Bloodshot on the Left

by Dolphy Blue Drake

Chapter 1: The Clan Secrets

Even at first glance, almost anypony could tell that the Veins weren’t normal ponies. They were a family that consisted of Thestrals and bat-winged unicorns, and most ponies were confused as to whether they should shun the family or admire them.

But what most ponies didn’t know was that the Vein clan held multiple dark secrets that were almost never willingly divulged to anypony who wasn’t about to marry into the clan.

One of those secrets was that they hadn’t always been Thestricorns. In fact, Thestricorns never existed before the family patriarch, Free Vein, had become one.

Free Vein hadn’t always been known by that name, but nopony except for his family and the Princesses themselves knew who he used to be.

Free Vein was once known as Norman Green, and he used to live in another world, one filled with creatures called “humans”: a race considered to be either myth or extinct in this world. Not only was he from the world of humans, Norman had been one of them. There had been an accident with a black hole generator at the facility Norman worked at that had torn him from the human world and dropped him in this one.

Norman had appeared in the Canterlot palace garden, and he passed out from the shock of appearing in another world. Unfortunately, he didn’t stay passed out for long, as a searing pain shot through his eye socket and woke him up. That pain was the family’s second secret.

The pain was something Norman was used to, but the intensity of it was difficult to cope with, and his only method of ending it was back in the human world. As the intense agony increased, Norman got to his feet and screamed, pacing back and forth to try to make the pain more bearable.

The scream caught Princess Celestia’s attention, and when she arrived, she found a creature out of myth in her gardens, wearing a white lab coat and pacing back and forth while screaming and holding a hand to his left eye as if he were in incredible pain.

Celestia tried to sedate him with her magic, but the incredible agony he was experiencing cut right through the spell and forced him awake again, so she did the next best thing she could think of: she tried to calm him down.

“Sir,” she said in a gentle tone, “I can tell that you’re in incredible pain, but screaming won’t help anything.”

Norman glanced at her with his one uncovered eye and stopped pacing for a second before he shook his head and resumed pacing.

“It makes me feel better,” he told her through clenched teeth. “Distracts me from the horrible agony! Unless this place has O2 tanks or Cafergot, I’m gonna be stuck like this for a few hours!”

He stopped screaming anyway, though. However, he replaced the screaming with biting his own arm.

“Stop that!” Celestia said, appalled. “You’ll hurt yourself like that!”

As she said that, she used her magic to force him to release his arm, eliciting a glare from him as he removed the hand on his other arm from obscuring the eye that was in pain.

Celestia took a step back at the sight of his mismatched eyes. His right eye was normal, but his left was half-shut, bloodshot and filled with tears.

“What happened to you?” Celestia asked as he resumed pacing, covering his eye again as he started breathing like a mare in labor.

“Cluster Headache,” he told her. “I’ve had them since I was fourteen. Where I come from, it’s called ‘the most painful thing known to medical science.’”

“But if you have a headache, shouldn’t you lie down?” Celestia asked. She’d never heard of these ‘Cluster Headaches’ before, but weren’t all headaches something that could be solved with taking aspirin and lying down?

“Lie down?” Norman said, stopping to stare at her in disbelief. “Lie down? All my life, it’s been ‘can’t you just take a tablet and lie down?’ I’m sick of it! Clusters defy the ‘scientific’ definition of a headache! Lying down makes it unbearable!”

Celestia gasped at how much pain and anger filled his voice as he responded. He’d apparently had this conversation with others of his kind so many times before that he couldn’t take it anymore.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she apologized. “I didn’t know. I’ve never heard of that kind of ailment before.”

“Figures,” he muttered as he resumed pacing and breathing like mares usually did when giving birth. “Even most other humans have never heard of them, so why should I expect a non-human to understand? As far as the field of medicine has determined, only humans even get them!”

An idea popped into Celestia’s head right at that moment.

“You said only members of your kind get them, correct?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he responded, uncovering his bloodshot eye and looking at her in confusion. “Why?”

“What if I turned you into something else?” she suggested. “Something that doesn’t get them?”

“As if,” he snorted, “even if what you did with your horn and that glow was some kind of magic, I still don’t believe you could turn me into something that doesn’t get Clusters.”

Celestia rolled her eyes before saying, “that was magic. I’m powerful enough to move the sun, and while my sister is… out… I control the moon in her stead, as well.”

“I don’t know…” Norman replied, doubt heavy in his pained voice. However, Celestia could see the hope in his eyes, so she pushed further.

“As you said yourself, only your kind even suffers from this kind of pain,” she continued. “If I turned you into one of my little ponies, the pain might end.”

The offer was too much for Norman to pass up.

He fell to his knees, clasped his hands together and said, “If you can really do that, please do it! I’ve had to live with this pain for twenty years, and I was afraid I’d have to go through my whole life like this! If you can take it away just by changing my shape, then I’ll be forever in your debt!”

“Be warned, though,” Celestia cautioned. “I have limited control over what form you’ll take. I can ensure that you’ll become a pony, but I don’t have complete control over what race you’ll end up being.”

“I don’t care!” Norman said. “I just want the pain to end!”

“Very well,” Celestia said. “One final thing, sir: what is your name?”

“Norman Green,” Norman replied.

“Well, Mister Green,” Celestia said, “I shall attempt to grant you the freedom you so strongly desire.”

With that, Celestia’s horn glowed, and magic enveloped Norman’s body. It rapidly changed shape, and when he had transformed, he had become something Celestia hadn’t expected: a Thestral.

He had a blue coat and a red mane, and his eyes were a brilliant green. He also had a Cutie Mark of an eye next to a bubbling beaker. Strangely, the mark on his right flank differed slightly from the one on his left: the right one was normal, but the left one was bloodshot.

He wept happily as soon as the transformation was over.

“The pain’s gone!” he cheered. “It’s gone! I’m free! I’ll never have to worry about another inflated vein again!”

Celestia tilted her head in confusion at the last statement.

Norman noticed her confusion and explained.

“Human science doesn’t fully understand Clusters, but as for what we… I mean, they know about them, the pain is caused by a blood vessel expanding and crushing the most sensitive nerve in the human body, the Trigeminal Nerve.”

“Ah,” Celestia replied. “Well, your current name won’t fit in very well in this world, so we’ll have to change it.” Celestia thought for a moment before saying, “does the name ‘Free Vein’ sound good to you?”

“Oh, does it ever!” Norman replied, spreading his new wings. “A name to remind me of today’s victory? I’ll take it!”

“Then that will be your name from now on,” Celestia told him. “I, Princess Celestia decree that from now on, you shall be known as Free Vein.”

Free Vein blinked. “Wait, you’re a princess?” he asked.

“Oh, I must have forgotten to mention it,” Celestia said. “Well, Free Vein, I must warn you of something: your new form is called a ‘Thestral’. They aren’t exactly well liked.”

“Who cares?” Free Vein laughed. “I’m free of pain! That’s all I…”

He stopped as he sniffed the air.

“What is it, Free Vein?” Celestia asked.

“I thought I smelled someone lighting up for a smoke,” he replied. “Not that it matters anymore. Since I won’t get Clusters anymore, I won’t have to stay away from the three main triggers anymore, either! I might even—“

He cut off as his eyes widened, and he quickly covered his nose with a hoof and squeezed his eyes shut while muttering “no, no, no, no, no, no…”

“What is it?” Celestia asked.

“It didn’t work,” he said dejectedly. “I can feel the pain coming back. The smell of smoke must still trigger them.”

Celestia looked around to find the source, and her eyes fell on a unicorn stallion in a suit coat smoking a pipe. She galloped over to him and said, “Please put that away for now.”

The unicorn complied, but looked at her in confusion.

Celestia had no time to elaborate, however, as the new Thestral let out a blood-curdling scream.

Celestia galloped over to Free Vein’s side and watched as he paced back and forth again, covering his left eye with a wing as he fluttered his right wing in an attempt to make the pain more bearable.

“Is there anything that could help?” Celestia asked hopefully.

“Pure oxygen,” Free Vein said through clenched teeth. “That’s what I used back in the human world after they took Cafergot off the market.”

Instead of asking what ‘Cafergot’ was, Celestia picked him up in her magic and carried him towards the palace’s medical ward.

“Hurry, please!” Free Vein begged. “I have to start inhaling it in the first ten minutes or it does nothing!”

Celestia nodded and picked up the pace, breaking into a full gallop with her newest subject in tow.

She burst into the medical ward and told the nurse, “He needs oxygen, and fast.”

The nurse saw that Free Vein was conscious and gave Celestia a confused look, but she let her put the Thestral in a hospital bed and the nurse placed an oxygen mask on his face.

Free Vein took deep long breaths through his nose, breathing out quickly with his mouth between each inhale.

Celestia watched as his left eye slowly opened fully, signaling that the pain was fading.

After a few more minutes of inhaling the pure oxygen, Free Vein smiled, took the mask off and got out of the bed.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “It’s too bad that transforming me didn’t help, though.”

“I’m sorry that my attempt to help you failed,” Celestia said somberly.

“It’s okay,” Free Vein replied. “At least I can fly. I wish I could at least better resist the pain, though.”

“Then there may still be something I can do to help,” Celestia told him. “There is one thing I can still do to alter your form. It won’t take the pain away, but it will at least give you the ability to endure it better.”

“I’ll take it,” Free Vein replied immediately. “Even a little bit helps.”

“This will be much more than a ‘little bit’,” Celestia said. “Please accept this gift as my apology.”

Her horn glowed again, and Free Vein gasped as he felt his muscles get stronger and felt a horn sprout from his forehead, along with a sense of power fill his mind.

“What did you just do?” Free Vein asked.

“Normally, I’d say I turned you into an Alicorn, like me,” Celestia said, “but there’s a few differences between you and me. First, your wings are still Thestral wings. Second, your new magic is stronger than most unicorns, but it’s still far below my own. Third, you are still fully mortal, unlike me.”

“Wait, you’re immortal?” Free Vein asked, his eyes widening in surprise.

“Not entirely,” Celestia replied. “There are limits, but very few.”

“Okay,” Free Vein said. “So, if you didn’t exactly turn me into what you are, then what did you turn me into?”

“We actually don’t have a term for what you’ve become,” Celestia admitted. “However, I think I’m going to call you a ‘Thestricorn’, seeing as you’re now a Thestral-Alicorn hybrid, in a way.”

“Sounds fine to me,” Free Vein said. “So, how will being physically stronger and having magic help?”

“The strength will help you to have more endurance,” Celestia explained, “and your new magic should help you to at least relieve some of your pain. Both new abilities should make your pain more bearable.”

“Well, that’s better than nothing,” Free Vein commented.

Celestia nodded in agreement, and the rest of the day went without incident.

The headaches returned every few days over the next few weeks, always at certain times of the day depending on the day of the week. Each time, Free Vein was rushed to the medical ward and put back on oxygen, even after he’d trained enough in the use of magic to be able to reduce his pain somewhat.

However, once summer started to roll around, the headaches stopped completely. Celestia allowed him to leave Canterlot after that, and few ponies saw him after that.

---

Free Vein married a Thestral mare named Night Wing, who changed her name to Night Vein. They had six children, but only two were Thestricorns like their father. The other four were normal Thestrals.

Ironically, the two who were Thestricorns also inherited their father’s headaches, while the four who weren’t didn’t. The two Thestricorns also had the oddity of slightly mismatched Cutie Marks, like their father: both had marks that had an eye in it, but the flank that matched the side of the head each one got headaches on had a bloodshot eye, while the opposite flank had a normal one.

The children eventually married and had children themselves. Once again, only the ones who inherited the headaches were Thestricorns. Some of the children of the four who didn’t inherit the headaches got them anyway.

By this point, the family had noticed a trend: only the children who inherited Free Vein’s Cluster Headaches were Thestricorns, and each one’s Cutie Mark had an eye somewhere in the image, with one flank having a normal eye, while the other had a bloodshot one, and the bloodshot one was always on the flank that matched the side of the head that the child got the headaches on: if their headaches were on the right side, the right flank had the bloodshot eye in the Cutie Mark. If the headaches were on the left, the left flank had the bloodshot eye.

Each time a member of the clan had a Thesticorn foal, the parents spent a day grieving for the pain their little one was cursed to endure.

Author's Note:

This idea has been floating around in my head for quite a while, and I decided to finally put this up here. As a Cluster sufferer myself, I know firsthand how horrible they are. If you suffer from them, I know how you feel. They hurt more than anything else you can imagine, and they. Aren't. Migraines!

*Ahem* Anyway, this fic is both a tribute to those who suffer from Clusters and a way for me to get a lot of the suffering I've had to go through off my chest. I hope you enjoy this fic, but I'll understand if you think it too morbid for your tastes.