The Nurse and the Soldier
Year 200 A.NM (After Nightmare Moon)
Another gurney rolled through the doors, prompting the medical staff currently checking the conditions of the wounded to shoot a glance at the new arrival. Though several doctors surrounded him as they moved along with the gurney, the stump protruding from his head hinted that before today he was a unicorn, until sharp griffon talons came and took away his horn along with part of his hind leg. This would be the thirteenth stallion brought in this week alone. The superstitious among the nurses and surgeons closed their eyes and shook their heads in silence, his number alone a bad omen of a string of deaths likely to follow.
Preparation for another burial service would have be made at a later time, however. There were more important matters to attend to, as the ponies resumed their work. Those soldiers who were yet still alive needed all the help they could be afforded if they were to make it through the long night ahead, let alone the next few hours.
The door to the nurse's station opened ajar slightly, and an aged gray face with green eyes and a white mane wrapped in a bun peeked through the gap. "Nurse Care," she said with a tone of urgency in her voice, "you're needed over in Ward B, Room 4. New arrival just came in from the field."
Sat in a chair alone by a window, peering into the world outside the glass pane, a silver-coated mare turned her head slowly, her weary near-lifeless blue eyes meeting those of the other mare's, a somber expression upon her young and pretty face. She blinked once, and let out a tired sigh before she responded. "Very well. Go on back to your duties. I'll make my way over there now," she replied, her voice devoid of emotion.
The gray mare looked at her colleague sadly, remembering the bright and lively version that had joined the military medical staff some few months ago, now turned into a former shadow of herself. War could do terrible things to those outside of the fighting. It could change so many innocent lives, stripping them down and leaving unfeeling emotionless husks. Nevertheless, the nurse bowed her head politely, and stepped out of the doorway to head off in search of tasks that required her help and service. Nurse Care slowly climbed down out of her chair, taking a deep breath before turning towards the door and heading out of the room.
She turned left, and proceeded to make her way through the hectic hallway towards the wards, keeping to a steady pace as her eyes shifted left to right, peering into the rooms she passed by, and at the poor souls laying in the beds, bandaged from head to hoof, limbs suspended by overhanging slings, while missing other limbs or displaying great red splotches splashed across their chests, soaked through their bandages that mummified them and stained. Some of those poor soldiers would not last much longer, their will to live on or their severe wounds inevitably leading them down a one-way street to an early burial. Some of them looked so young, teenagers even. None of them should have to suffer the scars of war.
Yet Nurse Care continued on her way, pushing the images out of her trail of thought as she had done times before. To allow such sights to remain on her mind meant giving in to feeling and emotion. To allow herself to feel would mean preventing herself from doing her job. It was all she could do to continue functioning as a nurse, to avoid breaking down completely surrounded by the stench of Death and the cries of suffering; by being a carer who did not allow herself to care.
A crimson-coated unicorn stallion dressed in typical doctor's attire waited outside the door to Room 4 when Nurse Care arrived at Ward B. A clipboard held in a yellowish aura of magic floated in front of his face, as his brown eyes scanned the contents through a pair of well-worn spectacles. Noticing the nurse pony approaching him, he lowered the clipboard and turned his attention to her.
"Ah, good that you're here, Care," he greeted her with a nod. She returned the gesture, albeit with less enthusiasm.
"Afternoon, sir," she greeted expressionlessly. She turned to the patient laying in the rest bed; a jet black-gray pegasus stallion with a messy electric blue mane. "Who is our newcomer, doctor?" asked Care, looking away from the stallion and back to her superior.
The doctor levitated the clipboard over to Care, who took it in her hooves to read. "Our new patient is one Sergeant Cloud Rider of the royal flying corps," the doctor explained. "Apparently his squad had been tasked with flying overhead and picking out potential strategic spots that the Griffons could base themselves at if they were to break through the lines, and relaying the information back to the rest of the Royal Army. His team was ambushed by a small Griffon patrol. The rest of the squad were lucky to make it out with few cuts and bruises. Our Sergeant, however," - He paused to turn towards the pegasus in the bed, with a serious look on his features - "was not so fortunate. He received numerous wounds consistent with sharp griffon talons, some of them quite deep. He'd have bled out had he not been brought in time. He's been stabilized for the time being, but he's far from being given the green signal."
Care looked up from the clipboard to the doctor. "It says here nopony has been assigned to him yet?" Care inquired.
"That's why you're here. Everyone is occupied with other patients and new arrivals, so I'm assigning you to his care," the doctor answered, bringing the clipboard back to himself and tucking it under his foreleg. "Monitor his condition, make sure his readings are stable. Contact the nearest member of staff if it is an emergency and only if it is." He adjusted his glasses and strode past Care. "I'm needed elsewhere, nurse. I trust you can manage from here on."
Care looked away from the doctor and rubbed her foreleg nervously. "I...I think so."
The doctor looked at her with an expression of sympathy and sighed. "Care, what happened to your last patient, happened. I understand you must be doubting your competence as a nurse, but everyone is busy doing their part to help these poor souls, and right now," - he pointed to the pegasus - "this lad needs to be watched, to see that he pulls through. I'd like to avoid telling another family a son or a husband isn't coming home, if possible."
The doctor exited through the door, leaving Care alone in the room, with the sleeping soldier for company, in silence save for the quiet beeps emitting from the device by the pegasus' bedside.
