Derecho liked to pretend it was civilized. Its ponies wore fancy cloaks and played politics and cast ballots. They had labor laws. They kept servants, not slaves.
Red knew the truth. Derecho was a starving animal. Every citizen, every piece of cloudstone in every column, was a cell in the beast. Its teeth were sharp. Foam dripped from the corners of its mouth. If it smelled blood, it would turn on you.
Red dragged Blue over shattered cloudstone cobbles. She didn’t know the alleyways in this part of town. She’d already gotten herself turned around twice. She couldn’t afford to get lost a third time.
Pounding hooves harried her every move. Passing nobles and their servants paused to watch her pass. Their eyes looked bloodshot. Hungry.
Red stumbled. Her hoof twisted. Pain bloomed like thorned flowers. She righted herself before Blue could fall off her back and took off at a hobble. She glanced behind her. No guards.
“Stay awake,” she panted, as much to herself as to Blue. “Almost there.”
Blue groaned. Good. She was still breathing. Blue’s dark cloak obscured the amount of blood pouring from the wound. Red felt it soaking into her fur. Her breath caught in her throat and stitched her sides. She couldn’t stop. She’d already lost Hypha. If she lost Blue, she’d be alone again. That thought hurt worse than any twisted ankle. Alone.
She turned a blind corner and ran right into a lone Derechan guard on patrol. Blue tumbled off her back. Blood spilled onto the street.
The guard blurted, “Oh my god, is she okay?” He sounded barely older than Red. He took a step forward. “Did someone rob you? What—”
In one fluid motion, Red reared up and bucked the guard square in the face. His snout bent at an angle it shouldn’t. His legs turned to jelly, and he collapsed in the street. His spear clattered to the ground.
Red scooped up Blue and took off down the street.
Blue didn’t die that first hour. That in itself was a big victory. Most times, if you got shot with an arrow somewhere important, you didn’t linger very long. When Red finally made it back to the hideaway and saw Blue’s chest was still moving, she knew she’d won a great battle in the war of her life.
It certainly didn’t feel like a victory. And there was still so much left to do. Arrow wounds were notoriously tricky to treat, given their barbed shape. If the arrowhead had warped as it traveled through Blue’s body, or had fragmented, there was a real risk of death by infection. And if it had hit bone...
Red pinched the arrow’s shaft and wiggled it a little. The shaft twisted freely. Blue groaned.
That was good news. A little give meant the arrow wasn’t stuck in a bone. What she needed now was a sharp scalpel, thin metal wire, and enough sedatives to immobilize Blue without stopping her heart.
Red sighed. For just a moment, she wished it had been her hit with the arrow. She’d just get to sit here and let Blue fawn over her. That didn’t sound so bad.
Red couldn’t afford to steal anything and risk trouble. Not today. The market run cost half of her savings and nearly an hour of precious time, but she got everything she needed and made it back without arousing any suspicion. If the guards at the market had gotten wind of the assassination attempt, they didn’t show it.
In the time she was gone, Blue took a turn for the worse. Her eyes were half-lidded and listless. She’d lost an astounding amount of blood. Her lips were bright red. For a second, Red thought Blue had been somehow sucking at her wound. She was about to scold her when she realized she was jumping to stupid conclusions. Blue was smarter than that. She was coughing up blood.
To start the removal process, Red soaked a rag with ether and held it up to Blue’s face. “You’re gonna be fine,” she said in a shaky voice. “I got this. I got this.”
Blue went still. Red took a precautionary glance down the alleyway before cutting off Blue’s robe.
The sight of the wound made Red’s stomach flip. Her mind recoiled. She found herself momentarily fixated on the acidity of her own stomach acid. Acid helped disinfect, right? But stomach acid definitely wasn’t an antiseptic. It was a proseptic, if anything.
Focus. She turned away until the urge to vomit passed. Then she picked up the metal wire. It was some kind of copper alloy, gossamer-thin but strong. She bent it into a long “L” shape, then formed a loop at the bottom part of the L.
She grabbed the scalpel. Feel it. Receive it. Let it go. The mantra popped into her head uninvited, but she found it somewhat comforting. She repeated it once more, then dove into her task.
In theory, all she had to do was get the wire loop around the arrowhead and tighten it so it stayed in place. The issue was that, with all the jostling around during their escape attempt, the wound had partially closed itself around the shaft of the arrow.
Using the scalpel, Red reopened the wound. Fresh blood flowed down Blue’s side, matting her fur. Red felt her hooves getting slippery. She paused to wipe them clean, but when she looked down she momentarily forgot that her fur was naturally red. She saw herself covered in red and thought she’d been completely soaked in Blue’s blood.
She bobbled the scalpel. The blade touched her arm. Pain, heavy and real, brought her back to the moment. She took another deep breath. She heard herself say, “Feel it, receive it, let it go.”
Then she went back to cutting.
She cut deeper, finally locating the black sliver of arrowhead embedded in the muscle. Using the scalpel to keep the wound pried open, Red threaded the wire loop over the shaft and lowered it into the wound. The loop was too circular, though. The wound was oval-shaped. It wouldn’t fit all the way.
If she were a unicorn, Red could just pinch it with magic. But both hooves were occupied at the moment. With a grimace, she pulled the wire out and bit down on the metal until it deformed to a more elliptical shape.
The taste was dizzyingly bad, rancid meat and copper coins. She turned her head away again, certain she would puke, but nothing came up. She felt herself start to shiver and tried to will it down. Her hooves were still holding open the wound. She had to keep still or she’d hurt Blue even worse.
That’s what it was, Red realized. Bad meat and metal. That was her lover. Her friend. She was flesh and blood. She was dying.
Red spat until her mouth was dry. Then she went back to work.
This time, the loop fit. Red carefully coaxed the knot of the wire loop tighter until it fit snugly around the arrowhead.
Now for the worst part. With one hoof gripping the scalpel and the other gripping the metal wire, she took hold of the shaft of the arrowhead with her mouth and started to wiggle it loose. Each time the barbs caught on the muscle, Red carefully pushed it down and nudged the tissue out of the way.
A quarter of the way out, the arrow got stuck on something. Then it came out another inch all at once. The barbs dug into the surrounding muscle. Blue’s eyes shot open.
Red was there in an instant with the ether-soaked rag. “Shh,” she pleaded. “Please don’t move. Please don’t move. Please.”
The panic in Blue’s eyes faded to numb apathy. Then she was under again. Red thought, I just killed her, and even though she knew it wasn’t true the tremor returned in all its power.
“Shut up,” she said, and dove back into her work. “Shut up.” Her voice was muffled around the shaft of the arrowhead. “Shuh uh.” The arrow slid out at an agonizing pace. Bits of muscle tore around the barbs. “Shuh uh.” She couldn’t stop the tremble in her hooves now. Each intentional cut yielded another unintentional wound. Fresh blood poured out. “Shuh uh.” She was getting close. Sweat beaded on her forehead. Her eyes stung. Her jaw ached from holding the arrow shaft. So close. Half an inch more. The barbs tore through layers of skin. Blood bubbled up around it, but another good wiggle more and it’d be free. Red bit down hard on the shaft and snarled, “Shuh uh, shuh uh, shuh—”
The arrow came out.
Red spat the arrow out and roared victoriously. Then she was back on top of Blue, slathering ointment on the wound, pressing a bandage as hard as she could into the opening. Blue was awake again, bawling like a foal, a toothless open-mouthed scream.
Red cried too. Happy tears.
Red slept like a rock that night. She woke up feeling numbed by the experience, but otherwise she was in good spirits. Blue woke up too—another victory. The arrow hadn’t left any pieces behind, and the wound hadn’t taken on any suspicious colors or smells.
“Want to keep it?” Red asked, gesturing to the discarded arrow. Blue scowled at her. “Okay. Sorry I asked.”
When Blue wasn’t watching, Red snapped the arrowhead off its shaft and pocketed it for posterity.
Red went into the trash bin where they’d stashed their belongings, searching for something less bloodstained for Blue to wear. While she was looking, she came across the bag of mother sky mushrooms. Guilt spread through her veins like infection.
Ultimately, she took out a robe for Blue and left the mushrooms where they were. One thing at a time, she thought to herself.