Chapter 14
“What did you do?”
“What did I do? What are you doing?” Cadance snapped back as Twilight rushed over to Sombra’s inert form. She put a hoof in front of his snout and waited patiently, the fear starting to rise in her. She sighed in relief when she felt the warm air flow from his nose across her hoof, but while he was breathing, it was rapid and shallow.
“Cadance, you could have killed him!”
“It was a tazaga spell, it wouldn’t have done any more than incapacitate him,” the pink Alicorn huffed, “And why are you so concerned with the well-being of one of the worst ponies in recorded history?”
“Cadance,” Twilight began, “You were, and still are, extremely angry. You could have killed him, and probably would have if I hadn’t deflected the spell, if only slightly. You of all ponies should know how emotions affect spells you cast-”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Uh, your wedding day?” Twilight reminded, and Cadance felt a case of hoof-in-mouth coming on. “Anyways, you saw a pony lying in a pool of their own tears and urine and you decided the best option was to try to magically taze him? What is wrong with you?”
“I…” the slightly older princess trailed off. Sombra was a monster, that much was true, but Twilight had a point. Sombra had been defenseless and actively begging not to be killed, and Cadance responded by trying to do just that. Her rage lost direction and fizzled, swelled for a moment against herself, and then died again in confusion.
“I’m sorry,” Twilight looked at her sister-in-law with sympathy, her expression softening, “I didn’t really think through how this would play out. I didn’t react well when I first saw him either, and you understandably have a bit more of a problem with him than I do. I didn’t expect Sombra to freak out like that, and I didn't expect you to react that poorly. I know we have a lot of explaining to do but right now we need to get Sombra medical attention,” Twilight changed the subject, “We should bring him to the hospital because oh wow that is a lot of blood.”
Cadance followed Twilight’s gaze to Sombra’s injured foreleg.
My goodness, that is a lot of blood, she thought, and then she fainted.
---
Nurse Kindheart nearly fell out of her chair when the doors of the hospital were violently ripped from their hinges by a purple aura, followed shortly by Twilight Sparkle bursting in through where the doors used to be.
“I’ll fix that!” the Alicorn princess yelled at no one in particular, before rushing up to a very frightened Nurse Kindheart. Twilight’s horn was still glowing, and it took Kindheart a moment to spot the two ponies the purple Alicorn was carrying. A large, black unicorn stallion she’d seen once or twice around town, who was bleeding heavily from his right foreleg on Twilight’s left. To her right, a very recognizable pink figure floated serenely.
“Princess Twil-”
“There was an accident,” Twilight interrupted, out of breath, “Sombra was hurt badly. Cadance saw the blood and fainted. I don’t think she’s hurt but Sombra might bleed out,” the friendly neighborhood bookworm panted.
“Kindheart, what is going on out here?” Nurse Redheart asked tiredly as she pushed through the doors into the front room. Her eyes widened and sleepiness was replaced with shock as she first noticed the doors blown off their hinges, then Twilight Sparkle’s terrified expression, then Princess Cadance, then-
“Sombra!” Redheart rushed over to the floating, unconscious unicorn, trying her best to keep her face professional even as concern washed through her. The blood pooling in the magical field before her didn’t help. “What in Equestria happened?”
“Magical accident,” Twilight explained again, nerves evident on her face, “Can we please do something about this? I know anatomy, not medical procedures, that’s a lot of blood, I can’t fix this,” her speech was getting faster and more frantic.
Nurse Redheart put a hoof on her shoulder. “We can fix this. Just bring them in here and tell me what happened…” Redheart trailed off, and opened the doors into the main part of the hospital, Twilight following closely behind. Redheart checked a clipboard attached to the wall, seeing what rooms were open, and motioned to Twilight to follow her down the hall. Three doors down on the right, Redheart pressed the door open gently to make sure it was empty, and held the door open for Twilight to bring the patients in. Two heavy, expensive-looking beds sat about six feet apart from one another, with a clean, white curtain hanging from the ceiling between them.
“Set them down on the beds,” Redheart instructed firmly, but not unkindly, “and tell me how this happened.”
“Won’t that get the sheets messy? I mean with all the blood…”
“Set them down on the beds.”
Twilight did as she was told.
“What happened?” Redheart asked for the third time, looking closer at the gash on Sombra’s leg. The cut was deep, and bleeding heavily, but did not appear to have caused any irreparable damage.
Twilight pulled up one of the chairs intended for visitors and sat down heavily, the old wood creaking slightly beneath her.
“I sent a letter to Cadance asking her to visit, because Sombra thinks they might be related. I knew Cadance wasn’t exactly going to be happy to see him, and might come preparing for a fight or angry if I said who was waiting for her, so I just said I had a surprise,” Twilight paused for a moment as Redheart groaned, “I know, in retrospect, it was a pretty terrible idea. I don’t think anyone could have predicted how badly she reacted, though. I’ve known her for so long, I’ve never seen her that angry or violent about anything before, and she dated my brother. Sombra got really scared and instead of me gently introducing him to Cadance, Cadance very suddenly found him. Emotions flared and she tried to cast a tazaga spell – a pretty simple paralysis spell meant to deal with rowdy drunks or such like things – but, as you may or may not know, spells can be affected by the emotions of the pony casting it. Fear can cause the spell to fizzle and fail, love can cause the effects of the spell to scale a bit too much, and anger can cause even the most harmless of spells to be potentially deadly. Stack anger with a paralysis spell and you can very easily cause a spell to be fatal if it connects with a pony,” Twilight stopped for a second and sighed.
“What’s wrong?” Redheart asked, the mare silently thanking Celestia Sombra was deeply unconscious as she dabbed a peroxide-soaked cloth over the cut. This would be stinging like crazy if he were awake, and knowing Sombra, there would be an excess of whimpering and probably tears.
“It’s just… hard to imagine that if I had reacted even a tenth of a second slower, Cadance would have been a murderer,” Twilight said quietly, “I don’t really think that’s sunk in yet for me. I know she didn’t really intend for that to happen, but it could have. That scares me.”
“Twilight…” Redheart began.
“It’s just that-”
“Twilight. What Cadance did was an accident. It happened accidentally. Don’t get caught up in ‘what-ifs.’ The important thing is Sombra isn’t dead, but if I can’t stop this bleeding he’s going to need a transfusion,” Redheart trailed off, her brow furrowing in frustration, “Why won’t it stop?” The white mare punched a button on the wall, perhaps a bit too forcefully. “Lightheart? You there?”
“Heya Reds, what’s up?” A chipper voice came back through the speaker.
“I need a blood analysis on a patient right now,” Redheart replied, “He’s bleeding heavily and I can’t get it to stop, I need to know if he has hemophilia and what blood type he is if he needs a transfusion, which it’s looking like he might.”
“Oh, that’s no good! I’ll be right there!” The voice chirped back, and there was a click in the speaker. Not fifteen seconds later, a pale yellow-green unicorn ran into the room panting, and her horn lit up in a soft green glow.
“He’s… O-negative, and… yes, he does have hemophilia,” Lightheart said, eyes shut in concentration. The glow on her horn faded, and she exhaled forcefully. “O-negative? Yikes, that’s gonna be trouble if he needs a transfusion. Are there even any O-neg ponies in town?”
“Not that I know of off the top of my head,” Redheart replied, “Do you think you could check the records for me?”
“Sure thing! Need anything else?”
“No, thank you. You’ve been very helpful, Lightheart.”
“Aww, you’re welcome,” Lightheart responded, bounding over to give Redheart a quick nuzzle before speeding out of the room again.
Redheart saw the look Twilight was giving her, and headed off the question before she could ask it.
“She’s good at her job, so we tolerate the minor personal space invasions. There’s nothing too weird about it, she’s just affectionate is all,” Redheart explained. “Darn it, why does Sombra have to have hemophilia? Of all the inconvenient…” the white mare trailed off, grumbling curses under her breath.
Twilight was about to ask if she could do anything to help when Lightheart skidded back into the room.
“There are only two ponies who lives in town with O-negative blood. One is Miss Vinyl Scratch, but she’s in Manehattan for a gig right now so she’s out of the question,” Lightheart spoke rapidly and without inhaling, as though air were at a premium. “There’s also Berry Punch, but the alcohol content of her blood on any given day makes her unsuitable for a transfusion,” the pale unicorn finished, before inhaling violently in a manner that reminded Twilight a bit of her friend Pinkie Pie.
Redheart’s face fell, a mixture of emotions Twilight didn’t quite recognize, and she thought she saw tears begin to form in her eyes. A voice from behind took them both off-guard.
“I’m O-negative.”
Twilight turned around, surprised to see Cadance sitting up in the hospital bed. The mare was looking at her hooves, her normally elegant hair a bit disheveled from lying on the bed.
“I’m O-negative,” she repeated, a bit quieter than before, not looking at either of the other ponies in the room.
“Miss, if you would be willing to donate you might just save this stallion’s life,” Redheart asked, though it sounded almost as though she was begging Cadance to comply than just asking somepony to do something.
“I don’t want to,” Cadance replied flatly.
“Cadance!” Twilight practically yelled, “If you don’t, he-”
“… but I will,” the Princess of Love finished.
“Cadance…”
“I want to be clear – I do not like him. In fact, this might be the one case where I might use the word ‘hate’ and not feel I’m being to harsh. Letting him die, though, would be beyond harsh and going into cruel and unjust. You need to explain to me what exactly is going on with Sombra when we can get back to your castle, but for now…” Cadance trailed off and sighed. “I have mild hemophilia, though. That’s not a problem, is it?”
Redheart and Twilight looked at each other.
“Miss Cadenza,” Redheart started, slowly, her voice tentative as though dipping a hoof in a bath, “When did you wake up?”
“Sometime while the other nurse was talking about the other O-negative ponies in Ponyville, why?”
“Sombra is a hemophiliac, too.”
“And?”
“And you both have the same blood type, and nearly identical cutie marks.”
Cadance swallowed, not liking the implication the nursemare was making. “A-and?”
“And you are both capable of powering the Crystal Heart, something few ponies throughout recorded history have been capable of,” Twilight added. “It’s not unlikely that it can only be powered by ponies of the Crystal Empire’s Royal Bloo-”
“I’m gonna stop you right there, Twilight,” Cadance interrupted, holding her hooves out as if trying to shield herself from an impact and closing her eyes tightly, “I… I just don’t think I can handle knowing that right now.”
“Well,” Redheart said with a faked cough, “Hemophilia prevents direct transfers, but once the blood is removed from the body, it can be screened and treated and made safe for use. I’ll need to go get the kit for it, though, and Lightheart needs to do the spell to treat the blood after. Actually,” the white earth pony continued, timing another press of the call button perfectly so she didn’t even have to pause her speech, “Lightheart, we need you again in room one-oh-eight. Bring a blood-drawing kit and three bags.”
“Three bags?”
“Sombra – err, the patient has lost a lot of blood and we have a suitable donor, but she has hemophilia so we’ll need you to treat the blood after it’s drawn. Can you do that?”
“Yes ma’am! I’ll be right there!” The speaker clicked again as Lightheart set down whatever microphone she was using, and once again appeared in the door with uncanny speed.
“Whoa now hold up, you didn’t tell me she was awake!” were the first words out of Lightheart’s mouth. The mare’s entire body tensed up and she seemed to be ready to bolt if Cadance so much as ruffled a wing.
“I’m sorry, do I know you?” Cadance asked, her genuine tone offsetting the condescending phrasing. “Have you perhaps visited the Crystal Empire before?”
Twilight could almost hear Lightheart’s muscles relax.
“No, no, I just… never mind,” the unicorn replied with a nervous laugh. “You don’t recognize me?”
“No?” Wait, should I recognize her? There are an awful lot of yellowish unicorns in Equestria…
“Ok. Sorry. I just… yeah, sorry,” Lightheart seemed to lose track of her sentence, and turned to Redheart. “Three bags, are you sure?”
“Alicorn biology was fairly well documented a few hundred years ago when Princess Celestia fell ill,” Redheart offered. “Alicorns are particularly robust, as far as ponies go. While three bags would be enough to cause weakness and light-headedness, it wouldn’t be dangerous to a normal pony. Princess Cadance will be fine.”
“If you say so, boss,” Lightheart grinned back, before moving over to Cadance’s bed. “Are you sure you don’t recognize me?”
“Why do you keep asking that?”
“No reason. Alright, if you’d just lie down…”
“I don’t really like needles,” Cadance said weakly, turning her head away from her foreleg as Lightheart approached it.
“Sorry.”
---
Sombra blinked in the harsh light of the hospital room. His head – scratch that, his everything hurt. He tried to sit up, but found himself too weak to do so. He grunted with the effort, and a new lance of pain shot up his right foreleg.
“Oh, you’re awake!”
Sombra used what little strength he had to roll his head to the side, to see Nurse Redheart sitting next to the bed.
“You lost an incredible amount of blood,” she said, her voice unsettlingly happy for such a statement, “but thanks to Cadance here, you’re gonna be fine.”
Sombra tried to respond, but found his mouth unwilling to cooperate with him. Confused, he attempted to roll his head the other way, but only made it about halfway before he fell back down facing Redheart. She smiled and laughed softly, blushing just a little, and helped him move his head to face the other way. In the bed across from him, Cadance slept quietly. Twilight Sparkle’s head lay in the bed next to her sister-in-law, her body leaned forward at an awkward angle in her chair. Sombra grunted, and Redheart pulled him back over to face her.
“You lost over thirty percent of your blood,” Redheart explained, “It’s a miracle Cadance was here, she was the only compatible donor we could reach. There are also two things you should probably know. We took the liberty of comparing your blood samples while we had them out, and… well, it turns out you and Princess Cadance are, in fact, very distantly related. The high magical potency of the Empire’s Royal Bloodline or something, Twilight was going on about, I must admit I didn’t follow it too well,” Redheart laughed. “The other thing… well, take a look for yourself.”
The nurse picked up a mirror and put it in front of Sombra. To his shock, where the ugly, red scar of a horn used to be, a perfectly normal, dark gray horn protruded from his messy hair. Complete with a spiral groove around it, too. Sombra would have jumped for joy if he could move, but instead settled for a weak smile. This, this was physical evidence he was changing who he was, that he was getting better. The mirror began to shake, and it fell forward onto the pillow next to his head. Behind it, Redheart was revealed, and to Sombra’s surprise, she was crying.
“I thought you were going to die!” Redheart burst out suddenly, startling the former king. “I’m sorry, I don’t know where these tears are coming from, this is unprofessional, but I just… when you came in it was all I could do to keep calm and treat you like I needed to and I don’t know why! I just… I just… I’m so glad you’re ok…” Redheart leaned forward and collapsed onto the bed next to him.
With every ounce of strength he could muster, Sombra pulled his foreleg up, up, away from his side, towards his dear, amazing, wonderful, beautiful friend, and set his hoof on her shoulder as gently as he could.
“D… din… ner?” he croaked out, and gave his best shot at a smile.
Redheart looked up at him, smiled through her tears, and nodded.
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Not a medical buff and plus, it's a story about magical ponies so no, I couldn't tell.
That'd be interesting; equine blood types are as follows: A, C, D, K, P, Q, U, and T.
5529893 And all together that spells...
... eh, I got nothin'.
Well, its NOT a SUPREME surprise that Cadance AND Sombra ARE both O-negative, seeing that, some of us already have guessed that They were related. But THE part that surpised me Was that Cadance Was trying TO KILL him, even WHEN he beiges crying for not TO be killed.
Loved the update and look forward to the next!
Mother and grandmother are both doctors. Still couldn't tell.
5529969 Why are you doing that with your words?
I believe this is a brilliantly done chapter. Certainly some parts of it seemed a bit sketchy around the medical bits, but all in all trivial considering how well it was written. Very well done. 5 mustaches.
Well, that sounds interesting. And awkward.
5530037 Everything he said pretty much. Still mildly pissed at Cadance for rage-firing though.
Not sure there's such this as O- Just A+ A- B+ B- C+ C- and O (also A B C)
Very nice. So a potential relationship is about to blossom, and we've confirmed that Sombra has a distant relative.
5530050 hehe dick-leg syndrome
5529893 But they're maaaagical!
I'm going to be honest: I really like this story but the medical issues in this chapter made me cringe, and they're easily fixable to.
For one, if Sombra was unconscious, bleeding out and was rushed into the hospital, the first thing they would do wouldn't be to ask what happened, a doctor would be called in IMMEDIATELY to stop the bleeding (especially if he lost 30% of his blood. That's a lot of blood, very noticeable!) We know there are doctors in MLP, they've been in the show. If you really wanted maybe you could get away with Redheart trying to heal it if it was a slow loss of blood, but after a few moments where it doesn't stop, or if his blood pressure started to fall due to a lack of blood, she'd call in a doctor immediately as this is now a medical emergency.
Maybe while that was going on Redheart, or another nurse might take Twilight aside and ask her what had happened (btw, she wouldn't be permitted into the operating room or triage room where they would be dealing with Sombra). You could have the doctor either magically close the wound, or suture it closed, the latter making more sense since it increases the risk of blood loss over time vs just magicing away the injury, at least in theory.
At this point another nurse or doctor would be checking over Cadence to make sure she didn't have any cranial damage incurred while fainting, and then likely trying to revive her.
While I like what you planned with the chapter, and I like what you've set up, it would have made much more sense if Twilight entered the hospital panicked, A nurse immediately told her to put Sombra and Cadence on two separate gurneys, saw the bleeding and then called for a doctor and rushed Sombra into an operating room to close the wound, and check for other damage. Another nurse or doctor could have then started working on Candence. In the meantime Redheart pulls twilight aside and asks her to explain the situation, then relays it to the doctor so he knows more about what he's dealing with while closing the wound. Finally Redheart or the doctor could come out a little panicked and note that he's hemophilic and O-negative. Cadence, being revived by that point, could volunteer.
The entire chapter would then end up the exact same, but without the bizarre issue of Redheart randomly asking Twilight questions while a stallion is bleeding to death rapidly right next to her and no doctor being called in during a medical emergency in a hospital.
That being said, I still really like the story and hope you continue it, but at some point in the future you may want to consider a rewrite on this chapter so it makes a bit more sense. Or you could just claim thats how they do things in hospitals in MLP and ignore this entirely.
BREEDING, BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
5530050
Sombra be like..
5529893
And this is a show about talking horses.
--- Saberspark
5530035
It's not my fault that everytime I write with the IPad, it mixes capital letters, with normal letters and words with all capitals.
5529969 turn off that option.... tis easier
5530284
The only problem is that I don't know how.
5530139
5530388 nother reason why i hate IOS 7
5530050
Oh hey, I knew someone was gonna point out something I missed while proof reading Vash's work eventually.
5530139
Hello folks, it's me, the pre-reader! I'm mostly hopping on to say wow, how did I miss that one? Also I am here to say that since I am going to be out of town for the week, next week's chapter just might end up being late, and that all of your anger and hatred over that fact should be directed at me instead of Vash.
Medical issues aside, this was still a great chapter. Cadance's next family reunion is going to be very awkward for sure.
5530669
I agree can't wait for Shining to find out. Cadance just tried to stun him, shining might try to kill him.
I didn't think Sombra had any heirs, so I would to hear the family history. Part of me has been thinking that Cadance's hatred for Sombra is a little exaggerated. So far they didn't really interact with each other and only met once in one scene. Hard to say you hate someone you barely interacted. Now if this was Chrysalis on the other hand that's a different story. If it was Chrysalis in this scenario, I would believe Cadance would be justified in her hatred and preemptive attack on her.
I SHIP SO HARD RIGHT NOW!
Lightheart is Chrysalis! Calling it now.
That's why she's afraid of Cadance, and that's why she hugs everyone, to harvest love.
Since Sombra's origins is going to be revealed in April, are you going to make any changes to his past?
This is good.
>>Techsol
Which in turn will make Twilight's next family reunion very awkward if such actually comes to pass (though I really hope not).
5530931
wait
wait what
Am I gonna have to put an AU tag on this
5530764
Sombra DID make a direct attempt on her life, her husband's life, and the life of Twilight Sparkle, and Cadance has been living with and trying to sort out the aftermath of what he did to the Empire and everypony in it. Even if you only interacted with Joseph Stalin once, if he made a personal attempt on the lives of you and your family, and you had to live with and rule over the people who had been under his fist for so long, you too would likely grow to hate Stalin.
5530966
Since you don't know, here you go.
I enjoyed this chapter.....but...well, the chapters are getting shorter and shorter....or so it seems. o.O(checks numbers) ....never mind, this is one of the longer ones! ^^;...eheheh,.,....sorry
5529893 Do you think it'd be like the double-o negative blood type from the simpsons: Super-Rare, Unlisted, and not too easy to transfer?
5531794
Probably owed to RL ultra-rare blood types like A2B, AB2, D, and M.
Yeah! Wtf Cadence?!
Well, at least she saved his life. I suppose that makes up for trying to kill him, so, reluctantly, i forgive her, but until she properly apologizes to Somby;
img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130102152734/paranorman/images/2/2b/Im-watching-you-meme.gif
*Cadence
Love this story keep up the good work.
And oh eek.......I hate shots getting blood drawn even more so so that part made me cringe.
Gneeheehee Lightheart's a changeling isn't she.
Good stuff! And Fimfiction certainly could use the SombRedemption and SombRedheart.
5530764 Chrysalis? You mean Lightheart?
I think I'm starting to get this version of Sombra. He's used to making the lives of ponies better but now not only is he hated, he's working in a way he never has before. So he does little things like wash dishes or clean a desk because it's all he can do. Being like that must make him feel powerless, out of control of his life which would explain the crying and general attitude he's had up until this point.
I really had a thing against his general wussiness up until this point. Now it all just clicked.
Smart cookie for this guy.
Noooooo! I ran out of chapters to read!
Woe is I, for having found such a wonderful fic and readying to the current chapter in less than a few hours.
Oh well, can't wait to see what Sombrero and Reddy do next now that the medical situation has improved.
What is hemophilia?
5530200
Well there's your problem right there! You're using an Apple product! Android is awesome
5585061 A genetic disease where the blood does not coagulate easily, meaning that cuts and bruises don't stop bleeding easily. It can easily be fatal.
5588451 It was also a notable disease being found in the blood of several royal families, such as the russian Czar Nicholas' son, before Stalin Lenin and Trotsky had "removed them from office."
Oh my gosh! I have o negative!
Cool
5617783
Yeah! O-negs, unite!