Far ahead of the stallions, Commander Xena’s retrieval party had reached the ‘site where Night Bomber’s body still lay. There had been little that could be done to stop the decay - only Nyx was possessed of magic that could effect such a remarkable feat, so those with a stronger constitution attended to his corpse while the others veered east, towards a grove of sycamore trees at the base of the Seven Mare Mountains while their scouts flew ahead to scan for the enemy.

Xena, Outback and Quiet Hoof, along with a few others, wound deep into the groves where the local flora and fauna was thickest and would be effective at hiding their scent. To be safe, they stuck to where the winds were in their favor, blowing back eastward, so as to not give them away in case the crystal army came into the vicinity sooner than they were expecting.

This section of Western Equestria was resplendent with dotted cover along the plains and renowned for its isolated lakes and hot springs. Quiet Hoof went to one of two co-joined lakes while the two commanders split off to set some traps for the stallions not far from where she was. As long as the scouts warning calls were not heard, it was safe to relax and let her guard down. Though she never completely relaxed on these campaigns except when surrounded by her sisters, it was hard to stay tense in this beautiful setting.

She studied her reflection in its surface a moment, frowning at the way her windblown mane had been disturbed by their run to this place and the tall, dry brush that had clung to her as she had scouted ahead of the group.

Absently she ran a hoof through to settle it back down while thinking about what she had told Xena on the way here. Confiding in the grey-eyed warrior mare at once bothered her and yet also made her feel she had unburdened a long-kept secret. Ever since the crystal army had first set hoof in their lands, the scout had felt unnerved, recalling Nyx’s strange words as the newcomers had borne hides of so many different colors - many never seen by Marazons before. Her tribe tended towards shades that blended either with their tawny-hued lands, the grey rock of the seven mare mountains or even the greens and blues of the coastal waters - as was Queen Ainippe’s colors. To see males - while unusual - was not unheard of. It had been their brighter, harsher shades that seemed to beckon to the younger, less disciplined mares among them...those who had not yet felt the defiling touch of a stallion, or the chafing pain of shackles and chains of their oppressors and worse and more dangerous - those in the throes of their first, powerful estrus. A small handful of the latter had been lost to the invaders through their foolish curiosity - “natural selection”, Nyx would call it. The Queen agreed, using the term “survival of the smartest”. And while Quiet Hoof was still weeks from what the healers deemed would be her first estrus, she was already wise enough to know from witnessing her friend’s seasons that such a state was barely controllable for the young. Another week and she would be rotated out of battle and sent safely away from the temptation of any stallion’s nearness to complete her Seasoning Rites through the “Mare’s Mysteries” for hers and the Herd’s sakes.

Pondering that made her recall another strange thing Nyx had done even before the stallion invaders had first come to their lands. When Quiet and her mother had come to the Temple to the Queen regarding Hoof’s first estrus and scheduling the ceremony, Nyx had been in the room at the time. The Queen had given them an uncomfortable look and glanced at Nyx. Turning back to the mare and her daughter, she had gone on and set the date, but the TimeWitch continued to smile to herself in the background. Quiet had not thought to ask the Queen or Nyx about their peculiar looks, but when the ceremony was abruptly delayed due to the crystal army’s invasion in the following days, it then occurred to the tawny-colored mare it was because the TimeWitch had known of the impending war.

Quiet dipped a hoof in the cool waters of the lake, briefly wondering how many more legions would be sent against them before this Unicorn King would tire of chasing after Nyx. She felt certain he was as annoyed at the efforts to catch her as her tribe was of repelling these invaders. Very few knew what the crystal army was really after, but there were rumors, and some felt that if handing the TimeWitch over to this Shadow King would make them leave, it was an acceptable trade-off. But the Council of Mares, the Queen and their commanders knew better. Once Sombra had Nyx, he would not stop there. The campaign had already cost him too much in stallions and resources...why stop when he could take them all as slaves in compensation for all the trouble they were causing him?

It was hard for Quiet Hoof to think of such a thing. Their nation was strong and had never been conquered - and they had faced a few stubborn, persistent nations of males before. Yet something was different about these crystal stallions - their drive had been that of those who did not dare return to their land without the prize their King sought. They seemed to fear -

The scout turned almost before the sound behind her was made. It turned out to be the light hoof falls of her sisters, so she stood her ground instead of going into hiding. Soon Xena and Outback emerged from the underbrush to join her for a drink at the water’s edge.

“The traps are set,” the grey-eyed warrior mare told Quiet. “If you need to flee, lead your pursuers to the eastward edges of the groves.” She looked up through the trees at the hot sun overhead. “It is a good time to wash the sweat off and refresh ourselves before returning.”

“Agreed. And, Quiet, the traps will capture but not kill them,” Outback added, nodding. “We did not want to take a chance of ensnaring one of our own if they are too distracted in their efforts to escape.”

“Our sisters know the secret to getting out of the traps and can use them to their advantage if accidentally caught.” Xena set her weapons down and dipped her head into the cooling waters for a moment. When she resurfaced again, she shook her mane out, sending Outback and Quiet Hoof laughing when they were sprayed with water. Outback dipped a toe into the lake and deliberately splashed water in Xena’s face.

Xena gave her a withering look. “You are SO not getting away with that!” she said, her eyes twinkling, splashing back. Her target darted away, giggling as well and the two mares were off.

The scout watched them with pleasure for a moment. She was definitely going to take the advice and clean herself up before they headed back. Stepping carefully into the sloped edge of the lake, she found it dropped off quickly about a foot in, so pushed off and paddled towards the far shore while her sisters laughed and tussled in a rare moment of play nearby.

The crystal army scouting party made up the time lost to Terrain’s inquisition by galloping until they were winded. It helped keep Iron Blade’s mind off the scout’s words for a time, but as soon as they settled back down to a trot when within sight of a large grove at the base of the mountains, his words came back to haunt the red stallion.

Still, it made him snort in disgust. Blade had not had time to be involved in a mare or the affairs of family nearly since Sombra’s rise to power. When not fighting for his majesty, his hooves were kept full with training the troops and keeping his family comfortable materially from his generous salary provided him by the king. His mother, as all mothers, would occasionally ask when she might see grandfoals and was always disappointed with the assurance that once things were secured in the Empire and Sombra’s enemies brought completely to heel, then Blade could worry about continuing their bloodline and providing Sombra with a new generation of fighters. Always at the forefront of every campaign, both he and his mother knew it was all a promise hinged on the precarious chances that he would come back from each campaign alive.

His musings were interrupted by the heavy breathing of the stallions around him, even his hand-picked Lieutenants showed mild fatigue. The sun beating down over their heads had not helped the run, either, and as much as they were pressed to retrieve their failed captain’s headless corpse, it would not due to add to the body count by Iron Blade driving his men too hard.

Signalling to divert towards the shade of the sycamore groves ahead, he caught sight of something in the skies ahead and frowned. “Fire Bow.”

“Yes Commander?”

“Is that what I believe it to be,” Iron Blade asked him, pointing towards the strange shape flapping erratically above and ahead of them.

“I believe it is, sir,” Fire Bow confirmed. His superior eyesight was often an asset when the better-sighted pegasai in the squadron were away on patrol.

“Go ahead. Make sure Crimson doesn’t rip them apart,” Blade ordered. The unicorn saluted and took off to carry out his orders.

The waters were quite welcome to all three mares once Xena had succeeded in throwing Outback into the lake, at which the commander reached out and dragged the grey-eyed mare in after her. Leaving all their weapons and armor nearby on shore, they reveled in the brief respite and time to relax, at least one mare always keeping a sharp eye on their gear to make sure it stayed where it was.

Finally Outback and Xena abandoned the lake to find a sunny spot to preen each other and dry off. Quiet Hoof opted to stay in a bit longer, lazily paddling towards a waterfall at the far end of the lake. Testing the wet rocks for solid footing, she chose those covered in moss as the safest ones to step upon and let the tumbling waters pound the dirt from her hide, mane and tail. From there she found footing back to dry, solid ground and shook herself off, spraying water in all directions.

Stopping to squeeze the water from her mane, it wasn’t long before the hairs on the back of her neck prickled and she got the feeling she was being watched. Bending down to get her armor, she caught sight of a figure she was certain was not one of her sisters...

The roar of the waterfall in Iron Blade’s ears grew closer he came out of the lake opposite the shore he had entered from. The waters were a quick, welcome blessing from the journey and the burning heat, he and the Lieutenants had felt the temptation to take advantage of it.

Fire Bow and Smasher went to investigate the adjoining lake while Iron Blade had come to this one. Shedding his armor and sword, he had carried them along the edge of the lake in his magic as he had swum out to its deep end, then, intrigued by the waterfall, had chosen to swim the length to it when he caught sight of her.

A lone mare the color of the local dry grasslands was also taking the waters, letting the pounding waterfall wash the grime from her body. He was close enough he could see her hair was in shades of pale green and slightly darker greens and her body was quite well-toned. She wore no armor, but the nearest civilian settlement was not close, so unless this was a lone traveler, his bits were on the fact she might indeed be a Marazon and she, like Blade, had shed her armor before taking a dip in the lake.

Ducking quickly into the brush once on land again, Blade carefully and gently shook himself dry, slipping his armor back on while keeping his eyes upon the mare. It wasn’t hard. She was lithe and beautiful in a way that even from this distance he found it difficult to be distracted by anything else. Perhaps it was the picture of innocence she portrayed as she went about the simple task of cleaning and cooling off as any carefree civilian would do. To one so used to war and its carnage as Iron Blade, how could be not otherwise be so taken by the sight of her?

And yet, Terrain had warned them they would encounter Marazons before they got to the crystal tomb and their dead soldiers and Blade had learned full well by now that Marazon warrior mares never traveled alone. The stallion stayed perfectly still, even breathing quietly, expanding his hearing to catch the sounds of any others nearby. There was nothing but the sounds of nature - birds above, the waterfall ahead and the soft rustle of an afternoon breeze through the sycamore trees surrounding them.

It took a few moments, but the stallion became aware at some point it had become harder to hear those sounds or focus on his surroundings when the maiden, whoever she was, turned her back to him, unknowingly displaying her lovely plot to the commander, flicking her tail, shaking the rest of the lake water from it. Everything about her was beautiful, every movement delicate, even when she bent back around to nudge the annoying insects off her tanned hide, her full, luscious tail twitching in its eagerness to swat them away. I can see why Dark Horses’s group lost their heads around these beauties, Blade thought absently to himself.

Then he caught the sound of her humming to herself. The voice fit the mare...beautiful, melodic, even bewitching. It reminded him of his own mother back home when she used to sing to her children, teaching his five sisters the art they had obviously inherited so very well from her…

Blade shook his head violently to clear it, chiding himself for losing focus, returning to listening to the sounds of the forest around them, yet he still heard no others...not even the other Lieutenants and the realization he was alone to face this enemy helped him return again to the fact he needed to be certain he did not underestimate her as Dark Horse had done with those of her tribe.

That and the additional fact that the mare before him had now picked up a bow and was inspecting it, testing the tightness of its string, brought him easily back to the business at hand.

There was no doubt now. She was definitely a Marazon, he nodded quietly to himself. In the moment he glanced away to affix his sword to his side in preparation to get the others, he looked back up to see she had disappeared.

Mouthing a silent curse, the commander moved towards where he had last seen her.

The heavy canopy opened up as he moved closer to where he had last seen the elusive mare, shafts of late afternoon light making him squint as Celestia’s sun dipped towards the ocean. How could she have moved that fast, Iron Blade wondered to himself. And then it occurred to him that they, as in the crystal army, must have scouts trained in the art of the bow. It would explain why she didn’t have a -

“I wouldn’t lift your hoof, if I were you,” came a female voice from the surrounding foliage.

The stallion froze and looked down. There was no visible sign of a trap, but he did feel the leaf-littered ground beneath his right back leg was slightly different from the feel of the rest of the ground.

Tartarus take him, he had blundered right into a pressure trap! “I thank you for the advice,” he replied wryly. “I am rather fond of that hoof, young maiden.” The stallion looked around, careful to make a minimal amount of movement with his head, using mostly his eyes.

She snorted in disgust. “Is that what your own traps boast? They would maim, or kill,” the Marazon female accused.

“I prefer the more direct approach,” the commander countered. “Battlefields rarely require such elaborate snares.” He smiled. “But thank you for letting me know an important fact.”

“Yes?” He could sense the hesitation in her voice. Now if he could only pinpoint where she was...

“I would not want to spoil the surprise.” He leapt sideways, slicing through the two net lines he had been able to pick out from the surrounding overgrowth. Reasoning that if he could clear the trap and cut two lines, he would be able to disentangle himself faster and his chances of escape would be better. The idea only partially worked. The concealed net caught two of his legs, and by sheer bad luck it had been both a back leg and a foreleg, thus rendering him less able to use either both back legs or forelegs to free himself. Even worse, his sword had gotten tightly tangled up in the parts of the trap that now restrained him as well, so further use of it to cut the rest of the lines quickly was impossible.

Quiet stepped out of concealment, the overhead trees helping in cutting back the glare so the commander could now get a good look at her at last. She was even more beautiful this close up, clad in blue body armor edged in silver, her feet shod in matching, lightweight armored shoes both beautiful and protective. She was, from all appearances, slightly younger than himself and immaculately groomed, and yet somehow still retaining the feel of a wild creature, the plating of the armor over her plot concealing her cutie mark, if she even had one yet.

The stray thought crossed his mind he’d like to find out if she did.

She kept a discreet distance, even while she set about checking the tightness of the lines, making certain her prey wouldn’t escape so easily. She was taking no chances, it seemed, in letting him gain the upper hand in the current situation. When she came around to face him, he had been about to say something, but was stunned into silence at the sight of the blue woven necklace around her throat and the delicate, intertwined ribbons in her hair.

“No,” she shook her head, getting a good look at the color of his hide for the first time now that the adrenaline rush of their encounter was settling down and clear thought could reign again in Quiet Hoof’s mind. “Your…” she reached out a hoof, but pulled it back as if afraid of whatever she was seeing would burn her if she touched it. “...a bloody,” she shook her head again in disbelief, heart pounding, cantering back nervously. “I can’t...I won’t take your…” she trailed off, locking almost frightened eyes onto his.

“What?” he asked, keeping her attention on his face while he quietly worked to slide his stuck sword the tiniest bit against the ropes, back and forth, out of her sight behind him. “My life? I thank you for that.”

“I’m a scout,” she replied. “I abhor taking life, but we all must serve." She turned away in disgust for a moment, but then whirled back around to face him. “You invaded us!” Hoof snapped.

“For now I am merely on my way to retrieve the bodies of my soldiers,” Blade said evenly, ignoring the anger in her voice. “And to bring your nation a message. King Sombra bades both sides call a truce for the evening. Time to bury both side’s dead.”

“Why should I believe you, stallion?” she demanded.

“They had no right to assault you,” he continued calmly. “Our orders to them were only to - “

“‘Our orders’?” Quiet Hoof asked. “Your witch king’s and...yours?”

He bit his lip, annoyed at the slip.

The Marazon dared come closer. “Who are you?” she asked, less in fear now, curiosity gnawing away at her common sense.

Blade worked to relax his visibly tensed muscles, to distract her while he felt the ropes his sword slid against start to give more and more. “Would you have my name?” he asked the mare. “Is that what you want?”

“Nyx told me,” she reached out, touching his shoulder lightly, hesitantly, though the tightly binding ropes. “She told me you...” her eyes cast down for a moment, then came back up to his. “A red stallion would come.”

“Nyx? The TimeWitch?” So this mare knew of their prey. “When? When did she say this,” his curiosity getting the better of him in turn, Blade could not help but ask.

“So many years ago,” Quiet Hoof told him, her eyes losing focus for an instant. “When we were still fillies coming of age.” She focused on him again, her voice turning warning. “Time means nothing to her. She reads it like the chapters of a book while it burns her soul to ashes in its wake, but it won’t let her die.” Her green eyes seemed to pierce him. “Flesh is not meant to have such power. She is the right hand herald of death, yet even he could not claim her - and he’s tried!”

There was a fear in the mare’s voice that told him Sombra’s prize seemed more a curse than a treasure. It did not bode well for the campaign ahead for either side, he feared in turn.

“Then perhaps it would be a blessing for your herd if we took her off your hooves, mi’lady,” he replied honestly. Almost through, Blade thought, feeling more and more give to the ropes, hoping this Marazon wouldn’t notice. Just a little more... “What makes you think I am who she predicted?” he asked gently.

“Are you?” she asked. “Is it you?” her voice challenged and pleaded at the same time.

“If I said yes, how would I convince you,” the stallion asked. “What proof could I give - “

“A bloody blade of iron,” the Marazon scout countered. “She told me that is what you - “

“How can you know my -” he asked, but then suddenly remembered Terrain’s pack. Therein lay proof enough for her, but If it were too close to the mare...He looked around, spotting it a safe ways away and sighed with relief. It had been thrown into the bushes when he had jumped and tossed even further by the force of the springing of the trap. Diverting his magic for a moment, he levitated it towards him. Quiet tensed, putting an arrow to her bow and drawing it back, aiming it at his heart.

He froze. “I just want to show you something,” he told her. “I think you will find it interesting, to say the least.”

The mare had a hard look on her face, but her arm holding the arrow taught was shaking ever so slightly. He wasn’t sure why she would be nervous - she did had the upper hand, but he was loathed to discover why by irritating her further when he was so helpless at the moment.

Hard, green eyes searched his for a moment, but finally she lowered the bow, arrow still attached and nodded curtly for him to continue.

Slowly Blade opened the flap of the pack and drew out the hair ribbons, then the necklace.

As she stared at them, Iron Blade could have sworn her expression was less shock than expectation, but it was enough. She even further surprised him by backing up slightly, as if she knew what danger they represented.

Cutting through at last, the ropes entangling him snapped free. Throwing the necklace and adornments as far from them as he could, he reached out and grabbed her, clamping his hoof over her mouth to keep her from screaming and using his magic to enforce his strength to hold her when she bucked violently against him. For a scout, she was still an earth pony and a damn strong one at that!

“Listen to me, LISTEN!” he demanded. “Calm down! I am not going to hurt you.” Her heart was racing and she was trembling badly against him, but she could not break his hold. Slowly, she relaxed, but the commander kept a tight grip on her in case she decided to turn on him. “I meant what I said. My king wishes an evening truce for both sides to bury their dead.”

Defiantly, she moved her lips against his hoof and worked it loose enough she bit him. He yelped, adjusting his grip to her jaw, but now her mouth was free.

“Then where are our flyers,” the mare demanded. “They did not warn us of your approach and they have not returned!”

“They’re safe,” he assured her. “They have not been harmed, but I - we, deemed it necessary to detain them until we could tell you of our king’s proposal.”

“I don’t believe you!” Hoof strained against his grip, but it was as Nyx had said, he was like unyielding Iron, even in strength.

“I could have killed you easily by now,” he said, more of an edge in his voice. “If not through strength, just by what I saw those items of yours nearly do to me.” She stopped struggling again, growing winded, the surge of adrenaline beginning to bleed off her strength. “You know what they can do, don’t you,” he asked her. Looking down at a slight sting where she had brushed up against him, he saw her necklace had caught on his hide and pulled out tufts of his hair, snagging it in its fibers. They both glanced over at the levitated items, a whitish-blue glow flaring around the necklace for a moment. As hard as it was to accept, in the wake of Terrain’s gifts to him, this was proof even he would be a fool to deny.

“Of course I know,” she snarled, and twisting with her last bit of strength, she jabbed him HARD in a nerve cluster in one of his forelegs. He yelped. The strength of the hit and the pain, then incapacitating numbness, took Blade by surprise long enough she twisted again, hitting a back leg this time. Another yell told Quiet her well-placed blow was effective and he went down.

Unfortunately the scout wasn’t quite fast enough to get out from so close to him as to avoid the fall, so when he hit the ground, he partially pinned her with his larger bulk. She squealed, but it was short-lived as the force knocked the wind out of her.

“I - did not see that coming,” Blade gasped. “Well played, Marazon.”

“Quiet.”

“It was a compliment - “ he almost pouted, annoyed at her manners.

“No, Quiet. My name,” she rasped. “It’s Quiet Hoof.”

“Really? That is...quite lovely.” Despite their situation, he smiled and despite her being pinned, the scout found his rakish grin rather charming. He moved her mane out of his face with a gentle nudge of his muzzle. Nostrils flaring he was unable to help but scent along her smooth neck while doing so. She smelled amazing, so soft…

Annoyed, she went to head butt him, but couldn’t help herself either, stopping to take his musky scent in turn. Quiet had never scented a stallion this close before.

It was utterly intoxicating…

“You are...fortunate I will honor your maidenhood this truce, Quiet - “ Blade began to say when he felt the mare rubbing up against the underside of his chin. “ - Hoof,” he finished uneasily.

“Really?” the Marazon asked in amusement. “You do not look in a state to properly rut any mare at the moment.”

Blade grinned. “Would you wish to me be so?” he asked her.

Angered, she reached out to strike him across the jaw for his arrogance, but forgot he was not completely paralyzed. Her movement freed his working foreleg, which he used to block the blow. “Hey,” he complained. “Do not blame me, mi’lady, if you are in season at the moment!”

“I am NOT!” she protested loudly, but squealed as Blade found the leverage to pin her in such a way that despite the semi-paralysis, he could look her in the eye.

“I - I can’t be,” she added, finding it impossible to look away from his steel-grey eyes. “Not for another - “

He rubbed his muzzle against her soft chest, moving leisurely down her smooth, toned belly. A sudden burning desire the likes of which Quiet Hoof had never felt before in her entire lifetime seized her lower body. “I, no...urgh…!” she moaned as he tortured her with the feel of his mouth as it drifted lower, blowing his cold breath over her teats.

“I am afraid you are,” the commander begged to differ, enjoying the warmth of her body against his mouth. “And I am afraid I may have brought you into season sooner than you had expected to be.”

His lips against her made her squirm and that in turn, made Blade suddenly very interested in continuing lower.

As hard as the mare tried, she could not get her back legs to obey her, fighting with every ounce of her mind to keep them from relaxing under his touch. They opened to him anyway, a part of her mind flooding uncontrollably with hormones.

When she moaned, Iron Blade reluctantly drew back. It would be too easy to continue, to ravish her, break his oath to obey Sombra’s wishes the Marazons not be harmed nor violated, not to mention his own words to his army against giving in to their base desires with these mares. She would never trust his word if he did this - as badly as he suddenly wanted to - and they all would suffer more losses of life for his betrayal than were necessary.

Exerting as much will as he could muster, he dragged his disobedient limbs off the more delicate mare, rolling over onto his back, panting. “As I said, Quiet Hoof, you are fortunate.” Licking his lips, he added, “by the way, I am impressed by this nerve technique of yours. If I had known all scouts of the Marazons were so beautiful and yet so dangerous, I would have exercised more caution.” He tested his affected limbs, annoyed that they were still so unresponsive. “How long does this last?”

“As long as she wants it to, stallion,” came a cold female voice decidedly not Quiet Hoof’s.

Blade struggled around his useless limbs to right himself, seeking out the owner of the new feminine voice. Behind him were two new mares - one in similar battle armor to Quiet Hoof’s, the other in a leather jerkin picked out in copper stud work, but also sporting the triple crescent moon common to all their outfits. Both newcomers carried swords at their sides with the addition of a copper and silver circular weapon attached to a shoulder stud on the new speaker’s armor. Her eyes, almost as grey and cold as Iron Blade’s, told him she had likely taken as many lives as he himself.

There would be no sweet talking this one.

“Look, Smasher,” came a male voice from behind Quiet Hoof. “Trust Commander Iron Blade to take on a beauty without inviting us,” Fire Bow tsked.

All four turned their attention to the two new stallions who had also arrived - Fire Bow and Smasher. “Does this look like a tryst, Bow?” the red stallion said in annoyance. Quiet Hoof’s light chuckle drew his eye back. She was glancing at his back quarters, blushing. Realizing he had partially unsheathed in response to the tawny scout’s scent and body beneath him, he blushed furiously. “Do not answer that if you value your stallionhood, soldier!” he growled back in his lieutenant’s direction.

“Iron Blade,” Xena spoke up, the name catching her attention. “Did you say, ‘Iron Blade’?”

“My Goddess,” Quiet gasped. “He did!”

“Eh? Does my reputation precede me?” he asked the mares cheekily.

A gentle hoof on his chest surprised him. Quiet was looking at him with a softer expression now. She was relaxed beneath him, no longer fighting, looking almost submissive. “It did with me,” she reminded him.

Author's Notes:

At last, foreshadowed in many of my other stories, here finally is the first encounter between Commander Iron Blade and the Marazon scout Quiet Hoof. Destiny may have demanded they be together, but this is the start of that rocky road to getting there.