Numbers Are Ponies Too

by Telofy

4 The Bloom

There was more rehearing on the next day. After Cheerilee had talked to Little Cedar, the filly suddenly had tremendously important errands to run or fly and vanished for the rest of the day. Amber filled the role again during the rehearsals and impressed Cheerilee when she bungled her lines less and less frequently.

Then the day of the finale was upon them. Amber left the hotel early, proud that she would be on time for once. She was just out the door when she heard crashing and cursing from their room and then her father’s terror-stricken shriek. She ran back upstairs.

Her dad sat propped against the wall and fanned himself fresh air with the hotel restaurant’s menu to keep from fainting. A few steps away from him lay her brother. Her mother was bent over one of his hind legs feeling his ankle. The sunlight from the window played on his black and white body. Damask only looked annoyed with his own clumsiness.

“Bubs! What happened?” Amber asked.

“It’s nothing. I just wanted to look into the upper drawers of the Chippendale escri—grr, argh—toire,” and Amber admired that even in his pain he never considered saying desk although there was precisely one in the room, “so I climbed it. Most drawers were empty, but the uppermost left drawer contained three goose feather quills and one swan feather for titling. The drawer below it contained a jar of lampblack ink.” Amber’s mother was carefully moving his hoof. “The last drawer I inspected—grr, argh—held a letter opener. Even while I jumped down, but still before I landed so clumsily and sprained my ankle, I noted that while the blade was of stainless steel, the quillons of the ornate cross guard had been fashioned from Bakelite, possibly because the material was more readily engraved.”

But Amber did not have to filter his explanation for the relevant bits. She knew exactly how it had happened. Her brother had told her the story many years ago when she asked about his limp. A sprained ankle was a serious injury for a pony.

What was worse was that she had known it would happen. She might not have been able to reconstruct the exact date from memory, also because she had been in coma the first time, but she knew that it had happened shortly after her own accident. It was probably something about the unusual lighting situation with the window drawing a sharp contrast between light and shadow across the desk that led him to misjudge the height.

It would have been easy for her to avert the accident. She could have moved the desk or she could have simply told her brother not to climb it. She could have figured out how to remove the drawers, so she could levitate them down for him to inspect and memorize. There was so much that she could have done to save her brother’s ankle if only she had thought to do so in advance.

Amber took a step back and slumped against the wall next to her father. Her mother said something along the lines of “Not you too,” but Amber hardly heard her.

Was there anything she could still do for her brother? Could she find Fleur to send her back in time again? No, the current Fleur would not have the first clue how to do that. Maybe Fleur will end her back again in eight years? Not without the accident that disturbed her precious purity.

It is too late for my brother, for his ankle anyway, but, adrenaline erupted into a prickle throughout her chest, but I remember so many other accidents that have yet to occur. So many other ponies, like my brother, who I can save! Who I must save, because I can. The prickling sensation expanded to her thigh.

Her family was looking at her. Her dad was no longer covering his eyes, her mother had looked up from the wound she had just disinfected, only her brother had been looking at her throughout. What?

Her cutie mark was a beautiful yellow rose in bloom. A short stout stem, vicious thorns, and countless petals of a strong, dark yellow that radiated in equal parts determination and joy.

Author's Note:

Please support our Seeds of Kindness charity fundraiser with donation or promotion—because you can.

Many thanks to Phek for proofreading.

Comments

[Malandy]

WooW! That was Quick!

[ferret]

"Your special talent is having a brother with a sprained leg??"