Dedicated to Vocal Brony and MidnightDancer
Prologue
Before diving into this, some background might be useful.
They moved to the town when he was very young, a foal maybe of the age that one typically gains their cutie mark. He got his shortly after, and his mother insisted it was wonderful, but he wasn’t so sure. He was never sure.
He only made a few friends—three, to be exact—and they will make all the difference in this story. Three is the number of true friends he made, for there were many other friends that did not last, or were not true at all, that he made while in the town.
He has visions. Delusions, one might and should call them, for they served almost no purpose but to grate on his psyche until he was screaming for everything to stop, for the perpetual motion of the world to cease, for him to get off the ride and go home. At least, that’s what he thought.
He loved. A lot. He loved too much, in fact, and ended up getting hurt so very many times. He stuck it out until the end, however, when other ponies could not. He grew, even if it was in a crushed and misshapen sort of way.
He lives out his days in the cottage where he and his mother first moved to, where he returned after living with the Apple family for nearly ten years. He lived there with a few others, none of which had particularly harmed him, until that one.
She, the one he lived with, had phantom pains throughout the night, and a personality to match. Something or other had him rushing to her side, to hold her and comfort her when the pains started, but she lashed out and kicked him in the face, knocking him to the floor so many times that it became difficult to count them all.
His father was gone now. He died in a hospice, which prompted him to work in one. He talked to patients, cheered them up, suggesting smiles and attempting to give them a bit of piece before they slowly slipped from the world.
He could not even begin to understand the complicated web that he was slowly being woven into, but something kept him standing by that hospital bed, night after night...
Nights were always an odd time for Caramel.
He wasn’t sure why, exactly. He knew on some level why they ended up being so odd, but he couldn’t place for sure. He just ended up putting the feeling on the back burner and dealing with the problem in the present.
He trotted down the small path that led to his cottage, which was near the far end of Ponyville, tucked away from the other houses and somewhat close to the Everfree forest. He had once been told that this house was somewhat unique, as only one other house was built in a similar location a bit of a ways from there, occupied by a pony named Fluttershy. It was a rather enjoyable place, the beauty of nature being so close to the quaint cottage.
Caramel opened the door as quietly as he could, not wanting to disturb the sleeping body that he knew inhabited his home. He was going to avoid that assured frustration, and skipped straight to his favorite part of the night: tea.
He carefully and silently trotted past the living room, taking a left turn to head through the dining room, and entered the kitchen. The stove was where it always was, black kettle waiting for him. He smiled, took the kettle by the handle in his mouth, and filled it up with water at the sink nearby.
“Would you like some tea, sweetheart?”
Caramel put the full kettle on the stove. He opened the compartment for the wood, and placed in a few logs in, sighing as they rested upon each other neatly. Starting a flame with some nearby flint, he watched as the flames danced and consumed the tinder.
He walked slowly to the table in the dining room, and sat down in one of the chairs, back legs tucked under him and forelegs resting on the table. Taking a long breath, he looked over at the opposite side of the table. An older mare sat there—still beautiful even though she was heading into her middle ago—looking over at Caramel.
“Yeah, mom, I’m making some right now,” he responded, returning her gaze from across the table. “Clears my mind, you know...”
“Had a rough month?” she asked, giving her son an empathetic look.
Caramel puffed his cheeks out and gave a long sigh. “That doesn’t even begin to describe it... things have gotten very bad since the last time you came to visit.”
“Did you have those dreams again, Caramel?” his mother inquired. Her face showed concern for her son, her mouth in a small frown, her face creased with worry.
Caramel looked down at the table.
“No... no, the dreams didn’t show up, thank goodness,” he lied. “I’ve just been having a lot of trouble with... relationships.” This time, he spoke the truth, but as many often do, he did not tell the whole story.
His mother nodded sympathetically. “Caramel, it’s all going to be okay, I promise you. You’ll work through it, just like you always have. What have I always told you about your cutie mark?”
A small, sad smile crept over Caramel’s face. “That the three horseshoes mean I’m the luckiest colt in all of Equestria.”
The older mare smiled back at him. “That’s right. You’ve just got to find that luck. You always were able to pull through, even as a foal, even after what happened to your father, even after what happened to y-you...” Her voice cracked slightly, as though she were about to break down into sobs.
Caramel put his hoof next to his mother’s, his smile less sad and far softer, kinder. “It wasn’t your fault, mom; none of it was. You did the best you could.”
”But was my best good enough?” She stared at Caramel, shifting in her seat slightly. Caramel did not return her gaze, instead focusing his eyesight elsewhere. He couldn’t bear the scrutiny of her azure eyes.
“I...” Caramel’s words failed him. “I don’t think we should talk about it. Keep things nice and pleasant, you know? Not worry about something we can’t do a thing about.”
She gave him a look, and let out a long sigh, many of which seemed to have been passed around this evening. “Well, alright. How has everything been going in your life, sweetie?”
Caramel laughed nervously. “Oh, jeez... it’s not been a fun month at all.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to begin!” Caramel exclaimed, somewhat exasperated. “There’s been so much turmoil, so many decisions, so many upheavals and changes... Dear Celestia, it’s been a nightmare!”
His mother’s cheeks moved oddly, which Caramel recognized as her chewing on her tongue. She always did so when she was thinking, or anxious. “Are you still friends with Roseluck?”
Caramel smiled. “You remember her?”
His mother nodded. “I know that... that circumstances arose shortly after you met her, but I could tell you two would stay friends for a very long time.
Caramel returned her nod. “Yes, we are still very good friends. She and her special somepony, Daisy, are getting married soon. I’m very...” The words caught in his throat, and he blinked. “Happy.”
“That didn’t sound like you were very happy.”
Caramel rested his forearms on the table, and rested his head on his limbs, staring at the cup of tea steaming before him. “It’s a very complicated situation, mom.”
She nodded her head. “Alright then. I won’t ask anymore if you would prefer not to talk about it.”
“That would be good.”
Slowly rising, he quietly walked towards the kitchen. “What are you going to get?” his mother called after him.
“Shh!” Caramel said in a hushed whisper. “You’ll wake her!”
“Her?” His mother cocked an eyebrow.
“Yeah, she’s sleeping upstairs. I don’t want her to wake up, she’s been one of the ones causing... problems...”
“Is she the same one you told me about last time?”
“Yeah.”
His mother sighed for the umpteenth time, and removed herself from the chair she was sitting on. Trotting slowly over to Caramel, he watched her as she flickered and gleamed as though a hologram.
“Is she really there?” she asked him. “Or are you just hoping she is?”
Caramel didn’t have an answer.
Kettering
I almost wish that I had never stepped into that room...
Caramel woke up feeling very cold. This was odd, as there were plenty of blankets wrapped around him, and the breathing body of his special somepony, who generated warmth as most mammals do. Still, something felt very cold to him, a feeling that pervaded the entire room, even when he stepped out of bed and went to the bathroom to freshen up.
Putting the shower on as hot as it would go, he felt it sear into him. Still, the barrage of steam and boiling water did not gnaw into the cold, cold feeling that surrounded ever fiber of his body. After fifteen minutes of this, he finally surrendered, and stepped out of the shower, drying himself off with some difficulty. Being an earth pony had some disadvantages, after all.
Staring at himself in the mirror, he observed his messy, damp mane, and his tired eyes. These eyes seemed to carry a burden that forced down on his very soul, crushing him from the inside. He smiled, his face turning up, becoming friendlier, but the eyes stayed the same.
Carefully grabbing a hairbrush laying on the side of the sink, with both of his front hooves he brought it to his mane, carefully brushing out the bigger knots that had formed throughout his sleep and hurried drying of his body. Once they were dealt with, he moved onto a comb, spending his usual ten minutes of time preparing his mane to be just the way he liked it.
Leaving the bathroom, he knew he had to take extra care to go quietly down the stairs as to not wake the mare that had been sleeping next to him in bed. He stood at the top of the stairs, knowing that they top stepped creaked very loudly. But was it the next step down or the one after that that also creaked.
He decided not to take his chances with either, and instead climbed up onto the banister. Sitting on his stomach, he slid down to the lower floor slowly, teeth gnashing as his fur and flesh beneath was rubbed uncomfortably by the wooden railing. Finally reaching the end of his journey downstairs, Caramel hopped off of the banister and trotted to the kitchen.
He didn’t have time to make himself a proper breakfast. Instead, he grabbed a leftover daisy sandwich, one that had been made some time ago, to eat as lunch at his place of work.
Carefully, he opened the screen door at the far end of the kitchen, which lead to a path different from the one that lead from his front door to town. This one wound its way through some parts of the Everfree, but it didn’t go deep into possible danger territory. It was quite a lovely hike, though, the trees growing close together, the sun shining through on some day to tinge everything in a lovely, dappled green.
It was overcast today, however, so Caramel would get none of that. To the right of his house, where he had exited, was a field. The Everfree backed the house, and ahead of him one could see through the sparse trees was the town of Ponyville, just waking up. The winds would start blowing soon, maybe even a storm; Thunderlane, one of Caramel’s best friends, had told him to expect some turbulent weather this week.
Caramel stared up at the greying sky, then towards the roof of his home. There was a window, in which he could see the attic. From that window, assuming one was about the size of a foal, somepony could walk out onto the roof. He felt a small tinge of sadness seeing this; he hadn’t been to the attic in ages, not since he moved back into his home a year or so ago.
Staring up at the sky some more, he watched the clouds circle around in the troubled sky with the same sad expression on his face. The clouds were growing more and more restless by the moment; he was going to need to make haste to avoid getting caught in a downpour.
And make haste he did. Breaking into a trot from his little field, he moved towards a large gap in the trees near parallel to the back of his house, where the tall grass was beaten down, and one could see a small dirt path forming. Due to the early morning and the clouds, the sunlight did not make it down through the trees, so it was very dark. Caramel didn’t feel his usual twinge of fear, however— just the coldness from this morning growing larger.
The faint light from the gap in the trees that lead to his backyard cast creepy shadows over the pathway that snaked through the trees. After passing around a few bends, the light faded nearly completely, leaving Caramel in a very dark place. The coldness now felt almost... heavy. Spreading throughout his body, it was snaking down into his limbs, curling around his heart, creeping towards his brain...
He knew this path by heart, no matter how cold his heart was to become, so he traveled through the dark rather well. And when another faint light greeted him, he broke into a full gallop, rushing towards the exit of the foreboding forest.
He burst out on the other side, sudden expose of light hurting his eyes. He blinked, and found that it had not even begun to rain yet, although the air was heaven. A delicate sound of thunder rumbled across the sky, before a much louder, stronger one rushed past it. Caramel took this as a sign of him needing to stop standing there on the edge of the forest, and to head towards his destination.
He turned around, and there it was, just down the grassy slope of the hill the forest exited out on the top of. He trotted swiftly down the hill, advancing towards the large white building. It looked somewhat like Ponyville General Hospital, but... it was shorter: three stories tall. It also... felt different. The Hospital had a type of scariness to it, as if ponies who entered would not leave it. This place... it carried a pervading sense that let you know that nopony was going to leave, or at least, your chances of leaving were so slim that you might as well assume you are not going to leave. It was not a terror, like the one the Hospital possessed, but rather... a sadness.
Caramel walked past the well-kept sign that held the neat, loopy words “Ponyville Hospice” on them. He was near the glass doors, those doors that would take him to the next patient he was seeing. His last one had not been a very talkative pony. He had kept to himself, and Caramel delivered him books and newspapers, before he had passed away a week ago. Caramel had felt the sadness of seeing another pony go, but there had been no real connection between them. Caramel always felt he had to be detached, as to avoid emotional trauma every time he lost a pony.
He pushed open the glass door, and walked into the lobby. It had a few couches and some chairs, and a potted fern in one corner. In front of him was the countertop where one was to check in. A nurse sat there, absently flipping through a magazine.
Caramel coughed, and she glanced up. She nodded to him, tapping the clipboard laying on the counter. He took the quill in his teeth, signed his name on the paper under “visitation,” and set it back down. Caramel didn’t exactly work here, you see. The Hospice didn’t pay him to come and treat the patients, but they had been so grateful for his constant volunteer work that they had signed up a lease to help pay for his house, once he had decided to move back into it. Caramel felt that it was a symbiotic relationship; he came and helped them with patients, and they helped him with some of the issues in his life. He owed the Hospice anyway, who had admitted Caramel’s father free of charge so that his mother could raise him.
“Doctor Thead is near room 203, last I checked,” the nurse told him. Caramel murmured a small thank you, and left the employee to her business.
He walked through one of the archways to the side of the desk, and began his walk down the hallway. Various rooms and supply closets lined both sides, but his destination was the staircase at the very end of the hallway. Doctor Patch Thead was the head of staff at the Hospice, and was the one who decided which patients were given to Caramel. The Doctor was a stallion with a somewhat light personality, cheery even in this place of the dying. He didn’t spend a lot of time with patients, though, and was often in his office, which Caramel suspected was the reason he was able to keep such a light demeanor.
He trotted up the staircase, exiting out into the hallway on the second floor. Sure enough, there was Doctor Thead, checking a clipboard hanging on a closed door at the end of the hall.
As Caramel walked over, the doctor noticed him and smiled. “Caramel!” he announced, his voice a bit too chipper to suit the environment he was in. “Good to see you again.”
“Yeah, it’s good to be back,” Caramel said. “Well, sorta. Who do I have for my next patient?”
Doctor Thead nodded his head towards the door whose clipboard he had just been checking. “Thirty-two-year-old pegasus female. Terminal bone cancer. Most of the bone transplants failed, and they even botched up something when trying to do a transfusion, and she has a pretty bad infection, so there’s no telling which is gonna get her first. We’re running her on three thousand different pills, but that’s just going to delay the inevitable, and only for a short time.”
Caramel nodded. “Anything else I should know?”
“Yes,” the doctor noted. “She’s afraid of alarms. And by ‘afraid,’ I mean panic-attack-inducing levels of afraid, so try and make sure you don’t accidentally aggravate that.”
Caramel nodded once more. “Got it.”
“She’s all yours.” The doctor gave Caramel the clipboard with all the patient information on it, which Caramel took in his mouth. He slowly pushed open the door, and entered the dimly lit room.
The windows had curtains over them, and from the muted, static-like noise, he could tell that it had finally begun to rain outside. The figure, a pegasus with violet hair and a light grey coat that lay in the bed, was completely still, save for a few small breaths every minute or so. Her eyes were open. Blue, blue eyes, like tiny ice sheets...
He felt the coldness grab hold of his entire body, nearly dragging him down onto the floor.
Caramel cleared his throat, and the pegasus turned her head to look at the incoming Hospice worker. Caramel put down the clipboard on her bedside table, and smiled softly.
“Hello...” he looked at the clipboard to read her name, “Victory Rose? That’s a lovely name.”
She nodded, saying something in a tired sort of voice. “Yes, it’s a name that originated from far in the north.”
“It’s beautiful,” Caramel said. He meant it, too, apart from his usual flattery that he tended to work patients with. It really is.
“Well, Victory Rose,” he said, “I’m your worker. I’ll be keeping you company, fetching things you need, doing some very basic medical work, such as placing a line every now and then, or checking your vitals... which I actually have to do right now.”
Caramel busied himself into doing so. He removed the blanket, and took the required equipment from a medical cart that had been left in the room from earlier. Putting the stethoscope in his ears, Caramel put the end of the instrument to the pegasus’ chest, and began to listen.
“Alright, now breathe in...” he instructed, listening to the heartbeat and the respiratory system.
“Your hooves are freezing,” Victory said.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Caramel apologized, moving the end of the stethoscope slightly to the left. “I’ve been feeling pretty cold this morning, but I don’t really have any clear idea as to why...”
The pegasus nodded in response, and Caramel put the stethoscope back onto the cart. “Alright, your breathing seems pretty normal, I’m gonna go for blood pressure now.”
As Caramel reached for the instrument, he felt everything freeze over. Everything just seemed to be lost in a snow storm of freezing cold, like the entire room had been blanketed over in ice. When everything thawed out, he was sitting down on the chair next to Victory Rose’s bed, panting heavily.
“I think you’re the one who needs his vitals checked,” Victory said in a teasing voice.
“Nah, it’s fine,” Caramel said. “It’ll pass, I’m sure of it... What happened?”
“You took my blood pressure, but in this weird, detached way, almost as though you were sleepwalking, started tapping your hoof on my chest, then sort of wandered away towards the cart... then walked over towards the chair and started breathing heavily.” Victory looked over at him. “Doesn’t sound like it’s something that’ll just end up ‘passing.’”
“No, it’s nothing,” Caramel reassured her. “We’ve got to focus on you. Your vitals are essentially normal, and...” He exhaled loudly. “Well, now we’ve got time to talk. It’s my job, after all, to keep patients company.”
“Well, what do you usually talk about with the patients?” Victory asked, absently batting her morphine drip for a moment before stopping herself.
“About them, of course,” Caramel said with a smile. “What did you do before you fell ill?”
Victory thought for a moment. “I was a craftspony. I worked with gems in particular. I lived in Fillydelphia, but after my conditioned worsened, I asked to be transferred here to Ponyville. I grew up here.”
“When did you move?” Caramel asked.
“When I was ten, twenty-two years ago,” Victory Rose told him.
“That’s the same year around the time I was born,” Caramel said. “I didn’t move here until I was about ten myself, though, so... we missed each other by quite some time.
“What’s your family like?” he asked. This was generally a tricky question to go with, seeing as dying patients often became distraught about the thoughts of leaving their family behind, but he was getting a good feeling from this mare.
“Distant,” Victory commented. “Well, except for my son...”
“How old...” Caramel trailed off, feeling a pall of sadness fall over him. The mare was only Thirty-Two, so unless she had him when she was very young...
“Seven.”
Caramel and the mare stayed in silence, looking at each other. The rain outside pattered against the window, providing a very dreary atmosphere.
The sick mare in the bed coughed weakly, and pulled the covers up. “It’s freezing in here...”
Caramel nodded. “I know...”
But Caramel knew that his cold was from something else, something far more sinister than he could ever dare hope to imagine. Something terrifying...
“Hey, let’s see a smile,” Caramel suggested. “I think I’d love to see you smile.”
Victory Rose did not smile, however. Instead, she just stared at Caramel, looking at him, her eyes scrying, looking him over and over...
“There’s something about...” she noted, her voice trailing away as Caramel’s had done just moments before. “Bend down over me, so I can look into your eyes.”
Caramel obliged to this odd request, bending down so that the two were inches away from each other. Victory Rose smelled, predictably, of roses. Eastern Equestrian Rose, to be exact. Years of helping Roseluck in her garden had hard-wired Caramel’s nose for detecting the scents of different flowers, roses in particular.
She gazed into his eyes, and he looked back into her icy blue ones, feeling a shiver run down his spine as he did so. The temperature just kept falling and falling...
“There’s something odd about you,” she decided, and Caramel broke her gaze, moving to stand by her bed instead of leaning over her. “But I can’t decide what... there’s something wrong with your eyes...”
Caramel opened his mouth, but closed it shortly afterward, deciding to let her speak.
“And your voice... something in your tone...” She closed her eyes. “You sound so lonely, and it’s making me feel like... like I am too.”
Caramel’s eyes widened. This had never happened before! Sure, some of the patients had thought him to be too much of an overbearing presence, but none of them had ever had a problem with his voice...
“But you’re not alone,” he reminded her. “I’m here. That’s my job, to make you feel less...” he paused, blinking a few times. “Alone.”
“I think you should leave,” she told him. “I’ve got to sleep anyway.” The pegasus rolled over so that she was no longer facing the hospice worker beside her, and relaxed.
Caramel sat back down in his chair, denying Victory’s request. He simply watched her as she drifted off to sleep. After a good thirty minutes of sitting and thinking, slowly growing used to the cold feeling in the room, Caramel stood up.
Looking down at the patient he was to take care of, he felt something inside him that he hadn’t felt with his special somepony for ages, and something that pained him every time he looked at Roseluck.
Love.
He had no idea why he was feeling this. He already had to deal with... her at home, who he was supposed to love, and he was already being hurt by the love with Roseluck which could never be...
He barely knew her, too. However, many ponies spoke of love at first sight, and could this be it? There was something so wonderful that drew him to her; maybe she had what his special somepony lacked, and was able to love him back...
Judging by her comments, it was going to need some work, however. Besides, he hadn’t already given up on his special somepony, had he? What kind of pony would he be if he had abandoned her already, only after a few months? No, he would have to find a way to make that work.
But as he stared down at the pony sleeping in the bed before him, he also knew that he couldn’t ignore the feelings for her. He would have to develop something with her over the time he cared for her, that’s what he would have to do.
He casually glanced around, noticing that it was lunchtime already. Turning to leave, his eyes fell on the clipboard that lay on Victory’s bedside table.
“Terminal...”
The room became colder.
Sylvia
I dread every time she wakes up...
Caramel sat down in the lunchroom on the first floor, picking at his daisy sandwich. He didn’t feel all that hungry;his insides contorted into terrible knots of dread. Blinking down at his lunch, he heaved a sigh, and turned his head to look out the window.
The window would have provided a lovely view of the forest he had gone through to reach the hospice, had it not been pouring rain. Birds fluttered about the tops of the trees, darting in and out through the downpour, little blurred blobs through the obscured landscape.
“Doing some introspecting?”
Caramel looked up and saw Doctor Thead next to him. He was balancing a plate of hay fries on his head. It was very odd; every time Caramel saw Doctor Thead eating—which admittedly wasn’t very often—he was always eating hay fries. Nothing else.
“Yeah, I guess,” Caramel said, sighing. Leaning one hoof against his cheek, he continued to watch the rain splash against the window pane.
“New patient get to you?” Doctor Thead asked, his voice somewhat softer than the joking voice that had asked him the first question.
Caramel nodded. “A bit, yeah... She’s very odd. Still, I like her.”
“Yeah, she’s a bit of an oddball, that one,” Doctor Thead confirmed. “She had a different hospice worker before you, you know that?”
Caramel perked up in interest. “What? She did?”
“Yup,” Doctor Thead confirmed. “Interesting girl, had a very elegant mane. Don’t think she was from around here... then again, I don’t go into town very often, so I wouldn’t know.” The Doctor laughed, then sat down across the table from Caramel.
“That’s weird...” Caramel said. “After lunch, I guess I’ll go back up and ask her about it. We didn’t do too much talking; it was a really peculiar experience.”
“Indeed,” Doctor Thead said. “Probably why the last mare left. She only made it about two weeks, poor girl. They seemed to hit it off otherwise, and then she just... stopped coming.”
“That’s really bizarre,” Caramel said, arching an eyebrown. “I’ll definitely talk to her after I eat; that’s something that warrants a bit of investigation.”
“You do that,” Thead said, munching on a fry. “I’ve got some work to do with a few other patients, and then I have to fill out some paperwork. Boring stuff, you know?”
Caramel smiled weakly, then looked down at his sandwich. He wasn’t really hungry, but figured that he would need the strength at any rate, so he took a bite. It was older than he had estimated that morning, and was rather dry. The daisies also had a peculiar taste to them, a weird sort of texture that felt as though it were paper on his tongue. Still, it was better than nothing, so he took another bite.
“How’s your other job?” Doctor Thead asked, popping another hay fry into his mouth with a hoof.
“Pretty good, I suppose,” Caramel responded, taking another unsatisfactory bite of his sandwich. “I’ve got the day off today, which is why I was here so earlier.”
Doctor Thead swallowed his fries, then asked another question: “How’s that Bon Bon mare? Haven’t seen her since she was really young, when her sister was in here.”
Caramel felt a twinge of sadness; Bon Bon’s sister had died from bone cancer at the age of ten. He had remembered when it had happened, Bon Bon leaving school early, the cloud of sorrow that had hung over the school for the rest of the month. She had been fighting the cancer since she was eight, and everypony was desperately hoping she would make it. Caramel regretted not becoming better friends with her, despite seeing her regularly on the playground. Hell, he hadn’t even been Bon Bon’s friend until they started working together, right after they finished their schooling.
“She’s doing fine,” Caramel said, swallowing a lump in his throat that had nothing to do with the daisy sandwich. “Business is going pretty well, and it’s great to see all the foals rushing in after school to spend their allowances.”
“You supply Sugarcube Corner, too, right?”
“Yeah,” Caramel said. “Although, between you and me, I think it’s just Pinkie ordering our stuff in bulk.” He laughed halfheartedly, the feeling of unease and sorrow still stuck to him. “Would explain why she’s so hyper all the time, wouldn’t it?”
Doctor Thead nodded, smiling a bit. The two didn’t talk much after that, and instead just dug into their respective lunches. By the time Caramel had finished the last bite of his disappointing sandwich, the rain had let up a bit. It was still pouring pretty hard, but he could make out shapes beyond the window a bit clearer.
“Alright,” he said, turning to Doctor Thead, who was eyeing his last fry predatorily. “I’m going to head back up to Victory’s room. See you around.”
“See you around,” Thead said. As Caramel got up to leave, his head darted down, and the last fry disappeared in an instant.
The walk to Victory Rose’s room was a solemn one. Caramel thought about all the emotions boiling and tearing through his insides, spinning his guts into intricate knots and clumps. He already had a special somepony, and was in deep love with another... why did he have to fall for this fragile, dying pegasus? He knew, deep within himself, that this was going to end terribly. His mind, however, had masked that knowledge with feelings that Caramel knew all too well.
He was at her door now. Room 207, the room where his patient lay beyond. He carefully opened the door, and took in the dimly lit place. Victory Rose might have still been sleeping, but with her back turned, he couldn’t tell. Other then that, the room had stayed... essentially the same. The coldness in Caramel, which he thought he had gotten used to, cleaved down through him like a swiftly swung axe. He shivered, and entered the room.
Walking over, quietly, to the other side of her bed, he checked to see if her eyes were open. They were not, instead thin lids covered her large eyes. Caramel sighed, a bit loudly, and her eyes fluttered open.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Caramel said, blushing. “Did I wake you? I didn’t mean to wake you, it was just that I was in here watching you sleep and—” He stopped, realizing what he had just said. Blushing even more furiously, he attempted to correct himself, “I mean, I wasn’t watching you sleep like that, I was just—”
“You seem more jittery than before,” Victory said, looking up him, expression sleepy and neutral. “More nervous. Did something happen?”
“What?” Caramel said, confused. “No, nothing happened, it’s just...”
“Well, whatever, it’s not that big a deal,” Victory said, shrugging slightly, wiggling about under her blankets in an attempt to get more comfortable. “While I’m up, might as well do something. Can you get me my book?”
“Your book?” Caramel asked.
“Yes, my book. It’s on the bedside table.”
Caramel walked around the bed, and checked the bedside table. Indeed, there was a book, which he must have missed last time he was checking the table. He checked the spine, reading the book title out loud:
“The Jared Bell,” he said. “What’s it about?”
“It’s about a mare who struggles with mental illness,” Victory said simply. “It’s not a ‘feel-good’ story. Sometimes I do like to read about ponies that are worse off than me.”
“That’s... vaguely disturbing,” Caramel noted, and picked up the book in his mouth.
“Well, what’d you expect? I’m dying; let me have a bit of freedom with my enjoyment.”
Caramel left the book on Victory’s bed, just next to her. The pegasus picked it up with her hooves, and flipped to the bookmarked page, towards the very end. Caramel trotted back to the chair that was up next to her bed, and sat down, watching her read. The pegasus could read fairly quickly; about once a minute, she was turning a page, flipping through the book almost systematically.
Caramel didn’t know what else to do, truthfully. He just sat there, watching her read. After a few moments, Victory set down the book, and looked over at Caramel.
“You’re staring at me.”
Caramel blushed again. “I’m sorry.”
Victory Rose smiled. “It’s alright. You just looked like you wanted to talk about something, is all.”
“Yeah, I did have a question, actually,” Caramel said.
Victory shrugged. “Sure, I’ve got some time. Ask away.”
“How was she?”
Victory Rose was silent. She looked first at Caramel, then turned to look at the window, the rain still making its rhythmic pitter-patter. She then looked down at the book in her hooves, and finally back at Caramel again. It felt as though a bucket of ice water had just been dumped on Caramel’s head. He couldn’t help but shiver.
“She was... nice.”
Caramel cocked his head. “Nice? That’s all?”
“Why, should there be more?” Victory said, a bit defensively.
“No, not at all,” Caramel hurriedly said. “It’s just... well, she was only your worker for a few weeks, wasn’t she?”
“That’s right,” Victory confirmed. “Just two. Why do you want to know? What, do you think I think she’s better than you?”
“Well,” Caramel said, blushing even harder. “I mean, I don’t know, that could have been the—”
“Because if that is what you are asking me, then you would be right,” Victory said. “I do think she’s better than you.”
Caramel stopped talking, and gave Victory an apprehensive look. The pegasus smiled, which was the first time Caramel had seen her do so. “I’m kidding, of course. You seem to be pretty decent for a hospice worker.”
“Thanks,” Caramel said, his twisted insides twisting around themselves even more.
“Hm, I guess you were right,” Victory said, still smiling faintly. “The smile did help.”
Caramel laughed nervously, and Victory smiled back at him. The mare returned to reading her book, which left Caramel awkwardly glancing at her now and again.
After about ten minutes, Victory flipped the last page of her book, and closed it. Glancing up, she saw Caramel still looking at her.
“Do you want it?”
“What?” Caramel asked.
“The book,” she said, balancing it on one of her hooves, holding it out towards him. “You can read it if you want. I’m going back to sleep anyway; these medications make me really tired.”
“Um,” Caramel muttered, confused. He leaned over and took the book in his mouth, then dropped it onto his lap. It opened up about halfway through the book, and Caramel closed it quickly, as not to gather any random fragments of the story. He opened it, and tried to start on the first page, but found it to be blank. Same with the second and third pages. On the fourth page, however, there was a title page, and on the fifth a dedication, and finally, on page six, the book started.
Caramel read through two pages of the book before bookmarking it and then closing it. Sure, it was interesting, but he just didn’t feel like he was in the reading mood. Casting a gaze back to Victory Rose, he saw her to be asleep, her chest rising up and down rhythmically, softly, as she breathed.
Caramel took the book in his mouth and stepped out of the room. As he made his way to the stairs, the only sounds in the lonely hallway were his own breathing and the rhythmic tapping on his hooves on the tile floor. Halfway down the stairs, he stopped and shivered as another cold draft tore through his muscles and chilled the marrow in his bones.
When he had readed the lobby, the nurses had switched, and it was one he did not recognize at the counter. He put the book down on the counter and looked at her; she looked back up at him, and asked, “Checking out?”
“Yeah,” he confirmed. The nurse nodded at him.
“Alright, I’ll make a note of it.”
“Don’t I usually sign the sheet of paper where I checked in?” Caramel asked, looking around the counter for the paper.
“I took it down, I’ll just write it in for you,” the nurse said. “You can go if you want.”
Caramel nodded, and took the book back up in his mouth. Slowly walking towards the glass doors, he pulled it open with one hoof, then walked outside. He stopped right underneath the awning of the building, looking out at the world around him. The rain had decreased to a light drizzle, but the clouds in the sky remained.
It was far too risky to head through the forest; the rain would have covered the trees, and even though it was merely drizzling now, the water from the leaves and branches would fall down on him every time a breeze rolled through, drenching him and the book. No, he would have to head through town.
Caramel sighed, and walked down the designated path that lead from the door. This path lead right into town, and the outskirts of Ponyville were right in sight. It would only be a short five-minute walk, and he would be trotting right through town.
Caramel kept his head down as he entered town, shielding the book from as much rain as he could.His eyes, however, darted around Ponyville as he approached the Town Center. Ponies were out, although not as many as usual; he suspected this was due to the storm; most ponies didn’t want to be out in the rain, except...
“HIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHI!” Caramel didn’t even have time to brace himself as he was tackled by a giant, wet, pink blur. He landed flat on his back in the mud, the filth splashing everywhere, yet the book miraculously stayed undamaged.
“Mmmgh!” Caramel said, dropping the book out of his mouth, where it slid safely onto his chest. “Pinkie!” He said now that his mouth was unobstructed, somewhat annoyed. Pinkie was soaked, dripping bits of water all over Caramel. He had to forget to make sure the book escaped the small drops cascading from the pink pony.
“Heya, Caramel!” Pinkie Pie said, grinning big enough to fill up her entire face. “I haven’t seen you around in ages! Where’ya been? What’ve ya been up to? How’s Bon Bon? Your caramels are as good as ever, by the way! How come you’ve got that stunned look on your face?”
Caramel had been living in the town since he was ten, but he still hadn’t gotten used to Pinkie Pie. She had moved to the town when he was twelve, and he still remembered the first time she introduced herself. He swore that his hearing had never been the same since then.
“Well?” Pinkie said, cocking her head. “Is something wrong? Oh no! Are you sad? I can’t have one of my best friends being sad! I’ll throw you a party to cheer you up right away! There’ll be cake and balloons and everypony’ll show up and—”
“Pinkie!” Caramel said loudly, stopping Pinkie’s manic rambling. “I’m fine, trust me! You just startled me, that’s all.”
Pinkie Pie blushed. “Whoops! Sorry about that. I was just really really really really really really reallyreallyreallyreallyreallyREALLYREALLYREALLY happy to see you!”
Caramel smiled. “Well, it’s been nice to see you too. I’ve actually got to get home now, so—”
“What’s this?” Pinkie picked up The Jared Bell in her hooves, and looked it over.
“It’s just a book I picked up,” Caramel said. “But Pinkie, I’ve really got to—”
“Hey, I’ve seen this before!” Pinkie said in a tone that conveyed both excitement and curiosity. “But where have I seen it before?”
“I don’t know, at Twilight’s library?” Caramel said, his annoyance mounting. “Pinkie, I’ve seriously got to get home now, I need you to—”
“OOOOOOOH!” Pinkie shouted very loudly, causing Caramel to clutch his ears. “I know where I’ve seen this before!”
“Y-you do?” the pinned pony asked, slightly disoriented from the yell.
“Yup!” Pinkie Pie said with a smile. “It’s Rarity’s!”
Caramel walked down the path to his front door. The whole time he had gone to head home, he had thought about what Pinkie had said. He had tried questioning her about it, but after half-an-hour of unintelligent banter, he got nowhere, and to top it off was roped into another hour of random discussion with Pinkie, and had to head to Sugar Cube Corner to talk to Mrs. Cake about a new caramel cake, per Pinkie’s request.
When he finally got home, evening was giving way to twilight, and the clouds had cleared enough to let the last rays of the sun shine through. A cold breeze wafted in from the Everfree, and Caramel shivered. His teeth would have chattered had Rarity’s book not been clenched tight in his mouth.
He thought it over some more as he grew ever closer to his house. What did this all mean? Was Rarity the one who been with Victory Rose before him? And if so, why was Victory being so secretive about it? This couldn’t lead to anything good...
He stopped, his door right in front of him. Carefully, he opened it with a hoof, and slowly entered the room. He hoped that he would be lucky, and that she had gone to sleep very early, but that was not the case. Hell, in the back of his mind, he had known that she would be awake, and he would have to suffer through the torment that would follow.
“Where the hell have you been?” asked the angry unicorn sitting in the dining room. Her light blue coat was matted down in places, as though water had been poured on it, and her mane was disheveled, the large white streak intermingling with the darker blue on either side. Her deep blue eyes sunk into Caramel, but he did not shiver with the cold as he had done with Victory Rose.
“Hello, Minuette,” Caramel said, after her put down his book on the table.
“Answer me,” she said, still glowering at him. “Where the hell have you been?”
“I had a day off,” Caramel said casually, his eye twitching. He struggled to keep his voice level, but the emotion underneath threatened to boil to the surface at any second. “Spent it elsewhere.”
“Sure you did,” Minuette said, rolling her eyes. “Where did you go?”
“Hospice,” Caramel said, mumbling a bit.
“Where?”
“Hospice,” he said louder, trying not to sound sarcastic. Minuette looked him over, then looked at the book, and then back at him. Caramel held his breath, wondering if she thought he was lying, but evidently he had passed her test; she sighed, then looked off towards the kitchen.
“You should be working as much as you can at the shop,” Minuette told him. “We need money, and my job can’t pull in all of the cash we need.”
“Well, I got a new patient at the hospice, anyway,” Caramel said, trying to be inviting and engaging with his tone. Minuette, however, did not pick up on this.
“New patient? I never understood why you go there. They’re all just going to die anyway,” she said crassly. “What’s the point?”
“My father was in that hospice,” Caramel said quietly. “And so was Bon Bon’s sister.”
“You’re just there for sentiment?” Minuette said in a haughty tone. “That’s a complete waste of time.”
“No it isn’t!” Caramel said indignantly. “I help those who are dying be more comfortable on their way out; I give them companionship, and I make sure that their last days are as nice as possible! It’s not a waste of time, especially not with my new patient. She’s very sweet, and I—”
“She?” Minuette said, cutting Caramel off. Her voice was dangerously quiet, and Caramel could feel a sinking feeling of despair.
“Um, yes?”
Minuette glared at him. “So, is that why you’re down there at the hospice? To see other mares? I swear to Celestia, Caramel, I will—”
“No, it’s not that!” Caramel said hastily. “I swear! I’m only down there to make them as comfortable as possible; besides, the last pony I took care of was an old stallion. Use your brain, Minuette.”
“Don’t talk to me like that,” Minuette said harshly.
Caramel looked down at his hooves. “Alright, I’m sorry then.”
“You better be,” Minuette said. Her tone conveyed all too well that she wasn’t joking. She stood up from the table and walked over to Caramel, brushing up against him. “Also, you’re a lucky one tonight; I’m in the mood, so you should probably get on dinner. It’ll probably be the only time this week you’ll get anything.”
“Oh, joy,” Caramel couldn’t help saying. He quickly clapped his hoof to his mouth, but Minuette glared at him anyway.
“Excuse me?” she growled, seething, her eyes bearing down on him. Caramel shrunk down, glancing to his side.
“Well, I mean, would it kill you to make dinner once?” Caramel asked, his voice nearly a plead with the angry mare above him. “I remember when we first started going out together, you made the best dinners... that never happens anymore! I want you to cook something for me again, just once.”
Minuette gave Caramel a shocked look. “I work my flank off all the damned day, and I ask you to do something you usually do anyway, and you have the nerve to talk back to me? Caramel, I swear to Celestia...”
Caramel stood his ground, his expression never wavering. He grit his teeth, and opened his mouth to speak, but Minuette cut him off once again.
“Caramel, I’m getting tired of this crap. You can’t just treat me like this, you know how stressful it is with all the work I have to do at the office. There’s the patients, the paperwork, and the god damn workers... and you know my condition. You’re just like everypony else who’s screwed me over! I swear, you get me so ANGRY!”
Caramel couldn’t stop it even if he wanted to. Minuette threw herself against him, and he lost his balance. He fell, almost as if slow motion, towards the table. His head smashed against the side, and it was filled with breaking glass and bright lights. The stallion collapsed on the floor, feeling something warm drip over his forehead and into his eyes.
“Sorry,” he heard a voice say from above, but it didn’t sound very sorry at all. Caramel tried to blink the blood from his eyes, and tears formed as he did so. The throbbing in his head was so excruciating that he had to keep his eyes shut tight.
After a moment, he felt something light fall onto his side. Minuette’s voice came from above him, still somewhat scornful. “Here’s some gauze. Clean yourself up and make dinner. I need to go lay down.”
Caramel opened his eyes, this time successful in blinking away the tears and blood. He struggled to his hooves, and looked down at the role of gauze Minuette dropped onto him. He debated calling after her, to say something more, but Caramel was frightened; he was frightened of her rage, he was frightened of her violence, he was frightened... of her.
Cringing, he walked to the kitchen. He was so distraught by the cut that he didn’t even notice Rarity’s book missing from the table. He entered the kitchen, and walked swiftly across it to the sink. Once there, he lifted a hoof and turned on some hot water. He watched it, listlessly, as it spilled from the faucet.
He bent down, and ran his forehead under the warm water, sighing in contentment as the water soothed his stinging laceration. After the wound was cleaned, he looked down in the water that had collected in the basin of the sink. His rippling reflexion revealed a rather large gash that started at the center of his forehead, and that continued down to rest right above his left eye. Caramel groaned; that was going to scar, for sure.
Wrapping the gauze around his hoof, he took the other end in his teeth, tearing a bit from the rest of the roll. Slowly, he wrapped it around his head, so now he resembled some sort of sorry excuse for a rebel, or at the very least, looked like some kind of failed punk.
Sighing, he walked to the fridge to prepare dinner.
She was already asleep by the time he finished dinner. He had walked upstairs to find her passed out on the bed, sleeping on top of the covers. He looked over her body laying there, and suddenly she was replaced with Victory Rose—the morphine alarms of the room scaring her while he froze in place, slowly becoming an ice statue.
As soon as the vision had come, it had gone, and Caramel was only standing there, alone, while Minuette slept on the bed, her chest rising up and down in a steady, healthy rhythm.
“Oh, Minuette,” Caramel whispered to the dark room, and his sleeping special somepony. “Can’t you see what you’re doing to me?”
Minuette merely grunted in her sleep, and rolled over, hugging the pillow. Caramel shook his head. His voice didn’t seem to be doing any good lately, alienating Victory Rose, making her feel so alone, angering Minuette, no matter how hard he tried not to...
“What’s happening to us, Minuette?” Caramel asked the sleeping pony softly. “We argue all the time, our relationship is almost nothing but angry sex... we can barely stand to be in the same room as one another! We can’t carry on like this; we’ve got to do something!”
Minuette said nothing, her slumber undisturbed. Caramel, however, continued his tirade, uncaring that she didn’t hear him. In fact, he was glad that she couldn’t. He could say everything.
“You’re mean; you really are. There’s no excuse in that you’ve got a stressful job, or about whatever happened to you when you were younger. I feel bad that it happened to you—I really do—and I feel bad that ponies at your work don’t treat you right, but you cannot take it out on me! You are becoming violent, uncaring, and you are not the mare I fell for anymore.” Caramel took a deep breath. “In fact, you’ve driven me away so much that I fell for another another mare! It’s the one in the hospice, like you thought, although I’m not cheating on you. She doesn’t know it yet, but...”
Caramel stopped, panting. Minuette lay on the bed, quiet as ever. Knowing he could never do this otherwise, Caramel let the words slip from his mouth.
“I love Victory Rose!” He loudly proclaimed. Caramel stopped talking, and waited quietly, half expecting Minuette to leap awake and kill him right there. It never happened, though, and Caramel smiled a sad, yet victorious smile. Only now, after his great rant, did he begin to feel the weariness of the day.
Trotting over to the other side of the bed, he laid down on the sheets. The window, which was on Caramel’s side of the room, was open. A night-time breeze rolled in, cooling off Caramel, who had worked himself up when shouting at the sleeping pony beside him. Minuette, however, shivered, and Caramel frowned. Carefully, he moved the blankets out from underneath the unicorn, and placed them over her. She smiled, and so did Caramel. Gently, he kissed her on the forehead.
“Why can’t you always be like this?” he whispered. “Quiet, happy...”
Caramel lay back on the bed, resting his head on the pillow. Minuette snuggled herself up in the blankets, and Caramel noticed for the first time that The Jared Bell was laying on the bed.
Taking it in his hooves, he rested it on his chest. Taking another look at Minuette, he said the last words of the night to her.
“I hate how I can only talk to you when you sleep, pretending that you’ll listen...”
Caramel turned on the bedside lamp, and started to read from The Jared Bell.
