Bronze Tiara

Chapter nineteen

Princess Saving Grace walked the halls of her castle calmly, already having gotten word of the pests that had recently started picking on one of her neighboring towns. It was a stones throw from her own capital, but with the reinforcements already dispatched she doubted those aggressors would last much longer.

Right now, to her curiosity, she waded over the reports that were given to her by those from the mine. Particularly, what was found along the various kinds of Automatons she was already familiar with.

“You had been a busy bee…” the size of the creation sounded exaggerated, but then again given the tenacity of another pony. It seemed well in her ability to create such a thing.

The few guards she passed by threw up their salutes and the mare just as quickly dismissed the gesture, still growing in inquisitiveness to the report. The various ones that existed all seemed to have their own purpose in a way that they served. ‘Hmm equine variety are more or less cannon fodder, Gryphon fills the role of support with weapon fire… and the dogs remain as they have in flesh and blood, behemoths on the battlefield,’ Grace looked over the smaller snippet that was written about the forged reptilian creation, ‘So what roll are you? Ring leader, master, tactician?’

A whimper as she walked brought the princess to a halt in the hallway, leaving her to look around at the vacant halls that resided in either direction. Some of those that worked at the castle would occasionally bring their own kin in from time to time; while they went about their shift for the day, so children running about if anything weren’t uncommon.

“What could be upsetting one though?” Grace waded around the hall trying to zero in on the youngling.

Finally, resting at the door outside of medical, a small aqua looking filly sat with her hooves curled up to her face as she wept in to them. The princess knew most of the kin that were her staffs, yet this one eluded her to the parents. With her walk slowing to a tip-toe, Saving Grace eased herself up towards the filly, as her wing put the record away under its fold and its twin extended out to the silver mane of the young one.

“Easy now little one,” the regal mare gently stroked the top of the filly, causing her head to slowly rise to meet her own. The bloodshot eyes of those so young were something Grace had hated seeing, and one she was familiar with from having them herself before, “What troubles you, miss…?”

After giving her time to adjust and get her breath, the filly sucked in another and whispered, “…Topaz…”

“Well, Miss Topaz,” Grace knelt down to her stomach, trying her best to smile at the filly and give her all the care that her own mother had done when she was young, “What’s bothering you? If I may.”

It took a few seconds, and a few more for the filly to even look, but soon enough Topaz looked too the door she resided by and pointed at it with a trembling hoof. “My dad… he’s hurt, they’re trying to help him…” she stopped for another sob, “But he just seems to be hurt so… bad.”

“There, there little one,” Grace eased the filly up to her hooves and in to her own embrace, as she let the tears drain in to her chest. “The doctors and nurses here at the castle are some of the best in the nation, they’ll-”

“She’s helping them as well,” Topaz cut the princess off with a sniffle, “I hope with how she fixed herself up, she can do the same for my dad.”

Graces’ ears perked up with those words, as one of her eyes cocked in wonder, “And who might this she be?”

“…Miss Bronze.”

With a snap of her eyes at the sounding of that name, Grace did her best to keep her face one that lived up to her name. Using her wing, the Pegasus reached out to the handle and gently twisted it to not alert those inside. From the crack, the mare watched another moving at a feverish pace, tearing nearly a tornado through the medical bay.

After an even more gentle close of the door, and the best reassuring smile she could give. The princess once again kneeled down to the filly as she stood, putting them at eye level, “I know you would likely want to stay here and wait,” she could see the yearning in Topazes eyes, “though being just outside of the door will only make you worry more.”

With a drop of her head, the filly nodded once, “Yeah… I guess you’re right…”

“Come with me my dear,” Grace lifted Topaz up and on to her back, “let’s wait somewhere more comfortable, and to help clear your mind.”

For a moment Topaz agreed completely, though a press to the mares’ shoulder blades made her stop there, “But… how will Bronze know where I am when she comes out?”

“Oh… don’t you worry about that,” Grace calmed her once more, “I’ll be sure she knows.”

Bronze herself raced around the room just as the princess had silently observed. Rummaging through equipment and tools of the trade like she would any workshop. Living creatures to the mare were nothing more than biological machines. She might not have understood all that made a pony tick, but she knew how to fix machinery… some just had more blood than oil. Meanwhile, the two nurses that were present during her crash tended to the colt. Using a manual ventilator to keep air going to his lungs, and sterilizing the area across his chest near the wound.

‘I can fix this… I can fix this,’ the mare told herself over and over again, because if she couldn’t, how would she ever face the filly again? “Use an Anesthetic spell!” she yelled over to the unicorn of the two, as the Pegasus kept the press on giving air.

Coming back over to the two by his side, Bronze brought out a surgical tray with all the gear she had hoped she’d need. Forceps, bandages, gauze, surgical scissors, fluid rags, sterile needle and threat, scalpel, and even a bone saw. Amongst nearly every other chest surgery tool. Eying the nurse applying the spell, Bronze hoofed over the scalpel to her.

“Make a cut across the wound, the round went somewhere inside and-”

“I don’t know what I’m doin’!” the mare shouted back at her with a country twang, “I’m here only part time, the most I've done surgery wise is set a bone! I usually take inventory.”

A roll of her eyes, and a small shove later. The frenzied mare placed herself where the mare had once been, “Then just give me tools as I need them!” a nod later and the unicorn finished the spell and went to Bronzes’ side.

With an expert use of her talons, Bronze was thankful she didn’t try to do something like hooves to blend in more. All the while as her digits carved in to the soft tissue with the tool, an aura from her horn held on to the rags and applied them to the wound as she cut. There the next step presented itself, the clear shattering of a rib by the round giving an indication to where it had gone.

“Bone saw,” she called out.

Just as it was hoofed over, both her talons started going to work. Bringing the medical device back and forth on Marbles’ sternum to open up a cavity. The mare was just thankful Topaz went outside short of a fuss; she wouldn’t have wanted in here for this part. Especially after hearing the crack from the bone finally giving way.

“Cavity-,” was all she got out as the spacer was thrust in to view.

Latching it on to either side of his ribs, the mare took note with every breath that was pumped in to him his lungs still managed to inflate. A good sign for the mare, as she held out her talons to the assistant. Without even so much as a question, her appendages were scrubbed down with alcohol and Bronze gently moved them past where the hole had been.

Pushing one lung to the side that had miraculously dodged the round, the bullet she found lodged there just towards the back of the chest cavity… his heart just barely in the path of it.

The notch dug in to the muscular organ spurted blood with every shallow beat that it took. Causing the mares’ own heart to nearly match his as she tried to work out how to fix this. ‘Stich it up?... No, it wouldn’t truly heal afterwards… cauterize it?... but what if the scar tore later on,’ idea after idea raced through her mind while the pages of medical books she read over the years flipped one after the other, just as much as the race against time slowly ticked away. With a pair of forceps, she removed the round from his chest and dropped it on to another tray on hoof. He was losing blood, that was no doubt.

“Think damn it!” she facepalmed with her blood covered talon, desperately wishing for an answer to-

There, as she looked towards her own appendage, it clicked to her. Each little answer twinkling in their own housing, giving her a power that ended many lives over the years. Yet now, she hoped would restore one. “Blood Pumps and a Heart Lung Machine!” Bronze shouted out to her forced assistants, “I know a good number of hospitals have them in Seren, where would yours be?”

The Pegasus continued pumping air to his lungs, as the unicorn took over and sopped up the blood that spurted from the wound. “Third door down!” the unicorn yelled back, having memorized the layout by this point, “shelf marked Cardiovascular!”

Almost gliding over the other beds in the bay, Bronze found the door in question and about kicked it off its’ hinges. There stacked on the shelves were boxes and sealed containers of various other medical equipment. Everything from transfusion kits, to gem powered cardiac resuscitation devices. Right next to which, resided the gadgets desired.

Ripping the cover off of the box, Bronze looked down at the machine. She had learned about them in development, during her time prepping for the war she was working to light off. Judging by the number of articles in papers she had seen of the revolutionary technology saving some ponies. It was a no brainer that the castle with the best medical treatment, would have one on hoof.

Various bladders on it housed simple rubber valves inside that helped direct the blood as it was pumped around the body. While between them resided a rotating motor fitted with connecting arms that attached to the bladders, pushing and pulling on their membranes to keep the fluids moving.

A simple, smallish, but complex creation that could take the place of a ponies’ natural heart. Though they had to typically be wired to the outside still to keep the power going. Something that she had in her mind a way around to help the colt even further. Looking over the design, with the larger tubes attached to it, there’s no way it’d fit in to a chest to begin with given her plans.

Returning to her surgeon nature, the mare delicately removed those tubes, careful not to damage the actual housing itself as she went. With an even more careful touch, her horn lit up as it carved into the mechanism itself, just like she had done so many times with her own works. Working as if a chisel to wood, a few notches were created along the connecting arms, each with its own teeth to hold something within. As the etching was done, as if second nature, on the inside to better stabilize the spell.

‘For everything I have left… in this world, or the next,’ she looked towards the device, and her limb itself, ‘please let this work.’

A tug of her horn later, and a several of her own gems were ripped from the appendage. Controlling it, Bronze watched them float through the open air as they rested into the notches, and the metal teeth around it she brought back over holding those stones in place. There the gems continued to glow with the same energy that it gave her. Her limb itself now going partially limp from the loss.

Grabbing hold of a small cart she put the newly made device on top, as she loaded it up with the resuscitation device as well. Turning her attention back to the shelf, the mare plucked the HLM off and dragged it along the way back to her station.

As Bronze readied herself for the next operation, a splattering of blood covered the unicorn as she tried to soak up what she could. “Damn it!” the mare yelled out as she grabbed even more gauze and fluid rags through blood-soaked eyes, “The ventricle tore open!”

Even with a weakened beat to it, Marbles’ heart still had enough strength to it to rip its own self apart. Bronze leapt up to her side as the nurse tried to wipe her eyes clear to see, “Do you have any blood on hoof?” she waited before adding, “no, I don’t know the blood type…”

With a shake of her head the mare dismissed Bronzes’ worry, “I can test for that at least with this,” she tapped her horn, and held a few of the fluid-soaked rags to her side, “I’ll be back, just keep him stable till then.”

Leaving the two of them alone as she went towards another supply room. Bronze fought to hold a press on the leaking organ with her damaged limb, and looked towards the Pegasus, “I need you to stop for a moment to help me,” the mare calmed her nerve as best she could, knowing this part would require a little precision.

With a hesitant hoof, the Pegasus put down the ventilator and looked over the colt that grew paler with every ounce of blood lost. “What do you need?” she asked, seeing the desperation in her fellow mare.

“Get four pairs of forceps, and crimp off the arteries and veins as I go, and help me attach the tubes to the Heart Lung Machine,” the ever-growing confusion on her face told Bronze she either hadn’t a clue where she was going with this, or didn’t think she could be serious, “I’m going to replace his heart.”

“But… but… that’ll probably kill him to begin with!” the Pegasus shouted, mentally going over the list of ways that could end with a corpse. “He’s already lost a lot of blood, and removing his heart cou-”

“If I don’t, he’s dead, if I do nothing, he’s dead, if I tried repairing the wound, he’ll still be dead!” Bronze shouted back as she too looked over his body as it slowly turned stiff. “Out of everyone that I had a part in killing, every single one of them as senseless as the next, his would be the last ounce of blood I’d want on my hooves…”

The dejection in her words were from a pony lost on what else to do, and it was one the nurse had heard a few times now in her career. With no word being spoken at first, the Pegasus simply lowered her head, “I’ve got a few more years on the job than my coworker, and I’ve seen a lot more surgeries than she,” the mare started eying around the room at the places she had recently seen some of the gear, “just tell me what you need me to do.”

With a flutter of her wings the nurse went around and gathered up the supplies needed, rummaging through the on-hoof tools stored at each bed stand for quick need. Standing across from one another, Bronze took a deep breath and nodded to her assistant, as she lifted the press that kept the blood down. With his chest starting to fill, both mares worked in tandem.

Fighting with her appendage to get it to do what she wanted like a stubborn child. Bronze crimped the supply off to the heart, and the Pegasus prepped the machine to take the load off of his body. Slowly but surely, the blood started to wane, and go from a spray to a dribble before finally coming to a stop. Each mare covered face to chest in blood ignored it all, as they went about their own tasks.

With an incision, Bronze cut in to the vessels that fed the heart and brought the blood to the body. All the while, the other mare held each of the tubes to the machine in place, making her own incisions along the way to give them something to feed from. A flip of a switch later from her wing, and the blood that remained started to fill the tubes as they made their way to the pump. Once again leaving their work area of the chest cavity devoid of fresh blood to fill it.

The nurse grabbed up what fluid rags they had left and tried cleaning out the space they had to work with as best she could. While Bronze plucked out her half thrown together creation and set it next to the colt, before turning her attention to the natural organ.

With a tactful talon, and a sharp scalpel. One by one the tendons and connective tissue met their match, and the heart was severed. Leaving the organ to lie in the chest without any nerves feeding it a signal. A few more beats came from the muscle by residual impulse, before it finally went still.

Every medical book, journal, or even pamphlet while at the doctors was going through the young mares’ eyes in a flash. She had learned some while in school sure, but her real passion and drive is what taught her so much more. Her self-learned skills allowed her to fix up the body she called her own, and maybe now it could help this stallion in his time of need.

With the damaged organ now removed, Bronze doused the replacement she had crafted in alcohol to sterilize. It didn’t need to last him a life time, just long enough to get him on his hooves again and breathing. Somewhere out there, there had to be a way to fix him up right as rain with a better replacement. Until that time, all the mare needed was for this one to work.

Setting the new one in place. Each vessel was brought to is corresponding organic partner and married together with a spell, the same one Bronze had used to attach the bases of her own limbs to her body. Soft tissues formed and fused to composites; openings closed up as any fluids that leaked from crimps made had soon dissipated. From pony to machine, it all looked now as one whole structure in the unconscious stallions’ chest.

With care, the machine that kept blood going to his body was shut off and the tubes removed one by one. Those holes sealed up with a few stitches left the two ponies there for the moment of truth. Carefully the mares to remove each pair of forceps one by one, fulling putting the colts’ life in the amalgamation of metal and magic.

As the fluids routed to the artificial organ for the first time, both mares held their breath. As one broke out the piece needed to kick start it. With a jerk of her head, Bronze gestured the nurse to step back as she brought the charged paddles to either side of the contraption.

A jolt surged through, and with one pump it spread the life-giving fluid coursing throughout the body… but it wasn’t enough. After that first pump, the machine hadn’t turned over and carried on its own. The mare became disheartened, and let the machine charge up once more, before repeating the process.

Again, one push of blood, but nothing stuck. ‘Come on…’ she thought.

Running the paddles between one another, they soon found the sides of the heart by the mares’ talons. Marbles’ body jerked from this surge, but it fell back to the bed, as did Bronzes’ withering hope.

“Come on…” she whispered.

The mare might have thought the one across from her was saying something, but from here she was in her own world. Lost in thought like she would be in a shop, this time however, the stakes were ever higher. Another charge leeched into the false organ, and another burst of blood shot through the chilling colt.

“Come on, Marble!” Bronze shouted at the colt.

For a third time, Bronze tried to do something right in this world, and for a third time… She failed.

With a slump, the paddles fell from her talons on to the bed the still colt resided in. Now left to act not only as a viewing table, but a tissue to the mare as her face buried into the sheets. For all the tech she’d created over the years, both for herself and others. It mattered little to the mare now, if she couldn’t save just one… this one.

“I’m sorry, Marble…” she whispered under a heavy breath that dripped with sorrow, “I’m so sorry…”

All of this work she had done to end the turmoil between nations, and what had it resulted in? The same tragedy that set her on this course, a daughter losing her father… only this time she’s the one who caused the loss to the child.

A tear met the sheets that held the colt warmer than she ever hoped to on her own, ‘I already had enough to make up for, and now there’s something for which I’ll never find atonement,’ she looked at the still image on the stallions’ face as he laid there.

The pressure from a hoof sat on her shoulder, at this point that simple act should have set the mare off. Yet, the comforting rub from the unicorn settled her down, “Easy their lass… ya certainly did you’re dandiest to help the guy.”

“There’s so much more… I should have done though,” Bronze shook her head at her failure, “or at the very least-”

Thump…

It was a small motion, barely felt through the bedding. At first, she thought it might have just been her imagination playing tricks on her to bring about what could only be hoped. As Bronze leaned up more, looking at the thing she had helped create and power, she waited…

Listening…

Hoping…

… thump… thump…

The diaphragm of the replica gave way, as what blood remained filled them and pushed it through the body. The smaller gem that she installed glowed brighter with every pulse it sent through.

… thump thump… thump thump…

And with each pump it grew stronger. Soon enough, the lungs that had to be forced to do their job steadily shook to life in his cavity. It wasn’t spectacular at first, both the pulse and breathing were shallow at best, nothing noteworthy in a medical journal. Though it was something of progress.

It was one Bronze had helped save.

Collapsing at the side, even with his chest still open, the mare started thanking whatever it was that was listening to her wishes. ‘I can’t repay what you have given me today,’ her eyes grew with tears.

“Easy now,” the same unicorn responded, and brought a few medical bags of what Bronze could only guess was blood, “ya did the hard part…”

“We can manage from here…” the Pegasus followed up with as she looked at the blood going in and out of the heart her counterpart threw together. Though the worried eyes from the mare told the nurse everything she needed to know, “Don’t worry, I’ve closed up wounds post surgery… all I need is another pair of hooves to help,” she gestured to her counterpart.

“Go tend to the little one you brought in…” the unicorn responded and trotted up to the side of Marble.

Bronze wiped what tears she had that trailed down her face, and managed to get up to her own feet. With a shaky step at first, she wanted to argue with the nurses to let her see the thing through. Never the less, it was in Marbles’ hooves at this point. As she watched the unicorn fix in a few bags of blood to his foreleg, Bronze knew it was his bodies choice now if it wanted to pull through or not.

Though, if he was listening, it could always use some helping words from a child.

Going over to the wash basin at the front of the room. The mare cleaned off the fluids that caked along her plates, as she fumbled more with the limb she had sacrificed. Though it was a small price to pay if it worked out in the end, she could always get more gems. Topaz couldn’t get a new father.

Cleaned up now, and more or less dragging her talon half the way. The mare held her head low at first. Not entirely sure what her first words to the filly should even be. Then again, she also didn’t know what her words should be to the dozen or so armed guards standing semi-circle around her. Each one armed with one of her weapons, and each one at the ready.

The one directly ahead stepped forth as his comrades kept their sights trained on the stricken mare, “Hello, Miss Bolt,” the guard gave a single nod to her, a gesture the mare wasn’t sure how to take, “Her majesty has requested your presence.”

“That much I figured,” she rolled her eyes, already knowing there’d probably be a chopping block in her near future.

“… though she did say to get you after you were done working,” a statement that made the mares’ ears perk up.

***

It felt like she had walked half the castle by this point, but eventually Bronze with her escorts came to the bedroom door of her majesty herself. With a pair of guards opening them for her, two guards followed in behind the mare, guns still drawn on her back.

Princess Grace sat there on her couch in the den portion of her room, with the aqua filly there curled up to her side. A careful wing stroking over her mane as the soft whimpers from before may not have died out, but at the very least stemmed a bit.

Upon their arrival the tear ridden eyes of the youngling rose up and locked on the mare across from her. Almost in flash, Topaz leapt from the couch at Bronze. Her small hooves thumping in to the breast of the mare over and over again.

“Why did you have to go and leave like that!” the filly shouted at her through the tears, “Dad was happy when you were there! Then you up and left!”

Bronze on the other hoof, just stood there enduringly and took it. It was the fillies right to be angry at her over what had happened to her father, and that thought conveyed even to the other mare in the room. Both ponies looked at one another, Grace saw the pain in her equal that she tried to hold back, and Bronze saw what could only think of as contempt in what she had put the young one through.

“And now Dads! He’s… he’s…” Topaz didn’t get those words out fully, but her hooves answered for her.

The mare kneeled down to meet her face to face. Which garnished a few decent hits across her brow from the filly. In time, those hit stopped, and all Topaz could do was just look at her with the few remaining tears falling free. Almost as if by reflex, Bronze reached out with her talons and pulled the filly in to her. The coat on her chest dampened as the filly sniffled, and all the older mare could do was rub her talons along her back trying to comfort her.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry, Topaz,” Finally joining the filly in the sorrow and letting her own emotion show face. Bronze controlled it a little better than the young one, and held in most of the tears she wanted to shed, but still a few managed to get past her, “I hadn’t been the best of ponies for a while now, and I didn’t want to get him hurt,” her gaze momentarily went over to the princess, before adverting her eyes, “fine job I did…”

“The only time I’d ever seen him like that before… was when we’d talk about mom…” Topaz pipped up as she wiped her eyes on the coat of the mare, looking up to see Bronzes’ own anguish. “He missed you, even if he didn’t say it, I could still see it all over his face.”

She could tell that much from when she saw him in the market, “Truth be told… I missed him too,” Bronze confessed, finding more faults on her part, before she tried to smile a bit at the filly, “both of you for that matter.”

It may not have been the largest Bronze had seen on the young mares’ face, but the shadow of a smile that Topaz gave her warmed her heart in a way she couldn’t describe. “Is he… is he alright?” the smile vanished and soon was replaced with worry, “Did you make him better?”

A sigh from her mouth wasn’t what she had hoped to tell the child, but there was only so much she could do. “I tried, he’s still asleep… but I fixed what in him had been hurt,” the mare didn’t want to go in to a huge amount of detail regarding the messier bits, but with a little squeeze she tried to perk the filly up, “although if the nurses are done, I see no reason you can’t go see him… maybe talk to him a bit? He can probably hear you still.”

That did the trick, the smile returned in full force on Topazes’ face as she squeezed Bronze a little more, “Thank you for helping him, and for coming back…” she paused there for a moment, “…you are coming back…right?”

“Of course, I am,” the mare nodded to her, before biting the edge of her lip, “If you’ll both have me still.”

“Promise?”

It was one word, but it was one that made the mares’ heart pause. “I promise,” she lied, knowing in the end it wouldn’t be her who controlled that fate. Bronze looked up from the filly to the princess, surprised to see a beam on her face to match Topaz, “I imagine the princess would like a word with me though.”

A nod from the mare in question answered that silently, “Thank you for bringing her,” Grace spoke to the two guards that joined them, “Although I think we’ll be fine on our own for now, would one of you be able to escort Miss. Topaz back to her dad? If the nurses are wrapped up.”

“Of course, your majesty,” the guard saluted, “We’ll have another outside if she causes you any trouble.”

“Oh… I doubt that’ll be an issue,” Grace about purred.