Harpflank and Sweets: Forced Introspection

by Arcainum

Going Under: Nurse Redheart

Redheart pulled the last knot tight on the wounded soldier’s dressings and checked her work, wiping her forehead. It had been a long, hard day. An advanced training exercise had gone horribly wrong when one of the reclaimed Lunatrons that M.A.R.E. occasionally used had somehow reverted to its original programming. It had seriously injured several recruits before being put down by the supervising officer.. They’d live, but it had been a close-run thing for some.

She turned, running through her mental to-do list. To her pleasant surprise, it was complete. Everypony was stable, the clinic was clean and organised, and Fluttershy was handling... She smiled as she passed through the curtain surrounding the soldier’s bed and entered the clinic proper. Fluttershy was curled at the foot of her desk, sound asleep, with muffled snores filtering through the cascade of pink mane covering her face. She had worked even harder than Redheart over the course of the day, and had insisted on doing the paperwork for every pony she had so much as touched. But time and effort had caught up with her. Grabbing a spare blanket, Redheart gently laid it over Fluttershy before squeezing into her chair, careful not to wake her exhausted colleague.

Something touched her lips and she dropped her pen in surprise as a voice emerged from nowhere,

“So quiet, so strong... Let’s see what you really fear.”