Mares und Panzer

by Indulgence

Instandhaltung

I am content, more than that I glow, both within and without. The creature beneath me shudders as it roars again and again, my frame jumping in time with its bellows, vibrations running through my being as if I’m an extension of this predatory animal. Fire burns the air, smoke swirling in a pleasant breeze, but the scent of the surrounding vines makes everything mellow. Flashes burst brightly in the near distance, flaring as rivals to the sun above in its clear blue ethereal court, rage muted as they sparkle like shattering stars.

I and my war beast are not alone, far from it; rather we are one in a pack, three of us in all. We are all very different in so many ways, but we and our mounts shout in unison, as one setting upon our prey. In contrast the enemy is a lone titan, vast and far tougher than any one of us. Together though, we are strong, helping each other to soar beyond our limited selves. There is nothing that we together cannot conquer, even this behemoth which stands against us. For all the angry noise of its many maws it fails against our combined onslaught.

Everything ends, a last round of roars running amongst us as our quarry bleeds out a bright red light. I am triumphant, but more than that we are triumphant, all of us together. I do not pause to drink it in, instead I instinctively look away, seeking a greater confirmation than the slain carcass. I find it in a pure white face and two gleaming silver eyes. She smiles at me and, although I may doubt the wordless whispers her lips silently convey, I nonetheless alight upon them. I both hope and doubt that I manage to smile back in the same way, but I try.

Something, or more correctly somethings, strike me. They hit hard, the most prominent of their unseen number crashing across my forehead’s left side. Others meanwhile score additional hits across my exposed form, but it’s the first which has the most impact. It’s strange, but there’s no pain, in fact there is nothing, even as I feel my body slump, suddenly unable to support itself. I am falling, there is red, and then there is black.

---

Darkness, pale darkness: the world not yet taking form but its audience gradually slipping from the crypt of sleep. Her mind was likewise a blank canvas as it slowly came to register its own existence, very much discovering itself in the void. If there had been something more to precede this it had dissipated, any dreams or thoughts lost to the slight lights. Little by little she awoke, her eyelids finding the strength to rouse their heavy selves.

Dawn found herself laid out on her back staring at a wood panelled ceiling, intricate plant-like engravings spiralling at its edges. She felt a stack of pillows behind her head, a soft mattress beneath her form and a light sheet draping her. Whatever the place was it was comfortable, serene light bathing all in a tempered sunshine, part muted by a thin covering of blinds. There was something not quite right about it though, not enough to make her ill at ease, but certainly an “off-ness”. She could just about judge from its scale and feel that the bed she occupied was not her own, an observation which begged the question of where she actually was?

The cream earth mare moved to sit up and regretted it, finding her stiff being totally at odds with the idea. With this attempt at movement her dulled nerve endings seemed to remember themselves, rewarding her efforts with an insistent ache, as if she had been sunk somewhere a lot more permanent than mere sleep and now in escape they dug themselves out. This sudden dark thought startled her, pushing her further despite the resistance to prop herself up, initially leaning against her forehooves.

Beyond the rustically inspired panels above her the rest of the room was colourless, all wiped clean and antiseptic white. Likewise the furniture she lay within was a simple structure of refined lines and pale painted boards. The place’s designer had obviously aimed at cold and professional in his chosen colour palette, whilst nodding to something far older than the contemporary through its sparse embellishments. These objectives would have probably been wholly successful were it not for the additional decorations placed on every available surface belonging to the rest of the room’s furniture. Atop all of these were aligned bunches of flowers, blooming bouquets overflowing their vessels with rainbow petals, additionally filling her lungs with a meadow’s scent.

Dawn stretched out on instinct, this time enduring less of a complaint from her settled form, a lazy yawn escaping her lips, more mechanical reaction in her state than inspired by fatigue. A last few twinges from her spine finally brought her full consciousness, emerald irises at last able to discern details in her surroundings. In amongst the dense foliage of blossoms were set a similarly colourful array of cards, some associated with particular bunches of flowers whilst others stood alone, all generally vying for her attention and wishing her well. Two of the largest occupied opposing ends of the table at the end of her bed, set facing both her and each other as if in silent competition. From within one she could just about make out Split’s scrawl, whilst the other was filled with a far finer hoof in dark ink.

A faint creak sounded from the corner of the room, revealing what would have otherwise been an unseen doorway as it crept timidly open. In the crack left by the ajar portal appeared a golden face, peering in and instantly catching eyes with her.

‘She’s awake!’

With this in part excited, in part relieved, and infinitely happy shout the door was thrown open, the hoard it had held back behind it charging through just as fast. Coquette, Blossom and Toffee were pushed through at the group’s head, forced by the swell behind them, followed immediately by Rook and Split jostling each other on the way in. Finally came the strange pairing of Helix and Crystal, very much the mirror opposites both in form and air. Naturally the first six of these divided, taking up places either side of the bed, whilst the last silvery unicorn stayed a bit back, setting herself at its far end surrounded by bouquets.

‘Sweet Celestia you’ve had us all worried!’ Coquette cried, although with a broad grin painting her aspect as she leapt forward for a hug, before being held back by Blossom’s magic and a raised eyebrow.

‘How’re you feeling?’ the hazel unicorn asked tenderly as she levitated the other mare back to her side.

Dawn took a moment in considering, put off guard by the sudden invasion. It was then that she felt the pressure of something secured above her left eye. She rose up a forehoof to investigate, simultaneously finding one bandage where she blindly searched and another wound about her inquiring limb. Another entirely wrapped her shoulder and there were more in other places, but aside from what their presence suggested and her persistent aching she could find no greater malady. ‘Okay, I think’ she ventured. ‘What happened exactly, and possibly more importantly where am I?’

Blossom’s features became one of her winning smiles, absolutely reassuring. ‘You’re in the Appleoosa Medical Centre at the moment. I don’t know if you can remember any of it, but you were transferred here once you were stitched up in Trottingham. As for what happened: you were both incredibly lucky and unlucky in equal measure.’

‘When we took out their Hexer at the end of the match’ Toffee took up the retelling, ‘their rocket launcher ignited and exploded…’

‘Was everypony okay?’ Dawn immediately broke in. ‘Was their crew alright? Was anypony hurt?’

‘Yes: you were.’ The caramel driver rolled her eyes. ‘Seriously, we’ve all been worried sick, so could you at least this once think of yourself for a change! They’re all fine. Anyway, one of the missiles partially took off and then detonated, and you were hit with shrapnel. Either our ward was configured wrong or had stopped working for some reason, but its currently under investigation.’

‘You were super lucky though!’ Coquette reached to the bedside table and lifted up a set of goggles from the surface, hoofing them over to her bedbound captain. A gash had been roughly carved in the top of the left eye’s lens, trailing across the protective material like a slash mark cut by a blade. ‘These pretty much saved your face from a fin which broke off the rocket.’

‘And gained you a badass scar’ Rook added, gesturing in explanation to her own forehead and indicating a stripe from above her eyebrow to her maneline.

‘Both of which make you seriously lucky’ Blossom concurred, although more with the first sentiment, ‘but there’s still more to it. The flight stabiliser to the head knocked you out cold, meanwhile a few smaller bits hit you in the forelegs and upper barrel, meaning although the injuries weren’t necessarily as bad as they could’ve been you still lost quite a bit of blood.’

‘It looked like you were trying to repaint the Panther’s turret’ Helix piped up bluntly, straight away silenced by all angry looks.

‘So you were fortunate that Toff was a match to your rare type. Who knows, maybe you’ve got some Apple in you along with the pegasus.’

‘Pegasus?’

‘Yeah… the doc said it’s a miracle you didn’t break anything.’ Receiving a blank look the golden earth mare continued, if a bit hesitantly. ‘Sorry, I thought of anypony you’d know yourself, but she said you had a lighter bone structure, so there’s probably at least one pegasus somewhere in your family tree.’

‘Thank you’ Dawn whispered honestly to the friends beside her bed, who returned with a nod, not wholly perceiving the last bit though, focused mainly on the farm mare.

‘It’s been a few days since all that happened’ Blossom finished recounting, ‘and once you were stable we all came back home. Oh yeah, I should also add Crystal to the things you’re lucky for. When it happened she blinked straight to you, and then teleported you out of the tank before anypony else had even realised what’d happened. She made sure you’d be okay, in fact she hasn’t left the ward since we got back.’

The captain’s eyes went to the other almost ethereal commander at the end of the bed. Crystal made a little smile, faintly pink at her edges, set in a halo of her translucent mane.

‘That all more or less covers it. Up until now you’ve been pretty much out of it.’

‘I’m sorry…’ Dawn briefly began before a sharp huff from everypony stopped her words.

‘Don’t you dare apologise!’ Coquette commanded, speaking for them all, getting up more carefully this time to draw her friend into an embrace. ‘You may’ve scared the buck out of us, but we’ll survive, we’ve got along fine in your absence, and we’re all just happy that you’re back with us! That cover everything?’

‘Yeah, pretty much.’ The Panther’s commander found herself giggling into her radio operator’s curls, the other earth mare having seen straight through her. The hug helped, followed as they parted by a series of others, collectively more than medicinal. ‘We did win right?’ she asked sheepishly when she was again granted some breathing space.

‘Oh yeah, totally whupped ‘em!’ Split had remained uncharacteristically reserved throughout, but now chose to re-find her voice. ‘Bearing in mind they had double our number and well more than twice the firepower, I don’t think merely awesome quite cuts it! Your plan worked absolutely perfectly, and it had to be our last shot which scored the killing blow on their monster as well!’

‘Hang on, aren’t you glossing over somepony feather brain!’ Helix snapped, ‘or rather several someponies, or have you conveniently forgotten about our part in all this? Our arrival was what tipped the scales back in your favour!’

‘Yeah yeah, you were a nice distraction and all, but Dawn…’

‘Distraction!’

The athlete and the rebel second in command turned to barking at each other, neither backing down from each succeeding challenge.

In line alongside this, Rook gave the growing verbal duel a sideways look and a knowing grin. ‘Apologies for just appearing unannounced back there.’ The navy-maned unicorn looked to her captain. ‘We were getting underway when they hit us with the second barrage. Although nothing direct got us, we were still rattled enough for our coms to go down, hence our radio silence. I’ve already got Dahl learning her stuff, so that won’t be an issue in the future’ she continued with an appreciative nod the way of their company’s other unicorn of all trades.

‘Thank you everypony, thank you all so much.’ Dawn more than meant her words to her friends, appreciating and bolstered by each of the smiles she received back in kind, even breaking Helix and Split momentarily from their argument. ‘Have I missed anything else?’

‘The next round of fixtures were announced today’ Toffee answered, ‘which I should mention officially means we’re more than half way to the final! We’re in the top four!’ Proud beaming illuminated her face. ‘Next though we’re up against Canterlot and Yan Hoover will be hosting us. It’s another tough draw, even before we think about numbers, and the forecast’s a cold one, but from what intel I’ve got we shouldn’t be in for any surprises like last time at least.’

‘And how is Solstice?’ the captain asked, reading as well as anypony what “intel” meant.

‘Sta… I mean Solstice’s doing good.’ The driver blushed. ‘Their previous matches have been pretty easy, but now they’re facing Ponyville for a final spot so they’re in for a tough one.’ She pointed to one of the fluted vases filled with a collection of blue and purple flowers, tonally like a summer night’s sky, along with a black envelope. In the half light of the room their petals almost seemed to weirdly glow, giving off their own luminescence. ‘The dusk lilies are from her. I don’t really do flowers, but apparently even when they’ve been cut they never shed their petals.’

‘Most of all this is from ponies at school.’ Blossom gestured about the room, taking in its mess of colourful contents. ‘You should see it; everypony has really come together and rallied behind us since we got into the semis.’

A couple of louder growls came from Helix and Split’s resumed muttering competition.

‘Present company notwithstanding that is. There are few things from others though. Coronet sent you the hamper for example, along with wishing that you get better soon and us all the best of luck shooting for the final.’

The highlighted “hamper” was more of a full picnic basket, left open due to its copious content and taking up the entirety of one of the few visitors chairs. The crimson wicker container was jam packed (no pun intended), barely able to manage all it held. Sweet and salted biscuits and cookies vied for space with jars of chutney, set alongside the miniature wax-coated forms of a plethora of taster cheeses. Behind this mountain meanwhile sat marked boxes of more blends of tea than could be reasonably conceived to exist.

‘Oh, and she also invites us all back during their next competition season with Hoofington as well. Back to the issue of our next match though; with a massive amount of help from the engineers we’ve managed to get the two tanks we found up and running against all odds. Guess we’ll still be at a disadvantage in terms of units, but that at least closes the gap a tiny bit.’

Dawn considered the pair of battered landshipwrecks which had been hauled up from the lakebed. That they were working at all was pretty crazy, the effort it must have taken to achieve it immense.

‘They’re a couple of heavy Rhino types’ Toffee, ever sage-like, expanded, ‘an ER-2 and an ER-5.1 Both of them are essentially advances on the design of Stalliongrad’s flagtank, made bulkier and upgunned. Thanks to Belle and Bloss we’ve also already got crews for ‘em.’

‘That’s fantastic!’ the captain nodded, unable to call up a truly adequate expression. ‘Again thank you, and well done! You’ve all done so much. Is there anything else?’

The farmer paused and considered before shaking her head, generally mirrored by most others.

‘Seriously Belle?’ Blossom was the exception to this. ‘This is your moment to gossip about Hearts and Hooves, like I know you want to!’

‘Oh… well yeah, but I’d kinda forgotten about that’ Coquette admitted. ‘What with the accident and the excitement of the championships I haven’t given it much thought. Honestly I’ve been more focused on team stuff, and I’ve really been enjoying it. I suppose I did get another card from my mysterious suiter’ she shrugged.

‘Are you sure you’re not the one who should be in the bed?’ The hazel unicorn looked visibly shocked. ‘This is the same guy who you’ve been obsessively trying to identify for the past few years, and you’re suddenly completely unbothered?’ She shook her head. ‘That said I will always be the first to say that the whole unsigned card thing is on the borderline between romantic and just plain creepy.’

The golden radio mare simply shrugged again. ‘I honestly haven’t given it much thought, which I suppose could be pretty awkward if he suddenly decides to come out of the shadows.’

There was a lull, separate conversations consuming both sides of the bed.

‘Really? Nopony else is going to say it?’ Crystal got to her hooves, using her magic to shift the still angry pegasus and earth mare, forcing them to stop as they freaked over being unwillingly levitated out of the way. She moved into the forcibly vacated space, keeping her gaze with her captain’s, coming to her side. ‘Are you sure you want to keep going with this? All luck aside, what happened was hardly minor; you could’ve been seriously hurt!’ A sorrowful crack caught at the back of the unicorn’s tones. ‘I know you don’t want to let anypony down, but I know I… we wouldn’t be able to forgive ourselves if something were to happen to you. You shouldn’t feel forced to do anything; you’ve already done so much.’

Do you want to keep doing this?

The thought had not crossed Dawn’s mind. As the events lost to unconsciousness had been retold she had only really considered them as a setback, nothing deeper or more serious. She wanted to get back into gear, quitting having not figured at all in the equation. The mare whose concerned face looked into her gave her that option, in turn accompanied by all those around her who joined it. It was touching, potently so, but that did not change the fun they had enjoyed and the times they had shared, regardless of this inconsequential black mark. ‘Of course I do’ she answered with what she hoped was a reassuring smile, aware that her answer may have been quite different not so long ago.

Author's Note:

Title: Maintenance (German)

Notes:
1) KV-2, heavy tank, and KV-5, multi-turreted heavy tank (Russia)