Rainbow watched her slip in and out of consciousness, listening to the breath whistling through her battered nose. The doctors had savaged her—somewhere behind that mass of bloody white bandages there was a stump, a severed growth where a horn should have been.
They’d ruined her. She’d never cast a spell again, she’d never… organize her whole library at once with telekinesis, or learn a new bit of sorcery, or whatever it was eggheads did. She’d never be Twilight again.
They’d broken her. She’d broken her.
“Twilight… I’m sorry.”
As if she’d heard, Twilight stirred again. Quick as lightning, Spike called out to the nurses. They came, ran their tests, checked the machines, but everything was alright. She was waking up, for real this time. Redheart peeled away some of the bandages, letting her see and hear better.
Did she remember? Could she feel her missing horn? Would she look at Dash and see a friend or an enemy? What would she say to her?
“Euughh…”
Well, that answered that question.
Twilight made a few more tired moans, a half-hearted grunt, and a soft cough. “What…” The rest of her sentence was promptly stifled by Spike’s hug, his warm cheek pressing into her bandaged one. He was a good friend. Not like Rainbow.
“I missed you, Twilight,” he muttered.
“Yeah, I love you, too, Spike.” She tried to dislodge her snout from his grungy scales. “When was the last time you took a bath?”
Spike begrudgingly lifted himself away, but not without a retort. “Hey, you’re no bed of roses, either.”
Twilight flopped her head back onto her pillow, her eyes closing again. The girls held their breath…
“Relax, I’m just tired.”
And let it out. She was fine. Or as close to fine as a unicorn without her horn could be.
She rolled her neck backwards and forwards, joints popping and snapping. Her forelegs strained for a moment, before she noticed the splints holding her back.
“Hey, Spike? Think you can do me a huge favor?” she muttered, with a twinge of strain in her voice.
The little dragon perked up. “You know I’d do anything for you, Twi.”
“Uh-huh. Itch right under my chin… yeah, that’s it. Thanks, Spike.” She sneezed. “And really do take a bath.” Her bandaged hoof pointed up at the girls. “Make sure he takes a bath, okay? He’ll stink up the whole library.”
She seemed… fine? Had she noticed? Could she feel it? Was she planning what to say, what sequence of words would destroy Rainbow?
Twilight kept talking, her words a bit slurred thanks to the painkillers. “Last time I was in the hospital, they gave me a few shots in the rump. Guess this was a little more serious.” Another cough. “Take notes for that report on Equestrian medical practices, Spike. You remember how to cite personal experience, right? Cross-reference it with that book in the library, you know, sorting number 431…”
“... 7813, A Surgeon’s Survey of Modern Medical Maladies,” Spike completed, jotting down shorthand on a scrap of paper—the back of a lollipop wrapper, actually. He made do with what he had.
“These drugs are terrific, by the way. I can’t even feel my horn.”
Twilight took a deep breath. “So, what happened?”
The other girls said nothing, but Rainbow could feel their glances, quick little flicks of the eye over to her. They were almost involuntary, but each one cut like a razor blade.
Rainbow felt like she’d been turned to stone, except stone couldn’t feel shame and it certainly couldn’t feel pain. Her mouth chomped noiselessly as words failed to form.
“I… I…” She’s lying. She remembers everything. She wants you to say it, say you failed her, say you dropped her and took her horn and took her life away and why didn’t you just die yourself?
She started to sway slowly from one side to the other, like a ship in a storm. “I dropped you, Twilight. Right… right on your head, and the wyrm, it was coming too fast, and I dropped you, and my wings, and the acid, and I couldn’t, and I… I…” Her scratched jaw opened and closed, opened and closed without any sound but a faint gurgle. She looked like she would collapse.
“Rainbow, what’s going on?” Twilight tried to reach out a splinted foreleg to comfort Dash—don’t deserve it don’t deserve it—but the pegasus recoiled like she’d touched fire, her hooves scuffing the ground. Step by step she moved further away.
“Rainbow, you’re scaring me.”
Her only response was a strangled “I’m so…”
Spike took pity on Rainbow. “I’ll tell her.” His grip tightened around Twilight’s leg, his claws able to slice through diamond yet somehow soft and comforting against her fur. He could never hurt her.
A purple hand reached out to smooth down the errant coils of hair that had broken free of Twilight’s mane. “Twilight, you fell”—No, I dropped her, threw her down like garbage—“while Rainbow was saving you from the monster.” Should have saved you from myself. ”The doctors said…”
A gale force wind drowned out the rest of his words. Louder and louder, Why didn’t you save her? Words like hammers crashed into Rainbow’s skull—How could you have done it? His mouth moved, but Rainbow couldn’t hear anything but the winds inside her mind, shouting, screaming, whispering in voices sharp as oiled steel betrayer.
Rainbow curled into the corner, the spotlessly clean hospital corner where her wings rubbed against the tile and reopened their wounds. Faint little drops of red smeared against the wall as her feathers stretched out over her, trying to shield herself from the wind, from the rage she felt, the hatred her friends must have for her—
Another set of feathers skimmed over her own, barely pushing her wings open. “Um, Rainbow? Twilight would like to talk to you, if that’s alright.”
Fluttershy let Rainbow balance herself against her, like a mother helping a foal to walk for the first time. On teetering legs, she approached the hospital bed, cold white sheets surrounding white bandages trapping a unicorn without her horn.
“Rainbow?” Twilight’s voice was soft. “Spike told me. He said you did everything you could—”
“Well it wasn’t enough!” Rainbow let the storm inside her burst out. “It wasn’t good enough, and now you’re—” A wing stabbed at the bed. “—there and I’m here and you’re—”
Fluttershy’s wings calmed her.
“—and you’re where I should be.” Rainbow leaned into the other pegasus, butter-yellow folding around cyan.
Twilight rubbed her stump, grimacing a little as electricity flickered down her nerves. “I know you didn’t mean it, Rainbow. It’s okay…”
She kept talking. More empty words, somehow so heavy they crushed Rainbow. So much air, so many… platitudes. That’s a word Twilight would use.
“Not your fault,” she said. “Did your best,” she said. Twilight spoke on autopilot, going through the list of things you’re supposed to say to comfort your friend. Whoever wrote the list did a terrible job.
Raising her wings again, Rainbow dashed out of the room. Fluttershy started after her, but Twilight held her back.
“Let her go.” Spike came closer with a rag to wipe the tears from her muzzle. “Thanks, Spike.”
She fell back into the pillows. “Well, guess someone should tell Princess Celestia her most faithful student is going to have to drop out.”