All Graham could feel was pain. A bone deep, shuddering sort of ache that left him utterly spent but unable to sleep; the pain was simply too much. He trembled, groaned and wept for what felt like—and probably was—hours. What little of his mind wasn't being kept forcefully blank by the haze of pain he put to use. How had he ended up wherever he was was, pouring his lifeblood into the dirt?
He'd been on his way to the store, he remembered that much. The weather outside had been spectacular, if a little alarming. A real thunderstorm, with lashing rain, screaming wind and a sporadic thudding crack-boom that he felt just as much as heard. He remembered running a hand along the travel-worn door of his old Ford—named Lilah for his daughter—in the pitch black of his garage, yanking the old door open with all the force of someone revving a particularly stubborn lawnmower. As Lilah sputtered to life he'd habitually turned on the afternoon radio and then reached behind to crack open the rear window slightly, it was colder but he truly did appreciate the fresh air.
He remembered the road, so familiar he could have driven those streets with his eyes closed. His car smelt mostly of leather and dirt from his well-worn overalls in the back, but the refreshing scent of petrichor drifted in from outside. The low rumble of Lilah, the comforting smell of newly watered earth and the soft rhythm of the old-style blues playing from his radio had lead him astray, his eyes unfocused and his mind on what he planned to make for dinner from the food he was about to purchase.
By the time his mind registered the too-bright headlights of the massive truck closing in from his right it was too late. He didn't know if it was his fault, or theirs. Maybe the blame could be placed on the rain and the lack of visibility, and Lilah was an easily missed shade of deep blue.
He remembered a slamming sensation, and the sound of metal screeching so loudly it had left him insensate for moment. All this coupled with the queasy feeling of rolling and white-hot flashes of pain. The world spun in an incomprehensible blur of colours and shapes. Then nothing. Nothing but his low breathing, his vision swimming in and out of focus as the rain drained from outside into the roof of his car. Gradually the sounds of panicked yelling reached him but his sight was already going dark around the edges, the light seeping out from his eyes. The sound of screaming and thunder, the strangely distant feeling of his broken body, the smell of oil muddied with earth, the innumerable tiny splashes of rain falling onto tarmac splayed out his broken window and the taste of his last cup of tea lingering on his tongue, marred only by the blood pooling in his mouth.
More screaming, more thunder and then silence.
Graham is certain that is the moment he died.
The first thing Graham registered hearing when he woke up once again was the burring rasp of older gentleman telling him to calm down, and a gentle yet insistent pressure pushing back into a soft bed.
"Lad, I would not be moving if were you," the voice told him, stern but laced with worry.
Graham tried to croak a response, opening his eyes as he did so, but the sudden light blinded him and his voice failed him. His throat burned bone-dry for lack of moisture, his chest shook with the force of his coughs and he could feel barely healed injuries flaring in response.
"Shite lad, drink before y'kill yourself" – a glass of water was pressed against his lips and he drank greedily, reaching up with his hands to grab the glass for himself but he couldn't feel his fingers, so he let the man continue – "there you go, there's a good stallion."
Graham licked his chapped lips and whispered, "T-thank you."
"Y'welcome," the voice replied, "it's good to see you up'n about as it were, I was afeared you'd not be waking up at all and I'm far too old to be dragging a corpse all the way to the woods."
That elicited a snort of mirth from Graham as he opened his eyes once more only to begin blinking in quick secession, wincing as he did so. The light was still too bright but he could make out blurs, and the humour was appreciated but his ribs protested that laughter was not always the best medicine.
"Where am I?" he wondered aloud, "This doesn't seem like a hospital."
"...Hospital?" a throaty laugh followed shortly after the word, "Whatever knocked y'about must've put some kick in your flank to throw y'down from whats left o' Unicornia, lad. No, you're in my home, and I live in Dragonshire, bout two hundred leagues south o' any real hospital."
"W-what?" Graham blinked harder, this time more out of confusion than an effort to clear his vision. Where the hell was Unicornia? And Dragonshire wasn't any town he'd heard existed within a hundred miles of his home. And did the old man just say two hundred leagues?
"Let me help y'up, come on now" – a pillow was pushed under Graham's neck and that same gentle but insistent pressure set him upright, somehow managing to avoid hurting him – "wonderful, now why don't y'tell me where's the last place y'remember being, eh?"
The blurs were becoming more defined, and the old man stood out as a dark green blur against the brown Graham assumed was the wood of his home, "Well, I was in Bellselwn near my home... and I remember driving and—and an accident, I think."
"Never heard o' Bellselwn, but it sounds Griffic," he heard the old man mumble, "Now go on."
"That's it really," Graham moved his shoulders in a weak shrug, "it's a mess in my head, all I can remember aside from that is being thrown around and thunder."
"S'a mite more violent than the approach Discord usually takes, but I suppose the ruddy bugger never did care overmuch for those in his way, eh?"
"What are you talking about?" Graham asked, trying his best not to show just how confused he was by the sentence his caretaker had just strung together.
"Well, I assume it was Discord, if it were a manticore or the like y'would be missing more than a few chunks o' fur."
"Discord? Who the hell is that?" Graham squinted, trying to make out his surroundings, before turning back to the general location of his questionably sane benefactor, "and did you just say manticore?"
"...Who is Discord, he says," the sound of air being sucked through teeth was audible, "Shite and buggery, lad, I don't ken what he did but I wager he got y'worse than most."
"You didn't answer my questions," Graham muttered, a feeling of unease settling into the pit of his stomach.
"No, I don't reckon I did," the man agreed, and before Graham knew what was happening he had already swallowed a few mouthfuls of some sickly sweet herbal tea, "But I will, tomorrow. For now I think it's about time y'rested, lad."
"Tomorrow," Graham acknowledged weakly, as the sickly sweet tea faded with his consciousness, the drugged liquid luring him to sleep quickly.
"Yes, lad, yes. Now quiet down, I know you earth ponies are sturdy as the trees and all, but that tea should sort y'out right proper."
The pillow underneath him was taken away as his mind slipped further into slumber.
'There's a good stallion...'
'Unicornia... Two hundred leagues... Dragonshire...'
'Discord... Manticore...'
'You earth ponies...'
It was odd, Graham had never fallen asleep inside of a dream before.
