Sickle cell disease is the bain of my existence
Nox city laid deep under the ground of Neighagra falls. There were multiple entrances, only one of which was built for commercial use. The others were left covered by foliage. The giant caves it consisted of was the home to the bat ponies. Bridges arched over with hanging golden lights. The secluded river twisted through sculpting the land that the houses, towns and business were perched upon.
However there was one home that belonged to a rather unusual inhabitant. An appaloosa unicorn, who was currently not having a good time.
“Cursed…sickles” Forget-me-not said to no one as her leg ached and weeped. She didn’t just curse her own blood for its lifelong relationship with pain, but also as her sickle cells prevented her from ever being properly adopted.
Beneath the warm flannels she felt her foreleg angrily throbbing so bad that it was breaking through her near overdose of Ibuprofen. Unfortunately it wasn’t weak enough to be negated by it, fortunately it wasn’t morphine level like that one time.
She could still remember it. That GSCE physics test, she still wasn’t sure how she ended up in triple science but at least biology made up for the pitiful excuse of her physics grades. But that final test shot her stress through the roof and with all things stress and blood, her blood clogged its own capillaries. She could feel the daunting change as she felt her breath slowly vanish as her lung panicked. She remembered putting her hoof up to ask to leave, only for the moderator to be sceptical despite her clear panic and terrified eyes. They only believed her when the pain hit her like a tonne of bricks and she fainted.
She woke up on morphine.
She picked up the phone in her sky blue magic. The swirly cable pulled as she tried to drag it over to her, only to have to shift over so it didn’t pull itself out of the socket. Spinning the dial she called her lifelong friend and a little more. He was home in the mornings.
“Hey flower” greeted Ebony on the other end. He was one of the few bats that warmed up to her.
“M…morning”
“Another crisis?” he asked softly, he could tell despite the phones distortion.
“Yeah…Can you distract me?” Flower asked.
“Sure…erm. What do you wanna talk about?”
“How many new tales of drunken idiots do you have?” Ebony worked at a bar, the stories he often told her always made her either laugh or get concerned.
“Well this one stallion got too into another mare and she bopped him one. We did have to kick her out, but most of us just sorta’ laughed. I believe it was that same stallion who got his nose stuck in a cup later that night because he forgot how to drink”
“How do you even do that?” she restrained her laughter, fortunately the pain was in her leg and not her chest.
“Dunno. Just sorta shoved his nose in and sneezed it off. We sent him home for his own good” there was a brief silence where he thought back to those odd nights.
“There was another that fell off the table because they stood on the single one. Then another tried to hang of the beam light despite the fact it was in the ceiling. Oh and another struggled to open the bathroom door. We didn’t enjoy that.”
“What about the oddest cocktail of the week?”
“Beer and milk. Not even on the menu. Just ordered”
“I won’t ask”
“The guy threw up and I’m convinced that’s the main reason” there was another pause before they both burst into laughter. Which unfortunately didn’t last long as she accidently shifted her leg.
“Ow, ow…”
“you ok?” he asked more panicked.
“I…moved my leg” Flower whimpered.
“You want me to come round?”
“No, no its fine”
“You sure?”
“Yeah”
“…I’m coming round” with that his end cut off. He always did it, he never let her be alone during a crisis. He was their every day at the hospital. Flower knew she did want him around, but she always felt like a burden. She could barely move and she felt bad for making Ebony do things for her. But he insisted. That and many other reasons (curly hair, comedic goof, lovingly adorable to name a few) were why she started to see him as something a little more.
Flower noticed the flannels had gone cold. She knew it would only get worse if she didn’t re-soak them. So with the last remaining fleets of energy and saying a big “screw you” to her legs migraine she lugged herself to the kitchen. Once she got into the door she simply stopped. She just needed to see the tap. Igniting her magic it started to pour out the water, slowly heating as the flannels drifted over. They got darker as the water soaked them through. To her side were her false wings. Being a florist and providing Luna with her lavender, she got a little special treatment. These wings were Twilights little experiment of magically connecting nerves to prosthetics. She pulled the flannels away and flopped back down on the sofa, folding them onto her leg.
Waiting wasn’t helping the pain. She was always found ways to distract herself as unlike many things it actually worked to (somewhat) ignore the pain. The dull, attention needy, throbbing still lingered though.
Grabbing the nobs of the tv in her magic she turned it on. The screen within the wooden box shifted from black to static. Then she switched through the small number of channels she had. Her luck struck her as her favourite murder mystery show was on. shoving her cheek into the sofa arm she delved into the world of “who done it” in greyed out colours.
The pain so very nearly drifted off, but it still felt like a tight elastic band was twisted taught around her leg. However the inspector with a fabulous moustache and the guilty side stallion and the blubbering marefriend kept her at bay.
Flower had also became quite well sensed on when her pain relief was running out. As the pain grew greater starting to make the small pin prick tears into large droplets, she reached for her tablets and her left over squash and re-dosed herself.
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK
The recognisable tapping at the door made her jump out of her skin, which certainly didn’t help her blocked blood. Or maybe it shook it out of place, she never quite knew. She pulled the door with her magic, not fancying the standing up. Ebony staired through the doorway, slightly thrown off by her not being in front of him. He finally saw her bright blue spotted coat on the chair.
“Hey” Ebony said as he closed the door behind him. Flower noticed that his membrane wing seemed to be clutching something. His coiled brown mane and tail were frizzy from flying.
“You didn’t have to- “
“When did I ever leave you in pain” he stated to her. She cocked an eyebrow at him.
“No but seriously, how long have you been in pain for?” he asked in concern.
“Since Monday” his jaw hung briefly.
“The fuck didn’t you tell me. I could have been here. Bloody hell flower its Thursday” a controlled mix of anger, upset and deeper concern spilled out of him.
“I’m fine Ebony…I just didn’t want to burden you” Ebony’s face turned to shock as he climbed onto the sofa next to her.
“You are not a burden Flower, stop saying that. I’m more a burden, I’m the idiot”
“You are not an idiot”
“You sure?”
“Your just funny, our humours match” she said to him as he lazily flopped a wing over her, there wasn’t enough room left on the sofa to rest it, so it laid on the floor. She noticed a small golden box tumble over her back.
“Oh I er…bought something for you” he blushed slightly through his grey fur. She lifted the box in her magic. Its metallic face and handle was simply charming. Unfolding the lid she found three small bars of fudge.
“oo” she nearly drooled at the vanilla, honeycomb and banana chocolate swirl fudge neatly laid in the box. She gave him a pleased smile as she nuzzled his chin in gratitude. She heard happy clicks in the back of his throat as his wings twitched and fluttered.
They shifted on the sofa to get extra comfy as the next show came onto the TV, although Flower insisted they shared the fudge. The casing of his membrane wings around helped keep her warm. By the time he had to leave for his shift, she was pleased to say she could feel the crisis dying off.
