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// Chapter 90: Who You Want To Be 
// Story: Pandemic: Starting Over 
// by Halira 
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The green park of the shared dream was just as pleasant as ever, but the other prisoners were not with me, only Tonya and Yinyu, both in their pony forms. I didn't even get to ask what was going on before Yinyu tackled me and squeezed.

"You saved her! I don't know what I would have... Thank you!" Yinyu cried. 

That instantly pulled me back to my last conscious thoughts. "Qīng Yǔ is okay? Thank God."

"She is safe, as are all the others," Tonya confirmed with a nod, then smiled. "You did good, my love. The authorities were already in the area searching, but the crystal ponies felt a huge sudden surge of magic and were able to home in on where it came from. We have been letting you rest in a dreamless sleep for hours now, letting your body recover. You still need rest, so we shall not keep you long."

Yinyu let me go, and I frowned. "What about Royal Bearing and the others?"

"Those that fled early are still on the run," Tonya replied. "Those that remained surrendered without a fight. Royal Bearing… I gave him his last rites. He did not survive long after his confrontation with you."

"Someone finished him off?" I asked in confusion. 

Tonya shook her head. "His horn exploded, and he had an inferno erupt from where it had been. It roasted him alive. He didn't die immediately, but he was unconscious, and his injuries overtook him minutes later. I gave him a final dream."

"I hope it was a nightmare," I muttered. 

"Everyone gets their final pleasant dream, even Royal Bearing. I do not discriminate, no matter how much I want to," Tonya replied in a sad tone. "I did not invite his loved ones to say goodbye. I did not want that confrontation to be the last moment he and his wife had—more for her than him. I want her to have a pleasant last memory, not having to confront him for his misdeeds. The final dream is a mercy, not to be used to enact some form of justice. Let whatever afterlife there is be responsible for that; it is not my place to punish the dying."

I frowned. "You could have made an exception."

"Sunset…" Tonya lamented. 

"Okay, fine," I fussed. "I guess I would hate to see what my final dream was if I got the one I deserved." I looked down at the ground. "It is never going to end, is it? There's always going to be someone after me. Whoever was paying the bills, they wanted me dead, and they were the ones that sent Poly Glot too. They didn't even care about getting knowledge from me—just wanted me dead. They don't even care how many people die in the process. How do I deal with that?!"

"I can't answer that," Tonya replied remorsefully. 

"Of course you can't," I snapped, then realized who I was barking at and shook my head. "Sorry, it's just… stressful. Qīng Yǔ didn't get hurt at all?"

"Some mild bruises," Yinyu replied with relief. "Nothing that she won't quickly heal. She is shaken up, but she should recover from that as well. They found her nuzzled up against you, crying. My poor granddaughter was scared for you. I'm sure she'll be thrilled when she sees you wake."

"Who gave you permission to tell me all these things?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. 

"Rosetta Stone," she answered with a smile. "She got the full report and made sure to tell me to tell you if you were still asleep. She thought you would want to know. She said no one else would think about permitting us to tell you, and it would cut down on your questions when you should be resting in bed. You need time to recover."

I scrunched up my muzzle. "How bad is it?"

Yinyu's smile dropped. "That I was not permitted to tell you. Only that you should take it easy. I'm confident you'll be hearing that from the doctors soon enough."

"I'm not burnt out, am I?" I asked fearfully. 

She shook her head. "No, that I can say. You're magically exhausted, again, so no magic for a while, but not burnt out. For any physical injuries, you must consult a doctor. We are not good sources for identifying the full extent of anyone's injuries. We rely on what your nervous system tells your brain, and that is surprisingly unreliable information. We can recognize when something is not right or if death is imminent, but details on what exactly is wrong are too difficult for us to determine, most of the time. Trust the doctors over us on that information."

"We think you'll be waking soon," Tonya said with a smile, then roughly pushed Yinyu aside to embrace me, taking her time to cry on my shoulder. "You could have died. I always knew I would lose you long before I was gone, even before getting stuck with a two-hundred-year clock ticking away on me, but… I'm not ready for you to go, not yet. You owe me twenty to fifty years, Sunset. Please… please take care of yourself."

I wasn't able to respond before the dream faded. 

Switching between the dream realm and the waking world always came with some level of disorientation, even when you knew the shift was coming. This time, it came with a jolt of pain.

"OWW!" I moaned as I jerked my head, causing even more pain. 

"ANTY!" 

"Hold still. Don't jump on Ma'am! How long do these doctors take to respond to a page?  Qīng Yǔ, no! Stay with me! Tā mā de!"

"ANTY! ANTY!" 

I tried turning my head, still disoriented, and hissed as I got another shot of pain. 

"Anty?"

"Ma'am, hold still! You should not try to turn your head. The doctor should be coming."

I did as instructed. "Lántiān? Is it my imagination, or did your daughter learn a new word?"

"That is what you wish to ask first?" she replied in astonishment. 

"The last thing I remember thinking before I passed out was worrying over her, so she's been on my mind," I replied. I was trying very hard to resist the urge to turn. My neck and shoulder felt stiff and sore. 

"Yes, I taught her a new word. She cried when being taken away from you. So I taught her how to address you," Lántiān replied in a much calmer voice. "She is mostly unhurt. She has a large bruise on her underside that she should not be jumping around so much with. I think something struck her hard. Still, she is better than you… or the stallion they found near you."

I had a good guess how that happened and resisted gritting my teeth in anger. "What was that you said a moment ago in Mandarin? It did not translate."

"Don't concern yourself, Ma'am. It is… something said in frustration," Lántiān replied flusteredly. 

"A cuss word?" I asked. "You should avoid using those around your daughter. Foals pick up those words faster than anything else. I think they stand out more because they hear the emotion behind it."

"Now is not the time to discuss foal rearing, Ma'am," Lántiān snapped. "You are hurt. Where are the doctors!"

"I don't know," I answered. 

"I wasn't talking to you!" she snapped again.

"Your bedside manner really fucking sucks," I said tiredly. 

"Ma'am, you are a hypocrite!" Lántiān screamed in frustration. "Qīng Yǔ, Auntie is a shǎ bī!"

"Are you teaching her to call me a curse word?" I asked in astonishment. 

"Maybe. You are not my mother, and she isn't the boss of me anyway," Lántiān huffed. 

I started to turn my head and winced as I was reminded that was a terrible idea. "Where did you pick up that turn of phrase?"

She sighed. "We sat watching old American sitcoms as we awaited the phone to ring with word of you and my daughter. Your parents said it would distract us and ease tension. We… it has been hard. I kept thinking terrible things."

I closed my eyes. "I can only imagine."

We sat in silence for a few seconds before she continued. "They said they found you next to a dead stallion. Did you kill him, Ma'am?"

"He was going to torture Qīng Yǔ," I answered. 

Another few seconds of heavy silence passed. "Thank you, Ma'am."

"Anty!" Qīng Yǔ cried pitifully. 

Lántiān sighed. "After the doctors see her, little one. I will let you get close to her then."

My mouth felt dry. I hoped they brought some water. "I'm guessing they said everyone couldn't be in here at once, but how did you end up being the one in here with me?"

She took a few seconds to answer. "Qīng Yǔ did not want to be separated from you. She was actually licking your wounds at points—they are bandaged now, but I saw them; they look unpleasant. I may have also raised my voice at the others, telling them how it was going to be. They are in the waiting room."

I heard a door open. "Miss Blessing, you are awake!"

I lifted a hoof in false enthusiasm; luckily, that didn't hurt. "I'm awake."

"And alert I see," the doctor or nurse, a human woman from the sounds of her steps, replied. "I'm going to check your bandages, take some vitals, and ask you a few questions."

"Hooray," I muttered. 

"That's the spirit!" they replied, either not catching my sarcasm or choosing to disregard it altogether. "Now, on a scale of one to ten. How much pain are you in?"

"When I stay still, maybe a three, when I try to move my head or shoulder, it jumps to an eight."

"An eight? That's actually promising; I was expecting you to say nine or ten."

I felt like growling. "Have you heard what I have gone through the last two days? I only said eight because I know what nine and ten feel like!"

The woman coughed. "You'll have to forgive me. There is an ongoing investigation, and I have only briefed about your injuries, not the causes. I know you are suffering severe physical and magical exhaustion along with fatigue, muscle strain, and worst of all, showing second and third-degree burns all along the right side of your body and fourth-degree burns in sections along your right side of your neck and right shoulder."

"That sounds bad," I said with a wince.

"I am not going to lie, it is bad, but you are doing surprisingly well, all things considered," the doctor replied. I saw her briefly as she came over and tapped on the side of my neck. "Do you feel that?"

"No, I hear it. Are those my bandages?" I asked. 

"Yes, but the reason you don't feel it is the nerves underneath have been burned away. The pain you are feeling is from lesser burns further out. It is unlikely that you will regain sensation in parts of your neck and shoulder, but I am confident we can get to where you can walk and even partially turn your head to look to the side."

I closed my eyes again, trying to process that. "Are there magical treatments that can help?"

"That is with the known magical treatments, Miss Blessing. You do not understand the extent of the nerve damage; ten years ago, this would have permanently crippled you, and the best we would be able to do is prosthetics to help. We can use magic to regrow enough of the nerves and muscles to make you able to function again, but it is never going to be back to what it was before. The burn got down into your very marrow in places; everything above that is cauterized."

"So, I'm going to look like Two-Face from a Batman comic?" I cried. 

"Your face got away with only mild first-degree burns, and much of your body is just first and second-degree burns. It was the neck and shoulder that took the brunt of it," the doctor replied, then sighed. "I have worked the burn ward for over fifteen years, and I have never seen a case quite like this—one where the intense burns were so localized despite such a large area getting burned. What caused this?"

"Magical mishap with someone else's horn," I replied as I got ahold of myself. "So I'm not going to walk around as some piebald freak?"

"Everything but the shoulder and neck should heal under the treatments," the doctor assured me. "We might be able to do some grafts for the shoulder and neck, depending on how the regrowth goes."

I winced. Well, it could be worse. "How long am I going to be in rehabilitation from this? I have foals to take care of."

"Ma'am, there is plenty of family to assist while you recover," Lántiān said placatingly. 

"I can't set a timetable to that yet," the doctor cautioned. "If everything goes well, we can get you home in a week with regular follow-ups and assistance visits for a few months after. If things go poorly… it could be a month or more until your release. I don't want to hazard a guess until the regrowth treatment has been done and set for a day or two."

She took my vitals, changed out the bandages—which made Lántiān hiss so loudly I didn't want to know what it looked like underneath. In the meantime, I did my best to silently think. After everything I had just gone through, I was not going to let this beat me. Whoever hired Royal and Poly Glot wanted me gone from the world, and I wasn't going to give them that. Even more than that, I wanted to be active enough to be regularly involved with the foals and not hearing about things from a bed. 

The doctor finished, and I allowed Qīng Yǔ to nuzzle my face and her mother had to pull her away when the filly started trying to lick my wounds. Then the parade of visitors began, in sets of two, beginning with my parents. 

"My poor baby filly!" Mom cried as she entered the room. 

"Don't go trying to hug her, dear. You could hurt her more," Dad cautioned. 

"I can't even touch my daughter!" 

"Give it time, dear."

"I hear you, Mom, that's good enough," I said with a smile, even if I didn't dare turn my head.

"Amicus and her husband, along with Andrea, are coming," Dad informed me. "Wild Growth has offered to let them stay, pay moving expenses, and offered Andrea the job as head of security for the house. Amicus said she could help you with any legal matters, all her foals are grown, and it would be just her and her husband moving. She said she could open a new office locally. They want to be here and help. Wild Growth offered for Sinker and us to come live with you too if you'll have us. We aren't so old we can't help out with keeping up with your place."

"It's completely selfish. Your mother is just dying to get her hooves on your gardens," Dad chuckled. 

I heard my mother swat him. "And don't say you aren't eager to have an excuse to do some handypony work!"

"We also heard there might be an extra bed available in the colts' room. Sinker can take that," Dad added on. 

"A little filly should not be sharing a room with three older uncles anyway. What were you thinking!?" Mom scolded.

"I guess I wasn't," I confessed. "It's a good thing I'll have you all around to keep me from doing anything stupid. Are you sure Andrea is ready to leave her job at the FBI? That was always kind of her dream."

"She is sick of being underappreciated and denied promotions," Dad answered, then lowered his voice. "Plus, she's a whistleblower now. They aren't supposed to go after ponies that whistleblow, but… the reality never really works out. The writing is on the wall now, and she knows it. She doesn't regret it."

"If she hadn't done that, there wouldn't have already been a search party in the area you were in, and the crystal ponies would never have detected that surge. They would have all kept doing what they were doing instead of trying to solve the case," Mom said with barely contained rage.

"Thank you for reaching out to her when you did," I said with total sincerity. "I don't know what would have happened if I just took out Royal and was left with all the others to deal with. I doubt they would be as bad, but I don't see them as just letting me go."

That put my mother back into a crying fit, and my dad had to lead her out of the room carefully. I wasn't alone for long.

"Auntie!" a trio of voices rang out. 

"Hold! Do not jostle her! You may speak with her, but you must understand she is hurt and needs rest," Lántiān barked. 

"Did my ears deceive me, or was that three Aunties I heard?" I asked the room. 

"Auntie!" Mèng said joyfully. 

Lántiān actually chuckled. "Josie and your daughter-in-law have been helping him learn and form American words.  Rosetta Stone is quite a skilled teacher."

"It's kinda her thing. Nice to hear they are getting along," I replied. "You three can call me Mama, or Mom, if you like."

"We want to keep calling you Auntie. It's special, our special word for you being our mama too like you told me. I told Líng all about it, and he agrees!" Shǔguāng explained. 

"Yeah! A special word that is all ours!" Líng said excitedly as I heard him bounce. "That way, we don't get confused about which mama we are talking about. You're smart, Auntie!"

I could be upset they weren't going to call me Mom or Mama, but they were right; calling me Auntie was something more personal between us, something that was all our own, and it felt right. 

"When are you going to be up and better, Auntie?" Shǔguāng asked worriedly. "We want you to be better."

"We miss you. We were afraid you were going to go away and not come back… like Mama," Líng whimpered. 

"Ma'am cannot answer—"

"I'll be up and as good as new before you know it," I assured them quickly, cutting their sister off. 

"Can we hug you now?" Líng asked in a hopeful tone. "We missed you. We love you."

"That isn't a good idea—" Lántiān began again. 

"It's fine," I answered, cutting her off again. "Just be very gentle, okay?"

I heard Lántiān grumble. "You are the cause of your misery, Ma'am! Hold still, each of you, and I will lift you up to join her on the bed. Only one of you at a time!"

They each got their turn, and for their part, they did their best to be gentle—aside from Mèng, who just didn't understand the instruction, but understood my pained groan and was more gentle after. That didn't mean the other two didn't hurt. Their hugs hurt a lot, but sometimes the pain was worth it. I needed those hugs, and they needed to give them. 

Someone cleared their throat near the door. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but I don't have a lot of time. Do you mind if I get a few words alone with your guardian?" I recognized Twilight Sparkle's voice.

"She's not our guardian; she's our Auntie-Mama!" Líng protested. 

"I think she can be all those things," Twilight replied. I could hear the smile in her voice. "Just a few minutes, and then you can have her back. I promise."

"Okay, as long as you promise," Líng said grudgingly, utterly unconcerned about the fact he was talking to an alicorn princess. 

I heard all of Yinyu's brood exit the room, and Twilight's hoofsteps approach me. "Sunset, I am very sorry I did not take more time to investigate your problem. I might not have been versed in that spell, and I might have been on a tight schedule—something that happens far too much lately—but I should have made sure you were safe. I am deeply sorry for taking off when you needed my help."

I tried to turn to look at her and failed. Why did they put me on my back? I wasn't a human. This was such an undignified and unnatural position for a pony. They even had braces to keep me in place.

"Fain would have been a major threat to you, and you weren't versed in that spell. You also needed to get things going with Bursa. How is she, by the way?"

"Oh, the spell was a success," Twilight said, and I could hear the forced enthusiasm behind it. "However… she's ended up as a queen, and an unreformed one at that. I know that you don't understand the full ramifications of that, but it's not ideal. She'll live, and I have already contacted Thorax to try to see about reforming her. She isn't in pain, and we are making sure she gets plenty of love. She hasn't tried to eat anypony yet, so we have that good news too."

"Not eating ponies is good," I agreed. 

"I may have poorly worded it. It's not eating eating, like that," Twilight corrected. "Changelings have… unique feeding habits."

I took as deep a breath as I could without hurting myself. "I need a favor."

"What kind of favor?" Twilight asked in a slightly skeptical voice. "Just to let you know. I have already sent a dispatch to get our best healing mages here to try to help with your injuries."

I smiled. "Thank you. I appreciate that, but what I need is assistance with one last major magic project. I need the government's permission, and I might need material from Equestria. You can help me with both those things."

"What kind of magic project?" Twilight asked, still sounding skeptical. 

I closed my eyes again as I spoke. "I want to go out and do my part again, maybe keeping it local, so I am never far from my family. I also want to be in good health to see my foals grow up and be there for all their big moments."

"Alright, but what exactly does that have to do with a magic project and needing materials from Equestria?"

I opened my eyes again and stared up at the light. "It's time to retire from public life as Sunset Blessing and let the world think I am stuck sick in bed. I need your help to make a talisman with a very specific spell."