//------------------------------// // 8. Recovery Of The Dog // Story: Ponyville Police Department // by Omega6047 //------------------------------// --Chapter 8-- Recovery Of The Dog The Darkness slowly began to leave Mischief’s mind. His senses began to come back, but still everything was like through the fog. His body felt numb and horribly weak. As his senses kept coming back, he realized that he was lying on something relatively soft, and that there was something cozy on top of him. There was also something covering his eye. He tried to open his eyes, but to no avail. He felt some movement near him and heard a voice of vet-horse. He expected her to stick some needles into him, but instead she started to gently pet him. Unlike last time, she wasn’t doing it like one of those annoying human pups. She had put much care into that; only Revan had ever put as much care into that as she did. And unlike last time, he was enjoying it. He lied there there for a few more minutes before he tried to open his eyes again, this time succeeding. At least partly. While his right eye was now opened, no matter how much he tried, his left one remained closed. After few more attempts he realized that the thing that was covering his eye was probably the reason. Vet-horse had noticed that he had opened his eyes and immediately hugged him; she began whispering something to his ears. When she was that close, he could smell what she was feeling, like he did with the book-horse. She was worried, very worried as indicated be faint smell of salt around her eyes. She reached down, and placed a bowl with water next to him. He lifted his head and drank happily, and when he was done, vet-horse took the bowl away. Mischief began to look around, he noticed that he was lying on the couch and was covered by the blanket. He looked through the window he saw the sun rising. Around he saw many animals, some were looking at him, others were sleeping and the rest was eating or drinking from their bowls. There was one exception however. One very dissatisfied bunny was looking at vet-horse with an angry look while tapping his foot on the wooden floor. She noticed that and kneeled down to him. She talked to the bunny, but he remained as angry as before. He pointed his paw at Mischief, and then at the ground. The dog understood the message – the bunny wanted him to get down. If Mischief could, he would have laughed right now. That little thing thought it could order him. Vet-horse kept trying to get bunny to let go, but he just ignored her. He jumped on the couch and kicked Mischief in the flank. The dog barely felt anything but it angered him. He kicked the bunny off of the couch with his rear paw. Vet-horse spoke again, but neither Mischief nor the bunny reacted to that. The bunny jumped at the couch again, this time he landed near Mischief’s face trying to look as intimidating as possible. Which means not at all. The dog responded by showing the bunny what ’intimidating’ means and making sure he will know who is the boss. He growled at the bunny and slightly opened his mouth, showing his teeth. The bunny seemed to not expect such an answer, but he kept his glare. As Mischief’s growling began to grow more aggressive and his mouth started to open more, the glare Bunny was giving him slowly began to fade away. But before anything could progress, vet-horse stepped between the two and stopped the little glare fight. She took the bunny away and placed him in the small bed on the other side of the room. The bunny kept looking at Mischief with an annoyed/angry look, but also with a small dose of fear. Few hours later Mischief was able to get up, and so he did. The moment he’d left the couch, his place was taken by the bunny. He didn’t really care, but it was amusing to see the little creature trying to clean the couch from dog’s fur. Mischief’s first thought was Revan. He was nowhere to be seen. The dog began to sniff around, looking for anything that would lead him to the human. Vet-horse was watching him all the time. After searching the entire building, all he had found that had any signs of Revan, was his leash, but the smell was too weak to get him anywhere. He wanted to start barking and howling as loud as his lungs would allow him to, but he couldn’t collect strength to do so. So instead he just lied on the ground, whining sadly. After few minutes he fell asleep again. When he woke up, he went back to the living room and saw vet-horse opening the door to her house and releasing all animals outside. Mischief tugged along, in hopes that maybe outside he will find any sign of Revan. Of course to his disappointment, there was none. Instead he found out that one of dogs from vet-horse’s house had marked his territory around the tree. Like he usually does, Mischief re-marked the tree as his own. The dog who’s territory Mischief just took over, came back to the tree and sniffed Mischief’s ‘mark’. The other dog was twice shorter then Mischief and had a short, black fur. Both his muzzle and tail were short. After analyzing Mischief’s scent, the smaller dog decided to submit and walked away, leaving Mischief alone. He sat down under the tree and decided to enjoy the morning. He stayed like that until vet-horse brought him something to eat. He was beginning to like her. Even though she smelled like a vet, she wasn’t acting like one. Instead of sticking needles in him, she was taking care of him like Revan always did. Perhaps vet-horse wasn’t such a good name for her as he initially thought. Besides, neither she nor other ’horses’ looked like a horse anyways. Their hooves and legs were more wider, their muzzles much shorter and they were about three times (maybe two and a half) smaller than horses he’d seen. After he ate, he looked at her, looking for something that would help him to think of a new name for her. The only thing that stuck out in her look were her blue eyes, but that didn’t gave him any ideas. Then he noticed that she had three butterfly shaped images on both sides of her flanks. He realized that all of ‘horses’ had such marks on them. That probably was a way they distinguish themselves. Now he know what to call her. She will be Butterfly. At noon, Butterfly took of the bandages around Mischief’s eye. He thought that now he will be able to see with both eyes, but he still couldn’t see anything with his left one, in fact he realized that he couldn’t even feel it. He looked at the mirror that was hanging on the wall and froze. In place where his left eye was supposed to be, was an empty hole closed with stitches. The area around it was swollen and lightly purple. He began to remember what happened before, how it felt to have a knife in his eyehole. He turned back to Butterfly and saw that she was looking at him with tears in her eyes. He muzzled her and in return she hugged him lightly. When she calmed down, she began to put some cream around his lost eye. The substance was cold, and was slowly making the area it was put on numb. Shortly after she finished putting it on, she reached for the new set of bandages. Before she began to put them on, they heard someone knocking the door. Butterfly opened them and reviled perfume-horse standing outside. She smiled at the sight. They talked for a bit and eventually they both went inside. Butterfly went back to him and placed the new bandages around his empty eyehole. In the meantime, perfume-horse was unpacking her saddlebags. After Butterfly was done, she went back to perfume-horse and the two talked for a bit. Mischief walked next o them –trying to ignore the amount of perfumes that perfume-horse used- to see what was in the saddle bag. On the table in front of him lied pile of cloths that looked like those Revan wore. The thought of the human brought sadness to the dog. For a few minutes he stared at the cloths before him, and then turned to Butterfly and perfume-horse. They were now drinking a tee. Mischief noticed three gems on perfume-horses rear end and thought that since he re-named Butterfly, he could do the same for other ‘horses’. And so, perfume-horse became Gem. Few hours after noon, Butterfly’s house was visited again. This time it was book-horse. She had a bandage around her head and was clearly exhausted, her hair was a mess and she had bags under her eyes. After Mischief checked the mark on her flank, she was given a new name - Star. Butterfly talked with her for a bit, clearly concerned about the state she was in. When they were done talking, Butterfly reached for the cream she had used earlier. She began putting it on his paw after removing a bit of his fur. She had waited for a few minutes until the cream had began to work. After that Star approached him with a syringe. He didn’t liked it. At all. But nonetheless, he’s been through this many times before and certainly he wasn’t going to chicken out now. When the needle impaled his skin he was surprised that he almost hadn’t feel anything. The cream Butterfly had put on him earlier must have been responsible for that, and for that he was grateful. After Star pulled the syringe out it was filled with dog’s blood, she secured the contains and put it in her saddlebag. She was about to live, but Butterfly had stop her. She tried to get her to nap on the couch. Star didn’t seemed to listen and began to walk towards the door. Mischief knew that she was really tired and decided that since Butterfly hadn’t managed to get her to get some rest, he will take care of this. When she was about to open the door, he blocked her way. Then he pushed her back in direction of the couch. She was smaller than Butterfly, but still slightly higher than he was, but that didn’t help her to overpower the dog, and soon she was standing near the couch. Mischief noticed that the bunny that Butterfly had been calling ‘Angel’ was currently relaxing on the couch. The dog grabbed him by the ear and threw out of his relaxing spot; to say that the bunny was irritated was an understatement. While he was done dealing with Angel, he turned back to Star who’s been trying to sneak out again. He hadn’t let her do that and again forced her to go to the couch. She sighed in defeat and lied on the couch. The moment she closed her tired eyes, she was sleeping soundly. Happy with the well done job, Mischief turned to leave, but stopped when he saw Angel jumping on the couch. He landed in front of Star’s face, and prepared himself to kick. Mischief coughed him by the ear again and forced back on the ground, this time more aggressively. The bunny tried that few more times, but each time the dog threw him away from the couch. He decided that it would be better to just stay near Star and make sure that she will get some sleep. He jumped on the other side of the couch and lied there, not letting the bunny get anywhere near until Star woke up few hours later. When she did that, she slowly got out of the bed and after short conversation with Butterfly and petting Mischief, she left. The sun was slowly setting and Butterfly gave Mischief another bowl with food. While he was eating, she walked over to the table where his leash lied. After the dog finished eating she attached it to the collar. She’d led him to the door and they walked out. He kept walking along her side and they reached small town full of ‘horses’ (he really needs to find another way of calling them). As he walked through the street, he was happily inhaling the ever present smell of farm life. As they walked through the town most of ‘horses’ were looking at him and Butterfly. She seemed to not like the attention and walked faster. Eventually they reached the building much bigger than the rest. Butterfly opened the door and they both walked in. Inside of the building was filled with ‘horses’, some were wearing clothes that resembled those doctor would wear and others were covered in bandages or just looking sick. Mischief knew that they had just entered the hospital, since he started to live with Revan, the human managed to get himself hospitalized 4 times. And they weren’t living together for even one year. As they walked through the hallways hope began to ignite in Mischief. He’s been in that situation before. Almost each time Revan ended up in hospital one of his friends would be taking care of him and then led him to where Revan was. So perhaps this time it was the same. They reached the end of the hallway and Butterfly opened the door. The moment she began, Mischief already could feel who was behind. It was Revan. When the door were open wide enough for him to came through, he rushed inside. Butterfly had lost her hold on the leash. When Mischief was inside, he saw his human lying on two beds (one was too small). His jaw was covered by bandage and he was unconscious. Mischief immediately jumped on Revan’s bed(s) and inspected him closer. Human’s left shoulder along with half of his torso was bandaged and his left arm was plastered. There were bruises all over his body and the bandage around his shoulder was covered in blood. There was also one of ‘horses’ in the room but he didn’t paid much attention to that. He lied at Revan’s side and stayed there until Revan woke up two days later.