//------------------------------// // Case Thirteen, Chapter One: Waiting // Story: Ponyville Noire: Kriegspiel—Black, White, and Scarlet // by PonyJosiah13 //------------------------------// The slow, steady beeping of the EKG machine had long ago ceased to be grating; now Daring barely noticed it, just like she barely noticed how heavy her head was, how dry her throat was, and that her growling stomach felt like an empty pit had been carved into her belly. All she was really aware of was the shallow rising and falling of Phillip’s chest, marked by the slow motion of the wandjina necklace that lay atop the sheets, the cord still wrapped around his neck. The sound of his breathing was muffled by the tubes that had been stuffed into his mouth and nostrils; more tubes ran into his forelegs, injecting saline, glucose, and potions that Daring had no name for.  It had been three days since the doctors first attempted to explain to her why, despite the best efforts of the weakened and exhausted Princesses, Phillip was still barely alive. All the words had washed past her except for “internal damage.” They’d told her that he was stable, but all they could really do was wait for him to wake up.  The implied “if” in that sentence had stabbed like an icicle through her heart.  Daring reached out and took Phillip’s hoof, squeezing the cold limb. He didn’t respond in the slightest.  “Come on, Phil,” she croaked out of her dry throat. “Please.”  If he heard her, he gave no indication. Daring slammed her eyes shut and bowed her head, taking in shaking breaths through her nostrils. The aching in her chest was terrible, muscles begging her to get up and do something...but what? The sound of approaching hoofsteps, accompanied by the purring of an electric motor, made her look up, quickly blinking to try to alleviate the burning of her eyes.  The first in was Bobby, his blue eyes haggard and dull, though he favored Daring with a faint smile as he entered, shouldering his saddlebag. Twilight entered a moment later, scanning over some notes; her face was pale, her mane a tangled mess, and there were dark shadows of fatigue set deep beneath her eyes.  Then came Rain. It always stung to see her trapped in the powered wheelchair, her useless hind legs dangling from her waist, which was gilded with the humiliating diaper (at least it had a host of self-cleaning charms woven into it). She looked over the two ponies as she entered, pushing the joystick of the wheelchair forward. There was a warmth in her green eyes behind the dulling of stress and fatigue, like the light of a fireplace seen through a dirty window.  “Sweetie, you look terrible,” she said, stroking Daring’s cheek. The soft warmth of her touch, the gentle music of her voice like a night rain on the window was like ice water for a mare who had gone three days in the desert. “Did you get any sleep recently?”  Daring didn’t remember the last time that she’d actually gotten a full night of sleep. Her body and mind ached for it, but every time she closed her eyes, she… The burning sands. The sky, first red, then freezing and burning her beneath sun and moon. A hissing and stirring that she felt in her bones. Sucking tongues and cold black eyes… “I’m fine,” Daring mumbled, reluctantly pushing the comforting limb away.  “You at least need some tucker,” Bobby said, reaching into the saddlebag and pulling out a dark cube wrapped in plastic. “Here. Slice of lamington for you,” he said, tossing it over to Daring.  Daring unwrapped the little package and found that it contained a slice of chocolate sponge cake. She bit into it and the sweet flavors of chocolate, coconut, and jam flowed over her tongue. Her stomach let out a loud snarl at the prospect of food and she devoured the cake in moments, barely allowing herself any time to even enjoy the flavor.  “I’ve got the rest waiting for when he wakes up,” Bobby said, stroking his son’s forehead with a thin smile. “My boy’s tough as they come. He’ll wake up.” He kissed Phillip’s forehead.  “He will,” Rain agreed, taking Phillip’s other hoof. “He has to.”  Daring turned her attention back to the other mare, who was hovering in the back of the room, comparing her notes to Phillip’s charts from the foot of his bed. “You’re awfully quiet,” she commented.  Twilight jumped a bit, snapped back to reality. “I, um...was working with the doctors and the Princesses to try to research Phillip’s injuries and come up with treatments,” she explained.  Daring frowned a bit. While she intellectually understood that the Princesses had to go back to Canterlot and continue running the nation, an acidic note of bitterness still hovered in her stomach when she thought of how they’d just left.  “And what did you find out?” Rain asked, turning the wheelchair around to face her fully. "What exactly happened to him?" “Well...it's a bit complicated,” Twilight swallowed. She projected an image made of magic up before them all, displaying Phillip wearing his vest.  “See, the ward I put into the vests was designed to passively gather magic from the surrounding area to charge it,” she explained, demonstrating by drawing little squiggly lines of energy going into the vest. “Whenever Phillip activated the ward, the energy would blossom into a shield around his entire body that would block any magical attacks. The ward is more stable and portable than shield generators, and recharges faster even though it runs out of power faster.” She drew a bubble around Phillip. “Now, when Phillip blocked that energy beam from Zugzwang, he overused the ward: it ran out of energy, but he forced the shield to stay up.”  “Just on willpower? How?” Bobby asked.  “He knows how to cast magic through a conduit, like his boomerang; this is similar, even if he was only doing it on a subconscious level,” Twilight explained. “Anyway, the shield was out of power, so the ward had to draw magic from somewhere else. So it chose the closest source of magic: Phillip himself.”  She drew some squiggly lines going from Phillip out into the bubble, and some more lines crisscrossing Phil's body. “Effectively, he channeled his own magic into the ward, just like how I channel my own magic through my horn. The problem is...I don't think he knew that he was doing it and if he did, he didn’t know how to do it properly, and earth ponies like him aren’t really suited to using magic like that, not without a proper conduit,” she explained. “So he wound up burning out all of his magic far too quickly, and it caused internal damage.”  There was a long, thick silence as everypony absorbed this information. “So what can be done?” Bobby asked.  “I’ve already spoken to the head doctor about this, and Celestia and Luna are working on treatments,” Twilight explained, dissipating the image. She swallowed again, looking down and shuffling her hooves.  “Is something wrong?” Rain asked, bending down to study Twilight’s drawn, heavily shadowed face.  Twilight shivered, then suddenly collapsed in a sobbing heap against Daring, hugging her so tight that all the breath was crushed from her neck.  “It’s my fault!” Twilight bawled. “I designed the ward improperly! I should have anticipated this, and I didn’t! I’m sorry, I’m so—”  “Stop it!” Daring shouted, grabbing Twilight by the shoulders and forcing her off of her. Twilight flinched away from her, tears still running hot from her eyes.  “I’m sick of sorry!” Daring bellowed, standing. “I’ve had everypony telling me how sorry they are, how tragic this is! I’m sick of it! So don’t give me your tears and bullshit, I don’t need it! Just get out!”  Twilight swallowed, then ran out, sobbing. Daring remained, panting, eyes burning. The rage and pain that she had used to forge those words faded away, leaving behind the stinging coolness of regret. She sat back down in the chair, turning away so that nopony else could see that her eyes were burning.  Bobby and Rain were silent for a long few moments, then Rain wheeled herself over to Daring and placed a hoof on her shoulder. Daring shrugged her off and turned away further. “Leave me alone,” she grunted.  Rain withdrew. “Okay, ampa,” she said quietly. “But we can both tell that you’re in pain. Hiding it won’t solve anything. We'll be here when you're ready.” She paused to give her son a kiss on the cheek, then turned and exited the room with a whirring sound.  “I’ll save the rest of the lamington for when he wakes up,” Bobby added with a quiet smile, giving Daring a nod that she didn’t see before following his wife out the door. Daring continued to stare at the blank white wall as the anger that had been festering inside of her slowly cooled into a bubbling stew of guilt and self-loathing that settled over everything else. She growled and punched the wall, sending a fresh wave of physical pain down her hoof. "Ow," she muttered, massaging her limb. She glared down at the brand on her hoof, the brand that she only now realized had been burning her all along: she was so used to the ache that it had faded to the background, hidden beneath the rest of her pain. "Fuck," Daring mumbled, wiping her face and ordering the tears not to fall. More hoofsteps approached, then paused at the door. Daring looked up to see a white unicorn in a black trench coat standing at the threshold, her eyes on Phillip.  “Oh, wonderful, it’s you,” she growled at Cold Case. “The fuck do you want?”  Cold looked up at Daring as if just realizing that she was there, and Daring was struck by how heavy and dull the blue eyes seemed; even more surprisingly, there were also streaks of red beneath her eyes.  “How is he?” she asked Daring in a quiet, throaty voice.  The bile in Daring’s stomach quickly settled and she took in a breath. “Stable,” she replied. “They’re...working on fixing him.”  Cold nodded and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, the irides once more held the faintly sparkling coolness that Daring knew so well.  “I actually came to speak to you,” she reported. “I need your help. It’s about Scarlet.” She gestured with her head for Daring to follow and stepped back into the hallway. The mention of that name instantly grabbed Daring’s attention: in all the insanity, she’d nearly forgotten about the unicorn mare. Standing, she exited the room, briefly running a hoof over Phillip’s cold limb.  She joined Cold in the hallway. The chief glanced around to make sure nopony nearby was listening to them and continued.  “We finally finished fully processing evidence from the riverside hideout and Scarlet Letter’s home,” Cold stated. “Doctor Suunkii found hairs, blood, and tobacco ashes from both locations that match, and he believes that they all belong to Scarlet. And I found records of a mare matching Scarlet’s description purchasing several mirrors like the one we found in both locations from a shop last year.” She took a breath. “Based on this, I have asked for and received a warrant for Scarlet Letter’s arrest.”  Something stirred in Daring’s gut, growling in triumphant anger. She looked up at Cold Case, her fatigue vanishing like mist in the wind. “The problem is, she’s gone to ground,” Cold continued. “We can’t find her, and I've still got most of my officers handling damage control after all this...the ones that can still work, anyway. I can't spare anypony to track her down, and if we lose her, it might be forever.” She fixed Daring with a cool gaze. “But I’m betting that you can find her. Do you have any ideas?”  An idea sparked in Daring’s mind. “I do have one,” she said. “But I’m going to need you to trust me on this.”  Cold considered Daring for a long moment, then slowly nodded. “Do what you need to do,” she said quietly.  “I always do,” Daring replied and headed out, feeling lighter than she had in a week. So focused was she on moving forward that she did not notice a trio of unicorn doctors entering Phillip’s room.