Compass had managed to get a few hours' worth of sleep, at least. For now, that would have to be enough.
She was aware that she was probably pushing herself too hard. Scratch that; she was certain that she was pushing herself too far. When this was over, she was going to collapse on a bed and sleep for a year. At the moment, however, the key phrase was "when this was over".
She was not about to allow Tailspin to die because of her failures.
Doc Grey was determined to keep her contained within the infirmary until she had time for a proper examination, but she had acquiesced to having one of the nurses retrieve a copy of the spellbook for Compass to use. The printing presses had been quick to set up, and exact duplication of formatting wasn't a concern as making sure that everything was simply down on paper, so they were being produced quickly.
The diagrams, however, were not being reprinted. They each had to be drawn in by hoof, and that was slowing down production. Most of the copies that got finished were being shuttled out to the delivery staff as soon as the ink was dry. Compass didn't know what the nurse had to do to get her hooves on a finished copy before it could be whisked out the door, but she was infinitely grateful.
There was healing magic written here, but it was written using terms that Compass had never heard before and referenced spells that she had never heard of. She was sure that they were defined at other points in the book, but looking them up just led to more questions, as the cross-references and confusing terms redoubled upon themselves. It was maddening.
It was doubly so because she couldn't use her own magic to turn the pages, or to test out the few things that she thought she had figured out. Every time she attempted to cast a spell, even something as simple as levitation, she felt as though something was drilling into her skull. She was half-convinced that she heard a quiet crackling noise when holding up the glass of water for Tailspin. So now she was reduced to trying to manipulate the papers with her hooves and mouth. She had already torn it three times and dropped it more than she cared to remember.
For the past six hours, while Pith sat at Tailspin's bedside and Spike dozed next to them, she had been in the lobby of the infirmary, sitting at a hastily-scavenged table and poring over the pages. Her memory of the past day was fuzzy, and getting fuzzier every second as the exhaustion deepened. The point immediately after Pith had broken her horn was the worst; her head had been swimming with pure agony and she was in the midst of a nervous breakdown, but she had still managed to find a spell that kept Tailspin alive long enough to reach a real hospital.
More than that, she had cast it. She had cast that spell while being held by a dragon speeding along at unguessable velocities over hostile territory, after having just been attacked by the queen of the changelings. She was not going to surrender to exhaustion.
And, slowly, as she sat at that table and spread the pages out in front of her, something started to unfold. It was slow, oh, so slow; judging by the stars, it took three hours for the basic idea to form. But it was there nonetheless, and getting clearer.
Compass' ability to actually cast spells had been taken from her. She knew that she would have a breakdown about that at some point, but just then, something else was in control. It took that panic and pushed it to one side, considering the situation objectively.
The problem: Tailspin was dying, and she had used up whatever magic she had left in keeping the pegasus alive for this long. The solution: find a healing spell that would restore whatever the changelings had stolen, translate it into something that the medical staff could understand, and do it all within the next few hours, before the patient's heart gave out.
The first step was to find any sort of spell that could solve the problem. Not long ago - as recently as a few hours ago, to be truthful - Compass would have considered this impossible. Not only did her natural magic lend itself more towards navigation than healing, but she had never been particularly accomplished at it. She was valuable to the Intelligence division because she had a natural inclination towards maps and pathfinding, not because she was a great spellcaster. She handled logistics, not medical emergencies.
Adding in the destruction of her own horn, one eye being swollen shut, and the crushing exhaustion just made it seem all the more impossible. But she made the attempt anyway.
There was no spell in Twilight Sparkle's book about healing changeling victims. Compass assumed that she had never been forced to deal with treating such injuries, given Spike's talk about a spell that stopped their invasion cold before it even began. But there were other bits of magic here and there that were close. There was a spell for keeping the lungs and heart operating despite traumatic blood loss, and another to keep the blood oxygenated. There was one to speed the healing of damage muscles and one to flush the body of unnatural toxins.
None of them alone was enough. Even cast together, they simply cured a host of problems that Tailspin did not have. But there were pieces of them, single phrases, isolated threads of magic, that could be useful.
Magic was a tricky thing. Simply transplanting one line of a spell to another would never end well. Every component of an evocation was influenced by every other. Every piece depended on the rest. But there were laws, as chaotic and - she felt a twinge of amusement for a moment, before pushing it down and berating herself for giving in to the exhaustion - arcane as they could seem. With enough care, spells could be altered and combined. They could be created.
It wasn't easy, and it was a task rarely attempted by any but the greatest spellcasters, because it could go horribly, horribly wrong if done incorrectly. But it could be done, and Compass Rose was desperate enough to try.
Hour after hour, she worked at piecing the spell together in her head. She couldn't test it, but a large part of her felt that she didn't need to. It was probably the sleep deprivation influencing her judgment, but she felt that she could tell when a piece fit or needed adjustment. Slowly, she brought it together.
After an eternity, she felt like she had the entire spell. It was untested and uncertain, but it was there, just the same. But that was only the first part. The spell existed, now, but it still had to be translated into a form that others could use, and that was almost as difficult as creating it. No two unicorns' magic manifested the same way, but the spell had to be written so that any unicorn could use it correctly.
Compass shook off as much of her fatigue as she could, pulled a scrap of paper towards her, picked up a pen in her mouth, and began to write.
It had taken two hours to transcribe the spell, and another hour to convince Doctor Grey that it was sound. In the end, the doctor had agreed more out of lack of other options than out of confidence that the spell would actually function.
Now, finally, she was watching as Doctor Grey and her selected nurses attempted to cast it. It wasn't a simple spell, and it required a lot of power to function. Even three unicorns casting together was stretching it, but they were the only medical professionals on hand.
Before her horn was shattered, Compass would have been able to watch the threads of the spell come together as clearly as she could see the others standing in front of her. Now, though, they were faint, and she viewed them as if from a great distance away. She had to concentrate hard to make out the barest details of them.
It was like watching surgery take place, in a way. Doctor Grey, despite her age, was the most accomplished medical pony on the staff, and could still cast healing spells more easily than the nurses under her command. Even through the haze of her broken horn, Compass could see that the chief medical officer was handling most of the weight of the spell, directing its flow to where it was needed most. The nurses lent her their power and handed her various pieces of incantations for her to slot into place.
All Compass could do was to stand by and watch. The three doctors worked in silence, save for the occasional strained request for a certain line of the spell to be read out loud, or for an update on the time. The cartographer wouldn't have believed that she had enough energy left to feel nervous, but she did. She stood on the spot and jittered faintly, trying not to pester the rest with requests for updates.
It took two hours, and they were the slowest, most tortuously long hours of her life. But, in the end, Doctor Grey let out a long, tired sigh and turned a faint smile towards her.
"I think," she said, "it worked."
Compass felt the world lurch under her hooves. All she managed was a faint "Oh, good" and a nod before her reserves gave out entirely and the floor came up to meet her.
"Now, I must stress that this is not a cure," said Doctor Grey, raising a hoof. "It has not undone all the damage, and, indeed, we are still unsure of what the extent of the damage actually is, as our understanding of changeling cocoons is limited. But, at the very least, she is not going to die." She paused, frowned, and added, "Yet."
"What do you mean 'yet'?" Pith asked sharply.
The stallion was seated beside Tailspin's bed again, with Spike sitting on his own cot just behind him. Compass Rose had been moved into another section and the dividers closed, and Spike was fairly certain that he had heard some of the nurses mention sedating her.
"I mean," said Doctor Grey, frowning, "that the spell Miss Rose devised has never before been tested, because it did not, in fact, exist prior to this use. I only allowed it because it was Miss Tailspin's only chance at surviving the night, and because the investigation I did into its components beforehand indicated no serious risk of misfire." She looked down and made a few notes on a clipboard, still frowning. "We have no real idea how long it will last, or how much of a recovery it will enable. All we can really be sure of is that, for now, your partner is stable. We will need to monitor her for any complications, but for now, the prognosis is at least better than it was a few hours ago."
Pith nodded slowly. He was clutching Tailspin's hoof between his own again, holding it as if it were a lifeline. The pegasus was still gaunt and gray, but her breathing seemed to be coming easier, and Spike could have sworn that she saw her hoof move in Pith's once or twice.
Spike glanced towards the rest of the beds. "How is Compass doing, anyway?"
Doctor Grey sighed and hung the clipboard from a tiny hook on the end of Tailspin's cot. "Due to Miss Rose's constant refusal to rest for more than two minutes since her arrival, and my own busy schedule, I have not yet been able to conduct a formal appraisal of her condition. However." She cleared her throat. "Physically, she is in no immediate danger, though she is dehydrated and in desperate need of food, and it will take some time for her body to recover from the stress she has insisted in placing upon it. Her horn, however, is completely destroyed."
The dragon winced. Even though he had seen the shattered horn for himself, he had hoped that some type of recovery was possible. Doctor Grey plunged on, ignoring him. "All but the most rudimentary spellcasting is now impossible for her, and even that places an enormous strain on her. I am frankly amazed that she was able to come up with a spell as powerful as the one she did without any ability to actually cast it herself."
Spike hadn't missed the use of the word "physically". He sat patiently, waiting for the doctor to continue, while she took Tailspin's pulse. When she had finished, she gave a satisfied nod and continued, "Mentally, however, I cannot be sure. While she is apparently rational enough to be able to perform one of the greatest feats of experimental magic I have ever seen, she was more than willing to sacrifice her physical well-being to do so. I would almost call it a dangerous obsession, but I will refrain from officially labeling it as such pending a formal assessment."
She sighed and lifted one hoof to rub at her temple. "For now, she has been sedated to ensure that she gets at least some rest. I encourage the both of you to do the same. If you require anything, the nurses will be on hand to assist you."
"Thanks for everything, doc," said Pith quietly. Spike nodded his gratitude as well, but Grey just sighed.
"You are welcome, I suppose. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to get going. There are other matters which demand my attention." And she trotted off towards the front of the building again, leaving Spike and Pith alone with the sleeping pegasus.
Applejack had been the longest-lived of any of their circle of friends, not counting Twilight Sparkle or Spike himself. In his dream, he found himself sitting on the front porch of the house on Sweet Apple Acres. Applejack sat beside him in her usual spot on the rocking chair. She looked remarkably like Granny Smith, though her eyes had always retained their youthful luster.
The farm itself was only vaguely present, in the same way that all dreamscapes were. He was aware of the orchard, and even of other members of the Apple family bustling about, but no details could be made out. The only real things in the world were himself and the smiling Applejack.
"So what'd y'all come to see me about, Spike?" she asked. Her voice hadn't aged like the rest of her. Whereas Granny Smith's voice had always been high and creaky, Applejack's had always remained strong.
"Just came to see an old friend," he answered. He wasn't quite sure yet whether he was dreaming or simply remembering very clearly. He wasn't entirely sure if it made a difference.
"'S that all?" Applejack laughed. "Well, I'm certainly gettin' old, that's fer sure. You still look pretty spry yerself, though." She eyed him with that familiar, knowing look she had, apparently waiting for an answer. When none came, she shrugged. "I 'magine that's what y'all came here to talk about, really."
Slowly, Spike nodded.
Applejack nodded as well, still smiling her easy smile and rocking in that steady rhythm. "Ah thought that might be it," she said airily. "Ah'd wondered when ya were gonna stop by about it." There was a long pause, full of nothing but the slow, steady creak of her rocking chair. "Ah'm very glad I got ta know ya, Spike," she continued, after a while. "And Ah'm very sorry things're the way they are."
"What way?" Spike asked. He knew the answer, but he didn't want to say it. That was why he had come to Applejack. She had always been able to say the things no one else could bring themselves to.
"That yer outlivin' all'a us," the old pony answered gently. "Ah reckon I've got about another year left in me, an' then it's just gonna be you an' Twilight. Ah know it's hurtin' ya. It has been ever since Rarity died."
Spike flinched at the memory, but he didn't interrupt. He had come to hear this, after all. Sometimes you needed platitudes, and sometimes you needed the truth, no matter how much it hurt.
"She was a good mare," Applejack said. She was staring off over the grounds of the farm, smiling faintly, her eyes a bit misty with memory. "Ah never quite saw eye-ta-eye with her on a lot'a things, but Ah loved her just the same. And Ah know how much it hurt ya when she died. Ah've known ever since Inkwell went ahead'a me."
Again, there was the prolonged silence and the sound of the rocking chair before she went on. "It's only been a year, but Ah already can't stand the big gapin' hole in mah life where he used to be. Ah can only imagine how bad it's been fer you. An' I know it's been gettin' worse all the time."
Spike shut his eyes. "Yeah," he muttered. "It has."
Applejack nodded again. "It's gonna keep gettin' worse, an' there's nothin' anypony can do about that. Ah'm sorry ya got saddled with it. Ah'd help if Ah could, but all Ah can do is sit here'n give ya some advice."
Spike opened his eyes again and turned towards her, unable to keep the look of desperation off of his face. "What advice?"
"Let us go," said Applejack flatly. "Let all'a us go. The more ya try'n hold on, the more it's gonna hurt ya, Spike."
Spike sighed and bowed his head. "It's not that easy."
"Ah know it ain't," said Applejack, her voice suddenly sharper. "If it was easy, ya wouldn't have come to me to hear me say it. You'd have done it on yer own. So Ah'm tellin' ya because I care about ya."
She lifted one bony leg and jabbed him in the shoulder with her hoof. "They're gone, Spike," she said, her voice still firm and somber. "They're all gone, an' soon Ah will be too. Rarity, Rainbow, Pinkie, Fluttershy, they're gone an' they're not comin' back."
Spike squeezed his eyes shut tightly and groaned, but said nothing.
"The more ya try'n hold on, the more it's gonna hurt," Applejack continued, not letting up. "It's gonna work on ya like a poison from the inside-out, an' it's gonna take what ya are now an' make ya somethin' else. It won't be nothin' good, neither." She paused, sighed, and said, more gently, "Yer one'a the gentlest ponies Ah ever knew, Spike, even though yer a dragon. Ya've always been sweet an' kind ta everypony, an' ya proved us all wrong with Rarity. Ya've got a lot'a love in ya, Spike, an' I don't wanna go ta my last rest knowin' yer gonna let all that pain twist ya inta somethin' else."
"I can't help hurting," Spike whispered, still not opening his eyes. "I love you too much. All of you. And I've had to lose you all one by one."
Applejack pressed her hoof against his shoulder again, more gently this time. "Ah'm not askin' ya ta stop lovin' us," she said. "Ah'm not askin' ya ta forget, neither. All Ah'm sayin' is, when ya remember us, it's okay ta hurt, an' it's okay ta wish we were still there, but it ain't okay ta let that hurt change who ya are."
Spike shook his head. "I'm... it might be too late for that," he muttered. The sound of roaring flame and the smell of burning insects filled his nostrils.
Beside him, he heard Applejack sigh. It was a low, mournful sound, and it seemed to drown out all the others. "Yeah," she said. Her voice clanged in his head like a bell. "Ah'm sorry, Spike. Ya forgot what Ah told ya, an' ya've already let it happen."
The dragon opened his eyes and turned to look at her, but Applejack was gone. In her place was himself, wearing an expression of malicious glee. When the double spoke, its voice thundered through the air.
"I will roast your children alive."
And he awoke on his cot in the infirmary, feeling his wounds fester under the bandages.