Thirty Days, Thirty Twilights

by Esle Ynopemos

4: Keep Talking [Slice of Life]

((Prompt: Twilight is grievously injured and only Pinkie Pie can save her.))

Teleportation was a dangerous spell. Twilight Sparkle had always known that. From the very first day she had learned it, she had always been aware of the risks. Know where you're going, that was the rule. If she couldn't see her destination and know for absolute certain it was clear of obstacles, it wasn't worth it. Better to walk, and be a bit late.

Sloppy, she chastised herself as she laid in the grass, her breaths made short and ragged by the foreign object lodged in her chest. It was a frisbee. A couple of colts had been tossing a frisbee back and forth when Twilight had glanced at the clock in her library, realized she was late for a scheduled play-date with Pinkie, and flashed to the park in a burst of magic. Reckless. Stupid.

It was of some small consolation to her that she hadn't hit one of the colts. At least her mistake had only cost her own life.

A shadow fell over her. Twilight's sky filled with pink. “Wow, Twilight! I've never seen somepony catch a frisbee like that! How'd you do it?”

Twilight grimaced. “Pinkie,” she said. “Pinkie, get help.”

Her pink sky did not gallop off to find a paramedic. If anything, Pinkie drew closer. “But I thought you were supposed to catch it with your teeth, not your ribs. You should try that way next time.”

“Pinkie, please,” groaned Twilight, squeezing her eyes shut. “It hurts.” She could feel Pinkie roll her over with her hooves, sliding something underneath her. Celestia only knew what that was about. Why wasn't she running to get help? Why was she just standing there, yapping as though everything was fine?

Pinkie continued babbling. “I wonder why it's called a frisbee, anyway? It doesn't look like a bee at all. Maybe if you painted it yellow, and made buzzing noises when you threw it...”

A wave of anger surged through Twilight. “Can you not see I'm bleeding?” she snapped. The exertion sent her into a fit of coughs, filling her mouth with the metallic tang of blood.

“I sure can see that,” chirped Pinkie brightly. “Gosh, it's like strawberry syrup! Except, I bet it wouldn't taste very good on a bowl of ice cream. Hey, what's your favorite sort of syrup to put on ice cream, Twilight? Mine's strawberry, except maybe it isn't that anymore.”

Twilight moaned and rolled her head back. As if having a plastic disk buried centimeters from her heart wasn't bad enough, her friend seemed dead-set on talking her to death before she bled out.

“Twilight? Hey, Twi. Twiley-poo. Twinkie? Sparkly-pants?” Twilight felt a hoof tap against her cheek. “Stay awake, Twilight, we're almost to the hospital.”

“Wha?” Twilight tried to force her bleary eyes to focus, but pink was still all she could see.

The pink grinned brightly. “I think maybe you didn't feel the part where I got you on the stretcher, but that's okay. You've got other things on your mind. But it's super important you stay awake and focused. You can do that, right, Twilight?”

Twilight nodded slowly. Focus. The mass of pink was all there was to look at, so she focused on that.

“Good job. I knew you could do it, because you're Twilight Sparkle, and Twilight Sparkle is super good at focusing. Me, I'm terrible at focusing. I can't concentrate on something for more than a minute before I'm off talking about yellow frisbees with strawberry syrup on them!” Pinkie giggled. “It sure is a good thing you're gonna be just fine, Twilight, because otherwise I don't know who could ever get me to focus!”

Twilight's ears picked up the bustling sounds of the hospital. The sterile scent of polished tile floors met her nostrils. She found she couldn't muster the energy to give Pinkie a verbal reply, but she smiled for her. Pinkie was right. She would be just fine. Thanks to her, she was going to be just fine.

Author's Note:

One of those tough choices in terms of tagging. It could be [Sad], if you interpret the final line as being a lie. You could call it [Dark], since it centers around a pretty nasty injury. But since the focus of the story is on there being more reason to Pinkie's actions than it sometimes seems, I went with the catch-all [Slice of Life] category. Not an especially good fit, but it works a little, I think.

Comments

[Diamond Sparkle]

Poor Twilight.

[Brakyo]

Imagine that happening in an episode. Well, without the syrup. Gotta keep it in range of younger viewers.

[Esle Ynopemos]

3361191 I'm trying hard to picture how this would translate to the content level the show usually has. Life-threatening injuries just don't seem to happen in-show; Twilight went through some stuff that probably should've killed her in Feeling Pinkie Keen, and she shed the bandages from that in the course of an afternoon. Sticking to that tone, I don't know how you would produce the urgency for Pinkie to get her to the hospital, and keep her from drifting into shock.

Basically, the syrup is a critical ingredient to this particular ice-cream sundae.

[Menoshe]

3357188

Oh sweet Celestia...So many faces...

[Periphery]

Pinkie's first line here was hilarious. Really good Pie-alogue throughout, really. This one reminds me a lot of the Inappropriate chapter from your Applejack run, and both of them could use a comedy tag, in my opinion, despite the fact that something very serious is going on in both.

I also bet that's not how Twilight's teleportation works, but eh, open to interpretation.

[Esle Ynopemos]

3363551 It is quite similar to Inappropriate, now that you mention it. I didn't notice that at first. I get what you're saying, but I don't really think the [Comedy] tag fits for either of them. Being funny isn't really the point of the jokes here, and I think that difference in intention keeps it from sitting well with the tag.

Also, that's a great word you came up with. Pie-alogue. I'm going to have to find an excuse to use that one in the future. I'm glad the Pie-alogue works for you here.

Yes, I am sure this particular mechanic of the spell is not canon at all. We are most certainly not going to ever see Twilight emerge from a teleport with a lamppost stuck through her leg. Not even for cartoony slapstick fun. Although... I could see the show doing something akin to The Fly, maybe.

[Harwick]

3363594
I suppose that we've kind of seen this particular scenario in the show, only with fillies passing a beach ball back and forth instead. In the battle to occupy the same space as a teleporting Twilight, the beach ball lost rather decisively (rather than be embedded in her.). So it really is a good thing she didn't teleport directly into a frisbee thrower going by that example.

Still, an excellent use of Pinkie's only seemingly random nature!

[uselesstaco]

3362208 Your profile pic matches that comment perfectly.

[Themaskedferret]

This was another strange one as the comments show. Strange and awesome.

[Shipper107]

I don´t usually like reading about "SYRUP" but this one is a good one despite that. maybe even because of that. TWINKIE FOR THE WIN!!!

[PresentPerfect]

A good bit darker than the SoL tag suggests. Also, I wrote a story kinda like this once. :)