Redheart's War

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue
Chapter 5

Chapter 1

Nurse Redheart was already sitting at her desk in the supervisory nurses' office when her husband, Accounts Payable, arrived at noon.

He dropped his lunchbox on her desk and sat down across from her. "Busy morning, Honey?"

"It’s good to see you, AP," Redheart said. "Not too busy. Had to give a colt some stitches. Buckball. Slow day for the new doctor."

AP nodded. "Is the new guy getting any better?"

Redheart frowned and flicked her ears. "He'll be a fine general practitioner in a quiet clinic somewhere. Emergency Rooms, well... hrmmmm." She munched on a piece of salmon jerky, fighting to chew it with pony teeth. Even after nine years of marriage, AP never had figured out where she acquired that particular taste. He didn't know a single other pony who liked fish. The smoky stench always bothered his own appetite.

"I wonder if the twins are having a good day?" Redheart asked. "Contrail had some sniffles. If he's getting sick he'll be crabby for the teachers and Dandelion will sit on him."

"Like any big sister should," AP quipped.

"You shouldn't believe my brothers, I almost hardly never beat them up."

"You said you have to work late tonight?" AP asked.

"Yeah, Nurse Snowheart is sick. After my shift, I'm covering her prenatal class—"

KABOOM! Rainbow Dash blasted in through the emergency room doors with a flash of colors, screaming, "Help her! Help! Help! Help!"

Redheart dashed out of the office. "What happened?" Redheart demanded as she took a small filly wearing a pink bow from Rainbow's hooves.

AP followed at a run, but he stuck close to the wall, out of the way. He was an accountant, not a nurse or a doctor.

"Don't know!" Rainbow Dash hovered, wringing her forehooves together. "Apple Bloom was in the attic at the Acres. She screamed and stumbled down the ladder and collapsed. She was turning blue, so I rainboomed her here."

Dr. Surgical Steel galloped up, levitating his stethoscope to Apple Bloom's ribs. "She's barely breathing. What happened?"

"I said I don't know!" screamed Rainbow Dash, wagging her hooves at the doctor.

"You have to tell me what, what, what I'm dealing with!" Dr. Steel snapped back.

AP's heart pounded, his vision getting dim around the edges, picturing his twins, his little filly and colt, and how he would feel if one of them... if something terrible...

His wife was there. Redheart was in charge. Apple Bloom would be fine.

Although Apple Bloom looked pretty bad... and the new doctor seemed to be under the misimpression that he was in charge.

Redheart examined the filly's body, her hooves working the yellow coat against the grain, her nose inches from Apple Bloom's skin.

"Doc," Rainbow Dash said, pointing a hoof, her voice plaintive, "she's bluer than I am! Do something!"

"I can't go around treating what I don't know what it is!"

"Four, six, eight—these are stings," Redheart said. "A dozen. Two dozen. Three dozen. Rainbow Dash, is Apple Bloom allergic to stings? Did she get into a hornets' nest in that attic?"

Rainbow's head snapped over to look at Redheart. "I—I don't know! Applejack is on her way, but it's a long run. AJ would know."

Redheart looked at Dr. Steel. "Anaphylactic shock."

"We can't—how can—that's a guess!" he spluttered.

Redheart pointed at Nurse Tenderheart. "Intubation kit." She pointed at an orderly. "Anaphylaxis kit."

Dr. Steel's face paled and his jaw worked, clenching and unclenching, his ears drooping.

"Dash," Redheart said, her voice calm, with the same soothing tones she used when one of her foals was upset. "You just carried her. How much does she weigh?"

"I... I don't know."

Redheart cocked her head, studying the unmoving filly. "Thirty-seven, Forty pounds. Doctor, potion dosage?"

"I, I, I, what?" Dr. Steel stammered.

Redheart looked into his eyes. Firmly: "Forty pound filly. Allergy potion. Dosage."

"Save her save her save her!" Dash said, dancing from hoof to hoof.

The doctor looked at the ceiling for a second, mumbling the mathematics. Loudly: "Six hundred."

The orderly, an older unicorn stallion, sprinted up with the anaphylaxis kit. Redheart ripped it from his aura, opened it, and twisted a dial on the injector. "Six hundred," Redheart repeated.

Dash leaped into the air, flapping in panic, blowing a breeze across the medical team, knocking off Redheart's white cap. Her pink bun fell loose, mane spilling down her back.

Grabbing the injector between her forehooves, Redheart slammed it into the inside of Apple Bloom's thigh, pushed the plunger, and tossed the injector to the orderly.

AP's wings trembled and tears blurred his vision. Sweet Luna, Apple Bloom was blue, especially her face.

Nurse Tenderheart shoved an intubation kit at the doctor. He nodded and ripped it open. Tenderheart's hooves forced Apple Bloom's jaws apart. Apple Bloom's pink bow made a limp frame of color around the slack face.

"C'mon," AP whispered, "c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon..." His few bites of lunch soured in his belly, turning acidic and vile. His wings flitted.

The doors burst open again. Applejack and Big Mac stormed toward their little sister. Applejack shouted, "What's going on here what're y'all doin'—"

AP moved to block them, flaring his wings wide. "No!" he shouted. "Let them work!"

Applejack stopped, her face turning hard. She slapped AP's left wing down, looking over it. AP looked back, over his own withers. Dr. Steel inserted the breathing tube into Apple Bloom's mouth, pushing in—

"Missed," Redheart said, her ear to the filly's chest. "Esophagus." The doctor pulled the tube back out and tried again.

"Missed," Redheart said. The doctor tried again.

"Missed! Doctor..."

Dr. Steel's eyes widened. He looked at Redheart. "Nurse—nurse, you do it. She's dying."

At the word dying, Applejack and Big Mac screamed. Applejack bowled AP clean over, stepping on his wing. Mac trampled on AP's tail.

Applejack stood next to the medical team, screaming incoherently in the doctor's face.

With a single leap, Redheart was on the gurney, straddling Apple Bloom's tiny chest, kneeling over the dying filly.

The flash and pop! of a teleport filled the emergency room. Twilight and Starlight appeared, a dozen feet away, each holding one of the other Crusaders.

Redheart grabbed the intubation kit from the doctor's aura, cradled it in her forehooves, closed her eyes, and took two deep breaths.

Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle shouted, screeching as soon as the noise of the teleport faded. Their shrieks added to the bedlam that reigned over Ponyville Hospital's Emergency Room. Discord appeared with another teleport. "I was sensing some wonderful chaos and—oh my!"

"Apple Bloom..." Big Mac howled, inches from Redheart, his voice thin. Rainbow Dash landed and put a wing on Applejack's withers, jostling Redheart.

With a smooth motion, Redheart inserted the tube, down Apple Bloom's throat, and the filly arched her back and gasped as it pushed past the swelling and toward her lungs. She breathed in, greedy for air, and Nurse Tenderheart began squeezing rhythmically on the rubber bladder attached to the tube.

The filly struggled, weakly, under Redheart's weight and her eyes cracked open. The blue color began to fade, her normal color slowly returning. Her forehoof reached up to the tube and tugged. Redheart took the hoof between her own, protecting the breathing tube. "Apple Bloom," she said. "We've got you. It's okay." The filly's eyes closed again and Redheart laid her small hoof onto her chest.

Applejack hugged Mac and the others quieted down, the bedlam fading.

Redheart hopped off the gurney and pointed at AP. "Dear? Take the family up to ICU and get them calmed down. We'll meet them up there once we've got her stabilized."

Forty-five minutes later, AP was sitting in the Nurse Supervisor's office, staring sickly at his lunch, appetite completely gone. He had icepacks on his wing and tail.

Dr. Steel wandered into the office, glanced around, and sat down in Redheart's chair. "I've never been in here before," he said. "We doctors leave the nurses their sanctuary."

"How is she?" AP asked.

Dr. Steel sighed and rubbed his face. "Apple Bloom'll be fine, in a week or ten days, no thanks to me. I—I screwed up."

"You knew when to step back and let Redheart take over," AP said, pointing a feather at the doctor. "You and your team saved that filly. You all saved that filly's life."

The doctor nodded and looked at AP. "How—by Celestia and Luna, Redheart was cool. She was ice. I've never seen anypony, not even my professors, quite that cool. How... AP, she's your wife. How does she do it? She's so... nice. So normal. It was like she was a completely different mare. How can I learn to be like that?"

AP shook his head. "They don't teach that in school."

The doctor's ears perked up. "Then... where did she learn it? Can I learn from her?"

AP pointed a feather at the wall behind the doctor. He turned the chair around.

Five different senior nurses took shifts as the Emergency Room's supervisory nurse, at least one of them on duty every single minute of the year. The five shared the office, so five sets of diplomas and credentials hung on the walls in fancy frames.

Redheart's section of the wall held something additional that none of the others had: Beneath the ornate diplomas and certifications, a simple wooden frame held a six-inch scrap of fabric behind a piece of glass.

The fabric had once been a medium-gray, but old bloodstains and dried mud ruined the color. A Guard medic's red cross patch and corporal's stripes were visible through the dark-brown bloodstains. Next to the red cross was another patch, a gold sunburst—Celestia's cutie mark—inscribed with a black block numeral 1.

Embroidered under the sun were small black letters: THE HOUSEHOLD BATTALION. Above the sun, in larger blood-red letters: PERSEVERE.

Dr. Steel's face went white. "By Twilight's wings... Redheart was... she was one of...?"

AP nodded, his throat dry. "One of Celestia's Own."

Early one morning several months later, AP woke up, cold despite the blankets. A bitter winter storm rattled the bedroom windows. A gust shook the house and fine snow tinkled against the window glass.

He scooted a few inches to his left, trying to get closer to Redheart. The stout earth mare made a fuzzy space heater beneath the blankets on these cold winter nights. Unfurling a wing, he reached for her... and found her side of the bed empty. Darn it. Of course. It was two days before Hearth's Warming.

He would go find her and talk to her.

This year, he would refuse her excuses and demand she talk. It had been nine years. He would not let it turn into ten. He would find out why the holiday season always made her so sullen. He would find a way to help bear this load for her, whatever it was.

AP gasped as his hooves touched the cold floor, then struggled into his slippers. He stopped in front of the twins' bedroom, listened, and heard no noise. They would wake up soon, rambunctious and ready for their day. Their preschool was closed for the holiday... maybe AP's brother could foalsit them if he got Redheart talking.

AP headed downstairs, finding Redheart sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the snowy night through a large window, a single jar of fireflies casting dim light and deep shadows.

His breath caught. She was so beautiful, this mare he loved, the mare who was the mother of his foals, the mare with whom he planned to welcome more foals someday. It still always amazed him how much she loved him in return.

Her pink mane fell messily around her face and her bright blue eyes moved down to stare at her right forehoof, staring at the ugly scar that marred the soft frog on the underside. The skin remained puckered and dark, even so many years after... whatever... had happened to it.

"Hey, dear," she said, looking up. Her voice was gravelly and thick, not its usual soft soprano. "I'm sorry I woke you."

"Redheart, love," he said and sat in the chair next to her. "Nightmare?"

"You can't prove that." Her coffee mug wasn't steaming anymore, perhaps an hour cold.

"Luna?" he asked.

"No." Redheart shook her head. "Not this time of year. Too many of my old friends need her tonight, too."

"Tell me."

She shook her head. "It's—it's still classified. It's classified forever."

"You think I'll turn you in?"

"There are things ordinary ponies are better off not knowing."

He took her hoof between his forehooves and kissed her scar.

She grimaced, her face twisting with the old memories, then smiled at him. "Thank you. For... for everything. For loving me."

He lifted her chin up with the feathers of his left wing. "I can't help my wife if I don't know."

She looked away from him, out the window into the black night. "There are parts... parts I can tell... it's not all a Royal secret."

He kissed her lips. "Please. You're in pain. I'm your husband."

"It's to protect you."

"If you tell me, it'll be a weight you don't have to bear alone."

"Have you ever looked at my old Guard stuff?" Redheart asked.

"I did. Yeah. When you were pregnant, when I turned the storage room into the nursery. I had to move all your things."

Redheart bit her lip.

AP asked, "Are you ashamed?"

"No! No, never. I'm proud of everything I did. I just can't stand to see those medals, because they remind me of too many things. I didn't really deserve..."

"I don't think I believe that. I've seen you running that emergency room. Everypony else, losing their heads, but you?"

"Doctor Steel is coming around. I've got him intubating the training dummy while blindfolded. Next time I see Trixie, I'll buy some fireworks and see how the doctor does with—" Redheart grinned "—distractions."

"That's good," AP said. "But you're trying to change the subject on me."

Redheart's smirk fell. "Yeah. My friends, the ones who died. They deserved the medals more than me. The Guard likes to hang decorations on living ponies. Living ponies make better copy in the newspaper."

"I don't know guard stuff," AP said, "and the library didn't have a uniform manual, I checked, but anypony can recognize the—"

Redheart grimaced. "Horse apples!"

"The Cross, love. The Cross of Valor. The Guard never, ever gives that to the wrong pony."

"This time, they did," Redheart said. "I probably deserved the Silver Shield."

"Huh?"

"One level down."

"Honey," AP said, "if we went to a formal event—a coronation, the Grand Galloping Gala, a diplomatic ball—the Cross would give you the social precedence of a countess. You're not just some other ex-Guard. That's the highest medal there is. What happened to you?"

"Four," Redheart said, her voice thick with suppressed tears. "Four times..."

"What?" AP asked. "Four times what?"

"Momma? Daddy?" said a tiny voice behind them.

They both turned to look at their daughter, Dandelion. The tiny earth filly held a stuffed bear under one foreleg. She wore yellow hoofie pajamas decorated with Fluttershy's cutie mark, Fluttershy being her favorite Bearer. (Her twin brother Contrail, being a pegasus colt, of course idolized Rainbow Dash.)

"Good morning!" Redheart called, her voice instantly cheerful. Redheart scooped up Dandelion and spun her in a circle, then pulled the filly to her chest in a tight hug. Dandelion squealed happily and Redheart made an mmmmmmm! sound.

Dandelion said, "Contrail pooped and the stinkies woke me up. Can I have breakfast?"

Redheart laughed and smiled at AP. "You want to deal with the mess? I'll make waffles."

"My diaper needs changies too," Dandelion said. "But I hasn't pooped."

"I'll change that diaper," Redheart declared and kissed Dandelion’s nose.

"Your magnanimity astounds me," AP replied and kissed Redheart, then Dandelion, before starting towards the twins' bedroom to fetch Contrail.

Redheart chuckled and tossed Dandelion onto her withers and trotted toward the changing table.

"Hey Daddy?" Dandelion asked. "Momma said 'horse apples.' Does she gotta sit in time out?"

Two hours later, with AP's little brother watching the twins, Redheart and AP sat at the kitchen table again. The sun, low but crystal clear in the winter morning, brightened the kitchen. Pegasi in brightly colored parkas cleared away the remaining clouds from the overnight storm.

"Four times," AP prompted. "You said, 'four times.'"

"After basic and advanced training, I was on active duty eleven months before I got hurt too badly to stay a regular. They busted me out into the reserves, so I went to college. I got awarded the Wounded in Action decoration four times in those eleven months. Plus so many other decorations I wish I'd never gotten..."

She was shaking. He held her forehoof between his. "Such as?"

"Such as," Redheart replied, "the Prisoner of War medal."

AP's head spun. He released her hoof and grabbed onto the table, balancing himself.

"That was my all-black ribbon," Redheart said. "In with my others."

"There was also a medal in with your stuff that was strange," AP said. "Mother-of-pearl, maybe?"

"Hippogriffian. Hippogriffs are great sailors but lousy soldiers. We got seconded to their fleet as marines."

"Tell me."

"I can tell you about three of the wounds," she said. "And that covers the time I got taken prisoner, too. The fourth story is a secret that'll go to my grave."

"What happened?" he said. "Equestria hasn't had a war in over a century. Monsters?"

"The most vile monsters that the world knows."

He frowned, considering. "Hydras? Cockatrices?"

She chuckled, a grim and humorless sound. "Not dumb animals, thinking monsters. Pirates. Slavers. Evil in its most distilled form. Hostis sapiens generis, the common enemy of all races. Celestia sent us, supported by the Hippogriff Navy, far to the south, beyond Equestria."

The blood drained from AP's head and the bright room went dim. "You—you fought in the Southern Expedition? I kept up with that in the newspaper. I had—I had no idea my future wife... when I was reading the articles..."

She nodded her head and raised her scarred hoof. "This scar," she said, "I got it a few months before the Southern Expedition. We didn't know it at the time, but some mercenaries were being paid by the slave traders to probe Equestria's defenses."

"The Southern Marches? That was in the newspapers, too."

"The Southern Marches. This scar was worth my first Wounded in Action, my Combat Action Badge, my Prisoner of War decoration, and some other crap they hung on me that I didn't deserve. It was my first scrap."

"Scrap?"

"We never called it a 'fight' or a 'battle.' In Celestia's Own, we called them 'scraps.'"

"Tell me."

"You... you won't like the stories," Redheart said, staring into his eyes. "And I'm not going to lie, not at all. I've never lied to you once, in all our years together. I won't start now. Every detail. If you can't hear about me bleeding into the dirt, if you can't hear about the ponies or 'griffs I killed, stop me now."

AP swallowed twice. "Honey... you—you've killed? You were a medic."

She gave a harsh laugh, on the edge of maniacal. "Do...do you think slavers obey the laws of war? Do you think pirates would give quarter to a wounded soldier, just because he was bleeding to death? Do you think I would allow my patient to be murdered in front of me?"

He shook his head. "No, you wouldn't, would you? Tell me. Please. Let me help you. Let me love you. Let me carry this weight with you."

She glowered at the scar on her hoof. She sat, unmoving, for more than a minute.

AP put a hoof on her shoulder. "Honey?"

"I don't know the big picture, so don't ask. I was just a medic. Not an officer, not a general, not a princess. All I can tell you is what happened in front of my nose. Don't ask me why this or why that, because I just went where the officers ordered."

He nodded and scooted his chair closer to her. She leaned against his chest and her tears wet his coat. AP wrapped his wings around her.

She trembled.

Redheart started, "It was about a week after the Summer Sun Celebration, and First Battalion, the Household Battalion—'Celestia's Own,' before Luna's return—was in the south of Equestria, near Somnambula…"

Author's Note

Constructive comments always welcome!

Chapter 2

That night I sat in front of a campfire. The sun was down, and I finally had my first chance to get off my hooves all day. A river barge sat grounded on the shallow mud flats at the edge of the river. Real doctors and nurses were treating our dozen wounded, so I'd been relieved and sent to go get some chow.

I had no appetite. I doubted I would ever eat food again. My gut was a solid lump of stone. My ears still rang with screams of pain and shouts of Pony down! or Medic up!

Instead of eating, I sat on my haunches, wrapping a bandage around my right forehoof. My kit bag sat open next to me. I just felt... I mean, numb doesn't even begin to touch it. The scrap had lasted for fourteen never-ending hours and I had been a complete rookie when I woke up that morning.

I looked at the stars. I'd never seen the stars like that before. I grew up in the city, and the swirls and whorls and stars into the depths of infinity... I shook my head, trying to focus, stopping my mind from wandering.

I was covered in blood. Much of it belonged to our team's senior medic, Ivy Mercy, my closest friend. She was dead because I couldn't staunch her bleeding. Her injury—it wasn't that bad. I should have been able to save her, but I didn't.

What really scared me: I wasn't even shaking from the adrenaline letdown. Less than a month before, I'd dealt with a dire medical emergency. A twelve-year-old filly after she suffered a nasty fall. I gave her a field tracheotomy, saving her life, and I shook and vomited for hours after the surgeons took her from me.

But, sitting in front of that campfire, wrapping up my own hoof, I just felt... hollow.

I was scared that being a newly-minted veteran meant I had lost myself. I wanted to be a nurse, someday. Somepony hollow wouldn't have a very good bedside manner, would she?

Our new platoon sergeant, Flash Sentry, trotted up and sat across from me, on the other side of the campfire.

"Private Redheart."

"Sarge." Our old platoon sergeant was dead. I had failed to save him, too.

"You did well, Private," Sergeant Flash said.

I kept wrapping the bandages around my hoof. "No, Sarge. I lost six of ours."

Ten and six. To that point in my life, I had saved ten lives—and lost six. Eight of the ten, and all six of the lost, in the last few hours.

"You saved Morning Shadow. You saved her for sure."

My stomach started to roil once he mentioned Morning Shadow. I was actually kind of pleased that I felt sick. I was pleased to be feeling anything at all. My whole body trembled. "She'll lose that hoof. The surgeons will have to amputate."

Flash nodded and pulled off his helmet. "I can't call you 'rookie' anymore."

I finished wrapping my hoof and stood up. "Ah–Celestia–ow," I gasped and sat back down, panting from the pain, cradling my hoof to my chest. A tear ran down my nose.

Flash glared at me. His voice snapped from 'friendly comrade' to 'angry sergeant.' "What happened to you, Private?"

"Mosquito bite," I said and started unwrapping my wound again. "They're big down here near the river."

I was going to need to pack in more gauze to cushion it enough to walk. Without the terror dulling the pain, I couldn't bear to put any weight on my hoof.

Once I had it unwrapped, Flash held up a wing. "Hold on." Flash scooted around the campfire and looked at me. He grabbed my hoof and held it in the fire’s light.

I tried to ignore him, listening to the calls of the night birds. Something else I never had heard growing up in Whinnyapolis.

"Private! When did you do that?"

"Around... dawn?"

He looked at the moon. "That was—that was hours ago! How did you stay on that all day?"

I looked at the fire, pulled my hoof back to my chest, and wrapped my left foreleg around it. "I chewed a painkiller. It just now started hurting."

"Hey! Skipper!" Flash yelled. "Mister Armor!"

Our platoon commander, Shining Armor, trotted up. A cadet, seconded from the Academy, not yet an officer, he was Mr. Armor, not yet Lieutenant, but we still called him Sir.

He didn't look any better than me: eyes wide and hollow, face more pale than usual. He had been a rookie that morning, too. Celestia knows the stress is even worse for officers, since they're responsible for the whole unit, but I was only responsible for a few wounded.

"Sergeant Flash?" Mr. Armor asked.

"Look at Redheart's hoof."

"You look bad, sir," I said. "You need some chow and some rest. Doctor's orders."

"Give me your hoof," Mr. Armor said.

I fought to keep my hoof tucked up to my chest, fought with all my strength, but his aura pulled my hoof toward the firelight like he was picking up a scrap of tissue.

"Redheart," he said quietly, "you stepped on a caltrop."

"No, sir. Mosquito bite."

"Redheart, not funny. Caltrop?"

My ears flattened. "Yes, Mr. Armor."

"Did you pull it out yourself? It tore your frog apart."

"Yes, Mr. Armor. There was work to do. I had to get back on my hooves."

He sniffed. "It's already infected."

"I put a salve on it."

"What did you step in?"

I gagged slightly, remembering the stench. "I had to reach into Private Sunlight's intestinal wound."

Flash flicked his tail. "That's begging for an infection."

"I got Sunlight's bleeding stopped," I pointed my nose at the tent full of wounded and doctors. "I saved her life."

Mr. Armor and Sergeant Flash looked at each other for a few seconds, then nodded.

"Redheart," Mr. Armor said, "You did good. You did great."

I snorted and gave a barking laugh that bordered on hysterical. "If six dead is great, what do you consider terrible, sir?"

Mr. Armor frowned at me. "I'm going to recommend you for a decoration. The Medic's Star, I suppose. But..."

Sergeant Flash took over: "But, you're an evacuation case. Present yourself to the doctors and we expect you on the barge when it pulls out."

Mr. Armor's aura disappeared and I yanked my hoof back. "Sir... Sarge... please. Tomorrow... we lost Ivy today. I'm the last medic in the company. You can't, can't send me to the rear, sir. What'll happen tomorrow?"

Shining Armor sat down in front of me and put a hoof on my shoulder. "Redheart—we've got to get your hoof treated, or you'll lose it."

"Will not!"

His voice turned very soft. "You're the medic. Tell me the truth. Tell yourself the truth."

I looked at the ragged wound and blinked back a tear. I had stepped on the caltrop that morning, running to a wounded trooper. I fell, stumbled, landed on my side. The caltrop was four barbed metal hooks welded into a tetrahedron, and one was crammed fully into my hoof, clean up to the bone. I grabbed a pair of pliers from my bag, gripped them in my mouth, and ripped the barb out. It tore the meat and muscle, shredded tendons, and...

And, I admit, I screamed and blubbered and cried like a little foal for a few seconds after that.

Then I spent hours running across open land, through creeks, stepping in piles of blood or bodily waste...

If a trooper had presented this wound to me, I would have ordered her evacuated.

"Yes, Mr. Armor. But... I'm willing to risk that, so the team has a medic tomorrow. I volunteer to stay."

"Alpha company is leading the sweep tomorrow," Mr. Armor said, "and we kicked those raiders' hindquarters today. I don't think we'll need you."

"B-b-but what if you do, sir? Sir, please..."

I shook. It had taken hours, but it finally hit me. I leaned away from those two and vomited onto the dirt, pungent and green. The medical part of my brain told me, You're getting dehydrated!

"We'll need you next week, next month, and next year, too. After you're patched up," Sergeant Flash said.

I sat up and wiped my muzzle on my good foreleg.

"Here, Redheart," Mr. Armor said and gently levitated me up onto his back. His magic was cool against my coat, which was hot from sitting by the campfire. "No need to walk anymore on that hoof."

He carried me into the tent where the doctors were working.

"Ah, Officer-Cadet Armor," the senior doctor said. "I wanted to compliment your medic there, she did an excellent job, and saved several liv—why are you carrying your medic?"

Flash reached up a wing and lifted my hoof toward the doctor.

The doctor sucked in breath and frowned at my hoof. "Drop her on a bedroll."

Mr. Armor leaned down, and I slid off him, onto a blanket. The doctor fussed over my wound for a half-minute, then passed me a bucket of clean water, a roll of gauze, and some antiseptic. "You're not going to die. We've got worse to deal with. Clean and wrap it up yourself, and you can help watch the other wounded on the barge back upriver tomorrow."

I looked at Sergent Flash and Mr. Armor. "But sir, but sarge... please. I want to stay with the team. Celestia's Own don't quit."

Flash offered a hoof and I bumped it with my good hoof. "Celestia's Own don't quit," Sergeant Flash agreed.

Mr. Armor offered me his hoof. "Get yourself fixed up. There'll be plenty of work when you're back on your hooves. Celestia's Own don't quit."

"Then why are you making me quit this fight, sir?" I asked as I reluctantly bumped his hoof.

I tried to walk around the medical tent and help with the wounded, but one of the nurses bopped me over the head with his wing and ordered me to lie down. He was an officer, so I had no choice. I started wiping the patches of dried blood off my coat, but with only one hoof, it was impossible, and the nurses were too busy to help me.

I watched one of my other friends die. Cloud Sweeper was a mare from Stratusburg. She and I had been in basic training together, the year before. We bunked together, she in the top bunk, me in the bottom. We spent quite a few nights, or long pack-marches, talking about stallions and the Guard and the future and life. After boot camp, she went to advanced aerial combat training and I went to medic's school, but then we both volunteered for Celestia's Own and found ourselves in the same platoon.

Earlier that day, I had extracted the arrow from her chest cavity, but I must have missed some bleeding.

She drowned in her own blood.

Nine saved and seven lost.

I curled up on the bedroll, cradled my wrapped hoof to my chest, and pretended to sleep. I tried to cry. I wanted to cry. But I couldn't. I blamed the dehydration.

As the first hint of dawn lit up the horizon, a junior doctor shook my shoulder. "Wake up, Private. We're going."

I struggled up, standing on three legs, and shook myself to get my gray medic's smock into place. "Yes, sir."

The eleven wounded got stretchered up the gangplank to the medical barge. I started to slip under the edge of the tent to rejoin my platoon when the senior doctor levitated me up and dropped me at the end of the gangplank. I hobbled up to the barge with what little dignity I could muster.

My hoof really hurt, now, the infection taking hold, and I couldn't bear to put any weight on it at all. I chewed half a painkiller from my kit.

Finally, the bodies, wrapped in sheets, were carried up the gangplank. I closed my eyes and thrashed my tail.

The bodies of the troopers I had failed to save. My failures.

I opened my eyes.

From the shore, Sergeant Flash and Mr. Armor waved to me. I sat down at the railing and waved back.

The rest of my platoon was eating their breakfast and checking their armor, kit, and weapons. The rest of my platoon was going into a scrap. The rest of my company was going into a scrap.

And they didn't have a medic. My team didn't have a medic! I put my good forehoof on the railing and flexed my knees, took a deep breath...

Mr. Armor glared at me from shore and shook his head no. He mouthed the words court martial.

I plopped down to my bottom and stared at my tail. It was full of brambles and dirt. I dropped my bags next to me.

Ten pegasi grabbed tow-ropes in their teeth and wheeled around to face upriver, slowly hauling the barge against the current, maybe two or three miles per hour.

The doctors humored me, letting me hobble around the barge on three legs, checking bandages and blood pressures. I knew I was just keeping myself busy, but it helped pass the time. My cutie mark wouldn't let me sit still while hurt ponies were about.

As Celestia raised the sun, the sailors running the barge spread an awning out, covering the wounded on the deck. The desert sun would get brutal, later.

While I took the temperature of one of the wounded sergeants, the senior doctor came up behind me and stuck a thermometer in my ear.

"Ow!" I said. "Warn a mare, next time, Colonel." (At least it was a surprise ear thermometer, eh?)

"You've got a fever, Private," he told me. "Go lay down. We'll get you some potion started."

"But, sir, I'm working."

"Celestia's Own!" he sighed, with an eye roll. "Celestia's immortality doesn't rub off on her household troopers, no matter what you lunatics want to believe. Go find a cot and don't move from it. That's an order."

"But—"

He pointed at his Colonel's insignia and glared.

"Sir." I raised my nose and huffed, and flicked my tail as I hobbled past him. Instead of taking a cot, I sat on a bench at the barge's bulwark, near several of the wounded lying on stretchers.

A medic, another private about my age, trotted up. The flash on his shoulder said 'Third Battalion'. Thirdies were good troops, brave, supporting us on the expedition, but we in Celestia's Own had done all the fighting—and dying—so far.

Third Battalion was good, is what I'm trying to say, but Celestia's Own was the best. The best in the world.

I had a Celestia's Own flash on my shoulder, ten other ponies' blood on my coat, and bandages on my hoof, so I raised my nose, just a little, and looked down my muzzle at him.

"Sapphire Bolt," he said. "What's your name?"

"Redheart."

We bumped hooves.

"What... what..." he gestured at my bandaged hoof.

I almost said mosquito bite, but instead I just said, "Caltrop."

He grimaced. "Oof. That hurts me just hearing that word." He levitated up a soapy rag and wiped the blood off my left foreleg, preparing an injection site. "You're covered in blood. How come you weren't cleaned up? Do you want an infection? This is how you get infections."

"Nopony had time. Too many real wounds." I pointed my snout at Midnight Aurora on her stretcher next to us, staring silently at the awning.

"How much of this blood is yours?"

"Practically none of it," I replied.

Flies buzzed, mad for the dried blood, and one landed in my eye. I pawed at it with my bandaged hoof. I flapped my gray smock, trying to shoo away the flies.

"Here," he said and wiped my face with the rag. "Let me..."

I frowned but said, "Thanks."

It hit me hard to have somepony else cleaning me, taking care of me. We earth ponies... we work so hard as foals with our hooves and our mouths, to get the dexterity we need to keep up with unicorn's fields and pegasi's feathers. I had used my forehooves to clasp a rag and wash my face, neck, and ears, every day of my life, ever since I was a tiny filly.

Having a unicorn babying me, wiping my face like I was an infant who had just spit up?

That hurt. That was when it really crashed down on me that I was injured, and not just a scratch. I didn't cry, but I sniffled and started shaking again.

I looked out from under the awning, over the river and to the far bank. I watched the waterfowl foraging in the shallows, something else I never saw back home in the city...

What would I say to my parents? How would I write a letter, explaining this to my little brothers? I had promised them I would come home perfectly safe. Promised!

"What happened?" Sapphire Bolt asked. "The colonel said you treated most of these other patients."

Midnight Aurora chuckled from her cot and pointed her free wing—the other was splinted and trussed to her flank—at me. "Redheart carried me two hundred yards after I took those arrows. After she stepped on the caltrop."

I looked at the shrouded bodies. "Ivy Mercy was our senior medic. She did most of the work before she... she..."

I looked away from those two, where they wouldn't see the tears that were starting to form. Sapphire Bolt wet the rag in the bucket again and the water turned red. He wiped my chest and forelegs. "Yesterday was your first?"

"Yeah." I clamped my jaw shut against sudden nausea. I told myself the nausea was from the rolling of the barge. Seasickness.

"Tough start," he said and gave me a soft punch on the shoulder, then moved to wipe blood off my belly. "None of that is your blood?"

"I carried a trooper slung over my hips and he bled all over me. I promise, my only injury is my hoof."

"Okay." He levitated up a rubber tube and tied it around my left foreleg, preparing to start a drip for my infection. "I'll get this going and bring you some chow. When did you eat last?"

I looked at the sun. It was getting on toward late morning. "Maybe... thirty hours ago?"

"C'mon, Redheart. One medic to another: you can't help anypony if you're unconscious. You've got to take care of yourself. I'll bring you some chow."

I flicked my ears and turned to stare at the far riverbank again.

A spell flashed from the scrub on the far bank and hit just ahead of the barge, throwing up a huge plume of dirty water.

A second later, a volley of arrows arced toward us from the same scrub. The plume collapsed, river water raining down on the awning.

My heart accelerated, racing again like it had in the scrap yesterday, and I found my eyes narrowing as I stared at the incoming arrows, judging their path. I dove and landed on Midnight Aurora, covering her. Sapphire Bolt dove and covered Sunlight, who was sedated and unconscious.

Several of the Third Battalion unicorns ran to the railing and cast shields towards the ambush and the incoming arrows glanced away. Troopers grabbed bows and began to pepper the far bank with return fire, the bottled spells in the arrowheads bursting with flame and shrapnel.

"Pony overboard!" shouted one of the navy ratings. "Pony in the water!"

I stood up. Midnight Aurora grunted as I pushed off her injured wing. I leaned over the edge of the barge, under a glowing shield spell.

One of the pegasi from the towing crew thrashed in the water, an arrow in the meat of his left wing as the current dragged him back downriver. His rubber life jacket flapped, deflated, holed by another arrow. His armor dragged him down.

The barge accelerated as the pegasi flapped harder and we left the wounded pony farther behind, alone in the river.

"We've got to—" one of the Navy officers was shouting.

I planted my good foreleg on the railing and vaulted into the water.

The water hit me, I went under, gasping, and asking myself what in the world I thought I was doing.

I broke the surface and saw the wounded pegasus. I paddled, chasing him downriver. The barge surged upriver, the tow team's wings thrashing the air.

My medic's smock, soaked, weighed me down, but with only one good hoof I wasn't going to be able to shed it. Just as well, I didn't really want to part with it.

I doggy-paddled. "Pal! Hey, pal! Swim for me!"

He splashed, fighting to tread water. After about thirty seconds, I was able to reach him and grasp the base of his good wing in my teeth.

Upriver, arrows peppered the barge.

Arrows started to splash around us. Around me and my patient.

If I tried to swim for the barge, we were dead. I probably couldn't catch it, fighting upstream, anyway. By myself? Sure. I'm a darn good swimmer. I would have risked it. Dragging an armored and injured charge? No way.

I swam for the riverbank opposite the concealed archers and spellcaster.

His feathers, soaked with muddy river water, tasted foul on my tongue and I smelled the rotting shoreline vegetation. He thrashed and cursed, but my focus was on that shore, so I really have no other memories of that swim except the single twisted piñon tree I had chosen as my target.

When we hit the shallow mudflats at the riverbank, the wounded pegasus surged up to his hooves and galloped into the scrubby bushes. I took one step on my bad hoof and collapsed to my flank, spluttering as the water got into my nose and mouth.

"Come on!" he hissed at me as he unstrapped his armor. "Heavy crap darn near drowned... get under cover, kid!"

I started crawling, trying to get up to three legs, but the mud sucked at my hooves every time I tried to stand.

He skittered down the mudbank, ignoring the arrows hitting near him, bit the scruff of my neck, and lifted. Pain lanced down my back. Once I was standing, we hobbled together off the riverbank and into the scrub.

"Let's get..." he panted, "let's get out of sight and take a break."

Once we were a hundred yards from the river, hidden in a copse of piñon, I sat down.

"PFC Redheart," I said. "Celestia's Own."

"Chief Spring Thunder," he replied, "Second Riverine Flotilla. What's wrong with your hoof?"

"Caltrop yesterday."

"Wait! Wait. Wait. 'Yesterday?' You were one of the patients, and you dove in to save me?"

"I don't have my kit, but I can get that arrow."

I didn't have my medical bag; I had left that on the barge. All I had were the contents of my smock's pockets. I pulled out a pair of heavy shears, gripped them in my teeth, and snipped off the arrow's feathered shaft. He panted and mumbled curses, but held still and let me work the arrow out.

"It got the tendons," I said, examining his wing, turning it this way and that, watching the bleeding slow as it clotted, "but not the nerves or blood vessels. Surgeons can fix that. You'll be fresh as a foal in six months if we keep the infection out. Which means getting back to civilization ASAP."

He was a small stallion, buttercream yellow with white mane and tail. He asked, "What now?"

I pointed west. "We parallel the river, walk upstream, and try to hook up with friendly forces."

"You can't walk."

"Watch me."

I couldn't walk.

The sun scorched us, blistering my nose. I pulled my hood over my head to protect my ears. My throat burned for water. We were making less than one hundred yards an hour as I tried to struggle through the dense undergrowth on three legs. I weighed twice as much as that scrawny pegasus, so he wasn't going to be carrying me, especially not with a wing wound.

The sun dried our uniforms, at least.

We sat and rested for a few minutes. I glanced at the sun and decided it was noon-ish.

"I need to drink," I said. "Let's sneak back to the riverbank."

"I can fill your canteen for you."

I flapped my smock at him.

"No canteen," he said. "Gotcha."

We heard a branch snap to the north-east.

We both dropped to our bellies and swiveled our ears. Birds flushed from that direction and I heard distant voices.

"That's not Ponish," he whispered.

"Crud."

These raiders... what would they do if they caught us? They had burned out several Equestrian villages along the border, but had not deliberately harmed any civilians, ensuring the homes were empty before setting them to the torch.

Would that solicitude extend to uniformed military personnel?

"Plan," I said.

"I outrank you."

"Next time we're in a crisis on a boat, I'll remember that. I can't escape. I just, I just can't. Not on this hoof."

"But—"

"I'll break north-northwest and they'll hear me. They'll give chase. You sneak west, and get help, and tell command that I need rescued. Deal?"

"But... no. I'm not leaving a comrade behind. I'll get their attention, you go for help."

"You can walk. I can't. Why is this even a discussion?"

He took a deep breath. "I... I feel like a coward. You jumped in to rescue me. It's my fault you're here."

"Don't worry," I said. "You'll probably get captured, too, ten minutes after me."

"Second Riverine isn't Celestia's Own, but I'm no coward."

"You're... what? Ten years older than me? Wife and foals, I bet?"

He nodded. His face turned green and he swallowed twice.

"See you somewhere," I said and started crawling north-east, towards the noise.

"See you around." He smacked my butt with his good wing and started crawling west.

I never saw him again.

I was trying to be quiet, really!

Except, I'm a city mare from Whinnyapolis. I grew up playing hoofball in brick alleys, climbing fire escapes for hide-and-seek. The closest I got to the wilderness as a foal was snowshoeing the city greenways. Take my size, my poor woodcraft, and my injury, add them all together, and I left a noisy trail of broken branches and trampled chaparral.

I heard the non-Ponish language again, behind me, closer.

My heart pounded and every pulse sent a stab of pain down into my bad hoof. I had to go, get going, try to make some distance, draw them farther away from Spring Thunder.

Standing, I tried to gallop, but on my third step, my injured hoof hit a root, the hard wood poked up into the wound. I crashed down, face-first, and blacked out.

A few seconds later, spitting out dirt and sand, I came to.

I was surrounded.

In a circle around me were six of the fish-like creatures that live in Klugetown, one abyssinian, and a scaly pony-like creature that at the time I didn't recognize, but I now know was a kirin.

The fishy creatures had bows and swords, the abyssinian held a rapier, and the kirin... had no weapon at all.

I started crawling north again.

The abyssinian drew her rapier and pressed its tip against my left cutie mark, drawing a drop of blood.

I stopped crawling.

The kirin took a step forward. "We'll take your surrender, pony."

I curled up on my side, tucked into a ball, and cradled my hoof—with its pathetic rags of bandages finally coming loose—close to my chest. "I'm wounded. That's the only reason you caught me."

My tail slapped against the dirt, no matter how much I tried to stop it. I could hardly see, my eyes were watering so badly. My hoof hurt. Every heartbeat stabbed into the raw nerves and ragged flaps of skin.

"You're still our prisoner," the kirin said.

I opened one of my pockets, working the zipper with my teeth. One of the fish-things nocked an arrow, but didn't draw his bow.

I extracted a square of white silk from my pocket and held it up to the kirin.

He frowned and his horn glowed, levitating the silk from my mouth.

That scared me: I'd never seen a non-pony species with unicorn magic before. What was that thing? What could it do?

He shook out the square. About a foot on a side, a large red cross and the Equestrian flag filled its middle, and the same paragraph was written in two dozen different languages around the flag and red cross.

"What's this?" he said.

Sweet Celestia, my hoof was really hurting by then. I curled into a tighter ball, panting so I wouldn't cry. "Read it."

"I can't read Ponish. Read it to me." He laid it out on the dirt in front of me.

Lifting my head off the ground, I cleared my throat, found the Ponish writing, and read: "I am a medic of Her Equestrian Majesty's Royal Armed Forces. The Laws of War, agreed to by all nations, protect me from harm. I am sworn to treat any wounded, regardless of race or creed. If you assist me, my Government will reward you."

Then, I looked into his eyes and let my voice turn harsh as I recited the final words from memory: "If you harm me, my Government will inflict terrible revenge upon you."

He nodded and then translated for his fellows.

Their faces darkened, they growled back and forth in that other language, but then, one by one, they nodded.

"We're professional soldiers," the kirin said. "Even if we have negotiable loyalty, medic of Her Equestrian Majesty's Royal Armed Forces. We're not filthy pirates or slavers. You're our prisoner and we will treat you how we hope our prisoners would be treated."

Still curled disconsolately on my flank, I pointed my good hoof at his canteen and said, "If that's true, I could really use some water."

He levitated his canteen to me and I drank. That filthy river water was the best drink I ever had in my life.

They took away my smock and searched it for weapons, but all they found were my shears. One of the fish-folk pocketed them and the kirin put my smock in his saddlebags.

I hopped about five steps and fell on my face before the biggest fish-thing picked me up and slung me over his shoulders in a firemare's carry, clenching my three good hooves against his chest.

How humiliating was that? First, I abandoned my patient. Second, I got caught like a rabbit in a trap. Third, I couldn't even trot with dignity, my snout held high, into captivity.

"Our commander is wounded," the kirin said. "Your chit said you are sworn to treat anycreature in need."

The fish-creature's rolling gait shook my body and his every footfall rattled my wound.

"Will you treat our wounded?" the kirin repeated.

"I will," I said. "A medic treats any wounded, even the enemy."

"Have you ever treated a hippogriff?" asked the kirin.

"Do you have a name?" I asked.

"Wood Smoke. What's your name, rank, and unit, soldier?"

"Private First Class Redheart. The laws of war do not require I tell you my unit."

He levitated my smock from his bag and shook it out, and looked at the shoulder flash. "I don't read Ponish, but that's Celestia's ass tattoo and I know the Ponish numeral 'one' when I see it. You're in Celestia's Own. One of Celestia's household troopers will be worth something in trade."

My hackles raised at hearing the Princess's cutie mark referred to as an ass tattoo, but there was nothing I could do. "I'm fresh out of supplies, though, and I've never even seen a hippogriff closer than fifteen feet in my life."

Goodness, my hoof hurt. I sniffed at it. Even over the scent of the desert and the dry wind, I could smell my infection. Its stench grew by the minute.

Terror began to shake my shoulders and sour my stomach. I was on pace to lose my hoof, and my life, if I didn't get to a real pony hospital, with pony doctors and potions, soon.

"We've got a few medical supplies," Wood Smoke said.

I nodded. If I got some potion into my system, it might hold my infection back long enough for the Guard to rescue me.

"Your prior hippogriff sounds like a story," Wood Smoke continued.

"Not really. We stand as honor guard whenever their ambassador visits the Palace. He and his entourage walk past us. Celestia's Own spends a lot of time standing at attention for dignitaries to walk past."

I frowned to myself. I had been happy when we got deployed to the borderlands for some action. I had been ashamed at how many other Household troopers had the Combat Action Badge when I didn't.

What a stupid young idiot two-week-ago me had been. I was missing honor guard duty right that minute!

We left the river's floodplain and climbed into the foothills, the fish-creatures handing off my weight every half hour or so. I kept looking around for some way to escape, but nothing appeared. We reached a camouflaged campsite of a few dozen tents, nestled against the edge of a mesa.

The fish-thing lowered me to the ground in front of a tent. I balanced on three hooves.

Wood Smoke said, "Our commander is in there, along with the medical supplies we have. What do you need?"

"Clean rags, freshly boiled water. And chow. I haven't eaten in two days."

He frowned. "We mostly have meat stew and dried jerky. We're out of pony rations."

My ears drooped. "Oh." We had eaten meat in training, to show us we could survive on it and that it could keep us fit to fight, but Sweet Celestia I didn't want to repeat the experience!

"Our other pony prisoners have been making due on forage. Piñon nuts, mostly."

"What?" Other prisoners? Other ponies? Had they been kidnapping civilians? Sudden sickness turned my stomach. My tail thrashed even though I tried to still it. "How many ponies? Are the ponies in need of medical care? Civilians or Guard?"

"Help our commander, first. Nopony is in medical need."

"Fine," I sighed.

"I don't suppose I need to say it," Wood Smoke whispered in my ear, his breath oddly hot, "but I will anyway. We know the laws of war, too. If you try to escape, we're allowed to get mean. You're miles from your own race and you can't move very fast on three hooves. Be a cooperative mare, okay?"

I glared at him. Every member of the Guard was sworn to resist and try to escape if captured.

"Duly noted," I growled. "Boil some water."

His horn glowed for a moment and then his entire body burst into demonic flames. I staggered backward, gasping, and turned my face away from the heat, holding my bad leg up to shield my eyes.

He trotted a few steps away and I lowered my hoof, peeking over it. Wood Smoke placed his foreleg into a cast-iron cauldron. It steamed, the water boiling instantly.

With a flash, he returned to his kirin form. "Ready to help our commander?"

I swallowed a few times, recovering from the transformation. What was that creature? I decided to show no fear, no matter what I felt: I stiffened, stood up as straight as I could on three hooves, and commanded, "Give me my uniform back."

"The weather's hot for that, and it's filthy."

I stomped a rear hoof. "I am a trooper of Celestia's Own Household Battalion, not some money-grubbing mercenary. I have standards to uphold. Give me my uniform back!"

He shrugged, and levitated my smock out of his bag and helped me don it. With my Celestia's Own flash on my shoulder and the red cross on my back, I felt like myself again.

"Let's go save a life." A medic of Her Equestrian Majesty's Royal Armed Forces will save any life.

Their commander was a tall hippogriff mare with a charcoal gray coat and wings. Her feathery mane and tail were iridescent silver. As I stepped into the tent, the stench of gangrene punched me in the face, telling me this would be no easy patient to treat. I turned my head and breathed through my mouth.

Wood Smoke followed close behind me, and the abyssinian behind him.

I dug one-hoofed through their supplies. Two first aid kits. Large kits, but standard civilian gear. Looked like they were stolen from ambulance chariots, considering the mounting brackets on their backs.

"What's her name?" I asked.

The hippogriff shifted a few inches on her cot. "I'm High General North Wind."

High General, I thought, of a single small campsite and a few score mercenaries. Grandiose.

I found one IV bag of antibiotic potion. I nosed it out of the first aid kit and tucked it under my bad leg.

One bag. Just one. I also found two bags of saline solution.

I thought about that. Wood Smoke didn't read Ponish, eh? The bags looked identical outside the printed labels. I could give the saline to the hippogriff, and when she died, claim the gangrene has simply been too severe, too far progressed for treatment, save the antibiotics for myself, save my own life, save myself from an amputation—

My cutie marks itched. No, no I couldn't do that, could I? The hippogriff was sick, very sick. But she could be saved. I really had no choice.

One bag of antibiotics meant it would go to the hippogriff.

One bag meant I was dead. I blinked back tears as I thought about my parents and little brothers.

North Wind laid flat on her back, a thin blanket over her, despite the heat of the desert. I hopped over to her on three legs and pulled the blanket down with my teeth. The stench of gangrene redoubled and I flicked my ears in consternation.

"I need help," I said.

Wood Smoke trotted up to me. The abyssinian stood back, fingering her rapier, watching me.

"I can't get the needle in one-hoofed."

"I don't approve of being lied to," Wood Smoke said.

"I'm not a unicorn." I explained what I needed done, and Wood Smoke got one of her veins pricked with the line and the potion flowing.

"Can you cut out the infection?" the kirin mercenary asked.

"Not one-hoofed. I'll give you directions." It took an hour, but we got the hippogriff's wound debrided and cleaned. The stench left my eyes watering and took my breath away.

"That," I said, pointing at the bag of antibiotic potion. "You need to trade for more of that. One bag might not save her... and I need more for my injury, too."

Wood Smoke frowned, but nodded.

"Here, help me, now." I help up my injured hoof.

"The prisoner is wounded?" asked North Wind, cracking an eye open.

I bit my tongue and wiped my eyes, fighting not to scream, as he used soap and warm water to clean the dirt and grit from my injury and then smeared protective salve onto it. By the time he started bandaging me up, I was shaking. My head spun and sweat matted my smock to my flanks.

"Thanks," I said, wiping my eyes again.

He nodded, then looked at the abyssinian and spoke in that other language. Then to me, "She'll take you to our stockade."

I hobbled behind the cat-creature, bad leg tucked to my chest. She didn't even look over her shoulder. I guess I seemed beaten and compliant. It shames me to say, I felt beaten and compliant. I looked around, contemplating my escape, but no ideas occured to me.

Their camp was well camouflaged. Perhaps three dozen tents and some natural caves that cut into the mountain. I estimated about fifty mercenaries in total, but that sort of guess wasn't my specialty.

"I wish I spoke your language," I said.

She looked at me and shrugged. Interesting. Did she understand Ponish? Or was that just a lucky guess?

Wrought iron bars, welded into a gate, blocked a cave opening. Another fish-creature unlocked the gate with a key, opened it, and gestured me in.

My tail tucked and I felt my ears trembling.

This was it.

This made it official.

I, Private First Class Redheart, trained and select trooper of Her Majesty's First Household Battalion, a pony of Celestia's freaking Own, the best military unit the world had ever seen... was a prisoner. I was about to be thrown into a cage like a naughty pet rabbit.

I wanted to curl up in a ball, cradle the agony of my hoof to my chest, and sob.

As I hesitated, the abyssinian kicked me in the butt and forced me forward, ending my little reverie and sprawling me onto my belly. The fish-thing slammed the door and locked it.

"Captain!" came a stallion's voice from the dark. "Captain, company."

My eyes adjusted quickly. There were a few oil lamps on tables and I counted nine ponies, three of each tribe. The unicorns had inhibitor sheaths strapped over their horns and the pegasi's wings were shaved or plucked.

One pegasus trotted up, and put a naked wing under my belly, lifting up, so I could stand on three legs. He helped me to a cot and I flopped down on my side.

"Thanks," I said.

"I'm Captain Astral Flash," the pegasus said, then pointed to a unicorn mare. "This is First Sergeant Dew Diamond. Who're you?"

"PFC Redheart, sir. What's your unit, Captain?"

"Echo company, Fifteenth Battalion. You?"

Fifteenth Battalion? These weren't soldiers, these were civilians in uniform! The Fifteenth was the Southern Provinces' Home Guard militia. These troopers had probably been captured in their own front yards, fighting to buy time to allow their own foals and spouses to escape. Well, nopony had ever doubted the Home Guard's bravery.

I sighed and curled around my hoof. "Bravo company, Celestia's Own," I said.

"Celestia's Own is here?" the Captain gasped.

"Do we have any chow, sir? I haven't eaten since before dawn yesterday."

They bought me some fish stew and mystery jerky, along with a small bowl of piñon nuts and needles. I wrinkled my nose and ate it, washing it down with a lot of water, while I told them my story, starting with the scrap and ending in the stockade with them.

Their story, in return, was exactly what I expected: raiders hit their village, a platoon of the Home Guard stood firm, along with their company Captain, who lived in town with them. Half the platoon died, half was captured, but the civilians—the Home Guard's own spouses, parents, siblings, and foals—made good their escape, led down an arroyo by their mayor.

"How long have you been here?" I asked.

"Ten days," said one of the privates, an earth stallion named Blue Maize. "When did Celetia's Own get here?"

"Four days ago," I said. "We've got these losers on the run. Hopefully we won't have to sit here too much longer."

The other prisoners nodded.

I held my hoof out. "Smell that."

Captain Astral and Blue Maize leaned forward and sniffed.

"That's bad, Redheart," Captain Astral said.

"Yep. I hope we're not here too much longer. Okay, thanks for the chow. I understand you're all beaten up? Line up and let me examine you."

"None of us are as wounded as you," Sergeant Diamond said.

"Doctor's orders."

Days passed. Interminable days.

For what it's worth, our captors fed us the exact same chow they ate and gave us all the clean water we needed. There was no torture, no rape, no mistreatment of any kind. They shared the few medical supplies they had—which were wholly inadequate—but they did share them.

Any military lawyer would have agreed: we were treated properly. Being a prisoner still sucked, however.

Five days? Six? Four? I lost count. The wounded hippogriff commander got better. They marched me to her tent three times a day to examine her, and the stench of infection grew less every time. By the third day, she was sitting up and eating, and thanked me for my care.

My hoof got worse by the day, the infection raging, red tracks moving up my leg as the blood infection burgeoned. My fever spiked, and by the fourth day, they were carrying me to the hippogriff's tent, instead of marching me.

By the fifth day, I think it was the fifth day, I was confined to bed. Sergeant Dew Diamond, the only other mare, helped me with the toilet bucket, and I couldn't keep any food or water down. They put the two bags of saline into me, at least.

By the fifth night, I knew I was going to die.

On the sixth morning, I had a fever dream of Princess Cadance leaning over my cot, wiping the sweat off my forehead with a fetlock.

Slowly, I realized... it wasn't a dream.

I flopped around, trying to stand. This was a princess, Celestia's niece. I needed to show her respect!

"Shhhh..." Cadance cooed. "No, no, stay abed, my faithful one."

"What... what... how..." I spluttered.

"I came under a white flag of parley." Cadance levitated an IV bag of potion out of her saddlebags, put the line into my good foreleg, and started the drip. Then she added a bag of whole blood to my line.

"I dunna need blood," I said. "Need antibiotics an' fever reducer."

"I did have to deflect a few arrows, however," Cadance finished. She removed several first aid kits from her bags and gave them to the other troopers, along with ration packs.

"Keep an eye on Redheart," Cadance ordered. "I'll go see what deal I can strike."

"As you command, Princess," Captain Astral said.

I started shivering as the cold potion hit my overheated body. "Blanket," I croaked. "Please." Dew Diamond pulled a blanket over me and I passed out.

It was dark, deep in the night, when Princess Cadance shook me awake. "Redheart, I've struck a deal. You will give your parole, agree not to fight against these fellows anymore, and they'll let me evacuate you in exchange for another pallet of rations and medical supplies. I can have you in a hospital in five minutes."

Parole? Get out of here, go back to camp, get treated by real doctors with real medicines and potions, but leave these nine other troopers behind? They weren't wounded as badly as me, but they still needed a medic.

And—parole. The Guard's Oath I had sworn on graduation from bootcamp was clear. To accept parole was impermissible. A permanent mark of dishonor. It was better to die.

"No," I croaked. "Thank you, Princess, but no, I can't do that. If my platoon is fighting them, Sergeant Flash and Mr. Armor and the others, I can't give my parole."

"You're dying, Redheart. You have about two days left." She stood up straight and flared her wings. "I am commanding you."

"No parole." I pulled the blanket over my head and spoke through it. "It's dishonorable. I'll stay here with these troopers."

"Soldier!" Captain Astral snapped. "What's wrong with you? You're dying."

"Persevere," I mumbled and rubbed the shoulder flash, emblazoned with the Battalion's official motto: Persevere. I mumbled, "Celestia's Own don't quit."

Cadance began to sing, an old lullaby my mother had sung to me as a foal, and I had sung to my little brothers in turn:

"Hush now, quiet now,
It's time to lay your sleepy head,
Hush now, quiet now,
It's time to go to bed,
Drifting off to sleep,
Exciting day behind you,
Drifting off to sleep,
Let the joy of dream land find you..."

Her magic glowed though the blanket covering me and a warm calmness...

I woke up, days later, in a field hospital tent, with my bad hoof wrapped up and attached to a drain. Horrid green pus flowed down the tubing, out of my wound, and a half dozen different IVs flowed into my body. Pain indicated a urinary catheter. A blanket covered my torso, rear legs, and tail.

"That sneaky damn alicorn," I muttered.

Sapphire Bolt, the Third Battalion medic from the barge, was sitting in a folding chair near my bed. He lowered a novel. "What?"

"She accepted parole on my behalf," I said. "After I told her I refused."

Author's Note

Constructive comments always welcome!

Chapter 3

Redheart trailed off, and her red-rimmed blue eyes stared at her husband. She shook her head and looked around the kitchen, then back to him.

AP leaned forward and hugged her, a desperate bear hug, and she huffed as the air left her lungs. She hugged him back as he rubbed his hooves up-and-down her withers. “My love…” he whispered into her ear.

He released her, took her hoof that had been torn apart by a caltrop between his, and kissed the scar softly.

"The Guard is darn good at treating infections," she said. "Amazing potions, and any doctor they want. A surgeon with a soft-tissue spell got flown in from Las Pegasus, on the Crown's bit. And the rumor..."

"Rumor?" AP asked.

"That bag of whole blood I didn't need. Well, there are old mare's tales about alicorn blood's healing abilities... I was back on my hooves in four weeks, and fit to fight in nine."

"What happened to the other prisoners? To the mercenaries?"

"While I was flat on my back, Celestia's Own and the Mountain Battalion broke them."

AP frowned. "Mountain Battalion? Those are the batponies?"

"It has ponies, too, but yes, mostly."

"What happened?"

"Batponies know caves. One night, they found a back entrance to the cavern the prisoners were in and snuck them out. Celestia's Own hit the camp at dawn. Most of them were taken prisoner, which… well, I’m glad they weren’t killed."

"What were the mercenaries even doing?" AP asked.

Redheart smiled. "They had no idea, they just knew they were getting paid to make ponies homeless. We had no idea who or why, at that time. ...I have some theories now. I think it was all related to... hrmm... better not say. That leads to the parts of the story I’m not allowed to tell."

"What happened to you?"

Redheart's face darkened and her jaw worked, as if she was thinking about spitting on the floor. "Lieutenant Armor—he got his commission—and Major Blueblood, the Battalion's deputy commander, all visited the hospital. Princess Cadance was with them. Major Blueblood gave me my Combat Action Badge and the Medic's Star, my POW badge, and my first Wounded in Action badge, and..."

Redheart glared.

"And?"

"And a—" she paused, then her voice turned harsh: "They also brought along a newspaper photographer."

AP raised an eyebrow.

"I looked bad. Gray, sick, thin, sunken cheeks, disheveled mane, black eyes, stuck full of needles. My hometown newspaper ran the picture. My parents and little brothers found it on their doorstep one morning."

"Why... why would they do that to you?"

Redheart shrugged. "It burned my flank at the time. I was furious. Princess Cadance herself was younger than even me, maybe seventeen, eighteen? Celestia wanted Equestria to accept the new Princess. My story gave Celestia a chance to tell everypony how Cadance had gone, unarmed and alone, into the raiders' redoubt to parley for a single wounded pony's life. I understand it was necessary. I just wish they'd found a different pawn."

AP looked at his wife's expression and tapped his hoof on the table, trying to think of a subject change. "What happened to Spring Thunder?"

"I heard he walked upriver for three days, and reported that I'd been captured. Princess Cadance, who was at the command post, was able to track me... somehow. Alicorns get vague when they talk about their magic."

Redheart looked out the window. "Cadance got that bag of antibiotic potion in me just in time. She saved my life. I still resent that she accepted parole on my behalf, though."

He leaned close again and hugged her. "Thank you, love. Thank you for finally opening up."

"The worst part..." Redheart muttered.

He brushed her cheek with his feathers. "What?"

She shook, and cradled her head in her forehooves. The smell of her sweat filled the kitchen. "The letters from Mom n' Dad."

"Oh!"

"They knew I was in combat. The Guard hadn’t deployed in years, so the border raids were in the news. Everypony knew that Celestia's Own was down on the Southern Marches, fighting, taking casualties."

AP shook his head. "I can't imagine how they felt."

"There were a half-dozen kids from Whinnyapolis deployed, counting me. Mom and Dad flew a Blue Star flag in front of the house. The city flew six blue streamers on the flags at every government building. My kid brothers sewed blue stars onto their school bags."

"How old were your brothers?"

"Fourteen." She stood, set more coffee to brew, and sat back down. "The five other local kids were in Third Battalion, so the newspaper ran a blurb on me because I was the only Household trooper. Mom n' Dad gave them my graduation picture from medic's training. Being a medic and a good-looking young mare just made the story juicier." Redheart thunked her forehead onto the kitchen table. AP ran a wing down her spine and kissed her behind the ear.

She continued, her voice muffled against the table: "Well, after all that whoop-de-doo... the Colonel of the local Home Guard and Baroness Whinnyapolis knocked on their door. Mom later told me that Dad opened the door and just... collapsed. My brothers, they were just kids, but they understood exactly what was happening. They knew that having a Peer of the Realm on the front stoop couldn't mean good news."

"Sweet Luna..." AP hissed.

"The Baroness told them I was 'missing, last seen wounded.' Missing. Major Blueblood wrote them a note, Shining Armor wrote them a note, the skipper of the barge wrote them a note. Missing. What could be worse? I could have been dead in an arroyo, my bones never to be found, or swept down the river and out to sea, and I would still stay missing. And the worst part..."

She stood, poured more coffee, and took a few sips before sitting back down with the steaming mug.

AP wrapped Redheart's head in his wings, the feathers a warm blanket around her.

"The next week, the next stupid week, there's that same knock on the door. The Colonel and the Baroness again. Mom n' Dad figured..." Redheart cleared her throat. "But the Baroness told them I wasn't dead, I'd been captured but traded back because I was gravely wounded. Gravely wounded. Dad demanded to be taken to the hospital to visit me, but no civilians were allowed near the front. Every house on the block put out their Equestrian flags until I was out of the hospital. The city changed one of the six blue streamers to red. That picture of me, so sick, getting medals pinned on my pillow, well, that didn't help. Everpony figured...."

She sipped more coffee, thinking for several minutes before continuing. "I wrote a letter home the second day I was awake, to try to get them calmed down. But for the rest of my Guard stint... they said things like 'Come home safe to us' that they had never said before."

AP pulled her close and kissed the top of her snout.

She hugged him back, her forelegs around his neck. "I need a break."

"Sure, but you have to finish—"

“Help me clean the kitchen. We’ve got dishes to wash from breakfast.”

A little while later, they sat on the couch in the living room, and she leaned her head onto his shoulder.

"Thanks for loving me," she said. "There were some times, some days when the entire world seemed too dark to fight for. Having you, and the twins... it's like I can go back in time, and tell twenty-year-old me it was all worth it."

He kissed her nose.

"About four months after I was captured, about a month after I was cleared for duty, we were in our barracks in Canterlot when Celestia herself summoned the whole Battalion..."

Author's Note

Comments! Please! Let me know what you thought!

Chapter 4

The entire battalion stood at attention in the central courtyard of the Palace. Being the morning after my twentieth birthday, I had a bit of a hangover. I squinted my eyes against the sunlight and cursed the many bourbon-related decisions I had made the night before.

My medic's armor shone white in the sun, its huge red crosses gleaming, contrasting the line-troopers' and officers' gold.

Celestia stood, facing us, with our Colonel on her left side and Major Blueblood on her right.

"I request eighty volunteers for a dangerous but vital assignment," Celestia said.

Everypony took one step forward.

"Anypony who gets sea- or airsick is not to volunteer. Step back."

About one hundred troopers and officers, evenly split between unicorns and earth ponies, stepped back. Both of the donkeys in the Battalion stepped back, too.

I'd never been near the ocean or on an airship, so I assumed I didn't get motion sickness. The same with Lieutenant Armor, I would later find out.

Celestia looked at Major Blueblood. "Select your cadre, Major."

"Yes, Your Majesty," he said with an elaborate courtier’s bow.

He selected two platoons en bloc, rather than try to forge new teams on the fly, and added a few troopers to fill in the holes left by unreplaced casualties or ponies with motion sickness. I didn’t realize it at the time, but they were grooming Lieutenant Armor for future command. So: his platoon, which included me, was one of the two selected.

I nodded my head and gritted my teeth. I was ready. I was eager. I considered my capture, and my subsequent parole, as blights on my honor. Regardless of the medals. Even if nopony called me 'rookie' anymore.

I wanted a good scrap. I wanted to prove to myself that my first scrap wasn't a fluke, that I really could do the job while the spells sizzled and the arrows flew.

I was literally the only pony in the entire battalion with the Prisoner of War medal and I felt... ashamed. I wanted to prove I had only surrendered to draw them away from Spring Thunder. Prove I hadn't surrendered because I was a coward.

"Medics," the colonel commanded, "go draw standard armor instead of Red Crosses. Where you're going, the laws of civilized war mean nothing."

My jaw clenched harder. I was still eager, but now I was scared, too.

The next morning, our two platoons took a chartered train to Baltimare. We shared the train with two platoons of batponies from the Mountain Battalion.

In Baltimare Harbor, we met a Hippogriffian squadron: two armed airships, and two three-masted merchant galleons that were fitted with disguised gunports and hidden accommodations for troops.

So. Airships and galleons. That explained the bit about air- and sea-sickness.

We stood on a stone wharf under the half-moon, and dawn would be in three hours. Navy ratings kept the press and the public far away. That concerned me—our campaign against the raiders had been in the newspapers, so at least Mom and Dad knew I was off in a scrap. This time, I hadn't even been able to send them a letter, so they had no idea I was about to deploy.

I flicked my tail and frowned at that.

With Ivy Mercy's death in the desert, I was now our platoon's senior medic. I stood next to our new junior medic. Private First Class Tender Jade was a pegasus stallion, three years longer in service than me, but a rookie with no combat experience, having just volunteered in from Fourth Battalion.

The batponies chittered in their own language, giving me a headache.

"What's going on, Boss?" Jade asked.

I flicked my tail. "I imagine we're going by boat."

"Is that why the Princess said no seasick ponies?"

"Your guess is—"

With a bright flash and a loud teleport, Princess Celestia stood in front of us, on the wooden pier that led to the first hippogriff merchant ship.

"Attention!" shouted Sergeant Flash.

Four platoons of Equestria's toughest stomped into attention. Dozens of leathery batpony wings shuffled for a second, then... silence. The only sound was Baltimare Harbor lapping against the piers.

Almost two hundred ponies and a dozen officers.

Equestria's finest. The cream of the two best battalions on the face of the world. Even with that, two weeks later, less than half of us came home uninjured. A fifth of us would be buried at sea. But, by Celestia, would we ever give better than we got.

As we stood there before her, Celestia flared her wings, and her voice was... sad. I had never heard her speak with such pain before.

"My little ponies," she said, looking at us. She seemed to be making eye contact, one by one, with each of us.

She looked at me for a moment, and then her gaze moved on.

I ground my teeth. This was my princess, and she needed me. My imprisonment and parole were a stain on the honor of Her battalion. I would erase that stain if it killed me.

"My little ponies," she repeated. "I am sending you into danger. This pains me, pains me more deeply than any other duty I have, but it is the Equestrian way that a few of us serve, so that the rest of Ponykind may live in their happiness, never knowing the pain and evil that stalks the world around them."

She pulled her wings in. "I fought. I fought against the disciples of Chaos, and I forged Equestria from the ashes. I have fought at the head of Equestria's legions fifteen times in the ten centuries since. Go into battle knowing that I understand the terror you will feel, knowing that my body broke and bled many times on the field of battle, and that I cried over the bodies of my friends and comrades. Go into battle knowing that I would not ask you to risk your lives if there was any other choice."

Her voice rose, no longer sad, but angry. "Monsters stalk the world. Not monsters of animal instinct and cunning, who kill because nature made them that way. No, these are monsters of the thinking races, raised in civilized nations, who have chosen, of their own free will, to become monsters. Hostis sapiens generis, the common enemy of all races. Pirates prowl the sealanes between Equestria and Hippogriffia, and their coin in trade is murder, rape, cruelty, and enslavement. Many innocents—pony, hippogriff, griffon, yak, deer, abyssinian, all races—are held in bondage."

The smell of nervousness swirled around me, but something else, too. Something burgeoning and deepening as the herd listened to our Princess.

The smell of anger.

Celestia flared her wings again, and actually shouted, "I do not permit this. Equestria does not permit this. You are the point of our spear, our first move on the board—"

(The first move is usually a pawn, I thought.)

"—We, in conjunction with our Hippogriff allies, will find these hornets' nests, and burn them out. We will deliver the bound from their bondage. In the name of Equestria, I swear this. Slavery is a special form of evil, and you will inflict a terrible punishment on those who dare test their hoof at it. You will make them into an example to be remembered for centuries."

Slavery. I shook my head. Slavery. That was beyond mere criminality, beyond even war. Something cold and sour formed in my stomach, and I wanted to make sure those beasts never tried this again.

"These beasts have shown no mercy," Celestia continued, "and shall receive none in return. Expect no quarter in battle, and feel no obligation to offer it. We hope for prisoners for interrogation, but your rules of engagement shall be simple: destroy the enemy. No quarter."

A rumble sounded in the crowd of troopers. Horseshoes scraped on the stone as we shuffled our hooves. We had never heard that order before—we didn't know Celestia had been capable of ordering 'no quarter.'

But for slavers? Pirates? Not one of us objected.

A tall hippogriff stallion, light brown, emerged from the shadows behind Celestia, standing next to her. A simple silver coronet sat on his brow.

Celestia nodded to him. "This is Crown Prince Guidestar, eldest of Queen Novo, and Commodore of this squadron. He commands. Consider the orders of allied officers as if they were orders from ponies."

The hippogriff spoke, his accent cultured and clipped. "The Household platoons will each board one of our merchant ships, and we will trawl our way through the pirates' sights, entice them to fat pickings, and then take their ships in close action. The batponies will board the airships, and will stay high, out of sight, and swoop down to assist the ocean-going ships at the moment battle is joined."

"Any questions?" asked Celestia.

Silence.

I ground my teeth. Slavers. Pirates. Suddenly, I didn't want to go back into a scrap. I had scars, medals, and the bitter taste of experience. But to destroy slavers, and free slaves? Yeah. I would risk my life for that.

I nodded grimly to myself.

Tender Jade shook under his armor, shook in terror.

So did I. I was willing to scrap—but don't you ever think for a moment that I wasn't terrified.

"Board the ships," commanded the Crown Prince. "We sail with the tide."

As we sailed from the harbor, under cover of night, Celestia stood on a promontory of stone and watched us go.

I borrowed a pair of binoculars from a hippogriff sailor, and saw that Celestia was sobbing.

My platoon was aboard the galleon Ocean Swell, and Second Platoon, Alpha Company was aboard the Following Winds with Major Blueblood. The batpony platoons cruised three miles above us on the airships Thunderhead and the Anvil Cloud.

With little to do, since the hippogriff sailors were handling the running of the ship, we soldiers spent most of each day exercising. I ran laps around the upper deck. Pegasi each flew dozens of times up to the airships and back, and we earth ponies shifted the cargo back and forth.

Lieutenant Armor levitated around multi-ton pallets of cannonballs for exercise.

I spent several hours a day in sickbay, treating any ponies with issues. Seasickness set in on the third day, after we left the lee of the Equestrian coastline and took to the open ocean. Lieutenant Armor was the first to go down. Goodness, he was green! Literally green. I vomited if I ate, but I was able to keep water down. Some of the others got so dehydrated that I had to break into my combat supplies and give them fluids.

Thunderhead and Anvil Cloud flew above us, somewhere. Now that we were in the pirates' stretches of sealanes, each airship cast bottled spells of some sort to make them hard to see. Lieutenant Armor explained to us: they weren't invisibility spells, but rather light spells, so that the airships weren't dark against the bright sky.

I, for one, sure couldn't see them.

By that point, we ponies were confined below decks, out of sight, and we kept our weapons and armor close at hoof. The semi-darkness drove me crazy, but canvas air scoops over the skylights ensured the air stayed fresh, at least.

The colonel had told us medics to draw standard armor, but I painted red crosses on the shoulders and back of mine. I always felt naked without them. Sergeant Flash glared at me, but said nothing.

On the eleventh day, just after dawn, a hippogriff officer came below from the top deck and told us: "Stand to! Suspicious schooner closing from windward. A few hours from us."

Everypony donned their armor. I strapped my saddlebags full of medical supplies over my hips.

Tender Jade trotted up to me and sat down. "I just puked," he announced.

I said, "Yeah. That's not a bad plan."

"This is your second scrap, Boss?"

I nodded, and reached down and pulled the strap on his saddlebags tighter. His feathers smelled awful, but then again, we all smelled awful after twelve days without a bath or shower. "Don't lose your kit," I warned.

"I'm scared."

That was weird, really. He was four years older than me, and had joined the Guard the year I was a freshmare in high school. Why was he looking to me for reassurance?

Because I'd seen combat and he had not. I looked at him and said, "I'm terrified."

Is this what it meant to no longer be a rookie? I knew what being in a scrap meant, so that I was even more terrified now than before my first?

We waited, stewing in our own anxiety, for hours. Our ship pretended to run from the pirate schooner, to avoid tipping them off that we wanted them to catch us. A stern chase is a long chase. Stuck below deck, without any windows, I couldn't know if Following Winds, along with the other platoon and Major Blueblood, was still in formation with us or not. I hoped so.

They closed the skylights and we lost the breeze. The air below decks turned soupy with the stench of fear and vomit, and with the skylights closed, we had only the light of oil lamps.

Everypony might have been scared, but we were all ready. Most of the troopers honed their blades on whetstones in a show of nonchalance. I organized and reorganized my medical bags.

Hostis Sapiens Generis. Terrified or not, we all wanted to get a piece of these monsters.

"I hope there are slaves on the schooner," I said.

Jade glared at me. "Boss? That's a horrible thing to think!"

"C'mon," I replied. "A rescue will make a week of seasickness worth it. Don't you want to rescue somecreature?"

He shrugged his wings.

Sweet Luna, did I ever regret voicing that wish.

"Two thousand yards!" a hippogriff called down.

The ship rocked—the crew had all the sail out, clawing into the wind, making a good show of running from the pirates. I got tired of staying on my hooves, and just plopped down to my belly. I closed my eyes, fighting my seasickness.

The gun deck was below us, and through the net-covered gaps in the floor, I saw hippogriff sailors standing to their guns.

"One thousand yards!" they called down a while later. Time was just—I had no idea. Was it a minute or an hour we waited? My heart pounded so hard that I could barely hear the others talking over the thud-thud-thud in my ears.

Time passed. Who knew how long?

"Two hundred yards!" called the 'griff. "Hunker down, they're likely to open up with their chaser gun soon."

Sandbags were piled up, pony-high, against the ship's hull, held in place by cargo nets.

We all hunkered down. If I closed my eyes, I heard the platoon's rapid breathing and smelled our frothy sweat. The motion of the ship's bucking race through the waves battered us all.

I waited. I waited terrified, impotent, and quite frankly pissed off that we were suffering through this interminable chase because of those slave-trading bastards.

"One hundred yards!"

The first cannonball tore through the side of the ship and through the sandbags. It sounded like being inside a thunderclap. The noise battered me and I buried my face against the deck, my hooves over my ears. Sunlight streamed in, and my dark-adapted eyes watered.

"Medic!" somepony yelled, their voice thin over the ringing in my ears. "Medic up!"

The hippogriff guns, on the deck below us, opened their camouflaged gunports, ran out, and salvoed, and my entire world became noise.

That first cannonball had hit one of the troopers and torn her head off. Tender Jade stared at her body and the spreading pool of blood. The dead trooper's squadmates wiped at their faces, cleaning her brains from their eyes.

"Leave her!" I shouted into Jade's ears, and then pointed at Sergent Flash, who had a massive wooden splinter projecting from his left rear leg. He flopped on the deck, panting and gasping. "Triage!"

The other troopers surged up the ramps to the weather deck.

"Hold still," I told Sergeant Flash.

He panted and nodded, biting down on his foreleg. Sweet Celestia, we were going to need Sergeant Flash. This was going to be an ugly scrap and we had to have our senior sergeant. I had to get him on his hooves—or at least his wings—right away! I bit down on the splinter and yanked it out of his leg. Flash yelped and cursed. Jade bandaged him as I spit out little bits of wood.

"Can you move it?" I asked.

Flash bucked twice.

"Missed the tendons," I said. "Give 'em hell, Sarge."

Then the three of us followed the others to the weather deck. Jade and Flash flew, while I galloped, and so to my eternal shame, I was literally the last pony on deck, like some sort of coward!

The upper deck's usual smell of clean ocean breeze was replaced by the stench of gunsmoke.

The pirate schooner was smaller and sleeker than our Ocean Swell. It threw sail and rudder, trying to avoid us and run, now that our disguise was revealed.

Our fore- and after-castles were taller, and our archers barraged their rigging, killing sail handlers and slowing their maneuver.

At the very stern of our ship, two hippogriffs hauled down the merchant flag from the mast, and then ran up the Equestrian and Hippogriffian battle flags.

We raised our hooves and talons and cheered when the colors snapped in the wind.

"Celestia's Own and no quarter!" Lieutenant Armor yelled.

"No quarter!" we screamed back.

"For Queen Novo!" Prince Guidestar yelled, standing on a yardarm.

"For Queen Novo!" We ponies screamed just as loud as the hippogriffs.

My blood pounded, my stomach lurched with every wave.

Something about the salty spray in my face, the wind snapping in the sails, and the bucking of the ship against the waves—I felt so pumped up, so alive. So ready to fight. I never felt quite that way before or since in my life.

The Equestrian colors snapped in the wind. Were there any slaves aboard that schooner? If there were, did they have a porthole or a window they could see through, to see our colors and take heart?

Sweet Celestia, I hoped so.

I looked across the water. Close, maybe thirty yards away, the pirate vessel flew all-black colors from their mast.

"The common enemy of all races," I muttered to myself. "No quarter!"

Our gundeck fired another broadside, and they returned it, several cannonballs arcing close over my head. We had at least five times as many guns, and our ship was larger and more heavily built. We would easily win an artillery duel, but the mission was to take the ship, not destroy it.

My ears went numb. I couldn't tell if I had them perked straight up or tucked down flat. The cannonfire beat me like a bass drum.

It didn't matter. A hippogriff writhed on the deck, a spell-burn across his ribs. I ran to him, ripped off his chest plate, and started working.

Tender Jade looked at me, eyes wide and face pale. His tail thrashed and he clamped his wings tight to his ribs.

An arrow slammed into another hippogriff and she fell from the rigging to the deck.

"Medic up!" screamed one of our troopers.

Tender Jade ran to the wounded sailor.

"Good kid," I whispered to myself.

Blood poured from the spell-wounded hippogriff's beak as he writhed. I put my ear to his chest, listening for the sound of blood bubbling in his lungs, but my ears were still ringing. I heard nothing.

I couldn't hear, but I put my face just in front of his beak, feeling his breath on my lips, and I put the frog of my left hoof against his neck to feel for his pulse.

His pulse seemed... strange. Did hippogriffs have different heart rhythms than ponies, or was his heart damaged? He hugged me, tight around my neck, nuzzling his bloody beak into my cheek, sobbing.

And... then he died. The spell had ruptured his lungs and heart, I think. I never did learn exactly what happened.

"Dammit!" I shrieked, and stomped the deck. His blood dripped off my face.

Our ship hauled around, chasing the faster schooner. Our pegasi and a few hippogriffs carried lines with grapples across to it.

An arrow clipped Lieutenant Armor's foreleg. I turned toward him, and he waved me away, then he cast a shield spell, covering perhaps half the top deck. Arrows and spells glanced off of it.

Tender Jade had his patient under control, the arrow extracted and a bandage over the wound. I hunkered down, peeked over a bulwark, and waited.

I glanced at the dead hippogriff, and thought about his mother.

A cannonball smashed through Lieutenant Armor's shield spell. A flash like lightning dazzled my eyes and I covered my ears. I blinked and shook my head, cleared the dazzle, and heard new cries of Medic up! The cannonball had clipped one of our pegasi, Cosmic Plume, on her foreleg. She fell from the rigging to the deck and I sprinted to her.

She bit onto her other forehoof, fighting not to scream. I grabbed her tail in my teeth and dragged her portside, toward cover, leaving a trail of blood behind her on the wooden deck.

"You're all right," I shouted into her ears. "I've got this!"

Her leg was smashed, bone and gore mixed with flesh and hair. I dug into my pack, grabbed a tourniquet, and cinched it tight, just above the knee.

"Gonna lose my leg?" she said.

I refused to look into her eyes or answer her question.

"This hurts, Doc."

What else was going on? Where was the pirate ship? Where were Following Winds and the two airships? Who else was wounded, who else was dead?

I had no idea.

My entire world was the few inches in front of my face, focused entirely on treating Cosmic. I got the tourniquet arranged just right. Her foreleg was a bloody mess, simply smashed, with no cut to close or laceration to disinfect. Amputation for sure. No way the surgeons could try to salvage it. I grabbed an ampoule of painkiller and jammed it into her thigh.

Her eyes widened and she passed out.

She'll live, I told myself, not sure if I believed it.

The grapples caught and the two ships jerked, bumped, and then smashed into each other, our starboard beam to their port beam.

At the rails, Celestia's Own met with the pirates.

What happened? How long did the scrap on the top decks of those two ships last?

I don't know. I saw only fragments, and I've never pieced together the whole. With my pounding heart and rasping breath, my sense of time was entirely skewed, destroyed. It felt like a decade. I once tried to read the Battalion's official history of the battle, but it just made me sick and I went to the bathroom and threw up and returned the book to the library. (It really annoyed Twilight that she had spent three weeks getting that book for me via interlibrary loan, and that I kept it less than two hours.)

What I do remember: the sounds of spells and swords and pikes hitting flesh. Bones snapping. The stench of burning wood, burning tar, burning sails, burning hair and meat, and spilled brains and blood.

I hunkered over Cosmic, guarding the unconscious trooper, and waited for the next cry of Medic up!

The pirates seemed to be all the races: ponies, griffons, hippogriffs, deer, even one yak.

The yak leaped from the deck of the pirate ship to ours and landed on one of our troopers, and smashed his pelvis into the decking.

The yak bounded away. I ran to our trooper and dragged him, grabbing his mane in my teeth, away from the starboard rail and toward the port bow.

His screaming tore at my ears. Was my hearing recovering, or was he just that loud? An arrow glanced off my armor.

Behind one of the masts, I looked down at his injury and ground my teeth.

He just kept screaming.

I couldn't remember his name. He was a loaner from Echo company, replacing one of our troopers who got disqualified for seasickness.

Blood pooled. He screamed louder. Could I save him? Bones all through his hips were crushed, surely the organs were mashed too. But we had the airships—he could be in Baltimare in fifteen, twenty hours. Could I get him that stable? Maybe. Maybe.

Blood poured. I had to open him up and find that artery, I had a few magical tools in my bag. I could expend one to seal the blood vessel. Hit him with a massive dose of antibiotics. Scoop out the feces if his intestines were ruptured. Get him closed up, stabilized, on fluids and antibiotics...

Across the decks, two more of ours were down, pike or sword slashes. A third went down. Cries of Medic up! cut across the decks. Jade and the hippogriff sickbay attendant were both fully involved with patients of their own.

I looked at the crushed unicorn at my hooves, and knew that the many minutes I would need to try to save him—and my chances weren't good, less than one-in-ten even if everything went perfectly—were minutes other wounded, wounded more likely to live to see their families again, weren't getting my help.

My cutie marks burned. They flared in pain as I chose. I hit him with a painkiller ampoule. A second. A third.

He looked at me, eyes wide, accusing, as he realized.

A fourth ampoule. He stopped breathing and faded away.

I stood and sprinted to a pegasus, Scarlet Wind, with a sword-slash across her ribs. Sucking chest wound. That was a life I knew I could save. A life I did save.

It was the right decision. I know it was. And so many times these years since that day on the deck of that ship, I've felt a sickly tingle in my cutie marks when I remember that unicorn's dark eyes as he realized I was abandoning his treatment and overdosing him on painkillers.

What did that make? Losing the unicorn, getting a seal on Scarlet's sucking chest wound? Ten and nine? Eleven and nine? Figure it out later, I told myself.

Back toward the center of the ship, I jumped over the body of the yak, its spine split just above the shoulders by what looked like a wingblade wound.

While I had attended the unicorn, the batponies arrived, harrying the pirates from above as my platoon skirmished with them at deck level. The airships held position a few hundred feet above us, archers picking off the remaining pirate sail-handlers in their rigging.

Batponies landed on pirates' backs, biting at their necks with fangs, slashing with wingblades.

The Following Winds came alongside the pirate ship, on its opposite beam, grapples flying. The pirate schooner was now trapped between both Hippogriffian galleons.

Major Blueblood, Prince Blueblood, is one of the largest and most obnoxious prats I've known in my life, but I'll give him this: he was the first pony over the railing and onto the pirate ship from his ship, sword swinging and shouting, "Follow me!"

I worked on another earth mare, Quartz Vow: leg wound, arterial bleeding. It wasn't a deep wound. I could fix it, skip the tourniquet, save her leg with a quick application of one of my tools.

From my bag, I fished out an arterial repair appliance. A crystal on its side glowed soft green, showing a full charge, and I held it over Quartz's wound and squeezed against the crystal. Magic flowed around my hooves and down, a soft green aura, and the glow reached her nicked artery, tendrils of magic stitching back and forth as the artery closed and the bleeding slowed.

I looked over my shoulder. The scrap was degenerating into individual knots, no formed line or obvious see-saw across the decks of the ships, just a scattering of brawls. The crystal grew hot in my hooves as it finished repairing her artery and started sealing the wound.

"I'll drag you portside," I said, "then get a unit of plasma—"

A griffon landed in front of me, swinging a sword down at Quartz Vow's exposed throat. I lunged forward, shielding her, but he caught me across the back of the helmet—

—some time later, what in Celestia's name, maybe two or four minutes, but I have no idea, really—

What happened? Goodness, did my head hurt.

I staggered to my hooves, swooning and drooling, my hips soaked with urine.

After taking two steps, I fell flat on my face.

My patient was gone. Had Jade pulled her to safety? Or had she gone back to the scrap?

She wasn't dead where she had lain, and neither was I, so somepony must have dealt with the griffon while my lights were out.

I staggered to my hooves again, I then fell on my side and vomited. Concussion, something told me. I had that little tingle in my cutie marks I always feel when I get the diagnosis right.

Something seemed wrong with the world as I stood again. At that moment, I incorrectly thought it was the smoke that billowed, cutting off vision, blurring everything.

"Abandon ship!" shouted the hippogriff captain, ringing a bell on the forecastle. "Fire! Everygriff to the Following Winds!"

Black smoke spilled from the hatches and skylights.

There was a dead body below decks! The mare killed by the first cannon shot. I frowned at the smoke and ground my teeth. No way, no chance to recover her.

Damn.

I looked to where I'd left Cosmic Plume, the mare with the smashed leg, but Jade had her, flying around the ships, over the open sea, to the Following Wind. That kid was getting a medal, I promised myself. Assuming I lived long enough to recommend him.

The loaner, the unicorn I had given the massive painkiller dose to let him slide quietly away... we weren't going to be able to recover his body, either. Flames already licked around the port bow.

I staggered to the bulwark and glanced fore and aft. Bodies were strewn about the deck of the pirate schooner, and smoke billowed up from its skylights, too. Batponies and troopers from Blueblood's ship stood over several prisoners—one prisoner, a pegasus, spurted blood from a severed wing stump that a batpony was trying to clench shut between his forehooves.

Galloping to the prisoner, I fell on my face twice. What was wrong with me? This was more than just a concussion! I shook my head, cleared it—slightly—and dug into my pack again. I got a tourniquet cinched over the pirate's stump. I caught an arterial spray in the face as I tightened it down.

Could I count a pirate as a life saved?

Yes, I decided. We needed prisoners to interrogate. Eleven saved and nine lost. Or maybe twelve? My brain was really foggy.

I wiped blood from my ears and eyes, hoping whatever disease had led him to piracy hadn't just infected me.

Major Blueblood trotted over and looked down at me, looked at the blood-soaked prisoner with the fresh tourniquet, looked at my bloody hooves and face. "Good job, Redheart. Are you quite all right?"

I had to turn my head to the left to see him clearly. "Yes, sir."

"Your helmet's dented. You're bleeding from underneath it. You're slurring."

"Am not slurring, sir. And the blood's isn't mine."

"Private," Blueblood said, "look at me."

I looked at him. Smoke was getting thick, and I pawed at my face and coughed.

"You pupils are blown," Blueblood said. "Get to the Following Winds. You're concussed."

"Redheart!" came a cry from below deck, from the pirate schooner's holds. "Redheart!"

I looked at Blueblood. He coughed as the smoke thickened.

"You're not fit to fight," he said to me.

"Celestia's Own don't quit, sir."

He sighed and closed his eyes. "Do you speak Ponish? You are concussed."

"Medic!" came a cry from below deck again, Sergeant Flash's voice. "We need Redheart! Medic up!"

"Sir, I can stand. I can fight."

"Go," he said with a shake of his head.

I galloped. But not very well. I kept bumping into things with my right flank and hip. I found myself on my face at the bottom of the stairs, one deck down, coughing in the black smoke, the deck lit by flames. Ash swirled and stung my exposed skin.

Dead bodies were everywhere, the deck slippery with blood and spilled viscera. The stench of burning wood and burning bodies swirled around me. My eyes stung, watering in the vile smoke.

Seeing the bodies by the flickering light of the flames and through the swirling ash, with the incense of burning fur and feathers and sizzling fat, I decided that this, truly, was an appropriate vestibule to the hell that must await slavers and pirates.

On cool autumn nights, when we sleep with the windows open and the clean breeze from the Everfree fills our bedroom... I can still close my eyes and smell that smoke.

Tender Jade, Sergeant Flash, and Lieutenant Armor, along with the still-standing remains of my platoon, held two wounded pirates at spearpoint. Hippogriff sailors tore the ship apart, probably looking for maps or the captain's logs.

"Where were you?" Lieutenant Armor demanded. "I said medic up!"

"Unconscious."

"Oh," he replied. He tilted his head and looked at the blood dripping off my face and the urine off my thighs. "You all right?"

I looked at the bodies and prisoners. What had happened in the minutes I was down?

"Celestia's Own don't quit," I replied.

"Redheart!" Sergeant Flash called from a few dozen feet away, where he was almost lost in the thickening smoke. "We've got slaves."

Celestia, forgive me for earlier having wished we would find somecreature to rescue.

I wiped ashes from my eyes and coughed.

Blinking away tears and smoke, I studied the situation. A large cell made of wrought iron bars sat against the starboard side. Two unicorn fillies and a hippogriff filly huddled opposite the door.

Lieutenant Armor leaned in close to me and whispered into my right ear.

He disappeared when he leaned in close.

"Oh no!" I gasped.

"Are you paying attention, Redheart?"

I waved my right hoof in front of my right eye.

"Sir, I, I just realized—my right eye is blind."

His magic gently grabbed my head and tilted it this way and that.

"You look fine," he said. "Dent on your helmet."

"Detached retina," I gasped, knowing I was correct. "Celestia!"

"Focus, soldier," Sergeant Flash said to me, his voice gentle. "These three fillies won't let a stallion into their cage. I've got a theory on that, if you follow me?"

I sucked in a deep breath and flicked my ears. I thought I had hated these slavers before, but my stomach absolutely roiled right then with renewed fury. "Yeah. Yeah, I get you."

"See if you can get them to go with you. This ship won't last long."

"Can do!" I replied. I was a trooper of Celestia's Own, wasn't I? Celestia's Own don't quit. I could do anything.

It said so right on our shoulder flashes: PERSEVERE.

It would take more than a concussion and a blind eye to stop me.

...Right?

Two hippogriff sailors came up a stairwell from the deck below, screaming: "Fire! Fire! Everygriff out, everypony go!"

Yeah, fire. Fire might interrupt Celestia's Own.

Flash pointed at Jade and the others. "Take the prisoners and wounded and get out."

I bucked the locked door open and stepped into the cage.

The fillies scooted backwards, away from me, into the opposite corner, screaming and blubbering. I took off my helmet and tossed it outside the cage.

The dent in my helmet was huge. I rubbed the back of my head, and warm wetness soaked onto the fetlock.

"Fillies, I'm Redheart. I'm a medic." I pointed to the red cross I had painted on the shoulder of my armor. "Let me help you."

The two unicorns just sobbed, curled into pitiful balls on the deck. The hippogriff took a step forward and flared her wings in challenge, protecting the others. She looked to be the oldest, maybe ten or eleven.

Flames were creeping toward us, and a piece of wood fell from the ceiling, hitting my thigh just below the armor, leaving a burn. I flicked ash from my ears.

"Let me help you," I said, sitting down on my haunches, and holding my forehooves out. "I'm a mare. I can guess why you were here."

The hippogriff nodded. Ash swirled around her. My butt was getting warm, the fire a deck below us intensifying.

"Redheart!" Lieutenant Armor said. "Smartly, now. The fire will reach the powder magazine. Thirty seconds, then I levitate them."

"No!" shouted one of the unicorn fillies. "No, no, no!"

I turned to him. "Go then! Get out, I've got this."

"Not without those three."

I glanced around. Other than dead bodies, Sergeant Flash and Lieutenant Armor were the only two still below decks with me and the three slaves. The rest were gone.

"This ship is on fire," I said to the fillies. "We have to get you to our ship."

The hippogriff filly looked at Sergeant Flash and Lieutenant Armor. Her tail tucked, covering her underside. She whimpered. "But... but stallions!"

"We're Celestia's Own," I said. "We're soldiers, not pirates. I promise, nopony will hurt you."

The hippogriff shook her head no.

"Mr. Flash here, and Mr. Armor," I said. "They're good stallions. I've known them for months."

She shook her head, tears leaving furrows in the ash on her snout.

"Please, we have to go," I said. "I trust them. Please trust me."

"No. No. No!" The filly stomped.

Ashes swirled thickly now, and I rubbed them out of my eyes. My right eye might have been blind, but it could still feel pain. Ash burned my flanks, chest, and ears. Anywhere the armor didn't cover.

"We're Celestia's Own," I said. "Celestia hoof-picked these stallions, she hoof-picked every one of us."

I turned and showed her my other shoulder, the one etched with our unit flash, with Celestia's cutie mark. "See? Celestia herself. We're her personal guard. Celestia sent us to save you. Can't you trust Celestia?"

The two unicorns looked up and nodded. The hippogriff looked at one, then at the other, and then nodded to me. "Celestia?"

"She sent us for you," I said. "Honey, please. We have to go."

She took two steps, and jumped up to hug me. The unicorn fillies joined the hug. They trembled, and I could feel their ribs. I lifted the three fillies onto my back. Half-starved, they weighed almost nothing.

Flash hovered a few feet off the deck and flapped, pegasus magic blowing a clear pathway in the smoke for us, his wounded leg hanging down and dripping blood, the bandage soaked through. The lieutenant lit his horn, making just enough light for us to find a stairway up.

Burns and smoldering ash covered all six of us. The hippogriff filly's feathery tail smoked. We all coughed and choked. At the top of the stairway, we broke out into the sunlight on the deck. Lieutenant Armor was the last one out.

We six were the last to board the Following Seas. It cut loose from the pirate schooner, which was still tied to the Ocean Swell. Both ships were now fully engulfed in flames. Following Seas made sail and ran from the burning wrecks.

The Ocean Swell sank, burning as it slid under, the ocean sizzling against it. The Equestrian and Hippogriff flags still flew proudly from the mast as it went down.

The pirate schooner blew up, flaming hunks of wood arcing high. The blast shook us and we all covered our ears.

Nineteen Hippogriff Navy and twenty-one Royal Guard bodies went down with the two ships.

The hippogriffs who weren't busy with the rigging or the wounded knelt around the body of Crown Prince Guidestar, sobbing and holding each other.

I whispered to a hippogriff, "Does your queen have another heir?"

He wiped tears from his eyes. "Her Highness, Princess Skystar. But she's just a chick, not even walking."

A hippogriff mare poured buckets of clean water over the fillies, washing away the ash and cooling their burns. I stripped my armor, then she poured a few buckets of water over me.

As the cold water sluiced over my rising blisters, washing away the ashes, sweat, blood, and urine, I stood there for a moment, my shakes starting. That was different from the scrap in the desert, where it had been hours before I got the shakes. This time, at least, I didn't vomit. Small favors.

I checked over the three freed slaves. The fillies had no broken bones, but lots of infected cuts and abrasions and the fresh burns. Plus the injuries they had received from their "duties" aboard the ship, of course.

I cleaned, salved, and bandaged their cuts and burns. After I hit the three fillies with painkillers, they passed out. Tender Jade then cleaned the back of my head and stitched the laceration where my helmet had split my scalp, and he bandaged my burns.

"Boss," Jade said, "Those are second-degree burns you've got. Let me sedate you."

"No."

"But—"

"Those three fillies trust me," I replied. "If one of them wakes up, I need to be awake for her."

"Boss, you've got to be in pain." He pointed to the bandages covering my ears and lower legs.

"I have a concussion," I told Jade. "Keep me awake. No sedation."

"That's an old mare's—"

"Do as I say."

"At least take a painkiller, if you won't let me put you under."

"Fine." I took the pill he offered, but it made damn little difference.

Over that first hour, blisters rose across every part of my body my armor hadn't covered.

I waved my right hoof in front of my face.

My right eye was still blind.

Every few minutes, I checked it, to see if my vision would suddenly—

Still blind.

After our ship got turned bow-on to the wind, the airship Thunderhead circled down and moored to us. The wounded (which included all the prisoners we took), the three freed slaves, and I were all herded or levitated aboard. I tell myself I was herded onto the Thunderhead because I was the only female medic, and the three fillies wanted me close.

What I didn't want to admit was the truth: I was being medically evacuated again, leaving my unit behind again. My concussion and blinded eye both needed medical attention, and my burns were serious. Sergeant Flash and Lieutenant Armor's burns were just as bad as mine, and they, too, were on board the Thunderhead as it rose into the sky and turned for Baltimare at top speed.

The airship crew gave the three fillies a tiny cabin below deck. I curled into a ball outside their door, guarding them, and cried into my tail, hoping nopony would notice my tears.

Tender Jade politely pretended not to notice, and went topside to treat the other wounded.

The airship's hippogriff captain came to me. She asked, "How are your young patients?"

"Bad," I said. "You can guess what their duty was on the pirate ship."

She nodded. "I can. How are you?"

I shook my head and looked away from her. "I've lost the sight in my right eye. I can't... they'll make me leave the Guard! All I've ever wanted is to be a nurse, an emergency room nurse, and I won't be able... with only half my eyesight." Tears ran down my nose again.

"You saved several lives," she said. "Especially those three fillies."

Could I count them? Talking them out of the brig before the ship burned, blew up, and sank?

Yes.

Fourteen, I guess. Fourteen and nine? Fourteen and eleven? Fifteen?

Celestia, who could keep track?

The hippogriff touched my withers and gave me a small squeeze before returning to her duties.

Eighteen hours later, just after dawn, with the Following Seas and the rest of my platoon far behind us, we landed in Baltimare. A team of female doctors, nurses, and counsellors took my patients from me, and then I was hustled into the hospital myself.

I was in for one of the worst months of my life as they treated my concussion, my burns, and my eye, but we had delivered the bound from their bondage, as Celestia had charged us to do.

Those two unicorn fillies got reunited with their surviving families. They send me a letter now and then, and cards at Hearth's Warming. Ever since the Storm King's defeat, and the re-emergence of the Seaponies as the Hippogriffs, that third filly has sent me a few letters, too. She's married now, and has chicks of her own.

That ship's hold was a vestibule of hell, with the swirling ash and the stench of rendering fat and charring bone, but I delivered those three fillies from hell and returned them to the land of the living.

When I still hear the cannonfire in the middle of the night, when I wake up in a cold sweat remembering the feel of the doctor's spell in the back of my eyeball, I sneak out of bed, re-read those fillies' letters, and tell myself it was worth it.

Author's Note

Comments are always welcome!

Chapter 6

After being evacuated from the ship, I got a nice room in Horsekins University Hospital, in downtown Baltimare. Top floor, good view of the city and the harbor.

Too bad I was only getting half the view, with only one working eye.

Those civilian nurses doted on us: a dozen of our wounded were on the top floor of that hospital. I visited Cosmic Plume as often as possible. The surgeons, indeed, amputated her foreleg, just below my tourniquet. A batpony, Summer Midnight, had broken her spine in the scrap, paralyzed below the wings. I made friends with her, too. I also trotted to the psych floor and checked in on the three rescued fillies at least daily. They all seemed to appreciate it.

Against my wishes, Cosmic told the nurses that I'd treated her and most of the other wounded while the spells and cannonballs flew. The three fillies told the nurses that my burns were from rescuing them, after my own injury. With that, and me telling the floor nurses that I'd joined the Guard to pay for nursing school someday, well, I became an honorary member of their crew. They let me sit at the nurse's station when I wasn't in the mood to sit in my room, and they gave me privileges to their fancy coffee machine in the break room, so long as I drank decaf.

While I sat in one of their chairs, sipping coffee, Cosmic Plume's orthopedic surgeon stomped over to the nurse's station and glared at the head nurse, a short stallion named Good Condition.

"Why is a patient sitting in my chair?"

Good Condition looked at me, looked at the doctor, and said, "Consulting."

The doctor spluttered. "Consulting what?"

Good Condition pointed at me. "She's the one who put the field tourniquet on your patient's leg and saved her life."

I adjusted my eye patch and stared at him, my face as blank as possible. I flicked my heavily bandaged ears at him. Then, I rotated my chair juuuuuust enough to show him my cutie mark.

He drew his hooves together, dipped his head, and said, "My apologies. Carry on."

After I'd been in the hospital a week and a half, a squadron of three Hippogriffian warships arrived in Baltimare for Prince Guidestar's body.

Celestia decided to go ahead and make a spectacle out of it. She and Cadance came to Baltimare, along with the rest of Celestia's Own. The battalion would parade down Main Street, escorting the caisson with the Crown Prince's casket to the port, where he would be given to the Hippogriffs.

That was a good idea, I'll give Celestia that. There wasn't a lot of love between ponies and hippogriffs, or vice-versa, back then. Outside some merchant sailors and dock workers, no ponies had even met hippogriffs.

The fact that the two races had shed blood together, and rescued slaves of each race, well, that would make great newspaper copy, right? Celestia has a real knack for propaganda. She's merciless about using it.

My hospital room overlooked Main Street, so my family—who had arrived by train a few days before—and I were planning to sit on my bed and watch the parade.

While we waited, I sat in a chair at the small round table next to my bed, and my brothers, who had just turned fifteen, sat on the opposite side. Treble Clef opened the box of a Pondemic game and began setting up the board.

"Why in Equestria," asked Live Wire, "would a hospital have this game?"

I stared at him, adjusted my eyepatch, and said, "So the patients can beat at least one disease."

Mom's voice cracked. "You didn't used to have that sort of sense of humor."

I looked at her, where she and dad sat on the bed. Dad patted her on the thigh. "It's laugh or cry, Mom," I said.

Treble Clef—Trouble, we called him back then—took the first turn at the game. He rolled a one and played a stupid card.

"You little Celestia-damned idiot!" I shouted. "First move of the game, and we're behind the curve. Can't you even roll a two? What's your problem?"

Trouble stared at me, jaw agape.

Live Wire stared at me.

Mom and Dad stared at me.

I'd noticed myself getting angry easily. I wasn't sure why, but I had a theory. I rubbed the back of my head, where the griffon had dented my helmet, and looked down at my lap. "Sorry," I said. "I... I'm sorry." We played a few more turns of the game, and I chewed my tongue every time I wanted to scream at them.

A knock came on the door. I rolled my eyes, despite the eyepatch, and called, "Come in!"

Maybe it would give me somepony different to scream at? Maybe not! Prince Blueblood and Princess Cadance entered. I quickly stood up and went to attention. Mom, Dad, and the colts stood, too.

"At ease, Private," Major Blueblood said. "Please, sit."

Cadance trotted up to me and tilted her head, examining my eyepatch. "How's your treatment progressing?"

"Slowly," I said. "Doctor Eye Opener told me to wear the patch. We're in the delicate bit right now."

"The remainder of your treatment?" Cadance said.

"My brain's swelling is down, so they're letting me exercise again. An hour a day on the treadmill, plus weights. I'll be fit to fight when the Battalion moves out."

Dad made a little gasp.

"Is the treatment painful?" Cadance asked, brushing a feather against my cheek just beneath the patch, her voice soft.

I looked at the floor.

"Your burns?" Cadance asked.

"Healing. Rather itchy. The potions should prevent scarring."

Cadance patted my withers with her hoof, then said, "Please, introduce us to your visitors."

"My mother and father, Parcel Pickup and Reply Coupon. My little brothers, Treble Clef and Live Wire. This is Her Highness, Princess Cadance, and His Highness, Major Blueblood."

My brothers stared at Cadance, their mouths agape. "Stop drooling," I told them.

Cadance giggled into a wing.

My dad cleared his throat. "Your Highness. Uh, Major Your Highness. We appreciate the letters you wrote to us when our little filly was missing and wounded, four months back."

Blueblood nodded. "It's the least I could do."

My mom said, "Princess Cadance... you saved her... that was you, right? Th... thank you."

"You're most welcome," Cadance replied.

After about ten seconds of awkward silence, Cadance said to my parents, "We need to borrow your daughter. And your sons, if you don't mind."

Mom stomped. "Let her heal in peace! And keep your hooves off my colts! ...um, Highness."

Blueblood held up a hoof. "There's to be a parade this afternoon. And this was my idea, so there's no need to yell at the Princess. We would like your sons to push your daughter in a wheelchair."

"What?" Dad said.

"Huh?" Mom said.

"Damnit," I said.

"Politics," Cadance explained, her wings shuffling as she looked at her hooves. She shrugged slightly. "Politics. We need ponies, and the hippogriffs, to see that Equestria is serious about this filthy little war, because things are going to get worse before they get better. A young, attractive, wounded mare, wearing her Red Cross markings and an eyepatch, with the support of her family... it's a powerful symbol."

Blueblood rubbed his mane. "Your daughter is our only wounded medic. The symbolism that these bastards show no solicitude to anypony, not even to the Red Cross, is vital to the facts Her Majesty wants to tell the ponies of Equestria."

I stood. "Leave my brothers out of this. I can march just fine. My legs aren't hurt."

Blueblood laid a hoof on my withers. "Good trooper. By the way, I have something for you."

Cocking my head, I looked at him.

He levitated a small black-velvet box out from under his uniform tunic, and opened the box. "Your second Wounded in Action badge." He pinned it on my hospital gown. "Your second Medic's Star." It went next to the first.

He took a step back, looking at Cadance.

She pulled a pink velvet box and a scroll from under her cape.

Blueblood opened my door. Nurses rolled in Cosmic Plume's and Summer Midnight's wheelchairs. Doctors and nurses stood in the hallway at the door to my room. Several others, including Tender Jade, Sergeant Flash, and Lieutenant Armor crowded into my room, lining the walls. One of the rescued unicorn fillies stood between two doctors, looking up at me expectantly, an actual smile on her face again.

Once everypony was arranged around me, Princess Cadance unfurled the scroll and read: "In the Most Regal Name of my Aunt, Her Majesty Princess Celestia, Eternal Ruler of Ponykind. Private First Class Redheart, for your actions freeing the three slaves while flames licked at your hooves and smoke threatened to cut off your escape; for actions performed despite severe wounds suffered earlier in the same action, wounds that would have justified retreat to medical attention rather than continued combat; for actions in the greatest tradition of the Guard, and far beyond the call of duty; for actions in the greatest tradition of Her Majesty’s Household Battalion, showing perseverance beyond all else... The Monarch's Thanks."

Cadance levitated a sunlight-yellow ribbon around my neck, and a golden medal embossed with Celestia's cutie mark hung from it. It thumped heavily against my chest.

"My Aunt regrets that a meeting with hippogriff diplomats prevents her from giving this to you herself."

Everypony stomped their applause, and my brothers whistled. Tears welled in my eyes, and I said, "Shhh! This is a hospital—ponies are sleeping!"

The actual parade bit was utterly forgettable. Anypony in the Guard knows how to march.

My family was clever enough to stake out a spot on the left side of the parade route, the side of my good eye, so I was able to wink at them. All four were crying.

Along with the six other walking wounded, I marched in the rank right behind the caisson carrying Guidestar's casket, so I ended up in the newspaper pictures. Damnit.

Celestia gave a speech, the hippogriff ambassador gave a speech. Blueblood, as the senior pony officer present at the scrap, gave a eulogy for the dead, and read all their names, hippogriff and pony. Standing at attention, I did the eye muscle exercises the surgeon had prescribed.

I straightened up and paid attention to the last bit of the ceremony, however.

The battalion's Sergeant Major marched up to the dais with the Colors, an ancient yellow flag with a black block numeral 1 in its center. Surrounding the 1 were our battle honors, the hundred-some black patches bearing the names of past battles in white letters.

We were First Battalion, Equestria's first battalion, the oldest still-extant military formation in the world. For almost one thousand years, we had stood at Celestia's side. We had been Celestia's very right hoof, her personal Guard.

That battle flag was still the original, as old as the Battalion. As old as Equestria.

Celestia levitated up a new patch, a new battle honor, and her spell affixed it to the flag, alongside the names of Celestia's Own's past victories and defeats. The hallowed names of the bloodiest battles from the history books: like The Nightmare. Siege of Griffonstone. Defense of Canterlot. Or The Maregonne Forest.

One thousand years of history consecrated that flag, and it twisted my stomach to think that I had participated in two—Southern Marches and Piracy Suppression, the two newest battle honors.

How many more battle honors would I be a part of, before one of them killed me?

How many more battle honors, after my years ended, before Equestria finally had peace, and no more little fillies needed to be rescued, and no more twenty-year-olds had to march into the crucible so that Equestria could stay safe?

The wind blew our colors, and one thousand years of the Battalion's dead spoke to me, telling me: Persevere.

The ceremony ended, and the crowds broke up.

The best part of having my family visit me in the hospital was that I had somepony's hoof to hold during my treatments.

Dad and I took the lift down to the hospital's basement. Before we even got to the elevator, my ears tucked tight against my skull and my tail tucked deep under my belly.

Every heartbeat thudded in my skull. As the elevator slowly dropped, I slid down to my haunches as I hugged around dad's neck, burrowing my face into his mane. My tail drummed drummed drummed against the floor of the elevator and tears pooled under my eyepatch. My breathing turned short and fast, I was breathing through my mouth, and I sucked some of dad's mane into my throat and I gagged, coughing, his hairs sticking to my tongue even though my entire mouth was dry, drier than that stupid dessert where we fought the raiders, but I just kept holding on tight. I pounded my right hoof against Dad's ribs as I sobbed. My head went light, this strange sensation in my forehead just above my left eye and my heart was racing and—

Dad hugged me back, and rubbed the back of my neck with a hoof. "My baby," he said. "My brave little filly."

"This... these treatments hurt worse than anything, dad. Worse than when I stepped on the caltrop. Worse than the blood infection and the surgeries."

"Three more treatments," Dad said. "Three more to save your eyesight."

I let go of him and wiped my left eye with a fetlock.

The elevator door opened in the basement, and Dr. Eye Opener stood there, waiting for me. "Miss Redheart."

My knees shaking, I stood and walked over to him, drew myself up straight, and nodded once. "Doctor." He walked and I followed.

"I still want to refer you to Manehattan School of Medicine," he said. "Their ophthalmology department is the best in the world."

"I have to stay in Baltimare," I said, lying down flat on my back on the treatment table, my breath still rasping. "If the Battalion tries to leave without me, I'll sneak down the fire escape and swim to the transport."

Dad made a hrnk sound as he sat down on a stool on my right side.

The doctor shook his head, his voice sad. "It's immoral, taking idealistic youngsters, telling them they're the Crown's elite, Celestia's very Own, and brainwashing them with that lunatic praetorian ethos. You should have been discharged for your own protection. I read your medical history."

"Celestia's Own don't quit, sir," I said, feeling rather insulted.

"Exactly my point," he said.

The nurse pulled a sheet over me, covering me from tail to neck.

The room went fully dark, and I reached out my right hoof and bumped it into Dad's shoulder. He grabbed my hoof between his forehoofs and kissed me, on the scar. "My brave filly," Dad said. "I love you so much."

"You too, Dad."

On the low ceiling above me, a piece of frosted glass glowed white as its backlight turned on. A black grid was painted on the glass. The nurse's feathers tickled my forehead as she moved the eyepatch from my right eye to my left.

The light stung my injured eye after a few days behind the patch. The perfect grid, its evenly spaced straight lines and right angles, appeared molten and distorted through the damage to my retina.

But at least I could see it. Sweet Celestia, how my vision had improved over the last two weeks. "You're an artist, doc."

"The closer we get to finished," he said, "the more it hurts."

"Oh." I hadn't realized that. "Oh."

"How does the grid look?"

"Melty? Distorted."

"Is one part worse than the others?"

I pondered that. "The left side."

"That's the right side of the retina, nearest your head wound. Miss Redheart... today is going to be unpleasant."

I took a few deep breaths. "Yes, doctor."

Silently, Dad kissed the frog of my hoof again, and rubbed his hoof up and down my foreleg. That simple touch, Dad just being there, I think, made all the difference.

The Doctor's horn lit, a deep forest-green glow. He frowned down at me, the frown of an expert archer picking a target, an expert flier calculating a swoop, a medic deciding who lives and who dies. A ball of his magic slowly approached my eye, and the chilly tingle of unicorn magic touching my eyeball and slowly passing through the hard tissue, the world blooming into green light, so bright like being inside the sun—

—I guess Dad must have carried me back to my room on the top floor. My family waited in the lounge down the hall while one of the nurses sponged the urine off me. I held a vomit tray, which was empty, surprisingly. Once the nurse toweled me dry, pulled a blanket over me, and took the tray, my brothers and Mom came back in.

"Where... where's Dad?" I whispered, both eyes clenched shut.

"He went back to the hotel for a shower," Mom said.

So. I must have pissed on Dad while he carried me back up to my room. I curled up into a tighter ball. My face felt so numb I couldn't tell if I had the eyepatch on, so I felt for it with my hoof.

It was in place.

"Is the hotel expensive? You four have been here visiting me for almost two weeks..." Mom and Dad were mail carriers. If we had had money, I would never have joined the Guard in the first place. I would have gone straight to nursing school.

Mom said, "The hotel manager told us Cadance paid our bill in advance. The princess gave us train vouchers, too. The Baltimare Home Guard is cooking for us so we aren't spending any money on restaurants. The hospital canteen isn't charging us for meals."

"Oh," I said.

"You want us to go get you some food, Sis?" Treble Clef asked. "You missed dinner but the nurse said to just ask her."

I shook my head no.

"How many more treatments?" Live Wire said.

"Two or three, I think," I mumbled. "Today was... productive."

Before they'd put the patch back on my bad eye, the grid had almost looked square again. My eye was, slowly, healing.

Would it heal fast enough? Yes. I was going to be ready. I was going to have my vision back. I was going to be fit to fight. I was going to be there with my team. Whatever that next deployment was, I would be there. If anypony died, it wouldn't be because I wasn't there to help.

Slowly, I crawled out of bed and stood on shaky hooves.

"Redheart!" Mom scolded. "Lie down."

"I'm going to the gym," I said. "I need to do my weights for today. C'mon, colts, I bet I can press more than you two combined. You call yourselves earth ponies?"

Livey ran on a treadmill while Trouble and I took turns on a machine doing leg presses. That late in the evening, we had the gym to ourselves.

"You two listen to me," I said.

"What's up, sis?" Livey said.

"Trouble—you and that fiddle are going places."

"I play viola, you uncultured diamond dog."

"But," I continued, "Livey, are you thinking about the guard?"

He kept up his run for a few seconds, sweat dripping, not making eye contact with me. Then: "Yeah. I'm going to go out for Celestia's Own. But a trooper, not a medic."

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. "Colt. Don't."

"What? You did."

"Look at Mom and Dad. What's this doing to them? You—you two live with them! I can tell they're different now, worried, sad. You two must see it more than me."

"Well," Trouble said, "ever since that first time you got hurt..."

"I'm not going to come back," I said. "Don't you get that? This war is getting worse. What'll it do to Mom and Dad when the Baroness shows up at the front door to tell them I’m dead?"

"You won't—" Livey began. I glared at him, and he stopped talking and let himself slide off the end of the treadmill, staring back at me. "You're—you’re serious."

"Forty of my platoon went out last time. Thirty came back, half wounded. Think about that. Then start multiplying."

"I'm... but sis. I want to be like you."

Trouble just looked at us. He was already first-chair viola in the city's junior symphony. He wasn't the one I was worried about.

I hopped off the machine and walked to Livey. I leaned down, eye to eye. "Please."

"I want college. Where else will we get the bits? I won't get a viola scholarship."

Trouble started his leg-presses again, the metal plates in the machine clacking up and down.

I glared at Livey. "Think about Mom and Dad. Especially at my funeral in a month or two. Don't."

He hopped back up on the treadmill and started jogging again. He frowned, his ears tight to his head and his tail thrashing as he ran. “I'll think about it but... I gotta get college bits somewhere."

"All aboard!" called the conductor, and the train whistle blew.

I hugged Mom, Dad, and the colts.

We all sniffled. My eye still felt a little funny without the patch, but it was nice to see them with both eyes.

I honestly expected it to be the last time I saw them. From their faces, I knew they figured it was the last time they would see me, too.

I was in my full dress uniform, the whiter-than-white tunic that only Celestia's Own wore, complete with my ribbons. The Monarch's Thanks entitled me to golden stripes down the outsides of my sleeves, bright gold against white, which, along with the ribbons, made me look ridiculous.

"Travel safe," I said. "I'll write."

Mom and Dad trotted up onto the train. Trouble and Livey hugged me one last time.

"We'll miss you, sis," they both said.

"Don't join the Guard," I said, and kissed each of them on top of the nose. They headed up the stairs, too.

So, I thought, this is what your own funeral feels like...

Their cabin was on the far side of the train, where they wouldn't be able to wave goodbye to me, so I turned around and cantered for the exit.

"Celestia's Own don't quit," somepony behind me called.

I stopped and flicked my ears. My tail thrashed angrily. Nopony should dare say those sacred words, unless...

Unless...

I turned around and saw an elderly pegasus mare. She looked me up and down and nodded at the First Battalion flash on my shoulder.

"Celestia's Own don't quit," I replied. "What were you?"

"Bravo, first platoon."

I sucked in air through my teeth. "That's me, too."

She nodded. "I was seventy-five years younger. What's your position?"

"Senior medic. You?"

"You're young for senior medic. Stepped into dead horseshoes?"

I nodded slowly.

"I was Aerial Squad leader, back before I got sent home."

Sent home. I knew what that meant. Apparently the lingo hadn’t changed in seventy-five years. "Where?" I asked.

"The Maregonne Forest."

My ears flattened. The Mews-Maregonne campaign was one of the bloodiest of the battle honors on the Battalion's Colors. Less than one pony in ten had...

"Good hunting, trooper," the elderly mare continued. "From the newspapers, it looks like you'll be busy."

"Thanks," I said. "I just got cleared for duty this morning. After a month in the hospital, I'm ready to get back to work."

She studied my chest. "The POW Medal?" She then looked at the sunlight-yellow stripes on my sleeves. "And the Monarch's Thanks? Two Medic's Stars? You've been a busy filly."

"A medic is no damn good back at base, ma'am."

"Hostis sapiens generis," she said, and spat on the train platform. "Slavers. Pirates. Bah! Give them hell for me. I wish I could be there."

"Celestia's Own don't quit."

"Celestia's Own don't quit." She trotted away. As the elderly mare trotted off, I studied her. She walked with her head held high, and what looked to be a surprising amount of spring in her elderly step.

She also had only one wing.

Another wave broke over the bow of our pinnace, and I wiped saltwater from my eyes. A dozen other boats skipped over the waves with us.

Hippogriffs and pegasi towed us toward the shore of Black Skull Island. To my left was the boat with Lieutenant Armor and Tender Jade; to my right, Sergeant Flash and Princess Cadance.

We hit a particularly bad wave and I bounced up before crashing down, belly-first, onto the deck.

As I struggled back up to my hooves, the boat crunched hard into the rocky shoreline.

I fought ashore through the surf. I carried a triple-weight pack, loaded with my own medical gear and extra rations. Such is the lot of an earth pony in combat... good thing I'd kept hitting the weight room during my hospital stay.

The skull-shaped mountain loomed over us, backlit by the sunrise. Smoke billowed from its volcanic vents, and the wind carried its foulness into our faces. My throat and nose burned. Cold water soaked my legs and tail and splashed my barrel as I reached shore.

Cadance nodded to me. The Princess wore the same armor and camouflage cape as the rest of us, but she bore no rank or unit markings.

Even in camouflage, she seemed just a little too pink and festive for a landing on a hostile shore. "Ma'am," I replied.

Lieutenant Armor trotted up, his eyes moved slowly left-to-right. "That overhang," he said, pointing a hoof. "It's above the high tide line and out of the wind."

"Yessir."

Hippogriffs and pegasi hauled the boats around, and back out to the Hippogriffian squadron sitting offshore, to pick up the second wave.

I started shivering. We weren't far from that same desert, south of Equestria, where the raiders had harried the borderlands, but the wind and the salt spray off the ocean left me cold.

Tender Jade joined me. We nodded to each other and started pitching our medical tent. Troopers spread out to defend our beachhead.

Just after dawn three days later, I trotted up to Princess Cadance and Major Blueblood in the command tent. "Princess. Sir." I saluted.

"We know what you're going to say, Redheart," Major Blueblood said. "The answer is still no."

"Our patrols are getting eaten up, sir. Troopers die before they get back to camp. If there had been a medic with them—"

"Redheart," Cadance interrupted, her voice soft, "you're filthy."

I looked down at myself. Blood, urine, and vomit covered my breast, forelegs, shoulders. My left ear canal was clogged, and I really didn't want to know with what.

"None of this is mine," I said, waving a hoof at the mess.

"How is Private Sky Lighter?" Blueblood asked.

"We saved his wing," I said. "I think. He's already on a boat out to the hospital ship."

"Grab some soap and wash off in the surf, Redheart," Cadance said. She took off her helmet, and rubbed her frizzy mane with both forehooves. "You'll feel more like yourself without the mess."

"I really insist, ma'am and sir," I continued, "that you let me accompany one of the patrols tonight. I'm an earth pony, so I can easily carry a wounded trooper or two, and having my cutie mark forward, at the point of meeting the enemy—"

"No," Blueblood said. "We can't risk any medics. We're already shorthooved."

"Third Battalion will be onshore by nightfall," I said, pointing a hoof at the newly arrived convoy offshore. "There'll be a full medical team with them. I'm expendable the way our trained troopers aren't."

"The answer," Blueblood said, "is no."

"There's no need, anyway," Cadance said. "I'm going with tonight's patrol."

Blueblood's head snapped around and he stared at her, ears pointing different directions, jaw slack.

"I don't recall authoriz—" Blueblood glanced at me. "Redheart? Dismissed."

There wasn't enough fresh water on the island to spare any for washing, so I waded into the surf with a rag and a bar of soap and scrubbed away the mess. The cold water froze my body, and several hippogriff boat-crew members stared at me, and the red water that formed around me between each wave.

I waded back ashore and ate a bowl of whatever that day's rations were, choking it down.

As the sun set, I huddled in our small pup tent, next to the medical tent, shivering under a blanket. My coat itched with salt. Jade snored next to me.

The combination of terrible food and the cold from the ocean wind, well, that really chips away at a pony's soul. We had landed only a few days before and it was already like we'd been there half our lives. My alleged meal soured my stomach, and my blanket just wasn't enough. I found myself sobbing, sobbing for no particular reason, my face buried in my tail.

Bad food. Soul-sapping weather. Death swirling around us, a continuous trickle of wounded and dying, and knowing that there would be more wounded troopers coming back from patrol before dawn. I needed sleep, to be on my game when the wounded arrived, but I wasn't getting sleep.

I dozed fitfully. Nightmares tormented me: wounded came, their guts spilling out, and I had no kit to save them with, my ampoules of painkiller were filled with dust, my tourniquets snapped as I tried to cinch them tight. Laughing pirates came and lopped off the wounded troopers' heads as I fought to save them. Slavers took little fillies, and forced me to watch as—

Blueblood barged into the tent, waking Jade and me.

"Redheart! You awake?"

I popped up to my hooves and blinked. "Yessir!"

He stared at the tears matting my face. Then: "You're going with tonight's patrol."

"Th... thank you, sir!"

"I still object on principle, but Her Highness Cadance has pulled out her alicorn card and assigned herself to the patrol, as well. Your job is to keep her alive at all costs."

I rubbed my chin. What was an alicorn worth? Three battalions?

"Yes, sir. Let me get my kit."

"No. No saddlebags. Light and quiet. Just carry what you have pockets for."

"Yessir."

I was the first of us at the assembly point on the edge of the beach. I wore a camouflage cloak over my gray medic's smock. I sat in a tide pool, smearing dark mud on my legs, tail, and face while I waited for the others.

The salty mud itched, but it was better than being a bright white and pastel pink pony on a night patrol on an island of dark volcanic rock.

Three privates trotted up, nodded to me, and sat down to wait. They were all dark-colored naturally and didn't need to smear themselves with mud.

Cadance and Sergeant Flash landed and tucked their wings.

"I've sent a scroll to my Aunt," Cadance announced.

Something seemed... wrong. Off. Like I was losing my eyes' dark adaption. The night went from dim to black.

"Ah, she's received it," Cadance said, looking up.

The moon—full only moments before—turned gibbous, half, crescent, then gone.

"A dark new moon," Cadance said. "Everypony, I have night-vision potions."

She distributed glass bottles, stoppered with corks. I clasped the bottle between my forehooves, popped the cork with my teeth, and gagged at the stench. "Whooowheee!" I squeezed my eyes shut and turned my head away from the potion. Sergeant Flash and the privates gagged, too. "What the heck, Princess?" I asked.

I couldn't see Cadance's expression in the dark, but her voice seemed apologetic. "Yes, the primary ingredients of night vision potions are owl eyeballs and cobra blood. Owls and cobras have superior night vision."

I choked it down. Somehow I managed not to puke it back up. My stomach soured, and then a strange tingle—like if you hold your breath too long—wrapped around my head. I could taste the mud puddle I was standing in and something smelled very... yuck. I won't describe it. The salty mud burned my skin, and my cape's fabric rubbed my withers and flanks like sandpaper.

The dark night brightened again, and the tingle faded. The odd tastes and smells and touches receded. It wasn't like daylight, but the potion let me see in the pitch darkness as if it were dusk or dawn.

Sergeant Flash whipped his tail happily. "Let's see those sons of mules top this! Thanks, Princess."

There were six of us. Me, Sergeant Flash, Princess Cadance, and the three privates: a unicorn stallion, Crescent Pop; a pegasus mare, Scarlet Wind; and an earth mare, Rosemary Seasoning.

We all wore camouflage cloaks and our helmets, along with rubber-soled hoof boots to protect ourselves from the stony ground. We wore no other armor, in order to stay quiet and quick. I wore my gray medic’s smock under my camouflage.

"Tonight's goal is simple," Cadance said. "But not to say easy. I have a spell that can map their fortress's interior, if I can get a clear line of sight to it."

"We're going to try to get her to a ridgeline above the fortress," Flash said. "We want to not encounter the enemy at all. Keep it quiet and subtle. Questions?"

"Why's the medic here?" asked Crescent Pop.

"Redheart's solid," Scarlet said. "Glad to have her." I bumped hooves with Scarlet and she winked at me.

"Why can't you teleport, Princess?" Rosemary asked.

"They seem to be monitoring that," Cadence said with a frown. "That's what happened yest—nevermind." Her face paled and her ears wilted.

Flash said, "Rosemary, lead off."

"Pull your hood up," Scarlet whispered to me. "Your ears are still white, even if the rest of you is muddy."

Nodding, I did as she said. I stole a glance at Scarlet. She seemed well recovered from the sucking chest wound I had patched, back aboard the Ocean Swell.

The night vision potion really messed with my head. It was similar to dim daylight... but not quite the same. My depth perception skewed, and I kept tripping over my own hooves. I was the loudest of us six, for sure. Was it because I was a medic and the others were troopers, or was it some interaction between my eye injury and the potion?

We paused every hundred yards or so. My pulse pounded in my ears, and I don't think I would have heard a yak approaching over the bump bump bump of my own heart.

When had I last eaten? Right, some of the boiled glop around sundown. The back of my throat burned, hot reflux trying to come back up. As we traced along the bottom of one of the cliffs, I placed every hoofstep carefully, looking for loose rocks or scree.

Private Rosemary held up a hoof and we paused.

The wind sighed through the gaps in the rock, and a distant rumble from the volcanic vents shook the island.

Here, at least two miles inland, away from the beach's fresh ocean breeze, the air stank with sulfur and steam. I closed my eyes and raised my nose. There was nocreature close, at least not upwind. Cold night air dried the mud on my coat, and I shivered.

Flash and Cadance whispered into each other's ears for a moment, and then we continued on.

Slowly, the trail brought us up the side of the cliff, switchback after switchback. Would we make it back to camp before dawn? Would we need to hunker down for the day, and then finish our trek back the next night, after dark? Sergeant Flash surely had a plan, but I couldn't ask him. We needed to stay quiet. We reached the top of the ridgeline two or three hours before dawn.

Stupidly, I thought that meant the hard part was over.

Cadance sat down on the rough volcanic rock, wrapped her tail around her hooves, threw back her hood, and stared down at the fortress.

My tail thrashed and I scratched at the ground with my forehooves. I sniffed at the wind and rotated my ears every direction.

Even with the night vision potion, the fortress was just too far away to make out anything. It seemed like a random pile of stones to me. I estimated it was three or six miles away.

A tiny earthquake rattled the island, and the volcano belched a thick cloud of smoke, blotting out stars. Dark night, volcanic stench, sighing wind, shuddering ground, bitter ashes on your tongue. How many scary foal's stories started this way?

If it was a campfire story, the storyteller would have made it a full moon, but the darkness of the new moon made everything worse.

The five of us spread out into a circle around Cadance. Her horn glowed. The glow was soft, but high on that ridge where the entire island could see...

I tossed my hood back and shook my head. Despite the cold breeze, sweat dripped down my neck and flanks. As the mud camouflaging my white coat dried, it spalled off, taking hair with it. Closing my eyes, I rotated my ears and listened.

"It's done," Cadance whispered. "And worse than I feared."

"What do you mean, Princess?" Flash asked.

"Prisoners," she said. "Hundreds. In the caverns—"

"Shhhh!" Rosemary hissed.

We all froze. I bent my knees, ready to spring in any direction.

Pebbles tumbled, their falls echoing. What seemed to be deep breathing mixed in with the sighs of the wind. My mouth watered, the urge to vomit almost overwhelming. My heart raced.

Rosemary reached up and grabbed her spear off her back with her teeth, and then grasped it under her foreleg. Sergeant Flash and Scarlet Wind unfurled their wings and their wingblades glinted under the starlight.

The wind shifted, from the west to the south-west, and I caught a hint of hippogriff. It was different from the smell of the hippogriffs I remembered. A filthy stench. I wrinkled my nose to try to clear it.

Cadance's horn glowed, very slightly.

My back turned cold, icy like I'd never imagined, the sweat matting the smock under my cape to my skin. My tail tucked protectively under me as animal instincts prepared me to fight, and the volcanic stench in the air seared my throat as I panted.

Crescent Pop levitated out his sword.

I stretched my legs, one at a time, and kicked off my four rubber-soled boots. I lacked the weapons training of the troopers, but took plenty of hoof-to-hoof practice. Sniffing again, I decided: hippogriffs and pegasi. Maybe a griffon.

Hippogriffs and pegasi vs. an earth pony. Yeah, I liked my chances.

"Box formation around Cadance," Flash whispered. "Back down the trail, quiet and alert."

"Belay that," Cadance said. "They're on our backtrail."

"Teleport yourself back, Princess," I whispered. "We'll follow on our own."

"Good idea," Flash said.

Cadance gasped and looked up. Her horn flashed, a shield dome snapping into place above us. Arrows hit the dome, evaporating in flashes of light and balls of smoke.

Where were they? I looked left, right, forward, backward—up.

Two pegasi hovered above, one clasping a bow, as a second nocked and fired an arrow.

"Get the princess!" ordered the one holding the bow. "Break her horn and wings, kill the others!"

Cadance's dome covered us, stopping arrows, but four hippogriffs and three griffons landed and pushed through the edge of the dome, drawing swords with their claws.

What happened? To this day, I don't really know. It was so fast, it was so dark.

I was so scared.

A hippogriff swung a sword in a horizontal arc. I dove. Rolling, I bumped against his legs. I surged up to all four hooves, swinging my head up. My helmet cracked under his chin, bone crunched, and he flew up and back and slammed back-first into the underside of the shield.

He slid down the dome and didn't get back up. I shook my head, ears ringing from the hit of my helmet against his chin.

It's—it's so hard to describe. Every single beat of my heart, every breath, I could feel. Time seemed to be moving slow, and yet so fast. Night vision potion or not, everything went dark except whatever was right in front of my nose, which shined like noontime daylight. Grunts, swords ringing on swords, spells flashing and arrows evaporating against the dome: the sounds were small, distant, lost under the thunder of my heartbeat.

A griffon crossed swords with Crescent Pop. She swung one-handed. Crescent parried and riposted. The griffon twisted and they both drew back a half step, back en garde.

I ran, bounding up behind the griffon just as she parried Cresent's next blow. In her distraction, in her concentration, the griffon raised her tail as she shifted her wrist for her next blow—

Spinning, my forehooves skittered in the thin dust, I looked over my left shoulder, aiming. The griffon struck, Crescent parried her blow again, and I tucked up my rear legs, balanced for a split-second on my forelegs, and I focused, focused all my years of exercise, thousands of hours hauling a full combat pack, thousands of hours in weight rooms, focused all of my earth pony magic, and I bucked.

My hooves struck that griffon, just under her tail, struck at an upward angle, and she flew, spinning ass-over-beak, clean past Crescent, her sword clattering down, and she landed with a wet splat against the rocky ground, wings flapping and arms wrapped around her ruptured belly, screeching her agony.

I spun, ran, jumped over the body of a hippogriff, jumped over Rosemary Seasoning's corpse. Sergeant Flash and a hippogriff danced, wings flitting and legs pumping, sparring with each other, pirate's sword against Flash's wingblades. Cadance stood, her teeth gritted, looking up at the pegasus archers, her horn glowing to hold the shield.

A hippogriff bounded for her. I sprinted and leaped, tackling him just short of the Princess.

We tumbled, and something hit my chin. Blood filled my mouth. His sword flew away, gone. He kicked me in the flank, and the world flared for a moment and I gasped in agony as several of my ribs broke.

And then I was on top of him, I had him pinned, my lower legs clamped around his barrel, his wings mashed into the rock beneath me, my left forehoof pressing on his larynx.

The hippogriff snapped at me, razor-sharp beak flashing.

I drew my right forehoof back, cocked my right shoulder to deliver the killing stomp to his face...

Cadance screamed.

...I hesitated. His eyes, so much like a pony's, so much like everypony I had known and loved over the years...

"Redheart!" Sergeant Flash commanded. "Kill him!"

I stomped his beak, smashed it deep into his skull, and the wet splat thrilled me, gave me this feeling of success that to this day I’m still so ashamed of.

"Pirate!" I screamed at his dead face, and pulled by my forehoof back and stomped the ruins a second time. "Slaver! Did you rape any little fillies, too?"

Then I was up, bounding. Cadance went down, her hindquarters dropping, but she stayed up on her forehooves. A pegasus archer had landed on the ground and shouldered herself halfway through the edge of her dome. My vision narrowed down on the archer, focused on her cutie mark, to this day I remember the cutie mark was all red and silver but I just can't, can't, can't remember what it was a picture of, and I sprinted and slid under the bottom edge of the dome, skidding on my back on the rocky ground, grinding dirt into my camouflage cape and I kicked up with my rear legs, focusing my earth pony magic again onto the few square inches of my rear hooves' killing surface, and caught the archer just beneath her sternum.

She flew straight up about ten feet, wings limp, eyes and mouth opened wide in shock, and then she landed with a thud right next to me.

It was a mare, a young mare, probably younger than me, and Celestiadammit I was only twenty, and she vomited blood and sour acid on me, and she just started screaming, howling, this high pitched wail, her wings flapping against the rock. The stench of her ruptured guts was in my nose and she coughed, coughed blood and bile, and I was still flat on my back from my slide, so she puked on my face and into my eyes and my mouth and sweet Celestia to this day I still remember the taste of that dying pegasus's bile on my tongue.

I stood and backed up two steps, staring at the spreading pool around her.

The pirates on the ground were down, all dead or dying. Maybe ten total? Cadance dropped her shield dome. A half-dozen magic bolts flew from Cadance's horn, skewering each of the archers.

They fell, wet impacts sounding against the stone of the ridge.

"Redheart!" Flash shouted. "You hurt?"

I vomited next to the pegasus I'd just murdered.

"Redheart! Can you carry the Princess?"

I puked again, dropped to the ground, into the mixed puddle of her blood and my vomit. I stared into her eyes as she struggled for her last few breaths.

"Sweet Celestia... I... I'm sorry!"

I nosed into my cape. I had a few ampoules of painkiller in my pocket. I could help her, stop her suffering before she screamed again...

She keened, low in her throat, like a sick infant, too tired to cry.

"Mommy," the pegasus gasped. Her glazed eyes fixed on me. "Mommy?"

I heard the griffon I'd bucked screaming her head off, maybe ten yards distant, her voice ragged as she tore her throat apart.

Sergeant Flash put a gentle hoof on my withers. I jerked and almost bucked him.

"Redheart?" he asked. "Are you okay?"

I spit out some vomit and blood. "No, Sarge. I am not fucking 'okay.'"

"Redheart," he said, very quietly. "You did good. But I need my medic back. The Princess is wounded."

I took a few halting steps, stopped, shook my head and thrashed my tail, and then trotted to Cadance. We left the pegasus archer to die alone, begging for her mother in a pool of blood and shit and vomit.

The arrow stuck from the meaty part of Cadance's thigh. "Roll over," I commanded.

The griffon I had maimed kept on screaming, curled in a ball. I glanced at her, and saw her guts spilled out onto the rocky soil from her ruptured belly.

That Celestia-damned night-vision spell. Why did I have to see that?

The griffon's claws grabbed the gaping wound. Her blood burned the skin on my rear legs, burned like live coals. Crescent Pop levitated up his sword and split the griffon's spine, just below the skull, and the rocky escarpment turned silent, except for the blood pounding in my ears and Cadance's panting breaths.

I nosed my shears out of a pocket and snipped the feathered shaft off the arrow, and pushed the arrow out through Cadance's thigh. I had almost no kit, barely any bandages, since I was carrying only the contents of my cape's pockets and not my bags. I used my silk medic's chit—a fresh one, not the same one I had given to Wood Smoke and the raiders—to pack Cadance's wound, and then taped it in place.

Cadance stood. "Ow. Thank you, Private. You're covered in blood."

"You don't look so great yourself."

Cadance looked around, looked at Rosemary's corpse, looked at the smoking bodies of the pegasi she had skewered with her spell bolts. Her eyes widened as she recognized the deadly results of her magic, and Cadance vomited, too, her wings flared wide and her ears perked vertical as her belly heaved itself up.

Crescent wiped his sword on a dead archer's feathers. "Cadance is one of us, now. Welcome to Celestia's Own."

"Redheart, you wounded?" Flash asked.

I ran my tongue around my mouth and found two broken incisors. Several of my ribs were broken. They burned, and I couldn't take in even a full breath anymore before my diaphragm spasmed and I gasped against the burning pain. I looked at the hippogriff with the smashed head, and his brains burned where they stained my right foreleg.

My stomach heaved but I was able to swallow it down without vomiting again. My cutie marks seemed to flame, the exact opposite sensation of when they'd manifested eleven years before in the elementary school lunchroom as I wrapped my hooves around another filly's barrel and squeezed and popped the grape out of her windpipe. I looked down at my flank and lifted up my cloak, expecting my cutie marks to be gone, with black scar tissue in their place.

They were fine, the red cross and hearts laughing at me, making me into a joke, a murderer with the symbol of mercy forever on her ass.

"No, Sergeant," I lied. "I'm not wounded."

"Can you walk, Princess?" Flash asked.

She stood and took two steps. Her face paled and her jaw worked back and forth, the sound of grinding teeth so loud I could hear it over my heartbeat.

"Yes," Cadance said.

"Redheart, carry Rosemary Seasoning's body," Flash ordered. His right wing hung loose, bleeding. "We're out of here."

We made it back to our main camp on the beach just as dawn broke. Tender Jade took Rosemary's corpse from me, and Lieutenant Armor and Cadance shared a deep kiss.

The other troopers of the Battalion cheered them on.

"Jade," I said.

"Yeah, boss?"

"Cadance took an arrow to the right thigh. I got the arrow out, but it needs cleaned and disinfected right away. Then stitch it. Sergeant Flash injured his right wing. Stitch it and have him evacuated offshore."

"Yeah, Boss. What happened to you? Are you okay?"

"This isn't my blood."

"Whose is it?"

"Pirates'."

"Oh!" His face fell.

"I broke some teeth and some ribs," I said. My eyes darted around, left and right. My breath came fast, hyperventilating, vision tunneling down to just a narrow cone in front of my snout. I lowered myself to the ground, my legs suddenly as firm as overcooked oats. I had to turn my head to see him, my peripheral vision gone. "I'll come back later. I need... I need...."

"Yeah," Jade said. "I've got this."

I dropped my helmet and camouflage cloak on the floor of the medical tent and wandered down the beach, wearing only my gray medic's smock. The rising sun, combined with the night vision potion, was giving me a horrendous headache.

I found a tent on the beach. Staring at the tent, it took me a minute to recognize it. It was Third Battalion's Delta company aid station. I had dropped off one of our lightly wounded there several hours before, before Blueblood sent me on the patrol with Cadance.

I had seen Sapphire Bolt there earlier. The medic who treated me on the barge, and in the field hospital after my POW stint. We had shared a hoofbump and a few words before I returned to my own battalion. I stumbled into the tent, and saw Sapphire and two other medics I vaguely recognized.

"Redheart, what's wrong?" Sapphire said, looking up from reorganizing his supplies. "You're a mess."

I jumped on him, wrapped my forelegs around his neck, and sobbed. Keening and wailing, I just squeezed around his neck, my face buried against his chest. My tears rolled down my nose, and I nearly vomited into his coat, but I just dry heaved, heaved, heaved again.

His shoulders moved as he shrugged at the other two, and his hooves patted my back, rubbing up and down my spine.

"What's wrong? What's the matter?"

I sobbed, sobbed, sobbed. I don't know for how long, maybe five minutes, maybe an hour or more. Eventually, my face buried deep into his chest, I gasped out, "I killed three creatures. No... four! I'm a murderer."

"Sweet Celestia," he said, and rubbed my withers again.

I screamed and pounded my hooves into his chest.

"Wait!" another of the medics said. "Redheart, you're—you just bled out of your mouth."

I wiped my nose on my fetlock. "Broken teeth."

He got down, right in front of my face. "Cough."

"I'm fine," I snapped.

"Cough," he repeated.

I coughed... and deposited some bright-red blood on his face.

"Oh, that's..." I said.

He grabbed a stethoscope and listened to my right side, then my left. He opened my smock and said, "Goodness, Redheart, you're bruised. Those ribs are broken. I think you nicked a lung with a bone."

That got my attention. "Wait, really?"

"Yeah," he said. "Your breathing sounds rough."

I let go of Sapphire Bolt and slid down off him, onto the floor. Sapphire's chest was soaked with my tears. "I'm... I'm sorry. I need to go get checked out at my battalion. I'm, look. I'm sorry about the mess."

He brushed my cheek with his hoof, and then gave me a hug. "Take care of yourself, Redheart."

"You, too."

"We'll carry you," said one of Sapphire's companions, an earth stallion.

Sapphire levitated me onto the other medic's back, and they walked me back to my own aid station. The pain in my ribs flared into full-fledged agony by the time they got me there.

It's lucky I had found somepony to hold me and rock me through that first horrific hour. I might have done something rash otherwise. My whole life, my identity, right down to the cutie mark, was healing. Was mercy. And I'd killed four creatures. If I had not found somepony to pour my grief into, I might very well have...

Under that rising sun, my whole life was a lie and a waste and a mistake. Crying it out was my first step toward healing my soul, my mind. Now, fourteen years later, I won't say I'm anywhere close to finishing healing. Having Dandelion and Contrail, bringing new life into this world, our foals who grab life with such enthusiasm and wonder, has done more than anything else to help me. Being married to such a wonderful stallion, who loves me so unconditionally—that's helped me see that I'm more than just the sum of my horrible past.

But, no. To the day I die, however many decades from now Celestia and Luna may grant me, I will still hear the screams, smell the spilled brains, and taste the bloody bile of the pirates I killed on that ridgeline.

As they carried me up the beach back to my Battalion, I chanted to myself: "Eighteen, twelve, and four. Eighteen, twelve, and four."

Eighteen lives saved.

Twelve lives lost.

Four murdered.

Author's Note

As always, I welcome constructive comments!

Chapter 7

"My lung was punctured by one of the broken ribs," Redheart said. She glared at her mug, the hot chocolate now cold. Savoir Fare had left them alone in the back of the restaurant after delivering their meal over an hour before. "The numbness, the adrenaline from the scrap... I had no idea until after I cried it out. They evacuated me to a ship to recuperate, but I spent more time with a psychologist than the doctors. I just—I mean—I can't—I never, ever imagined I would take lives, instead of saving them, or losing them despite trying.”

AP ground his teeth, not knowing what to say.

"Three, four weeks later, two days before Hearth's Warming... well, I can't tell you about that. All I can say is, after that, I got that stupid medal and eight months in the hospital, then a discharge. I requested to stay in the reserves. I went to college, I met you..." Redheart shrugged, then smiled at AP. Her voice turned from icy to warm, and she reached to touch his hoof. "Well, you know the rest of the story."

"Now I'm beginning to wonder if I really do."

Redheart chuckled. "The Canterlot Home Guard is accustomed to having ex-regulars transfer in when they show up as freshmares at the University. But even they weren't quite sure what to think about a wounded ex-Household medic with the Cross and a top-secret citation. Their Colonel read my file, my real file, and... well..."

He reached out, and grabbed her right forehoof between both of his. "Why did you want to stay in the reserves?" AP said.

Redheart tapped her other hoof on the table. "Because I'm good at it. That disaster with the diamond dogs last summer, I saved three troopers' and a half-dozen prisoners' lives. You saw Cloudchaser out in the café's front dining room. She'll never walk without that knee brace again, not in her life—but she's alive. My cutie mark won't let me not do this."

"Last summer..." AP grumped, shuffling his wings. "You got a fresh batch of nightmares for your effort."

She nodded. "Yes. I did. And it was worth it. We saved four fillies. Equestria is worth it. I've been up close with Princess Cadance, Princess Twilight, and Princess... um... yeeeeeeeah... when the spells are flying and the blood is spilling. I believe in them. In what they stand for. I'm proud to have stood next to them. To have bled with them."

The remains of the meal were cold, and AP winged out a few bits to pay the check.

"Leave Savoir Fare a good tip," Redheart said. "We've been here for at least an extra hour."

They walked out into Ponyville's late afternoon. High clouds covered the sun, and a few snowflakes swirled. Their breath fogged.

Redheart stuck out her tongue, caught a snowflake, and laughed. "I need to teach that to the twins."

AP looked up at the clock on town hall. "Let's go get them. My brother probably needs a break."

He started to turn in the direction of Warm Front's apartment, but Redheart grabbed AP's scarf in her teeth. "Stahp," she said, then spit out the fabric. "Stop. Wait."

He cocked his head and looked at her. Wind ruffled his feathers.

"I can't tell you the fourth story. Understand? Don't ask."

"I don't understand," he said. "The whole expedition was in the newspapers."

She shook her head. "Details. There are details that remain secret. And I nearly bled out into the dirt underneath one of those details."

"Please?" he said.

Redheart shook her head, her eyes darkening as she remembered something from her distant past. "No. Because I love you... I don't want to hit you with something ponies weren't meant to know. It's bad enough that I remember."

"I've seen your X-rays," AP said. "In the drawer, under your Home Guard uniforms. Half your right hip is metal and screws and plates. I can feel the scars when we make love. You limp in winter weather."

"They didn't think I would live, to be honest."

"I'm glad they were wrong."

They kissed. The Cutie Mark Crusaders, bundled up warmly and trotting past on their own business, cheered for them. Redheart grinned at them and bowed.

"We'll get y'all some mistletoe," Apple Bloom called.

Redheart kissed her husband again, very deeply, then smirked at the CMCs. "We've been married nine years. We don't need mistletoe!"

As the Crusaders trotted off, AP pointed at Apple Bloom and whispered, "That filly's alive because of you."

Redheart nodded and gave a little smile. "That was a good day. A day to be proud of."

"Do you still keep up with your tally?"

Redheart frowned, but nodded. “Yeah…”

"What is it?"

"As of today? Four hundred and twenty-three saved. Apple Bloom was life number four hundred and nineteen. Two hundred and two lost." Redheart's face turned splotchy gray. "And... six killed."

AP didn't knock, he just opened the door to his younger brother's second-floor apartment. Warm Front, his fiancée, a batpony named Dusky, and the twins all sat on the floor, playing Candyland.

"Momma!" the twins shouted. Dandelion galloped to Redheart and she slammed headfirst into her forelegs. Contrail took two steps, buzzed his wings, and got just enough altitude to clasp his tiny forelegs around the tail of Redheart's scarf.

"Momma momma momma momma!" Dandelion shouted.

"Momma hi daddy momma momma momma momma momma!" Contrail shouted.

AP just looked at Dusky and Warm Front, grinned, and shrugged his wings.

"Aunt Dusky helped me get extra double more airborne today!" Contrail shouted. "I banged my head on the ceiling! Uncle Warmie got me 'n icepack!"

"Aunt Dusky did?" Redheart said with a smile.

The batpony blushed. Warm Front hid a laugh with his wing.

"Momma, how come you and I don't got wings?" Dandelion demanded.

Dusky cocked her head and looked at her red eyes. "You've had a bad day," the batpony said.

Redheart looked at Dusky and Warm Front. "I was telling AP old stories. Stories from... before we met, if you understand my meaning."

Dusky nodded her head. She wore a cinnabar-colored cape, which meant she would later be working the night shift as the cashier at Filthy Rich's Barnyard Bargains.

"I do understand," Dusky said. Although her day job was at Filthy Rich's store, she was, like Redheart, a wounded and decorated veteran of the Household Battalion. Presently a Home Guard Lieutenant Colonel, Dusky was the operations officer and third-in-command of Redheart's reserve unit, Fourteenth Battalion.

Dusky unconsciously flared her left wing, and scar tissue on the leathery membranes crinkled in the quiet room. "You okay, Redheart?"

Redheart plopped down to her bottom, grabbed a foal under each foreleg, and squeezed them to her chest, nuzzling their soft manes with her snout and cheeks. Her eyes closed, and a huge smile formed on her face as the twins fought to escape her crushing hug, gasping momma momma momma too tight momma daddy daddy help!

Redheart's purr filled the room and drove away the winter chill. "Yeah," Redheart whispered. "Right now? I. Am. Perfect!"

Two days later, on Hearth's Warming, the family woke up well before dawn and opened presents.

Redheart hugged the twins, put her nurse's cap in a saddlebag, donned her cold-weather jogging outfit, gave AP a kiss and ear-nibble, and headed for the door.

No matter the day of the year or the weather, Redheart always ran five laps around Ponyville—eight miles—before heading to work, taking a shower, donning her cap, and starting her shift. She might be approaching middle age, and her right hip might mostly be metal screws and plates, but she was a citizen-soldier of Their Equestrian Majesties' Home Guard, and Redheart always stayed fit to fight.

"Momma!" cried Dandelion.

"Momma!" cried Contrail.

"But it's Hearth's Warming!" the twins shouted.

Redheart lowered herself to her knees, going nose-to-nose with the preschoolers. "Even on a holiday, ponies still get hurt or sick. Somepony has to run the hospital today."

"I thought the doctors ran the hospital?" Contrail said.

"That's what we nurses want them to think. I'll be home by dinnertime. Aunt Dusky is cooking batpony green chile potatoes and blue cornbread for us for Hearth's Warming dinner. I bet it'll be amazing."

A new toboggan sat amongst the wrapping paper debris of Hearth's Warming. AP pointed a wing at the sled. "C'mon, you two. We'll get our warm clothes on and head to the park."

AP bundled the twins into their snowsuits. Redheart left the house and began her jog.

Any Ponyville resident was accustomed to seeing one alicorn. Princess Twilight spent as much time in town as she did in her castle.

But three alicorns? That wasn't a common sight.

In Ponyville Park, the twins clambered onto the toboggan and AP used its tow rope to flap it to the top of the hill. He watched the other group of ponies. Princess Twilight, Starlight Glimmer, Trixie, and Spike, he recognized. Princesses Cadance and Flurry Heart, and Prince Shining Armor, he knew from the newspaper.

AP’s ears flattened, seeing the young Lieutenant Armor from Redheart's tale, and imagining a young Cadance in blood-stained camouflage. He pushed the twins' sled with a forehoof, and it slid down the hill. They squealed as the toboggan accelerated downslope.

The Royals were helping Flurry Heart sled, too.

AP dragged the twins and the sled across the park, toward the other group. "Happy Hearth's Warming!" he called.

Twilight nodded and waved a hoof. "Mr. Payable, good morning! Happy Hearth's Warming!"

"Spike!" shouted the twins, abandoning the toboggan to tackle the dragon. Contrail flapped into the air and landed on Spike's head. They knocked him into the snow.

"Shiny, Cadance,” Twilight said, “please meet Accounts Payable. This is my brother, Shining Armor, and my sister-in-law, Cadance."

"A pleasure," Cadance said, extending a hoof and bumping with AP.

"Same!" Shining said with a hoof bump.

AP frowned. There was a faint scent of... pudding?... about them. Well, it was the holiday season. "Call me AP! Everypony but Princess Twilight does. I've heard a lot about you two."

"Have you now?" Cadance said with a giggle, then looked at Twilight. "From whom, I wonder?"

"Not her," AP said.

Cadance's head cocked, but the smile remained. "Oh?"

"Starlight, Trixie," AP said, his voice quiet, looking at his hooves. "Do you think you could play with the littles for a minute?"

Dandelion and Contrail looked at him, frowning. Contrail chided, "No grownup talk on Hearth's Warming!"

"It's important," AP said.

Starlight levitated up the toboggan and Flurry, and waved to the twins. "C'mon, I'll make it fun," and walked off. The twins, Trixie, and Spike scrambled after her.

"Thank you!" AP called.

"What's the matter?" Twilight asked, frowning.

He looked at Cadance and Shining. His face scrunched up and his ears wilted. AP closed his eyes. "You two know my wife."

"We know lots of ponies," Cadance said.

AP opened his eyes and looked at Cadance. "Redheart."

"Oh!" Cadance said, and the tall alicorn shrunk an inch or two, her face paling.

"Redheart?" Shining said. "That name takes me baaaack... I knew she lived in Ponyville, but I lost track of her when she graduated Canterlot University. Those... those two foals are hers?"

AP nodded. "Yup! She's the best mom in Equestria. Well—" he looked at Cadance “—present company excepted.”

Shining rubbed the back of his head. "I wondered if she would be able to have foals... after... well, you know."

"That's what I wanted to talk to you two about. I don't know. She told me the story up to the ridgeline with the night-vision potions, but she won't tell me what happened after that. She says it's a secret."

"What?" Twilight said.

Cadance went pale and ground her teeth. "That ridgeline... that accursed ridge... I haven't thought about that in years."

"Redheart gets pretty... dark... this time every year. But she won't tell me why."

Cadance sat down in the snow, and a single tear ran down her nose. "The few days before Hearth's Warming. Yeah. I get a bit dark, myself, some years."

Shining's face turned red. Through gritted teeth, he said, "This isn't really a Hearth's Warming story."

Twilight looked from AP, to Shining, to Cadance. "What are you three talking about?"

Shining said, "Remember the first time I wasn't home for Hearth's Warming?"

"Only sorta..." Twilight frowned. "I was still pretty small, and really deep into my studies. I wanted to skip that Hearth's Warming and spend it at the library."

"I was a thousand miles away from Equestria, aboard a hospital ship. I wasn't wounded, well, not badly, but half my platoon was, and a quarter of my platoon was dead."

"Oh!" Twilight said, frowning. "Wait. You were still a cadet! Why did you have a platoon?"

"I’d been commissioned early. And that's why," Shining looked across the park, at Starlight, Trixie, Spike, and the three foals. Laughter floated across the hills. "So that foals could laugh and play, without ever knowing what the dangers around Equestria were. It was so bad on that island..." Shining lowered his head and a tear rolled off his nose, into the snow.

"Shining got the Silver Shield," Cadance said, "for protecting Redheart, while Redheart saved her."

"Who's 'her?'" Twilight asked.

Cadance looked at Twilight, and raised an eyebrow.

"Oh!" Twilight gasped. "You can't mean—"

"Who is 'her?'" AP said.

Shining stomped in the snow. "Mom and Dad lied to you, Twily. I was in combat, not the academy. Redheart was under my command." Shining looked at AP. "Can you find a babysitter?"

"Yeah, my little brother and his fiancée. They're eating dinner with us and my parents tonight at my house."

"They're engaged?" Twilight said, flapping her wings and clapping her forehooves. "Excellent! Wonderful!"

AP grinned. "The twins are already calling her 'Aunt' Dusky."

Twilight gave a hoof-pump and a whispered "Yes!"

Cadance stood, and put a hoof on AP's shoulder. "Have a nice Hearth's Warming dinner, put your twins in bed, and then ask somepony to watch the house and keep an ear on them. Come to the castle at... eight-thirty?"

AP nodded. "Twins' bedtime is seven-thirty."

"I can give Redheart permission to break the secret to you," Shining said. "And if she refuses... we'll tell you the story. Cadance and I were both there."

AP gasped, then nodded his head. Flapping his wings and hovering, AP clasped Shining's forehoof between his and shook it. "Thank you!"

"Wrong," Shining said, his face twisting and his ears trembling. "Don't thank me. You'll be very sorry you heard this story."

Redheart leaned her head against AP's right wing as they walked across nighttime Ponyville. "A nightcap with the Princess? It'll be nice to see Twilight when there's not... unpleasantness..." Redheart's voice trailed off as she remembered the subterranean combat in the diamond dogs' warren, several months earlier.

"Oh, goodness!" Redheart said, her head jerking upright. "We didn't bring the princess a Hearth's Warming present. Or Spike! Did I tell you that Spike attended the CPR class I teach? He's a very good student. And anycreature with hands is... handy... to have around during CPR."

They trudged up the Castle's icy steps, salt and grit crunching under their boots. AP knocked.

Spike opened the door. "Nurse Redheart, Mr. AP! Happy Hearth's Warming! They're in the library. I'll walk you there."

Redheart glanced at AP. "Who is 'they?' I thought we were meeting Twilight."

They shucked their boots and walked down the hallway—which smelled rather like... pudding?—Spike jogging to keep ahead of the ponies. Spike opened the door and bowed Redheart and AP into the library.

Cadance and Shining stood, smiling.

Redheart's eyes went wide, and her tail tucked. She started backing up, and bumped her butt into the door Spike had already closed.

She glared at her husband, face red. She poked his nose with her right forehoof. "You sneaky son of—I told you to stop asking!"

Cadance trotted around and hugged Redheart. "I met your twins this morning! They're adorable. How are you? How have you been? It's been a decade!"

Redheart hung her head for a moment before returning Cadance's hug. "I've been great. Those two little monsters are the best thing in the world! Well, you know. I've seen your daughter in the newspaper. She's a cutie."

Cadance smiled. "Thank you."

Shining approached, and bumped hooves with Redheart. "I read the full classified after-action report about last summer. There are diamond dogs near the Empire, so we wanted the details. You did good."

"It was ugly," Redheart said, "but thanks to Twilight, no ponies died, and only three dogs. The important part was what Twilight did the next day."

Cadance and Shining looked at her. Twilight blushed and stared at her forehooves.

"Twilight’s opened trade with them," Redheart said. "They have two booths at the Ponyville farmers' market, where they trade their ores and gems for foodstuffs and manufactured goods. We treated their pups at the hospital when they had the distemper outbreak."

"And Redheart and the crew from the hospital go to their warren twice a month," Twilight said, "providing vaccinations, and medical and dental treatment. We'll admit two pups to the Friendship School next year. Those dogs will never raise a paw against a pony again."

Cadance nodded. "We need to do that in the Empire."

"You still did good," Shining said to Redheart. "You realize you're the only living pony with two Monarch's Thanks. And the first pony in over three centuries to earn five Medic's Stars."

"Don't remind me!" Redheart stomped to the table and dropped into a chair. "And it's called the Diarchs' Thanks now. The new ribbon is yellow and blue, and the metal interwoven gold and silver. It's actually very snazzy. My dress uniform looks like a ringmaster's with all the preposterous trim."

The others all sat down at the table. AP reached a wing out for Redheart, and she scooted a few inches farther away from him.

He pulled his wing back in and frowned.

"I understand you’re the supervisory nurse at Ponyville emergency room?" Cadance said.

Redheart nodded, then gave a little smile.

Shining chuckled. "Yeah. Cool in an emergency. That's you. There are a lot of ponies who would be dead without you." Shining looked straight at AP. "And that includes Princess Celestia."

AP's vision dimmed for a few seconds and his hearing took an odd, echoey timbre. "No. No. She's immortal."

"She's unaging," Cadance said. "But not immortal."

"You see now why this is a deep-black secret, AP?” Shining said. “Redheart, I'm giving you permission to tell him about the jungle. As Captain Emeritus, I have the authority."

"I—I—I don't want to tell him! I want to protect him! What would happen to Equestria if Celestia died? I don't want the stallion I love to have to think—"

The door opened and Spike came in, carrying a tray with five mugs, a pitcher of hot chocolate, and a bottle of amaretto.

Spike poured Redheart a mug of cocoa, and wiggled the liquor bottle, one eyebrow raised.

Redheart nodded, once, a sharp dip of her muzzle. "A light one." She glared at the polished tabletop.

Spike added a small shot of liquor, set the bottle down, and retreated from the library, closing the door behind him.

"He knows this will be a war story," Twilight said. "A literal war story. He also knows it's not for an adolescent's ears. He'll leave us alone, now."

Redheart sipped her drink, and then scooted back close to AP. She buried her face into his neck. "Honey... you'll be happier not knowing the truth."

"No. My wife is in pain. Every holiday season, you get dark. Tell me the story, and let me share your pain. Let me shine some light for you."

Twilight levitated up the cocoa and booze, and poured everypony else a drink.

Redheart's eyes went unfocused, and she started her story.

"I got a chest infection, from the broken ribs. They treated my chest aboard the ship, and treated my mental shock from the killings. First and Third battalion mopped up the pirates, stormed the fortress, and rescued the slaves. The pirates they captured told us where the pirate's actual home base was. Told us it contained more than a thousand captives. One thousand slaves! That... that couldn't be allowed. The depth of evil is... every one of us, the patients on the hospital ship, we wanted a piece of that action..."

Author's Note

I live for comments!

Chapter 8

It's not on any map anywhere in Equestria. Princess Celestia made sure of that. East-southeast of Black Skull Island, towards the Dragonlands. Near the center of the ocean.

A day out from the island, two weeks after the scrap on the ridgeline, our squadron fought a meeting engagement with a pair of pirate schooners.

After the cannonfire ended and the pirate ships burned and sank, the hospital ship I was on sent a pinnace to my company's transport ship. I donned my hooded red cross smock and snuck onto the pinnace just as it cast off.

I climbed up the rigging and jumped onto the deck of the transport.

"Redheart?" Lieutenant Armor said. "Did they release you early?"

I saluted. "No, sir. I'm AWOL from the hospital ship. I pulled up the hood and they didn't recognize me. I heard you all took two cannon hits, so... where are the wounded?"

Major Blueblood trotted up. "Going AWOL to get closer to the scrap? That sounds like Celestia's Own. Welcome back, Corporal. There are wounded on the gundeck. Celestia's Own don't quit."

"Celestia's Own don't quit!" I shouted as I turned toward the stairs. Then I paused. "Wait—'corporal?'"

Blueblood nodded. "Sergeant Suture got his leg crushed when a guntruck recoiled. You're the senior medic in the company. Go!"

Belowdecks, I found Tender Jade. We used tourniquets to save two wounded, splinted several broken bones, and field-amputated a shattered claw.

Neither of us had done an amputation before. I hit the hippogriff with a double dose of painkiller. Jade held her arm and I worked the saw.

It... wasn't great. She screamed and cursed us, Celestia, and the entire pony race, before she passed out. Months later, while I was still in the hospital, I got an 'expletive you' letter in the mail from her. The writing was terrible, since we had been forced to take her dominant claw.

We lost one hippogriff, a mare who looked even younger than me. Wood splinters had pierced her lungs and heart. We gave her a triple dose of painkiller and let her go quietly.

Sweat ran down my back, and into my eyes. My smock stuck to my skin. I don't know the exact latitude, but we were within a few degrees of the equator. The daytime sun turned the gun smoke-choked, blood-stinking gundeck into a sauna.

"Nice to have you back, Boss," Jade said. "Congratulations on corporal. I'll sew the stripes on your smock tonight."

"Thanks."

"You look terrible."

I just nodded. The lung infection was gone and my ribs knitted, thanks to potions, but I still felt weak and I hadn't really been eating since I'd murdered the four pirates. The doctors had told me I was down a stone.

"I'm fine," I said. We moved the wounded to a pinnace, which took them to the hospital ship.

Twenty, thirteen, and four. Twenty saved. That was a good number.

I had no idea what was in store for me over the next two weeks.

The next day, that horrible place—we called it Despair Island, since it has no official name—came over the horizon, all mist-shrouded granite mountains and dark green jungle. Black Skull Island, with its barren volcanic rock had looked bad, but the real evil was here, under that fertile jungle canopy.

The squadron circled far offshore, so I borrowed a pair of binoculars from a hippogriff. I saw the pirates' fortress on the eastern slopes of the mountains. Outlying bunkers and gunpits protected a sheltered anchorage.

I wasn't a trooper, I wasn't a sailor, I wasn't an officer. But even I knew that was going to be a nasty bit of work to deal with.

I bit my tongue and ran a hoof over the new corporal's stripes on my shoulder. That made me leadership—and I had no desire to lead. I didn't know anything about command, and I wasn't trained for fighting, just patching up the mess left behind.

Could I give the stripes back? Now, besides fearing the welfare of my patients, I had to fear for ponies under my command if something happened to all the sergeants.

My stomach roiled, acid churning, and it wasn't seasickness.

Just before nightfall, Major Blueblood called us together on the gundeck of the hippogriff ship. Three of the battalion's six companies crowded together, shoulder-to-cutie mark, sweating in the tropical heat and the warmth of the herd.

"Troopers, here's the plan," Blueblood began, magically amplifying his voice. "The rest of the squadron will stay here, watching the pirate's stronghold. This ship and the Prince Guidestar will break formation, circle to the west end of the island, deposit the battalion, and sneak back before dawn. They won't have any clue Celestia's Own is in their rear, approaching them from behind. Questions?"

"What's our mission, sir?" Lieutenant Armor asked.

"First, we will take out the gun emplacements protecting the approaches, so that the rest of the fleet can enter the bay and land Second, Third, and Fourth battalions. Then, we lead the assault on the fortress itself, free the prisoners, and dispose of the pirates. Easy."

Silence. We all knew what those orders meant. Easy wasn't any part of this deal.

"How are we going to navigate across the jungle, sir?" asked a private.

Major Blueblood grinned at him. "Oh, we'll find a way."

Ponies asked several more questions. I raised my hoof and asked, "How many days of rations will we carry?"

"Ten," Blueblood said. "We're going to depend on you earth ponies, and I apologize in advance."

Ten days seemed like a lot. The island wasn't that big. It would be a three or four hour trot on a paved path. Being a city filly, I didn't know any better.

"One last thing," Blueblood said.

We all quieted. When an officer said one last thing, it was guaranteed to suck.

"Princess Celestia has teleported from Canterlot to the Prince Guidestar. She will be with us, along with Princess Cadance. Keep those two alive at all costs. And if you have to choose one or the other, choose Celestia. Cadance would be the first to tell you that."

I side-eyed at Lieutenant Armor. He looked green.

The boats deposited us by the light of the crescent moon. We formed into platoons and companies, waited for dawn, and started off, toward a cut between two of the granite peaks.

Under the jungle's triple canopy, almost no daylight reached down to us. We dripped sweat and stopped for water breaks every hour, our pegasi drawing the humidity into clouds to condense and refill our canteens.

Fungus attacked our ears and genitals, and our camouflage cloaks rotted off our backs.

I shouldn't have been there. I was still weak from my stay on the hospital ship, and Jade ended up carrying half of my kit. It's a good thing he was such a large pegasus. Every night, curled up in our two-pony tent with the zipper sealed against mosquitoes and snakes, I cried into my tail until I fell asleep. He pretended not to notice.

My dreams got worse. No longer content to torture me with visions of patients lost, bleeding unstaunched, those corporal's stripes on my shoulder left me in terror of giving orders, sending ponies into an ambush, their bodies ripped—

That's when I always woke up, gasping.

Jade and I shared that tiny tent, us sleeping spine-to-spine, and after the fourth night, I felt him fighting to hide his own racking sobs.

We lost two troopers and Echo Company's commander to taipan bites, even though all of us wore anti-snakebite gaiters on our legs. If those fangs hit just right, the gaiters weren't enough, and we didn't have any antivenin for that species. We buried them in the rocky jungle soil. Two others were saved by immediate amputations, which I was thankful fell on other medics. After treating the hippogriff gunner aboard the ship, amputations had joined the other nightmares in my nightly rotation.

The damn hippogriff rations were mostly dried fish. It kept us on our hooves, but certainly added to the general aura of despair about Despair Island.

Somehow, we soldiered on.

I think it's because we knew there were slaves to be freed at the end of it, and that only Celestia's Own was capable of doing what needed to be done.

Not one of us would have hesitated to pay any price to free slaves. But the waiting and the interminable heat of the jungle were almost too much.

On the seventh night, or maybe the sixth, when we stopped to make camp, Celestia came to me to get two leeches removed.

"Princess?" I asked Celestia, as I smeared disinfectant over a fresh bite near her left cutie mark. "Why are you here?"

She looked down at me, and levitated off her helmet. It was painted deep jungle-green, along with the rest of her armor. Despite armor and a heavy green cloak, she didn't seem to sweat.

"In Baltimare," she said, "I told you I cannot abide slavery. Many of my little ponies, and innocents of the other races, are held in that castle."

"But why you?" I insisted.

"I fear that my magic will be needed to make the difference between victory and defeat."

I frowned at that. Didn't she believe in us? I said, my voice hurt, "Celestia's Own don't quit."

"Don't think I lack confidence in you and your comrades, Corporal," she said. "But this is not a mission that can be allowed to fail. Every resource at Equestria's disposal must be drawn upon, and that includes my niece, and myself."

Cadance sat a dozen paces away, Tender Jade removing a leech from her underwing. I slapped a bandage to Celestia's wound, and used my nose to squeeze its adhesive against her coat. "All done, Majesty."

"Oh, I almost forgot to mention..." Celestia said.

Cocking my head, I looked at her.

"An anonymous philanthropist established a college fund for your younger brothers."

My jaw dropped. "Princess! You—you shouldn't have done that!"

She patted my helmet with a wing. "I said it was somepony anonymous, why do you assume it was me?"

"I'm no mercenary," I snapped. "Okay, I joined the Guard for college bits—but I'm on this forsaken island because it's the right thing. Not for money."

Celestia smiled. "I'll tell the donor you said, 'Thank you.'"

She walked off, and I plopped down to my bottom in the mud and cried.

I knew I would die on that island—but at least neither of the twins would have to join the guard, either, and put mom and dad through this again.

A few seconds later, a corporal named Cirrus Clouds came up to me. His face was red and he shuffled his wings in embarrassment. He mumbled, "I have jungle fungus under my tail, Doc."

I took a deep breath and reached into my kit for the antifungal salve.

How did we navigate through those dark jungles, around the stinking bogs, finding the easiest passes between the gray granite peaks? How did we always catch the pirates' patrols from behind, cutting off their escape and killing every last one of them before they could send a messenger back? How did we find and disarm every single boobytrap before we stumbled across it?

How did we make even one mile a day, which was a surprisingly good pace through such heavy country?

Well, Major Blueblood wasn't the deputy commander of the best battalion in the world because of nepotism.

His cutie mark is a compass rose. It took us eight days to cross through that horrific jungle, but we might never have made it at all without his talent at sniffing out the path.

He stayed at the head of the column, the single most-dangerous spot, for all eight days. My platoon was on point the seventh day, so I was about twenty yards behind the Major. In the deep shade of the jungle canopy, I could barely see him.

Like me, the Prince has a bright white coat, and he carefully kept mud smeared over anything that his camouflage didn't cover. He's famous nowadays for his thick blond mane, but he had shaved it immediately before we landed on the island.

Blueblood held up a hoof, and pointed at the ground just in front of him. Big Kaboom, our booby trap expert, tiphooved forward and looked at whatever Blueblood had spotted.

Boomie used her hooves and a small trowel held in her mouth to dig into the ground and remove... something. Her wings trembled.

I sat down and took a drink from my canteen. Like most of the mares, I had a bladder infection from not enough water and too few pee breaks. I touched my forehead and the fever scared me.

Once Boomie had the booby trap cleared away, Major Blueblood started off again, a slow walk, his nose almost to the loam, his horn dimly illuminated, literally sniffing the ideal path for us.

I stood and followed the column, walking in his hoofsteps. I've listened to Rarity rant and rave about the Prince several times. And, have no doubt, he's an utter prat in the flesh. I would break his ribs rather than have a conversation with him. But he saved those slaves' lives, and our battalion's. I would love to break his ribs, but then I would shake his hoof and buy him a beer. Or whatever snooty expensive crap he drinks.

Just after dark on the ninth day, we approached the gun positions that covered the harbor. We worked our way down to the edge of the water, mangrove roots tripping us with every step. About eighteen hundred feet away, across a thin neck of saltwater, was the far side of the harbor mouth.

One of the pirates' gun bunkers was to our left, and the other ahead of us, across the water.

Celestia stood tall and flared her wings. She didn't move, I wasn't even sure she was breathing, but over the next two hours a thick fog rolled in from the ocean, the smell of fresh salt air slowly displacing the jungle stench. I started to shiver as the fog dampened my cape, smock, and fur.

"Here's the deal," Lieutenant Armor told us. "Pegasi will work in relays to carry the unicorns and earth ponies to the far side. Bravo company'll assault the far gun emplacement, and Alpha Company will take the near one. The other companies are then going to clear the beaches so that the squadron can land the rest of the troops before dawn."

I insisted on going with the first wave. Jade carried me, panting and struggling, because of my weight.

"Don't drop me," I said with a fake laugh. "Last swim I took ended with the PoW medal, and these fellas don't take prisoners."

He just panted, wings beating against the thick fog. He dropped me on the far side, under another mangrove.

I listened. Waves lapped against the mangrove roots, and jungle animals called or hooted. My spine tingled, and I knew this would be a terrible night. Even with surprise, even under cover of dark, attacking entrenchments would...

I shook my head, clearing visions of failed attacks. I really needed to talk to the major and give back my stripes. Let the actual NCOs and officers handle that.

The pegasi made several more round trips, and at last Jade landed next to me with both our bags. He gasped and sat down. "Whew."

"Redheart, Jade," Lieutenant Armor ordered, "you two set up your aid station here, just above the high tide line."

"Yes, sir," Jade and I replied.

"We can't spare you a security detachment," Sergeant Flash said. "Don't hesitate to defend yourselves."

I nodded and Jade shuffled his wings. We both wore camouflage, of course. No laws of war, no rules, no quarter. No protection from the red cross.

I hate slavers.

Princess Celestia flapped down near us, her armor rattling softly, before disappearing into the mangroves.

Lieutenant Armor said to Jade and I, "Cadance is with Alpha. Celestia is with us. When you hear the music start... stand to and be ready."

"I want to come with the company, sir," I said. "Be with the assault."

"No."

"But—"

"No."

I ground my teeth. "Yes, sir."

The company disappeared into the bush. Even with the sun down, the heat pressed on us, the cool ocean breeze a forgotten memory. My entire body dripped, and I could no longer tell what was sweat and what was fog. My own stench surrounded me, along with a hint of fishmonger from all the hippogriff rations. I hate to admit it, but the fish jerky was starting to grow on me, by that point. I still eat it to this day, since it is nutritious.

Patches of dark fungus grew on Jade's face and ears, which combined with his jade coloration, actually made him about the most camouflaged pony in the whole battalion. I was jealous.

The moon was full—another Celestia special—and the thin canopy above us allowed just enough light down for us to organize our supplies and lay out three blankets for the inevitable wounded. I lit a small lantern, but left its shroud in place.

"Hey, Boss?" Jade said.

"Yeah?" I whispered.

"Help me get my wingblades on."

We got the blades onto his wings, and I carefully removed the leather covers to expose the sharpened killing edges. The leather tasted musty and old in my mouth, and Jade smelled just as bad as I did.

We sat and listened.

"Boss?" Jade said.

"Uh-huh?"

"You killed some pirates."

"Don't remind me."

"I don't think I could."

I remembered the ridge. I'd hesitated, unwilling to stomp the life out of that hippogriff, until Sergeant Flash had screamed his command at me.

"It wasn't easy," I said.

Jade grunted.

"Jade," I said. "No harm will come to our patients while we're alive. Accept that right now. Make them step over our dead bodies to get our patients."

He grunted again.

I still had my eyepatch from the hospital. I tugged it out of a pocket. "Help me get this on?"

"What? Why? Your eye is bothering you?" Jade said.

"No... no. When Celestia starts the music, I bet it ruins our night vision. I'll keep one eye dark adapted. You close both of yours until I tell you when it's time."

Foul-smelling feathers brushed my face as he fit the patch over my left eye.

"Cover your eyes with your wings," I ordered.

We waited in the dark.

I'm guessing it was an hour, or maybe an hour and a half. With the fog covering the stars, I wouldn't tell.

"Hey, Jade?" I said.

"Yeah, Boss?"

"You're a good friend, okay?"

"You too."

"You remind me of my little brothers."

He laughed. "I'm four years older than you. And a pegasus."

"Still, though. Hey, look. If I... you know... can you keep an eye on my brothers?"

"You've got it."

A few more minutes of silence.

"Why'd you join Celestia's Own?" I asked.

"I'm an idiot," he replied.

"Huh, me too. Wanna be twins?"

The horizon and forest lit up, bright yellow, and a second later the ground bucked, knocking me off my hooves.

The false sunrise dimmed, and then to our left, a bright pink flash, more distant, swelled and ebbed. A second, smaller, ground shock ran up our legs, followed a moment later by crashing surf.

"Show started!" I snapped, and tossed the eyepatch off. Jade stood and pulled his wings off his eyes.

“Wow,” Jade said, looking at the dimming flashes.

"Celestia first," I guessed, pointing at the fading yellow glow, "then Cadance," and I pointed at the pink flash. "I bet they opened those bunkers like soft-boiled eggs."

We stood there, tail to tail, so we could watch all directions at once. He flared his wings, wingblades ready, and I stretched my legs, ready to buck.

Spells sparkled in the directions of the two bunkers, but the fog and offshore breeze meant we could hear nothing.

My heart pounded, and Jade's body heaved against mine with his shuddering breaths. I looked, sniffed, twisted my ears left and right.

The world was nothing but the two of us and a thick blanket of foggy mist. That bit from basic training really came back to me: You will be scared. What matters is if you still do your job. They must have said that to us hundreds of times. They really knew what they were talking about, huh?

By Celestia and Luna, was I ever terrified!

Hooves crashed through the underbrush.

"Stand to," I whispered to Jade.

Crescent Pop, the unicorn private I had fought alongside on the Black Skull Island ridge, emerged from the jungle. Cirrus Clouds, the pegasus corporal I had treated for jungle fungus on his nethers a few days before, was slung over Crescent's back. Cirrus had been so embarrassed, apologized to me fifteen times as I treated him, but all the stallion medics had been busy, so I had assured him it was fine.

Well, this time, he wasn't fine.

"Spell to the chest!" Crescent gasped, and levitated Cirrus down to one of our blankets.

Cirrus squirmed and writhed, biting on a fetlock to keep quiet, blood flowing everywhere.

After flipping the shroud on my lantern open, brightening our aid station, I took one look at Cirrus and knew he was going to die. The spell had punched through his armor and into his left lung. A university hospital trauma center could have saved him—but two medics in the field? No way. Just... no way.

Cirrus stared up at me, eyes wide and begging me.

"You'll be fine," I said. "Let me get you a painkiller."

Twenty, fourteen, and four. Another life lost, and I felt the bile in my mouth. My ears wilted and my tail tucked. I pulled an ampoule of painkiller and prepared to sedate him enough to pass peacefully.

Jade looked at me, eyes dripping tears. I nodded slightly to him, and felt my own tears forming. I plunged two syringes into Cirrus's thigh, then pushed their plungers simultaneously.

His eyes closed and his fetlock fell from his mouth.

Crescent lowered his head and sobbed.

"Horse apples," I whispered. "Crescent, get back to the line. There's surely somepony else by now you need to bring us."

"You... you didn't even try!" Crescent screamed at me. "You didn't even try, you just put him down like a pet! Are you a medic or a veterinarian?"

Crescent's horn lit, and his sword moved an inch in his scabbard.

A deer and a griffon burst out of the jungle, into the light of my lantern. The deer—an eight- or ten-point buck—slashed at Crescent, goring him in the neck, lifting him and tossing him aside.

The griffon tackled me, slashing with a sword. I hunched my shoulders, ducking my head, and the sword rang against my armored withers and rebounded, flying from his claw.

He grappled, grabbing my forelegs in his claws. I landed on my back, under him, and tried to buck him off, but this griffon was twice the size of the female griffon I'd killed on Black Skull Island. He was my weight or more.

Everything else disappeared. Crescent, Jade, the deer. Even the mist dropped from my awareness as I focused on him. I think a marching band could have paraded past us right then without me noticing.

I flipped, twisted, and rolled, getting myself on top of him. He snapped with his beak, trying to tear out my throat. He only cut my cheek, the pain feeling like the slightest brush of a feather.

I yanked my head back and spit in his eyes. That startled him, and I rammed my head down, smashing with the forehead of my helmet, fracturing his beak. I smashed down again, and a third time, his beak now hanging in pieces, held together only by the skin covering it.

He squawked, spraying my face with blood. His tail grabbed my right-rear leg, but I got my left-rear leg up and stomped my hoof down, smashing between his rear legs with an awful splat. I still shake when I remember how that felt… it still makes me sick, to this day.

He screamed, arching his back, and his claws released my forelegs. With my newly free right forehoof, I stomped his larynx, once, twice, thrice. He spasmed and died, drowning on his own blood.

I ran to Crescent Pop. The unicorn writhed on the ground, his magic clamping a wound on his throat, but his aura began to splutter.

Looking up, I saw Jade squared off with the deer. Half the deer's antlers were gone and blood soaked Jade's left wingblade.

I grabbed one of my precious few magic tools, another arterial repair appliance, between my hooves, checked its charge, and gripped it, holding it over Crescent's wound.

The deer feinted with his remaining antlers. Jade faded back, left wingblade high, Jade's right wing limp.

The deer stumbled, and Jade raised his wingblade...

...hesitated...

"Kill him, soldier!" I yelled.

Jade slashed and split the deer's skull, just below the antlers. It went down.

"Drop your spell, and I can seal the wound." Crescent glared at me, and then cut his aura. Blood spurted across my chest as I squeezed on the grip and the spell flashed and sealed his torn carotid artery, the magical tendrils stitching the wound.

"Hold still," I said. "I'll bandage you."

I looked at Jade. He had by then wrenched his wingblade from the deer's skull, and stood over the corpse, ashen and shaking. "Jade. Jade!"

He looked at me.

"You did good," I said.

Jade vomited and collapsed to his belly, legs limp.

"Jade, you didn't kill him, okay? I did. I gave you the order. I'm the corporal. It's on me."

He covered his eyes with his good wing, muttering, "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry your mother what'll I tell your mother I'm sorry..."

I patched up Crescent's throat, then stitched and splinted Jade's right wing.

"Jade?" I said.

He stared at the dead deer.

I remembered how Sergeant Flash had gently laid a hoof on my withers after I killed the pirates on the ridge, and spoken quietly to me. I put a hoof on Jade's withers. "Jade," I whispered. "Are you all right?"

"No, Corporal," he said, "I am not fucking 'all right.'"

Almost exactly what I had said to Flash.

"I need my number one medic back," I told him.

He stood up. "Yeah, Boss. Okay."

"I'm ordering you evacuated as soon as the boats come in. The surgeons need to clean those wounds. This jungle is filthy and wings are delicate."

"Okay," he said. He shook. "Boss... I'm okay now. I can work. I don't want to be evacuated."

I looked at Jade, and remembered the bitter taste of my own evacuation on the river barge, when there had still been fighting to do. "Yeah, I need your help until the boats can get you. Get to work."

I dragged the deer's body away so that Jade didn't have to see the corpse. That was just in time for Sergeant Striker and some others to bring in the next batch of wounded.

It was a long night.

By dawn, my score was twenty-six, seventeen, and six, if I counted Jade's kill against me, since I'd given him the order.

Most of my cape and half my body was red with blood when Celestia raised the sun, and other than the beak-slash on my cheek, none of the blood was my own.

I looked at the griffon. His face was dark in the light of dawn, unmoving and dead.

I didn't feel like puking.

That scared me worse than possibly anything in my life.

I had just killed yet another creature, hoof-to-hoof, stomped the very life out of him, smashed his throat and crushed his genitals... ordered another killed, tossed off the order as easily as ordering a hot chocolate at a cafe... and I didn't feel a single thing.

That's when I knew the Redheart who had first gone to war, early that last summer, was dead.

And I didn't even know who had replaced her. Celestia knew that my family would never recognize this replacement Redheart, if she ever lived to get home.

I got back to work, checking blood pressures and plasma drips.

The fortress still towered above us, its cannons firing occasionally into the jungle to keep us jumpy and nervous. Relays of hippogriff sailors flew in, carrying slings, to evacuate our wounded, which included Jade and Crescent. By dawn, I was confident Crescent would live. Heck, he'd be back on duty in a month, thanks to how quickly I closed his carotid artery.

He was still cursing me for losing Cirrus as they carried him away.

I was still cursing myself. With Jade's evacuation, I was the last medic in the company. The entire Battalion had only three of us left, for eight hundred troopers. I wasn't sure what happened to the other medics. Nopony I asked knew.

We hunkered down that day, hidden in the mangroves. I treated two more snakebites, and I saved both their lives, although at the cost of amputations: one foreleg, one tail.

Twenty-eight, seventeen, and six. I was getting practiced at amputations, and I hated myself for it. I felt more like a carpenter than a medic, with all the sawing I was doing. I told myself that once I got back to Equestria, the doctors would be doing the amputations, not me. I still prefer not to assist in an amputation, to this day, unless it’s a dire emergency. The rest of the crew at the hospital doesn’t know why, but they know just enough of my history to understand.

After dark, boats came in, carrying the next three battalions. They dug into the jungle overnight, surrounding the fortress, and Celestia's Own was able to pull back a thousand yards up the beach and bivouac in semi-peace.

I flopped down and passed out.

My bladder infection, with its burning urge to urinate, woke me well before dawn. When I opened my eyes, I saw Cadance curled up near me. She cracked her eyes and looked at me.

"Corporal Redheart," she said.

I stood up, a little wobbly. "Princess."

"You did well yesterday night, defending your aide station and saving Crescent Pop's life."

I sat down, and my throat felt thicken. I coughed to disguise a sob. "Don't remind me."

Cadance took my head between her wings, and looked into my eyes. Her horn glowed dimly. "You're deep into combat fatigue. You weren't even recovered from your wounds when you improperly returned yourself to duty, and it shows."

"I'm just tired. I'm not sleeping. Bladder infection is keeping me awake. I've got jungle fungus on my... bits... which itches like you wouldn't believe, but the other medics are stallions, so I haven't..."

“I would believe the itch, as it turns out.” She let go of my face. "It won't be long. Morning. Then we can all rest."

"Morning?" Two days before Hearth’s Warming. I guessed Mom and Dad and my brothers would get the news after the holiday. Good.

Cadance stood. "I'm afraid so."

"Princess?" I said.

She looked at me, her pink mane filthy and matted. Fungus covered her camouflage cloak.

"You're younger than I am, Princess," I said, "and you don't look so hot, yourself. Are they at least going to give you a medal for breaking open that gunhouse?"

"Princesses don't get medals. This is just the job."

"Oh," I said.

She kissed my forehead, then curled back up to go back to sleep. "Remember why we're here."

I cocked my head and looked at her.

"We fight for love, and our enemies fight for hate. You love your little brothers, yes?"

"Wha—of course!"

"We're here to make a world where no creature's brother or sister, son or daughter, mother or father, is held in bondage and suffering. Tomorrow will be the worst day of your life, and the worst of mine. Keep in mind that we're here because of love. With my magic, I counted one thousand, two hundred, and four slaves held in the depths of that fortress. My count is sure to be low. Tomorrow—they will be free, but the cost will be high."

I nodded, although I didn't really understand.

"Princess?" I asked.

"Yes, Redheart?"

"Why are you here? You, personally? You're the Princess of Love, not the Princess of War."

"What greater love can there be, than to lay down your life to save somepony else's?" Cadance closed her eyes and covered her head with a wing.

Those damn corporal's stripes were driving me to distraction. I found myself worrying about things I would never have worried about before. Like: we didn't have any siege equipment, so how were we going to break into that fortress?

Sun and Stars forbid I have to step up and command an assault! I was still sick from ordering Jade to kill the deer, how could I possibly order a squad of troopers to kill? Or to die?

The fortress towered above us, carved into the side of the mountain, with towers and battlements built from the same gray granite, dour and majestic above the jungle. The fortress's banners were simple black fields.

Dawn's mist cut visibility to perhaps a half-mile. A breeze from offshore carried the fresh smell of saltwater, instead of the decaying stench of the jungle. A leech hung from my left foreleg and I just... didn't care anymore. I let it suck.

The two largest of the hippogriff war galleons sailed into the harbor, exchanging cannonfire with the fortress.

Lieutenant Armor tugged my camouflage. "C'mon, Redheart. Stand to."

We walked deeper into the jungle and joined Celestia's Own's other officers and non-coms, along with both alicorns, in a small clearing.

Celestia stood tall, in the middle of a circle of ponies.

I faded to the back of the crowd and sat down. I was only a medic, and the most junior corporal.

Glancing at the other faces, most of us were junior. So many casualties lately...

"The hippogriffs are fighting and dying to make a distraction," Celestia said. She paused a moment as another broadside echoed from the warships in the harbor.

Celestia continued, "We'll approach from the east. Lieutenant Armor and three other unicorns will cast shield spells over Cadance and I, and we two will cast spells to crack the roots of the fortress and open it. This battalion will lead the other three battalions into the assault."

Celestia looked at us, making eye contact with each of us, one by one. "Once battle is joined, all that matters is to reach the dungeons and extract the prisoners. Once they are free, it is a trivial spell indeed to merely implode the fortress on the remaining slavers. Good hunting."

Cadance used her wing to put her helmet back on. "Less than half the prisoners are ponies. You will treat any rescued slave as you would treat a pony, and show no favoritism to our race. Let our love be deep and blind. Good luck."

Our colonel stepped forward. "Forty generations of the Battalion came before us. They are watching, and they expect us to follow their hoofsteps. We will not insult their legacy. You are the officers and NCOs of the proudest battalion in the world. If we lead by example, our troopers will make us proud. Equestria expects that every pony will do their duty."

As we trotted single-file back to the edge of the clearing around the fortress, sweat poured down my back and my meager breakfast of dried fruit and fish jerky tried to come back up.

"Drink some water," Sergeant Flash ordered me. "It's going to be a long day."

Spells arced down from the fortress, which meant there were unicorns or kirins in the pirates' ranks.

That was when I reached my lowest point, I think. We had already taken the anti-snake gaiters off our legs, since they affected our running, and we all knew it would be a day for speed, not caution. I thought that I could probably find a taipan and induce it to bite me, maybe on the tail: an amputated tail wouldn't be a life-changing disability, just bother your balance, mostly, and I would get evacuated to the hospital ship off-shore, away from the fighting...

But no. No. I'd seen those three fillies aboard the ship. Freeing those slaves... I think the moment when they hugged me, and I carried them out of that cage, I think that was the single best moment of my life, at least until my own foals were born.

And there were, according to Cadance, over one thousand more slaves under that fortress.

Remembering those three fillies' hugs… I was going to be a part of that. Even if I died, dying to free slaves—yeah. Cadance was right. What higher love could there be?

My cutie mark is a red cross and hearts. It was obvious to everypony from nine-year-old me's day of marking that I would be a medical professional of some sort, but exactly how to read my mark still left room for interpretation.

I had always interpreted my mark to mean mercy. I hadn't been able to show mercy to those six pirates I'd killed, but by Celestia, I would be there for the pirates' victims. Who knew how much medical treatment they would require?

I nodded to myself, gritted my teeth, and trudged toward the fortress.

Toward my duty.

Toward the worst day of my life.

Batponies from Second Battalion and pegasi from Third and Fourth hovered far above the battle, summoning denser and denser fog to screen our attack and protect the two warships. After all, the warships could hardly miss something the size of a fortress, even shooting blind, but the fog definitely handicapped the pirate gunners' return fire.

The equatorial sun burned high in the sky. I felt a pang of agony for those poor batponies, and I hoped they all had sunglasses.

One of the fortress's cannons fired a random load of grapeshot. It sliced into the jungle canopy, and Sergeant Striker went down, cursing and gasping. I ran to him. The lead ball had struck the meaty part of his thigh. A bloody and painful wound, but nothing a few weeks in a hospital wouldn't set right.

"You lucky so-and-so," I told him as I cleaned and stitched the wound.

Celestia looked at Cadance. "Sooner begun, sooner done."

Cadance frowned at Striker, then nodded. "Delay benefits them."

We continued to move forward and dropped into freshly dug trenches. Striker hopped on three legs with us, rather than delegate a trooper to carry him to the aid station.

I threw away my camouflage cloak. It was already in tatters from more than a week in the jungle, anyway, and I dug my gray medic's smock from the bottom of my bag and pulled it on over my armor. If things were going to turn out as badly as I expected, well, I wanted the red cross on my back when I died. I was a medic of Her Equestrian Majesty's Armed Forces, and I would look like one.

The trenches were shallow. Roots and buried rocks made the ground almost impossible to dig. The trooper next to me was a donkey, and her shoulder flash read Third Battalion. The shovel and sledgehammer across her back meant she was a sapper.

"Hey, pal," I said.

She looked at me and flicked her large ears, and spoke with a strong Manehattan accent: "Cranky Celestia, what happened to you?"

"Try to avoid the jungle fungus. If it gets on your mare parts, watch out. You know a Third medic named Sapphire Bolt?"

"Oh. He's dead. Sorry. About three hours ago."

I bit my lips and nodded. "What happened?"

"Booby trap. He never knew what hit him. It was fast."

"Oh." I wanted to be sad. I kinda liked Sapphire. I'd been thinking about asking him out for drinks when we got back to Canterlot, although the corporal's promotion would have complicated that, since he was a private. "Thanks for telling me."

More grapeshot slapped into the jungle canopy. I cocked my ears, but heard no screams of pain or cries of Medic up!

The warships really were distracting the gunners. Almost none of the cannonfire was directed at us. The hippogriff sailors paid a high price, but they made our job possible.

Spells snapped back and forth, and cannonballs screamed over us as the hippogriff ships fired into the fortress. The fog thickened by the minute. I squinted to see into the distance.

Lieutenant Armor and three of the other unicorns climbed out of the trench and cast a combined shield spell. It hummed like a million bumblebees, the noise deep and grating. The spell crackled, changing colors and shimmering like a captured aurora. It smelled like... nothing. Even the stench of the mangrove jungle and the smell of the donkey next to me disappeared as the sidelobes of that shield spell washed over me.

I rubbed my suddenly dry eyes. The spell's crackling left them feeling like somepony poured a salt shaker over my face.

Celestia and Cadance teleported in, underneath the unicorns' shield. The unicorns made a square around the two alicorns and they began a slow walk, one pace every three or four seconds, into the fog, toward the now-invisible fortress. The dense mist glowed with the auroral light of the shield.

A pony splatted to the ground just in front me, bursting in a gout of blood. He must have fallen from thousands of feet in altitude, and I had no way to tell what had knocked him from the sky. No medics ran to him. There was obviously no point.

Celestia and Cadance looked at each other and nodded.

My mane and tail prickled. I've struggled for years to decide what this was like, how to describe what I felt. It wasn't the feeling you get in a lightning storm, where the hairs stick up because of the static. No, it was deeper and... more fundamental.

When alicorns are preparing big magic, drawing on the forces that shaped the cosmos out of the chaos... you're going to feel it in your very cells, down to the marrow of your bones. It was like standing in a corridor with the door open at each end, and the wind rushing through. Cadance and Celestia were consuming so much magic that more had to rush in from the world outside, and rush past us to fill the vacuum and feed their furnaces.

A tingle filled my hooves, my muscles, my bones, since that's where earth pony magic sits. The pegasi were flicking their wings, and unicorns shaking their heads and rubbing their horns.

My mouth was clear, but it tasted full of blood again, hot and metallic and sour as the magic rushed past us. The jungle fungus growing on my ears and privates tingled.

The princesses' horns didn't even glow—that was the scary part. Maybe being just an earth pony, I couldn't perceive what was going on, but my goodness, it affected me. My teeth ground and my ears perked straight up, so erect they hurt. I stared into the mist, and for the only time, I could feel the damage in the back of my right eyeball, despite the surgeries.

Even the donkey's ears perked up and trembled, and donkeys don't have magic. Imagine what it took to make her feel it. The ground shook and shook again. Earthquakes on command? What fresh hell was this? Bad enough cannons and spells! I pressed my helmet down to my head.

Cannons fired, and grapeshot bounced off the unicorns' shield while the two alicorns stood tall, regal, umoving, staring their hatred toward the fog-hidden fortress. What in Equestria was making the ground shake? I lifted myself up, out of the trench, staring into the mist.

To our front, a huge chunk of the cyclopean masonry dropped through the mist and crashed into the ground, mud and debris splashing. The shock punched me in the gut and lifted me up a few inches, then dashed me back down.

I lost my helmet in the bouncing. I looked left and right. More chunks of stone fell from the fortress and smashed into the ground.

"Sweet moon..." I muttered. "That's magic!" Celestia and Cadance were tearing the fortress down, stone-by-stone.

A few dozen steps to my right, another body fell. A tree branch caught it across the belly before it bounced and slammed into the ground. I jumped out of the trench, ran to the body, slid to a stop, and recoiled—it was a pirate, not one of our pegasi or batponies. I didn't have a clue what the species was, at least not at that time.

All these years later, I now realize it had been one of the Storm King's creatures. I guess he changed his banner from the black field to the blue double-tined fork after Despair Island.

It rolled its head on its neck and whined in the back of its throat. A pool of blood spread around its ruptured guts. It must have broken its spine, as unmoving as it was. Dark eyes, so alien, looked at me, but I could feel its agony.

Had I met it standing, able to fight, I would have killed it in its tracks, bucked it in the sternum and crushed its heart and then congratulated myself—this was a pirate and a slaver, and we asked and offered no quarter.

But now? My heart twisted that there was nothing I could do. It mewled pathetically as it died. I pushed an ampoule of painkiller into its thigh, and stroked its furry cheek until it passed. It didn't take long.

More rock fell. Grapeshot glanced off the unicorns' shield as the two princesses' spell intensified.

I crawled away from the dead creature and hopped back into the trench, near Major Blueblood.

"Redheart!" Blueblood shouted at me. "What were you doing, you lunatic? Why aren’t you behind the lines with the other medics?"

I started to reply, but a griffon with a Mountain Battalion flash fell from the sky, flared her wings, and landed right in front of the major. "Sir! Two airships are pulling out of the fortress!"

More chunks of rock fell, faster and faster, the ground shaking continuously. Where, oh where, was my stupid helmet?

Blueblood looked at the griffon. "Tell the weather teams, 'Take those airships.'"

She shook her head and raised a bloody, ruptured wing. "I can't, that landing was all I had left."

I trotted to her, grabbed some gauze from my bag, and started wiping blood from her wing so I could see the wound.

"Thanks, doc," she said to me.

Crouching in the trench, I stitched her wound, a ragged tear. Broken ends of bone grated together while I worked. She gasped and cursed.

"You're done for this scrap," I said. "Let me have your helmet."

She lifted it with a talon and dropped it onto my head. "Good luck, Doc."

"Were you on the south marches five, six months back?"

"Yeah," she said.

"There was a cave full of prisoners..."

"Yeah! I covered the team that snuck them out that back. They said a Household medic...?"

I set her broken wingbone. She screamed.

I taped the bones into place. "Yeah, that was me. Hey, thanks for saving my friends."

"I didn’t do much."

I patted her on the butt. "Hunker down and head for the beach when there's a lull. Get outta here and to the hospital ship, doctor's orders."

"My legs are fine. I'll stay." She peeked over the edge of the trench.

I peeked up, too. Arrows and grapeshot bounded off the shield protecting the Princesses. The Princesses still stood tall. It shamed me to be hiding in a trench.

While I had worked on the griffon—I never caught her name, did I?—Blueblood had hopped from the trench and run across the artillery-raked open ground to the shield.

He spoke to the princesses. I was too far away to hear his words, but after some discussion, Cadance took to her wings and surged upward, through the shield, into the mist. Blueblood ran back to our trench.

The fortress was really crumbling, now. Celestia glared at it, unalloyed fury and hatred I had never before imagined our good-natured monarch, the big sister to the entire pony race, was capable.

Then the disaster happened.

Well, we should have seen it coming when the Storm King invaded Canterlot. His guards had those anti-magic shields and armor. The petrification grenades that went clean through Cadance's shield spell.

It seems like, seems to me, but what do I know? I'm just a nurse, it seems like after we kicked their flanks on that worthless little island, they must have gone off somewhere, gone off and sulked, and developed all of those anti-magic metals, made enough shields and face masks and cages to equip an army. It also seems like they already had the basic idea, two days before Hearth's Warming on Despair Island.

The fog thinned. Fast. With the weather team off in pursuit of those escaping airships, the tropical sun burned the mist away.

The outer curtain wall crumbled as Celestia cursed in a final magical exertion. I had never imagined Celestia knew those words, really. She tossed in dozens of others in languages I didn't know.

Just as the floor beneath them collapsed, a gun crew on a high parapet fired their cannon, a last gasp of hatred before they fell, to be smashed by the collapsing stone.

It wasn't solid shot or grapeshot, but a load of metal junk.

The cannon load was the same anti-magic metal the Storm King's weapons and shields would be made of, twelve years later in Canterlot.

The unicorns' shield spell flickered as the cannon's load sliced right through it. It killed two of the unicorns outright, left Shining Armor and the other unicorn unharmed—

—and cut Celestia down in a spray of bright-red alicorn blood.

Author's Note

The next update will be the conclusion!

Chapter 9

Redheart lowered her face to the library's table and covered it with her forelegs. Her chest heaved and she sobbed against the crystal.

"I've had that dream so many times," she gasped. "As Celestia fell, I saw the whole world... end. It was coming up on noon, the sun high in the sky. If Celestia died, who would lower the sun? Would we all burn to death over the next three or four days? I thought, I thought, I thought about..."

Redheart arched her back and neck, nose pointed at the ceiling, eyes wide. "I thought about my brothers, who hadn't yet lived their lives. I thought about all my friends from school, from the neighborhood. Several of them had foals, already, by then. I thought about those infants."

AP grabbed her in his forelegs, and pulled her to his chest. He held her tight, his forelegs and wings wrapped around her barrel. She buried her face against his neck.

"Another drink, Sergeant?" Shining Armor asked.

Voice muffled by AP's feathers, Redheart said, "No, my limit's one drink a week. I've seen too many alcoholism cases come through that emergency room door."

Redheart looked up, over AP's shoulder, at Cadance and Shining. Redheart whispered, "And... well, I've often felt the desire to drink myself to sleep to silence the nightmares. So I'm very careful. I set myself a low limit."

Cadance nodded, her face pale. "I was chasing the airships. We took one, but the other delivered too much cannonfire. It killed fifteen of our pegasi and batponies. I cast my spell and felt no slaves, no prisoners, so I ordered the pursuit off. I... I was wrong. Now, I think the Storm King was on that airship."

Twilight poured herself another drink and sipped from the mug, her frown deep.

Cadance continued, "We could have ended it a decade before the Siege of Canterlot, but... my damn cutie mark. Love told me to call off the pursuit, before more of our ponies were killed. Ever since I realized how badly that I, personally, blundered that day, ever since the Storm King took Canterlot, my nightmares have come back."

Shining Armor poured himself another hot chocolate-and-amaretto. "It was all happening so fast," he said. "The curtain walls were collapsing, but they weren't gone yet. Cadance and the pegasi and batponies were... well, I had no idea. All four battalions were ready to charge, storm the fortress, once there were gaps in the walls. But..."

Cadance rubbed her face with her hooves. "I had no idea Aunt Celestia was wounded, back down on the ground."

Shining Armor wiped his eyes with his fetlocks. "So many good ponies died on that stupid field. So many friends."

Cadance wrapped him in her wings, and they touched their foreheads together, rubbing their horns gently up and down each other's. Twilight put a hoof on Cadance's withers.

"How old was I...?" Twilight mused. "Goodness, so young. I was in my second or third year at Celestia's School, and Spike little more than a hatchling. I had no idea. I thought you were finishing up at the Academy."

"Officially, I was," Shining said. "They seconded me to Celestia's Own. They counted combat and medals as course credit." He shrugged. "I still had to finish the coursework and exams, though."

"Why did they second you?" Twilight asked.

Redheart's muffled voice answered, her face still buried against her husband's neck. "The Battalion was always short-hooved. It wasn't above three-quarters of official strength at any time I was in it. The selection test was so hard not enough ponies passed to keep the battalion full. Officers and medics, in particular, we were always short on. If a pony volunteered, and then passed, it was a big deal."

Shining nodded. "That. Every single officer-cadet volunteered for Celestia's Own, it was part of the unwritten Academy ethos. But hardly any of us passed. Only three or four per class. Quite a few cadets who could have passed deliberately flubbed the trials, I think. I can't prove that—but everypony knew: Celestia's Own was, is, the widowmaker unit."

Very quietly, Twilight asked, "Why did you join it?"

Shining looked at Cadance. "I was courting Cadance. I loved her. I wanted to be close to her, and help protect her. And I knew she would be wherever the fire was hottest."

Cadance's face paled until it was the same color as Flurry Heart's. "You—you didn't have to risk your life, Shiny."

AP looked around the table at the others. He rubbed Redheart's withers with his forehooves and wings.

Redheart's tears and flowing snot soaked AP's neck and chest. Her ribs heaved. He kissed her snout, and tasted the bitter salt of her tears.

"Sergeant," Shining said, "I'll finish the story. You rest. After that cannon load cut down two of us shield-casters, and Celestia, what happened—"

"No!" Redheart shouted, sitting up and looking at the others. "No. This is my story. I'll finish it. I'm not going to quit. Celestia's Own don't quit."

Shining nodded, leaned back, and took another sip of his hot chocolate.

Redheart took a deep breath, and finished her story.

Author's Note

Comments are welcome!

Chapter 10

It wasn't solid shot or grapeshot, but a load of metal debris. Of garbage, really. But of that anti-spell metal they used a decade later.

The shield spell flickered as the load sliced through it. It killed two of the unicorns outright, left Shining Armor and the other one unharmed, and cut Celestia down in a spray of bright-red alicorn blood.

When Celestia hit the ground, she released some sort of magical... I don't even know what the word is. Like a snap, or a splash. Yeah... a splash.... imagine dropping a huge rock into a lake, and the splash of the water. She released this magical splash that knocked us all down, knocked me over, onto my flank, made me lose my borrowed helmet, and drove the remaining mist and fog away.

That's the part that really caused the problems—without the fog, the archers and the unicorns and kirin and the few remaining gunners in the castle could see to aim. The fortress was half-torn down by Celestia and Cadance's spell, but the remaining half was the problem!

As Celestia went down, at least three dozen of us stood up and ran to her.

Spells, arrows, cannonfire.

My spot in the trench was maybe thirty yards from her. There was a Fourth Battalion captain to my left, Major Blueblood to my right. We surged out of the trench and sprinted toward Celestia. The griffon I had patched up was just behind me.

Shining Armor went down to his knees and cast a small, dense shield spell over just himself and Celestia. The last of his shield-casting unicorns, the fourth unicorn, took an arrow into his eye.

I ran. The jungle mud, lumpy with rocks and roots, squashed under my hooves. Every fourth hoofbeat the pain I remembered from my old caltrop wound surged up my foreleg. Major Blueblood went down, a spell hitting his armor and staggering him. The colonel went down, he died a few hours later. The Fourth Battalion captain went down on my other side, a puff of blood, brains, and feathers. I never found out what happened to the griffon.

I kept running.

Grapeshot hit my armor, denting my chestplate. I stumbled but kept running. I jumped over the donkey sapper's body.

My vision blackened, down to a narrow tunnel. All I could see was Celestia. The cannonfire was as quiet as popcorn popping. The screams of the wounded, well, I couldn't even hear them.

Celestia, bleeding on that muddy jungle loam, was my entire world.

I tripped, stumbled, went down face-first, crunched down into a rock and broke my nose. To this day I still can't smell very well. That's one reason I like salmon jerky, the black pepper is so strong I can actually taste it, and this is why AP ends up changing the twins' diapers most of the time—he smells the messes before I do.

I shook my head. A spell struck into our group, ponies flew, blood and feathers everywhere. I half-stood back up, looked around, dropped down again.

Shining stood over Celestia with his shield, and nopony—nopony—running to them! The others who had stood when Celestia went down were all either wounded, dead, or covering behind rocks, roots, trees, or bodies.

And I say covering, not cowering, very carefully. There were no cowards in that jungle clearing that day. Everypony was looking around, weighing their chances and measuring their distances. They knew there was no chance to get to Celestia across that open field, under that withering fire, across that spell- and arrow-beaten zone.

My vision was fuzzy but I thought I saw blood, lots of blood, around Celestia.

"Who's senior?" I shouted, looking at the others.

After a moment of silence, somepony shouted, "You, Corporal."

My eyes went wide and my ears wilted. I was flat on my belly in a dip in the ground, so I raised my head and looked around. There were maybe two dozen of us, pinned down, and the officers and sergeants looked to all be dead or unconscious.

Those. Stupid. Stripes. Why had they made me a corporal?

Ponies were going to die, and it was going to be at my order.

"I gotta get to Celestia, stop her bleeding!" I shouted. There was a rumble of voices that I assumed was agreement. "On three—everypony throw spells, fly toward the gunners, or, I don't know, buck rocks at them. Anything to cover me!"

I felt my whole body going cold. My heart pounded even harder. Troopers were going to die. I very probably was going to die. Ordering Jade to kill that deer, that had been terrible enough. Ordering troopers to die? Could I actually bring myself to—

Celestia's head twitched, and I saw the blood pooling around her.

"One! Two! Three!" I shouted.

Perhaps twenty ponies stood. Spells flashed, half a dozen pegasi surged airborne, and the earth ponies really did toss rocks up and then buck them toward the distant fortress.

It was a massacre. Arrows and spells arced back, and a charge of grapeshot blew several of our pegasi apart.

Those brave ponies all died because of me. At my orders.

Running again, as fast as I've ever run in my life, my hooves back under me, the arrows seemed to miss me, the spells sizzled past. A single grapeshot ball nicked my right ear. My heart pounded in my ears and my vision dimmed with every heartbeat.

I ran toward Shining Armor, his shield spell, and Celestia, as the others died to distract the gunners and the archers and the spell casters.

Just as I got close, maybe five or ten steps away, a cannonball hit Lieutenant Armor's shield spell. A bright flash, like a lightning bolt in the face, dazzled me.

Stunned, momentarily unconscious, what was going on, my whole body just buzzing from the magical backlash, wet, mired in the muddy jungle loam, deafened and my ears ringing, I stood up—

— and I screamed. I crumpled back down. I looked down my right flank, and the armor on my right hip was dented, smashed, my rear leg hanging at some crazy angle.

The cannonball had spent most of its energy against the shield—otherwise I would have been dead—but then its ricochet smashed my hip, smashed my armor, and broken all the bones in my thigh. My leg was just limp, crumpled under me. What was surprising was how little it hurt. I mean, don't misunderstand me. My eyes were crossed with pain and hot urine pooled underneath me.

But it should have hurt worse, really. The pain should have knocked me unconscious. Adrenaline, I suppose. On my belly, I crawled, I was so close to the shield. I crawled, an arrow glanced off my withers armor, and then I was there, under the protection of Shining Armor's spell, its auroral light shimmering above me.

"Corporal!" he shouted. "Sun and moon, look at yourself!"

I wasn't looking at myself, I was looking at Celestia. Her helmet was dented, blood ran out from under it, and her left foreleg spurted arterial blood.

Another cannonball hit the shield, and Shining Armor staggered as the force echoed across his spell, down into his horn and his skull. He dropped to his knees, looked up, looked at the castle, grinding his teeth, blood pouring from his nose, his ears cockeyed at different angles.

If Celestia had a head injury, I dare not remove her helmet. What if it was keeping her brains in? But she was exsanguinating through the leg wound. I didn't know how much blood an alicorn body held, how much an alicorn could spare, but the puddle around her looked like enough to have already bled a teenaged filly dry.

(Dammit, if alicorns were going to fight alongside the Guard, we medics should get training in alicorn anatomy and emergency care! What if Twilight had been wounded in the dogs' caves last summer, hmm?)

Dragging, I crawled to her, and tried to turn around to reach into my saddlebag. My bag was gone. The cannonball, or else the magical backlash, must have torn it away.

But I still wore my smock over my armor. I nosed a tourniquet out of one of the pockets. I squirmed a few more inches and felt something in my hip snap. My broken nose dripped blood on Celestia's white coat as I inched toward her damaged leg. The salt of my blood ran down my throat, so I breathed through my mouth.

She opened her eyes. Her left pupil was blown, but her right eye looked calmly at me.

"Ah, Corporal Redheart. You look how I feel."

Looping the tourniquet around her foreleg, I shimmied it up, past her elbow, and then to the upper leg, above the arterial spurt. My nose dribbled blood onto her open wound.

"Sorry," I said. "Unhygenic." I bit down and pulled, and the tourniquet zipped tight. Celestia's bleeding went from an arterial spray to a soft trickle, then stopped.

"Thank you, Corporal. Most efficient."

I put my head against her chest, just underneath the armor. Her heart raced, her breathing fast and shallow.

"Low blood volume," I said. I turned to my bag—and it was still gone.

I closed my eyes in frustration. She needed plasma! Whole blood would be even better, but any sort of blood extender would do.

What—what was I going to do? The Princess needed some blood extender, and I had nothing! No other ponies could make it to us! The other medics were behind the line, out of grapeshot range.

I glanced up, at the noontime sun. My sweat mixed with my blood and urine, soaking my coat. Of all the stupid things to notice, the jungle fungus really itched on my ears, right then.

What would happen without Celestia? Even if other unicorns could raise and lower the sun, what would happen to Equestria without her?

I thought of my little brothers, back in Whinnyapolis.

Pushing myself up with my forelegs, I looked at the back of Celestia's helmet. Just like any Guard's kit: the owner's blood type was etched in small letters.

Unicorn A-neg.

Huh. Unicorn. I'd always wondered what she had been, before...

My blood type was earth pony O-negative. It wasn't a perfect match, but it was acceptable for an emergency.

I glanced across the field, and saw at least a dozen dead troopers. Troopers who had died when I ordered them to cover my rush to Celestia. The only way to make their deaths mean something was to save Celestia. Otherwise, it would all have been a waste.

"Princess!" I shouted.

Her eyes re-opened. She looked at me.

"Give me your good foreleg," I said.

Arrows bounced, cannonballs ricocheted. Shining Armor stared up at the castle, horn lit bright, the shield dome darker and smaller, but holding strong. Blood trickled from his ears, now, too, not just his nose. His eyes were bloodshot.

Celestia gave me her foreleg and I found a vein, pulled a sealed infusion line from my pockets, and stuck it into her. More of my blood smeared her leg, dirtying her bright white coat. Her blood smeared my smock as I worked. So, yeah, the framed scrap of fabric in my office at work... the bloodstains are mostly hers.

I stuck the other end of the line into my own foreleg, hit my vein on the second try, and pumped the bulb that primed the transfer.

My blood filled the line, moving into her.

Her eyes widened. She pushed herself up to her good foreleg, half-standing. "Corporal, no..."

I lowered my head to the mud. "Hold still," I said. "Doctor's orders. Don't jostle the line."

She glared at the stone curtain walls of the fortress and her horn flashed, and the walls, already weakened, finally began to collapse.

It took a good thirty seconds for the walls to tumble. It started on the far left, and the stonework near the bottom collapsed, bringing down the firing slits and parapets above in a deep thundering rumble. The collapse moved left-to-right as the weakened walls fell apart. The vibrations shook the whole island, rattling my ruined hip and I moaned as the vibrations shook the broken bones. The humid air filled with thick gray dust, and then, after perhaps a minute... silence. No spells snapped back and forth, no arrows flew, no cannons fired.

Celestia’s forequarters dropped into the mud, mud wet by her blood and mine, her urine and mine, all mixed together into a foul slop I remember so vividly when my nightmares are at their worst, two days before Hearth's Warming every year.

Shining Armor stood and levitated his sword over his head. A spell amplified his voice: "Take the castle! Kill their gunners! Free the prisoners! Celestia's Own, and no quarter!"

Major Blueblood, covered in his own blood, red against his white coat, stood shakily, then sprinted forward. He led the charge into the castle's ripped-open interior, the first pony into the breach in the walls, shouting, "No quarter!"

As my blood flowed down the infusion line into Celestia, she looked into my eyes and stroked my mane with her wing. "Celestia's Own truly don't quit, do they?"

My last thoughts were of my little brothers, and that they would grow up in a world protected by Celestia, and not in a world devoid of her grace.

I passed out.

Author's Note

Comments are welcome!

Epilogue

"I honestly don't know how I survived," Redheart concluded. "The injury to my hip was more than enough to kill, that far from a hospital."

Cadance tapped her hoof on the crystal of the library's table. "I... can explain that. So many ponies were dead, so many wounded. Celestia couldn't think straight. The only thing keeping her together was seeing group after group of freed prisoners, freed slaves, walking out of the castle into the sunlight, watching Shining cast the spell to break their chains."

Twilight looked at Cadance. "That doesn't explain how Redheart survived."

Cadance nodded. "Celestia was distraught, distraught about every single wounded and dead trooper, but when my detachment and I landed the captured airship, she commanded me to give a pint of my blood to Redheart. The fact that you were willing to die to save her—that hit her so hard. She's never truly resigned herself to her status, to her specialness, after even a thousand years."

"Oh!" Redheart gasped. "The old wives' tales are true? Alicorn blood?"

Cadance nodded again. "My blood brought you out of shock, and you were on the first stretcher the hippogriff navy carried back to the fleet offshore. After a pint of my blood, aggressive conventional medicine was enough."

Redheart snorted. "'Aggressive.' I didn't wake up for a month. I woke up in Canterlot."

AP hugged Redheart back to his chest. "What was the bill that day?"

Shining Armor grimaced, and smacked his lips as if he were eating rancid peanut butter. "Three hundred fifty dead, half in First Battalion. Five hundred ninety wounded. One thousand, three hundred and fifty-three slaves freed. We didn't count the slavers' bodies, but we took forty-four prisoners. None of them had any information, so we buried them at sea on the trip home."

"What?" AP said. "Buried at sea? What did they die of?"

"Drowning."

Redheart shrugged, and kissed AP. "I spent three-quarters of a year in the hospital while they rebuilt my hip. I applied to Canterlot University from my hospital bed and started in the fall semester. And of course, we met each other in the spring of my freshmare year."

AP shook, cold slicing through him, and he poured some more hot chocolate but skipped the booze. "That—Redheart, my love, how? How did you do all that? Live through all that?"

Redheart looked around the library, stood, sprinted to a trash can, and vomited her hot chocolate and most of her dinner into it.

She wiped her eyes, then her mouth. "It had to be done. Slaves. Slavers. I just, I just kept thinking about Treble and Livey. What if somepony had stolen them? Would I quit, or would I do everything I could to save them? Celestia's Own don't quit. We might get killed trying, but we never stop."

She sat back down and wiped her mouth again, then looked back at the table. "I... I need to go to bed. Princess, Prince? When are you heading back to the Crystal Empire?"

"Late tomorrow," Shining Armor said. "Night train."

"Let's... let's get breakfast together," Redheart said. "Come to our place, and I'll make waffles. And I promise—no war stories. We'll let our foals play together, and we'll all catch up, like old friends."

At noon, about six weeks later, AP went to meet Redheart, his lunchbox gripped in his teeth. He lifted his wings up off his flanks. Why did they keep the hospital so hot? Yes, yes, the patients wore thin gowns, and it was the middle of winter. But did the staff sections of the hospital need to be so overheated? Magic cost money, after all, and as the Hospital's accountant, he had to sign the checks!

He walked through the employee's-only entrance to the back of the Emergency Room, waved at Dr. Steel, and entered the supervisory nurses' office.

Redheart was already in there, her back to him, standing up on her rear legs. She held a nail between her forehooves and a hammer in her mouth.

She tapped the nail halfway into the wall, just below the frame holding the bloodstained scrap of fabric.

Redheart dropped down to all fours and turned to see AP. After placing the hammer on the desk she said, "Dear! How's your day?"

"Great. What are you hanging, Honey?"

Redheart smiled at him. "I pulled my old guard stuff out and decided... well, I decided..."

She pulled a wooden display case out of her bag, turned, and hung it on the fresh nail.

It wasn’t anything fancy: no medals, no Cross of Valor, no Diarchs’ Thanks. It was simply a large version of the new Ponyville Home Guard shoulder flash, which showed a foreboding cave entrance with four armored ponies—one of each of the three tribes, and a batpony—surrounding the cave, preparing to enter. A purple alicorn stood, wings flared, in the middle of the four. The flash bore the unit’s newly-awarded designation: Twilight’s Own.

"I still can't talk about the Cross to anypony else—but I'm glad you understand, now. After telling you what happened, well... I feel like my past, hmmm, what am I trying to say?"

AP walked over to his wife, tossed a wing over her back, and then circled it around her belly—the belly that the two of them had learned only a few days before was carrying their next foal. He leaned his head against hers, and Redheart sighed.

She raised a hoof to her own belly, touching his wing. "So many of my friends died, but they made an Equestria that's safe to bring our foals into..."

"You helped make that Equestria, too, my love. Never forget that."

She closed her eyes and sighed. "The past made me the pony I am—and I'm proud of that pony. I'm not afraid of my past anymore. I'll have those nightmares until the day I die, but after talking about everything to you... the nightmares have a tiny bit less power over me."

They kissed deeply, and he rubbed her belly with his wing.

After they broke their kiss, Redheart smiled at AP and said, "Let's eat! I'm starving, and we have no idea when the next emergency will crash through that door."

Author's Note

AP and Redheart had a magical test done and learned they would be having a filly. They decided to wait for her to be born and be surprised by her tribe. Have no fear, their little one was healthy and happy, and raised in a loving home, and grew up in an Equestria protected from the dangers of the world around, protected by ordinary ponies like her mother, who refused to quit, no matter the cost.

That's the story! Please let me extend my sincere thanks to you for sticking through it. When I first started making notes on the idea, back in early December, I expected 15,000 words, not 46,000!

As always, I live for comments, and you all are the reason I write. Thanks so much for the comments, the faves, and the upvotes!

Author's notes and commentary blog, with big spoilers.

Chapter 5

Redheart's voice trailed off. She shook, sitting next to AP on the couch in their living room. Winter wind shook the house. He hugged her, and kissed her on the nose, tasting the salty tears matting her coat. "My love," Redheart whispered. "It—it feels good to tell you…"

He took her head in his hooves and looked into her right eye. "It looks fine," he said.

"Doctor Looky Loo at work says she can see some residual damage," Redheart said, "when she checks in there with her 'scope, but my vision is good enough. It's not like I'm a Wonderbolt."

He kissed her ear.

She looked at the mess, the twins' toys scattered everywhere, and smiled.

"I'm hungry," Redheart said, and looked at a clock. "Goodness! I've been talking forever. We're way past lunchtime, but I'm not in the mood to cook."

After dressing in heavy winter coats, scarfs, and hats, they trotted to Café Hay.

"How's your son?" Redheart asked Savoir Fare, the café's host.

"The cast comes off soon, but I don't think he'll want to try ice skating again this winter. My wife and I, well, we wanted to thank you again."

Redheart frowned, and nodded. "I'm just glad we were there at the pond. That break needed to be splinted just so. Can we have the private dining room, please?"

"Of course, Madame Redheart. Anything for you!"

They trotted through the open dining room, following Savoir Fare. Flitter and Cloudchaser, twin sisters and Redheart's fellow Home Guard reservists, waved at Redheart from their table.

Cloudchaser still wore a brace around a rear leg from that past summer's terrible incident with the diamond dogs, and her bangs hung more messily than usual over an angry scar along her forehead. The twins smiled and nodded to Redheart. "Sarge," they both said.

Redheart nodded back. "Ladies."

AP knew he was missing something passing between the three citizen-soldiers.

Deep in the back of the restaurant, behind a closed door, Redheart cradled a mug of hot chocolate in her hooves.

"My third Wounded-in-Action," she said, "And the last one I can tell you about, was a psychological wound. I mean, I broke some ribs, punctured a lung, lost a few teeth, but mostly a psychological wound."

AP reached out and touched her forehooves with his. "Were you... what happened? Were you captured again? Were you... you... like those three fillies?"

"No," Redheart said. "I killed. Me, with my red-cross-and-hearts cutie mark, and my special talent for healing... I am a killer."

Author's Note

As always, I welcome constructive comments!