//------------------------------// // But I can't forget // Story: The Mercy of Screwball // by Professor Coruptus //------------------------------// The purple pony rolled on the checkerboard grass, singing out in honks, whistles, and fog horns of pain as memories of who she had been flooded her mind. The mark on her flank continued to distort and blur. Sometimes it seemed to be a baseball, other times it looked like an ivory white cross surrounded by little pink hearts. Her eyes were changing, too. One was beautiful, a swirling white spiral on a purple iris, while the other was ugly and blue with only a single glistening black orb for a pupil. The pony honked in agony again as the terrible memories burned at her mind. -------- The depressed earth pony stirred her tea absentmindedly as she glared at the chalkboard on the wall beside her. The names of every member of staff were written in block letters along with the days of the week and the hours each employee was scheduled for that day. One line in particular was holding mare’s attention. “Sweetheart: 7:00Am-5:00PM” and then in all too familiar mouthwriting were the words, “Mercy take a lunch!” carefully crammed into the space beneath the time. Nurse Mercy Sweetheart sighed as she turned her attention to her swirling tea. She hated breaks. When she was working she could keep her mind focused on the task at hoof; on giving foals their checkups or taking inventory in the Medical Center’s store rooms, but during a break she had nothing to focus on and her thoughts were free to wander to things she’d rather not think about. Things like her boss. When she had first transferred to Ponyville Medical Center she had thought it would be a cakewalk compared to her brief stay at Fillydelphia Hospital. Oh how very wrong she was. The plum colored mare smiled weakly as she thought back to her first day on the job. It had been a whirlwind of calamity from the moment she had stepped through the door. Ponies of every shape and size had filled the waiting area, though strangely enough they were all the same color; green. “You there!” an authoritative voice had called from the back of the room. She had turned to see a beautiful white mare with a pink mane, steel blue eyes, and a red cross for a cutie mark galloping up to her. “Are you the new transfer?” “Y-yes,” Mercy had stammered, nervously offering a hoof. “I’m Nurse Mercy Sweetheart, from Fillydelphia Hospital. What is going on here? Why are all these ponies green?” The ivory mare shook her hoof quickly and introduced herself. “My name’s Serenity Redheart, I’m the Head Nurse here and I am very happy to see you,” she said smiling widely at the plum mare. “We had a massive outbreak of Mossmane this morning and we’re short on staff until Aloe and Lotus get the spa ready.” “Moss what?” Redheart just turned and jerked her head to the hallway she had come from. “I’ll explain on the way, right now we need to get you inoculated so you can start on the other patients. Hope you don’t mind a quick bath before work,” she added with a wink. “Wh-what?” Mercy repeated staring at the Head Nurse as if she were a mad pony. “Come on!” Mercy had spent the next several minutes being washed and lectured by the strange ivory mare, during which she explained that Mossmane was a fast spreading, parasitic fungus that had originated from the Everfree forest, (a border of Ponyville that Sweetheart’s superiors had failed to mention when offering her the transfer,) and demonstrating on the plum mare’s body how to apply the medicinal shampoo that they were using to treat it. Mercy had spent most of the briefing/bath wondering if there was still a time to turn down the position and go back to Fillydelphia. Yet, as strange and unorthodox as that day had started, she couldn’t help but follow her new superior’s instructions wholeheartedly. Serenity, or Nurse Redheart as she was more commonly known, had a way of making ponies feel calm and focused in times of crisis; both her subordinates and her patients. The plum colored mare had never met another pony who could calm others down so quickly. As she continued to idly stir her tea as she thought back to that first day, she became so lost in memories that she didn’t hear the only door into the room click open. “You know, tea doesn’t constitute a full lunch, Mercy,” a teasing voice said from behind the reminiscing mare. Mercy jumped in her seat and turned to see the very pony she had been thinking of, smiling at her the same way she did when she was trying to get picky foals to eat their alfalfa. “I, ah, just started,” the plum earth pony lied. She was really almost half way through her lunch break and had barely even sipped her tea. “Well you won’t mind if I join you then,” Redheart replied, trotting over to the break room pantry and finding her own lunch. Mercy suppressed a groan as she realized she had been caught, and worse, the reason for all her problems had been the one to catch her. The Head Nurse pulled up a seat opposite to her and opened the paper sack she had retrieved. “Here,” she said, offering Mercy half of what looked like a daisy and lettuce sandwich. “No thanks,” the plum pony said, pushing the half of the sandwich back across the table. “I already ate.” “Oh?” Redheart asked, arching an eyebrow. “I thought you had just started your lunch?” Mercy flinched. If she hadn’t been caught before, then she certainly had now. What a stupid lie to get tripped up in. Redheart frowned from across the table and pushed the sandwich towards her again. “Mercy,” she began, causing the other mare to feel like flinching again. Nearly everypony else in Ponyville called her Nurse Sweetheart or just Sweetheart, but for some reason the Head Nurse had always called her Mercy when they were alone or off duty. She hated it. It made her feel like she was somepony special. “I know you haven’t been eating at work lately.” Ponyfeathers. “And judging by the weight you’ve lost I don’t think you’ve been eating much at home either.” Crabapples. “Mercy, is there something worrying you?” Without warning, the white mare reached across the table and put her hoof over Mercy’s plum colored one. “Please, you’ve been acting distracted all week and it’s starting to worry me. What’s wrong?” …Damn it to the moon. “I… ah…” Mercy couldn’t speak. She couldn’t just tell the object of her two year crush that she had broken her heart because said crush apparently liked mares with wings, but the feeling of her superior’s hoof over her own was sending an electrical buzz throughout her entire body, and she was finding it hard to come up with an excuse. Looking around, desperate for any kind of escape, she noticed a sunny yellow cup somepony had left on the sink along with a stray white sugar cube beside it. “I was worried about Fluttershy’s rabbit!” she blurted out. The ivory mare stared back at her in surprise. “Angel? But, how did you hear about that?” “I, um, heard some ponies talking about it in town,” Mercy answered, praying she wouldn’t get caught up in this lie too. “Her friends, the white unicorn who owns the boutique and that rainbow maned pegasus, I overheard them talking about how Fluttershy’s pet rabbit was sick and I was… worried for her…” As her voice trailed off, Redheart continued to blink at her. Then after a few seconds the Head Nurse closed her eyes and laughed softly. “You know, sometimes I think you’re too empathetic to be a nurse, Mercy,” she said smiling fondly at the mare across the table. “You’ll worry yourself into a tizzy over somepony you don’t even know. Or somerabbit you don’t know.” “Yeah,” Mercy replied, forcing herself to grin and give an empty chuckle as well. “Guess I just care too much, huh?” “Yes… but I like that about you,” Redheart said, looking thoughtfully at her uneaten sandwich. Mercy’s heart skipped a beat before the Head Nurse continued, “You’re a lot like her in that way.” The plum colored mare felt her heart plummet into a vat of dry ice and shatter. “O-oh? Who?” she asked, already knowing the answer. “Fluttershy,” Redheart replied, still not looking up from her sandwich. “She really cares about others, too. More than she cares about herself, actually. Especially animals. Did you know that she even takes care of the monsters she finds on the outskirts of the Everfree? She can just… pacify them into letting her fix them up. She just looks at them and suddenly a giant pony eating manticore is just as tame as a kitten. Don’t know how she does it. She’s just amazing…” Mercy took a long drink of her tea in an attempt to thaw out the painful ice that had set into her chest, but her drink had lost its warmth some time ago. “So… you admire her skills as a vet then?” Mercy asked. Maybe she could try to deceive herself into thinking Redheart only liked the pegasus in a professional capacity. “Not only,” Redheart replied adamantly, suddenly turning to look her friend straight in the eye. “She’s one of the kindest ponies I’ve ever met. She makes you feel… calm just by being around her. Like everything’s going to be okay. You really should meet her sometime, Mercy; I think you two would be great friends. And between you and me, I think she could really use more pony friends. She spends so much time with her animals, I think she’s actually a little scared of most ponies.” “Oh…” Mercy replied flatly. She glanced up at the clock, though she didn’t actually look at the time it displayed. “Well my lunch is about up,” she said standing up. “Guess I better get back to work.” “Oh, before you go, you should know, Angel, Fluttershy’s rabbit that is, he’s doing fine!” Redheart said hastily. “Fluttershy came to see me a few days ago and I gave her some medicine for him. I talked to her yesterday and she said he’s almost back to his old self again, little monster that he is… But he’s doing fine so you don’t need to worry about him anymore.” “Shouldn’t she have gone to a vet instead of a pony doctor?” Mercy snapped before she could stop herself. Redheart seemed not to notice her friend’s tone and just shrugged. “Like I said, I think Fluttershy is scared of most ponies. The only one’s she seems comfortable around is her little circle of friends, and me.” “Oh… good to know,” Mercy replied, picking up the sandwich half Redheart had offered her in her mouth and making her way out the door. She didn’t taste the bread or any of the fillings as she briskly made her way to the third floor terrace, passing patients and coworkers without so much as a nod of acknowledgement to them. When she finally reached her destination she flung open the glass door and slammed it shut behind her so hard it nearly shattered. The terrace was empty of course. The third floor had been converted into their pharmaceutical’s wing since before she had been transferred, and since patients weren’t allowed on that floor, and none of the other staff ever visited this particular spot, she could be alone. She slowly slid down the side of the railing as the tears welled up in her eyes. Celestia’s sun beat down on her in the summer heat, but it could do nothing to melt the icy pain that had enveloped her heart. It wasn’t fair. Redheart was in love with Fluttershy, for exactly the same reasons Mercy was in love with her! And what was worse was that since Fluttershy apparently had a very small circle of friends, and Redheart had given her the medicine to save her stupid rabbit, she would undoubtedly climb to the top of the pegasus’s list and she would see just how wonderful Redheart really was. Then Fluttershy would fall in love with her, and they would live happily ever after. Heck, Redheart might even make Mercy her best mare for the wedding. The devastated nurse let the sandwich fall from her mouth and onto the floor. She didn’t know why she had taken it. She just had. Perhaps she just wanted some part of Redheart to take with her, even if it was just a hoof made sandwich. Mercy smirked humorlessly at the bread and flora before shoving it off the edge of the terrace and watching it fall through the bars. It fell apart in mid air, the heavy bread and attached lettuce falling first, while two of the uncut daisies caught the wind. Mercy watched as the two flowers drifted together on the air currents for a few seconds. Then, a passing bird snatched up one of the blossoms, and the remaining flower fell onto the road beneath, dirtied and unwanted. -------- The honking had turned to screaming as Mercy fought to stop remembering her past. She didn’t want to remember who she was. Didn’t want to remember Redheart. She didn’t want to remember anything, but that damned yellow pegasus just had to come along and ruin it all again. Why couldn’t she just leave her alone? She had already taken the love of her life from her; did she have to take her bliss too? Was it her goal in life to completely and utterly ruin every shred of happiness the poor nurse ever had? As she flayed about on the ground she felt something wet suddenly engulf the side of her face. Surprised, Mercy pulled her head back and looked down into the rippling waters of a crystal green pool. She felt the pain and memories dying back slightly as the liquid seeped into her skin and the taste of tropical punch flooded her mouth. Slowly she began to calm down. After a few minutes she looked over the edge of what she vaguely recognized as the pond at Ponyville Park. As she looked closely at the calming green waters, she saw her face reflected in its emerald surface, or at least half of her face. It was like she was wearing only part of a Nightmare Night mask. Her normally neatly combed and tightly bunned mane was wild and curly, the white streaks of her hair forming a swirling coil, like a line of vanilla in a berry shake and she could see a yellow and orange beanie cap with a paddle like propeller on top of the curls. The part of her head that had splashed in the green water looked smooth and rubbery, and the eye was a purple, swirling orb that rolled lazily in her skull. The other side still held the dimples that usually speckled her cheeks and appeared to still be made of flesh and plum colored coat. But the eye… the eye on the ‘normal’ side of her face was blue. Blue, just like the eyes of that retched Fluttershy. Mercy grimaced as he stared at the eye reflected in the water. How she hated it, loathed it, wished it gone with every fiber of her being. In a blind flash of pain and fury she opened her mouth and lunged at the glimmering sapphire, making to tear it out of her reflection's face with her bare teeth. As her head submerged completely, she gnashed her teeth and swallowed gulp after gulp of the strange fruity liquid. The burning, painful memories were quenched and disappeared in a swirl of bliss and chaos.