• Published 6th May 2013
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Reconstruction Site - RazedRainbow



When the effects of an injury prove more severe than first thought, Rarity and Rainbow Dash find themselves struggling to keep their newfound relationship and lives afloat.

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Interlude: First Breath After Coma

Interlude

First Breath After Coma

Rarity’s lungs filled with air, and it felt like the first breath she’d ever taken. The world around her was dark—all shadows and objects just beyond the horizon—but she could hear it. There were beeps and distant hoofsteps, bouncing around her head as if somepony was marching around in there. Each step rattled her skull, yet, if anything, it was calming.

A part of her wanted to stay there. Come to think of it, did she have a choice?

Not here, came a thought, a voice that rang out like hundreds at once.

Very well, she answered in a voice that seemed foreign—that didn’t seem like a voice at all.

The air was thick with sickness and death, life and health, hope and surrender, all tinged with a strong stench of disinfectant. She snorted, and nearly coughed, but her mouth refused to open enough for even that to happen. Her chest heaved a few times, bombarding her eardrums with a cacophony. From the rattling of her ribs to the squeaking of... something beneath her, her ears, head, and very core were assaulted. All at once, the pain came back. She wanted to get out. Only seconds ago this place had been the epitome of serene. What happened?

I need to get out of here.

There was no light at the end of the murky void; no voice on the edge of unconsciousness. Rarity simply opened her eyes, first a crack, then a little more. The first thing she saw, after the light quit blinding her, was large, white tiles. Ugly things. She could count the amount of holes and dents in them, and was utterly revolted to find that they numbered in the tens. What a disaster of a... wherever she was. It most certainly was not her house; her brain wouldn’t dare even have nightmares about her ceiling being this awful.

Her mouth tasted foul. She couldn’t pick out what tastes were in there—morning breath, week-old coffee, a swamp in the summer, Celestia knows what else—but she could point out that it made her want to throw up. She turned her head to the side, coughed, and retched, but nothing came out. Instead, she was stuck with dry heaves and a pounding headache. To make it worse, every muscle in her body seemed to still be deep in their beauty sleep, and she found that she lacked the strength to even right her head. Her neck was killing her, as was everything else.

What a great way to wake up.

She almost thought, it could be worse, but quickly chose against it. She knew how life worked; if she were to think such a thing, it would do everything it could to prove her wrong. Rarity groaned and clenched her eyes tight—it didn’t do as much help for her headache as she’d hoped—then groaned once more, a little louder, and opened her eyes.

Things got worse.

She shut her eyes again. Please tell me that’s not—

“Well, look who finally decided to wake up.”

Why? Why, why, whywhywhy?!

She refused to open her eyes. No, she was still dreaming. Still asleep. Still—

“C’mon, Rare. Up and at ‘em.” The laugh that rang out after... it might as well have been a knife in Rarity’s brain. She sighed. There was nowhere to run or hide. Her muscles still lay asleep, and even if they weren’t, she wouldn’t be able to get away. She was stuck. Trapped. The only way out was to simply accept.

Cursing the day, Rarity let her eyes open again. Somehow, her headache had gotten much, much worse.

Across from where she lay was Rainbow Dash, dressed in a green gown, her foreleg propped on the railing of the bed and something between a smirk and a frown stretched across her face. Rarity’s brow furrowed. Green? Rainbow Dash would never wear such a color, not unless...

She looked around the room. In hindsight, it shouldn’t have shocked her that she was in the hospital. The beeping, the smell, the way the hooves marched along the hallway outside the room, the way everything felt wrong: it was all too obvious, she had to admit.

Her gaze drifted to herself. She too was in a revolting gown, though most of it was hidden underneath equally tacky sheets. Various wires and tubes led down into left foreleg—she could only guess that her right foreleg was equally riddled. She could even feel them draped across her chest, ice cold. Not as cold as her body felt at that moment. So many wires... so many needles. They wouldn’t scar, would they? The incessant beeping of the heart monitor carried on and on, and Rarity found herself wishing Rainbow Dash would say something. Anything to drown out that infernal beeping.

As her eyes moved back to Rainbow Dash, a feeling slammed into her chest like a freight train. No, not a feeling: memories. They rushed before her eyes, bits and pieces, sights and sounds. She remembered Sweetie Belle’s magic engulfing her, remembered kissing Rainbow Dash, remembered every word spoken and glance stolen, remembered the attack, remembered everything.

Now more than ever, she really wished she had something to throw up. Dry heaves were, Rarity decided, the worst of all worst possible things. Across the room, Rainbow Dash laughed like a kid who’d just found their best friend’s baby pictures.

“Docs said you’d be a bit weird when you woke up.” She chuckled. “Didn’t expect this, though.”

“Too much... too quick...” Rarity sputtered, trying to lift a foreleg to wipe her eyes. It was a waste of effort; her legs were still dozing, as though she’d fallen asleep laying on all four of them. She was able to wriggle her left foreleg just a tad—a tiny counter clockwise rotation—but it felt like her bones and muscles had been replaced with sand. Angry at anything and everything that had been and ever would be, Rarity gritted her teeth and begged for her stomach to stop.

Eventually it did. However that did nothing to extinguish the burning ire rising in Rarity’s chest. Why couldn’t she remember what day it was? Why did hospital gowns have to be such an awful color? Why did everything feel so wrong?

“How ya feelin’, Rare?” Rarity’s eyes shot open in a glare. How do you think? she wanted to ask. But as soon as she was able to focus on Rainbow Dash, she held her tongue. There was something to the way Rainbow looked at her. A glint in her eye—a gleam of light in the corner of her irises that shook like a leaf. Rarity’s chest suddenly went weightless, and she took a deep, shaky breath.

“I’d be lying if I said ‘never better,’” she said. Her body still ached all over, and nothing felt right, but still... something about Rainbow Dash being there made it at least bearable. She sighed and rubbed her face against the pillow. It felt like rocks. “Dash? Could you be a dear and explain to me just what the...” She took a deep breath. Her face was a raging inferno, but her blood sat frozen in her veins. “What’s going on?” she finally asked, voice as shaky as her grip on reality.

Rainbow frowned and tapped her hoof on the plastic railing of her bed. “How much do you remember?”

“I...” A wave of coughs cut her reply, carrying on for what seemed to be eons. Eventually, her lungs settled, or at least settled as much as they could. Her throat was sandpaper. At that moment, she wanted a glass of water more than anything she’d ever desired in her life.

As if she could somehow read her mind, Rainbow Dash pulled out her IV and hopped out of her bed. In less than ten seconds, she was right next to Rarity’s bed, a table with a pitcher of water and a few plastic cups being pushed along by a foreleg, while her heart monitor was dragged behind her by her right wing. Before Rarity could speak a word of protest, Rainbow had already taken a seat on her bed, pouring a cupful of water and shoving it against Rarity’s lips.

“You’re weak,” she said as Rarity sputtered. “I know this sucks, but if I let you try to hold it... yeah. Which would you prefer: water up your nose or all over you?” Rarity grumbled and coughed, but said not a word. “Better?” Rainbow raised a hoof and wiped off Rarity’s chin. Like I’m some baby, Rarity thought with a frown. Still, each message sent to her forelegs was sent in vain. If anything she should be thanking Dash right now.

When I can move, I will.

“So,” Rarity said after a long moment of silence, throat still raw, “what’s going on?” She coughed a few more times, but raised a hoof when Rainbow offered her another cup of water. “Why are you here? Why does it feel like I’ve been sleeping for years?”

“Close, but no cigar.” Rainbow chuckled and ran a hoof through her mane. “Okay, so you remember how we got stuck out in... well, in the middle of nowhere, right?”

Rarity nodded. Resting her throat was probably for the best.

“And you remember those wolves?” Rainbow’s smile vanished in the blink of an eye. Rarity’s throat burned, but this time she was positive it wasn’t a cough that wanted to break out. Though her entire face was numb, she forced a nod.

“Well... they messed us up pretty good.” Rainbow looked over her shoulder, and for the first time Rarity noticed the mass of bandages holding her left wing tight against her side. “It’s fine,” she said. “Bones got messed up pretty good, but the muscles and ligaments and all those other things are all right.” She looked back at Rarity. The glint in her eyes was dull, broken; Rarity knew something was wrong. What it was... she wasn’t so sure she wanted to know.

“That’s... good to hear.” She managed a smile. Rainbow’s lips didn’t curve upwards even an inch. “Where is everypony? I would have thought they’d be eager to see us after all this?”

“Outside,” Rainbow said.

“Why ‘outside?’”

“Because... we thought it’d be best if...”

If time was moving forward at that time, Rarity couldn’t tell. As far as she was concerned, everything had frozen; even the beeping of the heart monitor no longer existed. It was just her, Rainbow Dash, and silence. Heavy, heavy silence.

“Rainbow, what—”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Well...” Rarity didn’t want to say anything. This was blazing down a path she didn’t want to follow. You’re going to have to learn eventually, a voice in the back of her head whispered. She sighed, closing her eyes tight.

Their voices rang out in a din, like the choir of hell. Rarity couldn't understand the words—their voices droning on and on like a hurricane’s wind—but she could see their faces, and the expressions they wore spoke volumes. Eyes met eyes met chart met her, and so on and so forth. A nurse jabbed her with something—a quick strike. Rarity couldn’t conjure the energy to turn her head and see what it was. She guessed it was better left unseen; probably long and pointy, and would make her heart sink below the floor of her gut where it had settled just days prior. The day she had first heard...

Sweat poured down her face, her pillow was soaked. Her entire body burned. From her leg to her chest to her head, everything felt like it had beaten by a hammer then set aflame. She wondered if it was possible to die from a broken leg. It sure felt like she was knocking on Death’s door. That probably wouldn’t go down well in the history books: Rarity Belle. Bearer of the Element of Generosity. Died from a leg fracture suffered in a timber wolf attack, brought forth by a freak kissing incident with the Element of Loyalty and a magic lesson gone awry. No... that was certainly not how she wanted to be remembered.

Her gaze drifted from the doctors—their fancy jargon and countless instruments only brought her headaches—to the cause of her problems. Her throat clenched tight and her brain refused to see what was clearly there. After all, it couldn’t be. Not in a world like this. Yet there it was, staring back at her, like a knife sticking through her stomach.

The leg lay unwrapped, the casting removed to make testing easier for the doctors. Savages. She was a lady, not a lab rat they could stick and fill with whatever they got their grubby hooves on. It lay flat—or rather, as flat as it could—on the bed, sheet pulled up so it was at the ready whenever somepony felt the desire to prick it with some vaccine or simply observe. Maybe in the past, Rarity wouldn’t mind somepony paying close attention to her leg, but not now. Not like this. There was nothing beautiful about it now. Not like this.

Not a day after she’d reached the hospital—less than twenty-four hours after she'd been wheeled into surgery and her twisted leg had been straightened out by a coat of plaster—the problems had truly begun. Her leg felt like it was on fire, and for three days she lay in the hospital bed, unable to sleep or even think. On the fourth day, they’d removed the cast, and the pain, somehow, got worse. Now her leg was bloated and black, green lines running up it like someone had taken a marker and doodled all over her veins. The lines went up her calf, past her knee, and halfway up her thigh. She swore that, if she turned her neck at just the right angle, she could even see one of the diamonds on her flank turning the faintest, sickest shade of green.

Rarity was about as far from a medical professional as a pony could get, but something told her this went beyond a simple break.

She hadn’t received many visitors, the doctors insisting that she be kept in a... they may have said “sterile” environment, but Rarity hadn’t been all there since she’d been admitted to the hospital. Out of all her friends, only Twilight Sparkle had been allowed to see her—probably the whole ‘princess’ thing—and even then she was mainly messing around with her leg like all the doctors. At least Twilight was much more pleasant company than them—smiling and even talking a bit. Princess Celestia and Luna had also swung by, but said not a word. They too only looked at her leg, shook their heads, whispered some words Rarity couldn’t hear completely to the doctors, and then went on their way.

One of the doctors—a unicorn stallion with a pale coat and neatly-trimmed brown beard—approached her and said... something. She couldn’t hear what. Even the look on his face was unreadable. He arched an eyebrow, and Rarity suddenly realized she’d been asked a question. Ears still ringing and mind adrift on a stormy sea, she nodded, slowly and gracelessly. There was a long pause before the stallion nodded, then turned to his comrades and nodded once more. A nurse strode forward, and pulled out her IV drip, replacing it with something else. Almost immediately, the world started to spin around Rarity, as if she were on a carousel that had been possessed by a madmare. Lights pulsed and dimmed, the ringing in her ears was replaced with a dull sound not unlike waves crashing along a shore, and her mind slipped off into the ether.

“... And then—”

“You woke up. Just now,” Rainbow jumped in, pulling Rarity from her memory. It felt more like being pulled into icy waters. Rarity couldn’t even force a nod. She needed to see. Needed to know. She knew she wouldn’t like it. That much was obvious. But still, she had to...

Frigid blood rushed through her body, and her hoof lifted off the bed, moving over to the sheets. Her head thundered, and there was only her, her hoof, and the unavoidable truth. Somewhere in the hazy corner of her vision, Dash spoke. “Rarity, pl...” was all she could make out.

It happened in slow motion. She hooked the sheets on her forehoof, and threw them back. A cyan leg thrust itself into her tunnel-vision, reaching for blankets, trying to hide the truth. However, it was too slow, and the sheets fell off to the side. As Rarity stared at her exposed body, she wished Rainbow had grabbed the sheets. Had hidden the truth, even if only for a minute more.

She could have found positives in how clean her coat was given the situation, or how they’d kept her tail in just the right position to avoid tangles. But at that moment, and forever after, there was only one thing.

The short nub where her right hind leg was supposed to be.

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t feel, couldn’t think. All she could do was stare, and even that was mostly blurry. The world had just ended before her. She was dead. She had to be. Just a damned spirit. This couldn’t possibly be anything more than a dream—a nightmare.

Could it?

“Rainbow...” The words came out as a squeak.

“I’m so sorry, Rare.”

“What... what... h-hap... why... what...” Speaking seemed so utterly pointless. Everything did.

“Nopony knows,” Rainbow answered softly. “Not the doctors, or Twilight, or even the princesses.”

“But... I just... was just a...”

“It wasn’t the break, Rares.” Under normal circumstance, Rarity would have questioned how Rainbow Dash seemed to be able to read her thoughts, but this was anything but normal; the question didn’t even cross her mind. There was only her and it. “Look, I don’t know exactly what... they just said it was... Rarity, I’m sorry.”

This can’t be... I just... it wasn’t that bad. Not that bad at all. What... no, this can’t... I... this has got to be a...

Her thoughts were cut off by a weight pressing against her, wrapping around her torso. Though she couldn’t move her eyes from the stump, blue feathers suddenly blotted it out. The ability to feel rushed back into her like a cannonball, and she began to sob into Rainbow’s outstretched wing.

“Why?” She wept. Rainbow’s wing only tightened.

“It was the only way... you would’ve died if they hadn—”

“Well then, why couldn’t they have just let me die instead of becoming some three-legged freak?!”

The wing loosened. “Don’t,” Rainbow said through gritted teeth. “Don’t you dare even think that!”

At another time—as another unicorn—Rarity would have taken offence to Dash’s tone, would have argued and wept and begged for death more. But something in the way Rainbow said what she’d said made Rarity stop. For a single second, the cries ceased, as did everything else. Only Rainbow Dash moved, and she used that gift to lean down in front of Rarity’s face and give a faint smile that warmed Rarity to her very core. In the corners of her ruby eyes were tears—not much unlike Rarity’s own.

“We’ll get through this, Rare. I promise.”

And though she buried her face back into Rainbow's wing, though the sobs rose in her chest once more, Rarity believed her.

Author's Note:

Yeah, I'm evil.

Also, fun fact: each of these chapter titles are either named after a song (2 and 4) or a lyric in a song (1 and 3). Mostly, they're just songs I was listening to to get me in the right mood for these chapters, but they do have a significance.

Special thanks goes to Bronius Maximus and Cynewulf for editing all four of these chapters.