I woke with a full bladder and I took care of it. Having different plumbing was a bit odd to be sure, but taking a piss in the forest isn’t exactly rocket science so I managed just fine, thank you very much.
The other ache in my abdomen was the emptiness of hunger, but the sensation had lessened somewhat since yesterday. Fasting for twenty-four hours was something I expected my patients to manage without complaint, it would be hypocritical of me to whine about it so soon.
Rationalizations were fine, but I was still really hungry.
All right, so hear me out. Luna told me to stay by the river and wait for rescue, but that didn’t mean I had to stay put. If I followed the river upstream, I could find higher ground to figure out where I was and still be by the river if anypony actually did find me. It wasn’t lying; it was just creative interpretation.
My lungs burned and my legs ached at the strain of trekking uphill across rocky ground. My endurance still sucked, but accounting for the fact that I was a child that made perfect sense. I brought back my pace a little so I could stay below the aerobic threshold, breathing as deeply as I could with my smaller lungs. As a human adult this level of exertion would have been a steady jog, but as a filly, and traveling uphill, all I could manage was a walk.
The boulders up ahead looked promising. More rocky terrain meant fewer trees. With any luck, I could get a better view. They also presented a problem. Boulder hopping was difficult enough as a human. As a pony I wasn’t sure I’d have the strength and stamina for it. The alternative was to wander away from the river and look for an easier way up. The obvious downside to this was that it would take longer and I wouldn’t be near the river if anypony came looking for me. The third option was to stay put and wait for rescue, but I’d already decided against that this morning so it didn’t require too much thought.
I took a break and drank some more cool water from the river. My coat was... er, coated in a sheen of sweat and I took some time to enjoy my intact, healthy skin that I didn’t have an irresistible urge to tear off with my fingernails. It was a good thing too since I’m not sure how I’d manage that without fingers. I examined one of my hooves. It did have a layer of skin and fur on the underside, but underneath that thin layer was a solid hoof a softer frog on the inside. I wasn’t sure how the skin on the underside of the hoof wasn’t destroyed when it got crushed between the hoof and the ground, all I could say for sure was that it was a lot tougher than human skin. The hoof wasn’t as hard as that of a horse on Earth; it felt more like some kind of cartilage which I could flex slightly with effort, certainly not enough to grab anything though. I knew ponies could grasp things with their hooves so that must be another kind of magic I had yet to learn.
I could remember that mountain goats on Earth had flexible ‘rubber like’ hooves which enabled them to climb rocky terrain, even near vertical slopes. I looked up at the boulders ahead of me. I guess it was time to find out if I was part mountain goat.
I wasn’t.
From my bouldering ability I had determined that even if there had been any mountain goats in my lineage they’d have disowned me out of shame.
As I leaped from one boulder to the next, I’d more than once had my hooves slip on the occasional patch of moss. I’d have some bruises on my chest and sides, but nothing serious. That is until one boulder moved.
I was dripping with sweat, my oversized eyes burned as I struggled to wipe sweat out of them with an even sweatier foreleg. I jumped, and landed. Then the world shifted.
I tried to keep my balance, but I fell. The wind was knocked out of me distracting me just long enough that I didn’t notice until too late that the stone was tipping towards me. I barely had time to flinch, instinctively raising my foreleg in a futile attempt to hold back the massive rock. I squeezed my eyes shut.
Crunch!
The pain hit me like nothing I’d felt before. The spike of pain was so intense that my vision flashed and I may have passed out for a moment. I don’t know how long I was in that state, but after some amount of time the pain reduced to a sharp throb as every part of my body vibrated with energy. My heart was beating so fast it felt like it would explode; my skin felt cold as ice.
At this point I could tell the pain was coming from my right foreleg. I finally opened my eyes, but I couldn’t see my foreleg. It was under the boulder.
If there was ever a time to panic, it would have been then, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. My body was as keyed up as it was possible to be and had no level of panic above this to go to. Instead, all emotions and irrelevant thoughts had disappeared from my mind.
Leg is trapped under rock.
Lift rock?
No, rock too heavy.
Try to move leg, feel it moving. Ouch. Pain.
Not crushed flat? Why?
Oh, can see ground is soft.
Try to pull out leg. Ouch. Leg won’t move.
Not supposed to bend there, bone is broken, sharp inside leg. Ow.
The spike of pain was enough to slow my thoughts somewhat and allowed me to remember my training.
First Aid.
DRSABCDD-BBB
Unable to move from danger, responsive; skip resus, assess blood, burns, breaks.
Am I bleeding? Can’t see.
Removal of crushing object may cause fatal hemorrhage.
Do not remove crushing object, wait for medics.
Don’t trust medics to find me in time, must self-rescue.
Apply tourniquet.
Don’t have one.
Improvise tourniquet.
Unable.
Hitting that dead-end slowed my thoughts even further. Even if I could have made a tourniquet, I didn’t have a way to lift the rock and, even if I wanted to, I had no means of amputating my leg; but maybe I didn’t have to. If I could dig out the dirt underneath my foreleg that should allow me to pull it free. That still left the problem of potential hemorrhage though. I wasn’t sure if I was bleeding at all, but with rescue so far away any serious blood loss would likely be a death sentence. I only had two choices at this point. Lay under this rock and trust they would find me before I died or risk a much faster death by digging myself out.
If I stayed, the shock was going to wear off, the pain would return, and there would be absolutely nothing I could do about it. Call me a coward, but I was afraid and willing to face death.
I dug the hole deeper. It was agonizing work. Touching my leg sent a wave of pain that made the muscles tense, which was even more painful as they pulled on broken bones. When I made progress, it meant the leg was no longer supported by the earth underneath it, which caused it to bend, because I couldn’t hold it up under its own power.
It was with one of these painful spasms that my foreleg finally came free. My vision flashed again as the indescribable pain returned. The next thing I remember is laying on my back, cradling my injured leg against my chest. There were tears streaming down my face as the leg throbbed, but I managed to hold it up long enough to inspect the damage.
The lower leg was bruised and bent out of shape. I could see one fragment of what would have been my radius, if I were human, causing the skin to bulge outwards but thankfully not piercing it. There was some blood but only from superficial cuts and scrapes. It was swollen, but hopefully not swollen enough to restrict blood flow. With no fingers I couldn’t take my radial pulse, but the throbbing in my hoof was a good indication that there was still blood flow.
I cradled the hoof against my chest and found the position that caused the least pain. Then I passed out.
Luna was standing in front of me the moment my dream began; she must have some way to tell when I’m sleeping.
“Princess Luna,” I bowed awkwardly, in the dream realm my body was whole again, but I still felt a phantom pain in my broken leg, “Uh, hi.”
Luna gave me the same neutral expression she had at the end of our last conversation. Clearly she was hiding how she felt about this situation, but beyond that I couldn’t see anything. Her poker face was too good.
“Young filly, we shall give you a chance to be honest with us.” Luna said flatly, “If thou art truthful in thy words we will not be mad with thee.”
If her increasing use of muddled middle English was any indication on how strongly she felt about the situation, she either really pissed or... something else.
I still had no idea what secret she thought she knew about me, but with my new outlook on the situation I didn’t have to lie. This was my body, this had always been my body, my human memories happened to the original, not to me. I wasn’t sure if the original was real, so describing it as imaginary wouldn’t be a lie.
Perhaps this was about a more recent lie though. I knew she could vaguely track my distance from her in the dream realm. So maybe she just knew that I hadn’t stayed in one spot like I promised.
“So, uh,” I began sheepishly, “Remember how you told me to stay by the river?”
Luna kept her face neutral while she expertly raised one eyebrow.
“We hath told thee to cease thy wandering.” She corrected.
“Er, yeah,” I conceded, “So that may not have gone entirely as we planned.”
Luna opened her mouth to speak, and I flinched at what I expected to be the Royal Canterlot Voice.
Seeing this Luna sighed, her blank expression dropped and - was that guilt? She walked towards me and I reflexively stepped back to keep a comfortable distance. Internally I kicked myself, the look of hurt that briefly flashed across her face confirmed she had taken it the wrong way.
“I’m sorry!” I squeaked (seriously, even in the dream realm my voice squeaks?), “I didn’t mean to upset you, I’m just not comfortable around pe-ponies that are taller than me.”
Hopefully tha- OH GOD WHAT DID I JUST SAY! Crap crap crap crap.
Seeing my look of panic, Luna’s horn glowed. She was getting ready to leave.
“Wait, don’t go!” I called out urgently, “I need -”
While I was talking Luna’s form had shifted to that of a blue alicorn filly no taller than I was. She cut me off by pressing a hoof to my mouth, smiling sadly at me.
“Please, be at ease,” She reassured, “I will not abandon thee. I’m sorry to have scared you.”
She sat down on her haunches in front of me. My god she was so adorable I just wanted to hug her. You know, she would probably let me - No, focus. Important stuff first, once in a lifetime chance to hug Woona later.
“Look, I’m sorry,” I tried to put on a more serious tone with my tiny, high-pitched voice, “I didn’t mean to cause you so much trouble, but, well, I made a mistake.”
“It’s okay,” she reassured, “I’m not angry with you, just tell me what happened.”
“I was worried you wouldn’t be able to find me,” I explained, “So I was trying to get to higher ground to find a view where I could see some landmarks - I stayed by the river in case you did find me - but I kinda, broke my leg.”
The expression of shocked concern on Woona’s face was absolutely devastating.
“No, wait, don’t worry!” I rushed out, “It’s not life threatening or anything, it’s a simple fracture, nothing broke the skin, feels like both bones in the foreleg fractured transversely? Could be wrong though. It’s really lucky actually, with a crush injury like that I was expecting multiple fractures. I’ll be fine, just uh... try to get here soon ok?”
I gave a pained smile and tactfully didn’t mention the part where I had thought I would bleed out. My reassurances seemed to have the opposite of the intended effect.
“Thou hast received injuries like these before?” she asked in shock.
“Well, once-” I started, “uh, well I mean I can’t remember if it’s happened to me -”
Woona leaned forward and hugged me, and I hugged her back. Her grip trembled with emotion.
“Please,” she implored, “Please trust us, we know not who has caused you such fear, but you must believe us when we say there is nothing you could tell us that would make us abandon thee.”
I sighed, “Look, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad I -”
There was an earthquake in the dream realm.
“What’s going on?” I asked urgently.
Luna’s mask of non-expression had returned, and it looked adorably out of place on little Woona’s body.
“Something is happening in the real world, you’re waking up.” She informed, “Have faith my little pony, we will find you.”
As I was dragged helplessly from the soothing land of dreams to the pain-addled semi-lucid hell-scape that was the closest approximation of awake I could manage at the moment, I just wanted to cry at the unfairness of it all. So I did.
Three timberwolves were circling around me. You know what? I give up. If the world wanted me to die that badly, so be it. I was too tired to fight, too tired to even open my eyes fully. Death would be a relief at this point.
“I-is she dead?” Squeaked one of the timberwolves.
“O’ ‘course not!” replied another, “She’s still breathin’, but she’s hurt bad!”
If timberwolves could talk, maybe they could be reasoned with.
“Please!” I sobbed, “Please don’t hurt me! I don’t wanna die. I-”
My thoughts were muddled, and I hissed in pain as my leg throbbed. The swelling had increased; it hurt to move the joint; it hurt when air blew over it the swollen mass.
The timberwolves had backed off for the moment and were whispering amongst themselves. All right, while there were distracted, now was my chance. I had to escape. I tried to crawl but gave up almost immediately when my injured leg dragged along the ground. It was all I could do to stifle the scream of agony. Taking a couple deep breaths I managed to stand on three hooves, my injured leg curled against my barrel. I had barely started hobbling away when the strangely colorful timberwolves were upon me again.
“Hey, wait!” The blurry orange timberwolf called out to me in a raspy voice, “We’re not gonna hurt you! We came to rescue you!”
“It’s true,” The blurry white timberwolf added, “We snuck out to join the search so we could get our cuite marks in search and rescue!”
“Impossible!” I spat, “Timberwolves don’t get cutie marks!”
The timberwolves froze in place, stunned by my flawless logic.
I kept hobbling away from them, but it wasn’t long before they had me surrounded again. They were just too fast for me.
“Hey, uh, lost filly, whatever yer’ name is,” The yellow one spoke now, “No offense, but ‘yer not blind or nuthin’ are ya?”
It took me a moment to process that.
“What?” I answered, “No. Why?”
The orange one did some kind of acrobatic flip and landed in front of me, grabbing my muzzle between her strangely hard paws.
“Then open up your eyes!” She exclaimed, “We’re not timberwolves!”
I cracked my eyes open and now it was my turn to freeze in shock. Scootaloo was working with the timberwolves!
Wait.
Oh.
Ohhhhhh.
I would have facehoofed if my only working foreleg wasn’t required for me to stand. I felt faint and sat back on my haunches. I took more deep breaths and tried to clear my mind a bit. The pain in my leg was impossible to ignore.
“I’m sorry I thought y’all were timberwolves,” I was so tired my words were coming out slurred, “‘am ‘jus, not ‘sactly thinkin’ straight, y’know? I din’ mean ta’ say y’weren’t gonna get ‘yer cutiemarks, thas’ just mean.”
“Uh, that’s okay,” Sweetie Belle said uncertainly, glancing at the other two Crusaders.
“In fact, I know y’all’ll get yer marks,” I slurred, everything was kinda spinny and dizzying, “What season are we in now?”
“Spring?” Applebloom offered, “How long have ya been out here ta’ ferget what season it is?”
“Nah, not that kind of season. Look season five you all get your cuite marks,” I winked conspiratorially, “but keep that a secret okay, I’ve already said too much.”
I didn’t have the coordination with this body’s facial muscles to wink so it was more of a conspiratorial blink.
“Ooookay then!” Scootaloo snarked, circling a hoof around her ear in the universal ‘this pony is crazy’ gesture.
“Hey, that’s not nice!” Applebloom clipped her in the back of the head with a hoof.
Scootaloo turned on her angrily.
“Hey!”
“Girls!” Sweetie yelled, drawing their attention away from their spat. “We need to get back, it’s going to get dark soon!”
“All right Crusaders,” Apple Bloom called out, “In tha’ filly guides they told us if somepony gets injured that one pony stays with them and the other two go to get help.”
“Hey, I’m not crippled you know!” I interjected.
They all looked at my broken leg.
“That doesn’t count, I still have three perfectly good legs,” I argued, “Now which way is Ponyville?”
The Crusaders looked at me uncertainly.
“What?” I asked, offended.
Once I had my mind set on a goal, it was as simple as putting one hoof ahead of the other. I could ignore pain, I could ignore everything and just focus on the task. I couldn’t give up, not when I told them I could do it, otherwise I’d be weak and pathetic.
It became a kind of trance. I honestly don’t remember much of it. I think they were talking about me, but I didn’t have the energy to listen. I stumbled a few times, but managed to get back up. At one point they might have tried carrying me, but if they did, I managed to push them off.
It wasn’t until we broke the treeline that I stumbled and fell, and couldn’t make myself get up again. I tried, but I was dizzy and my muscles were so weak.
“You kids go on ahead,” I instructed, “I’ll catch up, I just need to catch my breath.”
I closed my eyes for a moment and when I opened them the Crusaders had a cart and I was in no fit state to argue when they forcibly loaded me into it.
I regained consciousness briefly when someone twisted my broken leg, but I couldn’t manage more than a whimper; The pony responsible was wearing surgical scrubs and looked appropriately apologetic.
I can’t remember anything after that, probably from the anesthetic side effects.
When I awoke, I was in a bed and there were technicolor ponies surrounding me. I felt disconnected, like I was viewing things from behind my own eyes. I was shivering, but I didn't feel cold, I just felt numb, and floaty.
"Are you all right?" asked one of the ponies, "Do you have any pain?"
I heard the question, but it didn't really sink in. Instead, I just said what was on my mind.
"H-how d-did I g-get he-re?" I managed to ask through chattering teeth. The shivers in my body were getting worse.
I drifted off for a second and suddenly ponies were packing heated blankets around my body. The warmth felt amazing, and I started to drift off again when one of the ponies spoke.
"Don't worry, you're safe here," he said in a practiced, reassuring tone, "What you're feeling is a normal reaction to the anesthetic. Just rest now, let us know if you're in pain or you feel like you're going to throw up."
I smiled dopily. It was funny to be on the other side of this for once.
Wait. No. There was something important I was forgetting.
"I know where I am, it's just, how did I get here, ya know?" I asked again, "It doesn't make any sense."
"You were in the forest, you broke your foreleg and were brought here to Ponyville General so we could fix it." The pony explained.
"No!" I was exasperated now, "Not like, here, like here, ya know? One moment this guy tells me he's going to 'make me a mare' and the next I'm in the forest. Do I look like a mare to you? Nah, I'm just a little filly so what's he playing at?"
The horrified expressions of the ponies were confusing to me.
"Did I say something wrong?" I asked groggily.
Nah, it probably wasn't important. I slipped back into the tempting embrace of sleep.