Love Heals

by OrpheusMorpheus

A Meeting

I woke up in my bed the next morning very tired and irate. I had crawled back into bed after my "moment" the night before and had gone straight to sleep. My thoughts through the night were, of course, all about the purple mare. In my dreams I knew her name, but I couldn't remember what it was when I woke up.

I went through my day normally. I made myself some simple breakfast, went for a walk around the town, and went to the hospital for my internship. No matter what I was doing, the purple mare kept cropping up in my thoughts. After internship I headed over to Sugarcube Corner to meet my friend Leaf. We grabbed a bite to eat, chatted for a bit, and then went our separate ways. I don't remember much of the conversation, though, because I zoned out after about five minutes.

By the end of the day, I was completely purpled out. Purple purple purple. Everywhere I looked I saw the pony. Anything purple brought her image into my head, and Ponyville definitely has its share of purple things. I went to sleep and dreamed about her again. It was a nice dream where she and I became co-rulers of Equestria. The dream ended in a kiss, as it always did and I was jolted out of my dream in the middle of the night by me falling out of bed. Finally, I decided that enough was enough. I had to meet up with the purple mare.

---

I got up early the next morning and scarfed down breakfast. I ran to the bathroom and washed myself until I thought soap was seeping into my skin. I brushed my mane and tail, smoothed down my coat, and practically dumped a bottle of cologne all over my body. I brushed my teeth, flossed my teeth, used mouthwash, and repeated three times. Finally, when I thought I looked presentable, I left the house. It was only nine in the morning, and I didn't have any hospital duty today, so I had plenty of time to find the purple mystery.

I started searching around the area where I had hit her before, hoping she frequented that part of the town. When I didn't see her, I kept searching. I tried thinking about places she could be, but I knew nothing about her except what she looked like. I searched for hours, walking along every single street in Ponyville. Right as I was about to give up hope, I saw a poster for the library on a wall. It had a picture of my purple love sitting down reading a book. She looked great in her glasses, by the way. Thinking I could find her at the library, I galloped as fast as I could to the library and substituted knocking for crashing into the front door. I stood there eagerly, smoothing my mane and making sure I looked shipshape.

The door began to open, and I looked straight ahead for the mare. Although the door was opened by purple, it wasn't the purple I was looking for.

"Hello, how may I help you?" said the small dragon that was staring up at me.

Oh man, I didn't plan for this! What do I do, what do I do?! My thoughts raced through my head, trying to think of a good way to explain why exactly I was at the library. I didn't know the pony's name and had no idea if she was even at the library. I looked around the library through the door to see if any hints of the mare's presence could be found. I saw nothing. I could see the dragon's face reflecting his confusion.

"If you're looking for Twilight, she's over at Sweet Apple Acres with the others," the dragon said, still looking rather confused.

Unsure of how to handle the situation, it took me a few seconds to realize that the dragon has just told me the mare's name. Twilight, I thought, a beautiful name for a beautiful being. I also realized why I felt like I already knew Twilight; I had seen her and her friends many times before but had never actually talked to them. I had heard about their amazing deeds such as saving Ponyville or saving the world, but I didn't usually go to the awards ceremonies. I knew that Twilight had five friends and that the six mares represented the Elements of Harmony. Other than that, my image of the Mane 6, as they are called, was pretty fuzzy. Quickly thanking the dragon, I turned around, almost tripped, and bolted off to Sweet Apple Acres.

---

As I ran for my life, I planned our conversation out in my head. Okay, so I'm going to nonchalantly saunter over to the farm and walk over to the mare that works on the farm. I think her name is...um...Applebuck? Maybe, I don't know. I'll walk over to her and pretend to just notice Twilight. I'll turn to her, ask her if she remembers me, and say that I want to introduce myself. Yeah, that should work. We'll have a nice chat, she'll fall in love, and we'll have three kids. Perfect.

I was closing in on the farm and could feel my blood pressure rising. I pushed off all notions of failure and ignored the rising stress levels I felt. I couldn't see anypony on the farm, so I decided that it was a good time to put on my false character. I slowed down, smoothed my mane, and tried to put on a confident gait. It ended up looking like I was limping, so I resumed my normal stride. I looked around for a sign of life, but I found none. I decided to just hang around the farm until somepony showed up. I stood in front of the barn and started waiting. I started shifting my weight nervously from hoof to hoof until my ankles started to hurt. I sat down and watched a ladybug make its way across the ground.

I must have dozed off for a few minutes because I was suddenly jolted back to reality by a huge explosion. The earth beneath me shook, birds flew from trees, and something fell off of the barn from the shock wave. I curled up into a ball and prayed that nuclear war hadn't started. Out of nowhere, a rainbow formed in the sky. The rainbow radiated outwards in a circle and spread across all of Ponyville. The sheer beauty of the situation shocked me, and I stood up, still shaking. I walked around the barn and looked for the source of the explosion. To my surprise, it appeared that the rainbow pegasus pony in the Mane 6, Rainbow Flash, has set off the explosion somehow. I could see the rest of the mares cheering for her as she made her descent. One of the mares looked in my direction, so I jumped behind the barn and tried not to make noise. I lay on the ground, completely silent, running over my plan in my head. I stood up, dusted myself off, hoped for the best, and walked out from behind the barn.

The mares apparently didn't notice me and were chatting up a storm. Feeling slightly out of place, I slowly made my way about 50 meters to where the group was standing. I picked out the mare that worked on the farm and walked over to talk to her. She turned to me, and her face suddenly looked irritated.

"Ay, yer that pony that almost went and ran me flat over the other day!" she said, staring straight at me.

"Yeah, um, sorry about that. I was just in a hurry to get somewhere and I wasn't, um, paying attention to anything really. Umm....yep." I tried to respond to the mare's question without sounding stupid, but I failed miserably. Not expecting to actually have to talk to Applebuck much, I continued with the plan by trying to pretend to notice Twilight. "But, um...hey, you're that other pony I ran into that day, right?" I failed at that miserably, too. I felt my stress levels increase a bit and felt a bead of sweat roll down my neck.

"Jeez, you were crashing up a storm, weren't you, Mr. Clumsy?" said Rainbow Flash rather condescendingly.

"Yeah, I guess I was. Umm..." I was freaking out on the inside. Oh man, this isn't working! I look like a total idiot! I tried to look calm, but my facade was transparent. The ponies began to look at me strangely.

"Umm, are you okay, darling?" asked the white pony. I tried to regain composure, but failing appeared to be my strength. This can't possibly get any worse! Unfortunately, I was wrong. My knees suddenly buckled and I fell to the ground. My legs jerked around, my body seized, and I blacked out.

---

I woke up in laying in a hospital bed. I could hear a heart monitor beeping somewhere nearby, and it felt like I was trying to move two adult dragons as I tried to open my eyes. When I finally forced my eyes open, I wanted to be anywhere but the hospital. The Mane 6 were all standing over me and observing me.

"He seems alright," said the white mare.

"Well, you can never be too sure, Rarity," said Twilight. Her voice resonated deep in my heart and I was calmed slightly.

"Do you think a party would cheer him up?!" said the pink mare. She grabbed a handful of confetti from nowhere and dumped it on my face. I sat up and started wiping my face with my hooves. I spat out a few pieces of confetti, looked around, and blushed. My embarrassment level was so high that Luna could've climbed from the moon with it.

"Are you okay, sir? You had a pretty bad seizure earlier and we were all pretty worried." Twilight was looking into my face smiling. I looked at her, blushed even more, and looked down. I calmed myself and started to speak.

"I'm really, really sorry about putting you guys through this. I was trying to talk to you guys, but I'm not exactly the best at talking to new people. When I get too stressed, I have 'moments'; they're pretty common and aren't really too dangerous. Even so, thanks so much for bringing me here." I looked up to see the mares' reactions. They all wore looks of concern. "I came to you guys to talk to Twilight. I talked to her a bit the other day, but I never formally introduced myself." I said all of this while looking at Twilight, trying to sound at least slightly competent. "My name is Red."

"Hello, Red. You seem to already know who I am, so I don't think I need to introduce myself." Twilight stared deep into my eyes and smiled.

"What a silly name!" exclaimed the pink mare in the bunch. Rainbow Flash quickly shoved a hoof in her mouth and told her to be nice. When the hoof was removed, the pink mare continued talking. "I mean, why is your name Red if you're brown! My name is Pinkie Pie because I'm pink, and Rainbow Dash is rainbowy, but you're brown!" Pinkie Pie seemed to be very amused by my name. She started laughing uncontrollably and fell on the floor.

"Well, uh, my parents named me Red because, well, they wanted me to be a doctor, and I guess they wanted to name me after the color of blood. Plus, my magic is red, so it kind of fits I guess." Still feeling very uncomfortable, I shifted my gaze around the group.

"That reminds me, I wanted to ask you a question the other day," Twilight said. "How did you do that healing magic you used on me? I've tried healing multiple times, but I could never do it as well as you did."

I looked up at her, surprised at her question. "I have a natural talent for healing people. I have some books that I read to help me with it when I was younger, but I have always been good at healing. That's why I'm, umm, working as an intern here at the hospital." There was a pause.

"Well, since you're fine, we'll just leave now." Rainbow Dash seemed very uncomfortable and rushed her speech. She started to slowly fly away.

"Hold on, Rainbow Dash. We can't come off as rude to him, now can we?" said Rarity. "Would you like to come with us? We're all going to get something to eat."

I really didn't want to embarrass myself more, so I started by saying, "Well, I don't know..." However, I was interrupted by Pinkie Pie jumping up and down.

"Oh, you just have to come! I just love hanging out with new friends!" She looked at me eagerly.

Not seeing a way to refuse the offer, I reluctantly agreed. Pinkie responded to this by dumping even more confetti in my face. Everypony laughed, and we set off to get some food.