Ausra grunted as she struggled to close the desk drawer, the stacks of report papers and books she'd tried haphazardly forcing in catching every time she tried sliding it back in place. Snarling, she viscously slammed her front hooves against the draw, which she instantly regretted as twin jolts of pain shot up her limbs. The young thestral recoiled from this, cringing in pain as she flapped her tired wings and hovered just above the ground. The desk rattled briefly from her assault, and she fixed it with a pointed glare as she noticed the damned draw was still stuck half open. Admitting defeat, she snatched up her mostly empty saddle bag from the floor, making sure her sphyg, stethoscope and small supply of cannulas were still there, along with an odd assortment of equipment she had been issued with upon joining the medical corps. Not surprisingly, she’d already used up her supply of bandages allocated for that week, the ripped sleeves of her stolen uniform standing as a grim testament to that fact.
Sighing, she turned in the air and left the empty office, coming to an unsteady landing in the hallway beyond. Dim blue lanterns hung along the hallway, barely illuminating the few other Thestrals walking the halls that were awake at this hour. Ausra gave each one a small smile as she threaded her way past them. Her tired brain only had one destination in mind, and she couldn't help from smiling, despite the situation surrounding her.
Makeshift stretchers lined the hallways, each one occupied by thestrals with varying degrees of injury. She made periodic stops along the way, making quick checks on those with red or orange tags. She only stopped long enough to make sure they had a pulse, and were still breathing, before moving on to the next thestral. The colour coding marked the severity of their injuries, with those who could still stand and walk being sent back out almost immediately after being patched up. Ausra arched her neck, a series of satisfying pops and cracks running along her spine as she tiredly stumbled towards her living quarters.
The drakes had come three times that night. Even now, deep underground, Ausra swore she could still hear the faint sounds of sporadic fighting from the surface of Ly'synia. The infirmary, or more accurately the basements and cellars that had become the infirmary, had been filled to the brim with wounded and dying thestrals. The legless, the wingless, the blind, or those who had simply gone insane, they were all shipped back down to their cramped, ill equipped infirmary. Ausra shook out her frazzled, dirty mane, clenching her eyes shut tightly as she tried to forget the last 24 hours of her life. They’d lost a lot of thestrals the past week, the Drakes attacks only seeming to become more and more costly with each passing day.
She idly wondered how much longer they could even hope to hold out, let alone survive. Ever since the Drakes had invaded Nys'strova, Ausra had watched as a whole generation of thestrals were butchered and maimed all around her, barely managing to hold their ground against the Drakes constant onslaught. For five long months they'd been completely alone; the Margrave, what little remained of the Nys'stralla, and those civilians who'd volunteered to stay and defend Ly'synia, against the full force of the Drakes. Ever since joining the civilian medical corps, she’d had a front row seat to the horrors inflicted on their homeland. In her darker moments, Ausra struggled to see a way out for her homeland. However, despite all the chaos and death assaulting them from all sides, those surrounding her hadn't given up hope yet. This was their home, and they would sacrifice everything to defend it, Ausra including herself in that group.
She stumbled slightly over some loose bricks, briefly stopping to look up at the hole they'd come loose from. Sighing, she adjusted her small saddle bag and continued on her way, glad to finally have been given some time to sleep. The air below ground was stale and dusty, and since relocating underground she'd struggled immensely keeping track of time, which wasn't helped by the fact her watch had been smashed when she’d been thrown to the floor during the Drakes last attack.
After another minute of winding corridors and cellars-turned living spaces, Ausra arrived at the bottom of a set of uneven stone steps. Quickly glancing around to make sure she was alone, Ausra flapped her wings and quickly ascended, silent as a moonlight shadow. Soon reaching the top, she undid the latch of a heavy oak trapdoor, finding herself surfacing in the shattered remains of a large home.
A weak vail of starlight bled through the collapsed in roof, bathing the dark blue thestral in a pale, soothing glow. Sporadic clouds laced the horizon, and the fresh smell of rainfall greeted the mare’s nostrils, a welcome change from the smell of cloying disinfectants and death that lingered below. She shivered slightly as she made her way to a broken window, noting the first signs of dawn bleeding across the eastern horizon with tired eyes. She remained idle for a few moments, vaguely contemplating on the day Cy'lysė, the Princess of the sun would appear over said horizon, army at her back, to finally help the Thestrals expel the drakes.
Five long, desperate, bloody months of fighting, clawing desperately to every inch of ground in Ly'synia, had left the once great city of the Thestrals in ruins. From her vantage point, Ausra could see the wide expanse of the city, with the river gently winding through the middle of the ruins, small fires cropping up at sporadic points throughout the landscape. Crumbling houses and shops, markets once characterised by a positive rainbow of produce, now lay smouldering and shattered. The streets were awash in rubble, and where the vicious struggle had been most recent, piles of corpses stained the cobbles a sickly crimson. Once busy meeting places now lay silent, and temporary graves, epitaphs and tokens of loved ones decorated every corner, every flower bed, and every street sign.
Her nocturnal instincts kicked in, allowing her to scan the ruins for any sign of movement, letting herself relax a little as everything seemed still. The majority of activity was on the western side of the city, across the river where the Thestrals still held a few bastions against the Drakes. The night still belonged to them, for now at least, which made now the safest time for those wishing to visit the surface after so much time in confinement below ground. She pushed off from the window, fanged teeth poking out in front of her lips as she scampered across the ruined kitchen and deeper into the house, her mind having already committed their meeting place to memory.
She laced her way deeper and deeper into the building, the structural integrity increasing until the roof over her head was solid once more. Crossing a small foyer, she calmly slid through an open door, closing it gently behind her with a click. The room before her was pitch black, and it took her eyes a few moments to adjust to the change.
“Miškas?”, she called out quietly, struggling to make out much of anything in the murky darkness. She idly wondered if she was too early, not for the first time that night cursing the unfortunate fate of her watch. “You’re not hiding in here again, right?”. Silence rang out in reply, and with a fatigued sigh, Ausra opened her saddle bag and began rummaging through for her mana powered torch, when the faint sound of loose rubble tumbling across the floor stole her attention.
She snapped her head in the direction the sound emanated from, slitted eyes narrowing as he paused her search. The world lurched violently as the shadows suddenly erupted, a strong, vice-like grip tackling the small thestral mare off her hooves and up against the wall. Ausra barely had time to shout, let alone think as the force from the impact winded her. She struggled against the unknown assailant, desperately flapping her wings and flailing her hooves, her heart hammering against her ribcage.
“Mmmpph-!” she mumbled, swinging her hooves forward violently, trying and failing to land a hit on whoever it was. A stifled laugh emitted from the dark figure, Ausra’s body relaxing as she immediately recognised the voice.
“Really!?” she stuttered, managing to contain her relieved laughter and remain indignant sounding. “You thought that was the best way to greet me?”. Her eyes, having now grown more accustomed to the pitch black, could make out the vague outlines of a thestral stallion wearing various articles of mismatched armor. His dark mane was tied up, and he had a humorous smile splitting his sharp face.
“Well”, he replied in a long, drawn out way, “You don't usually complain when I do that”. He smirked at Ausra as he watched the mare against the wall stumble for a reply, her cheeks flaring bright red as she struggled to think of anything clever to retort with. Miškas smiled a toothy grin, releasing his grip on Ausra while gently leaning in to kiss her on the forehead.
“Besides”, Miškas continued, snatching up the mana torch, which had fallen onto the floor from Ausra’s bag. “If that's how you'd defend yourself, then I can only hope the drakes never manage to make it as far as your hospital”. He flicked a switch on the torch, illuminating the room in a pale blue glow as he set it back down on the ground. The room was relatively clean, at least by wartime standards, and was furnished with a single bed and an old cabinet, with a corner where the pair had swept up most of the broken glass and loose bricks. A single, tall window looked out over the east horizon, giving them both an expansive view of the ruined city.
Ausra let out a long, shaking breath, still trying to recover from the initial shock as she pushed off from the wall and followed Miškas, sitting down on the end of the bed alongside him. The pair gently leaned against each other, content to watch as the rising sun gently stained the clouds with soft shades of crimson.
“There's a reason I wasn't picked for an active fighting role you know?” Ausra quipped quietly, relaxing into their gentle embrace. “Besides, you took me by surprise, I'm perfectly capable of looking after myself”. She shivered slightly, her dull blue uniform doing little to stave off the early morning chill.
Miškas smirked, and rubbed Ausra’s shoulder gently before replying, “I know, I know, I was only messing with ya”. He chuckled quietly to himself, before adding, “besides, the look on your face was totally worth it”. He glanced down at the smaller thestral, sporting a stupid grin.
Ausra met his gaze with a weak glare, trying and failing to keep a straight face. She quickly gave up, snorting as she buried her face against Miškas’ shoulder. “Fine, it was… kinda fun I'll admit…” she mumbled in response, eliciting a light hearted chuckle from the thestral beside her. After a few moments of this, the pair quieted down once more, resigned to simply staring out across the hellish landscape.
“Rough night?” Miškas asked softly, idly kicking his hooves against the wooden floor.
“Something like that” Ausra replied through a yawn, pushing a stray lock of mane away from her eyes. “And yourself?”
“Something like that, yeah” Miškas mirrored in reply, the pair both intimately understanding what the other was going through. “Can we…” he began, stumbling slightly over his words before continuing, “Can we just sit here, for a while? Watch the sun rise?”.
Ausra made eye contact with the stallion, and nodded in reply, a small half smile decorating her face. She sighed tiredly as Miškas leant against her, content to support the stallion's weight. Slim traces of blue sky streaked out across the horizon, and the pair sat together in relative peace, resigned to watching the sunrise slowly bleeding out across the dying city. It was Ausra who broke the silence.
“I heard we lost the distillery district last night” Ausra said in a strained whisper, shivering slightly as Miškas let out a long sigh. “That means they’re over the river now, right?”. She tilted her head ever so slightly so as to catch a glimpse of the other thestrals face. “Some… some of the thestrals I helped treat last night told me there had been a… a huge attack there”.
Miškas remained silent for what seemed like an eternity, only the sound of his shallow breathing permeating between the two. “Yes” he replied simply, choosing to focus his eyes on the sunrise instead of Ausra. “We lost the distilleries, but we didn’t leave them much of anything to occupy once we cleared out”, he added with a crooked smile, glancing back at Ausra finally, who wore a look of mild confusion. “You didn’t happen to hear a series of large explosions last night?”.
Ausra shook her head initially, but then stopped himself as one particular memory surfaced rather violently. “You don’t mean…” she began, a wry smile forming on her face as she struggled to comprehend what Miškas was telling her. “We… There was this sound like a sudden thunderstorm, and the whole room shook around us… that wasn’t… that was you?”.
Miškas only smirked in response, bouncing his eyebrows as Ausra’s face lit up in a mix of disbelief and awe. “I… I can’t…” She stumbled for a reply while the thestral next to her only chuckled. “How did we even manage that?” she finally got out, readjusting the collar of her shirt as she turned to face Miškas.
“One of the mares in my unit used to work as an engineer there,” He said with a weary shrug of his shoulders. “She started rigging them to blow once we knew we couldn’t hold out any longer”. He smirked at Ausra’s enraptured face, and gently rested his head against the smaller thestrals' neck. “Besides…” he added, closing his golden eyes as a weak patch of sunlight crossed over the pair. “We couldn’t let them have the vodka”.
Ausra giggled at this, a warm smile on her face as she contented herself with braiding Miškas’ mane. The pale winter sun was still hanging low across the horizon, the shattered remains of buildings casting long, dark shadows across the dizzying streets spread out before them. Despite everything going on around her, Ausra felt strangely at peace for a single, fleeting moment.
Her heart was filled with a crazy kind of contentment. She wouldn’t have called it happiness, but, as she leant her head against the wall and idly messed with Miškas’ mane, she realised that the few moments she got to spend with the thestral currently using her as a headrest were what made this whole nightmare bearable. Ausra’s tired eyes fluttered shut, and she finally let herself relax, shoulders sagging as the tension she’d been holding in all week was finally released.
“Hey, Miškas?” She whispered, gently stroking the stallion’s face. Miškas made no reply, his chest rising and falling gently as he’d fallen asleep almost immediately after lying down. Ausra merely smiled at this, letting out a shaky breath as she gently tucked the braid she’d been working on behind the stallion's ear.
“Thank you...” Ausra whispered to the sleeping stallion, yawning once more before her eyes gently closed, the pair gently drifting off to sleep as the dawn broke.
Author's Note
Hope you liked it 
More to come at some point... schedules are overated
