The elder arrived at our FOB two days after the suicide bombing.

His shoulder was injured in the blast, though we couldn't tell just how badly. There was a hole in it, poked by some piece of shrapnel, but the wound had already closed and there were no obvious signs of infection or disability. Instead he had an X-ray from the local hospital that showed a light smudge just a few inches beneath the skin, in the fleshy part of the shoulder around where doctors give your influenza shot.

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“Knock knock!” Twilight Sparkle said at the threshold of Starlight Glimmer’s room. She didn’t actually knock, of course -- the door was already open and she could see Starlight sitting at her desk, leafing through some journal or other from the library’s periodical collection.

“Hey Twilight!” Starlight flipped the journal closed. “What’s up? Need help with something?”

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