Midnight Walker groaned as he rose from his hospital bed, feeling rather annoyed that he was still stuck in this place. Since the forest training two days earlier Midnight had been placed in the difficult position of sneaking past the staff to find a familiar face, though he had yet to get very far. The night before a mare by the name of Sweet Tea, a hazel unicorn with a forest green mane and emerald eyes, caught Midnight before he even got ten feet away from his bed, causing him to be reprimanded and ushered back into bed.
This night it couldn’t have been an easier to move about. The married couple of Flower Heart and Red Heart were watching over him, and the two had been talking about trying to have a foal. Midnight urged them on, hoping to get some time alone and just step out. Flower Heart was a kind mare, her amber eyes went rather well with her teal coat and mane, and she had a knack for homemade herbal remedies that would fix anypony up in a day or two. Her husband was a peach colored unicorn with a bleached white mane. Red Heart’s cutie mark was a purple heart, one he had earned by treating a guard whose wing had been cut in two by a manticore. He was late at getting his mark, but that didn’t discourage him. Red Heart had to amputate what was left of the wing, and has done many successful surgeries since earning his mark.
The two complimented each other rather nicely, what with Flower Heart being able to provide anesthetics for the surgeries and often being able to calm the patient with a simple herb mixture. Aside from that, the two of them got married shortly after they started working together, and despite many telling them that the relationship would only distract them from more important things, the two stuck by each other.
“No, please don’t do anything brash, Midnight.” Flower Heart whispered as she and her husband walked towards the door to the hall. “We don’t want you to get in trouble.” Midnight waved them off, saying he wouldn’t get into any trouble, which pleased the couple enough to get them to rush out of the room, smiling widely at one another the whole way out of the building.
Midnight Walker creaked open the door, his eyes darting from side to side in search of anypony else, and only when he was certain that no pony was within earshot did he begin to wander down the halls. “He has to be around here somewhere.” he muttered, reading each sign over the doors, never satisfied with what he found. “They can’t just hide him away and not expect somepony to get curious.”
Midnight Walker continued to wander the halls for several, long, minutes before he nearly cheered at the sign he had found. “Intensive Care Unit.” He knew to keep quiet, he had often heard of how carefully the patients in this wing were tended to, and he couldn’t afford to be found now, he had come too close to be caught.
His magic wrapped around the door knob and turned it slowly, a high pitch whine from the hinges as he slowly pushed it open. He winced as another aura ripped the door open and an angry stallion stood over him. “I was told there would be no interruptions from the sta--.” Early Riser looked carefully at the stallion in the doorway, raising a brow and taking on a level tone as he spoke to his recruit, “Midnight Walker, what are you doing?”
“Well, Sir, I was just--I thought some--.” he sighed and lowered his head, shame practically stopping him from even opening his mouth again. “I just wanted to check up on him. Last I saw him he passed out, and I wanted to make sure nothing was wrong with him.”
“Who is it, Sir?” a voice boomed from within the room. “I thought we weren’t getting visitors.”
Early Riser looked back into the room, lines clearly visible under his eyes, even in the low light, “Change of plans. Studies are canceled for tonight, tomorrow you leave the hospital and return to training with the other recruits, understood?”
“Yes, Sir.” the voice stated, and Midnight Walker could practically see the salute though over his commanding officer’s shoulder.
“Then I leave you in the care of your guest.” Early Riser stepped through the doorway and passed Midnight with only a word of farewell as he trotted down the halls, not even sparing a glance back at the open door and the dumbfounded stallion that stood by it.
“Midnight!” a voice boomed, causing Midnight Walker to leap to attention. “I thought I recognized your voice. How have you been?”
Midnight Walker lifted his head, his eyes meeting the dagger like pupils of his partner. He could hardly make a noise as he stared into the deep blue eyes, yet he shook his head, breaking the gaze and regaining some consciousness. “I have been well, Nightingale, uh, may i come in?”
Nightingale nodded and beckoned him in with a wave of his arm, surprising Midnight Walker once again as he saw the condition of the room. In place of medical equipment there was practice dummies, books, and training weapons, along with several scrolls. “What in the world? Were you not resting for these past two days?”
“More than usual.” Nightingale responded, his tail wrapping around a scroll and tossing it up into the air. His hand shot out and gripped around it, his wrist snapping quickly and causing it to unfold. “Hold this, please.”
Midnight Walker raised a brow, his horn lighting up and his magic gripping the corners of the scroll and holding the contents towards Nightingale. Nightingale raised his hands, his palms facing the ceiling while his face contorted with effort. Midnight Walker opened his mouth to speak, but rather found it falling open, his eyes widening at the sight. Nightingales hands had a soft blue glow that reached out and slowly covered the scroll, causing Midnight Walker to release his own magic hold on the scroll. To his shock, the scroll didn’t drop to the floor, but rather floated lazily in the gentle glow.
Nightingale opened his eyes, a smile stretching across his features as he moved one hand, the scroll following the movement and drawing near to his chest. He chuckled as words began to appear on the page, happily reading them aloud, “Congratulations, these words will only appear when you have held this scroll in your magic for several seconds. You may release the scroll whenever you please, and take pride that you have begun to learn magic control and execution.” Nightingale chuckled in victory, dropping the scroll before bursting into laughter. “Two days. It took me two days to figure that out!”
Midnight Walker was dumbfounded, never before had he heard of a dragon wielding magic, let alone seen one using it. “Hold on,” he began, raising a hoof, “you have been in this room practicing magic for the past two days?”
“Basically.”
“Why in here, though? Why practice in a hospital, let alone the intensive care unit?”
“Well, that was The Commander’s idea.” Nightingale responded, giving a shrug of his shoulders. “He said we could go uninterrupted here, and, for the most part, he was right. You are the only one that has come in here aside from The Commander.”
Midnight Walker lowered his head, turning towards the door as he began to leave. “Sorry to bother you, then. I will let you get back to your practice.”
“Hey,” Nightingale darted into Midnight Walker’s path, blocking to door with his body, “who said you bothering me? We are partners, and yet we know nothing of each other. I don’t know much about Equestria, or you, but I would like to learn.” He gave a quick flick of his tail, wrapping the tip around the door handle before pulling it closed. “Can you help me learn?”
Midnight Walker backed away from Nightingale, his emerald eyes sparking with light. He took a seat in the middle of the room before he spoke again. “What is it you want to know?”
Nightingale grinned, taking a seat a few feet away from Midnight Walker, brushing a few scrolls and books aside with his tail. “I want to know about your family. What were your parents like? What were their names? Where are they? Do you have any siblings?”
“Slowdown.” Midnight Walker chuckled, raising a hoof to stop the assault of questions. “My father was a proud stallion, he was like the foundation of a home, and he was certainly the backbone of our family. He was born during the later years of Discord’s reign, and didn’t see much that could be considered normal until after he got his cutie-mark. My mother was a little younger than him, and was practically his polar opposite. She was always the optimist, always seeing the good in everyone. My father’s name was Void Walker, though he practically chose the name himself once he got older. No one knows why he chose it to replace his birth name, and no one can ask, either. He and my mother, both passed away when I was young, so I lived in an orphanage until I was old enough to live on my own. I have no siblings, or, none that I know of.”
Midnight paused, taking a moment to calm himself down as he breathed deeply. “So, what about you? What was your family like?”
Nightingale’s grin faded away, his eyes growing dark and his muscles tensing. “My ‘family’, as you may call them, were monsters that wished me dead. My ‘brother’ tried constantly to make that happen, going so far as to kill and defile my only companion and try the same with me. What did we do to earn their hatred? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. We were hatched different from the rest and thus we were deemed wrong.” Nightingale growled as his hands clenched into tight fists, slamming them against the ground and cracking the stone floor after multiple strikes. “I will not affiliate myself with those beasts.”
Midnight Walker was dumbfounded, near speechless after what he just heard. He could hardly believe how such a simple question had angered him so, but even more so he couldn’t believe that a minor difference had caused Nightingale to be labeled as an outcast. “If you don’t mind me asking, what was the difference?”
“I was ‘too small’.”
Midnight Walker nearly fell over at this revelation, barely able to fight back the mental blow from knocking him onto his back. “Sweet Celestia, I am so sorry I brought it up.”
Nightingale shook his hand and head, a few tears falling to the floor as his past replayed in his head. “It’s alright. I can’t expect to be able to just run away from everything I did. Could you please leave? I really should get to sleep.”
“Sure,” Midnight Walker rose to his hooves and neared the door, eying Nightingale the entire way. “just remember that you can always come to me if you need to talk, ok? No one should have to suffer alone.”
Nightingale watched him go, rising to his feet only when Midnight Walker had left his field of view. He walked to the open door, closing it with a sweep of his tail while turning towards the hospital that had remained in this room. He slowly walked towards it, patting the bedding before curling up atop it, tucking his legs tight to his chest as his eyes refused to close. No one deserves to suffer alone, he though, then why do they haunt my thoughts? After what felt like hours Nightingale was able to drift off to sleep, though his dreams were haunted with images from his past, every detail brought back to life in the lime light of the night.