Equestria's Ray of Hope

by The_Darker_Fonts

Delirium

Ray had no way of telling how long he spent passing in and out of consciousness. It could have been hours, days, or even weeks. From time to time, he remembered coming to for more than a few painful, hazy minutes, only to find his surroundings intimidatingly unfamiliar. He was always alone when he woke up as well, or at least, the times he remembered waking up. However, after what felt like too much awful sleep and not enough time, he was finally able to open his eyes all the way without the urge to immediately seel them again.

It was red outside, with sunset or sunrise, he couldn’t tell. His first thoughts went immediately to his surroundings, recognizing the marble, satin, and comfort of the palace. He was somewhere safe, but far, far away from where he needed to be. Where he wanted to remain. The pain in his stomach and side was bearable, though still sharp. He wasn’t entirely sure what medicines he was being treated with were, but they seemed to have taken away the brunt of his agony. In spite of that fact, he knew he couldn’t even sit up at the moment, thanks to how tender and weak he was feeling. He knew he wasn’t actively dying, but it felt exactly what the final few weeks in the hospital felt like.

The thought made him reach out his left arm and pull aside the sheets to try and get a good look at his wounds. They were still covered in bandages, but the entire area where his scar had previously been was now the epicenter of the cotton dressings. The minotaur’s axe would certainly have done far more damage than Jackson’s knife had done. From how close he had come to death so instantly… he might’ve had three minutes left in him after he passed out in Twilight’s library. Thought of the alicorn gave him mixed feelings of guilt, fear, and awe.

Even with magic, it seemed almost impossible to bring Ray back from the brink as she had done. Modern medicine and the sorts had struggled to keep him steady during the first two weeks after his initial injury. While he wasn’t sure how much time had passed, watching the light slowly brighten and reveal itself as a new dawn, he figured it couldn’t have been two weeks already. Even in the hospital, he wasn’t so delirious to lose track of time entirely. It did make him wonder where anyone was during the times he had woken up.

His first thought sent him in a short spiral of panic before he reeled himself back into reality. There was no chance the minotaurs had attacked or anything of the sort. They would have to spend several months clearing out the Fallen first and then build a new port with ships from the wood two week’s travel to their north. Equestria had at least half a year if anything disastrous had happened. More likely, they didn’t have the opportunity to be around him all day every day, considering Twilight’s duties and the relatively small staff she had on-hand for her castle.

However, right as he made the excuse, the door suddenly creaked open to his left, a pony in ceremonial armor creeping in as softly as he could, eyes behind him as he tried to quietly shut the door. He visibly cringed as his armor creaked slightly, his eyes darting to the human lying on the bed. Seeing Ray watching him, he let out an embarrassed squawk, dropping the cinnamon roll from his mouth and snapping to attention.

“I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t know you were awake, sir,” he quickly apologized, his voice pitched with fear as his face flushed with embarrassment.

“It’s no problem at all,” Ray excused with a dismissive wave of his hand, before resting it by his side. “Though probably best to go fetch Princess Twilight.”

“Of course, right away sir,” the guard dutifully exclaimed before bolting out the doors, without a second thought. Ray chuckled slightly at the brief distraction from his concern, though the harsh reality of his situation set in quickly.

He was stuck in a bed in the palace in Canterlot, hundreds of miles across the sea and unable to contact his soldiers. At best, he would have to wait until the next full moon to use the wayport to get back, which he hopefully hadn’t slept through. At worst, he had done something terribly damaging that prevented him from returning anytime soon. If that was the case, he was now isolated from his Fallen and leaving them to fend for themselves. It was beyond frustrating, almost completely infuriating.

A simple lapse in judgement, a moment of oversight and stupidity may have just cost them the war. Ray had underestimated his foe in a humiliating way, nearly dying to a minotaur’s axe outside of battle. If that wasn’t bad enough, he hadn’t had the time when he left to warn Skalos or the Matriarch about what had happened to him, nor would any of them have a clue as to his health. Worse, Yarem had seen just how badly his wound had been, leaving the general’s imagination to roam free about what could have happened to Ray while away.

This whole situation also made him look like a completely incompetent coward. He had been severely wounded by a presumed dead minotaur, and his first reaction had been to run away all the way back to Equestria for help instead of Zecora. It wouldn’t be until Ray’s eventual return that the Fallen that they would be able to see his gambit had paid off, and even then by that time there would certainly already be circulating doubts about his capabilities as general, as well as his character itself. He had grown so close to so many of them, had been respected and loved, and in return admired and adored his soldiers in return. Now, with the slash of a minotaur’s axe, it would all come crashing down.

Furthermore, if another battle came, regardless of outcome it would further paint Ray in a bad light. Albeit, an accurate light given his absence, but an awful light nonetheless. The Fallen would almost certainly incur more losses than normal and blame it on Ray’s abandonment of their army. If the opposite occurred and they won a significant battle with barely any losses, they would doubt the value of his leadership, and move to replace him with more worthy generals like Skalos or KKraven.

They wouldn’t be the only ones doubting his capabilities either, Ray shamefully thought, sinking back into the soft bed he lay on. It was the nicest surface he had enjoyed in a long time, soft with plenty of give and warmth, without suffocating him in heat. None of his soldiers in almost a year of war had enjoyed this type of comfort, and even their beds in the Harkening were little more than moss and cobwebs from normal spiders stuffed into sacks. A bed like this, feathered and sewn in satin, was the type they might have never enjoyed in their eons of life, yet here Ray was, lying idly on one, waiting to be doted upon.

“Ray, you’re awake,” Discord suddenly cried as he appeared at the foot of his bed, his paw and claw squeezed together as he smiled with relief. He had brought Fluttershy with him, though the mare was too emotional to speak, instead opting to smile through her tears. Ray returned the smile, the pair a welcome reprieve from his retrospection.

“Hey guys,” he said, not really sure what to say. “How did you get here before Twilight?”

“I’ve had a watch over your breathing ever since we put you in that bed,” Discord explained. “There’s a bit of delay, lots on the mind and in it and whatnot, but when I realized that you were waking up for real, I grabbed Fluttershy as quick as I could and took us here. I’m assuming there’s a guard off to summon Twilight, so she’ll be here soon.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Ray confirmed with a small chuckle. Pointing a finger to the floor by the door, he commented, “Poor guy was off in such a hurry he left his cinnamon roll behind.”

“No matter,” Discord dismissed, uncharacteristically serious as he made the pastry disappear with a simple snap of his claws. “How are you feeling? You’ve been quite feverish for a bit.”

“Wound’s not badly infected as far as I know,” Ray commented, looking down at himself. While it wasn’t much, he realized that in his body’s struggle for its life, he had shed more than a couple of pounds, including some of his hard-earned muscle. “I’m feeling a bit of pain, but not unmanageable amounts. Just sharp aches and some minor cramps. Like a really bad bruise or something. I guess I’m feverish, but I don’t know, I’m still waking up fully.”

“Okay, but we’re here for whatever you need,” the draconequus reassured Ray solemnly, looking over Ray of his own accord. His face was scrunched in concern, but after a moment he recognized there wasn’t anything immediately concerning. His gaze returned to Ray’s face as he said, “Twilight really put good work into you. Stopped you from bleeding out and the sorts. Tried to do all sorts of fancy magic healing, and it really worked. Also drained her. She slept two straight days afterwards. I’ll let her tell you the rest though.”

“You were there,” Ray questioned incredulously.

“Yeah,” Discord clarified, his face looking haunted as his eyes drifted away momentarily before snapping back to the human. “Yeah, Twilight gave us a special telepathic link that we can use in emergencies. I didn’t do much. Healed your burns, summoned whatever medicines would help replenish blood and the sort. Minor stuff. Twilight’s the one that saved your life.”

“Thanks anyways,” Ray thanked with a smile. Then, noticing Fluttershy’s lips pressed together in anticipation, he asked her deliberately, “Yeah?”

“Is it okay- I mean, it won’t hurt you if we give you a hug,” she inquired, her voice shaky.

“Of course not,” he replied, before reaching out an arm. Fluttershy carefully embraced him, and though it did cause a spike of pain in his side, he kept it internal as he squeezed the mare slightly. With a sigh, he mumbled, “I’m doing fine. Really, I am. I’m hoping to be outta here quickly and back to my Fallen soon. By the next full moon if I can.”

“Well, there’s a slight problem with that,” Twilight suddenly said, having silently appeared behind the couple.

“Twilight,” Ray couldn’t help but exclaim, reaching out his arm to embrace her as well. She gave him a smile, accepting it, before continuing, “I’m not quite sure how you managed to get the pendant to work without a wayport or a full moon. It wasn’t supposed to be able to work whenever, especially not without the wayport to give structure and guidance to the light. Maybe there’s a way to harness that, but right now the concern is getting you back to the Fallen as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, with the full moon in five days, there’s no way you’ll be back by then. I’ll need at least two weeks to finish the next pendant, which means you’ll have to wait for the next full moon to return.”

Unable to help it, Ray let out a long sigh, glancing away briefly at the terrible news. There was no avoiding that he had messed up big time, and now they were going to be feeling that both here in Equestria and out there in the Golden Plains. He had hoped that some of that damage could be mitigated by the ability to return to the Fallen before his opportunity passed. Now, it seemed they would go an entire month more without him, and he without them.

“I’m still baffled you managed to get here,” Twilight told him honestly. “The pendant was little more than a red-hot teardrop of metal when it finally got cleaned off the floor. You were burned all over the place, but Discord was able to treat you to such a degree that I can’t even tell where you had been charred before. Anyways, since it was destroyed by you getting here, I need to make another one from scratch. Luckily I have the entire process recorded from the first time, so it won’t take months.”

“I’m sorry,” Ray apologized guiltily.

“Sorry,” Fluttershy spat indignantly. “Ray, if you hadn’t done what you did, we would have lost you. Don’t be sorry for doing something that kept you alive. Without you, there is no hope for a future of Equestria. Stop being so bucking selfless for a minute and remember you’re more important than some stupid little metal necklace.”

Ray’s eyes widened at the mare’s outburst, shrinking back into the pillows a little further. Seeing this, she backed off slightly, apologetically muttering, “Sorry, just a bit antsy because you almost… died.”

“What happened anyways,” Twilight inquired eagerly, the question obviously having been the main one eating at her.

“Not anything… normal,” Ray explained shamefully. “We fought a massive battle against the minotaurs. They came out from the south while we were marching through the grasslands, almost catching us by surprise. They didn’t detect us though, so we were able to launch our attack effectively. There were over forty thousand of them, more than any other battle, but thanks to Skalos’ battle plan, we shredded through them. Not a single one survived. I was going through the battlefield, clearing the field, as we call it, to make sure that every minotaur was a dead one, when one of them suddenly caught me distracted.

“I didn’t have much time to think, but I knew from the blood and whatnot that I didn’t have the time to make it back to Zecora at her station. I did whatever came to mind and I guess it worked out. I knew I could put my trust in you, Twilight, and I’m glad you were there to help as well, Discord. I honestly forgot all about the burns. I don’t even feel them now, which is strange because I could’ve sworn some of my fingertips were nothing but ash.”

“They were,” Discord solemnly responded to the joke, dead serious. “I… never really have seen anything like that before Ray. Honestly, I haven’t. I’ve known of wars, I knew they were dangerous and serious, but I’ve never been so… scared. You could’ve been lost. I think I’ve finally realized why you’re given the distinction you receive, and I know you certainly deserve it. I mean, you risk that every time you fight, and now apparently even when you aren’t fighting. It’s just… all so shocking. I’ve never seen so much blood in my life before.”

“Yeah,” Twilight agreed, looking queasy. Reaching out a hoof, she rested it on Fluttershy’s shoulder. “I’d be glad to have you for the day, but Ray needs his rest. He may be talking and thinking well right now, but every hour of sleep speeds up his healing that much more.”

“Of course,” the demure pegasus agreed, taking Discord’s paw. The draconequus seemed much more hesitant to leave the human’s side, amusing Ray slightly. There would have been a time when Fluttershy would have demanded to remain by his side until he was fully recovered and walking again. However, she knew it wasn’t what he needed. How mature they had both grown…

“Ray, I would recommend not thinking too much about anything right now,” Twilight suggested with the slightest smile. “You’re going to want to get as much rest as possible. The needs to be weaned off after only two weeks, and you’ve been on it for nine days now. Even though the wound will be much better by then, it won’t feel like it with the loss of those extreme painkillers. Besides, everypony else from all over Equestria will want to visit. I already have news from Ember that she will arrive three days early for the celebration to give you the Dragonlands’ best wishes with Redar.”

“Celebration,” Ray questioned, unaware of what there was to celebrate.

“Oh, yeah, that’s another thing,” Twilight remembered, her eyes lighting up slightly. “One of the bright sides of you still being stuck here with us is that you’ll be here for the celebration of my coronation in mid-May. Since there’s no way you’ll be back to the Fallen in time, I would also recommend trying to enjoy every free moment you have here while you recover. For your sake.”

“I’ll try,” Ray agreed, though he already knew that the war was going to be in the first and foremost of his thoughts no matter what. He couldn’t change that part of him on a whim.

“Good, then we’ll leave you to your rest,” Twilight told him with a satisfied nod. With a simple gesture of her hoof, she led Fluttershy and Discord from the room, taking them to wherever they would stay the night herself. Though Ray hadn’t felt tired when the trio had left him alone, he found himself returning to sleep just moments after the door closed, his exhausted mind and body demanding time to recover. With a drowsy yawn, he forced his doubts and loathing aside and let the sleep overtake him in mere moments.

Author's Note:

Yeah, he lives, I would never be so lazy, but he certainly isn't invincible. Anyways, as always, questions comments and concerns welcome and wanted.