Hospitals have a truly singular pungency: a loaded oppressive scent all their own, which like some terrible omen pricks at the instinctive corners at the edge of our minds, whispering only the gravest of paranoid predictions. Their smell alone is too clean, the harsh alkaline of antibacterial fluids polluting the air, making it almost caustic to breath. In such a place equally our other senses are assaulted in turn, foremost of which our eyes face stark white in all directions, whilst our ears are choked by stressed silence, broken only by foreboding mutterings or mechanical beeps. Collectively this sensory barrage screams at absence, a crushing nothingness, inhabited only by the synthetic, the chemical and the pale wraiths which tend to them, all harbingers to what everypony fears.
From all this and much more Fleur De Lis fled, blotting out the reality of the whole world for another of her own choosing. To this end she buried herself, foremost in a thick veil of darkness, permitting no invasion from unwanted revealing lights. This was an inky black, in whose recesses she had long ago learnt to take succour, atop of whose foundation she further built her redoubt. She nuzzled deeper into the soft hair of her pillow, around which she had thrown her hooves, tightly held, letting her nostrils fill with and be comforted by its familiar scent. She meanwhile rose and fell in time with her cushion’s movements, letting her focus dwell entirely on the sound of heavy breathing and beneath that a heartbeat’s dull rhythm above all competing others. There was no hospital; she was instead afloat on a calm sea or lake, the firm mattress below her laid out on the prow of some private boat, devoid of anypony’s intrusion.
The harsh clearing of a throat in the far too nearby distance shattered this illusion, forcing Fleur to lift her shielding eyelids. A lime green glare immediately caught and grasped her vision, shot at her by a round framed nurse filling the room’s doorway. This trespasser moved to tap a forehoof as if drawing attention to a non-existent watch, before walking on still frowning. In reply the pale white unicorn (much the match to her surroundings and yet somehow not truly colourless) just smiled sweetly back until her adversary had vanished…
Buck you, I’m not going anywhere.
…and then in a defiant pinkish corona closed the doorway to all beyond.
Fleur shifted, attempting to minimise any creak from the bed as she did so, readjusting back to her previous position of comfort prior to the interruption. Laying her roused head back down she took in the one at whose side she sprawled, one of her alabaster forehooves intertwined with one pale brown in between them, whilst her other stretched to enwrap her partner. It was into a mane of azure, almost turquoise, and light blue stripes that she nuzzled, the soft strands warmed by her breath tickling against her snout. Set in this frame: a perfect face, at all times a welcome sight to gaze upon, even in its present setting. Now however it was only made so now in being an impossibly carefree and contented visage, putting its viewer a little more at ease in its presence, but only so much. The unicorn’s vision panned further, moving downward over closed eyes (another comfort) and tempting lips drawn up in the slightest of smiles, in turn crossing the body to which she clung possessively and being forced to an abrupt halt at the foot of the bed. ‘Oh Coco…’
What Fleur found was by no means a surprise, rather the opposite; she expected it but still hoped against hope to have been previously deceived or mistaken. It nonetheless struck her like a fresh wound, forcing her whispered words from her mouth. Beside her own two taller outstretched hind legs a second pair stood in forced suspension, tightly bound in spirals of layered bandages and held aloft by a rig of cords. No amount of reassurance (regardless from what manner of professional it came) that this set up was purely a precaution, that the damage was not in fact that bad and that all would in time heal, could still the frantic sensitivity of her mind. All concepts of comfort from any doctor’s words were to no avail as her thoughts, spurred on by her setting, worked on constant overdrive to conjure only awful conclusions.
Coco stirred, breath skipping its regular tempo in a sharp sigh, becoming a low still sleeping mutter at a near whisper. Fleur cuddled in closer, drawn in, listening like a guilty filly at a closed door. In this though, snuggling deeper into the earth mare’s mane, her nose caught against metal: a small ring of silver, matched in style and placement in her own ear’s helix. These were tiny shared symbols, easily missed, invisible even to most, but loaded and weighted with far more than their simplicity would suggest for those that wore them for one another alone. As in all things, blink and such treasures, life’s greatest of sweeteners, could be missed.
Somewhere far off the click of striding hooves brought Fleur’s ears to attention, marking she suspected the imminent return of the stern faced nurse, inevitably bringing with her an angered reminder of the rules of visiting hours. The potential target of this however was not at all willing or able to be forced into departure. She could be confronted, argued against or threatened with all the regulations in the world, but she would not be moved. She was more than willing to do all in order to remain, from simple rebuttal, to making a full blown scene and name dropping royal connections until she got her way. Although she was of course no doctor, it felt absolutely vital that she stayed, any consideration to the contrary being unthinkable. ‘Coco needs me here’ she wordlessly justified to herself, whilst at the same time (selfishly in her own mind) admitting that this was equally true in reverse. The feeling was entirely mutual; she in the same way needed to be there for her own good.
Coco fidgeted once more in place, seeking to roll herself over, no longer happy being on her back and huffing in annoyance at finding herself restrained. Instead therefore the earth mare consoled herself in letting her head lull over to one side, with eyes still closed turning to face the other still snuggled up against her. Fleur for her part meanwhile was caught somewhere between her indulgent and her anxious self, succumbing with little resistance to stealing a kiss from the lips presented to her, whilst her forehoof moved on automatic to stroke her partner’s mane straight, shushing the aggravated sleeper. The object of these affections (though remaining undisturbed from her slumber) reacted immediately, letting out a small contented sigh, as if in spite of everything all was right with the world, an action in turn replied by her ever attentive nurse. In the background meanwhile the set of stepping hooves reached and then passed the room’s doorway, not making their expected entrance, moving on further through the ward.
Once more the solid facets of their surrounding world blurred, becoming indistinct; each oppressive sight, sound and scent dissolving into unimportant nothingness. ‘I hope you realise that I’m going to give you an earful for scaring me like this when you wake up’ Fleur whispered in between a further flurry of kisses into which her single opportunistic one had descended, each flowing as much out of a reassuring need as they were a possessive claim. Born in these feathery caresses was also the tacit wish to take all pain or harm onto herself, acting like a poultice in drawing it out, rather than let any evil linger where it was.
At their centre Fleur’s forehoof remained folded with Coco’s, her other moving back to where it had begun, the snowy unicorn curled about her shorter partner in an encircling embrace. For anypony to see she was a wall, her body placed as a blockade or defensive rampart in the path of all others, totally enwrapping her precious charge. Looks can however be the most deceiving, the bandaged earth mare being as much a supportive pillar to her partner as the confident model and showpony was in return. The quiet (often to the point of shyness) designer was very much the foundation to this entrenched hug, the reason as well as the root of its fortification.
Her eyes being allowed to fall back to closed, Fleur let herself again drift weightless, or at least far removed from any fetter. What she clutched so tightly to her (although she had always used far better words in the past) could very much be described as her life raft, by whom she remained afloat and free on what could often be a choppy sea. This was why she would not let go, why she was so loath to depart Coco’s side, no matter how capable the hooves she might leave her in. Although the admittance was a difficult one she had been scared, in no small part terrified even, at the suddenly very real prospect of loss, to be without what had become her everything. She listened to the soothing sound of a rhythmic heartbeat coming from the perfect creature to which she had unconditionally bound herself, letting her own heavy breathing fall in time also, unmoving except for the occasional loving nuzzle in her continued vigil.
Coco Pommel ached. There was not really another word to better describe how she felt; her pain was a tired and yet relentless one. Although in of itself not severe it had been her unwanted companion for too long now, coming very close to agonising through its persistence. What was funny (although perhaps not the best adjective in her state) about this was that the source of her relentless tormentor did not stem from any injury, but rather came from her being immobilised in the same position for innumerable hours. Not that she lacked wounds to be hurt by, far from it, the cocoon of bandages set about her hind legs standing (or rather rigidly hanging in a web of rigging) as testament to that. At any rate if her internally fractured limbs were in fact screaming at her she was far too dosed up to notice, leaving her instead with just the ache.
The pale brown earth mare had no idea how long ago she had awoken, gasping surprised into consciousness, as the wall clock had stopped. This was in one way an annoyance, creating a form of stagnant limbo about the place, although ultimately it was a blessing in disguise, after all time always passes at its slowest when it is visible. Whatever the case may have been in reality, she was definitely sunk in boredom where she was.
The space was the very epitome of a void, in impossible contradiction to its limited size. She lay on a white clothed bed, static on a white floor, surrounded by white walls, beneath a white ceiling. One closed white door lead to a white corridor and the plainness of the ward beyond, whilst a white framed window was veiled by colourless curtains, adding to the timelessness in hiding the manner of the day behind them. The only colour in this emptiness came from its sole painting, hung up lonely and listless, depicting a seemingly random basket of fruit.
What the buck is that even supposed to mean?!
From nowhere her mind suddenly awoke, until then still comatose, latching onto this singular standout target for her annoyance.
How is a pointless assortment of fruit supposed to make anypony feel better? In the best case scenario it could maybe induce hunger, except that it looks like a foal with no motor control vomited water colours at a canvas, so that’s a tad bloody unlikely! So why bother? Why try and pretend that this is anything other than what it is? It smells like a hospital, it sounds like a hospital, it feels like a hospital and if you were to lick the walls it would probably taste like a bloody hospital, so why try poorly to make it look any different?! It’s not a bucking bowl of fruit!
Seemingly without provocation Coco found herself transported to the tallest heights of apoplexy before crashing back down, barely suppressing a laugh on realising how irrational her inner voice sounded. ‘What the buck did they give me?’
Something obviously deliciously strong, the bright coloured pills kinda should’ve cued you in to that, I mean you can’t even feel your hooves.
‘Not true.’ Her hooves ached like the rest of her, so she could definitely feel them even if she could not move the two hind ones. Confused, Coco’s eyes panned down to prove her point, but stopped in surprise on finding a forehoof that was indeed unaccounted for on her chest. As further evidence of how out of it she likely was it took her a double take to work out that the alien limb was not actually her own, despite its obvious tonal difference to her coat. At the same time as this realisation she became aware of a presence at her side, following the length of the puzzling appendage to its owner. ‘Oh, yeah, right…’
She was greeted by the infinitely comforting sight of a snowy mare curled up on her right, possessively holding her in an enfolding hug. Fleur’s breathing was heavy, carefree, obviously asleep as she lay on her side, inclined towards the one she held. The pure white unicorn (somehow set apart from her monochromatic surroundings) had evidently tried to bury herself in Coco’s mane and now was pressed up close, her face in a nest of unkempt hair. There was some security in this unconscious visage, its proximity speaking of its cares, whilst in being blank it could almost convince that everything was alright with the world.
With this new awareness memory also struck, coming unpleasantly as scattered and broken images. She was rushing (nothing new), there was a road and it was busy: traffic. She was talking, or rather mostly listening to somepony: distracted. Then there was nothing. Suddenly she was on her back with crowded faces peering down at her, then black again. She blinked and then Fleur was there. The unicorn was talking quietly, yet with a determined almost angry undercurrent behind her words, defiantly brushing aside any interjection made by a group of medically dressed ponies. Finally there was more nothingness until she awoke.
Coco’s eyes roved absently further over her partner with whom she shared her bed. It was an awfully weird comparison to draw, but her not entirely lucid mind made the parallel anyway: that it was kind of like they had been out drinking. She was very much the novice when it came to such nights out on the town, in marked contrast to the other mare, but the unicorn was nothing if not good at tempting her out of her shell. Like such occasions the absences in her memories were in the same way disconcerting without a doubt, both as an unknown and in their peculiar powerlessness, yet she found herself largely unconcerned by the featureless shadows. In them at intervals there was Fleur, like some constant safety net or guardian angel, and with her she felt safe. It was hard to imagine that anything truly bad had therefore happened; after all, the said same protector remained at her side.
‘No…’ Creases tied themselves in Fleur’s brows as they turned to frowning, a stream of low whispers at the same time escaping her lips. Although unconscious the unicorn’s look was one of concern, almost fearful, pushing her grip to tighten about her charge.
To this Coco could not help but be drawn in, loathing even more so her restrained state, only really able to turn her head with any effectiveness. She strained both her neck and against her tethers, bringing her muzzle to the other mare’s cheek in what she hoped was a reassuring caress. Simultaneously she felt both useless and responsible, as the cause of worry, if not hurt (to which her own pains paled in comparison), yet prevented from combatting it. That Fleur being there helped was a severe understatement of what her presence meant, though at the same time however it brought with it guilt.
Who would’ve been here otherwise?
‘Good question.’ In actuality her still randomly drifting mind’s words were the exact opposite, initially catching against an exposed nerve. Her inner voice after all had a point. If she thought about it the city could be and had been a lonely place, from which the unicorn was her obvious rescuer, but the other’s ever-presence struck far deeper. With her disabled state Coco had been forced to a halt and in pausing she was presented with all that she now had.
From Fleur Coco’s continued nuzzling succeeded in coaxing out the faintest of smiles, breaking through the other’s features to affect the earth mare more potently than any medicine. The unicorn’s hold loosened, calmed, but obstinately refused to let go, although no force actually willed her to and equally it was doubtful that one strong enough to do so even existed.
Coco still felt off kilter: she still ached, her mind was still far from settled and empty questions about what accident had actually befallen her were still unanswered. And yet she was unfazed by it all. Although the drugs could maybe claim some small part in this, the far greater sedative was the slender framed accident laid beside her. In spite of all the great many other competitors for her attention she was focused only really on Fleur, with a foremost want to excise any lingering pain in concern from the unicorn’s features. The two therefore remained, each even unknowingly as an infinite comfort to their precious other.
