Mobile Apostolov Surgical Hospital (Medical Chaplains)

“Oh, I heard on the radio that these guys were going to pay tons of caps to anypony that came and helped, so I came and helped! Once I get back to Stableton I’m going to see if I can get a nice new knife, maybe some new armor...Besides, I don’t think my parents really care either way at this point.” the filly explained cheerfully, before she once again shifted back to that mischievous grin.

“Besides, I know plenty about medicine, so why use that knowledge to get payed? For example,” she picked up a nearby scalpel with her magic and started gesturing with it. “I know what to do when a pony has his jugular cut open and is seconds away from death, I know how to take care of the sniffles, I know what points on a limb to cut if I need to amputate it,” he scalpel seemed to get dangerously close to one of Bonehead’s arms when she said that, “I know how to take care of bruises, I know to dig a bullet out of somepony with the proper tools, I even know how to deal with a stomach ache! And lots of other stuff too! Plus, do you know that anatomy wise, there isn’t much difference between a pony and, say, a griffon? I mean there’s a few differences, here and there, but when you get right down too it structurally there’s not much difference, especially compared to a pegasi!” her grin suddenly turned a bit sharper, a bit more vicious.

“Muscular is the same, if a bit bulkier, nerve endings are the same, body shape is the same, even circulatory system is the same! I mean, if I was going to cut somebody, say, here,” she pointed her scalpel at a spot on Bonehead’s thigh, the blade very nearly touching his skin, “right into their femoral artery, they’d bleed to death in minutes! Pony, griffon, zebra, it doesn’t matter. One cut, you’re dead!” she pulled the scalpel away, her vicious grin instantly going back to a sweet smile. “And that concludes are circulatory lesson for today, please, if you have any questions, feel free to ask!”

Breeze stayed silent as Kestrel entered the room. A jolt of fear went through her as she saw his mask, remembering all of her fears of him. She kept her mouth shut. She knew few ponies here; Cuppa, Violet... the list went on.

She looked over to Cuppa and Lightning Flash. If Cuppa didn't take the task, Breeze would. Getting out of here was definitely something she wanted to do right then. She fidgeted.

Breeze glanced at Violet, who was only a couple of feet away, and started to say something when she put the knife close to Bonehead. But she ended up not saying anything. She had probably gone mainly unnoticed by the gryphons in the room, even though she was fairly close to Bonehead in proximity.

Bone head just sat there as violet started to essentially threaten him, there was nothing he could do in his current state and as he listed to the filly's speech he took note of all the things she knew. She seemed to know an equal amount of ways to kill and heal, a trait that bonehead had to admire. When she finished bone head sat up, surprised that he was able to do so. The med-x was starting to wear off, he still couldn't feel his legs or wings but he could wait a bit more for former. The latter however scared him slightly, the griffin relied on his wings, he could have three broken limbs and a concussion but if he could still fly he could still fight. He looked at violet and smiled. "well night light thats certainly a fair amount of skills, you remind me a lot of a certain zebra I know." He took a moment to consider the wording of his next question. "I have a group of..."opportunists" that have a camp outside applelosa and we could really use a pony with you skills. we tend to get ourselves shot fairly frequently and you could save a lot of lives. Maybe when this whole war is over, you might be interested in traveling with me?"

Winter nodded silently and gave Zesty a confident reassuring look before she trotted across the large MASH tent towards Flash. She could see he was badly hurt, but at least he was awake, and alive. She gave the blue Pegasus a friendly smile as she approached, stopping short at his bedside.

His injuries were terribly inflamed and a quick glance made her wrinkle her brow when she realized he hadn't been given any burn dressing, which of course has led to this terrible inflammation. "Hello Flash" she said softly as she looked up to him before noting how he'd been treated to far, "How are you feeling?" she asked with an edge of concern.

Lightning's ears perked up, very weakly, toward the sound of Winter's voice walking over to him. He could sense the tension and the worry in the air so when he responded, he tried to make it seem a little humorous, "How do I feel? Well, like I got hit by plasma and fell out of the sky." The pegasus forced a small chuckle before it simply faded away. "In all seriousness, I'm in a little pain but you should talk to the Doc as she probably knows more of what happened than I do." Lightning motioned a little to Cuppa and looking back down with a sigh, he wondered if he was going to get out of this bed without being horribly scarred...or worse.

Cuppa gave a small nod at Lightning's request, making sure to remember the name and how she looked, which was a white pegasus... Though among all these ponies any pegasus would be easy to find. Then, his friend Winter Bell arrived, and Cuppa knew her a little, if only as a highly skilled doctor pony. Spotting the look she gave Flash's inflamed burns, not to mention the concerned tone in her voice, Cuppa shrank back slightly.. Just for Lightning to basically call her out by referring to her. "...Ya'll shouldn't be movin' ah already told ya that, Lightnin'. It'll agitate the burns." She decided to say before glancing at Winter Bell.

She lowered her voice, half not wanting Lightning to hear just how badly he was messed up before arriving. "Anyway... He came in 'ere wi' a dangerously fractured skull, fractured wings, covered in plasma burns an' a sprained fetlock. Ah did wha' ah could, but ah was a bit too late t' deal wi' the burns. Ah'd have t' say he ain't allowed t' go back out there 'til he feels better."

After a few minutes of rather awkward silence with Breeze, Trails couldn't help but steal a glance at Zesty. She keeping Sky company, one of the pair looked like she'd seen death itself, the other like they'd met it. The scene wasn't an altogether unfamiliar one, but its contents made the stallion chastise himself. His friends had followed him to war, and now two were lying in the MASH after learning just what that word meant.

No doubt some of them had thought themselves hardened, veterans of the Battle of Stableton, survivors of the wasteland. Here they were learning just how soft they really were. Only the hard could survive. Only the hard, only the strong. It was that mixture of shame and anger that finally kicked his heart back into high gear.

The Apstolov have a saying that was playing in Trails' head as he strode meaningfully towards the mare he yearned for. "Tomorrow is just an old ponytale." Its meaning was obvious to everyone, but for once he chose not to take it as inspiration in a firefight. No he was going to take advantage while he could, and Luna dammit, he was going to get her back no matter what it took.

"Zesty." He said, surprised at his own voice's steadiness. "Can we talk somewhere private?"

Breeze watched as Trails approached Zesty, and hoped for the best. She kept her silence, feeling immensely shy, and was rather nervous at the sight of Winter.
She hadn't really talked to Winter since she joined the Kahns; she could only wonder what would be said. Did she dare try to talk to the mare?
She gulped, and contemplated whether or not to speak up. The answer was likely not. But she could only hope that Winter wouldn't think too badly of her.

With all of the fear and shyness of her fillyhood slowly returning, Breeze stepped further away from Bonehead and the others, cowering slightly in a corner. Corners were nice; they were smaller than the rest of a room, and much better for curling up in while afraid or in any kind of pain, physical or mental. She stood back, as far from anypony else as she could, hoping nopony would talk to her, unless it was Trails. He was really the only one she trusted at the moment, but he was talking to Zestari.
He had seen her cower like this several times; the two of them having been living together for a while allowed him to watch her 'mend her mind' and calm herself this way. The first time he'd seen it was right after her initiation. She sat in the corner even as the two began to talk. She didn't really leave it until it was time for her first job as a Kahn. Now, here she sat, cowering once again in a corner.
'Luna damn my fear of others,' she hissed to herself in her mind.

Zestari stood there, and re-read Sky’s charts, hoping to see if there was any indication of the mare’s condition changing. There was no change but at least everything was stable. Putting the chart back down, she turned to look at Happy striding towards her.

He had a determined look on his face, his jaw set and his brow fixed just so. She’d missed seeing his face, she realised. Each quirk of expression from the stallion was like a fun new puzzle to determine the meaning of and his mood. She caught herself smiling slightly before blinking and returning to a serious disposition as he came closer

"Can we talk somewhere private?"

“Somewhere private?” She paused, “I suppose.” She sounded far less self-assured than Happy.

Looking about she spotted a nook that had probably once had a shelf tucked into it, but was now just a shallow empty space. She led Happy over towards it, and after taking a deep breath turned around to him.

“What you like to talk about?” She said guardedly.

‘Hmm...Odd, usually people scared silly after I bring up good old femoral, not asking “Hey, want to join our raider group?” I mean, that’s probably what he’s asking, he definitely looks like a raider, one of the smarter, more sane ones as opposed to the ‘I will rip out your heart and eat it in front of you before raping your corpse’ crazy raider types. Those aren’t that fun...Well, they’re fun to kill, I suppose, but still...Actually, now that I think about it, a raider probably would be asking if I wanted to join after that. Makes sense...’

“Hmm...That sounds like an interesting offer Mr. Griffon. I’ll have to think about it, kay?”

‘I can at least see later if they’re worth or need to be killed, shouldn’t be too hard to sneak in at night...I’ll save that plan for a rainy day though...Well, not literally, but...yeah.’

Violet glanced around, wondering where that other pony that helped with Mr. Griffon went. It didn’t take long for the filly’s glowing eyes to locate the mare, cowering in a corner, nervously glancing at Trails, who had recently reentered the tent, and two ponies (Well, a pony and a zebra) Violet didn’t recognize, one of them talking to Trails.

“Uh, excuse me Mr. Griffon, I’m going to make sure she’s alright. Might need a extra set of hooves if you suddenly go into cardiac arrest or something!”

Violet turned away from Mr. Griffon before trotting over to her. Both curious and a tad worried, if only because the mare looked like a relatively nice pony, and she didn’t like seeing nice ponies act like this.

“Hey!” said the filly as she approached, beaming a bright smile at the mare. “What’cha doing all the way over here, sitting in a corner? Are you hiding from a monster or something? I don’t think there’s any monsters here...Well, except maybe Mr. Kes, I think he could eat a pony whole if he tried or something...Hmm...Note to self, measure Kestrel’s beak to see if that’s possible, may require getting him asleep...”

Trails swallowed, keeping the momentum he had going. Or to be more accurate, keep himself from realizing just how terrified he was. His mind was all over the place and he knew that she would be able to see right through his false suave demeanor. Still he had to do this.

"Us...I want to talk about us."

Breeze flinched and let out a squeaking noise at Violet's sudden approach. When Violet spoke of Kestrel, Breeze swallowed.

"Uh, ye- uh yeah. I'm.... a bit... uh. Th- uh, no. I'm fine. Thank you for ath... uh your con- no, your worry? Yeah. Worry. I'm a bit... uh..... uhm.... buck. I can't talk right, right now. Your name i-... You're Violet, right?"

Luna, was it difficult to speak the right words... She hoped desperately that this purple filly didn't see the inside of her mouth at all. This wasn't going to end well; that much was easily forseen.

Violet cocked her head as the mare fumbled around her words, noticing at least a few lisps among the stutters.

“Yep, that’s me! And this is Liz!” she pointed at the gecko, who merely made one of those weird rumbling growls. “Say, did you bust a lip or something? You’re talking kinda funny...” the glow of her eyes intensified briefly as she gazed directly into the mare’s mouth, first checking her lips before seeing something beyond them “Oooooh! I see, your teeth a messed up! That explains all the stuttering and redirecting, you must be hiding your lisp.”

Breeze pulled back in surprise and frustration. "Buckin'.... Don't thay anything, okay? Ethpecially not to anypony here."

Breeze fidgeted, and then curled up on the floor. "Nithe to meet you, I gueth. Thorry, I'm not a thocial pony."

Bone smiled at the filly's answer. "Oh i'm in no rush night light, you think about it. I imagine i'll find myself back in here once or twice more before the end of our contracts. I'll get your answer then." And with that he let the filly go to see the other nurse that had looked after him.

Bone looked to the side of his bed over to a table just adjacent to it. On that table sat his arms and armor. He reached over and placed the gear in his lap so he could inspect them. The armor was completely burned through where the plasma has struck. comparing the burns on his skin to the holes in the armor he saw that it had succeeded in stopping some of the incoming fire but not enough, he'd need to get an upgrade before going back into battle. Next he held up the razor claws, he'd thought he'd heard a snapping sound when he used them and at the time he thought it was the enclave armor that made the noise, sadly this was not the case. His claws had broken off on their first use. "I'm going to wring the quarter master's neck. What kind of weapons dealer sells gear in this shotty of a condition?" he dropped the talons and finally he picked up his hammer. He was devastated to see his family weapon in such a state. the wooden shaft was splintered and the head was dented. "oh little miss why did you choose today of all days to give up on me?" he said to the hammer. "If little miss couldn't do anything to that armor then a guess i can't blame the QM, meh i'll still blame him, see if i can get a free replacement." Bone now knew that as soon as he was out of this bed he had a certain pony to see about his gear. All he had to do was wait until the med-x wore off. Shouldn't be more than ten minutes now.

“Oh…” Zestari’s ears fell slightly, in a ‘nervous, I don’t like this’ kind of way, and she fidgeted for a moment, “Well, uh, what would you like to talk about? – You know why we broke up, Happy.”

She sighed, “You know I miss you…” she trailed off, not sure what to say, “What is this about, Happy?”

At this moment all of the ballsiness the stallion had managed to find left him. His throat decided it was a good time to do an impression of the the Mohoofe, adding another challenge to finding just what to say to Zesty. Yeah, he knew why they broke up, and that the fault rested squarely on his shoulders.

"We're cursed with living in exciting times, and there's things I can't leave unsaid." He said finally. "I'm sorry, to start. There's a lot of ponies I need to say that to, but I'm most sorry I hurt you. I wish I could take what I did back, wipe the slate clean and start all over. But I can't, so instead I'm doing my best to make up for it." Trails swallowed and gathered what courage he could or his final push. "That's not all. More than anything I need you to know I still love." he faltered a little bit, his voice cracking, but still he went on. "I love you more than I ever thought it was possible to love anypony. I don't rightly care what happens in this messed up world we've got, so long as you're okay."

"We're cursed with living in exciting times, and there's things I can't leave unsaid."

Zestari quirked an eyebrow, this certainly wasn’t starting off how she imagined it would go. However that quirk or the eyebrow quickly disappeared in concern at the gravity of Happy’s words. She gave a slow nod of her head as he began to apologise, wanting more than anything to accept it and move on to brighter things, but knowing that she couldn’t.

"I love you more than I ever thought it was possible to love anypony.”

The words hit Zestari harder than anything she’d ever felt before, and her chest tightened and she was momentarily unable to breathe and she took half a step towards Happy before catching herself, and giving Happy a look of forlorn desire. And gave a small shake of her head, “No, I can’t, yet.” she barely whispered.

Finally he stopped, leaving a vast gulf of what felt like eternal silence.

She took a moment, and another, to try and respond.

“If you want to make things right Happy,” she began, trying to harness the many thoughts whirling through her mind, flustering her ability to try and avoid saying or doing something silly. “Then first you need to stop this,” she waved with a hoof about the room. “You need to stop involving yourself in battles and wars where all that it leads to is pain and death, and sorrow and loss.” She took a tired breath as saying all this to Happy weighed heavily upon her.

“You need to leave the Khans, before they poison your mind to everything that is good in the wasteland and use you before tearing you up and throwing you away, broken, bitter and beyond saving.

“You need to seek forgiveness from Shutter. Shooting him, irrespective of circumstance is… unthinkable. You need to do anything and everything in your power to make things right there.

“And most importantly Happy, you need to forgive yourself. You seem dead set to fight some sort of hidden battle, after some sort of unattainable goal and you push everypony who wants to help, love and support you away. Was moving away from Stableton to the mohoofe a part of that plan, or mere coincidence?”

She quietened, trembling softly, only now noticing the dampness upon her cheeks as she had begun crying as she talked to Happy.

In a softer tone, she added, “If you do all that, then the mare that loves you, and never stopped, will move mountains to be with you.”

Trails swallowed as his eyes turned wet again. The strength he'd built up had left him the instant she started listing his sins. He was under no illusions about being a perfect stallion. He wouldn't even go so far as to say he was a good one, but when he was with her he'd always felt like he'd be able to live up to the example of his uncle.

"I..."

There were a thousand things he needed to tell her, but no words to do it. He cleared his throat and nodded curtly. With that he spun on a back hoof and trotted briskly out of the tent, doing his best to hide his face as a few treacherous tears crept down his face. Brutus followed close behind, turning the rain that beat down on his master into a blizzard.

Breeze looked up as Trails briskly left the tent. She saw the tears on his face, and knew that he had been talking to Zestari. With a pang of caring worry, she galloped after him, saying a quick, "Thorry, I have to go. I'll talk to you later," to VIolet.

"Trail," she said, hiding her lisp, even though it was Trails. "What happened? Are you okay?"

Trails stopped dead when he heard the sound of Breeze's voice. Without a thought he spun around and pulled her into a tight hug. Over the past months he'd gained a fondness for the mare, and on occasion while drunk, acted on it. Still there was no one he'd rather talk to right now, 'cept maybe Kick Start.

Breeze was surprised by the suddenness of the hug; she hadn't expected Trails to want one. Still, she hugged him back, just as tightly. "Doeth thhe thtill...?" Breeze began, thinking the answer was 'no' based on his reaction.

Winter gave the western accented mare a relaxing smile as she spoke. She could also tell the mare had been the one who treated Flash, and perhaps felt a bit nervous from the few mistakes she had made. "I see, well you've done very well to get him to this point" she commented as she observed Flash's wounds, "Although next time, make sure you get the burn dressing on as soon as you can afford, it's quite important" she said as she glanced over Flash's wounds. His burns would last longer now and would cause him pain for a longer time then what he would have, had she applied the burn dressing before he scabbed over to this extent.

But Winter guessed there was no point crying about it. She turned to the mare beside her and smiled again, "What is your name?" she asked softly.

Cuppa gave a nervous smile as Winter advised on what she should do next time, nodding a little before she asked for her name. "Oh? Muh name? Mah name's Cuppa Beans." She said in as clear a pronunciation as possible, she remembered that Bakewell had trouble trying to figure out how her name was meant to be said, best to not cause the same confusion again.

Winter nodded once as she turned towards Flash, "Well it seems you're in good hooves, and she's right, try not to move much" she said as she levitated Flash's chart from the front of the bed, looking it over and reading the specifics. She winced a little before setting the chart back down. Once again she observed his burns before she clicked open her medical satchel. She took a roll of simple bandage, and with care began lifting Flash delicately with her magic. She applied the bandage to the parts which seemed the most sore and the parts that looked raw. When she was done she eased him back down and splashed some Purified Water over the bandages to wet the flesh to stop it cracking and flaking beneath the bandages.

When she was finished the clicked her satchel back after placing the roll inside. Winter thought to suggest hydrating Flash's wounds regularly, but then again she didn't want to seem pretentious and after what she had just done, guessed Cuppa would simply apply the method from her own basis of medical knowledge.