My Lucky Rainbow
Derpy sat happily in her cushy chair, looking around at the pictures hung around the waiting room. There was a picture of a pony wearing a rainbow wig and a clown nose, one of a blue butterfly with silver spots, and, Derpy's favorite, an elephant balancing all four of his legs on a beach small. It really was way to small for that elephant.
"Derpy Hooves?" The filly looked away from the silly elephant and towards the door to the waiting room, where a light pink mare stood wearing a white cap donned with a red cross. She was holding a clipboard in her hoof, and wore a cheery smile on her face. Derpy responded with a goofy smile, and waved her fore hoof in the air like she was swatting a fly.
"Hi!" the filly said rather loudly. The lavender stallion sitting next to her sighed and laughed lightly to himself, before getting on his hooves and encouraging the filly to do the same with his wing.
"Come on Derpy, It's time to go see the doctor," he said, finally coaxing the filly out of her chair and towards the nurse. Though he wore a smile on his face, his nerves were running wild. During their last appointment, the doctor had looked rather concerned after the examination he had given Derpy. He didn't say anything really, just that It may be in their best interest allow him to take a scan of the filly's brain. They were here now to get the results of that scan. Though he wasn't related to the filly in any way, he cared for her deeply. Ever since Rainbow had brought her home, she hadn't ceased to make his heart melt and a put a smile on his face. That, and he felt a great deal of responsibility for her. He couldn't just let her go back to being homeless. She didn't deserve that. Not by a long shot. He could only imagine how lonely she had been, how sad she must have been. He needed to make her feel happy, make her feel loved again, make her feel safe. He didn't want to fail her, which is why he felt as though he was going to be sick as the nurse led them into a room- the room where the answers to Derpy's health troubles lie.
Derpy had lived with him and Rainbow for about a month now, and at least once every other day she had an episode. Rainbow had gotten used to this, and had ceased crying every time it happen, though she was still shaken each time. She understood that there wasn't much she could do about it, and that Derpy would eventually wake up, but the sight was always unsettling to the filly. She always felt the need to hug her every time she woke up. Rainbow seemed to care about Derpy just as much as her dad did- their dad did.
Ever since Rainbow had discovered that Derpy had never learned how to fly, she became dead set on teaching her, like it was her sisterly duty to bring flight to the walleyed filly. Every day at school, Rainbow dedicated her recess to flight lessons. At first, Derpy was very shy to the idea, since the few times she had tried she crashed pretty hard, and was sore for weeks afterwards. It took an immense amount of coaxing to get her to finally climb a tree, and Rainbow came pretty close to just giving up and pushing her out of it when she refused to jump. The same two dim-witted colts that had raced Rainbow were beginning to poke fun at the nervous filly, one of the more friendly nicknames being, 'a dumb dodo bird.' The unpleasant remarks had earned one a swift punch to the jaw, and the other, a powerful kick to the stomach. Rainbow may have been smaller, but she was a whole heck of a lot tougher, and seeing Derpy cry unlocked her rage vault. She would have continued if it weren't for Cloud Kicker pulling her back away from the now grounded colts. Derpy had watched the whole scene play out. Rainbow was always loyal to her friends. She always cared for her friends. She would do anything for them. Derpy had to do something in return, to make her proud.
Closing her eyes, she exhaled slowly like she had been told, flared her wings, and jumped. She braced herself for impact, expecting to meet the ground with a sharp pain like last time. After a few moments, nothing happened. A few more seconds. Still nothing. She cracked her good eye open, and saw Rainbow looking up at her. Looking up at her. She gasped as she realized this- she was hovering in mid air. She was flying. She got so excited that she started kicking her legs with joy, jumping being out of the question. However, the sporadic kicking caused her to lose her balance, and she fell the remaining five feet onto the ground. She didn't care though. She finally flew. Rainbow came flying over to her and wrapped the dazed and giggling filly in a hug.
"You did it, Derpy! I knew it! I knew you could do it!" she exclaimed, wrapping her legs even tighter around the grey filly. Derpy continued giggling, and looked Rainbow in the eye.
"I couldn'a done it without my lucky leprechaun!" she laughed, returning the hug in full force, nearly choking Rainbow for the second time in under two weeks. When she finally released the gasping cyan filly, she was met with a playful punch to the shoulder.
"So, I'm still a leprechaun, then?" she smirked, amused that Derpy was still in that mindset.
"Yup! And you're my leprechaun!" she replied, once again attacking Rainbow with a hug, though much less violently this time. Rainbow grinned widely.
"Alright, if I'm the leprechaun, then you are my hidden treasure, Derpy!" Rainbow replied, proud of her creative remark. Derpy just giggled again and held the embrace. She never ever wanted to leave her leprechaun.
Back in the white, bleached doctor's office, the filly and her dad sat patiently, awaiting the doctor's arrival. Derpy sat on the cot in to the right of the room, and stared intently at the colorful balloon-pattern wallpaper, while the stallion sat next to her in a chair similar to those in the waiting room, staring at the clock. It had already been ten minutes since the nurse had brought them to the confined area, and he was growing increasingly anxious. He couldn't stand waiting anymore. If that doctor didn't walk in in the next minute, he decided he was going to get up and look for him. He continued to watch the minute hand as it ticked around in it's little circle at a painfully slow rate. Just as he was about to get up, he heard the door knob turning. He looked over to see the same white stallion he had met with at the previous appointment, still wearing his black reading glasses and white lab coat that seemed to blend in with him. There was no expression what so ever on his face, giving the purple stallion no way of knowing what was to come. The doctor walked in, seating himself on a small wooden stool on the far side of the room. He looked at the stallion, then to Derpy, who was still admiring the walls, then back to the stallion.
"Well," he spoke in a slightly gruff voice,"let's cut to the chase then, shall we?" he removed what looked to be a laminated piece of paper from his saddle bag and pinned it up on a cork board. "When you told me about the seizures, and their frequency, I wasn't exactly sure what the problem could have been," he said, adjusting himself on the stool, clearly uncomfortable. "But at this point I am fairly sure of what caused them, and it may have even contributed to her lazy eye. This condition can sometimes cause the connection between the brain and the eyes to falter, resulting in an inability to move both, or in this case, one of them properly." He continued to readjust himself. The purple stallion across from him looked like he was about to explode with anxiety. The doctor knew what he was waiting for- he just didn't want to say it. He always hated this part. He grabbed a small pointing stick in his hoof and turned towards the image pinned on the cork board, Derpy's brain scan.
"Here," he said, pointing to a small white blotch about the size of a ping-pong ball, which stood out against the gray of the rest of the image,"is where the problem lies," he finished, once again readjusting his seat. "I'm very sorry to be the one to tell you this," he continued, "but Derpy has a small mass of irregular cells growing in-"
"Oh, just say it!" the purple stallion snapped, before looking over at Derpy, who was now at attention, and burying his face in his hooves. He sighed loudly, before speaking in an almost inaudible voice.
"Brain tumor."