The only light came from Tarnish’s horn and the rosy pink glow of Flamingo. The sun had set and it was dark in the valley, far darker than it should be for night so recently fallen. The moon had not yet risen. The two sisters stayed close to Tarnish and they moved with swift assurance, but not too swift as nopony wanted a leg broken. Limestone and Maud kept looking behind them, waiting, wondering if retaliation would be coming. A well chucked stone or a spear thrown from the shadows might very well mean the end of them.

“I think when this story gets told, it will reflect well upon us as rangers,” Maud said as she trotted.

“We just picked a fight with diamond dogs and we’re running away and you’re thinking about that?” Limestone asked as she ran beside her sister and Tarnish.

“I will be professional right to the very end, Limestone. I worked very, very hard to become a geologist and becoming a ranger was a pleasant bonus. I am going to spend the rest of my life trying to prove worthy of my ranger title.” Maud sucked in a deep breath and gave her sister a sidelong glance.

“No offense, but this job sucks!” Limestone spat out as her hooves cut divots into the ground. “I’m ready to go home where life is boring and things AREN’T trying to kill me! This is what you and Tarnish were in such a big hurry to do? Are both of you brain damaged?”

“Well, it did get a little exciting today, we might have a really boring day tomorrow,” Tarnish replied as he kept Trixie from sliding off of his back.

“Exciting?” Limestone’s sides heaved as she ran. “Exciting? Whoosh, bang, POW! You set those dogs on fire! And then there was the kicking, and the smacking, and the thumping, and everything else happened! That’s called a war, you dunderhead!” Her voice sounded strained, thirsty, it was clear that she needed some water.

Ahead, the ghost town loomed before them in the darkness.

It was starting to appear that they had not been followed, but Tarnish did not let down his guard as they moved through the ghost town. His horn and Flamingo made for a steady light source. He was feeling tired, fatigued, and he would need to rest soon. Not only had his physical efforts been considerable, but his magical efforts as well, and now he was drained.

He had a pretty bad stitch in his side from running, but he didn’t complain. Trixie had grown quite heavy on his back. She wasn’t responsive, at all, which worried him. As he moved through the ruined, abandoned town, he thought about how much his magic contributed to the fight. He was unskilled, but he had been creative. It was easier to understand how ponies, and unicorns in particular, had dominated the world around them, how they had survived in a hostile land filled with creatures that wanted to eat them or use them as slaves.

Limestone and Maud’s strength didn’t hurt either.

And thinking of this, Tarnish realised that he wasn’t an earth pony. He came to a skidding halt, his sides heaving, and his lungs screaming for more air. He wheezed and sputtered as he stood there, sucking in great deep breaths, and no matter how much he took in, he felt as though he couldn’t get enough. His lungs burned for more air.

He upended his canteen over his face and when water went up his nose, he coughed and sputtered. He licked his lips, relishing the cool wetness, and then poured a bit more water over his face to help cool himself off. He could taste salt when he licked his lips again, and then he tried pouring a little water directly into his mouth.

Beside him, both Maud and Limestone kept watch as Tarnish tried to recover. Maud eyed her husband with one eyebrow raised, and when he was done with his canteen, she took it from him and passed it to her sister.

Limestone guzzled down some water, coughed a bit, belched, and then was okay.

“Are we being followed or not?” Limestone asked as she passed the canteen back to her sister. “This paranoia is killing me… how are we going to sleep tonight when we get back to that weird wagon of yours? I’m going to spend the entire trip home looking over my shoulder worrying about diamond dog poachers hiding behind bushes and trees.”

As Maud took a drink, Limestone continued, “Daddy was right. As fun as adventure sounds, the reality of it isn’t very nice at all. I’m not cut out for this life. When I get home, I’m settling down and doing something sensible, like getting the guano mine going and starting a business with Marble. This is insane.”

Tarnish and Maud glanced at one another as Maud drank, and nothing was said between them as they gave each other a knowing look, then both looked at Limestone. Tarnish smiled and felt a little bit better, knowing that he had a hoof in helping Limestone choose to live a sensible, boring life. He figured that he would probably get a hearty thank you from Igneous and Cloudy.

When The Egg came into view, Tarnish heaved a sigh of relief. He stood, waiting as Limestone began to gather up firewood. Flamingo posted herself as a guard and she floated around the camp, listening with ears that she did not have and watching with eyes that did not exist. She cast a fierce pink glow everywhere she went, but whimpered about it being dark.

Maud went to work laying out a blanket on the ground for Trixie. It was time to go to work and start figuring out what was wrong. Once the blanket was laid out, Maud grabbed several first aid books from inside the wagon and the medical supplies as well. Limestone got the fire going and soon, there was plenty of light to work with.

Tarnish lay Trixie down upon the blanket. She was unresponsive, that much was apparent. Her body was feverish and sweaty. He guessed infection. Her right front leg was lumpy and misshapen. He began checking for broken bones, using his telekinesis to feel along her leg. As he did so, Trixie let out a delirious moan.

“We need to check her,” Maud said to Tarnish.

“I am,” Tarnish replied.

“No,” Maud said as she rolled Trixie over onto her back, “we need to check her for trauma. We don’t know what the diamond dogs did to her.” As she spoke, she pulled Trixie’s hind legs apart.

Blinking, Tarnish shook his head and felt his breath catch in his throat. “I can’t do that!”

“Why not?” Maud asked.

He didn’t intend to do so, but Tarnish’s reply came out as a whine. “It feels wrong.”

There was a momentary pause as Maud looked into her husband’s eyes. She reached out her hoof, touched his cheek, and then in a soft but monotonous voice, she said, “This is why I married you. Help me, Tarnish. I need your magic to help pull her apart so we can get a better look. We have to check to for tearing, wounds, and gashes.”

“She’s filthy,” Limestone said to her sister, Maud.

Cringing, uncomfortable with what he was about to take part in, Tarnish lifted Trixie, carried her to the edge of the blanket so that her lower half was now over the dirt, and then began to pour water between her legs so some of the caked on dirt and filth could be scrubbed away.

“She’s got a lot of bruises,” Limestone said, looking over Trixie’s pelt in the firelight. “I’m guessing she tried to escape.”

“Probably,” Maud replied as she gave Tarnish a reassuring pat.

“I dunno if I can do this.” Tarnish shook his head. “It feels wrong to… you know, mess with her while she is passed out. She can’t give consent. For some reason, I can hear Octavia lecturing me about respecting mares in the back of my mind and I don’t know why.”

“Friendship is a funny thing.” Maud used her fetlock to try and clean away a bit more dirt. “Tarnish, get your head down here and bring your horn close. If you can use your magic, I’ll do the looking.”

“Maud… when I use my telekinesis to touch stuff, I can feel it… I just can’t be… touching her… I just—”

“Tarnish.” Maud stared into her husband’s eyes. “I get that you’re decent and moral and good. And that is why I love you. But she needs to be checked for injuries and we don’t know what the diamond dogs might have done. She’s bloody back here, but she’s also covered in a lot of scratches and cuts all over. We have to know what sort of trauma we’re dealing with so we will know if we need to use your mirror to call in Twilight for some help.”

Whimpering, still hearing Octavia’s fine, cultured voice for some odd reason in the back of his mind, Tarnish nodded. He lowered his head, his horn flared with bright blue light, and he used his telekinesis to manipulate Trixie’s tender flesh while Maud had a look.

“I don’t see any cuts, rips, or tears, but she’s dirty. There’s a lot of caked on filth and the urine that never got cleaned away looks as though it is messing with her skin.” Maud tilted her head one way, then the other. Pressing her lips together, she began to scrub and clean, pouring water over the filthy flesh, which caused Trixie to let out a groan.

Limestone went to fetch more water as Maud continued her work. The stoic earth pony mare went to work on the clot of clumped up filth that clung to Trixie’s dock. The skin was irritated and chafed from being so dirty. Tarnish, who kept his head close, looked elsewhere.

“Tarnish, feminine hygiene is so very important. She’s burning up back here. I need to get into all the little folds.” Maud’s voice was a steady, yet somehow reassuring monotone.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Tarnish felt his way around and poured water from his canteen. He could feel caked on clumps of filth falling away. He shuddered with revulsion, feeling guilty, he couldn’t help but feel that he was a bad pony and that he would be punished in Tartarus for this.

“That looks a lot better. We’ll dump her into some water for a good soak in the morning.” Maud began to feel each of Trixie’s legs, she flexed them, bent them, and looked them over as Limestone set a bucket of water down near the fire.

Blinking, Maud held Trixie’s swollen leg and shook her head. “This is a giant cyst or something. We need to drain it.” She looked over at Tarnish, who had sat up and appeared to be recovering from his traumatic experience. She pressed her hooves against the swollen lumps and they moved, shifting around Trixie’s fetlock.

“With those shackles on, there was no room for her leg to swell,” Limestone said.

“Yup.” Maud nodded as she laid Trixie’s right front leg down in the dirt. In an act of gentleness, Maud touched Trixie’s face, and brushed her filthy, encrusted mane away. “Limestone, try to get her face cleaned up a bit. Be careful around her eye, there’s a lot of blood crusted around her eyelid.”

“Can do,” Limestone replied.

“Tarnish, we need to drain this infection.” Maud glanced at her husband and saw him cringing already. “It needs to be lanced and everything drained out. You need to squeeze it from all sides and apply steady, even pressure to force all of the pus out of her leg.”

“Okay,” Tarnish replied in a reedy voice.

Gritting his teeth together, Tarnish tried to get a feel for what he needed to do. He could feel the squishy places, the places filled with sickness. The swelling started in her fetlock and came all the way up to her elbow. He squeezed, applied pressure, and concentrated upon his task.

Applying pressure on all sides, Tarnish used a small pinpoint amount of pressure created by his telekinesis to puncture the skin. Hot yellowish-green pus spurted forth and Tarnish wondered for a moment if he would be able to eat cottage cheese ever again. He gagged, and his nausea wasn’t helped at all by the stench now in the air.

The smell of rot and decay was heavy, cloying, and almost made him throw up. He couldn’t bear to look at what he was doing, and he turned away from the wound he was draining. He gagged, his gorge rising, and struggled to keep himself together. He heard Limestone coughing.

“It’s like toothpaste being squeezed out of a tube,” Maud said, describing what she saw as Tarnish kept squeezing. “It’s coming out in little curlicues, like frosting.”

For a second, Tarnish was almost certain that he was going to barf out his own liver and maybe his pancreas. The smell was getting worse and the sound… oh for the love of the alicorns, the sound… There was a flatulent, squirty-squishy sound as he kept squeezing and draining out the infection.

For whatever reason, Maud did not seem bothered.

Tarnish looked up at the sky as he worked, watching as the stars twinkled, which were difficult to see because his eyes were watering. This was, without a doubt, one of the worst moments of his life. He put it right up there with the volcano exploding and the manticore that stole his virginity. He could hear the sounds of little clots being squeezed out, little wet pops, little splort! sounds. The smell was coppery, bitter, and foul.

This was a night that would linger in his memories for the rest of his days. He glanced over at Limestone, who was trying clean gunk away from Trixie’s eye, which was swollen shut. The swelling on her head was so bad that her ear had become lumpy and misshapen. He felt pity for Trixie—nopony should ever have to endure this. His pity turned to shame.

As much as Trixie had endured, he had complained and whined about having to clean her up, he had cringed and not wanted to help just because it was uncomfortable, because it made him feel embarrassed and awkward. She had been beaten to within an inch of her life and he had whined just because he had been asked to help check her injuries. He felt his face burning from his shame and he resolved to do better in the future.

His stomach reached a breaking point. The post-battle jitters, his fear, his disgust, his shame, the terrible stench in the air, the sound, Tarnish’s guts revolted against the cruelty of life itself. He puked into the dirt and some of it splashed into the fire, which did nothing to help the stench in the air. He barfed again, and again, and he could feel chunky clots plugging up his nostrils. He felt like crying and he wanted his mama.

As he coughed and sputtered, Limestone began pouring water over his muzzle, which cleaned away the vomit on his lips and nostrils. He snorted, trying to clear his airway, and felt his guts churning as his horn went dark. As the violent queasiness subsided just a little, the tears came. They were hot, far too hot, and they burned his eyes, blinding him. The world blurred over. He felt Limestone’s forelegs wrap around his neck and she cradled his head.

It was all too much and Tarnish had to let it all drain out, very much like having to drain Trixie’s injured and infected leg. He trembled as Limestone held him, still feeling sick, and struggled to breathe as his sobs overcame him. The world, while it could be a beautiful, miraculous place, was also a very dangerous place, and bad things happened.

As Tarnish thought about all of the bad things that happened in the world, he had himself a realisation—he was one of the good ponies that did something about them. He took comfort in this, even as his stomach churned. Tonight, he had saved a life. All in all, it was worth his current discomfort. He blinked, his tears flowing, and felt Limestone stroking his neck.

“I’m going to get some aspirin for Trixie,” Maud said as she got to her hooves. “She’s going to need something for her fever. Limestone, when Tarnish gets to feeling better, you and I are going to give her the best bath that we can, and then I think we’ll take her to bed with us. She needs to be kept warm.”

“Okay,” Limestone replied in a raspy voice.

Hearing it, Tarnish realised that Limestone was crying as well. Somehow, it was comforting to know that he wasn’t alone. Sniffling, he tilted his head upwards, and gave Limestone a soggy, quivering smile as she continued to stroke his neck.

Author's Notes:

Clearly, Maud isn't squeamish.