Regret
“Are we almost ready?” The earth pony’s voice washes over me, the words blurring together. I watch Prism Glider in stony silence, tears still dripping from my cheeks.
“Fully charged,” replies Jade, “next jolt in twenty seconds… fifteen seconds…”
“Alright, let’s give it another go.” The earth pony finishes a few more compressions before quickly dismounting Prism Glider. Time slows to a crawl as I stare at the closed eyelids of my coltfriend, wishing for it all to end. Hoping against hope that the ragged, burning hole in my chest could be soothed.
Just give him back to me, Celestia, I pray, take away his wings, take away my dreams, just give the stallion I love back to me for one more day.
“Clear!”
Jade’s voice echoes in my head, bouncing around my consciousness as her horn slowly begins to glow. I never noticed the intricacies of unicorn magic as it begins flowing through their horn. Slowly, a light curls around the spiral until it reaches the tip, where a flash of light sends a ripple of magical energy flowing back down, and then another flash completes the familiar ethereal glow of an active spell.
Slowly, Prism Glider rises from his bed. My lungs begin to protest, and I become dimly aware of the fact that I’ve been holding my breath. His body spasms, briefly writhing in place as electricity courses through him. My eyes look up at the red hologram floating above his body. A second passes. Two seconds. Three. My lungs burn, but I am frozen in terror, unable to move as the earth pony reaches her hoof out. I close my eyes and turn my ears towards her, waiting for the verdict. Waiting for the words my heart aches for.
“Yes!”
My eyes snap open, and I see a beautiful blue hologram above me. I can scarcely believe my ears as the earth pony confirms what I had so desperately hoped.
“I got it! I got it I got it I got it! Current pulse is...” As the earth pony measures the newly restored heartrate, I fall backwards on to the floor, clutching my chest. I gasp, half from oxygen deprivation, half from an explosion of relief. He’s not dead, I think to myself. You still have a chance. He’s not dead. I think I’m crying again, but I don’t care anymore.
“How much farther to the hospital?” I ask, after I finally catch my breath.
Still bandaging Prism Glider, the earth pony replies without missing a beat. “Five minutes, tops. Jade, how’s our blood pressure stabilization going?”
I leave the medics to their work and drag myself up from the floor once more, sitting next to Prism Glider’s head. “Stay with me,” I whisper to him, delicately stroking his bloody mane, “Stay with me…”
I sit in quiet contemplation the rest of the way, staring up at the blue hologram, watching Prism Glider’s heartbeat and willing it to keep going. My silence is broken only by an occasional reassurance that I whisper in his ear.
Da-dub, da-dub, da-dub.
I’m not sure if I’m reassuring Prism Glider or myself. Either way, eventually the carriage lands on the ground with a thud, and I notice a very slight change in my sense of direction as the gravitic stabilization field is dispelled. I barely have time to register any of this before the doors are flung open and Prism Glider is levitated onto a stretcher. A small army of nurseponies and medics immediately begin rushing him up a ramp and through a set of sliding doors. Strange medical terms and frightening words are flung through the air, but one word in particular stands out to me.
“... for an amputation immediately! Coming in through loading dock C ...”
Amputation.
Amputation.
I walk out of the carriage in a daze. I really should’ve known it was coming, given that he was already missing a limb, but somehow, hearing those words in the hospital makes it real. They solidify my error, my mistake. They trap me in the binds of my worst nightmares. They make it impossible to escape with the foolish hope that Prism Glider would fly again.
I’ve ruined everything.
I spend a good two minutes wandering aimlessly around the loading dock before a nursepony leads me to the receptionist’s desk. She whispers a few short words to the mare behind it before trotting off. I am dimly aware of the receptionist asking me about something.
“I, uh… I don’t—” I sputter, not really knowing what’s going on anymore.
She smiles and gently taps my withers with a hoof. “Come along honey, let’s get you washed off.”
I am in a washroom.
I have told myself that I am in a washroom approximately eight times in the past two minutes, but it hasn’t really sunk in yet. Maybe I just need to say it again.
…
I am in a washroom.
Slowly, haltingly, I reach out and turn the faucet on. Cold water tumbles out of the nozzle, splashing and churning around the sink before swirling down the drain.
It was an apt description of how my stomach felt, at least. I sigh, and lift my hooves to the porcelain rim. I nearly let out a shriek when I see that they are dripping with bright red blood. Thick rivulets of angry crimson trickle down the edge of the sink from where I put my hooves.
It’s all my fault.
Trying desperately to suppress my sniffling with the shredded remains of my pride, I frantically start scrubbing my hooves off. The sink turns into a red sea, its frothing waves filled with my guilt. I scrub and scrub, but the angry red pool refuses to lighten.
“Why won’t it come off?!” I sob, “Why w-won’t it c-come off?!”
I sat in front of the sink with tears streaming down my cheeks, washing my hooves for ages. Five minutes, ten minutes, I didn’t know anymore, but eventually I am granted a reprieve.
“Miss?” a voice calls through the door. “Miss, are you alright?”
I jump, having completely forgotten that the receptionist was still outside, my eyes darting towards the door. Thankfully it was still closed, but when my eyes return to the sink, it is clean. An innocent stream of clear water swirls into the drain, and my hooves have been washed clean, scrubbed as raw as my heart.
Shivering, I wonder how long they had been that way.
I walk out of the washroom and am greeted with a concerned look from the receptionist.
“Is there anything I can get you?” she asks, adjusting her glasses with a hoof.
“Do… do you know where Prism Glider is?” I croak, still staring at the floor.
Unfortunately, the receptionist shakes her head. “He’ll be in surgery all night, hun. I suggest you get comfortable.” She waves a hoof towards a sitting area just as a small bell echoes down the corridor. She gives me a curt nod before trotting off to deal with whatever catastrophe had shown up in front of the hospital.
I slowly make my way towards the couch, my whole body numb from shock. It’s late, and the setting sun paints the sky a deep purple. I stare through the glass ceiling of the lounge, wondering how everything could have gone so wrong so quickly. One moment, I was living the dream, and now I’m in a nightmare. With nothing else to distract me, my mind quickly spirals out of control, fretting about every dark and terrible thing imaginable. What if he never makes it out of surgery? What if he never wakes up? Would I have to tell them to pull the plug? Could I? Would I have to attend his funeral? What would I say? What would his family say? Would they blame it on me? Would I go to jail? Do I deserve to go to jail? Would they even let me into the funeral at all?
My thoughts turn to my grandmother’s funeral. It had happened a few years ago, but I never really felt… sad. I mostly just felt awkward. She had simply been there, a distant figure who occasionally came up in conversation. I only really ever saw her at Hearth’s Warming, and she simply dissolved into the mass of other distant relatives. My mom had been bawling at the funeral, and my grandfather struggled to get through his speech. At the time, I wondered if I should’ve felt more sad about the whole mess, but it all just seemed so surreal. Years later, I barely notice she’s gone.
Now I know what it must have felt like for my grandfather, to have the one you loved torn away from you. To have your emotional connection severed and lost forever.
Eventually, I can’t take it anymore. I get up and start trotting aimlessly around the hospital, desperate to keep my mind off Prism Glider. It’s late evening, and the whole place seems eerily quiet. The clip-clopping of my hooves echoes around the dark hallways and polished marble floors. I have no real idea where I’m going, but eventually I hear somepony playing piano. Following my ears, I stumble on a huge room with a glass ceiling that seems to stretch skywards forever. Perhaps it was intended for large meetings of some sort, but at the moment all it has is a solitary piano in its center, with somepony playing a particularly melancholy song.
I almost walk up to say hello, but I don’t want to disturb them and risk losing the soothing music they’re playing. Instead, I lie down on a nearby couch and stare up at the dark sky, until the echoing tones of the piano carry me off to sleep.
When I wake up, it takes me a few moments to remember where I am. Once I do, however, I’m instantly on my hooves. It’s early morning, but the hospital is already buzzing with activity. I start navigating my way through the crowd only to realize I have no idea where I am. I hadn’t exactly been paying attention to where I was going last night as I wandered around the hospital, and the throngs of ponies crowding the halls aren’t helping. Eventually, I manage to find the receptionist’s desk and ask where I can find Prism Glider.
“Hmmmm,” says the receptionist, “let me get a nurse down here.”
Terror creeps into my bones as I sit on the cold floor, trying not to tremble as I wait for the nurse. Special cases were never good news in a hospital.
“Miss… Rainbow Dash?” I’m jolted from my musings by a soft voice. “I need to you come with me.”
I follow the nurse in silence as she leads me down a twisting maze of hallways, past the surgery rooms, the maternal ward, the trauma ward and the long term care units. I gulp as I walk past a sign that reads Intensive Care Unit. Heart monitors beep around me, barely audible above the hustle and bustle of doctors and nurses tending to patients.
We stop outside of a room tucked away in a corner of the ICU, and the nurse flips through her notebook. “Alright, from our records, you accompanied Prism Glider in the ambulance, but we don’t know if you are a family member or not.”
I shake my head. “No, I’m his uh… marefriend.”
“Do you know any of his family members? His next of kin? Any information about who we might contact in case he is unable to make medical decisions on his own?”
I continue shaking my head. I hadn’t thought about how little I actually know about Prism Glider. I knew he had a job as a weatherpony, somewhere, but that was it. No family, no hometown, not even any other friends, as far as I could tell. He had come to Manehattan alone, and left his past behind him.
The nurse sighs. “Alright, well, since we have nothing else to go on, I’ll let you inside, but you need to understand that he’s had his wings amputated, and the doctors aren’t sure if he’s ever going to wake up. If he is indeed comatose, we will have to find a family member to make medical decisions for him.”
I nod, trying to keep myself from breaking down in tears. Never wake up? The nurse opens the door. I hesitate for a brief moment, hoping against hope that this is a nightmare. Eventually, I drag myself through the doorway and into a dark room, lit only by a single small window. A chair sits by a single potted plant, opposite a large bed occupied by a dark figure. An involuntary gasp leaves my throat as I realize the pony I’m looking at is actually Prism Glider.
He is absolutely covered in bandages, and his wings are clearly gone. Tubes and IV lines hang off of his body, connecting him to a terrifying array of beeping machines keeping him alive.
“He’s in pretty bad shape,” whispers the nurse. I don’t reply, and eventually she closes the door and leaves me with him. I drag myself towards the chair, and quietly break down in tears. No one is there to comfort me as I sit down, alone with the pegasus who had stolen my heart.
Alone with my mistakes.
The next 48 hours pass quickly. Sometimes I forget to eat. Sometimes the nurses send me home, saying visitor hours have ended. I simply come back as soon as they’ll let me. When I tell the hotel I need to extend my stay indefinitely, the whole story slips out, and they let me stay free of charge for as long as I need. Instead of making me feel better, it just makes me feel worse. They keep saying it was a terrible accident.
I know better.
“You woke up the next day, and, well, you know the rest,” says Rainbow Dash, curled up on a pillow. Days have passed since she began her side of the story. I’d spent several nights pondering her words, and still have no idea how to react. I lay in my bed, staring at the ceiling, unsure of what to do. So I do nothing.
“I’ll just… let you sleep now,” mumbles Rainbow Dash, as she gets up off her pillow and starts towards the door. By now, she knows when I just want to be alone, to process everything that had happened. Of course, visiting hours weren’t over quite yet. I could still stop her and put all this behind us. I could still bring her back.
Rainbow Dash falters and turns around, opening her mouth but saying nothing. After a moment of hesitation, she closes her mouth and looks at me with a pained expression. All I had to do was say something. Just a few words, and all would be forgiven, and we could live happily ever after... Except my wings are gone and my dreams have been taken from me.
Rainbow Dash turns around, and I watch her leave.
I say nothing.
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HE LIVES!
6858947 HE DIES!
It's good to see an update on this. I wondered what was up. :P
Yes, an update. This is one of my favorite stories on the site and I was getting worried that is might not be finished.
Argh the feels!!!
Nice to see this updated. Thank you very much for the pre-read. I'm very glad that so many of my suggestions were accepted.
Looking forward to where this is going since it'll be all new territory from here on out. Let's just hope it does not take us as long to get there!
I panicked because for a second, I thought that was the ending! I didn't see a next button, panic over! I'm loving this!
Don't get me wrong, I love a happy ending...
But given from Season 5 Finale, mechanical wings do exist.
Is it too perfect...? Unless, of course, Prism dies.
6859534 That will be covered later. If you look at the last chapter, you might see a tiny little retcon involving how there are no spells that can fix his wing - "Even Celestia can't heal something that isn't there."
6859534 thanks for the spoiler mate, hadn't watched season 5 yet. Appreciate spoliers such as the one you did, or the one youtube description I read on a meme song: (Spoiler warning for star wars spoiler warning for star wars spoiler warning for star wars) "Han Solo dies in Star Wars and Kylo Ren is his son". (Spoiler warning for star wars spoiler warning for star wars)
I am displeased with myself for not having watched season 5 yet and as such gotten some of it spoiled.
6858947
6858965
HE LIVES AGAIN!
WITNESS ME!!!
I am eager to read more.
6859786 I AM AWAITED IN VALHALLA!
6859630
Oops, sorry for ruining 2 seconds of the finale.
But seriously, you can't expect me to spoiler tag everything I say. You're on a fanfiction website with people who watch the show on time.
Strangely enough I do have a solution: Don't read the comments. They seem to have a knack for spoiling things for you like the Star Wars one?
I just happen to be the second one to do it to you. Apologies.
6859616
I usually don't support altering the original ending of the story. So if the original ending is altered to give a mechanical wing due to the fact it exists in canon, I might be slightly upset. Given the conception of the story is before the fifth season at all, I suppose such an idea is prophecy or good forward thinking hehe.
But I might never know which one...
6859630
Dude you're on a site dedicated to MLP: Fim, if you're not caught up on the official content then it's pretty much certain that you're going to get spoilers on the latest stuff, particularly in the comments section. But yes that youtube description sounds like a dick move, but you can't blame other fans for mentioning relevant info from released episodes a goodly while after their release on a site dedicated to that very show.
I haven't watched MLP since the season 4 opener and I have long since accepted that I am going to get spoilers regardless of if I'm caught up or not for as long as I come to this site.
6858965 He lives again, shiny and chrome?
6859995 I am actually laughing right now at how bad my memory is, because I had already forgotten that I spoiled something for myself and that I only remembered that I had gotten something spoiled for as long as it took me to write that somewhat peeved response. I apologize for my peeved response, it was in poor taste.
6860084 ^^
6859995
I did not change the ending to this story. Mechanical prosthetics are going to come up later in the second arc.
6860182 Dealing with chronic depression and general lack of drive...
Well... speaking of painful. Ouch.
Prostethics were brought up, but it will be a small consolation for real wings. After all, unless they're as durable, light, and manoeuverable as the real deal... yeah.
At least he'll be able to fly eventually. Somehow.
Can't wait to see this finished, it's one of the best onion fics i could find out there
6860182
Neat; either way, I can't wait for the next one!
6860153
No offence.
No harm done...well, just don't follow the track of this conversation so your "bad memory" doesn't go back and read the spoiler comment...! See, it all fixes itself...
6861351
My inner furry compels me to ask, where is your avatar from?
6860148 Yes.
Yes he does.
6861375
Dreamkeepers Comic (dot.com)
Found this last night. It's now morning and I've just caught up. Love it. Adding this to favorites.
I am on the verge of tears. This is one of the most saddest yet amazing stories i have ever read. I know I am just a face in a crowd, but when I say that this is truly amazing, I mean it.
Damn... You really knew someone who got hurt like this, didn't you?
6860182
Heh, now I'm wondering if prosthetic wings aren't as fast or if maybe you can't join the Wonderbolts due to prior medical history or something.
6866910
I never knew someone who got hurt like this, specifically, but it's a combination of a couple things that happened to family members in the past few years.
Glad to see the story continue.
6859630
Y'know, it would be nice to put a spoiler tag around the Star Wars stuff.
6867470
It shows. Particularly with the frantic guilt ridden thoughts that just don't go away
Wow. This is actially still alive
bout fricken time
I love this story.
Wonderful to see a new chapter here. So now we have finished the backstory, now everything is moving towards the future.
One thing that has only lightly been touched on so far, though this chapter started showing it, is that while Prism Glider doesn't remember what happened, Rainbow is likely to have PTSD over this. His career is over as a stunt flyer, and hers is fairly well broken. Any time she starts to do a particularly daring stunt, she may have a flashback of his mangled form...
6905195
Fixed typos.
Wheeeeeeeew... man... I need hugs... like, pronto. Backstory established...
And now... the future awaits... and what will happen now?
Who knows...
I SEE THOSE FURY ROAD THINGS DOWN BELOW!
I AM AWAITED IN VALHALLA!
Well, first things first.
Sorry I haven't had a chance to give prepost feedback on the chapters lately. Life has been...interesting for me lately and my focuses have been all over the place at times.
On that note, loving the story so far. Getting the differing perspectives leads to an interesting take on how events have gone so far. I also very much liked the way you wrote Rainbows breakdown in the washroom, as that is a very common thing for people who have just experienced a traumatic scenario tend to act. Your mind starts to trick you into seeing flashes of things that aren't there that somehow connect to the situation you just got out of.
Looking forward to what comes next at this point.
I am really enjoying this story, thank you
This story is freaking amazing! Keep up the good work!
Wow... Just... Wow...
I wonder when this will finish. I... I actually don't know what I want, between closure with him getting out of the hospital or closure with some sort of prosthetic wing, or who knows. But I want closure, so if you can give me that, I will be more than pleased.
Wonderful job so far. Keep it up man! I'm rootin' for ya!
Please dont let this story die.
Just another reader here to hope this gets finished, loving it so far!
I originally downvoted this because of the first chapter and left it be. I do that a lot. For some reason I picked it back up later in the day. I never do that. Now here I am and I want to cry a little.