Rest for the Weary

by DismantledAccount

Rehabilitation: Day One

A man sat, looking out his window.

Gnarled, withered fingers gripped the edges of his wheelchair in a weak grip, no longer could he even fully form a fist. His pure white hair was thin and wispy. His scarred face was creased and lined.

Listless eyes that had seen so much stared off into the other world below—the world where normal people lived. They could not comprehend what he had watched, what he had done. The horrors he had wrought still forced him awake in the middle of the night, and the monstrosity of the enemy kept him from returning to peaceful slumber.

Deep wracking coughs left his body periodically, and each wheezing breath was a struggle for consciousness. The thin tubes of plastic that went into his nose carried oxygen into his tired body.

Turning away from the bustle of the city, he rolled his wheelchair to the back of his room. There, in the drawer, he found what he was looking for.

His feeble hands stroked the small ovals of metal with reverence, for each pair was collected from a squadmate, a friend, a brother.

He could recall their names, their faces, with perfect memory.

The man slid his own pair of dog tags off his neck and gently placed it alongside the others.

He was not just any man, but a hero. And he was dying.

But it would be on his terms.

He slowly faced the corner of the room. His eyes locked on the solitary object found there: the flag of his country.

His right hand tugged at the life-giving nozzle attached to his face until it slid free, then rose higher. Straightening his aching back, he extended his fingers as best he could. He placed the tips of his still-bent fingers next to the corner of his eye.

Someone would find him tomorrow. They would find that he died as he lived. For his country.

No.

He had died a long time ago.

---

Fluttershy hummed merrily as she flew through the air. The birds were chirping, the sky was a crisp blue, and Celestia’s sun shone down from above.

She landed in the soft soil and ever so gently pulled a luscious lily from the ground. Adding it to her small bouquet, she once again jumped into the sky and flitted for home, her wings barely moving as she danced in between the trees.

Chattering excitedly, a squirrel paused and waved to her, an acorn grasped in its claws.

Smiling, Fluttershy returned the wave and continued on her way.

Rounding a last tree, her cottage came into view. She flew closer and gently touched down on her porch, her hooves barely making a sound as they connected with the wood. Still humming, she pushed the door inward.

Once the inside of her cottage came into view, she slowed and looked around. Her coat on the back of her neck prickled, but she couldn’t quite put her hoof on why it did. She stared for a minute, looking at every detail, but nothing seem out of the ordinary.

“Hello, Fluttershy,” said Twilight as she stepped into the room.

Fluttershy’s heart, which had sped up slightly, relaxed. She let out a quick breath. “Oh, it’s just you, Twilight.”

“We have a . . . problem.”

“What?” she asked.

Twilight motioned her further inside and then closed the door with her magic. “Stand still.” She slowly walked up to Fluttershy and parted her mane with her hooves.

“What are you, um, doing?”

“Just checking to see if you grew a horn.” She turned around and looked at the rest of the room. “Five minutes ago, I received a high-importance letter from Princess Celestia. She said that somewhere around the outskirts of Ponyville, a powerful magic has surfaced. I was wondering if you had seen anything.”

“Is . . . is it dangerous?” squeaked Fluttershy.

“The princess doesn’t know. She has no reason to believe it is because all she sensed was raw power, but we can never be too careful. I’m on my way to get our other friends, but I decided to stop here first—in case you had seen something out of the ordinary.”

“I haven’t seen anything,” said Fluttershy, shaking her head

“That’s good to know. Wait until I get back with our friends; then we will see if we can’t find this . . . entity.” As Fluttershy nodded, Twilight’s horn charged up with a white light, and seconds later, she disappeared.

“It’s a good thing I didn’t run into it on my own. Who knows what could have happened. Right, Angel? . . . Angel?” Quickly looking around, she couldn’t see any part of the white bunny. “Angel?”

Subconsciously adding her few flowers to a vase filled with water, she slowly trotted up the stairs and peeked in her bedroom. “Angel,” she sighed good-naturedly, spying a lump under the covers. “I know you’re there, and I can see you’ve brought a friend. Come on out, Angel.”

She waited, but the lump didn’t so much as budge. “Angel,” she warned.

Again, the bulge stayed put.

Fluttershy huffed quietly and blew a stray hair out of her face. She walked up to the bed and grasped the covers in her teeth. Dragging them down to the foot of the bed, she paused, eyes widening.

It wasn’t Angel and company who was in her bed; it was a pony.

Fluttershy froze. Her pupils taking up more and more of her eyes as time progressed. Her thumping heart was all she felt, and her panicked breathing filled her ears, which were splayed back against her head.

Her wings tensed, preparing to flee, wanting to flee, but she couldn’t manage to free her stone hooves from the ground’s pull.

But then she noticed something.

The pony hadn’t moved either.

Her body now listening to her, she cautiously took a step closer. And another. And another.

She couldn’t even tell if he was breathing.

A pointy, sky-blue horn was poking out through his pure white mane, and as her eyes trailed down his body, she could see that the rest of his coat matched the blue of his horn.

Using a hoof to cover her mouth, she let out a quiet gasp. He had wings. He was an alicorn.

A thunderclap filled the room as Fluttershy stepped on her squeaky floorboard.

The alicorn rolled over and fixed his electric blue eyes on Fluttershy’s.

Seconds later, his eyes slowly closed.

Wiping the moisture from her brow, Fluttershy silently let out a breath that she didn’t know she had been holding.

Just as quickly, the eyes popped open again. Except, this time, they focused.

Neither said anything for an untold time. It could have been hours. It could have been days. It could have been no time at all.

“Who would have known angels were horses.” The alicorn let out a low chuckle. “I guess there’s still a lot we don’t know about the world.” His voice was aged well beyond his body; he sounded even older than Granny Smith.

Fluttershy opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

“Might as well find another poor soul tonight, angel. I know what awaits me.”

“. . . W-what?” squeaked Fluttershy.

“Fiery damnation. Or if I’m lucky, absolutely nothing.” He slowly laid back against the pillow and looked up at the ceiling. “Go ahead and look for someone worthy. I’ll just wait for the demons to claim me.”

Fluttershy stood a little straighter now that he wasn’t looking at her. “Um . . . why don’t I stay here for a while? Maybe I could keep you company until the . . . um, things get here.”

He looked down at her without picking his head off the pillow. “As you wish.” He then closed his eyes.

And so, for several long minutes, that’s exactly what she did.

Her lips trembled, hesitant to break the silence, but eventually, her curiosity overrode her other emotions and prompted her to sate it. “Why do you think you aren’t worthy?”

His eyelids didn’t so much as twitch, and for a second, she wasn’t sure if he had heard the question.

“Why would I be?” he asked suddenly, cutting her off. “Don’t you know who I am—what I’ve done?”

She shook her head, her mane falling about her shoulders, but upon realizing that he didn’t see her, she spoke up. “I’m sorry, no. . . . But you could tell me, I mean, if you want.”

“A chance to unload on an angel? Sure. Why not.” He let out a long sigh. “I’m an old man, angel. An old, tired, lonely man. But it wasn’t always that way. I had friends. Good friends. Brothers. I stood up for them, they stood up for me.” He trailed off, staring into the distance.

Fluttershy sat on the floor and kept her eyes trained on the strange stallion.

“We went through more than our share of skirmishes, we did. Brought down pain on the enemy. Oh, we were a nasty bunch. They called us whenever there was dirty work to be done. We did it without question and always came out on top.”

“You were a soldier,” Fluttershy stated more than asked.

“Yes. Yes I was.” He looked down at Fluttershy and met her eyes, but they were unfocused, seeing things of a long time past. “Of course, one shouldn’t say ‘always.’”

Fluttershy nodded slowly, silently urging him on.

“. . . Deep in enemy territory, w-we—” Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and continued. “The sky was as black as the darkest oil. It flowed around us and hid us from sight. We were tasked to destroy the camp, so destroy it we would. But as we got close, the sky lit up with fire. The ground trembled underneath us. Death started whizzing all around from every side.”

He opened his eyes again, and Fluttershy could see right into his very soul. “One by one, my brothers fell. One by one, they bled. One by one, they didn’t get up.”

Fluttershy wiped the moisture from her eyes and sniffed quietly.

“We did the best we could. But there were too many.” Tears dripped from his eyes and spilled down his cheeks. “Do you know what it’s like to feel your brothers’ still-warm blood on your face? What it’s like to hide with the bodies of your friends? What it’s like to lie there while the bastards hover over you? To know that if you so much as blink, the twitch of a finger will end you?”

“I-I’m so sorr—”

“I had to lay there for a day, hardly daring to breath. But after they left, I followed them. I hunted the few who were left and put them down like the rabid animals they were. One. By. One.”

Fluttershy sobbed silently, her shoulder shaking.

“I was hailed as a hero. But I know the truth: I am a failure. If I was a hero, I would have saved the lives of my brothers. If I was a hero, I wouldn’t have this blood staining my hands. If I was a hero, I would be worthy of peace on the next life, angel.”

Fluttershy slowly climbed into the bed and laid down next to the stallion. She wrapped her forelegs around him and pulled him close against her. “You aren’t a monster,” she whispered in his ear. “War is horrible, but not the warriors.”

He snorted mirthlessly.

“I had a-a-a—knew a pony just like you, once. And do you know how I helped him?” she asked slowly. “All it took was a little thing to help him get started.”

He stayed silent, but his ear was angled towards her mouth.

She kissed his brow, whispering, “I forgive you. I forgive you for all the bad things you’ve done. You aren’t a bad pony. You did what you had to do. And if your friends were as close as you say you were, your friends forgive you. Everypony forgives you, so why don’t you forgive yourself?”

“. . . How?” he breathed.

“Only you know that,” she said.

He closed his eyes and turned away from her. “There was so much more I could have done,” he whispered.

“What? What could you have done differently?”

“Everything! I should have . . .”

“You didn’t. You couldn’t.” Fluttershy winced at the steel in her own voice. “That’s not how it happened. And nothing you can do will change that.”

He said nothing for a long time.

Rolling away from her slightly, he shifted in the bed, and Fluttershy understood the meaning behind that simple motion.

She carefully extracted herself from the embrace and walked out of the room. Silently shutting the door, she paused and took a few deep, shuddering breaths. Then, fluttering down the stairs, she wiped her eyes.

A knock on the door caused her head to snap to the source of the noise. She angled her flight and landed in front of the door. Opening it, she was greeted with the sight of her close friends.

Twilight smiled and said, “Fluttershy, we—have you been crying?”

She nodded. “A little.”

“What happened?” asked Rarity. “Are you all right?”

“I’m . . . fine, and I think I found the source of the magic.”

“Didn’t I tell you to wait for us?” asked Twilight sternly, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, yes, but you see, it’s a he, and he’s, um, in my bed.”

“And do you know this stallion’s name?” asked Twilight over Rainbow’s subdued snickering.

“. . . Lost. His name is Lost. Because he needs somepony to find him.”

Comments

[Honest Wisdom]

Wow, this is beautiful.

[The Watcher Face]

I wrote this off a year or so never got past to him saluting why didn't I keep going this is grand well written.

The Watcher
Soon to be fimfiction critic.
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