//------------------------------//
// The Recovery 
// Story: Whipstitch 
// by Pennington Inkwell 
//------------------------------//

	"Heck of a show you put on, Whips..."

Pennington was the first one to enter the hospital room, giving Whipstitch a sly grin. In spite of his smile, however, there was an uncharacteristic tiredness in his voice. "You had everyone pretty scared..."

Whipstitch rolled her eyes at her friend, taking some small comfort from the familiar face. "Well, I guess I left quite an impression... I didn't hurt anypony, did I?"

She let out a sigh of relief as Pennington shook his head. "No, you just kinda got strung up in a death trap of your own hair... They called me in to cut you loose."

Whipstitch blinked quietly as his words sunk in. "You... cut... my hair?"

Pennington waved off her concern with ease. "Only the ones threatening your life. I know, I know, 'If it just falls out naturally, it has special magic!'" His smile grew wider as he did a corny impression of her voice. "But you were caught in a sea of razor hair, though, so I had to cut a few! The rest started falling out the moment somepony managed to reach you." He gave her a quiet wink. "You'll have plenty to work with."

Whipstitch smiled and leaned back in her bed, slightly relieved. As soon as she started to feel comfortable, though, her mind flashed back to the images from her memories, and she started upright again.

"Penn... I saw my memories from killing Buzby..." She whispered quietly. "I must have been asleep or something during all of this, but I saw it... every detail." She looked to the blue unicorn, expecting him to have recoiled in disgust at the mention of the deed from years before. Instead, she saw a look of sympathy emanating from her old friend.

"Whips, that wasn't you." Pennington whispered in return. "Look, I know that it was your body, but it wasn't your mind agreeing to that! If you send yourself on a guilt trip, you're just going to get caught in your own web..." The unicorn gave her a empathetic smile, lacking his usual smugness. "If any pony knows about nightmares and losing control of your own body, you know it's us..."

Whipstitch nodded, picking up on his subtle hint at his own "condition." "I guess you're right... But it was just so horrible, and I know that I did it... Yours are just nightmares."

Pennington snorted in something like a disgruntled chuckle. "They're more than just that... But I see your point. We all do things that we regret, often without thinking or because of something beyond our control... Luna only knows how many of those choices I've made, but we have to move on." He placed a gentle hoof on the side of her cot. "I know that you can. You're one of the strongest ponies I know."

As her mind involuntarily began to wander, Whipstitch noticed that the only light in the room seemed to be moonlight coming in through a set of skylights in the ceiling. 

"What time is it?"

Pennington laughed as the somber conversation drew to a close. "Let me put it this way: I'm not catching the train back to Ponyville. Lily said that I could spend the night on the couch in her apartment, 'if only so I can keep an eye on you!'" Pennington laughed as he mimicked Lily's characteristic scold and looked down at his front hoof, as if he had some kind of watch that only he could see. "Speaking of which, she told me that if you didn't wake up by... about three hours ago, she was going to lock me out. So, I'd best be going!"

Whipstitch shook her head. "So, the Princesses aren't letting you stay here?"

"Oh, they offered! Lily just has more of my favorite food... Ramen!" With a wink, the smug smile that Whipstitch was used to returned. "So... If you need anything, you'll know where to find me! Is there anything I can do for you before I leave?"

Whipstitch shook her head with a smile. "If you want to do me a favor, stop eating so much of that sodium soup!"

"Never!"

The two of them burst out laughing as their old banter returned, and the author-adventurer turned back to the door to the hospital. "You can expect both Princesses to visit in the morning..."

Whipstitch nodded and laid back in her bed again. Hey, Penn!"

The blue unicorn stopped just short of the door, turning to look at her one last time.

"You're a helluva friend."

Pennington simled and winked one more time, then walked out the door.









As silence descended on the room, Whipstitch quietly took up her nightly before-bed ritual. Reaching over to the small table next to her, Whipstitch picked up her precious brush and began pulling it through her hair, starting at pulling it through the lowest ends and slowly working her way up to the roots at her skull. As the fell into the familiar rhythm of brushing, the familiar gentle tugging on her head helped to wash away her cares. The brush itself was relaxing, as well, made from ivory (taken from a post-mortem mammoth), which made it cool to the touch, and sporting bristles made from boar's hair, which helped her to keep her hair glossy and healthy. The most important part of the brush, however, was the small inlays of gypsum on the handle and back, which glimmered in the semi-darkness, both reflecting the moonlight and creating their own light. The gypsum was a small amount taken from her home, where it served the purpose of restraining wild magic, such as the type that had triggered her strange episode.

The silence gave her a sense of serenity as she gently worked her way upwards. She refused to come to terms with what she knew she had done and seen in her memories, but she did take a few minutes to think about the unicorn foal.

His name had been Buzby, and Whipstitch truly couldn't have asked for a better pony to share her love of honey with. He had discovered his talent for beekeeping at a young age, and Whipstitch had been there to see the joy on his face when he had received his cutie mark. He would often take her unnecessarily large samples of his honey for a taste test, often resulting in the two of them eating his entire supply. Whipstitch hadn't known many children during her years in school, but Buzby had been the exception: a kindred spirit in a young child. He was only about a year younger than her, but, they had both been young at the time of "the accident."

She cringed as the brush tugged at a small knot in her hair, creating a small jolt of pain and pulling her out of her reverie. With a few more strokes, she had finished her hair, and moved down to her tail, which was even longer. The process would be much faster, of course, if she simply worked for the sake of her hair. She brushed her hair when most ponies would call it perfectly fine, simply because it was her time to reflect and relax; brushing her hair was Whipstitch's personal time, and as intimate a moment as she could have by herself.

She had always known what had happened to Buzby, it was no mystery that, against her orders, he had followed her to the cave where she exiled herself during her... "episodes." Until now, though, the memories of what had actually happened had been lost in the deepest reaches of her subconscious, tucked away in the mind of the monster, whom Pennington had jokingly dubbed "Spiderstitch."

Buzby's death, however, had been no laughing matter. Whipstitch had been the one to find his body, of course, almost a week later. It had been the most horrifying experience of her life, but she brought a desperate search by his parents to an end... She would never be able to stop the shame from the moment that she had to tell her grandmother, Gilded Filigree, the truth of what had happened, nor the guilt that she had felt when she had watched her grandmother speaking quietly with Buzby's parents, their faces showing every ounce of their devastation. Ponies in Fairytrail were usually very understanding of each others "problems," but as word invariably spread, Whipstitch had been shunned by her classmates, and only a few of the most understanding adults had been willing to try to comfort her. After Buzby had died, several of his bees had begun to stay around Whipstitch, and she had gladly welcomed them as some form of his memory...

Tears dripped down from her eyes and onto the fine hairs of her tail as she slowly finished brushing, once again placing her brush down on the table. She sniffled loudly, knowing that she was very much alone in the room, and quietly climbed back under the covers of her bed. As she stared up at the moon, a new thought crossed her mind, one that she hadn't realized until now.

How did my hairbrush get in here? I left all of my things in the Grand Hall! As she looked over again, she could see that it was, indeed, still there, as if magically summoned to her side when the time came that she needed it. She pulled her face into a melancholy smile as she realized the source.

Lesson One: Perception... I simply expected it to be there, and so it was. I didn't even turn my head to look at it...

With the quiet assurance that, despite her past, the chaos of the universe seemed to be watching out for her, she quietly drifted off to sleep.








True to Pennington's word, the Princesses both came to visit Whipstitch in the morning. Luna visited first, checking in quickly to make sure that Whipstitch was safe and sound. She didn't ask many questions, understanding that every pony had their secrets better than most, and simply inquired about her injuries. Their interaction was light and brief, and ended with Whipstitch mentioning that if they didn't let her out of the hospital by sunset, she would break out, herself. Luna had laughed, nodded silently, and promised her freedom soon.

Celestia was more personal in her visit. She walked into the hospital room with a warm smile on her face, quickly sitting next to her cot.

"Well, I'm glad to see that you're alright, Whipstitch..." She said quietly, opening the conversation. "I've been told that you'll be out of that bed by nightfall."

"Yep! Back to work!" She chirped in return, tugging anxiously at the covers she was laying under.

"Are you sure that you're ready for that?" Celestia asked, leaning forward with a concerned look. "Most ponies would call that a traumatic experience..."

Whipstitch rolled her eyes and shook her head, putting on a happy smile. "I've been through much worse. Trust me, it takes a lot to scare me!"

Princess Celestia didn't seem convinced, but seemed to let Whipstitch's optimism outweigh her skepticism. "Well, if you're quite sure..."

"Princess... I can have all three finished by today!" Whipstitch winked and chuckled. "In reality, this is almost exactly what I needed to finish all off this! The finest thread in all of Equestria couldn't repair those tapestries to their full glory, but a few locks of Threadmane hair can!"

Celestia blinked quietly to herself. "Threadmane... I know that I've heard that before. It's a name that I haven't heard in many years, though..."

"Threadmane was my ancestor." Whipstitch smiled, happy in the fact that she knew something that the all-powerful Princess didn't. "She was Fairytrail's protector when Discord ruled Equestria, and saved the entire city from being wiped off of the map!"

Princess Celestia's face lit up with recognition. "Of course! Fairytrail! How could I have forgotten?"

Whipstitch smiled, remembering her city's rich history. She frowned, though, as Celestia grew more serious and somber again.

"Now, Whipstitch, I would understand perfectly if you didn't want to carry on... You could go back to Ponyville and no pony would mind."

"Princess, please! I told you, I'm fine!" Whipstitch bounced up and down in the bed to show her exuberance. "If it weren't for that pesky Doctor trying to ram stuff down my throat or shoot me up with heaven-knows-what, I'd be out of here right now!"

Celestia raised a questioning eyebrow as she looked to the doors, as if expecting the medical practitioner to walk through them at any moment. "You know, you're not the only one around here recently who's disliked being under medical care..."

"Well, that's because some of us are just a little more prone to being on the move, a little more chaotic!" Whipstitch folded her front legs across her chest, which still had a small wrapping of bandages across it. "And I'm undoubtedly one of them..."

Celestia looked at her once again, this time with a mix of suspicion and surprise. "What... makes you say that? Chaotic?"

"Well... wouldn't you describe yesterday as chaos?" Whipstitch realized that her slip of the tongue had nearly caused her to expose her meeting with Eclipse. "I mean, you had to bring up Pennington from Ponyville, I'm sure that everyone here was panicking, and almost no one had any idea what was going on, right?"

Celestia nodded quietly, but Whipstitch could swear that she saw a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"Indeed... There's been a lot of chaos around here, lately..."











Whipstitch smiled widely as she stepped into the grand hall, treading gently over the masses of hair left over from the day before. Just as a good friend would, Pennington had made arrangements for the hair not to be cleaned up, but left as it was, which was exactly what she needed.

"So, how exactly does this work?" Luna asked as she and her sister stepped into the room, as well. "You told us that this hair had magical properties, but nothing more..."

"Well, your highness, it's simple!" Whipstitch was nearly giddy as she pulled out two matching pieces of tapestry from beneath the black hair, levitating them in the air, putting them end-to-end to line up the torn parts. "You see, I come from a lineage of very special ponies! Threadmane's descendants, specifically the females of the family, all inherited a part of her in their hair! If it is cut or taken by artificial means, then it's just ordinary hair, like any other pony. But... if it falls out naturally..." As she spoke, she pulled a very special needle, usually reserved for an occasion like this, out from her saddlebag and lifted up a single thread of hair. "...then it contains a very special magic that can be as different as the pony it comes from."

Without any more words, she threaded the needle, tied a knot in the hair to make the stitch stay, and ran it through both halves of the ancient tapestry, pulling them together. When the sewing was complete, Whipstitch stepped back, already threading new hair through two more needles.

The first piece of hair began to glow with a radiant white light, even as Whipstitch ran another through alongside and around it. There was a light musical note that began to ring through the air as she continued to work, diligently spinning and weaving the threads into both the tapestries and one another. As the glow grew- to near blinding, the resonating note began to shift and morph without any kind of melody, as if somepony were moving the tone up and down with no purpose. Whipstitch had closed her eyes at this point, quietly humming to herself in tune with the note as she worked with five needles at once, both stabbing and pulling at the delicate tapestry to bring the two halves together. In a massive flash, Celestia and Luna were forced to look away. The note came to piercing peak, then faded to a low hum as the light faded away, allowing the princesses to open their eyes again. Their jaws nearly dropped as they took in what lay before them: The tapestry had not only been repaired, looking as if it had never been torn, but completely restored, to the point where it looked as if it had just come off of the loom! When Whipstitch opened her eyes, she gave a smug grin at the vibrantly restored colors and neatly hemmed edges.

"And that's just the beginning..." She muttered as more needles, already threaded with her glowing hair, floated into the air around her. All together, they darted away, seemingly of their own accord, and set to work on the other tapestries. The glow built up to blinding more quickly this time, and this time several note rang out, producing a strange harmony that reminded them of a chorus of ponies running their hooves along the rim of a wine glass. Through their eyelids, they could see flashes of light all around them, and the songlike sound penetrated them to their core.

When they were finally able to open their eyes, their jaws dropped. Not only had the other torn tapestries been repaired and restored, but the newness and vivacity had spread to every tapestry in the hall, creating a brighter and more cheery display than had been seen in hundreds of years. The marble floor and maroon carpet under their hooves was positively sparkling, and every surface in the room (even the ones still buried under hair, they would later discover) had been restored to a shimmering sheen as if they were brand new.

"Threadmane was a seamstress, the best who ever lived. Our family motto is, 'Anything can be sewn!'" Whipstitch smiled, feeling more than smug at the obvious impression that she had left, both on the room and on the Princesses.

Celestia and Luna both looked at one another, then at Whipstitch.

"You know... Just when I think that I've seen everything... something like this happens." Celestia smiled, then began to quietly laugh to herself. Soon, she was joined by Luna, who nodded in agreement. After a few seconds, Whipstitch burst into laughter as well, and the three of them simply stood and laughed for a moment, releasing all of the pressure of the past few days at once.

"Whipstitch, you will be well rewarded. This work of magic is absolutely priceless..." Celestia smiled as she took a closer look at the tapestries.

"Well, your highness... What I really need is a way to get all of this hair home for other repairs!"

At Whipstitch's words, the laughter started anew.