Pen Pals

by Zoom zoom

Things going black? Go see White.

Dear Blue,

I won’t push it, but I really think you should make an effort to go see your family for your father’s birthday. I know how you feel, I had the same issue with my own family when I first moved down to Ponyville when everypony else loved Cloudsdale so much. Still when it came time to see my family again I eventually learned is that it always a good idea to go to such things if you bring no ill will. Otherwise, you’ll end up missing out of what could be some of your best memories.

I’m sure you know I’m not a very good flyer right? I even needed my friend Rainbow Dash to help me get home the first few times. And even when I was up there it took a long time to get over my fear of falling. But I did it because I could see all my family members again and they helped me through it.

It isn’t my place to help you with what I can tell you have an issue with when it comes to your father. But please, if you at least do one thing, make it seeing your family regularly again. You don’t want to regret something you didn’t do than something you did, trust me on this one. And if you really ever want to talk about your dad in more detail, I’m all ears. Lol, I mean eyes.

Forever your friend,

Fluttershy

It didn’t take long at all. The lion was faster and stronger than you, something you already knew so you didn’t really move so much as focus on a counter to the incoming pounce. You had a decent muscle memory in terms of beginners Judo. You had never gone further than beginner because aside from weightless dummies you could never actually do any Nage Waza. Ponies were too heavy for your muscles to even lift, and you couldn’t get the concept of using their own weight against them in a throw.

Lucky for you, your teacher had realized you wanted to learn it for practical purposes as well as sport. So he had taught you Atemi-waza, which was useless on a stone creature. Not sure why your brain even brought that up but hey you were on the subject. No what you really had to use was the only type you needed for this: Katame-waza.

This grapple type was all you needed, since the creature couldn’t risk a long dive of a pounce because it could land in the water with a slip and that would injure it more than anything. Something you could use to your advantage. When it had gotten close enough you did your own pouncing, which caught it off guard since you acted like you were going to cover Fluttershy the entire time. You went for one front ankle, it took both hooves but the twist was enough to catch the creature off balance as you put all your weight into the one move and it tumbled quickly.

Half the creature’s face was in the bog water, which caused it to cry in pain as you mounted and put a hoof to its neck and pinned it. It tried to fight back, and you could feel hot liquid running from somewhere on your body but you had to ignore it for now and continue to press.

“I win,” you said breathing heavily. “Now stay put when I get up or I’ll really let you have it.” That was a total bluff, but whether the lion knew or not didn’t matter as it still relaxed and listened to your command, sitting up as you backed away to the box with your first aid kit.

It didn’t take long to set the bone in Fluttershy’s wing. She grunted as you finished and finally fell into sleep. For a moment you thought you saw her smile, but that wasn’t possible since she was in too much pain to allow that. Still after another look over you were satisfied and your horn dimmed out with its need gone. Your head felt like a crack had split your skull, but it was manageable. You’d often used it to such an extent because of your sister’s adventurous nature as a foal.

All seemed to be going pretty well, that was until you heard the rippling as something broke the water. You cocked your head back to see many sets of familiar eyes looming down on you, the Hydra’s cry ringing in your ears. Head splitting, legs like jelly, and the mare that scared it off before out for the count while the stone lion was basically only the size of its foot to its knee if that. “Yep, that seems about right.”

---

When did everything get so dark? You can’t really remember how the light in front of you went out, or how you were suddenly on your back, on a soft cloud with a mattress under it. Something was very wrong here. Where was the lion? Where was all the cold that was crawling around your body? And why was your head not killing you, nor were any of your limbs?

You tried to get up, but it felt much harder than it used to. It was as if you had been teleported back to your foalhood where you were barely able to gallop far without needing to collapse on the ground. The only difference was that it felt even easier in comparison. You were not sure exactly how until you realized two things: the first being it was dark because you didn’t open your eyes, and the other being the smell of tobacco in the air. That told you where you were in a second.

Forcing yourself up from your bed you looked over to the first sign of light. Before you was a mare who some would describe as that fine line of attractive enough to entice any male, but not enough to be a model or movie star without a serious make over which she obviously wasn’t going to do. She even had the longer refined face few ponies in Equestra outside Celestia had, a testament to her Saddle Arabian Father. In her mouth was the source of that smell that was half disgusting, but something you were used to since the time you had to sell some door to door. This brand was a type picked for being especially smelly. You kept your slightly annoyed tone as you said, “You know that smoking is bad for you right White? I’d think a doctor out of all ponies wouldn’t bother with a habit that causes health problems.”

The pale pink mare snored and took the cigar out of her mouth with her magic before blowing the smoke out of the open window. She put out her smelly stick as she tied her long snow white hair back behind her head. “I see you’re back in full again cuz. And I enjoy my vices very much thank you. Plus I already came up with a spell that gets rid of the side effects, besides only newbies actually take this stuff into their lungs. Also before you even ask, I’ll tell you why I’m here. Long story short before you ask again is that since I’m the only Alicorn medical specialist in Equestria as well as your personal doctor, they needed me to make sure they were not going to do anything wrong in surgery.”

“Surgery?” you asked both confused and frightened. You looked down onto your chest and found nothing. Your cousin laughed out loud at your reaction and you quickly pulled your covers back over yourself.

“Oh come now, as if you’d need surgery. All your cuts healed while you were in your coma.”

“C-coma?” She burst out with another laugh at your expense again. Despite how embarrassed you were at being fooled twice you couldn’t help having her laugh infect you and started a round yourself. It felt good to laugh, it got to your lungs a bit, but it still felt very good to not be as tense around your cousin. “For a second there I thought you’d come here because I was seriously hurt.”

White wore a more serious face for her discussion now as she rolled her chair to your bed. “Well more me having to medically induce you to sleep it off to ensure you didn’t have any internal damage, basically a still a coma. You don’t have the quick healing powers most ponies have because of your condition so I had to make do with helping it along for you. Don’t ya remember what happened to you two days ago?”

“Two days?” You thought about it, and it did start coming back to you. “No wonder I feel so stiff. I guess even missing training and not moving around really does a number on me faster than I’d figured. There go my relaxing retirement ideas.”

White nodded, “Yes, which is why I told you to be careful. Cause if what that mare you got admitted with told me was true, it means you basically went and did something stupid like take on a Mountain Lion.” She got face to face with you at this point, luckily she was family or you’d be shrinking more than you already were at your ten years senior cousin staring down at you. A frog caught in your throat as you tried to say something but she cut you off. “No lies this time cuz, I have a witness and your body was plenty of evidence. So spill exactly what happened so I can tell if I should be letting you out anytime soon with only your usual medicine.”

You swallowed. White was always far scarier to you than your own mother. And so you went into it, everything that led up to you challenging the Mountain Lion to protect Fluttershy. You still couldn’t really remember what happened after seeing the green eyes of the Hydra again but you decided it best not to try to remember right now.

The last thing you needed was your cousin deciding to give you a longer or even worse, more of that medicine. It worked and it kept your body working will, heck it was the reason she was rich and had helped keep other Alicorns alive longer. But it tasted cruddy and it was expensive as hell, even with White giving you a family discount it away put you in the Red when you had to take it and was mostly the reason you were not able to get out of your house sooner. Just the usual would mean you’d be stuck with your mother again for another year. Your luck just sucks.

While you were telling the bog story minus the hydra your cousin did what she always did whenever the two of you had a long talk. She did a physical check-up. It was a bit annoying, but it was something she liked to do and you were used to it after having to do it for as long as you can remember. You even turned your head and stretched out your wings on instinct and timing rather than when she gave any signs of where to move. It was just that regular to you.

The bruising on the back of her neck was somewhat different than the placement the last time which must have meant she had another run in with a stallion who took her examination the wrong way. That was the curse your unicorn cousin had. Her beauty and natural speaking voice were all things that would send stallions wild. It was the reason she had taken to talking less proper with a bad accent when in business mode and indulged in some unladylike, but not altogether pure tomboyish, actions despite being raised in Canterlot.

“Oh my,” came your cousins voice dropping back you her natural speak. You were at the point about threatening to slam the Lion into the bog waters. “That must be quite the sight for you, my apologies. I still have not thanked you either for helping somepony very important to me.”

You turned you head to see what she was looking at. There in the doorway to your room stood Fluttershy with perhaps the most expression outside anger you had seen from her. It was a look of pure shock. Only then did you notice why your cousin was talking to Fluttershy in such a way, yet she didn’t seem to notice the problem with it like you started to. The two of you had been so caught up in the usual you had not noticed that her own examination of the back of your neck looked like she was hugging you and your face had blocked where her own was until she had noticed Fluttershy.

You suspected Fluttershy was letting her mind go wild on this scene, especially since you were had not gotten to the part about helping the Lion escape the bog. “Why do you feel the need to keep making things more complicated with this mare than it needs to be Celestia?”

“Well then,” said Fluttershy with a small chuckle. She lowered her head and he face became covered by her mane. “I think I’ll leave you two alone for a bit.” With that the door shut quickly and you heard her quickly gallop down the hall to leave you alone.

“Ugg,” you grumbled, “You can’t really beat my usual luck, for by the end of the day my life always sucks.”

“My my,” chuckled your cousin, “isn’t that what your father always said every time he had a fight with your mother?” You blushed a bit and shook your head to let the symbolism in that die out and got up. You had to have a long talk with the yellow pegasus now, before either of you decided it best to just not talk again and of all things you didn’t want that most of all. A letter struck your mind as you got to the door. “You don’t want to regret something you didn’t do than something you did, trust me on this one.” With a certain determination you went after the mare to finally get things settled with your long time friend.

Author's Note:

I'm going to edit all these later when the story (arc) is done. I'll repeat this next chapter but the plan is the next chapter will be the last. I may continue and I have an idea to do so, but I have other stories I really should refocus on first and doing another story on this seems off for now.

Help with corrections if you wish please and I'll hopefully make the edits with an extended cut of each chapter later on after some time passes.

TTFN