The four of them shared coffee in the break room. Another nurse had been called in to replace Redheart, but she didn’t feel like going home just yet.
“So…” Rainbow Dash sipped coffee that was far too strong. “A memory.”
Redheart nodded, sipping coffee that was far too weak.
Flash Sentry dumped a spoonful of creamer into his cup. “Twilight always said that curses weren’t real.”
Redheart closed her eyes. “I’ve heard.”
Vinyl looked up from ladling sugar into her coffee. “People like to think that nopony casts enchantments to hurt others.” She tapped the spoon against the edge of her mug and set it down. “Or, they like to think that outlawin' the spells keeps ponies from learnin’ and castin’ them.”
“Hay,” Rainbow Dash said with a frown. “Twilight isn’t naïve.”
Vinyl downed her mug in a single gulp. “Uninformed, then.”
“Maybe she’s a literalist,” Redheart muttered.
Flash leaned on the table. “Meaning?”
“Meaning,” Redheart replied, “that curses don’t exist, because they’re really just a series of spells—an enchantment—made to mimic the supposed results of the curse.”
Rainbow Dash fiddled with an empty sugar pouch. “So, what kind of enchantment made you into… that?”
Redheart froze, her eyes glaring into the middle distance. “Perpetual levitation. Transmogrification. And… whatever the opposite of the want-it-need-it spell is.”
“Hate-it-leave-it.” Flash poured himself another cup. “So what happened?”
Redheart lowered an eyebrow. “Are you asking as a Royal Guard, or as a friend?”
“I’m asking as a friend who just so happens to be in the Royal Guard.” Flash smiled. “Whose personal and professional business just so happen to link up tonight.”
Redheart looked down, a small smile on her face. “Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Dead serious: Evil Enchantress.”
Rainbow Dash snorted coffee. She sputtered for a good three minutes. “Y’ kidding, right?”
“Dead. Serious.” Redheart clasped her hooves together. “There was a mare who lived in the Everfree. I dunno if she was a pegasus, earth pony, unicorn, or what.”
Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened. “She didn’t speak in rhyme, did she?”
“I know what you’re thinking,” Redheart said. “It wasn’t Zecora. She and I talk about medicinal stuff here and there. I’d know if it was her.” She took a sip of liquid wakefulness. “Besides, I haven’t finished my story.”
Her eyes turned upward. “My family got separated when we were collecting herbs. I stumbled on this shack. It smelled like something was cooking, and I was pretty hungry.” She rubbed her hooves together and shivered. “I knocked and asked if the pony inside would help me get home.”
Flash’s eyebrows met. “So she cursed you.”
Radheart shook her head. She chewed her bottom lip until Vinyl draped a wing around her shoulders. “She took me in, gave me a cup of soup to eat. She had… she had this wall with pictures of alicorns and strings connecting them all. I saw a spellbook on the table. She told me that she’d bring me home if I helped her do something.”
Redheart sneered. “She said that this new spell she found was sure to turn her into an alicorn princess.”
Rainbow Dash sat back. She didn’t so much become inattentive as she became very, very quiet.
“‘Cry but find no hug’s relief,’” Redheart recited. “‘Touch is a stranger and feeling a myth. Wander through the forest and wail.’”
“That doesn’t even rhyme,” Rainbow Dash growled.
“With how many overlapping, unrelated spells were put into the enchantment,” Flash said, “there had to be an obvious weak spot.”
“There was.” Redheart sighed and smiled. “Lyra.
“Her family was on a camping trip to Winsome Falls. They took a wrong turn somewhere around the old palace of the Royal Pony Sisters and stumbled on me.” Redheart rubbed a hoof along her foreleg. “I scared the snot out of them, especially Lyra.” She chuckled. “Can you just imagine this little mint-colored filly trying to shield herself with an off-tune lyre? That was her.”
Redheart blinked as a tear trickled down her cheek. “After a minute or two, Lyra realized that I wasn’t gonna eat her. She got curious and circled around me, poking and prodding and asking questions that I couldn’t answer. I tried to talk for so long, but I couldn’t.” She pursed her lips. “So I cried instead. And… she hugged me.”
Vinyl grinned. “Now here’s the part of the story I remember!”
“Yeah.” Redheart shrugged. “So she hugged me until I stopped crying, and then we both saw that the spell was broken.”
“‘Cry but find no hug’s relief.’” Flash laughed a little laugh. “That’ll show the witch.”
“So what happened to the Evil Enchantress?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Or the witch, or whatever the heck she was?”
Redheart shrugged. “I was a wight for about two years, so it wasn’t like the Guard could just march into the Everfree right away and hope to find her.”
Flash Sentry downed the last of his coffee. “I bet they did anyways.”
Redheart snorted. “Yeah. They found her shack. It was pretty ramshackle. I hear it looked like a rockodile had attacked.”
“Well, good riddance to her.” Rainbow Dash smirked. “And bon apatite for the rockodile.”
Redheart looked down at her mug. “I either need more coffee, or a good night’s rest.”
“Maybe we ought to take a nap,” Vinyl said, “and then meet tomorrow mor—afternoon to talk about moving ugly here to Tartarus.” She tilted her horn at the Night Terror, who was stuffed into a handy suitcase. “Maybe we should meet at the real Keen Bean.”
“If I can get a leave from the hospital.” Flash raised an eyebrow and patted his belly, which had stopped glowing sometime between the Nightmare and the partaking of caffeinated drinks.
“Clean bill of health, as far as I’m concerned.” Redheart looked him up and down. “Just take it easy for a couple of days.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Flash Sentry said. He stood and carefully flexed his wings. “Flying’s in, right?”
“Not tonight.” Redheart shook her head. “Grounded tonight, fly tomorrow. Slowly.”
Flash pouted. “Clean bills of health aren’t as comprehensive as they used to be.”
Redheart leaned on her hoof. “Would you rather have me say, ‘Well, you ain’t dyin’’?”
He snickered and started to walk away.
“Wait,” Redheart said. “Thank you. All of you. Thank you so much.”
“Hay, what are friends for?” Rainbow Dash said.
“Pulling your butt out of Nightmares, if I had to guess,” Vinyl chuckled.
Hours of stress disappeared as the four ponies laughed in a variety of means. Each retreated to different parts of the hospital, each with their own thoughts of the fight to come.
As well as their own fears.