The crack of wood on wood echoed through the bright spring morning as Cloud Kicker backpedaled, dodging and blocking the whole time, in an attempt to ward off Revan’s advance. In an attempt to turn the course of the sparring session, Cloud tied up Revan’s practice blade in a block while her right wingblade darted for the Jedi’s exposed chest. Just as the blow was about to land, Revan twisted to the side, spinning about to free her blade from Cloud’s trap and add momentum as she brought it around to smash into the pony, sending the pegasus stumbling off to the side with a grunt, “Oof.”
“Better,” Revan commented as she reached out a hand to call her canteen and a pair of towels over from where they rested on a rough shelf formed by one of the dents in her ship’s hull, “Your rust is definitely coming off.”
“I thought I had you with that last one,” the weatherpony grumbled as she accepted the towel from Revan. Her glum features quickly returned to their usual cocky cheerfulness, however, “So, headed back to Canterlot, Miss Instructor-To-The-Princesses-And-I-Get-To-Feel-Them-Up-During-Training?”
Revan smirked at the incorrigible mare as she shook her head and took a long pull from her canteen, “Not today, I’ve got a few days leave and I intend to spend them in the Everfree.”
Cloud frowned slightly as she took the offered canteen, “You’re not going to watch Twilight’s display for the delegation? I heard that she’s been working really hard on it.”
“I know,” the Jedi replied, “But I’ve been getting awfully twitchy lately, even for me, and I need to work off my nerves, which makes it all the more important that I’m not around to possibly frell things up between Celestia and the Saddle Arabians. I’ll make it up to Twi’, somehow,” she sighed as she cast a wistfully gaze in the direction of Golden Oaks Library.
Cloud chuckled as she watched the twi’lek’s behavior, “You’ve got it bad, don’t you?” she raised a hoof to forestall Revan’s response as she lifted herself up to hover above the ground, “Alright, you go into the creepy, dangerous forest to get your head on straight, and I’ll undertake the arduous task of relaying your regrets to our town’s adorable librarian.” Turning for Ponyville, the pegasus paused to look back over her shoulder, “Just be careful, okay? I know you’re a certified badflank and all, but the Everfree operates under its own rules, and sometimes it likes to cheat.”
________________________________________
Revan hummed absently to herself as she slipped through the trees, despite its dangers, the Everfree was one of the few truly wild places in Equestria, and she found it oddly comforting. Detouring around a glade of poison joke, she glared at the innocuous seeming blue flowers, ‘Still,’ the Jedi reluctantly admitted, ‘Being a pony was interesting. I wouldn’t mind doing it again, under controlled conditions, of course.’
‘I’m making good time,’ she mused as she looked about for edible greens or berries to supplement her dinner, ‘Barring any incident, or Steven Magnet wanting to chat, I should make the Castle of the Two Sister’s before nightfall.’ Revan’s mouth began to water at the thought of roast squirrel or maybe some fish from the Wild Running River – while she could survive indefinitely on the mostly vegetarian diet the ponies preferred, or far worse fare if necessary, she enjoyed her meat too much to give it up entirely. Thus she indulged in these little hunting trips to feed her cravings and to stock up on a small supply of rough-smoked meats to keep in the cooler back in her galley.
The Jedi shook her head in bemusement as her mind drifted to how peculiar the fauna of Equestria could be; Winona, and presumably all other dogs, was just a hound like any other (although diamond dogs were sentient … even if some of them could lose a battle of wits to a potato), while rabbits were far more intelligent than their equivalents on other worlds, Angle Bunny especially. Deer were another sentient race, albeit an isolationistic one, while the ponies treated squirrels, both the tree and ground varieties, as merely another varmint. And fish … fish were just fish.
Revan winced slightly as she recalled how disappointed with her Fluttershy had looked when the Jedi had broached the subject with Ponyville’s resident animal caretaker. At least ‘Shy and Zecora had finally agreed to teach her on the differences between Equestria’s various wildlife, although the zebra had shown far less distress, barely any actually, at the twi’lek’s desire to continue with her predatory habits.
‘I suppose it all depends on what you’re used to,’ the Jedi shrugged as she pressed on, ‘Coastal ponies eat fish and crustaceans, and thestrals consider bugs and birds a major part of their diet.’ She smirked as she continued with her train of thought, ‘I don’t think ‘Shy would take it well if she learned that the Princesses indulge in their subjects’ more carnivorous fare on occasion.’
________________________________________
‘There we are, whistling leaves,’ Revan grinned as she crouched down to pluck the serrated, deep emerald leaves from the boggy ground. Personally, she found the greens too bitter for her tastes, but many animals relished them, particularly a certain bad-tempered rabbit and a high-flying tortoise of her acquaintance. Separating her find into two piles, the twi’lek wrapped them in scraps of canvas while she kept an eye out for hydras, bog serpents, manticores or the various other dangers that lurked in the Everfree Forest and Froggy Bottom Bog. ‘Wait, can I still use that expression? Shouldn’t it be “keeping a half eye out”? But you can’t actually do anything with only half of an eye …’ Revan snorted in amusement, between Twilight’s obsession with phrasing things correctly and Celestia’s and Luna’s fondness for wordplay, it should be easy enough to find out the proper saying if she really wanted to bother.
Stowing the bundles in her pack, Revan brushed the mud from her knees as she rose back to her feet. ‘This has been a pretty productive trip,’ the Jedi thought as she headed deeper into the bog, ‘Whatever had my nerves in an uproar seems to have worked itself out of my system, I managed to hunt down a good supply of meat, and I even found some amethysts for Spike and those whistling leaves for Tank and Angel Bunny. Chaos, with how much game I caught, I can put some aside for Opal, Gummy, Owlowiscious and Winona. Now if I can just find those wildflowers Twi’ likes so much …’
________________________________________
The crackling fire radiated a pleasant warmth that cut through the damp of the small cave as Revan bedded down for the night, ‘Took me longer to find those flowers than I expected,’ she thought, ‘Still, I ought to be back to my ship by tomorrow night. I’ll miss Twi’s exhibition, but I should be in time to drop in on her and the other girls before they turn in. Assuming this damn mist clears out overnight,’ the Jedi amended as she frowned out the cave mouth at the heavy fog that had rolled in over the last hour.
The morning, however, brought no relief from the dense haze, which had only thickened over the night, and a slight lightening of the general murk was all that revealed the risen sun’s presence. After wolfing down a ration bar for her breakfast, Revan headed out into the gloom.
Several hours later, the Jedi was still trudging through the seemingly unending fog bank that muffled the sounds of the forest and reduced the trees to half-seen shadows. ‘Shouldn’t this have burned off by now?’ Revan grumbled to herself, ‘I ought to be getting close to the castle,’ she added as she slowed down in the hope of finding the ravine that warded the Castle of the Two Sisters before she blindly walked off its edge.
Despite her increased caution, the twi’lek caught her foot on something hidden in the fog and staggered, nearly crashing into a tree before she regained her balance. Shaking her head in irritation at her own clumsiness, Revan looked up only to stop in confusion as she saw that the mist had suddenly thinned and night had somehow fallen upon her unnoticed.
As she slowly advanced through the trees, the Jedi soon came upon a familiar gorge, but what lay across it was not what she was expecting. The rough rope bridge had been replaced with a great stone span, while the castle beyond was a living fortress rather than the almost-forgotten ruin she had camped in but two days earlier. The moonlight revealed pegasi and thestrals of the Night Guard as they patrolled the local airspace while Revan could see the distant forms of more guardponies walking the castle’s walls, “What the chaos?”
“Hey you! Stop right there in the name of Nightmare Moon!” a raspy voice broke in on the twi’lek’s bewilderment as an armored pegasus with a distinctive polychromatic mane dropped from the sky to glare aggressively at her.
“Rainbow? Bones of the Emperors girl, what are you doing out here? What is all this shit?” Revan waved a hand at the castle and patrolling guards as she looked to her friend for an explanation.
“How do you know my name?” Rainbow Dash demanded, her voice dripping with suspicion as she flared her wings, her wingblades glinting in the moonlight, “What are you, anyway? And why are you skulking around the Princess’ castle?”
‘What the chaos is going on?’ Revan wondered as she stepped back from the hostile pegasus, ‘Did someone mess with her head? I don’t want to fight my friend when she’s not in her right mind,’ deciding that a bit of space between herself and Rainbow was called for, the Jedi made a Force-assisted leap backwards, only to stumble as vertigo suddenly gripped her and the lingering fog flared-up, thick enough to blot-out her sight.
As her disorientation faded, Revan frowned up at the ruined castle she could clearly see through the trees, its stones aglow as the sun peeked above the forest, ‘Okay … I don’t know what’s going on, and I think I don’t really want to know. Time for this girl to get back to Ponyville …’
________________________________________
Seated in the café porch, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash and Rarity were indulging in a late lunch after the stress of the last couple of days when the local Jedi strolled up to them, “Afternoon, girls. This is going to sound like a stupid question, but could you tell me when Celestia and the Saddle Arabian delegation came to visit?”
The four mares exchanged puzzled looks as Fluttershy and Rainbow accepted the cloth-wrapped packages Revan offered them, “The Princess and the delegates were here last night, darling.”
“It was great!” Pinkie gushed, “The animals were all flying around like ‘whoosh!’, and the fireworks were all ‘bam! ka-powie!’ and everypony was all ‘wow!’ Once Trixie got over that whole meanie-pants ‘taking over Ponyville and banishing Twilight’ thing, she and Twi’ worked together really well!”
“It was just last night? So I didn’t lose too much time … wait, Twilight was banished?!” without waiting for a reply, Revan spun around and took off for Golden Oaks Library at a dead run, leaving the mares to stare after her in bewilderment.
“Oh my, maybe we should stop her,” Fluttershy started to rise from her seat only for Rarity to stop her with a gentle hoof on her shoulder.
“I think we should leave this to Twilight, darling” Rarity suggested, a sly grin on her muzzle, “After all, it’s not every day that a knight comes charging to her rescue, and I wouldn’t want to deny her the experience.”
Pinkie and Rainbow exchanged confused looks as Fluttershy, now with a smile of her own, sat back down. Dismissing her friends’ weirdness with a shrug, Rainbow turned her attention to the packet Revan had given her before her abrupt departure, “Oh, hey! Whistling leaves! Tank loves these!”