A little Knight Work: Squire work

 “No seriously, one of the other trainees -kicked the whole log down! I mean they broke it!” Kettle Drum, one of the other recruits who was arguably supposed to be helping Pas with the chore of fixing the dummies, insisted. Unfortunately his insistence meant that he loosened his grip on the dummy, and Pas cursed under his breath as the broken dummy tilted wildly before being caught again. His aim with the needle went awry, and his attempt to delicately pull the tear in the dummy’s stuffed face instead became a puckered scar right before the thread gave way with a delicate ‘pop’!

 

 “Kettle!” he protested, furiously, almost dropping the needle, but catching it in the air. “Blast your tail now I have to rethread this thing! I hate this kind of fiddly stuff!”

 

It wasn’t even that specifically fiddly, it was thick thread and a broad eyed needle, but there was a reason, blast his hooves, that he was trying to be a knight, and not a tailor. 

 

Kettle laughed in apology, uprighting the thing again. “Seriously though, you should have seen it! It was amazing! Where were you?”

 

“Putting meals together, which I seem to recall, is where you were supposed to be, except you wandered off to find the little colt’s room or something and left me to pack a *millions lunches by myself*. 

 

He honestly did like Kettle. And Kettle was… usually… good company in the kitchens. His family were largely in food, and those that weren’t were involved in music, which generally made him a good time to be around. 

 

Right now the slightly portly other colt was just getting on his nerves with his enthusiasm. Besides it couldn’t have been quite as big and dramatic as Kettle was implying… right? 

 

 “Look just hold this stupid thing steady and then maybe you can show me this *huuuuuuge amazing tree*.” He pointed out, with maybe a bit more snark than was necessary. 

 

 “Fine, but honestly it really was huge. Like if you hollowed it out it would make a pretty good barrel.”

 

 “Good to know it will find continued purpose now that it’s been knocked down. Or did this mighty pony turn it into toothpicks?” He scowled, rethreading the needle and going back to work, as carefully as he could find the patience for. Well… maybe a little more patient than he wanted to be. He really didn’t want to be told to do it over again, and he had very little doubt that it would be in the cards if he whip-stitched it together so badly that it fell apart again at the first blow. 

 

 “There… I think that’s the last rip patched up. If they shred it again we’re going to have to try to cut some patches and really reinforce it… oh alicorns I sound like my cousin. NEVER MIND! Show me the tree!” He demanded, stabbing the needle relentlessly into the spool and levitating them both to a safe point. “We need to put this back out anyway.”

 He let Kettle lead him outside, this time trying not to get distracted by the array of training dummies and targets, racks of weapons and other things that tended to draw his attention on the spot. The obvious trappings of knighthood were fuel for his active imagination, and it was easy to drape the battered dummies in the trappings of monsters of myth and imagine himself armored and preparing to do battle to save others. 

 

 This was probably why in this time, he’d never really -noticed- the tree trunk. Or perhaps the better thought was that he’d never -registered- as in any way important to the matter. At some corner of his mind he sort of had imagined it was a lightning blasted tree and then never paused to consider that it hadn’t been removed. 

 

 Now that he realized what it was, saw the scuffs in the earth and the shattered fangs of wood…

 

Well. That was -something-. That was one strong pony. REALLY strong, and he was…

 

He wasn’t sure what he was. Fascinated? Jealous? Both? He kind of wanted to meet them. He also kind of wanted to see if he could *beat* them, though if they were out here doing… well… *this* than they were probably ahead of him and…

 

Well.

 

 “Kettle, buddy.” he breathed out softly. “We have got some serious catching up to do.”