//------------------------------//
// 2-3 
// Story: The Sparrow in the Storm 
// by The 24th Pegasus 
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In the dying light of the setting sun, it was hard for Sparrow to see what Typhoon pointed at with a raised wing and a tautening of her muscles. But when Typhoon told her what to look for and she squinted her mismatched eyes, it was barely visible as it drifted across the yellowing sky, like a phantom or a ghost.

“Is that… smoke?” Sparrow asked. When Typhoon nodded an affirmation, she cocked her head. “So, we’re close to town then?”

“Unless there’s a large town up ahead, that’s too much smoke for chimneys,” Typhoon said, and her wingtips twitched as she considered flight. “It’s not thick enough for a forest fire, and it’s not black with burning dyes and curling paint. A camp, maybe.”

“That’s a lot more than a campfire,” Sparrow observed.

“Yes. But not for twenty or thirty.”

“Maybe it’s a popular camping spot or something?”

Typhoon shook her head at that, and this time she fully opened her wings. “I’m going to go ahead and check it out. See if there’s any danger.”

Sparrow sharply frowned. “And what, I’m just supposed to wait here for you to get back?”

“That was the implication, yes,” the soldier duly noted.

“Yeah. Sure. And if it’s dangerous?” Sparrow took a step forward, and she let her magic briefly dance around the hilt of her sword for emphasis. “You said it’s like, twenty campfires. That’s a lot of ponies! Wouldn’t you want to have some backup?”

“If I’m going to get into a fight, I would prefer to do it without having to foalsit,” Typhoon simply stated. “You will be safer back here.”

That was enough to elicit a frustrated stomp of her hoof from the young unicorn. “Safer? Screw safer! I’m not going to sit back here, alone, while you fly off for who knows how long, doing something dangerous without me. You’re supposed to be teaching me how to be a legionary! How can I do that if you won’t let me at least follow you and see what you do when you’re put in danger?”

The analogy made Typhoon’s eyes narrow. “We don’t train soldiers by throwing them into combat before they know how to fight with a sword. There’s training camp for that.”

“Well unless a camp suddenly poofs back into existence, I think we’re going to have to get a little creative with it,” Sparrow said, exasperation creeping into her voice. Then she remembered old tales, bedtime stories, and before she knew what she was saying she blurted out those thoughts. “The knights of the Diamond Kingdoms took their squires with them wherever they went. Even far from the walls of River Rock. That’s how they trained, through experience! And when you think about it, I’m basically your squire.”

“That so?” Typhoon’s eyes traveled over Sparrow, sharp and scrutinizing, the gaze of the veteran enough to make Sparrow tense up even if she stood her ground. “Except I’m not a knight.”

“You also say you’re not a legionary,” Sparrow reminded her. “So if you’re not a soldier, and you’re not a knight, what are you then? A sellsword?”

That moniker immediately made Typhoon bristle. “I don’t fight for coin, and I never will,” she sharply rebuked Sparrow. But the younger unicorn stood her ground, matching her blue and pink eyes to Typhoon’s ruby red, until the aging warrior frowned and shook her head. “Fine. We’ll go together. But you will not draw that sword unless your life is in imminent danger. If I have to fight, you stand off to the side or run away.”

“But I can help you!” Sparrow protested. “I can—!”

“Get in the way?” Typhoon interrupted. “You haven’t mastered the basics yet. The only thing you could accomplish is putting yourself at risk and forcing me to protect you while also trying to protect myself.” A sigh followed that, and the tips of Typhoon’s wings drooped. “Look… if one day you prove you can keep up during our training, then I’d be glad to have a second sword at my side. But that day will not come unless you do as I say and stay out of danger. Do you understand?”

There was an apologetic lilt buried in there somewhere, but just noticeable enough that it caught Sparrow off guard. “Uhh… sure. Fine. I won’t get in your way.” When Typhoon raised an eyebrow at that vague promise, Sparrow groaned. “The sword stays in its scabbard. I promise.”

A curt, soldierly nod was Typhoon’s acknowledgement. “Good. Stay behind me. And keep your eyes peeled. Danger could come from anywhere, especially when moving through the forest.”

Then she was off before Sparrow could give her a response, and the only thing the unicorn could do was trot after her.

Into the forest they went, following the road as it twisted and turned its way under the canopy of green leaves. But there was something different about it this time, and Sparrow could feel it running an icy feather down her spine. What once might have been notable only for the comforting shade on a hot day now seemed to host unknowable danger, as if dark entities flitted between the leaves on a breeze with murderous intent. Every little sound in the forest seemed sharper, seemingly unnatural in how natural it was, as if it was a ruse or a trick to lull the two ponies into a sense of comfort. Sparrow felt her whole body tense, and little shakes and tremors seemed to grip her barrel against her will as the quiet anxiety seeped into her bones. It was one thing to be caught by danger unawares, but quite another thing to know there was a very real possibility she was purposefully walking into its unknown lair. And that, for a young mare who had somehow survived all manner of spontaneous threats in her sixteen short years of life, made all the difference.

After what felt like hours, but was surely only minutes of creeping along the shaded road, Typhoon held out her wing and turned her head toward the sky. Frozen like a statue save for her ears and eyes, the soldier held that pose for many long, torturous seconds as she scanned the glimpses of the sky through the fanned leaves above them and tried to pick out something through the sounds of nature. Sparrow stood behind her, her lower lip disappearing between her teeth as she strained to hear or see what had set the old soldier on edge, all the while her heart felt more insistent on making its feelings known inside her chest and her tail flicked in agitation at the unknown surrounding them.

Finally, Sparrow couldn’t take it anymore. “What is it?” she whispered, taking a few cautious steps closer to Typhoon’s side. “Danger?”

“Get behind a tree,” Typhoon whispered, and the bladed scales on her wings rattled as she flexed them. “Now.”

“Why?”

Then the forest exploded into chaos.

The sounds of nature were replaced by shouting and the cacophony of clattering metal as armored figures careened through the canopy in noise and feathers. The colorful plumage of nearly a score of pegasi slammed back down to earth like a hammer upon an anvil, and almost immediately after, steel flashed with blinding brilliance through the speckled sunlight that followed them through the canopy. But this was no coordinated ambush, no trap laid for the two mares wandering the road by their lonesome. As pegasi crashed through leaves and branches  and slammed into the ground with either their hooves or their flanks, and the cry of steel on steel sang through the trees, Sparrow realized that the fighting and chaos was not meant for them.

Nevertheless, she drew back several paces and pressed herself against the sturdy trunk of a nearby tree as her mismatched eyes danced across the chaos before her. Her first thought was a clash between bandits and militia; she was no stranger to seeing such violence between settlements since the cruelties of life had thrown her out onto the streets and the Legion had disappeared from Equestria’s frontier. But in between the blurred movements of pegasi fighting with the speed, agility, and ferocity their winged race was known for, Sparrow realized that she only saw plate armor, bladed wings, and curved swords—all fashioned in the make and style of the Legion. Red-plumed helmets seemed to dance and fan in the chaos like the feathers and tails of the combatants upon whose heads they perched as swords flashed and cries and warnings bounced between the pegasi.

But where Sparrow had expected rigidity and discipline among the warriors given their equipment and race, what she saw unfolding in those few seconds before her was anything but. There were no neat lines, no pairs or wings of soldiers fighting as one or with tactics neatly laid out under the speckled shade of the canopy. There was only the brutal thunder of the melee, a free-for-all fight where any plans and order had long been discarded in a desperate struggle to survive. Twenty pegasi fought and bled and screamed under the waving leaves, but instead of one battle, there were ten.

If it had only taken Sparrow a few seconds to take in the chaos around her as she retreated to the shelter of an oak, Typhoon was even faster. As soon as the veteran had dissected what was happening before her, she launched herself into action, bladed wings flashing as she moved with speed Sparrow had never seen from her before, neither during their sparring sessions nor when she and Wren and Juniper had tried to rob the soldier at Eagle Springs. Rather than strike for flesh, however, Typhoon’s wingblades turned steel away from steel and left ice in her wake. In a blurry dance that Sparrow never would have thought possible from a mare her age, Typhoon had decisively brought the fighting to a frosty standstill as glistening walls of ice separated the combatants and cooled their murderous intent—if only for a brief moment of icy respite.

Still, the exertion was enough to stagger the old mare, and when the icy chill swept silence onto the battlefield as the surprised soldiers regrouped, the only thing Sparrow could hear (apart from the beating of her own heart) was Typhoon’s strained panting. But the old mare marshaled some discipline over her body and stood tall, her piercing gaze sweeping over the shocked faces of the legionaries like a harsh commander regarding the lack of discipline from her soldiers with disgust. The effect was profound, and Typhoon commanded the attention of all twenty pegasi who had moments ago been trying to kill each other—even though they still shot wary glances at their enemies and their swords trembled in their teeth.

“Gladium reconde!” Typhoon barked in a language Sparrow had only heard once before, though knew without a shadow of a doubt as that of the once-mighty pegasus nation of Cirra and the Legion. “Ordenem savate! What is the meaning of this?”

“Treason, ma’am!” came one sharp reply, and a white stallion with gray wings and strands of a black mane cropping out from underneath his helmet and its transversely-mounted red plume stepped forward. He momentarily held his open wings parallel to the ground in what Sparrow assumed was a pegasus salute, then turned and sneered at the crowd of pegasi gathering across from him while more formed up behind him as the two sides separated. “These pegasi call themselves soldiers, but they have turned their backs on the Legion and all that it stands for. They have seized the town of Dry Fens, fortified it, and defy the laws of the Frontier!”

“The Legion is dead!” a soldier from the other side shouted back, even as she and the rest of her cohort anxiously drew back. Sparrow could see even from afar that those pegasi had suffered the worst of the fighting, with many nursing injuries and bleeding onto their damaged armor. “Typhoon won’t bring it back for you! She’s the one that did this to us!”

“Legate Lost Winds still remembers what the Legion meant!” the stallion, whom Sparrow could only assume was a centurion by the style of his helmet, shouted back. “Fly back to your fortress, vermin, and let everypony know that Commander Typhoon stands with us!”

That statement had a shocking effect on the other group of pegasi, and after exchanging nervous glances, the mare spat at the ground and spread her wings. “Everypony will have their due, and the Lost Legion will have theirs!” she shouted as she took wing, and before anypony could change their minds and launch back into exchanging blows, the beaten cohort of soldiers tucked their tails and fled.

Typhoon watched them go, looking as if she wanted to chase them down and interrogate them further, but the centurion whistled his cohort into formation and they all saluted the old mare. “Commander,” the centurion said, “I am Centurion Tern. You do not know how relieved we all are to see you.”

“I could say the same,” Typhoon mused, and a flick of her left wing put the soldiers at ease. “You’re the first legionaries I’ve seen since I left Everfree. Though perhaps I hoped it would have been under better circumstances.” Her eyes once again drifted through the trees, though the fleeing soldiers were long gone beyond the branches and leaves. “What is going on here? What is happening at Dry Fens?”

“That,” Centurion Tern said with an apologetic smile, “is a long story. Perhaps it would be best if you heard it from Legate Winds back at camp. He would very much like to know that the Commander of the Cirran Legion has left Equestria and roams the Frontier.”

“Former Commander,” Typhoon corrected him, and her wings shifted in awkward discomfort.

“Just because you say you are no longer our commander does not mean we see it the same way,” Tern said with a shrug of his wings. Then his eyes fell on Sparrow, and one eyebrow lowered while the other climbed. “And who is this that you have with you? I see she has arms and armor, ragtag as they may be. A unicorn milite?”

But Sparrow ignored him; her mind was racing a mile a minute, and she finally left the tree behind to stare at Typhoon. “Commander of the Cirran Legion?” she asked, and when Typhoon looked at her, Sparrow thought she saw the old mare’s shoulders sag and her wings droop, if only for a moment. “I thought you were a legate?”

Rather than Typhoon answering her, Tern did with a bark of laughter. “A legate? Do you not know who you were traveling with?” he asked her. When Sparrow only gave him a confused look, he laughed again and shook his head. “Filly, you’re in the presence of Commander Typhoon, supreme and last commander of the Cirran Legion in Equestria, and the daughter of Commander Hurricane himself!”