Swarm’s brow furrowed in concentration, and she held her breath, concentrating with all of her might, her horn sparking and glowing fitfully. The little red rubber ball in front of her wobbled and shook, a halo of green magic coursing around it in rhythm with the feeble glow of Swarm’s horn.
After several intense moments, Swarm gasped and dropped onto her stomach, exhausted, panting heavily.
A soft, malicious giggle from somewhere to her left made Swarm perk a single ear up tiredly.
Her unicorn tormentor idly swirled her ball in a slow circle in front of her own nose, making it spiral lazily. “Having trouble?” she asked sweetly.
“Shut up, Glimmer!” Swarm hissed, her little ears splaying back into her mane. Today, her mane was a vibrant pink, to match her eyes, just barely coming down to rest between her adolescent wings.
Golden Glimmer gave a mean-natured smile, and Swarm’s little red ball levitated from the bench, giving a lazy swirl in the air in front of the hybrid’s nose.
Swarm growled, swiping the ball out of the air with a hoof, glowering at Golden Glimmer. “I’m going to hurt you.”
The bully’s smile faltered for just a moment. “M-Miss Acumen says you’re not allowed to hurt us.”
“Do you think she could get over here fast enough to stop me?” Swarm asked bluntly, eyes narrowing slowly.
Golden Glimmer took a single step backwards, lips curling into a sneer. “You’re just a useless fakicorn anyway. Can’t even use magic.” With her accusation, she turned around and return to her own bench, idly swirling a trio of balls in the air in front of herself.
“Just ignore her,” Wrought Iron said, frowning deeply and dropping her ball back on her bench for her. “Some ponies just take longer to learn magic. And she is one of the eldest.”
Swarm glowered at Golden Glimmer’s back for several long moments, before snorting and turning to the colt, leaning close and resting her cheek against his shoulder. “I’m tired,” she admitted, rubbing her eye with a hoof and then nudging him firmly. “Cuddle me.”
Wrought Iron gave her a completely confused stare at the request, but did as asked, leaning in and nuzzling against her cheek gently. “Like this?”
“Mhmm-hmm!” Swarm crooned, nuzzling up at him in response. She flipped her head to the side slightly, letting her mane cover their faces so she could lean up and give him a quick, warm kiss.
Wrought Iron blushed furiously, jerking backwards after a mere moment of contact and looking around to make sure no one had noticed.
Swarm smiled, purring in the back of her throat, leaning against the colt. Her horn lit, and the red ball levitated neatly upwards, holding steady in front of them both.
Warden bit his bottom lip, swallowing thickly. He was rather hidden from the mansion, laying behind an old well at the edge of the grounds, up on a hillside. An old bucket lay in front of him, connected to the well by a frayed, dusty rope. The well itself was in disrepair, the crank rusted and one of the beams rotted through. It was a place Warden went to when he wanted to be alone. Which was becoming more and more frequent.
A medical bag was open in front of him, containing an assortment of objects in their own little sleeves. Syringes already filled with a carefully-measured dose of a clear liquid, individually-packed needles, a tourniquet, a pressure cuff, and a vial of glowing amber liquid. Aurora.
Warden had a tourniquet around his forehoof already, the end of it hanging loosely, not tightened at all. He didn’t even have a needle assembled for insertion yet.
Eyes red-rimmed, face tear-streaked and with a hoof shaking so badly it tapped against the ground, Warden was every bit the picture of a drug addict going through severe withdrawal symptoms.
Warden sniffed, wiping his nose with a hoof and blinking rapidly to try and unblur his vision. His ears splayed back heavily as he opened his book to a new page, having to hold the book against the ground to keep it steady enough to read. It was a botany book, and it was thoroughly ruined. Many of the pages were smudged and dirty. Dirt, blood, sweat, and no shortage of tears marred the pages of the book, with one particularly bad page carrying what looked like vomit-stains over the bottom edge.
The book had been perfectly pristine when Warden had purchased it, no less than a week beforehand.
Sniffling again, Warden tried to turn the page, tearing it in half before he realised that he had to take his other hoof off the book to do so. His wings twitched feebly as he pushed the book away with a growl of anger, before lunging forwards and smacking it away.
He growled to himself, fuming, refusing to look at the book, chest heaving with his fury. His hoof ached where he had hit the book, and a bruise was blooming beneath the skin. Everything ached. From his hooves to his ears. Parts of him ached that he didn’t even know could ache. from the region just beneath his hooves, to the insides of his nasal passages. The three neat lines on the inside of his right hoof also stung and hurt. But they were in a carefully-selected area that no one else would see.
“Warden?”
Warden looked up, and then looked away, hanging his head slightly. “Oh… hey.”
Kuno picked her way towards him carefully, gently settling herself down in front of him on her stomach, watching him carefully. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to stop myself from taking my aurora early,” Warden said airily, rubbing a hoof against the side of his neck. “Old addictions… you know…”
Kuno frowned at that, shaking her head gently. “We both know you’re lying, Warden. You’ve barely touched it in the last few days.”
“I’ve been taking it. I just don’t need to take as much. Doctors say that it’s hypersensitivity. Because I was addicted to it before,” Warden explained smoothly.
Kuno gave him a long stare, an eyebrow raising slowly.
Warden hung his head, wiping his nose again. “I don’t want it.”
“Yes, you do,” Kuno stated flatly. “I know you want it more than you want my love right now.”
“Damn you and damn your changeling nature,” Warden whispered angrily, biting at his hoof.
Kuno reached forwards, slapping his muzzle away from his hoof. “Stop fraying yourself. You’re going to regret it when you get better.”
“Well I’m better now,” Warden stated, thumping his hoof against the ground. “I don’t need any aurora. You said it yourself. I’ve gone so long without it.”
“Hiding up here on the hill, away from everyone, gradually destroying yourself?” Kuno asked bluntly. “Is that really ‘better’, Warden?”
“It’s better than before!” Warden hissed, slamming his hoof against the ground angrily. “It’s better than when I have to sit there in misery and not be able to even feel anything!”
Kuno frowned deeply, shaking her head. “No it’s not, and you know it. You’re just scared of it.”
“O-Of course I’m scared of it!” Warden admitted, burying his face in his hooves. “I’ll take the pain over that any day of the week!”
“It’s not healthy, Warden,” Kuno soothed, inching closer to him. “You need to gradually wean yourself off it, when you’re ready. This is only going to get worse.”
“Worse than having to… to… do things to myself to even feel anything?” Warden asked bluntly, his ears splaying back slowly. “I’m not so weak that I need aurora to help me fend off pain.”
“This isn’t weakness, Warden,” Kuno soothed, shaking her head gently and slipping up beside him, lightly wiggling in against his side, nosing gently at his neck. “You know it isn’t.”
“It’s weak… needing some drug,” he murmured in response, shaking his head defiantly.
“No, it’s weak to retreat into agony because you don’t like how it makes you feel,” Kuno said, gently mouthing against his neck, wrapping a hoof around his shoulders soothingly.
Warden leaned against her heavily, biting his bottom lip. “I prefer the pain…”
“You’re wasting away, Warden. You can’t keep food down when you’re like this. You go from full-on withdrawal to full-blown addiction every other day. I can see your ribs,” Kuno said, gently poking his side with a hoof.
“B-but I can feel you now,” Warden said, lifting a hoof to gently stroke down his wife’s back. “I can hug you… I might even be able to do… things to you.”
Kuno rested a hoof gently over his muzzle. “Using sex as a conversation-changer is my forte, Warden. You’re terrible at it.”
“I can’t even get it up any more,” Warden murmured sadly. “Not since…”
“I’ll help, when you’re healthy enough,” Kuno soothed, gently resting her head against his neck, nosing him reassuringly.
“I...I…” Warden’s voice dropped to a broken whisper, and he bit back tears. “I soiled the bed yesterday morning… I feel like a foal…”
Kuno frowned deeply, hugging her husband tightly as he burst into tears. “I resisted the urge to maim you when I saw you burning perfectly good sheets.”
“Perfectly ruined, you mean,” Warden countered, shaking his head heavily and sniffling, wiping his nose with a hoof. “This is no way to live. Aurora addiction is no way to live.”
“This isn’t aurora addiction,” Kuno said seriously, eyes narrowing up at him. “You’ve gone two days off it and you’re calling it an addiction? An addiction is where you can’t control it.”
“I told myself plenty of times that I could quit whenever I wanted last time I was on it, too,” Warden explained, hanging his head. “And I believed it…”
“But you didn’t have somepony next to you to back up those claims,” Kuno said fiercely. “I know you can do it, Warden. This isn’t an addiction. You need this.”
“I don’t want it,” Warden said, his bottom lip trembling. “I don’t want to go back to not feeling anything.”
“You could die without it, Warden,” Kuno retorted, her voice rising. “I did not go through all of this trouble to bring you back from the dead just so you can kill yourself by being a fool.”
Warden lowered his head, ears splaying back slowly. “You should have let me die.”
The slap caught Warden entirely by surprise. Ears ringing, he blinked dumbly at his wife, tasting blood.
“D-don’t you ever say that,” Kuno said, tears brimming in her eyes. “I need you, Warden. I gave up my entire life for you. I betrayed my hive for you. I killed my Queen for you, Warden. But I need you to wake up and take your fucking medicine!”
Warden stared at her, liking his lips, feeling blood dripping from his nose, tears spilling from his eyes again. “I-I’m sorry,” he sobbed, hanging his head and then dropping on his stomach. “I-I want to be strong for you but it’s so hard and it hurts so much… I feel like I’m already dead when I’m on aurora. Like I’m just an animated corpse. And I’m just so… sad and broken and pathetic… And I can finally feel you again and now you’re telling me to get back on it? I-It’s not fair…”
“Life isn’t fair,” Kuno said seriously, stepping closer to him and nudging his nose firmly with her own, uncaring of the small trickle of blood. “Life was never fair. You just trudge through from one bleak moment to the next and you pray that there are happy moments in between. This is just another bleak moment, Warden. And if you want to get to the happy part on the other side, you have to suffer through it. Nobody ever had a blanket-sweep happy life.”
Warden hung his head, sniffling faintly. “K-kiss me.”
Kuno blinked once, a single ear perking. “What?”
“Kiss me,” Warden said more firmly, rising to his hooves and then wrapping his forehooves around her, pulling her closer and kissing her with an furious eagerness.
Kuno resisted for a moment, before allowing the kiss, tilting her head to the side to deepen it slightly.
Warden kissed her hungrily for several long moments, before drawing back slowly, sniffling faintly and then wiping his eyes. “Thank you… Thank you for always being there to wake me up when I need it.”
Kuno nodded, withdrawing a syringe from his med pack, holding it up.
Warden presented his hoof to her, looking away and biting his tongue.
Kuno unsheathed the needle, and then stuck it into his hoof, injecting the contents.
Whining faintly, Warden bit back tears, as the horrible cold numbness started to travel up his hoof towards his chest, robbing him of sensation as it went.
Gently, Kuno pulled his muzzle around to face her, leaning forwards to kiss him gently, before hugging him tightly. “Thank you, Warden… for being you. You’re the strongest pony I know.”
“N-no I’m not,” Warden said, kissing her hungrily. “I just have a wonderful wife.”
Kuno shook her head gently, shushing him, and then kissing him intently again. “We’re going to get you back to what you were, Warden.”
“We’ll be happy again?” Warden asked helplessly, kissing her desperately even as the terrible numbness spread throughout his body.
Kuno nodded, squeezing him tight with her hooves. “We’ll be happy again. No matter how long it takes.”