Pell Mell With an Arrow In Your Chest

Derecho liked to pretend it was civilized. Its ponies wore fancy cloaks and played politics and cast ballots. They had labor laws. They kept servants, not slaves. 

Red knew the truth. Derecho was a starving animal. Its teeth were sharp. Foam dripped from the corners of its mouth. Every citizen, every piece of cloudstone in every column, was a cell in the beast. And if it smelled blood, it would turn on you. 

Red dragged Blue over shattered cloudstone cobbles. She didn’t know the alleyways in this part of town. She’d already gotten herself turned around twice. She couldn’t afford to get lost a third time. Time was of the essence. Blood dripped down the wound in her marefriend Blue's chest like so much sand from a broken hourglass.

Pounding hooves harried her every move. Passing nobles and their clouds of servants paused to watch her pass. Their eyes looked bloodshot. Sharp. Hungry.

Red stumbled. Her hoof twisted. Pain bloomed like thorned flowers. She righted herself before Blue could fall off her back and took off again, favoring her untwisted hoof. She glanced behind her. No guards. 

“Stay awake,” she panted, as much to herself as to Blue. “Almost there.”

Blue groaned. Good. She was still breathing. The arrow in her chest didn’t look bad, but Blue’s dark cloak obscured the amount of blood pouring from the wound. Red felt it soaking into her fur. That was her. That was Blue leaking onto the street. She was dying. 

Red started to sob. The sound caught in her throat and stitched her sides. She couldn’t stop. She’d already abandoned Hypha. If she lost Blue, she’d be alone again. That thought hurt worse than any broken bone. Alone.

Just as her strength started to fail her, she turned a blind corner and found herself at the mouth of a familiar street. She was only three blocks away from her hideaway.

There was also one surprised guard in black armor standing directly in front of her. 

They stared at each other, too shocked to move. 

The guard found his wits first and blurted, “Oh my god, is she okay?” He sounded barely older than Red. He took a step forward. “Did someone rob you? What--”

In one fluid motion, Red tossed Blue aside and spun around. She bucked the guard square in the face. His snout bent at an angle it shouldn’t. His legs turned to jelly, and he collapsed in the street. His spear clattered to the ground. 

Red scooped up Blue and started off down the street again. She felt sorry for the guard. But she couldn't afford to dwell on it. Time was of the essence. Blue needed the Doctor. Blue needed blood. Blue needed the sacred rite that would stop the bleeding and save her life.

In the deepest parts of the city, where light diffused through the clouds coloring everything indigo, Red found a metal door tucked into an unassuming alleyway. She knocked hard.

A peephole slid open. "You should go to a hospital," a frail voice from the other side said.

"Shut up," Red barked. "She took an arrow to the arm."

"If you yell at strangers, inevitably one will shoot you in the heart with an arrow."

"It's not in her heart." For some reason, those words sent a chill up Red's spine. "It's in her lung."

The eye considered her silently for a painful, blood-letting moment. Then the peephole slid shut again. Fix locks rattled simultaneously. The door swung open, revealing an ancient unicorn stallion. His horn was aglow. Down the hall, she saw scalpels and bottles of clear liquid arranging themselves beside a metal operating table.

"Leave her here," he instructed.

"I stay."

"That's not the deal."

"Screw your deal." Blue groaned on her back. "Please."

The unicorn tapped his hoof on the floor, lost in thought. "If you stay, you help."

Something like a smile crossed Red's face. She was going to need a lot more victories before she could relax. But it was a start.

New fic next weekend