//------------------------------//
// Something Mends 
// Story: Up, on the Hill 
// by SilverEyedWolf 
//------------------------------//

Jake paused yet again, watching the stormy gray pegasus sweep overhead with a wave to Twilight before he shook his head. Again.

"You'll get used to it, Jake," Pinkie chirped, smiling and waving back at the postmare.

"Prolly," he muttered, his step stuttering again as another pegasi flew overhead. "Just not used to seeing horse— Er, ponies, fly around. Just birds."

"The only things on your world that flew were birds?" Twilight asked, cocking her head as she waved at the newest flier. The pale purple mare barely had enough time to duck her head in return before putting on more speed, bolting towards where the postmare had disappeared.

Scratching his chin, Jake thought for a moment before saying, "We had insects too. Flies and grasshoppers and such. And I guess we had bats." He started to lift his hat but stopped when AJ cleared her throat. "Think that's it?"

"Okay, so you at least had mammals with the capability," Twilight said with a nod, turning onto the main road that led up to her castle.

"Sure," Jake said mildly and a bit thoughtlessly. "Oh, I think we had stories of a horse with wings, but I don't remember his name. One of those real old stories that only the stuffy guys know."

"Stories? Like, campfire tales, or myths?" AJ asked, gently nudging him when he reached for his hat again.

Sighing, he shrugged. "One and the same, ain't they? But this was one of the older stories, like the ones that tell of Unicorns and men who pull swords from lakes."

"You had stories about unicorns, too?" Twilight asked.

Jake huffed. "We had lots of stories. Can we hurry?" he asked, nodding towards the not-too-distant castle. "I think my skull's starting to leak again."

Pinkie let him take another step forward before balancing up on her two back hooves. "Nah," she said, looking at the back of his head. "There's just a little of the old stain. Oh, but it looks like some of the back is starting to slip down out of the hat."

Twilight turned green and stuck her tongue out as Jake chuckled dryly.

"Thank'ya for lettin' me know, ma'am." He reached back with both hands and held the back of the hat down before shoving on the back of his head before tilting it forward. "Better?"

"Yuppers!"

"Hey, we're here!" Twilight called with a forced chuckle before trotting off towards the large double doors. With a quick push, she disappeared within.

"Wonder what got under her skin," Jake said before chuckling again.

Applejack sighed as she shook her head. "Really though, what're we gonna do about that crater in yer cranium?"

Jake shrugged. "If ya got some twine, ah could prolly just tie it down?"

AJ scowled a bit. "That ain't gonna solve nothing, Jake; it'll just make creatures look closer. Maybe Twilight can put it back in place and, I dunno, heal it together or something."

Jake hummed lightly and shrugged as he reached the stairs, walking up and gently pushing the door further open. He stood to the side to let the other two pass before he slipped in and closed it. Reaching up, he gripped his hat's crown before pausing, sighing, and leaving it where it was as he stripped his backpack and coat off instead. Looking around, he saw a series of hooks hanging on the wall with a pair of scarves on it and hung both of his things beside them.

"Ya'll have a rug or something where ah can wipe my boots?" he asked, looking at the crystal floor. "Hate to muck up this shine."

"You can just leave them next to the coat rack!" Twilight called out from deeper in the hallways. "Unless you don't want to for some reason, then I can clean it later with no problems!"

Jake shrugged before reaching down as he stood on one leg and gripped the heel of his boot, tugging it a couple of different ways before pulling a foot covered in undyed cotton out and placing the shoe beneath a rack of hooks and copying the action for his other foot.

"Oh wow, Jake," Pinkie said with a slight blush. "Do you always wear those?"

He looked down at his feet, raised one to look at it a bit closer to make sure there wasn't anything on the fabric, then asked, "My stockings?"

There was a thud from the other room, followed by Twilight's incredulous face poking into the hall.

"Jake! There are chil— There are young creatures around! You can't just go around in s-s-socks! What would everycreature think!?"

He stared at Twilight for a long while before pointing at his boots and dead-panning, "That those chafe an awful lot without them? My skin'd fall off if I was just wearin' boots." He chuckled again. "More than is it now."

"Your..." Twilight started before looking at his fleshy hand. "You don't have any fur," she said with a small 'oh'. "You wear them for protection."

"Yuh," he said, nodding.

"Ah, I see. Uhm, all the same, would you mind taking them off? They have connotations here."

Jake stared at her. After half a minute, he asked, "Connotations?"

"It's lingerie, Jake," Pinkie said. When he shook his head, she cleared her throat before saying with a blush, "Ponies only wear socks when they wanna make more ponies, Jake."

He narrowed his eyes at her and cocked his head to the side.

"Sex, Jake," AJ muttered, slapping a hoof over her eyes.

"Oh. Oh!" he said, before shrugging and reaching down and pulling the fabric off and holding it for a moment, looking around before stuffing the four-hoof long garment into one of the boots and giving the other the same treatment.

He drummed his toes on the crystal before holding his hands out to either of his sides. "How about now? Am I gonna proposition somebod— somecreature accidentally?"

"Nah, you're good now," Pinkie said, quickly following it up with, "I think. I've heard about some creatures with a thing for digits, but not like, foot digits?"

"Ah call 'em toes," he said before looking at Twilight and raising a foot. "Better, Miss Princess?"

She narrowed her eyes at his foot before huffing. "Yes, Jake, better. Now come on, or have you changed your mind about that bath? I've got a spare room, so you can bring your bags too."

"Yes, ma'am!" he said with a smile before grabbing his stuff off the wall and taking a few long strides down the hallway.

"Whoa!" AJ muttered before taking off in a canter to keep up with him.

"I knew he could really move if he wanted to!" Pinkie said with a giggle as she bounced along behind them.

He slowed as he reached Twilight, looking into the room over her head. He paused as he took in the barely furnished space containing a bed, a wardrobe, and another door. He looked down himself, at the bed, at his bags, and at the wardrobe again, before sighing.

"Twilight, this is awfully generous of you, an' I don' wanna complain, but that bed is a good couple of feet too short for me. And, uh, I don't see a tub or a washbowl or nothin'."

Twilight sighed, placing a hoof on her forehead. "The bathroom is through that door," she said, gesturing with the hoof. "And I can extend the bed, as well as appropriate another mattress for the frame. I'd just like to measure you first."

"Oh," he said, looking down at her. "Sorry."

Shaking her head, Twilight stepped aside and let him slowly enter the room, ducking when the very top of the crown of his hat tapped against the door frame. Looking around, he hung his coat on one of the two hooks on the wall and placed his packs near the wardrobe.

"So, bed first, then bath?" he asked, holding his right wrist with his left hand.

"Sure, Jake, just go ahead and get on the bed and I'll stretch it for you," Twilight said.

He looked over at the tightly made covers and the plush pillows before he looked back at her. "I'll have to take my hat off," he said, pointing at the brim above and between his eyes.

"Right," Twilight said, narrowing her eyes. She kept them narrowed, obviously mulling something over, before sighing. "Jake, this is going to be weird, but I need to see your head. This is going to be an issue until it gets fixed, but I can't fix it without seeing it."

He nodded. "Sounds right, but... Well, I've seen the inside of a skull or two. Cow and man both. It's not pretty, Twilight, and you seem..." He looked at her for a moment before sighing and saying, "You seem a bit squeamish, Twilight, an' I don' want you faintin' on me or upchucking in my brain bowl."

Twilight's face scrunched as she blushed before letting a breath out and nodding. "I understand your concerns," she said slowly, "but I have studied anatomy, and do have a working knowledge of how a pony's brain functions, at least." She waited a moment before muttering, "And I already emptied my stomach earlier, the first time."

He gazed at her, unblinking. She kept his gaze for a minute before he nodded slowly. "A'right then," he said, looking around the room. "If you wanna sit on the bed, I'll sit by it, and you can get as good a look as you want."

She nodded, trotting over as Jake looked at the other two. "You along for this ride?"

AJ turned a bit green. "Ah'll stay over here, thank you," she said, quickly stepping on Pinkie's tail as she tried to pronk over.

Jake nodded and looked at Twilight, who had summoned over a large, thick book, as well as the room's waste bucket. He watched her flip to a page towards the back and look over it before looking up at him and nodding.

Turning and sitting against the bed, he tilted his head forward a bit and said, "Whenever you're ready, just lift her off."

Twilight took a deep breath before gently grabbing the back of the brim in her field and pulling it slowly off.

She took in a shaky breath before asking, "Jake, is it alright if I take some vocal notes?"

"Sure," he said, shrugging. "If it's more complicated than 'hole-in-the-head', I probably won't understand anyhow."

"Alright," she said before summoning a scroll and quill and giving them a quick enchantment. Reaching out with her field, she shuddered before steeling herself.

"Autopsy of one Jake..." She trailed off, leaning to the side. "Is that your full name?"

"Jacob Idris Yew," he said, before adding on, "Son of Emyr Elis Yew and Beca..." He thought for a moment. "My mother didn't ever mention her father's name."

"Autopsy of one Jacob Id-dris Yew," she said, fumbling a little with the unfamiliar middle name, "conducted after lethal actions against subject's body that did not result in subject's... lasting death." She checked her scroll to make sure that it had recorded all of that before reaching out again with her field and carefully pulling the flap of skin on the back of Jake's head.

"Subject has been pierced with an unknown small weapon through the forehead, with large exit wound on the back of his head. The subject had shown signs of a large amount of exsanguination through the exit wound, but the bleeding has since ceased. Exit wound would have consisted of small round perforation, but the weapon seems to have caught a particular chunk of the subject's skull, resulting in a large tear in the scalp. Skull fragments—"

Twilight paused, making a strangled hurk-ing noise in her throat and looking towards the bucket for a moment before swallowing and shaking her head.

"Most of the fragments of the skull remain on the scalp, though a portion seems to have been completely obliterated or potentially merely lost. The exit wound is about half a hoof, while the entry wound seems to have been roughly a third of that. The weapon left a clear tear through the subject's encephalon, specifically his cerebrum. The tear's edges seem rough, as though the weapon was blunt. Some of the cerebral matter has been torn away, likely following along the weapon, marking it as likely being a projectile of some sort."

Jake coughed lightly, clearing his throat as Twilight jumped. His hand went to his belt before pulling one of the bits made of two metals up between his thumb and forefinger.

"This is what done it," he said, before clarifying, "one just like it is what went through my head, anyway."

Twilight checked her scroll to make sure it had caught his speech before using her magic to make a replica of the bit of metal onto the scroll under the paragraph. "Thank you, Jake. You said this was a, uhm, boullet?"

"Yeah, a bullet," he said. "Top's lead, bottom's brass, inside is black powder to send the lead through the air and..." He gestured at his head.

"Understood," Twilight said with a shiver, putting any possible thoughts connected to the bullet away for now. "As picked up by my magic, before and now, the subject is not only able to provide answers about his current state but willing to fill in details by himself. Cerebral impact does not seem to have hindered his intellect in any way, nor his normal bodily function. Lack of blood has seemingly not affected subject as well—"

"Uh, I'm a lot paler than usual," Jake pipped up. "I feel a bit cold as well, but that's distant."

"As the subject says," Twilight muttered to the scroll. "Jake, are you okay if I go ahead and try and heal this wound? I'm no neurosurgeon, but I can at least heal over the entry and exit wounds."

It took a few moments, but Jake eventually said, "Sure, Twilight. I don't know anything about magic, but I can see you do, so I'll trust you with whatever you like."

"Well, I don't want to mess with your brain. Especially when I don't know how it's different from our own, so I'll just seal up the skin and the bone after I make sure there isn't anything in there that could become infected."

"Do I got splinters in there?" he asked with a chuckle.

"I don't see any, but any sort of foreign particulate could result in an infection or worse, something like sepsis. Plus, it's your brain, and I don't know if some little thing could trigger something like a seizure or something similar."

Jake shrugged. "Again, Twilight, I trust you. Worst you could do is kill me, and I'm already knockin' on that door."

Twilight took a deep breath in before saying, "Alright, I'm starting. Hold very still, Jake."

She gave him a moment to settle before reaching out and lining the tunnel of the tear with her magic. Closing her eyes and concentrating, she felt around the field itself for anything harder than the soft tissue before gently grasping it and funneling it out.

Once she couldn't feel anything else, she looked down into her field and saw about a tablespoon of detritus, dirt, and some white flecks she felt were likely bone splinters.

Taking a moment, she filtered out the bones and set them aside before tossing the rest in her emergency vomit receptacle. Gently grasping the back flap of his scalp, she raised it and placed it as well as she could along the tear so that the only thing missing was a small circle. The bone fragments still on the scalp scraped a bit along one side, forming a gap near the hole.

"I'm going to fuse the remnants of your skull back together with the rest now. Since there's still some bone missing, I'm going to go ahead and stimulate the growth of the bone as well."

"Alright," he said placidly. "It gonna hurt?"

The question left her lost. "I, uh, I don't know Jake. I mean, you should be in a monumental amount of pain as it is, but as far as I can tell, you're fine. I really just don't know."

"Tha's fair," he said. "Whenever you're ready then."

Twilight took in a lungful of breath before leaning forward, breathing down along her chest as she closed her eyes and focused on the hard bits of bone under the flap of skin.

Jake let out a small breath as she infused the fragments with her magic before letting the field overflow and begin to form a lattice of her own magical power. With a little prompting, the bone grew out and fused along the cracks and into the skull before Twilight pushed to the other side and narrowed the hole in his skull to non-existence.

"Alright, Jake, I'm going to close the gap in your skin now," Twilight said.

Jake merely grunted, causing her to pause until he flapped a hand at her. "G'wone."

She took another breath and copied the previous forms, bridging the gaps and tears with a magical lattice before flowing her magic into the skin until its growth caused it to fuse nearly seamlessly together. Focusing again on the hole over nearly grown, gleaming white bone, she watched the muscle knit over the skull, followed by the layers that made up his skin, followed by surprisingly quick sprouting of hair.

Twilight stopped a couple of moments too late and superstitiously trimmed the excess hair until it was the same length as the rest, throwing the trimmings into her emergency wastebasket.

"How are you feeling so far, Jake?" Twilight asked, sighing and sagging a bit as the magic took its toll on her energy levels.

"Feels okay," he said, reaching back with a hand and pausing as he just felt hair. "Oh, you're done?"

"With the back," she said, hopping down as Jake pressed gently on the place where he'd had a hole moments ago. "You still have the one in your forehead, but I need some food first. Growing skin over a cut is one thing, but bone takes a lot more energy."

"Oh, yeah," Jake said, perking up a little. "Y'know, before now I hadn't been thinking about it, but now I'm feeling a little peckish as well." He frowned. "Actually, I don't know when the last time I ate was since there's the whole death thing that happened. I guess it's been a few days."

"Days!?" AJ chirped, perking up. "How long've you been in my orchard!?"

Chuckling, he waved his hand flatly through the air at her. "Calm down now, not that long. I walked through that dam— Uh, through that forest for a couple of days. Didn't reach the apple trees until a couple nights ago, aroun' midnight or so."

"Oh, uh, ah thought you'd popped up there," AJ said, scratching her head just beneath the back of her hat. "So, ya came through the Everfree?"

Jake shrugged. "If that's what ya call the giant forest to the south of where ya found me."

"We're sorta cupped by the Everfree. It's where our zap apples come from, after all," AJ said with a smile.

"As ya say," Jake said with a shrug. "I'm pretty sure I walked north, inta the orchards, but I sorta just picked a way and walked it." He frowned. "Don't remember much of that walk, honestly. Lots of trees and a couple of creeks an' streams, but other than that, I don't remember anythin'."

At that moment, a sandwich appeared in the door, floating through and over to Twilight. She took a bite and chewed for a moment before she saw the other three staring at her. "Uhm, 'id you 'als wan' some 'oo?" she asked through a mouthful of peanut butter and bread.

Jake stared for a moment before smirking. "I guess I'll wait until you're done with tha hole in the front," he said, gesturing at his forehead.

"Uh, sorry," she murmured before taking another bite and wiggling closer, concentrating. "Rea'y?"

"Sure," he chuckled, leaning towards her a bit.

Twilight devoured the sandwich even as she rebuilt the small hole in his skull, chewing and swallowing mechanically as she carefully built the lattice, followed by skull, followed by muscle, finished by skin.

"There we go!" she said brightly, smiling up as he carefully rubbed the new, unblemished skin. "No more holes where there shouldn't be!"

That got a chuckle out of Jake for some reason, but he just shook his head at her puzzled look. "Well then, Miss Sparkle, is there anything else you need of me before I—" He raised a thumb and gestured it over his shoulder at the bathroom.

"You should be good!" she said with a smile. "I think the girls and I are gonna get some brunch whenever you want to join. Just knock on the inside of your door, and I've enchanted it to ring a series of bells across the castle. I'll be here in moments to show you where the kitchens are."

"Sounds swell," Jake sighed, standing up and rubbing his skull absently. "I'll reconvene with ya after the bath, then."

Twilight nodded, and the three ponies walked out of the room and towards the kitchens.

"So, how long do you think—" Pinkie started, until a masculine voice called out behind them.

"Twilight?"

The three of them looked over their shoulders, seeing Jake's left half poking through the doorway, his button-up shirt mostly undone, and a white undershirt peeking through.

"Where should I fill this tub? And what do I do with the water after?"