//------------------------------// // Epilogue // Story: Air // by chrumsum //------------------------------// “—multiple reported casualties from the authorities, the suspects were neither apprehended nor killed, and the group continues to evade capture as Equestria struggles to regain balance after the violence that has since upset the nation.” The newspony, barely moving his head as he shuffled the papers at his desk, looked back to the camera. The professional grimness did not leave his face as he continued. “This outbreak of conflict now marks Equestria as only a sporadic event, as today marks the second week since the arrest of Trixie Lulamoon, CEO of Lulamoon Technologies, by insurgents composed in part by several Element Bearers. Despite the attack on new government outposts by the corporation’s forces, the STF, trial proceedings are still underway. Charges being brought to bear against Lulamoon herself include treason, conspiracy, and murder, among others. “Canterlot finds itself in an uneasy peace, as despite the toppling of the provisionary government, the future of Equestria remains unclear, though reports have confirmed that talks between the Equestrian diarchy and the Gryphon—” “Turn that off, dear. It’s giving me a headache.” Wincing, Softheart took the remote in her mouth and silenced the reporter mid-sentence. The uneasy beeping and humming of the hospital room immediately took its place. “Sorry,” she mumbled awkwardly to Drip. She joined her by the hospital bed. Her coworker, a lanky unicorn, leaned against the cart they had brought, as tired as she from the long shift. It almost seemed that without it, her thin frame would collapse under its own weight. Shrugging off the fatigue, she returned her attention to the patient. “No need to apologise, dear.” She busied herself with replacing the patient’s IV bag as she talked. “I just don’t want somepony reminding me of how many bullet wounds I’ve had to deal with these past weeks.” “At least it’s over,” offered Softheart, watching Drip work. Her eyes noted every movement. Despite her fragile appearance, Drip moved efficiently, each motion rehearsed through long nights and frantic shifts. When the other nurses had told her that Drip was one of the best on staff, they hadn’t been exaggerating. Softheart could only hope to meet her abilities even halfway. That is, if she managed to keep this job. “For now, dearie. For now.” She wiped her brow and motioned to the anesthetic machine demurely beeping beside the patient’s bed. “Could you check her vitals, please?” Softheart consulted the readouts, focusing intently on the flickering numbers. It took her longer than she wanted to admit to determine which was which at a glance. She blushed. Note to self: memorize the order of the numbers. “Everything looks good,” she said, barely keeping her voice from quivering. “Respiratory rate is a little low, though.” “That’s fine.” Drip pulled back the blue-and-white checkered sheets to examine the patient, handling her as if she were a glass doll. Softheart couldn’t help but stare. The pony’s emaciated frame was almost grotesque, amplified by her dull, matted fur. “This one’s always been a slow breather. She’s been here for a while, and there’s not much we can do to make it change. Just let her rest.” Softheart raised an eyebrow, giving the patient a sideways glance. “Is she awake?” Drip shrugged and turned her attention to the bedsheets. “I don’t know, dear. She’s been here an awfully long time, and I’ve never gotten her to say anything. I’m not sure she can hear us.” “Is she comatose?” “No, she’s just…” Drip looked upwards, trying to find the right words. “She’s tired. Very, very tired. Poor dear.” “Strange.” Softheart picked up the chart attached to the foot of the patient’s bed. She skimmed its contents, and her brow furrowed. She held it up to Drip. “Miss Drip, is this chart correct?” The nurse only briefly glanced at the chart before returning to cleaning the patient’s bed. “Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?” “But that means this patient has been here for over twenty years.” Drip rolled the covers back up to the patient’s chest, carefully placing her forelegs so that they rested on top of it. She scratched the back of her neck, peering at Softheart through the loose strands of mane that escaped her tight bun. “Has it been twenty years already? My, my, how time flies. I still remember when she was first checked in.” She pointed to Softheart. “I was about as new as you were. My first week, in fact. And she’s been here ever since.” Softheart slowly lowered the chart. The patient, still in her bed, seemed nearly statuesque, the wrinkles on her face carved sad and lonely. Only the slight lowering and rising of the covers gave her away as one of the living. There was some distant, unplaceable sorrow in her eyes, as if staring at a grave. For some strange reason, that vacant look was more terrifying than the numb, twisted agony that she’d seen so many times these past weeks. “Does she get any visitors?” she asked, forcing herself to look away. “Her daughter. She comes to visit now and again. Sits here for hours just talking with her. An angel. She’s lucky to have her.” Drip sighed to herself, propping up the pillows beneath the patient’s neck and gently brushing the her mane to the side. Softheard nodded absentmindedly. She hooked the chart back onto the bed, watching Drip as she finished her duties. Satisfied with her work, Drip pushed the cart towards the hallway and motioned for Softheart to follow. Softheart paused, looking to the patient, then to the large window overlooking her bed, letting sunlight stream across the room as it bounced across the white rooftops of Canterlot. It seemed as if the sky itself was watching over her. “Dearie, we still have the rest of the floor to do. Come now.” She flinched, snapping out of her trance and fumbling to catch up with Drip. “Sorry, Miss Drip. I was… Sorry.” Drip chuckled, shaking her head as she wheeled the cart out of the room. “You need to loosen up, dearie. There’s no need to apologize so much. “Sorry,” Softheart blurted, before flushing a deep red. It earned a laugh from Drip. “Relax, child. No need to be so tense. You’re doing just fine.” There was a twinkle in her eye when she gave Softheart a friendly nudge. “You’re going to make for one heck of a nurse.” Softheart blushed even deeper, but a smile slipped across her face. “Thank you, Miss Drip.” She gave the patient one last look over her shoulder before letting the door shut behind her. *** The hospital room, now empty of nurses and medical staff, fell to its usual rhythm. The muted beeping of the anesthetic machine and the slow, measured breathing of the patient suspended in the silence. The patient did not move. Her eyes were deathly still, fixed on some invisible spot on the wall before her that only she could see. Under the glaring, sterile light of the sun, she waited, waited as she always had. A shadow crossed her face, and there was a rustle of feathers at the window. Slowly, a glass pane creaked open. She didn’t make the slightest motion to show she’d heard the intruder. Instead she only distantly heard hooves as they touched down on the laminate tiles with a precise click. There were no further sounds, no further hoofsteps, and it wasn’t long before she reasoned to herself that her mind had once more played tricks on her. But then they came again, slow, deliberate. This time she was certain. She closed her eyes, her breath catching with every step closer to her bedside. With it came the sound of his breathing: rapid and nervous. His shadow came over her, but its presence was meek and uncomfortable. For a long time he stood there, uncertain. He placed a trembling hoof beside her head, touching her mane. That was when she smelled him. When she did, she knew. Faces, voices, and even names change. But that smell would never leave her. As long as it had been, she had not forgotten it. She opened her eyes, and the light blurred her vision, leaving her with only a hazy image. His body tensed against the bed. He knew she was awake, and when he spoke, and his voice cracked on the word. “Mom?” A feeble smile crept across her face. “Pound Cake. My little boy.” Pound tried to speak, but his voice caught. Whatever words he tried to summon came as a measly croak. Slowly, Cup Cake reached up for his face. Her frail, thin arm hovered hesitantly in the air, too weak to reach higher. Pound Cake took it and pressed it against his cheek. Feeling her son’s warmth against her hoof once more stirred something inside her, and she couldn’t keep the tears from welling in her eyes. Her vision sharpened, and she saw his face. “Pound Cake…” She just barely managed to shake her head in disbelief. Her eyes flickered over his face, his shoulders, drinking in every detail that had evolved in twenty long, empty years. His broad, powerful frame etched in the sunlight seemed so vulnerable somehow. “You look so much like your father. You have his eyes. So handsome.” His lips quivered, and he tightened his grip on his mother’s hoof, holding it close. Glittering in the sunlight, his tears fell against the covers with a muted pat pat. “Mom, I—” He tried to speak once again, but the sobs overcame him. Like a crumbling tower, he collapsed at her bedside, his strength failing him. Croaking, the only words that could ever matter finally came. “I… I missed you so much. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Running a hoof through his tangled mane, Cup Cake whispered gentle comfort. “It’s alright,” she murmured. “It’s alright. I missed you too.” “I never came.” He buried his head in the side of her chest. “I was so scared and ashamed that I never came. I ran away and didn’t look back. I’m sorry. But it’s over now.” There was nothing further said. Holding him to her, Cup Cake stared at the ceiling, humming and coddling him. In every choking sob that wracked him, she felt pain. A bottomless, unfathomable pain that had remained stifled and bottled away for far too long. It had eaten at him, gnawed at him, left him a husk. But it had also made him strong. It had brought him here. And so she let him cry. She let him curl beside her on what little room she had on her bedside, a grown stallion weeping into the sides of a weakened mare. She held him and stroked him and let the void that had formed inside them both fill. Cup Cake closed her eyes, slowing her breathing as if it could draw the moment out forever. Long after the tears had ebbed, the two of them lay silent in the stillness of the hospital room. The only sound was that of their breathing, and the muffled electronic and organic conversation of the hospital halls. “There’s so much I have to tell you,” Pound Cake finally said, his voice dry and cracking with exhaustion. “There’s time for that, Pound Cake.” She closed her eyes as she spoke. “All the time in the world.” A weight lifted itself from her shoulders. Time. For the first time in so long, the word tasted sweet. Now it meant something more. It meant hope. “I fought… so hard.” Pound pushed himself upright, placing his hooves at the edge of the bed so that he could look into his mother’s eyes. “I never meant for any of this to happen. I didn’t want it to happen. Everything’s fallen apart so many times and I’m…” His voice trailed off, and his eyes lowered. “I’m so tired of losing and of seeing death and pain. I can’t force myself to believe that it’s all over now.” Cup Cake smiled, touching a tender hoof to his cheeks. “It’s over now, sweetie. It’s okay to be tired.” A shadow crossed his face, and Pound Cake shied from her touch. He stood, and when he walked he was as an old pony, burdened with the weight of age and experience. He couldn’t keep his voice from trembling. “It’s over because… Because I made it end. Because I’m the one who stopped her. Lulamoon.” There was a moment of silence as Cup Cake digested the words. She looked briefly to the TV, then back to her son. It had once been background noise, a noise that brought more pain than pleasure in the past month. The image of her daughter’s face had floated there, dreamlike, with accusations of horror and violence. Now, however, the noises added up. “You were with them, weren’t you?” she asked. “Applejack. Rainbow Dash. You stopped this. Oh, Pound Cake…” “I keep being told I’m a hero,” he said sharply. “I have to run to the rooftops to get away from… reporters and journalists. But even that doesn’t even mean anything anymore. Pegasi can fly again. Everything I’ve worked to learn and perfect means nothing. Suddenly everything that was normal is upside down and I don’t know what to think.” Cup Cake said nothing, letting him speak. “Why don’t I feel like a hero?” He turned to face her, and his eyes glistened with confusion and pain. “I’ve paid so much to get here, and now that I’ve made it, I don’t know what I was trying to find in the first place. I can’t sleep at night, not with the things I’ve seen. All the bodies and death. I’m supposed to be free but I’ve never felt so…” He choked up and closed his eyes. “So alone.” Cup Cake’s brow creased with worry, and she patted her bedside. Reluctantly, Pound Cake sat himself beside her. “No one chooses these things.” She rubbed his back soothingly. “They’re chosen for you. Whatever you were searching for all those years you were gone, whatever it led you to, it was not for nothing. It made you so that none but you could have made those sacrifices. No matter what happened, no matter what thoughts you had or what things you had to do, it got you here. It isn’t fair. It can’t be. But in the end the choices you made have saved thousands of lives and freed many more from misery.” His eyes, deep with sorrow, looked into hers, and she held their gaze in a way only a mother could. “You saved everyone without losing yourself, Pound Cake. You’ve given Equestria hope, and whether or not that means nothing to you, it means the world to each and every person you’ve given a future to. And you know what else?” She smiled, and ran the back of her hoof along his cheek. “You’ve got one too, now. And you can’t let what’s happened destroy everything that’s before you.” A weary smile, cautious and fearful, grew upon his face. Pound Cake took his mother in a tight hug. He buried his muzzle into the crook of her neck. “I want to tell you about them. About everything you’ve missed.” “And you will.” She smiled, and her eyes wandered the the window. The sunlight, golden and clear, lit Equestria for endless miles. “We have all the time in the world now.”