Chapter 16
How had it come to this? Two years ago when this war began, ponies and Changelings met each other as relative equals, face-to-face and hoof-to-hoof on the battlefield, where survival and victory was a matter of one’s skill and that of one’s comrades. Now, our artillery vomited increasingly lethal shrapnel and explosives at exponentially greater volumes and ranges, our pegasi had militarised the very weather, our soldiers each carried a weapon that allowed them to kill from afar, and now the Changelings could deploy this cruel gas that burnt ponies from the inside. This was not war as I or any of our leaders had known it as a contest of skill, fighting spirit, and strategic genius, but a race to devise newer and deadlier weapons and build more of them than the enemy.
I had plenty of time to think on this in the hospital, for the hours between anything interesting happening, like treatment, surgery, or somepony else nearby having a cardiac arrest, were ones where I had naught to occupy my mind but my own thoughts. Celestia and Luna could not remain by my side at all times, having affairs of state to deal with, and thus left for Canterlot the following day. With little else to distract myself, such thoughts invariably strayed into the less-than-cheery topic of the war itself, the very thing that brought me to such ruin once again. In these times I thought of those I had lost, Gliding Moth and Red Coat, both younger than I, though not by much, but arguably with more to live for. There were more too, those nameless faces and faceless names who fought and fell alongside me. It is the burden of the survivor to remember them, and thus cursed to be left to ponder the eternal, lamentable question of ‘should it have been me?’.
Second Fiddle, however, had elected to visit me this time; apparently the threshold for the pony who was, for the lack of a better term, my ‘boss’ to become interested in my personal health and well-being lay somewhere below getting shot in the rear and above being nearly killed by poison gas. He had picked a time in the late afternoon, long after Celestia and Luna had left. I had spent the better part of the intervening hours staring up at the ceiling, with only a brief interruption for an attempt at consuming lunch, which consisted of a thin, watery gruel-like soup of undefinable origin and flavour that I could barely keep down.
To distract myself from thinking too much about, well, everything that I have just written about here, I had forced myself to fixate upon a particular stain on the white ceiling immediately above my pillow. What it was and just how it got there I couldn’t say, and this being a hospital I was probably better off not knowing. It was an ochre-coloured blot, probably about two feet across and one foot high, and resembled an ancient map of some half-explored island. In its peculiar splotchy lines I saw a craggy coastline, bays, inlets, rivers, and lakes. My father, when he wasn’t busy representing Equestria on behalf of Princess Celestia, keeping natives in line, or beating me with a stick for failing to hold a fork correctly, fancied himself as something of an explorer, and would often spend hours every spare afternoon pouring over maps and charts of far-off places. So for those moments of lucidity, between drifting off into restless sleep and staring into space with my mind fogged by drugs and potions, I imagined ships sailing up and down the ragged coast of this island, dropping off parties of adventurers to explore the depths of its dark, untamed forests and open wildlands. These expeditions would find ancient, forgotten temples laden with the riches of a long-dead empire, tribes of Zebras untouched by civilisation, and dark, dusky mares eager for the touch of a…
“Blueblood?” Second Fiddle interrupted my foalish day-dreaming. He’d taken the seat next to my bed, rested one hoof on the sheets, and leaned over at me. The dozens of medals, gold buttons, braids, and other assorted shiny things pinned to his narrow, slim chest dangled as he did so, and tapping against one another it all sounded like a small wind chime. Another one of his newspapers was tucked under his armpit, which I had since learned was rarely a good sign.
“Visiting hours already?” I said, pulling myself up to my elbows. I had no idea how much time had passed since Celestia and Luna said their goodbyes; hours, days, or minutes, perhaps, all felt the same. A wave of dizziness and nausea hit me, but I carried on until I could at least lean back against the pillow and the headboard. Bitter, rank bile rose up the back of my throat, and I coughed and pounded my chest to try and get rid of it.
“I pulled rank to get in,” he said.
Just over his shoulder, a group of nurses and a doctor were having a rather animated discussion. One nurse pointed in our direction and gesticulated, but the doctor shrugged and appeared to say something along the lines of ‘he’s the commissar’. If that was Surgical Steel, I mused, then Second Fiddle wouldn’t have placed two hooves in this ward before that feisty old stallion unleashed a salvo of incomprehensible vitriol down upon him, regardless of rank, until he turned and fled with his tail between his legs. I made a mental note that, should this discussion prove to be unpleasant or simply boring, to inform the good doctor and see what happened next time.
“How kind of you,” I said.
I was hardly in the best of moods after both of my regal aunts had left, having fallen into that strange, hypocritical trap of feeling desperately lonely but also finding equine company to be thoroughly unbearable that leaves one feeling miserable and without much of a way to relieve it. Both of my neighbours on this ward, Cannon Fodder on the bed to my left and Square Basher on my right, remained quiet; the former, of course, was hardly one for unnecessary conversation and the latter seemed to be making a conscious effort to ignore me, far in excess of the usual awkwardness that the social gulf between a commissioned officer and an enlisted pony creates.
“My schedule is very full,” he said. “The attack has put a dent in our plans, but Market Garden is still pushing us ahead, and harder, too. All of us; Sunshine Smiles says he wishes he could see you, but he’s got to put his entire battalion back together now. We’ll assault Virion Hive in a week, maybe even earlier if your native heathen ‘friends’ can hurry up.”
I stared silently at him; the last thing I truly wanted to think about was work, for I had quite enough of that and its rather painful consequences already. What was going on outside this hospital was still a mystery to me, besides the vague things I’d picked up from various ponies around me, and frankly I had more immediate concerns on my mind. Second Fiddle shuffled awkwardly, apparently sensing my discomfort, and pulled a sympathetic face. It was the sort of expression where one can see the pony going through the conscious decision to do so, which has the effect of utterly ruining it.
“How are you doing?” he said.
“How does it look like I’m doing?” I snapped.
He looked me up and down and chewed on his lower lip, ears drooping. Sighing, he picked up his newspaper, being this morning’s edition of The Daily Ponygraph, and held it up in his magic for me to see. The headline, in bold, block letters, read ‘GAS HORROR AT VIRION HIVE’, with the slightly more restrained subtitle below stating ‘Changeling attack with asphyxiating gas beaten back by gallant counter-charge led by Commissar Prince Blueblood’. Through the soft blue glow of his aura I saw that the accompanying image was a pencil sketch of that particular atrocity, though depicted with the exaggerated heroism of blatant and unsubtle propaganda.
Yours Truly was front and centre, or rather, a muscle-bound, hulking, and unaccountably ruggedly handsome caricature purporting to be His Royal Highness Prince Blueblood, Duke of Canterlot, etc etc. The picture depicted the figure heroically rearing on his hindlegs, brandishing the Princesses’ Colours that was certainly not present for the charge, and about to dive head first into the swarm of what I imagine the artist, whomever they were, thought Changelings looked like. In accordance with the guidelines dictated by the Ministry of Information, the artist had made the enemy appear even more monstrous and bestial than they truly were; with oversized fangs, hunched, animalistic postures, and ghastly, hate-filled expressions. As for the ‘gas horror’ that the headline screamed in an angular, eye-catching font, the artist had drawn wavy lines and smudged outlines of ponies and drones in the background.
I thought it was the stupidest thing I’ve seen in a newspaper since the last time I appeared on a front page, but Second Fiddle’s eager expression seemed to imply that he had some hoof in this, whatever it was supposed to be. I could not help but wonder if common ponies were ever truly taken in by such transparent propaganda, but then whether they truly believe it on an intellectual level is not as important as how it makes them feel, and judging by the recruitment figures around this time I’d say that damned little drawing had certainly done its work.
“‘Blueblood’s Charge’, they’re calling it,” he said, tapping the image on the newspaper with his hoof. “You stopped the entire Changeling attack dead in its tracks.”
“I think the Guards Division’s counter-attack had something to do with it,” I said. “And it’s ‘Red Coat’s Charge’.”
“Who?”
I snorted, and I pressed my forehooves into the soft bed either side of me lest I lash out and injure myself trying to slap some semblance of sympathy into him.
“Captain Red Coat of the Night Guards,” I growled through set teeth. “Red Coat gathered the survivors in the blockhouse. Red Coat rallied us together. Red Coat led the charge. Red Coat was the first into the Changeling swarm. It’s Red Coat’s Charge, dammit!”
[The incident described is still commonly known as Blueblood’s Charge, even in academic circles. Prince Blueblood, however, would continue to correct individual ponies and insist upon calling it ‘Red Coat’s Charge’, and there are numerous letters that he sent to various publications and newspapers on this matter on record too.]
Talking still hurt, and that tirade took a lot out of me. I sat there on the bed, my chest heaving to catch my breath and my eyes blinking to make the swirling spots and stars disappear, but I suppose my guilty conscience demanded that I put right that absurd inaccuracy. It was bad enough that this appalling thing had happened at all, but to assign me of all ponies the laurels that rightly belonged to a more deserving pony felt like an insult graver than any I have fought a duel over before or since. Second Fiddle remained still as he sat through my rant, and when I had finished he folded up his newspaper, placed it on his lap, and sighed.
“And where is this Captain Red Coat?” he asked, spreading his hooves and looking around.
“He’s dead,” I said.
“Ponies prefer heroes who survive,” he said, and a damned sight too casually for my liking too. “Remembering martyrs comes after the war, not during it.”
What I wanted to say to him was a tiny but immensely powerful two word sentence, which ended with ‘off’ and started with a word that rhymes with ‘cluck’. Such language, however earnest and deserved, was unbecoming of a prince, so I held back.
“I see,” I said instead, “this is just a propaganda coup for you.”
“The war carries on,” he said with a shrug. “We’ve got to win this, old friend. General Odonata has crossed a line here, but your charge showed the world that ponies are not only tough enough to take it but to fight back. Because of this, the lines for the recruitment centres all over Equestria will stretch for miles in the streets.”
“In that case, I hope it was worth it.” I lifted up part of the thin plastic tube that led from the valve of a large metal tank, over the bed, up through my right nostril, and down my throat.
“It’ll all be worth it when we win this war.”
“You weren’t there,” I said. “Don’t tell me it was ‘worth it’.”
“No, I wasn’t,” said Second Fiddle. He patted his hoof on my bed and gazed into me with those icy blue eyes that stood out against his dark fur. “But I will be next time. You were right, I haven’t fought before so I don’t know what it’s like. But I’ll be there with the Guards Division as they assault the castle. Market Garden suggested it. She said if I wanted glory so much then I should go and find it myself on the battlefield instead of at her map table.”
If I was feeling malicious, I’d have said that Market Garden had said that to get rid of him. Though really, it was more likely an off-the-cuff remark that he took literally. Perhaps it would do him some good to see the consequences of what is said around that map table at first hoof. But despite the souring of our friendship, if such a thing truly existed between us in the first place, I felt a twinge of guilt at having subconsciously nudged him towards that decision; he might have been a pain in the flank, but considering what I had just been through, I could scarcely afford to lose another pony in my life.
“This-” I pointed at myself and then swept my hoof around at the beds, each occupied by the wounded in varying states of pain or drugged into silence “-is what glory awaits us.”
“You’ll be fine,” he said, missing the point as usual; being ‘fine’ simply meant being shoved back into the frontline again. “I had a word with the specialist from Canterlot, she’s just arrived this morning and she’s setting up right now. She’s one of the very best in this, ah, sort of thing, so I’ve heard. Princess Luna picked her personally, so you’ll be up and about in no time.”
[This is slightly inaccurate. When my sister received the reports from the front she demanded that Raven Inkwell fetch the ‘best pulmonary chirurgeon in the realm’. Within the hour, my loyal assistant presented Doctor Breathe Easy and her team to Princess Luna, who ordered them to prepare for immediate service at the frontline military hospital.]
Oh yes, the ‘specialist’ that I had heard so much about. Of course, like many things in this world, the field of medicine and health in general was not something that I had ever paid much attention to. I am a pony quite content to own a physical body but beyond the various fun things I can do with it, the specifics of which I shall leave to the depraved imaginations of whomever reads this, the intricate inner workings of it was something that I could quite happily leave to more professional fellows whose titles and suffixes were the results of hard work and study rather than an accident of birth, luck, or deception like mine. Nevertheless, I was not particularly enthused by this, as I wagered that whatever this ‘treatment’ involved was likely to be painful, uncomfortable, and disgusting for it to be as efficacious as advertised.
“I don’t think it’s fair that I get preferential treatment,” I said; gas injuries or not, it still paid to make the appropriate noises to show that I still cared somewhat about the common soldier.
“You won’t,” said Second Fiddle. He looked around at the ward and its patients. “It’s not just you, everypony will be getting it. We need every available soldier to take Virion Hive. You’re just going first.”
It wasn’t enough that we had all gone through the hell of a gas attack, the first of its kind in this war. No, for as Doctor Surgical Steel had told me in the bloody aftermath of the Siege of Fort E-5150, the Ministry of War will see to it that the mortal bodies of the wounded were patched up, stitched back together, or parts replaced wholesale, and then award them a shiny new medal. Then for those saved by the timely work of the medics and doctors, it’s straight back into the line with little more than a pat on the back and an encouraging word or two.
I couldn’t think of anything to say, and I probably ought to have given my voice a rest regardless, so I sat there staring through Second Fiddle. He shifted on his seat, and awkwardly inched his hoof closer to touch mine like he was some nervous teenager testing the boundaries of what was acceptable on his first date, and he leaned in.
“I’m not very good at this,” he confessed with a small, sad smile. “It’s this job, it just takes over your life. It pushes everything else out until all that’s left is this job.”
I nodded mutely, being rather stunned at the sudden and unexpected outpouring of introspection from a pony I had dismissed as being yet another naive, career-minded officer in need of a rude awakening. Perhaps there was something to him that I had overlooked, and maybe that strange young colt who just wanted to get ahead in life despite his low birth was still in there somewhere, buried underneath that absurd uniform.
“Just do one thing for me,” I said. “Try to talk about anything but the war.”
Second Fiddle chewed on his lower lip, and his eyes darted around the ward as though he was looking for something, anything, unrelated to the war that he could talk about. Of course, there was nothing, so he shrugged his shoulders, which made his various medals and buttons jingle again like a stampede in a convention of ice cream vendors, and said, “Like what?”
It was harder than I thought, but, of course, there was one thing that we shared. “Do you remember that weird little egghead at Celestia’s School? That four-eyed orange nerd who always wore that stupid cloak, like he thought he was going to be the next Starswirl.”
“The one who tried to grow a beard in seventh grade?” Second Fiddle stroked his chin as though he had a goatee. “I can’t remember his name, but I think I remember who you mean. You used to put his head down the toilet and flush it. Why?”
“You’re the one who pulled his cloak over his head and shoved him into the cubicle,” I said with a shrug. “I wonder whatever happened to him. It’s not as though I get invited to the reunions.”
We carried on in that manner for perhaps half an hour longer - stilted, awkward, and forced, but it was at least something besides this accursed war, and while in these environs it was not enough to allow me to sit back and pretend that I was back in the Tartarus Club or some other louche bar in Canterlot, the lightest reprieve was still more than welcome here. Such respites, however, are only temporary, being merely isolated oases amidst the vast desert stretching out before me. This so-called ‘specialist’ that I had been hearing so much about had finally deigned to turn up by my bedside, shooing Second Fiddle away and sending him scurrying back to Market Garden’s coattails.
Now, when I pictured the sort of doctor that becomes an expert in their field, I imagined a rather older lady, and specifically old enough to have reached a stage in her career to have gathered the necessary knowledge and expertise to be considered expert enough that Princess Luna herself specifically enlisted her services. So, I was rather surprised and more than a little concerned when the rather pretty young unicorn introduced herself.
“Hi!” she said cheerfully. “I’m Doctor Breathe Easy, your thaumopulmonologist. You must be Blueblood. At least, that’s what it says on your chart!”
“Prince Blueblood,” I said; I might have been bed-bound, reliant on a tube up my nose pumping Faust knows what in me to live, and wearing the single most undignified outfit imaginable in the form of a blue hospital gown, but certain rules of propriety still held true.
That seemed to puncture her irritatingly chirpy disposition as she looked momentarily shaken, then she composed herself and performed what passed for a modest curtsey. “Your Highness, then. Now, let’s take a look at your chart.”
She hummed to herself as she picked up the small forest’s worth of papers stored at the foot of my bed and flicked through it. This alleged doctor appeared to be in her mid-twenties, I presumed, and was a rather small, plump, and soft little mare whose figure was accentuated by a white coat that seemed to be at least one size too small. As she read whatever weird, arcane scribblings that the other doctors and nurses had left on my file, she let out an impressed whistle that started high and dropped rapidly in pitch, and then she crammed the papers back into the folder.
“You’re lucky to be alive,” she said, still grinning. “I’ll have your lungs fixed up, lickity split!”
“What, right now?” I blurted out.
“Of course not, silly.” Doctor Breathe Easy grinned wider, and I pulled the blanket up a little higher up my chest until it covered my shoulders. “In about an hour so, after the nurses have you nice and prepped.”
“Now just hold on one moment,” I sputtered. “I don’t even know what you’re going to do to me!”
“Oh, it’s very simple!”
It was not simple. To this day I still don’t know what the treatment actually entailed, due to my aforementioned ignorance on the subject of the various bits and pieces that make up this mortal coil. She did her level best to explain it in terms that a laypony like me could understand, I’m sure, but, as is often the case with ponies who are called experts and who possess knowledge far in excess of the rest of us, what was ‘simple’ to her remained utterly incomprehensible to me. I suppose this is how the common pony feels when I try to explain to them the virtues of the Marelanese buttonhole. As far as I could tell, however, between the veritable barrage of technical words that meant nothing in the Princesses’ Ponish and my attention drifting to the way her white coat hugged her curves, the procedure involved pumping my lungs with a cocktail of potions while making sure that I don’t accidentally drown in the process.
[The Baltimare Protocol is an emergency medical procedure first developed for treating respiratory damage caused by inhalation of toxic fumes from alchemical accidents. In the simplest possible terms, this experimental procedure involved injecting portions of the patient’s lungs one at a time with a very precise mixture of restorative potions to support and accelerate healing. However, it is an extremely difficult and risky operation that requires a precise balance of the alchemical components and constant monitoring of the patient’s status throughout. Furthermore, as with all thaumotological medicine, it cannot restore tissue that has already been destroyed. As a result, Blueblood and the other survivors suffered some permanently reduced lung capacity, which had to be compensated for by use of internal prosthetics.]
“Will it hurt?” I said, zeroing in on the most important question.
“Pfft.” Doctor Breathe Easy rolled her eyes and waved a hoof dismissively. “Of course it won’t hurt.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
“You’ll be under general anaesthetic. It’ll only hurt when you wake up.”
***
That hardly put me at ease, but then I doubted anything anypony could have said would have. Nevertheless, by all accounts the procedure, surgery, or whatever the correct technical term for what they did to me went by smoothly, which is why I’m here decades later to write about it. True to her word, I didn’t feel a thing between the anaesthetist fixing the mask on my face and waking up hours later with burning agony in my chest. In my delirious, drug-fogged state I was taken back to clawing my way through the gas-filled trenches, with the smell of antiseptic and bleach being so close to the pungent, acrid stench of the gas, mixed with the lingering odours of blood and urine. I tried to lash out at the masked and gowned nurses and doctors. Fortunately for all involved, ‘lashing out’ is not exactly something one can really do when waking up from surgery, and I was quickly overpowered, pinned down, and given enough painkillers to keep me nice and sedate for the time being.
Needless to say, when I recovered enough of my wits after a few hours alternating between fitful sleep and staring up at the ceiling with the images of the gas attack burning in my mind, I was not in the best of moods. In fact, it was about as black as one could imagine. Another thing the good doctor had neglected to mention at all were the very interesting side effects of the treatment, such as everything smelling of lavender and my breath glowing in the dark. The latter made trying to sleep even more difficult than before. Once the pain wore off, though, I felt heaps better; I could breathe more easily for one, without having to gasp for each breath, and, in theory, I would no longer require the tube down my throat that kept triggering my gag reflex. All that meant, however, was that I would be discharged for active service once more in a matter of days rather than weeks, and therefore I would be thrust back into the frontline just in time for the assault on Virion Hive.
Yet some part of me wanted it. Revenge is a powerful motivator, and one merely needs to take a cursory glance at the bloody history of my family to understand how it can drive one to abandon all sense of reason, restraint, self-preservation, and perspective in the pursuit of settling a score. Lying there on that hospital bed and seeing the face of Red Coat vividly in my mind, I swore that General Odonata would pay for this, and if it meant putting myself in mortal danger once more then so be it. A prince understands that there are certain things in this world that are worth more than even one’s own life, and while I had dismissed much of it as senseless, wasteful twaddle, there comes a point where it suddenly makes sense and one finds that very thing to be valued above all else - vengeance. I would take her head, find a taxidermist amongst the Griffons of the PGL, and have it preserved and impaled upon a pike in my palace’s state room.
Just as I was considering where would be the best place to position a severed head, either above the mantelpiece or perhaps next to my favourite armchair by the fire and facing any guests I might have, I felt something pulling at the sheets covering me. Broken out of that self-indulgent revenge-fantasy, I peered over to see a small unicorn filly rearing up on her hindlegs with her hooves on the mattress.
“Hi, Prince Blueblood!” exclaimed Sweetie Belle.
I boggled at the sight of the very last pony I expected to see in a frontline military hospital. “How in blazes did you get in here?”
“We took the train,” she said, as though this was merely a day trip to the seaside.
“No, how did you get past the doctors and nurses?” I said. “And what do you mean by ‘we’?”
There was a tapping from the window just above and slightly to the left of my bed, which grew more insistent with every passing second. I looked up to see a small orange hoof pounding on it, and I could hear some muffled shouting from beyond. The latch was enveloped in a pale green glow, like the colour of absinthe diluted with ice water, as Sweetie Belle undid it with her magic, and in tumbled Scootaloo, a rather large cardboard box, and Apple Bloom. The former landed flank-first on the floor while the latter bounced off my oxygen tank; foals are quite resilient and this was a hospital, so I wasn’t overly concerned. As for the box, Scootaloo had managed to recover just in time to catch it.
“It’s a hospital, they’re much easier to get into than to leave,” said Sweetie Belle as she helped her two friends up to their hooves. “I had to tell them I was your daughter before they'd let me in.”
“What?” I blurted out. “Sweetie Belle, how old are you?”
“Eleven!”
“Which would have made me, uh…” Mathematics was never my strongest subject in what was already a pretty damned poor academic record, but I eventually managed to work it out using all four hooves to count three times over. “Twelve. Please, don’t ever tell ponies something like that ever again.”
[Blueblood would have been thirteen. He was twenty-four years old at the time of the Battle of Virion Hive.]
By now the other two fillies had sorted themselves out, brushing the dust off their coats and inspecting the rather ominous box they had somehow brought with them. Scootaloo, having finished trying and failing to even out the dents in the cardboard, squinted up at me, then at Sweetie Belle, and then back at me. “I dunno,” she said, “I still don’t see much of a family resemblance.”
“I should hope not,” I muttered to myself; I’ve had rather too many paternity scares for comfort by that point, and I certainly didn’t want any more salacious rumours about my rather troubled youth being passed around the camp.
“It’s fine,” said Apple Bloom, lifting the lid of the box an inch to peer inside. “They’re both unicorns, and their coats're both white, so it’s just enough to fool overworked medical staff. Anypony who looks at ‘em for more than a second can see Sweetie Belle ain’t regal enough to be the daughter of a prince. And phew, it made it alright.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s true,” agreed Scootaloo.
“Hey!” barked Sweetie Belle at her friend. “I’m plenty regal!”
“Nevermind all that,” I said, waving my hoof at them.
For some reason, and I still can’t fathom why, they stopped bickering immediately; ordering soldiers around was one thing, but trying to get foals, in particular ones who have just reached a certain point in their development, to do what I wanted was quite another matter. By now, however, the commotion they’d caused had gained the attention of a few of the other patients around me, who had lifted themselves up in their beds as far as their failing strength would allow to peer over at the three strange fillies. A couple of nurses had drifted back into the ward, and watched warily from the doorway where they seemed to wait for the moment to swoop in and ask them politely to leave.
“Now, do your parents know that you’re here?” I asked.
“My sister Rarity was looking after us,” said Sweetie Belle. “But she was busy with a big order for Fancy Pants.”
“But we left her a note!” said Scootaloo. “After last time, we always leave our sisters a note.”
“Yeah!” said Apple Bloom. “Letting her know that we’ve all gone to a hospital in an active war zone to visit Prince Blueblood!”
“Right,” I said, struggling to think of some sort of appropriate response to that. In the end, after a few seconds of wracking my brain, I could only fall back upon the most basic of questions that still encapsulated every emotion I felt at that point: “But why?”
After a silent exchange of gestures and nods, it was Scootaloo who stepped forward. “Well,” she said, rubbing her left forehoof with the other, “we heard about what happened, with the, uh, you know…”
“The gas attack,” I said flatly.
“Yeah,” said Apple Bloom. “And we all thought it’d be neat to send you some things, like a care package.”
“But we didn’t know how to send it to you all the way out here,” said Sweetie Belle. “So we decided to give it to you in person!”
The three fillies lifted the lid off the box together and tossed it aside, revealing a sheet cake. It was about the right size for a modestly unpopular foal’s birthday party, though it clearly had been made by one too. White icing was inconsistently slapped onto the undulating surface, resulting in sharp peaks and valleys that reminded me of the Yaket Mountains as viewed from an airship. There was a haphazard attempt at some sort of design around the edges that might have been intended as little blue bow ties, but they looked more like deformed birds. My name was spelt in thick blue icing in the middle, albeit as two words and with one too many ‘O’s. The ‘D’ had been smeared in transit, leaving it in a rude shape.
“We made it ourselves!” said Sweetie Belle, beaming proudly.
“All those times trying to get pastry chef cutie marks really paid off,” said Apple Bloom.
“Makes all those trips to the doctor with food poisoning worth it!” said Scootaloo.
“Wait, there’s more!” Sweetie Belle levitated the cake out of the box, albeit with some evident difficulty, and once it had cleared the top her two friends assisted in putting it on my bedside table. She then picked out a roughly-knitted scarf made out of a burgundy wool for about two-thirds of its length, then it abruptly turned into bright, Cadance-pink where I presumed its creator had run out of the wool of the right hue. Examining it, I found that there was no consistency of weave or indeed width, as it varied from twelve to eighteen inches wide and everything in between along the way.
“Rarity taught me how to knit,” she continued. “But I didn’t realise how hot it is down here. I guess you can wear it like a sash, or something.”
“I lost my sash in that battle,” I said, meaning that I’d urinated on it and wrapped it around my face to try and protect myself from the poison gas. “It will make a fine replacement.”
Apple Bloom reached into the box and pulled out a small earthenware jug that was marked with three prominent ‘X’s’ in black paint. Though it was stopped with a large cork and my sense of smell had been all but obliterated by the gas injuries I had suffered, it positively radiated fumes of alcohol.
“I also got you the stuff Granny Smith won’t admit she stashes under the bed,” she said, placing the jug on the floor next to my oxygen tank. Whatever mystery drink inside sloshed about, and the eye-watering smell of booze grew even stronger.
“And here’s mine!” Scootaloo jumped into the air, tiny wings buzzing like a fly’s, and thrust a signed and framed photograph of Rainbow Dash in my face. The stunt flyer’s image was captured in mid-air, apparently halfway through some sort of manoeuvre that probably required great technical skill, judging by the way her toned musculature strained against her skintight flight suit. Indeed, the photographer, who had to have been a pegasus to have taken it from that position, had no chance of keeping pace with her and thus front and centre were her flanks, whose curves were accentuated by the shiny, sky-blue spandex that coated them like a layer of paint. It was an alluring image that befitted the contents of certain gentlecolts’ specialist interest literature than mere merchandise. If one looked even closer than is socially acceptable, one could make out where the spandex hugged the athleticism of the Wonderbolt’s body.
“Thanks,” I said, taking the photograph in my magic and placing it face-down on my bedside table. “It will be a fine addition to my, uh… collection.”
A large cake, a rather shabby scarf, a jug of moonshine more suited to cleaning airship engines than drinking, and a photograph of a mare whose antics had almost got me killed; I had received worse gifts in my life, namely the Barony of Moo Jersey that was bequeathed to my demesne after Great Aunt Carmine passed away, but that wasn’t what mattered. It had to be some sort of cruel prank, I thought; I remembered how downright unpleasant foals could be, and I should know as I was the worst of the lot. Yet, as the foals stared back at me, with earnest smiles on their faces and their little chests puffed out with pride, I wondered if it could be at all possible that these three just wanted to do something nice for me? It was inconceivable. Nopony ever behaved in a truly selfless manner like that, aside from Princess Celestia perhaps and one always had one’s doubts, unless they were after something. Moreover, I was entirely undeserving of such a touching gesture, regardless of ulterior motives.
“I don’t know what to say,” I said, being another rare instance of me speaking the honest truth. “Thank you.”
“Aw, it’s nothing,” said Scootaloo. “Now let’s have some cake! I haven’t eaten anything since the train and I’m starving.”
Just past the three fillies I could see Square Basher again, who still observed us intently. She had propped herself up on one elbow, and in doing so the sheets had fallen away from her upper body to reveal a rather large patch of shaved fur that was covered with a blood-stained bandage. A furtive glance around revealed that more of the ward patients, at least those who were still conscious and able to, were likewise looking at the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Our existence in the past few days in the hospital had been one long spell in Limbo, and aside from the Princesses there had been desperately few visitors. I imagined that very few relatives and loved ones were quite willing to make the journey to an ‘active war zone’, as Sweetie Belle had put it, to visit them; either the patient would be returned to service, or sent back home and left to live out the rest of their lives with whatever injuries and ailments that Doctor Surgical Steel’s scalpel could not fix.
“That’s a very big cake you’ve brought,” I said, “but I don’t think even the four of us can finish it. I’m sure the soldiers here would be grateful if you shared it with them.”
It was then that the fillies appeared to notice the injured and sick ponies around them for the first time. They had overwhelmed me with this rather sappy display, but I now saw the terror in their eyes as they looked around at the ward. A military hospital makes for a rather unpleasant sight. Opposite me, for example, a pony with her face entirely bandaged up in bloody wrappings pricked her torn ears in our direction, and next to her a pegasus lay on his front to keep his weight off the two stumps where his wings used to be. The foals shouldn’t have had to see this; they should have been at home playing hopscotch or whatever it is that ponies of their age got up to, but here they were, face-to-face with the reality behind the ubiquitous propaganda they were exposed to on a daily basis.
“Well, uh…” Apple Bloom’s adorable bow drooped with her ears. “See, we kind of brought all this stuff for you.”
“And I’m thankful, truly,” I said. “But all of these ponies are a very long way from their homes and families, and I can’t think of anything better to help them right now than some homemade cake. I’ll be right here, alright?”
Despite their trepidation, they sliced up the cake into small squares and went about offering their treats to those patients awake and lucid enough to respond. I suppose it could have gone either way, really, but the fillies’ precocious nature and friendly disposition coupled with a wounded and depressed soldier’s need for comfort and something resembling a normal family life soon allowed them to open up. They split up, going from pony to pony under the supervision of the nurses who guided them around the ward, and spent some time with each to make awkward, stilted, but still friendly conversation.
Watching them from my bed, however, it was remarkable to see a small ray of sunshine peak through the leaden overcast clouds that seemed to smother this dreary place. At some point, and I still don’t quite know how, a sing-along had started when Sweetie Belle had uncovered a tiny old piano from somewhere. Unfortunately, these were all veteran soldiers, and that barrack room favourite ‘Chrysalis has Syphilis’ was not the most appropriate for such young fillies. Fortunately, the questionable lyrics seemed to fly straight over Sweetie Belle’s and Apple Bloom’s heads, who stumbled over a few of the words but made up for that with enthusiasm, while Scootaloo’s deep crimson blush and worried expression indicated that she had travelled a bit further along the path to maturity than her two friends.
Of course, this moment of levity could not possibly last. About an hour later when things had quieted down a little, Rarity of all ponies trotted into the ward with Colonel Sunshine Smiles doing his level best to keep up with her. She looked clearly frazzled, which by her standards meant that her elegantly coiffed mane only had one or two hairs just slightly out of place.
“There they are!” she exclaimed upon spotting her three charges. Scootaloo was chatting with the pegasus who had lost his wings, Sweetie Belle was reading aloud letters to the pony with no face, and Apple Bloom was sitting on Square Basher’s lap as she listened to foal-friendly versions of stories about the Sergeant Major’s career. Upon hearing Rarity’s shrill, dramatic voice slice through whatever conversations they were having, the three freezed and whipped their heads around to see her march defiantly into the ward.
“Thank Celestia,” said Sunshine Smiles, and the sarcasm in his voice was certainly not lost on me. He looked on over, the grin on his half-mutilated lips symmetrical this time, and winked; if I didn’t know any better, he might have had a hoof in encouraging these three fillies.
“Do you have any idea of the amount of worry you have put me through?!” Rarity then turned to the closest nurse, who was stuffing his face with cake, and said, “I am so sorry for any disruption they might have caused; I can’t imagine how much stress you must be under only for some fillies to turn up and start getting in the way. I’ll take them home right this instant.”
“Aww,” chorused the three fillies and a couple of the patients.
“But we left you a note!” protested Sweetie Belle.
“Ah yes,” said Rarity, snapping her head to glare at her younger sister. “Your little note was what made me so worried in the first place! What in Celestia’s name possessed you to think that coming here was a good thing to do? Now come along; this is no place for three little fillies and I’m taking you straight back to Ponyville. Now.”
Apple Bloom hopped off Square Basher’s lap, strolled defiantly over to Rarity, and swung her hoof over in my direction. “At least let us say ‘goodbye’ to Prince Blueblood first!”
“Prince Blueblood?” Rarity looked up and followed Apple Bloom’s hoof to where I sat in the hospital bed, politely waving at her. Apparently forgetting just how much of an unpleasant bounder I had been to her before, she trotted on over with ‘concern’ written starkly across her delicately-powdered face. She reached my bedside, looking me over, only briefly regarding the presents and half-eaten cake on the table.
“Heavens,” she gasped. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, but I read about that brave Captain Red Coat and, I know this will be of scant comfort to you, but I am most terribly sorry. I only had the pleasure of meeting him once, but it was clear that he was a fine gentlecolt who had much to live for.”
I have to admit that I was rather stunned that Rarity would remember him, let alone think to bring up and honour his memory in a manner far more befitting the stallion than anything Second Fiddle had attempted. Yet I suppose the Element of Generosity could express itself in ways beyond merely giving out freebies to ponies, and through this, regardless of her lack of social rank and noble title, exemplified those ideals of nobility that we real aristocrats fall short of achieving.
“Thank you,” I said, a bit more honestly than I intended.
“And I’m sorry if these three fillies were a nuisance,” she continued; thankfully, social climber though she might be, she wasn't a tenth as ruthlessly attuned to signs of weakness like a shark to blood in the water as a true Canterlot mare. “Needless to say we will be giving them a stern talking-to when we get back to Ponyville.”
“Oh, it was nothing, truly.” I said. The Cutie Mark Crusaders had assembled in the aisle and were looking quite sheepishly at the two of us. “But I think next time I’ll visit instead.”
If I would live long enough for there to be a next time, I thought. That seemed to placate the three of them, though not so much Rarity. It was, however, getting rather late and the train ride back to Ponyville was a long one, and while I found myself in the peculiar mood of wishing they could all stay, the seamstress insisted that she had already lost too much time for her big order. Sunshine Smiles escorted them away from my bedside, and from what I heard later even took them as far as the closest train station. The fillies chorused their farewells as they left, which was reciprocated by the more vocal of the patients including me, and waved enthusiastically until Rarity had to almost drag them out by their hooves.
When the door swung shut behind them, however, the gloom that had momentarily lifted began to descend by degrees once more. The ward quietened as the nurses stalked from patient to patient, administering medicines, changing sheets and clothes, and cleaning as they went. That momentary sensation akin to happiness that I had felt slipped away inexorably, until it left only the gentle memory of it, shining like a meagre candle in the dark. While darkness can make the dimmest light shine all the brighter, so too can such light make the darkness seem that much deeper if one’s sight strays to stare into the black. Still, I held onto that light, and, like Luna’s moon in the night sky, it would guide me through the darkness.
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cutie mark crusaders: heart attacker givers yay
Definitely a breather chapter. Think everyone needed it.
It was a good chapter. I wish there was some way to thumbs up every chapter because this has been a great story!
This chapter was truly needed. One must be reminded of the good of the world and I think blueblood needed that very much. I certainly enjoyed it quite a bit. Keep up the stellar work.
Shouldn't anypony be concerned about three fillies managing to infiltrate an Equestrian hospital and into Prince Blueblood's room; as the same high profile Commissar who, among other indignities and injuries, once suffered an assassination attempt from a changeling spy?
As heartwarming as the Crusaders' visit was, I believe neither Celestia or Luna will miss or be happy about that part.
The chapter was a welcome break. It shown the despair filled hospital Wards can get and the Cutie Mark Crusaders visit might have been a ray of sunshine and helped with the moral but like you said, it was also very cruel when they left.
The act of Blueblood sharing the cake and fillies attention among the patients might have earned him tons of brownies points with the soldiers, boosting his legend about him being an officer that care for the troops despite him denying it vehemently in his head.
One thing that wasn't too clear was if Blueblood was given an artificial lung like Celestia implyed in her commentary.
Sadly we didn't get any news from the other front about gas attack either. Blueblood commentary about how war was changing is clearly reflected in the contrast between the start of the war and the point where they are at. The action full tight rank melee of the first few openings of the war vs the trench warfare that we see now is very different in feeling and writing but you did a great job at capturing both.
Medals? Him? Those can't be real.
Ah, the often forgotten catch 21 of medicine
I liked how you expended on medical procedures in this chapter. Not many authors explored the intricacies of medicine and magic mixing in a pony world.
But yes, this was a very Cutie Mark Crusaders thing to do.
At least they didn't bring anything dangerous with them (not counting Granny Apple illegal Moonshine).
This was needed and sweet completely unexpected though lol
The trouble with necrotic tissue is you need a necromancer to get it properly working again, and they don't tend to be interested in cross-disciplinary projects.
It was good to run into the CMC again. A bit of a breather to remind us and Blueblood what they're fighting for.
A welcome breather from everything thats going on in this story, and a good reminder to blueblood what he's fighting for
This story deserves about twice as many likes and views it has and i hope you update what is rapidly becoming one of my favorite storys of all time soon
A perfectly written chapter sir. A breather to let the story calm and for us and blue blood to morn the losses. And the inclusion of the CMC was perfectly timed.
I also like way you portray Blue Bloods selflessness in this chapter. You can clearly see why he survived so long and why the troops love him so much.
He isn’t one to take credit when it’s not due.
And he’s one to put the other pony before him.
And like Cain you portray it well in how like he Blue Blood still considers this just fho-shaw and nothing more. A Hero of Equestria who just can’t come to forgive his past or see his actions for the good they were.
It's Red Coat's charge damnit!
A very heartwarming chapter.
And it seems. Unfortunately. Regrettably...that there's no more left to binge. I've caught up.
And so...the waiting begins.
I still love it that Blueblood dislikes children and yet the cmc actually grow on him to the point of him keeping in letter-contact until his death.
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Justice for Red Coat! Fyay the propaganda, that poor guy deserves to be remembered!
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Ironically Blueblood tried till his dieing breath to set the record straight on this and many other misconceptions. For a self centered person blueblood is literally trying to deflate his own fame
cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/234755966950834176/1178821869923737680/image0.gif?ex=65778a6b&is=6565156b&hm=1501f4f0dca3576209c9cbbf4f6464dcbe7365df3cac886ba433ba2f6b1c0fa5&
RIP Blueblood. Hopefully no one assumes Rarity is Sweetie's mother.
Also, Sweetie's baking probably improved. Like, she didn't accidentally make chrysaline while trying to bake a cake.
Her father is Horsetralian, she probably knows some colourful vocabulary.