//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4 
// Story: An Encounter With a Princess 
// by CanterColt 
//------------------------------//

***


Hisss-crackle-POP!

The colt’s eyes fluttered open at the sound.

Huh?

Sitting straight up in the bed, Stout Hoof let out an involuntary gasp as a sharp, piercing sensation lanced through his side. Immediately, he fell backwards, his hooves scrabbling toward its source.  

The raw, throbbing pain continued to bite at him from his left flank.

What..how...why?	

Gritting his teeth, the colt cast his gaze downwards.   A plain, red quilt covered his lower half, the thick fabric resting heavily against his coat.

He lifted an eyebrow in confusion.  

He was...in bed?  

Stout Hoof lifted a hoof to his brow.  It was difficult to focus.  A thick fog had settled in over his mind, blending his thoughts together. For some reason, he didn't seem to have any recollection of getting into bed the night before.  

In fact...

The colt searched his thoughts.  He couldn't even remember where he had been before waking up.  

What was going on?

Chewing at his lip, he tried to focus more intensely, but the memories wouldn't come.  Colt, was it hard to think with that fire burning in his side.  His eyes returned to the bed, shaking his head.

First things first, I guess.

Gingerly, Stout Hoof leaned forward, gripping the quilt in his teeth, and tugged.  The thick covering slid with surprising ease, revealing the rest of his figure. 

The colt tensed—a sinking feeling forming in the pit of his stomach as his eyes fell on his left side. 

A heavily bandaged limb stared back at him, bound tightly in cream-colored cloth.

My...leg?

His vision slowly adjusting to the dim light, Stout Hoof could make out several dark blotches staining the material that covered his hip.  Somepony’s blood—his blood?—had soaked through the cloth, drying in dark red patches.  A metal bar had been lashed against the bandaged limb as well, holding it straight and rigid against the bed.

Stout Hoof studied his lower half for another moment.  Taking a deep breath, he attempted to lift the immobilized limb

"Eugh-gah!"

Another pain—sharper than before—immediately tore through the colt’s side as he flexed.  Crying out in surprise, he drove his back into the mattress, fighting back the tears that had sprung up at the edge of his vision. 

Buck!

Closing his eyes, Stout Hoof tried to control his breathing.  Long, even breaths, just like Steel Wing had taught him.  

He nodded, inhaling.  Exhaling.  

The movement of his chest began to slow.  After a few moments, the pain slowly began to subside.  

The same couldn't be said for his anxiety, however.  The icy feeling the colt's stomach dropped another degree, his eyes settling on his bandaged limb.  

Why hadn't his leg moved?

Hisss-pop!  

The warm sizzle of the crackling fire sounded a second time.  Wincing, Stout Hoof forced his attention away from the battered limb and studied the room around him.  His earlier confusion began to resurface.

The familiar oak walls of his room at the forge surrounded him.  Through the one window at his side, he could see Stableworth Wood lying in the darkness of night.  The sky was overcast though—he couldn't make out any sign of the moon or stars.  

The colt tilted his head back toward the hearth.  It crackled warmly on the opposite wall, its dim flicker casting shadows in the otherwise unlit chamber.

Stout Hoof watched as the dark shapes danced about the room.  Bare as they were, the rough timber walls still radiated with the warmth of home.   He glanced back to the quilt that had been draped over his body and nodded to himself. 

Whatever it was that had happend, Steel Wing must have—

Steel Wing!  

Stout Hoof’s body went rigid as memories of the night before came flooding back to him.  

The guards.  The castle.  Steel Wing jumping in at the last moment—

“Steel Wing!”

At the sound of the colt’s shout, a dark figure suddenly burst through the door, its hooves poised and its head scanning in every direction.  Realization seemed to hit the figure after a moment, and it dropped his stance, hooves falling back onto the floor.

Slowly, the figure turned, its gaze passing over the colt.

To Stout Hoof, it appeared as if the weight of the world had suddenly been lifted from his mentor’s shoulders.  Before his eyes, Steel Wing's tense gaze slowly melted into a relieved smile.  Between the dark lines encircling his eyes and the matted appearance of his graying mane, it looked as if the pegasus hadn’t slept in days.

Regardless of his appearance, though, he ran to Stout Hoof's side with the gait of a stallion half his age.

“Mmmph!”   

The young earth pony was taken aback as his mentor collapsed on top of him, pulling him into an embrace.

"Figilo—" The stallion's voice shook as he spoke "—I thought I'd lost you."

Stout Hoof couldn't find the words to respond.  

As far back as he could remember, Steel Wing had always made an effort to show how much he cared about him.  But it had always been through words.  A playful tussle of his mane at most.  

Never...never like this.  

The colt felt his own eyes start to grow wet.  Though Steel Wing had never said it, Stout Hoof knew the pegasus felt guilty for trying to take the place of his parents.  

What the stallion didn't know—what he couldn't know—was that, in Stout Hoof's mind, he was as much a father to him as his real father had been.

"St-Steel Wing."

Throwing his own forehooves around his mentor, the colt returned the stallion's embrace.  A comfortable sigh escaped from the pegasus and he released him after a few moments, becoming his usual, reserved self once again.  Stepping back from Stout Hoof, he settled onto a stool that had been drawn up to the side of the bed.

“How are you feeling?” The stallion asked, his voice soft.  The tired look in his eyes was still there.

"I..."

Stout Hoof frowned, the words coming with difficulty.  His tongue felt like leather.  He coughed once, clearing what he could from his throat.  

"I'm alright, I think—”  

Tia.

The name, a whispered memory, echoed in the back of Stout Hoof's mind.  His eyes immediately widened, a sense of dread seizing his limbs.  

Tia!  Where was Tia? 

Ignoring the pain in his side, the colt sat upright, his eyes searching for Steel Wing's. 

“Tia! Is she—”

"It's alright, Stout Hoof—"

The stallion reached forward placing a hoof against the colt's chest.

"—the princess is well."

The assurance was all but lost on Stout Hoof.  He continued to struggle forward beneath his mentor's hoof, his own hooves searching for traction against the sheets beneath him.  

“But, the soldier!  The pegasai soldiers! They captured her!  They—”

“Not soldiers, figilo.  Not captors.  The guard.  The king's guard.”

A look of bewilderment crossed Stout Hoof's face.  Half formed images of the armored pegasai swam through his memory.  

Had their attackers really just been guards?  

The colt thought for a moment before speaking. 

“Then why did they…?”

“Attack?” Steel Wing finished his sentence for the colt as he trailed off.  The pegasai's eyes took on a serious look as he met the younger pony's gaze.  

“They thought you a threat to the princess, Stout Hoof.”

A threat?

“A threat?”  

Stout Hoof words echoed his thoughts.  The guards had thought he had been a threat?

Lifting his hooves to his temples, the colt shook his head back and forth as he tried to respond.   

“But Tia—the princess—she went out there by herself.  We were talking—I wasn’t, I wouldn’t…”

Steel Wing nodded slowly, a look of understanding crossing his face.  He lifted a hoof to silence the colt.  

“I know Stout Hoof, I know.  The princess made that clear once everything settled down.”

Stout Hoof nodded and was quiet for a moment. The pain radiating from his bandaged leg had flared up again in his excitement, making it difficult to focus.  One thought, however, still managed to pierce the fog of his discomfort.

How had he made it out the night before?

Closing his eyes, Stout Hoof did his best to recall the events of the previous night.  Blurry images of fireworks, swords, and the white coated mare danced through his mind as he tried to gain a solid hoofhold on his thoughts.  Pushing ahead to his last memory, he could feel his stomach sink a little further.  

Steel Wing.

Steel Wing had once been a royal guard himself, years ago.

An image of Steel Wing surrounded by armored pegasai flashed through his mind. 

What exactly had he made his mentor do?

His voice a whisper, Stout Hoof looked up to the pegasus. 

“What…what happened to the guards then?"  

He could feel his voice catch in his throat.  

"Did you have to…?”  

Steel Wing shook his head side to side, patting his apprentice on the shoulder.  

“No need to worry figilo, we haven’t become fugitives.”  

Lifting one of his ever-armed forelegs, the pegasus indicated a sharp point protruding from the sword sheathed within its shoulder case. 

“A good swordstallion knows when to take a life…” 

The stallion motioned to his other forelimb, where a second weapon, a heavy steel baton, protruded from its own casing. 

“…and when not to.”

Settling back into his stool, the stallion smiled, a slight bounce of pride lighting his voice.  

“Those ragazzi were lucky that their captain showed up when they did.  Had he not recognized me and told them to stand down, I may not have had the luxury of treating them so…”  

The older pegasus casually brushed a patch of nonexistent dust from his shoulder. 

“…lightly.”

Stout Hoof tilted his head a second time.  

“The captain?  Of the guard?  You know each other?”

Steel Wing closed his eyes for and chuckled warmly.  

“Aye there, figilo.  Trained him, even.”  

The stallion lifted a hoof to his chin as his mind fell back on old memories.  

“Sharp Edge was always a much more level headed stallion than most.”  A grin broke over his moustached face.  “Glad he had the sense to realize a scrawny colt and an old pegasus past his prime weren’t really the types to abduct a royal heir.”

Despite the dull ache that had settled in over his body, Stout Hoof smiled.   If Steel Wing considered himself past his prime now, the colt could only imagine what it would have been like to see him in his heyday.

Glancing down to his side once again, however,  Stout Hoof's smile waned.  Steel Wing's battle wasn't the only thing he had remembered from the night before.  

Speaking quietly, he looked up to the pegasus.

“Tia—the princess.  She saved me, didn’t she?”

Steel Wing's face fell slightly.  He nodded.

“That cut you suffered…" he motioned to the colt's side, "...it was bleeding.   Badly.”  

The stallion paused for a moment and coughed into his side, discreetly wiping a hoof over his eyes before he continued.  

“But a little ali—unicorn magic goes a long way.  She didn’t leave your side until the healers had come.”

Stout Hoof sat in silence for a moment.  He couldn't help but recall the warm feeling of the mare’s head resting on his shoulder.  The soft wisp of her breathing in his ears.  The intensity of her gaze locked with his own.   

Eyes downcast, he finally spoke. 

“I won’t see her ever again, will I?”

A pained look crossed his mentor’s face.  

“I’m sorry figilo. No.  Trespassing on castle grounds, intentionally or otherwise, is not taken lightly.  Even as a member of the old guard, it was all I could do to convince them not to have you taken away."

Steel Wing's eyes fell to the floor.  

"Had I not served as Sharp Edge’s mentor for so many years, I doubt he would have let me have even that.”

Stout Hoof’s could feel his expression falter.  Closing his eyes, he pictured Tia in his mind, straining to etch every detail he could into his memory.  

The chances of them meeting each other like that...it almost didn't seem real.  As if fate had had a hoof in it.  To think that he would never see her again...

Stout Hoof shook his head.  

He wouldn't forget her. 

Looking over his mental image of the mare for a few moments, however, there was one detail he couldn't help but question. 

Cracking his eyelids open, Stout Hoof glanced back up to Steel Wing, a confused expression crossing his face.  

“Steel Wing.  She was a unicorn...with wings."

Steel Wing tensed visibly at the statement, his own feathery appendages tightening against his sides.  

"Ah.  So you do remember."  

The stallion paused for a moment, letting out a deep breath before responding.  

“Yes, Stout Hoof.  The princess...she's an alicorn.” 

Ali-what?  The word sounded foreign, even in Stout Hoof's head.  He opened his mouth in question, but Steel Wing had already begun to speak again.

“Stout Hoof, it is important that you don’t speak of this with anyone.  Do you understand?  Anyone.  Sharp Edge may have once been my student, but he is duty bound to Stableworth and her King as I was…” the stallion's eyes shifted to the crackling hearth, “…and still am.”  

He looked back to Stout Hoof, his expression serious.  Stern. 

“It was only because of his trust in me that the King was not made privy to what we saw last night.”

Stout Hoof met the stallion's tired eyes.  He tried not to wince.  As strong as Steel Wing tried to be for him, age was catching up to him.   

“There are many things riding on keeping this secret safe figilo.  It is not only you and I that have something to lose should this knowledge come to light.  The safety of the King and Queen, Stablesworth…”  

He raised a hoof and motioned to Stout Hoof’s bandaged side. 

“…and most of all, the young princess herself, rest on our silence.  For her sake and yours, we must keep this to ourselves.”

Stout Hoof understood.  If it meant keeping Tia—the princess—safe…

He nodded solemnly.

At his nod, the serious expression on his mentor’s face vanished into a proud smile.  Reaching a hoof forward, he tussled the colt’s mane. 

“That’s a good lad. I know you’ll do me proud.”

Proud.

Stout Hoof felt a pang of guilt run through his chest at the word.  

Memories of the guardsmen ushering the white mare away from him played through his mind, taunting him. On the outside, however, he did his best to force a smile of appreciation.

Steel Wing wasn't so easily fooled, though.  Raising an eyebrow, he tilted his head, speaking softly.  

“What else is troubling you, figilo?”

Fidgeting with his hooves, Stout Hoof averted his eyes.  

“You shouldn’t be proud,” he replied, his voice low as the knot building in his gut tightened.  “I’m not like you Steel Wing...”

Stout Hoof was surprised to feel his eyes grow damp as dark thoughts began to cloud his mind.  

He had run from the three pegasai guards at the parade.  He had been helpless against the unicorn guard on the bridge.  But, worst of all, he had failed to save Tia when he thought she was being taken. If anything, he'd just put her at risk.  All because he was a foal.   All because he didn’t have magic or wings.  

All because he just wasn't good enough.   

The words of the mace-toting pegasai guard echoed through his own voice.  

“…I’m nothing but a worthless dirt pony.”

Stout Hoof flinched as Steel Wing suddenly stood up in his seat.  With surprising roughness, his mentor took his chin in hoof, tilting the colt's head upwards to face his own.

The pegasus locked eyes with the colt and spoke slowly, his face flushed red with anger.  

“I never want to hear you say those words again, Stout Hoof.  Never.  You are not worthless.  Never say that you are worthless.”

That was the last straw for Stout Hoof.  

He cried.  The tears burned, and he hated them, but he cried just the same.  The timeworn pegasus stayed at his side the entire time, his forelegs draped around the colt in a comforting embrace.  

After a few long minutes, the tears in Stout Hoof’s eyes finally began to dry.  Though exhausted—physically and mentally—relief had finally began to settle over his limbs.  The dark thoughts still mingled about in the back of his mind, but the guilt that had seemingly gripped him from nowhere—it was gone.

Sensing the colt’s stillness, Steel Wing released his hold on the young earth pony and returned to his seat at the edge of the bed.  Looking on the verge of tears himself, he spoke slowly to the bedridden colt.

“Stout Hoof, I am proud of you.  As proud as I’ve ever been…” The stallion’s eyes drifted off for a moment, “…of anyone.”  

He paused.  Though the old stallion didn’t say it aloud, Stout Hoof was sure his thoughts had drifted to the memory of his own sons.  Stout Hoof had never met either of them—they had fallen in battle long before he had been born.  From the way he always overheard Steel Wing praying for them in his nightly vigil, though, he realized just how much saying that meant.

Another stray tear rolled down the colt's cheek.

The moment passed, and Steel Wing turned his attention to Stout Hoof.  His voice was firm as ever.

“Figilo, this world may be full of those who doubt you, for your lack of wings, or a horn, but you must remember that they are just words.  You, Stout Hoof, can be anything you wish to be.  There is nopony that can tell you otherwise.”

A look of guilt crossed over the pegasai's face.  

“I curse myself for not telling you of your...” his own wings twitched self-consciously “…situation before.  It was dangerous and senseless of me to send you out there without letting you know how the world would treat you if they knew you were different.”  

Steel Wing let out a long sigh and glanced to the side. 

“I just...didn’t want you to feel less…less pony because of who you are, Stout Hoof.  You are just as good as any unicorn or pegasus foal out there, no matter what others may think.”  

The colt followed his mentor's eyes to the open window.  A dimly glowing aura of light shimmered above the trees from Stableworth as the pegasus continued to speak.  

“Stableworth is a strong place, a safe place…but not a perfect one.  Ponies still hate.  One would like to think that the unification of the three tribes would have done away with such stupidity…” his eyes took on a weary look borne of experience, “..but it hasn’t."

He turned back to the colt. 

"Servitude, Stout Hoof.  Servitude is what most here have come to expect of you and your people.  But they are wrong to doubt those without magic or flight figilo.  Wrong to doubt you.”

A shaky smile lit the old stallion's face.  

“No, you didn’t defeat those guards in battle, but you did not cower in fear, either.  You fought.  Against all odds and numbers, you fought.  And that’s what makes you a warrior.”

The stallion’s voice began to swell with passion.  

“Tenacity, bravery, selflessness—a true warrior is not defined by the make of his blade or the swiftness of his hooves, but by the resolve he harbors within.”

Reaching forward, he pressed a hoof on the blanket covering Stout Hoof’s torso.  The colt felt a flame light in his own own chest, as if the torch of his mentor’s pride had passed into him.

Steel Wing continued.  “And you, Stout Hoof, you have more resolve than anypony I’ve ever seen—pegasus, unicorn, or otherwise.  If you set your mind to becoming a swordstallion, you will become a swordstallion.  And I swear on my honor, if that is what you choose, I will do everything in my power to help you become one.”

Despite the tiredness of his broken body, Stout Hoof smiled, confidence rising in his chest.  The next words he spoke passed through his lips almost without thinking.  

“You’re really proud of me...father?”

Father.  He hadn't meant to say it.  But, after his talk with the princess...it had just felt right.

At the word, Stout Hoof watched Steel Wing's composure break before his eyes, happy tears running down his cheeks.  Placing a hoof over one of the colt's, he smiled, his old eyes beaming with warmth.  

“Aye, my son, and I will be for as long as I live.”

Stout Hoof mirrored the smile.  Grinning sleepily, his mouth widened into a yawn as a sudden wave of fatigue washed over him.

Steel Wing chuckled and patted the colt’s side.  

“You should get some rest.  You won’t become a master swordstallion without your sleep.”

Too weary to reply, Stout Hoof nodded tiredly as sleep tugged at his eyelids.  The chatter of forest birds was already audible from the woods and—through the tiny window next to his bed—the first rays of sunshine had already begun to peek over the horizon.  

As the colt's eyes slid shut, he felt Steel Wing tug the heavy quilt back up over his shoulder.


“As long as I live.”


***