Sergeant Lionheart’s life was little more than a cloak and a series of fires to huddle around.
Six years with the guard led to three letters of promotion, four medals (one for combat), and one creaky wing. He had no other possessions to his name. The guard took care of the rest.
This mission actually presented him with a surplus of little things. Not only did he have a cloak and a fire, but one of the other ponies in his squad found some kind of wooden planting boxes lying in the clearing. They’d overturned them and now reclined on them next to the fire.
It was the little things.
Just as he was starting to get a feel for the planting box’s softer spots, the guard on watch let out a whinney of alarm. “Something’s in the woods!”
The guards heaped snow on the fire and dashed into formation. Spears out, eyes up. For a moment, Lionheart saw nothing but the absolute black of the forest, heard nothing but the ambient vwooo of their shields.
But as his eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw what the guard on watch was talking about: a faint, pale green light breaking through the trees behind the cabin.
His mind immediately went to deer magic. They typically fought with slings and rocks and stone hatchets, but he’d read in books of their powers of mindreading and psychic warfare. “Get the mana tube ready,” he said to the pony next to him.
Two figures emerged from the treeline.
He reared back and prepared to order the charge when he recognized the alicorn shape of Princess Twilight. “Hold!” he called. The pony with the mana tube pointed it at the ground.
“Seems your fire’s gone out, sergeant,” the taller figure said.
Definitely the princess. Lionheart let out a sigh of relief and lowered his shield. The rest of the guards followed suit. The mana tube went back into its holder.
“You were supposed to be in the cabin,” Lionheart said.
“There was something in the woods I needed to see. Don’t worry.” The princess gestured to the fugitive. “She’ll be joining us.”
Lionheart raised an eyebrow but said nothing. She had been trying to kill them a couple hours ago. But stranger things had happened. At any rate, she hadn’t blasted them with lasers yet. Things were already going better than before. The magic of friendship strikes again.
The princess saw right through him. “Trepidations, sergeant?”
“No, princess.”
“Good. You’ll be flying her out.”
Lionheart let out a silent lament for his creaky wing. Still, ever the professional, he let his face betray nothing. He drew a harness from his pack, essentially an adult-sized foal carrier used for transporting ground-bound arrestees via air.
He stepped towards the fugitive, who had strategically placed herself half-behind the princess. Her whole body was bent like a spring, ready to leap away at a moment’s notice.
He caught a glimpse of the fugitive’s face illuminated in the light of the mana shields. He recognized her in an instant. A strange, tingly feeling shot through his body. Goosebumps appeared on his legs.
Her eyes, all three of them, locked on him. She recognized him, too.
But Lionheart was a professional. Whosoever trusted in the princess, he trusted in return. “Seems we’ll be getting to know each other over the next few hours,” he said. “My name is Sergeant Chromatic Lily Lionheart. You can just call me Lionheart.”
In the almost-blackness of night, he noticed the princess’s face flicker. She grew pale and wide-eyed, like she was about to throw up.
The fugitive took an inquisitive step towards him. She eyed him carefully as the princess scrambled for something to say. Before the alicorn could step in, the fugitive’s face relaxed, and she stuck out her hoof.
“My name’s Rainbow Breeze,” she said. “Don’t drop me.”