//------------------------------// // 16 // Story: The Inconveniencing Adventures of a Washout Kicker // by IC1s5 //------------------------------// 16 Somepony was calling his name from a million miles away. It was enough to make the darkness part and let light flush back into his eyes. Everything was blurry and indistinct. “Spray....Spray....?” Focus returned. Somepony was leaning in close to him. A worried look was on her face. Spray found himself smiling. “Spray?” Coral asked. “Hey,” he croaked. He gave the widest grin his tortured face could manage. She leaned in to nuzzle him. It felt so good to feel her fur again, inhale the lingering scent of strawberries that reminded him of her. “Yeah,” Spray said, “gimme some sugar, baby.” They were joined by a third head, protruding from the bed next to his. “I like sugar,” it said. Coral screamed. The head quickly vanished, pressed back down against a bed. Mumbled apologies were offered. The head continued to babble. “Mace! You need to lie down!” “I don’t feel so bad....” “You’re really hurt!” “Feel groovy, baby!” Pinion grinned widely and blushed. “He’s had his bell rung, a little.” “With what?” Coral asked. “He’s had a bad day,” Pinion weakly chuckled. Mace stared at them with wide eyes, drool forming at a corner of his mouth. Any sign of intelligence drained out of his face. The veritable picture of health by his limited standards. “Mace you need to lie down, and...forget the fifty bits I owe you.” “Fifty bits,” Mace slurred. “Yes! Oh, and you’re buying the next...ten rounds. You want the good stuff, remember?” “Okay.” Mace’s head swung around on his neck. “Yeah. None of the watery cheap stuff, all right?” “No prob,” Mace said. Spray took a moment to look around to see where he had ended up. He wasn’t being eaten alive, so he surmised that he hadn’t fallen into the hooves of the Silver nation. Fort Lancer’s infirmary was small, smelling both sharply of antiseptics and comfortingly of musk. An IV ran into his left foreleg. He noticed that Velvet was straight across from him, a lavender unicorn filly and blue stallion sitting next to her. Captain Shining Armour was attempting to look professional, but a certain giddiness escaped his face. A clock in the wall reported that it was well into the evening. Two long days: it felt like decades had passed. Spray didn’t feel awake so much as reborn. Velvet was studying her present, a helmet autographed by the ponies at Fort Lancer. Apparently this was the greatest honour that could ever be afforded onto her. Any medal issued by Celestia would pale in comparison. She turned it around and around again, amazed by how many ponies had signed it. Thunder was right behind Coral. He had a big smile on his face. “Word to the wise,” Thunder said, “you don’t hang around the ponies you think you’ve killed, on account of sometimes it’s hard to know if they’re really dead.” Spray nodded. “I see the wisdom in that.” “But I must say,” Thunder said, taking a seat next to his nephew, “for somepony who came in second to last in your class, you really held your own. Especially given how you were on your bad wing. I almost didn’t need to help you.” “Did he...?” Coral began to ask. “I took him down. Don’t worry. Still the sweet, gentle colt.” Thunder glimpsed at Spray’s chart, on a clipboard above his bed. “Concussion, light wing trauma, major wing trauma, dehydrated and exhausted. You really took a beating out there.” “I must have been a real weakling, compared to what you’ve been through.” “Not really,” Thunder said. “When I was your age I wound up in a hospital bed, with wounds not entirely unlike yours.” “Battle?” Spray asked. “Leave at Los Pegasus. One of those weekends you don’t forget---thank Celestia I can’t remember!” Spray laughed. Not taking to the family trade was looking more and more like a good thing. He didn’t know how much of this he could have survived. “I pulled through too, chief!” Mace called. He excitedly waved his hoof. Thunder closed his eyes and sighed. “My cup runs over.” Celestia walked in to the sound of the clanking of her personal guard’s armour. Immediately all ponies not confined to their sickbeds got down on their front legs. “Princess on...!” Mace yelled, trying to leap to his hooves. Pinion wrestled him back down onto the bed. “Mace!” Pinion moaned. For a moment Mace’s hospital gown had slipped. Celestia did not display any emotion at seeing another set of.... royal jewels would a suitable euphemism. Pinion frantically tried to help Mace recover his dignity. That was the pony Luna advised me about. Can’t say I have the inclination to banish him to the sun...yet. Normally her favourite student would be on her like an excited parasprite on pie. Twilight smiled from beside the bedside of her mother. She returned it, pleased that her mother had come through all right. It would have been horrible if Celestia was deprived of the latest volume of Velvet’s stories...and her student’s mother, too, of course. “I see that we’ve gained some new guests,” she said. “Your highness,” Shining Armour said, “I have abused my position and let civilians into a sensitive military installation. Clearly, I am irredeemably corrupt, and I must beg you to accept my resignation.” “Denied.” “Well, I tried,” Shining Armour said. “We were not expecting you,” Thunder said, trying to find new and exciting ways of making Mace’s life miserable behind the privacy of his mind. “I decided the matter was serious enough to merit my presence,” Celestia said. “What happens now?” Velvet asked from her bed. “The water rights negotiation council has expressed surprise at this unexpected and highly unauthorized incursion of Equestria. I am stationing yourself and a contingent of guard ponies here to ensure that this misunderstanding is clearly understood, until we get a new barrier in place.” Shining bowed his head. “As long as I don’t wind up back here again in a few months.” “Come now: you think that Canterlot’s finest bakers will fail to produce an excellent wall of cake?” Celestia asked. “Provided we can stop ourselves from snacking on it, of course.” All things considered, Shining thought the situation turned out well enough. Civilians back safely, Silver ponies back on their side of the crumpled barrier. The Silver nation had been repelled, with a fresh reminder of what lay in store if they tried Equestria patience. Something they wouldn’t try again for a long time, if they had any sense. Griffons would tut tut about how Equestria was so stern and punishing to so small a foe, which they would have done anyways. That was foreign affairs problem now. Where Shining hoped it would remain for the rest of his career. The situation here was anything but complete, but he had it underhoof. Manageable, compared to the chaos that had greeted him. The weeks to come would be eventful. The press would want answers, and there would be many long hearings with ministers behind rows of long tables. That was in the future. For now, they could bask in triumph. “I’m buying,” Mace said. “Buying for the world!” “Luna and he...?” Celestia asked. “Yes. Yes your majesty,” Thunder groaned. Celestia knelt down to whisper in Thunder’s ear, “Cerberus clean up crew needs a couple of new ponies.” Thunder nodded. Celestia walked out of the room, leaving Thunder more time with his nephew. “You did good,” Thunder said. “I would have been proud to have you serving under me.” “Don’t expect me to be enlisting anytime soon.” “Wouldn’t take you,” Thunder said. “Don’t belong there.” He gave his nephew a pat on the good part of his shoulder. “I am glad you made it back,” Thunder said. “The rest of the clan will be too. They’ll be proud. Even Herald. Maybe.” The doctor pony standing behind Thunder cleared his throat. “Thanks,” Spray said, as everypony but he and Velvet were ushered out. Shining almost had to use magic to drag his sister out of the room. The sudden quiet was welcome. “Well,” Velvet said, “we’ve had a time.” Granted, the last time she had a good adventure she was a younger pony. A more flexible pony: her joints were not going to forgive her anytime soon. She had never faced danger up close before, and she believed that Daring Do, if she was real, would have never forgiven her lack of courage. Daring Do never had foals, Velvet reminded herself. Let’s see her try that. “I’ll say.” The bed could have been made of solid stone and Spray would have all but melted over it like butter on toast. “How do you feel, love?” Velvet asked. “Pretty good,” Spray said. Safe, on his way home. “It’s over now,” Velvet said. Confirming it. After the way things had been, it was surprising that it was finally over. She was almost too afraid to go to sleep, for fear of waking up in a pit of snakes. “Inspired?” Spray asked. Velvet nodded. Velvet wasn’t sure what she was going to write, at least not right away. Too many things were swirling through her head. Too many ideas. She probably would never experience writer’s block ever again---would that the education had been less dramatic. Bright Star and the other dead ponies haunted her. Adventures in the real world never would match the comfortable sterility of adventures on the page. “The revenge of Old Tom,” Spray said, head settling onto the pillow. There was a painting in that. The long, tortured desert vista with a fringe of green and blue teasingly on the horizon. Distant, reachable only after a long journey and considerable trial. If he wasn’t so exhausted he would have gotten straight up and got to work. "Old Tom can kiss my flank,” Mace babbled. “You said it, buddy.”