//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 // Story: Bells Bring The End of War // by Lamasioux //------------------------------// The meal was fine. It wasn’t anything special. The apple jam toast was the best part, but not filling. Bell didn’t try it with the coffee. He didn’t want to jumpstart his tastebuds with a new type of experiment, so he just ate everything on its own.    Golden had taken their attention away from Bell now and they were chatting away with the pony to their right, which was what Bell wanted anyway. He had spent the time eating and watching the other ponies in the room also eat and chat away.    What kept catching Bell’s attention was another unicorn who was also in a bed on the opposite side of the room, who was eating. What Bell kept looking at was their use of magic while eating. He couldn’t look away from it. His mind kept going back to thinking that he could also do the same, but always immediately remembered he couldn’t anymore. It bothered him, a lot.    Bell finally pried his gaze away from the unicorn and went back to finishing his food. As he finished what remained of his coffee, he reached over to grab his glass of water and took a few sips from it before finally putting it on the tray of food. Now that he had finished, his gaze came back to the papers that he had yet to read, but he was distracted by the other ponies again.    As some of the other ponies in the room had started to finish their meals, they would place their own trays on the tables beside their beds and lay down, others continued to chat with each other, and one pony got up from their bed and hopped onto the ground. They had to slowly though as they did. They had to keep their balance as they got up, holding and leaning against the bed.    Bell finally noticed that the pony he was watching was missing their back left leg and it caused Bell to look away once the non-existent leg registered in his mind. He didn’t want to think about having his own leg missing. At least his wasn’t missing, just messed up badly. Somehow. Bell didn’t know exactly what was wrong with it now that the thought came to him, all he knew was that it hurt, so with curiosity finally catching up to him and everything about the situation finally settling down for him, he once again looked at the papers but this time finally reaching for them and brought them up to himself and looked at them.    There were only four papers, they were in an organized order and neatly stacked after Pepper had looked at them. They were until Bell picked them up. He had trouble picking the papers up with only his hooves so he had only managed to pick one up at a time, since he wasn’t sure how to separate the pages from each other while holding them.    The first page of the document just covered the basic information about him, that he assumed the doctors had been told about, or they had assumed of him.    Now that he looked at the information, some of it seemed like it was wrong, a few spots were empty and the rest was correct. The main question that arose from this page was how the doctors here known about most of it. If it had only been thirty hours or so since that explosion incident, then personal documents wouldn’t have arrived by now in the town. Unless they had been here to begin with.    Or somepony from his force had come with him on that truck to help deliver him.    Wait- What about that other pony Pepper said?    Bell thought about that for a moment. Who had brought him here? It couldn’t have been the platoon leader. They would stay at the hive town to keep everything under control.    There was a moment of silence in his mind as a name came to and he realized something. Sweet Flash.    They had been the pony who yelled out, the other one in the room with him, the one who kicked the grenade away.    Bell’s face drained of color and turned slightly white as he once again thought about what the doctor had said.    Pepper said I was brought here with another pony. And I remember that Sweet had been closer to the grenade than me. That-    Bell stopped his thinking and went back to reading the pages. He hoped he would find a answer about Sweet Flash, but he slowly lost faith at that attempt.    The second page of the papers only went over the injuries Bell received. His horn had somehow been shot off, which was expected to cause him pain for the next week or two, and how the muscle, bones, and tendons near the top of his back right leg were destroyed from shrapnel. The surgery Bell received was successful and that his leg would ‘recover,’ but it was noted that his leg would never fully recover. It didn’t mention anything further about that comment.    Overall, the biggest thing that caught Bell’s attention on the page was the thing about his leg. He hadn’t gotten up from his bed since waking earlier in the day and now that he thought about that, more of Pepper’s words once again came back, which helped take his mind off of Sweet Flash.     The doctor had said that they would be going outside later.    What would be involved with that? Was it going to be a courtyard? Where would it be outside? Were they secretly prisoners?    Bell’s thoughts slowly spiraled out of control at the thought that his current situation seemed more like a prison than anything. It wasn’t like he could leave.     Was he still under the authority of the military? He was still drafted, but they had said this was a ward for ponies being discharged from service? W-    “Are you do- with this sir?”    Bell’s attention was brought back when a pony spoke up. It had been the mare from before that had brought over his meal. They were standing on the left side of his bed, a few feet away from his tray and looking all too happy to be able to awaiting his answer.    Bell stared at the pony before looking at his tray and answered, “Oh! Yes. I’m done. You can take it.” He lowered the papers for a moment and then nudged the tray with a hoof, motioning to them that they could indeed take it.    The pony didn’t take the tray though and stared at it until they cleared their throat and said, “The wa-er. Sir.”    Bell swapped glanced between the mare and the tray for a moment before it clicked in his head what they had meant and he quickly picked up the glass of water he had left on it and put it on the desk next to his bed.    “Thank you.” The mare answered before picking the tray up in their mouth and taking off with it to the center of the room where they organized the coffee cup and tray into two different piles, all while also dumping any crumbs or leftover food into a big bucket. There was another bucket that the mare dumped the coffee into, though nothing came out of Bell’s cup when they went to pour it. It was obvious that it was a habit to just dump anything from the cups out.    Bell watched as the mare did her work and then watched as they went to another pony in the room and asked the same question to them, repeating the process as they started collecting from a few ponies around the room.    “They like to keep a constant line of trays coming in to wash. The kitchen staff get a bit angry when ponies keep them.” Golden spoke up. She had been watching Bell for a while now.    Bell ignored her comment, hoping she hadn’t directed that statement at him. She had done a good job until now with his request of being quiet, but it seems that she stuck to the request of being quiet for as long as he ate and then some. Maybe Bell could ask her to stay quiet for the rest of the day. Bell didn’t want to be distracted from his thoughts now that he was awake. He had to much to think about. Though, maybe she had some answers to some questions he had.    Bell finally broke his gaze from the mare and turned to Golden who quickly gave a quick smile, and asked, “What did that Doctor Pepper mean when he said we’d go outside?”    Golden seemed to perk up a little at his question and quickly cleared their throat and answered, “In about an hour or so, after lunch, they’ll let some of us take a short walk outside. They say it helps with recovering, plus they know some of us hate being here.” She sank down a little and sighed, “Though not everypony can. Some of us are in to bad of shape.” She then took a hoof and pointed it in the direction of a pony on the other side of the room, “Like him. Both of his left legs are broken, so they only let him up when he needs the bathroom.”    Golden then looked back at Bell, “They might not let you out either. It was either Metal or Pepper that I heard say that your leg was bad. You’ll have to wait until a doctor clears you though before they let you go outside.”    “So they kinda just let you go out? And let you walk?” Bell asked with a bewildered look.    “Well- They’ll have a few nurses come with us to make sure we’re good. They normally let us go out to the garden across the road and walk around for a bit before we come back. For this room, they let us do it twice a day- If you can go. They have two rooms go out at a time when that happens, it lets us talk with other ponies.” Golden answered.    “How long do we normally stay here for then?” Bell asked, but he immediately realized it wasn’t a good question and was immediately met with the expected reply.    “That depends on each pony. They say I only have a few more days left before they send me off to Vanhoover.” Golden then got side tracked with her answer and said, “Everypony here gets to go home, but they send us to Vanhoover normally to get some medal for our injuries before putting us on a train and sending us off.”    Bell wondered how she knew all of that but realized it must be common knowledge to happen so he brushed it off and then said, “Oh.”    “Yeah! Yeah. The top brass are a lot more relaxed with us backline folk having this kind of experience ever since we pushed past Vraks. It’s what my lieutenant said at least. Said that General Pinkie Pie somehow convinced Luna to let everypony in Equestria proper to have an easier time because, quote, ‘The bugs wouldn’t be ruining our parties anymore with the recent pushes we’ve made.’” Golden said.    “It would make sense…” Bell said softly, “The changeling hive we were at were peaceful for the month I was stationed there.”    The was a small pause, “Were.” Bell looked down at himself before looking over at Golden and seeing them perk up a bit too much interest into the topic but he quickly answered in a whisper, “I’ll tell you another time.” He then laid himself back down on the bed and said, “I’d just like to sleep again now though. Please.”     He then started to get himself comfortable before it bugged him that he was ending the conversation in a rude way and spoke up again, “I’ll uhh– After y’all return from going outside, I’ll tell you.”    Golden quickly spoke up, “You don’t have to tell Bell! A few ponies have wanted to keep their stuff a secret. I know you think you have to since that’s all we what most of us do, but we don’t pry into it if anypony refuses.”    Bell raised a hoof and waved a bit at her, “Don’t worry about it– I just want some sleep for now. I think Luna visited me during that short nap. Hopefully she does again… It really helped.” Bell then lowered his hoof back down and dug his face into the bed. By now, his bed was no longer damp from all the sweat and it was enjoyable again to lay in, which helped Bell fall asleep as he heard Golden say something. He wasn’t able to catch it though.