*beep beep beep*
"There is nothing we can do for him, I'm sorry." The nurse trued her small white hat and settled it into her light pink mane.
Dusk Swirl snuffled as he prevented tears from leaving his dark blue eyes. "So you're just letting him die?" he bit his lower lip.
"He's already gone too far. We're just turning the machines off," the nurse replied, her light-bluish eyes looking right into his. She then broke the eye contact and turned her neck around, to nod to a fellow nurse, that would turn off the machines.
"C-," he stuttered. "-can I be alone with him when you're done?" His tears begged to be free, but he still hold them back. Crying in public just wasn't his thing. Even though he couldn't help but feel guilty; it was his fault anyway.
"Hey, Dusk, catch!" Sapphire Sky laughed as he threw a paddle at his best friend, which he actually caught.
"Stop fooling around Saph! You know I've never went on a boat tour," the light amber stallion exclaimed, he was slightly taller than the average pony, and definitely a bit taller than Sapphire Sky. His mane was purely black, nothing like Sapphire's.
"Oh yeah, I forgot 'yer Canterlot Unicorns don't know nothing about nature, eh?'," the light blue stallion joked with a steady smirk on his muzzle.
"Oi! Stop it! You know that's untrue!" Dusk nudged him with his paddle and chuckled from the bottom of his lungs. "You're just a nag because of jealousy, aren't you?" He smirked back.
"Yeah, maybe a bit, Mr. Magic. But who wouldn't want to... dunno, move things around by thoughts?"
"You know I'm really bad at levitation? I mean like two feet?"
"Still better than me!" Saph pointed out. "Anyway, We should get into the boat."
*beep --- beep*
The nurses left, the machines were turned off, but Saph's heart was still fighting. Dusk sat next to his brain-dead friend, holding his hoof.
Tears ran down his muzzle, he didn't want it to end like this but he neither could help it happening, or could he? Without the breathing apparatus Saph's body just had to give in.
Tears hitting the floor. "Saph...," Dusk cried out "...you know... I hate myself for this... but I promise... I-I'll... I'll make it up to you..."
*--- beep ---*
"C'mon lend me a hoof over here!" Saph was trying to get a small wooden canoe into the river.
"And you're really thinking it'll hold both of us?" Dusk asked worryingly.
"Hey, hey," -Saph stopped the pushing- "are you trying to get out of our bet?" he smirked.
"N-no way! I just... don't know much about boats and stuff..."
Setting the hooves onto the canoe, that was official the first time Dusk touched a boat, and he wasn't even in it yet. Saph and Dusk pushed the boat from the riverside into the water. Wouldn't it be for the small white rope that held the boat slightly in position, it'd be far gone after ten seconds, the river was quite fast at that spot.
With a quick move of his head, Saph stored the two paddles into the boat, followed by his hooves. "Come on in! We'll have a hell of a time!"
A hell of a time...
Saph was probably never so right before.
Dusk cried into his friend's chest, feeling his weak heart beating, weaker and weaker every time.
How could he let this happen... Dusk felt like a monster, and he was alone with so many thought about punishing himself for that mistake, until...
*---------*
There were no beeps anymore. Only a high-pitched sound that would follow Dusk the rest of his life. The heart of his best friend stopped beating, and another wave of tears came straight through his eyes.
"No, no, no! I'm not ready! You're not done here! Remember our promise? I have to be your groomsman...!"
It felt like he was dying himself, he fought the thought that Saph is gone. His horn started to glow as he forced his magic into his friends body, through his veins, through his cells and organs. Hoping to make a change.
Dusk was never really good at magic, but he knew he could do something, anything.
"Okay steady now, do as I told you: Left, right, left, right..." Saph's white mane flew in the airstream as they went down the river, the water splashed over the border, wetting the sides of the two friends.
Dusk fought with the paddle, it was quite hard for him to operate it through the water, they came to a extremly fast passage as he lost the grip on his paddle and it got carried away behind.
"Eh... Saph?" the worried stallion yelled to the 'captain'.
"What is it?"
"There is a problem with... eh... my paddle..."
Saph turned around and couldn't help but laugh, seeing the wet muzzle of his clueless friend. "You know, it's not that bad, I still got one! So just enough the ride."
Dusk nodded toward Saph, whose muzzle turned into a smirk as he turned around again.
Dusk lifted his heavy head from the wet chest of his friend. "Come on... don't let me hanging now, horn..." his eyes were tight closed but his tears still manage to find their way out.
He still forced all of his magic into the body of his friend, when suddenly...
*------ beep*
For just a brief moment Saph's heart had beaten again, and he tried to catch a breath. Since the accident Saph didn't breath on his own, and even his hooves jerked fleeting.
But then, nothing.
Dusk backed of a bit, he couldn't believe what just happened, his tears got minor as he came close again. With a quick look at the heart monitor he double checked that Saph's heart wasn't beating anymore.
He threw a quick look to his horn, not believing what he just did.
"I-I'm... I'll be back!" he rapidly said to his dead friend, as he trotted out of the room.
"He, Dusk, up ahead! White water rapids, hold on tight!" Saph yelled as the canoe became faster.
Dusk fear could be read from off his face, his eyes widen and he slightly struggled.
"Hey, keep it cool back there, you'll make us fall!"
But Dusk didn't listen, he was panicking and through his struggling the other paddle went overboard and was faster gone than the last one.
"Keep it down, damn!"
They couldn't steer, as they hit a reef in the rapids, the canoe broke and left them in the water, both being pulled away and down by the stream.
Dusk tried to keep himself up, without a chance. He couldn't help but breath some water and coughed immediately underwater.
A few seconds later they had passed the rapids and he swam to the surface quickly, he removed his mane from his face and looked for his friend. "Oh shoot...."
He dived in again, looking for his blue friend in the deep blue surroundings, a body raised to the surface next to Dusk.
Dusk got back to the surface, gasping and eyeing the body. It was Saph. Having a feeling of guilt and shock like never before, Dusk pulled his friend to the riverbank and crawled out next to him.
Seeing his friend so inanimate like this for the first time, he grabbed Saph's front hoof, grope around for a pulse, and there was one!
Still Saph didn't breath. A chill ran down Dusk's spin, something was very wrong, he jumped onto his feet, running away, shouting "Help! Emergency!"
Running down the stairs of his basement, Dusk was looking for the books of his granddad, who was supposed to be a great wizard. He thought enchanting his magic could save Sapphire.
His eyes were still soaked by his tears, even though he stopped crying for now, and got even angrier with himself for his bad magic skills, and not just because of them.
The basement itself was full of shelves, it was rather a storage room to Dusk. After his parents left Canterlot, Dusk got to live in their old house. He never knew his granddad, he only heard stories about him now and then, and yet he liked him more than his parents.
His parents always wanted to stop him from training his magic, they didn't even want a unicorn. Dusk's mother was a Pegasus and his father an earth pony, having a unicorn meant a lot of trouble with raising their foal.
If he just would've just done what Saph told him, Saph would be all alive now. He just had to fix what he broke.
Throwing a crate around, blowing up dust, and almost getting buried under a shelf wouldn't stop him from searching a book that concerned magic.
At least Dusk found a box full of what he figured would be books. He blew the dusk away and smirked.
Since the river, this was the first moment a smile rested on his muzzle. He checked if the box was close enough to him, and levitated it upstairs.
Settling the box on the kitchen table, he grabbed himself a chair and sat down next to it.
As Dusk got the books out one by one, the sun hit the ground in the horizon. It was pretty late already, he'd read his way through the night, at least that's how he planned it.
Spreading the books over the table he inspected the dozen one by one. Three were about magical artefacts, nothing too interesting to him.
Another one was about the ancient history of magic, and another two weren't about magic at all.
He tossed theses few back into the box, almost pushing the box over the edge of the table because he threw to hard.
But the other six that still laid on the table, that six contained a lot for Dusk to learn. The first book he picked up was called: "Magic, an introduction to high level spells."
He read and read, the sun disappeared, the moon rose and fell, another book was taken, and another one. He read about rituals, he read about emphasis of the important spell, he read about cleaning method for horns and about visualising his goal. He read about pentagons, about good luck charms, he read something about special clothes that could amplify magic and he read about marks that could do the same.
It was noon again as he put away the last book, yawing his way to stand up. At the end of his learning session he memorised at least twenty methods to strengthen his own magic.
Tiredly he stretched his legs before he slowly trotted towards his front door. It was time to go back to the hospital.
The room door opened and Dusk found his way inside. Inside an empty room. He glanced around, and his friend was already gone. He wasn't too late, was he? His tired eyes couldn't believe this...
"May I help you sir?" a mare's head poked through the door.
"N-no... er, yes! W-where is the patient that used to lie here?" he questioned as a cold ran down his spin.
"Uh... I'm sorry to tell you this sir, but, he died... and I suppose he his body is in the crematorium now... I'm sorry," the nurse replied.
"Which one?!"
"Er... I-I suppose the one uptown..." this was the first time for the mare that someone replied something like that to a death message.
"Uptown?! Oh lord..." he ran right pass her, "thank you!"
Running out of the hospital, and almost causing a few accidents, he made is way out again. His tired legs had to fight against the strenuousness as he ran all through Baltimare.
At this point he not only fought with his body, no, a life was on the steak as well, at least that's what Dusk believed, if he'd make it in time.
Sweating and panting he tottered into the uptown crematorium, he would have fainted by now, if he wouldn't fought so hard against himself.
"Are you alright, Sir?" a grey stallion asked behind a small counter.
"I-" he caught some air "-I'm looking for a friend... I-I... I got to see him one more time..."
"No can do, Sir, we can't just let everypony come here to watch some corpses, you might not be able to stand the sight of your disfigured friend," he shook his head, with his as grey mane on top of it.
"No, you don't understand it. He just drowned. I was with him as he died, but I got to see him once again... please..."
Seeing Dusk begging, the crematorium pony gave in. "Okay, what's his name?"
It was cold, really freezing in morgue of the crematorium. There must be like fifty ponies around Dusk and the worker. "Your friend lies in cold chamber 7B... right...here..." the grey stallion struggled with the lock of it, but as it finally gave in, he pulled Saph out of a cold pre-grave.
"Mind you, don't mess around with your friends corpse... I got something else to do, I'll be back in five minutes."
As the grey stallion left, Dusk smirked diabolic. 'don't mess around with your friends corpse', oh he won't.
He came close to his dead friend, laying a hoof on his chest, it was cold and didn't move an inch.
Dusk slowly respired as his horn started to glow. The right breathing was step one of a strong magic. In the night he slicked his horn multiple times, and he could feel a stronger magic already.
This time he wouldn't send the magic through the air, but through his own body, to the subject. That's the next part of a better result.
He filled the veins of his friends with his magic, it made Saph's body a bit warmer already. A few seconds later all of Saph's blood vessels were soaked with Dusk's magic.
In addition to bring up to power needed to restart Saph's organs, Dusk visualised all the happy moments their lived through together, the last party, all the years in school, their trips through Equestria, and - of course - the start of the boat trip.
Dusk's horn glowed stronger as Saph's heart began to beat weakly, as Saph's lungs pulled a bit air inside, as Saph's braincells renewed, as Saph's eyes open wide.
Looking right at Dusk.
