Twilight Sparkle is having a tough time mastering her brother's protection spell after returning from her first semester at Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. Shining Armor stands ready to assist his sister as always and decides that recounting the tale of how he got his cutie mark may help her in her task. His story involves a young colt struggling to learn what it means to protect those that matter and the price of intervention. With the help of his new friend, Lightning Bolt, he will transform from a naive and compassionate youngster to the royal guard recruit that is so greatly admired.

Also, for anyone interested, I recently obtained the cover image as a commission from MapleSunrise over on DeviantArt. She is very talented and capable and I thought I would simply mention that she is up for commissions. That is all.