Dust and Dawn: Stagnant Space

by Blue Blaze {COMET}

Chapter 2

The waiting room outside the ER was tense and quiet. The soft hum of the long lights above Twilight made her even more nervous as she fiddled with her hooves on her seat. The four other girls were sitting beside her, not willing to talk to each other. They were too jarred to be able to speak. Doctors and nurses occasionally trotted down the nearby hallways and trolleys sometimes rolled with them, their wheels squeaking against the cold flat floor. Rarity was fussing over herself in a hoofheld mirror she brought, worrying about the deep wrinkles beneath her eyes. Applejack’s hat was tilted forward enough that Twilight couldn’t tell whether or not she was asleep. Fluttershy sat in silence, unmoving, and Rainbow Dash had a silent fury emanating from her. The chromatic Pegasus was already gritting her teeth, punching her hooves together while her pupils were shrunk considerably.

“Rainbow…” Twilight began even though she didn’t really want to talk to anyone at the moment. “I thought we already talked about this back at the crime scene.”

Rainbow didn’t move her head. “I failed, Twilight. I failed to protect her and I was helpless to bring the stupid pony who did that to her to justice. I was completely helpless. And I bet Pinkie was helpless too.”

Twilight rubbed the side of her temple. “You don’t know that. You don’t know what happened, but we were all helpless. You should just let the police handle the investigation. We didn’t even see the culprit there. She has already been arrested and taken to the police department. We’ve gone over this. The police can handle the situation better than we ever could.”

Rainbow Dash turned away. “Still doesn’t make me feel any better about it.”

Rarity finally lowered her mirror and faced Rainbow Dash. She opened her mouth to say something but stopped when something touched her shoulder. She looked behind and met Twilight’s eyes, which were giving her a silent “Give her time.” look. Rarity frowned but still nodded, trusting that Twilight knew better than she did.

Just then, the Operation light over the room turned off with a ‘ping’. All the mares jumped to attention and glued their sights on the sliding doors. A doctor with a black mane and surgeon’s garb on top of a brown coat soon came out of the entrance. He immediately saw the four and smiled, a sharp curve forming under the crease of his grin.

“That ain’ a good smile.” Applejack noted as she, along with the other girls, got off her seat and approached.

“So, doctor, how’s the news? Did the operation go well?” Rarity asked, being brave enough to break the ice first.

“Well,” the surgeon began. “There’s good news and bad news.”

Twilight’s stomach churned. Fluttershy visibly paled while Applejack and Rainbow Dash bore their teeth in preparation for what was to come.

“The good news is that your friend is not dead. She didn’t take enough damage to warrant a death.”

The mares all took sighs of relief, just glad that Pinkie was still in the world of the living. They all looked at each other, smiling that a huge weight got taken of their shoulders. But there was still one thing to get past.

“But what’s the bad news, doc?” Rainbow inquired.

He held back a sigh. He hated telling bad news to friends or families of patients. It never got easier the more he did it. “The bad news is that your friend is in a coma. She took a heavy blow to the head and the lower part of her brainstem got knocked around. It wasn’t fatal, and she should be able to walk again and have all of her motor functions working once she wakes up, but we don’t know how long it will be until she does.”

Twilight’s heart dropped. Rarity fainted. Fluttershy started crying and Applejack let her jaw slack, unable to form words.

“CELESTIA DAMN IT!” Rainbow shouted in a fit of rage as she got up into air and blasted down the hall flying, swinging wind in everypony’s faces.

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight called out as Rainbow turned the corner. But Twilight didn’t have it in her to chase after. She didn’t have anything left.

“Sweet merciful Luna!” the doctor cried out as he rushed to Rarity’s side. He quickly checked her head to see if it hit the ground hard enough to cause skull damage. “Applejack! Get me a nurse! Twilight, help me carry Rarity to a bed!”

Applejack said nothing as she turned tail and ran down the hall to find some assistance. Twilight on the other hoof shook herself out of her stunned stupor as much as she could and picked Rarity up with her magic, following the doctor as he led her out of the room. As she left she peered behind herself to see Fluttershy, still sitting there, weeping quietly in place. Twilight could feel some bile rise up in her throat.

“Fluttershy, c-come follow us! We need you to help us with Rarity!” Twilight called out. Fluttershy seemed to dimly acknowledge the command, as she turned towards Twilight’s voice and began slowly shuffling towards it. Twilight forced a weak smile and turned around the corner.

Later, Twilight rested Rarity on a hospital bed in an empty room. The doctor got some ice and lightly applied it to her head while she was under the covers, mentioning that they could only have this room until another patient with a more serious condition needed to commandeer the space. Twilight nodded, feeling dizzy as if she was going to faint herself. Applejack came with the nurse and a few minutes later Rarity woke up in bed, holding her hoof to her forehead and complaining that her head hurt terribly. She told the others that she just experienced one of the worst nightmares she had ever been in, where Pinkie Pie went into a deep slumber after getting inflicted with a serious injury and never woke up. The pain did not subside when the truth was told to her. Fluttershy never came to the room Rarity was led to, even though Twilight thought she would. Twilight didn’t have the energy to look for her. She didn’t have the energy to search for Rainbow Dash either. All her friends were in a mess, and for once Twilight didn’t want to fix anything. She just wanted to sit there and let the storm swirl all around her, sending relentless rainwater onto her unsheltered body. She didn’t even get to see Pinkie Pie once after she entered the ER. None of them did. Maybe they would be able to later.

“It could be anywhere between a week to two-to-three months.” the doctor explained in more detail. “We’ll try our best to wake her, but this isn’t something we can force. Using magic to try and reverse the coma will probably make it even worse. That I can tell you, and that I can guarantee that we won’t even try.”

Afterwards, the surgeon had to leave for more business somewhere in the hospital. He told Twilight and the others to go get a nurse if they needed anything else. Then, he left. Twilight was left in the room with Rarity resting on the bed trying to forget what just happened and Applejack, staring endlessly into the floor. The sunset outside of the window burned the sky to a crisp golden orange and it flooded through the cracks of the blinders of the windows in the room. Twilight couldn’t believe that it was already that late in the day. She could have sworn that it was only a few minutes ago when she and Spike were having lunch in the Treehouse as she expectantly waited for her new telescope to arrive.

“So,” Applejack said, surprising the daylights out of Twilight. Twilight thought that she was asleep, considering she couldn’t see her eyes from the way her hat was tilted. “When’s the trial?”

“Uh,” Twilight uttered as she got her thoughts together. That was the first thing Applejack wanted to know after all of this? “The trial for the assault?”

“Yeah. That one.”

“Don’t you think that we should worry about Pinkie at the moment?” Twilight requested, annoyance carefully dribbling out of her tone.

Applejack snorted. “Ah think Pinkie will be just fine. Ah bet she’s been through worse. We just need to give her some time to get back together, that’s all.”

Twilight’s brow creased. If Applejack wanted to know about when the trial for the crime was, Twilight wasn’t one to withhold that information. “I think one of the officers told me it would take at least three days to process everything. They’re still doing questioning over at the police station and gathering evidence from the neighbours around the house of the incident. I’m not even that sure. I’ll go to the station later and ask. That also reminds me, I need to tell Fluttershy and Rainbow later.”

“As soon as I find them.” Twilight thought to herself.

“Three days, huh?”

Twilight tilted her head. Applejack raised her chin enough so that Twilight could see glowing emerald pools beneath her Stetson.

“Well, whenever it is, you bet your sweet flankin’ flank ah’ll be there.”

Author's Note:

This chapter was short, but I originally planned it to be. I don't want to get hung up on descriptions of locations when I'm writing this story. If it's Ponyville, it's Ponyville. If it's a hay-thatched house, than it's a hay-thatched house. If it's the Ponyville Hospital, than it's the Ponyville Hospital. To me, this story is more about the characters and their experiences, not about their surroundings. I will describe the scenario if I want to get a particular atmosphere across, like the library in the first chapter, but otherwise I'm completely dodging that stuff. I've had enough with descriptions in my HiE story, Chronicles.

I also made a lot of mistakes this chapter. I must be more tired than I thought. The dialogue was difficult to write too. That's something that I'm not quite good at yet. There's a certain flow of conversation that's hard to put on paper without making it good too fast or slow. It all depends on the reader, really. But I really toned Applejack's speech down so that her words aren't too different from Rainbow Dash's or Twilight's. My reasoning behind this is that people with a southern accent who talk to people with southern accents on a daily basis don't think they have accents. Thus, they wouldn't write with the mindset that they have accents, they would write like any other English writing person would write, with "I"s being "I"s and "you all" being "you all". Unless they were consciously aware of the way they spoke or they genuinely thought that the way they pronounce words were the proper spellings of the words they wrote, they would write normally. Also, it's easier for the readers eyes to read. Some stories have Applejack's accent so pronounced it's an eyesore to read. I don't want to do that to my readers. You all deserve better than that in my book.

Comments

[NobleValor]

Showing more promise. (However I personally feel that details give the story a nice personal touch, but to each his own.) There was one error: The last word 'come' should be 'coma.'

[Blue Blaze {COMET}]

4943153

Good catch. I swear to @#$! that I already edited the entire thing. I guess that's what happens when I don't have an actual editor to help me.