• Member Since 28th Aug, 2011
  • offline last seen 7 hours ago

Cold in Gardez


Stories about ponies are stories about people.

T

No one makes it through life unchallenged. For every person there comes a time when the world hurts them, betrays them, or calls on them for something great. It is in those dire moments that six mares will learn just what they are made of.

Sometimes the best medicine isn't for the body. It is for the soul.

[Second place finisher in the March Writeoff competition.]

Chapters (6)
Comments ( 80 )

Just finished the last one. You did SO good on this~:heart:

Almost didn't recognise which story this was!

I'm not sure how it fits with the prompt, "The Best Medicine", anymore, but I like the changes. It's less didactic, works as a demonstration of generosity instead of an explanation.

That aside, did it have to be needles!? :raritydespair:

I was a bit iffy on this one in the writeoff, but with a bit of polish, it's great. :pinkiehappy:

Oh my god, a funeral shouldn’t be this funny! :pinkiehappy::facehoof:

(Or maybe it should?)

My favourite from the batch!

Man, SoarinDash never ends well in your stories, Cold. At least, I'm assuming that's who the slightly off-color artificial feathers originally belonged to.

Ahh, Lightning Bug.

Yeah that... that captures the shock and numbness of the situation quite well.

Definitely my favorite one out of the six.

Very nice balance of depth and lightness. Twilight has grown into a fine teacher herself!

A seamstress afraid of needles... Interesting! And of course Rarity, generous to a fault, would do regular blood donation.

Yeah, that's how Pinkie Pie would like her funeral. One last prank with Rainbow Dash, and nobody crying. :pinkiehappy::rainbowlaugh:

Ah, Fluttershy. Her kindness is obvious; her toughness much less so.

Oh goodness this made me wince. I hate needles.

I wonder how far into the future this is. Time heals all wounds, but it requires lots of times. I would guess that this is at least a century after the passing of the least of the Mane 5.

Between the accidental death and the funeral is this. The 3 siblings are alone with their grief.

Does the Military still use Iodine-Based antiseptics. About an year ago, civilian blood-centers, at least mine, dropped the Iodine-Based antiseptic and just use Isopropanol.

I wish that everypony would be as generous as Miss Rarity. As the Element of Kindness, Fluttershy should donate too.

This vignette makes me sad.

¡Alas, poor Soarin'!

It is just like Fluttershy to take in a dangerous predator.

5915921

They used iodine on me for a blood donation about a year and a half ago, but that was Red Cross, not the military. Every time I've done a blood draw or IV in the military we've used standard alcohol wipes.

5915921
I don't know, but in our world, bacteria have been getting increasingly resistant to iodine for around forty years now. Sobering accounts from the Center for Disease Control:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00000247.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00001358.htm

tl;dr version: some strains of Pseudomonas cepacia, a fairly common species of bacteria, are known to have evolved to become 100% immune to Betadine(tm) and related iodine-based antiseptic preparations and can live quite happily in the full-strength solution. And this was learned in the 1980s.

Ponka Poe would tell you that you can't have a funeral without F U N.

5916179

"Funeral" is an anagram of "Real Fun".

Wow, how did you make this so entertaining? Maybe it's just the concept -- Rarity giving blood, because it's the right thing to do, even if she doesn't want to, generosity and all that -- and it's the first chapter so far with two of the Mane 6, keeping this theme of supportive friendship and healing... goodness, I don't even want to analyze it. This is the best slice of life I've read.

That was perfect. I've always imagined Pinkie would be the first to go.

Wow. These are all so different. You're a master storyteller.

"and that matters more my feelings"

Needs "matters more than my feelings".

Whoa! Way to twist it at the literal last second!

This whole thing was beautiful, unique, and profound. I'll be thinking about the lessons learned in love from each of these slices of their lives all day. And, knowing how deeply other fics of yours have hit me, probably much longer than that.

I'm laughing but now I'm supposed to be sad I guess.

Wow, it's like you like killing Soarin CiG

Got me tearing up in public. Bastard.

5916175 considering Equestria is, by and large, somewhere in the 1910s techwise, with arachronicisms featuring mainly in the music and light departments, iodine is probably what they'd use.

These are all excellent. The AJ and Rarity stories were my favourite.

I don't have anything else to say.

There could be no other funeral worthy of She Who Laughs Last. :pinkiecrazy:

I think there's a word missing here

and that matters more than my feelings or what either of us wanted

I think this needs a "sad" tag. At least it does for me. Real touching stories. Well done.

This is interesting...:duck:

That was funny!:trollestia: Pinkie will never seize to make anypony laugh. :pinkiehappy:

Is Lightning Bug a changling?

Guess it don't matter though.

All-in-all good story. :twilightsmile: I'll be taking off 'Read it Later' section of my library since I just did.

Masterful as always. These stories shed tears of undiluted truth. Or maybe that was me crying. Truth does that to people.

I find this to be a very nice change of pace from the previous chapters. They've all been quite touching, but it's a good way to keep it from feeling repetitive.

Damn ceiling crocodiles.

Very nice story, Cold. Pure slice of life rarely works for me, but I quite enjoyed this story. I do, however, find Twilight and Rarity's 'bandages' to be possibly too similar. Applejack has family, Pinkie Pie has laughter, Rainbow Dash has duty and Fluttershy has love, but Twilight and Rarity's both seem to be friendship. Maybe Rarity's vignette could have focused more on the good she was doing? It still works well at any rate, so perhaps I'm just being nitpicky.

5923520

Spoiler: Rarity's story was a complete re-write from the original contest submission, which I thought was weak and pedantic. The original basically featured Rarity lecturing Twilight, and it didn't get across any of my desired themes or messages. So, the re-write!

Admittedly, unlike the others, it doesn't feature Rarity using a trait or virtue to overcome some difficulty -- or, at least, not as much as the other chapters. I might have to think about that.

It was why we loved her. And feared her, but mostly loved her

Such a great turn of phrase to apply to Pinkie Pie.

5923578
I think the Rarity one more shows Rarity's virtue getting her into difficulty, which makes for a variation on the theme.

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