After Sunset

In the end, Aria refused to let me go without at least taking me through basic detox. The whole mess left me exhausted, and I ended up sleeping through most of my third week in the hospital except when Fluttershy came in.

When she came in we would talk. Not about Sunset or about anything heavy. She would tell me about her day, about her classes, and about how frustrated she was getting with the landlord dragging their feet about the place she’d chosen to move into.

She wouldn’t be able to move in until February because of some kind of paperwork snafu. That’s the word she used. ‘Snafu’. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone use that word unironically, or even, like… at all, other than her.

It made me laugh when she said it, and that made her smile.

It’s while they’re getting my discharge papers ready that Fluttershy’s soft knocking barely rattles the door to my hospital room prior to her stepping in with a soft apology.

“Hi!” Fluttershy says brightly. “Sorry I couldn’t get here earlier, my classes went late, how’re you feeling?”

I sit up in the bed, shoving one of the lumpy pillows behind my back for support as I do, and try to give her a decent smile.

“Pretty good,” I say with a shiver. “The uh… the shakes are starting to go, I think, but now I can’t tell if it’s the drugs or if I just want to get the hell out of here.”

“I know,” she says softly. “And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry you’ve been cooped up for so long. I know you don’t idle very well, but…”

She trails off, and I try not to let myself notice too much how her eyes trail down my arms.

There are bandages there now, rather than bare skin. I don’t need them, but Fluttershy suggested that it might make me feel better to have my scars covered up. It’s stupid, because it’s not as though everyone who comes in here doesn’t know what’s underneath them but…

I do feel a little better, and I told her that. What I didn’t tell her was that part of why it makes me feel better is that she doesn’t stare at them as much. I know she doesn’t mean to, and I know she’s just worried, but every time I catch her staring down at my arms and sides it makes me want to crawl into a hole.

“I’m going nuts in here, Flutters,” I say, forcing a more jovial tone. If I don’t, she’ll make me stay. “Seriously, it’s September already, if I spend another week in here I’m gonna snap!”

“I know,” she says again as she moves to my bedside and sits down. “And I just want to say how happy I am that you’re trying,” she reaches out and takes my hand, squeezing it firmly. “I’m proud of you, and I’m here for you no matter what, okay?”

A force back a tired grimace. I know she cares, but she tells me that practically every time she visits and honestly it’s starting to get a little patronising. No matter how many times I say it, she treats me like I'm made of glass. It’s to the point that I’m actually looking forward to Applejack kicking my ass with farm work in the fields.

Rather than let Fluttershy see my irritation, I turn to look out the window of my room. It’s actually sunny for once. The outside is filled with that clear, sharp autumn sunlight. The kind where it looks inviting but you just know it’s gonna be cold as the devil’s nuts the moment the wind picks up.

It’s a lot worse if you’re homeless.

“Rainbow?”

“Sorry,” I turn back to her and plaster on my smile again. “Just restless, how were classes?”

Fluttershy eyes me for a moment, thankfully not looking down at my bandages this time, before smiling back at me. “Kind of boring, actually… we’re still doing introductory parts, and it’s all stuff I know.”

“Yeah, well, the rest of the people in the class didn’t grow up in a veterinary clinic,” I say with a more genuine chuckle. “They’re having to start at the bottom for that degree.”

“I know…” Fluttershy says quietly.

“You okay?” I squeeze Fluttershy’s hand, and she looks up at me with a pensive expression.

“I’m just thinking maybe I don’t want to be a vet, actually,” Fluttershy admits quietly.

I raise an eyebrow at that. “Are you serious? That’s like, all you’ve ever wanted to do!”

She shrugs and scoots onto the bed a little more. I move my legs out of the way to make some room as she lays back and stares up at the ceiling. Her long pink hair pools around her like liquid dawn and she lets out a soft, breathy sigh.

“It’s what mom and dad do,” Fluttershy starts. “And I do love taking care of animals, but after everything that happened at school, I don’t know if that’s what I want to do with my life anymore… does that make sense?”

“I guess,” I say.

To be fair, I don’t even know what I would have done after I graduated. Get a track scholarship or something? Be an Olympic runner? Hell, I didn’t have any plans at all. It’s weird to think of Fluttershy not wanting to be a vet though. It’s always been her dream to own a little veterinary clinic or an animal shelter where she can take in strays.

“So what’re you gonna do, then?” I ask after a moment. “Switch majors?”

“I think so,” Fluttershy says, surprisingly without hesitation, then turns to me and smiles broadly. “But for now, I just want to focus on helping you, okay?”

“Flutters, I don’t…” I trail off, not really knowing what to say.

I don’t want her to put her life on hold for me? I don’t want her help? I don’t even know how to say those things to her. Not in any way that matters, anyway. I know if I do she’ll just brush it off. In a certain sense, Fluttershy can be more stubborn than Applejack by a large margin.

Besides, it’s not like I have any great advice to give. What am I supposed to say? The only thing I major in is bad decisions.

“Hey Rainbow?” Fluttershy says. “Do you think you’ll want to go back to school?”

“Go back to…” I trail off before I can finish the thought. I can’t get the rest of the words out around the crazed laughter that bubbles out of me.

“N-Not, CHS!” Fluttershy says quickly, then frowns. “I… I wouldn’t want to go back there either.”

“So, like, what…?” I ask as I wipe at my eyes. “I ain’t getting into Crystal Prep.”

Fluttershy shakes her head. “No, I mean you can just get your GED, and then probably start at CCU. It’s not hard to get into, actually.”

My first instinct is to laugh again, but I like to think I’m not so stupid that I haven’t figured out that my first instincts are usually bad.

Instead, I decide to go against my instincts for once, and actually think about it.

“University, huh?” I say quietly, and I can almost feel Fluttershy’s spirits rise as I don’t immediately shoot her down. Still though… “I dunno Flutters, I’ve never been great at school stuff, you know that.”

My grades were never like, hot garbage, exactly, but then again it’s pretty hard to actually fail in the public school system. I’m dumb, but I’m not that dumb, I know most teachers just give us C’s or whatever other grades they have to just to get us on to the next year.

Hell, the Diamond Dogs are passing most of their classes, and they’re dumb as actual rocks so the bar for passing out of a place like high school can’t be that high.

“You can do trade classes!” Fluttershy says a little more brightly, sitting up finally, and I have to admit it’s nice to see her get lively again. “It’s not just book work at college, you can do a lot of things!”

I run my fingers over my arms, tracing the familiar swell of ridges that are still faint beneath the thin layer of bandages.

One, two, three, four…

Five. It should be five. I frown on the heels of that thought. Sunset has four fingers and a thumb… five inches and four inches, sharp and silver. I shift in place as Fluttershy talks, her voice drifting out of my attention as I bring a hand up to find the newest set of scars.

One, two, three, four… five.

A breath that had built up in my lung leaves in a quiet rush, and I can’t help but smile a little. Finally, I have five.

“Rainbow?”

“Huh?” I look up at her, and Fluttershy is staring at me.

“I was saying I didn’t want to rush you,” Fluttershy says, this time a little more slowly. “I don’t want to pressure you into anything. I… I want you to get better first, okay?”

Better… yeah.

“Yeah, I know.” Is what I actually say. “I’ll think about it okay?”

“Okay,” Fluttershy says, looking a little happier. “I just- no, it doesn’t matter… just focus on getting better, okay?”

“Yeah…” I trail off as I venture into another question resting in the rear quarters of my brain. A question that had been simmering there for the past couple of weeks, in fact.

Part of me is afraid to ask the question. I feel like I'm not really going to like the answer no matter what it is, but after this long, I can't avoid it like I know Fluttershy has to be avoiding it.

I need to ask.

“Fluttershy?”

“Hm?” She gives me that soft, innocent smile. It’s disarming and always has been, but for the first time in maybe ever, I feel like it might not be genuine. I push past it. “Why hasn’t… Flutters, where’s my dad?”

Something passes over Fluttershy’s face then. It’s like watching a cloud go over the sun in more ways than one. The light just goes out of her for a moment and for the space of a few breaths she’s alarmingly still.

Then Fluttershy closes her eyes. Takes a deep breath in. Lets it out. And opens her eyes.

“Flutters?” There’s a cold knot in my stomach.

“He’s… he’s okay,” she starts, her voice suddenly subdued. “And he doesn’t know you’re here.”

There’s a lot to unpack there.

Fluttershy’s reaction. Her expressions and the way she talked froze my blood for a moment.

“Why?” I ask.

“Because I didn’t tell him,” she replies, but there’s a strange, hollow timbre to her words. “He… he wanted to send you away. I just don’t want to give him the chance to try again. Especially not with you- n-not like this. o-okay?”

There’s a ringing in my ears. It’s like someone let off a pop rocket too close to my head and now there’s this dull, muted noise in my head. I know what Fluttershy is saying. I know that, on some level, it kind of makes a weird sort of sense. Dad said some shitty stuff the night I hauled ass, especially when he brought my shitlord mom into the bargain, so I get that. It makes sense.

So why?

"I know I should have told you." Fluttershy's voice is a distant hum overridden by the volume of my thoughts.

Why?

"But I didn't want to stress you out..."

Why does it sound like Fluttershy is lying to me?

“Rainbow, I-”

A firm knock interrupts Fluttershy, and we both look sharply at the door. In an instant, all thoughts of that immensely weird conversation are immediately sent screeching into the back of my mind for later.

Much later.

More importantly and more immediately, that knock wasn’t Aria. She doesn’t bother to knock most of the time, anyway, and it didn’t sound like either of the nurses who routinely come in either.

As it turns out, I’m right on both counts.

The door creaks open and Applejack steps into the room, preceded by the rim of her dad’s stetson which is perched on her head like always. She’s wearing a thick flannel jacket, heavy jeans, and workboots so well-used that no amount of cleaning will ever scrape out the last of the mud from the cracked leather.

“H-Hey there, Dashie,” Applejack says quietly. “How ya been?”

I pull the covers over my arms before Applejack can even get all the way into the room. I pull them up so she can’t see the scars and marks, even though I know they’re hidden by bandages, and follow that up with the wish that I had something with a little more coverage than this crappy one-size-fits-all hospital gown.

Fluttershy lays a hand over my covered arm.

“Hey.”

It's a too-long silence that leaves a weight in the air between us.

Once upon a time, Applejack and I were closer than almost any other of our friends. We were rivals, sure, but always friends. Applejack kept me on my toes, and I did the same for her.

Now… I barely even recognise her.

Applejack shuffles awkwardly for a moment before sighing heavily and pulling her hat off. As she does, I realise a part of why she seems so different. It’s how tired she looks. There are bags under her eyes, and her normally suntanned skin is pale enough that even I can see she’s looking pretty rough.

“So uh,” I let out a raw chuckle that actually comes out a little less forced than I expected, “I know this is rich coming from me, but you don’t look so good, AJ.”

The farmgirl laughs wanly and nods. “Ayup, well, Ah ain’t gettin’ a lotta sleep if Ah’m bein’ honest, that and uh-” her laughter and even the shadow of her smile fades, “-and things are a mite… tense, at home. That’s part’a why Ah wanted to come talk to ya, Dashie.”

It takes a moment for the coin to drop, which just goes to show how out of it I am. I had literally been thinking about it when Fluttershy had put this idea out there, and I don’t know why I didn’t think about the fact that Applejack had been dealing with it alone for almost a year.

I say ‘it’. What I should really say is ‘her’.

“Apple Bloom?” I say more than ask.

Applejack winces, but nods.

Living proof that decisions have consequences as if I needed more proof of that. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo never shook the Anon-A-Miss moniker they’d inadvertently used to divide up the school, and worse, it was their actions that had isolated Sunset and eventually put her on the roof of Canterlot High that winter day almost a year ago.

As much as I hate myself for abandoning Sunset, I’ve got a special kind of hate for those three.

When I followed Sunset into the Trials, and while she was hunting me, and even after that when I realised her plan was to get everyone out by essentially cheating a god, I thought that I could let go of the anger I had towards Scootaloo and the others.

I wanted to.

I didn’t want to hate the girl that was like the sister I never had, but the moment that statue cracked… the moment that Tempest revealed that Sunset’s plan had never been for her to escape with us, because it was never possible, all of that hate came flooding back.

Those three, by the time I left Canterlot High, were the collective punching bag of the whole school. I’ve seen the bruises. And worse? My only thought was that they deserved it.

“She doesn’t hang ‘round home much anymore,” Applejack continues quietly, crossing her arms over her chest. “Spends most of’er time with’er friends, does’er… well, she does most of’er chores,” Applejack grimaces like she’d accidentally picked at a scab. “Other’n that, Ah let’er come’n go.”

“Why?” I ask bitterly. “Why let her just do whatever she wants? That’s-”

I can’t keep going. There’s bile in my throat and my heart is thundering in my chest. Fluttershy’s hand squeezes mine, reminding me that she’s still with me, and her soft smile brings my temper back down as I look back up at Applejack.

“Why?”

“You want the god’s honest, Dashie?” Applejack asks flatly, and the cold, flat affect of her tone puts a chill down my spine.

But I nod, because I do want to know. I need to know why.

“Because,” Applejack says. “If Ah leave’r alone, she mostly stays outta the house,” her expression hardens by degree, and her knuckles go white with the effort of not crushing her hat. “And if she stays in the house fer too long Ah really think I might start hittin’er.”

My eyes widen at her admission, and I look over at Fluttershy expecting shock. All I see is a sad, pained acceptance. Fluttershy and Applejack have already had this conversation, I realise, otherwise I have no doubt Fluttershy would have something to say about that.

I’m guessing she already said it.

There are tears in Applejack’s eyes now, and for a moment the congealed apathy and self-hatred that’s been slowly hardening over my heart since Sunset’s funeral cracks as I see everything I’ve been feeling reflected on Applejack’s careworn features.

“Ah got responsibilities to mah family, Dashie,” Applejack continues quietly. “But that includes you… however far gone ya are now, yer still mah family, a’right?”

“I guess,” I mutter, rubbing at my arms beneath the covers.

The scars are obvious. Too obvious. There’s no amount of makeup in the world that can hide the thin, raised hills of rough and pale flesh that my consistent use of Sunset’s ‘hand’ had created. They’re everywhere, some dim and old, some bright and new. The scars are cross-hatched patterns of fours and are clearly visible along my left arm, shoulder, side, and thighs as well as in narrower batches along my right shoulder, side, and legs.

It’s strange.

Before now, the scars never bothered me.

Now, though, with Applejack and Fluttershy standing beside me and the prospect of going back to living like a normal person looming over me, the roiling in my gut at the thought of people seeing me was…

The wave of nausea hits me out of nowhere, and I jacknife forward, clapping a hand over my mouth in a vain attempt to keep my breakfast from making an encore performance, but I can tell right away it’s a useless gesture.

Fortunately, Fluttershy has gotten really good at this.

Even as I realise I’m not gonna make it to the bathroom, Flutters already has one of the hospital’s collapsible plastic emesis bags under me. The only thing I can be thankful for beyond Fluttershy’s sheer speed is the fact that I had too little of an appetite this morning for much to come up but bile, so I keep the majority of it to dry heaves.

“Dashie, you sure you’re good ta-?” Applejack starts, but I hold up a hand to stop her.

“I’m fine,” I croak as I lower the bag and grab a fistful of tissues to wipe at my mouth while Fluttershy fills up a paper cup with some water. “Just gimme like, another day and it’ll be out of my system, alright?”

“What you’ve been using doesn’t go away that fast, Rainbow,” Fluttershy says quietly as she passes me the water.

“It does for me, and I’m not just saying that,” I reply as I knock back the cup, swish it around a little, then spit it out and toss the cup into the garbage. “Don’t ask me why, either. Just trust me when I say, if this crap could kill me then it already would’ve.”

Applejack stares at me for a long moment after I say that, and at the end of it the color drains slowly from her face while Fluttershy eyes widen and her breath dies in a strangulated wheeze.

“Don’t fuckin’ look at me like that,” I say, curling my knees up against my chest beneath the covers. “It’s not like I was trying, I just… I don’t care, alright?”

“Well you goddamn should!” Applejack snarls with hell in her eyes as she takes a step towards me, and I flinch back. “Dashie, Ah swear t’God if you-!”

“Applejack, please!” Fluttershy stands quickly and wraps her smaller hands around one of Applejack’s raised fists and clutches tight. “It’s not her fault, alright? None of us are- we’re all trying our best right now, okay?”

Fluttershy pushes back on Applejack, who grimaces and lets the smaller girl put herself between us.

“Rainbow knows, okay?” Fluttershy says quietly. “Things are bad right now, I know! And they’re complicated! But please! You don’t know the whole story!”

She glances back at me, and for a brief moment I see naked fear in her blue eyes. Then it’s gone and she’s smiling again and it’s a fake, fragile thing that turns my stomach.

“I’ll be right back, okay?”

Fluttershy turns back to Applejack and gives her a hard glare that I only catch the edge of, but if it was anything to go by then color me surprised that Applejack didn’t burst into flames as Fluttershy dragged her out of the room.

That was weird.

I stare at the slowly closing door, and through it I can hear Fluttershy’s voice, in low, hushed tones, saying something. I can’t parse it out though. They’re too far, and Fluttershy’s voice has always been especially soft.

But I want to hear it. Fluttershy is hiding something from me and she doesn’t even have the decency to be halfway good at it! I want to hear what they’re talking about!

I want to-!

‘...m is here…’

My vision doubles, and suddenly my heartbeat is a peal of thunder in my head. I heard something. It was definitely Fluttershy’s voice but it was distant and distorted like it was coming far off and…

And through a wall of Fog.

A cold shiver goes down my neck and my stomach twists, but I close my eyes and force myself to strain my hearing again. I want to hear her! I want to hear!

‘...rnation aren’t ya… …ould tell’er!’

‘...n’t know… …e’s like… …lejack! You can’t!’

Faded snippets and whispers. Nothing more, but I can hear a little. I clench my eyes, strain, and focus. My heartbeat settles from deafening to a steady thud-thud-thud, like a broad hammer striking smooth stone with clockwork consistency.

‘...nster, Applejack, and I won’t le… …here near Rainbow…’

A soft sigh echoes through the Fog. I recognise the sound of Applejack sullenly giving ground, something she rarely did, and only ever to Fluttershy or Rarity as a general rule. No one else could pull her strings the right way.

‘...ight, sugarcube… …till don’t like it, th… …ally that bad?’

Silence stretches out for a moment, and in that moment I think I’ve lost the thread. There’s no sound, no whispers, nothing until-

‘You have no idea.’

Cold sluices down my spine.

I can’t remember if I’ve ever heard Fluttershy say anything in that voice. It’s a tone like silk being stretched to its limit, the odd, creaking strain right before it rips. They’re words that leave a taste like copper on my tongue.

It surprises me so much that my concentration breaks and the world crashes back into existence around me. My vision is filled with white light as I open my eyes again, and stars spark in front of them. I didn’t realise how hard I’d been clenching them shut.

My whole face down to my shoulders is sore, actually, and I have to force my jaw to unclench as I drag in a breath that doesn’t taste like ash and copper.

“Ah!” I bite off a cry as pain arcs up my left arm. I can barely move it, except that it’s shaking and… and stained.

The bandages aren’t stained in the right places though. My side and shoulder are still clean and clear. No, the bandages have odd little spots of brackish brown spreading across them, radiating out like poison teardrops that had fallen over me. It takes me a moment to realise where they’re coming from.

I swallow hard as I put a hand over the bandages and tug at them, pulling away linen that’s sticky and blotted in places where it had been clean and white a moment ago.

“Shit.” The word falls out of my mouth at the sight beneath the bandages.

My track marks. The little, barely-visible pockmarks, were inflamed to a deep, angry red, and something coming from them was staining the bandages. I don’t look too close, my stomach flips and twists as I pull the bandages more tightly over my arms.

Applejack and Fluttershy are still outside talking so I don’t have much time. I know where the nurses keep the spare linens though, and I shuffle out of bed as quietly as I can to grab another roll. It barely takes any time at all to put a clean layer on over the stained bandages, and I breathe a quiet sigh of relief as I tie them off and scramble silently back into bed as the door opens.

“Is uh… is everything cool?” I ask, trying to keep my expression flat. I don’t know how Sunset managed it all the time, she had a poker face like nobody’s business.

“Y-Yeah, everything’s dandy,” Applejack says.

Her voice shakes a little. Enough that I know she’s lying, but I don’t let it show. I know that Fluttershy hears it too, and her eyes dart to my face. She’s trying to figure out if I heard it. If I heard them.

She doesn’t see anything.

“Does that mean I can, y’know, get outta here?” I ask, forcing a laugh. “Because I’ll be honest, the food is not great.”

Their laughter is real. At least I’m pretty sure it is. It’s weak and crackly enough that it doesn’t sound forced anyway. I feel like if they were forcing it, they’d try to make it sound a little better.

“No problems there, sugarcube,” Applejack says, a little bit of her old swagger coming back. “Sweet Apple Acres’s got plenty’a good food t’go around.”

“Aw man, I wasn’t even thinking about that!” For the first time in a long time I feel a tiny surge of nostalgic happiness.

Memories of sitting around the Apple Family dinner table eating, well, apples, but in a riot of colors and flavors you’d never expect. Pies, pancakes, breads, tarts… everything.

“I uh… that sounds pretty awesome, honestly,” I say after a moment. “So…?”

“Yeah, a’right,” Applejack says with a chuckle. “I’ll get yer stuff together but I ain’t pushin’ you outta here in a wheelchair, Dashie.”

“Pfft, like they could get me into one,” I counter.

There’s a second there that the world falls away, and Applejack and I are laughing again like we used to, back in the cafeteria of Canterlot High when everything in the world was lighter and brighter. It doesn’t last, it never does, but when it fades I feel… maybe not better, but I feel a little closer to everything else.

“Ah’m glad y’all are comin’ around, Dashie,” Applejack says after a moment. “Frankly, Ah could use the help on the farm… hope ya ain’t plannin’ on nappin’ the days away.”

The old me? Definitely. Nowadays, sleep wasn’t something I found very easily if I found it at all.

“Nah.” I wave a hand dismissively. “For once, I think I’ve slept enough.”

Applejack chuckles and shakes her head.

“Well Ah’ll be.” She shoots me a grin that’s only a little tired. “Will wonders never cease?”

The process of leaving the hospital is pretty easy, as it turns out. The nurses do one last checkup, look over my vitals, and then pass me over to Aria who comes in, looks around at Fluttershy and Applejack, then shoos them out by threatening them with my charts.

“Alright, finally,” Aria grumbles as she closes the door and turns back to me. “First things first, you’re not going anywhere until I take another look at your arms.”

My gut clenches as I glance down at my inner forearm where the track marks had started suddenly… bleeding… or something, anyway.

“C-Can I-?” I start, and Aria grimaces.

“Look, Blue, I get that you’re not a big fan of people touching them, okay?” Aria says with a surprisingly soft tone to her voice. “I need to do the ones around the fresh wounds, though… the stitches dissolve, but sometimes it can take more than a month.”

Aria watches me for a while, then sighs and shrugs. “Look, let me take a look at your side and shoulder, then you can take off the other ones, alright? Just be careful.”

Relief floods through me as I nod. Aria does as she promised, carefully pulling back the bandages around my shoulder and looking them over with an approving hum that I take to be a good sign. She has the same reaction to my side as she pulls the bandages back, then stands and pats my back as she does.

“Alright, go ahead,” Aria says.

I start undoing the bandages, careful to pull at them careful and bundle up the stained areas. I’m not sure how I’ll explain the track marks, though. Hopefully she won’t think they’re infected or something and make me stay even longer.

As I pull the last of the bandages away, though, I feel an odd lurch in my stomach.

The track marks are healed again. What looked almost like an open wound a moment ago is back to being a barely visible pucker of scar tissue on my arm. I pull the bandages back a little more quickly and bundle them up as Aria leans in to look over my left arm and side completely.

“Looks good,” Aria says quietly. “Better than good, actually, all things considered… you heal up quick, Blue.”

“Always have,” I say with as much of my cocky smirk as I could manage. “If Flutters hadn’t accidentally torn those cuts open I’d’ve been fine.”

“I don’t know about fine,” Aria grunted. “Septic, maybe, but your bloodwork is good, or as good as can be expected… I had to bury some things to keep you off a couple of lists, though, so you owe me on that.”

“I didn’t ask you to do that!” I snap, narrowing my eyes at the veiled jab.

“And?” Aria says calmly, one eyebrow crooked to the sky. “You wanna go to jail, Blue? Flutterbutter out there bent over backward to save your ass… you gonna look her in the eye and tell her you’ve decided to throw that away to do mandatory minimum out of spite?”

Blood trickles through my mouth as I bite into my cheek to keep myself from spitting her good graces back in her face. It’s stupid. It’s a completely stupid impulse. There’s no reason to not just say ‘thanks, Aria’ and move the fuck on, but I can’t. I didn’t ask her to save me! I didn’t ask Fluttershy to either! They just did it!

Aria prods me in the chest with my vitals chart, her grim expression flat and annoyed.

“You owe me, Blue, got it?” Aria says in a cold, deadly tone. “You owe me your freedom and your life, even if I’m pretty sure the only one you value is that first one. Either way, you still owe me… so don’t go croaking until I can collect on that debt, we clear?”

“Fuck you, Aria,” I snarl.

“I’m sorry, I think I had some stubborn jackass stuck in my ear,” Aria says, leaning in and jabbing me in the chest again a little more forcefully. “I said: are we clear?”

My heartbeat is thunder in my ears, and for a moment my vision washes out red. I fight back the urge to do something stupid though, swallow my pride, and nod.

“Crystal.”

Aria relaxes as she straightens, looks down at the charts, nods to herself, then plucks out a pen from one of her pockets and signs off on a few things.

“Good,” Aria says quietly before looking back at me. “Show that restraint a little more often and you might just make it through this, Blue. I've been to a lot of funerals in my life and I'm not keen on going to another for a long time… not even yours.”

The uncharacteristic remorse in her voice catches me off guard, but she doesn’t stick around long enough for me to comment on it. She just hangs the charts, takes a few of the papers and vanishes back out into the halls to finish processing the paperwork and signing off.

Aria is nothing like I remember from the Battle of the Bands. I wonder sometimes, just how long they were actually in that place.

Time doesn’t work right there, is what Princess Twilight said.

Dilation.

I wonder how much she changed.

My eyes trail down to the pockmarks on my arm and I grimace. Come to that, I wonder how much I changed.