The walk to the infirmary was long and unbearably quiet, yet Rainbow didn’t dare utter even a single sound. Considering the hour, the day of the week and just how long Twilight had been out for, she had a feeling…
Ah, yes, a feeling proven right as soon as she stepped into the room itself. It was a long room with a high ceiling, complete with easily opened windows in the event a pegasus doctor was needed. After all, why bother with hallways and limiting corridors when one can just fly directly to the room they are needed at? Starting from the far end and reaching almost all the way to the entrance were two long rows of medical beds, most of which were empty.
Towards the back of the room was Twilight’s bed. At the moment, it was shielded from view by a simple divider. But Rainbow could see the silhouettes cast on them from within. As quietly as possible, she closed the door behind her before slowly and calmly making her approach.
She rounded the corner and came to a stop on the other side of the divider, noting quickly the two faces that were present. Shining Armor and Twilight Velvet. Rainbow sighed softly, announcing her presence to the other two, who, for a brief moment, each gave her welcoming smiles before losing them again. Rainbow’s own eyes turned to the lavender filly upon the bed, and despite how many times she had seen it already, she cringed at the sight.
An IV was hooked into Twilight’s foreleg, just above the hoof, and a large array of other medical apparatus were also hooked up to various parts of her body, keeping her bodily cycles going effectively in her waking state. Without a word, Rainbow pulled up one of the several seats that were neatly tucked away to one side of the bed and sat down in it, her eyes never leaving Twilight.
There they sat, for a good long while. Rainbow did have something she wanted to say, but it could wait a bit longer. Twilight’s family were far more invested in just… being there, really. Being there for each other and, more specifically, being there for Twilight. Not far away, a wall-mounted clock gently ticked as it kept track of passing time. Being one of the only devices in the room making a sound, Rainbow found her mind focusing on it. It sounded like it was gradually growing louder and louder and echoed more and more in her mind.
“So…” she began in a very quiet voice, her words catching due to the tightness in her throat. She glanced up to Velvet and Shining, who were now looking at her expectantly. “Uh… how is she? Anything change since last time?”
Velvet gently shook her head while Shining Armor merely looked down. “No,” Velvet said in disappointment. “Nothing yet. She’s still out and hasn’t shown any signs of waking up yet…”
Shining sighed heavily, reaching a hoof out to his mother’s shoulder comfortingly. “She’ll pull through. She’s made of tougher stuff than you’d think.”
“I know that,” Velvet shot back with a frown before taking a breath. “I have been raising her, you know… and you for that matter.”
Shining removed his hoof from his mother and nodded slightly. “I… yeah, I know. I just mean… you know.” he gestured loosely to Rainbow Dash, who barely even responded to being the center of the discussion now.
Velvet didn’t have the same reaction as Dash did, though, as she leaned over and pulled Rainbow into a side-hug. Rainbow, while not really expecting the hug, didn’t complain. In fact, she returned the gesture. After a moment, Velvet pulled back to speak. “You know, before you came along, Twilight was… reserved, to say the least.”
Rainbow nodded, a small smile of nostalgia appearing. “Yeah, I remember. Though I’m pretty sure she only actually gave being my friend a try because Celestia asked her to.”
Shining nodded in agreement, sharing Rainbow’s look of fond remembrance. “Yeah, I can vouch for that. She actually let me in on that one day when she was studying for a test coming up.”
Velvet rolled her eyes a bit at this bit of info she had not been privy to before hugging Rainbow again. “Well, whatever her initial reason was, you have been an incredible influence on her. She’s more sure of herself, more willing to go out and just be social with the other foals... “ Velvet ran a hoof under one eye to wipe away a stray tear that had formed before smiling at her comatose daughter. “She came a long way very quickly…”
“And she’ll get that momentum going again just as soon as she wakes back up,” Rainbow replied with a somewhat more cocky smile forming as she also looked to her friend. “I’ll make sure of it!”
Shining Armor chuckled softly before smirking at Rainbow. “Yeah, I bet you will. You’re anything but slow and subtle.”
Rainbow nodded before the mood gradually dropped again. Luckily, it didn’t get to drop too far before a gentle knocking sounded on the divider, and the unicorn doctor who had been tending to Twilight rounded the corner. ‘Dr. Dunlin’ his nametag read. Rainbow had been told that ‘Dunlin’ is a type of bird, and he was named after them because of his colors. A grayish coat with a mane and tail of light and dark brown. His cutie mark was a silhouette of a brain with a red medical cross over it.
“Ah, Dash,” he began in his typical, professional voice. He carried a very slight accent that Rainbow couldn’t quite place and his voice was gentle yet attention grabbing at the same time. “Visiting with Twilight’s family again, I see…”
“Duh,” Rainbow remarked bluntly before shifting her chair back a bit to give the doc a bit more room. “Any updates?”
“We’ll find out in a moment,” he stepped past Rainbow, greeted Velvet and Shining and then got to work looking Twilight over. After a few seconds he procured a clipboard that contained numerous checkboxes and medical instructions that Rainbow didn’t even guess to know the meaning of. “I assume she hasn’t made any sounds or spoken at all?”
“No, doctor. She’s still silent…” Shining said solemnly, looking at Twilight’s shut eyelids solemnly.
Dunlin hummed in thought before reaching down and pressing down on Twilight’s hoof with some notable pressure. Suddenly, Twilight’s eyes snapped wide open, causing Rainbow and Velvet to flinch in alarm and surprise before they both rose. Shining rose as well, though his response was a bit more well contained. Royal Guard training, Rainbow figured.
“Calm down, everypony,” Dunling began before looking Twilight in the eye. “Hmm… this is definitely progress… Twilight, if you can hear me, blink once.”
Twilight did not respond at all. When the Doctor removed his hoof from where it had been applying pressure, Twilight’s eyes slowly slid closed. Rainbow huffed in frustration. “Some improvement… she can look at us with eyes that are wide and scared looking if we pinch her hoof.”
“The fact that she responded to external stimuli at all is a major improvement from where she was yesterday, Rainbow Dash,” Dunlin retorted before sighing slightly. “It was a bodily reflex, though. Her mind and muscles are gradually coming back into focus, but it will probably take some time yet before she is able to communicate with us.”
“We’ll keep being here for her,” Velvet said determinedly, standing and trotting up to Twilight’s side. She leaned over her daughter, careful not to disturb any of the equipment, and rested a hoof on Twilight’s head to gently pet her mane. “You hear that, sweetie? We’ll visit you as much as possible until you wake up. You’ll be fine, dear… I promise.”
The doctor jotted something down on his clipboard before looking between them all. At present, there wasn’t much else he could do with a crowd around the patient, so he decided that, barring any substantial and sudden changes, he would excuse himself to a safe distance to give the family some privacy.
As the doctor gradually shuffled away, Rainbow frowned and spoke up. “He didn’t notice something…”
Velvet and Shining looked up, perplexed by Rainbow’s sudden statement. Shining frowned considerably. “Begging your pardon Dash, but you aren’t the doctor. How do you know if he missed something?”
Rainbow glared at Shining harshly. “Look, I spend a lot of time in the sky. Do you know what happens when a pegasus is in the air enough?” when no answer came, she kept going. “I can see and hear much better than either of you and probably even the doctor. Plus, he keeps treating this like a typical coma. Yeah, it’s similar, but the cause is radically different from just about anything I can think of.”
“That doesn’t tell us what it is you think he missed,” Shining pointed out, his frown losing some of it’s intensity. “What was it?”
Rainbow took a deep breath. “Okay, make fun of me for doing this later, but I did some light reading on the subject matter in my free time. Usually, a comatose pony as deep in it as Twilight seems to be won’t move their eyes. They’ll be looking straight ahead or in whatever direction they were looking in when they passed out and their eyes won’t be moving unless something is going on in there head.”
Rainbow pointed a hoof directly at Twilight for emphasis. “You know how when somepony is dreaming, their eyes will look all over the place? Like, they’re trying to look at what they’re seeing in their dream. Reflexes or something like that. Point is…” Rainbow lowered her hoof and rested it on her seat. “Twilight’s eyes should be still as rocks, but if you had been looking, they were darting around a lot.”
Velvet raised a hoof to her chest and Shining Armor grimaced before all three ponies present locked their eyes on Twilight. “You… y-you don’t think she’s having nightmares, do you?” Velvet asked timidly, her voice starting to shake.
“I dunno, frankly…” Rainbow admitted, slumping slightly. “I wish I did, though...”
That night, Princess Celestia entered the infirmary as well, a pair of rather unremarkable saddle-bags slung over her back. Nopony else was present by the looks of it, so she made her way to where Twilight was resting, a solemn look gradually taking over her features. She rounded the corner of the divider and sighed upon seeing Twilight in the bed. She had seen it a lot already.
“Hello, Twilight. It’s me, Celestia,” The alabaster alicorn softly announced. She sat herself down and, with a small smile forming on her face, she withdrew several books from the confines of her saddle bags. “I brought you some books. Something for you to read when you wake up.” A history book, a commentary on theoretical magic and, to top off the pile, a copy of the new Daring Do book all levitated into the air and were then neatly stacked next to Twilight’s bed.
“We may have found a new lead on the flashes… especially the one that… well, put you here,” she continued quietly. “I don’t know if you remember right now, but you and Rainbow saw somepony named ‘Starlight,’ who in turn mentioned a ‘Sunburst,’ in your flash. Rainbow Dash found this Sunburst, and in turn, he provided me information that could lead to Starlight Glimmer, if we need to find her.”
Celestia slowly shook her head. “I don’t think we need to, however. Not right now, at least. As of now, she is only ten years old. All documentation states she only recently got her cutie mark… nothing like the mare you and Rainbow witnessed in your flash,” Celestia gradually stood up and rested a hoof on Twilight’s own. “Right now, I just want you to wake up. And when you do, I want you and Rainbow to just enjoy being fillies for as long as you can. Your fillyhood days are drawing closer to their end far faster then it may seem, and I simply want to make sure you and her don’t miss anything…”
That said, the Princess took a step back, wished Twilight a pleasant night and began to trot towards the exit. As she went, she didn’t notice Twilight’s hoof twitch, just slightly, to reach after her.