Acedia
“Hey, Wallflower.” Sunset stood in the ICU doorway, wearing the same cheerful dress in which she’d started her vigil four nights ago, along with a fragile smile pasted over gnawing worry. “So, uh . . .”
A passing nurse in scrubs murmured, not unkindly, “In or out, please. You’re not a cat who can’t decide—”
“Oh! Sorry.” The visitor literally skipped forward a step, startled and embarrassed, before shuffling farther from the door. She paused more or less in the middle of the room and shifted from foot to foot. “. . . Anyway, yeah, the doctor told me they don’t know whether you’re able to say anything right now, but they’re pretty sure you can hear me, and Even Keel said talking would help.”
Wallflower didn’t move; only her half-lidded eyes indicated she was conscious at all. Still, there was a hint of animation to her features, almost subliminal.
“Oh, right.” Sunset didn’t quite smack her forehead. “Even Keel’s gonna be your personal counselor at the clinic, once you’re in good enough shape to go over there. From what they told me, that’ll be a couple of weeks, maybe a little more.”
Silence fell again with a metaphorical thump.
“Right now I’m just glad you’re—you’re doing better.” Sunset changed course at the last instant; Wallflower definitely was not “okay” by any definition. “I was so worried the last few days. I . . . had a lotta time to think about everything that happened, and everything I did. And, I guess, everything I didn’t do.” She couldn’t keep still. As if her saltwater sandals were seven-league boots, she started to pace.
“I’m really sorry about the plants, and the window, and not being more careful. Rose warned me, but I was so stupid I just didn’t think about it.” Pent-up relief, remorse, guilt spilled forth in words she hardly listened to herself until, with another shaky breath, she managed to drag her mouth, if not her feet, back under control.
“But now—now I’ll do whatever it takes,” she vowed through clenched teeth as she turned for another lap across the tiny room. “Once we’re at the clinic, I’m gonna help any way I can.” With honest enthusiasm she described the idea Rose had proposed, Even Keel had endorsed, and she had accepted almost before they had finished laying it out. “I’ll be there with you the whole time. I’ll do anything and everything, no matter what, and we’ll get through this together. You’re gonna be okay, I promise.”
That’s when another voice croaked, “No I won’t.”
One of the rides at Equestria World rotated a long boom like a propellor, with a car at each end that also swiveled freely. It looked simple enough—but none of the girls, even Rainbow Dash, had been willing to ride it twice. Sunset felt as if she’d been stuck on that ride since the day she’d asked Rose’s help.
Tonight she listened to soft, regular breathing from the other bed and spared a flash of envy for the social worker’s ability to switch off like a light, apparently at will. Instead she lay on her back and stared up at the hotel room’s high cottage-cheese ceiling, barely visible to her dark-adjusted eyes. No sooner had she gotten used to flipping her sleep schedule than things changed again, and now she was struggling to flip it back.
It wasn’t just that, though. She no longer trembled from anger and adrenalin, but she remained wired enough for sleep to elude her. With a sigh she rolled onto her side, shifting a little to settle the inevitable wrinkles and twists in her favorite mulberry pajamas—the ones Rarity had embroidered her mark on—and resolutely closed her eyes.
Wallflower could have spoken up any time. She could have spared Sunset the worry of wondering whether she was able to hear and understand anything going on around her. She could have stopped Sunset from babbling like an idiot. When she finally did answer with what were, as far as Sunset knew, her first words since the night before it all fell apart, they were completely the opposite of that parting encouragement, and even worse than her alarming silence.
Sunset had succeeded in rousing Wallflower to a reaction. It just was the wrong one.
She’d tried to be optimistic and supportive. In return she’d been stonewalled, left floundering when Wallflower’s roughened voice had offered nothing—not even acknowledgement Sunset over the past few days had spent all the time she could in the ICU—other than direct answers in the shortest and most unhelpful sentences possible. Rose might have known what to do. Even Keel definitely would have. Friendship magic couldn’t make up for the training they had and she didn’t.
No, all she could do was break a promise and break her heart finding out Wallflower thought she would be grateful if her friend died. Why would Wallflower think Sunset would be so heartless?
After all, nobody would even care if you just disappeared.
Yeah, that was why. Sunset wriggled onto her other side, eyes still squeezed shut, with a rustle of sheets and blankets.
From the start of this whole mess Sunset had tried so hard to help, and to find help from others, only for Wallflower literally to throw it all out the window. She wanted to scream, to rant at the top of her lungs until she was red in the face, but the last time rage had driven her to say something unkind to Wallflower, it had led to . . . this.
The horrifying realization was dawning just how much power to destroy anger had—how much power to destroy her anger had. She was so good at hurting others out of fury, not at all a talent to be proud of. Defying and then running out on Princess Celestia had been only the start, hadn’t it?
How had Sunset not noticed her mentor’s brief expression of pain and dismay when last they met, before her sixteen-year-old self had fled through the portal? The patient, ageless face hovered in her mind’s eye, disappointment clear in the gentle gaze, and her pique shriveled under the wise magenta eyes, leaving behind a leaden dejection.
She wished Wallflower were more willing to talk, but after days with a tube in the throat, it probably was physically painful to do so; Wallflower’s voice sounded terrible, dry and cracked. She wished she could bring the past out into the open, so she could apologize for what she said to Wallflower those years ago, but that would bring her broken promise with it. Wallflower might never trust her again, might shut her out and actively fight any further help she tried to give.
And when all was said and done, the foremost focus of her life right now was to help her friend through this. She took a deep breath, released it slowly, and settled onto her back again.
With a click, sudden light leaked through her closed eyelids, and a tired voice rasped, “You wanna talk about it?”
By now the route was burned into Sunset’s memory. She couldn’t navigate anywhere else in the hospital building’s mouse-maze, but she was sure she could get to Wallflower’s ICU in her sleep. She’d walked to or from it . . . how many times now? Not hundreds, that was ridiculous, but it certainly felt that way. And today she practically was finding her way in her sleep, what with spending half the previous night tossing and turning or unburdening herself to a patient—if wearily irritated—Rose, organizing her swarming thoughts into something more than a nebulous cloud of “bad”.
At least this morning when she got dressed she’d managed not to put on her jeans and top backward or something equally humiliating.
She drew a deep breath in through her nose. Enough of that. It was time to let go her anger from the day before. Time to be positive, be hopeful, be helpful.
She blinked heavy eyelids upon spotting Even Keel, in yet another pantsuit, stepping out of the doorway toward which she was headed. A moment later they saw her as well. Their stride became purposeful as they beelined toward her, not that the corridor’s limited width allowed much choice about it.
As soon as Keel got close enough Sunset asked in a hushed voice, “How is she?”
Keel stopped in their tracks, but then a lot of their movements came off a bit abrupt. They paused for thought before offering a guarded, low-voiced “We’ll have a lot of work to do.”
Sunset searched their bland expression for clues, but found none. Maybe because she’d been spending so much time with Rose, the stray thought popped into her head that Keel probably would do well at poker. “Uh, okay.” After a brief rummage she dredged up, “This’s the first time you talked to her, right?”
A single nod answered. There was another awkward pause, then Keel appeared to take pity on her and expanded with, “Yes, it was our first consultation. I learned a great deal, and now that I’ve had a chance to talk to her, I’d like to sit down with you as well to go over everything that’ll be involved. Not right now, of course, but soon would be best.”
“S-sure.” Nothing in Keel’s tone or posture seemed overtly ominous, but Sunset couldn’t shake a slight sinking feeling as the two of them arranged an afternoon meeting in the hotel room, for the privacy that would afford such a sensitive discussion.
At length Keel flicked a glance over her shoulder. “I shouldn’t keep you any longer, Ms. Shimmer, and we’re blocking traffic. I’ll see you then.” They detoured around her and headed down the hall.
Sunset turned her head, and in the corner of her eye glimpsed a couple of nurses trundling more caster-equipped electronic cabinets in her direction. With alacrity she scurried ahead of them to her destination and, a bit flustered, popped through the door into the now-familiar little room where Wallflower lay. “Wallflower! Hi.”
It could have been minutes, not hours, since she last saw the limp girl on the bed. Wallflower didn’t seem to have moved a muscle in the mean time, though Sunset knew that couldn’t be true. She pressed on. “I just saw Even Keel. They told me they talked to you. How’d that go?” There was no answer. “I’ll be meeting with them later too, since we’ll be going to the clinic together.” She strove for a brisk, businesslike tone; the information was genuinely important, something Wallflower deserved to know.
The lure of curiosity didn’t work either. Sunset pressed her lips together and tried to press away a flare of temper before pleading, “Please talk to me, Wallflower.” A bizarrely appropriate comparison sprang to mind. Some months back her tower computer had gotten balky with a maddeningly elusive fault; only consultation with a Twilight full of technobabble had solved the problem. “I can’t stand seeing you just—just shut down like this.”
“Then you shoulda let me die.”
Gritting her teeth helped Sunset not to snap something rash, like pointing out it was Rose, not she, who had saved Wallflower’s life on the halfway house’s lawn. When she could unlock her jaw, she asked in as even a tone as she could manage, “So how are you feeling?”
This time she got a grunt. Was that progress? At any rate, it was a legitimate question; if she was going to help as Wallflower’s attendant, she really did need to know where Wallflower was physically. She remembered what the nurse told her and Rose before the first time they’d walked into this room, that the patient needed to be awake before the medical staff could figure out how badly she’d been affected by her injuries.
. . . How badly had Wallflower been affected? Sudden fear gripped Sunset by the throat and the bottom fell out of her stomach. She hadn’t allowed herself to dwell on just how bad it could be, but a sudden realization bubbled up from the place deep down where she’d tried to hide it away.
Wallflower might not be moving because she couldn’t. Sunset swallowed and cleared her throat. “Well—how do your legs feel?”
“They don’t.”
Sunset couldn’t breathe. Her mouth flapped uselessly; tears blinded her. Something horrible happened to her friend, and it was her fault, but that wasn’t the worst of it. No, even more frightening was that Wallflower didn’t seem to care.
What was she gonna do?
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This chapter is just brutal. Each time Sunset gets her hopes up, every time she fosters that fragile optimism, Wallflower shuts her down. It's frustrating and upsetting and scary, honestly. The tug of war between Wally's apathy and Sunset's determination is lining up to be a core conflict going forward.
That realization at the end is harsh, too. After everything beating Sunset's hopes into the ground over and over, to get hit with that final punch in the gut is just... damn.
This...is painful and compelling all at once.
10553749
This is a good comment. It means I am achieving our aim with the story!
That's the ultimate shut-down. Not that it would help to say that to Wallflower right now. Or pretty much ever.
Devastating chapter. It honestly took me a few times to get through it because of the intensity of the shame and anxiety. Great work. I need to go call my parents.
10561416
It is a very difficult story to write, and well outside what I normally work with. Establishing and maintaining this degree of intensity is frankly draining, which is part of why chapters are appearing more and more slowly. Aside from work being fairly busy, the other part of it is, I have run out of paved road laid out during the initial story conference with Scampy and now am bumping over a dirt trail. I have only the most general idea what’s going to happen—Scampy is directing the course of the story, informed by overall guidance to fit in with the rest of Twin Canterlots, and I write the actual prose to cover all the story beats.
I really should leave more comments but I'm frankly terrible about it. This chapter was wonderfully done. The hopelessness strikes hard, and the short, simple exchange between Sunset and Even Keel near the end was honestly one of my favorite parts. So much was ingrained in that moment.
That opening scene...
This is one of the instances where I start picking out lines I like, then realize I basically am just copy-paste-quoting the entire section. Talk about a dense rollercoaster: Sunset's guilt, which is briefly outshined by her determination to help in any way she can (even to her own detriment), then is amplified by the very voice she so despaired to hear.
Even the narrative drips with the burden of her remorse.
Rose is really the best.
... I don't know what I can say about this exchange that doesn't sound trite.
Not surprised at all, given that this was telegraphed by the conversation in the previous chapter about Wallflower needing a personal attendant once she could move to inpatient. That didn't make this any less difficult to read.
As overwhelming as guilt and shame can be, what magnifies those emotions a thousand-fold is being helpless in the face of them. And Sunny, for all her resolve, is helpless right now.
Even the miniscule silver lining of Wallflower being alive is brushed away by the magnitude of her physical, emotional, and mental state in the aftermath.
Painful and compelling at once, indeed.
10682847
Right from the start Scampy and I worked from the assumption the story would be told from Rose’s and Sunset’s viewpoints, with Wallflower shown exclusively from the outside. That made some things trickier, but it also let us focus more tightly on how Wallflower’s situation and actions affect the people around her, which for story purposes is at least as important as Wallflower herself. Alternating POVs by chapter started somewhat accidentally, but worked so well I’ve continued it as a baseline.
Rose is the best, and your observation makes me laugh out loud every time I look at it.
I like to think I do a decent job with serious topics and with intensity, but Scampy really is the motivating spirit behind just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
So this was a collaboration between you and Scampy (and boy, what a collaboration). Having said that, I’m pretty sure I can hazard a guess as to who came up with Wallflower’s first words upon waking up ;).
And… Hmm, I’m actually not sure who came up with “It was just the wrong one” later on. It stands out as being doggedly optimistic, yes, but almost to the point of delusion. Very ‘Sunset’, but I’m not quite sure which one of you thought it up, or which side of her you’re trying to bring to the forefront. Maybe both, and both. Far as I’m concerned, that makes it the best kind of collaboration.
For every story I enjoy, I try to identify ‘the punch’ – the short scene, interaction, maybe just a line, that hits like a brick and demands attention. Here, for me, is where it is. Or rather, where they are. Wallflower’s first and last words in this chapter, for all their monosyllabic, deadpan mundanity, drown Acedia in hopelessness – I suppose in a way, it puts the reader in Wallflower’s shoes perfectly. I remember Scampy saying that big emotions don’t have to come from big words, and this chapter shows that she certainly practises what she preaches.
But like every good ‘punch’ I’ve seen, it’s not just about those words. It’s about everything that leads up to and follows on from them compounding that feeling. I’d point out specific moments, but honestly would then just be summarising the entire chapter. You don’t let anything go to waste here.
My word, I think that’s the best way I’ve ever seen that haze of negative emotions be described. I might have to steal that.
11209882
Yes indeed, Wallflower’s lines in this chapter came verbatim from Scampy. On the other hand, Sunset’s observation was mine, drawn from story discussion, though not part of the “choice cuts” I posted. The intended tone is frustration and despair, not optimism, but in retrospect I can see how it can be read either way.
Big emotions can come from big words, but they don’t have to—which in my opinion is the actual nature of the mistake I think Scampy is referring to. It’s better to choose the right words for any given context, whether big or small, and that’s part of my aforementioned eternal quest for taut verbiage. Dialog versus narrative, character voice, and a host of other factors weigh in. Wallflower, a teen of middling intellect and education, almost always uses short, simple words regardless of mood. Sunset, a twenty-year-old intellectual prodigy, might get a little fancier, and exhibits a sharp distinction between formal and casual wording. Rose, as a middle-aged adult with multiple degrees and a military background, mixes and matches, sometimes in the same sentence. Even Keel is somewhat younger but more educated still, and has a natural inclination toward two-dollar words. While all those tendencies are most clearly visible in dialog, they also bleed over somewhat into narrative text. The latter generally mingles character voice and authorial voice, leaning more in one direction or the other as dictated by the needs of the moment.
The whole “nebulous cloud of ‘bad’” metaphor also came from Scampy during one of our story conferences, though originally she applied it to Wallflower rather than Sunset.
The beehive mental image was vivid enough to stick with me, and this was a perfect place for it. The whole story is an admixture of metaphors, images, and phrasings from both of us, hammered together and polished to the highest shine I could get.