Hooves were pounding into Shining Armor's face—one after the other, with merciless repetition. He was on his back, helplessly raising his forelimbs to ward off the attacker, but they were batted away like straw and the blows kept coming, no matter how he twisted to avoid them. In a last, desperate attempt to save himself, Shining Armor drew back his right forehoof and tried to drive it into his attacker, but before his leg was even half extended it was grabbed between two hooves, each stronger than his own. There was a sharp twist, he felt his leg dislocate at the shoulder and heard a loud snap as the bone broke at the knee. Shining Armor yelled in pain but the breath was knocked out of him by a sharp kick to his ribs, muffling his cry into an agonized wheeze.
Finally satisfied, his assailant released him and backed off a few paces. After several torturous moments rolling on the ground, fighting for breath and caressing his broken limb, Shining Armor opened his teary eyes; and the image of a blood red pony, glaring disdainfully over him, came into focus. Shining Armor breathed deeply and his vision cleared enough that he could identify 'the hoof lifting off mud without leaving a mark' cutie mark, and the zebra standing behind him with a small bubbling cauldron.
“Comeon Shiny, that was pathetic!” spat his training partner, “I'm starting to think you like getting your legs snapped off; if that's the case I'd be happy to oblige some more.” With that Storm galloped and jumped over Shining Armor, giving his already broken limb a solid buck as he sailed overhead, landed, and then kicked Shining Armor squarely between his shoulder blades, rolling his battered body onto his broken leg. Shining Armor bit down on his tongue so hard that it bled, to keep himself from screaming.
“Silent Storm indeed speaks the truth, heed him and find a better you,” chided Zecora, only slightly more gently as she added a small flower to the cauldron and then dipped a ladle into its murky contents. Shining Armor choked down the bitter, acidic concoction, and then grit his teeth as his leg wobbled and snapped painfully back into place.
It was his first week as a Ranger. After arriving with the other new recruits, he had been thrilled when Zecora picked him out as being the only one with real potential; until he learned what 'having potential' meant to Zecora. He, and one other colt, was assigned to a dorm near Zecora’s hut where they would both be trained under Zecora’s ruthless yet invaluable training. Zecora introduced them to a rare bulb that only bloomed for thirty days at the dawn of spring, which could be brewed into a healing potion of unrivaled strength. The flower had its drawbacks: it didn't grow deep in the forest, it had to be boiled and drunk within minutes of being picked to have any effect, and it could only restore very recent injuries. For battle, its uses were negligible; for training its effects were invaluable. Zecora's healing potion meant that you could spar as rough as you liked, and anything but a broken neck could be healed within moments. Unfortunately, abstaining from breaking his neck seemed to be the only rule respected by the psychotic training partner Zecora had paired him with, and even that rule seemed to be accepted begrudgingly.
Zecora bent over him holding a damp towel to his face; the cloth came away soaked with blood, but his face felt fully restored. “Now get back up and try again, you must learn much better how to defend.”
“Comeon Zecora you gotta give me a tougher training partner then this shit weak loser! Even my little sister could kick his flank!”
“Fighting with Shining Armor, will teach him to be harder. Potential he has to be strong and keen, continue sparing and it you too will see."
“No!” shouted Storm staring Zecora in the face, “I insist on fighting somepony better than cry baby over there!”
Zecora spoke calmly, as if she was completely oblivious to Storm's blatant disrespect for their sensei. “If a stronger foe you wish to fight, perhaps you wish to test my might. If you believe you are the best, I would be pleased to fight you next.”
Zecora had only finished the first line when Storm started to away, ears flat against his head, no longer daring to meet her stare. “No Madam Zecora... forgive me.” Much more gruffly he added, “Get up, Shiny. Zecora wants me to break your legs some more.”
Cursing Storm's lack of stupidity, Shining Armor rolled to his hooves, and began gingerly testing his repaired leg while Storm cantered around him in impatient circles. How could it be like this? Back in Canterlot he had been a gold medalist sparring champion; this was his first visit to the forest and he was having his flank passed to him by a colt two years his junior. Storm kept telling him that half the stuff they taught him in Canterlot was a joke, as it came with dozens of rules that didn't exist in a real fight, and it relied on assumptions like you would always be fighting a single, weaponless opponent. Shining Armor had tried to explain that in Canterlot they didn't have the same kinds of plants that grew in the forest and so sparring had to be toned down to prevent serious injury, but Storm just spat at this.
In a real fight, Storm said, it wasn't enough to just pin an opponent down. Breaking bones, striking for the throat and jugular, gouging the eyes, etc. were the only things that really mattered, and if he didn't know these things, then all those moves that had won him those fancy medals would be almost useless if something was actually trying to kill him. Shining Armor understood what Storm was saying but, in Canterlot, his first lessons had been how to moderate his blows so as not to cause serious damage to his sparring partner, and it was hard to forget what he'd learned. Storm held no such reservations; he'd snap his legs, break his ribs, beat his face to a bloody pulp and stop only long enough for Zecora to heal him so he could do it all over again; insulting him every step of the way for what he called 'pathetic weakness'. Could this jerk even hear what he sounded like? Why couldn't Zecora have just left him with the timber wolves?
“Are you ready Shiny!? Or are you just going to stand there, looking like a gelding wondering how to buck himself!?"
Shining Armor took a defensive stance and waited. He was doing this for Cadance. However painful his training was, it was the fastest way he could gain the experience that would bring him closer to promotion, one step closer to being able to openly declare his love for Cadance, one step closer to spending his life with her. The thought made him feel giddy, he could almost smell her mane – Storm's hind hooves tore into his chest, throwing him back onto his knees. Shining Armor looked up just in time to see the hooves retract and strike again, shattering his front teeth.
................................................................................................................................................................
Shining Armor woke, using his tongue to do a flash roll call of his teeth, as he reminisced the strange relationship he once shared with Silent Storm. He'd tried to be friendly to him; when they weren’t training, (and if Storm didn't disappear like usual) Shining Armor would tell him about his life. Storm would seem interested, and even ask questions sometimes, but would only get angry when Shining Armor told him the answers, and the more Shining Armor had told him, the angrier he had become. Eventually Shining Armor stopped telling him anything, afraid Storm would kill him if he got any angrier. Out of blind curiosity, and a sense of fairness Storm didn't share, Shining Armor tried asking about Storm's life; but this only resulted in more anger, his sleeping bag being stuffed with the tongues of... what he thought were changelings, and eventually a detailed description of a lethal training 'accident'.
Each sparring session lasted for about thirty or forty rounds before Zecora called a stop to it. Afterwards, Zecora would berate them both for the mistakes they'd made over breakfast, then spend one or two hours giving them exercises and teaching them the proper technique before setting them against each other for another sparring session before lunch, and so on. Each round lasted about four hours, if Zecora was satisfied with their performance, they would have free time after the third round; if she wasn't, there would be a fourth. The training went on and on like this for six days a week, for the entire month. The pain was unbearable; the exhaustion overwhelming, (made possible only by Zecora's bizarre dietary supplements), but the results were effective; and with each sparring session, the average time it took Storm to subdue Shining Armor increased by a few seconds.
Shining Armor won his first match in week three, when Storm slipped and Shining Armor was able to pin him down; his only mistake had been assuming that that meant the fight was over and letting him go. The moment he was released, Storm turned on Shining Armor like a whirlwind, breaking four ribs and shattering his jaw, (making Zecora's brew even more difficult to swallow.) The next day however, Shining Armor won another bout. This time he grit his teeth and wouldn't let himself release Storm until he'd felt two of Storm's legs fracture under his hooves. The shock that Storm had still gotten back onto his hooves, had been enough to momentarily paralyze him, and Storm systematically broke nearly every rib he had before Zecora intervened and healed them both. The third time Shining Armor got the advantage; he didn't pull back until Storm's bones splintered through his skin with every blow, and that was the first day Storm began to respect him.
By the end of the month, Shining Armor could win almost a third of his bouts with Storm, but the shock came on the last day, when Zecora removed the clay molds she had put over their horns and ordered them to fight with their magic for the first time. Shining Armor had known from the start that his magic was his greatest weapon, and had thought it foalish to spend so much time developing a strength he would probably never use. But the melee combat hadn't been to train his body; it had been to train his mind:
His control over his magic was already adroit; but he'd lacked the mindset to utilize it for war. If he only fought at long range he would have never understood battle; the aggression, the urgency, the pain he could cause or could suffer. Zecora assured him the mold she'd fastened around his horn hadn't changed his magic, but now it seemed like second nature to use his magic to hurt, to pounce on any weakness, to strike without hesitation, and not to stop when an opponent cried out in pain. In one month, he had mastered a level of magical offense which would have taken him years to learn otherwise, if he could have ever learned it at all.
Shining Armor won virtually every match against Storm that day, elated to finally give Storm a full dose of his own medicine as it became increasingly obvious that Storm's magic was paltry compared to his. He felt like a supreme worrier; and was rearing to get into the forest to start racking up promotion points as fast as possible. He couldn't understand why Zecora refused to let him pass the first dragon wall without further training; another year seemed like such a waste. After his first tour in the deep forest; he understood why.
A pair of lips applied to Shining Armor's cheek vanquished the painful memory to his past, where it belonged, and drew his thoughts to the much happier present with the titillating task of kissing his fiance. They had done it! He had become the Captain of the Royal Guard, Cadance had waited for him, and now, as soon as they got back to Canterlot, they were going to get married. The years had flown by as if they were a dream. It seemed like only a few days ago that they had become engaged; the anticipation was just as fresh, the thought just as incredible, as it was the first night she said she would marry him, and Shining Armor couldn't be happier. He felt like the luckiest stallion in the world.
The two embraced each other in the dim light of the burrow, their lips moving over each other as their manes became entangled. The kiss complete, the two of them fell into lively conversation; Shining Armor asked, and Cadance told him about the hospital, and about how her quick thinking had even helped save a patient's life. Although she didn't have any formal training, twelve years of visiting the hospital, had given her more working knowledge than many junior nurses; and several of the senior doctors had encouraged her to take the tests and get a formal degree, which she was considering. The conversation took other, more intriguing, paths when Cadance began telling him about their house in Fillydelphia and describing how she'd decorated four of the five bedrooms for their honeymoon, (the fifth was a surprise), during which Shining Armor's grin kept getting wider and wider. It all seemed too good to be true.
After becoming thoroughly convinced that Cadance had had far too much free time on her hooves these last few months, their conversation backtracked to wedding plans. For the most part, the plans they had for the wedding they had canceled were just as good now as they had been last year, except one important detail that hadn't been resolved the first time. "Do you think my mother will come?" asked Cadance hopefully. "My father's too old to travel anymore, but my mom could come if she wanted."
"Why wouldn't she? I'm Captain of the Royal Guard, isn't she satisfied yet."
Cadance looked at him sadly, "Well yes, but she's still not happy about the way we met, now that she knows we were seeing each other before your last few promotions. Don't you remember when you were made a lieutenant, and we tried openly declaring our love for the first time?"
Shining Armor didn't remember, his memory was still hazy from keeping the shield up for a whole year, and there were still large patches he couldn't recall. But he remembered how he felt about Cadance. He remembered how he'd loved her ever since the day she walked into Doughnut Joes, and tried to order with coupons that Twilight had written out on napkins. He remembered the games they use to play as Twilight tried to set them up again and again; and he remembered how he'd worked, fought and risked his life for the last ten years so they could be together. If he remembered nothing else, that was enough. Fortunately the rest of his memories were becoming easier and easier to unlock; and this one only took a few moments, "Yes, I remember," he laughed, "Blueblood didn't think I was worthy of you and so he challenged me to a duel.”
Cadance giggled, “Yes, he did. I don't think he'd even read the rules for a duel until the day before he fought you. It's too bad I didn't get to see it.”
“What do you mean? You were there; I saw you in the front row of the audience.”
“Well I was there, but that doesn't mean I saw it. I blinked.”
“Three point four seconds is a long blink isn't it?”
Cadance grinned, “There was a speck of dust in my eye, by the time I had gotten it out the fight was over; thank you for not hurting him by the way.”
“You’re welcome. I will say though, he took losing a lot better than I expected him to. I mean, he was willing to support our marriage after that, even to your parents; if I’d known that earning his respect would be that easy I would have knocked him out years before that.”
Cadance blushed slightly, “Actually… I don’t think you beating him had much to do with him changing his mind.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was very upset that you beat him, he was even talking about an investigation to see if you cheated; I knew if that happened it would be a lot harder to convince my parents to let us get marry so… I threatened him.”
Shining Armor raised his eyebrows; “Really? With what?”
“I… shouldn’t talk about it.”
“I told you about the Rangers.”
“Well about four years ago, Blueblood dated this mare for a few months, but then it turned out she had been planted and was working with some professional criminals to try and break into one of my family’s vaults. When the plot was uncovered she turned on her culprits, giving enough evidence to convict the ringleaders, and with a lot of legal technicality managed to get off with just a few months sentence, but when she got out of jail she came after Blueblood.
“You mean she tried to kill him.”
“Blueblood thinks she's stalking him to put him under a curse; I think she actually fell in love with him. Blueblood was angry she had tried to use him and didn’t want to ever see her again, but ever since then she’s been trying to find out his schedule and book herself into shows he might visit, often under disguise, hoping to win him back.”
“Shows?”
“She’s a show mare, a unicorn, pretty powerful too though rather arrogant. I think her name was… Trixie? Anyways, after Blueblood was going to accuse you of cheating I told him that if he didn’t support our marriage I would invite Trixie to perform at the palace, his Canterlot estate and anywhere else he might be until either he married her or I married you. A few minutes later he sent a message to my parents saying that he approved of you. But it still wasn’t enough. Even with Blueblood and Celestia backing us, my parents still refused to let us marry; and we had to wait another three years! It's not fair!"
"A lot of things in life aren't fair," mumbled Shining Armor.
"Well that doesn't mean my parents have to add to the injustice every chance they get!"
"No, no they don't." agreed Shining Armor, "We should set a place for Searis. We can put Luna on one side of her since those two have always been close and must still have a lot to catch up on. We can put an old Oatlantian water fountain on the other side since she likes those and she can't annoy inanimate objects."
Cadance's momentarily giggles ebbed away under the returning flow of solemnity, "...And if she doesn't come?"
"Then we'll get married without her, simple as that. But people usually come to the wedding of people they love."
"I'm not sure that she does love me, " protested Cadance, "I don't know if she loves anyone. My father is her fourteenth husband, I am her eighty-fourth child; do you... do you think that there are only so many times someone can watch the people they love die, before eventually they just can't love anyone anymore?"
Shining Armor looked at Cadance, noticing with delight how her mane fell over her shoulders like tiny rivers of pink platinum, "No, I don't believe that."
"I hope you‘re right."
"I know I'm right," assured Shining Armor, unsure how he knew, "But even if she doesn't come I won't let her ruin our special day. I promise that, when we get married, it will be everything we have ever dreamed, and nothing will come between us.”
Cadance's gentle smile grew radiant; for a moment Shining Armor thought she was going to cry, but realized she was just happy, and why shouldn't she be? The stallion she loved had promised her a perfect wedding, and she believed him. Shining Armor leaned over and they kissed, over and over, practicing for their wedding day. A flurry of wing beats faintly echoed down through the chimneys, indicating that a company of either pegasi or changelings was passing over the top of the burrow (probably changelings). This would ordinarily have been a call for Shining Armor to investigate, but he couldn't have done anything if they were changelings and... he really didn't want to leave Cadance. After a few minutes, Cadance pulled up to breathe, her eyes closed and mouth wide as Shining Armor continued to kiss her neck, "How far are we from Canterlot?"
"I don't know." said Shining Armor, giving her another kiss on the throat.
Cadance pulled back and looked at him in confusion, "But... isn't this your outpost? The portgem was right by your bed so I assumed it belonged to you."
Shining Armor stopped and looked around at the burrow that he and Cadance had been sharing. He knew they had only arrived a few days ago, but already he felt as though he'd lived here for years. Of course anywhere would have been home so long as he and Cadance were together, but there was something more to it than that, a certain familiarity... "I think this might be Silent Storm's house."
"Whose?"
"Storm, he was my partner when I first became a Ranger."
"Why would you have a portgem leading to someone else's house?"
That was a good question; Shining Armor didn't have an answer, "... I don't know."