Blackacre

by Princess Woona

Ground Zero

22 December, Y.C. 969
Ponyville

Smell was the first to come back.

It was charred, mostly. There were other nuances in there, though. An undercurrent of freshly cut loam, almost pleasant. Pinpoint wafts of something acrid, something magical. Hovering above everything, the tang of metal; metal not finished or refined but instead raw, twisted. And, every so often… the smell of burning meat.

Absently Jackie realized that she couldn’t move. It didn’t quite cross her mind that couldn’t hear or feel anything, but maybe she could do something about seeing. Maybe somepony turned off the sun, but she could still glow something up, couldn’t she? Maybe. But how? She had no lights, no candles…

Magic, part of her mind snapped at herself.

Yes, of course… why didn’t I think of that?

Because you’re not thinking straight.

’Course I am! Her lips twitched down. But… maybe not? C’mon. What would Grandma Snap say?

Oh, poor Grandma. I wish she was still —

Shut up! she yelled at herself. Shut up shut up shut up! You’re wrong, you’re…

Going crazy, that’s what.

She couldn’t feel, couldn’t hear above the deafening silence in her ears, but she needed to see before she could do anything.

Light. Light, I need light.

She was definitely out of it, but light was easy, and it wouldn’t take much concentration. Jackie did her best to draw her wits together, and for a moment, nothing happened —

A streak of pain shot through her spine, and clawing at her last shreds of consciousness she fell back at last to merciful darkness.

“Over here!”

The pony perched on top of the pile of rubble waved, his headlamp wobbling slightly in the dusk. After a moment, a pair of pegasi flew over, traces of snow flecking off their armor: there might be two dozen heavily-armed flyers running a combat air patrol directly overhead, but they weren’t about to get complacent. Besides, it was cold, and the extra bulk kept them warm when away from the roaring fires at the edge of the impact zone.

The pegasi deposited a unicorn wrapped in a dark blue bundle of blankets on one of the flatter slabs of metal, then flapped up, angling their own headlamps to flood the spotter pony in light. The unicorn took a hesitant step, making sure the platform was steady, then took a closer look at the spotter.

“What do you have?” asked Snowflake, nudging the very tip of her horn out of the thick cloak to add her own glow to the night. The horn itself was a lance of green in a white mane; the spotter doubted very much that the tinge of blue was intentional.

“Think I got one,” said Sean Digger, gesturing at a particularly charred section of wreckage. Judging by the tattered yellow fabric flapping pathetically to one side, it might have been part of the Mane’s siding, but who could tell?

“All right,” nodded the unicorn wearily. She looked to all the world like a walking blanket, little more than hooves and head poking out from under the wrap she kept close to her body. She would rather be somewhere, anywhere, but right here and right now, but she didn’t have much of a choice right now. None of them did.

Not that Sean could blame her. There were only so many search and rescue ponies around, and most of them were stationed far to the north, on avalanche patrol. Snowflake here had been working for something like twenty-nine hours, cursing her name every chance she got.

Workers like Sean could do their jobs in coats and gloves and boots and masks, but when it came to divining magic, the less clothing to interfere with magic the better. Snowflake’s work consisted almost entirely in exposing herself to the elements and casting difficult and intricate locator spells — and, for her trouble, she pulled up corpses more often than not.

“All right,” she said again, blinking a few times to clear her head. She stepped over to join Sean in front of the indicate wreckage, shedding her wrap. He could see every hair of her thin coat prick up in the icy air; with a few steps he moved upwind of her. She glanced at him and nodded thanks; breaking the December wind wasn’t much, but it was something.

“For your sake, I hope this one’s alive.”

“For his sake, too,” he agreed, as her horn’s glow threw the twisted metal into sharp relief, black shapes dancing in the greenish light as she searched down, down in the wreckage.

As his name suggested, Sean Digger was a miner; he earned his own mark, a small trio of pickaxes, years ago. Since then, he had learned just about everything there was to know about the trade. He had been just passing through Ponyville, on a prospecting assignment to see whether the low mountains to the east of Las Pegasus were worth anything, when he heard a… higher calling.

It was awfully hard to ignore a three hundred meter fireball slamming into a crowd of ponies.

He had never gotten much on-the-job experience with mine rescue scenarios; most of their training was theoretical. That was, after all, the idea; if all they got was training, then that meant there were no real emergencies.

In theory, those skills would be applicable here too. Somewhere under the wreckage there would be a crater, but for now it was a huge pile of rubble, metal beams and parts of buildings all mixed together and immolated for good measure. At the moment, teams of ponies were working to separate out the wreckage, to dismantle the rubble in something resembling a safe way, to get at whatever was under it.

Just like in a mine collapse, though, sometimes you just couldn’t wait until the main shaft was re-mined. He and a few other ponies were crawling around on top of the pile, doing their best to identify locations where there were survivors buried under the wreckage. Between listening closely and watching for any signs of movement, they could usually pick out living survivors up to a depth of eight or ten yards. As for bodies… the smell of charred flesh was difficult to miss.

Snowflake’s distinctly bluish lips twisted down. Sean knew that look: she had found something. The light from her horn narrowed down, seeming to pierce down the wreckage at a very specific point, looking closer, closer; trying to figure out who was down there.

“She’s alive,” she said slowly, her eyes closed but twitching back and forth with the effort. “Barely.”

“Get a team!” shouted Sean to the pegasi. “Medic!”

The pegasi shot off, one towards the medical tent and another to the closest of the recovery crews, which was currently trying to lever a twelve foot long deck plate off of the pile. The moment they saw the pegasus come towards them, they dropped the plate; the chance to save a life was more important than moving anything.

“How bad?” he asked. “Can you tell?”

Normally, that would be a silly question; she was a professional, and this was her job. On a good day, she even might be able to telekinese some of the debris out of the way; on a bad day she could scry just about anything. This wasn’t a bad day, though; it was a terrible one, and at the moment it was actually well into the second consecutive day. Frankly it was impressive that she was upright at all.

“Bad,” she said, shaking her head ever so slightly. “Broken legs… breathing weak. Maybe lungs? Can’t tell. She was close enough to a fire to keep her from freezing, but no severe burns.” She paused for a moment, frowning. “There’s major trauma, but blood loss is pretty low. There’s no reason —”

And then, quite suddenly, she collapsed.

“Snowflake!” he shouted, a half-second too late to catch her. He was at her side in a step, cradling her head in his mittened forehooves.

“What is it?”

Snowflake’s eyelids fluttered weakly, but the look in her eyes was as awake as he had ever seen a pony.

“She…” Snowflake shook her head faintly. “I’ve never… never.”

“Are you —”

“I’m fine,” she said, struggling to sit up. “Compared to her, we’re all fine.” Sean helped her to a seated position and wrapped the blanked around her. She shivered gratefully.

“Get her a medic,” she said, eyes wide. “Right now.”

This time, sound was the first to come back. A series of vague buzzings around her ears; she couldn’t quite tell what they were, but she at least recognized them as voices. Abstractly, she realized that was an improvement. At least she was thinking straight. Or was she? If she wasn’t thinking right, would she still think she was thinking… oh, forget it.

After a few moments of concentration, she could make out one of the voices. It was definitely the loudest, though that was probably because it sounded close.

“Miss Snap?”

It sounded pretty calm, too, come to think of it. And awfully nice for a rescue pony. That’s who it would be, right? She was still on the ground, under —

Wait. No she wasn’t.

Experimentally, she tried to feel something with her hoof… only to discover that she felt nothing. There was something there, but she couldn’t get at it; everything was just a dull sensation. Dull, that was a good word for it. She wasn’t thinking straight, was she?

No, she couldn’t move her hoof, either. Was it pinned? Maybe… there was definitely something —

“Miss Snap,” the voice came again, smooth and female. Then, off to a side: “I though you said she was conscious.”

“She is,” came another voice. “At least she’s supposed to be; there’s enough stimulant in her to make a rock dance. I’m sorry —”

“What’s going on?” Jackie said, or at least thought she did. Her tongue hadn’t gotten the memo, and the blurred noises that came out of her bore no resemblance to words.

“So she is awake,” murmured the first voice. “How much…?”

“Nothing,” said the second quickly. “As best we can tell, she’s been out since her recovery.”

“Hm.”

A pause, and Jackie could vaguely feel the air grow darker, a shape over her.

A shape! That meant she was seeing things, and that felt good indeed. She attempted to blink; her lids twitched. She was out of it… but at least she recognized that there was something in front of her eyes, something gauzy. Was she in a hospital?

“No, she was awake at least once,” corrected the first voice quietly. “Under the wreckage. She was already in shock, and it didn’t take much effort to push her over the edge.”

“How can you tell?” asked the second. “If I may.”

“Look at the pattern. Part of it is directional, but the main fracture was radial, from the inside.”

“I see,” came the second voice, and the blurred darkness above her shifted slightly. “I’m… sorry; I’ve just never —”

“Few have,” said the first. “I was hoping to never see this again.”

“Again?” whispered the second voice reverentially. Then, abruptly: “She’s conscious.”

“And I bet she’s getting curious,” said the first voice. “Miss Snap, can you hear me?”

Again Jackie did her best to respond; again her tongue didn’t cooperate. A sound did come out, though, and that was enough.

“I’m glad to hear it,” replied the voice. “You’re in the Ponyville hospital and, for the time being, you’re safe.”

Why can’t I talk? she wanted to say, but all that came out was the “why.”

“You’re heavily sedated,” responded the voice. “We’ve also administered muscle relaxant and a magic block. Your body is still in shock, and sometimes your muscles had a mind of their own. You’ve been sedated for surgery.”

Surgery?

“Three broken legs and a collapsed lung,” said the second voice. “Which is why you’ve got half my pharmacy worth of painkillers in you right now.”

Slowly, carefully, she rolled her tongue around. She didn’t even bother with multiple syllables, or even multiple words. It wasn’t much, but it came out coherent.

“Now?”

“Not yet,” said the first voice. “And for that I must apologize. I’ve requested to see you before you go for surgery. You may not be conscious again for some time, and I need to return to my duties, such as they are.”

The voice paused. “Can we remove the bandage for a moment?” it asked, quietly.

“She shouldn’t be stimulated,” said the second voice with a resigned air. “But medically? Yes. For a moment.”

Jackie felt a pair of hooves at her face, and the blur slowly began to lift as one layer of gauze was pulled back, then another. A third and the blur resolved into color, a fourth and she realized it was moving slightly, almost waving back and forth —

“Mmfss!”
The doctor peeled the last layer back, revealing what was quite clearly none other than Princess Celestia.

“Miss Snap,” she said with a sad smile. “I’m sorry we had to meet under these circumstances.”

Jackie blinked. What else was she going to do? And how had she not recognized the voice?

“Doctor Turner, thank you.”

The tan and white pony to her left nodded deferentially. Jackie recognized him as one of the hospital’s trauma staff; his clessidral mark was a reference to his speedy response time.

“Miss Snap, I afraid I don’t have much time; I’m needed in Canterlot.” The Princess paused slightly. Instinctively Jackie tensed up; the hesitation on the part of none other than Celestia herself worried her more than anything she had ever seen.

“When the Mane came down, the stage was hardest hit,” she started. “We’ve found several… of the diplomatic staff.” The Princess’ tone left no doubt as to the condition of those poor staffponies. The Mane was huge; it didn’t take much imagination to connect the dots.

But what about —

“We haven’t found Dag yet,” she said, “but our teams are doing their best.”

“I…” started Jackie, then broke off. No use stating the obvious.

“Thanks,” she struggled to say; she attempted to punctuate the thought with a nod, but discovered that her entire head was not only immobile but immobilized. Whereas she could flop her hooves a bit, nothing above her neck was moving; it was as if they had strapped her down.

“Which brings me to my second point,” said the Princess, her face growing dire. “I’ve done my best, but not even my magic is powerful enough for this.”

This?

The Princess hesitated for a good long moment before turning to Dr. Turner.

“A mirror,” she commanded.

“I —” he started, but a sharp look from the alicorn and he nodded acquiescence. “Mirror,” he said, offering it to her.

“I am so sorry,” said Princess Celestia, extending the mirror towards Jackie. She strained to see the reflection; it tracked down the wall, to the headboard, then —

Involuntarily she let out a short scream. Her head was immobilized, all right: gauze and leather bands and all sorts of equipment surrounded her. There was red everywhere, and while most of it came from her mane, hair didn’t splotch like that. Besides, most of her mane looked to be burnt or sheared off… and yet she suddenly didn’t care.

At the center of the nest of stained gauze, right in the middle of her copper-hued forehead was a splintered and bloody stump.

“I’m so sorry,” repeated the Princess, mercifully pulling the mirror back. “This is beyond even my magic. Doctor Turner and his staff are the best in Equestria….”

She said more things, but Jackie wasn’t listening. Experimentally she tried to magic something, anything; nothing happened. She knew she was under a magic block, but… nothing. Just… nothing.

No, this couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t —

“…our best,” the Princess was saying. “We will find Dag, and we will heal you. And….” The Princess’ eyes turned to fire. “And they will pay.”

Jackie tried to nod, muscles straining feebly against their restraints. After a few moments of preparation, she convinced her tongue to work again.

“Thank you,” she said, but deep down she didn’t mean it. She didn’t want anypony to pay, even if Celestia herself flew from the heavens to dispense justice. She just wanted Dag back. Dag, and her horn, and… and….

Most of all, she wanted this nightmare to go away. She saw the doctor standing near what looked like an IV drip; after a moment, she felt a cool sensation under her skin.

This time she embraced the darkness.