The Sparrow in the Storm

by The 24th Pegasus

1-10

Fangs. Leather. Blood. Bodies. Screaming.

Typhoon sat bolt upright in Bluegrass’ bed, startled awake by the familiar nightmare, only to gasp and clutch at her chest as she agitated her ribs. She doubled over, hissing through clenched teeth, sweat pouring off of her hide and sticking to the sheets. Squeezing tired eyes shut, Typhoon did her best to blot out the pain and disorientation, and when it finally passed, she started to relax and control her breathing again.

She had left the curtains to Bluegrass’ bedroom window open so that she could rise at first light, but the sky outside was still dark, if a bit silvery by the horizon. Her nightmare had woken her up before the sun, though by the looks of it, sunrise was only an hour or two away. She doubted she’d be able to get to sleep again… not that she really needed it. Old age had weathered away at her need for sleep, which had proven to be both a blessing and a curse for many reasons. It’d been so long since she was a common hoofsoldier stealing naps when she could that she’d all but entirely forgotten what it was like to sleep for more than five hours a night…

Her chest still ached anyways, and the pain would have stopped her from slipping off to sleep again even if she tried. So instead, she forced herself out of bed, landing on the hard floor with a muffled clop of her hooves, wincing once more at her agitated chest. Grumbling, she shuffled across the floor to her belongings, and after a moment’s hesitation, she drew out the small pouch she’d received from the twins the night before.

She stared at the plain brown fabric for a long time before she finally loosened its drawstring and poked a feather into the opening. When she pulled her wingtip out, bluish-white crystals clung to the vanes of her feather, maybe ten altogether. But even despite the pangs of pain pinging around her ribs, Typhoon hesitated. Morals and codes screamed at her from her past, reminding her of the example she was supposed to set for the Legion, for the institution that she had dedicated her life to.

An institution that no longer existed.

The Legion was dead. But she was still alive. The pain in her chest told her that much.

Typhoon put her feather to her lips and sucked the crystals off, feeling them melt against her tongue with a saccharine chill. It slowly spread across her mouth, across her gums, and down her throat, causing her to shiver before it finally settled in her gut. And just like that, the pain started to fade into nothing more than a dull throb, even when she let out a wheezing cough that passed through numbing vocal cords.

Awake and with her bruised ribs dealt with, Typhoon looked down at her saddlebags, shrugged, and draped them over her back, just behind her wings. The skies were still dim, but if she flew up high enough, she’d see the sun a few minutes before the ponies on the ground did. The sooner she flew toward Boiling Springs, the sooner she would get there. And as she took down the broken dreamcatcher from where she’d hung it above her pillow, she was determined to find the mage that supposedly visited there as quickly as she could. The fewer nights of fangs and blood, the better.

With her bags strapped to her barrel, her sword hanging from her side, and her wing blades curled up, wrapped in cloth, and hanging from hooks at her flanks, Typhoon padded out of Bluegrass’ bedroom on quiet hooves. The house was dark and still, and when Typhoon hesitated in the threshold, she heard the quiet snoring of the unicorn on her couch in the living room. For a moment, the old soldier considered waking her host up to say her goodbyes, or at least wait until the unicorn was awake to leave, but she chased those thoughts away with a shake of her head. She’d only have to fend off more pleas to get her to stay longer, and the last thing she wanted was to leave the ponies she’d helped on a sad note. No, it was better to just go and hope for forgiveness later. Besides, the endless thanks made Typhoon uncomfortable. What she was doing wasn’t worthy of praise and thanks. She was merely stopping along her selfish journey to lend a hoof where she could before continuing onwards. It was sad that such a thing was considered noteworthy out here on the Frontier, but that only further illustrated what had happened under the unicorn queen’s watch.

Maybe if she had tried harder, Typhoon could have prevented it.

But that was the way things were, and Typhoon shook her head. She only gave Bluegrass’ sleeping form a respectful dip of her head before she quietly skirted around the sleeping mare and slipped on out of the door, taking extra care to make sure its hinges didn’t squeak as she opened and closed it.

The cool air of morning greeted her in the streets of Green Glade, and she looked around at the dark windows of the houses lining the streets. In another hour, they’d be filled with light and activity, but for now there was nothing. Even the Penny twins’ cart was still and quiet; she only knew that the twins were sleeping in the freshly unloaded back under the canvas thrown over it because they’d announced that such were their sleeping arrangements the night before as everypony broke for sleep. Unlike Bluegrass, Typhoon had no qualms about leaving without saying goodbye to them. They could be fun in their own way, but Typhoon longed for the quiet stillness of a solo flight after everything she’d been through the past few days. Maybe if the old gods were willing, the forgotten gods of Cirra, then she’d see them again someday.

Spreading her wings, Typhoon let the cool air flow under her feathers for a moment before she began to flap them, letting her pegasus magic propel her heavy equine body into the sky. Climbing would be a laborious task this early in the morning, she knew, but hopefully once she was at altitude, she could coast to Boiling Springs on the rising thermals as the sun warmed the ground below her. Taking her wing blades off certainly would help; while they were essential in a fight, especially in the air, they made flying that much harder. And at the moment, Typhoon knew she was in no state to go picking fights. She just hoped to avoid trouble until she reached her destination.

Her shadow was the last thing to linger in Green Glade, a blur of dark gray that flitted out of the gray morning and disappeared without a trace.

-----

As Typhoon flew southwest, the hills and forests of the frontier slowly flattened out into plains filled with waving green grass stirred by an incessant breeze. Typhoon wasn’t sure where anything that could be described as ‘Equestria Proper’ ended and the land only referred to as ‘the Frontier’ began, but she had a feeling she’d crossed that boundary when she left the hills behind. The hills and forests were like one final obstacle to keep civilization in and the lawless chaos out, and she had little idea of what she’d find this far away from Everfree. She had rarely left the heartlands of Equestria herself in the last years of the Legion, and the last time she had ventured this far away from Everfree, she’d lost her hoof.

Even just thinking about it made her fetlock tingle where skysteel had been magically melded to the joint. She had lost a part of herself on that expedition, so very long ago, but she had gained something far greater in return. And that only made it hurt worse when that something told her ‘goodbye’ and walked out the door for the last time.

Still, those were unpleasant memories, sad memories, and Typhoon shed them with her magic as snowflakes fell from her feathers. Instead, she focused on the flight ahead, and if she could see anything out to the southwest that told her she was coming up on Boiling Springs. True to her earlier hope, a steady tailwind had developed behind her, helping to push her closer toward her destination even as she only flapped her wings sparingly from the ache in her chest. It was starting to creep back, little by little, but the last thing Typhoon wanted was another featherful of whispersalt mid-flight. The one she’d taken in Bluegrass’ bedroom had left her feeling drowsy, her senses not quite that sharp, and they were only now returning to her alongside the pain.

Down below her, the plains grew pockmarked with little ponds and streams, and in the last cool whisps of the morning air, some of the ponds visibly steamed. The vegetation around those ponds was lush and green, while between them it grew shorter and stunted. Typhoon didn’t need any other evidence to know she was flying over an area filled with hot springs, the outpourings of underground rivers that brought up hot water and life to the surface of the world. And if she was already over hot springs, then Boiling Springs couldn’t be too far away.

She spotted a road from above, and drifted over to align it with her shadow. It was a dirt path, but it was wide and well-traveled; even off in the distance, Typhoon could spot the squat silhouette of a pair of wagons moving in opposite directions. Farmsteads began to dot the plains, with crops arranged in rings and strips between the ponds and springs dotting the land. Lush and healthy, the plots of land looked big enough to keep a hundred ponies fed through winter each. And soon, emerging through the hazy day like a mirage, Typhoon saw her destination.

The town could hardly be called a city, but it was far more substantial than anything Typhoon had encountered since leaving Equestria proper behind, and it easily dwarfed Green Glade in both density and sprawl. Where the rare rough ground of hills and gullies came together to funnel the spring runoff into a small lake, civilization had clustered around the warm waters, with countless wooden buildings huddling close by the shoreline. Cobblestone streets threaded their way between the largest of the structures, giving the chaos of the town an axis to focus itself around, even while unpaved dirt paths snaked this way and that between the mishmash of architecture competing for space. Windmills took prominent positions on the crests of hills like sentry towers, and a few wooden boats dotted the shimmering surface of the lake as it glistened under the midday sun. It looked every bit a settlement rich with history and life, a locus of civilization to stabilize the chaos of the frontier.

Typhoon spotted what looked like a market square from afar, a large open space between several buildings paved with flat stones and filled with colorful stalls, and she made that her destination as she began to descend into the city. Mentally, she started to run through a checklist of things she needed to accomplish, feeling like she was creating a list of errands for herself on just another day out in town. First and foremost on her list was tracking down any information about a wizard that supposedly lived around these parts, but she also knew that she needed new armor after discarding her mangled set following the fight with Firestorm. Arguably that was even more important than tracking down a mage living in the lawless frontier; the last thing she wanted to do was go chasing after a mage without any sort of protection. On top of that, it would be a good time to grab some more rations and medical supplies, and simply just learn more about Boiling Springs. Information would be the difference between life and death out in the Frontier.

Noise like she hadn’t experienced in months soon greeted her ears as she circled down into the town market. A hundred ponies, maybe more, filled the open space with their colorful bodies and voices, and merchants hawked their wares at anypony passing by, each straining to be heard over the others. Their stalls were filled with countless goods, some mundane like bread and cereal crops, others exotic like spices and silks hauled in from across the country and beyond. That duality seemed to reflect in the customers themselves; for every merchant or minor aristocracy bedecked in fine linens and a few shiny bits of jewelry, there was a hardworking commoner with dirt on his hooves or a simple roughspun cowl on her head to keep away the sun. The odd pair of town guards shuffled through the crowds or watched for trouble from the side, and as Typhoon touched down in the town, a unicorn and a pegasus wearing dingy armor stepped forward to inspect her before she even found a moment to get her orientation in the bustling square.

“Stop, pegasus,” one of the guardsponies, the unicorn, challenged Typhoon as she and her companion imposed themselves between Typhoon and the market stalls ahead of her. “A word.”

Typhoon merely raised an eyebrow and waited expectantly, looking the pair of ponies over as she did so. Their armor was ill-fitting but maintained, with the unicorn’s set dangling loosely around her barrel, and the backplate of the pegasus’ cuirass pried open to allow him to squeeze his wings through. Speckles of brown rust marred the surface underneath the faint sheen of oil, indicating these two ponies had inherited their old armor but were doing their best to keep it serviceable despite that. The unicorn rested a polearm against her shoulder, looking like it came from a unicorn knight’s armory but crudely stripped of its gems and gold plating, while the pegasus kept a legionary’s sword tucked under one wing, sheathed in a scabbard hanging by a strap from his neck and shoulder rather than hooked to the side of his armor like a proper legionary. The mare’s long mane and the stallion’s growing beard made it clear neither was a veteran of either the Diamond Knights or the Legion—they were just two ponies who had stepped up to provide security for the town with the Legion gone and Everfree’s rule of law all but absent.

“Another armed ruffian flying into town looking to stir up trouble,” the unicorn guard growled with contempt. “Get back on the road, pegasus. Or maybe we’ll give you a long stay at the constabulary.”

“Do you usually so openly threaten former legionaries passing through town?” Typhoon calmly asked them.

Both guards tensed, and the unicorn shifted her polearm in her grip from leaning against her shoulder to leaning away from it. “So you are a legionary, then,” the unicorn growled. “Scouting for your century in broad daylight? You’re bold.”

“Or stupid,” the other guard remarked. “The Legion only trained soldiers to fly in formation and fight. They don’t know what to do if somepony isn’t giving them orders.”

“I feel like I should be insulted,” Typhoon droned, and then her expression shifted to a frown. “I’m from out of town. I just flew in from Green Glade, where I got a much warmer reception than this. Would you mind explaining to me why Boiling Springs is so hostile to legionaries?”

“You really don’t know, bandit? Or are you just playing dumb?”

“Let’s take her in, work her over a bit,” the unicorn suggested to her companion. “Maybe if we twist her wings a bit she’ll tell us where the rest of her rotten century is camped out.”

Typhoon quickly put two and two together. “You have problems with a rogue century of former legionaries preying on your town?” she asked them. She bared her teeth for a moment as a flash of irrational anger broke through her discipline before she regained control of her emotions. She shouldn’t have been surprised that former legionaries would turn to banditry with the dissolution of the Legion, but the proud veteran in her had hoped that even the common soldiers held the same respect for Cirran honor and tradition that she held close to her heart. “I’ll have to see if I can deal with this later,” she muttered to herself.

The sudden outburst and surprising reaction made the two guards pause for a moment, and they shared puzzled looks. “You… really ain’t from around here, aren’t you?” the pegasus guard asked, though his voice still dripped with suspicion.

“I would hope that much would be obvious by now.”

The unicorn frowned, but she returned the polearm to resting against her shoulder with a shift of her foreleg. “Why are you in Boiling Springs, then?” she asked Typhoon. “You don’t look like another senior coming here to retire and soak your old bones in the springs. And I’d rather know why somepony with a sword and wing blades is staying in my town.”

“I’m looking for somepony,” Typhoon said. “A wizard or mage of some kind. I was told one lives nearby.”

“That fellow with the wet robes and the long horn?” the unicorn asked, and Typhoon arched an eyebrow at that description. “Yeah, I’ve seen him around a few times before. Smells like a fish, too.”

“Where does he live?” Typhoon pressed. “Does he have a tower I can fly to?”

“Nopony knows where the bastard lives, nor is he all that willing to share,” the pegasus guard commented. “He teleports into town about once a week to load up on supplies and then teleports back out. Says as little as he can to other ponies. Guess he sees conversation as a nuisance to avoid. Good luck trying to get more than two words out of him.”

Typhoon frowned at that. If she had a direction she could travel in, it would be trivial to fly up to the wizard’s tower and insist on having her voice heard. Teleporting was another matter entirely. If this wizard was powerful enough, he could teleport into town from miles away, maybe from a hidden lair underground. She’d never find him on wing.

“When was he last in town?” Typhoon asked them. “Is he due for another supply run soon?”

“Few days ago, I think?” the unicorn shrugged. “Not sure when he’ll be back. Best bet is to keep your eyes open for a unicorn that sticks out like a sore hoof. He usually shows up in the morning as soon as the markets open to get what he needs and disappear before it gets busy.”

“Thank you,” Typhoon said, and she filed that information away. At the very least, mages were creatures of habit. If this wizard only showed up at a certain time of day, that dramatically narrowed down the amount of time Typhoon had to be on the lookout for him. Then, noticing the guards were still hovering in front of her, she gave them both a deadpan glare. “Am I free to go, or is there anything else you want of an old legionary?”

The guards looked at each other and both took a step back. “Not if you’re trying to get involved with that wizard,” the pegasus muttered, and the unicorn nodded in agreement. “The last thing I need is the attention of some hornhead that can teleport my bones outside of my body with a thought.”

“Good,” Typhoon said, though before they turned around to leave her be, she roughly cleared her throat. “In any event, I need to find a blacksmith. Given your warm welcome, I don’t suppose a former Legion blacksmith would put down roots in a town like this?”

-----

It took a while for Typhoon to find her way to where the guards suggested—‘the mill by the lake’ was hardly the most distinct of directions—but a little bit of walking around finally took her to where she needed to be. The smith had set up their workshop at one corner of the lake, where the fresh water provided a handy and nearby source of water to quench steel, and an easy way to move things into town by boat. Typhoon let the sound of hammer striking steel guide her to the smithy, and when she looked into the open-air workshop, she saw exactly what she was hoping to see: a muscular pegasus stallion with a military manecut pounding away at the beginnings of a cuirass, sweat running down his neck and shoulders from the heat of the roaring forge only a few feet away.

He looked like the kind of stallion to make some mare very happy, Typhoon thought to herself. Too bad she was twice his age.

Typhoon leaned against a post, watching as the pegasus shaped the armor with blows from the hammer held in his mouth. Embers flickered along the feathers of his soot-streaked wings, and every so often, he would summon a little bit of fire magic and heat the steel at a spot before pounding out an imperfection in the armor’s shape. He was Legion trained in the art of smithing, Typhoon could tell that much from watching him work. Only when he hoisted the dull red metal off of the anvil and dumped it in a trough of water did he turn to acknowledge the older mare.

“…Ma’am,” the smith said, touching one white feather turned charcoal gray with soot to an equally sooty brow. His other wing grabbed a skin of water and he held it to his lips for several long drinks before he pulled it away with a pleased grunt. “Name’s Hammer Fall, at your service. I didn’t see a requisition order come in. Chain of command is getting sloppy.”

“There’s a reason for that,” Typhoon mused, and the smallest curve of an amused smile shaped the corners of her lips. It felt good to talk to somepony from the Legion, somepony who understood the listless grief of having a part of one’s identity suddenly dissolved. And even though he’d addressed her as ‘ma’am’, it came across as decidedly informal. In a way, the sardonic remark put Typhoon more at ease, feeling comfortable with another lost legionary trying to make sense of his life.

“So I heard,” Hammer Fall remarked, and he sat down on a stool by his forge to wipe his forehead with a dirty rag. “I would have appreciated a bit more warning from the Commander. I would have taken the time to secure some things before I suddenly became a civilian again. The century disbanded as soon as the order reached our camp, and ponies went their different ways. Most back to their family, but others decided to stay out here in the Frontier. Not all for good reasons.” He sighed and stared up at the ceiling of the wooden awning extending over his forge, but Typhoon knew he was looking through it, at some memory in the sky on the other side. “Lost my skyforge in all that business. How’s a skysmith supposed to work skysteel without a skyforge? You can’t, ma’am. So now I’m stuck on the ground working ground steel.” He stiffened as if he suddenly realized who he was talking to, and old discipline kicked in. “Sorry, ma’am. Just a soldier grousing about the bad end to better days.”

“I understand all too well,” Typhoon murmured, and her eyes drifted away from the smith’s face for a moment. “I did what I did because I felt I had to. I just didn’t expect it to turn into all of…” She gestured vaguely around them with her wings. “All of this.”

“You did…?!” The blacksmith started and his eyes widened. “Commander…?” he whispered, suddenly awestruck, and he abruptly stood bolt upright and struck a crisp, if out of practice, legionary salute. “By the gods, I didn’t… I-I’m sorry… ma’am!”

Typhoon rolled her eyes and put him at ease with an irritated wave of her wing. “I’m not your commander anymore,” she scolded him. “The Legion is gone. Remember? My rank means nothing. Not anymore.”

“It still means something to us,” Hammer said. “All of us, drifting without a purpose, all because Queen Platinum wanted a personal army… you’re the only thing we’re loyal to anymore, Commander.”

“You have no reason to be loyal to me,” Typhoon insisted. “You didn’t even know who I was until I let it slip. Maybe I shouldn’t have.”

“I will admit, I didn’t recognize you without your armor.”

“My father’s armor,” Typhoon muttered.

“You wore it longer than he did,” Hammer cut in, though he still checked himself when he saw the annoyed look forming on Typhoon’s face. He sighed and sat back down on his stool, giving his head a little shake. “You were the face of the Legion for all my life, even if the face I pictured in my mind was younger and… idealized. Same goes for everypony I served with. Didn't help that your face isn't all that detailed on coins. Hell, there are pegasi out there that want to name you Empress of Cirra, or so I’ve heard…”

That notion earned a surprised and somewhat confused scoff out of the old soldier. “Empress of Cirra? Really?” She shook her head in disbelief. “If it were that easy, my brother wouldn’t be freezing his marks off under the last windigo’s winter in River Rock. Besides, uniting the tribes under the banner of Equestria was my father’s work. I wouldn’t work to see it undone by claiming a title that only exists to divide and destroy.”

“If what you see on the Frontier isn’t proof enough that dissolving the Legion did more to break Equestria than that, then I don’t know what is,” Hammer plainly stated, and it earned a wince from Typhoon that she failed to hide by looking away. Uncomfortable silence followed, and after it had stretched on for too long, Hammer chased it away with a clearing of his throat and a change of topic. “I don’t suppose you flew all this way just to find a Legion blacksmith to chat with. What can I help you with, Commander?”

Relieved by the change in topic, Typhoon turned her gaze back in the direction of Hammer and his forge. “Armor,” she stated simply. “I need protection before I leave Boiling Springs. And I’d rather get a set from a Legion blacksmith who knows what he’s doing than anypony else.”

Hammer nodded and looked Typhoon over, appraising how much material he would need to make a set for the old soldier. “I can make something, aye,” he said. “What happened to your old set, though? I can’t imagine anything I make will come close to the enchanted set you’re used to. I don’t have void crystals or an archmage’s expertise like Hurricane did when Star Swirl made it for him.”

“I wasn’t able to take it with me when I left Everfree,” Typhoon admitted. “It’s somewhere in the capital. I got by on a normal legionary’s set for a while, but it was damaged beyond repair fighting a dragon.”

“A dragon? Really? By yourself?” When Typhoon nodded, Hammer could only whistle in disbelief. “How old are you, Commander?”

Typhoon shrugged. “Fifty-four? You stop counting when you get past forty. Believe me.”

“You’re a grandma fighting dragons and I’m sitting in here pounding steel in the prime of my life.” The blacksmith chuckled, and Typhoon rolled her eyes, though the curve to her lips belied the levity behind it. “Really makes me reconsider what I’ve been doing with my life.”

“No, you’re doing just fine where you are,” Typhoon told him, and she stepped closer to the smith when he pulled out a measuring tape, a stick of charcoal, and a scroll to write her measurements down. “My joints hurt enough without a dragon nearly crushing me to death between its claws. And after a grueling fight, all you want to do is sleep for an entire day, but you wake up after five hours because you’re old and you can’t sleep like you used to. Plus your feathers start growing in raggedy unless you give them extra attention…”

“You sound like my grandma,” Hammer said with a snicker.

“I’m old. I’m entitled to a little complaining every so often.” Hammer chuckled as he wrapped the measuring tape around Typhoon’s barrel and checked the number, and Typhoon stifled a quiet snort of her own. As the smith moved onto measuring the distance between her wing joints and her collar, she redirected the conversation. “Do the guards give you trouble for being a legionary?” she asked the smith.

Hammer sighed and rolled his eyes. “Ah, I see you got that welcome,” he said, and he scribbled down his measurements on his scroll of parchment. “No, I had settled into Boiling Springs before the Lost Legion set up shop down here. I’m not sure how much you know about all that business…”

“Little to none,” Typhoon admitted. “When I resigned and dissolved the Legion, it was functional, if decimated after war with the spiders. That's about the best I could say about it. I didn't stick around Everfree to see what became of it. And I don't get reports on this sort of thing anymore. All I know is that the bulk of the remaining legions we had were spread out around the Frontier to try and keep the peace.”

“Well, there’s not much to know about it all, really,” Hammer said. “The Lost Legion’s a bunch of former legionaries who thought they’d take out their frustrations on being fired en masse by turning to a life of banditry. You can only imagine how the discipline and training of the Legion paired with the dirty business of stealing and killing has made them into a menace around these parts. Plenty of towns like Boiling Springs have had to contend with them attacking travelers and caravans along the road, or looting and burning small settlements.”

Typhoon gritted her teeth and a low growl of frustration managed to slip its way out of her throat. “They dishonor the Legion,” she bluntly stated. “I taught them better than that.”

“Unless you personally tutored the thousands of legionaries in service by the time you dissolved it, Commander, I don’t think that’s true.” At the old mare’s frown, Hammer merely shrugged and stepped back. “There were always going to be bad apples, especially when standards are slackened to fill in the ranks during war. You can’t blame yourself if the rotten ones start making a stink when it’s all said and done.”

After a moment, Typhoon sighed, and her wings drooped a bit. “I suppose you’re right,” she reluctantly admitted. “But if I cross paths with any, I won’t give them any quarter.”

“I don’t doubt that for a second, ma’am.” The smith picked up his notes and looked them over while Typhoon watched. “If you’re going to do that, then you’ll need protection. Unfortunately, without a skyforge, I can’t make skysteel armor.”

“Ground steel will work fine,” Typhoon said with a dismissive wave of her wing.

“No, I don’t think it will.” At Typhoon’s raised brow, Hammer set the paper down and sighed. “Skysteel’s biggest strength over ground steel is its weight. A standard issue Legion cuirass and helmet weighs about a third of an identical ground steel set. And I don’t mean to doubt your physical fitness or make assumptions about your age, ma’am, but if you want to fly for more than short bursts, you don’t want to be wearing this. You’ll need something lighter.”

“How light?”

“A hauberk would be the best protection for its weight, but it’s not that good at piercing protection,” Hammer said, gesturing with a wing to a chainmail coat hanging from a hook in the corner of his forge. “Plate’s better for that, but it’s heavy.”

Typhoon nodded along. “I’m not a milite, Hammer. I’m familiar with armor weight classes and the tactics associated with each.”

“Right.” Hammer chuckled and gestured vaguely toward the center of town. “I’m used to amateurs asking me to armor the town guard, not professional soldiers. I guess a better way to go about this is through practical means: how do you like to fight, Commander?”

“Speed kills,” Typhoon stated matter-of-factly. “It was the only thing that kept me in the fight with the dragon. Fast strikes supplemented by magic when necessary. I try to avoid relying on my armor to absorb hits for me if I can afford it.”

“Then we want something that can take a hit, but only as the last line of defense.” After a moment of thought, Hammer fluttered over to a chest in his forge and rummaged through it, ultimately producing a strip of leather covered with scales. “A modified lorica squamata might do the trick. Scale pauldrons connected to a steel peytral would provide the bulk of the protection on your core. We connect it to a half-plate on your back to protect your shoulders and wings rather than full-plate going down to your hindquarters. Scale bracers will protect your forelegs; solid steel in the Legion style would be too heavy and slow your steps. All of this over cloth padding.”

He flew back to his workbench and scribbled down his ideas, leaving Typhoon to try and visualize the protection in her head. “For all your talk about not weighing me down, that sounds like a lot of metal,” she commented.

“Much less than full plate armor in the unicorn style,” Hammer said, “and better protection than a simple legionary cuirass. The scales will provide good protection without being too heavy, and the mail will at least protect you from slashes at your sides or neck. Plenty of mobility without being overly heavy.” He set his stick of charcoal down and gave Typhoon a smirk. “Just don’t expect it to be quiet. That’s a lot of metal clattering around.”

“I’m not concerned about that,” Typhoon said, dismissively waving her wing. “Fighting is loud, and it always seems to happen to me. Might as well skip the part about skulking around trying to avoid it and get it over with.”

“That’s the spirit.” Hammer tapped his measurements and glanced back at his forge. “Will you be in Boiling Springs long? I have some other orders for the town guard, but I’ll move this to the top of my list.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Typhoon assured him.

“The Legion gave me more than this town ever has,” Hammer insisted. “I remember what it stood for and the mare who made it great. Hell, I’ll even do it as a favor.”

Typhoon sharply frowned at him. “Don’t,” she said, and she dug into one of her bags with a wing. She retrieved several golden bits and a couple of gemstones and dropped them on Hammer’s workbench as the smith’s eyes widened. “Fighting the dragon was good for something,” she said, an amused lilt coloring her voice.

It took Hammer a few moments to find his voice. “Shit, ma’am, for that I’ll spit-shine the damn thing if I have to.”

“Regular polish will be fine, thank you,” Typhoon said, smiling as she shook her head.

“Whatever you say, ma’am.” Hammer slid the bits and gemstones over to one corner of his workbench and rolled out more parchment to start sketching a design. “I’ll get the details finalized today, and then I’ll dedicate tomorrow to forging it for you. Thankfully I’ve got mail from another project I can link together to save time, so stop by in a couple of days from now and I’ll have it ready for you.”

“I look forward to it.” Typhoon gave him a nod and took a step back. “Thank you for doing this, Hammer.”

“It’s an honor, ma’am.” Hammer said. “Anyway, I assume you had a long flight in. Why not loosen sore muscles at one of the springs while you’re here?”

The thought of hot water loosening tense and bruised muscles was an idea Typhoon knew she wouldn’t be able to get out of her head until she indulged herself. “I think I just might,” she said, and with one last wave of her wing to the smith, she turned around and trotted back up the toward the city.

Comments

[RoboRed]

A group of highly-disciplined soldiers turned lawless...yeah, that's not a happy combo.

[Queen Sinari]

11219731
Disciplined, trained, battle hardened, and angry from the sounds of it