//------------------------------// // Action // Story: Les Accidents // by Indulgence //------------------------------// Hospitals have a truly singular pungency: a loaded oppressive scent all their own, which like some terrible omen pricks at the instinctive corners at the edge of our minds, whispering only the gravest of paranoid predictions. Their smell alone is too clean, the harsh alkaline of antibacterial fluids polluting the air, making it almost caustic to breath. In such a place equally our other senses are assaulted in turn, foremost of which our eyes face stark white in all directions, whilst our ears are choked by stressed silence, broken only by foreboding mutterings or mechanical beeps. Collectively this sensory barrage screams at absence, a crushing nothingness, inhabited only by the synthetic, the chemical and the pale wraiths which tend to them, all harbingers to what everypony fears. From all this and much more Fleur De Lis fled, blotting out the reality of the whole world for another of her own choosing. To this end she buried herself, foremost in a thick veil of darkness, permitting no invasion from unwanted revealing lights. This was an inky black, in whose recesses she had long ago learnt to take succour, atop of whose foundation she further built her redoubt. She nuzzled deeper into the soft hair of her pillow, around which she had thrown her hooves, tightly held, letting her nostrils fill with and be comforted by its familiar scent. She meanwhile rose and fell in time with her cushion’s movements, letting her focus dwell entirely on the sound of heavy breathing and beneath that a heartbeat’s dull rhythm above all competing others. There was no hospital; she was instead afloat on a calm sea or lake, the firm mattress below her laid out on the prow of some private boat, devoid of anypony’s intrusion. The harsh clearing of a throat in the far too nearby distance shattered this illusion, forcing Fleur to lift her shielding eyelids. A lime green glare immediately caught and grasped her vision, shot at her by a round framed nurse filling the room’s doorway. This trespasser moved to tap a forehoof as if drawing attention to a non-existent watch, before walking on still frowning. In reply the pale white unicorn (much the match to her surroundings and yet somehow not truly colourless) just smiled sweetly back until her adversary had vanished… Buck you, I’m not going anywhere. …and then in a defiant pinkish corona closed the doorway to all beyond. Fleur shifted, attempting to minimise any creak from the bed as she did so, readjusting back to her previous position of comfort prior to the interruption. Laying her roused head back down she took in the one at whose side she sprawled, one of her alabaster forehooves intertwined with one pale brown in between them, whilst her other stretched to enwrap her partner. It was into a mane of azure, almost turquoise, and light blue stripes that she nuzzled, the soft strands warmed by her breath tickling against her snout. Set in this frame: a perfect face, at all times a welcome sight to gaze upon, even in its present setting. Now however it was only made so now in being an impossibly carefree and contented visage, putting its viewer a little more at ease in its presence, but only so much. The unicorn’s vision panned further, moving downward over closed eyes (another comfort) and tempting lips drawn up in the slightest of smiles, in turn crossing the body to which she clung possessively and being forced to an abrupt halt at the foot of the bed. ‘Oh Coco…’ What Fleur found was by no means a surprise, rather the opposite; she expected it but still hoped against hope to have been previously deceived or mistaken. It nonetheless struck her like a fresh wound, forcing her whispered words from her mouth. Beside her own two taller outstretched hind legs a second pair stood in forced suspension, tightly bound in spirals of layered bandages and held aloft by a rig of cords. No amount of reassurance (regardless from what manner of professional it came) that this set up was purely a precaution, that the damage was not in fact that bad and that all would in time heal, could still the frantic sensitivity of her mind. All concepts of comfort from any doctor’s words were to no avail as her thoughts, spurred on by her setting, worked on constant overdrive to conjure only awful conclusions. Coco stirred, breath skipping its regular tempo in a sharp sigh, becoming a low still sleeping mutter at a near whisper. Fleur cuddled in closer, drawn in, listening like a guilty filly at a closed door. In this though, snuggling deeper into the earth mare’s mane, her nose caught against metal: a small ring of silver, matched in style and placement in her own ear’s helix. These were tiny shared symbols, easily missed, invisible even to most, but loaded and weighted with far more than their simplicity would suggest for those that wore them for one another alone. As in all things, blink and such treasures, life’s greatest of sweeteners, could be missed. Somewhere far off the click of striding hooves brought Fleur’s ears to attention, marking she suspected the imminent return of the stern faced nurse, inevitably bringing with her an angered reminder of the rules of visiting hours. The potential target of this however was not at all willing or able to be forced into departure. She could be confronted, argued against or threatened with all the regulations in the world, but she would not be moved. She was more than willing to do all in order to remain, from simple rebuttal, to making a full blown scene and name dropping royal connections until she got her way. Although she was of course no doctor, it felt absolutely vital that she stayed, any consideration to the contrary being unthinkable. ‘Coco needs me here’ she wordlessly justified to herself, whilst at the same time (selfishly in her own mind) admitting that this was equally true in reverse. The feeling was entirely mutual; she in the same way needed to be there for her own good. Coco fidgeted once more in place, seeking to roll herself over, no longer happy being on her back and huffing in annoyance at finding herself restrained. Instead therefore the earth mare consoled herself in letting her head lull over to one side, with eyes still closed turning to face the other still snuggled up against her. Fleur for her part meanwhile was caught somewhere between her indulgent and her anxious self, succumbing with little resistance to stealing a kiss from the lips presented to her, whilst her forehoof moved on automatic to stroke her partner’s mane straight, shushing the aggravated sleeper. The object of these affections (though remaining undisturbed from her slumber) reacted immediately, letting out a small contented sigh, as if in spite of everything all was right with the world, an action in turn replied by her ever attentive nurse. In the background meanwhile the set of stepping hooves reached and then passed the room’s doorway, not making their expected entrance, moving on further through the ward. Once more the solid facets of their surrounding world blurred, becoming indistinct; each oppressive sight, sound and scent dissolving into unimportant nothingness. ‘I hope you realise that I’m going to give you an earful for scaring me like this when you wake up’ Fleur whispered in between a further flurry of kisses into which her single opportunistic one had descended, each flowing as much out of a reassuring need as they were a possessive claim. Born in these feathery caresses was also the tacit wish to take all pain or harm onto herself, acting like a poultice in drawing it out, rather than let any evil linger where it was. At their centre Fleur’s forehoof remained folded with Coco’s, her other moving back to where it had begun, the snowy unicorn curled about her shorter partner in an encircling embrace. For anypony to see she was a wall, her body placed as a blockade or defensive rampart in the path of all others, totally enwrapping her precious charge. Looks can however be the most deceiving, the bandaged earth mare being as much a supportive pillar to her partner as the confident model and showpony was in return. The quiet (often to the point of shyness) designer was very much the foundation to this entrenched hug, the reason as well as the root of its fortification. Her eyes being allowed to fall back to closed, Fleur let herself again drift weightless, or at least far removed from any fetter. What she clutched so tightly to her (although she had always used far better words in the past) could very much be described as her life raft, by whom she remained afloat and free on what could often be a choppy sea. This was why she would not let go, why she was so loath to depart Coco’s side, no matter how capable the hooves she might leave her in. Although the admittance was a difficult one she had been scared, in no small part terrified even, at the suddenly very real prospect of loss, to be without what had become her everything. She listened to the soothing sound of a rhythmic heartbeat coming from the perfect creature to which she had unconditionally bound herself, letting her own heavy breathing fall in time also, unmoving except for the occasional loving nuzzle in her continued vigil.