//------------------------------//
// 8. Teaching ewe. 
// Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! 
// by Darkonshadows 
//------------------------------//

-Huoshan, entrance gates, Twilight-

“Okay, remember girls, this we’re here to tell Pom’s wife about how Pom has been a bit… misplaced.” That was a word for it, we’re also here for diplomatic reasons. Wherever Smolder and Ocellus were, I hoped they were at least making some new friends and are safe. 

One of the two puppies barked out a lot, a few growls were heard and Fluttershy translated.

“Ruff says that Tianhuo likely knows already.” She ran a hoof through her pink mane looking away from the Canis Minor awkwardly as it nuzzled her affectionately. 

“Welcome back to Huoshan Gai Jin… what is it?” The longma crouched down as Ruff jumped around to get his attention. Ruff reached into the longma’s armor and pulled out a firework with his teeth and then placed it on the ground. He proceeded to look at the longma expectantly. The longma looked at the firework and then the dog. “What happened and why does he want me to launch a Code Pom?”

“There’s a code specifically for Pom?” Rainbow Dash asked looking curious.

“Yes, it is used to either come pick up Pom or in this case… some of her familiars.” The longma flicked his hoof at the fuse of the firework and a tiny stream of flame struck it. The firework soon shot off into the air and explode into pink and white.

“Ooh pretty.” Pinkie stated at the explosion in the sky. “Also before anyone says anything, I know that’s the same thing I say every single time I see fireworks, but that doesn’t make it any less true!”

Seconds later a ball of fire arrived and slammed into the ground, with an outward sweep the fireball coalesced into two wings and a longma. She looked pretty fearsome with her flaming mane and tail, not to mention those burning wings.

She took one look at us and sighed loudly as the two Canis Minor ran up to her and nuzzled up against her hooves while whimpering.

“Okay, that was a pretty awesome entrance.” Sighing at Rainbow Dash’s word, I moved forward and prepared to speak. 

I tried to perk up and have a positive attitude, I was going to have to explain about how Pom ended up in another dimension. Only I was cut off before I could even utter my first word.

“Let me guess, something has happened to Pom.” This definitely had to be Tianhuo, Pom’s wife. 

I wilted a bit, Tianhuo was kind of scary like Fizzle could be at times.

We’d soon learn that this wasn’t the first time the two have been lost in another dimension. Tianhuo believed in Pom being able to take care of herself, along with the others that were lost with her as well. Tianhuo also thought that Pom would likely find a way home if no one could figure out a way to retrieve them, she practically even sung praises of Pom’s resourcefulness despite being described as rather incredibly timid like Fluttershy was at times.

The last time they traveled to another dimension Tianhuo and Pom had the help of their parallel selves from Fœnum in returning home, this time Pom likely couldn’t rely on that. Pom was lost with an unknown goat and two friendship students, so it wasn’t like she was entirely alone. 

Pom was a well-respected guard of Huoshan. Not a single longma had anything bad to say about her, especially not anyone from the Huoshan Canine Division. Every single one of them muttered a prayer for their lost guard once they heard about the incident and even mentioned that she would still do Huoshan proud wherever she was.

While Tianhuo was fairly good at not showing it with her stoic demeanor, I knew she was fairly worried about Pom. That and she also had a lot of canines to take care of by herself, Fluttershy offered her assistance and wanted to meet the purported Canine Queen’s pack.

Hearing about how many familiars Pom had, I had to wonder why no one has her as the world record holder for the most familiars legally and more importantly ‘naturally’ bound to one being.

While we were here my friends and I also learned of a large friendship problem between lambkin and changelings, after hearing about how some visiting changeling tourists had acted around Pom.

Being the ‘Princess of Friendship’ and Equestria meant my work was never going to be done, not until I could find a personal patsy… er… student to pass the position onto like Celestia did with me.

From what I am hearing, getting the changelings and lambkin on good terms was going to be as hard as getting most Abyssinians and Diamond Dogs to not snipe at each other aggressively when in the same room.

-The next day, Equestrian Campsite, Pom-

“Hey, you being awake Pom? Hello-~.” My eyes slid open and I saw Shanty’s face an inch away from my own, so naturally I did what any lambkin would do.

I screamed loud enough to wake the snuggle bug along with her literal snuggled bug, then rolled out of the makeshift tent while flailing wildly.

Not one of my proudest moments, but I think I handled that better than the general lambkin would to sudden surprises.

“You being that easy to scare?” Snickered out Shanty as she walked out of the shelter after me. “I wonder why I’m even considering it.”

“Did you… need something Shanty?” I slowly sat up and took a few deep breaths to slow down my quickly beating little heart.

“I did want you to help me learn how to be defending myself better by teaching me how to fight, but after that display… I’m not quite so sure of asking you about that now.” Sorry to upset you Shanty, but my reaction was basically normal for a lambkin. It could have gone worse, mostly because I could have lit myself on fire… on purpose. “Just be glad I’m not in the lesser percentile of lambkin that go for ‘the setting themselves on fire immediately’ approach to scaring off predators or to prevent being grabbed by someone. While it is a nasty way to lose wool, it beats being eaten by whatever scared you that may have only been a twig, a cucumber or your own shadow. I can guarantee that all three of those have happened before, even had a cucumber that was roasted that way once.”

“Is that actually being a thing lambkin do?” Shanty asked of a slightly upset looking Ocellus.

The disgruntled, sleepy looking, changeling didn’t move very far from her sleeping spot and still had a sleeping Smolder clinging to her in an adorable manner.

“Yes, that is actually something a lambkin will actually do, though the running around in a panic and causing other lambkins to panic and light themselves on fire once the danger has already been scared off is where it gets ridiculous. It sort of makes sense though, I mean it does actually make them quite impossible to grab or bite.” Ocellus turned from Shanty to me. “Thank goodness that you aren’t one of ‘those’ lambkin Pom, our entire campsite probably wouldn’t have survive it. Quick question, how do lambkin continue to exist with things like that being a relatively common problem!?”

“Through the massive influx of therapists, psychologist, psychiatrist and the heavily moderated use of anti-depressants mostly. Lambkin tend to be used as training aids for those particular professions.” It never took anyone too long to guess what ‘heavily moderated’ meant, lambkin were paranoid about any of the medicine having addictive qualities as much as they were paranoid about big corporations to anything ending in the letter Q. “Doesn’t help that lambkin can also be paranoid about being paranoid nervous wrecks.”

“Oh right, that.” Stated a nodding Ocellus in complete understanding, she then looked to Smolder still clinging to her and blushed slightly. “Um… Smolder… could you wake up please?”

“Five more minutes… with Ocellus shaped pillow… please…” Smolder mumbled as she rubbed her face into Ocellus’s neck.

Ocellus looked at us as if she were a deer with a flashlight pointed at her eyes. Except for the lack of pupils, the reaction was a fairly apt description of her current expression.

“So you want to learn how to defend yourself? You already have a pretty good start with your climbing and dancing ability.” I decided to deflect attention from her to myself by focusing on Shanty. “I might not seem like much, but I can get you started in the basics so you can learn how to defend yourself better.”

“I actually be needing reassurance that you can teach me anything.” Shanty stated bluntly while looked at me flatly.

“That’s completely understandable. I’m timid, prefer diplomacy to combat and it seems like a really bad idea to have me as a teacher, but I can assure you that I do actually do know how to train you.” That’s even knowing my personal fighting ability was drastically minimal without my beasties.

I did know how to do quite a few things my wife and friends have taught me. While I knew all their styles, I didn’t actually train in them except for the more evasive forms of Fleet Cunning Doe and Huoshan Basic in general with Tianhuo. 

“Prove it.” Shanty stated while sitting down and crossing her hooves.

“Okay first thing’s first, even the greatest master of any martial art can be defeated by someone who has no training at all. That is because the person who has no training at all will be entirely unpredictable in their actions or movements, thus they are as dangerous as someone who knows what they are doing. As such I don’t want to underestimate your intelligence Shanty, I ask that you don’t underestimate mine.” The things for me to focus on, since Shanty wanted to be smart, was knowledge and wisdom. “Another thing is that pride has no place in a true fight for your life and you should always be aware of your surroundings. If you are fighting more than one opponent, then losing track of even one of them is dangerous since they could position themselves to inevitably take you by surprise. These are some of the things you should always remember. What I’m going to be teaching you, if you still want to learn, is how to develop your own fighting style. I’m not going to teach you a set of stances or fancy movements as that’s something you have to learn to create yourself. What I am going to teach you are your strengths, weaknesses and how you can possible improve yourself to make up for your shortcomings. Any questions?”

“Yes, is it being true that fighting can be taught through everyday activities?” Fairly surprised that Shanty didn’t scoff at me and was paying attention, I blinked at the question the young goat posed me and nodded.  She was actually willing to listen to me?

Ocellus rolled her eyes and went to lay down in the bedding of leaves with Smolder still clinging to her in an adorable manner. Smolder was quite cute, even though she probably wouldn’t appreciate me pointing that out. A number of dragons tended to have tough reputations and spent a lot of time hiding how sensitive they actually are.

“Yes, everyday activities, a strong mind and a healthy body can all help in a fight. Anything goes in a battle, so long as you don’t get hurt doing something stupid. Even acting silly can be a combat style.” I learned plenty of things, like how Paprika is so scarily good in combat when she isn’t even using her fluffmancer talents and was just being playful. “My friend Paprika taught me how to block attacks by playing 'patty cake' with me, if I didn’t block her attacks I would get struck lightly. She would then slowly ramp up her speed and the strength of her blows, but she always made sure to not be too rough with me.”

“Patty cake is being a kid’s game though.” So Shanty did have some petulance, but was still willing to learn apparently.

“Yes, but when a martial artist does it, it’s consider a flurry of high speed attacks.” After stating this, I saw Shanty giving me a thoughtful look. “It also helps with hoof eye coordination as well.”

“We be playing that then?” She asked slowly and cautiously.

“That and several other methods of training that can be fun games.” I sat down and held up my front two hooves. “Let’s get started then, your job is to hit me by finding a time to distract me with something like a clap of your hooves.”

-Thirty minutes later, Shanty-

I believed Pom when she said there are things I have to be remembering, only this game was teaching me about how good Pom was at deflecting or blocking my blows with her own hooves.

Every once in a while she’d clap her hooves surprising me, sometimes before I could clap my own or sometimes when she leaned out of the way on attack. It happened before or after that she would launch an attack back at me, there was no pattern and I was getting quite frustrated by it.

Whenever I was struck, I usually lost my balance or missed a hoof thrust and she’d tap me on the forehead gently in a way that always knocked me over. Aside from scuffing myself against the ground, she only be hurting my pride.

I thrust my hooves rapidly, putting my all into it and she kept shifting her head and body out of the way while blocking my hooves with her own until she slapped her hooves together and moved her right leg. I went to block only to receive a tap on my head from her left hoof and I fell onto my back from the loss of balance.

I was quite angry at her… but also myself.

“Okay, I think that’s enough of that game. I hope you had some fun Shanty…” Why is she looking at me like that? “You looked to be getting rather frustrated by this and if you got too frustrated then you wouldn’t be learning something from it. So what do you think you have learned from this already?”

I think this be the longest an adult has ever given me any attention before… why did I want this feeling of her looking at me like that to last?

Shaking my head, I considered what I had learned.

Well I had learned that I couldn’t beat her at the game or actually come close to hitting her, she’s played it a lot and learned how to do it so well. Maybe that’s not the right answer… or better yet it wasn’t the full answer.

What had I learned? What was I missing here?

I am asking her for help and she says that is true that training could be as easy as playing a game.

So what haven’t I… that’s it isn’t it? She asked me what I’ve learned, but I was actually having fun trying to win the game. So I think I missed what it was that I was supposed to be learning. I should also consider what I haven’t learned.

When I had a hole blasted into my ear by a unicorn, the notch was a mistaken belief that the unicorn wouldn’t mean me any harm and I learned from that incident to never cross a unicorn again.

I wasn’t exactly learning from my mistakes here, trying new things and or thinking about what to do to get in that single hit, I just be going straight at Pom. This was quite embarrassing of someone who wants to be one of the best pirates of Equus.

“Shanty, are you alright? I’m sorry if I…” Pom put a hoof on my shoulder and was looking at me like that again. I quickly shrugged it off.

“I be thinking of what I learned Pom, give me some time!” I am singing that I am wanting to be smart. While I could be clever, I wasn’t exactly wise yet… aside from being street wise. 

What was the first thing Pom taught me that I needed to remember? They were words of wisdom, she was trying to teach me to be smart, listen to the things she says and not to ignore them entirely. I can make my own judgements on what wisdom she gives me, but I have to make of it what I will of what she teaches me.

“I am both learning a lot and maybe not much at all.” Tilting her head at me, I received a small smile from Pom. I continued. “A master of fighting can be humbled by even someone like me, but I was being too predictable for you and let my pride get in the way of wanting to win the game. You told me that if I was fighting a group of opponents I should always be aware of the one that is out of sight, I focused too much on your right hoof and you smacked me with your left. I also learned that I need to work on my balance so I won’t get knocked over as easily.”

“Do you understand and acknowledge that the bits of wisdom I told you had merit and that I had used them in the very game we played to teach you a few things?” That was quite easy to see Pom, I could tell you were treating my fairly and seriously. It was kind of something new to me and I liked the feeling of having her complete undivided attention on me. I wasn’t about to tell her that though. “So those bits of wisdom and your own words taught you a lot, now let me tell you where you can improve.”

“This I have got to hear, this is like watching Rainbow Dash try to teach Scootaloo how to defend herself.” We turned to Smolder who was crunched her way through a piece of fruit with juice dribbling from her jaw a bit. “Only this is going far better and there’s less tree sap involved, remember how long it took Rainbow to get the sap out of her feathers after that Ocellus?”

“Yeah, Scootaloo was so upset with herself after causing Rainbow to be incapable of flying for a few hours.” Ocellus was a strange one, but I be liking her and Smolder well enough.

“First of all, don’t put your all into an attack unless you are sure you can land it. Otherwise you leave yourself open for a counter or worse. If you widen your standing slightly, that should give you bit more stability. You should also remain calm and collected, being hot headed will lead to you making mistakes and I really don’t want you getting hurt when you do.” Pom is actually sounds concerned about me… and I think she actually meant it too. Should I be worried? This was entirely new to me. “You could also incorporate dance moves into your movements or think about how you can improve on your own merit. To that end, we should head down The Valley and see about having you play with someone around your age.”

“You mean Skunk?” I asked curiously.

“Yes.” Pom nodded. “You can learn a lot from watching someone else train or from training with them. Even if we aren’t going to be here forever, I think you two can have some fun together.”

That… is not sounding like a bad idea.

-The Valley, lower end, training grounds on the hill, Pom-

I think Shanty was a bit wary of me, but at least she was willing to learn. I couldn’t protect all of us by myself and teaching Shanty to take care of herself would ease some of that pressure off of my mind.

Smolder could breathe fire and use her claws, Ocellus had magic and could hide better than anyone else, but if something dangerous were to happen then I would be the one they all had to rely on and I couldn’t be everywhere at once.

I bowed to greet Panda and he bowed back to me.

“Hello and welcome to The Valley, we are hoping to be good hosts for your visit.” Panda sounded like a wise person. "I am Panda."

“I, Pom, thank you for your warm welcome Panda. I want to show Shanty here that I am skilled enough to teach her how to protect herself before she runs off to have some fun with Skunk.” Tilting his head at me curiously, Panda looked thoughtful for a moment. “I wanted to know if you have any challenging ways to show that I have the skills to teach her… even if I don’t exactly have the greatest skill to fight.”

Panda picked up a pebble.

“Oh, he’s going to do 'that'.” Fox stated as she arrived and hovered near me.

It was obvious that Fox wanted to hug me, but I kept my eyes focused on Panda as he held the pebble out on his left paw.

“Take this pebble from my paw.” Panda smiled, I already knew what he was doing. It was something I did for fun with my beasties and Tianhuo taught me how to do this both ways.

“She’s never going to be able to take the pebble from Master Panda’s paw.” Skunk showed his confidence in his teacher and apparent father figure, at least that’s what Fox told us while we were picking fruit the other day.

“Oh this I have got to see!” Rabbit took a few glances at Fox every now and then.

I just shook my head and approached Panda before sitting in front of him.

There were also an ox, a small bird, a duck, a pig and a crane watching, I was a bit nervous with so many eyes on me. I took a deep breath and did the first thing anyone should do to solve this exercise.

“May I have the pebble please?” I asked gently as I held out my right hoof, Panda put the pebble in my hoof. I smiled pleasantly. “Thank you.”

“What?! I spent weeks working up my speed to grab that stupid pebble and she just gets it by asking for it!” Rabbit wasn’t all too bright, but I would like to think that he had his heart in the right place if things got dire around here.

I wanted to hear more about this Dragon guy Fox, Rabbit and Skunk mentioned several times while looking at Smolder oddly.

Panda was the one to ask about Dragon, I would only do so when Skunk and Shanty ran off to play.

“May I have it back so we can continue?” Panda stated congenially and I calmly dropped it back into his waiting paw, much to Rabbit’s obvious consternation. “Pom here clearly understands that there is always more than one way achieve a goal, she is quite wise and has done this before. Am I right in my assumption?”

“You are.” I answered calmly.

“Now try to take it from my paw without asking.” Panda stated pleasantly with a smile.

“Okay, but what do I do with it now?” I said holding up the pebble much to the disbelief of Fox, Rabbit and Skunk.

Panda blinked owlishly as he turned his paw over and opened it to reveal that it was empty.

No one had even seen me move to grab it immediately after dropping it into his paw.

“You have definitely learned this lesson well…” Panda turned to Shanty. “Shanty was it? You will likely learn much from this one. She can be a great teacher, but I fear she underestimates herself quite severely.”