The Sparrow in the Storm

by The 24th Pegasus

2-5

Unlike its namesake, Camp Stratopolis was not a magnificent sky camp perched atop the clouds in the bright blue of the sky. Truth be told, the only reason it may have qualified for its name was for the nostalgia of its pegasus protectors. Clinging to whatever shreds of their Cirran history they had left in the face of an Equestria that had tried to forget it, and them, the name may have simply served as a defiant scream into the closing chapters of Cirra’s history. It was certainly not grand, nor impressive, nor particularly impregnable to warrant such a name, at least to other ponies.

But to Sparrow, those flaws made little difference.

A few minutes more of walking had taken them to a clearing in the forest where the trees grew sparse on a patch of flat and stony ground that had interrupted the pliable terrain of the forest. As they passed by scores of fallen trees, remembered only by the broad stumps they had left behind, Sparrow’s eyes fell onto a multitude of canvas tents arranged into neat rows behind wooden palisades, with plumes of wispy gray smoke rising from dozens of campfires and joining into one great cloud above the camp. Soldiers stood watch on simple wooden towers overlooking the palisades, soldiers trained on a bare clearing outside of the camp, and soldiers circled the skies above it, coming or going from their assignments. High above the camp, several small clouds seemed to hold still in the sky, and though she couldn’t see from down below, Sparrow was certain that there were teams of pegasi perched on each, surveying the surrounding countryside for any approaching threats.

Sparrow recognized this all immediately; it was a Legion field camp, and the memory of one was seared into her mind, never to be forgotten.

It was a sight that Typhoon, once Commander of the entire Equestrian Legion, was deeply familiar with as well, and she surprisingly came to a stop as her eyes settled on it. Her sudden movement (or rather, lack thereof) caused the rest of the ponies around her to pause, and even Centurion Tern cocked his head at her as her eyes slowly meandered over the sights and her ears twitched at the sounds. “Ma’am?”

Typhoon blinked once, twice, then gave her head a rough shake and resumed marching. “Sorry,” came her apology, and a shiver ran down her spine and flicked her tail. “It’s just been a while. I didn’t think I’d see one of these again.”

“Ah.” Tern offered her an apologetic smile and waved over the camp with his wing. “I’m sorry we weren’t able to make it more magnificent for you, then. Things being what they are, we had to settle for something rough in the woods.”

“I would have thought it’d be in the sky,” Sparrow noted. “Especially since you said that the other legionaries have earth pony and unicorn allies?”

“The Legion only used sky camps for traveling armies,” Tern said, and his eyes fell on Typhoon’s metal hoof, which seemed to emit more frost at the comment. “Commander’s orders.”

“I wasn’t going to lose another legion like that again,” Typhoon grimly muttered.

Tern nodded, then turned back to Sparrow. “Our enemies include other pegasi. You know our magic can disperse clouds as easily as it can shape and move them? An attack on a sky camp by another army of pegasi, or even a skilled raiding party, would disperse the entire thing in minutes and our supplies would be scattered across the countryside. It’s safer for the legion’s cohesion to keep our camp and supplies on the ground while we campaign. It opens us to attack by our ground bound cousins, but…” He merely shrugged. “I have yet to meet an earth pony or unicorn that could fight a legionary sword to sword and win.”

“When I’m done training under Typhoon, that’ll be different,” Sparrow claimed.

That statement was met with a scoff from the centurion. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, filly,” he chastised her, and even the rest of the soldiers around her snickered. Heat burning in her cheeks, Sparrow frowned and ducked her head.

Typhoon’s ear flicked at their laughter, and she abruptly changed the topic by resuming her march forward and forcing everypony else to keep up with her. “How long have you been encamped here?” she asked, her eyes traveling over the defensive fortifications and woodwork.

“At least a month, perhaps two by now,” Tern said with a weary sigh, and even some of the legionaries around him quietly groused to themselves at the reminder of how long they’d been bogged down in one spot. “The traitors in Dry Fens fortified the town. They’ve been using it as a base of operations to project power all over the frontier. Rooting them out has proven difficult and costly, so Legate Winds has tried to starve them out.”

“This legion doesn’t seem large enough to starve out a town,” Typhoon noted. “How many are you?”

“Five thousand… on paper, at least.”

“So perhaps half that,” the old soldier concluded, and when Tern gave her a reluctant nod, she shook her head. “I assume the other side has similar numbers, ruling out an assault. So you’re trying to intercept their foraging teams and prevent them from gathering supplies.”

“I see your eye for strategy is still as sharp as ever, ma’am,” Tern said with a small laugh.

“And your legate’s seems lacking.” Her scathing mark elicited grumbles from the other soldiers, and the legionary continued. “You cannot make them submit from thirst; a captured cloud will provide enough water for a town for a week, and you can’t hope to bust all of them in the sky. And if the town was well stocked, they could live off of that for some time, while an army in the field depletes the countryside.” Her expression shifted to one of concern and she turned to Tern with an arching eyebrow. “Where do you get your supplies?”

Tern shrugged in nonchalance. “As you said it, ma’am. We’ve had to live off the land. There’s a stream in the forest we use for water, plus the clouds if necessary. There’s some game in the woods, though not much. But the farmers around the neighboring towns are happy to contribute some provisions if it means we take Dry Fens.”

“Their attitudes have almost surely changed by now, even if they don’t show it. A legion in the field is just as hungry as an army of bandits, especially if it stays in one place long.”

“Maybe you and the legate can figure out a plan to kick them out of town,” Sparrow interjected. “If they can’t starve them out, then they have to force them out.”

“It would be costly, but it’s probably our best bet at keeping the legion together,” Tern agreed. “We just can’t leave empty-hooved. Not after all this time and fighting. Morale wouldn’t recover.”

Typhoon’s jaw worked side to side, and her ear flicked through the hole in her helmet. “The fighting needs to stop, one way or another,” the old soldier finally said. “That much I can agree on. Equestria can’t take this lawlessness on the frontier.”

“I’m surprised you still care about Equestria after what it did to you,” Tern observed, though he faltered under the sharp look Typhoon threw his way.

“My father founded Equestria,” she snapped at him. “Just because it killed Cirra doesn’t mean I want it to die too.”

A silence settled over the group following Typhoon’s retort, and the group entered the camp proper through the gap in the palisade, passing by a couple of awed sentries who couldn’t help but stare as Typhoon walked past them. The only thing Sparrow heard above the drone and din of the camp was a muttered “Cirra isn’t dead,” by one of the legionaries surrounding them, barely audible under her breath.

Still, when their group entered the confines of the camp, Sparrow felt a similar sense of awe and déjà vu wash over her to what Typhoon must have felt upon seeing the camp from afar. Being this close to the sights and sounds of the camp, seeing the legionaries drilling with their weapons, cooking around campfires, and polishing their swords and armor transported her back in time to when she was ten and angels in armor had plucked her from the spiders’ burrow that had swallowed her home and her life. She had longed to see this sight again, and one day walk among it in armor of her own, and at the moment, she felt closer to that dream than ever before.

But as she looked around, she felt reality grating against nostalgia, that bright moment in her new lease on life that she had polished so much finally rubbing edges with the abrasive reality. The ground had been churned into a mess by thousands of hooves, and that dirt seemed to get everywhere—on the wooden stakes outlining the camp’s perimeter, on the canvas tents that housed the camp’s inhabitants, and on the weapons and barding of the camp’s defenders. The soldiers looked weary, and many were covered in scars, some old and some new, while more than a wingful had bandages on their limbs, their faces, their unarmored hides. Talk was muted, subdued, tired, and even the legionaries on their hooves moving about camp moved slowly and sluggishly. Sparrow understood why the soldiers escorting her and Typhoon seemed defeated when Tern had admitted they’d been encamped in Camp Stratopolis for a month or two; the constant toll of battle, of clashing with what was essentially another legion as equally trained as they were with the benefit of a defensive posture, was chipping away at the morale and resolve of its soldiers.

What she also noticed, however, was the way that Typhoon turned heads as she followed Tern through the camp. As rumor became reality, the legionaries of Legate Winds’ army perked their ears, stood up, and slowly started to follow the procession. Whispers spread throughout the camp, growing in volume and strength as more pegasi joined the throng, and it wasn’t long before cheering replaced those whispers, adulation directed at the aging, armored mare who represented everything the Legion once was.

What Typhoon thought of it all, she didn’t say, but it wasn’t too hard for Sparrow to tell what it was from the way her feathers seemed to bristle against her armor. What Sparrow couldn’t understand, however, was why Typhoon seemed so loath to embrace it all. Even she knew that if the old soldier wanted to, she could assert command over this legion and use it to police the frontier as she wished. So why, if given the offer, would she turn it down?

The group suddenly came to a stop, distracting Sparrow from her musings, and though she generally had a slight height advantage over the shorter pegasi with her lanky unicorn limbs, it took her some craning of her neck to see past the forest of red and black plumed helmets surrounding her. Approaching from the other direction to meet them was an older stallion with ghost-white wings and wispy strands of a gray mane poking out under his black-plumed helmet. His armor, glistening with the luster that only skysteel could hold, was trimmed with a golden edge, and etched into his pauldrons were three feathers kinked in the shape of chevrons. Sparrow recognized that armor, having seen much of it when she stayed in Legate Singing Sparrow’s camp years ago, and she knew right away who it was that stopped in front of Typhoon.

Legate Lost Winds’ salute was more than just a military salute; as he spread his wings flat with the ground, he also slightly lowered his head, as if suggesting a bow to royalty. Typhoon seemed to stiffen in response, caught off guard by the sudden show of respect, and doubly so when the other pegasi accompanying the legate mimicked the motion. Like a ripple, it seemed to spread throughout the pegasi gathered around them, until it seemed like the entire camp had bowed their heads in Typhoon’s direction.

Typhoon’s response was strained. “What are you doing?” she asked, and even she flinched back at how loud the question seemed to be in the reverent silence that had swept through the camp.

At that, the legate raised his head and smiled warmly at Typhoon. “Welcome home, Commander. We’ve waited for this day for a long time. I always hoped that you would one day find your way to us. Dreamed of it, even.”

The old soldier narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “If you’re asking me to take command, then I cannot. The Legion is no more.”

“Ante Legionem nihil erat, et nihl erit post Legionem,” Legate Winds said, and in a surprising show of wing dexterity, brushed the trailing edge of his feathers over the twisted feathers on his pauldron. “The Equestrian Legion is no more, but the Cirran Legion survives. Born anew, perhaps, but surviving and growing, shaped by hardship like the hammer tempers steel. Equestria may have forsaken our ancestry, but the memory of Cirra lives on within us. And what would Cirra be without its empress to rule it?”

Comments

[RoboRed]

...Yeaahhhh...hate to break it to you, bud, some something tells me that if Typhoon doesn't want to command the Legion anymore, she wants to be empress of a new Cirra even less so.

[Rawislon03]

Damn, Cirra reborn but it’s an encampment out in the boonies stuck in a deathwar with an encampment of bandits. Hate to say it but I don’t think this iteration of Cirra isn’t going to survive long.

[_CheckMate_]

Yeah, maybe don't make your proclamation in public when you aren't sure what the object of your hero-worship's response is going to be. While morale will soar if they accept your command/offer/faction, it'll tank if they refuse. Best to ask them in a private command tent first so you can control the narrative or at least save face in the worst case scenario; it's the one of the reasons officers have secluded areas for meetings before they brief the troops, be it an office, a conference room, or even a covered tent in the field.