She blinked, her eyes watery, her mouth dry.
In the distance there was the roar of thunder, the frightening bellow of a cannon, followed by the crash of an explosion, mixing with fire and the screams. It must’ve been somewhere in the distance, or not. The filly felt the wind blowing through her mane, felt the dirt landing on her head, she even smelled the fire, the burnt flesh.
It must’ve happened close by. I should hurry, she thought, but did not move. Her eyes remained on her comrade, her hooves pressed against his chest as the red did not stop to spill.
A few moments ago she had seen him fall, some stray bullet, or maybe someone had aimed for him. Redheart hadn’t known, she had only hurried towards him. But then she could only watch as the blood spilled from his wounds and all she could remember were the lessons of how she should polish her gun, keep her room clean and work herself through the trenches.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, but somepony’s scream overshadowed her voice.
She lifted her head, and in the distance cannons roared with a might that would’ve made the gods tremble. For what reason, she did not know, but as she saw the fire in the trenches, she started to move towards it. The muddy soil went softly beneath her hooves, the smells of the battlefield lingered in her nose. Urine, blood, vomit, and worse, yet she only caught them in passing. Redheart stumbled onwards, wondering what insanity had driven her to join the guard, what had made her think she could be of use on the battlefields.
The filly kept her head close to the ground, close to the rotten water on the ground. If she’d lift it at the wrong moment, somepony might notice her, somepony might shoot her, much like that soldier she had never seen before and had never been able to save. Gulping, she wanted to stop, but didn’t. The weight of her armor and her bags felt like it was bringing her down to the ground, but she defied it, defied her own weakness.
She heard another explosion in the distance, but it was far behind her. A second later she felt the wind pick up, the shockwave blowing through the bits of her mane that were not hidden beneath her helmet. I should’ve cut my mane, she thought, walking past a pony that leaned against the wall of the trench.
Her hoof went up carefully, reaching her forehead in a salute as she turned towards him. “Soldier,” she said in greeting, but the other pony did not respond.
This one was a stallion with a green mane, already greying, and a beautiful blue coat hidden beneath the armor of the guard. His eyes stared into an empty chasm before them, into a dark abyss that seemed to scare him more than the war around him. Redheart’s limbs shook, but she turned towards him nonetheless, letting her hoof slowly go over his face, closing his eyelids.
“Walk where the dreams are safest,” she told him quietly.
Despite the holes that dug themselves through the sides of his skull, he seemed much more peaceful now that had needn’t look at the darkness around him. Yet she had seen how he had looked beforehand and she knew that she wasn’t safe here, and where the fire burnt, it was even less safe.
Nevertheless, she walked forward, through the trenches.
Over her she heard screams of war and screams of death, as the opposing sides clashed in the air. She ignored it, kept her head close to the ground. As long as the smell was unbearable, no bullet would fly low enough to hit her. What ponies had died in these trenches and what ponies had died around it, she couldn’t tell, but their stench remained. The stink of a ponies last moments was the worst, but she was used to it, and that was why she could carry on.
Through the twisted roads that were dug so deeply into the fair earth, a soil which was once used for fields and forests. Now it served to keep the soldiers safe from slaughter. Or should, as it were. Whether one stood in the hail of bullets above, or lay in the filth of the dying, it did not matter, death was all around them.
Step by step she followed the trenches, and step by step she felt her strength waning. Her mother had told her that she was too young, always wanted to be a pony of medicine.
“What good is medicine compared to the worth of fighting for the country you love,” she had asked, and she still believed that. What could a healer do against outside forces wanting to take everything from their hooves. What could a healer do if the very soil they stood on was threatened?
Step by step she moved through the mud, the war above her a daze. To the filly, she did not even know what mattered. In the distance, another explosion, another scream, another stranger dying in some dark corner until someone decided to close their eyes on a whim and bid them farewell.
There had been names in her platoon. Skydrift, a pegasus who had taught her the different kinds of cider, for one. There had been a unicorn called Diamond Cutter, who wanted to open a jewelry store once the war was over. They weren’t strangers to her, but she had lost sight of them when the first bomb had hit today. Some officer had picked her up, had ordered her to take her gun and shoot in a direction.
Had she killed someone on the other side? Some unfortunate stranger, now dead in a dark corner, forgotten by his comrades?
Her mouth tasted dry, but she carried on. Around her was noise, the dreadful noise of a raging battle, and she wondered what how her old friends were, the ones from school. One wanted to be a teacher, she remembered, in the same old village they had grown up in. Another had wanted to walk through Equestria, but found a partner in Hollow Shades, if she remembered correctly. She knew of none sitting in this hole with her.
The lucky bastards.
She walked on, the fire getting closer, and only now did she realize that she had dropped her rifle. Redheart stopped dead, the dirty water not even reflecting her face. She had no way of defending herself, no way of helping ponies reach the other side. There was nothing she could do at all.
“Damn,” she muttered, voice shaking.
“Well said,” a quiet voice replied.
She looked up, saw someone lying in the trenches. He wore no armor but a skullcap that did nothing to hide the feathers of his face, the orange beak and the sandy fur. A griffon, lying on his stomach. He looked up to her with a tired smile, and Redheart saw the puddle he was lying in reddening.
For a moment she hesitated, but there was no gun, nothing she could do. She walked up to him. “You’re wounded.”
“A stab wound, a few broken bones,” he said, his beak barely reaching above the mud. “Kiddo, if you ever learn to soar, don’t aim too high, falls hardly ever kill, but they’ll teach you the meaning of the word “pain”.” He cackled.
His voice doesn’t seem to weak, the wounds mustn’t be that bad, Rednurse thought, not knowing what to do. I can still help him.
Maybe she should’ve debated that thought, but she didn’t instead slowly moved her hooves. “Where were you stabbed?”
“What do you care?”
“Where?”
He sighed, “right side, beneath the ribs.”
Redheart nodded. “I’m going to turn you a bit, get the wound out of the mud, if I do something wrong, hurt a wing, just cry out.”
He looked at her for a moment, suspicious of her motivations, but then spoke up. “Shouldn’t be too hard.”
She tried to smile confidently, reassuringly. “Don’t worry,” she said, the heartbeat of a comrade vanishing into silence, “you’re going to live.”
Then she turned him, ever so slightly, careful to not damage the wings. She could see his face contort and assessed that the appendages were probably broken. First aid, just remember the first aid, Redheart thought.
There was a moment where he looked as if he would scream any second, but instead used his left arm to push his body up, making the roll easier. With a plop he landed on his back, groaning again. Redheart smiled. “Good job.”
The wound itself was obscured by the mud and Redheart made a quick grab for her left bag, grabbing her water bottle. “I’ll try to clean out the wound as best as I can,” she told him.
The griffon looked at her, not saying a word. As she pulled the cap loose and hovered the bottle over his mud-ridden body, however, he closed his eyes. Water dripped from the bottle, as little as it was, and Redheart’s throat felt dry.
The water washed the mud away, as easy as it was possible. The stench still remained, but that was a given. It was not his but the one of those who had walked and died here before him. The griffon clenched his teeth and Redheart wondered if this would truly help. All she could do was hope, but hope seemed only to be worth so much.
As the last drop of water emptied out, she looked at the wound, which, rather than a mere stab, was a deep cut beneath his chest, too deep even. Blood was leaking out of it, and Redheart thought of the fire and how she should hurry towards it, to save some of her comrades. She didn’t, instead threw down her bags, and took off the coat she was wearing above her armor, the one that warmed her through the cold rains of the autumn season.
“Don’t worry, I got this,” she told the griffon, who rather looked at the sky than his own body.
“Why are you doing this?” He asked, his voice not giving away whether he was in pain.
“You’re going to live,” was what she answered, “you’re not going to die. You’re not.”
“I’m your enemy, kiddo.” He coughed.
“So don’t talk to me.”
She folded the cape into a roll and put it over the wound, applied some pressure to it. “Just breathe, okay? Just breathe slowly and steadily.”
“What’s your name, kiddo?”
“Redheart, now breathe. Do it with me,” she tried to exaggerate a breathing motion.
“A fine name,” he muttered, his voice slowly trailing off. “A real fine name …”
“Don’t talk, this is just a small stab wound, right? And falls don’t kill you, right?” Her eyes were watery again, she wondered why. “You’re a bloody griffon, so bloody live!”
His eyes were closed, his last sight the sky above them. “Hey,” Redheart muttered, but all around her was only the thunderous noise of the battlefield, as loud as it was silent to her now.
For a moment she didn’t move, felt frozen up. He was gone, whoever he’d been. Another stranger, another dead person. Yet she hadn’t killed him, she wasn’t responsible. She launched herself forward to hear his heartbeat, but there was nothing. Then there was no reasoning behind what she did, she merely placed her hands on his chest, pressing them down rhythmically.
“Hey,” she repeated. “I told you my name, so what’s yours?” His eyes remained closed, however. “Where are you from? Why are you here? What do you fight for?”
What makes it worth dying alone beneath a cloudy sky.
“Who are you?” she shouted, and then the distant cannons cried out again.
The griffon was gone, and for how many moments longer she sat there, Redheart did not know. The sounds were still present, the explosions and the far-off cries of pain and shouts for help. In the corner of her eye, she spotted something else however. A motion, tiny, almost unnoticeable, and she turned away from the dead.
Small waves formed in a puddle, but vanished as quickly as they had appeared. The water almost invited her, just for one sip. Her throat felt dry and she was all alone again, and her eyes remained fixed on the puddle. Then something fell into it, producing more waves. She wondered what it was, but then something hit her on the snout, cold and wet. It made her turn her gaze upwards, and then another hit her.
The rain fell down on her and all the trenches, drowning out whatever raged on around her. She opened her mouth, let the water fall straight into her mouth, felt it quench the thirst, felt the cold wash the blood of her own away, that and maybe more. She rose up, lifting one hoof to the fastening of her helmet, pulling it loose.
The mare felt confined by the helmet, threw it off and felt the water pressing against the sweaty mess of a pink mane she called her own. The rain washed over her, and she felt it cleanse her. She held no gun and wore no cloak or helmet. Her eyes went down to the dead griffon.
Him or the others, I wanted to save them. A smile formed on her face.
She never heard the shot and never felt the bullet.
Redheart woke up to the sound of birds chirping, a slight headache greeting her, as every morning. Stretching, the nurse rose from her bed and moved towards the bathroom, throwing away pieces of her sleepwear on the way. Then she went to finish her morning business as quickly as possible, only staring into the mirror as she fixed her hairdo for another workday, thanking modern medicine and the presence of her coat once more for turning that blasted scar invisible.
She made herself a sandwich in the kitchen, putting it in her mouth as she fixed her cap, the red cross on it bringing a smile to her face. Another day of fixing up ponies, she thought, wondering if Rainbow Dash would finally leave, now that her wing was healed. Or whether Blossomforth finally ended her feud with her roommate Jonagold. That would bring some peace to her mind, and if not, then she could at least enjoy some tea with Cherry Berry.
No matter what would happen, she was looking forward to another day in the Ponyville Hospital.
Nurse Redheart walked through her front door, staring at the bad weather front that approached Ponyville. She grimaced, old memories stirring with the wind picking up. Well, it didn’t really matter whether she was soldiering or nursing, whether she stood in the trenches or in a hospital. Rain fell, and all she could do now was go and do and help ponies.
Even if she had not known the names before.
