Paparazzi crowded the street, their obtrusive intrusive cameras flashing bulbs, large lenses pushing in as the press ponies jostled to get photos of the mare who would be stepping out of the carriage.
“It’s raining buckets, how fitting.” The grey mare in the carriage commented to herself. The stallion sat across from didn’t hear or at least chose not to respond. His job was to protect the mare from the vultures outside; he would be back in action in moments.
As rain hammered onto the cobbles, washing around the hooves of the crowd, the carriage ponies forced their way through and around to the back of the building. Sturdy griffons held back the tide of following journalists. At the back entrance the carriage halted and the stallion hopped out, an umbrella in his magical aura. He led the mare out with a helping hoof and sheltered her from the rain.
“I could have done with the water.” She mused to herself, “A useful camouflage for tears.” The thought prompted more rivulets of salty water to track down her face, she had given up trying to stem the flow or even dab it off. Taking one last look at the grey sky beyond the umbrella, wistful for the blue she had always enjoyed, she entered the imposing building.
Inside she was ushered away by neatly dressed officials from the record label, from the personal protection company and those in charge of security for the city centre complex. Signs and notices passed in a blur as the protective buffer of ponies made a current that the grey mare was pulled along by.
Her mind, virtually shut off a mere twelve hours ago when the news reached her, was now closing itself further. Scabbing over to protect her from damage and give her time to heal, avoiding the reality of the situation she had been thrust into.
It was ripped off and exposed to the truth she desperately wanted to avoid in short order. They had arrived at her destination and her idle fruitless search for blue skies had caused her to read a sign.
ICU One. Unicorn Ward.
The typeface was bland and functional, the colour neutral and approved to be psychologically undemanding. In the grey mare’s mind it was worse than the most shock horror poster ever designed.
With that, everything she had sought to avoid rushed in. The sounds of silent suffering, the beep and hiss of machines that had to take up the slack in terribly damaged bodies, the muted speech of medical professionals and her entourage of protectors. Outside, the sound of falling rain and crowds of persistent insistent press managed to penetrate the building. The scents of Royal Canterlot Hospital reached her too, from the inescapable cleaning fluids and cheap coffee to the smell of the food for the more well that permeated the building.
She stumbled on thin air and let out a cry, her escort caught her before she hit the floor, he gave her a small expression of sympathy, offering his shoulder as support. His was not the shoulder she wanted though. That, that was beyond the door they now faced.
As a scrubbed up stallion opened the plain door the mare wanted to scream at him to stop, to just let her live in the world of before. A hoarse whimper was all that escaped her, more tears raced down her face. The door swung open and her legs failed.
It was a private room, the status of the patient called for that much. A hefty griffon guard glanced across from his station at the window; he nodded acknowledgement as the doctor and the visitor entered, only allowing the mare’s assistant entry to help her in. The strong stallion carried her to a chair beside the room’s only bed. She slid bonelessly onto it, the tight control she had been maintaining cut by the sight before her.
The patient was prone on the bed; back down on the mattress with a light sheet laid up to the chest, wires leading away to a heart monitor. Her forelegs were laid over the sheet, a tube snaked from just above her hoof to a drip beside the bed. Her hair was stringy, more a mess than usual and bereft of the vibrancy it usually held. She was pale, she was always pale being white furred and mostly nocturnal but now the grey mare could almost see through her coat and skin, transparent virtually, the deep blue lines of veins tracing a network of life across her body.
On the chair the grey mare hoisted herself up to lay her head on the unencumbered leg. She couldn’t bring herself to look to the left side of the bedbound unicorn. The side swathed in bandages.
“Vinyl…” She breathed to the comatose mare in the bed.
-*-
Everypony knew in all of Equestria that magic couldn’t affect steel or iron. Their properties were anathema to the force that ran through all ponies. Equestrian made iron and steel products had additional compounds or coatings to allow manipulation by the innate magic of unicorns, earth ponies and pegasi. Things manufactured outside of Equestria didn’t, import conditions demanded they were coated before use but this could be expensive.
The atmospheric rig was a piece from the Minotaur Principality, it had been brought in cheaply and given only a cursory inspection before installation. The control panel and loading doors had been treated for magical manipulation. The superstructure and internal framework, hidden away and unchecked, had not.
When the gig began something had gone wrong. High volumes of gas from decaying dried ice had built up in a tank instead of bathing the crowd in mist. Nopony noticed, the ice continued to decay, the pressure built up. Finally the pressure exploded the tank, driving an untreated bolt out with gunshot force.
A basic unicorn magic shield cast by an out of shape DJ more skilled in running a music rig was no match for a solid steel bolt.
Nor was flesh and bone.
-*-
Octavia only half listened to the doctor speaking, she knew that her trusted guardian would relay it to her when she could bear to hear. She understood the gist of what the medical professional was saying.
The steel bolt had driven through fur, skin, muscle, bone and organ clear through Vinyl’s upper left side. It had missed her heart by near molecular distance, brushing past that vital muscle and the arteries that serviced it. Her lung hadn’t been so lucky, punctured by the explosively propelled steel and peppered by shattered rib bone.
The trajectory of the bolt sent it at an angle through her body, entering perilously close to her heart, through her lung and out just above her left shoulder, cracking and chipping the bones at the joint and tearing a horrible exit wound.
The gas that escaped wrought a toll also, carbon dioxide, inimical to life had flooded the stage. For long moments the stricken performer, body shocked by grievous wounds, was left to inhale the toxic gas, for it to seep within her wounds and cells.
Vinyl would wake from the medical coma to laboured breathing for weeks and possibly a limp for the rest of her life.
But she had survived. Octavia thanked the sisters, thanked harmony and chaos and all things, that the stupid, vapid, vacant, perfect unicorn had held onto life with such tenacity. Thanked the moon and stars and the elements that Princess Luna herself had been in the crowd, had taken stock of the accident and the injury. Had used her power to seal the bleeding wounds and to teleport the mare from Stalliongrad Arena into the Royal Canterlot hospital, using her authority in galvanizing the staff into action to treat the casualty.
That the princess herself had then travelled across the city to an apartment only to find its occupant not present. That She had then had personally tracked down the cellist to inform her about the situation had been beyond comprehension for the mare for some time. She had been leaving a practice session when the lunar diarch had caught her and broken the news. She had shut down there and then.
The lunar guard had tracked down her agent, her elder cousin; he had stayed beside her since then. During the long hours forced to remain home as the surgery was underway. Escorting her through the gathered press outside the apartment building to the arranged carriage. Now he stood taking stock of the situation with the doctor while Octavia cried.
“How much longer…” A whispering voice, her own, uttered.
“Two days. We have to let her body heal and the magic flow through her in peace.” The doctor had a kindly tone and a gentle hoof to the grey mare’s shoulder eased her worries a little.
-*-
Some quiet time later Octavia was curled in the chair, sleeping beneath a blanket. Close to Vinyl, close to the mare she hadn’t told how much she loved enough. Octavia’s sleep was more an exhausted collapse than an effort at rest; she had forced herself to stand vigil until fatigue had dropped her to the chair.
She slept an entire day. So deeply she slept that the medical staff was able to work around her without risk, they at one point even removed the patient for treatment and returned her to the room. Bass was glad his cousin was sleeping; he had been unable to convince her right up until her sudden drop off.
Octavia woke to the sound of hard won breaths and the light shuffling of a doctor and nurse. “Hey sleeping beauty.” The nurse smiled to Octavia. “We’re just checking how she is without the oxygen mask.” She rounded the bed to speak with the cellist. “If this goes well we can remove the sleep spell.” She smiled again as the grey mare, still muzzy from sleep, softly grinned.
“So, she’ll be ok?” Octavia spoke slowly, her exhausted body had recharged but her mind was slow to react.
“Honey, if she is breathing ok then she’ll be good.” The nurse turned back to work, the doctor seemed to be having positive results. The pair left the room and Bass came in.
“Hey Octavia, they told me you just woke up.” He lowered his head level with hers.
“Mmm hmm, how long did I sleep?”
“A day and a half cousin, you were so worked up and awake so long that everything shut up shop at once.” He nuzzled her lightly. “The doctor who was in here just now is fetching his colleague, they’re going to wake Vinyl up.” The beam in Octavia’s eyes was palpable. Despite her mussed coat and disarrayed mane she was unbelievably happy.
-*-
Ten minutes later the spell had been removed and the room was waiting with bated breath.
Then, the white unicorn on the bed moved a little. A croaking groan escaped her cracked lips. “Tavi…” The earth pony mare shot into view, gazing lovingly at the crimson eyes slowly revealing themselves.
“I’m here Vi.” Her voice cracked with emotion.
“I… hurt like buck in all the worst ways…” The DJ whispered. She felt a muzzle pressing under her chin and little wet spots hit her coat.
“But you are alive…” She heard Octavia say. The last remembered events rattled through her mind and she lifted her not-painful leg up to hug the cellist.
“Yeah, hard…. Harder to get rid of than that.” She wanted to laugh and cry and scream all at once, the memory of the world fading away as her left side burned with pain and blood soaked her fur. “Love you Octavia Philharmonic.” She mouthed out, the rumble of vocalisation transferring to the sobbing grey mare buried against her.
Octavia felt it amongst the blessed thumps of Vinyl’s heartbeat. “I love you so, so much you silly unicorn.” She whispered.
“Tavi…” She said a little louder.
“Yes love?” Octavia looked up and Vinyl got a good view of her purple eyes, streaming with tears.
”Could, could you kiss it better?” She grinned her cheesiest grin. Octavia let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob before wrapping her lips around Vinyl’s, peppering smaller pecks whenever she drew away.
-Six Months Later-
Early spring still held the chill of winter, the cold air prodding the scars on her lung with little icy knives. Vinyl winced and used her magic to tug the drawstrings of her charcoal coloured hoodie tighter. Two grey hooves slid over her from behind, guiding a blue striped scarf around her neck and tying it up. Soft lips kissed the back of her ear which twitched happily at the contact. “I think you’ll still need this a little while Vi.” Octavia said, lowering her front hooves to the ground once more.
“Looks like it.” She smiled and glanced to her lover, “But so long as you’re still with me I’ll keep warm enough.” She knew it was naff, un-cool and a little sappy. Once upon a time she would have cringed at others even suggesting such phrases. But after the fading floating moment all those months ago on a cold unfeeling stage, Vinyl Scratch took every opportunity to tell her love just how much she meant to her. Octavia smiled and blushed, pressing a kiss to a white cheek.
“Love you Vinyl.” She whispered as they set off again. The unicorn’s stiff joint kept them slow but the cellist followed the pace without complaint. After all, she was grateful to still have the mare close.
The couple made their way through the streets, soon lost in a city crowd, heedless of the bustle so long as they were together.
Author's Note
So, that took an hour to write. I just had the idea when listening to music.
