//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: Windcatcher // by Makitk //------------------------------// "I woke up again laying on my back in a hospital bed, my broken left wing extended to my side with a splint keeping it open. Light was shining in through a window on the left side of the bed, and I could see some bright colors through it. Fantastical bright colors. "Oh, you're finally awake then?", I heard Windcatcher say, and turned my head to look at an empty bed beside my own. I looked around the room, but beside the two beds, two bedside cabinets, some drapes hanging from the ceiling to allow privacy between the beds, and a currently unused heart monitor on a cart in a corner of the room, the room was empty. "Yeah, you're not going to find me there," Windcatcher sighed, and I realized the voice was coming from behind me. Where there was the bed. And no room for anypony to be at. "How," I started, and raised a hoof to my muzzle at hearing Windcatcher's voice coming from myself again. "I don't know," Windcatcher sighed, and I felt my ear flick as I finally realized the sound was coming from inside my head. I looked down at my/Windcatcher's hoof and tried to piece everything together. "I'm.. you?" "Yeah." "And you're in my head?" "My head, but yes." I swallowed and tried very hard to focus on the soft fur lining my hoof instead of on the panic that started to rise from somewhere deep inside. "Keep calm," Windcatcher warned, and I nodded slowly while I felt myself starting to lose control. "I know." "Keep calm, now," Windcatcher continued, raising her voice slightly as the tingling of my panic building rippled through my pony body. "I know!" I exclaimed, trying to fight back the tears that sprang into my eyes. "Keep calm!!" Windcatcher shouted, half in a panic herself now, and I whined out loudly as I punched the bed beside me with my forehoof. "I KNOW!" "Know what, dear?", a white pony cut through our rising fear, taking me totally off guard. I blinked incredulously at her, looking up at the small nurse's hat she wore on her pink mane, and down to her flank where a red cross was present with a syringe crossing behind it. "I," I started, then closed my mouth and looked at the cart she was pushing ahead of her with her nose. "How are we feeling today?", the nurse continued without a hitch. "It's good to see you regained consciousness. You've been asleep since they brought you in yesterday." "At least one of us was," Windcatcher grumbled in the back of my head, and I flicked an ear at her voice. "Yesterday?", I asked, and the nurse nodded. "How is your wing feeling? You have multiple hairline fractures, you know? Your friends didn't tell us what happened." "Er.. something heavy fell on it?", I replied, watching the nurse take a plate off of the cart with her mouth and move it over to drop it on my lap. "Well, it's a good thing you were brought here," the nurse continued after releasing the plate. "Doctor Greenflank is the foremost authority when it comes to splinting wings outside of Cloudsdale." "I.. er.. ok?", I stammered, looking down at the food on the plate. There was some red jelly off to the side, and some vegetables mixed in with.. some type of oats. And there was even a flower sticking out of the dish! "What time is it?", I asked, and the nurse smiled up at me. "Lunchtime, of course. It's just a few minutes past noon." "You could have expected that answer," Windcatcher muttered at me, as the nurse moved to push her cart back out of the room. "I'll let the doctor know you're awake," she spoke before the door closed behind her, leaving me and Windcatcher alone again. "It could have been dinnertime," I sighed, staring at the flower. It looked like a daffodil. "Why would they put a daffodil in with the rest of this.. whatever this dish is supposed to be, anyway?" "Because daffodils are part of a nutritional meal, of course," Windcatcher snorted. "Ok, hang on.. I'm supposed to eat this flower?" "Er, duh.." I stared at the flower in sudden disgust at the idea. "I'm not sure I'm liking that idea.. I'm a human, you know? We don't usually eat flowers." "No, you're not," Windcatcher decided, sounding very definite about it. I looked sideways at my bandaged-up wing, then waved a hoof around in mid-air, and finally sighed. "Ok, so I'm not a human anymore." "And I'm not in control of my own body anymore," Windcatcher returned, making me feel a bit awkward. "I don't even know how this happened," I whined. "You said I should hold onto you, then there was a flash, and then.. er.." "Then you fainted." "I guess." "All I did was say the return spell that Triple Lightning had taught me," Windcatcher muttered, "I never meant for this to happen. I just wanted to help you as you had helped me." I smiled lightly at that remark. "I'm glad you appreciated my attempt to help you." "I did, yes. If you hadn't, I would have had to take that entire box back with me to Equestria.." I found myself imagining Windcatcher suddenly appearing in a library with a stack full of books from a different world, unable to move it off of her without help. "You'd still be stuck then." Windcatcher snorted at that and I caught myself moving my head to look behind me as she spoke. "Triple Lightning could've freed me, of course! She's a unicorn, it's not that difficult for her to levitate things." I felt myself blush lightly as I had already forgotten about the whole magic thing. "Oh, right. So why didn't you just do that then? I mean, I saw how scared you was when you first saw me. You could've just disappeared and left me standing in an empty room." I felt Windcatcher's blush, even if she was just a voice in my mind. "Well?", I pressed, and she sighed out. The following moment I found myself having a flashback to the day before. It was quite literally a flashback, in that it started with a flash which put me in the dusty storeroom with its single lightbulb dangling from the ceiling above. I had to secure my hoofing a bit, the teleportation into the other realm having made me feel dizzy, and I felt myself hesitate as I took in the strangeness of the place and the darkness of the colors. My home, Equestria, had far brighter colors, and few dark and cramp places like this. I started off through the corridor I had appeared in, flicking my tail idly behind me. The moment after my tail hit one particular stack of boxes, I felt it shift and it slid sideways towards me! I jumped aside, wings spreading out for me to fly up into the air in the limited room I had, but then the top box just crashed into my left wing, pinning me to the floor and sending a searing pain through me! I let out a whimper, trying to recollect myself, but then heard a girl's voice shout "Hey! Hey, I think someone got hurt in there!". Blind panic overcame me, and I tried to tug my wing out from under the box, until I heard the door open and close. I just froze in place. I didn't know what to do! Triple Lightning had warned me that there would be humans in this realm, and that not all of them would be nice. If I were really quiet, would they turn back out of the room again? As the footsteps approached, I realized my luck had ran out and just braced for the inevitable. The human didn't fully approach, backing away a moment as she saw me, and I looked down and away as I realized how weak I must have looked to her. I tried tugging my wing out from under the heavy box, but it just didn't give even an inch. And then she spoke up again. "Hey," she started, her voice ringing through the small room and hurting my ears, and we both winced. "Er.. do you need help with that?" Even if I did return to Equestria at this point, using Triple Lightning's return spell, I would still need to get the box off of my wing, so I just nodded silently. It was strange to see the human move around on her hind legs to clear the area around me, but I noticed the weight lifting from my wing as she started to dig books out of the big box and put them beside her on the floor. I tried to pull my wing out as soon as I thought the box would give, but it was still stuck. When the human girl finally lifted the box itself up from the floor, I quickly pulled away from it and felt my now useless wing drag over the floor as I did. I quickly turned my head to inspect it, laying the feathers in place as much as I could while trying to move it. It was clearly broken. I would not be able to fly for weeks. "Can I have a look at it?", the girl wondered, disrupting my thoughts, and I quickly looked back at her. My wing had distracted me enough that I had all but forgotten about her! I didn't know if I had to use the return spell or anything, and I could not imagine that a place which filled Triple Lightning with so much fear could have such a nice person living in it. She did look genuinely worried however, and I sighed out with a nod. "Yeah, sure.. why not?" What else could go wrong? Not like I wasn't already crippled. The human leaned in, but kept her hooves to herself. I appreciated that gesture. It made me feel that I made the right decision trusting her. "It doesn't look like you're bleeding. But it does look broken," she offered after a moment, and I snorted at her. For a caring creature, she wasn't really that smart, was she? I had noticed that about the moment my wing wouldn't move anymore. "Mind if I lift it a bit?", the girl continued, moving one of her hooves in front of my face. "I'll be careful?" I decided to nod, but winced as she took hold of my wing and stretched it a bit in a direction it shouldn't have been able to go. Out of frustration, I lifted my hoof and stomped it on the floor. I felt so helpless with the human inspecting my wing, almost like being in the hospital. "No blood there either," the girl revealed, and dropped my wing down beside me before she sat back against another stack. I half expected it to fall, but was glad when it didn't. "What," she started, staring in her lap, but then looked up at me as she continued, "What are you exactly?" Now this was a silly question to ask, really, but I was starting to wonder if I should even answer it. Here I was, all on my own, with no backup from Triple Lightning except for the return spell. My wing was broken, I hadn't even began to look around for the booklet I had come for in the first place, and I had already been seen by a human which we had discussed beforehoof would be a bad thing! I just stared at the ground as I thought about this, my tail flicking idly behind me. I only looked up when I decided to speak, since the girl had been nice enough to help me. "A pony," I offered, but she immediately chuckled as if I had made a joke. "Well, I am!" The gall of that girl, to ridicule me just as I thought she was being nice! "No, I mean.. I can see you're a pony! That's not what I was.. er.. asking," the girl continued, and I raised an eyebrow at her. "But you're a pegasus?", she said, as if that was an uncommon thing in this realm. "And.. you're.. your colors," the girl stammered. What about my colors? "You don't look like the ponies we have here.. and it's," she continued, and then suddenly fell quiet. I found myself staring at her. "Yes, I am a pegasus," I decided, "And of course I don't look like the ponies you got here!" I realized I said the last bit of that sentence too loud as I heard the door to the room open and close, and found myself holding my breath while the human girl did the same. "Anyone in here?", a male voice called out, and I stared at the human in front of me. If she'd been an employee, she would have said something, but she was holding her breath and looked around shiftily. I could perhaps use this girl to my advantage. After all, she could get to higher spots that I, with my lame wing, could not get to anymore. The door creaked as it was opened and closed again, and I heard the male's footsteps create a distance between him and us. "That was close," I found myself sighing out in relief."