Servi Oceano

“…Wow,” Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. “I guess there really was a filly in there.”

She said, looking at the pale, barely breathing foal in the hospital bed.

Twilight was pacing. “I just don’t get how she got in there in the first place,” she said, staring at the ground as she took another round in her circled course around the room. “Or who put her there, or where that vessel came from.”

Rarity thought for a second. “Could she be a Crystal pony that appeared there when the Empire returned?”

Twilight shook her head. “No, because then the vessel would be made of Crystal, not titanium. And her mane would be shining, even if it would be faint, and there’s not a single crystalline hair on her.”

This wasn’t Pinkie Pie’s worry. Instead, she was typically bouncing with excitement. “What should we name her?!” she squeaked. “Does she even have a name? I wonder what it is! I wonder what she’s like!”

The nurse poked her head through the door, putting a hood to her mouth and shushing the group in a rather blunt fashion before disappearing again.

Fluttershy was occupying herself by gently petting the filly’s mane. “You poor dear,” she cooed under her breath. “How did you get in there? You’re so malnourished…”

“Well, wherever she’s from,” Rainbow Dash began, “She must be pretty tough to still be alive. There must’ve been almost no air in there.”

“That’s prob’ly why she’s so pale,” Applejack pitched in at last, taking a few steps to the young mare’s bedside.

The nurse walked in again at last, to which Pinkie Pie frowned slightly. “I didn’t do anything this time,” she protested.

The nurse shook her head. “I just need identification of this filly.”

“But we don’t know who she is!” Twilight said, to which the nurse frowned.
“Well then,” she said, “Someone will have to claim her, or else once she gets better, she’ll go to a foster home.” That statement made the girls gasp.

“Oh, no, no, no!” Fluttershy sniffed, “That can’t happen! That’s too horrible to happen!”

The nurse’s frown only seemed to increase. “Unless someone takes her,” she repeated, “then we’ll have no choice but to hand her over to foster parents.”

“I’m the one who found her,” Twilight dragged at last, seeming to be a bit hesitant at first, but then she struck a proud pose, becoming brave. “I’ll take her.”

Fluttershy and the nurse smiled wide at the news, while the others stared at their friend in slight shock; that including Spike, who’d been sitting there silently the whole time.

“What?” the dragon finally gapped. “We can’t take care of a foal!”

Twilight hesitated again for a few seconds, but then seemed to get proud again. “I’ll write Princess Celestia another letter. She’ll know what to do; after all she took care of Princess Luna when they were little.”

“That was thousands of years ago!” Spike protested again.

“It doesn’t matter. We have to try. As for us, we have to think of a name for her?” at that point, she turned from her draconic companion and turned to her friends.

Pinkie Pie seemed to be the first one to suggest something. “Paley Pants!”

Rarity shook her head. “We found her in a box of titanium, still breathing and… Slightly, alive. We should name her Titanium Heart!” Dash seemed to agree, slightly.

The girls threw in many different names, until Fluttershy pitched in (while getting close to fix the filly’s hair to look at least a little more decent) that the young mare smelled like the ocean.

They landed on the name Titanium Ocean (the nickname instantaneously turning out to be ‘Tiny’ when Spike wanted to add in, and the name was cast aside until the true name was deciphered, and, persistent to have a choice in something for once, Spike turned to the name Tiny again, and Rarity, trying to be fair to the baby dragon, confirmed it to be the official nickname of the filly.)

They wrote it down for the nurse and she went to a doctor with the sheet to have the official birth certificate made, and the foal’s ‘birth’ date was decided being the day she was found.

The girls spent the rest of the day there, discussing and preparing for Titanium Ocean’s life with Twilight and Spike in the library. They decided that when Twilight couldn’t take care of her, then she’d go to Rarity.

And if Rarity and Twilight were unavailable, she’d go to Fluttershy.

And if Rarity, Twilight and Fluttershy were unavailable, she’d stay with Applejack.

If all four were unavailable, she’d stay with Dash. And if Dash couldn’t take her, she’d ultimately have to be with Pinkie Pie.

If none of them could take her, they’d hire a foal sitter.

By the time they’d organized that and memorized it, the nurse told them that visiting hours were over, and that they had to leave.

“Titanium Ocean’s birth certificate will be out in two weeks… There are many more that have to be made. As you know, Ponyville is growing quickly, and so is its population… And so is the birthrate.”

The ponies understood, and left one by one out the door of the room and then exited the hospital. They all took the paths to their homes after saying their goodbyes and see you later’s.

But Spike couldn’t get his mind off of the situation. When Twilight was preparing for bed, he brought it up again.

“I can’t believe you claimed Tiny,” he grumbled, fixing his blanket on his pile of junk he called a bed.

“Well, who else was going to claim her? None of the girls seemed willing, or ready,” Twilight said, as if they were talking about nothing but sand. Her flat tone was probably just because she was just tired and ready to sleep.

“What are we going to do with a filly in the house?” Spike protested again.

“Come on Spike,” Twilight yawned, crawling into bed finally. “She’ll be a good asset to my studies, Celestia said so herself. Now go to sleep Spike… And can you turn off the light on your way to your bed?”

-

The next morning, the hospital called Twilight just as she was finishing up her breakfast (she was Tiny’s ‘in case of emergency’ number) to tell Twilight that “the filly Titanium Ocean is awake.”

Twilight’s ear pricked and a huge smile spread across her face. She gobbled up the rest of her breakfast and grabbed hold of Spike with her magical grip, causing him to drop his plate, which fell and shattered.

Twilight didn’t even care. “We’ll clean it up later Spike, come on!”

When they got there, Tiny was rested on her forelegs, her head up and staring out the window blankly. Her irises were a shiny silver-white, that weren’t exactly white or exactly gray.

“Hello,” Twilight greeted gently, and yet proud. Tiny gasped, her shiny eyes went wide, and she sat up in haste. Still being weak though, she had to keep herself from toppling over her own forelegs, in a second successful attempt to prop herself into a sitting position.

“Don’t worry,” Twilight said, attempting to be softer, holding out her hoof. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Titanium Ocean’s silver gaze switched from Twilight’s outstretched hoof to Twilight’s gleaming violet eyes as the lavender mare smiled a wide, inviting smile.

The pale filly hesitantly attempted to hold her hoof out in response, but instead fell over, too weak still to trust in only one foreleg to support her weight. Twilight gasped, and hurried over to help Tiny up.

Tiny, as soon as she saw Twilight rush to her aid, took it wrong, and found her strength to stumble to the other end of the bed; so far that she fell off of it with a loud squeal and a dull thunk that made Twilight recoil.

Slower to react, she went around to the other side of the bed, where Tiny was on her back, blinking blankly. Twilight put her hoof to her mouth to suppress a giggle. “Thought there was more bed there didn’t you?” she asked, and Tiny looked up at her and blinked.

For the first time after two attempts to refuse Twilight’s help, Tiny finally let her new caretaker help her to her wobbly hooves, then escort her back to her bed. Twilight smiled and fixed Tiny’s mane.

Tiny simply helped her by blowing out of her face then looking back at Twilight. Then she smiled, and Twilight smiled back.

“Welcome back to the world, Tiny,” she said.