Author's Note

Please ignore this "update", I am testing API stuff on an old story.

Shaking Steps

The cries of alarm were what woke me. Cozy as it was, the three of us mares curled up like this, something was clearly wrong. A hospital was never, ever completely dark. Dim emergency lights flickered on but clearly were not up for more than stopping ponies bumping into each other.

“Uh, miss?” I asked, gently shaking the big midnight mare. She and Del woke from the same stimulation, the latter looking a little confused until she spotted me.

“Oh no, the power!” The big mare was instantly on her hooves and taking off out the door, her wings opening a little to help hasten her.

Del looked at me a moment, tilting her head. “I am Grace, you are Delicate Miracle.” The words stirred a bigger smile to her face and she was moving, getting up to follow the mare. “Yeah, she runs this place and she might need our help, I will explain more on the way.”

Helping each other off the bed, we both poked heads out into the dimly lit ward. A dark, black-on-black flank faded down to our left and we started to trot out only to hear a cry of alarm from our right. “Uh, um...” I deliberated but Del shook her head.

“That sounded more urgent, lets go.”

Trotting together, our flanks sometimes contacting lightly, we heard a stallion cursing enough to make a sailor swear and in the Australian accent he had, it just sounded twice as bad! “I need light damn-it, I could lose them!” Was about the only repeatable-in-fine-company thing he said and we headed in the direction of the voice.

Through a door, we were in the observation room peeking into an operating theatre. On the table a pegasai with a mangled wing and more damage to their torso lay… in the dark. “Del you can… you can move things with your horn,” I started to explain, getting that cute cross-eyed look on Delicate's face, “can you… I don't know, rub the air together enough to make light, or something?”

She looked at me now, eyes wide, tilting her head a little to the side. Her horn lit and, in the theatre, an instrument or two rattled before a light started to arc on one of them. Growing brighter and brighter, it soon illuminated the room with a bright flare.

“Who the hell is… never-mind, raise that up above my head please, we might be able to save him!” The doctor's own horn lit up, lifting a clamp in, then grabbing other tools of his trade.

After a few minutes, leaving the room in silence so as not to break Delicate's focus, I eventually rolled over a chair, positioning it just to the side of my marefriend. Understanding what I intended, she smiles and transferred herself to it, curling up to keep the room lit.

The doctor worked, not knowing if the light would give out at any moment, but still he couldn't give up. “Okay, I have most of these bleeds stopped, I am going to sew him back up and hopefully his own body can handle the rest. Whoever you are with that light, please, just a few more minutes!”

It was tense, the doctor working to leave neat sutures but not taking his time with them. Almost as soon as he set the needle down the theatre lights came back up, but not the room ones. Del slumped on the chair, a weary smile on her muzzle. Leaning in, I nuzzled and licked her cheeks, telling her in soft words how proud I was.

“That was her?” the doctor asked, stepping out of the sterile theatre, “well, I would have liked her to spend a bit more time before using her magic, but after that show of resourcefulness, I will have to compromise and say thank you.” His hoof lifted, held out for Del. Who reached out with her own and bumped it.

“You saved him?” her voice is soft, a little weary.

Nodding, the doctor replies. “He will live. As long as I got all those bleeds… how did you make that light so bright?”

Del, watching the doctor strip off the green plastic scrubs with a critical eye smiles more and nudges me. “Grace had the idea, well, kind of. I tried her plan, rubbing the air together. Wouldn't heat up enough. So I rubbed one of the knives.” Back in the theatre, said knife had since dropped into a basin, still glowing red hot.

“Very clever. We can use clever ponies here. Bloody Mess.” He flicks his ears, waiting for a response. I guessed it was his name, but it was a bit macabre. “One of the nurses called me that. Said that the first thing I said after waking up with four legs was to yell and call everything a bloody mess. It stuck.”

“I am Delicate, this is Grace. Pleased to meet you Bloody!” Del replied, offering a hoof to bump again, and getting it.

“Another op next,” Bloody begins thinking out loud, “then I have some wards to visit. One of them contains a very pretty pair of mares, one of whom I hear is having memory problems. How is that coming, getting anything?”

Del's head hangs, getting a snuggle from me of sympathy. “Nothing, kinda worse if anything. I can barely remember what happened yesterday it… it is like I know the big things, but all the details are trapped in a fog.” The stallion moved to the other side of her, shoring up her un-snuggled side.

He looked to me though. “Grace? I have something very important for you to do. Don't leave her side, help be her memory.” I nodded to this, he could likely already see that we were very close.

“Already on it!” I gave what I thought would be a passable salute and kissed Del's cheek.

There was a crash at the doors and they flew open, the dark presence of Her entering. “Bloody! How did… Grace? Delicate?” her confusion at seeing the two of us here cleared quickly and I felt as much as heard her ask, “what happened?”

We were still filling her in when the good doctor, having slipped out and begun his scrubbing for the next operation, entered the adjoining theatre and was beginning to prep again. A pony was wheeled in on a trolley. “Del, lets wait. We don't want Bloody Mess to be without light in case anything happens again.” My warning drew everyone's attention to the fact the doctor was about to begin. “What exactly happened… miss?” I asked, realising all at once that, for all I knew about Her, I did not know her name.

“Star Shadow,” she replied, unable to stop a grin, “and it was the generator. Power died a few days back, we were running off the diesel for a while but it was never meant to be anything but a short term solution, a day of power at most.”

“So… how do we have power? Is it fixed?” Delicate asked, looking to me. It was clear she wanted me to remember these things for her. I would have to try and take more stock of the world around me.

“Fixed? Hardly. There is ten unicorns out there, two of them are patients. They are spinning the flywheel of the generator with their horns. Going to have to find more volunteers for it. Might even set up some kind of hamster wheel… will need to ask Nuts if that will work.” The solution had us both wide eyed, it was such an easy one, if likely hard work for the unicorns.

We sat in silence, mostly, for the rest of the doctor's work. The pony in question had been rescued from a trap that someone had laid down. While it had been removed, so Star explained, it seemed that infection had set into the poor pony's leg.

I was about to get righteous and angry when Del reached a hoof out, halting the burning anger I had for what a human would do. “Grace, they would have been defending themselves.” The words made sense, but why wouldn't the humans want to be ponies? It was silly! My marefriend of course saw this in my eyes and grinned. “I… I think I remember trying to get away from a particular mare once, much good it did me.”

“You remembered!” I exclaimed but my happy dance was halted by her look and shaking head. “What?”

“It is just a dim shadow. I wasn't even sure it was you until your response. You did make me a pony?” Her words carried no anger, no regret.

I nosed her cheek and nodded. “I made you both pony and mare that day… hell, it feels like an aeon but it was only a few days ago.”

My confession got a return nuzzle from her. Star, it seemed, was content to watch us and listen for now, the first big tragedy of the day already dealt with. Our nuzzling got a little more focused before I realised the big bat-pony had stiffened, a far-away look on her face.

“Wha-” Del starts to say, I gently tap a hoof to her lips.

We both, apparently, hear it at the same time.

~'do not attack them, herd them toward me'~

Her mental voice was not focused, although Star Shadow seemed to attempt to keep it from interrupting the doctor in the next room.

~'bring them, do not infect them'~

I realised then she was trying to keep ponies from attacking some humans and, if she were bringing them to the hospital, it meant they were wounded! A glance revealed that the doctor had finished with his grisly work, the pony's limb severed near their shoulder. Giving him a nod, I drew Delicate to follow. “Come on Del, lets head to… to the emergency entrance.”

Leaving Star to do her mind-whammy thing, we headed out, following the signs down the hall until we were at a very strange sight indeed. Nurses, patients, other helpers like us, all in a wide circle around three humans!

“Stay back!” One snarled, holding a baseball bat.

I could feel Star in my head, trying to hold me back too but instead of fighting her, I relaxed and let her just keep that part of me from wanting to lash out. “Come in here!” I called. “Del, can you open the… good.”

They seemed a little confused at first but got the idea and rushed through emergency and, with a startled nurse quickly moving back from them but pointing with a hoof, into an unoccupied room.

I tried to follow them but Star's effect was keeping me from being able to go into that room, which was when I got surprised by Del trotting into their room.

Star Shadow raced down the hall and, partially freed from her control I was able to peek into the room just as she did when she arrived. Delicate was in there, chatting away to them, one of the humans, a young woman, rubbing her ears!

“Is she?” Star asked, her question trailing off.

My jaw was down at least an inch. “She doesn't seem to want to infect them… I wonder if she even can? Did you do that?!” I asked, gathering my wits and getting a shrug and a head-shake from Star.

A third head peeks in under ours, Bloody. “Looks like a shattered tibia. I hope Delicate doesn't mind blood, because all I want to do is go in and lick that better…”

“Same,” I replied, “so what, you going to step her through what is needed?”

He nodded at that.

“How soon? If it takes too long to explain you might want to let her sleep and start fresh.” Of course, my plan was that we explain it all to Del but Bloody had other ideas.

“I can't train her to be a doctor in a day. She will be my magic for me. Damned if I know how she can reach as far as she does, but she will have to be in the theatre and I will sit outside and try and keep from rushing in to infect them-” he was explaining but his almost-drawl got cut short by Star.

“That I can help with. With just you to focus on, I should be able to keep your thoughts clear as I did for Grace here.” The big mare's words seemed right but I knew she was missing something.

I nudged her to get her attention. “That… that took something on my end.” I explained, leaning into her bigger form. “I… I needed to let you into my head… all the way in.”

The touch of her mind to mine came again, gentle, no force behind it like earlier. But once I had let her in, let her mind beyond the simple control-level that she could force, I could not take it back.

“Oh...” Star said, looking surprised and quickly pulling, mentally, free.

Grinning up to her I nudged her shoulder. “It's okay, I trust you.” But I was blushing. While it was true that the pony I had become carried little as far as secrets, there were private things that the big mare could likely peek at.

Only barely catching what is going on, Bloody tilted his head. “You having me on? How did… scratch that, if you can at least stop me wanting to run in, that will do.”

I let out a breath. I would need to talk with Star Shadow and Delicate Miracle, in a room, at the same time, about all this. But first, it seemed, we had a job to do!

–

Luna felt the pull at her dream, focusing in on the dream-that-isn't-a-dream that is one of the lesser ponies on that other world trying to influence others. A bright flash in the not-dream makes her smile. It is rare for two such to meet like that, rare and beautiful.