“Lyra, I’m sure she’s fine,” Bon Bon repeated for the fiftieth time as she followed her marefriend around the crowded hospital. “She probably thought she was feeling better and just went back to work.”
“I know Bonsy,” the unicorn replied, checking every hallway they passed for her earth pony cousin. “And if she is I’m going to drag her stubborn flank right back to the couch and tie her down to it. But no pony saw her leave, and her hat was still next to the couch, so-”
The musician was interrupted as several ponies’s gasped and began pointing out the windows of the hallway ahead of them. Putting on speed, the two mares raced forward just in time to see an enormous rainbow spit in two and begin descending over them like an dome.
“Everypony get down!” Lyra shouted as she realized that one of the rainbows was about to fall right on top of them.
Grabbing on to each other for dear life, Bon Bon and Lyra felt the spectrum of colors sweep over them. Everypony in the building, and indeed everypony in Ponyville felt the rainbow pass through them like a wave of sunshine. Then there was a terrific blast of light, and everything fell silent.
Slowly, ponies began to stand up and look around.
“Is everypony okay?” Bon Bon asked, as she and Lyra got to their feet, still holding on to each other. There was a round of mumbled, “yes,” “I think so,” and “so intense,” from the crowd.
Then the familiar voice yelled out from one of the examination rooms. “Dinky!” Lyra and Bon Bon rushed for the door without a second thought. Flinging it open, they braced themselves for the worst, but instead saw a grey and blond pegasus hugging her tiny unicorn daughter and almost sobbing with joy. The little filly was hugging her mother back as best she could with her little hooves and seemed about to burst into tears herself. Beside them, a yellow earth pony with a curly orange mane and three carrots for her cutie mark was staring at the mother and daughter in shock and amazement.
“She… She was a muffin!” Carrot Top exclaimed to two mares in the doorway, gesturing wildly at the blond and lavender filly. “She really was a muffin!”
Then all around the hospital reports began coming in those touched by the chaos bug had been miraculously cured. Stallions had come down from the ceiling, mares had stopped bursting into flames every time they blinked their eyes, and everywhere ponies were crying in joy or laughing in relief at seeing their loved ones restored safe and sound. The view from the windows reviled that the town had changed back as well. The checker board hills and streams of slick soap that had made up the new capital of chaos gone and the green, grassy fields and familiar dirt roads Ponyville had returned. Buildings had stopped floating about and were in there proper places and positions, homes destroyed in stampedes of light-footed buffalo had been miraculously repaired, and the sun shone bright and immovable in the clear blue sky.
“Do you think it’s over?” Bon Bon asked tentatively, looking over at the teal mare as they stood in front of a large window overlooking the serine landscape.
“I think so,” Lyra replied looking at all the happy ponies in the halls. Then she turned her attention back to the world outside. Everything seemed normal, but as she stood up on her hind legs to get a better view at the area directly below them she let out a small gasp. Before Bon Bon could ask what was wrong, the unicorn turned and began running bipedaly towards the stairs.
“Lyra, down!” her marefriend yelled after her as she made to follow, apologizing to the startled ponies in the hall as she raced after her eccentric marefriend before she caused any undo panic.
------
Upon making it outside, Lyra, now on four hooves due to necessity, turned full speed for the far corner of the building she had seen from the window. Standing nearby, and looking around in pleasant confusion was a white earth pony with a pink mane and a red cross surrounded by hearts on her flank.
“Seri!” the unicorn called out.
Redheart turned around upon hearing the voice and seeing her fast approaching cousin, smiled and waved happily.
“Hello, Lyra,” she said cheerfully as the slightly panting unicorn came to a stop in front of her. “Where have you been?”
“Where have I been?” the musician asked incredulous. “Where have you been? You just disappeared when I came back to check on you half an hour ago and I’ve been looking all over for you!”
“Serenity!” Bon Bon called out in surprise, catching up to the two mares. She wasn’t quite as out of breath as her unicorn counterpart, but after quickly descending two flights marefriend of stairs chasing after her she still a bit out of sorts.
“Hey are you two okay?” Redheart asked, reaching out a foreleg to steady her wheezing cousin.
“We’re fine,” the beige earth pony answered. “What about you?”
It wasn’t an unwarranted question. The Head Nurse’s mane, which was usually done up in a tight bun even when she wasn’t on duty, was free flowing across her face and neck and appeared slightly damp. Her pristine white coat was also extremely ruffled and glistening, especially around her neck and cutie mark, and there appeared to be bits of either cloud or whipped cream in her tail.
“I feel great,” the white mare answered honestly, smiling widely again. “Better than I’ve felt in a long time in fact. I don’t know what Berry put in those drinks last night, but we should tell her to write down the recipe if she can remember.”
Both ponies looked at her and then at each other in confusion. “Seri,” Lyra said after she had finished catching her breath. “We haven’t gone drinking with Berry Punch since last Friday. It’s Thursday today, or at least it was this morning.” She added, glancing up at the sky as if afraid the sun and moon were about to randomly trade places again.
“Uh huh,” Redheart said skeptically, looking at her cousin as if she was telling a bad joke, but Bon Bon nodded in agreement.
“It’s true,” the beige earth pony said, her expression serious. “Ponyville was just hit with a massive crisis a few hours ago. Houses starting floating around and the roads turned into soap so you couldn’t walk without falling down. Everything was in bright colors and there were buffalos in tutus and pink leotards dancing all over the place. Then a double rainbow exploded a few minutes ago and now everything’s fine again.”
“Okay, maybe we shouldn’t go drinking with Berry anymore,” Redheart said, looking at Bon Bon with sincere concern and putting a hoof out to feel the earth pony’s temperature.
“She’s not making it up!” Lyra yelled, slapping her cousin’s hoof away from her marefriend. “Look you can ask the Mayor and everypony else in town about it, but it’s true! You were here at the hospital making sure everypony was okay during the whole thing! Hay, you were going out of you mind worrying about Sweetheart most of the-”
The musician was interrupted as her cousin suddenly grabbed her by the shoulders. “What about Mercy?” Redheart asked, her steely blue eyes suddenly brimming with panic at the mention of her coworker. “What happened? Is she okay?”
Lyra and Bon Bon exchanged worried looks. “Well, we don’t really-” the unicorn began, but she was interrupted a second time buy a painful groan from a nearby bush.
Redheart immediately let go of the unicorn and all three of them rushed over to the source of the disgruntled sound, noticing that a curly white and purple striped tail was peeking out from under it. After a moment’s digging through the leaves and branches, they uncovered a plum colored earth pony lying on her back in what looked like a rather uncomfortable bed of twigs and dry underbrush. Moaning, and lifting a foreleg up to shield herself from the far to bring sunlight now leaking in to her little den, the mare opened her eyes to blink up at them with bright, solid sapphire orbs.
“Mmmm,” the pony groaned as she let her eyes adjust to the uncomfortable brightness. Then she noticed a familiar, and relieved face smiling looking down at her. “…Serenity?” she asked, squinting up at them.
“She’s never called you that before,” Lyra commented. Redheart giggled in response and with the help of her cousin reached down and pulled the disoriented mare out of the bush. Bon Bon began brushing the leaves and debris off of her back as Mercy attempted to sit up on her own. The attempt was thwarted by the worlds refusal to stop spinning before her eyes and plum colored mare ended up falling forward into her boss.
“Whoa,” Readheart said quietly, catching her subordinate and letting her assistant burry her freckled face into her shoulder in an attempt to hid from the oppressive sunlight. “Easy there, Mercy. How are you feeling?”
“My head feels like somepony broke off my horn and stabbed me with it,” Mercy moaned, not raising her voice too loudly. Redheart exchanged confused glances with the other mares.
“Uh, Mercy,” Redheart said carefully. “You’re an earth pony. You’ve never had a horn.”
“Well somepony better tell that to my skull,” Mercy grumbled angrily, moving her face from the crook of Redheart’s neck to burying it in the damp fluff of her boss’s chest as she further attempted to hide from the sun. The Head Nurse giggled softly at her assistant’s adorable antics and adjusted herself so that she could wrap her hooves around the slightly smaller mare and offer her some additional shade.
Lyra and Bon Bon stared open mouthed at the cuddling mares. Lyra in particular was completely dumbfounded.
“What?” Redheart asked innocently, noticing the gawking pair and looking at them as if she frequently let her subordinate use her chest as a makeshift cave.
“Nothing,” Bon Bon said quickly, regaining her senses and trying to look innocent. Upon realizing the Lyra was till gapping at pair she gave her lover a subtle kick.
“Ow,” the unicorn whined, rubbing her ankle where the beige pony had hit it.
Redheart watched as the two mares begin to argue with minimal interest as she cradled her groaning assistant. It gave quite a nice feeling, just holding the groaning mare that way. It made her feel almost, complete. Mercy meanwhile was attempting to tune out the rising voices of the couple beside them, and instead focus on the wonderful darkness and unique aroma her boss’s chest had to offer. It was quite a pleasant smell actually. A bit musky and sweaty, but still sweet and floral; a little like marshmallows and roses. It was such a familiar scent too if only she could remember where…
The teal and beige ponies stopped their bickering as Mercy suddenly began to struggle and flung herself away from her boss as quickly as possible, her eyes wide as saucers and her cheeks blazing crimson.
“Mercy?” Redheart asked in surprise. Looking at her subordinate worryingly she took a step forward, even as the mare crawled away from her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong!” Mercy screamed back. “Why would anything be wrong? I certainly haven’t done anything wrong! Why would you think I had, Ow! Oh, ow, ow ow ow…”
The plum pony grabbed her head miserably as she realized that leaving her dark sanctuary and raising her voice had been a horrendous mistake. No matter what guilty revelation she had just had.
“Oh come here you, silly pony,” Redheart said exasperatedly walking forward and gathering up the migraine ridden pony in her hooves again. “Honestly, you ought to know better than to move around like that with a hangover. What got into you anyway?”
‘A hangover?’ Mercy mulled the idea around in her mind. Of course, that must be it. She had a hangover, and if she had a hangover then that meant she must have gotten drunk and then woken up, and of course only a very inebriated imagination could have concocted such an absurd fiasco as the one in her memory which meant she had nothing to panic over.
“We didn’t go drinking!” Lyra repeated for the third time, causing Mercy’s guilt and embarrassment to come swimming back to with merciless speed. “Look, reality took a rain check this morning and only decided to come back about ten minutes ago. We live in Ponyville, Seri, why is this so hard to believe!”
“For the last time, Lyra, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Redheart replied, petting her assistant’s mane absentmindedly. “The last thing I remember is going to the bar with our usual crowed of friends. After that all I know is I woke up beside the road here feeling like a million bits. Now stop yelling, you’re starting to hurt my head too.”
‘She doesn’t remember?’ Mercy thought, not sure if she was more relieved or disappointed.
“Wait…” Redheart said slowly, looking up at the sky and tapping her chin thoughtfully. The plum mare on her chest winced up at her in fear. “I actually do remember coming into work on Monday... then on at lunch on Tuesday I remember I had to make Mercy here actually eat cause she was being silly,” she said, smiling down at the plum mare and gently ruffling her white striped mane. Mercy smiled sheepishly back up at her, before the ivory mare continued, “Then on Wednesday…”
“Yes?” Lyra prompted.
‘No,’ Mercy thought.
Redheart seemed to wrack her brain for close to a minute before giving her cousin an imperturbable shrug. “Nothing,” she said. “That must have been the night we went drinking.”
Mercy sighed in relief while Lyra nearly blew a fuse. “For the last time, Seri, we did not go-” This time the unicorn was interrupted by a tap on her shoulder. “What, Bon Bon!” she snapped, turning to look at the earth pony next to her.
Her attitude was met by a surprised and displeased face that foretold her spending the night on the living room couch if she did not rephrase her response very quickly.
“Er, I mean, what is it, Honey?” the unicorn asked, smiling her sweetest and trying to make her tone as sugary a possible. Her second response seemed to appease her better half as Bon Bon’s face changed to a less ominous, though not necessarily forgiving expression before replying.
“Lyra, there may be a reason she doesn’t remember,” the beige pony said quietly to her marefriend, though her words were caught by a plum colored ear as well. “I read somewhere that when a pony goes through a traumatic experience, they sometimes repress the memory as a kind of coping mechanism.”
Mercy’s guilt nearly tripled upon hearing that. She felt ill, and bottom of her stomach seemed to drop out. She had done something so terrible, so vile, so sick and obscene to the very mare that was stroking her mane so tenderly at that moment that it had forced the innocent Head Nurse to strip over twenty four hours from her own memory. …Well, come to think of it, Mercy’s own memory was still a big hazy towards past the beginning of their ‘encounter.’ Could her mind be trying to block out the memory in an effort to spare her the worst of her sins? Forcing herself to shut out everything else, Mercy pushed herself to remember every detail of what had happened, knowing in her heart that she didn’t deserve to spare herself even an instant horrific transgression she had committed against her pure, helpless victim.
Several seconds latter every inch of Mercy’s plum colored coat, from her hooves to the tips of her ears turned red as her memories informed that her ‘victim’ wasn’t quite so pure and helpless after all, and just why her boss’s first name had been on her lips when she had awoken. As sights, sounds, and indescribable sensations flashed through her mind making her relive the previous hour and ten minutes, sixty nine seconds, the already exhausted endorphins and synapses of her brain screamed out in refusal and pulled the emergency off switch.
Redheart looked down felt the poor mare go completely limp against her as she passed out again.
“Mercy?” she asked quietly, gently shaking the plum colored mare. “Meeeercy?” The near comatose nurse gave absolutely no repose.
‘Poor thing,’ Redheart thought, gently brushing the lavender curls out of her friend’s closed eyes. ‘She must be exhausted...”