Long Jump slowly woke up, and for a few moments wished he was still asleep; a headache throbbed right behind his eyes. He groaned a bit, and dragged a hoof up in order to cover his eyelids and block out the painful light. With his vision still cloudy, the only senses he could take advantage of were hearing and smell. First he recognized the sound of hooves on wooden floors, his military training dully telling him there was only one other pony in the room with him. His sense of smell, however, picked up a very aromatic stew somewhere nearby. The hoof-beats got closer, and a happy voice chimed in through his headache.

“Good to see you finally woke up. Sorry about how long you were out - I’m not that good at healing spells. Hungry?” the voice asked.

Long Jump blinked his eyes open, even if they were unfocused, letting his brain going over the sounds he heard, and then shut his eyes again, at the brightness of the room was still too much. It was almost as bad as when he drank too much hard cider. He lay still for a moment before thoughts started to clink together.

“Healing… Where am I?” the pegasus asked in a raspy voice, rubbing his left forehoof against the top of his muzzle in a hopefully stealthy way to check to see if there’s some restraint around it. A kind voice didn’t necessarily mean he was in less-than-friendly hooves, after all.. His head felt foggy, as though he was a little drunk, though he could make out the general shape of a unicorn walking around the cabin. That unicorn stepped around the small cabin, stirring the stew Long Jump could smell, and then yanking out additional blankets from under a large couch.

“You’re in my cabin, out in the Northern Equestrian Woods. Don’t you remember crashing during the hailstorm? I brought you back here, bandaged you up, worked some spells,” The stranger said. A bowl of stew floated down in front of the pegasus’s muzzle, the fragrant aroma bypassing everything else to lodge directly in his somewhat-addled mind. He might have been in a lot of pain, but he was also starving.

“You’ve got bandages around your middle so you don’t throw yourself off balance,” the unicorn commented.

The guard ignored the final off-hoof comment, but relaxed somewhat at hearing that he was still on sovereign soil. He started to bend his right foreleg out to find the bowl but stopped with an involuntary yelp, his shoulder protesting at the movement. Instead, he switched to the left hoof to reach the bowl and plop his muzzle into the stew. He started to eat with a distinct lack of dignity.

The unicorn continued to flit around the small cabin, doing random cleanup and chores while the pegasus ate. When Long Jump’s muzzle lifted from an empty bowl, the unicorn replaced it with a full one almost immediately and set a cloth napkin down on the floor right next to it. The empty bowl floated over into the kitchen and dropped into the overflowing sink.“Are you just out here on patrol?” The unicorn asked. “I’ve heard the Royal Guard sends soldiers this far out, but I’ve never seen one out here before.” He lifted a foreleg to point at the pile of dented, dirty armor sitting in a corner, a few dozen feet from the pegasus. “I can probably fix it, if you’d like. Doozy of an enchantment set though, including the ones that make you all match.” He poured himself a bowl of stew and flopped down on the floor next to Long Jump. “I always wondered what the point of that was…” he mumbled before digging into his own food.

After finishing the second bowl of stew, the pegasus tried to sit up, then quickly gave up with a pained whinny, resting his chin back on the pillow that had been supporting his head. He gave out a bit of an annoyed huff at being so injured. Now he could think a little more clearly; the food had also definitely helped with his headache. He rubbed his left foreleg over his eyes a few times, blinking until things were less fuzzy. At least now he could identify the stove and a couch against the far wall. All the walls were lined with bookshelves, and more stacks of books had been piled in front of them. Papers stuck out of most of the books on the floor.

“The guard does patrol the borders, just not in the Celestial armor, usually…” Long Jump muttered. He squinted at the pile of mangled metal that used to be his armor and let out a bit of a low whistle.

“Damn. That looks like I got into a fight with the Guardian of Tartarus and lost,” Long Jump mumbled before he fell back into more formal speech. “Still, this guardsman owes you a debt of gratitude. May I have your name, Sir?”

The unicorn waited until he finished his bowl of stew before he answered. He wiped off his mouth and then stood up. “Red Ink. I’m a Professor at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. I’m out here for the summer break.” He walked over to the pile of discarded armor, and with a little glow around his horn, the armor floated up. Long Jump could see some actual holes in the barding caused by the hail, and a few of his feathers clung to it thanks to the grime.

“Now, I think I can fix this, but it will take a bit of luck,” Red Ink said. “Enchantments are my specialty, but not this kind.” He floated the armor up over Long Jump, across the room, and set it down on a large, oak desk; papers got pushed off onto the floor as it landed.

“What’s your name?” the unicorn asked as his horn glowed brighter. It looked like shadows of the armor were floating around it, or as though the armor was a small and it was showing the difference between a medium and a large. “Ignore the after-images. I’m just examining the enchantments. If you stare too long at them you’ll go cross-eyed.”

“Lieutenant Long Jump, Sir,” spilled out automatically. “As for the armor… it is against protocol to let it be examined, Sir.” If crashing out in the woods wasn’t going to get him in trouble with the brass, letting a civilian inspect his armor definitely would. “Crown secret. I must insist that you stop what you’re doing.” Red Ink just stared at him for a few seconds, and he realized he was trying to sound official while helpless on the floor of the quaint little cabin. He changed his tone to be more polite.

“I mean, please. My CO will have my hide and I’m…” He let out a grunt as he tried to stand up again and failed. “…not in any position to stop you at the moment.” Long Jump laid his ears back. Red Ink looked over at the pegasus, concern in his eyes.

“Then tell your CO that I’m an official enchanter for the Crown,” Red Ink said, and then smirked. “That may or may not be true.”

Red Ink turned back to the armor and stuck his tongue out of the side of his muzzle as he concentrated. The after-images disappeared, and there is an audible ‘pop’. There were still dents and holes in the armor and a lot of dirt still on present, but the armor definitely shone brightly underneath.

“I can’t really do anything about the metal at the moment, but you can wear it again, and the disguise enchantments might work now. Once you can get up, of course,” Red Ink added. The unicorn then trotted back over to the pegasus. “Any particular parts of you that are in a lot of pain? I know your back probably hurts a lot after the crash, but I can’t really do anything about that. Any joints pulling the wrong way? Achiness? I can’t really repair anything if it’s broken, but I can take the edge off.”

The guard gave out a huff of annoyance at the unicorn ignoring his request, then sighed in defeat, eyes downcast for a moment. If it helped ease the pain a little more, maybe it would be worth it to open up to this unicorn.

“I’m having trouble moving my right foreleg at the shoulder, and my entire right side is in a combination of burning pain and completely numb.” He shifted a bit, just to test his joints. He hissed and bit back the pain before going limp, panting. “I can’t feel my right hind leg or my right wing.”

The unicorn paused, taking a deep breath. “Well, the right hind leg I can do something about.” His horn glowed, and slightly painful tingles cascaded down the pegasus’s right hind leg, eliciting a grunt of pain from the pony. “This is basically magic acupuncture,” the unicorn said as the wave of tingles reached Long Jump’s hoof. “As for your right wing, well… you can’t feel it because it isn’t there anymore. It got severed in the crash and I, well…” he sighed heavily. “I couldn’t find it.”

The guard blinked a few times before he spoke again. “I’ve… I’ve been clipped?”

The unicorn sat down in front of Long Jump, leaning forward to give him a comforting nuzzle. “I’m sorry. I know it must be awful to think about.” He smirked, despite the seriousness of the situation. “There can’t be that many one-wigged Royal Guards, though. You’d be unique.”

The pegasus let out a grim chuckle. “No, what’s awful is my mom was right.” He raised his voice into a falsetto. “Don’t you dare join the guard, you’ll lose a wing!” He laughed a little harder until he started coughing and cringing in pain from rattling his bruised ribcage around too much.

Red Ink gave Long Jump another nuzzle before standing back up. “My mom expected me to run a bakery. A bakery! Not when I can do…” His horn blasted out a stream of violet sparks, and Long Jump found himself floating in the middle of the cabin for a few seconds. Red Ink gingerly set him down on one of the soft couches, a blanket folding over him a second later. “…that. Now, try and relax. Your body needs to heal.”

Long Jump did his best not to blush at the oddly forward nuzzles from the unicorn, somewhat thankful that he probably didn’t have enough blood to do so right now anyway. He then tried to get comfortable on the couch, fighting off a yawn.

“Wait, how far away are we from anypony? Do you have any way to get a message out?” Long Jump asked.

Red Ink looked up, thinking for a moment. “Not really. The train only comes every two weeks, and the mail doesn’t go out this far. It’s why I stay here - no one can bug me,” the unicorn said.

“Getting a message back to the castle isn’t going to happen for a while, huh?” Long Jump grumbled. “Hopefully they’ll take this as an excuse for being out of contact.”

The unicorn shrugged. “As soon as you can walk, we can put you on the train. You’ve got ten days. Besides, how is ‘horribly crashing’ not a legitimate excuse?” He stuck his tongue out playfully at the pegasus before prancing back into the kitchen. “Do you want some cupcakes? I think I am going to make cupcakes.”

Long Jump boggled for a moment at the randomness of the unicorn’s topic change, and refrained from answering either question. Instead he closed his eyes and fell quickly back into slumber.

Author's Note

Revision 1