• Published 4th Mar 2022
  • 863 Views, 75 Comments

The Sparrow in the Storm - The 24th Pegasus



The Equestrian experiment is failing, and Typhoon Stormblade, once the pegasus triumvir and daughter of the legendary Commander Hurricane, has left the country behind.

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1-18

Typhoon felt like a drowned rat by the time she finally made it back to Warbler’s Roost, and now that she knew that the kelpie living in Boiling Springs was at least partially responsible for the downpour, a part of her felt a little bit justified in helping Deep Blue capture her. Still, that didn’t fully alleviate her concerns, of which she had many. But both she and the wizard knew she wasn’t in a position to argue. She needed those strands of spider silk from Deep Blue, and even if she had thought about stealing them herself, she neither had the skill nor the expertise to repair a magical artifact like her dreamcatcher on her own. And given how far removed she was from Everfree, it would be a miracle to stumble upon another wizard anywhere close to Boiling Springs. She could only hope that Deep Blue’s motivations were purely for the betterment of ponykind.

If they weren’t… well, fate sure had its way of making sure ponies like that get what they deserved in the end.

After taking a moment to fetch some towels from the room she’d reserved at the inn, and dumping her armor in a corner of said room to be dealt with later, Typhoon dried herself off as best she could and took a seat in front of the fire crackling in the hearth. There, she laid her sword at the foot of her chair, easily within hoof’s reach should she need it, and closed her eyes as she let the heat dry off her coat and the fanned feathers of her open wings. Her mind started to play out scenarios involving the kelpie, and how watery fangs would sink into her neck if she let her guard down for a moment… but a deep breath pushed them away. The meditations of many nights before battles let the old soldier control her mind and its wanderings, and she felt herself drifting into a light sleep even as the tickling of a faint few snores played at the back of her throat.

“There you are!”

The exclamation turned one of those snores into a hard snort and a half-choked cough, and Typhoon’s head shot bolt upright and her wings tensed at the sudden shattering of serenity. Her ears turning preceded her eyes identifying the source of the shout, and she saw a practically-drowned Sparrow stomping over to her, her tail leaving a trail of water behind her like a drenched mop. When the young mare stopped in front of Typhoon, her shoulders tensed like she was about to swat at her with her foreleg, but instead, only an angry glare fell on the soldier instead of a hoof. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you! I can’t believe you and Deep Blue just threw me out of there like that!”

After a moment, Typhoon simply shrugged. “I can,” she said, turning her attention back to the fire warming her coat.

Frowning, Sparrow yanked a chair over with her magic and sat down right by the soldier’s side. “That asshole teleported me right into the middle of the big lake! I had to swim back to shore! And then I came back here to see if you would come back, but you didn’t, so I decided to go looking around town for you, and then it started pouring, so I had to gallop back! You weren’t ever going to bother looking for me, were you?”

“Probably not,” Typhoon bluntly stated. At Sparrow’s indignant look, the old soldier only sighed. “Filly, I’m not going to lie to you to stop you from getting your feelings hurt or anything. I worked with you because you knew something I needed to know and I was willing to trade my time for it. If you thought there was something more out of that exchange, then I’m sorry to disappoint you. But as soon as I’ve got what I need from Boiling Springs, I’ll be leaving, and to put it bluntly, you can’t keep up with me on hoof while I’m on wing.”

Sparrow froze, and Typhoon pointedly didn’t look her in the eyes, as she knew she’d only see hurt and betrayal. “But…” the young mare started, and after a moment she leaned closer to Typhoon. “But you only showed me one thing about being a legionary! We only had one time, I-I mean…i-isn’t there more?”

“You know very well that I gave you what I promised you,” Typhoon told her. “If you want more than that, then go talk to Hammer. I know he pretends otherwise, but he was trained to fight, even if he ultimately became a blacksmith. Every soldier in the Legion learns how to swing a sword in armor. But I can’t afford to spend my time teaching a filly how to play soldier. Not when there’s more pressing concerns.” Silence held for several heartbeats, and then Typhoon fluttered her damp wings and closed them by her sides. “I hope you understand.”

The silence dragged on for several moments, heavy, uncomfortable, and suffocating. Typhoon didn’t know what was going on in Sparrow’s mind; frankly, she was too tired to care, and she wasn’t interested in turning her dismissal into an argument. Then Sparrow’s chair groaned over the wooden floorboards, and hooves clopped their way across the floor. The door swung open, letting in the noise of the rain falling outside, then closed not with a slam, but with a gentle click of the latch.

The old soldier let out a breath and her wings drooped. “It’s for her own good,” she muttered to herself, and she sighed and closed her eyes, leaning back in her chair once more. But try as she might, her meditations struggled to push away those pink and blue eyes, and the remainder of her fitful midday nap proved elusive.

-----

Typhoon slept little that night. There was too much on her mind to worry about sleep, and she was reluctant to use more of the whispersalt she’d gotten from the twins that had kept her sleep dead and dreamless. Too much of it left her head feeling cloudy and murky, her normally acutely sharp senses dulled and sluggish. She would need her reflexes at their best if she was going to serve as bait for Deep Blue’s plan.

Polishing her armor and cleaning her magical blade sufficed for sleep as a means of soldierly meditation, and when morning finally arrived, Typhoon held up her peytral and frowned into the reflection of the aging mare staring back at her. Deep Blue was at least right about one thing; without her armor and without her weapons, the mare that looked back at her from the polished metal bore the wearied face of a pegasus that had passed her prime. Her mane was graying, the wrinkles beneath her eyes had started to become permanent bags, and her muzzle, though still largely buff in color, was streaked with white hairs. Though a lifetime of service had left her in excellent condition, and her neck muscles were still heavy and strong from swinging a sword for most of her life, there was little reason to assume that the aged pegasus was once one of the finest and storied soldiers in the Legion. And judging by how little recognition she had out on the frontier, despite serving as one of Equestria’s triumvirs for much of her life, she was at least confident that she could play the part of an ordinary mare until the kelpie decided to strike.

The smell of fresh bread baking in the inn’s kitchen signaled to the sleepless mare that morning had finally arrived, and after stowing away her armor and sword in her room’s trunk and locking it up, Typhoon wandered out into the main room to wait for Deep Blue to return. She didn’t know when he planned on doing so, but she didn’t have any other plans until then. So, throwing a few bits down on the bar as she passed and exchanging a nod with the earth pony preparing breakfast, the pegasus chose a table with a look out the window to the street outside and waited.

She ultimately didn’t have to wait too long. With a loud pop that startled the other early risers in the common room, Deep Blue teleported into the center of Warbler’s Roost, brushed off his robes and sent a small splash of water falling onto the floorboards, and looked around. When he saw Typhoon sitting in the corner, he cantered over, disregarding the mixture of both curious and nervous looks from the other ponies in the inn. “I had a feeling you would be an early riser, what with everything you told me yesterday,” Deep Blue said, pulling out a seat across from Typhoon and sitting down. “Are you ready to get started?”

“When I get some breakfast in me and we have something resembling a plan, sure,” Typhoon said, looking off toward the kitchen. “Food’s not ready yet.”

“Then we can work on the latter while we wait,” Deep Blue said, crossing his forelegs. He nodded out the window, where the skies were still dark and gray and raindrops streaked down the glass. “The storm’s still going strong, but it’s not heavy yet. That means she’s hunting but she hasn’t found suitable prey. Like I said yesterday, the storm will get heavy and intense when she closes in for the kill. If she chooses you, that’s your warning she’s about to strike.”

“That seems to be skipping a few steps,” Typhoon noted. “She has to choose me in the first place. I hope you have some idea on how to make sure she does.”

“I don’t have to do much of anything,” Deep Blue said. “Remember when I noted that there’s powerful magic about you, and I could sense it? She will be able to sense it too.”

Typhoon raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t that just drive her away? I’m not some average pony then if I smell like magic, so to speak.”

“On the contrary, I think it will pique her curiosity,” Deep Blue said. “On top of that, you’re hexed, not cursed. It’s fey magic, not pony magic. And to use your metaphor, it smells different. But it was cast by Luna, a pony, so it will be off. To put it simply, you’re perhaps the most interesting thing that the kelpie will have encountered in a very long time. She might be wary, but she’s going to investigate once she senses it.”

“She might already have gotten a whiff of me, then. I was at Eagle Springs when I met Sparrow. If she made those hot springs, then I’ve already soaked in one.” She hesitated, then added, “And I used my magic there when Sparrow and her friends tried to steal from me. I’m not sure how much she keeps track of what happens in her springs, but she might already know what I’m capable of.”

Deep Blue frowned. “Was the weather clear then?”

“Wasn’t a cloud in the sky,” Typhoon said with a shrug.

“Then she was dormant. She seems to enter a sort of sleeplike state between meals. Lying low and passing the time until she gets hungry enough to hunt again.” Deep Blue let out a relieved breath. “Which is a relief for us; if she had been active, then yes, we would need a different approach. But it seems like she wasn’t, so that shouldn’t be a problem. At the most, she would have had the sense that something different had come to Boiling Springs. If that’s the case, then your little burst of magic might actually have stirred her from her sleep, and now since she’s awake, she’s hungry.”

“Guess I rang my own dinner bell,” Typhoon murmured, frowning out the window to the wet world beyond. “Alright. So I find some spring on the edge of town and sit down for a soak and wait for her to come after me. When the storm gets worse, I’m in danger.” Her ruby red eyes followed a pair of young mares galloping down the street, trying to do their best to get to their destination despite the rain. “What will she look like? I’ve never seen a kelpie before.”

Deep Blue only shrugged at that. “I haven’t seen her myself. I’ve only seen the obvious signs of her activity. But in her natural form, she would look something like a seahorse. An elongated muzzle, fins and ridges along her head and neck and hooves, that sort of thing.” He paused, then added, “Have you seen a seahorse before?”

“Once in a novelty store in Everfree,” Typhoon said with a little nod. Then she cocked her head ever so slightly and her wings ruffled. “Did you say ‘natural’ form?”

“Kelpies can disguise themselves,” Deep Blue said. “They need water to do it, but it creates an illusion that’s on par with what some of the greatest illusionists in pony history could conjure. Archmage Mirage wrote a thesis on it some three hundred years back. Kelpies use their magic to arrange water vapor in the air to distort their image into something that looks indistinguishable from reality. I don’t know what image she’ll take, but she’ll approach your spring under disguise and investigate. I wouldn’t be surprised if on rainy days like this she’s walking around town under disguise, seeing if anything has changed.”

That made Typhoon’s ears perk up, and her gaze instinctively swiveled over the odd couple of other ponies sitting in the tavern as Warbler’s Roost’s small serving staff started bringing out breakfast to the paying patrons. “And you’re comfortable discussing all this in the open despite that?”

“If we were outside in the middle of town right now, then no,” Deep Blue said. “She will not step hoof anywhere that’s dry. It’s anathema to her very existence. And though I generally dislike these quaint little taverns and the sort of company they attract, this one is dry and has an excellently thatched roof. She is not here.”

“If you say so…” One of the serving staff brought a simple plate of toasted bread with butter and a small omelet on the side and set it down in front of Typhoon, who gratefully nodded and took her fork between the feathers of her wingtip to start eating. The serving mare looked questioningly to Deep Blue for a moment, but when the wizard waved her off with his hoof and a shake of her head, she bowed and quickly cantered away. Only when she was gone did Typhoon set her fork down, a quarter of her breakfast already finished off in a few hungry bites. “So that just leaves the matter of enslaving her, then,” she concluded.

“If taking subtle barbs at my life’s work through your lexicon makes you feel better about what I need you to do, then so be it,” Deep Blue said, the corners of his muzzle turning down slightly into an annoyed frown. “So long as you actually do it and we can both get what we want out of this.”

“Not like I have much choice in the matter,” Typhoon mumbled, and she took another stab at her breakfast to indicate she had nothing left to say.

After a moment, Deep Blue nodded to Typhoon’s metal hoof as she rested it on the table. “As I said yesterday, when she shows her true form and lunges at you, she’s at her most vulnerable to your particular magical strengths. She’ll be mostly pure water at that point, animated by her magic and held together around other bits and pieces of organic material that generally constitute a living being. If you’re fast enough, you should be able to freeze her solid. She’ll be powerless.”

“I thought you said she had power over all fresh water,” Typhoon said. “Ice is just solid water.”

“If she were a being of ice, then I’d be concerned,” Deep Blue assured her. “But she’s not. She’s water, not ice. And while she’s frozen, she can’t do anything.”

“Then what?” Typhoon pressed him.

“Then nothing.” The wizard reached into his robes and produced a clay jar inscribed with countless tiny runes, which Typhoon noted glowed with the faintest sheen of blue magic. “While she’s frozen, I’ll break off a lock of her hair and keep it in here. When it thaws, I’ll have power over her. She won’t be able to raise a hoof against me, not while this is in my possession. Through dominating a part of her body, I gain power over the whole.”

Typhoon eyed the jar warily. “And if that were to break?”

“Then she would be free of my power over her and would likely conjure a storm and flee,” Deep Blue said with a dismissive wave of his hoof. “That hypothetical will never come to pass. I’ve enchanted the jar to strengthen it, and once her token is in my possession, I will keep this in a safe, dry place where nopony will ever find it. Then I fix your dreamcatcher and we each go our separate ways, satisfied.”

“If you say so…” Typhoon stabbed at her breakfast some more, taking the opportunity to eat and make sure she had energy for what was likely going to prove a very dangerous day. “Whatever. It sounds simple enough. Am I going in alone on this, or can I count on your help in case something goes wrong?”

Deep Blue shook his head. “This will be your responsibility. I can’t risk accompanying you in case seeing two ponies scares her away. On top of that, just like how she should be able to sense the magic that surrounds you, she’ll be able to sense my own arcana, honed from years of schooling and natural talent. There’s a reason why interactions between fey and wizards are usually initiated by the pony in the equation; trained and skilled wizards are dangerous game for a fey. Unless a fey has reason to want to ensnare a wizard and their skills in one of its traps, most will opt for going after easier prey, like commoners.”

Despite that statement, Deep Blue reached into his robes and retrieved a simple silver pendant with a cut sapphire hanging from a delicate spiral of metal. “When you freeze her, use this to summon me to let me know the deed is done. Just hold it and speak my name; I’ll know you’re calling, and I’ll teleport to you. This is the safest way of doing this; the enchantment on the pendant is minor enough that the hex on you will mask it from the kelpie’s senses, and I don’t have to be nearby in case she catches wind of me.”

“Without my armor or sword, I was afraid I’d have to go out there without any metal hanging from my shoulders,” Typhoon dryly quipped, and she took the pendant on her outstretched wingtip and then dropped it around her neck. After rolling her shoulders once to get it to sit comfortably, the mare scooped the last of her breakfast off her plate, shoveled it into her mouth, and then finished it off with one gulp. “Risk to life and limb aside, I guess that’s simple enough. Any idea on where would be the best place to go for a solo soak?”

“I don’t think it matters much so long as it’s private, secluded, and not too far from the central lake where she likely resides,” Deep Blue said, standing up from his seat. “I trust you’ll be able to figure it out on your own. I’ll be waiting for the good news.”

Before Typhoon had a chance to reply, his horn lit up in a bright blue aura, and with another audible pop and a flash of light, the wizard teleported away, once more drawing a few startled looks from the other ponies gathered in the tavern.

After a moment, Typhoon took a breath and stood up, sliding her chair back against the table with the lazy push of a wing. “This kelpie must be a looker, the way he talks about her,” she muttered to herself. Then, taking a breath to steel her nerves, the old soldier stepped outside into the rain, spread her wings, and took to the skies.