Three Years Gone

by DeletePlease

Chapter II: Blood and Trust

The mare sat down slowly in the back of the massive room, going unnoticed by the audience who seemed captivated by the old stallion. She’d heard this story before though, and thus hadn’t bothered to be on time. Perhaps she was just here for insurance; she didn’t want everypony to know her involvement in this. If they did know, she didn’t know how they would react. Weren’t things like this beneath her? Perhaps Octavia had reminded her of someone, maybe of herself. Besides all of that she was exhilarated, the disguise was working. It certainly wasn’t something she was used to but with help she was now an old pegasus stallion that fit in perfectly with the psychologists in the concert hall. But there were others in the hall, regular ponies that didn’t report the news or help those with problems. News had traveled fast and now there were ponies gathering outside from all over the city to see Octavia.

* * *

“Whoa, wait a minute here,” a young earth pony had spoken up from the second row of seats. “First off, how could she possibly hurt you with a pen? Second, does any of this really matter? Can’t you just skip to your diagnosis and treatment so that we can all go home?” Erik looked annoyed at the question, not because it was a stupid question but because everything had been going so smoothly and this stallion had interrupted the flow of things. He knew he would have to explain though, especially with the new members of the audience. Not many ponies had advanced degrees in pony psychology after all.

“First, a pen could do quite a bit of damage when shoved through a jugular vein or another of the important tubes in the neck. Secondly, and you should pay attention to this as I doubt you’ve reported on psychological discoveries before, all actions of a patient are important in the diagnosis of psychological problems in ponies. Any action, twitch, thought, or mumble could lead to extraordinary places. Since it appears we have many members of the general public present now and now that I’ve been made aware of the level of inexperience of some of the present reporters.” Erik stepped back to think. He’d taught classes before on general psychology but that had been to students over the course of weeks, months, even years. He would have to condense that into a few minutes, but he liked a challenge.

“Until about thirty years ago psychologists focused on chemicals and structures in a pony’s brain, looking for abnormalities and correcting them. This could be an enlarged area of the brain or a chemical that isn’t being produced. That changed when I entered school. In my third year of specialized practice I did a few experiments and in short discovered that none of that matters nearly as much as the magical element. We all, or at least most of us, know that everypony has magic of some sort. After I made this discovery I decided to test just how much magical imbalances affected ponies and the results were groundbreaking in the treatment of conditions.”

He stepped back from the microphone to take a breath and collect his thoughts. There was a bit of a twinkle in his eyes. He’d always loved teaching; this was far from a classroom setting though.

“There are different kinds of magical energies. Earth ponies have the least variety, pegasi have slightly more, unicorns have a massive amount, and alicorns are presumed to possess the most. Of course we couldn’t exactly examine royalty so there aren’t any exact measurements on alicorns. So, ignoring them for the sake of simplicity, unicorns have the most amount of control over their magic, they need to control their abilities to harness them. Pegasi showed a fairly low amount of control, but less was required because their talents came naturally. A few unicorns could, however, control their magic to perform extraordinary feats, with a lifetime of work. Earth ponies couldn’t control their abilities, but they came naturally and didn’t require any. As a result of this, unicorns with an imbalance in their energies would be able to control it fairly easily and their lives would hardly be interrupted except for an inability to perform certain spells. Pegasi with an imbalance would have greater issues and be more likely to experience other symptoms; they may be unable to control the weather or may even lose the ability to fly. We found that imbalances were most common in unicorns, they happened rarely in pegasi, and about one in every billion earth ponies may experience a natural imbalance. When earth ponies become imbalanced it is very dangerous because they can’t control it at all, and they are very likely to experience symptoms other than an interference with their magical abilities. These ranged from depression to psychosis to full blown schizophrenia.”

The audience seemed thoroughly confused which was good enough for Erik, even Vinyl and Octavia seemed to not understand it all. They had received quite the education since Octavia had returned to them.
Erik continued, “Octavia is an earth pony, which leads us to the next two years in our story. You see, it wasn’t for 18 months after I had met Octavia that work would begin on what would become her cure, and it would be another six before I would learn of such things. What happened before then is still important though…”

* * *

Erik wasn’t a fighter, he was a thinker. The blast that came from his horn surprised him just as much as the immediate feeling of nausea afterwards. He fought it though; this was no time for weakness. Octavia had been knocked upwards, into the ceiling leaving a large indent. She was clearly very hurt, and still fighting. Vinyl dashed into the room and surveyed the scene.

“What the hell happened?” She asked, appearing very angry.

“Be quite and do as I say,” Erik replied quickly. “Go into the next room over and open the third drawer. Grab everything in there and come back, quickly.”

Vinyl seemed suspicious but ran off anyway. Octavia wasn’t a fighter either, but she was still struggling regardless, despite the dangerous amount of blood she had already lost. As Erik started to stand he realized just how disoriented he was, the room was spinning, he couldn’t focus to do anything with his magic, and he felt completely drained. He started to crawl towards the now destroyed bed Octavia had spent the night on; underneath it was a sedative which he hoped would keep her from inuring herself, or anyone else, any more than she already had.

Vinyl came back into the room with her horn glowing, IV equipment floating behind her. “What are you doing?”
She asked, Erik was still far from reaching the bed and he imagined he didn’t look to be in very good condition. Octavia was starting to stand up now; blood was still flowing from a gash in her side and other, smaller cuts over her body. Nopony should be able to move with how hurt she was.

“Under the bed, there’s an injection syringe. Grab it and inject it into the muscle on her back, next to her shoulders.” Erik replied.

Vinyl wasn’t sure why she trusted this stallion but she quickly found the syringe and stepped toward Octavia. Octavia swung her hoof weakly at Vinyl but missed as she was clearly disoriented. Somehow Vinyl stuck the needle in the right place and pressed down on the plunger, injecting an opaque, yellow-green liquid into her partner.

That was easy, she thought. “Now what?”She asked, turning to Erik as she helped Octavia, who had gone limp almost immediately, to the floor.

“Now for the hard part. Do you know how to star an IV?” Erik seemed urgent, which made Vinyl start to feel nervous.
“When would I have ever learned that?” Vinyl replied. It seemed like a silly question, even to Erik. “Well, there’s a first time for everything. Use that tourniquet to tie off the lower half of her hoof from the upper half,” Erik said it almost as though it would be simple.

“Why do I have to do this? Wouldn’t it be safer if you did it?” Vinyl spat back.

“I can’t use my magic, something happened-“ Erik started to say.

“When you blasted my fillyfriend into the ceiling, I get it.” Vinyl was getting frustrated; if this was the best psychologist in Equestria then Octavia may never get better.

“Now isn’t the time argue, I had you inject her with an emergency sedative but if we don’t get her started on the antidote for it she’ll be dead in minutes.” As he said this a fire seemed to be sparked in Vinyl’s eyes.

“Why the hay would you do that?” It was as though every emotion she had ever felt had been converted to anger and came to the surface at this one moment. “I can’t do this! I’m a DJ, not a miracle worker, doc!”

Just as the tears started to come Erik walked over and smacked her. “Pull yourself together; we are not letting her die.”

Vinyl seemed to awaken from some sort of daze. Her horn glowed as she picked up the various things she would need to start the IV. Erik didn’t understand, he didn’t even say a word as she performed the procedure perfectly; almost too perfectly. Intravenous Therapy had just been invented a few years ago and it was far from perfected. It usually took three or four tries to start one but Vinyl, who had never even seen an IV started, performed perfectly…
* * *

“I think now would be an appropriate time to take a break. I’m terribly thirsty and I imagine that at least a few of you are too. I’ will return in five minutes.”

Erik stepped back from the microphone and walked off stage. It didn’t take long for everypony in the audience to start talking and it didn’t take much longer for reporters to surround Octavia and Vinyl and begin their bombardment of questions. Vinyl seemed to enjoy the flashes coming from the dozens of cameras; she had always loved attention though. Octavia, while she had enjoyed performing in the past, had to wonder, why they had to take so many pictures. If they kept up their pace they’d each have thousands by the end of the night.

Erik paced backstage, suddenly nervous. So far everything had gone perfectly but he still wondered about the end of the story. He had felt so strongly that they were doing the right thing but now he wondered, didn’t the public have a right to know? He took a sip from his glass and started to walk back out onto the stage.

The reporters began to settle back into their seats as Erik stepped back to the microphone once again. Vinyl and Octavia exchanged a look, almost as though someone had told a joke. Erik tapped on the mic with his hoof thrice to get everypony’s attention and almost immediately the talking died down.

“It was later that night that Vinyl and I finally got a chance to speak while Octavia rested,” Erik began. “She was, to put it bluntly, still pretty pissed off. She told me that in the morning she would take Octavia and leave and they would figure out what was wrong on their own. I couldn’t let that happen. I’d like to say that I knew something was seriously wrong and I desperately wanted to help but that wasn’t exactly it. I had never failed to help before and I didn’t want that record tarnished. I told Vinyl I was leaving my practice to work with Octavia full time because she needed professional help and I was the only one who could help her…”
* * *

“Ha! I’ve seen the ‘professional help’ you’ve given her already and I really don’t think she needs any more of that.” Vinyl replied.

It was true that Erik hadn’t exactly helped when he blasted Octavia but he didn’t see that happening again. “She attacked me,” he said. “Not that it was her fault. It’s just that I haven’t ever had to fight a patient before. Listen to me; if she has another episode like that someone could really get hurt. She needs a stable environment and therapy. You two can move in here and I’ll help her, free of charge.”

Vinyl looked at him suspiciously. “Why would you do that? If you’re leaving your practice and help us for free won’t you go broke?” she asked.

“Look around, Vinyl. Money is something I am not short on.” It was true; the home they were in was beautiful. The walls were hoof carved in such a way that it must have taken years to complete the entire complex. There were massive fireplaces in a few rooms and various suits of armor and other pieces of artwork throughout.

Vinyl thought of Octavia. It was just too much anymore, she loved her but life had become so stressful. Vinyl had to work, but she was afraid every time she left the home that the mare would burn the house down or cut herself or do some other terrible thing. “Alright, I guess we’re moving in.”

Things happened quickly after that; Vinyl and Octavia’s apartment was sold, all of their things were moved to Erik’s home, and the stress seemed to melt away. Every day Erik and Octavia would talk. For almost a year Octavia said nothing. Then one day she finally spoke.

“Why do you do that?” Octavia asked out of nowhere.

“It’s nice of you to join us, Octavia. I must ask what you’re referring to.” Erik seemed shocked.

“You spin your pen. Is it some sort of nervous tick or something along those lines?” Erik was taken off guard by the question. For a year he had tried to initiate conversation with her and all of a sudden she initiates a conversation with him.

“I’ve never actually thought about it. I guess psychologists never think about themselves in the way we do our patients,” Erik replied. “I don’t suppose you would be willing to talk about you?”

“That would depend on what you want to talk about, I suppose,” Octavia responded. Something had changed about her, she seemed more confident.

“Let’s start simple,” Erik wasn’t quite sure how to do that but he would have to try. “Can you tell me a little bit about you and Vinyl?” He mentally kicked himself immediately after asking.

“That isn’t exactly simple but we could talk about that,” Octavia perked up and there was a bit of a glisten in her eyes. “I suppose you want to know why we’re together, right. Why would a classy mare like me date someone so foalish and unrefined?”

Erik laughed. “I suppose I’ve wondered that. As long as you’re comfortable talking about it then go ahead.”

“I suppose it’s the whole ‘opposites attract’ thing,” Octavia was smiling. “We are completely different yet we love each other all the same. We met when we were in school, in our second year. Back then it was more of a rivalry; who was smarter or faster or who was most liked. That continued on for a couple of years. I forget what happened but some time in our fifth year we became friends, at least that’s what she’s told me. I can’t really remember things around that time very well.”

“You don’t remember? Can you remember anything about that time?” Erik had instantly slipped into detective mode; an opportunity had presented itself and he couldn’t let it get away.

“No. Trust me, I’ve tried but I can never remember anything from then up until my ninth of school.” Octavia started to get that usual sad look back in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright, we’ve made quite a bit of progress today and that is something to be proud of,” Erik said. “Would you like to see Vinyl?”

Instantly Octavia perked up again. “I’d love that, thank you doctor.”

* * *

“Octavia and I would talk many times over the next year. She would occasionally go back to being sad or angry but those phases came less and less as we talked more. I tried many spells and other therapy methods but I could never get her to remember what happened during those years.” The audience seemed to be having mixed reactions. Erik recognized the look on his fellow psychologist’s faces. They were trying to figure out what had happened to Octavia, he doubted any of them would get it, though. The reporters were all furiously scribbling down every word he spoke, barely keeping up. The rest of the ponies packed into the now cramped concert hall where all focusing on him, trying to take in every word of the story. Everypony that is, except for one. The disguised pony in the back was focused on him for a different reason, although he did not notice, and that was to see if she could figure out what he was thinking.

She had heard of ponies in the past who could read minds, but it hadn’t been a simple task for any of them. She had to make sure though, that he wasn’t thinking of telling them all what had transpired in that forsaken dungeon. If he told of her involvement that was fine, but the events in that place could not be spoken of ever again.

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Authors Notes:

I’ve been having fun writing this story so far and I hope that anyone who has read it has enjoyed it as well. I want to note that the story will get darker as it goes on. I hope I can maintain a word count of about 3000 for chapters from now on but there may be some shorter chapters.

Finally, I must ask, please comment. Tell me what you liked, tell me what you disliked, and tell me what I can do better. Even if the only message you want to convey is how terrible of a writer I am I want to hear- err… read it.
Until Next Chapter,
<3 Shae

Comments

[Syvvak]

This is a very interesting story so far. I like. The concert hall parts seem to be taking up most of the story but I'm assuming that it's just the easiest way to describe all the backstory. The pony in disguise really has me intrigued though. Can't wait for more.