Quantum Starlight

by Rambling Writer

9 - Down, but Not Out

Monarch HQ, October 10
10:34 AM — 14 hours after the Fracture in Time

Considering her last experience had been getting shot in the face, Starlight felt spectacular.

But then, it was the closest thing to a good night’s sleep she’d had in, what, two days? It was hard to say with her jumping back. Still, once she was put to sleep, she stayed asleep, and she felt surprisingly good. The bed was comfy enough, the sheets were a bit scratchy but not too bad, a-

Bed? Sheets? Starlight cracked her eyes open a millimeter. Soft white light dripped from a lamp on the ceiling; bright enough to see by, but not enough to blind somepony who was just waking up. Starlight opened her eyes a bit more. She was in what looked suspiciously like a hospital room, but considering her last conscious experience, it was probably safer to say “medical ward”. Hospitals were public; this was almost definitely private. It was small, with only three other beds. Two were empty. The last held Sunburst, who was still asleep. He was covered with sheets, so Starlight couldn’t see his leg, but his chest was rising up and down easily.

The room itself was that kind of brightly drab of hospital/medical ward rooms everywhere. Sterile and functional, but not much else. It had all the essentials: heartbeat monitor (none attached to anypony), stands for IV bags (none holding any, and one carrying Sunburst’s lab coat), curtains (all stowed), the works. The biggest difference was the stylized M of the Monarch logo plastered around a number of things. Starlight suspected she’d start seeing that logo even more in the near future. No windows, unfortunately.

Still lying down, she rolled her shoulders. She waited for the pain to come, some kind of magical backlash, but nothing happened. She waited. Nothing happened. She waited. Nothing happened. She stopped waiting; nothing would continue to happen, and she’d feel fine. Good. Apparently, Serene had been telling the truth about keeping her and Sunburst safe.

The thought made Starlight twitch all over, as if- No, she wasn’t strapped down into the bed. The thought was silly, but she thought it anyway. For all she claimed about keeping them safe, Serene was being awfully aggressive about it. Starlight suspected the door out was locked, but didn’t feel like getting up to try it. Not yet. Even if Monarch had assaulted her, the fact that they’d taken her to someplace to get looked at made it feel like trying to escape would be in poor taste.

Which left one thing to do. “Sunburst?”

“Unnffh.”

So Sunburst was asleep. Great. And she was left sitting there all al-

The door swung open and a nurse walked in, a clipboard tucked under her wing. Her nametag marked her as Femora. “I noticed you were up,” she chirped. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to examine you a bit and be sure you’re in tip-top shape.”

Well, it wasn’t like Starlight had anything better to do. “Sure,” she said. She tried to push her sheets aside with magic, but flinched as she felt the slight buzz of a restrictor ring on her horn she hadn’t notice. Of course.

As Starlight kicked the sheets off, Femora cringed and smiled at the same time. “Yeah, sorry. That had to go on to keep any feedback from coming back out and doing… bad things. That magic can knock somepony out like that-” She stomped on the floor with one of her rear hooves. “-but it’s not perfect yet. If you’re all good to go when we’re done, we can take that off.”

Which meant, Starlight suspected, that no matter how good she actually was, they’d find some way of making sure it stayed on. Probably through some medical-sounding gibberish mixed with random arcane terms that was actually a steaming load, but she didn’t have the knowledge to disprove. Still, it was better than being cooped up in a cell. “I’ll live,” Starlight said. “What do you need me to do?”

Femora set the clipboard on a table and began running down it. “Well, first…”

They went through basic physical motions, for the most part. At one point, Femora pulled out a stethoscope and had Starlight breathe in and out, and another time, she pulled out some kind of magical pokey thing that made Starlight’s hair stand on end, but never anything that exertive. It was a short list, and it looked like Femora was skipping down it. Maybe she just wanted to get it over with, maybe she was going through some flowchart type thing. If the patient does this, go here. If not, go there. EIther way, it was over quickly. Femora frowned the frown of somepony looking at a desireable, but very unexpected, result. “Hmm,” said Femora. “Even if they’re not perfect, they’re getting close. I don’t see any side effects.”

“Great,” said Starlight. “And him?” She pointed at Sunburst.

But Femora waved her off. “He should be up in less than half an hour, don’t you worry your tail. Actually, you got up early.”

If time was still stuttering, Starlight realized, then every now and then her own clock would jump forward a bit relative to the world. Time would stop, and she’d keep going. (Unconscious, but still.)

“So you might just be hardy,” continued Femora. She paused and bit her lip. “I hope he doesn’t react badly.” Before Starlight could react, Femora had moved on. “I’ll stop by in a few, see how you and he’re doing, okay? Okay. Oh, and…” She slipped a band with a single glowing gem over the base of her hoof and tapped it to the restrictor ring. The ring popped off Starlight’s horn and dropped to the floor.

“Don’t need this anymore,” Femora said brightly, scooping the ring into a pocket. “You’re right as rain. Somepony will be by to talk to you in a bit. Be seeing you!” And she was gone.

Well, um, okay. They must really trust her, which was odd for ponies that had been shooting at her less than twelve hours ago. (Was it twelve hours ago? Starlight looked at a clock on the wall. More or less.) Serene at work, maybe. Just how much was she pulling strings?

And then there was the matter of the nurse. More precisely, the way she acted. From talking about the bolts, she obviously knew how Starlight and Sunburst had come here, but Starlight didn’t think her demeanor was faked at all. Which meant that, in spite of the two of them being prisoners, Femora didn’t actually care at all about that. That was one trusting nurse.

She’d said somepony was coming here to talk to her. Now, all Starlight could do was wait. At least it wasn’t a cell. And maybe… “Sunburst?”

He waved a hoof halfheartedly. “Unnffh.”

“Are you… are you feeling okay?”

Sunburst raised his head and blinked blearily at Starlight. He looked really strange without his glasses. “No. ‘M tryin’ t’sleep an’ y’r wakin’ m’up,” he slurred. He dropped back down to the pillow.

Well, okay. If that was the first thing about him that came to mind, that was probably a good sign. But… “Anything else?”

“UNNFFH!”

“Sorry. I’ll let you sleep.”

But like Femora had said, it wasn’t that much longer before Sunburst was up. He had his own restrictor ring clamped on his horn, so it took him a little while to find his glasses on a bedside table. The moment he had them on, he pointed at Starlight’s horn. “You don’t-”

“A nurse came in, took a look at me, and took my ring off,” Starlight said. “Something about feedback and keeping it contained.”

Sunburst blinked. “Oh.” He started staring at the ceiling and muttering to himself. “Well, actually, that, that makes sense… Hypothetically, if, if that magic knocked a pony out by, by traveling along their, along their nerves, then, then maybe, once it reached the brain, it, it might cause a-”

Starlight didn’t want to listen to any more random arcane ramblings. She got enough of that from Twilight. Time for a subject change. “So how’s the leg feel?”

“Better than it, than it should,” said Sunburst. A few kicks got him out from under the sheets. His wounded leg was bandaged and had a sort of shoe splint to immobilize it and allow him to put weight on it without putting weight on the actual leg. “Still stings a little, but that’s, you know, that’s to be expected.” He slid out of bed, keeping his bad leg up. After a second, he delicately put it down on the floor, then shifted his weight a little. He inhaled sharply, but stayed up. “Smarts,” he said through clenched teeth, “but I, I can walk if I need to. I think.” He took a few steps around the room. He gasped slightly every time his hoof hit the ground, but only slightly. Climbing back into bed, he said, “Could be better, but it, it ought to be a lot worse.”

“Hnng.” Starlight wasn’t convinced Monarch didn’t have some ulterior motive in keeping them alive. They’d been willing to use force earlier, after all.

“So…” Sunburst wiggled a little to get under the sheets more. “Where are we?”

“No idea,” said Starlight. “Some Monarch building, I’m guessing.”

“Yeah. They, they do love their logos. Probably back in, back in Streamhaven, then.”

“Maybe, b-” And then Starlight realized something. “Where do you think the Doctor is?”

“I, I…” Sunburst pushed his glasses up his muzzle. “I… don’t know. Was, was he okay when you left him?”

Starlight nodded. “Back in his home in Ponyville. Do you think they got him? They knocked us out, why wouldn’t they do the same for him?”

“Dunno,” Sunburst said. “It’s… it’s not like he’d have to come here, is it?”

“No.”

Silence.

Sunburst coughed. “What happened with the, with the time machine? In the past, I mean. At Streamhaven.”

Bad memories came rushing back, and Starlight slouched. “I don’t know,” she muttered, rubbing her forehead. “We were there at the time, Serene came, and she destroyed those crystals. She kept talking cryptically, about how pieces were falling into place or something and she had to do it. It was… she was weird, Sunburst. She’s definitely not the Serene you knew.”

“Oh.” Sunburst twirled a lock of hair around a hoof, biting his lip. “And you didn’t, you didn’t get a chance to ask her about what she was doing, right?”

“Right. And I don’t think I’d’ve gotten a straight answer if I had.”

“Oh.” Sunburst paused. “Is… This is probably a bad…” He bit his lip again and looked away.

Starlight took a guess. “Yes, Sunburst, you told me so.”

“Well, it’s, I, I didn’t want to put it like that…”

“No, you’re fine. It’s just… Well, you did. But don’t worry about it.” Starlight fell onto her bed stared at the ceiling. Her thoughts were flipflopping again. Okay, so changing the past with the machine didn’t work. She could accept that, now. It didn’t seem so strange. But, for what felt like the bazillionth time, she’d seen herself change the past. She should’ve tried to change something when she was back with the Doctor. It would’ve provided an answer, one way or another. It would’ve given her closure, it-

The door to the room opened again. Femora entered the room, still smiling, but flanked by two guards, both unicorns, and Starlight was sure she saw more outside. “Hello there!” Femora said to Sunburst, far too brightly for somepony in her situation. “I saw you were up. If you don’t mind, I’d like to perform a quick checkup. And I’m sorry,” she said to Starlight, “but these two gentlecolts are here for you.” She waved a hoof at the guards.

Sunburst twitched and pushed his glasses up, and Starlight took a few steps away from the door. “Whoa, hey, here for what?” she asked.

“Just to escort you to your next location,” Femora said. “The bossmare wants to speak with you, and…” She tutted. “You do not keep the CEO of Monarch waiting.”

Starlight and Sunburst exchanged glances. It didn’t take long for Starlight to think; she didn’t have a whole lot of options. “And I need guards why?” she asked.

“Just to make sure you don’t try to break out,” said Femora. (How could she be so cheerful about this?) “You’ve caused…” She clicked her tongue. “-quite a bit of problems for us.” She leaned in close to Starlight and stage whispered, as if she were sharing a secret, “Let’s keep those to a minimum, shall we?”

Of course. Starlight sighed and muttered to Sunburst, “Be seeing you.” With the guards at her sides, she left the room, where she was boxed in by another pair of guards. The first two didn’t say a word; they just started walking down the hall. Starlight thought it best to follow them.

Before they were out of sight of the door, Femora hollered out, “Don’t worry, it won’t be long. Miss Serene’s very to-the-point!”

Comments

[TheJacksonFive]

First and last at the same time. Ain't that something?
(At least until someone else comments on)

[Twilight Connor]

7707822 Quite.

[tsaukpaetra]

Must get pretty boring reenacting history so it flows like you expect it...