Their shield

"What is this, gray beard?" Vojin heard when he stepped in the room accompanied by Starswirl. The captain, Jorah Kalish, was sitting on her desk with a quill on her hand and a huge pile of papers by her. "I am busy right now. So scram."

"Well, I guess you'll have to make time," The wizard replied, which made the mare let out a sigh and drop the quill.

"What is it?" SHe asked pressing her temples.

"Well, we both been assigned a small one," Vojin watched Jorah's eyes shot open as leaned back and looked at them with a baffled expression on her face. "Before you even try to scream like a maniac. This one is a hard worker. I bet he can help you just as much as you can."

"What makes you so sure you old fart in the body of a stallion?"

"The queen gave me quite the interesting book to read."

'What does that mean? It doesn't relate to the question at all,' Vojin thought as he watched the captain look at him scratching her chin.

"Your name, kid."

"Vojin Kilp."

"You're basically skin and bones," Jorah replied as she got up and walked up to Vojin. Then she crouched down and looked him in the eyes. "I'm gonna call you Skelly until you make me think you're worthy of your name."

"Ok," Vojin replied looking her straight in the eyes. "What do you want me to do Ma'am?"

"Eager, aren't we? What can you do?"

"Cleaning, being a punching bag, being a toy, serving food, carrying and delivering small packages," Vojin replied without hesitation, earning a frown and a tilted head from the captain.

"What did you bring to me? Because this one sounds less like a colt and more like a slave," She said looking to Starswirl.

"Keep it quiet, the queen knows it and so do I. He has gone through enough so we'll have to teach him without the others figuring out he is a slave," Vojin heard as he walked away from them.

While their discussion proceeded, Vojin looked around the captain's office. The place was a mess, pieces of paper scattered everywhere, remnants of candles all over the floor. Used matches in between the tiles covering the ground. Dust covered a lot of places that seemed to be unused or completely forgotten.

'I can't simply go taking out and organizing these papers, she might have placed them in specific spots for a reason. I can take out the trash though,' Vojin thought as he walked around gathering the matches and crumbled paper pieces. Uncrumbling one of the papers, he used it to hold the burnt out matches and carry them to a trash bag.

"Skelly, what are you doing?"

"Making myself useful. I know that I can't do much, so until I do. I'll stick to what I can do," Vojin replied as he continued to do his task. "Besides, I can tell when ponies are tired. They get really angry for no reason and have those marks under their eyes. Whenever somepony is like that I tend to keep to myself by doing small jobs to ease their load so that he would be able to sleep. That usually gets them to sleep meaning that I got less trouble on my hands."

Vojin watched as the captain stared at him for several seconds, she had a deep frown. "You are really weird, Skelly."

"I am well aware of that. Weird, useless, toy, garbage. I am many things to a lot of ponies. However, I intend to change that. I'll be what I want to be, not what they want or what they see," Vojin replied as he continued to gather scrap from the floor.

"As you can see he is very determined," Vojin heard from Starswirl right before the trash he was gathering started to float away into a trash bin. "However, without any sort of training, he can't do much. That's where we have to intervene."

"I am not an idiot beard," Jorah said with an annoyed voice. "I need his numbers first."

"You'll need to work all of them," Starswirl replied firing up his magic and causing a scroll to manifest, which he gave to Jorah. "His highest numbers are in his defense status. And even those are low."

"What in Tartarus are you, kid? A larval form of a pony?"

"I am a pony. I just wasn't in the best care."

"Duly noted," Vojin heard before he felt a hand on his shoulder that forced him to turn around. Jorah was kneeling down and looking at him while she scratched her chin. "Ok, first I'll have you win some weight while beard over there teaches you how to read. Once you're back into an acceptable weight, I'll begin strengthening your body and raising some of your stats. Your lessons start tomorrow. Therefore, today you'll eat and rest."

"If that's what you believe to be the best option. I'll stick to it," Vojin replied before turning away to place the pieces of paper he had in hand into the trash bin. "Ma'am, where is the place where I can get food?"

"We ought to grab some grub as well," Jorah said passing her arm over Starswirl's shoulder. "And this guy over here is gonna pay for our food since what they have here at the barracks is downright disgusting. If not poisonous."

"You're going to burn my economies again, aren't you?" Starswirl said letting out a sigh before smiling. "You have always been like this."

"And you have always been a grumpy pony with a beard," Jorah replied playing with the Straswirl's beard.

'Her mood improved, she must really like food. Or she just wanted to get out of this dirty room.'

"Come on, kid! Let's eat!" Jorah exclaimed before grabbing his wrist and pulling him away. "To the restaurant!"

'I'm starting to wonder if these two are actually going to help me or if they are just acting to get me to lower my guard.

'Okay, that kid needs to gain weight, but given how thin he is...I don't think he can eat much at once. My best bet is to have some smaller and more frequent lunches. I can get in contact with the guys in the kitchen to make something specific for him for a while. They do owe me after I got them the funds to fix their project of a kitchen. Or should I call it their alchemy lab? Cause I'm pretty sure that what they have been serving isn't food.'

'Yeah, that should do it. Now, what should I do for training? I never had to raise one of my soldier's stats this much. One point in strength and intelligence. Three in wisdom, two in stamina, his constitution has four, and the defense has five. His dexterity is...how do you get half a point? The lowest score I ever saw was nine. Where do I even begin with this kid? Maybe some minor sets of push-ups? No...he won't be able to lift himself off the ground.'

'I could have him carrying some boxes for me...slowly raising the weight should make him able to get his strength up. Dexterity is easy, simple jobs that require a bit of finesse should do it, though I should find something even a baby could do correctly. His wisdom and intelligence are beard's problem. Constitution...that one is going to be tricky. I better come up with something later. The last one...defense...I can probably have him trying to block my attacks. I can go easy, the others might overdo it.'

'But out of all the weird things we have here...what is up with his affinities with curses? Those are hard to come by and usually...they are linked with a lot of negative emotions. Well, he was a slave...but what did he go through?'

Although Jorah was smiling during their dinner, the last thing on her mind was what was happening around her. That entire thing seemed off, a child in those conditions, his background...the queen. Jorah knew her, and the queen herself asked to keep the kid's background a secret. What could have led a child to have that much affinity for curses?

"Hey, Jorah?" Starswirl asked breaking her out of her trance. "I think our little friend had more than enough," He continued pointing at the kid.

When Jorah turned to see Vojin, she saw a small colt sleeping with his head resting on the table with an empty plate by his side.

'Back in the office...he looked like a miniature adult. Now he looks like a regular child, it's just sad. When children are taken in by the military they still have recreational times as to reduce their chances of being way too into combat. But given how he acts...that won't make a difference. Does he even know how it is to be a kid? In any case, he can at the very least sleep and dream like a child.'

After Starswirl had paid their tab, Jorah picked up Vojin and carefully carried him back to the barracks. Carefully carrying him so that he wouldn't wake up, Jorah got a lot of surprised looks along the way. The dead-eyed captain of the Dusk Knights was carrying a child in her arms while being accompanied by a stallion.

"You know that a lot of ponies are going to be speaking about this, don't you?"

"Since when did I give a shit about them? This is a kid that doesn't know how to be one. Except when he is sleeping, and from here on out he will be facing a huge learning curve just so he can start to think about a class. Imagine how it will be when he is combat ready, at least he can be a child in his sleep. Therefore this moment is sacred from now on."

(The following day)

"Tia! Tia!" Celestia heard as something pulled out her dress' skirt. "Look over there!"

"What is it, Luna? We are studying now," Celestia asked while turning to her little sister that was sitting by her side.

"It's the colt from yesterday! Look! He is studying as well. Let's go say hello! He was really nice, so come on!" Celestia looked over to where Luna was pointing, it really was him.

'Vojin, was it? Mother told me that soldiers always are at the barracks. They don't tend to come to the library. And who is that guy with him? He has a pretty tacky hat with all those bells. I guess that I should just do what Luna wants so that we can go back to studying. I don't want to be scolded like last time.'

"Okay, Lulu. Let's go say hello. Then we go back to the books, ok? Mother will be angry if we don't cover the lessons she selected for us," Celestia said getting up and guiding Luna by holding her hand.

The sisters walked all the way through the library to reach Vojin, who had a quill on one hand and seemed to be struggling with something given the faces he was doing. When they got closer Celestia managed to see that he seemed to be transcribing letters from a children's book.

"And this one?" The wizard asked right before Celestia managed to say something.

"Is it the letter 'v'?" Vojin replied staring hard at the letter the hat stallion had on his head.

"Close, this is the letter 'u'. They aren't very far away in the alphabet, but their shape is distinct. You need to pay attention to the shape of the letter. You won't be able to read unless you can recognize the letters in front of you. You want to be able to read, don't you?"

"Of course I want! Then I'll be able to read my own name!" Vojin replied looking with a serious face to the wizard.

"Then you need to be more careful. You're really good at copying what you see. You managed to copy most of the letters, even if you're sloppy with the handwriting."

"I just copy what is in front of me. That's how I do most of my tasks. If I just mimic what they do I could finish what I had to do. But it's not like I can make it as well as the other pony."

"Hey, Tia! Look he is still learning how to read!" Luna exclaimed on the other side of the table, Celestia didn't even notice that she had left her side. "Hey, Vojin! Hello!"

"Princess Luna?" The wizard said as she walked to Luna's side. "Princess Celestia. To what do we owe the pleasure?"

"Hello, Luna," Vojin replied looking down to Luna. "Celestia, good to see you."

"Hello, Vojin," Celestia said making a small bow. "And you sir, you are?"

"My apologies. I am Starswirl, Starswirl the Bearded. I am the little one's instructor in magic."

'Magic? But based on that conversation it seems Vojin doesn't even know how to read. Which is weird.'

"More specifically he is my teacher in academics in general according to what he said to me," Vojin said picking the book back from Luna and placing it on the table. "I'm not very bright, so he is taking the time to teach me some basics. I want to be able to read, write, and much more," He continued picking up the quill and a blank scroll.

"Mr. Bells! Mr. Bells!" Luna said playing with the bells hanging from the hat. "You look smart. What do you know about literature?"

"Luna! We need to learn the lessons on our own!" Celestia shouted as she reached for Luna who was standing on top of a table.

"You need help? I'll be glad to help. Just bring your books over and I'll lend you two a hand."

"But...aren't you supposed to focus on your assigned soldier?"

"I don't mind," Vojin replied as he continued to scribble down the letters from the book. "My guess is that I won't be leaving this lesson for a while."

"The older you get the harder it is to learn basic things like the alphabet," Starswirl replied looking at the letters. "Which one is this?"

"B?"

"Correct. You seem to be learning a bit at the very least. Keep it up and then you go outside and eat one of those thingies Jorah gave it to you," The wizards said looking at the letters. "And put some more effort in your writing. It won't matter how good you are with words if others can't read them."

"Ok. I'll keep trying," Vojin replied with a frown in his face as his hand trembled with the quill.

'At least he puts on an effort,' Celestia thought as she turned away to go get the books.

"Luna, Celestia," A familiar voice called out as soon as Celestia started to turn to her table. "Why aren't you studying?"

"O-oh. Hi, mom," Celestia replied, looking at her mother's stern look. "M-me and Luna just came t-to say hi to Vojin."

"Your Majesty," The wizard said from behind her, Celestia saw her mother's angry look soften a bit as soon as she saw the colt and the wizard.

"Starswirl. How are you?" She asked with her usual calm tone. "How are things going with your assignment?"

"No problem," He replied without much care as he looked back to Vojin's book. "I was about to offer a little help to your daughters with their lessons. If you don't mind that is."

'Mother knows this Starswirl guy? She spends most of her day doing her 'royal duties' and we only see her in the night when she is about to send us to sleep.'

"I don't see a problem with you helping my daughters," Faust replied, which made Celestia raise an eyebrow. "I guess I can up the difficulty of the lessons since you're helping out."

'WHAAAAAAAAAT?!'

"Yay! We get to study with a teacher instead of being alone!" Luna celebrated as she ran back to the books.

"Starswirl, I'm heading out to eat these bar thingies Jorah gave me," Vojin said walking away.

"Very well, I'll circle the letters you wrote down for when you come back you can identify them," The wizard said picking up the parchment.

"Well, Celestia. I'm changing your assignments for today. Get ready for a little dificulty spike."

"Okay, mother."

'I just wanted to finish my assigment for today and get out of the library...why did this happen?'