Honour Bound

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Corporal Honour Bound felt like she was being tortured on a rack.

Except there was no rack -- just the floor of the commons area of their Canterlot Palace guard quarters. And if there was torture, it was entirely self-inflicted. After all, she did ask Sergeant Ebonshield to teach her the ways of her 'Stellar Dance.' That Honour was twisted into a pretzel shape on the carpet, her joints stinging in pain, was her own damn fault.

‘You asked for this.’

"Bueno, good. Try to hold this position for as long as possible."

Easy for her to say; she'd been doing this for over thirty years. Compared to Honour and her rusty iron limbs, Purity was made of silly putty. No surprise she was doing a far better job of this pose right now than the corporal was. But it was generous of the batpony to call Honour’s half-assing of it 'good.'

And ambitious of her to suggest she could hold it.

"Hngr." The earth pony emitted a noncommittal grunt as she struggled to keep things steady. It'd been years since she’d tried to do this sort of contortion. Actually, now that she thought about it, she wasn’t sure if her various lessons ever involved a position quite like this. Not to say they didn't come with their own set of pains and little injuries.

"Are you uncomfortable? Do not continue if the pain is overwhelming. Even this starting position can overstretch the body."

‘Oof, this is just a starting position?’

Honour tried to take a deep breath in-between pants. There was sweat beading on her brow.

"It… hurts, but it's bearable."

Purity nodded. "I see. Do not exceed your limits; in this introductory class I wish to see where you are presently. For now, focus on the maintaining."

‘Focus on maintaining, right.’

It was actually kinda hard to focus on anything else. If she did, Honour would surely let go like a heavily-compressed carriage spring suddenly liberated from its mountings. Good thing she’d moved all the furniture out of the commons area and piled it into her bedroom first. There was nothing to be damaged, besides the walls, if an errant hoof went flying.

The sergeant, appearing calm and relaxed in spite of her ever increasing state of contortion, stared intently at Honour. "This is an auspicious day to begin training: Monday, the day of the Moon. The day of the Great Mother."

With serene grace, she twisted her neck back and rolled it around in a manner that seemed impossible, almost touching her brow against her own shoulders. No, not impossible -- Honour remembered seeing a move like that in one of those classes she’d taken, when she was trying to get into this stuff. Contortions, accompanied by burning incense, banging gongs, and learning the wisdom of the dragons -- or the buffaloes, or the yaks, or whatever. And now here she was, learning the wisdom of the Moon.

Well, at least she’d seen what the wisdom of the Moon could do with a set of daggers. Yvan the Yakasutric Yogi, a nasal-voiced, skinny 30-something earth pony colt with a braided beard hanging down to his knees and a mane in a colt-bun, who’d taught Honour a few classes of Yakasutra back in Filly', was definitely not about to slice anypony up, being an avowed pacifist.

Which was not to say she hadn't crushed on him a little bit -- pacifism, colt-bun, and all.

It was hard not to, considering his lithe grace, and especially when he so gently but oh-so-firmly would place a forehoof under her barrel, or on her hindquarters, to 'adjust' her pose in one of the Yakasutric positions. Honour wasn't the only mare in his classes he did that to, and she was sure she wasn’t the only one who got more than a little hot under the tail when he did it, but in the end, what turned her off was her inability to stomach the spiritualist nonsense that he lived, ate, and breathed. How many other things had her confirmed material realism shut down during that time? More than her fair share of dates, that much was certain.

"...Caporal, is your mind somewhere else?"

Honour snapped her head up, her eyes adjusting to bring the room back in focus.

‘Right, the pretzel shape and the accompanying pain.’

"Sorry."

Purity lifted an eyebrow. "I cannot teach a student who does not pay attention. Perhaps we should not have skipped the preliminary exercises."

‘Now I’ve done it.’

Purity might accept a shittily-executed stretching pose, but a head in the clouds was right out.

Honour cleared her throat. "I apologize. This was just reminding me of those other classes I mentioned."

With surprising speed, the batpony unfolded herself and got to her hooves. "I see. And these other classes, what were they like?"

The corporal’s jaw dropped to find Purity standing in front of her so rapidly.

"Uhm, well... They involved adopting positions sort of like this, and then holding them."

The batpony leaned her muzzle over in front of Honour’s. "That is all? Nothing else?"

Honour would have shrugged if her shoulders weren't locked in place from her forelegs being entangled with the other two. "Sometimes there would be candles or incense. And the teacher would recite poetry translated from another language, or sing a monotone repetitive phrase to 'empty the mind.' Maybe with somepony accompanying them on a simple drum or gong."

Eb lifted her brow. "Would you prefer if I added such things to our lesson?"

Honour tried to tighten her pose back up to where it had been when she started, but her muscles were starting to go on strike. "If you have to... To be honest, that kind of stuff turned me off."

Purity chuckled, grinning. "Then we are fortunate that my Temple does not use them." Turning around, she withdrew and sat back down, almost instantly readopting the tangled pose which was giving Honour so much trouble. "Is there anything else from your past we should avoid? Or, perhaps something we must confront instead? A clear mind is better suited to the understanding of the realities novel, and we have many such realities to explore."

The corporal let out a whinny of her own. "I thought you said we could forgo the metaphysics."

"Only if you can pay attention. Do you find that your head is often in the clouds?"

Suddenly uncomfortable, Honour swallowed. Never mind the mantra-spouting hip and hot yoga colt, now the batpony was reminding her more of her stern, old-mare schoolteacher. Except that, as an adult instead of a miscreant child, Honour was less inclined to lie through her teeth about her misdeeds.

"Lately, a little more often than not."

Wordlessly, Purity unfolded her body and then refolded herself in a new way. No -- it wasn’t new, it was the same pose as Honour was currently holding, just mirrored left-to-right. There was a word for that -- 'stereoisometric.' Yvan taught her that one, among a few other big, mouthy words. If nothing else, she could credit his attempts at imbuing spiritual enlightenment with expanding her vocabulary, and for making her want to know where the words really came from and what they really meant. Unprompted, Honour released her aching muscles and tendons only to stretch them again as she struggled, slowly, to copy Purity’s reversal. Strangely, she felt like she could take it further this time, with less pain.

‘Shouldn't this hurt just as much as the other way?’

Watching her closely, the sergeant continued. "Tell me, when your thoughts wander, where do they wander to?"

‘That's an open-ended can of worms.’

Reflecting on her own thoughts, Honour tried to summarize them in something comprehensible. It wasn't easy; so often, a little detail could bring memories of emotional past events flooding into her mind: her ex-husband, the aftermath of that marriage, the Changeling invasion...

Or provoke melancholy thoughts about where she currently was, life-wise: still just a corporal at twenty-four, when she should have two years as a sergeant under her belt, and still stuck in the no-promotion zone of the VIP section.

And when she started thinking about where she was, well, that just led down the road to thinking morosely about where she was going, as if she even knew the direction her rudderless ship was heading.

‘Well, that's it, isn't it?’

"I guess it's mostly 'where am I going.' What my fate is, that sort of thing."

Still contorted into that stereoisometric pretzel, Purity somehow effortlessly released a forehoof from the knot they were tied in and stretched it up into the air.

‘Now how the buck did she do that?’

"You do not strike me as somepony who places her trust in fate."

Looking to her own limbs, Honour tried to replicate Eb’s motions, only to find the matching foreleg was absolutely stuck, locked in place by the other three, as the position seemed to dictate.

"I think you should have to work for what you want, if that's what you mean."

The corporal jerked her shoulders but it was no good: the only way out was to loosen the knot, but Eb didn't have to do that to get her foreleg free; Honour would have noticed.

The batpony looked over at her. "Do you think that all effort should be rewarded?"

Gritting her teeth, Honour tried to figure a solution to the puzzle. There had to be a secret to untangling herself the way Purity did.

"Sure. That's the classical earth pony philosophy, you know -- hard work pays off in the end."

Eb slowly waved around her liberated foreleg like she was taunting the earth pony with it. "Yet you are unhappy with your current situation. So then this must mean that you did not work hard enough?"

Furrowing her brow, the corporal allowed herself to slacken the entanglement in order to withdraw her foreleg. It was not cheating, it was just experimenting, trying to get a better grasp of the problem. She put it back and extended the stretch again, certain that she’d found the correct approach -- only to be denied success once again.

"I know I didn't. I told you how I took the easy way out when I fell for my husband. I suppose joining the VIP section to get out of Filly' was like taking the easy way out, too."

In what could only be a deliberate provocation, Purity slipped her foreleg back into the tangled mess of her limbs and twisted it into place.

‘Impossible!’

Honour couldn’t see any sign that Ebonshield had moved anything else at all. How did she make it look so easy?

"I tell you that you are wrong, Caporal Bound." Then, just as easily, the batpony pulled her hoof out once again. "Hard work does not 'pay off in the end.' You may work as hard as you please, but if you do the wrong work or the work the wrong way, then it will come to nothing, or next-to-nothing. Look at how you struggle to do what I have done. Is that struggle 'paying off?'"

‘Foal-of-a-bitch!’

That was some stuck-up philoso-nonsense if Honour had ever heard it. "I might be struggling, but I'm exploring options, ruling things out, trying things, solving the puzzle. I'll get there eventually."

Eb chuckled. "But why not simply ask me how it is done? I am here as your teacher."

‘Uh…’

‘Huh.’

"And you are not an expert in the contortion of the body. An expert who did not know this pose might still struggle to understand the little trick I have done. When you understand your own limits, then you may avoid the hard work unnecessary."

Smiling, the batpony completely un-knotted herself, then rose to her hooves and approached Honour once more. "Which is not to say that hard work is not often required. To be a Stellar Dancer, like many other things, requires much practice and exercise, and this is often without the reward or success immediate."

Sitting in front of the earth pony, Ebonshield extended her forehooves and touched one against Honour’s elbow and the other against the same foreleg's hoof. With the slightest of adjustments, that foreleg was suddenly liberated, and she found she could slide it out of the knot of limbs just as the batpony did.

‘What is this sorcery?’

"Such is this principle of asceticism which lays at the foundation of my Temple."

Honour was shocked by how effortless that felt, once the sergeant put the corporal in the right position. She was certain she wouldn’t be able to work it back in without similar guidance.

‘But wait -- what's she saying about her Temple?’

"Asceticism? You're supposed to be an ascetic? But you eat and drink as much as anypony else, bar Sparkshower's bottomless stomach, and you were hitting up clubs to find yourself a coltfriend almost the minute you got the chance. Surely that's hedonism, not asceticism."

The middle-aged batpony mare threw her head back in laughter. "Haha! Yes, this is true! But you must understand, Caporal: in my Temple, asceticism is not the opposite of hedonism."

Grinning, she touched Honour’s other limbs and gently helped her unfold herself. It was quite a relief to have things straight and relaxed the way they were supposed to be. The corporal hadn’t quite realized just how much she’d strained herself during even this brief exercise -- everything fell limp, and Honour was little more than wet string in Ebonshield’s hooves.

"The word 'ascetic' comes from the ancient Pegasus word meaning 'exercise.' For the Stellar Dancers, asceticism means understanding that much practice is required to achieve success. This practice must take priority until the techniques have been mastered."

Gaping slack-jawed in confusion and awe, Honour watched as the batpony felt the corporal’s joints and ran the tips of her forehooves along invisible lines down her legs, as if trying to sense something.

"Hedonism is similarly derived from the ancient Pegasus word for 'pleasure,' and this is the principle that happiness is what is most important in life. For the Stellar Dancer initiate, happiness must derive from the execution of exercises which bring the slow, gradual mastery of skills. For the master, happiness must derive from the teaching of students. But both may enjoy their meals and drink, provided this does not interfere with their work, and likewise they may enjoy the pleasures of company according to the commands of their House."

Grinning, she looked Honour in the eyes and retreated back to her little spot on the carpet. "And for the master who experiences the liberty temporal to roam around Canterlot and not work every single day, well, a little more of those other non-ascetic pleasures is permissible."

The corporal was, once again, reminded of her past. Back during those Yakasutra lessons, she quickly got the sense Yogi Yvan was probably sleeping with some of his mare students, despite his claims to live an austere, celibate, and asexual lifestyle. She probably could have joined his stable of 'disciples,' if she’d wanted to. But he was a bit of a hypocrite, pretending to be something he wasn't. Ebonshield's open admission of indulgence was different.

"That's it? Despite all the mysticism you claimed for your Temple, when it comes to asceticism it's just 'laissez-faire'?"

Eb shrugged. "They are largely unrelated. We do not believe that a restricted diet is required to understand or practice the Dance, or that one must abstain from all other activities. Moderation and attention is sufficient."

The sergeant bobbed her head sideways, chuckling. "Of course, one should know how to survive frugally, and even be prepared to go without for periods at a time. Training for this is important, because sometimes such is necessary in order to write a name in our book. Deprivation should be practiced on a regular basis like any other skill, but not maintained constantly."

Lifting a forehoof up, she traced an arc in the air above her. "Unlike the other Temples of the Stars, who learn to fight together, we learn to fight alone, as there is much more ease to infiltrate a single Dancer than a whole troupe."

As Purity looked up, she rose up on her other forehoof and one of her hind hooves, her torso facing Honour. "Come, follow me once more. This is part of the Slow Dance, and trains balance."

"Okay."

Balancing on one side she could do -- she used to be able to do, anyways. Maybe not quite as easily while stretching a foreleg up high.

As Honour achieved the pose, Eb lifted her free hind leg up as well.

‘Oh, so it's like that, standing like a coin balancing on edge?’

The corporal tried to follow, but where the sergeant was as still as a statue, Honour found herself wobbling uncomfortably, her free limbs waving in the air above her. Ebonshield belonged as a marble piece in a museum; Honour was more like one of those silly, inflatable, dancing attention-getters outside of carriage and cart dealerships.

"There are no tricks to this. Only strength, tone, and experience. But do you know, when I asked you to move the furniture into your room while I 'prepared' in mine, I had to practice these techniques for myself again? I am a good contortionist, but far from the best in my Temple, and there has been some time considerable since I performed the first demonstration."

Still trying her best not to topple over, Honour grunted. "Is this supposed to be another philosophy lesson?"

Gracefully, Ebonshield lowered one side down and then balanced up on it, reversing the pose.

‘Another one of those, huh.’

‘Well, sure, let's try the left side instead of the right.’

Honour got up, and it really wasn’t much better. Having these limbs up in the air didn't wear them out as fast as balancing on them, but they were still more tired than her other side was when she’d started this new set of poses.

"Only a continuation of the first. Can you guess at the thesis?"

‘Guess the point of a mystic Moon-wisdom lesson while I’m sideways-balancing on two hooves?’

‘Not likely.’

"Uh... Something about practice making perfect? But only if it's the correct practice?"

"That is a good lesson, but not the first wisdom of the Maestro Romà de Balj, who founded my Temple. His first wisdom is what I wish to teach you today. Would you guess again?"

Just when Honour felt herself about to topple over, Ebonshield arched her back and lifted her hind leg, until she was balancing entirely on just a single forehoof.

‘Well, I definitely haven't done that one before.’

And if Honour was going to fall, she may as well fall from one hoof instead of two; it was less embarrassing that way.

It was tough going to lift her hindquarters into the air until she felt her weight was mostly on her forehoof, and her other three limbs shuddered violently above her as she struggled to keep her balance. Honour managed the pose for about half a second before tumbling over onto the carpet. No walls were damaged, and against the thick carpet, her drop made nothing more than a dull thud -- too dull, she was sure, to have woken up her exhausted VIP downstairs.

That was an important consideration, after all.

Stretching and balancing up here was all well and good, but when it came to jumping around or actually learning fighting, she would definitely have to find someplace else. Hopefully somewhere closer and safer than the Rookery.

Honour looked up at the motionless master of assassins. "Maybe I'm supposed to learn I won't be able to copy your every move from the get-go?"

Ebonshield looked at the corporal with an upside-down head, as her mane brushed against the floor and her tail hung behind her back. "Another good lesson, but also a guess incorrect. Try again?"

Honour was pretty sure she could keep on coming up with trite little aphorisms for hours without figuring what Purity wanted her to say.

"I don't know, Sergeant. I think I could go on guessing all day and not hit on the answer. Is this another example of how 'hard work doesn't always work?'"

Eb upside-down shrugged at her. "If you cannot guess the answer, then how will you ever know?"

Whinnying with frustration, Honour swung a foreleg in her direction. "I'd have to hope you just up and tell me."

At that, the sergeant suddenly jerked her body over and landed, balancing on a single hind hoof. "Yes. Exactly. And what would cause me to tell you?"

Now Honour was really confused.

‘Where is this supposed to be going?’

"I mean... Are you saying just asking the question wouldn't be enough?"

At that, Eb grinned, and bent her supporting foreleg down.

"No..."

With a sudden push, she flipped over backwards into the air, landing neatly on all four limbs once again.

"...I am saying that just asking the question is precisely enough."

Stepping over towards the corporal, she held out a foreleg to help Honour to her hooves. "The first lesson of Maestro Romà de Balj is this: The Great Mother wants us to learn, or else She would not have made us capable of learning. The Great Mother wants students to ask, or She would not have given them mouths to speak. And the Great Mother wants teachers to answer, or She would not have given them ears to hear. There are to be no secrets kept between masters and students."

After helping her up, the sergeant stepped around beside the earth pony and pressed down on her hindquarters. "Sit, Caporal. This is the most important lesson: to learn the Shining Stellar Dance, you must grasp what you do not know, and ask for your master to reveal this to you."

Honour furrowed her brow. "Students aren't expected to figure things out for themselves at all?"

Eb circled around behind her. "In my Temple, the role of the masters is to provide challenges and instruct in their solutions. The first task is to understand a challenge enough to ask the right questions. The second task is to master the answer. Challenges take many forms, and are not always obvious..."

Stepping back in front, Honour found herself muzzle-to-muzzle with the dark purple batpony.

"...First I asked you to adopt a position, which I demonstrated. This was a challenge obvious. You understood enough that no questions were needed. You provided the answer, though you have not mastered this. Then I changed forms, and you correctly saw this as a challenge as well. Finally I pulled one leg out, and you recognized this also as a problem but you did not know the solution."

The sergeant tilted her head down and moved forward even more, her lilac eyes right up in front of Honour’s. "I saw your frustration. You were upset at failing. You were indignant that what for me seemed so easy could for you be so difficult. Your failure made you become angry when I challenged your philosophy."

Withdrawing, she raised a forehoof and placed it gently on the corporal’s brow. "You must let go of these emotions unproductive. We are not rivals. You are here to learn, and I am here to teach. Many things will require practice. But if there are secrets that you realize you do not know, then you must ask to learn them, without hesitation or remorse. To be ignorant is not an embarrassment. To ask a question is not shameful. That is the first lesson of Maestro Romà de Balj."

‘Hmm.’

Feeling a bit chided by Purity’s lecture, Honour nodded. "Okay. Ask questions. I get it."

The batpony smiled, removing her forehoof from the earth pony’s brow. "Aha! No, you do not. I have given you the answer, Caporal Bound, and you may know this wisdom enough to recite the words -- but now you must practice and master them, and make them a part of you."

The smile turned into a grin, and she cackled. "Hehe! And that is a task far more difficult than mastering the little trick with the foreleg in the pose called 'Refollau,' which I shall presently explain to you."

Honour took a deep breath.

‘Looks like the torture-rack isn't done with me, yet.’

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