Seeing Sanguine

by Winged Cat

18: Just As Planned

"Woohoo!" Rainbow Dash triumphantly hoofpumped as she landed on a cloud next to her partners. "Great session, you two!"

"Can't...feel...my wings," Twilight moaned, flat on her back, wings splayed.

"Me...neither," Sanguine moaned in an identical pose, right wingtip touching Twilight's left wingtip.

"Oh, come on." Rainbow Dash crossed her forelegs. "You can't be THAT tired. I've barely broken a sweat!"

"Twilight." Sanguine reached out a shaking hoof toward the alicorn and turned her head in that direction. "Take, my strength. You must live on, for all Equestria."

"It doesn't, work that way," Twilight replied.

"Really?" Sanguine's hoof collapsed to the cloud as her gaze returned to the blank blue sky above. "Too, bad. Was looking forward, to living inside you, being your spirit adviser."

"Sorry, to disappoint." Despite her exhaustion, Twilight allowed herself a shadow of a smile at Sanguine's effort. "And anyway, aren't you here, so we can advise, YOUR spirit?"

"Oh yeah."

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "Alright, fine, fine, maybe I DID push you a little hard."

Twilight and Sanguine responded in unison, "A 'little'?"

"...fine, a lot." Rainbow Dash threw up her hooves. "But it was for a good reason! Two, even! Getting the weepies out of Twilight - and Sanguine, if you are going to be a monster slayer there are going to be times when you're this tired." She looked at Sanguine. "If the monster's still after you, what do you do? Or rather, why isn't giving up and letting the monster eat you an option?"

"Seems, a good option." Despite what little levity she could get into her voice, Sanguine closed her eyes and appeared to be thinking about it.

"Well it's not." Rainbow Dash glanced to the side for a moment, as Sanguine and Twilight thought they heard a rumbling from the forest below. "Why are you slaying the monster in the first place?"

"Because...because..." Sanguine's voice trailed off.

"Weeell?" Rainbow Dash pressed.

Sanguine abruptly rolled along her spine, getting upright, all signs of fatigue suddenly gone. "Because you aren't speaking hypothetically." She dove off the side of the cloud.

Just as she reached the ground, a giant, slightly translucent blue, ursine form, studded with white suggestive of the night sky, burst out of the forest, trampling trees as if they were merely toothpicks slightly taller than itself. Red on orange eyes as big as a pony took in the surroundings with a malevolent gaze, while proportionately sized claws gouged the ground where its massive paws tread. An eight-pointed star crest lay on its forehead.

Its roar finally spurred Twilight to roll sideways and poke her head over the side of the cloud. "An Ursa Minor? Sanguine, stay b-"

Rainbow Dash smiled and held a hoof out, signalling Twilight to back off. "She won't hear you. And she's got this."

Sanguine was low on all fours, growling at the ursine. The Ursa Minor growled back, opening a cavernous mouth and roaring loud enough to blow Sanguine's mane back, but the pegasus held her ground.

"Sanguine," Rainbow Dash called, "remember Rarity's training! Slay the claws!"

Sanguine looked at the giant paws, concentrated, then leaped at the Ursa Minor's front right. That paw rose to swipe at her, but Sanguine moved like a blur, striking repeatedly before the paw was fully in position to strike. Hoof after hoof smacked each claw in sequence, cracking then snapping them off. As her foe retracted that paw in pain, she whirled midair and dove across its chest, heading for the front left paw

"Drive it back!" Rainbow Dash pointed into the forest. "Half a mile straight back and you've got it!"

Sanguine adjusted her flight, pulling up to hover eye level with the ursine and confidently stare into it. The Ursa Minor stared back, but slowly began to shrink away - then broke and ran back into the forest.

"Way to go!" Rainbow Dash cheered. "It'll probably keep running until it meets its mom, but you might-"

Still smiling, Sanguine looked up at Rainbow Dash.

"-want...to...uhoh." Rainbow Dash scampered backward on the cloud, but this just blocked her view of Sanguine until the red one punched through the cloud behind her. She rose her hooves to defend her neck, but Sanguine effortlessly bashed the defense to one side with one forehoof as her other descended upon Rainbow Dash's carotid artery...

...and tapped it gently, not breaking the skin. "Boop."

Three rapid heartbeats later, Rainbow Dash managed to reply, "'Boop'?"

"I don't like to kill ponies." Sanguine leaned over her, looking her in the eyes. "You set that up. That's what I was feeling when we met this morning, wasn't it?"

Rainbow Dash averted her gaze, looking instead at the hole in the forest's tree line border the Ursa Minor had made. "I...maaay have done some early morning scouting...and maaaybe I kinda planted some honey?"

"The answer to your question is, I slay monsters because I want to protect ponies. From themselves, if I have to." Sanguine panted. "Is this what they call the 'second wind'?"

Rainbow Dash smiled, slowly getting out from under Sanguine and getting upright. "Yeah! How's it feel?"

Sanguine smiled back. "I'm going to collapse now." And so she did, on her side.

Twilight was sitting up by now, directly behind Rainbow Dash. "You set." Rainbow Dash could feel a mild coating of frost in Twilight's voice. "That up."

"W-well, err, yeah." Instinct yelled for Rainbow Dash not to turn around and meet Twilight's gaze just then. She listened to her instinct. It had proven quite handy over the years, in many survival situations. "We're a mile from Ponyville, and it was just an Ursa Minor. Even if things went wrong, you OR I could've handled it before anypony got hurt."

"That's not the point!" Twilight objected.

"Princess," Sanguine mumbled, eyes closed, "it's my job to yell at her for it. Lemme do it, K?" She yawned. "After a nap."

Twilight looked at Sanguine. "How is it your job?"

Sanguine curled up, smiling. Her chest began rising and falling in slow rhythm.

Twilight eyerolled. "Alright, fine. I've got a letter to write. Rainbow Dash, tell me you didn't set up anything ELSE that foolish?"

"Err..." A long list of things that Rainbow Dash had set up that might be described 'foolish' suggested themselves to her.

As well as to Twilight. "Today? I don't mean in the past."

"Oh! No, no, that's the only extreme training exercise I had in mind for today." Which was technically true: Rainbow Dash had planned to come up with the rest of the day's plan based on the results of that "exercise".

"Good. Watch over her; I'll be back once I've sent that letter." Twilight leaped off the cloud and winged her way back to town.