7th day of Sun's Height
455 Years after the Defeat of Discord by the Sisters

“Breathe!” The old griffin barked, as Pallas tried to hold an awkward pose on her two back legs. One back leg, really. Her wings were spread wide for what balance she could get, though she was having to fight to stay upright.

“I am breathing!” Pallas growled, almost falling over.

“Height gives an attacker an advantage,” the griffin explained. “Striking from above forces your enemy down and breaks their guard. Rearing up gives you that advantage even when you can’t take flight, and that means you have to learn to balance on your back legs.”

“It leaves my belly exposed!” Pallas said. “That’s the weakest point of any armor!”

“You’ve got front hooves!” The old bird slapped her forehooves with his cane. “Don’t ignore them. Strike with all of your limbs like the octopus who plays the drums.”

“I thought you were teaching me how to fight with a sword, not how to box!”

“A poor swordsbird only fights with a sword. I beat you with a stick, if you’ll remember.” He tapped her chest with the end of his cane. “If you only learn to fight one way, you develop weaknesses. When I was a young bird, I used to travel around and learn from other swordsbirds.

“One went on about how he used a longer blade, because it gave him greater reach and more power. He died when he had to fight inside, where his blade couldn’t be used properly.

“Another used two short blades, with the intent of getting inside the opponent’s guard to attack. She was killed when she had to fight several opponents at once.

“The wisest of the birds I learned from, he told me that he didn’t have a favorite. He’d learned the sword, the spear, the bow, and even how to fight with talon and beak, because they all had their uses and it was a poor craftsbird who tried to solve every problem with the same tool. He lived a very long time.”

“...But if you learned from so many flawed ideas, doesn’t that make your ideas flawed too?” Pallas asked, wobbling as she tried to keep her balance as she spoke.

“No idea of fighting is perfect,” the old bird shrugged. “I’ve heard masters boast of knowing a thousand sword strike, and masters boast of practicing one sword stroke a thousand times.”

“Great,” Pallas groaned.

“That said,” the old bird smirked. “There are a few things I happen to think are true. First, it’s extremely impolite to take more than one blow to decapitate your enemy. One thing I’ve always seen as a bad idea is when someone decides they’re going to cut their opponent more than once. If you’re intent on making multiple strikes, it means most of them are worthless. You should make every cut count. Your opponent should weep with the beauty of it, even as their head falls away from their body.”

“I don’t think fighting can really be beautiful,” Pallas mumbled.

“It’s as beautiful as any dance,” the old bird said. “Under all those bad habits and rough edges you’ve developed, there’s some actual potential. It’s something I don’t see in many, in this day and age.” His expression twisted into a scowl. “Don’t let it get to your fool head, though. Potential goes to waste sometimes.”

“Like a dance?” Pallas bit her lip, thinking back to a ball that seemed so very, very long ago now. When things looked like they were getting better instead of worse.

“Mm. Just like one. Sometimes you’re the leader, sometimes you’re the follower. A good dancer can make either work. You have to learn the flow. It’s how I beat you. You’re big and slow. If you try and set the pace like that, someone faster can run rings around you. When your opponent is faster than you, the smart thing is to be defensive, wait for them to overextend themselves, and strike when their speed can’t help them.”

“You’ve gotten a lot more wordy lately,” Pallas smiled.

The old bird frowned and kicked her metal leg. Pallas yelled in surprise and fell to the ground in a heap.

“And you’ve still got a lot to learn,” the griffon muttered. “Maybe I should make you stand on your front legs for a while. If you do a headstand maybe some brains will finally fall out.”

Bianca took a deep breath. She was trying to relax, despite the heat of the desert and the annoying stinging pain of her sunburns. Even with the cloak she’d borrowed from Resplendent Shadow, her sensitive skin had burned badly. They’d taken shelter in a half-collapsed building that had once been an inn, sunlight pouring in through a crumbling wall and over dusty seats and tables. Bianca sat in the corner, with the cloak over her like a tent, trying to get some sleep.

It reminded her of how Pallas had suffered with her burns from fighting the dragon in Everfree, though much less noble. Bianca was pretty sure there weren’t any epic tales about ponies who got sunburned, but there were a lot about ponies fighting dragons.

“Come on, Luna,” Bianca whispered, as she forced her breathing to slow. “I need to know that everything is okay…”

She could feel herself starting to drift away to sleep, but it wasn’t easy. As tired as she was, part of her wanted to stay in a restful, dreamless sleep. Using the dreaming for communication was almost as tiring as undertaking a journey in the real world. The body couldn’t recover, and the mind found no rest.

Bianca opened her mind’s eye, and looked over her personal corner of the dreaming. It was a bubble only as large as her own perceptions and imagination, a world that only existed while she was looking at it. To a dreamer, it would seem natural, the haze of the dreaming smoothing out the flaws that became obvious to a lucid observer.

Bianca’s dream started in the same place it always did, in her old home, built deep into the rock to shield it from the cold of the glacier outside. Bolts of bright fabric hung from the stone walls, showing scenes from around Equestria. The real ones had been drab and cheap, but here in the dream they were so bright that they were more like windows to tropical paradises, green forests, and fields of flowers.

“Luna,” Bianca whispered. This was the furthest she’d gotten into the dreaming since they’d gotten to the Empire. “I have to find her,” she said, out loud.

Bianca looked at the wall hangings carefully. Luna had helped her practice visualizing them as portals to other places, but she was still finding it difficult to enter the dreams of ponies she didn’t already know well.

A silvery light caught her eye. One of the hangings behind her was a scene at night, with the moon hanging low over the landscape. Bianca could feel a pull towards it, like a flow of water trying to drag her towards where she needed to go. It was something the Dreaming did, directing ponies to where they needed to go. Even Luna wasn’t sure how or why it worked as it did.

“Luna!” Bianca yelled, jumping into the image. She passed through it with a sensation like splashing into a pool of water, plunging into the new scene and sending ripples through it with her presence.

The dream changed around her. She was overlooking a steep drop into the sea. There was something solid about this dream, not the stability that a true dreamer brought, but instead the solid foundation of a memory, the dream building from it like vapor rising from ice as it sublimated.

“Does she suspect anything?” Asked a cold voice that made Bianca shiver. She turned to see a blurry figure, vaguely suggestive of Night Guard armor. She could sense it as the source of the memory, though it remained formless, impossible to identify. It was one of the main differences between a dream and a memory - ponies almost never thought about their own bodies in memories, while in dreams their forms were created with the same burst of imagination as the rest of the world.

“No,” said a voice, distorted and unfamiliar. It was probably the way the speaker heard themselves. “I have Luna’s full trust.”

“Excellent,” replied the second voice. Bianca edged closer, not wanting to disrupt the memory by interrupting anything. The blurry figure at the cliff’s edge was holding a small crystal sphere, and reflecting from it was a different scene, a mare’s face in a stone room.

“Sirocco Mandala…” Bianca whispered, recognizing the mare in the crystal ball.

“We have been in contact with Emperor Zephyranthes,” Sirocco said. “In exchange for disavowing Luna’s actions and providing him with intelligence, he is willing to sign the amended peace treaty.”

“He’s sending an army here,” the blurry figure said. “If we don’t do something, a lot of ponies will be killed.”

“It’s for the greater good,” Sirocco said. “Not every death is a waste. Luna would sacrifice them no matter what actions we take. All we can do is try to make sure the lives are spent well, to further the cause of Harmony.” Her tone softened, and she tilted her head, her expression unreadable. “I know it has been difficult for you, Loyalty. You are the only one we could trust with this.”

“I don’t like spying on Luna,” the distorted voice said quietly. “She means well, even if she is misguided.”

“Celestia has decided that she needs to be allowed to walk her own path,” Sirocco said. “Her invasion will fail and she will return home without her most fanatical supporters. We’ve already brokered peace with Zephyranthes, and this will secure peace from her as well.”

“I know,” Loyalty hesitated. “I should go. If I speak too long I may attract attention.”

“Understood. Elements of Harmony guide you, Loyalty.”

Bianca crept closer to the shrouded figure. A hoof reached out to touch it and-

She was suddenly jolted awake. Resplendent Shadow was looking down at her.

“We need to go,” Shadow said. “It’s almost nightfall, and Fluttering Moth says she saw movement in the distance.”

“I almost had it!” Bianca yelled, pouting.

“Had what?” Shadow frowned. “Were you able to contact Nightmare Moon?”

“No, I thought I could sense Luna, but the Dreaming took me somewhere else. I saw something big, Shadey!”

“My name isn’t Shadey,” Resplendent Shadow muttered.

“One of the soldiers with Luna has been working for Celestia all along! They’re spying on her and she’s giving the information to the Emperor!”

“That’s impossible,” Shadow scoffed. “There’s no way Celestia would do something like that.”

“I know what I saw,” Bianca said. “I have to tell Luna. I think the soldier was on a cliff, looking out to sea.”

“That would mean Luna hasn’t gone north yet,” Shadow frowned.

Fluttering Moth landed quickly, ducking into the building, her hooves surprisingly heavy on the stone floor. She looked panicked, checking the sky behind her as she set down.

“It’s an army!” Moth said. “I thought it might have been ours for a minute, but it’s the griffons! I didn’t think they even had this many troops left! I don’t think I was seen, but I don’t want to risk it. We should clear out before they get close.”

“Are they coming this way?” Shadow asked.

“No. They’ll be close, but the bulk of the army is swinging west. Doesn’t mean scouts won’t spot this building and check it, though, and I don’t want be here if they do.”

“They’re going after Luna,” Bianca said. “I saw in the dream that Zephyranthes was using the information from the spy to send an army after her. Celestia is going to let him defeat us in exchange for a peace treaty!”

“If we follow the army, we can find Luna,” Shadow said. “We’ll need to be very careful and keep our distance.”

10th day of Sun's Height
455 Years after the Defeat of Discord by the Sisters

Pallas swung her blade through the waterfall, focusing on keeping her swing level despite the push of the falling water. It was relaxing, with the weight of the water against her wing and trying to slow her strike. The cold had stopped bothering her, and she hadn’t lost her temper and tried to kill the old bird in a while.

It had been at least an hour. Maybe even two. Practically a record, especially with the abuse he was still heaping onto her.

“Stop making all that noise!” The griffon barked. Pallas frowned.

“I’m sorry if I’m making it hard to hear a feathering waterfall-” Pallas started, though she shut up when she saw his expression. He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking off into the distance, focused in a way she hadn’t seen since he’d beat the horseapples out of her.

Pallas looked back, trying to see what he was looking at. Her sensitive ears twitched as she heard it. A whistling of wind, distinct against the still air. She lept up, swinging her wingblade, and felt something deflect down and into the stream, a steel bolt as long as a pony vibrating where it had impaled itself into the rocky bed of the stream.

“I think we have a problem,” Pallas said, landing and backing towards the treeline. The brush was thick enough to conceal them, and the trees might be dense enough to shield them until they could come up with a plan.

“I knew I’d have an assassin after me one of these days,” the old bird muttered. “Last time it was some fool with a metal claw on a chain. I tied him up with it and threw him down the ravine.”

“Get to cover, you idiot!” Pallas yelled, as she threw herself behind a tree, a bolt slamming into the wood just as she got to safety.

“I’m not going to run when I’m being attacked in my own home!” The griffon yelled. Pallas’ ear twitched as she heard it again. She was too far from the griffon to protect him. He turned almost instantly, and Pallas winced.

The bolt vibrated in his grip, talon closed on it just behind the wide, crystal-edged head. Pallas’ jaw dropped in surprise.

“Not bad,” said a voice, tinny and with an odd ringing tone to it. An oblong crystal was lashed to the bolt near the fletching, glowing as the voice came from it. “Usually all it takes is one shot, but you need some extra attention. Tell the pony she should leave now. She got lucky last time I winged her, but she’s not my target today.”

“Arrogant little…” the old bird grabbed the glowing crystal before taking cover behind a tree. “Your surprise attack failed, girl. Give it up before I find you and shove your bow so far up your flank you’ll shoot arrows out of your mouth when you try to talk!”

“Cheeky,” the voice said. “I’d like to see you try. You won’t even get close. I’m not like the assassins your father sent before. My name is Abrolhos, of the Four Directional Winds, and I’m here to kill you.”

Author's Notes:

And we're over 100k words! It's practically a milestone!