Persona: Innocent Wish

by Trismegistus

Chapter 29: Triage

It must have been three, or maybe four in the morning. Snow was starting to fall, and the temperature outside was a balmy thirty degrees. ‘Not the best time to take a late night stroll,’ Triage thought to herself. Normally she would have been asleep hours ago, but something had been keeping her up; she couldn’t quite put her hoof on what it was though.

Being the E.W.E.F’s on site doctor was always quite a bit of work, and in her four years with the group, she had treated her fair share of injuries. Recently there had been a fair lull in the action, well, except for Autumn Tail and the ponies who had been involved with the timberwolf attack. Even that had been months ago.

She wore a thin coat as she walked about the camp. The cold had never bothered her, and as an earth pony, she had plenty of experience working with it during Winter Wrap Ups. She looped around the southern row of tents, and after twenty minutes of walking, her tent came into view. With a lazy yawn, she opened the flaps and slumped into the chair by her desk. She still wasn’t tired enough to sleep and it was only a matter of hours until the morning briefing anyway. ‘I hope the coffee is strong to-‘ The sound of two ponies gasping for breath interrupted her thoughts.

“Doc, w-we need your help, please,” Camphor began.

“What’s going on?” Triage asked, surprised to see the two ponies before her. Neither of them seemed to be in good condition either. Even if they weren’t in critical condition, they would need medical attention too. “What happened to you two?”

“Some pony is hurt badly,” Camphor’s words were speeding up as his sentence went along, “Ivory Shield is bringing her, and we need to hurry.”

“Let’s go to the medical tent then, I’ll need a few minutes to set up my equipment.” She threw on a coat and darted into the snow, quickly followed by Compass Rose and Camphor. ‘Looks like I found a reason to be awake,’ she told herself.

After entering the medical tent, Triage lit two lanterns and hurried to get out her equipment. “What kind of injuries should I be expecting? Ones like yours?” she asked.

“We don’t know,” Compass Rose coughed, “I’m sorry.” She seemed to be on the edge of tears.

“That’s okay,” Triage said putting a hoof on Rose’s shoulder. “What happened to you two?”

“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you,” Rose sobbed.

“Quickly Arata, there’s the medical tent!” They hear Ivory Shield shouting from outside. Quickly she and Arata entered the tent and wasted no time setting an unconscious mare on the table in the center of the room.

“Celestia…” Triage cursed under her breath, her face a mix of shock and panic. “This isn’t good…” She quickly began inspecting Lexi, and produced a set of syringes from one of the drawers. “I need one of you to get Penzance, and the other to go wake up my assistant. Stitch’s tent is the one next to mine. Give him hell if he doesn’t wake up quickly.” Ivory Shield and Camphor left the tent, to complete their orders.

“You two, please move aside, I’ll need space to work,” She ordered, slowly drawing a liquid out of a vial into one of the syringes. She hastily inserted the needle into Lexi’s neck, before dipping a cloth into a container of clear liquid. She wiped down all of Lexi’s wounds with the cloth, then threw it away, and produced a thick roll of bandages.

Suddenly, an exhausted earth pony burst through the tent flaps. “Sorry it took me so long to get here, Triage,” he apologized, walking over to a tray full of medical equipment. He seemed to be younger than Arata, by at least two years.

“There’s no time for talking, check her vitals for me while I start to sew up some of these lacerations. She should be close to stable for a while,” Triage ordered. “Then once you’re finished with that, start closing up the wounds on the other side of her. And get something for theses burns while you’re at it!”

The two medics worked for what felt like an hour before Ivory Shield returned with Penzance. From the portion of the conversation Arata had picked up on, it sounded like Penzance had been made aware of at least some of what had happened.

“Triage, is she ready to be transported to the hospital in Foalsdale?” Penzance asked inspecting Lexi’s wounds.

“Almost, we’ve got her stabilized, and we’ve pretty much finished stitching every cut that needs it,” She explained. “I haven’t had any pony send out to the hospital yet.”

“Ivory Shield, are you well enough to do so?” Penzance asked.

“No,” Triage interjected, “She needs to stay here with the rest of them. I need to treat their wounds. Stitch, get to the hospital as fast as you can.”

“Yes doctor,” He nodded, running out of the tent.

After a few more minutes of bandaging, she pulled a blanket over Lexi and turned to the rest of the group. “Now, each of you sit down and I’ll go over your wounds. Penzance, you can ask um’ whatever you want to while I do it.” She began with Compass Rose, the most injured of the four ponies, disinfecting some of the burns and cuts, as well as feeling for any internal damage that may have occurred.

Penzance stared blankly at the four ponies in front of him. His mouth hung slightly ajar as if he was trying to speak. None of the ponies sitting there had the courage to look him in the eye. “Is, she really gone?” He asked, finding the strength to speak, “and is she really responsible for all of this?”

“Yeah,” A gruff answer came from outside.

‘Thank Celestia he’s okay,’ Arata thought to himself. Although he knew that of everypony here, Blaze was going to suffer the most in the coming days.

As Blaze entered the tent it was clear to everypony that he wasn’t himself. His face lacked any sign of expression, except for the small scowl on his lips where his pipe rested. “Vox is dead.” A shiver went through the room as he spoke. “I...” Blaze spared a glace to Arata. For a brief moment their eyes met, and Arata could feel Blaze pleading to him, as if his very essence was screaming out. “I killed her. I tried to save her, I tried to get her to stop, but nothing I said or did made any difference.”

Camphor’s eyes widened and he began to cry uncontrollably. Ever since he had regained consciousness by the lake, everything had gone by so quickly that he hadn’t had time to actually think about what had happened. Having it stated to him brought forward all of the shock and sadness that he had briefly pushed aside. It was almost too much to handle.

Compass Rose was experiencing the same feelings, however Arata and Ivory Shield were too focused on Blaze and Penzance to acknowledge.

“Wait Vox is dead?” Triage interjected; a look of horror came over her face. “I want to kno-”

Penzance turned to Triage and hastily “Triage, I promise you that as soon as I fully understand everything that has transpired I will relay the information to you. Until that time I kindly ask that you ask no further questions.”

“Now wait just a minute Penzance,” Triage glared, “You may be my ‘commanding officer,’ but this isn’t the Guard. We’re just hired help; don’t go thinking we have some undying loyalty to you. A pony just died, and these ones aren’t much better off. As a doctor I need to know what happened.”

“Don’t take this out on Penzance,” Ivory Shield stated firmly, “If we thought we could explain this to you we would have, but you wouldn’t believe us if we tried.”

Penzance spent a long minute examining Blaze’s wounds before speaking again. His words were pained, but confident. “Son, do you mind following me to my tent? I’d like to get the full story from you.”

Blaze subtly nodded, and the two left, leaving the rest of the ponies in an uncomfortable silence.

No one dared to make eye contact with Triage, who had become visibly angry and was muttering to herself in frustration.

Arata started to ask himself how he could have let something like this happen. Vox was a friend and one of the first ponies he had gotten to know since he had come to Foaldale. According to Igor, or the cards, or whatever magic had been interfering with his life since he arrived, they had shared a genuine bond, and now she was gone. Maybe he had missed some kind of sign that this was going to happen, something she had said or done that would have given Arata a hint this was going to happen. Or maybe he hadn’t paid attention to any of the signs. Like the tarot reading Lexi had given him at the festival; either way it was too late now, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was all his fault.

After an hour in silence, the ponies were dismissed. In that time, a group had come from the hospital and Lexi was taken away for further treatment. Blaze and Penzance hadn’t returned to the tent either and Arata decided it would be best if the team went to check on them. Although Ivory Shield agreed, Camphor and Compass Rose both couldn’t take anything more and went their separate ways to be alone.

“Arata, I know you were close to Vox,” Ivory Shield began, “If you need to talk about any of this don’t hesitate to come and talk to me.”

Arata hung his head and let out a shallow breath, “Thank you, you can come to me, too.” Arata knew that getting through this would be a challenge the whole team needed to face together. He was glad that Ivory Shield was here to help them, but he could only imagine what feelings she was hiding behind her composed demeanor.

They approached Penzance’s tent and could clearly hear the tension in the conversation that was being had inside. Arata approached the flap and felt Ivory’s hoof on his shoulder.

“We’d better let them finish talking.” She cautioned.

“I can’t believe I did that, and worse than that I can’t believe you aren’t upset at me!” Blaze said his voice almost a shout.

“Of course I am upset with you,” Penzance said, “But, I also trust you. I have known you like a son for all of these years. I cannot imagine that you would do something like this unless it was absolutely necessary.”

“You’re not even acting like her friend right now, let alone her fa-” Blaze’s thought was quickly interrupted.

“Did you really love her?” Penzance asked.

“Of course I did.” Blaze replied.

“And you were the one who killed her. Blaze I loved her too, more than you can know, so I believe its time you let the point rest.” Penzance didn’t say anything more after this, but Blaze was able to read the look in his face. Without another word Blaze stood up and walked out of the tent not paying any attention to Ivory or Arata.

As he left they both entered and found that Penzance was standing in the center of the room with his back to the door.

“Sir…” Ivory Shield interrupted.

“Ivory,” He replied without turning to face her. “I lost control with Blaze. I was thinking too much of myself in that situation. Please make sure he is alright for me, I don’t think he will want to see me for a while.”

“Yes sir, I’ll be sure to check up on him tomorrow morning.” Ivory replied, a slight tremble was noticeable in her voice. “Will that be all?”

“Yes, I think it will be.” He replied dismissing the two.

‘I wasn’t any help at all,’ Arata thought to himself as he split off from Ivory Shield and walked home. ‘My friends helped me get this far, and now I’m just useless.’

He opened the door to the Poultice’s home and sat at the table in the kitchen. The sun would be up soon and so would the family. It didn’t feel like he would sleep even if he tried.

Author's Note:

Sorry for the super long gap since the last one. The rest should be out more consistently.

Comments

[New Dawn]

5652702 .... Meep.

Actually considering what Mara is... I don't want to find out.