Soldiers

Please… Don’t take my son from me. Celestia, or whatever god is out there. I know I haven’t been devout. I’ve had my doubts, and rightfully still do. But right here, right now… I’d give anything. Just don’t take my son from me. Let him be alright.

The sound of…. nothing. The smell of disinfectants and the almost sickeningly ‘clean’ smell of a hospital. Scratchy sheets. Sunlight’s eyes opened, and took a moment to focus. Everything hurt. His vision was weird. Like he only had half of it. He tried to move his arm, and winced. Nope, no go there. His other arm..? That moved. It hurt, but, it would do. On his face he felt bandages over his eye and head. that explained the lack of vision. He sighed quietly.

Somehow, someway, he was alive. Had to be. There was no way heaven, or hell, could smell like this. Slowly, and regretting every second of it, he pushed himself up with his one working arm, and looked around. it was dark, and quiet. He took a shuddering breath to try and deal with the pain and looked himself over. One arm was encased in plaster, and was hanging from a sling from his neck and shoulder, the other wrapped entirely in bandages, an IV leading to his wrist. Wisely, he didn’t try to remove it. A rumble in his stomach brought to his attention how famished he was, and how thirsty. His mouth was dry, it felt like sandpaper. He looked about, searching for a bedside table of some description.

“C’mon,” He muttered painfully, “They have them in movies…”

Nothing. With a sigh, he lay back down, resigning himself to being thirsty all night. And hungry till morning. And then he saw the button. Press for nurse. He rolled his eyes.

Moron.

He pressed it. Then again. A minute passed and, a very curious mare, judging by her expression, poked her head into his room, and blinked in shock, seeing him awake.

“H-hello,” She managed quietly, slipping into the room properly. She was wearing the right uniform, and Sunlight felt his body relax, realising only now he’d unconsciously tensed at her entry, “Can you tell me your name? Do you remember?”

Sunlight tried to smile at her. To reassure her. But… he couldn’t summon it to his face. So instead, he nodded, “Sunlight Blade. I was a volunteer for the standing army, previously Royal Guard under Princess Celestia’s solar corp. Son of Sunlit Spear, Royal Guard Drill sergeant and trainer, specialist in magically assisted close combat.”

The nurse nodded, picking up his sheet from the foot of his bed, and reading it, as though to confirm something, before sighing, and smiling at him.

“Oh good, and can you tell me where you are?”

“A hospital, I would guess,” He replied, “There’s nothing wrong with my head miss, you can rest easy.”

“Policy Mister Blade, I’m sure you understand,” She replied pleasantly, “But, I’ll limit to one last question. What do you remember last?”

That gave him pause, and he thought back. What did he remember last?

“A prayer,” He said softly, “The sound of my father’s voice, begging Celestia to keep me alive. That I would return to him.”

The nurse looked him funny, but accepted the answer before starting, “O-oh! I’m so sorry! Let me get you some water, you must be parched!”

“Now that you mention it,” He nodded weakly, drawing another rushed apology from the nurse. His face settled into a grim frown. What had happened when he’d been asleep? And… how long had it been?

Three months. It had been three months, he’d been asleep. A coma, they told him. Medically unfit for duty still even now, he was filled in by the doctors that had worked to fix up the many wounds he’d sustained in his foolish last stand. A shattered arm they pieced together with magic and the bandages and the cast on his unusable arm. Several fractures throughout his usable one, seven broken ribs, a slipped disc in his spine. Most of these had healed through his three months of complete inaction, although scans of the other injuries astounded medical professionals, given they were healing far too quickly to explain his condition.

The war, as it turned out, didn’t take much longer to finish up after his last stand. The remnants of the Equestrian Alliance’s army (What the common pony had taken to calling it) was returning soon into Sunlight Blade’s physical therapy, with the big leaders returning early through a variety of teleportation or translocatory means of some fashion.

So, it wasn’t long before he was visited by Princess Celestia herself. In his hospital room. clad in white silks, purple sash around her waist. He looked up as she entered, and nodded his head, rather than bow as he normally would have. A change she noticed immediately.

A quiet discussion ensued, with her explaining that, his sudden magical explosion came from harnessing the raw mana produced and exhaled by the sun itself. A power she, justifiably, tried to hide from common knowledge. It had a basic sentience, she had explained, and could choose who could be aware of it, and make it easier to access. It was why so many were required during the old times to move it. Not because of its mass, or distance, though those played a factor in it. But because of the massive backlash assumed by even touching it, shared by all those linked in the spell.

“But it’s also what’s helped you heal,” She then elaborated, “The excess magical energy within you absorbed, and it tried to rejuvenate your body, with some degree of success. I must ask of you, however, to keep this secret. if it got out the sun was an energy source for magic…”

He had swore to keep the secret, and she had left, but not before telling him quietly of the reward ceremony to honour the dead, and his actions to save as many as he could, foolish as they had been. He’d laughed, for the first time since getting back, though there was no happiness behind it. Just hollow amusement, and told her he’d make it as he could.

That was two weeks ago, as the last of the army began trickling in and being processed, there was only two days before the ceremony. Still bandaged, and now sporting a scar down one side of his face, which extended to his eye (Though the damage was superficial, he could still see thankfully), he looked himself over in the mirror. He’d lost much of his musculature, a problem he’d have to deal with when he was released, then looked at his dress uniform…

And sighed.