Element of Kindness · 6:27am Dec 22nd, 2013
The following is a re-envisioning of this fic. There aren't any spoilers here, but you may want to read "Hush Now, Quiet Now" first. I don't know if I'm going to finish this, because it has very little to say that wasn't already in the other one.
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The song that Fluttershy sang as she entered the sterile white room was a very old one--a lilting thing without words, the likes of which she might have sang while tending to the animals when she was younger. It was soft and yet it was clear; it filled the room instead of piercing the air.
The foal in the bed opened her eyes, then closed them again without looking to see who had entered the room.
“I don’t wanna see any more doctors. Go ‘way.” The voice was tiny, scratchy, pained, and defiant.
Fluttershy broke off from her song as she stepped carefully past the IV machine and came to a stop alongside the bed. The sheets were crisp and undisturbed, as if they had been washed and laid down mere minutes ago. The foal tucked into them appeared, for the moment, to be just as pristine, with a powder-pink coat and a neatly combed yellow mane that lay in a flat pool on the pillow.
Fluttershy softened her tone, as if trying not to wake the “sleeping” foal.
“Why don’t you want to see your doctors?”
The little one forced a hmph through her nostrils. “Th’ doctors always poke me with needles. It’s dumb, ‘cause I’m still sick anyways.”
“Well, I won’t stick you with any needles. I promise.”
Fluttershy laid a hoof across her heart, even though her “patient” was still refusing to open her eyes.
“Well you can’t make me take any more pills, either. An’ I’m not gonna wear the face thing.”
Fluttershy bit her lower lip, resisting the urge to reach out and touch the little one on the shoulder--anything to help the poor thing to rest, anything to give her the kind of comfort that pills and needles could not.
“I won’t do anything like that,” she said in a slow, patient lilt. “In fact, if you don’t want me here, I’ll leave you alone.”
There was a brief silence. Then the little one took an unexpectedly sharp gasp, parted her lips, and shivered where she lay as her breath came out in a tense shudder. Her eyes snapped open, exposing broken, black-stained irises on a field of marbled pink-red. Then she gasped again, and a third time, staring up at the ceiling with her empty, shattered eyes.
“Promise... you p-promise you don’t got any needles or anything?”
“I promise,” Fluttershy said, stroking a hoof down the patient’s shoulder.
Finally, the foal’s eyes fell to half-lidded in exhaustion instead of wide open in agony. When she spoke, her words came out as barely more than a wheeze.
“It hurts a lot. Sometimes I can’t sleep.”
“I know,” Fluttershy said, almost as softly. “I really, really know. And I can help you. If you let me.”
This time, the silence was punctuated by tiny, halting breaths.
“... Can you really?”
“Yes, really,” Fluttershy said. “I can help you. I promise.”
Aw, poor Shy
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Interestingly, part of my concept is that Fluttershy's "work" makes her happy.
The kind of work that can only be done with kindness...