I felt the sun break through the window, falling onto and warming my bare, bandaged chest. The sheets trapped my good leg as I tried to shift my weight around on the hospital bed. I finally managed to roll over onto my right side, which wasn’t too good for my leg. I pawed for my glasses on the bedside table but that’s not what I found. After I grabbed my glasses from behind the large object, I let the book and scrolls come into focus.
Oh yeah, last night actually happened. I was kind of hoping it was a morphine induced dream but I guess that little fantasy was all it was going to be. I reached over to pick up the book and caught the light glinting off my hand. I forgot that this was also going to be a thing now. I grabbed around for the bandage that had been wrapped around it last night.
“Looking for this?” a soft voice cooed from above my head. A bandage dangled in front of my face. I followed the bandage up to her smiling face. “Good afternoon. It is nice to see you awake again.”
“Nice to be awake again,” I said, grabbing for the bandage, “last night got a bit crazy.” I could see the blush rush across her face as her grip released on the bandage. “Although, I’m pretty sure that won’t help in any of the healing. In fact, it probably messed something up,” I finished with a small smirk.
“Well, you did not complain at all last night.” She scoffed as she sat down on the bed and scooted up next to me. I chuckled to myself as I felt my face start to heat up, my own blush creeping across my face. I attempted to wrap the bandage around my left hand, but it was starting to prove a bit too difficult with only one hand.
“How in the hell…”
“Would you like some help there?”
“No, I can do it myself,” I answered, knowing the futility of my actions. I tried for another couple wraps but the bandage loosely schlepped off and piled softly on my elbow. I grumbled angrily to myself, listening to the tiny chuckle from my side. “Fine.”
“Hmmm, this new you is much more compliant,” Rarity said, taking the bandage in her magic and wrapping the cloth snuggly on my hand and forearm, “so much easier to deal with.”
“I’m going to put money on the fact that he is pumped full of drugs,” a familiar voice called from the doorway. Dash and Vinyl were standing in the doorway of the room, blocking a very disgruntled doctor from entering. “It’s not like he wasn’t completely a pushover before though.”
“Haha yeah, it was always easy to make him do things for ya.” Vinyl chuckled in agreement. They continued back and forth poking fun at me for a few more seconds before the doctor behind them had had enough.
“Ladies!” he almost shouted, barely able to contain his frustration, “I need to get into Mr. Lulamoon’s room and I can’t do that if you keep blocking me.”
Dash looked surprised at Vinyl, then to me and then back to the doctor. I could see her little sneaky smile creep up on her face as the realization that had hit Vinyl last night also hit her. She looked me dead in the eyes and asked me, “Your name is Crisp Lulamoon?”
“Technically,” I grumbled, “the last name is adopted, ok?”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. It’s still funny.”
“Good to see you too, Dash.”
“Mmmmhmmmm, I have to go away for a couple days and get snowed in the station and you have to go and get into a fight? Why was I not invited?” She said. Dash pulled a stance as she let the doctor pass by and threw a fake punch at Vinyl, who in turn parried the attack and they continued as they walked out of the room into the hall to wait for the doctor to leave. The doctor turned and eyed the girl cuddled up next to me.
“Miss Filigree?”
“Yes?”
“You too.”
“I believe I told you that I would not be leaving this room until he does...except for certain necessities of course.” She said, staring daggers back at the doctor. He just sighed and placed his board onto the end of the bed.
“No, that’s not going to… you know what? Fine whatever, Alright?”
“Glad you have finally realized.” Rarity said, snuggling into my chest before snickering at her victory.
“Mr. Lulamoon, as you know, your injuries were severe, but unsure to the extent of the damage that would be lasting.” He flipped the switch on a light board on the wall with some x-rays attached. “Like I said last night, the bones will heal, but the muscle will take sometime to heal and repair. The medical magics were somewhat resisted. After some time and help with the veteran staff, most of the magics took hold and were finally successful. Dr Celeste and Professor Kaos assisted in the more difficult procedures. Now, the probability of flight is unlikely but possible. Your leg on the other hand-”
“Doctor,” I stated.
“Yes? Do you have questions?”
“Not really. This is all stuff you told me last night. You said something about physical therapy last night but never really went into it.”
“Oh, yes. Well, as the resident I would prefer you to stay here and do your pt here-”
“That’ll never happen!” Dash shouted from the hall.
“Yeah, here he wouldn’t be able to lock himself in his room and pout,” Vinyl shouted in conjuncture.
“Yes, Thank you guys! Very helpful!” I retorted back from the bed, met only with snickers.
“But Professor Kaos insisted that it would be best if you went back to Procient. Both Kaos and Celeste insisted actually. While I think the facilities here would have been sufficient, the Procient facilities are state of the art with many of the leading medical professionals.”
“So that’s good, right? I’ll be able to go back to school.”
“Well, there are some things you should take into account. Miss Filigree informed me that you currently reside in a fourth floor apartment with no elevator. This will not be a good place for you to be recovering. Any new place is fine, as long as it is first floor or the building has an elevator.”
“Now onto other things, your leg cast is going to stay on for a month. You’ll need to walk with crutches for the time being and then you will need to use a cane. But that’s not the thing I wanted to talk to you about. I was looking at this x-ray,” he pointed at the one of my wing, “Do you see this skeletal structure here?” I nodded in reply.
“Well, it’s just the strangest thing, you had a massive knot in the bone. We took the liberty of shaving it off for you, it should help in the healing process. It took almost five hours to work on just that. Broke most of the tools we had on hand. We had to call up the local jewel and have him bring in a diamond buffer to remove it.” He levitated a picture over to me, showing just the mass of broken tools in a corner.
“Your bones have a very high density, which is a wonder that you can fly at all. But this is not the first time we have seen this. After digging through some old files, I came across the only other patient with this bone density. One Amber Sheen, the old librarian. Peg, died age 22 during a home invasion. Now since this is a very rare thing, I took the liberty of doing a dna test with the samples we had on file with her’s.” A knock came at the door. “Ah, right on time.”
“I always meant to be punctual, Stable.” the tall man said, addressing the doctor as he walked into the room. The man’s badge flashed in the early afternoon light, catching me in the eye. He stopped next to the doctor and brandished the cardboard box underneath his arm, kicking up a small cloud of dust into the air.
“I thought I told you to make sure the box was clean,” the doctor said indignantly as he waved the dust from his face.
“Oh, well I’m sorry, I guess me dusting off the box that has been in the precinct for almost two decades would have done wonders for the dust inside.” He said, placing the box onto the roll-away table and rolling it over to the bed.
“What’s this?” Rarity asked as she quickly started eyeing the dusty box with a slight fear and disgust.
“Evidence release,” The officer said nonchalantly. He then tipped his hat at us and took his leave, which in turn left me all the more confused.
“Oooook… what’s this?” I asked completely dumbfounded.
“Well, the results came back the day before last. When situations like this arise, we have to inform the station and let them know what details we discover, and this was kind of a big one.”
“Whatever do you mean?” Rarity asked, moving her hand closer to the box.
“According to the police report, one Amber Sheen was killed during a home invasion. Her small child was not found at the library when the police finally arrived. The case went cold soon after, no trace of anything was ever found. When the results came back, oh man, you should have seen their faces. One of the longest outstanding crimes that has gone unsolved and then the child just shows up in the hospital almost twenty years later. It was like a freaking miracle to them.”
“But what’s in the box?” I finally asked, grabbing the table with my good hand and bringing it closer to me.
“Like Lightning said, it’s released evidence. Only family of deceased victims are allowed to receive things like this, so a nurse suggested that we do this for you...since you couldn’t make the request yourself.”
“But you said I might not have woken up…”
“Just a step if you did, now if you’ll excuse me, I have other patients to attend to.” The doctor said as he flipped off the light board and walked out of the room. Quickly filling the space that he had made, Dash and Vinyl made their way back into the room. Dash pulled a chair up to the bed while Vinyl, once again, made herself comfortable at the foot of the bed.
"So... how you feeling buddy?" Dash asked as she shifted uncomfortably in her chair, her eyes never leaving the box on the table.
"Oh you know," I replied, "the usual. Just a bit more stiff." I stretched my right wing to the full extent and flicked her nose.
"Hey what the hell dude?" She scoffed, rubbing her nose.
"Over here Dash," I chuckled, watching her eyes drift back towards the box.
"What's with the box?" Dash asked, leaving her chair and placing herself next to Vinyl at the foot of the bed.
“I don’t know. I mean, you know just about as much as I do, since you two can’t seem to keep out of my business.” I said jokingly towards the two at my feet. “Has something to do with my mother though.”
“What do you think we should do with it?” Rarity asked from my right.
“We?”
“Yeah, we.” Dash said proudly, “we’re your friends. We should at least know what’s going on with our friend’s life. After all, we are soooooo interested in your business.”
“It has been kind of boring to tell you the truth.” Vinyl giggled.
“Thanks guys.”
“Well I mean it’s a bit more exciting now huh? You did get into two fights. On the same day.”
Two fights? Did she mean the little thing with AJ in the library? It wasn’t really a fight, more of a slam and a sucker punch
“Yeah, cause I’m pretty sure AJ is the reason I landed in the hospital.” I laughed sarcastically, which was met with a quick smack to the back of my head.
“It almost did, and if you remember, I wished for you to come here after that altercation.” Rarity said, stroking her somewhat messy hair in her hands.
I smiled to myself at the sight of a disheveled Rarity. It was just so unlike her. She used to fret for hours about getting everything about her appearance just right and here she was just… oh… And then it really hit me. Just how much my being out for a week really did hit her. More than I had previously thought. I wrapped my right wing around her and pulled her into my body, squeezing her tightly against my body.
“But I did eventually go….so I guess you win that one.” I half chuckled as the air became tense. Dash and Vinyl’s eyes shifted uncomfortably. Rarity’s, on the other hand, became the daggers.
“Don’t you joke about this. Ever!”
“Alright, I’m sorry. I just have a dark sense of humor.”
“You can joke about anything else but this.”
“Ok.” I answered. The silence once again descended upon the room. I felt terrible. Even the copious amounts of painkillers running through my system couldn’t make the pain go away from just a realization. I lifted my bandaged hand and flexed. I kept thinking it was going to be stiff as the “crystal” they kept calling it, but it just moved as the rest of my body. “Hey...can I make a request?”
“What?” Rarity snapped back from her spot against my body.
“Do you think you could make something for this?” I said, brandishing my bandaged hand for her. She didn’t say anything, or move for that matter. A couple more uncomfortable minutes passed by before she even moved. Eventually she sat up and moved herself into a sitting position next to me.
“I think I can do something,” she said smiling slightly evil. Before I knew what had happened, the bandage on my hand flew off and slumped against the foot of the bed, where Dash and Vinyl now sat with devilish grins and a twinkle in their eyes.
“Oh… my… god…” Dash said, holding back tears and snickers.
“You sparkle… you fucking sparkle,” Vinyl commented as she choked back her laughter as well, “Are you sure...are you sure you aren’t related to Twilight?”
“What does that have anything to do with it?” I asked, slightly perturbed.
“Because...you are a little sparkle,” and that’s when they all lost it. All three of them. Even Rarity was losing her battle with holding back her laughter. Dash had fallen off the bed she was laughing so hard and Vinyl had flopped and flailed around like a fish out of water.
After a minute of them laughing I finally managed to get a word in edgewise, “Well I guess you three don’t want to see what’s in the box then.”
“Nooooo.” Dash and Vinyl cried in unison.
“Show us the contents of mystery shoe-box.” Vinyl said, deadpan.
“Share with us the secrets of the shoe-box.” Dash chimed in, equally deadpan.
I just stared at them just a little disgruntled. Eventually we all faltered in our gazes and dropped our sights onto the dusty shoebox on the table. I looked around at the three girls that had given me so much in the last two months. Vinyl, Dash and Rarity all came around the table. I smiled at all of them, hesitating.
“You are worried about what’s in there, aren’t you?” Rarity said, grabbing my right hand and holding it in hers.
“Well, kinda. I never really knew anything about my mother, but it all apparently fits in a shoebox. I mean, it could be anything small really…”
“Take all the time you need, darling,” she said, resting her head against my shoulder. With just that little gesture, I felt my body bolster and my confidence grow. I reached for the box lid with my crystalline hand and popped it off.
Only a fine cloud of dust puffed in the air with the box. I felt Rarity cringe as the dust settled around the box. I placed my hand on the box and tipped it towards me, finally revealing the contents. An old vhs tape labeled Golden Oak Library and a small battered spiral notebook lay perfectly still, undisturbed for almost twenty years.
“What?” Dash said, “that’s it?”
“Can’t be,” I said, “the box is deeper.” I picked up the tape and placed it to the side, revealing a small stack of old photographs and papers. Rarity and Vinyl levitated them and filed through them as they circled in the air. I watched as pictures of my mother passed by; Uncle Disc, Magnum and Pearl all there along side her. The picture that I had seen before as well, and even a couple pictures of me and her too, but my eyes were always closed. Eventually, Rarity stopped the flowing stream of pictures, allowing them to float back into the box as she plucked one out of the air. Her eyes began to well up, her smile coming back.
“What is it?” I asked her, attempting to grab the picture from her. Eventually she turned to me and placed the picture on the table. We craned our necks to glimpse at this wonder that was now before us.
There in the picture, laying on a large picnic blanket, were two toddlers. One with blue eyes and purple hair and the other with black hair with a shot of silver and lavender eyes. Both playing with brown feathers what looked like freshly pulled out of the wings of the one on the left.
“Wow.” It was the only thing I could even muster. I picked up the picture, the first picture, of Rarity and me together, playing as toddlers. I flipped over the photo and saw two line written on the back.
Rarity Amber Filigree - age 16 months
Crisp Magnum Sheen - age 17 months
“Well that’s interesting.” I said, chuckling.
“What?” Dash asked with Vinyl looking interested as well.
I looked over at Rarity and realized another thing that day. I grabbed her hand in my crystalline one and held it very tightly. She gripped back and laid back into me. And for the first time for Rarity in a week, she fell asleep calmly in my arms. I felt my own exhaustion began to take hold, so I told Dash and Vinyl that we would hang out again tomorrow and talk about other things. They said their goodbyes and well wishes as they left the room, closing the door behind them.
I felt calm. In my arms was a girl, that apparently I had known from many years ago before. My body heaved beneath the strain of being roused for so long, and after fighting it for a minute more, I placed the picture on top of the tape, and fell asleep next to what I now know as my oldest friend.