//------------------------------//
// XI 
// Story: The Fire and The Flutter 
// by A. Tuesday 
//------------------------------//

	A swoosh was heard. I didn’t pick up my head to look. I now lie down over Fluttershy’s body, and I rested my head on her still-warm body. I didn’t want to talk to anypony ever again, I just wanted to be with her.
A flash of yellow and cerulean flashed in the corner of my watery eyes, a sight I could only associate with Wonderbolts. I heard their voices – they were talking amongst themselves.
“What do we do with her?”
“What do you mean? We ‘cuff her! What are you, stupid?”
“Well, no – but I’m not gonna touch her. I put on hoof on her, I’m finished. I don’t need you picking up my ashes just yet.”
“You are the biggest foal I’ve ever met.”
“Fine, then you do it!”
“That’s not what I meant – it’s, um – it’s YOUR job, actually.”
“Gentlecolts, please.”
This last voice came from regality, not like the backwoods accent the Wonderbolts had. The step of approaching gilded hooves reminded me of the tavern I would never, ever work at again.
I looked up, feeling a dried stream of tears down my face. The Sun Princess stood about five feet away from Fluttershy and I, with that same purple mare at her side. I felt the Wonderbolts beside me kneel. “Yes, your majesty,” they said unanimously.
The purple mare had water in her eyes, which were as wide as dinner plates. “Fluttershy!” she exclaimed, and knees buckling, fell to the ground. This must’ve been one of her friends from Ponyville.
With great pain, both physical and heartfelt, I backed about two steps away from Fluttershy, enough for the unicorn in front of me to comfortably sit over Fluttershy and mourn her. I heard her muffled sobs as she buried her head in Fluttershy’s fur.
“Oh, Fluttershy…” was heard. She looked up, grief-stricken and red-eyed. “What – what happened to her?”
The Princess had been looking down at the mare beside her. “I think I may know, my student.” She turned to me, and as I looked at her, I saw that she seemed to be a mostly gentle princess – but, today, I heard no such thing. Her glare made my heart somehow heavier than it already was.
The poor mare looked to me. “Wh-what…why…oh, Fluttershy….why….why is she like this?” She could barely contain herself as she broke into tears.
I sighed massively. I didn’t think I could shed any more tears than I already had. “I…I can tell you,” I said, “But…we need to get her someplace first. A hospital. She needs a doctor’s care.”
Celestia slowly nodded. “A wise decision.”
The purple unicorn continued sobbing.

As the three of us entered the hospital, the doctors already seemed to know what happened. Once they were done bowing down to the Princess, they magically carried Fluttershy away, with another doctor behind the one carrying my friend leading us the same way.
The white walls reminded me of earlier that day, with Fluttershy telling me that there was no reason to leave me, whatsoever. Well, I owed her, a whole lot. And I had absolutely no reason to leave her.
Night turned into a darker night, as 3 doctors, a deceased pegasus, the Princess herself, and two other mares entered a small room. They worked seamlessly, gently laying Fluttershy down, then scanning her over. Burns here, blisters here, bruises here – I almost turned away. I couldn’t bear to see my friend examined like this.
They took notes on clipboards, covered all but her upper half in a sheet, as if she was sleeping. If only she truly was…
The purple mare, which from Fluttershy’s description I figured was Twilight, had just been staring, unbelievably tired, at Fluttershy, and now I heard her sniffling. Crying again. I couldn’t blame her. The Princess herself stood and watched in sorrow, as the doctors went about their ways.
I felt the need to ask a question to the doctors, but I didn’t want to do it in earshot of the two ponies in my company, for my own various reasons. Not to upset Twilight even more, and not to let the Princess know if I had any part in her death. Also, to hide any cracking in my voice.
I approached one of the doctors scribbling things on their clipboard. I put a hoof on his shoulder. “Doctor?” I mumbled.
He looked at me, went wide-eyed for a second, then returned to his original state. I guess he figured there was too much going on for me to be the vicious pony I was. “Yes?” he replied softly.
I couldn’t figure out how to ask the question, at all. Finally, words came out. “How….how did she die, doctor?”
The doctor sighed, and flipped through his clipboard. Still reading, he said to me, “I’m not 100% sure, but if I had to guess, it’d be somewhere along the lines of the spine. It’s either shattered or broken or somewhere along those lines – we’d need to get her to an X-ray to be sure. A coroner would be able to tell you.” Turning to one of his assistants: “Nurse, could you get the coroner over here?”
“Right away, doctor.” She began to leave the room.
“No, wait! Hold on a second!”
The voice came from a whole different pony. All heads in the room, mine included, turned to a nurse leaning over Fluttershy, her ear pressed to my pink-maned companion. 
The lead doctor asked, “What is it? Is she alive?”
My heart skipped a beat. The nurse picked her head up and clasped one of Fluttershy’s hooves in her two. She made a tough contemplating face. “It’s…it’s hard to tell. I’m not sure if that’s actually MY pulse I’m feeling, it’s so faint. And I can’t see her breathing, or if she is, she’s not raising her stomach like anypony would.”
The doctor put a hoof to his chin, in thought. “Let’s hook her up to a heart monitor,” he suggested, “Just to clear things up.”
All eyes were trained on the doctors as they hooked up a heart monitor to Fluttershy like it was choreographed. One of them wheeled in the machine, which was basically a computer nailed into a hat rack, while another took the cords attached to it, and handed them to another pony. That pony, with surgical precision, inserted them into Fluttershy’s arms. 
The last one plugged in the device, and almost instantly, the screen turned to a black, signaling that it was on. 
We all watched in apprehension, as the machine whirred to life, but the screen remained the same.
Silence in the room, as some statistics came up. 
Then, a flat line.
It continued moving to the right, so slowly.
But, the left end of it was raised.
As it kept going, everypony in the room soon saw that it was going in the shape of a hill, with a beep signaling every time it reached its maximum.
It was measuring her heartbeat.
Her heart was beating.
Somehow, by some miracle, Fluttershy was alive.
I couldn’t speak or move. I stared in joyous, silence as my still-alive friend slept in peaceful comatose.