It took Eric just over an hour to take care of everything.
He brought the small horse around to the back, then onto the kitchen table, where he could work in the brightest light. Only there could he easily strip away the creature's unusual clothing, and tend to his wounds.
They weren't just “clothes,” though. The horse was armored, he had no doubt in his mind. Judging by his injuries, that armor might have saved the horse's life.
Once it was off, and the animal underneath exposed in the bright light of Eric's kitchen, what he saw was unmistakably impossible. An animal about the size of a large dog, with an equine frame. His shape was a little too cute to be natural, like something engineered for some perfect little petting zoo.
Except that he had two wings, covered in real feathers. He checked the animal's sides for stitches or other signs of some grotesque, inhumane graft, but found none. Impossibly, this animal just had wings.
Aside from numerous cuts and scrapes, the most serious wound Eric found was to one of these wings, probably when the creature smacked against the pavement. There was a clear break in the wing, with several nearby feathers missing or shredded.
Good thing Eric wasn't squeamish. He guesstimated about half the human-sized syringe prefilled with who-knew what, then worked to clean the wound as best he could. His work wasn't perfect, but at least he had one good wing to use as a reference. He set the injured wing as close to that position as he could, then secured it in place with a metal splint and plenty of bandage tape.
It was far from professional work. But Eric had spent his entire childhood on a farm, with all kinds of work animals and plenty of injuries. The weird horse-creature could do worse.
When his work was done, there was little left to do but wrap the animal in some dry towels, and carry him into Eric's own bedroom.
It wasn't a large room—not even big enough for a desk and a bed to fit beside each other. He ripped his blankets off the bed, then set the animal there. He'd broken the poor thing's wing, the least he could do was give it a night to rest and heal.
Eric stumbled out of the bedroom and into the hall. He was past exhaustion at this point, well into delirium. Was any of this real? Maybe he'd wake up in the morning with a half-crazed deer tearing his room apart, until it bucked its way out the glass window and out into the woods.
Or maybe not. The longer he spent around the animal, the less plausible his experiences were the product of simple delusion. The metal armor still sat on the kitchen table, defiantly refusing to vanish from before his eyes.
He wandered over to the couch, and might've collapsed into unconsciousness there, if he didn't remember what had ultimately made him take this course in the first place. The animal was so insistent he find the book, he had asked about it before any concern about his own life.
The deluge had passed by the time Eric wandered back outside. Only a trickle of rain splattered against his damp clothes. His boots were already soaked through, so the wet gravel didn’t slow him down either. He marched over to the car, and retrieved his broken phone from inside. More broken stuff he couldn't afford to replace.
Importantly, the sturdy canvas satchel was still where he'd left it. He scooped it into one arm, turning it over in his hands. It was a little small, now that he thought about it. A child might wear a bag this size—or maybe a little horse would. Then he stumbled around to the back, retrieving the little spear from the bed of the truck.
A strange wind rustled past him, brushing up against the satchel in his fingers. Eric shivered, feeling a sudden chill strong enough to cut through the pain and exhaustion. He turned, expecting to find someone staring at him through the blinds across the street. But he saw nothing—only his gloomy neighborhood, and the distant amber glow of working streetlights one block over.
Eric half-jogged, half-stumbled back into his house, locking the door firmly behind him. His roommate must be spending the night with family again—a far wiser course than driving all the way into Livingston as Eric had.
But would another driver have been as compassionate to the impossible animal wandering across the road?
Eric switched on the old lamp, then slumped into his couch. It was old and covered with stains, but still surprisingly comfortable. He tossed the spear up against the wall, somewhere he wouldn’t kick it by mistake and lose a toe.
Only then did he slide the satchel open, and reach inside to remove its contents. There was a tight scroll of paper there, sealed with wax. He ignored that for now, focusing instead on the oversized book he'd felt through the fabric.
It was an incredibly elaborate creation, several pounds at least. The covers were heavy leather, with a face pressed in along the front. A unicorn's face, maybe? Except that its horn was strangely curved and forked at the end, unlike any classical depiction of unicorns he'd seen.
A piece of glass or maybe gemstone was set into the leather where the eye would be, glittering back at him.
It twitched and shifted to his view, almost as though it was moving.
There was no title, no writing at all along any surface, just embellishments made of metal scales. Like the armor sitting on his kitchen table, or even the creature resting in his bed, Eric couldn't help but feel as though he were looking at something incredibly expensive. An ancient collector's item maybe, from some long-lost culture?
Finally he flipped the cover open, looking through a few pages. Here he found writing, a neat cover page printed in simple block letters and repeating type. "Searing Gale," it read. "Here entombed by the sacred decree of Princess Celestia, Dawnbringer.
Let this volume serve as a reminder to her subjects that peace and friendship will be preserved across all Equestria, no matter the opposition arranged against us. No fire burns hot enough to destroy our resolve.
This volume shall not be separated from the Nirik tome of the same name. Keep these always together, so the bond remains strong."
Eric found his mouth hanging open as he read—not just from exhaustion, but sheer stupefaction. What did any of this even mean?
He flipped through the rest of the book in huge chunks, searching for some hint. Most of the space was devoted to... mathematical diagrams? Illustrations? He'd barely passed high school Algebra, so didn't exactly recognize what he was looking at.
Each diagram came with documentation. He stopped on one at random, reading it over. The title proclaimed it was a "Regeneration of wounds large and small, suitable for all but the gravest cases." Then came several paragraphs of nonsense—how to anoint the subject with specific oils, what to use to draw the diagram, and more that he understood even less.
What am I even looking at? He flipped another few pages, to "Entanglement of pens, quills, or other writing instruments" then past that to "Voyages of Considerable Distance."
Each was written in flowery language that somehow bordered into the incredibly technical. None of it made the slightest sense to him.
He was so engrossed in his reading that he didn't even realize as the pages themselves began to glow, not until they had completely overpowered the kitchen lights and the lamp beside him. He dropped the book reflexively onto the coffee table, shielding his eyes.
That did nothing to prevent what happened next. Light overwhelmed him, so bright that it burned at his eyes, his face—searing through his skin.
It burned, as painfully as his earlier experience with an airbag. For the second time that night, Eric lost consciousness.
Morning came much too early, just as Eric knew it would. This was the inevitable price to pay for the good samaritan—instead of getting straight home to rest, he’d given that time to help an animal. That it had apparently been an animal capable of human speech, with wings and clothing would be little consolation during his next shift.
He’d even given the creature his own bed for the night, so he woke with a strange ache in his neck and a painful pressure-point on his forehead from having his face pressed into the cushions. And for my trouble, that horse-thing will probably piss on my mattress.
Was that a fair exchange for hitting it with his truck?
Eric stepped into his bedroom long enough to grab a change of clothes, and check that the animal was still breathing. Yes, he still slept soundly—that made one of them. Maybe he should message his boss and pass on the first shift of the day.
And the ninety dollars I’ll make? He would need more than that to fix his truck, assuming there were no vet bills to pay for the pegasus. Too bad the creature was so small, or maybe it could take him to work.
Eric showered quickly, blasting himself with the hottest water he could stand. It was there that he finally noticed something was different—his forehead.
While running cheap shampoo/conditioner/bodywash through his hair, his hand ran smack into something that definitely shouldn’t be there. He gasped, feeling around the strange object with one hand. What he took for exhaustion at first was certainly more than that.
Did I get a piece of shrapnel stuck into my head and not even notice? He stumbled out of the shower, tearing the curtain off the bar and splashing water everywhere. He wiped one hand on the mirror, clearing away condensation. A silvery horn emerged from his head, one that extended well past his hair. It curved slightly backward, with a strange fork a short distance up.
It wasn’t a chunk of car, or a shard of broken glass. It felt like bone, sturdy to the touch. I’m dreaming. He wrapped his fingers around it, trying to carefully nudge it free. He hissed in pain, releasing it with one hand. That thing did not want to budge. If it were stuck anywhere else, he might’ve tried again, forcing with all the strength he had. But this thing was growing out of his head. What if it was stuck into his brain?
I should go to a hospital.
From the counter, his cracked phone buzzed. He looked down, squinting at the message waiting there. His boss, of course. “I couldn’t get anyone else for the morning shift. Unless you’re dying, get your ass here.”
“Alright,” Eric muttered. This couldn’t be real. Whatever was happening to him, it would pass. Probably before his shift was over.
Eric dried and dressed. He removed the largest cowboy hat from his bedroom wall, then propped it over his head, a little further forward than usual. Good enough.
Despite his fears, his truck started. Eric drove to work.
On the scale of good to bad days, Night Guard Iron Feather was having about the worst he could imagine. There were perhaps a handful of ponies who had endured worse, such as those who served during the Changeling Invasion. Except for that exalted class, he could scarcely imagine anything worse.
Iron groaned, shifting his weight uncomfortably. The surface he was laying atop seemed comfortable enough, and the warmth was nice. Better than the terrifying downpour his mistake had unleashed, with wind and rain fierce enough to ground even a skilled flier like himself.
His whole body hurt, but it was worse by far along his rightwing. He felt a steady throb on that side, one little stab of pain to every heartbeat.
Something hit me. His memory was hazy, but that exact moment was clear. Something huge flying towards him at incredible speed, bright lights, then squealing as it tried to dodge—and failed.
The spellbook is trying to kill me, just like the princess said it would.
Iron Feather couldn't keep hiding forever. Maybe if he wasn't a member of the Guard, with a sacred duty to protect Equestria, maybe he could've closed his eyes and trusted somepony else to fix things. Princess Luna started this whole mess, surely she would finish it.
But he'd taken the oath. As of last month, Iron Feather was officially a night guard. Protecting Equestria from its darkest enemies was his job, even if he was new to it.
He stretched his legs, finding each one as sore as every night of basic training. Then his weight settled against the wing, and he whimpered with pain, eyes jolting open.
His surroundings were—utterly baffling. His bed was larger than any but perhaps a princess might use. Only the blankets were missing, and he was laying on a bare mattress.
The warm light of morning shone in from outside, peeking through mismatched metal blinds. How long have I been out?
Long enough that his injured wing wasn't just hanging limply beside him. There were thick bandages wrapped around it now, and a brace visible underneath. All that held it uncomfortably close to his body. But he had already felt just how serious that injury really was. More like field first-aid than actual medicine.
It shouldn't hurt this much. Did they not have any pain potions?
There were other injuries too, little scrapes he'd taken during the attack the night before. These were bandaged too, though not in any way he'd ever seen. A thin, clear skin was painted over a wound on his foreleg, somehow protecting the scrape without restricting his movement.
The walls were mostly bare, but their strange height reminded Iron again of visiting the royal quarters. Whoever lived here was either as tall as a griffon, or paid far more for their space than they did to their decorator.
There were wooden picture frames hanging from the walls, but each one had the same image of several lotus blossoms, along with text too distant for him to read.
Wherever he was, Iron Feather hadn't been imprisoned here. A door hung open, leading into a more strangely tall house with its perfectly clear windows. "Hello? Is anypony there?" He made his slow way over to the door, nudging it open with a hoof. "I'd like to thank you for saving me. Whatever attacked me last night..."
He trailed off, staring through the opening. There off to the left was a kitchen, as unusually tall as everything so far. Sitting on the huge table was a pile of bloodstained cloth, a medical kit, and Iron's armor. Perfect! His spear was even here, visible as a glint of metal up against the wall.
He hurried over, crossing through the bizarre building without paying much attention to the details. He could figure all that out when he had some of his gear back on. Maybe not the breastplate, it would be a pain to get that over a broken wing. Then he could figure out what the buck had happened to him.