All the Lost Pieces

by Voltage Drop

Chapter 6

Sitting up in my bed, I cradled a small, oaken box in my lap, gently rubbing my hoof over its varnished surface. It was heavy for its size, its sides strong from the thick wood from which it was made. Contained inside, plush cloth swaddled my new siphon, protecting it from damage should the box fall.

“Have you ever wondered what it feels like to hold your own life in your own hooves?” I said to no one in particular as I stared at the box.

“Not before now.” Ivy, who was in the room along with Dante.

“I hadn't before now either... Of course, now I actually know what it feels like. Without this,” I pointed at the box. “I'll die.” I fell silent and leaned back harder into the bed, staring blankly at the box again. After a few minutes passed, I adjusted my position on the bed and carefully moved the box to a different position.

“Do you want me to put it on the table for you?” Ivy asked after a few minutes passed.

“On my nightstand, if you would. Staring at it isn't going to help me.” She came over and took it from my lap. “It was worth it.” I said as she moved my tray of half eaten food to set the box down.

“The siphon?”

“Yes. I feel a lot better now. I'm not good... but I am better.”

“I know you are, otherwise you wouldn't be going home today, but I'm still glad to hear you say that. I'm just ready for my parents to get back so I can leave.” By that point in the day, they had been away for several hours getting some loans from the bank to help cover expenses. After my parents and I had been confronted with the staggering cost of my siphon the day before, we requested a full write up of the costs I had accumulated.

It wasn't pretty.

Altogether, it amounted to six years pay at my current salary, and I still had not had the procedure to replace the hole in my skull.

“I just don't know how I am going to be able to come back from this. When I think about it all, it sometimes make me wish I had never woken up.”

Ivy stood up like she had been bitten. “Don't talk like that Castor!”

“I don't like feeling that way, but that's how I feel right now.” I looked over at the unconscious mare I shared the room with. “Every time I see her, I realize that I could be her. I could have never woken up, and I know I should be happy with what I have been given. But I still fell so empty, like I'm missing an important part of myself and I just can't get over it. I don't know how I am going to keep my position at the CIM not being able to cast magic. I don't know what else I can do with myself.”

“There's more to magic than just casting it. You possess a deep understand magic that so many ponies cannot even hope to grasp. Writing spells is easy for you.”

“Yeah, but that's not what I really know. I mean, I know how to structure a spell as well as anyone, but that's only half of the equation. I can promise you that when you write a spell and put the different components together, there are always interactions you don't expect. If I can't actively test them while I am writing them, I can't know what those effects are. How am I supposed to compose spells like this?”

“Please,” Ivy scoffed. “Earth Ponies and Pegesi can write spells just like any unicorn can, and they don't have truesight either.”

“And that's my problem now. Scribes and spellwriters are much easier to find than adept spellcasters.” I shook my head and sighed, “And things aren't the same anymore either. I've felt so hazy since this injury; I can't think clearly and everything's just so... dark now that I don't have truesight.”

“I may not be able to fully fathom it, Castor, but I can empathize with losing a sense like that.”

“Same here,” Dante added. “I think I can imagine how unsettling it would be to lose my truesight.”

“Thanks.” My mind slowly drifted back to the financial burden I was suddenly under and I recalled something I had been meaning to ask. “I may need help moving out of my house in a few weeks. I'm not sure I'll have the money to pay rent... or eat.”

“I won't let it come to that,” Ivy said to me. “Not that I will need to. But if I had to, I'd make sure you had a place to stay and as much to eat as you want.”

I wanted to cry again, but I was too drained. I looked to Dante and his prosthetic legs and knew he was in the exact same boat as I was, except he didn't have his parents to help mitigate the cost of his time here. I don't know how long I was lost in thought, but at some point I realized Dante knew I was looking at his injuries. I looked away. “Sorry,” I said and rubbed my my helmet where my horn should be.

“Don't worry. It doesn't bother me.”

“But it bothers me.” I thought in reply, feeling sad for him and myself. I wished I could be as accepting of my own injury as he was of his, but every time someone made eye contact with me or even looked in my direction, I could only think that they were looking at me, at how wrong I looked. I felt exposed, and I knew if I were to catch Dante or Ivy staring at my injury like I had thoughtlessly been looking at his lack of hind legs, I wouldn't have been so gracious.

I looked back to Ivy. “Ivy, thank you for offering me a place to stay... It's just.. I already owe so much to the hospital and my parents... I don't know if I could handle owing something to my best friend as well.”

“Gifts don't leave you owing anything.”

I didn't know how to respond to such generosity, but I found myself smiling, even if only slightly.

She smiled in return.

“I guess the expense of everything ended up helping a bit.” I laughed, but my voice did not convey the pleasant tone I had intended. “I mean, I am going home today because of it... cause', well you know, I can't really afford to stay here anymore.”

“It's more that you don't need to stay here anymore. All the complications of your injury are pretty well under control,” Dante softly corrected. “Your head's had time to heal, and you don't have a bad concussion anymore. Speaking from experience, doctors only want to keep you around until they are sure if something comes up, it will be minor enough that you can get yourself to the hospital.”

“I know. I probably would have been going home sometime soon anyway, but since this came right on the cusp of finding out how much I owe, it feels more like I am running away than walking out.”

“You aren't running away, you're leaving because you don't need to hang around here anymore..”

“Well... speaking of leaving, my parents, Ivy, and I are going to go to a restaurant later today after I get out. Would you like to join us Dante?”

“Which one are you going to?”

“My parents made it seem that going to one of the nicer ones would make me feel better.”

“I would love to go but... eh...” Dante stretched out one of his false hind legs and looked at it, “Restaurants like that tend to cost a couple of legs to eat at, and I don't have any to spare.”

I laughed. I am a terrible pony, but I laughed. I tried to stop, but I snorted loudly which only made my head hurt. Then I realized Dante was leering at me with a paralyzing, deathly glare. “Oh no. Don't be angry at me. I thought you were joki-” Dante's face broke into a wide, toothy grin. He chuckled out and he began laughing harder than I was when I snorted. Though my magic was balanced, it still hurt as a lot when I laughed. For this one moment, I didn't care.

---

“You ready to go Castor?” Doctor Apple asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I've spent too much time in this room.” I looked to my parents who had brought me my glasses from home while they were out. “I'm ready to go home.”

My mom sat my personal effects on the nightstand and smiled. “We'll step out for a minute to let you dress.”

“Thanks.” They stood by ready to help as I carefully got out of bed which still wasn't easy, but it wasn't hard anymore either. After I had my four hooves on the ground and they could see I was able to handle myself, Doctor Apple pulled the privacy screen shut around my bed.

I slipped out of my hospital gown with more than a little difficulty, but I eventually managed to get it off and place it disheveled on the bed. I donned my glasses which were a unobtrusively thin frame with a set of elongated lenses, not of the ugly circular type which had dominated popularity in decades and centuries passed. It was a challenge unfolding them and placing them on my face given the clumsiness of my hooves, but I avoided breaking them which, I had to conceded to myself, was all I could have hoped for.

Looking in the small mirror which rested on my nightstand, I adjusted the glasses and tried to make my midnight blue mane a little less disheveled. In the end, I tried to tell myself that I didn't look too bad if I overlooked the white helmet protecting my head; however, by my gaunt face and tired eyes, I could tell just by looking at my reflection that I had been through a lot of trauma these past three weeks. Even my light amber coat seemed to be a sickly pale color. I hoped I didn't look so terrible to everyone else, and I tried to hide my haggard looks with another smile, managing to put on a convincing expression. I could only hope Ivy, my parents, and Dante would buy it.

“That will have to work.” I said to myself, eager to be home.

I turned around and pushed through the curtain. “It's time I went home.” I sounded exactly as pleasant as I had hoped I would, and my expression felt spot on. Everyone's faces, excluding Doctor Apple, brightened. A wheelchair sat next to the doctor and I had already decided to myself that I wouldn't argue with her about riding in it. I had been a tough patient to deal with, and it was high time I acted right.

“You've already signed the outpatient papers, so you're ready to go. You've done good, Castor, and I wish you well.” She nodded to me and I sat down in the wheelchair. As I was pushed out of the room, I cast a sidelong glance at the mare who had been my roommate. She lay unconscious like the first day I saw her and I knew that I could have just as easily been her, laying there, asleep, alone. Thank you that I'm awake and not like her. In the back of my mind, I hoped she would wake up soon.

Doctor Apple pushed me out of the room. Nurse Cross stood waiting outside. “Escort her to the main lobby, if you will. Castor, do you think you could walk the distance?”

“Wha-” the question took me off guard for a second. “Yes, Doctor. I think I can.”

“Of course,” Doctor Apple said, then looked at me. “If you'll please stand, Castor. We won't be needing the wheelchair.”

I grinned ear to ear as I set my four hooves down and the nurse pushed the wheelchair back to the kiosk nearby where it was normally kept. “Follow me,” she said when she returned and we started walking down the hallway.

This hospital was a large, grand old building like many others in the city, having long corridors of marble floors and smooth plaster walls with carved stone arches standing boldly at the more prominent intersections. We followed the main hallways into the centuries old center hub with a large, cathedral like lobby with several long desks at the end which were manned by secretaries and clerks. This was the first time I had been in this vast lobby which had once been the main sanctuary of a cathedral before the Church of Faust moved into a more humble complex and founded the hospital in their old building. Noting the intricate architecture and breathtaking artisanship, I wished my room had been this stimulating – I'd been going stir crazy in that room with its simple whitewashed plaster walls.

The nurse pointed at the main entrance at the other end of the former sanctuary. “Good luck Castor. Don't forget your checkup a week from now, and don't be shy about coming back if you feel anything might be off.”

“Thank you,” I and my parents said, and we started walking to the door.

“So, Dante, have you re decided on joining us?”

“Naw. I've got plenty of burnt toast back home that I need to eat.” He waved me off, then stumbled and fell flat on his face. “Thanks for the offer though,” he said as if nothing had happened, then added, “Dang this marble is slick.”

I smirked, but didn't offer to help him back up, knowing from times past he would tell me “You want to stand on your own, so do I.” Even if I was going to help, Ivy would have beaten me to it.

“Oh dear.” She said, reaching out a helping hoof. Dante smiled and wrapped his wrist in hers, and she helped him stand back up.

Great. Now I feel heartless. He's done so much to help me and I didn't even offer to help him up. I hoped no one noticed that I didn't offer to help him.

We walked out the door and I saw a small open air carriage waiting for us.

“So, Castor. I was thinking about going to, ohh..” Dad paused playfully, “maybe Sweet Treat to celebrate you getting out of the hospital?”

I was afraid that restaurant would come up. Some of my best memories happened there: my cutimark party, when I was accepted to Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, when I graduated. To go now, it would be wrong, all wrong.

“This doesn't really feel like a victory, Dad. I feel like I got my flank handed to me and now we are turning tail and running. We would be celebrating a successful retreat. Maybe... Maybe later, when I've...” I sighed. Why was this so hard to say? “When I've come to better terms with what has happened.” I rubbed my helmet with my foreleg... and conceded to myself that I had turned that little fidget into a bad habit.

“Well,” he said after a while. “I don't see it like that, but I don't want to force you to do something you don't want to. Where do you want to go?”

“How about-” I started but was cut off.

“Hey, I recommend Forest Garden Rubin. You were complaining about how bland hospital food is. I promise they are the total opposite. Great place to eat. Then again, don't listen to me. I go into fire swamps.”

“That sounds pretty good actually. Where is it? It's been a while since I have eaten food from the Griffin Empire, and I want something spicy to make up for all this hospital food.”

“It's on Canterwalk Ave. Middle of the commerce center. Look for a big sign with a bigger picture of a pot of curry on it.” Dante scrunched his brow and scratched his chin, “Don't really know a picture is bigger than the sign it's on, now that I think about it.”

“Everyone okay with that? I want-”

“Ah Yes!” Dante exclaimed, cutting me off as if some great revelation had struck him. Everyone stared at him, and he stared back for a moment. “My brother's here with his cart. Keep in touch, Castor.” He started with the intention of quickly turning around, but fell flat on his face when his hind legs flailed out from underneath him. He scrambled back up and trotted away like nothing happened.

I snickered ever so slightly.

“I heard that little miss protection spell!” He yelled without looking back. I blushed brightly as heads turned to look at me.

“What does he mean by that, Castor?” Mother asked sharply, catching the innuendo that I really didn't want to explain.

---

Lunch went as well as could be expected – we sat down, ordered our food, and I only spilled one cup of hot tea in my lap. Of course, handling the silverware was difficult as always, and I had to ask for clean replacements several times as I kept dropping my fork.

But once we had gotten back to my house, if there was one thing I wanted to do when I got home, it was to lay out on the deck with a book that I wasn't going to read, take a nap in the sun, then come in and take a long, warm bath. I had been dreaming of doing that ever since a couple days after I had awakened in the hospital, and I thought I was finally going to get to do that.

It was rainy when the carriage arrived at my house. It wasn't coming down too hard, but the sky was overcast and the day just wasn't going to be good for being outdoors. Looks like sunning is going to have to wait a bit longer, I thought as I was helped out of the carriage by my dad and rushed under the overhang above my front door. I reached back into my saddlebags, but stopped when I realized something. “I don't have my keys.”

Ivy was following right behind me, quickly hopping under the overhang. “I have them,” she said. “I was holding onto them for you until you came home.” She pulled my ring of keys out of her saddlebag. “After the...” She paused, “thing that happened... I took your stuff back here and then forgot to give you your keys back.”

I quickly opened the doors with the keys, spitting them out onto the table as I walked in and flicked my wet tail. “We're drenched, so I'm going to go get some towels for us.”

“Naw.” Ivy waved a hoof, “You enjoy yourself. I'll get them for you.”

I really couldn't complain – I had been dreaming of being home for a long time now. Closing my eyes, I breathed a deep breath through my nose. The scents I breathed were as sweet as I had expected them to be: it was very good to be back. “Okay. Don't take long, though, I'm getting cold.”

“Sure.” Ivy trotted to the bathroom.

I turned back to my parents and waved. “See you later tonight.” They smiled, waved, and asked the carriage puller to return to their home. He pulled at the harness, and they were away.

I turned back to the interior of my house and reveled at being home, looking forward to sleeping in my own bed that night.

My house itself was a loft, giving the entire place an nice aery feeling that was a wonderful change from the stifling hospital room. The living room was to the left of the main door, partially overhung by my study loft, the same loft my bedroom was on, where my personal spellbook library was stored. The walls in the main room were colored cheery amber swirled with midnight blue symbolizing the elements of air and ice. I had painted the room with a lot of ease using my magic and only after the matter recognized that it matched my own color pallet.

Ivy appeared out of the bathroom carrying two towels. “Here.” Before I could react, a towel slapped me in the face and wrapped around my head. “You need to dry off.”

She chuckled as I mumbled a mouth full of muffled words around the towel which ended up getting inside my mouth. “Mmmanks' ah lot.” I could really go for a whirlwind spell right now: gentle, not too hard for me, harsh and icy like a blizzard for Ivy in return for hitting me in the face. If I could still cast one, I was certain I could make the water in her hair freeze stiff.

I rubbed my body down, then my legs, and tail. I was dry, mostly, but there was still one part of me that needed drying. “Ivy?” I asked, “My bandages are wet. Can you help me get them off?”

She smiled softly. “Sure.”

I lay down on the floor with my head up, cautiously removed my helmet, and tilted my head down to give her easy access to the knot in the back. She untied it so gently that I couldn't even feel her movements.

With the knot unraveled I felt the bandages immediately lose tension. I winced as the pressure released and my head throbbed with a slight pain.

I never let my parents see me without my helmet; they had already seen enough when I was first injured and at death's doorstep, when I was rushed into the operating room bleeding, when I was so frail... when I was broken. I know they had seen my forehead, wrapped in bandages, lacking its horn. But I still wanted to spare them from the sight when at all possible, much like myself who had not yet even looked at my reflection without the helmet on.

“Ivy... I'm sorry you have to see me like this.”

She placed a hoof on my shoulder, “I know that you wouldn't let just anyone see you like this, and, I'm touched that you'd open yourself this much to me.”

I put my hoof over hers, met her eyes, and smiled. We shared this moment for several seconds more, then she grabbed the towel that was draped around my neck and began carefully drying my head and hair.

I've always been a 'touchy' type of pony who is not afraid to hug or physically contact my friends and family to convey emotion, and this was one of those moments I was glad to be that way. Feeling my friend's touch on my head was oddly therapeutic despite the shoots of pain.

She finished drying me and when she pulled the towel off of my head, I reached up and hugged her. She hugged back and we hugged her until I was afraid she might be getting uncomfortable. “Ivy... I don't know what I would do without you.”

“I'm glad I can help you through this. I just wish there was more I could do.” She released our embrace. “Let me get you wrapped back up,” she said, reaching into her saddlebags next to her and pulling out a roll of gauze bandages. Carefully, she wrapped my head as per the instructions of one of the nurses, being extra careful around my forehead where grafted skin was stitched over the patch of bone missing from my skull.

When she finished, I redonned my helmet and stood. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Now mostly dry, the first thing I did was walk over to the couch, flop down on it, and close my eyes.

It was very good to be home.

I rolled over and lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, the skylights illuminating the room enough to keep it cheery and bright despite the cloud cover. I closed my eyes for a few minutes, never really falling asleep, but coming pretty close several times.

For normal houseguests, I would have felt bad for not having entertained them; however, I had long ago made sure that Ivy understood my home was as much hers as mine, and I told her that she had free reign of my possessions.

I blinked my eyes and sat up when I heard her move upstairs. Looking up at the second floor, I saw her sitting at my desk up in my study reading a book. I wanted to talk with her, and I mean normal talk – none of the touchy feely conversations like the ones I had so often been having recently – so I got up an walked over go up the stairs

I stopped at their base. They were only thirteen steps, but this was the first time I would have ascended an entire flight of stairs since I had relearned how to walk. I didn't know if I could do it alone, and I certainly didn't want to try, but I still had enough pride left that I was hesitant to ask her to come down and assist me up the steps. I figured, if I needed to, I would crawl up them later when nobody could see me do it; in the meantime, I turned my attention to the pots, pans, and other things I had left on the kitchen counter when I headed out to have a picnic with my friends nearly four weeks ago. The dirty ones went into my washing basin, the clean ones went back into the cupboard next to my hybrid gas-magus oven.

An old memory of modifying the oven's element surfaced. Magus ovens tend to be painfully expensive because the skill that goes into their construction and the only reason I had this one was that, one month, I got the notion in my head to make one. By the end of my little project, I had spent over two hundred hours researching and building my own transduction element to put in a normal gas heated oven. Functionally, this kind of oven pulls the latent magic from the food in order to heat it, making it is a fuel-less oven, but I had calculated it would take six years or regular use to pay off the expensive components I had purchased. However, the spellwriting lessons I had learned and the experience I had gained were well worth the cost.

This memories of making the element were not lost on me as I moved pots and pans with weeks old grime into the sink, clumsily clattering the pots together as I tried and half failed to stack them neatly inside the space I had to work with.

I had finished putting them aside and decided I was up for something sweet to snack on by the time Ivy walked down the stairs, so I moved over to the icebox and opened the door.

“Sweet Celestia!” I swore, gagging at the sight and smell of rotting food and quickly slammed the door shut.

“What is it?” Ivy asked.

“My icebox's frost charm ran out of energy.”

Ivy reached the bottom of the stairs and cocked her head. “Really?”

“Really,” I replied.

“Things really aren't going your way this month.” She commented walking over to me and opened the door to see for herself. “Oh goddesses!” She quickly shut the door. “Why did you have that many bottles of milk?”

“I was at the market and a farmer was closing up the stall. He practically gave those to me, and I was going to bake some cakes with them.”

“Not now, you aren't.”

“Nope.” I then added, “I need to go by some groceries, because I am not eating anything that was in there.”

“Want to walk to the market and get some stuff then?” Ivy offered.

“I don't know if I can walk that far yet, and it's still rainy.” Despite my hesitation, the thought of getting outside after being cooped up for so long was pleasant.

“Well, we'll wait a bit and see if it stops raining, and I'll catch a carriage if you don't feel like walking at any point.”

So we waited, and Ivy and I got to have the that pleasant conversation I mentioned earlier as we played a game of chess. An hour later, Ivy had another victory tucked under her belt and I was feeling better about the icebox despite how expensive I knew it was going to be to recharge the enchantment since I wouldn't be able to do it myself. By then it had stopped raining, so we grabbed our saddlebags and stepped outside into the clearing weather to hail a cart.

Where I lived could be considered small town separate from Canterlot proper. With its tightly packed enterprise and market center surrounded by the much more spread out residential areas where I lived, it had the feeling of a small town in many ways. Houses were spread far enough to have yards of decent size with trees and meadows and beautiful views of the land off the mountain, making it a nice trip down the tree lined dirt road to the market.

Ivy and I spent time milling from store to store, paying out coins which all too often came from Ivy's coinpurse to purchase goods. The bread shop, the fruit and cheese store, an thaumaturge's store to restore the cooling element of my icebox: we went to all these and more.

Since my parents and friends frequented this market as often as I did, word got out about what had happened to me. It did my heart well that many of the familiar faces which operated these small stores told me they were glad to see me doing well, and many even said that they were afraid and praying for me while I was in the hospital.

Legs shaking, body fatigued, I was barely able to walk when we arrived by carriage at my house. There, I unburdened myself, moving my sattlebags off my back and onto the counter.

“I need to rest a minute... that took a lot out of me.” I shuffled over to the couch and flopped down upon it again. Ugh, I thought, holding a hoof out. Why am I trembling so much?

Slowly, my hunger for something sweet came back.

“Ivy, I know we just ate, but I want something sweet. Would you like some melopan and honey?” I asked, referring to a delightfully sweet, light bread which was one of my favorite snacks.

“That sounds lovely.”

We had all the supplies we needed, so after taking a few minutes to lay on the couch and rest, I pulled out a large mixing bowl and sat it on the counter as Ivy measured out the flour needed. I drew a pot of water from the tap above the dish basin and was moving to set it next to the stove, but spilled it halfway there. I pretended nothing happened and grabbed the towel Ivy had dried me off with from its hanger in the bathroom and dried it up.

After we had water, Ivy measured some and poured it into the bread bowl. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the movements of her shoulders, the coordination of her front legs, and the grip she held the beater with as she stirred the ingredients together. I was beginning to appreciate how much I had overused telekinesis to do things, because I was woefully unpracticed with the even the familiar act stirring something. To clarify, it was like trying to use the non-dominant side of my body.

The rest of our baking session went much the same, me trying to re-learn the fine motions of each task while Ivy sped on ahead with ease. While kneading the bread dough, I nearly fell to the floor several times when my hind legs began to move out from under me, but Ivy was there to catch me each time.

Two hours later, we had enough melopan for Ivy and me to eat and then have plenty left over for dinner later that night. Evening came, and so did my parents and some other friends, each bringing loads of food with them. We sat down to a delightful meal, I gorged myself on the flavorful food, then we played games for the remainder of the night until it was time for bed.

“Goodnight, darling.” Mom hugged me as she stood at the threshold of the door, and I reciprocated, wrapping my front leg around her. We all needed to sleep. My parents had their jobs to tend to, and I still needed to heal. “Are you sure you are okay staying here by yourself?”

A mother's concern can be the simultaneous the most touching and most irritating thing about her. “I'm fine. Really.” I replied for the tenth time that night. “You can stop worrying.”

“Well,” Mom was hesitant, “Okay. If you're sure.”

“I am.” I had shown everyone, especially myself, that I could handle the stairs earlier when I had purposely fetched a boardgame from upstairs. “I can handle myself alright,”

“Alright. Well, goodnight.”

We hugged. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight Castor.” Dad added, “I will be by tomorrow morning to check on you.”

“Goodnight, Dad.” He smiled, then filed out the door behind Mom. The door shut. Ivy, Cloud Mason, Sugarsilk, and Cloverberry, who had all been at the meal, had all left some time ago.

Now, I was alone.

My only companion was the coldfire lantern which idly flickered as it sat upon the living room table, casting long, melancholy shadows across my house. I walked over and tapped the top of it with my hoof, turning it off and plunging me into darkness as I moved my mind through the motions of casting an illumination spell. A spike of pain plunged into my head, and I cursed myself for again giving into the thoughtless habit of casting magic.

I tapped the lantern again, it sparked to life, and I sat it next to the bathroom door to provide light for me to carry my hot water from the stove to the tub. Having already set several very large kettles to boil, two were already starting to give off steam, so I picked one up and very carefully, ferried it to the large clawfoot tub in my bathroom. The other three boiling kettles soon were set next to the tub, and I slid into the cold water.

The chill shocked my head clear of any dullness, and I let myself acclimate to its frigidness before I poured the hot water in so the warmth would feel all the better.

This was perfect.

I laid my head back and slowly began to drift into sleepiness as the darkness swaddled me like a blanket and the warm water carried my mind away to better places. Finally, I was here in the bath.

In the darkness.

Alone.

A nagging fear told me I couldn't defend myself if someone were to break in, but Canterlot was a good city – robberies just didn't happen within my part of town. I was jumping at imagined threats so I ended up imagining defending myself every time my mind began to fret over my safety.
A masked bandit smashed through the window, rope dangling from her mouth. I startled, sloshing water out of the tub. “GET OUT!” I screamed, pulling the attention of the robber to me.
She stepped in my direction, letting the rope unravel from her grip as she methodically paced the distance between us. My pulse raced, I scrambled out of the tub with my wet hackles raised. “Don't come any closer!” I threatened, lowering myself into the most threatening stance I could muster.
The bandit made no change in her imposing advance.
“I'm warning you!” My eyes blazed with rage as I focused a spell.
The bandit, only a few steps away and seeing me ready to strike, blitzed at me and lept with suddenness that would have caught me off guard if I had not been preparing for her exact actions. In an eyeblink, the floor crackled with a growing sheet of dimly glowing blue ice which flashed out from my hooves and instantly coated the tile in a frictionless covering. This happened in the brief instant the bandit was off the ground, leaving her no surface with traction to land upon when she landed. I sidestepped her as she violently slid into the side of the tub and grunted loudly.

I smiled at the thought and slid myself deeper into the bath.
I heard a yell from outside which perked my ears up and left me staring at the shattered window with woeful anticipation as another bandit entered. His hooves hit the ice after bounding through the broken window and immediately slid out from under him, slamming him down onto the shattered fragments. Blood mixed with ice as he was sliced to ribbons on the shards of glass which had been frozen upright by my spell. He didn't get back up, and I flushed cold at the realization that he was dead. But he was robbing me and... I had to put him down for my own safety, right? It wasn't even my fault that he...

After weeks of stress and worry, I was finally starting to relax.
I heard another yell from outside. I tensed myself and prepared a spell in anticipation of another robber bounding through my broken window. Unexpectedly, there was a brilliant, blinding flash which exploded from nothingness in front of my face. I fell back in a futile attempt to dodge the flash which seared my vision, leaving opaque red blotches over the entirety of my field of sight.
“Ah got yuh now!” A disreputable voice chuckled from outside, and I heard a thump as what was presumably a unicorn hopped through the window and landed on the dead robber, using his bleeding corpse for traction.
I couldn't see anything except at the rims of my vision, but I didn't need to see in the first place. Closing my eyes, I released a clairvoyance spell to aid my already naturally acute magical senses and a rushing like that of a waterfall filled my mind as the world around me lit up in vibrant detail far greater than what anyone could ever see with her eyes.
At the robber's side, I saw a twin set of gold engraved scimitars which he unsheathed with his magic and leveled at me.
“Ah'll have yer head fer a truphy!” He proclaimed, giving me time to ready a spell.
I had already wrapped my telekinesis around the first robber when the unicorn launched himself and his scimitars at me. My timing aided by the slowed reality of my extrasensory vision, I swung the she-bandit like a baseball bat. She screamed as she was thrown around by her hind legs and was impelled when the unicorn tried to block her with his swords but failed. Her momentum carried through and she impacted the other, throwing them both against the wall where they thudded loudly.
Skewered in the gut and chest, the she-bandit lay moaning on the floor as I wrapped my magic around the ends of the two swords and bent them to keep the unicorn from pulling them back out and using them against me.

Despite the growing headache which I nursed in this perfect bath, stress flaked off me like scales molting from a dragon.
The unicorn grunted and stood, wiping blood off his chest and casting a sideways glance at his ruined swords. With trained precision, his saddlebags unbuckled and a score of throwing knives swarmed out, floating in motes of magic and pointing their tips in my direction.
This was trouble, but I too had tricks I had honed to perfection. The twenty knives accelerated in my direction, leaving me facing down a hailstorm of deadly blades ready to shred me. In this tight space, there was no way to dodge, but that wasn't my intention in the first place.
I had by this point finished forming a spell that I have for my entire life had been daydreaming upon but never was able to complete. However, now with my life on the line and back against the wall, the pieces fell into place.
The closest knife was only a few feet away from striking me in the chest and was rapidly closing the remaining distance when I released the spell. A powerful torrent of magic rippled throughout my body and formed a deep, midnight blue sheet of ice around it. With my accelerated senses, I watched the knife glide within inches of my chest... an inch... half inch... With its tip buried only a hair's depth into my chest, the surrounding air suddenly crystallized and caught the knife inside the brestplate of my new set of armor.
In real time, the other knives shot towards their mark, hitting me perfectly but clattering to the ground with deafening metal clangs as they impacted my ice armor and bounced off.
The full suit of ice armor bending dexterously to match my body, I stepped forward towards the robber whose smug look quickly shifted into terror. Cracking my neck, I smirked devilishly. “I am Castor Star, warmage of Her Royal Highness, and you just gave me a reason to pulverize you...”

My body flushed with a warm tingle at the thought of that, so I let the thought roll off my imagined tongue again, “I am Castor Star, warmage of Her Royal Highness...” That had such an excellent ring to it.

I carried this line of thought for a long time, knowing and not caring that even before my injury I could never have cast any of the spells I was daydreaming about. Eventually, I began to bore of the thoughts and an oncoming headache made dreaming all but impossible, so I laid my head back, focused on the pleasantness of the water, and began exploring the strange phantom sensations my extrasensory abilities had been reduced to.

They were, at times, bizarre sensations which were more like ghosts at the corners of my vision than actual senses. I knew they were hallucinations, I had experienced first hoof the humiliation of having thought they were my real senses, but I wanted them so badly to real. I needed this to be a real, honest to goodness, surviving remnant of my senses and, hoping beyond hope, I thought that maybe with enough practice, I could regain my truesight and start seeing the world as I had always seen it before.

I only managed to study the sensations a few minutes before my headache overpowered my ability to think on them, so I just lay there a few more minutes, gritting my teeth and hoping the pain would pass soon.

It didn't.

Then, there was a dull white flash in my left eye.

Oh Celestia, not another migraine. Thinking those words, I, to my horror, remembered what happened the last time I had suffered one of these migranes. Frantically, a voice in my head screamed, Get out of the tub! Now!

It was like a syringe filled with ice jabbing into my chest as I threw my body upright in terror. My hind legs were already starting to fall unresponsive as I clamored my front side over the tub and used my front legs to pull my almost dead hind end over the rim where I ungracefully flopped to the ground with a wet slap.

“Oh Celestia...” I lay on my side at the verge of hyperventilating, as I realized another seizure was coming, and I tried to force my mind away from the from the dark mental images of me sitting in the tub, unaware of the... wrongness... taking place in my head until my lower body went limp. I could see myself struggling, feel myself screaming as I fought to pull myself from the tub until I couldn't, forcing me to settle for keeping my head above the water until even that was too much and I slipped under and water rushed into my lungs...

Oh Celestia, Oh Faust, Please.

If, in the hospital and surrounded by doctors, I was stricken dumb with terror, then now, as the numbness possessed my body like some devil, I was deathly shaken to the soul. Time and time again, my mind fixated upon having been told I would have died last time had it not been for outside intervention to drain my excess magic. Struggling, I tried to claw and drag myself out from the bathroom to the stairs and up to my bedside safe where I had placed the siphon earlier that night. Yet the seizure continued to steal control from my body, and I lay on my side, prey to the necrotic ebbing as I tried to drag myself farther. My whole being was on the verge of plunging into a ravenous void wherein my strength was consumed in full.

I lay on the ground like a doll, discarded by its owner, immobile and alone. Oh Faust, I beg of you, please don't let me die, please, don't let me die. I cried out unendingly. If only I could reach the siphon, I might be saved, but I was a captive in my own body and lay completely paralyzed on the cold, wet floor. There, my affliction held me submissive for several harrowing minutes.

By the grace of Celestia, my mind remained within my body and was not torn away into the netherrealm, that terrible void, which I had visited the last time I was struck down by a seizure. Cold, wet, and confronted with my raw mortality, I became aware that I was shivering as my body slowly returned to my control.

I sat up and pressed my hoof to my chest feeling my quivering heart and screamed a scathing obscenity towards Faust, fate, or whoever else might be responsible for cursing me with these damned seizures.

My head ached with more pain than I can convey, and, sitting in the darkness, I could feel the disembodied sensation of my horn which was no longer on my head. Particles of glaring light danced where my truesight had once been, making me wince with pain as they scorched paths in my brain behind my eyes. As the streaks of light faded, haunting afterimages hung in my sight, marred with corrupted, twisted forms and ghastly figures.

The horror of these non-existent forms lie beyond what I can describe, but in the dark, as I sat on the floor immobile with fear, I jumped, screamed, and nearly passed out at the sight of some such phantoms whose shapes took the form of horribly twisted and distorted faces. I tried to tell myself I was hallucinating and that my reeling senses senses were tricking me as the siege of unspeakable sights continued assaulting my truesight.

The magic siphon in my wall safe upstairs beckoned me with a promise to end my suffering should I only be able to reach it and open the safe. Yet, as I sat a struggling hoof on the ground to take a step, I found that my sense of body was utterly wrecked such that I fought to even stand.

So I crawled. On my belly, I crawled out the bathroom. In the open space of the livingroom, what felt like a thousand eyes bored from the shadows. I hastened my pace and crawled to and up the stairs, fighting with all my courage to peek over the top level and see what horrid figures might lie in my room. Strange, ratlike thinks lurked in my truesight, flitting in and out of existance as they scampered about on the floor and walls.

They're not real. Ignore them. Oh please don't be real. Steadying my courage, I crawled to the safe tucked beside my dresser.

The pain in my head tormented me and befuddled my attempts to turn the safe's seven tumblers which I had instinctually reached out with my magic to touch. For my thoughtlessness, I was rewarded with an electric shock behind my eyes which sent me to the floor in agony.

I whimpered, bit my lower lip, and, through tears of pain, clumsily rolled the tumblers into their correct configuration and pulled down on the safe's handle. The latch clicked, I swung the door open, and yanked the siphon from its case, frantically holding it to my head. A cold wave of relief coursed through me as I channeled my magic into it and I gasped uncontrollably at the alleviation. Whatever doubts I had ever had about this device's value were now put down; there was now no question that I needed it for, if nothing else, the pure easement it brought.

I sat at the safe for longer than I can recount, pouring myself into the siphon and reviling in the delightful relief it gave. It was only once I fully depleted my magic and could give no more that I stopped.

Pain shot through my head like someone took a metal spike and drove it through my skull when I cut off the flow of magic. My jaw clenched, biting my tongue and drawing blood as I grunted under the deluge of agony. I nearly dropped the device when I was overcome with the pain, my body flushing cold with horror when it tried to roll from my loosened grip.

“Ok-k-kay... Let-t-t's p-p-put you b-b-back-k-k...” The sharp points of my words stuck on my lips as my mouth spasmed to utter them. Ever so cautiously, Iput the siphon back in its velvet lined case and closed the safe, rolling the tumblers to random locations.

Around me, the visions had left me and I was alone in my dark, moonlit room, though I had suddenly found a new and terrible hatred for darkness.

Drained, I managed to stand and hobble to my bed.

I was exhausted mentally and emotionally, feeling queasy and week in the knees knowing that I could have very easily drowned in the tub. I shook my head to clear away the terrible thought from it and climbed onto my bed. I was too stressed to sleep, too scared to feel at ease, but I wanted to lay down, close my eyes, and wish my crippling headache away.

Unfortunately the night was not restful for me in any sense of the term. The unspeakable hallucinations abated shortly after I siphoned away my magic, but the pain and phantom sensations of my horn never went away.

The agony in my head waxed and waned like the lapping of waves on the shore, coming in as a rush of pain and waking my fatigued mind from its futile attempts to slumber, then slowly pulling away and cradling me in a swaddle of half sleep as the pain receded. I can only guess at how long I was subject to the ravaging cycles, but I place my guess upon three hours. It was in one such cycle of respite that I lay on my back trying with no avail to blink away the intangible motes of light which danced in my truesight. The darkness surrounded me and sat my nerves alight by hiding the occasional dark form in the shadows, to which my hallucinations applied life. I sat up in bed terrified and screaming each time as I thought I saw with my clairvoyance a dark, ratlike form with a pony's head lunge at me.

It was an empty fear, I knew, but fear is still fear and, no matter how seemingly trivial it might seem, it forced me awake as I lay there well aware that I was utterly defenseless. It was then, in the second hour of the morning, that my ears, having played tricks on me the entire night, heard movement below. My body stirred with the physical drive to run, cooling my limbs and easing my headache slightly. Holding my breath and tensing perfectly rigid I awaited the sound of rustling, hoofsteps, the rubbing of clothing as someone walked, the creaking of boards as they were stepped on – hoping that the silence I heard instead would belie the certainty in my mind that a robber had broken in.

Then, after many tense moments passed, I heard the rustling again, followed by the brutal shattering of glass. My body shocked itself alive with a flush of energy, snapping my mind into perfect clarity and imbuing me with enough courage to risk making a sound, get out of bed, and hide.

But that was the issue. My loft had no walls to separate it from the lower floor, and I knew the closet to be a terrible place to hide as any thief would certainly check it should he come upstairs. I was completely exposed and with no weapon to use.

Why is this happening now? I, both disgusted at my luck and horrified at the circumstances, asked myself in my head, knowing that I, without my injury, would have had ample time to prepare a spell which might dispatch the intruder.

I pulled out of bed, cringing as the springs creaked and groaned, and, with as much silence as my clumsy body would offer, lay down in the wide gap between my bed and the wall. A wood base surrounding the brass body of the bed hindered me from hiding underneath, so I pressed as close to the wooden planking as I could and draped the comforter off the side of the bed and over me. I wasn't that well hidden, but if I was still, then maybe the burger wouldn't notice me.

With each quivering breath I pulled, I cringed at how loud my breathing was.
Please don't find me. Please don't find me.
I listened intently for a sound -any sound- that would indicate what was going on downstairs. Hoofsteps, silverware being shoved into a bag, the creak of the steps as they were stepped on. Anything! But there was nothing beside the gentle songs of the crickets outside.

The fear struck me that this was a master crook, moving about with no discernible soundprints. I prayed that the lock on my safe would prove steadfast if it were to be tampered with, knowing if my siphon were to be stolen, I would have only a few weeks to get another before I... I really didn't want to think about the ramifications at the time.

For many tense minutes, I lay still listening, yet hearing nothing. There arose in my head doubts that there was anyone but me in the house; however, the sound I heard earlier was unexplainable and I was too petrified to even move, let alone risk peering over the banister to see anyone below.

More time passed. The initial fear receded and, despite my anxiety and returning headache, I caught myself starting to doze. I fought a steadily losing battle, telling myself that if I fell asleep, I would be jeopardizing my safety. It didn't help.

I was being pressed into a corner and needed to act without any further hesitation lest I lose my window of opportunity to save myself. I cautiously peered out from the comforter. I saw no one in that half of my bed loft and slowly urged myself onward by the absence of immediate danger. Soundlessly, I crawled to the edge of my bed and peered around to the rest of the loft.

It was clear.

Eyes forward, gaze locked on the stairs should a dark figure appear on them, I crouched and slowly made my way to the railing which overlooked the kitchen and living room below. My shaking body moved clumsily with each step, creaking every board I moved over.

All I needed to do was look over the edge and make sure I had a clear path to get out of the house, yet when I reached it, my body began trembling even more.

What if the intruder heard me? What if he saw me if I were to poke my head, with its brightly colored fur into, view of the first floor? But I had to. If I ran, I could be out the door in just a few seconds, then in another fifteen, slamming my hooves on a neighbor's door and screaming to let me in.

Swallowing hard and holding my breath, I peered over and saw what had shattered the glass.

Comments

[FTR2017]

I like how you portrayed the desire of someone that suffered a big loss in functionality to be independent as soon as possible.

It is quite impressive the way you managed to give plausibility to Castor's situation - considering human beings don't have horns.

Only thing, there is a need for minor checkups for words missing a letter - but I'm certain that a keen-eyed editor might help smooth out even further your work, which is already a pleasure to read as it is.