My Little Fortress: Dawnpick

by Paaaad

14: Personal backstories start to emerge.

15th Opal

Falcata sauntered into the barracks, finding it empty as she'd expected, since there was no sparring matches or training scheduled right then. With a quick glance around and a kick to the door to shut it, she sighted what she'd been looking for. The Touch of Leaves, that masterwork shield that Barley had made a good while back. She'd been in the hospital when it had been triumphantly revealed to everypony, and she'd wanted to get a good look at it for a while now.
Now that she could see it for herself, hanging proudly on the wall, she saw that people hadn't even been exaggerating about its quality. Rings of iron and steel studs on perfectly tanned leather? Almost like a chainmail shield; what a marvellous idea! Not being a unicorn, she could never use it, but hey, didn't mean she couldn't appreciate form blended perfectly with function, did it? The little picture of Dawnpick's foundation was rather nice, too. The magnetite's lustre really contrasted well with the leather's more natural texture. Was that an astute artistic observation or just meaningless flowery descriptive crap, she wondered to herself. Whatever, it was pretty.
She poked it with a forehoof, listening to the clinking and jingling of the iron rings as the shield swung gently back and forth. Her mind quickly wandered, being an easily distracted sort of pony, and she found herself thinking about the shield's current bearer, that strange unicorn, Glaive. With his beard. She'd thought only buffalo could have such fine quantities of facial hair, but he'd proven her wrong. A nice pony, too, that one. One of the only ponies who'd taken the time from his busy schedule to come visit her and Sarissa when they'd been stuck in hospital, and he'd seemed pretty cut up about it too. She remembered he'd been adamant that he'd been at fault for her injury, though for the life of her she couldn't figure out why he'd felt that way. A really nice guy; maybe too nice for the often-grim job of hacking things to pieces.
In fact, bugger this. She'd hardly spoken to anyone all day; probably all a bit spooked by the way she'd gone slightly mental and violently strewn bits of eyeball all over a cave. She'd never bothered to thank him for coming to visit her, either.
She abruptly turned on her hoof, having reached a decision, letting the shield swing to a halt as she skimmed gracefully out the door, heading off to find Glaive.

As Falcata searches for Glavie she spots him walking into the dining hall. He sticks his head in and appears to look around and then turns back out, he looks disappointed but then he spies Falcata approaching from the barracks. He walks toward her and says,

"Hello, and good afternoon Falcata, how are you doing today?"

She tilts her head slightly, curious. Who's he looking for, hm? Somepony I should know?
"I'm fine, thank you, Glaive," she replies warmly, stopping just beside him. "How've you been yourself? Training hard, I hope?" She smiles, and gestures with a foreleg to the hall beyond the open doors.
"Shall we? That is, if you're not busy looking for somepony...?" She tails off, curious to hear his answer.

"I've been fine, keeping busy. Trying to get some practice in with my new shield before the next raid, you know."

Glavie sees her gesture to the doors.

"I was actually looking for you. I thought I'd ask you to join me for dinner. If you don't mind that is." he smiles sheepishly.

She flushes, her face tinged crimson with surprise, but recovers quickly enough.
"I'd be delighted," she said, a grin breaking out on her face. "So, uh, let's go?"
She leads the way into the hall, swishing her tail contentedly as she goes.

Glaive holds the door to the dining hall with his magic for Falcata, they find a table to themselves, and get some food and drink. After they get settled...

"So...how's your hoof doing? Panacea had you staying off it for quite some time."

In answer to his question, she waves the forehoof in question about vigorously.
"Fine, really. Healed up perfectly and all; I guess it wasn't that hard for me to recover after getting plenty of practice with my chest wound." She giggles slightly, surprising even herself by being not at all unhappy at the memory. "The worst bit was having to stay in that bed for so long. I don't know how a unicorn like yourself would take it, but pegasi just aren't meant to be cooped up so long. At least you could, I dunno, practice some magic, but wings don't exactly lend themselves well to a long stint of inaction."
She buries her face in a plate of food, unabashedly ravenous.
"So," she mumbles, mouth full, "how's the shield? And good job on earning it, too. Really brave of you to chase that snatcher so far from the fort like that."

"The shield is a true work of art. Light but very strong." Glaive takes a bite of his food and a sip of drink. "I'm honored to be chosen to wield it, but I don't know about having really earned it. I just happened to be closest to the snatcher, I did what anypony would have done. I'm no hero."

As he talks about the attempted foalnapping he rubs his bum leg where that snatcher's knife cut him.

She snorts in disagreement, but starts smiling. What a gentlecolt; so modest about it!
"Still, would others have run so far? There could have been more of them out there; surely you thought about that? And yet you kept on going, never giving up. I think you're being too hard on yourself."
She lets the matter drop, interested in something else.
"So, I bet you get this a lot, but I have to ask," she queries tentatively, fidgeting, "...what's with the beard?"

He laughs at the question.

"Ha Ha, Yes, I do get that a lot. I know most ponies can't grow one, but it runs in my family, hells, I've got a second cousin in the capital named Star-Swirl with one twice as long and thick as mine. Great Grandpa used to say that we had Buffalo blood in us, that caused it, but he was a little senile and I don't know if it's true."

"That reminds me of a story. When I was younger I didn't much care for the beard, so one day I tried to trim it, but I shaved it too close to the skin. Ha, if I get strange looks as a bearded pony, that's nothing to the looks I got with a bald face. Oh the embarrassment."

Glaive laughs at himself.

"But well, the beard has grown on me since then, if you'll pardon the pun. And it's more trouble to keep at the normal length than I'm willing to deal with."

Glaive takes a large swig of his drink.

"So, where are you from Falcata? What brings a Pegasus like you out to a middle of nowhere mining town?"

She submerges her face in her drink, guzzling plenty, before resurfacing to answer:
"Pretty much the same way I imagine most everypony else got here. The King heard word that Dawnpick was up and running, I guess, and soon enough posters asking for volunteers to venture out and help make it into a proper town were put up everywhere. I was just a low-ranking axepony in the city guard, and there's really no need for one so big back at Coupledye; it's practically crime-free. So, naturally, being young and headstrong, I made the decision to migrate. After all, sounded like a great little adventure to me," she says, rolling her eyes a bit.

Jaxler gets out of bed and looks out the window, he looks at the shadow of a tree in relation to the north and says to him self "damn its only 3 p.m." he gets out and picks up his ax and thinks to himself "another day of felling trees" he goes out and starts hacking them 1 by 1, another day of the mundane the only thing making him wish to keep on hacking is the fact that he overheard halberd and Partisan talking about new recruits and whom they would put in the militia, he heard his name come up and was convinced that he would be drafted, he knew he would be put in the squad and he knew that his plan could finally move forward, so he hacked and slashed as he calculated his next step, he knew it was his time, he was ready to move up the ranks of the military as he did before, and as the day was reaching an end his ax was many times duller then it was hours before. Then he saw a small earth pony whom he had seen around the fort walk up to him, before Jaxler to could say hello the pony ran up to him and told him he had been drafted, and he was to stop his eternity chopping trees, take the day off, and report for training the next day. Jaxler made a smile and he looked at the pony in the eyes, his dark red piercing eyes looking deeply into his soul and said with a dark voice, "oh... that's just perfect", the small earth pony looked at him wondering why he was glad to be drafted.

Jaxler then retired to the tavern picked up some rum and gladly drank it, he then looked across the room and saw two ponies enjoying a drink together, he decides not to intervene, and continues to drink his 3rd barrel of rum. He then looks outside after downing the barrel and looks to the moon and says "good only 9 P.M." he looks across the room and thinks about those in the room. He sees a militia alicorn, two other militia members sharing a drink, Virtue and her lover, another black Pegasus names Cleaver or something, and a rather small child. He curses to himself disgusted by the alicorn, he then decided to drink his brains out in celebration of his military future (and to help him forget about the alicorn's presence in the room) Jaxler then gets up to go grab a barrel of raspberry wine. When he came back the alicorn moved to his seat. Jaxler looked across the room to the alicorn with his blood red eyes, and the alicorn said, "I just heard you got drafted". Jaxler was pissed, he was only half buzzed and now his seat had been stolen from him, but most of all his shear hatred of alicorns fueled his rage. His deep red eyes looked deeply into those of the alicorn. He walks up to the alicorn with a bright happy smile he says, "you know that's my seat right?” The alicorn says "is it really anypony's seat" Jaxler then patted her on the back made a smile and said "your right" and bucked the winged unicorn in the eye knocking her out, sat down at his seat, laughed and continued to drink his booze finally giving him the desired level of drunk.

The two ponies (Falcata and Glaive) get up while the rest of the room stares at him. "What? I like this seat". Falcata punches him in the face, Jaxler doesn't move an inch and says "Uh... Ow why'd ya do that?" Stiletto was coming to as Jaxler took another two punches not even flinching, Jaxler then says "I'm not gonna be subdued unless you actually use your weapon... or you stop hitting me, and talk it out... and if you keep hitting me I’d love to punch you in the face" all said with a clam voice as another punches flies through the air and hits him in the face. Stiletto now fully awake grabs Jaxler by the neck. Jaxler hits the ground knocked out.

Sitting back down, Glaive decides to ignore the recent outburst, and to just try to return to his conversation, and to his dinner.

"So, uh, we where talking about how you came here, and you where rolling your eyes. Do you regret the decision now that your here?"

Falcata was enjoying herself. She was having a great night, and was just finishing a complex eyeball manoeuver when she was interrupted by what felt like a brick wall.
Upon sitting up and conducting a closer inspection of the newly arrived problem, she found that Stiletto had apparently decided to pay them a visit. Violently. And unconscious.
She was understandably very unhappy with this, but was interrupted yet again from shouting at the other mare by the sound of somepony laughing. Possibly at her. Oh, boy.

She felt herself being lifted from the ground, a rictus of magic playing about her; Glaive, a true gentlecolt in his own right, was giving her a helping horn. She turned to thank him, but caught sight of the offending source of sound. Some black-coated, red-maned pegasus (Ashwood? She wondered briefly, before deciding she didn't care) seemed to find the whole situation hilarious. Presumably he'd been the one to send Stiletto on her unannounced visit.
Now, normally, Falcata considered herself very slow to anger. In fact, she saw her extraordinarily long fuse as a strong point of her character. However, she didn't even bother thinking about this as she rocketed across the room, in a fury and oblivious to her surroundings. She impacted thunderously with the offending pegasus, and didn't even bother trying to explain herself to him. She just started trying to silence the uncouth idiot with a few well aimed hoofblows, knocking him off his seat onto the floor.
Or at least, that was the intention. He wasn't moving at all despite her flurry of blows, and she was a bit worried, to tell the truth. "Not moving" was a new one on the list of things which happened to other things when she hit them, at least for a lightweight pegasus. He was saying something, too, but for some reason she couldn't hear him. Then she noticed the magical field surrounding him, holding him firmly in place and explaining his lack of movement. That matter sorted, she turned round to see exactly what other new development she'd have to deal with.
She saw a very, very angry alicorn radiating intense magical energy. Small bolts of energy played about her horn as she flew unerringly towards the troublemaker, and Falcata felt herself pushed away by her magic.
"Sit, please." intoned Stiletto, in glacial tones. "I will handle this."
Falcata did not want to sit please; she wanted to incapacitate the insolent pup who'd interrupted her dinner before going back to any kind of sitting. The alicorn's gaze and unearthly voice, though, were enough to convince her that it was probably best to do otherwise, and so she retreated back to her table rather quickly. Alicorns were scary, and she'd be surprised to see the other pony in one piece come tomorrow.

Stiletto walks from the dining hall with Jaxler in magical tow, stoically ignoring the intense ache in her eye. She imagined she could feel a little blood trickling from the corner of her eye, but she really didn't care. This insolent stallion wasn't going to just get away with this, drunk or not.

Now, the question was, should she handle it herself? Let Virtue handle it, or hand him over to one of the captains? Partisan has been bumped up to captain of a new rapid response force and that's who Jaxler had been assigned to, but Halberd or Naginata would probably be a bit more creative on how to handle this. Virtue could find out about it later. She was a bit soft about these things, if Stiletto had to guess.

Huh, come to think of it, they didn't even have a jail yet. Hadn't needed one. Why did this pony have to come and mess that up? Had to happen eventually, she imagined.

Well, this time of night, Halberd, Naginata and Partisan wouldn't be on duty, so she'd just tie him up somewhere maybe. They could deal with him in the morning, and he'd have some time to think about what he'd done.

Falcata bounced back down in her seat, flushed red from the embarrassment and exertion.
"Oh dear, sorry, thanks for helping me up, sorry, I just, I don't like seeing someone, Stiletto, getting, um..." she tried to apologise, getting muddled after only two words and promptly giving up on the idea. "Yeah, um, sorry."
Glaive tactfully ignored the recent outburst, and asked her a question.
"Oh, no, no! It's great here, really; most everypony is nice and there's plenty to get up to! It's just that, on reflection, I should probably have put more thought into the decision, even though I'm glad I made it, if you know what I mean." she replied, calming herself down.

Glaive smiles.

"Yeah, I know what you mean. I came here for similar reasons. To understand why I came you need a bit of background. You see, being a soldier is just part of being in my family. Has been for generations now, it's what we're good at."

He gestures to his cutie mark, a pair of crossed bronze axes, behind a steel kite shield.

"It's in the blood you know. Growing up there was no question that I'd join the army just like my Pa and his Pa before him, and his Pa before him and so on. I didn't always like that, having my future just decided for me before I was old enough to make up my own mind, obviously I came around to the idea, but well that's another story for another time."

"I came to Dawnpick after completing my first tour of duty in the army. A dreadfully uninteresting campaign, I'll have to bore you about it some other-time. I had dreams of coming here to the 'edge of civilization' and carving a name for myself. Honor and Glory and all that, with a big adventure, an enemy worth fighting, and a fortune to be made. The things every young bored soldier dreams about I'd imagine. I've been in Dawnpick a little over a year, and while I don't regret coming here for an instant. It wasn't what I was expecting."

She laughs shakily, recognising the feeling.
"I know what you mean. The first six months or so were pretty much what I was expecting, what with the patrols and training and such, but spending another age in hospital definitely counts as unexpected."
She sighs, fixing her gaze on the floor, her mood becoming more serious and less jaunty than before.
"Like I said, there was never much to do in the capital. I was never really challenged back home, and that certainly came round to bite me in the tail out here. I can't let that happen again - ever. It sure seems like an adventure when you're packing your bags, eager to set out, but it's a harsher reality than that. Lives depend on me and my skill with the axe; that's something I've come to realise, something that never crossed my mind before I came out here.
Having said all that, though, I wouldn't dream of going back for an instant. Not even for a second. This place is my home now."
She glances at his cute mark, pensive.
"I notice the axes sit behind the shield. Does that symbolise you as a protector, a defender?"

"Ay, that it does. I said I wasn't always sure I wanted to be a soldier, well their was an event in my foalhood that changed that. It's, not an event I like to talk about. But suffice it to say, I learned that day, that often it's not about fighting to kill your enemy, it's about fighting to protect something or somepony worth protecting."

"Aye, but this conversation has taken a turn toward the somber, let's talk about something else. What about you? What's your family like?"

Falcata smiles, flicking her mane out of her eyes before replying.
"Well, my dad travels as a guardspony with the merchant caravans between the capital and the zebra lands. A great, big, happy, boisterous earth pony by the name of Zweihander. I guess you could sum him up as a bit of a gentle giant, but he's more like a bear if you were to raise his hackles. My mum, Cirra, she used to be a long range courier pegasus for a couple of important types high up in the nobility. Not any more, though, she's not up to flying so many leagues these days."
Again, she plunges into her plate of food, taking a huge mouthful before continuing:
"I never really saw that much of my mum; she was almost always off delivering some missive to somewhere strange and far away. My dad, though, he was always around; the caravans only run once a year, and even when they did he'd take me with him. The whole "guarding" thing was almost a formality; there's not that much danger along the road, strewn with guard posts, checkpoints and small villages as it is."
"When I said that I wanted to go off on this expedition, they were all for it, my dad especially. He was so proud to see me following in his hoofsteps, and I hope I do him proud."
She finishes speaking, dipping her face back into her beverage and guzzling some more down.

"Your dad should be proud of you. You're an amazing fighter, just think of what you did to those evil eye things."

Glavie waits for a moment as Falcata takes another bite of her food.

"uh, You've got a bit of food on your face, here." Says Glavie telekinetically lifting a napkin to her. He pauses for a moment, considering to himself whether it would flirtatious or creepy to wipe it off himself. His impulse to do it himself overrides his possibly better judgement and he gently wipes the smudge from Falcata's face, with the napkin. He immediately has second thoughts, and braces for her response.

She giggles, slightly amused at how obviously he tensed up, thinking he might have offended her.
"Thanks," she says brightly, not done yet. "You forgot about your own face, though. Right there," she says, gesturing.
Glaive rubs the napkin over the spot indicated, momentarily obscuring his vision. When he finishes, before he can ask if he got it off or not, he notices that a large bite of his dessert has mysteriously disappeared, with the pony opposite him trying desperately to keep a straight face.
"Yes?" she asks, innocently.

He chuckles.

"Ah, as sneaky as you are strong. I like that. But if you wanted a bite you could have just asked."

He rips a piece of his cupcake off with his magic and floats it toward her.

"Want another piece?"

She rolls her eyes in an exaggerated manner. "No, silly, it tastes much nicer when you're not being offered it!"
That said, she quickly grabbed the rest of his cupcake, which he'd left sitting on the table, and scoffed it down, eyes twinkling with amusement. The small chunk was left hanging in the air, now the only remnant of the once-majestic chocolatey treat.

"...Is that so?"

Glaive pops the floating bit of cupcake into his mouth, swallows it, and smiles at her.

Their meal now complete, Glaive looks around at all the other ponies talking, drinking, having a good time, and generally making a lot of noise in the dinning hall.

"It's so noisy in here. You know, I've got a bottle of wine back in my room that you could try and snatch from me next."

He gestures a hoof toward the door, with a hopeful look on his face.

She raises an eyebrow, before taking off, hovering a few inches above the floor.
"I like wine,' she says. "A lot."
She glides smoothly over to the doorway, holding it open while watching as Glaive gets up and follows her. They exit the hall together, talking animatedly as they proceed along the corridor towards the promised wine bottle.

The next morning:

Jaxler woke up chained to a tree and says "damn its only 2 P.m., Ug why don't I remember anything after punching that alicorn last night, AW FUCK THE SUN, aw my eyes... oh now I know, I must have blacked out after that forth barrel of wine, but why am I chained to a tree, oh the DAMN alicorn must have gotten up and done something while I was blacked out (had to wait for me to get knocked out... coward, can't just let a pony black out in peace, O SHIT HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET TO THE TRAINING SESSION, shit my head, I should try not yell like that again, ug what do I do about this god damn chain, hay why is that guy walking to me... in armor, oh there is two, wait three, wait... oh shit ether I'm getting punished, executed, or released. Man this hangover should be enough punishment... " Then he yelled with a happy calm voice "HAY YA HOW YALL BEEN, NICE TO SEE YOU GUYS, AM I GETTING EXECUTED!"... Ah damn why did I yell..."

"So... am I getting killed or not pleas te" Jaxler suffers a huge blow to the head knocking him unconscious. A few minutes after having been knocked unconscious Jaxler awoke and said "hay really now... a bag over my head, that's kinda cliché" Jaxler then thinks to him self "man the way the wind is blowing... they're taking me west... well at my hangover wore off... now I can think straight, odds are they aren't gonna kill me for battery, so I best avoid any more physical conflict, I guess I could run/fly if things did get bad for me. Man they knew what they were doing, these ropes are so tight I can barely feel my wings, OW... really another blow to the head, I guess I could play dead and force the damned man who's hitting me to drag me the distance... well at least they undoubtedly think I'm just another stupid drunk who’s only concern is to find another barrel of rum, that makes shit a lot easier, Ow... oh... man my wings, I hate being bound like this, Ow... I can't see any light coming through my bag, and the wind stopped, and looks like the man positioned me on a seat... well there about to take off this bag, I can't wait to see who they are" (Jaxler’s blood red eyes start to nearly glow with hate as bag gets lifted from his head).

Jaxler Then for the first time in his stay in Dawnpick shows his fear on his face as the he sees those around him, but he quickly recovers and shows a strait face as if he were waiting. Then Jaxler says "so... I thought battery wasn't such a high profile crime down here" as a grin moves across his face "I hope you know I don't feel much pain". Jaxler put out a laugh as if to challenge all in the dark room as his eyes dilate into a near serpent like shape then Jaxler says with his deep dark voice "I’d love to see you try to make me feel REAL pain" Jaxler's eye's looked into each of his holders eyes, penetrating there very souls with pure hate, his smile then widens as he lets out a small chuckle... Jaxler's punishment has begun.

Comments

[ray10k]

I understand you are mostly copying the thread, but Jaxlers' parts stand out like a sore thumb due to the horrible grammar. Could you please consider fixing them?

[Paaaad]

According to Microsoft Word, It should be all fixed now.

[BestinDworld]

2280176 lord of the rings meme goes here

"one does not simply punch an alicorn"