Cloud Blazer was exhausted. However, aside from receiving water to drink, he had been mostly ignored. Neither doctors nor nurses had examined him yet, as they had hundreds of more pressing injuries to deal with.
Junebug and Bon Bon had left as soon as he was dropped off at the hospital. Bon Bon promised to find Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle to let them know that he was safe. The air inside the waiting room was thick with the stench of blood and chemicals. Something like organized chaos had been reigning for over an hour.
He sat solemnly staring down at the wounded friend who lay before him, still clinging to life. Overwhelming relief had flooded his heart when the nurse told him that she was still alive. The blinding magnitude of the amelioration was beyond his own understanding. It was as if he had been reborn, the spark of hope filling his heart.
Pixyglitter was unconscious, the tail shaft of the arrow still sticking out of her back. The nurse that looked her over and made the chart indicated that the wound, while serious, shouldn’t be fatal.
Cloud Blazer was skeptical of this optimism. He had noticed that as one of many consistencies in the hospital staff. Every patient they came into contact with was told the same thing, "We’ll get to you as soon as we can, you’re injuries aren’t that severe." They had to be depleting their own stores of stamina, but some reserve of strength kept them moving.
When the nurses returned, they gave her what they called a saline fluid bolus. The intravenous solution seemed to bring some of the life back to her face. Though, it wasn’t long after that she had begun frothing a bloody foam from her mouth. The stallion had alerted another nurse, who told him that they would come soon. They hadn’t yet returned.
Considering how overcrowded the waiting room had become, it was actually a wonder that Cloud Blazer even got a cup of water. He felt conflicted about what to do next. It could be several hours before the doctors got to Pixyglitter, and he certainly wasn’t going to sit around long enough to let them look him over. It would be days, and he knew his own injuries well enough. One mending broken leg, several other old fractures that were also healing and still hurting, and at least three freshly bruised or cracked ribs that were giving him a fit. That, of course, didn’t count the amputated wings that ached constantly, but otherwise seemed to be knitting nicely.
He didn't want to leave Pixyglitter while her life was in danger. There might not be much he could do to help her, but he could at least keep a watchful eye and alert somepony if she got worse. The decision was made for him due to a lack of energy. If he’d had more strength, he might have left to complete his quest and rescue the princesses. As it was, the friends were already all in Ponyville. They just had to get to the orb and hope it opened. Especially with doubt in question, it didn’t seem like a pressing thing to attend to until Pixyglitter was safe.
His emotional state had leveled out at a somewhat wrecked state. The hope was surrounded by so much fear that he could feel his heart racing. He wanted to get past this moment, but he dreaded the possible outcomes.
Cloud Blazer took a breath, striving to calm his anxieties. In and out his lungs cycled the air as he looked down at Pixyglitter. There was every reason to think she was unconscious and unable to hear him, but the stallion felt compelled to speak to the mare nonetheless. He leaned in to the sleeping form.
“Just know that if you die, you are killing me too.”
She didn’t respond.
Cloud Blazer sat back and put the empty cup to his lips again. Shaking it gently, he was able to coax another drop out and into his mouth. He sighed, still thirsty, but unwilling to leave his companion alone.
...
Hearing was the first sensation that was experienced. There was a murmuring like voices and metal against metal. It almost sounded like somepony was having dinner, but it didn’t smell right. The pony struggled to bring thought into clarity. The scent was familiar, but from where? A presence was felt nearby, and muffled voices were heard. The confusion began to clear like a fog burns off before to reveal a sunny day.
The living form struggled to come out of it, though the difficulty was akin to running while at the bottom of a pond. Memories began flooding back. There was fighting, and then an explosion. Duster soon realized that he was in a hospital. His eyes were opened, and vision was returning, blurry at first, but things were beginning to come into focus. He was lying on a couch in a waiting room. Ponies were buzzing about, doctors and nurses running to tend the wounded.
"He’s awake," LD said from somewhere nearby.
Duster turned to see him. The deep scar under his right eye was curled upward a little as the stallion grinned at him. His blue eyes were filled with either relief or excitement. He had earned several cuts and bruises from the battle, but looked to be otherwise in good health. Locknload stood beside him.
"It seems you made a good accounting of yourself," Locknload said. "Rumor is that you’re going to be The Hero of Ponyville, Timberwolf’s Bane, Destroyer of Cities, or some such nonsense."
"That figures," LD jabbed, though he seemed weary. "We clearly did more of the work, and he gets a title."
Duster was still confused as to how he had arrived at the hospital. He was sure that he remembered being somewhere else. It had seemed to clear a short time ago. He was in a field, or was there a river? Who was there with him?
He began to sit up, and then the pain from the wound in his throat throbbed through his body, causing him to collapse.
"Easy," LD cautioned, "I patched you up, but the doctors haven’t had a look yet. You’re being held together with bandages and tape. You practically had your head ripped off by an old friend of mine.“ His eyes grew darker, "It’s a shame neither of us managed to finish him."
Duster tried to speak, which was a mistake. Pain spiked out as if a grapefruit wrapped in barbed wire were lodged in his throat. He croaked and coughed, exacerbating the discomfort that overwhelmed everything for a moment.
LD grabbed a paper and pencil and gave it to the injured pegasus.
Recovering from the fit, Duster wrote, ‘Friend?’
"A changeling by the name of Ash Eater. Your sister and I were captured by him the first time we went into the Everfree Forest. He had actually been training with our squad, impersonating a pegasus named Nitro."
Duster wrote small to use the scrap of paper again, ‘How did I get here? I thought I was dead.’
LD snorted a laugh, "No, not quite. While the ice arrows were raining down, we took out those changelings and taught old Ash Eater a lesson. I didn’t see what became of him after I shoved him away. I was busy keeping you from bleeding out.”
Locknload sighed, “He realized that we had dealt with the rest of his friends and ran. I followed him, but he is a clever one. He couldn’t outrun me with his injured leg and dove through the cloud-floor to get away.”
“Then Locknload here was good enough to teleport the three of us to safety."
The sergeant grunted gruffly. He wore a bandage over his left shoulder that was saturated and in need of changing.
‘Gunnysack and Rolling Thunder?’
“Sorry. It’s just us that made it,” LD answered grimly. Then he seemed to remember something, “Oh, I did manage to save this for you.”
LD produced Sparklefly’s eye patch from a pocket and gave it to Duster. The stallion regarded it a moment, assaulted freshly be waves of sorrow at the loss of his sister. He accepted the scrap of cloth before thinking of another question.
‘Did we win?’
"Can it, you need to rest," Locknload said. "But yes, your plan worked. Ponyville is safe for now, as is what’s left of the Assault Corps. The changelings are in full retreat for the moment, and we captured thousands of them.”
Duster lay there, hurting all over his body, but mostly from the wound in his neck. An inch in either direction and he’d probably be dead. To the grand scheme of things, his involvement in this action was truly a small piece of the titanic events that had unfolded. Perhaps for the first time, he truly appreciated his own insignificance.