Pulling a carton of eggs out of the fridge, Kain slid a frying pan over the stoves element and turned the heat up. An egg soon slopped out of its shell and landed with a sizzle in the middle of the pan, its yoke burst and Kain cursed under his breath.

‘Eggs. Fucking eggs. I would kill for bacon… or beef, or jerky or… any meat. Fucking bitch.’

Just then a knock sounded at the door and Kain, recalling the events of yesterday, slowly slid his short out of its sheath.

‘Speaking of killing.’

Crossing the room and opening the door with his right hand while holding the sword in his left, Kain lowered his blade and sheathed it when he saw one of Celestia’s guards standing there. The guardsman was surrounded by other guardsmen that were all holding various long thin packages.

‘Your commission from Canterlot sir.’ The one who knocked said while eyeing Kain wearily.

Smiling Kain stepped forward and grabbed one of the packages, tearing off the wrapping revealed a short sword and the blademaster examined it critically.

Definitely well made, quite an edge, good weight and balance; excellent.

Waving a free hand at the door while weaving the sword around in the air to get a feel for it Kain instructed the guardsmen ‘Take them inside and leave them on the counter.’

Smiling to himself Kain stepped inside and drew blood on the edge of the short with the tip of his finger. The blood slowly ran down the blade and Kain watched its gradual progress. A polite cough distracted him from his haemoglobin and the blademaster looked up to see a soldier standing there looking at him with a frightened expression.

‘They came with a note from the princess sir.’ The other guards had already placed their packages on the counter top and the one standing before Kain held an envelope made out to the earth folk.

Snatching the envelope out of his hands Kain felt his good mood darken as he read its contents. Packages successfully delivered, the guards all filed out the door leaving Kain alone with his orders.

‘Fucking bitch.’ Kain muttered as he read the letter a second time. ‘Set your fucking agent to watch me and then expect me to train them to your bloody specifications.’
At least those specifications were more or less what I was going to do anyway.

Dropping the letter Kain returned to the stove and flipped his egg and turned the heat off. There was enough heat in the pan to finish the egg off so the man left it and turned towards the packages sitting on his counter. Adopting a childish grin Kain began to sort through them until he came across a long thin curved one sitting at the bottom of the pile. The man picked it up and tore off the wrapping to reveal what was beneath. Taking the handle in his hands Kain twirled it around in the air.

I Haven’t held one of these in ages.

‘This bring back memories.’ Kain mumbled to himself.

Gilda stepped out the front door of Carousel Boutique and down the steps into the wet street. It had been a rainy night so now the morning after puddles lined the sides of the streets and with the sun shining down, the scenery was quite nice. Perfect morning for hunting too, with the moisture caught in the soil, fresh tracks would be easier to spot and the water would attract a variety of creatures out of their homes. Really it was the perfect sort of morning for Gilda to spend in the woods setting snare for rabbits and tracking game to try out her new bow on, and that was what Gilda planned on doing, but first she had to deal with a few things.

‘Hey Gilda?’ Sweetie asked innocently a few steps behind Gilda. ‘Can I ask you a question?’

Sweetie was one of those few things Gilda had to deal with before she could go enjoy herself.

Gilda didn’t bother looking back as she spoke ‘Well you just did.’

‘Oh… Well can I ask another?’ Sweetie queried.
You just did again.

Flicking a little sleep out of her eye Gilda answered. ‘Yeah, why not?’ she had to play nice with Sweetie so answering a few questions didn’t seem that bad of a fate compared to say... aiding her in finding a cutie mark.

A letter had arrived from Celestia that morning telling Gilda to pick up another package at the post office. Apparently little Sweetie had ordered something in the mail too, to help with her crusading or whatever, so Rarity had asked Gilda if she’d be kind enough to escort the young girl to the post office while she picked up her own package. It wasn’t like Gilda was gonna say no when Rarity was flashing those eyelashes and giving her a smile that’d melt glaciers.

Skipping forward to walk along side Gilda, Sweetie asked her question ‘What’s your cutie mark?’

‘Don’t have one.’ Gilda’s strides were longer than the child’s so Sweetie was having trouble keeping pace.

‘You don’t have a special talent?’ The crusader asked sounding horrified ‘I thought everyone got a cutie mark? Oh no! What if I don’t have a special talent! What if I grow up to be like you?!’ the child was obviously panicking and her voice was starting to grate.

Gilda rolled her eyes ‘Shut up dude and stop panicking. Yeah I don’t have a special talent but that’s cause I’m a griffon, all folk get Cutie marks so don’t worry about growing up to be like me.’ Gilda blinked and looked over her shoulder at Sweetie ‘And the fuck is that supposed to mean? Grow up to be like me?’

Sweetie smiled innocently ‘nothing.’
Yeah Bullshit. I just got insulted by a fucking pre-schooler. You’re a mean little shit aren’t you?

‘Why don’t Griffons have Cutie marks?’ Trying to cover her insult with more questions Sweetie continued, or at least that’s what Gilda suspected she was doing.
Finally Celestias’ books come in handy.

Glad the she knew the answer to the question the griffon started to explain. ‘Folk get Cutie marks because they all have magic in them.’

Sweetie interrupted ‘No they don’t. Earth folk and winged folk can’t do magic.’

‘Yes they do.’ Gilda said irritated ‘Do you want to hear why or not?’

‘Yes.’ Sweetie answered hesitantly

‘Then shut up and listen.’ Gilda shook her head ‘Anyway, yeah, all folk have magic. Horned folk can cast spells and levitate shit so they’re magic is obvious and the one most people call magic. Your average mystic folk can manage things like basic levitation but a powerful one like Twilight can do all sorts of freaky shit like teleport or cast barriers.’

‘Sky folk can fly, despite having really small wings. They can also affect the weather and walk on clouds. The more powerful ones like say… Rainbow Dash or the wonder bolts can affect the laws of physics and fly at speeds that are flat out impossible or affect the weather.’

‘Then there’s earth folk who have the least magic, but what they do have makes them slightly stronger than other folk, the soil they touch more fertile, helps them grow plants and stuff. There’s a few legends about Earth folk who could throw rocks and soil around with their mind and stuff, but no one can really do that anymore. Most earth folk these days have almost no natural magic in them for whatever reason, but about the most powerful earth folk in these parts would have to be Applejack or Big Macintosh, or anyone from the Apple family really, those guys are really connected to the earth which is probably why they’re all so freaking big.’

‘Then there’s the Great folk who can do everything all the others can, and they can do it better too. They got strength from the earth folk, flight and speed from the sky folk and magic from the horned folk.’

Gilda turned to Sweetie expecting an argument ‘so all folk have some kind of magic right?’

The child simply nodded.

‘Well that’s what gives you a cutie mark. Your magic will one day recognise your special talent and slap that onto your thigh. Make sense?’

‘Yeah.’ The girl was smiling ‘But what about you?’

Gilda blinked ‘What about me?’

‘You can fly and walk on clouds.’

Gilda shook her head ‘ I used to be able to walk on clouds but that was cause I lived in Cloudsdale and hung around Sky folk so much that I soaked up a bit of their magic. Now if I wanted to go back there, someone would have to cast a cloud walking spell or I’d have to hang out with Dash a lot more. Griffons don’t have magic but they can pick up magic from folk if they’re around them enough. If me and Applejack got along better I might be able to grow some plants or something and I’d probably get a little stronger too.’

‘Oh’ Sweetie nodded in understanding ‘Hey you’ve been hanging out with Rarity right? So will you be able to do magic?’

Gilda shrugged ‘Yeah I’ve probably picked up some of her magic already, but not a lot and I’d never be able to do anything without a horn to focus it.’

‘Well… what if you were to hang out with a princess?’ Sweetie asked.

Gilda blinked.
I dunno, what if I did hang out with a great folk? That actually might happen. Would I get all the folk magic and more of it too?

‘I’m not sure.’ Gilda paused, she’d have to ask Celestia about that ‘but have you got any more questions?’

‘Yeah I have one.’ Sweetie seemed to be weighing her words a little ‘What’s a wing boner?’

Raising and eye brow Gilda turned to face Sweetie ‘You know what sex is right?’ she was searching Sweeties face for any sign of lying but Gilda knew she was terrible at reading people’s reactions.

Smiling Sweetie nodded ‘Yeah I do.’

Gilda thought about it for a second. On the one hand if the child didn’t know what it was then Gilda could be opening a real can of worms for Rarity, on the other hand if she did then it might be a good chance to suck up to Rarity through Sweetie. Eventually she decided to explain in such a way that included presumed knowledge, so if Sweetie didn’t know then she still wouldn’t know and if she did know than at least Gilda had helped her out.

Gilda shrugged ‘A wing boner’s a little bit of a myth. A sky folks wings are real sensitive to touch, so when they’re feeling ready but they don’t want to do anything about it they let their wings out a bit to stop them getting jerked by rubbing against their sides.’ Gilda chuckled ‘But if a Sky folks got their wings out for no reason, its cause they’re trying not to jerk themselves off.’

Sweetie nodded smiling. For the life of her Gilda didn’t know how much of that Sweetie had understood.
The child asked another question ‘What about Griffons? Are their wings real sensitive?’

‘Nah’ Gilda shook her head ‘We don’t have the same nerve clusters. But if you’re ever with a sky folk and really want to get them going massage their wings a bit. V used to love it.’ Gilda blinked.
I just said way too much. What if she goes and tries to jerk off one of her friends or something?

‘Oh…’ Sweeties eyes seemed distant ‘Ok.’ She returned to the moment ‘Hey Gilda, do you have a boyfriend?’

Gilda blinked ‘Nah… Not at the moment’ she answered cautiously.

‘Why not?’ Sweetie asked innocently.

‘Because I don’t want one.’ It was true.

‘Why not?’ Sweetie repeated.
Is she trying to get me to talk about my sex life?

Gilda was unsure how she should answer this ‘Um… Because I’m not… I don’t like guys in that way.’

‘Oh… So you’re gay?’ Sweetie asked smiling.

Gilda blinked.
Apparently she does know about the birds and the bees.

‘Yeah…’ The griffon answered slowly.

‘Do you have a girlfriend then?’

Gilda shook her head. The two were walking level now and the griffon could see the post office just coming into sight.

‘Why not?’

Gilda didn’t answer.

‘Do you want my sister to be your girlfriend?’

That almost made Gilda trip over, she turned to face the innocently smiling Sweetie Bell. ‘What?’

‘Well Rarity is really pretty and nice, if you did want to be her girlfriend you wouldn’t be the only one.’

Gilda opened her mouth to respond but couldn’t think of anything adequate to say. Eventually she just shook her head and lied ‘No I don’t want to be Rarity’s girlfriend and you shouldn’t say stuff like that out loud, it’s kind of personal.’

Sweetie just tilted her head to the side and looked at Gilda in a weird way. ‘Ok then.’ She then skipped past the griffon towards the post office. Gilda eventually caught up and walked through the door alongside her.

A cross eyed lady in a postmen’s uniform sat behind the counter ‘Good morning Sweetie, I have a package for you.’

The child broke into a grin ‘Good morning Ms Hooves. Is it big?’

The Derpy broke into a gentle smile ‘Not huge.’ then she turned to face the griffon, her smile dropping ‘Gilda’ she said coolly.

In flight school Gilda had known Derpy, while the cross eyed sky folk had been friendly to Gilda, the griffon had repeatedly told her to fuck off, eventually culminating in the use of the word retard. Apparently a line had been crossed and after that Derpy made no further attempts at friendship with Gilda. Now, however many years later, Derpy treated Gilda with indifference, which was fine by her.

‘Derpy’ Gilda nodded ‘you’ve got more packages for me?’

‘Yeah, two. I’ll go get them.’ The cross eyes lady turned around and headed into the back of the post office and came back a minute later holding three packages, holding one in front of her face and focusing an eye on it ‘This one’s for… Sweetie’ she placed the package in the young girls hands with a benevolent smile before turning to Gilda ‘And these are for you, ones from Canterlot as usual but the others from Cloudsdale.’ She placed both packages on the counter in front of Gilda.

Frowning Gilda muttered ‘Cloudsdale?’ and picked up the first package. The moment she saw the address from which it was sent she dropped the package on the counter ‘can you return that to sender?’ Gilda asked ‘actually I have a better idea, got a bin?’

Derpy nodded looking confused and pointed at a small dust bin in the corner.

Picking up the Cloudsdale package Gilda tossed it into the bin before turning around and picking up the package from Celestia, it was long and thin. Tucking it under her arm Gilda counted out some bits and dropped them on the counter.

‘Is that enough?’ she asked knowing that it was for three packages.

Derpy nodded looking over at the package in the bin then back at Gilda with a confused expression.

Gilda turned around and spotted Sweetie delicately lifting the discarded package from the dust bin ‘Hey!’

The child flinched and stood up quickly, dropping the package back into the bin.

‘Leave it!’ The griffon ordered. Striding forward and grabbing the child by the back of her shirt ‘come on; let’s get back to your sister.’

Standing in line with the others Rainbow couldn’t help but cast a wary eye between Gilda and Applejack. This was going to end really, really, badly. You didn’t need Pinkie sense to tell that. For her part Gilda was armed with two wooden short swords, Kains reasoning being that they were a bit closer to using a pair of knives and Gilda already had some experience with that, and Applejack with her usual hand and a half. It wasn’t the swords that concerned Rainbow though; it was the look AJ was giving Gilda. Now Rainbow wasn’t one to admit at being bad at anything, but one thing she knew she was terrible with was reading facial cues, but even she could read the look AJ was giving Gilda.
I’m gonna kill you.

No it really wasn’t hard to read that one.

Then the man of the hour, Kain himself stood to the side with a smug look on his face, as though he was just waiting for the blood to be forcefully ejected from Gilda’s body. Again not the best at reading facial cues but Rainbow could say with some certainty that Kain definitely wanted to see Gilda get hurt.

This was going to end badly.

‘What the fuck are you guys doing?’ an incredulous voice asked from behind the assembled spectators.

All the people in the clearing turned around and spotted Vinyl standing there at the entrance to the clearing.

For her part Vinyl looked as amused as she always did, ‘Damn that’s hot.’ She said aloud.

Kain still maintained his bare skin rules about fighting so all the assembled elements and griffon were wearing nothing from the waist up other than whatever bra they usually wore.

Vinyl stepped towards the group with her grin as wide as ever ‘Pinks, you’ve been working out, dropped off all that baby fat I see. Very nice.’

Pinkie brightened up under that assessment. It was true, under kain’s training she’d lost a lot of weight and was now looking fairly toned.

‘Who the hell are you?’ Kain asked angrily striding forward towards the DJ.

For her part Vinyl grinned and ignored the blademaster and looked towards Rainbow Dash ‘RD, this is where you hang out all day, and you swear you’re not gay? Oh and look at sweet little Fluttershy, are your wings fluffed out? Never would have thought you were into the group scene.’

Blushing furiously Fluttershy tried to hide her body with her wings and hands, hunching over to make herself smaller.

Kain strode up to the DJ ‘Who the fuck are you?’ he asked again sounding really pissed.

Holding out her hand for a shake the DJ answered ‘I’m Vinyl Scratch.’ Dropping her hand before Kain had a chance to respond Vinyl leaned over to look past him at Applejack and Gilda. ‘Oh! Is this a fight club? Ooh, Can I place a bet? Cause I’m putting my cash on the big chick, and I mean the one with cowboy hat, not the other actual chick with the feathers.’

‘No this is not a fight club.’ Kain said and stepped in front of Vinyl’s view ‘go away.’

Vinyl looked up at the taller man with a bemused expression ‘What are you doing here then? Is this like a cult? Cause I was totally in one of those.’

The man looked furious ‘I don’t care, now get out of here.’

Vinyl smiled again ‘Relax dude, I’m just here to talk to-’

Kain interrupted ‘I don’t care why you’re here; you can do what you came here to do later, but for now your problems can wait.’

Vinyl’s grin remained in place ‘Or I could just do it now?’ she raised her hands in a shrug before stepping around Kain. ‘Hey-’

Kains’ hand landed on her shoulder ‘Leave now or I’ll break your legs.’

Vinyls grin faltered and she stepped away from Kain ‘the fuck did you just say to me?’

Stepping out of the ring and using this as a chance to escape another beating session with Applejack, Gilda called out for everyone to hear. ‘Kain you and I both know you aren’t gonna do shit thanks to the penance.’

Looking towards Gilda Kain glared but remained silent.

‘So why don’t you drop the act and go actually train your students, you know, instead of trying to convince them to kill each other.’ Gilda was in Kains face now but was speaking loud enough for everyone to hear ‘I’ll take care of Vinyl and we can resume the practice sessions in peace.’

Kain was silent for a second before he spoke ‘You think you’re a badass or something cause you killed two people? You don’t want to mess with me little girl.’

Gilda laughed ‘I find it funny. You’re trying to insult me by calling me a girl, and this coming from the guy who got castrated. Insecurity much?’

Kain left eye twitched, his hand wrapped around the hilt of his sword and his jaw tightened.

‘Dude, you just got burned.’ Came from the DJ with a less than appropriate sense of mood and timing.

Gilda leaned in close ‘We both know you aren’t gonna draw that sword.’

Kain didn’t say anything, the two just stood there facing each other with everyone watching. Without another word the man turned away and walked towards the girls. Turning to talk to Vinyl the griffon started to say things that Rainbow couldn’t hear over the sound of Kain starting a lecture about sword maintenance. If Rainbow had been paying attention she might have noticed Kain handing out swords to the assembled girls, and not fake wooden ones but real steel.

‘Hey Rainbow, Vinyl wants to talk to you.’ Gilda called out and Rainbow left the group to talk to the DJ.

Approaching the two from the side Rainbow noticed the edge of a red tattoo sticking out from under Vinyls’ white tank top. ‘Hey Vinyl when did you get a tattoo?’ she asked as she closed the distance between them.

‘Tattoo?’ Vinyl asked sounding confused. ‘I don’t have any tattoos.’

‘Yeah you do, right here.’ Rainbow said turning vinyl around with her hands and pointing at the place where the ink poked out.

The DJ’s confident grin faltered and a grim look appeared on her face, only to replaced by the grin again a second later ‘Huh… Must have been a crazy night.’ She said with a chuckle.

Gilda who was also looking at Vinyls back shook her head ‘Nah, this is way too big for it to be a drunk stamp.’

The red tattoo was poking out on the other side of Vinyl’s tank top too, it must have crossed her entire back.

Vinyl turned around to face Gilda ‘Heh-heh, what can I say? I party hard.’ Her face took on a surprised expression as she saw something over Gilda’s shoulder.

Grabbing Gilda with her magic the DJ flung Gilda and herself to the side just as Rainbow felt something woosh threw the air to her left. Landing with a thunk in a tree on the opposite side of the clearing a short sword was embedded in the wood.

On the other side of the clearing stood Applejack with and outstretched hand and an angry look on her face, the others in the group stood shocked except for Kain who was laughing his ass off. Gilda climbed to her feet glancing between the sword and Applejack looking frightened.

Rainbow glanced between her two friends in horror ‘AJ! You could have fucking killed her!’

‘I know.’ was all Applejack said as she calmly belted on a sword sheath and slid a long curved sword into it.

And that’s the end of chapter 15. The second shortest chapter to date. To be honest I didn’t pot much effort into this chapter. I was distracted by other fics I was working on and left this to the last minute.