A Change in the Wind

by Silent Whisper

A Sneeze, A Drop, A Soup

Ghost Phase woke up to three things that made her heart skip a beat.

The first was Misty’s hooves wrapped around her. This wasn’t a problem, as she rather liked being cuddled up to her friend, and it was a truly welcome shock. It just felt right somehow.

The second thing was the clock. It blinked at her. 0:00. Crap, she thought, as coherently as she could after being yanked bodily from dreamland. I’m probably late to work, aren’t I? Crap, crap, crap.

The third thing was a violent sneeze, that jerked her body so hard she almost fell off the blanket-nest. It woke her up the rest of the way, and made Misty shift positions behind her.

“Whatzat?” muttered Misty, grabbing one of Ghost’s hooves and attempting to wrap it around herself like a blanket. “‘s too early to be doin’ the waking thing. Five more hours…”

A second sneeze made the changeling lift her head, blinking some of the sleep out of her eyes. “Wah… Ghostie? Are you the alarm clock?”

“I dink I’b sick, Mibty,” Ghost replied, pawing at a few book stacks blearily for a tissue box. Half of her nose felt congested, and it was driving her nuts.

“Sick? Sick! Oh no, oh sweet stars above, you’re sick!” Instantly, Misty’s demeanor changed, and she lept to her hooves, wings buzzing frantically. “What do I do, what do I say? Oh, gosh, is there a ritual I should perform? Or a song you need to hear? I’m not much of a singer, but I can try if it’ll help.” She took a deep breath. “Ohhhh, Celestiaaaaaaaaaaaa, my bosom sings to-”

“Dat isn’t helbing.” Ghost flashed her a weary smile as she struggled out of bed. “Don’t you doh how to helb a sick pony?”

Misty wobbled on top of one of the stacks, frantically bouncing on her hooftips. “Not really, no. I mean, changelings deal with sick ‘lings by isolating them until either they aren’t sick anymore or… well, they aren’t sick anymore. We don’t get sick very often, though, because we’re, y’know, bugs.”

“Right, right.” Ghostie blew her nose and made a face as she crumpled the tissue in her magic. “I’m probably going to call out from work. Could you deliver a note to me?”

“Sure! Yes! Can do, I can do that! Letters, notes, anything you need delivered. Leave it to me!” Misty nodded, helpfully pulling out a few tissues from the box before tenderly stacking them on Ghost’s head.

Ghost pressed her lips together as she scrawled a quick note and handed it to Misty, seconds before sneezing a third time and toppling back onto the blanket nest. “I’m going back to bed. My head feels full of fluff.”

Misy paused, one hoof already out the door, and looked back with a few notes of concern in her desperately-chipper expression. “Do I need to call a pony doctor?”

Ghost waved a hoof from the bed as she buried her muzzle back into the pillows. “It’s just a cold. I’ll be fine, I just need a few hours to feel right as rain.”

The door to her apartment swung shut with an all-too-loud clunk as Ghost’s eyes slid shut. The room felt as though it was spinning around her as she gave in to the siren call of sleep.

---

The sound of a shattering crash was just barely enough to wake Ghost from her doze, after what felt like a few minutes. A familiar voice followed the crash, making her feel simultaneously relieved and exhausted.

“Curse them all! Every last bit! Curse that bit and that bit and that bit and… all of it! Curse it all to a thousand years of sleep, only to wake up in a land with no toilets!” Misty yelled, wings buzzing as she dove for a broom. “Who in Equestria and the wastes beyond makes a mug that freakin’ breakable? It’s like glass, except less pretty, I swear to-”

She froze as her eyes met Ghost’s. “Crap. Did I wake you? I didn’t- I was just trying to do some dishes, and-”

Ghost blinked owlishly at her, before taking in the room around her. Many of the book stacks had been moved, and she dearly hoped it only looked like they had been sorted by color. A towering heap of bowls were arranged haphazardly against the counter, most of them far cleaner than she remembered them being. The heap of shards Misty had been screaming at looked like the remains of one of her mugs: the one with the teddy bear, if she wasn’t mistaken.

She sighed before yanking a pillow over her head. Half her face felt weirdly clogged up. “You’re fibe, Misty. I’b going back to sleeb.”

---

“Ghostie?”

A hoof gently poked her shoulder. Groaning, Ghost levered herself into a mostly-upright position. “Yeah?” She muttered, squinting first at Misty, then at the clock, which was still blinking a helpful 0:00. “What is it?”

Misty bit her lip. “I cleaned the apartment.”

“That’s nice,” said Ghost, her back popping as she stretched. One of her hind hooves was still asleep. “Thanks,” she added, after a few seconds of silence had stretched to the point of awkwardness.

“It’s just…” Misty hummed, swaying back and forth on her hooves. “I don’t know how to help. Like, I can clean and stuff, and I delivered the note and they said it was fine and all, but like… I don’t know what will make you feel better. I feel helpless, Ghostie. And I know that pony colds are a little thing, but it’s still something I can’t fix.”

Ghost pursed her lips and hugged a pillow, but Misty wasn’t done yet as she began pacing. “And it’s not like I don’t know that there are things I can’t fix, but this is such a little thing, a little annoyance, and it feels like something I should be able to do something about, but I don’t know how. I don’t know what the right thing to do even is! And I didn’t want to bother you about it earlier because, you know, sick, but it’s been bothering me and I need to know.”

She took a deep breath and sat in front of Ghost, an uncharacteristically serious expression on her face. “How can I help make this easier for you? Is there anything I can do, that you’ll let me do, that will make you less sick? Or at least feel less sick?”

Ghost gave her a tired half-smile before looking around for a tissue box. She slung her magic towards one and yanked two tissues out of the top. One she held up to her muzzle, and the other she laid almost lovingly on top of Misty’s head.

“Soub.” Ghost nodded, before blowing her nose with a noise like a trumpet. “I’d like a soup, please.”

Misty grinned. “Soup! Yeah, yeah, I gotcha. Hm… alright, I don’t know how to make soup… I’m pretty sure it isn’t a toaster food, so, uh, I’m just gonna run to the store and grab some, okay? You just… here.” She grabbed a book from one of the few stacks that wasn’t chromatically sorted and gingerly set it next to Ghost. “Read this if you get bored, it’s got a neat cover on it and I’ve got no clue what any of it means.”

Without a second word, she dashed out of the apartment, and it wasn’t until the end of the hallway that Ghost saw the telltale flicker of her shapeshifting magic. Sighing, she settled back into the pillows and glanced at the title. Earthworms At Dawn: One Annelid’s Journey of Love and Loss stared back at her. Chuckling as best as her stuffed sinuses would allow, she cracked open the cover and began reading.

Time passed, in the strange way that time zips along while one reads, until Ghost looked up from a chapter to find that her eyes ached. The sun must’ve gone down, and as her horn glowed to flick on the lights she frowned at the clock. 0:00. She really needed to teach Misty how to reset a clock.

Wait, Misty! Where was she? Ghost slid the book jacket’s flaps into place as a makeshift bookmark before struggling to her hooves. Misty was gone! Had she gotten lost on her way to the market, or-

The door slammed open, revealing a pony in a strange shape whose mannerisms she knew all too well. The mare swung the apartment door shut again before spitting out a few feathers that Ghostie didn’t recognize for the life of her. A lilac-tinged flash later and Misty grinned up at her, one very dented and unlabeled can floating in her magic.

“I got the soup.” Misty shook her head, and a few more feathers floated off of her mane. “Let me just heat this up for ya, and you’ll be on your way to feeling better! How’s the book, by the way?”

“It’s very, er, down-to-earth, and I’m not sure where it- wait, are those scorch marks?” Ghost’s jaw dropped as she stared at Misty’s flank. “What in Equestria happened out there?”

The changeling shrugged as she closed the microwave, barely remembering at the last second to pour the soup into a bowl instead of microwaving the can. “It doesn’t really matter. Besides, you’re sick! You probably shouldn’t stress out much, since I’m taking care of ya.” The microwave beeped, and she pulled out the slightly-less-lukewarm bowl and plunked a spoon into it before levitating it over to Ghost.
‘
Ghost stared into it. It looked and smelled just like generic vegetable broth. With a sleepy shrug, she took a few sips. Yup, just broth. Not bad for congestion, at least.

Misty sat down next to her on the blanket nest and opened the book. “Now, I’m gonna read to ya while you eat that, and we’ll figure it out from there, okay? Now, where were we?”

Ghost pointed at a paragraph before taking another drink of soup. She couldn’t keep the smile from her face as she settled against Misty’s shoulder. This felt right. This felt like home. Misty felt like home. And right then, snuggled against her changeling friend, Ghost wouldn’t have changed a thing.

Author's Note:

Sorry for the wait, all! I promise, I have a planned ending for this story, and I might as well make some headway on getting there! Thanks for any and all of you who've stuck with me for... uhhh, let's see how long it's been...

... oh, yikes, uh, let's not see how long it's been! Thanks for sticking with me, dear reader, you mean the world to me!

Comments

[Cynewulf]

Was happy to see Misty and Ghosty this morning! It has been a very long time

[Twitchy Ears]

I'm really loving this story. The characters are so sweet and absolutely hilarious. And I'm enjoying the bits of new lore, they make the world feel more alive. Looking forward to future chapters :)