Tale of a Cross-eyed Mare – Part 4
Zedd awoke slowly. He had slept better than normal and felt more awake than he had after waking up in years. He immediately became aware that he was still hugging Ditzy closely. He slowly moved back and slipped out of the bed to not wake her, then moved to the door. After opening it, he rubbed his eyes and turned toward the bathroom, then slammed into something solid. Stupid wall’ he muttered blearily, then glanced again to see it was Pine he had walked in to. ‘Oh, er, um, sorry, sir!’ he said quickly. Pine continued to frown.
Ohh no… thought Zedd to himself. He looked further down the hall to see Ditzy’s door was wide open. Looking back, he also noticed that Pine could see right into his room and could see a blonde mane in the bed.
Pine jerked his head for Zedd to follow and descended the stairs. Zedd was worried. He had offended Pine and broken his trust… he was going to be kicked out of the house and he’d have to find somewhere else to live. Pine beckoned for him to take a seat and moved to make coffee. After a few long minutes, Pine dropped down two mugs of it and took a seat.
‘Explain’ was all he said.
‘Well, I went to go to bed last night… and when I got into my room Ditzy was there… and…’
‘What happened?’
‘Nothing! Seriously, I climbed into bed and we fell asleep, I swear that’s all that happened!’
Pine squinted at him for a few long moments before taking a sip of coffee. ‘Ahh, much better,’ he said, opening his eyes fully. ‘Just wanted to make sure, y’know. What, surprised? I’m still not really a morning person until my morning coffee.’
Pine completely changed his tone. ‘Don’t worry, Zedd! I trust you completely. Besides, I didn’t hear any bumping,’ he said with a wink. ‘I’d know if anything happened. You can hear a pin drop from anywhere in this house, I crafted it with compressed balsa; it really reverberates. If they’re listening up there, the girls can probably hear us talking right now,’
His ears perked up at something and he downed the last of his coffee before quickly saying he had to get to work early to help train someone and rushing out the front door.
After a moment of sitting by himself Zedd began to hear hoofsteps. He turned to look into the doorway and saw Ditzy standing there, except her eyes were aligned. He then noticed that she was taller, too.
Oh, I’m an idiot, he thought to himself. ‘Good morning… Spring…’ he said, hesitating on her name. He still didn’t like calling any adults by their first names.
‘Good morning, Zedd. You slept well, I take it?’
‘Yeah. Better than I have in years, I think’
She gave him a small smirk and turned to begin cooking something. He immediately felt paranoid that she knew there was more than one body in his bed that night.
‘I take it Pine had to rush off early? He said something about having to start early,’ she said to him.
Feeling grateful for the change in subject, he said ‘yeah, he only left a moment ago.’
Spring turned and looked at him for a second before her gaze shifted to the second coffee mug on the table. Her eyebrows furrowed in concentration as her mind worked hard on figuring something out.
‘Err… what’s new at the Weather Factory?’ asked Zedd to avoid an awkward silence.
‘I can feel a storm coming, even though there isn’t one forecasted. I should probably be leaving soon, just in case,’ she looked over at him. He seemed a bit disappointed. Maybe he wants to talk… the Weather Factory can wait, she thought. ‘Is something on your mind?’
Zedd’s thoughts immediately spun. He didn’t know what was right or wrong anymore. Ditzy has her cutie mark, so now I’m one of the only ones in our year level without theirs… every day that goes by Ditzy and I get closer together… I’m not sure how long it will be before- oh, I still need to answer her… Um…
Spring stood silently by the stove. She considered saying something, but she figured that he’d speak when he was ready to.
‘It’s… I dunno. I…’
‘It’s about your relationship with Ditzy, isn’t it.’
Zedd shouted ‘wait, what!’ before he saw her flinch and recoil a bit from him. ‘Oh, sorry. It’s not... no. no… not entirely.’
Spring turned back to the stove to cook breakfast while Zedd collected his thoughts and figured out what he was going to say. Before she knew it, he was pouring his soul out to her.
‘Everypony else in our class has their cutie marks except Applejack, and even though I’m not being picked on for not having one, it’s still awkward for me, but also… I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel about Ditzy. One day we were friends, and then everything just suddenly changed, and it’s not like I don’t like where we are in a relationship, but the problem is that I don’t know where we are. I’ve never been in a relationship, and I don’t even know if this is one,’
Zedd’s voice began to crack a bit and every so often he would punctuate a word with a sob.
‘I don’t know what to feel. I’ve never done this before. It’s weird. I don’t know if she likes me back the way I do, and I don’t even know how I like her, and I don’t want to just ask her because she’ll reject me and I don’t want to lose her because…’ his words trailed off and became incoherent before he fell silent, barely holding back tears. Suddenly Spring came over and gave him a tender hug. He felt warmth in it, and love. A mother’s love… something he had never received before.
He couldn’t help but lean against her and sob as he let out all of his pent-up feelings; feelings that he didn’t realise he had been holding in. After what felt like an eternity he finally pulled away. Spring looked him in the eyes and said ‘Trust your heart and you’ll know what’s true and right. You’re a smart colt. I know you know the answers to any questions you may have. Trust me.’
He felt much better. Better than he had in years. Zedd couldn’t remember what it felt like to be loved by parents, but he thought he remembered now. Ditzy came through the doorway and entered the room right as Spring dropped two plates of food on the table and turned to retrieve a third.
‘’Morning, mum’ she said, taking a seat next to Zedd.
‘’Morning, Ditzy. Did you sleep well?’ she asked. Ditzy blushed and mumbled something incoherently. She knew that Spring knew. Spring laughed lightly before beginning her breakfast.
‘Do you have any plans for today?’ she asked them both.
‘Same plan as yesterday, I’d guess. Keep looking for my mark… I don’t have the faintest idea what to do, though,’ said Zedd.
‘We’ll think of something’ said Ditzy, spirit burning brightly.
‘Perhaps you could collect more stories? I’m sure the Cakes would be happy to talk to you. Maybe even your teacher, Math, could help,’ suggested Spring
‘Oh yeah, he did say something about being happy to help us with anything at one point,’ said Ditzy.
‘Then it’s settled. We’ll find Mr. Millien, and then go around finding others for help from them, too,’ said Zedd.
The conversation drifted to the weather and the forecast for the following fortnight, then Spring put the dishes on the side of the sink to be washed later. The three walked together toward the front door through the rumpus room, and Zedd suddenly realised why Pine had left in such a hurry. The room was still in complete disarray. Cups and empty food wrappers were littered all around the room, along with temporary tables being spread around the room and the sound equipment still being set up.
Ditzy moved to set some music going while they cleaned up. Spring muttered that she had to clear off quickly, that the air was getting denser by the minute and that an unforecast storm was likely on its way and took off through the front door, promptly angling to some grey clouds spreading rapidly from the Weather Factory.
As the music picked up, Ditzy began to make dancing movements while jumping around a bit. Zedd laughed, to which she said ‘come on, get moving!’
‘Well… who’s Discord?’
‘He’s some mythical guy who apparently used to rule Equestria. I suppose the song fits here because, well, look around!’
Zedd looked at the state of the room and grinned. He began to bop up and down on the spot, and when he took a step it was more of a hop. They continued to dance around the room picking up the rubbish until Zedd heard a crash from behind him and turned to see Ditzy on the floor between two halves of a table.
‘I guess I kind of, ah, slipped?’ she said, holding her head to stop it from spinning.
‘Now that’s some discord, right there’ said Zedd, moving to help her up. He noticed a small bump beginning to appear on her head and immediately told her to take a seat while he got some ice. She thanked him and sat down, rubbing her head to test how much it hurt.
‘Stop doing that, it’ll make the bruise worse’ said Zedd, re-entering the room with some ice wrapped in cloth.
‘Sure thing, dad’ she replied, mockingly. Zedd blew air through his nostrils in response and continued picking up the last of the rubbish with much less dancing.
‘Pine can help me pick that up later. I guess he can scrap it in one of his little “projects” or something,’ said Zedd, returning to Ditzy. Pine had a small shed out in the backyard where he kept his tools and knives. He would spend a lot of his spare time in there, whittling on blocks of wood or making small objects from them. Zedd hadn’t been allowed in there for a while under the excuse that it would ‘ruin the surprise’.
Zedd followed Ditzy through the front door and closed it behind himself, hearing it click locked. They looked up into the sky and frowned. Clouds were covering most of the sky, ending abruptly at the Everfree Forest. Toward Cloudsdale the clouds were a dark grey, but above Ponyville the sky was being kept as clear as possible; every Pegasus available was up in the sky condensing clouds to be sent back to Celestia-knows-where.
The two shared a quick glance and Ditzy said ‘we’d better be quick in town. I think we might be in for a storm before long’.
As they walked into town Zedd noticed a huge amount of ponies that he’d never seen before. More than that, they were all Pegasi. Zedd saw a flash of brown, and not recognising it, followed. They came to a side-alley between a house and Sugarcube Corner and Zedd peered in. It was a dead end, nopony could have gone in after all. Zedd led Ditzy into the bakery and they settled to talking to Mrs. Cake.
‘What exactly is going on in town? I haven’t heard about any festivals’ said Zedd when they reached the counter.
‘Oh, it’s terrible! One of the main cloud generators blew last night and the Weather Forecolt had to evacuate the entire city of Cloudsdale. I heard that some of the ponies on night shift didn’t make it out of the explosion… oh, the poor dears’
‘Oh… wow. What’s being done? Where will all these ponies stay?’ asked Ditzy.
‘For now I think your mother is leading the group up in the sky, and more are getting ready to leave any minute now.’
They heard a series of dings from the back room.
‘Oh, could I get a hoof here?’ she asked, beckoning the two younger ponies to follow. ‘I’ve been baking as much bread as I can for the extra ponies in Ponyville. I also put a little something extra in for those brave ponies going in to the heart of the chaos for clean-up and repairs.’
Going out the back, they saw no less than twenty ovens.
‘I never knew you had this many ovens! When did you get them installed?’ asked Ditzy.
‘A pony with a spiky, brown mane came by in a truck full of them a few days ago. He said that I would need them. Well, I didn’t believe him at the time, but now… come, the bread,’ she said, throwing two pairs of oven-mitts to the two young ponies. Ditzy and Zedd continued to question her as they moved the bread to the counter, tables, and windowsills.
‘What did he look like besides spiky brown mane?’ asked Ditzy
‘He had a light brown coat and he wore a tie, I think’
‘What about his cutiemark? What did it look like?’ asked Zedd
‘It was an hourglass, I think… oh my, I haven’t ever seen a mark like that before.’
‘Did he say anything unusual? I mean, he knew this was going to happen. Could he have caused it?’
‘No, no, he was an earth pony. He said something about a leotard… no, that wasn’t it… I forget what he called it, but he said he was a “time lord”. Well, I thought he was raving, of course. I just let him be on his way and I haven’t seen him since.
‘Go on, you should get home as fast as you can. I don’t want you being caught out here in the storm, it could turn bad.’
Ditzy began to protest, but Zedd quickly hushed her and pointed outside. The rain was coming down harder than the sound let on. Ditzy gave a final glance to Mrs. Cake and thanked her, then left.
‘Oh, no, thank you for all your help, dearies! I always appreciate a helping hoof around here, especially in a time like this’
They moved quickly through town. Looking up, they saw innumerable Pegasi in the air, fighting the clouds, but it was a losing battle. Clouds were streaming above the forest, but dissipating in the distance. It’s unnatural… clouds don’t just go away on their own.
Zedd was snapped out of his thoughts by a deafening boom overhead. He saw a streak of lightning hit a house nearby, and flames immediately ignited it. Ditzy slipped and fell over and Zedd stopped to help her back up. The two stood, watching the flames slowly spread. Ditzy gasped as a Pegasus fell out of the sky and landed in a nearby hay bale. Possibly a victim of that lightning strike… everything’s going wrong… what do I do…. What do I do?!
Zedd’s thoughts were getting frantic. He noticed the hay had stopped moving entirely, and no Pegasi were descending from the sky to help. His thoughts went into overdrive.
Somepony’s injured, nopony’s helping, that house is burning, lightning, LIGHTNING!
He heard a scream from the house, followed by crying and wailing.
His mind cleared. Everything went blank.
‘Ditzy, go help whoever it is in the hay bale. I’m going in’
Ditzy took a few seconds to register what he had just said, but then moved toward the hay bale. She suddenly stopped and turned to see he was gone. He was charging full-speed to the house.
‘Zedd!’ she screamed, voice lost to the wind. Even if he had heard her, Zedd wouldn’t have reacted. Somepony was in that house, and he needed to get them out.
Four feet from the door he spun and bucked without losing pace. The door fell in and he saw just how far the flames had spread. The entire kitchen was on fire, along with most of the living room. The wood in the walls was burning quickly. He heard another squeal from upstairs, followed by the crash of a burning beam falling.
Zedd was up the stairs in a flash. They crumbled after him. He heard light thumping and scratching on one of the doors in the upper-corridor. He touched the doorknob and immediately recoiled, tears in his eyes, hoof burning. He turned and bucked this door, lightly, and heard it snap easily. He concentrated on his upper forehead as much as possible and watched the two halves of the splintered door glow and fly into the room. A gray streak noted a cat rushing from the room in a hurry.
The screaming had stopped. That was bad. His mind was still oddly blank. Zedd was acting on instinct.
He went through the hall and saw that all but one door were left open. Glancing into each room in turn, he settled on the last and bucked. The room inside was ablaze, along with the rest of the house, but a hole was blown in the roof and water was spraying in. This must have been where the lightning struck.
‘Hello? Is anypony there! Please answer me!’ Zedd called, vainly. Whoever it was screaming was either unconscious or dead. Zedd became aware of a voice in the back of his mind telling him to get out. The house was crumbling and he knew it, but if he could save someone, it would all be worth it.
He took a tentative step into the room and the floor gave way below him, showing the kitchen below. He stepped back and muttered ‘hop… skip… JUMP!’ and leapt the gap into the room. There he saw her. A little blue-green filly was trapped under a beam, unmoving. Zedd felt something like anger in his mind.
Even if she was dead, he would not let this fire consume her. He felt a sudden coolness on his cheeks and felt his eyes sting. He felt a sudden shortness of breath and noticed how smoky the house was becoming. He also suddenly became aware of how unbearably hot it was. Putting all of his strength into it, Zedd hooked his forelegs under the beam and heaved, then fell forward onto it in sudden pain, and rolled backwards, screaming.
BUCK THAT WAS DUMB! he screamed in his mind. He had just successfully burned most of the fur off his forelegs and could already feel the skin blistering, along with a few sore spots on his neck where he had fallen forward on the beam.
He got to his hooves, tears streaming freely, and concentrated harder than he ever had before. He felt the magic flowing and saw the beam glow. Nothing happened. He strained harder, holding what little breath he had left and grunting. He felt like his eyes were about to burst and could feel his mind straining, then the beam disintegrated. The wood within reach of the filly blackened, then whitened and turned to ash. He picked her up tenderly and blew the dust from her before turning back to the door and running, completely forgetting about the hole.
The world flipped below him as Zedd tumbled into the kitchen. He curled up around the filly to protect her body from harm and felt himself make connection with the floor. Luckily he landed on his tailbone. Zedd picked the filly up again and ran through the doorway to the living room. The house was darkening by the second and the world seemed to be spinning. Trying his hardest to navigate the burning wood to the front door, Zedd almost fell over again. As soon as he was half a foot out the front door, the world spun and he looked up to the ground-turned-sky, briefly wondering why he was plastered to the ceiling of the world before everything blackened for a final time.
---
‘Hurry up; we need to get him to the hospital!’
‘Will he be okay?’
‘Hurry, guards. These three have top priority. Your new mission is to get them to a hospital, fast.’
‘Yes, Princess.’
‘Into the wagon! Gently, we don’t know how bad their conditions are.’
‘I’m taking this one and going alone. She needs help the most. Besides, she’s only small.’
‘Very well. Men, on me! To Ponyville clinic, double time!’
‘Wait! Zedd! Please, don’t leave me!’
Zedd opened his eyes in the rain. The sky was completely black and royal guards were all around. He immediately became aware that Ditzy was beside him.
‘Zedd…’ she said through tears.
‘Let’s meet again in the next life’. He didn’t know why he said this, it just felt right.
‘Yeah. I’ll be waiting’ she choked out.
Zedd faintly wheezed a chuckle. ‘Silly,’ he said, ‘just because you have a next life’. He looked into her eyes for what he knew would be the final time and blinked out a final tear before falling under again.
---
‘Clear’
Thump.
‘Clear’
Thump.
‘Come on, come on. One more! Clear!’
Thump.
Beep.
---
She left the two ponies in her wake, rushing to the Factory to help with whatever cleanup was necessary.
The storm was bigger than she thought. Getting close to the factory, she was immediately redirected to help fight the clouds. She looked in and saw metal shrapnel everywhere, along with… red pigment? No, this was a cloud problem, not a rainbow problem. Wait… that was… blood.
‘Tell them to spread out wider then go to town and launch the backup workers. We need all hooves on deck; this is going to be a big job!’
‘Yes, ma’am’ replied Spring’s co-worker. He flew over, shouting over the howling wind for the Pegasi to spread out. When he saw them carrying out his command he saluted Spring and folded his wings in for a quick dive to town.
The troops had helped, but the clouds were getting thicker. They had no chance.
Highwind came to tell Spring to go home.
‘It’s too windy! You know you can’t brace these conditions!’
‘I can! I swear!’
‘Look, you’re the best at reading weather, but you’re not the strongest flier, and if you get in trouble nopony will hear you calling for help! Go home and be with your family! Tell the town to go home, too!’
Giving up hope on staying in the air, she saluted and dived to town.
BANG. The air vibrated around her and she felt an intense burning all over her body, along with a sudden impact on her right shoulder.
She landed in a moderately soft patch of something. Without a spare thought for what had happened, she blacked out.
---
‘I think she’s coming to.’
‘Mum!’
Spring opened her eyes and saw her family there. Ditzy was standing at her left side, Pine at her right.
She mumbled something and winced.
‘Don’t speak, honey. The doctor says you’re lucky to be alive. You were hit by lightning and landed in a hay bale. If Ditzy hadn’t seen you land you might not have been found until the storm finished,’ said Pine.
Spring looked to her daughter and smiled. She mouthed the words ‘thank you’ and rested her head back down, already out of energy.
‘Miss Glow, your recovery is going to take a while. You have a third-degree burn on your right shoulder, but that seems to be the only problem. Hardly even a bruise besides that. You were one of the luckiest ponies in Ponyville the night this happened.
‘”The night”…’ she paused for breath. ‘How long…’
‘You’ve been asleep for four days. The Weather Factory is working on repairing whatever went wrong, but the storm is over.’
She blinked and smiled in thanks before falling asleep again, too exhausted to do anything else.
‘You may stay if you wish, but she does need rest. I’d recommend you don’t disturb her. Now, Miss Doo, I believe there’s another admitted here who you may wish to visit… Mister Zorander?’
If she wasn’t still heartbroken over his condition she would have giggled at his name. She nodded solemnly and followed him through a corridor to a room on the level above. When they entered a doorway, she saw him.
Zedd was in bed with an oxygen mask on, but he was conscious. The doctor rushed over with shock on his face. While he checked Zedd’s pulse and began to quickly ask him questions which Zedd didn’t answer, Ditzy had a look above his bed. There was a shelf with a simple hourglass on it that couldn’t have possibly been going for more than a minute. She thought back to the day of the storm and smiled to herself. It was the oven-stallion, whoever he was.
When the doctor finally left to retrieve some hospital apparatus Ditzy moved to his bedside.
‘Zedd?’
He continued to stare ahead silently.
‘Hello?’
‘My… head…’
His eye twitched and he slammed a hoof to his horn, moaning in agony.
Ditzy was scared. She didn’t know much about unicorn horns and didn’t know why he would be hurting. Frantically, she reached for the help button and pressed it three times to signal an emergency.
About 10 seconds later she heard hoofsteps and the doctor returned with two nurses. Ditzy began to blubber to him through tears of frantic fear ‘I don’t know what happened! I went to talk to him and he said something about his head and now-’
The doctor cut her off. ‘It’s okay. Zedd, please calm down.’
Zedd glanced out the corner of his eye at the doctor and held his breath tightly for a moment before blowing it back out and groaning. Every breath was a great shudder, followed by more groaning. It was taking all of his willpower not to scream. The doctor knew this and appreciated it for the sakes of the other patients resting nearby.
‘Nurse Redheart, please prepare a sedative,’ said the doctor. He turned to Ditzy. ‘Your friend is in a lot of pain. I don’t know why he’s awake; I didn’t think he would be for another day at least. We need to put him under so we can hook him up to some morpheme; that will take the pain away for him.’
Ditzy had settled to just sitting by the foot of the bed and nodded silently. She moved up closer to Zedd’s head and gently put a hoof to his. He felt the touch and cracked an eye open. His lips closed over his gritted teeth.
Ditzy kissed him as the nurse injected the needle into his foreleg and Zedd closed his eyes again.
---
Zedd awoke to dead silence. No talking, no rain, no anything. It was strange. He became aware of a piece of plastic piping in his foreleg, but decided to leave it be. He could feel a small amount of throbbing coming from the base of his horn. The more he concentrated on it, the worse it got.
The room seemed to be pulsing. The entire world was throbbing with every beat of his heart.
He leaned over to the edge of the bed and saw a plastic bag. More than grateful, he took it and emptied his stomach. He faintly heard hoofsteps and looked up to see a nurse coming into the room.
Zedd felt another wave of nausea and leaned over the bag again. He felt a hoof on his shoulder and heard the nurse say ‘it’s alright, get it all out.’
When he was sure nothing else was coming he leaned back up again. The nurse took the bag from him and tied the top through a piece of solid plastic.
‘Now you need to know is that there was an incident. How much do you remember?’
Zedd strained his mind trying to recall previous events. The room began to pulse more solidly and he grunted in indignation at how the world could be so inconsiderate by interrupting his silent thoughts.
The nurse picked up a small remote and told him to press the button from time to time to keep the pain away. He pressed the button, but didn’t feel any different, so he groggily placed it on the bedside table.
‘I… storm… lightning… fire… filly… escape… darkness… Ditzy…’
She seemed to understand. ‘That’s right. You ran into a house that had been struck by fire to save a little filly. She’s already back in Ponyville, and has been treated for minor burns and smoke inhalation.
‘You escaped the house and fell unconscious, then were transported here by the Princess’s Royal Guard. Your friend, Ditzy, seems to think you thought you were going to die… you were almost right. You’re very lucky.
‘You overstrained yourself in the house. Your horn isn’t mature enough for magic of that level, and you’ve given yourself an aneurism. Do you know what that is?’
Zedd shook his head and felt the world pulse again, then noticed the pulsing had mostly stopped. Whatever that button was, it worked.
‘It’s when your brain… bleeds. By using your horn as much as you did, you actually overexerted the magic cortex leading into your brain and it split. This is normally much more serious, you’re very lucky it’s not worse. An MRI showed a small tear and internal bleeding, but it should be better within the next few days. You’ve also been transferred back to Ponyville.’
‘Back…?’ he asked
‘Oh, yes. You have been unconscious for six days. You awoke briefly two days ago, but had to be put back to sleep again. You were transferred to Manehattan hospital on the first day, and you’re now back in Ponyville. You were brought back yesterday,’ she said.
He leant back against his pillow and thought. He was close to Ditzy now. They were back in the same town, at least.
---
‘He’s right through here’.
Zedd looked up to see the nurse pointing through his doorway. In came Ditzy, followed by Spring, Pine, and a small, blue-green filly with an older mare.
‘Zedd, you’re alright!’ Ditzy practically shouted before rushing over to hug him tightly. ‘Never scare me like that again’ she whispered to him.
Zedd was reduced to hugging her back as tightly as he could, tears forming in his eyes. ‘I’m so sorry’ he said back.
When they finally broke apart Ditzy stayed by his side. Spring said she was gladder than he could imagine that he was awake. Pine grunted that he was the toughest colt he’d ever met.
‘I don’t think I’d have been able to do what you did. That took more than guts.’
He felt something tugging in his chest, and realised that he’d never received a father’s pride before. He smiled back with more gratitude than he could express.
The older, unrecognised mare came toward him and began to explain how thankful she was that he had saved her little Heartstrings, and that if she could ever do anything to repay him she would.
He looked down at the blue-green filly, then back to the matching-coloured mother and smiled.
‘I didn’t even think about it. It just sort of… happened. I knew I needed to help, and so I did’
The little filly climbed up the side of the bed and hugged his foreleg.
‘Thank you, mister! Mummy said she was scared for me, but you made her happy again!’
He patted her back with his free hoof and noticed that the filly had missing patches of fur, along with a small burn on her back. He looked down at his own foreleg and saw small patches of fur in between what seemed to be a single, massive blister.
‘My name is Heartstrings, but you can call me Lyra! I like the lyre, and it’s a pretty name, I think. What’s your name?’
Zedd smiled at the innocence of the little filly. ‘My name is Zedd,’ he said. She suddenly looked confused. ‘That’s not a name, it’s a letter!’
‘Heartstrings’ hushed her mother.
‘What? Mr. Millien taught us the alphabet in English! Zed is the last letter of it!’
Zedd laughed lightly and grunted as his headache returned. Trying not to scare the little filly, he grimaced and pressed his anti-pain button. His mind reeled as he tried to think of something to say.
‘Well… I think the last letter of the Greek alphabet is Omega, so you can call me that if you want?’
‘Oh… May… I’ll call you Zedd’
Everyone in the room shared a laugh. Lyra’s mother brought her back down from the bed and left saying ‘if you ever need anything, I’ll be more than happy to help. I owe you more than I can ever repay’
‘Please. Just seeing such a beautiful little filly made this whole ordeal worth it. Trust me.’
She smiled and turned with tears brimming in her eyes. Zedd faintly heard ‘why are you sad again, mummy?’ from the hall as the two left.
Conversation quickly turned to what Zedd had missed and what had happened in the “incident”.
There had been a memorial service held in Ponyville three days ago in memory of the two ponies who passed away in the accident. Representatives came from the Rainbow Factory with specially designed scrapers to help with the last of the cleaning up, but after saying something about something being “unusable” to them, they had cremated the remains and turned them over to the families.
Pine had to work overtime to get enough wood for a new house. The family of three musicians would be staying with family friends of theirs, the Philharmonica’s, while their house was rebuilt. Pine laughed about how Lyra was more than happy to have a friend to play with by the name of Octavia.
Zedd was eventually allowed to walk around again. The shunt was removed from his foreleg and he no longer needed to rely on the painkillers. He went through withdrawl for a full day, but felt better than ever after that.
The first time he stood up Ditzy had gasped. She pointed a hoof to his flank and before he could turn and look at whatever she was pointing at, he felt her jump on top of him. Barely having enough strength for himself alone, he promptly toppled to the floor, only to be helped up again by Ditzy. He turned his head around and saw a red heart on his flank, the sensation of burning probably missed in the burning house.
It suited perfectly. It represented the love he felt for all ponies, and the length he would go to to help them.
A full week after he woke up on the sixth day he was allowed to leave. Eleven days had passed since the storm. The town was bustling with new life. Half a step through the front door of the hospital, Zedd was deafened by a cheer and lifted up onto the shoulders of a huge group of ponies.
They led him to the town centre and dumped him by the stage. Mayor Mare came out to give a speech, flaming red mane leading the way’
‘Fillies and gentlecolts! We’re here today to celebrate a true hero in the eyes of Ponyville! Ignoring all danger to himself, he risked his life to save that of a small foal, and came out alive. Zeddicus proved that it doesn’t take bulk or brawn to be a hero; it only takes a strong and determined heart. Three cheers for the hero!’
Zedd stood awkwardly in front of the whole town as they cheered for him. He, who had been the target of school bullies for years on end, was now a hero in Ponyville. All the same, he didn’t feel at all right until he saw Ditzy cheering for him, too. As soon as he did, he grinned more broadly than he had in weeks.