from."
"Killed," she offered. "The word is 'killed'."
"Right, that." He swallowed heavily, adjusting from one hind paw to the other. "Were you... there for that?"
"Yeah." She dropped down to meet his eyes. "I did what I was told. It's what you do when you're a mercenary."
He shrank back. "O-oh... Oh..." He sank miserably. "Oh..."
"What? You going to guilt trip me now? They said that was water under the bridge. I'm not hunting tsuki, we're going to make books, right?"
"Yeah..." He flopped to his belly. "They want to punish you. Lord Sombra."
"Who?" She cocked a brow. "Never met the jerk."
"He's our leader, of the tsuki," Arnavon explained. "He's a bit... mean, but he does a decent job. He wants to make the tsuki that lost family members happier by offering them the griffons that hurt them."
Giselle lifted her shoulders, throwing her talons to either side. "You think that'll help? Be serious with me. You ain't dumb. You throw me to them, they'll get angry and do painful things, then right back to being angry and sad. Won't help a single creature."
"Just one more dead creature," he allowed miserably. "And I like this creature." He worried his fingers together. "I don't want them to hurt you, or kill you. You did a bad thing, a very bad thing..."
"Yeah, I did," she admitted nakedly. "But now I'm not. You want to punish the old me, or the new me?"
Giselle leveled a talon at him. "Your pony friends said I'd be shown friendship, that it was all a big mistake, and we were over it, so which is it?"
"Stop saying it like that!" He hopped up to two legs, little chest puffed as if ready to challenge the much larger griffon to a battle. "You killed good tsuki, and you don't even sound sad."
"It was the best thing to do, at the time." She wobbled a hand in the air. "You showed me other ways. Look, I'm not trying to do it again. This works out, it'll never happen ever again. Isn't that good enough?"
"I'm not sure," he sniffled, deflating. "I have to tell him..." He jumped for the window, but she caught him in the air, grabbing him by the scruff as his legs pedaled wildly. "Leggo!"
"You don't have to tell him," she corrected. "We're friends, aren't we? All the other griffons died, what's one more in the report?"
Arnavon gasped. "I can't lie!" he shouted as if she had just suggested he casually skin himself. "You're right there. They'll notice."
"So tell them I wasn't involved if it's that big of a deal. It's up to you." She gently lowered him to the ground. "We can have a happy ending. Nobody but you has that control. Ain't not another creature that knows what I said, and I said it because I trust you, Arnavon. Was I wrong to do that?"
He sank to his haunches, breathing a little rapidly for how little he had moved. It was silent for a long moment. "Yeah," he finally admitted. "It is up to me." Without warning, he was gone out her window.
Magic washed over him, burning through his armor, but it flew past him almost as quickly. He was growing better at deflecting it even as he spun around with the sharp edge of the sword coming at Quick Stroke.
The unicorn faded to nothing, appearing with a pop a few feet away, heaving for breath, but largely unharmed. "You are getting faster."
"You too," complimented Toby with a tired smile. "We get better." He approached, but his sword was being tucked away, not swung. He grabbed Quick with his paws instead, hugging the unicorn close. "We work hard."
Quick snorted softly with derision at the physical contact, but he didn't fade away. "There is only so much to be learned this way."
Toby drew back, confusion on his face. "What do wrong? How do we do it better?" he added the last bit more eloquently, looking serious about it.
"That is a good question." He raised his crystal hoof. "Invite your mate. She is a fierce warrior, one neither of us can deny. If we can meet her in equal combat, then we know we have grown."
Toby's eyes went wide. "Oh! Yes! You are so smart!" He clapped his hands once in a muffled clap of his gloves. "I ask." He turned to bound away but paused, looking over his shoulder. "Tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow," agreed Quick, watching him flee to ask. "Our rematch... You will tear no limbs from me this time..."
Sombra stepped up from behind Quick, arriving silently. "You look satisfied."
"M'lord!" Quick lowered his front towards Sombra. "Pardon. I am not in any seemly state to be in your splendor."
Sombra waved it off. "You are thick with sweat as you struggle to better yourself for me. I think I will forgive that." He reached then to set a hoof on Quick's lowered shoulder. "Rise. You have been clashing with Toby constantly, but you don't look nearly as angry as you used to."
"M'lord..." He was without words a moment, eyes darting. "You were right, as always. Forgive this fool for not understanding your wisdom."
Sombra looks quite pleased with the praise lavished upon him. "It is too easy to assume you have reached the top, but I see you have climbed higher. How do you feel?"
"Sir... M'lord... Would you do me the honor, perhaps not today, of crossing horns with me?" He inclined his head. "We can sharpen our abilities, together."
"How your tune has changed." He drew his hoof back. That was signal enough for Quick to rise to full height. "Even a ruler should know how to fight, should the need arise. Yes... I will accept your offer, but do not cry if I overpower you."
"I will learn, and improve," he assured, thumping his own chest. "If Toby can rise again and again when he loses a match, I will not be second to that."
"Good... I would see my minions learning from one another." He turned away, starting a light walk. "I hear you challenged Celene. Bold... I will watch that match with quite some interest. She bested you once, but... Perhaps not this time?"
"She had help," he grunted, walking a little behind Sombra. "I was a fool to assume a group of tsuki made no difference, and she is our most fierce warrior." Quick glanced aside at his master. "I will not be so shamefully crushed."
"And if you are," counseled Sombra. "You will rise up, and work all the harder. You will reach a peak, only to cast your eyes on the next, larger, and begin climbing."
"Is that what you see in them?" He watched a tsuki bouncing past. "Were they always that way?"
"Oh... certainly not... They were meek and afraid." He raised a hoof to his chest, the other three carrying him along. "But Toby woke them up, and they are eager to make up for lost time." He turned his darkly glowing eyes towards his lackey. "Much as you. It seems to be a talent of his."
"A terrible, if useful, talent, m'lord." He broke away, slipping into the shadows to seek a good long shower.