//------------------------------// // Bandage // Story: Not another Pony on Earth // by Admiral Biscuit //------------------------------// Bandage Admiral Biscuit Rainbow Dash wasn't the worst roommate I'd had, but she did have a bad habit of not putting things back when she was done. I'd lived with some girls that were complete slobs, and that wasn't the case with Rainbow. Obviously, she didn't leave her clothes or underwear scattered around, since she didn't bother to wear anything except for a baseball cap on occasion. And what few dishes she used, she washed when she was done with, which was nice. She did often forget to put them back in the cupboards, though. At first, I'd thought it was because she always seemed to be rushing off somewhere. Her default speed seemed to be hurried, and she was also a somewhat late sleeper, so I'd chalked it up to her rushing her morning routine so that she could get to class in time. But after a while, it just seemed that no matter what, she wouldn't remember to put things back where she'd gotten them from. It wasn't something I really wanted to call her out on. It was a little bit annoying; my mother had always told me to put things away, and it grated at me that she didn't, but I wasn't her mother, and it mostly was Rainbow's stuff anyways. And she would move it if I told her to. Maybe pony houses don't have cabinets, I thought. I wasn't sure—Rainbow said that she lived in a cloudhouse and I got the impression that it was actually made of clouds. I couldn't figure out what she'd wanted under the bathroom vanity. The toilet paper roll was mostly full, but it wasn't fresh, and it didn't seem like her to suddenly decide to clean the toilet, but most of the contents were piled outside of the cupboard. She'd left the medicine cabinet slightly ajar as well, and as soon as I'd stuck everything back under the sink, I pushed it shut. Since I didn't have anything I had to do, I got a glass of Brita water and sat down in front of the TV. I probably should have been doing homework, but I'd just finished up a rather nasty mid-term and didn't feel up to it. I was almost completely lost in Game of Thrones when I heard the front door click open, and I changed the channel really quickly. Maybe I was being overly sensitive, but it didn't feel right to show fighting and bloodshed in front of a pony. And there was no harm in it; the DVR loyally recorded the episodes for me. Not that she'd ever complained about it when she happened to catch me by surprise, but still. . . . “Hey, Sarah. Whatcha watching?” “Ah, I, um.” What was I watching? “Just a football game, I guess.” Damn it, why did ESPN have to be so close to HBO? “Who's playing?” I squinted at the screen. It seemed like every year they added more stats boxes and crawler banners that made it confusing to have any idea who was actually playing the game, and I wasn't enough of a football fan to recognize any team by their uniforms. “Uh, the Seahawks and the Redskins.” “Are the Seahawks winning?” Her voice was slightly muffled, and I figured that she was in the kitchen making herself another peanut butter sandwich. “No, sorry.” Rainbow Dash preferred for teams with bird names to win, which I thought was really funny and cute. I hadn't seen yet how she'd react to two teams with bird names playing each other. “They've got the ball, though, and they're only one touchdown behind.” “That's good.” She turned on the sink and I could hear water splashing as she rinsed off the knife, then she shut the sink off and opened the refrigerator door, in search of another Angry Orchard. When she came into the living room, she had a plate with a sandwich balanced on her back, and the hard cider bottle cradled under one wing. She liked for me to open them when I was home, because I could do it more easily than she could. I was distracted enough by her getting up on the couch and giving me the cider and trying to focus at least a little bit on the TV that I didn't notice her leg right away, and it wasn't until I gave her back the cider that I saw the big bandage on her foreleg. That, in and of itself would have been unusual. Rainbow was an active enough pony that she got lots of cuts and scrapes all the time, but normally she didn't worry too much about them. There'd been a few times that she'd needed a bandage, though, and that was when we both figured out that while the ones in Equestria might stick to her coat, Earth bandages didn't, and so the next time we were shopping I got some of that thin white medical tape as extra insurance. She saw where I was looking, and blushed. “I kinda misjudged a landing, and there was a sharp rock . . . I wasn't gonna worry about it but it kept bleeding a little bit. I didn't want to get blood on the carpet or furniture. I know I should have asked, but you weren't home.” “That's a maxi pad.” Rainbow nodded. “For an awesome cut. I would have had to use a dozen normal Band-Aids.” My brain went on temporary hiatus as Rainbow continued talking, completely oblivious to my reaction. “It was kind of annoying that it didn't have any glue on it to hold it in place. I thought the little ears off to the side would have the glue, like those butterfly bandages do.” “Do you know what those are supposed to be used for?” Her ears dropped. “Bandages? Why else would they have been in the bathroom?” “Do you know what a period is?” She nodded. “Duh. It's the little dot at the end of a sentence.” I really didn't want to have this conversation with Rainbow, so I flopped back down on the couch and tried to watch the game. Rainbow didn't pester me again until she'd finished her sandwich and had balanced the plate on the arm of the couch. It was plastic, so even if it got knocked off, it wouldn't break. “I should have asked if I could use your maxi bandaids, Sarah. I'll buy you some more next time we go shopping.” “It's not that,” I said, turning back to face her. “It's just—“ Then my eyes happened to see her bandage again, and I started snickering. “Did anybody give you weird looks when they saw it?” Now she was suspicious, I could tell. She leaned down and lipped at the end of the tape for a moment before pulling her head back up. “Maybe?” “Do you know what menstrual cycles are?” “I guess.” Rainbow fluttered her wings for a moment as she thought about the answer. “Like, you come into heat right around Winter Wrap-Up, and then if you don't get pregnant, the egg dies and then somehow your, um, uterus like pushes it away and then gets ready for another one. I don't remember exactly how all that works, 'cause it's been a while since I learned that. But, there's like a week where you can get pregnant if you have sex, 'cause the egg is in the right place, and than after that, it's not any more and you can't get pregnant until the next time you come into heat. I thought humans didn't come into heat, though.” “I don't think that we do.” Although some of the girls in college made me wonder. “So I guess it's pretty much the same for us, otherwise. Anyway, when the egg doesn't get fertilized, the uterus sheds its lining, and it comes out, kinda like blood, and that's what the pad is for.” I could see she was still thinking about that, so I decided I'd help her out a little bit. “The pad goes in your panties.” “Oh.” She ran her hoof down the makeshift bandage. “I thought that maybe since you shaved the coat off your legs you sometimes cut yourself with the razor and that's what they were for. Because it's shaped kind of like the finger bandages, but a lot bigger.” “I wish.” I clicked off the TV—neither of us really cared too much about the game. Rainbow's cider was empty, so I got up and got her another one, and one for myself as well. When I got back to the couch, Rainbow had peeled back her bandage to look at her leg, and I got a glance myself. There was a raw red cut running almost diagonally down the side of her leg, and the coat around it was all matted down with blood. “It looks worse than it is,” she said. “I wouldn't have put anything on it, but I didn't want to bleed all over everything.” Rainbow stuck the bandage back on before taking the cider from me. “So you really bleed when you go off estrus? You're not making that up?” I shook my head. “Scout's honor, Rainbow.” “Seems like that would attract predators.”