Rainbow Dash sat in the back of the ambulance with Aria, since neither Aria or Sonata had parents in the human world the school had to call for an ambulance, despite Aria's injurys not being life threatening. Rainbow remained quiet, she slowly looked up to see Aria struggling to remain conscious. Aria tried to keep looking up away from the cuts and bruises, the unfamiliar sensation of pain made her feel uneasy, it reminded her just how powerless she was without her pendant. A small tear trickled down her face, she had lived for thousands of years, thousands of years she had taken for granted. Aria traced her finger around a bruise, a reminder of her mortality, the thought that she would age and eventually die scared her more than anything. When she saw that Rainbow was avoiding eye contact, she let the tears flow, all the fear she had felt since her pendant had broken came back in the form of a endless river of tears. Aria had never allowed herself to cry before, it made her feel weak and powerless, and until recently power was all she cared about. The constant crying and the pain of her injurys made her tired, the tears had slowed and Aria's eye lids gradually got too heavy to stay open, the last tear fell as she started to drift into sleep.
Rainbow was still staring at the floor as if willing it to swallow her up, guilt had been building up inside her since she arrived in the nurse's office, but despite the painful emotion nagging away inside her mind her loyalty was stronger, forcing her to step into the ambulance with Aria. Rainbow's unfocused gaze was still fixed on the same spot on the vehicle floor when she felt something warm rest on her shoulder. She carefully turned to see that Aria had fallen asleep and was leaning on her, Rainbow could see the tear stains on Aria's face and wondered if they were from emotional or physical pain. She blamed herself for Aria's injurys, it was her who dragged the former siren outside to play football in the first place. Rainbow forgot her anger towards the sports team and just pinned the blame on herself, she had begun to stare more intensely at the floor as if could really swallow her up. The ambulance began to slow down as it reached the hospital, it stopped moving and the front doors clicked open as the driver and nurse got out. Aria woke when the vehicles movement ceased, she was resting on something warm and rather comfortable, she lifted an eye lid to see that her head was on Rainbow's shoulder. Aria closed her eye again when she realised the other girl hadn't noticed she was awake, she knew that she would have to enter the hospital in a minute, but she didn't want to move.
The driver walked round the back of the ambulance and swung open the doors. "Are you awake?" He walked closer to the back of his vehicle.
Aria slowly lifted her head and yawned a "yes" before rubbing her eyes and blinking a few times.
"Can you walk to A and E from here or do I need to carry you there?" asked the driver.
"I can walk fine," replied Aria, stepping out of the ambulance, "see? I don't need any help."
The driver nodded and closed the door when Rainbow stepped out. Aria walked round the corner to A and E, it was just a feet away from where the ambulance had stopped. She was just outside the door when her knees buckled and she started to fall, she didn't even put out her arms to stop herself, she was still tired and hadn't quite caught up with what was happening. Realization hit Aria just before she hit the ground, but instead of making contact the cold, hard concrete, she felt an arm catch her and pull her up. Aria turned to look at Rainbow as she helped her up, but the rainbow haired girl just turned away as soon as Aria was back on her feet. Aria saw the guilty look on Rainbow's face and realised why she was ignoring her. Aria didn't blame Rainbow, Rainbow blamed herself, and Aria blamed herself for her past misdeeds. She found she was still a bit unstable walking through the door, so to Rainbow's surprise Aria leaned against her for support the rest of the way in.
Rainbow helped Aria over to a seat and handed the receptionist a form from the school before taking a seat next to Aria. A and E was full of people; a man with a broken finger, a mother of three sat with a sick child whilst trying to keep the other two under control and an old lady demanding to be seen to straight away because she thought she was having a heart attack. It was noisy and small children ran around, pestering other patients.
"You feel guilty don't you? That's why you're ignoring me." Aria turned to look at Rainbow. "It's not your fault, I've had it coming to me since before you were born. The only person to blame is myself. I should be the one feeling guilty, you stood up for me despite all I've done, and now you've been beaten up too, because of me. You're friends on the sports team have fallen out with you, because of me. Why did you come with me here, you should hate me."
"It's not your fault." Rainbow looked up at Aria. "The first bullys we saw normally say stuff about me, that's a regular occurrence. The sports team were out of line though, even if I did hate you - which I don't - I wouldn't have let them attack you. They shouldn't have done that, and I'm glad I tried to defend you, even though I couldn't stop them all. The only regret I have is taking you to the pitch in the first place. No matter what you've done in the past, you didn't deserve this."
"You're being soft again, Skittles," Aria said, smirking.
Rainbow huffed in annoyance and leaned back in her chair, from past experiences she knew they would be waiting for awhile. She tried to get comfortable in the worn hospital chair, but in wasn't exactly soft.
"Does it hurt much?" Rainbow turned back to face Aria. "The cuts?"
"I couldn't feel pain when I had my pendant, so I'm not used to it. The cuts aren't very long, so I'm sure I'll be fine," responded Aria, "How are your bruises?"
"I'm fine, I get injurys all the time from sports." Rainbow looked at a particularly large bruise on her leg. "Although I don't think I'll be wearing a skirt tomorrow. I'm sorry about your pendant, I didn't realise it did things other than help you sing."
"Don't be sorry," Aria responded, "It corrupt me, made me power hungry and blind to see that I was hurting people. Sirens are born with horrible voices, that's why the pendants were created. Thousands of years ago sirens had beautiful voices from birth, but a young sailor fell in love with a siren princess upon hearing her voice and left his girlfriend to be with the princess. The girlfriend was a unicorn, so out of jealously she used her magic to curse every siren she could find to have an awful voice. The sirens used magic through their songs and they couldn't sing anymore, so the queen made a deal with a powerful unicorn, if the unicorn fixed their voices he would be given all the treasure he could fit on his boat. The queen still hated unicorns though, so when the unicorn had made enough pendants to fix the sirens' voices, the queen sang a song that made him drown himself. The pendants turned evil when the unicorn died and made the wearers angry, hateful and power hungry. Starswirl the bearded, a famous unicorn, was attacked by a siren so he went on a quest to banish every last one to this pathetic world. That's how me Sonata and Adagio got here. That was thousands of years ago, I don't know what happened to the other sirens that were banished here, most were hunted and killed."
"I thought you and the other Dazzlings were just evil, I had no idea it was the pendants," said Rainbow.
"Don't think I've gone soft just because my pendant broke, I'm still not a goody two shoes like you and your little band of human-pony mutants," Aria replied.
"I'm not a goody-goody like Fluttershy, Rarity or Applejack." Rainbow leaned back in her seat. "This is boring, it takes waaaaaay too long to get seen by a doctor in this place."
"Miss Aria Blaze, you may now see the nurse." The voice from the speaker echoed loudly in the waiting room.
"You were saying?" asked Aria, trying to stand up.
Aria's legs were shaking and she had to lean on Rainbow for support again. The two made their way to a small room with a nurse inside, Rainbow went in with Aria, but the nurse asked her to wait out side again much to Rainbow's annoyance. A and E was still loud and full of hyperactive kids, but Rainbow wasn't waiting long, Aria was sent straight to get stitches and Rainbow was allowed to follower her, mostly to prevent Aria from falling over. It wasn't far to get to a small room where another nurse waited with some medical equiptment.
The nurse looked towards Aria. "You must be Miss Blaze, please take a seat so I can take a better look at your cuts." The nurse examined her injures before looking up to speak to Aria. "I'm afraid you need stitches, the cuts are quite deep and will unfortunately almost definitely leave scars although I'm uncertain as to what extent." The nurse went towards her medical equipment before continuing. "I need to clean the cuts first and it will sting a lot I'm sorry."
Aria held back screams and tears as the nurse disinfected the slashes across her legs. She didn't want anyone to see her in pain.
"If you have any questions just ask, I'm going to begin stitching the cuts now. I'm sorry but this will hurt and your friend will have to wait outside." The nurse gathered the necessary medical supplies and equiptment before shooing Rainbow out the room.
Rainbow was waiting again. She wasn't ever a patient person, especially not now that she was stood outside a hospital room while her friend was getting stitches. Rainbow still mostly blamed herself and she knew how painful stitches are, she remembered Aria saying that she's not used to pain, but then she remembered Sonata saying that Aria got her a teddy when she was in hospital. Rainbow wondered why Sonata had to go to hospital if the pendants stopped the sirens getting hurt, maybe she'd ask later, in the meantime Rainbow had a gift shop to find. She ran down the corridors, following the signs until she found the get well soon shop near the main entrance. Rainbow walked inside the small shop and saw a wall with shelves piled with beanies, plushies and teddy bears. She scanned the shelves until she came across a small kitten teddy. Rainbow stood in thought for a moment, deciding whether or not Aria was a cat person, she made up her mind and picked up the kitten. She paid the cashier and sped off towards the room Aria was in, kitten in hand. Rainbow lived up to her name as she dashed past staff to get to the other end of the hospital. Aria was still in the room, so Rainbow stood outside waiting until she came out, which luckily for the impatient girl wasn't too long. Aria's legs were bandaged and visibly even shakier, so she almost fell on Rainbow when she walked out the room.
"I hate to ask," began Aria, "but do you think you could play the part of human walking stick for just a bit longer?"
"Sure." Rainbow helped Aria steady herself. "I remember Sonata saying that you got her a teddy when she wound up in hospital, so I got you this." Rainbow handed Aria the kitten teddy. "There was a cute dog one, but I thought you might be more of a cat person."
"Wow. You really are soft, Skittles, but...thank you."