The changeling and the medic

Chapters

1 - The war begins
2 - My captive
3 - Back to work

1 - The war begins

I went over everything that could go wrong in my head. It seemed like a lot had already gone wrong when (acting) Captain Starstorm had ordered the soldiers to kill changelings on sight rather than to try to capture them - in becoming a medic we pledged to protect and heal the wounded on both sides of a conflict, which would make my life hell if I came across an injured changeling before our footsoldiers did (which I inevitably would at some point). I was damned by our captain if I helped them rather than handing them over to a soldier, I was damned by my superiors in the medical profession if I failed to uphold my pledge to protect the defenceless, and I was damned by both if I fled. It seemed that the acting Captain had failed completely to consider all the nuances and implications of ordering the guards to kill rather than capture.

The best situation for me would be if our own soldiers got injured, so that I would be able to do my job without having to deal with changelings, but I couldn't wish for that, especially considering that if our own soldiers got injured at the same rate that changelings did we'd end up losing the battle. The changelings generally weren't too considerate to their defeated enemies anyway, and the fact they were now being slaughtered would give them justification to do the same to us.

It had only been a couple of minutes since the order had gone out, and I was still panicking, despite managing to at least appear calm. I'd been assigned to a small group of guards - 3 unicorns and 4 earth ponies, and we were cautiously marching through an open corridor in the castle. I was trained to be working on the front line of battle, but not in a group as small as this, while there were other, larger groups with no medical staff with them and which would be far more likely to need them. I wasn't sure if any of us really knew where we were going, either, as the orders given to us had been very confused. We'd been told to "patrol down the west corridor", which wasn't exactly helpful as there were multiple floors with multiple corridors heading west, each of them in different turrets and towers of the castle. It seemed that our acting captain had difficulties thinking three dimensionally, and it was likely he didn't really know the way around the castle either.

You may be getting the impression that I don't view our acting captain very highly, and you'd be right. I don't. I'd never have said so at the time, but he was an incompetent moron who had absolutely no idea how to defend a castle. Starstorm was also proud and arrogant at a level to rival Prince Blueblood, and treated soldiers more like toys than as ponies. If Shining Armour hadn't been staying miles away with his wife it's likely that this invasion wouldn't have even happened, and even if it had we probably would have been able to hold with ease and minimal loss of life.

There was a wall to our right, and to our left a line of pillars which held up the roof above us. The space to the left opened onto a balcony from which an archer unicorn mare was trying to shoot changelings attacking from above. None of the changelings seemed particularly interested in our part of the castle, but the archer was attracting their attention, and the unicorns of my squad moved forwards to help her with magical bolts. Their horns began to glow with energy and the earth spearponies moved around them to help defend, should the changelings try to dive at us.

There was a group of five changelings which were skirting just outside the accurate range of the archer, getting into formation. Their eyes were locked on to her, and it was clear they were preparing to strike. Bolts of green began to fly from their horns at the lone bowmare while they remained outside the range of her arrows. They had to have been at least thirty yards away, and they kept dodging arrows while firing at her and missing. It struck me that the mare was aiming perfectly so that the changelings had to fly out of the way of her arrows, but that the changelings were missing her with every shot and she didn't move an inch. The 3 unicorns around me were also aiming well with magical bolts. Were the changelings missing on purpose, or were they just terrible shots? The latter didn't seem plausible considering what I knew about both magic and changelings, so WHY were they missing on purpose?

I was fully expecting a sudden trick move from the changelings, but they didn't get a chance to make it. The mare moved first. The changelings were looking at us to dodge our attacks, so they didn't see the mare use her magic to turn the last arrow she shot in mid-air once it had passed a changeling. It struck the changeling in the lower back and pierced through its belly, the tip green with its blood.

I knew a lot about changeling anatomy. It would be unlikely that this injury would be fatal as it had missed the locations of any vital organs, though the changeling would likely be incapacitated for a few minutes. The shape shifting ability of changelings also allowed them to shift from injured to uninjured forms, but it would be in a fair amount of pain whether it did this or not. The hit changeling slowly floated down towards an adjacent balcony and the other four made their move.

They immediately charged towards the bowmare, surrounded by magical fields. My squad ran forwards to help them and the bowmare drew a sword with her magic and slashed towards the first changeling. The sword was ineffective. It bounced off of the green cone of magic and, conveniently, into the side of the next changeling. In the split second between the sword hitting the magic of the first changeling and the side of the second, the first changeling landed on the flank of the bowmare. I'd seen changelings impact the ground before from a missed aerial charge, and I'd wondered what would happen if they hit their target. It was as I'd expected: messy. The small blast had ripped the mare in half, and there was a large pool of charred viscera where the changeling had landed. The changeling's lower half was covered in red blood, and the blood had also splattered onto the 3 changelings which landed alongside and onto the ponies who had charged forward in the hope of helping.

It instantly struck me that I'd never actually seen a pony die before. At least the first time I saw it, despite not being as clean as I would have hoped, was effectively painless for the victim. I looked at her face. It was yellow-grey and covered in blood. Her mane was orange. Her mouth hung open, but her eyes were shut.

I didn't have time to notice anything else about the victim as the two groups collided. I didn't see what had happened to the changeling hit in the back by the sword - to be honest I didn't really see anything. I was looking at 7 ponies and 4 changelings in melee, and all I could see of it was the rear ends of the ponies.

One of the changelings was forced off of the balcony and flew up and over the ponies, leaving its companions dead. It flew straight at me, with its hooves outstretched. I'm not sure why, but at this point I was more concerned with looking at the bodies on the edge of the balcony rather than with potential imminent death. I was trying to check for any signs of serious, but non-fatal injuries in the combatants, as was my duty as a medic, but it was virtually impossible to do so when all the ponies and changelings were covered in each other's blood. The red and green was mixing together in places to give a disgusting brown colour.

I looked up, and was instantly knocked back against the wall. The changeling had me pinned against it with its forehooves and was staring me in the face while I stared back. It was only for a split second, as the changeling turned its head to defend itself against my companions. It fired a magic bolt in their direction, which was answered by having a spear driven through its chest via telekinesis. The spear cut my own chest through the changeling, though it was obvious to me that the injury to myself wasn't serious, while that to the changeling was.

The changeling fell back a short way, remaining propped up by the spear. It hissed at my face while blood poured from its mouth and its chest. Our corporal (one of the three unicorns) walked up alongside it. The changeling and my officer stared at each other for a few seconds. The changeling was gasping for air, and clutching at the spear in its chest as best it could. The corporal was just smiling.

It felt very awkward, a spear with my blood on it pointing towards me with a dying changeling on it and another pony grinning at it almost sadistically. The awkwardness was broken as the corporal's forehoof flew past my face and into that of the changeling, which fell to the floor beside me, coughing up more blood.

I looked around for a second. I saw that a brown earth pony was lying on the balcony, grimacing in pain, but clearly still alive, so I prepared to make my way over to him. I'd leave the changeling for the other ponies to deal with, which, though not ideal, was the best option I had. That was, at least, what I had thought.

The red-brown corporal (I hadn't learnt the name of any of the ponies in the squad, having just been assigned to them a few minutes previously) pulled the spear from the changeling's chest and drew a short, serrated knife. I'd expected him to just end it there, but instead he drove the knife into the base of the changeling's horn, and began trying to saw it off. As soon as the knife went in, the changeling began giving a sort of gurgling scream - the blood made a normal scream difficult. I knew how painful dehorning was for a unicorn, and I imagined it was pretty similar for a changeling. I was momentarily stalled - I was pretty shocked, and it didn't immediately occur to me to point out that this kind of torture was illegal, so I just stared.

The changeling morphed into a grey unicorn colt with stripy yellow, blue and red hair, and as the stallion continued sawing it morphed into a blue pegasus mare with a darker blue mane. Suddenly finding himself with no horn to attack, the corporal picked up the changeling with his magic and slammed her against the wall. He held her there as he picked up the spear with his hooves and held it towards her.

The changeling was no longer bleeding or choking on its blood, having morphed, but it was still clearly in pain, and for the first time, it spoke. It could only whisper "Please. Stop". The corporal laughed and slapped her face with the flat side of the spear head, leaving a large green streak over it. He gave his answer: "No".

Behind me the fallen stallion had gotten up, and walked over to me. I suddenly realised that if he was ok and none of the other ponies were injured I'd have to face the dilemma I'd been hoping to avoid. I saw that one of the four earth ponies was down, but considering that his throat had been blasted open to the extent that he was nearly decapitated there was no hope of reviving him. Of the other 3 changelings, one was decapitated, one had been pushed off of the balcony, and one had had its head split open. All I could do was hope that the brown pony needed my assistance, and I asked him (possibly slightly too enthusuastically and aggressively) "Do you need any help?"

"Er. No", the stallion replied, looking a little apprehensive.

"But you were on the floor before. Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I just got smacked in the balls by my spear pole."

It seemed somewhat amusing that in a life and death situation, something as mundane as a mispositioned spear could result in such a serious loss - in battle, losing 1/7 of your force in one blow is never a good thing, even if it's only for the one battle. I knew that laughing would be inappropriate given the situation, and given the situation I wasn't exactly in the mood for it either. I'd seen plenty of genitals in my medical education... and in other things... but I didn't think this really warranted an inspection, and it would probably be very awkward for both of us if I started inspecting this stallion's testes. I reluctantly turned back to our captive, who was still held against the wall, and getting bucked in the stomach.

The changeling was crying, and looked like she was about to throw up. I had to speak up when what I saw was going against both our orders to kill the changelings on sight and my responsibility to care for both prisoners and our own soldiers.

I spoke quietly, being scared to speak up.

"Er. Corporal. Stop".

He didn't hear me. He kept bucking. I spoke loudly and clearly.

"Corporal. Stop!"

I wasn't expecting the response I got.

"This bitch killed two of us. Now she's gonna pay for it!"

He stopped bucking and picked up the spear again.

"But this is against our orders. We were told to kill them on sight"

He turned towards me, raised an eyebrow, shrugged, then slashed the changeling's throat open with the spear tip. He released her from his magic, and she fell to the ground. In her pony form her blood was red, and her hooves went to her throat to try to stop the flow.

The corporal then stood up on his hind legs and moved his forehooves to his groin. He began to urinate on the dying changeling, just closing his eyes and moaning with relief as his stream poured down on her. The other ponies were as shocked as I was. A grey stallion apparently couldn't contain his shock and shouted very loudly "What the fuck!". The corporal answered with a smile, stopped peeing a few seconds later, and dropped back down to all fours.

With the simple order, "let's go", the corporal walked towards the door at the end of the corridor, opened it, walked through, and waited for the other 5 ponies to follow him, which they did, after an awkward few seconds. I stood where I was, and the others closed the door behind them. I guess they thought I still had things I needed to do with a pile of blood, piss and dead ponies and changelings.

I heard a gasp come from beside me, and the changeling morphed back into its normal form, healing the cut in its throat in the process. I looked towards it, then it morphed again. That time it seemed to morph more slowly. It morphed into a pegasus stallion with white fur and a pale green mane. Its cutie mark was a bandage wrapped around a white heart with a red cross on it. He smiled at me. I smiled back at myself, like I was looking into a mirror.

The copy of myself was shaking, having lost a lot of blood, and being in a huge amount of pain. He tilted his head to look at me straight. I wasn't sure what to make of it, until he opened his mouth, and in my own voice, said, simply, "Thank you."

It took me a few seconds to realise what he'd meant, but I'd saved this changeling from being tortured. In a way it was understandable (though I was annoyed that I hadn't spoken out sooner).

The changeling closed his eyes and turned away from me. He gritted his teeth. I was faced with having to make the choice. To hell with the acting captain's orders. I had a job and I had to do it properly, and either way I wasn't going to betray my morals, and I wasn't going to kill something that had just thanked me like that. The idea of killing something identical to myself also made me feel uneasy. I lay down beside my clone and put my right foreleg over him. I looked into the bag that I held around my neck for some painkillers or tranquilisers - the morphing would be able to take care of most of the physical damage.

He looked up at me, and I stopped. He blinked once, then closed his eyes and morphed back into a changeling, then returned to its previous position beside me. I carried on looking in my bag, then the changeling spoke.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have taken your form. I don't want to make this any harder for you."

I looked back over the changeling, slightly confused, then went back to looking for drugs. I got out a hypodermic needle, and found a small phial of anaesthetic, which I drew up into it. My patient remained still as I pushed the needle into its leg. I had little experience with changelings, but I knew a little about their circulation, so I managed to find a suitable vein relatively easily, at its knee. I injected the drug, and the shaking slowly subsided, and the changeling's breathing and heartbeat became slow and steady. This would allow me to check for any injuries the morphing hadn't fixed, and would give the changeling a chance to heal without having to feel everything wrong with its body.

As we were surrounded by death our location smelled... unpleasant, to say the least, so I carried the unconcious changeling away, holding with my legs and lifting off with my wings. I flew to the door to a storeroom, opened it, and dragged the changeling inside. This would give the changeling a chance to recover without either of us being found, and despite the air being old and musty it was far better than the smell of blood, piss and charred flesh.

I lay the changeling down on the floor, and just waited, lying down beside it.

2 - My captive

I stayed sitting beside the changeling in the storeroom, just going over everything in my head. Everything had happened without warning, and neither I nor any other pony had had a plan to deal with any of it. We all had our training, so the guards knew how to fight, and I knew how to heal them, but none of us had any significant experience, and none of us had a particularly good idea of what we were supposed to be doing beyond trying to defend Canterlot. I was constantly worrying about whether I'd made the right decision - the changeling would be perfectly capable of pinning me against the wall again when it woke up, and it might then choose to take revenge on me for what the corporal had done. I was under the impression that the changeling approved of my decision to tell the corporal to stop torturing it, but it was perfectly possible that thanking me was a ruse to make me empathise with it so it could catch me off guard.

I wasn't sure exactly how long I spent in there just thinking about what had just happened. It couldn't have been much more than an hour from when it was realised that we were under attack to me dragging the changeling into this room, but I likely spent a lot more than that trying to make sense of it, especially those last couple of minutes in the corridor.

It seems strange, but having the changeling beside me made me feel safer - it was ridiculous: The changeling was going to be completely unconscious for hours, and therefore incapable of protecting me from anything, and when it woke up it would become a significant risk to my welfare. It was more a sort of psychological effect, like a foal might get from a stuffed toy. I was slowly stroking the changeling's neck for most of the time I was in there. At the time I was too preoccupied with thoughts to consider how ridiculous it was to take comfort from being with something more dangerous than anything else I'd ever touched.

After however long it took for me to come to terms with what had just happened my mind turned to working out what was going to happen next. I could hear that there was still fighting going on outside the castle, so neither side seemed to be getting anywhere, and there would likely be a lot of injured ponies who would need my help. The changeling would likely be safe in this room, but if it woke up it would be a danger to me and any other ponies it came across. My situation was actually relatively simple. I needed to leave the changeling to go and help other ponies, I couldn't leave the changeling where it would be dangerous, and I couldn't just kill it because of my duty as a doctor. The obvious solution was to find a place where I could leave the changeling where it wouldn't be able to harm anypony, and the only suitable place for this would be the cells in the dungeon.

I knew where the cells were, but with a battle going on and the order to kill changelings on sight it would be almost impossible to get there without being caught. To have any chance at all of reaching them while carrying a changeling I'd have to work out how ther battle was going to find a clear path, so I made the decision to leave the changeling alone, but only for a few minutes.

I walked to the door and put my ear to it. I could hear a small group of ponies slowly moving towards us, talking about where they were supposed to be going and how to find a good defensive position. They began walking onto the balcony, probably to start firing from it. It wouldn't look too suspicious if I walked out of the store room at this point, and I wouldn't be in any immediate danger as there wasn't any fighting. I casually opened the door and walked out, making sure to close it behind me.

An orange pegasus was leaning against the wall, on his hind legs and holding a spear. He appeared very relaxed, considering that he was standing in a room full of corpses in the middle of a battle. He looked at me, slightly surprised, and said "Hey" in a slightly inquisitive tone. I looked back, possiby just as suspicious of him as he was of me. I looked to the other ponies, and noticed that they were all pegasi, and were preparing to fly from the balcony. I looked back, about to answer with an excuse about picking up medical supplies (the room I'd come out of was for bed linen, but I doubted that any of the soldiers would know what was in what storeroom) when the orange pegasus suddenly launched forwards and flew off of the balcony at huge speed, and the other pegasi followed.

I looked out after them, and saw that there were far fewer changelings in the air than there had been. There were plenty of pegasi still in the air, fighting them, and it looked likely that the battle was going in our favour. The group that had just left turned their path to the other side of the castle and moved out of my vision. Looking for a few seconds more revealed why there were few airborne changelings as a dark blue blur shot out from where the pegasi had just flown to. As it neared the balcony I recognised it as Princess Luna, who had apparently been woken by the battle - it was likely that she wanted to compensate for her absence at the previous changeling invasion, and it was a good job, as she was easily able to shoot individual changelings out of the sky, and was likely making a significant differences to our chances of victory.

As Celestia was half way across the known world, in Griffonstone, Luna was acting regent for the day, and it was likely that it was both a matter of pride and responsibility for her to defend Canterlot without her sister. Luna circled in front of me, chasing changelings and shooting them out of the sky. Whenever she neared me I noticed that she was shouting profanities in the traditional Canterlot dialect, which surprised me somewhat. This was a side of Luna that I'd never seen before, but I imagined that it would have been the norm during the wars of a millenium ago, when Discord was in power, when Sombra invaded the north, and when Luna fell to darkness. I'd thought about the cultural differences between our time and that time before, and how they impacted on her, but I'd never considered the effect of Luna going from nearly constant war to the relative peace we'd been experiencing for the past few years. It was likely that she'd have been incredibly bored with the lack of military action.

The few changelings left in the sky were making obvious efforts to try to avoid the Princess, and it occurred to me that when she left I might have a clear airborne path to the cells. As soon as I'd worked out my plan the Princess made a sudden change in her flight path, and flew straight towards me and landed on the balcony in front of me. As soon as she landed she shouted at me in the royal voice "WHEREFORE WOULDST THOU STARE AT THY PRINCESS IN THE MIST OF BATTLE! DOST THOU NOT HAVE A DUTY TO PERFORM? DO OUR ACTIONS INTEREST THEE MORE THAN THY DUTY?" I bowed before her, mostly out of fear. Her response to this was to shout louder at me "DISPENSE WITH THE FORMALITIES, SQUIRE! WE ARE AT WAR!" and stamp her hoof on the ground so hard that it seemed for a second that the balcony might be shaken off of the side of the castle. I instantly stood up as straight as was possible.

I'd never spoken to either of the Princesses before, and I felt uncomfortable enough being in my situation with the changeling and being surrounded by death without having the second most powerful pony of all time yelling at me. With her fury and bloodlust I felt like she might just vaporise me on the spot. I managed to remain enough composure to avoid humiliating myself by breaking down and crying or losing control of my excretory systems, but not enough to keep any information from her.

I pointed at the room I'd just come out of, and managed to explain the general gist of what had happened, though my fear did mean the way I went about explaining wasn't very eloquent. My ears were ringing slightly from the Princess' voice, so I ended up shouting it rather than saying it, but I managed to transmit the words "Er. Changeling! I have a captive. I've captured a changeling. In the cupboard. Closet. Thing. Help!"

Thankfully the Princess appeared to calm down after this, which allowed me to do the same, and she switched to the voice that she'd learned after her return. "What condition is this changeling in?" She asked.

"Unconscious. I gave it some anaesthetic." I replied, with some fear and confusion still apparent in my voice. "I wanted to move it to the dungeon before it wakes up so it can't hurt anypony."

Luna looked to her left, off of the side of the balcony, likely doing so to check that she wasn't being attacked from behind. She walked past me towards the door. I was immediately relieved. I no longer had to be the one who would make the decision about this changeling. Whatever the Princess ordered I would be able to do without any questions from any other ponies, and even if she killed it, ordered me to kill it, or had somepony else kill it, the blood wouldn't be on my hooves (at least not metaphorically. As it was, I had a fair amount of blood on my hooves, both that of the changeling and the dead ponies).

Luna opened the door with her magic and looked inside. She saw the changeling, then lowered her horn towards me. For a second I was wondering if she was going to kill me after all, but instead she produced a beam of cyan light which moved towards me, and entered by chest a short distance. It tickled slightly.

"Just to check that you are not a changeling yourself." She explained, quietly. Her horn glowed again, but pointed towards the changeling, and it popped out of existence. I looked up at her. She walked back towards the balcony and turned her head back to me.

"I have sent your captive to a cell in the dungeon. Go there now to ensure its safety, then return to your duties".

I nodded, and the Princess took off, flew into the air again and rejoined the battle, if blasting a few terrified changelings could be called that. It was clear that the majority of the fighting was now taking place inside the castle, and that we were winning. I figured that as long as I stayed to the central parts of the building I'd be unlikely to run into any changelings, and I made my way down the nearest staircase and walked across a bridge to the keep. I walked past a few ponies, and though I had green bolts fired at me from range while on the bridge, I managed to run out of the way.

Once inside the keep it was a simple matter of going down as much as possible, and I knew my way around the castle reasonably well, having trained and worked in it most of my life. It took a few minutes, but I eventually found the dungeon gate. I explained to a guard pony that Princess Luna had sent a prisoner down into one of the cells and that I was to check on them, and though he was suspicious he let me through, but decided to follow after me. The gate had a magic disabling field over it, in case any magical prisoners were sent down or if any magical visitors decided to break any prisoners out. It occurred to me that the changeling wouldn't have passed through it, but I could point this out to the guard on the way out so he'd seal the changeling's magic.

I walked down the short staircase into the dungeon. It was small - a large dungeon wasn't needed in a thousand year long peace. There were four cells down each side of a small hallway. In the first cell on the left was my sleeping changeling. I walked over to the cell and touched the bars. The gaps between them were large, so a thin pony or changeling would have been able to fit through them with a little effort, but there was a magical shield connecting them to block any prisoners from doing this.

The third cell on the right had a pony in it, and he was hitting the magical shield of his cell and shouting at us to let him out. He had a brilliant blue coat and a short, light brown mane, with a long handlebar moustache. I noticed that the guard had a similar moustache, but his was grey. The guard and his prisoner looked about as different as they could - the guard had a dull brown coat compared to the bright blue of the prisoner. The prisoner was thin and tall, while the guard was short and quite fat. The guard had a short grey mane and rough stubble, while his prisoner's mane was brown and flowing and reached nearly all the way to the floor. The prisoner's beard was fairly long and wavy like his mane, and tapered to a point a little below his chin. The guard's irises were a shade of brown that was almost black, while those of the prisoner were white with a tint of orange that was barely noticeable from my position. The only thing the two seemed to have in common was their moustaches. I wasn't sure why, but this single identicality between the two made me feel uneasy when contrasted with all of their stark differences.

The guard gave a loud, but not quite shouting answer: "No." It was eerily similar to what I'd heard minutes before from the corporal. I'd done what I needed to do, and I didn't feel like staying in this place. Everything felt wrong about it, somehow. I expected that it was just because I'd been thrown by the events I'd just gone through, but this idea didn't make me feel any more comfortable in the dungeon.

I told the guard about how the changeling would have bypassed the disabling field. He just nodded, and I went on my way. Hopefully I'd be able to just do my job without having to deal with ponies and changelings torturing each other. I tried to put all the images of death and all of the other confusing or disturbing events of the day out of my mind so I could focus on what I was supposed to be doing from the start: healing the injured.

3 - Back to work

I turned away from the dungeon and began walking back up into the main part of the castle, going over the events of the past few hours in my head. My hooves were covered in blood, and my coat and face had been splashed with it. There would be a greater risk of infection, and likely a psychological effect on any fallen soldiers I tried to help, so I would need to find somewhere to get cleaned up before I got back to doing my job. When planning a castle's defensive design the utilities - toilets, washrooms, etc - are often overlooked, as are the needs of anypony other than the defending guards, which meant that there weren't any particularly convenient places for a medic to retreat back to quickly to wash up during a battle. As canterlot castle was primarily a palace rather than a defensive structure many compromises had been made. It was frustrating, but I spotted a restroom down the hallway that I had entered leaving the dungeon, so I went over to it to get cleaned up. The soap wouldn't be as effective as getting properly cleaned up, but my job was to do emergency life-saving on the front line, where the battle and injuries sustained in it were more of an immediate risk than infection. Dealing with that was the job of the surgeons back at the hospital.

I opened the door and stepped inside. Standing, huddled in the corner between the wall and one of the stalls were a blue mare and her foal, who was holding onto her waist. I assumed they must have been hiding from the battle. I was about to ask if they were ok when the colt asked me "is the battle over?".

"No, but I think it will be soon."

The colt's eyes widened slightly. He was obviously scared - understandable given the situation.

"Are we going to die?"

I was a little surprised by the question.

"Er... Well... No. We're winning the battle, so probably not. I don't know if it's safe for you to leave here yet"

The colt smiled slightly, having been reassured. I suddenly felt very uncomfortable. I looked at the mare - she was a pegasus, and her coat and mane were navy blue, her mane being slightly darker than her coat. I looked at the colt - he was a unicorn, with a light grey coat, and scruffy pale yellow hair with a wide band of blue and red in it.

A grey unicorn colt with stripy yellow, blue and red hair, and a blue pegasus mare with a darker blue mane. They were the two ponies that the changeling had taken the form of.

"What?" The mare retorted, obviously annoyed that I was staring at her and her child.

I didn't really know how to explain myself, and I didn't really see all that much point in doing it, so I just shook my head, said "never mind", and turned to wash my hooves. It was probably that the changeling had just seen these two running away from the battle.

I turned on the water and squirted soap onto my hooves. It might have been that these two had just been spotted by the changeling, but was it possible that they WERE changelings? I didn't have any way of knowing, at least not unless they revealed themselves by morphing or attacking me. I decided not to say or do anything that would either freak out a pony or prompt a changeling to blow my head off and just be cautious. I was on edge, listening and looking over at them in the mirror in front of me. If they moved, I could react.

I washed my hooves (front and back), my face, and the cut on my chest from the spear, then ran out of the room as quickly as possible and closed the door behind me. I had a lot of questions, but I wasn't sure if knowing the answers would result in death, so I decided to at least postpone any enquiries as to who these two ponies were.

My mind focused back onto my job, and I walked in the general direction of the sound of battle. It was muffled behind several walls, but I could still hear faint screams and explosions coming from the north side of the castle, so I cantered towards them. It didn't take me long to find some injured soldiers. As I neared the battle I saw a large white stallion sitting on a bench in one of the hallways, with two concerned friends beside him. His left hind leg was obviously broken, with a large amount of blood pouring out of it, and he had deep cuts down his flank and foreleg.

I never enjoyed seeing ponies in pain, but at this point I was relieved to be able to get back to work. I felt a little guilty, being glad that things like this happened so that I had a job to do, but worrying about the ethics of my motivations were less important than saving lives, so I got on with it.

I applied a tourniquet just below the stallion's knee to stop the bleeding and set about bandaging up the worst cuts elsewhere on his body, then turned to the broken bone. I set it as straight as I could and took out a leg splint - a compromise between having to carry a large and heavy stretcher around on the battlefield and leaving limbs in a state where they would be likely to become more damaged by movement of broken bones - and wrapped it around the broken limb. The stallion grimaced, then relaxed and smiled weakly once his leg had been secured. I sent the two other soldiers back the the battle and picked the injured stallion up, making sure to support his leg and hold it steady, and flew him down the hallways towards the small military hospital built into the castle.

We arrived a minute or so later, and I saw that the entry room was completely overflowing. The hospital had only 20 beds and 10 doctors and wasn't built to handle a full scale invasion of canterlot, being intended for treating soldiers injured in accidents and minor skirmishes. There were at least 30 injured soldiers waiting outside, some having walked here themselves, some having been dragged back by other soldiers, and some accompanied by other medics who were doing their best to help them - there was no point in going back to the battle to bring more casualties back if we couldn't treat the ones we had here already. A lot of the injured had just been laid down directly on the floor outside. I wondered if I'd have a better chance of helping my patient if I went to the main cantlerlot hospital, but if I did that it would be likely we'd both be attacked and killed by changelings on the way. I decided to join the other medics in trying to do as much as we could to help the ponies here.

I lay the stallion down on a wooden bench a short way down the corridor from the other ponies. He was further from the hospital, but at least he wouldn't have to lie on the floor. I landed along side him and looked to see if there was anything I could to do help him further.

At that point a short yellow unicorn stepped out of the hospital, holding a clipboard and pen in a field of magic. His coat was very strange - it was so bright it was almost luminous, and his mane was the exact same colour. He stepped into the midst of the mass of fallen troops and began checking them, writing things on his clipboard as he went. Two treated patients followed him out, one with a missing foreleg (being helped along by a medic) and the other with a heavily bandaged eye and torso. He waved two more patients to go in, and they did so, accompanied by more medics. He looked like he was about to turn back, but I waved to him to indicate that I had a patient he hadn't checked, and he trotted over to me.

He seemed strangely happy given the situation, but it was reassuring that he was being (or was at least trying to appear to be) optimistic.

"So. What's this one?" He asked.

"Broken leg, lost some blood, tourniquet. He'll probably lose it if it doesn't get seen to in the next few minutes. Some relatively minor cuts too."

I hadn't wanted to waste time elaborating, given how short for time we all were. The yellow stallion made a couple of notes on his clipboard, then turned and hurried back to the door, skipping over one of the ponies on the way. I turned to my patient, not really sure if there was anything more I could do. I had gauze, bandages, scissors, tongs, a scalpel, more fabric for use in slings and tourniquets, a portable fire extinguisher, a defibrillator, a neck brace and more leg braces, none of which were any use to me. I had more anaesthetic, but no clean needle for it since I'd used it on the changeling.

While I was considering if there was actually any point in me being there at all the yellow stallion returned, carrying a box and distributing different medical equipment to the medics with his magic as he walked towards me. When he'd finished with everyone else he gave me a bottle of antiseptic, a needle and a short reel of suture. I wasn't keen on stitching up injuries - it was part of the reason I became a front line medic rather than a surgeon. It was either this or the stallion losing his leg, so it wasn't a hard decision to make in terms of what I should do, but in terms of what I could physically bring myself to do it was a little more difficult, especially considering that my patient would be concious and that I had little experience of doing it, and no experience on live ponies.

Suffice to say that neither I nor my patient enjoyed it, but after a few minutes I'd unbandaged and cleaned all the injuries and stitched all the small cuts. It wasn't as neat as it could have been, but it would do its job of preventing infection and holding the cuts together. With the area around the broken bone I wasn't really sure what I SHOULD have done - I wasn't going to be able to stitch it because there wasn't enough skin to cover it, and it wouldn't heal properly if it was just covered in bandages. I wasn't trained or qualified to deal with this sort of thing - I wasn't a doctor, I was effectively a glorified nurse who works on a battlefield rather than in a ward. It was likely that the stallion would have to lose his leg anyway, but I really didn't know. I covered it back up in bandages once I'd cleaned it out, hoping it wouldn't bleed too heavily or get infected.

I helped the other medics tend to injured guards for an hour or so, the yellow pony alternating between checking and discharging the casualties and bringing out supplies. The most seriously injured ponies were sent in whenever any left the hospital, but this didn't happen anywhere near as quickly as it should have. When all the beds were full of ponies recovering from surgery the doctors moved outside to join us in trying to help those waiting outside the hospital. We quickly ran out of bandages and antiseptic as more injured ponies kept arriving.

The queue was growing slowly as ponies arrived faster than they could be treated. It took about an hour for a pony to leave, and in that time we'd get 2 or 3 more, but the battle was quieting down and the rate of patients arriving slowed gradually. The invasion had begun at around midday, and it was likely past midnight before the queue began getting shorter again. We'd had to improvise bandages from strips of cloth taken from the clean bedsheets stored in the back of the hospital, which worked well enough, but the antiseptic was a big problem. We did eventually manage to get a solution that was better than nothing in diluted laundry bleach, but a couple of ponies ended up dying from infections anyway.

We didn't know how the battle was going, but it seemed that we had at least driven the changelings away from the castle. What state the rest of Canterlot was in we didn't know until returning soldiers came back to find out how their comrades were doing and told us that the changelings had fled. We stayed until more doctors came from Canterlot's public hospital to take the soldiers who were still injured (including the one I'd brought over) to give them some proper treatment. Those of us who'd been working through the day went back to the barracks.

When we arrived back at the barracks most of us (including myself) just went to bed without saying anything else. We were too exhausted to do anything else. I managed to find enough energy to clean the blood off of myself, but that was about it. Most of us hadn't eaten anything since the morning, but I didn't really care. Sleep was more important. I had a lot to think about, but it could wait until the next morning.