Time for That Feeling
The midday sun hung in the sky above, the occasional cloud trying to cover it with its fluffiness but only getting to do so for a few fleeting seconds. A quiet, gentle breeze passed through a sea of apple trees, the leaves moving like the lulls of waves. The chirps of birds and the buzzing of bees added to the ambiance of the scene.
I stood amongst the sea, leaning against one of the trees, taking in my surroundings. One word came to mind: torture. The breeze sent shivers throughout my body, the sounds of the leaves gave me a sense of seasickness, and the sounds of the animals gave me a pounding headache.
“Must have overworked myself,” I said in a heavy breath, wiping a grey hoof across my brow. “Usually I love seeing this.”
“There ya are, Grey,” a voice said from behind me.
I turned around, the breeze making me regret it, and saw an orange coated earth pony mare, her blonde mane tied together underneath her Stetson, her eyes switching from happiness to concern.
“Ya alright?” she asked me. “Ya don’t look so good.”
“Nah, I’m okay,” I told her. “Just overworked myself is all."
She placed a hoof on my shoulder. “Ya sure? Maybe you should rest.”
“Would love to,” I told her as I slid her hoof off, “but Rarity needs my help today.”
I could tell that she wanted to say something, but thought against it, knowing full well how stubborn I could be at times. “Just be careful, alright.”
“Applejack, all I’m going to do is walk through town. What’s could go wrong?”
Apparently, a lot of things could go wrong. As I made my way into town, along the path that I could say I could walk blindfolded and not get lost, things kept happening to me: the breeze froze me way too often, my headache got worse and worse, every step seemed to be labored, my vision got blurry, I felt like I was sweating a river, and my stomach decided to do backflips.
Time seemed to be a series of photographs that changed whenever I blinked: the orchard’s gate, two pathways turning into one, a small bridge over a brook, ponies going about their own business, and a signpost on a corner.
I leaned against the post, holding my head in my hoof, trying to nest away some of the pain. The sounds around me seemed slightly muffled, but would come back if I focused hard enough.
“I must have seriously worn myself out today in the orchard,” I said in a low raspy voice. “Never been this bad before.”
I looked up and saw my destination on the other side of the street: a big cylindrical building shape with decorative pillars and pony sculptures lining the lower and upper exterior. I would have noticed more about it but I just wanted to get there already.
I somehow got inside of the building (wasn’t I outside a second ago?) and looked around, trying to see if anypony was home.
“Grey, is that you?” a voice asked.
I looked up and saw a white unicorn mare, her purple mane and tail curled up fashionably, standing on her stairs.
“Hey there, Rarity. You still need—”
The world decided to go dark around me until only just the faintest of light blurs could be seen. I knew I heard something, but I didn’t know what. All I could think of as everything seemed to go away was that I was feeling tired.
“I’m sorry okay. I honestly didn’t think I was sick, just seriously tired.”
I hoped that would help me in my situation, but as I looked at my caretaker, a grayish blue pegasus mare, it felt like it did nothing.
“You really need to take better care of yourself,” she told me. “You’re lucky I was nearby to take care of you, let alone get you to your bed.” She sighed and muttered something under her breath, though I heard ‘stupid idiot.’
I looked aimlessly around my bedroom - four soft peach walls, three oak cabinets, two bookshelves, a small writing table littered with worn out candles, and a queen bed – kind of embarrassed that a mare was seeing all the clutter of books, scrolls, and ancient texts jammed wherever possible, piles even running along the walls.
“I know Flitter, and I’m grateful,” I told her, “but I really didn’t think it was that bad.”
She placed a hoof on my forehead. “You are burning up, have the shivers, have a severe headache, and passed out while talking to Rarity. You seriously scared her.”
I looked down at my lap, my navy blue blanket loosely wrapped around my waist.
“Grey, I know you didn’t mean to scare anypony,” she told me in that soft gentle voice of hers.
I looked at her and saw what I thought what was a nurse’s cap beside that bow of hers. “So, good to see Nurse Flitter is taking care of me today.”
I swear I saw her stiffen up a bit, but the urge to hunch over overwhelmed me as I deposited everything in my stomach into a nearby bucket.
~
The world felt like a fever induced dream, which it might have for all I knew. A lot of puking, cold sweats, massive hallucinations (swore everything turned red and golden), and a headache that kept coming back with a vengeance was had.
Even in my fevered situation, I noticed that Flitter never left. No matter what I did, be it throwing up on her by accident, refusing to drink some liquids or get some food into me, throwing whatever I could reach at her, or just basically giving her a horrible time, she was always by my side. There was one point that I thought she turned purple, but that was probably just my sickness messing with me.
The world seemed to be taking it easy on me as I looked up my roof, the late dusk shine casting some pretty interesting dragons that seemed to grow the more I stared at them. So much so, everything turned to black.
The darkness gave way to gentle orange morning light, basking its shine upon my face, as probably the first ration thoughts in a while came to mind: I felt sluggish, stiff, tired, dehydrated, and hungry.
I slowly straightened myself so that I was sitting on my bed and felt something fall onto one of my hind legs, a dried up wash cloth.
I looked around my room and saw the damage done by my sickness: my flat sheet was completely drenched with sweat with a bit of vomit hanging off the sides, the blanket was hanging off the left side of my bed, my pillow was gone, the floor surrounding the bucket was covered in dried up vomit and there were a few broken cups littering the floor around my desk.
“Oh, you’re up.”
I moved towards the voice and saw Flitter balancing a bowl on her back and a washcloth on her shoulder, her tiredness pretty much evident.
“Did, did I...did I make your night horrible?” I asked her.
She set her bowl on my table. “Not really. The last time I took care of Rumble, I had to deal with a plastered Thunderlane too.” She placed the newly wet cloth onto my forehead.
“Probably not a whole lot of fun, I bet.”
She shrugged a little and sat on one of the cleaner portions of my bed. “It wasn’t all that bad. He gave me a lot of good blackmail.”
We shared a light laugh together.
“You should lie down and rest some more.”
“I’m feeling better though, Flitter.”
She nudged my shoulder gently and I lay flat on my bed again, my eyes starting to feel heavy.
“Guess I could go for a nap.”
I closed my eyes, hoping that I could fall asleep as quick as possible. It only felt like I had rested for a few seconds when I reopened my eyes. The orange light of the sunrise was now replaced by the regular light of the sun.
Guess I did rest, which was good; I didn’t feel quite so stiff, tired, or sluggish as I did before.
Something was pressed up against me. Probably just the blanket I shrugged off again. As I turned around to fix it, my breath was taken away.
Her head had ended up on my chest, and she was nestling in a little as if I was a pillow. Her mane fell across her face, not neat yet not messy, making her seem like a sleeping beauty. A series of cute little snores reached my ears as her chest raised and lowered gently.
My heart started to race as I kept taking on this vision of beauty in front of me. This wasn’t the first time that Flitter and I ended up cuddling together, but that realization didn’t really help much.
I must have woken her up somehow because I soon saw a pair of soft raspberry orbs staring at me.
“D-did I w-wake you?"
She stared at me a while then closed her eyes. “A little bit.”
“Sorry about that. You deserve your rest.”
“It’s okay, Grey. Forgot how good of a pillow you were.”
My heart started to race a little faster, which I’m pretty sure she noticed, her head still against my chest.
“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
She laughed a little at that. “Just forgot how fun it was trying to embarrass you.”
I rolled my eyes and look up to the ceiling, the two of us in a comfortable silence.
“Hey Flitter.”
“Yeah Grey?”
“Do you, you know, miss us?”
She was quiet for a while that I thought I screwed up on asking that.
“A little, but it was probably for the best Grey.” She pushed herself off of me and sat at the edge of my bed. “Besides, I know there’s somepony new in your life now.” She laughed into her hoof a little. “She even volunteered to look after you when I had to step out and get a few things.”
“Volunteered? Who are you-“ A purple blur came to mind at that moment.
“You know, Twilight is a pretty interesting mare,” she said. “She couldn’t seem to say yes fast enough when I asked her to look out for you. You must have left some kind of impression.”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” I said, hoping the hotness of my face wasn’t showing.
She slid off the bed. “Well, it looks like you are good enough to be by yourself. You shouldn’t be back to 100%, so please try not to do anything too reckless.”
“Aye aye, boss ma’am.”
“Oh, before I go, Twilight said that she was going to come over in a bit to give you some food that might help.”
She left with that, a smile on her face, leaving me on my bed in a stupor.