Chapter 6: Cutting Marks
Sweetie Belle looked across the round table, over to her two friends. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo stared back at her with empty glances, not changing their pose of their heads firmly planted on their forehooves. Much like her, they wore bored expressions, and the sound of their backhooves scraping over the floor was a constant reminder of their impatience. In unison, the two other fillies sighed loudly.
“When is she going to come?” Scootaloo asked. She sounded tired. Apple Bloom at her side just nodded, silently agreeing to the expressed sentiment.
None of them had heard anything of Dinky since she had left the operation center yesterday. Worse than that, she wasn't even at school today! They had no idea if she would come or if she had given up on getting a cutie mark. Dinky's absence left them clueless, but worse than the fact that they couldn't explain it, was that they became increasingly worried for their client.
“Do you think anything bad happened to her?” Sweetie Belle finally addressed the sentence that was going through her head after looking at her friends for a while.
Scootaloo's brow furrowed. “I hope not.” She got up and poked Apple Bloom. “Maybe we should go and look for her.”
“Alright,” Apple Bloom said, thrown out of her trance. “Let's go ta Dinky's house and see what's up.”
Together, the three Crusaders moved their from the long sitting stiff limbs out of the operation center and onto the fresh grass of Sweet Apple Acres. They trotted behind each other stoically, their boredom still clouding their minds. Only as Scootaloo heard something while they were trotting past the clubhouse, they stopped.
Scootaloo's ears pricked up and she stopped in her tracks, then turned and looked up at the clubhouse door. “Is this sound coming from inside?”
“What sound?” Apple Bloom asked. Slowly, she and Sweetie Belle turned around to face their friend. It took them a few seconds until they could hear it as well.
A faint and muffled wailing sounded out to them from behind the door.
They exchanged frowns. What worried them about those sounds was not so much the fact that somepony was apparently in their clubhouse and cried its eyes out over something, it was that they exactly knew who was crying there, from the events they had witnessed on the day before. Without saying another word, they dashed up the ramp and hastily opened the door.
Gasping, they saw Dinky in front of them, just as they had expected. She was not alone, though. Behind her, another filly sat on the floor. Her purple pigtails rustled as she looked up at them in surprise. She was relentlessly rubbing over the upper body of Dinky, who was leaning against her, almost lying on the floor, and who cried her tears into into her belly. The left hoof of the other filly was resting on Dinky's mane. The sadness in her eyes pierced through the Crusaders as she looked at them.
“Who are ya?” Apple Bloom asked, as the first one to find her speech. It was seconds later that she recognized the face in front of her, but she got leapfrogged by Sweetie Belle before she could speak her realization.
“That's Lily,” she answered her friend's question. “Lily Longsocks, the filly that just moved here to Ponyville a few weeks ago.”
“Lily.....” Apple Bloom's eyes opened widely. “What are ya doin' here? And what happened?”
“I found her like this.....” Lily cast her eyes down on her friend. “I don't know what happened. I just came here to see if Dinky is here and then I heard her crying. She was like this when I entered the clubhouse.”
With bated breaths, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle came closer to the two fillies. Only now they saw the marks on Dinky's flank. Three red streaks adorned it, all of them going into a different direction, like somepony had randomly drawn on Dinky's flank with a marker. Leaning down to examine them, Apple Bloom moved a hoof over the marks. She gasped as she retreated her hoof to look at it, finding it smeared with blood. Swiftly, she turned around to her friends. “That ain't a cutie mark, girls!” Her pupils had shrunken and her mouth gaped open.
“B-Blood? Did she hurt herself? How could this happen?!” Scootaloo looked at Lily in agitation, shooting a question at her.
Lily shook her head dejectedly, but she pointed to the side, taking her right hoof off of her friend's body for a moment. As Scootaloo followed it to the object she was pointing at, she had to sit down, suddenly feeling all energy drained from her.
A pair of scissors was lying there, a few drops of blood on their blades.
Behind the pegasus filly, Sweetie Belle held a hoof at her mouth. “W-Why did she do this?” she whispered.
“And why didn't ya stop her?!” Apple Bloom shot a question at Lily now, furiously.
Lily gasped and flinched. “I-I-I couldn't. S-She had already done it when I came here.” She returned her attention to her friend again. “I wanted to bring Dinky to a doctor, but she doesn't react when I talk to her and only keeps crying.” Gently, she moved a hoof over the distraught unicorn's mane, trying to get her attention. “Dinky, the Cutie Mark Crusaders are here.”
The words had a weird effect. All off a sudden, the relentless sobbing stopped and Dinky opened her eyes, lifting her head slightly. She couldn't see any of them from her position, so she slowly retreated from Lily's embrace and got up on wonky hooves. A yelp escaped her throat as she felt pain flashing over her flank, but she didn't falter and turned around to the arrivals nonetheless. Having wiped the tears from her eyes, she found herself staring in three faces of disbelief and shock. Scootaloo was still sitting on the floor, motionlessly. Leaving Apple Bloom behind, Dinky trotted towards the other two Cutie Mark Crusaders, unsteadily.
“I'm sorry I didn't come. Let's try something else for my cutie mark.” Then her legs gave in and she collapsed to the floor with a thump. Apple Bloom rushed at her side swiftly.
“Ya can't!” she shouted. “We need ta get ya ta a doctor first, Dinky!” She glanced at Dinky's flank again, then looked back into her face. “Why did ya even do this?” Her voice was ripe with concern.
“I-I just..... I wanted, it was j-just because t-there–” Dinky stammered in response, but then stopped her sentence abruptly. Shaking once more, she got up again. “I-It's nothing. I-I was just frustrated, that's all.” Ignoring Apple Bloom now, she trotted stoically to the exit, biting on her lip to endure the pain. The other three fillies in the room looked after her in disbelief.
“Let's go to the doctor,” Dinky said suddenly. “Maybe I can try something there, maybe it turns out I'm good at bandaging if I take care of my own injury.” Her voice shivered as she spoke those words, desperate courage ringing in it.
As Dinky reached the ramp outside and stepped with a hoof on it, trying to appear as secure as possible, she started to sway. Alarmed, Lily galloped at her side. Having collapsed again, Dinky's lower body began to slide over the edge of the ramp. In the last moment, Lily reached her friend and grabbed her forehooves. Swiftly and without a struggle, she pulled Dinky on top of the ramp again. Holding her in a stable position, Lily looked at her with worry in her eyes. “Be careful, Dinky!” she said, the tone of her voice bordering on scolding the unicorn.
Dinky did not acknowledge the gesture or the call and just kept trotting down the ramp, now assisted by Lily. Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle followed them in some distance, their eyes glued on the cuts on Dinky's right flank.
The five fillies did not speak a word as they made their way through Ponville to the office of Doctor Muffin Top. The air around them was somber and they felt like a dark cloud was flying over them and following them around town. They kept looking at Dinky, not sure what to think of the situation, and it was only once that Apple Bloom did a glance to the side, having gotten distracted by something.
A booth at the market place caught her attention just for a second, the sign on it advertising “Magical Cutie Mark Potions”. The old mare behind it smiled at her, exposing a multitude of missing teeth in the process, which made Apple Bloom shudder. An old conversation crossed her mind, about magic not being able to give a pony a cutie mark. She frowned, then looked away and focused her attention on Dinky again.
At their destination, the doctor scolded Dinky. None of them was telling him that it had been Dinky who hurt herself what caused these scratches and so, he was calling Dinky out for not playing careful enough. Luckily, the cuts weren't too bad. As exhausted as she had been from her desperation and several fits of rage, Dinky did not manage to cut into her flank very deeply. Disinfection and a thin bandage around her flank was all the treatment the injuries needed.
While the doctor took care of Dinky, Lily and the Cutie Mark Crusaders sat on chairs at the wall opposite of the table she was lying on now, her flank facing towards the doctor. The four of them gave Dinky empathic looks as whimpers escaped her while the doctor was generously pouring antiseptic over her cuts. Finally, it was Apple Bloom who broke the silence between them.
“Say, Lily, ya Dinky's friend, right? Do ya know anything about why she's actin' so strange? That jus' can't be jus' because she doesn't have a cutie mark.” Her two friends gave her confirming nods, silently showing their agreement.
“I-I don't know,” Lily stammered a little, suddenly feeling nervous. “I only met Dinky a week ago. We became friends at your cute-ceanera.” She looked away and bit her lip. “Dinky said I should come to you and ask you to find out the meaning of my cutie mark. I said I don't need to know right now, because I'm already happy with it and my super-strength, and suggested she should ask you for help instead, because she doesn't even have a cutie mark yet. She said she doesn't need your help for getting a cutie mark and insisted that I should get help by you first, but then.....” She trailed off, thoughts coming over her.
“Then what?” Apple Bloom asked, eager to find out everything.
“But then..... Just a few days later, Dinky had changed her mind completely. She said she absolutely needs your help now and that I should forget what she said before. She was nervous and unhappy suddenly, like a different filly.....” Lily frowned. “I wonder it this pink filly picked on her for not having a cutie mark..... How was her name again? Diamond Tiara?”
In unison, the three Crusaders shook their heads. “Diamond Tiara's a different filly now. She's not doin' this anymore,” Apple Bloom explained.
“Then I have no idea what has gotten into her.....” Lily's ears flattened and she looked down at the floor, her lips pointing downwards.
Apple Bloom wanted to ask another question, but before she got a chance, the doctor interrupted her.
“Now you are fixed up, young lady!” he said to Dinky, putting the bandage a last time around her flank. Then he cut it off, smoothed it down and stepped back.
Dinky rose to her hooves slowly. She looked back at her flank that was now covered in white, her eyes looking sad. With the doctor's help, she climbed down the table, then she approached Lily at the chairs. She didn't dare to look at her friend and there was guilt in her eyes. “Sorry I worried you,” she quietly spoke an apology while facing the floor, while a few tears appeared in the corners of her eyes.
Lily got down from her chair and wrapped her hooves around Dinky. She gave her mane a comforting kiss. “It's okay, Dinky, just please don't do this again.”
“Your friend is right,” Doctor Muffin Top commented Lily's plea. “Be more careful at the playground next time.”
Dinky retreated from the hug and turned her head around to the doctor. She nodded.
“Fine, then please leave now. There are other patients waiting.” The doctor opened the door for them.
Sliding down from their chairs too, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle followed Dinky and Lily outside into the waiting room. Morosely, they trudged by the row of waiting patients. As they were already past most of them, Apple Bloom suddenly stopped. Turning her head to the left, she looked at a mare with a pink coat. Forgetting that it might be impolite, Apple Bloom scrutinized the mare. What caught her attention were the unusual colors of her mane. Strains of lavender and turquoise streaked through it, but, more odd than that were the huge sunglasses she was wearing. Her fore legs were crossed in front of her chest and she looked past Apple Bloom like she didn't even notice her. Only as Apple Bloom kept staring for a few seconds longer, a pondering expression on her face, the mare stirred and finally looked at her.
“What do you want?” she asked harshly. “Do you want me to admire your precious cutie mark?” The second sentence got highlighted by a clear presence of mockery in her voice, with a trace of bitterness.
“Oh, ahm sorry!” Apple Bloom got thrown out of her thoughts, finally realizing how rude she had just acted. “Ya just' reminded me on somepony, that's all!” Quickly, the filly set herself into motion. She increased her trot to a gallop to catch up with her friends, who had already left the building.
“Where have you been, Apple Bloom?” Scootaloo asked her as she was at their side again.
“Sorry. Ah thought there was.....” Apple Bloom shook her head. “Nevermind. How's Dinky doin'”?
“She's feeling better,” Scootaloo answered. “I don't know why, but she's suddenly acting completely different again. Just look at her.” Scootaloo pointed ahead at Dinky, who trotted at Lily's side. A grin was on her face now and it grew wider as she pulled a roll of bandages out from under her mane and presented it to her friend.
“Did she.....?” Apple Bloom blinked.
“Yeah. Probably stole it when the doctor wasn't looking. I have no idea how she managed that.” Scootaloo shrugged.
“Geez, she really was serious when she said she might be good at bandagin', wasn't she?”
Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle nodded together.
As they had arrived at Dinky's house, the group separated. Dinky was, as they were expecting already, asking for more cutie mark counseling today, but the three Crusaders turned her down. Dinky's mood became more gloomy again as they insisted she should stay at home and rest, but she accepted the advice. Dinky and Lily exchanged a last hug, then Dinky disappeared inside the house. The remaining fillies made their way through Ponyville, one after another leaving the group for their homes, until only Apple Bloom was left.
Alone, she trotted down the path towards Sweet Apple Acres, her thoughts circling around the encounter she had in the waiting room. She could still not tell who the mare was, only that she had seemed familiar. One particular name was poking at the back of her mind, faintly, but her memory failed to provide her with it. Eventually, she shrugged the thought off, as she didn't reach any conclusion with her pondering. A dark feeling remained in her chest, though, and it remained until she had entered the farm house.....
Stats
Page generated in 0.023 seconds
Total duration
1,015 users online
1,772,798 hits today, 2,782,760 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Well Sounds like a different Version of the Cutie pox to me. Sounds very serious if she cut her Cutie Mark out. Hope its nothing to serious
I like how you potrayed Lilly here, here to comfort Dinky as a good friend should
8223001
She actually did not cut her cutie mark out. Dinky only cut into her flank, but she didn't remove anything from it.
I like it that I have an opportunity with this fic to delve a little into their friendship during the first days, when it had just begun. I can't focus on that completely, but there will be a future chapter that gives me a chance to shine some more light on this.^^
8225866
Eager to see it. I might do a story with Lilly too in the future, who knows.
So... is this purely psychological? Dinky just went crazy? Her fits aren't lasting long enough for it to be bipolar though. I don't even know what you'd call that.
This better not be Jackie.
8246800
Welcome back and thanks for reading the new chapter!
These are some "Yes and No" questions again very much. You'll have to wait and see.
All I can say is that the situation is wearing a lot on Dinky, obviously. One could think she's imagining things..... But it's things that are very much real that desperate her so much.
8247154
Thank you for writing it!
They're also rhetorical questions. I just want to give you an idea what your readers are thinking. Don't worry, I already know I'll have to wait and see.
8247565
I see. Well, that pretty much comes down to what you think anyway, since not many read this fic here. xD
Which is why I'm all the more glad that at least you stick around for what might go down in history as one of my best fic ideas ever.
And, since you are almost the only commenter, I'd like to ask you something about the first chapter:
Does it give you the impression that this fic was once planned as a one-shot and only spontaneously expanded on later?
8247687
I sure would have been upset if it was a one-shot! They didn't help Dinky at all!
8247752
Well, that's good. But did it feel like this to you? I'm just curious if this is an impression you get from this chapter.
8247782
I got the impression that it wasn't a one-shot.
8248637
Hmm, okay. Because I read the end again and the way it's worded kinda sounds like the end of a one-shot there.
This might be a reason why the first chapter is doing relatively well in views, but why they are cut in half with Chapter 2 all of a sudden; maybe most readers who start with Chapter 1 get a one-shot vibe and this makes them feel like the fic should end there, so they decide to stop there and to treat it as one-shot.
The other chapters might get more readers if I change that, but I don't feel really comfortable with changing something, now that I'm so far in.....
8249274
I dunno. They might've gotten squicked by the accident with the nail? If you want the end to be more cliffhanger-y maybe put a spooky teaser about what's going on with Dinky at the end, after the CMC ride off into the sunset.
8249934
Maybe. But I need to think about this, as I said, a change so late now wouldn't make me comfortable.
And I kinda doubt it's the nail, readers here read much worse stuff if it's written well.