I opened my eyes to nothing but pitch black. The moon had been there when Lilac and I had gone to sleep, but it wasn’t here now, nor were the stars. I rose slowly to my hooves and peered into the darkness, hoping to see something, anything. I put my hoof in front of my face and was appalled that I could just barely make out the silhouette of it. I dropped my hoof and felt around slowly with narrowed eyes. “Lilac?”

I couldn’t feel her anywhere. I frowned worriedly. “Li? You there?” I shut my mouth and strained my ears forward, trying desperately to hear an answer, but there was none. I walked forward a bit. “Did you need to pee?” I called out the question. I sighed. I wished I could see.

Wait. Unicorn. Right.

With a roll of my eyes, I sparked my horn into a light pink aura. “What the--”

This wasn’t the place I’d fallen asleep. There were no trees, no grass, not even a sky! The floor was pitch black and cold; it felt like concrete. There were no walls, just… open space.

“Where am I?” I whispered to myself.

I walked forward slowly, calling out Lilac’s name now and again but receiving no answer. Where could she be? “Lilac?” I called out again.

I brightened my aura a little to make the light stretch further, and the view was the same. Black on the floor, fading black around me. Weird.

My steady trot continued for a little bit before turning into a jog, then into a full blown gallop as the unease crawled quicker up my spine. “Li! Lilac, where are you?”

“Sparky?”

“Li?” I skidded to a halt and pricked my ears. I held my breath as I waited for a reply.

“Sparkler, help!” a tiny voice finally cracked.

“I’m comin’, Li!” I shouted. I doubled my speed as I continued running. I didn’t like the tone in her voice. She’d sounded scared, stressed, and panicked; three adjectives I would never want to associate with a filly.

“Li-- oof!” The light of my horn faded as ran face-first into something solid and fell to the ground, landing squarely on my back and smacking the back of my head on the ground. I groaned in agony and lay there for a moment, trying to get it into my head what had just happened. I kept my eyes open and gritted my teeth, staring at the yawning blackness above me. “What was that…?”

I stood shakily and lit my horn again. Like before, there was nothing ahead but void. “Hm,” I hummed as I stuck out a hoof. It wasn’t even fully extended before it hit something solid. I stepped back, mouth agape. It was a wall, a wall that was indistinguishable from the rest of the open area around me. I squinted into the darkness, trying to see some sort of silhouette that might suggest an edge. I didn’t find one, which was a bit of a relief. I would have been really friggin’ embarrassed if I’d managed to run into a small object such as a piece of ceiling hanging down or something

“For Luna’s sake,” I sighed with a grimace. Trying to ignore the throbbing in my head, I turned and began a quick trot, keeping the wall to my left. “Lilac!”

“We’re over here, Sparky,” a taunting, gruff voice called.

I froze, a cold sweat breaking out on my neck. That wasn’t Lilac.

A brown shape emerged from the blackness and stepped into the light of my aura. It was Auto, and wrapped in his grasp was a wriggling, pastel-colored filly.

"Au-auto," I stuttered. I stared at the stallion, my eyes never leaving the hoof he had around Lilac's neck.

"Spark-egh!" Lilac's plea was cut off by the hoof tightening around her. "He's hurting me!"

"Let her go!" I screamed.

Auto laughed. "Or what?"

I didn't respond. Lilac stared at me through a horrified gaze. Her tiny wings fluttered helplessly and her tail whipped the air. Her back hooves were barely touching the ground.

"You're weak," Auto taunted. His orange eyes gleamed. I stepped back when I saw something move behind him: two shadowed figures emerged and stood on either side of Auto and Lilac. Their blue eyes were like chips of ice and the bloodlust practically crackled in the air around us.

My eyes darted between them before shooting back to Auto as he raised Lilac off the ground.

"Help!"

I didn't think. I just leapt. I flew between the two thugs and bared my teeth, my horn glowing furiously. Time seemed to slow down as I neared him. He was so close…

And just like that, they were gone. Auto and Lilac had vanished into thin air. I landed in the spot they'd been in and stared, mouth agape, down at the ground with my eyes growing misty. "No..."

At that, the wind was knocked out of me. I rolled to the ground with a grunt and lay there, tears streaming and incomprehensible sounds spewing from my lips. I could feel the two thugs standing over me and I could smell the rank odor of their coats, but I wasn’t looking at them. I was looking past them at the transparent, white figure with sad green eyes and a brilliant cotton candy mane.

“I’m sorry…”

“Sparkler? Sparkler, wake up!”

I jolted awake with a start, my cheeks damp and my throat sore. Sunlight spilled in from the leaves above me, blocked only by Lilac’s face. Her eyes were full of concern and confusion. “Sparky, you okay? You were talking in your sleep.”

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes again. “I’m fine, Li. Just… a bad dream, ya know?”

Lilac didn’t look convinced when I opened my eyes again, but she didn’t say anything else about it. “Well, it’s morning,” she said as she got off of me. She glanced back at me with uncertainty in her blue eyes. “We should probably start going now, right?”

I sat up on my haunches and gazed at the sky with a frown. “Ye-yeah,” I stuttered, wiping the leftover tears from my dream off of my face. As I stood, Lilac grimaced.

“How’s your leg?”

I looked at it. “Dunno.” After taking a deep breath, I hesitantly put weight on it, flinching as the pain came. It had gotten stiff overnight in the cold.

Lilac noticed my pained expression. “Not good?”

“It’ll be better once we get moving. It’s just stiff.”

“Oh, okay.”

Awkward silence.

I picked my hoof back off the ground and gave her a small grin. “C’mon, Lilac. The sooner we get to Canterlot, the sooner we can see Jade.”

Lilac beamed at me, swinging her hoof in the air with a squeal of delight. “Yes!”

As much as I was worried about what would happen once we got to the hospital, I couldn’t bring myself to bring it up and pop Lilac’s bubble. I swung my head in the direction of the meadow. “Let’s go.”

Lilac fluttered her wings and gave a nod. “Yes, ma’am!”

I chuckled as I began limping forward. “I’m not old enough to be called ‘ma’am’ just yet.”

Lilac frowned. “Mommy says that I should respect everypony who talks to me.” She wrinkled her nose. “Except stallions.”

My fur prickled. “Why not stallions?”

Lilac shrugged. “I dunno. Mommy says they can be scary.”

Well crap. If Jade had been teaching Lilac that stallions were bad for seven years, then we had a problem. No foal should be brainwashed like that. Then again, Lilac’s experience with Auto probably hadn’t helped her think otherwise.

“Li,” I began reluctantly, “not all stallions are scary. Some are really nice. Others...” I frowned, thinking back. “...not so much. But that goes for everypony. Mares can be pretty scary too.”

Lilac frowned. “But you’re really nice, and Mommy’s really nice. Auto’s not nice.”

“Well, yeah… but Auto’s just one stallion, just like Jade and I are two mares.”

“So, mares are the scary ones?”

“Ye-no! No!” I’d have facehoofed had my other hoof not been off the ground. “What I’m saying is that everypony has their faults and strengths. You can’t build an opinion on a whole… group of ponies on just one experience.” I looked down at her as we continued our trek, watching her take in everything I’d said. “Is any of this making sense to you?”

“Sorta. Can I have an example?”

“Yeah, okay. Um, like one that I’ve actually…?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Hm…” I bit my lip, not knowing if Lilac was ready for this. “I had a… dad. A few years back who was… pretty mean to me.”

Lilac glanced down at her hooves. “Oh. Mean how?”

“That doesn’t matter,” I said quickly. “What does matter is that, even though he was a huge jerk, I still don’t treat other stallions as if they would be the same as him. Because nopony is exactly the same.”

“You’ve met nice stallions?”

“Sure,” I said, smiling at her. “I knew quite a few nice ones, when I was younger. One of them was a staff member. He used to sneak us extra cookies after dinner.” I chuckled.

“‘Us’? ‘Staff member’?” Lilac looked up at me with a cocked eyebrow.

“Well… yeah…” Crap. “Do you know what an orphanage is?”

“Nope, but I used to hear Mommy whispering about it all the time to her friends in the city. They yelled a lot,” she said, oblivious.

Ouch.

“Well, an orphanage is a place where foals without parents go. And, most of the time, new ponies come in and adopt them.”

“Adopt?”

I sighed. “Yeah, like… they took the foals in and raised them.”

“Oh, I get it now.”

“Do you?”

“...yes?”

I smirked at her, and she gave me an embarrassed grin. “Anyway, I lived in one, and there were grown ponies who would take care of us. One of them was a really nice stallion.” I shook my head. “The point is that not all stallions are the same. My ‘dad’ was a butt, yeah, but the stallion at the orphanage wasn’t.”

“Wait, if you had a daddy, then why’d you live at the or… the orph- the thingie?”

I frowned and looked straight ahead, at the path we were walking along. “It’s complicated,” I murmured. I could practically feel curiosity radiating off of the filly, but she remained silent.

As did I.

“I’m hungry.”

I sighed. “I know! You’ve only said it about a hundred times since we got out of the forest!”

“But I aaaaaaam!”

Sweet Celestia I don’t know how Jade put up with seven years of this torment. I’d barely survived a day alone with the squirt and it was finally hitting me that she was a kid. Something tells me that Jade’s bipolarism might have been hereditary and instead of skipping generations, it travelled in a straight line. One minute Lilac is acting like Celestia herself, the next minute she’s acting like a child her age should. Honestly, I’m not sure which one I preferred.

“Lilac, we’re more than halfway through the meadow. Can you please, for me, hold on just a little longer? I know you haven’t eaten in… like, forever, but please,” I sighed, “just wait. Unless you’d like the bitter taste of grass stuck on your taste buds forever.” I shivered at the thought. I wasn’t that desperate just yet.

Lilac gave an exaggerated sigh, but didn’t argue, fortunately. I frowned and took a deep breath. “Look, why don’t we play a game?”

The filly pricked her ears. “What kind of game?”

“Like… okay. If you were given 10,000 bits, once a week for an entire year, but you had to sleep on a bed of worms in order to get the money, would you do it?”

The tiny pegasus grimaced. “Ew!”

I chuckled and looked down at her. “Well?”

“Hmm,” she hummed thoughtfully. “Would I have to sleep on it every night?”

“Um… yeah. You would.”

“Ooh.” Lilac bit her lip for a moment before nodding. “Ten thousand bits a week is a lot of money. Yeah, I’d do it.”

I looked at her, surprised. “Really?”

“Yup!”

Clever girl. “Okay, now you ask me one.”

“Okay!” Lilac squeaked. She was silent for a long moment before grinning and looking up at me. “Let’s say that you’re in a room with no doors or windows--”

“Then how did I get in?”

“Shh! Okay, you’re in the room, no way out, and there’s a button on a table in front of you.”

“Okay…”

“If you push the button you’ll get, like, a bajillion bits.”

“Sounds good, but what’s the catch?”

“When you push it, you’ll get the bits, a door will open, and you can get out. But you aren’t allowed to spend the money on yourself. Would you?”

“Hm… is pushing the button the only way to get out?”

“Yeah.”

Wasn’t exactly a difficult question, but I humored her by exaggerating. “Hm… that’s a tough one.”

Lilac snickered. “Choose!”

“I guess… I’d push the button.” It’d be a lot better than rotting away in a room that I couldn’t escape. And plus, I’d be helping other ponies, so that was big plus.

Lilac nodded. “Yeah, me too. Being in that room would be so boring!”

I chuckled. “Yeah, it’d be pretty boring.”

Lilac giggled again and looked ahead for the first time since our game had started. She gasped and her eyes lit up as she took off into a full-blown gallop. “Sparky! Sparkler, c’mon! We’re here!”

I sighed/chuckled as I increased my limping speed. “Wait up, squirt!” Lilac halted at the edge of the city, her tiny body practically shaking with excitement. I finally made my way to stand beside her and we looked over the city together. “Welcome to Canterlot, Lilac.”

Lilac gave a tiny squeal of joy and latched her right hoof over my left and began tugging. “C’mon, c’mon! We gotta go see Mommy!”

And, just like that, the feeling I’d had just a few seconds ago evaporated. “Yeah… let’s go see your mommy.”

The walk from the meadow to the hospital hadn’t been a long one; in fact we’d hardly had to walk at all. From the chatter I’d heard back at the orphanage, the reason the hospital was on the edge of the city was so any major illnesses or injuries could be dealt with in time if they weren’t inside the city itself. There was another hospital in Canterlot, up near where the Princesses resided, but this one was our best bet to find Jade, since she’d been found battered up in the old apartment. Now that were here though, and as much as I needed to know that Jade was okay, our first stop was the cafeteria.

“Eat up,” I said as I dropped the sandwich in front of Lilac.

“Watercress!” she exclaimed before biting into it. I couldn’t blame her for being excited; we’d had nothing but canned beans for the last few months. If I never ate another bean in my life, it’d be too soon.

The hospital cafeteria was large and spacious. There weren’t many ponies in here, aside from a couple of nurses on lunch break, just chatting away. I let out a slow breath and sat down, levitating my own sandwich to my mouth and taking a bite.

I still had no idea what I would tell the nurses at the front. I mean, only family was allowed in, right? Lilac was family, but they wouldn’t let her go in by herself. What could I pass for? I could say that I was Jade’s sister but, for the sake of keeping her out of the system, that would make Lilac my daughter. Ehh.

I could say that I was Jade’s adopted daughter. I shuddered at the thought of using the word “adopted” in a lie. It felt really wrong. Not that it would work though, anyway. Jade was far too young to have a teenage daughter, adopted or not.

A loud burp jolted me out of my thoughts. I looked up to see Lilac grinning at me, an empty, crumb-crusted plate in front of her. I smirked and took another bite of my sandwich. “Better?” I asked through a mouthful.

Lilac nodded and patted her stomach. “Better!” Her smile slowly faded as she gave the cafeteria door an apprehensive glance. Her blue eyes dimmed as she turned back to me.

I glanced at the door and sighed, putting down the sandwich. I suddenly wasn’t hungry anymore. “C’mon, Li,” I said as I wiped my mouth. I telekinetically gathered our trash and chucked it into the garbage can that was a few feet away from our table while stuffing the remains of my sandwich into the wrapper it’d come out of. Never hurts to save the food. I led the way out of the cafeteria with fear crawling up my spine. This wasn’t gonna be good, I could feel it. We swung open the door and made our way down the maze of hallways at a slow walk. Despite her eagerness from before, Lilac didn’t seem all that optimistic about seeing Jade now.

We reached the front desk near the entrance we’d come in from. I whispered to Lilac to sit on the couch. Once she did that, I swallowed and made my way to the desk.

Behind the desk sat a pretty unicorn mare with a cotton-candy blue coat and a magenta mane that was packed into a sophisticated bun. Between her ear and her shoulder was magically-engineered phone and grasped in her pale green magic was a pen. She mumbled to herself as she jotted down whatever was being said to her. Her name tag, written in a graceful fashion, was the name “Spring Breeze”.

I stood at the desk awkwardly, not wanting to interrupt her work. She glared impatiently at her desk before looking up at me. She gave me an apologetic grin before mouthing the word “sorry”. I gave her a nod and she resumed her writing. I peered at the form she was filling out to see that her name tag, was in fact, her doing.

I heard a tiny sigh from behind me. I glanced over my shoulder to Lilac sitting on the couch, her hind legs swinging as if they were caught in a windstorm. A magazine lay haphazardly beside her.

“Ma’am?”

I swung my head back around to look at the mare. “Hi! Hey, uh hi, yes?” I stuttered like an idiot.

If Miss Breeze had been put off by my clever answer, she didn’t show it. She put her forehooves on the counter and leaned forward. “Can I help you?”

“Um… yes. M-my name is Sparkler, and I’m here to see my, uh, sister.”

“Ah,” Miss Breeze said as she nodded. “What’s her name?”

“Jade.”

Miss Breeze looked at me. “And?”

“Just Jade.”

“Yes, well… this hospital is very big, do you have any other information?”

“Oh.” Celestia, I’m stupid. “She’s about 25 years old, pegasus. She has a briefcase cutie mark, green eyes, blue and pink mane…?”

Miss Breeze’s eyes grew as my description went on. “Oh,” she murmured. “Yes… her.” She searched through the mountain of papers on her desk until she found the one she was looking for.

I swallowed. “She’s… okay, right?”

“Last I heard, honey.” She gave me an assuring smile as she lifted up the paper. “Here we are! Room 321, on the third floor.”

“321, third floor, got it.” I beamed at her. “Thank you.” I turned to walk away, but was stopped by her urgent voice.

“Ma’am! Wait.”

I turned around and flattened my ears. “Yes?”

She peered over the desk. “Are… you okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re limping.”

“Oh,” I glanced at my shoulder and chuckled. “Had an accident yesterday. I’m fine, though.”

“You sure?”

“Yup.”

Miss Breeze was quiet for a moment before nodding. “Okay. Just, make sure you keep it on ice, okay?”

I nodded. “Yes ma’am,” I responded automatically. I looked at Lilac, who met my gaze impatiently. “Let’s go, kiddo.”

Lilac practically leapt off the couch to stand beside me. “Finally!”

I could hear Spring Breeze give a breathy chuckle as we exited the lobby, making our way toward the lifts. She and I stepped in. I pressed the number that indicated the third floor and we rose up almost instantly.

The doors opened slowly and Lilac and I stepped out. She looked a little shaken. “You okay?”

Lilac nodded and gave a nervous laugh. “Never been on that thing before.”

I had a feeling it was more than that, but I didn’t press. I instead led the way down the hall, glancing at the room numbers. 318… 319… 320...

1. This was it. Lilac and I stood at the door, neither of us willing to open it. I glanced down at her to see that she was staring at the door with wide eyes, and that concerned me. If Lilac had a good feeling about what we were about to see, wouldn't she be busting down the door to get in?

I turned my gaze from the filly and back to the wooden door before taking a deep breath.

Let’s do this.

Author's Note

Left ya hangin', didn't I? Worry not, you'll get the next chapter whenever I decide to stop procrastinating. There's also a Roosterteeth reference in here! Can you find it?

As always, a huge thanks to my fabulous prereaders!
devas
Chopsuey
Luminary,
ChengarQordath
Swiftest Shadow!