My collected entries for minific writeoff prompts: featuring exploding cakes, a difficult autumn, and the search for dignity.
Oops!: Comedy, Slice of Life Pinkie Pie forgets to mention something. The consequences blow up in her face. In the Leaves: Drama, Sad Two life-long friends face autumn together. Rx: Drama, Sad Lily Valley consults her doctor about bringing some dignity to her situation.
These are some of my collected entries for 750 word minific writeoff.me prompts, with some cleanup and revision based on reviews and feedback during the writeoff.
Sky Blue and I grew up together, inseparable best friends since we were fillies. We were always there for each other, through thick and thin, good times and bad. We got in and out of more jams than I can count, and we always did it together.
The day she coughed up little droplets of blood was no different. I was there with her waiting in the doctor’s office, holding her hoof while she was shaking like a leaf.
She started crying, so I rubbed her back and told her it would be okay. I had no idea if that was true, and she knew it, but it was enough.
It was enough because just being there was what mattered.
She trusted me to be there because she knew what I didn’t have to say.
☙ ⛅ ❧
It was right around the Running of the Leaves that she started to really get sick.
The changes she began going through were so much like the season; the way the foliage falls away, revealing what’s under it.
When some trees lose their leaves, their branches are all thorns and sharp twigs, tangled inward, waiting to stab and tear at anypony who gets too close. Not her, though. She was never like that. What showed in her was like one of those trees that reaches up, grasping for the sky with inviting, wide-open arms.
Even when her mane had fallen out and her feathers were molting in clumps, she was beautiful. She never grew thorns. She never lashed out and pushed me away to protect herself, afraid to be seen like that.
She wasn’t afraid because she knew what I didn’t have to say.
☙ ⛅ ❧
I entered the Running of the Leaves that year. She couldn’t. She didn’t have the breath for it by then.
She could only watch. Right before the race started, she walked up to me on the track, took the handkerchief off her bald head, and tied it around my front leg. It was the way a noble lady used to tie a scarf around the leg of a knight she favored in a tournament.
I heard her speak, just two words, soft as a gentle breeze:
“Good luck.”
But at that moment, I didn’t feel like I needed luck.
The race started, and I ran, hard and fast. I pushed myself until I was exhausted, then I found something I never knew I had and I pushed even harder. Her whispering voice rang in my ears every step of the way.
I won.
It’s the only year I ever have.
All the rest of that autumn, when we went out walking together through the fallen leaves, we’d look at each other and smile, because we both knew what they meant.
They meant what she knew I didn’t have to say.
☙ ⛅ ❧
Toward the end, when she was spending most of each day on strong painkillers, there were times I would come to visit and find her lying in bed, just staring out the window with an empty, listless gaze. When I saw her that way, I knew what the worst part of this was for her: not being able to fly, to soar free in the clouds where a pegasus belongs. As an earth pony who likes keeping her hooves firmly on the ground, I don’t know what flying is like, but I could feel how terribly she missed it. It hurt me to see how that loss just crushed the hope out of her. It hurt so badly that sometimes I cried. I’d have given anything to give her just one more day, just another hour, in the sky.
But when I came in, she’d turn away from the window. She would look at me and smile, even as tired as she was, and her face would light up like the sun and melt away that pain.
She smiled because she knew what I didn’t have to say.
☙ ⛅ ❧
When Sky Blue died, she was cremated, and I spread her ashes up here on this hill, overlooking the town, the fields, and the forests. I come here sometimes, and I think of her.
Sometimes I think about what I didn’t tell her.
It was just three little words, and I never said them. Maybe I should have. Maybe we should all say them more often. But truthfully? I don’t feel bad about it, because she always knew.
“So, after we finished with that row a’ trees, we—”
“Oh no!” Pinkie Pie suddenly straightened and sat bolt-upright, her pupils shrinking to pinpoints. “I forgot to tell her!”
“Huh?” Applejack raised an eyebrow while she glanced at Pinkie across the outdoor café table the two of them were having lunch at. “Forgot to tell who what?”
Without bothering to answer, Pinkie Pie jumped out of her chair and took off galloping at a full tilt.
“I FORGOT TO TELL HEEERRRRR!!!” Pinkie’s voice wailed like a siren, Doppler-shifting to a lower pitch as she vanished into the distance.
Conversations stopped and surprised faces turned to follow the noise. A puzzled expression came over Applejack as she looked around. “Mah story wasn’t that borin’, was it?” she quietly asked nopony in particular.
Then her ears fell as she considered something else, sitting there alone in front of two half-eaten lunches. “So, uhh... Ah guess Ah’m stuck with the check, then?”
A pink blur shot through the Ponyville market square, weaving around vending carts and sending shoppers spinning.
“Outta the way, everypony!” A voice cried out, high-pitched with panic. “I’ve gotta tell her BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!!!”
Ponies stood motionless, eyes wide with surprise as something zoomed by at breakneck speed. Manes blew wildly in the wake of wind. Hats were pulled right off ponies’ heads and sent rolling in the street.
Before anypony could react, it was gone, leaving only stunned silence. After a few seconds, the shock wore off and quiet murmurs of confusion began to reanimate the crowd.
“Yeah!” Lily Valley suddenly shouted from her flower stand. “You go get that mare! Don’t let her slip away!”
“...What in Equestria was that all about?” Roseluck asked from the neighboring stall, peering out from behind it after the now long-gone pink blur while the thin dust trail started to settle.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Lily sighed, batting her eyes with a dopey grin. “True love.”
“Guh.” Roseluck rolled her eyes with a sour look. “That’s your answer to everything lately.”
“Is it so horrible of me to want ponies to find happiness?” Lily asked. “When was the last time you were out on a date, anyway?”
“Shut up,” Roseluck grumbled.
“Found your problem!” Lily sang smugly.
The doors to Twilight’s palace burst open and Pinkie Pie charged in, huffing and puffing.
“Twilight!” she called out breathlessly. “Twiiiili-i-i-ght!! I’ve gotta tell you something! Where are you?!?”
“In the map room!” Twilight’s voice echoed from down the hall. Pinkie Pie took off galloping again, scrabbling hooves clopping loudly on the crystal floor.
Pinkie flew through the door to the map room and skidded to a halt. She stared at Twilight, who was levitating a cake in her magic, about to set it on a table.
“Thanks again for taking care of all the food, Pinkie,” Twilight said. “I’m just setting everything up for the party now. Wanna help?”
“Twilight, stop! I forgot to tell you that—”
*KA-BOOM!*
With a bright flash and an ear-splitting crack, the cake exploded.
Pinkie Pie and Twilight, both suddenly pelted with gooey, sugary shrapnel, stood there frozen in wide-eyed shock. The walls and ceiling were plastered with blobs of icing. Chunks of cake rained down to litter the floor like confetti.
The two ponies were speechless for several seconds. They watched as one particularly large gob of frosting slowly oozed its way down a wall, leaving a trail behind it. Others lost their sticky grip on the ceiling and fell, hitting the floor with wet slapping sounds.
Twilight finally turned to face Pinkie Pie. “What didn’t you tell me?” she asked. “Let me guess: that there’s a splatter-gag charge hidden in one of the cakes you delivered this morning, so I shouldn’t move it with telekinesis because magical energy might trigger it?”
“Yep. That.” Pinkie Pie chuckled nervously. Her eyes roamed around the room while she surveyed the confectionary carnage and gave Twilight a half-hearted grin. “Oops!”
“You know, Pinkie,” Twilight said, staring at Pinkie Pie, “some ponies might ask what’s wrong with you.”
There was a half-second of dead silent pause, then Twilight smiled and started giggling. “But whatever it is, I hope it never, ever gets fixed.”
She scooped up a glob of frosting and splatted it into Pinkie Pie’s face. Then she reached out and scooped her friend in close. The two of them laughed while they hugged.
“Thanks for making my life more interesting, Pinkie.”
“You need in-patient treatment, and you need it now.”
“It wouldn’t cure me, though.” Lily Valley stared from across the desk.
“No,” replied Dr. Primary Care, with frustration in her voice. “We’ve been over this in your previous appointments. There’s no cure. Only management to help get you as much time as possible.”
“How much time?”
“Probably about another year.”
“All in the hospital?” Lily asked.
“Yes.”
“Then what good is that?”
“It’s another year.” Care spoke slowly, belaboring the obvious.
“No, I get that, but...” Lily rolled a hoof in the air. “I mean, what good would it be?”
“It’s time you wouldn’t have otherwise.”
“How long would I have otherwise?” Lily asked.
“Looking at these function tests and your bloodwork... six weeks. Maybe two months.”
“So I can live for two months, or I can spend a year hooked up to IVs and tubes, bored out of my mind, trapped in someplace everypony hates.”
“I understand, it’s frustrating—”
“How many times have you been terminally diagnosed?” Lily asked. “How many times have you been here, where I am now? In some doctor’s office like this—” she waved a hoof around in a wide arc, “—with somepony sitting across from you, telling you that you have a... a thing, or whatever... and you have two months?”
“...Never,” Care admitted.
“Oh. Never. Right.” Lily leaned forward. “So I don’t think you do understand.”
“Okay, maybe I don’t know how you feel.” Care sighed. “But I understand medical facts, and I understand this, Ms. Valley: your condition is painful. It’s going to hurt, and it’s going to get worse. If nothing else, in-patient palliative care could at least make you comfortable.”
“So give me two months of pain meds, and I’ll deal with it on my own,” Lily said.
“Are you completely nuts?” Care stared at her.
“What?” Lily looked nonplussed.
“Do you have any idea how stupid I’d have to be to give you two months of painkillers?” Care asked. “I hate prescribing more than a few days.”
“Why?” Lily asked.
“Because they’re strong opiates,” Care said. “The kind that get misused.”
A slow-forming smile dawned over Lily’s face. “I don’t believe this.” She broke into giggles. “I’m dying here, and you’re worried about me being a junkie?”
“No.” Dr. Care thought for a moment. “In your case, that’s really not what I’m most worried about.”
“Then what?”
“What if I do write that prescription?” Care leaned back in her chair. “And what if, a few days later, somepony finds you dead next to an empty prescription bottle?”
They both said nothing for a long time.
“I don’t know.” Lily shrugged. Her voice was quiet. “What if I did? Wouldn’t that be my choice to make? What if... what if I thought about it, and it was for the best?”
“What would it make me if I wrote it, knowing that?” asked Care.
Uncomfortable silence hung heavily.
“Look, I don’t have time for hypothetical questions.” Lily snorted. “Here’s the thing: either you’ll write a prescription, or you won’t. Either help me spend my last days without pain, or don’t. Just tell me which one, so at least I know.”
The two of them stared at each other, locking eyes for several long seconds.
“Please.” Lily reached out and put her hoof on Dr. Care’s.
Dr. Care hesitated. Her face gradually softened and she let out a resigned sigh. She pulled her prescription pad in front of her and stared down at it for a little while, thinking.
Slowly, she started writing.
“Here.” She slid the sheet across her desk. “Two months’ worth, so you won’t need refills. Directions are on the scrip. Read them. I’m writing a note in your patient file that you’ve followed previous prescriptions closely, and that I have every confidence you will this time. Got it?”
“Thank you,” Lily whispered.
“They’re stronger than what you’re on now,” Care noted. “And they’re dangerous respiratory depressants at high doses. Five or six could be lethal. Ten or more, no question—you’d pass out and never wake up. So don’t OD.”
“I’ll definitely be careful.” Lily nodded.
“Good. I guess we’re done, if there’s nothing else I can do for you today.”
“No, I need to get going,” said Lily. “Stuff to get in order. Ponies to say things to.”
“Sure.” Care nodded. “I understand.”
“Thanks, Doctor.” Lily turned to leave. “See you around.”
“Hey, good luck with everything. Remember,—”
“Follow the directions, yeah,” said Lily. “I will. I will.”
