Bubbles and Mortar Shells
A Night to Remember
"Come on Derpy," says Rainbow Dash, "It's only a little farther." Her rainbow-colored mane hung limply around her as blood from the wrapped head-wound she'd sustained slowly oozed through the linen. Mortars crashed around them and caused creaking trees from the Everfree to crash to the ground. None of this mattered, though; what mattered was that Derpy had a serious gash across her back, and that they were among the few ponies left standing. Rainbow Dash found a hole in the ground, smelling faintly of gunpowder, death, and a small hint of bear. Having seen nothing better, she set Derpy down in it. Her vision blurred with tears at the sight of her friend’s wound. She wouldn’t have cried, if she hadn’t seen half of her platoon turn grey and fight the other half. She wished Fluttershy were there, because right then, they needed a little bit of the shy pony’s comfort, and skills with healing. Rainbow shakily applied the gauze to Derpy’s back, angrily whipping hair out of her face. It would do for now, but if Derpy didn’t see help, she’d need a doctor.
The grey pony moaned; she’d been among the half that turned grey. Mysteriously, she hadn’t actually turned grey, and had been among the first to get shot. Her wings rested heavily on the ground as she moaned, aware she was being touched. Her double vision had made her used to dizziness, and she quickly identified the blood-splattered mare in front of her. “R-r-rainbow?” she managed. Rainbow didn’t respond with words, putting a hoof to Derpy’s lips as she dragged Derpy onto her own back. “R-rainbow... Are they?”
“Damn it, Derpy,” Rainbow, hissed, trying to hold in her emotions, “Yes, they’re dead. All of them. Soarin, Roid Rage, all dead.” She angrily marched into the cave-like hole. It had once been a cave, but the mortars had leveled the cliff, so that it was simply an opening into the ground, in which a corpse could barely be distinguished from a pool of blood pooling underneath a large rock. Rainbow cringed as another mortar hit the roof, causing the world to shake violently and making her flare her wings out, jarring Derpy who whimpered in pain. Neither of them spoke as they silently plodded on, hoofsteps heavy and slow. A trail of mixed blood followed them, and shadows loomed as the dizzied rainbow mare carried the incapacitated grey one further, every grunt of effort amplified, until Rainbow Dash finally collapsed in a mixture of anger, sadness, and pain. She crawled out from under Derpy, who gasped at her bloodied friend. A long, thin cut ran down her side, from a Changeling’s wing. She quickly covered it back up with her own wing. Derpy reached back into her bag, and slowly pulled out a white roll of rough, textured linen. “Rai-Rainbow...” she said, limply rolling it to the pegasus, who had to bite her own lip to swallow her pride. She took the roll, and began to wrap it around her body, glistening with sweat and streaked with mud and blast-dust. She tied the ends tightly, cringing with pain as she laid back.
Rainbow closed her eyes, intending to blink away the dust, and passed out; it had been a long, long half an hour. She woke up again slowly, feeling a body next to her. Her first reaction was to kill, but as she weakly looked, she saw the yellowed mane of her companion at her side, and slowly wrapped a wing around the derp-eyed pegasus. She took great comfort in the thump of the heartbeat coming strongly through, and buried her head in Derpy’s mane. It was a comfort to have somepony, anypony, who wasn’t trying to kill her. A pony she could trust, even if she had an odd tendency to break things. She looked out at the cave-mouth, thinking that it looked smaller than she remembered. The moon hung just above the opening, astng a long shadow over them as stars twinkled promises across the sky. And though you could never get her to admit it, Rainbow prayed. She prayed that she wouldn’t wake up dead tomorrow, that she’d somehow get to go home, that things would go back to normal. But the stars, ever silent, twinkled tauntingly back at her, making promises Rainbow knew they could not keep. Such was her despair, that she did not realize that the wetness matting her Derpy pillow was not blood, but tears. When she did realize this, she cried harder, because she was not supposed to cry, and as she cried, she buried her head into the sleeping pony. It felt good to her, to be able to let all of the anger and frustration and helplessness out in one single act. She heard a faint noise under her, and sniffled, struggling to contain it again. “Rainbow,” the Derpy gasped, “Are we- are we going to make it?” she asked, around swallowing.
“I don’t know Derpy,” she replied honestly. She closed her eyes against another mortar, shaking the walls. She heard a crack, and not 3 feet away a boulder crashed into the ground. She briefly wished she’d been under it, and chastised herself. I have to make it through this, Rainbow thought, I have too much to live for, to die now. She was tired, ever so tired, as she layed her head down on Derpy’s shoulders. She heard another gasp, and felt the weight from the other pegasus increase as she leaned into her. Like sisters nestled together against the cold, the two bloodied, wraith-like mares shrunk into the rock, small bastions of color against the ever-festering darkness in their surroundings, as each breath threatened to steal their souls from their bodies. She felt this darkness close in on her, and as she relaxed into the grey pegasus, she heard a softer comment. The wind threatened to steal this small phrase from her, a phrase that saved her that night. “I love you Dashie.”
Author's Note
Any errors that pop up, let me know. 1001 words (Not including title)
